Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992)

Here is another case of a fun and engaging story striking it rich at the box office, leaving Hollywood execs dreaming of repeat business with a sequel. The first Home Alone was a delightful romp through one child’s chaotic misadventures of surviving on his own and defending his home. Familiarity doesn’t quite breed contempt this second go around but a change in location isn’t nearly enough to keep Home Alone 2 fresh.

Once again, the McCallister family is travelling for Christmas, only this time they remember to bring Kevin to the airport with them. This small victory turns into defeat when Kevin gets on the wrong plane, ending up in New York City instead of Miami. Once there, he crosses paths with Harry and Marv, the dim-witted bandits he thwarted a year earlier. Kevin must rely on his wits and ingenuity to prevent the Wet Bandits from robbing a toy store and exacting their revenge upon him.

This sequel has plenty of humorous moments but at least half of the laughs stem from the formula laid out in the first film. The writers avoid a total retread by changing up a few pieces of the formula but Home Alone 2 looks a lot like its predecessor if you put it in outline form. Kevin gets separated from his family (this time Kevin is not actually at home), tricks people with movie clips and props, and sets up a series of elaborate traps to thwart the bad guys. Our protagonist also finds time to make friends with and learn a lesson from someone who is scary at first glance.

The centerpiece of this film, as with the original, is Kevin’s funhouse of carnage. This time around, Kevin sets up shop in an empty house undergoing renovations. This change to the formula is innocent enough to be believable but it also allows the writers to escalate the severity of Kevin’s traps because the house is already halfway torn apart and does not need cleaned up after the chaos is over. Almost every single trap sees Harry and Marv enduring physical trauma that would either incapacitate or kill a real person. Where I was supposed to laugh, I sometimes found myself cringing at the injuries that I knew a real person would sustain. For me, the film crossed the line where comedic violence ceases to be comedic.

In the first film, Kevin learned a lesson about the importance of family. This time around, the lesson is about the importance of friendship via a homeless pigeon lady in Central Park. This subplot is a stiff and forced version of Kevin’s befriending of Old Man Marley in the original film. Whereas the Marley developments were sappy but acceptable, it is glaringly obvious that the pigeon lady sequences are there to add some form of emotional depth to the film. We all know that people just want to see Kevin humiliate a bunch of sad-sack criminals. This time around, the John Hughes-penned heartwarming moments are just hollow, unwelcome distractions.

If you liked the original Home Alone, you probably won’t protest about much of what’s in this sequel. Kevin McCallister is still the same cute, clever, sassy kid we met before and the slapstick comedy of Harry and Marv still elicits a few chuckles and laughs. If you look closely, you’ll find out just how much of Lost in New York is repackaged goods but it’s still not a bad comedy sequel. A little disappointing for sure but still a safe distance from the bottom of the pile.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5

Misson: Impossible III (2006)

After the qualitative dud that was John Woo’s Mission: Impossible II, it’s a wonder that Paramount was even willing to entertain the notion of a third installment. Then again, the sequel put up good numbers at the box office and Tom Cruise was still a force to be reckoned with on the big screen. With director J.J. Abrams bringing his knack for savvy intrigue to the table, the end result is a whirlwind of a film that grips you more than either of its predecessors.

No longer an active field agent, IMF member Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) spends his time training new agents while hiding his job and past from his fiancé. When one of his former pupils is captured, IMF calls on hunt to rescue her. When the mission fails, Hunt is dragged deeper down the rabbit hole and goes full-on active duty again. Hunt and his new team must find a way to prevent a ruthless arms dealer named Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman) from acquiring a mysterious super weapon, sniff out a mole inside IMF, and keep Hunt’s wife out of danger.

Fans of the TV show Mission: Impossible have long complained about the film series and I am sure that any of those fans who saw M:I 3 did plenty of bellyaching. Perhaps Abrams drew from his work on Alias to form the foundation of the spy antics of this film. Gone is most of the long-winded exposition of how the plan is supposed to go down. In its place is a frantic pace and high-octane set pieces that grip you tight. Some fans of the series will find this approach refreshing while others may feel Abrams sold M:I out and emulates the secret agent mechanics of James Bond, Jason Bourne, and Jack Bauer. While the format does make this film harder to remember, I still found myself refreshed.

