SHREK FOREVER AFTER: All I Want Is For Things To Go Back To the Way They Used To Be

Shrek Forever After (2010) – Directed by Mike Mitchell – Starring Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, Antonio Banderas, Walt Dohrn, Jon Hamm, Jane Lynch, John Cleese, Julie Andrews, and Craig Robinson.

SHREK FOREVER AFTER is a step in the right direction after the disappointing SHREK THE THIRD, but it’s also a sign that DreamWorks had run out of ideas to propel the SHREK franchise forward, so good on them for not making the planned fifth film.

It’s really pretty amazing that they wouldn’t make SHREK 5. FOREVER AFTER cost $135 million to make and brought in $752 million at the international box office, which begs the question if so many people are willing to turn up for a forgettably decent fourth installment of the franchise, why wouldn’t you come back for another round? Banking $600 million (give or take – these numbers never take the full financial picture into account) would fund another four or five CGI movies.

It drives certain filmmakers nuts that the public cares, let alone focuses, on budget and box office, and I can understand that. But when I hear that FOREVER puts $600 million in the studio’s coffers (just from the box office, let alone future, home-related profits), I do wonder if it’s financially responsible NOT to make another film. I think the same thing when I hear someone like Chris Nolan talk about how he refused to release Dark Knight Rises as a 3D movie – artistically, of course, I support Nolan’s decision (I have yet to see 3D develop to the point where the benefits outweigh the negatives) but when a studio is putting up $250 million for you to make a movie in a genre that has proven financially successful with 3D screenings, is it smart to leave that money on the table in exchange for the benefits of your artistic vision? It’s not like there still wouldn’t be a 2D movie, after all.

I’m not shilling for the coffers of DreamWorks and Warner Brothers. I just think it’s curious when an industry that plays for such huge financial stakes purposely declines to consume guaranteed additional money. Maybe putting out a 3D release of Dark Knight wouldn’t make a dramatic difference, but there’s no reason to think SHREK 5 wouldn’t be a guaranteed $500 million profit, is there?

Or maybe Jeffrey Katzenberg finally just couldn’t deal with the fact that they’d run out of SHREK stories to tell. Maybe that’s why we got a Puss in Boots movie instead of another SHREK film – and Puss‘ $400 million profit isn’t anything to sneeze at.

SHREK FOREVER AFTER takes on one of my least favorite stories to see in a movie: the alternate reality film. In comic books, I love the alt-universe stuff but I’m not a fan of it with cinematic releases because we get so few chances to see these characters in this setting that seeing them but not really seeing them isn’t my preferred way to experience a franchise film. By the fourth film in a series, however, we like these characters. I like Donkey and Fiona and Puss and I want to see Donkey and Fiona and Puss. I don’t really want to see Stranger Donkey and Warrior Fiona and Fat Puss.

Personal problems with this type of story aside, SHREK FOREVER AFTER isn’t a horribly film. It tells a pretty good story of how life might have turned out if Shrek (Mike Myers) never met Donkey (Eddie Murphy) nor saved Fiona (Cameron Diaz). In this world, Rumpelstiltskin (Walt Dohrn) makes a deal with King Harold and Queen Lillian (John Cleese and Julie Andrews) and as a result he becomes the King of Far Far Away. We get a nightmarish world where the ogres are in Braveheart mode and Shrek is desperate to undo the damage that he caused simply because he’s a selfish jerk.

It’s not bad, but it’s not memorable, either. The animation is once again top notch and Rumpelstiltskin is an interesting villain, but FORVER AFTER is the kind of film that if it was on TV during a lazy Saturday afternoon, I’d watch it if the remote was on the other side of the room, but flip past it if the remote was in my hand.

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My latest book, STUFFED ANIMALS FOR HIRE: THE CHRISTMAS OPERATION is now available for purchase in PAPERBACK and KINDLE formats.

SAFH is a kid’s espionage novella, but it’s also a tribute to the television shows I watched as a kid: The A-Team, Magnum PI, Knight Rider, Hardcastle and McCormack, Riptide, Dukes of Hazzard and generally any show where Post and Carpenter did the music. Recommended age? If you let your kid watch superhero cartoons or Knight Rider reruns, SAFH should be age appropriate.

