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Description
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Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius
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This animated Nickelodeon feature introduces us to Jimmy Neutron, a futuristic kid who leads his elementary school pals and his robot dog Goddard on an adventure to save their parents from green aliens who've abducted them and intend to feed them to a giant three-headed chicken creature. It's pretty entertaining for a kid flick, but basically just a long cartoon.
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Joe Somebody
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Tim Allen learns self-defense to stand up to a workplace bully who beats him up in front of his 12-year old daughter and then he decides not to fight because "it's wrong". Early on I thought we might be headed for some real action and humor, but it soon became clear that we were headed for warmth and cuddles and the Kleenex box.
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The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring
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I really enjoyed the movie and found it to be faithful to the book in many areas, especially the action at the Bridge of Khazad-Dûm and the evil Balrog. I was a little disappointed in Lothlórien where the beauty of the ancient forest was dimmed and certain details were missing (the gifts of Galadriel including the elven cloaks, brooches and Sam's rope). But overall I liked it a lot and can't wait for next year when Gollum takes center stage.
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Behind Enemy Lines
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Filmed in "Saving Private Ryan" grainy shakyvision, this movie follows a downed U.S. Navy F-18 pilot (Owen Wilson) in wartorn Bosnia. He's just trying to stay alive long enough to be rescued although it seems like everyone's trying to kill him and you can't tell who's your enemy and who's your friend. Lots of action. I wish Owen Wilson would fix his crooked nose. Better than "Spy Game", this movie was almost a "double duck".
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Ocean's Eleven
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A star-packed movie about a ridiculously impossible Las Vegas casino robbery. George Clooney gets out of prison and recruits 11 wacko friends to rob three casinos. After the big buildup, they go after just one casino, the Bellagio, you really only get to know 6 of the 11, and the ending sucks. The middle parts are pretty good and it keeps you entertained, so it was kind of on-par with "Rat Race" from earlier this year.
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Spy Game
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A retiring spook in the CIA (Robert Redford) shows loyalty to his young protegé (Brad Pitt) who's in trouble in China by bailing him out using his retirement money and some unauthorized military action. This movie is told through some very long flashbacks and it lost me somewhere in Beirut in the 1980's.
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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
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Young Harry Potter finds himself the unlikely center of attraction and fame in Hogwarts, a school for young witches and wizards in present-day England. I found this movie to be very entertaining and it shows you can make a really good PG movie. The special effects were very good without totally overwhelming the plot and there was very good character development. I can see this very easily being made into several sequels, well, at least until the young actors/actresses begin outgrowing their parts.
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The Heist
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This movie has strong similarities to this year's "The Score". Gene Hackman is an aging thief who's just about ready to retire, but he has one more job to pull. Danny DeVito is a mobster who wants to make sure he's not double-crossed with "the Swiss job" and insists on adding a young up-and-comer to the team. Things go predictably awry, the young kid gets the old man's wife, but the old guy shows comes through in the end.
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Monsters Inc.
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This animated Pixar film for the kids shows you that monsters aren't all bad, in fact they're actually scared of you. The plot's pretty simple, but the animation's great and the details of Sulley's fur was especially impressive. The chase scene through the door repository was pretty breathtaking too.
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The One
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Jet Li is just an ordinary guy (in the LAPD) who encounters a deadly version of himself from another dimension of the "multiverse" who is bent on killing all the other versions to gain their speed and power. I liked some of the futuristic sets and special effects (travel through the interdimensional wormhole looked painful), the martial arts was OK but not spectacular, but the plot and character development were very thin.
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Bandits
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Take Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Etta Place, move them to the present day California coast, add a slightly different ending (trapped by the LAPD instead of the Bolivian army) and you've basically got Bandits. The "sleepover bandits" are nice bank robbers who never shoot anybody and have a pretty simple plan for getting cash without getting caught. And even though the plan breaks down from time-to-time, they still manage to get away with the cash.
