ANCHORMAN (PG-13) While it's not as smoothly, consistently entertaining as Elf, Will Ferrell's breakout movie, Anchorman specializes in an aggressively odd brand of humor that showcases the edgier side of Ferrell's comedic talents and takes more risks. The results are mixed: there's a noticeable amount of dead air and jokes that go nowhere, for sure — but the highs, when they come, are substantially higher, too. The movie is set in a San Diego TV newsroom in the 1970s, where popular but clueless anchor Ron Burgundy (Ferrell) becomes drawn into the war of the sexes when pretty but uncommonly capable Christina Applegate enters the picture. There's a solid running commentary bubbling under the surface about what happened when feminism first began creeping into the American workplace, but the movie is really anything but serious. Most of Anchorman plays out like a series of Ferrell's stranger skits from his Saturday Night Live years, with the scattershot non sequiturs eventually giving way to a crescendo of fabulously over-the-top (and gratuitous) parodies of fight scenes. Lots of amusing cameos here too, including Vince Vaughan, Tim Robbins and Jack Black, who is given the honor of lethally punting a pooch. Also stars Paul Rudd, David Koechner and Fred Willard. 
1/2
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS This movie creates a whole new meaning for the word cheesy, but surprisingly enough, it works more often than it doesn't. Lau Xing (Jackie Chan) robs the Bank of England to retrieve a sacred jade Buddha that was stolen from his village. In the course of his getaway, he encounters an inventor named Phineas Fogg (Steve Coogan) who has accepted a challenge from England's Royal Academy of Science to travel around the globe in 80 days — as it's the turn of the century, that's no small challenge. Xing joins him and the two travel by boat, carriage, camel, train, balloon and the first-ever "flying man" contraption, before returning to the top of the Academy's stairs. Days moves at a pace that keeps seat squirming to a minimum, and any stops made along the way are satisfyingly picturesque. Typical of Chan, the dialogue is unnaturally blunt and the character development minimal, but the comedic timing and fight scenes more than compensate. Yes it's fluff ... satisfyingly cute fluff. Guest appearances by Owen and Luke Wilson, Arnold Schwarzenegger (pre-governor), and Rob Schneider. 1/2
—Meredith Yeomans
BAADASSSSS! (R) The struggle to make the 1971 blaxploitation classic Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song is now the subject of a movie directed by and starring Mario Van Peebles, who also happens to be the real-life son of Sweetback's director and star, Melvin Van Peebles. Baadasssss! has brisk, uncomplicated fun presenting Melvin's unorthodox, uphill battle to finance and finish his movie, although the younger Van Peebles often seems to be straining to provide the appropriate sort of "edge" called for by this material. Super-funky groove music and '70s-style visual effects are scattered throughout, along with sprinklings of fairly benign sex, but it barely disguises a certain routine, almost staid approach that often seems more in keeping with a made-for-TV docu-drama. The result is enjoyable enough, but a bit too cautious and not particularly surprising, with an energy level that dissipates as the film cruises into its second hour. In the end, the process of the making and marketing of Sweetback was a good bit more interesting than the film itself — just like so many independent movies today — something the unduly reverential Baadasssss! seems only dimly aware of. Amusing as it is, Mario's overly literal retelling is almost the antithesis of Sweetback, which remains a movie less important for what it actually is than for what it came to mean. Also stars Rainn Wilson, David Alan Grier, Saul Rubinek, Joy Bryant and Nia Long. Held over at Tampa Theatre. Call theater to confirm.
THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK (PG-13) A sequel of sorts to Pitch Black, in which Vin Diesel's self-serving, intergalactic bad-ass Riddick returns to find himself pitted against the Negromongers, a group of death-worshiping religious warriors going from planet to planet demanding "Convert or Die." Director David Twohy (The Arrival) might be offering up some thinly veiled allusion to the ongoing Islamist problem (or maybe he's just riffing on the Borg), but the movie has New Testament connections too, with Diesel's character eventually being set up as some sort of reluctant Messianic figure. All of this is just window dressing, however, for the movie's incessant action scenes, fights, chases and explosions, not to mention the non-stop digital effects, and sets and costumes directly lifted from David Lynch's Dune. One gets the impression that much of the movie's connective tissue, its actual story, now lies on the cutting-room floor, leaving us with a slightly better-than-average popcorn movie stripped down for the summer. It's a no-brainer that the real show will be the longer director's cut that's sure to eventually emerge on DVD, so consider this an appetizer (at best). Also stars Colm Feore, Judi Dench, Thandie Newton and Alexa Davalos.
