New Releases
DR. SEUSS’ HORTON HEARS A WHO! In Horton’s world, “a person’s a person, no matter how small,” but in our world, a mediocre movie’s a mediocre movie, no matter how overhyped, overblown and overbearing. Certainly, there are many who will give this animated film a free ride by virtue of the fact that it’s roughly 10,000 times better than the ghastly live-action version of Dr. Seuss’ The Cat In the Hat. That’s absolutely true, but it’s also true that a month-old loaf of bread isn’t nearly as disgusting as a year-old loaf of bread, and I wouldn’t care to indulge in either. There’s a reason that the 1966 TV version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas! remains the best Seuss on film, and that’s because its 26-minute length comes closest to approximating the brief reading time of one of the good doctor’s delightful books. But when stretched out to 90 minutes, a great deal of padding is needed, thereby maximizing the chances of screwing up the source material. That’s definitely the case here, since the basic story – Horton the happy-go-lucky elephant finds himself ridiculed by the other jungle denizens when he insists that a speck on a clover contains an entire civilization (the residents of Whoville) – retains its humanist (better make that anthropomorphic) appeal. But the additions to the original content are misguided, beginning with a decidedly non-Seussian reference to “poop” (ah, more scatological humor for the kiddies to digest) and ending with an atrocious Pokemon-inspired sequence that must be seen to be disbelieved. And while the animation often captures the intricate details found on the storybook pages, the sense of whimsy is largely missing, replaced by a heavy-handed touch made all the more noticeable by the marquee-value-only casting of Jim Carrey (as Horton), Steve Carell, Seth Rogen and others. **
Current Releases
THE BANK JOB The Bank Job bills itself as being based on a true story, but given cinema’s propensity for fudging details every which way, that’s not a declaration that I’d be willing to take to the bank myself. But veracity be damned: Even if every detail of this heist flick was drenched in fiction, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s one compelling package. Set in 1971 London, here’s a film that feels veddy British to its core, starting with the casting of Jason Statham, who, thanks to a series of action films, has become the current poster boy for British roughhousing. The Bank Job allows his character, Terry Leather, to use his brains more than his brawn, and this allows Statham to allow a bit more vulnerability than usual – his character even has a wife and two daughters, a break from the image of the emotionless lone warrior. Not that there’s much room for the sentimental stuff in this admirably knotty crime flick. Terry Leather is approached by a former acquaintance (Saffron Burrows) to pull off a robbery at a Lloyds Bank that will benefit them both. She has her own reasons beyond monetary gain for making this proposal, and Terry senses that rather quickly. But he and his crew go for it anyway, a decision that involves them in a labyrinthine scandal that involves a black militant, a porn peddler, high-ranking government officials and even a member of the British royal family. Brimming with satisfying twists and populated with colorful characters, this represents a Job well done. ***1/2
MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is the sort of airy confection that will be dismissed by many as a pleasant but forgettable bauble, and that’s OK. But catch it on the proper wavelength, and its pleasures are not only bountiful but durable. It’s romantic without being cynical, witty without being puerile, and blessed by two divine performances from Frances McDormand and Amy Adams. McDormand plays the title character, a British maid in 1939 London who all too suddenly finds herself unemployed. Desperate to remain off the streets, she dupes her way into the position of social secretary to American actress Delysia Lafosse (Adams), an opportunistic if sweet-natured starlet whose biggest problem seems to be choosing between two playboys (Tom Payne and Mark Strong) who can advance her career and a struggling pianist (Lee Pace) who truly loves her. Yeah, I know: It’s a no-brainer guessing who gets her hand by the fadeout. Yet despite Adam’s screwball-style performance – as enchanting as her turn in Enchanted – the film’s main source of delight doesn’t rest with Delysia’s affairs of the heart but with Miss Pettigrew’s. A prim woman who lost her beloved during the First World War, Miss Pettigrew has long given up on any chance at romance. That a potential suitor comes along in the form of a successful clothing designer (Ciaran Hinds) seems just right, not only by the demands of the storyline but by the demands of our own hearts. McDormand sells her character with utter conviction, and the only thing possibly more praiseworthy than Miss Pettigrew is the movie that bears her name. ***1/2
THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL An often fascinating blend of fact, rumor and outright fabrication, The Other Boleyn Girl feels like an Oscar-bait title that somehow got its DNA mixed up with a daytime soap opera. Based on Philippa Gregory’s controversial novel, this tracks the political intrigue and bedroom shenanigans which sprang from the attempts of the Boleyn family to get in the good graces of King Henry VIII (Eric Bana). Prodded on by the most venal member of the clan, the scheming Duke of Norfolk (The Reaping‘s David Morrissey, as uninteresting as always), the quivering Sir Thomas Boleyn (Mark Rylance) agrees to offer his strong-willed daughter Anne (Natalie Portman) to the king as replacement for his majesty’s current wife Catherine (Ana Torent), who has been unable to produce a male heir. But after Anne quickly falls out of Henry’s favor, the men serve up Anne’s demure sister Mary (Scarlett Johansson) instead; a torrid love affair takes place, but when that begins to cool thanks to Henry’s growing disinterest, Anne is brought back onto the scene. If Charles Laughton (winning an Oscar for 1933’s The Private Life of Henry VIII) was the chunkiest Henry VIII ever put on film, then Bana might be the hunkiest, but it’s hardly a desirable tradeoff, given the actor’s drowsy performance. His female co-stars fare better, though it’s hard to accept the physically dissimilar Portman and Johansson as flesh-and-blood siblings; in fact, the whole project frequently feels like little more than celebrities playing dress-up, despite the efforts of scripter Peter Morgan (The Queen) to streamline so much contradictory material. **1/2
PENELOPE An ugly duckling of a movie, Penelope is a sweet but clumsy fable that’s pleasing without being particularly distinguished. Christina Ricci essays the title role, a poor little rich girl suffering from an ancient family curse that saddled her at birth with a pig’s snout. Now 25, Penelope has been basically kept a prisoner in her own home by her busybody mother (Catherine O’Hara), who only allows blueblood bachelors to visit her daughter in the hopes that one of them will look past her deformity and ask for her hand in marriage (the curse can only be broken when Penelope’s loved by “one of her own”). A tabloid reporter (Peter Dinklage) who’s forever been trying to get a photo of Penelope hears of this arrangement, and he hires a down-and-out playboy (Atonement‘s James McAvoy) to gain entry into the home and take the snapshot; needless to say, real feelings develop, hearts get broken, and, as in Babe: Pig In the City, our snout-sporting protagonist finds herself adrift in a major metropolis. A piggy proboscis does little to curtail Christina Ricci’s beauty, so the fact that her suitors hurl themselves out of second-story windows in a rush to get away from her is rather absurd; still, this is basically a fairy tale, so exaggerations are expected in the recounting of the fantasy yarn. But despite being blessed with a distinguished cast – Dinklage is particularly sharp, and Reese Witherspoon (who also produced) shows up in a small role as a no-nonsense delivery woman – director Mark Palansky, working from a wobbly screenplay by Leslie Caveny, can only muster so much charm in his muted attempt to make this picture truly take off. **1/2
