Movie Review: Dreamcatcher

Dreamcatcher (2003) 

Directed by Lawrence Kasden

Written by William Goldman 

Starring Morgan Freeman, Thomas Jane, Jason Lee, Damian Lewis, Timothy Olyphant, Donnie Wahlberg

Release Date March 21st, 2003

Published March 20th, 2003 

For once Stephen King is publicly saying he likes a movie made from one of his books. Always his work’s harshest critic, King claims to never have been fully satisfied with any screen adaptation. However, the newest King adaptation, Dreamcatcher, has earned his seal of approval. That is likely because it is the most too-the-word adaptation of any of King's work. Dreamcatcher seems to go out of it's way to be faithful to King's vision, some might say that’s a good thing, some like myself disagree.

In Dreamcatcher we meet four guys, friends since childhood, who share the unique ability to communicate telepathically and read people’s minds. This ability stems from a childhood incident when they saved a retarded boy nicknamed Duddits from a group of bullies. Now adults, the four friends, Henry (Thomas Jane), Jonesy (Daniel Lewis), Beaver (Jason Lee) and Pete (Timothy Olyphant) planning a trip to a shared cabin in the woods. The trip is called off when Jonesy is nearly killed in a sick looking car accident.

Cut to six months later and the friends finally make it to the cabin. Jonesy, having survived the accident, seems normal but tells his friends that the accident was caused by a vision of their childhood friend Duddits. He doesn't blame Duddits for the accident but cannot explain the strange vision and especially how he survived the horrific accident.

This setup is very intriguing with good chemistry among the four actors and the character development and the use of the telepathy is very engaging. It entices the audience into what one hopes is an examination of these characters and theie abilities. Unfortunately, this is where Dreamcatcher flies off the rails and turns into yet another sci-fi/ horror schlockfest.

It is at this point that we meet Morgan Freeman and his insane General Kurtz. Kurtz is tracking the crash of an alien ship that contains aliens intent on spreading a virus that could wipe out humanity. As Kurtz searches for the ship, our four friends are witnesses to some freaky stuff. While Henry and Pete go on a beer run, Jonesy and Beaver take in a hunter who was lost in the woods. The hunter is very ill, as the number of loud farts coming out of him attest. It's not long before Jonesy and Beaver find out what's wrong with the guy, in a scene that makes John Hurt's ET indigestion in Alien look tame.

Now with Morgan Freeman in the film it would seem impervious to being bad, but oh how wrong you are. In fact, it is Freeman who provides many of the unintentionally funny moments of the film. Woefully miscast as a crazy man, Freeman should be playing the good guy role that went to Tom Sizemore. After all, who could possibly play crazy opposite Tom Sizemore? It’s worth noting that naming Freeman's General Kurtz is a cute little allusion to Apocolypse Now.

I mentioned just how faithful Dreamcatcher is to it's source material and though I haven't read it, I'm sure it is. What so many people don't realize about Stephen King's writing is, is how blatantly uncommercial it is. Oh sure it sells millions of copies, but that doesn't tell you how many people bought the book and were unable to make it all the way through it. This is the problem in faithfully adapting a King novel because most of his novels are far more gruesome than anyone would ever want to film.

Dreamcatcher, in being faithful to the original, took a risk that the disgusting elements of the writing and the outrageous plot twists would cause audiences to turn away or even walk out. Props for taking the risk, however it failed miserably.

Apparently Dreamcatcher isn't one of King's best because if this is a faithful adaptation it's an absolute mess. From ridiculous looking rejects from the Alien movies, to the cringe inducing dialogue, Dreamcatcher is at times a painful moviegoing experience. Schlocky sci-fi/horror on par with Resident Evil and Jason Goes to Space, or whatever the hell they called that Friday the 13th dud.

It's a real shame because the opening 35-40 minutes are pretty good and Director Lawrence Kasdan does a good job of building suspense throughout the beginning of the film. Why he drifted into horror movie cliches and sci-fi nastiness at a certain point in the film is maddening. It's a shame Kasdan decided to remain faithful to King when a director of his skill could have taken the strong start and taken the story in a more interesting direction.

