Reviews

Tom Hanks reprises his "Da Vinci Code" role of Dr. Robert Langdon in "Angels & Demons." This time around, the puzzle Dr. Langdon has to solve is the location of the Church of the Illuminati (hidden somewhere in Vatican City), and he better find it fast, since a bomb hidden in the Church is set to go off at midnight, destroying Vatican City.

Mixed into the main plot line is the usual Catholic Church intrigue, a deadly assassin, and Ayelet Zurer (playing a scientist) as the female lead.

At its heart, the story is a "whodunnit" no different than any usual episode of "Murder, She Wrote", except the stakes are bigger, production values are higher, and we get Tom Hanks playing the role of the unflappable mystery-solver.

Even though the movie doesn't push any boundaries creatively and the plot is completely ridiculous, "Angels and Demons" is an exciting, involving movie that will have you on the edge of your seat. The reasons it works are: 1) Ron Howard's kinetic direction; 2) the movie never lets up, there's always something happening; 3) great production values and locations; and 4) Tom Hanks

Because of the pace of the movie, you don't really notice how silly the plot is, and even when you do, you ignore it because the movie is so well made. In other words: yes, it's a silly movie, but relax and enjoy the ride.

If there was an Academy Award for "wrenching an exciting movie out of not-so-great source material" then Ron Howard, Tom Hanks and crew would win it for "Angels & Demons."

I didn't like this Bill Murray vehicle when it was originally released in the 80s, so I tried watching it again to see if my distaste for this film was down to my movie-going tastes in the 80s or was it that "Stripes" is simply a bad movie. Well, the verdict is in and "Stripes" is a bad movie.

Now, "Stripes" may have been innovative comedy in the early 80s, and it may appeal to people who have gone through basic training or who are Bill Murray fans, but its still a bad movie.

Why is it bad? Mostly because "Stripes" is supposed to be a comedy but it's just not that funny. There are some laughs, but they are few and far between. Most of the movie is consumed by the dramatic plot which is incredibly convoluted and not very interesting. This lack of comedy is especially noticeable if you're used to more contemporary comedies such as "Anchorman" which strive for laughs in every part of the movie.

"Stripes" further suffers from Bill Murray and Harold Ramis's lack of acting ability. Bill Murray is a great comedian but he was not a very compelling dramatic actor at this point in his career, and Harold Ramis is playing Harold Ramis. These two are just not good enough as actors to carry the dramatic arch of the movie.

Lastly, most of the comedy that there is in "Stripes" revolves around Bill Murray's self-centered, smart-alec man-child character so if you don't find that character funny (like I didn't) you're not going to find most of what little comedy there is in "Stripes" funny either.

"Stripes" is very much a movie of its era, it hasn't aged well and is not worth watching. If you want to watch an early 80's "buddy" comedy I would recommend "Stir Crazy." Like "Stripes" the humor in "Stir Crazy" is not as fast-paced as in contemporary comedies, but unlike "Stripes" it has aged much better and as a result is still watchable.

"Traitor" is an attempt to take us inside a modern-day Islamic terrorist group by telling the story of Samir Horn (played by Don Cheadle). The movie leaves us guessing as to Samir's true loyalties as he gets involved in planning a major terror attack on the US, while FBI agent Roy Clayton (played by Guy Pearce) leads the government effort to thwart the plot.

On the positive side, the acting in "Traitor" is uniformly great, without standout performances from Don Cheadle and Guy Pearce as the lead characters. The direction and cinematography are at a high level as well.

So what's the problem with "Traitor" then? The problem is that "Traitor" can't decide what kind of movie it wants to be: a silly action movie, or an intelligent thriller. "Traitor" starts out as a slow-paced, intelligent, story-based thriller, but at the halfway point, it turns into a silly Hollywood action movie that unfortunately, doesn't have a lot of action.

A more consistent story would have made "Traitor" a better film. The first half of "Traitor" is quite compelling and effective as it establishes the characters and sets the story in motion. But as the movie enters silly action-thriller territory, all the tension and mood built up in the first half of the film is lost. And as mentioned earlier, there's simply not enough action sequences to make up for the foolish story.

