HARRY BROWN: 3 ½ STARS

Harry Brown is a common name, like John Smith or Greg Jones. It’s the kind of name that doesn’t draw attention to itself, but in the hands of Michael Caine, who plays the lead character in the revenge thriller “Harry Brown,” the name, the character and the movie become memorable.

“Harry Brown” is a gritty “Gran Torino” with British accents and a dash of “Death Wish.” Caine plays Brown as High Noon’s Gary Cooper, but instead of being set on the wide open plain, the action in this Teabag Western takes place in the urban terrain of the Elephant and Castle section of London.  

Caine plays a widowed man who strikes back after a gang of feral yobs kill his best mate and confidant Len (David Bradley). D.I. Alice Frampton, (Emily Mortimer), a persistent but ineffectual detective with the thankless job of policing the council estate, suspects Harry is a part time vigilante but can’t prove it, and even if she could her partner is ambivalent to the pensioner’s gun slinging ways. “As far as I'm concerned, Harry Brown is doing us a favor,” says D.S. Terry Hicock (Charlie Creed-Miles).

“Harry Brown” is a lurid picture of a crime ridden society. Its bleak worldview effectively illustrates the flip side of the Swingin’ London Caine came to personify in the 1960s. It’s a dark and menacing world where Len admits, “I’m scared all the time, Harry.” But all the atmosphere in the world wouldn’t be worth a hill of bangers and mash if you didn’t believe that an 80 year old man with an inhaler could effectively turn vigilante, take the law into his own hands and go all Dirty Harry on kids a fraction his age.

In a film ripe with nice performances—Mortimer is marvelous and Jack O’Connell is frightening as a young thug—Michael Caine shines, giving us a well rounded portrait of a man who is a trained killer—he was a marine—with a “certain set of skills” and as a defeated old man who has seen too much death and strife in his life.

He’s at his best when he plays the extremes—the heartbroken pensioner on one hand; the lethal killer who tosses off Tarantino-esque one liners like, “You failed to maintain your weapon, Son,” to a drug dealer whose gun jammed at the wrong moment, on the other—and it is his performance that humanizes the film’s often passionate pontificating on “Broken Britain.”

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: 3 ½ STARS

“How to Train Your Dragon,” the story of a kind hearted Viking boy who becomes a Dragon Whisperer, is one of the best animated films yet from Dreamworks, home of “Shrek” and “Madagascar”. It will likely engage audiences of young kids (But no tots please! It’s too intense) and their willing parents, but as good as it is it still doesn’t come close to the lyrical beauty of a Pixar film.

Based on the kid’s books by Cressida Cowell, Jay Baruchel stars as Hiccup, a skinny outcast in his remote Viking village, located, as he says, “in the meridian of misery.” Killing a dragon is “everything” around there but he is too young, too inexperienced and too clumsy to be of much use as a dragon hunter. To make up for his lack of prowess he develops a sling shot that should be able to fell the dreaded Night Fury, a winged beast described as the "unholy off spring of lightening and death itself." Low and behold, it works, but when he captures one of the creatures he discovers two things. One, he can’t bring himself to kill the dragon, and two, the dragons aren’t the fearful creatures everyone thinks they are.  

“How to Train Your Dragon” differs from “Shrek” and other Dreamworks offerings in that it is an action adventure first and a comedy second. Gone are the pop culture references that populate (and instantly date) the scripts of “Shrek” and “A Shark’s Tale.” They’ve been replaced by well executed action scenes and an underdog story that uses humor to accentuate the story, not dominate it.

Scenes of Hiccup riding Toothless, his domesticated dragon, are a step toward Pixar territory for Dreamworks. They are marvelously rendered in thrilling 3D and wouldn’t look too out of place in “Avatar.” The three dimensional work in those scenes is lovely, but doesn’t add much to the earth bound sequences. The village scenes have depth but no eye popping effects.

As usual for this kind of animated feature celebrity voices dominate the voice work. Gerard Butler and Craig Ferguson play the elder Vikings with vigorous Scottish accents, and Jonah Hill brings some fun to Snotlout even though his character is a dead ringer for a young Jack Black, but Baruchel brings the heart and soul to the film. His nasally twang is easy on the ear and perfectly suits the nebbishy character who thinks that if he kills a dragon he’ll get a girlfriend.

“How to Train Your Dragon” has some good messages for kids about not judging a book by its cover and several rousing action sequences. It’s not Pixar good but it is a leap in the right direction for Dreamworks.

HOT TUB TIME MACHINE: 3 STARS

“Hot Tub Time Machine” has a Frank Capra life is wonderful feel. The story of three old friends who try and relive the wildest weekend of their lives, and literally jump back in time all the way to the Regan years, is Capra-esque... if Capra swore like a sailor and infused his movies with sexual humor and vomit gags.

Following the attempted suicide of Lou (Rob Corddry) his only two friends Adam (John Cusack) and Nick (Craig Robinson), try and cheer him with a trip to the scene of their greatest party weekend ever—the Kodiack Valley Lodge. The place has seen better days, but through a magical combination of a hot tub and some illegal Russian Red Bull they are transported back in time to a sea of fluorescent coloured ski suits, Walk men and oversized Ray Bans—a.k.a. the Regan years. To a soundtrack of 80s hits like “Kick Start My Heart” and “Safety Dance” the guys and Adam’s nephew (Clark Duke) grapple with the mysteries of the space and time continuum. By exactly recreating the Winter Fest 86 weekend they hope to find a crack in time and get back to present day. Of course, the only thing more complicated than a fissure in time is three middle aged guys with a case stuffed with cocaine and booze.

I’m sure director Steve Pink (and producer Cusack) are likely hoping to emulate the success of that other recent buddy comedy of bad manners “The Hangover.” They have a good chance—it’s the only comedy opening this weekend—but its sense of absurdity and disjointed feel may dampen audience enthusiasm a tad.

Having said that, the movie aims to please audiences who would pay to see a movie called “Hot Tub Time Machine;” the nudity—both male and female—you’d expect from a whirlpool movie is in place, although just enough to keep it on this side of a PG rating. There’s also loads of Apatow style toilet jokes, barfing and off colour jokes, but what good time audiences may not be as prepared for the sentimentality that follows the Cusack character. Luckily that and the “will it be their chance to start over” dilemma is dispensed with fairly quickly and only briefly throws the movie off balance.

Comedy wise “Hot Tub Time Machine” belongs to the lesser known members of the cast. Corddry, best remembered as the manic second banana in movies like “Blades of Glory” and “Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay,” is off the hook as the volatile Lou. Rather than worry about the consequences of tampering with time, he looks at the upside of a slightly altered world—a future where Miley Cyrus doesn’t exist and “Manimal” is still on the air. Finally someone has figured out how to put Corddry`s unhinged energy to good use.

Craig Robison, seen every week on “The Office” and, recently, as the best thing in lame movies like “The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard,” and “Miss March,” brings a great deadpan to the mix and owns several of the film’s funniest moments.
  
“Hot Tub Time Machine” could have been the comedy equivalent of “Snakes on a Plane,`` a great title and not much else, but despite a couple of dead spots and jokes that may not mean much to anyone born after 1976—will they get the Cold War jokes?—it aims to please and is loud, overbearing and fun—kind of like the decade it pokes fun at.

HUMPDAY: 3 STARS

Humpday is the mumblecore version of You, Me and Dupree with a surprising twist.

If that doesn’t make sense to you, allow me to break it down. Unless you’ve been hanging around the Slamdance Film Festival “mumblecore” is likely a bit of a mystery. It is, by definition, true independent film; shot in sequence on digital video cameras with improvised dialogue and a do-it-yourself philosophy. Most feature twenty-something nonprofessional actors and a production value that makes the Dogme 95 films look like slick Michael Bay movies.

You, Me and Dupree is an awful Kate Hudson comedy about a houseguest that throws her and her new husband’s life into disarray.  

Still in the dark. OK. Here’s the lowdown. Ben and Anna are happy newlyweds, anticipating the (eventual) arrival of their first child. One night, at 2 am Andrew, an old school chum of Ben’s arrives, looking for a place to stay. Andrew is a free spirited artist who is in Seattle to raise money to complete an art project in Mexico. His presence immediately upsets Ben and Anna’s comfortable routine, but when he and Ben concoct a scheme to make an amateur porno to prove their brotherly love—it would be “beyond gay” they say—it pushes everyone to reexamine their motives.

Mumblecore is about intimate relationships and Humpday does a nice job of framing Ben’s interactions with Anna and Andrew. His relations with both seem natural and real, but like real life it’s not always very exciting. Humpday’s use of natural conversation is easy on the ears, but could have used a dialogue editor. Discussions drone on and on and more than once I felt myself thinking, “OK, we get the point. Move on!”  

It’s nothing that some tight editing couldn’t fix, and I wish someone would take the scissors to Humpday because other than that it is an effective study of people’s perceptions. As Ben and Andrew learn about themselves and where their boundaries lay the only thing that gets in their way is the incessant talk.

HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE:
FOR HARRY’S FANS: 4 ½ STARS
FOR EVERYONE ELSE: 3 STARS

Full disclosure: I am not a Potter Head.

While everyone else on the planet was busy getting sucked into Potter’s world of wizardry I missed the boat. I read the first book and have seen all the movies but never really understood what all the fuss was about. The books are phenomenally popular—they’ve made J. K. Rowling the first billionaire author—and the movies have made a fortune—they are among the highest grossing film series of all time—but it wasn’t until the release of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, the sixth entry in the series, that I began to understand the allure.

I don’t usually review the audience I see a film with, or even how they react to the film—the only criteria I use is how I feel about the movie’s quality—but in this case I have to remark on the connection Harry’s fans have with these characters. I saw the movie in a screening room with about twelve other people. Directly in front of me were three twenty-something women who cooed during the romantic scenes, gasped during the adventure sequences and laughed when the silly stuff happened. Normally their amount of distracting interaction with the movie would have ticked me off, but in this case it actually enhanced my appreciation of the film. People have tried to explain the appeal of Potter to me but it wasn’t until I became aware of this trio that I finally began to understand what a deep connection people have to these characters.

