From Darling Bud to wilting flower

Movie critic John Keogh takes a look at The Rebound and Toy Story 3.

The Rebound
DIRECTED BY: Bart Freundlich
STARRING: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Justin Bartha, Megan Byrne
CERT: 15A
Another week, another bland romantic comedy limps into the cinema, bypassing the video store bargain where it should have been sent, to sit on the shelf till someone takes it home for a gawk because all the actual comedies are out.
This one stars Catherine Zeta-Jones and yes, I was surprised to read that name too. I thought she’d retired to become Michael Douglas’s part-time accessory and full-time nurse. But no. Maybe she’s just retired from making decent films.
Anyway, here she is playing Sandy, the model suburban mommy whose perfect little life goes up in smoke when she finds her perfect suburban hubby getting more closely acquainted with one of the neighbours.
So off she goes to Manhattan to start over, her two kids in tow. Soon, she’s found herself the perfect city life and a nanny for the kids into the bargain though since it’s not a girl but a boy, should he be called a manny? Someone should look into that.
The manny, Aram Finklestein (The Hangover’s Justin Bartha) works at the local coffee shop, where he and Sandy strike up a friendship and he ends up looking after the little ones on a regular basis.
He also ends up falling for their mother and she kind of likes him too. But she’s in her 40s with a family and he’s only a young fella. The age difference is what the whole thing is supposed to hang on but it’s hard to give any kind of serious consideration to whether or not they’ll make it, when all that keeps going through your mind is, “Sure why not? The lead actress is married to her grandfather!”
If you must insist on going, there is the occasional snigger to be had, Jones and Bartha do have some genuine chemistry and the kids can be a charming little pair.
But with a vanilla script and not an original thought in sight, the result is mostly just pointless noise.

Toy Story 3
DIRECTED BY: Lee Unkrich
VOICES: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Michael Keaton, Joan Cusack, Ned Beatty
CERT: G
It’s a shocking 11 years since Toy Story 2 and 15 since the original arrived from the new Pixar stable and kick-started a new era of animation. The world and technology with it, has kept moving in the years since and simply as an animated feature, Toy Story 3 is bringing nothing new to the party now. But there’s still a story to finish and the fine thing about the chaps at Pixar is that story has always been as important as their visual genius.
Since last we saw him, the boy Andy has grown up and is heading off to college and his mother is insisting that he sort out his room and clear the place of his junk. That includes his old toys, long forgotten now, though he does have a soft spot still for Woody (Hanks).
So he packs the cowboy to bring to college and sends Buzz Lightyear (Allen), Rex (Wallace Shawn), Hamm (John Ratzenberger) and the rest of the gang to a day care centre, where the toys find new children to play with them and more often than not, terrify the lives out of them.
They also make new acquaintances in Lotso (Beatty), a seemingly jolly pink bear and Barbie’s boyfriend Ken (Keaton), who helps to run the show and has a fondness for tiny shorts. Speaking of which, they also get to know the uppity Mr Pricklepants (Timothy Dalton) and a character called Big Baby, who may just be a tad out of place in a kids’ movie.
And the old buddies might have settled in nicely, only things get serious down in Playtown when a certain huggy bear starts to show his true colours and so Woody must ride to the rescue again.
This might not be the timeless classic that we hoped, but it’s pleasure in itself simply to see these guys back in action and it’s a bonus that Toy Story 3 is a fine piece of entertainment. The writing is sharp, the laughs are good and the new characters are mostly an excellent addition to the posse, especially Michael Keaton’s Ken.
It’s not without its emotional moments, either and though the ending is fluffed, it will still bring a tear to the eye. It hardly needs to be said that the movie looks great and while the 3D is used effectively, it certainly isn’t necessary to watch this with funny glasses to enjoy a great show.