Happy Feet (2006) - Mind-numbing one-trick pony animation

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A happy-faced penguin is dancing on a - presumably thawing - block of ice on this poster for George Miller, Warren Coleman and Judy Morris' Happy Feet

In the world of emperor penguins singing is pivotal. But young Mumble doesn't have the knack for it. What he can do, however, is dance!

 

Happy Feet is written by John Collee (Wolf Totem (2015)) and co-writer/directors Judy Morris (Luigi's Ladies (1989)), Warren Coleman (Effie: Just Quietly (2001, TV-series)) and great Australian filmmaker George Miller (Mad Max (1979)).

The animation of Antarctic animals is impressive. - Regrettably they are dropped into an insultingly hollow and unoriginal film, which seems to promise us a gay penguin story - but instead settles for tap-dancing penguin idiocy, and an environmental afterthought ending that's just twaddle. Happy Feet is intolerable.

 

Related posts:

George Miller: Top 10: Best car chases in movies reviewed by Film Excess to date

2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]

2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) or, Furiosa: Desert Warrior 

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

Twilight Zone The Movie (1983) - Fear takes many forms in tragedy-struck anthology (segment director)

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 100 mil. $

Box office: 384.3 mil. $

= Big hit (returned 3.84 times its cost)

[Happy Feet was released 16 November (Malaysia, Thailand) and runs 108 minutes. Production took place in Sydney, Australia and lasted 4 years. Motion capture was used to make the penguins dance convincingly like humans. The film opened #1 to a 41.5 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 2 weekends at #1 and then another 2 in the top 5 (#2-#4), grossing 198 mil. $ (51.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 37.7 mil. $ (9.8 %) and Australia with 26.2 mil. $ (6.9 %). The film won the Best Animated Feature Oscar. It also won 1/2 BAFTA nominations, an AFI award, 1/2 Golden Globe nominations, was nominated for 2 Grammys and many other honors. It also made in excess of 213.8 mil. $ on DVD and Blu-ray sales in North America. Miller (and several voice stars) returned with Happy Feet Two (2011), a major flop. Morris and Coleman have not directed since. Elijah Wood (Cooties (2014)) returned in 3 TV and video game credits prior to his theatrical return in Year Zero (2007); Brittany Murphy (Drive (1997)) in The Ramen Girl (2008). Happy Feet is certified fresh at 76 % with a 6.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Happy Feet?

The Faculty (1998) or, Teacher Encounters of the Third Kind

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+ Best Sci-fi-Horror of the Year

 

An attractive young cast, a brooding color scheme and hyping quotes make up this poster for Robert Rodriguez's The Faculty

Herrington High School in Ohio seems like a completely average high school with average teachers and students. But now the latter are beginning to suspect that their teachers and the student body's jocks may be ... extra-terrestrials!

A generous 4 ♥'s are awarded to this enjoyable high school life farce/genre film homage, which pulls a fast one on one of the big cliché movie types of the 1990s: the high school-set melodrama-comedy. The Faculty is written by Kevin Williamson (Scream (1996)), based on a script by Bruce Kimmel (The Creature Wasn't Nice (1983)) and David Wechter (Midnight Madness (1980)), and directed by great Texan filmmaker Robert Rodriguez (Machete Kills (2013)).
James Cameron's masterpiece Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) is among the appreciatively referenced films, and the T-1000 himself, Robert Patrick (Big Love (2011), TV-series) is employed here and bad-ass as usual. He is one in a celebrity mecca in The Faculty that also counts, among others: Usher Raymond (People You May Know (2017)), Famke Janssen (Eulogy (2004)) is great here, Jordana Brewster (The Fast and the Furious (2001)), later talk show icon Jon Stewart (Mixed Nuts (1994)) in a wild superman-like part, Salma Hayek (Wild Wild West (1999)), a cute Elijah Wood (The Romantics (2010)), an annoying Josh Hartnett (I Come with the Rain (2009)), Laura Harris (Just the Ticket (1999)) SPOILER as the awesome mega-monster, Summer Phoenix (The Believer (2001)) in a small role and Christopher McDonald (Fanboys (2009)).
The soundtrack is bolstered by an inferno of 90's rock, which feels appropriate for The Faculty. Rodriguez knows how to stage a very entertaining genre treat, and despite plot holes, this movie is a hoot.