Filmmakers often try to make audiences care about the characters in their films, but Rowling, the actors and the franchise’s succession of directors have actually made it happen. Having spent hundreds of hours reading the books, seeing the characters grow up, fall in-and-out of love and inch closer to ending Lord Voldemort’s reign of terror, readers and viewers feel real empathy for Harry, Ron and Hermione.   

That’s all well and good, but is The Half Blood Prince a good movie?

Yes, mostly. This is a pacer installment, a place holder which sets up the next chapters and like the others it has high production values, imaginative special effects that will make your eyeballs dance; a talented cast all of whom prance about on beautifully designed sets in spectacular costumes but, “Merlin’s beard!”, as with every film since the first one (the only book I have read) I was occasionally left in the dark as to some of the story’s finer points.

Harry Potterland is a singular place with its own particular customs, history and culture and for those familiar with its trappings the movies are magical things that bring that world to life. For the rest of us all this talk of potions, half blood princes and horcruxes might be a bit head scratching, unless of course, you’re sitting just behind the trio that made the screening of The Half Blood Prince so enjoyable for me.   

Official plot summary from Warner Bros.:

“Emboldened by the return of Lord Voldemort, the Death Eaters are wreaking havoc in both the Muggle and wizarding worlds and Hogwarts is no longer the safe haven it once was. Harry suspects that new dangers may lie within the castle, but Dumbledore is more intent upon preparing him for the final battle that he knows is fast approaching. He needs Harry to help him uncover a vital key to unlocking Voldemort's defenses critical information known only to Hogwarts' former Potions Professor, Horace Slughorn. With that in mind, Dumbledore manipulates his old colleague into returning to his previous post with promises of more money, a bigger office and the chance to teach the famous Harry Potter.

“Meanwhile, the students are under attack from a very different adversary as teenage hormones rage across the ramparts. Harry's long friendship with Ginny Weasley is growing into something deeper, but standing in the way is Ginny's boyfriend, Dean Thomas, not to mention her big brother Ron. But Ron's got romantic entanglements of his own to worry about, with Lavender Brown lavishing her affections on him, leaving Hermione simmering with jealousy yet determined not to show her feelings. And then a box of love potion-laced chocolates ends up in the wrong hands and changes everything. As romance blossoms, one student remains aloof with far more important matters on his mind. He is determined to make his mark, albeit a dark one. Love is in the air, but tragedy lies ahead and Hogwarts may never be the same again.”

THE HURT LOCKER: 4 STARS

In the last couple of years a number of movies about the Iraq War have come and gone, barely making an impact with audiences. Well intentioned, but earnest movies like Lions for Lambs, Redacted and In the Valley of Elah were box office poison to a public inundated by images of the war on television. That downward spiral may be stopped by a movie from action director Kathryn Bigelow, a character study placed against the backdrop of the Iraq War called The Hurt Locker.

Set in 2004 Baghdad, The Hurt Locker follows a series of missions with the Bravo Troop as they dismantle IEDs (improvised explosive devices) on the last 38 days of their rotation in Iraq.

What emerges is more a wartime character study than a war movie. There are shoot outs and terrifically tense moments, but the action is, by and large, low key and realistic. Bigelow stages effective action scenes but they don’t have the over-the-top bluster we’re used to in modern war movies, instead they rely on intensity and the shocking randomness of wartime violence to make them memorable.

At the center of the action is Staff Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner) an adrenaline addicted bomb diffuser who revels in risk taking. His team members, Sgt. J.T. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Spc. Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty), still rocked by the sudden passing of their previous team leader, see James as a reckless troublemaker who may kill himself, or worse, get them killed. The tension in the film comes from their relationship with the showboating bomb expert as much as the battle scenes.      

The film is episodic; not so much a story as it is a series of events, but as the clock ticks down toward the end of their stay in Iraq and the end of the movie it becomes clear that Bigelow is letting the pictures tell a bigger story. The relationship of the men is the main thrust but her use of “show me don’t tell me” shots of life in Iraq in the midst of the unrest tell us a broader tale. The wordless way life in the background plays out shows us the uneasy relationship between the soldiers and the locals. It’s subtle, evocative filmmaking that binds the whole thing together.

The Hurt Locker isn’t a typical Iraq War film and that’s probably a good thing. By focusing on the people fighting the war and the effect of soldiering Kathryn Bigelow has made the most effective and most harrowing movie about the consequences of the war since Coming Home.

THE HANGOVER: 4 STARS

Almost everyone has done it once; woken up with cotton mouth, a headache, a mystery bruise or two and only a vague recollection of what happened the night before. Some call these symptoms the “wrath of the grapes” others call them by their real name—the hangover. Hangovers are always unpleasant, unless of course you’re not the one with the splitting headache. If I learned anything in my twenties it was that’s it always fun to laugh at someone who is desperately hungover, which is exactly what Old School director Todd Phillips is counting on with his new film about three groomsmen who lose their about-to-be-wed friend after a night of drunken debauchery.

The trailer sets up the movie nicely. It’s the aftermath of a wild Vegas bachelor party. There’s a tiger in the bathroom, a chicken in the living room, a baby in the closet and three very hungover groomsmen (Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis). What’s missing is the front tooth of one of the guys and the groom. Nobody knows what happened to either of them. The hazy-headed trio have just a few hours to retrace their staggered steps from the night before, find their friend Doug (Justin Bartha) and, for God’s sake, get him to the church on time.

The Hangover is an extreme “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” movie. A boy’s weekend version of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, it’s the ultimate nightmare for anyone waiting at home for the guys to come home from a bachelor party. These three take part in every vice The Entertainment Capital of the World has to offer from drinking to drugs to marrying the proto stripper with a heart of gold to hanging out with Carrot Top. It’s packed to bursting with every Vegas cliché, a hybrid of all the Sin City movies that preceded it. Call it Leaving Viva Las Vegas Honeymoon.  

It’s also the funniest thing to come out of Vegas since the Rat Pack ruled the Sands. Not that it’s for everyone. There are jokes here that would make Hollywood’s current king of crude, Judd Apatow, squirm in his seat. If 911 jokes (Too soon? Apparently not!), holocaust references and a scene with a baby being made to do something the Divinyls once sang about (look it up, it was top twenty in 1991) sound too outrageous, then this movie is not for you. If, however, you don’t mind muttering “That’s not right” while laughing out loud, there is much here to enjoy.

The big surprise is Bradley Cooper in a role that not only establishes him as a leading man after a long run as the good looking second banana in movies like Failure to Launch and Wedding Crashers, but also proves that he can be funny. Really funny. He’s a reactive comedian and doesn’t get many punch lines, but his response to finding a tiger in his hotel room bathroom is priceless.      

The Hangover is a wild brain-dead movie about men behaving badly that breaks so many taboos it makes raunchy comedies like Knocked Up seem tame.

HANNAH MONTANA: THE MOVIE:
FOR FANS: 4
FOR EVERYBODY ELSE: 3

Hannah Montana: The Movie is essentially three episodes of the Disney Channel television show (with a slightly more exotic location) stretched to reach feature film length. That means it’s either three times the fun or three times the torture depending on which side of the fence you stand on regarding the whole Miley Cyrus phenomenon.

If your son or daughter knows a dance move called “the Hawk in the Sky” chances are you already know who Miley is, but if you’ve been living on Mars for the past few years and have missed the whole Hannah Montana thing, here’s a primer. Since 2004 Miley Cyrus (daughter of Achy Breaky singer Billy Ray) has played the dual role of Miley Stewart and Hannah Montana. By day she is the average teenage school girl Miley. At night though, she’s the bedazzled pop star Hannah Montana. By keeping famous alter ego a secret she can be a pop star and still have a normal life. The show is wildly popular with kids and even has adult fans. Disgraced Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich admits to having watched every episode of the show.

The new movie follows the success of last year’s concert movie Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert which was the number one movie of its weekend, more than doubling the receipts of the number two movie, The Eye and breaking several box office records including the top score for gross revenue for a Super Bowl weekend.

The new film finds the popularity of Hannah Montana becoming almost too much for Miley Stewart (Cyrus) to bear. She fights Tyra Banks over a pair of shoes, ruins her best friend Lilly's (Emily Osment, Haley Joel’s little sister) Sweet Sixteen party and is preoccupied all the time. When her father Robby (Billy Ray Cyrus) tricks her into taking a trip to her hometown of Crowley Corners, Tennessee she may finally get some perspective on life, love and fame. “Think of it as Hannah detox,” he says.

There is something mind-numbingly post modern about the idea of Hannah Montana: The Movie. It’s about a girl named Miley whose alter ego Hannah is the most popular teenager on the planet, played by the real life most popular teenager on the planet, named Miley. It’s like one of those M.C. Escher etchings of the hands drawing themselves.

Untangle that puzzle and you are left with an efficiently made movie that sticks to the framework of the popular television show. There’s the crazy slapstick gags, the musical numbers and, of course, a good Disney moral wrapped up in a shiny package. Imagine The Monkees except female, wholesome and without the culture jamming social parody.   

Hannah Montana: The Movie probably won’t win over any new fans to the franchise but will please the kids (and their parents) who tune into the show every week.

THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT: 2 ½ STARS

The Haunting in Connecticut, a new supernatural thriller starring Virginia Madsen and Martin Donovan, won’t win any points in the originality department. Based on an allegedly true story of a family’s encounters with the supernatural, it breathes the same air as The Amityville Horror, The Town that Dreaded Sundown, Death Tunnel or any movie involving evil spirits, a haunted house, an old aboriginal cemetery or former insane asylum. Original it ain’t, but originality has never been the most important part of a haunted house tale.

