Short Subjectives December 16 2004

?Opening Friday
FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX (PG-13) This remake of the spiffy 1965 adventure flick features Dennis Quaid, Giovanni Ribisi, Tyrese Gibson, Miranda Otto and Hugh Laurie as airplane passengers stranded in the desert by a plane crash. Sort of like “Lost,” only without the ocean. Or the angsty flashbacks. Or the monsters you never see.

LEMONY SNICKET’S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS (PG) See review.

ON THE WATERFRONT (NR) See review on right.

SPANGLISH (PG-13) See review.

A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT (R) See review.

?Opening Wednesday
MEET THE FOCKERS (PG-13) People apparently can’t wait to see this sequel to Meet the Parents, with chagrined bridegroom Ben Stiller and slow-burning prospective father-in-law Robert De Niro each less than thrilled by Stiller’s folks, played by Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand.

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (PG-13) A crazed musical genius (Gerard Butler) bedevils a 19th-century French opera house, especially a lovely ingenue (Emmy Rossum). Fans of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical will lap up director Joel Schumacher’s faithful film adaptation: The baroque, lavish production design serves the excesses of the musical score, and gives you the feeling of being immersed in an elephantine Broadway show. — Curt Holman

?Duly Noted
NOI (R) Like a car without snow tires, Icelandic juvenile delinquent Nói (Tómas Lemarquis) spends most of his time spinning his wheels, just like the eponymous film strains to get narrative traction. Arguably Nói’s uneventful plot merely mirrors the emptiness of its protagonist’s situation, but that sounds like an excuse. Nói needs either more stir-crazed comedic ingenuity or closer attention to the details of Icelandic life. — CH

THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975) (R) The cult classic of cult classics, the musical horror spoof follows an all-American couple (Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick) to the castle of Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry), a drag-queen/mad scientist from another galaxy. It’s all fun and games until Meat Loaf gets killed. Dress as your favorite character and participate in this musical on acid. Midnight Fri. at Lefont Plaza Theatre and Sat. at Peachtree Cinema & Games, Norcross.

?Continuing
AFTER THE SUNSET (R) Pierce Brosnan’s diamond thief pulls off one last score and retires to the Bahamas with his partner/girlfriend (Salma Hayek), only to be trailed cat-and-mouse-style by an FBI agent (Woody Harrelson). Despite Hayek’s remarkable bikini-filling skills, the film’s real strength is the downright cute interaction between Brosnan and Harrelson: Though played for laughs, their homoerotic chemistry drives the movie. Rush Hour director Brett Ratner tries too hard to make After the Sunset a sultry and sexy tropical thriller, and instead mixes a frothy umbrella drink of a movie that goes down smooth, but provides no real kick. — Cary Jones

ALEXANDER (R) Alexander the Great (Colin Farrell) conquered the known world but collapses in a brooding heap in Oliver Stone’s botched biopic of nearly three hours. Alexander’s enlightened internationalism makes him ahead of his time, just as his unmistakable bisexuality makes him ahead of our own. But apart from Angelina Jolie and Val Kilmer’s campy excesses as Alexander’s parents, the film offers no colorful relationships, memorable dialogue or even coherent battle scenes. Alexander could put the entire genre of epic film in bad odor for years. — CH

BEING JULIA (R) Based on Somerset Maugham’s novel Theatre, this stage drama stars Annette Bening as London’s leading actress in the 1930s and features such supporting players as Jeremy Irons, Michael Gambon and Juliet Stevenson.

