There’s a moment early on in “Men in Black 3″ when Will Smith’s Agent J sits down next to his longtime partner, Tommy Lee Jones’ Agent K, and bemoans the fact that he’s too old for this sort of thing — for running around New York in matching dark suits, chasing down aliens and zapping them with their shiny metal weapony doo-hickeys.
We’re paraphrasing a bit. But unfortunately, that’s an excellent observation. We’re all too old for this sort of thing — the shtick itself has gotten old, and it has not aged well.
Fifteen years since the zippy original and a decade since the sub-par sequel, we now have a third “Men in Black” movie which no one seems to have been clamoring for except maybe Barry Sonnenfeld, the director of all three. Long-gestating and written by a bunch more people than actually get credited, the latest film shows the glossy style and vague, sporadic glimmers of the kind of energy that made this franchise such an enormous international hit. But more often it feels hacky, choppy and — worst of all — just not that funny. And of course, it’s in 3-D for no discernible artistic or narrative reason.
Smith and Jones don’t seem to be enjoying themselves, either, in returning to their roles as bickering secret government agents. When even the most charismatic actor on the planet can’t fake excitement, you know you’re in trouble. (We’re talking about Smith, in case you were wondering.) The puppy-doggish enthusiasm is gone, and now his Agent J is just weirdly obsessed, after all these years, with determining why it is that K is so surly. K, meanwhile, remains surly and reveals nothing.
But then one of K’s adversaries from long ago, the growling, sharp-toothed alien Boris the Killer (Jemaine Clement of “Flight of the Conchords”), resurfaces and forces everyone to revisit the past. Literally. Boris busts out of the high-tech Lunar Max prison — with the help of his girlfriend, played by Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger clad in dominatrix gear and carrying a cake — in order to jump back in time and kill the Young Agent K, who put him there.
(Back to Scherzinger for a moment: She’s one of the many nonsensical elements here, one of many characters and ideas that are introduced and then cast aside. She arrives at the prison and approaches Boris’ cell in a beautifully framed opening sequence, then after a great deal of buildup is simply jettisoned. The absurdity of such randomness isn’t even amusing; it just feels sloppy.)
Anyway, Boris returns to the summer of 1969, a few days before the historic Apollo 11 moon mission, and takes out Agent K. Agent J shows up for work in the present day and wonders what happened to his partner; once he figures it out, he jumps back a bit earlier to kill Boris before Boris can kill K. Time-travel plots can make you feel dizzy and nauseous if you try and pick them apart to determine whether they make sense, but once we reach our destination here, the jokes provide no pleasant escape. It’s all super-obvious fish-out-of-water stuff and gags about how ridiculous hippies looked.
“Men in Black 3″ begins to address the possibilities of how it must have felt for a strong black man in America during this tense time for race relations, then backs off. There’s also a brief, clever bit in which Bill Hader plays Andy Warhol that might have worked as a separate “Saturday Night Live” sketch. Again, more opportunities squandered.
The best part of our trip to the ’60s — the best part of the movie, period — is the arrival of the Young Agent K. Josh Brolin channels Jones in eerily dead-on fashion, from the bemused Texas twang to reticent demeanor to the slightest facial tics. It’s also an amusing bit of casting given that a) the two actors co-starred in the Coen brothers’ masterpiece “No Country for Old Men” and b) Brolin is supposed to be playing a 29-year-old version of Jones, even though he’s in his mid-40s, and looks it.
As good as Brolin is, though, the novelty wears off quickly, and we’re once again left with the realization that there’s no substance to the script (credited, for the record, to Etan Cohen). And all the familiar and rather flat comic elements lead up to a revelatory climax that comes out of nowhere and in no way earns the sort of heartrending emotion it aims to evoke from its audience.
But the most disappointing part of all: Frank the talking pug is nowhere to be found. The movie is a dog anyway without him.
“Men in Black 3,” a Columbia Pictures release, is rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence and brief suggestive content. Running time: 105 minutes. One and a half stars out of four.
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Motion Picture Association of America rating definitions:
G — General audiences. All ages admitted.
PG — Parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.
PG-13 — Special parental guidance strongly suggested for children under 13. Some material may be inappropriate for young children.
R — Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.
NC-17 — No one under 17 admitted.
The contradiction inherent to all Wes Anderson films — the juxtaposition of the meticulous artificiality of the settings and the passionately wistful emotions that are longing to burst free — is at its most effective in a while in “Moonrise Kingdom.”
