NEW RELEASES
TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES In the category of Completely Unnecessary Sequels That Were Clearly Made For The Sole Purpose Of Milking More Money Out Of Franchises That Were Already Adequately Wrapped Up, it’s just possible that this might be the new king of the hill. Clearly, sights are adjusted southward for this belated follow-up to two excellent Terminator films helmed by James Cameron, but on its own terms, this isn’t bad, even if it’s occasionally too redundant for its own good. Cameron is somewhat missed behind the camera and Linda Hamilton (the real series star) is largely missed before it, but director Jonathan Mostow and a trio of scripters treat the property with respect and, in effect, don’t screw it up the way that, say, Alien 3 and The Fly II soiled the intent of their notable predecessors. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s back in “good Terminator” mode, playing another T-101 who’s been reprogrammed to journey back in time to our present to protect future leader John Connor (Nick Stahl) from being killed by the female T-X (Kristanna Loken), the most sophisticated cyborg created in the future world. Some interesting plot developments and a smashing (in both senses of the word) chase scene can’t quite erase the familiarity of it all (nor the fact that Loken’s T-X isn’t even as half as interesting as Robert Patrick’s T-1000 from the second flick), but this is still a valiant effort by all concerned. 
1/2
CURRENT RELEASES
CHARLIE’S ANGELS: FULL THROTTLE One’s enjoyment of Charlie’s Angels will likely determine that same viewer’s tolerance of Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. This follow-up to that 2000 hit isn’t so much a sequel as an extension — if movies weren’t so time- and cost-consuming, it’d be easy to picture a new Angels flick hitting the multiplexes on a weekly basis (in that respect, it emulates the 70s TV series on which it’s based). Like its big-screen predecessor, this new T&Angels adventure features countless scenes that serve as nothing more than mini-vanity projects for its three lovely leads (Cameron Diaz as giggly party girl Natalie, Drew Barrymore as street-smart riot grrl Dylan, and Lucy Liu as sophisticated smart girl Alex), reams of smarmy double entendres that are sure to elicit as many groans as giggles, and several stunt-heavy, death-defying feats that are simply absurd beyond reason. But so what? Indefensible as it may be on a hoity-toity level, this works more often than not because of the infectious atmosphere generated by its leading ladies as well as returning director McG. I’ve never been a fan of Demi Moore, so her much ballyhooed “comeback” in this picture (as a former Angel gone bad) means nothing to me, and the unfortunate reliance on smutty humor brings it perilously close to Austin Powers territory. But let’s face it: When our heroines are disguised as welders at one point, who doesn’t want to hear Irene Cara’s Flashdance… What A Feeling playing in the background? 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.
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.
LEGALLY BLONDE 2: RED, WHITE AND BLONDE As the father of a 12-year-old girl who’s a big fan of Legally Blonde, I’ve seen all or parts of Reese Witherspoon’s commercial breakthrough more times than I care to admit. Yet repeat viewings haven’t tired me of Witherspoon’s vivacious Elle Woods; instead, I’ve become fond (within stringent critical reason, of course) of both the film and the character at its pink center. Yet it’s doubtful that excessive viewings of this sequel will render the same verdict; on the contrary, once is certainly enough. Lazily copying the first film’s template to a staggering degree, this excursion finds Elle, now a full-fledged lawyer, hoofing it to Washington, DC, to introduce a bill that would prevent animals from being used as cosmetic test subjects. There, she’s taken under the wing of prominent Congresswoman Victoria Rudd (Sally Field), befriended by a hotel doorman (Bob Newhart) who might be the most politically savvy man in town, and forced to lock horns with Rudd’s cynical chief of staff (the great Regina King, sadly wasted here). Part of the appeal of the original film was in watching Elle Woods grow from a shallow sorority girl into a self-aware woman genuinely surprised at the breadth of her own potential; here, the character has grown stagnant, and the herky-jerky script relies on recycled gags and pompous speeches to cover up this lamentable fact. There are a few bright spots along the way, but not enough to prevent this from being declared legally bland.
MAN ON THE TRAIN Start with Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper, drain it of all adventure and period flavor, replace that with plenty of existential angst, serve it up in a coat of Gallic glaze, and the result would look something like Man On the Train, the sort of talky yet tantalizing film we’ve come to expect from master French filmmaker Patrice Leconte (Monsieur Hire). Yet here, the change of identity isn’t physical as much as mental, with two strangers who meet, quickly become acquainted, and equally as quickly find themselves yearning for each other’s lifestyle. Jean Rochefort plays Manesquier, an elderly teacher possessed with the gift of gab; Johnny Hallyday portrays Milan, a tight-lipped, small-time crook who arrives in Manesquier’s quiet burg with the intention of robbing its bank. Circumstances thrust the men together, and it’s not long before Manesquier grows fond of Milan’s outlaw status while Milan becomes enamored with the slow, steady rhythms of Manesquier’s sedate existence. The script by Claude Klotz showcases strong dialogue that seems to fly out of Hallyday’s mouth while floating out of Rochefort’s (credit the actors as much as the writer for any lingering text), yet at its heart is an unspoken, philosophical treatise on the manner in which our lives are laid out for us and whether it’s truly possible to suddenly shift gears to take the road less traveled.
