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Film Clips
Reviews by Ian Caruth, James DiGiovanna and Linsay Hernon.
A.I. Artificial, yes; intelligence, no. This hyper-dumb Steven Spielberg pablum is a tragically cutified version of a film Stanley Kubrick had intended to make before he had the gall to up and die on us. It tells the story of a wide-eyed little boy robot who wants to be loved. The film basically mirrors its main character, screaming "Love me! Love me!" for two and half hours of not-so-special effects and gut-wrenchingly adorable antics. Not content with the cuteness of his star, Haley Joel Osment, Spielberg even throws in a talking teddy bear and a horrifyingly manipulative soundtrack by schlockmeister composer John Williams. The final effect is kind of like having Robin Williams read Pinocchio over a musical score composed of giggling babies and meowing kittens. --DiGiovanna
ALONG CAME A SPIDER. Adapted from a James Patterson novel from the same series as Kiss the Girls, this film finds Morgan Freeman reprising his role as detective Alex Cross. A botched sting operation killing his partner sends Cross into a tailspin, but when a senator's 12-year-old daughter is kidnapped the remorseful dick is put back on the job. Michael Wincott plays a criminal psychopath who poses as a teacher of pubescent computer hackers at a well-to-do private school when his actual objective is to commit the crime of the century, surpassing even the Lindbergh baby tragedy. Despite a moderate rise of intensity and Freeman's screen-stealing performance, the unpolished plot creates a tangled web of unconvincing twists with expedient conclusions and enough loose ends to leave even a spider hanging. --Hernon
THE ANIMAL. I have to admit, I feel bad for Rob Schneider. Sure, he's rich and famous, but his material is so mediocre. He'll always be Adam Sandler's sidekick, and when you think about the limits of Adam Sandler's talent, that's gotta hurt. Still, there are some charming moments in The Animal, and Schneider gets to do love scenes with Colleen Haskel from Survivor and with a goat from, well, wherever goats come from, so that must help his feelings. Nonetheless, unless you're exclusively interested in helping Schneider feel better about himself, there's not much reason to pay money to see this movie. Its story, about a man who becomes super-human when he receives organ transplants from various animals, is livened up by a continuing dialogue about racism, but things never get too heady, unless you think watching a man hump a mailbox is heady. --DiGiovanna
ATLANTIS. This summer's Disney animated feature teaches teamwork, determination and vitality as a scrawny scholar and his motley crew save a crumbling city from total ruin. Milo Thatch (voiced by Michael J. Fox) is a gullible geek with relentless gusto and oversized glasses; he guides an expedition with a dirt dweller, a teenaged tomboy and an explosives expert through raging fires, active volcanoes and a Star Wars-like battle with murderous lobster machines in search of the legendary lost lands of Atlantis. But after a square-chinned, money-grubbing colonel (James Garner) destroys, maims and plunders for the sacred Heart of Atlantis, Milo helps the empire's Princess Kida (Cree Summer) and King Nedkah (Leonard Nimoy) regain their crystallized life force. Although Disney's usual musical medleys have been traded in for fights and firearms, the directing duo that created The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Beauty and the Beast present yet another charming and aesthetic film. --Hernon
CATS & DOGS. It is the war that originated in ancient Egypt; the war to ensure permanent and undeniable status of honor and worship; the war that requires ingenious strategies, devious skill, ultimate sacrifice and unfathomable leadership. It is the war between cats and dogs. Rookie director Larry Guterman and a talented animatronics team brandish this battle on the big screen where cunning kitty Mr. Tinkles (voiced by Sean Hayes) and his ferocious feline followers, including skydiving cat ninjas and boomerang-throwing catnip lovers, plan to overthrow man?s best friend by reversing the human vaccination for dog allergies created by a nutty professor (Jeff Goldblum) and spreading the sinister serum with an army of mice Nazis. To stop this feline revolution are a stealth extremist sheepdog (Michael Clarke Duncan), a thrill-seeking beagle mistaken for an undercover agent (Toby Maguire), a K-9 cyber geek (Joe Pantoliano), and militaristic Doberman pincers. They add more fun and entertainment to this already charming kids flick, which will be impawsible to beat. --Hernon
