Movie Review Spy Kids 3D Game Over

Spy Kids 3D Game Over (2003) 

Directed by Robert Rodriguez 

Written by Robert Rodriguez

Starring Darryl Sabara, Antonio Banderas, Carla Gugino, Alexa Vega, Ricardo Montalban, Sylvester Stallone, Mike Judge 

Release Date July 25th, 2003 

Published July 26th, 2003 

Robert Rodriguez's original Spy Kids was an ingenious marriage of kids movies and James Bond action-fantasy. It was safe enough for kids with just enough to appeal to parents and with its low budget, was a huge box office hit. The second film was slightly less successful in its appeal to wide audiences as well as box office, but was still a big enough hit to justify another sequel. That sequel is a gimmicky jump into the realm of video games, Spy Kids 3D.

You may remember 3D, the failed experiment from the 1950's and 60's that was last used to try and revive the Nightmare On Elm Street horror franchise. That film was also produced by Dimension films so maybe they just had a bunch of those glasses just laying around and that inspired them to do this. Whatever the inspiration, it was a bad idea when it was first used and with the advances in technology these days, it's a bad idea in Spy Kids 3.

As we join the story, Juni Cortes (Daryl Sabara) has quit being a secret agent and is now a small-time private investigator solving cases about missing dollies for a buck apiece. All the while his former spy bosses are trying to get him to come back and help on an important case. Juni's sister Carmen (Alexa Vega) has been taken hostage inside a video game called Game Over.

When Juni hears that his sister is in trouble, he returns to save her and joins her inside the game. Once inside it's time to put on our 3D glasses and watch as Juni battles fellow game players in games that resemble Tron crossed with Robot Jox. Juni, with the help of some other kids trapped in the game, go in search of Carmen and a way out of the game. They must also figure a way to shut down the game without releasing its maniacal creator, the Toymaker (Sly Stallone), who has been imprisoned inside the game world for years. Toymaker is holding Carmen hostage and hopes to use her to get himself out.

Also helping Juni is his grandfather (Ricardo Montalban), a former secret agent who was left in a wheelchair because of the Toymaker. In the game world though Grandpa can walk, run and fight crime like he used to. Juni and Carmen's parents, played by Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino, are nowhere to be found until a quick cameo near the end of the film. Also in cameos are a number of well-known stars George Clooney, Alan Cumming, Mike Judge, Cheech Marin and Salma Hayek. Most surprising is a cameo by Elijah Wood that was met by a surprisingly loud cheer. The cameos are the film's most appealing moments.

The 3D is an unnecessary and highly annoying gimmick, I had a headache from the first time I put on the glasses all the way to the end of the film. However, what's worse is the film’s trite family movie cliches. Where the first two Spy Kids movies were like cinematic cotton candy, Spy Kids 3D is brussel sprouts. Good for you but not very tasty. The film is filled beginning to end with after school special messages about teamwork, family, tolerance and forgiveness.

That's all well and good if it's couched in an entertaining story but Spy Kids 3D doesn't have a story. It has cheesy 3D environments that have long been rendered useless by the advances in computer technology. The CGI characters in films like Shrek and Finding Nemo are far more impressive than anything ever done with 3D. I would rather see Spy Kids in computer animation than the ugly 3D environments created for Spy Kids 3D.

Maybe director Robert Rodriguez was too distracted with his next film Once Upon A Time in Mexico to worry about making Spy Kids 3D. You can see from Mexico's stellar trailer that that film had his full attention. Spy Kids 3D is a throwaway gimmick sequel to a series that hopefully has seen its final adventure.

Movie Review Seabiscuit

Seabiscuit (2003) 

Directed by Gary Ross

Written by Gary Ross

Starring Tobey Maguire, Jeff Bridges, Chris Cooper, Elizabeth Banks, Gary Stevens, William H. Macy

Release Date July 25th, 2003 

Published July 24th, 2003 

The first trailers for Seabiscuit came in late January/early February and were not well received. They looked kind of dopey and sappy, like every other horse movie ever made. It didn't help that Tobey Maguire evoked the same winsomeness that made The Cider House Rules so relentlessly dull. It also didn’t help that the film was directed by the same guy who made Pleasantville a beat you over the head message movie, Gary Ross.

Subsequent trailers have managed to rehab the film’s image into that of the first Oscar contender of the year and that is somewhat accurate. Despite a number of reservations, I wouldn't be surprised to see Seabiscuit come roaring down the stretch in late February at the Oscars.

Adapted from Laura Hillenbrand’s surprise best seller, Seabiscuit relates the rise of a racehorse with the resurgence of an America in the wake of The Depression. Tobey Maguire stars as Red Pollard, a jockey and part time boxer who was sold by his parents to a horse stable after his parents lost everything in the market crash. Red grew up bouncing from race track to race track working in stables and riding in races while at night getting his butt whooped in bar room brawls. In one fight in Mexico, Red is beaten so badly he loses sight in one eye.

Parallel to Red's story is that of a bicycle salesman named Charles Howard who moved out west to find his fortune selling bikes in mining towns. One day a man asks Charles if he could fix a car, and though he's never done it before, Howard is ingenious enough to figure it out and in so doing found his true calling. Seeing the rise of the automobile, Howard opens the very first Western car dealership and becomes a millionaire. Though Howard was one of the lucky people who survived the market crash, his life was not immune to tragedy. While working at his dealership one day, Howard found that his young son Sean had died after borrowing one of dad's cars to go fishing. The death of his son was also the end of his first marriage.

Looking for ways to cope with these dual tragedies, Howard heads to Mexico where he meets a strange old horse trainer named Tom Smith. An old time cowboy, Smith still sleeps under the stars and trains horses not just to run races. He simply loves horses regardless of their abilities. Howard and Smith then look for a horse to run in races and find a real nag. An undersized, intemperate sire of a Triple Crown winner, named Seabiscuit. For a jockey they find the only man who wasn't afraid to ride the angry Seabiscuit, Red Pollard, and soon the too short horse with a too large jockey is running and winning every race.

The main story arc of the film is Howard's attempt to entice the owner of Triple Crown winner War Admiral into a match race with Seabiscuit. While the film posits the match up as a David and Goliath story, I couldn't help but see it as an ego contest between two rich guys at a time when people were starving. Call me cynical if you like, but as the owner of War Admiral and Howard negotiate the terms of the big race while sitting in a New York country club, I couldn't help but imagine the number of people in line for soup just down the road from them. I couldn’t help but think how truly insignificant a horse race is. 

I realize that the race was in reality very inspiring to poor Americans coming out of The Depression but in reality, they were watching one massive ego battle between two rich guys. I guess I can't feel sorry for the number of poor people who threw in their last quarter to sit in the infield to watch the match race, they gave their money willingly. However, at a time of such poverty should there have been a charge to see this race, especially when the money raised all went into the pockets of the already very rich owners? I realize politics has no place in this film’s glossy repainting of its period but if you're going to tie your story to the rebirth of the country, it's fair to take a more realistic look at this idealized story.

All that said, Seabiscuit from a filmmaking standpoint is a very competent professional production. Ross may present a glossed over version of reality but it's a beautiful rendering of said gloss. Seabiscuit is visually very well produced and far better than Ross' previous effort, the annoyingly overwrought message picture Pleasantville.

The performances in Seabiscuit are where its award chances are, especially the supporting performance from William H. Macy as the cartoony comic relief race announcer Tick Tock Mcglaughlin. As always, Jeff Bridges is outstanding and once again shows why he is the most underappreciated actor in Hollywood. Of course, Tobey Maguire is the film’s lead and though I find his dewy-eyed innocence routine somewhat grating, I don't think it's entirely his fault. The script betrays him in the hero department, painting Red as an innocent kid even as he grows into a man living in Mexico, dallying with prostitutes and fighting in bars.

Chris Cooper delivers yet another solid performance and though it may not be as memorable as his Oscar winning turn in Adaptation, it underscores his amazing range. Finally, some praise for real-life jockey Gary Stevens who plays Red's best friend and rival, George Woolf. Stevens delivers a very relaxed and real performance and his riding ability of course is well showcased in the film’s very well orchestrated racing scenes.

There are a number of good things about Seabiscuit, especially its acting. However, the falseness of the re-imagined reality of the period continues to nag at me and thus the impact of the film’s centerpiece, the match race between Seabiscuit and War Admiral, felt hollow to me. I just can't cheer what amounts to an ego contest between two rich guys no matter how athletic and beautiful the horses may be.

Movie Review Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life

Lara Croft Tomb Raider The Cradle of Life 

Directed by Jan De Bont

Written by Dean Georgaris 

Starring Angelina Jolie, Gerard Butler, Noah Taylor, Ciaran Hinds, Djimon Hounsou, Til Schweiger 

Release Date July 25th, 2003

Published July 24th, 2003 

The first Tomb Raider, directed by action hack Simon West, was typical Hollywood action. Big, dumb and loud. That the film was even mildly watchable can only be attributed to its star, the charismatic, sexy Angelina Jolie. Despite the underperformance of the film at the box office, Paramount locked into a sequel even before the first film was completed. Enter director Jan De Bont, master of the big, dumb, loud action picture and what you get is another dull exercise in Hollywood action movie-making with another performance by Angelina Jolie that is the film’s only strong point.