SEMI-PRO In 1962’s Only Two Can Play, Peter Sellers portrays a librarian who’s tasked to write a theater review for the local newspaper. He pens the piece beforehand without even seeing the play, using the time he’s supposed to be at the theater as a cover for an affair; the only reason he’s caught is because the theater housing the production burns to the ground on opening night – after it’s too late to stop the edition running his review. Barring a similar disaster happening at the AMC Carolina Pavilion, I probably could have written a review for Semi-Pro without having even attended the advance screening, using the covered time to catch up on my sleep. Will Ferrell as an idiotic guy prone to infantile outbursts – check. Ferrell MAKING LOUD NOISES and running around like a goofball in a desperate attempt to generates laughs – check. Ferrell sporting a laughable hairstyle (this one vintage 1970s) – check. Ferrell surrounding himself with his comedian friends, some with extremely limited talent – check. Ferrell resorting to ca-ca and pee-pee level jokes with alarming regularity – check. Ferrell MAKING MORE LOUD NOISES – check. And so it goes, reaching a point of such creative bankruptcy that Ferrell stands poised to become as tiresome a screen jester as Robin Williams. The plot, as if anyone couldn’t guess after watching 10 seconds of the trailer, finds Ferrell cast as Jackie Moon, the self-adoring owner of (and player on) the Flint Tropics basketball team. When it appears that there’s a chance for this dreadful squad to join the NBA, Moon does his best to whip his players into shape – but not enough to whip this into a watchable film. *1/2
10,000 B.C. Approaching 10,000 B.C., it’s reasonable to wonder if it will turn out to be one of those long-time-ago movies in which the characters will grunt and growl their way through the entire film. Instead, it proves to be one chatty affair, with the majority of the players communicating via perfectly enunciated English. There would be no harm, no foul in this approach if these folks had anything worth saying, but this turns out to be so crammed with dull and insipid dialogue that it’s a shame auditoriums don’t come equipped with “mute” buttons next to the seat cupholders. Playing like a cross between Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto and the fanboy fave 300, this empty-headed spectacle centers on a young man named D’Leh (Steven Strait), whose bland, pretty-boy countenance makes him a precursor to Malibu Ken (if surfboards had been around in 10,000 B.C., you can bet D’Leh would have been out searching for the perfect wave). D’Leh passes the time by flirting with Evolet (blank slate Camilla Belle), whose heavy eye mascara never gets smeared even after she’s been shedding copious tears (who knew Maybelline existed as far back as 10,000 B.C.?). At any rate, Evolet gets snatched by marauders, and it’s up to D’Leh to rescue her. During the course of the adventure, he befriends a tribal leader (Joel Virgel), bonds with a cuddly CGI saber-toothed tiger, and takes advice from a sagacious blind man who’s brought up on a slab from beneath the surface, where he has spent countless years cooped up in cramped quarters with nothing to keep him entertained. After spending two hours in a darkened theater watching 10,000 B.C., I could relate. *1/2
VANTAGE POINT Imagine the TV hit 24 crossed with Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, and you’ll get some idea of what to expect from Vantage Point, a dizzying thriller that relates the same catastrophic event from several different POVs. In Salamanca, Spain, U.S. President Ashton (William Hurt), on the verge of making a speech concerning the War on Terror, becomes the target of an assassination attempt, and various occurrences that take place immediately before and after the shooting are filtered through the actions of several participants and witnesses. Chief among these characters are Secret Service agent Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid), who stopped an assassin’s bullet during a prior attempt on the president’s life; Barnes’ fellow bodyguard, Kent Taylor (Matthew Fox); Howard Lewis (Forest Whitaker), an American tourist who catches some startling images with his camcorder; and Rex Brooks (Sigourney Weaver), a TV producer whose own newsreel footage might help Barnes crack the case. By splintering the material in such a fashion, writer Barry Levy has added some snap, crackle and pop to what would otherwise be a routine action film had it been presented in chronological order. Even so, director Pete Travis can’t keep the momentum going for the entire 90 minutes, with the final act marred by a ludicrous plot twist as well as an endless car chase that drains away much of the narrative tension. **1/2
OPENS FRIDAY, MARCH 21:
DRILLBIT TAYLOR: Owen Wilson, Josh Peck.
SHUTTER: Joshua Jackson, Rachael Taylor.
TYLER PERRY’S MEET THE BROWNS: Tyler Perry, Angela Bassett.
This article appears in Mar 19-25, 2008.
