Page 2 of 3
KICKING & SCREAMING The "underdog sports comedy," which hasn't been run into the ground as much as it's been pureed in a top-model blender, travels as far as it probably can go these days in this immensely likable if somewhat toothless family film. Will Ferrell ably tackles his most complete role to date, as a wimpy dad who elects to coach a losing boys soccer team. As Ferrell's macho dad, Robert Duvall seems to have wandered in from a much more serious movie, and the usual sports flick cliches are repeated verbatim. What elevates the movie is Ferrell himself: While his patented shtick can often grow tiresome, here it's in the service of an actual character, and that seems to make all the difference. Rather than random acts of lunacy, the insecure Phil's outbursts are hardwired into his psyche, which allows us the luxury of feeling sorry for the guy even as we're laughing at him.
1/2
KINGDOM OF HEAVEN Aside from a smattering of one-note villains, everyone is so damn noble and respectful in director Ridley Scott's p.c. drama about a period in world history that was anything but noble and respectful. Set during the Crusades, this dutiful slog through revisionist history stars Orlando Bloom as a blacksmith who finds himself in the middle of a growing feud between Christians and Muslims both laying claim to Jerusalem. Comparisons to recent sword flicks like Troy and Scott's Gladiator are natural, but despite the lofty ambitions of William Monahan's arid script, such contrasts do this lumbering movie no favors. If nothing else, at least those other films moved; beyond that, they also featured morally ambiguous characters, handed juicy roles to veteran actors, and, in the case of Troy, made a stronger case for contemporary relevance. As the courageous Balian, Bloom has the heroic glower down pat but brings little else to the role.
LADIES IN LAVENDER The setting is 1930s Cornwall, as two elderly sisters (Dames Judi Dench and Maggie Smith) discover that a Polish violinist (Daniel Bruhl) has washed up on the beach next to their quaint little cottage. As they nurse him back to health, one of the sisters (Dench's Ursula) slowly begins to fall for this lad who's approximately a half-century her junior. Although it looks like a product straight off the Masterpiece Theatre assembly line, Ladies In Lavender is a movie marked by major surprises: It's surprising that the first half is so perceptive (Dench makes her character's confusion, despair and desire all equally tangible), and equally surprising that the second part is so preposterous (with developments as nonsensical as any found in mainstream claptrap).
1/2
A LOT LIKE LOVE A Lot Like Love is a lot like When Harry Met Sally crossed with Serendipity, as two people wonder whether they're better off remaining friends or whether the stars have something more intimate in mind for them. Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet play the part-time lovers, two strangers (they "meet cute" by wordlessly boffing in an airplane lavatory) who continually run into each other over the ensuing years. But rather than commit to each other and in effect get us out of the theater after a blessedly short half-hour, the pair keep bumping up against labored plot developments that drive them apart and insure at least one more trip to the concession stand. The stars are likable, but Colin Patrick Lynch's script never wholly convinces us that these two necessarily need to be together.
MINDHUNTERS For a movie that's been sitting in Miramax's storage bin for well over a year, Mindhunters isn't the train wreck one would have assumed. A high-tech update of Agatha Christie's classic Ten Little Indians (a.k.a. And Then There Were None), the story finds a band of FBI agents sent to a remote island off the coast of North Carolina, where they discover that there's a serial killer within their ranks. A couple of clues make it relatively easy to deduce the identity of the killer - a plus for those who'd like a shot at solving the mystery, a minus for those who prefer to be kept in the dark until the end. Regardless, the screenplay doesn't stand up to close scrutiny (each victim has to be in an exact location at an exact time for the villain's scheme to work), but director Renny Harlin has churned out a fairly engrossing film that doesn't denigrate the memory of its (uncredited) source material.
1/2
Mobile
