NEW RELEASES
BROKEN LIZARD’S CLUB DREAD Broken Lizard, the outfit behind the low-budget satire Super Troopers, is back with Club Dread, a comedy in which the vacation resort Pleasure Island becomes a stomping ground for a masked maniac with a very large machete. Yet here’s the kicker: Club Dread doesn’t exactly feel like a comedy. The genuine laughs are few (unless you’re prone to Shakespearean quips like “He’s gonna be picking his teeth out of my dump!”), the gore quotient is high, and the youthful characters are no more sophisticated than the dolts who populate Jason and Freddy movies. The result, then, is basically just an ordinary, run-of-the-mill slasher flick, with the usual amount of fleeting T&A tossed in to mollify the Playboy perusers in the audience. And while its makers thankfully don’t display the same level of sadistic glee that Wes Craven brought to his Scream pictures, neither do they demonstrate any inkling of the sort of referential pop culture digs that made the first Scary Movie such a guilty pleasure. The five guys who make up Broken Lizard are a likable bunch, which may be part of the problem: How cutting-edge can a comedy be when its creators all remind you of Beaver Cleaver? 
1/2
HIDALGO A sprawling mess of a movie, Hidalgo is also the sort of old-fashioned popcorn entertainment that has become increasingly rare on the current movie scene — and in this case, the pro far outweighs the con. Disney is pushing the film as being based on fact, while historians have thoroughly debunked its sources. But that’s neither here nor there as far as audiences are concerned: They can instead lose themselves in the movie’s riptide rush of thrills without worrying about its veracity. In his first post-Lord of the Rings stint, Viggo Mortensen is adequate as a sensitive soul who, shaken up by the mass genocide of Native Americans, turns to the bottle and performs in a Wild West show before accepting an offer to journey to a foreign land (yes, this movie kicks off exactly like The Last Samurai). In this case, the character and his trusty horse Hidalgo are invited to take part in a grueling 3,000 mile race across the Arabian Desert, a contest in which most participants perish under the merciless sun and the few survivors must contend with duplicity and double-crosses at every turn. What follows is a rousing adventure yarn that includes breathtaking vistas, worthy comic relief, occasionally terrible CGI effects, a supporting role for Omar Sharif (as the Sheik overseeing the race), and plenty of exciting derring-do in the grand tradition of Indiana Jones.
TWISTED The thriller Twisted stars Ashley Judd as a kidnap victim who teams up with a detective to stop a madman. Oh, wait, that’s Kiss the Girls. OK, the thriller Twisted stars Ashley Judd as a lawyer who defends her husband against charges of wartime atrocities. No, that’s High Crimes. Well then, the thriller Twisted stars Ashley Judd as a jailbird who learns that the husband she presumably murdered is in fact alive. Actually, that’s Double Jeopardy. One last shot: The thriller Twisted stars Ashley Judd as a detective who becomes a leading suspect in her own investigation when the victims all turn out to be her former lovers. Yeah, that’s it! But given all these disposable titles and plotlines, how can I be sure? Because this one stands out through the sheer fact that it’s the worst one yet, a preposterous yarn in which not only is it easy to deduce the identity of the killer (with at least an hour to go) but also to figure out how the climactic scene will go down. But this is only scratching the surface of this turkey, which features a protagonist so doltish that, even though she knows one shot from her wine bottle will knock her unconscious (thus allowing the killer to strike while she’s unable to account for her whereabouts), she continues to take a swig night after night! Accounting for the risible dialogue and the gaping plotholes isn’t too difficult — after all, this is scripter Sarah Thorp’s first produced credit — but it’s almost inconceivable that the director of this total misfire is Philip Kaufman, the immense talent behind The Right Stuff, The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Henry & June.
