New Releases
MILLIONS Movies that traffic in whimsy often step over the line into pure treacle, and there are occasional moments when Millions appears to be on the brink of doing just that. Perhaps Danny Boyle, the director of such hard-R fare as Trainspotting and the zombie flick 28 Days Later, wanted to prove that he’s as adept as anyone else at making a film the whole family can enjoy, and so he took it upon himself to crank up the volume on the picture’s more fanciful aspects. Yet to his credit – as well as that of screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce (24 Hour Party People) – Millions is always careful to maintain its balance between reality and fantasy, resulting in a charming film about locating the miracles in a material world. Seven-year-old Damian (Alex Etel), still coping with the death of his mother, receives regular visits from history’s honored saints (Francis, Peter, etc.), so when a bag of cash lands in his lap, he figures it came straight from God and he should dole it out to the poor. But his older brother Anthony (Lewis McGibbon) has a firmer grasp on the advantages of wealth and tries to convince his sibling that they should hunt for sensible business investments instead. What neither boy knows is that the loot is actually stolen, and that the thief (Christopher Fulford) is determined to recover it at all costs. Rather than devolve into Home Alone shenanigans, the film remains true to its characters and their various plights, and in the process reveals what it means to be truly spiritual in a world in which religion is too often used as a smokescreen for bigotry and intolerance. Forget the tepid Robots: Parents who actually care about quality entertainment should take their kids to see this instead.
Current Releases
BE COOL Yet one more lazy sequel to a great film, Be Cool is a major disappointment that fails to capture the essence of what made Get Shorty such a terrific film experience. The movie never provides a compelling argument for its own existence: Because it spends far more time salivating over musical numbers featuring pop star Christina Milian than on watching shylock-turned-movie-producer Chili Palmer (John Travolta) test the shark-infested waters of the music business, it’s clear that priorities are out of whack. The degree to which characters, plot developments and even snatches of dialogue mimic those from the first film is irritating, and while there are some big laughs, they’re isolated moments of mirth cast adrift in an ocean of indifference.
BORN INTO BROTHELS Given the topic – children who are the offspring of hookers living in Calcutta’s red light district – it’d be reasonable to expect a film that takes audience depression to a whole new level. Yet this powerful work from co-directors Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman – this year’s Oscar winner for Best Documentary Feature – isn’t merely a rapid downward spiral of a film; instead, it details Briski’s remarkable attempts to help these kids (especially the girls, who will inevitably follow their mothers and grandmothers into prostitution) out of their dire surroundings by teaching them photography and attempting to place them in boarding schools. It’s a given that not all these children will be able to escape their lot in life, yet there are numerous scenes of inspiration and uplift, and the efforts of Briski and her non-profit outfit Kids With Cameras (www.kids-with-cameras.org) continue to this day.
1/2
COACH CARTER This works the usual underdog cliches fairly well as it tells the true story of Ken Carter (Samuel L. Jackson), a high school basketball coach in California who manages to turn a team that won only four games during its previous season into a statewide powerhouse. But at the height of their success, Carter elects to bench the entire team once he discovers that most of his players are performing poorly in their classes. Carter’s selfless actions against a failed education system register even when the movie surrounding him turns on itself: All pertinent points are made after a full two hours, but the picture drags on for another 20 minutes simply so viewers can be treated to a climactic Big Game. Ultimately, Coach Carter‘s sincerity gets trumped by its savvy at milking the sports formula for all it’s worth.
1/2
CONSTANTINE Based on the DC Comics/Vertigo series Hellblazer, this disappointment casts Keanu Reeves as John Constantine, a man with the ability to recognize the angels and demons that walk the earth in human form. Yet as he goes about his business of wiping out as many of the demonic “half-breeds” as possible (in an attempt to “buy” his way into Heaven), he realizes that there’s a seismic shift occurring in the underworld, and the only way he can get to the bottom of the mystery is to join forces with a police detective (Rachel Weisz) investigating the apparent suicide of her psychic twin sister. Because it’s an exhaustive exercise to keep abreast of the story’s seemingly haphazard developments, Constantine ends up resembling nothing so much as a punctured tire with a slow leak, letting all the air seep out until what’s finally left is flat and fairly ineffectual.
DIARY OF A MAD BLACK WOMAN Watching this adaptation of Tyler Perry’s stage play is akin to channel surfing between showings of Soul Food and Nutty Professor II: The Klumps – with an occasional flip over to The Jeffersons for good measure. A huge hit with Afro-American audiences, Perry’s play, about a pampered wife (Kimberly Elise) who starts over after being dumped by her odious husband (Steve Harris), has been adapted (by the author himself) into a movie that’s overflowing with positive Christian ideals as well as an honest assessment of the intrinsic desire for seeking retribution versus the spiritual need for giving absolution. In this respect, the movie’s emotionally satisfying (if a bit simplistic), yet Perry dilutes its potency by casting himself in the sitcom roles of a profane, gun-wielding grandmother and her brother, a flatulent elder constantly leering at women when he’s not busy smoking dope.
1/2
GUESS WHO The maxim that Less Is More gets taken for a test drive in this lightweight multiplex seat-filler that’s a loose remake of a motion picture routinely tagged with the label of “Hollywood classic.” But the sad truth is that 1967’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner grows more hollow and condescending with each passing year, and when all is said and done, this new picture is funnier, more relaxed and better paced. Applying role reversal to the original template, this stars Bernie Mac as the stern dad who’s not thrilled that his lovely daughter’s (Zoe Saldana) new boyfriend is some punk’d white boy (Ashton Kutcher). Ultimately, this borrows more heavily from Meet the Parents than the Tracy-Hepburn chestnut, but Mac’s slow-burn reactions make the whole concoction go down rather easily.
