Current Releases
BECOMING JANE Perfectly pleasant yet also somewhat pointless, Becoming Jane comes across less as a motion picture and more as a victim of identity theft. Given the glut of exemplary films based on the works of Austen -- from the fairly faithful (Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice) to the radically reworked (Bridget Jones's Diary, Clueless) -- the only sound reasons to create a movie based on Jane herself would be either to suggest some insights into what turned this country girl into one of the most acclaimed writers in the English language or to provide a comprehensive overview of her life and times. But Becoming Jane prefers to take a more narrow view, focusing on one small period in her life (and, based on historical records, a spotty one at that) and trumping up the details of her brief flirtation with a dashing rogue named Tom Lefroy. As a result, the Jane in this film never feels real, ultimately coming across as fictional a creation as Elizabeth Bennet or Elinor Dashwood or any other Austen heroine. Still, within its own self-contained chamber, it's an agreeable period romp, missing the spark of the high-end Austen adaptations but firmly in command of its own romantic devices. Anne Hathaway, all-American in The Devil Wears Prada and Brokeback Mountain, adopts a British accent and makes for a lively Jane, while James McAvoy (The Last King of Scotland) brings the proper measure of rakish charm to the part of Lefroy. It all goes down smoothly, and if the incomplete portrait of Jane Austen sends even one person to the library to hunt down more info, so much the better. **1/2
THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM The third time's the charm with The Bourne Ultimatum, the best in the series of films based on the Robert Ludlum novels. Admittedly, I wasn't as great a fan as everyone else when it came to the first two entries in the series, 2002's The Bourne Identity and 2004's The Bourne Supremacy. While I appreciated the films' efforts to bring the spy flick back to its gritty and less gadget-oriented roots (an approach better accomplished by last year's James Bond reinvention, Casino Royale), both Identity (directed by Doug Liman) and Supremacy (helmed by Paul Greengrass) felt as if they were constantly getting stuck in the same grooves, with repetitive action sequences, a squandering of great talent in throwaway roles, and a tight-lipped protagonist so one-note that viewer empathy was next to impossible. These problems haven't all been rectified in Ultimatum, but they don't nag as consistently as before. Matt Damon, suitably taciturn even though he's still too young for the role, again stars as Jason Bourne, the former CIA assassin whose continuing bout of amnesia regarding his past perpetually keeps him searching for the truth, even as his agency handlers seek to have him terminated. Greengrass, returning to the series after taking time off to earn a Best Director Oscar nomination for United 93, tops himself with action set pieces that prove to be more exciting than those on display in his Supremacy (or Liman's Identity). One of the lengthy chase scenes is especially impressive, and makes one wonder if Damon elected to forego a straight salary in order to be paid by the kilometer. ***
EL CANTANTE Wouldn't it be nice to see a screen biopic about a musician that focused on, you know, the music? Of course, depicting the act of creating art in any medium is extremely difficult (though not impossible) for a movie to pull off, and most filmmakers lazily opt to wallow in the mire instead, ignoring the inspiration in favor of the vices that render the central character human ... and, as a screen presence, oh-so-predictable. At least Ray and Walk the Line could boast of slick production values and award-winning performances; stripped of those attributes, El Cantante feels minor-league every step of the way. The film purports to tell the life story of Hector Lavoe, the Puerto Rican singer who revolutionized Salsa music and introduced it as a legitimate musical sound across the country. His wife Puchi remained by his side over the years, even as his self-destructive behavior and personal tragedies took their toll on the pair. As Hector and Puchi, real-life couple Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez aren't bad, but their performances rarely elevate the material. And material like this needs all the help it can get: Rather than paying real service to the music, writer-director Leon Ichaso (who cowrote the script with David Darmstaeder and Todd Bello) reduces a potentially fascinating film into merely another cautionary story about a self-absorbed celebrity-junkie-whore. As expected, the soundtrack is hopping, but as a movie, this one's tone deaf. *1/2
