Road to Perdition is big, and square (I just realized that this description was once used, almost verbatim, by Owen Gleiberman to describe Perdition writer David Self’s last effort, Thirteen Days); like an old-fashioned mob epic with a new fangled speed-style (by which I mean, it never actually stops to take in the air of its brown-polish atmosphere, it seems to be telling its story as BARELY as possible). Tom Hanks, playing just over the invisible against-type line, isn't exactly as exciting as I'd hoped he'd be - the fault of both my expectations and, I think, the actor himself; He’s so terminally dour and inexpressive in the role of kindly hitman Michael Sullivan, that it’s almost as if his numb, muffled intensity, in itself, is meant to act as his character, who is, in a sense, only humbled by the weight of his profession (and, incidentally, at rare moments, can show emotion). None of these moments feel particularly believable per se, especially when Hanks discovers his slain wife and son, (and no, the melted ice around the coffin isn’t allowed to stand-in as a symbol of his thawing – a change which, I’ll submit, never actually arrives). His performance feels more connected to the simple fact that Sullivan isn’t reminiscent of anything Hanks has played before – its no radical transformation and certainly nothing as uncommonly admirable as any of his recent, better turns. Jude Law’s Harlen Maguire, on the other hand, an intensely amoral photographer of the dead, brings pure electricity to every scene he’s in; his inclusion a much stronger, more implicit vision of the seedy underbelly that’s all but ignored in the artfully minimal use of both sex and violence in a time defined by both. The sniveling, weasel-like shutterbug-cum-hitman is easily the film’s most interesting creation – and yet another reason why Law is easily one the best actors of his generation. I’m not discounting, either, the negative space of Daniel Craig (playing Newman’s son, Conner), whose scenes are so foreboding, his crinkly face repeatedly evincing evils to come – yet another reason why stage actors have more fun (tacky beach T-shirt phrase #21 out of 356). As Hanks' arrogant, pre-pubescent son Michael Jr., Tyler Huerich is excellent, despite having his simplicities stricken from the final cut in what was, in all probability, an effort to make him more mature (lines like "The world. There's something wrong. (beat) It's like it's sick, isn't it"); nevertheless, frame that praise appropriately because, as a rule, I abhor child actors. Mendes creates a dark, lived-in world from a host of snazzy locations from 30’s era Chicago to the wide open dust bowl of the Midwest . As in American Beauty, he displays a knack for connecting people to their habitats almost immediately; there isn’t a moment in the film where characters feel remotely anachronistic (another side effect, I suppose, of having a uniformly stunning cast). Because he has so much ground to cover in the film, Mendes rarely lets an atmosphere tingle and resonate as thoroughly as in Beauty; he seems to be lost in a project whose ambition can’t possibly match its surprisingly scant running time and whose epic-ness feels stunted for a Summer crowd. Thomas Newman's score is properly haunting though, and eventually, Perdition plays, for me, like more dignified side glance of the The Untouchables, rather than a film cut to look like The Godfather. Seems to me comparing Perdition to Coppola’s sprawling, spilt-over-the-sides-and-then-some masterpiece just brings clarity to the problem here:
Perdition is too neat.

[Alright, I did actually *enjoy* Road to Perdition, but don’t think I missed the fact that it joins the ranks of countless acts of cinema enamored with Truffaut’s The 400 Blows to the point where voice-over and ennui-driven gazes across a silvery ocean stand-in as the compulsory before-and-after framing device for movies (coincidentally) which boast Tom Hanks. And I certainly didn't miss the fact that the tortured boy character tells us the story in retrospect, though his present-day state of mind is casually omitted.]

