The Spongebob Squarepants Movie
Spongebob Squarepants is a phenomenon, a hero (of sorts) for many children, a cult figure for many adults, and the most popular children’s TV show in the United States. Apparently. When asked for an explanation, this was the response from one fan: “its great and they go jellyfishing and blow bubbles underwater and they have a friend called Sandy and she's a squirrel who lives in a bubble and like a spacesuit and its all good and YAY!” Make of that what you will…
By all accounts, this is about as exciting for modern children, and a fair few adults, as Transformers: The Movie was to those of twenty years ago, or the first Beatles film, A Hard Day’s Night, was twenty years before that. But for those that remember them, the 1980s antics of man-child comedian Pee-wee Herman, especially in the film Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, are probably the closest direct ancestor of both the main character and this movie.
Spongebob is, well… a sponge. And he wears trousers (“pants” to our American cousins) which are, it must be admitted, somewhat square – well, rectangular really, but who’s going to quibble? He lives in a pineapple house with his best friend, Patrick the starfish, and his pet snail, Gary, in the underwater town of Bikini Bottom, where he works as a chef at a fast food joint. An incurable optimist, his prime aim in the television series seems to be to make friends with his grumpy, clarinet-playing next door neighbour, Squidward the squid, while thwarting the plans of the evil (but tiny) Plankton, the owner of a rival restaurant.
Why is it so popular? Well, as those descriptions probably make clear, it’s pretty damn silly. Silliness and a childish delight in stupidity are at the very heart of the show. Spongebog is like a squidgy yellow cross between Mr Bean and Shaggy from Scooby Doo, with the added bonus of occasional sparks of humour of the likes of that other cult cartoon Ren and Stimpy. Chuck in some silly voices and a range of utterly bizarre characters, and you have one of those very weird things which people are either going to love or hate. It seems that a sizable number of people – of all ages – love it.
Thankfully for his fans, Spongebob’s first big-screen outing deviates little from the TV version. Unlike so many cinematic versions of cartoons, there has been no attempt to “improve” the animation through computer graphics or the introduction of live-action (well, there is some live-action, notably featuring a cameo from Baywatch living joke David Hasselhoff, playing himself, but it’s so insanely self-mocking that it works perfectly). This is effectively just a much longer regular episode of the show.
As such the kids will love it, though it may stretch the patience of some of the stupid sponge’s adult admirers. An idea which works well in short doses can swiftly lose its appeal when it drags on too long, and there is always that danger here. To the film’s credit, it just about keeps at a bearable length, and the gags are fast and mad enough to keep everyone largely amused.
Though probably not one for first timers to the weird and wacky world under the sea, this movie does at least demonstrate that there is still a market for films with a less technologically advanced look, as long as they are entertaining enough. The art of hand-drawn animation is not yet dead.
The Magic Roundabout
Yep – THAT Magic Roundabout. That self-same confusion piece of surreal children’s puppet animation which used to go out before the news, which gained a huge cult following during the 1960s and 1970s, and which still gets repeated on and off to this day.
Only it’s not quite as you may remember it. Dougal is there, as are Florence, Dylan, Ermintrude, Brian and Zebedee. But none of them seem to look quite the same, or sound quite the same. The old man who ran the roundabout, Mr McHenry, seems to have vanished, but he never really did much anyway.
In fact it’s other missing elements, all easy to miss at first, which explain the real difference between this film and the cult series we all know and love. Unfortunately all are missing because they are no longer with us. The first is Serge Danot, the series’ original French creator, who died in 1990. Also gone, last October, is Ivor Wood, the British animator who brought the characters so wonderfully to life. Danot’s original character designs and Wood’s instantly-recognisable, slightly jerky style of animation (he was also the man behind The Herbs, The Wombles and Paddington) have gone with them, updated to a computerised, slightly less amateurish look.
But for British viewers it is the loss of writer/narrator Eric Thompson, who died in 1982, which will be most regretted – as it was during the series’ brief revival in the early 1990s. Thompson’s surreal stories, based simply on Danot and Wood’s visuals and no idea of what the original French scripts were blathering on about, read with a laid back drawl, were to a large extent what made the series such a success during both its original broadcasts and the rather odd and largely forgotten 1972 film spin off, Dougal and the Blue Cat.
