DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS: 3 STARS

“Dinner for Schmucks” begins with “Fool on the Hill” the minor chord Beatles classic. It’s a melancholy song that perfectly sets up the minor chord laughs to follow.

The movie, a remake of a French farce called “The Dinner Game” is essentially the story of two men, Tim (Paul Rudd) an investment banker desperate to marry the girl of his dreams and get a new office on the coveted seventh floor of his firm’s building, and Barry (Steve Carell) the “schmuck” of the title who, unwittingly, both keeps Tim from realizing his dreams and pushes him further along the corporate ladder. Barry is a full time IRS employee and part time taxidermist with the strange hobby of making historical dioramas with stuffed mice. Their relationship culminates at the titular dinner, an annual event thrown by Tim boss Lance Fender (Bruce Greenwood) a ruthless businessman who “collects” unusual people. The deal is simple, his top employees bring the strangest people—but no mimes please, that’s a cliché—they can to an elaborate dinner. The winner gets the promotion Tim so dearly wants. Of course by the day of the dinner Tim begins to wonder who the real schmucks are— Lance Fender’s people or their unusual dinner guests.

“Dinner for Schmucks” has quite a few laughs, but few of them are deep belly laughs. It’s not exactly a laugh a minute—more like a giggle every now and again—which is OK, but it fundamentally fails despite the jokes because Carell’s character is so extreme that the movie forces us to do exactly the opposite of what it sets out to do. Because Barry is such an imbecile we laugh at him instead of with him. Carell has played characters like Barry before and pulled it off. The great trick of both “The Office” and “The 40 Year Old Virgin” was to take an awkward character and make him lovable. Carell is sweet enough to make Barry watchable—imagine Jim Carrey, too manic, or Mike Myers, too soft around the edges—but his usual magic is missing here. He wrings laughs out of the one joke idea and makes us giggle, but for the wrong reasons.

Rudd ably plays the Hardy to Carell’s Laurel, but he’s playing straight man to a movie jammed with schmucky people. For example Jemaine Clement plays another one of his now trademarked self important, non sequitur spewing–“Never try to mate a lioness and a penguin,” he says—comic characters. It’s only a slight variation on his work in “Gentlemen Broncos” and doesn’t hold a candle to the laughs he generated on “Flight of the Concords.” Ditto Zach Galifianakis as a philandering mild control expert. In a movie filled with kooks like this Rudd is the anchor.      

“Dinner for Schmucks” isn’t an awful movie. You’ll laugh, or at least giggle, but director Jay Roach never pushes the comedy to the next level. The movie never really takes flight, even in the wild dinner scene climax that despite all the usual farce tropes—like fire and unexpected injury—it never feels out of control enough. Tone wise schmucks is way too sensible.

DESPICABLE ME: 3 ½ STARS

Universal's first 3D-animated movie “Despicable Me” is a generous mix of German Expressionism, a Spy vs. Spy vibe and The Jetsons.  It is stylish, gently funny and should be a big hit with kids and adults alike. It’s not exactly “Toy Story 3” but it is as close as we’re likely to get until the next Pixarian offering comes barrelling into theatres.

Bad guys don’t come much worse than Gru (voice of Steve Carell). He’s a supervillain, complete with minions, an evil genius assistant (Russell Brand), a panda skin rug in his lair and a plan to shrink the moon. The only things standing in his way are Vector (Jason Segel), a Bill Gates look-a-like rival evil overlord who is determined to throw a wrench into Gru’s plan, and Margo, Edith and Agnes (Miranda Cosgrove, Dana Gaier and Elsie Fisher) three orphan girls who force him to rethink his diabolical dealings.

“Despicable Me” has lots to recommend it. State of the art 3D animation, good voice work (more on that later) and lots of grin worthy moments, but despite all that it is the jellybean shaped minions who steal the show. They speak gibberish, ineptly do Gru’s bidding and supply most of the film’s memorable laughs. Swag-Are-Us is sure to have shelves full of the little buggers and for once I get it. Dammit! I want a minion, either real or stuffed. Doesn’t matter.

The script stays on track and, with the exception of one jab at Lehman Brothers—they’re the namesake of the Bank of Evil—avoids the trap of peppering the story with current pop culture jokes. Too often kid’s animated movies rely on current references for humor, but looking back, how effective is the Arsenio Hall impression in “Aladdin” for today’s audiences. Funny at the time for sure, but eighteen years later it can hardly be called timeless. “Despicable Me,” like the Pixar films, avoids that trap and instead relies on humor that arises from the situations and characters and a good dollop of heart to sell the story.    

More traditionally, for today’s animated features, the casting tends towards big stars, but unlike so many other animated films that shape characters around their celebrity counterparts—“Madagscar” I’m looking at you— “Despicable Me” actually contains some very nice voice work. Carell, the name-above-the-title star could have easily brought his familiar Michael Scott intonation to the role and everyone would have been pleased, but instead he actually creates an unrecognizable voice—it’s sort of a cross between Ricardo Montalban and Bela Lugosi—that is more than just an extension of his well-known comic persona. It’s a great performance even though we never actually see him on screen.

If “Toy Story 3” and “How to Train Your Dragon” hadn’t come out last month “Despicable Me” would be the best animated movie of the year so far.

DEATH AT A FUNERAL: 3 STARS

Family functions can be intense at the best of times. A Christmas dinner can turn into a theatre of war over burnt gravy; a family reunion, a battleground of hurt feelings and resentment. Probably no other family event is as highly charged as a funeral. Emotions are heightened and everybody is on edge. Add to that charged atmosphere a boyfriend who has been accidentally dosed with LSD, a gay blackmailer, and a grumpy uncle and you have “Death at a Funeral,” a new all star farce starring Chris Rock and Tracy Morgan.

Based on a 2007 British film of the same name “Death of a Funeral” begins on the day of Aaron (Rock) and Ryan (Martin Lawrence) father’s funeral. Opting for a home funeral, every family member has been invited. They include the crusty uncles Russell and Duncan (Danny Glover and Ron Glass    ), a soon to be married couple Elaine and Oscar (Zoe Saldana and James Marsden) and family friends Norman (Tracy Morgan) and Derek (Luke Wilson). Also attending is Frank (Peter Dinklage, reprising his role from the original) an uninvited guest with a secret about Aaron and Ryan’s father.

“Death at a Funeral” is a farce. There are lots of slamming doors, outrageous situations, a mysterious rash, a hallucinating guest and a coffin that seems unable to contain the dead body within. If you don’t like one joke, stay with it, there’ll be fifteen more in the next minute-and-a-half. They come fast and furious and while only about half of them land it’s enough to make “Death at a Funeral” worth a look.

Chris Rock as the centerpiece of all the action. He’s the comedic anchor around which all the action spins but he’s not just the film’s straight man. He sets up and knocks down joke after joke—including one hilarious Screamin’ Jay Hawkins reference—all the while adding some warmth to the rare non-comedic scenes.       

Also strong is James Marsden who shows off his comic chops in the unforgiving role as the high guy. It’s a “Reefer Madness” portrayal of someone in the depths of an acid trip—if you want realism rent “Requiem for a Dream”—but it is funny watching him try and interact with the other guests at the funeral while out of his mind.

The rest of the ensemble cast flits in and out of the action with varying degrees of success. If the idea of Tracy Morgan saying, “I’m gonna forget about the poop in my mouth,” amuses you, then his role is successful (if a little less sophisticated than the material he spouts every week on “30 Rock”) and the great Danny Glover (who once played Nelson Mandela) has little to do other than reprise his stuck on a toilet gag from “Lethal Weapon 2.”

Much of “Death at a Funeral” is in very bad taste but despite a hint of homophobia delivers some solid laughs.

DATE NIGHT: 3 ½ STARS

Stranded-in-big-bad-New-York-City movies are nothing new. Jack Lemon and Sandy Dennis endured everything from exploding manhole covers to muggings in 1970’s “The Out of Towners” and in “After Hours” Griffin Dunne got sucked into the vortex known as Soho for one very long, weird night. Nope, the idea of average people getting in over their heads in the Big Apple has been done before, and done better than it is in “Date Night,” but this movie isn’t about the plot, it’s about the likeability of its two stars Tina Fey and Steve Carell.

Fey and Carell are Claire and Phil, a bored married couple from Teaneck, New Jersey looking to spice up their dull date nights with a fancy outing in Manhattan. It starts off promisingly. They can’t get a table at the hottest place in town, but when another couple doesn’t show up for their reservation Phil assumes their name, The Tripplehorns, and grabs the table. Dinner is great—wine is flowing, the truffle topped risotto is delicious, Will.i.am is at the next table—until two thugs (Jimmi Simpson, Common) come calling for the real Tripplehorns. Seems the other couple are blackmailers in possession of a flash drive that local mafia bigwig (Ray Liotta) desperately wants back. The case of mistaken identity sets them on a collision course with a notably shirtless security expert (Mark Wahlberg), crooked cops and wild car chases.

“Date Night” wouldn’t be as enjoyable as it is—and it really is fun—without the two leads. Fey and Carell breathe life into a hackneyed situation, bringing not only the previously mentioned likeability, but also great chemistry and a way with a line—and an adlib—that really works. Without them “Date Night” would be a silly exercise in action – comedy, like the lackluster “The Bounty Hunter” from a few weeks ago. With them it is a romp, which while predictable, has real, deep genuine laughs.