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Iron Monkey
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It's the good guys versus bad guys with lots of leaping and kicking and floating in this traditional Chinese kung fu film set in old China in 1858. Yep, it's subtitled again, but it's still very watchable. The Iron Monkey is a sort of Robin Hood who teams up with Miss Orchid, and another kung fu master and his kid from another town to confront the evil governor. The hapless bad guys are seriously overmatched except for the final evil Imperial Minister who comes up with a magic flying sleeve trick. It's pretty amusing.
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Training Day
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Denzel Washington is a rough, no-nonsense L.A. narcotics detective who makes all the big arrests. A rookie cop wants to join his team. The rookie has one day to prove himself. He has no idea that he's expected to die as things go terribly bad, per plan. Gritty, intense and violent. You hope this nasty stuff doesn't really happen, but who knows. I liked it, however it's such a dark story I'm not sure I can give it my lightning bolt "Go see it" recommendation.
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The Deep End
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We all have family problems, but in this movie a Lake Tahoe mom suffers more than her fair share and holds up extremely well considering what life begins to throw at her - an absent husband, a frail hospitalized father-in-law, a troubled gay son, an accidental death she fears will be blamed on her son, and blackmail followed by physical abuse. She holds herself together surprisingly well as life grinds her down.
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Ghosts Of Mars
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The intro and first 10 minutes are fine; the rest of the movie is totally forgettable. An evil airborne entity is causing the colonizers of Mars to go crazy, causing them to dress up like the rock group Kiss and cut off peoples heads and hang their blood-dripping bodies from the ceiling. It continues like this for another hour and a half.
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American Outlaws
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A highly romanticized version of Jesse James' early years when he hitched up with the Younger gang to rob banks so he could teach the railroad barons and the Pinkerton detective agency a lesson. In this movie he doesn't shoot any innocent people, he's ruggedly handsome and goes off to live in peace in Tennessee with a pretty California surfer-girl. I found it mildly entertaining.
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Rat Race
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Modeled after "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World" and loaded with stars (Whoopi Goldberg, Cuba Gooding Jr. and others) you'd expect a lot more laughs from this movie than it delivers. There are glimmers of comedy, but most of the gags are drawn-out way too long and it never seems to be that much of a race. It's mostly a ho-hummer of a movie, but I did like Amy Smart as a crazed helicoper pilot.
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Osmosis Jones
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Chris Rock is the voice of Osmosis Jones, a white blood cell inside of Bill Murray. This mix of animation and live action shows how your body copes with all the silly things you do to yourself. While it has a few moments, most of this comedy is set at a low brow potty humor level that's most suitable for adolescents.
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Evolution
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What do you get when a meteor slams into northern Arizona? Well you might get lots of dangerous critters (who look a lot like dinosaurs) that are evolving at an incredible rate and threaten to overrun Page, Arizona and Glen Canyon dam. Fortunately the local boys (David Duchovny and Orlando Jones) are up to the task and dispatch the intruders, no thanks to the Feds who muddy the water and almost get everyone killed. It's an average movie, but pretty silly and predictable.
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Rush Hour 2
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Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker reprise their roles as cops from opposite sides of the Pacific ocean who somehow figure out how to work together (with the usual physical action and wise-cracks) to trash the baddies in Hong Kong and Las Vegas. Not much plot, but it's good to see the boys together again and watching an occasional mindless movie is good fun.
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Planet Of The Apes
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A spaceman accidentally gets thrown forward into time and into a world where apes rule (don't call them monkeys). In this version the humans can talk, but the apes are incredibly nasty and agile (boy can they leap). The ending is a real cop-out, but the movie keeps your interest and the ape costume/makeup is tremendous - they really look good.
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Jurassic Park III
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Surprisingly, I liked this one. The plot was simple, there was lots of action and lots of angry dinos, the effects were very good and it moved along at a good pace. They didn't show any really gross stuff so it would be okay for kids. A good summertime flick.
