Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix--I always hate when reviews compare a movie to the book, because it doesn't really matter if the movie is as good as the book. What matters is if the movie stands up on its own. And, sadly, I have to report that this one doesn't. The performances are great, but I just feel like they haven't really made a movie here--they've made visual Cliff's Notes for the book. Whereas the last two movies really hung together as movies, this one totally doesn't. Plot elements are chucked in quickly and then disappear before we can really process them--so we have to have Grawp, because he's instrumental in getting rid of Umbridge, but we only meet him for about a minute before that. I guess the bottom line is that you can't make a 2 and a half hour movie out of an 870 page book. Just as a point of comparison, Peter Jackson took eleven hours to translate just over 1000 pages of Lord of the Rings to the screen. And he cut out Tom Bombadil and most of the singing! I hate to say it, but this movie is an incoherent mess. (qualification--I did see this movie at a drive-in, which is an inherently distracting experience, so this may have intensified my feelings that the movie just wasn't hanging together.)
Ratatouille--A really good movie with a thoughtful, intelligent script that just happens to be family friendly. I really liked it. I especially liked the way the movie avoids most family movie cliches and formulas. Thus, no dead parents (well, some parents are dead, but it's more of a background fact than a big event), and no wisecracking sidekicks. Ahh, refreshing. And there are some really breathtaking sequences of Remy the rat running through various tight spaces. Also Brad Bird, who also did the Incredibles, seems to have tamed his Ayn Rand fascination for this one. There's still a slight sense of a super-talented elect, but this time around he's much kinder to the herd than he was in The Incredibles. If I may step up on my soapbox for a moment, though (and I need to, since I'm barely 5'5''), once again we have a villain whose physical shortness is a lazy metaphor for small-mindedness. We got this in The Incredibles where the contemptible pint-sized boss voiced by Wallace Shawn oppressed the huge Mr. Incredible, and here, once again, a tiny man tries to wreck things. I mean, Brad. Next time why not stretch a little and instead of falling back on a tired visual metaphor , make the really small-minded, petty characters...oh, I don't know, let's say black or Asian or something. No, wait, it would be wrong to use ethnic characteristics to signal character deficiencies. Okay, keep pickin' on the short guys, then! That's a quibble, though, with what is otherwise a really good movie. And it's a testament to how good it is that I really liked a movie that features the completely revolting image of rats swarming through a restaurant kitchen and doing all the cooking. I nearly barfed.
Transformers-- Robots in disguise! More than meets the eye! Oh, the cynical adult in me tried to surface a couple of times during this movie. "I think they could have trimmed the running time if they cut out the completely superfluous ridiculously hot girl," he said. Or, "Holy shit, the fate of the earth is resting on a handful of cars made by GM! We're freaking doomed! Why the hell couldn't they transform into Toyotas or something?" But he was completely overruled by my inner ten-year-old, who sat there going, "cool!" One touch I really liked is that all the transformers are really agile--not the stiff, lumbering giant robots you've come to expect. Anyway, the boy and I saw this together--that is to say, my actual ten-year-old, not my inner ten-year-old, and we had a fantastic time. The hours flew by and we just enjoyed the hell out of a great summer movie spectacle where lots of stuff blows up. If you are or ever have been a ten year old boy, I think you need to see this movie. On the political tip, I thought it was interesting that the government is represented by the Secretary of Defense, a cool, competent Jon Voight, and our one glimpse of the president is of a sock-footed simpleton asking for snack cakes in the midst of a national crisis. Stick around for the credits, as there's a straight-faced bit of incredibly biting political commentary that I really can't believe they let them leave in.
