It was cute. I won't say it was a great movie, it wasn't. It was a good movie. Maybe I can say it was a pretty good effort for Dreamworks: not as good as the Train Your Dragon movies, but better than some they've done.
The movie is based on a book called "The True Meaning of Smekday" that's supposed to be a lot funnier. (We'll see. I ordered a copy because I wanted to compare).
Essentially, the movie hinges on this plot: the Boov, a race of stubby aliens, have as their MO for dealing with danger, "Run away." So they move from planet to planet. And it seems now they've found the perfect planet: Earth. Their leader, Smek (voiced by Steve Martin, though I didn't think it was "obvious") has convinced the Boov (and probably himself that)
a. Humans are stupid
b. Humans are primitive
c. Humans will agree to be moved to
Yeah. The Boov are cowardly, but they are also selfish and imperialistic. (If the movie were more aimed at adults, that idea - and possibly the gag that the Boov picked Paris, France, to be their headquarters - would have been developed more.)
Actually, the Boov are pretty selfish and anti-social. They don't seem to exactly have friends. They don't have families; apparently baby Boov are kind of raised in not-quite-a-Brave-New-World fashion. And again: were this a longer movie and one more aimed at the grown-ups, perhaps there'd have been more examination of how being raised essentially on a conveyor belt led the Boov to be as self-absorbed as each one is.
The main Boov character is Oh. He is called Oh because when other Boov see him, their response is an annoyed "Oooooohhhh...." Oh is the guy no one wants at their party (not that Boov party). He's the slightly ubiquitous one who talks too much and maybe overshares. (This is actually interesting in that Jim Parsons, best known for his role as Sheldon Cooper, voices him. I would say most of the Boov are kind of Sheldon-like and Oh is the anti-Sheldon. Well, for a Boov, the anti-Sheldon)
So the Boov come to earth. In short, they suck up all the people into big people movers and deposit them in Australia - oh, the Boov aren't intentionally cruel, they give the people nice houses and set up an amusement park for them. But stuff happens -- the young female protagonist of the story, Tip (whose full name is Gratuity, and I expect maybe the book gives a reason for that that the movie left out) has been left behind - when her mother got Hoovered up into the people mover, the thing detected Tip's cat, which was sitting on her head, and rejected Tip plus cat as "non human." So Tip is hiding out, eating canned food, and trying to figure out how to find her mom and get back to her. (Tip is, I think, the most appealing character in the movie: she's cute but she's also resourceful and tough. Oh can be kind of annoying at times....)
Incidentally, there's a nice little scene where Tip goes to an abandoned mini-mart to get her food....and before she leaves, she places money on the counter to pay for it. Even though no one is there, and it's essentially "end times" and she could have been justified in taking it without paying. But that little moment suggests her mom raised her right.....
Anyway. Oh meets up with Tip and through a series of mishaps he winds up having to recondition the car Tip (who is a young teen; at one point she talks about how cruel 7th grade girls are, which would make her 13. And yes, 7th grade girls can be VERY cruel. That was my experience....) Tip is also in some ways a misfit; she and her mom are recent immigrants from Barbados to New York City and apparently Tip was just beginning to feel at home when the stupid Boov showed up and wrecks things.
Anyway, Oh is on the run, Tip is on the run, but for different reasons. So they run together. Tip wants to go to the Boov capital to try to figure out where her mother is; Oh wants to go to Antarctica because he figures he'll be safe from arrest there and also because of penguins.
After here be some mild spoilers....
It turns out the Boov are really pretty, I guess you'd say, culturally insensitive. Stuff they don't see a purpose for, they just ball up and anti-gravity it so it floats over their cities. For example, all of the statues of Paris are floating around in a big clump. They don't try to understand the humans they replaced. (Again, were this a more grown-up themed movie, yada yada). But also, their great artifact, the Shusher - well, it's a very important item stolen from the Gorg, supposedly the sworn enemy of the Boov, and the one they're running from.
But in the end, it turns out the Gorg just wanted his item back....and when Tip and Oh return it, everything is cool, and the Gorg agrees to leave the Boov alone.
There is a good redemptive line of sorts, shortly before all that happens: Oh, realizing finally what's actually going on, says, "The Gorg are not the takers. The Boov are....." coming to see how his leader hurt the creature that is now coming after them. And also, perhaps, how the Boov have wronged the humans.
Also, at one point, Tip comments that the mistakes you make are what makes you human. I agree with that even as I think humans should try to avoid repeating mistakes. And it's more than just mistakes; it's the weird things about you and even your flaws that are what make you human.
A couple of other thoughts:
- I find myself wondering if Smek lied a lot to the Boov, telling them the humans were stupid and biddable and like animals, just because he wanted a safe place. Or if he lied to himself, too. (Is he stupid, is he corrupt, or is he very self-deceptive?)
- a big theme of the movie I think is fitting in/not fitting in. Oh is a misfit among the Boov; he tries to have a party but no one wants to come and the Boov that Oh thinks of as his best friend (Kyle) only listens to him because Kyle's job as a traffic cop prevents him from walking away. (Ouch. At times, when my inner demons are really getting to me, I find myself thinking that maybe some of my friends feel about me like Kyle feels about Oh - that they only put up with me because there's no easy way to get away). Tip, as cute and clever as she is, apparently doesn't fit in (or, at least, didn't at first) at her new school. And they gradually become friends. (And again - maybe there's a bit of a lesson about cross-cultural understanding that was elided here more than it could have been)
- I liked Rihanna's job of voicing Tip. I found Jim Parson's voice, even though a lot of critics said he was basically born to play a cartoon character, a little grating at times. Part of it is that he has such a *distinctive* voice that it was hard for me not to go, "Oh, it's Sheldon Cooper, in purple alien form." Also, I grew to dislike the weird sentence-mangling syntax the Boov used with English. ("My hands are in the air just like I do not care." Yeah. Great.) And yet, there is something kind of likable about silly little Oh. Also, the Boov change color with mood: yellow when they're anxious, blue (predictably) when they're sad, green when they lie. That would be a useful trait in humans....especially the green part.
- like a lot of recent kid's movies, there's a Death Scene That Really Isn't a Death Scene. I guess this is a thing now? Take a likable character and either wipe them out but have a "save" (like Baymax, like Groot*) where they can come back, or have the character appear to die but NOPE, there was a gap in the big thing that apparently crushed them that happened to fall right where they were standing...
(*And okay, Guardians of the Galaxy isn't really a kid's movie, but it has a superhero theme, so it's sort of an honorary kids movie, and it would be one if there weren't so much violence and cussing.)
- If I may be a little childish: I kind of want a Slushilicious car that would fly. And yeah, I know I said I thought flying cars were a bad idea but if I were the only person in the world with them, and it were a world with no more airplanes, then it would be just fine....
1 comment:
I like your review. (Ah, you've seen mine from May...)
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