The director and co-writer’s tale of first love, filled with recognizable adolescent angst and naive fumblings, feels at once deeply personal (and, indeed, it was inspired by a boyhood crush of his own) and universally relatable. Of course, it features the fetishistic obsession with production and costume design that is his trademark; nothing ever happens by accident in Anderson’s films, which are frequently and accurately described as dollhouses or dioramas. Despite its rigid structure, which includes exact tracking shots from room to room or person to person, the look of the film is alive and inviting, the work of Anderson’s usual director of photography Robert Yeoman.
If you love Wes Anderson, you’ll love this: The best of what he can do is vibrantly on display. The screenplay, which he co-wrote with Roman Coppola, has resulted in his sweetest and most sincere live-action movie since the one that remains his best, 1998′s “Rushmore” (“Fantastic Mr. Fox,” from 2009, which he crafted through painstaking stop-motion animation, was also a real charmer).
But beneath all the mid-century nostalgia, the tightly framed shots of quirkily decorated rooms, lies an innocent and vulnerable beating heart. In his post-”Rushmore” films — especially “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou” and “The Darjeeling Limited” — Anderson seemed too preoccupied with all the clutter, all the idiosyncratic doo-dads that defined his characters at the expense of character development itself. With “Moonrise Kingdom,” he’s recaptured that perfect balance of style and substance.
And, similar to “Rushmore,” it has precocious, misunderstood young people at the center of its precise yet off-kilter world. Newcomers Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward star as Sam and Suzy, 12-year-old loners who find each other and run away together at the end of summer 1965. Sam, an orphan, flees his Boy Scout-style troupe of Khaki Scouts (Edward Norton plays their loyal leader); Suzy, the only daughter and eldest child of married lawyers who ignore each other (Anderson regular Bill Murray and Frances McDormand), feels neglected and has been acting out.
Trouble is, these two have nowhere to go — they live on the insular New England island of New Penzance, a rocky, rugged place with no paved roads and only one phone — and a storm of epic proportions is on its way. We know this because every once in a while, Bob Balaban pops up, bundled in weather-appropriate gear as the film’s narrator who explains not only the history of this remote, beautiful place but also what’s in store. This may sound like a cutesy, self-conscious narrative device, but Balaban is so unassuming (and informative to boot!) that you’ll be happy to see him each time he arrives.
Still, Sam and Suzy have packed up all the items they think they need to start a new life together. This includes camping supplies (his) and plenty of books, a record player and a kitten (hers). Gilman and Hayward nicely underplay their emotions at first as two sad, socially awkward kids tenderly feeling each other out, but the way Anderson and Coppola unveil their backstories in time gives them unexpected complexity. These flashbacks are among the elements that infuse “Moonrise Kingdom” with both absurd humor and an engrossing fluidity; the letters Sam and Suzy wrote to each other over the year they planned their escape are filled with a breathless excitement, as if they can’t wait for forever to start now.
There’s still hope for them — that’s what’s thrilling. You almost long to protect these two once you get to know the adults who are scrambling around trying to find them, including Bruce Willis as the island’s lonely sheriff and Tilda Swinton as the all-business social services worker known only as Social Services. The grown-ups don’t provide much heft, especially toward the end, but maybe that was intentional to make the kids’ relationship stand out that much more.
Longtime Anderson friend and collaborator Jason Schwartzman rounds out the excellent supporting cast as the fast-talking, highly efficient scout leader who helps Sam and Suzy with their plan; the performance will put a familiar smile on your face as it suggests who “Rushmore’s” Max Fischer might have grown up to become.
“Moonrise Kingdom,” a Focus Features release, is rated PG-13 for sexual content and smoking. Running time: 94 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four.
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Motion Picture Association of America rating definitions:
G — General audiences. All ages admitted.
PG — Parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.
PG-13 — Special parental guidance strongly suggested for children under 13. Some material may be inappropriate for young children.
R — Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.
NC-17 — No one under 17 admitted.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — There was a time when Tim Burton was considered an exciting filmmaker, when his aesthetic seemed daring, inventive and unmistakably his own. But that seems like a while ago after seeing “Dark Shadows,” his eighth collaboration with Johnny Depp and their weakest yet.
