THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE: 3 ½ STARS

Werewolves, Newborns and Vampires. Oh my. The second to last of The Twilight Saga, “Eclipse,” is jam packed with supernatural creatures, a revenge plot, a love triangle and teen angst. At a solid two hours it’s filled to over flowing with the deep dark gothic romance that made these movies a must see for every teenager on the planet. It’s also the most cinematically satisfying installment of the franchise so far.

Love is complicated but particularly when you are a human in love with a vampire and a werewolf. Part three of the saga finds Bela (Kristen Stewart) forced to make a decision between her love for Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and her deep friendship—and possibly love—for Jacob. Meanwhile the flame haired vampire Victoria wants to avenge the death of her lover James at the hands of Edward, so she puts together a vicious army of newborn vampires to seek out and destroy not only the Cullen family, but Bela as well. War is waged, declarations of love are made and the climax is something the Twihards have been anticipating for some time.

Unlike Harry Potter, another teen oriented literary adaptation, the Twilight story is mostly self contained—there is a back story, but the movies pretty much stand on their own. There are some odd moments and a reference or two to the Volturi that might leave non-Twihards scratching their heads but then again, very few of the unfaithful will probably ever see this movie.

Like Harry Potter, Twilight begins and ends with its characters and luckily for us the characters are evolving as the story continues. Not to worry Twihards, brooding is still the main sentiment on display, but for the first time Edward and Jacob make self aware jokes! As Bela and Eddie approach a half naked Jacob the vampire says, “Doesn’t he own a shirt?” OK, it’s not a great joke, but given the amount of press Taylor Lautner’s abs gets, it raises a smile. Later when Jacob throws down the double entendre, “Let’s face it, I’m hotter than you,” Team Edward may not laugh, but it is a funny line.

The guys may have lightened up a tad, but Bela still embodies the spirit of the Twilight story. When she says, “I’ve always felt out of step,” she’s speaking for every teenager in the theatre suffering from a bad case of the terrible teens. That one line explains much of the popularity of these stories. Teens, and in some cases people who remember what it was like being a teen, know how raging hormones can make you feel misunderstood, like an outsider. It’s one of the keys to the success of the series; it understands its audience.

It is also one of the few teen oriented films with a prudish attitude toward sex and sexuality. It’s about romance, and something else you don’t hear about very often these days, chastity. Turns out Edward is old fashioned, which I guess comes with being over one hundred years old, and refuses to have sex with Bela before marriage. It’s too late for his soul, he says, but he can protect hers by NOT taking her virtue. It’s a quaint idea, one probably more at home in a Victorian novel than a popular 21st century entertainment, but it strengthens the romance aspect of the story.

“The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” is a bit talky—these characters talk about everything before they actually act—but nonetheless is the near perfect mix of teen angst, romance and crazy supernatural action.

TOY STORY 3: 4 ½ STARS

Ten years have passed since Woody, Buzz Lightyear and friends went to “infinity and beyond.” That’s the cute catchphrase that serves as Buzz’s rallying cry, but it could also describe the box office performance of “Toy Story” one and two. These movies are big business, so it was inevitable that “Toy Story 3” would get pulled out of the Pixar toy box eventually. The question is, can it possibly break the curse of the triquel—can you name a good movie with the number 3 in the title?—and live up to the high standard established by the first two films?

The film’s story is rather simple. Andy (voice of John Morris) is ten years older since we last saw him. Preparing for college and a new life without his toys, he’s making the hardest decision he’s ever had to make—what to do with the toys he has shared his life with for so long? Do they go to the garbage, the attic or to a daycare where other kids can play with them? When a misunderstanding threatens to separate the toys, Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz (Tim Allen), Jesse (Joan Cusack) and the gang take matters into their own tiny hands but when they meet the huggable but evil Lotso (Ned Beatty) the garbage dump or the attic begin to look good.    
 
As bright and shiny as the packaging may be, “Toy Story 3” isn’t a run-of-the-mill kid’s film. Pixar—and the Pixarians who work there—are too clever by half to make a family film like “Furry Vengeance” or “Marmaduke.” What they do is much more subversive. They create stories about real issues with real emotions and tart them up with kid friendly characters. The result is ageless family entertainment that doesn’t talk down to any member of the household.

It’s darker than the previous films—the lumbering Big Baby doll may be the scariest villain yet this year!—but, like Grimm’s Fairy Tales and classic Disney before it, “Toy Story 3” understands that kids can handle something a bit more challenging than a talking dog on a surfboard (see “Marmaduke… actually don’t see “Marmaduke, it’s terrible). There’s nothing here that will traumatize the little ones, but mixed in with the action, the jokes and the familiar characters are moments of sadness—when the toys realize that Andy is moving in without them—of threatening behavior—why is Lotso so mean?—and loss of innocence. It’s sophisticated storytelling in a genre that too often doesn’t treat its audience with enough respect.

The voice work is uniformly strong, with all the regulars returning—Hanks, Allen, Cusack along with John Ratzenburger and Don Rickles—and some welcome new additions. Timothy Dalton’s rich baritone gives the theatrically ambitious plush hedgehog Mr. Pricklepants some of the film’s best moments and Michael Keaton’s Ken is very funny. One of the great pleasures of Pixar’s films is their unconventional voice casting. Who would have expected “Deliverance’s” Ned Beatty to turn up in a kid’s flick? Not me, but here he does some beautiful work, seemingly channeling a Tennessee Williams character as the nasty Lotso, the teddy bear who smells like strawberries.  

Technically “Toy Story 3” is top notch. The 3D enhances the story, adding some depth to the action scenes, but doesn’t get in the way of the storytelling. Pixar has also been careful to update the look of the film to state of the art technology, while retaining the look of the first two films. But more impressive than the technology, however, is how Pixar is able to weave a story out of pixels and terabytes about toys and other inanimate objects and make us care about them for the ninety minutes we’re in the theatre. That’s the real magic of “Toy Story 3.”

THE TROTSKY: 3 ½ STARS

Most seventeen year olds are concerned with school, sports and finding a date for the prom. Not Leon Bronstein (Jay Baruchel). In “The Trotsky,” a new comedy starring “How to Train Your Dragon’s” lead voice, he is convinced he’s the reincarnation of revolutionary Leon Trotsky and tries to unionize the students of Montreal West High School. “The teachers have a union,” he says. “I think we deserve the same.”

Leon Bronstein’s (which was Trotsky's given name) journey from privileged rich kid to budding Bolshevik begins when he organizes a hunger strike at his father’s (Saul Rubinek) clothing factory. In retaliation Dad pulls Leon out of boarding school, slashes his allowance and exiles him to a public school. There he finds his calling (and falls for an older woman played by Emily Hampshire). Taking the term “student union” a bit too seriously Leon rails against his new school’s tyrannical hierarchy—notably Principal Berkhoff (an ominous Colm Feore)—and goes to absurd lengths to fulfill his pre-ordained destiny by changing the world or at least his small corner of it.

This Canadian commie comedy is chock full of funny lines, nice performances and echoes of “Ferris Bueller's Day Off” (with a hint of Warren Beatty’s “Reds”). Actor turned director-and-writer Jacob Tierney shows a firm hand behind the camera and has crafted a movie that is a cut above the standard teen caper. It’s more inventive, funnier, grittier (the movie’s best line, spoken by Jessica Paré can’t be reprinted here) than most teen fare, and while Tierney can take credit for much of the film’s success it is    Baruchel who really impresses as the burgeoning revolutionary.  

In what looks to be Baruchel’s breakout year—he has four films on the slate for 2010 including “How to Train Your Dragon” and “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” opposite Nic Cage—The Trotsky is a delightfully idiosyncratic performance. Leon may be a little left of center, both personally and politically, but Baruchel humanizes him. It’s a riff on the gawky geek role he patented in “Tropic Thunder” and “Knocked Up,” but this time he adds so much charm (and a good dollop of slapstick) to the performance it’s hard not to root for his and Leon’s mad mission.

“The Trotsky” works because of its clever script and optimistic outlook, but it sparkles because of Baruchel’s performance.

TOOTH FAIRY: 1 STAR

The film career of Dwayne Johnson a.k.a. The Rock is a bit of a mystery. He is charismatic, well known, talented but what he isn’t is a movie star. From his humble beginnings as an action wannabe in “The Mummy Returns” and “The Rundown” to his stab at mainstream success in “Be Cool” and art house cred in “Southland Tales” to his most recent incarnation as a children’s entertainer he always seems to be on the cusp of a real, sustainable a-list movie career, but never seems to be able to get over the final fame hurdle. His movies haven’t been consistent quality wise or commercially—“Southland Tales” cost 17 million and only made 273K at the b.o.—and, I don’t think his latest, “Tooth Fairy”, is going to do much to improve that situation.

