Film Clips 

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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

21 Loosely adapted from Ben Mezrich's fact-based bestseller Bringing Down the House, 21 is an entertaining and fast-paced film that occasionally manages to make the act of counting cards seem as exciting as this past winter's Super Bowl – and as perilous as climbing Mount Everest with both eyes closed. Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe) plays Ben Campbell, a brilliant MIT student who needs some serious dough in order to be able to afford a stint at Harvard. He catches the eye of Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey), a shrewd professor whose extracurricular activity is training a hand-picked group of students in the art of counting cards at the blackjack table. Micky welcomes Ben to a gang that already includes two guys (Aaron Yoo and Jacob Pitts) and two girls (Kate Bosworth and Liza Lapira), and together they set off on weekly excursions to Las Vegas to clean up. Yet although they believe they're operating under the wire, their winning ways – not to mention squabbles from within – catch the eye of an old-school casino enforcer (Laurence Fishburne) who casually takes cheaters to a back room and beats them to a pulp. 21 works best during its first act, when the fascinating con game is explained to Ben (and to us), and during its second act, when Ben feels his life spiraling out of control. Scripters Peter Steinfeld and Allan Loeb only lose their grip during the third act, when an important plot point too lumpy to swallow leads to a series of increasingly unbelievable developments. Yet even during this convoluted section, director Robert Luketic and a perfectly cast Spacey insure that this stylish film maintains a winning hand. ***