Movie Review: Into the Woods

Into the Woods/Rated PG/Dir. by Rob Marshall/Walt Disney 

The concept of different fairy tale characters mixing together is not only unoriginal anymore, it's almost cliche.  Thanks to the Shrek's and the Once Upon a Time's of the world, we've seen so many variations of the fairy tale tropes that it's hard to remember where the real fairy tales end and the revisionist versions begin.  However, for all the skewering and mixing, these versions still fall into the same old platitudes that they claim to be dissecting.  For all it's bawdy humor, Shrek is still peddling the same message found in most every other children's entertainment:  "Be yourself!"  For all it's cross-story pollination, Once Upon a Time is still all about happy endings.

Well, long before either of these cultural touchstones, Stephen Sondheim threw several common fairy tales into a surprisingly tart melting pot called Into the Woods.  Unlike the newer fairy tale spoofs, Into the Woods brings the characters together to serve a greater purpose in theme and plot.  It took 27 years since it's Broadway debut, but the story has finally made it to the silver screen and, I'm happy to report, the movie version keeps the complexity, wit, and lightness/darkness of the seemingly unfilmable stage version.

The story centers around a childless Baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt), a somewhat slow-witted boy named Jack (Daniel Huttlestone), a precocious little girl in a red hood (Lilla Crawford), a put upon young woman named Cinderella (Anna Kendrick) and a wicked witch (Meryl Streep).  Their stories intertwine throughout the first half of the film, with each so focused on their own happy ending that they fail to notice how their actions influence those with whom they interact.  However, the story turns dark when the cost of their endings become more apparent.

When it was first announced that Disney was moving forward with a film version, there were many worried that the adult themes of the stage musical would be "Disneyfied".  While there are some minor changes that were clearly made to make the movie more family friendly, the film version retains all of the depth and complexity that makes this one of the great artistic efforts of my lifetime.  In the end, Sondheim and the writer of the book for the play, James Lapine, (who both were responsible for the screenplay for the movie) have crafted a work that bridges many wonderful and meaningful themes....and one highly questionable one (I'm looking at you Baker's Wife).

The movie is zippy and cinematic without losing the intimacy of the stage version and it is filled with surprisingly fantastic performances.  When I initially heard which actors had been hired for the film version, I was worried.  Sure, Meryl Streep is an amazing actress, but I had never heard anything from her to indicate she could pull off one of the biggest show-stoppers of the last 30 years ("The Last Midnight").  The Cups song from Pitch Perfect is fun, but I had never heard anything to indicate that Anna Kendrick could handle the lighter than air melodies written for Cinderella.  I most certainly had never heard anything to indicate that Chris Pine (playing Cinderella's Prince Charming) could even sing, let alone pull of the pompous masterpiece that is "Agony".  My worries were incredibly off base.  Into the Woods may be the only Hollywood musical adaptation in recent memory without a single glaring weak link in the cast (*cough, cough* Russell Crowe...Pierce Brosnan...*cough, cough*).

The play has always been pretty divisive, with faithful superfans and those that find the 2nd act a total downer, and the movie will be no different.  There is a sharp change in tone that you'll either go with or hate.  However, if you focus on the messages and realize that the story has been a supremely and complexly constructed life-lesson delivery system, there is so much to glean from this glossy cinematic treat.  

As a fan of the original Broadway production (which can be purchased here), I can honestly say that this is as faithful and as enjoyable film version as could be expected from such a labyrinthine masterwork.  Long story short, I left the theater humming the tunes with a big smile on my face.  Into the Woods is one of the best film musicals of the last decade and one of my very favorite movies of the year.

Grade: A

Movie Review: Big Hero 6

Big Hero 6/Walt Disney Animation/Rated PG/Dir. by Don Hall and Chris Williams/108 min.

I have written before about Disney animation's identity crisis.  During the 90's, you knew exactly what you were getting in a Disney film:  A brightly animated musical with a song score destined for Oscar-gold and inclusion in every family's c.d. collection.  However, the computer animated success of Pixar and DreamWorks made Disney question itself and we got a series of films that reflected the desire to change.  Some were successful (the utterly delightful Lilo and Stitch), some were not (Home on the Range and Chicken Little anyone?).  Now that John Lasseter is in charge of Disney animation, there still isn't a clear definition of what a "Disney" animated film is, but this is actually a good thing.  There's no formula other than strong writing and beautiful visuals.  The studio hasn't released a less than great film in quite a while and their latest, Big Hero 6, continues their winning streak.  Sharp, hilarious, and introducing the most instantly lovable Disney character in over a decade, this is just what the doctor ordered, regardless of whether you're seeing it with kids.  Child or adult, this is a film to be thoroughly enjoyed.

Very loosely based on the Marvel comic of the same name, Big Hero 6 centers around Hiro (voiced by Ryan Potter), a brilliant 14-year old who is having a difficult time finding his place in the world.  His problems are only amplified after a disaster leaves him mourning his older brother and mentor.  However, when he accidentally activates his brother's invention, a huggable health-care robot named Baymax (delightfully voiced by 30 Rock's Scott Adsit), he is set on a path to stop a villain and solve the mystery of the circumstances surrounding his brother's death.

Of course, the movie is not called "Big Hero 2", so his brother's school friends are brought in to help him out, each with their own distinct personalities and quirks.  Once the titular team is assembled, they set out to stop a mysterious man who has stolen Hiro's revolutionary science project for an unknown purpose.

As I mentioned previously, Big Hero 6 gives us one of the most memorable characters ever in a Disney film in the form of Baymax.  With a warm and simple character design and a fantastic vocal performance by Adsit, Baymax is at the center of almost every hilarious joke and emotional hit.  Not since Stitch has Disney delivered a character so unique.  There will be many Baymax toys under Christmas trees this year (including, hopefully, mine.  wink, wink).

There's not much more to say other than Big Hero 6 is an utter joy from beginning to end, including the wonderful short called Feast that precedes it.  The stereotypical "Disney" film may be a thing of the past, but with a string of hits including Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen, and now, Big Hero 6, who cares.

Grade: A

Movie Review: Insterstellar

Interstellar/Paramount, Warner Bros./Rated PG-13/169 min./Dir. by Christopher Nolan

Science fiction has long been a breeding ground for BIG IDEAS.  With a background canvas as vast as the universe itself, it is natural to be drawn to exploring concepts that span and unite the worlds of science, religion, psychology, and mathematics.  However, for me, this style of sci-fi has always piqued and provoked.  I love movies that ask questions that stimulate deep thought.  I always have.  However, I also love movies that acknowledge that humanity is, at it's core, a holistic species, longing to not merely think about ideas, but to feel a deeper connection with them.  This is why I find some of the grandest sci-fi films, for example 2001: A Space Odyssey, easier to admire than to love.

