Short Take: "This Means War" and "Friends with Kids".

We get it, romance has evolved with the changing times and the movies have to adjust to the new ways in which people meet and fall in love, however this shouldn't mean that in the process we also must relinquish our human dignity, something that This is War not only suggests but encourages.
Tuck (Tom Hardy) and FDR (Chris Pine) are two CIA secret agents who are "grounded" after ruining a mission and spend their boring office time trying to meet women. Tuck is a romantic with old fashioned ways who recurs to online dating to meet someone, FDR is a playboy who beds a different woman every night. They accidentally end up setting eyes on the same woman, consumer marketing expert, Lauren (Reese Witherspoon) who by dating different men finds the perfect outlet to escape from her ex-boyfriend's shadow, try out her wilder sexual side and practice housekeeping. Where the movie suggests that Lauren is a hands on, ultra feminist woman, the plot and character development merely make her dalliances look like irresponsible promiscuity and of course, she is the only one getting accused of it, the guys and their jobs make them look like heroes who have earned the right to use their security clearance to harass the woman they think they're in love with. For all its misogyny, double standards and ultra conservative morality (you know who Lauren will pick from the very start) the film's greatest mistake is how utterly joyless it feels. Witherspoon seems to have forgotten how to be bubbly and charming, while Hardy and Pine hardly make for heroes worth pining for. The only war this movie declares is one against the intelligence and taste of its audience.

If you were one of those die-hard fans who were craving a Friends reunion, Friends with Kids should be the movie to dispel those wishes. Even if it's in no way associated to the popular TV show, the film works as a post-finale version of it, given that it un-creatively matches three women with three men to create the same dynamic as the series. Two of the couples are together and have started families, the single friends are those eternal bachelor (Adam Scott) and bachelorette (Jennifer Westfeldt) who seem to enjoy their "freedom" too much to lose it just to fit in with social norms.
In order to prove how awesome they are, the two friends decide to have a child and raise it without the typical family structure, of course their plan backfires as the movie conservatively reminds us that friends can't have sex and remain just friends, that children need two parents to be happy, that marriage is something we should all aspire to, and an assortment of other stereotypes that romantic comedies and dramas have helped perpetuate.
The problem at this point isn't whether they are right or not (morality and ethics aren't as universal as we'd think) but that movies like these pretend they will defy the conventional, only to become even more stilted and predictable themselves. The ending in Friends with Kids for example seems to be straight out of a cheesy 80s movie and the thing is that writer/director Westfeldt does not deliver it with a wink, she really thinks her movie is sincere.
More than a decade ago, Westfeldt brilliantly explored alternative sexual orientations in the wonderful Kissing Jessica Stein, if the characters in her new movie spent doing as much melancholy but hilarious soul searching as the characters in that one did, instead of screaming, cursing and dashing off dinner tables when upset we might've had our hands on a movie with some insight. Instead what we get are grownups who have replaced toys with wine, espresso machines and cursing to hide the fact that they are really nothing but kids.


Grades
This Means War ½
Friends With Kids *

Piranha 3D ***

Director: Alexandre Aja
Cast: Elisabeth Shue, Adam Scott, Steven R. McQueen
Ving Rhames, Jerry O'Connell, Jessica Szohr, Kelly Brook
Riley Steele, Christopher Lloyd, Cody Longo, Richard Dreyfuss

