Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius

Year 3, Day 85 - 3/26/11 - Movie #815

BEFORE: It's finally spring, and there's that certain feel in the air - winter's over, training's almost done, and our national pastime is about to begin - of course, I mean the pastime of drinking, since the beer festival season started today. I went to a new event called "Beer for Beasts", which was a benefit for the Humane Society. Finally, a chance to drink beer for a good cause - they have walk-a-thons for charity all the time - why NOT a beer-a-thon? So I spent 3 hours at the beer festival, found my way home and took about the same amount of time to nap and recover.

The end of my sci-fi chain - I could have worked in "Minority Report", "Terminator 3" and "Bicentennial Man", but I'm saving them for upcoming birthday weeks. And watching this film tonight allows me to devote Birthday SHOUT-out #23 to Martin Short, who does a voice of an alien in this film, based on the Nickelodeon TV series of the same name. Linking from last night, there simply MUST be a film connection between Mr. Short and his SCTV cast-mate Eugene Levy, who voiced a robot last night - ah yes, it's called "Father of the Bride II".

THE PLOT: Aliens abduct a town's adults; genius Jimmy and his friends build an interstellar spacefleet and rescue them.

AFTER: This was a pretty enjoyable film, I think it was even nominated for the Best Animated Feature Oscar back in 2001. Jimmy Neutron is a "genius" character, but he still manages to get in trouble, sometimes because he's so smart - here he gets grounded for using rockets and setting the house on fire. And his inventions sometimes fail to work, especially during "show and tell", which leads to his classmates questioning his genius.

Jimmy later sneaks out at night (odd, you'd think a "genius" character might realize that his parents are in charge, and that he shouldn't go out on a school night), to attend the opening of a new amusement park (also odd, you'd think they'd open on a Friday or Saturday night), and while he's out, an alien race which he'd been trying to contact beams away all the parents from the town.

At first the situation seems ideal - no parents means no discipline, so the kids in town all stay up late, stuff themselves with candy, and play until they drop. But Jimmy soon figures out what happened to the adults, and they launch an interstellar rescue.

Of course, to enjoy the film you have to believe that a kid can invent just about anything, and that he possesses knowledge of advanced technology, like jet-packs, time machines, robotics, etc. Once you believe that, it's a short leap to aliens and laser-guns, mind control, etc. It's hard to nit-pick with an animated film that's so far out (and so much fun), but you know I'll find a way.

NITPICK POINT #1: Do I really need to point out that people can't travel through space in uncovered rocket ships? For that matter, that even a genius can't build a spacecraft that can travel past light-speed, visit another planet, and get back in a matter of days?

NITPICK POINT #2: I realize they want to use only the characters from the TV series in the film, and that the TV series focuses on Jimmy and his classmates - but where are all the teenagers, or any kids older or younger than them? The parents get abducted by aliens, and the only people left in town are Jimmy's age? Did everyone in town agree to have only 1 child, born at the same time? I guess that way the town saves money on teachers, all the kids will be in the same class.

Also starring the voices of Debi Derryberry, Megan Cavanagh (most famous as the 2nd base-woman from "A League of Their Own"), Mark DeCarlo (yes, the host of "Studs" voices Jimmy's dad), Patrick Stewart (last seen in "Conspiracy Theory"), and cameo voices from Mary Hart, Bob Goen, Andrea Martin (another SCTV alum), Billy West and Carlos Alazraqui.

RATING: 6 out of 10 cans of Purple Flurp

Astro Boy

Year 3, Day 84 - 3/25/11 - Movie #814

BEFORE: Turns out there are no mistakes here at Honky's Movie Year - this film runs on a similar theme as "Metropolis", which featured a man making a robot in the image of his dead daughter (I think), and this film has a man making a robot in the image of his dead son. It could be coincidence - unless that's a very common theme in Japanese animation, I wouldn't know. Or maybe I'm just plain lucky.

THE PLOT: Set in futuristic Metro City, Astro Boy is about a young robot with incredible powers created by a brilliant scientist in the image of the son he has lost.

AFTER: I rather liked this one - a vast improvement over "Metropolis". Good movies often steal - I mean, borrow - from other films, and this one is no exception. Sort of like a modern-day "Pinocchio" (filtered through Spielberg's "A.I."), mixed with "Robots", set in a polluted future Earth like the one seen in "Wall-E", with a supporting cast straight out of "Oliver Twist". Stir in the action of a gladiator film (or is it "Battlebots"?), and all of the elements are in place.

