TITLE & REVIEW
This is the animated story of a young Princess living in a fairytale version of Scotland.
She is a bit of a tom-boy, which is all well and good until it is time for her to be married.
She chases her destiny, and tries to get her mother to change her mind.
But an encounter with the local bear-obsessed Witch-woman leads to a magical transformation,
and a comedy of errors.
Our protagonist must reverse the spell,
while avoiding both a killer bear and her own father, a killer OF bears!
Kelly MacDonald is wonderful at bringing the protagonist to life. The cast of voice-actors includes Billy Connolly ( Boondock Saints ) and Emma Thompson , but MacDonald has to carry every scene and she does so magnificently. The Scottish accents are toned down so as to be understandable, although the one character who uses a genuine Scots dialect is unintelligible - a deliberate joke on the film-makers' part.
Visually the film is reminiscent of Disney's works. Comedy magic, a menacing monster and a beautiful princess ... It is child-friendly - there are scenes of mild menace, but any violence is off-screen. There is also an after-credits scene, for anyone willing to sit through five minutes of the names of all the Pixar staff (and their babies).
Adam Sandler (
Little Nicky
) visits mad scientist Christopher Walken (
Batman Returns
) and buys a Universal Remote Control.
It controls his entire universe!
Sandler has success at work when he fixes his sleazy boss (David Hasselhoff - Nick Fury ) up with his wife's friend ( Jennifer Coolidge ). However, he neglects his wife ( Kate Beckinsale ), so she ends up with Sean Astin ( Lord of the Rings ). But at least his daughter grows up to be a well-padded Katie Cassiday .
This is based on a novella by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and directed by Richard Ayoade (
The Watch
. It is set in a steampunk world reminiscent of the surreal settings of
Terry Gilliam
.
Simon James (Jesse Eisenberg - The Social Network ) has worked unnoticed in a Kafkaesque office managed by Wallace Shawn ( Princess Bride ). His life, ever on a downward spiral, gets worse with the arrival of a doppelganger - James Simon. Surreal events ensue, involving his love interest ( Mia Wiakowski ).
Sam Huntingdon (
Being Human (USA)
) and his friends go on a road trip across America.
One of them has cancer, and his last wish is to see
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
before its official release date.
While on their road trip, our heroes encounter lots of Cameos - including several by Seth Rogan. The movie really plays up the old rivalry with fans of Star Trek . However, to ease things over the film-makers have William Shatner ( Star Trek: TOS ) play a major part in helping the protagonists.
Wes Anderson
delivers a surreal, humourous effort that nevertheless touches a nerve.
It is set in a fictional Eastern European country.
After several bookend sequences, one inside another,
we learn about the hotel run by Monsieur Gustav (Ralph Fiennes -
Clash of the Titans
).
The story-within-a-story is set in the 1930s, when the country was run by corrupt aristocrats. What is worse is that the country lurches towards war. As a result, the military takes over and the country slides into fascism.
Slacker Gulliver (Jack Black -
Tenacious D: Pick of Destiny
) tries cliched rom-com stuff with boss
Amanda Peet
, and gets sent to write a travelogue in the Bermuda triangle.
He gets shipwrecked, and wakes up in Lilliput.
The Royals (Billy Connolly and
Catherine Tate
) like him, and he fits Marshall (Jason Segel -
Muppets, The (2011)
) up with the Princess (
Emily Blunt
) ...
The General, Chris O'Dowd ( Laura Pyper 's BF from The IT Crowd) realises that something does not make sense. Jack is still alive, and yet he claims that he died when the Titanic sank! Yes, the General is the one to root for. He is portayed as a villain, but he takes responsibility - compared to the so-called hero who cons a nation of people so they can build his dream home for him.
The film does have some good SPFX, though - if you like steampunk giant war machines - and the film was shot on location at Blenheim palace, so the architecture is spectacular.