Much like Robert Zemeckis' Contact, the newly-released Interstellar tries to be both a high thinking and a highly emotional film.  I know some reviewers who thought it failed at the latter.  I am not one of them.  Interstellar is a mammoth motion picture that stays with the viewer long after the credits roll.  Much like Nolan's previous films, especially Inception, the plot is twisty, making it sort of a scientific mystery story that spans galaxies and time.  It is a masterclass in audacious film making.  It's a stunner.

In an undisclosed time in the future, mankind is on the brink of extinction.  Occupations that were once lauded (engineering, astrophysics, computer programming) are obsolete as the world is merely scraping to find food and protect themselves from toxic levels of dirt in the air.  Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), used to be a pilot for NASA, however he is now a widowed corn farmer trying to raise two head-strong children, a son, Tom, who enjoys the simple life of farming, and a daughter named Murphy, who follows in her father's mold, wanting to understand more of the universe beyond the atmosphere.  Her big ideas have started getting her in trouble at school (she starts a fight for saying that the Apollo moon landing was NOT faked, like the new history books say they were) and she is convinced there's a "ghost" in her room.  Cooper worries for her, but can't help but encourage her to be an independent thinker, even if it jeopardizes her place in the rational world, much to the chagrin of his father-in-law (John Lithgow).

A series of seemingly random events lead Cooper to the secret base that contains the remnants of NASA, where scientists, including Coops former mentor Professor Brand (Michael Caine) and the Professor's daughter (Anne Hathaway) are working to find a way to save the human race.  A wormhole near Saturn had been thought to be the answer, so a team of scientists had been sent through to find inhabitable worlds.  Unfortunately, only three of the ten scientists seem to have survived and have been sending messages through the wormhole indicating the three different worlds they found are hospitable to human life.  Now a new team needs to go through, find and rescue the scientists, and employ one of two plans to ensure the continuation of the species.  Brand wants Cooper to lead the team, but the distance and the problems associated with relativity mean that it could be a very long time before he sees his children again, a prospect that does not set well with Murphy.

While the movie delves into a lot of scientific concepts, much of it far beyond my college physics course so for all I know it could be utter poppycock, the two central concepts are gravity and love, and one of the greatest hat-tricks the movie pulls off is marrying a scientific law with an emotion in such a powerful way. 

Some have criticized the film's emotional elements, but those elements are at the core of the film's central conceit, that love itself is a quantifiable scientific fact.  That in studying this most powerful of emotions, it's reasonable to believe there are natural laws that could be applied to love and that it could be a pulling force just as powerful as gravity.  It is an inspiring and beautiful theory and one that elevates the film rather than detracting from it.  In fact, this one aspect of the movie sets it apart from Nolan's other efforts, which have been accused of being so mired in ideas that the emotional characterizations of the films feel like an after-thought.  With Interstellar, he makes emotion the centerpiece and the movie is all the better for it.

All of this techno-jargon and emotional grandstanding could have been intolerable with a lesser cast, but every performance is spot on.  At the center of it all is McConaghey, giving a weighty authenticity to every moment.  Of course, he's done this sort of thing before in the previously mentioned masterpiece Contact, but unlike his side character in that film, this movie rests on his performance, an it's Oscar-worthy through and through.  Plus, he's surrounded with actors who all turn in some of their best performances, one of the most notable being Mackenzie Fox, previously best known for being Bella and Edward's non-creepy version of their daughter in the last Twilight movie.  However, here there is such a great emotional and intellectual heft to her work.  It is truly one of the great child performances of my lifetime.

Visually, Interstellar is a must-see, especially on the big screen.  I didn't see it in an IMAX theater, but even on a regular old screen, it was spectacular.  For some time, CGI has made it more and more difficult for films to deliver things we've never seen before, but man does this movie deliver.  There are images and sequences that as nothing short of astonishing.

In addition, Interstellar represents one of the best efforts in composer Hans Zimmer's formidable career.  Subtle when it needs to be and downright Strauss-ian in its bigger moments, it's nothing short of fantastic.

With all that having been said, Interstellar isn't perfect.  At 169 minutes, it's at least 20 minutes too long, a problem not unfamiliar to Nolan's oeuvre, however in this case there are many elements that could have been excised.  There is a character that arrives later in the film that feels unnecessary, all the more so because it's played by an A-list celebrity who has been intentionally left out of the film's publicity.  His arrival is a bit distracting and his character is the only one to come off as shallowly written.

These are minor complaints though.  Interstellar is an amazing film and one of the best of the year.  If you're in the mood for a movie that's a feast for the eyes, mind, and heart, it's a very easy recommendation.

Grade: A

A Labor Day Weekend Guide to Summer Movies

I decided that I would post my summer wrap-up before Labor Day, just in case any of my readers were wondering what they should check out at the multiplex during the last weekend of the season.  While it was quite a disappointing summer for box-office, with only really one straight up blockbuster phenomenon (Guardians of the Galaxy), it was actually a pretty great season for film quality.  There were a handful of terrifically entertaining popcorn movies, Indie movies that ran the gamut from provoking to warm and homey, and everything in between with plenty of options for all tastes.

Which is why it’s hard to figure out why so many movies under-performed.  It could be that with so many “must-see” movies coming earlier in the year (the continued reign of Frozen, The Lego Movie, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier) that people were just movied out.  It could have been that the general populace was more in the mood to play in the heat of the summer than wait it out in an air-conditioned theater.  However, whatever the reason, far fewer people went to the theaters this summer, so if you were among the millions that avoided your local multiplex, let me fill you in on what you missed and what you might want to seek out on this final weekend of the summer movie season.

Instead of giving you a “best of” list, I’m going to share wish you some groups of movies to consider as you decide whether to spend some of your Labor Day weekend in an air-conditioned theater.

First the must-see movies:  Guardians of the Galaxy (exciting, hilarious, and surprisingly heartfelt), How to Train Your Dragon 2 (in my opinion, the best animated film in four years), X-Men: Days of Future Past (if X-Men were the Marvel Cinematic Universe, this would be their Avengers), Edge of Tomorrow (one of Tom Cruise’s best movies and an excellent example of intelligent sci-fi), Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (if it didn’t involve apes, this would be recognized as one of the great modern war films).