Abrams has been unafraid to take an unorthodox approach to his work on television and he is similarly unafraid to be unorthodox here. During what would normally be the key set piece of the film, in which Ethan Hunt breaks into a highly secure Chinese research center at the top of a dizzying skyscraper, the audience sees nothing. Rather than watch the frenzied smash-and-grab sequence, we wait outside with Hunt’s partners wondering what on earth is going on in there. Even the item he is grabbing, the Rabbit’s Foot, is never explained; it is simply something both our protagonist and antagonist want to get their hands on. It’s a total MacGuffin but the spy/thriller genre has always utilized that sort of plot device.

Because Hunt’s team members have been interchangeable over three films, the success or failure of M:I 2 and M:I 3 really lies with the villain. The first film introduced us to the determined and heroic Ethan Hunt, so emphasis on villain was minimal (and we didn’t know who the real villain was for much of the film). The villain in M:I 2 was a clichéd rouge agent. Mission: Impossible III features the most intense villain yet and Philip Seymour Hoffman deserves every word of praise he received for his performance. His character is so intelligent, resourceful, and vicious enough to make audiences feel that no one is safe. The level of ferocity that Hoffman injects into the film raises the stakes and helps make the break-neck pace feel warranted.

The plot itself may be forgettable but I walked away from this film marveling at how exciting it was. It boasts an excellent villain, slick directing, and a flurry of intense action sequences. In short, this is the kind of stuff we should expect from a spy flick. It’s not as convoluted as the original and not bogged down with the silly and intricate choreographed violence of M:I 2. It’s a fine cat-and-mouse game and stands, in my mind, as the best of the three M:I films thus far. It is also easily the most underrated film in the series. If M:I 2 turned you off to the series, do yourself a favor and check this one out. Chances are you won’t be disappointed.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5

2012 (2009)

Michael Bay may be the master of blowing things up in Hollywood, but when your script calls for apocalyptic destruction on a global scale, look no further than Roland Emmerich. Love him or hate him, Emmerich has created special-effects heavy disaster popcorn flicks for a generation. If you are looking for big, dumb action, then this film is nearly perfect. If you are looking for an engaging disaster flick with believable human drama, well, let me remind you that this is a Roland Emmerich film.

In 2009, geologist Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) discovers that neutrinos from major solar flare activity are baking the Earth’s core. He estimates that within three years, this will cause the Earth’s crust to destabilize and the poles to shift, causing global destruction. Three years later, science-fiction writer and limo driver Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) scrambles to save his children, his ex-wife (Amanda Peet), and her boyfriend (Thomas McCarthy) from the end of the world. Along the way, secrets are uncovered, revealing who knew what, when they knew it, and how world leaders planned to survive the cataclysm.

There are some obvious missteps throughout this film. Right off the bat, you don’t hire John Cusack to be your everyman-turned-apocalypse-hero if you want your film to be believable. Second, if you’re going to tear the world apart, make sure you do so in a consistent and believable way. Is half of what we’re seeing even physically or geologically possible? Finally, divvy up the action between a few different groups of people. By the end of this film everyone in the audience will balk at all the coincidence and lucky timing that brought Jackson and his family through so many intense and crazy sequences unscathed. It is simply a pill that cannot be swallowed.

If nothing else, 2012 is frustrating to watch because I quickly saw enormous amounts of potential in the story. This is a broad, sweeping epic that would make for a great miniseries or even a full-on TV show if it were to be done correctly. Instead, every single plot line and story arc is rushed and condensed to fit an all-too-confining 158-minute runtime. While it seems strange to say that two and a half hours is not enough time to tell a story, it is definitely the case with 2012.

Many of the characters have solid foundations even if they are saddled with disaster clichés and stereotypes. You’ve got the family man trying to survive, a scientist trying to help humanity any way he can, and several colorful supporting characters that grow on you over the course of the film. This makes it all the more irritating when some of these folks die toward the end. If you’re going to spend two hours warming us up to annoying but appreciable characters, don’t kill them off to serve the obvious conclusion. In the 21st century, it should be okay to mix things up a little with who lives and who dies, especially when these characters have promise in a post-disaster world.

