The Sitter [Blu-Ray]

If you thought The Sitter looked like Adventures in Babysitting with Jonah Hill, you?re on the right track. Take away some of the reasoning behind the premise, add a bit of School of Rock grown-up-to-kid-style humor, a handful of cute children, and plenty of Jonah Hill and what you get is an occasionally funny movie with a solid cast but not enough story or character development to really make it anything beyond an okay comedy.

The Movie:

Directed by David Gordon Green, The Sitter stars Jonah Hill as Noah, a suspended college student who?s in a rut, living with his mother and seeing a girl named Marisa (Ari Graynor), a barely-girlfriend who?s using him for whatever attention he?ll give her. As a favor to his mother, Noah agrees to babysit three kids. When Marisa begs Noah to pick up some cocaine for her and meet her at a party in the city, Noah agrees, bringing the kids with him. Naturally, mayhem ensues.

The biggest problem with the movie is the set-up. Why is this guy bringing three children into the city? Going into the city to buy drugs for a girlfriend who barely cares about him seems like a stupid thing to do on its own. Add three children to the mix and it really doesn?t make any sense. Since it?s kind of hard to get around that notion, the movie barely holds up. But it does have some redeeming qualities, among which are Sam Rockwell, Jonah Hill, and the three kids (Max Records, Landry Bender, and Kevin Hernandez).

Each of the kids have their own set of problems, and as Noah is actually a decent guy (with proven bad decision-making skills), he tackles them throughout the night. Slater (Records) has some emotional issues he?s trying to sort out. Blithe (Bender) is reckless and obsessed with celebutantes, and adopted child Rodrigo (Hernandez) disregards authority and likes to blow stuff up with cherry bombs. All three kids are cute and play their roles well. There?s also good chemistry between the actors and Hill, which really makes me wish there were a better story on which to hang these characters? relationships. Sam Rockwell adds value to just about anything he?s in, and as the unstable drug dealer Karl, he definitely has some funny moments. But, again, it?s not enough to carry the film.

An appreciation for Jonah Hill is a requirement to get through The Sitter, but that?s probably a given. His character, like the film itself, feels a bit underdone and isn?t really set up enough to deliver a satisfying conclusion. In the end, what we get is a movie that never quite reaches its potential. I almost wish they had actually just aimed to remake Adventures in Babysitting with Hill as the lead, rather than going with the story they did for The Sitter. Given the cast and some of the humor, with a slightly more believable set-up The Sitter might have actually been a decent comedy. Instead, it falls just short of being average, offering some laughs and cute moments, but not much else.

The Disc:

The ?Totally Irresponsible Edition? offers two discs, one of which is the Blu-ray, which includes both the theatrical and unrated versions of the film. The other is the DVD, which contains the theatrical version of the film and a digital copy of the unrated version of the movie.

This set doesn?t go overboard with bonus features. There?s no commentary, but you will get a number of behind-the-scenes looks at the film, including a gag reel, a making-of segment, and a funny featurette that shows Jonah Hill the producer, whose responsibilities apparently include humorous interactions with the parents of the kids. Additional bonus content includes extended scenes and an alternate ending.

It all amounts to an amusing assortment of content, none of which is especially exciting or substantial, but which offers a few reasons to laugh and allows us to get to know the cast, including the talented kids, a bit better.

Distributor: 20th Century Fox Home EntertainmentStarring: Jonah Hill, Sam Rockwell, Ari Graynor, Max Records, Landry Bender, Kevin HernandezDirected by: David Gordon GreenWritten by: Brian Gatewood, Alessandro Tanaka

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Jack and Jill [Blu-Ray]

Attempting to figure out what is at the very heart of what does not work with Jack and Jill is a difficult task. It?s as damn near impossible as trying to hold onto a person with moist hands as you are slowly slipping off a precipice. The problem seems to be that there is nothing underlyingly wrong with Jack and Jill, a comedy that builds its foundations out of a realistic premise: two siblings that don?t connect and cannot understand one another at all. Unlike the precipice thing, which is stuck dealing with extenuating factors, Jack and Jill could have been a whole lot better had creators been able to pursue characters with a bit more humanity and jokes that did not fall flat.

