Short reviews of movies playing throughout the Tampa Bay area.
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A Beautiful Mind (PG-13) Russell Crowe is the main reason to see this atypically twisty Ron Howard production, the Academy Award winner for Best Picture, about an emotionally fragile genius whose life spins out of control in all sorts of unexpected ways. 
About a Boy (PG-13) It's a long way from American Pie to this compact little charmer about the redemption of a sexual predator, but that's exactly the journey taken by writer-directors Paul and Chris Weitz. About a Boy is based on a 1998 book by popular Brit novelist Nick Hornby (High Fidelity) and boasts a clever, snappy script co-written by Peter Hedges, whose A Map of the World and What's Eating Gilbert Grape are among the most original pieces of Hollywood screenwriting of recent years. The best thing about the film, though, is Hugh Grant, whose performance as a shallow skirt-chaser avoids most of the actor's trademark ticks and flutters, and manages to be both winningly narcissistic and sweetly self-deprecating. The core of the film is about the bond that forms between Grant's character and the young boy he's using as a prop to seduce single moms, but the movie is usually smart enough to avoid tugging too hard on our collective heartstrings. Also stars Toni Collette, Rachel Weisz and Nicholas Hoult. Opens May 17 at local theaters.
Big Trouble (PG-13) Barry Sonnenfeld's zany, dark-ish ensemble comedy is generally very funny, in a relentlessly quirky sort of way (just as you'd expect from a project closely based on a Dave Barry book). All of the sundry characters bounce around merrily during the movie's blessedly brief 80-some minute running time, with their life paths occasionally intersecting and eventually colliding en masse at the film's point of no return. Stars Tim Allen, Dennis Farina, Janeane Garofalo, Jason Lee, Rene Russo, Tom Sizemore, Stanley Tucci and Patrick Warburton.
Blade II (R) Wesley Snipes returns as Marvel Comics' hybrid human-vampire super-hero in a sequel that's decidedly scarier — and gorier — than the original. The story, while not exactly elaborate, boasts an interesting enough premise: Blade enters into an uneasy alliance with his arch foes in order to eliminate a deadly new mutant strain of uber-vampires.
The Cat's Meow (PG-13) This semi-successful comeback project for director Peter Bogdanovich (Paper Moon, The Last Picture Show) is loosely based on actual events that took place late in 1924. The film is half-serious and half-humorous as it goes about the business of positing what might have happened during a curious weekend cruise aboard a yacht owned by William Randolph Hearst — a cruise in which one of the guests mysteriously died. Screenwriter Steven Peros puts a goodly amount of clever, witty words in most everyone's mouth at one point or another, but there's really not much to the movie, and matters begin to noticeably drag less than half way in. 
Changing Lanes (R) Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson star as two guys who literally crash into each other in a fender bender that escalates into a strange vendetta. The film is more complex and nuanced than we might imagine in a big-budget film. The only real problem with the lean and edgy story is the slightly flabby treatment given to it by director Roger Michell. Also stars Toni Collette, Sydney Pollack, William Hurt and Amanda Peet.
Clockstoppers (PG) Take the girls and boys after an afternoon at Limited II and the arcade to see this youthful entertainment; however, we're not saying for sure if you, the parents/babysitter/sucker, will enjoy it. The Nickelodeon film centers on teenager Zak (Jesse Bradford) who inadvertently freezes time. Also stars Paula Garces, Jonathan Frakes, French Stewart, Michael Biehn and Julia Sweeney.
(Not reviewed)
Deuces Wild (R) A clumsy, cliched and heavy-handed tale of gang turf wars in 1950s Brooklyn, this is one of the worst movies of its kind in memory. All the standard elements are here — a trio of brothers (one of whom ODs, leaving the other two to squabble), a gang member who falls for the sister of someone from a rival gang, lots of slo-mo rumbles during raging thunderstorms — while the movie's fathers are basically all absent and the mothers are all saints, nutcases or alcoholics. Deuces Wild is as operatic and excessive as early Scorsese, but most of it verges on unintentional caricature, so cheesy it might have been enjoyable if only it didn't take itself so seriously. 
