New Releases
MEET THE ROBINSONS Select theaters across the nation (including a couple in Charlotte) are showing this latest Disney animated feature in 3-D, and I’m sorry I didn’t catch the film at one of those venues — at least it would have added an extra dimension to what is otherwise a shallow cartoon that somehow manages to be slow-moving and hyperactive at the same time. Imagine The Incredibles made by profiteers and that’s pretty much Meet the Robinsons in a nutshell — it’s not surprising that, like Chicken Little (to name but one dud), this is Disney operating without the safety net of John Lasseter and his Pixar team. This obnoxious film focuses on obnoxious Lewis, an orphan whose scientific contraptions are coveted by an obnoxious villain known as the Bowler Hat Guy. In a bit of time-hopping not worthy of Back to the Future (I, II or III), a member of the obnoxious Robinson family of the future comes to help out Lewis, thereby leading to a scattershot adventure involving obnoxious singing frogs, obnoxious food fights and an only-slightly-less obnoxious dinosaur. The final 20 minutes include a pair of decent plot pirouettes, but by then, I was so bored out of my skull than even a wayward reel of Raiders of the Lost Ark somehow slipping onto the projection booth platter probably wouldn’t have stirred me out of my comatose state. *1/2
PERFECT STRANGER As far as Halle Berry thrillers go, this one beats Gothika and The Rich Man’s Wife hands down — though it still isn’t up to the challenge set forth by Catwoman, which had us on the edge of our collective seats wondering if it would ever get better. Unlike the aforementioned trio, Perfect Stranger is at least fairly competent — at least for a while — although “fairly competent” doesn’t exactly translate as “very good.” Berry plays Rowena Price, an investigative reporter who seems to specialize in scandalous “gotcha” exposes (making her less New York Times and more National Enquirer). Her childhood friend Grace (Nicki Aycox) claims she’s been having an affair with advertising king Harrison Hill (Bruce Willis), so when Grace turns up dead, Rowena and her colleague Miles (Giovanni Ribisi) suspect that Hill, a notorious womanizer, was responsible. Grace creates two fake identities in an attempt to nail Hill — she poses as a temp at his office and as an online party girl looking for action — but as she continues to juggle separate personas, she begins to realize that other parties might also be involved. This might be the first film in history in which product placement (in this case, Victoria’s Secret) might indirectly infer the guilt or innocence of a major character, though it’s certainly not the first movie in which the tiresome Ribisi plays a patented nutjob. At any rate, the picture only skims the surface of potentially intriguing issues (specifically, the use of the Internet as the ultimate predatory tool), and its unveiling of the killer (and the ludicrous scenes that follow) is sure to elicit more shrugs than shrieks. **
THE REAPING Chalk it up to wishful thinking or poor taste (or both) for Warner Bros. to have released an R-rated, FX-driven horror yarn about the Biblical plagues on the day before Good Friday, but at any rate, studio suits are probably more fearful of the apathy of disinterested moviegoers than the wrath of God. Hilary Swank, whose second Oscar still wasn’t enough insurance to save her from shoddy efforts like this, stars as Katherine Winter, a university professor who, after losing her faith in God about the same time she lost her husband and daughter to tragedy, has gone 48-for-48 in exposing so-called “miracles” through scientific means (with so much globe-trotting, when does she have time to grade test papers?). Her latest investigation takes her to the small town of Haven, La., where a blonde child (Bridge to Terabithia‘s AnnaSophia Robb) is believed to be a satanic emissary sent to unleash the 10 plagues on this quiet hamlet. Stephen Hopkins, who directs every film as if it were a NASCAR vehicle gunning for the finish line, doesn’t have much faith in the screenplay by Carey W. Hayes and Chad Hayes, since he orchestrates much of the picture (most notably the flashbacks, dream sequences and CGI orgies) with all the delicacy of a lumberjack in ballerina slippers. (Then again, maybe he merely saw that dreadful House of Wax remake — written by the Hayes — and panicked.) A last-minute twist adds some drama, but a last-second twist merely leaves a bad taste. *1/2