Still, as you know, we like to be glass-half-full around here. So while “Dark Shadows” feels like a visual and thematic recycling of Burton’s previous work, it does give us the chance to look back on the director’s five best films. Cue the Danny Elfman score:
— “Edward Scissorhands” (1990): Burton and Depp’s first film together and one that still strikes a wistful, poignant tone after all this time. I still can’t decide whether this fairy tale is sweetly dark or darkly sweet. Either way, Depp is delicate and lovely as the misunderstood title character, the creation of an inventor who died before his work was complete, leaving Edward to fend for himself in the outside world with scissors for hands. While many initially fear him as a monster, he’s actually a gentle creature who falls hopelessly in love with Winona Ryder’s idealized, fair-haired teenager. Burton’s candy-colored vision of suburbia finds just the right satirical tone, and the ending gets me every time.
— “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” (1985): Burton’s first full-length feature easily remains one of his best. It’s colorful and playful, constantly surprising and endlessly quotable, with Elfman’s lively score perfectly complementing the film’s non-stop escapades. Speaking of originality, there’s the character of Pee-wee Herman himself, Paul Reubens’ oddball man-child with the nasal voice and the too-tight gray suit who goes on a cross-country quest to find his beloved, stolen bike. He’s so innocent and guileless, you’re more likely to want to protect him than think he’s creepy. And admit it: This is how you learned that there’s no basement at the Alamo.
— “Beetlejuice” (1988): The ultimate crystallization of Burton’s signature style. The comic-horror tone he sets here provides the basis for comparison to everything else that followed. This movie is such a trip and such a blast. Michael Keaton (who would go on to be Burton’s Batman) does some of the best work of his career here as the crass, wisecracking spirit who helps the newly deceased Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin haunt their own home. The effects look a little cheesy in retrospect but the subversive sense of humor remains firmly intact. “Beetlejuice” makes the macabre seem downright adorable.
— “Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride” (2005): One of only a handful of animated films Burton’s made over his three-decade career — although a feature-length version of “Frankenweenie” is due out this fall — this is one of the best examples of the emotions of Burton’s films matching the visuals. Combining painstaking stop-motion animation with digital technology, he’s come up with a film that’s wondrous, strange and poignant. Yes, it does look a lot like “Edward Scissorhands” and “Beetlejuice,” and it features an all-star voice cast led by Burton regulars Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, but this medium brings these familiar details beautifully to life. Even creatures that are disgusting in reality are cute and sort of charming here.
— “Big Fish” (2003): “If Fellini had directed ‘Forrest Gump.’” That’s how I described this movie when I reviewed it. Looking back, it seems like even more of a departure for Burton in that it’s light and dreamlike, even hopeful. But as a fantastical tale, it absolutely makes sense within his oeuvre. He gets a little too carried away with the quirkiness of his characters, but his film is consistently dazzling, with some individual images that will take your breath away. And it features an excellent cast led by Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Jessica Lange and Alison Lohman. It’s time for Burton to take more chances like this again.
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Think of any other examples? Share them with AP Movie Critic Christy Lemire through Twitter: http://twitter.com/christylemire.
Tim Burton and Johnny Depp are snuggled warmly in their comfort zone in the chilly horror-comedy “Dark Shadows,” their eighth collaboration as director and star, respectively, and their weakest by far.
You don’t need to know a thing about the late-’60s “Dark Shadows” TV series that provides the inspiration. Tonally, thematically, visually, you’ve seen this movie before, with its oddball characters, skies in varying shades of gray and a foreboding sense of gothic mystery. No one gets challenged here; no one gets pushed.
It’s actually a wonder that Depp hasn’t played a vampire before; still, his long-undead Barnabas Collins, who’s been buried alive for nearly two centuries and suddenly finds himself back in his insular Maine hometown in 1972, fits squarely within his well-honed on-screen persona. He thinks he’s quite the charmer, but he’s actually a bit awkward, and that contradiction provides the main source of humor.
Or at least, it’s supposed to.
The script from Seth Grahame-Smith (“Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”) allows its family full of weirdos to shine intermittently but they rarely interact with each other; each functions in his or her own self-consciously quirky bubble. Too often, “Dark Shadows” is crammed with hacky, obvious, fish-out-of-water gags, as Barnabas tries to make sense of this strange new world. He struggles to understand modern romance as he courts the family’s delicate, wide-eyed nanny and hopes to fit in by smoking pot with the local hippies. And how is this tiny Karen Carpenter person singing to him from inside the television set? Ho ho!
At the same time, “Dark Shadows” feels too languid, bogged down as it is with an obsessive eye for period costumes (the work of Colleen Atwood) and interior details rather than offering anything resembling an engaging story. And by the time Burton finally puts his patented flair for visual effects to its best use, in a climactic showdown between Barnabas and the witch who cursed him (the va-va-voomy Eva Green), it’s too late.
