IN THE DARK REVIEWS

For this week’s “In the Dark” column, I’m reviewing two weeks of the Shelton’s free-admission movies in the city’s Movies in the Park series — for July 21, “Holes” from 2003, and for July 28, “Shrek” from 2001. Both start around 8:30 to 8:45 p.m. on Fridays in Kneeland Park. For next week’s column, I’ll be doing a double-decker review of Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” and Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” both of which are scheduled to premiere that same weekend.

Since Michael Bay’s first “Transformers” film in 2007, I’ve wondered what filmmakers saw in Shia LaBeouf, but after finally watching “Holes,” I get it.

He remains insufferable in “I, Robot” from 2004, “Constantine” from 2005 and especially “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” from 2008, but in “Holes,” Shia LaBeouf is perfectly cast as the genuinely lovable hard-luck hero Stanley Yelnats IV, who acquires the nickname “Caveman” from his newfound peers, after a twist of fate sees him convicted of a theft he didn’t commit, and sentenced to dig holes in a juvenile detention camp in the middle of a remote desert.

Like Frank Darabont’s “The Shawshank Redemption” in 1994, the grim and seemingly limiting premise of “Holes” probably discouraged a number of prospective viewers from discovering an absolute gift of a film, for which Louis Sachar wrote the screenplay, based on his own 1998 young adult novel.

For as much as modern young adult novels are inclined to try and front-load entire epic sagas of backstories into becoming the next multimedia franchises to dominate the pop culture landscape, Sachar weaves a rich historic tapestry out of a forbidden frontier romance, a defiant female outlaw, a literal buried treasure chest and the worst family curse this side of the House of Atreus, without ever borrowing from ancient Greek, Roman or even Norse myths, and without resorting to a dystopian future whose highly regimented social structures recall adolescent cliques.

Which is not to say that “Holes” doesn’t speak the language of aggressively crude, hot-tempered teen and tween boys, who brawl and posture for dominance among themselves, but ultimately show solidarity against the cruelty of their adult captors.

As much as Sachar sets a gold standard for fictional world-building, “Holes” also relies on an insanely qualified cast, all of whom clearly understood what a multifaceted gem of a story they were working with, from Henry Winkler as Stanley’s hapless inventor dad, and Eartha Kitt as a vengeful old-world fortune-teller, to Patricia Arquette and Dulé Hill as ill-fated Old West pioneers, and the sinister trio of Jon Voight, Tim Blake Nelson and Sigourney Weaver as the sketchy crew who runs the detention camp, with mysterious ulterior motives and a reckless disregard for the kids in their care.

Let the layers of this one unfold like a flower, because whatever your age, it’s worth your while.

Which brings us to “Shrek,” whose in-your-face gross-out antics are well-suited to the tastes of younger audiences, while its more adult innuendo is just barely obscured by the fig leaf of going over a lot of kids’ heads.

What’s ironic about all the ways in which “Shrek” codes as an anti-Disney screed — from its shameless appropriation of multiple famous fairy tales, to its send-ups of the Disney theme parks’ militant cleanliness and traditional “It’s a Small World” chorus, all the way up to the unflattering resemblance between the villain Lord Farquaad (voiced by John Lithgow) and former Disney CEO Michael Eisner — is that Disney as we know it now arguably wouldn’t exist without “Shrek.”

Well before Disney acquired Marvel in 2009, “Shrek” beat the Marvel Cinematic Universe to the punch, by borrowing from the most recognizable public domain fairy tales, which Disney has made its bread and butter, and shoving them all into the same setting.

Perhaps more importantly, “Shrek” presaged the tone of the MCU, by having its fairy tale characters comment on their own genre tropes as irreverently as Marvel’s onscreen superheroes have done in the MCU, especially in the wake of “Guardians of the Galaxy.”

For this and a number of other reasons, “Shrek” should feel more dated than it does. And yet.

Although the CGI animation did a yeoman’s job of capturing the facial expressions of Lithgow as Farquaad, Cameron Diaz as Princess Fiona, Eddie Murphy as Donkey and Mike Myers as Shrek, in ways that allowed the real-life actors’ personalities and performances to shine through the data-processing, the more human the characters were meant to be, the more flat their physical movements came across.

And just in case you’d forgotten this movie was made during the turn of the millennium, between the late 1990s and the early 2000s, the “Shrek” soundtrack includes Smash Mouth’s “All Star” and John Cale’s version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” along with hip, contemporary references to “Riverdance,” the macarena and Carrie-Anne Moss’ midair “bullet time” spin-kick as Trinity in “The Matrix.”

As much as I might talk smack, it still works, because not only are all the actors ideally suited to their roles and firing on all cylinders, but it’s also just undeniably, viscerally appealing to see the characters in a trope-bound genre, like fairy tales, choosing to pitch the traditional script for what “should” happen straight out the window, especially when the one character who demands order and obedience gets done away with in a deliberately undignified manner (minor spoilers).

However much Mike Myers might have fallen out of favor since “Shrek,” his mock-Scottish accent actually works here. You’ll feel for his filthy ogre, because like he says, he’s like an onion. He’s got layers.

Following the “Barbenheimer” blitz next week, you can expect reviews for the remaining “Movies in the Park,” which are:

■ Aug. 4: “The Mighty Ducks” from 1992, starring Emilio Estevez and Joss Ackland.

■ Aug. 11: “Space Jam” from 1996, starring Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny.

■ Aug. 18: “Back to the Future” from 1985, starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd.

Author Bio

Kirk Boxleitner, Reporter

Shelton-Mason County Journal & Belfair Herald
[email protected]