The film takes its story from the much documented life experience of Carmen Snedeker and her family who were tormented by evil forces after moving into a reconverted funeral home in Southington, Connecticut. “It has a bit of history,” says the landlord as he shows Snedeker’s movie counterpart Virginia Madsen around the old, broken down Victorian home. History or not the family decides to take the place. After all it is as dad says, “just a house, [made of] bricks and nails and wood.” He didn’t know it at the time, but he should have added undead beasties to that list.

The Haunting in Connecticut is part of a new genre of fright film— mainstream Christian horror. Films like this one and The Exorcism of Emily Rose can be intense, but the thrills and chills skew more toward the PG-13 end of the scale.

Haunting is the very definition of Christian horror. It is a scary film, with disturbing images—anyone with a fear of eyelid trauma beware!—and enough shocks to keep the casual horror fan interested. It also comes complete with all the conventions of a traditional haunted house film. There is the prerequisite long set of stairs with the burned out hall light leading down to a darkened basement; the usual weird nooks and crannies of the spooky old place, the mysterious locked door, strange shadows, unexplained winds that make candles flicker and even an ectoplasm spewing ghost.

What sets this apart from the typical chiller is the emphasis is on family values and the power of prayer. Also stressed is the family’s ability to triumph over adversity, both natural—the husband’s drinking problem—and supernatural—evil demons.     

It doesn’t make for as woozy a combination as you might imagine. The mix of religious ideas and horror has been with us since humans first defined the idea of evil and Christian symbols have figured in horror stories from Dracula to The Omen and beyond. What the new brand of Christian horror does is bring God back into the mix. In The Haunting in Connecticut characters pray and have conversations with God, treating their spirituality as part of their everyday lives.

The Haunting in Connecticut won’t do much for hardcore horror fans, it’s likely a bit too old fashioned and a bit too tame for gore aficionados, but it does create a good atmosphere of dread and raise the odd hair on the back of your neck.

HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU: 1 STAR

He’s Just Not That Into You, a new romantic comedy with an all star cast, is being described as Love Actually meets Sex and the City. Not surprising since the book it was based on was inspired by a line from the latter. The book’s authors Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo’s eureka moment came when they saw the episode Pick-A-Little, Talk-A-Little. On the show Miranda (if you don’t know who that is, stop reading now) was telling Carrie’s boyfriend Berger about a date who declined her invitation to come up to her apartment. “I have an early meeting,” he said by way of an excuse. Berger analyzes the situation and concludes that “he's just not that into you,” adding that “when a guy's really into you, he's coming upstairs, meeting or no meeting.” That one exchange inspired a self help book which became a bestseller and now a two hour movie starring Drew Barrymore and Jennifer Aniston.

The multi-pronged plot involves a seemingly unconnected group of Baltimore men and women who by the time the movie is over have swapped spit, broken up, gotten back together, dated, stalked and generally dabbled in all forms of human interaction. The unifying theme is that one person in each relationship is more “into” the other person than vice versa. According to director Ken Kwapis the relationship tango goes like this: “Character A is going out with character B, character B is really into Character A, but Character A is really into Character C who's dating Character D…”

The first thing you’ll notice about He’s Just Not That Into You is that every good looking actor or actress in Hollywood is in this movie. It’s a panoply of blue eyes, shiny coiffed hair and jaw lines so sharp you could use them to cut granite and, of course they all live in beautifully designed homes and have cool jobs. So go see the movie for the clothes, the apartments, the general beauty of the cast, but don’t expect anything useful in terms of relationship advice.

Despite the movie’s source material and general self-help premise this is one of the most toxic looks at male – female relations since the Brittney Spears, Kevin Federline wedding video. The women are either portrayed as a.) incomplete without a man in their lives, b.) home wreckers, or c.) pathetically man crazy.

The men don’t fare much better. The guys are needy, cheaters, slobs or downright smarmy. One man, played by Bradley Cooper, has a slip of the tongue where he says “funeral” when the word he should have said was “wedding.” That’s about the extent of the character development on display here. (In case you don’t get it, he’s wondering if he ruined his life by marrying too young.) All in all despite their obvious genetic gifts it’s no wonder these characters are terminally single.

He’s Just Not That Into You makes the point that dating is hard and relationships are difficult and confusing. Well, thanks for the info. I get it. I got it after the first hour. By the end of the second hour of watching these hapless characters flop around from one warm body to the next I could only think of one sure fire way to test for a prospective mate. Make them watch He’s Just Not That Into You. If they want to leave midway through you may have found someone worth hanging out with.

HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND ALIENATE PEOPLE: 3 STARS

In Toby Young’s aptly named book How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, now a motion picture starring Shawn of the Dead’s Simon Pegg, he detailed how not to become a success in the cut throat world of New York magazine publishing. In 1995 English journalist Young accepted a job with Vanity Fair as a contributing editor. He may have envisioned himself to be the next Alistair Cooke, but from the second he stepped off the plane from London he was doomed to failure. His laddish stunts and seemingly bottomless aptitude for offending people made him an outsider in the oh-so-proper world of Conde Nast.

For example he broke every office sexual harassment rule by hiring a Strip-o-gram for a fellow employee, and to make matters worse he did it on that most politically correct day of days, Take Your Daughter to Work Day. For most of the time he worked at Vanity Fair he sat idle, collecting a large pay packet for doing very little work. He blew the biggest story he was assigned, interviewing actor Nathan Lane by asking him a series of inappropriate questions, culminating with a discussion about his sexual practises. Lane walked out of the interview, and Young’s career at VF was pretty much over. Perhaps his most pathetic move was to add the prefix “Hon” (short for “Honourable”) to his VISA in an attempt to impress New York women. The Sunday Times called the book “the longest self-depreciating joke since the complete works of Woody Allen.”

For legal reasons, I would imagine, many of the names have been changed—Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter becomes Clayton Harding—and some of the details are different—Vanity Fair is now Sharp Magazine—from the famously sharp tongued memoir, but star Simon Pegg does manage to capture most of the “negative charisma” that Young describes himself as having in the book.   

Comparisons to the best selling book end there, however. The basic storyline is the same and many of the incidents from the book are faithfully reproduced, but Young’s analysis of where everything went wrong, the thing that made the book a delight, has not translated. Instead we’re offered up a catalogue of his endless faux pas, many of which are quite funny, without much in the way of social commentary.  Compared to the book it’s a rather empty exercise in slapstick and humiliation that plays up the romance between Pegg’s character and Kirsten Dunst at the expense of the book’s in-depth fish out of water story. Like the magazine he was fired from Young’s book is a mix of high-brow ideas presented with low brow appeal. The movie, however, tends to concentrate on the low brow.

The actors are well cast and fun to watch. Danny Huston is suitably oily as Lawrence Maddox, the unctuous editor of the magazine’s On the Town column; Jeff Bridges is effortless as the oddball publisher Harding; Dunst brings a frumpy appeal as the damaged love interest; Gillian Anderson is spot on as a manipulative publicist and Megan Fox ups the sex appeal of the character of starlet Sophie Maes, but this is Pegg’s movie.  

As usual he is wonderfully watchable as the oafish Sidney Young (for some reason the author’s name was changed) and brings a great deal of charm to a character who should be unlovable in the extreme.

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People suffers for concentrating on the basic elements of the story—his oafish behaviour and the romance—sacrificing the juicy gossip and insight that made the book a best seller, but is saved by engaging performances from Pegg and Bridges and some funny, but cringe worthy moments that redefine social awkwardness.

HAMLET 2: 2 ½ STARS

In Man and Superman G.B. Shaw wrote, “He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.” He very well may have been describing Dana Marschz, a hapless drama teacher played by Steve Coogan in the new satire Hamlet 2. Marschz has an unpronounceable name, an undistinguished acting résumé that includes extra work in an Al Jazeera M.O.W., herpes commercials and a stint as Robin Williams’s stand-in on the Patch Adams set. A self admitted “little boy from a dairy farm in Manitoba who can’t act very well,” he leaves the “glamour” of being an unemployed actor in Hollywood and lands in Tucson, Arizona as a drama teacher.

When we first meet Dana he’s directing the latest in his series of stage adaptations of famous films. In short order his production of Erin Brockovich, featuring his only two drama students, earns a savage review from the school’s teenage drama critic, his class balloons in size when he inherits a group of uninterested kids looking for a quick and easy credit and he is told his drama program will be shut down next semester.

To save the program and his job he decides to stage an original work—Hamlet 2—instead of going with his original plan of a musical version of the Keanu Reeves romance The Lake House. It’s an outrageous show featuring bi-sexual characters, a time machine, Satan French-kissing the President of the United States and a musical number called Rock Me Sexy Jesus. Deemed unacceptable by the school and the community Marschz and his students, with the help of a ACLU lawyer, stage the show off school property in a last ditch attempt to make money and keep drama alive in the school.    

An irreverent satire of Middle American mores Hamlet 2 starts off strong but runs out of steam in the protracted midsection of the film. Much of the blame lies with Coogan, who creates a character more suited to a skit than a full-length feature. His Dana “my life is a parody of a tragedy” Marschz is a mass of insecurity and self loathing; a man so socially inept he makes Steve Carell’s Michael Scott of The Office seem well adjusted. Audiences have embraced the Scott character, I think, because despite his foibles he seems like a decent guy underneath it all. He has the dollop of humanity that Coogan’s character lacks, and that is the downfall of Hamlet 2.

Coogan gets laughs early on as his unlucky character goes from one personal disaster to another, but the act soon grows tired. If he had taken the time to make Dana more human and less a pure comedy construct we might actually care about what happens to him. As it is he’s someone you wouldn’t want to stand in line with at Starbucks, let alone spend ninety-minutes watching on screen.

