Rio

Rating: 3.5 Shurikens

Rio is an animated movie from DreamWorks, in the best traditions of Walt Disney. It is the story of a blue macaw named Blu, one of the last of his species, who is taken back to the land of his hatching to mate with the last female blue macaw. . The place of his hatching is the Amazon rain forest in Brazil, near Rio de Janeiro, hence the title. The movie begins in that selfsame rain forest when Blu, recently hatched, is captured by poachers who take exotic birds from their natural habitat to sell in America. Blu falls from the back of a truck in Minnesota,  where he is found by Linda, a little girl who takes him in and raises him. They actually grow up together, but Blu never learns to fly.

Linda's voice is the voice of Leslie Mann, whom I can't place in a movie role that I have seen. Blu's voice the the easily-recognized voice of Jesse Eisenberg, who was Zuckerberg in The Social Network, and also played in Zombieland. Years later, Blu and his human are doing just fine running a book store in Minnesota until the scientist from Brazil named Silvio convinces them to go to Rio so Blu can mate with Jewel, the last female of his species. The voice of Jewel is Anne Hathaway, who played Agent 99 in the remake of Get Smart, as well as The White Queen in the recent Alice in Wonderland. She is slated to play Catwoman in the next Batman movie. Silvio's voice is the voice of Bernardo de Paula, who is a relative newbie to the movie business.

Hijinx ensues when Blu and Jewel are kidnapped by poachers, helped out by a disillusioned and cynical bird named Nigel. Nigel, voiced by Jemaine Clement, was once a star who had it all, but now is reduced to a life of crime. The poachers plan to make millions off the rare blue macaws, along with a huge number of pilfered birds from the rain forest. Blu meets several other species of birds, both good and bad plus monkeys and a dog. Voices include Jamie Foxx and Will I. Am.The bumbling bad guys are reminiscent of Disney, and poor Silvio, the bird scientist, is ridiculous to the point at which he starts to drag the whole movie down.

The story is entertaining enough and the characters are sufficiently cute to get you through the movie. It does seem a little bit contrived in that it so much resembles the old theme of Lost Animal Trying to Find Its Way Home. It it never comes close to Madagascar or Ice Age in funniness, though there are a few good laughs. There is very little in the way of touching emotion like many animated features like Despicable Me and the Toy Story movies deliver, except very late in the feature.  The voice characterizations are passable but not outstanding and fail to add much feeling, so the animation is left to carry the whole movie. Also, there are some musical trivia points made with some favorite tunes from the past, and some nice cultural elements such as Carnaval and the depiction of life in one of the most populous cities in the Western Hemisphere.

All in all, I give this piece 3.5 Shurikens, for splendid animation, good storytelling, and for staying out of the gutter for the humor. The spectacle of #d and vivid color is worth seeing it in the theater, but I would wait for the matinee when there are some children in the theater. Kids can add an air of excitement to the action scenes, and the matinee price will bring it more in line with the actual value of the movie versus the ticket price at around 15 dollars fro 3D.

Your Highness

Rating: 2.5 Shurikens

Billed as a comedy and action movie at the same time, Your Highness dips into the toilet bowl for much of its humor. As an action movie, it is a decent story about a lazy and crude prince who is jealous of his brother's accomplishments, who yearns more for his brother to fail than to try to make something of himself. The plot is predictable, but there is plenty of action, and even through the very crude humor, the story is enjoyable. It seems to try to be something for everyone, but it doesn't have anything for children.

James Franco as Prince Fabious and Natalie Portman as Isabel support Danny McBride as Prince Thaddeus, who is the useless younger brother of Prince Fabious. Danny McBride costarred with Will Farrell in Land of the Lost, and some other less notable films like Pineapple Express. James Franco is a rising actor, having played Harry Osborne in the three Spiderman movies. We all remember Natalie Portman from her important role in the Star Wars prequel trilogy as Princess Amidala, and also from the movie V for Vendetta.

Fabious goes on quests with his Knights Elite, and enjoys the admiration of everyone in the kingdom, except Thaddeus. From his most recent quest, Fabious has brought back a virgin girl who was kidnapped and held in captivity for her entire life. He wishes to marry her, but the wizard who kept her captive has other ideas. He uses powerful magic to upset the wedding, and takes the girl back to his tower, where she is to meet her fate. Fabious and Thaddeus embark on a quest to reclaim his bride, Belladonna, played by Zooey Deschanel, who was Trillian in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. On the way, the princes are betrayed by someone in their midst, and when they flee, they are captured by wild forest people who throw them into a caged arena to fight a fearsome creature. They meet Isabel, who joins their quest to find the tower of the evil wizard, Leezar, played by Justin Theroux.