2012 is a film that tries to do too much. At its core, it strives to be a straightforward disaster drama. This goal is undermined by too many of the illogical character decisions and occurrences that plague the sub-genre. It even gives up on being a straight drama at times by throwing in silly gags and deaths intended to draw chuckles from the typical summer audience crowd. I would easily trade much of the CGI disaster stuff in this film for a tense conspiracy thriller about the chilling behind-the-scenes lottery that selects which of the world’s richest and most powerful have the clout and money to survive impending doom while the rest of the world is kept in the dark.

There is enough bad CGI, acting, and writing in this film to make you wonder why my rating is as high as it is. But I assure you that outlining all the best parts of this film leaves you with the framework for something potentially great. It's too bad 2012 turns out to be another case of a great concept ruined by terrible execution.

RATING: 2.25 out of 5

Tron (1982)

The geek in me went nuts for this film. As someone who grew up without photorealistic video games at the mall arcade or my uncle’s Nintendo, Tron looks very much like my childhood gaming experience come to life. The story may be far-fetched and character motivations suspect, but the computer world seen here is perfectly realized.

Software engineer and video game designer Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) is out to prove that a rival programmer (David Warner) stole his designs. To prove it, Flynn breaks into his former place of employment to hack the mainframe and find the evidence. The mainframe, called Master Control Panel (MCP for short) fights back by blasting Flynn with an experimental laser. This digitizes Flynn and brings him inside the computer world. As Flynn seeks a way out of his digital prison, he joins a band of computer programs that resist the MCP’s tyrannical thirst for power and control over the entire world’s computer systems.

When it comes to movies, I am all about understanding context. Sometimes I fail in that quest but I always try to understand a film and its impact as of its release date. Needless to say, many of the visual effects in Tron blew me away. Most are obviously dated now, but only a few of them look really bad by today’s standards. A few still look impressive yet today. Younger audiences will probably have a harder time appreciating this film because you have to understand what 80s and early 90s games looked like. Everyone else in the know will appreciate just how the filmmakers conceptualized a 1980s inside-the-computer world.

Are there problems? Sure. Flynn is really only interested in proving that he was ripped off. The only reason he joins the resistance movement is because he has to in order to find a way back to his world. Sure, he comes to appreciate the conflict against the MCP but that’s really only because it has it out for him. There is never an emotional attachment between Flynn and the program characters he meets along the way. There is a similar emotional disconnect between the computer world characters and the audience. The program characters never act human enough for us to be truly concerned about them.

Throughout the film, I found many elements that appear in later films. I was particularly struck by how similar this film was in many ways to The Matrix. Flynn is very much Neo, able to manipulate the computer world because he is special (in Flynn’s case, he is a ‘user’ or non-program). For a film that has largely been relegated to the cult-classic bin, Tron’s influence on later sci-fi is undeniable.

Tron continues to be an innovative and dazzling film. The pace lags at times but those slow points allow sci-fi geeks like me to examine the technical aspects of the film more deeply. It may not appeal to general audiences en mass, but it is a smart, daring film that is perfect for those who don’t mind veering off the beaten track of Hollywood blockbusters, Oscar bait, and formulaic genre flicks. As tempted as I am to nudge this film’s rating higher, I have to shrug off my personal bias and give it a fair score because there are a few bugs in Tron’s system.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5

Dinosaur (2000)

If you ever wondered what the adult dinosaurs were doing during The Land Before Time, here’s your answer. A massive and expensive undertaking that features real backgrounds and CGI dinosaurs, this film aimed to be something of an industry game changer. It may have hit pay dirt, but this film understandably lands with something between a thud and a flop on Disney’s all-time best list.

A family of Cretaceous-era lemurs adopt an Iguanodon hatchling abandoned during a Carnotaurus attack. As an adult, Aladar and his adopted family flee extinction when an asteroid collides with the Earth, causing widespread devastation. Herbivores of all species band together in a quest to find the Nesting Place, a valley unscathed by the recent cataclysm. Romance and conflict arises between the different personalities in the make-shift herd as they struggle for survival against the elements as well as roaming carnivores.