The Movie:

Jack and Jill?s issues begin with the miscasting of Katie Holmes, continue through 91 minutes of arduous cross-dressing appearances and pointless, star-powered cameos, and end without having produced anything remotely close to a storyline. Regardless, I?ll give explaining the story a go. Adam Sandler plays Jack, a struggling advertising executive who really needs to land a new deal featuring the one and only Al Pacino. When his annoying and oblivious twin sister Jill (also Adam Sandler) visits, Jack decides he needs to land socially inept sister with a man. Eventually Al Pacino actually takes a liking to Jill, and Jack spends a good part of the movie trying to hook them up in different environments so he can shoot his commercial.

Katie Holmes plays Sandler?s wife, Erin, but she is the straight woman in the group, there more to prove Jack has a stable family life than to provide any real comedy. So Sandler and director Dennis Dugan look to the kids to supply many of the cheap laughs in the household, notably the boy, Gary (Rohan Chand), an adopted child who makes wizened comments while taping random items to himself.

When not focusing on Kids Say the Darndest Things zingers, Jack and Jill relies on comedians and famous faces to bring in a little jazz. Admittedly, the jazz works some of the time. I never mind seeing Norm MacDonald pop up for a scene or two and some of the cameos are amusing, although non sequitur, surprises. Ultimately, the don?t prop up the other missteps, but they are not the worst thing the movie attempts.

Speaking of stuff that does not add up, in the end, there is a halfhearted attempt to explain that family is family, and we all need to come through for that family, even when we may not like that family very much. Watching Jill, the only character that is even partially fleshed out in Jack and Jill, we find one of the most outrageously unlikeable family members to ever grace a movie screen. Jill consistently misconstrues movie titles, she doesn?t know what Skype is, and she likes to ride kiddie rides at carnivals. In the end, though she may be unlikeable, she is still part of that loosely connected web known as family and she, too deserves a little happiness. It?s not Adam Sandler?s rendition of Jill that fails so sorely here, but all of the crap we are put through to get her there.

Jack and Jill is not an example of Sandler trying something new and failing. It?s yet another example of Sandler failing to find the balance between stupid nonsense and interesting and clever characters we?d like to watch. Adam Sandler is and has always been into some weird and over-the-top comedy, and just because this one fails to hit the right mark, it does not mean Sandler and Dugan are losing their touch, because they have always been about goofy, falling-down humor. Despite completely despising this movie, I still did not find it worse than Little Nicky, and that movie was made when people were still behind Sandler?s twisted visions. In the time since, Sandler is still doing Sandler, it?s just that sometimes the pieces manage to land together a little better, and sometimes, as in Jack and Jill, they don?t.

The Disc:

The first extras are the movie?s deleted scenes. Some of the scenes are brand new and some of them are early versions of scenes that later ended up in the movie. One deleted scene even features an advertisement from Shaq. Many of the deleted scenes are actually fairly suggestive, and while I hope they were cut due to poor taste, it seems more likely they were cut to fit the PG rating.

An outtake reel follows, in which Pacino proclaims, ?This is a ludicrous mess? and Sandler lovingly intones, ?But that is why people are going to love it.? Right. This movie did not make back its production budget, people. Other segments include ?Look Who Stopped By,? which spotlights some of the many cameos appearing in the film; ?Stomach Ache?; and ?Don?t Call It A Boat -- Royal Caribbean," which is about the cruise scenes.

Honestly, the disc is put together really nicely. The picture looks great, the menu is easy to maneuver through, the disc automatically offers playback if you stop play mid-movie, and there are many extras that pack a lot of punch. If Jack and Jill weren?t such an absolute assault on the senses itself, I would highly recommend the Blu-Ray set. So, if you liked the movie, I say go for it.

Jack and Jill [Blu-Ray] DetailsDistributor: Sony Pictures Home EntertainmentStarring: Adam Sandler, Al Pacino, Katie HolmesProduced by: Todd Garner, Jack Giarraputo, Adam SandlerWritten by: Steve Koren, Adam Sandler, Ben Zook

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We Bought a Zoo [Blu-ray]

Cameron Crowe is my favorite writer/director. Well, he was through 2000 when he made the amazing Almost Famous. Then things started to go not so well. Vanilla Sky was ambitious but flawed and Elizabethtown in 2005 was, well, not very good. But he?s got the goods and I like what he does, generally. So the only reason I would even consider watching a family friendly movie called We Bought a Zoo is because Crowe is the co-writer and director. He makes this movie better than the premise deserves to be, but it?s not fantastic.