It's a real shame that the movie makers didn't end "Traitor" with the same focus and determination with which they started it because the movie had a lot of potential.

This movie is so bad that words can't fully describe just how bad it truly is, but I'll try. Clive Owen is Arthur, a Roman-Briton who leads a group of knights along Hadrian's Wall to protect the Roman part of Britain from the "Woads" who are Britons opposed to Roman rule.

The plot as it is, shows Arthur's journey from a Roman-supporting individual to a man who realizes that the British people deserve freedom and that Britain needs to be free from the Romans. Along the way he rescues a Roman family who live north of Hadrian's Wall, fights a Saxon army which has invaded Britain, and meets and marries Guinevere (Keira Knightley). The performances were okay, Clive Owen got annoying due to the number of flat-out stupid speeches his character made. Kudos to Stellan Skarsgård as Cerdic, the Saxon chieftain. He did a good job with a rote character.

Overall, the dialog was laughable, the plot made little sense, and a lot of stuff was just wrong:

1) Movie purports to be "realistic" but features a voice-over by a guy who dies during the movie. If he died, how is he narrating it?

2) Arthur's "knights" are Sarmatian horsemen from Russia (or somewhere in East Europe) who have been forced into serving in the Roman army, yet they are named Lancelot, Galahad and Gawain.. you know... traditional Russian names.

3) The "knights" have to serve the Romans for 15 years before they are free to go. When the movie starts, it shows the "knights" arriving in Britain when they are all 10-13 years old. When the movie shifts to present time, half the "knights" are clearly around 40 years old. Why not just say they had to serve 25 years so the whole thing wouldn't look so idiotic?

4) The "knights" are basically Roman slaves, yet they order Romans around and clearly enjoy a lot of authority and autonomy.

5) Related to #4, the "knights" are always yammering about being "free" but they're not under any kind of discipline or rules. They question and argue with Arthur, one guy has hooked up with a woman and has 11 kids (this is a running joke through the movie), they pull swords on Roman soldiers, they menace a Roman Bishop... so how exactly are they not free when it looks like they can do whatever they want?

6) In this "realistic" movie, the Roman Empire is ruled by the Pope. No mention of the Emperor or the Senate, just the Pope.

7) The seasons change according to the needs of the script. It's hardcore winter with snow and ice covered lakes and mountains when Arthur and the gang are going through East Britain, but when they travel a few miles South it's a nice lush, green summer.

8) The movie makes it very clear that the Romans and the "Woads" who live North have been at war for a long time and that going North of Hadrian's Wall is dangerous. Yet an important Roman family with ties to the Pope lives by themselves in a villa way up North. Conveniently, Arthur needs to rescue them because the Saxon army is approaching.

9) The Saxon's may as well have been called Orcs because that's how they rolled, they were just there to look evil and get chopped up.

I didn't get this movie. Obviously it had some sort of meaning, but all I got out of it was the typical artsy movie existentialism of "life is grim , woe is us" which is perhaps the most overdone film device in film history, and if it isn't, it's definitely in the top five.

The problem with this film is that we never get to know any of the characters or understand their motivations beyond what is etched out for us on the screen because the dialog is so minimal and the acting so subdued. The plot follows a young roofer who, after his latest customer drops dead of a drug overdose depriving the roofer of his payment for the roofing job, decides to steal a letter from the recently deceased customer which supposedly offers a well-paying job. The roofer follows the instructions in the letter and quickly finds himself in a situation over his head and beyond his control. I don't want to spoil the surprise, so all I'll say is that the situation the protagonist becomes involved in is an extreme test of body, mind and spirit.

The acting was fine, the cinematography was great, the story was compelling, and the minimalistic dialog was suitable, but the sum of the parts is lacking. At the conclusion, I wondered why this movie was made because, although it was entertaining, it wasn't that entertaining, and although it may have made some points about life, death and relationships, the themes weren't that significant. All in all, I can't say that there is any reason to watch this movie unless you like existentialist Fench movies shot in black and white. Otherwise, you're far better off with Pirates of the Caribbean or similarly-themed motion pictures.

