Marmaduke (DVD/Blu-Ray) - Dir. Tom Dey. Starring Owen Wilson, Emma Stone, Lee Pace.Absolutely unbearable film adaptation of the world's worst comic strip.
If you are unfamiliar with the Marmaduke of the "funny" pages, allow me to explain. Marmaduke is a large dog. Sometimes Marmaduke eats something he is not supposed to. Sometimes he sits on something he is not supposed to, and that thing breaks. Sometimes he buries things. His family catches him, and says, "Mar-ma-duuuke!"
This has been going on for fifty-six years.
Marmaduke the movie is pretty much the same thing made worse by the addition of a plot we've all seen in twenty other awful movies.
That plot is as follows. Marmaduke farts on the bed. Marmaduke moves to Orange County while making trendy references to a TV series that ended four years ago. A poorly animated CG model of Marmaduke plays a dance arcade game. A cat voiced by George Lopez says "Who let the dogs out?" to a pack of dogs. Marmaduke participates in a surfing competi - you know what? No. I refuse to finish this sentence out of protest.
This is a movie with no redeeming features. That includes William H. Macy, who was brought on board for a supporting role through some kind of Faustian pact I don't want to imagine. Merely gazing upon the contract would likely damn us all.
There is no reason for anyone - anywhere, ever - to watch Marmaduke. I know that kids might be easily drawn in by a movie trailer showing talking animals (oh yes, Marmaduke also talks now, because movies with animals that talk gross 14% more than movies with animals that don't talk), but they are not dumb. They will be as unimpressed with the final product as anyone. Children need to be kept away from this film for their own protection, just like you keep them from eating dirt, even though we all know it's delicious.
There are literally hundreds of good children's movies out there, and most of them are brand new to today's kids. Why not sit them down in front of My Neighbor Totoro or Beauty and the Beast rather than stunt their growth with the very worst of noxious Hollywood cash-ins?
Rated PG for all-around unpleasantness and a surprising number of drug references.1 out of 5
Harry Brown (DVD/Blu-Ray) - Dir. Daniel Barber. Starring Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, David Bradley.Well-made British thriller about an elderly man pushed too far.
Michael Caine is Harry Brown, a newly widowed London pensioner stuck in a bad neighborhood. When his oldest friend is killed in a random attack, the former marine takes matters into his own hands.
Caine is every bit as good as you would expect him to be; no more needs to be said about him.
The film is merciless in its depiction of - and subsequent slaughter of - chavs, the lower-class British thugs with a reputation for amusing themselves via criminal acts. Harry Brown is essentially a chav-killing movie: a way for upstanding English citizens to vicariously commit all the violence they fantasize about inflicting on this most loathed segment of society.
The film never becomes much more than that, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It places it in the company of plenty of other classic revenge stories, and Harry Brown holds up well next to them. It's bleaker, more modern, and less testosterone-fueled than other films in the genre - men Michael Caine's age, after all, haven't got testosterone to waste. Brown is no action hero, and the film gets mileage playing off of his weaknesses rather than his strengths.
However, the movie also takes enough glimpses at the bigger picture of England's social issues to make us expect more insight than it ultimately provides. This is a story about the effects of combating violence with violence, and at the character level - the empowerment of one powerless man - it shines. But when it comes to the bigger picture, the film's hasty resolution of its burning issues seems naïve, if not arrogant.
Rated R for geriatric carnage.3.5 out of 5
