WHOA!
...and just like that the summer is upon us! I’m still bitching about springtime flix. So, here is my recap of a handful of spring films, then it’s on to the blockbusters...
THE SCORPION KING (***) - Do you like the Conan? “The Scorpion King” brings to mind a PG-13 version of the old Schwarzeneggar classics. I expected this loud, pulverizing action flick to summon up the feel of “The Mummy Returns” or the TV series “Hercules: The Legendary Adventures”. What I got with The Rock’s first starring vehicle, however, was a rousing action movie that succeeds because of its free-wheeling adventurousness. The Rock is a very solid leading man in this part. I saw a portion of a preview for this film and they suspiciously showed little of The Rock’s dialogue. This, naturally, was troubling. Perhaps The Rock would only be a natural at his WWE character. Well, unlike previous vehicles for WWE stars, this is a largely imagined vehicle, not just an expansion of a wrestling storyline, PLUS “The Scorpion King”’s Mathayus is quite a departure from The Rock. He’s not an ego-driven talker. Mathayus is all business (he’s downright mythic in his opening scenes) and tough as nails. Needless to say, The Rock looks awesome, in the literal sense of the word. He’s a huge guy, yet nimble and exciting to watch in his fight scenes...and there’s no shortage of them. They’ve had to come up with a myriad of sounds for “guy getting bashed with a sword”. It happens so often they ran out of the current effects used to simulate that bloody move. However, there isn’t alot of blood in the film. Even a severed head is bloodless. I almost wish they went all out with an R rating, but I’m sure they catered to the broad appeal of The Rock, and wanted 13-17 year old money at the box office, too. Certainly this film is not without camp. But maybe because the whole world of “The Scorpion King” is fantasy, it plays out better than the substancelessness (I made that word up) of “The Mummy Returns”, whose 2-D characters in the 20th Century carried no weight. At least Mathayus seems driven and AFFECTED by adversity. But, as I said, there is camp. I mean, the main villain is British! How great is that? A British bad guy in the middle of the B.C. desert. Kelly Hu is good as the villain’s sorceress. She is ungodly HOT and thank god the producers aren’t afraid to show us as much. Perhaps that’s because one of the executive producers is modern-day Barnum Vince McMahon. The film beats you over the head with its relentlessness, see-how-big-my-budget-is, loud FX and earnestness, just like a new ANYTHING the McMahon needs to hype up. But in the middle of it all, it remains...amiable. And The Rock was noticeably having fun. I was, too.
THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES (*1/2) Looking forward to the year’s first intelligent thriller, I instead got this incoherent mystery that still remains a mystery to me now. Richard Gere attempts to track down the source of ‘mothman’ visions his wife had before she died. Inexpilicably, he ends up in a town where other people have had a similar vision. And you know what? A BUTTLOAD of other stuff happens in this film INEXPLICABLY. No, make that EVERYTHING happens in this movie INEXPLICABLY. The director has no shortage of style, finding most scenes captureed as dark and creepy as possible, but with no logic attached, they don’t go far. I felt bad for Laura Linney, who’s coming off an Oscar nomination, and can’t do much with her supporting part as a cop in the town Gere winds up in. Any feelings Gere and Linney muster for each other don’t seem fleshed out. Now, I pride myself on not being a spoiler in my reviews, but I HAVE to talk abou thte end of this flick. So please read on trepidaciously. First off, the ending does have real suspense. An impending disaster builds effective tension and technically, the disaster itself is impressive. HOWEVER, the entire idea of this ‘mothman’ and what he’s all about just gets thrown away! Worst of all, it’s replaced by dream prophecy. If a dream is what we should’ve been fearing all along, don’t waste our time with the mothman crap which never gets beyond “Mulholland Drive”-ish sensibility. If you really like Richard Gere and Laura Linney, please rent “Primal Fear”, which is much more, well, primal.