The story takes its twists and turns, but cannot pull itself free of the crude humor and references to maijuana, masturbation, and crude sexual references, some of which are funny in spite of being raunchy. In my opinion, the producers attempt to make a comedy more funny by adding the adult humor, but go to the toilet far too often to be called truly funny. Adolescent boys and immature adults should be rolling in the aisles, but anyone seeking an enjoyable time at the movies will have cringe at times at the crassness of this movie. Absolutely do not take small children to see this movie!

Other than the crass and raunchy crudeness, it isn't too bad of a movie. The action is good, and some of the acting is pretty good, and even some of the humor is pretty good. There are some decent special effects, and good camera work. Still, it is best saved for the NetFlix queue or the Red Box, but please don't watch it with little kids. At best I give it 2.5 Shurikens, crude humor taking away from a better production.

Hanna

Rating:  4 1/2 Shurikens

Saoirse Ronan stars as Hanna, a girl of 16 who has been living in the frozen North with her father, a man who is a former CIA agent. Hanna is a special girl, not your average teenager. She is the product of a government program that was attempting to create a super soldier.

Eric Bana, who starred as Bruce Banner in the Ang Lee Hulk movie, turns in an impressive action part as good as any with Matt Damon or Liam Neeson. As a man named Erik, he has been keeping Hanna in isolation and safety all her life, teaching her to fight and speak at least five languages a well as giving her an excellent home school education.

A particular woman agent who goes by the name of Marissa, played by Cate Blanchett, is interested in Hanna with malevolent intentions. Ms. Blanchett was Galadriel in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and also in the Hobbit movies yet to be made. She has had many noteworthy parts, but none as important as Galadriel, in my opinion. She was in Robin Hood as Maid Marion with Russell Crowe, and had parts in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and the most recent Indiana Jones movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. She makes a convincing female bad guy, who will bend any rule and work outside the system.

At the start of the movie, Hanna starts to get curious about where she came from, so Erik lets her have a way to civilization.  Hanna already knows that Marissa wants her, and is ready to meet her. Hanna is picked up by the American military and taken to a secret base in Morocco, which she soon escapes from. She is expecting to meet her father in Berlin, and her travels take her through Spain and Germany, while being pursued by some of Marissa's underlings. She makes some friends along the way, and has some interesting experiences. I don't like to say too much, because it might spoil a pretty awesome movie.

The premise of a super-human, advanced by genetic engineering, is nothing new. That fact does no detriment to Hanna, which is a top-notch action  flick with a lot of good fight scenes and a very high body count. It does break new ground in that the hero is female, and so is the main villain. This movie is good an long, but not at all boring. One thing I tend to dislike about action movies is the excessive use of camera angles which attempt to get 8 or 9 points of view in 3 seconds. This movie is not guilty of that. It is fast paced in places, but relaxed in others. It gives the audience a chance to reflect, unlike some action movies which are non-stop action from beginning to end, and exhausting to watch.

Hanna is a great action movie. It is also good and long. Perhaps the body count is a little high, but some death is needed for the story. There are couple of good scenes which are almost educational, one in Morocco, the other a lengthy Flamenco dance. It gets four and a half  Shurikens for a good story, a good cast, and really excellent action scenes.

Source Code

Rating: 4 Shurikens

The name of the movie doesn't really convey what the movie is about. In the movie, it refers to a secret military project that allows some one's consciousness to enter the time stream sometime in the past. The problem is that it can only happen eight minutes at a time. It is partly dependent on there being a catastrophic event where someone dies. The subject goes into the past and inhabits someone else's body, eight minutes before death.

The premise makes a nice jumping-off point for a time-paradox movie. Jake Gyllenhaal, most recently seen in Prince of Persia, plays Colter Stevens, a helicopter pilot who has been recruited to test the new system. He starts out not having been told what is going on, and soon discovers that the Chicago-bound commuter train he finds himself on is doomed to destruction. He awakens in his own time, to learn what has happened: A commuter train has been blown up by unknown terrorists, and they need him to find out what happened. They send him back again, and he re-experiences the events again. On the train, he finds himself talking to a pretty brunette, Christina Warren, played by Michelle Monaghan. She has been in a few good movies, like Mission Impossible 3 and Eagle Eye.

Colter Stevens is sent to the past, to repeat the same eight minutes, and every time, he dies. But each time, he gets closer to solving the mystery. His contact and handler is the lovely Colleen Goodwin, played by Vera Farmiga, an accomplished actress who has been in a lot of movies I have never seen. Jeffrey Wright is Dr. Rutledge, the inventor and head of the Source Code project. He doesn't turn out to be an overly sympathetic character. The cast is rounded out by Michael Arden, who is cast as Derek Frost, the villain of the story.

