FILM REVIEW OF ''TED 2" (2015)

The last thing Hollywood wants to do is either insult or offend individuals, groups, races, religions, causes, genders, and ideologies with their films.  The refreshing thing about the hilarious teddy bear satire “Ted” and its unapologetic sequel “Ted 2” is that neither have any such compunctions.  Seth MacFarlane, who co-scripted, directed, and provided the voice of the titular teddy bear with a potty mouth, spends most of the 115 minutes of “Ted 2” (***1/2 OUT OF ****) saying and showing subject matter that most respectable people would think twice about before either saying or showing.  Like its iconoclastic predecessor, “Ted 2” bears an R-rating for what the Motion Picture Association of America considers “crude and sexual content, pervasive language, and some drug use.”  The audaciously subversive humor either will make you cringe in horrific revulsion or howl in gleeful elation.  If you enjoyed “Ted” with its cretinous heroes, beyond borderline gross out humor, wanton drug abuse, and impertinent profanity, you’ll love this high-brow sequel.  The worst thing you can say about “Ted 2” is that it is pretentious from fade-in to fade out.  Clearly, MacFarlane and “Family Guy” co-scribes Alec Sulken and Wellesley Wild sought to overshadow the lowbrow original, and they have triumphed in this respect.  The elaborate song & dance choreography that opens “Ted 2” after our eponymous protagonist ties the knot with his goofy girlfriend has guys and gals cavorting around a gigantic wedding cake and stomping about on a huge dance floor with diminutive Ted keeping up with them.  This is the last thing that you’d ever imagine seeing in a movie about a profane bear and his idiotic friend.  If you haven’t seen “Ted,” then you probably won’t understand half of the hilarity.  During a thunderstorm, young John Bennett clutched his Hasbro teddy and made a wish that it would come to life, and it did!  Consequently, they became “thunder buddies for life.”

Virtually everybody from “Ted” reprises their roles in “Ted 2,” except Mila Kunis. According to the Internet Movie Database, Kunis didn’t return as Lori because she was pregnant during the production with Ashton Kutcher’s baby. Meantime, MacFarlane and his co-scribes explain that John Bennett (Mark Wahlberg of “Contraband”) and she divorced for six months before the outset of the action. A dejected John is petrified of getting himself involved in another relationship and his life has spiraled out of control.  Meantime, Ted and Tami-Lynn (Jessica Barth of “Next”) marry, but their marriage has degenerated into a disaster.  They argue about finances, throw things, and Ted cusses out their neighbors. At the supermarket where Ted works as a cashier, an obese African-American cashier advises him that the best way to restore a marriage is to have a baby.  The cashier’s comments are incredibly racist in a reverse sort of way.  Indeed, those comments are so rude that they cannot be repeated. Tami-Lynn breaks her angry vow of silence with Ted after he tells her that they must have a baby, and they celebrate their momentous decision.

Sadly, neither are prepared for the obstacle course of trials and tribulations that ensue.  Since the toy company Hasbro didn’t endow Ted with sex organs, our hero must search for the ideal sperm donor. They approach Flash (Sam J. Jones), but he complains about his low sperm count.  John suggests Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady.  Now, things get really bizarre.  John and Ted sabotage Brady’s air conditioner so he has to sleep with his bedroom balcony windows open.  These two nitwits set out to obtain a sperm sample from Brady while he is asleep!  Ted decks himself out like a seafaring fisherman for the occasion, and John is appalled to learn that he must masturbate Brady. Fortunately, for everybody involved, Brady awakens in time and throws them out.  Johnny offers to help Ted, and they enter a fertility clinic.  A comedy of errors occurs while they are at the clinic. Accidentally, John tips over a storage bin of sperm samples and winds up sloshed in sperm. Nevertheless, everything goes awry when Tammy-Lynn’s physician (Dennis Haysbert of the "Allstate" commercials) informs her that she devastated her reproductive system abusing narcotics. Ultimately, Ted learns the State of Massachusetts no longer recognizes his status as a person so they cannot adopt a child. Furthermore, the court has invalidated their marriage.  Ted and John seek legal representation. The best they can afford is 26-year old Samantha Leslie Jackson (Amanda Seyfried of “Les Misérables”), a freshman attorney who smokes a bong to counteract the ill effects of migraines.  Predictably, since Ted and John are still getting wasted, several scenes of euphoric pot-smoking ensue, with our heroes and heroine smoking in public places, too.  The funny thing about Samantha Leslie Jackson is that she is pop culture illiterate and doesn’t even realize the significance of the joke Ted makes when he observes that they have hired Samuel L. Jackson as their lawyer.  MacFarlane gets a lot of mileage out of this joke as well as some of the exotic types of pot our heroes and heroine smoke.  One running gag concerns a strain of marihuana that induces the fear of getting lost on the way home.  In subsequent scenes, Ted and Samantha are shown leading a terrified John home because amnesia has set in as a consequence of smoking this ‘lost’ dope.

