Shawn Levy
191 connections found
Filmography
The Adam Project 2022 
Just Married 2003 
Free Guy 2021 
This Is Where I Leave You 2014 
Real Steel 2011 
Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb 2014 
Date Night 2010 
Night at the Museum 2006 
The Internship 2013 
The Pink Panther 2006 
Deadpool & Wolverine 2024 
Cheaper by the Dozen 2003 
Big Fat Liar 2002 
Star Wars: Starfighter 2027 
Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian 2009 View:
Connections, in both directions
While its setups and theme of finding individuality might remind you of “The Truman Show,” “Pleasantville” and “Groundhog Day,” it plops them at the center of something fresh: video games.
He avoids a repeat of his snarky, look-at-me Deadpool humor and nails a new kind of sweet naivete that's not unlike that of Will Ferrell in Elf or Jim Carrey in The Truman Show .
Assuming no one in the audience remembers The Truman Show , writers Zak Penn and Matt Lieberman simply slide the concept from reality television to video games and throw in some mock-amazed one-liners for Reynolds to deliver in his trademark high-pitched tone.
Competently combining elements of The Lego Movie, The Truman Show and Groundhog Day with a Grand Theft Auto-style open world video game, Free Guy is the latest filmic vehicle to rely heavily on the shtick of star Ryan Reynolds – who also acts as producer.
Some may have already noted the similarities between Free Guy and The Truman Show, but more importantly, it reminds me of Ben Stiller’s take on The Secret Life of Walter Mitty with Guy becoming an unlikely hero, and that’s what makes Free Guy quite heart-warming on top of the multiple levels of humor.
While the film is naturally inspired by a whole host of video games and its plot tiptoes into The Truman Show and Wreck-It Ralph territory, this is a fully original beast and lord knows we don’t see those all that often during this time of the year.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
influenced The Adam Project (2022), Night at the Museum (2006)
Themes
It was nice to see some homages to some of the kids/blockbuster films from the 80s and 90s with references to E.T. and Independence Day, to name a few.
The kind of risk which family-friendly film The Adam Project shares along the same lines as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), The Last Starfighter (1984), and Flight of the Navigator (1986), pushing the bounds of the PG-13 rating in its action set pieces, character interactions, and narrative themes to feel a touch more like Timecop (1994) from time to time.
The many hilarious jokes and endearing scenes between the two Adams feel absolutely effortless, and are made even more enjoyable to watch by exciting sci-fi nostalgia that pays homage to cult films like Back to the Future , E.T. , Star Wars and Star Trek .
He referenced the sense of awe that moviegoers felt after they saw E.T. for the first time.
The Adam Project is a love letter to classic family sci-fi movies from the 80s like E.T. and Back to the Future with nods to them scattered throughout the film.
Not so much the Indiana Jones movies but the likes of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial , Back to the Future , and The Goonies .
As it turns out, Real Steel, directed by Night at the Museum’s Shawn Levy, borrows so much from other films that it might better be titled Reel Steal: not only from The Champ, but from Rocky, the Transformers movies and even some Star Wars.
The story -- which draws inspiration from "Rocky," "Over the Top," "Pokémon" and Fred Savage's "The Wizard" -- is set about 15 years from now.
The match between the two machines, billed as the biggest thing in boxing since the Rumble in the Jungle, is the climax of Real Steel, a futuristic Rocky set in the world of robot wrestling.
The filmmakers owe a lot to the "Rocky" movies - the big final fight borrows strategy liberally from Balboa/Lang II - but at least they steal from the good ones.
There's really no excuse for Real Steel, a Frankenstein contraption made up of spare parts from middle-American fairytales like Field of Dreams and underdog sports intrigues starting with Rocky , I guess, and building all the way through to junk like The Rookie and any number of films just like it that appear with what seems like annual reliability.
Long time comedy director Shawn Levy (“Date Night,” “Big Fat Liar,” “Night(s) at the Museum”) takes on sci-fi and boxing with his robotic homage to “Rocky.”
The story -- which draws inspiration from "Rocky," "Over the Top," "Pokémon" and Fred Savage's "The Wizard" -- is set about 15 years from now.
If you’ve seen Over the Top, then you know the petulant son and reluctant dad are bound to bond over the sport of choice, and nothing in the screenplay – credited to three writers and loosely inspired by a Richard Matheson short story – deviates from the underdog blueprint in the least.