Lady Croft is back in tomb raiding mode after an earthquake off the coast of Greece opens an underwater tomb that once belonged to Alexander the Great. Croft, with a pair of assistants, raids the tomb and finds a number of valuable artifacts. Most important to Lara is a glowing orb of indeterminate origin. Croft doesn't get much of a chance to investigate it as she and her assistants are attacked by members of a Chinese gang who steal the orb and leave Croft for dead.

Naturally Lara escapes and with the help of British intelligence learns that the gang members were working on behalf of the world’s most wanted terrorist, a former Nobel prize winning scientist named Jonathan Reiss. The orb that Reiss is purchasing from the gang members is actually a map that leads to the most dangerous weapons in the world, Pandora's Box.

It's Lara's mission to steal the orb from the Chinese gang before they can sell it to Reiss but to do that she needs the help of an ex-flame and former army colonel named Terry Sheridan. However, Sheridan will need to be sprung from prison before he can help. Sheridan is in jail in Russia after betraying his troops and selling secrets to an unnamed enemy. The past between Sheridan and Lara as well as Sheridan's treachery add an interesting level to the partnership and Jolie and Butler have a good chemistry.

All of that setup takes a while and even as it happens, we are treated to a number of big, dumb, loud action scenes. The tomb that once belonged to Alexander The Great is completely destroyed in Lara's shootout with gang members. This sequence features some God-awful effects. Especially bad is a scene where Lara climbs a large stone likeness of Alexander to get to the glowing orb. Lara is obviously not Angelina Jolie or even a stunt double. 

It looked to me as though it were the CGI video game Lara Croft. The action sequence that followed the fight and the destruction of the tomb is just as bad as Lara cuts her arm to attract a shark, which she then punches in the face and rides to the surface. It would have been more appropriate had Lara jumped the shark. Once on the surface Lara finds her boat has been sunk and she is left floating on a piece of it for three days, the cut on her arm and the sharks conveniently forgotten.

From there it's more big, dumb action. Bullets are fired at a rate that would make our military blush and more bad CGI stunt sequences test the patience of attentive audience members. The film’s most unintentionally funny moment happens when a camera travels over the ocean, a chuckle-inducing reminder of De Bont's Speed 2.

The only appealing aspect of Tomb Raider is star Angelina Jolie. The star is the only person involved in the film who isn't on autopilot. Her charisma is undeniable and can't be reigned in by the weak script and weaker action. Her co-star Gerard Butler wakes up occasionally to spark some sexual chemistry with Jolie but he is too busy auditioning to be the next James Bond to become a fully fleshed out character in Tomb Raider. Jolie's real co-star is that silver bodysuit she wears in the underwater tomb sequence, a wardrobe piece that will fuel the fantasies of teenage boys for years to come.

For all of Jolie's effort, she never really had a chance. The producers of Tomb Raider 2 wanted a by the numbers action movie that capitalized on the video game’s built in appeal and they got it. Just like the original Tomb Raider, the sequel hits all the usual action beats that are familiar to audiences. Paramount pictures will likely get exactly the results they were looking for from Tomb Raider 2. (Ed. Note – They didn’t, much to your pleasure)

Movie Review How to Deal

How to Deal (2003) 

Directed by Claire Kilner

Written by Neena Beber

Starring Mandy Moore, Peter Gallagher, Allison Janney, Trent Ford, Dylan Baker 

Release Date July 18th, 2003 

Published July 18th, 2003 

Is it just my cynical nature or do you agree that the title How To Deal is a marketer's idea of how teenagers talk? Everything about How To Deal screams of a publicity department ranting and raving about test audiences and demographics. It plays as if there was a representative from the marketing department in the editing suite dictating where to place the top 40 pop tunes for maximum exposure.

The same could be said, quite cynically, about the film's star, Mandy Moore. From her first film AWalk To Remember to her pop albums to her Neutrogena commercials, Moore is a marketer's dream. That Moore manages a respectable performance in her new movie, How to Deal, is a sign that she is developing into quite a talented actress even as marketers attempt to manipulate her image for maximum dollars.

In How To Deal, Moore is Halley Martin, the daughter of bitterly divorced parents and exceptionally cynical about her own prospects for love. Her best friend Scarlett (Alexandra Holden) is far less cynical, she's in love with the captain of the soccer team and has begun having sex despite her friend’s disapproving, and slightly jealous, glare. Scarlett isn't the only person in Halley's life who's found love. To Halley's dismay, her father Len (Peter Gallagher), has a new girlfriend. Len, a morning radio DJ (more on that later), has fallen for his bimbette weather girl and they plan to marry live on the air. Halley's sister Ashley (Mary Catherine Garrison) is also getting married, her marriage is to a preppy rich kid played by Mackenzie Astin.

With all the love in the air it's not surprising that Halley is a little sick of it, even when a hunky friend of a friend, Macon (Trent Ford), turns his sights on her. Halley makes it clear to Macon that she's not interested. Soon after though, when tragedies begin to pile up, Halley turns to Macon for support. I won't give away the film’s numerous major and minor tragedies except to say that soap opera characters don't suffer as much as poor Halley. That said, <Mandy Moore does an excellent job of not allowing the melodramatics to overcome her character. The young actress who I instructed not to quit her day job after her first film has me eating those words with her heady performance in How To Deal.

It's unfortunate however that all that surrounds her fails so miserably. The blame for this failure obviously lies with the studio and the film’s producers who compromised the story at every turn. Every emotion is underscored with a pop tune and in every moment Moore's performance appears to chafe against the film’s obvious machinations toward a happy ending. Moore's acting belies an entirely different story, one that is slightly darker and more cynical, and likely more satisfying. 

The way that How to Deal is edited, Moore's Halley succumbs very easily to Macon. Yet, you can see where Moore and director Claire Kilner were looking for something deeper that would make her revelation at the end a crescendo rather than a whimper. Add to that an underwritten supporting cast that includes a God-awful performance by Peter Gallagher as Halley's dad and a radio DJ. I happen to work in radio so Gallagher's performance grates on me on more than one level. Gallagher has to be the worst example of Hollywood's idea of a radio professional since Dolly Parton in Straight Talk. This is a truly embarrassing performance.

How To Deal is a sad example of modern Hollywood where marketability trumps story and artistry at every turn. I hope that Mandy Moore can escape the marketers and move on to more challenging roles. I never thought I would write such nice things about Mandy Moore's acting but despite my prejudice against pop stars, she earned it in How To Deal.

Movie Review: Bad Boys 2

Bad Boys 2 (2003)

Directed by Michael Bay 

Written by Ron Shelton, Jerry Stahl 

Starring Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Gabrielle Union, Peter Stormare, Theresa Randle 

Release Date July 18th, 2003 

Published July 17th, 2003 

Director Michael Bay cut his teeth on innovative music videos and commercials until his 30-seconds-at-a-time style caught the attention of producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson. In Bay, the producers saw a director who fit perfectly their MTV-style films; movies filled with hit soundtracks, quick edits, pretty girls, and massive explosions. For his part Bay was malleable, without a hint of the headstrong behavior that would take a film's authorship from the high-profile producers. 

The music video style of bay was very evident in his first Bruckheimer/Simpson collaboration, 1994's Bad Boys. Now, a mere nine years later, Bay continues in the same whipsaw, bombastic style that made him Bruckheimer's pet director and makes Bad Boys II yet another Bruckheimer assault on the intelligence of the American film-going public.

That they reteamed Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, the stars from the original Bad Boys, is the end of the praise I can give the makers of Bad Boys II. It is Smith and Lawrence's snappy chemistry that provides the film's only moments of pleasure. However, even the charming sass of the leads can't save this loud, dumb disaster.

Smith and Lawrence are again Miami narcotics cops Mike Lowery and Marcus Burnett. Mike is still the player, the dog, the trust fund baby, while Marcus is the hard-working family man forever henpecked by his loving wife Theresa (Theresa Randle; reprising her role from the first film, though only in a cameo). Mike and Marcus are tracking a shipment of ecstasy supposedly being shipped in from Cuba.  We are told that since September 11, 2001, security on the ocean has gotten tighter and the drug dealers are adapting quickly, finding new ways to ship drugs into America. In this case, a Cuban dealer named Johnny Tapia (Jordi Molla) is shipping drugs and money inside dead bodies.

Not only are Marcus and Mike after Tapia, so is the DEA, lead by Marcus's sister Sydney (the ungodly hot Gabrielle Union). Mike and Sydney have a little secret they have been keeping from Marcus; they secretly hooked up about a month earlier and the relationship is getting serious. While Sydney goes undercover inside Tapia's organization, Mike and Marcus try to protect her while compiling evidence to arrest Tapia (or, more to the point, find an excuse to shoot him.)