Current Releases
BLADES OF GLORY Unless he keeps his eye out for innovative fare like Stranger Than Fiction, Will Ferrell might find himself driving his career into a rut. Blades of Glory shows the strains of the comedian trying to keep himself contained in a box: His Chazz Michael Michaels, a coarse sex addict who’s also an unlikely skating champion, mines the same comic territory as most Ferrell performances ranging from Talladega Nights to Anchorman and beyond. Since Ferrell is only playing variations on a theme, it’s costar Jon Heder (of Napoleon Dynamite fame) who provides most of the modest chuckles. As Jimmy MacElroy, a rival figure skater who’s forced by circumstances to team with Chazz to become the first male-male figure skating team in history, Heder plays up his character’s delicate traits to the point that they offer a pointed contrast to Ferrell’s predictable boorishness. “You’re like a 15-year-old girl,” taunts Chazz, “only not hot.” After a sluggish beginning, the laughs pick up during the midsection, and I appreciate that Queen’s Flash Gordon theme plays a prominent role in the finale. Otherwise, this is one more assembly line comedy by the Ferrell-Stiller-Vaughn-Wilsons conglomerate (Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn are AWOL, but Ben Stiller serves as a producer and Luke Wilson pops up in a tiny role). For a similar yet superior film, rent the Farrelly brothers’ 1996 bowling flick Kingpin. Woody Harrelson, Randy Quaid and especially Bill Murray offer moments of lunacy so inspired, they make Ferrell in Blades of Glory look like a visitor to the comedy genre. **
THE HOAX There’s a fleet-footed exuberance to The Hoax that suits the film just perfectly. Although based on a true story, the picture displays a freewheeling style that’s more attuned to the rhythms of Richard Gere’s performance than any sort of somber veracity. Gere stars as Clifford Irving, the author who in the early 1970s convinced the bigwigs at McGraw-Hill that he had landed an exclusive interview with reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes. There was absolutely no truth to the boast, but with dollar signs dancing in their eyes, the publishing house accepted Irving’s flimsy evidence as proof, a decision that resulted in the company handing over an incredible sum for publishing rights. Gere has always excelled at playing amoral yet charming creeps, and he strikes gold once again; while attempts on the part of scripter William Wheeler (adapting Irving’s tell-all book) to imbue the character with some degree of sympathy fall flat, Gere is skilled enough to nevertheless add some complex shadings. Also memorable is Alfred Molina, sweating up a storm as Irving’s nervous accomplice in the scam. With its allusions to Richard Nixon and Watergate, Hallstrom and Wheeler firmly establish the timeframe of their film. Yet if anything, the movie feels more like 2007 than 1971, given that fraudulent writers (like Stephen Glass) have proliferated in recent years and “identity theft” has become a commonplace expression. The Hoax might be intended as a cautionary tale, but in today’s climate, it stands a better chance of emerging as an inspirational training film. ***
THE LOOKOUT Hollywood is never at a loss for rising stars, but far too many prove to be the products of media saturation or studio backing rather than any discernible talent (James Franco, for starters). But Joseph Gordon-Levitt is shaping up to be the real deal. Television viewers might remember him as the kid on the sitcom 3rd Rock From the Sun, but since then, he’s been delivering memorable performances in feature films as varied as 10 Things I Hate About You, Mysterious Skin and Brick. He’s at his most impressive in The Lookout, which marks the feature directorial debut of screenwriter Scott Frank (Minority Report, Get Shorty). Gordon-Levitt plays Chris Pratt, a former high school hockey star whose life was shattered after a car accident (his fault) killed two friends and disfigured his girlfriend. Now suffering from a faulty memory, Chris works as a janitor at a minimum-security bank and rooms with a blind man named Lewis (affable Jeff Daniels). Frank does such a distinguished job in creating the character of Chris Pratt — and Gordon-Levitt is so touching in the role — that it’s a shame the movie turns into a typical heist flick that runs rampant with all the expected clichés: the smooth-talking roughneck who can erupt in violence at any moment, the silent henchman, the nice-guy cop who’s at the wrong place at the wrong time, etc. Whenever Frank turns his attention toward the robbery, the film goes slack. But as long as he keeps his camera firmly focused on Chris Pratt and his inward journey, he insures that The Lookout is at least worth a peek. **1/2
