CURRENT RELEASES
ALEX & EMMA For the second straight movie, Kate Hudson has demonstrated that she’s better than the material at hand. That’s certainly a change from the past, when she proved to be among the weakest links in films like The Four Feathers and Almost Famous, but it may just be that she’s an actress who’s better suited to romantic comedies than anything else. That’s certainly no crime — Meg Ryan (for one) has managed to milk that teat for all it’s worth — and in both How to Lose a Guy In 10 Days and now this, Hudson has revealed an enviable ability to mix doe-eyed sentiment with zesty slapstick, the perfect combo for a screwball comedy heroine. In director Rob Reiner’s first film since the horrific The Story of Us, Hudson plays Emma Dinsmore, a stenographer who’s hired by successful author Alex Sheldon (Luke Wilson) to help him whip out a manuscript in 30 days so he can collect his advance and pay off a gambling debt. The twist here is that as Alex relates his period piece melodrama for Emma to type, the same two actors are also seen as the protagonists in the movie’s fiction-within-the-fiction, leading to various comic situations as Alex and Emma try to hammer out the details of his novel and their changes invariably affect the actions of the characters he created. The easygoing rapport between Hudson and Wilson, as well as an amusing (if wafer-thin) look at the volatile nature of the writing process, helps disguise the formula at the heart of this half-clever, half-contrived fluff. 
1/2
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
THE DANCER UPSTAIRS Javier Bardem was already a superstar in his native Spain before his superb, Oscar-nominated turn in Before Night Falls made US viewers take notice. But if his performance as gay Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas showed off his talents as a chameleonic thespian, his work in The Dancer Upstairs trumpets his arrival as a down-to-earth movie star, the hunky “old school” sort best exemplified by the taciturn likes of Gary Cooper and John Wayne. An absorbing drama that marks the directorial debut of John Malkovich, this adaptation of Nicholas Shakespeare’s novel feels like a page ripped from the Costa-Gavras filmography, though its most recent screen antecedent would be The Quiet American, another crackling political thriller grounded by an excellent central performance. Bardem stars as Agustin Rejas, a detective in an unnamed Latin American country (though it’s based on events that occurred in Peru in the 1980s) who’s as baffled as everyone else when dead dogs start hanging from lampposts and pert schoolgirls suddenly whip out machine guns to mow down government emissaries. A messy revolution appears to be underway, and Rejas doggedly tracks down clues, only pausing now and then to woo his daughter’s ballet instructor (Laura Morante). Marred by a late-inning coincidence that’s more suited to the inane likes of Hollywood Homicide, this is otherwise an intelligent motion picture that’s especially effective at conveying a specific sense of time, place and mood.
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.
HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE A few weeks ago when The Matrix Reloaded opened, much of the talk centered around the highway chase sequence that lasts a full 15 minutes. But that set piece is mere child’s play when compared to the climactic chase that closes Hollywood Homicide: This one lasts a full three hours. Or so it seems. Truth be told, I can’t pinpoint exactly how long this interminable sequence goes on, because during that portion of this dreadful action-comedy, my brain was so numb that even a lobotomy would have seemed like a welcome diversion. Charitable moviegoers — and I use “charitable” to the extent that Mother Teresa comparisons are in order — might describe this disaster as the perfect popcorn picture, but even that’s provided you like your bag filled with burnt pieces and unpopped kernels. Harrison Ford (tired and bored) and Josh Hartnett (bland and boring) play the usual mismatched cops — one’s old and cranky, the other young and sensitive — who spend as much time pursuing outside interests (real estate and acting, respectively) as they do investigating the slayings of four rappers. Writer-director Ron Shelton, a long way from the career high point of Bull Durham, has crammed this picture with the sort of forced comedy generally found in bad Nora Ephron movies, while the action sequences prove to be clumsily staged and rarely exciting. Hartnett is a Next Big Thing who deserves to become a Where Are They Now?; as for Ford, there’s simply no way to defend his sell-out choices anymore.
