Movie review by Greg Carlson

Following nearly two decades as a television institution, “The Simpsons” transitions to the big screen as an almost completely delightful variant of its smaller self. The series, which appealed to people of all ages for its uncanny ability to blend surrealism, corniness, satire, and sentiment, has shown signs of wear for any number of seasons now, but few would argue the show’s status of one of the truly great series in the history of the medium. The prospect of a feature film version of the show has been gestating for at least a decade, and the movie was absolutely worth the wait.

The plot of “The Simpsons Movie” scarcely matters, but it predictably incorporates several favorite, longstanding targets. Following an effort spearheaded by Lisa to clean up the environmental waste that has been dirtying Springfield, Homer manages to trigger a toxic disaster when he dumps his pet pig’s leavings in the water supply. The government overreacts, an angry mob forms, feelings are hurt, and wrongs must be righted. Curmudgeons will carp that central plot elements, like Bart identifying Flanders as a surrogate father or Lisa developing a seemingly hopeless crush, have already been used, but the movie somehow manages to operate as a greatest hits collection that also takes a few liberties afforded by a PG-13 rating.

Like the best episodes of the show, “The Simpsons Movie” delivers one-liners, puns, sight gags, slapstick, and well-observed jabs at high and low culture with blazing speed. Naturally, not every joke is laugh-out-loud funny, but the zingers far outnumber the bombs, and the movie boasts dozens of brilliant moments. Homer’s instant identification with a doomed porker, which has featured prominently in the movie’s advertising, is terrific. The beast is nicknamed both Spider-Pig and Harry Plopper, and Homer’s somewhat misplaced, childlike affection provides Dan Castellaneta an ideal canvas to demonstrate his genius voice talents.

Creator Matt Groening’s universe owes much to his collaborators, and longtime relationships with folks like James L. Brooks, David Silverman, Al Jean, Ian Maxtone-Graham, George Meyer, David Mirkin, Mike Reiss, Mike Scully, Matt Selman, John Swartzwelder and Jon Vitti forged what has been often called the pinnacle of TV comedy. The co-conspirators labor diligently to make certain that the movie works as a feature film, building in a comfortable sense of rhythm and pacing that operates with sprightliness and verve, never once wearing out its welcome.

Like “Twin Peaks” and other TV shows that managed a leap to the cinema, “The Simpsons” boasts far too many beloved characters to cram into one feature. As painful as it is, several series stalwarts are given scant screen time. Montgomery Burns in particular deserved a bit more than what amounts to a glorified cameo. One cannot complain too much, however, that the focus remains on the titular nuclear family, as their foibles remind us of our own hopes and fears. The reach and influence of the show has been part of the cultural landscape for so long, it is easy to forget that “The Simpsons” did it first and did it best. The movie is a glorious reminder of that, and just might inaugurate another generation of fans.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Nobody who attends “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” should expect to see a document of genuine compassion for gay couples struggling for domestic partnership benefits, despite the film’s tepid, half-hearted message that tolerance is good. The preview sums it up and does it better than the movie itself: a straight fireman calls in a favor from his best friend requiring the pair to appear as a gay couple in order to receive family health insurance. The premise leaks like a colander, never managing to move beyond the impulse to make infantile, retrograde fun of people who don’t happen to be straight. “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” is easily one of the worst movies of the year.

Adam Sandler, stretching credulity beyond the snapping point, plays Chuck, a lothario so skillful he routinely beds women several at a time, presumably because his services are irresistible. One wouldn’t guess it from his personality, however, which is another variation on the shrill, cynical, phony jerk that has made the man a fortune. Chuck’s heterosexual prowess seems to exist primarily as a means to reassure Sandler’s constituency that their man is light years from queer. After spending an eternity lobbing an endless supply of gay jokes, including his own use of that other F word, the best Sandler can do is remind viewers at the end of the movie that to call homosexuals hurtful names is no different from disparaging him for being a Jew.

