J.D. Hansel

Parody

The LEGO Batman Movie Review

by

SPOILER WARNING

This film’s strengths and weaknesses both pertain to the issue of “heart” in film.

If not for the fact that this is a spin-off of The LEGO Movie, the writers would have been free to simply fill the entire film with fun Batman jokes and absurd mix-ups and lunacy that only make sense in an animated comedy.  The LEGO Movie, however, has a lot of heart to it that tied the film together nicely and offered a solid foundation for its comedy.  I argue that LEGO Movie is probably one of the better examples of heart done well because, by that point in the movie, it feels needed and welcomed, as opposed to being forced down our throats at the very beginning like in other family films.  I often think back on an argument between Siskel and Ebert (which I explained in my Scrooged review) in which Gene Siskel said Back to the Future II should have stopped to take the time to add more heart.  I think this is a fairly stupid position to hold seeing as how a movie should really bring in heart at times when it is necessitated by (and it necessitates) the story, but unfortunately, The LEGO Batman Movie makes its heart-warming scenes feel almost out of place, even though they inform much of the story and supply the main character motivation.  Somewhere in the crazy, convoluted mess that was the writing process for this film – consisting of a grand total of five people getting screenwriting credits – the story kept getting reworked until the final result felt like certain scenes were in the script simply to satisfy a “kids movie checklist” of some sort, and most of the bullets on the list pertained to grabbing the heartstrings.  Since I watched this film in a theater filled with children, it was very easy to tell that these scenes simply did not succeed at grabbing the audience.

The rest of the movie, however, is filled with the best kind of heart: passion.  LEGO Batman is one of those films with the rare quality of feeling like a great fan project was given a Hollywood budget and free range.  The film may be loaded with fan-service and a little too dependent on the laughability of previous incarnations of Batman, but it just loves its world and its characters so much that the passion is infectious.  The beauty of the thing, of course, comes from the fact that this is a LEGO-based film, so it can do things with Batman that couldn’t work with the real Batman, and that couldn’t work with a parody, but work perfectly in the space in between.  After all, who doesn’t want to see the Dynamic Duo fight off the gremlins, the Joker recruit Godzilla, or freaking Voldemort casting spells in the Bat Cave?  In a Batman movie that audiences took somewhat seriously, this would enrage people, and in a YouTube parody, it wouldn’t have much power or meaning, but in this movie, it is both official and non-canon at once.  Consequently, the writers were able to put Batman against all of his greatest enemies at once at the start of the movie, making the audience wonder where on earth they could possibly go from there, and then live up to that question by raising the stakes to a level that we never knew could be part of the game.  The movie somehow managed to bring back so much classic Batman material dating back to the 1940s (including an obscure villain played by Vincent Price on the 1960s series) and bring in great new material (Batman vs. King Kong, a touching Batman/Joker bromance, etc.) without feeling overcrowded.

My one regret is that the theater didn’t have more excited, happy Batman fans in it to laugh with me.  Please see it with friends and have a good time.

Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid Review

by

This film seems to have three aims: paying tribute to Classical Hollywood, parodying film noir, and successfully integrating actors from old movies into the film’s story only using footage of them taken from their classic films.  With its first goal, the film is successful.  The love that this crew and cast have for classic movies – down to the lights, sets, and costumes – is abundantly evident and infectious.  This is a perfectly serviceable “nostalgia fest,” but as a movie, it’s not that funny.  There are a few good laughs in the film, such as the spin on Lauren Bacall’s classic line, “Just put your lips together and blow,” but the comedy was generally underwhelming (and occasionally juvenile).  I think this is because the movie was both a tribute and a parody – it simply repeated elements of film noir and played them as parody if they seemed funny and as tribute if they weren’t.  Had the creative team focused more on putting comedic twists on the film noir tropes they were supposed to spoof, I think the movie could have been much better, but as it is, it almost seems as though the comedy was an afterthought.