Much like a video game (on which its based), Reign of Fire carries with it a huge, promising premise (presented in the form of a newsreel, mind) that leads straight down the tubes and into ninety minutes of absolutely immeasurable boredom, the capper of which is a flabbergasting conclusion where not only is everything explained to death before it goes down, but is later executed in confusion, finally, leaving one to wonder why the whole movie centered around this uneventful "climax". Clouded by a bunch of fancy talk, the scene seems meant to look much more explosive than it is: an exceedingly simplistic resolution to a problem that's the focus of the whole film. But, since there's so little of interest or significance leading up to the big third act confrontation, we presume the filmmakers were really only interested in outcome as opposed to journey. McGonaughey is all hardass speeches and tattoo-clad muscle flexing (with no human qualities to speak of) while Bale is the sensitive, sympathetic main character whose wishy-washy good nature kinda really clashes with his shaggy beard and random outbursts. The flying digi-dragons seem foreboding until contrasted with the grounded dragon models which are so campy, you can’t possibly curb your giggling while characters sulk and shiver and trade dragon-tooth necklaces in hushed tones. The movie doesn’t take itself as seriously as it could, but Reign of Fire isn’t the fun, forgettable Summer entertainment its being sold as, either. It doesn’t move, exactly; instead it's content on treading in a chunk of time which plays more like an extended slump, as Bale and his followers pretty much cower in the depths of a basement, repeatedly establishing their place as the inferiors in a dragon-infested future by restating their problems and re-enacting popular science fiction films for a bevy of orphans. And it isn't to its credit, either, that it takes almost forty minutes for McGonaughey’s badass Marine squad to show up and, when they do, their actions are dull and their action scenes confusing and rushed. Worst of all, they do nothing to revive the film's wilted energy.

Oedekerk's is an intriguing idea, however terribly executed. Placing himself into the 1975 kung fu movie Tiger and Crane Fists through the tragedy of digital technology actually turns out to be an ironic flaw, given that the whole thing is built around careful planning (to coincide with reshoots of reaction shots, etc.), but the dubbed dialogue (all done by Oedekerk) sounds as if it were rushed, done only once or, included without a smidgen of editing. Oedekerk's approach seems to tap "MST3K" by taking it to the next level: actually entering the movie one is mocking. Unfortunately he relies too heavily on his own performance (as "The Chosen One"), as well as the use of the popular, oft-used representative icons of the kung fu genre: the dancing baby from "Ally McBeal", a kung-fu fighting cow, a Mufasa-esque sage in the sky (whose jokes all hail from "The Simpsons") and several pyramid-shaped flying saucers (worn martial arts archetypes, the lot of them). Kung Pow's very ambition is to ape the atrocity of dubbed kung fu movies - which gives it the distinctive air that any wrong it may do will somehow be assimilated into it's pre-justified sense of satire. If Oedekerk's gags had been something more than surface puns, he could have turned that around and made it work for him. Unfortunately, it it plays more like "Mad TV" than, you know, comedy.

Especially disappointing given my expectations  - it's a positive film (a dying breed) -- was the revelation demostrated here: positivity is nothing when you don't believe it. The mushy Christian love dialogue was more than enough to keep me howling, but the unbelievably antiquated-feeling characters, curiously obtuse situations (who looks through telescopes, I mean, really?) and borderline propoganda message set me wrong from the opening bad-kids-drunken-prank right up to the life-lesson-with-sappy-hope finale.  (read on, the spoilers actually make my writing slightly interesting) I find it bizarre that we as a culture get off on movies where characters fall hopelessly in love, and then one of them is tragically killed off. What must other countries think of a society which craves such a macabre emotional rollercoaster? And beyond its place in the romantic tragedy section (at your local video store), the bizzare nature West's cronies as they come to their senses and change their ways when West marries Moore weeks before her death. Moore is given a number of strangely opportune moments to sing (she may have promise as an actress, but choosing roles that don't advertise her role as a goody-two shoes pop star really ought to be the next hurdle she clears; she should also consider making other, better films with West, with whom good chemistry is, as is often the case, wasted). I also found that the subtext of sex between Moore and West - that's not spoken about, not once - to loom heavy over most of the film. That it seems to be considered taboo here merely underlines how old-fashioned the film's intended lessons are (and therefore, how difficult it might be to take them seriously in a modern context). Most after-school specials aired on Disney are more racy, more accurate and more effective. Most of them tend to take place on Earth, as well.
 

