Movie Review: Charlie Bartlett (2008)

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Cliche, stereotypical comedies come to major theaters around two dozen times a year, so what distinguishes Charlie Bartlett from the rest? Absolutely nothing.

Charlie Bartlett is a story about Charlie Bartlett (Anton Yelchin), a prep-school rich kid who so desperately wants to be popular that he'll do anything, regardless of legality, to achieve this popularity. After getting kicked out of the last in a long string of private schools, Charlie's mother (Hope Davis) decides to try Charlie out in public school.

At this new school, Charlie goes through a series of misadventures involving the principal (Robert Downey, Jr.), the principal's daughter (Kat Dennings), and the resident bully (Tyler Hilton). Everything that happens in the movie is unsurprising and follows the most basic "teen comedy" template. The story is derivative, the dialogue is derivative, and Charlie Bartlett has more random, inessential montages this side of an 80's sport flick.

Now, I've seen some bad comedies in the past that've been redeemed by the charisma/acting ability of the principal cast. In Charlie Bartlett, the only one who even approaches believable/entertaining acting is Downey, and even he is not able to muster even half of what he is capable of. Yelchin and Dennings seem to be in a battle through most of the movie to see who can sound more out of place, and in the end I think Dennings wins slightly, but maybe that's because Yelchin is on screen so much that I just got used to his awkwardness and never got used to Dennings'.

However, none of this marks the worst aspect of Charlie Bartlett, which is the inexcusable cover of Cat Stevens' "If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out." First off, Charlie Bartlett is not even on the same planet as the terrific Harold and Maude. Secondly, Kat Dennings' voice is so ill-equipped for singing that she single-handedly turns a pleasant song into an excruciating three-minutes of warbling.

Although not the absolute worst comedy I have ever seen, Charlie Bartlett is nonetheless a film that leaves me grasping at straws to find positive things to say and is one of the worst comedies to come out in the past few years.

Rating: 2/10

Movie Review: Up (2009)

Pixar is the undisputed leader in current animation. Although Dreamworks isn't too far behind, Pixar is able to combine amazing graphical work with stories that pop with life and sometimes even manage to tug at the heartstrings. Up is not only a work of superb animation, but is possibly one of the saddest/best movies to come out in years.

I'm not one to cry at movies. I can find something sad, but rarely does it actually elicit a physical reaction from me. Up took all of my strength to not start bawling, and that was just in the first fifteen minutes. In fact, I'm going to say that the first fifteen minutes of Up tug at the heartstrings better than just about any two-hour melodrama could possibly hope to do.

That's not to say the entire thing is one big teary-eyed sadsack. Up also serves up a large dose of humor, the best of which comes from Dug, the talking dog who is actually able to personify the ADD spirit of a canine companion exactly the way I would have imagined. Russell also has some funny lines, but nothing as funny as Dug.

The story would fall apart without Ed Asner's performance as Carl, however. Carl is a crotchety old man, and Asner does a good job of not drifting into senile parody. He's the perfect combination of sad, angry, and confused, and never becomes unbelievable.

Pixar has crafted what is truly a definitively "family" film...the whimsical animation and humor can appeal to everyone, young or old, and the story itself is able to be engaging while still being emotionally strong enough that adults won't get bored by all the silliness. The only negative things I can really say about Up is that the 3-D treatment felt unneccesary and added nothing to the movie past the first half hour. I know 3-D is all the rage right now, but it really was unneccesary for this movie and felt tacked on.

Rating: 9/10

The animated short Partly Cloudy, which appears before the film, is funny and sweet, if somewhat innocuous. Definitely worth a watch, although nothing as strong as the actual feature film.

Movie Review: The Hangover (2009)

Sometimes, a movie comes along that no one is expecting to be any good, and ends up taking the public by storm. Juno and Superbad did this two years ago. Back in 2005, The 40-Year-Old Virgin. This year, The Hangover is that movie, and it just might be the best of the bunch.

When I first saw the trailer for The Hangover, my first thoughts were, "Great, another Vegas movie." My second thought was, "Man, has Zach Galifianakis fallen so far that all he stars in are Vegas movies?" (I refused to see What Happens in Vegas, by the way. Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz are not exactly on the top of my "must see" list). A week before it's release, however, it started getting some buzz. For a movie with such a cliche premise, the critics were actually liking it. So, when a couple of my friends wanted to go to the midnight showing, I gave in and went with them.

The only word needed to describe this film is hilarious. Not all the way through, but in enough spots for the lasting impression of the movie to be, "Damn, that was hilarious!" Like most modern comedies, it starts to flounder towards the end, but for the first seventy or eighty minutes, The Hangover is a riotous film, and one that reinvents what can be done with a cliche premise.

Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms do serviceable in their roles as buddies to groom-to-be Justin Bartha, but the real star of the show here is Zach Galifianakis, the soon-to-be-brother-in-law with a couple of screws loose. Galifianakis plays his character with such naive conviction that almost everything he says is funny. Even ordinary comments are transformed by his delivery and turned from dialogue filler into comedic gold.

Some credit must also be given to director Todd Phillips and screenwriters Jon Lucas and Scott Moore for letting the comedy flow through the characters and to make the decision that the bachelor party itself need not be shown for the movie to be funny. That's not to say the movie is without flaws. Some of the supporting performances are stale/predictable (I'm looking at you, Heather Graham), and the credits slideshow is not probably as funny as it was intended to be and doesn't help overcome the fact that the movie runs out of steam before it finishes. However, compared to past works Old School (Phillips) and Four Christmases (Lucas & Moore), The Hangover is a humongous triumph, and a movie that will surely stick around as a comedy classic for years to come.

Rating: 8/10