Kung Fu Panda (2008)

Fuzzy Outsider, Kicking His Way Toward His Dream

Director: John Wayne Stevenson
Cast: Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan, Ian McShane
Rating: PG (Violence)

At once fuzzy-wuzzy and industrial strength, the tacky-sounding “Kung Fu Panda” is high concept with a heart. Even better, this animated feature from DreamWorks is so consistently diverting and visually arresting that it succeeds in transcending its storybook clichés. The tale has the consistency of baby pablum — it’s nutritious and easy on the gums — but there’s enough beauty and pictorial wit here from opening to end credits, enough feeling for the art and for the freedom of animation, that you may not care.

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The panda of the title is Po, a generously proportioned mound of roly-poly black-and-white fun voiced with gratifying restraint by Jack Black. You know the next turn in the road as well as any Disney-and-Pixar-weaned 7-year-old: Po is different, Po has a dream, Po has to struggle and so forth. Po also has a loving father, naturally (and no mother, predictably), a loosey-necked goosey, Mr. Ping (James Hong), who runs a noodle shop that he hopes his son will take over one day. Po’s unlikely passion for kung fu intervenes, leading him out of the noodle shop and into the metaphoric hot pot, whereupon he kicks, grunts and groans toward his destiny amid the usual clutter of colorful sidekicks and one nasty foe (Ian McShane, grrr).



For an ostensible outsider, Po conforms very much to familiar animated-movie type. Like Nemo and the rest of his cartoon brethren, he needs to embark on the hero’s journey, which he does with help from a miscellany of pals voiced by the usual A- and B-listers. Among those nudging and guiding Po is Master Oogway (Randall Duk Kim), an ancient turtle with a mellifluous voice and long, liquid neck who, um, invented kung fu and now serves as the spiritual adviser (Yoda) to an elite squad, including a kung fu master, the mustachioed red panda Shifu (Dustin Hoffman), and his students, the Furious Five: Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Viper (Lucy Liu), Monkey (Jackie Chan), Crane (David Cross) and Mantis (Seth Rogen).



The screenplay by Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger is ho-hum without being insulting, a grab bag of gentle jokes, sage lectures, helpful lessons and kicky fights. There is none of the self-conscious knowing that characterizes the Pixar factory, which makes the whole thing seem either winningly innocent or terribly cynical, depending on your mood and worldview. I’ll go with innocent, at least on first viewing, because while “Kung Fu Panda” is certainly very safe, its underlying sweetness feels more genuine than not. The Ayn Randesque bottom line of Pixar’s “Incredibles” can be difficult to argue with — namely, if everybody is special, no one is — but the heroic outsider has his own durable appeal, particularly if he’s a great big bouncing ball of fat and fuzz.



That outsider is even more irresistible when nestled amid so much lovingly created animation, both computer generated and hand drawn. The main story, executed via 3-D animation (all done on computers) and directed by John Stevenson and Mark Osborne, fluidly integrates gorgeous, impressionistic flourishes with the kind of hyper-real details one has come to expect from computer-generated imagery: photorealistically textured stone steps, for instance, and fur so invitingly tactile you want to run your fingers through it. One of the pleasures of “Kung Fu Panda” is that instead of trying to mimic the entirety of the world as it exists, it uses the touch of the real. The character designs may be anatomically correct, but they’re cartoons from whisker to tail.



In the end, what charms the most about “Kung Fu Panda” is that it doesn’t feel as if it’s trying to be a live-action film. It’s an animation through and through, starting with the stunningly beautiful opening dream sequence, a graphically bold hand-drawn interlude rendered by James Baxter that looks like an animated woodblock print with slashes of black and swaths of oxblood red. This opener is so striking and so visually different from most mainstream American animations that it takes a while to settle into the more visually familiar look of the rest of the movie. And while nothing that comes afterward really compares to it, a volley of arrows that falls down like red rain and a delicate swirl of pink petals come delightfully close.



“Kung Fu Panda” is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested). But not required.



KUNG FU PANDA



Opens on Friday nationwide.



Directed by John Stevenson and Mark Osborne; written by Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, based on a story by Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris; music by Hans Zimmer and John Powell; production designer, Raymond Zibach; visual effects supervisor, Markus Manninen; produced by Melissa Cobb; released by DreamWorks Animation and Paramount Pictures. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes.



WITH THE VOICES OF: Jack Black (Po), Dustin Hoffman (Shifu), Angelina Jolie (Tigress), Ian McShane (Tai Lung), Jackie Chan (Monkey), Seth Rogen (Mantis), Lucy Liu (Viper), David Cross (Crane), Randall Duk Kim (Oogway), James Hong (Mr. Ping), Michael Clarke Duncan (Commander Vachir) and Dan Fogler (Zeng).

