Thursday, January 01, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Film shorts

Bad Santa

1 star (R, 93 min.) Safecracker Billy Bob Thornton (effortlessly sordid) and his little-person partner (Tony Cox) work as a Santa-and-elf combo while planning to rob the store. Terry Zwigoff's Christmas comedy is proof that no amount of talent can rescue a great idea from incompetent writing.--JC

The Cat in the Hat

Not reviewed (PG, 138 min.) Mike Myers is the mischievous, 6-foot feline in the stovepipe hat in Bo Welch's live-action film of the beloved 1957 children's book by Dr. Seuss. With Alec Baldwin, Kelly Preston.--AA

Cheaper by the Dozen

Not reviewed (PG, 98 min.) Steve Martin stays home in Illinois to care for his 12 children when author wife Bonnie Hunt abruptly leaves for New York to promote her new book. Hilary Duff and Piper Perabo co-star in a comedy directed by Shawn Levy (Just Married, Big Fat Liar), loosely based on the 1950 film starring Clifton Webb and Myrna Loy.--AA

Cold Mountain

3 1/2 stars (R, 155 min.) In Anthony Minghella's film of Charles Frazier's popular novel, Nicole Kidman is North Carolina reverend's daughter Ada Monroe, whose incipient romance with field hand Inman (Jude Law) is interrupted by the Civil War. Like Lassie, he then tries to come home, while plain-spoken country girl Ruby Thewes (Renée Zellweger) comforts Ada. Minghella cleverly balances the folksy and the horrifying, with battle scenes harrowingly shot by John Seale. A devastatingly beautiful film that unpretentiously admits to being popular entertainment. With Philip Seymour Hoffman, Giovanni Ribisi, Donald Sutherland, Ray Winstone.--JC

The Cooler

3 stars (R, 101 min.) Wayne Kramer's gritty, faux noir is technically about an unlucky guy (William H. Macy), employed to bring his chronic bad luck to gamblers in the Golden Shangri-La casino, who falls in love with a cocktail waitress (Maria Bello). But more interesting is the backstory, with old-school casino boss Alec Baldwin clinging to his traditionalist ways in the face of corporate Vegas. A film is awash in moral ambiguity and contradictions that give what could have been a derivative movie depth and complexity. With Shawn Hatosy, Ron Livingston.--MP

Elf

3 stars (PG, 97 min.) Thanks to rookie screenwriter David Berenbaum's droll script, Jon Favreau's comedy, with Will Ferrell as a human raised at the North Pole who seeks his dad (James Caan) in Manhattan, is a Christmas flick both adults and kids can enjoy. With Zooey Deschanel, Bob Newhart.--AA

Everest

3 1/2 stars (NR, 44 min.) Co-directed by David Breashears, this superb 1998 Imax film chronicles the disastrous 1996 climbing season when eight climbers perished in a freak storm on the world's highest peak. Narrated by Liam Neeson.--AA

Gothika

1/2 star (R, 100 min.) What Halle Berry and French arthouse director Mathieu Kassovitz are doing with a murky, women-in-prison movie is anyone's guess, but this melodramatic trash is unintentionally funny. Berry is unconvincing as a criminal psychologist in an asylum who's accused of killing husband Charles Dutton. With Penélope Cruz, Robert Downey, Jr.--JC

The Haunted Mansion

1 star (PG, 87 min.) Eddie Murphy's turn in Rob Minkoff's Disneyland ride spinoff is another colossal failure. This unscary horror-comedy will engender fear for all the wrong reasons. With Terence Stamp, Jennifer Tilly.--TM

Honey

1 1/2 stars (PG-13, 94 min.) Jessica Alba is the hoofer with a heart-of-gold/inner city neighborhood savior. Bille Woodruff's lengthy music video is rife with clichés, unbearably maudlin dialogue and "ho couture." With Mekhi Phifer.--TM

