DUE DATE

Written by Alan R. Cohen, Alan Freedland, Adam Sztykiel and Todd Phillips

Directed by Todd Phillips

Starring Robert Down Jr., Zach Galifianakis and Michelle Monaghan

Ethan Tremblay: "Two and a Half Men" is the reason I wanted to become an actor - especially the second season.

Todd Phillips has been making male no-brainer comedies for quite some time now, with varied results. In 2008, he finally hit the jackpot, Vegas styles, with the international phenomenon THE HANGOVER. With that success, he took Zach Galifianakis’s bearded, beer-bellied buffoon and made him a comedy God in the eyes of guys everywhere and, while he was at it, made himself a bonafide player.

To the victor go the spoils and Phillips was certainly spoiled when he bagged everyone’s favorite charmer, Robert Downey Jr., opposite the aforementioned buffoon (Galifianakis) for his buddy road comedy, DUE DATE. He’s got the pedigree at his disposal – Downey Jr. doesn’t even have to try to get high-strung, expectant father, Peter Highman, down and even Galifianakis has been around enough blocks now to inject a little subtlety into his performance as wannabe actor, Ethan Tremblay – but, just like so much of Phillips’s past work, the antics are all too often just plain stupid instead of stupidly hilarious. It doesn’t help either that Ethan is so awkward at times that he goes from funny to the dreaded realm of uncomfortable.

To buy into DUE DATE, which has decent laughs but very few uproarious moments, you have to buy the really weak chain of events that sets the premise in motion. Peter ends up on a no-fly list after he and Ethan say words like “terrorist” and “bomb” a little too loud on a plane. Peter’s wife (Michelle Monaghan) is giving birth in a few days so he must get home somehow. With his wallet still on the plane, he must accept the offer to ride with Ethan and his masturbating dog, Sonny. Sure his wife could have certainly bought him a train ticket home on-line, but then we wouldn’t get to see these two polar opposites bond by living through several near-death experiences that wouldn’t have otherwise happened had they not gotten into this mess to begin with. Fortunately, the guys that Phillips is aiming for will buy into anything.

RELATED REVIEWS

(click to read)

THE HANGOVER

IRON MAN 2

IT'S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY

IRON MAN 2

Written by Justin Theroux

Directed by Jon Favreau

Starring Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Dona Cheadle, Scarlett Johansson, Sam Rockwell and Mickey Rourke

Ivan Vanko: If you could make God bleed, people would cease to believe in him.

When the lights went down at the sold out opening night screening of IRON MAN 2 that I attended, there was a particular energy in the air.  It was that moment when you realize that what you’ve been waiting for for so long is really about to take place.  The hushed anticipation was infectious and, as exciting as it was to feel it build, it was just as disappointing to feel that energy die off as the film unfolded.  Iron Man may have a brand new suit but his heavier armour ultimately just weighed this new adventure down.

I had no knowledge of Iron Man before the first film, other than the fact that he existed anyway.  When director Jon Favreau introduced him as an irresponsible billionaire who learns that his legacy would be essentially ensuring continuous and unnecessary destruction until there was nothing left to blow up, I instantly loved the guy.  Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), as privileged as he was, was still human and still had a soul that he didn’t want to see damned.  Super ego still intact but changed nonetheless at the end of the first film, Stark re-emerges now as narcissistic and oblivious again, almost as if to satisfy what test audiences liked most about him after the first film.  It gives the film itself an air of arrogance that it is difficult to recover from.  The Iron Man people know they did good last time out and like Tony Stark, it seems to have gone to their heads a bit too much.

Justin Theroux, the writer of TROPIC THUNDER, is a new addition to the Iron Man team and, despite his clear ability to be laugh out loud funny, he takes Iron Man and Tony Stark to some pretty dark places.  There is nothing wrong with going to these places in a superhero movie but with Stark coming off more smug and callous from the beginning, there isn’t as much sympathy to go around when Theroux finally reveals why Stark is acting this way.  Downey Jr. still nails Stark but despite having some serious mortality issues to deal with this time, he never seems to get to the core of where Stark is coming from.  And, correct me if I’m wrong, but Iron Man is nothing without his core. 

Other newcomers to the Iron Man world include Mickey Rourke as a sinister Russian physicist bent on revenge, Sam Rockwell as a less successful version of Stark himself, Scarlett Johansson as a sultry new member of Stark’s team and Don Cheadle as a replacement for Terrence Howard in the Rhodey role, Stark’s best buddy.  Rourke is certainly scary but he seems to be trying too hard to redefine evil, much like Heath Ledger did as The Joker in THE DARK KNIGHT.  Rockwell is hilarious and stylin’ in the three-piece suits he wears to cover up his inferiority issues.  Meanwhile, Cheadle does nothing with the opportunity that fell in his lap and I would really like to see Johansson do something other than just look sultry for a change.