CURRENT RELEASES
AGAINST THE ROPES The real-life story of Jackie Kallen, the first female manager in the history of boxing, is a captivating one, and someday I’d like to see a movie about it. In the meantime, there’s Against the Ropes, which is “inspired” by Kallen’s life but ultimately has as much to do with her story as Schindler’s List did with the War of 1812. Of course, Hollywood frequently bastardizes history for the sake of producing an interesting yarn, but when what’s put on the screen is far less compelling than the actual events, it’s like shooting yourself in the foot but having the bullet pass through the kneecap as well. Ropes clearly fancies itself a companion piece to Erin Brockovich, but really, it’s just a third-rate Working Girl, with Meg Ryan working overtime as the plucky working-class heroine. 1/2
BARBERSHOP 2: BACK IN BUSINESS This doesn’t feel like a sequel to the 2002 hit as much as a continuation, with the entire primary cast returning to protect the establishment from yet another outside threat. In the first film, it was a loan shark who wanted to turn it into a strip joint; here, it’s a slick businessman (Harry Lennix) whose ambition to “upgrade” the neighborhood includes opening a chain salon (Nappy Cutz) directly across the street from the venerable family shop owned by Calvin (series star Ice Cube). No better and no worse than its predecessor, this likable, lackadaisical comedy proves more focused than the first film yet lacks much of its comic bite, with even Cedric the Entertainer (as opinionated Eddie) forced to marginally tone down his act. 1/2
THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT In this redundant sci-fi tale, Ashton Kutcher plays a troubled college student haunted by a horrific childhood that managed to incorporate pedophilia, a psychotic dad, a dead baby, and a dog set on fire. But after discovering that, by accessing the journals he kept as a kid, he’s able to travel back to that period in time, he sets about changing the events of his life — and in effect creates alternate realities about as dismal as the one he left behind. Initially intriguing, this quickly turns silly and then eventually wears out its welcome altogether: By the time Kutcher makes his umpteenth time jump, I was praying that we would all end up landing in a better movie. 1/2
THE COMPANY The latest from Robert Altman is a must-see for balletomanes but a must-avoid for everyone else. With most of the cast comprised of members of Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet, Altman takes a behind-the-scenes look at a dance company, with writer Barbara Turner jerry-rigging a fictional storyline that provides a minimal sense of cohesion to the whole enterprise. A few of the ballet pieces are adequately shot for the screen, but the backstage material is unremittingly dull, and the central romance between a dancer (Neve Campbell) and a chef (James Franco) is a distracting disaster. The climactic production, a garish number in a show called Blue Snake, is meant to dazzle with its sheer extravagance, but truth be told, it’s no less cheesy or campy than the notorious set pieces from Showgirls and Staying Alive. 1/2
DIRTY DANCING: HAVANA NIGHTS Just as Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey infused the 1987 hit Dirty Dancing with their vibrant personalities and swift moves, so do Diego Luna and Romola Garai provide some lift to this otherwise forgettable “re-imagining.” Set in 1958 Cuba, on the eve of Castro’s revolution, the film centers on an American student (Garai) who strikes up a friendship with a local lad (Luna) who shares her passion for dancing. The storyline is trivial in the extreme, and the film never establishes its explosive era in any believable sense — despite some tacked-on moments of chaos, this might as well be set in 1986 Miami as 1958 Havana. Yet Luna and Garai make an appealing couple, while fans of the original Dirty Dancing will be rewarded with an extended cameo by Swayze as a dance instructor.
