Category: Uncategorized

Today’s quick review: Inspector Gadget. A security guard (Matthew Broderick) is injured in the line of duty and gets reconstructed as Inspector Gadget, a robotic police officer with a wide array of cartoonish tools at his disposal. After a brief adjustment period, he then goes up against Claw, a fiendish CEO who plans to use robotics for evil. Along the way, Gadget learns to be a better parent to his niece Penny and finds love with Brenda, the surgeon responsible for his transformation.

Inspector Gadget is a lightweight, slapstick comedy that falls flat on its face. Its chief strengths are the silliness of Gadget’s tools and the charm of its characters, but both of these are mismanaged and are unsatisfying. Slapstick requires a fine touch to make it look natural, but the bungling in Inspector Gadget feels jarringly intentional. Likewise, reasonable concepts for characters and their relationships are let down by simplistic dialogue and flat acting. The movie also proceeds at a feverish pace, burning through what plot it has in a mere 80 minutes.

Overall, Inspector Gadget works well enough as a kids’ film but isn’t worth revisiting as an adult. There are a few good ideas here—cartoon gadgets, the relationship between Penny and Gadget, and the Robo Gadget doppelganger fight—but the execution is too silly to take advantage of them. Skip it. 4.1 out of 10 on IMDB.

Today’s quick review: O Brother, Where Art Thou?. Directed by the Coen Brothers, O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a loose retelling of the Odyssey set in 1930s Mississippi. Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney) is a smooth-talking convict who escapes from his chain gang with two fellow prisoners, Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson) and Pete (John Turturro). Together they set off to find the treasure that Everett hid before he was arrested. Their journey leads them through challenges strange and wondrous: a blind railwayman, an adult baptism, a trio of sirens, a cyclopean bible salesman (John Goodman), an unscrupulous gubernatorial candidate, and others. Along the way they encounter the best and worst in human nature, as well as few aspects of it that aren’t so easy to define.

O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a masterful comedy laced with wry allusions and rich detail. The Coen Brothers at once pay tribute to Homer and carve out a piece of American history for their own observations on life and humanity. Their characters are drawn along classical comedy lines: fallible, self-centered, and often dim, yet capable of great pathos. Their winding, episodic plot nonetheless comes together into a cohesive whole. Their setting shows a keen attention to detail and remarkable consistency. The craft of the film makes it a pleasure to watch again and again, with new touches of artistry jumping to the fore each time.

The characters are of the lively, human sort that the Coen Brothers are known for. Everett is a facile speaker whose mouth gets him both into and out of trouble. His loquacity leads him to unjustified vanity; he believes himself smarter than he is. Yet he is often as gullible as those he looks down on, and only by continued rationalization does he manage to keep his ego intact. His fundamental conflict is one of repentance: his own mistakes require humility to fix, yet his ego won’t let him remain on bended knee for long.

Pete acts as Everett’s foil, a reluctant follower of Everett’s lead and the voice of common sense in the group. Unable to delude himself the way Everett can, he sees the bad as well as the good, and he doubts that Everett’s schemes will get them out of trouble. He is torn between the promise of treasure and the dangers along the way, and he is quick to blame Everett when his plans go awry.

Delmar is a cheerful simpleton who is happy to follow the others wherever they go. He brings an innocent enjoyment to the group, the only one who appreciates the journey rather than the destination. His firm sense of morality also makes him the conscience of the group. While his limited understanding of the world makes him an unwitting accomplice in a number of dubiously moral deeds, he does manage to keep Everett’s self-interest and capacity for rationalization in check.

The movie is rounded out by one of the best soundtracks to ever grace the silver screen, a beautiful selection of American folk songs performed by capable singers and adroitly used throughout the movie. They are joined by Man of Constant Sorrow, an original composition that steals the show with its memorable tune and heartfelt lyrics. The soundtrack is the final touch that brings the setting to life, that turns a detailed facsimile of the historical South into an immersive, breathing world.

O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a comedy that succeeds on multiple levels. Its engaging setting, entertaining characters, outstanding soundtrack, and epic origins provide it with a depth beyond its superficial humor. Fans of the Coen Brothers should appreciate this as one of their best works, even though it lacks their traditional edge. Watch it if you are looking for a well-crafted adventure, wonderful to tell, with plenty to offer beyond its sense of humor. Skip it if you prefer more straightforward comedy or dislike the Coen Brothers’ quirky tone. 7.8 out of 10 on IMDB.

