sloopydrew Reviews

The Incredible Hulk (2008)

For the fanboys

[6/10 · 17 June 2008]

Rebooting a franchise that was unsuccessfully rebooted only 5 years prior seems to be an incredible risk, but The Incredible Hulk proves that Marvel knows their material better than Ang Lee. While Lee's Hulk was a more ambitious, creatively daring picture, it just wasn't the Hulk fans know from the comics. The Incredible Hulk, on the other hand, is as comic-book as a comic-book movie can get. That's not to say it's the best comic-book movie ever made (far from), but by the time it's over you'll be tempted to wipe quad-colored ink from your fingertips.

This is a big, loud celebration of the green behemoth and all the toys that he loves to smash. The first action sequence featuring Hulk himself is one of the better staged action scenes of the summer -- if not the year. The hulking hero is introduced to us just right. He's an angry monster in the shadows. A glimpse of something moving in split second sprints caught only by your peripheral vision. His introduction had me thinking Hulk as a horror movie may be the best idea ever. But that would, once again, go against the Hulk fans know from the comics.

This movie is nothing if not fan service. Stan Lee shows up (in more ways than one). Lou Ferrigno has a memorable moment. They even manage to work in a cameo for deceased actor Bill Bixby. If you're a die-hard fan of the comics and don't like this movie, you accidentally stumbled into Sex and the City.

Marvel goes as far as to make the same mistakes as they do in the comics -- the climax is too hectic to be enthralling and the last 20 minutes are as busy setting up a sequel, a spin-off and a crossover as they are a decent finale to a once entertaining movie. Still, complaints aside, this is a fun movie for the fans and this review could have been just as easily summed up in 2 words: HULK SMASH!

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008)

Rough around the edges

[6/10 · 17 May 2008]

Prince Caspian expands on the battles in the book; turning them from a few pages long into 30 - 45 minute epic fights that borrowed more than a little from The Return of the King. While competently choreographed -- this is far from the cinematic epic the overreaching soundtrack wants you to believe that it is.

The movie is entertaining, but rough around the edges. The editing is poor and one scene in particular should have been removed entirely as it does nothing for the film, outside of extend its already substantial length.

Is it better than The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe? That all depends on your stylistic preferences. If you're the wonderment, fairy-tale, unlimited Turkish Delight type you'll prefer the first Narnia. If you're a darker, sword and sorcery fan you'll consider Prince Caspian the better movie.

Both were worth the price of admission, but both left me feeling like they were one script doctor, soundtrack and/or director away from being the perfect fantasy movies they could have been. That said, Prince Caspian certainly warrants a bucket of popcorn and a fun Sunday afternoon at the theater with the family.

The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

Revolutions turns into your standard Hollywood action movie - big on explosions, small on brains.

[4/10 · 5 November 2003]

Andy and Larry Wachowski have written and directed themselves into a hole. The original Matrix was an intelligent and refreshing science-fiction film. The Matrix Reloaded was a rehash that pretended to be intelligent by spewing out a bunch of fortune cookie philosophies and a series of unanswerable questions meant to keep the diehards believing that this moneymaking venture was leading to something meaningful. The Matrix Revolutions drops all pretenses and turns into your standard Hollywood action movie - big on explosions, small on brains.

An advantage Revolutions has over Reloaded is with its characters. Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), in particular. For some unknown reason, Morpheus became this sort of Jesse Jackson meets Yoda type character in the second film. He was boring and pretentious. It looked as though his face would crack if he even attempted to smile. In the third film, with his faith in The One shaken, he's a far more human character. By the end, he becomes almost likable. At the same time, Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) has become even more egocentric and out of control. He makes for a wonderful bad guy, and Weaving does an excellent job of upping-the-ante in the third film, to give the audience the feeling that Smith is a real threat that needs to be stomped out, at all costs. His performance adds a level of tension to the film that it almost doesn't deserve. It also makes the final confrontation between Smith and Neo, this one labeled the "Super Burly Brawl," far more exciting than the Burly Brawl in Reloaded. Sadly, it can't save the battle between Christ (Neo) and the Anti-Christ (Agent Smith) from an unsatisfying ending.

The ability to avoid looking for the answers is the only way you'll be able to enjoy this film. If you turn your brain off for The Matrix Revolutions in the same way you would for Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, you'll have an okay time. But the Matrix trilogy was supposed to be the exception to the big-budget rule. Instead of turning your mind off, these movies were meant to make you think. If the questions asked in Reloaded were actually answered in Revolutions, this could have been an incredible film. Sadly, newsgroup predictions of what would happen in The Matrix Reloaded, typed out by hardcore fans of the series, have been more interesting than what the Wachowski brothers eventually came up with.

House of the Dead (2003)

The game was scarier!

[3/10 · 11 October 2003]

If you really want to laugh at massively junky filmmakers turning out a massively junky film - this is your movie! Personally, I'd recommend dusting off your Dreamcast, locating your lightgun and shooting zombies to your heart's content. You'll have a better time than you will with this tepid film.

Malibu's Most Wanted (2003)

This film should be right up your alley

[5/10 · 20 April 2003]

Spoiler Alert If you don't know the difference between "hip hop" and "IHOP," let me recommend that you save the chips you intended to spend on Malibu's Most Wanted and use them to attend this week's other worthwhile comedy release, A Mighty Wind. While both comedies focus on music, you don't need to know a damn thing about folk to get some solid laughs out of A Mighty Wind, but you do need to have at least an elementary knowledge of the current and past hip hop, rap and gangsta scenes to consider Malibu's Most Wanted to be "off the hizzook." So if you don't know rap from a deliciously stuffed french toast dispensary, stop reading here: you're going to inevitably disagree with this review. If even the thought of a hardcore rapper from Malibu elicits giggles, continue reading: this film should be right up your alley.

In Malibu's Most Wanted Jamie Kennedy (Scream, Scream 2, Scream 3, The Jamie Kennedy Experience) plays Brad Gluckman, but would prefer it if you called him "B-Rad." In a plot reminiscent of Tommy Boy, yet another lowbrow comedy that I enjoyed, B-Rad is an embarrassment to the family business, which this time is politics. The twist in Malibu is that, unlike the father to Chris Farley's Tommy, played with gusto by Brian Dennehy, B-Rad's dad, Bill Gluckman (Ryan O'Neal) does not approve of his son's lifestyle.

Bill Gluckman is running for Governor at the same time that Brad "B-Rad" Gluckman is running to be the first upper-class white "gangsta" from "the 'Bu." The two cultures clash and the senior Gluckman is convinced that he has to find a way to scare the black out of his Caucasian coffee-shop hangin' boy not so in the 'hood. The elder Gluckman's campaign manager Tom Gibbons (Blair Underwood) puts together a plan to have B-Rad snatched up by two "real" original gangstas, who will take him on the ride of his life by exposing him to the seedy underbelly of rap deep in the heart of Compton.