BLADE TRINITY (R) In his third film outing, half-breed vampire slayer Blade (Wesley Snipes) reluctantly teams with junior troubleshooters (scene-stealing Jessica Biel and Ryan Reynolds). Whenever the characters (including Parker Posey, of all people, as a jaded vampire) aren’t trying to kill each other, they’re walking in slow motion toward the camera — it’s that kind of movie. Debut director David Goyer falls short of the gothic, propulsive Blade II, but provides the minimum requirement of movie mayhem and hip dialogue. — CH

BRIDGET JONES: THE EDGE OF REASON (R) Yo-yo dieting Renée Zellweger packs the junk back in her trunk to reprise her role as the ditzy, plumpish London diarist, torn between her dashing but reserved boyfriend (Colin Firth) and her caddish ex (Hugh Grant). As the prat-falling, foul-mouthed Bridget, Zellweger hilariously embodies modern female insecurities, but Edge of Reason recycles too many of the prior film’s big moments. The unnecessary sequel to the first novel becomes an unnecessary sequel to the first movie. — CH

CLOSER (NR) A clever, but hardly earth-shattering adult drama about the interlocking sex lives of two couples in contemporary London, Mike Nichols’ titillating but contrived film adapts Patrick Marber’s hit 1997 stage play. Julia Roberts and Jude Law prove remarkably banal as the adulterous pair who set the sexual roundelay in motion. Far better are Natalie Portman as an emotionally vulnerable stripper and a laceratingly clever Clive Owen as Roberts’ cuckold husband and one of the most intriguing combinations of masculine vulnerability and vengeance to strut across a movie screen. — Felicia Feaster

CHRISTMAS WITH THE KRANKS (PG) A middle-aged couple (Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis) decide to skip Christmas when their only child joins the Peace Corps. The cinematic equivalent of a lump of coal, this adaptation of John Grisham’s Surviving Christmas could have gained depth by exploring the characters’ motivations, instead of using dialogue as simply a break between seasonal slapstick. — Heather Kuldell

FINDING NEVERLAND (PG) Director Marc Forster finds a connection between Scottish author J.M. Barrie (Johnny Depp) and his most famous creation, Peter Pan. Both desire to avoid the bitter realities of death and growing up by escaping to a Neverland of perpetual childhood. Depp gives a magical performance in this wonderfully bittersweet, loose adaptation of Barrie’s life, which imagines how his friendship with four young boys and their widowed mother (Kate Winslet) — and their shared experience of death — might have inspired him to create Peter Pan. — FF

THE GRUDGE (PG-13) Takashi Shimizu realizes every director’s dream of remaking a film with more money and the lessons learned on the first attempt. Based on his Japanese ghost story Ju-on, The Grudge takes place in Tokyo but almost everyone speaks English, with numerous American characters on hand. Exchange student Sarah Michelle Gellar faces ghostly entities in a house with an attitude. The original structure seems slightly dumbed down for Americans but the most memorable visuals and hokey scare tactics have been retained. — Steve Warren

I HEART HUCKABEES (R) A “screwball sophistry” could describe this fast-talking, deep-thinking comedy from Three Kings director David O. Russell. A frustrated environmental activist (Jason Schwartzman) finds himself torn between the forces of order, represented by Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman’s “existential detectives,” and a nihilistic — but sexy — French intellectual (Isabelle Huppert). Huckabees tests your tolerance for deadpan whimsy but pays off with persistent laughs and relevant commentary on suburban sprawl and celebrity-obsessed corporate culture. — CH

I AM DAVID (PG) A young boy (Ben Tibber) makes a perilous, allegorical trek from a Bulgarian labor camp across Europe. Debut filmmaker Paul Feig (creator of the cult TV series “Freaks and Geeks”) excels with the intense early scenes of the boy’s escape and pursuit, but as his journey continues, Feig spells out the themes with the subtlety of a roadside billboard. James Caviezel and Hristo Shopov, who played Jesus and Pilate, respectively, in Passion of the Christ, reprise their S&M dynamic as a saintly prisoner and a ruthless guard. — CH

IMAX THEATER: Amazing Journeys (NR) Here’s the movie Imax was made for! Neither didactic nor evangelical, it appeals to all ages and images you’ll never forget. The film examines migration — of monarch butterflies, gray whales, red crabs, zebras and wildebeest, birds and humans. Director George Casey adds cinematic touches of comedy, drama and suspense to avoid a dry documentary feel in what may be the best Imax film yet. Forces of Nature (NR) Volcanoes and tornadoes and earthquakes, oh my! Not to mention the scientists who study them to improve their forecasting ability in hopes of saving lives. It’s like watching the best of the Weather Channel on a giant screen — without getting your local forecast. NASCAR: The Imax Experience (PG) Stock car racing seems a perfect subject for 3-D Imax but this survey course — “NASCAR 101” — doesn’t begin to realize the potential. Fans have seen it all before and if non-fans had any interest, they’d be fans. The film includes surprisingly little racing footage, and cuts away too quickly from the shots that put you in the action. Fernbank Museum of Natural History IMAX Theater, 767 Clifton Road. 404-929-6300. www.fernbank.edu. — SW