HULK With a fan base that rivals those of other Green Party members (Kermit, Gumby, Shrek), it’s only fitting that Marvel’s not-so-jolly green giant gets his own movie. Unfortunately, this is the weakest of the recent batch, as the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon team of director Ang Lee and writer James Schamus have created a film that unwittingly condescends toward the comic book medium even as it’s trying to elevate it to another plateau. The effortless affinity that exists between hero and reader has been lost on the pair; wanting to create something more “meaningful” than a mere popcorn flick, they’ve decided to add import to their assignment by making a movie that’s as much about family dysfunction and harnessing one’s untapped potential as it is about a guy who turns into a monster. That’s all well and good, but in trying to come up with something of substance, they’ve largely left out the sharp sense of humor and gee-whiz level of excitement that have ignited the best of superhero cinema, not grasping that these aren’t hindrances on the road to respectability but the very things that drive the journey. The CGI-created Hulk looks fine in close-up but fake in the distant shots, while dull Eric Bana, as his alter ego, is a human flatline. Lee’s visual scheme, which often provides the cinematic equivalent of a comic’s splashy color panels, is fun, but these are about the only moments that make us feel like we’re actually flipping through a comic book rather than lumbering through an arid college textbook.
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.
A MIGHTY WIND At the start of the latest “mockumentary” from writer-director-actor Christopher Guest (Best In Show, Waiting for Guffman), music promoter Irving Steinbloom has just passed away, and to honor his memory, his son (Bob Balaban) has decided to organize a live TV concert that would bring together the three 60s folk groups that Irving had championed back in the day. The New Main Street Singers, led by a perpetually chipper couple (John Michael Higgins and Jane Lynch), are happy to take part, as are the three guys who make up The Folksmen (Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer); more problematic is the acquisition of the formerly lovey-dovey duo of Mitch (Eugene Levy, who co-scripted with Guest) and Mickey (Catherine O’Hara), since Mitch had suffered an emotional meltdown and has been enduring life in a shell-shocked state. A Mighty Wind doesn’t quite provide as many laughs as Guest’s previous two pictures, yet the film does offer an acceptable tradeoff: There’s a genuine element of poignancy surrounding the proceedings, and the lovely songs, all written by cast members specifically for this movie, add the icing on the cake. As an obnoxious band manager whose mouth travels a mile a minute but whose brain can only manage a yard a day, Fred Willard is back in scene-stealing mode; still, the performance that stays with you the most is the one by Levy, whose work conveys a tenderness that momentarily slices through the satire. 1/2
28 DAYS LATER Is 28 Days Later a title or a threat? A follow-up to 28 Days, Sandra Bullock’s “feel-good” film about alcohol addiction? Pass the booze, indeed. Thankfully, though, this has nothing to do with zombies (the rum’n’brandy variety) and everything to do with zombies (the flesh-eating kind). It’s been a while since we’ve had a decent genre flick of this nature, and while this effort from director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting) doesn’t add much to the canon of the undead, it’s still a worthy entry. Each zombie flick creates its own version of what turns ordinary citizens into the walking dead; here, it’s a virus feeding off of people’s “inner rage.” But instead of turning green like the hulking creature in another new release, this rage transforms them into mindless ghouls with a nasty desire to nibble on the uninfected. The film can be split into three acts, and, as the saying goes, two out of three ain’t bad. The first part captures that fever-dream sensation of being one of the only people left alive (Cillian Murphy and Naomie Harris play the survivors), while the second chunk ratchets up the suspense by placing the protagonists out on the open road. But much of the energy drains during the third act, which comes off as a lackluster imitation of a similar scenario in George Romero’s 1978 Dawn of the Dead. Still, the grainy shooting style adds to the ambience, and those seeking contemporary subtext will have no problem equating the plague with SARS or any other recent epidemic.
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
This article appears in Jul 2-8, 2003.