The Further Adventures of the Fedora and Whip

CANNES, France — “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” is a movie for boomers of all ages, though you can bet the bank that plenty of tots will be tagging along with Mom and Dad, Granny and Gramps. Like the 1981 blockbuster “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” the first in a monster franchise that has spawned two previous movie sequels, a television series, comics, novels, video games and Disney theme-park attractions, this new one was directed by Steven Spielberg, cooked up and executive produced by George Lucas (with Kathleen Kennedy) and stars Harrison Ford as the archaeologist-adventurer-sexpot with the sardonic grin, rakish fedora and suggestive bullwhip.


This latest Indy escapade, which was shown out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival and will probably scoop up more money than the rest of the selections combined, serves as a reunion for the principal creative team. Almost two decades have lapsed since the third installment in the series, “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” (1989). In the years since, Mr. Lucas — whose logo for Lucasfilm received the loudest applause at the press screening in Cannes — continued to build his special-effects empire and resurrected the “Star Wars” franchise while Mr. Spielberg has oscillated between serious-minded projects and financially instrumental entertainments.



For his part, Mr. Ford rode the ups and downs of high-concept stardom, oscillating between roles that called for him to flash his customary wry grin or his equally familiar grumpy frown. He wears both in “The Crystal Skull,” though the busy story makes enormous effort to keep the mood happy and snappy and decidedly PG-13 friendly — P.C. friendly, too, as in politically correct, with fewer dark-skinned people popping their eyeballs. Not that Indy has gone soft or the natives have gone hard, mind you, only that Mr. Spielberg no longer seems as eager to cut down extras for a laugh.



Thank goodness for the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of Vladimir V. Putin, which have expedited the return of blond-haired, blue-eyed villainy to the screen. Set in 1957, this new Indy yarn, written by David Koepp from a story by Mr. Lucas and Jeff Nathanson, takes place far from the Middle East even if it opens in a desert. The bad guys this time are cold war Reds first seen poking around an American military base and led by Irina Spalko. A caricature given crude, playful life by Cate Blanchett, Irina owes more than a little to Rosa Klebb, the pint-size Soviet operative played by Lotte Lenya, who took on James Bond in “From Russia With Love.”



Dressed in gray coveralls, her hair bobbed and Slavic accent slipping and sliding as far south as Australia, Ms. Blanchett takes to her role with brio, snapping her black gloves and all but clicking her black boots like one of those cartoon Nazis that traipse through earlier Indy films. She’s pretty much a hoot, the life of an otherwise drearily familiar party. Among the other invited guests are Ray Winstone, John Hurt and Shia LaBeouf, who plays Mutt, the young sidekick onboard to bring in those viewers whose parents were still in grade school when the first movie hit. Karen Allen, who played Indy’s love interest in “Raiders,” is here too, with a megawatt smile and a bit of the old spunk.



If only the filmmakers seemed as eager to see — and to please — the audience as Ms. Allen. There’s plenty of frantic energy here, lots of noise and money too, but what’s absent is any sense of rediscovery, the kind that’s necessary whenever a filmmaker dusts off an old formula or a genre standard. “Raiders of the Lost Ark” creaks with age now, but to look at it again is to see Mr. Spielberg actively engaging in an organic whole, taking a beloved template and repurposing it for the modern blockbuster age he helped create. By contrast, “The Crystal Skull” comes alive only in isolated segments, in a clever motorcycle chase that ends in a library and, best of all, in an eerie sequence at an atomic test site that wittily puts the nuclear in family.



The original Indiana Jones venture was inspired by Mr. Lucas and Mr. Spielberg’s love for 1930s serials, but you’d be hard pressed to find much inspiration in their latest collaboration. There’s plenty of perspiration, of course, what with the wall-to-wall chases — many tricked out with obvious computer-generated effects — that careen one into another like colliding big rigs. As expected, the high leaps and long jumps look impressive, even if it’s something of a bummer when one of the best directors working today (Mr. Spielberg) doesn’t seem to be working as hard as the stunt crew. Initially, I thought he was bored with the material (he wouldn’t be alone), but now I think he’s just grown out of this kind of sticky kids’ stuff.



Creative ennui certainly might explain why he spends so much time riffing both on his own greatest hits — Indy and company have an encounter of a close, insipid kind — and on other movies. Some of these allusions amuse (a sea of red ants parting à la “The Ten Commandments”) while others are just painful (Mr. LaBeouf done up to resemble Marlon Brando in “The Wild One”). It’s odd to see Mr. Spielberg recycling plot points already chewed through by Roland Emmerich in “Stargate,” though Indy’s brief encounter with some ferociously feathered Indians who look right out of Mel Gibson’s “Apocalypto” was a tantalizingly sweet pip, a sequel in waiting (“Indiana Jones Meets Mad Max”) or maybe just a YouTube mash-up.



“Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Death, but little blood.



INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL



Opens on Thursday nationwide.



Directed by Steven Spielberg; written by David Koepp, based on a story by George Lucas and Jeff Nathanson; director of photography, Janusz Kaminski; edited by Michael Kahn; music by John Williams; production designer, Guy Hendrix Dyas; visual effects and animation by Industrial Light & Magic; executive produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Mr. Lucas; produced by Frank Marshall; released by Paramount Pictures. Running time: 2 hours 3 minutes.



WITH: Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones), Cate Blanchett (Irina Spalko), Karen Allen (Marion Ravenwood), Ray Winstone (“Mac” George Michale), John Hurt (Professor Oxley), Jim Broadbent (Dean Charles Stanforth) and Shia LaBeouf (Mutt Williams).

You Don't Mess With the Zohan (2008)

Let me be blunt: “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan” is the finest post-Zionist action-hairdressing sex comedy I have ever seen. That it is the only one I have ever seen — and why is that? what cultural deficiency or ideological conspiracy has prevented this genre from flourishing? — does not much detract from my judgment.


Directed by Dennis Dugan from a script by Judd Apatow, Robert Smigel and Adam Sandler (who also stars), “Zohan” has its share of scatology, crude sexual humor and queasy homophobia, the basic elements from which male-centered Hollywood comedies are constructed these days. There are supporting roles for stand-up comedians (Ahmed Ahmed, Nick Swardson) and “Saturday Night Live” veterans (Rob Schneider, Kevin Nealon), a few oddball cameos (Shelley Berman, Chris Rock) and exquisitely random “as themselves” appearances by John McEnroe and Mariah Carey. Why not? Less amusingly, there are also some lumpy computer-assisted special effects, an overstuffed plot and a scattering of awkwardly executed gags. But a lot of the crude bodily-function jokes are actually pretty funny, not least because they are supplemented by more hummus-based humor than you might have thought possible.



You might also think, as I certainly did, that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict presents a singularly unpromising source of laughs. But as Yitzhak Rabin once said, enough of blood and tears. He did not go on to propose semen, urine, shampoo or hummus as substitutes, but those are, for Mr. Dugan, Mr. Smigel, Mr. Apatow and Mr. Sandler, the substances that come most readily to hand. (So does a made-up but scarily realistic Israeli soft drink called Fizzy-Bubbeleh.)



And the filmmakers spray all this stuff around in a brave and noble cause. American diplomatic efforts have so far proved inadequate to the task of bringing peace to the Middle East, but “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan” taps into deeper and more durable sources of American global power in its quest for a plausible end to hostilities. Ancient grievances and festering hatreds are no match for the forces of sex, money, celebrity and exuberant, unapologetic stupidity.



Zohan (Mr. Sandler) certainly seems to think so, though he might express his views differently, and certainly with a thicker accent. A highly skilled military operative who specializes in counterterrorism, he is basically a less anguished version of the character played by Eric Bana in “Munich.” The brilliant opening sequence places him in a tableau that would bring a tear to Theodor Herzl’s eye. Whether it would be a tear of joy or dismay I will leave to more seasoned polemicists, but there is something both appealing and authentic about a vision of the Jewish state on its 60th birthday that emphasizes lithe young bodies frolicking, flirting and playing Hacky Sack on the beach. If you will it, it is no dream.



But only part of Zohan’s life is carefree, and it’s the other part — the job that requires heavy weapons, deadly stealth and hand-to-hand combat with a superterrorist called the Phantom (John Turturro) — that drives him into the diaspora. Zohan may have a picture of Moshe Dayan on his bedroom wall, but his real idol is Paul Mitchell, the American hair-care mogul whose outdated styles Zohan studies as if they were pages of the Talmud. He wants to stop fighting and cut “silky smooth” hair. And so, like everyone else with a dream, he migrates to New York, where he finds an entry-level job at a salon run by a pretty Palestinian named Dalia (Emmanuelle Chriqui).



A romance between them seems at once inevitable and unthinkable, but the taboos that “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan” is unwilling to smash are few indeed. The movie is principally interested in establishing its main character as a new archetype in the annals of Jewish humor. He’s a warrior and also, to an extent undreamed of in the combined works of Philip Roth, Woody Allen and Howard Stern, a sexual hedonist, so utterly free of neurosis or inhibition that it’s hard to imagine him and Sigmund Freud occupying the same planet, much less the same cultural-religious tradition.



