A perfect vehicle for Glover, an actor I've sorely missed. The opening ten minutes or so are almost Lynchian (with Glover being called without introduction by his aging - to put it lightly - mother to the duty of the basement rats), and they open into a story line that's unfortunately not milked hard enough for its flights of fancy, instead grounding the film in the same cinematic transcendence of television that we came to expect from The X-Files (Glen Morgan was a former writer on the show). Simplistic to a fault - most notably leaving Harring with nothing to do but stand around and look gorgeous - Willard could have done with more Tim Burton/Matilda (read: arty) shocks than the obvious leaning it has towards complete and utter camp. There are genuinely disturbing moments (Glover instructing the rats to "Tear it!", "Tear it!" in several scene is particularly chilling), and a solid, thankless performance by Ermey - whose role is closer to his role as a DI in Full Metal Jacket than he's been in forever (or at least since he reprised it in The Frighteners). All in all, a superb choice for a Friday night at the run-down local theater, where unforgiving packs of teenagers roam free. Loudly.

Best popcorn movie since Signs. Every character does pretty much one variation on their idiosyncracy before they predictably overcome their faults - no matter how villainous. The beauty lies in the cast - hiring Eckhart, Swank, Tucci, Lindo, Woodard, Karyo, Qualls, Greenwood and Jenkins pays off big time, allowing these actors, a number of them somewhat distinguished, to look like they're having a good time. The feeling rubs off on the audience in ways I couldn't have begun to expect and, in this context, can't begin to explain. Everything scientific is so hypothetical, the special effects play as if found in a Cracker Jack box (alongside their Christian Apocalypse Thriller prototypes), and all the excitement feels so purposefully disposable, so undeniably fun, you can't help but cheer as things get dumber and dumber as this "team" gets closer and closer to the center of the earth. If Bruckheimer's disaster film was a Mercedes, surely Amiel's is a Kia.

Dude. I'll take the Kia.

Hypnotic, often photographically superior to National Geographic by a country mile, but rarely structured with any coherence. More like a wondrous festival of raw birdy footage; Albeit, the scenario of Perrin's filmed world is taken from the rods and cones of childrens eyes; His thrilling cinematography bears the same youngsters' wonder felt flowing out of his 1996 masterwork Microcosmos. Here, the drama of the bird world feels a little more like a reach, with the music, though pretty, relied on to do most of the stretching. Eventually, what stays with us is the curiousity of the level shots that seem to stay parallel with the birds, and the sheer vastness, in one scene, of penguins. Too often, the photography seems to be numbing us with similarities and repetitions, as if either showing off the chops of these frames or, worse, lumping too much of the material together to discern (which results in an eventual zone out, as if your mind is sending an auto-response to the film that's trying to interact with it).

So suspenseful, so funny, so full of little bits of luck, but it never taps into the spelling bee subculture it seems to be feeling around for. The xylophone/synthesizer music mix is somehow obviously beneath the film and telling these American Heartland Stories is rarely more than a mask for out-and-out hilarity at the expense (?) of the trusting subject. Still, it's just plain gripping. It looks like mud, for some reason [explained by producer as amateur-itis], which just further enunciates the sentiment that the raw, natural drama of watching as someone scramble - in their mind - to make the pieces fit and choose the right letters is not as ho-hum as you'd expect and, Jesus, quite the contrary: Like most great documentaries, the art of it isn't in the filmmaking or even the editing, but instead, is in the choice of subject and participants.

