FILM REVIEW: PLANES FIRE & RESCUE

A scene from Planes: Fire & Rescue.

Newcomer on the job

By John Esther

Before the opening credits roll in director Bobs Gannaway's Planes: Fire & Rescue, Disney dedicates the movie "To the courageous firefighters throughout the world who risk their lives to save the lives of others." It is a nice, well deserved gesture and it tells you immediately where the heart of this film beats. 

The follow up to last year's Planes, this animated feature follows the highs and lows -- literally and metaphorically -- of Dusty Crophopper (voice by Dane Cook), a plane who is about to fly into the winds of change.

Having just won another aerial race, Dusty is out training for an upcoming local race when his health comes crashing down. Told that he can never race again, Dusty goes out at night and pushes himself to the point of collapse, not only causing more harm to himself, but damage to his community at large. (Was he drunk on oil?)

In order to redeem himself and save his community, Dusty must get certified as an aerial firefighter. 

Up until this point, audiences may wonder where in the world Planes: Fire & Rescue is taking place. There are no humans in the story. Only cars, trucks, trains, planes, and other vehicles (basically Disney merchandise to be purchased) living in a world free of smog, pollution or oil spills. And these vehicles, except one mentioned in a side-of-the-mouth quip, seem to run on gas. Of course, they do speak American English. 

This otherworldly notion is dispersed when Dusty heads across the land to Yosemite, Earth. It is here Dusty will train under the tutelage of Blade (voice by Ed Harris) and with the help of friendly co-firefighters, including a forward-thinking female, Lil' Dipper (voice by Julie Bowen), who, along with Blade, Windlifter (voice by West Studi), are the most entertaining character in Planes: Fire & Rescue. 

No sooner has Dusty arrived a fire alarm is set off, sending the firefighting crew deep into the forest. Immediately the team sets out with brilliant precision: planes swoop in, pick up water and drop it on the fire, while utility vehicles descend in parachutes to the ground where they will do their work with the precision of machines, but with the personalities of toys similar to the ones given to them by imaginative children. It is a heroic coordination with no time to lose.  

To get, or amp, adults in this firefighting scene, the filmmakers set it to AC/DC's "Thunderstruck." As rocking and rolling as "Thunderstruck" may be, lyrically speaking, "Thunderstruck" has just about much correlation to the action taking place in the movie as Kajagoogoo's "Too Shy," Gang of Four's "Better him than Me" or Beyonce Knowles' "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)." If someone asked me, Kansas' "Fighting Fire with Fire," Ultravox's "One Small Day" or Muse's "Knights of Cydonia" would have been more germane, but nobody asked. Actually, Leftfield's "Open Up" comes to mind when considering such pedestrian pandering. Anyway, it is an emotionally charged, intellectually lethargic musical choice. Unfortunately, it is the best song you will hear in Planes: Fire & Rescue. Plus, Mark Mancina's score is worse than the individual songs.

During his initial entry into firefighting it becomes clear Dusty has a lot to learn and to explain to the real firefighters. His ego and his poor health are both a detriment and a danger to himself and the team. Yet he is too arrogant to defer to his betters. Naturally, I mean formulaically, the protagonist will have to jump through hoops of fire before he can become a hero. 

Not only do the government-run, taxpayer-supporting firefighters have the burden of training Dusty, they now have a bigger problem with Cad Spinner (voice by John Michael Higgens), a park superintendent acting more like real estate developer than a ranger. Driven by ambition, Cad diverts firefighter funds to his new restoration project. The Grand Fusel Lodge is about to open and the ambitious, avarice and authoritarian Cad wants to impress the visiting Secretary of the Interior (voice by Fred Willard). And if the forest burns before his retreat, that is just the cost of doing business. 

Now, it does not take a Maru (voice by Curtis Armstrong), to figure out and fix the conclusion of the movie. Co-screenwriters Gannaway and Jeffrey M. Howard are not going to tail and spin this elementary narrative into a tragedy. 

