The Smurfs
I remember watching The Smurfs cartoon when I was a kid, but for the life of me, I don't remember what the appeal of the show was. I remember the appeal of stuff like Transformers or Thundercats, but the charm of Smurfs eludes me. Maybe it was better than the other stuff that was on during its Saturday morning time slot? The movie does very little to remind me of their appeal. The Smurfs are jolly, but very bland, blue little people who are described as being "three apples high", but seem a lot smaller to me. They live in a tiny village made up of mushrooms, fly around on birds, and generally spend all their time singing. They also are all named after their main character trait. Take Clumsy Smurf (voiced by Anton Yelchin), who acts as the film's underdog hero here. He's always tripping over his feet, or knocking stuff over. He wants to be a brave and heroic Smurf figure, but with a name like Clumsy, the others in the village generally avoid him. Our other heroes include Papa Smurf (voiced by Jonathan Winters), who acts as the wise and kind guardian of the village, Brainy (voiced by Fred Armisen), who likes to analyze everything, Gutsy (voiced by Alan Cumming), who is brave and adventurous, Grouchy (voiced by George Lopez), who is pretty self-explanatory, and Smurfette (voiced by recording artist Katy Perry), the sole female resident of the village.
Of more interest to me was the Smurfs' main nemesis, the evil wizard Gargamel, who despite living in a dark castle and wanting to capture the Smurfs, never came across as all that evil to me. But hey, it's a movie for little kids, so he's not allowed to be that scary. What's important is that comic actor Hank Azaria goes full tilt in his performance, giving us a sometimes hilarious live action cartoon villain caricature. He's obviously having a blast here, and hams his performance up to the skies, which kind of fits with the character. His partner in crime is a cat named Azrael, who is sometimes played by a real cat, but usually is portrayed by a CG one, so it can give comical reaction shots when its master's plans to capture the Smurfs fail. I liked the way little Azrael "talked" by making cat sounds provided by voice acting legend, Frank Welker. I also liked how the cat frequently seemed exasperated by the plans Gargamel came up with, almost as if it knew they were doomed from the start. While these two characters are not enough to save the movie as a whole, they are easily the most entertaining aspect.
The plot kicks off when the evil Gargamel stumbles upon the Smurf Village, which is protected by a magical barrier that usually makes it invisible to the naked eye. The six Smurfs that I named above get separated from the others during the chaos, and eventually find their way to a portal that warps them to Earth, right in the middle of New York City. Kids (and adults as well) will immediately think of the charming Disney fantasy, Enchanted, which also dealt with characters from a fairy tale world finding themselves warped to Manhattan. If only this movie had half the wit and the intelligence of that film. The Smurfs find a human friend in the form of Patrick Winslow (Neil Patrick Harris), an ad executive for a cosmetics company who is dealing both with the fact his iron-fisted boss (Sofia Vergara) is breathing down his neck to come up with a new campaign, and that his sweet wife Grace (Jayma Mays) is expecting their first child, and Patrick doesn't know what kind of a father he will be. Both Patrick and Grace get wrapped up in the stranded Smurfs' plight, and have to help them find a way back to their home, which can only be achieved with a magical potion and a rare blue moon.
It's a workable premise, but the screenplay (credited to four writers) gets bogged down in too many subplots. I doubt that little kids will care much about Patrick's problems at work and home, so why does the movie put so much attention to it? There are even some subplots that seem to be forgotten as soon as they're introduced, such as when Gargamel is briefly held in a New York prison. But, I guess the movie would lose its PG-rating if the filmmakers decided to go far enough with that idea. The Smurfs themselves hold very little personality. Clumsy wants to be a hero, and to be taken more seriously by his fellow Smurfs. Smurfette wants a new dress, and is happy to find another woman she can talk to in Grace. Kids will no doubt find this stuff hilarious, but I got tired of the antics provided by the little blue guys (and gal). Sure, they're kind of cute, but they're just not very interesting.
