Review: FINDING DORY

FINDING DORY
(FAMILY/ANIMATION) 
2.5 out of 4 stars 
Directed by Andrew Stanton, Co-Directed by Angus MacLane
Featuring the Voices of: Ellen DeGeneres, Albert Brooks, Ed O'Neill, Kaitlin Olsen, Hayden Rolence, Ty Burrell, Diane Keaton, Eugene Levy, Sloane Murray, Idris Elba, Dominic West, Sigourney Weaver
Rated PG for mild thematic elements.
103 minutes (including 6-minute short film, Piper) 
Verdict: While it fails to add anything terribly worthwhile to its classic predecessor, FINDING DORY is fine, lightweight family fare.
YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN FINDING DORY IF YOU LIKED:
FINDING NEMO  (2003)
MONSTERS UNIVERSITY  (2013)
THE GOOD DINOSAUR  (2015)
BRAVE  (2012)
CARS 2  (2011)

FINDING DORY unfortunately comes from troubled origins.  The original FINDING NEMO, released in theaters 13 years ago this month, was Pixar's biggest success up to that point and the highest-grossing animated film of all-time (until SHREK 2 a year later), and on top of that, it won Pixar their first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature (the award category was introduced for the ceremony honoring films released in 2001).  A sequel was inevitable, and Disney was eager to get it cooking as early as 2006, but Pixar wasn't moving along without the original's writer/director Andrew Stanton's involvement.  Stanton had other aspirations though, which fell apart when his hugely expensive 2012 live-action directorial debut JOHN CARTER became a huge write-off for Walt Disney Studios.  Soon after, plans for the FINDING NEMO sequel were announced with Stanton writing and directing.  Stanton was probably already mulling around ideas, and he's given conflicting reports about having been against the idea of a sequel while also intending to make the sequel once he'd finished his planned John Carter trilogy, which was then cancelled.  Whatever you believe, FINDING DORY is a sort-of cynical business decision that Stanton had to turn to to rehabilitate his career.  That doesn't make it bad or good, but it's worth noting.
The notion of whether a sequel is "necessary" or not is strange, since it suggests that the original was necessary.  It's entertainment and storytelling; some sequels make more sense to happen than others, but I don't know if any of it's "necessary".  In terms of Pixar, there's a strong argument that TOY STORY 2 and 3 are great movies in their own rights and improve upon their predecessors, but the adventures of Woody and Buzz were resolved neatly before the sequel came along to continue the story.  Those continuations were improbably organic, but FINDING DORY is a particularly sequelly sequel.  It's not that it's especially contrived, just that it feels more like an afterthought than an organic continuation of its predecessor.  Pixar's lost some of its luster post-TOY STORY 3 (last summer's INSIDE OUT being a notable exception), but I'm not going to say that their worst is still better than everyone else's best.  That's absurd.  If CARS 2 is Pixar's worst, DreamWorks' first two Shrek movies and KUNG FU PANDA are better than Pixar's worst.  Still, most of Pixar's productions are better than rival animation studio Illumination Entertainment's cheap but hugely successful fare.  CARS 2 is maybe about on par with them.