Johnson is Derek Thompson, a former big league hockey star now playing for the Lansing, Michigan Ice Wolves. He’s the team’s enforcer, a hip checking bad boy knick named The Tooth Fairy for his habit of leaving his opponents with a mouth full of bloody Chiclets. After telling his girlfriend’s daughter that the tooth fairy doesn’t really exist he receives a summons from the Department of Dissemination of Disbelief and is sentenced to two weeks as a real tooth fairy as punishment for crushing kid’s dreams. Adapting to the wings and newfound special powers he comes to realize the importance of dreams and aspirations.

Originally titled “Sweet Tooth,” the script for “Tooth Fairy” has been kicking around Hollywood since the early nineties and was long rumored to be a vehicle for Arnold Schwarzenegger. The premise was slightly different, but the jokes would have been about the same: squeeze a large man into a pink tutu and let the hilarity begin. Except that there isn’t much hilarity to be had.

Old pros Billy Crystal and Julie Andrews—who plays the Fairy Godmother as a cross between Mary Poppins and Judge Judy—work the material for all it is worth, but aside from the odd giggle and Fairy pun—Fairy Krishna’s anyone?—this is a one joke movie that gets most of its mileage out of the image of a tough guy wrestler wearing gossamer wings.

It is, in many respects a sillier version of Dwayne Johnson’s biggest hit, “The Game Plan,” a movie about a sports star who learns to access his softer side, but “Tooth Fairy” is too soft. Johnson has become too kid friendly. He’s now just a big teddy bear, with a range of expression that wouldn’t be out of place in an English pantomime. I know kids enjoy bigger than life characters like Johnson. He’s kind of a real life super hero, but I’m not sure the acting career he imagined for himself when he was working with directors like F. Gary Gray and Richard Kelly would involve prancing about in a pink tutu for the delight of small kids.

It’s a living, but it’s not am a-list career. Somebody has to learn how to harness Johnson’s natural charisma and talent and finally put him in a good movie!

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON: 2 STARS

I'm no sixteen year old girl. Never have been, never will be, which makes me unqualified to judge the appeal of the “Twilight” books and movies. These vampire love stories have hit a nerve with a certain demographic, made superstars out of its actors, the King and Queen of Mumbly Teen Angst, Robert Pattison and Kristen Stewart and made everyone connected with the series rich, but I don't really get it. I'm no sixteen year old female, but neither is director Chris Weitz who I’m not sure really gets it either. He’s taken a surefire hit and turned it into a plodding, dull movie that keeps the leading man hidden for half the film.

The story picks up where the original left off. Bella (Kristen Stewart) and vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) are happily enjoying a dead-undead romance, exchanging long stares and even the occasional kiss. When a paper cut and a drop of blood ruins Bella’s 18th birthday Edward realizes there is no place for a human in his world and breaks off their relationship before hightailing it to points unknown. In his absence Bella becomes an emotional wreck (nobody does tormented teen like Kristen Stewart). There are bad breakups—the kind where you mope and eat ice cream for breakfast—then there is the titanic meltdown that happens after Bella gets dumped by the bloodsucker.

Enter Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), Bella’s old friend and possible new love interest. By the time someone says to her, "you're OK with weird," the going truly has become bizarre. Jacob turns out to be a member of the mysterious Quileute tribe who carry a werewolf gene. As everybody knows, werewolves and vampires don’t get along, placing Bella in the awkward position of not only being involved in a vampire-werewolf-human love triangle, but also having the two men in her life be sworn enemies.  

“New Moon” is bound to make a fortune, but it isn’t an improvement on the first picture. It’s slightly more stylish than the original and there are a few more light moments but the story is all melodrama and no real drama. The characters, which original director Catherine Hardwicke treated as real people, giving them heart and soul (of course vampires don’t have heart or soul but you get the idea), here are simple stereotypes.

In Weitz’s world Bella and Edward are reduced to lovesick ennui twins, moping endlessly and mumbling their lines. There are attempts to create a feeling of romance—Edward even recites a passage from “Romeo and Juliet” from memory—but what felt like a sweeping, all consuming love in the first film feels more like an overblown teenage crush in the new film.

Unlike the television series “True Blood,” which manages to find a balance between the love story, the vampire action while throwing in a bit of social commentary, “New Moon” is content to present underdeveloped ideas about identity, racism and gay rights. All these concepts are buried in the script and if they weren’t pumping these “Twilight” movies out faster than AIG wastes its bailout money the screenwriters might be able to develop some of these ideas beyond simply paying lip service to them with an anguished monologue by a jittery teen.  

But what do I know? The audience I saw the film with cooed during all the right moments, laughed when Edward’s brother suggested it would be a good idea for Bella to become a vampire so he wouldn’t want to “kill her all the time” and gasped at the bombshell ending. “New Moon” will please the fans of the books and movies, but may leave non fang bangers cold.

THIS IS IT: 4 STARS

This week the world gets a look at the greatest concert that never was, the film of Michael Jackson’s rehearsals for his comeback tour. Is “This is It” a great film? No, but like the best concert films it works because it captures a time and performance that will never be duplicated.

Cobbled together from rehearsal footage taken as he prepared for a series of sold-out shows in London and destined for the singer’s private library, it presents an unvarnished look at the creative process leading up to opening night. It’s not a polished concert film like “Stop Making Sense” or “Woodstock.” It’s a document of a work in process. Because this footage was never meant to be seen by anyone other than Jackson’s inner circle it’s rough, with raw performances and uninspired, often shaky camerawork. It isn’t the usual slickly produced product we would expect from the Jackson camp, and as such has a ring of authenticity to it that you don’t get in other authorized music films.

It’s unlikely that MJ would have approved of the film’s vision. We get to see how meticulous a performer he was, from giving his band’s bass player a funky vocal interpretation of how he wanted a certain riff to sound, to the way he instructs director and choreographer Kenny Ortega on how to add more sizzle to the show’s set pieces but dance wise there’s nothing as awe inspiring as the unveiling of the moon walk on the “Motown Special.” He seems to be working at half speed, as though he was tired, or saving his energy for the audience or, as history shows us, perhaps not well. It’s rawer Jackson than we’re used to—it’s the work of a great artist who is finding his feet after a long absence from the stage.

There are some flashy moments. We see footage of MJ dropped into a montage of 40s era movies starring Rita Heyworth, Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney as an intro to “Smooth Criminal” and the 3-D “Thriller” intro is very cool, but for my money it’s the simpler stuff that really sells the show; the smile that grows on his face after a successful run through of “They Don’t Really Care About Us” or the way he guides the band during the “Human Nature” rehearsal. “Play it like you’re dragging yourself out of bed,” he says to the keyboard player Michael Bearden. Those are the small moments that because Jackson was such an outsized performer, were often missed in the past.  

Given the tabloid element that has always been part of Jackson’s legacy it’s impossible to watch “This is It” without noticing how painfully thin he is during much of the film, and reading some ominous foreshadowing into his opening statement: “I’ll be performing the songs my fans want to hear—this is the final curtain call.” Luckily the movie, like the best memorials isn’t about Jackson’s death, but his life and his talent.

It’s also a reminder of what was lost. On stage Jackson was a great performer. Life may have been difficult for him but under a spotlight he sparkled and it’s a shame that we’ll never see the finished “This is It” live shows. From what we see in the movie it looks like it would have been part rock concert, part Broadway show part Busby Berkley spectacle—Jackson says he wanted to take the audience “places they’ve never been before; show them talent they’ve never seen before. ” It’s a good movie, it would have been an incredible concert.

TRAILER PARK BOYS: COUNTDOWN TO LIQUOR DAY: 2 STARS

Canada is known for its comedy teams. I grew up watching the Wayne and Shuster specials on television. Bob and Doug MacKenzie, with their own movie and hit song, was the hoser offshoot from the brilliant SCTV show. The Kids In the Hall were the hip, brainy alternative to The Royal Canadian Air Farce who continue to amuse despite having a combined age of nearly 1000 years. The rudest and crudest addition to this list is Ricky, Julian and Bubbles, The Trailer Park Boys.

They are the residents of Dartmouth’s Sunnyvale Trailer Park and the stars of the now defunct television show that chronicled their lives, loves and jail terms. For six seasons they cussed, drank and smoked their way into the collective consciousness of Canadians who made them cult heroes. Their 2006 movie should have been the icing on the TPB’s cake; a nice send-off to the troublesome trio as they headed off for the big trailer park in the sky.

Instead they’re back for another kick at the can with “TPB: Countdown to Liquor Day,” a mostly unfunny continuation of their story that picks up where “Say Goodnight to the Bad Guys,” the final TPB television special that ended the series, left off. Ricky, Julian and Bubbles are just out of jail, looking forward to a bright future, but once again their nemesis Jim Lahey (John Dunsworth) gets in their way. In their absence he’s torn down the old trailer park, replacing it with a brand-spanking-new development. The only problem is he has to run sewer lines under Julian’s property, and Julian doesn’t want to sell.  