If you’ve seen these, move to the following:  Belle (currently on DVD, if Jane Austen were to write a civil rights story, it would look just like this.  Not wholly accurate historically, but a beautifully written and acted film), The Hundred-Foot Journey (light and charming entertainment for grown-ups), Get On Up (if you’re a fan of modern music biopics, this is an easy recommendation with another star making performance from 42’s Chadwick Boseman, this time as musical legend James Brown),  The Fault in Our Stars (a thoughtful story that gives teenagers credit for being able to care about more than sparkly vampires), Million Dollar Arm (a sports film that isn’t among the best, but still provides the high points you’d hope for), Maleficent (easily the best of the Disney revisionist fairy-tales, which isn’t saying much, but it has a stellar central performance from Angelina Jolie), Godzilla (It’s the best Godzilla movie, but it is still unquestionably a movie about a giant monster stepping on buildings).

There are movies that were positively reviewed that I didn’t see.  This list includes: Magic in the Moonlight, Neighbors, Chef,  22 Jump Street, and the universally acclaimed Boyhood.

So, for this weekend, my hard and fast recommendations are Guardians of the Galaxy and/or How to Train Your Dragon 2.  Both are thrilling, beautiful, funny, entertaining, and heartfelt movies.  In other words, they’re pretty much perfect summer films.

Movie Review: The Hundred-Foot Journey

The Hundred Foot-Journey/Rated PG/Dir. by Lasse Hallstrom/Touchstone Pictures/122 min.

Many people in the world of film criticism view few terms as vile, as reprehensible, or as distasteful as the term "feel-good" and I've never quite understood why.  A happy film that shows flawed people learning to do kind things can still be artful, thoughtful, interesting, and entertaining.  Just because a movie makes no bold political statements or doesn't show humanity at its worst doesn't mean that movie is unworthy.  If anything, I believe that happy films that are well made with strong and inspiring messages are necessary to balance out the nihilistic and pessimistic output that Hollywood labels as high drama or Oscar-bait.

If there was ever a film to wear the "feel-good" label with warmth, style, and class, that film is The Hundred-Foot Journey.  While the film certainly deals with serious issues, including death, racism and social elitism, it never loses sight of the main goal, which is to uplift, inspire, and make you smile for two hours straight.  Oh, and to make you hungry.  Really, really hungry.

The Hundred Foot-Journey tells the story of Hassan Kadan (Manish Dayal), a young man from Mumbai, India who was taught all of the subtlety and depth of Indian cooking from his mother in their family restaurant ever since he was a young boy.  Even neighborhood marketeers favor the boy because he innately understands the art of transforming foods.

An unfortunate family tragedy forces the Kadan family, headed by Papa (Indian film star Om Puri), to move to Europe to find a new place to showcase Hassan's exceptional cooking talents.  After a car accident leaves them stranded in a small French village, Papa sees an old restaurant for sale and is convinced that this village needs to experience the spice and the heat of Indian food.  Unfortunately, the restaurant is right across the street (one-hundred feet across to be precise) from a highly respected restaurant of fine, classical French cuisine owned by the stubborn and snobbish Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren) and a culture war is unleashed on the village.  However, Madame Mallory's prejudices begin to fade as she witnesses first hand the talent of the young master chef living in the Maison Mumbai.

Based on the best-selling book by Richard C. Morais and produced by not one, but two Hollywood titans (Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey), The Hundred-Foot Journey is precisely the type of brilliant counter-programming that the late summer needs and, in fact, thrives on.  Where years past have given us Julie and Julia and The Help, this year it's cuisine and learning to understand and appreciate different cultures that saves us from the unending explosions of summer movies.  It's certainly a film made for grown-ups, but one that is perfectly clean and family-viewing appropriate, which should play in its favor over the closing weeks of summer.

Few people can film food better than Lasse Hallstrom (the director that brought you the similarly themed Chocolat) and every stroll through the market, every careful preparation of ingredients, and every presentation of an impeccably mouth-watering meal is filmed with a lush grace.  This is certainly a film that you shouldn't view if you're hungry.  Unless, of course, you're going out to dinner afterwards.  Preferably for Indian or French food.

The acting in The Hundred-Foot Journey is uniformly excellent.  While the always superb Mirren is understandably the focal point of the advertising, this is Dayal's movie and he plays Hassan with a kind and natural warmth.  Thankfully, the film does not treat its characters as caricatures, a trap into which many American films dealing with Indian culture tend to fall.

The Hundred-Foot Journey is a movie more interested in winning hearts than awards and it's all the better for it.  The current mixed-reviews that this film is receiving is far more indicative of the cynicism prevalent in much of the film criticism community than it is of the quality of this purely delightful film.  I walked in the theater expecting an OK little movie and left with a wide grin and a full heart.  If you are tired of giant robots destroying cities and superheroes dealing with the existential crisis du jour, run to the theater and relish this delicious French pastry of a film.  It is a feel-good movie in all the best meanings of the phrase.

Grade: A

Movie Review: Guardians of the Galaxy

Guardians of the Galaxy/Rated PG-13/Marvel Studios/Dir. by James Gunn/121 min.

Watch out Tony Stark.  Your title as King of the Cool in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has just been seriously challenged by a gruff talking raccoon and a barely talking houseplant.  With Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel once again shows that there's no risk too big as long as the right people are on the job and the creators of  this movie have delivered on the studios' faith big time.  Guardians is riotously funny, action packed, and heart-tugging in equal measure and it's the best movie the studio has produced that doesn't have the word "Avengers" in the title.

With a pre-credit sequence taking place on Earth in 1988, the movie feels different from the others in the MCU.  Rather than starting with an explosion, it begins with a heart-breaking scene that feels similar to the openings of Pixar's Up and Abrams' Star Trek.  However, the events in that scene set up every motivation for our hero, Peter Quill (fantastically played by Chris Pratt), a.k.a. Star-Lord, and once the action moves off planet, Pratt let's us know we're moving in quirkier Marvel terrain as he boogies through the opening credits across an alien terrain whilst using a small rodent alien as a microphone to the strains of 70's classic rock.  

Peter has been hired to recover "The Orb", the movie's McGuffin that is really interchangeable with The Avengers' Tesseract and Thor's Aether.  We just need to know that this small object contains a power that could destroy an entire planet and then, ya know, the universe.  Take that Emperor Palpatine's piddling Death Star!

However, he's not the only one looking for it.  Ronan (Lee Pace), a particularly nasty Kree, is searching for it on behalf of Thanos (Josh Brolin), the big bad we saw in the credit stinger during The Avengers.  Thanos lends him the use of his two daughters:  Gamora (the always great Zoe Saldana), his adopted daughter who is also his favorite, and Nebula (Doctor Who's Karen Gillan), his biological daughter who is clearly jealous of her adopted sister.   Factor into the mix a pair of unusual bounty hunters, the biologically engineered Rocket Raccoon (voiced vibrantly by Bradley Cooper) and a large walking tree named Groot (warmly voiced by Vin Diesel) and things are obviously going to get complicated.