I'd say it were an intriguing idea, perhaps even launch into a tyrade wherein I accuse the studio of dressing up and beating to death a terrific premise (originally penned by the almighty James Ellroy) - if only the whole thing didn't feel likee it were melded together using successful characters, themes and incidents from other, better films. (Kind of like the subplot in L.A. Confidential - the novel, mind - where the guy builds a sort of Frankensttein from little bits of dead people). Doesn't help that Kurt Russell (every casting agent's 5th choice after B-actors and unknowns) leads an almost universally miscast set of actors (Rhames is off the hook) and, for some reason, is directed by Ron Shelton. (I kept waiting for the L.A. Riots to become a sporty metaphor for a long dormant love, and for someone to win the big game, or burn down the biggest store, or, you know, something that would warrant the necessity of Shelton's presence here). Patience turns out to be our primary reaction to most of this cold, cartoonish film; It continually drag its feet in cornering the actual Event and drawing from it a tangible parallel to the personal story of police corruption on the force. Mostly, though, its Russell playing Corrupt Cop/Wet Behind the Ears Cop with Dash Minock (acting as aptly as he's named), a parlor trick that echoes far too specifically co-writer David Ayer's previous success with Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke in Training Day (This is so blatantly obvious, it's likely even that folks who haven't seen that film will be having L.A. deja vu). Plot pieces/themes range from spot-on concurrent with L.A. Confidential, to somewhere in the pool of The Corruptor and Snake Eyes (obsession over a massacre that's merely the last in a string of cover-ups leading to a marginally larger conspiracy; older cop being set up and choosing redemption; the good cop being punished even after doing the right thing, respectively). When we finally get to the riots, they're merely a wash of scattershot looting and video game-looking crooks banging on Kurt Russell's car - which is fitting: Dark Blue is so stale that it leaves a disturbed, sick feeling in you without actually making any clear points about corruption, racism or any of the umpteen other modern, social troubles it bites off without chewing . If they were going to take such a loss on this one, perhaps MGM/UA (in association with Intermedia, the same lunkheads who brought us the vastly superior, similarly over-the-top 15 Minutes) could've just let Ellroy pen the script and direct the damn thing himself. At least his characters would've sounded somewhat cool.

It's a Jackie Chan movie without Jackie Chan (pause to let sink in); Ultimately, the American star (Sean William Scott) is leaps and bounds more charming than his Asian sensai-of-sorts (Chow Yun-Fat, whose broken English gives him a dud charge that's - for sure - not his fault); And - sweet Jesus - it's one of the definitive examples of why models really oughta stick to lookin' pretty (though you gotta admit, the chick fight between sleepy-faced James King and sexy-for-pushing-forty Allison Doody doesn't exactly require a Master's in method acting from Juliard on either count). Still reeling that the villain had a device that could extrapolate and - via computer - analyze his prisoners' minds. It's something I've come to expect, though, in this off-shoot genre of the buddy comedy and the kung fu larf - - - though I didn't expect that there would still be room to make the villain a Nazi whose fake secret-service henchman are scouring the earth for a scroll which has the power to grant ever lasting life. If this weren't based upon a comic book - and if it weren't halfway entertaining - I'd certainly begin the preceedings on an inquiry of my own: Is this an aborted script for Indiana Jones IV that somebody desperately didn't want to see go to waste?

A rather good heist film (prime feature is how successful it is, much like Ocean's Eleven, at distracting the audience with sleight-of-hand); Nolte is absolutely smashing, rattling off the philosophy of gambling with smooth, world-weary charm - the kind we go to the movies to see; Supporting cast is particularly good, and Jordan's clearly having a ball; Only complaint is that the whole thing seems to dispose of itself - a side effect, I think, of how wonderfully overboard Jordan goes to ensure that we see Nolte's thief as good at heart (which is sabotaged by the watchful eye of morality, one that doesn't exactly keep in the company of an assorted gallery of rogues - some cartoonish (a trans-sexual body builder), some just wierd (twin security guards), none given nearly as much judgement as Nolte, who seems to be proving his worth in every other scene (that it is disguised, mostly, with wit and vigor, is a terrific lemonade-from-life's-lemons portrait); Ralph Fiennes' uncredited cameo as a vicious art dealer almost exempts him from "the list" he found himself on, here in my head, after appearing in Maid in Manhattan (which - damn it - I'm going to end up seeing, iff my wife has her way).

Characters feel more fun - the cleverness of each and every unique move or talent squeezed guiltily - yet satisfyingly - for a very quick-paced romp in Hollywood's "safe blockbuster" garden. Film delivers its twisty formulas with the kind of crackling energy that was missing in much of the first film (on the other hand, this one never reaches the surprisingly dignified/subtle drama of the first film's opening act). It turns out, these movies should probably have Ian McKellan's Magneto as their main character instead of Hugh Jackman's moody Wolverine (just to - if you'll pardon the irony - lighten things the fuck up). Still, valiantly exasperating time at the movie house.

