Crime Capers & Surfing Penguins

So I was bored last night and decided to watch some movies on OnDemand. I am going to start this out by saying that yeah these movies have been out for a while but I just wanted to give a few of my thoughts and comments on them today basically as a jumping off point.
I may even do two blogs today if I really get rolling...who knows.

So first I watched Ocean's 13. I had really enjoyed the other two in this snarky caper trilogy and I figured I should really watch the third, even though people had been giving me mixed reviews. I am not going to summarize the movie or anything but I am just gonna say that I really liked the fact that this time it was 110% about the caper and not mucking about with love interests or any of that mess. What I had been expecting was that since Clooney and Brad Pitt already had their character's matched up with females that this time around it would be Matt Damon's turn. In a way it was, he did get to seduce Ellen Barkin, but this was more about their little plot than forcing a love story in where it didn't belong. And I am not saying that The first and second movies had love stories that were totally forced, but I just don't think that the love interest formula that they had used in the first two movies could have been pulled off a third time. It's better that they didn't go there. I really loved the fact of how bare bones the plot of this movie was. They didn't take a lot of time to establish the characters or to round up the group again. Everyone was their quickly and the job was on from the get go. Everything fell into place quick and we were into the action within the first 15 minutes. I really think that was the best for the 3rd installment. They didn't try to up the stakes and force in too much story where it didn't belong, which a lot of 3rd installments seem to try to do. I know that it is a totally different genre and might be slightly off the topic, but take Spider-Man 3 and X-Men: The Last Stand. I think that both of these movies would have been a lot better if they had a little less going on. It seemed that they wanted to force way too much story into their two hour time frame and wound up with a lot of rushing through plot and not giving enough time or explanation to anything. Now I am not saying that things should be dwelt upon or that things should ever be over-explained in a film, but you need to give important plot points their time to naturally grow in a story. I don't think that they should have brought both Sandman and the Venom plot lines into one movie. What we got out of both of these ideas in one film was a very shmaltzy storyline for Sandman who weaves in and out too quickly from serious baddie to a Dad just trying to make things better for his sick little girl. It was all too tacked on and shoved together to seem sincere.
I am getting way off track.
My point is that a lot of Part 3 movies try to shove too much in to up the stakes. Ocean's 13 thankfully avoided that. So I give Ocean's 13 9.5 banana stickers. They lose a half a banana sticker for having Eddie Izzard there but not using him quite enough.

So the second movie I watched was Surf's Up. Great great great great little penguin surfing movie! I have to tell you I was expecting something really lame and half-assed but this was such an adorable little movie, fun for the whole family, and all that crap. I am an avid fan of cartoons and what would be considered kids movies and there are so many that try to be fun enough to reach the parents too and so many totally miss the mark. This one totally hit the mark, and hard! What makes me a little sad is that this movie came out after Happy Feet when it is absolutely the superior flick.
And by the way, what the hell is up with Happy Feet? When I saw the previews for that movie I was so excited to see it. It just looked like a wonderful happy-go-lucky, singin' and dancin', penguin fantastic movie. I was not expecting it to take that sharp left turn and become so political. And what was up with the part where Mumble was in the zoo, and that other penguin was calling him Dave and he was flinging the fish at the wall cause he saw his family in the mural? That was all way messed up and kind of creepy. Folks, don't put super political messages and environmentalist propaganda into your children's movies, please.
But I digress, Surf's Up was so much more entertaining in general. Also, in my opinion, far superior than the last two Shrek movies, if not all three.
But I know I will probably be hunted down and killed for such an opinion. I don't get the soft spot everyone has for Shrek. I mean it was ok, but I never thought it was anything so totally new or spectacular, or even all that tremendously funny. Those movies have a couple really good jokes padded by a lot of really lame bathroom humor and really immature nonsense. And yes I understand that they are kids movies and kids like immature nonsense, but I mean come on guys raise the bar a little or you are going to be developing an entire generation of kids who won't be able to laugh at anything more intelligent than Larry the Cable Guy. The one thing that gets me is the the Shrek movies and most of the other Dreamworks animation claim to be "Fun for the whole family," which yes there are things in Shrek that everyone in the family can laugh at, but it varies greatly from joke to joke. There aren't a lot of jokes in those movies that everyone can laugh at together. There are the lame immature kids jokes that the parents won't laugh at and the innuendo and double entendre type jokes that will go over the kid's heads. I think that Pixar is much better at writing comedy that is truly for everyone, because unlike Dreamworks, which seems to go for the easy cheap joke, Pixar's writers go for jokes that come from cleverness or more genuine situational humor. Surf's Up was actually a Sony Pictures Animation film, but was much more in the spirit of what Pixar always seems to do. They bridge the gap instead of splitting the jokes up, diving them, one for the kids one for the parents. Surf's Up gives a lot of jokes that are based on timing and execution, really sharp humor that isn't mean or gross, and each of these jokes I think can be truly enjoyed by every member of the family.
My real gripe with the Dreamworks animated movies is that I personally see a lot of their jokes as lazy, pulling things out of pop culture and parodying them in the same old ways we have seen a million times before, instead of constructing their own jokes.
But that's just me.
So I give Surf's Up 8.5 banana stickers, they lose a banana and a half just because it didn't really have to be penguins and I know that the fact that the characters were penguins was more to ride the penguin bandwagon. I really think if they were some other animal this movie would have done a lot better. I think the design of the penguins was a lot better than Happy Feet. They seemed to have gone for this almost photo realistic look in Happy Feet that just didn't look quite right. Because they looked too real, when they had the characters moving their flippers like arms or even when they moved their beaks to talk it just didn't look right, mostly because penguins beaks and flippers don't move that way naturally, and when you are basing the design of a character on the actual physicality of something, then have those physical features do something they wouldn't do naturally it just flat out looks wrong. Damn that was some run on sentence.
But I think you get what I am saying. I mean come on, its a cartoon, we know it is a cartoon, so get creative with it and don't make your characters awkward. By making the penguin's in Surf's Up less like real penguin they were able to move more naturally. Seriously guys, when you have a movie about singing dancing penguins it is ok to anthropomorphize them a bit.

In summation, Ocean's 13 and Surf's Up both give me a little hope for Hollywood.