Movie Review The Last Legion

The Last Legion (2007) 

Directed by Doug Lefler 

Written by Jez Butterworth, Tom Butterworth 

Starring Colin Firth, Ben Kingsley, Aishwarya Ray, Peter Mullan, Kevin McKidd 

Release Date August 17th, 2007 

Published August 16th, 2007 

The Last Legion is meant to be a rousing retelling of Arthurian legend crossed with Roman history. With an international cast, including Oscar winner Sir Ben Kingsley and Indian superstar Aishwarya Rai, the movie should have been a well acted and lively entertainment. Unfortunately, with a corner cutting director and a desperately miscast lead, Colin Firth as a tough guy roman general, The Last Legion is just simply, one lousy movie.

Cobbling together elements of Arthur-ian legend and a bit of Julius Caesar, The Last Legion casts young Thomas Sangster (Love Actually) as Romulus; the last in the royal line of Caesars, the rulers of the Greek empire. When the goths sack Rome, Romulus and his teacher Ambrosinus (Sir Ben Kingsley) are taken hostage to the roman island of Capri. On the bright side, Capri is also the home of the legendary Caesarian sword Excalibur.

While young Romulas seeks the sword a coterie of Roman soldiers who survived the battle of Rome conspire to rescue Caesar/Romulus and whisk him away to the Eastern empire, the home of the staunchest of Greek allies in Persia. Led by General Aurelius (Colin Firth), and backed up by an Indian warrior named Mira (Aishwarya Rai), this tiny faction will give their lives for Caesar.

After the rescue things change quickly. The Eastern empire falls to the Goths and the remaining Romans are forced to journey to Britannia and rally the last remaining Roman army legion. There, they will face off with an evil British conqueror Vortgyn (Harry Van Gorkum) who seeks Excalibur and has a nasty history with Abrosinus.

I'm not quite sure what the point of all this legend retelling is. The Last Legion is not a rousing adventure or even a good war story. As directed by Doug Lefler (Dragonheart: A New Beginning) The Last Legion is a stale period movie dressed up with the occasional well staged sword fight and the lovely appearance of Indian star Aishwarya Rai.

Ms. Rai is a lovely presence but opposite Colin Firth as the 'manly' Roman general, she is at a loss to make this material work. Nothing against Mr. Firth as an actor but he doesn't exactly cut an action hero figure. His lilting accent and gentile British-ness just does not translate to being a Russell Crowe style Roman army legend. Even the great Sir Ben Kingsley isn't very good here. Kingsley, as he's shown in films as varied as Suspect Zero, Bloodrayne, and A Sound of Thunder has a tendency to choose some really bad roles. The Last Legion isn't quite as bad as those films but it's not very good either.

Rai, Kingsley and Firth are the good guys and we are bored by them. Even worse are the bad guys, a collection of unrecognizable character actors whose main talent seems to be seething and hissing through ugly piles of makeup or ridiculous looking masks. Director Doug Lefler's work is dull and uninspired and the scripting by Jez and Tom Butterworth (Birthday Girl) creates characters we don't care about and places them in situations we aren't interested in. Toying with dueling legends, Arthur and Caesar, even literate audiences are at a loss to make sense of or even care about the history of The Last Legion.

The Last Legion re-imagines two legends into one uninteresting adventure story. Colin Firth, often a very good actor, is desperately miscast as an action hero and though she is a sensational beauty, Aishwarya Rai fails to demonstrate her star power and is at a loss to overcome this dull story. Director Doug Lefler's experience comes mostly from the sets of Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and while the low budget aesthetics may be OK for TV; the same approach doesn't work in feature films.

The Last Legion is only slightly better than your average Xena or Hercules episode, and slightly less historically accurate.

