Horton Hears a Who! (2008) - Belly-laughs and fantastic imagination in great family animation

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+ Best Fantasy Movie of the Year

 

Amusing animal characters and two giant comedian voice stars are teased on this poster for Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino's Horton Hears a Who!

In the Jungle of Nool the nice elephant Horton finds a speck of dust on a clover, which screams! He learns that a minuscule society live in the speck! But his travails to get them into safety are mighty hard!

 

Horton Hears a Who! is written by Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul (Despicable Me (2010), both), adapting the same-titled 1954 children's novel by Dr. Seuss (The Cat in the Hat (1957)), and directed by debuting Jimmy Hayward (Free Birds (2013)) and also debuting Steve Martino (The Peanuts Movie (2015)).

Dr. Seuss' enormously strange and imaginative story is utilized to make an incredibly funny and thought-provoking, handsome animated family picture here. Pack mentality, showing care and the layout of the universe are on the agenda in Horton Hears a Who!.

Jim Carrey (The Mask (1994)) and Steve Carell (Café Society (2016)) are perfectly cast; the former as the manically positive, physically funny Horton and the latter as the paranoid-fearful Mayor Ned McDodd of Whoville, the town that exists inside the speck. Carol Burnett (Annie (1982)) as the villainous kangaroo and Seth Rogen (Pineapple Express (2008)) as Morton the mouse are also a lot of fun. Horton Hears a Who! is a very quaint and successfully hilarious film.

 

Related post:
 

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 85 mil. $

Box office: 298.5 mil. $

= Big hit (returned 3.51 times its cost)

[Horton Hears a Who! premiered 3 March (Hollywood) and runs 86 minutes. A "seven-figure" amount was paid to Dr. Seuss' widow for the rights to the story. The film opened #1 to a 45 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another weekend at #1 and then another 2 weekends in the top 5 (#2-#4), grossing 154.5 mil. $ (51.8 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 17.2 mil. $ (5.8 %) and France with 15.4 mil. $ (5.2 %). The film also made in excess of 77.8 mil. $ on home video sales in North America alone. Hayward returned with Jonah Hex (2010); Martino with Scrat's Continental Crack-Up (2010, short), Scrat's Continental Crack-Up: Part 2 (2011, short) and theatrically with Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012). Carrey returned in Yes Man (2008); Carell in Get Smart (2008). Horton Hears a Who! is certified fresh at 80 % with a 7.00/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Horton Hears a Who!?

The Number 23 (2007) - Carrey's big ol' turkey

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Someone's ruined star Jim Carrey's face with a black marker on this poster for Joel Schumacher's The Number 23

An animal control officer gets introduced to a strange book about obsession with the number 23, which is put in connection to all types of disasters all over the world, - and the family father's own life. - Is the book actually about his own life?

 

The Number 23 is written by Fernley Phillips (U Want Me 2 Kill Him? (2013, story contribution)) and directed by great New-Yorker filmmaker Joel Schumacher (The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981)).

It is an absolute mega-sized turkey, which doesn't necessarily have a bad premise for a movie about obsession, but which is done in by poor execution. Jim Carrey (Batman Forever (1995)) has a tough time with this character and often falls through, probably because the script is racked with nonsense. It gets seriously dull once it seems the film has evolved into simply rattling off fatal events with the number 23 involved.

The Number 23 is mostly a film about mental illness, compulsive neurosis of some kind, but it is hard to get the protagonist's family's behavior and statements to make sense. Logan Lerman (Noah (2014)) co-stars as Carrey's twinkie son with a big headful of wonderful curls.

Another unpleasant layer to this already unpleasant star vehicle, a dead-end movie if there ever was one, is its preoccupation with suicide, which later haunted Carrey's own life, as his 2012-15 girlfriend committed suicide in 2015. The Number 23 is a sad and terrible movie, the year's worst star vehicle to be sure.

 

Related posts:

Joel Schumacher: Falling Down (1993) - Schumacher's arguably best film, a fiery dragon of a societal thriller

The Lost Boys (1987) - A crazy 80's teen vampire bonanza 

 

Watch a trailer for the movie here

 

Cost: 30 mil. $

Box office: 77.6 mil. $

= Box office success (returned 2.58 times its cost)

[The Number 23 premiered 13 February (Los Angeles) and runs 98 minutes. Shooting took place from January 2006 - ? in California, including in Los Angeles, and in Florida. The film opened #2, behind holdover hit Ghost Rider, to a 15.7 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent one more weekend in the top 5 (#5) and grossed 35.1 mil. $ (45.2 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 7.7 mil. $ (9.9 %) and Italy with 4 mil. $ (5.2 %). The-Numbers.com estimate that the film made additional 28.3 mil. $ on the domestic home video market. Schumacher returned with Choose or Lose (2008, TV special) and theatrically with Blood Creek (2009). Carrey returned with a voice performance in Horton Hears a Who! (2008) and physically in Yes Man (2008). The Number 23 is rotten at 8 % with a 3.60/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of The Number 23? 