First act beautifully corners Washington (playing against type with a bad job for a change) in a battle with "the system" (Healthcare providers, in this instance) blockading every avenue a la Gridlock'd; movie successfully gets Washington to his destination (namely, an ER with the most generic cross-section of potboiler archetypes) and promptly falls apart; Duvall as a hostage negotiator is about as believable as a horse on stilts, his power volleying with Liotta is so stale and familiar, I wondered if both actors were secretly laughing really hard at the material (on the other hand, Anne Heche seems right at home playing an icy bitch, though it doesn't feel like much of a stretch); The bottom two acts are utterly proposterous, but they do produce some great moments: a terrific set of tete-a-tete's between veteran scenery chewers Woods and Washington, a really BIG second act speech Washington delivers to his son, Washington selflessly attempting to kill himself in order to donate his heart to his dying son, Washington lending the necessary weight to the preceedings, Washington stepping up to the plate and transcending something nearly out of soap opera range, Washington stepping into his oft-played role as the reason to see a film, etc. Trouble is, every positive includes Washington; most of what's worth salvaging here. John Q is fueled by Washington's searing performance (Denny must be kicking himself for signing on here: "Be a good guy - the movie tanks. Be absolutely evil - get an Oscar"). There's the sense that the picture emulates much better films like Dog Day Afternoon (in particular) and Twelve Angry Men. It's too silly to warrant comparison to either film, but Washington, as ever, is able to make such goofiness, at the very least, tolerant.

Its twists are rusty, and the film, ultimately, is not satisfying. Too much emphasis ends up falling on the wrong character(s) in the end. We're given a series of honorable self-sacrifice moments by three soldiers who act as if attempting to one-up each other with said moments (which leaves an audience somewhat flabbergasted by the lousy, upbeat compromises at conlusion). The scenery apes The Great Escape and Stalag 17 and, so convincing is the setting, we imagine that, if only the film had a worthwhile yarn to spin, it could have worked as well as those two P.O.W. masterpieces. In the end, though, the best parts of the movie are the quiet moments where characters discuss things in especially anachronistic dialogue (things that are relevant only to the moment, to be negated by the foreknowledge of Hoblit's trademark surprise endings and the doubtful second guessing we already expect they'll cause). Regardless, the principles are terrific, particularly Willis, who gives his Captain McNamara a flippant, statuesque quality that somehow transposes his usual dryly sensitive routine into a geniunely intimidating authority. Ferrell plays a real louse disguised as a hero (who, as it is made obnoxiously clear, Learns a Valuable Lesson). Ferrell ought to seek out roles where he's encouraged to be more human and less metaphor. But, bottom line: the film has its share of theatrics, especially the trial at the end (which is so irrelevant - its racial politics so compulsory - you'll probably figure out the purpose of each - the legal banter and the casual bigotry - long before the characters do).>

The first act is pure Hartley: long periods of silent action, dialogue a twitching, pretentious poetry of self-mockery and music set to the Sunday Morning Hypnotism station. Burke's monster is a more lovable, (inexplicably) uglier version of Tim Curry in Legend and Sam Kinison on stage. Sarah Polley' variation of tarty innocence is pleasant; it makes most American actresses who attempt it seem incompetent by comparison. Unfortunately, Mirren's character doesn't work, it's too obviously a device, and its use as a cheap catalyst causes the whole thing  to devolve into something too conventional and too commercial for Hartley, who works best when it doesn't look as if he's procured a cent to work with. Here, we can feel the twist on the Beauty and the Beast as well as a dash of his millenia doom play, The Book of Life, never reaching the uniqueness of either work. No Such Thing starts out arty and becomes a series of rugged-mountain car commercial shots and surprisingly (for Hartley) obvious epiphanies, then collapses for good when Burke enters the real world and has become laughable by the time we come to the movie monster-esque conclusion. A ambiguous transcendence that flows through the very weak solution almost negates the film's good intentions and Hartley appearance. American Zoetrope was partly responsible for production. Coppola's name doesn't help matters.