Under different circumstances, namely an entirely new set of personnel in front of and behind the camera, “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” might have been able to cleverly tackle the relevance of its topic, but its creators are hell-bent on stooping to the lowest lows. Ving Rhames is the frustrated, closeted co-worker whose big scene is an unconvincing shower room version of “I’m Every Woman,” which immediately follows a protracted “don’t drop the soap” routine that would have been dated decades ago. Larry (Kevin James) is perfectly content to use homosexuality as a cover, but can’t deal with the fact that his pre-adolescent son prefers show tunes to baseball. In a word, ugh.

Gays are hardly alone as the targets of the movie’s lame jabs. In addition to making certain that there are no believable homosexual characters in sight, Rob Schneider hides behind buck teeth and a bowl haircut in order to cook up a grotesque Asian stereotype that competes with the horror that is Mickey Rooney’s Mr. Yunioshi in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” Jessica Biel and all the other women in the movie are regarded merely as sexual playthings. The group of heroic Brooklyn firefighters with whom Chuck and Larry work can scarcely be bothered to put the homophobia in check for more than a minute.

The movie’s screenplay is so shoddy, it wraps up the action in a shockingly rote courtroom hearing scene that refuses to deliver a much needed smooch between the title lads. Sandler probably fretted that his legions would abandon him if he performed a heartfelt lip-lock with another fellow, so he leaves the dirty work to Rhames, who proves game in a gay wedding epilogue. Gay or straight, viewers will be hard pressed to find anything worthwhile in this counterfeit canard. It’s laughable in all the wrong ways.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Despite being an undeniable financial success at the box office, the Harry Potter film series has always been faced with the impossible task of balancing faithfulness to the source material with good filmmaking. Typically, the producers err on the side of the former, making the film franchise slow going for audience members who do not keep up with the books. It is surely a good thing that at 138 minutes, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” is officially the shortest of the five Potter films, running just a few ticks behind the best of the movies, the Alfonso Cuaron-helmed “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.”

Director David Yates, who will be returning for the next Potter movie, and screenwriter Michael Goldenberg, who replaces Steve Kloves for the first time in the series, have their hands full paring down J.K. Rowling’s massive 850-plus page tome. Predictably, the result is a somewhat bland streamlining process that compresses action, eliminates subplots and explanations, and most unfortunately, short-shrifts all sorts of characters. Hermione and Ron, Harry’s true blue pals, must compete with the usual superstar lineup of British acting royalty and the fresh-faced newcomers chosen to play Harry’s classmates at Hogwarts.

Audiences will likely be divided over the film’s mostly dismal tone, which now marks Harry as a brooding young Hamlet who carries the weight of the world on his fragile psyche. Following an opening set-piece attack by a pair of ghastly Dementors, Harry defends himself before the Ministry of Magic for casting a spell in the presence of a Muggle. Narrowly avoiding expulsion, he returns to Hogwarts only to find that Ministry representative Dolores Umbridge (a perfectly cast Imelda Staunton) has joined the staff. Umbridge wastes no time asserting her strict brand of discipline and control, forcing Potter to go underground with a group of stalwarts branding themselves Dumbledore’s Army.

When he is not avoiding Umbridge or practicing spells, Harry finds himself in the grip of cold-sweat nightmares revolving around the return of Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes), who appears to be drawing closer by the day. Both Sirius Black (Gary Oldman), who shares some personal history with Harry, and Professor Snape (Alan Rickman, in the movie’s standout performance), who unwillingly reveals painful memories to Harry, are on hand to offer the young wizard some protection. The film’s climactic battle is gripping and satisfying.

