THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON - BFI London Film Festival - Day Three

First time directors and screenwriters Michael Schwartz and Tyler Nilson have created something truly wonderful, heart-warming and uplifting in their gentle buddy road-comedy THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON.  It's a movie that dares to be optimistic, which in these times is a) needed and b) almost subversive, as Shia Labeouf claimed in a post-screening Q&A.  What's even more impressive is that it's a film that manages to be genuinely gorgeously warm-hearted without ever feeling manipulative, especially of its down-syndrome lead actor Zack Gottsagen.  He's never patronised and absolutely shines - with a natural charisma and genuine gift for humour. What's more we get a really strong and touching performance from Labeouf - perhaps his best - and wonderful cameos from Bruce Dern and Thomas Haden Church. There's nothing not to like about this film.

Zack Gottsagen stars as a young man (Zak) sick of being patronised and housed in an old age home because the state just doesn't care enough to allow him to flourish.  With the help of buddy Bruce Dern he escapes and runs into Shia Labeouf's troubled fisherman, Tyler.  They go on the run together, and we realise that Tyler is actually a good guy, and that as much as he's practically helping Zak - teaching him to swim, getting him to the wrestling training camp and the hero he idolises - it's Zak that's really helping Tyler open up, find hope and connect emotionally.  What we get is a relationship that feels utterly authentic, and is genuinely touching. We want these crazies to succeed! Dakota Johnson has a more thankless role as the nursing home assistant with a heart who tracks them down. But Thomas Haden Church is also heartbreakingly wonderful as the faded wrestling hero who helps Zak at the end.

Like I said - there's nothing not to like about this film. It's funny - sweet - profound -  moving - and so beautifully balanced that it never falls into manipulative schmaltz. It deserves all the success, praise and awards.

THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON has a running time of 93 minutes. It is rated PG-13. It played SXSW and London 2019. It opens in the UK on October 18th and was released in the USA in August 2019.

DADDY'S HOME

DADDY'S HOME is a comedy from the writers and director of HOT TUB TIME MACHINE and HORRIBLE BOSSES 2. It contains the same kind of raucous verbal humour and physical pratfalls.  Will Ferrell stars as Brad Whitaker - a decent man and earnest stepfather of two kids.  The problems start when their biological father Dusty Mayron (Mark Wahlberg) shows up.  He's more charismatic and popular, even though he actually doesn't have the integrity or care to be a good parent.  At least Brad's wife Sara (Linda Cardellini) understands Brad's pain - she was also sick of being the strict parent when married to Dusty.  

The narrative arc is pretty predictable.  The childish father is obviously going to be redeemed but essentially leave the newly blended family in tact.  And in a set up for a sequel, we see Dusty meet the biological dad of his own stepkid by the end of the film.  Still, we don't come to a movie like this for innovative narrative structure.  What makes it work is the verbal and physical comedy and the genuine heart.  Will Ferrell really sells the roll of the loveable geeky stepdad and the budding bromance between Brad and Dusty by the end of the film is kind of sweet. The end may be a little too on the nose for some, but at least you've had more than a few laughs along the away.  

DADDY'S HOME has a running time of 96 minutes and is rated PG-13.  The movie is on release in the UK, Canada, Cambodia, Pakistan, the USA, Australia and Ireland. It opens later in December in New Zealand, Egypt, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam and goes on global release in January.

Ankle frack round up 3 - WE BOUGHT A ZOO

WE BOUGHT A ZOO is Cameron Crowe's first film since the mawkish, embarrassing ELIZABETHTOWN, and I'm afraid that it's another flabby sentimental film in which the central characters do not hold our interest. Based on a script by Aline Brosh McKenna (27 WEDDINGS) the movie sees a recently widowed journalist pour his family's money into a neglected zoo. Everything is utterly predictable.  There's an angry exchange that provides catharsis for the father and his teenage son.  There's flirtation with bankruptcy before a triumphant reopening of the zoo. There's a mean government inspector, a cute vet love-interest for the dad, a cute vet's niece love-interest for the son, and an attempt to put some bite into the mix with a sarcastic older brother.  The material is hokey as hell, but I couldn't help wonder if different casting might have helped - and direction toward broader humour. Perhaps Ben Stiller and Amy Adams  as the father and vet rather than Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansen? 