The plot eventually forces the five "Guardians" (in addition to Quill, Gamora, Rocket and Groot is Drax, winningly played by Dave Bautista) to begrudgingly work together and form their own ragged group of heroes.  Imagine Han Solo battling the Empire with a few outlaws he found in the Mos Eisley cantina and you have a little idea of what's going on here.

The action sequences are stellar, bringing all the visual audacity of similar scenes in the Star Wars films, but none of the leaden dialogue and plotting found in the prequels.  Instead, the humor, drama, and action is all focused on the characters.  In fact, if the film has a fault it's that the plot really isn't the point.  The characters are and they're an instantly awesome group.

Director James Gunn is known for gritty and quirky genre comedies, including the oozy sci-fi/horror film Slither and the low-budget, darkly humorous superhero film Super, but here he shows not only his trademark humor, but a Pixar-ian level of heart.  With this movie, he's not only made his most mainstream film, but also his most rich, with characters filled with emotional layers that will be a delight to peal as the already announced Guardians' franchise continues.

The cast is clearly having a blast throughout the film and their joy permeates every scene.  Each actor is perfectly cast and each gets moments to shine both as action heroes and as individuals.  In fact, each character gets a moment to steal the show, with each getting moments that challenge the Hulk scenes in The Avengers for pure awesome.

For those of you wondering about 3D, it's worth it.  While not integral to the plot, the film uses 3D very effectively and the humor, action, and, in one scene in particular, the poignance, are very much enhanced by the way Gunn uses the 3D technology.

If you can't tell, I loved this movie.  For me, it was one of those "I could have turned around and immediately watched it again" movies.  It's exactly what a great summer popcorn movie should be and brings back the feeling of fun and discovery that Steven Spielberg mastered in the early 80's.  I can't wait to see how Marvel introduces these characters to the other heroes populating the MCU, but even if that doesn't happen for years, I'm just looking forward to following the Guardians on their adventures.  A great franchise is born.

Grade: A

Movie "Review" - Transformers: Age of Extinction

Transformers: Age of Extinction/Rated PG-13/Paramount Pictures/Dir. by Michael Bay/165 min.

Recently, I recreated what I thought that screenwriter Ehren Kruger's writing notebook for the Transformers movies might look like (click to enlarge): 

Well, the latest installment fits the pattern perfectly, and really, what else would you expect?  When you go to a movie with the word "Transformers" in the title, you go looking for cool f/x, silly humor, and roughly 1,382,658 explosions, so reviewing a Transformers movie in the traditional sense is a pretty fruitless endeavor.  Suffice to say, the new one is a Transformers movie.  Way better than the 2nd one, slightly better than the 3rd, about as good as the first, but still not what you could truly consider a "good film."  Fun?  Sure.  But not good.  They're sort of like the Big Macs of the cinematic world: clearly artificial, obviously not good for you in excess, but when you're in that rare mood, they kinda hit the spot.

So, rather than write a scholarly review about the latest incarnation of the series template, here are the bullet points:

THE GOOD

 - Mark Wahlberg is cooler than Shia LeBeouf.   Always.

 - Stanley Tucci is better than John Turturro.  Always.  (Plus, he never strips to his undies or gets covered in robot urine)

 - Regardless of how much screen time they get (it's quite little), giant robot dinosaurs are awesome.  Always.

 - In spite of the plot sticking to the same loose structure, it's the first of the series since the original to surprise me, with interesting production design and truly involving action set pieces.

 - The dialogue for the humans is slightly less inane than the previous installments.
 - NO RON AND JUDY WITWICKY!!!!  Woo-hoo! 

 - Things do go boom real good.  The visual "wow factor" is still high.

 - While the 2nd of the series to be released in 3D, it's the first to fully utilize the technology.  There are moments that are pretty cool in 3D.

THE BAD

 - The dialogue for the robots is still stilted at best, laughably bad at worst.

 - It's criminally overlong. 

 - The plot logistics that lead to the big boom scenes are still ridiculously contrived.

 - While the autobots are not as interchangeably without personality as before, their personalities are terribly shallow and stereotyped.

Final Word:  It's more of the same, just a little better.  In the world of actual, for real movies, this would get a C-/C, but in the realm of Transformers movies  it's a full grade higher.

Movie Review: How to Train Your Dragon 2

How to Train Your Dragon 2/Rated PG/DreamWorks Animation/Dir. by Dean DeBlois/102 min.

Referring to a sequel as the Empire Strikes Back of its franchise has become somewhat of a film criticism cliche.  It is, in essence, a quick shorthand meaning that the film is a) equal to or of higher quality than the original and/or b)darker in tone, while still maintaining a similar overall feel.  However, the comparison is apt for more than just those reasons when applied to DreamWorks' new animated sequel, How to Train Your Dragon 2.  Yes, the sequel is at least equal in quality to the surprisingly excellent original (upon further viewings, I may even decide it's better) and, yes, it's unquestionably darker in tone while still keeping the fun and humor associated with the earlier adventures of Hiccup and Toothless, but there are certain thematic and plot development elements that are very much like Star Wars: Episode V.  Indeed, this IS the Empire of the Dragon series.

We begin five years after the events of the first film and thanks to the forward thinking of young Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), the vaguely Scottish Viking colony of Berk has been living in harmony with their former enemies, the dragons.  In fact, the Dragons have become regular members of the community with many of the facilities formally used for armaments now used as stabled for the beasties.  However, Hiccup is still not always on the same page as his rugged chieftain father, Stoick (Gerard Butler).  Now, the topic which they are most at odds about is Hiccup's destiny to become the clan chief.  Hiccup avoids talking with his father by flying with his dragon, Toothless, and discovering new lands and new dragons.  On one of these journeys he learns of new dangers facing the peaceful world of Berk, including a mercenary dragon hunter named Eret (Kit Harrington), a warlord named Drago (Djimon Hounsou) and a mysterious dragon rider whose intentions are shrouded in the unknown.

Of course, at the center of this story just as in the first film is the relationship between a boy and his dog, er...dragon and the connection between Hiccup and Toothless is one of the most touching depictions of the very real bond between man and animal.  Masterfully animated, Toothless combines the characteristics of a fearsome predator, a loyal puppy dog and a somewhat rebellious child, making him one of the most lovable animal characters to ever grace the silver screen.

The animation throughout is the best the studio has ever produced.  There are more images of jaw-dropping beauty than in any film since 2009's Avatar.  Director Deblois has created a film that is visually equal parts exciting and pure art and it all, especially the flying sequences, explodes in 3D.  The colors remain bright and vivid and the world expands around the audience in a way that shows that the 3D was not an after-thought, but an integral part of the creative process.