Ditto the rest of the cast. Catherine Keener, a supremely talented actress, hands in a flat and unfunny performance; David Arquette is mostly mute, required to do little more than pull faces while the rest of the juvenile cast are standard high school hard cases who eventually warm up to their teacher’s unusual ways. Think To Sir With Love without the switchblades. 

More fun is Elizabeth Shue who plays herself in a through-the-looking-glass take on her real career and Amy Poehler as an anti-Semitic ACLU lawyer.

Hamlet 2’s twisted underdog story has some inspired moments and is well intentioned in its sly support of arts in schools and free speech, but is too obvious in it approach to truly have much impact. 

HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY: 4 STARS

In the hands of anyone but director Guillermo Del Toro Hellboy could have turned out to be just another cinematic superhero. Thankfully Michael Bay and his soulless Hollywood brethren didn’t get their hands on the story of a little demon baby from the dark side who grows up to be a Baby Ruth-loving warrior battling the forces of hell.

Del Toro, the visionary behind a string of beautifully realized fantasy and horror films, including the Oscar nominated Pan’s Labyrinth, first brought Hellboy to the screen four years ago in a film that played up the horror aspects of the character’s comic book roots. This time around he plays on a bigger canvas, adding elements of fantasy and not one, but two love stories.

The action in Hellboy II: The Golden Army begins when an ancient truce between humans and the citizens of the underworld is broken by the ruthless Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) and an array of mythical creatures. “Let this remind you why you once feared the dark,” he says as the quest to reclaim all three pieces of a magical crown that will reunite the mighty Golden Army begins. That’s where Hellboy (Ron Perlman) and his colleagues at the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense come in. Comprised of Hellboy’s pyrokinetic girlfriend Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), aquatic empath Abe Sapien (Doug Jones), and ectoplasmic mystic Johann Krauss (James Dodd), the BPRD are the only government agency who have a chance against the evil netherworld soldiers.

Complicating matters is a PR problem—the public doesn’t take well to the irresponsible knucklehead Hellboy, with his red skin and horns—and matters of the heart as Abe discovers unexpected love in the elf princess Nuala (Anna Walton) and Liz’s relationship with Big Red hits a rough patch.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army is one of the rare sequels that is better than the original film. Working with a bigger budget this time around Del Toro has the money to fully realize his vision for the film; and what visions they are. He’s opened up his fertile imagination to create some unforgettable images like a Troll Market underneath the Brooklyn Bridge that rivals the famous Star Wars cantina scene, a new ectoplasmic character and a myriad of strange and wonderful creatures from the underworld.  

These stunning images will make your eyeballs dance, but the amazing thing about Hellboy II: The Golden Army isn’t Del Toro’s astonishing visual sense, or his equally impressive way of choreographing large action scenes like the battle between Big Red and a vine creature on the streets of New York. No, it is his ability to balance the two with a really compelling story and not allow his characters to get lost in the din.

Despite setting the film in a fantastic world where mystical creatures interact with humans Del Toro doesn’t skimp on characterization, wit or believable (and in some cases heartbreaking) relationships. Abe Sapien’s amphibian love for a princess he can never have could easily have fallen flat, but Del Toro and actor Doug Jones give Abe enough humanity that even though he’s basically a giant fish with ESP the audience still feels for him when his heart is broken. The kicker comes when he gets drunk and sings Barry Manilow's Can't Smile Without You. Who among us hasn’t done that at least once?

At the center of it all is Ron Perlman in the title role. Perfectly cast, he plays the character as an everyman with an attitude to create one of the most fun and entertaining superheroes to come along in a movie summer chock full of beings with extraordinary powers.

HANCOCK: 3 ½ STARS

Hancock is unlike any other superhero. The Hulk, Batman and Daredevil all have serious personal issues but none have the PR problems that plague Hancock. When stopping crime and thwarting the bad guys the Los Angeles based superhero usually does more harm than good—the price tag for one rescue reaches 9 million dollars after he rips up streets, and damages buildings. He’s hated by the very people he tries to protect, and on top of it all suffers from alcoholism, anger issues, amnesia and very low self esteem. Dr. Phil would have a field day with this guy.

He’s anything but mild mannered. When we first meet Hancock (Will Smith) he’s passed out drunk on a bus shelter bench while a major crime takes place nearby. Awoken by a child who asks him to help, he sneers, rubs his unshaven face and tries to wrap his alcohol addled brain around the situation. After an orgy of destruction that sees the bad guys deposited atop the Capitol Records building, Hancock is criticized by everyone from politicians to television talking head Nancy Grace who says that he has no regard for anyone other than himself. When he saves the life of a big-hearted PR flack (Jason Bateman) Hancock is set on the road to career rehabilitation.

That’s just the first forty-five minutes. It’s jokey, action packed and essentially what you see in the trailer. It’s in the second half that Hancock deepens, becoming one of the very few superhero origin stories not to have originated in a comic book that actually works. I can’t give you any details without giving away some major spoilers and ruining the fun, but rest assured, director Peter Berg makes sure there is a good action to story ratio as the movie takes several unexpected turns.

In the lead role Will Smith is up to the task of adapting to the film’s ever changing demands, effortlessly shifting gears from the light tone established early on to the darker mid section and the mythic romance of the coda. He draws on his natural charisma and charm, infusing Hancock with highlights from his past films. There’s a dash of Men in Black’s wonky humor, a glimpse of his action hero of Independence Day, and a taste of Enemy of the State’s troubled paranoiac. Best of all there is absolutely nothing that echoes Wild Wild West.

Jason Bateman makes the best of a thankless role that could easily have been overpowered by Smith’s flashier part. Ditto Charlize Theron who takes the role of the love interest and makes it something memorable.

My major complaint is with director Berg. Buy a steady cam! Or at least a tripod! His love of wobbly cam work reaches new heights here. If you suffer from motion sickness I recommend popping a couple of Gravols before the screening.  

The script, originally titled Tonight, He Comes, made the rounds in Hollywood for a decade before star Smith and director Berg came on board, bringing this strange and surprising story to the screen. An unusual mix of humor, romance and dark subject matter Hancock stands apart from other superhero movies by daring to be different.

THE HULK: 3 ½ STARS

A few years ago it looked like director Ang Lee had ruined The Incredible Hulk franchise. His version of the big green guy’s origin story,  Hulk starring Eric Bana, started strong with a promising $62 million take on the opening weekend only to plunge to $18 million, and then to $8 million on the two subsequent weekends. Superheroes, especially ones as beloved as the Hulk are expected to rake in super bucks, so when Lee’s vision of the character fizzled it looked like Bruce Banner’s alter ego would be best remembered for the comic books and the cheesy but fun television series starring Bill Bixby.

Marvel, however, had different ideas. After a five year break they’ve brought him back, bigger and greener than ever and ready to do battle with Iron Man for supremacy of the summer’s box office.

The new one starts all over again as if Lee’s Hulk never existed. When we first see Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) he is living in South America, a fugitive from the US Army—namely General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (William Hurt) and mercenary Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth)—who desperately want to turn the Hulk technology into a weapon. Banner, meanwhile, is desperate to find a cure, or at least a way to control his angry outbreaks.

After a nasty one-on-one confrontation with the Hulk Blonsky volunteers his body to science, and is injected with Banner’s gamma ray formula. When the procedure transforms him into a power crazed giant fighting beast—“This is a whole new level of weird,” he says—it looks like the Hulk is the only one who can stop him. Add to that a Beauty and the Beast love story and you’ve got a story that is more or less true to its comic book origins.   

The buzz on the internet for The Incredible Hulk was not good. Bloggers said Edward Norton as Bruce Banner was too slight, too much of an artiste; that the action in the trailer looked stilted and the hulking beast too cartoony. The buzz on the net was wrong; wrong like it was for Snakes on a Plane. The internet chatter pegging Snakes as a hit was off the mark and to paraphrase Mark Twain, “the internet reports of The Incredible Hulk as box office poison have been greatly exaggerated.”

It’s actually great fun; fast and furious with enough story to please the purists, enough action to entertain the eye and just enough humor to keep the actors from taking it all too seriously.  
Norton (who also did an unaccredited rewrite on the script) acquits himself well in the lead role, bringing some dramatic weight to the character but never forgetting that this is a Saturday matinee kind of movie and also requires a light touch. There is an unexpected laugh out loud love scene and some nice in-jokes for the comic fans, but frankly, we like him better when he’s mad.

When he goes koo-koo bananas he turns into the nine-foot behemoth Hulk, and the transformation is pretty cool even if his arms and legs do look like giant pieces of boiled okra. The Hulk’s big action set pieces are what you’d expect—loud and frenetic adrenaline fueled special effect extravaganzas and quite effective.

The Incredible Hulk is a crowd-pleaser which should even play well to audiences unfamiliar with the big green guy, but will really thrill fanboys and gals with the revelation that this may be just one more step toward a multi-hero movie based on the popular comic The Avengers. That movie, featuring Captain America, Iron Man, Ant-Man and The Incredible Hulk is rumored to be set for a 2010 release, and would be, for comic book fans, a kind of Holy Grail of Superheroes.

Until then they’ll have to make due with just one superhero at a time, and for now, The Incredible Hulk will do just fine.

THE HAPPENING: NO RATING

Remember the twist in The Sixth Sense? It was one of the best surprises in recent movie memory. Ever since little Haley Joel Osment uttered those four words that sent chills down audience’s spines—“I see dead people”—director M. Night Shyamalan has been trying unsuccessfully to recreate that kind of jolt for his audience. His subsequent films, Unbreakable, Signs, The Village and The Lady in the Water have all had their moments, but none have become pop culture touchstones in the way that The Sixth Sense has.

The trailer for his latest film, The Happening, is a grabber. Without giving away any details it elegantly sets up the premise that something catastrophic has happened, but if it isn’t a terrorist attack, what is it? It gave me hope that M. Night was back on track.

