Today's Mini-Reviews: giant robots, Kaijus and super-villains

Pacific Rim: ****/*****, or 7/10

Guillermo Del Toro's epic hommage to the Japanese 'Kaiĵu' movies, produced on a bigger budget than all such giant monster movies of the last fifity years combined. Del Toro obviously has a great love and respect for the genre, resulting in a very catchy action flick, undoubtedly the best American counterpart to its Japanese predecessors. One might almost say Hollywood has redeemed itself for the 1998 version of Godzilla, but such a statement had better be held back for another year, until the next American reboot of Godzilla hits theatres in 2014. In the meantime, Pacific Rim works well as an appetiter to the big G's resurrection. An extra-dimensional rift opens on the bottom of the Pacific and huge beasts come pouring out, wreaking havoc on mankind as they lay waste to cities and obliterate our armed forces. Humanity quickly sets aside its internal differences and joins forces in creating big robots to fight the creatures on their own terms. Piloted by a pair of human Avatars, these so-called 'Jaëgers' effectively combat the beasts, but the life of a Jaëger pilot as Del Toro reveals is filled with personal loss. When the monsters emerge ever more rapidly from the Breach, as it is named, Jaëger command develops an intricate and dangerous plan to halt the Kaiĵu threat once and for all. Del Toro briefly explores the history of the first Kaiĵu assaults and the development of their robotic antagonists and afterwards spends more time getting us invested in the human characters than is usual for this type of film. It does make the movie feel like its dragging its feet for a while, until he unleashes the action the audience craves with a vengeance, resulting in over an hour of nigh endless monster bashing. Unfortunately he cannot help but inserting a few characters that are supposed to deliver some much needed comic relief to make sure we don't take it all too seriously, but sadly these characters – stereotypical geeky scientists as ever we've seen them – are so mind-boggingly annoying (Charlie Day particularly) they make you wish for a Kaiĵu to step on them to end their endless whining. Del Toro's talents are beter suited in delving deeper into a world where Kaiĵus are not only a threat to world peace but also big business: toy companies produce action figures of them, creepy cults worship them and in Hong Kong, a 'Bone Town' is established, a black market for Kaiĵu products for shady purposes, similar to the disgusting existing South-East Asian trade in animal parts. Run by Ron Perlman (always a joy when paired with Del Toro), some of the funniest, wittiest and anatomically most unsettling scenes take place here. Though the dealings and the history of the Jaëgers are fleshed out to the fullest, their enormous alien adversaries, ever the most important ingredient in a Kaiĵu film, do remain somewhat underexposed by comparison. Unfortunately their motivations – they're really foot soldiers out to cause as much damage to mankind as possible, in order to pave the way for an invasion from their (smaller) intelligent overlords – remind us of the recent Shyamalan flop After Earth, a movie we'd rather forget entirely. Usually, Kaiĵu are more antiheroes than full-out villains, but Del Toro opts to keep them a simple threat to be wiped out instead of embuing them with a more sympathetic character like their forebears Gojira, Gorgo and Rodan, who were always the victim of human (nuclear) folly, transforming them into avenging gods to remind us of our place in the world. The movie is dedicated to Ray Harryhausen and Ishiro Honda, two people who only too well understood the need to layer their creatures and make them charm you so you feel more for them, but in this instance, Del Toro decided not to go with such wisdom. As a result, Pacific Rim at best is a highly likeable action flick, but not necessarily an apt lesson for western audiences into the true nature of the Kaiĵu genre. Then again, there's only so much you can do with the notion of giant robots bashing giant monsters. Let's say Guillermo gets as much out of that premise as we could hope for.

Despicable Me 2: ****/*****, or 7/10

Simply fun sequel to the animated surprise hit of 2010. Gru and his legions of minions are back, but no longer driven by the need to exact evil schemes on an unsuspecting world, as Gru (still voiced with a outrageously hilarious accent by Steve Carell) has taken to his role as a father figure for his three orphan girls Edith, Agnes and Margo quite seriously. The big question on the girls' minds of course is – much to Gru's chagrin – 'when will there be a surrogate mother too'? Apparently several thousand minions are not enough to fill that particular role, so Gru has to endure countless matchmaking on their part. Fortunately for him, he quickly finds himself abducted by agent Lucy (Kristen Wiig returning for the sequel, but voicing another character) of the AVL, the American Vampire League Anti Villain League, who means to recruit him to smoke out a threat to world peace apparently hiding in a shopping mall, potentially posing as one of many goofy shop owners. Gru hesitantly accepts the job, if only to escape his girls' endless romantic pestering. Needless to say, Lucy and Gru soon get romantically entangled while attempting to stop the outrageously stereotypically Mexican baddie El Macho (Benjamin Bratt) from completing his vile scheme to unleash thousands of vicious purple monsters (most of them harvested from Gru's own minions) on mankind. Though the plot leaves little room for narrative surprises, the infectious charm of the characters and a plethora of witty jokes for young and old make for a thoroughly enjoyable animated flick. As before, it's the endearing minions that steal the show – a fact that has already been confirmed to deliver them their own movie next year, which may not be such a good idea – but thanks to the effective emphasis on Gru's own plot line, including a flashback to his youth which is both sad and superbly funny, it also becomes ever more evident just what a droll character he is himself, considering he spends most of his time without his minions and vice versa, while the movie doesn't end up either boring or less hilarious whenever either party takes center stage (also thanks to Wiig's obvious enthusiasm). Though more attention on an original plot would be welcome for the unavoidable next installment, I can unabashedly say I'm looking forward to a Despicable Me 3 regardless. Preferably with both Gru and minions together once more instead of one or the other.