I despair that Crowe will ever again direct anything with the emotional depth, narrative sophistication, dark undertones, and genuine heart (as opposed to manufactured schmaltz) of ALMOST FAMOUS.

WE BOUGHT A ZOO was released in winter 2011/2012 and is now available to rent and own.

KILLER JOE - some thoughts from Bina007

KILLER JOE is a visceral and provocative trash-noir film from director William Friedkin - most famous for THE EXORCIST - but more similar in tone to his more recent tour-de-force examination of mutual psychosis, BUG. Shot in three weeks on a $10m budget, KILLER JOE has a similarly creepy, violent, sexually tense, sleazy atmosphere, and is similarly tightly written - and it comes as no surprise that both movies were based on plays written by Tracy Letts, of Steppenwolf Theater fame. 

The movie focusses on a messed up southern family - dumb naive father Ansel (Thomas Haden Church); sexually provocative stepmother Sharla (Gina Gershon); failed drug-dealer son Chris (Emile Hirsch) and the apparently mentally disturbed daughter Dottie (Juno Temple).  The family live in a trailer, want to bump off Ansel's first wife for the insurance money, and hire Matthew McConaughey's Killer Joe to do the job. Trouble is, he wants more than money - he wants the sexually naive Dottie.

The resulting thriller is both a film of double crosses in the standard style, but also a psychological drama about Dottie (Juno Temple) - her violent childhood; her twisted virginity; her seduction; her escape.  More widely, it's about Killer Joe bringing the entire family under his control, resulting in the two set piece scenes of sexual power - the aforementioned with Dottie, that's really at the centre of the film - and the second, likely to become the film's notorious calling card, involving Sharla and a piece of fried chicken.

It's no surprise to find that these scenes have provoked unease in viewers, and in its final reel, the movie really does just go crazy with the violence.  But what I found most disturbing wasn't the movie's violence (particularly toward women) but its humour. Because, make no mistake, this film is funny, particularly in its depiction of caricature  tuna-casserole-eating white-trash.  The genius of the film is, then, Friedkin's ability, to walk the tight-wire between dark comedy, and genuinely horrific violence, in a way that, say, Werner Herzog's BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS, didn't.  I also rather like the casting - Juno Temple is particularly impressive as Dottie, but the real genius move is the casting of McConaughey.  Friedkin has realised that McConaughey's too perfect, too manicured beauty is slightly unnerving and creepy, and harnessed that for the Killer Joe persona - the knowing, sleazy, seductive bad cop.

KILLER JOE is on release in the UK. It opens in the USA on July 27th; in Finland on August 10th; in Russia on August 23rd; in France on September 5th; in Belgium on September 26th; and in the Netherlands on November 8th.

KILLER JOE - in which Matthew McConaughey is, for once, not just a pretty face.

This review is brought to you by Alex:

Killer Joe’s US movie poster features a bloodied piece of fried chicken. This probably tells you all you need to know about what to expect from the latest piece by William Friedkin (director; The Exorcist, The French Connection). Based on Tracey Letts’ play and screen adaptation and exploring the seedy underbelly of American society, this film does not disappoint.

The Smith family are archetypal trailer-trash, bit parts straight from an episode of My Name is Earl or Eastbound and Down. The best thing that can be said about father Ansel Smith (Thomas Haden Church) is that he knows he is stupid. Gina Gershon is masterfully cast as his second wife Sharla, as feisty as she’s slutty, and no fan of Ansel’s hapless son Chris from a previous marriage. Juno Temple plays Chris’ younger sibling Dottie.  They concoct a plan to pay off debts owed by the hapless loser Chris to a local loan shark, by arranging for “Killer Joe” to rub out Chris’ mother Adele. Chris plans to collect her life insurance in Dottie’s name. Matthew McConaughey is counter-intuitively cast as Joe, a local policeman who moonlights as an assassin.