IRON MAN 2 does get better as it goes on.  I don’t want to make it sound like it’s a bad time.  It’s just easier to focus on what isn’t working when everything worked so well in the past.  Favreau does his best to keep things smooth and fresh; Downey Jr. delivers as expected but ultimately, IRON MAN 2 just isn’t as much fun as the first.  You might say it has an iron deficiency.  You might.

Black Sheep Revisited: IRON MAN

Back in 2008, when Jon Favreau’s IRON MAN kicked the summer blockbuster season into an unexpected incredible start, both critically and financially, I think I can safely say that no one was certain it would actually work. Marvel was stepping out on their own for the first time with a very risky title and with a slew of titles ahead of them, most of which seem to be connected to each other in some way, they are probably feeling a lot better about what to expect from IRON MAN 2 this coming weekend.

Prognosticators are saying IRON MAN 2 should earn somewhere in the vicinity of $150 million over three days. That is about $50 million more than the original did in its first weekend. The major difference between IRON MAN and IRON MAN 2 though is that, while people just wanted big and were surprised by what they got last time, this time out, people have expectations for IRON MAN 2. The question is not whether people will go but rather whether they will like it as much as the first and keep coming back for more.

When I originally reviewed the film, I gave it four stars and enjoyed it thoroughly. I watched the film for the third time this past weekend and I thought it might be fun to go back and see if my opinion now has changed with time and subsequent viewings. Here’s what I said then:

“What is Iron Man anyway? Can we really call him a superhero? As far as I can tell, he’s just a guy with a bum heart that happens to be pretty handy in the shop.”

Clearly, I went into this movie with absolutely no research done whatsoever. I go on to say:

“Well, according to this adaptation, he is the superhero for the modern era. He is sarcastic and skeptical but still hopeful and genuine. He is a man who is capable of admitting his failures, not dwelling on them and then fostering a new path for himself. He is the kind of man that is both envied and looked up to. He is building himself a reputation as a superhero that can manage tremendous feats through intelligence and perseverance rather than just brawn and dumb luck. And now, IRON MAN is also a movie that offers perspective on the world around us at the same time as some awesome exhilaration.”

Two years later, IRON MAN holds up because Robert Downey Jr., as Tony Stark, is so darn comfortable in that role. The character fits his personality as well as the flashy iron suit fit his then newly buffed body. Downey Jr. makes Stark relatable and likable, not always easy feats when the protagonist starts out as a billionaire playboy. I was essentially of the same mind then as I am now.

“With IRON MAN, it looks like Downey Jr. might finally be able to wipe his past clean and achieve the heights his talent has always warranted. Though his body is in noticeably better shape, it is his quick-witted delivery and cynical yet sympathetic duality that make Tony Stark the kind of guy everyone wants to hang out with or just plain be.”

Like I said, there is no way IRON MAN 2 won’t make more than the first instalment but if the people at Marvel want the party to continue on for future sequels, they had better hope audiences still want to hang out with Stark

For Black Sheep's full review of IRON MAN, just any of the six links in this one article.  Black Sheep's review of IRON MAN 2 will be coming on Saturday.

DVD Review: IRON MAN

Written by Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway
Directed by Jon Favreau
Starring Robert Downey Jr, Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges and Gwyneth Paltrow


With summer behind us and the dark night finally lifted, it is easy forget where it all began. Where that was, was with IRON MAN. Marvel Comics’ first independently financed feature was sure to do well but no one expected it to resonate as loudly as it did. This is a superhero that essentially flies around in a pretty funky suit. There is nothing particularly super about him so how does this guy compete with the spiders and the bats? Under Jon Favreau’s dichotomous hipster/fan boy direction, the answer is pretty simple. If you want Iron Man to connect with the every man, you highlight what makes him a real man. Robert Downey Jr. plays Tony Stark, the man inside the suit. Stark is a billionaire prodigy by day and a billionaire playboy by night. He is also a man who has come to see through his life’s work as a weapons manufacturer for what it is, a warmonger. As Stark learns to rebuild his life from the ground up, Favreau births the Iron Man myth from the same point. With the lore solidly grounded, it’s time to fly!