The Movie:

I?m not sure how much plot explanation is needed for a movie called We Bought a Zoo. It sorta says it all right there, doesn?t it? The ?we? in this case is a family headed by Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon), a journalist who is dealing with the recent death of his wife and trying to raise his bitter 14-year-old son, Dylan (Colin Ford), and insanely cute and mature-beyond-her-years daughter, Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones). Dylan steals and draws dark and violent pictures in school, ultimately getting expelled. While looking for a new place to live and a ?new start? Ben and Rosie come upon the perfect house. Only catch, it comes with zoo! Yeah, it shocked me, too.

Crowe uses all his old tricks of dreamy cinematography with spot-on original music and cues from famous songs of the '60s and '70s. He also brings more realism to the whole project -- it?s based on a true story in England -- than you might expect. It?s not a wacky ?fish out of water? story, although it incorporates some of those elements. The heart of the movie is Ben?s relationship with his kids, his skeptical brother (Thomas Haden Church), and the zoo?s workers lead by Kelly (Scarlett Johansson). Again, Crowe resists the urge for a full-blown romance/misunderstanding/reconciliation with Ben and Kelly's flirtation, allowing the attraction to build more naturally.

Not that there aren?t missteps. The character of Rosie is just too unbelievable. I mean, obviously it?s possible for kids to be as darn cute as she is, but the level of maturity and knowingness rings false. As do the general eccentricities of the other zoo workers (Patrick Fugit, Angus Macfayden, Carla Gallo), and a secondary relationship between Dylan and Kelly?s cousin (Elle Fanning). Also, Crowe falls into the trap of not wanting to end a movie that is clearly over. After a big inspection with a curiously hostile inspector (John Michael Higgins), a natural ending place and a good 105 minutes into the movie, the film adds another crisis that seems to exist just to pad the running time.

The performances of the leads, especially Damon, and the way the movie handles the subject matter put this above the usual romantic, odd-situation comedy. You feel that while this may not be the way it really happened, it's close to how real people would handle the situation. It?s funny and family-friendly to boot.

The Disc:

There is a surprising amount of extras on the We Bought a Zoo Blu-ray combo pack. It includes both a DVD and an electronic copy of the film. The picture and sound quality are very good and the cinematography is better than you would expect from a family/animal movie. There is even a ?family-friendly? audio track that cuts out the couple of curse words.

Director/co-writer Cameron Crowe leads a commentary that includes editor Mark Livolsi and actor J.B. Smoove. Smoove?s presence is a head scratcher. He has a brief, and funny, scene as the real estate agent who sells Benjamin the zoo. The character is memorable, but it?s a very brief scene at the beginning of the film and then he?s never seen again (well, except for about three seconds at the very end). Crowe notes that Smoove is being included to make the commentary more exciting, and he does add some funny comments. Unfortunately, he gets a bit tiresome after a while and it distracts from the information provided by Crowe and Livolsi. If he?d been there for just the first 30 minutes or so, it might have gone better. There is one riff near the end about taking off and buying glasses that is just deadly to listen to.

The main featurette is ?We Shot a Zoo.? Not only is that a clever title, but the 75-minute extra is pretty well done. Shot in a Crowe-like style, it?s a bit more arty than that usual behind-the-scenes stuff. It?s also in-depth, covering not just the filming, actors, and the like, but the real Benjamin Mee, the development of the story, and the construction of the zoo ?set? on an empty ranch. The transformation is mind-boggling.

There are 35 minutes of deleted and extended scenes. None are particularly earth shattering, but a few show the set-ups for payoffs that remain in the film but aren't as clear without the extra information provided by the deleted scene.

The other extras are 20 minutes on the film?s composer, Jonsi, a member of the Icelandic band, Sigur Ros. It?s clear Crowe loves this band, as he mentions it often. Like ?We Shot a Zoo? this is a bit artier than the usual featurette and shows a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff involved in scoring the film, along with a conversation/interview between Crowe and Jonsi. There is also a slightly more traditional 30-minute documentary about the real Benjamin Mee. It covers the actual zoo and the challenges that come with living at and running a zoo without a zoological background. The extras are wrapped up with a trailer and a gag reel that?s pretty funny.