Instead of Thompson’s laconic tones voicing all the characters, the makers of this new version have brought in a broad array of British talent. Bill Nighy returns to the stoner rock star persona he adopted for Love, Actually as spaced-out Dylan the rabbit, Jim Broadbent does another of his bumblingly good natured turns as slow-witted snail Brian, Joanna Lumley plays to type as the posh cow Ermintrude, and Ian McKellen takes on another Gandalf-style role as the wise, all-knowing Zebedee. Backing them up are the likes of Lee Evans, RayWinstone, Tom Baker (as the evil bouncing nemesis ZeBadDee) and, in a move which has worried many fans, pop stars Robbie Williams and Kylie Minogue as the two central characters of the original series, Dougal the dog and the little girl Florence.
Bizarrely, both Williams and Minogue are really rather good, showing talents for voices which even their most ardent fans may not have suspected them of possessing. But then, old Robbie was actually rather good in 1999’s animated Christmas TV special Robbie the Reindeer, and Kylie did start out as an actress of sorts. Perhaps we should have guessed they could pull it off.
Unsurprisingly, considering the fact that this film is feature-length, rather than five minutes like the episodes of the original, and that none of the original creative team are involved, it’s not quite what we all may remember. There is also excitement and adventures aplenty, which were rare things in the non-plots we all used to love, but it still somehow manages to remain true to its inspiration. There is enough of what we loved to still appeal to old fans, and plenty to convert a new generation to the antics of Dougal and pals – don’t be put off by the changes.
The Door in the Floor
Author John Irving, on whose novel A Widow for One Year this film is based, has seen several of his books turned into films over the years, the best known of which are probably the Robin Williams vehicle The World According to Garp and The Cider House Rules, for which Michael Caine won an Oscar a few years ago. He’s not as well known in this country as his native America, yet has a strong pedigree for turning out unusual yet engaging tales combining high drama, deep emotion and often broad comedy.
The main problem with Irving’s novels, for those who don’t quite get them, is their often cloying sentimentality. Thankfully here director Tod Williams, a relative newcomer aided by his own well-adapted screenplay, manages to avoid the worst of Irving’s excesses while remaining true to the source material. This has been hailed in some quarters as by far the best adaptation of an Irving novel to date – which, considering the fact that most of his books’ previous screen outings have garnered multiple Oscar nominations, is no mean feat.
Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger, both in roles which could revitalise their somewhat flagging careers, play husband and wife Ted and Marion Cole, still trying to come to terms with the car crash which killed their teenage sons some years earlier. Despite the presence of a new daughter, the couple decide to separate just as a young student comes to spend the summer as writer/artist Ted’s assistant. At first worshipping Ted, the young man soon sees him for the vain semi alcoholic he is, and begins to get somewhat closer to his boss’ equally traumatised wife.
This could very easily have turned into a rather unimaginative take on the central ideas of the classic The Graduate, with Kim Basinger in the Mrs Robinson role. Thanks in part to director Williams’ ability to leap nimbly and almost imperceptibly between melodrama, comedy and farce, some great cinematography and – perhaps most importantly – a powerhouse central performance from Jeff Bridges, the numerous pitfalls of both the original material and the danger of simply repeating earlier films is entirely avoided.
No less an authority than the New York Times has described this performance by Bridges, whose last good outing was in 1998’s The Big Lebowski, as “perhaps the wittiest and richest piece of screen acting by an American man so far this year”. Not for the first time with an Irving adaptation, there are rumours of potential Oscar nods. Thanks in part to Bridges, the rest of the cast - and the film as a whole - are lifted above the overly emotional guff which, in less capable hands, this material could so easily have become.
It is a rare gift to be able to combine sentimentality and humour while dealing with such serious themes as bereavement and the breakdown of a marriage. The fact that, to boot, Jeff Bridges has helped create one of the most complex, sympathetic yet monstrous characters to have graced cinema screens in many a year boosts this from a good film to a great one.
