BUTTER

BUTTER
Written by James A. Micallef
Directed by Jim Field Smith
Starring Jennifer Garner, Ty Burrell, Oliva Wilde and Hugh Jackman

Ask anyone who enjoys a good dessert and they will tell you that butter makes everything better (and fatter, but that doesn’t work with my metaphor). Unfortunately, this same logic does not apply to the movies. BUTTER, directed by Jim Field Smith, whose only previous feature credit is SHE’S OUT OF MY LEAGUE, takes an incredible ensemble, including Jennifer Garner, Hugh Jackman and MODERN FAMILY’s Ty Burrell, throws them into a bowl, mixing political satire and family drama into the fold. This should be an easy recipe for success but Smith has no idea how to measure out portions. The politics are blatantly obvious; the performances are cartoonish at best, especially Garner, who is an exaggerated version of her usually endearing control freak self; and the whole thing feels sorely undercooked. BUTTER, while clearly well-intentioned, simply melts away before your eyes into one big pile of gooey (and fatty) mess.

THE CHANGE-UP

Written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore

Directed by David Dobkin

Starring Jason Bateman, Ryan Reynolds, Leslie Mann and Olivia Wilde

Dave Lockwood (in the body of Mitch Planko): Oh my God; I'm a douchebag.

There are certain things you need to just plain accept as fact in order to enjoy THE CHANGE-UP. First of all, you have to accept that the notions of what it means to be a responsible adult in the film will be as cliched and contrived as they can possibly be. Past that, you need to accept that, as this is a comedy for dumb boys and from the minds of dumb boys, there will be plenty of T & A and no fart joke opportunity will be missed. Foremost though, you need to accept that two grown men can urinate into a random fountain, wish they had the other's life and then wake up with their wish come true. To be fair, you don't actually have to accept any of this but if you won't, you should definitely avoid this movie.

Director David Dobkin (WEDDING CRASHERS) introduces us to Dave Lockwood (Jason Bateman) and Mitch Planko (Ryan Reynolds) while they are still sleeping soundly in bed. Dave's blue pyjamas match his blue sheets, which in turn match the duvet and complimentary pillowcases. This is a man who is consumed by order. Mitch, on the other hand, would be lucky to find two socks that go together, let alone two pillowcases. They have been friends their whole lives and are only really friends now because of their history. Like any true family man, Dave works tireless hours at a law firm and rarely gets a chance to spend any time with his family. Mitch smokes pot all day and plays with his swords, both of the steel and metaphorical variety. Having switched lives though, Mitch must learn to see something through in his life while Dave has to learn to chill out. Naturally, they each go to extremes in their new lives before they learn that happiness lies somewhere in the middle. They say the grass is always greener, which is even more true when you piss all over it like these two dolts do.

With characters as vapid as this and a storyline as obvious and played out as body swapping, THE CHANGE-UP needs to have solid talent on screen to raise the material to a place where it is at the very least passable, let alone impressive. And while it never truly reaches great heights, Bateman and Reynolds work their hardest to get it there. Both men have sharp tongues and plenty of charisma to engage the viewer and it is at times a great delight to see them play against the type that each has fallen into in their careers. As great as their performances are though, there is only so much they can do for a film that finds spurting poop smeared all over someone's face within five minutes of its opening.

COWBOYS AND ALIENS

Written by Robert Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof, Mark Fergus

and Hawk Otsby

Directed by Jon Favreau

Starring Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford and Olivia Wilde

Jake Lonergan: I don't want any trouble.

Aliens have tried to take over our planet dozens of times in the movies already. Every time they do, it seems like they always choose major metropolitan areas and the setting is always current day. While I’m sure there are exceptions to these rules, who is to say that aliens couldn’t plot their attack a couple of hundred years ago? They’re aliens; they’re advanced; they can do whatever they want, whenever they want. And if you think you’d be scared if aliens decided to attack us today, imagine what it would have been like for a cowboy in 1837 to come face to face with one of these massive monsters. Imagine that real good and you’ve got yourself a new breed of alien movie, you’ve got COWBOYS AND ALIENS.