Indeed, in the Bay-Bruckheimer world, cops don't arrest people, they compile enough evidence for a justifiable homicide. The script is clever enough to call attention to the carnage with a running gag about Marcus's being in therapy and no longer wanting to kill people. Smith's hotshot Lowery has no such qualms about violence, taking shoot-first ask-questions-later to new heights; he makes Dirty Harry look like an expert in police procedure. 

Now, I'm not asking for realism, but some level of professionalism isn't out of the question. If police want to get upset about their portrayal in rap music, where is their outrage about their portrayal in Bad Boys II? Here, Cops are portrayed wanton cowboys who leave as much carnage in their wake as the bad guys they collar? Why is that acceptable but portraying cops as abusing their power out of line? It can't possibly be that Cops like being portrayed as Bad Boy cowboys is it? 

At a bloated two hours, 37 minutes, Bad Boys II is an interminable jumble of massive explosions and flying bullets. And while Michael Bay may feel that this is his specialty, being good at it doesn't make it entertaining. As he does in Armageddon, The Rock, and Pearl Harbor, Bay delights in blowin' stuff up good and may in fact have collected more bullets and explosions than ever before in Bad Boys II. Like an overlong Motley Crue video, Bad Boys II whips forward with jump-cut edits, fiery explosions, and busty stripper chicks, including a naked dead girl the guys stop to ogle while searching for evidence. Classy. 

I have a lot of goodwill for Smith and Lawrence and would love to see them work together again, but on a different project. In Bad Boys II, their quick, jokey banter is completely overwhelmed by Bay's over-the-top obsession with pyrotechnics.

Movie Review Pirates of the Caribbean Curse of the Black Pearl

Pirates of the Caribbean The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) 

Directed by Gore Verbinski 

Written by Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio

Starring Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Keira Knightley, Orlando Bloom, Jonathan Pryce 

Release Date July 9th, 2003 

Published July 8th, 2003 

It's quite clear that Disney has run out of original movie ideas. Forget the sequels on their slate (The Santa Clause 3 et al). Forget the remakes of the rich Disney backlog (Freaky Friday). Disney is now down making movies of their theme park rides. Last year, they quietly dumped The Country Bears into theaters to critical and audience indifference. Later this year, it's Haunted Mansion with Eddie Murphy. Surely it can't be much longer before we see the Hall of Presidents and Epcot Center on the big screen, provided they can find a star to put on the poster.

That said, Disney has mined one of their theme park rides into a quite successful film. Pirates of The Caribbean may be a super lame theme park ride, but as a movie it's a rollicking adventure story made all the more interesting by awesome performances of two of the industry's best, Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush.

While the thrust of Pirates of The Caribbean is set in motion by the love story between blacksmith Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Governor's daughter Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightly), the story doesn't really kick off until the appearance of the rapscallion pirate Jack Sparrow (Depp). The former captain of the Black Pearl, Sparrow floats into this British Caribbean seaport on a sinking ship with hope that he can steal a ship to chase down the Pearl and its mutinous crew. Sparrow is unable to capture a ship on his own and is captured but not before he discovers Elizabeth in possession of a legendary piece of pirate booty.

Once Jack is aware of the gold medallion that Elizabeth has, somehow so is the crew of the Black Pearl who is led by Captain Barbossa (Rush). They steam to the British port to recapture the gold which legend says can lift the curse that afflicts the crew. After plundering the British, the crew takes Elizabeth and the gold and retreat to their hidden pirate island to lift the curse with the gold piece and Elizabeth’s blood.

While the British military plots its course of action to rescue the Governor's daughter, Will Turner hatches a plan of his own. Spring Jack Sparrow, steal a boat and save the woman he loves. With the help of Sparrow's daring swordplay and cunning piracy, they capture a military boat and set off to find a crew and capture the Black Pearl.

There are a number of twists and turns from there that I won't spoil, but you already know from commercials that the curse on the crew of the Black Pearl is that they are dead but cannot die. Nor can they feel anything, pleasure or pain, rendering them unable to enjoy their plunder unless they can lift the curse. The skeletal pirates, only seen while bathed in moonlight, are a spectacular special effect, well choreographed by Director Gore Verbinski. The effects are done with amazing precision and no doubt will be honored come awards season.

Of course, as impressive as the effects are, they are nothing compared to the performance of Johnny Depp, who is his own special effect. Topped with scraggly dreads, beads and an unruly goatee, Depp minces, preens, and manages to evoke rock star attitude in an 1800's pirate. That according to Depp was exactly what he was going for. In interviews, he claimed to have modeled some of Jack Sparrow on Keith Richards. Actually, it was Keith Richards and Depp's favorite childhood cartoon character Pepe LePue. Whatever the inspiration, the performance is truly inspired and even if the rest of the film had stunk I could recommend Pirates on the strength of Depp's performance alone.

Not to be outdone, Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush preens and hams it up as much as Depp, and to as much success. Being the bad guy, Rush is allowed to growl all his dialogue and chew every bit of scenery that isn't nailed down. Rush appears to relish the freedom of playing a Pirate Captain and his excitement is part of the fun of Pirates of the Caribbean The Curse of the Black Pearl. 

Knightley and Bloom are quite a bland pair in comparison, but how could they not be? Compared to Sparrow and Barbossa, the characters in La Cage aux Folles are bland. Bloom and Knightley are saddled with the film's two most conventional roles of hero and heroine, and though their love story is sweet, it doesn't carry much weight. It’s made even less weighty by a cop out ending that is a little too tidy for a pirate tale.

Director Gore Verbinski shows here, as he did in The Ring, that he hasa steady hand and a strong eye for strong compelling visuals. Verbinski and his team creates an entire pirate universe for the film to exist within, a lively, vibrant and yet lived in place right out of dream conception of where Pirates existed. Creating such a coherent story without having to reign in his over the top performers is another remarakable balancing act that demonstrates Verbinski's talent, he makes his performers comfortable and gets the most out his crew. The best directors can do that. 

Movie Review Terminator 3 Rise of the Machines

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)

Directed by Jonathan Mostow 

Written by John Brancato, Michael Ferris

Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Christanna Loken, Claire Danes, Nick Stahl

Release Date July 2nd, 2003 

Published July 1st, 2003 

No film has ever inspired more dread and more excitement for me than Terminator 3. Terminator 2 was the moviegoing experience that inspired my love of going to the movies. That awesome, visceral, exciting experience changed the way I looked at movies. I realized for the first time what was possible in films. The special effects were like nothing anyone had ever seen before. Those effects have since been rendered passé, but I have never forgotten the experience of seeing them for the first time. However, since seeing T2 in theaters some 12 years ago, I have only seen it twice. I can't bring myself to watch it again for fear of diminishing that first viewing. I took that same fear with me into Terminator 3.

My fears were increased when James Cameron, the visionary creator of the series, dropped out of the project and was followed by his ex-wife and series star Linda Hamilton. The fears were furthered when star Edward Furlong's real-life problems caused him to be replaced as John Connor. Then, most disturbing of all, the report that Arnold Schwarzenegger would spend most of T3 getting his butt whipped by a girl Terminator. Thankfully, my fears melted away quickly as the screen went black in my preview screening and new John Connor Nick Stahl began his ominous voiceover. That feeling I had from T2 returned slowly.

It has been 12 years since a teenage John Connor learned that he was to become the savior of humanity in a war against machines. Now under the belief that he prevented Judgment Day from happening, John lives a life on the fringe of society. With no permanent address, phone, or steady job, John goes from town to working odd jobs for beer money with the sneaking suspicion that maybe he only postponed Judgment Day.

After an accident on his motorcycle, John breaks into a veterinary clinic in search of painkillers. As fate would have it a former junior high school classmate named Kate Brewster (Claire Danes) works in the clinic and happens upon him. However, before she can alert authorities, she finds one of her clients shot dead in the hallway and a blonde red-leather-wearing killer is stalking her.

The killer is the T-X (Kristanna Loken) and what Kate does not know is that her name is on a list of people the T-X is to eliminate (as is John Connor). Before the T-X can complete her mission, it walks the real Terminator (Schwarzenegger) with the mission to protect Kate and John. After temporarily slowing down the T-X, the Terminator helps John and Kate escape, leading to a chase sequence that is one of the greatest in film history.

While some critics have complained that the sequence goes on too long, the chase seemed damn near perfect to me. Big, loud, and violent, involving a crane, driverless emergency vehicles, and numerous crushed vehicles, the sequence is edge-of-your-seat exciting and fun.

From there, we learn the fate of Linda Hamilton's legendary character Sarah Connor. I won't give it away, but for such a warrior it's a bit of a letdown. If any female character deserved a true Viking funeral, it was Sarah Connor, so it's disappointing she was lost with such a whimper. However, this series of events leads to another terrific action sequence, this time in a graveyard, with a hearse and a rocket propelled grenade.

Terminator 3 never drags and never tires. Its action propels the story forward without ever trampling the plot, which is a logical extension of the two films that preceded it. Admittedly, my memory of T2 has grown fuzzy over the years, but I was under the impression that the world was saved at the end. T3 has some logical and philosophical explanations as to how the story could continue through its use of the ideas of fate and destiny, classic sci-fi questions about whether you can alter the past or the future.