HIDE AND SEEK Robert De Niro, in full paycheck-gorging mode, is miscast as David Callaway, a New York psychologist who, after his wife (Amy Irving) commits suicide, moves upstate with their traumatized 9-year-old daughter Emily (Dakota Fanning). Still struggling to cope with the tragedy, Emily invents an imaginary friend named Charlie, and a subsequent string of disasters leads David to wonder whether Emily suffers from a split personality, whether another person is manipulating his daughter, or whether there’s a supernatural presence in their new home. It’s becoming increasingly rote to review junky, generic thrillers like this one: Critics would do well to simply cut-and-paste their slams of last year’s Secret Window (this film’s doppelganger) and leave it at that.
1/2
HITCH A warm and witty comedy that unfortunately runs itself into the ground, Hitch benefits immeasurably from the presence of Will Smith, who may or may not be a great actor but who is most assuredly a great movie star. There’s something to be said for effortless magnetism, and in that respect, Smith has more in common with the sophisticated comedians of the past than the coarse jokesters of today. He’s at turns sly, suave and sexy as Alex “Hitch” Hitchens, who earns a living by advising other men how to land the woman of their dreams. Yet even as he tries to pair up a clumsy accountant (Kevin James) with a supermodel (Amber Valletta), he unexpectedly finds his own attention drawn to a gossip columnist (Eva Mendes). Viewers who go with the flow will gladly put reality on pause in order to enjoy this movie’s modest pleasures – it’s just a shame the picture reverts to rigid formula in its final half-hour.
1/2
HOSTAGE Bruce Willis delivers a committed performance as Jeff Talley, an LAPD hostage negotiator whose botching of a tense standoff leaves him with innocent blood on his hands and prods him into moving to a sleepy community where the crime rate hovers around zero. But once three ruffians attempting to steal a car end up killing a police officer and subsequently taking a family hostage, Talley finds himself back in the sort of situation he would like to avoid. For a good while, director Florent Siri and scripter Doug Richardson do their pulpy material proud, with a real attention to both exposition and execution. But as the storyline gets more crowded (another gang of villains ends up holding Talley’s own family hostage), the film falls apart through outlandish developments and ludicrous resolutions to the various plot strands.
1/2
ONG-BAK: THE THAI WARRIOR The studio behind Ong-Bak reasons that because the 1970s gave us Bruce Lee, the 1980s introduced us to Jackie Chan and the 1990s heralded the arrival of Jet Li, then why shouldn’t Thailand’s Tony Jaa be earmarked as the great martial arts star of the 2000s? Yet even with the decade half over, I say we hold out a while longer: Jaa doesn’t possess the authority of Lee, the charisma of Chan or the intensity of Li, though he does project plenty of the same sleepy-eyed blandness as flash-in-the-pan Jean-Claude Van Damme. Ong-Bak resembles nothing so much as one of those action cheapies regularly churned out by outfits like Cannon back in the 80s, the ones in which goofy performances and lazy plotlines competed with passable fight sequences for the lion’s share of the running time.
THE RING TWO In this illogical and inconsequential sequel to the 2002 sleeper hit The Ring, reporter Rachel Keller (returning star Naomi Watts) and her young son Aidan (David Dorfman, the worst child actor this side of Spencer Breslin) have moved from Seattle to a quiet Oregon town. But the spirit of the demonic girl Samara won’t leave them alone, as she seems intent on taking over Aidan’s body. Dorfman is such a monotonous performer that the addition of some Exorcist-inspired pea-green vomit might have helped us determine exactly when he’s being possessed; then again, such a gesture of goodwill would be little more than a Band-Aid applied to a hemorrhaging film whose greatest sin is that it’s unremittingly dull.
1/2
ROBOTS If ever a movie warranted the Second Coming of silent cinema, it’s this animated effort from the same studio (20th Century Fox) and director (Chris Wedge) that brought us the middling Ice Age. Visually, the film is yet another triumph for computer programmers, as their blood, sweat and mouse pads have enabled them to create a wondrous landscape that’s a joy to behold. But whenever any of the metallic characters that populate this world open their mouths, the movie reveals its complete lack of innovation at the screenwriting level. Despite an all-star vocal cast, there’s no defining personality to most of the characterizations (Mel Brooks is a notable exception as a kindly inventor), while Robin Williams (as a manic misfit) immediately wears out his welcome by performing his usual tired shtick. Sad to say, this neutered comedian has become as mechanical as the robot he portrays.
THE SEA INSIDE Winner of both the Academy Award and the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film, The Sea Inside is respectable but undistinguished, and, despite its lofty airs, no match for director Alejandro Amenabar’s trio of thrillers (The Others, Open Your Eyes and Thesis). Javier Bardem is cast as Ramon Sampredo, a writer who, after having spent close to three decades as a quadriplegic, has decided that he wants to end his life. Based on a true story, the film suffers from using its protagonist as merely a mouthpiece through which to channel noble platitudes about freedom of choice and occasionally testy tirades aimed at the church. That’s all well and good, but it’s only through sheer force of personality that Bardem manages to add any human dimension to this movie.
1/2
This article appears in Mar 30 – Apr 5, 2005.