Related posts:

Robert Rodriguez: 1998 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

From Dusk till Dawn (1996) - Tarantino, Rodriguez and chums' enjoyable Mexico vampire extravaganza
Desperado (1995) - Rodriguez' second Mexico actioner is a sexy, latino fireball

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 15 mil. $
Box office: 40.2 mil. $ (North America only)
= Uncertainty - but at least a box office success
[The Faculty premiered 12 November (USA) and runs 104 minutes. Kimmel and Wechter's script was written in 1990 but did not find buyers until the hugely successful release of Scream (1996). Williamson was commissioned to rewrite their script and make it more 'hip'. Williamson was poised to direct but passed in favor of his own creation, the inferior Teaching Mrs. Tingle (1999). Shooting took place in Texas, including Austin and Dallas, from April - June 1998. The film opened #5, behind fellow new releases Patch Adams and Stepmom and holdover hits You've Got Mail and The Prince of Egypt, to an 11.6 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it enjoyed a successful run of 16 weeks. Regrettably, the film's worldwide gross is not reported, but the film was at least a box office success and likely a big hit. Rodriguez returned with Spy Kids (2001). The Faculty is rotten at 53 % with a 5.6 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Faculty?

Everything Is Illuminated (2005) - Schreiber's inauspicious debut falls flat

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+ 2nd Worst Movie of the Year

+ Most Overrated Movie of the Year

Elijah Wood looks serene encapsulated in sunflowers on this poster for Liev Schreiber's Everything Is Illuminated

Everything Is Illuminated is an adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer's (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2005)) same-titled autobiographical 2002 novel, written and directed by actor-turned-filmmaker Liev Schreiber (Ray Donovan (2014-16)).

American Jew Jonathan Safran Foer travels to Ukraine in search of illumination as to his roots and family history.

SPOILER What he finds, which is revealed after about 1½ hour, is wholly predictably a mass grave and reconciliation with the peculiar Ukrainians he meets. - They create the film's only bright moments.
It is an otherwise extremely dull time, filled with insufferably long music sequences - with lousy music - and led by Elijah Wood (Set Fire to the Stars (2014)) as the bespectacled, unendurably alienated Foer. If the film had only had a fifth of the self-complacent, pretentious air it flies contently on, it would have been plenty. 
Everything Is Illuminated seems to attempt to be a dramedy, but taken as a drama it is bad, and taken as a comedy it is even worse.

Related reviews:

Liev Schreiber: Pawn Sacrifice (2014) - Zwick, Knight and Maguire's mediocre chess genius movie (actor) 
Fading Gigolo (2013) - Turturro's pleasant turn as a high-end NY prostitute  (actor)

2005 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 7 mil. $
Box office: 3.6 mil. $
= Huge flop
[Everything Is Illuminated premiered September 3 (Telluride Film Festival) and runs 104 minutes. Filming took place in Ukraine and the Czech Republic, including in Prague, from June - August 2004. The film opened #45 in 6 theaters to 66k $ in North America, where it peaked at #29 in 110 theaters and grossed 1.7 mil. $ (47.2 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Italy with 1 mil. $ (27.8 %) and Germany with 205k $ (5.7 %). The film won two awards at Venice Film Festival as well as 'special recognition for excellence in filmmaking' from the National Board of Review. Roger Ebert have awarded it 3/4 stars. Schreiber has only directed two episodes of Ray Donovan since the film, and continues to be acting. Everything Is Illuminated is fresh at 66 % with a 6.5 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Everything Is Illuminated?

Revenge for Jolly (2012) - An uneven, pitch-black stoner comedy debut

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A blood-splattered, shell-littered poster for Chadd Harbold's Revenge for Jolly!

Revenge for Jolly! is the feature debut of Chadd Harbold (Block (2011), short), a really dark comedy, the first feature written by lead Brian Petsos (Wasted Space: The Mark Rantana Story (2010), short).

Petsos plays a nerdy loner, whose tiny dog gets killed. He seeks revenge and partners up with his also not-too-bright cousin for this quest, which takes them on a violent killing spree.