Movie Review: Boat Trip

Boat Trip (2003) 

Directed by Mort Nathan

Written by Mort Nathan 

Starring Cuba Gooding Jr. Horatio Sanz, Roger Moore, Vivica A. Fox 

Release Date March 21st 2003 

Published March 20th, 2003 

It is a testament to just how good Cuba Gooding Jr. was in his Oscar winning role in Jerry Maguire that people like myself have so willingly ignored the number of awful films he's made. 

This is the guy who even after a breakout role in Boyz in The Hoodmade the decision to star opposite Paul Hogan in Lightning Jack as a mute sidekick. A man who since winning an Oscar has made the films Chill Factor, Instinct, Rat Race, and Snow Dogs and done so with a straight face. So I shouldn't be surprised when Gooding turns out another abysmal film with his new comedy Boat Trip. I once again walked in with my Jerry Maguire rose colored glasses on and once again left disappointed.

In Boat Trip, Gooding plays Jerry, recently dumped by his fiancée (Vivica A. Fox) and wallowing in self-pity. That is until his buddy Nick (Horatio Sanz) books them on a singles cruise. Unfortunately for Jerry and Nick, when they booked the cruise they ticked off the travel agent (Will Ferrell, in a cameo) that decides to book them on a gay cruise.

In a scene that defies believability and credibility to an astounding degree, Jerry and Nick manage to board the ship without noticing the number of men holding hands and the odd lack of women anywhere on the boat. It isn't until the boat has left and the two friends sit in the boat's bar with Roger Moore as a rich gay guy and he tells them they are on a gay cruise. Well needless to say this leads to a stream of homophobic ranting with Nick and Jerry screaming and yelling as if they were going down on the Titanic.

So of course the next logical step once they realize they are on a gay cruise, well of course you pretend to be a couple so that Jerry can seduce the ship’s lone female dance instructor, played by Roselyn Sanchez. Meanwhile Sanz's homophobic Nick comes to think he may be gay because he enjoys playing poker with gay guys.

If that doesn't illustrate the exquisite pain that is Boat Trip, try sprinkling in lame attempts at Farrelly Brothers style gross out humor. Writer/director Mort Nathan knows how to ape the histrionics of a Farrelly Brothers comedy but what he can't do is match the Farrelly's sweetness that tempers their worst gags. The Farrellys know that for the audience to tolerate the gross out stuff it has be in the service of characters we like. Boat Trip never for one moment establishes characters we like. Both Gooding and Sanz mug and preen and deliver dialogue in service of the plot but never for a moment act. They never connect with the audience and never rise above caricatures, while the supporting cast exist as plot points and sight gags.

I feel it necessary to hit the filmmakers for their use of Roselyn Sanchez in the film. True, she is a beautiful woman who I don't mind seeing in sexy, slinky outfits that barely cover her. However, the misogynistic attention paid to her and other female cast members is the kind of ancient, Neanderthal behavior relegated to the worst of Russ Meyer. But to Meyer's credit, he never attempted to hide his misogyny inside a mainstream feature. 

Movie Review: Willard

Willard (2003) 

Directed by Glen Morgan 

Written by Glen Morgan 

Starring Crispin Glover, Laura Elena Herring R. Lee Ermey

Release Date March 14th, 2003 

Published March 14th, 2003 

Years ago, Dennis Miller joked that Arab-Israeli peace agreements are about as stable as Crispin Glover. I didn't get the reference at the time but a friend explained that it stemmed from a rather vivid crack up Glover performed in one of his films. After watching Glover's latest film, the rat-filled Willard, I really get the joke.

In Willard, Glover is the titular Willard Stiles. He’s a shy, to the point of aberration, bookish desk jockey at a company once owned by his late father. The company is now run by his father’s ex-partner Mr. Smith (R. Lee Ermey), an evil tyrant who makes a habit of humiliating Willard. Things aren't much better for Willard at home where his rattled mother (Jackie Burroughs) monitors his every move. Constantly nosy and critical, it's not hard to imagine why Willard is so self-hating. And to top it all off Willard has a serious rat infestation in his basement. At first Willard attempts to get rid of the rats but they are a little too clever for his traps. Then Willard captures a little white rat, but rather than get rid of it he forms a bond with the rodent and names him Socrates.