Here’s the back cover description:

Jurgen the Gorilla. Throne the Lion. Bronze the Golden Eagle. Ray the Brown Bear. Bottle the Dolphin. Dev the Lynxwoman. 3 the Triceratops. Ptera the Pterodactyl. These eight stuffed animals make up the Return Squadron. For seven months they have worked together to return disconnected stuffed animals home. But now … on their final mission, the Return Squadron seek to steal the legendary Map of Everything. Before Christmas morning arrives, three of the Squadron will turn traitor, four will be stranded, and one will never see another Christmas.

PAUL: I’ve Been Waiting for This Since Mac and Me

Paul (2011) – Directed by Greg Mottola – Starring Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Seth Rogen, Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Blythe Danner, Joe Lo Truglio, John Carroll Lynch, Jane Lynch, David Koechner, Jesse Plemons, Sigourney Weaver, Jeffrey Tambor, and Steven Spielberg.

Much like Super 8, PAUL is a love letter to Steven Spielberg, but unlike the J.J. Abrams film, PAUL isn’t a celebration of Spielberg’s films as much as it is a celebration of what the films meant to fans.

We see this in evidence right from the start as Greame (Simon Pegg) and Clive (Nick Frost) make their first pilgrimage to Sand Diego Comic-Con. These guys are fans and I appreciate how they’re fans without an over-fetishization of geek or nerd culture, which is a trend that has pretty much run its course. They are who they are, definitely fans but also definitely themselves, too. Clive is a writer and Graeme is an artist, and they’re not just visiting from England to experience SDCC, but to take a road trip through some alien hot spots in the American West.

We stay in San Diego just long enough to establish that these two guys love their sci-fi, and then they’re off in an RV. At a roadside diner where Jane Lynch works, Graeme laughs along with two redneck stereotypes (David Koechner and Jesse Plemons), who decide to interpret his joviality as hostile instead of friendly. When Clive comes out of the bathroom, the two rednecks make fun of Graeme and Clive for being gay.

Which they’re not, but which is also a recurring joke in the film.

Graeme and Clive hightail it out of there and accidentally put a dent in the rednecks’ truck on their way out of the parking lot. Later on that night, as they stop to take some pictures at another sight on their stop, they see some approaching headlights and wrongly assume its the rednecks. Fleeing the scene, they are quickly overcome by the headlights, and as the car whizzes past, the car wrecks and the boys stop to have a look.

The rednecks are the worst part of the film because they are never anything but their base stereotypes. Many of PAUL’s conflict are derived from pitting different social groups against each other: nerds, rednecks, the deeply religious, the bad ass Mr. FBI Man, but only the rednecks never reveal themselves to be something more. Luckily, despite their introduction as the film’s first antagonist, they are not major players in the movie.

At the scene of the accident, the two Brits meet Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen), who solicits their help in him getting home. Grame proves himself the cooler customer, more willing to accept an actual alien in their presence, while Clive passes out and pees himself. From there on, we’ve got a combo buddy comedy/road trip with Paul the alien as the third wheel tag-along.

Paul is designed to be a mid-sized alien with very human tendencies: he likes to smoke and drink and swear, and there are times where this gets a bit much. There is some over-reliance on the comedy coming simply from Paul doing these things, as if an alien who swears is, in and of itself, inherently funny. Maybe if this film had come out in 1987, this would have worked, but now it already feels kinda stale – if Paul is intended to be funny, he needs to be funny irregardless of being a little grey alien with big blue eyes.

The most interesting aspect of this film is simply watching two different comedy camps come together. Up front is the Pegg and Frost duo as PAUL’s main stars and it’s co-writers, and in less-obvious roles are part of the Arrested Development family in the persons of director Greg Mottola, and actors Jason Bateman and Jeffrey Tambor. It’s a winning combo, with the deadpan-jerk humor of Bateman and Tambor blending nicely with the disbelieving-nice guys style of Pegg and Frost.