Adding to the overall experience is a terrific new musical score by John Powell, which expertly incorporates themes from his Oscar-nominated score from the first film while under-laying new themes and musical ideas to enhance the films' ever-expanding universe.

As mentioned above, the plot deals with similar themes as The Empire Strikes Back, and, without giving away any plot details, these events give Dragon 2 a depth and richness rarely found in animation.  The joys and the sorrows are real and heartfelt and don't come cheaply.  In fact, I can't think of another animated film after which my wife and I have spent this much time talking about subtle little plot points and visual cues that were delicately placed throughout.

To 3D or not 3D?:  If you can afford the 3D surcharge, this is an easy yes.  It has equal parts showy camera motion and subtle drawing in to the world.  However, if you find that financially it's a "2D or wait until DVD" type of situation, go with the 2D.  This is a grand, visually enveloping film that deserves to be seen on the big screen in all its glory.

Bottom Line:  How to Train Your Dragon 2 is the film to beat this summer and the best animated film since the Oscar Best Picture-nominated Toy Story 3 (and, yes, I'm including last year's wildly popular, Frozen).  Emotionally rich, narratively complex, and visually stunning, it contains more wit and depth of character than the last three Pixar films combined (and this is coming from a rabid Pixar fan).

Grade: A+

Movie Review: X-Men: Days of Future Past

X-Men: Days of Future Past/Dir. by Bryan Singer/20th Century Fox/Rated PG-13/131 min.

The X-Men have sure had a bumpy road at the movies.  First, there was X-Men, Bryan Singer's first big budget movie and a film that really paved the way for the superhero revolution of the last ten years by proving a comic book movie could be good and popular without containing the words Superman or Batman.  Singer then followed up with X2: X-Men United, a movie that many still consider one of the best superhero films ever made.  Singer then left the franchise to pursue Superman Returns leaving the super mutants in the hands of one Brett Ratner, the mastermind behind the Rush Hour movies.  While his visual skills on X-Men: The Last Stand were actually quite impressive (the incident at the Gray household is still one of the most stunning sequences in the franchise), it also was a little too happy to unceremoniously kill off major characters and minimalized one of the most beloved story arcs in the comic books.  Then there was X-Men Origins:Wolverine, which....well....the less said the better.  Next was the obligatory prequel/reboot, X-Men: First Class, which ended up being a fantastically entertaining look at how Professor X and Magneto first met and started gathering mutants together.  For my money, this was the best of the series at that point.  Finally, 20th Century Fox erased the memory of the first Wolverine movie with the economically titled, The Wolverine, not a great film, but leaps and bounds ahead of Wolvie's first solo outing.

Well, the powers that be brought Singer back to direct X-Men: Days of Future Past, a story arc that would bring together both the original cast and the First Class cast and a film that is the highlight of the entire series.  More than just a big summer explode-fest, DoFP is a movie about characters and ideas that just happens to have some mind-blowing action set-pieces.

Starting in a dystopian future roughly 20 years after the events of The Last Stand, the X-Men are fighting for their lives against Terminator-like robots called Sentinels that can mimic any mutants powers and are built specifically to exterminate all mutant kind.  In a last desperate attempt to save themselves, they decide to have Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) use her powers to send Wolverine's (Hugh Jackman) conscious back to his younger body in 1973 in an effort to stop the events that lead to the creation of the Sentinels.  This future works mostly as a bookend to the film with the majority of the film taking place in '73 with the First Class cast.  Wolverine must get Professor X (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) to work together in spite of their bitter differences in order to stop the chain of events that leads to cataclysmic world war.

In the family of superheroes, the X-Men have always been the super brainy, but brooding cousins.  The films are far more about ideas than just super battles and in Days of Future Past the ideas are largely about choice vs. fatalism.  There's the fundamental plot arc in which the hope of changing the future is inherent, plus there's the individual character struggles and younger versions prove that they are not necessarily destined to become the same people they were in the original trilogy.  The conceit of time travel is not only a great plot device to examine the cause and effect of single decisions, but it's also a great way to celebrate the film series while erasing the memory of its less celebrated moments.  

The performances are, across the board, terrific.  Fassbender and McAvoy get even more opportunities to stretch their emotive muscles, while Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique is expanded to a level fitting of her current popularity.  She's the perfect person to play this character, filling her with a confidence, yet a vulnerability that was not found in Rebecca Romijn's incarnation.  However, it's Evan Peters as Quicksilver that steals the entire show.  It's unusual in a film series that's been around this long to feel a sense of discovery and that's what this character is.  He's only on screen for about 15 minutes, but he owns the screen in that time and there's certainly a feeling of disappointment when he leaves.  Here's hoping Quicksilver can be a big part of the already announced X-Men: Apocalypse , coming to a theater near you in 2016.

I promise not to get spoilery, but the final scenes of Days of Future Past will elate any fan of the series.  There were audible sounds of crying, happy laughing, and involuntary clapping in the theater during these scenes and they elevate what was already a very good film to the level of epic.  Hopefully, Singer will continue guiding the series well past Apocalypse, because in his hands, the X-Men are certainly among the best that superhero films have to offer.

To 3D or not to 3D:  The 3D has some nice moments, giving depth to the future worlds while enveloping the viewer in the action, but it's not vital to the story.  If you enjoy 3D, it's an easy recommendation, but if you're not sold on 3D technology, you're safe to see the 2D version.

Bottom line:  This is the first great film of the summer and the best of the franchise.  If you have any vested interest in the X-Men or in great action movies in general, this is a must see.

Grade: A

Movie Review: Million Dollar Arm

Million Dollar Arm/Dir. by Craig Gillespie/Walt Disney/Rated PG/124 min.

Disney has a pretty terrific track record with sports movies.  Sure, they're all highly sentimental and they have similar scrappy underdog makes good plot arcs, but with the exception of 2006's somewhat pedestrian Glory Road, every one of them has tread the sports movie tropes masterfully.  In fact, I personally think that Remember the Titans, The Rookie, and Miracle stand with the best sports movies ever made, and I'm a sucker for a great sports movie.  There is something innately inspiring about watching an individual overcome physical and personal adversity to succeed in a make or break game.  It's the same thing that makes the Olympics so riveting to watch.  Such sporting events become metaphors for the human spirit and the watcher, be they athletes or not, can't help but relate.

Million Dollar Arm, the latest in the canon of Disney sports films is a bit of an odd duck.  Yes, it has a climactic scene of sporting prowess and it certainly hits all the emotional beats of a great sports film, but it's also a business drama,  a la Moneyball,  and an examination of differing cultures being forced to intermingle and younger generations learning to honor their heritage,  a la The Namesake,  and a story of a man realizing that the life of a solitary bachelor is perhaps not as fulfilling as he once thought, a la Ryan Gosling in Crazy, Stupid, Love.  The happy thing is that in spite of all of these varying messages and plot arcs, Million Dollar Arm succeeds because of its solid direction, confident screenplay, and winning performances.