The Coen Brothers
deliver another comedic period piece based on classic American cinema, like they did with
Oh Brother, Where Art Thou
. This one features two days in the life of Studio Fixer Josh Brolin (
Jonah Hex
).
Superstar actor George Clooney ( From Dusk Til Dawn ) is meant to be making a Biblical epic akin to Ben Hur . Unfortunately he is kidnapped and held for ransom. It turns out he is being held by screenwriters who have been blacklisted as communists. In fact, not only are they commies but there is a Russian submarine lurking off the coast of California, ready to take their leader to Moscow. Luckily, the ransom is pocket change compared to the studio's slush fund ... but it is sorely needed in mother Russia!
In an unrelated subplot, Scarlett Johannson is pregnant by Christopher Lambert ( Highlander ) Unfortunately, she is single and he is married to someone else. In the 1950s, an era of repressive morality, this situation would be publicly unacceptable. As a result, the Studio plans to have her fake an adoption.
The real show-stealer is the young Western genre star (Alden Ehrenreich - Solo: A Star Wars Story ). He is an expert rodeo rider who does all his own stunts, but is completely out of his depth when cast in a costume drama directed by Ralph Feinnes ( Grand Budapest Hotel ). Meanwhile, Channing Tatum ( G.I. Joe ) goes back to his dancer roots in a classic musical number.
This was written and directed by
Mike Judge
, best known for comedy cartoons like Beavis and Butthead and King of the Hill.
Since there appears to be a negative correlation between IQ and birth rate,
he has taken this to its natural conclusion.
As a result, we see what result the next five centuries of lowering IQs will produce.
A mad scientist cryogenically freezes a US Army soldier (Luke Wilson - Charlie's Angels ). Unfortunately the cryo-capsule gets lost, and the soldier wakes up centuries later in a post-apocalyptic future. Even though the protagonist is something of an idiot, IQs crashed so badly that he is now one of the smartest men alive.
The soldier falls foul of the local laws. Luckily, he gets a lawyer (Dax Shepard - CHiPS (2017) ). The bad news is, Rehabilitation in the future is public execution by Monster Truck, broadcast live on the Violence TV Channel.
The President (Terry Crews - Expendables ) hires our hero, and gives him a team including Sara Rue . The human race will die out due to a massive crop failure. Can anyone work out the meaning of the word isotonic in time?
Keith Lemon, inventor and idiot from Leeds, goes to London to promote his new invention.
He accidentally strikes it rich, and with the help of Verne Troyer (
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
) his wildest dreams come true.
However, he has to choose between his commitments in Leeds and his new life in London.
The plot is simple enough, a cliché used as an excuse to make low gags happen. There are lots of celebrity cameos, as one can expect from something with Keith Lemon in it. But the real joy of this film is to spot all the Belfast landmarks being passed off as parts of English cities.
Earth is visited by aliens who are only about an inch (2.3cm) tall.
Their spaceship is shaped like their captain (Eddie Murphy -
), and can pass itself off as a man named Dave.
Their mission is to retrieve a meteorite,
and use it to steal valuable minerals from the Earth's oceans.
Unfortunately the meteorite falls into the hands of a young boy.
The Dave-bot accidentally starts a romance with the boy's single mom (
Elizabeth Banks
, who looks nice as a brunette).
He has competition in the form of nice-guy Riley (
Buffy S4
).
Eddie Murphy's last really good film was Bowfinger - all the way back in 1999. But this is an under-appreciated film that deserved wider distribution and acclaim. It ticks a lot of boxes humour-wise. There is slapstick, fish-out-of-water misunderstandings, character stereotyping, bodily function references: Nothing too sophisticated, in other words. But nice and un-threatening, just a family-friendly film.
An Ordinary Joe (Jason Segel -
Gulliver's Travels
) and his glove-puppet brother go to LA to visit the world-famous Muppet Studios.