Today’s quick review: Lucky Number Slevin. Josh Hartnett stars as Slevin Kelevra, a down-on-his-luck man with a wry sense of humor who gets swept up in a case of mistaken identity when he goes to stay with his childhood friend, Nick, in New York. But Nick is nowhere to be found, and before the day is out, Slevin has been hauled in front both the Boss (Morgan Freedman) and the Rabbi (Ben Kingsley), the heads of two rival gangs. Apparently Nick owed money to both gangs, and now Slevin is given just days to work off Nick’s debts. Making matters more complicated is the mysterious professional killer known as Mr. Goodkat (Bruce Willis) who seems to have Slevin in his sights. Slevin’s one ally is Lindsey (Lucy Liu), Nick’s inquisitive next-door neighbor. Armed with only his wits, Slevin has to find a way to pay off “his” debt and worm his way out of a decades-long rivalry between the Boss and the Rabbi.

Lucky Number Slevin is a powerful example of what happens when you combine stylish storytelling, a well-constructed plot, and a healthy sense of humor. The setup is interesting, and it spirals nicely into the later plot. From the very beginning the story introduces questions with no clear answers, and the reintroduction of these threads boosts an ordinary tale of mistaken identity into something much more intricate and satisfying. The twists keep coming, until by the end the film has grown into a credible crime drama while retaining its comedic elements.

The characters go a long way towards establishing the tone of the movie. Slevin’s attempts to talk his way out of situations are usually unsuccessful but always amusing. His patience and sense of humor at his mistreatment give him a sympathetic quality, while his proactive efforts to resolve his problems turn him from a passive victim into an underdog. Lindsey acts as his confidante, co-conspirator, and love interest. Her questions are always to the point, and she helps Slevin figure out what information he is missing and what he should do next. Liu and Hartnett have real chemistry, and their scenes with each other help glue the movie together.

The dialogue is witty, fast-paced, and a bit too uniform. Everyone in the universe seems to partake in the same banter, with their own similar observations on the ironies and incongruities of life. The good news is that this style of writing leads to plenty of intellectual bubblegum, from clever metaphors and subtle jabs to blink-and-you’ll-miss-them jokes. Fans of this type of writing will have plenty to look forward to. The bad news is that eventually the cleverness begins to wear thin. The key exchanges in the movie are buried in a flurry of verbal sparring, and the viewer has to play close attention to catch everything.

Lucky Number Slevin is a movie with a little bit of everything. Its impressive crime-genre plot is supported by witty dialogue, fun characters, and stylish presentation. Watch if if you’re in the mood for a satisfying crime drama layered with humor and zest. Skip it if you’re looking for an easy watch or if you prefer your dramas unadulterated. 7.8 out of 10 on IMDB.

Today’s quick review: The Singing Detective. Robert Downey, Jr. stars as Dan Dark, an irascible noir writer who is hospitalized with an acute skin condition. From his hospital bed, his mind escapes into fiction, replaying scenes from his first book with him in the starring role. Wracked with pain and delusion, he receives treatment from a psychiatrist (Mel Gibson) who helps him work through issues from his past, using passages from Dark’s first book to get at the heart of his distrust and sexual dysfunction. During his convalescence, Dark is visited by his wife (Robin Wright), the object of extreme scorn or greatest adoration depending on how paranoid he is feeling that day. Despite the successful treatment, the lines between Dark’s reality and his fantasy begin to break down, taking the movie to its peculiar ending.

The Singing Detective is a bizarre film. Robert Downey, Jr. does a great job of showing the restoration of a nasty misanthrope to something more nearly human. He gradually dials up the charm and goes from a detestable character to a truly likeable one. Likewise, Mel Gibson plays off him well in their therapy sessions, pushing him just enough to get a reaction without going too far. Despite their somewhat awkward character, these are the best scenes in the movie.

But as a whole, the movie is missing something vital. On paper it is a stylized look at illness, neurosis, and the nature of reality, propped up by a noir subplot and carried by good acting. On film it is a messy look at rampant paranoia and Freudian disorders. The audience may enjoy seeing the effects of Dark’s recovery, but actually watching him work through his disturbing issues provides little catharsis.

The stylization hits a sour note as well. The noir subplot lacks verisimilitude and resolution. It mostly serves as a vehicle for Dark’s repressed psychological issues and his constructed persona of a confident, well-adjusted detective. The puzzle of matching the novel’s imagery to traumatic incidents from Dark’s past is interesting, but the audience is not given enough information to guess ahead and the answers are mostly depressing.