Movie Review The Last Exorcism

The Last Exorcism (2010) 

Directed by Daniel Stamm 

Written by Huck Botko, Andrew Gurland 

Starring Patrick Fabian, Ashley Bell, Caleb Landry Jones 

Release Date August 27th, 2010

Published August 26th, 2010 

“The Last Exorcism” is a phenomenal movie. Horror and suspense are mixed perfectly in this faux documentary throwback to the low budget roots of “The Blair Witch Project.” Directed with supreme skill by Daniel Stamm, “The Last Exorcism” is smart, funny, exciting and terrifying and features a lead performance by Patrick Fabian that is one of the best of the year.

Reverend Cotton Marcus (Fabian) is suffering a crisis of faith. Having been a preacher since the age of 10, even going as far as participating in exorcisms alongside his preacher father from that early age, Cotton now finds himself wondering if God exists. Thus, when Cotton is approached by a documentary crew, led Iris (Iris Bahr), intending to debunk exorcisms Cotton agrees to help out.

Despite having given up believing that exorcism and demonic possession were real afflictions, Cotton continues to perform exorcisms as a therapeutic treatment. His shyster-esque practice is to agree that exorcism is real, create the circumstance of a real possession through trickery, and then heal the afflicted by convincing them they have been released by their non-existent demon.

This time the documentary crew will follow along and see how he creates an exorcism while also debunking the practice. The afflicted in this case is a 16 year old named Nell Sweetzer (Ashley Bell). Nell's father, Louis (Louis Herthum), has been losing cattle, sheep and other farm animals, all of them gutted, while his daughter wakes up covered in blood and claiming not to know what happened.

Her story is suspicious as are the actions of her older brother Caleb (Caleb Landry Jones) who first warns the preacher and the filmmakers to leave and then proceeds to further, equally disturbing, threats. Is Caleb the real troublemaker? Are Nell's father and his alcoholism the real culprit? Or is there something deeply, psychologically wrong with the seemingly innocent and unassuming Nell.

The answers to each of the questions posed above in “The Last Exorcism” are offered with stunning effectiveness. Director Daniel Stamm and screenwriters Huck Botko and Andrew gurland have crafted a terrifically clever tale of horror that gets to the heart of the best of horror movies, the anticipation and build to horror.

Using the faux documentary, shaky Cam, style popularized by “The Blair Witch Project,” the makers of “The Last Exorcism” crank the horror tension up to 11 by effectively keeping the horror at bay without teasing the audience with cheap thrills. Yes, there are shrieks in the music score and minor misdirection, but more often than not the typical horror movie scenes payoff with unexpected results.

One of the ways “The Last Exorcism” shrewdly defies expectations is in the casting of TV veteran Patrick Fabian as Reverend Cotton Marcus. A handsome, charismatic actor with a carnival barker’s ability for B.S and actor’s ability to compel your attention, Fabian is the best bit of misdirection in the movie, his compelling presence and handsome face draws your attention while the horror movie stuff unfolds around him to great effect. The rest of the small ensemble cast, including Ashley Bell, Caleb Landry Jones, Louis Herthum and Iris Bahr fit perfectly into the story. These performances are captured with care and logic and play perfectly into the suspense and the great con of the best horror movies, creating the belief that these characters are in real danger.

No “Piranha 3D” garbage here, though Eli Roth is surprisingly a producer, “The Last Exorcism” puts the lie to movies like “Piranha” by placing believable, sympathetic characters in the way of great evil and allowing us to fear for and care for them. Never for a moment does Daniel Stamm prefer showing off his ability to scare us or appall us over the interests of his characters. The story is about how these characters react and attempt to counteract evil and because of that we are compelled; we are on the journey with them and not rooting for their bloody end. 

I could go on for pages about how clever, scary, suspenseful and ingenious “The Last Exorcism” is. A great cast, exceptionally well directed and working from a terrific script craft not just the year's best horror film but one of the best movies of the year of any genre. “The Last Exorcism” really is THAT good.