THE INCREDIBLES (PG) Former costumed crime-fighter Mr. Incredible (voiced by Craig T. Nelson) and his family must pass as ordinary suburbanites until a mysterious archvillain inspires them to flex their super-muscles once more. Pixar’s latest computer-animated classic fits in more with James Bond and Marvel Comics than family films like Finding Nemo, and the metaphors for conformity and mid-life crisis will strike deeper chords with parents than kids. But the spectacular derring-do in the second half will inspire all audiences to cry, “Look! Up on the screen!” — CH

THE INHERITANCE (NR) Though this Danish family melodrama often comes across as a more elegantly repressed European Dynasty, director Per Fly’s affecting drama proves more reminiscent of Douglas Sirk’s incisive social commentaries. Fly reveals not only the tangled web of family, but the soul-destroying effect corporate life on one man (The Celebration’s Ulrich Thomsen) who inherits his father’s steel business and finds his wife and integrity slowly slipping away. — FF

KINSEY (R) Writer-director Bill Condon lays out the importance of Alfred Kinsey, whose ground-breaking — and still controversial — research on American sexuality emphasized facts, not disapproving morality. At times Condon oversimplifies to score easy points against repressive figures, but Kinsey uses the complexity of sex to explore how “normalcy” proves to be a slippery concept. Neeson’s fascinating portrayal captures both Kinsey’s scientific passions and his shaken confusion when he realizes that keeping emotions separate from sex is easier said than done. — CH

THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES (R) The man who would grow up to be a violent revolutionary and the star of every counterculture’s T-shirt, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, receives some emotional backstory in Brazilian director Walter Salles’ earnest but lightweight film. Before he took up firearms, Che traveled with best friend through South America, and discovered the kind of poverty and injustice his bourgeois Argentinean upbringing denied. Bernal and the scenery are beautiful but this bio-picture lacks the fire in the belly its radical subject deserves. — FF

NATIONAL TREASURE (PG) Nicolas Cage steals the Declaration of Independence to track down a mythic fortune based on clues hidden in American icons. Cage’s performance drips with insincerity and the film uses dizzying editing, fussy CGI-effects and a portentous soundtrack to distract us from the sluggish script. National Treasure tries to piggyback on the success of The Da Vinci Code, but lacks the bestseller’s gossipy enthusiasm for history. Even a crackpot theory would be better than none. — CH

OCEAN’S TWELVE (PG-13) Director Steven Soderbergh’s nostalgia for the slick European heist flicks of earlier decades gives the Ocean’s Eleven sequel just enough fizz to make it worthwhile. George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and the rest return for a convoluted series of robberies and double-crosses that feel a little too much like the stars’ own European press tour. Jokes about co-star Julia Roberts’ own celebrity would feel overly self-conscious if they weren’t genuinely funny. — CH

THE POLAR EXPRESS (G) On Christmas Eve, a boy losing faith in Santa Claus rides a magical train to the North Pole. The groundbreaking “performance capture” computer animation captures the expressions of live actors (including Tom Hanks in five roles) with impressive subtlety, but more often the characters look stiff and glassy-eyed. The script feels like a series of false crises, so when the train becomes a roller coaster or when Santa’s elves bungee-jump to avert disaster, Express leaves an aftertaste like tainted egg nog. — CH