The conceit of the singing detective also has little payoff. Dark’s detective moonlights as a lounge singer, the jumping-off point for a handful of musical numbers. But none of these are particularly memorable, and they only serve to needlessly exaggerate Dark’s descent into madness. The blurring of realities derails an otherwise credible recovery arc in favor of a more surreal ending. The extreme unreliability of the narrator makes it useless to track which facts are delusional and which have a basis in reality. Dark’s lucid moments are not sufficient to establish truth in the face of an ever-changing narrative.

Overall, The Singing Detective is a confusing and unsatisfying movie that is easily skipped. Its interesting premise and good acting largely go to waste in a sea of unreliable narration and Freudian analysis. There is a puzzle to the movie that fans of psychoanalysis or the original television series might get more out of, but for anyone else, the interesting aspects of the movie have been done better elsewhere. Watch Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, also starring Robert Downey, Jr., for a much more amusing take on a meta-noir story. Watch The Brothers Bloom for a much more fulfilling take on storytelling, freedom, and blurred layers of reality. Otherwise, steer clear of The Singing Detective. 5.6 out of 10 on IMDB.

Today’s quick review: Chicken Run. A plucky hen named Ginger leads her fellow chickens to freedom from the farm where they are kept prisoner. Escape seems out of reach until Rocky, a brash circus rooster voiced by Mel Gibson, crash lands in the farm. Ginger strongarms him into teaching the hens how to fly, unaware that his meteoric flight into the henhouse was the result of a circus cannon and not Rocky’s own two wings. But their efforts to escape become a race against time when the couple that owns the farm decides that chicken pies are more profitable than eggs. Now they only have until the pie machine is complete to fly the coop, a challenge that just might be impossible after all.

Chicken Run is a stop-motion comedy from the creators of Wallace and Gromit. The premise is simple: The Great Escape with chickens and henhouses. Ginger has all the single-minded determination one could hope for in the heroine of an escape film. But if Ginger is focused and serious, her compatriots are anything but. The other hens are simple-minded, easily distracted, and insensate of the danger they are in. Rocky is a womanizer and an opportunist, more interested in wooing the henhouse than helping him escape. The characters play well off each other, with Rocky exploiting the hens’ gullibility and Ginger struggling to keep everyone on track.

The execution of the film is very good. The explicit Great Escape parodies are inspired. The chickens’ reactions (and nonreactions) to various setbacks lead to a number of Wallace and Gromit-like beats. The chicken-scale props are quite clever. And to round it all off, there’s a healthy dose of sight gags and chicken puns. The film is backed by a catchy orchestral score that works just as well for the film’s light-hearted sense of adventure as it does for the film’s more serious moments. (The soundtrack is also one of the few movie soundtracks to use kazoos effectively.) Overall, Chicken Run is a great choice if you’re looking for a light, up-tempo movie with a bit of heart. Give it a shot if you’re a fan of Wallace and Gromit or the Muppets. 7.0 out of 10 on IMDB.

Today’s quick review: 9. Elijah Wood stars as 9, a foot-tall rag doll with a mechanical skeleton and the spark of life, in this dark CGI fantasy. 9 wakes up in a bedroom next to a dead man, and, venturing outside, he is greeted with the sight of a blasted city. He soon encounters 2, another doll like him, who promises to take him to the others. But their meeting is cut short by a mechanical cat-beast, a monstrous creature that takes away 2. 9 manages to find the others, a small group of rag dolls living under the rule of 1, dreading the roving mechanical beasts. 9 must decide whether to obey 1’s injunction not to leave their sanctuary or whether to venture out into the wastes after his newfound friend. Thus begins a grim adventure filled with loss, resourcefulness, and hope.

9’s main appeal is its atmosphere. The ruins of a shelled city are all the more dramatic through the eyes of a doll, and even the most rusted junk takes on new life in the hands of the tiny scavengers. The green glow of the dolls’ life force lends a mystical, otherworldly vibe to the browns and greys of the film, while the machines’ red eyes, jagged edges, and body asymmetry make even the strange rag dolls seem positively welcoming by comparison. The direction plays up the lonely, dangerous feel of the world: triumph can turn to tragedy in a heartbeat, and safety is never assured. And yet, there is still beauty in the world, preserved in secret places and between friends, and perseverance is rewarded.

