Film Review: Casper (1995) C-

Date Viewed: 2/1/08
Venue: HDNet

When someone refers to a movie as "eh, just a kid's movie" in a derogatory tone, they're talking about Casper, a loud, special-effects laden comedy aimed at kids that isn't very interested in making a lot of sense or thinking things through.

Based on the famous cartoon show, our story follows lonely Casper, the friendly ghost, as he suffers his three bullying ghost uncles in an abandoned mansion in New England. The property is inherited by a snooty rich bitch (Cathy Moriarty), who believes there to be treasure (yes, treasure) in the mansion's walls, and will stop at nothing to drive the scary ghosts out. She hires ghost 'expert' Dr. Harvey (Bill Pullman. Was he in every movie between 1994-1996?) to help the ghosts 'move on.' Dr. Harvey moves in with his pubescent daughter Kat (a developing Christina Ricci) and while Harvey works on taming the mischievous uncle ghosts, Kat befriends lonesome Casper (well voiced by Malachi Pearson). Of course our intrepid family winds up siding with the ghosts against snooty rich bitch, and conflict ensues. However, the story really stumbles when trying to resolve this conflict, disregarding it's own 'rules' about the ghosts as soon as it can invent them.

While the comedy in Casper falls too broadly to be consistently funny (there's some gross, semi-crude humor, and Dan Akroyd has an embarrassing Ray Stantz Ghostbuster cameo, for goodnessakes), some of the overall adolescent themes of fitting-in and loneliness are well played. And those successful themes make some of the sloppy story points a bit more palpable.

Casper is a movie a kid with less discriminating tastes would eat up. It's outlandish, the sets and effects are great (imagine Who Framed Roger Rabbit? done seven years better), the comedy is big and in-your-face, and really its main characters are kids (Ricci and the Casper the ghost) themselves. As an adult, however, it's impossible to overlook lame humor and shoddy storytelling.

Film Review: The Right Stuff (1983) B-

Date Viewed: 2/1/08
Venue: HDNet

Test pilots are the center of 1983's The Right Stuff, director Phillip Kaufman's lengthy exploration of the origins of America's space program. The film follows the professional and private lives of the seven men (and the legendary Chuck Yeager to boot) who were chosen to be America's first astronauts.

The film begins with Yeager (Sam Shepherd) breaking the sound barrier over the Mojave Desert. A few years later, the Soviets initiate the space race with the launch of Sputnik, and Washington sends recruiters (Harry Shearer and a young Jeff Goldblum) to the desert in search of future astronauts.

After rejecting Yeager (Washington was only interested in 'college-educated' pilots), the recruiters snag Air Force pilots Gus Grisson (a grizzly Fred Ward) and cocky Gordon Cooper (Dennis Quaid) to join clean-cut John Glen (Ed Harris) and joker Alan Shepard (Scott Glenn), among others.

The men find themselves poked, prodded, and studied extensively (and ushered around by poorly-dubbed orderly Anthony Munoz of NFL and disgusting sports injury fame) before the final seven are chosen and eventually, one-by-one, launched into space.

This is a sprawling, ambitious film that drips director Kaufman's love of the material, but the narrative is staggeringly off-balance. By dividing our time between our pilots, Yeager's continuing non-space-related flights, and some Washington behind-the-scenes machinations, we never settle on whose story this is supposed to be.

Despite having nothing to do with the space program, our scenes with Yeager's ongoing exploits in breaking speed and altitude records are the thematic heart of the film, expressing the test pilot obsession with pushing the envelope (and hinting at the notion that he was really the pilot with 'the right stuff'). And the Washington scenes would be fine if this were a more straightforward look at the history of our space program. But by trying to balance all three, we don't get a lot of depth with the pilots, the Washington bits feel rushed, and Yeager feels extraneous. There are also several instances of characters saying they're going to do something in lieu of actually seeing them do something, further evidence of extreme story compression.

Even with the overstuffed (even for a three-hour plus runtime) narrative, there are things to enjoy. Ed Harris and Fred Ward are great, and the pilots stories are very honest overall, not shying away from some of their skirt-chasing, chest-thumping, uber-macho ways. The spaceflight scenes themselves are well done, with appropriate weight and drama.

The Right Stuff is a frustrating mess of a movie. I respect the stories represented and the efforts of the filmakers, but there is strength in simplicity, and I wish further effort had been made to streamline the story and keep the audience involved.