DECK THE HALLS
*
DIRECTED BY John Whitesell
STARS Danny DeVito, Matthew Broderick
Christmas may bring out the best in most people, but what is it about the holiday that brings out the worst in Hollywood filmmakers?
Christmas With the Kranks arguably ranks as the worst picture of the 21st century (and with only 94 years left, time's running out for it to relinquish its title!), while such Yuletide turkeys as Jingle All the Way, Mixed Nuts and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians certainly did no favors for 20th century cinema. And now here comes Deck the Halls, yet another holiday hack job that champions cynicism and mean-spiritedness before tacking on a phony redemptive ending meant to fool us into believing that we actually sat through something of value.
Mind you, I'm all for seasonal cynicism when done right: Few Christmas flicks are as vicious -- or as funny -- as Bad Santa. But Deck the Halls seems to have been conceived on the back of a snot-soaked tissue by a none-too-bright second grader: Its gags are all on the order of having obnoxious car salesman Buddy Hall (Danny DeVito) climbing buck-naked into a sleeping bag with frostbitten neighbor Steve Finch (Matthew Broderick) in an effort to warm him up (after all, nothing says "Merry Christmas" like a smattering of gay panic, right?), or the two men leering and hooting at teenage girls ("Who's your daddy?") who turn out to be their own daughters (after all, nothing says "Merry Christmas" like allusions to incest, right?).
The imbecilic plot concerns Steve's disgust at Buddy's desire to put enough Christmas lights on his house so it can be seen from outer space (Holy Mother, the nonsense that gets the green light in today's Hollywood!). Before it's all done, Steve will find himself trapped on a runaway sled, spit upon by an angry camel, and shunned by his Instant Sitcom-Ready Family (i.e. just add laugh track).
But why waste time describing this? Deck the Halls is the sort of film made for people who only see two or three theatrical releases a year -- and even then only after they've determined that the picture in question will in no way stimulate them or upset their carefully orchestrated universe. Certainly, the woman seated next to me at the advance screening felt it was worth the gas money: When the cross-dressing sheriff commented that a particular situation got "my panties in a twist," she laughed and laughed and laughed to the point where I feared that neither my eardrums nor the theater foundation were safe.
Fortunately, both the building and I survived. And so will the film industry, despite nuclear bombs like Deck the Halls threatening to destroy it from within.
DÉJÀ VU
**
DIRECTED BY Tony Scott
STARS Denzel Washington, Paula Patton
If you were one of the gamers who braved both the elements and irate customers to score a PlayStation 3 during its launch a couple of weeks ago, then Déjà Vu should be right up your alley. The latest from producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Tony Scott is movie porn for the electronic media set, a techno-thriller deeply in love with its own hardware.
Bruckheimer and Scott have a history of tackling movies about boys and their toys, and some have even been good: The Will Smith hit Enemy of the State remains one of the best films made by either man. Déjà Vu, though, is a disappointment, a high-gloss action film that grows increasingly silly as it introduces each new wrinkle in its spiraling plot.
Set in New Orleans, the film opens with a ferry explosion that kills over 500 people. Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington), an ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) agent, is summoned to lead the investigation, and he quickly realizes that the key to the mystery rests with the beautiful -- and deceased -- Claire Kuchever (Paula Patton), whose charred body was found in the same vicinity as those of the ferry victims.
Carlin's footwork can only take him so far; to have any chance of catching the Timothy McVeigh-styled terrorist (Jim Caviezel), he must bunker down with Andrew Pryzwarra (a wasted Val Kilmer), an FBI agent who introduces him to nifty new gadgets that can allow the government to not only use satellite technology to spy on citizens' houses but also to make its way inside those houses, getting close enough to watch residents take showers, make phone calls and feed the cats.
For some convoluted reason, this available satellite footage is always running four days behind, and it's impossible to speed it up, slow it down or stop it for closer inspection. But not to worry: Perhaps sensing that they're quickly writing themselves into a corner, scripters Bill Marsilii and Terry Rossio also invent a pair of goggles that allows the present-day Carlin to engage in a car chase with the four-days-ago terrorist. And when that development runs out of juice, the pair decide (via a character's unconvincing scientific explanation) that the spyware also doubles as a time machine, just the ticket so that Carlin can go back in time to save Claire (his first priority) and the other 500 victims (a distant second).
Although the decision to stage a massive disaster in the heart of Katrina Country will strike many as an unfortunate lapse in judgment, it's the early scenes in Déjà Vu that are the most compelling, as Denzel's Doug Carlin uses his wits to stockpile various clues that will lead him in the right direction. The film is so accomplished as a straightforward thriller, in fact, that it feels obtrusive not only when it starts to pay more attention to the satellite images than to the characters, but also when it introduces its menagerie of fuzzy sci-fi fancies. By the time Carlin climbs into the time machine, you realize that a Marty McFly cameo might be the only way to salvage this dreary plunge into preposterousness. No such luck.