He certainly should, and by the boatload, given the way in which Shawn Levy’s sci-fi robot-boxing film apes not only Rocky’s underdog-makes-good trajectory and in-ring finale, but also Over the Top ’s dynamic of a father making amends with the son he abandoned by beating the athletic odds while driving across expansive, picturesque country in a big rig.
Since Jackman's character drives a big truck and is trying to get acquainted with his son, I was reminded of the father-son-bonding/arm-wrestling movie Over the Top.
So Real Steel falls somewhere near the intersection of elation and shame, essentially reworking the Sylvester Stallone arm-wrestling non-classic Over The Top for the equally ridiculous sport of android fisticuffs, and mostly getting away with it.
For better or worse, the trailers set up the film as a shot-for-shot remake of Sylvester Stallone's "Over the Top," except with fighting robots instead of arm wrestling.
There’s also a loving tribute to the Fox-era with an end-credits montage that celebrates their 20 year slate from X-Men (2000) through to The New Mutants (2020).
Deadpool & Wolverine is the third installment of the Deadpool series and stars Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, who reprises his role from the X-Men franchise.
Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is dead, as told in Hugh Jackman's last X-Men film, Logan.
Marvel Studios' Deadpool & Wolverine is a movie close to 25 years in the making, ever since Hugh Jackman first donned the black leather suit and adamantium claws to play Wolverine in 2000's X-Men. While Ryan Reynolds was a more recent addition to 20th Century Fox's X-Men franchise, he became so synonymous with the Deadpool character that I'm certain I'm not alone in believing he would be nearly impossible to recast.
Reynolds has been playing Deadpool since 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine, so this isn't the first time that him and Hugh Jackman (Faraway Downs) are teaming up as their famous characters — but, again, it is the first time in the MCU.
A similar change happened to the most recognizable member of the X-Men, Wolverine. Back in 2000 when the original X-Men film was released, Hugh Jackman was essentially a nobody. Since then he’s become a superstar of the highest caliber.
Feeling equal parts Wreck-It Ralph and The Lego Movie , there’s an inspired concept at play that fully integrates the audience into a world primarily seen by people absorbed into whatever open-world online game they enjoy via console or PC.
Whether through a lack of originality or a desire to minimize the exposition in a movie whose elevated concept could’ve gotten unnecessarily complicated, the opening minutes of “Free Guy” borrow heavily from both “Deadpool” and “The Lego Movie,” as Reynolds wryly narrates the rules of his world: In “Free City,” the “sunglass people” are the heroes (represented here by a self-deprecating Channing Tatum), while everyone else are NPCs, blithely going about their “lives” in an endless, uninteresting loop (a “Groundhog Day” conceit that lifts still more DNA from other films, including last spring’s game-based action comedy “Boss Level”).
I am not a gamer but watching this reminded me of a mixture of the innocence of Emmett from The Lego Movie and the fun of the recent Jumanji reboot.
Like The Lego Movie, the existence of a real-world outside the fantasy world adds another layer that gives far more depth to Free Guy’s high concept, and it’s also one of the film’s frequent saving graces.
But the misappropriation doesn’t stop there; much of the setup is lifted directly from “The LEGO Movie,” with main character Guy’s introduction containing direct repeats of LEGO avatar Emmett’s daily routine.
The movie makes a feeble attempt to say something satirical about online gaming and something critical about the evils of capitalism, but every idea is borrowed from so many other sources (from Wreck it Ralph to The Lego Movie) that you couldn’t find a trace of originality with a microscope.
A big clue: Billy persists in evoking the 1983 movie “Flashdance” when making what he thinks are inspirational speeches, a cultural reference that draws mostly blank stares from the other interns.
This comedy bumbles out of the gate with a screenplay given to frequent dumbness and obsessions with 1980s pop culture references, mostly to do with Jennifer Beals' onstage shower in "Flashdance."
And he does seem stuck in 1983, so obsessed is he with the film ‘‘Flashdance.’’
Unlike the raunchy Wedding Crashers, it's rated PG-13 instead of R, it avoids the strain of mean-spiritedness that's in vogue in modern comedy, and its leads are now more comfortable making jokes about 1953's Stalag 17 and 1983's Flashdance than anything from the brave new world of 2013.
After all, how heartless do you need to be to lay down cash for the opportunity to smugly look down upon two fading stars groveling for the last crumbs of stardom in a predatory movie that feeds off the picked-over bones of “Flashdance” and Alanis Morissette?
