Grown Ups 2

This was my review for Grown Ups that released over 3 years back, almost to the date

http://kartikr.blogspot.in/2010/08/grown-ups.html.  My review for Grown Ups 2 is going to have very little different to offer because it is yet again – an Adam Sandler – Denis Dugan combination that gives you nothing different from any of their previous attempts.

Hotel Transylvania

I like it when movies are previewed on Thursday. I think all movies should have a paid preview a day before at least. Helps us lowly mortal bloggers get a one-up on the mainstream critics. Hopefully .

Sony Pictures is definitely doing its best to bridge the gap that has been existant in the animation business. A gap that one would have expected Disney to fill up but they have only one movie this year – Brave (my favourite and pick for this year’s Oscars). Dreamworks has given Madagascar (a close 2nd) and Blue Sky studios continue their Ice Age Franchise. Can you believe that there are no other Animation movies this year? Sad but true.

Adam Sandler adds his first full length animated feature to his repertoire with Hotel Transylvania – an exclusive resort meant for the monsters in the world who have no home otherwise and demand all the privacy that they can get. And who has built this hotel? None other than the Count himself. The Count. Oh come one of course you know the Count who owns Transylvania – Dracula (Sandler).

However, the main reason for building the resort is his daughter – Mavis (Selena Gomez) – who he wants to keep safe from the human race. A race that killed his beautiful wife Martha (Jackie Sandler) and left him to take care of Mavis alone. With that sole intent in mind and then the well being of fellow monsters such as Frankenstien (Kevin James), and Wayne the werewolf (Steve Buscemi).

HT showcases some of the most exotic monsters of our time and puts the Count on a tailspin with the entry of Johathan (Andy Samberg) – a regular backpacking human – who inadvertently walks into HT unbeknownst to anyone. He, however, soon gains the confidence of all monsters thanks to his new ways – the count is still in the days of Mozart and Beethoven. Of course, he has to pose as Johnnystein – Frank’s arm’s cousin.

The plot gets convoluted in parts and Adam Sandler’s over the top antics continue even in animation format. An aspect that I have never enjoyed in his movies and probably never will. But the quality of animation is top notch. And the story at an overall level makes you feel good at the end of it all.

First time director Genndy Tartakovsky (only claim to fame being the TV Series – Dexter’s Laboratory) has a long long way to go in the world of great animation movies. I have mentioned this in the past and will continue to believe in it. Great animation movies should seem as good as a regular motion picture. Only with cartoons in it instead. HT falls a bit short on that count (all pun intended).

I was expecting quite a bit from HT and that’s probably the reason for my disappointment. I found the screenplay to be tacky and slapstick at times. But then with Sandler in the cast, I should have expected it. 6 on 10 from my side. Not a great start to the weekend but not too bad thankfully.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2571739673/

The Zookeeper

Not sure how many of you like Kevin James but every time I see him, I am reminded of The King of Queens. I am also encouraged and immensely thrilled at the end of a not so believable movie or an even more unbelievable episode of any serial that he is part of. Now how else do you think us wide at the centre folks would generate any hope of finding the woman of our dreams and all that crap that people keep giving us stories about . So we generate inspiration in a manner of speaking from watching the likes of Kevin James making a complete and utter fool of himself in front of hotties such as Leslie Bibb who in her right sense of mind would not have given a second glance to the likes of a James but then this is Hollywood and this is the movies. They are meant to show the impossible to provide us with – as I mentioned earlier – LARGE DOSES OF HOPE.

And as if the ego boosters and the hope were not sufficient with one girl in the frame, director Frank Coraci gets in the angle of a second woman played by Rosario Dawson – who I must say was a complete revelation. I haven’t seen her look as good as she did half way down The Zookeeper. Enough to make me change my priorities from wanting to get back my ex-girlfriend of 5 years back who dumped me on a beach when I proposed to her saying, “I don’t think I want to be with a Zookeeper for the rest of my life”. Now why would one go back to exactly the same girl? But unfortunately, it is the truth as I see so often around me. What is it that they say about the known devil? So anyways, our hero is suckered into the known devil and doesn’t notice the absolute goddess that is standing right in front of him with her arms open because she doesn’t look like much of goddess when she is playing the vet in the zoo right (Sigh!!! Men with always be men). All of this after the animals in the zoo decide to gang up and teach him how to attract the female of the species in their own animalistic manner. Cute eh? Not really. Starts getting on your nerves after a bit.

Zookeeper is a weak comedy and if that wasn’t enough, it is also slapstick. There is nothing much to write home about the direction, acting, screenplay, editing or whatever it is that makes a good movie. It is an all out average movie with all the departments coming up only to a base level score of 4 on 10. Some sequences of the animals talking are reasonably shot but that’s about it. Really nothing to look forward to. 4 on 10 as declared a couple of lines back. Easy to give a miss.

Trailer on http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi593927449/

Hitch

V Day on Television would be incomplete without this one. Directed by Andy Tennant who has made Romantic Comedies his core competence in a manner of speaking and has dished out eight full length features in this genre that have ranged from perfectly acceptable to damn good ones like Hitch. So much so that there were 3 of his movies playing yesterday over the mélange of movie channels that we have – Bounty Hunter, Sweet Home Alabama and the one we are going to talk about – Hitch. Surprisingly, he pipped Nancy Myers to the post who I think is the undisputed Queen of the Romantic Comedy and didn’t have a single movie playing yesterday surprisingly.