Surprisingly, McConaughey doesn’t disappoint and manages to step outside of his typical Rom Com repertoire to play the title role memorably, one part smooth-talking gigolo-cum-southern gentleman, the other part malevolent predator.

Of course, in true film-noir style the plan goes very wrong, and we see the family twist and swing, throttled by the Gordian knot of their situation as it worsens each time they try to fix it once and for all. It’s very enjoyable to watch, and tension builds to a climactic final scene where we learn exactly how sadistic and evil Joe really is.  Violence is unflinching but interspersed with humour, and characters turn on a dime, one moment charismatic, the next skin-crawlingly vile. Friedkin, who I was fortunate enough to hear in Q&A after the premiere, has said that his work is about the thin line between good and evil in us all. It’s a theme the film forces us to reflect upon.

His examination of the subaltern world of the South-Western United States, where even policemen are crooked and feared, suits the director’s tonal nod to Grindhouse cinema. In fact several scenes seem to have come with specific acting direction towards that genre.

Indeed, Kurt Russell’s unexpectedly good turn in Tarantino’s Grindhouse homage “Death Proof” is reminiscent of McConaughey’s role here as the eponymous Joe. Friedkin has really managed to bring something new out of the actor, and he is fun to watch.

The rest of the cast fits snugly into this hybrid noir-trash flick genre, especially the feral Emil Hirsch as Chris (worth checking out in “Into the Wild”). Relative newcomer Juno Temple (soon to be seen in “The Dark Knight Rises”) portrays Dottie superbly, Lolita-like in her innocence and subversive sexual power. It is Dottie’s control over Joe that is the lynchpin of the plot and as such Temple carries a heavy weight on her shoulders. She acquits herself fully.

Richly deserving of its NC-17 rating in the US, Friedkin’s oddball approach to directing will be called violent and misogynist by his critics. I’ll leave that to the reader to decide, but he has managed to imbue inanimate objects (a tin of pineapple chunks, a fried chicken-leg, a watch carefully removed and laid on a table as foreplay to brutality) with trauma in such a way that the viewer can’t fail to be reminded of the roles they play in this film long, after they have left the cinema. This is part of what makes Killer Joe refreshing. I’m sure I’ll be watching it again soon.

KILLER JOE played Venice, Toronto and Sitges 2011, and SXSW 2012. It opens this weekend in the UK, and on July 27th in the USA. It opens on August 10th in Finland; August 23rd in Russia; September 5th in France; September 26th in Belgium; and in the Netherlands on November 8th.

JOHN CARTER - Disney's ginger stepchild

JOHN CARTER is a movie so unloved by its studio that before it was released it was almost possible to recast it in its own Hollywood "underdog story".  Over the past six months, articles in the trade press have bemoaned Disney's lack of marketing strategy - the pre-commitment to the 60 second Superbowl ad (which was underwhelming at best) - dropping the "OF MARS" from the title.  The studio chief seems to have been backing his way out of the door, pushing blame for this fiasco on his predecessor - and, make no mistake, this movie IS a fiasco. A tent-pole movie whose budget is a reported £250m plus marketing, with no A-list stars and no brand-name recognisable source text.  Even a superbly made movie would struggle to earn this kind of money back, and JOHN CARTER isn't superbly made.  For that, I guess we have to blame writer-director and Pixar golden-boy Andrew Stanton (UP, WALL-E, TOY STORY, FINDING NEMO).  A director who has come across as so defensive on his UK press tour as to alienate his potential audiences.  His basic stance seems to be "we make the movies we wanna make: so screw the audience and the studio.  Steve Jobs told me we were hired for our taste."  Sub-text: if we, the humble ticket-paying audience don't like the movie, it's on us - we just aren't tasteful enough. It's also completely disingenuous to suggest that Stanton makes movies without studio pressure. If so, why the extensive re-cutting, the expensive re-shoots, the change in title, the retro-fitted 3D?  All of which are the studio's desperate attempt to get back more cents on the dollar than investors in Greek sovereign debt.  (Prognosis - probably about the same i.e. 30 cents on the dollar.)

