Reviews

You cannot improve on perfection. Most authorities consider the original TV series to be one of the all-time great sitcoms ever made. Its keys were its appropriateness to its era, and the brilliant cast.

While I certainly appreciate Cedric the Entertainer's considerable talents, with all due respect to him, he is NOT Jackie Gleason, and the other members of this cast cannot hold a candle to the likes of Art Carney and Audrey Meadows.

Here's a tip to Hollywood:

Instead of trying to make every TV show into a movie, why not show some creativity and actually come up with something NEW? If you need a reminder, remember Tom Arnold's horrific remake of McHale's Navy.....or the God-awful remake of Sergeant Bilko of a few years back. You can't do better than the original, now or ever.

If I could give this no stars, I would.

How do I describe this? The movie features terrific performances by Jude Law, Clive Owen, and Natalie Portman, and not much of a performance by Julia Roberts, who seems to have mailed in her performance.

It's all above love at first sight not being enough. Law's character, who should be the winner, ends up the loser. His entire world is a lie, as he discovers at the end of the movie. He's a terribly dislikeable fellow, and so is Clive Owen's character.

Roberts seems to have sleep-walked through this movie, which I really don't get. Natalie Portman is all grown up--she plays an ingenue who happens to be a stripper and a liar. She's the muse that drives Law, who turns his back on her.

Mike Nichols is a brilliant director. That much is clear. The problem, though, is that I still don't know precisely what this movie was supposed to be about other than as a study of human immorality.

The performances are largely worth seeing, but the story is muddled. I gave it a 6.