Capsule Reviews
ALIEN VS. PREDATOR. The ad slogan for this movie is: "Whoever wins, we lose." You can say that again. The best parts of it, where the monsters actually start mixing it up, are amusingly garish, shallow and gory. But the worst of it (most of the setup stuff) is almost irredeemably awful. Curious about mysterious heat radiations from beneath the Antarctic, a team of victims-to-be go exploring below the ice masses, where they stumble upon a war between the militaristic Predators and the icky Aliens. PG-13 (violence, language, horror images, slime and gore). 1:40. 1-1/2 stars. - M.W.
ANACONDAS: THE HUNT FOR THE BLOOD ORCHID. In this sequel to 1997's "Anaconda" (which starred a then-rising Jennifer Lopez), a no-name cast travels to Borneo to bring back a life-prolonging flower. Obstacles and in-fighting ensue, but the giant snakes don't seem to get the same loving care that they did in the original. PG-13 (action violence, scary images and some language). 1:33. 2 stars. - E.F.
BENJI: OFF THE LEASH! Director Joe Camp's attempt to revive the legendary "Benji" franchise is something of a dog - at least if you're an adult. But the kiddies will undoubtedly find it to be likable, good-hearted and full of enjoyable canine antics. PG (thematic elements and some mild language). 1:37. 1-1/2 stars. - M.W.
THE BOURNE SUPREMACY. Almost as good as its predecessor, the "The Bourne Identity," this sequel is another brainy, blisteringly fast spy thriller based on the book series by Robert Ludlum. Matt Damon reprises the role of Bourne, the deep cover agent trying to flee his past. The slightly familiar plot elements act like a starter's gun, hurtling the characters and us into nonstop action. With Joan Allen, Franka Potente, Brian Cox and Julia Stiles. PG-13 (violence, intense action and brief language). 1:49. 3-1/2 stars. - M.K.
THE BROWN BUNNY. Filmmaker Vincent Gallo's notorious road movie, widely panned at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, stars Gallo himself as a forlorn motorcycle racer driving across the country for a rendezvous with his ex-girlfriend (Chloe Sevigny). This is the kind of fascinatingly bad film only a gifted and fearless moviemaker could make. It's a raggedy-raunchy vision of sex and alienation in which Gallo focuses on himself so obsessively, it's as if he'd become his own stalker. No MPAA rating. Adult (sexuality and language). 1:32. 1 star. - M.W.
COLLATERAL. This expertly made thriller about an L.A. night ride with immaculate hit man Vincent (Tom Cruise) and smart, funky cab driver Max (Jamie Foxx) is really two movies: a taut, realistic crime drama and, by the end, an over-the-top, high-tech extravaganza. Vincent must kill five people before his plane leaves at 6 a.m. the next day. To him, a reliable, veteran cabbie like Max is a godsend - until Max discovers Vincent's real job. Director Michael Mann's film is an entertaining ride despite the formulaic ending. R (violence and language). 2:00. 3 stars. - M.W.
DANNY DECKCHAIR. This glossy romantic comedy from Australia spins the tale of an amiable Sydney cement truck driver (Rhys Ifans) who goes sailing off on a balloon-buoyed deck-chair and ends up meeting a girl (Miranda Otto) who re-teaches him the virtues of the simple life. It's a sweet-tempered movie with some gaping plot holes. PG-13 (for sex-related situations). 1:30. 2-1/2 stars. - M.W.
EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING: Like two earlier "Exorcist" sequels - "Exorcist II: The Heretic" and "The Exorcist III" - this one isn't in the same class as the shivery original. It's a prequel to the 1973 movie, charting the earlier devil-busting career of Father Lankester Merrin (Stellan Skarsgard), the old priest who wrestled with the devil in Linda Blair. Like the other follow-ups, it's more visually opulent and technically prodigious, but not as real or as scary. R (strong violence and gore, disturbing images and rituals, and language including some sexual dialogue). 1:54. 2 stars. - M.W.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11. Michael Moore's incendiary Palme d'Or-winning documentary is a controversial, shocking, sad, fiercely funny look at George W. Bush's handling of terrorism and the Iraqi War. It's another howitzer blast of heartland humor and journalistic chutzpah from Moore ("Roger and Me," "Bowling for Columbine") - his cheekiest, gutsiest, most hilarious assault yet on the halls of the rich and mighty. This film may provoke, delight or divide its audience, but no one will react indifferently. R (violent and disturbing images, language.) 1:56. 4 stars. - M.W.