FINDING DORY plays the 'cute card' a lot, frequently flashing back to baby Dory, modified for maximum textbook cuteness; huge eyes that comprise at least 40% of her mass and a small child's voice provided by newcomer Sloane Murray.  Dory (voiced as an adult by Ellen DeGeneres), the regal blue tang with short-term memory loss, is having vague recollections of her family, who she'd been searching for before joining the neurotic clownfish Marlin (voiced by Albert Brooks) on their adventure in the first film.  Recalling something about "the jewel of Morro Bay, California" where she last saw her parents (voiced by Eugene Levy and Diane Keaton), Dory, Marlin and his son Nemo (voiced by Hayden Rolence) ride the ocean currents to arrive at the Monterey Marine Life Institute, where Dory is separated from Marlin and Nemo.  There, Dory is reunited with a childhood friend, a nearsighted whale shark named Destiny (voiced by Kaitlin Olson), and teams up with cranky octopus named Hank (voiced by Ed O'Neill), who's intent on not being released back into the wild, to find her parents in the large park.
It's a bit unfair that the movie is expected to live up to it predecessor, which is a modern classic, but it's the nature of the sequel and it readily makes those comparisons itself.  FINDING NEMO is a big marker in the Pixar canon, a point where the studio's animation reached a new level of visual detail that holds ups today more than any prior production, and except for some of the impressive aerial shots of the Marine Life Institute, there's not much that feels new here (while fully acknowledging that no doubt the most minute details have been enhanced greatly to the trained animator's eye).  Emotionally, it has some moments, but it usually doesn't hit the marks it seems to be aiming for, and never holds the weight of the original.  Emotionally, it's ambitious, but it's undercut by the slightness of it's story and characters.  The same characters have brought a lot more before, but Marlin's and Nemo's involvement is obligatory at best, and Dory is tricky.  Dory is a comic sidekick character in the original, which usually doesn't translate well into a leading role, as with Mater in CARS 2, but she does have a little more depth than the likes of Mater.  She's definitely less funny as the lead role, that being the result of having to carry more emotional baggage, but otherwise, she isn't much changed here.  Small but significant moments of the first movie, i.e. "I look at you, and I'm home," or "I have short-term memory loss. It runs in my family, at least I think it does...where are they?", are pushed into the forefront of her character, but it's neither an addition or a subtraction.  It just is.  Concerns that giving Dory the spotlight would push her into being annoying are assuaged; she's not annoying, but it turns out that she's not that interesting.  This is made an even more prominent point as Marlin and Nemo approach their dilemmas with a "What would Dory do?" mantra, which it turns out is just doing things with a lot of heart and less thought.

The cranky octopus Hank is more interesting; in contrast to Nemo's efforts to escape the fish tank in the first movie, Hank is dead set on staying in the aquarium, in defiance of the oft-repeated Marine Life Institute's motto, "Rescue. Rehabilitate. Release."  It would have been nice for the character to be a little more fleshed out, but his irritable and neurotic personality is a good foil to Dory in a way similar to Marlin was in the original, but just different enough.  Plus, visually, you can't do much better than an octopus, in all their slippery, tentacley glory.  FINDING DORY is significantly more broad and cartoonish than FINDING NEMO, exemplified by the character of Hank, who's is depicted as amphibious (he has to carry Dory around in water, but he probably spend more time out of the water than in throughout the movie), and things only get more absurd from there.
It does feel more like a children's film than its predecessor or the rest of Pixar's best; not the obnoxious kind of kids movie like ANGRY BIRDS, but just very simple, lightweight and "cute".  I haven't emphasized enough how often the movie goes out of its way to be cute.  It also works hard to pull some heartstrings, and it may work for some, but it feels a bit more manipulative than it should and doesn't add up to much.  A serious issue that affects the movie as a whole is the feeling that it lacks substance.  It's fluff, and it's fine, but you don't feel like a whole lot has happened once all is said and done.  It would have worked better as a short film.  As it is, it's definitely an improvement on Pixar's last and least successful movie, THE GOOD DINOSAUR, but it also definitely pales in comparison to last summer's INSIDE OUT.  Next to other Pixar films, it ranks somewhere around the likes of MONSTERS UNIVERSITY, a pretty average and visually pleasant movie that can't help but remind the viewer of what it isn't.

Images via Disney

Review: POPSTAR

POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING
(COMEDY)
3.5 out of 4 stars 
Directed by Akiva Schaffer & Jorma Taccone
Starring: Adam Sandberg, Jorma Taccone, Akiva Schaffer, Sarah Silverman, Tim Meadows, Imogen Poots, Chris Redd, Maya Rudolph, Will Arnett, Chelsea Peretti
Rated R for some graphic nudity, language throughout, sexual content and drug use.
86 minutes
Verdict: Absurd, bombastic, and absurdly bombastic, POPSTAR is a painfully funny comedy with a roster of hilarious and weirdly catchy songs from The Lonely Island guys.
YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING IF YOU LIKED:
HOT ROD  (2007)
THIS IS SPINAL TAP  (1984)
THIS IS THE END  (2013)
ANCHORMAN: THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY  (2004)
I'M STILL HERE  (2010)

POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING is a mockumentary parody of concert films like JUSTIN BIEBER: NEVER SAY NEVER, KATY PERRY: PART OF ME and ONE DIRECTION: THIS IS US, featuring an impressive array of music star cameos and interviews that include Mariah Carey, Simon Cowell, Ringo Starr, and numerous others it would be a crime to spoil, in the service of showing the rollercoaster journey of popstar Conner Friel (Andy Samberg), aka "Kid Conner", aka "Conner4Real", as he attempts to go solo after his obnoxious showboating breaks apart his band, The Style Boyz.  The movie is written and produced by and stars the three-man comedy troupe "The Lonely Island", comprised of Samberg, Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer, who got their start on Saturday Night Live and have produced several viral internet comedic music videos like "Dick in a Box" featuring Justin Timberlake, "I'm on a Boat" featuring T-Pain, "I Just Had Sex" featuring Akon, "Jack Sparrow" featuring Michael Bolton, and "YOLO" featuring Adam Levine and Kendrick Lemar, as well as working together on the 2007 cult-classic HOT ROD.  With the group's breakout star Samberg in the spotlight, Schaffer and Taccone co-star and direct in a story that possibly reflects some of the group's own grappling with success, like $20 million therapy.

Conner is introduced as a music prodigy in his youth, eventually finding mainstream success with his lifelong pals Owen (Taccone) and Lawrence (Schaffer) as the Style Boyz, with hit songs like "I'm So Humble", but eventually Conner's own star outshines the group, a success that Conner does not handle gracefully as he begins rejecting Lawrence's lyrics and Owen's beats that made them so successful in the first place.  Lawrence quits the band to become a farmer in the Colorado mountains, while Conner takes his act solo and makes Owen little more than his on-stage DJ as they go on tour to promote Conner's new album Connquest, with songs created by Conner like "Equality", an anthem to gay marriage where in every other line Conner stumbles over himself to remind his fans that he's not gay, "Finest Girl (Bin Laden Song)" interwoven with Osama Bin Laden-based innuendos like "She said 'Invade my cave with your special unit,'" and "Mona Lisa", in which he compares the iconic painting to a Garbage Pail Kid.  But the album is a flop, a situation that isn't helped by a number of subsequent public disasters and faux pas, plus an opening act who's becoming increasingly belligerent.  Along for the ride are SNL veterans Tim Meadows and Sarah Silverman as his much put-upon agent and his insightful publicist, respectively, and Imogen Poots as his similarly shallow and slyly named girlfriend, Ashley Wednesday, in addition to Conner's vast entourage of yes men and women whose roles range from reasonable to ridiculous.
The music industry and tabloid antics may be an easy target, but the Lonely Island guys bring with them a lot of comic ingenuity and balls (not kidding about the latter; don't bring your grandma, unless she's into that sort of thing, in which case, definitely bring your grandma), most evident in the catchy and often very salty soundtrack full of intricate and hilarious rhymes that make even the end credits worth sitting through (despite no stinger).  The laughs come rapidly, and sometimes, it's so gut-bustingly funny that it's exhausting.  Personally, I'm not very well versed in the specifics of what's being lampooned, be it concert documentaries (I think I might have seen a Jonas Brothers one once, but I seriously don't remember) or Justin Bieber, but I have a vague familiarity with them, and what really sells in the farce are the jabs at celebrity excess and tabloid antics, and The Lonely Island's penchant for wild absurdity.  Cinematographer Brandon Trost adds the movie to his resume of unreasonably handsome-looking comedies like NEIGHBORS and THIS IS THE END, adding hilariously ironic legitimacy to the juvenile ridiculousness.  To be fair, there's an easy argument that this is essentially another case of an SNL skit extended to feature length, but at a brisk 86 minutes and with more than enough belly laughs, it earns its place handily.  Even after the likes of THE NICE GUYS and NEIGHBORS 2: SORORITY RISING, POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING is now the movie to beat for funniest movie of the year.