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (PG) The quintessential Steven Spielberg project — although far from his best movie — has returned to theaters on the occasion of its 20th Anniversary, complete with a smattering of unseen footage, new computer-generated enhancements and a digitally remixed soundtrack. E.T. yanks fiercely at our heartstrings with its story of a lonely little boy who befriends a wise, powerful and, in its own gnarly way, cuddly little alien. Stars Dee Wallace Stone, Peter Coyote, Drew Barrymore and Henry Thomas.
Festival in Cannes (PG-13) Although Festival in Cannes manages to qualify as one of Henry Jaglom's least irritating pictures (largely due to the fact that the perpetually whiny and self-obsessed filmmaker is not actually on screen in this one), the movie does little to negate the notion that Jaglom remains one of the worst filmmakers around. The setting this time out is the Cannes Film Festival, and Jaglom's mostly improvised scenes involve a series of romantic and business liaisons that emerge and entwine in a variety of awkward and unconvincing ways. Stars Anouk Aimee, Maximilian Schell, Greta Scacchi and many others.
Frailty (R) Bill Paxton directs and stars in this atmospheric thriller about a rural Texas family of serial killers who believe they're getting their orders from God himself. For the most part, Frailty is an engrossing experience, a Southern Gothic creepfest. Also stars Matthew McConaughey and Powers Boothe.
Frank McCluskey, C.I. (PG-13) Unknown actor Dave Sheridan stars in what one viewer on IMDB calls Ace Ventura-style fun. How original. Anyway, there's an impressive list of cameos: Dolly Parton, Kevin Pollak, Enrico Colantoni (Just Shoot Me), Andy Richter, Tracy Morgan and Adam Carolla.
(Not Reviewed)
Gosford Park (PG-13) Gosford Park is Robert Altman's spin on one of those English dramas where a bunch of well-heeled types congregate at someone's swanky country estate for the weekend and, eventually, someone gets murdered. Stars Emily Watson, Ryan Phillippe, Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith, Jeremy Northam and Alan Bates.
High Crimes (PG-13) Everything's coming up roses for successful, attractive, happily married yuppie lawyer Claire (Ashley Judd) — that is, until she discovers that her sweet, reliable hubby (Jim Caviezel) has been leading a double life and now finds himself on trial for participating in a military massacre in El Salvador many years ago. There are way too many implausible plot points and predictable turns in this atypically ham-fisted effort from director Carl Franklin (One False Move), but the film's really no worse than your standard made-for-cable thriller. 
Hollywood Ending (PG-13) Although it's not exactly up there with Day for Night and The Player, Woody Allen's latest is a tasty little addition to that distinctive not-quite-genre of movies about the making of movies. The central conceit of Hollywood Ending is almost perfect in its succinct exaggeration — a blind man getting away with directing a big Hollywood movie — but, as in Allen's recent Curse of the Jade Scorpion (in which love was posited as a form of hypnotic suggestion), the filmmaker doesn't really do enough with that conceit once it's introduced. Allen stars as a neurotic (what else?) has-been director who's given a chance to jumpstart his career by helming a picture produced by his ex-wife (Tea Leoni) and her new boyfriend, a big-shot studio shark (Treat Williams). The movie is consistently amusing, with some nice bits stemming from the hysterical blindness Allen's character succumbs to in the second half, but Hollywood Ending never really maximizes its considerable potential as a satire of the movie biz.
Ice Age (PG) Not many surprises await but there are pleasures enough in this good-looking, pleasantly slapsticky animation about a band of mismatched animals on a trek to return an abandoned human infant to its rightful guardians.
Italian for Beginners (R) A Dogme film for people hate Dogme films, Italian for Beginners takes a thoroughly ordinary, often silly story and adds handheld cameras and the other anti-tricks of the Dogme crowd, as if all this will somehow turn cliche into art. It doesn't. Director Lone Scherfig throws together a half-dozen lonely and somewhat eccentric thirtysomethings and allows them to gradually and, generally, quite implausibly come together, filming the process in the gritty, no-frills manner proscribed by the Dogme manifesto. 
