The LEGO Ninjago Movie

THE LEGO NINJAGO MOVIE (Charlie Bean, Paul Fisher, and Bob Logan, 2017)

Although estranged from his father, the fearsome Garmadon (Justin Theroux), teenager Lloyd (Dave Franco) still gets blamed for the terror his dad inflicts on the city of Ninjago. As leader of the Secret Ninja Force, Lloyd and five of his friends fight Garmadon in THE LEGO NINJAGO MOVIE. After many failed attempts, Garmadon finally defeats the Secret Ninja Force, leading Lloyd to deploy The Ultimate Weapon. What he unleashes causes even more chaos in the city, so Lloyd and his team must combine forces with Garmadon to go on a journey to find The Ultimate Ultimate Weapon and save Ninjago.

Like the two other LEGO films, THE LEGO NINJAGO MOVIE bursts with visual ingenuity and comedic irreverence. It moves briskly through an archetypal story that is vigorously seasoned with one-liners. The shots are crammed with details and jokes waiting to be discovered when stepping through the frames on a Blu-ray or digital file. There’s plenty to be impressed by, yet the sameness of this with the other films, in what I suppose is becoming the LEGO genre, render it as a solid effort lacking novelty.

THE LEGO NINJAGO MOVIE is neither the inventive surprise that characterized THE LEGO MOVIE nor the exhaustively ambitious effort that marked THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIE. The style is well established, and even if the source property, a toy line and TV show, is less familiar to the masses, the premise borrows heavily from the hero’s journey that Joseph Campbell identified as common to many myths. These aren’t necessarily negative factors. In fact the predictability may enhance its appeal as comfort viewing, especially for kids and parents eager to distract them. Newness in and of itself doesn’t makes something better, but the prefabricated quirkiness of THE LEGO NINJAGO MOVIE dazzles less because it plays as though it’s been assembled from a tried-and-true set of instructions.

Freshness criticisms aside, it’s a consistently funny movie, which it achieves in part through the volume of jokes. THE LEGO NINJAGO MOVIE’s subtext about children coming to understand that fathers and mothers were and are people with lives extending beyond parenthood may be more subtle and complex for younger viewers to grasp, but it’s nice to find some thematic intricacy among the stylistic uniformity.

Grade: B-

Wanderlust

WANDERLUST (David Wain, 2012)

When unemployed George and Linda (Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston) go broke in WANDERLUST, they pack up their things and leave Manhattan with the intention of getting a helping hand in Atlanta from his rich but miserable brother Rick and sister-in-law Marissa (Ken Marino and Michaela Watkins).  Worn down after a long day’s drive, they decide to make an overnight stop at the next closest place rather than push on to their destination.

The GPS directs them to Elysium, which sounds like a charming bed and breakfast but turns out to be a rural Georgia commune.  Although they’re reluctant at first to stay, they enjoy a restful night spent with the friendly hippies who live there.  George and Linda continue on to Rick and Marissa’s but soon bail on the thought of living with them until they get back on their feet.  Rick lords his generosity over them, and George can’t stand the thought of slaving away at his sibling’s port-a-john rental company day in and day out.

So it’s back to Elysium for the frazzled couple.  They commit to trying out the alternative lifestyle for two weeks before deciding what comes next.  Linda gradually adapts to the carefree ways of the farm while George finds it all a bit absurd and holds out hope of a job back in New York City coming through.

Considering that a significant part of WANDERLUST’s comedy is rooted in laughing at hippy-dippy conduct well past its cultural expiration date, the commune scenes are an inconsistent source of humor.  The gentle mocking of outdated awareness and hopelessly idealized philosophical viewpoints lands softly when successful, perhaps because WANDERLUST is hitting easy targets.  For instance, Justin Theroux’s Seth, who passes for an alpha male in the leaderless community, never seems quite deluded enough for him to be the foolish caricature he’s meant to be.