Spanglish
Although this is an Adam Sandler vehicle, it is not simply one of those “zany” slapstick comedies at which he has been so successful. But if you are a fan of The Simpsons, the news that this movie has been written and directed by that show’s producer, James L Brooks, will no doubt raise a lot of promise.
However, rather than being Simpsons-style in humour or a typical Sandler film, it more closely resembles Brooks’ last outing as film director, the Oscar-winning 1997 Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt vehicle As Good As It Gets, in which an array of very different characters gradually came to realise how much they have in common in an unlikely yet endearingly sentimental gush-fest.
Here, Sandler plays a celebrity chef who, with his bitchy wife (Tia Leone), hires a new Mexican housemaid who doesn’t speak much English (played by Spanish actress Paz Vega in her first English language film). This being an American movie, the fact that she is Mexican doesn’t simply mean her English isn’t very good, but is an instant shorthand for “working class”.
Yep, it’s a class comedy. Only the comedy isn’t the major thrust of the film, an odd thing for Sandler judging by his past outings, largely thanks to the sheer unpleasantness of Leone’s utter cow of a stuck-up, selfish and apparently racist wife, who makes a lot of the supposed humour end up rather sour. Thanks in part to his dawning realisation of just how horrible his wife is, Sandler’s hapless chef is gradually drawn closer to their put-upon maid, especially when the couple ends up having to bring their servant’s daughter in to the household alongside their own children.
It is instead another of those “message” movies – here about how everyone, despite their class or nationality, has things in common if only they can find them. It’s all wonderfully twee as the servant teaches the masters, everyone realises the error of their ways and, much as with As Good As It Gets, happiness and delight for all seems just around the corner if only they can all learn to be a bit less selfish.
At the heart of the film’s concerns, rather than the adults who dominate the screentime, are their families – Sandler and Leone’s two children and Vega’s daughter, who acts as translator until her mother picks up enough English to get by. Sandler’s successful career and Leone’s failed one both threaten their relationships with their children, and Leone’s fraught experiences with her own ex-alcoholic mother amply demonstrate what can happen to people who don’t get enough parental love. It is the pretty Mexican maid who, in her simple way, eventually teaches them all the true meaning of family and love.
How sweet…
Sandler fans may be disappointed at the lack of oddball antics, but this will – albeit briefly – make you a little more optimistic about the human condition. It’s patronising, its saccharine, it’s comedy in only the loosest sense, it’s sentimentalist tosh, but it is undeniably heart-warming. It’ll bring a few tears to the eyes and you’ll leave the cinema feeling all warm inside in spite of yourself. That doesn’t, of course, actually mean it’s any good.
Son of the Mask
Generally speaking, sequels to successful films come within a couple of years of the original. There have been a few notable exceptions – fans had to wait sixteen years for both The Godfather Part III and Star Wars Episode I to arrive after the previous instalments in those two franchises – but the general rule for Hollywood is that if something is a success, it’s best to churn out another as soon as possible.
So why have they waited eleven years to do a sequel to The Mask?
In that movie, Jim Carrey played a rather shy average Joe who discovers an ancient mask which, when worn, led him to be possessed by the ancient Norse god of mischief, Loki. Turning into a charismatic cross between a superhero and madman, it hinged around a great central performance, some (for the time) good special effects and the first on-screen appearance of the stunning Cameron Diaz as the woman of Carrey’s dreams.
The eleven year wait for a sequel has created a fair few problems for the studios. Beside the fact that The Mask was essentially a decent kids’ film with adult appeal, and the kids who liked it have now grown up, neither of the original film’s two stars have been lured back for the reprise. Yep. That’s right. Not a Carrey or a Diaz in sight.
Instead, the star of the show is Jamie Kennedy. The name might ring a bell thanks to his candid camera TV show or his turns in the Scream movies, but nonetheless he’s hardly as big a star as Jim Carrey – or even as Jim Carrey was when the original film first came out.
But then, although most sequels simply try to repeat the same formula, there is also always the need to do something slightly different. Getting a comedian to gurn with silly expressions while wearing green face paint again would hardly show too much originality – especially when you no longer have the rubbery features of Jim Carrey to act as your centrepiece.
