NEW RELEASES
THE HAUNTED MANSION Lest the whopping success of Pirates of the Caribbean sends every Hollywood producer combing the nation’s theme parks for their next film adaptation, they might want to take a look at this flat-footed endeavor based on the 34-year-old Disneyland attraction — coupled with the earlier flop The Country Bears, it brings the total of theme park knockoffs to one win, two losses. Eddie Murphy, in neutered, family man mode, tries to keep things jumping with his caffeinated turn as a New Orleans realtor who drags his wife (Marsha Thomason) and kids with him to inspect a majestic yet crumbling mansion on the outskirts of town. After making the acquaintance of the transparently unsettled owner (Nathaniel Parker) and his aloof manservant (Terence Stamp), the family finds itself trapped there for the night, whereupon they begin encountering all sorts of restless spirits — some friendly, others fearsome. It’s hard to believe this sort of trifle would be overplotted, but the script by Davis Berenbaum (Elf) gets so weighed down in the intricacies of its pedestrian storyline (centering on a doomed love affair from the past) that there’s very little time left for pure visceral thrills. Yet even here, the movie’s a bust, as director Rob Minkoff (Stuart Little) and six-time Oscar-winning effects wizard Rick Baker (finally running out of ideas) manage to make even such surefire audience grabbers as a zombie attack exceedingly dull. 
1/2
MANNA FROM HEAVEN Presented as this month’s Reel Tuesdays attraction (check out See & Do for show details), Manna From Heaven bears a back story that’s actually more interesting than what appears on screen. This film is the latest production from the five Burton sisters, who are taking their movie around the country on a whistle stop tour (it’s been playing almost continuously across the US for over a year) and, in most cities, donating a portion of the proceeds to Habitat for Humanity. On a humanistic level, that’s reason enough to go, though the quality of the film doesn’t quite match the loving care placed into it. Working from a script penned by the siblings’ mom, Gabrielle B. Burton, the movie casts a startling number of Where-Are-They-Now? performers in an amiable yarn about a family that unexpectedly stumbles across a large amount of cash. Years later, one of the family members, now a nun (Ursula Burton), decides that this “loan from God” needs to be repaid, a declaration that causes others in the clan to balk. The movie employs the services of many seasoned professionals clearly thankful to be working again — among them Shirley Jones, Frank Gorshin, Shelley Duvall, Louise Fletcher, Cloris Leachman and Faye Grant (the one cast member who, based on her work here, should be landing more prominent roles) — and their puppy-dog willingness to please (a condition they share with the Burtons) results in a slobbery kiss of a film whose lack of polish but generosity of spirit means it will eventually find its final resting place on basic cable. 1/2
TIMELINE OK, let’s get this straight: The Haunted Mansion is billed as a comedy, yet it offers no laughs, while Timeline is plugged as a drama, yet it offers chuckles by the truckload. That’s how it goes with this Medieval romp, which couldn’t be sillier if Monty Python’s knights who say “Ni!” turned up for an extended cameo. Based on the Michael Crichton novel, this sends a group of present-day archaeologists back to 14th century France in an attempt to rescue their professor (Billy Connolly), who himself had been sent back by a Bill Gates facsimile (David Thewlis) after a wormhole linking the past and present worlds had been discovered. Bless this cornball picture for holding our interest for its entire length — how could it not, when practically every scene will leave audiences tittering for one reason or another? If it’s not the overripe dialogue, it’s the incompetent performance by top-billed Paul Walker, whose desire to score with Frances O’Connor’s character even while having arrows shot at his head by angry Brits is only slightly less dopey than his attempts at conveying street cred in the recent 2 Fast 2 Furious. And if it’s not Walker, then it’s the baffling plot inconsistencies, the clashing dialects or the puzzling character motivations. As one of the time travelers, Gerard Butler, so dull in Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, here displays a scruffy appeal that might help him land future roles in less dim-witted fare.