Remember in the first film when you could follow what was going on? Wasn't that something? That courtesy is anything but extended here in the current installment of mega-mainstream dystopia. Set largely in the Battlefield Earth-approved caves and corroded sewers of the (machine run?!) city of Zion , The Matrix Reloaded devotes a lot of wasted time trying (in earnest) to ground the emotional connections of its popular characters, but ultimately presents the formerly badass heroes and villains as a group of clones actively failing Human Attributes 101 (Man that was corn-y; Mercy!). While it flounders in the techno-Prehistoria of the not-too-distant-future, we sit in nerve-wracking suspense, waiting with bated breath for those terrific jolts of techno-kung-fu-slow-mo-Ka-Blooey! (To little avail, alas, as endless scenes of reiteration and bewildering references to plot points both foreign and arcane are a flat-out chore to sit through, and almost entirely dominate the first couple of reels). Any true delight in these Pyrotechnical bruise sessions is fleeting; A more fitting example of the action genre's assimilation of the video game culture into itself would be hard to find; So thoroughly does the film's heavily digitized aggression choreography leave the viewer feeling impatient, we almost get the sensation that we're waiting for a controller-dominant buddy to pass the joystick so we can have a go at it. To make matters worse, the filmmakers have also burrowed rather deeply into another popular cinematic parallel: The music video. Obviously, I could draw a corresponding line from the slow-motion sex/fight/dream/extended dance sequences' snappy editing to the more fitting equivalent, i.e. the (M)TV-esque lack of direction given to the actors. The stilted, dissatisfying flavor in most of the performances is just one in an exceedingly long list of liabilities that can be written off to the twin directors, who've never been all that interested in their thespians - Bound included (And for the recorrd, I said thespians). The greater issue at hand is how tedious the already established characters appear as written, constantly spewing lines of dialogue that sound nearly identical (in word and form) to those in the first film; Worse still are the characterizations which ride the same all-quippy-all-declarative-(all-laughable) vociferousness that defined Morpheous, Trinity, Neo and Agent Smith four years (and some change) ago. (The new free-minders (and mind controllers), of which there are a boatload, all seem to ape the woodenness of the principles, as if climbing on the don't-upstage-the-expensive-slash-precious-slash-did I mention expensive?-backgrounds bandwagon). What's unnerving about these derivative automatons is how their matched by the replacement of the formerly awe aspiring world - in classic sequel form - with a completely new environment that would qualify as anachronistic (to the first film, that is) if it weren't so consistently bloated with alternating drab and posh settings, each with its own, independent context. So, instead of grounding itself, it becomes horribly episodic; With each sequence, you'll grow increasingly eager for the climactic (and ironically rejuvenating) fourteen minute highway chase which provides the film's sole fresh morsel. (I'm including the exhausting dry hump of both the "Neo vs. 100 Agent Smiths' fight" and the "Stairwell/mixed weapons battle", which fall under the aforementioned Playstation Burnout category). But these rather small observations are tiny, drop-in-the-bucket quibbles which barely begin to think of registering in the shadow of the film's primary, driving defect, namely, its casual, progressively looming incoherence. Clearly structured as an epic (but released as barely half of one), The Matrix Reloaded moves very...very...slowly (to...say...the...least.) Even more discomforting is the way the Wachowski's have arranged most of the scenes in the film in an almost arbitrary manner (I make comparison to BS Johnson's experimental novel The Unfortunates, which comes complete with bound sections of printed material which are meant to be read in random order). By the end, I was so confused with the rambling, seemingly rule less universe that is The Matrix (and had, with such tenacity, given up trying to sort it out) that, in the end, I couldn't help but voice an in-a-nutshell retort to the a whining audience, who were confoundingly tortured by the inevitably preposterous cliffhanger. How did they comprehend its wobbly chain of events? How could they have possibly understood enough of this film to cull even a smidgen of trepidation? I didn't forget to study! I watched the first film just the day before!

[Ad note: It is now official. A film is no longer needed, only a marketing campaign. The Matrix Reloaded proves, without question, that a studio need not have a stellar hand as long as its poker face is intact. As ever: Over saturate, Create awareness, Saturate further, Open on a billion screens and Commence saturation. A quality experience is not necessary. Warner Bro$. in association with Village Road$how and Joel $ilver thank you for playing.]