Then, of course, there is the philosophical debate about technology versus humanity. This film has a decidedly anti-technology vibe; even as the heroes are protected by technology, they are forced to fight against it. It is a fascinating debate, one the film sidesteps in favor of action and explosions, but it does spark the discussion about if or when our technology will go too far. Like a less spiritually inclined version of The Matrix, the Terminator series has some cautionary tales for our modern technological society.

Director Jonathan Mostow deserves all the credit in the world for picking up the gauntlet from James Cameron and making the film that Cameron himself likely would have made--a polished, professional action movie that is entertaining, exciting, imaginative and fun. Not only does Mostow provide the thrills, but he and screenwriters Jon Brancato and Michael Farris have brought wit as well (especially in Arnold's introductory scene set in a strip club on ladies night.)

I had every expectation that they would screw this up. That the film that inspired my love of movies would forever be tarnished by another big budget Hollywood shoot-em-up without a brain. There is plenty of shooting, but plenty of brains as well. Mostow did what I thought could not be done and nearly matched T2. It has been too long since I have had this great movie going experience and though the film suffers the loss of Linda Hamilton, it is a worthy successor to T2. If, as the ending seems to hint, there is a sequel, I will look forward to it like I have no sequel before it.

Movie Review Legally Blonde 2 Red White and Blonde

Legally Blonde 2 Red, White and Blonde

Directed by Charles Herman Wurmfeld 

Written by Kate Kondell 

Starring Reese Witherspoon, Sally Field, Bruce McGill, Jennifer Coolidge, Bob Newhart, Luke Wilson

Release Date July 2nd, 2003 

Published July 4th, 2003

The first Legally Blonde was a hit completely out of left field. Arriving in July 2001 in the midst of the big time summer blockbusters, it was allowed to fly under the radar and surprise audiences with its ebullience, humor and especially its charismatic star Reese Witherspoon. Prior to Legally Blonde, Witherspoon gave off the aura of an indie actress without a hint of Julia Roberts.

Now with Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde only Julia can match Reese paycheck to paycheck. Unfortunately, with that stardom comes consequence. That meant that this sequel, even opening against the blockbuster Terminator 3, would not fly under the radar and would arrive to the kind of scrutiny the first film was lucky to have avoided.

When the first teaser trailers for Legally Blonde 2 landed in theaters back in January they were met not with the fondness that the first films DVD release met but with a cringing unease. As much as I liked the first film, the teaser trailers hints that Elle Woods would be going to Washington seemed to strain my goodwill. Of course, it didn't help that Witherspoon's follow up to Legally Blonde was the god-awful Sweet Home Alabama. So with all this cynicism I wasn't looking forward to Legally Blonde 2.

We pick up some two years after the original left off. Elle Woods is now a successful Boston attorney planning the wedding of the century to her Harvard professor fiancé Emmett (Luke Wilson). She is also planning on being promoted to partner in her law firm until her wedding plans come into conflict with her career. After Elle decides she would like to invite the mother of her pooch Bruiser to her wedding she finds that mom is a test animal at a research lab that happens to be one of her clients. When she asks that the firm ask the client to quit testing, the head of the firm fires her.

Of course this is the same Elle Woods who managed to graduate Harvard law school when everyone in the world said no, so of course this won't stop her. With a new political consciousness Elle leaves Boston for Washington D.C to work for Congresswoman Rudd (Sally Field), who happens to be a former member of Elle's sorority. Once in Washington, Elle is met with the same skepticism she faced at Harvard as her new colleagues quickly dismiss her blondeness and pep.

Just like in the original, it doesn't take long for Elle to win over her new co-workers and soon she is hard at work on her animal rights bill. With the help of a know it all doorman (Bob Newhart in a welcome cameo), Elle learns the secrets of the Congress members she needs to get her bill passed. Using her few connections and her unique sensibility for schmoozing, Elle wins over another former sorority sister turned crusty congresswoman and a right wing NRA Southern Republican (Bruce McGill) who also happens to be a real dog lover.

The film plays out in the same underdog style as the first film with our ever optimistic heroine confounding her cynical opponents with her kill'em with kindness attitude. That is the great thing about this character, no matter what is in front of her she is unrelenting in her sweetness and optimism. In any other character that much glass half emptiness would become grating but as played by Witherspoon, Elle Woods has a sense of self and unique understanding of people that disarms even the most cynical of onscreen opponents and audience members.

The script however, written by Kate Kondell and Down with Love scribes Eve Ahlert and Dennis Drake is even thinner than the original. Providing mere context is not enough to justify this film’s over the top flights of fancy. including a cringe inducing dance sequence and yet another uncomfortably unfunny turn by Jennifer Coolidge as Elle's pal Paulette. Her tight outfits and Tammy Faye Baker makeup look as if they are about to explode at any moment and her numerous non sequiturs painted as jokes are more creepy than funny.

The thinness of script in the first film was easily forgiven because of Witherspoon's whirlwind performance, so winning that it nothing else mattered. In Legally Blonde 2, Witherspoon has to use all of the goodwill developed in the first film to cover this script and she almost does it. Unfortunately, Witherspoon is saddled with one of those lame endings in which the hero gives a speech that wins everyone over to her side and saves the day. The speech is hokey, beyond anything you have ever heard and blows what little chance the film had of succeeding.

There are a couple good laughs in Legally Blonde 2 and yet another star turn by Reese Witherspoon who earns every dollar of her reported $20 million dollar price tag. She's so good I can almost recommend Legally Blonde 2. Almost.

Movie Review Charlie's Angels Full Throttle

Charlie's Angels Full Throttle (2003) 

Directed by McG 

Written by John August 

Starring Lucy Liu, Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, Demi Moore, Bill Murray 

Release Date June 27th, 2003 

Published June 26th, 2003 

The first Charlie’s Angels film delighted in the kind of mindless, plotless humor that made the Austin Powers movies so much fun. Or at least the first Austin Powers movie. As the sequels in that series show, it's difficult to maintain that atmosphere. The humor relies so much on the outlandishness of the setup that you’re forced to top yourself from one gag to the next. For the Charlie’s Angels crew, that means skimpier outfits and racier humor that pushes the boundaries of it's mandated PG-13 rating. Thanks to a cast that has earned a great deal of audience goodwill, they manage to succeed this time, but one more will be really pushing it.

We all remember the flashy sex kittens from the original, Alex (Lucy Liu), Natalie (Cameron Diaz) and Dylan (Drew Barrymore). No need for reintroduction, the film jumps right into the action as the girls save a federal marshal from a group of Mongolian terrorists, with the cunning use of special effects and Cameron Diaz's ebullient sexuality.

From there it's back to the states where Charlie (the disembodied voice of John Forsythe) explains what we need to know in order to give the film’s gags a minimal amount of context. Some mess about the federal witness protection program and the list of people in protection. A bad guy has the list and is trying to sell it and it's up the Angels to stop them and retrieve the list.

During the investigation it's revealed that Dylan is on the list for having testified against an Irish mobster named Seamus O'Grady (Justin Theroux), who conveniently enough has just been released from prison. Oh but he's not the big bad guy. As the girls quickly figure out the real bad guy is a former Angel named Madison Lee (Demi Moore). Why she stole the list and blah blah blah is not necessary. How hot she looks in a bikini, now that is what this movie is really about.

Moore's role is actually rather limited in screentime, not much more than a cameo save for the big fight scene at the end. There are numerous cameos throughout the film that at times it's like an episode of the Love Boat. Matt LeBlanc reprises his cameo from the first film, as does Luke Wilson. John Cleese drops in as does Robert Patrick and even Demi's ex husband Bruce Willis. There is also a small role Shia Leboef from Holes, pop singer Pink and even the Olson Twins. Sadly, the film failed to get the cameo that really would have set tongues a wagging, Demi's current boy toy Ashton Kutcher.

Bernie Mac has a slightly bigger than a cameo role as the new Bosley, taking over for Bill Murray. Who cares how or why he has the role, Mac is welcome presence because he's just damn funny in every scene he's in.

Reigning over all this is Director McG, whose skills as a music video director were very much on display in the first film and they are far more pronounced in this sequel. McG is maturing quickly from video director to pop artist. His visuals are pure eye candy and his actors merely props to decorate his painting. McG skillfully maneuvers his actors through a series of eyepopping scenes, both titillating and action packed.

McG is to be commended for his amazing ability to skirt the censors who somehow were convinced to give this film a PG-13 rating. McG walks the line between obvious Russ Meyer style exploitation and acceptable humorous double entendre, like a skilled tightrope walker. The stars of the film and their director seem to say it's okay to exploit their sexuality, such as a scene where the Angels go undercover in a strip club, as long as the girls are in on the joke. What woman could resist having their butt worshipped the way McG seems to worship the butt's of his leads? All shot as lovingly as one might film the Mona Lisa.