They are aided by a good supporting cast, most of which aren’t going for laughs. Liotta brings his usual tough guy swagger, “Benjamin Button” Oscar nominee Taraji P. Henson is solid, if not a little dull as a detective who takes just a bit too long to realize that something sinister is afoot and Jimmi Simpson and Common are suitably sleazy as dirty cops, but it is the comedy supporting roles that shine.

Wahlberg mixes humor and sculpted abs in a memorable turn as a helpful—and terminally topless—security expert and the pairing of James Franco and Mila Kunis throws off some comedy sparks in their brief scene as the elusive Tripplehorns.       

“Date Night” isn’t the most original comedy we’ve seen this year, but it is the best cast one.

DEFENDOR: 4 STARS

In “Defendor” Woody Harrelson plays a man whose rich inner life spills out into his real life. By day he is dead-end-job-Arthur but by night he is Defendor, a masked superhero do-gooder. His task? To clean up the streets of Hamilton, Ontario. It sounds like the kind of thing we’ve seen before but Canadian actor turned director Peter Stebbings puts a unique spin on Arthur’s story.

Speaking in comic book clichés—“Look out termites,” he says, “it’s squishin’ time!”—and with a duct tape “D” on his chest Defendor and his homemade arsenal of weapons patrols the streets looking for crime to prevent. He’s a bit delusional, but his heart is in the right place.

“Who writes your dialogue?” asks a bad guy, “Spiderman?”

“No, I do it myself,” he answers innocently, before opening a can of whoop-ass on the guy.

His goal is to infiltrate the lair of Captain Industry, the crime king-pin Defendor believes to be responsible for all of Hamilton’s civic woes. On his journey he befriends a drug addict with a heart of gold and battles a corrupt cop (Elias Koteas).

Gritty and very funny, this is a hard one to categorize. It’s not exactly a comedy, nor is it a crime drama. It’s somewhere in between. I’m not sure if that indefinable quality will make this a harder sell at the box office or not—people like to pigeonhole their movies—but for those willing to be go along for the ride the movie is an enjoyably genre busting good time.

On paper Woody Harrelson’s role looks unpromising. He’s the disillusioned man with mental health issues who sinks into a fantasy world to help him deal with the pain of a troubled past. We’ve seen this before, but Harrelson’s mix of sincerity and pathos in his reading of the character breathes life into a role that could easily have fallen into cliché. He’s aided by a script—written by the film’s director Peter Stebbings—that gives him room to firmly establish the character, both as a superhero who believes guns are for cowards and as a real person who is tormented by his mother’s descent into a world of prostitution and drug abuse. It’s a solid performance that provides an anchor for the entire movie.

Also very strong is Kat Dennings, best know for her turn as a 13-year-old girl who hires Samantha to handle publicity for her bat mitzvah on an episode of “Sex and the City” and “The House Bunny.” Here she is the drug addicted hooker who doesn’t exactly have the proverbial heart-of-gold, but does discover the goodness in herself.

Like its main character “Defendor” is a bit delusional—it’s a low budget superhero flick going up against the Spidermans and Iron Men of the world—but like its main character I like its spunk.

DAYBREAKERS: 3 ½ STARS

Like “True Blood” “Daybreakers” is set in a world where vampires live among humans, but unlike the popular HBO show these vampires don’t have a blood substitute to keep them alive and friendly. In fact, in the world created by the writer / director team of the Spierig Brothers (Michael and Peter) humans are on the verge of extinction having literally been sucked dry and now the vamps must come up with a new source of food to ensure their survival.

Hematologist Ethan Hawke is charged with creating the cure for vampire hunger by his bosses at Bromley Marks, the world’s leading blood handler and humans-as-food storage facility. Ethan can best be described as a reluctant vampire and knows that the “last breath of humanity in the vampires will disappear as soon as the blood does.” To that end he searches for a cure and when he meets a group of human rebels a different kind of solution to the problem may be at hand.

As has become popular on “True Blood” and in movies like “Twilight” in “Daybreakers” many old vampire myths have flown the coop. For example Ethan Hawke’s character smokes. Perhaps because he is eternal he doesn’t have to worry about lung cancer, but since he is already dead, were does he get the breath to inhale and exhale? You never saw Dracula with a smoke in his hand...

Luckily, when the movie isn’t playing fast and loose with vampire lore, it is an entertaining a vampire tale that plays up its b-movie thrills.

Ripe with cool lines—“Life’s a bitch,” says Hawke’s world weary vampire, “and then you don’t die”—cool new vampire mythology—vamps who feed on themselves become mutants—and cool ideas—blood becomes a commodity like oil—“Daybreakers” is the best night stalker film to come along since last year’s “Let the Right One In.” (Sorry Twi-Hards!)

Hawke, with his sunken cheeks and rough hewn good looks is well cast as Edward, the disinclined vampire, but his character becomes much more fun in the last half of the film (SPOILER ALERT) when he morphs into Ethan Hawke, Vampire Slayer.  

The film, for all its effective spooky vampiric atmosphere in the first hour, builds towards a bloody climax that can only be described as juicy. People (and vampires) don’t just die as much as they explode, spraying a cloud of moist viscera in every direction. This is one movie I was glad wasn’t in 3-D.

 “Daybreakers” doesn’t have enough bite to become a modern vampire classic like “Nosferatu the Vampyre” or “Let the Right One In,” it’s too down and dirty for that, but it is great b-movie fun in the tradition of “Innocent Blood” or “Near Dark.”

DISTRICT 9: 4 ½ STARS

District 9 announces itself as a total fanboy geek out in its opening seconds with four small words: Presented by Peter Jackson. Jackson, the director of Lord of the Rings, didn’t helm District 9, but his involvement as producer is enough to guarantee an exciting ride, and the movie doesn’t disappoint.

Based on a six minute short film called Alive in Joburg by South African director Neill Blomkamp, District 9 is a mockumentary that examines themes of apartheid in a sci fi context. The story begins with an alien invasion in Johannesburg, but instead of a “take me to your leader” situation these aliens are refugees, looking for a place to live. While world governments argue over how best to deal with the ETs they are housed in District 9, a makeshift township near the core of the city. As time passes tensions arise between the aliens and the locals. To quell a civil war between the human and alien population a private company, Multi-National United (MNU), is brought in to relocate the extraterrestrials. When a bumbling MNU agent contracts a mysterious virus that changes his DNA—transforming him into an alien being—the corporation’s interests shift from relocation to alien weaponry.

District 9 straddles the line between sci fi and horror. For sci fi fans there is an interesting speculative story about alien invasion and assimilation. For horror fans there’s cool creatures and blood and guts galore. It’s a wild ride, relentlessly paced, that mixes together the standard genre standbys—aliens, killer robots, spaceships against a Blade Runner-ish backdrop—with surprising twists involving African gangs, corporate greed, voo doo and cannibalism. Despite its now old hat mockumentary form, District 9 packs enough new exciting ideas into its running time to make this seem totally fresh and unique.

Like the best sci fi District 9 has roots in reality. The alien township is based on the real life District 6, Cape Town, South Africa’s former inner-city residential area. In the 1970s over 60,000 people were forcibly removed and relocated by the apartheid regime. Using gritty film stock mixed with surveillance camera footage, television images and lots of wobbly camera work District 9 conveys the intensity of human (or alien) rights being violated, and it is powerful imagery.

Couple that with the derisive nickname humans have for the aliens—they’re called “Prawns” because they sorta-kinda resemble giant shrimp—and it isn’t hard to imagine that simply inserting another racial slur and changing up the cast of characters could transform this story into a look back at apartheid or the Warsaw Ghetto.

District 9 is intelligent sci fi with a message but is also great fun. The first hour moves faster than a Romulan warrior on a Red Bull binge and the shoot-em-up climax would make Jerry Bruckheimer envious. Highly recommended.

DUPLICITY: 3 STARS

Duplicity is a different kind of spy thriller. It’s a romantic comedy about espionage. Imagine if Rock Hudson and Doris Day had starred in Mission Impossible and you get the idea. Written and directed by Tony Gilroy, it stars Julia Roberts and Clive Owen—last seen on-screen together in 2004’s Closer—as romantically involved former secret agents who play a dangerous, sexy game with corporate secrets. It plays as high stakes screwball comedy with intrigue or Michael Clayton with laughs. Take your pick.

Roberts is Claire Stenwick, an experienced CIA officer looking for a change. Owen is MI6 agent Ray Koval, a charmer who can’t remember anyone’s name. Both have left the world of international intrigue for the infinitely more profitable task of corporate security. Together they launch an elaborate plan of corporate dirty tricks to steal a top secret formula that will revolutionize the cosmetics industry. As the plot thickens so do their feelings for one another, but the question remains, can people trained in duplicity ever truly trust one another? “Nobody trusts anyone,” says Ray, “we just cope to it.”

Told using flashbacks and stylish editing Duplicity is more interesting for its flashy look and interesting characters than it is for its jigsaw puzzle of a story. On the surface it is all flash; it has a very Ocean’s 11 vibe. There’s beautiful set design, effervescent camera moves, showy split screen effects and enough international settings to keep your eye entertained, which is a good thing because the wandering story of intrigue is too clever by half to be really engrossing. It’s a story that curves back into itself constantly throughout, leaving the audience wondering who they can trust—if anyone at all.