Socrates is Willard's only friend, though a new co-worker played by Mulholland Drive's Laura Elena Herring has, for some unknown reason, taken an interest in Willard. Unfortunately, Willard is too socially retarded to return her interest, preferring instead to bond with Socrates and his rat buddies who are beginning to fill the basement to capacity. One of the rats is a monster that Willard dubs Big Ben. Now of course Ben is just a rat, but because he is so freakishly large the rat communicates a menace that is well played for comedy and horror.

Though things are getting crowded and the rats are coming out of the basement, especially Big Ben, Willard puts up with it and begins training the rats to do his bidding. The rat’s first order of business is to help Willard get revenge on his boss by eating the tires on the boss’s car. From there however, Willard begins to lose control of his little friends and after they start killing, Willard must figure a way to get rid of the rats without becoming dinner himself.

Willard is as you may already know a remake of a 1971 horror cult classic starring Bruce Davison, referenced in this film as Willard's dad. Whether that classifies this film as a sequel or not, I'm not sure. There are reasons to believe it may have been merely an homage to the original by Director Glenn Morgan and partner James Wong. This version of Willard retains the lead character’s name and the names of the originals “lead rats.”

The special effects in Willard are not bad, a mixture of CGI and animatronics makes for effectively creepy looking rodents. Director Glen Morgan seems to have gone to painstaking lengths to make the rats as realistic-looking as possible, including covering the floors with rat droppings for yet another realistic touch.

Ultimately, I didn't get what I was looking for from Willard. I knew going in that it wasn't necessarily a horror film, with many reviews calling it a horror comedy. However the film delivers only a few laughs and fewer scares. I was hoping for a sort of campy cult classic along the lines of the original Willard and it's oddball sequel Ben. Sadly, only a couple of scenes effectively capture that camp mood. One scene with an unfortunate cat that gets dumped in Willard's house is made over-the-top-hilarious by the soundtrack’s employment of Michael Jackson's unbelievably weird tune “Ben.” That scene provides the film’s only solid laughs, unless of course you’re a big fan of cats.

The filmmakers were smart to cast Glover who's skittishness and creepy Goth look plays perfectly against the film’s dark backgrounds. Glover has the look of porcelain in a kiln on the verge of exploding. Unfortunately, the film never establishes a tone or a direction. It's not scary or funny and it's not much of a thriller either. Props to the creators for actually garnering my sympathy for a rat. Willard's favorite, Socrates, is cute and I was surprised to care when he was in danger.

Morgan and Wong, former X-Files producers, and the twisted minds behind the original and far superior Final Destination, never seem to find the tone they were searching for which leaves the film aimless and unfulfilled. It's a shame because I wanted to like this film.

Movie Review: Bend it Like Beckham

Bend it Like Beckham (2003) 

Directed by Gurinder Chadha 

Written by Paul Mayeda Berges

Starring Parminder Nagra, Keira Knightley, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Juliet Stevenson, Archie Panjabi 

Release Date March 12th, 2003 

Published March 12th, 2003 

In the recent British release 28 Days Later, a virus spreads across Britain turning people into mindless zombies. We here in a America have known that virus for years, it emanates from Hollywood in the form of banal crowd-pleasing comedies that are all things to all demographics. Family friendly without a trace of irony, these films exist solely as cash machines and appeal to moviegoing zombies who can't take the time to think about why they are laughing as long as they are not offended. 

Sadly, the British import Bend It Like Beckham, shows this virus is spreading globally from Britain where the film is set, to India, where the film’s director Gurinder Chadha is from.

Bend It Like Beckham is a reference to worldwide Soccer superstar David Beckham and his impressive ability to make a soccer ball twist in midair and sail around a goalie. Beckham is the hero of the film’s star Jesminda Bhamra, a soccer player in her own right who hopes to play professionally someday. Unfortunately, Jesminda's traditional Indian family has already mapped out her future. She is to attend a university close to home, get a degree, learn to cook Indian food, and marry an Indian boy, just as her mother did and just as her sister is about to do. Jesminda however, has a dream that is much stronger than any familial tradition. 

The call of the soccer field however is unavoidable and after meeting a new friend, Juliet played by Keira Knightley, Jesminda finds her way onto a competitive soccer team with a chance to play for college scouts. This opportunity then opens the door to go to America and perhaps, a chance to play soccer professionally.

