NEW RELEASES
2 FAST 2 FURIOUS Never rising much above the level of a mediocrity, the 2001 sleeper smash The Fast and the Furious at least had two things going for it: the magnetic presence of co-star Vin Diesel and plenty of spectacular stunt work involving car races, car chases and car crashes. But with Diesel deciding to commit himself to other projects (namely, follow-ups to Pitch Black and XXX), this sequel’s appeal is immediately cut in half — and it’s reduced even more by the fact that the car sequences don’t match the visceral impact of the first film’s auto focus. Whereas 1 Fast 1 Furious centered on illegal street racing, part deux relies on that standard plotline known to B-movie aficionados worldwide: the efforts of an undercover cop to… yawn… infiltrate a crime kingpin’s inner circle and expose his corrupt ways. Returning star Paul Walker remains as dull as ever, but he’s no worse than his co-stars: the hammy Tyrese as his best friend and the wooden Eva Mendes as a fellow undercover operative who may have switched allegiances. Director John Singleton once earned an Oscar nod for Boyz N The Hood but has now been reduced to this drivel. Still, let’s not be too hard on him — after all, John Boorman made Exorcist II: The Heretic a few short years after Deliverance and still managed to work his way up again. 
1/2
CURRENT RELEASES
BRUCE ALMIGHTY In this hit-and-miss comedy, Jim Carrey, frequently playing to the rafters in what in anybody else’s hands would have been a fairly restrained character, stars as Bruce Nolan, a TV reporter who’s tired of fluff pieces and yearns to become the new anchorman. But instead of getting his wish, he ends up enduring the worst day of his life, leading to a tirade directed at God. Faced with this outburst, God (Morgan Freeman) pays Bruce a visit and offers him a challenge: Take charge for a while, and see if you can do a better job of overseeing the planet. If, as the saying goes, God is in the details, then that’s also where to look in Bruce Almighty for some of the film’s finest moments, as the throwaway bits are generally funnier than the big set pieces. Naturally, Carrey’s adept (if overly exaggerated) with the comic shtick, but the quasi-serious scenes in which he expresses self-righteous anger are actually among the movie’s strongest — it’s no wonder that at one point It’s a Wonderful Life is shown playing on TV, because Bruce’s predicament, a decent man who’s been drop-kicked by life yet given the chance to envision an alternate reality, is the same one that plagued James Stewart’s George Bailey. But because this is a summer popcorn flick, the movie backs away from taking Bruce to the edge — he never flirts with the dark side, as George Bailey did. What’s left is harmless, acceptable entertainment, just not the galvanizing religious experience that was within its almighty grasp. 1/2
DADDY DAY CARE There’s been a lot of grousing lately about how any time Eddie Murphy appears in a family film, he’s wasting the hard-edged skills that initially made him a star in such R-rated hits as 48HRS. and Beverly Hills Cop. I’d be more sympathetic to this argument had Murphy only made good R-rated flicks, but the truth is that he’s far easier to take in pictures like Mulan and now Daddy Day Care than in foul-mouthed turkeys like Beverly Hills Cop II, Harlem Nights and Vampire In Brooklyn. In fact, Murphy’s charming performance proves to be one of the stronger aspects of this PG-rated piffle about two marketing executives (Murphy and Jeff Garlin) who, after losing their jobs, decide to open their own day care center. The usual unimaginative touches are on view — several flatulence bits, over-the-top comic foils (played by Anjelica Huston and Kevin Nealon), etc. — but an acceptable number of decent gags, a sweet turn by Steve Zahn as a Daddy Day Care employee with a Star Trek obsession, and Murphy’s strong rapport with his young co-stars (especially Khamani Griffin as his son) make this more enjoyable than any level-headed adult could have reasonably expected. 1/2
DOWN WITH LOVE Trying to replicate those frothy Rock Hudson-Doris Day romantic comedies from the late 50s/early 60s was a clever idea; cross-pollinating it with the Austin Powers movies before letting it reach the screen was a terrible one. Indeed, it’s the smarmy, smutty humor that single-handedly threatens to torpedo this kitschy throwback that nevertheless contains enough appealing elements to just barely overcome its fondness for awkward double entendres. Director Peyton Reed (Bring It On) and his crew certainly get the look right, from the Technicolor saturation to the lavish sets to the ab-fab costumes, and scripters Eve Ahlert and Dennis Drake have come up with an acceptable plotline involving a playboy-journalist (Ewan McGregor) and his attempts to tame the author (Renee Zellweger) of a best-selling pre-feminist manifesto. McGregor and Zellweger are likable in their roles, even if they’re far more mannered than Hudson and Day ever were. Still, movies of this ilk were often stolen by the supporting players, and that’s the case here as well, with Sarah Paulson and especially David Hyde Pierce delightful as the leads’ confidantes. Had this steered clear of the juvenile gags that pop up every now and then (the split-screen phone conversation sequence is downright dreadful), it might have been closer to last year’s Far From Heaven as both a homage and a deepening of vintage classics; instead, it’s merely an adequate comedy with eye-popping visuals. 1/2