That’s a bit of a problem in a story that develops into a romance. The give-and-take interplay between Ray and Claire is funny the first time, cute the second time, but by their third and fourth “trust issues” discussion it wears a bit thin.

Luckily for us director Gilroy has done a great job of casting interesting actors. Owen and Roberts are witty and charming and more than capable of carrying the movie but the whole thing would sink like a stone without a distinguished supporting cast. With so many characters, double crosses and story threads to juggle it’s important for the filmmaker to present well defined but varied actors to help us keep things straight. Leading the supporting cast are Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson as the cutthroat, competitive CEOs. Both make the guys who ran Enron look like humanitarians, and both are great fun. Other stand-outs include Broadway star Kathleen Chalfant as an undercover investigator and Dennis O’Hare as the giddy black ops expert Duke.     

With its fun performances and stylish look Duplicity is a bit of fun despite its overlong running time and convoluted story.

DEFIANCE: 2 STARS

Defiance is the story of three brothers who fought back. It’s the little known history of a community of Warsaw Ghetto refugees who survived in the Belarusian forests despite the constant threat of the Nazis. Based on the true story of the Bielski partisans, Defiance stars Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell as the three Jewish brothers who escaped the Nazis in Poland and fought to rescue 1200 Jews.

Defiance is two-thirds of a good movie. It’s hard to fault the idea of shedding some light on the brave men and women who fought back against the Nazis, but I think that simply because the movie tells an important story doesn’t necessarily mean it is good storytelling. Director Ed Zwick has most of the elements of a good story—compelling true premise, well known actors, dramatic conflict—but he puts it all together with all the spark of a wet match.

He’s done better in the past with similar material. Glory, the untold story of the US Civil War's first all-black volunteer company was a masterful blend of historical fact and entertainment. Defiance, on the other hand, tries too hard to create unnecessary story elements. The basic premise of three brothers saving large groups of people is compelling enough, why muddy it up with superfluous romantic tangents? The peripheral plotlines add nothing to the overall movie, in fact, often they distract from the main focus. Add to that some clunky dialogue and the film’s 137 minute running time seems much longer.

Also, Zwick doesn’t take the time to show us how the brothers managed to build a giant village in the forest and yet go undetected by the Nazis. We are told several times that the woods are vast and dangerous, but they always seem to be near a roadway or farm, close to civilization. Surely someone would have spotted the smoke from their camp fires. Perhaps more time spent on showing us how isolated the refugees were and less time spent on romance would have given this movie more of a ring of authenticity.  

When the movie sticks to the basic elements of the story—freedom, faith, protection against persecution—it works. When Craig says, “Every day of freedom is an act of faith, and if we should die, at least we die like human beings,” he gets to the meat of the story, only to be sidelined later by a rambling script.    

Craig brings the same kind of physicality to the role of Tuvia as he dose to the James Bond movies, but here he is overshadowed by Schreiber who is ferocious as brother Zus. He’s a powerful presence on screen and almost out-Bonds James Bond. 

Defiance is a remarkable story of courage, unfortunately, unremarkably told.

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL: 2 STARS

No one has spent as much on screen time jumping from dimension to dimension as Keanu Reeves. All the way back to Bill and Ted’s excellent time traveling adventures through to Neo in the Matrix and Constantine his characters have tripped the light fantastic, jumping from one plane to the another. His latest film, The Day the Earth Stood Still, a reinvention of the 1951 classic, sees him once again careening from outer space to the more mortal plane of Earth.

Reeves is Klaatu, an alien messenger in human form who comes to Earth to rescue the planet, but not necessarily its inhabitants. “If the Earth dies, you die,” he says. “If you die, the Earth survives.” When his attempts to communicate and reason with the leaders of Earth fail, he goes ahead with his plan to eliminate all humans. Humankind’s only chance of survival is in the hands of Dr. Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly) and stepson Jacob (Jaden Smith) who work to convince Klaatu that humans are worth saving, that given the chance they will mend their wasteful ways and save the planet. Can they convince the strange visitor to spare them before his coconspirator GORT, a giant biological robot hell bent to complete his mission, finishes the job?    

The Day the Earth Stood Still updates the original’s Cold War themes of the dangers of nuclear warfare to the more contemporary hot button issues of the environment, global warming and man’s systematic destruction of the planet. It’s a good message wrapped up in an average, listless movie.

The film gets off to a s-l-o-w start when, without any explanation, Reeves is seen chipping away at a mysterious orb on a mountain top in India in 1928. Cut to eighty years later the orb lands in Central Park and expels the human now wrapped in gelatinous goop. The sequence takes forever and sets the tone for the rest of the languidly paced story.

Reeves’s take on Klaatu doesn’t help matters any. As the intellectually gifted alien housed in human form he is even more deadpan and monotone than usual. It is, I suppose, an attempt to portray Klaatu’s otherworldliness but Keanu’s low-energy performance as he drones on about the environment makes staid enviro-warrior Al Gore look like the easily excitable Richard Simmons by comparison.

Ditto for John Hamm. His work as Don Draper on Mad Men is so detailed and interesting it’s a shame to see him reduced to bland second-leading man here.    

The film doesn’t limit itself to the environmental situation; it also takes jabs at America’s current political climate. When Benson asks why she has been summoned by the government she’s told simply and vaguely, “It’s a matter of national security.”

“Well, that could mean whatever you want it to mean,” she says.

That’s a clever and insightful exchange. It’s just too bad it’s one of the few moments in the film that gives off sparks.

The Day the Earth Stood Still is a big budget but unnecessary remake of a sci-fi classic; a movie that doesn’t improve on its source material despite its best intentions.

DOUBT:
FOR THE ACTING: 4 STARS
FOR THE FILM: 2 ½ STARS
TOTAL: 3 ¼ STARS

As a Broadway play Doubt ran for over a year, earning four Tony awards, including Best Play and Best Actress. As a film, starring Meryl Streep, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams, it is bound to earn several acting nominations come Oscar time, but I’m afraid it won’t earn awards for directing or Best Picture.

Set in the Bronx in 1964, Doubt centers on a nun, Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Streep), who confronts a priest (Hoffman) after suspecting him abusing the school’s only African-American student (Joseph Foster). Of course he denies the charges and looks to Sister James (Amy Adams) for support.  

Doubt starts off slowly. A little too slowly. Director, playwright and screenwriter John Patrick Shanley takes his time establishing a sense of time and place at the expense of the movie’s momentum. We meet the characters: Hoffman’s charming down-to-earth priest, Adams’s naïve nun and Streep’s terrifying nunzilla. Each are introduced and we learn something of their lives and routines, and while some of it is interesting—there is even the odd laugh here and there—the movie doesn’t pick up steam until an hour and a quarter in, but it is worth the wait.

With the introduction of Viola Davis     as Mrs. Muller, the frazzled mother of the young boy in question Doubt catches fire. Her showdown with the formidable Sister Aloysius contains some of the best written and best performed dialogue of the year. It’s an unsettling, surprising sequence that raises points about the flexibility of morality in extreme instances. Davis is on screen no more than six or seven minutes but will likely earn an Oscar nod for her work.

From that point on Doubt is one of the most compelling films of the year. Shanely carefully unveils the story to leave both the characters and the audience wondering what is true and what isn’t.

Doubt, like so many films this year, is a movie whose performances are better than the film itself. Hoffman expertly toggles back and forth between Father Flynn’s personality extremes—a controlling nature tempered by a large dollop of charm while Adams is all wide eyed naiveté.

They’re impressive, but Streep steals the show. Her Sister Aloysius is like an onion which reveals itself one layer at a time. When we first meet her she is the stereotypical strict nun, ruling her school by fear. When she calls one boy to the office for a minor infraction Father Flynn comments, “the dragon is hungry today.” She’s an anachronism, a woman whose ordered world is changing too quickly. Unable to keep up she thinks the song Frosty the Snowman espouses pagan beliefs and the ball point pen is a vehicle of change for the worse. “Every easy choice will have a consequence tomorrow.” She’s old school, but under that hard-line exterior is a deeply caring person who will not be pushed around.

When she accuses Father Flynn, her superior in the chain of command, of inappropriate behavior he says, “I can fight you!” “You will lose,” she snaps back, unafraid. It’s powerful stuff, made even more effective by Streep’s performance. The battle scenes between these two, complete with tightly written verbal warfare, are as dynamic and exciting as any action scene I’ve seen in a movie this year.   

Doubt is a beautifully performed guessing game, with dynamite dialogue and thought provoking views on morality, religion and authority. It’s hard to believe that the same man who wrote this also penned Joe and the Volcano.

DEATH RACE: 2 STARS

Loosely based on the Roger Corman trash cinema classic of almost the same name Death Race is set in the very near future in a time when the US penal system is filled to busting. The operation of jails has been handed over to the Weyland Corporation who devise a unique way to solve over crowding. They create a television spectacle that’ll bring in huge ratings pitting the most violent thugs against one another for fun and profit in a to-the-death cross country car rally. Called “the ultimate in auto carnage” the Death Race is broadcast on the internet to an audience in he tens of millions. 