HAIRSPRAY A testing of the mainstream waters, maverick moviemaker John Waters' 1988 Hairspray was a critical hit that was eventually turned into a Broadway musical before now being brought back to the screen. A similar screen-to-stage-to-screen journey didn't help The Producers, but here's betting that Hairspray meets with more success. It's one of this summer's few out-and-out delights, smoothing out but never compromising the themes that made Waters' film such a quirky delight. An ode to being different, Hairspray, set in 1960s Baltimore, stars peppy newcomer Nikki Blonsky as Tracy Turnblad, an overweight teenager who won't let her pleasantly plump figure get in the way of following her dream to dance. The film's hot-topic issues (including racism) are presented in the realm of feel-good fantasy, meaning that reality has no place in this particular picture. It's first and foremost a musical, and director Adam Shankman does a commendable job of filming the song-and-dance routines in a manner that accentuates the total skills involved (the noticeable lack of rapid MTV-style cuts is greatly appreciated). All of the principals are allowed to belt out at least one number apiece, and their enthusiasm and energy is positively infectious. The weakest cast link is, perhaps surprisingly, John Travolta (in drag as Tracy's plump mom), who fails to adequately fill the large shoes of the late Divine, who was simply, well, divine in Waters' original screen version. As for John Waters, he stuck around to make sure that the circle was complete. Look for him in a split-second cameo at the beginning: He's the pervert who flashes a trio of housewives on the street. ***1/2
HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX Those who like their Potter black will find much to appreciate in the fifth and moodiest of the J.K. Rowling adaptations to date. Chris Columbus' first two entries focused mainly on fun and games, with the subsequent installments helmed by Alfonso Cuaron and Mike Newell taking on decidedly darker dimensions. The level of malevolence is raised even further here, thanks to the taut direction by unknown David Yates and a forceful performance by series lead Daniel Radcliffe. Villainy abounds in Phoenix, with Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) haunting Harry's every move, a fluttering fascist named Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton) taking over the Hogwarts school, and an escaped prisoner known as Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter) arriving late to kill off a popular character. Add to those threats Harry's issues of abandonment and estrangement, and it's no wonder the lad can't keep those roiling emotions in check. In this respect, Phoenix operates not only as a story-specific fantasy flick but also as a universal teen angst tale, a far-flung Rebel Without a Cause in which the protagonist tries to comprehend the adult world he's on the verge of entering while simultaneously struggling to cut the umbilical cord of childhood. In many ways, the film echoes The Empire Strikes Back: The mood is grim, the heroes are reeling, and the villains are on the move. But with a little help from their friends, not to mention a strong belief in the "force" of good, these kids may yet save the day. ***
THE NANNY DIARIES Writer-directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, the team behind 2003's American Splendor, return with an adaptation of the novel by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus. As before, they attempt to embellish their tale with all manner of visual flourishes and eccentric details, but working from a blueprint that doesn't always lend itself to such touches, the results are more forced than before. That's not to say that this doesn't offer several rewards of its own making, starting with the strong performances by Scarlett Johansson and Laura Linney. Johansson plays Annie Braddock, a college graduate who, wary of the demands of a career in high finance, ends up landing what she believes will be a less stressful gig as a nanny for a wealthy Manhattan couple known as Mr. and Mrs. X (Paul Giamatti and Linney). Her young charge, Grayer (Nicholas Art), proves difficult at first but over time softens toward Annie, who's merely the latest in a long line of nannies. Annie's main grievances are with the boy's parents, an aloof jerk who's carrying on with his secretary while away on week-long trips and a trophy wife who's too busy socializing to spend any quality time with her lonely son. A spiritual companion to The Devil Wears Prada (Nanny preceded Prada in print by one year, and in the film, one of the characters can be glimpsed reading the fashion industry tell-all), this offers some nicely staged sequences to help gloss over the broad characterizations. Incidentally, a gag involving a George W. Bush mask doesn't match the brilliant employment of a Nixon mask in The Ice Storm, but it still provides the picture with one of its largest laughs. **1/2
RUSH HOUR 3 Exactly 50 years ago, Max Von Sydow was exploring philosophical issues of life and death in the recently departed Ingmar Bergman's masterpiece The Seventh Seal; now, he's relegated to a small role in the background to make room for the increasingly unfunny antics of Chris Tucker. If there's a more depressing commentary to be made on the current state of cinema, I can't imagine what it might be. The original Rush Hour was a high-spirited lark that milked its mismatched-cops formula well, but the sorry Rush Hour 2 was a prime example of a lazy sequel produced solely to cash in on the goodwill generated by its predecessor. Rush Hour 3 takes that same mercenary attitude and sprints with it. Jackie Chan, still up for any challenge at the age of 54, has considerably slowed down in recent years, and his up-close-and-personal brand of fighting has lost much of its vibrancy. It hardly matters, though, as even this longtime audience favorite is expected to take a back seat to the incessant shenanigans of his costar. Tucker once again lets loose with a steady stream of slurs that targets women, gays, Asians, tall people, fat people, French people (Roman Polanski appears as a Parisian inspector who enjoys performing rectal probes) and doubtless others that have slipped my mind. It's not funny, just tedious -- when it comes to insult humor, he's clearly no Redd Foxx. There's one great line involving Starbucks, and, as always, the outtakes provide a few smiles. Otherwise, Rush Hour 3 is a total dud, as well as the worst sequel to appear in this overcrowded summer movie season. *