Getting away with this type of envelope pushing for another sequel is highly unlikely. Unless the ratings board says PG-13 means the girls can strip naked and kill bad guys at the same time, the filmmakers will have a hard time finding anything more safely titillating than what they concocted in Full Throttle.

Movie Review: Alex & Emma

Alex & Emma (2003) 

Directed by Rob Reiner 

Written by Jeremy Leven 

Starring Luke Wilson, Kate Hudson, Sophie Marceau, David Paymer, Rob Reiner

Release Date June 20th, 2003 

Published June 20th, 2003 

Recently I had a conversation with a friend about director Rob Reiner and it reminded me of the number of great films he has made. A Few Good Men, The American President, This Is Spinal Tap and When Harry Met Sally amongst others combine great filmmaking with a pop sensibility that is entertaining and accessible without pandering.  However there have been occasions during Reiner's career when he lost that sense. In films such as North and The Story Of Us, Reiner mistakes quirky and cute for funny. For his latest picture, Alex & Emma, Reiner has the ingredients of When Harry Met Sally but the execution of The Story of Us.

Alex (Luke Wilson) is a New York writer with gambling debts that have Cuban gangsters hanging him out of a window. He has been promising for months that when his new novel was completed he would have their money. Unfortunately, he has hasn't written even a page. The gangsters give him one month to get the money or they will kill him.

Of course the only way Alex can get the money he owes, now doubled with interest for the extra time, he has to finish his novel. He can't type as fast as he thinks, so Alex comes up with the brilliant idea to hire a stenographer to type as he talks and transcribe the novel when it's complete. Enter Emma (Kate Hudson), a quirky, cute stenographer who believes she is going to work in a law office. Her meeting with Alex in his dingy apartment is one of the few bright funny scenes in the film as she mistakes him for a psycho killer.

After Alex explains what he needs from her, she's still not convinced. It's not until she reads the last page of his first novel that she agrees to work for him. That is one her quirks, Emma always reads the last page of a book to decide if the ending is worth reading toward. It's a cute quirk, but whether it's cute because it's cute or cute because it's Kate Hudson is debatable. If only the audience was given the same option because after seeing the end of Alex & Emma, I likely would not have sat through the whole thing. But I digress.

From this point on, we switch back and forth between Alex's novel about an American tutor hired to teach a pair of French kids while falling for their single mom (Sophie Marceau) and Alex and Emma as they begin to fall for each other. Naturally, elements of the real dynamic begin to seep into the novel. Alex creates a new character, a servant who he envisions as Emma without her knowing it. The character is a nice comic invention who begins as a bubbly blonde Swede then morphs into a severe red headed German and then a fiery Latina before finally settling on an American who looks just like Emma. It's a funny device but it plays as a device, a very noticeable one.

Being a romantic comedy puts Alex & Emma at an automatic disadvantage. We in the audience already expect the leads to end up together so the writers and director must come up with logical roadblocks in order to keep the characters apart til the end. The obstacles in Alex and Emma however, just don't work, especially the obvious curveball that comes near the end. It's yet another of those easily solvable situations that must remain unsolved to extend the film to its conclusion. Hudson's character is asked to do things that are illogical and defy what we have come to know of the character.

Reiner's sure-handed direction is there and he is blessed with the lovely Kate Hudson who saves most of her scenes on the sheer force of her talent and charisma. Co-star Luke Wilson however never seems comfortable and seems miscast as the roguish self-assured Alex. His offhanded laid back style never jives with the confident self-assured character he is supposed to portray and thus he came off flat.

What is really lacking in Alex & Emma however, is laughs. Hudson provides the biggest laughs, especially in her numerous incarnations in the novel, I especially loved her German accent. Very sexy. But overall, when you combine the lack of solid laughs and illogical romantic comedy roadblocks, you get an amiable attempt at romance but an unsuccessful attempt at that.

Movie Review Hollywood Homicide

Hollywood Homicide (2003) 

Directed by Ron Shelton

Written by Ron Shelton

Starring Harrison Ford, Josh Hartnett, Master P, Lena Olin, Bruce Greenwood, Isaiah Washington, Keith David, Dwight Yoakam, Martin Landau

Release Date June 13th, 2003 

Published June 12th, 2003 

Every time I complain about a film’s marketing campaign I get emails asking me why I complain about something that has nothing to do with the film. I politely disagree with that sentiment. A film’s marketing shapes your perception and the movie Hollywood Homicide is an excellent example of my feelings. The ad campaign of the film is accompanied by a rap soundtrack that is not only misleading, it's misguided. That aside, and despite his aging demographic, Ford shows in Hollywood Homicide that he's still got that magical IT quality that makes a superstar.

In Hollywood Homicide Harrison Ford is Joe Gavilan, real estate agent by day, Hollywood homicide cop at night. His young partner is KC Calden (Josh Hartnett), who is also a part-time yoga instructor and wannabe actor. The two are brought in to investigate the murder of an up and coming rap group in a LA nightclub owned by Julius (Master P). In one of the film’s funniest moments, Joe takes time out from the investigation to pitch Julius about a house he has for sale. The murder sets the plot in motion but there is something else going on in this film.

In most cop movies, we would track from the evidence that implies the rap groups record company owner killed them for trying to break their contract. Isaiah Washington fills that vaguely Suge Knightish role. However at some point in the making of Hollywood Homicide, director Ron Shelton forgot about this by-the-numbers plot and fell in love with his quirky characters. Lucky for him, these are great characters and even better actors playing them.

As the murder plot becomes merely a subplot, it's the weird friendship between Ford and Hartnett that takes center stage and the two actors show an excellent chemistry. Ford also has a subplot with the wife of one of his fellow LAPD detectives, who also happens to be working for the bad guys. Lena Olin fills the role of Ford's love interest and brings a mature sexuality to what could have been a throwaway role. There are a couple of strands of plot also working throughout Hollywood Homicide, such as Dwight Yoakam as a dirty former cop working for Isaiah Washington and his connection to the murder of Hartnett's father. Yet again, such plot machinations are merely background for the actors.

The film’s ending is a car wreck, literally and figuratively. The figurative car wreck is the number of unresolved plot points that are simply thrown away or disregarded. Bruce Greenwood in particular gets the short shrift as his character arc is resolved with little notice to the audience as to why or how. Not that it made any difference to the plot but it didn't fit any kind of logic. You can tell a lot of this subplot was left on the cutting room floor. In fact, from the messy narrative that is on display, I would bet the director’s cut must have been just over three hours just to explain the extraneous plot points..

You can speculate for hours as to what happened during the filming of Hollywood Homicide that brought it to it's current state. Despite my praise of the film’s leads and its humor, the film is a real mess from a plot standpoint. One could wonder if the obvious allusions to Suge Knight in Isaiah Washington's character caused that character to be cut back a good deal. You can see many of the cop movie cliches fighting to surface and Shelton seemed to make a very pronounced effort to downplay those cliches. He leaves the film’s big action movie moments until the end of the film and focuses on the films strengths, it's actors and the humor they generate from their interaction.

That doesn't make the film feel any less messy but it makes it far more tolerable than it might have been. -

Movie Review: Dumb and Dumberer When Harry Met Lloyd

Dumb and Dumberer When Harry Met Lloyd (2003) 

Directed by Troy Miller 

Written by Troy Miller 

Starring Eric Christian Olsen, Derek Richardson, Cheri Oteri, Luis Guzman, Eugene Levy

Release Date June 13th, 2003 

Published June 13th, 2003 

Last week there were debates as to whether 2 Fast 2 Furious suffered for not having star Vin Diesel and Director Rob Cohen. One could very well argue that indeed it did lack for not having them. No such debate is necessary for Dumb and Dumberer. Even the most obstinate viewer can't argue that this film suffers the loss of stars Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels and writer-directors Peter and Bobby Farrelly. But moreover, it's the audience that really suffers.

Without Carrey and Daniels the money grubbing, greedy executives at New Line reposition the story as a prequel that goes back to the characters as High School students. Eric Christian Olson is Lloyd Christmas and Derek Richardson is Harry Dunne. Friend from their first meeting, Harry and Lloyd are placed into a class for special needs children. This is no benevolent gesture to help the kids learn however. The schools principal played by Eugene Levy (slumming desperately) has setup the class to scam the government out of $100 grand that the school gets for having the class. The principal’s goal is to steal the money and run off with the school lunch lady played by Cheri Oteri.

Of course their scheme is foiled by Harry and Lloyd, although unknowingly, with the help of an investigative reporter for the school newspaper played by Rachel Nichols. Of course Dumb and Dumberer is not about having a plot but rather setting up one relentlessly stupid joke to get the next relentlessly stupid joke.

I know, I can't criticize Dumb and Dumberer for being stupid, because that is the point of the film. However I can criticize it for being tremendously unfunny. I can criticize it for lacking any redeeming value. I can criticize it for stealing 80 some-odd minutes of my life from me. What I don't want to do too much of is rip the film’s young stars. Eric Christian Olson is a game performer. The kid gives everything he's got and he does a pretty good impression of Carrey. Rachel Nichols, as the boy’s love interest, is a beautiful girl who deserves better than this.