At the center of the action is The Transporter star Jason Statham as Jensen Ames a three-time racing champion who’s mad, bad and dangerous to know. An ex-con, he is framed for a crime he didn’t commit and forced to race or face years of confinement in America's most notorious penitentiary Terminal Island.

The premise, I imagine, was meant to be a satire, commenting on the length that evil corporations will go to make money and the debasement of a culture that would tune into this auto butchery but instead we’re handed a fast paced, but brainless action flick with all the depth of a Mötley Crüe music video. The campy fun of the original is gone, replaced by mindless violence, slow motion explosions and souped up-not-so-funny cars complete with machine guns and napalm. 

The action and violence are pumped up to ridiculous levels, framed by characters that do little but grunt and flex their prodigious muscles. But what do you expect from a movie called Death Race? It doesn’t have the same high octane excitement of some of star Jason Statham’s other films—most notably Crank—but director Paul W.S. Anderson (not to be confused with Paul Anderson, helmer of Magnolia and Punch Drunk Love) gives the audience everything they want—action, blood and guts—and nothing that will make them squirm in their seats—story or well rounded characters. He has calibrated this movie to appeal to people who would pay money to go see a movie named Death Race. All others beware. 

THE DARK KNIGHT: 4 ½ STARS

In my review of the first installment of the revived Caped Crusader franchise I wrote, “I went in to Batman Begins expecting a lot and left wanting less—less psychological babble, a lesser running time and less of Liam Neeson’s ridiculously wispy goatee.” For the new episode, The Dark Knight, director Christopher Nolan has kept most of the stuff that bugged me about the first movie (except for the wispy goatee part, which is, thankfully, is no where to be seen) but has, this time around, created a tour-de-force that left me running for my thesaurus to find new words for awesome.    

Its two-and-a-half running time makes it the longest of the summer blockbusters but, unlike Get Smart or Sex and the City, there isn’t a wasted second or extraneous scene. The film takes off like a turbo charged Batmobile, opening with an exciting bank heist, and doesn’t let up until the end credits.

Following the robbery, in which $68 million dollars of the mob’s money is stolen, the triumvirate of Batman (Christian Bale), Lieutenant Jim Gordon (Gary Oldham) and District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) take a broom to the streets of Gotham in an effort to, once and for all, put an end to crime in their city. After mass arrests the crime fighting trio comes up against their greatest foe yet, The Joker (Heath Ledger), a psychopath with a sinister scar in place of a smile, who forces Batman and Dent to push the boundaries of their professional crime fighting ethics.   

Since 9/11 the world has spent a great deal of time pondering good and evil, and so does The Dark Knight. It is the first true, post 9/11 superhero movie; one that looks at the use of chaos as a tool of terrorism while exploring the paper thin line between good and evil.

Dispensing with the jocularity of Iron Man, the CGI action of The Incredible Hulk and Hancock’s sense of irony, The Dark Knight is a serious film with a positively Shakespearean exploration of the ethics of good and evil that raises timely questions in these unsettled times. Mainly, to what lengths can heroes go as they fight crime before they stop being heroes and become vigilantes? When is it OK to break the rules to stop evil? Batman and Dent grapple with these questions (more than, say, Rumsfeld or Bush ever did) as the Joker pushes them closer to the edge of their moral boundaries.

The Joker’s biggest question is one for the ages. Can bad guys exist without the good guys?

“I don't want to kill you,” the Joker tells Batman, by way of an answer. “You complete me.” 

But don’t get the idea that The Dark Knight is only a treatise on the nature of villainy. It is that, but the ideas about good and evil are wrapped around a popcorn movie that is packed with great action, thrills and good performances.

Christian Bale fills out the Batsuit better this time around, skillfully portraying the moral tug of war the character plays with his conscience while ably pulling off Batman’s outrageous feats of physical prowess. Bale may be the only contemporary actor who can convincingly pull off ennui one second and then pilot a supercharged motorcycle up the side of a building the next.

New franchise addition Maggie Gyllenhaal, stepping in for Katie Holmes, brings a feistiness to the character of Bruce Wayne’s oldest friend and soul mate Rachel Dawes. Aaron Eckhart in a dual role does a nice job of playing the transformation from the virtuous DA Dent to the twisted morality of the considerably creepier Harvey-Two Face. Old pros Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman, as Bruce Wayne’s trusted butler and equipment designer respectively, round out the cast, both handing in effortless performances.

Of course the cast member everyone wants to see is Heath Ledger as the Joker in his last completed performance. I always felt Batman Begins was marred by the lack of a great villain, but this time around the inclusion of Ledger’s Joker guarantees on-screen fireworks for The Dark Knight.

Whereas Jack Nicholson’s Joker was a pop culture icon for the prosperous 80s and 90s, Ledger’s Joker is a super villain for the new millennium; a terrorist, more interested in creating chaos than in anything else.

He’s a disfigured bad man—“What doesn’t kill you only makes you stranger,” he says—who when he isn’t killing people—his preferred weapon is a knife because it’s up-close-and personal—keeps busy creating elaborate schemes to test the moral fiber of the men who want to put him behind bars. Ledger strips the character of Nicholson’s cartoon persona, re-imagining him as a fiendish lunatic. From the slash of red lipstick where his mouth should be to the caked white make-up that obscures his face Ledger’s Joker is an unhinged creation that will likely inspire nightmares. It’s a bravura performance that sees the late actor working at the top of his game as he creates the definitive version of the character (sorry to any Cesar Romero fans who may disagree).

The Dark Knight is a rare beast. It’s a summer blockbuster with equal parts brain and brawn.

THE DANGEROUS LIVES OF ALTAR BOYS

The title sounds ripped from the headlines, but is actually from a 1994 novel by the late Chris Fuhrman, who died of cancer before the book was released. The story centers around a group of teenaged boys who attend Catholic school. Their ringleader Tim (Kieran Culkin) is a prankster who schemes to get revenge on Sister Assumpta (Jody Foster), the joyless, strict nun with a prosthetic leg. They create a “blasphemous” comic book, and plan to kidnap a cougar from the zoo to give her a fright. The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys is a darkly comic, touching coming-of-age story that could have turned into by-the-book teenage drivel, but is rescued by the performances of Kieran Culkin, Emile Hirsch and Jena Malone and some very cool animation by Spawn creator Todd McFarlane.
DEATH TO SMOOCHY

Director Danny DeVito uncovers the soft underbelly of children’s television in this dark comedy starring Edward Norton and a manic Robin Williams. This is a mean spirited piece of work, so dark and profane you have to give Mrs. Doubtfire and the guy from Taxi credit for making it work. With a lesser cast and without a steady hand behind the camera this could have turned into an unredeemable mess. Instead DeVito and cast churn out a comedy that does something unusual, they remain likeable – particularly Williams playing against his recent family-man image – while delivering unpredictable laughs for those who like their humor with a mean streak. Maybe the “Posterboy for Bad Taste” Tom Green should study this movie before he writes his next screenplay.

THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE

The ghost in Mexican-director Guillermo del Toro’s beautiful new tale of the supernatural owes more to films like The Haunting than to the malicious spirits that inhabited Poltergeist. Santi, the sad ghost of The Devil’s Backbone needs to tell his story to the living so he can find peace and exact his revenge. Set during the Spanish Civil War the story is built around the curiosity of Carlos (Fernando Tielve), a twelve-year-old boy delivered to a remote orphanage after his communist father is killed. Once there he unravels the true story of “the one who sighs,” a ghost that haunts the basement. Guillermo takes his time with the story, letting the feeling of anxiety and dread build slowly, layering the atmosphere with thick slices of mystery and the supernatural. That coupled with one of the best realized screen ghosts of recent memory make this movie both unsettling and worthwhile.   

DIE ANOTHER DAY

Here's where it all began to fall apart. In 1964's Goldfinger Sean Connery (the original and uber Bond) zoomed around Fort Knox in a tricked-out Aston-Martin. This car could do it all - it had an ejection seat and other deadly gimmicks - and it became part of 007's folklore. Perhaps too much. It's been a long time since the heady days of Swingin' London when Bond was a rough and tumble action hero who used his wiles to outsmart villains. In the last 38 years the gadgets - beginning with the car - have slowly taken over the franchise. Interchangeable Bonds - from George Lazenby to Roger Moore to Timothy Dalton to the latest incarnation Pierce Brosnan - have become merely the keepers of the doodads. The actor playing Bond doesn't matter so much as the cool weapons he uses. And so it goes for Die Another Day, probably the most critic proof movie to be released this year. Brosnan is this year's Bond model, an effective enough master spy, and while he maybe getting a little longer in the tooth, with the help of lots of CG he can still drive an invisible car with panache. He's no more or less effective than those who have gone before him, and that's the point. The films, which have now become huge cash cows, aren't about Dalton or Pierce or whoever (I think Clive Owen would make a good Bond), they're about spectacle and hubris, with a few corny jokes thrown in to break up the action sequences. The James Bond series has been spoofed so often and so well - Our Man Flint and Austin Powers to name just a couple - that now, 40 years since Dr. No hit the screens that it is hard not to see Die Another Day as a parody. Humor has always been a part of the Bond movies, particularly during the Moore years, but when Brosnan and co-star Halle Berry exchange randy pillow talk it's not much of a stretch to imagine Austin Powers delivering the same lines. Die Another Day isn't good and it isn't bad, it's just more of the same. The names and faces may change, but the formula remains largely unaltered since Goldfinger. In the latest installment Bond's boss M tells him, "While you were away, the world changed." The world might have changed, but Bond hasn't, he remains the cinema's most enduring character, and that's just the way the audience seems to like it.

