The Little Prince

THE LITTLE PRINCE (Mark Osborne, 2015)

The Little Girl (Mackenzie Foy) in THE LITTLE PRINCE is being groomed by her Mother (Rachel McAdams) to be a striver in a dog-eat-dog world. She bombs the entrance interview to get into the prestigious Werth Academie, but a move into the right house within its district and a meticulous and demanding summer schedule of preparatory work are anticipated to launch her on the path to success. While other kids might balk at a summer of intense studying while a parent is away at work, the Little Girl naturally takes to it.

Her focus is tested when she meets the old man who lives next door. The Aviator (Jeff Bridges) gets her attention to wander with the creaky, old plane he’s trying to repair and stories of his desert encounter years ago with the Little Prince (Riley Osborne), a boy who lives on an asteroid. The Little Girl and the Aviator’s friendship lead her to searching for the Little Prince when the old man grows ill and becomes unable to look for him.

THE LITTLE PRINCE adapts Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s classic novella of the same name and puts the book within a contemporary story, thus using it as a leaping off point for expansion. The framing device has practical reasons because without it there likely isn’t enough source material to mold into a feature film. There’s creative justification too, as the things de Saint-Exupéry bemoaned in 1943 have surely increased in today’s world. If he was worried about child-like wonder being stamped out on the path to adulthood, he probably would not be heartened by the emphasis on practicality in education and the culture today.

This reworking of THE LITTLE PRINCE complements the original’s concerns about how the process of growing up can result in the loss of curiosity and lack of appreciation for intangible pleasures with values hard to quantify in a market-driven society. Parental insecurities about their child’s future and the desire to optimize time to increase marketability and competitiveness are rightfully significant. Still, maligning play and contemplation, or treating them as goods only if they have discretely applicable ends, undermines development of the whole child.

THE LITTLE PRINCE employs two styles: three-dimensional computer animation for the contemporary portions and stop-motion watercolors for memories of the Little Prince. Scenes rendered in the newer method impress with their sleekness while the older style contains warmth and personality, qualities that often leak out when seeking to conform to look like every other CGI-animated film now. The standardized perfection of the contemporary scenes are not artless, but to a degree they represent what the film wishes to resist, namely efficiency prized over wonder. There can be beauty in both. In using different styles, THE LITTLE PRINCE integrate the practical and the dreamy as a guide to remembering how they feed one another.

Grade: B

Big Miracle

BIG MIRACLE (Ken Kwapis, 2012)

In BIG MIRACLE a family of three gray whales gets trapped in the ice off the Arctic coast of Point, Barrow, Alaska.  TV news reporter Adam Carlson (John Krasinski) is shooting another story when he spots the father, mother, and baby whales poking through a hole in the ice.

A frozen column of ice is blocking the whales from swimming south.  To survive the whales keep a hole open by regularly bringing their beaks and heads above the water’s surface so this small patch doesn’t freeze.  While this method helps them for the time being, it can’t be sustained indefinitely, whether because of the injuries they may incur or colder temperatures that may freeze the hole shut.

Adam sends his report to his home affiliate in Anchorage and then watches as it ignites a media circus and an international effort to save the creatures.  Adam’s Greenpeace activist ex-girlfriend Rachel Kramer (Drew Barrymore) rushes north to see what she can do.  Reporters flock to the small, isolated town, including the ambitious Jill Jerard (Kristen Bell), who views the story as a chance to do more serious work.

With the sly encouragement of his wife, who hints at the public relations benefits from providing assistance, oil company executive J.W. McGraw (Ted Danson) offers the use of his barge to break the ice.  Two Minnesota inventors (James LeGros and Rob Riggle) see an opportunity to showcase their water-warming product and jumpstart sales for their company.  The Inuit community initially favors killing the whales for their people to use but recognizes how their custom will play to a worldwide audience and throws in their support.  The Reagan administration also gets involved, in part to counter its negative environmental record and help current Vice-President George Bush in a Presidential election year.

The big miracle of BIG MIRACLE is that it turns out to be a heartwarming, serious-minded, all-ages film.  Based on a real 1988 operation to save three whales, it’s predictable and plays out like a large scale TV movie, but BIG MIRACLE is invested with solid craftsmanship and a nuanced view of how idealism, pragmatism, and politics intersect.