Movie Review The Last Airbender

The Last Airbender (2010) 

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan 

Written by M. Night Shyamalan 

Starring Noah Ringer, Dev Patel, Nicola Peltz, Jackson Rathbone, Shaun Toub 

Release Date July 1st, 2010 

Published June 30th, 2010 

“The Last Airbender” tells the story of a young boy named Aang (Noah Ringer) who is the reincarnation of the Avatar, the master of all the elements. The elements are Earth, Fire, Water and Air, and The Avatar is the person who brings balance to the world dominated by tribes of those who can master, or rather "Bend," only one of the elements. Unfortunately for all involved, Aang is a petulant deity reincarnated and he runs off for more than a hundred years.

Losing himself in a block of ice, Aang is rescued as our story begins by a Waterbender named Katara (Nicola Peltz) and her warrior brother Sokka (Jackson Rathbone). Together the trio journey's across the world leading a rebellion against the evil Firebenders who, in the Avatar's absence, began a hostile takeover of the world, taking harsh control over the Water and Earth Tribes and wiping out the Airbenders, Aang's original tribe before he found that he controlled all elements. 

The Firebenders are led by Fire Lord Ozai and his evil minion, Commander Zhao (Aasif Mondvi). Also on the side of the Firebenders are Ozai's son, Prince Zuko (Dev Patel) and his faithful uncle General Iroh (Shaun Taub) who have been cast out of the Firebender Kingdom after Zuko defied his father's leadership and lost a head to head fight with his even more evil sister, Princess Yue. If, however, Zuko can capture the Avatar he can reclaim his rightful place at his father's side.

If this sounds at all intriguing then you have likely enjoyed the cartoon series “Avatar: The Last Airbender” which had a healthy run on Nickelodeon and in worldwide television syndication. If you haven't seen the series you are more than likely scratching your head over all of the portentous goofiness that this plot entails. Things grow only goofier under the direction of M. Night Shyamalan whose fall from golden boy status in just the last 6 years is one of the more remarkable failures in film history. Shyamalan was once considered alongside Steven Speilberg and George Lucas for his seemingly unfailing talent for wowing audiences.

Then Mr. Shyamalan made “The Village” and the drying of the fount of Shyamalan's genius for twisting, knotting plots began. “Lady in the Water” and “The Happening” followed and seemed to come from a different director altogether as not only was Shyamalan's talent for twisty narrative gone, so was his skill with a camera and even the basic smarts for telling a coherent story. The Happening was a true nadir, an utterly bonkers environmental fable about trees causing people to kill themselves. 

”The Last Airbender” is, at the very least, somewhat more coherent and intelligible than “Lady in the Water” and “The Happening.” Then again, that's not saying much. What The Last Airbender shares with those blisteringly awful films is a taste for inexplicably absurd visual flourish and wildly bizarre inversions of tone and logic. Sure, you can divine a plot in “The Last Airbender” but it is quite a committed fight.

Now, if you are a fan of the cartoon you begin with an advantage that lifts the burden the rest of the audience must carry throughout. In fact, if you are a fan you may actually find a way to enjoy the goofball nuttiness of Shyamalan's insane kiddie landscapes. It helps to have a taste and tolerance for this level of cockamamy mumbo jumbo. The Last Airbender is far up its own you know what in terms of being an obtuse bit of fan service, impenetrable to those not already part of the fandon. 

Without the prior introduction and slavish devotion to this characters and this property, one can only observe “The Last Airbender” with jaws agape and mind slightly melted. “The Last Airbender” is so violently ludicrous in storytelling, dialogue, effects and just about every other aspect of filmmaking that one almost appreciates the opportunity to experience it as it is unlikely you will see something this brazenly insular ever again on a movie screen.

M. Night Shyamalan is the single most daring bad director in the business. When M Night  Shyamalan fails he does so with epic intentions. No filmmaker has the courage to fail as spectacularly as Mr. Shyamalan has in his most recent films. “The Village” was a minor failure, a seeming blip after his wildly successful run of “Sixth Sense,” “Unbreakable” and “Signs.” ”Lady in the Water” however was such a bold and ballsy disaster that one cannot help but appreciate the nutzo spirit that went into creating it. 

