NewsTaco

By Tyler Stevens, The Young Folks

Not far into Trouble With The Curve, Clint Eastwood kicks over a table and grumbles at it in his old man way, “B***h.” First time screenwriter Randy Brown and first time director Robert Lorenz probably thought nothing of it on the set, nor in the process of editing. But it’s the most memorable moment of this film. That’s not only a statement on how forgettable this good-hearted sports-drama venture is, but it’s a testament to the wonderful irony that is Clint Eastwood talking to an inanimate piece of furniture. People will laugh in theaters across America when the film opens on September 21, I guarentee it. Trouble WIth The Curve follows Clint Eastwood’s Gus Lobel, an aging scout for the Atlanta Braves who suffers from a poor relationship with his daughter and ailing eyesight. When sent down to North Carolina to scout an up-and-coming hitter, his daughter tags along, forcing them to try to make amends, and scout out players together.

There’s talent at play in the cast of this film, and that’s an odd thing for me to comprehend. Each and every one of the leading players in this movie has been in fantastic movies (even Timberlake, i.e. The Social Network) and I have to question the attraction each and every one of them had to this Lifetime movie-esque script that seems to stuff as many cliched plotlines into one hour and fifty minutes as it possibly can. First off, we have the living legend, the hottest thing in the news nowadays it seems after he talked to a chair at the RNC, Clint Eastwood. While Eastwood is fine in the film, and it’s often funny just to see the grumpy way in which he composes himself, his character isn’t much beyond grumpy old man. The same is said for the serious, determined, business-like woman with hidden daddy issues that Amy Adams plays, and I’m not sure Timberlake had more than one dimension in his character at all. The good thing, however, about all these characters, is the fact that they are all elevated 100% beyond Lifetime movie-level bad because there’s geuninely great actors in the roles here, you even have John Goodman showing up. Why? No clue, but he’s there, and he’s good. Adams, Eastwood, and Timberlake are all good too, as they usually are, but it’s the flat characters and dialogue that really drag them down. However, they manage to keep them up more than other actors probably could. If there’s one thing fantastic about Trouble With The Curve, it’s the casting agent.

I’ve already hinted at my issues with the plot here, but now I’ll spell them out for you.Trouble With The Curve seems to have trouble with telling a story that we haven’t seen before, so instead, it takes about four or five that we have seen before, cuts them to down to the essential, or just bare bones, moments and hands it to us with an uninteresting visual palette. The stories presented here include: dealing with a deceased spouse/mother, father-daughter estrangement issues, a straitlaced girl meets a wild card guy, an old man facing retirement, and an underdog baseball story. These plots are all ones that we have seen before, and we know how they go. It’s actually incredible that Trouble With The Curve hits each and every story beat for each one of them and manages to still make it feel like nothing consequetial has really happened by the end of this movie.

Unfortunately, paired with a weak story is a rather weak script, with flat dialogue that even the talented actors at the helm of their characters can’t heighten. In the end, Trouble With The Curve won’t go down as the worst movie of the year, and it certainly won’t get anywhere near the best. It’ll just be kind of there, unacknowledged, and not particularly special. Just show me Clint talking to a chair again.

FINAL GRADE: ★★★★ (4/10 stars)

FINAL SAY: Though elevated by talented actors in the leading roles, Trouble With The Curve is a sappy melodrama weighed down by flat dialogue and a multitude of cliched story-lines. 

Trouble With The Curve will arrive in theaters on September 21.

This article was first published in The Young Folks.

 Tyler is 14 years old and lives in Southern California. His passion has always been for film. He’s been reviewing movies for over a year-and-a-half now under the title “Movie Kid Reviews” on his Facebook and is thrilled to now be part of The Young Folks team. Whenever he’s not doing schoolwork, Tyler is probably at the movies, reviewing one he just saw.  His hobbies include acting, screenwriting, directing, debating, and mock trial. His goal in life is to be a writer-director.  You can contact him at tyler@theyoungfolks.com.

By Catherina Gioino, The Young Folks

One-liners. .. Chuck Norris. Boom, done, you got the idea.

The movie started with the Expendables in a predicament, being followed and attacked by Nepali kidnappers after saving a Chinese business man and Trench (Arnold Schwarzenegger). We get some funny one-liners in between, meet Liam Hemsworth, and get to see Bruce Willis boss Sylvester Stallone around. Church (Willis) gives Ross (Stallone) a seemingly easy mission and a safe cracker named Maggie (played by Nan Yu). The team is surprised she’s a woman (hence why she’s named Maggie) and they decide to follow through with the mission.

Trying not to give it away, someone from the Expendables dies, and we meet Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme). Vilain flies away with the contents of the safe, and it’s up to the Expendables to find him. They travel to Russia, find themselves in a simulated New York (think of Indiana Jones 4, where he’s in Area 51 but it’s meant to look like a regular town) and they again are attacked. The audience cheers in applause as Chuck Norris strolls (no, literally, strolling along shooting people with one hand) in, to the theme of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Anyway, I have to say the movie was better than the first one. For me, I thought the first one tried too desperately to get a few laughs and there barely was an essence of a villain. In this one, the innuendoes made it memorable. It’s funnier when you think about it, since Willis, Stallone and Schwarzenegger are actually friends and co-owners of Planet Hollywood, so they’re actually having conversations about real life in the movie. It was very hilarious when Chuck Norris (the sole reason I was dragged into seeing this) even said a Chuck Norris joke with a straight and serious face- I was once bit by a King Cobra snake, and after 5 dies of agonizing pain, it died. It was even better when they make fun of their past movies- you have a few Die Hard references for Willis, a Rambo and Rocky reference for Stallone, numerous Terminator references and numerous mixed martial arts references for most of the cast (since they mostly are experts in martial arts, and even a football reference for Terry Crews).and we meet Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme). Vilain flies away with the contents of the safe, and it’s up to the Expendables to find him. They travel to Russia, find themselves in a simulated New York (think of Indiana Jones 4, where he’s in Area 51 but it’s meant to look like a regular town) and they again are attacked. The audience cheers in applause as Chuck Norris strolls (no, literally, strolling along shooting people with one hand) in, to the theme of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

But there still were a few problems with the film. For one, sometimes you couldn’t clearly hear what the cast was saying (Think about Bane for The Dark Knight Rises, you could understand the topic what he was saying, but not exactly), due to the massive screaming and gun shots in the background. Also, there were barely any conversations in the movie, just a bunch of one-liners. (But noted, they were right for the movie.

Well, the movie gets a ★★★★★★★ 7/10 since it was pretty entertaining, but it still was a movie that passed the time between fights and jokes.

Here’s the trailer, and since there’s going to be a third film, who do you think will be great to star in the film? My picks? Clint Eastwood, Mr. T, Steven Seagal, and Harrison Ford. Come on- they’re all the right age.

This article was first published in The Young Folks.

Catherina is a 15 year old kid in New York City that pretty much knows everything about any movie. She writes screenplays in her free time, is a huge Kevin Spacey, Tina Fey, and Quentin Tarantino fan. She is known to randomly connect a moment with a movie. She writes for her school paper and is also part of her school soccer team, softball team, track team, math league, Italian culture club, drama club student council executive board and head altar server. You can contact her at catherina@theyoungfolks.com