Million Dollar Arm tells the true story of J.B. Bernstein (played by Jon Hamm), a sports agent who sets up a game show in India in an effort to convert the most talented cricket bowlers into world class baseball pitchers.  The idea is that not only could they harvest unknown talent, but also gain a nation of over a billion fans for American baseball.  The winners of the competition are Rinku Singh (Suraj Sharma, Life of Pi) and Dinesh Patel (Madhur Mittal, Slumdog Millionaire).  Neither of them play cricket, but both of them has a fast enough pitch to justify training them for an MBL try out.  However, as the pair traverse the landmines of learning an entirely new culture in America, J.B. begins slowly begins to realize that his new investments are changing his life as much as he's changing theirs.

There are moments in Million Dollar Arm that feel a bit trite, particularly as it deals with the culture shock J.B. feels in India and the boys feel in America ("Look!  Indian food makes him sick and he hates the chaotic traffic!  Funny!  Look!  The kids from India have never been on an elevator and have never had pizza!  Funny!"), fortunately, the film gets past the more shallow fish-out-of-water jokes pretty quickly, moving to the more satisfying story of how these characters change each other.  

Like many of the best sports films, the movie hits its stride as it parallels the personal trials of the characters with their professional journey.  By the time the boys get to their final tryout, it represents far more than a mere shot at the big leagues for them and for J.B.

Million Dollar Arm is not perfect and it doesn't reach the giddy levels of enthusiasm that are found in Miracle, it's still a worthy entry into Disney's increasing catalog of sports films.  There are so few entertainments that truly uplift and I'm happy to report that Million Dollar Arm does just that.

Grade - B

Cool, cool, cool. My Ten Favorite Episodes of Community

(Note: This post is not movie related, however, if there is any justice in the world, it will be when Community: The Movie debuts in theaters worldwide)

Let me state from the get go that I completely understand that what I'm feeling is ridiculous.  I understand that regardless of my devotion to any artistic endeavor, be it music, film, literature, television, or stick figure puppetry (RIP Horsebot 3000) that I have a wonderful and amazing life that is completely independent of that devotion.  That having been said, this is a first for me.  I have never mourned the cancellation of a television show before. 

Sure, there have been T.V. shows that I was sad to see go.  M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Cosby Show, Friends, Futurama, The Office and many others were brilliant shows that left an emptiness on the tube when they were gone.  However, these were shows that had a long run and finished with a strong sense of closure.

There have been shows that I have become a devotee of after their early cancellation.  Had I been watching Freaks and Geeks, Better Off Ted, or Pushing Daisies from the beginning, I would have been feeling the same way I do today.  You see, today Community was cancelled and I'm devastated.

There's a reason that Community has one of the most vocally devoted fandoms in all of television.  It's a show that's not afraid to get messy in the name of creating something different.  When you tune into Community you always know you're going to get the funny, but you never really know what subgenre of funny it will be.  You see, in spite of the fact that it is, on the surface, a one camera comedy about a lovable group of misfits at a horrible community college, it manages to also be a satire of just about every type of film and t.v. show there is.  There are musical episodes, animated episodes, horror episodes, and puppet episodes.  The list of widely diverse films and television shows that it directly spoofs includes Goodfellas, My Dinner With Andre, Pulp Fiction, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Glee, M*A*S*H, Scrubs, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Shawshank Redemption, Dawn of the Dead, The Ring, The Hunger Games, Apollo 13, Shutter Island, Die Hard, A Fistful of Dollars, Star Wars, The Conversation, Mean Girls, Terminator, RoboCop, The Color of Money, The Shining, Ken Burns' The Civil War, Scarface, The Matrix, 28 Days Later, Ghost, Dead Poets Society, Indecent Proposal, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Hearts of Darkness Freaky Friday, and that's just touching the surface.  The miracle of this is that Community manages to directly spoof these things with such a deft hand that all of the spoofs actually fit in the basic premise of the show.  Not only that, but key character developments have been brilliantly handled in these "spoof" episodes.

Community is more densely layered than any other network comedy other than possibly The Simpsons.  There are hilarious surface jokes, multi-episode character arc developments, tons of background jokes that make re-watching episodes extra fun and even jokes that take multiple episodes to pay off, rewarding the patience of the sharp eyed viewer.  One example of the latter is the "Beetlejuice Joke."  As you know, In the film Beetlejuice, the way you get the titular specter to appear is to utter his name three times.  In season one of Community a character said "Beetlejuice" once.  In season two, another said it again.  In season three, during the Halloween episode, Annie mentions "the Beetlejuice soundtrack," at which point Beetlejuice strolls by behind her.

So, in honor of my favorite t.v. show and the hopeful saving of it by Hulu or Netflix, I give you my ten favorite episodes of Community:

Honorable Mentions: 

The Science of Illusion (Season 1) - If for nothing else, Annie's accidental self-pepper spraying.  Best line:  "These are not tears!  This is self-inflicted friendly fire!"

Epidemiology (Season 2) - The Dawn of the Dead episode in which Community manages to pull off actual zombies in a semi-realistic comedy about a community college.  Best line: (as a psychotic cat continuously jumps across the room in the basement) Troy: "What about the zombies?!?"  Jeff: "Backburner, Troy!  This cat must be dealt with!"

Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas (Season 2) - Abed has a psychotic break and sees everyone as stop-motion animation a la Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  Best line: Annie: "I'm taking a relaxation course next semester and I was going to use the break to do all the reading in advance."

10. Regional Holiday Music (Season 3) - After the college glee club has a corporate mental breakdown, the study group is recruited by a creepily charismatic, sweater vest-wearing Glee Club adviser (terrifically played by SNL's Taran Killam).  They resist, but are one by one drawn in to the Glee-fulness.  This episode is a brilliant spoof of Glee by way of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  The songs are catchy and hilarious and the cast has a blast with the premise.  Best line: Troy: "Who hates glee?  Listen to how that sounds.  "Glee" literally means....glee."

9. Basic Human Anatomy (Season 4) - The best episode of the much derided, Dan Harmon-less fourth season, this episode was written by Oscar winner Jim Rash (who also plays Greendale's dean).  In it Troy doesn't want to deal with breaking up with Britta, so he pretends to switch bodies with Abed, a la Freaky Friday.  What could have been a throw away movie spoof turns in to a truly thoughtful character study about friends, relationships, and how difficult it is to to face hard truths.  Best line: Dean Pelton: "Uh, I'm at Greendale , stuck in the body of a man that could be Gollum's shadow.  So yeah, I'd say it's half past suck."