Me, Myself & Irene (2000) - The Farrelly brothers falter

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Star Jim Carrey's face is split in half as two radically different personalities on this poster for Bobby and Peter Farrelly's Me, Myself & Irene

 

In the Rhode Island State Police works a doormat of a man, who lives with his ex-wife's triplets. But now he suffers a mental breakdown, which makes him split in two opposite personalities, just as he is about to transport hit-and-run driver Irene to New York.

 

Me, Myself & Irene is written by Mike Cerrone (Homie Spumoni (2006)) and great co-writer/director filmmaker brothers, Rhode-Islander Bobby Farrelly and Pennsylvanian Peter Farrelly (Dumb and Dumber (1994)). Peter Farrelly also produced the film.

Although Me, Myself & Irene begins with some promising signs, what follows is an often unfunny and actually tedious film. Jim Carrey's (The Majestic (2001)) performance is labored, and neither he nor Renée Zellweger (The Low Life (1995)), who plays Irene, have particularly interesting or well-shaped characters here in a story that is frankly an ungainly patchwork. That so many gags and jokes in this darkly humorous crude comedy fall through, - there are bright moments, but they are precious few, - actually make periods of Me, Myself & Irene a bit embarrassing on sexist and racial planes. You may remember this film as fun and zany but chances are you'll be sorely disappointed, if you revisit it, as it is truly a bummer.

 

Watch a clip from the film here 

 

Cost: 51 mil. $

Box office: 149.2 mil. $

= Box office success (returned 2.92 times its cost)

[Me, Myself & Irene premiered 15 June (USA) and runs 116 minutes. Shooting took place in Vermont and Rhode Island from May - July 1999. The film opened #1 to a 24.2 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed in the top 5 for another 2 weekends (#3-#3) and grossed 90.5 mil. $ (60.7 % of the total gross). Roger Ebert gave the film a 1.5/4 star review, equal in rating to this one. The Farrelly brothers returned with Osmosis Jones (2001). Carrey returned in How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000). Me, Myself & Irene is rotten at 47 % with a 5.44/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Me, Myself & Irene? 

The Majestic (2001) - Soaring sentiments and production values in Darabont's under-appreciated Movie

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A glorious, cinematic kiss stretched across the night sky over an amazing-looking cinema on the poster for Frank Darabont's The Majestic

An upcoming Hollywood screenwriter, who is targeted by the House Un-American Activities Committee of the 1950s, has an accident in which he hits his head. He wakes up in an ideal small town community, Lawson, California, where he is wrongfully recognized as a lost World War II soldier.

The Majestic is written by Michael Sloane (Hollywood Boulevard II (1990)) and directed by French-American master filmmaker Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption (1994)), whose 3rd feature it is.
Jim Carrey (Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011)) and Laurie Holden (Dead Man's Gun (1997, TV-series)) are fine in Darabont's exceptionally handsome production, a film that feels like it could just as well have been made in 1960 with James Stewart in the lead. Bob Balaban (No Reservations (2007)) makes a good villain; David Ogden Stiers (Lilo & Stitch (2002)) makes a good doctor, - but it is Martin Landau (Delta Fever (1987)) as Carrey's 'father', who stands out and activates our tear canals more than once in an awards-worthy turn.
The fine story here, which keeps one guessing, is told in a pace that is too leisurely at times. But it is a joy to watch a film done with style, panache and craftsmanship, obviously made without the (in major studio fare especially) normalized consideration that major sequences be accomplished during post production. It can be seen as well as felt.
Landau's speech in favor of the title-named theater over smaller screens is eminent. The Majestic is a Movie (capital letter very much intended) that develops in such a way that one almost can't imagine that it will end 'well'. - And yet it does, SPOILER with a court room scene that just about rewrites J. Edgar Hoover's communist witch-hunt, or at least strikes it back by Hollywood, in the guise of Carrey, counterfactually. Regrettably the ending still gets botched a bit, as the filmmakers inhale even more wind into The Majestic's already ballooned construction by having Carrey return to an exaggerated, somewhat absurd salutation in Lawson.

