SMT Weekly Flick by Paul Krismanits
Animals and Adults
Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon star in Four Christmases.
Madagascar (Rated PG) 89 mins
Four Christmases (Rated PG-13) 89 mins
With so many big movies coming out at once during the holidays, it is impossible to give them all their fair treatment by doing one film a week. As it stands, things are only going to get worse, so in an attempt to get everyone caught up I present a double dosage!
First off, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. A sequel that arrived rather unexpectedly, it turns out that Africa has just what fans of the original were looking for. Rather than fall short of the original (par usual for most sequels) Africa actually improves upon it. Brighter, funnier, and more involved than the first Madagascar, Africa is just plain more fun. As the original left our foursome (Alex the lion, Marty the zebra, Melman the giraffe, and Gloria the hippo) of zoo-dwellers stuck smack dab in the middle of the dark continent, Africa begins with them attempting to escape back to ol’ NYC via a junked Cargo Cult airplane from World War II. Naturally the plane is a little outdated, and so naturally they don’t make it across the atlantic. In fact, they don’t even make it to the Atlantic. Seems these guys can’t catch a break, and they’re stuck in Africa for good.
Which turns out to not be all bad. Their crash site brings them closer to Alex’s (voiced once again by Ben Stiller) past and an unexpected reunion which is both funny and heartfelt, the extended time in the wild gives Melman (David Schwimmer) and Gloria (Jada Pinkett Smith) a chance to explore romantic feelings, and makes more time available to be spent with those loveable lemurs (Sacha Baron Cohen and Cedric the Entertainer) and my personal favorite, Andy Richter’s band of mischievous penguins. Add them to appearances by characters voiced by Alec Baldwin and the deceased Bernie Mac, and a good time is to be had in the Serengeti today! And a good time it is, for the kids especially, and parents as well. It is always fun to see a film where one knows the actors are having just as much fun playing their parts as the viewers are watching them and Madagascar 2 provides just that. It’s crisp, it’s clean, it’s silly, and it is the only place to see a hippo and giraffe fall in love. Sounds un-missable, don’t it?
Well maybe not, and if the kids have flown the coop (or there was never a coop to begin with) you might be looking to get away from the holiday cartoon blitzkrieg, in which case there is the more adult comedy, Four Christmases. No talking lions here folks, just a good ol’ dose of reality, albeit humorously exaggerated. Here we have the unmarried couple Kate (Reese Witherspoon) and Brad (Vince Vaughn) set to take off on their annual yuletide getaway to Fiji, where they run to in order to escape their families during the holidays. Except this time all is not well, due to heavy fog their plane will not be leaving on time, and the news cameras just happen to find the two of them as interviewees for the story. Their secret out, immediately their phones are ringing and the dream vacation is canceled for a more traditional holiday; time spent with family. Of course, in this modern age of reinvented family values, family time now is spent between four households thanks to both their set of parents having split long ago. Any wonder now why Kate and Brad have foregone marriage? Probably not. Especially when we meet the families. Enter the A-list actors who have seen better days: Robert Duvall as Brad’s raunchy, offensive father; Sissy Spacek as Brad’s younger-man-chasing mother; Jon Voight as Kate’s well-to-do father; and Mary Steenburgen as Kate’s sex-starved mother. Not one of them shows any need to really act in the film (this is far from the Oscar quality these folks are used to playing), which makes one wonder if they all just needed the paycheck. Throw in Jon Favreau and Tim McGraw as Brad’s UFC-loving brothers and finally the star power is complete. Unfortunately it’s only enough to keep Four Christmases afloat, because it never really takes off. There are laughs to be had here, but in select dosages. Of course, there are worse places to spend your holiday dough (see last week’s Twilight) especially because Vince Vaughn is always good for some memorable lines. Check it out if you see it all, but if you’re on a tighter budget like the rest of us, Four Christmases could probably wait until next Christmas, on DVD.
SCORE: Madagascar 3.5 /5
SCORE: Four Christmases 3/5
