Movie Reaction: Little

Formula: 1 / Big

One of the more frustrating things I run into with all the movies I see, is when there's a movie that I want to champion that ends up not being very good. Especially when it's a movie that I don't think people would expect me to like. By now, it's understood that I'm going to always love a Star Wars movie, I'll enjoy whatever Seth Rogen and company put out, I'm a sucker for a good documentary, and I like some high brow awards players. Little is in my expected wheelhouse. I was looking forward to it quite a bit though. And why wouldn't I? It's an inversion on Big, a movie I love, even if certain elements of it are a little creepy when you think about it. I'm of huge fan of the 3 leads: Regina Hall, Issa Rae, and Marsai Martin. And I want to support any movie with female writers and a female director. Sadly, I just couldn't get into this movie.

It's a simple enough idea for a movie. Regina Hall plays Jordan Sanders, the tyrannical boss of a phone app company of some sort. Issa Rae plays April, Jordan's put upon assistant, looking for a promotion. After a run in with some "black girl magic", one morning Jordan wakes up for find that she's 13 again, played by Marsai Martin*. From there, it's a lot of antics. Young Jordan has to get enrolled in middle school: the same one she was ridiculed in the first time she was 13. April has to hold things together at Jordan's company in Jordan's absence and deal with a big client expecting a pitch. Mixed in is a lot 13 year old Jordan doing and saying things that only an adult should do or say.

*In hindsight, I realize that this is more of a reverse 13 Going On 30 than a reverse Big, but I'm taking my cue from the title of the movie.

As I mentioned, I was rooting hard for this movie, because Regina Hall, Issa Rae, and Marsai Martin are great. Regina Hall is simply always good. Since she stopped making Scary Movies or other bad genre parodies, I can't think of a performance of hers I didn't like. She was a scene stealer in About Last Night. She was the glue that held Girls Trip together. She deserved Oscar attention for her work in Support the Girls. She almost makes the broad writing for Jordan work in this. It's not meant to be a subtle performance. Issa Rae is immediately likable. I've only caught some of her HBO show Insecure, but she jumped off the screen quickly in that. And I've seen Martin for years on Blackish, where she outpaced the rest of the younger cast with her comic chops. She plays mean well, which makes this a fine role for her.

Most of my issues come down to the screenplay. It's a mess. Sloppy pretty much everywhere. And I don't mean the mystery of how Jordan gets turned into a 13 year old. That's the one big leap I'm willing to give the movie. I don't need that explanation any more than I need to know why Bill Murray keeps reliving Groundhog Day. It's the rest of the script that bothered me. I want to underline this point as much as I can: I don't have any problem with the fact that it makes no sense that she's little. It's just about everything else that I have an issue with. For some reason, the movie sets a 48 hour timeline early on that forces way too much plot too happen far too quickly. If I did my math correctly, in a single morning, Jordan discovers that she's little, gets Child Protective Services called on her, gets enrolled in a school, and becomes that class reject - All. Before. Lunch. The next day, there's time for her new friends to try out for a major school assembly, ditch school and go back to Jordan's apartment, and still make it back for  the major school assembly. Any attempt to put together a timeline for this movie is a fool's errand. There is no reason why they couldn't just give the story a week so it could breathe.

The way some scenes are cut together don't even make much sense. In one scene Jordan and April are having a fancy meal together, then, for no reason, it cuts to them putting on an impromptu karaoke performance in the middle of the restaurant. I think the implication is that 13 year old Jordan got drunk on wine, maybe. There's another laughable cut that comes to mind. April is nervous about a meeting she has to run in Jordan's absence. Her coworker (the one she's absolutely going to be dating by the end of the movie) tells her she'll be great if she just acts like herself. It then cuts to the very end of the meeting, with coworkers telling her how well she just ran the meeting we didn't see. It's an incredible example of telling rather than showing. The movie is lousy with narrative shortcuts like that or situations that require people to act in ways that no human ever would.

I'd forgive a lot more of this if the movie made me laugh more. The brand of humor just didn't work for me. Hall reverts back to the broad kind of humor from Scary Movie that I've never liked. Issa Rae is asked to be more affable than funny. I think the movie was relying heavily on the sight gag of seeing Marsai Martin doing adult things to bring the laughs. There's a misunderstanding about what makes that funny though. Kids acting like adults is funny when they are effective. Seeing a preteen boss around people 3 times her age is funny when she's on their level. Martin flirting with her teacher, played by Justin Hartley is funny, because she's addressing him as her equal and he doesn't know how to process that. Or, on Blackish, Martin plays Diane. Her feud with her dad's coworker, Charlie is funny because she has the upper hand on a grown man. Most of Little is Martin trying to act like an adult and not being effective at it. She tries to act entitled getting coffee and the other people in line belittle her. That's not as funny as if she does that and controls the room.

And the movie ends with a freeze-frame voice over. Seriously, who thought that was needed?

Little is by no means unwatchable. It has enough interesting performers on screen at any given moment, even if it's Rachel Dratch, Mikey Day, or Tracee Ellis Ross (voice-only) in small roles, that I never got bored. I chuckled a couple times and it zips along at a nice pace. It never forgets that it's a comedy, even when the jokes aren't working. Most of my disappointment is that I thought it had potential to be so much better.

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Movie Reaction: Shazam!