Along for the ride is Segel's Girlfriend (Oscar-winner
Amy Adams
), who is sick of taking second place in her BF's life.
Unfortunately, evil billionaire Tex Richman (Oscar-winner Chris Cooper - ) wants to buy the Muppet studio and demolish it. Our heroes must re-unite the Muppets for one last concert, to raise enough funds to save the studio.
This is a wonderful example of what movies used to be like. It features delightful musical numbers (written by the songwriter from Flight of the Conchords) and celebrity cameos, such as the unexpected appearance of Jim Parsons (Sheldon in Big Bang Theory).
Eugene Levy (
Splash
) is a scientist working on cloning.
His sidekick clones Kate (
Ali Landry
), and trains her to be his GF.
The result is a low-budget sex comedy.
This is based on the work of novelist
George MacDonald Fraser
, and directed by
Richard Lester
. They also teamed up for the 1970s
Three Musketeers
films made around the same time, so you should know what to expect.
Victorian military officer Flashman (Malcolm McDowell - Clockwork Orange ) falls foul of ambitious young German politician Otto Von Bismark (Oliver Reed - Assassination Bureau ). The result is a comedy-thriller pastiche of Prisoner of Zenda.
The all-star cast includes Britt Eckland, Rula Lenska , Michael Hordern, David Jason, Joss Ackland, Bob Hoskins and Bob Peck.
This is from a Canadian comic-book about twenty-somethings in Toronto,
ably brought to life by
Edgar Wright
(English director of
Shaun of the Dead
).
Scott (Michael Cena - Zombieland ) falls for a hipster chick ( Mary Elizabeth Winstead ). But before he can date her, he must defeat her seven evil exes - including Chris Evans ( Fantastic Four, Sunshine, Captain America ).
Scott also has to come to terms with his own exes, because his personal life has had complications of its own.
The visuals are incredible, bringing the story to life in comic-book style. The cast is also excellent.
Ben Stiller (
Tropic Thunder
) starts a Neighbourhood Watch.
Unfortunately his only volunteers are fellow comedy stalwarts Vince Vaughn (
Lost World: Jurassic Park 2
), Jonah Hill (
NATM2: Battle at the Smithsonian
) and Richard Ayoade (
The Double
).
Our mis-matched team carry on like a bunch of Citizens On Patrol - yes, this idea was covered in the Police Academy series a couple of decades ago. And then they discover that their suburban neighbourhood has been invaded by alien monsters that can pass themselves off as humans ...
This is a predictable bog-standard Hollywood comedy, mixed with a predictable Hollywood Alien Invasion. The one thing that is particularly impressive is the presence of Ayoade, a British comedy talent who has now transplanted himself across the Atlantic. He may be the new Ricky Gervase ( Invention of Lying ) - but this could be a curse for him instead of a blessing.
Gary King (Simon Pegg -
Star Trek: Into Darkness
) is not having a mid-life crisis, because he is still living the same life he did when he was 18.
He decides to pull together his old crew, for one last big pub crawl.
Eddie Marsan (
Hancock
) is now a car salesman, Paddy Considine (
Dead Man's Shoes
) is a construction engineer, and former Bond girl
Rosamund Pike
is along for the ride as well.
This is a typical British film about a midlife crisis ... enlivened half way through when it is revealed that the town's population has been taken over ...
This is a parody of the Biblical epics of
Cecil B deMille
, directed by Harold Ramis (
Ghostbusters
). Jack Black (
Tropic Thunder
) and Michael Cera (
Scott Pilgrim Vs the World
) are cave-men.
Things start to go wrong for them when Jack eats from the tree of forbidden knowledge.
The two idiots are exiled from the clan, so they go exploring. They meet biblical figures like Cain and Abel and Abraham (Hank Azaria - Godzilla (1998) ), who enjoy pastimes such as killing close family members and mutilating peoples' genitals in the name of religion.