All the negative press had made me perversely desperate to like JOHN CARTER - to become its champion. But sadly, the movie didn't give me anything.  It was just dull over-produced nonsense - a sort of trashy sci-fi B-movie that, despite its egregious budget, still managed to look pretty cheesy - a movie that hinted at action-adventure serials in the FLASH GORDON or INDIANA JONES or STAR WARS style, but failed to live up to any of them.  (Not that there's anything wrong with B-movies - we all love FLASH GORDON - but there's no need to spend more than, say, £70m, on a B-movie).  Apparently, the movie is based on an early twentieth century serial by Edgar Rice Borroughs (he of TARZAN fame) that ran to some 13 instalments. I have no interest in seeing any more.

So what's it all about, Alfie?  John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) is a Confederate cavalryman, mysteriously transported to Mars where he uses his new super-strength (thanks to low gravity) to intervene in the war between Helios (good guys) and Zodanga (bad guys). He does this by enlisting the help of the hitherto neutral Tharks (the Ewok/Na'avi of this flick).  In the process, Carter falls for the Helios' Princess Dejah (Lynn Collins) saves her from a forced marriage to the Zodanga Prince Sab Than, foils the manipulations of the mysterious Thern (Mark Strong) and brokers a reconciliation between a Thark father and daughter (Willem Dafoe and Samantha Morton). Not bad, huh?!

This is your basic sci-fi, space-romance story in the B-movie style.  All good fun.  So what went so horribly wrong? Well, for a start, it just isn't fun to watch! The dialogue and delivery is remarkably po-faced and earnest.  The only actor who looks like he's having any fun at all is James Purefoy as a Helios General in the HBO Rome Mark Anthony mould.  Purefoy is a scene-stealer, and left me wondering what this movie had been like if he had been cast as John Carter instead of pretty boy and ex-Friday Night Lights star, Taylor Kitsch. Purefoy would've been more age-appropriate for a start, and has so much more charisma than Kitsch, who comes across as a whimpering pasty bouncing ball.  

Which brings me to the next problem: the look of the actors.  The movie is set on Mars, so of course, the Martians have to have red skin. Problem is, they just look like they've have had Essex-style bad fake tans (orange-heavy) and their costumes are so plastic-fantastic they look like cheap action figures.  Which brings me to the next problem.  Poor Lynn Collins - the female love-interest - is made to where a series of revealing costumes that are clearly catering to the same teen-boy fantasy as Princess Leia's bikini.  This sits ill with the fact that Collins is not a conventional beauty. I applaud that casting - it makes the fact that the Princess is a science geek more credible than, say, casting Megan Fox - but it seems hypocritical to make so much of her brains and fighting smarts, while dressing her like Martian Barbie. 

And this uneasy juxtaposition brings me to my final, and biggest problem with the film: its need to bely its B-movie status my pumping up the emotional gravity. Do we really need the father-daughter angst in the Thark storyline, for instance? Cutting that could've got the movie down to a 90 minute run-time for a start. And worst of all, the most crass scene is one where John Carter in battle is inter-cut with a flash-back to him digging his wife's grave on Earth.  No-one needs that kind of crass emotional manipulation in the midst of a good old-fashioned punch-up.  The inter-cutting was utterly unearned and utterly unsuccessful. Much like the rest of this unloved ginger stepchild of a movie.

