Two Family Friendly Movies, and two not as much Family Friendly

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - This movie lived up to the review hype. It was funny, kind of original and yet like most new animation, slightly childish. At times it felt like a Youtube sketch comedy team had written parts of it, or at least had made a pass at the script. Those parts were funny, and that's where some of the originality of it comes from, but still the thought passes through, "Did an 16 year old group of guys write this?" Not that it was immature, it was just kind of...something that a grown up wouldn't write. Even though, grown ups did write it. But that's kind of the tell, the film follows a lonely young guy who is a science genius and his only friend is a monkey. The guy has a huge science lab, built like a tree house in his backyard. He pretends to have fancy security and makes a lot of sounds while imagining it. This is the type of character, like Napolean Dynamite, that is totally funny and cool on screen, but in real life would be creepy and a complete loser that no one in the audience would go near.
And that's really the only problem I had, was the creepiness of the main guy (not the fact that there is an island in the middle of the ocean with a city that's somehow normal, or that there is constructed food falling from the sky), who somehow can manage his social skills to get the girl and become the town savior. I think we have another movie about a guy with Asperger's. It really did seem like he had mental issues, and he pretty much could have given the same speech to the girl that Adam gives about his disorder and how other scientists like Einstein had it. It would have fit right in, and helped children understand the disorder. I propose a new title for this movie, one that's a little more educational: Cloudy with a chance of Asperger's.

Marley & Me - I've never walked out of a film in the theater before. I'm reserving that right for a really bad film. Worse than Superman Returns. Worse than The Mummy. (Those are the two closest I ever came to walking out.) I did, however, go to the bathroom during The Spirit. After coming out of the bathroom I decided "not to go back in" to The Spirit. I like to say, "I didn't walk out of The Spirit, I just didn't walk back in." With the time I had in the theater waiting for The Spirit to be over, I walked into Marley & Me. I only saw the middle hour until I got a text from my brother that The Spirit was over. But in that middle hour, Marley & Me captured my cold, loveless heart. I laughed, I smiled, I almost cried. (In the middle hour there wasn't much in the way of sad.) But this time, I did all those things, especially cry. That crazy, big dog stole my heart.
Betsy almost wanted to walk away, though, because the dog was "too naughty!" It's true, Marley did a lot of naughty stuff through the movie, but it wasn't his fault, he was a big, crazy dog trapped in a human's world. He was just livin' life. And boy was it an amazing life. Best dog movie ever. (It's not hard to achieve that honor.) And by the way, Betsy cried way more than I did, which shows you that even a naughty dog can win her heart, too.

Before the Devil Know You're Dead - For as decent as this way, it's pretty forgettable. It follows the aftermath of a heist of a suburban jewelry store by the two brothers robbing the place. And the jewelry store is owned by their parents. Things go horribly awry and the mother is killed by their accomplice, who also dies. The movie is really good about focusing on the emotional aspects of what the family is going through, rather than specifically on the details. Every character has something different that they're going through, and they all have unique problems, somehow related to the tragedy.
The unique theme in the movie that I really liked, and is related to the title, is how they're trying to put things back together and keep things normal before it blows up. Or in other words, trying to fix their sins before it becomes irreversible. I like the idea that the title places on the events, it's like a hidden ticking clock. Ultimately, though, I think the film shows that everything has consequences. No matter how quickly you try to put things back, the Devil is going to catch up with you.
The film had remarkable pacing. It was edited together great, and even in the slower moments it was never boring and there was still a tenseness to it. However, when it's all said and done, the film easily slips away from memory. The chopped up timeline, the interesting twist on a normal heist and the remarkable acting; none of it helps the film move past just being alright. It's slightly sad that in this day and age, such a well done film can slip through the cracks because it's not about saving the world or from a huge adapted property, even slipping from the audience's memory a short time after seeing it. Maybe it just means that heist films have been done too much, or maybe this movie actually was just completely mediocre.

Adventureland - This is just barely not for kids. From the previews and reviews, I thought for sure it would be like a National Lampoons type movie, with crazy hijinks and boobies running in the background. I don't think there were any boobies, and there were only a few hijinks. In fact, this movie was more dramatic than anything. It follows a bunch of young adults in the 80's working a summer at Adventureland. The main guy, played by the awkward Jesse Eisenberg, opposite Kristen Stewart. There wasn't much acting in this film...Eisenberg was being as awkward as ever, and Kristen Stewart was being petrified wood as usual. The biggest amount of acting comes from Martin Starr, even though he's playing a weird outsider...as usual. There are a lot of as usuals here, everyone is playing their type, from Ryan Reynolds hot guy to Kristen Wiig's loopy girl sidekick. The film felt well cast, but you have to wonder what it would have been like with different actors. Eisenberg's character was written awkward, so it seems like with him cast it's double awkward. Perhaps they should have gotten a normal kid to play the part, to keep the awkwardness at a normal level. Because as is, it was so far fetched that Kristen Stewart would go for him, which was my one problem with the film.
The film is also set in the 1980's but it did not have that feel at all. It was like the film had hipster goggles on, that could look back on the 80's with pure nostalgia. That was the whole film, though, about some kids with the worst job ever, but it's supposed to be the best time of their lives. It works, but it could very well have been set anytime, because there was nothing 80's about it, other than that they didn't have cell phones and girls had big hair. Bottom line, 1. this wasn't nostalgic enough to be about the 80's, 2. it wasn't fun enough to be a really awesome comedy, and 3. the dramatic parts were flat. Despite that, it was pretty good, but if there was a number system based on those parts, this film would have gotten 68, 74, 65: an average score of 69. Fail. But with the magic category of "Intangibles" I just made up, and a score there of 85, that puts the average at 73. You get a passing grade, Adventureland. Hoorah!