Love at First Slight:YOUR PLACE OR MINE and YOU PEOPLE

Movies should more often be about beautiful people falling in love. It’s one of the most pleasurable plots cinema has to offer. When a movie can make you root for appealing celebrity performers twinkling with charm to finally get on the same wavelength to swoon and smooch, that’s a magic no effects can buy. I, like most who came of age cinematically in the 90s, have a particular affection for that era’s brand of romantic comedy artifice: high-gloss and high-concept, shot in big bright urban spaces and glamorously implausible apartments, and loaded up with reasonably clever banter and pop montages. When all of that is working at a decent clip, what more could you want? We don’t get that enough these days, especially in theaters where the comedy of any sort is a dying breed, and the rom-com leading the way out to the streaming services. That’s why last fall’s Ticket to Paradise was an oasis in this genre desert. How pleasant an afternoon to sit with an appreciative crowd and watch stars pantomime an inevitable slide in romance. Credit Netflix for trying to keep this sort of movie alive, I suppose, although a decent evening home is no substitute for the crowd when it’s a clear crowd-pleaser on screen. They have two new, prominent ones out now, and they each make for a good watch.

I had an amiable time with Your Place or Mine, the directorial debut of screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna. She’s the voice behind The Devil Wears Prada and Morning Glory, so she knows her way around a charming studio movie of this scale. It stars genre vets Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher as longtime pals who once, in their younger years, might’ve been more than that. They live on opposite coasts, though, and therefore have an entirely call-and-text based friendship. Circumstances contrive to get them to swap houses for a week—he moving into her LA home to supervise her teenage son while she’s crashing in his New York apartment during a business trip. As with Sleepless in Seattle, it makes the most of the continental separation to stretch this romantic tension. But by keeping up their phone chats—in perfunctory split-screen that could’ve used a bit more Pillow Talk cleverness— while settled in the trappings of the other’s routine, they slowly and unknowingly edge back toward their earlier romantic possibilities. Witherspoon and Kutcher can crank up the charm in their voices, even as their eyes sparkle and they slide through the genre’s usual paces. The result is cute and sweet and full of the usual cast of supporting eccentrics of clever friends, oddball neighbors, and other potential partners (Tig Notaro, Steve Zahn, Rachel Bloom, Zoe Chao, Jesse Williams, and more). This is a soft and comfortable version of this sort of movie, with just enough charm to keep proceedings pleasant.

There’s a bit more superficial edge to Kenya Barris’s You People, but it comes around to a satisfyingly sickly sweet sentimentality in the end. It’s the feature debut of the prolific sitcom writer best known for Black-ish, and treads some similar water angling into modern race relations while brushing past class. Co-writer Jonah Hill stars as a Jewish podcaster who falls for a Black Muslim costume designer (Lauren London). Would you believe meeting the parents becomes a rolling social satire once the couple decides to get married? This Apatowian riff on Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner gets most of its comic energies here. Hill’s parents are cringingly well-meaning liberals who are so flop-sweat desperate to appear accepting that they circle all the way around to offensive. Played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus and David Duchovny, they are devastatingly awkward in scenes that stretch their niceties to clumsy outrages on the regular. Even better are London’s parents. Mother Nia Long side-eyes like a pro and jabs with cutting quips. Her father is Eddie Murphy, who can still take a so-so line of dialogue into the stratosphere of hilarity through nothing more than sheer charismatic commitment. In a supporting cast full of funny people (every role, down to the smallest is cast with amusing figures), he’s the biggest reason to see the movie. His constant testing of Hill is a fine, funny skewering, from needling the young man about the title of a rap song to backing him into blustering corners by pressing about the specifics of books it’s clear Hill hasn’t read. The whole thing builds to the mistaken breakups and inevitable apologies and the lovey reconciliation. (And a dance party over the credits, natch.) It errs on the side of sitcom styling, and is gilded with stylistic tics in scattershot establishing shots, but has an ear for honest stumbling conversations that erupt in big punchlines at a good, regular clip. I could imagine a packed theater crowd rolling with satisfied laughter, and maybe sniffling a bit at the finale.

Fresh Prince: COMING 2 AMERICA

In 1988, Prince Akeem of the small fictional African nation of Zamunda came to America, hoping to find a wife. It resulted in an amusing-enough culture-clash comedy that benefited from a star turn from Eddie Murphy at the early height of his powers, and the big budget Hollywood gloss that makes any even halfway decent comedy from the days of shooting on film look just a little bit better than the digital non-style style that passes for big screen comedy these days. Now it’s the latest 30-year-old comedy to get a belated sequel in Coming 2 America. Although this time it’s shot bright and flat like a sitcom, returning screenwriters Barry W. Blaustein and David Sheffield (with an assist from Black-ish’s Kenya Barris) have retained the original charms while dialing back some of the raunch and retrograde gender politics. Director Craig Brewer (not for nothing a better director than the original’s John Landis) finds a mellower key for a surprisingly sweet goof that flips the dynamics in clever ways.