For its third task, however, Dead Men is impressive and satisfying.  In a time before CGI, it’s hard to think of how Steve Martin could share a scene with a young Fred MacMurray, but this film pulls off the trick fairly convincingly.  It’s true that the difference between the scenes shot in the 1940s and the scenes shot in the 1980s is very noticeable from the film quality, but the effect is still better than Rogue One‘s cartoon Peter Cushing.  This is not only a technical feat, but a testament to great writing, masterfully crafting a story that can use old dialogue in new ways (besting even the interview collages of “Weird Al” Yankovic).  This third task is the part of the film that stands out – the part that shows Reiner and Martin’s intelligence.  So, as the saying goes, “two out of three ain’t bad,” but if the primary goal is for it to be entertaining and make people laugh, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid leaves much to be desired.

Silent Movie Review

by

Mel Brooks is known for writing clever stuff, and a lot of that cleverness is in the dialogue.  So, the question is, can Mel do a silent movie well?  I strongly believe that he did.  Silent Movie is delightful in every scene, with a fun cast of characters who are performed very well (with perfect timing of course) by Dom DeLuise, Marty Feldman, and Brooks himself.  The cameos are used well, and also add to the delight.

From a technical standpoint, the film is impressive, and ironically, I really liked this movie’s use of sound.  The music always fit the scene, as did the sound effects, and the score actually varied in style, but still felt coherent despite its different genres.  I liked the way the movie was shot and edited as well, and Mel generally does a good job with that kind of thing I’ve found.

While I thought the writing was very clever (since I laughed a lot throughout) and I thought the story had about the right amount of simplicity that it would need as a silent movie, there were a couple of things about the writing that bothered me.  Firstly, the characters were all sort of caricatures, and while the protagonist is somewhat relatable and down-to-earth, even he is too over-the-top to be relatable sometimes.  When this happens in a story that essentially is a series of attempts to get celebrities to do the movie, it is easy to stop caring about the story since one eventually grows tired of such a basic and simple plot.

I still think that this is one of Mel’s funniest films, which is why I am surprised that I didn’t hear about it much over the years.  I do not have much of a special connection to the film, or at least not like I did with High Anxiety, which is in my top 20 favorite movies.  However, I think I probably laughed more while watching this than I did while watching Men in Tightsor High Anxiety.  So, because I can guaranty that this movie will get a laugh out of anyone, and because this is probably the most family-friendly film Mel’s done, I highly recommend Silent Movie.

21 Silent Movie

Shaun of the Dead Review

by

I generally don’t like comedies that are filled with bloody violence, but after seeing the second movie in the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy, Hot Fuzz, I had to see the first, Shaun of the Dead.  Don’t think the blood didn’t bother me – I covered my eyes an awful lot.  However, the writing, directing, cinematography, acting, makeup, and effects, were all very good.  Several shots in the movie impressed me, as well as the jokes and foreshadowing.  Sadly, I am not familiar enough with the cliches in this genre to understand all the things that this film parodies, but the film is still pretty funny.

While I don’t think that this movie was quite as fun for me as Hot Fuzz, I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys zombies or dark comedies.

17 Shaun of the Dead

Hot Fuzz Review

by

I did not think that Hot Fuzz was my kind of comedy at all before I watched it, mostly because it seemed like just another one of those crude comedies that are filled with blood, extreme profanities, and anything else they could throw in to get the stupid college kids interested.  While to some small degree that may be true of this film (mostly just the bloody humor) this film was a pleasantly intelligent surprise.  This parody of action movies is the second installment of the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, and it is focused on an excellent police officer in London who is making the other officers look bad, so he is sent to do police work in a small village with no crime.  The village seems completely peaceful at first, but Constable Angel starts to suspect that the seemingly-accidental recent deaths of certain residents are actually connected murders.

While the film has a bit more blood and gore than I generally like, it makes up for that with scenes like the Romeo and Juliet scene, which I think is one of the funniest scenes I’ve seen in a comedy from the time period in which this movie was made.  It also is a very impressive action/mystery movie, with writing that carefully weaves together a brilliant plot that ties everything together, and makes every line of dialogue count.  Lines that seem completely insignificant all come back in the end, and really, the audience is being set up the whole time.  It’s really brilliantly written and performed very well.  If you like British satires, or if you like action movies, you’ll probably find something about Hot Fuzz to enjoy.

14 Hot Fuzz