Just when everything appears to be working out favorably for our heroes, the villainous Donnie from “Ted” surfaces. Donnie (Giovanni Ribisi of “Public Enemies”) has gotten a job as a janitor now at Hasbro.  He interrupts Hasbro executive Tom Jessup (John Carroll Lynch of “Zodiac”) during a hallway conference and tells him that he doesn’t flip the cakes in his urinal. Instead, he replaces them. Naturally, Jessup doesn’t know what to make of this sinister cretin. Later, Donnie has a moment with Jessup in Jessup’s office because Hasbro has an open-door policy with its employees. The news is out that Ted is going to court to determine what his status in society is. Donnie tells Jessup if the prosecution can prove that Ted is actually property rather than a person, they can abduct him with minor legal consequences, slice him open, and fathom what makes Ted so singular.  Jessup’s eyes gleam at the prospect of eviscerating Ted so Hasbro can manufacture a new teddy that will sell millions.  Of course, Jessup wants to exploit this opportunity, but he reminds Donnie that he cannot be implicated in this pseudo crime. Altogether, Jessup’s earlier opinion of Donnie has changed and he realizes that this nincompoop may be a genius.  That Hasbro would allow themselves to participate in this irreverent farce is amazing considering the unfavorable shade of evil in which MacFarlane and company paints them. 

Mind you, Ted the talking teddy still looks as adorable as he did in first film, especially when he dresses up in a suit and tie. You never get the impression that the cast was interacting with nothing when the CGI Ted was on-screen with them. While the front and center Ted dominates the action with his woes, Mark Wahlberg’s John stands out as his best friend.  Until “Ted” and now again with “Ted 2,” Wahlberg has deviated rarely from playing a straight-up, conventional, role model, W.A.S.P. protagonist.  As he did initially with “Ted,” Wahlberg appears to be poaching on Adam Sandler territory with some of his absurd antics.  The splashy scene in the sperm facility and the looney episode in Tom Brady’s mansion make John the butt of the jokes, and Wahlberg displays no inhibitions to playing second banana to Ted while ridiculing himself in the process. The dialogue again qualifies as quotable material with politically incorrect meanings.  Although the sight gags are amusing, particularly in the Comics convention scene, this above-average gross-out comedy serves up some pretty impudent shenanigans. Indeed, if vulgar humor poses no problems, “Ted 2” is right for you.