“The Happening” ranks up there next to “Plan 9 From Outer Space” and Tommy Wiseau's “The Room,” in my estimation, for the sheer outlandish unintended awfulness. Few films have committed such professional effort to such a misguided endeavor as “The Happening.” Now comes “The Last Airbender” a far more benign failure; one with the possibility of entertaining more than a few people. Those people however, are a fan cult devoted to the material in ways only Twi-Hards and Star Wars fans can truly appreciate. “The Last Airbender” fan cult is vast and devoted and without seeing an inch of film many of them have been defending the film from people such as myself who find the movie “The Last Airbender” an impenetrable and ungodly mess of a feature film.

Movie Review The Lake House

The Lake House (2006) 

Directed by Alejandro Agresti 

Written by David Auburn 

Starring Sandra Bullock, Keanu Reeves, Christopher Plummer, Dylan Walsh, Shorheh Aghdashloo  

Release Date June 16th, 2006 

Published June 15th, 2006 

I have a favorite kind of moment. It's a moment of intimacy that happens rarely. It is usually confined to the first kiss of a new relationship. It is a moment where you and a new love look into one another's eyes and, within inches of each other, share the same warm breathes of air. That moment just before the kiss is my favorite moment, better often than the kiss itself which can sometimes be disappointing. But that moment before the kiss, never fails. The new romance The Lake House starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock captures that moment beautifully as the two fabulous stars play strangers who share more than one first kiss under some very odd circumstances.

Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock star in The Lake House as Alex and Kate two strangers who have each lived in a beautiful glass enclosed house on a lake north of Chicago. They meet when Kate moves out of the house and leaves a note to the next tenant to please forward her mail. Returning to the lake house to escape the stress of her job as an E.R resident Kate finds the house still empty but a letter waiting for her. The letter is from Alex an architect who claims to be the new tenant but also that no one has lived in the house before him.

This odd exchange between Alex and Kate takes on a bizarre bit of science fiction when Alex claims to be writing in 2004 and Kate from 2006. Somehow through the magic lake house mailbox they commune through notes that begin to form a running conversation. Naturally, Alex and Kate fall tragically in love. Tragically because they cannot bring themselves to meet. Kate has some serious commitment issues stemming from a bad relationship with Morgan (Dylan Walsh). Meanwhile Alex is distracted dealing with his brilliant but difficult father (Christopher Plummer).

One of the fun and frustrating things about The Lake House is how often you will be distracted trying to keep track of it's competing timelines. Keeping track of the many things Alex does in the past that effect what happens to he and Kate in the future is a futile effort that left me with more questions than answers. A remake of the Korean film Il Mare, The Lake House fails to explain away the same logical questions that film failed to answer. However where Il Mare is a little unsatisfying in it's unanswered questions, The Lake House colors over similar problems with star power.

Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves have sensational chemistry stemming from their history together from Speed and the maturing of their star personas. Neither has accomplished the kind of star power predicted for them but that has not dimmed their appeal in the right roles. Alex and Kate are near perfect roles for each as Reeves is not forced to concentrate to hard and Bullock just has be her naturally huggable self.

The films best performance comes from Christopher Plummer as Alex's father. As an aging world renowned architect Plummer perfectly captures the curious proclivity of the genius to be as cruel as they are brilliant. The skills most hone into being a loving compassionate human being are, for the brilliant, often channeled directly into their work with little left for trivial matters like other people. Watch as Plummer takes on a vocal tic in the role that is pitch perfect in capturing his halting attempts to find the humanity a normal person is supposed to have.