I don’t know if you remember but the original trailers for IRON MAN were fairly unimpressive, or at least I thought so. By the time it was released in theatres, I had zero interest in seeing it. I know I can’t be the only one with that opinion so expectations for this film were certainly not soaring but people were definitely ready for summer. IRON MAN opened to over $100 million in North America but the real surprise was just how great it really was. Downey Jr.’s performance was so brilliantly suited to his sharp, sardonic character. The chemistry between him and Gwyneth Paltrow as his assistant, Pepper Potts, is quick but vulnerable. The film is even so bold as to make pointed attacks against the arms industry and war profiteering. People were not expecting what they got and what they got was explosive entertainment with a fresh approach to both the superhero and the effects-driven Hollywood film. Now that it is available to own, what the legions of fans will get is an incredibly complete look at these effects and the film itself. Each stage of production is broken down with plenty of secrets revealed – from the making of the Iron Man suit to how he flew to Downey Jr.’s screen test. Yet somehow, giving away all the tricks takes nothing away from the magic. Instead, it serves as a remind for just how awesome it is that they pulled this off.


Before the bat, Favreau’s IRON MAN was the summer super hero. Audiences were heralding it as the next Spider-Man. Then the dark night fell, the hoopla (albeit deserved hoopla) followed and people quickly forgot IRON MAN had happened. Let’s face it though, THE DARK KNIGHT is precisely that, dark. With a cold fall about to descend upon us, now is the time to remember that man of iron and have a little more fun while we still can.

FILM


DVD

TROPIC THUNDER

Written by Justin Theroux and Ben Stiller
Directed by Ben Stiller
Starring Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., Jack Black, Jay Baruchel and Steve Coogan


Tugg Speedman: Are you really just going to abandon this movie? We're supposed to be a unit.
Kirk Lazarus: Suck my unit.

Hollywood is hilarious. They’ve got agents ready to cover up dead hookers upon demand and actors with mandatory Tivo in their contracts. They’ve even got heads on the ends of rifles and people biting into live bats. Wait. That isn’t funny. It’s just plain dumb. There’s a fine line between crazy funny and scalping a panda you just killed to wear on your head. TROPIC THUNDER never figures out how to walk that line, falling on either side of it for some pretty uneven results.


In his first directing gig since the, and I can’t believe I’m writing this, infinitely more cohesive, ZOOLANDER, Ben Stiller takes a bunch of pampered actors and drop them in the middle of Vietnam so that they can shoot the greatest war movie ever (as if APOCAPLYPSE NOW would just crawl into a ditch with a live grenade or something). It’s funny in theory, sure, but even Stiller drops the concept early in. With the plot left behind, the men are left to trip over each other in the jungle, which is occasionally cool given that Robert Downey Jr. and Jack Black are fine company to keep but mostly it’s just meandering. I think they’re trying to make it home but who cares really when we keep cutting back to a bald headed, furry-chested, Tom Cruise as a Hollywood executive who just loves telling people to (bleep) themselves whenever he feels like. (Seriously though, he’s pretty funny.)


Thank you, Ben Stiller, for showing me just how hilarious Hollywood likes to think it is and for reminding me just how far out of step it is with the rest of the world. One minute, you’re laughing hysterically at them. The next, they’re the only ones in on the joke and they’re laughing all by themselves. Lucky for them, most of their laughing happens all the way to the bank.

IRON MAN

Written by Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Art Marcum & Matt Holloway
Directed by Jon Favreau
Starring Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Terrence Howard and Jeff Bridges


Tony Stark: I love peace. Peace will put us all out of a job.

What is Iron Man anyway? Can we really call him a superhero? As far as I can tell, he’s just a guy with a bum heart that happens to be pretty handy in the shop. His superhero development falls more in line with Batman’s as neither necessarily has any special power (Wait, my bat-sense is tingling?) but rather relies on strength and gadgetry to get the job done. Even Batman has the dark history to fuel his passion though. What does Iron Man have? His day job is as an arms manufacturing tycoon named Tony Stark. He’s got all the money in the world, women throwing themselves at him and the worst part is, he inherited everything from his dad. This silver spoon baby has been set his whole life and now he gets to be admired and adored as a superhero too? Ordinarily, I would give in to my jealousy and scoff at this supposed superhero but Robert Downey Jr., under the fresh direction of Jon Favreau, just makes him too damn cool for me to do anything other than love him.


