1/2
HIGH TENSION (R) Ultra-intense, unabashedly nasty and a big hit in Europe last year, the French slasher film High Tension (also known as Haut Tension and as Switchblade Romance) finally gets its American release, trimmed of a few gory moments in order to snag an audience-friendly "R" rating, and with several scenes newly dubbed in English to accommodate the subtitle-shy, multiplex masses. Luckily, the movie's best moments are essentially dialogue-free, so the dubbing is only occasionally a serious distraction, and most of the film's steadily mounting tension and big shocks are communicated just fine. High Tension is basically a straight-up, old-school slasher flick, albeit one crafted handsomely enough to almost transcend its influences, and with a curious and controversial 11th-hour twist that redefines the movie's sexual politics. A family locked in an isolated country home with a psycho killer is really all you need to know about this one, but proceed with caution. Stars Cecile de France, Maiwenn le Besco and Philippe Nahon.
1/2
THE HONEYMOONERS (PG-13) Cedric the Entertainer is no Jackie Gleason and Mike Epps is certainly no Art Carney, but both revisit the roles of those late actors in this Hollywood update of The Honeymooners. Your typical movie method for success applies: re-cast the classic characters with recognizable names, make the story only marginally similar to that of the show, and throw in a few memorable lines and musical refrains just in case someone in the audience actually watched the original television sitcom. But the loss of the show's spirit, the ridiculous plot and the predictable outcome are not really the film's downfall - The Honeymooners just isn't that funny. Also stars Gabrielle Union, Regina Hall and John Leguizamo.
1/2
-Zach Rosenfeld
HOUSE OF WAX (R) If you're expecting anything remotely like a remake of the 1953 Vincent Price film by the same title, forget it. What we have here is one of those ultra-aggressive, modern-day descendants of the slasher movie and the Texas Chainsaw school. There are lots of creepy mannequins on display, the one big holdover from the original House of Wax, but the movie mostly eschews atmosphere in order to do what's expected of it. Half of the film is devoted to young girls wandering around in tight T-shirts and putting themselves and their studmuffin boyfriends in jeopardy, while the other half (well, maybe not a full half, but it feels like it) is comprised of extremely freakish and brutal sequences of torture and death. To the movie's credit, it does what it does pretty well, and some of its imagery is genuinely disturbing in a borderline surreal way. Stars Paris Hilton, Elisha Cuthbert, Chad Michael Murray, Brian Van Holt and Jared Padalecki.
IN MY COUNTRY (R) Samuel L. Jackson stars as an African-American journalist sent to South Africa to cover a national conference in which the old demons of Apartheid are conjured up and confronted. The movie clearly wants us to think long and hard about the evils that humans perpetrate upon one another, but it pounds its messages home in stilted and hopelessly heavy-handed fashion, even as it's unable to resist throwing in a cheesy and completely unnecessary romance between Jackson's character and an Afrikaans poet (Juliette Binoche) that only makes all the political sermonizing all the more difficult to swallow. Also stars Brendan Gleeson.
KICKING & SCREAMING (PG) Despite the title, this is a curiously listless comedy from wild man Will Ferrell. The former SNL player isn't given much room to stretch or improvise as the incompetent coach of a kids' soccer team, and there are even more wasted opportunities when Ferrell finds himself competing against the league's Ubercoach - his own bullying, alpha-male dad (Robert Duvall). There are a few amusing moments as Ferrell's character finds his inner sports jerk and transitions from mild-mannered to over-caffeinated and hyper-aggressive, but Kicking & Screaming is, for the most part, formulaic family fun, with an assembly-line feel to nearly every aspect of the project. Also stars Mike Ditka and Kate Walsh.
KINGDOM OF HEAVEN (R) Ridley Scott's two-and-a-half hour epic about the religious Crusades of the middle ages is a rigorously even-handed epic about a subject over which, nearly a millennium later, passions still run dangerously high. The film treads so gingerly on its core conflict, in fact, that it feels very nearly drained of passion - perhaps the deadliest sin for a movie that is ostensibly about, above all else, passion. Kingdom of Heaven is too long by at least half an hour, its central figure (a blacksmith-turned-knight portrayed by Orlando Bloom) is curiously uncharismatic, and too much of its running time is taken up with speechmaking and pretty platitudes. Also stars Jeremy Irons, Liam Neeson, Eva Green, David Thewlis, Ghassan Massoud and Brendan Gleeson.