Starring Mark Walhberg as science teacher Elliot Moore, The Happening sees him, his estranged wife (Zooey Deschanel) and the eight year old daughter (Ashlyn Sanchez) of a friend running for their lives after a strange pandemic spreads through the American Northeast. The mysterious disease causes loss of speech, physical stupefaction and suicide, usually by violent and very unpleasant means. Will they survive as the devastation swells?

Will there be a twist ending? Not since Chubby Checker has one man been so closely associated with “the twist.”

Will Elliot Moore wake up in bed with Suzanne Pleshette and realize that it was all just a crazy dream?

And most importantly, will M. Night Shyamalan finally once again give audiences the shock they expect from his movies?

The answer to that last question, sadly is no. The biggest shock in The Happening is how ineptly made it is. Since his first big hit it seems as though M. Night has been hemorrhaging the good filmmaking sense he showed on that film, diminishing his talent with each new project.

For much of The Happening I thought perhaps he was making a tribute to the b-movies of the 1950s, complete with ridiculous dialogue, crazy science and wooden acting. I rejected that theory when I thought back to those movies and remembered that while they might not have been Citizen Kane, at least they were entertaining. The Happening’s main achievement is to figure out increasingly gruesome and strange ways for people to off themselves.

Even then, some of the methods of death raised hoots of derision from the audience I saw it with. When a woman watching a video of a man feeding himself to a pride of lions at a zoo says in horror, “Mother of God, what kind of terrorists are these?” it caused a ripple of laughter that passed through the entire theatre.

Even the film’s eco message—we better start taking better care of the environment or Mother Nature might make us jump in front of a haymaker and die a bloody and brutal death—is simplistic and underdeveloped. One can only hope that other upcoming green themed movies like The Swarm and James Cameron’s Avatar dig a little deeper.

Despite the rare flash of inspiration—a scene with a dead policeman’s revolver is intense and effective—The Happening just doesn’t deliver the goods. It’s doubly disappointing because it comes from someone whose talent once approached greatness, but as it is this is the worst movie by a major, mainstream director since Gigli and could be used in film schools as a lesson in how NOT to make a thriller.

The Happening raises just one more question: M. Night, what happened?

HORTON HEARS A WHO!: 3 ½ STARS

Controversy isn’t a word usually connected to Dr. Suess, but recently when pro-life protestors disrupted the Los Angeles premier of Horton Hears a Who!, based on the 1954 book about an elephant who discovers life on a small speck of dust, it made headlines. Despite a cease and desist order from the author’s widow Audrey Geise, pro-lifers have long used Horton the elephant’s phrase “a life is a life no matter how small” as a slogan for their cause. The movie itself, however, is controversy free and sweet as a child’s lullaby.

The action begins when Horton, a kind but goofy elephant hears a cry of help coming from a speck of dust. It’s metaphysics for kids. Because of his giant ears he can communicate with the microscopic Mayor of Whoville (Steve Carell) when no one else can.

His jungle friends don’t believe him when he tells them of the tiny world on the dust fragment, but he is determined to take this speck, and the world contained within, to safety at the top of a high mountain. Working against him is the formidable Sour Kangaroo (Carol Burnett) who refuses to believe in something that she is unable to see or hear. Horton never wavers in his belief or quest despite the efforts Sour Kangaroo to ridicule him.

During Dr. Suess’s lifetime he refused to allow his books to be adapted for the screen, and after viewing the shambolic Cat in the Hat and disappointing The Grinch Who Stole Christmas it’s not hard to see why. Third time around, though, we have a winner. Horton Hears a Who! is a charmer with an all star voice cast—Jim Carrey, Steve Carell, Seth Rogen and Carol Burnett—and many sight gags that evoke the classic Looney Tunes cartoons. Based on the classic 72 page book, the paper thin story has been inventively stretched to a comfortable 88 minutes which only occasionally feels padded.

Like all Dr. Suess works, the plot is simple, but contains ideas that resonate well after the credits have rolled. Beyond the pratfalls and the goofy rhyming dialogue are strong messages for kids; that it's important to be honest and respect other people, that one should always try to keep promises and that, above all, imagination is a good thing.

With Horton Hears A Who! filmmakers have finally gotten right and made an agreeably entertaining film from Dr. Suess source material which should amuse children and engage adults.
THE HEARTBREAK KID: 2 ½ STARS

Based on a 1972 Neil Simon comedy which was underscored with notes on ethnic assimilation and class structure, The Heartbreak Kid redux has taken a walk through the dirty minds of The Farrelly Brothers and emerged on the other side as a raunchy update that focuses on laughs rather than social subtext.  

Ben Stiller plays Eddie, a riff on his usual character—single, insecure and indecisive—who, after a chance meeting on the street, begins dating Lila (Canadian actress Malin Akerman). She’s beautiful, funny and, he thinks, just might be his last shot at finding love. With his father (Jerry Stiller) and best friend (Rob Cordrey) egging him on Eddie proposes to Lila just a few weeks after meeting her. All goes well until their sunny Mexican honeymoon when Eddie meets Miranda (Michelle Monaghan), the woman he comes to believe just might actually be his soul mate.

The Farrelly Brothers are pioneers at this kind of comedy. Ten years ago There’s Something About Mary burned up screens with an irreverent mix of romance and gross-out humor. Since those heady days they have been supplanted by a new generation of directors—The 40 Year Old Virgin’s Judd Apatow comes to mind—who have taken the vulgarity up to stratospheric levels, relegating the Farrelly’s to old-timer status—the all-stars who can no longer hit it out of the park. After seeing this movie Apatow fans will yell, The Kings are dead! Long live the king!  

There is some anticipation for the repairing of Ben Stiller with the sibling directors. They haven’t worked together since Mary, the movie that really established both their careers, so expectations are high. Unfortunately, in the ten years between the projects Stiller has developed a comic persona that he brings to virtually every project he’s involved in, and while the indecisive / insecure guy routine worked well in Meet the Parents and its offspring, here it seems kind of stale. His character Eddie is revealed to be a lying cheater and while we’re supposed to find him charming and likable, he comes off as manipulative and creepy.   

There’s nothing really that wrong with The Heartbreak Kid. It has some funny moments, just not enough of them. It has some envelope pushing moments, a la There’s Something About Mary, but not enough of them to compete with most of this season’s outrageous comedies. It’s kind of average, offering up laughs here and there, but unlike the recent hit Superbad, there’s nothing here that people will be talking about the next day.     

HOT ROD: 3 ½ STARS

It’s been a while since a Saturday Night Live movie has been something to get excited about. Ladies Man and Stuart Saves His Family weren’t exactly laugh riots but a new film, Hot Rod, starring Andy Samberg may bring back the funny to the sagging SNL brand.

In Hot Rod Samberg, the slacker comic behind Lazy Sunday, one of SNL’s most talked about pieces of recent years—it was downloaded over one million times the day after it originally aired—plays amateur stuntman Rod Kimble. He’s a terrible stuntman, but is possessed of an inordinate amount of confidence, which keeps his dream of becoming the next Evel Knievel alive.

His biggest problem is his stepfather Frank (Deadwood’s Ian McShane). Frank is an ex-Navy Seal who treats Rod like a punching bag. In their weekly sparring sessions, scheduled to toughen Rod up, Frank mercilessly beats the youngster with his fists and weapons like Rhodesian fighting sticks. Rod willingly submits to the punishment hoping that his fighting skills will impress Frank and earn his respect. When Frank falls ills before Rod has a chance to beat him the dare devil hatches a plan to perform his most incredible stunt to date and raise money for Frank’s lifesaving operation. Once Frank is healthy and healed Rod plans to beat the crap out of him.

It’s a strange little story, one that ten years ago would have starred Adam Sandler as the revenge happy stuntman. This time out it’s Samberg and while the comparisons to Sandler are obvious, he makes the character of Rod his own. He’s more bizarre than Sandler has ever been on screen, (with the possible exception of Little Nicky), but he’s also quite sweet. Sandler made his bones playing characters who flew into rages, Samberg’s style is more gentle. I don’t know if he has any range, but he fits this role like a glove.

Hot Rod is a very silly comedy. It stretches the frat pack style of humor to the limit, milking every joke for everything it is worth. For instance, a scene where Rod falls down a mountain lasts forever. It’s funny at first, then not so funny, and then funny again just because of the sheer commitment the movie has to its gags. It’s not for everyone, but the audience I saw it with ate it up.

Hot Rod is a throwback to the SNL-inspired movies of yesteryear like Billy Madison. It’s childish and harebrained but it will make you laugh.

HAIRSPRAY: 4 STARS

In a summer when it seems that no one in Hollywood has an original thought and are simply banking on sequels to fatten their bank accounts, along comes Hairspray. It’s not really a sequel, nor is it a remake, but in a way it’s both. The new movie starring John Travolta (in drag), Christopher Walken, Queen Latifah and newcomer Nikki Blonsky is based on the Broadway smash hit musical, which in turn was based on a 1988 movie by John Waters. Drawing on the best bits from both its inspirations the new Hairspray is completely original and a happy antidote to the dire sequelitis that has infected the multi-plexes this season.

Shot in Toronto, but set in Baltimore in 1962 Hairspray is the story of the elaborately coiffed Tracy Turnblad. Tracey’s a dance-crazy teen who rushes home from school every day to watch The Corny Collins Show, a cut-rate riff on American Bandstand, which features a cast of milky white teens who strut their bland perfectly groomed selves for the television cameras. At the helm of the show is Velma Von Tussel (Michelle Pfeiffer) the vicious mother of Amber (Brittany Snow), who will do anything to ensure that her daughter is front and center.

When Tracy is sent to detention (for “inappropriate hair height”) she learns a new kind of dancing from the African-American kids who pass their after school penalty time dancing to rockin’ R&B. There Tracy learns a hip-shaking dance that gets her a berth on the Collins show, despite the fact that the evil Von Tussels think she is too heavy and not pretty enough to be on television. She becomes a local sensation, much to the delight of her mom Edna (John Travolta) and father Wilbur (Christopher Walken), whose Har Har Hut is the Taj Mahal of joke shops, and even gets a gig endorsing clothes from Mr. Pink’s Hefty Hideaway.

