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50 FIRST DATES Even many of the folks who don't like Adam Sandler have conceded that The Wedding Singer is fairly decent, with cinema's top-earning frat boy ably subverting his obnoxiousness in pursuit of a sweet romance with Drew Barrymore. This new film features an even more intense love story between the pair, yet this winning hand is repeatedly set down in order to make room for the sort of juvenile antics that will remind Sandler bashers why they hate this kid in the first place. Meshing Groundhog Day with Memento, this Hawaii-set comedy casts Sandler as an aquarium vet who falls for a school teacher (Barrymore) who suffers from short-term memory loss. Too bad lowbrow antics repeatedly get in the way of the agreeable love story. 
1/2
THE FOG OF WAR Subtitled Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara, The Fog of War might reasonably be expected to serve as a mea culpa on the part of the former Secretary of Defense for both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, a plea for forgiveness for his role as one of the chief architects of the Vietnam War. Yet Errol Morris' latest picture, an Academy Award winner for Best Documentary Feature, proves to be an infinitely more comprehensive -- not to mention more ambiguous -- piece of nonfiction, as McNamara discusses just about every facet of his life yet still remains tantalizingly opaque regarding certain subjects. The film does indeed offer many lessons to mull over, yet the most meaningful one might be the old axiom about history repeating itself: One look at the current mess in Iraq and it's chilling to note how little has been learned by those in charge.
HIDALGO A sprawling mess of a movie, Hidalgo is also the sort of old-fashioned popcorn entertainment that has become increasingly rare on the current movie scene -- and in this case, the pro far outweighs the con. Viggo Mortensen stars as a cowboy who, along with his trusty horse Hidalgo, is invited to take part in a grueling 3,000 mile race across the Arabian Desert, a contest in which most participants perish under the merciless sun and the few survivors must contend with duplicity and double-crosses at every turn. What follows is a rousing adventure yarn that includes breathtaking vistas, worthy comic relief, occasionally terrible CGI effects, a supporting role for Omar Sharif (as the Sheik overseeing the race), and plenty of exciting derring-do in the grand tradition of Indiana Jones.
THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST Many of Mel Gibson's movies have displayed a fetishistic fascination with blood and guts, and this one's no exception. In relating the saga of Christ from his betrayal by Judas through the crucifixion, Gibson has taken the greatest story ever told and turned it into a snuff film. The pacifist teachings aren't even allowed to take a back seat to the beatings suffered by Christ (played by Jim Caviezel) -- instead, they're locked away in the trunk, with Gibson paying them only fleeting lip service. The emphasis is squarely on employing the best visual effects, makeup designs and slo-mo camerawork that money can buy to lovingly reveal every whip mark slashed across Christ's back, every thorn driven into His head, every nail hammered into His flesh. It's Kill Bill for the churchgoing crowd, an unrelenting orgy of evangelical ire that's sorely missing any type of meaningful context.
STARSKY & HUTCH Having now appeared together in several films, it might be time to regard Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson as Hollywood's latest certified comedy team, a tradition that's included such twofers as Laurel and Hardy, Hope and Crosby, and Lemmon and Matthau. Like their predecessors, these guys are able to bring out the best in each other, a vital ingredient in making this more tolerable than most movies based on past TV shows. Wilson's Hutch, a rascally bad-boy cop, serves as the perfect counterpoint to Stiller's Starsky, a bungling, by-the-book detective, and this disheveled knock-off of the 70s series works best when the sheer force of their personalities overcomes the shoddy writing. Snoop Dogg is aptly cast as informant Huggy Bear. 1/2
TWISTED Ashley Judd has made more than her fair share of dum-dum thrillers (Double Jeopardy, High Crimes, etc.), yet Twisted stands out through the sheer fact that it's the worst one yet, a preposterous yarn about a detective who becomes a leading suspect in her own investigation when the victims all turn out to be her former lovers. Accounting for the risible dialogue, the gaping plotholes and the utter predictability of the killer's identity isn't too difficult -- after all, this is scripter Sarah Thorp's first produced credit -- but it's almost inconceivable that the director of this total misfire is Philip Kaufman, the immense talent behind The Right Stuff, The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Henry & June.
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