DR. DOLITTLE 2. Sequel: an unnecessary presentation for money-grubbing movie executives and desperate actors. This superfluous addendum to the 1998 kids' flick is no exception. Funnyman Eddie Murphy returns to converse with the critters so he can play matchmaker for a cynical circus bear (voiced by Steve Zahn) and a furry female (Lisa Kudrow) in order to save their wooded habitat from some logging lunatics on a deforestation binge. After studying the Nature Channel, getting toilet training tips and being discouraged by Hannibal the Hog, Dolittle gets some helpful paws and claws from an alcoholic monkey, a chameleon in denial, Ahnuld the Intimidator and other four-legged friends. This 90-minute sitcom does manage some subtle charm and mild humor, even from the big-breasted Cosby kid with an attitude (Raven-Symone). However, Murphy and his animal-talking talents hopefully will do little in the future. --Hernon
THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS. The Loud and the Ludicrous would be a more fitting title for this summer blockbuster with a head-banging technotronic soundtrack over countless rocket-fueled adrenaline-pumping street races that would leave Danny Zuko in the dust. A James Van Der Beek lookalike with a similar bubblegum acting history (Paul Walker) plays an undercover cop who infiltrates the street racing subculture in order to bust the jewelry-heisting speed demons. Vin Diesel leads a pack of brainless thrill-seekers with his Incredible Hulk physique and macho my-engine-is-bigger-than-your-engine mentality, but stalls with his sentimental daddy issues. Though this gratuitous action flick closely mirrors other films in its genre, like Point Break, with its pretty-boy lead voicing a cocky Keanu surfer tone, it still provides enticing popcorn entertainment. --Hernon
KISS OF THE DRAGON. A muddled, cliché-driven plot packs little punch compared to the sole redeeming quality of Jet Li films: the fight scenes, which are unfortunately few and far between. The martial arts master stars as a Chinese operative sent to Paris on a top secret mission. This gets him caught in a conspiracy involving corrupt cops with a prostitution-running, drug-smuggling kidnapper (Tcheky Karyo) as their ringleader and a grungy street-walking junkie as an annoying tag-along (Bridget Fonda). But fast-forward through this mundane plot to the butt-kicking, fist-flying action sequences incorporating lethal chopsticks, deadly acupuncture pins and fatal billiard balls, in a refreshing display of raw talent versus the overused Matrix-style special effects exploited in films today. --Hernon
LEGALLY BLOND. What?s this, a summer comedy that's actually funny? But then it was written by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, the team that brought us Ten Things I Hate About You, one of the smartest teen films of the last few years. And while the main character is supposed to look like a blond bimbo, she's played by Reese Witherspoon, who's actually an actress. Imagine that, casting an actress as a pretty woman, when there are so many talentless models available for the part. Thanks to Witherspoon's performance and the witty (if not exactly high-brow) script, this winds up being the funniest mainstream comedy of the summer. Don?t go expecting Taming of the Shrew, but there are enough laughs and good acting to make this a little more than just a diverting waste of time. --DiGiovanna
MEMENTO. A very sly film that begins at the end and moves backwards to the middle, never quite reaching the beginning. The visually stunning Guy Pearce stars as a man who has no capacity to form new memories, so he tattoos information on his body, leaves himself notes, and attempts, through a set of cryptic communiqués to himself, to get revenge on the man who murdered his wife. There are layers of irony in this well-constructed noir, not the least of which is that it requires a great deal of memory on the audience's part to piece the story together. Although ultimately it's more puzzle than movie, it's still riveting and has that rare feature of assuming that its audience is more intelligent than the average rhesus monkey. Well, more intelligent than the average rhesus monkey that hasn't taken the super-monkey serum. --DiGiovanna