Their silver-screen adventures don’t differ too much from the action on the television show. Director and co-writer Mike Clattenberg has decided against tarting-up the movie, avoiding guest stars or really slick production value. Its vintage TPB except it’s not nearly as funny as the TV show. All the puzzle pieces are intact—Ricky, the ringleader, still lives in his car and spends his days planning the the ultimate get rich quick scheme; his pals, the coke-bottle-bottom glasses wearing Bubbles and Julian, with his ever-present rum-and-coke respectively, are there for support, even if it means getting thrown in jail—but the laughs are fewer and further between.
But despite the bad language and even worse behavior there is a certain sweetness to the characters. Underneath his pompadour that would make Elvis envious, Ricky is essentially a decent guy who wants what everybody wants, an April Wine Great Hits 8-track, good friends, love and a warm place to pee. Ditto the other guys.

As Julian once said, “If you strip away the guns and the dope [the Trailer Park Boys] are about family.” And that, I think, is the appeal of TPB. Like many great sitcom characters before them, they inhabit a very specific world and have a strong sense of themselves and their surroundings. Just as Fred Sandford loved his junkyard and Jack Tripper was happy to work at the Regal Beagle, Ricky, Julian and Bubbles are proud to live in the trailer park, to be part of that community of people. It is their home and they don’t aspire to moving on up to the east side or anywhere else. It’s a nice touch that amid the hoser-humor there is a real sense that these guys belong together, no matter how dysfunctional their thrown-together family may be.

I just wish it was funnier.

TAKING WOODSTOCK: 3 STARS

Just in time for the fortieth anniversary of the Woodstock festival comes a movie that outlines how a music and arts fair named for one small upstate New York town ended up in a completely different location. Taking Woodstock, from Brokeback Mountain director Ang Lee, is based on the much disputed memoir of Elliot Tiber, a young Catskills motel manager. In it he tells of how an article in the newspaper and a carton of the “best chocolate milk in New York” helped find the history-making festival a home.

When we first meet Elliot (Demetri Martin) he’s a closeted gay man closing his decorating business in Greenwich Village to return to his humble roots as the part-time manager of his parent’s seedy Catskills motel. He has big plans for the place—renaming it a resort is just the first step—but business has been bad and they are on the verge of defaulting on their mortgage. After reading an article about a music festival’s location woes he senses an opportunity to lease out some of his own land and maybe rent a few rooms. Turns out his land is too swampy but dairy farmer Max Yasgur (Eugene Levy) steps in and suddenly the festival has a home and Elliot’s run down motel becomes the headquarters of what would become the biggest concert of the 1960s.      

In Taking Woodstock Ang Lee had the chance to make a large scale film about a pivotal cultural event, but for better and for worse, has instead focused on Elliot’s personal journey. The story has many possibilities—it could have explored the small town attitude toward the hippie kids who invaded the Catskills (“Meshugana, barefoot, hairy people” says Elliot’s mom) or the racism encountered by Elliot and his Jewish immigrant family or the logistics of building a concert arena in a farmer’s field or Elliot’s traditional family’s feelings about his homosexuality. Lee touches on all these subjects, but only lightly grazes them. In their place we get a mildly interesting coming-of-age story with some good laughs, some dubious history and a feel-good vibe.

The film’s central theme, that Woodstock’s peace and love aura had a transformative effect on everyone present that weekend, is quite sweet, if a little naïve. Lee piles it on thick, and perhaps errs on the side of sentimentality a bit too often to allow the film to taken as anything other than a look back through rose colored glasses at an event that makes boomers nostalgic.

Another sticking point is the music, or rather the lack thereof. We only ever see the Woodstock stage from a distance—the bands look and sound, as one high character says, “like ants making thunder”—and the rest of the soundtrack is a random (and uninspired) collection of boomer faves from the late Sixties.   

Having said all that, Taking Woodstock is enjoyable enough, although a tad long at two hours (a long, trippy acid sequence could easily have been shortened or clipped altogether). Lee has meticulously recreated the era, effectively mimics the concert movie’s split screen and has drawn solid performances from his cast (it must be hard to pull off the script’s large amount of “far outs” and “groovys” with a straight face), but I wish the movie actually stood for something. The Sixties were all about standing up and being heard, but Taking Woodstock is content to speak in a whisper.

THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE: 2 STARS

The Time Traveler’s Wife is part of a rare genre: romantic science fiction. But just because one of the characters flits through time and space doesn’t mean this is like an episode of Star Trek. Nope. The Time Traveler’s Wife is a romance first and sci fi second. Based on a best selling novel the story is equal parts Back to the Future, Benjamin Button and The Notebook. It’s a story about love with no boundaries and how romance can transcend everything, even death. Sounds like a three Kleenex kind of movie, doesn’t it?

Eric Bana is Henry DeTamble, a Chicago librarian with a genetic disorder known as Chrono-Displacement that causes him to involuntarily travel through time. Clare Abshire (Rachel McAdams) is an artist. From the outset their relationship is a strange one. When they first meet she has known him since she was six years old, but because his syndrome flips him to random times in his life on an ever shifting timeline he is meeting her for the first time. Confused? Not as confused as Clare who tries to build a life with Henry even though his ailment keep them apart.

Once you get past the twisty-turny time travel story device, I'm sorry to say there isn't much left. The Time Traveler’s Wife is at its core a very old fashioned romance about the enduring qualities of true love tarted up with a sci fi twist that only serves to muddle the story. (On film at least, I haven't read the book.) It's theme of love conquering all is well played out, but the flat performance from leading man Eric Bana casts a pall over the whole movie.
 
Bana has been in my bad books for some time now, although he redeemed himself recently with a star turn as the bad guy in Star Trek. Unfortunately The Time Traveler's Wife was shot before Star Trek gave him a boost on the old charisma meter. His work here is understated to the point of indifference. Henry should be one of the wonders of the world, a man who can jump from year to year, but instead is played as a mope; a sad sack crippled by his remarkable ability.
 
Rachel McAdams, on the other hand, underplays the role of Clare, but instead of disappearing into the fabric of the film as Bana does, brings subtlety and grace to the character. When she tells her friend about Henry's condition, adding, with rueful understatement, "It's a problem," she shows us a vulnerable side to Clare, the side that realizes her life will never be normal, but also the side that knows she is powerless to change her situation. It's a nice, quiet performance that conveys the power of her love for Henry and the frustration of the predetermination of her fate.
 
But it takes two to tango and unfortunately no matter how lovely McAdams's performance is, she's twirling around an empty dance floor. The themes from the book are firmly in place but there is no real spark between the actors.

Don't bother with the Kleenex for this one.

TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN: 3 ½ STARS

My attempts to come up with one catchy word to describe Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen ended in frustration. This loud, hyperkinetic sequel to the 2007 summer blockbuster is so over-the-top, such an assault on the senses that simply plucking a word from my Canadian Oxford Dictionary was clearly not going to be sufficient to describe the aural and optical onslaught brought on by the director of Armageddon and Pearl Harbor. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is such a singular vision, such an exercise in excessive filmmaking that I was forced to step outside the dictionary to find the right descriptor. The word? “Hullabayloo.” Definition? 150 minutes of bombastic retina roasting movie making from the mind of Michael Bay.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen takes place two years after the first film, with Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) leaving home and going to college at an Ivy League school. Once there Sam realizes he has information about the origins of the Transformers; info the evil Decepticons desperately want and the Autobots must stop them from retrieving. To save the world, and perhaps even the universe, Sam and Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox) once again join forces with the Autobots and do battle against their sworn enemies, the Decepticons.

Bay isn’t known for his restraint, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that his directing style on Transformers: ROTF is excessive. Apparently no one has ever explained the idea that less is more to Mr. Bay. This is a magnified version of the original, with extra helpings of everything that made the first one a hit. It’s longer than the original, there’s more gratuitous shots of Megan Fox (as one newspaper pointed out this week, take the “n” out of her name and you have Mega Fox), more humor, including a reprise of the radio gag from number one and more of Sam’s goofy parents, and way more of the Autobots and Decepticons.

Unfortunately there’s also more of the stuff we could have done without from the first movie.

Bay understands that Tranformers: ROTF isn’t about the actors, it’s about the robots, but once again more attention seems to have been paid to the animated characters than the real-life actors. The paper thin characters feel more like place holders for the action than real people. Whatever. I know fans don’t expect richly drawn characters, so if Megan Fox’s characterization involves simply looking hot and yelling “Sam!” in an ear pierce yelp, so be it. Maybe next time around (there’s already a threequel planned for release on July 4, 2012) though Bay could spend a few minutes of the time he normally spends thinking about how to blow things up and work on the characters just a bit.

Of course Transformers: ROTF earns a gold star for its special effects—the all important transformation scenes are, once again, a marvel of technical wizardry—but like the last film the robot action sequences, while exciting, are so frenetic that it’s sometimes hard to differentiate the good ‘bots from the bad ‘bots. The battle scenes, which should be the highlight of the film, are hard to follow, looking more like blurs of crunching metal than well shot and defined action scenes. That’s a problem.   