Of course, this plot is loaded with contrived roadblocks from Jesminda's numerous lies to her parents about her playing to the soccer team coach (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) who both Jesminda and Juliet are attracted to. The film throws up so many roadblocks that it stops and starts like rush hour traffic. The one funny subplot in the film involves Juliet's mother played by Juliet Stevenson and her mistaken belief that her daughter and Jesminda are more than friends. The subplot is sitcom level but well executed by Stevenson, a veteran of British comedy.

The rest of the film is a lifeless set of clichés that never amount to much more than plot contrivance. There are no stakes in the film. One never senses that Jesminda's goal is in jeopardy. Obviously there will be happy ending, it is after all a comedy, but the film still has to have something interesting happen to get to that happy ending, but it never does. Nothing more than recycled cliches from better and worse films.

The comparison to My Big Fat Greek Wedding is obvious, the setup is almost identical and both films are generic, inoffensive crowd pleasers. However, some have also compared it with the Indian film Monsoon Wedding, a comparison that Bend It Like Beckham does not hold up to. Films like Monsoon Wedding and another woman on the verge movie, Real Women Have Curves, are exactly the movies that expose Beckham's worst qualities. Both of those films are daring and emotional and have humor that comes not from contrivance but from real life experience.

The most disappointing element of Bend It Like Beckham is that it was directed by the very talented Gurinder Chadha. Chadha's previous effort, the extended family drama What's Cooking, was a lovely, intelligent film with real characters with real problems. The characters in Bend It Like Beckham are pleasing archetypes that are easy to like because they have no sharp edges. They are inoffensive, easy on the eyes and completely unchallenging. In other words, they're exactly what Hollywood is looking for.

Movie Review: Bringing Down the House

Bringing Down the House (2003) 

Directed by Adam Shankman 

Written by Jason Filardi 

Starring Steve Martin, Queen Latifah, Eugene Levy, Jean Smart, Joan Plowright, Missi Pyle 

Release Date March 7th, 2003 

Published March 6th, 2003 

Racial humor these days is more difficult than peace in the Middle East. Sensitivities are high and watchdogs are everywhere seizing on any hint of political incorrectness. Into this climate wanders the mismatched buddy comedy Bringing Down The House starring Steve Martin and Queen Latifah. A film that is desperate to be edgy with it's racial humor but paints too broadly to make anything close to a point.

Martin is Peter Sanderson, a workaholic LA lawyer who has recently divorced his wife Kate (Jean Smart) leaving her custody of their two kids, Sarah (Kimberly J. Brown) and Georgy (Angus T. Jones).

Peter isn't an absentee father, he still sees his kids but because of his job, he breaks a lot of promises. Constantly attached to his cellphone, Peter has little time for anything other than work though he has found time to strike up an Internet connection with a fellow lawyer named Charlene. Or so he thinks. Peter believes Charlene is a lawyer because her screen-name is lawyergirl. 

In reality however, Charlene is actually an ex con looking for someone to help get her out of jail. What Peter also doesn't know, until they meet on a blind date at his home, is that Charlene isn't the petite waspish blonde he had imagined but rather a sassy busty black woman in the form of Queen Latifah. If this sounds like the setup to a bad sitcom then you're onto something.

Peter is, not surprisingly, unhappy with Charlene's deception and wants her to leave immediately, until Charlene makes a scene and he is forced to let her stay. In a series of implausibility's, she stays in his house bonds with his kids and eventually the two come to an understanding. She helps him try and get his wife back while he works to clear her name. Eugene Levy is thrown into the plot as Charlene's love interest and The Practice's Steven Harris slums as Charlene's gangbanger ex-boyfriend.

Despite it's bad sitcom level plotting Bringing Down the House has it's share of laughs, most of them coming from Martin and Latifah who at times seem to be in an entirely different and far funnier film. The chemistry between the two is excellent in scenes where they seem to be flying off the script. However, when they are in the forced confines of the film’s plot, they seem bored.

The supporting cast is made up of caricatures and plot points and Eugene Levy is both. Thrown in to give the script a reason for Latifah and Martin not to get together, he also provides the screenwriter with the lame white guy he needs to foolishly send up stereotypical black speech as you have seen in the film‘s inescapable ad campaign. Also forced into the film as a caricature is Joan Plowright as Martin's bigoted client. Plowright's character exists for the purpose of one scene in which she smokes marijuana at a nightclub. It's funny because she's white, old, and smoking a joint..... hahahahaha.