Jason X (R) Trashy, gruesomely bloody, self-mocking fun, if you go in for this sort of thing. Jason X takes the iconic, hockey mask-wearing maniac from Friday the 13th and jettisons him (and the series) into the distant future — the year 2455, to be exact — where Jason is revived aboard a spaceship where no one apparently has any use for electricity, and most of the female crew members look and behave like fashion models in heat. Unsurprisingly, there's virtually no plot here — the unkillable Jason simply lumbers about the ship graphically chopping up the crew one by one — although the movie is surprisingly stylish and contains its share of darkly funny moments that keep things watchable. The whole thing is a big-time guilty pleasure.
Life or Something Like It (PG-13) Angelina Jolie stars as Lanie Kerrigan, a popular and aggressively shallow Seattle television personality whose perfect life is forever rattled when a homeless seer with an alarmingly high accuracy rate (Tony Shalhoub), summarily informs her that she has one week to live. It's not exactly rocket science or poetry, but in the hands of a more accomplished filmmaker it's doubtful that it would all have seemed so routine or hopelessly transparent. Also stars Stockard Channing.
Monsoon Wedding (PG-13) Mira Nair's new film takes all the exuberance and exotic color of a big budget Bollywood spectacle and combines it with the layered, multiple story lines and witty social observations of a Robert Altman film. The event around which all the various story strands whirl is an upper-middle class wedding, although the director leaves herself enough room around the edges to examine a variety of different social strata, attitudes and ethnicities. 
Monster's Ball (R) The film is essentially about two very different people whose lives happen to intersect at a given moment when both are very much in need of something that the other is able to give. That one of the characters is black and the other white (and a bigot to boot), just makes the film all the more interesting, although by the end Monster's Ball winds up coming a little too close to simply being a morality play about the redemption of a racist.
Murder by Numbers (R) A pair of too-smart-for-their-own-good, Nietzsche-worshiping rich kids attempt to pull off the perfect crime — or, more accurately, a perfect philosophical crime — but may just have met their match in a brilliant but emotionally damaged homicide detective (Sandra Bullock). The movie gets in some good licks on the kinky relationship between sex, violence and incipient fascism, but by its last act Murder by Numbers just can't help but reveal itself as a fairly ordinary thriller. Also stars Ryan Gosling, Michael Pitt and Ben Chaplin.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding (PG) Nia Vardalos stars in this sweet-natured, sporadically amusing adaptation of her one-woman show about a plain Greek-American woman who transforms herself into a babe and hooks up with her Prince Charming — who, much to the chagrin of her loud and proud Greek family, turns out to be as WASPy as they come. It's nice to see the specifically Greek spin placed on this familiar scenario, but the film is more often concerned with cute, snappy and occasionally sappy one-liners than in any sustained emotional or comedic momentum, coasting on material that probably worked better on stage than on the big screen. Also stars John Corbett, Michael Constantine, Lainie Kazan and Andrea Martin.
The New Guy (PG-13) Painfully unfunny comedy about a high school dweeb who, under the dubious guidance of a crazy con, re-invents himself as the coolest kid in class. Written and directed by a couple of Farrelly Brothers wannabes, The New Guy specializes in humor grounded in pain, cruelty and physical deformities, and features some of the most aggressively stupid and unfocused attempts at comedy since Freddy Got Fingered. That it can do all this and still manage to feel bland and even corny is itself quite a feat. The highlight of the movie is Lyle Lovett being hit in the eye by a flaming marshmallow. Stars DJ Qualls, Eliza Dushku, Zooey Deschanel and a string of pointless cameos by the likes of Henry Rollins, Gene Simmons, Tommy Lee and skateboarder Tony Hawk.