Also a problem is the volume. Bring earplugs and the Advil. It’s loud. Like end of the world loud. The Who at Wembley Stadium loud. Come for the robots, stay for the headache.

Transformers: ROTF is the bigger, louder and slightly more obnoxious brother to the original, but should please fans of the franchise.

THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1 2 3: 3 STARS

As if riding the New York subway wasn’t nerve racking enough, with its express trains that don’t stop until Rockaway Beach, rats the size of Chihuahuas and mystery smells, along comes The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 about a domestic terrorist holding a subway train full of people hostage. This remake of the 1974 Walter Matthau urban terror movie from visual stylist Tony Scott—simply calling him a director doesn’t do justice to his frenetic technique—is a tense subterranean thriller that makes Manhattan’s legendarily hectic above ground traffic seem safe and secure by comparison.

In this update a band of bad guys lead by John Travolta, in full blown psycho mode with a goatee and a bad attitude, launches an elaborate hijacking of the Pelham 1 2 3 train (so named because it leaves Pelham Station at 1:23 pm). Following the train’s capture Ryder (Travolta) makes contact with dispatcher Denzel Washington, a veteran MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority) employee who knows the system inside and out. Ryder demands 10 million dollars in exchange for the lives of the 19 people aboard the train. If the money doesn’t arrive in one hour, he promises hostages will suffer.

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 is the talkiest action movie of the year. More words than bullets fly, but Scott keeps things moving at a clip with his trademarked feverish visual and sound design. In creating the look of Pelham Scott seems to have pushed his Final Cut Pro program to the max. Images blur, jump and freeze elegantly, backed by a soundtrack heavy on industrial sounds used as punctuation. It’s an interesting palate that could easily have overwhelmed the film—as it has in past Scott works like the wild Domino—but luckily Scott has cast two charismatic and interesting actors in the lead roles.

It’s been years since Travolta played such an all out foul-mouthed baddie. He relishes the role, bringing a fun unpredictability to the psychopathic Ryder. He’s nuts and dangerous, but Travolta doesn’t play him as a slobbering madman, but an unhinged sociopath who is playing an elaborate game with people’s lives—including his own. Lately Travolta has been dressing in drag (Hairspray) and playing up to the kids (Bolt) but Pelham proves he hasn’t forgotten how to access the dark side.

On the other end of the scale is Denzel Washington who hands in a natural, modulated performance, full of charm and wit. It’s not as showy a role as Travolta’s and it is ground he has tread before—think Inside Man—but he is so comfortable a presence on screen that he is the focus of every scene he’s in.

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 is more psychological drama than action movie and doesn’t necessarily improve on its source material but its intense visual style and the acting chops of Travolta and Washington (along with supporting cast members Luis Guzmán, John Turturro and James Gandolfini) make it a good summer diversion.

TERMINATOR: SALVATION: 2 STARS

Terminator: Salvation is the fourth film in the famous franchise, following the first two classic installments and one not-so-classic episode. It is the movie set that gave us the famous tape of Christian Bale bawling out a hapless crew member with language far too colorful to use here and, confusingly, it is also both a sequel and a prequel to the previous movies. Directed by McG (yup, that’s the name his parents call him) it is a bigger, louder version of the Terminator tale, and the first film in the series to receive the PG-13 certificate in the United States, but is it the best of the bunch?

Set post Judgment Day, in the year 2018, a nuclear holocaust triggered by the artificial intelligence network Skynet, has destroyed most of the world. A band of survivors called the Resistance and led by John Connor (Christian Bale) struggles to keep the machines from finishing the job. When a stranger from the past named Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) appears Connor’s confidence that Skynet can be beaten and the world saved is shaken.

Like the recent Star Trek reboot Terminator: Salvation respectfully pays homage to its roots. Listen for an “I’ll be back” riff, a snippet of Guns and Roses and there’s even a computer generated cameo by a bodybuilder you may have heard of, but unlike Star Trek, which succeeded because it melded story with cool action, Terminator Salvation tries to win over the audience with bombast.

It looks really cool, with excellently realized Terminator machines and a wild and desolate post apocalyptic landscape but director McG is a little too in love with the style of the film—the look of flames set against the film’s grey and beige desaturated color palate and wild camera moves—and not in love enough with the other stuff—plot for instance.

There is a story but it gets lost in the din of the overwhelming sound design, massive CGI and explosions! Explosions! Explosions! McG never met a building, car or machine he didn’t want to ignite and blow to bits, so every few minutes a blazing mushroom cloud of flames lights up the screen and burns out our retinas.

When he tries though, he can stage an action scene. Near the beginning he uses flashy camera moves—the kind that make David Fincher look restrained—as he has a camera swoop from the sky into a helicopter that is spiraling out of control. It’s a wild shot, but for all the style there isn’t one image here as memorable as Arnold’s entrance in the original film or Robert Patrick’s shattered Terminator reassembling himself in T2.

James Cameron guided the Terminator franchise to greatness with the first two movies, but without his leadership it has floundered. It’s a shame because Salvation had the chance to be a great sci fi film, but it’s been dumbed down to one long action flick. It’s fun enough, I suppose, but it’s not up to the standards of the first two films in the series. I guess the next science fiction big screen event to pin our hopes on will be James Cameron’s next film Avatar.

TYSON: 4 ½ STARS

When Mike Tyson saw Tyson, the new documentary about his life, he said, “it's like a Greek tragedy, only I'm the subject.” The movie, directed by his good friend of twenty years James Toback, is an unvarnished look at the life and hard times of Iron Mike, told by Mr. Tyson himself.

For ninety minutes in his own words Tyson talks about the events that shaped him. How he was bullied as a child, turned to crime and how his life was literally saved by a tough old fight trainer named Cus D'Amato. He has harsh words for his former business partner Don King, who he calls a “wretched reptilian &*$%#@(!*%$#” and even harsher words for the woman he was accused of raping. It is a no-holds barred look at a troubled life lived very much on the world stage.

The thing that makes Tyson such a fascinating document is its complete lack of objectivity. Calling it a documentary implies a lack of bias, so let’s call it a portrait. A self portrait brought to life by a gifted filmmaker who turned on the camera, asked the right questions and got out of the way. The result is riveting.

Whether or not you are a boxing fan the movie is an unforgettable peek into the psyche of one of the most famous men of the 20th century. As the camera focuses tightly on his battered, tattooed face he speaks in a colorful stream of consciousness veering from tender to funny to sad to menacing often in the same sentence. I’m still not sure I want to hang out with Mike, but after listening to him and watching home video of him paying with his three-year-old daughter, I feel like I kinda-sorta understand more about the complicated individual that is the real Mike Tyson and not simply the media construction of him.

It’s a humanizing portrait of a man whose greatest sporting achievements have been overshadowed by the relentless coverage of the more tabloid aspects of his life: the ear biting, the stint in jail for raping beauty contestant Desiree Washington and the fortune, estimated at more than $300 million, that he won and lost. He’s clearly had a great deal of therapy but, at age forty, he seems to have reached an uneasy peace with himself. He calls himself an extremist, only able to live on the high and low ends of life. The middle has no interest for him, he says. Learning that is perhaps the thing that has enabled to him to understand himself, and in turn help us, through this film, understand him a little better.

TWO LOVERS:
2 STARS FOR THE MOVIE
4 STARS FOR THE PERFORMANCES

Watching Joaquin Phoenix in Two Lovers made me wish he would go to the barber, get a shave and stop his infantile flirtation with becoming the new Vanilla Ice and get back to doing what he does best—create interesting, layered characters for the big screen. In Two Lovers, which Phoenix claims will be his last film, he hands in a towering performance that is simultaneously quietly intense and tortured.

Two Lovers is set in Brighton Beach, a small community on Coney Island, New York. Phoenix is Leonard, a man left devastated by a recent break-up. He’s moved back into his parent’s home and is working at the family dry cleaning business. He lives a life of quiet desperation until his matchmaker parents try and set him up with Sandra (Vinessa Shaw), the pretty daughter of a business associate. She becomes love number one. That same week he has a chance encounter with Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow), his beautiful, but damaged upstairs neighbor. She becomes love number two, and complicates Leonard’s already complex emotional life.

Two Lovers is a deliberately paced film filled with rich, interesting performances. Phoenix subtlety gives Leonard a full inner life as his bi-polar character swings from high points to low. It’s a quietly riveting performance and one of the best so far this year.

Paltrow redeems herself after her dull work in Iron Man. She brings the beautiful and tragic Michelle to vivid life, playing her as a woman blinded by her need to be accepted by men.

The rest of the cast is uniformly excellent and well cast. Vinessa Shaw as the nurturing Sandra takes the least interesting of the three main roles and creates a fully rounded and appealing character, while Isabella Rossellini and Moni Monoshov fill every frame they appear in with parental warmth.

