Each week, Past the Popcorn offers a thorough look at the latest round of films opening on big screens.

Two high-profile PG-13 comedies make their bow this week… and neither is likely to demonstrate legs at the boxoffice, in spite of the star power attached.

Probably the better of the two is Get Smart, a remake of the TV show with Steve Carell headlining as Maxwell Smart, Agent 86. The storyline has been remade to suit Carell’s everyman-makes-good image, and the Mel Brooks-ian silliness has been supplanted by something resembling a real plot and “meaning.” Despite the “complete lack of chemistry between Carell and Anne Hathaway as 99” and “director Peter Segal’s tendency to let gags run on to a point where they cease to be funny,” says Jeff Walls, Carell’s just enough to make it work.

Mike Myers’ The Love Guru wears out its welcome a little more quickly, says Michael Brunk. “How many penis jokes, urine soaked mops to the face, and grade-school plays on names does one movie need? I don’t know the answer; but whatever it is, The Love Guru is over quota.” Still, he says, “I didn’t find The Love Guru painful to watch. I found enough laughs to feel entertained by the time the closing credits rolled. It was all the wincing at low-brow jokes in between that took the shine off the experience.”

Greg Wright has better things to say about Mongol—even though you might wonder, “Why should we care to see a 126-minute subtitled period film about a 13th-Century Mongolian boy who loses his position of privilege, becomes a slave, escapes, is re-captured, and is then sold back into slavery?” This Russian-German co-production about the making of Genghis Khan is old-school epic filmmaking at its best, Wright advises, along the lines of Lawrence of Arabia. If you’re inclined to see it at all, see it on the big screen.

Mike Gunn also enthuses, in a reserved way, over the merits of Chris Bell’s steroid-use documentary Bigger, Stronger, Faster. Rather than a Michael Moore-ian diatribe, he finds it an even-handed, if sometimes painful and troubling treatment of a complex issue. “The public sentiment” regarding the topic “is ignorant and rabid,” Gunn writes, “and I, for one, am deeply grateful and appreciate Bell’s chutzpah in exposing it.” Both controversial and “intriguing and fascinating,” he continues, the film is one he hopes “that parents will watch it with their children, who are often the biggest losers when it comes to steroids.”

Also in limited release this week: The Animation Show 4… which is NOT for kids.

By: Andy. This entry was posted on Friday, June 20th, 2008 at 5:11 pm and is filed under Film, Film roundup. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.