Kids might just enjoy the action of the film, and adults might grok some of the higher ideas, like the environmental messages, the anti-war messages, and a parent grieving over a lost child. All that sort of elevated it and prevented it from being just another CGI special-effects fest, with slapstick comedy mixed in.

A pretty great voice-cast too - it's a shame this film didn't do better in the theaters, this is the kind of animated film I can get behind. I'm hoping that "Megamind" and "Despicable Me" turn out to be somewhat in this vein.

NITPICK POINT #1: Why did the scientist make a robot version of his son, instead of a clone - he had his son's DNA. Is cloning illegal in the future, or just too controversial now?

NITPICK POINT #2: At one point, the father asks his robot butler to conceal Astro Boy's true nature. Asking a robot or computer to lie is a bad idea - remember "2001"?

Starring the voices of Freddie Highmore (last seen in "Finding Neverland"), Nicolas Cage (last seen in "Honeymoon in Vegas"), Donald Sutherland (last seen in "A Time To Kill"), Bill Nighy (last seen in "Valkyrie"), Kristen Bell (last seen in "Couples Retreat"), Charlize Theron, Ryan Stiles (last seen in "Hot Shots Part Deux"), Eugene Levy (last seen in "Armed and Dangerous"), and David Alan Grier.

RATING: 7 out of 10 wrenches

Metropolis (2001)

Year 3, Day 83 - 3/24/11 - Movie #813

BEFORE: Now, why did I add this film to the list? I hate Japanese animation - even gave it another try last year with "Steamboy", and that didn't work. I think I needed to fill up some space on a DVD with two other animated films, and this fit the bill. And now that it's ON the list, there's only one way to get it off...

THE PLOT: Kenichi and his uncle must find the mystery behind robot girl Tima.

AFTER: Yeah, this is not my thing...The images from the movie hit my eyeballs, but they just don't register in my brain. I couldn't make any sense out of this film - there's something about a giant ziggurat, and a robot girl built to resemble the dead daughter of a Duke. But the Duke's son (who's not really his son, or something) is running around and trying to kill the robot girl...

Meanwhile there's a detective visiting from Japan (so where is this film set, then?) with his nephew, and he's there to arrest a mad scientist, who just happens to be the scientist that built the robot girl, I think...

The uncle and nephew get separated, and the nephew teaches the robot girl how to talk - all while there's an uprising of the human workers against the Duke, and the President uses the situation to arrest the Duke for treason - and this was about where I stopped caring about events.

I had a dream last week (and I so rarely remember my dreams) that I went to the Cannes Film Festival as a judge, and somehow I won a prize there for judging (which makes no sense) and then took the opportunity to visit a zoo or something, and feed a pastrami sandwich to a bear. The bear enjoyed it so much that he broke free from the zoo, and somehow tracked me down in New York, looking for more delicious sandwich meat. And THAT dream made more sense to me than this film.

RATING: 2 out of 10 girders

9

Year 3, Day 82 - 3/23/11 - Movie #812

BEFORE: I suppose I could have saved this film for Movie #900, or #999, or even Elijah Wood's birthday, but screw it. Earlier this week I was feeling rundown, then I got seven hours of sleep one night (a rare occurence for a weeknight) and I felt better. So these shorter animated features are very helpful.

Linking from last night, Sharlto Copley was in "The A-Team" with Jessica Biel, who was in "I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry" with Adam Sandler, who was in the recent "Just Go With It" with Jennifer Aniston, who was in "The Good Girl" with John C. Reilly.

THE PLOT: A rag doll that awakens in a post-apocalyptic future holds the key to humanity's salvation.

AFTER: Damn, I wish I'd known that this takes place post-apocalypse, I would have saved it for a later chain with "The Road" and "The Book of Eli". But I couldn't resist putting the two films with the number 9 in the title back-to-back.

This film is wildly inventive, and enjoys a great reputation in the animation community (I think) - but actually watching it, I found that it didn't make any sense. And I'm OK with fantastical, unlikely films as long as they make sense within their own realities, but this film gave me nothing to grab on to, explained nothing.

And any questions I had just went un-answered, and led to more questions - what is "The Machine"? How did all the humans die? What happened after that? How do you put a human soul into a rag doll? How, exactly, does all of this save humanity? It's just maddening.

Points for inventiveness, but no points for story or plot. You can't sell me a movie based only on its mood.

An aside about voice-acting, since I had to do some recording earlier today for an animated film. A couple months ago, I lent my voice to an animated production and I had to sound like a German general - and today I had to sound like an effeminate Frenchman. I know it's not easy - I have to workshop each character, just like any actor would - but in the case of Elijah Wood, he's basically being hired because the director wants a character to sound like Elijah Wood, so there's not as much heavy lifting involved.