Instead of taking over an introverted loser and turning him into a charismatic whirlwind of cartoon nonsense this time, perhaps inspired by the dog of the first film, the mask – or rather Loki – gains control of a complete innocent – hapless Kennedy’s infant son. The baby then goes on a “comedic” rampage.
Yep, this is a film based around the concept of the dancing baby from Ally McBeal crossed with the dire Look Who’s Talking series of films which nearly ended John Travolta’s career for good back in the 1980s. I mean – wow! It’s, like, a baby! Doing stuff that babies shouldn’t do! That’s, like, amazing!
Considering the first film was built around Jim Carrey and special effects, you’d have thought they’d try somewhat harder to find an adequate Carrey substitute and to make the effects top-notch. Sadly, they’ve managed to do neither. Instead, they’ve produced a substandard sequel based on unoriginal ideas, and brought it out a decade too late. Quite why they thought it was a good idea is anyone’s guess.
Shall we Dance
This is a remake of a 1996 Japanese film which hardly anyone will have seen, but which was rather good as romantic comedies go, focusing on the need of straightjacketed businessmen to rebel against the regimentation of Japanese daily life, albeit only through dancing. For the Americanised version, a middle aged suburban lawyer (Richard Gere) is having a bit of a mid-life crisis - not quite as insightful or broad in scope as the Japanese take, it must be said. Despite being nicely content in his marriage (the wife played by the still gorgeous Susan Sarandon), something seems to be missing, and only ballroom dancing lessons can satisfy him. Oh, the fact that his teacher looks like Jennifer Lopez probably helps a bit too.
Boosting the relatively basic storyline with big names is probably giving the fairly unimaginative plot and unsubtle script more than it deserves, but then with this kind of largely heartwarming tale, complexity and delicacy of touch are rarely warranted. The point here is for Gere to look manly, Lopez to look sexy, and both of them to dance well. To be fair, they manage this pretty effectively. It does exactly what is says on the tin.
Whether, since his turn in Chicago, this will prove to be Richard Gere’s new career path remains to be seen, but this is the first film he’s done since that popular musical, and once again he’s showing off his fancy footwork while trying to flirt with (though not necessarily actually seduce) women somewhat younger than himself. In Chicago it was Catherine Zeta Jones and Renée Zellweger, this time it’s J-Lo.
All that really matters, however, is whether they can both dance – and that they certainly can, even if Gere is looking a tad podgy these days – and whether it’s a nice, fluffy tale of human nature and decency winning out over adversity of some kind. Not that the adversity here is that great – the guy is basically just a bit bored – but still.
Sadly Susan Sarandon is utterly wasted in this film as the doting but worried wife who suspects an affair. Presumably they just offered her such a vast amount of money that she couldn’t turn it down. Her basic role is to look a tad upset most of the time while Gere’s off prancing about the place with Lopez and the other denizens of her dance studio.
Naturally enough, as one of those soppy, supposedly life-affirming pieces of dross Hollywood often churns out, everything works out fine in the end – that much is obvious from the trailer, let alone the film itself. And this is precisely the sort of film which is only likely to be watched by people who already know how it ends.
Bland romantic comedies like this remain perennially popular, and it is nearly impossible for those who don’t like them to work out why. It’s not that they, or indeed this film, is necessarily “bad”. It’s just got so few surprises in that it seems to resemble Gere’s mind-numbing life at the start of the movie. Perhaps you’d be better off taking a leaf out of his book and going to a dance class instead.
Ocean's Twelve
This is Steven Soderbergh’s first time directing a sequel. He made his name through independent inventiveness and even since emerging into the mainstream has doggedly stuck to his indy roots, and refused to play by the standard Hollywood rules. He seems to hate repeating himself, so a sequel seems at first to be an odd choice.
Considering he’s the man behind both the effortlessly cool Out of Sight and the complexly intelligent Traffic, it’s a fairly safe bet that if Soderbergh had wanted to turn his 2001 remake of the third-rate 1960s Rat Pack classic Ocean’s Eleven into a more “grown-up” movie than it was, he easily could have done. Instead, he opted for an affably silly heist romp which, though being rather more stylish than the usual Hollywood fare, was essentially little more than a basic blockbuster done very well with a huge all-star ensemble cast. Just as with the original film, a lot of the charm came from the sense that all involved in its making were having a damn good time.