FINDING NEMO As far as trivial pursuits go, ranking the Pixar/Disney animated efforts seems as futile an exercise as ranking favorite Beatles tunes: Because the high level of consistency between them is so comparable, we’re basically talking about slight degrees of separation rather than quantum leaps in quality. In that regard, expect Finding Nemo to be hailed by many as Pixar’s best movie to date while leading just as many — myself included — to deem it a delightful summer flick that still falls short of being an instant classic (on my scale, it’s better than A Bug’s Life but below Monsters, Inc. and the Toy Story twofer). Its animation is truly stunning, awash in a dazzling array of colors, and the storyline is a sturdy one, centering on the efforts of timid clown fish Marlin (voiced by Albert Brooks) to rescue his son Nemo (Alexander Gould) from an aquarium. But for all its visual splendor and great gags, this falls short of most Pixar films primarily because too many characters seem more like “types” than unique individuals. What’s more, two specific creations — a blue tang named Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) and Crush, a surfer-dude turtle voiced by director Andrew Stanton — are as likely to alienate viewers as envelop them. (Crush actually emerged as my fave, but Dory’s scatter-brained routine wore me down.) Still, it’s downright curmudgeonly to remain focused on the negatives when the rest of the picture is saturated with invention and wit.
THE IN-LAWS While certainly no classic, The In-Laws is an enjoyable comedy that includes among its attributes a clever premise, a witty script that’s packed with choice dialogue, two beautifully matched lead actors, and a supporting performer who makes off with the picture like a Bechtel bandit in the night. But enough about the 1979 version. The new In-Laws is a sorry excuse for a comedy, a movie that completely disregards all the elements that made its predecessor such a delight. Instead of Alan Arkin and Peter Falk, we get Albert Brooks and Michael Douglas, with Brooks cast as a meek podiatrist who gets caught up in the misadventures of his daughter’s future father-in-law (Douglas), a CIA agent whose reckless behavior places them in numerous dire predicaments. This deadening action-comedy hybrid is neither exciting nor funny, and it further suffers from an embarrassing turn by David Suchet as a homosexual arms dealer who spends an exorbitant amount of screen time trying to get Brooks out of his pants so he can admire his “fat cobra” (Suchet is obviously meant to be this movie’s scene stealer, but he’s no match for the original’s Richard Libertini, who was a hoot as an eccentric Latin American dictator). Forget the movie’s wedding theme: On the contrary, funeral services are now being held at a multiplex near you.
THE ITALIAN JOB The 1969 version of The Italian Job is a minor cult classic, which isn’t the same thing as saying it’s a particularly good movie. Still, it beats this new version, which retained the title but not much else. Instead of the offbeat casting of the original’s Michael Caine, Noel Coward and Benny Hill, we now get the more conventional, Hollywood-glam teaming of Mark Wahlberg, Edward Norton and Charlize Theron, with Wahlberg cast as the leader of a high-tech criminal gang, Norton playing the member who betrays the team, and Theron as the daughter of Wahlberg’s late mentor (Donald Sutherland), now seeking revenge against Norton for killing her dad. Beyond some good performances from the supporting players (Mos Def, Jason Statham, Seth Green), this ho-hum heist flick lacks color and flavor — it’s completely bereft of the attention to atmosphere, dialogue and characterization that distinguished another recent caper yarn, Neil Jordan’s superior The Good Thief. The word is that the studio forced Norton to make this film against his will, as part of a studio contract he was obligated to honor; such a mandatory arrangement would certainly explain the actor’s dull and detached performance. But here’s the good news: Just because Norton was forced to make the film doesn’t mean you’re forced to watch it.