Occasionally mega-satisfying, always giddily bawdified battle-of-the-sexes type fluff; It's often more send-up than recreation of Doris Day-recognized period larfs. Both principles utilize their maximum charm range - McGregor on an ever improving slant as far as the obligatory comparison with achingly similar roles-to-date, while Zelwegger seems to be treading just below progression; It's Hyde Pierce who steals the show, though, creating a joltingly fresh riff on the neurotically bumbling-square-as-best-friend role, subsequently leaving the bare minimum in breathing room when he and McGregor begin volleying the rapid fire quips at one another. Big second act "revelation" notwithstanding (it seems to sit there, dead on the screen, even if you know there's a great deal of running time remaining), Reed's film is ultimately a triumph of clever plotting, too, alternately evoking the grand old tradition of the screwball comedy (though Down With Love's flat slapstick and blunt period reference sometimes ring clumbsily modern), and the ludicrously simple resolution of the most complicated of muddles which we associate with the guilty snack of the forthcoming sitcom boom. A perfect antidote to the loud, bloated zilch that's no doubt playing in the auditoriums on both sides - and directly across - from it.

Effortlessly charming, if occasionally minus a speck of artistry (both aspects courtesy of Moskowitz, himself an extremely outgoing political ad director); Moskowitz's incidental participation - unlike the forced necessity of showmen like Nick Broomfield and Michael Moore - reminded me of the casual Ross McElwee, the director of 1993's Time Indefinite, a movie about a slightly more profound search.What I liked more than its occasionally fudged, carefully exhaustive long lost tome hunt, was the feeling that Moskowitz and his unending parade of literary critics, authors and creative writing teachers were equal to something more than their sum or their parts - that is, the genuine passion for the specific books they exhibit and their unselfish interest in promoting the fetish they so deliciously indulge themselves. Case in point (and big relief for the guy who was struggling to remember title after title, hoping to retain even one or two): The end credits contain a list of all the books discussed and (or) pictured in the film. Stone Reader never blossoms into anything more than a (sometimes too long) commercial for the benefits of a healthy reading habit, but it's open dialogue with us - the audience - makes it far too engaging to feel condesscended by (though you'll feel poorly read to say the least); I won't comment on the central force of the film - namely, the search for The Stones of Summer scribe Dow Mossman - because the actual journey is much like a good novel and ruining the ending is something I've found gets your punched in the face sometimes.

When will Tom Shadyac stop the hurting? Inherently forgettable from the first frame to the last, with funny bits occasionally fudged for "momentum". It's an even more shamelessly crafted delivery device for Carrey's one-man laugh-in than Liar, Liar. Bruce Almighty has the same paltry fixings at center (precious little attention or care is given to the central story line), probably wrought in an (admittedly founded) expectation that any sort of narrative would take a back seat to the movie's obvious (and usually worthwhile) selling point: Namely, Jim Carrey's explosive diarrhea of creative jokesterism. Because of our secure confidence that sappiness is on the way - and boy howdy it is - we are distracted from the comedy, thereby tainting the film's sole pleasure. Even when Carrey is so unbelievably, irrevocably on (and it happens big time in his flip-out-on-live-TV scene), the movie is still never more than paradox: How are decent, hardworking cynics like ourselves supposed to howl with laughter at a film that mixes gross out humor with not-so-subtle Christian undertones? Burping and farting in church aren't among the least funny things I've encountered - but they don't rank very high if you're over fourteen.

While The Great Al Pacino quick pimps his grizzled bark, it's all the steel wool eyed Farrell can do to not look embarrassed for him. Twists itself dizzy without ever leaving the ground. I think my biggest problem with it was how much effort went in to displaying the filmmakers' research on the CIA and how little time was spent cooking up a story we'd ever - in a million years - believe. Our suspicion makes the CIA of the film seem ankle deep, leaving plenty of room for the focus to shift to a cat and mouse/tag-you're-it/red herring/tete-a-tete/thrill-a-minute/is-it-or-isn't-it?/con game that's not worth the secret files its constantly sorta-but-not-really following. (So, it's wishy-washy.) Another entry in the recent rise of CIA-themed "thrillers" (The Bourne Identity, Bad Company), all films with good meaning "dumb entertainment" value, the best of which is Spy Game (which is not a good sign). I think we had more luck with the FBI, movie dudes.

Love Liza is quintessentially idie - which is another way to say that it's really rather bad. Laughing at a film that fails so miserably to blend its corroded bleakness-as-healing with off-the-wall, black "humor" is practically a no-brainer. An unwavering good sport, Philip Seymour Hoffman looks like he regrets being cast in this film, as if it were part of some sort of plea bargained community service. And given that, it's a miracle that he's actually quite good in it, too; The same cannot be said for his counterpart, Kathy Bates, who comes off of her superb turn in About Schmidt with what appears to be a heavy dose of non-direction (she's playing what appears to be a borderline non-character, at that). Luiso doesn't seem to know where he's steering the film - and its a safe bet that if we asked him about that, he would tell us "that [it's] the characters steer the film" (bad idea). But, if you were in the market for a film that, for a stretch of thirty minutes (at least), contains nothing more than Hoffman moping around his house, huffing gasoline - you're found your match. I'm going to goo back to the hunt for substance.