Kevin James (Chuck and Larry) is a zookeeper who wants gold-digger
Leslie Bibb
to fall in love with him. He even gets co-worker
Rosario Dawson
to help him make her jealous.
This is not just a standard Rom-Com. There are shades of Dr Doolittle , because Mr Zookeeper talks to the animals! The Lion (Sylvester Stallone - Demolition Man ) and his fellow beasts give their keeper some helpful advice. And hilarity ensues.
This is what the much-hated
Ghostbusters (2016)
was intended to be – a female-led movie with an ethnically diverse cast.
The main difference is that this maintains the tone of the original,
while the 2016 effort was shallow slapstick intended to insult the audience.
Callie Spengler ( Carrie Coon ) inherits a remote farmhouse owned by her deceased father, Egon Spengler. Her daughter Phoebe ( McKenna Grace ) discovers grandpa's gadgets, and is set up to follow in his footsteps. Carrie also has a son, Trevor (Finn Wolfhard - Stranger Things ), but he is mostly there as a comic relief character.
The kids find some of their grandfather's stuff, and show it to their High School science teacher (Paul Rudd - Ant-Man ).
A nearby mountain contains a disused mine where the architect (JK Simmons - Spider-Man ) sourced the materials for the Temple of Gozer in the 1984 movie. Now it turns out that he had a backup plan.
After the events of the previous movie,
the entire cast seems to have moved to New York
and taken up jobs in the newly-refounded Ghostbusters Agency.
Gary (Paul Rudd -
Ant-Man
) and Callie (
Carrie Coon
) are still together,
although they have not bothered to get married yet.
The Spengler kids are working for free as child soldiers,
although in all fairness the boy has just hit eighteen
and so is technically an adult.
This is all paid for by Winston Zeddmore (Ernie Hudson -
), who is a rich philanthropist.
In comparison, Ray (Dan Aykroyd -
) runs a pawnshop and Venkman (Bill Murray -
Groundhog Day
) is a consultant who works for Winston.
They alone keep the supernatural monsters at bay -
the official government response is to only worry
about the property damage done by the Ghostbusters!
New York City has been overrun by ghosts. Not just the big scary ones, but more conventional day-to-day ones. Podcast (Logan Kim) has an outbreak of marshmallow men, which he says appear to be breeding. Trevor (Finn Wolfhard - Stranger Things ) tangles with another comedy-relief ghost. Phoebe ( McKenna Grace ) is the only one with a serious storyline. When she gets excluded for being fifteen years old, far too young to have a regular job never mind one that puts her life in danger regularly, she starts hanging around with Melody ( Emily Alyn Lind ). This relationship is apparently supposed to be a lesbian one, but in the cut of this movie available in the UK there was no sexual aspect to their friendship.
The containment system is still in the basement of the firehouse, where it is just about to hit bursting point. After all, it has been containing ghosts for four decades without ever being emptied. Ray and Janine later state that all the copper wiring in the building was stripped out by vagrants in the 1990s, yet somehow the ghosts never escaped.
Ray buys a magical item from Nadeem (Kumail Najiani - X-Files ), a comedy character similar to Gary and Trevor. He is a slacker whose grandmother accused him of lacking ambition, because he wanted to make his own way in life rather than dedicate himself to academic study. While the male ghostbusters are meant to be losers too, this way of life is actually most reminiscent of Phoebe ... the girl who should be at school getting an education, but instead wants to live a thrill-ride adventure pretending to be a grown-up.
Nadeem's magical orb contains a demon that will freeze the world, creating the frozen empire of the title. Nadeem himself was meant to be the guardian, making him a Magical Negro - a superpowered person of colour whose job is to help white people save the world. In reality, this trope could be any minority who provides exposition, such as the differently-abled parapsychologist lady in Poltergeist . For example, this movie also gets exposition from Dr Hubert Wartzki (Patton oswalt - Agents of Shield ). However, he is only in one scene which has him remind everyone that colonialism is bad.