THE TIME MACHINE (*) - Now I see why they bumped this from the holidays. Just because Simon Wells is “Machine” author H.G. Wells great-grandson doesn’t mean he’s a great-filmmaker. OK, it may be a classic, but I find most of the trouble with this film in the story. We’re set up with the tale of a man who’s fiancee is murdered, and he invents a time machine in a rage of despair. I got invested in this - his sadness, the “what if” possibilities, his desire to set things right, and his deterioration. But this intriguing story is QUICKLY dropped in favor of a bad “Land of the Lost” plot! And that storyline, which ends up being 85% of the film, I just never invested in or cared about. There’s even a brief stop in the near future, where the moon has shattered to pieces, which seems fascinating, but it also summarily dropped. Guy Pearce tries real hard, but ends up looking goofy, and everyone else isn’t trying at all. The futuristic tribe-people are especially bad. By the time Jeremy Irons appears, the movie has gone to the B’s. Not “Evil Dead 2” B, but “Last Action Hero” B. And why is Orlando Jones in this film? He plays a computerized librarian that I thought would’ve been more effective played by someone with more prestige. Ben Kingsley? Victor Garber? Was Omar Epps unavailable? I also wrestled with some sci-fi stuff that seemed uneven. Mostly, it was the division of the film into two stories that recalled “From Dusk Till Dawn”, another piece of shit.
JOHN Q (**1/2) - I remember when “John Grisham’s The Rainmaker” came out with Matt Damon and Danny DeVito. The main characters set out to bring down a corrupt insurance company. Is there a better villain? Pretty much everyone hates sleazy insurance companies and their loopholes and self-importance. That same disdain makes it easy to root for Denzel Washington, who plays a man whose health care coverage fails his son, and he goes to drastic measures in “John Q”. It also doesn’t hurt to have Washington, whose pride and desperation are made very apparent in an emotional performance. He’s pretty much good in everything. The supporting cast of hospital hostages are OK, but I had the same problem with them that I did with hostages in “The Negotiator”. They’ve written rather lightweight in contrast to the gravity of the main character’s situation. This film also has genuine suspense in a couple of moments at the end. I couldn’t help but get wrapped up in Washington’s turmoil. But a couple of other things in the film kept it from earning another 1/2 or whole star. “John Q” gets a little preachy at the end. As I mentioned, it’s EASY to get behind a pro-“health care for everyone” platform. So easy that when this film drives it home a little to heavyhandedly, it’s unnecessary. Also, there’s a heart translpant scene who’s visuals should be reserved for doctors only. YUCK. Other supporting turns by Ray Liotta and Robert Duvall are good, but Anne Heche’s performance as a hospital administrator is so icy, she practically has foggy breath every time she speaks. It’s rather two-dimensional compared to Washington’s textured work. He’s the reason to check this movie out.
STOLEN SUMMER (**) - If you saw “Project Greenlight” on television, you definitely have expectations about this film. As the release date got closer, it seemed that Miramax had expectations, too. The movie slipped into theaters weeks after the conclusion of the TV series without real fanfare, and there were no posters or trailers that I could see anywhere. In fact, the ad in the paper I saw called the film “Stolen Summer: THE PROJECT GREENLIGHT MOVIE”, demanding all fans of the TV show to check it out. I’m sure ONLY fans of the show made it to the theater, and I for one was not impressed. That’s not to say I was disappointed, only because I had an idea of what to expect, thanks to HBO. From the moment the “Stolen Summer” script was chosen over others in the screenplay contest, I knew we were heading down the road to making a safe, sanitized, afterschool special that took no risks because the marketability would reach a wider range. Well, a GOOD movie might reach more people than “Stolen Summer” will. It’s called word of mouth. And I believe preview screenings of “Stolen Summer” put it on the fast track to spin control. I must admit that the filmmaking is fairly competent in the fact that the story is coherent, the actors watchable, and the look professional. But it’s bland as bland can be. And I would be remiss not to mention a personal gripe of mine - it’s two leads are children. Once again, when your movie focuses on precocious tots, you’re either making “The Sixth Sense” or “The Phantom Menace” - I’ll let you determine which one you should emulate. And first-time director Pete Jones has his hands full trying to wrench good performances out of these kids, and he doesn’t have much success. Luckily, always strong Aidan Quinn and Bonnie Hunt pick up the slack. But they are all in a plot whose ending can be seen 10,000 miles away. The urgency to care about anyone in this movie is simply not there. So, if you’ve never seen “Project Greenlight”, don’t bother with “Stolen Summer”. If you have, go ahead and bother, but hope that somewhere, somehow, Brendan Murphy gets to make his movie...