8. Modern Warfare (Season 1) - a.k.a. "The Paintball Episode", this is the first time Community did a full-blown movie spoof as Jeff is forced to channel his inner John McClane in order to win a school-wide paintball competition with a highly desired grand prize.  Directed by Justin Lin, the director of the last three Fast and Furious movies, Modern Warfare feels wonderfully cinematic and gives each character moments to shine.  Best line: Abed: "To be blunt, Jeff and Britta are no Ross and Rachel.  Your lack of chemistry and sexual tension are putting us all on edge, which is ironically, and hear this one every level, keeping us from being Friends."

7. Digital Estate Planning (Season 3) - One of creator Dan Harmon's least favorite episodes, I think this one is just brilliant.  After the death of his multi-millionaire father, Pierce is instructed to invite seven of his friends ("Levar Burton was a maybe") to a warehouse where his father had developed a 8-bit video game which will determine who inherits his fortune, Pierce or one of his friends.  Most of the episode is the video game, with each of the characters scanned so there are little 8-bit versions of them playing.  On a visual level, it's one of the most fascinating episodes, but it also contains some pretty terrific character work and a high level of hilarity.  Best line:  Jeff: "When you die you go all the way back to the study room, so don't die."  Shirley: "Yeah, I used to really love dying, but that speech really turned me around."

6. Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism (Season 3) - One of the under-nourished relationships on Community was Jeff and Shirley.  In season 1 there was Social Psychology, but it basically dealt with how little these two characters have in common.  Here, not only do we discover that they share a passion for foosball, but also that when they were both children Shirley was a bully who motivated Jeff to be the hard and shallow man he became.  Their differences explode in an epic game of foosball that transforms into an anime extravaganza.  In the end, their friendship is stronger because of their honesty.  This episode also has the sweetest ending shot of the entire series.  Best line: Jeff (to the Germans loudly monopolizing the foosball table) "Gentlemen, my name is Clarence Thaddeus Foos.  My grandfather, Fletcher Morton Foos, invented this game for one purpose - to have the loudest, dumbest thing happen.  Now it has.  The game of foosball is completed.  You're free to return to your undoubtedly hearing-impaired families."

5. Geothermal Escapism (Season 5) - Another epic episode in which the whole school plays a game of "The Floor Is Lava", turning the entire campus into a Mad Max-ian dystopia after Abed announces that he's giving a comic book worth $15,000 as the grand prize.  In the end, Abed had designed the game so he could show his friends the literal lava that he's seeing as a result of the impending departure of his best friend, Troy.  The Troy/Abed friendship had really been the center of the quirky nature of the show from season 1, so dissolving the duo because Donald Glover, who played Troy, was leaving the show, needed to be epic.  This episode did not disappointment.  Plus, it ends with a terrific Levar Burton cameo and a wonderfully poignant Aimee Mann remake of Styx' "Come Sail Away."  Best line: Magnitude: "I'm actually British!"

4. Paradigms of Human Memory (season 2) - Best...clip episode....ever.  Why?  Because none of the clips were from any previously aired episode.  The clips used were from non-existent high concept episodes, including the gang being trapped in a haunted house, the gang visiting a ghost town, the gang fighting bed bugs at a cheap motel, the gang being institutionalized when they experienced mass mercury poisoning, the gang encountering drug runners and Pierce almost being executed for racism....every clip is a gold mine. Plus, it's the episode that gives us the fan mantra, "Six seasons and a movie."   Best line: Troy: "You can yell at me all you want.  I've seen enough movies to know that popping the back of a raft makes it go faster!"  

3. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (Season 2) - One of the most emotionally difficult episodes, AD&D, deals with Jeff trying to save the life of a suicidal student by inviting him to play D&D with the study group.  He leaves Pierce out of it to avoid any mishaps, but Pierce finds out, forces himself in the game, and officially becomes the villain of season 2.  This is a consistently funny episode, but it also has some moments of discomforting cruelty as Pierce tries to undermine the suicidal Neal for appearing to replace him in the group.  Thoughtful, smart, and emotional, AD&D is Community at its riskiest.  Best line: Troy (about the game): "Shouldn't there be a board or pieces or something to Jenga?"

2. Remedial Chaos Theory (Season 3) - The source of all the "Darkest Timeline" talk.  In this episode, the group tries to decide who to send to get pizza for a apartment warming party for Troy and Abed.  Abed posits that if they choose by means of dice, they will actually be creating six different timelines.  The episode then shows the different outcomes of different people being chosen.  The results are everything from everyone happily dancing together to different couplings beginning to Pierce getting shot and dying.  This is the type of episode that makes Community a favorite of the MENSA crowd.  Best line: Troy (to Pierce after Pierce decides not to give Troy a mean joke housewarming gift): "I demand to be housewarmed!  You're bad at gift giving!"

1. Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design (Season 2) - Jeff and Annie work together to discover a deep-seeded conspiracy while Troy and Abed bring the joys of blanket forts to the entire campus.  I know this is an unconventional choice for best episode, but I seriously can't stop laughing through this entire half-hour.  The Jeff and Annie plot involves some really terrific jabs at the conspiracy thriller, while the blanket fort subplot is purely delightful.  Then, when the two plots intersect as the conspiracy plot erupts in a chase scene that careens through the emerging blanket city, comedy gold explodes.  Best line (or rather favorite out of an endlessly quotable episode): Dean Pelton (rocking back and forth, pulling his hoodie around his head after thinking he had witnessed multiple murders and then finding out they were fake) "Would that this hoodie were a time hoodie!"  Runner-up: Jeff (blocked by a group of people during the blanket fort chase): "What's that?!?" Troy: "It's the Latvian Independence Parade.  Don't look at me, they had the proper permits!"

So, with that, I say that I hope this is merely a tribute to a show in transition.  If there was ever a fan base capable of shepherding a series from one network to another (or possibly to a streaming service), it's the Communies.

10 movie characters more annoying than Jar Jar Binks

Happy Star Wars day!  Having been stuck in bed most of the weekend because of a chest cold, I decided to make my way through all six movies.  Well, almost.  Yesterday, I started with The Phantom Menace, but found myself fast forwarding through, well, a lot.  I skipped the midichlorians, I skipped through "cute" little Annie, I skipped through the pod race that wouldn't end, but mostly I skipped through Jar Jar.  I remember before Episode I was released, I ate up every bit of news, every photo, every trailer, and after consuming all of that pre-release publicity, I was actually excited about Jar Jar.  I liked his character design quite a bit.  He looked unlike anything that had come before, but distinctly "Star Wars-ian".   I also was glad to know that there would be room for humor in such a dark story.