As a massive skeptic (and frequent badmouther of popular idols), I hate to step on my tongue and admit that Shyamalan is actually a talented filmmaker. Sure, in interviews, his ego swells to Peter Greenaway proportions, constantly denying his cockiness while pretending to have the formula for a blockbuster. But Shyamalan's reputation has nothing to do with Signs, which is eons less repetitious than his previous two outings: It's sure footed, tighter, scarier, more fun, and, surprisingly - hilarious. Shot in a dream-like blur oof browns and yellows, the story begins without so much as a hint of conventional character design; he sketches these characters out as he goes along, as if their entire being was made up of a series of secrets. A quieted Mel Gibson plays Graham Hess, a former reverend, so angered by the death of his wife, that he has given up the frock and refused to believe in God - except to tell the almighty how much he hates Him. (Shyamalan hired Gibson for the scene in Lethal Weapon where he contemplates suicide and, his entire performance in Signs evokes the dourness of that brief scene). Joaquin Phoenix plays his brother Merrill (all pitch perfect snide delivery), a former minor league record holder. Hess's children are both disturbed ragamuffins: the older (Culkin) a mature and curiously wise protector of the younger (Breslin), who is a perpetually ironic cutie pie with a sensitivity to water. Checking in on their plight (a crop circle appears in one of Hess's cornfields, as well as all over India, triggering world-wide hysteria) is Cherry Jones, a cop who's always saying the right thing, but rarely looks as if she can grasp the meaning of her own words. (She's a device - but, in a good, sorta goofy way). Boasting an eerie soundscape (a la Texas Chainsaw Massacre), and viewed through a War of the Worlds-esque filter, Shyamalan casts a very real, very mellow dread. Through his photography, through the frequent use of TV newscasts, through his beaten-and-then-some characters, through his sobering extraterrestrial perspective, Shyamalan brings to mind the post-rapture tone of Romero's Night of the Living Dead. Signs is a reductive answer to films which rely on special effects (his use of effects is decidedly minimal and never flashy). Surprisingly, Shyamalan defies the usual gripe I have with directors who make cross-genre pieces: he nails funny and scary - and mixes them - with equally impressive gusto.  There isn't a hint of pretension or unnecessary depth. There's nothing offensively highbrow about it. It's the kind of film you end up really wanting to see again as soon as its over. And you can freakin' eat popcorn to it.

No doubt you've seen my obvious attempt to garner your attention with the above list of Rodriguez's numerous credits on this film. And for wearing six plus hats - the film isn't a disaster, exactly. It is, however, incredibly repetitious, far too reliant on unveiling complex gadgetry (like 007 visiting Q in every other scene), and, above all, Spy Kids 2 is lacking in good, solid characters. The only interesting new addition is Steve Buscemi's nerdy scientist (the very picture of a guy who has lived under a rock for several decades - he's confused by just about everything). The film becomes difficult to watch - the new, rather boring characters keep getting in the way of the already established ones (and, sorry to say, Cumming, Shaloub and Marin only appear in cameos). There's some great gags (the OSS dinner is full of em', Junie and Carmen falling for four hours in a small tunnel springs to mind). For every joke, though, there's a truckload of painfully flat situation humor in the rivalry subplot featuring Gary and Girdy, an annoyingly WASP-ish pair who hone in on Junie and Carmen's action, and whose father steals the OSS head position from Banderas. Gugino's visiting parents provide an equally stale series of jokes (most of them antiquated in-law behavior). It's a sequel, alright.

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[Gibson is about the only thing holding this mess together: Elliot is on autogrump; Pepper's contract requires him to participate in all war movies; Stowe dresses up like Angelina Jolie for some reason; and Russell and Klein pretty much just sit there on the screen, like a pair of child-bearing mannequins. The actual siege lasts so long we're exhausted, but not because of it's length - because it appears to be edited without thought of coherence, as if haphazard placement and quick shot splicing could sidestep clarity and look gritty and realistic. Not so, I'm afraid. Since the bar was set, I've been unable to wrap my head around the logic in films about combat which so obviously slide in miles below said bar, but clearly want to attack the subject using a generic version of the techniques in more successful films. We Were Soldiers is just a string of military clichés, rendered with confusion and restraint. There is no place for convention in a proficient war film.]

Butterworth tries to juice up this frankenstein concoction (familiar bits all stitched together, posing as a story) of thrillers-lite by making its premise concern a Russian mail order bride (who is English impaired, by the way). Trouble is, the most interesting thing about the film (after the first groaning hour) is Chaplin's deadpan delivery once he's been had by the sexually radiant Kidman and Co. (Kassovitz and Cassell, chewing the scenery like mad); Butterworth could have had a much more interesting picture if he'd given it a touch of momentum (course, that wouldn't really remedy the heap of unbelievably tired material it's bogged down with). It's obvious that the actors are bringing any and all of the spark to the film (subsequently I'm assuming Kidman signed on for some sort of indie cred - though I'm not sure appearing all but mute in a film where the dialogue is the best part really qualifies).