Ocean Men (PG) As beautiful and bombastic as a Wagner opera, this latest IMAX documentary tells the story of the friendly (and sometimes not-so-friendly) competition between two world-class athletes, each striving to dive to unimaginable depths without the aid of any sort of breathing apparatus. At IMAX Channelside.
Panic Room (R) The latest from David Fincher (Seven, Fight Club) is a modern riff on such classic home-invasion exploitation films as Wait Until Dark and Lady in a Cage. A newly divorced mother (Jodie Foster) and her young daughter (Kristen Stewart) awaken to discover armed intruders lurking just outside their bedroom doors. Foster turns in another finely nuanced performance as the imperiled heroine, as does Forest Whitaker as the intruder with a conscience.
The Rookie (G) An inspirational sports movie with a local hook, The Rookie is a slight but absolutely sincere sort of tall tale that also happens to be true. The local hook in the story of The Rookie is that the film's hero, Jimmy Morris (Dennis Quaid), makes good on his childhood dream and, at the relatively advanced age of thirtysomething, finds himself playing major league baseball for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. The Rookie is filled with handsome production values and serviceable performances; it's all uplifting but not terribly interesting or authentic.
The Scorpion King (PG-13) Dying to see The Rock in a loincloth and a mullet, opening up one can of whupass after another? Then by all means hurry to your nearest megaplex and catch The Scorpion King. This blatant attempt to turn The Rock (who has acting chops of stone) into the next Arnold or Sly is based in a time before the pyramids when a really nasty guy named Memnon was trying to take over the known world. It falls to Mathayus (The Rock), who comes from a nearly extinct race of assassin/mercenaries, to stop him. Chuck Russell directs this inane epic with a sledgehammer, and trots out every action/adventure cliche imaginable.
—Eric Snider
Showtime (PG-13) This lazily scripted, cookie cutter project teams Eddie Murphy and Robert De Niro as a pair of squabbling, mismatched cops who become the stars of a new reality TV show. Showtime throws in a sprinkling of lame jokes, a big car chase or two, and a routine subplot having something to do with an Eastern European baddie with a new armor-piercing gun, but the movie basically just seems to be treading water for its entire running time.
Space Station (PG) New Imax featurette documenting a pair of voyages to the international space station floating high above planet Earth. The multinational crews include a mix of American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts. Opens May 18 at IMAX Dome Theater.
(Not Reviewed)
Spider-Man (PG) Sam Raimi's big screen adaptation of Spider-Man is surprisingly faithful to Spidey's origins as an outsider superhero, even if the edges have been smoothed out a touch. The movie's first half lays the story out in a manner that has all the symmetry and primal oomph of modern myth, with Peter Parker spending most of the movie simply adjusting to his new powers (we don't even see Spidey in full costume until a full hour into the movie). The movie's first part is so compelling, in fact, that what comes after is something of a let-down. Even though the second half of Spider-Man is infinitely more action-packed than the set-up, the movie gives the distinct impression of slowing down as it progresses. This is partially due to the film's later sections switching the emphasis from Spidey to his nemesis, the Green Goblin, who looks a little too much like an overgrown Japanese action toy and is played with a bit too much hammy gusto by Willem Dafoe. The main reason the movie's second half suffers, however, is due to the fundamental shift from characters to CGI-dominated action — and, frankly, some of the digital effects aren't quite up to the task. None of this will keep the crowds from flocking to Spider-Man, of course, nor should it. Raimi, who proved his mastery of the comic book sensibility in Darkman as well as his Evil Dead movies, has basically done right by this seminal superhero. Also stars Kirsten Dunst and James Franco.
The Sweetest Thing (R) Even Cameron Diaz's considerable charm can't save this disjointed and extremely unappealing effort about a commitment-phobic party girl who meets Mr. Right. The Sweetest Thing awkwardly straddles the line between standard romantic comedy fluff and quasi-edgy American Pie-styled gross-out humor, and isn't particularly convincing at either.
