The Wedding Ringer

Battle of the Year

Directed by Benson Lee.

2013. Rated PG-13, 110 minutes.

Cast:

Josh Holloway

Laz Alonso

Chris Brown

Josh Peck

Ivan "Flipz" Velez

Jon "Do Knock" Cruz

Jesse "Casper" Brown

Sawandi Wilson

Richard Maguire

Caity Lotz

I love the women in my life. My wife is still the apple of my eye. My two daughters take turns wrapping me around their fingers. It only makes sense that I would say yes and plop my ass on the couch when begged asked to watch Battle of the Year with them. This is pretty much how I've seen every dance movie they could get their hands on over the last decade. Will I ever learn? Probably not.

So what's going on with this one?

Glad you asked. It's like this:

Every year, Paris hosts "Battle of the Year." It's an international b-boying competition, or break dancing contest forthe unhip, featuring teams from around the globe. A team representing the good o'l U.S. of A. has not won in a dozen years. Dante (Alonso), the super rich multi-media mogul who sponsors the team, decides its time to shake things up. He reaches out to Jason (Holloway), one of his old homies from around the way, to coach this year's squad. Jason is not super rich or a multi-media mogul. He's a reclusive drunk whose been drowning his sorrows in a bottle ever since his wife and son died in a car wreck. He reluctantly takes the job on the condition that he be allowed to do it "his way." Dancing and arguing ensues.

Why the arguing?

It's simple, really. When Jason shakes things up, he really shakes things up. After one look at last year's team, he kicks them all to the curb and decides to hold a mass audition. Once he's picked  the best twenty-something dancers, he takes them to what looks like an abandoned college dormitory from fifty years ago where he works the dog crap out of them in the name of molding them into a team. Of course, there's a catch. There are nine weeks left until "Battle of the Year." Each week, our drunken dance coach will send one of the boys packing.

Hmm...where have I heard of such a format before?

Oh yeah, every reality TV competition ever.

Okay, boys and girls. It's time to run down the sports dance movie movie checklist!

Drunken coach? Check. We covered this.

Overbearing team owner? Check. Literally, in the very next scene after agreeing to let Jason coach "his way," Dante starts bitching about how Jason is coaching. Asshole.

Supremely talented, but selfish superstar? Check. This guy is played by Chris Brown, a real life supremely talented, but selfish superstar. Seriously, of all the celebrities, he's the most perplexing to me. The dude is a great, I mean a GREAT dancer, and an aiight singer. On the other hand, what I know of him as a person screams spoiled brat that I would not want to be in the same room with. Hey, that's exactly like his character! Should be easy playing a version of yourself, right? Well, Chris Brown is a great, I mean GREAT dancer. Not so much on the acting.

Game-changing injury to said superstar? I would say check, but I don't want to spoil anything.

Lots of in-fighting while our boys grow as a team? Check. Basically, it's like one of those "Real Housewives" show with less hair and makeup. Just to ensure that's the case we get enough different types together. We already mentioned the superstar. There's also his rival from the neighborhood. Then we have the gay dude, the guy who hates gay dudes, and so on.

Awe inspiring sports dance scenes? Check. This is the one thing Battle of the Year has going for it. Literally. the dance scenes are kinetic and acrobatic. They're fun to watch even though it appears the frame rate has been sped up for these. Or, do I mean slowed down? I forget how that works. Whatever. The moves look too fast.

Wait...what am I doing? Praising something about this movie? Let's get back to our regularly scheduled program. Let's talk about the acting. It's not universally bad, but the people asked to do the most acting are just not good. Exempting Chris Brown from the conversation, let's move on to the others. The rest of the dancers were as bad as Mr. Brown or worse. Laz Alonso was pretty good, but continuing to speak about that doesn't fit my movie bashing agenda so let's move on to Josh Holloway. He's that odd kind of bad. He's really into it, and is arguably a better actor than anyone else in the cast. The problem is he's so miscast I don't believe a single word out of his mouth. There is no way I can roll with the idea that this guy was a former b-boy with legendary battle wins under his belt. I'm guessing Channing Tatum, or Columbus Short were both busy...or got a look at the script and chose wisely. I wish I had.