While its setups and theme of finding individuality might remind you of “The Truman Show,” “Pleasantville” and “Groundhog Day,” it plops them at the center of something fresh: video games.
Whether through a lack of originality or a desire to minimize the exposition in a movie whose elevated concept could’ve gotten unnecessarily complicated, the opening minutes of “Free Guy” borrow heavily from both “Deadpool” and “The Lego Movie,” as Reynolds wryly narrates the rules of his world: In “Free City,” the “sunglass people” are the heroes (represented here by a self-deprecating Channing Tatum), while everyone else are NPCs, blithely going about their “lives” in an endless, uninteresting loop (a “Groundhog Day” conceit that lifts still more DNA from other films, including last spring’s game-based action comedy “Boss Level”).
Competently combining elements of The Lego Movie, The Truman Show and Groundhog Day with a Grand Theft Auto-style open world video game, Free Guy is the latest filmic vehicle to rely heavily on the shtick of star Ryan Reynolds – who also acts as producer.
Whether it’s the Groundhog Day meets The Truman Show set up or a finale which is beat for beat reminiscent of the similarly derivative Ready Player One , it doesn’t try to break new ground.
While it pays homage to the likes of Groundhog Day and The Truman Show in inventive new ways, there are a few too many occasions it skips a beat and rushes into moving the story along (Guy gains sentience extremely quickly, arguably robbing Free Guy of the chance to make that and other moments land harder).
By cobbling together elements of The Truman Show, Ready Player One, Groundhog Day, and (especially) The Lego Movie, Free Guy employs a premise that’s in danger of becoming overused but has enough fun with the concept that the viewer can’t help but enjoy the ride (a least for a while).
And inadvertently set off a “North by Northwest” chain of events that gets them mistaken for lowlifes, and pursued by other lowlifes.
Yes, it shamelessly rips off everything from “The Out-Of-Towners” to “After Hours” to “North By Northwest,” but who cares?
The movie borrows a device straight out of Hitchcock's "North by Northwest."
Unfortunately for Phil and Claire, their impulsive act leads to a case of mistaken identity straight out of Alfred Hitchcock: As in North by Northwest and Saboteur (to name but two), good people find themselves running from dangerous villains while trying to clear their names and escape with all vital organs intact.
In the process, of course, their romance is rekindled from a smokey ember to a burning fire; it's basically North by Northwest cut together with Mr. & Mrs. Smith (not the Hitchcock one).
But before you can say North by Northwest, the Fosters are confronted by two thugs (Jimmi Simpson and rapper Common) who assume that they're the other couple, threatening to kill them unless they give up a flash drive that supposedly contains sensitive information.
And when a case of mistaken identity spirals out of control, they soon find themselves on an adventure that is part "Out of Towners" and part "After Hours," with a soupçon of "The Warriors'" urban odyssey.
Such screwball antics worked for Martin Scorsese in After Hours, but Levy, despite the wit and chemistry of his leads and a killer line-up of cameos (James Franco, Mark Ruffalo, Mila Kunis), manages to make the whole thing feel like a one-season sit-com crammed onto a DVD.
Each crazy step in the bizarre plot made a certain sense because it followed from what went before; it's like the Scorsese masterpiece " After Hours ."
At its best, the movie reminded me of dark comedies from the 1980s like Something Wild and After Hours (or, for a more recent comparison, Pineapple Express ) but it doesn't have nearly the edge of those films.
Date Night, which superficially resembles Martin Scorsese’s After Hours, is too soft to go for the turbulence roiling under this tamped-down marriage.
It’s comedy ground that has been trod before in films like The Out of Towners (1970) and After Hours (1985).
It’s Tron for the Xbox generation with the existential questions of Total Recall and The Matrix.
Rather than developing its own personality, the film struggles to shake the clear influence of other projects like “The Matrix,” “Ready Player One,” and even “The Truman Show” while also dropping in actual gaming and pop culture references with increasing regularity.
There are a couple of moments when screenwriters Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn seem almost willing to do that—at one point, Guy becomes an inadvertent sensation within the game by scoring points by doing good deeds instead of raising hell, inspiring others to do the same and threatening the very notion of the game—but almost as quickly, they retreat from the ideas that they raise, more content to simply graft together bits taken from “The Matrix,” “The Truman Show,’ “Ready Player One,” “Tron” and any number of other films before the dopey over-the-top climax.
