Entertaining, Smart And Well-Developed Hotel For Dogs Opened My 2009 New Movie Reviews High!

The Good: Funny, Cute, Decent characters, Interesting concept, Great animal wrangling
The Bad: Predictable, Dangling character elements
The Basics: Funny, fun and with good messages Hotel For Dogs might be a little predictable, but it is worthwhile and makes for a good time for viewers of all ages!


The thing about having high standards is often then is a small contingent of people who look at your standards, then wait around for a moment they find a chink in your armor, a slip from your moral high ground. We delight in that with politicians, we cringe when directors of our favorite series' mess up, and when it comes to reviewers, there are those who wait around to be able to make big picture comparisons (like "Come on! Hoodwinked! is NOT better than Return Of The Jedi!). I detailed my standards for reviewing some time ago (that article is here!) and since then, I'll occasionally get a note from someone with a comment like that. Because I rate from the perspective (in movies) of the whole medium, for enduring value, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is in direct competition with Casablanca; I don't curve for comedies or excuse lack of character development for . . . well, anything.

So, when I rate a film like Hotel For Dogs with a 7, it is worth noting right off the bat that I have not lowered my standards or curved the rating for "children's movies." No, on the scale of all films I have ever watched and reviewed, Hotel For Dogs is an above average film in the 7/10 (or slightly more) range. And for those who know me and my reviews, this is just icing on the cake as I am well known for not liking kids (there were many at the screening I attended) and for loathing children's movies.

Hotel For Dogs is just that good.

Andi and Bruce are sister and brother, living in foster care following the deaths of their parents. They live with the somewhat dimwitted Scudders, keeping care of their dog, who is not allowed to be with them, in secret. Chased by Animal Control in Central City and plagued by the police who catch them scamming to earn money to feed their dog, Andi and Bruce find themselves in an abandoned hotel, in the company of two dogs, who their dog immediately bonds with.

Trying to feed the three dogs, Andi and Bruce find themselves in the company of pet shop workers Dave and Heather, who learn about their little dog hotel and contribute with their time, talent and resources from the pet shop. Soon, they are boarding a slew of dogs - part of their operation to rescue all of the strays in the city before Animal Control captures and kills them - and becoming the best of friends. They are joined by Mark and while Andi and Dave grow closer, Bruce illustrates a mechanical genius that makes the abandoned hotel into a dog activity house unlike anything the city has ever seen!

Because they come easiest to mind for me, the negatives. First, this is not the most original movie of all time. It is a feel-good movie that sets up some terribly obvious plot and character points and more or less sees them through. In fact, the only two things that surprised me about Hotel For Dogs was that Heather did not turn out to be related to Bernie (come on, it's a generally predictable movie with more than two black characters in them and it would have been age appropriate, what were the odds?!) and at no point in the movie did the song "Who Let The Dogs Out" get played (thank you, director Thor Freudenthal!). Outside that, the people who get together get together and the resolution between Andi and Bruce and their foster situation is so obvious, I would be surprised if children did not call it.

Second, there is a dangling character element with Heather. Heather has an obvious crush on Dave, who she works with (wonderful acting on the part of Kyla Pratt, by the way, as this is never explicitly articulated in the movie). I can live with there not being too much made of this, but as Dave and Andi become closer and Dave slips further and further from her, Heather never deals with it and as a result, the character arc of Mark and Heather seems like a default relationship.

Third, and maybe this is just something I am ignorant of, I found it problematic that Andi lied about being in foster care when she first met Dave. I mean, this seems to either create or reinforce a stigma I was not aware existed and it makes little sense for the characters in this particular movie. I mean, IF foster care is something kids look down on in their peers, it's pretty hard to not see the kids who feel that way as the [adult expletive deleted]'s in this situation as Andi and Bruce's parents died in an accident. It takes a pretty heartless kid to stand there and mockingly say "Ha ha, you don't have real parents!" "Yeah, well, they died horribly in an accident" and their response not be to feel like either a moron or a horrible person. So that Andi felt the need to lie about not having parents when she met Dave, baffled me. Of course, because it is That Type Of Movie, it all gets resolved by the end.