GARDEN STATE. Writer/director/star Zach Braff's beautiful, solid film is about that fleeting stage in life when you're out of the house but without a real home of your own. After nine years away, twentysomething Andrew (Braff) returns to his New Jersey hometown for his mother's funeral and leaves his anti-anxiety medication behind. Emotionally stunted and chemically askew, he reconnects with old friends and meets his true, slightly flawed love (Natalie Portman). R (language, drug use and a scene of sexuality). 1:42. 3 stars. - A.B.
HERO. Swooningly beautiful and furiously exciting, this is an action movie for the ages. Based on the legend of a Chinese emperor (Chen Daoming), the assassins who stalk him (Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung, Donnie Yen), and the hero who opposes the assassins (Jet Li), this film is a visual feast and an explosion of cinema pyrotechnics. It's the highest-grossing picture in Chinese film history, and it was far more popular with Asian audiences than "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," which was so well received in America. PG-13 (stylized martial arts violence and a scene of sensuality). 1:39. 4 stars. - M.W.
INTIMATE STRANGERS. This latest gem from French director Patrice Leconte ("The Man on the Train") is a psychological drama involving a troubled wife (Sandrine Bonnaire) who pours out her soul to a financial advisor she mistakenly believes is a psychiatrist (Fabrice Luchini). A triumph of simplicity, talent, intelligence, subtlety and tact. In French with English subtitles. R (language and sensuality). 1:43. 3-1/2 stars. - M.W.
LITTLE BLACK BOOK. In this bold romantic comedy, Brittany Murphy plays as a woman prying into the past relationships of her boyfriend (Ron Livingston). Hell may hath no fury like a woman scorned, but a furiously curious one can be just as destructive. Though trailers for this movie try to sell it as a zany romantic comedy, don't judge this book by its cover. Those who stick with it will be surprised and might even laugh in between a tear or two. PG-13 (sexual content/humor and language). 1:45. 3 stars. - R.E.
THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE. Director Jonathan Demme's remake of the classic Cold War thriller about a brainwashed political assassin and a rigged presidential convention has sharp direction and a remarkable cast (Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep Liev Schreiber, Jon Voight). But this version lacks the 1962 film's shattering, surreal impact, perhaps because the nightmares of the past are all too real today. R (violence and some language). 2:10. 3 stars. - M.W.
MARIA FULL OF GRACE. Writer/director Joshua Marston follows pregnant, defiant Maria (Catalina Sandino Moreno) on her new job as a "mule," as she ingests thumb-sized capsules of heroine and smuggles them into the United States from Columbia. Featuring jittery camerawork and some fine acting, this suspense-fueled film is a simple story made eloquent and menacing. In Spanish with English subtitles. R (drug content and language). 1:41. 3-1/2 stars. - R.E.
MEAN CREEK. When Sam (Rory Culkin) is beaten up by a cruel, overweight bully (Josh Peck), Sam's big brother and friends plan an elaborate, seemingly harmless revenge plot involving a river trip. Jacob Aaron Estes delivers a labyrinth of moral dilemmas and complex characters in his engrossing directorial debut. R (language, sexual references, teen drug and alcohol use). 1:27. 3 stars. - R.E.
NAPOLEON DYNAMITE. This high school comedy from first-time director Jared Hess was the surprise comedy hit of the last Sundance Film Festival, but it isn't for everyone. Likably gawky newcomer Jon Heder plays a kid named Napoleon, who teams up with some fellow misfits at a small-town Idaho high school to challenge the popular kids in a class election. Hess has made a film with style, smarts and vision, but the humor is too derivative, the resolution too upbeat. PG (thematic elements and language). 1:28. 2 stars. - M.W.