Survival, a mix of dinosaurs, and a rumored safe haven- that is the exact same framework as The Land Before Time, leaving Dinosaur with quite the uphill climb. The folks at Disney also don’t do themselves any favors by cramming this film full of cuteness, cheesy jokes, and a whole lot of clichéd ‘together we can do this’ rhetoric. Predictable as the film may be, it is not a total lost cause.

At times, the visuals in this film blew me away. After doing some digging, I found out that Disney filmed many exotic real world locales for backgrounds and superimposed their CGI dinosaurs into it. That explains why some sequences looked so impressive for a CGI film- it wasn’t all CGI. The blending of the two works very well for long shots (aka wide shots) with not a lot of action. When there is a lot going on or a shot is framed pretty tight, the visuals really show their age. I think Disney was onto something pretty cutting edge and it is a shame that it still had some kinks.

There are some curiosities with this film that make me wonder how much better it could have been. Only the herbivores have voices and personalities. The carnivores are just angry monsters on a rampage. Could the film be more effective if the carnivores talked as well, or if the herbivores also lacked voices? Also, the dinosaur nerd in me can’t help but wonder if different species of herbivorous dinosaurs really lived in tandem as the pre-cataclysm scenes depict. The dino-geek in me does, however, commend the film for keeping non-Cretaceous animals out of the film. An Iguanodon makes for a very vanilla protagonist, but at least he is surrounded by era-accurate dinosaurs.

Dinosaur is a difficult film to place amongst Disney’s other animated features because it is so very different. It completely splits away from any of the Disney formulas, which should make it refreshing. All of Disney’s other PG-rated films have suffered for one reason or another but Dinosaur feels like its biggest flaw is that it came too soon. With all the advancements in CGI imagery even within the five years following its release, Dinosaur could have been the spectacle its filmmakers were hoping for. It would take a few re-writes and tweaks, but the potential is in there for something great.

RATING: 3.25 out of 5

Waitress (2007)

Here is a film that I don’t really know how to react to. The cynic in me could lash out at the fact that this film is brimming with post-Tarantino hipster pretension. The softie in me could go easy on this film because the director was murdered before it was released at Sundance. Somewhere in the middle of all this is a quiet voice asking to see this film re-made so it can better serve the audience and the director’s legacy.

Stuck in a small Southern town and held back by a controlling husband, Jenna (Kerri Russell) searches for a fresh start. She plans to use her baking skills to win a pie contest in a nearby town to win enough money to leave her loser husband (Jeremy Sisto). Rather than hold her back, an unplanned pregnancy gives her added motivation to climb the great chain of being and move on and up in life. She starts an affair with her doctor (Nathan Fillion) and puts her plan to dump her husband into motion.

Am I too moral to enjoy this story? I asked myself this question not long after Waitress concluded. I feel sympathy for Jenna because her lot in life is miserable. I am all for women being treated with respect by their husbands but I also have a hard time supporting someone who decides to have an affair. A woman overcoming her obstacles makes for a good story. Make it a pregnant woman sleeping with her married doctor and it muddies the waters enough to keep me from diving in. Even if the affair was a way for Jenna to experience joy and “love” that are otherwise absent in her life, I don’t think it was a necessary story element.

This film also rubs me the wrong way because of its characters and writing. My beef with the characters stems from what I assume to be the writer-director’s perspective. Adrienne Shelly writes from a woman’s perspective, about a woman’s perspective, for a woman’s perspective. Jenna has a core group of friends who shine with all the spunk and wit in the world, particularly impressive for a dumpy little middle-of-nowhere town.

There are no good male characters in the movie though. By good, I mean round, believable men who do not just serve as a cog in Jenna’s tale of liberation. To keep the film light, Jenna’s husband is extremely dense- almost like Lenny from Of Mice and Men. He doesn’t really want to hurt her but he lacks the common sense to see what he’s doing to her. Jenna’s doctor is handsome but aloof, charming but easily caught off guard. The owner of the restaurant Jenna works at (Andy Griffith) is your typical grouch with a heart of gold.