Damn family.

Red Dawn (2012)

Directed by Dan Bradley.

2012. Rated PG-13, 93 minutes.

Cast:

Chris Hemsworth

Josh Peck

Josh Hutcherson

Adrianne Palicki

Isabel Lucas

Connor Cruise

Edwin Hodge

Alyssa Diaz

Julian Alcaraz

Will Yun Lee

Jeffrey Dean Morgan

Brett Cullen

Fernando Chien

Kenneth Choi

The first person we meet is Matt Eckert (Peck). He’s a hotshot high-school quarterback who selfishly puts himself before his team, the Wolverines. Hint: this will be a recurring theme. We next meet his father Tom (Cullen), the local tough guy cop and his tough guy brother Jed (Hemsworth), home on leave from the military. Blanks are filled in by an assortment of locals. You know the locals: the girlfriend, the geek, the other girl(s), the black guy, etc. In a shocking nod to diversity, we actually get two black guys. Of course, neither one…well, I’m getting way ahead of myself. Most of the locals are teenagers and friends of the boys, but there are a few strangers who find themselves in this ragtag bunch due to the circumstances. What circumstances? North Korea has invaded the United States and are hitting the town of Spokane, Washington pretty hard. A daring escape forms the aforementioned bunch, without dad, by the way. One thing leads to another and before you know it, they’ve become a resistance known as…wait for it…wait for it…the Wolverines! Yayyy! If, like me, you’re old enough to actually remember the last decade of The Cold War then you probably know this is a remake of the 1984 original which stars Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, and a number of the day’s hottest young stars.

Like its predecessor, Red Dawn is a relentless barrage of blood-soaked patriotism. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with national pride, but that’s pretty much all there is. Some effort is made to develop the relationship between the brothers, but I've already told you everything there is to know. Everyone else is a cardboard cutout either part of and/or helping the resistance, or they’re traitors, saving their own hides by helping the enemy. Speaking of the North Koreans, that’s just it – they’re North Koreans. The idea, drilled home by all the news blurbs that open the film, is that their current real-life leadership is not only crazy enough to invade they actually make that move. From there, we get a depiction of how we Americans like to think we’d react to such a situation.

Of course, such a depiction requires lots of action. Red Dawn does lots of things well in this department. For starters, there’s lots of it. The next supposedly covert operation is never far away. It should go without saying that each one erupts in gunfire. These scenes do a surprisingly decent job of creating tension. If nothing else, we know that a number of North Koreans (and their supporters) will die along with one of our heroes. Guessing which “good” guy gets it is where the  tension is. The problem here, like with the rest of the movie, is we might be emotionally invested in the cause (provided we’re American or anti-North Korean), but not in any character not named Matt or Jed. Therefore, ancillary characters dying is of little concern to us. Even worse, when the movie tries to manipulate us one last time with a major decision made by one of these people, we’re just thankful he made the choice on his own because we wouldn't hesitate to shoot him, otherwise. Our lack of compassion for this character further proves that our roster of freedom fighters is made up of types rather than actual people. Magical Negro, anyone?

Okay, so depth is not found here. It’s a shoot ‘em up, popcorn flick designed by Americans for Americans and uses no uncertain terms. At being precisely this it succeeds. Note for note, it’s practically identical to the clunker Battleship. This one swaps out space aliens for North Koreans. Otherwise, they’re virtually the same. Somehow, this is still better. Perhaps because we can more readily identify with menaces from another country than another planet. More likely, this one removes just enough cheese and other Michael Bay-isms (I know he didn't direct Balttleship) to be a more believable, if still implausible tale. The action looks better and the run time is a good deal shorter, avoiding most of the long, boring stretches where nothing is really happening. Things are happening here all the time. This makes it a fun watch that uses our fears to create an action-filled adventure. There is no cinematic genius on display, so I wouldn't call it good. It’s just a better movie than Battleship constructed from the same parts.

MY SCORE: 5/10