All in all, this is not a bad film. It might be accused of having too many member-berries AKA call-backs to the original film. However, it is a part of an ongoing series so characters making in-universe references is perfectly acceptable. In fact, the reappearance of a couple of antagonists from the first film really takes this movie to the next level.
In 1989, BBC TV reviewer Barry Norman declared it was Year of the Sequel
because Hollywood had run out of original ideas and had fallen so low as to do sequels like
Ghostbusters 2
. This year (2016) we have a sequel (
Independence Day: Resurgence (3-D)
, a reboot (
Ghostbusters 2016
) and a sequel to a reboot (
Star Trek: Beyond
). Throw in yet another
Tarzan
movie and you can see a sparkling lack of originality.
The storyline is familiar. A bunch of misfits discover that ghosts are real, so they team up to save the world from supernatural terrors. So far so good. In fact, many younger viewers might prefer this to the original because there is more CGI and more humour derived from bodily functions. However, the film is not without its problems.
The problem of casting a reboot to a much-loved original was always going to be an issue. In fact, we are lucky they did not cast the predictable faces (James Franco, Dan Fogler, etc). However, the new take on the characters is not an improvement on the old. In the original, Venkman (Bill Murray - Zombieland ) is a bit of a slick conman. In contrast, the Kirsten Wiig character is a self-pitying victim. Melissa McCarthy is toned down from her usual level, and is noticibly less funny than in her other movies. Kate McKinnon , the mechanical genius of the group, is the best of the bunch. And the token black woman is a walking minstrel show, reciting every cliched negative stereotype of a black woman we have seen since Big Momma's House. Seriously, people should stop complaining about percieved racism on the Internet and pay more attention to it in the script. This movie could be taken as proof that a white hetero male, no matter how well-intentioned, can struggle when attempting to portray a woman of colour. Or perhaps, and this is a lot more likely, it is just a poorly-written script full of cliches and negative stereotypes.
The original team were middle-aged men who had to content with obstructive authority figures, who were also middle-aged men. The new team are younger women (McKinnon is only thirty, she was born the year that the original film was released), and they encounter a number of authority figures. The obstructive ones are male (cameos by the three surviving original Ghostbusters - Murray, Aykroyd, Hudson), while the helpful ones are female ( Annie Potts, Sigourney Weaver ). Yes, the Old Girl Network has helped women progress in ways that were impossible for men thirty years ago. Aykroyd's character had to take out a third mortgage on his parents' house to buy the old fire station, while the lady Ghostbusters just rely on handouts from the female-friendly authorities.
In the original movie there were three main female parts - the secretary, the love interest and the antagonist. Here these have been squeezed into a single role filled by Chris Hemsworth ( Marvel Avengers ). He is also the butt of a lot of jokes in the way that the original characters were not. Similarly, the nearest equivalent to the Rick Moranis character has been seriously downgraded The original character, Louis, was a somewhat successful (if nerdy) accountant. This new character is a loser doing a menial job, and he is so angry at society he has become an out-and-out villain. He shows empathy for the Black Ghostbuster, who does a similarly menial day-job, but despite him visibly being worse off than the women he gets absolutely no sympathy from them. Likewise, one cannot imagine any of the male Ghostbusters (even Venkman, who is a nimrod) speaking so dismissively to Janine as the women speak to Hemsworth at the end of the movie.
Serleena (
Lara Flynn Boyle
), a dangerous alien invader,
arrives in Central Park, NYC.
She teams up with Johnny Knoxville (Jackass),
who has gotten a lead on the McGuffin she is after.
Rosario Dawson
is the sole survivor of their rampage.
MIB Agent Jay (Will Smith - I Am Legend ) needs a new partner. Ell ( Linda Fiorentino ) has returned to the morgue, and Tee (Patrick Warburton - The Tick ) did not meet the job's exacting standards. Jay pulls his former partner, Kay (Tommy Lee Jones - Space Cowboys ), out of retirement.