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The Score
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Robert DeNiro is a long-time professional thief who's never been caught because he knows how to evaluate and manage risk. Edward Norton is his young accomplice who wants the quick big score. Guess who comes out on top? Norton is full of energy in this picture, DeNiro calmly plods through it and Marlon Brando has a small part and is just coasting (but I bet he made the big bucks).
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Final Fantasy
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Set in the far future when Earth has succumbed to a host of ethereal critters let loose from the interior of a meteor, our heroine seeks the eight spirits which will unleash the healing forces of Gaia from within the Earth itself. Well forget all that stuff - this fully-animated film will just blow you away with its incredibly lifelike digital effects, particularly how it handles the extremely subtle nuances of human skin, hair, facial expression and body motion. Sometime in the near future we're not going to need actors and actresses anymore.
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Cats and Dogs
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Boy, I can't believe what they can do with computers these days! A whole movie of talking cats and dogs. The evil Mr. Tinkles (a white Persian cat) wants to make all humans allergic to dogs, but our hero Lou (a standard beagle) joins with his fellow canine agents to save the day. Great for its target audience of the elementary school set, but kinda average for us adults (although I really liked the ninja cats).
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Kiss Of The Dragon
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Jet Li finds himself in Paris and at odds with police inspector Richard and his crooked police buddies who are covering up a murder they committed. He quietly and methodically dodges most of the bullets and pretty violently dispatches the villains with martial arts and a wristful of acupuncture needles. Li shows you the Kiss Of The Dragon near the end of the movie.
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A.I. Artificial Intelligence
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An unusual story about a child robot yearning to become a real boy. This schizophrenic blend of wierd Stanley "A Clockwork Orange" Kubrik and sensitive Steven "Close Encounters" Spielberg is not for everyone. It feels like a typical SciFi short-story (an acquired taste), but as such it's a bumpy ride and it doesn't supply all the answers to your questions.
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Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
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You know Lara Croft - she's a rich aristocratic kid who's extremely athletic and into archaeology, sort of a Batman / Indiana Jones. She's even got a sidekick and a butler. Anyway she's out to save the world from the clutches of a secret cult bent on harnessing the power of a magical metal triangle made from a meteor (it could happen). Lots of action, but it didn't grab my fancy the way I was expecting. But I'm betting there'll be a Tomb Raider 2.
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Atlantis
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A gawky teenage kid in glasses rediscovers Atlantis and prevents the bad guys from destroying it. Animated and scripted in traditional Disney style (an old-time hand-drawn look), it starts out slow and builds in intensity and the final 30 minutes are absolutely terrific - I really liked it and almost gave it a "lightning bolt".
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What's The Worst That Could Happen?
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Martin Lawrence (the crook) and Danny DeVito (the sleezy victim) attempt to get the best of each other in a very predictable comedy. Regretably there's very little memorable or new here, each actor playing a role they've done umpteen times before, so the worst that can happen is that you waste two hours in the theater watching this flick. I wouldn't bother if I were you.
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Swordfish
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A slick high-tech baddie named Gabriel (John Travolta in his best role since Face/Off) goes after $9.5 Billion in laundered drug money that the US Government has just left lying around in unused bank accounts. He enlists a "reformed" hacker to help him crack the case. This movie is high energy all the way with a memorable scene early in the movie of a huge explosion viewed in slow motion with a 360-degree sweep. Leave the kiddies at home; crude language and violence make this movie 'R-rated'.
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Pearl Harbor
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The story of Pearl Harbor, mostly as experienced by two young aviators. A standard two hour WWII film stretched to fill three hours; it takes quite a while for the film to gain momentum. The actual battle scenes are quite good, but the melodramatic parts didn't work for me and I think they could have dropped the whole Doolittle raid entirely. While aspiring greatly, this is no "Saving Private Ryan".
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Memento
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A very unusual film. It's a murder mystery, except the murder's no mystery, the movie is all about what led up to it. And that's pretty tough to figure out because the movie is shown backwards, from the ending to the beginning. And its made especially difficult because it's told from the point-of-view of the murderer who happens to be a guy with a special problem - he has no short term memory - so he has to take pictures of everything and write notes on the back of them.
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Shrek
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Animated humorous tale about a big grumpy green ogre (Shrek) just looking for a little privacy and a maiden (Fiona) who's got a big secret that she's afraid to share. Unusual in that it's very watchable by both kids and adults; there's a fair share of kiddy humor and a bunch of adult satire and double entendres. I think you'd have to see it twice to catch all the nuances.
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The Tailor Of Panama
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Pierce Brosnan stars in a "bad British spy gone greedy" story. So greedy that he throws a post-Noriega Panama into international chaos for 15 million dollars with the help of some other sleezy "civil servants". No the tailor wasn't the spy, he was just the unfortunate tool. Believe it or not, only one guy gets killed and it was a suicide. This movie was okay, but really not all that memorable.
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The Mummy Returns
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If you're looking to lose yourself in an old-fashioned summertime action flick, this one's for you. The Mummy is back again and he's doing battle with the Scorpion King to see who's the baddest of the undead and no matter who wins it's not going to be pretty. The action is intense throughout and it pulls you along at a nonstop breathless pace. Way too intense for grade schoolers, but just fine for teens and adults.
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Crocodile Dundee In Los Angeles
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Paul Hogan goes to visit Los Angeles and predictably he still hasn't learned to fit in. This ho-hummer starts out OK and then goes slowly downhill. Unfortunately I had to leave in the middle of the picture to take a phone call (24x7 support), but I saw no compelling reason to return to the theater.
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Spy Kids
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Another one for the kiddies, this time two kids discover their parents are international spies and have to rescue them from the clutches of the bad guys who want to turn them into giant walking toys and then populate the world with lookalike zombie kids with the "third brain" that their dad helped invent. Ho hum. Was too silly, even for me.
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Along Came A Spider
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Morgan Freeman reprises his role of police detective Alex Cross (Kiss The Girls) attempting to solve the kidnapping of a US Senator's young daughter by her teacher (an obsessive loner with a long-term plan) even though she was being protected by the Secret Service. It was OK - a few plot twists kept it somewhat interesting, but I wanted more character development.
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O Brother, Where Art Thou?
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Another outstanding Coen brothers movie. An eclectic comedy about three escaped convicts set in the Depression 1930's Mississippi on a quest to recover buried treasure before the CCC begins filling the location with a lake. Their quest is beset by many perils and some very odd characters and improbable situations, but all turns out well in the end. And they did an outstanding job with the details - you'd swear you'd been transported back in time. Definitely one to see again.
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Recess: School's Out
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For the kids, Disney's animated cartoon feels like an extended Saturday morning episode. It pits the kids and their teachers against an evil group bent on pulling the moon out of its orbit so there's no more summer, or summer vacation. A fairly average romp with not too much to write home about.
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3000 Miles To Graceland
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In a movie reminiscent of Reindeer Games (Santas robbing an Indian casino during Christmas), Kevin Costner and his gang of thugs rob a Vegas Casino (The Riviera) posing as Elvises and then one brutality follows another as they head for the Canadian border. Lotsa bullets and blood in this one and no redeeming social value.
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Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
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Chinese martial arts takes center stage in this action/adventure/romance story about a young girl (Zhang Zi-Yi) with incredible abilities. The action scenes were great, the scenery was great and there were layers upon layers of plot. The only distraction is the dialogue is in Chinese Mandarin with English subtitles so you spend a lot of energy in reading.
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Hannibal
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Sir Anthony Hopkins reprises his role as Hannibal Lector, the doctor with a penchant for consuming human flesh from "The Silence Of The Lambs". The FBI is after him and he gets away again, but not before he gets his dinner (cut fresh and sautéd). It was kind of gross, but not as bad as I expected. The movie itself was just average.
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13 Days
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A suspenseful, realistic and impressive retelling of the Cuban Missile Crisis from the viewpoint of President Kennedy's appointment secretary (played by Kevin Costner). Makes you wonder how we all survived it. They did a good job of recreating the 60's and recapturing the mood and feeling.
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