MOULIN ROUGE. Imagine a 10-hour acid trip condensed into two hours. Now turn the volume up to 11. Got it? Well, you're not even close to how excessive Moulin Rouge is. This tale of a young bohemian wannabe in fin-de-siècle Paris is all noise, flash and pop music medleys. The dialogue is glommed together from a variety of top-40 hits, the costumes are so dazzling that they'd hurt Stevie Wonder's eyes, and the sets look like they're going to explode from being over-gilded. If you've been in a coma for a while, this might be just the thing to wake you up. Of course, after a few minutes of it you'll just want to go back to peaceful oblivion. Luckily, Nicole Kidman's wooden acting provides a bit of relief from this otherwise over-lively production. Also starring Ewan McGregor and John Leguizamo, who somehow manages to be even more annoying than this film itself. --DiGiovanna
PEARL HARBOR. On December 7, 1941 Japan launched a surprise attack on the United States, which destroyed half the Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, killed over 3,000 American sailors and brought our country officially into World War II. Director Michael Bay and producer Jerry Bruckheimer, the dynamic duo of guaranteed intensity and action, provide a comprehensive look at this historical day, bookended by a Disney-style soap opera. Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett star as two Southern studs who do everything together from becoming heroic combat fighter pilots to falling in love with the same woman (Kate Beckinsale). Alec Baldwin, a relentless naval officer, and Jon Voight, a strong-willed U.S. president, also add powerful performances to this emotional whirlwind of patriotism, nostalgia and love. However, it is the ingenuity of those behind the scenes who incorporated black-and-white documentary footage with a heartening soundtrack, state-of-the-art special effects and a thorough script that created this captivating epic for a record-breaking price of $135 million. --Hernon
SCARY MOVIE 2. As if there weren't already enough raunchy sex innuendoes, foul toilet humor and Bill Clinton jokes in the world, the infamous Wayans brothers add plenty more as they parody the supernatural genre in this sequel to their 2000 comedy. In this year's spoof, I think the plot involves something about a sex-crazed college professor who tricks some sex-crazed students into spending a weekend in a haunted house owned by a sex-crazed ghost so that everyone can verify that they are all sex-crazed. I'm not really sure because the storyline gets blurred by the back-to-back cheap laughs that play more like a string of outtakes than an actual film. From the title credit to the ending credits there is only a span of approximately 70 minutes. I will admit that some of the juvenile gags and cinematic mockeries are quite clever?like the over-the-top Charlie's Angels fight sequence?but after the millionth bodily fluids gag, it stopped being funny and just became downright gross. --Hernon
THE SCORE. A good heist movie this is. The man behind Yoda himself, Frank Oz, uses his Jedi ways behind the camera to direct two of the Godfathers, a priest in love and a rock 'n' roll diva in this crime caper with heavyweight actors and a traditional plot that works. A disheveled Marlon Brando plays Max, a bigwig of the black market who unites two safecracking masterminds to steal a 17th century royal scepter now heavily guarded in Montreal's Customs House. Although Nick (Robert DeNiro) has a legitimate jazz club to maintain and a neglected fiancée (Angela Bassett) to please, the longtime thief signs on for this one final payoff before retirement with the help of a loose cannon (Edward Norton) who poses as a mentally retarded janitor in order to case the target from the inside. Together the two use their 007 gizmos with the moves to match for an enticing thrill that scores, even though it plays by the book. --Hernon
SEXY BEAST. Ray Winstone and Ben Kingsley give smashing performances as gangsters going through a second childhood. Winstone is the pudgy, cuddly, infant-like Gal, who just wants to go to sleep with his bottle. Kingsley is the threatening Don, a four-year-old in the body of an ex-middleweight champion who shows up at Gal?s idyllic Spanish villa to try to persuade him to come out on one last crime caper. But it?s not a movie about the retired gangster going for one more score; rather, it?s a creepy, funny film about human relations. Spacious, sweaty cinematography by Ivan Bird and spot-on acting by the supporting players make this one of the most mature and engaging films of the summer. --DiGiovanna