Storytelling is divided into two equally flawed parts. While "Fiction" tells the story of perception versus reality by playing the race card in a demented mentor/student relationship, "Non-Fiction" purports to sell us a reality that is all perception via a documentation who exploits the idiosyncrasies of a wealthy Jewish family to compensate for his own shortcomings. Solondz, using absolutely no  universal observation (of Welcome to the Dollhouse) or sympathy (of Happiness), instead gives us a rather forced complexity in both sections, a complexity, I'll submit, that he's more interested in explaining to death through a series of hollow characters than fleshing out. "Fiction" (with a graphic rape) and "Non-Fiction" (with a devastating twist) each equate to jumbled short films, both of which contain too many different shades of comedy and drama to fully realize upon which end of the satire spectrum they might fall. The editing feels excessive, as if long passages or large chunks of both story and character were excised in a cruel experiment to see if a finished film will retain coherence when butchered. It works - the film is coherent - but it also feels blurry, as if the center of Solondz's messager were sacrificed. I didn't find myself laughing as much at Solondz's bizarro everybody's-a-pervert-at-heart social landscape, nor did I find myself laughing all that much at his little touches (save the youngest member of the Jewish family, who hypnotizes his father into, among other things, firing the family maid). The performances are so perfunctory, that it's almost a chore to watch solids like Goodman and Giamatti try (usually in vain) to push beyond their roles as Solondz's puppets. For issues such as racism, professional manipulation and artistic license, more humanity is necessary. Even the brilliant score, by Belle & Sebastian, seems like it's missing by a half.

A rolling absurdity gathers much camp. A wiggly cross saved is a wiggly cross earned. Never look a parakeet in the mouth. Don't snicker at miracles. (Alright, I made that last one up). Costner's performance in Dragonfly suits the absolutely laughable, narrow misadventures which befall him, including, but not limited to: corpses grabbing his arm, children's eyes popping open like headlights, gifts which unwrap themselves, and, putting up with Kathy Bates' insincerity (which is, by the way, kinda out of place). I was willing to laugh through most of it: it's never more than expensive TV Drama with no attempt made to disguise how outlandish and goopy it's being. But when you see what happens in the last five minutes, you'll agree - this is no laughing matter. This is a warn everybody you know matter.

Conservatively not stinking of any particular charm, as Disney tends to, The Rookie is also more personal and genuinely moving than any Disney movie really ought to have the right to be (save for any that feature a disadvantaged boy fighting a life-threatening illness, that is). Quaid, is stony-faced Jim Morris, who overcomes insurmountable odds to reach personal highs he never thought...alright, there's still a fair amount of grandstanding, but the manageable kind; uncontrollable smiling that makes you happy - not angry. It's also, in a lot of ways, a quieter, less agenda-driven family film than we've been privy to of late. We assume Disney can recruit any actor they want (with their reputation and pocketbook), but Quaid is a particularly good choice, putting his own, confidant and tortured spin on the preceedings. He alone seems to guide The Rookie (on a number of occasions) from manipulative to interesting - and, in the end, he sells us his storyy; which has little or no distraction (this is a simple, kid-friendly interpretation). The whole thing smacks of an earnestness it flat-out earns, and a lack of style that, refreshingly, puts the focus on a rather pleasing trajectory.

Not a shred of this is believable - or suspenseful; the mechanized prowess of the dialogue betrays any attempt the actors may (Freeman) or may not (Judd) be making to transcend its hokiness. The entire movie is pretty much a montage of people trading sensitive information for, among other things, a lot of bruises. Without sounding coy, any audience member who has seen a film in the last three years will be able to see High Crimes' twist coming even before we're shown a Rashomon-esque memory of the driving event in the film: the murder of nine innocents in El Salvador. Dozens of films are starting to look and feel like a thin riff on this haphazard, cinematic rug pulling. The only thing worth checking out in the film is Jim Caveziel's polygraph test (and the subsequent documentary on beating a polygraph test that's featured on the DVD). Even Morgan Freeman's excessive use of the term "wild card" and his heroic, third act leap from the wagon add to the annoyance of this two hour cliche. Had I paid to see this third-rate straight-to-video quality thriller in the theater, it would easily have received an F.

