Film: Get box office or die tryin'

Never Die Alone

By Tammy McMahan

Testing the limits of dramatic license, director Ernest Dickerson and screenwriter James Gibson glamorize misogynistic, drug-dealing murderers who dispense destruction, gorge on materialism, violate women and massacre indiscriminately. Unlike The Godfather, Scarface or Goodfellas, Never Die Alone is devoid of villainous protagonists who make intellectual demands as they wreak moral havoc.

This crass vehicle, based on Donald Goines' novel, traces the rise and fall of the late King David (DMX), played as a conscience-free caricature of urban gangster royalty. The L.A. cocaine and heroin supplier intentionally made junkies and sex toys out of his lovers Janet (Jennifer Sky, barely managing to portray a vapid, "Baywatch"-esque TV star) and Juanita (Reagan Gomez-Preston, as an English-mangling college coed).

With no meaningful explanation, David decides, in his final days, to reform, go home home to New York City and make monetary amends with former "employer" Moon (Clifton Powell), a loathsome, cliché-riddled, drug kingpin who spoon-feeds coke to pigtailed concubines adorned in little girls' clothes. Upon his highness' return, Moon dispatches Blue (Antwon Tanner), a dull, foul-mouthed operative, and Mike (Michael Ealy), a crudely sketched, loyal enforcer with an incestuous air of protectiveness toward his sister (Drew Sidora), to get the loot and execute the King. Using his sister as seductive bait, Mike lures David into a trap and fatally stabs him. Witnessing the attack, a journalist, Paul (a nonsensical David Arquette), gets the dying man's audiotapes, on which he has recorded his reprehensible life story.

With patronizing, fatalistic voiceovers and shadowy vignettes, Dickerson and Gibson attempt to disguise their cinematic misdeeds as a morality tale, a gritty account of an antihero's life and death. But Never Die Alone is neither urban Greek tragedy nor gangsta film noir. It's just a patently offensive grab for cash by filmmakers lusting to capitalize upon depravity.

Ruh-roh!

In an interesting case of cult-classic cross-pollination, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed takes cues from "Buffy: The Vampire Slayer," which was influenced by "Scooby Doo," the beloved animated TV series. The latest Doo is mostly mediocre, but it offers a few enjoyable sequences harkening back to the Hanna-Barbera cartoon's best flights of fancy, and light dashes of Buffy's character introspections and pop culture witticisms.

Raja Gosnell's sequel to his 2002 spinoff opens with a Coolsonian Criminology Museum fete in honor of the Scooby gang: Fred (Freddie Prinze Jr., embracing his raison d'tre as dopey pretty boy), butt-kicking pretty girl Daphne ("Buffy's" Sarah Michelle Gellar), bespectacled nerd Velma (Linda Cardellini), scrawny slacker Shaggy (Matthew Lillard) and cowardly canine Scooby (voiced by Neil Fanning).

During the event, the costumes of the gang's most troublesome enemies are exhibited. As the Scoobies revel and fans fawn, the Pterodactyl Ghost "costume," now an actual monster, breaks free of its glass case and nearly destroys the museum. While fighting inner demons and spouting quips, Mystery Inc.'s finest track down the mastermind monster-maker--who may be unscrupulous tabloid journalist Heather Jasper-Howe (Alicia Silverstone), former adversary Old Man Wickles (Peter Boyle) or Velma-smitten Patrick Wisely (Seth Green).

With stale dialogue, an ineptly designed CGI Scooby and gratuitous dance sequences, product placement and even an appearance by Ruben Studdard ("American Idol," 2003), Doo 2 is certifiably flawed. But there's something undeniably sweet about the traditional Scooby investigation--Shaggy and Scooby, in their best bush disguises, trailing a suspect--and the casting of sour-faced Boyle, who was born to say, "If it hadn't been for those meddling kids..." Highest kudos go to Cardellini for blending Velma with "Buffy's" Willow, both geeks who fall in love with Green ("Buffy's" Oz) and want to be beautiful booty busters. So, overall, Doo 2's endearing goofiness makes some of its imperfections a little more bearable.