Formula: Big + Spider-Man

DC has finally given up the dream of out-Marveling Marvel. I get the desire to build an interconnected, extended universe. Marvel has made billions of dollars with that idea. The problem is, DC and WB studios are really bad at it. The idea never worked. They rushed it and botched it at every step. And now, they've finally moved back to what they are good at. Because, remember, DC was the original superhero success story. Superman was a mega-hit 20 years before Marvel took a chance on X-Men in 2000. Four Batman movies broke $100 million at the box office before Spider-Man obliterated the opening weekend box office record. In 2008, the year that Iron Man began the MCU experiment with a bang, it was DC's The Dark Knight that ruled the box office. DC doesn't have to play by Marvel's rules. DC did it first and better for a long time.

I'm not here to make any grand proclamations about Shazam! It's good not great, but it sure was a refreshing change of pace. It has a straight-forward, perhaps silly back story. There's a wizard fighting off seven monsters representing the seven deadly sins. He's looking for someone pure of heart to transfer his powers too. He spends decades testing unsuspecting people before finally finding Billy Batson (Asher Angel), a rebellious orphan. He gives his powers to Billy. From then on, when Billy says "Shazam", he turns into a full grown man (Zachary Levi) in a cape and spandex, with superpowers. Billy figures out what powers he has with the help of his new foster brother, Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer), and eventually has a run in with Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong), who as a child, was one of the people tested by the wizard, and has dedicated his life to getting revenge on the wizard for telling him he wasn't worthy.

It's hard to compare the silliness of the different superhero movie premises. Thor and his extended Norse mythology ranks high. Aquaman's are hard to visualize in a non-silly way. Even the ones we are really used to like Spider-Man (bit by a bug that gave him powers) or Superman (an alien raised on a farm) are pretty strange. Shazam! might be the silliest. Luckily, everyone involved is aware of this and doesn't get too bogged down in selling the details. Because, Shazam! is Tom Hanks' Big turned into a superhero movie (a fact that it leans into, sometimes directly). Big didn't care about making much sense. Shazam! doesn't either.

Of all the superhero movies out there, the one that Shazam! reminds me of the most is Sam Rami's Spider-Man. It's something of a throwback. It's not a dark movie, like Nolan's Dark Knight movies. It isn't pure comedy either, like Thor: Ragnarok. It has fun playing on superhero tropes, but it's not trying to deconstruct the genre, like Deadpool. I think the main goal is just entertainment. There's a health mix of drama and comedy, action and playfulness. It's not a perfect blend. It's good enough though. What specifically made me think of Spider-Man and is the way it handled the villain's story. It's allowed to happen on the side, only colliding with Billy's story when it has too.

90% of why the movie works for me is the casting. Zachary Levi is the best. I've liked him for years. He's got that Paul Rudd thing where he's super handsome, but also completely endearing, likable, and funny. The same things that made him great in the under-appreciated show Chuck are what make him great in Shazam!. Just as important though is getting the right younger cast. Asher Angel mimics Zachary Levi's mannerisms well. He and Jack Dylan Grazer are a lot of fun playing off each. Billy's entire foster family is thematically obvious in every way. Predictibility isn't necessarily bad if it's done well though. Mark Strong as the villain is obvious too, and that's not a complaint. There's another bit of casting in the movie that I can't really talk about, but I can say that I enjoyed those choices a lot.

I'm not sure where Shazam! fits into the larger DC cinematic universe. There's mention of Superman and Batman as real characters, however, I don't expect to see Shazam! suiting up with the rest of the Justice League any time soon. The teasers in the end credits hint at the possibility of sequels, although if this ends up being a one-and-done, I wouldn't feel like the story was incomplete. Shazam! works because it sets it's own tone and isn't concerned with stepping on the toes of an other comic mythologies. As cool as team-ups are, I hope DC keeps up with this focus on individual hero stories, at least for a little while. 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Breathe

The Pitch: Andy Serkis is directing, but he isn't in it, and there isn't any motion capture.

The story of how Robin Cavendish defied all expectations after being struck down with polio when he was 28.

Not everyone has the opportunity to create a memorial for their parents. Jonathan Cavendish did, and now we have Breathe. You see, Jonathan happens to run a production company with Andy Serkis and his father's story is pretty remarkable. The movie made in his father's honor is much less remarkable.

While not a hagiography, Breathe is a movie with very few edges. That's not because Cavendish is hiding his family's dirty secrets (that I know of). There just isn't much to the story after the polio that's all that dramatic. Robin (Andrew Garfield) falls in love with Diana (Claire Foy). He gets polio, which paralyzes him. Then they keep finding ways to make his ventilator more mobile. And that's about it until the predictable end. Jonathan's parents are painted as nobly imperfect. Take away the polio, and this is a movie about a couple who is deeply in love, living a comfortable existence financially, go on adventurous vacations, and have a deeply loving circle or friends and family. I'm not sure that another producer would've developed the movie much differently, but everything in Breathe is a shade rosier than it would be in someone else's hands.

It's a fine movie though. Andrew Garfield can only act from the neck up. He does everything he can, but the role is more Simple Jack than Forrest Gump (to use Tropic Thunder parlance)*. I think Claire Foy is just great in everything. After The Crown, I kind of assumed it was perfect casting for a specific role. No. She's just good in everything. She may even get me to watch the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo sequel that I'm otherwise not looking forward to at all. Andy Serkis' direction is fairly invisible. I'm not sure there's anything he does that I wouldn't expect from anyone. I do mean that as more of a compliment. It's not Kevin Costner debuting with Dances with Wolves, but it's close enough to Ben Affleck directing Gone Baby Gone. I think he may have tried too hard to distance himself from what he does best though. That's why I have decently high hopes for Mowgli, which Netflix will be releasing soon.

*I should clarify. I'm referring to the degree of the performance, not saying that having polio means you are mentally disabled.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend