INCEPTION: 4 ½ STARS

Conventional Hollywood wisdom these days has it that audiences only want to see remakes, retreads and rehashes of old ideas. This summer has seen a seemingly endless parade of movies with the number 2 in the title and films based on 80s TV shows. Some have made money some have not, but every once and a while a movie comes along that proves Hollywood wrong. Last December “Avatar” showed that audiences would flock to a movie that wasn’t based on a videogame, existing novel or television show. It broke every box office record going and yet since then there has been a stream of derivative films clogging up the multiplex. Until now. Christopher Nolan’s “Inception” is a startlingly original film.  

Set in a world where technology can invade people’s dreams, “Inception” stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Dom Cobb, the leader of a corporate espionage team who specialize in stealing valuable secrets from within people's subconscious for profit. Cobb is an international fugitive tormented by dreams of his late wife (Marion Cotillard) who sees a way out of his personal nightmare if he takes on one last job offered to him by Saito (Ken Watanabe), a powerful businessman who can arrange for Cobb to skip past immigration and get back into the United States. All Cobb has to do is perform an “inception;” plant a thought in the mind of Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy) CEO of a global corporation. (One writer has called it “the Great Brain Robbery.) Cobb and his team—Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Eames (Tom Hardy), Yusuf (Dileep Rao) and Ariadne (Ellen Page), an architect who becomes Cobb’s new dream weaver—set out to implant the idea of dissolving his multibillion-dollar business into Fischer’s dreams.

“Inception” is the most innovative sci fi film to come out of Hollywood since “The Matrix” way back in 1999. It’s a movie that takes ideas very seriously—ideas drive the plot—and, as a result, takes its audience seriously. It never talks down to the crowd and in return demands viewers to pay attention. For those who do there are many rewards, and for those who aren’t willing to get drawn into the surreal story there are still many pleasures. That’s how finely crafted this movie is.

“Dark Knight” director Christopher Nolan (who also wrote the script) proves he can blow the doors off with the action—Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s MC Eischeresque gravity defying fight scene is a mind blower—and also handle the cerebral stuff.

He creates and juggles several worlds—dreams within dreams, worlds within worlds—until it becomes difficult to tell what is real and what isn’t. Each of these worlds comes complete with their own rules—five minutes in real life equals one hour in dream time, for instance—and is populated with well rounded, complex characters. The visuals are very cool—check out the streets that defy physics and curl over on top of one another—but amazing effects don’t mean much if the people interacting with them aren’t interesting. Nolan has put a great deal of effort into the look of the movie and its ideas but he never forgets the characters, who are the film’s single biggest asset.

Like the very best sci fi “Inception” is thoughtful, intelligent, audacious and humanistic. It’s also one of the year’s best films of any genre. 

IRON MAN 2: 3 STARS

When we last saw Iron Man he had a perfectly functioning palladium mechanical heart and a best friend who looked a lot like Terrence Howard. How times have changed. In “Iron Man 2” a mysterious malady is threatening to sideline his success and Jim Rhodes, his BFF, now looks like Don Cheadle.

In the time since the previous “Iron Man” movie, (two years in real time, six months in the story) oddball weapons inventor Tony Stark (Downey Jr.) has become a national hero. He’s one part Bono, two parts George Patton. His technologies, including the famous heavy metal suit, are keeping America safe, but not everyone are fans. The US Senate—in particular Senator Stern (Garry Shandling)—sees the egomaniacal inventor as a threat and wants him to hand over his secrets. Then there is his rival, Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell, the best actor out there who isn’t a major movie star), an unctuous arms dealer working for the government. He can best be described as a Stark wannabe whose technology is nowhere near as advanced as Stark’s. Even worse is Ivan Vanko aka Whiplash (Mickey Rourke), a Russia engineer whose father used to work with Stark’s old man. The weathered looking Vanko Jr. has built his own suit, this one equipped with whip-like attachments that harness electrical energy. As if that weren’t enough bad guys, even Bill O’Reilly makes a cameo.

Worst of all, though, Stark’s own technology may be working against him. It appears he is slowly being poisoned by the palladium that powers the miniature arc reactor in his chest.

On the plus side there’s loyal old Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) Stark’s Louboutin-sporting confidant who is now CEO of Stark Industries and Natalie Rushman (Scarlett Johansson) Stark’s new assistant. She’s also a S.H.I.E.L.D. (if you sat through the credits of the first film you’ll remember S.H.I.E.L.D. as the fictional espionage and law-enforcement agency run by Nick Fury, played by Samuel L. Jackson) undercover agent named Black Widow who wears tight leather outfits and shows an until now unseen capacity for gymnastics.

There’s more plot and characters, but I’m almost out of space and haven’t gotten to the review yet and that is part of the problem with the movie. The first “Iron Man” was as clean and concise as a huge summer comic book blockbuster can be—solid characters, not too many of them, and a clear cut story. This time around the director Jon Favreau has thrown simplicity out the window, opting instead for Michael Bay style bombast. Where the first “Iron Man” was an idiosyncratic character study with cool action sprinkled throughout, the new one reverses that formula, relying on action to carry the day.

The characters are still fairly strong, but Downey’s charm seems to have faded a bit since he last wore the iron suit. Maybe we got to know him too well two years ago, but here the character doesn’t have the same kind of fresh appeal he had the first time around.  

Perhaps it’s because the overall tone of the film is darker, but “Iron Man 2” isn’t as much fun as the original. It should please comic fans familiar with the storyline and characters, and it certainly has its moments—things go boom and Rourke is a convincing, if underused villain—but like the “Spider Man” movies, which got bigger, but not necessarily better as time went on, “Iron Man 2” feels a bit leaden. Leaden or not, though, this will be the biggest hit this summer NOT in 3D.

IT’S COMPLICATED: 3 ½ STARS

Despite the title there’s nothing terribly complicated about “It’s Complicated,” the new slice of lifestyle porn from director Nancy Meyers that nicks its name from a facebook status. The pitch goes something like this: two men vie for the affection of one woman. Been there done that, but it becomes something a little more interesting when you attached the names Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, two dramatic actors who can do funny and Steve Martin, a funny actor who can do serious.

Jane (Meryl Streep) is a divorcee in Santa Barbara. Her last daughter is leaving the nest and now she wonders who she’ll watch “The Hills” with. She may not have to wonder for long. At her son’s graduation in New York she reconnects with her ex husband Jake (Alec Baldwin). They’ve been apart for ten years ever since he had an affair with Agness (Lake Bell), a much younger woman who is now his wife. The two unexpectedly hit it off, and now the roles are reversed—Jane becomes an ex-wife with benefits when she begins an affair with her former husband. The complication the title refers to is Adam (Steve Martin) an earnest architect hired to redesign Jane’s home but who instead falls in love with her.

It’s a standard setup for a screwball comedy and in the end not all that important. The important thing is whether or not you want to watch these people as they navigate the triangle that has become their love life. Luckily, Nancy Meyers has cast well, putting together a powerhouse front line cast that compensates for the story’s simplicity.

Meryl Steep is in “Mama Mia” mode here, having fun with the role of a restaurant owner who’s richer than the Dean in Dean & Deluca. She’s loose, funny and relaxed. Steve Martin has the least showy role as Adam, the lovesick architect, but his performance makes me wish he would aim a little higher and never again crack another “Pink Panther” script.   

Despite Meryl and Martin the movie belongs to Alec Baldwin who steals every scene he’s in. The easy way with a line that has earned him an Emmy or two for his work on “30 Rock” translates well here and his vanity free performance—Hairy! Fat! Nude!—is easy going fun. This trio works through the hackier material, even selling the prerequisite “parents getting high for the first time in twenty years” scene. It’s been done many times before but it’s worth it this time around to see Baldwin super toking and Streep, high off one puff, gaze into a mirror and ask, incredulously, “Is this what I look like?”

On the minus side Lake Bell, who was the only funny thing in “Over Her Dead Body,” a bad Eva Longoria comedy from a couple of years ago, is wasted, cast as a stereotype, but leave it to Nancy Meyers to turn conventional Hollywood wisdom on its head and downplay the young characters in favor of the older ones.

“It’s Complicated” is an enjoyable watch, it’s a fluffy diversion from the heavier drama that tends to come out during the holiday season. Go for the Nancy Meyers trademarks—beautiful rich people who don’t seem to have to work, nice houses and exotic sports cars—and stay for the agreeable charm of the cast.

THE IMAGINARIUM OF DR. PARNASSUS: 3 ½ STARS

As you may have guessed from the title “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” is an odd movie. Directed by Terry Gilliam, it is the strange tale of a mysterious immortal who complicates his life by making deals with the devil. Complicating Gilliam’s life during production was the unexpected death of his star Heath Ledger but, the show, as they say, must go on and here we are after the untimely January 2008 passing of the young actor, with a completed film. How did Gilliam finish the movie? A new credit, “A Film from Heath Ledger and Friends” tells the tale. Three of Ledger’s buddies, Johnny Depp (seen dancing on a leaf!), Colin Farrell and Jude Law, stepped in to play “through the looking glass” versions of the late actor.

Set in present day London the film begins with a look at Doctor Parnassus’s (Christopher Plummer) bizarre traveling show which offers people a chance to step through Dr.P’s magical mirror into an alternate reality. He’s selling imagination, but his gift of mind's eye manipulation came with a heavy price. Eons before he made a trade with the devil (Tom Waits)—remarkable power in exchange for his first born daughter on her sixteenth birthday. That anniversary is now days away but with the help of a mysterious stranger named Tony (played by Ledger, Depp Law and Farrell) and the magic mirror Dr. P just may be able to save her.
 
“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” is more a piece of surrealist art than a traditional movie. Imagine watching a Salvador Dali painting come to life and you’ll get the idea. Gilliam, who co-wrote the script as well as directed, has allowed his imagination to run riot. While the story meanders to and fro he fills the screen with unforgettable images; Old Nick dangling Dr. P from the end of a branch or a multi-eyed hot air balloon shaped like a man’s head or the ensemble of skirt wearing, dancing Bobbies. Visually it’ll make your eyeballs do the Watusi.

The story, however, may leave some a bit baffled, but so what if it warps the brain a bit? The film oozes Gilliam’s trademarked anarchic spirit—he might be the only filmmaker who could replace his leading man with three other actors and actually pull it off—and is the most original movie of the year.

INVICTUS: 3 STARS

After watching “Invictus” I’d vote for Morgan Freeman. He plays Nelson Mandela with an impressive mix of gravitas, intelligence and humanity, perfect for a mayor or even higher office, but just because I’d give him my vote doesn’t mean he’s made a good movie.

“Invictus,” Clint Eastwood’s thirty-first film as a director doesn’t feel as slap dash as “Gran Torino,” his exercise in first takes and weak performances from last year. It’s a more ambitious film, shot on location in South Africa, and featuring some flashy production design, but like his 2005 Oscar winner “Million Dollar Baby,” it is a human story set against a sports back drop. This isn’t a biography of Mandela or a study of race; it’s the story of the Springbok, a champion rugby team who became a unifying symbol of the new South Africa.

Freeman cuts an impressive figure as Mandela, capturing the man’s grace; unfortunately every line out of his mouth sounds like it should be engraved on an inspirational commemorative plate. It’s understandable to paint Mandela as a philosopher king, he is, after all one of the most impressive figures of our recent history, but according to “Invictus” he only speaks in platitudes. It doesn’t feel like a full portrait of the man, just an inspirational glimpse of a great man.

The other major character, Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon), captain of the Springboks, is similarly underdeveloped but made interesting by Damon’s performance. He’s becoming a great character actor who shows his versatility in roles as diverse as the bi-polar whistle blower in “The Informant” and the super spy character from the “Bourne” movies.

There is a good ninety minute movie hidden in the 133 minute running time. An underdeveloped subplot about Mandela’s strained relationship with his family doesn’t do much except slow the movie down and the important stuff—Mandela’s rise to power and the story of race reconciliation—is dispensed with in the sixty minutes, leaving us with over an hour to ramp up for the big game.   

Despite drawing out the final game—it drags on for half an hour when a highlight reel would have sufficed—there are some very effective sequences. The bits of the film that work best are the small moments that don’t involve Mandela’s inspirational chestnuts. It’s strongest when the Springbok team go to the townships to teach the kids rugby or Pienaar sizes up Mandela’s old cell, using his arms to  measure the width of the tiny enclosure. These are powerful moments and give the movie much of its oomph.

“Invictus” (it’s Latin for “invincible” and the title of an 1875 poem Mandela used as inspiration when things got rough during his 27 years in prison) takes a real story and filters it through a typical sports movie set up—the World Cup game in South Africa is a microcosm of the larger issues of acceptance—but misses most of the true drama inherent in the story.

I HOPE THEY SERVE BEER IN HELL: MINUS INFINITY X 10

Leaving the theatre after seeing “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell” I felt as though I was leaving behind a crime scene—a crime against entertainment. This low budget adaptation of a best selling book of the same name by Tucker Max has all the appeal of watching an autopsy. And I don’t mean the safe and sanitary kind of autopsy seen on “CSI”, but the real deal where the medical examiner is covered in gore and noxious fumes fill the air.

As the opening credits say this story is “based on a true story… unfortunately.”  The unfortunately is meant to a self-knowing jab at the title character Tucker Max, a narcissistic young man who allows his self interest to affect the lives of everyone around him. It suggests that the screenwriter (whose life inspired the book and the movie) is acknowledging his bullish behavior and saying he has atoned for the events in the story that are about to unfold. If he really wanted to express regret for this story he’d apologize to the audience upfront, and perhaps do them the favor of suggesting they run to get their money back before sitting through anymore of this cheap rip off of The Hangover.

The story begins when Tucker Max (The Gilmour Girls’ Matt Czuchry) uses his “charm” to convince his soon-to-be married friend Dan (Geoff Stults) to lie to his fiancée (Traci Lords) and drive three hours to celebrate his bachelor party at a wild strip club that allows groping and down-and-dirty lap dances. Tagging along for the ride is their depressed friend Drew (Jesse Bradford), a Colin Farrell look-a-like who does little more than whine in a monotonous voice and alienate everyone unfortunate enough to come within a one mile radius. Dropping his friends to pursue a stripper, Tucker sets into motion a series of events that will see Dan thrown in jail on the eve of his wedding. His reckless behavior throws a wedge in their friendship and Tucker must find a way to think about someone other than himself and make amends.   

To say that there is a distinct lack of charm to “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell” would be an understatement along the lines of suggesting that Jay Leno stopped being funny as soon as he moved to 10 pm. For every line like “we’re gonna fail worse than a “Friends” spinoff” that may raise a smile there are a dozen other gags (literally) about rape, fetal alcohol syndrome and abortion. I know it’s supposed to be an edgy morality tale about the effects of egotism, but even Tucker’s big apology scene, his mea culpa for his self absorbed behavior, is all about him, proving once and for all that he is still a selfish man-child who does whatever he wants. It also means that the movie has no resolution and that the audience has spent ninety minutes in the company of these pathetic excuses for characters for no reason.

It’s all rather unconvincing, unrealistic and given its low production value, unwatchable. That’s to say nothing of the film’s unforgivable misogyny, sexism and a climax that rates among the most unpleasant ever filmed. Finish your popcorn before the bathroom scene… trust me. “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell” isn’t just a bad movie; it’s a slap in the face to anyone who pays money to see it.

THE INVENTION OF LYING: 3 ½ STARS

Imagine living in a world where there’s no such thing as flattery, deceit or fiction. I’ll tell you one thing for sure, Hollywood wouldn’t exist and politics would be way less interesting. Retirement homes are called A Sad Place for Hopeless Old People and Pepsi’s advertising slogan might read: “Pepsi, For When You Don’t Have Coke.” This is the world British comedian Ricky Gervais created as the setting for his directorial debut, a strange romantic comedy called “The Invention of Lying.”

The story is quite simple even if the ideas that lie just beneath the surface aren’t. The film is set in an alternate reality, a Norman Rockwell world where no one has ever told a lie. People speak their minds because they are incapable of fibbing. A waiter might say, “I took a sip of your drink,” as he drops a Margarita at your table. Gervais is Mark Bellison a screenwriter who specializes in transcribing 13th century history—remember, there’s no fiction—for films. After unconsciously telling the first lie and inadvertently inventing religion he becomes a celebrity, but will this strange power be enough to win the heart of Jennifer (Jennifer Garner)?   

The Invention of Lying sounds like a one joke wonder, and on some levels it is, but it’s a good joke and Gervais as co-writer, director and star brings enough subtext to the story to keep up interest.

Nestled away under the obvious jokes is a healthy dollop of social commentary. Gervais uses the premise of total honesty all the time to shoot satirical arrows at religion (his version of God is “The Man in the Sky”), advertising and social niceties. The satire is sharp, particularly in the first half hour as we get to know the characters. The balance of the film has many laughs and makes some pointed observations before becoming ever so slightly bogged down by the romance and the beyond blatant product placement.

Who knew a Pizza Hut box could stand-in for one of the Ten Commandment tablets? That scene is the most shameless bit of product placement seen on screen, maybe ever.

On the plus side Gervais has assembled not only a strong leading cast—Jennifer Garner sparkles and Louis C.K. is very funny—but also a laundry list of unexpected cameos. I won’t spoil the fun, but look for a Sarah Palin look-a-like and a mustachioed bit-part from an actor not known for his sense of humor.
 
“The Invention of Lying” could have used a little less product placement but by and large Gervais has created a pleasant and surprising rom com that’ll make you think about all those little white lies you tell every day.

THE INFORMANT!: 3 ½ STARS

“The Informant!” sees director Steven Soderbergh merge the broad appeal of his “Ocean’s 11” series with some of the quirkier aspects of his art house inspired work. He’s always straddled the line between caustic and commercial, making one experimental film for every box office bonanza but this time he’s crafted a movie that should satisfy both film critics who want more of the obtuse “Schizopolis” era Soderbergh and audiences simply looking to be entertained. Call it high end-low brow.

Based on Kurt Eichenwald's book, “The Informant” is the mostly true tale of Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon), a highly paid executive turned whistle blower at Archer Daniels Midland in the early 1990s. Co-operating with the F.B.I. he helped uncover a price fixing policy which landed several executives (including himself) in jail. While the Ivy Leaguer, who suffers from bi-polar disorder, gathered hundreds of hours of incriminating video and audio tapes, he unwittingly exposed his involvement in another, unrelated corporate scam. As he tries to dig himself out he instead gets buried by his mounting lies.

Ninety percent of Soderbergh’s job on “The Informant!,” where you have a lead character who is meant to be likeable but is actually revealed to be a liar and a thief, was to cast the right people. It can be a tricky balancing act to find an actor who can keep the audience on- board through a tale of corporate malfeasance and personal greed but Matt Damon is the guy. Years ago this role might have been played by Paul Newman, another actor who could span the gap between hero and anti-hero and leave viewers satisfied.

Like Leonardo DiCaprio in “Catch Me If You Can,” another movie about a likeable bad guy, Damon’s history of playing heroes brings with it built in audience acceptance. The casting is quite inspired and allowing Damon to gain a few pounds, rounding out his usually chiseled face and torso, even more so. He becomes the everyman, not the handsome but more unrelatable “Bourne Identity” star.          

Damon may head up the cast, but he is ably supported by good work from “Talk Soup’s” Joel McHale and Scott Bakula (why isn’t he in more movies?) as FBI Special Agent Brian Shepard.

The tone of the film is deliberate as Soderbergh walks us through the price fixing set up, layering the story with glib narration from Damon about the minutia of his life. It’s a risky thing and the kind of element the Coens excel at—relating the small details to the larger picture—but Soderbergh’s sure and steady hand guarantees that Damon’s constant and seemingly unconnected stream-of-consciousness voice over enhances the film.

“The Informant!” isn’t Soderbergh’s next “Erin Brockovich.” It’s skewed a tad too far to the art house side of his brain for that, but Damon’s presence keeps this story of accounting, paperwork and avarice interesting.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS: 4 ¾ STARS

The last words of “Inglourious Basterds”, the new film from director Quentin Tarantino, are “I think this just might be my masterpiece.” The words aren’t spoken by Tarantino (I’m not going to give away anything and tell you who says them), but they did flow from his pen and it isn’t hard to imagine him claiming them as a comment on his own work. After all he did spend more than a decade working on the script, so long, in fact that “The Irish Times” wrote that the film “has been predicted more often than the second coming of the Lord.” It’s meant to be the director’s magnum opus; a sprawling film that has been gestating inside him for years. I’d like to be able to report that it is his masterpiece, but it’s not, that’s the impossible to better “Pulp Fiction”, but it is as combustible a movie as will be released this year.

Borrowing the title from a little seen 1978 Enzo Castellari film, (the second word is spelled differently, inserting an “e” where the “a” usually sits), Tarantino has created a violent WWII fantasy that rewrites history.

The Basterds are a group of Jewish-American Allied soldiers led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt). Think of them as the Dirty Half Dozen. Their mission is to hunt down, kill and scalp at least one hundred Nazis. The rare Nazi who escapes a nasty death at their hands—left alive to tell others of the Basterd’s ruthless tactics—is marked for life by a swastika carved deep into his forehead. Running parallel is a story thread about movie theatre proprietor Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent), a young Jewish woman, aching for revenge against SS colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) A.K.A. the Jew Hunter. In Tarantino’s bloodthirsty world it’s inevitable that Raine’s band of brothers, Shosanna and Col. Landa will cross paths.

The films of Quentin Tarantino deeply polarize people. For every person who quivers at the thought of a new film from the “Reservoir Dogs” director there is another who thinks his movies are too long, too self indulgent and too derivative. Despite those criticisms, fair or not, there is almost no argument that of all the brand name directors working today, Tarantino is the most audacious. His films are a singular vision and “Inglorious Basterds” is no exception.

It opens with an almost unbelievably tense scene, spanning the first twenty five minutes of the movie. It is a tour de force of razor’s edge filmmaking, sadistic and twisted, all without a drop of blood or a raised voice on display. It’s pure cinema, and as a set piece is the best filmmaking I’ve seen this year.

The opening sets a high standard and Tarantino does his best to live up to it, taking his time unfurling the story in chapter form. Unlike bombastic directors like Michael Bay, Tarantino understands the ebb and flow of the storyline. His movies don’t clobber you over the head with every frame, instead he calibrates the story to include deliberately paced scenes which create a sense of anticipation for the next crescendo of violence or plot.

The movie is, as I said, deliberately paced, but never feels slow. Tarantino weaves together the disparate storylines, and styles—everything from spaghetti westerns to 70’s exploitation and über violence—into one seamless package.

The bow on top of the package has to be the performance of the Austrian-born Christoph Waltz. As SS colonel Hans Landa he is pure evil; a slimy villain for the ages.

“Inglourious Basterds” won’t be for everyone, it’s too extreme for casual viewers, but the film lover in me is tickled that the heroine is a cinema owner who literally uses film to bring down the Third Reich. Love him or not, you can never accuse Tarantino of being boring.

I LOVE YOU BETH COOPER: 1 STAR

There’s no shortage of teen coming of age stories based on nerdy guys head-over-heels with the hottest girl in school; think American Pie, The Girl Next Door, Fanboys along with dozens of others. There’s even a reality show called Beauty and the Geek that pairs up models with self-confessed nerds, among them a Rubik's Cube Record Holder and Karl, who listed his profession as Dungeon Master. A new film, I Love You Beth Cooper, based on a novel by author / screenwriter Larry Doyle, mines this territory pairing up a high school valedictorian with the most popular and wildest, girl in school.

Nerdy Buffalo Grove High School valedictorian Denis Cooverman (Paul Rust) chose an unusual moment to declare his love for Beth Cooper (Hayden Panettiere). “The one thing I will regret if I never say it is I love you Beth Cooper,” he announces on-stage during his high school graduation, “I never told you because we never spoke.” Beth is one third of “the trinity,” the three hottest girls in school; a cheerleader who never gave Denis a second look. Never gave him a second look, that is, until after he publicly declared his love for her. That night, after the fateful graduation speech, when Denis, Beth and their friends hit the town it becomes the best night of his life despite Beth’s psycho chiseled-jawed ex-boyfriend. “All my memories from high school are from tonight,” he says.

I Love You Beth Cooper starts off promisingly. The first five minutes is funny, touching and sets up what could have been a good coming-of-age movie. Unfortunately the remaining hour and forty minutes is flat, flat, flat.

Director Christopher Columbus is no stranger to comedy, having helmed the Home Alone movies; no stranger to romance, as he proved with Only the Lonely and no stranger to teen fare, having made the first two Harry Potter movies, but here his usual deft touch is too heavy handed. Call it You Bore Me Beth Cooper. The bones of the movie are quite good; it’s well cast (with one glaring exception), the idea is cute, but any movie that relies on flashbacks that simply don’t work, the old champagne cork to the face gag, a lame soundtrack and lessons like “you’re not alive unless you’re living,” is bound for failure.

When the movie sticks to the sweet mushy stuff, exploring teen loneliness and love, it works reasonably well. When it swerves into its more slapsticky moments it becomes run-of the-mill. Played too broadly to be poignant it loses the touching x-factor that made it promising in its opening minutes.

Add to that a badly cast Hayden Panettiere in the titular role and I Love You Beth Cooper becomes a miss from a usually reliable filmmaker.

ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS: 1 STAR

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs should be titled Ice Age: Pray for Extinction; extinction for this lame animated franchise that has inexplicably limped along since 2002, spawning three movies, a couple of direct-to-video titles and several video games. These well intentioned, but dull movies (Ice Age and Ice Age 2: The Meltdown) are more an excuse to sell stuffed toys than to entertain. The new film is more of the same, introducing several new characters which seem primed and ready to take their place on toy store shelves in the movie swag section.

All the regulars are back—that’s Manny and Ellie, the Wooly Mammoth couple voiced by Ray Romano and Queen Latifah, macho tiger Diego (Denis Leary), the annoyingly unlucky sloth named Sid (John Leguizamo) and Scrat (Chris Wedge) the mute squirrel, and rare highlight in a film that tested my resolve to stay in my seat for the whole movie. Even the kids in the audience I saw this with seemed bored by the story of how life will change for the entire herd when Manny and Ellie’s baby arrives. Leading up to the birth there’s trouble in the pack but when Sid follows three newborn dinosaurs down to a strange and beautiful world underneath the ice the ensuing adventure—and a one-eyed weasel named Buck (Simon Pegg)—brings them together.  

I’m almost too bored by this to finish writing the review, but I’ll forge on. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is a deeply average animated movie (I didn’t see the 3-D version, but can’t imagine it would make much difference) with some nice messages for kids about the importance of family, loyalty, friendship and cooperation presented in the blandest, most predictable way possible. The voice work is middling, the animation is nice but not as eye catching as the recent work in Monsters vs. Aliens or Up and the story seems an after thought. In fact, the only truly entertaining parts of the movie have nothing to do with the main narrative.

The ubiquitous acorn from the first two movies is back, chased by Scrat, the most dogged squirrel ever seen on film. Scrat is the Ice Age franchise’s equivalent of Wile E. Coyote, a lovable but psychics defying acorn hunter often humiliated but never daunted in his quest for the elusive nut. This time gravity isn’t his greatest enemy. In a story line that seems edited in willy-nilly Scrat has some competition and perhaps even a love match in the form of a female buck-toothed squirrel named Scratte. Played back-to back these segments may have made a good stand alone kid’s short film, and in the process spared us the tedium of the rest of the movie.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs left me cold.

IMAGINE THAT: 1 ½ STARS

I find Eddie Murphy infuriating. It used to be that you could count on Eddie to raise a smile or two at the movies. I loved his silly giggle in Beverly Hills Cop, his version of Greatest Love of All in Coming to America, and the “My mother was like Clint Eastwood with a shoe...” routine from Delirious is one of the funniest monologues ever, but that was when Eddie and I were both much younger.
    
Now the prospect of a new Eddie Murphy movie is as welcome as a case of gingivitis. That makes me angry. He may be the biggest, most talented star in Hollywood who consistently makes the worst movies. Don’t get me wrong, nobody hits a home run every time but Murphy’s recent batting average is worse than most.

Meet Dave, The Adventures of Pluto Nash, The Haunted Mansion and Norbit are among the most annoying movies ever made. His latest, Imagine That, doesn’t plumb the depths of Pluto Nash or Norbit, but is only a slight improvement on his recent output.
 
Murphy is Evan, a high powered investment banker; a smart guy who makes deals all day long at work, but a terrible father who has no idea how to deal with his adorable daughter Olivia (Yara Shahidi) or ex wife Trish (Nicole Ari Parker). When a new employee at work with the unlikely name of Johnny White Feather (Thomas Haden Church) threatens his top dog status Evan turns to an unorthodox method of predicting the stock market—his daughter’s imaginary friends. With the aid of her security—or should that be securities—blanket he gets hot tips that get him noticed by the upper brass who are looking for someone to take over the company’s west coast division. Evan uses the time spent divining market fluctuations with his daughter and her imaginary friends to repair their broken relationship, but he’s still all business. That is until he realizes what’s really important in life.

Imagine That is a family fantasy movie that is more cute than actually funny. It’s also more predictable than funny. In fact, it’s a lot of things, but funny isn’t really one of them. There are a few laughs sprinkled throughout, but they are few and far between and Thomas Haden Church as the politically incorrect but rather amusing character White Feather gets most of them. He speaks in faux Native-American lingo, a mix of spiritual mumbo jumbo and tossed off lines like “the white fire grid you call the internet.” His early scenes are some of the film’s highlights.

Murphy hands in a solid performance as Evan, solid but not terribly interesting. He has a couple of funny moments and one very cute pancake making scene but there isn’t much going on here. He’s better than this and it’s disappointing to see him waste his talent on films that don’t require him to do much more than show up and cash a pay cheque.

Imagine That is forgettable family entertainment that’s better than Norbit and some other recent Murphy titles, but that isn’t saying much. It’s like being the sweetest lemon in the bushel; it still leaves a sour taste in your mouth.

IS ANYBODY THERE?: 3 STARS

There was a time when Michael Caine appeared in every second movie at the cineplex. At least it seemed that way. In a career that spans 5 decades he’s appeared in 140 movies, 25 in the last nine years alone. They haven’t all been winners—remember Quicksand? Me neither—but what remains remarkable is that no matter the quality of the movie Caine is always the best thing in it. He makes movie acting look easy, which means, of course that he’s really good at it and while I haven’t completely forgiven him for Jaws: The Revenge or On Deadly Ground, I still look forward to seeing his easy charm on screen.   

In the last year or so he’s slowed down his output—he is 76 years-old-after all—so while he isn’t exactly the omnipresent figure he once was, he still works more than most actors a third his age. His latest film, Is Anybody There?, probably won’t rank in Sir Michael’s career top ten, but as usual he hands in exemplary work playing a retired magician named the Amazing Clarence.  

Written by Peter Harness, who based the script on his experiences growing up in a retirement home, Is Anybody There? is simultaneously the coming-of-age and old age story of Edward, a death-obsessed youngster (Son of Rambow’s Bill Miner) and Clarence, a prickly vaudevillian (Caine) who has grudgingly entered the old age home run by Edward’s parents. Set in a seaside English town in 1987 the movie charts the course of the friendship that develops between the two as Clarence gradually succumbs to dementia.

Is Anybody There? plays like a bleaker version of Secondhand Lions, the 2003 Michael Caine movie co-starring Haley Joel Osment in the role of the young boy. The main difference is that Is Anybody There? is a understated and micro-budgeted British film that treats the Clarence and Edward like real people and not just characters. Much of that wonderful realism is due to the cast, who are uniformly excellent, but Caine and young Bill Miner really shine.

Miner is the new Freddie Highmore, a child actor without an ounce of preciousness. In this film and Son of Rambow he hands in naturalistic performances that feel genuinely unmannered and real. Some actors take years of study to learn the technique that Miner seems to come by naturally.
 
Miner sparkles, but the reason to see the movie is Michael Caine. On the whole the film is a bit uneven, wobbling a bit as time goes on, but Caine’s understated and powerful performance elevates the entire movie. When he says, “You accumulate regrets and they stick to you like bruises,” his sad eyes—he may have the most expressive peepers in the movies—reveal an ocean of pain behind the faded blue of his pupils. Other times his light touch shines through. On reincarnation Clarence says he’d like to come back as a badger, “because they’re bad tempered and they look good.” It’s a wonderfully calibrated performance from an old master.
          
Is Anybody There? is a quietly film about growing up and growing old, that is by turns gently humorous, melancholy and most of all, heartfelt.

I LOVE YOU, MAN: 3 STARS

I Love You, Man is a new bromance comedy starring Paul Rudd and Forgetting Sarah Marshall’s Jason Segal. Rudd plays Peter, an awkward guy who proposes to his fiancé (Rashida Jones) and then must find someone, any one, to be his best man.

After a few misfires, including a man-date with a crazy soccer fan and an architect who wanted to be more than just BFFs Peter finds a new best friend ever in the form of Sydney Fife (Jason Segal), a big mouthed manchild with a Rush fixation who becomes Peter’s man mentor. “I have an ocean of testosterone flowing through my veins,” he says, “and sometimes I have to let it out.” All goes well until Sydney’s overbearing ways slowly pushes a wedge between Peter and his wife to be.

I Love You, Man takes its lead from the Judd Apatow school of comedy. Apatow, the comedy maven behind The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, had nothing to do with this movie but his fingerprints are all over it. Two of Apatow’s regulars—Segal and Rudd—headline the cast, but the Apatowian resemblance doesn’t stop there.  Like The 40 Year Old Virgin and others, I Love You, Man is first and foremost about relationships. That means that while the movie is laced with bathroom humor and bad boy antics it also has a soft mushy side. It’s a winning combination that has turned Apatow’s vulgar little comedies into perfect date movies. So it is with I Love You, Man, the only movie featuring multiple montages from Canadian power trio Rush—Sydney calls them “the holy triumvirate”—and flatulence jokes that has that kind of crossover appeal.

As Peter Paul Rudd leaves behind the cocky fast-talking persona he has honed in other films, choosing to show more vulnerability than usual. It’s something different from him, but it isn’t completely successful. Instead of opening the character up and really showing his insecurities he comes across more as needy, clingy and slightly annoying.

Luckily Jason Segal is there to provide the real laughs. Sydney is a loud mouth who never grew up, and in Segal’s hands a great, unpredictable comic character. It’s a natural performance that could have grated but is saved by Segal’s charm.

The supporting cast also provides some nice moments. Jon Favreau takes a break from working on Iron Man 2 to step in front of the camera as Jaime Pressly’s grumpy and slightly perverted husband and Thomas Lennon gives the film one of its best sequences as a jilted mandate who comes back to confront Peter.

The women fare slightly less well. As Peter’s fiancée Zooey, Rashida Jones isn’t required to do anything but be adorable, which she does nicely, but it is a standard girlfriend / fiancée role. My Name is Earl’s Jaime Pressly has a bit more fire, but isn’t as funny here as she is every week on her sitcom.

I Love You, Man is an Apatow-wannabe, a film that rides the line between heartwarming and vulgar, but without the laugh-per-minute ratio that Judd Apatow pulls off in his films.

THE INTERNATIONAL: 2 ½ STARS

In this time of economic downturn when banks seem to be responsible for leading the world down the financial rabbit hole The International may be the timeliest movie to come down the pike so far this year. Loosely based on the 1980s Bank of Credit & Commerce International banking scandal, the bankers portrayed in the film are evil, money hungry thugs who care more for money than people; the kind of guys who spend as much time pouring over Sun Tzu’s Art of War as they do ledgers. In other words exactly the people who recently brought Wall Street to its knees.

The fictional IBBC is an international banking concern that deals in more than cold hard cash. Instead of offering a toaster when you open an account these guys pony-up guns and missiles. By supplying arms and advanced weaponry to warring countries they hope to control the debt that war creates. “When you control the debt,” says the inscrutable Wilhelm Wexler (the great Armin Mueller-Stahl), “you control everything.” The only thing standing between IBBC and world domination is Louis Salinger (Clive Owen), an Interpol agent who’s part bank inspector à la It’s a Wonderful Life and part CSI: Luxembourg. When he and his American counter-part Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts) realize the only way to bring down the bank is to step outside the law the only question that remains is: Will the collateral damage be worth it?

Clive Owen plays his now patented steely character with a troubled past, a person we’ve seen him essay in everything from Sin City to Shoot ‘Em Up to Children of Men. He’s all guts and glory, the kind of guy who takes a beating but keeps on ticking. Owen has these characters down pat—the determined scowl and smoldering eyes—but is left hung to dry by a screenplay that seems to have been written by the patented Raymond Chandler Hard-boiled Detective Script Generator.

Not only does first time scriptwriter Eric Singer deliver a paint-by- numbers thriller but he saddles the actors with clumsy tough-guy dialogue that would have seemed corny in Humphrey Bogart’s day. Luckily director  Tom Run Lola Run Tykwer has cast good actors like Owen and Mueller-Stahl because who else could deliver old hat lines like, “Sometimes the hardest decision in life is knowing which bridge to cross and which bridge to burn. I’m the one you burn,” without feeling a distinct sense of déjà vu.

Despite an implausible plot—the conspiracy, not the evil bankers part—Tykwer and cast pull some memorable moments from the thin material. It’s stylish, with some moments of great tension and a wild shoot-out in a New York landmark that almost justifies its two hour running time.

When The International shoots—that is expend thousands of rounds of ammo—it scores. The action is quite good; it’s just too bad the intrigue isn’t intriguing enough.

INKHEART: 1 STAR

Once upon a time Brendan Fraser was a real actor. Years before he discovered the financial benefits of acting in front of a green screen—being chased by mummies or journeying to the center of the earth, in 3D no less, has been very kind to his bank account—he made smaller character driven films. That was then, this is now. Inkheart, the new special effects opus is the latest in a string of movies that sees him as the square jawed hero battling creatures from another realm. Not since Orson Welles voiced commercials for a frozen pea company has one actor squandered his talent so flagrantly.

Based on the 2003 German novel of the same name by Cornelia Funke Inkheart is the story of Mortimer "Mo" Folchart (Fraser) and his 12-year-old daughter, Meggie (Eliza Bennett). Both are bibliophiles but he is a book nut with a special gift… or curse depending on how you look at it. He is a “silver tongue,” someone who can bring books to life simply by reading them aloud. Of course over the years this has caused problems. When Meggie was just three years old Mo read aloud from a novel called Inkheart, a story filled with evil kings and a mysterious creature called The Shadow, made from the ashes of all his victims. As the words tripped off his tongue he mistakenly brought some of the characters from the book to the real world. Worse, his wife Resa (Sienna Guillory) vanished into the book’s mystical world. For nine years Mo has tried to track down another copy of the rare book with the hope of bring her back. When he finally finds a copy he must first deal with the book’s evil king who has decided he likes the real world and doesn’t want to be sent back to the pages of the novel.  

Inkheart should have been romp through a whimsical world fun enough to give Harry Potter a run for his money. The idea is sound—fantastical creatures doing battle with Fraser and the other humans could be fun. Remember the first Mummy movie?—but director Iain Softley drops the ball. The pace is turgid, the action sequences have no bounce and even good actors like Paul Bettany as the enigmatic Dustfinger and Helen Mirren as feisty Great Aunt Elinor can’t elevate the proceedings to even a notch above dull.

The characters just aren’t very compelling. Fraser walks through the movie looking like he’s wondering when he’ll get paid; Paul Bettany’s Dustfinger, a character from the book who desperately wants to get sent back to his old life in the novel, is far too sullen and Andy Serkis’s supposedly evil Capricorn is a villain who seems grumpy rather than truly evil. And honestly, the sight of Dame Helen Mirren riding a unicorn, whooping like a blood crazed warrior from hell, is as ready a Razzie Awards moment as I have seen for some time.

Inkheart encapsulates everything that’s wrong with Brendan Fraser’s career. It’s another forgettable performance from him in a forgettable movie that allows the premise and the CGI to overshadow everything else. Let’s remember Fraser for the good ones—The Quiet American, Gods and Monsters and Crash—and hope that he gets over his green screen addiction sooner rather than later.

IGOR: 3 STARS

The observance of Halloween dates back thousands of years to the Celts who used the date as a celebration of the end of harvest season. Since Irish immigrants brought the tradition to North America in the nineteenth century the way we celebrate October 31st has changed from a time used by the ancient pagans to take stock of supplies and slaughter livestock for winter to our tradition of dressing up in outlandish costumes, carving pumpkins and gorging ourselves on Creepy Crawlers Gummy Candy and Twist & Glow Halloween Pops. These days it’s second only to Christmas in terms of the amount of people who decorate their homes for the holidays and North American revelers spend upwards of 5 billion dollars a year on Halloween costumes. Another great treat of the fall season are Halloween specials like It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and Mr. Boogedy. The latest entry on the Halloween scene is Igor, a new animated film for kids starring the voice of John Cusack. 

Igor is a riff on the classic mad scientist movies, this time told from the lab assistant’s point of view. Igor (John Cusack) is a lowly hunchback with a “major in slurred speech and a ‘Yes, Master’ degree” who dreams of becoming a scientist. When his master is killed by his own invention Igor gets his chance to shine and maybe even win the annual Evil Science Fair. His invention, a female Frankenstein monster named Eva, is meant to be the most evil creature the world has ever seen, but turns out to be a sweet natured giant with aspirations of becoming an actress. To this end she says she’s interested in adopting kids from other countries and says she’ll become an environmentalist and only fly private when necessary. If she doesn’t drop her ideas of stardom and turn nasty how will Igor win the Evil Science Fair?

Igor is aimed at little kids. Written by Chris McKenna, who previously penned American Dad and voiced by an all star cast featuring Cusack, Steve Buscemi, John Cleese, Jay Leno and Christian Slater, it is a great looking cartoon that’s equal parts German Expressionism and Pee Wee’s Playhouse. The highly stylized characters look like they just walked off the set of The Nightmare Before Christmas, and the inventive backgrounds are bound to set off kid’s imaginations. The camera work, often so static in animated films like this, is fluid and cinematic.

The story is stretched a bit thin even at the compact running time of 85 minutes, but there is enough going on to keep the under ten crowd entertained. Most of the irreverent humor is meant for the little ones, for example:

“I’m all thumbs,” says Eva the giantess. “Yeah, sorry about that,” replies Igor, “I got the thumbs on sale.”

Parents probably won’t find any big yuks in lines like that or the slapstick or even the bathroom jokes, but there are gags to keep older viewers interested peppered throughout.

Igor is a cute Halloween story with stylish animation; jokes that should make ten-year-olds laugh and good messages about the importance of friends and determination and at 85 minutes shouldn’t tax growing attention spans.

I LOVE THE 80s DVD SET:

The 1980s were the heyday of Donkey Kong, parachute pants, Cabbage Patch Dolls, New Coke, break dancing, and of course, deliciously funny teen comedies. Hollywood still pumps them out by the cartload, but the Golden Age of adolescent humor dates back to the days when a new Brat Pack film was guaranteed to play to sold out houses. Dozens were released, but few had the impact of Pretty in Pink and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off which became classics of the genre and touchstones of the Reagan years and are now included in a new set of DVDs called I Love the 80s.

FOOTLOOSE (1984): 3 ½ STARS
In Footloose Kevin Bacon is Ren McCormick, a city boy who comes to a small town where rock music and dancing have been forbidden. This one is better than you remember. Once you look past the dated clothes and hair, you’ll find a compelling story with a breakout performance from Bacon. Also of note is John Lithgow as the Reverend Shaw Moore. He’s the movie’s bad guy, the preacher who forbids toe tapping music but Lithgow actually gives him some dimension, playing him as a man of conviction and not simply a fundamentalist crack pot. Worth a second look and not just for nostalgic reasons.  

TOP GUN (1986): 3 STARS
Long before Tom Cruise pounced on Oprah’s sofa he was Lt. Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell, a cocky fighter pilot assigned to the elite Top Gun training school for advanced fighter pilots. His trip into the “Danger Zone” made Cruise a superstar and in the process made his famous lop sided grin an eighties pop culture icon. If Helen of Troy was the face that launched a thousand ships, it could also be said that Tom Cruise has the smile that sold a million movie tickets. Top Gun is wall to action with a pulsating soundtrack and great dogfights, but slows when Cruise opens his mouth and actually speaks.

FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF (1986): 3 STARS
Dismissed by critics when it was first released, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’s portrayal of wiseacre Bueller’s (Matthew Broderick) efforts to fool his parents and high school principal into thinking he’s sick, when, in fact, all he wanted was a day off, was called irresponsible. Directed by John Hughes, fresh off the success of The Breakfast Club, the movie is essentially a series of skits or vignettes strung together to make a whole, and while funny and engaging it doesn’t have the resonance or pathos of his other classic teenage outings like The Breakfast Club or his script for Pretty in Pink.
  
PRETTY IN PINK (1986): 4 STARS
A 1980s teen classic. Although the pretty-girl-from-the-wrong-side-of-the- tracks story is predictable Pretty in Pink is elevated by a good cast featuring Molly Ringwald as the above mentioned girl, Jon Cryer as Ducky, her new-wave-loving best friend and Andrew McCarthy as the rich guy she falls for. Their efforts, (plus the always dependable Harry Dean Stanton), keep the movie from becoming too overly sentimental. It’s not deep, but it is good heartfelt teenage drama with a great soundtrack and a good script by teen guru John Hughes.

SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL (1987): 3 ½ STARS
Probably the least remembered title in the series Some Kind of Wonderful is one of the best films of the five. John Hughes’s film about a tomboy (Mary Stuart Masterson) whose romantic feelings for her best friend (Eric Stoltz) are awakened when he scores a date with the most popular girl in school features good natural performances from Masterson and Stoltz, a simple but effective story and smart dialogue.

INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL: 4 STARS

There’s anticipated, then there’s highly anticipated and even strongly anticipated and then there is the level of audience expectation for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It’s the kind of anticipation that didn’t accompany the resurrections of other screen icons like Rocky or Rambo. Nope, this is in a class of its own. I’ve known expectant parents who weren’t as pent up as some of the Indy fans I’ve spoken to in recent months.

“Will Crystal Skull hold up to the originals?” they ask.

“Can senior citizen Harrison Ford (he’s 66 years old!) convincingly don Indy’s fedora after a gap of twenty four years?”

“Will George Lucas tarnish the Indy franchise as badly as he has buggered up Star Wars?” they bleat.

The answers, I’m glad to report are yes, yes and no.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a return to form for not only Lucas, but also Steven Spielberg and Ford. Separately they churn out trash like Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, The Terminal and Hollywood Homicide, but bound together sparks fly. Lucas has kept only the clichés necessary for the continuity of Indiana’s character; Spielberg has amped up the action and the pacing and Ford fits the lead role like a well worn-in pair of slippers.

In this cold war story’s opening minutes Indy (Harrison Ford) is taken prisoner by Russians dressed as American soldiers, led by Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett). Seems she’s interested in an artifact that could help her exert mind control over entire armies; an artifact that Indy can help her locate. In a breathless sequence involving car chases, rockets and an atomic bomb blast Indy escapes. Soon he teams up with a switchblade-toting juvenile delinquent in a leather jacket (Shia LeBeouf) and together they high tail it to the Peruvian jungle, racing against time to reach the Crystal Skull before Irina and her KGB thugs.   

Of course that’s the Reader’s Digest version of the story. There’s also double crosses, rekindled love, giant ants, a snake that comes to the rescue, science fiction and action, action, action. While there is nothing here as iconic as the giant boulder chase or the Nazi face-melt from Raiders of the Lost Ark by and large Crystal Skull does a good job of paying homage to the original three movies.  

At the heart of the film, of course, is Harrison Ford. Of all the actors who came of age in the 1970s—De Niro, Pacino, Hoffman, Hackman—Ford may be the most ironically American. He’s not the best actor of the bunch, not by a long shot, but like John Wayne he represents what is good about the United States—strength, courage and ingenuity. He brings these traits to every character he plays, but Indiana Jones is his greatest creation and the two decades between films in the franchise hasn’t dimmed that light one bit. He’s aged—LeBeouf’s character asks, “What are you, like 80?”—but fedora planted firmly on the top of his head he is still the heroic icon he was when the first film hit theatres and Ronald Reagan was president.

That’s great for movie fans who lined up to see Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom on opening day, but audiences have changed in the years since the last movie was released, and there is a whole generation of moviegoers who have never seen an Indy movie projected on a screen. It raises the question of whether kids will be interested in Indy’s old-fashioned brand of screen hero. Sure, there’s action and adventure a plenty, but I wonder if today’s audiences, many of whom weren’t even born when Indy first bull whipped a golden idol out of the hands of the bad guys, aren’t more cynical and more likely to gravitate towards a deeply flawed and conflicted hero like Iron Man’s Tony Stark. It would be a shame if they didn’t. In these dark and dangerous times a bit of simple, straightforward heroics just might be a good thing.

IRON MAN: 4 STARS

In the Marvel universe Iron Man never achieved the super nova status of his comic book colleagues Spider-Man, the X-Men or the Hulk. He’s Freddie and the Dreamers, the rest are The Beatles. Expect that to change with the release of a big budget, big screen adaptation of the Iron Man’s origins starring Robert Downey Jr..

When the film begins eccentric, rich inventor Tony Stark (Downey Jr.)—the character was based on Howard Hughes, and the movie was actually shot in the same building where Hughes built the world’s largest airplane, The Spruce Goose—is in Afghanistan. After inheriting a defense company from his father, he has become mega-wealthy selling innovative weapons to the US military. He’s in the Middle East to demo his newly designed missile, The Jericho, for the Air Force. All goes well until the unit guarding him is overcome by the Ten Rings, a terrorist group who kidnap Stark—they call him “the most famous mass murderer in all of America”—after he is wounded with shrapnel from one of his own Stark Industries bombs.

Hidden in a mountain cave his captors demand he recreate his latest and deadliest missile. Instead, with the help of another hostage (Shaun Toub) he builds an iron suit of armor and makes a spectacular escape. Once stateside he has a crisis of conscience and vows to use his gifts for the betterment of man, not its destruction. He wants to offer the world more than “making things blow up.”

His newly found humanistic concerns don’t jive with his board of directors and shareholders, however, and after he perfects his high tech Iron Man suit he must deal with the backlash from within his own company and a dangerous foe in the form of Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges), his former second-in-command.

There are a couple of things that set Iron Man apart from the run-of-the-mill superhero movie. The big mistake often made by filmmakers when adapting comic books for the screen is to assume that superhero fans only want action, fight scenes and cool costumes. It’s true that these things are key components to any superhero story, but all the truly great comic book movies are character driven and the action must stem from the characters. Sam Raimi understood that when making Spider-Man. Tim Burton knew it when he made Batman and so does Iron Man director Jon Favreau.

He wisely chose to make character development his main focus. As a result the action scenes fit seamlessly into the story and don’t feel randomly inserted to help keep the film’s pace up or simply entertain the eye with explosions and bombast.

Superhero origin stories are difficult. There has to be a lot of information regarding how and why the character morphed into a superhero, but Favreau painlessly manages to bring the back story to the fore with clever use of dialogue and situations that don’t feel like exposition. I think Iron Man comic book fans will be satisfied and newcomers to the story will have no problem catching up.

At the forefront though, is a commanding and totally entertaining performance from Robert Downey Jr., who dominates every scene he appears in. His Tony Stark is charismatic, funny and smart—this tin man has a brain and a sense of humor—but best of all he plays off his own bad-boy reputation. Stark is a charming rogue, quick with a line—he’s Irony Man!—but there is always a hint of a deeper, darker personality lurking under his middle-aged good looks. This is the film that finally proves what so many have known for so long. RDJr can carry a big budget movie all on his own.

He does, however, get ample help from a strong supporting cast including Gwyneth Paltrow as Stark’s Girl Friday Pepper Potts—she and Downey have chemistry to burn—Jeff Bridges in a rare bad guy role as the ruthlessly evil corporate executive Obadiah Stane and Trevor Howard as military liaison Jim Rhodes. Each elevate comic book archetypes with skillful performances that round out the supporting characters.

I could have done without Ramin Djawadi’s intrusive and yet somehow dull score, but that’s a small quibble when the rest of the package is so enjoyable.

In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale: MINUS 127 STARS, ONE MINUS STAR FOR EACH MINUTE I HAD TO ENDURE THIS MOVIE

January and February are generally the months I suffer for my art. The studios figure that since the weather is crappy and everyone spent too much money at Christmas that regular movie goers will be staying at home instead of going out to the movies. That means, of course, that they don’t waste their time releasing the good stuff. They’ll save the a-list stuff until the sun starts to poke its cheery little face through the clouds and people have paid off their credit card debts from the holidays.

Unfortunately I still have to go see all the awful movies that come out at this time of year. It is a time for horror movies starring Jessica Alba, kid’s comedies starring vegetables dressed as pirates and most horrifyingly, a new film from German auteur Uwe Boll.

Boll, for the uninitiated is the two time nominee for Worst Director at the Golden Razzie awards—I’m still not sure how its possible that he lost—and alarmingly prolific director behind such classics as House of the Dead and BloodRayne, the latter a movie so dumb I’m sure my IQ actually lowered while sitting in the theatre watching it. This guy make Ed Wood Jr. look like Cecil B. DeMille. He’s a filmmaker whose work makes the words “straight to video” seem like a lofty goal.

He’s back with his 14th film—who keeps giving this guy money to make movies?—the maladroitly titled In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale. I suppose this is meant to be his Lord of the Rings but it comes off more like a bunch of geeky teens sitting in their parent’s basement arguing about who should be the head sorcerer in their game of Dragons and Dungeons.  

Based on a videogame called Dungeon Siege, In the Name of the King is a clunky behemoth of a film clocking in at a mind numbing 127 minutes. No one walks away from this mess looking good. A cast of former a-listers proves why they’re no longer a-listers. Wearing ridiculous armor and a velvet cape Burt Reynolds as the King is so tanned and his skin stretched so tight he looks like he just stepped out of Medieval Floridian retirement community. Even Ron Perlman, usually such a talented actor comes off as a community theatre reject and poor Ray Liotta, once the star of Goodfellas and a Golden Globe nominee, is reduced to sneering at the camera while wearing a robe that looks like a castoff from Prince’s Purple Rain tour. As the King’s treacherous nephew, Matthew Lillard, never the sign of a quality production, is even worse than usual.   

It doesn’t help that they have to speak dialogue which sounds like it was written by a fourteen-year-old role playing Lord of the Rings fan or perform in clumsily blocked and shot scenes or fight bad guys that looks like the love child of The Toxic Avenger and a dried prune.

The best thing I can say about In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale is that it was shot in British Columbia, so I hope lots of Canadians worked on it and made some cash and that its in focus. That’s it.

I Am Legend
Richard Matheson’s 1954 novella I Am Legend is no stranger to screen adaptations. Originally filmed in 1964 as Last Man on Earth it starred Vincent Price as Dr. Robert Morgan, the only survivor of a world-wide epidemic who is being hounded by zombified plague victims. A few years later it was updated with flared trousers and afro hairstyles as The Omega Man starring Charlton Heston’s hairy chest and clenched teeth. Now the sci fi classic is being given a third life—it’s a tri-make—with Will Smith as government virologist Robert Neville, in what is certainly the loudest version of the story ever committed to celluloid.  
The film begins, however, with quiet contemplation. Smith and his trusty dog Sam are alone in New York City, now an overgrown shell of a city where deer run wild in Times Square. Their daylight hours are spent searching for food, hitting golf balls into the Hudson and setting up a welcome wagon on NY’s South Street Seaport for any stray survivors. So far none have shown up.
At night though, things get a bit more complicated.
Once the sun goes down pasty-faced plague-infected zombies come out to play, and they like to play rough. For three years Neville has carefully avoided contact with the beasties; he’ll occasionally trapping one to try out a newly concocted antidote but that’s it.
Soon though his luck runs out and his quiet life is upended when he stays out after sundown and the ghouls attack. The confrontation temporarily unhinges him and he decides on a suicide mission to kill himself and as many of the zombies as possible.
His death wish is thwarted by a woman (Alice Braga) and her young son (Charlie Tahan) who appear out of nowhere and save him from a grisly death at the hands (and mouths) of the hungry flesh eaters. He should be happy to see the pair, but after three years of solitude his social skills have deteriorated somewhat. She tries to convince him to join her on a trip to a “safe” community in Vermont. He’s convinced there are no other survivors, let alone a community of them living in the mountains and tries to get her to stay put in his heavily fortified hide out.
Unfortunately for them the creatures of the night have discovered their hiding place. At this point the movie literally ends with a bang. After a smart and stylish first half it’s as if the filmmakers decided to pay homage to one of Will Smith’s older films, only this time it’s called Bad Boys III: When Angry Zombies Attack. Bullets fly, mayhem ensues and many actors in whiteface scream into the camera. It’s loud and chaotic and seems like it belongs in another movie.
Luckily, however, I Am Legend starts strong with powerful images of a deserted New York City. The tranquility of the once vibrant city is beautifully captured, but when that stillness is shattered, as it is when a herd of deer bolt through deserted streets, it is breathtaking in its effectiveness.
Without a word—after a short prologue the opening ten minutes or so are largely dialogue free—director Francis Lawrence has created a visual world in which something has obviously gone horribly wrong—its solid show me-don’t-tell-me filmmaking. Couple that with amazing set design and visual effects and the film rates as first class eye candy.
Will Smith, along with a buffer-than-buff physique, also brings some chops to the role. We first meet him in full movie star swagger mode, but as the movie progresses he convincingly portrays Neville’s gradually deteriorating mental state. It’s not going to earn him an Oscar nod, but it’s good work.
Unfortunately not everything else works as well. Neville’s habit of talking to mannequins is silly and off putting. It’s something out of a b-grade sci fi flick, not a smart slice of speculative fiction. Overall screenwriter Akiva Goldsman does a good job of updating the material, but references to Bob Marley’s personal philosophies seem a bit staler than the three year old can of Spam Neville finds lying around.
Then there is the ending. While some might find the action-packed finale exciting and climatic, I found it typical, easy and not nearly as interesting as the first half of the film.
I Am Legend is a good sci fi movie but with a bit of tweaking at the end it could have been a great one.

I’M NOT THERE: 4 STARS

This is a hard one to describe. It’s a metaphoric retelling of Bob Dylan’s life, but none of the characters in it are called Bob Dylan. Most of them don’t look like Dylan, and the one who most looks like Dylan is a woman. It’s a long, strange trip down memory lane with one of the most enigmatic characters of the 20th century.

Director Todd Haynes has assembled an all star cast to embody different segments of the folk singer’s life. When we first meet the Dylan character he is portrayed by a 13-year-old African-American child (Marcus Carl Franklin) obsessed with folk music. Later he’s glimpsed in his Pat Garret and Billy the Kid stage, played in that sequence by Richard Gere.  British actor Ben Whishaw punctuates the proceedings, popping up now and again spouting the kind of elliptical nonsense that often make Dylan’s interviews an exercise in frustration.  

Cate Blanchett is deservedly being touted for an Oscar nomination—will it be Best Actor or Actress?—for her take on the caustic, amphetamine-fueled Dylan circa 1965. In one of the more literal sequences Batman portrayer Christian Bale is Jack, a folk singer who embraces Christianity, eschewing the life of a music star to become an evangelist.

A bit murkier is Heath Ledger’s story thread featuring him as a chauvinistic movie star with a mysterious French girlfriend (Charlotte Gainsbourg).

How does it all relate to Dylan, the mumbling superstar who has made a career of keeping people guessing about his personal life? It’s hard to say, because as you may have guessed the movie isn’t a traditional biopic. What Haynes has done here is create a kind of tone poem using different elements from Dylan’s life to create an overall feel for this mysterious and elliptical character.

Unlike Walk the Line or Ray, which were both standard issue Hollywood biopics, I’m Not There doesn’t offer up an obvious timeline of the man’s life. There is nothing linear here, or even connected in many cases. Using a variety of styles from Warholian Pop Art to Godard’s jump-cuts and cinéma vérité, Haynes has cobbled together a portrait of the essence of Dylan. There is nothing straightforward about the man, so there should be nothing straightforward about the movie. It’s fascinating stuff, and while some may find it frustrating, I felt I knew more about what makes Bob Dylan tick when I walked out of the theatre after I’m Not There than I did for Johnny Cash following Walk the Line or Ray Charles after Ray.   

At almost three hours it’s a taxing movie, but for the patient, the adventurous and the curious I’m Not There offers many pleasures from the amazing soundtrack to Cate Blanchett’s superior performance.

INTO THE WILD: 3 ½ STARS

Fresh from the Toronto International Film Festival comes the true story of a young man who may have taken On the Road a bit too seriously. Based on the Jon Krakauer novel of the same name Into the Wild stars Emile Hirsch as Chris McCandless, an idealistic honors grad from Emory University who adopts the hobo name Alexander Supertramp and drops out of society.

For two hours and twenty minutes or so we follow Chris as he makes his way across America on his journey to solitude in Alaska. He picks up odd jobs, lives off the land, hitches a ride with nomadic hippies and even rides the rails. The experience of watching Into the Wild is much like the trip itself—it can be confounding, frustrating and occasionally boring—but I think that is director Sean Penn’s point. As a filmmaker he has never been shy about taking his time to tell the story, and here he seems to want to place us on the road with Chris. It’s a hypnotic journey and one that draws you in, maintaining interest even during the more mundane bits.

Penn has captured the rhythms of the road, and more importantly, the cadences of an itinerant life. It’s the journey that matters, and Into the Wild makes the most of the road motif, introducing us to interesting characters at every stop. There are love-sick flower children, Norwegian travelers and a charismatic, but shady farm owner. Most affecting of all is the last person he meets before he disappears into the rugged Alaskan wild, a lonely older man (Hal Holbrook) who “adopts” him for a time.

Holbrook turns in a magnificent performance, one tempered with wisdom, gentleness and a touch of desperation. The 82-year-old actor hands in one of the best supporting roles on film this year, but it might be Hirsch’s performance that is the most remarkable.

As Chris he takes a character that to my eyes isn’t immediately likeable. He’s pretentious, selfish and arrogant, but Hirsch makes him compelling—I won’t say likeable—and interesting to watch for the film’s long running time.