HUMAN NATURE (***) - To say that “Human Nature” is lowbrow doesn’t seem right, even though that’s certainly what it is. But with the recent crop of comedies that have no hope of being funny so they cram the celluloid with gross-out humor, “Human Nature” looks relatively highbrow. It would be a disservice to compare “Human Nature” with “Van Wilder”, “Tomcats”, or “The Sweetest Thing”, because there’s just something about it that says “I’M TRYING HARDER”. By virtue of it’s attempt, I went with it. The screenplay was written by Charlie Kaufman, who wrote “Being John Malkovich”, so already you know you’re in for a bizzaro ride. Kaufman succeeds at being a writer with a specific tone. “Nature” matches the crazy feel of “Malkovich”, and goes even further in terms of risky comedy. In a nutshell, the story is about a woman (Patricia Arquette) with excessive hair growth who retreats to the wild to be a hairy beast, which is certainly easier than covering up her malady. There’s also a plot involving a scientist who discovers another man-beast in the wild, and his attempts to civilize him. Both of these stories succeed because of the sheer seriousness of the character’s desires. Tim Robbins plays the scientist, and his reasons for wanting to play Henry Higgins to Rhys Ifans’ Eliza Dolittle are earnest and hilarious. This may be it - it’s as if the film’s ideology shoots high, but takes the low road to get there. But god help me, there is just something HYSTERICAL in Rhys Ifans’ performance as a mountain man (believing he’s a monkey) who just wants to hump everything. There are a few misfires, occasionally reminding that they may be trying to do too much, but overall, the big guffaws are worth the time.
PANIC ROOM (***1/2) - Here’s another director whose style can make or break a picture’s success. In my humble opinion, he did nothing to help “Alien 3”, but wonders for “The Game”, an otherwise goofy picture. With “Panic Room”, I think Fincher’s got himself a good script, as he did with “Fight Club”. This home invasion thriller finds ALOT to do with the cramped space of a NY City apartment. Also, I felt the villain’s motives were well thought out, and their roles in the heist were believable. It also helps to have really good casting. The original actress thought of for the lead in this film was Nicole Kidman. I can’t imagine her having the NY spunk Jodie Foster brings to the role. She’s great and Kidman’s a bit too glamorous. Foster anchors the film well, and she’s supported by Jared Leto, Forest Whitaker and Dwight Yoakum as the criminals. Leto is frenetic and high energy, looking VERY different than he did in “Requiem for a Dream”. Whitaker is excellent. I’m always impressed with the smart performances he gives in roles that, on paper, don’t seem to scream for his casting. Any director who takes a chance on his look gets healthily rewarded. Yoakum is also good, doing his best Kevin Spacey impersonation and remaining a wild card in this group of three thieves. I don’t remember seeing him since “Sling Blade”, and I hope he works more. As for Fincher, he goes at every script as if he’s not afraid to hear any idea on how to film each scene. What we get, then, is alot of flashy filmmaking. But, when it backs a good script, like in “Panic Room”, I think his style is complimentary. I think the titles are worth mentioning, too. It seems trivial, but, as in Fincher’s “Se7en”, they’re notable. The names and titles of the actors and filmmakers are thrust against the NY skyline, towering over the city as an overbearing presence. People are tiny figures in these broad opening shots, a jolting contrast with the claustrophobia to come. The titles are reminiscent of Hitchcock, and so is the film, as it keeps inventing new ways to make the most of it’s location, generating loads of suspense, style and genuine creepiness.
THE ROOKIE (***1/2) - Dennis Quaid has the strangest career. Despite not really being the lead in a full-on blockbuster in years, he continues to headline films. AND those films usually don’t have the greatest success, from fair (“Frequency”) to middling (“Dragonheart”). He seems to fair best in a supporting role, or in an ensemble drama such as “Traffic” or “Any Given Sunday”. Yet, here he is in the driver’s seat of “The Rookie”. The good news is that he’s terrific. “The Rookie” is about a 36 year old teacher who is coaxed to try out for the major leagues and re-kindle an old desire to pitch. Quaid’s really in his forties, and brings a weather-worn look to his part that suits him perfectly. He’s leading man handsome and down-home-aw-shucks at the same time. It seems that despite his career’s ups and downs, you can’t help but get behind the guy. Plus, the film is made with all the drama it can muster. But it doesn’t push it. The story takes place in Texas, and the filmmakers adapt the south’s humble pace. All the techinical elements are here to support the story, from gorgeous cinematography (they even made TEXAS look pretty) to high-quality production design (Quaid’s hometown looks lived in ten times over). See this movie before the houses are empty because it’s a rousing picture, with more than one moment that equals the excitement and drama of the endings of three or four films. This isn’t your typical sports picture, where we follow a team to the championships. It’s a dignified character study that’s handled with intelligence and grace with a jolt of “Rocky”-esque unabashed cheering. Remember, it’s rated G because it’s for “all audiences”, not because it’s for “kids only”. Go see it.