JOHN CARTER is on global release in all bar Portugal, where it opens next weekend, and Japan, where it opens on April 13th.

iPad Round-Up 6 - EASY A

In the wake of the critical acclaim for THE HELP, it is perhaps too easy for reviewers to see EASY A as the movie in which Emma Stone - the star of both - first made an impression, and perhaps to transfer their admiration of that film to this.  To  my mind, while Stone does have a kind of winning likeability and sass so often missing from today's bland young teen stars, EASY A is far from a compelling film. It doesn't have the dark humour and danger of a film like HEATHERS. It doesn't create a modern vernacular in the way that JUNO attempted to do. And it certainly doesn't treat its literary other, Hawthorne's Scarlett Letter, with the intelligence and respect that CLUELESS treated Pride and Prejudice.  Rather, director Will Gluck (FIRED UP) and writer Bert V Royal, create a movie that attempts to be clever, contemporary, and dangerous, but ends up looking like a movie that occasionally lands a comedic punch, but as often mis-fires.  I'm also pretty tired of seeing cheap shots taken at super-religious nutters.

Stone plays Olive, a girl who masquerades as a slut to gain credibility and cash, but is really a good-hearted virgin. Her parents (Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson) are completely unbelievable in their willingness to go along with this ruse.  Events spiral out of control as they are wont to do in such films - largely when a nasty school counsellor (Lisa Kudrow) uses Olive to cover up an affair with a student. But all's well that end's well, in a movie that is far more conservative than it wants you to think it is.  Essentially, this is a fluffy, patchy affair, worth a DVD rental at best.

EASY A played Toronto 2010 and was released last winter. It is available to rent and own.

Justifiably overlooked DVD of the month Part Deux - ALL ABOUT STEVE

From writer Kim Barker (the risible LICENSE TO WED) and debutant director Phil Traill comes a romantic-comedy so unfunny, uncharming and just plain irritating it's hard to believe it stars Miss Apple Pie herself, Sandra Bullock. I could never have imagined that Sandra Bullock, typically the best thing about the movies she chooses to make, would pick such a completely sans-merit script, and be so utterly charmless within it. This is the woman who, after all, won a Razzie for her role in this film and ACTUALLY TURNED UP, charming the pants of the audience in the process. This woman can work with rom-com dreck. But I guess even the luckiest actress occasionally hits a pot-hole.

So here's the deal. Sandra Bullock plays a geeky cross-word competition creator called Mary. She lives at home with her parents, is a complete social misfit and may in fact have a behavioural disorder. Her parents set her up on a blind date with Steve (Bradley Cooper) and she thinks he's so hot she practically jumps him in the back of his car and then stalks him around America while he covers stories as a cameraman for CNN. Steve's vain front-man, Hartman Hughes (Thomas Haden Church) thinks it will be great fun to egg Mary on, and before we know it she's fallen into a deep well in pursuit of her "lover" and becomes the centre of the story herself. Steve feels guilty about how the press are depicting her as a dweeb and decides to give her a break, just as she realises she needs to get some frikkin perspective.

There is no chemistry between Steve and Mary. How can there be? Mary isn't so much a frog waiting to be kissed into a princess but just deeply deeply odd and unappealing. It's also basically hypocritical for the movie to spend an hour mocking Mary for being weird and then to ask us to be understanding. She doesn't need a boyfriend so much as therapy. This is an enormously mis-judged "comedy".

ALL ABOUT STEVE opened in Autumn/Winter 2009. It is available on DVD and on iTunes.

SMART PEOPLE - indie by numbers

SMART PEOPLE is another one of those indie dramas about a dysfunctional family bickering with each other. Dennis Quaid plays a worn out, self-absorbed academic, grieving for his wife. He lavishes praises on his lonely, sharp-tongued daughter (Ellen Page) but ignores his teenage son (Ashton Holmes.) Two people enter the professor's life, resulting into a sort of adult coming-of-age movie. The first is his emotionally intelligent but practically hopeless adopted brother (Thomas Haden Church.) The second is his former student turned doctor turned girlfriend (Sarah Jessica Parker.)