Perhaps I am reacting to this film the way some women react to the kinds of films that I take for granted as ‘normal.’ There are plenty of great female roles out there but how many great female supporting characters are there in a given year? Maybe Shelly intentionally made her male characters very simple and uninteresting. Maybe it was the indie-quasi-feminist in her. Maybe still she just put so much effort into creating the kind of female characters that she wanted to see in movies that she forgot to throw a bone to those of us with Y-chromosomes.

As for the writing, I have to lay some blame at Quentin Tarantino. Ever since the success of Pulp Fiction, a fair share of independent filmmakers seem to think that their quirky minds have been granted carte blanche when it comes to infusing their projects with all kinds of witty dialogue, no matter how unrealistic it sounds. Pulp Fiction was a breath of fresh air but this trend has made unrealistic but interesting dialogue almost formulaic in indie flicks. Yet, for some reason even obviously trying to be ultra-hip still gets you lauded in Hollywood. Waitress oozes with enough indie-hipster chatter that I cannot in good faith take the film seriously. These are characters that do not and cannot exist in reality. Their situations? Yes. Their conversations? No.

For me, Waitress tries too hard to make a good time out of a fairly straightforward women’s empowerment tale. Feminists will enjoy it up until a deus ex machina ending that truly allows Jenna to break free from her bonds. Adrienne Shelly is not as indulgent as Quentin Tarantino but I still feel like she’s trying too hard here. It’s a good story but the execution is over-engineered. There is enough promise in this film to keep me from dropping it lower on my rating scale, so for now I will take a largely neutral stance on it.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5

The Lost Weekend (1945)**

In the early days of Hollywood, addiction was presented on screen either in an over-the-top manner, watered down due to the production codes of the day, or buried between the lines. It was also rare for addiction to be the focus of a film. Instead of being laughably bad or yawningly bland, The Lost Weekend is dark and uncomfortable to watch. The film retains most, if not all, of its power as it drags the audience down into the murky depths of alcoholism.

Don Birnam (Ray Milland) could be a great writer if it weren’t for booze. His girlfriend Helen (Jane Wyman) and his brother Wick (Phillip Terry) try to get him away from New York City for a weekend trip to help keep him sober. Slave to the drink that he is, Don tells them he will meet them at the train station but heads to a bar instead. Thus begins a weekend-long bender showcasing Don’s pathetic state while flashbacks clue the audience in on his relationships with Helen, Wick, and the bottle.

I’ve seen every Best Picture winner from 1927 through 1945 and I have to say that this is the first one to make me uncomfortable. The Oscars have honored several cinema gems packed with action and humor, a few duds that are boring by today’s standards, and some powerful human drama with some kind of uplifting message. In stark contrast to everything that came before it, The Lost Weekend just keeps kicking you while you’re down.

It doesn’t take long to find elements of this film that have been recycled or lampooned in later films. Milland’s mannerisms, staggered lurch down sidewalks, and frantic behavior are everywhere in cinema, which is a testament to their original power. Some of these elements may seem cheesy if viewed out of context but if you watch this film from start to finish, there’s no snickering about it.

This film is also quite emotionally draining. For much of the film you are filled with disgust and surprise at Don Birnam, as he sinks to new lows to get his fix. At the same time you are bouncing back and forth between feeling pity and anger for Helen & Wick. They put up with a lot and that gets under your skin. At times you wish they would just cut Don off and let him rot in his own mess of a life. Whatever is left of the optimist in you clings to hope though, keeping you wishing for a recovery if only for Helen’s and Wick’s sakes.

As dark and depressing as The Lost Weekend is, it is that sense of hope that keeps you going, just as in real life. The ending of this film leaves you with a lot of hope for a major change in Don but you also have to wonder how many times he’s reached this point before. It’s that fervent, right-out-of-the-gate sense of urgency and deliberateness we all have when we start a goal. It’s why gym memberships soar around New Year’s.

But, as humans, we understand all too well how easy it is to fall off whatever wagon we stand so triumphantly on. We know Don Birnam is human, yet, we hope that this time it is different. Instead of triumph, we have cautious catharsis. It is expertly wielded by the filmmakers here because it feels authentic. This whole film hits a home run in that department and, while the subject is alcoholism, audiences can easily substitute whatever addiction they understand best for Birnam’s drinking. The Lost Weekend does what few films prior and since have been able to do- it humanizes addiction in such a way that grips you but doesn’t preach to you.

