by Walt Becker
from Buena Vista Home Entertainment / Touchstone
A coming-of-age story starring a bunch of fiftysomething stars rather than teenage actors, Wild Hogs is a well-intentioned comedy starring John Travolta (Woody), Tim Allen (Doug), Martin Lawrence (Bobby), and William H. Macy (Dudley) as a group of Midwesterners facing their own versions of mid-life crises. They decide to escape their frazzled personal lives and rejuvenate themselves by taking a road trip on their slick hogs. But their journey is less Easy Rider than it is Three Amigos (plus one). As individual actors, each lead is a formidable star. But throw them all together into one crammed screenplay full of scatological humor and uncomfortable homosexual gags and it doesn't quite work. The actors spend so much time trying to outdo each other on screen that they aren't believable as friends, much less comrades. Walt Becker (National Lampoon's Van Wilder) offers minimal direction on a film that could've used some reining in, especially during scenes between Macy and Marisa Tomei (as a diner owner who inexplicably falls for him). There are promises of some interesting vignettes when Ray Liotta shows up as Jack, the leader of a real motorcycle gang. When Jack threatens to break Dudley's legs, Dudley counters, "I'm a computer programmer! I don't need my legs." Without missing a beat, Jack says, "Fine, we'll break his hands." It's not that the lines are so funny, but they way Liotta delivers them that adds some life to this flailing comedy. Unfortunately, his scenes with the rest of the cast are all too few. --Jae-Ha Kim
Stills from Wild Hogs (click for larger image)
Tim Allen John Travolta Martin Lawrence and William H. Macy star in WILD HOGS the hysterically funny comedy about four weekend-warrior friends who decide to rev up their ho-hum suburban lives with a cross-country motorcycle adventure. They don their leathers fire up their hogs and throw caution and their cell phones to the wind as they hit the open highway. But a lot can happen on the road to nowhere including a run-in with the bad-to-the-bone Del Fuegos a real biker gang who don't take kindly to the wannabes. Filled with hilarious misadventures screwball situations and madcap mayhem this laugh-out-loud comedy is a movie your whole family will go hog wild over.System Requirements:Running Time: 100 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: PG-13 UPC: 786936727463 Manufacturer No: 05373600
Martin Lawrence and Eddie Murphy play it surprisingly straight in this film by director Ted Demme. Though there are laughs to be had, this is a story about perseverance in the face of a life of disappointment (yet the film was sold as a prison comedy). But Stir Crazy this isn't. Rather, Lawrence and Murphy play a couple of New Yorkers making a moonshine run from New York to Mississippi during the Prohibition who find themselves framed for murder and sentenced for life to a prison chain gang. As they age, the two become close friends, although the strait-laced Lawrence always resents the free-wheeling Murphy for getting him into the situation in the first place. Ultimately, these two men learn to find meaning where they can, taking value from friendship and their limited ability to affect the lives of others. At times preachy, it ends on an upbeat note; the film's biggest laughs are reserved for the final section, in which Lawrence and Murphy don age makeup and play octogenarians. --Marshall Fine
In 1930's Harlem two men are framed for murder, what ensues is a comical look at their lives together in prison over the next sixty years. Genre: Feature Film-Comedy Rating: R Release Date: 6-JAN-2004 Media Type: DVD
Growing up can be a confusing journey fraught with difficult choices. Boog (Martin Lawrence) is a domesticated Grizzly Bear who leads a perfectly happy life inside of Park Ranger Beth's (Debra Messing) garage, but a chance meeting with an overly energetic mule deer named Elliot (Ashton Kutcher) quickly changes everything and lands Boog high in the forest a few days before the opening of hunting season. Devoid of even the most basic survival skills, Boog and Elliot stumble through the woods and find themselves at the mercy of every forest animal from skunks to chipmunks as well as an evil hunter named Shaw (Gary Sinise). After unintentionally inciting and endangering an entire forest full of clever animals, Boog and Elliot come to the realization that only by banding together do the forest animals stand a chance of outsmarting the hunters and ensuring their own survival.