A little background here: As a child, Barnabas and his wealthy family sailed from England in 1750 and founded the fishing village of Collinsport in coastal Maine. They spent 15 years building the grand Collinwood Manor, where a maid named Angelique (Green) loved Barnabas passionately, but he never returned her affections. Because she felt scorned — and happened to be a witch — she turned him into a vampire, chained him up and stuck him in a coffin in the ground. Nearly 200 years later, a construction crew unearths him and sets him free.
When he stumbles back to his once-stately home, he finds it falling apart, along with the fishing empire that has been conquered by a competitor named Angel (Green, again). The few family members who remain are random and reclusive: matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer), the only one who knows his true identity; her weasel of a brother, Roger (Jonny Lee Miller); her rebellious teen daughter, Carolyn (Chloe Grace Moretz); and Roger’s 10-year-old son David (Gully McGrath), who sees dead people. There’s also David’s perpetually drunk psychiatrist, Dr. Julia Hoffman (Burton regular Helena Bonham Carter); the home’s beleaguered caretaker, Willie (Jackie Earle Haley); and the new governess, Victoria (Bella Heathcote), who bears a striking resemblance to Barnabas’ long-ago love and has a few secrets of her own.
That’s a lot of exposition, huh? And the film itself takes awhile to get going as it establishes all those characters and back stories. Once there, it seems to have nowhere to go — out of the shadows or into the light, it doesn’t really matter either way.
“Dark Shadows,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release, is rated PG-13 for comic horror violence, sexual content, some drug use, language and smoking. Running time: 116 minutes. One and a half stars out of four.
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Motion Picture Association of America rating definitions:
G — General audiences. All ages admitted.
PG — Parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.
PG-13 — Special parental guidance strongly suggested for children under 13. Some material may be inappropriate for young children.
R — Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.
NC-17 — No one under 17 admitted.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — There’s a little movie called “The Avengers” coming out this weekend. You might have heard something about it.
Among its impressive ensemble cast is Clark Gregg, returning from previous Marvel movies as Agent Coulson, Nick Fury’s no-nonsense, right-hand man at S.H.I.E.L.D. In all his copious free time this week, Gregg was kind enough to choose his five favorite science fiction films.
Here they are in his own thoughtful words, with the last being most favorite. He’s got good taste:
— “Another Earth” (2001): I saw this at Sundance in 2011 and was completely mesmerized by its low-budget, idea-driven premise, which, like the best sci-fi, uses an alternative, near-future reality to provide a unique perspective on who we are now. Mike Cahill’s powerful direction of a clever, haunting script by the movie’s beautiful, unknown lead, Brit Marling, along with an emotional but restrained performance by William Mapother, make this a deeply resonant film about grief and redemption.
— “Alien” (1979): This belongs at the top of about five different lists, including best thriller and best horror film, as well. Ridley Scott did so many things right here — from the grimy, lived-in world of the Nostromo mixed with H.R. Giger’s eerily seductive design to the perfect cast and Sigourney Weaver’s bad-ass performance. I also love the way Scott keeps the alien unseen for so much of the gut-churning build up, then delivers one of the most terrifying creatures ever seen on screen. I still can’t watch this one after about 8 p.m.
— “The Matrix” (1999): The ultimate popcorn movie. I accompanied a friend to the premiere with no idea what I was walking into and had about as much fun as I’ve ever had in a movie theater. Spectacular, mind-bending premise which provides the seductive setting for a story delivered with style and precision and more shell casings than all the “Rambo” movies combined. The sequels never quite lived up to this promise, but I can’t hold that against this perfect piece of wired-action pie.
— “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968): Stanley Kubrick at his visionary finest. My dad took me to see this when I was about 9 and I was changed forever. Kubrick’s visceral and prescient take on such themes as artificial intelligence, extraterrestrials and their role in human evolution was adapted with novelist Arthur C. Clarke from one of his short stories. From the astonishing first act at the dawn of man to the hallucinatory, largely non-verbal climax, the film takes more risks than any 10 studio films made today. I watch it over and over and always experience something different.