Jolly! will mostly appeal to younger males of the more cynical kind, or emotionally blunted types, who probably don't really need to acquire role-models who do the kind of things the protagonists of this film do.
The film's humor is extremely dark, even more so because none of the action is totally unbelievable, and the effects are realistic. Many will writhe in their seats or simply switch off the film, because it is immoral, but if you can accept this in the context of it all just being one long, crude joke, then you may like the film or just find it entertaining as I must admit that I did.
Something has gone wrong in the DVD transfer, or perhaps the film was just shot on terrible HD cameras (?). In any case the result on my TV was a technically awful visual experience, as the images linger all over the screen, whenever the characters move fast in any way.
Petso's script is pretty one-sided and flawed and plays like a series of episodic, more or less comedic and grim scenes that all come to a very abrupt end. Rarely has a feature seemed more 'straight-out-of-film-school' than Revenge for Jolly!, which is totally lacking any seriousness or great ideas, apparently solely thrilled with violence, guns and profanity and really dark and nonsensical humor.

Writer-star Brian Petsos and Oscar Isaac in Chadd Harbold's Revenge for Jolly!

The details:

What may make you interested enough to watch it are the stars in it:
Petsos doesn't create an interesting lead, but Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)) is pretty good as his stoner cousin. They both seem to give it their all at least.
The funniest in the remaining cast are Garret Dillahunt (Deadwood (2004-05)) and Kevin Corrigan (The Departed (2006)), both in the wedding scene. The film also features stars Kristen Wiig, Elijah Wood (in yet another pretty obscure post-LOTR appearance) and Ryan Phillippe.
Jolly! may, in fact, be best described as mostly a stoner comedy. - The leads, who are wearing sombreros for a large portion of the film (...) have definitely smoked too much, anyway.
Incredibly, (since this film doesn't seem to have made any business), Harbold followed it up just the year after with another low-budget comedy, How to Be a Man (2013). And soon he will finish his next project, the short George and the Vacuum (2015) with Fred Armisen.

Watch the trailer here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown
[No information out most likely means that the film hasn't made nearly anything (theatrically, anyway). It was shot in New York and premiered at the city's Tribeca Film Festival.]

What do you think of Revenge for Jolly!?

Maniac (2012) - POV-powered doll collector/ex-hobbit serial killer loose in LA

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+ Wildest Movie of the Year 

The gritty, awesome poster for Franck Khalfoun's Maniac

Our title protagonist Frank lives in his LA home behind a mannequin restoration store. He kills women and scalps them, so that he can equip his dolls ...

I give a generous 4 ♥'s for Franck Khalfoun's (P2 (2007)) energetic remake of William Lustig's original Maniac (1980), which especially establishes its effectiveness through the terror and intense repulsion that it instills in most audiences who watch it.
Elijah Wood (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)) plays the loathsome lead, and he is really nasty in the part! Just have a look at him here:

The major new element in Khalfoun's Maniac is that it is shot almost entirely in POV [point of view]. This concept is painstaking to accomplish, but very impressively carried out here and at times very uncomfortable to watch, as it feels almost as if we are participating in the maniac's kills.
The murders are incredibly realistically looking and technically astonishing.
But other parts of Maniac do not really add up, for instance; why doesn't anyone ever ask about Frank's lacerated, disgusting hands? And SPOILER the flash-back 'explanatory' scenes of Frank's traumatic childhood are not adequate as a basis for understanding his current blood-lust, as they set out to do. Some kind of physical abuse would almost certainly also have been a part of his experiences. Finally the SPOILER cannibalistic ending of the film is strange in a bad way.
Khalfoun is now in post production with two films; a mystery thriller, i-Lived (2014) and yet another Amityville horror movie entitled, Amityville: The Awakening (2015).
Wood, who is inarguably a scoop for Maniac, has been active in quite a few wild, hair-raising projects recently; namely Brian De Palma's Grand Piano (2013) and the coming Cooties (2014), a highly anticipated horror movie.

Related posts:

2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

Watch the gruesome trailer for the film here

Cost: Estimated 6 mil. $
Box office: 2.6 mil. $
= Big flop
[Maniac seems to perhaps have fallen into the pit for horror films that we for lack of a better term could call the 'too horrific/revolting/sick bucket', which is only defined by unfair mainstream-feelings, as for instance the at least equally sick Saw horror movie franchise never fell into this category. Being literally inside the head of a brutal serial killer as we are in Maniac was probably, unfortunately, too much for most theaters and audiences, hence the lackluster result.]

What do you think of Franck Khalfoun's Maniac?
If you have seen the original, what do you think in comparison?