RATING: 4 out of 5

Mission: Impossible II (2000)

After delivering the crowd-pleasing Broken Arrow and Face/Off in the mid-90s, director John Woo was a hot commodity in Hollywood. In many ways, it made sense for him to direct this high-action sequel to 1996’s blockbuster Mission: Impossible. Unfortunately for Woo fans, this dud marked the beginning of the end of the director’s work in America and nearly killed the Mission: Impossible franchise.

Ethan Hunt’s (Tom Cruise) latest mission is recovering a fast-acting super-virus from the clutches of a rogue IMF agent before it is let loose upon the world. With the help of his team, including the rogue agent’s ex-girlfriend (Thandie Newton), Hunt learns the full details of Sean Ambrose’s (Dougray Scott) plan to profit from wreaking untold pestilence upon millions of innocents. The stakes become even higher as Hunt’s growing affection for Ambrose’s ex makes the mission personal.

John Woo’s brand of artful violence may work in Asian cinema, where mythical and larger-than-life heroes accomplish epic feats with supernatural grace and abilities. Here in America, those kinds of things are relegated to comic book movies and science fiction. While Woo doesn’t have his characters levitating, the stunts are intricate and quite often unrealistic. You can make anything look possible in the editing room but when the rest of your story is set firm in reality and normal physics, the human brain can’t help but find such frivolity suspect.

Believe it or not, all this high-flying action slows the film down. Part of this is due to the extended stunt sequences but the story shares a lot of the blame as well. The ‘bad guy threatens the world with a virus’ plot has been done before, rogue agents are nothing new, and enough movies have been made about virus epidemics that very little of M:I-2 feels original. On top of it all, there is more Tom Cruise and less team interaction than in the first film. I understand that Ethan Hunt is the main character, but this is Mission: Impossible, not James Bond.

Another drag on the film is the love triangle set up between Cruise, Newton, and Scott. I think it was crafted to help keep audience interest in an otherwise bland plot. Unfortunately, love triangles are more than a little clichéd by now and it makes the film seem more like the good guy and bad guy are fighting over the girl than the super-virus about to be released.

Where the first Mission: Impossible film was moderately intriguing, M:I-2 is little more than disappointing. It takes a unique concept and boils off the things that make it unique, leaving us with a typical Hollywood action flick with just a little bit of directorial flair. It has all the hallmarks of a John Woo film and not enough of the hallmarks of a Mission: Impossible film. If there is one to skip in the series, this one is it.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5

Toy Story 2 (1999)

Up to this point, sequels were a rarity for Disney. The only true sequel on the books was The Rescuers Down Under, which underperformed, and who honestly counts Fantasia 2000 as a sequel? Ordering a Toy Story sequel from Pixar must have been a very carefully calculated risk. It paid off handsomely though, as Toy Story 2 brings back everything audiences loved about the original and added even more things to love. Its status as a sequel prevents it from feeling as fresh as its predecessor, but our second romp with Buzz and Woody has plenty of pop and sizzle.

While rescuing a fellow toy from the yard sale pile, Woody is snatched up by a toy collector. Buzz and the gang set out on a rescue mission that takes them across town. Meanwhile, Woody meets new faces in the collector’s apartment and learns that he is an extremely rare and valuable toy. As a complete set, the Woody’s Roundup team will be on display for toy collectors to appreciate for years to come. Without Woody, they will be put back into storage potentially forever. This leaves Woody to wrestle with the decision to stay loyal to Andy or join his new friends on their quest for immortality.

Unlike a lot of sequels, Toy Story 2 is very good. Some people believe that this film is better than the original. They are entitled to their opinion but I disagree. The animation certainly has improved, with more detail, higher quality, and the incorporation of camera pans, zooms, and tricks found in non-animated films. The story is fresh, but it’s a little too heavy at times. Half of it is (if your honest) a retread of the first film, only this time Buzz saves Woody. The other half deals with issues that are going to go way over children’s heads.