It finds Akeem is now King of Zamunda, but without a male heir. In this male-dominated monarchy, that might cause some trouble about lines of succession, even though his hyper-competent and confident daughters are clearly some fine royal specimens capable of leading. For one thing, they’re all excellent fighters — his oldest is even The Old Guard’s KiKi Layne, so you know she can take care of herself. Still, the King’s hopes for a son are answered by the revelation that he fathered a son off-screen during the last movie. Surprise! (His best friend (Arsenio Hall) vaguely remembers the details.) So the movie’s about a thirty-year-old from Queens (Jermaine Fowler), with mom (Leslie Jones) and uncle (Tracy Morgan) in tow, turning up in the palace somewhat ready to claim his place in the royal family. (Some Princess Diaries crash courses might apply.) Though it threatens to become a loud romp, the movie is more interested in a mellow, low-key vibe, letting family dramas just sentimental enough ring out in a comic key surrounded by some good gags, and even a few musical numbers.

The cast keeps it as pleasant as the design of Zamunda — in retrospect a Wakanda spoof avant la lettre — is pleasing to the eye. They’re decked out in Ruth E. Carter’s finest patterns and styles, a little Black Panther here, tribal patterns, flowing fabrics, and elaborate jewelry there. That these comic performers carry out their silly little bits of business and amusing patter in this stunning wardrobe adds to the charms. Above all, it’s nice to see Murphy back in a comedy that plays to his strengths. It’s a perfect blend of the wilder energy of his early roles and the gentler family fare he aged into. There’s some impish sparkle in his eyes (especially in his under-makeup multiple roles reprising the barbershop jokesters from the first film), and a comfortable fatherly cuddliness to his paternal interests in the plot. And it’s poignant to see his dawning awareness of a need to push back on the patriarchy that forces him to ignore his wonderful daughters in favor of a son he barely knows. Yet best of all, perhaps, is his willingness to cede some of the spotlight to Fowler’s Prince Lavelle Junson of Queens, an appealing performance that’s in a slightly different register from Akeem. He plays the culture clash here, bringing a New York swagger to the formality of the palace. He gets a more earnest rom-com plot as he’s torn between a stunning princess (Teyana Taylor) from neighboring country Nexdoria (maybe too lightly treated for being run by a peacocking warlord (a game, energetically goofy Wesley Snipes) and his child soldiers), a match that might make good political sense, and a more relatable court stylist (Nomzamo Mbatha), who might be better for him personally. It's serious, but cute.

The whole picture is uneven, with some jokes flat and a few conceits a tad under-cooked, but the project has enough charms that I found it hard to resist. Brewer keeps the tone on track, with the simple sitcom staging inviting enough emotional investment without stamping out laughs, which in turn keep the more serious geopolitical allusions at bay. This is a character piece, not a world building endeavor or cultural argument beyond the softly insistent gender balancing. The ensemble is on the same chill wavelength, resisting overt farce for something more relaxed, an amusing and amiable consideration of generational conflict wrapped up in semi-serious stakes for this never-quite-believable kingdom. It honors the original in its throwback appeal—a reminder of a time when a movie could be a couple good star turns, some funny supporting roles, and a simple high concept executed well enough.

Shrek Everlasting: SHREK FOREVER AFTER

All the more disappointing for arriving just two months after How to Train Your Dragon, which soars much higher than any other product every created by Dreamworks Animation, Shrek Forever After is nothing more than a 90-minute curtain call. It’s a joyless exercise in giving a once-promising franchise even less of a reason to exist. Ah, but back in 2001 – nearly a decade, if you can believe it – Shrek seemed so fresh, though computer animation was much younger then, as was I.

Shrek, the story of a giant green ogre (Mike Myers) and his fairy-tale world, is snarky and a little mean, loaded down with instantly out-of-date pop culture references, but I love the way it starts out as a rebuke of the classic fairy tale arcs only to end up conforming to them. Shrek 2, which came along in 2004, is even better. It’s faster, funnier, denser with gags and more ridiculously sublime. With Shrek the Third in 2007, franchise rot began to creep into the foundations. The movie wheezes and creaks more than its predecessors as it pushes a perilously thin plot through a small deficit of jokes. It kind of works, but it’s dangerously close to the edge that the fourth installment tumbles over.

With Shrek Forever After, we’ve left humor and wit far, far behind, along with any reason to care. After all, this is a film with stakes so high that Shrek could not only die, but he could never have existed in the first place. (The plot involves some crazy Rumpelstiltskin scheme that creates an alternate universe wherein Shrek was never born). Despite all that danger to these beloved characters, I simply didn’t care.

Oh, sure, the movie’s animated at the level of quality we’ve come to expect. The voice work from returning cast members Cameron Diaz (as the princess), Eddie Murphy (as the donkey), and Antonio Banderas (as Puss in Boots) is competent. The whole enterprise moves along at a good clip. Missing are invention, joy, and novelty. By now, I’ve seen these characters traipse through so many plots and speak so much banter and snap out so many one-liners that a little more effort is needed to engage me. As appealing as these characters are, they’re no Bugs Bunny or Mickey Mouse. And even those beloved characters were given a variety of things to do in their classic shorts. To watch this fourth Shrek film feels like watching a retread of a retread.

The end credits roll over a selection of clips and images from the previous three films. I suppose it should be a schmaltzy goodbye to a middling-to-good franchise. Instead, it merely points out all the more starkly how better the early films were, and how the series is now twice as long as it should be. The whole thing just made me wish I’d stayed home and rewatched Shrek 2 instead.