Director Alejandro Agresti, working in America for the first time after years of work in his native Argentina, brings a lush visual tone to The Lake House that is especially loving of the architecture of the Chicago setting. At times the architecture is so lovingly captured that the film becomes more of a tourism calendar and less of a romantic drama. Of course with a love story as convoluted as Kate and Alex's getting lost in the architecture at least draws your mind away from the mind bending plot issues.

I am willing to look past many of the problems with The Lake House because these two stars are so great together. It's long been a hobby of mine to trash Keanu Reeves for his slacker style and slack-jawed delivery but here and in his previous film Constantine Mr. Wind Through The Mountains (that is the meaning of the name Keanu FYI), has really begun to mature into a likable screen presence if still not much of an actor.

Sandra Bullock has always been cute and sweet and even in dreck like Miss Congeniality 2 she finds moments to show off just how lovable she is. In The Lake House Bullock has the kind of role we want her in, sweet, shy and longing. Not rooting for her is like not rooting for a kitten to open it's eyes for the first time. Bullock is the perfect romantic avatar, you can't help but identify with her, root for her, and cheer when she gets her big romantic moment. 

Let's get back to that kiss I mentioned earlier. While I have been glib in my descriptions of Reeves and Bullock in the past two paragraphs I must admit that they transcend all of that with their first kiss in The Lake House. With Paul McCartney's beautiful love song "This Never Happened Before" playing in the background, Alex and Kate share a slow dance that burns up the screen leading to that moment, that two or three seconds of time where two people make the decision to become one for just a moment. That moment of hot breath shared. This kiss is no disappointment.

The kiss alone is nearly enough to make me recommend The Lake House.

In the end it's star power over brain power for me as I admit, I really enjoyed The Lake House. Forget about figuring out the time line or whether Alex and Kate violated the prime directive by screwing around with time through their magic mailbox, go see The Lake House to see these two glamorous stars fall in the kind of love everyone dreams about. The Lake House is a love story and love has no time for your time travel logic. 

Movie Review Funny People

Funny People (2009)

Directed by Judd Apatow 

Written by Judd Apatow 

Starring Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann, Eric Bana, Jonah Hill, Jason Schwartzman 

Release Date July 31st, 2009

Published July 30th, 2009 

Comics have their own idiom, a way of speaking that is more often than not aggressive and abnormal. Words are their weapons and they wield them with particular expertise. Listen to comedian Patton Oswalt, a shambling, unkempt often alcohol infused comic whose word use is as precise and exacting as your average marksmen is with a high caliber rifle. The brain of the comic is different always, searching at all times for the absurd in the average, that detail that they can see that the average person misses. That brain gets a thorough and exacting examination in Funny People, Judd Apatow's adroit, mature comedy of penis jokes and honest to goodness pathos.

Adam Sandler is the star of Funny People playing a variation on his real life superstar career. His George Simmons is one of the biggest stars in the world thanks to movies like Mer-Man where he plays, you guessed it, a half man half fish and Re-Do where Sandler's soft ball like skull is placed on the body of a baby by cheesy CGI. You can sense the shame he feels over these movies, made only to line his pockets, and purchase cars he never drives and a large, Xanadu-esque mansion that he doesn't need, and one can't help but wonder if the shame applies in real life to dreck like Little Nicky or Billy Madison. Probably not, but I can dream.

The shame can be seen in George when he see's himself worshipped in the eyes of his new assistant Ira (Seth Rogan). Hired to help write jokes so George can go back to where he feels most at home, the comedy stage, Ira becomes George's only real friend, even if he won't admit it. It's a forced friendship with young Ira carrying most of the burden especially after George reveals he has a rare blood disease and may soon be dead. That's a lot for Ira to carry but he does carry it and soon Ira begins to develop his own talents and find his own comic persona through the mirror of George's age and and hard won wisdom.