The scenes in regular society tend to produce the biggest laughs.  George and Linda’s two scenes with a real estate agent played by Linda Lavin highlight the ridiculous contortions in which contemporary life can bend things.  The couple’s indecisiveness over whether they’re prepared to commit to purchasing a place hits the modern and urban sense of uncertainty.  The parrying over how to describe the home in question--is it a micro-loft or a studio apartment?--strikes at how branding and rebranding keep definitions slippery for those who need to know what they might acquire.  It’s easy to understand how losing the illusions of high pressure civilization might appeal to a couple burned by it.

Rudd has become something of a comedic MVP.  While his finest work isn’t in WANDERLUST, he’s still very amusing in the ways in which he wrestles with George’s choices and twists in agony over the nonsense and temptations around him. Aniston, who often comes across a smidgen or two too uptight in her recent films, takes to her character’s awakening to laissez faire living with gusto.

Written and directed by and featuring several members of the sketch comedy troupe The State, WANDERLUST has a freewheeling, improvisational aesthetic that doles out enough solid jokes, even if it does so erratically.  Enough jokes connect from scene to scene to make this a mostly worthwhile comedy even if feels like less than the sum of its best lines and reactions.

Grade: B-

Dedication

DEDICATION (Justin Theroux, 2007)

Children's book author Henry Roth (Billy Crudup) finds himself in a bind when his illustrator and best friend Rudy Holt (Tom Wilkinson) dies. Henry is prone to crude outbursts and eccentric behavior, such as stacking books on his chest to comfort himself, which impede his ability to work with a new collaborator.

With the deadline bearing down on Henry for his latest book about Marty the Beaver, editor Arthur Planck (Bob Balaban) assigns Lucy Reilly (Mandy Moore) the unenviable task of replacing Rudy. The ample compensation she's offered will allow Lucy to break free from the controlling grip of her mother (Dianne Wiest), but it will be hard-earned considering the insults she has to endure from Henry.

Although positioned as a quirky take on relationships, DEDICATION'S romance isn't all that different from the professional bond that becomes more personal in MUSIC AND LYRICS. Works fades into the background as the unlikely lovers learn more about each other. Where the Hugh Grant-Drew Barrymore film is like enjoying a fizzy bottle of pop, DEDICATION is akin to taking a few swigs of vinegar, though.

Still, director Justin Theroux's film sticks to romantic comedy traditions and is rooted in two time-honored clichés. Two people who dislike one another will fall madly in love, and the love of a good woman will be the saving grace for a damaged man. DEDICATION'S problem isn't its idealized conception of love but the thoroughly unconvincing way in which it is realized. Lucy takes Henry's verbal abuse with relatively little objection, which might be believable since she stands to rake in a couple hundred thousand dollars for her troubles, but the affection she develops for him is harder to rationalize.

At a lean 95 minutes, DEDICATION is both overstuffed and undercooked. (Its running time was 111 minutes when it played festivals, which may explain why this version feels incomplete.) In addition to the central concerns--Henry and Lucy's relationship and their progress on the book--there are also subplots about Henry's emotional health in general, his coming to terms with Rudy's death, Lucy's fights with her intrusive mother, and her confusion regarding an old thesis adviser (Martin Freeman) who wants to rekindle their affair. Cramming in these elements means giving short shrift to all of them, including the primary thrust of the film.

Theroux energetically directs DEDICATION, and the Deerhoof-laden soundtrack freshens and enhances the spiky tone in the narrative. Like many actors who step behind the camera, Theroux attends to the performances and gets good work from his cast. Crudup is very mannered but keeps the character's tics under control. He gets a nice scene when Henry declares his feelings near the end. It's not an easy admission for him to make, and Crudup almost redeems the film's shortcomings with this moment alone. Moore does the best she can with an underwritten part. Wilkinson sparks the film to life even if his character is dead during most of it. Balaban gives the kind of sly comedic turn expected whenever he appears in films. Only Wiest seems out of place, a matter due more to her character belonging in a more conventional picture.

DEDICATION bears the earmarks of a festival movie that stands out on the crowded circuit, where seeing four or five films in a day is common, but has its weaknesses revealed outside of that experience. Performance-driven by a name cast and quirky enough to seem unique, it's watchable, if not altogether likable. Separated from the festival hothouse atmosphere and viewed on its own merits, DEDICATION can be better seen for what it is: a director's distinct but flawed debut and actor's workshop.

Grade: C