WALL-E
Directed by Andrew Stanton • Starring Ben Burtt and Elissa Knight
Rated G
Pixar’s latest animated feature is arguably its most lavish, and probably its most ambitious. In this comic science-fiction fairy tale from writer/director Andrew Stanton (“Finding Nemo”), WALL-E is the name of a squat little robot who sees through binocular eyes and burbles like R2-D2 (thanks to vocal work by “Star Wars” sound designer Ben Burtt) as he sorts through the piles of garbage left behind by former Earthlings who have fled their ruined planet. When a sleek, iPod-like machine named EVE shows up searching for signs of life on the deserted planet, WALL-E falls in love. The first half of “WALL-E” is an amazing accomplishment—essentially a hilarious silent comedy with the Chaplinesque WALL-E emoting up a storm as he sorts through the wreckage of 20th-century consumer culture. Once WALL-E leaves the planet, hitching a ride on a visiting spaceship, the convoluted plot about the ultimate fate of the human race gets in the way of the story, which is all about two little robots with a thing for each other. Yes, technology can make you lazy and big corporations are ruining the environment—but “WALL-E” is the first Pixar film that feels downright preachy, and that’s not a good thing.
 

Wanted

Wanted
Directed by Timur Bekmambetov • Starring James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, and Morgan Freeman • Rated R for strong bloody violence throughout, pervasive language and some sexuality
Entertainingly stylish but scripted with the attitude of a playground bully, “Wanted” revels in misanthropy. It’s all about a secret society of expertly talented assassins — they can curve the paths of bullets, drive cars through mid-air barrel rolls, or perceive the world around them in super slow motion — who get their orders from a supernatural weaving loom that embeds secret codes in fabric. (Yes, really.) Hapless cubicle slave Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy, last seen in “Atonement”) is recruited by the aptly named Fox (Angelina Jolie) because his father was a member of the group — and these skills run in the family. The premise and the action are equally outrageous but, despite a surfeit of increasingly ludicrous special-effects set pieces, “Wanted” is never much fun. It gets its kicks mainly by fetishizing entry wounds and blood splatter, but also by mocking Wesley’s fat boss and, in voiceover, the film’s audience. Appropriately, Wesley is one of the most unlikable action heroes in recent memory — this smug, self-regarding airhead is a far cry from the charming sociopaths who usually populate films like this. Only Jolie, wearing a sly smile and lots of sex appeal, breaks up the overheated machismo whenever she’s on screen.    

For more of Bryant Frazer’s reviews, visit www.deep-focus.com

KUNG FU PANDA
Directed by Mark Osborne and John Stevenson
Starring Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman and Angelina Jolie
Rated PG for sequences of martial arts action
Now playing

The most surprising thing about “Kung Fu Panda” is how damned stylish it is. The opening dream sequence—in which Po (voiced by Jack Black), a corpulent panda bear and kung-fu fanboy, imagines himself as a martial-arts master—is rendered in a combination of 2D and 3D imagery that’s part graphic novel and part videogame. The rest of the film is in the expected 3D animation style, but with visually intense action scenes that seem to have been carefully choreographed by animation experts who really understand the possibilities of exuberant virtual camerawork. It’s an intermittently dazzling experience. Po works at his father’s noodle shop, but his passion is martial arts. Apparently by accident, he is chosen by master Oogway, a wise old turtle, as the “Dragon Warrior” who will save his village from the exiled snow leopard Tai Lung, an aggressive warrior. The moral is “believe in yourself,” and Po spends most of the movie struggling to reconcile his round physique with his warrior status. By the time Po actually starts fighting, the movie is almost over — but that’s OK, since it’s filled with graceful fillips and laugh-out-loud moments that fill out the slender storyline. Sometimes simpler is better.