Outside of his wealth and privilege, George's life is empty and impending death has only magnified the void. He now longs for all the stuff he took for granted as a younger man, things family and children. Ira helps George reconnect with his parents and sister and even a few of his comic 'friends' who are more like fellow former hostages of some unknown captor. They aren't friends, they just share the same trauma it seems and that bonds them.

The one person George really hopes to reconnect with however, is Laura, the only woman he ever really loved. Laura is now married and living in San Francisco. She comes to George after he reveals his illness and the reunion is emotional in the way one might talk to someone who dying, an exaggerated pseudo-truth that takes conversational reality to a heightened emotional realm. Yes, Laura loved him once and, in his dying state, she forgives him his indiscretions of the past but is he really the love of her life? That could just be comfort food for the dying.

Well, George will find out if Laura is for real. The last 45 minutes of Funny People is dedicated to George surviving his illness and deciding to chase the life he thinks he always wanted. What happens then is for you to discover but thanks to the exceptionally smart and true writing and direction of Judd Apatow you are in for something funny and unexpected. For those trained by The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up to expect a lot of foul humor, your training comes in handy. Apatow's verbiage is as scatological and unapologetically foul as ever. The difference is the level of sophistication in the way these words are used. Comics use foul language in such a secondary, comfortable manner that it's less natural when they don't use them.

Adam Sandler has shown in the past that beneath the juvenile mask is an immensely talented actor. He simply cannot often enough restrain his id and allow that talent some time in the sun. In Funny People the mask is off and the talent shines like never before. His George is a stunningly bitter, brusque and off-putting guy who makes no apologies for being repugnant. He is fully conscious of his disgust for himself and in finding death he turns that disgust toward whatever human target is close by. As in his shame for his movies, George loathes the people who love them as much as she loathes himself for making them love him. He lives the old Groucho Marx maxim "I would never be a part of a club that would have me as a member".

Sandler's performance in Funny People is so raw and remarkable that you must wonder how true it all is to the real life of Adam Sandler. Thankfully, in real life Sandler appears to be happily married with children and close friends. It's very likely however, that Sandler knows a George Simmons and shares a deep sympathy with him. Sandler comes at this role with such ferocity and authentic self-loathing and contempt for the world that it just feels real. Then there is the blurring of the lines when George/Adam criticizes his terrible movie roles and that blurring of the lines becomes an uncanny valley between real life and the funny fiction of Funny People. 

As for Seth Rogen, I loved how Rogen's Ira represents all the hope and joy that has seemingly slipped away from jaded George and the way that Ira's youth and enthusiasm enlivens the mentor-student relationship of Geore and Ira. Rogen plays Ira as his usual foul-mouthed man-child, the persona he has perfected in his short but fast rising career. However, Rogen and Apatow take great care to make Ira the heart of the story and use the character as a mirror to highlight the best and worst of George while deepening both characters through their growth together as friends and colleagues. It's a dynamite dynamic and the chemistry between Rogen and Sandler is outstanding. 

With Adam Sandler delivering a career best performance and Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow showing newfound maturity and complexity, Funny People becomes one of the best movies you will see all year. Funny People is also another maddening symbol of how incredibly talented Adam Sandler can be when he wants to be. It makes me dislike Sandler more when he makes terrible comedies because I have seen a movie like this and I can see how talented he is. It's frustrating to watch him make some of the worst movies in the world when he's capable of making movies like this. 

Movie Review Fun with Dick and Jane

Fun with Dick and Jane (2005) 

Directed by Dean Parisot

Written by Judd Apatow, Nicholas Stoller 

Starring Jim Carrey, Tea Leoni, Alec Baldwin, Richard Jenkins 

Release Date December 21st, 2005 

Published December 20th, 2005 

Remakes are an inherently lazy project. No matter how well made and recreated they are, remakes are  still telling someone else's story and making a profit on it. Laziness is the hallmark of the remake of 1977's Fun With Dick and Jane. With a talented cast including Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni and a script polish by the very funny Judd Apatow, Fun With Dick and Jane is an all the more depressing effort for the talent involved.