Typical of the series, the production values are extremely handsome. Computer generated effects continue to develop by leaps and bounds, and a comparison to the early entries shows a remarkable advance. Even so, some of the CG imagery, particularly Hagrid’s giant kin Grawp, lacks the same sense of wonder conveyed by actual physical objects. With the release of Rowling’s final novel neatly coinciding with the current movie, Potter mania will remain as strong as ever. As of now, the last Potter movie is scheduled for release in 2010, which puts all three of the principal performers in their twenties by the likely release date. So far, the transition from childhood to adulthood has been adroitly handled in the films, and it will be interesting to see how the last two stories make the leap to the screen.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Director Michael Bay, one of Hollywood’s most clueless and bombastic moviemakers, sucks all the potential fun out of “Transformers,” a massively budgeted, feature-length headache that is equal parts military recruitment propaganda and car commercial. Based on a line of Hasbro action figures, “Transformers” will appeal only to pre-teen boys and adults who still think and act like pre-teen boys. Loud, stupid, and obnoxious, not to mention ridiculously overlong, “Transformers” will be a gigantic hit in spite of itself. Anyone seeking a movie with heart, warmth, or realistic human characters should look elsewhere.

One must exhibit a very robust suspension of disbelief to accept the premise that warring factions of oversized, sentient robots that can reconfigure themselves to look mostly like GMC vehicles have come to earth in search of a MacGuffin known as the “Allspark.” Metallic baddie Megatron, leader of the Decepticons, has literally been kept on ice for years by the U.S. government, but his fellow machines are drawing ever closer to securing a pair of eyeglasses with crucial information embedded in the lenses. Manic, twitchy dweeb Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf, tremendously annoying), a descendant of the explorer who originally owned the specs, is trying to sell them on eBay.

As a filmmaker, Bay has never been acknowledged for demonstrating sensitivity, and his casual racism and sexism sink “Transformers” like a stone. Bernie Mac and Anthony Anderson are reduced to playing painfully strident caricatures. Of the young female characters, Megan Fox is stuck in the thankless “hot girlfriend” part and is given a cursory back-story that leads to a laughable misunderstanding straight out of a bad sit-com. Rachael Taylor fares no better, playing a computer wizard who figures out all sorts of important things and then is completely ignored once the action cranks up.

Neither human nor Transformer is immune to a blockheaded reductionism that saddles each entity with a single defining trait. In what is perhaps the most painfully unfunny sequence in the movie, Sam’s mother accuses him of masturbating in his bedroom (lifted unsuccessfully from the vastly superior “Weird Science”) while the young man desperately attempts to hide both a girl and several gargantuan robots from his nosy folks. Sam’s Transformer pals, having learned earth language from mediated popular culture, behave like clumsy children, exclaiming things like “My bad” when accidentally crushing the family flowerbed.

When the titular creations engage in a massive orgy of destruction in the final section of the film, Bay falls back on his tried and true methods: an inexplicable combination of unnecessary slow motion shots presumably meant to instill a sense of grandeur and awe, and a cacophony of machine-gun quick cuts so disorienting you have absolutely no idea which robot is which and who is doing what to whom. The design of the Transformers is particularly vexing. Despite the advanced computer design that has rendered them with tens of thousands of moving parts, it is impossible to differentiate between the Autobots and the Decepticons. Sadly, no amount of dazzling special effects can compensate for an absence of good storytelling.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

A major improvement over the disappointing “Cars,” Pixar’s “Ratatouille” is a delightful movie buoyed by top-flight animation, gorgeous design, and confident storytelling.  Despite the obvious challenges of marketing a movie dealing with a rat who yearns to be a gourmet chef, “Ratatouille” will please even the most demanding animation fans with its rich palette of colors and flavors.  Director Brad Bird, whose movies “The Incredibles” and “The Iron Giant” have marked him as one of the finest practitioners of feature-length animation, equals or betters his earlier work, and “Ratatouille” already seems destined for both critical and commercial accolades.

Pixar movies have regularly drawn from the Disney model that values a particularly difficult to achieve level of quality, and many of their stories feature central characters who aspire to greatness in a given field.  In “Ratatouille,” a gifted rodent named Remy (Patton Oswalt) uses his highly developed sense of smell to distinguish between good food and bad.  Initially, Remy’s skill is employed mainly to separate regular garbage from rat poison, but the rat hones his gift after being inspired by a television show featuring the recently deceased master chef Auguste Gusteau (Brad Garrett), a gourmand who lived by the motto “Anyone can cook.”