It helps considerably that besides enlisting a hopelessly appealing cast (led by Ryan Reynolds and Jody Comer) and meticulous direction by Shawn Levy (TV’s Stranger Things), screenwriters Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn copiously — and gleefully — crib from some of the most crowd pleasing films of all time, including Groundhog Day, The Truman Show, Tron, What About Bob? and The Matrix…not to mention Penn’s own Ready Player One and Reynolds’s own Deadpool.
It’s Ready Player One mixed with The Matrix mixed with They Live mixed with The Truman Show mixed with Wreck-It Ralph mixed with…you get the idea.
As it turns out, Real Steel, directed by Night at the Museum’s Shawn Levy, borrows so much from other films that it might better be titled Reel Steal: not only from The Champ, but from Rocky, the Transformers movies and even some Star Wars.
Now, you can make a pop lunacy Happy Meal psychedelic mind destructor like the "Transformers," but that's only if you're Michael Bay, and if you're Michael Bay, you're too busy buttoning and unbuttoning your shirt in front of a mirror right now to read this.
This is basically a more restrained version of the robot fights in the Transformers films, which, while they’re done better here than in those films, still doesn’t make for a compelling concept.
Yes, it's intrinsically all quite goofy (imagine trying to watch this with a straight face before the success of the "Transformers" flicks), and Levy near completely botches the big final match between Atom (and, essentially, Jackman's character who's controlling him in "mirror mode" thus necessitating Jackman to pretty much fight the bout) and the resident, high tech and undefeated champion named - what else -- Zeus (I guess all of the Decepticon names were already taken).
There's that "Transformers" inspiration, of course, with a heavy dose of Rock'em Sock'em Robots thrown in.
Based "in part," according to the opening credits, on the 1956 short story "Steel" by the great Richard Matheson (the story previously inspired a 1963 episode of "The Twilight Zone"), "Real Steel" represents a canny welding of the state-of-the-art effects and boy-and-his-robot relationship of the "Transformers" films with the hoary sentiment of the tough guy-reformed-by-cute kid stories that have been a staple of motion pictures since the silent era.
Even this little bit of plot synopsis should be enough to alert you to the many movies “Real Steel” draws on – “Rocky,” “Star Wars,” “ Transformers ,” “The Champ,” “Seabiscuit.”
In what might be viewed as an attempt to show geek cred, it gamely references numerous touchstones: Harry Potter (there's a game of quidditch), X-Men, Game of Thrones, Star Wars, and so forth.
There are certainly myriad issues however, from the ceaseless, not particularly funny pop cultural references (“Star Wars,” “Big Bang Theory,” “Harry Potter,” “X-Men”), to the down-to-the-second predictable structure, to the excruciating use of pop music.
“Flash Dance,” “Star Wars” and “The Fly” are recurring memes throughout.
80s references are stupid… unless they’re about “Star Wars,” and suddenly the early-twentysomethings claim credit for that as well.
On a campus where “Star Wars” and Harry Potter are the appropriate cultural touchstones, Billy’s inclined to give old school pep talks about “that little steel-town girl, Ally” (“Flashdance”) and reassure a troubled colleague, “I’m your Bill Holden in ‘Stalag 17.”
There are plenty of references to previous MCU movies and non-Marvel movies, i.e. George Miller’s Mad Max franchise. The set piece for the villain’s headquarter seems to be modeled after the apocalyptic saga and Deadpool even makes a direct reference to the female heroine at one point.
Reynolds' quips make it clear that the resemblance to George Miller's Mad Max terrain is entirely intentional.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Directed by James Cameron
influenced Real Steel (2011)
Visuals Characters
On the other side of standard montages, a nonsensical culture-clash conflict between an African-American wheeler-dealer (Anthony Mackie) and a thuggish cowboy (Kevin Durand), and imagery borrowed from Terminator 2 (Max and Atom mimicking each other’s movements in the rural outdoors) and Robocop (Atom examining himself in a mirror), a showdown lurks with Zeus, a killer titan run by a cartoonish Brigitte Nielsen wannabe (Olga Fonda) and a Japanese technician (Karl Yune).
Dakota Goyo's performance as Charlie's stubborn offspring reminded me of Edward Furlong in Terminator 2 - a little bratty but not precious or cute.
Blessedly, it forgets that it's taken pains to suggest this, thus sparing us the unpleasant, Terminator 2 voiceover that Atom is a father who wouldn't run away, wouldn't sleep, and wouldn't ever hurt him.