Convinced that this is the next best thing to having each of B-Rad's phat rhymes surgically removed from his brain, Bill Gluckman agrees with the plan. The only problem? The wanna-be Governor and his manager wouldn't know an original gangsta from Will Smith and end up hiring two unemployed actors that they feel fit the part due to nothing more than the color of their skin. The scheming couple winds up with Sean (Taye Diggs) and P.J. (Anthony Anderson), two of the whitest black men you'll ever see.

Once B-Rad is picked up and brought into the ghetto, Sean and P.J. wind up being the ones afraid and B-Rad turns out to love it. Comical hi-jinks ensue, some of them spot-on funny, and others as mind-numbing as those featured in director John Whitesell's horrid See Spot Run. Ironically, it isn't Whitesell's mediocrity behind the camera that nearly kills this comedy as much as the film's PG-13 rating.

A movie about hardcore rap needs to have some hardcore language to be believable. Especially when Snoop Dogg makes his appearance. It's obvious that the film was largely self-censored in its attempt to get the PG-13 rating that it finally received.

Jamie Kennedy succeeds in making a watered-down B-Rad a likable character, and I found myself laughing throughout the entire 90 minutes just thinking that the life of B-Rad is probably closer to Eminem's real life past than the life of Bunny Rabbit was in Em's own film, 8 Mile. Taye Digg's performance as Sean is tailor made for a PG-13 film, on the other hand, and he delivers in spades. I'm still waiting for Diggs to make it into the world of super-stardom. He proves that he's a superb actor in every film that he's been in (as long as you ignore his gig in last year's New Best Friend).

Although most people will have predicted the sappy ending before even watching the beginning, the comical performances throughout the film and the farcical premise of the movie make it a moderately fun ride getting there. Last year at this time, I would have leaned toward giving this film a negative review. This year, after the glut of culture-clash "comedies," bad enough to unify all cultures in a sick sort of nausea, Malibu's Most Wanted plays like A Midsummer's Night Dream.

Bulletproof Monk (2003)

More bad jokes than a Jerry Lewis telethon ...

[3/10 · 20 April 2003]

If you're a fan of the wire stunt type stuff made famous in America by The Matrix, and made famous in Hong Kong dozens of years earlier by dozens of films superior to The Matrix, you will consider Bulletproof Monk to be one of the best films ever made ... for the first ten minutes. The beginning showdown between Chow Yun-Fat and his mentor on a rope bridge is incredible. After his victory on the bridge Yun-Fat is declared by his mentor as ready to protect the ancient scroll which can bring absolute power to those able to translate it (did anyone think that maybe this sacred item should be destroyed?).

The Nazis, always good with their timing and continually looking for magical ancient things, if we are to believe the Indiana Jones movies, arrive just as the baton is passed from the teacher to the student. The action steps up another notch when the Nazis gun down countless monks in their Aryan pursuit of the scroll. When The Monk With No Name (Chow Yun-Fat) faces the head Nazi dude and manages to escape, the leader screams over the loss of his all-powerful relic and we flash-forward 60 years to Stifler ... er ... Kar (Sean William Scott) pick-pocketing people to the tune of obnoxious techno music.

Bulletproof Monk goes from serious action film to sour comedy in under 30 seconds. The movie is filled with more bad jokes than a Jerry Lewis telethon. I hate to say it, but these jokes are so rancid they almost make The Sweetest Thing look funny in comparison. It doesn't help that the delivery is flat from everyone, including, surprisingly enough, William Scott, who should have this cheesy comedy thing down by now. The film goes from what looks to be a classy high-budget action yarn in the vein of Raiders of the Lost Ark, to an embarrassing game of guessing which actor's career will suffer the most from starring in a stupid movie with all the depth of The Tuxedo. For my money, it is Yun-Fat whose star may not shine as brightly as it did before this stinker.

What was this guy thinking? You don't need to look any further than films such as Hard Boiled, Full Contact or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to know why Yun-Fat is the most popular actor in the world. What would make him feel that his next great career move would be in taking a role where he gets to play some sort of clownish parody of himself in a big-budget 100 minute waste of screen space? Watching him in this film is saddening beyond being merely sad.

The Bulletproof Junk doesn't stop with Yun-Fat's poor career choice, the flat acting or the horrible dialogue the flat actors are asked to read. It carries on with Eric Serra's "Marilyn Manson Meets Madonna" computerized original score. Serra didn't take his year off, after working on 2002's Rollerball, to actually learn how to read and compose music. It sounds as though he spent the entire year playing that tortuous "Die Another Day" tune by Madonna in one ear and Marilyn Manson's soundtrack to Resident Evil in the other.

A lot of the blame for the tragedy that is Bulletproof Monk belongs on the shoulders of its director, Paul Hunter. Paul's previous experience behind the camera has been with directing a bunch of really crappy videos for MTV and even crappier ads for crappy corporations. His directing varies in quality throughout the film, never reaching a caliber higher than that of the latest Janet Jackson video. He is absolutely clueless when it comes to holding an audience's interest for 100+ minutes.

Paul Hunter's meandering skill as a director is odd, considering that his last few creations were designed to do nothing but keep a person glued to his or her TV set. At the same time, it's common to see a commercial or video director, accustomed to creating 5 minute pieces of high-gloss promotional work, not have the foggiest notion of how to keep the slow moments that naturally occur in a full length feature film from putting the audience to sleep. See (if you are a masochist) David Fincher's debut film, Alien 3, for another example of this pop-culture phenomenon. In time Hunter's skill as a director may improve in much the same way that Fincher's did, but for now he's too green behind the gills to take on a project of Bulletproof Monk's magnitude.

The one place where the movie does work is with its wire stunts and fight choreography. Every time a fight breaks out, the film jumps to life like an actor flying gracefully across the stage on a wire. The battle scenes are peppered with the same putrid jokes that permeate the rest of the movie, and that an amateur comedian on a Public Television fundraiser wouldn't dare to fart out, but they're still amusing to watch and manage to save the film from the very bottom of the creative barrel. This is unfortunate for the performers, who are most likely already hoping the movie gets stuck so deep in the depths of that barrel that it can never crawl out and remind them of the ghastly mistake they made in the past by taking part in Bulletproof Monk.

Anger Management (2003)

Nicholson and Sandler deserved better than this ...

[4/10 · 12 April 2003]

Anger Management starts out with the trademark screwball hi-jinks that we've grown familiar with in past Sandler films. There is a hysterical scene on an airplane where a particularly annoying stewardess (are there any other kind?) ... er, "flight attendant" keeps telling mild-mannered Dave Buznik (Adam Sandler), who is doing nothing more than asking for a pair of earphones, that the country is going through "sensitive times" and that he needs to calm down. The scene plays out perfectly, and by the time it was over I had already decided that this would, more likely than not, be the best Adam Sandler movie to date.