NICOTINA. This Mexican crime thriller is steeped in bloody black humor. At the center is a computer hacker (Diego Luna) who splits time between swiping Swiss bank accounts and peeping on his cellist neighbor (Marta Belaustegui). When the neighbor catches him in the act, and a deal to deliver the bank data goes wrong, the movie begins its brutally funny slow burn. R (violence and language). 1:33. 3-1/2 stars. - L.C.
OPEN WATER. Two yuppies on a scuba-diving holiday (Blanchard Ryan, Daniel Travis) emerge from the deep only to find that their tour boat has left without them. This taut, minimalist thriller offers one of the more harrowing horror premises of recent years, and the result is a lean, mean movie with one whale of a primal scare. R (language and nudity). 1:19. 3 stars. - S.S.
THE PRINCESS DIARIES 2: ROYAL ENGAGEMENT. This sequel is an improvement over the inelegant original. As the subtitle suggests, American-bred princess Mia Thermopolis (Anne Hathaway) faces an arranged marriage before she can rule the tiny (fictional) country of Genovia. Director Garry Marshall successfully taps into the princess fantasy, fulfilling the little-girl dream of instant glamour, social elevation and the promise of "happily ever after." G. 2:00. 3 stars. - R.E.
SUPERBABIES: BABY GENIUSES 2. Four diaper-aged kids discover that a German villain (Jon Voight) is trying to control children's minds by launching a new TV network. Children aren't very discriminating when it comes to movies, so it's important that their parents protect them from terrible movies such as this. PG (action violence and some rude humor). 1:30. 1/2 star. - E.F.
SUSPECT ZERO. This postmodern thriller is about a serial killer (Ben Kingsley) and the tormented FBI agent (Aaron Eckhart) who pursues him. The film is so drenched in deviant style and cinematic trickery that its peculiar story almost becomes overwhelmed. Director E. Elias Merhige ("Shadow of the Vampire") shock-cuts, filters and angle-shots us away from any sense of reality. Though it can be disorienting, this film is creepy and imaginatively done. R (violent content, language and some nudity). 1:40. 2-1/2 stars. - M.W.
TAE GUK GI: THE BROTHERHOOD OF WAR. When two brothers are forced into the South Korean army, the older sibling volunteers for the most brutal, most dangerous missions in the hopes that fame and medals will help get his baby brother sent home. Director Kang Je-gyu's gritty triumph is South Korea's "Saving Private Ryan." R (strong graphic sequences of war violence). 2:20. 3-1/2 stars. - R.E.
VANITY FAIR. This lusciously entertaining film makes William Makepeace Thackeray's oft-filmed novel about unscrupulous 19th-century anti-heroine Becky Sharp come alive as never before. Impudent Becky (Reese Witherspoon) and her goody-goody best friend Amelia (Romola Garai) set out after graduation to make their fortunes and are soon entangled with two young soldiers (James Purefoy, Jonathan Rhys Meyers). Graced with Mira Nair's loving direction, Witherspoon's radiance and a great supporting cast, this film is a treat, if somewhat less so than the novel. PG-13 (some sensuality/partial nudity and a brief violent image). 2:21. 3-1/2 stars. - M.W.
THE VILLAGE. The latest film from M. Night Shyamalan ("The Sixth Sense") is about an isolated 19th century village that's suffering horrors both internal and external. The village is surrounded by a forest full of menacing creatures, and when villagers start getting slaughtered, the town elders must decide whether to seek help in the distant city while the creatures are still on their rampage. Shyamalan hasn't lost his moviemaking gifts, and the cast (Joaquin Phoenix, Adrien Brody, Bryce Dallas Howard, William Hurt, Brendan Gleeson, Sigourney Weaver) is first-rate. But the director's surprise endings are wearing thin. PG-13 (a scene of violence and frightening situations). 2:00. 2-1/2 stars. - M.W.
WE DON'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE. Adultery in academia is the subject of this chamber drama based on two short stories by Andre Dubus. Literature teacher Jack (Mark Ruffalo) cheats on his wife, earthy Terry (Laura Dern), by taking up with Edith (Naomi Watts), the wife of Jack's best friend and fellow teacher, Hank (Peter Krause). Soon, Jack has driven Terry into an affair of her own - with serial adulterer Hank. Director John Curran handles the story with marvelous ease and clarity, keeping viewers on track and in the moment. R (language, sexuality). 1:41. 3 stars. - M.W.