THE DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA YA SISTERHOOD 

The uber-chick flick of the season, too bad it’s not a better movie. Once the clichés starts flying fast and thick you have to duck to avoid getting hit with a drunken southern belle or a teary-eyed reconciliation scene. Maggie Smith struggles valiantly to add some zip to this turkey, but not even her monumental talents can truly bring these cardboard characters to life. Save your ticket money, and read the book. This Ya Ya is a No No.

DOGTOWN AND Z-BOYS

A close-up look at the birth of skate board culture in Southern California, Dogtown and Z-Boys has attitude to burn, just like the sport it documents. Directed by Stacy Peralta, one of the legends of the sport, it captures the punk rock spirit of skate boarding, and perfectly places it into context within the boundaries of time (the 1970s) and location (a neighbourhood between Santa Monica and Venice, California). Even if you are not a fan you’ll be fascinated by the story, which is told using a combination of narration, stills, great vintage 1970s skate boarding footage and new interviews with all the key players. Sean Penn provides the narration, and adds a flair all of his own. The opposite of stodgy, Penn speaks to the audience not at them, sounding like someone sitting at a bar telling the tale. At one point in mid-sentence he coughs, pauses for a moment and then continues. It’s this kind of approach that gives this movie its edge.

DOWN WITH LOVE

Down with Love is an homage to the 1960’s Rock Hudson / Doris Day “battle of the sexes” sub-genre. The filmmakers have captured the look – Renee Zellweger’s clothes look like they were just uncrated from a time-capsule discovered in Jackie O’s closet circa 1963 – but falter when it comes to the tone of the film. The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead, if you know what I mean. The actors, likeable though they may be, have none of the ease that Hudson and Day had with this sort of material. The kitsch-o-meter is dialled up to 10, but only Ms. Zellweger’s impressive speech near the end where she reveals her elaborate plot to snare the lusty Catcher Block (Ewan McGregor) has the sense of campy fun that this whole film desperately needs to succeed. Down with Love tries hard, but is winking so firmly at itself, it threatens to give itself a black eye.

DUMB AND DUMBERER

For me, the funniest part of Dumb and Dumberer was reading the insanely over-the-top press kit that accompanied the film. The kit uses flowery language to describe the filmmaking process as “a magnificent comedic journey,” and boldly states that this movie has “a little bit of something for everybody.” Lies. All lies. As we all know this movie is a prequel to the Farrelly Brothers 1994 hit Dumb and Dumber, which starred Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels as the chicken brained Lloyd and Harry. As inane as that movie may have been, it was funny in a gross way, and had some heart. Unfortunately, it also made a lot of money at the box office, which gave some genius the idea to make another movie based on the same characters. That all the main players of the original – the directors, writers and stars – have since priced themselves out of the market for a quickie cash grab like this didn’t stop the producers from cobbling together a wide variety of second rate talents (and I use that word with a hint of irony attached) to present one of the least funny and ineptly made movies to ever play at your local multi-plex.

DÉJÀ VU: 3 STARS

Déjà vu isn’t so much a whodunit as it is a howdunnit. At the center of this New Orleans murder mystery is a government computer program that allows scientists to recreate the past, traveling back in time four days and six hours. This journey into the heart psychics is fleeting, however. The g-men brainiacs can recreate a perfect image of the past, complete with different camera angles and perfect sound, but because of the great amount of energy needed to generate the image they can’t rewind or pause. This ghostly likeness of the past plays in real time and then, like real life, is gone forever.

How do they do it? Good question. The movie takes pains to explain the science in a long protracted scene and they shouldn’t have bothered. It’s all mumbo jumbo that slows the picture’s momentum to a crawl, but fortunately, that’s the only time the police procedural aspects of the movie take second place to the scientific claptrap. The rest of the film is straight out action and suspense. It a metaphysical story with the onus on the physical.

Denzel Washington is an ATF investigator whose analysis of an alleged terrorist bombing of a New Orleans ferry carrying hundreds of U.S. sailors leads him not to an Al-Qaeda cell but to a homegrown terror plot and a beautiful girl who may have been an unwitting victim. So far it’s like a really elaborate episode of CSI, (which like the movie is produced by Jerry Bruckheimer), but the wrinkle comes in the form of a wrinkle in time. The above-mentioned time machine bends not only time but also the movie, transforming it from a standard run-of-the-mill police drama into a metaphysical thrill ride. 

Director Tony Scott, brother of Ridley and maker of such frenetically edited films as Domino and (and two others with Denzel including Man on Fire and Crimson Tide) infuses every frame of the film with beautifully composed shots and intricately choreographed action sequences. Time travel has never looked this good. In one spectacular scene Denzel engages in a car chase set in two time zones simultaneously. It’s exciting and unlike anything you’ve seen before.

The science in Déjà vu doesn’t add up and, frankly, the movie doesn’t have much to do with déjà vu, but Scott and Washington are a reliable team and deliver enough wham-bam action and eye candy to earn a recommendation.

DEATH SENTENCE: 3 STARS

If Death Sentence was made in 1974 it would have starred Joe Don Baker of Walking Tall fame and played the grindhouse circuit before disappearing from the big screen and waiting to be discovered anew in video bargain bins. As it is Kevin Bacon and Saw director James Wan have created a genre movie that out-genres Tarantino’s recent effort to revive the revenge film. It’s a pure 1970’s exploitation flick, done up 2007 style.

The plot would make Charles Bronson proud. When facially tattooed gang members brutally kill Nick Hume’s (Kevin Bacon) son while he stands helplessly by, he does what any father from the Roger Corman School of Good Parenting would do when his family has been torn apart by street thugs—he gets revenge.  When the gang fights back, things get interesting—and bloody.

Like the first Saw movie, Death Sentence is essentially a poorly paced genre picture peppered with breathlessly memorable action scenes. Wan has revitalized the “urban terror” genre of the 1970s for the new millennium, but hasn’t changed the basic elements of the form too much. Like Death Wish and the classic big city revenge films, a nice family gets turned upside down by very bad people, and the patriarch must go against his nature to get payback when the justice system fails to provide proper closure.

Bacon believably delivers the goods as an executive turned vigilante. Shaving his head and toting very large guns he channels his inner Travis Bickle to create a genre specific portrayal of a man pushed too far. Aisha Tyler, best known as Ross’s love interest in Friends, makes the most of the underwritten role of the investigating police sergeant. She’s not given much to do, but uses her best Pam Grier attitude to do it.

Most fun of all is illegal gunsmith John Goodman. He’s so grimy, so smarmily great as the conscious-free Bones Darley that you’ll want to take a shower after seeing his sweaty face on screen. He’s part used car salesman, part merchant of death when he offers up a variety of firearms to Hume with the line, “Any one of these is bound to make you feel better about what’s bothering you.”

Death Sentence is for fans of the genre only. If you like a bit of good old fashioned revenge mixed with your mayhem, then this movie is for you.
  
DADDY DAY CAMP: 0 STARS

Daddy Day Camp is the sort-of sequel to Daddy Day Care, a 2003 hit starring Eddie Murphy and Jeff Garlin as two stay-at-home fathers who open a day care in their house. This time out the expensive talent has been replaced by second stringers Cuba Gooding Jr. and generic heavy-set guy Paul Rae as the two dads who try and expand their business to include a run-down day camp where they want to teach kids the importance of co-operation and sportsmanship, among other things.

I’m not going to review this movie, but instead give you a list of things that are more enjoyable than sitting through Daddy Day Camp.

Here we go:

1.    Cutting an apple in half and watching it turn brown.
2.    Watching colonoscopy videos.
3.    Poking sharp sticks in your eyes.
4.    Eating bugs.
5.    Latrine duty.

In closing I’ll add that the best thing that can be said about Daddy Day Camp is: At least it ain’t Rush Hour 3.

DISTURBIA: 3 ½ STARS

Disturbia, a new thriller starring teen heartthrob Shia LeBeouf is actually many movies in one. There’s the teen romance movie reminiscent of Cameron Crowe’s Say Anything. Next to that is an American Pie style randy teenager story butted up against the murderer-next-door theme borrowed from Rear Window. It’s like the weather in Canada. If you don’t like it, wait five minutes and it will change.

At the center of the shifting plots is Shia LeBeouf, who will be recognizable to anyone with kids under thirteen from his years on the Disney show Even Stevens. He plays Kale, a young man under house arrest for giving his Spanish teacher a black eye.

While confined to his house Kale develops voyeuristic tendencies, spying on his neighbors. He watches the nubile girl next door as she goes about her life, slowly falling in love with her as she works out or takes a swim. On the other side of the house is a mysterious man (David Morse) that Kale comes to believe is a killer. With the aid of the girl next door (Sarah Roemer) and his goofy friend Ronnie (Aaron Yoo) the housebound teen tries to prove that his neighbor isn’t the nice guy he seems to be.

