Anyone who recognizes the signature Luxo lamp probably has a few expectations for Pixar's latest offering. They're looking for superb animation, quirky yet lovable characters, and a stellar musical score. That's all here in copious amounts.
If you have somehow avoided the trailers and huge promotional buzz surrounding WALL*E, here's the premise: mankind, failing to prevent fallout with nature, has succeeded in making Earth uninhabitable. They've gone off to the far reaches of space on luxury cruise starships, leaving robots to clean up; specifically, Waste Allocation Load-Lifter, Earth class units. Over time, all of these robots have broken down. All but one, that is.
Our solo hero spends his days compacting trash into cubes and organizing these cubes into rather impressive piles, occasionally saving things he finds interesting enough. At the end of the day he returns home with his findings, watches a clip of "Hello, Dolly," and powers down. He knows no other existence--until EVE shows up.
EVE (whose name is, as you guessed, an acronym, but i won't spoil it) has come in search of something top secret. What she finds is WALL*E, so enamored by the idea of another robot (and a female, at that!) that he begins to develop an emotional attachment despite her apathetic behavior towards him.
The real story begins when (as depicted in the trailer) WALL*E hitches a ride with EVE back to the human space colony, dazzled by a world far beyond his imagination.
The kicker with WALL*E is that there is so little dialogue. Unlike Pixar's previous movies, which have relied heavily on large ensemble casts and witty one-liners, WALL*E finds Pixar experimenting with its fanbase, using vivid animations and robotic beeps and blips to convey a story of discovery, romance, and adventure.
The only real downfall of WALL*E is that it is, under a veil of amazing art, a VERY thinly veiled social commentary. Anyone who walks out of WALL*E unconscious of the fact that it is a condemnation of humanity's wasteful and destructive habits must have been unconscious during the movie, too. I felt inclined to scan the credits just to see if Greenpeace had secretly funded the film.
That aside, WALL*E is a very cute and accessible film regardless of whether you are a family of five or a 20-something guy with nothing to do. A great score (complemented by the track "Down to Earth" by Genesis' Peter Gabriel during the credits) helps bring the vibrant animation to life, ensuring that WALL*E and EVE float straight into your heart.
The suit. The iconic music. The 007-esque entrance into CONTROL. And then the top page floats off the pile of reports and is crushed in the jaws of a massive metal door.
Maxwell Smart is back, and he's not exactly how you remember him. Let's be straightforward here: the latest incarnation of the battle between CONTROL and KAOS has definitely been done-up for a modern audience. Smart is no longer the bumbling idiot who accidentally thwarts evil; he has become the suave idiot who purposefully thwarts evil, if occasionally via accidental means. Fans of the series should note this difference.
The new Smart, however, is nothing to break out a Cone Of Silence and cry about. Steve Carell ((The Office, Little Miss Sunshine, Dan in Real Life) does a great job of making Max a well-meaning desk-slave-gone-agent, occasionally embarrassing and occasionally awesome yet always hilarious.
Agent 86 is accompanied on this adventure by Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway, The Princess Diaries), the sexy, experienced field agent who is only able to operate on the mission because she recently underwent facial reconstruction and thus her identity was not compromised in the KAOS break-in.
The unlikely duo (why are the duos never likely?!) set off through Russia to fight the bad guys, running across such classics as Siegfried (Terence Stamp), the main villain. In the meantime they receive assistance from the Chief (Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine) and Agent 23 (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson). Agent 13, the one who always pops up in the most inexplicable places, makes only a small and unimportant appearance, and is portrayed by Bill Murray.
As mentioned earlier, the only thing that will make Get Smart irksome is that it is not an entirely faithful representation of the franchise. However, i'd venture a guess that even hardcore fans of the show will appreciate Carell and Hathaway's interpretations, in this hilarious, no-holds-barred action comedy that seems like it ought to spawn a spin-off television comeback.
And although fans looking for a weekly fix of what they're getting in theaters are bound to be disappointed, there is a little consolation prize set to come out today: "Get Smart's Bruce and Lloyd: Out of Control," a 71-minute movie featuring the antics of CONTROL geeks Bruce (Masi Oka, Heroes) and Lloyd (Nate Torrence, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip) while Max is out saving the day. Granted, its direct-to-DVD release and timing indicate that Out of Control is most likely a low-quality money cow-milker, but judgment will remain reserved until this hypothesis is proven.
In the meantime, you could do a lot worse in theaters these days than seeing Get Smart. It may not be perfect, but don't worry: it only missed it by that much.
Anyone who saw 2003's Hulk has probably come to grips with the fact that it sucked. Banner was melodramatic and upset at his father. Hulk scenes involved so much blatant CG that you forgot to care about what was going on (i mean really, mutant poodles?).
It seems Marvel, too, has come to grips with the fact that the first Hulk movie sucked. That's why this year's release is not a follow-up to the previous one, but rather a re-imagining of what a Hulk movie ought to be: big, bad, and angry.
The content of the first movie (the lab accident, the romance with Betty Ross (Liv Tyler, The Lord of the Rings, Armageddon), the monster emerging when our young hero's heart rate spikes) is pretty much covered in the opening credits, a high-octane series of flashbacks that result in Banner (Edward Norton, Fight Club, The Illusionist) hiding in South America, a fugitive from the US government (whose General "Thunderbolt" Ross (William Hurt) considers Banner's body his property).
Banner is trying to find a cure for his condition, and is contacting a "Mr. Blue" under the guise of--wait for it--"Mr. Green" for answers. Meanwhile, he is extremely cautious to avoid any sign of his whereabouts from making it across Thunderbolt's desk, lest he be forced to run again.
All good things must come to an end though, and a drop of blood from Banner's radioactive veins finds its way, via a bottle of soda, into an old man's mouth back in the US, tipping the government off to Banner's location. Thunderbolt brings in a contract killer named Emil (Tim Roth) to take Banner out before he can escape yet again.
Well it's not much of a spoiler to say the movie doesn't end with Emil's successful takedown of our mild-mannered scientist. Banner escapes, and decides it's time to go home. Thus begins a wild faceoff between monster and creator, involving plenty of incredible explosions and radioactive experimentation, climaxing in a battle between the angry green giant and the Abomination that Emil becomes.
In addition to the incredible level of action presented in this new iteration, The Incredible Hulk features so many throwback references to the television show (both Bixby and Ferrigno, the original Banner/Hulk respectively, make cameos) and the comics (Hulk smash, anyone?) that the only reason to get angry about the movie is if you find yourself unable to see it.
And, well, i think that should about cover it for now. I'd also recommend seeing "Iron Man" if it's still playing near you, and to avoid "Speed Racer" if they haven't put it to sleep yet.
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