A showcase for Tim Robinson's humor

 

  SNL vet Tim Robinson stars in a hit Netflix show called I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson, a collection of sketches built around the distinctive blend of innocence and rage that makes Robinson a "cringe comedy" standout.

  Director Andrew DeYoung brings Robinson to the big screen in Friendship, a movie that relies on Robinson to lead an audience through a series of episodes in the life of Craig Waterman, a beleaguered suburbanite whose wife (Kate Mara) and teenage son (Jack Dylan Grazer) mostly ignore him.

  That may sound like a typical premise, but you're not likely to find Robinson -- a comic with an off-kilter bent --- in a routine comedy about one more schlub in need of a battery charge.

   The plot kicks in when a package mistakenly delivered to Craig’s home brings him into contact with Austin (Paul Rudd), a “cool” new neighbor who works as a weatherman at a local TV station. 

   Austin offers friendship and invites Craig to join his circle of pals, thus raising the possibility that Craig will find something he's never had: buddies -- "bros" in the   vernacular.  

   DeYoung, who wrote the screenplay, puts Craig into a series of oddball situations: He hunts mushrooms with Austin, and the two explore the town's dank aqueduct, Austin's idea of an adventure. 

   Ecstatic about his new friendship, Craig -- oblivious to the kind of impression he makes on others -- soon alienates Austin, who calls a halt to the friendship. Craig's days of beer-drinking bonhomie come to an end.

   Once rejected, Craig seeks substitutes for the pals he's lost while continuing as a master of inappropriate speech and behavior. 

   DeYoung, Robinson, and Rudd, who makes the most of his screen time and also served as one of the film's producers, have hold of something -- although it's not always easy to tell what that might be. 

   Maybe Friendship is best seen as a look at a guy for whom acceptance remains a distant and unreachable shore. We don't feel for Craig as much as we brace ourselves for his next outburst. 

     Robinson's brand of comedy isn't for everyone, and Friendship doesn't do much to broaden or sentimentalize his character's appeal. DeYoung hasn't made what you'd call a "friendly" comedy, but he has given Robinson an opportunity to play with a variety of comic ideas, often taking them in surprisingly weird directions. 

    Some pay off; some don't, and even fans may have to concede that Friendship doesn't always feel fully developed.

    If you're unfamiliar with Robinson, you may want to watch an episode of his show on Netflix or sample some of what's available for free on YouTube. That should help you decide whether a taste for Robinson's comedy is something you want to acquire. I'm open to trying more.

   

A juvenile 'Shazam!' has its virtues

It's not perfect but this kid-oriented superhero movie can be fun.

If you're a fan of comic-book movies, you've probably been engaged in discussions about the meaning of the minutia that pertains to whatever universe about which you happen to find yourself obsessing. Participating in such conversations can be fun, but they do have at least one minimum requirement: Participants must take the genre seriously.

Should you happen to be sick of such seriousness, Shazam!, like the Deadpool movies, provides an antidote. A lesser DC Comics offering becomes an entertaining look at a teenager who's able to transform himself into an adult superhero -- but not in all ways. He remains a teenager in mind, humor, spirit, and outlook. He reverts to his teen body when he has no superhero business to transact.

This approach makes Shazam! a bit juvenile or, to put it more favorably, the movie takes undisguised aim at younger audiences and mostly connects.

We first meet Shazam as Billy Batson (Asher Angel), a kid who has spent his youth in foster homes but hasn't abandoned hope that he can locate his real mother, a woman from whom he was separated as a boy.

Zachary Levi portrays Shazam, the caped, adult semi-crusader who emerges when Billy transforms himself.

How you react to Shazam! depends in large part on how you react to Levi's performance, which can be unabashedly goofy. A superhero of greater stature probably wouldn't be caught dead in Shazam's red outfit. And the movie has fun watching Shazam try to adjust to his grown-up body.

Still, I must admit that I felt a bit of relief when Angel reclaimed the role and the movie returned to a point at which the characters no longer needed to shave.

Shazam! also introduces us to Doctor Sivana (Mark Strong), an abused child who becomes Shazam's adult nemesis.

The movie includes a multicultural kiddie crew of Billy's friends and the screenplay finds a way to integrate them into Shazam's superhero adventures. Moreover, Billy's best friend (Jack Dylan Grazer) becomes a kind of guide for Shazam as he goes through his changes.

Djimon Hounsou portrays the wizard who engineers Billy's transformation, suggesting that young Billy is the long-awaited "champion" that the world needs. Boy am I sick of long-awaited heroes who are supposed to fill a role destiny has set for them, but that's the comic-book world.

