RECENT RELEASES
300 (R) We've come a long way from Final Fantasy, to the point where it's easy to forget that the digitally tweaked imagery washing over us in 300 is not, strictly speaking, real. The source here is a graphic novel by Frank Miller, and the sense that's imparted is that director Zack Snyder (rebounding nicely from his Dawn of the Dead remake) has imbued the panels not only with motion but also with life. An even more sophisticated blend of human actors and computer-generated environments than what was achieved in Miller's Sin City, 300's virtual universe recreates the battle of Thermopylae, when a small band of Spartan warriors held off a much larger army of Persians in 480 B.C. There's style to burn here and gore aplenty, as three hundred Spartan musclemen (resembling Tom of Finland fantasies in their red capes and black leather jock straps) take on hordes of fantastic and fearsome foes in a spectacle both elegant and unabashedly grisly. The movie is mainly notable for being an amazing technological achievement, but there's an actual story here as well (with some engaging characters and surprisingly smart writing), revealing 300 as something more than simply style for its own sake. Stars Gerald Butler, Lena Headey, Dominic West and Rodrigo Santoro. 3.5 stars
THE ASTRONAUT FARMER (PG) Billy Bob Thornton stars as Charlie Farmer, a more or less ordinary man who — as is required in stories like these — dares to dream an extraordinary dream. Charlie's got an adoring wife (Virginia Madsen), two perfect children and a family farm to run, but it turns out that he once had dreams of being an astronaut, and what he really wants to do is to fly a rocket ship into outer space. That's why Charlie's going broke building that massive rocket in his back yard, and that's why the FBI is monitoring him and everybody in town thinks he's crazy. But of course, those of us in the audience are supposed to understand that he's anything but crazy, except in the best and most inspirational follow-your-dreams sort of way. For every interesting little bit of quirkiness there are two big, uplifting speeches complete with swelling Muzak ("Without our dreams, we're nothing"being the main mantra here), and the movie's pieces fall into place with a perfunctory thud completely at odds with the uplift the story strives for. Also stars Bruce Willis, Bruce Dern and Richard Edson. 2.5 stars
AVENUE MONTAIGNE (PG-13) A frothy French trifle, Avenue Montaigne tells overlapping stories of an alienated concert pianist, an aging (perhaps dying) art collector auctioning off his entire collection, and a soap and stage actress vying for a part in a film by a prestigious American director (played by Sydney Pollack). The action, such as it is, takes place in a Parisian arts district, the epicenter of which is an intimate bistro where all of the characters encounter a waitress named Jessica (Cécile De France) who's just arrived in Paris. Her wide-eyed naiveté in full bloom, she begins to charm the bejesus out of everyone as she delivers orders and wanders through the highfalutin' worlds of these rich and/or famous folk. Each of the characters carries around a bit of angst — the pianist, for instance, is fed up with the stuffiness of the classical-music world and wants out, while his wife prods him to stay. We don't ever get the sense, though, that these people are feeling any genuine pain. 2 stars Call Tampa Theatre for times. —Eric Snider
BLADES OF GLORY (PG-13) Will Ferrell and Jon Heder play rival figure skaters forced to make nice. After Dodgeball and Talladega Nights, Blades of Glory leaves us wondering what sports could possible remain for folks like Ferrell and Ben Stiller to spoof. Ping-pong, anyone? Also stars Amy Poehler, Will Arnett and Jenna Fischer. (Not Reviewed)