Since the death of its namesake, Gusteau’s restaurant has lost its prominence and luster, as new boss Skinner (Ian Holm) devotes more time to cashing in on a line of Gusteau frozen dinners than he does to culinary excellence.  One evening, Remy completes a soup started by garbage boy Linguini (Lou Romano), a clumsy naïf with zero cooking skill.  The dish is a smash hit, and before too long, the rat and the human have worked out a system that allows Remy to prepare food by offering direction from underneath Linguini’s toque.  Linguini’s rise in popularity does not go unnoticed by the suspicious Skinner nor by the pretty Colette (Janeane Garofalo), who also happens to be the toughest chef in Gusteau’s kitchen.

Bird took over “Ratatouille” from Jan Pinkava during production, but there is no evidence of behind-the-scenes strife.  Instead, the film is an absolute feast for the eyes, presenting more evidence of the steadily developing art of computer animation.  A credit at the end of the movie boasts that no motion capture was used in the production of “Ratatouille,” and the statement is clearly a major point of pride for the animators who deliver one dazzling series of images after another.  The level of detail is tremendously impressive, and the hustle and bustle of a busy restaurant kitchen, especially the process of cooking itself, is rendered in tones that are sumptuous, savory, and rich.

“Ratatouille” succeeds on many levels, and much credit must be given to Bird for astutely avoiding the shopworn clichés that mar the majority of contemporary animated features.  “Ratatouille” has plenty of squirm-inducing shots of swarming rats, but there are few gags that rely on bodily functions.  Additionally, the film adroitly resists the temptation to pepper the action with references to popular culture.  This almost instantly imbues the proceedings with a timelessness that will surely age better than the vast majority of “Ratatouille’s” competition.  “Ratatouille” will be challenging for its youngest viewers, but like certain cheeses and wines, it will be even better when those kids have grown old enough to appreciate it.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, Ken Loach’s “The Wind That Shakes the Barley” continues the director’s tradition of naturalistic depictions of societal and political struggle pitting the marginalized against the powerful.  A gripping indictment of unwanted military occupation and the costs of armed conflict, the movie echoes contemporary news reports without specifically functioning as an allegory for U.S. involvement in Iraq.  Even so, the guerilla tactics employed by the Irish Republican Army form parallels that are hard to deny.  Loach has spoken about how the past can illuminate the present, and “The Wind That Shakes the Barley” rarely feels like a period piece.

Set in the early 1920s during the lead-up to the Irish Civil War, the movie follows the actions of Damien (Cillian Murphy) and Teddy (Padraic Delaney), brothers who take up arms for the IRA in the hopes of driving the British from Ireland.  Loach begins the film with a harrowing incident in which a small squad of Black and Tans harasses a group of young men.  The one who defiantly answers the interrogators in Gaelic pays dearly for his pride and the episode has such a profound effect on Damien, he immediately abandons his plans to study medicine.

Working with screenwriter Paul Laverty, a frequent collaborator, Loach refuses to shy away from the fierce brutality that accompanied what surely must have been a terrifying day-to-day existence for the working class in County Cork.  The horrifying acts of violence are not limited to the oppressors, however, as Damien himself begins to carry out unspeakably grim tasks.  Loach’s unadorned, fly-on-the-wall approach allows scenes to unfold with raw immediacy and a tension that suggests anything might happen.  Given the things he is asked to do, Damien and the audience are forced to contemplate the limits of what one might do for a cause.

Some of the best scenes in the film pause to contemplate the political deal-making that results in hard to swallow compromise.   When uneasy accords are reached, brother is divided from brother over whether or not the painful struggle has been in vain.  The fraternal conflict sounds like the makings of classic melodrama, and to some extent, the relationship between Damien and Teddy is played out in terms befitting a Greek tragedy.  Pragmatism goes head to head with idealism, and the outcome is as black as night.