Flight of the Navigator (1986)
Directed by Randal Kleiser
influenced The Adam Project (2022)
Themes Plot
The kind of risk which family-friendly film The Adam Project shares along the same lines as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), The Last Starfighter (1984), and Flight of the Navigator (1986), pushing the bounds of the PG-13 rating in its action set pieces, character interactions, and narrative themes to feel a touch more like Timecop (1994) from time to time.
With shades of Back to The Future and Flight of the Navigator, The Adam Project truly is a total wonder to behold.
Add a dash of Flight of the Navigator and Race to Witch Mountain and you have a formula for a fantastic movie night.
The Adam Project is very much Back to the Future meets Flight of the Navigator with a talented cast and some heartfelt moments sprinkled in.
Reminiscent of ’80s favorites like Flight of the Navigator , The Last Starfighter , or *batteries not included , this heartwarming adventure is a lot of fun.
Feeling equal parts Wreck-It Ralph and The Lego Movie , there’s an inspired concept at play that fully integrates the audience into a world primarily seen by people absorbed into whatever open-world online game they enjoy via console or PC.
The obvious points of reference are “Wreck-It Ralph” and “Ready Player One,” the two most successful films about life inside a game’s reality.
While the film is naturally inspired by a whole host of video games and its plot tiptoes into The Truman Show and Wreck-It Ralph territory, this is a fully original beast and lord knows we don’t see those all that often during this time of the year.
I’m not referring to the myriad direct film adaptations including the Resident Evil , Lara Croft or Street Fighter films, but rather such labored cinematic meta-commentaries on virtual worlds as Tron , Wreck-It Ralph and Pixels .
Other stale ideas seem appropriated from Ready Player One , Wreck-It Ralph , and Groundhog Day , which by now must be one of the most ripped-off films in history.
Ejemplos perfectos son Wreck-It Ralph , Ready Player One , Edge of Tomorrow y ahora Free Guy , el nuevo estreno de 20th Century Studios, protagonizado por Ryan Reynolds y Jodie Comer.
Wedding Crashers (2005)
Directed by David Dobkin
influenced The Internship (2013), Real Steel (2011), Night at the Museum (2006)
Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, hoping no doubt to recap their “Wedding Crashers” vibe, reteam in “The Internship.”
It’s as if Google resolved to pay Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson a few million dollars to reprise their Wedding Crashers characters for a corporate video about salesmen who teach the company’s whiz kids a thing or two, then decided the line separating advertising and entertainment was slippery enough that Google might as well turn that conceit into a full-length film.
It may reunite “Wedding Crashers” stars Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, with a setup that mirrors that of “Old School,” the adults-in-college laugh riot that starred Vaughn and Wilson’s brother Luke, but “The Internship” is more of a standard fish-out-of-water comedy, while also owing something of a debt to the snobs vs. slobs comedies of the 1980s.
Ever since Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson charmed us with their buddy comedy antics in Wedding Crashers, people have been wondering if these two stars would ever reunite again to rekindle the hilarious fire that once was.
The inclusion of several laugh-out-loud funny interludes perpetuates the movie's engaging vibe, and it does, in the movie's early stages, seem as though The Internship is going to top Wedding Crashers, Vaughn and Wilson's first comedic pairing, in terms of entertainment value.
…eight years on from Wedding Crashers , the pair successfully rekindle their irascible shtick.
But in my defense, that is only because I very early on got attached to thinking of it as a stupider version of the already stupid Robot Jox , on account of the earlier film having a similar premise (in the future, the most popular sport is matches between battlebots...) with an even higher concept behind it (...that are fighting World War III by proxy!).
In a tale predicated on the surpassing of man by machine, Real Steel doesn?t engage in the same?it?s what a publicist might describe as an ?effects movie with heart.? Robot Jox jokes aside, gladiatorial animatronics are of secondary concern here.
The kind of risk which family-friendly film The Adam Project shares along the same lines as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), The Last Starfighter (1984), and Flight of the Navigator (1986), pushing the bounds of the PG-13 rating in its action set pieces, character interactions, and narrative themes to feel a touch more like Timecop (1994) from time to time.
Take “The Last Starfighter” (1984) and “Back to the Future (1985)” and mix them with a healthy dose of father-son relationship angst, a trademark of Levy’s films at this point, and what you have is “The Adam Project.”
Reminiscent of ’80s favorites like Flight of the Navigator , The Last Starfighter , or *batteries not included , this heartwarming adventure is a lot of fun.