Two Lovers moves slowly—one critic prescribed it as a “non-addictive, non-chemical cure for insomnia”—but for those willing to stay with the film’s reflective pace there are rewards.

TAKEN: 3 STARS

In Taken, the new action adventure movie from Transporter scribe Luc Besson, Liam Neeson plays Brian Mills a former “preventer” for the US government. A specialist in black ops, he was an undercover agent who contained volatile situations before they got out of control. Now retired, he lives in Los Angeles to be near his estranged seventeen-year-old daughter Kim (Maggie Grace). When she is kidnapped by an Albanian child slavery ring—bad guys so tough “even the Russian mob steers clear”—he has only 96 hours to use his “particular set of skills” to get her back. His rescue mission takes him on a wild rampage through the soft underbelly of Paris. “I’ll tear down the Eiffel Tower if I have to,” he says.    

After a slow start devoted to some perfunctory character development
Taken kicks into high gear in about its twentieth minute. The action—and the movie for all intents and purposes—starts as daughter Kim is being kidnapped from her luxury Parisian apartment. It’s a terrifically tense scene as the bad guys break in and trash the place while Kim describes what’s happening to her father via cell phone. It’s this sequence that establishes Mills as someone to be dealt with, not just a sulky retiree who pines for his daughter’s affection. From this point on he’s James Bond with road rage or Jason Bourne without the memory loss. Either way he’s the best action hero to come along in some time.

For the remainder of its 94 minute running time Taken generally follows the long established action movie rule of having something or someone blow up or get shot every ten minutes. Neeson, who will soon be seen on-screen playing Abraham Lincoln in the decidedly non-action film, Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, is a powerful presence. He’s a good enough actor to make you believe the sentimental stuff about his daughter and physical enough for the action scenes to work. He’s a killing machine, ruthless and efficient, and as a scene near the end of the film demonstrates, probably the most bad ass dinner guest ever.

Some may quibble with Taken’s xenophobia—Russians are ruthless, Muslims are the bad guys, the French are corrupt—which makes episodes of 24 seem warm and fuzzy by comparison, but it really is just a cartoon where good—that’s Neeson—goes against evil—that’s everybody else. Still others may nitpick on the film’s lack of a moral compass. Neeson bludgeons everyone and anyone who gets in his way. On that score it really is just like an episode of Father Knows Best, if Fred McMurray was a trained killer whose daughter had been snatched. It’s a revenge flick where the violence is personal, not for the general good.  

Despite some logic gaps and some crazy continuity errors Taken succeeds because of the performance of Liam Neeson and the action, which outweighs the occasionally cheesy situations and dialogue.

THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX: 4 STARS

Rodents have a long distinguished history on the big screen. There’s Ben, the leader of a pack of vicious killer rats who inspired the 1972 movie of the same name, Stuart Little an orphaned mouse voiced by Michael J. Fox, and written by Oscar nominee M. Night Shyamalan in one of his less sinister moods. Ratatouille starring Remy the gourmet rat, Ron Weasley’s Scabbers the rat from the Harry Potter movies, The Rescuers’s Bianca and Bernard voiced by Eva Gabor and Bob Newhart and Master Splinter the radical rat who is also the father figure to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. One rodent, Mickey Mouse even won an Academy Award back in 1932. Add to that list Despereaux, a big eared mouse with even bigger aspirations in The Tale of Despereaux a new animated film starring Matthew Broderick and Dustin Hoffman.   

The movie, based on the Newbery Medal winning series of children’s book by Kate DiCamillo, begins its convoluted story with Roscuro (Dustin Hoffman) a charming merchant marine rat who inadvertently scares the Queen of Dor to death. After the King banishes rats from the kingdom forever he is cast out to the underworld of Ratland. Meanwhile the movie’s hero, a misfit mouse with huge ears named Despereaux (Matthew Broderick) has also been expelled from his home only to end up in the dungeon of Dor castle. As he schemes to escape his underlying qualities of chivalry and loyalty emerge and his fate becomes intertwined with that of Roscuro, a bumbling servant girl (Tracey Ullman) and the castle's princess (Emma Watson).

That’s the Reader’s Digest version of the story. It’s amazing how many plot points the filmmaker’s were able to cram into Despereaux’s 90 minute running time. The comings-and-goings of all the characters may confuse younger viewers but shouldn’t challenge 8-12 year old kids. I think, though, that most children regardless of age will be taken with the characters and the elegant animation.    

Despereaux doesn’t feel like other recent animated hits like Shrek, which relies on pop culture references as a source of humor or even the brilliant WALL-E with its environmental message. Despereaux is more old fashioned than that; more like a “Once upon a time” Grimm's fairy tale. The humor in the film comes from the characters and the situations, not belch jokes or double entendres.

Layer on top of that uniformly excellent voice work from an all-star cast which includes Matthew Broderick, Emma Watson, Dustin Hoffman, Tracey Ullman, Sigourney Weaver, William H. Macy Kevin Kline and Stanley Tucci with important messages about being yourself and redemption and you have, in a season filled with heavy weight dramas for adults like Revolutionary Road and Doubt, one of the few all-ages movies for the entire family.

TRANSPORTER 3:
ACTION SCENES: 4 STARS
THE REST: 1 STAR
TOTAL: 2 ½ STARS

The Transporter series, now on its third outing, is never going to be confused with Shakespeare. The movies, which star Jason Statham as the charismatic but deadly chauffeur for hire Frank Martin, are not about plot, or dialogue or character development. Nope, they’re about ninety minutes of non-stop crazy action geared toward men who want to see Statham bust heads in inventive ways and women who want to see Statham bust heads in inventive ways while shirtless. 

In the new film Martin (Statham) is coerced into driving Valentina (Natalya Rudakova),  the daughter of a high ranking Ukrainian government official from Marseilles to Bucharest and then onwards to Odessa on the Black Sea. His mission is complicated by high tech wristbands both he and his “package” are forced to wear which will blow up if they stray more than seventy-five feet from the car and hired thugs brought in to retrieve Valentina. Worse still may be Valentina herself, who presents a problem Martin has never had to deal with before.

Transporter 3 is to its franchise what Godfather III was to Coppola’s mafia series. It looks like the first couple of original movies, has some of the same actors and a recognizable story but something is off. In Transporter 3 the story is thrown out of whack by the addition of too much dialogue. These movies have traditionally had a low dialogue to action ratio and when that quotient is thrown out of balance the audience suffers. Usually I’m all for more story, but there isn’t any more story here than usual, just really bad dialogue that seems like bridges to the action sequences and nothing more.

Statham is best when he’s in motion and when he is kicking-butt the movie flies along. The action scenes are wild, there just aren’t enough of them. The excellently named director Olivier Megaton tries to work in some more personal stuff into the script, but that’s not what the Transporter movies or the character Frank Martin are about. Fans of the series want their eyes to dance; leave character development for Meryl Streep. The character of Martin has rules—never get personally involved, don’t ask questions—not personality. He should be left to do what he does best—drive and fight—and forget all the other stuff.

TWILIGHT:
FOR FANS: 4 STARS
EVERYONE ELSE: 2
TOTAL: 3

Twilight, for the uninitiated, is Buffy’s worst nightmare. It is the first in an insanely popular series of books about seventeen-year-old Isabella "Bella" Swan who moves to Forks, Washington and finds her life in danger when she falls in love with ninety-year-old vampire Edward Cullen. The books are required reading for every sixteen year old girl on the planet and now those undead literary characters are coming to life on the big screen in what will undoubtedly be the weekend’s number one film. Vampires, despite Buffy’s best efforts, are hot again.

Twilight, directed by Catherine Hardwicke, stars Into the Wild’s Kristen Stewart as Bella, an average girl whose taste in men runs to the supernatural. She’s a sullen teenager sent to live with her father in rainy Washington state after her free spirited mother shutters their Arizona home to go on the road with her baseball player boyfriend. Life in the small town is sleepy until Bella meets Edward, a pale, otherworldly student who makes Casper the Friendly ghost look tanned. She’s immediately smitten, but he is aloof, friendly one moment, cold the next. “Your mood swings are giving me whiplash,” she says. Soon enough he reveals his true immortal self to her—he’s a vampire “vegetarian,” meaning that he doesn’t drink human blood—and the idea of getting close to a mortal, and her supply of blood, is a temptation he fights against. Rather than running away, afraid for her life, she is even more drawn to him. When a trio of nasty bloodsuckers moves into the area Edward must risk his undead life to protect Bella.

Twilight is review proof. Advance ticket sales have already surpassed the last two Harry Potter movies and guarantee theatre lobbies filled with screeching teenage girls and sold out auditoriums. It’ll be the number one movie of the weekend and not since The Dark Knight has anticipation run so deep. Lots of people have been sucked in by this vampire tale.

But is it a good movie?

I can best sum it up by paraphrasing an old beer advertising slogan. “Those who like it, will like it a lot.” Twilight is bound to please “twi-hards”—fans of the books. Robert Pattison, the unknown English actor hired to play heartthrob vampire Edward embodies the book’s romantic bloodsucker and Kristen Stewart does dreamy longing really well. Hardwicke, whose directorial career showcases her ability to portray teen angst in movies like Thirteen and The Lords of Dogtown, captures the cadences of high school life by surrounding her supernatural characters with average kids handing in natural performances. She’s distilled the 600 page book down to its basic elements, cut the fat—the most important component being the romance; that Edward goes against his natural instinct to kill because he loves Bella—and produced a romantic film that will appeal to the book’s enormous core audience. 

For others, and that includes vampire purists—everyone knows that vampires can’t go out during the day and would never have a giant cross in their home—the movie may feel strangely stilted and well, anemic. Anyone expecting fangs, crazy vampire sex or even high tech visual effects will be disappointed. Twilight is about one thing and one thing only—romance. It’s a horror Harlequin, and while the constant starry-eyed craving between the two leads borders on caricature, without it there’d be very little left.

TRAITOR: 3 STARS

In Traitor Academy Award winner Don Cheadle plays Samir Horn, the titular traitor of the title. The provocative question the movie asks is, “Who exactly is he betraying, the United States or the terrorists?”

The international story of terror and intrigue begins in 1978 in Sudan. Samir is a youngster who witnesses his father’s brutal murder. Fast forward thirty years to Yemen. Samir is now an arms dealer trying to sell a truck load of detonators to a group of extremists. When the FBI, headed by agent Roy Clayton (Guy Pearce), burst in on the deal, Samir and co-conspirator Omar (The Kite Runner’s Saïd Taghmaoui) land in prison. Soon, the devoutly Muslim Samir and Omar escape from the jail and embark on an international conspiracy to spread terror. Following hot on their heels is Clayton, who can’t quite make sense of the evidence regarding Horn. Where, exactly, do Samir’s loyalties lie?

Regarded simply as a thriller Traitor has a credible story that will keep the viewer guessing until the final moments. After a slow start it builds in suspense and tension until reaching an exciting climax in Halifax of all places.

Keeping everything on course is Cheadle who hands in a fine performance as the double-crosser who keeps us guessing which side of the fence he falls on right up until the end.

Unfortunately director Jeffrey Nachmanoff, who did a good job in seamlessly blending together the film’s many locations and story-lines, felt the need to tag on a cheesy coda that doesn’t do the rest of the film justice. I can’t say what it is without giving away a major plot point or two, but the last five minutes feel tacked on.

Traitor is a smart and exciting thriller but you may want to avoid the after screening rush at the bathrooms and leave the theatre a couple minutes before the credits roll.

TROPIC THUNDER:
FOR THE EASILY OFFENDED: 1 STAR
FOR EVERYBODY ELSE: 4 STARS

In 2001 Ben Stiller sent up the fashion industry in a movie called Zoolander about moronic models. In his new film, Tropic Thunder, which he co-wrote, directs and stars in, he goes for something a little closer to home—his fellow SAG members. 

Tropic Thunder, with its cigar smoking children drug lords, liberal use of the word “retard” and Robert Downy Jr’s blackface performance may be the most politically incorrect—and funniest—movie of the summer.

It’s the story of “the most expensive war movie NEVER made” featuring three pampered Hollywood superstars. There’s action star Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller) the kind of dim bulb who describes the movies he stars in as “effects-driven-event-films”; Oscar magnet Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.), a method actor (possibly based on Russell Crowe) who spouts nonsense like “I don’t read the script! The script reads me!” and comedian Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), a drug addled star best known for flatulence jokes. Two newcomers round out the fictional movie’s cast: multi-platinum hip-hop-star-turned-actor Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson) and Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel).

The five are stranded in a Southeast Asian jungle by a director (Steve Coogan) determined to get realistic performances from his spoiled cast. Things get a little too realistic when the actors are targeted by a drug cartel that holds one of them for ransom. To get out of the jungle alive they have to come together and become more like the soldiers they are portraying.

For once you’ll want to arrive at the theatre in time to check out the trailers. Director Stiller introduces each character with a mock trailer from their most recent movie. These fake promos establish the movie’s silly tone starting with Stiller’s over-the-top Stallone-esque Scorcher clip, followed by the Eddie Murphyish The Fatties, where Jack Black plays multiple characters and a surprise cameo in the Downey Jr trailer promises that Tropic Thunder will take no prisoners in its ridicule of Tinsel Town.

After the trailers Stiller jumps right into the action. He opens the main story with a set piece from the fictional film so violently crazy it makes Jerry Bruckheimer look subtle. Blending in every cliché from every Chuck Norris war movie ever made Stiller shows how his pampered cast has gotten the film “one month behind schedule after only five days of shooting.” As the fictional story begins to echo the real life trials and tribulations of the legendary Apocalypse Now shoot, the lampooning of Hollywood broadens to include a grocery list of show business excesses. The movie business is so ripe for parody it’s a wonder it doesn’t happen more often. 

Stiller aims his jaundiced eye at everyone in front of and behind the camera. From actors, portrayed as needy, coddled masses of insecurity to managers more obsessed with a contract rider that promises their client TiVo than the safety of the actor, no one is safe.

Stiller and Black (who brings notes of John Belushi and Chris Farley to the role) hand in good, solidly entertaining comedic performances, but it is Robert Downey Jr who steals the show. As Kirk Lazarus, an extreme method actor who changed his skin color to play an African American soldier, he creates a portrait of an artiste who is just an empty vessel waiting to be filled by the people he plays. It’s as effective a comment on earnest actors who take themselves a bit too seriously as it is hilarious. Highlights of Downey’s performance include a completely offensive, but screamingly funny breakdown of Speedman’s role in a movie called Simple Jack.

Tropic Thunder is an effective parody of Hollywood made by insiders—including Tom Cruise in a cameo that proves he may have a sense of humor after all—who understand how truly silly and confounding celebrity culture has become.

THEN SHE FOUND ME: 3 STARS

In the 1990s it was hard to overlook Helen Hunt. Her sitcom, Mad About You, ran from 1992 to 1999 and was one of the highest rated shows on television. She was nominated for Best Actress Emmy Awards seven years in row and in 1998 alone she won a Golden Globe, an Oscar and an Emmy Award. Since the millennium, however, she has been taking it easy. Mad About You is in reruns, but now looks dated, more like an ode to Yuppie living than anything else; and since 2000, when she appeared in no less than four movies, her big screen appearances have been limited.

Her latest project, a family dramedy called Then She Found Me, sees her both in front of and behind the camera, starring as April, a thirty-nine-year-old schoolteacher who loses her husband (Matthew Broderick) and adopted mother in rapid succession. In the aftermath of those upheavals two new characters enter her life, the depressed but charming father (Colin Firth) of one of her students and her birth mother (Bette Midler), a flamboyant talk show host.

Then She Found Me is about many things—dealing with death, a ticking biological clock, growing up—but above all it is about trust. April must learn to trust in people and relationships and it is that … on which the entire movie hangs.     

Hunt shows a strong hand behind the camera, effectively blending the rom com aspects of the story with human tragedy. There are some very funny moments, but by and large it is a downbeat story buoyed by Hunt’s snappy direction. You don’t work on a sit com for a decade without learning a thing or two about keeping the story chugging along. Occasionally though the television training works against her, as the half-hour comedy format seeps into the dialogue and scene transitions. Stylistically Then She Found Me works best when Hunt (who also co-wrote the screenplay) grounds the situations in reality. The odd misstep here and there only happens when she strays from the realism of the characters and allows the whole thing to drift into mild melodrama.

Despite its lapses, Then She Found Me is a small movie with some nice intimate moments and an interesting unvarnished view of human relationships that you don’t often see in film anymore.

THERE WILL BE BLOOD: 4 ½ STARS

In the 1990s Paul Thomas Anderson made his name directing films like Boogie Nights and Magnolia that recalled the sprawling, complex work of Robert Altman. Epic in length, but intimate in detail, those films established him as one of the best of young Hollywood directors. He took a u-turn stylistically with Punch Drunk Love, a briskly paced, but unconventional love story in 2002. And then nothing for almost six years.

It was worth the wait.

There Will be Blood, the story of twin American obsessions of greed and religion told through one man’s rise through the early days oil business is one of the best movies of the last twelve months and is bound to be an Oscar magnet for its star Daniel Day-Lewis.  

Loosely based on Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel, Oil!, the films begins with a stunning extended scene in an open mine in turn-of-the-last-century California, played completely silent save for the odd grunt or grown from the prospector, Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis). Suspenseful and tense beyond belief it sets up a sense of foreboding that lasts through the entire film, while at the same time positioning Plainview as a powerhouse character who’ll do anything to succeed.

From this point on Anderson is letter perfect with the tone of the film, expertly juggling both the epic and intimate aspects of the story as he captures Plainview’s aggressive rise from poor prospector to tycoon. It is the quintessential story of power’s ability to corrupt as he amasses wealth and becomes obsessed only with amassing more wealth at any cost.