WICKER PARK. Director Paul McGuigan's Chicago-based remake of Gilles Mimouni's 1996 French romance "L'Appartement" stars an attractive young foursome - Josh Hartnett, Diane Kruger, Matthew Lillard and Rose Byrne - as an obsessive, mixed-up romantic quadrangle. It's an erotic thriller full of unexpected and improbable plot twists, with almost nothing in the plot standing up to scrutiny. PG-13 (sexuality and language). 1:55. 2 stars. - M.W.
WITHOUT A PADDLE. This sophomoric adventure yarn features Seth Green, Dax Shepard and Matthew Lillard as boyhood chums who reunite after the death of another friend and revive their prepubescent dream of solving a crime mystery. The movie's one virtue is its homage to "Deliverance" (complete with Burt Reynolds cameo), but the payoff is far too small. PG-13 (drug content, sexual material, language, crude humor and some violence). 1:35. 1-1/2 stars. - S.S.
YU-GI-OH! THE MOVIE. Based on a hit Japanese trading-card game and TV show, this shallow, repetitive kiddie flick follows schoolboy card champ Yugi and friends through more trading-card duels. Meanwhile, an angry Egyptian god resurfaces. If your child has not yet been exposed to the craze, bring him or her at your wallet's risk. PG (scary combat and monster images). 1:31. 1-1/2 stars. - E.F.
(M.W. - Michael Wilmington; M.C. - Mark Caro; R.E. - Robert K. Elder; A.B. - Allison Benedikt; E.F. - Ellen Fox; L.C. - Louis R. Carlozo; S.S. - Sid Smith)
The fetching comedy "Priceless" ("Hors de Prix") weighs about as much as its star, Audrey Tautou, but like Tautou's pleasingly craven heroine it knows exactly what it's doing. Tautou plays a gold digger working her way through a series of sugar daddies in a series of swank hotels in a series of resort towns including Biarritz, Nice and Monte Carlo. Tautou's co-star is Gad Elmaleh, who plays Jean, a bartender and dog walker mistaken by Tautou's character, Irene, for a swell.
Born in Morocco, Elmaleh has a marvelous hangdog face and eyes on loan from Buster Keaton. In France he is nearly as well-known as Tautou, who by now can be deemed the official French national gamine.
At one point, the point at which you know for certain "Priceless" will deliver the goods, Tautou and Elmaleh stand side by side in a tiny hotel elevator, a little worse for the wear drink-wise. Director and co-writer Pierre Salvadori ("Apre Vous") keeps the camera on the elevator doors as they open, revealing the tipsy about-to-be-lovers. The doors close. Then they open again and the listing occupants, trying as hard as possible not to look crocked, zigzag their way across the floor. It's just a few seconds of screen time, but they're handled just right. The film glides along, looking fabulous, setting up its next little bit of business. (The cinematography by Gilles Henry makes the croissants look as mouth-watering as the beaches.)
Consciously evoking Ernst Lubitsch's "Trouble in Paradise," a Preston Sturges film or two and, most of all, "Breakfast at Tiffany's," "Priceless" is a fairy tale about a woman who discovers there's more to life than shoes (a little, anyway). Irene and Jean spend a night together, and then, much later, another night. She learns he's a mere resort employee, then practically dares him to stick with her while she shops him out of solvency. (He's flat broke within two days.) Jean falls in with a wealthy older widow played by Marie-Christine Adam, becoming a kept man and not minding it much. The arrangement equalizes Irene and Jean: They're both a couple of amiable prostitutes who save their hearts for each other.
The thing about a certain grade of contemporary French comedy, of which "Priceless" is a fine example, is the quality of the playing style. Nobody forces the situations, even the broadest ones. "Priceless" would no doubt suffer the usual crassification if Hollywood ever remade it in English. The film may be a contraption, but it is acted with simplicity and charm.