Finally, the speed of the story necessitates several (at least three come right to mind) montage musical segments where progress is made at an accelerated rate and it's just a lot of footage of dogs running, pooping, eating, etc. This is where Freudenthal should insist to the people at Paramount/Dreamworks that he is accountable to that whomever cut the trailers for Hotel For Dogs never work for him again (though being shot would be preferable, I am THAT sick of over-revealing preview trailers!); the inclusion of footage from those montages in the preview trailer gutted some decent moments of the movie for those of us who saw the preview the night before. We don't need to see the whole movie in the trailer and if part of the movie itself is cut like a movie trailer, then don't stick that part in the trailer!

That said, Hotel For Dogs is pretty wonderful. The characters are interesting, at least Bernie (Andi and Bruce's social worker), Andi and Bruce. It is not explained why Bernie and his wife do not have children and honestly the viewer does not need that explanation. Bernie is, from the very beginning, a decent guy who clearly cares about the children he tries to place.

Similarly, Bruce is a wonderful character who fits this story perfectly. Socially isolated, it is wonderful that the writers (Hotel For Dogs is based upon a book by Lois Duncan, which I have not read, so I am unsure if that is from the book or just from the screenplay) chose not to cheapen his character with any firm human relationships outside the one he has with Andi. He is a mechanical genius and it is refreshing to see young loner characters who are not evil or terribly maladjusted. Instead, he applies himself and makes the concept of Hotel For Dogs an actualized reality. Bruce is quiet, but has a clear love for his sister and animals and he applies that knowledge, desire and innate talent to making the hotel a success.

As well, Andi is a nice mix of protective child-adult (she looks out for Bruce in a very adult way) and girl who just wants to be a girl. Andi is clever, funny and has a big heart. She is played by Emma Roberts, who is being pretty clearly groomed to be the next Anne Hathaway. Roberts has both the plain Hollywood-approved young beauty and quiet strength of Hathaway, but the real common element between them is their ability to play the quiet moments and convey a lot through their body language. Roberts speaks volumes with the flash of her eyes to costar Jake T. Austin (Bruce) and nervous movements of her hands when she steps into situations that would be socially awkward (like entering the party scene). Her smile is appropriately illuminative, but she is able to carry the serious, dramatic moments with appropriate gravitas - i.e. not stepping over into melodrama - when called upon (and being That Type Of Movie, they are there). One only hopes that Roberts treats here career as serious in the way that Hathaway does and smart money would be on her continuing to have a strong, smart career . . . like Hathaway.

Jake T. Austin plays a character who is pretty naturally overshadowed, but he takes the role and does what he can with it very well. When he is not forced to play the part hunched over working on some device or another (it is Bruce who automates the dog hotel with homemade mechanical devices) Austin emotes well in scenes opposite Roberts.

When the opening credits were rolling and I saw Don Cheadle's name come up, I groaned a little because I figured this had to be a sellout role for him, but Cheadle proved me wrong. He knew what he was doing; Bernie's character arc might be predictable and obvious, but Cheadle brings his best to it and makes it work perfectly. Similarly, Lisa Kudrow and Kevin Dillon add to the movie with their performances, as opposed to doing the work for the paycheck (adult actors in kids movies seldom can portray what they need to when they're just taking a job). In fact, the acting is astonishingly good in Hotel For Dogs.

The dogs are all appropriately cute and the animal wrangling on the movie is extraordinary, earning it legitimate praise from me and any other reviewers who see the film. While there are one or two matted or CG-enhanced shots, largely the film is done with actual dogs all together and it makes a difference in the final product.

For adults who might be dreading being dragged to this movie, there is nothing to fear; Hotel For Dogs has a lot for us. Despite the predictability and the sheer number of "awww, cute dog!" shots, there are jokes and concepts that only adults will appreciate (my favorite has to be when Bernie puts up his badge and proudly declares "Social services!" and everyone ignores him). The movie is fun, but it is also surprisingly smart in places and it has a good message (everyone shows up to help and there is a good feel-good "let's all be friends" thing working throughout) that adults could stand to have reinforced as much as kids ought to have it imprinted.

So, yes, if you have a kid, a niece or nephew, or a friend with kids who you'd like to use as a prop so you're not the creepy adult sitting in the theater watching kids movies, grab your young person and take them to Hotel For Dogs. It's worth it.