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Taking an approach similar to 2003's 
The central focus of the film is Cal (Steve Carell), a man who married young when his high school sweetheart Emily (Julianne Moore) got pregnant at 17. They had some more kids over the years, have a beautiful home, and seem to have it all, until Emily suddenly announces during a dinner date that she has been having an affair with a man at her office (Kevin Bacon, at his slimy best), and that she wants a divorce. Cal moves out of the house, and begins spending his evenings at a local cocktail lounge, wallowing in self pity over cheap alcoholic drinks. This brings him to the attention of lady's man Jacob (Ryan Gosling), who decides to take Cal under his wing, and give him a new look on life with a fresh wardrobe and a new shot of confidence. Cal is reluctant at first, but after his first successful night of sex with a flighty woman he meets at the bar (Marisa Tomei, hilarious here), he starts to enter the world of dating again. Yet, through it all, Cal misses Emily, calling her "the perfect combination of sexy and cute".
There are multiple other plots competing for our attention, as well. Emily has not yet entered a relationship with the man she slept with, and with all of their friends and neighbors taking sides in Cal and Emily's break up, it's hard for her to decide if she made the right decision or not. We also meet Hannah (Emily Stone), a young woman who after her long-time boyfriend (recording artist Josh Groban) refuses to propose, heads out for the same cocktail lounge Cal hangs out, and hooks up with Jacob. This begins a guarded relationship between the two - Hannah knows that Jacob is a lady's man, and that she probably should not get involved, while Jacob begins to feel true love for the first time during the nights he spends with Hannah. There is also a bizarre love triangle focused on Cal, the 17-year-old girl who babysits his kids, Jessica (Analeigh Tipton), who has secret feelings for him, and Cal's 13-year-old son Robbie (Jonah Bobo), who harbors not-so-secret feelings for Jessica.
I guess it could be considered a box office gamble that 
The ensemble cast also carries the film a long way, with Carell and Moore having a deep personal connection, despite the pain they cause each other throughout the film, that a long-married couple needs. They're both wonderful here, and are allowed to play their characters genuinely, instead of for broad laughs. The same goes for everyone else, really. Stone and Gosling create some genuine sparks with their somewhat limited roles, while young newcomers Tipton and Bobo successfully navigate a tricky subplot dealing with some sensitive issues about very young love. I think what impressed me about the film is not that it's funny (which it is), but that everyone is allowed to talk, act, and think like real people. These are not throwaway characters pigeonholed into cliched types.
It's not that the stuff with the aliens does not fit with the Western story it tells. In fact, it fits incredibly well. My problem lies with how cynical Hollywood seems to have become about life from other worlds. I've pretty much had my fill with movies where big, gooey, CG monsters travel millions of miles through space to arrive on Earth, just so they can lumber around and scream at the camera, or lurk in dark shadows, just so they can jump out and scream. The aliens in the film show no sign of real intelligence. They're bug-eyed beasties that seem to exist simply to be shot, like targets in a video game. Oddly enough, this movie was produced by Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard, two filmmakers who in their earlier years made movies that actually gave us aliens that had something to say, or that we cared about. Spielberg obviously had 
So, let's focus on what does work - the Western elements that are at the center of the story. As expected, the film opens with a stranger walking into town. In this case, the stranger is a man named Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig), a man who has no past, because he can't remember anything about who he is, or where he came from. He especially doesn't know why he has a strange futuristic-looking device locked onto his arm that kind of looks like a hi-tech bracelet, or why he has a mysterious wound on his body. Heck, he doesn't even know that his name is Jake, until someone in town recognizes his face on a Wanted poster. It's an interesting hook to kick the movie off with. Jake obviously has a past with the people in this town, but he doesn't remember a thing, not even how he got here. Not long after arriving in town, he runs afoul of the town bully, Percy Dolarhyde (Paul Dano), who is the arrogant adult son of the iron-fisted cattle rancher who runs the town. We meet Percy's father, Colonel Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), soon after, and learn that he's a cruel man who tortures his employees when they don't give him the answer he wants to hear.