THE DREAMERS Yes, Bernardo Bertolucci’s adaptation of Gilbert Adair’s novel has indeed been awarded the NC-17 rating. And yes, there are copious amounts of full-frontal nudity (both male and female), as its young leads engage in sexual mind games in 1968 Paris. But the puritans who will lambaste this film for being about nothing more than sex will largely miss the point. Sure, there’s sex, but there’s also politics, cinema, psychology, and the sort of ruddy-faced idealism that once upon a time fueled numerous motion pictures made by filmmakers with international aspirations. But even though the movie is more ambitious than it initially appears, its overall success can’t quite rival its heady intentions. 1/2
50 FIRST DATES Even many of the folks who don’t like Adam Sandler have conceded that The Wedding Singer is fairly decent, with cinema’s top-earning frat boy ably subverting his obnoxiousness in pursuit of a sweet romance with Drew Barrymore. This new film features an even more intense love story between the pair, yet this winning hand is repeatedly set down in order to make more room for the sort of juvenile antics that will remind Sandler bashers why they hate this kid in the first place. Meshing Groundhog Day with Memento, this Hawaii-set comedy casts Sandler as an aquarium vet who falls for a school teacher (Barrymore) who suffers from short-term memory loss. Lowbrow antics repeatedly get in the way of the agreeable love story. 1/2
THE FOG OF WAR Subtitled Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara, The Fog of War might reasonably be expected to serve as a mea culpa on the part of the former Secretary of Defense for both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, a plea for forgiveness for his role as one of the chief architects of the Vietnam War. Yet Errol Morris’ latest documentary proves to be an infinitely more comprehensive — not to mention more ambiguous — piece of nonfiction, as McNamara discusses just about every facet of his life yet still remains tantalizingly opaque regarding certain subjects. The film does indeed offer many lessons to mull over, yet the most meaningful one might be the old axiom about history repeating itself: One look at the current mess in Iraq and it’s chilling to note how little has been learned by those in charge.
GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING The plot can be dismissed by crotchety viewers as borderline soap opera — in more modern times, its character dynamics could easily play out on the Ewing ranch in Dallas — but this adaptation of Tracy Chevalier’s speculative book about 17th century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer (Colin Firth) and his 17-year-old muse (Scarlett Johansson) soars primarily because of its visuals, an appropriate strength for a movie about an artist. Vermeer’s pieces are notable for their meticulous attention to detail as well as their astonishing capture of light and use of color; working in tandem with ace cinematographer Eduardo Serra and production designer Ben Van Os, director Peter Webber follows suit by transforming his film into a live-action facsimile of a Vermeer painting.
MIRACLE This Disney release is being promoted as “From The Studio That Brought You The Rookie And Remember The Titans,” and that’s clearly the best way to market this piece. Like those sports-illustrated endeavors, this one’s also an acceptably middlebrow drama that asks nothing more of its audience members than to cheer at the appropriate moments and, if theater management doesn’t mind, get a “Wave” going during the climactic Big Game. Here, the focus is on coach Herb Brooks (Kurt Russell) and the 20 kids who formed the US Ice Hockey team that somehow managed to beat the formidable Russian squad during the 1980 Olympics. 1/2
THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE This animated treat from France makes Finding Nemo look about as cutting-edge as an old Tom & Jerry cartoon. Its jumping-off point is a lonely little boy who, thanks to the support of his kindly grandmother, grows up to become an accomplished cyclist set to take part in the Tour de France. But after the lad gets kidnapped by the French Mafia, it’s up to his granny and their aging pooch Bruno to rescue him; along the way, they receive unexpected aid from the title trio, elderly singing sisters who used to perform with Fred Astaire and Josephine Baker back in the day. Mere words cannot convey the sheer inventiveness of this enterprise, a melting pot of styles and storylines borrowed from (among others) Buster Keaton, Tex Avery and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. 1/2
WELCOME TO MOOSEPORT Maybe Ray Romano’s shtick works on TV, where undemanding sit-coms possess the ability to easily amuse undemanding couch potatoes. But as far as his big-screen debut is concerned, the man’s a washout, a zero, a big fat nada. This movie about a former US president (Gene Hackman) who runs for mayor against the town’s plumber has been designed to showcase Romano’s comedic prowess, yet his performance is about as funny as Sean Penn’s in Mystic River — which is to say, not funny at all. Hackman’s spirited performance is better than this picture deserves, while Maura Tierney, as the no-nonsense recipient of both men’s amorous advances, brings warmth and resolve to an otherwise thin character. But the comedy quotient, waning from the start, becomes nonexistent whenever it’s placed in Romano’s clumsy mitts. 1/2
This article appears in Mar 3-9, 2004.