The films racial humor is clumsy to the point of offensive and if it weren't for Latifah, you might not be able to tolerate a lot of it. The script seems determined to either make you laugh or make you extremely uncomfortable, which could be a commendable trait if the film weren't tied to such a mundane plot and bound to it's genre.

Director Adam Shankman needs to learn to control his camera. Early in the film he falls in love with these nauseating tracking shots that will have you wishing for Dramamine. His technique gets better as the film goes on but sadly, he is in place merely to transfer the mundane script to the screen.

Anything interesting in Bringing Down The House is provided by Martin and Latifah who through comedic force of will make this lame predictable material occasionally funny. The most surprisingly funny moment comes toward the end when Martin dresses up in the stereotypical “young black guy” costume and enters a black club. The scene has the potential to be extremely unfunny but Martin plays it so well you laugh, whether you wanted to or not. 

Movie Review: Cradle 2 the Grave

Cradle 2 the Grave (2003) 

Directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak 

Written by John O'Brien 

Starring DMX, Jet Li, Anthony Anderson, Kelly Hu, Tom Arnold, Marc Dacascos, Gabrielle Union 

Release Date February 28th, 2003 

Published February 27th, 2003 

DMX has made it clear with the opening of his production company that the movie business isn't a hobby or a bandwagon-jumping fad. DMX the actor is dead serious about making a go of it in Hollywood. Unfortunately for DMX, Hollywood is not yet taking him seriously, sticking him with bad B-movie action scripts like the one he's saddled with in Cradle 2 the Grave, which, much like his last film Exit Wounds, casts him as the anti-hero with a heart of gold. It is a tiresome formula from which he will have a hard time.

In Cradle 2 the Grave, DMX is a diamond thief named Tony Fait who, along with his crew (including Anthony Anderson and Gabrielle Union) knock over a huge diamond vault in broad daylight. Unfortunately, they are being watched and followed by a shady Taiwanese law enforcement agent named Su (Jet Li). Just when it seems that the crew has pulled a successful heist, Su sends in the cops and Tony and company escape with only a fraction of their loot.

What they did get away with is a very valuable and mysterious bag of black diamonds. Having never seen anything like them before, Fait takes the diamond to a expert fence played by comedian Tom Arnold. Before the fence can find anything out about the diamonds, they are stolen by a rival gang headed up by Boston Public's Chi McBride. It gets worse. The original owners of the black diamonds, headed up by straight-to-video legend Mark Dacascos, want their diamonds back and take Fait's eight-year-old daughter in order to get Fait to give them what they want. (The child in danger plot is the hallmark of hack screenwriting.) Now, with nowhere to turn, Fait must team with Su to get his daughter and the diamonds, which are actually a powerful new terrorist weapon created by the Taiwanese government.

Director Adrzej Bartkowiak, who also helmed Exit Wounds, gives Cradle 2 the Gravea strong music video slickness that work well during the fight scenes, which are choreographed to the film's strong point, its soundtrack. If only the film were as entertaining as it is music. Unfortunately, it's not.

Still struggling with English, Li is given little to do when he isn't fighting bad guys. This puts the dramatic onus on DMX, who has a strong presence but is still a little too raw to be a leading man. The supporting cast is not bad; Union gives an especially strong accounting of herself showing off some kick-ass moves that she's never shown before. Anderson manages to keep his most annoying traits in check, though he is still somewhat grating, especially in the obviously improvised moments.

Poor Mark Dacascos is laughable as the villain. With his vapidity oozing over every sentence, Dacascos is one of least intimidating baddies in a long time. This guy is supposed to be a criminal mastermind; I doubt this guy could mastermind a convenience store robbery let alone negotiate an international arms deal. He, of course, is stuck with the film's most unintentionally chuckle-inducing moments when he addresses the world's foremost arms dealers by saying, "You are the world's most foremost arms dealers." Thanks for the plot update, genius.

Cradle 2 the Grave is yet another chase-scene, explosion, special-effect, action movie on auto-pilot. A film that had a cast and a poster before it had a script, Cradle 2 the Grave is a marketer's dream and an intelligent moviegoer's nightmare.