The movie explores the classic time paradox, in the model of Star Trek, in a story format similar to Groundhog Day. The story loses a little bit of credibility over the choice of  villains. The elaborate plot to blow up a train as a cover for setting off a dirty bomb seems too much for one man. It is difficult to imagine how one would be able to perform such feats by oneself. There would certainly be plot complications if it had turned out to be a terror cell, so the producers retreated to the politically correct solo crazy white guy as the antagonist. The movie is quite enjoyable in all other respects, but the villain is a definite weak point.

All in all, this movie will be worth seeing in a theater, given the spectacular explosions, even though it comes up against much stronger movies. I give it 4 Shurikens for an entertaining plot line, good acting, and a satisfying resolution.

Sucker Punch

Rating: 3 Shurikens

Sucker Punch is the story of a pretty young girl who is sent to an asylum by her step-father, who is trying to gain control of the inheritance left to her by her mother. In the intro, the step-father seems to have some sort of hand in the death of the mother, trying to get to her money. The mother's will leaves the money to her daughters, and in anger, the step-father kills the younger daughter and pins the blame on the main character, who we know as Baby Doll, and lands her in the asylum. The story takes place in the early part of the twentieth century, when psychiatric science was experimental, barbaric and somewhat cruel to the mentally ill. The asylum is a large, dark and ominous-looking facility in Vermont, which has residents who are mostly girls and young women. To establish the tone of the movie, the weather is cold and rainy, and there is no daylight at all throughout the movie.

The story is told in a fantasy format which is concocted in the mind of Baby Doll, played by Emily Browning. Emily played Violet, one of the Baudelaire Twins, in Lemony Snickett: A Series of Unfortunate Events, several years back. Her acting is passable, in that she delivers a sad and depressed-looking character, who in her fantasy worlds is athletic and determined to overcome all obstacles. Her fantasy is one where the asylum is some sort of hotel where the girls are used as slaves for the gratification of a seedy clientele. This is a psychological defense mechanism, and possibly represents a premise in the story that she may actually be slightly insane. As the story unfolds, there are several allegorical fantasy segments, fantasies-within-a-fantasy, so to speak. They feature most of the movie's spectacular action sequences, with all the violence a moviegoer can ask for. Much of the violence is directed at automatons and zombies, so we are spared large amounts of gore.

Baby Doll teams with some of the other girls to plot an escape from the asylum, form a team of fighters who do some fantastic deeds. She is joined by Sweet Pea, Rocket, Blondie and Amber. Sweet Pea is played by Abbie Cornish, who turned in a pretty decent performance as Lindy in Limitless, which is playing at the same time as this movie. See my review of that feature here. Her character is the cautious voice of reason, and the older sister of Rocket, played by Jena Malone. The other two girls are Blondie, a brunette played by Vanessa Hudgens, and Amber, played by Jamie Chung. The asylum staff are basically a crooked orderly named Blue Jones, played by Oscar Isaac, the actor who played Prince John in the Russell Crowe Robin Hood last year.


There is some pretty intense action, and some incredible animation as the different stories are woven into the fabric of the main story. The cinematography is subdued to the point where the movie is in black-and-white for the most part, and where color creeps in, it is muted. The style is very much like Sin City, The 300 and Watchmen, but without a graphic novel to be based on. The positives of this film, then, are good faced-paced action and  superb visual effects. The soundtrack is pretty decent as well.

On the downside, the movie is very loud, and most of the acting is decent at best, but nothing worthy of award. The title, Sucker Punch, means a hit coming out of nowhere, being a surprise to the one assaulted. The relationship between the term and anything in of the movie is unclear, and how it became the title is unfathomable. The ultimate outcome of the movie is less than satisfying, because the viewer enjoys some very spectacular action scenes which have no influence on the outcome of the movie. They merely entertain, but do not contribute. In the end, one does not get the feeling that justice is served, and the feeling of vengeance fulfilled is utterly lacking. I came away felling a little bit cheated. I can see using allegory as a vehicle when the ending is served, and have seen it done much better. I do believe that there are the artistic types who so badly want to produce art that they forget what a movie is for. They give us weird and unfulfilling endings in order for their friends to pat them on the back at cocktail parties. I would have ended it much differently.

I rate this one a wait, as in wait for the video on NetFlix, and enjoy a microwave popcorn on a Thursday night, rather than plunking down thirty bucks taking a date to the theater. You may end up owing your date a chick flick to compensate for the time you made her sit there. There are many good choices of movies more worthy of your theater dollars. This one gets 3 Shurikens, for cinematic artistry and really good CGI action, but an ending that does little to inspire.