Although no one will mistake this for the family version of Billy Wilder’s cynical media satire ACE IN THE HOLE, director Ken Kwapis and screenwriters Jack Amiel and Michael Begler examine the self-serving motivations of all involved with the rescue.  The irony is that with everyone acting in their own vested interests, something great is achieved that would otherwise have been too expensive and inefficient to pull off.

The characters are drawn in surprising and atypical ways.  Barrymore’s activist is driven by the purest intentions and possesses the moral upper hand, but she’s consistently the most unpleasant person on the scene. Rachel means well, perhaps more than anyone else.  She also contains the potential to create the most problems.  Conversely, most films would fall back on TV reporters standing in as the convenient villains.  While Adam and Jill hope to exploit their coverage of the story for career advancement, the fact that they’re giving the whales airtime helps push the effort along.  Without the journalists and photographers, public interest would likely be too low for all of the parties to make the commitment.

If a movie is referred to as being for the whole family, it’s usually shorthand for computer animation, like the Pixar films; sensory overloading but bloodless action, like the SPY KIDS films; or puerile comedy, like Eddie Murphy’s string of PG-rated films.  BIG MIRACLE lives up to the classical definition of a family film.  It’s thoughtful, moving, funny for kids and adults, and provides discussion fodder for the car ride home.

Grade: B

The Smurfs

THE SMURFS (Raja Gosnell, 2011)

The little blue guys and gal in THE SMURFS live mostly care-free existences in their quaint village nestled in the wilderness, even if the evil sorcerer Gargamel (Hank Azaria) and his cat Azrael are constantly trying to find and capture them. Gargamel wants to extract the Smurfs’ essence and thus add some extra zing to his magic, but he is clueless as to their whereabouts in the Middle Ages-like surroundings.

The Smurfs are named after their personalities, so it’s the appropriately dubbed Clumsy (Anton Yelchin) who accidentally tips off Gargamel to their hidden homes. While escaping his clutches, six Smurfs are sucked into a portal that delivers them to present day New York City. Gargamel follows closely behind but temporarily loses track of the magical, three apples high creatures in The Big Apple.

The Smurfs wind up in the home of stressed marketing executive Patrick Winslow (Neil Patrick Harris) and his pregnant wife Grace (Jayma Mays). While the Smurfs seem relatively unfazed in this unfamiliar world, they’re also eager to get back to the portal during the next blue moon and return home. Patrick and Grace graciously agree to assist them and keep Gargamel at bay when he pops up again.

Belgian comic book artist Peyo created the Smurfs in the late 1950s. They found popularity in the United States with the 1980s Saturday morning cartoon. A computer-animated feature film about the Smurfs would seem to be the most sensible way to update this kiddie material for a new generation. Instead THE SMURFS and director Raja Gosnell take the eponymous CGI creatures and plop them into a boilerplate, live-action, fish out of water story.

Rather than catering to the kids, who are the only ones likely to care about a Smurfs movie in the first place, the makers try in vain to produce something hip to appeal to all ages, or at least the parents who grew up with the cartoon. Why else is Tim Gunn given a speaking part or do Joan Rivers and TOP CHEF’s Tom Colicchio make cameo appearances? I don’t think five-year-olds are demanding to see their favorites from Bravo’s lineup in this movie.

Such calculated decisions rarely pan out well on the creative side, and THE SMURFS provides a textbook example in the case against this treatment. First and foremost, THE SMURFS’ celebrity voice casting tends to value names that can appear on the poster and stars who will show up on the red carpet. Rather than use voice artists who might better embody these sweet blue beings, the film presents the jarring sounds of George Lopez as Grouchy and Alan Cumming doing a Scottish brogue as Gutsy. Then there’s the nondescript Katy Perry as Smurfette, whose inclusion seems to hinge on putting a Smurf twist on a joke referencing “I Kissed a Girl”. The only one who fits is Jonathan Winters, whose performance doesn’t rely on identifying him as Papa Smurf.

Whether it’s the inappropriate substitution of “smurf” for vulgarities or Smurfette recreating Marilyn Monroe standing over a vent in THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH, the crass humor is out of place for a franchise that is known for sincerity sometimes to the point of sickly sweetness. THE SMURFS itself is one big merchandising trove, yet it’s also littered with scenes that are little more than ads for Guitar Hero and FAO Schwarz.