Once again, we're intrigued. Here's Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford in the lead roles, and they are both obviously playing very dark men. Craig's Lonergan has no memory of his past, but everyone seems to know about a big gold heist he pulled recently. That gold belonged to Ford's Dolarhyde, and when he rides into town, a standoff begins between the two. This is right about the moment we would get a shootout in the street, but instead, strange lights appear in the night sky above. The lights turn out to be spaceships that bombard the town with advanced weaponry, and kidnap most of the local townsfolk. It's also at this time that Jake learns that the bracelet he has attached to his arm is actually a weapon capable of firing blasts of energy. Where did it come from? One of the villagers seems familiar with it - She's Ella (Olivia Wilde), a woman who has dealt with the aliens (or "demons" as the townsfolk mistake them for) before, and seems to know a lot about Jake's past, and what happened to him. Wanting to know more about these creatures, and rescue the townsfolk, Jake and Dolarhyde must make a shaky truce to work together, and ride off to track down the aliens with the help of some Old West cliches including the town preacher, bartender, a cute kid, and an even cuter dog.
As silly as it sounds, 
Like I said before, these aren't the smartest aliens to invade Earth. They've apparently come for our gold ("It's valuable to them", we learn.), and to study us, so they can learn our weaknesses and use it to their advantage when they come back with larger forces for a bigger invasion, I guess. Fair enough. But the aliens either just lumber about looking dumb, or they wait to jump out in front of people, and not do anything, giving the humans ample time to draw their gun and fire. The aliens also have the most curious feature - Their chests open up, revealing small slimy hands that reach out from their internal organs. What the point of this is, I am not sure. It does not really give the aliens any sort of advantage. It's also kind of silly and cumbersome when you think about it.
Regardless, this is a well-made movie. Craig and Ford have the grizzled anti-hero look and act down, and do a good job playing off each other. There's a pretty big cast of recognizable character actors that make up the townspeople, and everybody fills their role well. The effects, set design, and camera work all do a good job of blending the traditional Western with more modern Sci-Fi elements, without making anything seem out of place. In fact, I'm quite surprised the movie works as well as it does, considering there are five different writers credited to the script, with two more credited for the story. Usually in cases like this, the movie falls apart from too many people contributing ideas. But here, it holds itself up pretty well. I don't know if I'll remember much about the movie months from now, but I liked it enough while I was watching it that I'm recommending it.
The film is directed and co-written by Will Gluck, a man who made his directorial debut two years ago with the abysmal 
As the movie opens, we meet Dylan (Timberlake) and Jamie (Kunis) as their latest relationships have just bombed out. They both decide to swear off love right about the same time they meet. He's the head of a popular web site out of L.A., and she's a powerful executive recruiter who invites him out to New York, hoping to convince him to take a high level job working for G.Q. magazine. He takes the job after Jamie gives him a whirlwind tour of the city, which plays less like a scene from the movie, and more like a very long ad promoting New York tourism. Not long after Dylan takes the job, they start hanging out as friends. This is not surprising, since working at G.Q. is apparently very lonely, as the only other person Dylan has contact with at work is the sports writer (Woody Harrelson), whose job in the screenplay is to remind us every chance he gets that his character is gay. The movie keeps on cutting back to this guy, making us think he'll play some part in the movie eventually, but no. He shows up, makes a joke about being gay, then disappears. It's too bad, because Harrelson is likable here. He's just stuck with a nothing character.
Back to Dylan and Jamie - One night, they're sitting on the couch, watching a cheesy romantic comedy on TV. This is a funny scene, with a movie-within-a-movie sequence featuring an uncredited Jason Segel as the star of the film, which expertly parodies a lot of the cliches of the genre while playing it straight. As they watch the film, Dylan and Jamie show their disdain for Hollywood's simple-minded perception of love and relationships. The topic soon turns to sex and their own relationships, which leads to them discussing the idea of them having sex together as friends, with no relationships or emotional attachments to come between them. The two act like this is an idea that has never been discussed before, but I digress. Before long, they're sleeping together. Not long after that, they're having physical sex.
It's about this point that 
Timberlake and Kunis are at least good together, and are brighter than the material they've been given. They play off each other well, and get some laughs, but their best efforts can't rise above the mediocre plot they're in. There are some supporting roles for Patricia Clarkson and Richard Jenkins, as Jamie's mother and Dylan's father respectively, but they are both poorly used. Clarkson never registers as a real presence in the movie, just showing up from time to time to talk to her daughter. As for Jenkins, his character is suffering from a very convenient form of Alzheimer's that allows him to be sad and sympathetic most of the time, yet the disease seems to lift whenever the script finds it convenient, and he has to give a pep talk to his son about finding love. He too never registers as a real character, and mainly exists for a running gag where he's constantly found in public not wearing pants.
