DVD: Mr Popper’s Penguins (PG)
Back in the mid noughties, you couldn’t move for marching and dancing penguins, so there’s something vaguely out-of-date about this Jim Carrey kids book adaptation.
December 9, 2011
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Back in the mid noughties, you couldn’t move for marching and dancing penguins, so there’s something vaguely out-of-date about this Jim Carrey kids book adaptation.
Not quite as fun or droll as Kenneth Branagh’s Thor but a lot better than the woeful Green Lantern, Captain America is a middling Marvel adaptation, which starts nicely but flags (the lengthy action scenes mainly) half-way through.
Todd Haynes’s first, hugely successful Hangover caper was innovative, crude and funny, the lead characters – decent Doug (Justin Bartha), indecent Phil (Bradley Cooper), unhinged Alan (Zach Galifianakis) and neurotic Stu (Ed Helms) – were obnoxious but still endearing, particularly Helms’s bullied dentist.
Harry Potter’s film incarnation can now settle where he belongs – the pre-Christmas shopping melee.
One of this year’s most gripping films, A Separation is a courtroom drama, Iranian style.
The closest Chris Weitz had previously come to the father-son dynamic at the heart of this affecting immigration drama was in the Hugh Grant vehicle About a Boy, before he was seduced by franchise riches in The Golden Compass and New Moon.
The global economy’s in ruins, so, figures Tom Hanks, what every-one needs is a perky recession tale about a wholesome soul, Larry, who knuckles down and makes the best of it.
Kung Fu Panda 2 doesn’t quite compare with The Godfather: Part 2, but it’s certainly up there with The Empire Strikes Back in the pantheon of superior sequels revolving around father-son issues.