Due to the hyper-sensitive stewardess, Mr. Buznik is put before Judge Daniels (Lynne Thigpen), fined a large sum of money and required to take 20 hours of anger management courses. He finds out that his class will be taught by Dr. Buddy Rydell (Jack Nicholson). Rydell sat next to Buznik on the plane where the incident occurred, and was actually the catalyst for Buznik's request for the earphones. Buznik is relieved to see that Buddy is his anger management doctor, and asks the doc to sign his papers and let him out of the class. Dr. Rydell lets Dave know that he can't sign over the papers until Buznik has attended at least one anger management course. Buznik reluctantly agrees. It isn't long after his first anger management course with Buddy that Buznik winds up accidentally hitting a cocktail waitress with a blind man's cane and finds himself back in the courtroom of Judge Daniels. This time the judge, tired of looking at Buznik's face, dishes out some serious punishment. Lucky for Dave Buznik, Dr. Buddy Rydell shows up at just the right time and saves the day. Rydell sweet talks the judge into giving Buznik a chance to avoid prison time if he is able to spend 30 days with the doctor and successfully complete an intensive form of anger management therapy. In a rather unorthodox therapeutic approach, the good doctor ends up moving in with Buznik, going as far as to share his patient's bed. From that point on, hilarity follows, right? Wrong.

Chuckle worthy moments throughout the rest of the film are surprisingly sparse. Anger Management, like every Sandler movie since Big Daddy, turns into a romantic comedy rather than remaining a balls out comedy. This time, the "romantic" part of the equation, featuring Marisa Tomei as David Buznik's girlfriend Linda, is almost intolerable. I was thrown for a loop by this, being that Tomei proved herself a comedic actor to the tune of an Academy Award in 1992's My Cousin Vinny. In Anger Management, she is the one person without a single funny line.

The only person to provide any teeth in this picture is Jack Nicholson. Although this is one of his weakest jobs as an actor, he almost makes the sugary-sweet romantic concoction conjured up by David Dorfman possible to swallow. But, by the time it's over, even Nicholson's wild eyed performance winds up being detrimental to the overall film. By leaving all the lunacy up to Jack, Adam Sandler is forced, for the first time in his career, to play the straight man - it absolutely doesn't work.

Every ingredient to make Anger Management the best Sandler picture flick yet is set firmly in place. Unfortunately, Sandler never quite finds his comedy chops. Even Jack Nicholson appears defanged when you compare him with his craziest work in films like The Shining, or mediocre comedies that he's appeared in, such as The Witches of Eastwick.

I think that the producers figured that, once they had Nicholson on board, everything else would simply fall into place. It's hard to blame them. I also thought that with Sandler and Nicholson starring together, Anger Management could do no wrong. Unfortunately it did, and I'm going to need anger management to get over how upset I am that the two of them together couldn't come up with something better than this halfhearted excuse for a comedy.

A Mighty Wind (2003)

Worth a recommendation, just not accolades.

[5/10 · 10 April 2003]

About a decade after everyone else noticed, the corporations picked up on folk music. As they have done time and again, the "majors" caught scent of an important musical scene that was ready to explode and realized that it was the perfect time to exploit it. The heart and soul was ripped out of folk and in its place came profit and disposable # 1 singles from bands clueless toward what made the music great in the first place.

A Mighty Wind is a "mockumentary" featuring fictionalized versions of these lesser folk "artists" reuniting for a one night only memorial concert. Director/Screenwriter/Actor Christopher Guest, along with co-screenwriter and actor Eugene Levy, have, once again, created a story about a group of people whose eerie dedication to their marginal work is made enduring due to the child-like enthusiasm they have for their craft.

Guest and Levy hit upon something new back in 1996 with the very funny Waiting for Guffman. The two sat down and wrote a script that included everything but the dialogue. Guest, as director, set the stage for the incredible cast he assembled, turned on the camera and let them flesh it all out in documentary form. The improvisational approach lent a breath of fresh air to the feature that put it a step above most of the scripted comedies that were relying far too heavily on stock jokes and formulaic plots.

Four years later the duo took the identical approach with Best in Show. The film worked, but to a lesser extent than their earlier effort. Now, along comes A Mighty Wind. Although the movie isn't significantly worse than Best in Show, it suffers largely by having the *ahem* wind taken out of its sails by its predecessors. A "been there, done that" feeling creeps into the movie within the first few minutes and stays with it until the end credits roll. It doesn't help that the film grows less and less funny as it moves toward its climax.

A Mighty Wind begins to make the mistake of taking itself seriously and the music, most of which isn't that humorous, begins to take precedent over the comedy by the time the actual memorial concert begins. The film deteriorates into the equivalent of a night watching washed-up one hit wonders playing at the county fair. A "six months later" type finale is slapped on as an afterthought to remind the audience that the movie they had just witnessed began as a comedy.

The actors in A Mighty Wind vary from good (Fred Willard, Michael McKean, Catherine O'Hara, John Michael Higgins, Jane Lynch, Jennifer Coolidge, Bob Balaban, Paul Dooley, Jim Piddock) to wasted (Parker Posey, Larry Miller, Ed Begley Jr.) to cartoonish and implausible (Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, Eugene Levy). Of course with this many performers some are going to be stuck in forgettable roles and others are bound to have an "off" day.

Although they sometimes come up empty, everyone involved gives it their all and the good time the actors are having translates into a fairly fun time for the audience. The first half of this film still has some of that old snap, crackle and pop that we felt with Waiting for Guffman. You could do a lot worse at the theater than A Mighty Wind. It's worth a recommendation, just not accolades.

The Core (2003)

Possibly the worst disaster flick to hit the multiplexes to date.

[2/10 · 27 March 2003]

Spoiler Alert: If you've never, ever, ever watched a disaster flick before in your life, some of the stuff in the review below may actually give things away.

What would you get if you crossed Armageddon with Independence Day? The obvious answer would be, Hell. Hollywood's answer turns out to be, "big opening weekend grosses and a successful run on video." So, we're given The Core, quite possibly the worst disaster flick to hit the multiplexes to date.

The Core would be laughably bad, if it didn't happen to be so bad that it was impossible to laugh at. The film starts so-so enough as to lead the unsuspecting viewer to believe that the movie will only, "kinda suck." Weird things are happening around the globe. Flocks of pigeons forget how to navigate, swooping down into crowds of unsuspecting citizens, as though they were auditioning for the next made-for-TV sequel to The Birds. A bunch of people's pacemakers stop working simultaneously, causing the poor folk to instantaneously drop dead. And then there's the whopper; a space shuttle has a heck of a time making its re-entry to earth.

At this point, geophysicist Dr. Josh Keyes (Aaron Eckhart) and this French dude (or should I say "Freedom dude?"), with a strong knowledge of weapons, are called in to Washington D.C., to find out what's going on. It turns out that the U.S. Government has created a device that would make Dr. Evil green with envy.