If you liked Jaws but think it would've been better if it had been directed by Paul Verhoeven, then Piranha 3D will blow your mind.
A hilarious, boob-filled, bloody, monster extravaganza that truly does justice to its B-movieness and above all seems to be worth your money (if you know what you're paying for).
Set in Lake Victoria, Arizona, it kicks off with an inspired spoof that has Richard Dreyfuss fishing while drinking some beer.
As he struggles reeling in a big fish, he drops his bottle which we follow to the bottom of the lake. Just as it hits the floor, an earthquake hits (or is the beer bottle causing the quake?) which opens an underwater cave from which a school of prehistoric piranhas emerge.
They rip Dreyfuss to pieces, doing justice to all the water creatures he has destroyed in the past. Then they move forward trying to find their next victim, lucky for them it's also spring break and hundreds of horny youngsters have come to the lake.
Piranha 3D is pretty straightforward from the beginning and seems to proclaim that there is absolutely no cliché it will not recur to, no gratuitous boob shot it will let pass and absolutely no degree of political correctness it will respect.
But as the piranhas have a feast of silicone and six packs, there's also a main story we're meant to follow, that of Sheriff Julie Forester (Shue) and her kids Jake (McQueen, as in Steven's grandson), Laura (Brooklynn Proulx) and Zane (Sage Ryan) who get involved in the disaster for quite silly reasons.
Needless to say that revealing more about the plot wouldn't exactly interfere with your enjoyment, it's perhaps best to let the film speak for itself and when you have a fantastically crass Jerry O'Connell as a Joe Francis-like amateur porn producer, you can be assured the film will do lots of, quite dirty, talking.
The cast itself is something the movie should be proud of; Shue is phenomenal and grounded, Rhames is his usual big self and Lloyd is all sorts of insane as a wise ichthyologist.
What the movie does best however, is give its audience exactly what it wants. Just when you think the filmmakers won't push any more buttons, they go ahead and cut a woman in half while paying homage to Titanic and Eli Roth.
In fact it might not even need 3D to work, given that other than for a scene or two there's not much use for the technology (there's a creepy underwater tour that's probably a bit too dark for it to work to perfection). Unless that is, you have made it a purpose to watch tri-dimensional vomit and wet breasts that almost poke your eyes out.
And if you've not had enough nudity and boobs, there's an underwater ballet set to Léo Delibes' "Flower Duet" from Lakmé that will haunt, and probably wet, your dreams.
Unlike recent movies that try hard to win B-movie and exploitation cred, Piranha 3D earns it through the use of cinematic traditions that have remained effective for decades.
As it seems to condemn sex and drinking, it's also using them to boost its own success and does this without even trying to make some sort of political comment or say anything witty about society, it's not that the film is dumb, it's just that it know that besides being bliss, ignorance can also be lots of fun.

Leap Year *

Director: Anand Tucker
Cast: Amy Adams, Matthew Goode
Adam Scott, John Lithgow, Kaitlin Olson

Why are current romantic comedies so chauvinist? Even if they pretend to be about strong, independent women who take the reins of their lives in the face of adversity (which usually comes in the shape of a charming, detestable and often sexy man who they inevitably fall for), the truth is that they serve only as vessels of pent up anger and extreme gender polarization.
In Leap Year, Amy Adams plays Anna, the control freak interior designer with an agenda: marry her boyfriend Jeremy (Scott).
When he presents her with a small jewelry box, before he parts on a business trip, she is sure he's finally proposing; but when the contents of the box reveal to be earrings, Anna takes charge.
She decides she will travel to Dublin and propose to him herself! After all an old Irish tradition establishes that it's acceptable for women to propose to men on February 29th.
So, not only is her empowerment limited by an ancient tradition that happens only once every four years (like presidential elections), it also forces her to act out of pure despair and surrender her self control to irrational behavior.
For starters, you never believe that someone like Anna would take on such an insane enterprise (especially when she's supposed to be on the hunt for a new upscale apartment) but also Amy Adams is just too likable for us to think she's a total bitch like the screenplay suggests.
Then again she obviously isn't flying to Ireland just to be with her boyfriend, she also is meant to meet, hate and then fall for an obnoxious local.
This time it's Declan (Goode) a pub owner who's a bit rough around the edges but has a killer smile and sensitive eyes that capture Anna's heart despite her original mission.
All along of course, it's the woman who seems indecisive, it's Anna who thinks of cheating and flirts with a handsome stranger while her boyfriend cures hearts (he's a cardiologist).
It's only when the movie's ready to give Anna a new male reason to live, that Jeremy's ugly nature begins to surface, but only when the movie's sure Anna will now have a new male figure to torment.
The film gives her a facile Freudian excuse by showing us a glimpse of her dad (Lithgow): an unstable, irresponsible man who made his daughter fear spontaneity and poverty; but when the movie suggests that Anna's materialism in a way will come bite her in the ass, you can't help but realize there's really no way this woman will be able to please this plot.