SINBAD: LEGEND OF THE SEVEN SEAS Despite its frequent reliance on computer graphics, this largely hails from the “old school” of hand-drawn animation, and like most recent efforts in that vein, it proves to be one dull affair. The advent of other modes of toon expression (seen in the eye-popping likes of Shrek, Chicken Run and the current Finding Nemo) doesn’t mean that the traditional animated epic should now be treated as the domain of formula fodder — the recent Spirited Away proved that — but studios with their hands in the cartoon pot, like Disney, Fox and DreamWorks (which produced Sinbad), seem to be unable to break away from the paralyzing blueprint that rarely wavers from one hand-drawn film to the next. So just as Treasure Planet and The Road to El Dorado (to name but two of many) have already maintained the status quo of “been there, done that,” so too does Sinbad elicit familiar yawns, reactions to its limp storyline about a plucky bad-boy hero (voiced by Brad Pitt) who tirelessly banters with a spunky lady love (Catherine Zeta-Jones) while battling a wicked goddess named Eris (I guess The Little Mermaid‘s Ursula wasn’t available, though listening to Michelle Pfeiffer’s purr in the part isn’t exactly a chore). There are a pair of nifty sequences that pay tribute to such past fantasy tale spinners as Ray Harryhausen and Jules Verne, but for the most part, this is rough going — even without the obligatory Bryan Adams tune clogging the soundtrack’s arteries.
SPELLBOUND This may sound like so much hyperbole, but in a season packed with reloaded action sequels and superhero sagas, it’s shocking to note that the most exciting movie of the summer is actually a modest documentary centering around words. Like Hoop Dreams and many of the other landmark documentaries, this Oscar-nominated gem is only ostensibly about one subject: At first glance, it’s merely a piece about eight bright kids who are among the 249 finalists taking part in the 1999 National Spelling Bee. On this level alone, director Jeff Blitz has made a wonderful movie crammed with genuine suspense: Having become familiar with these eight students, we’re sweating as each one is confronted with a word that most of us have never heard of before (let alone used), knowing that if they misspell it, they’re out of the competition for good. Yet Blitz operates on other plateaus as well, forging subtle yet powerful examinations of the often unrealistic pressures parents place on their offspring, the social stigma among youths of being perceived by their peers as too smart (better to be dumb and dumber), the ability of this one competition to represent different things to different families depending on their socioeconomic standing, and, especially significant in these pseudo-patriotic times, the real meaning of what it means to reach for that treasured piece of idealism known as the American Dream, blissfully ignoring the conditions that might prevent one’s reach and grasp from squarely matching up.
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.
WHALE RIDER A star is born in Whale Rider: New Zealand actress Keisha Castle-Hughes, who proves to be the best young import from that part of the world since Anna Paquin in The Piano. In writer-director Niki Caro’s adaptation of Witi Ihimaera’s 1986 novel, Castle-Hughes stars as Pai, a 12-year-old girl who had survived a difficult birth that killed her mother and twin brother. Pai is a descendant of Paikea, who, as the legend goes, first arrived in what would become the clan’s village riding on the back of a whale. Pai certainly displays all the characteristics that would enable her to one day become the village’s latest leader, but because she’s female, her tradition-minded grandfather Koro (Rawiri Paratene) dismisses her from consideration, showing controlled love for her as his flesh and blood but lashing out at her whenever she attempts to step outside what he perceives as her lot in life. Employing dashes of fantasy in what is largely a realistic family drama (in many respects, it begs comparison to John Sayles’ equally enchanting The Secret of Roan Inish), Whale Rider is above all a moving drama about a young girl’s efforts to find her place in the world while simultaneously seeking the love and respect of a patriarch whose own stubbornness blackens an otherwise noble spirit. As Pai, Castle-Hughes delivers a clear-headed performance that, like the film which embraces it, never succumbs to cloying sentiment but instead finds heartbreak and hope in a naturalistic manner.
OPENS WEDNESDAY:
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom.
OPENS FRIDAY:
THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN: Sean Connery, Peta Wilson.
Home Theater
THE CHAPLIN COLLECTION Sure to remain one of the crowning achievements on this year’s home theater scene, this masterful assembly of four Charlie Chaplin features is a must-own for any serious film fan. The first four in a planned series of 10 Chaplin pictures to be released on DVD (another set of titles is scheduled to hit stores in the fall), these shining examples of Chaplin’s comic genius — both in front of and behind the camera — are available both individually and as a boxed set. First, there’s 1925’s The Gold Rush, a beautifully realized film that effortlessly mixes satire and sentiment as the Tramp bumbles around in the Yukon. Then there’s 1936’s Modern Times, which casts Chaplin as an overworked factory employee who rarely seems to catch a break. Forget designating this as Chaplin’s best film — this genuine masterpiece long ago earned my vote as the greatest comedy ever made. The 1940 wartime farce The Great Dictator is often more clever than funny (though it’s plenty funny), with Chaplin in the dual roles of a Jewish barber and an Adolph Hitler caricature. And while 1952’s Limelight might be overripe in its melodrama and its performances, it’s still an interesting comedy-drama about a washed-up vaudevillian who takes a suicidal dancer (Claire Bloom) under his wing. Each movie comes in a two-disc package, with an array of extras that are staggering to behold. The creators of these DVDs have managed to not only offer the expected documentaries, trailers and story notes, they’ve also managed to locate and include deleted scenes and home movie footage. Warner Bros. should be commended for not only releasing this wonderful collection, but also for what they have planned in the upcoming months: a new special edition of Casablanca on August 5, as well as the long-awaited DVD debuts of The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Yankee Doodle Dandy on September 30.
The Gold Rush:
Modern Times:
The Great Dictator: 1/2
Limelight:
Extras on all four titles:
— Matt Brunson
This article appears in Jul 9-15, 2003.