This first animated film from Sony Pictures Animation takes its inspiration from cartoonist Steve Moore (In the Bleachers) and features animals with human-like intelligence, a vibrant color palate, and skilled animation that makes everything from the wind blowing Boo's fur to the animals' wild trip down the falls simply breathtaking. While it doesn't quite live up to Over the Hedge, Open Season is an entertaining production that explores the difficult process of maturation, the universal need for acceptance, and the true value of friendship. Special features include a 15-minute featurette about the animation process at Sony Pictures Animation and Image Works, a 7-minute look at the recording sessions featuring the voices behind the characters, two deleted scenes, three short animated cartoon strips, a short "Boog and Elliot's Midnight Bun Run" that's an extension of the trailer scene in the movie, art gallery, beat boards, humorous commentary from the animals' point of views, and a full length commentary by Producer Michelle Murdocca, Directors Roger Allers and Jill Culton, and others. Activities include a "Voice-A-Rama" where viewers can hear specific lines spoken by alternate voices and a trivia "Wheel of Fortune--Forest Edition" as well as a DVD-ROM link to more online fun. (Ages 3 and older) --Tami Horiuchi
Meet the Critters of Open Season (click for larger image)
Boog (aka Martin Lawrence), hear Martin Lawrence, "On Boog": high bandwidth
Elliot (aka Ashton Kutcher), hear Ashton Kutcher, "On being Elliot": high bandwidth
Shaw (aka Gary Sinise), hear Gary Sinise, "On Shaw": high bandwidth
Stills from Open Season (click for larger image)
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For a limited time, purchase Open Season (Widescreen Edition) on DVD and receive a complimentary copy of the Academy Award winning animated short, The Chubbchubbs!, exclusive to Amazon.com.
Amazon.com Review When it was briefly shown in theaters with Men in Black II, the delightful animated cartoon The Chubb Chubbs had the awkward distinction of being funnier and more inventive than MIIB. The six-minute film won the 2003 Oscar for best animated short. --Jeff Shannon
Boog (Martin Lawrence) a domesticated grizzly bear with no survival skills has his perfect world turned upside down when he meets Elliot (Ashton Kutcher) a scrawny fast-talking mule deer. They join forces to unite the woodland creatures and take the forest back into nature s control! System Requirements:Running Time: 86 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: CHILDREN/FAMILY Rating: PG UPC: 043396165694 Manufacturer No: 16569
No one goes to a movie directed by Michael Bay for delicacy and grace; you go because Michael Bay (Armageddon, The Rock) knows how to make your bones rattle during a high-speed chase when a car flips over, spins through the air, and smacks another car with a visceral crunch. Bad Boys II fulfills this expectation and then some. Will Smith and Martin Lawrence may be mere puppets amid all this burning rubber and shrieking metal, but they actually provide a human core to the endless cascade of car wrecks and gunfights. Their easy rapport makes their personal problems--a running joke is Lawrence's attempts at anger management--as engaging as the sheer visual hullabaloo of bullets and explosions. The plot is recycled nonsense about drug lords and dead bodies being used to smuggle drugs, but orchestration of violence is symphonic. If that's your thing, then this is for you. --Bret Fetzer
Hang on for maximum mayhem full-on fun and the wildest chase scenes ever put on film! The action and comedy never stop when superstars Martin Lawrence and Will Smith reunite as out-of-control trash-talking buddy cops. Bullets fly cars crash and laughs explode as they pursue a whacked-out drug lord from the streets of Miami to the barrios of Cuba. But the real fireworks result when Lawrence discovers that playboy Smith is secretly romancing his sexy sister Gabrielle Union (Bring it On). Director Michael Bay (Pearl Harbor Armageddon) and producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Pirates of the Caribbean Black Hawk Down) deliver a high-speed high-octane blockbuster that will blow you away! "...Year's most action-packed and high-flying flick." (Shawn Edwards FOX TV).System Requirements:Running Time: 146 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: R UPC: 043396006195 Manufacturer No: 00619
Eddie Murphy makes a graceless debut as a romantic lead in this comedy from Reginald Hudlin. Murphy stars as a ladies man for whom the tables turn when he suddenly finds himself taken for granted by a lover (Robin Givens). Meanwhile, the platonic friend (Halle Berry) whom Murphy regularly visits is obviously--to the viewer, anyway--the woman he's supposed to be with. The absurdly long film is filled out with some fairly crude humor, such as the sight of Geoffrey Holder taking a whiff of Grace Jones's underwear. Yet Hudlin and Murphy also strain for a veneer of elegance and sophistication. Wanting to play it both ways, they end up with nothing. But there are several good sequences where Murphy is quite funny just being Murphy, such as his explanation to Berry of how you can tell which characters in an old episode of Star Trek are destined to die. --Tom Keogh