Almost succeeds in the impossible, namely, making skateboarding seem like an art form (as opposed to an attitudinal monotony posing as a sport). The key is linking it to surfing, which Peralta does before playing up the ego of his Zephyrs, a street gang posing as a skateboarding/surf team. The multi-media technique attempted isn't effective or worthwhile until far too late in the film; initially, the filmmakers appear to be attempting to three-card-monte their three or four sources in an effort to make them appear to look like dozens. The spinning swirls and quick zooms on photographs are kinda idiotic at first (if you have 16 mm footage, why not use it?), but later, when the home movies begin devolving in agonizing similarity, the goofy photo camerawork begins to jive with the badass verve of the whole scene (much like all the scattershot weirdness of the clip choices and editing in Julien Temple's The Filth and the Fury). Dogtown and Z-Boys isn't as endlessly fascinating as its mojo would suggest, and, at one point, emerges from nowhere with a supposedly haunting dissolve to black that flat out doesn't work (former champion Jay Adams divulges some regrets - leaving out the fact that he's in jail - and then does that quiet head turn you frequently see documentary subjects do). The structure may feel accidental, but, in its own way, by spotlighting this one, tiny movement, Dogtown and Z-Boys creates a metonymy that's worth exploring (especially if you've always wondered why so many people engage in this "sport"). Sean Penn's narration adds nothing more than a cool voice in the background (virtually everything he says feels unnecessary and (or) redundant). It's a sixty minute film trapped in a ninety minute running time, but also, it's Longhair Jr.'s wearing Vans, scraping up and down the sides of paint-chipped backyard pools; it's infectious because it's kids having a blast.

Opening as few sequels do these days, Blade 2 re-iterates all the facts pertaining to its characters and other necessary elements of the previous film.. Examining this, one might assume this information essential to enjoying the second film. Not so. In point of fact, this information seems to be presented in order that we, as an audience, may become horribly confused. In fact, it's the only sequence in the film that makes perfect sense - others ranging from muddled to absolutely nonsensical (Vampires starting a virus to create a super-race of ...vampires - - - or something). Rarely do the factss enacted in the original Blade jive with what goes on here. Those moments of clarity when I could understand what was going on, seemed to serve only as contradiction to what makes Blade (Snipes) tick. Snipes seems to dip in and out of character, most shamelessly when half-romancing the wooden Leanor Valera. Kristofferson climbs back aboard via a dimwitted and simple rescue mission (we wonder why he wasn't rescued this easily any other time in the three years he was the Vampires' prisoner). He seems to exist only to dispense foul-mouthed insults at Blade's stand-in mechanic. Unable to conform to any sort of consistency, Goyer seems to have written an unofficial sequel, the kind that's usually released decades later and takes the sort of liberties with the characters which are taken here. Unfortunately, these liberties serve only as excuse to, sadly (as usual), give Blade and Co. cause to fight with Vampires and a new strain, called Reapers (bald and pale like the Tuners in Dark City with an unfolding mouth and long tongue, which seem suspiciously, as ever, like the ones in the Alien films). The action sequences are heavily digitized - but for no particular purpose, it seems. Mostly, the martial arts move too fast and look too run-of-the-mill to raise a pulse (as per the Action Film Act #14593 (void where prohibited), there is the requisite bumpin' techno music).  There are some sharp, beautiful contrasts between oranges and blues. An aged vampire descends, coat lapels trailing behind him, into a blood-filled jacuzzi. Rain pummels a smoky, cramped van. Images. As in his previous Hollywood venture (Mimic) Guillermo Del Toro seems hell-bent on creating as many dark, underground settings as possible and doing absolutely nothing interesting in them.