Stories like these usually start with a young everyman who has big dreams of being a hero, and this film is no different, as we're introduced to Steve Rogers (Chris Evans). With World War II in full swing, Steve is taken in with a desire to fight for and defend his country, but he is asthmatic, scrawny, and rejected every time he takes the physical exam to join the military. The special effects used to turn Evans into a literal 90-pound weakling during these early scenes are truly impressive. They've shrunken the actor with CG effects, removing a lot of his body mass, and make him look so frail that you almost think a strong wind would snap the poor guy in half. Steve's determination to serve his country is eventually noticed by a military scientist named Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci), who is conducting a top secret experiment to create a super soldier to fight against the Nazis, and wants Rogers to be his test subject. The crusty old military colonel Chester Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones) has his doubts about Steve, but Erskine sees the strength and courageous spirit locked within the young man.
As soon as Eskine's mind is made up, Steve is whisked off to a secret lab, where he meets some of the other people involved in the experiment, including inventor Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper), who Marvel Comic fans know is the father of Iron Man Tony Stark, and the lovely and no-nonsense Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell), who we automatically know will become Steve's love interest, because she's the only woman in the movie with a sizable role. Good thing she manages to have strong screen chemistry with Evans. At the lab, Steve is placed in a giant device, injected with a strange serum, and when he comes out, he's suddenly taller, buffed up, and possesses physical abilities far beyond normal men. He's given the name Captain America, dons a patriotic costume (complete with a shield bearing the colors of the American flag), and is initially used as a propaganda tool to drum up war bond sales. But when Steve's best friend and fellow soldier Bucky (Sebastian Stan) is captured by the enemy, Steve becomes a one-man army determined to free the American prisoners.
It's here that we meet our villain, Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving), who also goes by the name of the Red Skull, due to the fact that his face (when he's not wearing a human-like mask) resembles his sinister namesake, making him kind of look like the love child of Skeletor from the old 
That's not to say that Weaving doesn't try. He's been the go-to-guy for comic book villains for a while now, and could play the Red Skull in his sleep. At least he's not sleepwalking through his performance here, it's just that the movie gives him little to do. Fortunately, Chris Evans holds up better as the heroic Steve Rogers. He does a good job of balancing the super heroics as Captain America, while at the same time, coming across as an average guy who's been given a remarkable opportunity. He's a likable kid with fears and doubts. There's a good scene early in the film, when Steve is touring the city he grew up in with Peggy, and lists off all the places where he's been beaten up by bullies, or people bigger than him. It's this self-depreciating sense of humor, combined with his spirit and inner strength, that makes him a likable everyman hero. Despite his enhanced abilities, he knows he's just a regular person.
For all of its big action sequences, which are obviously heavy on the CG effects, there is a real heart at the center of 
This is a gentle little movie, perfect for small children, as it's not very long (even with previews and a short cartoon before the main feature, it barely stretches past one hour in length), has nothing big or scary in it, and features all of their favorite characters from the Hundred Acre Wood. Parents should not fear, as Pooh and his friends have not been updated in the slightest. They're still as charming, funny, and inquisitive as they've always been. The story begins as you would probably expect, with Winnie the Pooh (voice by Jim Cummings) waking up hungry, and going on a search for honey. Not long into his quest, he comes across his good friend Eeyore the donkey (Bud Luckey), who is usually always down in the dumps about something, but is a bit more down than usual, as his tail has gone missing. Pooh gathers his animal friends to hold a contest to look for a substitute tail, but none of the ideas seem to work right for the donkey.