Images via NBC/Universal

Review: NINJA TURTLES 2

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: OUT OF SHADOWS
(ACTION-COMEDY/SCI-FI) 
2 out of 4 stars 
Directed by Dave Green
Starring: Pete Ploszek, Alan Ritchson, Noel Fisher, Jeremy Howard, Megan Fox, Stephen Amell, Will Arnett, Brian Tee, Gary Anthony Williams, Sheamus, Laura Linney, Tyler Perry, Johnny Knoxville (voice), Tony Shalhoub (voice), Brad Garrett (voice)
Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence.
112 minutes
Verdict: Any recommendation of it should be heavily qualified, but as far as summer junk food movies go, it could have been worse.
YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: OUT OF THE SHADOWS IF YOU LIKED:
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES  (2014)
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2  (2014)
MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS  (1995)
GOOSEBUMPS  (2015)
EARTH TO ECHO  (2014)
Even if it's not much else, the lengthily-titled TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: OUT OF THE SHADOWS is a substantial improvement over its tedious 2014 predecessor.  Dave Green, whose directorial debut was the low-budget 2014 "found footage" family adventure EARTH TO ECHO, has taken over from the last movie's Jonathan Liebesman and has a far better sense of the material, even if that only gets it so far.  In a lot of ways, it's a throwback to '90s superhero movies, full of garish colors, hyperactive photography and over-the-top characterizations, and all the while you can't help but feel like you're actually watching a toy commercial.  It's also very weird without being very (or even moderately) original or inspired, colorful and full of flashing lights, loud and grotesque, and maybe just a little fun in a dumb, guilty summer movie kind of way.  It's a big-budget, mostly-cartoon, PG-13-rated kids movie produced by Michael Bay.
At the beginning of the story, set about a year after the first, sexy and intrepid reporter April O'Neil (Megan Fox) is on the trail of mad scientist Dr. Baxter Stockman (Tyler Perry), who she believes to be working with the notorious criminal who once tried to destroy New York, The Shredder (Brian Tee), in order to spring him from jail.  Worse than that, she discovers, Shredder and Stockman have come into possession of some alien ooze that they use to create mutants of their own, dimwitted henchmen Bebop (Gary Anthony Williams), transformed into a large, warthog-like creature, and Rocksteady (professional wrestler Sheamus, aka Stephen Farrelly), transformed into the likeness of a rhinoceros, in order to keep any interfering mutant turtles at bay as they enact their nefarious plans for world domination.  The turtles, led by Leonardo (motion capture performance by Pete Ploszek, voiced by Johnny Knoxville), with the brooding musclehead Raphael (Alan Ritchson), brainy Donatello (Jeremy Howard) and wisecracking (dumbcracking?) Michelangelo (Noel Fisher), in between their crime-fighting, yearn for recognition of their city-saving deeds while forced to keep their existence a secret, and come to terms with their varied roles as part of a team.

Like the previous movie, it's still pretty violent for being so much a kids movie, not that other Ninja Turtles movies weren't as well, but OUT OF THE SHADOWS is more colorful about it and less mean-spirited.  They seem to have a better handle on who the audience for these things really is.  Like a lot of blockbusters, and certainly in this case where the main characters are fully rendered in the computer, the action is often "video gamey", but Green's willingness to be foolish as opposed to Liebesman's weirdly generic style makes it a little more interesting than would be expected.  This brazen juvenility is largely beneficial to the movie as a whole in place of wit, which is virtually non-existent.  There are fart jokes, booger jokes, icks and oozes, and depending for your tolerance on that sort of thing, it's not as bad as it could be.
The Turtles, while getting substantially more screen time than before, are marginally less annoying this time around, although Mikey in particular is vastly less charming than the filmmakers seem to think he is, and none of them are terribly interesting.  New addition Casey Jones, a suspended cop who's fighting the Foot Clan on his own time with a hockey stick, is played by Stephen Amell (best known as title character of the CW's Arrow), who is reminiscent of Chris O'Donnell's Robin from the Joel Schumacher Batman films, which is not a good thing, but the way the Turtles pick on him is a source of genuine humor.  Megan Fox's talents as an actress aren't clear, since her most prominent role before this was Michael Bay's Transformers movies, in which she was depicted as embarrassingly little more than a sex object, and April O'Neill isn't substantially more rounded out, but she has a few moments that suggest she could do a lot more with a better role.  Other cast additions include Tyler Perry's Dr. Stockman, kind of like an expotentially dorkier Neil deGrasse Tyson with a bowtie and suspenders, who's interesting, and Laura Linney outclasses the material as ball-busting Police Chief Rebecca Vincent.
As summer movie junk food, it's not nearly as bad as it could have been, and it's an undoubted improvement on the last one, but any sort of recommendation with be tremendously qualified.  Then again, none of the Ninja Turtles movies have been objectively good, but they have their fans.

Images via Paramount