The Pirates! in An Adventure With Scientists 2.5/5
After hearing rave reviews of this film, I was curious, but those expecting another Chicken Run will be disappointed. The jokes are mostly bland (even though a couple hit their mark) and the decision to make historical figures like Charles Darwin and Queen Victoria the villains (not to mention making Jane Austen a gold-digging ditz!) are questionable to say the least. Darwin's motivation is also borderline insulting to the great man, and overall this ends up dragging the movie down, and nullifying the complex nature of characters like the Pirate Captain, who is layered and far from the usual milquetoast picture-perfect hero most films tend to give us. There is also a running gag about a female crewmember disguised as a man (via scruffy fake beard) which is immediately made pointless by the existence of an ACTUAL female pirate, Cutlass Liz. Overall, unlike with Chicken Run, it's hard to see just what the fuss was all about with this one.
Talk Radio 4/5
A one-man tour-de-force by Eric Bogossian as an outspoken radio shock-jock. Most of the movie is spent watching Bogossian's character demean, deride and cuss out callers, casually brushing aside Nazi death threats, cries for help, and the usual assortment of loonies. On the fringes of this powerhouse performance is a strong supporting cast, with John C. McGinley delivering his usual brilliance in the few moments he has to shine. However, much like in the play that inspired this adaptation, the focus here is on Bogossian's Barry, and director Oliver Stone knowingly gives him semi-free rein, keeping the camera trained on him as he paces around the studio or sits at his desk randomly cutting off particularly obnoxious callers. Bogossian succeeds in making the viewer care for someone who is quite evidently an asshole, and even though nothing much happens outside of Barry having conversations with listeners, the film manages to be engrossing. The ending is surprising as well, topping off a movie well worth watching.
Regarding Henry 3.25/5
Not much happens in this quiet tearjeker about a man who loses his memory after getting shot. The film tries hard to establish Harrison Ford's Henry as a cad (he's a lawyer! He has slicked back hair!), but the character never acts like anything more than the average overworked, short-tempered person. He is strict but kind to his preteen daughter (for once, a child character who is not cloying or precocious, and actually feels like a real little girl), he makes parenting mistakes and crass jokes, but overall he is far from evil incarnate. Later on, the movie compensates by making that most amateurish of all mistakes - telling instead of showing. By this time, however, it is clear how it will all turn out, and the plot point in question becomes somewhat moot. The film does win massive brownie points for portraying real people, with real reactions (there are no long-winded morality speeches or huge fights here, replaced with quiet tears and angry silences) but these flaws, coupled with the fact that the story is not really that interesting, make it no more than a moderately entertaining Sunday-afternoon-on-cable viewing.
Home Team 2/5
I liked this movie the first time around...when it was made by Disney and called The Big Green. This is literally the same movie, with the same sport (soccer), the same outcome, and even the same leading man (Steve Guttenberg, who elicits the same reactions from the kids as he does from the viewers)! The difference is that this time, the setting is not a country-town middle-school, but an inner-city boys' home. Other than that, the film painfully and painstakingly goes through every. single. sports-comedy cliché, to the point where one starts wondering if the moviemakers are for real. Overall, kids' sports comedies are usually a huge guilty pleasure for me, but this one won't be knocking Rebound or Bad News Bears 2005 off the top of my list anytime soon.