As a storyteller, Loach layers his tale with much to contemplate.  To his credit, the movie resists a preachy tone.  The running time occasionally slackens, but the scenes that count the most are delivered with a striking tautness and economy.  Murphy, known to American audiences primarily for his work in “Red Eye” and “Batman Begins,” is outstanding as the troubled fighter.  As is typical of Loach’s films, however, the entire ensemble seems to operate like a single organism, and the many supporting performers are as integral to the movie as Murphy.  “The Wind That Shakes the Barley” might scare away some viewers reluctant to invest in what at first glance looks like a dour history lesson, but viewers who do opt to see it will be rewarded.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

“Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer,” already ringing up massive receipts due in no small measure to its kid-friendly PG rating, is catastrophically poor.  The best children’s movies contain content that appeals to grown-ups, a notion utterly ignored by the moviemakers in this case.  From dismally one-note characterizations to iceberg pacing, “Rise of the Silver Surfer” does not hold a candle to the intriguing comic book that inspired it.  Only the nonsensical, souped-up CG effects distract from the rotten proceedings, but handsome visuals alone do not an entertaining feature make.

Despite earning an armload of negative reviews, the original Fantastic Four outing proved a cash cow.  The complaints attending the original movie apply to the sequel: execrable dialogue, undisguised sexism, and moronic interactions that resemble one of ABC television’s TGIF sitcoms.  The creaky plot revolves around the impending nuptials of Mr. Fantastic (Ioan Gruffudd) and Invisible Woman (Jessica Alba).  On his wedding day, Mr. F feigns interest in the lavish, highly publicized affair, despite being more engaged by his Baxter Building laboratory tinkering and the sudden appearance of an unexplained force wreaking havoc on the earth’s climate.

The meteorological mystery turns out to be none other than that interplanetary lover of the longboard, the Silver Surfer. The Surfer is voiced by Laurence Fishburne with mock gravitas, and Doug Jones and millions of pixels share the physical manifestation of the character.  The Silver Surfer often looks impressive, particularly when he is zooming around through space, but screenwriters Don Payne and Mark Frost, working from a story by John Turman skim the figure’s origin story.  The Surfer’s relationship with Galactus is left unexplored, much to the disappointment of fans old enough to have read the comic book.

In the first movie, the Human Torch (Chris Evans) and the Thing (Michael Chiklis) shared comic relief duty.  In “Rise of the Silver Surfer,” the formula holds with a vengeance.  The Thing’s humanity is replaced with belch jokes and blustery indignation.  In the air, the Torch manages to look cool, but on the ground, he merely riffs on the same old womanizing jerk routine.  In another putrid scene that rivals the stupid dance sequence in “Spider-Man 3,” Mr. Fantastic cuts a rug in a nightclub, using his elasticity to dazzle two partners simultaneously.  Saddest of all is the movie’s dismissal of Invisible Woman.  Alba is arguably the biggest name in the picture, and yet she is reduced to playing an ineffectual helpmate for Mr. Fantastic who appears to have neither skill nor interest in the high-tech science and engineering practiced by her mate.  Instead, she uses her talents to make a zit disappear from her forehead.

Director Tim Story favors a tone of breeziness that in more capable hands might have played like an antidote to the depressing soul-searching that dominates Marvel’s other massive franchises.  The result is so flat, however, that “Spider-Man 3” practically seems like Ernst Lubitsch next to the miserable and decidedly not fantastic quartet.  “Rise of the Silver Surfer” is the very definition of banal.  The chemistry-free interactions of the performers are so vacant that if you look closely, you can almost see the reflections of dollar signs in their eyes.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

That unluckiest of numbers adorning the title to Steven Soderbergh’s third “Ocean” caper serves as a harbinger of the events contained within.  Weak, dull, and very often insulting, “Ocean’s Thirteen” never misses an opportunity to remind viewers that they will never possess the charm, wealth, and luck necessary to frolic like the movie stars they are supposed to admire.   The movie operates without any suspense, a condition that sucks all the air out of the viewing experience.  Viewers will undoubtedly assume that the movie is just a breezy good time, and the house stands to collect a pile of money.