Aside from all this, Iron Man is also hilarious. Make no mistake; he most certainly gets himself into a number of perilous scenarios but he also manages to find something to laugh at no matter how dire the circumstances. While the original comic book found Stark in some life threatening Vietnam war situation (I am not a comic book junkie so I’m afraid I can’t get more specific than that), Favreau wanted today’s Iron Man to have a contemporary back story and what could be more appropriate than Stark being held prisoner in Osama Bin Laden’s former hood, the mountains of Afghanistan. At first, it feels all too easy to place Arab militants as the face of the bad guys but the film vindicates its initial racial vilifying by exposing Stark himself (and therefore, America) as the supplier of these terrorists’ entire arsenal. It is Stark’s realization that he truly is one of the great mass murderers in American history that wakes him from his comfortable, privileged existence to a new dawn of using his position for positive change. After all, a weapon is only truly a weapon when it is in the wrong hands.


IRON MAN is not without its clichés. Stark suffers injuries in the Middle East that requires him to have some form of electro-magnetic contraption lodged in his chest so that little bits of shrapnel don’t seep into his blood stream and eventually cut up the arteries in his heart. So what if the ultimate playboy/loner now needs help to sustain a healthy heartbeat when he has walked around for so long acting like he never had a heart in the first place. So what if the man who has everything doesn’t truly have anything of real value. These kinds of truisms are the foundation of comic book characters; what genuinely matters is how the men are portrayed and Downey Jr. was born to play to Tony Stark. After rising to critical fame with films like CHAPLIN, personal problems with drug abuse led Downey to years of type casting as characters with drug problems in films like WONDER BOYS and THE SCANNER DARKLY. With IRON MAN, it looks like he might finally be able to wipe his past clean and achieve the heights his talent has always warranted. Though his body is in noticeably better shape, it is his quick-witted delivery and cynical yet sympathetic duality that make Tony Stark the kind of guy everyone wants to hang out with or just plain be.


So, what is Iron Man anyway? Well, according to this adaptation, he is the superhero for the modern era. He is sarcastic and skeptical but still hopeful and genuine with those he is close with (most notably, his perfectly matched assistant Pepper Potts, played just as delectably by Gwyneth Paltrow). He is a man who is capable of admitting his failures, not dwelling on them and then fostering a new path for himself. He is the kind of man that is both envied and looked up to. He is building himself a reputation as a superhero that can manage tremendous feats through intelligence and perseverance rather than just brawn and dumb luck. And now, IRON MAN is also a movie that offers perspective on the world around us at the same time as some awesome exhilaration.

ZODIAC

Written by James Vanderbilt
Directed by David Fincher


Melanie: Why do you need to do this?
Robert: Because nobody else will.

Who doesn’t like to play games? You face the other players dead on and you struggle to retain control over the board, keeping everyone else guessing as to what your next move will be. In the 1960’s and 70’s, one such game player, who called himself the Zodiac, decided all by himself that he would start his own game. He would decide who the players would be and he would make up all the rules. The stakes in his game though were a slight bit higher than your average game of Risk. Drawing his inspiration from a 1932 film entitled “The Most Dangerous Game”, where a man hunts other humans because he feels them to be the most dangerous animal of all, the Zodiac began a series of senseless killings that terrorized the people of San Francisco. And this was just the start for this game. The Zodiac sent letters to several prominent San Francisco media outlets, demanding that they print his confessions and their accompanying ciphers on their front page. Fearing that the Zodiac would make good on the threats his letters contained if they didn’t, the messages ran and the public went into a state of mass paranoia and fear. As the killings and messages went on for years, the Zodiac baffled the police and the public with a mystery that remains inconclusively unsolved.


Another man who clearly enjoys his game play is director David Fincher. In SE7EN, he toyed with our morals; in FIGHT CLUB, he split personalities and teased our collective subconscious; and in PANIC ROOM, he locked us in a tiny space and made us feel like we couldn’t breathe. He even made a movie entitled THE GAME at one point. For his first film in five years, Fincher plays with our basic need to understand and to make sense of something. ZODIAC bounces back and forth between an exhausting police investigation that spreads across numerous jurisdictions, the frightening killings themselves and the life of a cartoonist who develops a fascination with the Zodiac that eventually becomes a crippling obsession. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Robert Graysmith, the real life man who went from drawing satirical cartoons for the San Francisco Chronicle to writing the definitive book on the Zodiac killings. Graysmith is a natural when it comes to solving puzzles so when he is exposed through his position at the SF Chronicle to private information regarding the killings, he needs to piece this one together too. It is the mother of all puzzles and there is no way he can let it go unsolved.