"Chaos Theory" shouldn't work. The story, about a time-efficiency expert whose life goes kerflooey owing to a colossal misunderstanding, sets us up for farce but delivers increasingly bittersweet and improbable developments. In the bookend scenes, Ryan Reynolds looks ridiculous in 50-something makeup, like Mickey Rourke in "Year of the Dragon." And at least three of the picture's chief virtues - its classy cinematography, unhurried sense of pacing and knack for extended takes - will mean little to the average Jane and Joe simply looking for a romantic comedy that doesn't stink.
And this: "Chaos Theory" worries less about making its characters lovable (they're not) and more about making them intriguingly messed-up, which was also true of the previous romantic comedy starring Ryan Reynolds, "Definitely, Maybe." I ended up liking both pictures. "Chaos Theory" kept me guessing, and sometimes a film's tone plays guessing games with an audience as much as a film's narrative.
A borderline obsessive, Frank Allen (Reynolds) is the best-selling author of "The Five Minute Efficiency Trainer" whose wife (Emily Mortimer) and young daughter (Matreya Fedor) have grown accustomed to his routinized ways. Then, owing to wife Susan setting a telltale clock back 10 minutes instead of forward, the time master's schedule is suddenly out of joint. Frank misses his ferry, shows up late for a time-management seminar and ends up putting himself in an uncompromising position after a few drinks with a hotsy-totsy convention attendee (Sarah Chalke from "Scrubs," who is tart and funny and who has been doing her crunches for sure).
That'd be enough for most situation-minded comedies. But Frank ends up taking a pregnant woman to the hospital, signing some form identifying him as the father ... and then comes a whopper of a revelation, having to do with things at home not being what Frank thought them to be.
The performances and Marcos Siega's direction put a pleasing sheen on the material. It's all framed as a cautionary tale told by the 50ish Frank, to the young man (he looks roughly 11) about to marry his grown-up daughter, about love and trust and commitment. Reynolds appears to be growing more subtle and comfortable as a romantic leading man. He's amusing, which helps, and his smugness has a self-deprecating quality that keeps us from checking out on his character's predicament. It's a pretty serious predicament. And "Chaos Theory" lays out the predicament in peculiar and interesting ways.
"Smart People" is an effortful attempt at the sort of trenchant comedy a film such as "Sideways" managed without breaking a sweat. It also poses an interesting question regarding top-billed Dennis Quaid. Why is it that he comes off well in certain roles and less well in others?
Quaid's not-quite, maybe-next-film superstardom has been foretold for decades now, ever since "Breaking Away" in 1979 and "The Right Stuff" and "Innerspace" in the 1980s. Film after film, the "international sensation" mold never solidified for him, and he didn't turn into a franchise machine and a monster marquee name like Harrison Ford or Tom Cruise. In recent years the man with the memorable shark's grin has gotten down to the business of expanding his range. In Todd Haynes' "Far From Heaven," Quaid's portrayal of a tortured bisexual '50s businessman caught in a Douglas Sirk melodrama he cannot control was just the right role for just the right actor, and it was like watching an actor reborn.
In "Smart People," though, the guy is plain miscast. Quaid lays on the duck walk and straps on what appears to be some midsection padding for the role of a hyper-verbal cynic and university professor specializing in Victorian literature. The actor can only schlub it up so much without coming off like a pretender. He has to work, really work, at conveying a fellow such as this: The repartee doesn't trip off his tongue, and he never seems like a bone-weary academic.
While "Smart People" wouldn't necessarily have taken off with a different leading actor, Quaid's self-conscious characterization calls attention to the artificiality of the story's construction. It's set on and off the campus of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. The widower professor, whose book cannot find a willing publisher, has two kids: a son (Ashton Holmes, a terrific young actor who played the son in "A History of Violence") in college and a daughter living at home. She's played by Ellen Page of "Juno," also terrific, though novelist turned screenwriter Mark Jude Poirier conceives the daughter as a hyper-protective Young Republican who develops a crush on Dad's adopted brother, played by Thomas Haden Church. She's a paradox, in other words, though Page cannot make her plausible. Some people thought the writing in "Juno" sounded glib. Yuh, well, not compared to "Smart People."
