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THE ILLUSIONIST Set in Austria, The Illusionist stars Edward Norton as Eisenheim, an enigmatic stage magician so skilled at his profession that the locals suspect he might actually possess otherworldly powers. One of the few skeptics is Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell), a cruel ruler who sets out to prove that Eisenheim is a fake. He enlists the aid of the corrupt Chief Inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti), yet matters become more tangled when it's revealed that Leopold's fiancée (Jessica Biel) was once Eisenheim's childhood sweetheart. For a good while, The Illusionist is topflight entertainment, with its lush period setting, its assemblage of captivating magic tricks, and a delightful relationship between Eisenheim and Uhl, two men sharing a wary respect for each other (both Norton and Giamatti are excellent). But then the film makes the fatal mistake of morphing into a lackluster mystery, the type that's agonizingly easy to figure out even before its gears can really be placed in motion.
**1/2
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE In the rocker "We're a Happy Family," The Ramones present a dysfunctional family in which "Daddy's telling lies, Baby's eating flies, Mommy's on pills, Baby's got the chills." The clan at the center of this Sundance hit isn't much better off. But one thing brings the members together: the chance to support sweet, 7-year-old Olive (Abigail Breslin), who's been selected to compete in the "Little Miss Sunshine" beauty pageant in California. Essentially, this is yet another road picture about bickering family members, and if that sounds a bit too prefab (or at least a bit too RV), screenwriter Michael Arndt, his dialogue backed by an excellent ensemble cast (including Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette and Steve Carell), manages to adroitly mix up the expected comic shtick with moments of great clarity and insight. The movie climaxes as it surely must -- at the competition -- and Arndt and the husband-and-wife directing team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris sharpen their claws for this portion, allowing the characters to engage in a final act of flagrant punk defiance. Joey Ramone would have been proud.
***1/2
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST Those expecting amazing feats of derring-do won't be disappointed by this sequel to the 2003 smash. The effects-driven action scenes are clearly the picture's highlights, and they alone make this worth the price of admission. But while the first Pirates felt like both a self-contained movie and the theme park attraction on which it was based, this one just feels like a roller coaster ride, full of momentary thrills but leaving little in its wake except a sudden desire to rest for a minute. It isn't breathless as much as it grows tiresome, and it's especially depressing to see how little the characters have been allowed to evolve. The central thrust finds Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) tangling with the ghostly Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) in an effort to save his own soul from eternal damnation; it's possible that his scheme will require sacrificing his friends (Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley), but that's a compromise the self-serving Jack can accept. The best fantasy tales are often the ones in which the special effects are subservient to the characters, not the other way around; still, this moves quick enough to keep most customers satisfied.
**1/2
SNAKES ON A PLANE The never-ending marketing ploy was a bust, which now leaves us with just the movie itself (yes, there really was one buried beneath all the tissue-thin hype). Samuel L. Jackson stars as an FBI agent assigned to protect an eyewitness (Nathan Phillips) to a mob slaying; once the villains ascertain which flight they'll be taking to make that important court date, they manage to fill the aircraft with rattlesnakes, cobras, boa constrictors, vipers, pythons -- indeed, the only snake missing seems to be Snake Plissken. Director David Ellis and his three scripters have the title terrors chomp down on lips, eyes, breasts and even a penis, but given the overall lack of creativity invested in this project (even Jackson's highly publicized quip about the "motherfuckin' snakes" was pre-sold), it ultimately feels as rote and joyless as a typical slasher flick. For a more imaginative 2006 release that ably mixes R-rated horror and humor, check out the box office bust Slither, due on DVD October 24.
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