ELLA ENCHANTED Freely adapted from the book by Gail Carson Levine but completely owing its body and soul to Shrek, this is yet another fractured fairy tale designed for kids living in a postmodern age. Anne Hathaway, the wide-eyed star of The Princess Diaries, plays Ella, a young woman who, thanks to a spell placed on her by an inept fairy godmother (Vivica A. Fox), is forced to obey every command directly aimed at her. Tired of being a human puppet, she sets out to locate the fairy to reverse the spell; the resultant journey lands her a handsome young prince (Hugh Dancy) as a suitor, but it also places her in the middle of a murderous scheme hatched by the prince's deceitful uncle (Cary Elwes). Flatulence gags, modern songs incorporated into the medieval action, ironic twists on venerable fairy tale ingredients -- after awhile it seems that just about the only thing distinguishing this from Shrek is the absence of a chatty donkey, although this one does offer a talking book as compensation. Ella Enchanted is largely missing any semblance of a through line -- plot points are brought up and then abandoned, and characters appear randomly for no pressing reason other than the story requires their presence at that exact moment -- but the movie is still reasonably entertaining, thanks to its able cast (including Minnie Driver and Eric Idle) as well as its own infectious commitment to Happily Ever After principles. 
1/2
THE GIRL NEXT DOOR Home theater enthusiasts who've been waiting patiently for a Risky Business Special Edition DVD (any century now, Warner Bros.) may find themselves drawn to this thematically similar picture, but they'll hardly be satisfied: Even with an R rating, this proves to be more frisky than risky. Rising actor Emile Hirsch (The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys) stars as Matthew Kidman, a studious 18-year-old set to graduate from high school without any memorable experiences to call his own. But that's before he meets his beautiful new neighbor Danielle (Elisha Cuthbert of TV's 24), a former porn star trying to begin a new life. With its two aptly cast leads and some nicely realized moments in which the pair tentatively get to know each other, this clearly had the potential to succeed as a love story; instead, the focus is inexplicably drawn away from Danielle and placed on the slapstick antics of Matthew and his buddies, forcing the movie to eventually deteriorate into just another chaotic teen comedy more interested in elaborate pranks than emotional bonding. Timothy Olyphant delivers a standout performance as Danielle's charismatic pimp-promoter -- a man who can change from cool to cruel in milliseconds -- but even his character eventually turns out to be more of a narrative problem than solution.
JOHNSON FAMILY VACATION Without question, the worst child actor on the current cinema scene is Spencer Breslin (Disney's The Kid, The Cat In the Hat), but if this movie is any indication, he may want to keep an eye on the rearview mirror to make sure Bow Wow doesn't catch up to him. I didn't see the teenage rapper's previous two films (most notably Like Mike), but his performance here is perfectly dreadful, the sort of overly exaggerated emoting that might play well on Nickelodeon sit-coms but is nothing short of insufferable on the big screen. The good news is that Bow Wow's screen time takes a dramatic plunge after the first half-hour; the bad news is that we still have to contend with the rest of this sloppily scripted picture. A game Cedric the Entertainer headlines as Nate Johnson, who packs up his family -- estranged wife (Vanessa Williams), smart-aleck teenage son (Bow Wow), impatient teenage daughter (Solange Knowles), and Cosby-kid-cute little daughter (Gabby Soleil) -- and embarks on a cross-country trip to attend a family reunion lorded over by his glad-handing older brother (Steve Harvey, delivering a performance almost as embarrassing as Bow Wow's). The script is mostly comprised of isolated on-the-road vignettes, each one exhibiting a small measure of comic potential before collapsing with nary an adequate punchline in sight. Cedric pops up in a second role, as lecherous Uncle Earl, and a little of this character goes a long way -- say, roughly the distance from Anaheim to Albany. 1/2
CURRENT RELEASES
DAWN OF THE DEAD George Romero's 1978 Dawn of the Dead has long been hailed by both critics and cultists as one of the few great "splatter" flicks ever made, so expecting anything but harsh words for a rehash would be nothing more than wishful thinking on the part of its creators. But hold on. This new version is that rare bird: a remake that actually succeeds on its own terms. Director Zack Snyder and writer James Gunn clearly knew that simply offering a lumbering retread of the original would be a fatal mistake; instead, it wisely presses forward in its own direction, retaining the mall location but offering different characters, different situations and a different outcome. The result is a crisp horror flick, a fast-paced picture that's exciting, icky and often quite funny.
ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND Scripter Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich) has come up with another mindbender of a movie, an existential drama in which two people (Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet) meet and are instantly attracted to each other, not realizing that they were once lovers who underwent a scientific procedure to have the entire relationship wiped from their memories. For all its smart-aleck shenanigans and dense plotting, this delightfully different movie is no mere parlor trick. It takes a serious look at the value of remembrance and the dangers of monkeying with the mind (in a world ravished by Alzheimer's, a willful desecration of our memories seems downright insane), and its laughs are tempered by a sorrowfulness that dogs every scene. Eternal Sunshine is ultimately an odd sort of love story, a melancholy rumination that's as much about the head as the heart. 1/2
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.
JERSEY GIRL After losing his wife (Jennifer Lopez) during childbirth and his job following an ill-advised tantrum, a publicist (Ben Affleck) returns to his modest Jersey hometown to raise his daughter (Raquel Castro) with the help of his dad (George Carlin); there, he finds himself attracted to a forthright video store clerk (Liv Tyler, appealing in a role that's pure male fantasy). Despite its uneven humor as well as sentimental moments that recall John Hughes at his worst, Jersey Girl is being promoted as writer-director Kevin Smith's first "adult" film, the one in which he has finally dropped his juvenile antics and made a story that involves real-world characters and real-life situations. My response: Where are Jay and Silent Bob when we really need them?
THE LADYKILLERS The oddest thing about this coolly detached comedy -- the Coens' remake of a 1955 gem about a gang of thieves inadvertently thwarted by an elderly woman -- is that it never feels especially funny, at least not in the knee-slapping sense. But that's not because the movie fumbles its gags; on the contrary, they're executed so well that paradoxically we end up admiring the intricacies behind the set pieces rather than the set pieces themselves. The same goes for Tom Hanks' offbeat turn as the leader; his portrayal is masterful in its attention to the character's quirks, but any pleasure we derive is because we know it's Hanks, not because he disappears into his character. But all this isn't meant as a putdown; in fact, this might be the first instance in which the ultimate middle-school putdown, "That's so funny I forgot to laugh," can be interpreted as the highest form of compliment.
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.
SCOOBY-DOO 2: MONSTERS UNLEASHED The 2002 Scooby-Doo was cheesy, redundant and juvenile, which means it was fairly successful at recreating the spirit of the animated series. While not entirely lacking in charm, Doo 2 isn't as sure-footed; instead, the worst elements of the first film -- the characters' tedious soul-searching, their obsession with the media spotlight, all those flatulence gags -- have been emphasized, resulting in an exhausting effort that feels longer than its 90 minutes. The big surprise before was Matthew Lillard's dead-on Shaggy imitation; here, it's a subplot in which Velma (Linda Cardellini) gets a beauty makeover -- trust Hollywood to take the homeliest cartoon character this side of Olive Oyl, cast a real looker in the part, and then play up her hubba-hubba qualities.
SECRET WINDOW This dum-dum drama is about an author (Johnny Depp) who's accused of plagiarism, and one has to wonder whether this irony was lost on writer-director David Koepp and author Stephen King (on whose novella this is based). Secret Window is nothing if not a pastiche of past big-screen thrillers, recycling most of its elements from The Shining, Misery, The Dark Half and just about every other King project this side of The Mangler. Yet even such a lazy dependence on been-there-done-that material might have been overlooked had the film managed to trick us with its climactic plot twist; instead, figuring out the "shocking" twist requires even less brain power than completing a word search puzzle in a children's magazine. 1/2
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 steals the film as informant Huggy Bear. 1/2
TAKING LIVES Angelina Jolie, whose post-Oscar career is only slightly less humiliating than that of Cuba Gooding Jr., plays an FBI profiler who's been summoned to Montreal to assist in tracking down a serial killer who murders young men and then assumes their identities. Could the psycho be the key witness (Ethan Hawke)? The tough-talking detective (Olivier Martinez)? The guy who simply keeps hanging around for no discernible reason other than to be a suspect (Kiefer Sutherland)? A real cop would have this wrapped up in 20 minutes, but Jolie's detective, only slightly less dim-witted than Ashley Judd's boozing cop from Twisted, seems to be merely one more graduate from the Inspector Clouseau Academy. Taking Lives clearly aspires to be another Seven, but a more accurate title would be One-and-a-Half. 1/2
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