A FILM REVIEW OF "BULLET TO THE HEAD" (2013)

Watching the Sylvester Stallone shoot’em up “Bullet to the Head” (**** OUT OF ****) felt like a blast from the past.  This polished but predictable anthology of action movie clichés contains several R-rated, close-quarters, combat scenes with sufficient amounts of blood splatter and gore; some high-octane, fireball explosions; lots of snappy tough guy banter; and surprising displays of frontal female nudity.  Half the scenes reminded me of producer Joel Silver’s explosive, slam-bang, white-knuckled, testosterone-laden tales, such as “Conspiracy Theory,” “Exit Wounds, “Swordfish,” and his “Lethal Weapon” franchise.  Indeed, Silver serves as one of the producers, and “Bullet to the Head” adheres to his formula.  Meanwhile, action auteur Walter Hill drew the other half from his hardboiled melodramas.  For the record, Hill helmed the two “48 Hrs” flicks with Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy, “Extreme Prejudice” with Nick Nolte, “Last Man Standing” with Bruce Willis, and “Red Heat” co-starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Belushi.  Although “The Messenger” scenarist Alessandro Camon adapted the Alexis Nolent graphic novel "Du plomb dans la tête,” “Bullet to the Head” looks like “48 Hrs” and/or “Red Heat” clone.  Mind you, “Bullet to the Head” is Hill’s first theatrical release since his gritty 2002 prison melodrama “Undisputed” with Ving Rhames and Wesley Snipes.  During his absence from the big screen, Hill helmed the premiere episode of HBO’s “Deadwood,” and then the television mini-series western “Broken Trail” (2006) costarring Robert Duvall and Thomas Haden Church.”  In many respects, this action-packed, largely straightforward, odd couple buddy picture compares favorably with earlier, exceptional Stallone sagas like “Assassins,” “The Specialist,” and “Demolition Man.”  Most definitely, it surpasses “Tango and Cash” and “Stop, Or My Mom Will Shoot.”

Cast as a seasoned hit-man in the Crescent City, Sylvester Stallone tangles with a mysterious cabal of Big Easy investors who have the New Orleans Police Department on their payroll.  Director Walter Hill has juggled the occupations of the protagonists from his earlier buddy picture epics.  The cop was always the lead in the combo in the “48 Hrs” movies and “Red Heat.”  This time around, world-weary, career criminal James “Bobo” Bonomo (Sylvester Stallone of “Rocky”) is the lead, while saintly, Washington, D.C. Detective Taylor Kwon (Sung Kang of “Fast & Furious”) behaves rather naively and relies too much on his cell phone.  Ironically, the two men want to exact vengeance for the deaths of their former partners.  They agree to form an uneasy alliance, but Kwon’s conscience prompts him to constrain Bonomo. These two don’t immediately run into each other. When the plot unfolds, Bonomo and his partner Louis Blanchard (Jon Seda of “Bad Boys 2”) masquerade as cops to snuff a cocaine-snorting thug, Hank Greely (Holt McCallany of “Fight Club”), in a motel room.  Bonomo spots a tattooed prostitute cowering in the shower, but he lets her live.  This amoral murderer draws the line at shooting women.  When he is behind the wheel on the road, he swerves to avoid stray cats in front of him.  “It’s bad luck,” he assures Louis.  These two show up at a crowded bar where they are supposed to pick up the balance of their loot for the shooting.  Before either realizes they have been double-crossed, another assassin, Keegan (Jason Momoa of “Conan”), stabs poor Louis repeatedly to death in front of everybody.  He wields a small blade to hack both of Louis’ lungs so nobody in the noisy bar knows a murder has occurred.  Keegan isn’t quite as lucky with Bonomo.  Now, Bonomo wants payback.  Our hero crosses paths with a hard-nosed, Washington, D.C. police detective who is visiting New Orleans.  As it turns out, Hank Greely was his former partner in Washington.  Kwon wants the people who ordered Hank’s demise.  Sure, neither Bonomo nor Kwon have much use for each other initially, but they kind of grow on one other as they survive back-to-back fracases. 