A bigger crisis emerges when the animals turn to their human friend, Christopher Robin (Jack Boulter), for help, and find only a note where he should be. The note is innocent enough, saying that Christopher has gone off to school for the day and will be "back soon". However, Pooh and his friends make the mistake of letting the not-very wise Owl (Craig Ferguson) read and translate the note, who misinterprets it as saying that Christopher Robin has been captured by a creature known as the "Backson". Pooh and his friends set a trap for the creature, which leads to some funny gags with all of them getting stuck in their own trap. There's a subplot involving the ever-bouncy Tigger (Jim Cummings, again) trying to give Eeyore a new look on life, and some catchy songs by Robert Lopez (best known for co-writing the Broadway smashes 
As for me, I enjoyed the overall look of the film, which resembles a storybook come to life. The simple watercolor style of the art resembles illustrations, and I loved the way the characters would frequently interact with the words on the page, sometimes knocking them down into a big pile, or using them to form a ladder. The art style is a throwback, and features no modern touches, which is the way it should be with 
Of course, none of the films would have been possible without the imagination of original author, J.K. Rowling, who created not only a magical world, but one that has been extremely well thought out, executed, and has become deeper and more complex than anyone probably imagined. The joy of 
As expected, the film picks up at the exact moment the last film left off, with Harry and his friends still seeking the horcruxes that will make the vile dark wizard Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) vulnerable enough to be defeated. Voldemort has already located the ultimate weapon that he needs in his conquest, is still relentlessly tracking down Harry, and has begun to conquer Hogwarts with the aid of his loyal follower Snape (Alan Rickman), who is now serving as headmaster at the school. This is all a set up for the ultimate confrontation that we all knew was coming from the very beginning of the story, as well as an epic battle for control of Hogwarts itself, where characters that we have been following for years step forward either to become heroes against the invading dark forces of Voldemort's growing army, or casualties in the final battle. We also learn the long and tangled backstories of certain characters, who will not be revealed here. As a climax, 
With its growing cast of characters played by some of the finest British actors working today, it's almost been overwhelming keeping track of it all, but this film does a good job of not only keeping focus, but giving many of its supporting characters a chance to shine. While the main focus is on Harry facing his destiny, we also get moments for Ron and Hermione to cement themselves as heroes. Even wise old professor Minerva McGonagall (Maggie Smith) gets to take center stage for a little while as she helps to summon a shield to protect Hogwarts from the invading forces. Sure, we got a little bit of this in the last movie with the return of Dobby the Elf, but this movie really puts the series' love of its own characters front and center. Nobody is wasted or unimportant here. Loose threads left dangling from previous installments are resolved. And with the apocalyptic ruins of the once beautiful Hogwarts serving as the battleground, we finally get the big confrontation we've been waiting for.
And while spectacle certainly is not in short supply in 
As the film opens, all three of the men are under the thumbs of their respective horrible bosses. Nick Hendricks (Bateman) is an office drone who's been working like a dog for years in the hopes that his cold-hearted cynic of a boss (Kevin Spacey) will notice him, and give him the promotion he feels he deserves. Naturally, the boss winds up giving himself the title that Nick was gunning for, yet still expects Nick to work just as hard as he always had. Spacey is wonderful here, filling his portrayal with so much comic malice, we can almost feel Nick's frustration. Next we have Dale Arbus (Day), a dental assistant who recently got engaged, and now finds himself being sexually harassed by his female sex-bomb boss, Julia (Jennifer Aniston, playing against type, and doing a great job). She will resort to any means to have sex with Dale, and is not below using blackmail and threats of breaking up his impending marriage. Finally, there's Kurt Buckman (Sudeikis), who at the beginning, is the only guy happy at work. He's got a good job at a chemical factory, and is good friends with the kindly old man he works for (Donald Sutherland). But then, the boss has a heart attack while driving home one day, and the company is immediately taken over by the old man's coke fiend son, Bobby (Colin Farrell), who immediately changes things at the company for the worst.
So now, all three of the guys hate the people they're working for, and routinely meet at a family restaurant to gripe to each other about how bad they have it. It's during one of these conversations that Kurt throws out the idea that the world would be better off if all three of their bosses were dead. The friends initially laugh off the idea, but as things escalate at their individual jobs, it seems that murder is indeed the only option. They go to a seedy club to seek out a hitman, and what they get is Dean "MF" Jones. (I'll leave you to find out what "MF" means.) He's played by Jamie Foxx in a hilarious performance. Dean's advice is to follow the idea expressed in Hitchcock's 
Where the movie goes from here, I will not reveal, as this is the point that 
This is not just a funny movie, but it's also one that's been cast very well. With the three leads, Bateman makes a great exasperated straight man, while Day and Sudeikis get big laughs out of their observations and mishaps. And then there are the bosses themselves, which finds Spacey, Aniston, and Farrell (unrecognizable, and looking a bit like Tom Cruise in 