House of Sand and Fog

2 stars (R, 126 min.) Iranian exile Ben Kingsley snaps up a real estate bargain when Jennifer Connelly is evicted from her Bay Area bungalow. Kingsley's undemonstrative style jars with Iranian actress Shohreh Aghdashloo's Farsi histrionics. Connelly and love interest Ron Eldard have zero chemistry. As Ukrainian-Canadian director Vadim Perelman's film of Andre Dubus III's novel degenerates from melodrama to potboiler, you'd be forgiven for laughing at the improbability of it all.--AA

In America

3 1/2 stars (PG-13, 103 min.) Jim Sheridan exploits the immigrant experience with an intensely autobiographical story, co-written by daughters Naomi and Kirsten. Mourning the death of their son, Irish immigrants Paddy Considine and Samantha Morton move to New York with young daughters Sarah and Emma Bolger, who befriend terminally ill Djimon Hounsou. Morton is achingly good, Considine heroically strong and emotionally paralyzed. But it's the Bolger sisters' unaffected screen presence and heart-melting guilessness that sets this far above the Hollywood mean.--AA

The Last Samurai

2 stars (R, 154 min.) After two and a half hours of Tom Cruise, as a disillusioned U.S. soldier learning the way of the Samurai in 1870s Japan, it's hard to suppress one thought: Will Tom now honorably commit career hara-kiri? Edward Zwick's flat, unoriginal sushi Western isn't unwatchable. But he's no Kurosawa. With Ken Watanabe, Koyuki, Tony Goldwyn.--AA

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

3 1/2 stars (PG-13, 200 min.) LOTR is finally complete, and audiences are unlikely to be disappointed, because director Peter Jackson delivers all the highlights on cue: Frodo and Sam (Elijah Wood, Sean Astin) are led to Mordor by the duplicitous Gollum (Andy Serkis); Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli (Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom, John Rhys-Davies) awaken the Army of the Dead; Gandalf (Ian McKellen) heads for Minis Tirith; and Galadriel and Arwen (Cate Blanchett, Liv Tyler) complete their five minutes of screen time. The images are scandalously beautiful, and the target audience (16- to 24-year-old males) will sit still for more than three hours of essentially mammary-free entertainment. Jackson's decision to jettison Tolkien's ending is jarring, but his single-handed resurrection of the epic fantasy is an astonishing achievement, cinematically and commercially.--JC

Love Actually

2 1/2 stars (R, 135 min.) Emma Thompson thinks husband Alan Rickman is having an affair. Thomas Sangster tells grieving stepdad Liam Neeson he's infatuated with a classmate. Aging rock star Bill Nighy calls his latest single a "festering turd." Notting Hill writer Richard Curtis' Christmas crowdpleaser isn't a total turd. But its nuggets of emotional gold drown in a sea of schmaltz. With Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Laura Linney.--AA

Love Don't Cost a Thing

Not reviewed (PG-13, 105 min.) Nerdy high school student Nick Cannon pays cheerleader Christina Milian to pose as his girlfriend, in the hope of joining the in-crowd. Actress/director Troy Beyer's remake of the 1987 high school comedy Can't Buy Me Love also stars Steve Harvey, Kal Penn and Kenan Thompson.--AA

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

3 1/2 stars (PG-13, 138 min.) Russell Crowe stars in Peter Weir's splendid maritime adventure, set in 1805 and based on Patrick O'Brian's novels. But not even his presence turns a shallow sea story into an epic of depth. With Paul Bettany.--AA

The Matrix Revolutions

3 stars (R, 129 min.) Neo, Morpheus, Trinity and Niobe (Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Jada Pinkett Smith) battle the Machines while Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) continues his infestation. The Wachowski brothers deliver the expected elements in their trilogy's dull finale. [Also in cut Imax version.]--JC