Hill stages some gripping shoot-out scenes that genre fans will savor, and you get to see Silver's trademark Ka-Boom explosions!  Hill never lets the narrative bog down in aimless chatter or an over elaborate plot.  Stallone’s character provides deadpan narration throughout the pyrotechnics so you never take anything seriously in “Bullet to the Head.”  “Bullet to the Head” is not unlike a Tarantino thriller.  Camon and Hill wrap up everything, but leave room for a sequel since the hero’s daughter and the D.C. cop are dating.  At 66 years of age, Sylvester Stallone appears as fit as a fiddle.  This is the kind of movie where guys shed shirts and clash muscles.  He channels a little bit of “Rocky” in his tongue-in-cheek performance.  The ax fight between beefy, muscle-bound Jason Momoa and Stallone has been carefully edited to present both to maximum advantage.  You know Stallone is going to triumph, but Momoa doesn’t make it look easy.  Momoa makes a lusty villain.  No less villainous is Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as a crippled, African investor has no qualms about murder.  Christian Slater appears briefly as a smarmy swindler with a flash drive around his neck that boasts the goods of everybody.  The interrogation scene is pretty amusing.  Clocking in at a lean, mean, 97 minutes, “Bullet to the Head” doesn’t wear out its welcome.  You don’t even have to wait around to see what’s after the end credits so you can clear out early.  Were it not for the pedigree talent involved, “Bullet to the Head” would qualify at best as a three-star rather than a four-star movie.  If you still like Stallone, you'll love "Bullet to the Head" because it is worth shelling out the bucks to watch this Spartan saga.

FILM REVIEW OF "TAKERS" (2010)

“Lockdown” director John Luessenhop’s super-charged, criminal heist thriller “Takers” (*** out of ****) derives its premise and some of its best scenes from other top-flight Hollywood cops and robbers movies. First, “Takers” is set in Los Angeles where Michael Mann made his 1995 classic heist thriller “Heat” with Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, and Val Kilmer. In “Takers,” a quintet of GQ criminals steals what they want when they want it with the least amount of damage. Thoroughly professional to the hilt, these guys live by a code. Second, although clearly inspired by the slickly done Michael Mann epic, Luessenhop helms this stylist thriller as if he spent his every waking hour watching William Friedkin’s landmark “To Live and Die in L.A.” Clocking in at 107 minutes, “Takers” never sacrifices its momentum for anything. Luessenhop’s editor, Armen Minasian of “RoboCop 2” and “Kiss the Girls,” literally slashes the action together. Something is constantly happening. Walk out on this nail-biter and you’ll miss a lot of action even if you’re gone for less than 60 seconds. Luessenhop pares everything down to the bare essentials. Indeed, Zoe Saldana's role looks like it was whittled down to a couple of scenes with little for her to do. Unfortunately, characterization beyond wardrobe changes suffers. Nevertheless, the action burns up the screen, particularly a nimble foot chase that imitates a similar chase from the first Daniel Craig Bond movie “Casino Royale.” Third, Luessenhop stages a noisy but realistic gunfight in the confines of a motel suite that looks like a tribute to Ridley Scott’s L.A.-based crime caper “True Romance.” Mind you, “Takers” ups the ante; the bullets punch big holes in the walls in this shoot-out, and nobody knows who is blasting away at whom on the other side. Finally, a three-way, Sergio Leone/Quentin Tarantino style showdown caps the action at an airport where the cops and robbers face off. Laden with surprises, “Takers” emerges as a gripping heist thriller with enough cool-looking combat to compensate for the dearth of characterization.

Jamaican-born Gordon Jennings (Idris Elba of “Obsessed”) heads up an elite gang of twentysomething criminals that consists of former car thief John Rahway (Paul Walker of “Running Scared”), tattoo-clad, jack-of-all-trades construction engineer A.J. (Hayden Christensen of "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith”), and brothers Jake (Michael Ealy of “Seven Pounds”) and Jesse Attica (Chris Brown of “Stomp the Yard”) who handle C-4 explosives like wizards. During the first scene, Luessenhop establishes the cool expertise of Jennings and company under tension when they execute a flawlessly timed robbery at the Federal California Bank in broad daylight in downtown Los Angeles. They assemble at the high-rise bank in separate disguises and then suit up in masks and body armor with assault weapons. A female bank employee trips a bank alarm during the hold-up. Calmly, Rahway escorts her courteously to a nearby phone where he orders her to call a local TV station and report a robbery in progress. Naturally, an eager TV news crew responds and lands their news helicopter atop the skyscraper helipad where the bank is located. The news reporter believes she has a scoop when the security guard gives them clearance to land. As it turns out, A.J. is masquerading as the security guard. He pulls his pistol and forces her, her news camera man, and the pilot down on their bellies. While the Los Angeles Police Department assembles in the parking lot, the other four members of his team pile into the chopper. A.J. flies the chopper off to a landing site not far away. After blowing up the helicopter to destroy any clues, the quintet separate without anyone knowing anything about them. These guys live the high life and toast each other at Jake’s bar.