For other works with Lisa Kudrow, check out my reviews of:
Easy A
The Other Woman
Friends

7/10

For other movie reviews, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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My Super Ex-Girlfriend Is A Laughless Ivan Reitman Adventure

The Good: Good idea, Decent acting
The Bad: VERY predictable, Characters are all fairly monolithic, Not funny
The Basics: In a disappointing attempt with a clever concept, Uma Thurman and Luke Wilson play a couple whose breakup has serious consequences for more than just them.


Every now and then, I think a movie is entirely misrepresented, perhaps even to the person who is directing the movie. Ivan Reitman, well known for directing comedies, might well have been duped by Don Payne, who is well known for writing comedies. Perhaps both were duped by the studio in making My Super Ex-Girlfriend. Or maybe the marketing department just got it wrong when it figured it to be a comedy. After all, My Super Ex-Girlfriend does have Eddie Izzard, Rainn Wilson, and Anna Faris who are all fairly well known for comedies.

When Matt Saunders is pushed into dating by his friend Vaughn, he ends up asking out Jenny Johnson, a woman who appears fairly normal, if shy. Matt quickly learns that Jenny is, in fact, a super powerful superhero who is barely in control of her powers or herself. When Matt decides to break off the relationship, in favor of pursuing a relationship with a coworker, he learns that Jenny is emotionally unstable and vindictive. Matt finds himself in an uneasy alliance with a supervillain who is looking to undo Jenny while Jenny attempts to destroy Matt completely.

This sounds like it ought to be funny or, at the very least, it could be humorous. It was only when the movie was over and I had to consider what I was going to write in my review that I had to acknowledge that I had not laughed the entire movie. I had not tried to stifle any laughter, it just turned out the movie was not actually funny. So, I began to consider that this was simply a mislabled movie. When viewed as a science fiction or dramatic concept, the only real problems with the movie are how it is completely predictable and oversimplified on the character front. The resolution of the movie hardly seems like it would fit into the conventions of drama.

So, this is more likely a comedy that simply fell flat on the comedy front. I suppose I ought to have guessed that; Anna Faris is in it. To be fair, this might be the movie I most enjoyed her in so far. I'm guessing this was supposed to be a comedy based on the requisite number of situations involving sex that I suppose were supposed to be funny. When Jenny has mounted Matt for their first time together, her motions cause the bed to ram against the wall violently. It sounds like it should be funny, but it doesn't look funny on screen. Go figure.

So, it's not funny and the characters are all simple and unsurprising. There are plenty of movies like that. The added problem here is that the movie is mostly predictable. The movie is progressing as a pretty standard relationship/super hero movie when the villain is introduced. And almost immediately after that happens, we are treated to his entire backstory. It's almost like writer Don Payne simply read a "How To Write A Superhero Movie" book. It's that standard. I think I've finally talked myself out of recommending this unremarkable movie.

What works in My Super Ex-Girlfriend? Well, the idea is clever. I have to give the creative team credit for that. How does one date a super hero? Better yet, how does one break up with a superhero? These are questions that make for great storytelling. This is not a successful execution of that, though there are moments when it seems like it could be.

What works best here, and why I'm so close to recommending this movie, is the acting. The supporting cast is brilliant in My Super Ex-Girlfriend. Anna Faris gives a supporting performance as Matt's true love interest that justifies her presence in Hollywood and Rainn Wilson reminds us how diverse an actor he can be. Wilson plays an utterly unredeemable chauvinist who is distinctly different from his roles on Six Feet Under (reviewed here!) and The Office. And Eddie Izzard does a great job as Professor Bedlam. That he can act (my experiences with Izzard thus far have been limited to his standup) is a pleasant surprise.

The leads do a great job as well. Luke Wilson does a great job as Matt Saunders. Wilson has an ability to be utterly convincing and serious and his role as Matt extends the quiet brilliance we've seen in Luke Wilson since The Royal Tenenbaums (reviewed here!). He does a good job of convincing the viewer of the reality of the situation and his character's dilemmas. Perhaps Reitman mistook Luke for Owen . . .

