Theatrical Review: Leap!

Date: Saturday August 26 2017
Time: 11:55am
Location: Cinemark Cinema in Stroud Mall
Party: 2 (my sister & I)

Directors: Eric Summer and Eric Warin
Writers: Eric Summer (based on his idea), Laurent Zeitoun and Carol Noble
Composer: Klaus Badelt

Cast:
Felicie- Elle Fanning
Victor- Nat Wolff
Odette- Carly Rae Jepsen
Camille- Maddy Zeigler
Merante, the choreography- Terrence Scammell
Mother Superior/Regine/Felicie's mom- Kate McKinnon
Luteau- Mel Brooks

Duration: 89 minutes (+ 7 trailers)
Opening Remarks

First off, I listed the venue for the first time in a long time for a very particular reason. A particularly sad one.
Our super local cinema was one of several businesses in our local flea market affected by a fire and is one of such businesses that may never recover. It happened a couple weeks after we saw Despicable 3... it sucks. Granted, it wasn't perfect. We've had our share of sound issues, screen splits and so on. A couple of times when the movie was shut off prematurely or we had to remind people we were still there. But it was SUPER convenient and I'm going to miss it.

The mall is a good 20 minutes away from the house and downtown traffic can have its issues every now and then. But it's a really nice place. Can't beat the cushy stadium seating. And it was the two of us and two other twosomes within this one theater, so it was pretty cool.

Probably the one negative... there are a million trailers. Not commercials. Trailers. And unlike with "The Judge," where I managed to write them all down, I was just lucky I was able to count these.

Trailers

A bunch were animated and a bunch had real people. That much I remember for sure.

First up- "Daddy's Home 2"... how this movie got a sequel is as beyond me as Adam Sandler still being able to make movies when most of them are terrible...
Mark Walberg is the dad and Will Ferrell is the stepdad. But this time, their dads come into the picture for some holiday. Walberg's dad is Mel Gibson and Ferrell's dad is John Lithgow.
I'd never go to a theater to see this (certainly not traveling 20 minutes down the road to see it)- but Mel Gibson had some funny moments in this trailer pretty much side-eying Will Ferrell and saying to Mark Walberg "this [idiot] is raising your kids."
Mel Gibson has had his issues and RDJ has been lobbying for the past few years to get him acting jobs (paying it forward after Mel Gibson did the same for him after the final rehab stint)... but as crappy as this movie might wind up being, it's at least an opportunity Mel Gibson could possibly use... I'm spending too much time on this, moving on.

Next- a "My little pony" movie... yeah, this is getting a theatrical release. It looks super cute, but maybe not something I'd ever see unless it happened to be on TV and I happened to have nothing else I need to see.

Beyond that, I don't remember the order of these trailers, but this is what I remember.

Animated movie- Duck Duck Goose where this inept goose winds up becoming dad to a couple of ducklings who sound oddly mature for ducklings who'd recently hatched.
Animated movie- Ferdinand where a tame bull is sent off to be a bullfighter and a bunch of hedgehogs want to help get back to his girl... the hedgehogs had some funny moments, so this could potentially be a good movie

Animated movie- Disney's "Coco" where a live boy finds himself in the world of "The Day of the Dead" and meets his family... I still don't know why the hell the movie is called "Coco." I'm too lazy to Google it :P I don't care that much

animated movie- Lego Ninjago... my sister wants to see this one... she's really familiar with the series. This focuses on the green ninja Lloyd who has no friends beyond the other ninjas cuz his dad happens to be the main villain. The trailers feature the two of them meeting and Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood" playing (so excited for her new album...).

and I think there's one other live-action movie and I can't remember what it is. Probably wasn't important.

The Main Event

Felicie and Victor are best friends who grew up at an orphanage and both have big dreams. Victor to become a famous inventor and Felicie to become a ballerina and enroll in Paris's world famous dance school.
Once they manage to break out of the orphanage (and evade the caretaker, Mr. Luteau- whose physical appearance reminds me a lot of Richard Griffiths in the Harry Potter movies), the story can finally begin.

One thing that didn't make it into the trailers- Felicie commits identity theft to get into the ballet school. (Maybe not the first time in a kid's movie, but it kinda shocked me). But considering whose identity she steals, we can let it go.
Felicie befriends Odette, who is the cleaner at the dance school and she asks to work as her assistant. Her other job is with this mean rich lady, Regine, who had bought her daughter Camille into the dance school. After meeting Camille and Camille breaks the music box her mother gave her, Felicie kinda gets her revenge by using Camille's letter of acceptance to get into the school.