What has been created is a weapon of mass destruction that works underground, in hopes of causing earthquakes in enemy territories. When the device of doom ends up not working, and instead causes the earth's core to stop spinning, a bunch of scientists and astronauts need to find a way down into the core, to start things spinning properly by detonating a nuclear weapon in the center of the planet (huh?!?).

The select group is collectively known as "terranauts." The people playing the terranauts are a fairly large bunch of talented actors and actresses doing really bad work. With the screenplay they were given, it's no wonder actors of Academy caliber come off as being no more gifted than those child actors on that old The Land of the Lost television show, did.

I'm actually going to give most of these actors their dignity, and refrain from using their names. There is no way any of them did this film to expand their artistic horizons. The stock characters, clichéd dialogue and predictable behavior found in the script could, in no way, appeal to them. Therefore, I'm assuming that they signed on for nothing more than a paycheck. As they will desperately be trying to do within a few months, let's forget their minor artistic discretions, and hope that they select better roles next time. For now, I will simply continue to call them, "terranauts."

Going back to the preposterous plot at the center of The Core, the problem these, uh, "terranauts" have, is that they need some super fakey device to take them on their journey to the center of the earth. Thank god for those reclusive, but genius, scientists living out in the desert.

Utah desert dweller, Dr. Ed "Braz" Brazzelton (Delroy Lindo) has, presumably for lack of something better to do, been creating a craft for that special time when the earth's core stops rotating due to a doomsday weapon meant to cause earthquakes under "naughty" countries. His problem? He has another five or ten years before he could possibly get a working model of the submersible device built.

In only a year's time, the entire earth will be destroyed, due to the fact that its electromagnetic field is falling apart. To add insult to injury, big storms of electricity and microwaves, will demolish buildings in much the same way that those alien ship thingies demolished them in Independence Day. Dr. Brazzelton gets cable out there in the desert, right? He must be aware of the kind of damage those alien blasts did in 1996's sci-fi destruction film.

After being offered a ton of money from the Government, "Braz" decides he can have the whole ten year project completed in a few weeks (or was it months? Does anyone really care?). Brazzelton succeeds in building his earth submersible, and, before you know it, the terranauts are digging their way toward the planet's core at about 100 miles per hour.

Numerous things get in their way, such as the earth, but they do eventually make it to their goal, but only after losing almost all of their fellow terranauts. But things aren't over yet (although, closing in on the two hour point, you sure wish they would be).

Lots of last minute stuff goes wrong, and it looks like the terranauts may not be able to save the planet, after-all. GASP! I won't give away the ending, but I'll gladly tell you, right from the beginning, that this film is such a waste of your time, you'd be better off watching Armageddon again, and as much as I hated that movie, this is as far from a ringing endorsement that I could ever give.

Tears of the Sun (2003)

An uninspired "message" movie

[2/10 · 18 March 2003]

To get an idea of just what you're in for with Tears of the Sun, imagine a pinch of Seven Samurai, a few tablespoons full of Saving Private Ryan and a heaping pile of The Sand Pebbles. Now that you've combined those fine ingredients together in your mind's mixing bowl, bake them at a lukewarm temperature, rip the guts and originality from all three of them, and shove a load of clichés into the place where the heart should be. That's Tears of the Sun in a nutshell.

Willard (2003)

The most perversely charismatic crazy to hit the screen in years!

[7/10 · 18 March 2003]

Glen Morgan, who paid his dues writing episodes of The X-Files, and its assorted spin-offs, and then finally made his big screen debut with his script for the original, Final Destination, has taken his directorial cues from masters of oddity such as Tim Burton, Barry Sonnenfeld (during his Addams Family phase) and George Miller. Morgan manages to create an unforgettable atmosphere that holds its own against, Beetlejuice, Babe: Pig in the City, Addams Family Values or Sleepy Hollow. Like all of those films, this is a dark comedy. Unlike those films, it becomes deadly serious, and that turns into what is nearly its downfall.

The further we get into the film, the darker the movie gets. About halfway through, we're no longer watching a dark comedy, but rather a fairly weak attempt at horror. The film doesn't succeed in scaring you, so the last half of the movie essentially fails. Only those lovable, huggable rats, and Crispin Glover's performance, pull it through. The best, and easily most comedic, scenes in the film feature Willard and his mother, and take place early on in the picture. During these moments, the film oozes of the original Psycho, only this time, "Norman's" mother isn't a corpse. Crispin Glover is the most perversely charismatic crazy to hit the silver screen since Anthony Perkins took on Norman Bates, in the original Psycho.

Willard could have been a classic. As it is, it's a fine little dark comedy that gets mixed up at the end and starts believing that it's a thriller. Oh, and I can't end this review without mentioning how pleasantly nasty the scene with the cat is. Cat lovers, prepare to close your eyes ... kitty's about to get hers! The Truth about Rats & Dogs? Nah ... too easy.

Bringing Down the House (2003)

As offensive and misguided as a slapstick version of "Roots"

[1/10 · 18 March 2003]

Is there an American Idol for screenwriters? I'm not up on my "reality" TV shows, but I have been noticing film after film written by some guy or girl who has no other movie to his or her credit. It's not that I'm against bringing new talent into Hollywood, but so far the "talent" part of the "new" equation hasn't happened.

Jason Filardi, the writer of Bringing Down the House, and the latest in a screenwriting sea of freshman ineptitude, has created one of the most laughably bad comedies this side of The Sweetest Thing; and none of the juvenile or racist jokes he throws in can save it. Filardi has managed to create a sort of bizarro world that would stink of racism as far back as the 1960s.

In Bringing Down the House, Peter Sanderson (Steve Martin) works at a law firm that appears to be segregated, attends a country club so uppity that his intrusive African American "friend," Charlene Morton (Queen Latifah) has to pretend that she's a nanny just to avoid trouble, and has a client who is the heiress to her husband's large fortune, who is such a bigot that she starts belting out an odious plantation song at the dinner table where she's being waited on by Charlene, who's still pretending to be a nanny and maid. Last, but definitely not least, is Sanderson's nosy neighbor, Mrs. Kline (Betty White). The woman is so prejudice that Sanderson, obviously not one willing or able to stand up for himself, hides Charlene when he sees Kline, to avoid any confrontation with his misguided neighbor. As they sneak the concealed Charlene into Sanderson's home, Mrs. Kline tells Sanderson that she thought she "heard negro," and he denies this by claiming that there's, "no negro here."

Are you laughing yet?

The fact that Queen Latifah would even act in this picture, much less act as one of its executive producers, boggles the mind. Maybe next she'll play Aunt Jemima in a series of ads for maple syrup. And how low will the once great Steve Martin go to save his dying career? If this racist little "comedy" makes a splash, maybe next we'll see him as a white businessman in a comedy musical version of Once Upon a Time... When We Were Colored. Eugene Levy has only a small part as Sanderson's partner in law, but, as he does with most films that he's featured in, manages to steal the show. Unfortunately, the only reason he steals this one is by delivering his stereotypical lines better than the rest of the cast. Maybe as a follow-up to this flick, he and Martin can put on some blackface and appear in an updated version of Amos 'n' Andy.