It doesn?t blow the doors off the joint, but We Bought a Zoo is a good movie. It?s especially adept at presenting a more realistic portrayal of a pretty out-there situation. It?s not a complete return to the Cameron Crowe of the '90s, but it washes the Elizabethtown taste out of your mouth. And mentioning El Cajon, Escondido, and other San Diego locales is a bonus.

We Bought a Zoo [Blu-ray] DetailsDistributor: 20th Century Fox Home EntertainmentStarring: Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson, Thomas Haden Church, Patrick Fugit, Elle Fanning, John Michael HigginsProduced by: Julie Yorn, Rick Yorn, Cameron CroweWritten by: Cameron Crowe, Aline Brosh McKenna

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Sound Of My Voice

In a basement, tucked away somewhere in the monotonous Southern California suburbs, there is a woman dressed in white who claims she is from the future. That's the irresistible pull of Sound of My Voice, the tiny indie film that caused a huge stir at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011 and comes to theaters, by way of Fox Searchlight, this weekend. Directed on virtually no budget by Zal Batamanglij from a script he co-wrote with the star, Brit Marling, it's a tiny, incisive movie that worms its way inside you and devours, expertly building tension and dread as it navigates the audience through its central mystery. Focused on its razor-sharp execution and ideas rather than its characters, the movie is more of an intellectual wallop than an emotional one, but when it quite deliberately ends on a cliffhanger, you have no choice but to ask for more.

Quite ambitiously for first-time filmmakers, Batmanglij and Marling have said they planned Sound of my Voice as a trilogy, and the further you get into this lean and engrossing film, the more their detailed world-building emerges. We first enter this mysterious basement alongside Peter (Christopher Denham) and Lorna (Nicole Vicius), who are infiltrating the cult led by Maggie (Marling) as investigative journalists-- though we don't know that yet. Intead Batmanglij takes us through the arduous ritual of meeting Maggie, from scrubbing you entire body with soap to being handcuffed and blindfolded, then performing an elaborate secret handshake while locking eyes with the aged hippie (Richard Wharton) who is Maggie's right-hand man.

When the woman herself enters, speaking partly in encouraging platitudes and partly about her own disorienting experience of traveling more than 30 years into the past, Maggie is magnetic and instantly alluring-- though Marling's performance is aloof and hard to read, Maggie has the clear, powerful charisma of all history's great cult leaders, and that power somehow only grows the more we get to know her. Peter and Lorna are naturally skeptical, and Maggie never explicitly proves she's come from year 2054, beyond making vague and foreboding promises about a coming war, and how her followers must prepare for the disasters to come. Batmanglij and Marling cannily avoid giving us a definitive answer, but they also take advantage of the moviegoer's natural desire to see something new-- we want to stick with our main character, Peter, and align with his skepticism, but when faced with a presence as powerful as Maggie and this movie, we're also inclined to believe.

The natural frustration of seeing a film intended as the start of a trilogy-- with no guarantee that those follow-up films will be made-- is that it cuts the engine just as it's built up the proper amount of speed. Maggie's world is fascinating and complex, but to keep the story simple Batmanglij gives us only hints-- a lesson in shooting guns for Lorna, an indoor greenhouse, Maggie's cigarette habit-- while focusing on the fractures in Peter and Lorna's own relationship. When the finale ratchets up tension and then abruptly cuts off, we're not only left in the lurch about Maggie's identity-- which is a secret fine to keep-- but Peter and Lorna, our main characters torn apart by a plot also left resolved. For a movie so small and frequently intimate, Sound of my Voice can lose track of the people inside it, and it's a surprise to find something so elegant can also feel a little hollow.

And yet, you'll be glad for the time you spent with Maggie, and with Batmanglij and Marling-- who also co-wrote and starred in Another Earth-- as independent filmmakers who see money as no obstacle on the way toward expressing big ideas. If the second and third Sound of my Voice films get made, they'll hopefully contain the same incisive filmmaking style and ambitious ideas-- with maybe a little more character texture to round things out.

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The Avengers

At my screening of Marvel?s The Avengers, the audience couldn?t wait until the end of the film before erupting in applause. In the midst of a massive action sequence in the third act of the story, the entire Avengers team, including Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye, and Black Widow, assembled on screen and seeing them together was too amazing to ignore. It was a tribute to how entertaining the film truly was; a reaction to a wonderful payoff moment built up by well-crafted characters, witty dialogue and a thoroughly thrilling script. And I won?t be surprised if happens again and again once the movie is released worldwide.