A theme repeated throughout the movie- skill vs. passion. Felicie has all the passion in the world, but she's a bit of a klutz and has no professional training. But with Odette's help (she was a dancer before an accident stole that ability from her), she works hard and makes it through week after week. She also falls for Russian dancer Rudy while Victor is trying to get the courage to tell her that he likes her.
Meanwhile, Camille and her mother do find out what happens and the situation gets a little more dire: Felicie needs to nail the final audition to play Clara in the Nutcracker or she gets kicked out of the school.
And there's also another point where we see that Camille has the skill but no passion. She dances because her mom makes her. (Maddy Zeigler, who plays Camille, was on "So you think you could dance" last Monday night explaining it just like that)

Overall, the movie was great. The animation for the people had come so far. It's amazing how realistic it is. Felicie is a plucky fun heroine that a lot of girls will be able to relate to. Her friend Victor is a great friend to her (able to fix her music box, which is a very important trinket to her).
Carly Rae Jepsen, I have not liked for years because of "Call Me Maybe." It's catchy (heck, it went viral at the 2012 Olympics and was the song of that summer), but the lyrics are so badly written. She'd had other songs, but the radio only plays that one. But since she started doing acting roles, I've come around. She was perfect as Frenchie in Fox's rendition of "Grease." And she's great here. I don't know how old Odette is supposed to be, but she could easily be the same age she is.

In "Legally Blonde," Elle Woods said during her valedictorian speech that first impressions aren't always correct.
This goes on to be true about a couple characters in this movie and in a good way.
Not to spoil anything, but Luteau winds up being helpful to Felicie later in the movie and despite his gruff exterior, there's a heart underneath there.

The biggest surprise for me was the choreographer, Merante. I thought he was played by Tim Curry because he sounded like Nigel Thornberry (he wasn't), but the impression I got was that he was stuffy and he wasn't going to budge in his opinion of Felicie (although to be fair- she was pretending to be Camille and he didn't like how her mother bought her way into the school). But he does come around. He also is very accommodating to Odette- which made me wonder if they had a history or they were related. He did some kind things for her because she was a dancer he admired and he wanted to help her if she needed it now that she couldn't dance anymore.
There's a great scene where Felicie puts on a performance at a bar with Victor and he sees her and slips in a compliment... that made me smile and hastily clap a couple times.

The review in the local paper seemed to have only one issue with the movie- the historical inaccuracies. The movie takes place in the 1870's. Someone's wearing denim. And :groan: someone says it's hammer time...

The one negative I found personally, which kinda sucked the fun out of it a few times... Camille's CRAZY stage mom. Maybe it's the hairstyle, but she reminds me of Lady Tremaine (aka the Evil Stepmother from Disney's "Cinderella"). The cutthroat attitude and the absolute meanness. There were no redeemable qualities about her whatsoever and all villains should have something in their background to explain why they are who they are.
Not only do her actions completely derail the movie halfway through (that whole 3rd act issue that's been cliché for years)... towards the end, she's threatening bodily injury and there's a hammer involved.
She said "it's hammer time" and I groaned so hard thinking "she totally ruined that for me"...

she didn't... I said "it's hammer time" about something a couple hours later and still got joy from it.

I don't know- maybe it's just a personal peeve. Up there with villains who are depicted with no weak points so it's impossible for the heroes to defeat them. [And also to derail my earlier point- it was explained why the "House of Night" villain Neferet became evil, but I still hated how she had no weak points that the good guys could take advantage of to defeat her]

I guess what I'm saying... the villain was simply an archetype. She wasn't three dimensional like the protagonist was and that's not good.

Grade: A-

43. Spaceballs (1987)

Code-name: Yogurt
"Yogurt, Yogurt, I hate yogurt! Even with strawberries!"