Director Troy Miller is also not entirely to blame for this film. Though it is his name on the film, he is merely in place to transfer a knockoff script to the screen. Imagine directing a high school production of the original Dumb and Dumber and you can understand what it must have been like for Miller.

The real blame goes to New Line for allowing their greed to get the best of them. They cynically shoved this film into production with the sole purpose of making money. It is this kind of assembly line filmmaking that is destroying Hollywood. Films are not mass produced product you buy off the rack at K-Mart, but that seems to have been New Line's approach in making the dreadful Dumb and Dumberer.

Movie Review: Bruce Almighty

Bruce Almighty (2003) 

Directed by Tom Shadyac

Written by Steve Koren, Mark O'Keefe, Steve Oedekirk 

Starring Jim Carrey, Jennifer Aniston, Steve Carell, Morgan Freeman, Phillip Baker Hall

Release Date May 23rd, 2003 

Published May 22nd, 2003 

The concept must have seemed like a home run even without a script. Jim Carrey as a regular guy who takes on God's powers. Heck do you even need a script for that? Simply turn on the camera, let Carrey contort himself, add a catchphrase, special effects and you’re done. Thankfully the producers of Bruce Almighty decided to put together a script to go with their concept and star. It also helps to have a top notch supporting cast including Morgan Freeman and Jennifer Aniston who make Bruce Almighty rise above your usual Jim Carrey flick.

In Bruce Almighty, Jim Carrey is Bruce Nolan, a TV reporter who longs to move up to the news anchor position. His current job as a feature reporter covering stories like a record breaking chocolate chip cookie aren't exactly what Bruce had in mind when he got into journalism. At least things are good at home where Bruce has a great girlfriend, Grace (Aniston), though her sister Debbie (Lisa Ann Walter) hates him. Bruce doesn't realize Grace wants to get married, he's too wrapped up in his problems to notice.

Bad things keep happening to Bruce. Mostly it's little things like his dog not being house broken, or traffic making him late to work. But when Bruce finds out that he has lost the Anchor job to rival co-worker Evan (Steve Corell), Bruce really flips, and worse he does it on live TV while covering a story. His on air outburst gets him fired, which leads to a fight with hoodlums in the station parking lot and a fight with Grace at home.

With all that's happened to him it's easy to understand why Bruce would lash out at the almighty, and God responds. Sending message through Bruce's busted pager, God (Morgan Freeman) summons Bruce to an empty warehouse. After convincing a naturally skeptical Bruce that he is indeed God, he proceeds to give Bruce all of his powers, saying “let's see if you can do any better.”

Bruce's idea of better is a little different than God's. Mostly it's settling scores with his rivals at work, impressing his girlfriend and teaching his dog to use the toilet. Bruce also enjoys a little revenge on the hoods that beat him up. Is there anything funnier than a monkey crawling out of a guys butt? See this film and judge for yourself.

There are also prayers to deal with. Prayers that come to Bruce in the form of millions of voices in his head. His brilliant plan for dealing with the prayers leads to couple of pretty good sight gags and the potential for some real chaos that doesn't quite live up to expectation. You would think a gag where Bruce makes everyone’s prayers come true might do a little more than have everyone win the lottery on the same day.

There is an obvious in-joke in Bruce Almighty, a joke that relates Bruce's problems at work mirror Carrey's real life problems. Like his character’s longing to move from funny features reporter to serious news anchorman is an exact corollary to Carrey's longing to be a serious actor. The joke isn't overplayed and has a nice payoff that gives the audience insight into the actor’s psyche in real life.

Director Tom Shadyac still has some growing up to do, but he is beginning to mature a little as a competent comedy director. He has learned that the setup of a joke is as important as it's punchline. He has learned more about telling a coherent story that unfolds with a logical progression to a believable conclusion.

However, Shadyac still needs to curb his affection for schmaltz. If you saw his attempt at pathos and dramedy in Patch Adams, you know what I'm talking about. There are moments near the end of Bruce Almighty where the film threatens to drown in syrupy sweetness. Thank heaven for Morgan Freeman who keeps the sweetness from becoming cavity inducing with his charm, wit and calming influence. His mere presence relaxes both audience and star and makes Bruce Almighty a much better film for having cast him.

Bruce Almighty marks a return to Jim Carrey's strength, making people laugh. Not that he can't do drama, I am one of a small group who thought he was sensational in Man on the Moon. I believe he has the potential to something truly fantastic as a dramatic leading man, but much like Jerry Lewis and Charlie Chaplin before him Carrey's strength lies in making people smile and in Bruce Almighty he does it just enough to leave you with a smile as you leave the theater. That makes it an easy film to recommend. -

Movie Review The Matrix Reloaded

Matrix Reloaded (2003) 

Directed by Lana and Lily Wachowski 

Written by Lana and Lily Wachowski 

Starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Hugo Weaving, Carrie Ann Moss, Harry Lennix, Jada Pinkett Smith, Randall Duk Kim 

Release Date May 15th, 2003 

Published May 14th, 2003 

You know a film is a true cultural phenomena when people show up dressed as the film's characters. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and now add to that The Matrix. Numerous guys dressed as Neo or Agent Smith, even a couple girls dressed as Trinity. No Morpheus, the dressing up thing seems to be mostly a white people thing.

The question is, is The Matrix worthy of such a following? If the reaction amongst the four sold out shows on opening night at my local theater is any indication, it won't matter what pop critics like myself say.

The battle for humanity continues in Matrix: Reloaded as Neo (Keanu Reeves) awaits a message from the Oracle that will advise him on his next move in the war against the agents of the Matrix. Before that message, Neo, along with Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) and Trinity (Carrie Ann Moss), are called back to Zion to deal with the robot army that is digging towards the last human city. It's up to Morpheus to convince the people in charge that waiting for the Oracle is just as important as defending Zion. According to him, if prophecy is true there will be no need to defend Zion because the Matrix will be no more.

Standing against Morpheus is Commander Lock (Harry Lennix) the leader of Zion's military and the man who is now with Morpheus' ex, Niobe (Jada Pinkett Smith). Lock is more pragmatic than Morpheus and does not believe in the prophecy. Niobe seems uncertain either way. When the message from the Oracle is received, Neo reenters the Matrix and is told to seek out the mystical Key Maker (Randall Duk Kim) who can lead him to the Architect, the man who created the Matrix.

The Key Maker is being held by a rogue computer program called The Merovingian (Lambert Wilson). He is a program that was to be deleted by the Matrix but has escaped and hides out with other deleted programs, including his wife Persephone (Monica Bellucci) and the Twins (Adrian and Neil Rayment). Once they are able to get the Key Maker, he will lead them to the center of the Matrix where the Architect resides, only Neo can get there. According to the prophecy once he does, the Matrix will crumble.

Before all of this, Neo must first overcome a series of prophetic dreams in which he watches Trinity die. Oh, and there is also the problem of Agent Smith. Now free to roam the Matrix as a rogue program, Smith has developed the ability to copy himself infinitely, an ability he takes full advantage of in the fight scene that is the film’s center piece (Dubbed “the burly brawl” by the effects team). In the brawl, Neo fights off hundreds of Agent Smith's before simply flying away as he did at the end of the first film. The flying ability is something Neo puts to good use in Reloaded as he is still developing the talents that make him the One.

The best part of Matrix: Reloaded is the same thing that signified the original, its awe inspiring special effects. I already mentioned the burly brawl, and there is also a spectacular chase scene that reportedly cost a good portion of the film’s budget and 45 days of shooting. That’s longer than many entire films.

My favorite scene, however, is the opening fight scene with Trinity fighting off an agent as she flies through a window. The scene is repeated three times in the film as part of Neo's prophetic dream. Carrie Ann Moss looks so cool and so tough it makes the film for me. Especially cool is the gun barrel close-up as she falls out of the window and the use of bullet time that was made famous in the original.

Then there are the Twins, billed as Twin 1 and Twin 2. They seem like either ghosts or demons and have the ability to turn to smoke and fly through walls with an effect quite similar to the ones used in X2 for Alan Cummings’ Nightcrawler.

What's not so great is any scene that slows down for dialogue. The first forty minutes of the film, aside from Trinity's spectacular opening and Neo's brief battle with upgraded Agents, is surprisingly low key and heavy on dialogue, especially when we finally arrive in Zion. While there, Morpheus delivers a long-winded “win one for the Gipper” speech. Then there is a protracted rave scene intercut with Neo and Trinity having sex. Nothing wrong with the sex but I didn't go to see Keanu's butt, I came to see him kick butt.

The scene with the Oracle is the most tedious, though highly anticipated by fans who believe the film’s metaphors. It's nothing against the late great Gloria Foster but her Oracle's habit of answering a question with a question becomes annoying fast. I said in my review of the original that the film reminded me of a college student who studied philosophical quotes but not actual philosophy. In Reloaded that same college student is working those quotes into conversations but still hasn't studied what they really mean. The film's mythos is still vague enough for as many interpretations as you can think of. Though I think the sex scene should put to rest the Christ comparisons, unless there is an unknown bible passage where Jesus bangs Mary Magdalene.

