Marley & Me

Released:  December 25^th, 2008

Rated:  PG

Distributor:  20^th Century Fox

Starring:  Owen Wilson, Jennifer Aniston, Eric Dane, Alan Arkin

Directed by:  David Frankel

Written by:  Scott Frank, Don Roos

Personal Bias Alert:  wasn’t expecting much, a sucker for dogs

6.7 of 10

            There must’ve been some big piles of Kleenex on Christmas Day, 2008.  Seriously, the theaters showing Marley & Me should’ve replaced the cup holders with trash receptacles, because everyone showing up that day for this family-friendly dogpile was leaving a snot-filled heap.  Not that any of us should’ve been surprised; the great tragedy of dog ownership is known to all, but the wallop of authenticity that Marley & Me hits its audience with is a shocking surprise after a first act of bad dog hijinks.

            The Me in Marley & Me refers to newspaper man John Grogan (Owen Wilson), who adopts the bullheaded lab Marley to stall he and his wife’s progression towards children.  John still has vague aspirations to be a big-time reporter but instead winds up as a columnist.  Without thought, he writes about Marley.  The dog is a bit of a terror, and his eating, shredding, and peeing escapades takes up an unneeded 40 minutes of this film.  These jokes are all slapstick and schmaltz, with the lab wrecking everything and leaving John with nothing to do but smile, dumbfounded at his tornado of a pet.  To call this section repetitive would be an understatement, and just when it seems destined wear down everyone’s patience, the film turns on the drop of a dime.

            Grogan, who wrote the memoir on which the film’s based, must’ve experienced a similarly abrupt turn in his own life when his first child was lost to a miscarriage.  As depicted in the film, he and his wife, Jenny (Jennifer Aniston), return home not knowing what to do.  Marley, following instinct, makes the right call and mopes with Jenny, unknowingly nudging the family to confront what’s happened so they can move on.  It’s this moment and others like it that show a dog’s worth, and this fictional version of Marley proves to be worth every cent of his damages.  After that, a string of healthy children appear and Grogan’s career takes off, moving the family in unexpected directions but always finding a humorous anchor in Marley’s consistent wreckage. 

            The film is markedly more serious and slightly less schmaltzy after the miscarriage, and the realities that the couple encounter as they transition into middle age are remarkably well-portrayed.  Aniston and Wilson take a satisfying bite out of the mix of comedy and drama, turning John and Jenny into characters you want to root for even when they’re coming apart at the seams.  What the audience becomes invested in is their burgeoning family.  Marley’s just there to push the couple past the starting line.

            As enriching as this serious turn is, it skirts the real thorny issues this couple certainly faced.  Even when things become dark, John’s oafish good humor keeps thing from appearing hopeless.  Any emotionally charged moments are quickly washed down with a shot of sweet memories, peppering in just enough weight for the adults to be satisfied without scaring away the kids.  This is a family movie, after all, so it can’t get too real.

            Even though it can’t go all the way, what’s great about Marley & Me is that Grogan put himself and his family in there.  The slapstick comedy and overreliance on cute moments gets in the way, but the ten-plus year journey that John, Jenny, and Marley go on is substantive enough to get behind.  The ending is one of the most overblown odes I’ve seen, but for those who’ve loved a dog, every moment rings true.  Now hand me the Kleenex.

Other Notes:

Ø  This is a very racy PG.

Ø  I was dangerously close to checking out after the first 30 minutes.  That destructive dog stuff is just not funny to me.

Ø  This is one of only four films that has ever made me cry.

Minority Report

Released:  June 21^st, 2002

Rated:  PG-13

Studio:  20^th Century Fox

Starring:  Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton, Max von Sydow

Directed by:  Steven Spielberg           

Written by:  Scott Frank, Jon Cohen

Personal Bias Alert:  likes exploration of ideas, weirded out by Neal McDonough

5.5 of 10

            I’m pretty sure I saw Minority Report when it was released.  I remember the screens sliding around, expanding, overlapping, moving in a way entirely unknown to me at the time.  I also remember Tom Cruise being Tom Cruise-y, although I could be getting that confused with all the other times he’s played that character.  Problem is, I didn’t remember anything else; the story has slid so far out of my mind that its twists and turns seemed fresh and new to me when I re-watched it.  I’m sure they were in my brain somewhere, right next to The Bridges of Madison County and that one episode of Futurama, but I find the movie so utterly forgettable that I can already feel it sliding out of my head all over again.

            Based on a Philip K. Dick short story, Minority Report follows John Anderton (Tom Cruise), the leader of a group of cops who use the predictions generated by three psychic “precog” humans to arrest murderers before they commit the act.  The legality and accuracy of this is brought into question, and the department is investigated by a government representative named Danny Witwer (Colin Farrell).  After an unusual prediction by the precogs, Anderton’s life is thrown into disarray and the holes in the department are left open for Witwer to see.

            A lot of the appeal of Minority Report comes from its sleek vision of the future, with just out of reach technology (some of which we’re already seeing today) and a modern architectural style that compliments the film’s overexposed lighting.  It looks good, but it’s also a world we could envision ourselves in.  That’s a sweet spot to hit in sci-fi that appeals to hard core and transient fans alike.  Except for the cars.  Those were just a bit too strange.

            At its heart, Minority Report is an action film, so it spends a good chunk of its time in long, semi-silly fight scenes.  These are staged all right, but they’re pretty generic and had a few moments that made me unintentionally chuckle (listen to those punching sounds in Cruise and Farrell’s fistfight and try not to laugh).  Since Cruise can pull off action sequences and borderline cheesy lines with the best of them, he’s an excellent fit for the lead role.  You can never question his commitment to a film.  His wholehearted effort always shines through, so it’s too bad that he’s left with a one-note character and no arc in this one.  He tries, but there’s no saving a character written this lazily.

            There is an effort to bring some age-old sci-fi dilemmas into the mix, but the film’s more successful at bringing them up than actually exploring them.  I’m hesitant to give the screenwriters much credit for the ideas themselves, as I’m almost certain they were lifted straight from the Philip K. Dick short story.  Since they don’t expand on them, the film really does nothing with its ideas, treating them more as plot points than themes.  The screenwriters then chose to handle them with dull, on-the-nose dialogue that makes the ideas feel more labored than revelatory and makes this whole aspect of the film a real let-down.

            There are a couple scenes towards the end that really click, and for a moment I thought the film was going to recover from its lackluster middle section.  The film is directed by Spielberg, after all, which always gives you reason to hope for an entertaining but substantive piece.  Too often, though, Spielberg fails to find the right mix, and here the entertainment portion wins out.  The ending abandons the momentum it started to build and goes for a big, silly finish that doesn’t make much sense.

            Actually, most of the film doesn’t make much sense.  The plot holes are pretty big, and when sci-fi writers fail to make their world plausible, I tend to check out.  That’s what happened with me and Minority Report.  I smelled a manipulative, soft sci-fi story from the beginning, and that’s pretty much what I got.

Other Notes (Ridiculous Sci-Fi Version):

Ø  My advanced technology is always thwarted by towels shoved under a door.

Ø  How would the alarms not go off when he scans his old eye?

Ø  Aw, there’s a flush button.

Ø  It’s saggy Tom Cruise!

Other Notes (Regular Version):

Ø  I found the score a bit too overbearing.

Ø  Don’t name your film after a MacGuffin.

Ø  We interrupt this sci-fi action movie to bring you a Gap ad.