It is Uma Thurman who is responsible for keeping much of My Super Ex-Girlfriend plausible. Thurman does a great job presenting two different performances for Jenny and her alter-ego G-Girl. She works well with what she's given in the script and her performance is not the problem with the movie.

In the end, though, the performances are not enough to save this movie. It ought to have either been more funny or made a serious attempt to explore relationships through the conflicts and problems with dating and/or breaking up with a super hero. Either way, this movie ends up being a bit of a disappointment. I don't know who would like it; it's not funny enough to recommend to people looking for a comedy, it's not smart enough to recommend to fans of science fiction or super hero movies. It's just not enough of anything.

For other revenge films, check out my reviews of:
Columbiana
Unforgiven
John Tucker Must Die

4.5/10

Check out how this movie stacks up against every other film I have reviewed by visiting my Movie Review Index Page!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Utterly Charmless: Ashton Kutcher's Butt, Natalie Portman Naked And Random Lesbian Teenagers Cannot Save No Strings Attached!

The Good: One or two charming moments, One or two acting moments
The Bad: Stale plot, Terribly stiff acting, Utterly unlikable characters
The Basics: No Strings Attached fails to land the premise before delving into it fully, making for a terrible romantic comedy that is utterly unromantic and seldom funny.


Ever since I saw and praised Friends With Benefits (reviewed here!), I've been told that the movie - whose plot I admitted was nothing terribly new - was just a rehash of No Strings Attached which came out about six months prior. So, today, I figured it was about time to watch No Strings Attached. Now, as the movie finishes up and I start my review, I am astonished that anyone has ever compared No Strings Attached with Friends With Benefits. While the Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis vehicle is funny, charming and surprisingly well-acted, No Strings Attached is none of those things.

No Strings Attached has such a predictable plot as to be almost not worth mentioning, but what truly sinks the movie is that the characters are monolithic and unlikable. And the worst element of No Strings Attached is that the two leads, Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman, have absolutely no chemistry on screen. None. Zippo. Zilch. The acting is so stiff that Dylan Hayes and Stefanie Scott who open the movie as the young versions of Adam and Emma have so much more chemistry than the adult actors that they pretty much gut any surprise the movie might have had.

Starting at a summer camp, fifteen years before the primary action, Adam laments that his father is getting divorced to camp friend Emma, then asks is he can finger her. Ten years later, Emma is visiting a friend's frat party and runs into Adam. Having no one else she knows in the area, she invites Adam to her father's funeral the next day and he obliges. Four years later Emma and Adam run into one another when their friends run into each other and then a year later, they reconnect again. At that time, Adam is working on a television show (like Glee) and Emma is working at a local hospital. The morning after Adam gets super drunk after finding his father and ex-girlfriend are now together, Adam and Emma begin a "friends who have sex" relationship.

Soon, the pair is by all appearances a functioning couple who are trying to restrain their own feelings. Emma insists Adam see other women, despite getting jealous when he does and Adam begins to advance his professional career, which earns him the attention of one of the producers on the show he is working on. As the two have lots of sex, they struggle with both the perception and reality that they are developing real emotional bonds, bonds which Emma is afraid to acknowledge.

No Strings Attached is such a simple movie that it is hard to find more to write about it. Writers Elizabeth Meriwether and Michael Samonek try to give their characters some depth, but the fail in that they tell far more than they show. So, for example, Emma is supposed to be characterized as a woman who doesn't want a relationship - her mother asserts because her father died and she took it hard - but she is initially characterized as a nihilist and that's fine. The problem is, instantly upon getting into the faux-relationship with Adam, she is invested in it as if it is a real relationship. In other words, the writers are all talk on Emma not wanting a relationship, so the "conflict" she feels late in the film is exceptionally forced.

Moreover, none of the characters are particularly interested or compelling. Adam's father, ably enough played by Kevin Kline, is utterly impossible to empathize with as he consorts with Vanessa, Adam's ex. The subplot with Emma's sister, Katie finding love and getting married feels like just what it is, a subplot and it leads to plot-predictable moments that bring the movie back to Emma and Adam.