THE NAMESAKE If color didn’t exist, then Mira Nair would have to invent it. The director of Monsoon Wedding and Mississippi Masala locates not only the visual schemes in her material but the thematic and emotional ones as well; this in turn results in films that examine both individuals and their cultures from a variety of revealing angles. The Namesake, based on Jhumpa Lahiri’s best-selling novel, is her latest triumph, marred only by a frenzied attempt to pack too much story into one two-hour movie. Set over the course of several decades, the film begins with the arranged marriage of Ashima (Tabu) and Ashoke (Irrfan Khan), who leave Calcutta for a new life in New York. They eventually have a son, who’s named after Ashoke’s favorite author, Russian writer Nikolai Gogol. But as Gogol (Kal Penn) gets older, he struggles not only with his name (which he comes to loathe) but also with the differences between his parents’ traditional ways and his own decidedly Yankee sensibilities. Bollywood stars Tabu and Khan are excellent as Gogol’s concerned parents, and the filmmakers’ devotion to their shared story is so compelling, in fact, that it’s disappointing when the couple starts to lose significant amounts of screen time to Gogol’s odyssey. This isn’t intended to diminish Penn’s work — on the contrary, the Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle star ably demonstrates that his dramatic chops are as finely honed as his comedic ones. But the material involving culture and generational clashes isn’t nearly as fresh as the love story being related through foreign eye. ***
REIGN OVER ME An unlikely companion piece to I Think I Love My Wife, writer-director Mike Binder’s Reign Over Me likewise centers on a well-to-do African-American male who’s bored by what he perceives as a barren life with no passion or purpose. But whereas Chris Rock’s Richard Cooper sought to assuage his funk with (platonic) dalliances with a hot-to-trot temptress, Don Cheadle’s Alan Johnson seeks to reconnect with his long-ago college roommate Charlie Fineman (Adam Sandler), hoping that having a beer buddy will allow him some measure of freedom away from his responsibilities. But what Alan isn’t taking into account is the fact that, five years after 9/11, Charlie is still shell-shocked by the loss of his wife and three daughters, all of whom were killed on that fateful day. Binder (The Upside of Anger) takes a couple of pages from Spike Lee’s playbook on how to tackle the thorny subject of 9/11. As with Lee’s 25th Hour and Inside Man, this is more about the recovery than the ruin — the film doesn’t beat us over the head with the Sept. 11 specter, but neither does it ever allow us to forget how that tragedy hovers around the everyday actions of New York denizens. Cheadle provides the movie with a sturdy center around which Sandler can orbit with his character’s many moods; only a plotline involving a needy nymphomaniac (Saffron Burrows) feels superfluous. Then again, that subplot exemplifies Reign Over Me in a nutshell: messy, demanding, and insatiable in its appetites. ***