When Von Tussel cancels “Negro Day,” the once-a-month celebration of black music hosted by record shop owner Motormouth Maybelle (Queen Latifah) Tracy hatches a plan to stage a protest in front of the television station. The movie takes on a more earnest tone as Tracy and her friends—both black and white—conspire to integrate The Corny Collins Show.

Hairspray is one of the more anticipated Broadway to screen adaptations of recent years, and it delivers. Director Adam Shankman is best known for making blandly formulaic family films like Cheaper by the Dozen and The Pacifier gives the proceedings a shimmering 1960s glow that is quite infectious. It’s colorful, noisy and so eager to please that it’s hard not to get sucked in.
The movie’s exuberant tone is maintained by the youthful cast, and while the older cast members try and keep up, they don’t always keep pace.

Tarvolta, in drag as Tracy’s overweight mother raises a laugh or two early on, but as the movie progresses the drag act becomes more an exercise in stunt casting—“Look John Travolta’s wearing a Muumuu!”—rather than a truly great comedic performance. Walken is reliably weird as the joke shop owning father, but the performance is strange rather than funny, which seems a bit at odds with the rest of the film. Pfeiffer, on the come back trail after a few years off, looks amazing and is suitably villainous as the racist, conniving station manager, but the part could have used a little less camp and a few more laughs. Queen Latifah brings her considerable charm to the movie but should have brought a bit more fire to the role of the rebel rousing Motormouth Maybelle.

Nikki Blonsky, however, the former ice cream scooper plucked from obscurity to play the lead role shines. Her beaming smile, strong singing voice and enthusiasm go a long way toward building good will for her character. She holds her own in her scenes opposite more experienced actors like Travolta and Walken. In a cast top heavy with vets, Blonsky and the young cast members—Amanda Bynes, Zac Efron and Elijah Kelley—really are the stars of this show.

Hairspray starts off strong, wanes a bit early and soft peddles the social commentary of the John Waters movie, but makes up for its shortcomings through sheer strength of the cast’s high-spirited will to entertain.

HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX: 3 STARS

I have to start by saying I’m not a Harry Potter fan—I’ve only read one of the books, I’ve seen the movies, but have always been left cold by the boy wizard with the scar on his forehead. As a result I wouldn’t know an Obliviator from a Hippogriff, but that doesn’t stop me from objectively looking at the movies.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is a handsome film, with high production values and imaginative special effects that will make your eyeballs dance. The large cast includes fine actors like Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson (don’t blink or you’ll miss her), Gary Oldman, Ralph Fiennes and the majestic Michael Gambon all of whom prance about on beautifully designed sets in spectacular costumes.

It’s all top notch, the trouble is, I don’t really care.

I have found that throughout the franchise that the films have become more and more inside. As the plots thicken and the page count of the books rises to the 700 and 800 range the various filmmakers at the helm of the movies have struggled to present the material in a way that will keep Potterheads happy. How to get the essence of the books on screen, while still maintaining some kind of cinematic storytelling has always been a problem for the Potter directors, particularly as the books get denser and darker. Alfonso Cuarón pulled it off in the third installment, The Prisoner of Azkaban, but others haven’t always won the battle of presenting Potter lore in a way that would make sense to an outsider.  

There’s a lot of info that goes into the stories, unusual people, places and names and of course Harry Potter fans love all that detail because they understand the references and feel a real connection with the characters. I would suggest though, that the new film probably won’t have much appeal for anyone who hasn’t read the books or made a study of the story.

Director David Yates seems to assume that the audience will know what’s going on, and makes no attempt to get the non-Potterheads caught up with the lingo or situation. In that way the movies have simply become big budget companion pieces to the books, designed to sell more wizard hats and magic wands.   

Now before you try and cast an Antonin Dolohov's Curse on me let me continue by saying that I know Potterites will enjoy this movie. It’s a bit talky for the first hour, but it does submerge the viewer in a dark and dangerous world where dementors lurk around every corner and people in authority don’t always have your best interests at heart.

When Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) returns for his fifth year of wizardry studies at Hogwarts he soon discovers that he must bear the brunt of a smear campaign launched against him and the venerable head master Dumbledore (Michael Gambon). His classmates and the wizarding community in general have bought into the stories circulated to the newspapers by the Minister of Magic (Robert Hardy) that Potter is lying about the return of the evil Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) and are treating him like a pariah. The good Minister, you see, is concerned that Dumbledore is after his job and must discredit both the head master and his protégé to protect his post.

To keep an eye on Dumbledore and Potter the Minister brings in a new Defense against the Dark Arts instructor to Hogwarts. Professor Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton) is a rule-spouting tyrant who mistreats the students and teaches a theory-based course that will leave her pupils woefully under prepared should they ever have to defend themselves in the presence of evil.

Harry, at the prompting of his best friends Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint), creates a rouge Defense against the Dark Arts class, hidden deep in the bowels of the school. He secretly trains a small group of students who adopt the name Dumbledore’s Army, who will help fight the astonishing battle that lay ahead.  

The Order of the Phoenix may be the most subversive of all the Potter films, harboring as it does, a healthy disrespect for misplaced authority. It’s also the least playful. It’s a dark story in which Harry is in danger, both physically and mentally. Younger viewers may find some of the physical manifestations of danger a bit too intense—the Dementors are scary ghost like creatures who literally suck the life out of their victims—but they probably won’t get the mental anguish angle.

Teens will likely relate to Harry’s adolescent pangs of bitterness, anger and self pity, which are quite realistically portrayed. Harry’s growing up before our eyes, a fact made obvious through flashbacks to the first movie in which he looks like a mere babe in the woods and his issues are the same as teens all over the world. The only difference is most teens can’t hide under the cloak of invisibility when the going gets rough.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix will please most Potter fans and confound non-Potterfiles who may wonder what the heck is going on.   

HOT FUZZ: 3 STARS

Jerry Bruckheimer is the most successful movie producer on the planet. Nicknamed “Mr. Blockbuster” Bruckheimer is either regarded as a genius or a lowbrow hack, depending on your tolerance for rapid gunfire, slo-mo car crashes and scripts with the emotional depth of a lunch tray. Movies such as Bad Boys, The Rock and Con Air have made him very rich and while he busied himself circling the earth in his Gulfstream IV private jet, thinking up new and insidious ways to blow things up, a trio of British filmmakers came up with a film called Hot Fuzz that both pays tribute to, and takes the Mickey out of, the Bruckheimer oeuvre.   

A couple of years ago actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, along with director Edgar Wright created Shawn of the Dead, a zombie movie that effectively mixed big laughs with buckets of gore. That movie became a giant cult hit, establishing them as purveyors of smart, funny pop culture satire. This time out they’ve made an unlikely buddy cop picture that takes a few minutes too long to take off, but pays big dividends in the third act.    

Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) is a big city London cop with an impressive record. He lives and breathes the job, and in one year racks up an incredible 400 arrests. His efforts don’t go unnoticed. In fact, they attract too much notice forcing his supervisors to arrange to have him shipped off to a remote village because his gung-ho attitude is making them look like slackers. Transferred to the sleepy little township of Sandford he soon begins to suspect that the quiet town holds some dangerous secrets. Teamed with a bumbling partner (Nick Frost) he sets out to get to the bottom of a series of remarkable “accidents” that have claimed the lives of several notable citizens. The nefarious plot the feisty cop uncovers is part Wicker Man, part Bad Boys.

Director and co-writer Wright carefully combines the very English sensibility of a movie like Wicker Man, in which a small community is investigated by a strong-willed cop, with the pyrotechnics of an American action film. Using the Bruckheimer Rule which states that the movie will get bigger, louder and more violent as it nears its close, Wright begins with a character study that morphs into a full-on blood-soaked actioner by the end of the last reel.

Cleverly edited and smartly written—homages include a tip of the hat to Chinatown, the greatest crime script ever written, with, “Forget it, Angel. It’s Sandford” and a literal shot-by-shot recreation from Point Blank—the film could use some judicious editing in the early reels. Hot Fuzz has an interesting premise and some good jokes, but at 121 minutes it feels a bit labored.     
 
To pass the time during the dull bits keep your eyes peeled for some unaccredited big time cameos. Sharp-eyed viewers will be able to spot Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson as a homicidal Father Christmas, and Cate Blanchett as Angel's masked CSI ex-girlfriend.

Hot Fuzz doesn’t succeed as brilliantly as Shawn of the Dead, but does an admirable job of mixing hilarity and havoc. I think even Bruckheimer would approve.

HART’S WAR

This one is being marketed all wrong. MGM is selling this as a Bruce Willis action film, which isn’t exactly accurate. This is more like Hogan’s Heroes without the laughs or The Great Escape without the action. Hart’s War takes place in a German POW camp and revolves around a court martial case. Although Bruce Willis’ (who actually manages to keep the smirks down to a minimum) photo is front and center on the movie poster, he doesn’t have that much screen time, this is really Colin Farrell’s piece. As the spoiled Yale trained officer he is intense and winning. There is more character growth here, particularly with Farrell and nasty Nazi Colonel Visser played by Marcel Iures, than in ten John Wayne war flicks. Hart’s War is an interesting film, one that examines racism, honour and heroics.