A direct sequel that follows the events of the previous Marvel Universe movies, the film begins when Loki (Tom Hiddleston) finds his way back to Earth and steals the Tesseract ? an alien source of pure energy ? and threatens to enslave the human race with the help of his extraterrestrial army (called the Chitauri). Seeing no other option, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), the leader of the covert government outfit known as S.H.I.E.L.D., assembles the team of superheroes known as The Avengers (Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner) to stop Loki?s plans.

Rather than creating an uneven mix or trying to focus more heavily on any one specific character, writer/director Joss Whedon has constructed The Avengers as a balanced ensemble. In addition to everyone getting at least one great action sequence, all of the characters are fully fleshed out and given an arc to work with, whether it?s Captain America?s struggle to adjust in the modern world, Thor?s guilt about his brother, Iron Man?s ego and single-mindedness, or Hulk?s fear of his own power. Even Black Widow and Hawkeye, who were largely minimized in their previous appearances, are fully fleshed out and provided with backstories that give us a better understanding of their characters.

As fun as the other Marvel movies have been to this point, the action sequences have operated on a small scale, and The Avengers does more than compensate. Seemingly taking on a philosophy of ?go big or go home,? the action is not only pure spectacle, but perfectly paced and shot by Whedon, who makes frequent cuts so that we can see everything that?s going on with the different heroes. The final battle sequence between the superhero team and Loki?s army is better than all of the action in the other Marvel movies combined and multiplied by ten. It earns the buildup from all the preceding films by being the most epic title we?ve seen with these characters yet.

Over the course of his career, Whedon has become well known for his smart characters, quick wit, and emotional gut punches, and this film will only serve to bolster that reputation. Though never even coming close to spoof territory, the movie is actually very funny, both in dialogue (such as Captain America actually recognizing a pop culture reference from The Wizard of Oz) and physical humor (most notably a confrontation between Hulk and Loki). Though a tiny bit off towards the beginning, the pacing of the film quickly comes together as the writer/director is able to both tell the story he wants to tell and mix in multiple high-tension fight and action sequences.

As a lifelong comic book fan, I walked into The Avengers with the highest hopes and deepest fears. A little over two hours later, as the credits began to roll, I turned to the friend sitting next to me, smiled and exclaimed, ?They actually did it!? What Whedon and Marvel have created here is not just extraordinary, but one of the most entertaining and satisfying comic book movies yet.

For our To 3D or not to 3D guide to The Avengers, go Here.

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Lockout

Early on in Lockout, a team of special forces know-it-alls are debating how to solve a very particular kind of hostage crisis, in which the President's daughter is trapped in a jail that's in the middle of a mutiny, and that jail happens to be in space. The men are debating all kinds of solutions, SWAT teams and bombs and all that, until one particularly smart one pauses and says "Or? we could send in? one man."

That line is one of many make-or-break moments in Lockout, when you can decide as an audience to laugh at its audacity and keep going, or to shut down entirely to this movie's macho, hoo-rah appeal. The charm here is a little thinner than some of the other brash action movies to come from producer Luc Besson's hivemind-- it's no Taken, despite the presence of Maggie Grace as the kidnap victim once again, and it's missing the blunt-force dynamism of District B13. But it also has a trump card in the form of Guy Pearce, who unleashes a growling, muscular id as disagreed government agent Snow sent in to rescue the FIrst Daughter because he's got nothing left to lose. In his best scenes he makes Lockout feel special and vibrant, but when he's gone, the movie can be a surprising slog for something so silly.

For starters, it's a shame to see a futuristic sci-fi world so boring, in which Grace's character Emilie holds up the day's news on an actual piece of electronic paper (have they gotten rid of iPads?), and an early chase scene in the subway reveals trains as grimy and dysfunctional as the ones we have now. Directors James Mather and Stephen St. Leger are operating off a small budget, but a little more imagination could have stretched that money a lot further-- the sets and costumes and general vibe of Lockout feel like all the sci-fi of the past 20 years blended into an indistinct mud.