Dick Harper (Jim Carrey) has a great job working in corporate communications for a massive corporation called Globodyne. Things are just about to get even better for Dick when the company CEO, slimily portrayed by Alec Baldwin, decides to promote Dick to vice president and put him on TV to talk up Globodyne's latest financial numbers on a Moneyline-esque cable show. Unfortunately as Dick is putting a smiling face on the numbers the stock tanks live on the air. Dick, as the new face of the company, is completely screwed. The CEO has bankrupted the company, including all the severance and pension funds, and is in the wind, leaving Dick and the company's chief finance officer (Richard Jenkins) to take all of the heat.

This could not be worse timing for the Harper family because Dick's wife Jane (Tea Leoni) has just quit her job as a travel agent to spend more time with their son who is being raised by the nanny (the kid had even adopted the nanny's own broken English accent, in an ugly, awful gag).  Now with both Dick and Jane out of work, and Dick a virtual pariah in his chosen field, the family faces losing all of their accumulated wealth and their home.

After unfortunate attempts by both Dick and Jane to work at new jobs, Dick at a Wal-mart clone and then as a day laborer, in yet another awful gag, and Jane as an aerobics instructor and product tester, the frustrated couple turn to armed robbery to solve their money troubles. Using their son's toy weapon and the rationalization that they were screwed by the system, the couple sets about robbing convenience stores, coffee shops and eventually even an attempted bank heist before finally turning to revenge against the CEO that put them in this predicament.

Fun With Dick and Jane fails because director Dean Parisot and writers Judd Apatow, Nicolas Stoller and Peter Tollin fail to establish whether they are attempting broad slapstick or dark satire. Most of the film plays to star Jim Carrey's strength, broad physical comedy. However, the story of a family losing everything and turning to desperate measures to keep their home is not a story that lends itself to big slapsticky laughs. Thus, the film fishes around searching for laughs in broad set pieces unable to reconcile those with the film's dark subject.

The filmmakers try everything from funny costumes (the couple dressed as Sonny and Cher with Carrey as Cher) to movie parody (Dick and Jane driving a stolen car into a storefront dressed as the Blues Brothers), to irreverent racial humor, but nothing connects with anything more than mild amusement. And, the racial humor is downright offensive. Watching it you don't laugh as much as you squirm in discomfort. 

Director Dean Parisot was the talented director of 2000'sGalaxy Quest, a good natured ribbing of the Star Trek series. There is nothing groundbreaking about that little movie but it hits its target well with good-natured parody. Parisot may be the wrong director for the much darker Dick and Jane in which he irritatingly attempts to force broad comedy out of narrow material. Parisot never finds the right angle on the film's corporate satire and fails miserably in establishing why Dick and Jane must turn to crime in order to survive.

The corporate scandal that costs Dick his job is merely a quick way to get him out of a job so we can get to the supposedly funny attempts at crime. There are a couple of unconvincing scenes of both Dick and Jane trying to work low paying jobs and failing miserably but these scenes fail to help us understand why they must turn to crime. We can feel the plot forcing them toward crime because the crimes are where the supposed comedy is and the filmmakers show their desperation to get through a few setup scenes so they can get the stars into their funny costumes.

Because Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni are such terrifically talented comic actors there are a number of solid laughs in Fun With Dick and Jane. A scene where the couple commit a home invasion robbery dressed in black ninja gear and voice disguisers is funny for the way the couple are like children playing with new toys. Another scene where Dick and Jane ponder their situation while sitting in the unfinished hole where their new hot tub was to be shows each actor's ability to connect with us on a sympathetic level.

Dick and Jane by the standards of decent society aren't good people. They commit serious crimes that are humorously treated by director Dean Parisot but we are never allowed scenes that might help us forgive them their crimes. Simply saying 'it's just a comedy' does not excuse the fact that our protagonists are unpunished criminals. The 1977 version of Fun With Dick and Jane, I'm told, established its heroes as Robin Hood outlaws whose crimes have an undercurrent of social conscience. Yes they were robbers, but when they knocked over banks they also attempted to burn the debt records of other troubled families so that maybe they to could be debt free.