SHOOTER Shooter kicks off with a scene in which a young man flashes a picture of his fiancée to his partner, which in movie parlance of course means he won’t be around much longer. Shooter also includes a sequence in which our put-upon protagonist reaches his boiling point upon learning the worst news a movie hero can hear: The villains went and shot his faithful dog (big mistake, guys). It’s a testament to all concerned that Shooter can include such hoary clichés and not only survive them but also make them fun to watch one more time. Crisply directed by Antoine Fuqua and adapted from Stephen Hunter’s Point of Impact, this casts Mark Wahlberg (who portrayed a shooter of an entirely different kind in Boogie Nights) as Bob Lee Swagger, a former Marine sniper who’s duped into taking part in a political assassination and then served up as the lone gunman. Refusing to go down easy, he instead uses all his training to get back at the slimy suits who framed him, along the way enlisting the aid of an earnest FBI rookie (Michael Pena). Comparisons to Sylvester Stallone’s equally ill-treated combat vet from two decades ago are paper-thin, since this film is anything but a Rambore; instead, it benefits from some taut action sequences, a well-chosen supporting cast (66-year-old Levon Helm, not looking a day over 99, steals the film as a gun enthusiast), a deep cynicism about how this country operates behind closed doors, and the sight of a smoldering Wahlberg already building on that Oscar nod for The Departed. ***
300 Positioned as the Ultimate Fanboy Movie, this adaptation of the Frank Miller graphic novel is indeed ferocious enough to satisfy basement-dwellers with its gore, violence and chest-pounding machismo while savvy enough to downplay the homoeroticism that will ever-so-subtly cause heretofore unexplained stirrings in the loins of these same armchair warriors. Yet for all its brutality, 300 has as much chance of satisfying a sizable female contingent, since it’s ultimately a beefcake calendar posing as a motion picture (interesting, then, that the lockstep online trolls attack anyone who doesn’t rave about the film as being like “a girl”). Beyond its demographic-targeting, however, its greatest claim to fame is that it’s positioning itself as the next step on the evolutionary CGI ladder, offering (in the words of director and cowriter Zack Snyder) “a true experience unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.” Snyder was responsible for the surprisingly accomplished Dawn of the Dead remake three years ago, but here he seems to have been swallowed up by the enormity of the project, which depersonalizes the major players in the battle between the Spartans and the Persians to such a degree that one ends up feeling more sympathy for the shields that end up receiving the brunt of the sword blows and arrow piercings. 300 contains a handful of staggering images — and, for once, the color-deprived shooting style fits the tale being spun — but Sin City, a previous adaptation of a Miller work, offered more variety in its characterizations and, more importantly, in its cutting-edge visual landscape. **1/2
WILD HOGS This simple-minded comedy has the audacity to reference Deliverance in one scene, yet the only folks who’ll be squealing like a pig are the ones who fork over 10 bucks, only to find themselves royally screwed after enduring its inanities. Four Cincinnati bunglers (John Travolta, Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence and William H. Macy), each suffering though some pathetic form of mid-life crisis, decide to embark on a road trip to the West Coast. They mount their motorcycles with the intent of rediscovering life’s little pleasures, but it’s not long before these queasy riders are having to cope with menacing bikers, “bomb”-dropping birds and a homosexual highway patrolman (John C. McGinley). The “gay panic” humor is so rampant that it’s reasonable to wonder if cast and crew members wrapped each shooting day by beating up a homosexual off-screen. Scatological humor also gets a workout, and there’s a late-inning cameo by a Ghost Rider cast member who at this point in his career seems resigned to parodying himself. Speaking of Ghost Rider, there’s nothing in this alleged comedy (and companion biker flick) nearly as amusing as the revelation that there’s a song on the GR soundtrack called “Satan’s Penis.” Then again, given all the middle-aged paunch on display in this film, it’s perhaps a missed opportunity that no one had the foresight to pen a ditty called “Tim Allen’s Beer Gut.” *1/2
OPENS FRIDAY, APRIL 13:
AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE COLON MOVIE FILM FOR THEATERS: Animated; voices of Dana Snyder, Bruce Campbell.
DISTURBIA: Shia LaBeouf, Carrie-Anne Moss.
FIRST SNOW: Guy Pearce, Piper Perabo.
PATHFINDER: Karl Urban, Russell Means.
PERFECT STRANGER: Halle Berry, Bruce Willis.
SLOW BURN: Ray Liotta, LL Cool J.
This article appears in Apr 11-17, 2007.