Disturbia doesn’t better its source material, Rear Window, Say Anything and even American Pie are all better movies, but it does manage to meld the three with relative ease. Director D.J. Caruso handles the film’s shifts in tone gracefully, steering the audience through the romance, comedy to the chaotic finale. He shows a steady hand with the suspenseful aspects of the story, playing up the claustrophobia and voyeurism that push Kale to launch an investigation of his peculiar neighbor. He also manages to pack in the thrills with a minimum of blood and guts, keeping the movie solidly within its PG-13 parameters.

LeBeouf is a likeable actor who appears in virtually every frame of the film and really proves that he can carry a movie. Carrie Ann Moss isn’t given much to do in a stereotypical worried mom role, but David Morse is extra-creepy as the neighbor who may or may not have dead bodies embalmed in the walls of his suburban home.

Disturbia succeeds because it blends all its influences into one cohesive, entertaining package.  

DREAMGIRLS: 4 STARS

Simon Cowell got it wrong. When Jennifer Hudson was voted off American Idol a few years ago he told her that she was finished. Washed up. That she would likely never work again.

He was wrong.

Hudson is back and gives seasoned vets Jamie Foxx and Beyonce a run for their money as Effie, the castaway Dreamgirl in the big screen adaptation of the Broadway hit. There is Oscar buzz about her performance and she has already earned a Golden Globe nomination.

The story of Dreamgirls is a thinly veiled retelling of the Svengali-like managerial style of Motown boss Berry Gordy and the rise to success and subsequent solo career of Diana Ross and the Supremes under his supervision. Gordy replaced original Supremes lead singer Florence Ballard with the thinner and prettier Ross, exiling Ballard from the group she created. Ballard died in 1976 at age 32 after a long battle with depression and drugs. Only the names and minor details have been changed.

In the fast-paced Dreamgirls version of the story Foxx is Curtis Taylor Jr., a Cadillac salesman turned wannabe music impresario who bounces Effie (Hudson) as lead singer of the Dreams in favor of backup singer Deena Jones (Beyonce). Effie struggles with the betrayal and tries to re-ignite her career while toiling in the shadow of her former band mate and friend.  

It’s an all-star cast with Jamie Foxx and Beyonce at the top of the marquee, but it is two of the supporting players who really shine—one newcomer and one veteran.

Eddie Murphy gives the kind of performance here that he has only ever hinted at in other films. As R&B singer James “Thunder” Early—imagine 1966 era James Brown—he blows the doors off, digging deep and creating a memorable character who is as magnetic as he is repulsive.

But the real star of the show is Jennifer Hudson. She brings not only a roof-rattling voice to Effie’s character but also equal measures of sass, dignity, and strength. It’s probably too soon to say this, but Effie just might be the role of a lifetime for Hudson.

Fans of musical theatre have seen some of their favorites—Phantom of the Opera and The Producers come to mind—botched on their way to the screen but Dreamgirls should satisfy even the toughest critics. I think even Simon Cowell might like it.

DRILLBIT TAYLOR: 3 STARS

Ryan (Troy Gentile), Wade (Nate Hartley) and Emmit (David Dorfman) are pumped about their first day in high school. For them it is a new start; a chance to be cool, leave the geekiness of junior high behind and maybe meet or even touch some real live human girls. Their dreams of being too cool for school go pear shaped, however, when the school’s biggest bully, a psycho-in-the-making named Filkins (Alex Frost, one of the bullied kids in Gus Van Sant's Elephant) focuses his attention on them. He’s a professional level tormentor who uses verbal, physical and psychological abuse to terrorize the boys.

The situation becomes so threatening the trio take desperate measures to save themselves—they place an ad for a personal bodyguard on the Soldier of Fortune website. After sorting through the mercenaries, Israeli secret service agents and hit men who reply they hire the cheapest applicant, Drillbit Taylor (Owen Wilson). The bodyguard claims to be adept in all forms of improvised weapons, skilled in covert black-ops and to have worked for three Vice Presidents, Bobby Brown and Sylvester Stallone. “Not quite as tough as he looks,” says Drillbit.

He sounds like the ideal person to solve their problem, but soon it becomes obvious he oversold his skill set, and is, in fact, just a Santa Monica homeless dude—he prefers to say “home free”—who was planning on stealing and robbing their parents' houses. He tries to justify the robbery as doing the boys a favor. “Steal their TV,” he says, “and maybe they’ll read a book.”

On the upside the budget bodyguard does engage in a series of ridiculous boot camp exercises where he teaches the boys about “mind over pain” and instills a sense of confidence in them. “Teach the victim to beat up the bully,” he says, “and they will live forever. Steven Seagal said that.”

The evil Filkins is still a problem, however, so Ryan, Wade and Emmit use their newborn self-reliance to try to put an end to the bully’s reign of terror.  The only question is whether or not Drillbit will discover his inner warrior and step up to the plate and help.

The original idea for Drillbit Taylor came from teen movie king John Hughes who dreamed up the treatment but never got around to writing the script. That job fell to Knocked Up’s Seth Rogen, comedy’s man of the moment and former Beavis and Butthead writer Kristofor Brown. For the most part they squeeze laughs out of a pretty thin concept, but ultimately Drillbit Taylor doesn’t work as well as last summer’s Superbad, another movie written by Rogen and starring a trio of teenage geeks. Why? Superbad had more heart. Superbad had more believable situations and better performances. No, Drillbit Taylor is no Superbad, it just isn’t up to that caliber, and like most of the Rogen-Judd Apatow collaborations it is a tad too long, but it isn’t a write-off.

A subplot with an English teacher who develops a crush on Drillbit thinking his name is Dr. Illbit is good for a few laughs and the interaction between Drillbit and the boys has its moments. I just wish the movie had more good hearty laughs. Superbad simply set the bar too high for this kind of film for Drillbit Taylor to seem like anything other than a pale imitation of comedy greatness.

DEFINITELY, MAYBE: 3 ½ STARS

In Definitely, Maybe Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds plays Will Hayes, a divorcee with a young daughter (Abigail Breslin) and relationship woes of near epic proportions.

The movie begins with the eight-year-old wanting to know how her father met her mother. Will agrees to share the story, but changes the names and the places, creating a “romantic mystery” the little girl must unravel. For the next couple of hours Will unwinds a bedtime story of love lost and found complete with all the gossipy details. It’s an interesting framework for a romantic comedy, and, aside from the questionable practice of an adult sharing the details of his sexual history with a youngster, this romantic Rashômon works very well.

With Maya hanging off every word, and even making up flow charts to keep track of her father’s various involvements, Will works through his romantic life, starting with his college sweetheart Emily (Elizabeth Banks), right up to his big city crushes, the sexy and free spirited Summer (Rachel Weisz) and the edgy April (Isla Fisher). There are ups and downs along the way—one woman tells him that they shouldn’t date because they’re like “Lennon and McCartney… Good while they lasted but afterwards they couldn’t even be friends”—and even though he tries to present a PG version of the story, he still occasionally gets down and dirty with the details.

The romantic escapades are woven in amongst a timely parallel story of Will’s involvement with the Clinton—Bill Clinton, that is—campaign in 1992.  

In recent years the romantic comedy genre has suffered from a bad case of predictability. Most often you know how they going to end before they even start, so it is the journey, how the characters end up in a loving embrace at the end of the film that matters. Definitely, Maybe’s storytelling structure is a different take on the tried and true formula and while it does have a happy ending—it has to otherwise it would be a romantic tragedy!—the twist adds some life to an otherwise moribund genre. It’s a rom com for grown-ups; a little more realistic than most (although just a tad more realistic), with a welcome bit of edge.

Like all good romantic comedies Definitely, Maybe is set in New York, and has some genuine laughs, mostly bolstered by a charming cast led by Reynolds, whose chemistry with the women and Breslin seems real and unforced. His sense of timing is bang on, and his way with physical humor works here—a subtle sight gag that sees him, with his big hands, drinking from a tiny juice box drew laughs and awws from the audience I saw it with—and since he is in every scene, it’s ultimately his charisma that carries the movie. 

Definitely, Maybe still has most of the predictable elements found in many movies of its genre, but is heartfelt and just different enough to earn a recommendation.

DEATH OF A PRESIDENT
4 STARS FOR AUDACITY
2 STARS FOR EXECUTION = 3 OVERALL

Mock documentaries, or mockumentaries, or are nothing new. Most are played for laughs—Spinal Tap, Best in Show, Take the Money and Run to name a few—but occasionally the genre offers up something a little more somber. Punishment Park, a 1971 film by British director Peter Watkins showed concentration camps on American soil and the brutal hunting of activists, dissidents and persons declared a "risk to national security." The Blair Witch Project was so convincing that early audiences couldn’t figure out if it was a horror film or a horrific capturing of real events. Both films were controversial, and both kept pundits busy for months discussing their merits. 

The most recent mockumentary to hit the theatres, Death of a President, has the most provocative title of any movie this year, and became a hot news story during the recent Toronto International Film Festival. Like so many controversial films before it, the movie became a news story before anyone had seen it. If they had, I’m not so sure it would have been deemed so buzz-worthy.