Serleena takes over the MIB HQ, and interrogates the boss (Rip Torn - Beastmaster (1981) ). This leaves Jay and Kay to go off the grid, so they must stop Serleena without backup.
Nicole Scherzinger
breaks Boris the Animal (Tim Curry -
Rocky Horror Picture Show
) out of a maximum-security prison.
He has aspects of the villains of both previous films, nothing really new.
It is business as usual for MIB Agents Jay (Will Smith - I Am Legend ) and Kay (Tommy Lee Jones - Space Cowboys ). However, Agent Zed (Rip Torn - Beastmaster ) has passed away. His replacement (in a Jenny Sheppard kind of way) is Emma Thompson . But before we discover what she and Kay are hiding from Jay, Boris changes history and deletes Kay!
Jay must go back in time and save the world. The plan is to time travel back to 1969, then head off to Cape Canaveral for the Apollo 11 launch. Just like in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged me .
Time travel naturally leads to confusion. Each of the films gives a different version of Kay's life. In the 1950s he took flowers to his GF, and gave them to an alien ambassador instead. In the 1970s he had a doomed love affair with an alien princess. And here in 1969 he has UST with co-worker Alice Eve , who is meant to be the 40-years-younger version of Emma Thompson . In reality, they cannot be more than about ten years apart in age.
The bottom line is - This is a decent film. Better than the second, not as good as the first. But to anyone old enough to have seen the originals in the cinema (ten years ago for the second, fifteen years for the first!) it is just not original.
Agent H (Liam Hemsworth -
Ghostbusters (2016)
and Agent Tee (Liam Neeson -
The Commuter
) go to the top of the Eiffel Tower.
Their mission is to stop a race of alien parasites
called The Hive - like in
Dark Skies (1997)
.
Molly ( Tessa Thompson ) is obsessed with Aliens and MIBs, ever since she witnessed an incident in childhood. Instead of having a social life or accepting a job in the FBI, she works in a call centre and obsesses about UFOs. She breaks into the MIB HQ in NYC, where Agent Oh ( Emma Thompson ) recruits her as a probationary Field Agent. Remember how Will Smith had to pass a series of tests in the first film? Well, Molly - who is at best only qualified for desk work - bypasses the tests and gone straight to field work.
Molly, now Agent Emm, is sent to the London HQ. She is attracted to Agent H, so she convinces him to let her tag along on a mission. They have to escort an alien Prince, Vungus (Kayvan Novak - What We Do In the Shadows ) - who looks like poor CGI version of Fungus the Boogeyman. Well, it seems like the film-makers ran out of ideas.
Our mis-matched heroes must fight alien assassins, saveguard a superweapon, and save the world. In the original movie, Jones was the straight man and Smith was the comic relief. Now there are TWO comic relief characters - the male slacker and the female amateur. In case that is not enough, they team up with Pawny (Kumail Nanjiani - Twilight Zone (2019) ) - a THIRD comedy character.
H must contact his ex-lover, Risa ( Rebecca Ferguson ), who is an interstellar arms dealer. Luckily, Molly the shut-in is a world-class free-climber who can scale a sheer cliff without any equipment. This subplot is reminiscent of the Mission: Impossible movies that Ferguson is best known for, but Molly does not have the training of Ethan Hunt.
Finally, everything builds to the climactic Third Act. Nothing original, every cliche is used. Just like the rest of the movie, in fact.
Paddington (Ben Wishaw -
Perfume: The Story of Murder
) is a small brown bear from darkest Peru.
Being a CGI animation he can walk on two legs,
and he speaks perfect English.
He arrives in London, where he befriends the Brown family.
His story goal is to find a naturalist,
the man who - decades earlier -
taught the Peruvian bears how to speak English.