When Cressida Baylor (Robinne Lee) dumps Alex 'Hitch' Hitchens (Will Smith) while in college, the question he asks her is what most of us ask when we get dumped – WHY? WHAT DID I DO WRONG? The answer he gets from the new boyfriend – dude you are doing it right now. Alex Hitchens is a quick learner though and realizes that to be successful with the woman you got to have game. “Everyone girl can and wants to be swept off her feet. Its only upto you to find the right broom” (Now that’s a slick one liner. One of many that come up when you are watching Hitch). Hitch now runs a service called The Date Doctor – A very very successful service at that which runs purely on referral. The idea of the service – simple – get the girl to see what she is actually missing out in you. Make you more sellable without portraying the unreal you. And nope – he doesn’t do break ups. He does his own research – on both sides. And he has a 100% success rate on date. All the factors that get Albert Brennaman (Kevin James) to him. Albert wants to improve his chances of getting into a relationship with Allegra Cole (Amber Valletta) – multi millionaress whose last boyfriend owned Sweden or something like that . Hitch takes up the task of finding the right broom for Brennaman but doesn’t understand what he is really getting into on his own personal front with gossip columnist Sara Melas (Eva Mendes). Easy to help others but equally difficult to help ourselves right? As he finds himself falling deeper and deeper into Sara, by making all the right moves, he is also reaching closer and closer to compromising the very essence that makes his service a successful one – secrecy. When a close friend of Sara, Casey Sedgewick (Julie Ann Emery) is dumped by her latest squeeze Vance Munson (Jeffrey Donovan) – apparently thanks to the Date Doctor – Sara takes it upon herself to expose the Date Doctor at all costs.

Hitch is one of the few RomComs that can be given a 7 on 10. Slickly made. Superb dialogues. Clean humour makes it great fun to watch. Well directed. Good use of music. Fabulous edits. Loads of attention to detail. Good solid performances by the entire cast - lead or otherwise. Do you really want me to continue? If you haven’t seen it yet then I strongly recommend that you don’t miss an opportunity to catch up with it the next time. If you have seen it already – watch it again coz you will definitely not get bored not matter how many times you would see it. Pure entertainment. A must watch for every Valentines Day for sure.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi418644761/

Grown Ups

If it involves Ben Stiller, I avoid it like the plague. If it involves Adam Sandler, I am not sure. The variety of matter of fact slapstick comedy gets to my nerves more often than note. Its typically way way way over the top with loads of ridiculously gross stuff thrown in as garnish. Stuff which would make the normal person thrown up. But stuff which the Adam Sandler fan would typically enjoy. In that context, Grown Ups has severely exceeded expectations. The quantity of slapstick and gross garnish has been reduced drastically. And I really mean drastically and there is a refreshing focus on a message. One thing I must credit Sandler and most of his movies with is that none of them are without a message or a central theme which invariably touches the heart. The combination of Denis Dugan and Adam Sandler have given us 4 movies to date including Grown Ups. All of them have been quite decent.

Bobby Buzzer Ferdinando (Blake Clarke) coaches a junior high team to the school championship in 1978. In his post match speech, he not only commends the five of them for a superlative performance but also encourages them to live life in the same manner as they played the final game. Thirty years down the lane, our 5 heroes have grown into very successful and some very not so successful people. Lenny Feder (Adam Sandler) is a big Hollywood agent married to Roxanne Chase (Salma Hayek) and has 3 exceptionally spoilt children who believe in texting their Chinese maid Rita (Di Quon) to get them their ice tea. Eric Lamonsoff (Kevin James) is the co-owner of a furniture store, is married to Sally (Maria Bello) and has a daughter. Kurt McKenzie (Chris Rock) is a house husband to Deanne (Maya Rudolph) and stays with his 2 kids and Maya’s obnoxious mother (Ebony Jo Ann). Rob Hillard (Rob Schneider) is a full blown hippy who, after 3 failed marriages, is now with Gloria (Joyce Van Patten), a woman old enough to be his mother. Bringing up the full circle is every single womanizer, Marcus Higgins (David Spade).

A not so good twist of fate gets them back to New England. Coach Buzzer has kicked the bucket. The five friends with family in town get together for the funeral and some time together on the 4th July weekend where Feder has booked them all into the Lake House where they spent their days growing up. Lenny, however cannot stay the entire weekend since Roxanne has to go to Milan for fashion week with kids and maid in tow – a fact which the rest of the gang is unaware of. After they pay their respects to the coach, all of them move to the lake house.

Grown Ups takes a close look at the kind of lives that we live and encourages us to make changes – before its too late. We have children these days who on a bright, beautiful, sunny day prefer to kill their time in front of a Television or playing mindless video games that involve killing people on a beach coz its considered very cool. We build up facades of our life that we want people to perceive us as. Unfortunately we extend this to even those who are closest to us – those to whom it would not matter at all as to what we are. Very rarely will we find ourselves really being honest not only to ourselves but also to our loved ones – very petty lies, but lies nevertheless. It very clearly seems that we have forgotten how to have a good time. As I said earlier, yet another Adam Sandler movie that’s slapstick but has a strong message

Grown Ups is a clean and extremely funny movie. Its would be worth taking the kids out as well. Parental Guidance (PG) is however advisable. Very enjoyable fare positively. I give it 5 on 10.