No such moralizing in the new version where the motivation is solely material and selfish. The modern Dick and Jane are concerned about maintaining their social status and regaining their material wealth. A scene where Dick and Jane retrieve their LCD big screen television using some of their ill-gotten gains is played as a moment of triumph with their young son celebrating wildly. I guess, like the nanny, that television was another parent to the kid, which is yet another bit of sardonic humor the film fails to capitalize on.

Spoiler warning!

When at the end our heroes target Baldwin's corporate criminal and end up turning Robin Hood and stealing his money and giving it back to the employees he screwed, we are supposed to admire them. But you can see the plot gears turning as the filmmakers try to redeem these lost characters with one act of deus ex machina, the hand of god, putting everything right with the world in less than 10 minutes screen time.

Fun With Dick and Jane ends with a dedication to the corporations like Enron that have been subjects of the biggest financial swindles in history. Unfortunately, what was intemded to play as an ironic thumb in the eye of these corporations comes off as more of an honest thank you for inspiring this film's failed ideas.  Fun With Dick and Jane never develops into any kind of satire of corporate scandals. The corporate crimes in the movie are a mere backdrop for the flailing slapstick physical comedy. 

Fun With Dick and Jane is yet another sad, lazy Hollywood remake. The work of slacking geniuses picking up paychecks rather than actually making a funny movie.

Movie Review Full Frontal

Full Frontal (2002) 

Directed by Steven Soderbergh 

Written by Steven Soderbergh 

Starring David Duchovny, Julia Roberts, Blair Underwood, Nicky Katt, Catherine Keener

Release Date August 2nd, 2002 

Published August 1st, 2002 

Whenever a director tries to do something that is stylistically or thematically different from the Hollywood norm, he or she is to be commended. Even when that effort is a failure. Movies as varied as Hal Hartley’s monster fantasy No Such Thing and Todd Solondz’s multilayered Storytelling are examples of filmmakers on the edge and falling over. Director Steven Soderbergh, much like his indie brethren, made his movie Full Frontal with great ambition. Unfortunately for all the style, there is no substance.

A film about the interconnected lives of Los Angelinos in various levels of the entertainment industry, Full Frontal stars Julia Roberts because hers is the biggest name in the credits. In reality it’s supposed to be an ensemble, but I dare anyone to watch it without thinking of what Julia’s character is doing when she’s not on screen.

Blair Underwood, best known for TV’s "L.A. Law," plays an actor in a movie in which he plays an actor. Roberts is Underwood’s co-star in the movie. Underwood’s struggling actor is carrying on an affair with the wife of one of his writing partners. Catherine Keener is the wife and David Hyde Pierce the partner.

Underwood’s other partner is played by Enrico Colantoni. His character is also an actor and director, currently working on a play called The Sound and The Fuhrer. The play is a modernist take on Hitler, imagine Hitler as played hysterically by Nicky Katt, as a self involved artist who breaks up with Eva Braun because he has too much stress at work and doesn’t have time to give her proper facetime. Hitler needs his space. Katt gives the film's funniest performance in the film's least necessary subplot.

Actually there would have to be a plot for there to be a subplot. Steven Soderbergh created Full Frontal as an exercise in style and acting virtuosity. Unfortunately he forgot to give the actors a plot to focus their seemingly improvised dialogue. Occasionally the improv works for some laughs but more often it’s almost scatological, actors with no focal point simply pontificating until they can find an interesting insight or humorous observation, each of which are few and far between.

Full Frontal has the feel of an unedited film school project, with an experimental director instructing self involved actors to be more self conscious. It might make for an interesting exercise but not a very entertaining movie.