While Paddington searches for the naturalist, a hunter ( Nicole Kidman ) is on the bear's trail. She even recruits an ally - the Browns' local neighbourhood watch busybody, Mr Curry (Peter Capaldi - Dr Who ).
Paddington (Ben Wishaw -
Perfume: The Story of Murder
) has settled into life in London.
It is a strange, parallel version of London
where people acknowledge that he is a talking CGI bear
but they all seem to take it for granted.
Perhaps even stranger is the absence of mobile phones,
and the seeming lack of internet access anywhere.
This may be based on a set of books written in the 1950s,
but it certainly has not been updated for the modern day.
Paddington wants to buy an antique pop-up book from Mr Gruber (Jim Broadbent - ), to send as a gift for Aunt Lucy. To afford this he starts doing odd-jobs, which leads on to a lot of slapstick comedy of the type that appeals to young children. This section sets up a lot of visual gags that later pop up in the climactic Third Act. We are also introduced to Phoenix Buchanan (Hugh Grant - Lair of the White Worm ), a pompous actor who turns out to be central to the plot.
Someone burglarises Mr Gruber's antiques shop, and steals the pop-up book. Testimony from a forensics investigator (Richard Ayoade - The Watch ), plus the prejudice of the Judge (Tom Conti - ), lands Paddington in prison for the crime. He is stuck with hard cases like Knuckles McGinty (Brendan Gleeson - Mr Mercedes ) and Phibs (Noah Taylor - Powers ). Can our bear make friends with the unbearable convicts?
Meanwhile, on the outside Mrs Brown ( Sally Hawkins ) and the rest of the family try to catch the real thief. This leads up to a thrilling chase aboard a steam-train.
This film has been rated at 100% on the Rotten Tomatoes website, which put it above the long-admired masterpiece Citizen Kane. This was a matter of some debate among the general public when it was revealed in the mainstream media. So, is the film really that good? Well, yes it is. It not only overcomes a major hurdle by being a sequel better than the original, but it is a childrens' movie that managed to achieve financial success in an era when all movies have become YA stories rated PG-13. This is a film that appeals to all ages, with scenes that work on multiple levels. All in all, a very enjoyable film!
Dr John Watson (John C Reilly -
Gangs Of New York
) works for Sherlock Holmes (Will Ferrell -
Zoolander
). They live with Mrs Hudson (
Kelly McDonald
), who is apparently just a housekeeper instead of a landlady.
Police Inspector Lestrade (Rob Brydon - Johnny English ) is obsessed with convicting Professor Moriarty (Ralph Feinnes - Harry Potter ). Holmes searches for a different suspect (Steve Coogan - The Parole Officer ), but eventually has to ask for help from his brother Mycroft (Hugh Laurie - Stuart Little ).
Our heroes are given a pair of love interests. Watson is paired with Doctor Grace Hart ( Rebecca Hall ), and Holmes falls for her mute assistant Millicent ( Lauren Lapkus ). Of note, while the heroes are Englishmen played by American actors Ms Hall is an English actress who plays an American character.
A lot of the humour is about the Victorian era. We are reminded that over-the-counter medicine contained ether and cannabis, cocaine was deemed to be as harmless as beer, and electro-shock therapy was the cutting edge of medical technology. Conversely, masturbation was deemed to be a lethal form of self-abuse. We are also given some hilarious anachronistic references to modern-day technology such as the selfie photo and the drunken text message.
This is a 1988 period comedy.
Dr John Watson (Ben Kingsley -
Sound of Thunder
) is a master detective, a more skilled version of Arthur Conan Doyle himself.
However, he hires a bumbling actor (Michael Caine -
The Dark Knight
) to play his creation, Sherlock Holmes.
Together the bickering pair must take on the villainous Professor Moriarty (Paul Freeman -
Raiders of the Lost Ark
).
Ben Stiller (
Tropic Thunder
) is hired as a night-time guard at the NYC Museum of Natural History.