There is a third wheel here and that’s the inclusion of Seth Rogen as the voice of Paul. Mottola has a history with the Apatow/Rogen family, too, as he also directed Superbad and was a director on Undeclared, so Rogen isn’t completely alone here. Personally, I’ve had my fill of Rogen’s Big Loud Idiot type, and even though Paul doesn’t entirely fit that mold, Rogen’s voice keeps pushing the character in that direction. It’s hard to think of Paul as either intelligent or likable with that awful voice coming out of his mouth, but it’s certainly not enough to sink the character or the film.

Graeme, Clive, and Paul pull the RV into an RV park for the night, where they meet Ruth Buggs (Kristen Wiig), a one-eyed, over-protected daughter of a religious zealot. PAUL takes all kinds of shots at God and religion and Paul becomes the (celebrated) serpent in the Garden. When Ruth starts espousing her faith (and it’s not like she says, “I like Jesus,” because she actually says, “The world is 4,000 years old and God created it in six days.”) Paul loses his marbles and starts debating her from inside the RV’s bathroom, even though he’s supposed to be hiding. Paul ends up getting Ruth to turn away from her faith, in part because he shows her his entire life story through a mind link and in part because he cures her dead eye.

I have some issues with this – not as a Christian, because even though I was raised Catholic I don’t consider myself aligned with any religion these days, but just as a matter of logic. Simply because the Bible does not take aliens into account does not mean that their existence disproves the concepts of God and Creationism. I suppose the point here is that because Ruth is such a strict Christian that Paul’s ability to show her that the world is more than 4,000 years old becomes the crack that breaks the dam. It’s simplistic, but it fits the film’s general theme, which is that the group dynamic is more important than an individual’s personal issues.

I really like how PAUL picks up people as the film moves along. First, the road trip is about Graeme and Clive’s adventure, then it’s folds in the plot in getting Paul home, and then when Ruth is added, it folds in a subplot of self-discovery. It’s a really good script that’s only sidelined (like most comedies) by a weak joke here and there. The nice thing, however, is that PAUL is every bit as interested in telling a story as it is in simply telling jokes.

There’s plenty of nods to Spielberg (and the director’s voice even makes an appearance), but the funniest reference is when Clive (who feels like he’s blown it by passing out and peeing himself when he first met Paul) is trying to explain his actions to Paul and he says, “I’ve been waiting for this since Mac and Me and I feel like I’ve blown it!”

Mac and Me.

It’s a great reference because Mac and Me is widely recognized as a cheap E.T. knock off, yet that doesn’t mean there aren’t people out there who like the movie, which furthers strengthens the idea that Graeme and Clive are just regular fans.

It’s the combination of sci-fi love, camaraderie, and jokes that work better because they’re amusing rather than because they’re laugh out loud funny. I mean, how can you not like a movie that sees Clive referring to Paul as Short Round? PAUL hits all the right notes for a good time. It’s not hysterical (except for Jason Bateman, who’s very, very funny here), but it is constantly amusing.

SMILEY FACE: The Anna Faris Problem

Smiley Face (2007) – Directed by Gregg Araki – Starring Anna Faris, Danny Masterson, Adam Brody, John Krasinski, Jayma Mays, Marion Ross, Jane Lynch, John Cho, Danny Trejo, and Roscoe Lee Browne.

So if you’re a regular reader of the Anxiety you might be wondering why I’m reviewing a stoner comedy from 2007 in the middle of Catching Up with 2011 Month. The answer is not that I have run out of 2011 movies to watch. And while, yes, it is true that I’m caught between Netflix days (Frontier in Space and Super 8 have gone back, Fright Night and Attack the Block have yet to arrive), this review stems from a review of SMILEY FACE written by pal Derrick Ferguson over at The Ferguson Theater, a site you should be reading. (Derrick is also a writer of books that you should be reading.) This led to a comment by me over on Facebook that Anna Faris confounds me – sometimes I adore her and sometimes I can’t stand her.