Meanwhile, trouble is brewing because one of their former colleagues, Daryl Rivers (rapper-producer Tip "T.I." Harris), who was wounded during a robbery four years ago, is released on good behavior. The gang has since cut off contact with Daryl, a.k.a. ‘Ghost,’ and they are surprised when he shows up at Jake’s bar. As it turns out, Ghost’s girlfriend Rachel Jansen (Zoe Saldana of “The Losers”) has taken up with Jake, so bad blood exists between Jake and Ghost. Gordon and the others fear that after they give Ghost his cut from his last job that he may inform on them to the authorities. Instead, Ghost brings them the blueprints for a daring armored car robbery that could yield a $20-$30 million payday. Initially, the gang is suspicious. They don’t know if they can trust Ghost, but he brings them a sweet deal. The chief drawback is they must stage the heist in less than a week. A.J. performs the leg work and convinces Gordon that the job is something that they can do. Little do they know that Ghost has gotten the idea from an outfit of ruthless L.A. based Russians. The Russians think they are in cahoots with Ghost, but Ghosts plans to use them as a means of exacting sweet revenge on the protagonists. The armored car robbery in “Takers” is truly a piece of work and nothing like it has been done.

Director John Luessenhop and a trio of scenarists, Peter Allen, Gabriel Casseus, and Avery Duff, have turned an inventory of cop and robbers clichés into a lively little thriller. Although the slippery Ghost is the gang’s most obvious adversary, they have to elude and distract hot-tempered, rogue L.A.P.D. Detective Jack Welles (Matt Dillon of “Armored”) who is determined to capture them. Welles and his partner Eddie Hatcher (Jay Hernandez of “Hostel”) are tenacious in their efforts to track down Gordon and company. Like “Heat,” the heroes in “Takers” have personal problems. Gordon has a crack head sister, Naomi (Marianne Jean-Baptiste of “Spy Game”), who creates problems for him when he least needs them. Luessenhop ramps up the suspense and tension throughout “Takers” so that neither the cops nor the robbers have an easy time of it. Complications galore arise to derail everybody’s best laid plans. “Takers” ranks as one of the best L.A.-based heist melodramas since “Heat.”

FILM REVIEW OF "TEAM AMERICA''

Puppet sex, projectile vomiting, profuse profanity, and piles of B-movie action clichés proliferate in "South Park" creator Trey Parker's new marionette movie "Team America: World Police," a demented but inspired politically incorrect satire about global terrorism that ranks as the most original, cutting-edge, non-human, laugh-riot since the claymation classic "Chicken Run." Anybody who hated "South Park" should be prepared for the worst from this imaginative, superbly-made parody of director Michael Bay's pompous actioneers. The MPAA gave "Team America" (**** out of ****) its richly-deserved R-rating for lots of "graphic, crude, and sexual humor" as well as "violent images and strong language, all involving puppets." Again, this is a puppet movie! For the record, the parental website Kids-In-Mind counted "62 F-words and its derivatives, 12 sexual references, nine scatological terms, 59 anatomical terms, 14 mild obscenities, 14 derogatory terms for homosexuals (some are in an ongoing play on words referring to the Film Actors Guild as F.A.G., one derogatory term for African-Americans, six religious profanities, and 15 religious exclamations (1 in French with no translation)." Although writer/director Trey Parker and "South Park" co-writers Pam Brady and Matt Stone never mention President George W. Bush by name, they ridicule Washington's efforts at thwarting world-wide terrorism, particularly when our heroes demolish more than the terrorists destroy. When they aren't making a mockery of macho Hollywood action movies, Parker, Brady, and Stone lampoon liberal-minded actors who believe they can usher in peace on the basis of their celebrity status. You'll laugh yourself silly at the strikingly life-like puppets of Alec Baldwin, Tim Robbins, Martin Sheen, Sean Penn, and Janeane Garofalo. Last but not least, "Team America" skewers filmmaker Michael Moore of "Fahrenheit 9/11" fame as a suicidal bomber with mustard smeared across his jowls and a hot dog in either hand.