As I said though, you see The Matrix for the action and on that level the film delivers big time. Using its big budget to improve upon the original effects, Reloaded surpasses the original and becomes one of the single greatest visceral action films ever. On par with the groundbreaking action of Terminator 2 and before that Star Wars, both the effects champions of their times.

Writer-Directors Lana and Lily Wachowski have created a special effects extravaganza. While I wasn't drawn in by its thin philosophical and metaphorical script, I am hotly anticipating Matrix: Revolutions just to see if they can top the special effects and edge of your seat excitement of Reloaded.

Movie Review: The Shape of Things

The Shape of Things (2003) 

Directed by Neil LaBute

Written by Neil LaBute 

Starring Paul Rudd, Gretchen Mol, Frederick Weller, Rachel Weisz 

Release Date May 9th, 2003 

Published May 8th, 2003 

Writer/Director Neil LaBute could teach a master’s class in cruelty. In his first film, In The Company Of Men, LaBute had two male characters inflict all sorts of emotional torture on a blind woman until one of the men destroyed the other. Then in Your Friends and Neighbors, he poured all of his sadistic rage into one character, Jason Patric's fearsome Cary, and wielded the character as a tool to inflict cruelty on the rest of the cast. After a brief respite in mainstream filmmaking, LaBute returned to his roots for The Shape of Things, a caustic lesson in male-female relationships in stark contrast to the usual romantic observations of conventional Hollywood.

Paul Rudd stars as Adam, a timid, nerdy museum worker who while finishing his shift one day encounters a woman who has crawled over the velvet rope surrounding an almost nude statue. Her name is Evelyn (Rachel Weisz), her intent is to deface the statue with spray paint, and she dares Adam to stop her. At the same time, she is flirting heavily, keeping the painfully shy Adam off balance to the point that he walks away allowing her to finish the job on the statue.

Evelyn was nice enough to give Adam her number and the two begin dating. Shoot ahead a few weeks and Adam and Evelyn are attending a play where she will meet his two closest friends, Jen (Gretchen Mol) and Phillip (Frederick Weller), a soon to be married couple. She is meeting them for the first time and she hopes they will notice how she has changed him. Adam has lost weight and is acting very different from the shy nerd the couple has always known.

There are more changes, Adam is dressing better, his hair is styled and eventually he goes so far as to get a nose job. He's also acting different as when he and Jen share a stolen kiss in the park. All of it aided and abetted by Evelyn's manipulations until an emotional finish that is shocking and devastating in ways you could never predict.

This is familiar ground for Neil LaBute yet he still manages to surprise and shock. Like David Mamet, John Sayles or Kevin Smith, LaBute is the rare screenwriter with his own very distinctive voice. Labute's dialogue is wrapped in the same barbed wire as Mamet but without having to serve any sort of conventional plot. Words fall like blows from LaBute’s characters and the emotional warfare is as devastating as any bullet.

LaBute also has a terrific ear for music, employing the brilliant Elvis Costello for both score and storytelling device. Fans of Costello should take note of each song they recognize and where it is placed in the film. This is especially attention grabbing on a second viewing when you know what is to come next.

The main problems of the film stem from lead Paul Rudd who overplays some of Adam's nerd tendencies. Watch in the park scene with Gretchen Mol his Urkel-esque acting style that plays throughout most of the film. By the end he comes around enough to contribute to the film’s painful finale but his performance early on stands out as the film’s weakest point.

Some might find the film’s ending to be far fetched but if you give in to the characters and invest yourself in LaBute’s dialogue, you should be able to forgive him his over the top demonstrations. The Shape Of Things is an astounding observation of the kind cruelty that only intimacy can reap. Only someone who you invest your emotions in fully can hurt you this bad. The film may take that last point to an extreme but it's a mighty powerful and shocking extreme that does not come easy.

Movie Review: Daddy Day Care

Daddy Day Care (2003)

Directed by Steve Carr 

Written by Geoff Rodkey 

Starring Eddie Murphy, Jeff Garlin, Steve Zahn, Regina King, Anjelica Huston 

Release Date May 9th, 2003 

Published May 10th, 2003 

How many times can one actor be written off? If you’re Eddie Murphy, apparently as many times as you can make a movie. Every time Eddie comes out with a film it's greeted by cynics in my profession as his last chance to be a big star. And each time, Eddie comes back. Eddie has found the back door to maintaining a waning career. He has sold his cool action-comedy persona and adopted a kid-friendly persona that has proven to a career salvation. His latest by-the-numbers kid friendly flick is Daddy Day Care, a rote family comedy, factory produced by the Hollywood machine.

In Daddy Day Care, Murphy is Charlie, an ad executive who loses his job after a product he was working on tanks badly with test audiences (how amazingly ironic). Left at home waiting for responses to his resume, Charlie gets to spend some much needed private time with his son Ben (Khamani Griffin). One day Charlie takes Ben to the park and has a conversation with a mom desperate for a new day care center. With this inspiration and the help of a friend who also lost his job, Phil (Jeff Garlin, “Curb Your Enthusiasm”), Charlie opens a day care center in his home.

Regina King plays Charlie's wife though it's difficult to tell as she disappears as quickly as she's introduced. Steve Zahn rounds out the cast as a doofy assistant with a fetish for Star Trek and a knack for dealing with kids. Speaking of the kids, none of the little actors makes much of an impression beyond being cute.

The setup is so simple it must have taken all of an hour to think of and write down. Well known personality is paired with a group of cute kids. We haven't seen this teaming but, oh, a dozen or so times, and Daddy Day Care doesn't have much of anything new to add to this familiar story. Even the great Anjelica Huston can't do anything to make this film interesting with her role as the film’s villainous pre-school owner Ms. Harridan. Get it, harridan, oh so clever.

Daddy Day Care isn't offensive, it's not poorly made and to it's credit it doesn't overdo the bathroom humor that has become a staple of similar films. Director Steve Carr, who previously directed Murphy in Dr. Dolittle, shows once again that he is a technically proficient director in that he knows where to point the camera and shoot. That said he brings little else to this uninteresting and overly familiar movie.

Movie Review Owning Mahowny

Owning Mahowny (2003) 

Directed by Richard Kwietniowski 

Written by Maurice Chauvet 

Starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman, John Hurt, Minnie Driver, Maury Chaykin 

Release Date May 2nd, 2003 

Published August 12th, 2003 

Obsessive and addictive personalities often make great film dramas. Think Nicolas Cage's dying alcoholic in Leaving Las Vegas, or Jason Patric's drug addicted cop in Rush. To a lesser extent Vin Diesel's adrenaline junkies in Fast and The Furious and XXX. Add to those performances Philip Seymour Hoffman's engrossing gambling addict in Owning Mahowny, a performance so strong it elevates a rather mundane drama to unexpected levels.

Dan Mahowney is yet another of those indistinct characters that Philip Seymour Hoffman excels at making memorable. He's a dull looking banker with a secret life as a big time gambler. At first it's endless weekends at the local racetrack, then it's betting on major league sports with his small-time bookie played by Maury Chaykin. Once Dan receives a promotion at the bank and the ability to write checks to himself from his clients’ accounts, Dan is off to Atlantic City. There, his obsession grows from two and three thousand dollar bets to ten, fifteen and one hundred thousand dollar bets.

Aided by the casino boss Victor Foss (the invaluable John Hurt), Dan is able to open a line of credit with the casino that he grows into the millions. All the while he haphazardly attempts to hide his gambling from his cuckolded girlfriend Belinda (Minnie Driver). Cuckolded not for another woman but by Dan's gambling which is closer to his heart than any human being could be.

As much as I love Minnie Driver, she just doesn't fit the role of Belinda. Her innate intelligence and the residue of her wonderful characters from Good Will Hunting and Grosse Pointe Blank, make her difficult to believe as a spineless enabler of Dan's obsession. In addition, her good looks overpower the characters' frumpy clothes and hairstyle. You can almost see her glamorous black curls trying to fight their way free of her ugly blonde wig.

Director Richard Kwietniowski working from a complicated novel from writer Gary Ross has the difficult task of making a rather mundane dramatic setup entertaining. It isn't easy to make bank fraud seem exciting. He succeeds only because his star Philip Seymour Hoffman is so fascinating you can’t stop watching him. It's a performance of quiet desperation that pours out of his skin. His every facial movement evokes drama and tension, far more tension than the situations surrounding him.

Hoffman has done this before, rehabilitating material that may not be worthy of his talent. Owning Mahowny is worthy of his considerable talent and only he can make it work. It is a brilliant performance, engrossing and entertaining. For fans of Hoffman, it's a true feast. For the casual fan, it works only because Hoffman is so good.