SMART PEOPLE contains some decent performances, some emotional truths, and some truly brilliantly one-liners, ususally delivered by the slacker adopted brother. But it is strangely lacking in heft. The dialogue is never scabrous enough; the emotional exchanges never highly charged enough. The plot often feels contrived and for heaven's sake, will someone tell Sarah Jessica Parker that emergency doctors don't wander round with loose perfectly waved hair, pencil skirts and high heels. And while they're at it, they should probably warn Ellen Page against getting typecast as the young girl who flirts with older men.

SMART PEOPLE SMART PEOPLE played Sundance 2008 and opened in the US and Australia earlier this year. It is currently on release in the UK and Russia. It opens in New Zealand on July 31st and in France on September 10th.

IDIOCRACY - a world where the biggest-selling movie is called "ASS"

IDIOCRACY is a live-action comedy from the creator of Beavis and Butthead and King of the Hill, Mike Judge. Sadly, the wickedly funny mind that brought us perfectly formed short-format animation hasn't quite mastered the feature length format. The writing is uneven, with a smattering of biting satire offset by some weak dialogue, obvious humour and the inexplicable casting of Maya Rudolph in a lead role. Still, there's enough comedy in the central premise to warrant a DVD rental.

Mike Judge starts from the following worrying fact: idiot chavs are having more kids than clever, professional people. This demographic dumbing-down is pushing evolution into reverse - we're all regressing into...well....Beavis and Butthead. Luke Wilson and Maya play a present-day Joe Average and a hooker who have been cryogenically frozen and wake up in the future imperfect. In the new IDIOCRACY, dumb people water crops with gatorade and convicts get "rehabilitated" in a Running Man style TV show.

Ultimately, Mike Judge can't sustain the satire and the narrative is pretty weak. But there are enough unpleasant truths to prevent me from dismissing this film in the manner of the studio that buried it in straight to video hell.

IDIOCRACY went on limited release in the US in September 2006 but didn't get a cinematic release in the UK. It is, however, available on DVD.

SPIDERMAN 3 - in which Spidey jumps the shark

SPIDERMAN 3 was a big event in Bina-world. I'd arranged a posse of like-minded individuals to go see it at the big fat Odeon in Leicester Square. There's nothing like a packed house of fans cheering the opening credits and laughing at all the gags - it's popcorn entertainment at its best.

The opening hour was fine. Peter Parker was back, even more nerdy that usual and a little self-satisfied at Spidey's popularity among New Yorkers. Sure, his best mate Harry wasn't speaking to him, believing Spidey had killed his dad. And his girlfriend Mary-Jane was getting panned by critics in her new Broadway show. Oh, and there was that annoying photographer, Eddie Brock, trying to muscle in on a staff job at the Daily Bugle. But basically, Peter was okay, the film zipped along happily and the higher quota of comedy was fun. In particular, there was some broad physical comedy in a restaurent scene where Peter attempts to propose to MJ.

But around half way through bad things happen. And I'm not just talking about the meteoric slime that attaches itself to Spidey and brings out his aggressive nature. Sam Raimi - a man whose judgement has previously been impeccable, simply lets Spidey jump the shark.

By which I mean that the ueber-confident "black" Peter Parker strutts down the street spoofing Saturday Night Fever. Raimi makes Spidey look bad-ass by making him wear his fringe forward and givin him black eyeliner! He dances with Gwen Stacey in a jazz club spoofing Jim Carrey in The Mask. The humour is broad and it really works. I laughed myself silly. But I was laughing AT the movie, and worst of all, I think Raimi et al were laughing at the movie too. They were sending the Spidey iconography up. Going for cheap laughs also totally destroyed the emotional credibility of the franchise. By the time we'd been through Tobey Maguire's moody teenager impression I was in no mood to hear him pontificate about moral choices and forgiveness, and I certainly wasn't emotionally invested in the movie's ending. An ending which, by the way, rivals LORD OF THE RINGS for its inability to pull down the curtain.