"Team America" chronicles the exploits of an elite "A-Team'' of commandos armed to the teeth with an arsenal of every conceivable modern weapon. These gung-ho hard cases target terrorists, usually of the stereotypical, bewhiskered, Middle-Eastern, towel-headed variety. During their first face-off in Paris, France, our tyke-sized protagonists gun down several terrorists in a slam-bang, blood-splattered, public street shoot-out. Indeed, when bullets strike these expressive but plastic puppets, they bleed like actors in a live-action opus. ("Team America" is the closest that anybody has come to matching "Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson's 1989 blood & gore puppet movie "Meet the Feebles.") Not only do our heroes decimate the terrorists, they also destroy the Eiffel Tower, the Arch of Triumph and the Louvre in an hilarious domino effect that sends one structure toppling over to wipe out another and another! Making the world safe from terrorists, however, takes a toll on the team when one of them takes a bullet in the back from a terrorist playing possum in a water fountain. After successfully completing their mission and destroying French landmarks in the process, our heroes return to their home base, cleverly concealed in historic Mount Rushmore. Team America leader, Spottswoode (voice of Trey Parker), decides to adopt a different strategy, so he persuades a "top gun" Broadway actor named Gary Johnston (voice of Parker) to go undercover and learn what the terrorists are planning next. Gary undergoes plastic surgery so he will blend in with the bad guys. Essentially, they put boot polish on his face and attach turfs of hair to his cheeks. Disguised as an Arab, Gary strolls into a cafe in Cairo where he asks the obvious question: "Anybody know of any terrorist attacks coming up soon?" and nearly gets his little plastic buttocks blown off. Again, our reckless heroes rush to Gary's rescue, mow down the trigger-happy bad guys, and accidentally destroy the Sphinx and the Pyramids. Eventually, the biggest and baddest villain of them all marches forward in the pot-bellied shape of a bespectacled Kim Jong II. Clearly, Parker and company have modeled him on the standard James Bond villain. The diabolical North Korean dictator has secretly amassed a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and has hoodwinked Alec Baldwin and a number of other movie celebrities into helping him achieve his dastardly goal.

While most filmmakers resort to the latest technology to make their movies,director Trey Parker steps back in time to revive old-fashioned, hand-manipulated marionettes. Yes, when these bubble-headed marionettes walk, you can see the strings holding them up, and that is part of the charm of "Team America." Parker got the idea when he saw the vintage 1960's British TV series "Thunderbirds" which utilized an all puppet cast. Although Parker relies on ancient technology, he and his crew spent major bucks to recreate in painstaking detail the scaled down, one-third life-like locales. For example, if you peer closely at the Paris sequence, you may notice that the French cobblestones resemble croissants.

Altogether, "Team America" succeeds first as a pungent political satire, second as a spoof of Michael Bay movies like "Pearl Harbor," and third as a truly innovative puppet movie. The puppetry is first-rate, and the production values are dazzling. Again, the attention to detail for an essentially silly movie like this goes far beyond what you'd expect. Lenser Bill Pope of "The Matrix" shoots the entire film as if he were photographing a live action epic. Only time will tell whether this controversial comedy will emerge as the single most important film of our time to dissect the guidance of Washington's war against terrorism.