HIGH CRIMES

High Crimes is a formulaic thriller saved only by some strong performances and the steady hand of director Carl Franklin. The story involves a mass execution in a Latin American village, and the Army’s ensuing cover-up. Attorney Claire Kubik’s (Ashley Judd) husband Ronald Chapman (James Caviezel) is wrongly (or maybe correctly) accused of the wholesale slaughter of innocent civilians while he was in the Marines. Her world is turned upside down as she tries to defend her husband in military court. Along the way she enlists the help of grizzled lawyer Charles Grimes (Morgan Freeman) to sort out the intricacies of military law. Predictable and uninspired, High Crimes is almost completely forgettable save for its stylish direction and solid work from Freeman and Judd. Freeman deserves better than this, he’s a gifted actor who elevates the material he’s given to work with, but I would like to see him in a truly meaty role that would challenge him. Judd, I think, needs to spend more time considering her career choices. While she has generally avoided the women in danger scenarios of many of her contemporaries, by choosing mechanical roles like this she is keeping her light under a bushel.  

HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE

Ron Shelton has made some very good movies. His crowning achievement may be 1988’s Bull Durham, a film he wrote and directed. That movie was a wholly realised piece of work, a baseball movie woven together with a great love story and topped off with three great performances from Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins and Kevin Costner. Bull Durham has the kind of focus that Shelton’s latest film Hollywood Homicide lacks. Is this a buddy picture? An action flick? A comedy? I don’t know, and I don’t think Shelton knows either. Harrison Ford plays a surly blowtop cop named Joe Gavilan partnered with a younger, gentler detective (Josh Hartnett) who teaches yoga on the side and aspires to be an actor. They are investigating the multiple murders of a rap group. It’s typical stuff, Shelton isn’t breaking any new ground here, but it might have worked had there been any chemistry between the two actors. Hollywood Homicide might have been a much better picture if had they been able to replicate the spark that Mel Gibson and Danny Glover shared in the Lethal Weapon series. The bottom line on Hollywood Homicide is that it is neither fish nor fowl. At best it’s a half baked attempt at blurring genre lines that ends up out of focus.

HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES

Rob Zombie, the rock star turned film director of House of 1000 Corpses knows about horror. Clearly he has spent a great deal of time watching horror movies, and in his debut film he gets the look and the feel of 70s classics like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre just right. He does, however, miss the mark on two points – story and a little something I like to call the “booga-booga” factor. This movie wouldn’t scare the skin off a rice pudding. It’s gross in places, but given the pre-release hype about how it had been dropped by two studios because it was too intense for a general audience, I expected to leave the theatre quaking. Instead I simply left the theatre. Oldster cult favourite Sid Haig as an evil clown named Captain Spaulding is entertaining, but underused, while the prerequisite chowder headed teens who must try to survive in the evil house are so uninteresting you actually hope they get killed so the movie will end a bit sooner. This lot couldn’t tell the time if the town hall clock fell on them, let alone outwit the crazed family of murderers who keep them hostage. House of 1000 Corpses wastes opportunity after opportunity to scare us, preferring instead to go for the obvious, or a cheap joke. Only once does Zombie come close to emulating the fear factor of the masters of 70s horror like Tobe Hooper. Allowing the camera to linger on Otis (Bill Mosley) before he shoots an unfortunate man in the head builds a great deal of anticipation, and has the kind of tension that is the mark of a good horror flick. Too bad it is just one short scene in a ninety minute film.

HULK

“You’re making me angry,” says Bruce Banner (Eric Bana) before transforming into the muscle bound Hulk. “You won’t like me when I’m angry.” Oh yes we will Bruce. In fact, we like you lot more when you’re angry. Director Ang Lee has taken the comic book bully’s story and added touches of intelligence, style and grace, everything in fact, except personality. Bana (whose Ken doll hair I found very distracting) plays Banner as an emotionally detached zombie, draining him of any spark.

Recent Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly doesn’t fare much better. Her Betty Ross is a pretty picture – beautiful to look at, but lacking in any dimension. It is amazing that a movie which expects the audience to buy a wild chemical explanation as to why Banner blows up into his hulking alter ego can have so little chemistry between its two lead actors. There is barely a glimmer when they are on-screen together.

Not so when the big guy enters the picture. The CGI creation is part King Kong, part Frankenstein and all Harryhausen, but yet seems like nothing we’ve ever seen before. Like Frankie and Kong before him, he capable of mindless violence and mass destruction, also has a gentle, compassionate side. In one scene that seems to echo King Kong, Hulk picks up Betty in his massive fist before gently placing her on the roof of a car so he car get a better look at her. Here we see the marvels of the CGI and the Hulk’s wonderfully expressive face. This collection of pixels and binary code ironically brings the movie to life. Of course the Hulk on a rampage is more fun, but Lee paces the action carefully, barely giving us a glimpse of the main attraction until almost an hour into the film, and then uses him sparingly.

People expecting to see an action movie will be sorely disappointed. Hulk (the movies drops “the”) has its moments – the battle with the killer mutant dogs is exciting and violent while Hulk’s desert show-down with the army has the makings of a classic in the superhero oeuvre – but favours the cerebral over the physical. Most of the action here takes place inside Bruce Banner’s mind as he battles with his fate. Hulk historians will note that stylistically Lee has crafted a film using crazy jump-cuts, dissolves and split screens that emulates the wild design of the original comic books.

The supporting cast fares much better than the above the title actors. Josh Lucas hands in a one-note performance as the fleabag military weapons contractor turned Hulk’s punching bag, but seems to be having a good time while doing it. Sam Elliott plays Ross, an army muckety-muck who is bent on destroying the green blowtop. In the hands of a lesser actor this would have been a stereotypical turn as the paranoid, untrusting military man. Instead Elliot gives us the stiff façade of a career warrior, but reveals a softer core – someone who is tormented by the unpleasant choices he has to make.

But it is Nick Nolte’s scene chewing that steals the movie. With his hair standing on end (think of the famous mug shot from last September) and wild eyes blazing Nolte is an organic visual effect that rivals his CGI co-star. As David Banner, the scientist father of the Hulk, he experimented with his own DNA and passed the genetic flaw on to his son. The elder Banner is only playing with only 44 cards in the deck, and Nolte’s over-the-top performance makes his a riveting character.

Hulk may have its flaws, but Ang Lee has done something really interesting here. He’s taken the hoary old superhero genre and freshened it up visually while adding a level of thoughtfulness and context that is missing from other movies of its kind.  

HANNIBAL RISING: 1 STAR

In the film Silence of the Lambs Anthony Hopkins turned the character of Hannibal “the Cannibal” Lecter into a pop culture icon with a scant sixteen minutes of screen time. The performance was the shortest to ever win a Best Actor Oscar but seems so much more substantial because of Hopkins’ command of the character. In 960 seconds Hopkins created as effective, chilling and memorable portrayal of evil as we have seen on screen. In short that performance contains everything that is so painfully missing from Hannibal Rising, the new prequel to the Lecter series.

The prequel has become the latest Hollywood marketing trick to squeeze a few extra dollars out of played-out franchises. Can’t move the story forward? Then let’s go back. Way back. In this case the story begins in Lithuania when Hannibal is just eight years old during WWII. Hitler’s invasion of the Baltic region has turned the youngster’s homeland into a bloody battlefield. The wealthy Lecter family goes into hiding, only to be discovered by troops fleeing the war torn Soviet Union. After an air attack wipes out his family, Hannibal and his little sister are left at the mercy of the desperate troops. When food runs short, the soldiers turn to the only food supply in the barren war zone—they kill and eat Hannibal’s sister Mischa. 

From this bizarre and cruel beginning the film then traces Lecter’s journey through France and eventual trip to North America where he discovers the corporal epicurean delights that go along with “fava beans and a fine Chianti.” 

The movie has aspirations to be a psychological study of why and how Hannibal developed a taste for human flesh, but falls short. Instead we are served a revenge drama as Hannibal tries to avenge the death of his sister, and his own morality, by coming up with unusual ways of hunting down and killing the soldiers. Too bad the methods of killing aren’t that interesting. For someone who grows up to personify evil he sure has a limited imagination when it comes to dispatching people. There are more blood and guts on display in any episode of CSI than here, and if you can get past the fact that he eats the cheeks of his victims—they’re the best part!—post mortem, he isn’t quite icky enough to grow into the Hannibal the Cannibal mask.

Perhaps the whole mess might have been saved with better casting. The young French actor Gaspard Ullielis is given the thankless role of the young Hannibal. The former model’s “dangerous” leers are more Mendocino advert than menacing, more Betsy Johnson runway than bloodthirsty. He simply doesn’t have the chops to play Lecter. Perhaps a better choice would have been Rhys Ifans, who delivers an unhinged performance as the head nasty in charge of cooking up little Mischa. His over-the-top kill for the heck of it attitude is much better suited for Hannibal.

Hannibal Rising, though it looks great and has the graceful feel of a European film, is little more than a cheap attempt to suck a few more dollars out of the bloated corpse that is the Lecter franchise. 

HAPPILY N’EVER AFTER: 3 STARS

Once upon a time the release of a new animated movie was something to be celebrated. They were rare treats, like cotton candy for the eyes. Fantasia brought music to life on screen, Bugs Bunny perfected the art of the smart Alec putdown and animators like Fritz Frieling and Norman McLaren spilled their active imaginations onto film cells.

Those golden days are gone.

Today’s animated movies usually are “animated” by computer techs more familiar with pixels and binary code than Walt Disney and written by people whose ideas don’t expand much beyond talking animals on a quest to get home / back to Africa or fractured fairy tales. Talking animals on the lam movies like The Wild, Madagascar and Open Season have plots so similar that even the five year olds who go see them must feel a sense of déjà vu. Happily N’Ever After doesn’t have many talking animals, thankfully, but falls squarely into the other category, the revised fairy tale movie.

George Carlin voices a wizard whose job it is to ensure that all the stories in Fairy Tale Land go “by the book” and the bad guys lose and the good people live happily ever after. When he goes on vacation his fairy tale scales are hijacked by an evil stepmother who tips the balance in favor of the bad guys. She out to prove that “dreams don’t come true.”

Bad things happen all over Fairy Tale Land. Rapunzel is pulled out her tower by the hair, Sleeping Beauty’s kisses have the opposite effect and push a handsome prince into a deep slumber and Cinderella’s date ends well before midnight.