The rag dolls manage to be effective characters in spite of their simplicity. The dolls are defined by their appearances and perhaps one or two key traits: 9 by his curiosity and loyalty, 2 by his resourcefulness and independence, etc. But these quick sketches are used effectively. Every interaction between the dolls adds a little more to their characters, and every crisis tests the mettle of their convictions. The result is a set of simple character archetypes that grow and change in well-defined ways as the movie goes on. This character development is bolstered by creditable voice acting and nuanced, meaningful animation.

The plot is minimalistic: the dolls square off against a series of mechanical beasts and spend the interim time discussing what to do next. The rules of the universe are not made clear in advance, so what few overarching elements there are, such as 2’s medallion, have little grounding or significance. That said, the events of the story do snowball nicely, and the bare-bones plot fits the bleak, mysterious setting quite well.

An unexpected strength of the movie is its action. The rag dolls show splendid resourcefulness in their battles with the mechanical beasts, making up for their disadvantages in size and strength with improvised weaponry, agility, and guts. Though out-and-out combat is rarer from the dolls than frantic attempt to flee, the handful of direct fights have a satisfying impact to them.

Overall, 9 lives up to its promise as a dark CGI film with strong atmosphere. Many parts of the movie are deliberately left as sketches—the backstory, the plot, the characters—but these sketches are used effectively and gradually fleshed out as needed. Watch 9 if you are looking for something brooding and creepy but fundamentally optimistic. Skip it if you dislike abstract, unfamiliar characters and settings or are looking for something light. 7.1 out of 10 on IMDB.

Today’s quick review: Layer Cake. Daniel Craig stars as a cocaine dealer whose plans for retirement are interrupted by two last requests from his overbearing boss, Jimmy Price. The first request involves a shipment of ecstasy that a wannabe criminal named Duke has managed to get his hands on. Craig’s attempts to buy the pills are delayed by Duke’s overestimation of the pills’ value, then are sent into chaos by the interference of Dragan, the agent of the pills’ rightful owners. The second request involves the disappearance of the daughter of Eddie Temple, one of Price’s friends. Craig is tasked with finding the wayward girl, but his investigations paint a different picture than that given to him by Price. Surrounded by danger and still hoping to make it out of the game alive, Craig must use all of his cunning to pull himself clear of the mess he has found himself in.

Layer Cake is an excellent crime drama with a complicated plot, nuanced characters, and a touch of gallows humor. Matthew Vaughn’s direction is clean and capable, and his previous work producing Guy Ritchie’s films shows in the construction of the plot and the characters. Much like Snatch and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, Layer Cake is a crime film with a complicated plot and multiple factions set in London. Unlike those movies, Layer Cake is not explicitly a comedy, and the humor that does come up is more a product of the characters than the genre. The structure of Layer Cake also differs slightly from the Guy Ritchie movies in that Daniel Craig’s character is the glue that holds the movie together. Unlike the round robin format of the Ritchie movies, most of the factions’ key interactions in Layer Cake occur through Craig, and his attempts to deal with each of them in turn are the chief drama of the film.

The complicated plot can be a barrier to enjoying Layer Cake, but the movie stands up well to multiple viewings. The two subplots are each intricate operations for Craig, one the sale of stolen drugs that are still being pursued by their owners, the other a winding missing persons case where Craig has not been given all the information. Between these two plots and the initial setup for the movie, the cast quickly becomes enormous: Craig and his band of accomplices, Jimmy Price and his right-hand man Gene, Duke and his gang of incompetents, Duke’s nephew and his nephew’s girlfriend, Eddie Temple and his men, Craig’s potential buyers for the ecstasy, Dragan, and more. The payoff for tracking all these factions and their interactions is a tense and well-crafted tale of negotiation, quick thinking, and betrayal.

Daniel Craig’s character in Layer Cake is a truly fascinating one. He treats his job as a drug dealer with the caution and foresight it deserves. He understands that getting drawn in too far will make it impossible for him to leave, so he has a fixed amount of money to save before he retires. He takes care never to get his hands dirty, and he keeps an ex-con on staff to handle the dangerous parts of the job for him. Yet cleverness and planning are not the same as power, and he finds himself drawn into the schemes of more powerful men simply because he lacks the power to walk away. His role as a middleman makes enemies for him on all sides when events do not go according to plan, and he has to dive in deeper than ever to get himself out.

Layer Cake is a clever, tense crime drama with interesting characters and an elaborate plot. Watch it when you’re in the mood for a crime movie you can sink your teeth into. Skip it if you’re looking for something light or easy to follow. 7.4 out of 10 on IMDB.

