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 ARMAGEDDON. Sorry to give it away, but the world doesn't
end in Armageddon. Instead, it's saved from a menacing
asteroid by a wild bunch of oil drillers who have the good old
American know-how it takes to drill a big hole in space rock so
they can put some nuclear weapons in there. The special effects
in this flick are great; everything blows up all the time, and
it's also very loud. (This is what $140 million looks like, friends.)
Other than that, Armageddon doesn't have a plot so much
as it has a series of chains that attach to the audience, then
jerk them. Director Michael Bay seems to be approaching Alfred
Hitchcock's dream of manipulating the audiences' reactions at
every moment, and it's hard not to resent this, at least once
the movie is over. But while it's going on, it's actually sort
of fun to be jerked. --Richter
CHINESE BOX. Wayne Wang, who directed Smoke, has
managed to make an almost entirely unintelligible movie about...it's
hard to say, exactly. It's kind of about the transfer of Hong
Kong to the Chinese, and it's sort of about a journalist, John
(Jeremy Irons), who rather conveniently comes down with a bad
case of incurable leukemia that has him scheduled to die at the
same moment the British are scheduled to pull out. John is an
odd fellow, an antihero from the old school--macho, self-obsessed,
frequently drunk. As soon as he's diagnosed with cancer, he runs
out and begins to stalk a young girl (the adorable Maggie Cheung)
with a video camera. Then he goes back to his apartment, where
he and his buddy Jim (Ruben Blades), another middle-aged ex-patriot,
obsessively ruminate over her image. Despite his fixation with
the girl, John is hopelessly in love with Vivian (Gong Li). But
Vivian loves Chang (Michael Hui), who refuses to marry her because
she was once a prostitute. Watching these two blowsy, middle-aged
actors compete for the favors of Gong Li, indisputably one of
the most beautiful women in the world, is like watching two bulldogs
fight over an orchid. The melodrama heats up even more as John,
increasingly fascinated and repelled by Vivian's disreputable
past, takes a tour of Hong Kong's seedier sex dives. It's not
long before the whole thing degenerates into a pretentious version
of Showgirls, only more misogynistic. Sharing the blame
for this travesty are co-writers Jean-Claude Carriere, Larry Gross
and the ever-annoying Paul Theroux. --Richter
DIRTY WORK. Norm Macdonald has the sort of face and attitude
that's funny even if he just stands there doing nothing. Unfortunately,
in Dirty Work, Macdonald runs around spewing stillborn
half-jokes and pulling unimaginative revenge schemes on stereotypical
villains. Big dogs hump big dogs; skunks hump little dogs; Macdonald
gets ass-raped in jail; the highly obnoxious Artie Lange (Mad
TV) and highly dead Chris Farley try to squeeze laughs out
of their corpulence; Gary Coleman and Adam Sandler appear for
so-over-the-top-they're-under-the-bottom cameos; Chevy Chase and
Don Rickles do what they always do, tiredly--and none of it is
funny. Then again, if you willingly go to a movie directed by
Bob Saget (of America's Stupidest Home Videos fame), you
have no one to blame but yourself. --Woodruff
I WENT DOWN. Male-identified films, especially those grouped
within the buddy genre, often go out of their way to direct audience
attention away from queer interpretations of male-male relationships.
In some ways that holds true for this Irish production--we get
the mandatory female love interest; a three-second sex scene;
and plenty of discussions about female hardware. The much more
interesting and consequential narrative, however, involves the
burgeoning Odd Couple-esque relationship between a doe-eyed
ex-con named Git and his bumbling partner. They're brought together
because both are working off debts of sorts to a mob boss, and
initially their personality differences result in animosity and
frustration. Many references to Git's titanic manhood later, the
two decide to put their girls on the side and move to the United
States. It's a formula we've all seen before: After many obstacles,
the couple couples and rides off into the sunset. This ending
is important in it evocation of the forced heterosexual couplings
in other buddy films, such as the Lethal Weapon series,
where you get the sense that the male characters would rather
continue their adventures together. The satisfying and self-referential
ending of I Went Down is welcome, too, because the weak
comedic elements (madcap antics, pratfalls) that occur throughout
the film become increasingly tedious and annoying.
--Higgins
LETHAL WEAPON 4. The idealized masculinity initially presented
in the first Lethal Weapon is finally called into question
in the fourth installment in the series. This makes for an overall
engaging action film, especially as the genre tends most often
to present clichéd, unsympathetic, hypermasculine fighting
machines. The former polarization of the nihilistic Martin Riggs
(Mel Gibson) and Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) collapses into
the middle, resulting in numerous references to the aging bodies
of the characters (and, by extension, the actors) and their inability
to live up to former expectations of themselves. This reconfiguration
of masculinity is perhaps an attempt to update a series which
began over a decade ago, though it still offers a rather narrow
definition of manhood. The story itself is standard cop-chase-villain
fare, largely an excuse to showcase the fine-tuned banter of Riggs
and Murtaugh. Rene Russo and Joe Pesci return in supporting roles;
and though the addition of Chris Rock is an obvious attempt to
attract younger viewers, he's nevertheless enjoyable as Murtaugh's
son-in-law. The generic convention of foreign adversaries is forced
and outright offensive at times, as the jokes often poke fun at
the ethnicity of the Chinese bad guys (to wit, the tired "flied
lice" dig). Though we can expect to find such stereotypes
in other incarnations of the genre, it appears that this film
closes the book on the series as the lethal weapon of the title,
Riggs, concludes his inner struggle by becoming a family man.