It's entertaining, sure - but what a mess. From the opening frames of this great-grandson of H.G. Wells-directed mini-epic, director Wells (or, whomever: Verbinski finished the film, from what I've heard) stages everything as if he's George Lucas: beginnings and endings are the only thing that are important, nothing needs progression beyond a passing glance and everything should be played for ba-ba-boom! It's Pearce who ends up suffering the consequences, never sure if he's involved in a science fiction movie (where he'd be required to camp it up), a moving existentialist drama (where he'd have to get all stern and tortured) or an action movie (where he'd yell and be his usual cocky self). His performance, a rambling one, isn't all his fault. The trouble here is how short the movie feels; ninety minutes feels like an awful rush; every act feels incomplete. The movie should've been three hours or equivalent in order to flesh its admittedly lofty themes out. The effects are competent (Orlando Jones as a visual aid is interesting, the time machine itself looks like it was ordered out of a Time Machine Catalog and the sets and props have an interesting clean and stagy look). The makeup, on the other hand, is laughable: The Morlocks look like Halloween costumes or WB action series leftovers (you choose) and Jeremy Irons looks like Count Dracula with a long brain for a ponytail and exposed Alien-esque spinal column. Movie is a often a gas because it's so ramrod and gung-ho, but, ultimately, after Irons delivers his big third act speech, everything becomes so clumsy and empty, it's impossible to turn it off without feeling unsatisfied. It's less about time travel and man's place in time than about ba-ba-boom!

(I'm legally bound to use the phrase ba-ba-boom at least three times in this review. Contact my lawyer at...)

Lot of curiously wide open spaces, brazen lack of character development that feels purposeful, a snappy opening - and the structure still feels stunted by the repetition of walk-battle-conflict-kill (the video game curse). Jovovich looks more like a video game character come to life than Angelina Jolie did in Tomb Raider (Unlike that film's director, Simon West, Anderson sees more horror than action in the idea of video games as mass murder). Points are muddled and mired in the slew of cliched action set pieces, which hold the horror at bay far too long and far too often. Still, this film has certain tinges that recall the techniques of Anderson's ultra-scary Event Horizon and, as one of four of that film's fans - that excites me a little bit. A little British girl, who acts as voice to the mega-computer which runs the Underground research facility "The Hive", deals out fate, on more than one occasion, with such a disturbing sincerity; she's scarier than the inside-out dog or the barrage of bloodsoaked zombies. And the touch of camp, the tightened settings and number of unsettling images, make Resident Evil (whose dialogue and storyline are preposterous to a failing) a tolerable curiosity piece.

Why is Aaron Eckhart not yet a star? Seen here wooing Gwyneth Paltrow, he drags his half-shaven lack of confidence to a spotlight and makes it come alive with charm. LaBute keeps the intertwined stories twisting naturally into one another (rather than being regimented, equal allotments); the film never feels like two stories, but rather, works more competently as one, wherein the 1859 affair is, in fact, merely a flashback that holds an enormous resonance in the modern day courtship. Refreshing as well is the way studying such a dry and sexually repressed (at least on paper) has left both Eckhart - who hints at his sordid past as if he believes he is one of a poet from the 1850's - and Paltrow - who carries on like the ice princess of the parlor, whose hostility towards men is acknowledged, but seen right through. Alternately, the story of Randolph Ash (Northam) and Kristina La Motte (Ehle) is full of adultery, bisexuality and suicide. (Though, according to one critic, apparently this is the case in nearly every dusty costume epic since The French Lieutenant's Woman - which is a weak, arguably unfounded alllegation). By playing up the ironic reversal of these to polar-opposite time periods and keeping the focus on the modern-day, LaBute creates a much more fathomable romance in the present, which Eckhart and Paltrow model after their own aggrandized version of the classical affair. The politics - behind the discovery of the letters which these poets wrote to each other - are run by a varied menagerie of greedy research assistants, greedier teaching assistants, careless secretaries and, both ruthless and has-been professors. Chasing after the letters, the intrigue is unique - though too often played for light comedy. Paltrow starts out in ice mode, which is rarely believable (you have to warm to how little she resembles an aggressively presumptious feminist AND how questionable her British accent is, all at the same time). Nevertheless, Possession is inherently satisfying; a remarkably successful turn of tameness for LaBute, who is an elegant filmmaker, but more profound as a writer. That Labute did not adapt A.S. Byatt's Possession is felt in the sourmouth inducing Harlequin fluffiness that sneaks into the tone far too often.