Finding Nemo opens with another Bambi-esque death which provides the foundation for a brilliant sense of self-parody, in which it appears to be mocking the very idea of grafting suburban culture onto an underwater world. Unfortunately, the long odyssey which follows gives way to a disappointingl, Pixar-for-the-course sorta vibe: No shrill surprises, no hoops of fire, just the mere presence of consistent - if monotonously unceremonious - quality. It dawns on you, as the startlingly familiar journey of two fish (on a rescue mission to boot) unfolds, that the smoothly elapsing narrative is starting - after four films - to play  more like a bunch of empty boxes carefully being filled with check marks; It retainins the recognizable elements which were successful in the past. Neither the spring-loaded, neverending charm of the Toy Story movies or the out-and-out inventiveness of Monsters, Inc. lingers on Finding Nemo, whose place in the categorically impressive features from the Disney-based animation studio stands closer to the safe, child-friendly (not child-at-heart) perkiness of A Bug's Life - itself the weakest entry in the running. Brooks' and Degeneres' banter keeps the spark snapping in the sagging love-handles of about the same ten bloated minutes that should've been trimmed, mid-movie, from Monsters, Inc (somewhere between one too many similar bumps in the road - and the inevitable impossibility we cherish as the heroes put their strife safely behind them. Inevitably, then, we abandon hope that a new spin on the genre could be in the cards, and we start looking for the bizarre. Lo and behold, then, the best sequences take place in a dentist's office, where the title character has been transplanted to a soothing, exotic fish aquarium, which turns out to be a segue for his real purpose: The rough gripped plastic bag, held (and shaken) by the dentist's niece, who is known to Nemo's tank buddies as "a fish killer". Not bad, exactly - but you can see the wheels spinning in place far too often.

The quietest farce you may ever see; Kaurismaki's direction is spot-on, and the film feels like a vision heavily influenced by Yasushiro Ozu, while Markku Peltola's performance feels like a funnier, more tobacco-obsessed Takeshi Kitano. Looks more Technicolor than even Far From Heaven did, but the old-fashioned flavor doesn't end there. We giddily watch as the main character pursues a romance with a Salvation Army worker, turns a religious band on to rockability and rediscovers his career as a welder. There's a very relaxed simplicity to every event in the film, which we notice right away, as scenes that would ordinarily - in other films - take long set-ups and extra lines, are often cranked out through one, wordless camera angle. The Man Without a Past is clever - but mostly, it's snare drum tight: It's a film that eschews filler. Kaurismaki is clearly dedicated to the power of mise-en-scene - which makes it an added bonus that his dryly funny dialogue, even as subjugated by subtitles, works terrifically - better than any foreign film in recent memory.

A Butcher Boy retread, purported to be scraped from the inside of a deranged mind but which, instead, finds its methodic schizophrenia profile usurped by its own structure, and blasted by irritatingly slight lift-the-veil storytelling. This leaves the film to play as if weighted by substance pre-packaged to be dismissed merely as a nutsy fever dream. The vastness Cronenberg and Fiennes invest in Mr. Cleg make the so-called crescendo of the piece unattainable practically by definition. I love the nuts and bolts of the potent central performance, but the exhilaration and transforming quality of it make it so overbearing, it eventually undermines its own end. (However - I defy audiences not to carry out of the theater with them the urgent need to behave with a fabricated, nervous tic). Fiennes is never anything less than completely and utterly stunning, always just south of unbearably bizarre, effortlessly eliciting pity for the most mundane of actions. It's probably Cronenberg's biggest success to date with an ensemble of actors; The entire cast, thick with lip smacking, cockney east end brogues - Gabriel Byrne, Miranda Richardson, Lynn Redgrave and John Neville (among others) - demonstrate the exact energy of the director's usual peculiarities, sometimes in ways that (thank God) surmount the material ("Brilliant. It couldn't have gone anywhere else. Just brilliant," Neville says as Fiennes carefully fits a piece into a jigsaw puzzle.) Performances recommend it, to be sure, as long as you don't inflate your expectations with Amy Taubin's "ten best ever" hot air.