— “Blade Runner” (1982): Holy crap, I love this movie. I’ve seen it countless times in all its incarnations, read Phillip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” on which it’s loosely based and never flip past it on cable. I love the futuristic neo-noir tone, the moody Vangelis score and the pitch-perfect performances by the entire cast, especially Harrison Ford, Sean Young, Daryl Hannah and, above all, the young, Brando-esque Rutger Hauer. His turn as the murderous replicant Roy Batty on a desperate, all-too-human quest to prolong his artificially shortened life in a rain-soaked, post-apocalyptic, 21st century Los Angeles always breaks my heart. There may be a few logic issues here and there, but the whole thing is so damn sexy that you don’t even care.
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Think of any other examples? Share them with AP Movie Critic Christy Lemire through Twitter: http://twitter.com/christylemire.
And with Clark Gregg through Twitter: http://twitter.com/clarkgregg
In theory, seeing Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson and Bill Nighy share the screen should be a delight.
In reality, the seriocomic romp “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” merely has its moments, but more often feels heavy-handed, sappy and overlong. Sure, it’ll seem warm and crowd-pleasing but probably only to crowds of a certain age, who may relate to these characters who find themselves in flux in their twilight. Handsome as the film is from John Madden, who directed Dench to her supporting-actress Oscar for “Shakespeare in Love,” it too often spells out too much, and features painfully literal symbolism like a bird taking flight at just the right time.
Still, Dench does some of the loveliest work of her lengthy and esteemed career here as Evelyn, who’s recently widowed after 40 years of marriage and struggling to establish an identity on her own. She’s one of several elderly Brits who travel to a resort in Jaipur, India, that advertises itself as an elegant destination for retirees.
There’s also Graham (Wilkinson), a burned-our high court judge with fond memories of India from his youth; Muriel (Smith), a cranky former housekeeper in need of a hip replacement who doesn’t even bother to hide her racism; the bickering married couple Douglas (Nighy) and Jean (Penelope Wilton), who are miserable in their new assisted-living community; Madge (Celia Imrie), who’d rather be out hunting for a rich husband than taking care of her grandchildren; and Norman (Ronald Pickup), who’s similarly been looking for love in all the wrong places.
They all end up on the same flight with dreams of a romantic, Rudyard Kipling-esque adventure waiting for them. Upon arrival, though, they find the place is empty and falling apart, despite the best efforts of Sonny (Dev Patel of “Slumdog Millionaire”), the enthusiastic, young manager who inherited the hotel from his father, to turn it into a palace. Sonny also has his own romantic subplot, having fallen in love with a beautiful, modern young woman (Tena Desae) whom his snobbish, traditional mother doesn’t approve of. Patel is very likable here, playing an inherently ingratiating character with no obnoxiousness.
Eventually, all the guests learn to adapt to varying degrees. Each character experiences an obligatory moment of truth in this colorful, bustling city, but the plot machinations in the script from Ol Parker, based on the novel “These Foolish Things” by Deborah Moggach, feel rather creaky. A lot of the humor is also pretty corny: Indian food is so spicy! Viagra is so exciting! And the Internet is so scary and complicated!
Here and there, though, “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” wins you over temporarily with a subtle delivery or a poignant exchange. Dench and Wilkinson have a couple of quietly powerful moments together, and Nighy is just heartbreaking with every sad, dry quip he makes.
But mostly, “Marigold Hotel” is old-fashioned, safe and resistant to stray from its comfort zone — like visiting a foreign country and only eating the foods you already know you like.
“The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” a Fox Searchlight Pictures release, is rated PG-13 for sexual content and language. Running time: 122 minutes. Two stars out of four.
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Motion Picture Association of America rating definitions:
G — General audiences. All ages admitted.
PG — Parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.
PG-13 — Special parental guidance strongly suggested for children under 13. Some material may be inappropriate for young children.
R — Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.
NC-17 — No one under 17 admitted.
In this film image released by Sony Pictures, Tommy Lee Jones, left, and Will Smith star are shown in a scene from "Men in Black 3." (AP Photo/Columbia Pictures-Sony, Saeed Adyani)(Credit: AP) 
In this film image released by Focus Features, from left, Kara Hayward, Jared Gilman and Jason Schwartzman are shown in a scene from "Moonrise Kingdom." (AP Photo/Focus Features, Niko Tavernise)(Credit: AP) 
In this film image released by Warner Bros., Johnny Depp portrays Barnabas Collins in a scene from "Dark Shadows." (AP Photo/Warner Bros., Peter Mountain)(Credit: AP) 
In this film image released by Fox Searchlight films, Judi Dench, left, and Celia Imrie are shown in a scene from "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel." (AP Photo/Fox Searchlight Films, Ishika Mohan)(Credit: AP) 