Starring the voices of Elijah Wood (last seen in "The Ice Storm"), John C. Reilly (last seen in "The Good Girl"), Christopher Plummer (last seen in "Wolf"), Martin Landau (last seen in "Tucker: The Man and His Dream"), Jennifer Connelly (last seen in "He's Just Not That Into You"), Crispin Glover.

RATING: 3 out of 10 light bulbs

District 9

Year 3, Day 81 - 3/22/11 - Movie #811

BEFORE: Continuing with the theme of aliens (and alienation) - I was all prepared to give up on linking actors, since this film has a South African cast - but as luck would have it, Jessica Biel from "Planet 51" was also in "The A-Team" with Sharlto Copley, who has the lead role in this film. I got very lucky.

THE PLOT: An extraterrestrial race forced to live in slum-like conditions on Earth suddenly finds a kindred spirit in a government agent who is exposed to their biotechnology.

AFTER: There seems to be a glut of alien-themed movies and TV shows right now - "V" is wrapping up on ABC, "Battle for Los Angeles" is in theaters, and so is "Paul", a comic take on the little-gray-alien (looks funny, but it seems to be a ripoff of Roger from "American Dad", but what do I know). Yes, aliens are everywhere, except for in Earth's orbit, so I suppose I can take some comfort in that.

For this film, you have to imagine a point in the future where an alien ship has been hovering over Johannesburg for 20 years - and a million or so aliens (working class ones, I assume) have been set up in a shantytown with terrible conditions, which has become a hotbed for crime, prostitution (?) and illegal trading. The humans had infiltrated the alien ship at one point - perhaps to get their "unobtainium" - and discovered instead the alien population aboard, abandoned and malnourished.

It's easy to make the mental leap from the alien craft to one of those Chinese smuggling ships that ran aground in NYC a few years ago, or from the slums of District 9 to a ghetto during the time of Apartheid. And that's all just where the film leaps off from, we get this background information documentary-style, as the relocation of the aliens is being filmed for the news.

At some point the documentary turns into an action-movie (I barely noticed the transition) and the film centers on a mild-mannered government employee who's put in charge of the relocation effort. The aliens, who humans tend to call "prawn" due to their shrimp-like facial features, are not crazy about being re-districted, or about any of their living conditions for that matter.

What happens next is too juicy for me to reveal, but I did like how the plot was very entropy-driven, things keep going from bad to worse - that's a direction I can get behind. But even after seeing many alien-themed flicks, I can easily say that I've never seen a plot quite like this one - it might be gory and hyper-violent, but it's wildly original. And there's such a detailed mythology built up around the Prawn - someone clearly put a lot of thought into it. The closest film to this in theme is probably "Alien Nation", but this takes the concept to another level.

Like "Avatar", the film found a way to get me to root for the aliens, which is no easy task. In both cases, a healthy hatred for government officials and bureaucracy goes a long way - but this plot is more complicated, it can't really be summed up in 5 minutes like "Avatar" can. "Avatar" reaches further, but I saw the plot twists coming a mile away, and this one kept me guessing.

Plus, it laid a great ground-work for a sequel - is someone working on "District 10"?

NITPICK POINT: I appreciate that the film didn't feature aliens magically speaking English (as in "Planet 51"), and featured a complicated alien language (with subtitles), but since the characters need to communicate, we have aliens who seem to understand English, and humans who seem to understand Prawn, but neither speaks the other's language. I would have liked to see this addressed, if not explained. Sure, it works for Han Solo and Chewbacca, but that's a special case.

RATING: 7 out of 10 cans of cat food

Planet 51

Year 3, Day 80 - 3/21/11 - Movie #810

BEFORE: Out playing trivia tonight, my team was defending its championship from two weeks ago, but tonight we came up short and only made it to fourth place. That didn't leave me much time for a film, so a shorter animated film is warranted.

I'm back-tracking a bit to "Avatar", and riffing off the theme of humans invading an alien world. And another birthday SHOUT-out, #22, goes to Gary Oldman (last seen in "The Fifth Element") who does a voice of (I'm guessing) the lead villain. Linking from "Repo Men", Jude Law was in "Closer" with Natalie Portman, who was in "The Professional" with Gary Oldman.

THE PLOT: American astronaut Chuck Baker lands on Planet 51 thinking he's the first person to step foot on it. To his surprise, he finds that this planet is inhabited by little green people who are happily living in a white picket-fence world.

