The Heat 2013 * * Stars

Director: Paul Feig

Year: 2013

Rated: R

Rating: * *  Stars

Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Sandra Bullock, Marlon Wayans

In 2011, Paul Feig directed what I like to call the first true, raunchy "chick flick" in Bridemaids. It was original and funny with a great cast of characters. Melissa McCarthy was so memorable in it that she received an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress. Cut to 2013 and we have Feig reuniting with her again (she's like a movie star now) for The Heat (right off the bat, can't the title be a little more original). He in turn decides to pair her with America's sweetheart, Sandra Bullock. The result: an uneven and rather excruciating buddy cop movie (don't we have enough of those already) that has its moments, but has to rely on a barrage of profanity lacings to convince the audience that it's, I guess, comedic. Because this film doesn't have a large cast, McCarthy and Bullock are relied on to carry the full 2 hour running time. There in lies the problem. Bullock, I can handle but in truth, McCarthy's act in a short period of two years, has almost gotten tired by this point. She has resorted to giving the same performance in everything she appears in (I also wonder, is it in her contract to have her husband do a cameo in all her films, just a thought). In Bridemaids, she was extremely likable. In The Heat, she's almost intolerable. If you've seen This Is 40, Identity Thief, The Hangover III, and of course the aforementioned, get ready to experience more of the same. My advice to her is this: you can only play hostile for so long. Did anyone say typecast?

So without further adieu, I'll go over the gist of this 2013 summer release (probably should've been put out in August where bad summer films exist, oh well). It's about two separate personalities (an FBI agent and a detective) who are forced to work together (there's an original idea) to take down a Russian mobster in the city of Boston (is it me or is Beantown being used for every cop movie lately). Bullock's character is special agent Sarah Ashburn. She's taking the assignment to get promoted. Melissa McCarthy's character is detective Shannon Mullins. She's on board with Asburn because well, she's quote unquote "the best cop in the precinct" (that scares the heck out of me). This whole mess is brought to you from the mind of screenwriter Katie Dippold. I read somewhere that she wanted The Heat to garner its inspiration from films like Lethal Weapon and Running Scared. Well after attending a 11:15 screening yesterday, I'm forced to choose the latter (this is not a good thing). Like I mentioned earlier, bad language (f-bombs mainly) is in the majority of what comes out of the actor's mouths. The ratio is probably every fourth of fifth word (you think I'm kidding, I'm not).

Oh there's a lot of shenanigans going on in this abomination. For instance, in a buddy cop movie, you have to have villains. In The Heat, we've seen countless versions of them in other flicks of the same genre. The thing that bugs me is that not only are these ones not menacing, they don't even look like the bad guys. The main antagonist in this flick, is a high end drug dealer. He looks like someone who works at Abercrombie and Fitch. Ugh! Then there is the old adage where the villains wait and wait to cause harm to the stars in the movie (basically they let them live and off everybody else). Oh yeah, they (the bad guys) gotta explain things too. Remember Bullock and McCarthy's characters can't die because without them, how could things continue (again we've seen this nonsense all too often). Finally, I don't get the relationship between Bullock and McCarthy in general. They go at each other's throats throughout the entire proceedings but somehow by osmosis, become best buds in the end. It no doubt feels strained and forced. It's not the actors fault mind you, it's the manipulation of the script. And I'm gonna put it out there front and center, if I starred alongside Melissa McCarthy (aka detective Shannon Mullins) in this movie, I'd avoid her like the plague, just sayin'.

To be fair, The Heat does have a few funny gags here and there (the scene with McCarthy putting a knife back in Bullock's leg is a riot. And maybe throw in the sequences where they get drunk together) but I've come to expect better things from the leads and the director. McCarthy can act, there's no doubt about it. But she needs to expand her repertoire a bit. Bullock, she could probably get away with doing movies like this forever (but why would she want to). Director Paul Feig, well he made the mistake of following the clever Bridemaids with a recycled, cliched, and all too familiar vehicle. The Heat is disposable as leftover Chinese food. It's gonna make a ton of money and probably wow a few moviegoers (gosh I hope not). If you've seen the trailer, all the funny parts are in it. You've been warned so save yourself ten bucks by watching it on youtube. I'm gonna sum up my review by following one cop term with another: The Heat becomes "The Bust". The "Big Bust" that is.

Written by Jesse Burleson

Gravity 2013 * * * Stars

Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Year: 2013
Rated PG-13
Rating: * * * Stars     Cole's Rating: * * * Stars
Cast: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney

The only actors that pretty much appear in the 2013 sci-fi release Gravity, are George Clooney and Sandra Bullock. They share top billing but in the end this is Bullock's show. She gives a stunning and seething performance as Dr. Ryan Stone, a Mission Specialist who gets caught in a violent (outer atmosphere) debris storm that destroys her shuttle and sends her floating into space. With the help of astronaut Matt Kowalski (played by George Clooney), she is brought back to safety (by way of a tether) and the two of them must find a way to get back to Earth. They have limited resources (the rest of the crew are dead and Stone's oxygen pack is waning) and can't get any type of radio transmission.

This is basically the set up for the rest of the proceedings. My overall view: Gravity is pretty good but not great. From the opening shot, right away it feels like the director is teasing you with a teeny tiny homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey (a space shuttle floats across the faraway landscape of the planet Earth). That's where the comparisons end. This film hints at Kubrick's masterpiece (there's a close-up of Bullock's eyes that channel Keir Dullea with his space helmet on) and it seeks to bring the terror like say, the 1979 gem Alien. But alas, Gravity lacks the eerie beauty displayed in "Odyssey" and the nightmarish posture that possessed Ridley Scott's celebrated marvel. Yes, the characters in this flick are in a lot of danger and extreme peril. However, their plights did not shake me. I didn't experience fear with them. Being lost in space is I guess, terrifying. But it's hard to pull off. Open Water, a movie that has nothing to do with sci-fi but carries a similar theme, is a superior thriller that has two characters stranded in a body of water with no land in sight. The fact that they might be eaten by sharks is something that shook me to the core. I didn't get the same vibe with Gravity. I don't think it's the filmmakers fault. This is a picture that is stunning to look at and it has that feeling you get when you think to yourself, "how the heck did they make this." I give credit to director Alfonso Cuarón for using the same technique that he perfected in Children of Men (2006). He excels at getting the camera to closely follow every action of the characters (it stays right next to them) while at the same time, having the destruction and chaos occur around them and at close proximity.

Honestly, if there is one major flaw that seeps into this vehicle's veins, it would be this: a lot of the dangerous situations that Bullock and Clooney (more Bullock than Clooney) get into are the plot devices this thing throws in to keep things afloat (ha ha) or moving (they wander into another space station and there is a fire. Bullock's character tries to get home in an escape pod and it's out of fuel. They come into more contact with debris etc, etc...). And then there's the ending that kinda winks at Ron Howard's Apollo 13. Again, Gravity is a good film. But it's not the masterpiece that most critics make it out to be.

I see some good things happening with this picture though. It should get some technical nods come awards time. And I think Bullock deserves a nomination from the Academy (completely different from her performance in The Blind Side, but still terrific in its own right). But is it Best Picture material? Not in my book. Gravity is no doubt an effective way to kill an hour and a half.  This movie has a look and a feel like nothing you've ever seen before. But as something that stays with you long after the curtain closes, I feel it doesn't quite hold much weight.

Written by Jesse Burleson