Most of the reviews on "Beowulf and Grendel" are misleading -- this film isn't very good. Its obviously made by "arthouse-movie-people" so the cinematography is good but everything else is lacking (i.e., direction, script and pacing). I was disappointed because the script takes a lot of liberties with the actual story, so much so, that only the character names, locations and the ending (partly) are the same as the epic poem.

There's so many problems with this movie that for the sake of efficiency, I'm just going to list them:

1) The movie is too long. There's a lot of camera sweeps and landscape shots that add nothing to the story but plenty to the length of the film. I didn't want to watch a documentary on the Icelandic landscape, I wanted to see a movie with characters and a story.

2) The Sarah Polley subplot. Sarah Polley plays a witch who clues Beowulf as to why Grendel is attacking. But the witch subplot is forced and feels grafted onto the story. It should have been chopped because its unnecessary -- it seems like they just wanted Sarah Polley in the movie so they wrote this whole subplot just for her. And it was pretty disgusting in the end... if you think about it, it was really disgusting and I wonder just what the hell the film-makers were thinking. They have some serious, serious problems.

3) None of the characters are likable. They grumble, they scowl and they look despondent 90% of the time. There was no character development so there's no attachment as to what happens to them. Half the guys looked the same with long beards and scowls so you never knew who died.

4) The changes to the story were poor. There's a reason the story of Beowulf is considered an epic that has been remembered for hundreds of years -- its a great, great story. Did the film-makers really think that they slap a story together in a few months that would be better than an epic that has withstood the tests of time? If it ain't broke don't fix it, you can't improve on a work of art such as Beowulf, so why rewrite it? Its like repainting the Mona Lisa to add some zazz.

So, unless you like watching endless scenes of the Icelandic landscape and of bearded men, indistinguishable from each other, walking and riding through the Icelandic landscape while scowling, skip this snoozefest, you'll be glad you did.

The only thing you have to know about this film is that it has the Super Bowl taking place in Baltimore. That's right. Super Bowl. Baltimore. That tells you how much thought was put into this giant piece of crap.

The plot involves neo-Nazi's who obtain an Israeli nuclear bomb (from an Israeli plane that was shot down in the 1973 Yom Kippur war) and use Russian nuclear scientists to refurbish it, and then ship it to Baltimore (just in time for the Super Bowl) to try to blow up the President of the US.

The Nazi's goal is to trick the US into thinking the Russians carried out the attack, hopefully starting a nuclear war which then allows the neo-Nazi's to do what exactly? Take over the smoldering remains of the earth? The movie never adequately explains the rationale behind their actions, since their actions are completely self-defeating. A nuclear exchange between the US and Russia would destroy most of the Western World, leaving precious little left for the Nazi's to rule over. In the novel, Islamic terrorists were the bad guys, which makes sense since they don't care if they live or die and because the Middle East would be relatively unaffected by a nuclear war between Russia and the US. Changing the villains to Nazi's sends this movie into fantasy-land.

Ben Affleck is wrong as Jack Ryan -- he's just too much of a sarcastic punk. You can't buy him as the CIA analyst turned action hero. The rest of the cast is good, but most of the characters are complete idiots. Its hard to believe that the President of the US and the Premier of Russia wouldn't talk to each other over the telephone during an international crisis, but in this movie they e-mail each other over AOL like a couple of adulterers.

According to the trivia, Harrison Ford and Wolfgang Peterson (Director of Air Force One) turned down the opportunity to participate in this fiasco. They were smart to do so since there was nothing to gain but scorn for having any part in this horrible, horrible movie.

A movie like "Ransom" is so preposterous and unbelievable it could only be made by a person like Ron Howard. From Opie, to "Happy Days", to producing and directing, Ron Howard has spent his entire life in a Hollywood bubble, shielded from reality, so when he tries to make a gritty, realistic movie, it comes out like this. The only thing that raises "Ransom" from a direct-to-DVD release starring Steven Seagal is the acting (Mel Gibson, Rene Russo, Gary Sinise) and the budget. The rest is crap, not to mention it runs on for far too long.