YOU DON’T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN

YOU DON’T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN
Directed by Dennis Dugan
Starring Adam Sandler, John Turturro and Emmanuelle Chriqui
Rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content throughout, language and nudity
Now playing

Adam Sandler is just about the last big-deal Hollywood star you’d expect to see in a movie dealing with current events. And yet, here he is, playing Zohan, a highly lethal Mossad agent who turns his back on a life in counter-terrorism to fake his own death and bring peace, love and fabulous hair to the Jewish and Palestinian communities in New York City. That a proponent of dumb fun like Sandler would presume to engage with such sensitive material is part of the joke—Sandler’s co-writers this time around are Saturday Night Live’s Robert Smigel and Judd Apatow of “Knocked Up” fame, and their slapstick screenplay is well aware of its own ridiculousness. It’s bizarre, borderline offensive—and, in its way, the smartest thing Sandler’s been involved with since “Punch-Drunk Love.” Unfortunately, director Dennis Dugan (“I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry”) is more suited to lowbrow comedy than satire. Although Dugan efficiently parodies “Bourne”-style action movies and elicits a funny performance from Sandler, “Zohan” suffers from gags that fall flat, unnecessarily inflammatory ethnic and gender stereotypes, and a romance that’s a snoozefest. Not bad for a Sandler movie, but it falls annoyingly short of its potential.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Directed by Steven Spielberg • Starring Harrison Ford, Shia LaBeouf, Cate Blanchett, and Karen Allen • Rated PG-13 for adventure violence and scary images • Now playing
How good is “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull?” Just good enough. After the relatively gritty “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” which boasted dust, fistfights galore, and a raft of interesting supporting characters, the series descended into a jokier mélange of over-the-top stunts, occasionally graphic violence, and whip-cracking one-liners. Despite a couple of nods to the ravages of time—it’s been 19 years since Harrison Ford last donned that fedora!—“Crystal Skull” is even frothier and more cheerfully silly than its predecessors. Shia LaBeouf co-stars as Mutt Williams, Indy’s son by Marion Ravenwood (fan fave Karen Allen, returning from the first film), who asks Jones for help with a problem involving a kidnapped professor (John Hurt), an ancient civilization, and the skeletal remains of an alien. If you’re looking for down-to-earth action, look elsewhere—one scene has LaBeouf hanging out with the monkeys, vine-swinging through the jungle canopy like Tarzan. If you’ll settle for good-natured spectacle and a few giggles, this movie has lots of it, as well as a few astonishing visual moments, courtesy of the ever-verdant imagination of director Steven Spielberg and ace cinematographer Janusz Kaminski. And Cate Blanchett’s villainous Soviet scientist is a must-see.

The Visitor

The Visitor
Directed by Thomas McCarthy • Starring Richard Jenkins, Haaz Sleiman, and Hiam Abbass • Rated PG-13 for brief strong language • Now playing at Burns Film Center and All-Westchester Saw Mill Multiplex
“The Visitor” has been playing locally for weeks as counterprogramming to the onslaught of summer blockbusters. It’s the story of Walter Vale (Richard Jenkins), a Connecticut widower who arrives at his long-vacant East Village apartment to find an immigrant couple has moved in. (They’re victims of a scam.) Instead of kicking them out, Walter lets them stay—and becomes fast friends with Tarek (Haaz Sleiman), who loans the old white guy a drum and teaches him about Afrobeat. And when Tarek’s threatened with deportation, Walter does what he can to help, which might not be enough. Earnest but obvious expressions of liberal angst bog the film down. But director Thomas McCarthy (“The Station Agent”) gets a great performance out of Jenkins, who invests his emotionally frigid economics professor with great soulfulness, warming up as Tarek helps him get his groove back. And the film captures the frightening institutional facelessness of the U.S. immigration system, post- 9/11. The title is particularly ambiguous—in some ways, it’s Walter who is the visitor, seeing the complex multi-cultural make-up of the city for the first time. The film’s final shot, depicting Walter banging his drum in an expression of rage and frustration, is haunting.

For more of Bryant Frazer’s reviews, visit www.deep-focus.com