Plainview slowly becomes a monster who has a complicated relationship with his adopted son, becomes a murderer and uses religious salvation as simply a way of getting a land deed that he needs to drill for more oil. By the end of the film he is a megalomaniacal Charles Foster Kane-like character, alone in a huge mansion, isolated by choice from friends and family; his only companions are servants and money.

Daniel Day-Lewis is devastating in the lead role. His Plainview is one of the architects of America’s transformation from a rural to industrial nation; a man who helped usher in the change, but at a huge personal cost. Day-Lewis handles the changes in Plainview expertly, as he slowly allows the character’s morality to slip until it has almost entirely been eroded away. Vocally he seems to have found the perfect reference point for his character by channeling John Huston’s misanthropic Noah Cross from Chinatown, another great fictional Californian businessman willing to do anything to exploit that state’s natural resources for profit.

Also look for Paul Dano—best known as the mute-by-choice son in Little Miss Sunshine—as a devout preacher who represents the religion that gnaws at Planview’s conscience. The pair are at odds throughout, a physical manifestation of Plainview’s growing lack on scruples as he gradually walks away from the morals he was taught in Sunday School and steps toward the fire and brimstone of his new life. Dano’s powerful performance is at once disturbing and exhilarating, as it ranges from courteous piousness to dancing-with-snakes-religious-fury to submissive schemer.

Layer on top of all that an arresting electronic score by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood and you have a tour-de-force look at the making of a nation and the individualistic men who created the country.  

TALK TO ME: 1 ½ STARS

First of all I need to say that I think Don Cheadle and Chiwetel Ejiofor are two of the best actors working today. Cheadle, the more famous of the two, was recently nominated for an Academy Award for his work in Hotel Rwanda and Ejiofor can do everything from playing the cross dressing muse for a shoe designer in Kinky Boots to being the bad guy in one of last year’s best films, Children of Men. So it is with some sadness that I have to report that neither actor’s talent is supported in the new film Talk to Me.

Not that they’re helped by the script, which never misses an opportunity to insert a cliché where a meaningful scene should have been, or the direction, which strives to be big and important, but settles for merely adequate.

Even the title is average. A quick check on IMBD reveals that no fewer than 11 exact matches for the title, most of which date from the last six or seven years.

The troubling thing about Talk to Me is that I’m sure it didn’t have to be this way. There is a good story in the life and hard times of Ralph ‘Petey’ Greene, the ex-convict turned popular 1960s Washington D.C. radio personality and community activist, this just isn’t it.

As directed by Kasi Lemmons, a veteran actress of television shows like Walker, Texas Ranger and Murder She Wrote, and director of the fine Eve’s Bayou, the story is boiled down to a series of cliché ridden vignettes which never fail to telegraph where the story is headed.

The movie does manage to create a fairly convincing portrait of a time of social change in America, but that is thanks to Cheadle and Ejiofor rather than the script. In the film’s best handled sequence, the announcement of the death of Martin Luther King, it’s Cheadle’s performance and not the script that packs a punch.

Occasionally a strong performance can elevate a so-so film. The Last King of Scotland, for example, is an average movie made better by the central performance of Forest Whittaker. Unfortunately, as hard as Cheadle and Ejiofor try the problems with Talk to Me are insurmountable.
 

TRANSFORMERS: 3 STARS

Director Michael Bay, the auteur behind such hits as The Rock, Armageddon, Bad Boys 1 and 2 and the Lionel Ritchie video for Do It to Me recently said that he doesn’t make movies for critics. Never has a truer statement been spoken. His latest film, Tranformers, continues his trend of making big, loud dumb movies that make a lot of money at the box office but leave critics reaching for the Advil.

In this update of the popular 80s animated kid’s show, hot young star Shia LaBeouf riffs on the geeky teen role he played earlier this year in Disturbia. He’s Sam, the high school nerd who thinks if he gets a cool car a cool girlfriend will soon follow. A used car salesman named Bobby Bolivia (Bernie Mac) gives him a pseudo-mystical sales pitch about how he won’t really choose his own car, the car will choose him. Sure enough, as soon as he lays eyes on a beaten up yellow Corvette strange things start to happen. The car has spoken—literally.

Meanwhile, there’s a parallel story set in the Middle East. After a mysterious robot decimates an army base, the few survivors are airlifted back to the United States to report on the strange goings on.

Thanks to some narration at the beginning of the film we already know what Sam doesn’t, that evil Decepticons from the planet Cybertron are on there way to earth to battle the good Autobots and retrieve a powerful cube called the Allspark which holds the key to the survival of their planet. Both sides are tracking Sam because he unwittingly holds the map to locating the cube.

Not only does the Sam’s new car get good mileage, it also whizzes and whirls and turns into a giant yellow and black robot called Bumblebee. He’s kind of like Kitt from Night Rider, only way cooler and more versatile. Bumblebee’s job is to protect Sam, and in a funny early scene act as match maker by automatically tuning the radio to play seductive songs like Sexual Healing while Sam gives a lift to the school hottie Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox).

Soon, of course the two storylines fuse, and Sam and Mikela fight side-by-side with the special ops guys and the Autobots to battle the Decepticons and save the planet.

Transformers boasts great special effects—the all important transformation scenes are marvel of technical wizardry and the blending of live-action with the computer-generated elements is seamless—but more  attention seems to have been paid to the animated characters than the real-life actors. LeBeouf is an extremely likeable actor, and well cast here, but Bay doesn’t require him to do much other than remain sympathetic and look at the camera with his large expressive doe eyes. Fox is relegated to the beautiful-but-tough female role, with little to do except wear revealing clothing and act as eye candy for the teenage boys in the audience. Josh Duhamel once again displays the kind of bland appeal that demonstrates why he’ll never be a full-fledged leading man.

Of all the actors the only John Turturro holds his own with the ever-mutating robots. As the mysterious Agent Simmons he’s so over-the-top he seems to be the only one in the cast who realizes that this is supposed to be big dumb fun. He alone looks like he’s having fun with his role.

Michael Bay knows, however, that Tranformers isn’t about the actors, it’s about the robots. The battle scenes are quite thrilling, even though they are so frenetic that it’s sometimes hard to differentiate the good ‘bots from the bad ‘bots. He also knows how to stage an action scene. This guy never met a building or car or city that he didn’t want to blow up in spectacular fashion—so take some sun screen, you could get a tan from the glare off the giant fireballs that light up screen.

Bay has delivered a movie that has all the ear marks of a big blockbuster summer movie, and one that will doubtlessly appeal to fans of the original series, but in the end could have benefited from more of a human touch.

TENACIOUS D: THE PICK OF DESTINY: 3 STARS

Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny is a heavy metal odyssey about two stoner heavy metal musicians (Jack Black and Kyle Gass) who must retrieve the magical Pick of Destiny—made from a chip of Satan’s tooth—so they can write the ultimate metal song, win the top prize at an open mike night and make enough money to pay their rent. In other words its like Cheech and Chong with power chords, or the Two Stooges with guitars.

Black and Gass have been performing in comedy clubs for years as Tenacious D—the self proclaimed “greatest band on Earth”— a sort of live-action Beavis and Butthead who play a brand of sword and sorcery style heavy metal that pays homage to the music while taking the mickey out of it.

Most of the humor here originated from south of the bellybutton, but Black’s frenetic performance and soaring rock vocals coupled with Gass’ goofy charm keep things rocking along.

Not for everyone, but if you enjoyed Spinal Tap you’ll like Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny.

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: 2 ½ STARS

There was a time when the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were everywhere. Stars of not only the movies—1990’s self titled flick remains one of the highest grossing independent films of all time—but also comic books, television and video games, they even had action figures and breakfast cereals as part of their reptilian empire. They were 20th Century pop culture icons, which ain’t too bad for four hard-shelled crime fighters named after Renaissance artists.

But, like all pop culture fads, eventually Turtle mania played itself out, and the action figures, the TMNT PJs and coloring books became passé. This weekend Warner Brothers is hoping to give Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo and Donatello a 21st century digital makeover.
It’s been fourteen years since the green fighting machines last graced the big screen and there have been some changes. The trademarked ninja swords, skateboarding tricks, unquenchable hunger for pizza and catchphrases like “Cowabunga!” are all in place, what’s gone is Canadian actor Elias Koteas who starred in all three original movies and the cheesy turtle costumes.

In the new computer animated version the heroes in the half shell must heal the rifts that threaten their brotherhood, fight 3000 year-old immortals and save New York City from becoming overrun with monsters and demons from another age, (kind of like it was before Rudy Giuliani stepped in to clean up Times Square.)