So, SPIDERMAN 3 still has all the cool CGI stunts, and some decent turns from Kirsten Dunst, J K Simmons and Bruce Campbell. Thomas Haden Church is perfectly cast as the Sandman - he has such sympathetic eyes you can't help feeling for him. There's also a woefully brief cameo role from Topher Grace as Venom. Venom is such a great character - a complete bastard - and Topher Grace gave such a fantastic performance that he should have had more screen-time or a movie where he was the only villain. Tobey Maguire proves he can play comedy. I just wished he hadn't proved it in this film. And I remain unconvinced about James Franco's ability to pull off a serious dramatic role.

Overall, I was highly disappointed. As were Nikolai, Movie Matt, Richard and Alan, who'd come all the way down from Edinburgh for this, the first Yippee-Kay-Yay Meet Up. (Although Matt thought it would be a fun night out for kids.) Swedish Philip also gave it the thumbs down. He makes the brilliant point that he expected Spidey 3 to be the most dark and psychologically penetrating given that it featured the Black Spidey. He was expecting the mood to be more BATMAN BEGINS than Broadway Musical. Swedish Lizzie thought it was "utter crap" (although she's so generally amiable and looked so happy I mistakenly thought she liked it). Ken and Graham thought it was okay (see comment below), John kind of enjoyed it, but John thought it ripped off SUPERMAN too much. (I agree. Over-wrought religious imagery up the wazoo, let alone a ridiculously cheesy shot of Spidey in front of the Star-Spangled Banner.) Rav liked it but thought it ripped off THE MASK and Stoogy actually thought it was better for the first one! So out of 12 "votes", we have 7 Nays and 5 ayes.

SPIDERMAN 3 is on global release.

OVER THE HEDGE - job done but no trimmings

OVER THE HEDGE is a new animated movie that will keep your kids occupied for 90 minutes. It's full of cute animals doing funny stuff. The idea is that there are a bunch of foragers who wake up from hibernating all winter. Instead of waking to the usual lovely field, they are faced with a giant hedge. For, over the winter, that field has been developed into a nice gated community filled with fat Americans who have super-stocked double-barrel fridges. The foragers are nervous of these new inhabitants and reluctant to look for food over the hedge, but they are egged on by a new arrival: super-smoove R.J. R.J. reckons he can outsmart the humans, the Verminator and the neighbourhood cat. What he doesn't tell the other cute animals is that he has an ulterior motive - if he doesn't replace all the food he stole from a mean bear by full moon, he's toast.

The movie is full of all those good moral lessons that you want your kids exposed to. Family is important, and it is better to be selfless than selfish. And like I said, the animals are really cute. But OVER THE HEDGE does nothing more than the basics. The voice cast is for the most part fine. Great comic actors such as Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara are wasted on limited material. Avril Lavigne has about three lines and was no doubt recruited solely to boost the teen box office. Bruce Willis does his usual smart-ass schtick on autopilot. The only really impressive performances are by William Shatner as a Luvvie Possum and Thomas Haden-Church as the hysterically deluded pest-controller - The Verminator. Oh yes. As usual, Omid Djalili steals every scene he is in as the persian house-cat.

But the biggest let down is that there isn't more humour for the grown-ups. Normally I wouldn't sweat that too much. After all, if the kids are happy then the genre-box is ticked. But somehow, with OVER THE HEDGE, I expected more. That's because the flick is based on a cartoon strip that has real bite. The concept is that a bunch of cute animals look over the hedge at us crazy-ass humans and make biting satirical comments at our expense. Apart from one montage taking the piss out of our chronic food dependency, in this movie, cute wins out over satire.

OVER THE HEDGE was released in the US in May is on release in Australia. It goes on wide release in the UK on June 30th. It hits continental Europe the following weekend.