Intentional, or not, Bringing Down the House is a racist movie. By the time it's all over, this film borders on being as offensive and misguided as a slapstick version of Roots.

Chicago (2002)

Big, Bold and Boisterous! An experience to behold!

[9/10 · 18 March 2003]

Chicago is a wild good time at the movies! As a matter of fact, it just may be the most fun I've had at the theater watching a bunch of women dancing around in skimpy outfits while singing about the various ways they murdered the men that they loved! The flick is fast-paced from start to finish and chockfull of so many jazzy musical numbers that you might want to sit in the front row so you can kick your feet along to the beat without knocking out the person sitting ahead of you!

There is a lot to like in Chicago, even if you don't enjoy the excellent, catchy, foot-stomping, hooked-on-jazz music. There's Matron 'Mama' Morton (Queen Latifah), the big busted broad running the big house and sucking up bribes like she needs to make mortgage payments on yet another one of her oversized bras. There's that Billy Flynn (Richard Gere), defending his floozies as though they were the second coming of O.J. And then there's the over-zealous press. Oh, what a tender morsel of satirical mayhem we have with these suckers!

Chicago is truly an experience to behold. It's big, bold, boisterous and probably a bunch of other fitting "B" words that I can't think of right now! Dance your way to the theater and check it out!

Dreamcatcher (2003)

Nice looking, but hollow

[5/10 · 18 March 2003]

The first third of Dreamcatcher is worth the time. Four childhood friends make their annual trip to a hunting cabin, weird things happen, and, before you know it, you're smack-dab in the world of Stephen King, at his most darkly comical and gaily grotesque. It's flatulent, bloody fun on the page, and Goldman had no problem translating this hideous orgy of gas and guts from novel to screenplay form. As the screenplay proceeds, it strays from the book to the point where the film becomes a Hollywood embarrassment of epic proportions.

The Dreamcatcher novel also fell apart in its second half, but what kept you reading the book was the mind games going on in the lead character, Jonesy's (Damian Lewis) head. Jonesy's brain and body has been taken hostage by an alien named, Mr. Gray. In the novel, Jonesy notices Gray becoming tempted by the trappings of humanity, and uses that to his advantage. It's fun to watch the alien craving various human indulgences, more and more, with each passing minute. This aspect of the novel is completely removed from the film, leaving us with nothing more than Damian Lewis, playing both Jonesy and Mr. Gray, making silly faces, and putting on goofy accents, as he goes between the two characters.

The second act of the film, one taking place in a concentration camp for American citizens whom may or may not be contaminated with an alien virus, is nothing more than a shadow of what is shown in the book. Even the shoddiest of cliffnote "authors" would be embarrassed to condense a novel down to this elementary a form.

In the book, the head of the camp, Colonel Abraham Kurtz, played in the film by Morgan Freeman, was a nasty man, so over the edge that he was frightening, from his first appearance to his last. In the movie, we're made aware of the fact that he has lost it, but almost exclusively through exposition, rather than action. Seeing these innocent civilians locked up like animals was disturbing in the novel, and would make for an extremely tense mid-section of this movie, if this movie dared to have any tension.

In King's Dreamcatcher, the people locked in the camps join together, with help from the telepathic Dr. Henry Devlin, in the film played by Thomas Jane, and start a massive uprising against the guards. At the same time, Devlin is working on Colonel Kurtz's more conscientious subordinates, both through words, and the power that he, along with Jonesy, Beaver and Pete, was given by a mysterious fifth friend, Duddits. In the movie, the uprising never occurs, and it feels as though each of the concentration camp scenes were put into the film to pad it out, while giving a plum role to Morgan Freeman.

I won't give away the finale to either the novel or the film, but I will say that everything good about the finish of the book form of Dreamcatcher, is noticeably missing from the film version. Instead of an emotionally moving climax, we get a sloppy CGI-fest that reminded me a bit of Godzilla VS. King Kong, or maybe even Species 2. Although I found myself squirming over the laziness displayed during the majority of the second half of the picture, I was still undecided as to whether or not I would recommend it. The lousy last few minutes of film made up my mind.

This is the first movie I can think of that I can only recommend in patches. Drink a couple of gallons of water before you attend the picture, and run to the bathroom to let it out, whenever things start getting stupid.

If you're a fan of horror, you will enjoy the first hour of the film. The bathroom sequence is a near-masterpiece, and, for that alone, Lawrence Kasdan should be commended. Kasdan also handles the flashback scenes, featuring the four main characters as children, adequately enough to get my thumb working its way toward the "up" direction. Finally, during those few times Kasdan does take us into Jonesy's brain, he does so in an incredibly interesting, oftentimes humorous, manner.

When Jonesy leaves the relative safety of the locked room he has nuzzled deep within his cerebrum, only to find the evil that is hiding behind boxes of stored memories inside his mind's warehouse, it genuinely gave me chills. More scary moments like this, placed throughout the film, and Kasdan may have had his first instant classic in a long while.

There was a lot of money and time put into Dreamcatcher, and it shows on the screen. Steve Johnson's work on the puppet versions of the "s***weasels" is extremely effective, and shows, once again, that anything CG can do, human hands can do better. The CG isn't the best I've seen, but it's significantly less cartoony than either of the last two Star Wars prequels, and does the job nicely, even though I would have enjoyed the effects far more, if CG wasn't a part of them. The cinematography by John Seale (The English Patient, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Witness) is gorgeous, but not noteworthy enough to make the Director of Photography the star of the film, like Caleb Deschanel's work did for him in the recent semi-stinker, The Hunted.

What we end up with is a nice looking film that feels hollow.

The Hunted (2003)

Cheap knock-off of past Hollywood blockbusters

[5/10 · 18 March 2003]

If you've seen both First Blood and The Fugitive, you've already watched The Hunted. Aaron Hallam (Del Toro), who was awarded the Silver Star for his bravery shown while fighting in Kosovo, only 4 years earlier, is now on the outs with the military, isn't really trusting anybody, and was listed as Missing In Action and made a target by the Government that he used to work for. Now, poor Hallam, fearing both for his safety and sanity is out in the Portland woods, killing what appear to be deer hunters. Only, these deer hunters have military telescopes attached to their rifles - not exactly a necessity when it comes to snagging yourself a buck.

When L.T. Bonham (Jones) finds out that his former student, Aaron Hallam, is out in the woods eviscerating humans, he reluctantly agrees to hunt him down and bring him to justice.