For the sequel, there is more of the same – sort of. Again, there’s a roll call of big name stars most directors would kill for: George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Elliott Gould and all the rest from the first film, plus some additions including Brits Catherine Zeta-Jones, Robbie Coltrane and Eddie Izzard. Again there are touches of Soderbergh’s trademark visual flair, humour, and ear for snappy dialogue. Again there is an all-pervasive, laid-back feel, despite this paradoxically still both looking and feeling like the big-budget Hollywood number that it is.
Rather than being another straight heist flick, kicking off where the first movie left off with Clooney and Roberts heading off into the sunset pursued by the recently-swindled Garcia’s hired goons, the director has ensured that the material remains fresh, interesting and fun, perhaps in part due to its European setting. Yet the events of the first movie are vital – Garcia’s enraged casino boss has tracked Clooney and co down, and they must pull off yet another daring heist – or rather, heists – to pay him back the money they stole.
In places, Soderbergh’s love of the bizarre leads the narrative to become almost entirely secondary to the characters’ relationships – their conversations and friendly playfulness almost descending to the level of the kind of impenetrable, in-joke strewn, dialogue-heavy territory of the Kevin Smiths of this world.
While not as accomplished as the first movie, which in any case many at the time found a fairly sleight affair by Soderbergh’s usual standards, Ocean’s Twelve still manages to be a far superior film to much that comes out of Hollywood these days. With the sheer amount of talent involved, this should be no surprise, but at the same time it remains an impressive achievement to keep all those superstar egos under some semblance of control. Don’t expect an Ocean’s Thirteen, but this will certainly give fans of the original what they want – more of the same, only different.
Coach Carter
The world of college basketball is a mysterious one for anyone who isn’t American. Why would such a large chunk of the US population get so excited about what is effectively the American equivalent of school football matches? After all, professional basketball is weird enough - where are the goalposts? What’s with all that running backwards and forwards?
This is based on the true story of a High School basketball coach (played here by Samuel L Jackson) who, in 1999, refused to let his ream of typically tough-minded yet athletically talented brats compete unless they did well academically. Now, bearing in mind that the US is a country where even the best universities – let alone schools – frequently offer full scholarships to incredibly dense people purely to ensure that their sports teams do well, you can start to see how that might be a problem. Which is more important, academic work or athletic pursuits, long-term or temporary success?
The message is simple, yet worth repeating: reminded by the principle that "You and I both know that this basketball season will be the highlight of their lives," Jackson’s coach pointedly replies, "I think that's the problem, don't you?" It’s a sentimental call to aspire to bigger and better things, to try your hardest even at the things you aren’t any good at in the hopes of bettering yourself and the lives of those around you.
This is basically one of those films about that inspirational brand of teacher, of which Mr Chips is probably the prime example, in which sceptical students and parents take a while to work out that this person is actually genuinely trying to do the best for their young charges. Thanks in part to the “urban” MTV feel, it is very reminiscent of the 1995 Michelle Pfeiffer flick Dangerous Minds, or even of the previous Samuel L Jackson as teacher movie, 1997’s One Eight Seven.
Coming as it does from MTV Films, you’d probably expect some kind of fast-edited, achingly contemporary affair. It doesn’t disappoint, with a multiracial team of youngsters fully geed up with hip hop speak, a side role for R’n’B star Ashanti, and one of those soundtracks which seems to be trying just a tad too hard to be cool.
But despite all the hip hop speak, “street” macho nonsense and the MTV tag, this is a deeply old fashioned film. Rather than simply being based on a true story, it almost plays like a modernised remake of the 1938 classic Boys Town, in which Spencer Tracey’s Catholic priest shows young tearaway Mickey Rooney the error of his ways.
Add to that some cliché-ridden sport scenes, complete with final-second winning shots and the like, it would be easy to get the impression that, despite the “true story” angle, this is a rather unoriginal attempt at a plot that has been covered many times before. But, thanks almost entirely to the ever-watchable Jackson, this is an effective stab at the genre, and makes for an entertaining – if largely predictable – couple of hours.