Triumph of Love (PG-13) Mira Sorvino stars as a cross-dressing princess in this self- consciously arty adaptation of a forgettable 18th Century play by Marvaux. Clare Peploe (wife of the film's producer, Bernardo Bertolucci) directs with a gratuitous flurry of jump cuts and postmodern flourishes almost completely at odds with the light and airy nature of what is basically just a predictable romantic comedy in which all the characters are buffoons, caricatures or both. Obviously, it ain't Shakespeare in Love, but some of the performances are worth a look, so you could do worse. Also stars Fiona Shaw, Jay Rodan and Ben Kingsley. Opens May 17 at Channelside Cinemas. Call to confirm.
Y Tu Mama Tambien (NR) Alternately exuberant, wry and bittersweet, this blatantly sexual Mexican import is something of a road-trip movie as well as a coming of age film. Best pals Tenoch and Julio (Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna from Amores Perros) are typical happy-go-lucky, hormone-crazed, teen party animals, who can barely believe their luck when an attractive older woman (Maribel Verdu), impulsively agrees to come with them on a trip to the beach. Y Tu Mama Tambien trades in material that in Hollywood would most likely translate into another variation on American Pie. Here it makes for one hell of a movie.
Ultimate X (PG) Not your standard IMAX movie by a long shot, Ultimate X cops an attitude that's almost as edgy and irreverent as its subject matter — those Extreme Sports featured in ESPN's popular X Games, like BMX biking, skateboarding, street luge, wakeboarding, speed climbing and all other manner of daredevil events. Forget all that natural beauty and educational stuff associated with virtually every other IMAX movie you've ever seen. Ultimate X starts off with Black Sabbath's Paranoid blaring to images of kamikaze athletes careening through the air barely connected to their motorbikes, and then just takes off from there. The talking heads are held to a merciful minimum and are basically just there to clarify that these folks are indeed true world-class athletes (as well as being insane). The stunts and tricks are spectacular, and so are the wipeouts. Features skaters Tony Hawk, Bob Burnquist and Bucky Lasek, BMX stunt riders Ryan Nyquist and Cory Nasty Nastazio and Moto X rider Carey Hart. At Channelside IMAX. Call theater to confirm.
Unfaithful (R) A tale of marital deception that starts out as a fairly standard erotic thriller but becomes much more interesting in its later stages, when it tackles the aftermath of the affair. Diane Lane stars as a more-or-less happy suburban housewife who enters into a steamy affair with a sexy French bohemian (Olivier Martinez) who soon has her reading esoteric poetry, attending Jacques Tati film festivals and engaging in mildly kinky sex in public bathrooms. Lane (who's quite convincing as a woman both thrilled and repelled by what she's doing) and hubby Richard Gere sink gradually into an abyss of secrets and lies, with the movie's real strength being the unflinching detailing of that unhappy process. The film is a remake of Claude Chabrol's 1969 La Femme Infidele and, while Chabrol's skewering of bourgeois respectability doesn't translate completely successfully to 21st Century American culture, Unfaithful still manages to get most of the important stuff right.
We Were Soldiers (R) Braveheart goes to 'Nam. Reuniting with Braveheart writer Randall Wallace, Mel Gibson stars as another heroic leader of men — Lt. Col. Hal Moore, a tough but fair career soldier who leads his troops into the first real battle of the Vietnam war.
World Traveler (R) Dull, doomy and terribly self-important, this new slab of navel gazing from Bart Freundlich, director of The Myth of Fingerprints, stars Billy Crudup as good looking but otherwise ordinary guy who one day just ups and leaves his wife and young son and takes off for parts unknown. Where he winds up is on a path of what presumably has something to do with self discovery, but mostly entails a lot of booze, one-night stands and blank stares into space. The model here is clearly Five Easy Pieces and road trips of that ilk, but in the almost entirely pointless, unoriginal and unbearably pretentious World Traveler, nothing is delivered. Also stars Julianne Moore and Karen Allen. Opens May 17 at Tampa Theatre. Call to confirm.
—Reviewed entries by Lance Goldenberg unless otherwise noted
This article appears in May 15-21, 2002.