As for the acting, I want to be thorough, but there were no extraordinary performances on any front. Ludacris, who was vibrant in Crash (reviewed here!) is restrained in a supporting role in No Strings Attached. Cary Elwes is restrained and unrecognizable with his beard as Dr. Metzner. Lake Bell seems like a poor director's Amanda Peet. And, the two most viewers will care about - Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher are uncharacteristically stiff as Emma and Adam. The acting is pretty boring and the principles seem bored with their lines and performances.

On DVD, No Strings Attached comes with a tiresome commentary track in which Ivan Reitman tries to fool the viewer into believing they are watching a movie that is in any way significant or unique. There are four deleted scenes, two alternate scenes and two featurettes, none of which make the primary programming actually worth watching.

For other works with Natalie Portman, please check out my reviews of:
Thor
Black Swan
The Star Wars Saga

2.5/10

For other movie reviews, please be sure to visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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The Ultimate Teen-Appeal Film: Evolution Stinks.

The Good: The occasional joke, Production design
The Bad: Acting, Utter lack of real characters or development, Predictable plot
The Basics: Utterly unfunny and filled with preposterously lit special effects, Evolution fails to entertain or amuse, even when you're not expecting much.


When I sat down to Evolution, I had pretty low expectations. I had seen the previews when it was originally out in the theaters and I had considered going, but never got around to it. Someone I respect very much had seen the movie and not enjoyed it. She compared it to Men In Black (reviewed here!) which I did not like.

Evolution is pretty much the ultimate made for teens film. It is populated by recognizable celebrities (David Duchovny and Orlando Jones), a teen magazine heartthrob (Seann William Scott) and a clear skinned, beautiful woman (Julianne Moore). It has current music as well as a disco sing along in a fast car. It has jokes that turn on flatulence and anatomy (which can be fine, see Kevin Smith films like Dogma (reviewed here!) or Chasing Amy for intelligent "dick and fart joke" films). It has a lot of action, special effects and is low on plot or character intelligence.

The film follows two college professors, Ira Kane and Harry Block as they investigate a recent meteor crash. They take samples and discover that there is primitive life growing on the surface of the space rock and they begin to study the strange life forms. For reasons unknown to them at that time, there were microscopic life forms on and in the meteor and they are developing at an incredible rate from single celled life into vastly more complicated life forms. Kane and Block are accompanied early on by Wayne, a wannabe fireman who was at the site of the meteor when it impacted. When the military blocks Kane and Block's access to the meteor, they meet Allison, who is the obvious attempt for a romantic subplot in the film. The aliens continue to develop and multiply at an alarming rate and it appears they will take over Arizona and the state in only a few days!

Well, I have to say the first problem with Evolution is that it's not funny. I laughed twice and today I was in the mood for a dumb comedy.

David Duchovny reinforced the thesis that he either isn't given diverse roles or he simply can't act by playing Ira Kane very similar to how he presented Fox Mulder for so many years. Orlando Jones - through performance or the character as it was written - comes off like a cheap Chris Rock knock off, which was especially disappointing as Jones has a phenomenal range of personas, as evidenced from his years on MadTV. Julianne Moore illustrates her range by coming off nothing at all like her characters in Magnolia (reviewed here!) or Boogie Nights. Unfortunately, the role she's playing here is of a bungling moron and it's not a terribly good role.

Sadly, I can tell the film was trying to be something more. It wanted to be a comedy with complex characters and I can tell it wanted to be that by the fact that so many details of Ira Kane's backstory are thrown in. There are so many attempts made to make it clear that Ira had a life before the film began, from his military employment to his ex-wife. In this instance, it seems like the writer's are trying too hard. They focus only on Ira's backstory and little to none of the other characters and it comes across as an overcompensation or an afterthought. The movie "reads" like one that was written as a completely dumb comedy and the writers went back to add details to make it come out more intelligently.

The plot is one that is so predictable and so canned that the only people who will be surprised by the events in it are preteens.

Sadly, Evolution is a huge disappointment, failing to please or even entertain. It's a disappointment to your expectations if you're expecting it to be a disappointment!

For other works featuring Ted Levine, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Shutter Island
Memoirs Of A Geisha
The Silence Of The Lambs


1/10

For other film reviews, please be sure to visit my index page on the subject!

© 2011, 2002 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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