When the two first confront one another in the woods, Hallam asks Bonham why he never answered the letters Hallam had sent him. It's obvious that the ex-soldier was teetering at the edge of reality, and Bonham was the only guy he felt that he could count on. Ironically, it turns out that Bonham is now the only person who can be counted on to kill the man he once taught how to murder quick, and get away even faster.

So, the chase is on ... and on ... and on, and then the film ends. It's honestly that simple. Of course there are the tired, "your men can't take him out ... only I can, because I was his ... teacher" type dialogue thrown in, presumably to make it seem even more like a gigantic First Blood rip-off than it already does.

Hallam's motives and Bonham's sense of guilt are both hinted at, but neither character is fully fleshed out. What could have been an excellent film, ends up being chopped and hacked into nothing more than a cheap knock-off of a couple of Hollywood movies that worked well at the box-office in the not-so-distant past.

The Ring (2002)

Best horror movie ever?!?

[5/10 · 18 October 2002]

How much did they pay the studio plants to post messages like that? If you read the earlier "reviews" (IE - advertisements) posted for this film, you'll see one person after another saying how "The Ring" is the "scariest movie ever." Now that the REAL audience is seeing the picture, it's being revealed for what it is; a mediocre horror film (wait until video) filled with plot holes, bad directing, poor character development and interaction, and two million loose ends. You feel like you're about to be rewarded for the two hours you spend, and end up with a predictable finale that leaves you with even more questions. The film is lazy. The writer and director had NO IDEA where the wanted to go with this. And all of the "scary" stuff is stuff you've seen a million times before in almost every other ghost movie ever made. Very disappointing. I hope the studios come around and realize that when they hype their movies so heavily through planted reviews, it only leaves the audience that much more disappointed. Don't get me wrong, the film isn't horrible, but it isn't anything deeper than cheap terror flicks like "Jason X" or "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer," and it makes less sense than either of those films. There is no reason to see this film. Why? If you watch a lot of horror movies, you've seen it all before.

Casablanca (1942)

Better than you can even imagine!

[10/10 · 25 August 2002]

For whatever reason I kept putting off watching this film. I knew so much about it, including its ending, and for years meant to see it, but thought, "what's the point?" After watching it last night I remembered what made me a movie fan in the first place. Movies like Casablanca. I was astounded with how influential this picture was. I knew Raiders of the Lost Ark was inspired by the old Saturday Afternoon Serials, but I had NO IDEA how much it had taken from "Casablanca." The shots, the cinematography, the staging of characters, even the clothing. So many movies were inspired by this film (some were direct rip-offs). I may go as far as to say that this is the most influential film ever made (along with Citizen Kane)! I absolutely loved it. No matter what type of film you favor, you'll find something to like about this movie. Don't make the same mistake I did and put it off for decades. It's well worth a rental or even a purchase!

Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)

George Lucas, what were you thinking?

[9/10 · 16 May 2002]

If you go into Attack of the Clones thinking that it will be the Star Wars you've been waiting for ever since The Empire Strikes Back, you'll be sorely disappointed. If you go into Attack of the Clones thinking it'll be a pretty fun flick, even if it doesn't manage to come close to the original Star Wars or The Empire Strikes Back, as is the case with Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace, you'll be sorely disappointed. If you go into Attack of the Clones expecting much of anything, really, you'll be sorely disappointed. George Lucas, what were you thinking? I'm just going to go down a list of things that stood out to me (minor spoilers are given):

1. The romance. Lucas must have had sap on the brain when writing this melodramatic excuse for a love affair. This relationship should have been something special. At the very least, it shouldn't have been embarrassing. This is honestly one of the most moronic things I've ever seen put on the screen. The audience busted out laughing with EVERY SINGLE LINE that fell flatly from the lover's lips. With lines such as, "I don't like sand ... it's not soft and smooth like you" how could they not?

2. Hayden Christensen cannot act. This Canadian pretty boy should have stuck with soap operas. Hayden Christensen makes Jake Lloyd look like a Thespian. Then again, he was good in Life as a House. Maybe it's not his acting but the fact that ...

3. George Lucas can't direct actors. This is Lucas's worst attempt, yet. I don't think he's even trying, anymore.

4. No one can act in the movie, with possible exception made for Ewan McGregor, who does a good imitation of Alec Guinness.

5. We've been here before. It's always fun when Lucas throws a line or two in from past Star Wars films, but this movie is one big cut and paste. It's tedious, and Lucas has run out of ideas. The, "I've got a bad feeling about this" line is becoming similar to Bond's, "shaken, not stirred." The audience just wonders when it's going to come, and when it does, it's obvious the only reason it came was to get it out of the way.

6. Why are all the Clone Troopers CGI? What happened to people in costumes? If I wanted to see a cartoon, I'd pay for one.

7. Jango Fett. See "Clone Trooper" comment above.

8. Some of the worst special effects ever. Sure, Yoda looks simply incredible, as far as CGI goes, but what's up with the scene with Anakin riding that cow sort of things to impress Amidala? Or how about C3PO flying around the factory? These effects are inexcusable.

9. This didn't feel like Star Wars. It felt like a movie ripping off Star Wars. Something wasn't right.

10. I wonder if HE ever saw Close Encounters. Those aliens Obi-Wan encounter look just a little *too* close to the long-necked aliens from Spielberg's classic.

11. This wasn't dark. All you people saying this is dark, shut up. It isn't.

12. The comedy. Even worse than in The Phantom Menace. Out of the dozens of attempted jokes only one or two really work.

13. Lack of war in the stars. Where were the space battles? What is this crap? Wasn't this called Star Wars for a reason?

14. Why don't you spell it out for us, George? The plot seems like it was written for 2 year olds. Nothing is subtle. Every so often Anakin gets a nasty look on his face and breathes heavily as Darth Vader's theme begins playing. I was waiting for a scrolling message to appear on the bottom of the screen letting us all know that, "the person above will turn into Darth Vader. Please notice foreboding music and nasty facial expressions. Aren't we clever?"

15. No fun. Outside of a couple scenes, the movie just wasn't fun, and the frenetic energy of past Star Wars films is no where to be found.

16. Lightsaber battle with non-CGI characters was worst saber battle in any Star Wars film. It's all a bunch of close-ups with everyone pretty much standing stationary. Where's Darth Maul when you need him? I love Christopher Lee, but this old guy doesn't cut it when it comes to an awesome Lightsaber duel.

17. Why was that guy who used to be on NYPD Blue in there? His role was pointless. Give it to somebody whose face we don't recognize, if you have to put in such a pointless part in the first place. Watching NYPD Man was distracting.

18. Pointless cameos from characters in past movies. It didn't work this time. Very obvious and irritating.

19. Amidala was a wimp. This lady can't be the mother of Princess Leia. Lucas reduced Amidala down to a sniffling little tramp with nothing much to do, other than make puppy dog eyes and play the victim.

