STRAYS**

STRAYS is a foul-mouthed animation/live action comedy that never fully commits to the sheer filth of TED, and thus finds itself stranded in "meh".  Will Ferrell voices a relentlessly optimistic and naive dog called Reggie whose owner Doug (Will Forte) is clearly abusing him.  When Doug finally totally kicks Reggie out, he finds himself taken in by a group of strays, led by wise-cracking street-smart Bug (Jamie Foxx). Through Bug and fellow strays Maggie (Isla Fisher) and Hunter (Randall Park), Reggie comes to realise that his owner didn't in fact love him and commits to hunt him down and bite his balls in vengeance.

The film starts off strong with some excellent black comedy at Reggie's expense but settles into a rather heartwarming but gentle buddy comedy that falls between two stalls. I just wish writer Dan Perrault (American Vandal) and director Josh Greenbaum (BARB AND STAR GO TO VISTA DEL MAR) had had the courage to fully commit to X-rated humour. 

STRAYS is rated R and has a running time of 93 minutes. It was released on August 17th.

HOT PURSUIT

HOT PURSUIT is a piss-poor alleged comedy in the vein of the far better MISS CONGENIALITY. It stars the usually likeable Reese Witherspoon as an uptight unfeminine cop who was inspired by her famous cop father but has become a running joke.  Her chance to redeem herself comes when she's asked to escort a mobster's wife (Sofia Vergara) to court to give evidence against the cartel.  The level of humour that we're operating at is the two women pretending to be lesbian lovers and a slack-jawed yokel getting so excited he blows his finger off.  And then there's literally a scene in which Reese Witherspoon first dresses like a boy in a bad wig and then dons a floral headpiece and folk outfit reminiscent of Miss Congeniality. I can't imagine why Reese Witherspoon thought she had the slapstick comedy chops to play this role, but even with a more appropriate lead actress, this is a woeful production.  Anne Fletcher's direction is workmanlike and the script by David Feeney and John Quaintance predictable and uninspiring.)  There is nothing to recommend this film to your attention.

HOT PURSUIT has a running time of 87 minutes and is rated PG-13. The movie is on general release.

CHEF

First a public service announcement: do not go to see CHEF on an empty stomach or with a vegetarian friend! Not since Stanley Tucci's glorious BIG NIGHT have I seen a movie more in love with food and the process of cooking - that photographs sumptuous sides of pit beef and steaming piles of spaghetti with more indulgent care. It's a movie that's passionate above being passionate about what you eat - and that wraps us up in that mission to eat authentic, but not over-complicated, food. Which is not to sound precious - this is also a movie that is at its heart a simple family story - about a father reconnecting with his son when his career hits a road bump by quitting his fancy restaurant and driving a food truck serving simple Cuban food from Miami to LA.

I can imagine a lot of critics getting quite sniffy about the basic simplicity of the story. There's nothing particularly new about seeing a workaholic divorced dad (Chef Carl Caspar - Jon Favreau) struggling to reconnect with a cute, emotionally wise kid (Emjay Anthony - IT'S COMPLICATED). There's although nothing particularly new about the mid-life crisis movie in which an apparently successful middle-aged man throws it all in to fight the Man (think Jerry Maguire). And of course, there's something almost annoyingly ungrateful in the obvious analogy between Chef Carl and the writer-director-lead actor of the movie. Jon Favreau started off in the indie hit SWINGERS, but ended up helming the mega franchise IRON MAN movies. It's no great leap to think that he too dreamed of giving it up (albeit temporarily) for smaller scale, more authentic tales/films, and CHEF is the literal and metaphorical result. And while we're on a downer, it did get ever so slightly irritating how every woman in this movie was there as a loving, supportive two-dimensional pretty young thing to swoon over Chef's food and ease him through his existential crisis. I mean, in the modern era, is there any excuse for the shot of Maitre D Molly (Scarlett Johanson) wearing little more than an over-sized jumper ogling Chef's spaghetti? Oh, and do we really need such full on product placement for Twitter?!

So why, given the trite emotional journey and 2-D female characters should one still watch CHEF? Because despite all that nonsense the sheer enjoyment of authentic food drips off of the screen. Favreau is writing about what he loves and it shows. And it's not just the food but the cultures and communities that create it and nurture it - the idea that eating something in its place of birth is special and unique and to be protected. It's also worth giving a shout out to the music in this movie. The soundtrack is just hands-down the most fun you can have in a cinema, and put together with the sun-kissed cinematography from DP Kramer Morgenthau (THOR: DARK WORLD and the movie just wills you to have a good time. The second thing to enjoy in this movie is the sweet and occasionally spiky relationship between father and son. I love that Jon Favreau allows himself to look as mean as he does - shouting his evidently emotionally distraught son out of the food truck and serially undercutting touching moments with his debbie-downer attitude. Other occasional joys: the sheer energy John Leguziamo brings to the screen as Sous-Chef Martin; the classic gonzo cameo from Robert Downey Junior at the centre of the movie; a use of cornstarch that you just can't forget once you've seen it.

So, despite it's well-worn path to emotional enlightenment, and the rather cloying product placement, CHEF is a wonderfully feel-good movie, full of love, authentic spikiness and a real passion for food, family and community.

CHEF is rated R in the USA and X in the UK and has a running time of 115 minutes.