Then I saw The Phantom Menace.  Yes, he annoyed me, but I didn't jump on the "death to Jar Jar" bandwagon.  I just looked at him as a "strictly for kiddos" character and moved on.  However, as 15 years (has it really been that long?!?) has passed since his introduction, Jar Jar has taken his place in film history as one of, if not the most loathed movie characters of all time.  Poor misguided Gungan.  So, in honor of Star Wars day, I present ten characters that I find far more annoying than Jar Jar Binks.  Some of you may agree with me, some may not, but these are the characters that set my nerves on edge more than would an entire two hours of "Meesa called Jar Jar Binks" madness.

Honorable Mention:  Dr. Kafka in The Amazing Spider-Man 2
Dr. Kafka, as played by Marton Csokas, gets an honorable mention only because I was just introduced to him this week.  He needs a little more time to earn his place among the monumentally annoying, but holy cow is he off to a good start.  Every bit of good will built by the rest of the film is squandered whenever the sign for "Ravencroft Institute for the Criminally Insane" appears on screen.  Dr. Kafka feels like he belongs in a 90's era Mel Brooks spoof than in a big budget superhero film.

10. Ace Ventura (Ace Ventura: Pet Detective) - It wasn't until The Mask that I got why people loved Jim Carrey and the reason is Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.  I love comedies.  Heck, I love "so dumb they're funny" comedies.  However, I don't love "so dumb, they're dumb" comedies, and that's precisely what this is.  On the recommendation of many friends, I watched this movie and I was glad that I watched it alone, because I found it about as funny as Schindler's List, which is to say, not at all.   Every word that comes from that smug, rubbery face puts my nerves on edge.  If you love this movie, I do not mean to dismiss your tastes.  In this case, however, I do not share them.

9. Ron and Judy Witwicky (Transformers 2 and 3) - I don't include these characters on this list based on their inclusion in the first Transformers movie.  In that film, I found them light and amusing.  However, like most everything else in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen they were "upgraded" from amusing side characters to mindless and shrill focal points.  It all goes downhill once Mrs. Witwicky eats a "special" brownie while dropping her son off at college.  Then for reasons that are ridiculous, they're brought to the center of the action scenes in the Middle East, ruining every great special effect with non-stop screeching and "comic banter."  Yes, I know a lot of people disliked Shia LaBeouf in these films, but he's Cary Grant compared to these two. 

8. Bella Swan (The Twilight franchise) - Unlike most people, I do not put the blame for this character on Kristen Stewart at all.  I've seen her in other movies and she can act circles around what she does in these films.  No, I blame Stephanie Meyer, the one who concocted this selfish and shallow ode to teenage girls.  Let me say this as plainly as I can:  TEENAGE GIRLS DESERVE BETTER!   First, the love story is weightless, making Padme and Anakin from Star Wars look like Romeo and Juliet.  Secondly, Bella is written as a bland and personality-less character, who is inexplicably the most popular girl in a new school, in spite of the fact that she never speaks, she dresses like she's on a never-ending campout, and drives the dumpiest truck in town.  Plus, she gets her eventual "powers" from giving up her family and her life for an emo dude that she's had roughly two conversations with.  Again, I know many people who adore this character, but I find her an insult to the intelligence and emotional fortitude of all teenage girls.

7. Galbatorix (Eragon) - As Galbatorix in this filmed version of the popular fantasy book, John Malkovich turns in the most over-the-top performance of his career.  Again, the most over-the-top performance of John Malkovich's career.  That's saying a lot.

6. Mr. Freeze (Batman and Robin) - This spot could have just as easily gone to Poison Ivy from the same film, but Mr. Freeze gets the edge merely because of the demented glee Arnold Schwarzenegger seems to get from uttering some of the worst dialogue ever written.  He chews every ice-related pun as if it's a rare delicacy.  While many of the actors in this movie clearly look like they realize how horrible it is, Schwarzenegger looks like he's having the time of his life.  Unfortunately, that extra commitment doesn't make the character less annoying, it just makes me feel sad to know that this is the same man who played The Terminator.

5. Ruby Rhod (The Fifth Element) - Much like Jar Jar Binks, Ruby Rhod was clearly written as the comic relief in a fairly serious space adventure.  However, unlike Jar Jar, Ruby screams every inane thing he says in the most annoying voice possible.  He (yes, he) would be annoying as all get out if he merely spoke his horrible dialogue in a regular voice, but he screeches for two whole hours, making what should be one of the most unique sci-fi epics of the last 20 years almost unbearable.

4. Willie Scott (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) - As long as this character is singing, she's charming and a welcome change of pace for the adventures of our favorite whip-cracking archaeologist.  Unfortunately, she only sings for the first two minutes.   From then on out, she whines and whines and whines.  One wonders if Indy finally kisses her just to keep her from speaking.  Whenever someone talks about how horrible Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is, I secretly want to force them to watch a loop of the Willie Scott scenes in Temple of Doom.  Suddenly CGI monkeys and "nuking the fridge" don't seem so bad, do they?

3. Rasputia Latimore (Norbit) - Eddie Murphy needs a fat suit intervention.  He should never be allowed within 50 feet of latex for the rest of his life.  It's bad enough that in this inexplicably successful film he played the villain as a fat woman, but that he played her as a reprehensibly selfish and grotesquely crude fat woman is downright prejudiced.  He may of thought he was being funny, but in fact was insulting any woman who was overweight with tired cliches and callous mockery.  Plus, this is the role with which he chose to follow up Dreamgirls, quite possibly the best (non-animated) performance of his career.  Just sickening.

2. Skids and Mudflap (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen) - The only reason I can think that these two were allowed to exist is that Michael Bay couldn't stand the thought of George Lucas holding claim as creator of the most reviled and racist CGI character in history.  From their names to their jive talk to their exaggerated facial features, these characters feel like rejects from a 20's era vaudeville routine.  Not to mention that the actual dialogue they spout is insultingly inane.  

1. Little Nicky (Little Nicky) - Quite simply the most obnoxious, ridiculous, grotesque, grating character I have ever seen in a film.  Little Nicky is the worst film ever to star Adam Sandler (let that sink in a little) and his characterization of the title character is ill-conceived in every way.  While there is absolutely comic potential in portraying the son of the devil as a dunce destined to accidental greatness, Sandler makes sure that the character is utterly impossible to empathize with by giving him insulting dialogue, a horrible speech impediment, and facial ticks that make Jim Carrey seem like a model of restraint.  I watched this movie once and I would rather watch Jar Jar get his mouth numbed by a thousand power couplinks than endure another minute of this monstrosity.

So, while Jar Jar is annoying, for me at least, he is not the worst.  May the Fourth Be With You, everyone!