In this case, the champion's mission has something to do with being able to vanquish the Seven Deadly Sins, all presented as statues that lurk in the wizard's lair while waiting to spring to life.

Director David F. Sandberg keeps Henry Gayden's script moving until about three-quarters of the way through when we realize that Shazam! -- like so many other movies -- doesn't know when to quit. At 132 minutes in length, the movie would have needed a better story to sustain interest.

Enough. Shazam! launches a superhero franchise that has a quality that shouldn't be dismissed: It doesn't seem to matter much and, in the high-stakes world of other superheroes, that's a definite virtue.

'It' sends in the clown -- and he's a killer

Latest Stephen King adaptation likely to score with audiences. To me? A yawn.

The working-class adults in It, an adaptation of a 1,000-plus page 1986 Stephen King novel, are abusive, cruel and, in some cases, detestable. Whether this arises from economic pressures or stands as some sort of class bias isn't entirely clear. Maybe it doesn't matter because the adults aren't the obvious focal point of director Andy Muschietti's adaptation; it's their kids.

To explore the fears of adolescent life, It follows -- if distantly -- a 1990 TV adaptation in which Tim Curry distinguished himself as Pennywise, the clown who terrorizes the children of Derry, Maine.

Muschietti and a trio of writers (Chase Palmer, Cary Fukunaga and Gary Dauberman) shift the time frame of King's novel from the 1950s to the 1980s and deal only with the first half of King's opus. A sequel is set to follow in which the teens of this edition return as adults.

Arriving more than 30 years after the novel's publication, this big screen version suffers from inevitable comparisons with a rash of other horror movies in which teens are terrorized by evil forces and by memories of another King-inspired movie, Stand By Me (1986).

By now, gory horror (icky streams of blood, razor-sharp teeth and other foul manifestations of malignant forces) make it seem as if we've seen It before and deprive the movie of some of the resonance that King must have intended.

Full of familiar King tropes, It tries to follow King's lead, allowing evil figures to provoke familiar fears of childhood. Who, at one time or another, hasn't trembled at the thought of entering a dank basement? That sort of thing.

In what can be viewed as thematic piling on, the teens of Derry not only must confront the buck-toothed Pennywise but are also taunted by the town bully (Nicholas Hamilton). Anyone who remembers his or her teen years may find Hamilton's character a good deal more frightening than any of the movie's booming effects, delivered with considerable verve and polish but too easily left behind in the theater, along with kernels of spilled popcorn.

The teens in the movie have named themselves the Losers Club. Bill (Jaeden Lieberher) leads the group. Bill's younger brother Georgie (Jackson Robert Scott) is taken by Pennywise in the movie's swiftly stated prologue.

The rest of the club members mostly are distinguished by single traits. One kid (Wyatt Oleff) is Jewish; another kid (Chosen Jacobs) is black; still another (Jeremy Ray Taylor) is overweight.

Every group of screen kids needs a wise-ass. In this case, the job falls to Finn Wolfhard. Jack Dylan Grazer portrays a kid dominated by his mother.

As the story develops, a girl (Sophia Lillis) joins the pack. Lillis' Beverly has a sexually abusive father and, unfairly, has been branded as "a slut" by her classmates.

Among the movie's problems: Pennywise (Bill Skarsgard), the scary clown whose makeup and goofy affect conceal his true nature, hovers near cliche, even with his ability to transform from a clown into his horrific real self.

Having pretty much found It to be a yawn, I should hasten to say that the movie likely will add some spin to the multiplex turnstiles after a lackluster couple of late-summer weeks.

Before a preview screening of It, King appeared in a short clip addressed to the audience. He said he was happy with the adaptation and praised the movie's young cast, all of whom do fine work as they spout profanities, shriek and behave as credibly as the story allows; they also discover that their hometown is targeted by waves of violence that appear in 27-year intervals.

Sometimes, it feels as if It lumbers from one set piece to another, giving each of the teens a scene that plays to his or her major fear. Each eruption of shock creates the aura of a super-charged fun house -- vivid but depthless. And at 135 minutes, the film begins to feel as lengthy as the book.

The movie teaches the members of the Losers Club a lesson that might have been culled from Hillary Clinton's campaign slogan: "Stronger together." The monster can't win if the kids unite to overcome their fears.

Although It takes full advantage of current technology in producing its many effects, the movie nonetheless feels trapped by the well-worn demands of a genre in which nearly every move feels too ingrained to break the bounds of the screen and take up residence deep inside our worst nightmares.