20. Exposition. We get at least an hour of it. It's delivered without an ounce of panache. It's dull, lifeless, monotone. Everyone is acting in front of a blue screen, and it shows

21. Too long. This movie DRAGS. It could have been at least 20 minutes shorter. So many useless moments and characters. With all that high-tech stuff over at Lucasfilm, it's amazing they still haven't picked up an editing machine.

22. Yoda rules. I loved it. It's worth a trip to the Box Office once just to see Yoda get nasty.

I didn't hate this movie. It just happens to be the first Star Wars movie I didn't love. I didn't even like it, actually.

I Am Sam (2001)

Predictable, artificial, and sugary-sweet

[1/10 · 20 February 2002]

I'm not one to suffer sappiness easily. Well, that's not really true, but as any logger worth his weight in union fees knows, there's only so much sap a man can take. This film is so predictable, artificial and sugary-sweet, you start becoming embarrassed that you're sitting through the entire thing. Every moment of this movie is calculated. Nothing is genuine. Even the Beatles' songs (all remakes) are cued up at the exact right time with a lyric appropriately fitting the sappy situation at hand. And the product placements. This thing doesn't even try to be subtle with the way the products are placed. Half the conversations center around Starbucks or Pizza Hut or Payless Shoes, or take place in one of those, or many other assorted corporate facilities. Now that I've slammed this film sufficiently enough, I'll admit that the acting is okay (although I couldn't decide if Sean Penn was playing a retarded man or playing Dustin Hoffman playing an Autistic Savant), and there are a few funny parts. It's not worth seeing at the theater, or even worth renting, but if it's on TV some night, well, it still really isn't that worth it. The two ladies I saw the film with both liked it, so maybe it's just one of those things guys don't get, sort of like Payless Shoes.

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

Deviously clever and understatedly humorous!

[9/10 · 20 February 2002]

This film is nothing like you think it is, unless you've seen it. I've been wanting to see this for months, but I always thought it looked kind of dorky in the ads, even with the awesome Ramones' song (speaking of which, Joey Ramone's solo CD came out yesterday, and it RULES!). None of the ads did it justice. None of the critics did it justice. I know that I won't do it justice. This film is deviously clever and understatedly humorous, much like a Kurt Vonnegut novel, but like a Kurt Vonnegut novel, it's nearly impossible to describe what's so clever or humorous about it. It just is. The ensemble cast is incredible (for the first time ever, it doesn't seem as though Gwyneth Pawltrow is phoning in her performance), the story is fun, and it's all wrapped up in a wonderful package that is incredibly unique in its familiarity. That doesn't make any sense, does it? I told you I couldn't do this movie justice. You'll just have to go buy a ticket, and see for yourself. While you're at it, why don't you write the Academy and ask them why they didn't nominate Gene Hackman for his wonderful performance as Royal Tenenbaum?

In the Bedroom (2001)

Art through tedium - worst film of 2001

[1/10 · 17 February 2002]

As an epileptic, I have spent weeks at a time in the hospital. I have had surgeries that I have had to spend months recovering from. I've stared for hours at dimly lit hospital hallways when I was unable to sleep after a day of seizures, but none of this could compare me for the boredom that is, "In the Bedroom". This is the worst film of the year, and possibly the worst film ever made. I am a big fan of arthouse movies, but "In the Bedroom" seemed to be art through tedium. To endure this movie is like a small, nagging torture. I am thoroughly fed up with the Academy kissing up to Miramax, and vice-versa, and always nominating their unworthy drivel for best picture when there were so many superior films that deserved to be nominated such as "Mulholland Dr.", "Black Hawk Down", "Iris", "The Shipping News", "Hannibal", "A.I." or, to a lesser extent, but still far more worthy than "In the Bedroom", "The Man Who Wasn't There" or "Amelie". How can one not think the entire Academy is rigged when a film like "In the Bedroom" receives all these nominations, rather than the handful of superior films, and other films of 2001 that I'm sure I'm forgetting about, above?

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Will satisfy the most discriminating of tastes

[9/10 · 29 June 2001]

Ever seen one of those Conan O'Brien skits, the ones where he takes two celebrity couples, and through the magic of computer, shows them what their child would look like, if they chose to breed? Since first hearing that Steven Spielberg was taking over Stanley Kubrick's film, A. I., after Kubrick kicked the celluloid bucket, I thought the film would be about as cute as one of those digitalized mongoloid freak infants Conan shows weekly on his show. To my surprise, Spielberg took Kubrick's vision, twisted in some of his own ideas, and created an amalgam of a movie that will hopefully satisfy the most discriminating of tastes.

This isn't just one film that you're seeing. This isn't just one director, or one directorial style being displayed in front of your starving eyes. Although Spielberg gets most of the credit (Kubrick is relegated to "concept"), this is obviously more Stanley's film than it is Steven's. Sure, after the first 30 minutes, or so, it moves at a near breakneck pace that Stanley wouldn't hear of, during his lifetime, but Steven begins to slow things down again at the end, just enough to remind you that this isn't really his baby, after-all. This is merely a transfer from Kubrick's many discussions and concept designs regarding the film, before his death, to an actual movie that Spielberg created. There are the trademark Spielberg moments scattered throughout; but instead of wrecking the film that Kubrick would have made, they actually accentuate what was obviously Kubrick's idea of where the film should have gone.

Steven Spielberg does a wonderful job contrasting the darker vision Kubrick had of A. I. with his own lighter, fairy-tale version of how he feels the film should play. After a few mushy E. T. type moments, the viewer is literally jolted into a world that could be created by no one other than the wonderful Stanley Kubrick. This isn't A Clockwork Orange, but it damn well isn't Hook, either. A lot of the parents in the theater found the film, and I quote, "disturbing" and, "not for kids at all." I don't agree with those comments, but I do think that children should definitely be forewarned that this isn't the sweet little fable they've been promised in the television commercials. Sure, David the machine (played by Haley Joel Osment) wants to become a real boy, to gain the love of his "mother," which is all heartwarming, but he has a hell of a lot of very frightening (especially for the under 13 gang) set of obstacles to go through, if he ever hopes to attain his dreams. This is a hard PG-13, and that's just the way Kubrick would have wanted it.

Everything "Kubrick" in the film is spectacular. The way David is befriended by the flamboyant Gigolo Joe (Jude Law, in his best role to date), a machine made for no reason other than to make love to lonely ladies in Rouge City, a neon-crazed part of the country that would put any red light district to shame, just had to have come from Kubrick's zany brain. A few of the "Spielberg" moments in the film are slightly shaky, but luckily there aren't that many. The Spielberg scene that annoyed me the most was with "Dr. Know." The entire section seemed robbed from Spielberg's original Jurassic Park, when Mr. DNA introduces Dr. Hammond, and then Hammond talks to the film version of himself during a presentation played to his visitors in hopes of explaining how his team was able to extract dinosaur DNA from mosquitoes.