Laughing and crying at the face of doom

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World: ***/*****, or 6/10

Hollywood has been continuously reminding us of the upcoming end of the world slated for December 21^st 2012 – be sure to note it in your agenda if you haven't yet, so you don't plan early Christmas or New Year activities on the same date only to end up seeing your festivity appointments ruined – in the recent years, delivering a stream of films either revolving around the day of reckoning itself or the harsh and cruel life afterwards (examples include but are not limited to 2012 (2009), The Book of Eli (2010) and The Road (2009), some of them good, others not so much). Though such films all incorporated their own take on global annihilation, the one thing they had in common was the fact the world's demise is not a laughing matter, echoing the billions of lives lost and/or the endless suffering of those left alive. Even in multimillion dollar blockbuster popcorn movies that feature some good-spirited levity to keep the piece from becoming to much to bear for the spectator, the catastrophe is taken seriously and is often treated as having a genuine basis in reality for keeping it from being too alienating for audiences, even though the implicated scientific foundations of the films are utter bollocks (again, 2012). Only months before the expected event itself, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is added to the genre of Doomsday movies, reassuring us that the Apocalypse is such a grand, large scale and unavoidable thing it's okay to laugh about it instead of succumbing to depression. Unfortunately, the delightful tone of hilarity dominating the first hour of the film soon devolves into a melodramatic frenzy running the second, which once again makes it hard for viewers to determine just what to do when the end of times does arrive.

In Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, the Apocalypse is caused by that good old Number One suspect of worldwide destruction, the big bad asteroid about to smash into the face of the planet. Hardly a new thing for the genre, the film playfully reminds us of similar occurrences in past movies, i.e. Michael Bay's noisy and overly hyperactive Armageddon (1998), by having a radio announcer state in the very opening scene that an attempt to send astronauts on a space shuttle to the humongous rock, nicknamed Matilda, in order to blow it up has failed: only three weeks are now left for all of us, in which time we will get regular updates on Matilda's approach accompanied by all our classic rock favorites. And so the tone of the plot is set, in two different ways. First, it's clear from the get-go this is not a blockbuster movie all about showcasing spectacular effects in ever more grandiose action sequences: in fact Matilda herself is never even shown anywhere but on the movie's poster. This movie simply isn't about the Doomsday event itself, but about how life is spent in the time preceding it. Second, it's clear there's no getting out of this one, so humanity might as well enjoy all life has to offer until then, a simple truth most people all too eagerly accept. But not insurance salesman Dodge (Steve Carell), who finds little has changed for him despite the fact his wife has just ran out of his life. While his friends are all too happy engaging in carefree sexual relations, illegal experimentation with vast arrays of mind expanding substances and other activities generally considered to be against the law, the only thing Dodge needs to do is convince his Hispanic cleaning lady she doesn't need to come in next week if she doesn't want to.

Warning! Spoilers! Though admittedly a story about a man who keeps on living his dreary life while all around him is quickly degenerating into full blown anarchy is funny in its own right, the title of this film makes it blatantly clear Dodge isn't going to face the end alone much longer. Enter his neighbour Penny (Keira Knightley), a likeable young woman who in many ways is his polar opposite, being much more emotional and impulsive, but she too has just found her relationship shattered and thus the two of them make for decent soulmates about to spend their final weeks alone together as they share their personal dreams and make a deal to help each other realize them. For Dodge, it's a reunion with his first sweetheart Olivia, who sent him a letter, which much to his dismay had been stuck at Penny's mail box for months due to being wrongly delivered, in which she claims that their break-up was a mistake since he was the love of her life. For Penny, it's the promise of finding a plane (since air traffic has been shut down entirely) to take her back home to England – you didn't think someone with Keira's heavy accent was passing for an American here, did you? – so she can reunite with her family for their final days. Soon confronted with gangs of plunderers sweeping through the city and threatening their safety, the pair embarks on a road trip to search for solutions to both their challenges, taking in tow a dog someone tied to Dodge's foot with a note simply saying 'sorry', which therefore becomes the canine's new name. A man, a woman and a dog, soon sure to be deceased: it sounds like a good recipe for a road movie containing ample amounts of hilarity, but unfortunately from here on out the movie only goes downhill as much as the time left to them to succeed in helping each other get what they want.