The mach 4 Turtles have some cool action scenes—a single-take skateboard thrill ride through a sewer pipe is eye-popping—but it’s too bad that writer, director Kevin Munroe didn’t put as much effort into the script as he did some of the flashy visuals. The dialogue is painful, lacking the flair and appeal of other CG movies like The Incredibles and it may be Turtles sacrilege to bring this up, but the skateboarder slang has got to go. It might have been hip in 1984, now the lingo sounds dated and corny.

TMNT should appeal to younger kids—not too young, though, some of the action scenes are rather intense—and young adults who grew up eating out of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle lunch boxes.

TURISTAS: ½ STARS
Following the release of Lord of the Rings tourism in New Zealand shot up something like 500 %. People flocked to the picturesque country drawn by the stunning scenery in the film. So we know that movies can have an enormous impact on travel to exotic lands. I would suggest that if Turistas, the new splatter film starring Josh Duhamel becomes a big hit, the tourism board of Brazil may have some damage control to do.
Turistas tells the sad tale of a group of gringos who get stranded on a beautiful beach after a bus crash. It’s a tropical paradise with rolling blue waves, white sand, but more importantly free flowing booze, friendly locals, bikinis aplenty and fun for all… fun until they get drugged, robbed and kidnapped.
Turistas is another young tourist in trouble movie along the same line as last year’s Hostel. It plays on primal fears; the panic inspired by confined spaces, the dark and, of course, having your organs harvested by a mad doctor for re-sale on the black market.
This last one is the part the Brazilian tourism board might object to.
Most of the film is spent following the bikini and speed-o clad heroes as they run, swim and hike away from the bad guys. When they do meet up with the villains the movie takes on the same tone as one of those inexplicably popular surgery shows on television. It’s not scary exactly, just really unpleasant. This part of the movie should earn the film a “3G” rating for gross, gooey and gory.
Turistas is a movie about senseless cruelty that mistakes gross for scary but will it hurt Brazilian tourism? You never know. Sometimes just spelling the name right is enough. A case in point, recently the country of Kazakhstan decided that Borat’s representation of them as racist and incestuous was OK because at least now people know about the country. “[Borat] has managed to spark an immense interest of the whole world in Kazakhstan,” said Kazakh novelist Sapabek Asip-uly, “something our authorities could not do during the years of independence.”

TALLADEGA NIGHTS: THE BALLAD OF RICKY BOBBY: 3 ½ STARS

It’s been a rough twelve months for Will Ferrell fans. It seemed the funnyman was losing his touch. Kicking and Screaming was an unfunny flop, Bewitched was so bad that even if I saw it on an airplane I would still want to walk out and Melinda and Melinda showed his more serious and less interesting side. He had a couple of cameos that raised a smile or two in The Producers and The Wedding Crashers, but overall it seemed that the prolific comedian was making too many movies too quickly. It appeared that the silly glory days of Anchorman, Elf and Old School were behind him. That is until the release of Talladega Nights: the Ballad of Ricky Bobby reaffirmed his status as the silliest man in movies.

Ferrell co-wrote and stars in this movie about a dim-witted Nascar driver who rises to the top of his field only to lose everything when a French Formula One racer undermines his confidence. Call it the Fast and the Hilarious because it is the funniest movie that Ferrell has been in a while.

As Ricky Bobby, Ferrell has just the right amount of mindless redneck emptiness behind his eyes, the perfect slanted grin and all-American go-for-broke spirit to bring the Nascar driver to life. Ferrell is also one of the pluckiest of the comics currently working on screen. No joke is too broad to be milked, no chance to strip down to his underwear is missed and no pratfall is too undignified for the fearless Ferrell. Whether he is saying his version of grace at the dinner table re-imagining Jesus way he likes to see him, as a baby not as the long-haired hippie, or driving with a live cougar in the passenger seat every joke is pushed to the limit.

Good supporting work from Gary Cole, John C. Reilly and Sacha Baron Cohen, (better known as Ali G), make Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby the funniest movie of the summer.

TRANSAMERICA DVD: 3 ½ STARS

As the stressed out Lynette Scavo on Desperate Housewives Felicity Huffman is one of the most recognizable women on television, but I would guess that not even her biggest fans would recognize her in Transamerica, out this week on DVD. In her Oscar nominated role she plays Bree, a pre-operative transsexual about to undergo the final stages of her transformation from male to female when she discovers that she has a son from a long-ago tryst—when she was still a biological man named Stanley. Huffman disappears into the character, playing Bree as an introverted button-down conservative, particular about grammar and manners who owns up to the responsibility she feels to her son. The better part of the movie is spent on the road as the Bree and her son get to know one another on a drive from New York to Los Angeles.

Transamerica’s greatest asset is Huffman who brings humanity to a role that could have been a stereotype.

TAKE THE LEAD: 3 STARS

The best thing you can say about Take the Lead is that it is what it is. Once you have seen the trailer with its stylish fast cut shots of attractive young people dancing up a storm, Antonio Banderas smoldering for the camera and beat-heavy dance music you know what’s going to happen in the movie. Usually I hate that, but in this case I found myself caught up in the story about a ballroom dance teacher who decides to help a group of misfit inner city school kids learn about teamwork, respect and trust by teaching them the waltz, the rumba and the tango. This is an “inspirational coach movie.” Think of it as Cha Cha Chariots of Fire or Dancing with the Stars with slide rules.

Banderas plays Pierre Dulaine, based on a real-life dancer who ventured into rough schools and helped transform the lives of kids through dance. Banderas brings his trademarked passion to the role, and it is that enthusiasm that helps sell this movie. The storyline is predictable but touching and the filmmakers have done a good job of setting up the backstories of the characters so we actually care about them. By the time we get to the big dance-off—you know there has to be a big dance-off—we have left all preconceptions of reality behind and are simply rooting for the kids to win because by this point ion the movie we have come to know and like them.

Take the Lead is an after-school special elevated by endearing performances and some pretty snappy dance moves.

TADPOLE

A quirky little film shot in two weeks on a shoestring budget, Tadpole was one of the finds at last year’s Sundance Festival. Oscar Grubman (Aaron Stanford) is an intelligent fifteen-year old with a problem. He is hopelessly in love with his stepmother Eve (Sigourney Weaver), a scientist who married his dad (John Ritter) after his first marriage to Oscar’s mom dissolved. Things become complicated when Oscar sleeps with Eve’s best friend Diane (Bebe Neuwirth), intoxicated by the fragrance of the scarf Diane happened to borrow from Eve. It’s a wickedly funny scene, and one that displays how blinded by love he is. It’s The Graduate by way of Oedipus Rex. Despite its unusual subject, Tadpole works on many levels. Aaron Stanford is terrific as the love-sick Oscar, but it is Bebe Neuwirth who steals the show. As the 40-something temptress Diane, she wrings every bit of impish humor from the character, but it is Sigourney Weaver in the less showier role who provides the emotional core of the film. As Eve, a woman married to her work as much as her husband, her reaction to Oscar’s advances provides real feeling, a sensitive turn that deepens the story. Tadpole is a funny, insightful coming-of-age story with great performances.  

THE TIME MACHINE

Guy Pearce seems to be trying to single-handedly bring back the action-adventure genre. The release of The Count of Monte Cristo, quickly followed by The Time Machine shows a shift in his career toward good old fashioned Saturday matinee kind of movies. The Count of Monte Cristo worked on that level, unfortunately the same cannot be said for The Time Machine. While it has all the elements for success – a strong leading man, a compelling story and good special effects – the film cannot seem to make up its mind as to what it wants to be. Was Simon Wells (the great-grandson of author HG Wells) trying for an action film for kids, a la 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or a sci fi / horror epic? It is hard to tell, and I wish he would have made up his mind. What is presented here is witlessly wishy-washy, despite some cool moments. It’s too scary for kids, not interesting enough for grown-up science fiction fans. Far superior is George Pal’s 1960 version of the same name.

TWO FOR THE MONEY: 2 ½ STARS

Matthew McConhaughy plays a small town football star injured just before he would have gone pro. His gridiron career on the field is over, but behind the scenes he develops an uncanny knack for picking winners for gamblers. He is recruited by a New York odds-making firm and for a while everything he touches turns to gold. He can’t lose. We know this because he trades in his jeans and hooded sweatshirts for Armani suits and Gucci shoes.

Of course there wouldn’t be much of a movie unless he hit a rough patch—and while this isn’t much of a movie— McConhaughy’s character does hit a losing streak that teaches him something about himself. Mixed in is Rene Russo as a former junkie turned mother figure and Al Pacino as the young man’s crazy mentor.

I would have given this movie more stars, but Al Pacino ate them while he was chewing the scenery. His performance is so over the top that I was afraid that he was going to literally gnaw through the screen and chew on audience members. This is Pacino in full-on “Hoo-Haw” mode, the kind of performance that gets mimicked by comedians.

Pacino’s performance overwhelms almost everything in its path, including all the other actors and the story. The only thing that overshadows his insane performance are McConhaughy’s frequently displayed and finely toned ab muscles which seem to be acting in a different movie.