Harris does a yeoman’s job in not overacting among the CGI Smurfs. Azaria’s hammy performance as Gargamel is fun in its unrestrained weirdness. It’s readily apparent, though, that THE SMURFS would have been better served by sticking with the all animated introduction for the entire running time than adding live action. After all, bringing the story into the physical world often pulls focus from the title characters who are seemingly the attraction.

Grade: C-

Winnie the Pooh

WINNIE THE POOH (Stephen J. Anderson and Don Hall, 2011)

In WINNIE THE POOH the tubby little cubby and his friends in the Hundred Acre Wood work together to overcome the two issues of a most pressing nature in their community. Eeyore (Bud Luckey) has lost his tail, so a contest is held to find the best replacement. The prize for finding the ideal tail is a big pot of honey. Pooh (Jim Cummings) is already eager to help his pal, but the prospect of satisfying that rumbly tummy of his in the process doesn’t hurt his motivation.

Additionally, Pooh and the others plot to capture the Backson, a frightful creature that is imagined when Owl (Craig Ferguson) misinterprets Christopher Robin’s note and his promise to be “back soon”. A litany of terrible things the Backson does is invented, but the animals persevere in an effort to rescue the boy.

With its hand-drawn style (even if it is computer-animated) and quiet sincerity, the latest Disney animated film featuring A.A. Milne’s beloved characters is a delightful throwback to classic children’s entertainment. WINNIE THE POOH is what it always has been, or at least what many know from the decades of shorts and features the studio has made.

The characters aren’t susceptible to the prevailing trends of their times but instead submit to simple and gentle storytelling that endures across generations. Going to the Hundred Acre Wood at the movies is the equivalent of visiting a nature preserve. Here’s a space where viewers can take a break from the hustle and bustle that dominates the options in kids’ media diversions.

WINNIE THE POOH toys with its storybook origin, as the titular bear wanders onto the page, collects letters from sentences to assist in a task, and interacts with the narrator. These fourth wall breaking techniques never feel like meta intrusions on the material but like a child’s interaction with a parent reading the tales. The writers and animators have great fun playing with the text to sneak in some small lessons about narratives and make their funniest jokes.

Pooh isn’t smarter than the average bear, but he and his friends serve as wonderful examples for the little ones following their adventures. Although the gloomy Eeyore seems under a perpetual cloud, Pooh and company are typically filled with good cheer and courage, even when experiencing doubt and worry. Ever mindful of how children perceive a world that is at turns wondrous and scary, the film approaches the challenges these characters face in a manner that remains optimistic while not ignoring the bittersweet. To do so is to respect the youngsters who are watching.

WINNIE THE POOH is aimed squarely at kids, and its abbreviated running time of 69 minutes is just long enough to pass the time before they get too squirmy in the seats. It also shouldn’t be too long for adults who, like me, may find some of this overly familiar. (I swear I’ve seen these specific subplots before, but maybe they were variations on similar incidents.) I should note that the screening I attended had an inexplicably and verging on painfully loud audio presentation, one that’s in defiance of the tranquil nature of the work. It likely affected the degree of my evaluation for what is intended as a quiet, low key charmer.

Grade: B-

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS (Carlos Saldanha and Mike Thurmeier, 2009)

When sitcom characters start getting married and having children, the developments often indicate that the creative wells in the writers' rooms are running dry. These warning signs are all over the ICE AGE series, which has now yielded two sequels, with more likely to come as long as the box office receipts, not worthwhile untold stories, warrant them.

The original 2002 animated film was pleasant enough as it followed the comedic exploits of prehistoric creatures during the glacial period, but it didn't suggest untapped tales about these characters. 2006's subpar follow-up ICE AGE: THE MELTDOWN introduced a spouse for woolly mammoth Manny (Ray Romano). As ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS opens, Manny and his beloved Ellie (Queen Latifah) are waiting for the arrival of their first fuzzy bundle of joy, something which has the expectant pop in a tizzy to childproof the frozen landscape they call home.

The impending mammoth domesticity has other members of the multiple species herd feeling left out. Saber-toothed tiger Diego (Denis Leary) notices that he's losing his predatory edge and elects to strike out on his own. Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo) is mindful that he is experiencing some parental stirrings, but with no nearby female sloths to speak of, he must build a family by adopting three abandoned eggs he discovers underneath the ice.

