Due Date (DVD/Blu-Ray) - Dir. Todd Phillips. Starring Robert Downey Jr., Zach Galifianakis, Jamie Foxx.
A hateful abomination of a road trip movie.
Due Date could be called a remake of Planes, Trains & Automobiles, provided your definition of remake encapsulates "shameless plagiarism that vomits on and then sets fire to its source." The characters are the same and the plot is the same, if you just replace "bad weather" with "no-fly list," "Thanksgiving" with "birth of a child," and "heartwarming character piece" with "wretched bile incarnate."
This film is the product of someone who thought that what was missing from a story about two incompatible strangers traveling across the country together was violence, drug trips, gunshot wounds, and-inexplicably-a chase in a stolen police car.
As though the Steve Martin and John Candy characters were left in an unsealed container over the last 25 years and evaporated to leave only a sticky brown residue, Due Date's leads have been distilled down to monstrous caricatures of human beings. The irritable personality of Robert Downey Jr.'s character can be broken down into a series of deranged violent outbursts. Zach Galifianakis isn't so much an oaf as a member of an undiscovered missing link species that can't put on its pants without causing the Earth to tumble into the sun. None of these character "foibles"-nor their corresponding clumsy attempts at drawing sympathy-are ever resolved or brought to amount to anything.
I am not a person of conservative tastes; I liked Get Him to the Greek and I thought the only funny moment in this movie was when Robert Downey Jr. punched an eight-year-old in the stomach. But I know the difference between a film that's pushing the boundaries and one that's flailing around for attention like an oozing meth addict.
Still not as bad as Grown Ups.
Rated R for crimes against humanity2 out of 5
Megamind (DVD/Blu-Ray) - Dir. Tom McGrath. Starring Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill.Solid animated adventure.
When supervillain Megamind (Will Ferrell) finally defeats his archnemesis Metro Man (Brad Pitt) and takes over the country, he finds he has lost his purpose in life.
Things weren't looking good when the movie opened with the sort of jokey, time-wasting narration usually associated with awful Dr. Seuss adaptations. I've seen enough picture book-sized stories stretched to 90 minutes with all the grace of William Wallace on the torture rack.
In this case, the film seems to aim at being a bloated version of Dr. Horrible without neither its charm nor its gratuitous singing. It's got pop culture references, an annoying sidekick character, and half a dozen montage sequences backed by overused classic rock tracks.
But like Dreamworks' last really good production, How to Train Your Dragon, Megamind finds its footing in a hurry. With the setup out of the way, the plot unfolds quickly and naturally with only a minimum of meandering to run out the clock. Plot devices that seemed like throwaway gags at first are picked back up and assembled into something tangible. Most of the jokes are even funny.If Dreamworks keeps this up, I might have to start approaching their films with something besides dread.
Rated PG for undisclosed actions meriting 88 consecutive life sentences3.5 out of 5