SHREK. The team that created the 1998 film Antz brings us a witty computer-animated tall tale full of fanciful characters, poignant morals and sophisticated humor. When the ugly green ogre Shrek (Mike Myers) finds his swamp infiltrated by the likes of Tinkerbell, the Piped Piper and the Big Bad Wolf due to the banishment of all fairytale characters from the local kingdom (a remarkable model and pardoy of the Magic Kingdom) he becomes desperate for privacy. Shrek strikes a deal with the Lord Farquaad (John Lithgow) to rescue a forlorn princess trapped in a dragon-guarded castle in exchange for the reinstatement of his quiet life in the swamp. Accompanied by a pesky talking donkey (Eddie Murphy), the diverse duo sets out to bring the headstrong Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz) back for the selfish short-stack lord to attempt to quell his severe short-man's complex. An unforgettable journey of computer animation that is certainly most entertaining for an adult viewer. --Hernon
SONGCATCHER. An incredibly predictable plot takes away only a very little from this charming film by Maggie Greenwald. Janet McTeer plays Lily Penleric, a musicologist in early 20th-century America who discovers the songs of Appalachia while visiting her sister?s mountain school. Aidan Quinn plays the mountain man with whom she first bickers, then falls in love. Yeah, I know, but the music and the mountains are so pretty that the hackneyed story seems only a vehicle for delivering a gorgeous little film that is much more about atmosphere and effect than plot and story. Strong performances by Pat Carrol as an elderly Appalachian midwife and Jane Adams (who was so great in Happiness) as Lily?s lesbian sister enhance this engaging little movie. --DiGiovanna
SWORDFISH. Sure, there is the intimidating terrorist in Armani suits (John Travolta) playing Rambo in his sleek sports car with an overwhelming arsenal. There is also the scrubby-looking computer wiz (Hugh Jackman) playing Tiger Woods on the roof of his trashy trailer home, dreaming of saving his estranged daughter from the Porn King of L.A. after hacking into highly secured government funds. Plus, there's the tough-talking head honcho of the cyber criminal task force (Don Cheadle) playing Dirty Harry in the testosterone-filled slow-mo explosions. But what good are these characters without a clever script to guide them? Writer Skip Woods merely provides flashy computer lingo that is tangled in a ridiculous rationalization of a multi-billion dollar heist as being a noble crusade that protects the freedom of humanity, and that also gives Halle Berry a way to receive a substantial pay raise for her first onscreen exhibition of her seemingly augmented chest. The performances make a moderate catch, but the script should be thrown back to sea. --Hernon
TOMB RAIDER. Angelina Jolie is the next action heroine wannabe playing a Rambo in skin-tight black hooker's shorts and matching garter-belt gun holsters in this cinematic adaptation of the popular video game. The voluptuous Oscar winner stars as Lara Croft, a British archeologist with a don't-mess-with-me attitude underneath her permanent grin of confidence; she surfs totem poles, mushes sled dogs, practices bungee ballet and battles killer stone monkeys all so a magical triangle-of-life time machine won't fall into the hands of a voracious villain (Iain Glenn) during a full-scale solar eclipse. Action aficionado Simon West directs this noisy onslaught of guns and destruction through a convoluted plot with laugh-out-loud special effects and stolen scenes from such better movies as The Fugitive, The Mummy and even Tarzan. --Hernon
WHAT'S THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN?. In a desperate attempt to save director Sam Weisman's screwball comedy catastrophe, Martin Lawrence delivers his typical loose-lipped shtick while Danny DeVito reprises his money-grubbing character from the 1986 film Ruthless People. Lawrence plays an amateur robber who becomes the laughingstock of the underworld when his not-so-lucky ring is stolen by the cash cow clinger he is trying to ransack. This unfortunately sets off one ludicrous cat-and-mouse plot twist after another, which eventually fizzles down to a far-fetched finale of bribery, public scandal and debauchery. Involved are a sex-crazed soothsayer (Glenne Headly), a multilingual partner in crime (John Leguizamo) and a David Bowie lookalike as a flamboyant detective under caked mascara and a ratted wig (William Fichtner). This otherwise failed film does succeed in one respect, by becoming the answer to its own interrogative title. --Hernon
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