Impossibly forgettable image reversal fantasy. Never consistently funny, but badly directed; from the pat, music-guided storytelling to little things like how ridiculously insulting it is when an audience is asked to believe that the hero's good fortune isn't betrayed by his nerdish asides, which happen after every freak occurence of cool, always in front of the unaware, and never to any effect. It's as if every actor carries the script in their hands, reading it aloud, and we're supposed to buy their respective characters. The casual appearances of cheerleaders leads to a rather obvious series of compromised positions (one date consists of Dushku modeling swimwear for Qualls, another finds her wearing a bandana as a shirt to work - you get the idea). And that brings us to our lead player. You'll remember that in Road Trip, DJ Qualls played a skinny weakling who had his waffles dipped in a vindictive cook's underwear and later exposes a fetish for heavy set African-American women. His eerie, raised in the backwoods look fits perfectly with all-out wackiness. In The New Guy, his goal is to be an ordinary guy. In other words, it requires acting. Which is probably why they chose the no-talent Lyle Lovett as his pop. Like father, like son.*

[ * - "and other cliches..." ]>

So, anyway, there's these replicants which can retain all human qualities - even emotional relationships - and don't know they're a bomb until they....? And this is where I'm a little fuzzy. No problem, though, the filmmakers made Impostor in the Battlefield Earth film making workshop, keeping the story's important facts concealed (even at the end), using a laughably obvious character development stage (which is far too short and far too uneven to actually develop a character) and above all, dozens and dozens of diagonal shots. It's played as The Fugitive meets Gattaca, but ends up looking more like The Sixth Day (or, if you like, a slightly better version of Minority Report). I know they keep using Philip K. Dick as source material - I'm just not sure why. All of his films seem to float around the boring-as-a-dog's-butt idea of beings which pretend to be us, but are really just technologically advanced copies of us. Sinise and Stowe are fine, but rarely display much more than a paper intensity. D'Onfrio, on the other hand, bored with his being typecast as the borderline pscyhotic guy (in this case, a cop) appears to be channeling John Malkovich. Again. Impostor (which was originally set to be released 12/25/00, but was pushed back for a number of reasons - one of which was probably how bad it was), lacks the meat to make its premise interesting - and I think I know why - and I'm still unsure why the producers would include, on the DVD, a tighter, much less goofy version of the film (it contains no references to an underground network of surgeons, Mehki Phifer's token black thug characters is no longer in the film and a rather large chunk of the long, boring chases through a fallen city seen through a tilted glance have been removed). It's listed as "The Original Short Film". Sixty-six minutes shorter, it no longer has a bunch of scenes that look like obvious re-shoots - but it's still about as successful as directing one's gaze by mispelling the title (anyone with a genuine explanation may step forward, all else, join me on the platform for cocktails and snubbing).

I'm tempted to grant a higher mark to this film, and most of the review itself acts as a confessional: past the eye candy veneer, what's remarkable about a film like Crossroads is that it can defy my expectations so wildly  and still have a scene where characters say "Of Course! We'll enter that Karaoke contest to fund the rest of our sordid road trip!". Impressive also is how tirelessly the film works to keep the three friends in the foreground and avoid peppering the film with assorted wackos met across the country (which absolves you, the reader, from hearing yet another long diatribe about road movies. Read on, though, I'm considering adding a long rant about how silly Dan Ackroyd looks trying to play Britney Spears' father). Lucy is an electric presence, and gloriously ordinary at times - playing a character almost without the paradoxically slutty virgin persona her alter ego Britney peddles. Most of the actual substance of the film works out pretty much how you'd expect it to (come to think of it, there isn't a surprising moment to speak of in the film - save Britney almost (sic) sleeping witth her nerdy lab partner inside ten minutes). The Girl Power! is infecting; long, constant scenes of the girls singing and laughing ensue, especially in the car, (but, especially when a male vocalist jumps in on a Melissa Etheridge tune you pretty much expect to be played before film's end). Britney's love affair with Ben, the older guy who did some time in jail, isn't understated exactly and their relationship has its ridiculous spots. There are no genuinely tender moments in the film. Crossroads echoes Britney's music: annoyingly simple, long periods of repetition and reverse Oedipal complex dressed up as raw sexuality (alright, that last one is a major stretch). Amazingly, her acting just manages to set her apart from it; Britney escapes unscathed. (And yes, there are plenty of opportunities for her to sing - this was clearly a vehicle for someone with a voice. Too bad LeAnne Rimes didn't demand Piper Perabo's role in Coyote Ugly. I might have hated it less.)