It's a pleasure to be reminded, after years of increasingly lazy movie performances, that Martin Lawrence was once a hungry, crackling young comic. His 1990s sitcom Martin, in which Lawrence played a radio shock jock juggling the demands of his friends and his girlfriend, was nothing new--it's your basic "gee, men and women sure are different" setup with an African-American flavor. But Lawrence threw himself into the show with gusto. In addition to the central character of Martin Payne, Lawrence played Payne's mother, his trashy neighbor Sheneneh, pompous player Jerome, and numerous others, some of whom were integrated into the main stories, some of whom just appeared in stand-alone segments at the opening of the show. (Ironically, many of the show's fans are more enthusiastic about these side characters than about Martin Payne.) No one will ever accuse Lawrence of subtlety, but his reckless energy is undeniable. That, combined with a good supporting cast (including Trisha Campbell as Gina, his long-suffering girlfriend; Saturday Night Live's Garrett Morris as Stan, his penny-pinching boss; and Carl Anthony Payne II, Tomas Mikal Ford, and Tichina Arnold as Martin and Gina's friends), gave the show a solid dynamic that raised it above the often formulaic scripts. Martin: The Complete First Season includes all 27 episodes; the extras, unfortunately, are only a highlights feature and a standard blooper reel. --Bret Fetzer
Follows the life of a brash radio personality, his forgiving girlfriend, and the characters he hangs out with. Genre: Television Rating: NR Release Date: 2-JAN-2007 Media Type: DVD
Martin Lawrence can certainly talk a blue streak (witness his concert film, You So Crazy), but he tones it down to PG-13 for this by-the-book action comedy. Lawrence stars as Logan, a bank robber and jewel thief (nice role model we're supposed to cheer for) who, just before he is arrested, manages to stash the $20 million diamond he has just heisted at a construction site. When he is released from prison two years later, he returns to the scene of the crime only to find that the completed building houses a police station. To get inside and retrieve the precious gem he secures a fake ID and passes himself off as LAPD's newest, and most unorthodox, detective. As he demonstrated on his TV series, Lawrence has a knack for characterization second to Eddie Murphy. But he's no Beverly Hills Cop. Indulgent sequences where Martin has seemingly been given free reign to ad-lib are the film's weakest. Early on, Logan cases the police station outlandishly disguised as a snaggle-toothed, Geri-curled pizza deliveryman. You'd think the last thing his character would want to do is call attention to himself. Lawrence is at his best in the scenes in which, thanks to all those years of breaking and entering, his formerly lawless character proves to be a natural at cracking burglary cases. Logan is paired with the requisite white partner, Carlson (Luke Wilson), a buttoned-up rookie. Departing from the Lethal Weapon, buddy-movie playbook, they are not antagonists; theirs is more a teacher-mentor relationship. "Don't we need a warrant to do that?" Carlson asks Logan at one point. "We don't even need a key," Logan responds, picking a lock. There is little in Blue that is remotely fresh, but Lawrence fans, who watched him play it straight opposite Murphy in Life, will relish the opportunity to see him get down with his bad self. --Donald Liebenson
With a story that's too flimsy to support its running time, this road-movie comedy has plenty of problems, but at its best it's a surprisingly inspired vehicle for the clever teaming of Tim Robbins and Martin Lawrence. Robbins plays an addled advertising executive who comes home early one day and discovers his wife in bed with his boss. To make matters worse, he's later carjacked by a struggling, unemployed family-man-turned-petty-thief (Lawrence), and that's when he loses his cool completely. He takes the carjacker hostage and recruits him on a road-trip scheme of revenge against his wife and boss. Plotting to break into his boss's high-security vault, Robbins gets a criminal assist from Lawrence, but they're also on the run from another pair of would-be thieves who trail them to the vault's location. The routine plot is occasionally limp and sluggish, but writer-director Steve Oedekerk (who makes a wacky cameo appearance as a security guard) mines comedy gold during several scenes that detour from the plot for the sake of sheer lunacy. Robbins and Lawrence have great comedic chemistry (if you can tolerate Lawrence's constant profanity), and although the movie ends on a false note with some unlikely turns of fate, it's definitely good for more than a few solid laughs. --Jeff Shannon
This hugely funny action-comedy hit stars big-screen favorites Martin Lawrence (BAD BOYS) and Tim Robbins (HIGH FIDELITY). Advertising executive Nick Beam (Robbins) has completely bottomed out. His career is a mess, his marriage is on the rocks ... and a fast-talking would-be carjacker (Lawrence) has just jumped into his car! So what does he do? Nick throws common sense out the window and turns the tables on his captor! Soon this mismatched pair speeds off on a comical crime spree that includes holdups, high-speed chases, and revenge! Set to a hot hit soundtrack, NOTHING TO LOSE is another wild comedy success from the creator of ACE VENTURA and THE NUTTY PROFESSOR!
It's party time, but Kid (Christopher Reid) has been grounded by his strict but loving dad (Robin Harris). His best friend, Play (Christopher Martin), however, cooks up a scheme to sneak him out of the house so he can hook up with his honey at a buddy's house, where it's all going on. Rappers Kid 'N Play are engaging and funny--and entertaining rappers when they get the chance. The real find was comic Robin Harris, hilarious in his own right and solid in this role--but he died a short time later. Look for Martin Lawrence in one of his first film roles as well. --Marshall Fine
The raucous events leading up to and after the 'mutha' of all urban teen parties. Starring Kid 'n Play and Martin Lawrence. Directed by Reginald Hudlin.
by Walt Becker
from Buena Vista Home Entertainment / Touchstone
by Michael Bay
from Sony Pictures
by Ted Demme
from Universal Studios
by Roger Allers
from Sony Pictures