He has to dodge the boss (Ricky Gervase -
Invention of Lying
) and wants to seduce co-worker
Carla Gugino
.
His predecessors (Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, Bill Cobb) leave him a special set of instructions ... Naturally he does not bother to read them, or the story would lack certain comedic elements.
After sundown, the inanimate objects in the museum come to life. Jed the cowboy (Owen Wilson - Zoolander ) and Octavius the Centurion (Steve Coogan - Tropic Thunder ) are an inch high, but carry on constant war against each other.
Evidently the reason there is no CCTV in the building is that the boss is so tight with money he only bothers to employ a single security guard. Of course, this story is based on a book written in 1993. But even the 1988 film Mannequin had the idea of CCTV being installed to replace the night-watchman.
Ben Stiller (
Tropic Thunder
) has retired from the Natural History Museum.
However, he has to break into the Smithsonian to save his friends,
Jed the cowboy (Owen Wilson -
Zoolander
) and Octavius the Centurion (Steve Coogan -
Mindhorn
). While in there he also meets Amelia Earhart (
Amy Adams
), his new love interest - it seems things did not go so well with
Carla Gugino
from the first film.
The Pharoah's usurpatious relative (Hank Azaria - Mystery Men, Godzilla ) teams up with other ruthless historical figures and tries to take over the Smithsonian. This leads to the battle of the film's title.
Back in 1938, an American Archaeologist who dressed like
Indiana Jones
) discovered the tomb where the magic tablet was kept.
He discovered it in daylight, so none of the statues were alive at the time.
A posh-accented Englishman (Matt Frewer -
Max Headroom
) gets the mummies of the Pharoah's father (Ben Kingsley -
Prince of Persia
) and mother (Djaq from
Robin Hood 2006
).
In the modern day, the NY Met Director (Ricky Gervase - Invention of Lying ) gets Ben Stiller to hold a special exhibition. Unfortunately something goes wrong with the magic tablet, and it makes Teddy Roosevelt act like Robin WIlliams!
Stiller discovers that the only one who can fix the tablet is the Pharoah's father. He arranges to take the tablet, and the Pharoah's mummy, to the British Museum in London. The British Museum's security guard is a Mockney girl ( Rebel Wilson ) who is the equivalent of Jonah Hill in the previous film. She is not the only problem he faces.
Some of the familiar faces have tagged along for the ride. Roosevelt, Sacajaweyo, the tiny Roman and the tiny Cowboy ... as well as Laa, a waxwork neanderthal who was cast in Ben Stiller's image. Also, the British Museum's own waxworks include Sir Lancelot ( Vamps ), a mythologicial figure who somehow crept in.
Previously, the other films were about Stiller's interactions with a love interest - Carla Gugino in the first one, and Amy Earhart ( Amy Adams ) in the second one. However, they are not referred to this time - nor is there a third love interest. Instead, our hero's goal is to bond with his teenage son (who has decided he wants to drop out and be a DJ instead of attending college).
This is a parody of
Paranormal Activity
, a film from four or five years ago.
In fact, the half-hearted parody of it in
Scary Movie 5
seemed oddly behind the times.
The protagonist is Marlon Wayans ( Scary Movie ), veteran of many such comedy films. The actress who plays his girlfriend is a stand-out, easily the equal of such an experienced star.
Instead of relying on slapstick, this film builds characters and uses dialogue to create humour. A lot of it functions around everyone's dysfunctional sex life.
Rob Anderson (Marlon Wayans -
Scary Movie
) is about to get married.
Unfortunately he gets caught in a time loop.
Marlon Wayans (
Scary Movie
) takes a super-sense drug to pass college.
College comedy cliches and slapstick ensue.
The cast includes Rip Torn ( Beastmaster ), Brad Douriff ( Alien: Resurrection ), Matthew lillard ( Scooby Doo ), Jeanette Goldstein