RAY (PG-13) Director Taylor Hackford presents a refreshingly candid and earthy biopic of blind pianist Ray Charles (Jamie Foxx), whose womanizing and drug addiction emerge, the film suggests, from a kind of competitiveness with sighted musicians. Roof-rocking tunes like “Hit the Road, Jack” and “What’d I Say” capture the excitement of live performances, while the script and Foxx’s justly praised performance persistently look beneath Charles’ cheerful, avuncular persona to find the fiercely determined artist underneath. — CH

SEED OF CHUCKY (R) In the fifth film of the Child’s Play franchise, psycho doll Chucky (voiced by Brad Dourif) and his murderous bride Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly) are brought back to life by their long-lost, equally plastic son (Billy Boyd), who puzzles over his parents’ homicidal ways. Tilly proves a great sport by playing herself as a grasping has-been in a film that finds consistent laughs about Hollywood, the recovery movement and modern parenting. If you can get past the gore — and with glimpses of steaming entrails, that’s a pretty big “if” — you’ll find Seed a silly, sloppy, yet surprisingly funny piece of no-budget drive-in schlock. — CH

SHARK TALE (PG) A too-obvious message movie about keepin’ it real and accepting “different” children, this computer-animated undersea comedy has its share of laughs but is no Shrek or Finding Nemo. It lands all the fish puns Nemo threw back, some in the name of product placement. (Kelpy Kreme Doughnuts, anyone?). Amid such fine voice actors as Will Smith, Renée Zellweger and Jack Black, Martin Scorsese, of all people, turns out to be the breakout talent. — SW

SEX IS COMEDY (NR) If sex is so funny, why is no one laughing in controversial French director Catherine Breillat’s (Romance) insufferable “making-of” film inspired by her work on the teenage sex drama Fat Girl? Anne Parillaud (La Femme Nikita) plays Breillat as an autocratic director trying to wrest, by force, seduction or mind-fuck, the desired performance out of her reluctant male lead (Grégoire Colin), who literally can’t get it up for her film’s sex scene. Breillat obviously imagines Sex is Comedy as some kind of penetrating look at the power dynamic between a female director and her male actor, but seems more intent on portraying herself as an intensely desirable, psychologically complex soul forced to grapple with dopey actors to get what she wants. — FF

SHALL WE DANCE (PG-13) Only subtlety is lost in the translation of the 1997 Japanese film about a contented married man (Richard Gere) who becomes happy when he takes ballroom dancing lessons from Jennifer Lopez. This remake, directed by Englishman Peter Chelsom, seems so thoroughly American it’s surprising how little was actually changed. The lack of communication between Gere and wife Susan Sarandon doesn’t ring true, while Audrey Wells’ screenplay manages to be both deeper and more frivolous than the original. We’ll show the Japanese they can’t beat us at either end of the emotional spectrum! — SW

SIDEWAYS (R) A failed novelist (Paul Giamatti) takes his oldest friend, a has-been actor (Thomas Haden Church) for a pre-wedding trip through California wine country in the latest examination of American mediocrity from About Schmidt director Alexander Payne. The film expounds a surprisingly sincere belief in wine as a metaphor for life, and for a while unfolds as a mellow, impeccably acted idyll (with terrific supporting turns from Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh). Payne eventually sheds his merciless insights on his self-absorbed male characters, but like a fine wine, his harsh sensibilities have mellowed with age. — CH

THE SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS MOVIE (PG) When Plankton frames Mr. Krabs for stealing King Neptune’s crown, his fry cook SpongeBob SquarePants boldly volunteers to retrieve the crown from dangerous Shell City to save his life. The film feels just like a super-long, but still-funny version of the Nickelodeon show with enough pop culture jokes to please adults and more than enough nonsense to amuse kids. After all, the main character is a sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea. — HK

UNDERTOW (R) A grieving widower (Dermot Mulroney) attempts to raise two difficult sons (including Billy Elliott’s Jamie Bell) in a Dixie domestic drama that quickly turns into a chilling mood piece. Filmmaker David Gordon Green cultivates a mood of impending bloodshed that pays homage to the Southern thrillers of the 1970s like Deliverance. But when the film becomes a more conventional tale of pursuit, the suspense leaches out and the archetypes feel increasingly artificial — CH