Happily N’Ever After suffers by comparison to Shrek or even Hoodwinked, both of which had complete stories to support the jokes. Happily N’Ever After has some good laughs, but the movie feels more like a series of loosely connected skits than a whole. Not that kids will mind that much. It may not be a classic, but there is enough slapstick coupled with some fun voice work by the likes of Andy Dick, Signorney Weaver and Patrick Warburton to keep the younger members of the family entertained.   

THE HOLIDAY: 1 STAR

Shivers go up and down my spine when holiday movies use words like “heartwarming” in their ads. I’ve seen enough of them to know what that really means. Usually “heartwarming” actually translates to saccharine. Now combine heartwarming AKA saccharine, with a romantic comedy set during the holidays; Add in one dancing for joy scene, usually in a kitchen or just after receiving some good news on the phone, and you have The Holiday, the latest romantic comedy from evil genius Nancy Meyers.

The Holiday combines all manner of romantic comedy stereotypes. There is the fish-out-of-water routine as English Rose Kate Winslett and California cutie Cameron Diaz decide to trade homes (and countries) for the holidays to help themselves heal from failed relationships. There’s the above-mentioned dancing, the odd pairings—could it ever really work out between Winslett and Jack Black?—the predictable pairings—why wouldn’t it work out between Diaz and Jude Law?—and lots of beautiful homes, great scenery and even some cute kids.

Why then did this movie bug me so much? I think it probably has something to do with its inherent misogyny. At the heart of The Holiday, lurking just under the glitzy surface is the idea that a woman isn’t complete unless she has a man in her life. Both female leads are successful women with careers and lives and yet both only really feel complete in the company of men.

The Holiday is formulaic, too long by half an hour and if all holidays were like this I would never leave my house again.

HAPPY FEET: 3 STARS

Penguins are the new dogs. Not since the heyday of dog movies like Benji and Lassie has one species won over the hearts of so many. March of the Penguins was a left field hit last year and an R-rated parody of that movie, Farce of the Penguins, is set to be released soon. The little furry birds have recently appeared in Madagascar, the 3-2-1 Penguins series and even something called Penguins Behind Bars. Everybody loves penguins, but will they love penguins who sing and dance? Mad Max director George Miller is counting on it.

Miller’s latest film is Happy Feet, an animated film about a community of Emperor Penguins and one tap dancing misfit baby penguin who doesn’t quite fit in with the pack. With voice talent from an all-star cast (headlined by Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Elijah Wood and Robin Williams) the movie dispenses with the easy morality of most animated films digging a little deeper to explore the consequences of conformity and discuss important environmental concerns.

That may sound dull, but the movie is anything but. Miller’s stylish movie is jam-packed with music—Emperor penguins use heart songs to attract mates—and some first rate tap dancing that would make Sammy Davis Jr. proud. Younger kids may find one or two of the set pieces a little too intense. A chase scene with Mumbles the baby penguin on the run from a toothy seal lion is scary, but no more extreme than many of the real-life nature scenes in March of the Penguins.  

THE HEART OF THE GAME: 4 STARS

The Heart of the Game is a new documentary that focuses on Darnellia Russell, a young Seattle woman who led her high school basketball team to a state championship. Imagine the best parts of Hoosiers and He Got Game infused with the passion of Hoop Dreams and you get the idea.

Filmmaker Ward Serrill initially planned to shoot the Roosevelt Roughriders for one season and create a documentary about the unorthodox coaching style of Bill Resler, a cherubic man who turned the team into champions. He ended up staying seven years, shifting the focus from Resler to Darnellia Russell a talented, but troubled teen who became the team’s star player.

The first half of the film is an entertaining, but standard sporting movie set up. We meet the players and get to know the passionate Resler, a round-faced man who looks more like Santa Claus than a basketball coach. Resler is the star of the film’s first half, eloquently speaking about the players and the recounting their triumphs. His approach is unorthodox. He uses animal metaphors to help the girls understand the killer instinct he is looking for, likening the players to a pack of wolves. “Devour the moose!” he yells during the game, kicking his wolf pack metaphor up a notch. His “Draw blood!” technique seems to unleash the inner beast in these teenage girls, and they become a formidable team.

It isn’t until we meet Darnellia that the movie becomes something special. She has an intuitive physical ability on the court, but it is her off-court struggles that provide the heart of the movie. When her personal life interferes with her basketball—and the possibility of getting a scholarship—the film becomes more than a just chronicle of a team of winners, it deepens to include social comment.

Like all good sports movies The Heart of the Game isn’t actually about sports. It is about the strength of the human spirit, the ability of the underdog to overcome obstacles and picking yourself up after you have fallen. These are all clichés, and it is easy to be cynical about a movie that so blatantly wears them on their sleeve, but often clichés are clichés because they’re true and Heart of the Game rings true and like the title suggests, has a lot of heart.

THE HILLS HAVE EYES: 3 STARS

Horror fans must have an almost permanent feeling of deja vu these days. It seems that the horror films that we grew up with in the 1960s and 70s, like The Amityville Horror, Dawn of the Dead, The Fog and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, are all being re-made, which makes the new releases list in the newspaper occasionally seem like it came from the Twilight Zone.

The latest cult horror film to find a new life in 2006 is The Hills Have Eyes, the 1977 Wes Craven film that gave us the immortal line, “We’re going to be French fries! Human French fries!”   

The 2006 version is directed by the French director Alexandre Aja who gave us the deeply unpleasant, but rather effective thriller High Tension last year. For the most part Aja takes his lead from the original film about an unfortunate family of vacationers who get stranded in desert of New Mexico, falling prey to mutant cannibalistic hillbillies. The bad guys are descendents of miners who worked in this remote location and continued to live there even after the government started testing nuclear bombs in their backyard. A generation later they have mutated into some very unpleasant creatures with bad tempers and a taste for human flesh.

Aja’s version takes one major liberty with the source material. In the original Craven established that the mutants, although they were evil, were a family. In fact they mirrored the poor family they were terrorizing—all American verses Americans all messed up by their own country’s experiments. I thought the contrast was one of the strong points of that film and lent a tone of social commentary about nuclear testing to the piece. 

Aja forgoes social comment for shocks, and although he takes his time getting to the hard-core action, once the thrills arrive they’re worth the wait. This movie is not for the easily disturbed or the faint of heart, but if you like your scares gruesome and fast paced the Hills Have Eyes is for you.

Hoodwinked: Hoodwinked is probably the only kid's movie that cites The Usual Suspects and Rashomon as influences. Writer / director Corey Edwards has re-imagined the Little Red Riding Hood fable, committing it to screen as though it had be written by Raymond Chandler or Jim Thompson. He infuses the familiar story with fun new characters, each of whom tells the story from their point of view. The movie's mélange of pop culture references will keep older family members interested, while the younger ones should enjoy the story. My only real gripe is with the animation that looks as though it was rendered for a video game. There is none of the Pixar slickness to this one, but the inventive story works quite well.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

The Harry Potter phenomenon is so powerful that you could have called this Harry Potter Drinks a Goblet of Water and presented an Andy Warhol-style film of young Harry chugging a glass of water for two hours and Potterheads would still wear their wizard hats and line up to see it. There may be fewer kids in line this time, however, as Goblet is the darkest installment in the $2.6 billion (and counting) Potter franchise.

The story is boiled down from the 700-plus page novel by J.K. Rowling and as the poster tagline reads, “Difficult times lie ahead, Harry.” Difficult times indeed. Not only must the three heroes fend off evil supernatural forces in the form of Lord Voldemort but they also must grapple with dangers of a much more mortal sort—jealousy, romance, mortality and Harry’s raging hormones. Voldemort may be Harry’s sworn enemy, but the real trouble starts when puberty comes to Hogwarts. The Goblet of Fire sees the trio growing up and the filmmakers eliminating many of the child-like elements of the earlier three films. Gone are Harry’s goofy family and the house elves and with them went the lighter feel of the other movies. The Goblet of Fire is firmly rooted in supernatural adult fiction and as such earned a PG-13 rating.

A rooftop race with a dragon, Mad Eye Moody’s leering mechanical eye and the snake-like Lord Voldemort are sure to excite Potterphiles, but if I have a complaint it is that there is almost too much going on. Donny Brasco director Mike Newell has done an fine job of cramming a very long book into a two-and-a-half hour film, but it seemed to me that there were too many characters—Alan Rickman’s deliciously menacing Severus Snape gets lost in the crowd, barely managing two lines, while the inclusion of tabloid reporter Rita Skeeter adds nothing to the film but running time—and the quieter scenes, wedged in between spectacular action sequences, seemed rushed.

HERBIE: FULLY LOADED

Anyone over the age of thirty will remember the Herbie: The Love Bug movies—there were five of them, plus a 1997 TV movie—about a spunky little car with a mind of its own. Fully Loaded is an attempt to rev up the engine of this franchise and run it around the track at least one more time.

This Lindsay Lohan vehicle—pardon the pun, but there are more to come—sees her playing Maggie Peyton, the only girl in a family of NASCAR drivers. As a graduation gift her father (Michael Keaton) buys her an emotive Volkswagen Beetle named Herbie from a local junkshop. Luckily Herbie is a positive influence in Maggie’s life—this is the opposite of that other car-come-to-life movie John Carpenter's Christine—and Lohan and Herbie bond—is it an auto-erotic relationship?—while she rekindles her love of racing after a near-fatal accident forced her father to ban her from the track. Before you can say Dude, Where’s My Car? she finds herself going wheel to wheel with NASCAR champ Trip Murphy (Matt Dillon).

Herbie: Fully Loaded is a simple, but likeable underdog story of two unlikely racers—there aren’t many female NASCAR racers and a Volkswagen on the track is the kind of thing that could only happen in the movies—that, while predictable, is a long way from the junkyard.