The biggest threat to the daughter's universe is her father's romance with one of his old students, an ER doc played by Sarah Jessica Parker. (Their reunion is brought about by a seizure; unable to drive for several months, the professor must depend on the Church character as driver and unreliable helpmate.) The actors are primed to give this conflict all they have, yet "Smart People" glides along on the surface of each new scene. Director Noam Burro segments everything into neat little seriocomic passages, letting an emotionally over-explanatory soundtrack do the heavy lifting. Church is most at home in his character's skin; aside from the game but strident Quaid, all the leading players are ideally cast. It's the script that isn't ideally cast.
Police brutality goes down more easily when the cops look sharp and the past provides a measure of storytelling distance, as was the case in director Curtis Hanson's adaptation of the James Ellroy crime novel "L.A. Confidential." Take away the early 1950s lapels and the Brilliantine hair, however, and an audience has a very different relationship to the viciousness on screen.
The proof's in "Street Kings," a shrill, brutal bash set in contemporary L.A. or something like it, written by Ellroy, and then rewritten by Kurt Wimmer and Jamie Moss, from Ellroy's story. Again we're neck-deep in police corruption and more unwarranted searches than a season's worth of "The Shield." But any other comparison to "L.A. Confidential," or any other police corruption drama worth seeing, ends there. Director David Ayer, who poured on the City of Angels law enforcement angst in "Training Day" and wrote and directed the more interesting "Harsh Times," keeps things at a pitch of near-hysteria throughout "Street Kings." If a cop movie could be screened for fictional characters, Clint Eastwood's Harry Callahan might well mutter: "Why don't these thugs just calm down?"
The paradox at the center is Keanu Reeves. He is not an actor you associate readily with cops on the edge, or edging past the edge. When we first meet his character, Detective Tom Ludlow, he's an alcoholic mess (though Reeves has to work very, very hard at conveying any sort of messiness) who arranged to sell a stash of weapons to a scary group of Korean-American gangstas. It's all a setup for the big bust; this being Ellroyland, the thugs have penned up underage women in their closet back at the thug house, and when Ludlow's done with the bad men, the blood's all over the walls and the coroner's alerted. Ludlow's department boss, played by Forest Whitaker, is mighty proud: "You went toe-to-toe with evil and you won," he says.
"Street Kings" tries to complicate the usual avenging-angel-with-a-badge idea, so Ludlow must eventually reckon with the extent of the evil he's doing, and what his fellow officers get up to, in the name of human garbage collection. When Ludlow's bitter ex-partner is murdered in a convenience-store robbery, Ludlow, in an awkwardly plotted bit, just happens to be there, ripe for implication in the killing. As an internal affairs honcho (Hugh Laurie of "House," delivering the exposition with a sneer) keeps the screws tightening around Ludlow's future, Ludlow has to find out who's behind the killing, and why.
The movie runs around chasing subplots, letting the actors chew it up, while Reeves does the opposite. He doesn't chew. He practices his seething, keeping his voice in as low and weary a register as possible, trying to Clint and Vin Diesel his way through a role not well-suited to his preferred Zenlike mode.
In story terms "Street Kings" may not approve of all the rampant police nastiness on screen, but in visceral terms it's all for it. The racism of the various setups is hard to ignore. Scene after scene, rageful white cops take out the multicultural L.A. trash. Ayer manages a couple of well-staged slaughters. Of course, you can get that sort of thing anywhere these days on television. And you can get it without having to put up with Graeme Revell's ludicrous musical score, which hypes the living end out of each and every vein-throbbing, fire-breathing encounter.
In Ellroy's original scenario, "Street Kings" was a period piece, set in the 1990s just after the Rodney King riots. I wonder if it would've made more sense that way. As is, it unfolds in a present that feels dislocated and artificial, where everybody talks fancy-gangster talk while turning the mean streets even meaner. I enjoyed parts of "Street Kings," but I didn't believe one thing about it, and I couldn't get past Reeves' unsuitability to his role. He may someday play a cop on the edge convincingly, but the edge needs to be sharper than this.
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