When the eggs hatch, Sid becomes the dutiful caregiver to Tyrannosaurus rex triplets, but his happiness is shortlived when the displeased momma T. rex comes looking for her babies. She hauls off Sid and the kids to an underground land where some dinosaurs survived the global freeze. Loyal to a fault, Sid's friends venture on a rescue mission by journeying below the ice. There they fall under the leadership of the wily and possibly crazy weasel Buck (Simon Pegg).

Breaking up the main story is saber-toothed squirrel Scrat's never-ending pursuit of an acorn. The addition of the female Scratte for this third go-round presents competition and a love interest for the tireless forager. Scrat's wordless vignettes have been highlights of the previous ICE AGE films, and the nutty scenarios he gets into again are among the funniest parts of this one. Whether straining to be freed from the tar adhering him to a tree or bopping along in a bubble after that darn acorn, Scrat's scenes possess an unforced silliness missing in the primary story.

ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS needs injections of cartoon merriment and orneriness to cure the blandness afflicting the plot and characters. Buck has his humorously unhinged moments, and Sid's sweet goofiness earns a smile here and there. Otherwise a great affinity with those in the herd isn't developed.

The animation is solid and features a couple nice action setpieces that probably look neat in 3-D--I saw the 2-D version--but what lingers is the predictability and indistinctiveness of it all. ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS had to concoct an explanation for shoehorning the extinct reptiles into the timeline, so why limit the dinos' expressiveness to mere grunts and roars? It's just one of several signs that the film's modest creative hits and misses qualify it as an unremarkable, fitfully diverting effort than a mammoth letdown.

Grade: C

(Photo credit: Blue Sky Studios, TM and © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved.)

College Road Trip

COLLEGE ROAD TRIP (Roger Kumble, 2008)

Woe to the uninformed moviegoer who wanders into COLLEGE ROAD TRIP expecting a sequel to the raunchy 2000 comedy ROAD TRIP. Instead of seeing frat parties, bare breasts, and Tom Green, such a mistaken person will get a G-rated Disney family film with Donny Osmond in the scene-stealing supporting role.

Police chief James Porter (Martin Lawrence) is the typical overprotective dad who doesn't realize that he's smothering his daughter Melanie (Raven-Symoné). Dad already has her college plan mapped out. She will attend Northwestern, which is only forty miles (and twenty-eight minutes) away, so he can be nearby in case the slightest thing goes wrong.

Of course, Melanie has a different idea. She wants to go to Georgetown and participate in a program that will send her to Japan for a term. Her dad's predicted objection notwithstanding, Melanie's dream seems unlikely until a judge impressed with her skills at mock trial puts in a good word with an old friend in the admissions office. He gets Melanie an interview that will take place in three days.

Rather than have his little girl travel to Washington, D.C. with two high school friends, which is to include an overnight stay in a University of Pittsburgh sorority house, James insists on driving Melanie so they can spend some father-daughter quality time together. If they happen to visit a fine school in Evanston along the way, well, whoever could have expected it?

COLLEGE ROAD TRIP finds Lawrence trying on the bumbling dad role in what has been Tim Allen's family movie domain. He draws a couple chuckles from how he plays James' paranoia regarding how his son's pet pig looks at him and his jealousy over the parent-child bond between super-chipper Doug (Osmond) and his daughter. Comedy-wise, though, there's little for Lawrence to do other than being in a perpetual state of exaggerated exasperation.

Although COLLEGE ROAD TRIP deals with entering young adulthood and starting to break away from parents while still needing them, the movie is aimed squarely at tweens and younger with half-formed ideas of campus life. As depicted here, college seems like a fantasy cobbled together from old movies. One half expects to see youngsters wearing raccoon coats as they cheer on their dear alma mater.

While the film allows kids to have safely scrubbed visions of the collegiate experience, it's primary purpose appears to be assuaging the fears of their moms and dads. COLLEGE ROAD TRIP plays like an instructional video shown at orientation to ease sheltering parents afraid to let their children leave the nest.

The film has a lot of high-pitched teenage girl shrieking in it, enough that a passerby could be forgiven for thinking COLLEGE ROAD TRIP is a horror movie. Otherwise this is harmless stuff that isn't particularly funny or original but manages to be relatively painless watch.

Grade: C-