Today’s quick review: Super Mario Bros. Mario Mario (Bob Hoskins) and Luigi Mario (John Leguizamo) are a pair of New York plumbers who get more than they bargained for when they run into Daisy (Samantha Mathis), an archeologist working on an excavation in the heart of New York. When corporate goons sabotage the dig site, the brothers are called in for some emergency plumbing. But while they are busy, the goons kidnap Daisy and drag her through a rock wall into another dimension. The brothers follow right behind and dive into an alternate universe where humans evolved from dinosaurs instead of mammals. They find themselves in Dinohattan, a hectic and dystopian version of New York. There they uncover a plot by King Koopa (Dennis Hopper) to use his de-evolution ray to invade New York and solve Dinohattan’s water shortage by force.

People often speculate about how video games would look on the silver screen. Certain concepts could be transferred directly, but others would have to be adapted heavily or dropped to work in a live-action movie. Super Mario Bros. is what happens when these discussions take place in Hollywood board rooms instead of on Internet discussion forums. The Mario Bros. franchise is an unusually difficult series for adaptation. Born in the early days of gaming and adapted only ten years into their thirty-year history, Mario games have minimalistic storylines, a fantastical setting designed around gameplay elements, and iconic concepts, such as stomping on enemies or bumping into item blocks, that have no real-world analogues.

Super Mario Bros. handles these issues by constructing a new setting and plot around a few core concepts, then dropping other familiar elements from the game into them. The brothers’ Italian heritage is explained by having them hail from real-world New York rather than the Mushroom Kingdom. Toad becomes a free spirit with a harmonica who is turned into a tiny-headed “goomba” by Koopa’s de-evolution ray. Birdo becomes a heavyset woman at a nightclub who dances with Mario and later helps the brothers out. Jumping appears in the form of jet boots powered by Bullet Bill-shaped cartridges. The list goes on. A surprising amount of care is taken to ensure that most of the iconic parts of the games appear in one form or another, however fleeting or distorted.

Quality-wise, Super Mario Bros. is a terrible movie and a fantastic watch. As a video game adaptation, Super Mario Bros. badly twists the source material. Dinohattan and its surrounding plot are cut from whole cloth and have little to do with the games. The words “Mario” and “urban dystopia” are a terrible fit for each other, and while the Easter egg hunt for game elements can be entertaining, the adaptations themselves are bizarre mirrors of the originals.

As a standalone movie, Super Mario Bros. is a chaotic mess with a far-fetched premise even by the standards of 90s kids movies. The camp setting and colorful characters are reminiscent of The Fifth Element, but where The Fifth Element offers a complicated adventure tied together by skilled direction and memorable performances, Super Mario Bros. struggles to bring its elements into a coherent whole.

But as an experience, Super Mario Bros. hangs with the best. The combination of cheesy sci-fi elements, lame jokes, and off-the-wall pacing are enough to keep you entertained throughout the movie, and whether you are laughing at the movie or with it is of secondary concern. To its credit, Super Mario Bros. does not take itself too seriously, and as a cheesy romp taken on its own terms, this makes it quite enjoyable. While it lacks the redeeming qualities that make other campy movies worth watching, it also lacks the banality of other kids movies of the era. Its misguided creativity leads it to a number of cringeworthy decisions, but they are creative, interesting decisions nonetheless and can be enjoyed as such.

Super Mario Bros. is worth watching if you are looking for a spectacular bastardization of a familiar video game series. It is also worth watching if you are looking for an innocent kids film with unusual creative daring. To what degree Super Mario Bros. will fill either of these roles for you depends on your personal tastes, but both require a willingness to be entertained, to suspend disbelief and not take the movie too seriously. With the right attitude, Super Mario Bros. can be quite an enjoyable watch. 4.0 out of 10 on IMDB.

Today’s quick review: The Spirit. Denny Colt, a young cop in Central City, is given a second chance after he dies in the line of duty. He returns from the grave and dons a mask, becoming the immortal vigilante known as the Spirit. The Spirit aids the police in bringing the criminals of Central City to justice. Chief among these is the Octopus, an offbeat mastermind whose plan for absolute power is coming to fruition. Now the Spirit must fight his way through a tangled web of vat-grown henchmen, old flames, and all-around psychos to stop the Octopus before he brings the city to its knees.