AFTER: There's an awful lot here that doesn't make sense, but it is a movie for the kids, so perhaps some allowances should be made. The bigger question should be, is it entertaining? Yes, I suppose. It's sort of neat to see a twist on the usual "alien-invasion" films of the 1950's. Of course, we identify with the American astronaut, but the culture on Planet 51 is so like Earth's, it's easy for the audience to identify with them too.

They have houses, cars (circular ones, but still), comic-book shops, a planetarium, and music that's amazingly similar to Earth songs from the 1950's. Good thing that the alien planet doesn't look too alien! And they speak English, American English even! The astronaut and lead alien character marvel at the fact they can understand each other - but it's not really explained, so I suppose that has to be NITPICK POINT #1. What are the chances against English developing on another world, one that doesn't even have an England? Good thing it wasn't Polish, or Swahili!

NITPICK POINT #2 - How does the astronaut survive the long trip from Earth to Planet 51, and back? The ship doesn't seem to travel at faster-than-light speeds, he doesn't seem to use a hibernation or deep-freeze chamber, and of course he doesn't have enough food to survive the decades-long trip. Am I being too technical?

Lots of references to other films, perhaps a bit too many - "Star Wars", "Alien", "Singin' in the Rain", "Terminator", "Grease", and "Full Metal Jacket", just to name a few. Are kids really going to get all of those?

I'm not quite sure what the take-away message is for the kids, either. Be yourself? Loosen up? Make friends with an alien? Fight the military-industrial complex? Maybe the message would have been a little clearer without so many characters bumping into things and falling down all the time.

Also starring the voices of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson (last seen in "Be Cool"), F.O.T.B. Justin Long (last seen in "He's Just Not That Into You"), Jessica Biel (last seen in "Valentine's Day"), Seann William Scott (last seen in "The Promotion"), and John Cleese (last seen in "The Day the Earth Stood Still").

RATING: 4 out of 10 protest signs

Repo Men

Year 3, Day 79 - 3/20/11 - Movie #809

BEFORE: Another future tale of medicine/science gone wrong? This time the subject is organ reposession. Linking from last night, Bruce Willis was in "The Bonfire of the Vanities" with Tom Hanks, who was in "Road to Perdition" with Jude Law (last seen in "Closer").

THE PLOT: Set in the near future when artificial organs can be bought on credit, it revolves around a repo man who struggles to make the payments on a heart he has purchased. He must therefore go on the run before said ticker is repossessed.

AFTER: Most science-fiction ends up revealing more about the year in which it's produced, rather than the year in which it's set. Replace Klingons, Romulans and Vulcans with Russians, Chinese and Japanese, and you learn a lot about the geopolitical culture of the 1960's that produced the original "Star Trek" series.

This is the kind of science-fiction that 2010 headlines produce - this film takes its cues from the bad economy, the mortgage crisis, the growing gap between rich and poor, the overall decline in Americans' health, and the debate between healthcare reform vs. socialized medicine. Throw in some advanced technology, and you can extrapolate a future in which artificial organ replacement is readily available, but expensive.

Or perhaps some screenwriter just got a notice from a collection agency after some unpaid doctor bills. Imagine the conversation - "What are you going to do, take BACK my surgery? Wait a second, that's a great idea!" - ironically, leading him to sell a screenplay and pay his bill.

Such postulation leads to the concept of organ payment plans (at 19% interest!) and also repo men who take back organs when the bills are past due - and that's as brutal as it sounds. It's like that scene in "Monty Python's Meaning of Life" when the organ collectors come to the door - only set in a dystopian corporate future similar to the one seen in "Brazil". Hmm, I wonder if F.T.O.B. Terry Gilliam has a lawsuit pending against this film - must check later.

Jude Law's character is one of the best repo men - until he has an accident, becomes an "artiforg" recipient himself, and finds he (quite literally) no longer has the heart for such work. And so he falls behind on the payments - what, no corporate discount?

I'm pretty squeamish when it comes to gore - and this film has some of the most graphic surgery, and violent combat scenes that I've encountered. When I was a kid I thought I might like to be a veterinarian, but came to change my mind when I realized that would involve slicing into animals. Maybe some people can do it, but not me - I have great respect for doctors and surgeons. And maybe I'm in the minority here, but it's not my idea of entertainment - parts of this were almost like surgery porn.

Fortunately, I'm an adult now, and I know that what's on screen is all done with special effects (I hope...) and I acknowledge it's just a movie, and a clever one at that. I was almost seduced by the film's ending into giving it a higher rating - but then I realized that any attempt at a message or allegory (they came close, something about meeting one's failing health with dignity rather than prolonging life with extensive technological means) was hopelessly buried under an orgy of violence and a mountain of pessimism.