CURRENT RELEASES
BAD SANTA Bad Santa may be rude, disgusting and offensive, but I laughed plenty of times, which is something I can’t say I did during those sucky Santa Clause flicks. A perfectly cast Billy Bob Thornton stars as a lifelong loser who dons the red suit annually to play a department store Santa, simply so he can rob the mall vaults with ease. But this year’s scheme threatens to become more complicated than usual, thanks to the unexpected presence of a pudgy little boy (Brett Kelly) who follows him around like a pet. A sentimental moment or two enters the picture late in the game (and they’re surprisingly effective), but for the most part, this movie carries the power of its non-PC implications right through to the very end. Rarely letting up on the raunch and ridicule, it’s enough to make Will Ferrell’s Elf blush.
BROTHER BEAR Oh, brother, what a bore… Brother Bear has been plugged as the last gasp of the traditional animated film, but I’d hate to think the future of anything depended on something this mediocre. This soggy tale finds Disney raiding its own tombs for material, cobbling together pieces of The Lion King, Pocahontas and other hits to create a yawn-inducing yarn about a warrior who’s transformed into a bear. The human characters are dull, the requisite bear cub is cloying, the comic relief (doltish moose voiced by Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas) is annoying, and the songs by Phil Collins — how do I delicately put this? — suck. 1/2
THE CAT IN THE HAT Scouring the original Dr. Seuss text, I simply could not find the moment when the title feline, standing next to a garden tool, yells, “You dirty ho!” then proceeds to insist he’s only kidding while flicking his tongue in a lascivious manner. Dramatic license? More like rampant necrophilia. In short, this is a catastrophe of the first degree, anchored (and sunk) by Mike Myers’ unctuous performance as the Cat. Myers’ schtick is all one-note self-adulation, a feeble channeling of Bert Lahr’s Cowardly Lion by way of Jerry Lewis, Paul Lynde and Myers’ own Austin Powers. But he isn’t the only problem: Needless subplots constantly interfere, while all the cute characters from the original story are simply creepy on film. In fact, there isn’t much in this crass movie that doesn’t inspire feelings of revulsion.
ELF While it could stand being a little more naughty and a little less nice, Elf isn’t a pre-fabricated piece of synthetic Christmas cheer like The Santa Clause or Gov. Schwarzenegger’s disastrous Jingle All the Way. While remaining mindful of the season-friendly PG rating, director Jon Favreau and scripter David Berenbaum manage to add a few splashes of Tabasco sauce to the expected puddles of syrup, thereby elevating this fable about a human (Will Ferrell) who, after being raised as an elf at the North Pole, heads to New York. Overcoming a sluggish beginning, both the picture and Ferrell’s broad turn become easier to take once this gets rolling, with some inventive touches (love those Etch-A-Sketch renditions!) and a game cast helping matters along. 1/2
GOTHIKA Guilty by reason of stupidity, this limp thriller’s absurdity begins with its title, a cutesy variation on “Gothic.” Yet although the press material pleads its case that this drivel has its origins in both the same-named French architecture of the 12th century and the English literature of the 1700s, this movie ultimately feels about as Gothic as Finding Nemo. The premise certainly holds promise, with Halle Berry cast as a criminal psychologist who’s suspected of murder and finds herself locked up in her own looney bin. Is she really crazy, or is she the victim of supernatural shenanigans? Almost everything in this doltish drama needs to be accepted with a shrug, from the cheap chiller elements to the idiocy of its characters. 1/2
THE HUMAN STAIN This adaptation of Philip Roth’s novel is an affecting picture in its own right, almost subdued in the manner in which it tackles its myriad issues of race, loss, identity, and the lengths to which one man will reinvent himself to succeed in America. It traces the downward spiral of a college professor (Anthony Hopkins) after an innocent classroom comment is misinterpreted as a racial slur. Suddenly without a career or a family, he passes the days alternating between dwelling on secrets buried in his past and engaging in a tentative relationship with a complex woman (Nicole Kidman) who paints herself as the ultimate in trailer park trash. Hopkins hasn’t been this interesting in years, while Kidman’s amazing portrayal is merely the latest in her current winning streak.
LOONEY TUNES: BACK IN ACTION The term “specialized cinema” refers to art-house features, but this live-action/animation hybrid, a quantum leap over the wretched Space Jam, qualifies as much as any other movie that comes to mind. With its pleasures aimed at three specific segments of the moviegoing population, this might prove to be a tough nut to crack for anyone not keyed into its frenetic frequency. Yet children will enjoy the cartoon antics, diehard Looney Tunes junkies will embrace Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck as they fill the big screen, and film buffs will delight in the endless array of in-jokes. Slapstick shenanigans, inspired non sequiturs and guest appearances by a dozen other LT regulars prevent the merriment from ever slowing down.
MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD Based on Patrick O’Brian’s series of novels, this casts Russell Crowe as Captain Jack Aubrey, a British naval hero assigned to bring down a formidable French vessel during the Napoleonic Wars. For a swashbuckling epic, the film is rather subdued in its approach, with director Peter Weir taking great pains to present an oft-times understated tale that’s about the art of warfare as much as it’s about the battles themselves. Paul Bettany, Crowe’s A Beautiful Mind co-star, portrays the ship’s doctor (and Aubrey’s best friend), and it’s the relationship between their two characters — coupled with Weir’s attention to minute detail — that largely drives the story.
THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS As a joyride of a movie, this final installment delivers the goods. But on a human level, it’s clear that the Wachowskis allowed the series to get away from them. Thus, fascinating characters introduced in Reloaded are almost completely forgotten, while the series mainstays have largely been drained of personality, existing only to stand around mouthing increasingly vague philosophies. Too bad. This is certainly no disgrace — it trumps most series’ third entries (Alien 3, anyone?) and will probably stand up to repeat viewings quite nicely. But for a series that began with audiences gleefully agreeing with Neo’s declaration of “Whoa!,” this one is sure to leave as many moviegoers shrugging, “So?” 1/2
THE MISSING Director Ron Howard’s latest concerns itself with a plucky frontierswoman (Cate Blanchett) and the circumstances that transpire after her oldest daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) is kidnapped by a band of renegades who ferry captured girls across the Mexican border to sell them into slavery. With her other daughter (Jenna Boyd) in tow, she sets out to rescue her offspring, receiving help from her estranged father (Tommy Lee Jones) along the way. With a 130-minute running time, the film’s not lacking for length, and tighter editing in the more redundant passages might have opened up some breathing room for its more savory ingredients. The Missing is a decent picture and worth a marginal recommendation, but what’s really missing is the proper balance to make it truly memorable. 1/2
SHATTERED GLASS Based on the real-life scandal involving writer Stephen Glass, who had fabricated 27 of the 41 stories he penned for The New Republic in the 1990s, it would be logical to assume that this film would rake the fourth estate over the coals, illustrating how it had continued to shift from a venerable source of reliable information into a circus act of celebrity reporters riding unicycles of distortion and deceit. Yet the surprise of the film is that it’s ultimately a celebration of journalistic integrity, emulating All the President’s Men in the manner in which it presents most of its characters as moral crusaders who will do whatever it takes to uncover the truth. As Glass, Hayden Christensen (a.k.a. Anakin Skywalker) delivers a solid performance. 1/2
THE STATION AGENT It can’t be a coincidence that the year’s two best films both center around lonely, troubled people tentatively reaching out to other isolated souls. But like Lost In Translation, The Station Agent is another splendid human drama about likable folks cutting through a surrounding haze of complacency long enough to make the sorts of connections that don’t require a dial-up tone. The focal character is Fin McBride (Peter Dinklage), a dwarf who, after moving into a decrepit train depot, only wishes that people would leave him alone. Instead, a few neighbors, most notably a tortured artist (Patricia Clarkson) and a hot dog vendor (Bobby Cannavale), manage to locate his dormant vein of compassion and bring it bubbling to the surface. Debuting writer-director Tom McCarthy is off to a blazing start with this exemplary seriocomic gem.
TUPAC: RESURRECTION With dance classes on his high school resume and Shakespeare cited as an influence, rap star Tupac Shakur clearly never quite fit the stereotypical image of the gangbanging thug, and the strength of this documentary is that it never flinches in showing us why he made the choices he felt he had to make — even though they ended up costing him his life. Director Lauren Lazin was fortunate to have ample material with which to work (home movies, private journals), and although Tupac’s mother, former Black Panther Afeni Shakur, serves as an executive producer, this is no sanitized whitewash: While the notorious war between the East and West Coast rappers isn’t explored in much depth, other prickly points in his career are admirably placed front and center.
This article appears in Dec 3-9, 2003.