THE MATRIX RELOADED Apparently, it’s easier to build a better mousetrap than to build a better Matrix. Still, that won’t stop worldwide audiences from beating a path to the box office to catch the second installment in this popular techno-trilogy. For all its attributes, Matrix Version 2.0 never quite rivals Matrix Version 1.0 — in that respect, then, it’s best not to compare it to its predecessor but to its competition in the action and sci-fi fields. And on that level, it’s awfully hard to be disappointed by this second helping, which offers some intriguing food for thought as well as a pair of smashing action sequences. Picking up pretty much where the first film left off — that is, on a future Earth in which machines have taken over and control mankind — this one finds Neo (Keanu Reeves), Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) and Trinity (Carrie-Ann Moss) facing a new gallery of villains — as well as old nemesis Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) — as they attempt to permanently “unplug” the governing computers. Recurring themes of reality vs. illusion and choice vs. destiny offer some interesting subtext, yet it’s the central action set pieces that prove to be the real conversation starters. These two sequences — one a battle royale between Neo and dozens of Agent Smiths, the other a highway chase — are ballets of brute strength, not so much video game simulations (as many contend) as a tribute to the visceral impact of cinematic effects and how, when done right, they can envelop and enrapture us.
X2 Almost on a par with the Y2K hit X-Men, this exciting sequel kicks off the summer movie season in style. While not quite matching the sense of wonder that accompanied the first picture, this one boasts a more polished script, vastly improved special effects, and a longer running time (135 minutes, a full half-hour over its predecessor) that gives more players more time to strut their stuff. This time, kindly Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and his band of do-gooder mutants find themselves teaming up with arch-villain Magneto (Ian McKellen) in an effort to bring down a ruthless military man (Brian Cox) hell-bent on eradicating every mutant on the planet. Practically every character from the first film returns, and there’s the welcome addition of Alan Cumming as the sweet-natured Nightcrawler, a blue-skinned German with the ability to teleport out of tight jams. As with most sci-fi sequels, this will seem incomprehensible to folks who elected to skip the first film, but even they’ll be able to glean the subtext often found in superhero adventures: A just and civilized society has no room for prejudice against those who are born different. X2 hammers that point home, with thinly veiled outbursts against warmongering right-wing administrations and homophobia. Hugh Jackman again excels as Wolverine, with noteworthy support by McKellen and especially Famke Janssen as soulful telepath Jean Grey.
HOME THEATER
FRIDA (2002) Screen biographies of artistic sorts are almost always a gamble, since it’s hard for cinema to accurately convey the creative process at work. But this biopic of painter Frida Kahlo apparently ended up in the right hands, as director Julie Taymor (Broadway’s The Lion King) uses various colorful conventions — an animated sequence designed by the Brothers Quay, the melding of actual people and artwork, the stunt casting of Edward Norton, Antonio Banderas and Ashley Judd in small roles — to effectively touch upon the key incidents in Kahlo’s life. The film’s centerpiece is her long, complex relationship with husband and fellow artist Diego Rivera, and it’s the robust performances by Salma Hayek and Alfred Molina that ultimately give the movie its soul. Hayek earned an Oscar nomination for her zestful turn, and the film won two awards for Elliot Goldenthal’s original score and the makeup design. The numerous extras on this two-disc DVD include commentary by Taymor and Goldenthal as well as features on the film’s music and on Frida herself. Movie: / Extras: 1/2
THE GURU (2003) Director Daisy von Scherler Mayer’s 1995 indie flick Party Girl made the romantic comedy seem fresh again, but she doesn’t quite repeat the feat with her latest picture, which barely received distribution despite being backed by a major studio. What life it displays largely comes from its stars: Jimi Mistry as an Indian dance teacher who moves to America and is mistaken for a sex guru, Marisa Tomei as the ditzy socialite who falls for his act, Michael McKean as the director of such adult titles as the Roman Empire-inspired Glad He Ate Her, and especially Heather Graham as a sweet-natured porn star who serves as Mistry’s muse. DVD features include audio commentary by von Scherler Mayer and scripter Tracey Jackson and deleted scenes. Movie: 1/2 / Extras: 1/2
— Matt Brunson
This article appears in Jun 11-17, 2003.