Director Jon Favreau tows a very fine line between these two genres to ensure that he is somehow loyal to both without sacrificing much from either side. Like a good Western, it starts out quiet and lonesome. A man wakes up in the desert, bleeding from what he presumes is a gunshot in his side, with no recollection of who he is and with a bizarre metal bracelet around his left wrist unlike anything he has ever seen. As it turns out, this man is Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) and he is wanted for a bevy of assorted crimes, not the least of which is the murder of his former lover (Abigail Spencer). Jake moseys into a nearby town and right before he causes too much damage, a strange light appears in the sky. The whole town looks on as if a miracle is about to take place. Why wouldn’t they? They’ve never seen an alien disaster movie before so how could they possibly know what horror was in store for them?

The concept of COWBOYS AND ALIENS is so strong and while Favreau has crafted a sturdy blend of the two film worlds, there is something inherently amiss about the combination. One genre is often subdued and subtle while the other is loud and raucous. At times, the differences are too far apart to fully come together, like it wants to take flight but its too heavy to get off the ground. The pace picks up once the story crosses from cowboy loner to invasion survivors banding together. Craig is joined by typical tough guy, Harrison Ford, who is obviously enjoying himself a great deal in the part and Olivia Wilde, who just seems like she enjoys being window dressing way too much. Regardless, along with a few other determined town folk, they set off to take on the invading army with everything they’ve got, which admittedly is not much. This is where Favreau finds the commonality that ties the genres together – the endurance of the human spirit and the need to persevere.

TRON: LEGACY

Written by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz

Directed by Joseph Kosinski

Starring Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde

Twenty-eight years is a long time to go between films. When the original TRON was released in theatres in 1982, I was but five years old. I can’t say I remember anything about it at the time, other than that the effects and animation were really cool. Special effects have come a very long way since then but after seeing the sequel, TRON: LEGACY, I can essentially say pretty much the same thing about this one as I did about the first when I was five; the special effects were cool and twenty-eight years from now, that will be all anyone will remember about the new one too, if anything at all.

The story has not changed. In 1982, Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) was sucked into the computer world he helped design by the Master Control Program. In 2010, it is his son’s turn to play. Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) pays a visit to his dad’s old arcade after not having seen his father for nearly twenty years. Someone is still paying the electricity bill though as everything still works, including the passage way to Flynn Sr.’s secret computer lab. Once inside the system, Sam, a user, is easy to spot amongst all the programs and it isn’t long before he is brought face to face with good old Dad, who has been trapped in this world all this time. Together they must vanquish Clu, Kevin’s virtual counterpart (a surprisingly impressive effects designed younger, more strapping version of Bridges) before he takes his desperate need for perfection outside of the computer and into the real world.

The truth about both TRON films is that nothing other than the special effects and some high-energy game playing sequences matter in either of them. How else can you explain that they basically recycled the story from the first for the second? Both films imply that there is something deeper being said about religion, technology and how mankind can’t seem to get his head around how close these two concepts truly are to each other, but neither film actually leaves the viewer with any true insight. Philosophical constructs are simply a device to fill the space between each mind-blowing game scene and this is done adequately enough to distract from how empty all that space really is. It doesn’t hurt either that the space, albeit empty, is incredibly gorgeous, with all its geometric exactitude and bursts of light and colour to break up all the darkness.

And so I say, let the games begin. TRON: LEGACY, for all of its clunky dialogue and questionable plot points, is completely mesmerizing when the games are on. The original elements of the games are still intact but updated in such a way that they justify the entire existence of the film. Couple that with the dynamic and driving Daft Punk score and you have two hours that will dazzle your senses like you’ve never known. When those two hours are up though, you will put down the game and it will almost be like you never played at all.