CHEF played SXSW 2014 and was released earlier this year in New Zealand, the USA, Kuwait, Lithuania, Portugal, Vietnam, Singapore and Hong Kong. It goes on release in Estonia in June 20th, in the UK on June 25th, in Ireland on June 27th, in Brazil on July 10th, in Greece on August 21st, and in the Netherlands on September 4th.

THE THREE STOOGES

THE THREE STOOGES.  I hated it. I hated it. I hated it. And then. Embarrassingly. I loved it! 

The turning point was the scene where Moe got cast in Jersey Shore and slapped The Situation silly.  Up until then the movie had mostly been a paint by numbers childish garish slapstick comedy.  Sure, I could see the technical skill in pulling off the pranks, but a trio of child-men dressing in drag and duelling with pissing babies is hardly my idea of a good time. And as for the plot, one can only assume that the Farrelly Brothers were being self-conscious in ripping off THE BLUES BROTHERS orphans-raise-money-to-save-the-kiddies idea.  I was embarrassed for everyone involved, and especially for Sofia Vergara, who plays the murderous slut who hires the Stooges to kill her rich husband.  Why would the star of America's highest rated prime-time network comedy be doing such a crude film?

But then it happened.  About half way through the film the brothers have a fight and Moe falls into a role on Jersey Shore.  Suddenly I was laughing out loud as the provincial dolt roundly taking the proverbial out of the fake-tanned, slow-witted reality starts. This was pure comedy gold.  And as soon as I opened myself up to it, I realised that I actually did appreciate just how good the three lead actors were - especially Chris Diamantopoulous as Moe.  Worst of all, I realised that I actually cared about what happened to guys.  I wanted to know if they'd make up with each other, and whether they'd save the orphanage, and whether the mean gold-digger would get her comeuppance.  And even at that point, the movie continued to surprise me with a couple of small plot twists at the end that undercut its day-glo saccharine feel.

Alls I can say is that despite my initial revulsion at crude slapstick comedy, I actually had a good time with THE THREE STOOGES, and in its final half hour, it becomes a much cleverer movie than one is led to believe by its initial men-in-drag-as-nuns type humour.  I'm not saying I'd watch it again - but I'm glad I watched it once!

THE THREE STOOGES was released earlier this year in Canada, India, the USA, Pakistan, Vietnam, Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Croatia, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, France and Singapore. It was released earlier this month in Chile, Mexico, Spain and Peru and was released this week in the UK and Ireland.  It is released on August 31st in Costa Rica, Honduras and Nicaragua; on September 7th in Ecuador; on September 14th in Venezuela, on September 20th in Bolivia; on September 28th in El Salvador, Guatemala and Panama; on October 12th in Germany, Brazil, Colombia and Uruguay and on December 7th in the Dominican Republic.

Preview - THE SMURFS

Smurfs are cute little blue creatures with white floppy hats who live in mushroom-houses in a magical forest. They are cared for by Papa Smurf, the Gandhi of cartoon characters - so caring and lovely that he even turned around the character of Smurfette - the girl smurf sent by evil wizard Gargamel to tempt them. The Smurfs are so without guile that they defy post-modern teenage cynicism regarding their sexual proclivities and political leanings. Okay, there may be a hundred boy smurfs and just one smurfette, but what's so odd about that?!  

What I like about this new live-action/animation movie is that it both embraces the innate loveliness of smurfs, while also tipping its hat to the anachronism of Peyo's creation.  What you get is a movie that is basically very simple and sweet, but also contains the odd witty wink to the camera - such as mocking the use of the word "smurf" as an all-purpose asterisked curse-word; or having Papa Smurf decode a magic spell by looking at an old book of Smurf "mythology" aka a Peyo comic book!  

The contrast of Smurf naivete and modern-day cynicism is achieved, as in the movie ENCHANTED, by having the wizard Gargamel chase the smurfs through a "vortex" to contemporary Manhattan, where they are stranded until they can magic a blue moon and get back home.  Just as Amy Adams' Giselle made Patrick Dempsey's Robert a softer, more fun-loving person in ENCHANTED, the Smurfs give Patrick and Grace Winslow (Neil Patrick Harris and Jayma Mays) a new-found joyfulness and confidence.  I liked the parallel between Patrick discovering the confidence to be a new father with poor Clumsy discovering that he doesn't have to be defined by his name, as all smurfs typically are.

So, as you can tell, I just about enjoyed THE SMURFS because, well, smurfs are cute, and made me feel nostalgic. But, objectively, this is a very badly made movie. Director Roger Gosnell (BEVERLY HILLS CHIHUAHUA) and DP Phil Meheux (THE MASK OF ZORRO) shoot everything in a workman-like over-lit obvious style; Hank Azaria is mis-cast and hammy as Gargamel (imagine Jim Carrey in the role - so much better); the plot is predictable; and for a kids film without sustained adult in-jokes, the run-time, at 100 minutes, is too long.  For all those reasons, this isn't the kind of children's film that adults can watch without the excuse of taking the kids.  But as genuinely earnest, warm-hearted entertainment for the young cinema viewer, it will, no doubt, hit the spot.

THE SMURFS is on release in the US, Canada, Argentina, Spain, Belgium, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Peru, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico and Turkey. It opens next Friday in the UK, China, Iceland, Ireland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia and Paraguay. It opens on August 19th in Estonia, Lithuania and Poland and on August 25th in Denmark and Hungary.  THE SMURFS opens on September 2nd in Singapore, Finland, Norway and Sweden; on September 8th in Greece and Japan; on September 16th in Italy and on October 6th in Thailand.