Sex, for Zohan, is like hummus: there is an endless supply, and no occasion on which it could be judged inappropriate. He is always on the make, but Mr. Sandler’s natural sweetness inoculates the character against sleaziness. In his feathery ’80s haircut and loud, half-buttoned shirts, Zohan joins a long tradition, stretching back from Will Ferrell through Steve Martin to the great Jerry Lewis himself, of goofballs who mistake themselves for studs and turn out to be right.



The film’s image of Israelis as hopelessly behind the pop-culture curve — Zohan’s musical taste belongs to the same era as his hairdo — is itself something of an anachronism. The hip-hop-inflected Hebrew pop on the soundtrack (by Hadag Nachash) provides some evidence that real Israelis are much cooler than the ones on screen. And the willingness of the American Jewish filmmakers to mock their Middle Eastern cousins is also a subtle, unmistakable sign of cultural maturity.



“Subtle” and “maturity” may seem like odd words to use about a movie that wrings big laughs from pelvic gyrations, indoor Hacky Sack and filthy-sounding fake-Hebrew and -Arabic words. But much as it revels in its own infantilism, “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan” is also brazenly self-confident in its refusal to pander to the imagined sensitivity of its audience. In this it differs notably from Albert Brooks’s “Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World,” which approached some of the same topics with misplaced thoughtfulness and tact.



I suppose some Middle East policy-scolds may find reasons to quarrel with “Zohan,” either for being too evenhanded or not evenhanded enough in its treatment of Israelis and Palestinians. Did I mention that it’s a comedy? Seriously, though, the movie’s radical, utopian and perfectly obvious point is that the endless collection and recitation of political grievances is not funny at all, and that political strife is a trivial distraction from the things that really matter. There is so much hummus, and so little time.



“You Don’t Mess With the Zohan” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It is raunchy but not quite sexually explicit, and the really filthy words are either invented or foreign.



YOU DON’T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN



Opens on Friday nationwide.



Directed by Dennis Dugan; written by Adam Sandler, Robert Smigel and Judd Apatow; director of photography, Michael Barrett; edited by Tom Costain; music by Rupert Gregson-Williams; production designer, Perry Andelin Blake; produced by Mr. Sandler and Jack Giarraputo; released by Columbia Pictures. Running time: 1 hour 53 minutes.



WITH: Adam Sandler (Zohan), John Turturro (Phantom), Emmanuelle Chriqui (Dalia), Nick Swardson (Michael), Lainie Kazan (Gail), Rob Schneider (Salim), Ahmed Ahmed (Waleed), Kevin Nealon (Kevin), Chris Rock (Taxi Driver), Shelley Berman (Zohan’s father), Mariah Carey (herself) and John McEnroe (himself).

The Strangers (2008)

From Sam Peckinpah’s “Straw Dogs” to Michael Haneke’s “Funny Games,” the home-invasion thriller has proved adept at eliciting the fear and dislocation that accompany the violation of our most sacred space.

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“The Strangers” is no exception, raising the stakes with a bloody preview of the ending before flashing back to the horrors that precede it. But this is no splatter movie: spare, suspenseful and brilliantly invested in silence, Bryan Bertino’s debut feature unfolds in a slow crescendo of intimidation as a young couple (Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman, both terrific) arrive at a country getaway after a friend’s wedding.



While navigating a tense crossroads in their relationship, the pair are interrupted by a sinister threesome whose identities and motivations are concealed. Alternately innocent and threatening, the intruders bang on the door and manifest as masked, blurred shapes behind the unwitting lovers. But even as the campaign of terror escalates, the movie remains levelheaded, smartly maintaining its commitment to tingling creepiness over bludgeoning horror.



Claiming inspiration from true events, “The Strangers” builds tension with tiny details — a moved cellphone, a looping song on the record player — and empathy with victims whose intimacy is affectingly real. Like Nimród Antal’s recent “Vacancy,” this highly effective chiller suggests that a relationship in extremis is the most honest of all.



“The Strangers” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Coitus is interruptus and killing is not.



THE STRANGERS



Opens on Friday nationwide.



Written and directed by Bryan Bertino; director of photography, Peter Sova; edited by Kevin Greutert; music by Tomandandy; production designer, John D. Kretschmer; produced by Doug Davison, Roy Lee and Nathan Kahane; released by Rogue Pictures. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes.



WITH: Liv Tyler (Kristen McKay), Scott Speedman (James Hoyt), Gemma Ward (Dollface), Kip Weeks (the Man in the Mask), Laura Margolis (Pin-Up Girl) and Glenn Howerton (Mike).

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