BREACH (PG-13) Breach is the true story of FBI counterintelligence agent Robert Hanssen (Chris Cooper), who was arrested in early 2001 (an event that came to be overshadowed by 9/11) as a long-time spy for the Russians. By most accounts responsible for the most devastating security breach in American history, Hanssen wasn't your typical turncoat. He didn't seem to particularly care about the money, and he certainly didn't turn traitor out of some covert sympathy for Communist ideology. Oddly enough, in his way, Hanssen seemed to truly love his country. He was also a devout Catholic who berated staff members for not praying enough, even as he secretly immersed himself in Internet porn, strippers and homemade sex videos. Hanssen was, as should be abundantly clear, a complicated guy, and Cooper's performance — which is the best thing about Breach — does a fine job suggesting the tortured, unknown places where the man's complications dwell. Ryan Phillippe doesn't fare quite as well as Eric O'Neill, the FBI employee assigned to spy on Hanssen, and the script doesn't help by saddling him with some poorly motivated bits and pieces. Still, Breach manages to hold our interest as a competently made thriller, even if its telling winds up being a bit too conventional for such a curious subject. Also stars Laura Linney, Dennis Haysbert and Caroline Dhavernas. 3.5 stars
DREAMGIRLS (PG-13) A uniquely African-American variation on that old Chicago razzle-dazzle, Dreamgirls lunges from one fabulous musical number to the next, a nearly nonstop hit parade with scattered bits of story thrown in during the downtime. Revolving around the rise of a girl-group called The Dreamettes (The Supremes by any other name), Dreamgirls attempts to tell the story of Motown, but it's all so slick and super-sized that it rarely resonates as it should. Ditto for the characters served up here, all of whom double as big, fat cultural icons in a flamboyantly superficial survey of what is arguably black music's most important decade. (For all the outsized drama, Dreamgirls often unintentionally comes pretty darned close to being soul music's Spinal Tap, minus the jokes.) What saves Dreamgirls is that its core performers — particularly Beyonce Knowles, Eddie Murphy and newcomer Jennifer Hudson — are talented and charismatic enough that, even when the material is bogus and the movie is just going through the motions, it's a pleasure to watch the singers and dancers vigorously strutting their stuff. Dreamgirls is mostly empty calories but, like most junk food, it's pretty hard to resist. Also stars Jamie Foxx, Danny Glover, Anika Noni Rose and Keith Robinson. 3 stars
FIRST SNOW (R) Loaded with atmospheric touches, solid performances and a fairly intriguing premise, First Snow is a movie that winds up promising much more than it delivers. Guy Pearce stars as Jimmy Starks, a smooth-talking, self-assured salesman whose life unravels in no uncertain terms after a persuasive psychic informs him that death is imminent. Pearce is quite good as the morally dubious con man, but his character's descent is basically a pretty predictable one, and watching it unfold — which is really all that happens here — becomes a bit tedious. First time director Mark Fergus (one of the screenwriters on Children of Men) fills the film with curious little bits of business that keep things watchable and occasionally even interesting, but there's ultimately somewhat less going on here than meets the eye. Also stars Piper Perabo, William Fichter, J.K. Simmons, Shea Whigham and Rick Gonzales. Opens April 6 at local theaters. 3 stars
GRAY MATTERS (PG-13) Starring as a brother-and-sister so sympatico that people mistake them for boyfriend and girlfriend, the deep-dimpled duo of Heather Graham and Tom Cavanagh (TV's Ed) spew rapid streams of wannabe-clever dialogue even flatter than what you'll hear on this season's Gilmore Girls. The real problems kick in about midway through, when Graham, to her astonishment, finds herself attracted to bro's new gal pal. What follows is so blatantly artificial, so thoroughly wrong-headed, that it's hard to keep from screaming at the screen. The movie's ingratiating sit-com sensibility spins out of control, unintentionally trivializing Graham as she flits around questioning her sexual identity with all the depth and intensity of a saucer-eyed smurf. Bits of calculated "zaniness" periodically materialize, and relief comes only when the closing credits appear. It's a bit like the coming-out episode of Ellen had it been written by Nora Ephron in the later stages of Alzheimer's. Also stars Bridget Moynahan, Sissy Spacek and Alan Cumming. 0.5 star.