Still, I'm making double D cups out of single A's. Spielberg and Kubrick essentially did a tag-team job of directing A. I.. Two directors of that caliber getting together to make a film just doesn't happen. And it didn't. It took the death of Kubrick to make it happen. Sure, if Kubrick had made it, with no help from Spielberg, it would be far more intense, a lot more boring (in a good way), and the cutesy stuff would have been cut. At the same time, if Spielberg would have made it, with no help from Kubrick, it would be far more sentimental, and all the "scary" stuff would be replaced with glowing alien fingers and magical moments created to put a lump in the audience's throat. Spielberg wrote and directed it with a little bit of both. I think that, in the end, he was extremely daring with the pacing and attitude of the film, and had the nerve to bring Kubrick's vision to light.

I honestly believe Stanley would have been proud of the picture Steven created, warts and all. I hope the majority of the movie watching community feels the same way. In traditional Kubrick style, this film does get slow moving (think the last 15 minutes of Kubrick's 2001) in parts, and I'm afraid Attention Deficit Disordered America will turn their backs on A. I., looking for another hyper-spastic pile of crap like Tomb Raider. Spielberg doesn't usually move this slow, or probe this deep, and a lot of his diehard fans, many of whom have probably never heard of Stanley Kubrick, may leave the theater sorely disappointed.

I hope that Spielberg's fans are more open than I'm giving them credit for, and they help make the film a huge success, so we can see more films, in the "event" arena, that slow down long enough for plot and character development. I honestly didn't think we'd ever get to see another big budget movie like A. I. again, and I don't want this to be the last of its kind. I've seen one too many great movies become financial disasters, over the last decade. And yes, A. I. is a great movie. Kubrick and Spielberg produced the perfect baby; not even Conan, and his wonder-computer, could have seen that one coming.

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)

Tomb Raider for Dummies!

[1/10 · 13 June 2001]

What we have here is Tomb Raider for Dummies. It says something about the idiot quotient of the Tomb Raider movie, when it is the "dummy" version of the series of video games upon which it is based, video games that sold millions of copies due primarily to the fact that their heroine has big boobs. I wasn't surprised to see that this masterpiece of moronics was brought to us by the creative genius's behind quality films such as Death Wish V: The Face of Death, K-911 (the long-awaited made-for-video sequel to the 1980's "James Belushi with a funny police dog" movie, K-9), Casper, Judge Dredd, The Flintstones, Lost in Space (no, not the good version), Con Air, Disney's The Kid, Armageddon, Wing Commander (another big hit based on a video game), My Giant, and that pivotal third entry to the Darkman series, Darkman III: Die Darkman Die.

If the list of films up above gets you excited, you have a lot to look forward to in Tomb Raider. Bad acting, bad writing, bad cinematography, bad soundtrack, bad jokes and, more than anything, bad directing, it's all here for you! During the time I was watching this soon-to-be-laughed-at midnight movie, I was unaware that Simon West, the infamously atrocious director behind the dreadful Con Air, was once again allowed to go behind the camera and make a fool out of yet another once respectable leading performer (he did it last time with Nicolas Cage) through lots of "macho" gestures and slow motion shots. I am almost ashamed of myself that I didn't pick out West as the leader of this incredibly guilty cast of goofballs willing to put their names on one of the worst "event" movies ever created, after the first replicated Con Air slow motion melt-down. West seems able to do two things, as a director: 1. film in slow motion 2. film in slow motion again.

Even though I'd like it to, the blame doesn't lie solely on West's shoulders, for this one. As I mentioned at the start of this review, everything about Tomb Raider is bad. Really bad. I realize that I shouldn't have expected much from the script, being that it did come from the writer of Darkman III: Die Darkman Die (Michael Colleary), but couldn't we at least have had the plot make a little sense? What are all these little kids doing appearing and disappearing? Did Scriptware tell Mr. Colleary that he needed to add a few more pages, so he just threw in some meaningless kids? Instead of watching weird ghost kids running around, for no apparent reason, why couldn't we see a little character resolution, and plot explanation? What happened to the old guy who betrayed Lord Croft at the beginning of the movie, and felt so extremely bad for doing so? What was Lord Croft doing in the Illuminati? What was the bad guy's motivation? Sure, he wanted to control the world, or whatever, but for what reason? Why was his little sidekick guy so devoted to helping his cause? Would he somehow benefit if his evil master controlled time? I haven't seen this many loose ends since I accidentally walked into the enema ward at the hospital.

It is extremely rare that a movie is so bad that it actually makes me angry, but Tomb Raider is that rarity. The movie is lazy. It doesn't even try to make sense. This movie isn't worth your time. Tomb Raider isn't fun, sitting through it is nearly torture, and I'd recommend doing just about anything this weekend over doing that.

Me, Myself & Irene (2000)

Jim Carrey's long-overdue return to comedy is, well, obviously still coming

[5/10 · 25 June 2000]

Jim Carrey's long-overdue return to comedy is, well, obviously still coming. "Me, Myself & Irene" teams the Farrelly brothers (the minds behind "Dumb and Dumber" and "There's Something About Mary") back up with Carrey. Unfortunately, "Dumb and Dumber", this ain't. The jokes are recycled from past Farrelly movies, the plot is convoluted, uninteresting and completely unbelievable, and there are more intriguing romances happening right now behind the bleachers at your local high school. The Farrelly's, who have obviously bought into their own "semen hair-gel" related hype, haven't really structured a story as much as they have strung together a bunch of fart jokes and other sordid material. Gross can be funny, but only if there's something behind the crudity to make it work. This movie does get a few laughs, but only because of how well Carrey handles the weak material he has been given to work with. In a couple of scenes, Carrey's gift for performing physical comedy actually saves this film from being a complete disaster, and winds up turning it into something more like an Amtrak derailment, with only minor injuries.

Chicken Run (2000)

A family film in the truest sense of the word

[8/10 · 25 June 2000]

A family film in the truest sense of the word. This is a movie the entire family will enjoy, not just the 5 and under set. Winking its eye at cultural diversity, and the animosity that oftentimes goes along with it, was a clever move, and makes for some of the best jokes in the film. The English covering up feelings of inferiority by denouncing the "Yanks" and the "Yanks'" cockiness (pardon the pun) and naivety of other cultures are both put on vivid display here, all for the sake of a few good laughs. Then there's the romance, the sexuality (yes, sexuality - with chickens!) and the violence. Throw in a good dash of action, an inspired scene straight out of Indiana Jones' 101, in particular, and you have the ingredients for one of the most entertaining animated movies in years. An over-abundance of failed escape scenes drag the film down a bit. Watching a few dozen chickens trying to escape from their "prison" is only amusing so many times, before it starts seeming like filler-material. This petty complaint aside, Nick Park, the claymation genius behind short-films such as "Wallace & Gromit" and "Creature Comforts", is off to a great start with his first full-length animated movie.