Subsequently, we too need to figure this whole mess out. Fincher makes it so Graysmith’s obsession becomes ours as well by allowing us to have only certain pieces of the puzzle at certain times. The sheer vastness of how far the Zodiac’s murders were spread out meant that many clues went undeveloped because they needed others to be brought to light. Fittingly, ZODIAC is one of the darkest films I’ve seen. Yes, I meant that to suggest that it is twisted and sick like any serial killer film should be but I was referring more to Harris Savides’s stark use of lighting throughout. Light tends more to showcase than fill which keeps the viewer just as in the dark as the police and the San Francisco public. Even the humour is dark. James Vanderbilt’s script is dizzying as it travels back and forth between the vast number of lives affected by the Zodiac but he still manages to find laughs amidst a mass murder investigation. The laughs may feel awkward but ZODIAC is meant to be uncomfortable and, like any harrowing and consuming experience, it would be impossible to make it through it if we didn’t laugh every once in a while.


Captions constantly remind the viewer that time is passing by at a rapid rate yet at no point does the film feel long. While the passage of time reflects the reality of the events that took place, it also ensures the viewer knows how frustrating the entire investigation was. All involved went years without coming to any substantiated conclusions. With the central focus of their lives not making any sense, it became impossible to connect with the rest of their surroundings. ZODIAC is an intensely involving mystery that is both chilling and infuriating in all the right ways. It is itself its own puzzle remaining to be solved. Without understanding, there is no security or certainty. Just like a game of checkers or going out on a first date, success depends on figuring out the other player as much as it involves understanding yourself. The same applies to the investigation of the Zodiac killings. You will need to know how and why it happened but you will not really want to, considering to fully understand this mystery means staring into the eyes of a murderer who kills for sport. Good game, Mr. Fincher.

A SCANNER DARKLY

Written and Directed by Richard Linklater

Three men drive down an American highway on a mission. They are driving to a neighbouring city and they plan on partying it up on the way, while they’re there and all the way home again. Their drug of choice is Substance D, what will be the most popular drug seven years from now, when A SCANNER DARKLY takes place. While speeding along, the car breaks down. What ensues is a hilarious journey into the far depths of drug-induced paranoia. They debate whether this car trouble was pre-meditated, whether their home is simultaneously being ransacked by the same people who sabotaged their car … whether one of them actually anticipated this entire series of events and left the door unlocked and an invitation to enter taped to the front of it. Their plans have been ruined but what they don’t realize is that there was nothing special about this occasion as getting messed up is pretty much what they do every day. As ridiculous as this sequence is, it is also completely useless. It is one in a long string of pointless scenes that are told in a disjointed fashion to give character to what is otherwise a flat and uninteresting film.

A SCANNER DARKLY is director Richard Linklater’s second film to implement an animation technique called rotoscoping, where loosely flowing animation is laid over filmed live-action sequences. The results are mesmerizing and hypnotic. It is also a technique that is capable of accomplishing what most directors have struggled with for years. It creates the illusion that Keanu Reeves can actually act. Joining Reeves in this animated parallel universe are Robert Downey Jr, Woody Harrelson and Winona Ryder. Reeves plays an undercover narcotics agent named Bob Arctor, who can’t seem to differentiate between his personas. The drugs have blurred his existence to the point that he can’t quite grasp whether the images of a wife and family that he has in his mind are a memory or just an image. As his confusion grows, so does his addiction. The results make it difficult to ascertain what life Arctor is actually leading. Shortly before the film ends, Linklater reveals an element that explains all the jarring elements encountered along the way. Suddenly, the story becomes clear and it is seen as nothing more than a straightforward nark story. The explanation may solidify the arch but it doesn’t appease any frustration one might have, having spent so long trying to make sense of what one thought was something different.


Substance D keeps Linklater’s characters detached from each other and themselves. Although the majority of the characters are addicts without a history, Arctor fell into drugs as a reaction to the perfection he thought he had achieved in his life. Adapting author Philip K. Dick’s autobiographical account of how he fell into drugs, Linklater reinforces how people spend so much time walking blindly towards the achievements they always felt would make their life significant and full. The rejection of that comfort through drug usage ultimately leads to a much larger sense of discomfort. It makes the idea of getting close to someone in a sober, authentic context unthinkable and frightening. Finally, Arctor has run away from intimacy and finds himself wanting to have that again but not being capable of having it because his world no longer makes any sense.

The beauty of A SCANNER DARKLY is in its aesthetic. Remove that and I doubt the film would be watchable. Linklater’s previous attempt at this style, WAKING LIFE, was infinitely more successful because the technique lends to the psychedelic dreamscape setting and existentialist-themed conversations. Here, the technique is a life preserver for a bunch of drowning druggies.