The Spirit is a bizarre movie. Its roots are in the 40s comic of the same name by Will Eisner, but it is directed by Frank Miller and has similar visuals as Sin City, while the tone is something else altogether. Straight-laced heroic justice meshes with over-the-top acting, ironic comedy, and gritty villainy to form something that is not quite noir, not quite drama, not quite superhero film, and not quite comedy. The sensibilities of each are present, but they twist and compete with each other. The Spirit’s heroic monologues are frequently followed by embarrassing setbacks, yet his perseverance is rewarded. Likewise, the Octopus pushes the farthest boundaries on cartoon villainy, yet never wraps back around into sympathy. The Spirit has all the trappings of a deconstruction but never quite pulls the trigger. Its mishmash of sensibilities allows The Spirit to poke fun at the ideals and conventions of the early superhero genre while ultimately affirming them.

Everything about The Spirit is exaggerated, from its acting to its monochrome color palette. Fans of Frank Miller’s Sin City will be pleased to see the return of that movie’s stylish black-and-white visuals. The tone, however, is rather different from its spiritual predecessor. The Spirit has much less violence than Sin City, and while it features a similar gritty style, this style is layered on a base of conventional morality that is missing from Sin City. Where Sin City’s heroes are nearly as terrifying as its villains, The Spirit reaches far towards both ends of the morality spectrum: its heroes are righteous and self-sacrificing, and its villains are unabashedly evil.

The acting in The Spirit is intentionally extreme. Gabriel Macht as The Spirit talks to himself in dramatic terms almost continuously and falls madly in love just by setting his eyes on a woman. Samuel L. Jackson delivers a positively ridiculous performance as the Octopus, at various points clobbering The Spirit with a toilet, ranting feverishly about “getting egg on [his] face”, and dressing up in Nazi paraphernalia to emphasize a point about his master plan. Scarlett Johansson plays Silken Floss, a brilliant scientist who runs the Octopus’s organization, while Eva Mendes appears as Sand Saref, The Spirit’s jewelry-obsessed lost love.

The combination of its many exaggerated elements makes The Spirit a unique and polarizing movie. Fans of gritty crime movies will be turned off by its black-and-white morality and grandiose acting. Fans of adventure stories will struggle with its constant subversions and grimy exterior. But for those who like to dabble, those who enjoy stylistic ambiguity, and those for whom ironic subversion and earnest affection go hand-in-hand, The Spirit offers a delightful buffet of style and creativity. Expect little depth or seriousness but plenty of spectacle and fun. Just how well The Spirit’s peculiar flavor will sit with you is hard to know ahead of time, but those who are intrigued by stylized adventure should definitely give it a shot. 4.8 out of 10 on IMDB.

Today’s quick review: Secondhand Lions. A young boy, Walter, is sent to live on his uncles’ farm for the summer while his mother runs off with her new boyfriend. His uncles Garth and Hub, played by Michael Caine and Robert Duvall, occupy their time with eccentricities: brawling with neighborhood punks, buying an old circus lion, flying a biplane, and fending off greedy relatives. Their peculiar retirement is backed by a rumored fortune in gold located somewhere on their farm. As Walter gets to know his uncles, he becomes enraptured by their stories of the past, tall tales of adventure, love, and fortune in the French Foreign Legion. But the adventures strain credibility, and Walter must choose whether to believe the uncles he has come outside or the cynical world outside that says they must be lying.

Secondhand Lions is a charming and optimistic coming-of-age story. The characters are drawn in quick sketches that nonetheless capture real humanity. Walter arrives at the farm as a shy boy with a troubled home life. As he learns more about his uncles, he starts to see the adventure in life and grows more confident and self-assured. Hub is a gruff, bull-headed grouch with a good heart. A lifetime of loss has worn him down, and even his peculiar hobbies have little meaning until Walter comes along. Garth is level-headed and observant. He is the one who tells Walter about the brothers’ past, offering the boy insight into the closed-off Hub.

From a technical perspective, the execution of Secondhand Lions is not very tight. The plot is more episodic than anything. Events that are truly integral to the story only happen in a few places, and the bulk of the movie is simply an exploration of life on the farm and the relationship between Walter and his uncles. The acting is adequate but not outstanding. The tall tales are adventurous but not heavily stylized. Conflict arises but rarely lingers.

But because Secondhand Lions does not rely on its execution, none of these qualities detract from the movie all that much. The emotional heart of the movie is rock-solid, and this basic fact carries through to all other aspects of the film. As such, Secondhand Lions is an excellent choice for those looking for a light, optimistic movie with a coming-of-age story and a bit of adventure. Those who need a bit more to chew on in terms of plot, style, or themes should look elsewhere. 7.6 out of 10 on IMDB.