Cinemazlowski Disney focuses on family fun in new live-action film

Oct 10, 2014

Remember when Disney used to put out a new live-action kids’ movie every month, like “The Cat From Outer Space” and “Escape from Witch Mountain”? But ever since “The Little Mermaid” and “Toy Story,” it seems that all the effort put into making great family films comes from animated flicks.

Thankfully, the new movie “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” is here to save the day, bringing back the sense of gleefully anarchic joy and adventure that’s been mostly missing from live-action family films since “Home Alone.” Starring Steve Carell and Jennifer Garner as Ben and Kelly Cooper, the very happily married parents of four kids, and the very talented young actor Ed Oxenbould as their grade-school son Alexander, the movie follows what happens when Alexander makes a wish about his family that goes really, really wrong.

Alexander’s always prone to bad luck and mishaps, and wakes up with gum stuck in his hair, and has a day filled with disasters the day before his birthday, including the news that the coolest kid in school is going to throw his own birthday party the same night and steal all their friends’ attention. But Alexander’s birthday is also momentous for the rest of his family:  his older brother Anthony is having both his drivers’ test and his prom and his sister Emily is about to make her debut as Peter Pan in the school play, while Ben has a big job interview for his best opportunity in seven months of unemployment and Kelly has to decide whether to accept a promotion that would make her spend too much time away from her family.

But when the family won’t listen to him share his frustrations at the dinner table, Alexander makes himself a birthday cupcake at midnight and wishes that everyone in the family could for just once have a bad day too. What results is a wildly funny series of mishaps that include Emily getting buzzed on cough syrup, Anthony having a disastrous driving test, Ben making an extravagant fool of himself in a busy restaurant mid-interview and Kelly racing across town on a bicycle to keep Dick Van Dyke from reading an embarrassing mistake in a children’s book she edited in front of a packed room of kids.

Oh, and it gets even worse from there.

While it’s impressive that all this action takes place at a whiplash pace within just 81 minutes, making the movie almost breathlessly entertaining, what’s truly impressive is that it’s so positive and refreshing on so many levels. The parents actually love each other, the kids love their parents rather than being know-it-alls or brats, and no matter what happens and how bad things get, their troubles always manage to bring the family closer together.

The only thing that’s remotely objectionable in the movie is a brief moment in which mom Kelly says “Ok I’ve seen your penis, I’ve seen the penis of everyone in this car” after her oldest son Andrew is mortified that she walks in on him as he’s toweling off after a shower. Of course, viewers never see anything other than the bathroom door opening and the mom and son screaming at each other.

But while this dialogue is questionable, it is so brief exchange will be quickly forgotten and should absolutely not be of enough concern to keep parents from enjoying this with their children. The entire cast is hilarious, energetic and loving, and director Miguel Arteta doesn’t hit a false note amid all the craziness.

I highly recommend supporting a movie like this, because if it’s a deserved success, there will finally be more movies like it – great family movies with recognizable human beings having fun but treating each other with proper love and respect. See this movie, and you’ll have a terrific, hilarious, all good and very great time.