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 72 mil. $
Box office: 37.3 mil. $
= Huge flop (returned 0.51 times its cost)
[The Majestic premiered 11 December (USA) and runs 152 minutes. Shooting took place in California, including Los Angeles, from March - June 2001. The film opened #8 to a 4.9 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it did not peak higher in subsequent weekends and grossed 27.8 mil. $ (74.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were, with some uncertainty, Japan with 5.3 mil. $ (14.2 %) and Spain with 444k $ (1.9 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 3.5/4 star review, translating to a notch higher than this one. Darabont returned with Raines (2007, TV-series), The Shield (2007, TV-series) and theatrically with The Mist (2007). Carrey returned in Bruce Almighty (2003). The Majestic is rotten at 42 % with a 4.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Majestic?

Fun with Dick and Jane (2005) - Powerhouses Carrey and Leoni buoy Parisot's uneven farce

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+ Best On-Screen Couple of the Year: Téa Leoni & Jim Carrey

Perhaps just in case anyone doubted which genre was up here, this unsubtle poster for Dean Parisot's Fun with Dick and Jane spells out FUN in letters so big that they have to appear vertically to fit

Dick Harper gets a top job at the corporation GloboDyne, but as the company crashes soon thereafter, he and his wife are forced to sell everything they own, and they resort to robberies in order to make ends meet.

Fun with Dick and Jane is written by Judd Apatow (Love (2016-18)) and Nicholas Stoller (Storks (2016)), remaking the same-titled 1977 hit comedy by Ted Kotcheff, which starred George Segal and Jane Fonda. The new version is directed by Dean Parisot (Galaxy Quest (1999)).
Jim Carrey (Horton Hears a Who! (2008)) and Téa Leoni (Madam Secretary (2014-19)) make an odd, endearing couple, and they are a joy to see clown around. Their robbery scenes are particularly funny. But the ordeal here is generally not as smartly devised or engaging as, for instance, Barry Levinson's heist comedy Bandits (2001), although Fun with Dick and Jane, with its focus on the upsetting life of poverty, does have some timeliness to it. But it is a very light thematic fencing with few laughs overall.

 

Related post:

 

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

Watch the two stars shine as only two major comedic talents can in this genuinely funny clip of one of the film's robbery scenes here

Cost: 100 mil. $
Box office: 202 mil. $ 
= Flop (returned 2.02 times the cost)
[Fun with Dick and Jane was released 21 December (USA) and runs 91 minutes. The Coen brothers as writers, Barry Sonnenfeld as director and Cameron Diaz as co-star all left the project before production. Shooting took place in California, including Los Angeles, in and around September 2004, with 2 weeks of reshoots later. The film opened #3, behind holdover hits King Kong and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, to a 14.3 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 2 weeks in the top 5 (#3-#4) and grossed 110.3 mil. $ (54.6 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 12.2 mil. $ (6 %) and Australia with 8.6 mil. $ (4.3 %). Roger Ebert agreed with me in giving the film a 2.5/4 star review. Parisot returned with 6 TV credits before a theatrical return with RED 2 (2013). Carrey returned in The Number 23 (2007), Leoni in You Kill Me (2007). Fun with Dick and Jane is rotten at 28 % with a 4.9/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Fun with Dick and Jane?

I Love You Phillip Morris (2009) - Carrey/McGregor are pure magic in incredible true story romcom

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+ Best LGBT Movie of the Year + Best Romance of the Year

Love can be found in the strangest places, as one song puts it. An infectiously happy poster for Glenn Ficarra and John Requa's I Love You Phillip Morris

Con artist Steve Russell leaves his wife and child after a near-death experience, deciding against spending more years as an unhappy closeted homosexual. His cons brings him to incarceration, where he finds true love in fellow inmate Phillip Morris.

Ewan McGregor (Angels & Demons (2009)) gives a tender performance as Morris, and Jim Carrey (Me, Myself & Irene (2000)) is simply grand as Russell in this incredible romcom biopic. Carrey's authenticity does veer a bit in some of the very emotionally charged moments in the film, but this is not necessarily a fault in the performance; it may rather be a sign of the character's trickster personality. - When someone makes it a cardinal point in their lives to con and delude, they may find it difficult to be sincere - and appear sincere - even when they try to be so.
I Love You Phillip Morris is a highly unusual film based on a wild true story, which is both life-affirming and very funny.
It is the directing debut of great writer-directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (Focus (2015), both), who previously wrote and produced features and TV-series, based on Steve McVicker's non-ficion book I Love You Phillip Morris: A True Story of Life, Love, and Prison Breaks.