THE LAST MIMZY (PG) The story here is actually pretty simple, but it's communicated in such a tedious, convoluted manner that it's hard to get a handle on what's happening until the movie's nearly over and even harder to care. Adorable little Emma (Rhiannon Leigh Wryn) and big brother Noah (Chris O'Neill) discover a box filled with mysterious "toys" that seem to be giving them special powers — although, as it turns out, the children's powers are just one more red herring in a movie filled with them. Very little of what occurs here seems specifically connected to anything else, entire areas of the plot are introduced and then haphazardly discarded, and even the main idea driving the story — some gobbledygook about the toys being beamed here by a future civilization in need of saving — is only explained in what amounts to a perfunctory postscript. Pitched in some bizarre netherworld between kid-friendly fare and adult drama, the movie gussies itself up with what is essentially very slight material with baroque visual effects and contrived narrative flourishes that are probably supposed to pass as sophisticated but that only add to the general air of incoherence. Also stars Timothy Hutton, Joely Richardson, Rainn Wilson, and Michael Clarke Duncan. 2 stars
THE LOOKOUT (R) Screenwriter Scott Frank (Get Shorty, Out of Sight) makes his directorial debut with this much anticipated thriller about a brain-damaged janitor (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who winds up involved in a bank robbery. Also stars Jeff Daniels, Matthew Goode and Isla Fisher. (Not Reviewed)
MEET THE ROBINSONS (G) A Jimmy Neutron-like boy genius time-travels to the future where wacky adventures await with the titular, space-age family. Treat the kiddies (and yourself) to an even bigger kick by checking out the 3-D version of this latest Disney digital animation, playing at a handful of Bay area theaters (including Regal Citrus Park). Features the voices of Angela Bassett, Tom Selleck, Harland Williams, Adam West and Laurie Metcalf. (Not Reviewed)
THE MESSENGERS (PG-13) A city couple (Dylan McDermott and Penelope Ann Miller), complete with cherubic toddler and disaffected teen daughter, move to a secluded farmhouse — where, in the tradition of these sorts of movies, bad things begin to happen, pretty much as you'd expect them to. Creepy sounds go bump in the night, mysterious stains appear that just won't wash away, moldy apparitions appear to be scuttling up walls and across ceilings, and every few scenes or so there's a very loud noise or shock cut specifically designed for no purpose other than to say "Boo!" Oh yeah, and then there's that lone locked room that appears to be the epicenter of evil, at least one character who becomes demonically possessed and a grand finale in which the house inevitably goes all Amityville on everyone's asses. We might be able to forgive the blatant cut-and-paste nature of The Messengers, which is the English-language debut from Asian horror auteurs Danny and Oxide Pang (Bangkok Haunted, The Eye, Re-Cycle), but this would all go down a lot easier if it at least had the stylistic chops of the directors' previous efforts. Also stars John Corbett and Kristen Stewart. 2 stars
THE NAMESAKE (PG-13) A family saga spanning two generations, The Namesake is a film about packing up one's life and moving from one place to another. The principal bodies in motion here are Ashoke Ganguli (Irfan Khan) and his wife Ashima (Tabu), a Bengali couple who make a move to the United States and wind up living there as hyphenate-Americans, one foot in the old world and one foot in the new. Adapting Jhumpa Lahiri's 2003 bestseller in fine, cinematic style, director Mira Nair chronicles the Gangulis' changing lifestyles and attitudes over the years, detailing their trajectories with affection and rare intelligence, and giving the film a fluid, episodic feel that's mainly concerned with the everyday textures of life. Nair begins to lose control of the all-important rhythms of her film at the midpoint, as the focus shifts to son Gogul Ganguli (Kal Penn), and the story begins to push in more conventional directions that occasionally skirt the edges of melodrama. But even at its soapiest, there are more than enough grace notes to redeem The Namesake and keep it well on track. Also stars Jacinda Barrett and Zuleikha Robinson. 4 stars
THE REAPING (R) With current debates over whether the Bible should be taught in public schools and media depictions of a conservative party entrenched in extreme Christianity, it seems like a bold move to produce a film as blatantly religious as The Reaping. Unfortunately, any originality, substance or even novelty is lost in a parade of tired plot devices and predictable story progression. Hilary Swank plays Katherine Winter, an Indiana Jones sort of professor who treks the globe disproving various religious phenomena with her large muscular partner, Ben (Idris Elba). The duo run into trouble when they investigate a series of bizarre occurrences in the swamps of Louisiana that resemble the 10 Biblical plagues. The plot is forced onto the viewer without any tact or pacing and any attempt at depth or substance is crushed under the weight of a convoluted and disjointed mishmash of erratically delivered flashbacks, dream sequences and prophetic visions. In the end, the movie shows its real intentions with a gaudy orgasm of fire, brimstone and CGI. Also stars David Morrissey. Opens April 5 at local theaters. 2 stars —Tristan Wheelock