Nonetheless, for a film geared toward smaller children -- the MPAA gave the film a PG rating for "Action and Some Peril" -- Planes: Fire & Rescue is rather intense for younger viewers. Some of the action is fast and there are several scenes where the smoke lingers on, not knowing if our products, I mean protagonists, of the movie, have survived. As one young kid said aloud at the all-Media screening, "What happened? I don't like this movie"; perhaps expressing the sentiments of others. There was adult laughter in response. 

Since Disney insists on trying to please both children and parents in these family-friendly ventures, there are obviously some jokes, not the token flatulence ones of course, that will mean nothing to the kids. Lil' Dipper's high-jinks are for those whose hormones have already kicked in. The hybrid car joke about "never heard it coming" will be a "zoom" for the typical kid. And the "CHoPs" metanarrative in the movie, a pastiche of the TV series, CHiPs -- both featuring Erik Estrada -- puzzled the many a kinder eyes and ears during the aforementioned screening. 

This is not to suggest that storytelling for different audience ages (or, at least maturity) is a bad thing. Family members may leave the theater talking to other family members about what he or she took from the movie, which may offer different perspectives on the same text. (Yes, it is extremely doubtful Disney has such intellectual intentions. So called "family films" are geared toward the maximum possible ticket buyers.)

However, there is one thing everyone should be able to take from the film: firefighters do some very important and dangerous work. Even though the characters in Planes: Fire & Rescue are made of metal, that is clear at the movie's most elementary level. 

Planes: Fire & Rescue is available in 3D. 

LALIFF 2011: CHICO & RITA

A scene from Chico Y Rita.

True-ba-loney

By Ed Rampell 

Chico & Rita is another Cuban-music themed film, although it is actually an animated feature, not a doc, co-directed/co-written by Spanish filmmaker Fernando Trueba (director of 1992’s Belle Epoque starring Penelope Cruz).

Chico & Rita's animation is stellar, vividly bringing to life the Havana, Manhattan, Paris and Las Vegas of the 1940s/1950s. The music, too, makes this film worth seeing. However, the script leaves much to be desired. The Havana of bygone days looks glamorous, especially in comparison to today’s Cuban capital, which looks drab and shabby. Well, half a century of embargo may or may not do that to you, but the film's Havana of yesterday is largely devoid of that grinding poverty that inspired, oh you know, that little thing we call “revolution.” It wasn’t all mambo and showgirls under Cuban dictator and U.S. puppet Fulgencio Batista, don’tchaknow?

The love story between a pianist and singer is also remarkably stupid and senseless, full of celluloid stereotypes and completely absent of the sense of the ongoing bond a romantic relationship can generate between two people. The movie’s notion of love is, well, cartoonish; there’s a big difference between true, lasting love and obsession, don’tchaknow? 

But again, having said this, if you can overlook these points Chico & Rita is a fiesta for the eyes and ears, with some of the most compelling cartoon, animated erotic imagery since R. Crumb and Ralph Bakshi’s 1972 Fritz the Cat.  

FILM REVIEW: RANGO

Rango (voice by Johnny Depp) and Beans (voice by Isla Fisher) in Rango.

Sometimes dirt hurts

By John Esther

Once an imprisoned chameleon living inside ("In Shreads") a little aquarium where his only friend was a plastic fish, a female doll torso, and his elaborate imagination, Rango (voice by Johnny Depp) winds up on an escapade from divided road to wholesale wilderness which will seriously challenge his sense of self in the delightfully surprising, entertaining, animated movie, Rango.

Stranded under a sweltering landscape with the unknown hidden under every rock and soaring above the cacti, after Rango survives a few car crashes, he and his zygodactylous feet hike it on over to the town of Dirt.

Like the "good people" of any little redneck town, Dirt immediately casts Rango as an outsider. To impress the various quasi-reptilian, amphibious, marsupial, rodent characters, Rango tells a few tall tales. With hides and hares yet no proof to back his fibs, the town becomes smitten with the stranger. Of course, as ill luck would have it, someone calls Rango's bluff and he will have to prove his worth, especially to Beans (voice by Isla Fisher), the lonely ranch girl with true grit and a strange defense mechanism.