THE SIMPSONS MOVIE Crafting a motion picture from a current television series that's been around for nearly two decades is a dicey proposition (as has been pointed out, why pay for something you can get for free at home?), but The Simpsons Movie fills the larger dimensions of the theater screen quite nicely. Running the length of four combined episodes, this often hilarious flick takes Homer's weekly display of idiocy to a new level, as his bumbling disrespect for the environment leads to Springfield being blocked off from the rest of the world by a giant dome, with the town's destruction the ultimate goal of the overzealous head of the Environmental Protection Agency (voiced by Albert Brooks, billed in the credits as "A. Brooks"). Knowing that Homer is the culprit, the town's residents soon come a-calling with torches in hand and nooses hanging from nearby trees. But if there's one area in which Hollywood remains blissfully, even blessedly, optimistic, it's in the strength of the family unit, and as long as Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie stick together, they can lick any and all odds. Yet in this outing, even that tried and true formula is put to the test, as Homer's selfishness and cluelessness strains even the patience of Marge, perhaps the most devoted wife of a pigheaded TV character since Edith Bunker used to stand up for Archie back in the 1970s. Marge's romantic crisis manages to be touching, as does do-gooder Lisa's love for the progressive new kid on the block. But The Simpsons Movie is mainly about jokes -- old jokes, new jokes, topical jokes, risqué jokes, sight gags, perhaps even a non sequitur or two. ***1/2
STARDUST This enchanting fairy tale offers the most fun to be had in a theater this summer. Based on the graphic novel by Neil Gaiman, it's a fantasy yarn in the tradition of The Princess Bride and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, only it bests its antecedents by remaining light on its feet and by constantly surprising us with both its visual and narrative vigor. In the tiny English village of Wall, young Tristan (Charlie Cox) pines for the stuck-up Victoria (Sienna Miller) to such a degree that he will prove his devotion by journeying to the magical land resting just outside the town's border and retrieve the remnants of a fallen star that the pair had seen drop from the sky. What Tristan doesn't realize is that once a star has fallen, it turns into a human -- in this case, a woman named Yvaine (Claire Danes). Add the desires of a wicked witch (Michelle Pfeiffer), the demands of a dying king (Peter O'Toole), and the dilemmas of a pirate (Robert De Niro) to the mix, and it sounds like there's too much plot for one movie to bear. But Jane Goldman and director Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake), co-adapting Gaiman's novel, do an exemplary job of funneling all the disparate elements into one cohesive narrative. Pfeiffer clearly relishes portraying a villainess as much here as she does in the current Hairspray; as for De Niro, he's playing a pirate so fey that he makes Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow look as ferocious as Blackbeard by comparison. De Niro's grossly miscast, but that doesn't stop him from diving into the role. He's clearly having a lot of fun, as are we all. ***1/2
TALK TO ME Don Cheadle lets his hair down -- or at least his 'fro up -- for Talk to Me, an enjoyable screen biopic that unfortunately never reaches its full potential. Cheadle, so soft-spoken in his Oscar-nominated turn in Hotel Rwanda, gives up the funk with his boisterous performance as Ralph Waldo "Petey" Greene Jr., an ex-con who becomes Washington, D.C.'s hottest disc jockey during the second half of the 1960s. His break into show business is aided by Dewey Hughes (excellent Chiwetel Ejiofor), a radio program director who understands that, to stay relevant with the changing times, his station must add a new voice to address the hot-button issues of the day. Enter Petey, whose inflammatory words (on his first day on the air, he refers to Berry Gordy as a "pimp") incense the station's owner (Martin Sheen) until the listener response proves overwhelmingly positive. The first part of the picture, which examines the testy relationship between Petey and Dewey as well as the loving one between Petey and his girlfriend Vernell (Taraji P. Henson), makes for wonderful entertainment, culminating in a powerful scene in which Petey attempts (via radio) to calm down a city that's plunged into turmoil following the assassination of Martin Luther King. After this point, the film loses its freshness, as Petey's downfall (fueled by booze, insecurity and illness) can't escape being filtered through the usual movie clichés. Still, Talk to Me takes its cue from its leading character: When it's at the top of its game, it can't be touched. ***
OPENS WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 29
BALLS OF FURY: Christopher Walken, Dan Fogler.
OPENS FRIDAY, AUGUST 31:
DEATH SENTENCE: Kevin Bacon, John Goodman.
THE 11TH HOUR: Leonardo DiCaprio, Stephen Hawking.
HALLOWEEN: Malcolm McDowell, Tyler Mane.
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