I take hard objection to the film's celebration of characters whose actions are just absolutely reprehensible and completely in contempt of what I perceive to be a reasonable understanding of capital punishment, but on the other hand, few movies have the right to be this entertaining (in a slick, political thriller context, mind), and I'd be lying if I didn't plead absolute guilt to having been thinking about the damn movie since I watched it. Guilt.

[I'll just come right out and say it: Laura Linney killing herself to help Kevin Spacey get executed (for her murder) so he can prove to the Governor of Texas that he knows at least one innocent person who was executed could play better if it were a sick joke. Instead, the film is absolutely nothing if not entirely grave. Once more, to support abolishing the death penalty (where people are killed) by killing oneself and allowing oneself to be executed (respectively), these two down-on-their-luck, liberal whiners achieve little more than the ultimate prank: Killing themselves in the name of ceasing to kill people. This doesn't make a lick of sense. The twisty mechanics of the storyline may keep us interested (and the strangely brutal nature to nearly every event in the film certainly keeps the film feeling like a edgy, politically charged crime drama) - - - but, honestly, we're talking some shrill hokum, here, gang.]

[And in case you're wondering - Yes - I'm completely and utterly against the death penalty (as the mixed-up genius who wrote this film blatantly pretends to be). I hold with Nick Broomfield: "The violence of taking a life remains the same whether it is legally sanctioned or not. It introduces murder into our vocabulary of behavior".]

The most un-self conscious Intacto gets is when, as it begins to divulge its own unique rules, it squarely, brilliantly, eschews batting it's eye (In other words, the exposition is all story - but its up to you to spot just how in the hell any of it could possibly (under any circumstances whatsoever) make logical sense). I feel dirty writing anything that might betray its particulars; Relishing in this exotic world's masterful weave is pretty much all the fun - and my gosh, what fun it is (what's especially refreshing is that this world seems ripe for a supremely dumb metaphor that it never offends us by stating). Yeah, the not-so-great idea to include the cop subplot never really washes off - but it also never sells the concept (as a whole) out. (Which is not to say that Intacto - a film of varying intellectual rigor - iis merely an art project; On the contrary - the film actually seems more grounded (if we separate it into film and exercise) in the style and pace of a studio picture. But I could scarcely add insult to injury if I were to point out that none of this really matters as you're viewing it - as long as you steel yourself to: a) read nothing about the film's premise; b) watch it in one viewing; and c) (for the love of God) pay attention.

[Don't read this until you've seen the film: Or, if you were Charles Odell, you'd put it thusly: "Pretty much coasts on its terrific premise -- luck actually behaves like an RPG stat, and can be transferred between people -- but fails to realize the material's emotional potential. Screams 'remake me'."]

Instead of attempting to upstage Ray Harryhausen's work on the three existing Sinbad pictures (with our new and improved regime of computer enhanced digital effects), Dreamworks has, instead, worked up a lame vision wherein an anachronistic, cliché spewing Sinbad is made to prove that he is good at heart, while falling for a shrill, strong willed heroine who is about as likable as the (surprisingly few) snarling beasts the title character finds himself battling. Embracing one of the true failings of Jason and the Argonauts (another Harryhausen work), Sinbad is framed around Eris, the Goddess of Chaos, whose job, seemingly, is to meddle in the affairs of mortals. In Jason and the Argonauts, the Gods and Goddesses were goofy and seemed in violation of the brazen adventuring spirit of the rest of the picture. The trouble here is that Eris's powers are relatively inconsistent and largely undefined, as are her motives (or, more clearly, lack thereof), which remain surprisingly abstract for a movie aimed at the youth. It's as if Eris is, for lack of a better description, following a script. Nevertheless, she can't possibly distract us from the lack of chemistry - or interest - the two stars (Brad Pitt and Catherine Zeta-Jones) bring to the film. Both seem to be hammering the same note over and over: Pitt, in a permanent state of aborted boasting; Zeta-Jones, stuck in a stubborn diva fit so befitting her, I can only doubt sheer coincidence is dictating her animated form's similarity to her physical one. Selected set pieces retain purpose (the alluring Sirens, made of water, are nifty), and Pfeiffer's voice work as Eris is better than anything she's done on screen since One Fine Day (which is more of a comparative victory than anything else). A certain air of deflated energy and adventure permeates throughout. Sinbad is at least time-consuming, which does not - to state the obvious - infer that it's by any means entertaining.