After he manages to imprint his legend amongst the wild southwestern inhabitants, the Mayor (voice by Ned Beatty) makes Rango the Dirt Sheriff; and that is when his work becomes downright ornery difficult. Rango may have convinced the town he killed seven bandits with one bullet (false) and a bird of prey (true), but his real challenge will be to find out who has been stealing the precious water supply.

"He who controls the water, controls everything," the Mayor explains. Hopefully Rango, at the right time and place, will be capable of anything.

With a renewed sense of hope found in the form of the one they call Rango, the notably un-cutesy town folk, cold-blooded and warm-blooded alike, form a posse and go hunting for the stolen water, only to find more and more hardship, treachery and even a little murder along the way.

Pushed to the stink of collapse, once Rango looses everything he figures this is his real existential test and he forms a plan to get payback Dirt. There is never a doubt he will succeed by film's end, but the movie does have its charms.

As far as the hack director/leading man team behind the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise this is the second time Gore Verbinski has made something worth watching once (the first and last time was the 2005 film, The Weather Man, starring Nicolas Cage) and the first movie starring Depp since the 1998 film, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas -- a film Rango incorporates into its narrative -- that may be worth watching twice. Written by John Logan and based on a story by Logan, Verbinski and James Ward Byrkit, it seems pretty clear they had Depp in mind when writing Rango and he does do an adequate, occasionally inspiring, performance at it.

(At any rate, Depp is an actor whose considerable talents continue to be wasted for big paychecks, punished by poor script choices and woefully encouraged by pitiful Oscar nominations. I look forward to the day he stops playing some eccentric malcontent and gets back to the level of acting he reached during the 1990s.)

On another hand, casting director Denise Chamian made some very intelligent voiceover casting choices in the form of Fisher (about time!); Beatty, who sure can squeal, also plays bad pretty well (i.e. He Got Game; Shooter; last year's overlooked The Killer Inside Me); Bill Nighy as the awesomely mean Rattlesnake Jake; Harry Dean Stanton as the ugliest of the ugly, Balthazar; Alfred Molina as the "Spanish" sagebrush sage, Roadkill; Gil Birmingham as the philosophical native, Wounded Bird; the diurnal owls who make up el Grecia-chorus (George Delhoyo, Verbinski, plus others) and Byrkit, who marvelously plays Waffles -- my favorite character in the movie.

They and the others make for a good cast who embrace Logan's smart, playful dialogue, often with characters mumbling/speaking simultaneously (Oh, Altman). Set in the southwest, the screenplay willfully blends many familiar Spanish words (e.g. amigo, ese, loco) in with the English dialogue, which seems a calculated choice to not only include Spanglish-speaking viewers, but also to remind viewers the intrinsic part Latinos have played in terms of North American geopolitics -- from storytelling to music to idiomatic developments -- throughout our country's history.

Then there are some dialogue humdingers worthy of Lautréamont, Lewis Carroll or a good Coen Bros. film: "He basked in the adulation of his compañeros as he sunk deeper into his own guacamole," the chorus tells us; "It's a puzzle. It's a mammogram," Waffles announces; "If this was heaven, we'd be eating pop tarts with Kim Novack," retorts Spirit of the West (Timothy Olyphant), channeling the Malpaso Man.

Keeping in tune with Rango's rambunctiousness, the score by Hans Zimmer and a soundtrack featuring Los Lobos are riotously rowdy and, frankly, quite gutsy for a film marketed toward family consumption. Be sure to stay for the rip-roaring song during the final credits.

However, via its quest to secure the box office base, Rango is not going to drown out anyone's sense of entertainment entitlement. Eventually the good guys drink up and the bad guys get washed away as the film proudly riverruns toward the false conclusions that the powerful get splashed with their comeuppance and the good guy swimmingly emerges over all adversity while getting the girl in two boots to boot. Watering it down for mass consumption, regardless of Rango's attributes, it is not going tragically Chinatown or the United States of America today.