Into the Wild borders on self-importance, more than once spouting ideas about how “material things cut Chris off from the truth of his existence” but Penn keeps a steady hand and unerringly pulls the film back from the brink every time it feels like it is treading in waters too philosophically deep or becoming too preachy. It’s a road trip, but also a head trip and one worth taking.

ICE AGE

Above all Ice Age is a marvel of computer generated animation. The rendering of the bleak ice and snow is truly impressive, too bad the story doesn’t hold up as well. The best bit of business is a running gag with a small cartoony animal trying desperately to store an acorn in his desolate glacial environment. The rest of the film seems to be trying too hard to capture the zany fun of Shrek, or the spark of last year’s Monster’s, Inc, but lacklustre writing and predictable situations cast a chill over the whole thing. John Leguizamo’s voicing of Sid the Sloth is very good, although Ray Romano as Manfred the Mammoth is a monotone bore.  

IGBY GOES DOWN

Igby Goes Down can best be described as a modern day re-imagining of Catcher in the Rye. Kieran Culkin plays Jason “Igby” Slocum Jr, a rich kid with many of the same ideas of humanity as JD Salinger’s most famous character Holden Caulfield. Igby has had a troubled childhood. Raised by Jason Sr. (Bill Pullman), a schizophrenic who is eventually institutionalized and Mimi, a critical and unfeeling cold fish, Igby has become disillusioned and despondent. Kicked out of every private school on the east coast, he has also failed at re-hab, and he’s only sixteen years old. There’s nothing particularly new about Igby Goes Down. JD Salinger literally wrote the book on this kind of character in 1951, and we’ve seen many rehashes of it since then. The thing that sets Igby apart from the other Caulfield wannabes is sharp writing (“I call her Mimi because Heinous One is a bit cumbersome.”) and heart. Beneath the veneer of emotional turmoil is a strong sense of humanity that allows the viewer to develop a connection to the characters. Directed by author Gore Vidal’s nephew Burr Steers (an actor, best known for his roles in Pulp Fiction and The Last Days of Disco) this movie follows in the tradition of great recent teen fare like The Dangerous Lives of Alter Boys (also starring Culkin) and Ghost World.

INSOMNIA

Insomnia is director Christopher Nolan’s first film since last year’s Memento, and it is a stunner. In this remake of a Norwegian film made in 1998 by Erik Skjoldbjaerg, Nolan has cast three Oscar winners – Al Pacino and Hillary Swank play police officers chasing down a dangerous psychopath played by Robin Williams. Nolan set the film in Alaska, and makes good use of the location, particularly in the opening credit sequence as the camera follows a two-engine prop plane across the unforgiving jagged ice ridges. A foot chase on moving logs provides excitement, but the best thrills here are psychological. This is a film for adults. Insomnia is a serious thriller that relies not only on action, but on issues of guilt and morality to propel the story. Al Pacino hands in his best performance in years, although his accent seems to change from one scene to another. Robin Williams impresses, playing the homicidal Walter Finch with a chilling intensity that should forever put an end to the Mrs. Doubtfire typecasting pit he fell into in the 90s. Swank as the smart small-town cop delivers a multi-layered performance that is completely believable.

IN THE BEDROOM

In The Bedroom is a simple and spare study of the far reaching impact that one meaningless act of violence can have on a family and their community. First time filmmaker Todd Field displays a remarkably strong directorial hand, relying on silence and ultra-realistic performances to create the film’s tension. It is a tearjerker without being maudlin, a low-wattage thriller that entices you and delivers some unexpected turns along the way. There is Oscar buzz around Sissy Spacek’s performance as Ruth, but to my mind it is Tom Wilkinson who really shines as Matt Fowler, a father struggling to come to grips with the loss of his son.

THE ITALIAN JOB

The Italian Job is a remake of a 1969 film of the same name that starred Michael Caine and Noel Coward. The cast isn’t as upmarket for the re-make – we have to make do with Mark Wahlberg and Jason Statham – but they do seem to be having a good time. Palindromically named director Gary Gray keeps the pace in high gear, staging an elaborate (and unlikely) robbery, a nasty double-cross and a sweet revenge story. Couple those elements with a wild Austin Mini (yes, I said Austin Mini) chase through the streets and subways of Los Angeles and you have the makings of a good lightweight summer heist film.

THE INVASION: 0 STARS

The Invasion is the rather pointless reworking of The Body Snatchers, a classic 1955 sci fi novel that has already been filmed three times. The first version was a thinly disguised allegory for the spread of communism in the United States. The second, dating from 1978 stars Donald Sutherland and is a real creepfest. No less an authority than The New Yorker's Pauline Kael, said “it may be the best film of its kind ever made.” A 1993 version was notable for its psychological realism and social criticism. The new rendering, not content to just streamline the wordy Invasion of the Body Snatchers title to simply The Invasion, also takes some liberties with the original story in an attempt to update the movie.

Trouble is, the story didn’t need updating. The idea that people are being replaced by homicidal, emotionless clones grown from plant-like pods is pretty cool, and would still be as eerie on the big screen in 2007 as it was when the original scared audiences in 1956. In the new version two Washington DC doctors struggle to find a cure for a rapidly spreading alien virus. This virus, transmitted by bodily fluids, saps the host body of all emotion.

Once the virus has spread the world over very strange things start to happen. Sucked dry of emotion nations put aside old rivalries and warring countries declare peace, there is little crime and even Kim Jong Ill disarms. It’s kind of like Ritalin for the masses.

Now, here the metaphors get a little murky. Is this supposed to be a statement on the new super viruses we keep hearing about? Or is it a comment on how we allow are emotions to cloud our thinking? Or is it just a bad movie.

I’ll go with the latter.

There may have been a good movie in here somewhere but it’s buried underneath a cavalcade of poorly conceived set pieces, meaningless flash forwards and random and poorly executed action sequences which seem to have been added to try and trick the summer action crowd into shelling out their hard earned dollars to see this turkey.

Considering the talent involved The Invasion should have been a much better film. Nicole Kidman she really has to stop starring in remakes. I thought Bewitched and The Stepford Wives were her resume low points until The Invasion came along. Where’s the Nicole Kidman who was so interesting and watchable in The Hours and Birth? Here’s hoping she’s growing out her remake phase and in future will only choose projects that are commensurate with her considerable talent. 

Daniel Craig—that’s Bond, James Bond to you, although this movie was made before he was cast as 007—fairs better than Kidman, but only because he isn’t given much to do. Ditto the great Jeffrey Wright who is wasted here in a small supporting role.

Director Oliver Hirschbiegel isn’t entirely to blame for this mess. His original cut of the film was deemed unacceptable by the movie Gods and the Wachowskis Brothers—of Matrix fame—were brought in to salvage the movie. The result is a stew of a movie that feels slapped together.

The Invasion is a terrible movie, not worthy of the talent involved and certainly not worthy of your time and money.

I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU CHUCK AND LARRY: 0 STARS

Adam Sandler might be the most perplexing movie star working today. He churns out a movie or two a year, makes a decent grab at the box office and occasionally even earns good reviews. The thing that makes him so bothersome to me isn’t the boy-man character he’s perfected in movies like Billy Madison and Happy Gilmour or his penchant for bathroom humor, it’s his inconsistency. Just when I thought he had turned a corner with the excellent Reign Over Me from earlier this year into interesting adult roles he slaps me in the face with his follow-up, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.

Here’s the best thing I can say about this movie: at least it’s not a sequel (it is, however, a remake of the Australian film Strange Bedfellows). It’s the story of two straight beer-guzzling New York City firemen, played by Sandler and Kevin James, who pretend to be a gay couple to receive domestic partner benefits. After the insurance company sends investigators around to determine the veracity of their relationship the men hire a lawyer (Jessica Biel) to protect their rights. Of course Sandler falls for her which jeopardizes their whole scheme.

I’m not sure what aggravated me most about this movie. The critic in me was irritated by Sandler’s backslide into lowbrow comedy. The movie goer in me was annoyed by the almost complete lack of humor on display here and the human in me was disappointed that a movie like this, one that claims to support equal rights for everyone could be so deeply homophobic. What could have been an interesting and funny look at how the soulless government and insurance company bureaucracy can force people into compromising situations instead becomes a repository for the kind of crude stereotypes that kept Rock Hudson in the closet for his entire career.

The idea for this movie might have come from a noble place. Perhaps the writers were trying to create a mainstream ode to tolerance and acceptance, but, in a confusing turnaround, seem to have embraced the very kind of narrow-mindedness it preaches against. After almost two hours of gay caricatures and fat jokes one speech at the end about the dangers of poking fun at people who are different from you doesn’t qualify as justification, it’s simply hypocritical.

I THINK I LOVE MY WIFE:
2 ½ STARS FOR THE FIRST 85 MINUTES
½ STAR FOR THE LAST FIVE MINUTES
TOTAL OF 3 STARS

You don’t have to be Dr. Phil to know that relationships are hard work. Everyone knows that to be really fulfilling they require a mix of respect, understanding, responsibility and maturity. Everyone, that is, except the characters in Chris Rock’s new comedy I Think I Love My Wife. 

Inspired by a decades old French new wave film called Chloe in the Afternoon, Rock’s movie, which he produced, wrote, directed and stars in, follows the exploits of a henpecked investment banker who reconnects with a old friend. A really hot looking old friend who reminds him of a time before he settled down to raise a family. What starts out as harmless flirtation becomes a moral conundrum as heat develops between them.

Rock’s character continually says how happily married he is, but he sure doesn’t act like it. He hasn’t had sex with his wife since Boyz to Men were on the charts and his eye wanders more than a lost child at an amusement park. He’s bored, but instead of working on his relationship he looks outside for happiness.

It’s not exactly a new idea. The trouble with observational comedies about relationships is that we’ve pretty much seen it all before—10 and The Lady in Red got there first to name just a couple. The dynamics between men and women, married or not, have been explored every which way and there is very little new to say about them.

I Think In Love My Wife doesn’t break any new ground, in fact it might actually set back male-female relations a few steps. His banker is a stereotype, a weak willed man who can’t help but think that the grass is greener in the next bedroom, while his wife is a home decorating obsessed harridan who is treated as little more than a baby-making machine. As for the temptress, ably played by Kerry Washington, the only thing missing is a For Rent sign around her neck.

That’s not to say the movie isn’t funny. There are a fair amount of laughs here, but for someone who has been called “the funniest man in America” Rock is surprisingly flat. His performance here is the same one he gives in every movie. He’s a likeable performer, but every line he says sounds like he’s delivering the punchline in his stand-up act.