I feel really lucky to be 42 years old, and to have never spent a night in a hospital - every illness or surgery I've had has been either handled out-patient or done in the E.R. - but if this is what the future of medicine looks like, then as The Who sang - I hope I die before I get old. But I'd like to think that medical science would develop alternatives - like cloning organs, or using ones from other animals - before the events depicted in this film come to pass.

Hmmm, there are actually a fair amount of plotholes, some of which I didn't consider - like how the corporation has the ability to scan for artiforgs, but not track them long-range (what, no GPS in the future?). Also, it would make much more sense to switch off the overdue artiforgs rather than track down the people and cut them open - was this some kind of ill-intentioned futuristic legal compromise? Anyway, I didn't notice those plotholes during the film, so the ruling stands.

Also starring Forest Whitaker (last seen in "Phenomenon"), Liev Schreiber (last seen in "The Sum of All Fears"), Carice Van Houten (last seen in "Valkyrie"), Alice Braga (last seen in "I Am Legend"), with cameos from RZA (last seen in "Derailed"), Yvette Nicole Brown (last seen in "(500) Days of Summer"),

RATING: 6 out of 10 scalpels

Surrogates

Year 3, 78 - 3/19/11 - Movie #808

BEFORE: The concept of people controlling artificial bodies carries over from "Avatar", and Birthday SHOUT-out #21 goes out to Bruce Willis, born 3/19/55, and last seen in "Live Free or Die Hard". Linking from last night, Sigourney Weaver was in "Working Girl" with Melanie Griffith, who was in "The Bonfire of the Vanities" with Bruce Willis. Bingo Bango.

THE PLOT: Set in a futuristic world where humans live in isolation and interact through surrogate robots, a cop is forced to leave his home for the first time in years in order to investigate the murders of others' surrogates.

AFTER: I sort of get where they were going with this one, and at first the futuristic concept of people living through artificial bodies seems kind of cool, and perhaps a logical extension of today's on-line tele-commuting and social networking. But virtual reality is like flying cars - it's a neat and easy element of futurama, but I don't know if it will ever actually arrive. Carmakers seem to have gotten distracted with hybrid technology and gas mileage, and they just haven't been watching enough sci-fi movies.

Assuming that people could someday project their consciousness into artificial robot bodies, I sort of see some of the benefits - they could put the best possible image of themselves out into the world, the youngest, best-looking version of themselves. And I concede that this might cut out disease (no pesky germs from handshakes or subway poles), but how would that cut down on crime? The movie claims that the use of surrogates has reduced crime drastically - so why is there still a fully-staffed police force and an FBI? Couldn't people just use their surrogates to commit crimes more easily - no fingerprints, no DNA left behind - and don't people still want to steal money in the future, to buy themselves better surrogates?

Then we've got the other problem - people's physical bodies are left in a room somewhere, in this virtual-projection chamber that looks like a tanning booth. Doesn't that body need to eat? (Note: this was a problem that "Avatar" addressed, but only briefly) And umm...go to the bathroom? (Note: this was a problem that "Avatar" did NOT address, perhaps that should be a point off its score) And what's the point of sending your surrogate out to have virtual sexy-time with another surrogate if a person can't physically feel it back in their chamber? (Or, do they? The film never addresses this either.)

It's a little interesting to see people in surrogate bodies, but also a little confusing when people start surrogate-hopping and look nothing like the person they actually are. I might have liked to see a little more difference between a person and their surrogate - if someone were horribly scarred or disfigured, it would make sense to use a surrogate. Bruce Willis' character's surrogate has hair, for example - but don't they have better toupees or hair plugs in the future? Most often in this film people just seem to use surrogates because they're lazy or don't want to clean themselves up - I just don't see that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

If you want to project yourself into a surrogate to go surfing in Hawaii, obviously you reduce risk of dying from a surfing accident, but you miss out on the experience of being in Hawaii. So I'm not seeing it. Surrogate soldiers, sure - but day-to-day living, no way.

I will award points, however - for some great action/chase scenes, with surrogate police models displaying super-human jumping and agility. And car chases have a different flavor when cars can mow down people on the street, since the drivers are aware they're only harming robot bodies.

But the conspiracy-plot was extremely confusing. It was hard to tell who did what, and why.

Also starring Radha Mitchell (last seen in "Finding Neverland"), Ving Rhames (last seen in "Mission: Impossible III"), James Cromwell (last seen in "The Sum of All Fears").

RATING: 5 out of 10 metal-detectors