SHOOTER (PG-13) Even in those rare moments when nothing seems to be happening, there's a sense of forward momentum here that reminds us of why they call these things action movies. (Our sense of the story advancing is so palpable, in fact, that's a bit of shock when we finally realize there's not really much story to advance.) Mark Wahlberg stars as an ex-marine sharpshooter who becomes the fall guy for a high-level political assassination he's been recruited to foil. With every armed body in America on his tail, Wahlberg spends most of the movie running for his life, pausing only for brief attempts at proving his innocence, with the whole thing playing out a little like The Fugitive meets Sniper on a grassy knoll (the movie teases us not just with presidential assassinations, but with all manner of shadowy conspiracies). There's nothing particularly spectacular about Shooter, frankly, nor are there any spectacular screw-ups (at least until the climatic face-off, when all the omnipotent bad guys turn themselves into convenient targets). It's sometimes a bit difficult to catch all of the characters' dialogue — what with all the gruff, Dirty Harry whispering going on, they could be pretty much saying anything — but by now you've probably figured out that doesn't much matter. Also stars Kate Mara, Michael Pena, Danny Glover and Ned Beatty. 3 stars
TMNT (PG) Between the upcoming big screen version of Transformers and this state-of-the-art CGI revival of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise, 2007 is turning out to be a plum year for '80s nostalgia. In TMNT, our heroes on the half-shell face off against an evil industrialist (Patrick Stewart) and an army of deadly monsters — with periodic breaks, no doubt, for copious pizza consumption. Also features the voices of Sara Michelle Gellar, Chris Evans, Billy West, Ziyi Zhang and Kevin Smith . (Not Reviewed)
WILD HOGS (PG-13) In Wild Hogs, four suburban guys, each suffering the slings and arrows of midlife crisis, hoist their aging carcasses on motorcycles-cum-phallic-symbols and set out on a cross-country road trip to rediscover their old mojo(s). It's not a particularly good movie or a particularly funny one (did I forget to mention it's a comedy?), but Wild Hogs coasts comfortably on the likeability of its cast — John Travolta, Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence and William H. Macy — each riffing on familiar aspects of their respective screen personae. The humor here is mostly physical and of a lower-brow variety (characters frequently injure themselves and others, make funny faces in the shadow of emotional or material loss and deal with massive feces spillages, literally). to the movie's credit, there's a blithely cheerful quality to even its most potentially cruel bits that, like a vintage Road Runner cartoon, keeps Wild Hogs from feeling mean-spirited. Even the obligatory soundtrack of classic road songs is a tad less annoying than you might imagine. At least I don't think I heard "Born to be Wild" in there. Also stars Ray Liotta and Marisa Tomei. 2 stars
ZODIAC (R) Nobody does serial killer movies like David Fincher, and Fincher's Zodiac is a serial killer movie unlike any other — including his own. Eschewing the dank, velvety atmospherics and formidable stylistic flourishes of the director's own esteemed Seven (and most of his other previous work), Fincher fashions Zodiac in a surprisingly straightforward and frill-less manner, evoking the look and feel of a 1970s time frame without slavishly fetishizing it. Even more crucially, Fincher subverts our expectations of where the meat of the movie should lie, giving us a film where the thrill of the chase takes a back seat to red tape and blind alleys. There's a lot of cross-chatter and seemingly pointless tail-chasing here, but that in fact becomes crucial to what the film's all about. A police procedural distilled to its cold, bureaucratic essence, Zodiac immerses us in a process that's more nerve-wracking nuts and bolts than car chases and titillating madmen, ultimately positioning the movie much closer to something like All the President's Men than Silence of the Lambs. The periodic murder sequences pack an undeniable wallop, but the vast majority of Zodiac plays out in the cluttered newsrooms and drab offices where loosely connected groups of curiously faceless journalists and cops endlessly debate the details driving their case. With no real heroes (the focus rarely settles too long on any one individual) and a villain who's more of a MacGuffin than a palpable personality, Zodiac is easily the most perverse mainstream entertainment in ages. In the end, virtually every one of its obsessed good guys winds up down for the count, drowning in the same ocean of frustration that did in Gene Hackman in The Conversation. Stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey and Brian Cox. 3.5 stars
This article appears in Apr 11-17, 2007.