The filmmakers don’t get nailed for the recycled rescue story because Buzz brings along a number of the other toys. This gives the supporting characters and voice actors plenty of time to shine as they struggle to work together as a group. Buzz encountering another Buzz Lightyear action figure that is not yet aware that he is just a toy is amusing. Woody’s arc, however, is substantially less fun. The new characters of Jessie, Bullseye, and Stinky Pete provide an interesting perspective as collectibles but they deal with and discuss issues that are very adult. Immortality, rejection, duty- all of these are heavyweight philosophical concepts that kids can only scratch the surface of understanding.

It certainly looks better but Toy Story 2 is not the feel-good tale that the original was. At times it is a steady gut-puncher that makes older kids and sappy, nostalgic adults feel guilty about giving up on their beloved childhood toys. Or is it really an allegory for how we treat other people? If so, Toy Story 2 is perhaps the darkest kids’ flick of all time. Therein rests the kicker. When I watch a movie billed as family-friendly entertainment and targets hard towards children, I don’t want to watch something designed to make me feel bad. That’s what European cinema is for.

Pixar delivers a fun, albeit outlandish, adventure that straddles the line between kids’ and grown-up entertainment. The development of Toy Story 2 was rushed, which might explain why there is a lot of polish overtop of a slightly weaker story. This review may sound very negative but I did indeed enjoy this film. If you loved the original Toy Story, this sequel is like an old pair of shoes that you can slip right into without any adjustment period. Sit back and enjoy.

RATING: 3.75 out of 5

The Goonies (1985)

Children of the 80s and early 90s grew up watching this Steven Spielberg-penned film as a rite of passage. If you managed to grow up without seeing at least part of this film on weekend movie marathons on TV, you are the exception to the rule. As with many coming of age tales, The Goonies has its share of avid fans, though few of them are probably under the age of 30 now. It received mixed reviews upon its release in 1985 but childhood nostalgia has trumped this fun little flick up to be a spectacle that has to be seen.

The Goonies are a group of teenagers living in Astoria, Oregon. Usually they are wandering around town looking for adventures and mysteries but a golf course developer has their families’ houses in foreclosure, leaving them to pack up and move. While checking the attic, Mikey Walsh (Sean Astin) and his friend Clark (Corey Feldman) discover an old Spanish treasure map pointing the way to the treasure trove of the fabled One-Eyed Willie. This sets the Goonies on one last mission that could save their houses, if the criminal Fratelli Family doesn’t find the treasure first.

Don’t be fooled by Richard Donner as the director. This film has all the hallmarks of a Spielberg 80s flick. We’ve got kids facing issues with their parents and other adults who just don’t understand, peer pressure, danger, adventure, and a few easily-outsmarted bad guys. These are the basic ingredients that coming-of-age, young adult/family films continue to be made of. The transparency of it all is the kicker, and shows the film’s age. These kind of simplistic devices and plots worked for kids of the 80s, who found themselves huge targets of Hollywood studios. The Goonies could only be made now if it were an intentional spoof of 80s family flick clichés.

So what keeps modern audiences from rolling their eyes at this film? It’s got a lot of heart and it is genuinely fun to watch. Yes, your brain is going to tell you that some of what you see is preposterous, but those of us old enough to appreciate pre-90s kitsch will understand that this is how family-friendly films were made before society grew so cynical and dependent on CGI. There is a lot of formula at play here but perhaps it is the amount of outlandishness heaped atop that formula that helps The Goonies feel so fresh.

It has to be tough working with so many young actors because the craft of acting and making a story believable is hard enough for adults to do half of the time. The cast is helped by Spielberg’s script full of spot-on teen emotions. As silly as the plot may be, the characters all feel like they could be real people. Okay, maybe that’s a stretch for Data, the wacky inventor of the bunch, but everyone else feels like they could exist in real life.

The story is told through a subjective lens, not a true third-person experience. Adults are portrayed the way teens oftentimes see them- boring, slow-to-understand, or just plain in the way. Perhaps that is why this film resonates so much with so many people. It was laid out in terms that kids could understand. Is it the best movie ever? Heck no. Nostalgia has totally overrated The Goonies. That doesn’t mean it can’t be enjoyed each and every time you catch it on TV.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5