THE NATIVITY STORY
**
DIRECTED BY Catherine Hardwicke
STARS Keisha Castle-Hughes, Ciaran Hinds
There's no small irony in the fact that 16-year-old Australian actress Keisha Castle-Hughes, who plays the Virgin Mary in the new Biblical drama The Nativity Story, has recently revealed that she herself is pregnant -- an unexpected development that should lead to plenty of headaches for New Line Cinema's PR department.
Normally, I wouldn't pass along such chatter, especially since the holier-than-thou trolls on the IMDb message boards are one step away from hunting her down and stoning her to death on the street (Lord knows they don't need any local recruits added to their cause). But that tidbit will at least raise eyebrows; The Nativity Story, on the other hand, fails to even raise a pulse. That's a shame, because after Mel Gibson's garish snuff film, The Passion of the Christ, the time is right for a tasteful and respectful Biblical tale that inspires awe and amazement instead of rage and revulsion.
Unfortunately, this new film errs in the direction of too much propriety. Director Catherine Hardwicke, whose Thirteen was a wild and wicked look at out-of-control LA teens, seems fearful of adding any semblance of passion to this interpretation, resulting in a stillborn drama that inspires yawns more than anything else. Viewers in the mood for some celluloid religion this holiday season would do best to just stay home and rent the exceptional 1977 TV miniseries Jesus of Nazareth instead.
Castle-Hughes, whose work in the lyrical Whale Rider earned her a Best Actress Oscar nomination a few years ago, is curiously flat as Mary; the three wise men, meanwhile, are asked to generate so many nyuks during the film that they end up coming across as the Three Stooges. And as the Jew-baiting, would-be Christ killer Herod, Ciaran Hinds is suitably dour, though the question remains: Wasn't Mel Gibson available for this role?
FUR: AN IMAGINARY PORTRAIT OF DIANE ARBUS
**
DIRECTED BY Steven Shainberg
STARS Nicole Kidman, Robert Downey Jr.
Before she committed suicide in 1971 at the age of 48, Diane Arbus spent the last decade of her life building up a still-controversial portfolio in which her subjects -- whether freaks, outsiders or ordinary folks -- were photographed in an unblinking style that only served to accentuate the unusual or unsettling. Her true story would have made for compelling enough cinema, but director Steven Shainberg and writer Erin Cressida Wilson, who previously teamed for the far superior Secretary, decided a fanciful interpretation of a brief period in her life would be the way to go.
Fair enough. But the problem with Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus is that it doesn't go far enough. In imagining that the artistic awakening of Arbus (Nicole Kidman) was influenced by the (fictional) neighbor living in the loft above her -- a former circus freak whose entire body is covered in hair (Robert Downey Jr., miscast even under all that shag) -- Shainberg and Wilson have made a surprisingly timid movie that isn't nearly as adventurous or risk-taking as Arbus (or even Kidman, whose film choices continue to startle). There are repeated visual references to the trippy world of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, but for the most part, this film is as comfortably familiar as the various screen incarnations of the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast. The more risqué elements are carefully ironed out, resulting in a movie that doesn't evoke the eeriness of Arbus' classic "Identical Twins" as much it brings to mind the harmlessness of C.M. Coolidge's "Dogs Playing Poker" series.
HAPPY FEET
**1/2
DIRECTED BY George Miller
STARS Elijah Wood, Nicole Kidman
For at least half of its running time, Happy Feet is the usual crapola animated feature, this one about a penguin (voiced by Elijah Wood) whose tap-dancing prowess freaks out his fellow flightless fowl. Like many mediocre toon flicks, it features saccharine characters, sterile CGI imagery, lazy stereotypes that border on racist, and way too much Robin Williams (playing not one, not two, but three characters).
But a strange and wonderful thing happens deep into the film. It dispenses with the fun and games and becomes a sober reflection on the harm that humans are causing to the environment and to our ice-capped friends in particular. The movie morphs into one of the coolest Twilight Zone episodes never made, and for a brief, glorious second, I thought it was going to end at the most opportune moment, delivering its themes with all the force of a sledgehammer on an egg shell.
But no. The film recovers from its momentary brilliance and soon is back on its preordained path to a happy ending -- albeit one that still keeps its relevant message intact. The end result is decent fare -- even if it often plays like a revision of the strikingly similar FernGully: The Last Rainforest -- but it passed on the opportunity to be so much more.
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