Get Him to the Greek

I don't recall if I ever saw a full trailer for this movie, but I know from the TV spots that I don't think they ever made it clear that this is actually a spin-off of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, with Russell Brand reprising his role as insane rock star Aldous Snow. I didn't know this until people mentioned it elsewhere, and you'd think the advertising would capitalize on this face, since Snow was possibly the funniest single thing about that movie. As it was, it just looked like a raunchy comedy about a fat nervous guy and a wacky British guy running around and partying. Which it is, but it happens to be a very enjoyable one, and the Snow character is a big part of that. I'm ambivalent about Brand, who can come off as endearingly wacky or completely irritating depending on what day it is, but this role certainly brings out the best in him. Snow is partly just a typical drug abusing out-of-his-mind musician, but there are layers of loneliness and self awareness underneath that exterior, and his unique use of the English language never ceases to entertain. He plays a secondary role to Jonah Hill's young talent agent Aaron, but I think he could have carried the movie himself.

Not that Hill's bad at all in the movie. He always seems to find a new little twist on his general persona in each new movie, and this character is definitely a bit different, being a very nervous young guy who just wants to do a good job but makes a habit of screwing up. He has to get Snow to the Greek Theatre in LA from his home in London in just a couple days, and unfortunately for him Snow is much better at procrastinating than he is at getting him to do anything. There's an interesting dynamic between the two, as Aaron grows from admiring Snow at a distance to understanding what the man is really like, and Snow comes to appreciate one of the only people he's met who doesn't want to take advantage of him. The supporting cast is good too. Elisabeth Moss plays Aaron's girlfriend, and she seems liberated by playing a character that isn't a 60s copy writer. Their relationship is sweet, even if it gets splintered heavily by the events of the film. Colm Meaney plays Snow's father, and his combination of easy charm with completely awful motives is an interesting turn. Diddy is also surprisingly entertaining as Hill's boss, even if it seemed like his role was overplayed in advertisements. His character is truly foul mouthed and insane, which are both aspects they couldn't really get across in TV spots, and I was pleasantly surprised by the character.

So Hill and Brand run around Europe and then the United States, getting impossibly intoxicated on alcohol and drugs, and going to absurdly debaucherous parties, and basically doing everything except going where they should be. I think the movie works because the adult content is just so completely over the edge, which makes it more interesting to watch than a standard R rated road trip movie. I did see the unrated version, so I wonder how much that helped. Over time they learn more about each other, and by the end they've finally realized things that will let them have better lives from that point forward. It's a pretty standard arc for this sort of movie, but it all works because it's very competently put together by Nicholas Stoller and his crew and the cast is very solid. Not every gag works, but enough do for me to recommend it as much as most other Judd Apatow-produced comedies.

Con Air

I still don't really understand Nick Cage. He can be a really good actor when he wants to, but he seems to want to less and less these days. He'll pretty much be in any movie as long as he gets the lead role. Which is why he's here in Con Air, bulked up to hell and back and putting on one of the worst accents I've ever heard. Cage trying to sound southern is just... just an abomination of acting. For some reason though, it works with the rest of the movie. He's surrounded by colorful characters, and if the protagonist was taken too seriously, I don't think the film would be as enjoyable as it is. It's not perfect, but for what it is it works pretty well.

It's one of those slightly older big action movies that at least tries to have an interesting and clever plot - you know, something Hollywood doesn't really try anymore. So Cage is a military veteran who comes home from the service to his pregnant wife, only to kill a man while defending her that night. Because his training has made him a deadly weapon, they throw the book at him and give him 7-10 years for manslaughter. Way to support the troops, legal system. Anyway, at the end of his sentence, he is to be transported by plane to a location for release. Unfortunately there are a bunch of bad dudes on that plane and they manage to take it over, causing a hostage situation in the skies. The revolt is lead by an enjoyably evil John Malkovich, and he's got everyone from a black militant Ving Rhames to a serial rapist Danny Trejo helping him out. John Cusack is in charge of the plane on the ground and is trying to stop it, but he's antagonized at every turn by Colm Meaney as a DEA official pissed that one of his guys got killed, so it's more or less up to Cage to save the day while maintaining his cover as just another bad guy. Also, Steve Buscemi is a serial killer.

So there's a lot of menacing dialogue and somewhat interesting tricks to try to avoid the authorities, and some goofy one-liners from Cage as he sows discord and takes out anyone who might stop him. The plane itself is a major location, but there's also some fun to be had at an abandoned airfield and eventually in the middle of the Vegas strip. People shoot guns and beat each other up and things explode all pretty. There's quite a few holes in the script, but it's fairly solid for this kind of action movie, and it can certainly be a fun time if you don't take it too seriously. I still just don't understand how an Oscar winning actor could butcher an accent so completely. Or how it's wrong for a vet to defend his wife with deadly force but not to chase someone all around Las Vegas with murderous intent. Oh well. Pretty good.

Die Hard 2

Die harder, yo. That's the tagline and occasional subtitle, but I don't think this movie is really die hardier than the first. It's pretty die hardy, but if die hardness is measured by what made the original unique, then the sequel drifted away from that somewhat. Any action movie can have gun fights and explosions, so what made Die Hard cool was that John McClane didn't win by blowing the bad guys away, but by acting intelligently and being a tough son of a bitch. It was a deadly game of cat and mouse, and him matching wits with Gruber was a lot of fun. Die Hard 2 mostly sacrifices that for a bunch of traditional action movie stuff, and while it hits those notes pretty well, and is a pretty decent movie overall, it's definitely a significant step down.

In some ways, the set up is very similar (close enough that the characters repeatedly remark on how unlikely it is for McClane to be in the middle of this kind of thing twice), with bad guys taking several planes full of passengers hostage at an airport rather than the guests of a party in a building, again on Christmas Eve. There's still some subterfuge as the good guys try a few ways to regain control of the wayward planes, but McClane's role is mostly limited to shooting guys and making generally terrible wisecracks. He has a few chances to be clever, but really the treatment of the character is one of the most disappointing aspects of the sequel. I still generally like Bruce Willis, but this just isn't one of the best scripts he's gotten. My favorite actor in the movie was actually Dennis Franz playing a typical angry police captain to the hilt, and clearly enjoying the work. There's a couple other likable performances, but really the movie's all about the action. The plot doesn't make sense and the brutality of the violence seems a little over the top, but that's pretty much what you have to expect from big action movies. At the very least it's mostly enjoyable trash the whole way through, which would generally be fine, except it just hurts a bit more after the original.