It's only the people wandering around those sets, working their way around the borderline incoherent dialogue, who give Lockout any spark. There's Pearce's gruff Snow, of course, equipped with round after round of one-liners and a disdain for Emilie that barely coalesces into the expected romance. There's Lennie James's Shaw, who chows down on nuts constantly and directs Snow on his prison-rescue mission with some one-liners of his own. And a lot of the prisoners themselves make an impression, with Joseph Gilgun going all bug-eyed psycho as Hydell and Vincent Regan leading the revolt with a terrifying presence as Alex. Every one of these characters can feel overwritten or frequently lost in the murk of the story, but each have their standout moments as well-- if you don't think too hard about how much more fun they could have been in a better movie, of course.

It's not one big flaw of Lockout that dooms it, but a bunch of small, slowly accumulating ones, from dialogue that leaps right over on-the-nose into complete nonsense to brazen plot holes, like a giant sign flashing "Nitrogen Warning" that nobody in the tiny room notices until it's too late. One of the central action scenes is almost identical to one in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, but executed far less thrillingly, and though the entire finale operates with a ticking clock in the background and crazy convicts after our heroes, there's no sense of urgency or drama. After starting with a funny, dynamic interrogation scene in which Snow has a retort for every punch, the air slowly drains out of Lockout-- a fun premise killed by a thousand cuts of slack direction and not a single original idea.

With a plot cribbed so closely from Escape From New York and such a frequent disregard for character motivation, logic or even the laws of gravity, Lockout is pure schlock in the usual Besson mode, but it never picks up enough steam to turn into something outrageous and great. Pearce's performance is both things, and if nothing else Lockout is a strong argument for him to take on more charismatic leading roles-- he comes so close to rescuing Lockout that who knows what he might do in an actual good movie. He's almost reason enough to catch it, but be prepared to be frustrated that the rest of the movie isn't nearly up to his level.

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Chimpanzee

Really good nature photography is a special effect that never gets old, especially when the camera is trained on creatures or climates inaccessible to the rest of us. So for all of Chimpanzee's faults as a people-pleasing Disney "documentary" hellbent on building a kid-friendly narrative, it contains enough stunning footage of the chimps and their jungle habitat to remain engrossing, even while it's insulting your intelligence.

Cribbing a bit too much from classic Disney narratives like Bambi and The Lion King to feel believably true, Chimpanzee chooses as its hero Oscar, a young chimp living in a pack of about 35 in the jungles of? well, it's never said where in Africa they are, but the credits mention Ivory Coast and Ugandan crews, so let's go with that. Through Oscar we learn about chimp rituals of grooming and playtime among the young ones, plus the intense bond between Oscar and his mother Isha, who teaches him how to crack nuts and forage for berries and all the other necessary chimp life lessons. Eventually we're introduced to a rival gang led by--no kidding-- a chimp named Scar, with a "mob" of "thugs" determined to cut into the territory of Oscar's crew.

This shameless setup of an antagonist is against pretty much everything more honest nature programs will tell you, and the careful focus on Oscar and his mother vs. Scar and his aggressive males outrageously tips the scales, giving no indication that Oscar will likely grow up to be an aggressive male himself. The cornball, jokey narration from Tim Allen is generally acceptable under the "kids will like it" clause, but every time he refers to Scar and company in menacing tones, it eliminates any sense of Chimpanzee as authentic. The photography makes up for a lot of it-- particularly sped-up shots of growing fungi to give a sense of nature's authentic menace-- and directors Alistair Fothergill and Mark Linfield clearly know their way around the jungle. But the lack of nuance is maddening if TV programs like Planet Earth or Frozen Planet have taught you to expect more.

A twist late in the film leads Oscar to an unexpected, and actually authentic, relationship with another chimp in his tribe, and that serendipitous bit of reality makes Chimpanzee worth it-- in the credits the filmmakers talk about how moved they were by the moment, and it's clear this is something they, and we, are lucky to witness. And Oscar himself is undeniably cute, his tight relationship with his mom undeniably touching, and the chimpanzee rituals undeniably fascinating-- with no embellishment from Allen or the directors needed. Chimpanzee gets credit for avoiding the obligatory "and here is how we are destroying this habitat" ending, and for giving the camera over entirely to the chimpanzees and their stunning world. But when a crew is given such incredible access, then masks it with lowbrow narration and a overly simple story, it's something of a waste-- even kids are up for something a little more sophisticated.

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