Blades of Glory
Director: Josh Gordon Will Speck
Stars: Will Ferrell, Jon Heder, Amy Poehler
Studio: Paramount Pictures

If you’ve tuned into any television show over the past month, you had to have seen the trailer, a strangely funny trailer with a few laughs and a few more raised eyebrows. The premise looks, well, kind of funny and the plot looks to be about the same. Neither that premise nor that plot looks like it can hold a comedy for very long, which smacks of another lackluster comedy from a guy (Ferrell) who is starting to churn out crappy comedies at the same pace that Lindsay Lohan goes through rehab centers. Besides Old School, Ferrell’s comedies have been overblown and really campy. This film doesn’t look like it will stray from that form. One thing that has struck me over the past few years is that it seems that Ferrell has taken a liking to scripts that are either partially written or are just mock-ups so that he can put his own comedic stamp on the work. While this worked with the ultra-hilarious “Santa’s coming! I know him…” line and it worked as the self-depressed husband/ partier in Old School, it hasn’t really worked anywhere else which culminated in the forgettable Ricky Bobby (and the subsequent interviews that were borderline reprehensible). It has become a formulaic approach to making comedies and that, in and of itself, isn’t very funny. In each film, Ferrell seems like he’s playing the same character in a different setting- kind of like an entire SNL episode just made into movies. But, I’ll still be there, holding the scepter of hope that this might be the one to get him back to his great ways. (Of course I’ve spent over forty bucks hoping that each one of the last one’s would do the same thing.) For a little background, I’m the guy who thought The Weatherman was sort of funny until the last scene that killed the entire movie, didn’t think Napoleon Dynamite was the greatest movie ever filmed and thought Ricky Bobby was a bigger waste of time than the Jerry Springer movie that Comedy Central has decided to put on continuous loop for all of 2007.

The story is of two Olympic skaters who lose their gold medals at the 2002 games and then find a loophole that will allow them to compete in the pairs division in the next Olympiad. Already the sweater is unraveling. Are we supposed to believe that two men can compete against a man and a woman? It’s one thing to suspend belief, it’s quite another to make up your own rules as they go along, especially when you have real locales and competitions that over a couple billion people tune into. The premise, while funny, will be an exercise in getting one man’s crotch into the other man’s face… for an hour and a half. No joke is funny enough to have that kind of longevity. You’ll get to see the same dumb jock lines that you saw in Ricky Bobby. And that, my friends, is not a good thing.

Meet the Robinsons
Director: Stephen J. Anderson
Stars: Daniel Hansen, Wesley Singerman
Studio: Buena Vista Pictures

There’s a reason that this time of year is known as the dead-zone for movies. The kids aren’t out of school, the weather is nice and the film companies release as little as possible, especially in the substance department. Saying all of that, this film will make money and lots of it. Why? Because it’s a Disney animation and that’s what Disney does- make money off of kids. Hey, we could just go through the middleman and have every parent send Disney a check for $20 for the year and call it even, couldn’t we? Now that I’ve stepped gently down from my soapbox, I’ve seen the trailers and a few inside videos trying to figure out what in the world is going on with this film. It’s one thing to have a plot a child can understand and it’s a much different thing to have a plot no one understands. I realize this is an adaptation from a William Joyce book, but the trailers make it out to be something more for the acid induced teenagers at the midnight showing. A T-Rex with a sense of humor? Um, that’s a little stretch, don’t you think?

Here goes an attempt at a plot line… a boy invents a “memory scanner” that is subsequently stolen. When all hope is lost, the boy curiously runs into a character named William Robinson (get ready for the Lost In Space references and themes to get heavy) who takes him to the future to meet his family and help them out. Along his travel, the youngster tracks down his invention and learns a lot about his past.

The Lookout
Director: Scott Frank
Stars: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jeff Daniels, Matthew Goode
Studio: Miramax Films

This is the movie coming out this week that deserves some props and the worst part is that the trailers have so confused everyone that this one may get lost in the wash. The message boards and bloggers are saying this film is going to be a Memento styled film and that cannot be farther from the truth. In fact, once you see this film, you’ll know the only thing the two films share is a severe case of head trauma. Beyond that, this film is about the decision making process and someone taking advantage of your situation while at the same time turning the screws on you. It’s an interesting plot with a lot to say. Again, though, the marketing of this film has been fairly off base.

The story is of a former high school athlete who gets in an accident and wants desperately to maintain his life pre-accident. He takes a job in a bank as a janitor and everything seems to be going fine until a group that’s going to rob the bank makes him the lookout. And here’s where I’m interested because there is going to be something either held over his head or they are going to convince the kid that he was with them all along. Next thing he knows, he’s fighting for himself and the thoughts that he has. (This is a particularly bad part of the trailers as they make it seem like he’s a wishy-washy kid who’s in and then out of the heist.) Again, throw out all that you have seen about this film and start anew. It should be interesting.