The best line in the movie isn’t delivered by Rock, but by character actor Edward Herrmann, best known for his portrayals of Franklin Roosevelt. He tells Rock, “You can lose a lot of money by chasing women, but you’ll never lose a lot of women chasing money.” Too bad Rock’s character doesn’t have more memorable lines like that one. Not quite as memorable, but fun to watch is Steve Buscemi as the sleaze ball co-worker so obsessed prone to having extra-martial affairs he keeps Viagara in his glove box right next to his Altoids.

I Think I Love My Wife isn’t as clever as it needs to be, or as funny, but it doesn’t redeem itself in its unexpected musical finale. If only the whole film was as funny and inventive as the last five minutes.

INVINCIBLE: 2 STARS

Invincible could be renamed “Generic Feel Good Sports Movie.” Like Glory Road from earlier this year it is based on a true story about an underdog who goes on to triumph. Inspiring, no? Well, yes and no.

The story does get the blood pumping, particularly in the football scenes, but only in the most predictable ways. Mark Wahlberg plays Vince Papale, a Philadelphia Eagles fan who has just lost his wife and his teaching job. Down on his luck, he goes to an open tryout for his favorite NFL team, only to see his wildest dreams come true. From here on in you don’t need to be a Hollywood screenwriter to figure out the rest of the story and that is the problem with the movie. How many times will audiences sit still for the same old sports clichés? The story would be inspiring if we hadn’t already seen it a dozen times, only with different names and sports in movies like Hoosiers to Bad News Bears to The Rookie to Remember the Titans. The sports and that faces change, it’s just the story that remains the same.

Invincible sees Mark Wahlberg revisiting the era that made him a star. In Boogie Nights he played a fictional 1970s porn star. Here his mullet is back and he hands in a touching portrayal of underdog Papale. He is likable, if not particularly memorable in the role. Greg Kinnear in the inspirational coach role doesn’t fare as well. He is wasted here, displaying none of the charisma that has marked his recent work in The Matador and Little Miss Sunshine. This Oscar nominee is often referred to as the “next Jack Lemmon.” If he keeps handing in forgettable performances like this soon he’ll be known as the “next Karl Dane.” Who’s that you ask? My point exactly.

Invincible is like going to the play off game and knowing the final score before the game even starts.

IDLEWILD: 3 ½ STARS

When Andre Benjamin and Antwan Patton, better known as Andre 3000 and Big Boi of the Atlanta-based hip-hop group Outkast, decided to branch out into film they didn’t look to MTV for ideas. Instead they cherry picked inspiration from a variety of sources such as Moulin Rouge, hip-hip culture, Warner’s cartoons, Six Feet Under and gangster movies of the 1930s, creating a frenetic fusion of old and new.

Idlewild, named for the Georgia town in which then action takes place, is both rooted in the past and very forward-looking. Hip-hop collides with jazz, dancers mix the jitterbug with break dancing and the star of this 1930s road show is a rapper. Think of it as a remix of The Cotton Club.

Set against the backdrop of a 1930s southern speakeasy, Benjamin and Patton play Percival and Rooster, friends since childhood, despite the differences in their personalities. Percival is the shy son of a mortician who plays piano at the speakeasy. Rooster on the other hand is the flamboyantly dressed star of the show who flirts with all the women in the movie except his wife. When a mob boss is slain by his underling (a terrific Terrence Howard) Rooster must take over the speakeasy and learn to do business with the violent and unreasonable gangster who now controls the flow of booze into the club. Meanwhile Percival falls for a beautiful new singer in the club, and comes out of his shell just in time for the violent and bloody finale.

Idlewild manages to skirt around my usual problem with musicals—people bursting into song at the drop of a hat is silly!—by setting most of the musical numbers in a Prohibition era speakeasy ironically called The Church. Here we get the movie’s strengths—spectacularly choreographed dance numbers mixing dance styles old and new, cool new retro-modern sounding music from Outkast, Macy Gray and newcomer Paula Patton and a rich and interesting visual pallet.

Good thing we have lots of eye and ear candy to distract us from the movie’s faults. Benjamin and Patton are sturdy performers, but their acting chops pale by comparison to their co-star Terrence Howard who owns the screen each time he steps into frame.

The script doesn’t do either of the neophyte actors any favors—it must have been tough for Benjamin to sing a love song to a corpse in his big screen debut—and is a bit of a hallucinatory mess—what did you expect from a former music video director?—but Idlewild’s energy, beauty and verve make up for its shortcomings.          

THE ILLUSIONIST: 4 STARS

The Illusionist is a strange story that is part The Usual Suspects, part Masterpiece Theatre. Set in turn of the century Vienna, the story mixes political intrigue, love and magic into a sparkling confection that mesmerizes the eye and the mind.

Ed Norton plays Eisenheim the Illusionist, a stage magician who possesses powers greater than any of his contemporaries. He is tall, elegant and mysterious. In one elaborate trick—which is based on an actual illusion performed by the legendary Robert Houdin—an orange tree grows on stage, bears fruit and for the finale, two butterflies fly from the tree carrying a handkerchief previously borrowed from an audience member.

When the magician baffles and embarrasses a member of the royal family—who also happens to be engaged to his childhood sweetheart—Eisenheim’s act comes under the scrutiny of the power hungry Inspector Uhl, played by Paul Giamatti. Like Eisenheim’s magical orange tree the story blossoms before our eyes, but keeping it’s inner workings under wraps. There is more going on here than meets the eye, and director Neil Burger skillfully juggles the murder mystery, mystical and magical elements of the story.

Edward Norton hands in his usual adroit performance as Eisenheim. Smooth and polished, his portrayal of the magician is powerful, with the only major problem being the bizarre accent he uses. It may be historically correct, but it sounds too mannered and prissy.

In a story full of wonder, it is Paul Giamatti who really amazes. As Inspector Uhl Giamatti completely sheds the Joe-Schmo persona that marks his most famous roles and delivers a polished portrait of a power hungry man who will not let the truth stand in the way of climbing up the political ladder. He plays a policeman, who ironically, steals the movie from the rest of the cast.

The Illusionist is a rarity, an independent period piece. The film was made on a budget, and was budgeted at a fraction of what a comparable Hollywood film would cost, but you would never know it. It is a sumptuous looking film about the nature of power and the power of people to believe in something they don’t understand.

INSIDE MAN: 3 ½ STARS

Inside Man is director Spike Lee’s take on a heist film, and predictably he puts his own spin on an old genre and offers up something unpredictable. It’s like an episode of Law and Order minus the order.

Lee forgoes the usual set-up for movies like this and gets us directly into the action. Five minutes into the movie we are inside the bank and the bad guys—led by the charismatic Clive Owen—have already taken control, closing off the building and taking hostages. On the outside a team of detectives led by Spike Lee regular Denzel Washington—they’ve made four movies together—tries to keep the situation under control.  

It sounds rather standard, but Lee crafts a story in which the moral compass can’t find true north, and the good guys aren’t always good and maybe the bad guys aren’t as bad as they seem.

Also unexpected for a thriller of this kind is how much humor Washington and Owen bring to their roles. Their conversations crackle with sharp one-liners that diffuse some of the tension of the story.

In one effective scene Owen spends some time with the youngest hostage as the street-wise kid plays with a violent videogame on his PSP. Owen inspects the game that includes drive-by shootings, stabbings and most outrageously, a hand grenade stuffed into the mouth of a pedestrian. As the videogame character’s head explodes Owen says, “I'll take you back to your Father. I think should have a word with him about that game.” It’s a humorous moment, but one also laden with social comment. In earlier films Lee has employed a heavier hand when trying to get his message across, but it seems he has learned that a spoonful of sugar can sometimes more effectively help the medicine go down.

Inside Man will keep you guessing until the end, and maybe even after you leave the theatre. Lee chooses not to tie up all the loose ends, and the film is more intriguing because of it.
  
IN HER SHOES DVD: 2 1/2 STARS

In this film Eight Mile director Curtis Hansen delves into the troubled relationship of two sisters. Toni Colette plays a repressed lawyer who comforts herself by buying expensive shoes. Her sister, played by Cameron Diaz is a drunken party girl, destined to become, as her sister says, "a middle aged tramp." The kind of girl who is fun to hang out with, but you wouldn’t necessarily take home to mother. She's cut adrift from the conventions of a "normal life," and only surfaces when she needs money, or wants to borrow one of the expensive pairs of shoes. After one particularly nasty sexcapade the Diaz character flees to Florida and the not so open arms of a grandmother who was absent during her formative years.
 
This is Hansen's third film following Wonder Boys, LA Confidential and Eight Mile. Each of those films was an exploration of life with surprises that lifted the story beyond the average. The surprise here is that there is no surprise. In Her Shoes is a conventional film buoyed by strong performances by Toni Collette and Shirley MacLaine (as the grandmother) but one that plays out exactly as you might expect. I won't provide spoilers, but in a movie with such a predictable plot there aren't many spoilers to give.

THE ISLAND: ½ STARS

Visually Michael Bay’s films are spectacular feasts for the eyes. The former commercial director has a knack for making everything look shiny but having great taste doesn’t make a great film director any more than great taste makes a Snicker’s bar a gourmet meal.

The Island sacrifices a germ of a really strong sci-fi concept—the idea that clones are being created as spare parts for rich people—for bombast in the form of endless chase sequences, explosions and really stupid dialogue. I don’t mind action, and I’ll even put up with stupid dialogue, but what I found frustrating about The Island was Bay’s decision to go for sensory overload rather than tell a good story. The idea that the inhabitants of a futuristic compound believe that the outside world has been destroyed and the only inhabitable place on earth is an island where, if they win a lottery, they will be sent to help repopulate the world is a good one. When two of the group learn that everything isn’t what it seems they go on a Logan’s Run and escape. From there the movie becomes less sci fi and more hi fi—high fiasco, that is. Bay drops any pretense of sense and starts throwing money at the screen—buildings are destroyed, strange cars fly through the air and let’s just say the landscape of downtown Los Angeles will never be the same. Bay avoids any kind of depth—there is no comment on hot button topics like cloning or stem cell research, both of which could easily have been addressed—opting instead to further a plot that is so full of holes, if it were a ship it would be called The Titanic.

More insulting than the weak storyline is the blatant product placement. Michelob Light, X-Box and Cadillac and even the Calvin Klein commercial that Johansson made for television litter the screen. The obvious placement of paid advertising becomes even more bizarre in a film that centers around two clones—called “product” in the film—that are trying to escape their consumerist fate.

Paradise Island this ain’t. Perhaps Temptation Island because I was tempted to walk out of the theatre. Stay home and rent Logan’s Run instead.