Brit director Gabriel Range asks the question, what would happen if George W. Bush was assassinated while still in office? Using nonfiction techniques to shine a light on current social and political issues he expertly blends archival footage with dramatized scenes to imagine a scenario in which the FBI leap to judgment, utilizing the Patriot Act Mach 3 to railroad a Muslim suspect onto death row for the murder of the president.

The aftershock of the assassination is portrayed quite convincingly—Range began his filmmaking career as a television journalist for Reuters, so he knows how to piece together a doc—but the film, apart from its central premise of killing a real-life president, doesn’t raise any issues that haven’t already been discussed on Meet the Press many times. The idea that in the post 9/11 world people are arrested on flimsy evidence and held with out charges isn’t a new one, nor is the rush-to-judgment scenario. In there somewhere are compelling arguments about the rights of individuals whose civil liberties are being violated, but nothing in the film is as interesting or attention grabbing as its title.

Death of a President takes a bold idea, drapes it in technical virtuosity, but ultimately is a triumph of editing rather than a peek into a frightening future. The future described in the movie is now and the scariest and most sobering idea in the film can be summed up in two words—President Cheney. 

THE DEPARTED: 4 ½ STARS

I admired Martin Scorsese’s last two movies, Gangs of New York and The Aviator, but I didn’t love them, and Scorsese is the kind of filmmaker who should inspire fanatical praise. The last two were handsome, big-budget epics but it felt like he was making movies to please Academy voters and not himself. The Departed is a departure from those sleek studio efforts, and places the director firmly back where he belongs, on the mean streets surrounded by gangsters, duplicity and violence.

Based on a Hong Kong film called Mo-gaan-do (titled Infernal Affairs in North America) The Departed, relocates to Boston and stylishly tells the story of two men on opposite sides of the law. Both are cops, one deep undercover in the organization of mob boss Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson), the other an ambitious state trooper who appears to be on the straight and narrow, but is actually an employee of Costello’s. Both men, played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon respectively, are tormented by their duplicitous lives, feeling trapped between the truth and lies, but neither has a way out of the situation. DiCaprio is so far undercover that officially he doesn’t exist, and Damon’s character owes a huge dept of gratitude to Costello. Their lives intersect both professionally—as they play cat and mouse with one another—and personally as they unwittingly become involved with the same woman, a beautiful therapist played by newcomer Vera Farmiga.

Scorsese skillfully tells this story about loyalty and men who lead dark, dangerous lives, infusing each frame of the film with excitement. He has created an unpredictable atmosphere, where the threat of trouble hangs over every scene. Not since 1995’s Casino has he so effectively embraced the down-and-dirty world of crime. The film is a study of contradictions, both in character and style—Scorsese mixes fluid camera work with hard-edged editing; his script is both darkly funny and brutally violent.

The movie’s large ensemble cast of Hollywood A-listers do great work. The youngest members of the above-the-title cast, DiCaprio and Damon, each set the bar very high. This may be DiCaprio’s first truly adult role, a man who can’t trust anyone and who battles his jangled nerves to do the right thing. Damon plays off his clean-cut image, expanding on his recent work in Syrianna and the Bourne movies, to present a good-guy façade that is being eroded by paranoia. 

The rest of the cast, Ray Winstone, Martin Sheen, Mark Walhberg (as the foul-mouthed Dignan) are stellar, but if there are two performances that look Oscar bound they are Jack Nicholson and Alec Baldwin.

Baldwin plays Ellerby, a task force head out to get Costello with gusto. The character is a mix of steely-eyed determination and goofy comedic relief, and Scorsese keeps him in check, allowing to walk to the edge of the cliff without ever jumping over into overacting. It’s a fine line and Baldwin walks it expertly.    

In a film packed with great performances—it’s as if everyone was putting in extra effort for Scorsese—Jack Nicholson still manages to steal the show. Costello is his King Lear, a tyrant on the edge of madness, but with Nicholson’s burning eyes. Closing in on 70 years old he is still vital, still scary and still capable of blowing younger, prettier actors off the screen. There is a reason why some people are legends and in The Departed we are reminded once again why Nicholson is acting royalty. 

The Departed finds Scorsese in top form, and is the coolest and best movie so far this year.  

THE DESCENT: 3 ½ STARS

The Descent is scary. Run home to your Momma scary. Scream like a little girl scary. Close your eyes and think of something else scary. “Hold me, I’m scared” scary.

It’s the story of a group of thrill seeking female friends who meet a couple of times a year to climb mountains, base jump and leap out of planes. When we first meet them they are all happy, smiling broadly while white water rafting. This being a horror movie you just know that soon those smiles will be wiped off their faces.

Sure enough, not even five minutes in things take a turn for the worse when tragedy strikes one of this feisty bunch. The group works through the heartbreak in the only way they know how—by taking another huge risk. This time they decide to jump in a big hole. They go spelunking.

A yawning underground cave is the perfect setting for a horror film. You have darkness, shadows (and maybe even mysterious shadowy figures), and claustrophobic atmosphere. The Descent makes great use of its surroundings playing off our primal fears—fear of the dark, fear of small, enclosed spaces, fear of not being in control. As the women go further down into the cave their situation becomes dire and the tension builds for the viewer. First time director Neil Marshall skillfully turns up the heat, making the audience feel for this cast of unknowns as their resolve is pushed to the limit. Two miles underground there isn’t any sunshine and the movie reflects that, getting darker the further down they travel. It’s bleak, violent and gets bleaker and more violent as the movie goes on.

The Descent has plenty of gory moments but it isn’t the blood and guts that terrifies. It is the hopeless situation, the unrelenting air of menace that really plays on the viewer’s fears.

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA: 4 STARS

Take the swooping white hair and bad attitude of Cruella DeVille, mix in the people skills of Vlad the Impaler and you’ll get Miranda Priestly, the worst boss in all of moviedom. As played by Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada Priestly, the editrix of a fictional fashion magazine called Runway, never met an assistant she couldn’t humiliate with a withering glance and a few choice words.

Rumor has it that she is based on all-powerful Vogue editor Anna Wintour who apparently uses assistants like the rest of us use toilet paper. In 2003 one survivor, Lauren Weisberger, extracted revenge on her former boss, writing a vaguely fictionalized account of her time spent working for the dragon lady of fashion. The Devil Wears Prada changed the names, exaggerated the stories and offered a scandalous look at the inner workings of a big-time New York fashion magazine.

In the movie version Anne Hathaway plays Andy Sachs, a fashion-impaired university grad who takes a job as Miranda’s assistant as a stepping-stone to her dream job of writing capital “J” journalism for The New Yorker. Courtesy of Miranda’s right hand man Nigel, Andy is given a high fashion makeover from the Jimmy Choo’s on up. Dripping in Dior she quickly becomes Miranda’s star assistant, eclipsing the ambitious, and supposedly firmly entrenched Emily. Andy soon learns that in Miranda’s fast paced world results are the only tings that matter. Other little details like personal relationships, dignity and self worth are secondary. The story is as thin as the models in the pages of Runway, but it is the characters that make this so much fun.

The Devil Wears Prada moves along at a nice clip when Streep, draped in Chanel and clutching the latest Marc Jacobs bag in her talons, is on screen. She gets the rare opportunity to show off her comedic side and seems to have devious fun with the character. She’s nasty, but of course Streep brings more to the role than vicious one-liners, (“The details of your incompetence do not interest me,” she says to a frazzled helper.), and evil eyes. She plays Miranda without a hint of weakness. Her marriage may be falling apart but she chose this life and is willing to accept the consequences no matter what the cost. She takes a one-dimensional character and turns her into the most interesting person on-screen.

Stanley Tucci as Nigel, Miranda’s long-suffering, but tough as nails sidekick and Emily Blunt as the snooty Assistant Number One are also perfectly cast and fun to watch. The least interesting character, Andy Sachs, has the most screen time, and while Anne Hathaway is charismatic and beautiful she gets slightly bowled over by the over-sized personalities of Streep, Tucci and Blunt.

The Devil Wears Prada only wears thin when the filmmakers indulge Hathaway’s inherent decency. By the time she decides that she doesn’t care about the glamour and glitz of the fashion world we don’t care either. Luckily the bulk of the movie is wicked fun.

DATE MOVIE: ½ STAR

Who says there isn’t truth in advertising? The cover of the DVD case for Date Movie says, “from 2 of the 6 writers of Scary Movie.” If you surmised that the slogans means the movie is only one third as funny as any of the Scary Movies you’d be right. Date Movie pokes fun at romantic comedies, adding a gross-out twist to your favorite scenes from When Harry Met Sally, The Wedding Planner and My Big Fat Greek Wedding, a formula that works well when the Scary Movie franchise sends up horror films but is less successful here.

Date Movie is likely to end up on many “worst of lists” come the end of the year, and with good reason. If you must rent this one over the weekend at least do yourself the favor of ignoring the full-length movie and checking out the extra on the disc called “The Quickie” which zips through the movie in just six minutes. You’ll never get those six minutes back, but at least it saves you from wasting 85 minutes of your life on this unfunny pap.