--Higgins
THE OPPOSITE OF SEX. Forget about wholesome sincerity in
writer/director Don Roos' tale of unrequited love among gays and
schoolteachers. Sarcastic self-cancellation rules, as the story's
narrator, Christina Ricci, sourly criticizes all the storytelling
conventions that come with the depressing territory. The result
is a funny, energetic movie with a severe case of multiple-personality
disorder. The travails of the spurned Martin Donovan form a fast-moving
but not terribly compelling plot that provides Roos plenty of
material for the bitchy Ricci (a manipulative catalyst throughout
the story) to verbally trample. The movie's inability to keep
its heart in one place might become annoying if it weren't for
Roos' great lines of dialogue, most of which he gives to Lisa
Kudrow, playing Donovan's cynical best friend. Kudrow's gift for
sharp comic delivery ensures that the picture remains the opposite
of dull throughout. --Woodruff
OUT OF SIGHT. In the hierarchy of adaptations based on
Elmore Leonard books, this one ranks up there with Get Shorty.
The direction (by Steven Soderbergh, of Sex, Lies and Videotape
fame) expresses the Leonard style perfectly, nudging humor out
of naturalistic dialogue and displaying a whimsically carefree
attitude about matters of life and death without letting all the
steam out of the story. George Clooney, as a bank robber, and
Jennifer Lopez, as his police pursuer, make an extremely good-looking
couple; and their two verbal tennis matches (one in a car's trunk,
the other in a hotel) are the film's sexual-spark-filled highlights.
The smoothly developing romantic mood begins in sunny Miami and
ends in snowy nighttime Detroit, so even if you see Out of Sight
during the middle of the day you might walk out expecting a cool,
dark sky. A standout supporting cast includes Albert Brooks, Catherine
Keener, Ving Rhames, Get Shorty alumnus Dennis Farina,
and a couple of uncredited surprises.
--Woodruff
SMALL SOLDIERS. Director Joe Dante and a team of five writers
have given the Child's Play concept a military spin: Now
instead of an evil spirit inside a plastic moppet, a super-destructive
munitions chip has been mistakenly installed in the latest line
of military action figures. The result is a bunch of wisecracking,
pop-culture-quoting commandos who proceed to tear up part of a
suburban neighborhood. Their mission: to destroy a similarly intelligent
set of pacifist dolls, the leader of whose whiskered face literally
implies "underdog." The movie contains loads of talent,
including the late Phil Hartman and vocalizations by the primary
leads from both The Dirty Dozen and This Is Spinal Tap.
Copious special effects blend seamlessly with the live action,
and the ideas are overflowing--the creators have even thrown in
the kitchen sink (complete with garbage disposal). But unlike
Dante's similar Gremlins movies, the anarchy becomes too
chaotic for its own good. The satiric sensibility has no focus,
and the human characters have less personality than the dolls.
Though there are clever minds behind the screenplay, the hypocrisy
is overwhelming: a mind-numbingly violent criticism of military
figures? Which, by the way, are for sale at your local toy store?
Talk about self-contradiction. Twelve-year-old boys will love
it; everyone else can expect a headache. --Woodruff
SMOKE SIGNALS. A modest film that nonetheless tackles big
themes, Smoke Signals is a quirky, inventive road movie
that bills itself as the first feature film written and directed
by Native Americans. It's the story of two friends, Victor (Adam
Beach) and Thomas (Evan Adams), who live on the Coeur d'Alene
Indian Reservation and have known each other all their lives.
When Victor's father dies, the boys take to the highway to go
collect his ashes (in Phoenix, which is a little hamlet in the
middle of the desert in this movie), and end up finding out something
about themselves. The plot is familiar, but the inventive script
by poet Sherman Alexie raises it above the standard boy-into-man
story; there are even occasional flashes of beauty. --Richter
THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY. The brothers Farrelly, known
for their gross but weirdly compelling comedies (Dumb and Dumber;
Kingpin) have tried to show a little taste in their latest
romantic comedy. The result is cute and evokes the occasional
giggle, but this movie just isn't as funny as their previous ventures.
Cameron Diaz plays Mary, an all-around nice girl who somehow attracts
more than her fair share of psychos. Ben Stiller plays Ted, the
modest nice guy who's been in love with her since high school,
when he once walked her home. Matt Dillon, Lee Evans, and Chris
Elliott are among her numerous lovers/tormentors. Adorable musical
interludes from Jonathan Richman help give this movie pep, but
how funny is it really to watch a woman being stalked? --Richter
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