Movie Review It Runs in the Family

It Runs in the Family (2003) 

Directed by Fred Schepisi

Written by Jesse Wigutow 

Starring Michael Douglas, Kirk Douglas, Cameron Douglas, Rory Culkin, Bernadette Peters

Release Date April 25th, 2003

Published April 25th, 2003 

Kirk and Michael Douglas have been searching for years for a project to do together. So what made them choose this film? According to the younger Douglas, the combination of his father's stroke and the tragedy of September 11th made them both realize time is short. Unfortunately, that may have rushed them a little too much in the reading of the script for It Runs In The Family. They saw a workable father-son dynamic, what they missed was the story that surrounded them, a collection of hackney one scenes that wouldn't make it on the worst of sitcoms.

Michael Douglas is Alex Gromberg, an unsatisfied, unhappy corporate lawyer who lives in the shadow of his father Mitchell (Kirk Douglas), the founder of the law firm. As intimated by his co-workers, Alex only remains with the firm to satisfy his father. Unfortunately that doesn't seem possible. As the Gromberg family including Alex's wife Rebecca (Bernadette Peters). His youngest son Eli (Rory Culkin), his mother (Diana Douglas) as well as his no-good oldest son Asher (Cameron Douglas) assemble for Passover; they prepare for yet another family sparring match between father and son over just about everything.

Alex has trouble piling up all around him. At work he has taken on a pro bono case against one of the firm’s own clients. At his volunteer job at a soup kitchen there’s a young woman who can't keep her hands off of him. And of course at home his wife is suspicious of his fidelity and his sons won't talk to him.

That is the setup, abridged by this reviewer to make it coherent. For the plot description it was necessary for me to cut to the chase because the film itself is a series of stops and starts. Annoyingly episodic takes that go absolutely nowhere. So disconnected are some scenes that they could have been reedited into the film in any order.

It's easy to see where this film went wrong, it was bad from its conception. It Runs In the Family is a vanity project and as most vanity projects it plays as everyone knows it's no good but hey, let's finish it anyway. It's nice that Michael and Kirk Douglas got to work together finally and that they could incorporate Michael's son Cameron and Michael's mom. Working with Kirk's ex wife Diana Douglas must have been a real treat for the family but it's not much for the audience.

Director Fred Schepisi is competent and confident in his direction but the film’s script by Jesse Wigutow short circuits anything Schepisi might have accomplished. I doubt it was Wigutow's fault entirely as the script seems unfinished and with this being a vanity project it was probably changed significantly to fit the cast.

It was very nice to see Michael and Kirk Douglas on screen together and it's nice to see how lively Kirk still is at his advanced age. This film is not the coda his career deserves, though this is not necessarily his last film, but there are moments when his class and dignity raises the level of the film. There aren’t many of those moments, but they are nice nevertheless.

Movie Review The Good Thief

The Good Thief (2003)

Directed by Neil Jordan 

Written by Neil Jordan 

Starring Nick Nolte, Ralph Fiennes

Release Date April 25th, 2003

Published November 11th, 2003 

You've seen heist movies. Heck, you've seen movies called The Heist. The genre is one of Hollywood's time honored sources of roguishly handsome con men and intricate storytelling. You know that old saying about how familiarity breeds contempt? Well a number of heist movies have bred a number of cliches and repetitious stories that have become shorthand for hack screenwriters. In this era, it takes a lot more than an intricately planned con to make an entertaining heist movie. The modern heist movie needs a little extra something to set itself apart from the genre pack.

In The Good Thief, that something is Nick Nolte in a career best performance. In The Good Thief, Nolte is Bob, a pathetic junkie gambler in some nameless French slum. Despite his weary, decrepit appearance, his reputation as a legendary thief persists in the mind of an obsessive French cop named Roger (Tcheky Karyo). After Bob saves Roger's life in a bar fight, the two share a drink and Roger senses something is up with the aging thief and begins tailing him.

Indeed Bob does have something going on, his drug addiction and gambling have emptied his bank account. A friend, Raoul (Gerard Darmon), has a line on a big score to get Bob back on his feet. In the meantime, Bob decides to help a young Russian girl who had come to France and was going to work as a prostitute until Bob saved her. The girl, Anne (Nutsa Kukhianidze), is 17 and obviously attracted to Bob who needs all his will power not to take advantage. Bob also has to overcome his drug addiction in order to pull off the big score.

The heist is no more clever than most heists in similar films. It involves an overly complicated security system and the theft of some classic works of art from Picasso, Degas and others. There are typical scenes of gathering a crew, narrowly avoiding the cops while manipulating them into the right position to work around them. And let us not forget the girl, who like every other girl in the heist movie, complicates things.

Director Neil Jordan gives all of this the polish of professionalism and a real love of French landscape, architecture and an extra special appreciation of the French slums, which he paints with the right mix of menace and “Frenchness.”

The Good Thief is a remake of the Jean Paul Melville film Bob Le Flambeur, the title is referenced in August Le Breton's updated screenplay as one of Nolte's many aliases. It's the type of subtle nudging humor that edges in throughout the film. Having never seen Melville's original, I can't compare the two. However, Le Breton seems to have a good sense of how to update the script, to modernize it without losing what made them want to remake The Good Thief in the first place.

As good as Jordan's direction and Le Breton's script update, The Good Thief belongs to star Nick Nolte. Put aside the tabloid trash that has dominated his recent press clippings and take a close look at Nolte the actor. His weary eyes and weathered face tell us more about the character than pages of dialogue ever could. That classic Nolte growl is tempered and toned to the dialogue that rolls out like a hand of cards. Nolte's Bob is constantly telling stories about his parents, his exploits and his career. His favorite is a story about meeting Pablo Picasso at a bullfight, I could listen to him tell it for hours.

Combining Nolte's awesome performance with some terrific source material and Jordan's steady directorial hand, you get one of the rare heist flicks that skates over its atypical genre and becomes a fascinating exercise in acting and dialogue.

Nolte deserves award consideration for this role. Whether it's eligible for this coming Oscar ceremony is in question, it debuted last year at the Toronto International Film Festival but didn't make its American debut until April of this year. Eligible or not, your chance to pay homage to his performance is now on DVD.

Movie Review Confidence

Confidence (2003) 

Directed by James Foley 

Written by Doug Jung 

Starring Edward Burns, Rachel Weisz, Andy Garcia, Paul Giamatti, Donal Logue, Dustin Hoffman 

Release Date April 25th, 2003

Published April 25th, 2003 

It's all been done.

That is the problem with modern Hollywood filmmaking, the perception that there is nothing new that can be done. That every story is a familiar concoction of similar films. It's a product of Hollywood's adherence to genre and demographic marketing that certain elements are put into films where they don't belong in order to appeal to mass audiences. Take for example the con man movie Confidence starring Edward Burns, a familiar story of cons and con men that doesn't simply lack originality but feels so familiar that it becomes predictable.

Burns stars as Jake Vig, if that ain't the name of a movie con man, I've never heard one. Jake and his crew including Gordo (Paul Giamatti) and Miles (Brian Van Holt), specialize in petty scams involving thousands of dollars and moving quickly from place to place. However, the crew's latest con has found them sticking around longer than they are used to, and playing with larger sums of money than before. Not only is the con bigger than usual so is the man being conned, though they don't realize it at first.

In possession of 100 grand after scamming some small time bag man, Jake and his crew find that the money is that of a sadistic mobster known as the King (Dustin Hoffman). Rather than being upset with Jake, the King is impressed with his skills. Nevertheless, he wants his money back. So Jake hatches a new con, a fleece on one of the King's rivals that will not only get the King's money back but net everyone around five million bucks.

Jake and his crew can't pull this con off alone so Jake recruits a skillful pickpocket named Lily (Rachel Weisz). Lilly’s part is to seduce a low level VP in a stock scandal that includes Swiss banks, the Cayman islands and various other familiar con movie locales. The mark is a mob lawyer and money launderer played by Robert Forster, and the dupe VP is well played by “Drew Carey” vet John Carroll Lynch.

The film is told in flashback in a noir tribute to the thirties con man movies. It begins with Burns on the ground and in voiceover explaining he is dead. The device is effective and set's the film in motion but the noir feel doesn't hold up long. After the opening moments the film takes on a more modern look and feel and abandons noir all together.

Edward Burns in recent interviews has stated that he was far more committed to acting in Confidence. He broke his old pattern of working on one film while writing another, which helped him to be more focused than he has been previously. The change is noticeable, this is the most lively Burns has been in any role since She's The One. Unfortunately, on his best day as an actor he's still reminds of Ben Affleck minus the charisma.

Director James Foley skillfully directs this con game and it's Mametesque script, which is no surprise. Foley was the man who successfully wrestled Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross to the screen. Confidence isn't as brilliant as that film but the script has it's moments especially those handled by Hoffman who once again shows what a true pro he is.

I neglected to mention that Andy Garcia turns up as an FBI agent on the trail of the con men. Watching Garcia makes you wish he and Burns could have switched roles. Shave the shaggy beard, blacken the hair and throw on a nice suit and Garcia could do the role with his eyes shut. Nothing against Ed Burns, he gets better as an actor each time out, but Confidence demands a pro and Garcia could have been that pro.