Writer/Producer/Director: Mel Brooks
Type: Comedy spoof, Sci-fi
Music: John Morris

Cast:
(In Order of Appearance)
Dark Helmet- Rick Moranis
Colonel Sanders- George Wyner
Princess Vespa- Daphne Zuniga
Dot-Matrix (voice)- Joan Rivers
King Roland- Dick Von Patten
President Skroob- Mel Brooks
Lone-Star- Bill Pullman
Barf- John Candy
Pizza the Hutt- Dom DeLuise
Michael Winslow as himself
Yogurt- Mel Brooks

Write-up:

After spoofing westerns with "Blazing Saddles," Frankenstein films with "Young Frankenstein," and historical epics with "History of the World- Part 1," Mel Brooks decided to take it upon himself in the late 80's to spoof the next big thing in movies: "Star Wars."

I caught part of the AFI roast for Mel Brooks last year and George Lucas did an intro into this movie, describing his world of "Stars Wars" and capped it off by turning to the camera to say: "...and this is what Mel Brooks did to it."

In a nutshell, that's what the movie is.

[Plot]

The Spaceballs, led by Dark Helmet (a shorter, somewhat goofy version of Darth Vadar) and Colonel Sanders, have a devious plan to take the supply of fresh air from the peaceful planet of Druidia. This involves capturing Princess Vespa and holding her for ransom until King Roland relents.
Their timing for this plan seems to be perfect since she decided at the last second to run away from her wedding to the dull & boring Prince Valium. Her droid maid-of-honor Dot-Matrix reluctantly comes along.

As Spaceball One threatens to abduct Princess Vespa's ship, King Roland contacts Lone-Star and his mawg (half-man, half-dog) co-pilot, Barf, offering them payment for the return of the Princess.
They agree because they owe a million Space-bucks to notorious gangster, Pizza the Hutt.

Lone-Star and Princess Vespa begin their journey back butting heads, but grow to like each other as time goes on. They crash land on a desert planet (like Tatooine) and meet with Yogurt, the keeper of the Schwartz. Lone-Star gets only a couple lessons about the Schwartz by the time Dark Helmet captures the Princess... resulting in a rescue mission, a final light saber-esque showdown, defeating the bad guys and our crazy couple end up happily ever after.

[Hilarity Ensues]

Before I paid attention to writers and directors, I knew Mel Brooks as a comedic genius. He makes various genres approachable, balancing homage with social commentary and pop culture references. And when he's acting, he likes to play multiple characters and usually comes the closest to breaking the 4th wall of all the characters in his films.

It doesn't matter if President Skroob is the leader of Planet Spaceball, he's still a goof and a bit of an idiot. Who else would have 12345 as the combination on his luggage?
I especially love the comment during the villain comeuppance sequence.
"I can't make decisions! I'm the president!"

Yogurt is more like the movie's embodiment of Mel Brooks than Yoda. His business on his desert planet is merchandising "where the real money from the movie is made." Everything from Spaceballs the Lunchbox to Spaceballs the Flame-thrower.
(Ironically, George Lucas's one stipulation for this movie's creation is that none of these products are actually made to expand the Spaceballs brand outside of the movie).
And of course, we have the classic Mel Brooks utterance of a fake sequel:
"God willing we all met again in 'SpaceBalls 2- The Search for More Money.'"

Like with a lot of my favorite comedies, the hilarious lines can come at any time and take on a number of forms.
The first line sets the perfect tone. After 3 minutes of Spaceball One going across the screen, Dark Helmet approaches the camera and removes his helmet to reveal Rick Moranis underneath.
"I can't breathe in this thing!" so he goes back and forth between speaking with the helmet on and with it off.

What's even funnier is that the villains are sometimes more interesting and hilarious than our heroes, which is mostly Lone-Star and Princess Vespa butting heads.
Michael Winslow (of "Police Academy" fame) makes a cameo as a Radar Technician who makes all the sound effects for the jammed radar... and of course, it's literal jam and Dark Helmet knows that only Lone-Star would dare "give him the raspberry[ jam]."
There's a scene where Dark Helmet is playing with Spaceballs action figures where he ends up making out with the princess and Colonel Sanders walks in on him.

Probably the best part is when Lone-Star and Dark Helmet meet and his introduction is this:

"There's something you don't know about us, Lone-Star. I am your father's, brother's, nephew's, cousin's former roommate."
"What does that make us?"
"Absolutely nothing. Which is what you're about to become."

I don't remember exactly when or how I came across this movie, but it was something my aunt/godmother and her family loved and it transferred to us. Every time it comes on, my sister and I get a good kick out of it... another one of those "line-for-line" movies where we could almost put it on mute and fill in the words ourselves... almost.