Related posts:

2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

Watch a panel board interview with Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor in support of the film here

Cost: 13 mil. $
Box office: 21 mil. $
= Big flop
[I Love You Phillip Morris premiered 18 January (Sundance Film Festival) and runs 93 minutes. Filming took place from April 2008 - ? in Miami, Florida, Los Angeles, California and in Louisiana, including in New Orleans and in Louisiana State Penitentiary aka Angola. While most of the events in the film seem to be true, the timeline has been altered. The film's distribution was fraught with problems, as distributors objected to gay sexual material, there were legal troubles and downsizing of the strategy; the film didn't see general releases until 2010 and didn't begin its limited North American release until December 2010, (when it had already generated 18 mil. $ at foreign box offices.) It opened #27 to a 112k $ first weekend in 6 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #23 and in 100 theaters (different weeks) and grossed a paltry 2 mil. $ (9.5 % of the total gross), making it only the film's 4th biggest market, which is what slayed the film's prospects of turning profitable theatrically. The 3 biggest were the UK with 3.4 mil. $ (16.2 %), France with 2.9 mil. $ (13.8 %) and Italy with 2.7 mil. $ (12.9 %). The film was nominated for 2 Cannes awards. I Love You Phillip Morris is certified fresh at 72 % with a 6.6/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of I Love You Phillip Morris?

Dumb and Dumber/Dumb & Dumber (1994) - The Farrellys brothers and Carrey/Daniels' comedy classic

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+ Best Colorado Movie of the Year + Best Road Movie of the Year 

You'd have to have a pretty cold heart not to smile or guffaw at the poster for Bobby & Peter Farrelly's Dumb and Dumber

QUICK REVIEW:

Best friends and fellow idiots Harry Dunne and Lloyd Christmas are fired from their jobs and share a dream of starting a worm store. But without any future prospects beyond this, they decide to return the 'forgotten' suitcase of a hot lady who Lloyd just met to Aspen, Colorado.

Dumb and Dumber is a crazy-funny movie that's coarse and has a couple of the stupidest characters the silver screen has ever produced, and yet the film manages to tell of their misadventure in an actually smart way, which is quite an accomplishment.
Jeff Daniels (101 Dalmatians (1996)) and Jim Carrey (Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994)) throw themselves into their characters and the quest with great enthusiasm, and Carrey is totally fantastic. Dumb and Dumber is a generally extremely funny, memorable, well-made and chipper comedy.
It is also the hugely successful debut of great Pennsylvanian writer/director brothers Bobby & Peter Farrelly (Kingpin (1996)).

Related reviews:
 
Peter & Bobby Farrelly: Dumb and Dumber To (2014) or, Harry and Lloyd: Still Dumb and Lovin' It!  
2011 in films - according to Film Excess
Hall Pass (2011) - The Farrelly brothers' probably worst film to date 

1994 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

 

Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels in Bobby & Peter Farrelly's Dumb and Dumber

 Watch the original trailer for the film here

Cost: 17 mil. $
Box ofice: 247.2 mil. $
=  Huge hit
[Dumb and Dumber was released December 16 and runs 107 minutes. The film's location scenes were shot in Utah, Colorado and Rhode Island. Carrey's chipped tooth is not an effect: He had his tooth chipped in a boyhood tussle and wears a crown on it normally. Carrey, fresh off the giant success of Ace Ventura, was paid 7 mil. $ to appear in Dumb and Dumber; Daniels, whom New Line Cinema didn't want and tried to scare off, was paid a measly 50k $, in what must be one of the most outrageous wage differences between starring actors in the same film. Dumb and Dumber opened #1 in North America to 16.3 mil. $ and grossed 127.1 mil. $ (51.4 % of the total gross) there. The film got mixed reviews, (Roger Ebert awarded it a measly 2 stars), and Carrey was, outrageously, Razzie-nominated as Worst New Star. The movie topped the holiday season of the year and has spun an animated series, a prequel and a 2014 sequel. Carrey developed a relationship with his love interest in the film played by Lauren Holly (After the Ball (2015)), and they were married for less than a year between 1996-97. Dumb and Dumber is fresh at 66 % with a 5.9 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Dumb and Dumber?

Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011) - Waters and Carrey's great family movie

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1 Time Film Excess Nominee:


Best Score: Rolfe Kent (lost to Cliff Martinez for Drive)

Jim Carrey's mug and 6 cutesy penguins on the poster for Mark Waters' Mr. Popper's Penguins

QUICK REVIEW:

When Tom Popper was a boy, his father neglected him from all the different corners of the world. Now Popper is close to repeating the flaw in his own divorced family, as his father dies and sends his son one last souvenir: 6 penguins.

I honestly thought Mr. Popper's Penguins looked a little stupid, and so I went to see it with low expectations. - Which the film completely put to shame!
Jim Carrey (Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994)) is in great form, wildly enthusiastic and energetic; Madeline Carroll (Machine Gun Preacher (2011)) and Maxwell Perry Cotten (Elysium (2013)) are good as the children; Carla Gugino (Faster (2010)), Philip Baker Hall (Zodiac (2007)), Dominic Chianese (The Sopranos (1999-07)) and, in a funny part, Angela Lansbury (Blue Hawaii (1961)) complete the fine ensemble.
Nearly the whole film plays with a magnificent 78 piece orchestra score by Rolfe Kent (Up in the Air (2009)). Mr. Popper's Penguins is a positive, touching and contemporary story about making the right priorities and the importance of family. Additionally, it is a fun New York movie with scenes in the Guggenheim and with villains from the New York Zoo (!).
The script is written by Sean Anders and John Morris (We're the Millers (2013), both) and Jared Stern (The Internship (2013)), based on the 1938 children's book of the same name by Richard and Florence Atwater. Mark Waters (Mean Girls (2004)) has directed the film.

Related posts:

Mark Waters: 2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
Mean Girls (2004) - Lohan, Waters and Fey's high school satire triumph

If you're a Jim Carrey fan, you shouldn't miss this family movie treat! Watch the trailer here

Cost: 55 mil. $
Box office: 187.3 mil. $
= Box office success
[The film got a lukewarm reception in the US by audiences and critics alike; it opened #3, behind Green Lantern and Super 8 (both lesser films, quality-wise) and grossed 68.2 mil. $ (36 % of the total gross) in the US. But Carrey's name and the inclusion of the cute penguins rescued the great film on the global stage.]

What do you think of Mr. Popper's Penguins?

The Dead Pool (1988) - The highly entertaining last Dirty Harry movie

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An original, virile poster for Buddy Van Horn's The Dead Pool

QUICK REVIEW:

Fame catches up with Detective Harry Callahan of the SFPD, who gets a new, Asian martial arts expert partner and a new assignment: A celebrity-killing serial killer maniac.

Dead Pool is a highly entertaining, appealingly compact sequel, (at just 91 minutes it is both the crime action movie series' last and shortest entry). 
It is definitely better than the first of the four sequels, the series' most commercially successful film, Magnum Force (1973). - Because the 80s truly shine through, and also because the film presents an imaginative story with some fun characters: Jim Carrey (Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994)) as a heroin junkie rock star; Liam Neeson (Schindler's List (1993)) as an a-hole movie director, and Patricia Clarkson (Six Feet Under (2002-05)) as a sweet blond. - And Guns N' Roses cameos in the film.
Clint Eastwood (Dirty Harry (1971)), the center of it all, is in physical top shape here, where he SPOILER ultimately gets to harpoon the villain!
The Dead Pool is written by Steve Sharon, based on a story by him, Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw (Firefox (1982), scientific advisors, both), and directed by stunt man and stunt coordinator on more than 100 films Buddy Van Horn, who also directed three: Besides Dead Pool, the other two are also Eastwood vehicles; Any Which Way You Can (1980) and Pink Cadillac (1989).

Relate review:

Dirty Harry (1971) - Eastwood's great, signature renegade cop character comes to life 
Buddy Van Horn: Any Which Way You Can (1980) or, More Monkey Business!

A young Patricia Clarkson in Buddy Van Horn's The Dead Pool

An equally young Jim Carrey also in Buddy Van Horn's The Dead Pool

A flying car --- a trick that never grows old --- in Buddy Van Horn's The Dead Pool

Watch the original trailer here

Cost: 31 mil. $
Box office: 37.9 mil. $ (US only)
= Uncertainty
[Without international figures, it is not possible to tell if Dead Pool made a profit. It seems likely it just broke even theatrically or perhaps even incurred a minor loss.]

What do you think of The Dead Pool?
And the other four Dirty Harry movies?