And that’s what’s know as the Anna Faris Problem in my overworked head. Usually, with actors, while you may occasionally like or dislike their movie, you can say that you generally like or dislike them. It’s only recently that Adam Sandler has gone from an actor I like to one I don’t, despite the fact that he’s been in lots of movies I couldn’t stand. Despite the fact that Jay Baruchel has the single most annoying voice in the history of the world, I loved How to Train Your Dragon, which has him talking in nearly every scene.

But Anna Faris totally and completely confounds me. I want to like her, because she has the great vibe to her, but sometimes … sometimes just having her on my TV screen is enough to make me want to do the dishes. It can even happen with the same role – as much as I love her in Scary Movie and Scary Movie 2, I found her incredibly tedious in 3 and 4. I was incredibly psyched for Waiting, but found her and the movie wanting. I watched literally 3 minutes of Take Me Home Tonight before shutting it off, and she was nearly as annoying as Topher Grace during that time, which is quite the accomplishment. I had hoped she’d be entertaining enough to keep me interested, but it wasn’t to be. (And yes, feel free to hate on me for watching a movie for three minutes, declaring it sucks, and deciding to give American Pickers a chance, instead. Which was also kinda annoying.)

When Derrick reviewed SMILEY FACE and I let all of this out, he offered a friendly challenge – if I watched it and hated it, he’d watch a movie of my choosing to watch and review over at The Ferguson Theater. Since Netflix Streaming had SMILEY FACE available, it didn’t take too long to get to it.

The good news is that Derrick won’t have to review a movie of my choosing because I don’t hate SMILEY FACE. I didn’t love it, either, but there is one incontrovertible thing I did absolutely love about the movie …

Yup. Anna Faris.

Faris is so incredibly funny in SMILEY that it’s the performance I’ve always wanted to see her in. It’s the kind of performance that reminds you how awesome she can be when she’s on, even when the material is rather weak.

She plays Jane F, a stoner who spends the day, well, really, really stoned. The film opens with her stuck on a ferris wheel, talking to the disembodied voice of the great Roscoe Lee Browne, and then we spend much of the rest of the movie catching up to this moment. The film itself isn’t very good – she has a series of misadventures with a bunch of different guys as she tries to reach the Venice Pot Fesitval to pay back her dealer (an awful Adam Brody). Everything is set in motion when she eats her roommate Steve’s cupcakes (Danny Masterson) even though there was a note saying not to eat them. Too late, she realizes they’re pot cupcakes, so comes up with a list of the day’s activities: she needs to make Steve some new cupcakes, go to her acting audition, and pay off her dealer.

All of this means we basically spend 90 minutes watching a stoner make a series of bad decisions. Faris is really hilarious and totally committed to the role, but the rest of the film around her just doesn’t work all that much for me. When she’s waxing philosophical on the munchies, I’m engaged. When she’s pounding Doritos and sucking down orange juice from the mother (Marion Ross) of one of her ex-professors who thinks she’s someone else, I’m bored.

There’s a ton of guest stars here. Some (like John Cho and Roscoe Lee Browne) are good. Some (like Jane Lynch and Brian Posehn) are wasted.

Some of the scenes are really funny. Some aren’t. Luckily, nothing lasts too long as director Gregg Araki keeps things moving along at a pretty good clip. Strangely, I don’t really like any other character in the movie, or think they add much of anything. The point of everyone else is basically to play straight man to Jane’s stoner high jinks, and the result is a movie that’s funnier when Jane is by herself rather than when she’s interacting with other people.

I generally don’t like stoner comedies and SMILEY FACE isn’t going to change my mind on the genre, but Faris’ performance makes this a film worth watching. When we get a montage of how Brevin (John Krasinski) falls in love with her, and we see her basically eating chips or passed out on the couch covered in chips, I can totally see why he fell in love with her. Jane is one of those girls you meet every so often who’s a total wreck and yet also totally captivating. She’s the kind of girl all of your girlfriends will tell you doesn’t deserve you, and you’ll nod and agree when they say it, but it won’t matter. Once a girl like that hooks you, you’re stuck.