Their trip starts off promising though, involving scenes that manage to keep the surprisingly feel-good Apocalyptic humour despite Dodge and Penny's serious intentions. For example, a sequence that sees them hitching a ride with a man in a pick-up truck who acts increasingly suspicious as if he means to kill them – who would care after all? – manages to turn audience's expectations on their head to successfully hilarious effect when he gets shot through the head instead, revealing he had hired a hitman to kill him and assumed the two hitchhikers were about to pull off that particular job. Also good for a few laughs is a scene based at Friendsy's, a restaurant where the excessively cheerful and positive waiters aim to be the customers' friend, where Penny's simple remark that it's Dodge's birthday ends up starting an orgy. For a while these and similar scenes suffice to keep the audience enchanted and engaged, but it soon becomes clear the direction the story maneuvers in exchanges comedy for drama, with a blatantly predictable and unavoidable romance between Penny and Dodge as its centerpiece: however, it seemingly takes forever to get both characters to come to the same conclusions, much to the viewers' chagrin.

Such shortcomings in the plot can hardly be attributed to the leading actors carrying the piece. For Carell, it's yet another opportunity to portray an agreeable but lethargic character, an ordinary man thrown into an extraordinary situation and unsure as how to proceed. We feel sorry for him as it becomes painfully clear there's just nobody to share the end with him but us, something he doesn't even seem to care much about until Penny walks into his life with the letter he always hoped Olivia had sent him, giving him a final mission at last. Knightley is equally suited to the part of Penny, a nice, caring girl with an unfortunate talent for chaos due to being a hypersomniac, but her lust for life and willingness to see Dodge's quest through to the end makes up for this flaw. The vibrant (when awake) Knightley plays off quite well against Carell's more ataraxic Dodge and their shared road trip succeeds into eliciting ample amounts of warm humorous moments until it becomes simply too obvious the two of them are made for each other, a realization that just comes all too soon for the audience to keep it compelled in the film's second half, a flaw in the story we can only attribute to first time director Lorene's Scafaria's inexperience as a writer (as this is her second movie, the first being Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008)).

The movie's plot is based around the simple question of what people would do if they knew their time had almost ran out, resulting in the obvious answer – whatever they like, preferably if it was formerly frowned upon – dished up in a not too gratuitous fashion, refraining from too much sex and violence despite the movie being rated R. It makes for a fun movie for a while, until the realization that Dodge and Penny's own ideas about their end won't come to fruition the way they initially insisted upon, though together they can find a good way to die, something the audience is aware off a full hour before they are, which leads to a frustratingly drawn out string of scenes in which both characters are dancing around the obvious conclusion, still clinging to their final wishes and the need to make them come true despite getting ever more impossible to achieve. In the meantime, the atmosphere of general hilarity that dominated the film at first has been traded in for unabashed melodrama, as the characters are continuously confronted with their growing affection for each other and their mutual refusal of such feelings in favor of helping the other reaching their obviously already lost causes: even after the pair has engaged in coitus, evaded dangerous situations involving looting and murder and has spend the seemingly happiest time of both their lives the truth continues to elude them, and the audience can only sit back and watch the inevitable being postponed, wondering what happened to all the jokes that got the movie off on such a good start.

As a whole, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World means to be both funny and serious, an inner conflict between two opposites that clashes as hard as a giant asteroid would with the Earth. The lighthearted comedic tone of the first half just doesn't reconcile with the more serious but overly melodramatic quality of the latter half of the film, leaving the audience confused just as to what to make of this oddball movie. It's admirable to see a movie take a whole different approach to the by now largely worn out though still popular 'end of the world' routine, but the movie fails to fully cash in on its original and offbeat intentions. The first hour of the movie delivers some witty jokes and hilarious gags that fortunately save the overall movie from full failure and make it worth a watch at least once, but in hindsight it would have been preferable if director Scafaria had stuck to this side of the story completely despite her laudable desire to touch upon more serious themes as well. Unfortunately mere comedy was not enough for her, resulting in a haphazard plot that means to put no less than two genre spins on a concept usually reserved for blockbusters, comedy on the one hand, romantic drama on the other. The fact the movie can only do one of these justice is a damn shame, but it's not the end of the world.

And watch the trailer here:

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/focus_features/seekingafriendfortheendoftheworld/

Date Night

Rating: ***/*****, or 6/10

Adequate feel-good comedy about a bored married couple (Tina Fey and Steve Carell) who try to do something else for a change and go to an expensive fancy restaurant where they pretend, because the place is totally filled up, they're another couple that reserved a place (but didn't show up), which leads to a severe case of mistaken identity as they soon find themselves on the run from shady characters. This basically is a supposedly funny variation on Hitchcock's classic thriller North by Northwest, except the level of humor never rises above average, despite decent performances by the leading couple who at least show convincing chemistry in their roles as the protagonist pair who are confronted with car chases, break-ins and silly strip routines as they try to return to their not-so-bad status quo. Also includes an ever shirtless Mark Wahlberg as an ex-spy good samaritan and William Fichtner as a corrupt, sexually obsessed government official. Director Shawn Levy, from both Night at the Museum movies and The Pink Panther (remake) fame, adds yet another fairly entertaining but quickly forgotten flick to his repertoire.

Starring: Tina Fey, Steve Carell, Mark Wahlberg

Directed by Shawn Levy

USA: 20^th Century-Fox, 2010