Little Fockers (2010, U.S.)

I remember loving the first two movies in this series even though I'm not usually a big comedy fan. (Usually I find jokes too crude or racist or otherwise tasteless.) So I was looking forward to the third movie, because I figured they would keep coming up with fresh, funny material. I mean, we start with meeting the girlfriend's parents, we move onto the very different in-laws meeting each other, and then we go to the whole life with kids deal. There should be lots of humor about having kids! But despite the title of the film, that's not what the movie was about at all. The parts with the kids were the best, the funniest, the most touching... but they were few and far between. Mostly it was about Jack passing on the mantle of head of the family to Greg and about Greg earning extra money by promoting sex drugs for a sexy pharmaceutical rep (which of course leads to suspicions of infidelity).

I liked the actors, for the most part, but I felt like all the non-Jack grandparents (Danner, Streisand, and Hoffman) deserved much more screen time, because they were spot on and still funny. The same is true of the twin five-year-olds, who were clever, amusing kids. To quote another spot-on reviewer on IMDB, "Owen Wilson was on auto-pilot and Jessica Alba was in the film just because of her looks.Surely Alba should get a better agent because all she does is strip off in her films." Precisely. Wilson was the same old same old and Alba was just there to look sexy. Any attractive woman could have played the role, which is unfortunate because Alba really is a decent actress. Then there's the star. Stiller had a few good moments, but otherwise seemed pretty bland. Then again, that could have been the spectacularly boring script.

Because, oh yeah, the most important thing about this movie? It just wasn't that funny. It just felt repetitive and not fresh at all. It didn't do anything for these great characters who had been so well-written in the past. It was just unfortunate all around. I can't even think about it any more. I almost want to give it a 2.0 (didn't like it), but because of a few shining moments (like Jack's wife trying to get him to do a sex role play thing at Roz's professional suggestion), I'm bumping it up one.

Rating: 2.5

Zoolander (2001, U.S.)

Ten points for guessing why I decided to watch this one, which is way outside of my normal taste. Yes, a certain Swede, who is in the movie for all of two minutes. But what a good two minutes it was... "orange mocha frappuccino!"

I was shocked at how good this movie actually was. Yes, it was ridiculously silly, but it wasn't the dirty humor you'd expect. Instead it was quite witty and satirical about the fashion industry. Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson make a great comedic duo, and the entire ensemble as a whole worked very well together.

There are many, many laugh-out-loud moments, both for a more intelligent viewer and the average dumb comedy viewer. I would watch it again, and that's pretty high praise for me when it comes to comedy!

Rating: 3.5

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008, U.S.)

This is going to be short and sweet. Of all the Pixar-esque films in the worlds, I have to say that DreamWorks Animation takes the cake with the Madagascar movies. Luckily, they didn't wear out the material in this sequel—there was old mixed with new in the perfect quantities. The voice talent is incredible. They are absolutely hilarious. They were written by adults for children and are good for children but also have jokes for adults. The scores are composed by the brilliant Hans Zimmer.

Oh yeah, and those penguins!

This is what we call laugh-out-loud funny.

Rating: 4.0