DAVINCI CODE: 2 ½ STARS

The DaVinci Code is finally in the theatres after months of anticipation and hype. No movie in recent memory has generated the kind of controversy and column inches as this one has, but like Public Enemy used to say, “Don’t believe the hype.” The Ron Howard adaptation doesn’t live up to expectations. Howard has crafted a handsome 2 ½ hour movie that is faithful to the book—for better or worse.

The coded symbols and secret messages are here, all of which are crucial to the understanding of the convoluted story, but unfortunately the slavish adherence to those story conventions slows the whole thing down to a crawl, draining most of the excitement out of this provocative material.

Howard and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman edit the story, removing some of author Dan Brown’s superfluous story tentacles, but still get bogged down.

For what is essentially a chase movie it is awfully talky. The story is a multi-faceted juggernaut with Howard balancing a police procedural with a scavenger-hunt and religious intrigue. Add in a few mad monks, an eccentric English Lord and a deadly butler and you should have the basis for a ripping good tale, the 45 million or so readers of the book thought so, but the filmmakers are more interested in getting from one place to another in the story to worry too much about the characters. The actors appear to be there to support the story instead of being an organic part of the story. They all have heaps of dialogue but little in the way of actual characters. The result is a clumsy screenplay that doesn’t move along as quickly as the book.

Of the international cast, featuring French superstars Jean Reno and Audrey Tautou and Brits Paul Bettany and Ian McKellen only the latter seems to be enjoying himself. As the crusty Leigh Teabing, a Holy Grail obsessive, McKellen seems to have grasped the pulp fiction roots of this piece and actually calibrates his performance away from the terribly serious tone of the rest of the film.

Anchoring the cast is a morose Tom Hanks as Harvard Professor of Religious Symbiology turned murder suspect Robert Langdon. Hanks doesn’t do much with the character other than act as Mr. Exposition. He is the guide to the mystery of the DaVinci Code and as such has to deliver a great deal of information about symbols and the movie’s revisionist view of the life of Jesus Christ. These long speeches aren’t particularly cinematic and Hanks’ flat delivery of the material makes them even less so. Even when the pace of the film is more upbeat, the script lets him down. In a rare moment of passion he must deliver one of the least thrilling lines in the history of thrillers. “I have to get to a library—fast!” Hitchcock or any other good thriller director would have ditched that line at the first read through.

The movie does soft peddle some of the book’s more controversial claims. “We’ve been dragged into a world of people who think this stuff is real,” says the cinematic Langdon who is more of a Doubting Thomas than his literary counterpart. The filmmakers have added a sequence that stresses the influence of Jesus Christ in the modern world but these concessions to political correctness actually undermine the story, stripping it of some of its drama. Whether the history presented in the book and film is hokum or not, we need the characters to believe in it to make their search compelling. If they don’t believe, then why should the viewer care?

The DaVinci Code is a drama without much drama, a thriller with few thrills whose biggest sin is a failure to entertain.

DOOGAL: 2 STARS

Doogal, a new animated film about a rambunctious, candy-loving dog, has a great pedigree. It was derived from a popular French children's TV show which was shown in England with great success under the title of The Magic Roundabout; it features the voice work of Judi Dench, William H. Macy and Whoopi Goldberg and is being released by former Miramax head honcho Harvey Weinstein. With such good breeding too bad it won’t be winning any awards at the Westminster Dog Show. 

Like Curious George, another recent animated movie, Doogal is geared for younger kids who will likely take delight in the silly story, the bright colors—Doogal lives in a village where everything seems to be made of gingerbread and icing—and goofy characters. I’m not sure, however, how many times even the most patient of parents will be able to endure the adventures of Doogal—who I thought looked like a member of the 1970s band Slade, with his shaggy hair and droopy eyes—and his band of friends. The unlikely group—a train, a love-struck snail, a singing cow and Karate master rabbit, characters that seem ready-made to become merchandise if the movie is a hit—must retrieve three diamonds from far flung places, keeping them out of the hands of the evil Zeebad who will use their power to freeze the sun and earth. If they are successful they will be able to free Doogal’s owner Florence from the icy jail that imprisons her.

The filmmakers have thrown in the obligatory pop culture references in an effort to keep parents on board—everything from Pulp Fiction, to Lord of the Rings and Mission Impossible is included—but I don’t think a few in-jokes will be enough to keep older eyes interested.

One drawing point for older viewers is the addition of the funniest man on television, Jon Stewart, to the voice cast. Stewart is Zeebad, and all I can say is that it is a good thing that he’s hosting the Oscars this year because that is as close to an acting award as he’ll ever get.

Although it is packed with good messages for kids about tolerance and co-operation, Doogal isn’t as clever as Hoodwinked, as gentle as Curious George or as touching as last week’s dog movie Eight Below.   

DERAILED: 2 ½ STARS

This new film starring Clive Owen—the man who should have been James Bond—and Jennifer Aniston is a cautionary tale about staying faithful to your spouse and never, ever renting rooms in sleazy hotels. Part Fatal Attraction, part Hitchcock thriller Derailed stays on track through the set-up of the story, but as soon as the going gets rough the story, well, derails.

Owen plays a family man saddled with troubles at work and at home who hooks up with Lucinda, played by Jennifer Aniston, after meeting her on a commuter train. In a hormone induced rush they decide to consummate their illicit affair at a seedy hotel, only to be interrupted by a burglar who robs them and sexually assaults Lucinda. Things spiral out of control as the robber blackmails the couple and seems to have an unquenchable thirst for Owen’s money.

It wouldn’t be fair to reveal any more about the plot, but suffice to say it tries to keep the viewer of balance until the closing moments of the movie. The trouble is the script telegraphs most of the story’s surprises, providing a virtual roadmap for all the twists and turns that lay ahead. The other problem is the casting of the leads. Owen and Aniston are miscast as a wimpy, ineffectual man and femme fatale respectively. Owen, whose hangdog look perfectly captures the despair his character feels in his complicated home life, is simply too charismatic to play a believable dumb schmuck and Aniston, who hasn’t been in a thriller since 1993’s Leprechaun, has an innate sweetness that seems at odds with her character. 

DOMINO: 3 ½ STARS

Anyone raised in the music video era, or with the attention span of gnat will understand the visual language of Domino. Images fly by on the screen so quickly I almost got whiplash watching this stylish, but frenetic story of Domino Harvey, the real-life Ford model and wild-child daughter of actor Laurence Harvey turned bounty-hunter.

As Domino Pirates of the Caribbean and Bend it Like Beckham star, the rake-thin Kiera Knightly, proves that she can carry a movie. She also proves that she can head-butt, punch, kick and num chuck a movie.

There is nothing subtle here from Tony Scott’s over caffeinated camerawork to the violence to the story, which takes off on flights of fancy, ignoring the true-life events of Domino’s life in favor of exploitive fiction. Domino is a loud, chaotic and noisy picture that is more a tribute to Tony Scott’s editing prowess than it is to the memory of the real Domino, who died at age 35 just months before the movie was released.

Fun self-depreciating supporting roles by former Beverly Hills 90210 stars Ian Ziering and Brian Austin Greene, playing themselves as the much-abused hosts of a reality TV show add some pop to the humor in the film. Mickey Rourke continues his much belated comeback, playing his now signature role as a dirty tough guy trying to cling to the last ounce of his humanity.    

Some will find Domino’s fast pace and outrageous story make for a good time at the theatre while others will have to reach for the Aspirin halfway through the movie.

DARK WATER

Dark Water is a psychological drama based on a short story by Koji Suzuki—the Stephen King of Japanese horror and the author of Ringu—which simmers, but never comes to a boil. The story is simple: Daphne (Jennifer Connelly) is going through a messy divorce and custody battle for her five-year-old daughter. To earn full custody Daphne needs to present a stable living environment and rents a cheap, rundown old apartment near a good school. They have a home but something feels off about the apartment—plus a large water stain on the bedroom ceiling gradually weakens Daphne’s already fragile mental state. Dark Water moves so slowly that often it feels more like a movie about bad plumbing than a study of urban dread, but there is something hypnotic about the smoggy yellow color pallet of the film that breeds an uneasiness in the viewer. Too bad this atmospheric thriller is so long on atmosphere and so short on thrills.

DEAR FRANKIE

Dear Frankie is a four hankie movie. It is a tearjerker about Lizzie, played by Emily Mortimer, who has fled from her abusive husband, and is raising her deaf son, Frankie (Jack McElhone). Instead of telling Frankie the terrible truth about his father, Lizzie tells the boy that his Dad is away at sea on a freighter named the Accra. Frankie writes to his old man, and his mother intercepts the letters and answers them herself.

Tearjerker moment number one: Lizzie says Frankie's letters are important to her "because it's the only way I can hear his voice."

Everything is going well until the day that a ship named the Accra actually docks in Glasgow. Frankie assumes his father is on board, so to keep up the comforting lie she has told to her son, Lizzie decides to find a man who will pretend, temporarily, to be Frankie's father. The man is played by Gerard Butler, who is no longer hiding his rugged good looks behind a mask as he did in the recent Phantom of the Opera. He is the fatherly stranger who brings comfort to both mother and son.

There are some lovely moments in this quiet little film, a good performance from Butler after the monumental flop of Phantom, but it is Emily Mortimer (Lovely & Amazing and Bright Young Things) as the struggling single mother who shines brightest.