Movie Review: Dark Blue

Dark Blue (2003) 

Directed by Ron Shelton

Written by David Ayer

Starring Kurt Russell, Ving Rhames, Scott Speedman, Michael Michele, Brendan Gleeson 

Release Date February 21st, 2003

Published February 20th, 2003

The corrupt cop movie has become a genre all it's own and a surprisingly compelling one. Two of the genres most recent entries are Joe Carnahan's Narc and Antoine Fuqua's Training Day, two well-acted and well-written films. However, the genre is also a convenient backdrop for straight to video exploitation films starring Baldwin brothers. So to which extreme does the Kurt Russell-Ron Shelton teaming Dark Blue lean? Sadly a little bit of both.

Set in Los Angeles in 1992, one year after the Rodney King beating and just four days before the acquittal of the four officers involved in the beating, Dark Blue stars Russell as LAPD detective Elden Perry. A member of LA's feared S.I.S unit, Perry and his young partner Bobby Keogh (Felicity's Scott Speedman) have a “play by their own rules” style that flies in the face of legality but does get things done.

As we join the story, Keough is in front of an investigative board to determine whether his use of deadly force in a recent bust was justified. The investigators seem to be willing to accept that the shooting was justified, all of them accept Deputy Chief Arthur Holland (Ving Rhames) who has been suspicious of S.I.S tactics for a very long time. As we soon find out the shooting wasn't clean and Keough wasn't the one who actually pulled the trigger. Indeed, it's questionable whether the guy they shot was even the right criminal.

The S.I.S is headed up by a corrupt lifetime cop Jack Van Meter (Brenden Gleeson), who served with Elden's father and taught Perry the tactics of planting evidence and closing cases regardless of the evidence.

The ambitious Arthur Holland sees the S.I.S for the criminals they are but also as an opportunity. Take down the S.I.S, clean up the department’s most corrupt cops and make a run at becoming LA's first black police chief. With the help of his assistant, SGT. Beth Williamson (Michael Michele), Holland begins an investigation into the S.I.S and Williamson discovers that the cop she has been dating anonymously is Bobby Keough.

The odd thing about Dark Blue is how little screentime Ving Rhames actually has. The films ad campaign plays up the rivalry between Rhames' and Russell's characters. However, most of that war is off screen and what we see more often is the interaction between Russell and Scott Speedman as they investigate a crime they have been instructed not to solve.

The film is based on a story by James Ellroy, best known for LA Confidential. Dark Blue was actually written with the Watts riots of the 1960's as the backdrop. The time shift from then to the 90's and the LA riots touched off by the Rodney King verdict doesn't hurt the story. In addition, the 1992 riots are a good touchstone for modern audiences who still haven't forgotten the riots themselves even if not much was learned from their brutality.

A lot has been made of Russell's performance, which some have said is the best of his career. I disagree. I found Russell's performance to be mostly on the surface. He is the anti-hero, at first he is a bad guy because he plants evidence and believes that cops who beat Rodney King were right to have done it. But he is also conflicted about his work and drinks heavily to cover his emotions. Whether he gets the right bad guy or not, he always busts criminals. Still, Russell never seems to believe the things he says or does. I'm sure the character is supposed to believe them but Russell's laid-back line delivery betrays that.

As for Scott Speedman, there is a reason why his character has little face-time in the film’s marketing. It’s because in every scene he communicates how over-matched he is by the material. Russell and Michael Michele do what they can to carry Speedman but his performance never comes together. Ving Rhames,  meanwhile, really gets abused in Dark Blue. He gets star billing and little screen time. The screen time he does get is mostly silent brooding and pious speechifying. This amazing powerful actor deserves far better than this underused and underwritten character.

Dark Blue isn't a bad film and indeed once it begins dramatizing the beginning of the LA riots, it takes on a visceral excitement that puts the film’s many problems in the background if only momentarily. It's only moments later that we get to Russell's big scene where he gives a rather long-winded speech as the city burns to the ground.

Director Ron Shelton is a technician who knows how to frame the film’s action. Problem is, the script spends too much time painting its characters motivations and not enough time dealing with it's politics about race and corruption in the LAPD. That is the story the film wants to tell but disregards in favor of a more action-centered plot involving a pair of criminals bankrolled by Gleeson's corrupt cop.

There is a film to be made about the racial politics of the LAPD leading from the Rodney King case to the LA riots but Dark Blue is not that film.