The movie’s essential plot is a warmed-over reheating of the events that transpired in the earlier movies.  Ruthless casino owner Willy Bank (Al Pacino) double-crosses Danny Ocean’s (George Clooney) mentor Reuben Tishkoff (Elliott Gould) on a real estate deal, leaving the old veteran bedridden and traumatized.  The Ocean gang rallies around their wily teacher, vowing to get even during the grand opening of Bank’s ostentatious new venture, which bears the owner’s apropos moniker.  Naturally, breaking the Bank’s bank requires a ridiculous series of spectacularly coordinated cons, but is there any doubt that the team will fail?

The first movie in the series managed some success because Ocean adversary Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia) appeared to be as cunning and crafty as his opponents.  Compared to Benedict, Pacino’s Willy Bank is a babe in the woods.  The awful script, by “Rounders” scribes Brian Koppelman and David Levien, depicts a man oblivious to the treachery surrounding him.  One wonders how he managed to reach his position of wealth and power in the first place.

The only female star in the movie is Ellen Barkin, and the screenplay reduces her to a lustful lump of putty in the hands of Matt Damon’s Linus Caldwell.  As Bank’s top employee, Barkin should have been a razor-sharp threat to Ocean’s plan.  Instead, one whiff of a powerful aphrodisiac renders her instantly orgasmic, despite the fact that Damon is wearing a disguise that makes him look like a Halloween party version of Dr. Evil, right down to the pointy fake proboscis.  Luckily, this subplot contains a refreshing turn of events involving an FBI agent played by the hilarious Bob Einstein.

The absence of Julia Roberts, handled by a few unconvincing lines of exposition, leaves a substantial hole in the movie.  At least Roberts appeared to play a character who recognized that Ocean was arrested in adolescence.  In “Ocean’s Thirteen,” nobody is on hand to baby-sit the boys, resulting in a dish that is all sugary sweet with no tartness to offset the flavor.  Soderbergh, despite his usual asides to the audience, directs the movie purely as if he is just going through the motions and connecting the dots required by the formula.  In addition to a winking exchange that acknowledges Clooney’s “Syriana” weight gain and Brad Pitt’s fatherhood, “Ocean’s Thirteen” literally claims that one cannot run the same gag twice.  The line is meant to be a tongue in cheek admission that the director and his confederates are doing exactly that, but it comes off as a snarky reminder that what we are seeing is just another variation on the old con game.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Superior in nearly every way to previous outing “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” Judd Apatow’s “Knocked Up” is the rare comedy that gets to have its cake and eat it too.  Appealing to both stoners/slackers in search of a devilishly crude set of bawdy jokes and the audience seeking the liquid center of heartfelt, feel-good romantic warmth, “Knocked Up” is at home in both camps.  Apatow’s stock company, used more effectively than in any of his projects since “Freaks and Geeks,” continues to operate like a well-oiled machine and the writing is as pointed as ever.

In his first role as a leading man, Seth Rogen plays Ben Stone, a responsibility-free loafer with only a vague idea of a possible career trajectory.  It’s a bit of a stretch to think that Ben would not already be intimately familiar with the Mr. Skin website, but he and a quartet of housemates, including Apatow regulars Jason Segel, Martin Starr, Jay Baruchel, and Jonah Hill, dream about providing an internet service that directs like-minded fanboys to nude scenes in their favorite movies.  Ben’s carefree lifestyle undergoes a major change following a one-night stand with Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl), who discovers herself pregnant several weeks after her encounter with Ben.