Mona Lisa Smile

1 1/2 stars (PG-13, 119 min.) A film about the empowerment of women should be impervious to criticism. But Mike Newell's saccharine, female Dead Poets Society, written by Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal, deserves vilification. Julia Roberts is miscast as a newbie art history teacher at Wellesley College in 1953 who wins over her over-achieving students Julia Stiles, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Ginnifer Goodwin but not vindictive Kirsten Dunst. With Marcia Gay Harden, Juliet Stevenson, Dominic West.--AA

Mystic River

4 stars (R, 137 min.) In South Boston, a brutal murder forces a reunion between boyhood buddies Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon and Tim Robbins, a severely damaged adult whose wife (riveting Marcia Gay Harden) is losing her grip. Clint Eastwood's dark film of Dennis Lehane's novel is a police procedural that illuminates a close-knit community poisoned by its own bitter history. With Laura Linney.--JC

Ocean Wonderland 3D

Not reviewed (NR, 44 min.) Filmed in the Bahamas and on Australia's Great Barrier Reef, the latest IMAX documentary features rays, sharks, dolphins and other marine life in glorious 3D.--AA

Paycheck

1/2 star (PG-13, 118 min.) Ben Affleck, whose memory is erased after he works on secret projects, has to escape a deadly conspiracy before bad guys Aaron Eckhart and Colm Feore catch him. With leaden dialogue, non-special effects and self-conscious references to Hitchcock, John Woo merely goes through the directorial motions in this unsuspenseful "thriller," based on Philip K. Dick's story. With Paul Giamatti, Uma Thurman.--AA

Peter Pan

Not reviewed (PG, 104 min.) Jeremy Sumpter (Frailty) is the boy who wouldn't grow up and newcomer Rachel Hurd-Wood plays Wendy Darling in a live-action version of J.M. Barrie's beloved children's play, adapted by Michael Goldenberg and director P.J. Hogan (Muriel's Wedding, My Best Friend's Wedding) and filmed in Australia. Co-starring Richard Briars (Smee), Jason Isaacs (Mr. Darling/Capt. Hook), Geoffrey Palmer (Sir Edward Quiller Couch), Lynn Redgrave (Aunt Millicent) and Olivia Williams (Mrs. Darling).--AA

Something's Gotta Give

3 1/2 stars (PG-13, 136 min.) Aging playboy Jack Nicholson has a heart attack and, on the orders of doctor Keanu Reeves, is nursed by lover Amanda Peet's playwright mother Diane Keaton. Effortlessly combining 1970s Woody Allenesque wit with compelling passion, Keaton proves there's hope for older actresses in Nancy Meyers' sophisticated battle-of-the-sexes comedy. Nicholson, masterfully sarcastic and tender, doesn't steal her thunder, but enhances it. With Frances McDormand.--TM

Stuck on You

1 star (PG-13, 118 min.) Bobby and Peter Farrelly's "comedy," with Greg Kinnear and Matt Damon as conjoined twins, strains too hard for laughs. How the Farrellys roped in Cher, Seymour Cassel, Eva Mendes and Meryl Streep is a mystery. Money apparently talks.--AA

21 Grams

4 stars (R, 124 min.) Repeating the framing device of his first feature, Amores Perros, Alejandro González Iñárritu arranges three strangers (mathematician Sean Penn, recovering addict Naomi Watts and born-again ex-con Benicio Del Toro) around an obliterating car accident. But instead of a linear timeline, he juggles his scenes in seemingly random order, leaving us to put them back together. The actors are off-the-charts remarkable and Iñárritu's bravura is justified. He has a great deal to show. With Melissa Leo.--JC

The Young Black Stallion

Not reviewed (G, 50 min.) Simon Wincer's Imax prequel to Carroll Ballard's 1979 adventure, set in postwar north Africa but shot in Namibia and South Africa, stars Biana Tamimi as a girl separated from her family who bonds with a wild horse. Based on the novel by Walter and Steven Farley. With Richard Romanus.--AA

Reviews by: AA: Anthony Allison; JC: Jeannette Catsoulis; MP: Mike Prevatt; TM: Tammy McMahan