Nobody is going to believe for a second that Ben would stand a ghost of a chance with the way out-of-his-league Alison, but in Apatow’s world the charm is pitched at just the right angle to allow one’s suspension of disbelief.  Heigl is every bit as good as Rogen, and the two have a wary chemistry that shores up the incredulity of the beauty-and-the-bong partnership.  Heigl is also abetted by Apatow’s wife Leslie Mann, who plays her sister, and Paul Rudd as her brother in law.  As a young married couple with kids, Mann and Rudd serve as much needed counterpoint to the quartet of lotus eaters who serve as Ben’s support system.  In another sweet bit of casting, Harold Ramis plays Ben’s dad and Joanna Kerns plays Alison’s mom, although both might have been given just a bit more screen time.

Despite the overwhelmingly positive critical response, “Knocked Up” is not without its deficits.  The nature of the loose adlibbing fosters too many highly topical pop culture references that will date the movie in just a few months.  “Spider-Man 3,” for example, gets name-checked at least once too often.  Additionally, the last third of the movie, while remaining as funny as what precedes it, is occasionally unwieldy and unfocused.  Contributing to an unnecessarily long running time, this indecisiveness makes one a bit antsy for the story’s inevitable outcomes.

Apatow’s frank, almost matter-of-fact presentation of seemingly disparate elements conveys a certain freshness unheard of in similarly themed comedies.  “Knocked Up” is just the sort of movie that will reveal new layers of humor with multiple screenings.  No matter how fleeting the role, the supporting players, including Charlyne Yi as Martin’s spaced-out girlfriend, Ken Jeong as Dr. Kuni, and Kristen Wiig and Alan Tudyk as Alison’s clueless E! TV bosses, are all spot-on.  Better than any of the blockbuster sequels with which it is competing, “Knocked Up” is one of the summer’s most enjoyable movies.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Following the messy, incoherent, and bloated second installment of the wildly popular Disney franchise, “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” manages to be just as messy, incoherent, and bloated as “Dead Man’s Chest.”  Obviously, this will not stop audiences of all ages from attending the movie or attempting to convince themselves that they liked it more than they really did.  Required, at least on one level, to wrap up some plot lines, “At World’s End” might be a hint more satisfying than its predecessor, but like so many “more is better” sequels, this one defines the law of diminishing returns.

Echoing one of the lines in the movie, director Gore Verbinski appears to be making it all up as he goes along, which produces something akin to fatigue as opposed to a feeling of fresh improvisation.  According to a variety of sources, “At World’s End” began shooting without a completed script, and the movie’s pile-up of twists, reversals, double-crosses and triple-crosses supports this notion.  Despite the studio’s plea to critics to keep the movie’s secrets, there is nothing that would qualify as shocking or unexpected in the clattering roundabout that comprises the film’s narrative.

To be candid, “At World’s End” leans more toward product than it does art, and the computer generated special effects have come to replace what now looks like the quaint charm of the first “Pirates” movie.  As expected, the picture’s saving grace is Johnny Depp, who always manages to perform Jack Sparrow without appearing to care or worry about the financial return on investment his employers expect.  Depp blithely swishes and sashays from one crisis to another, and his performance is the only effortlessly enjoyable aspect of the movie.

Oddly, the romantic relationship between Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) and Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) often recedes into the background.  Knightley benefits most from the change of direction, as Elizabeth is regularly placed in the center of action while Will continues to be stuck dealing with his cursed father Bootstrap Bill (Stellan Skarsgard).  More time is spent introducing new characters like Chow Yun-Fat’s Captain Sao Feng, a Singapore-based plunderer who exists as an excuse to show off some dazzling set design.  Production designer Rick Heinrichs and supervising art director John Dexter deliver a variety of eye-popping images that should please the fans who insist that the movies honor the original theme park dark ride in some capacity.

Less honorable is the treatment of Tia Dalma (Naomie Harris), the exotic soothsaying priestess.  The writers take her in a direction that makes about as much sense as her indecipherable accent.  Geoffrey Rush and Bill Nighy, who also reprise their roles, fare better.  The much touted cameo appearance of Keith Richards amounts to little, and should have been funnier and more sprightly.  If the pirates decide to set sail again, and that outcome seems likely, the filmmakers ought to go back to the drawing board.  The current course is well charted, and all the treasure appears to have been dug up.