The story is a straightforward kidnapping tale and I'm sure the rest of the reviews here at IMDb have covered the basics. I'll cover the hallucinatory parts that Ron Howard thinks are real:

1) Gibson plays the owner of the fourth largest airline in the US. Yet, he takes Sunday off with his wife and son to hang out at the NY City Kids Science Fair, without security or an entourage. The idea that a guy who is busy running an airline he built himself would take an entire day off to waltz around a science fair with only his wife and kid is idiotic enough, but to do so without security and assistants, etc... takes this into the realm of fantasy.

2) Gibson and his family went through an excruciating three month FBI investigation where Gibson's character was investigated for bribing a union official. Gibson confesses to the lead FBI agent covering the kidnapping that he is, in fact, guilty of the bribe and that he lied to cover it up. At the end of movie Gibson should be in jail, but the career FBI officer doesn't do anything with the information except tell Gibson's wife.

3) Gibson's character ignores his kid at the science fair, which enables the kidnappers to grab the kid. Gibson lied to his wife about paying the bribe and put the entire family through a hellish FBI investigation. Now, Gibson refuses to pay the ransom, and seemingly places his kid in danger when everyone else is telling him to pay it. In the real world, this would cause a lot of marital problems, and might in fact lead to a divorce since Gibson has lied to wife about some serious issues and placed their child in extreme danger. Of course, its a happy family at the end.

3) Gibson's wife only has $500,000 to her name despite being married to a billionaire for 20 years.

4) Gibson goes on TV and offers a two million dollar bounty on the kidnappers which he later raises to four million. Now in the real world, this reason this doesn't happen is because its against the law to offer money for someone's death. Again, the moment after he made those threats, Gibson should be in jail. In Ron Howard land, nothing happens.

5) The kidnapper, who is smart enough to plan and pull off the kidnapping, is stupid enough at the end of the movie to walk into Gibson's home to collect the reward, despite knowing that Gibson's kid would recognize him since the kid has heard his voice. 'Nuff said, this movie was garbage.

Where oh where did it all go wrong? You had a $200 million budget, special effects wizards up the wazoo and Peter "LOTR" Jackson directing a bona fide classic that could only benefit from a modern retelling. However, the end result -- a bloated, melodramatic, self-indulgent dog's breakfast of a movie -- proves the maxim that sometimes, "less is more." King Kong is a very simple story, in fact, its almost a parable or fable, and the drama and excitement is all in how you tell that story. The original Kong (1933), despite its dated effects, still remains a gripping, moving experience because of the way the story is told through the magic of the cinema. Peter Jackson obviously hasn't watched the original for some time because his version takes all the magic out and replaces it with boring special effects and long running sequences that badly need editing. Why Jackson decided to stretch this simple movie to over 3 hours is a question only he can answer.

There's so much wrong with this disaster, that it would take a King Kong-sized review to describe, so I'm just going to list some of the lowlights:

1) At over 3 hours, its far too much movie for far too little story. So we get tons of sequences that run well past their expiration date and bog the movie down. At least 45 minutes to 1 hour could have been cut and you wouldn't lose a thing.

2) Too much melodrama between Kong and Ann Darrow. If a love story between a gigantic ape and a woman makes your socks roll up and down then you won't mind the endless scenes of Ann and Kong staring deeply into each others eyes, but if it doesn't, you'll be rolling your eyes and looking at your watch as I was.

3) Too much melodrama concerning King Kong. Jackson's King Kong loves sunsets, jokes and ice skating. He so makes us want to feel empathy and love for Kong that he beats us over the head with it and then beats us some more. King Kong is a monster Peter, not a lovelorn single looking for a potential mate. The transformation of Kong from king of the monsters to misunderstood metro-sexual turns the movie into sentimental rubbish.

4) Shoddy CGI sequences that run on and on and on and on.... but you get the idea. CGI Kong looks great, except for when he's fighting, but the rest of the CGI, especially the green screens are amateurish. For a high budget effects movie, some of the effect sequences really are dismal and detract from the viewing experience. "Jurassic Park" is over 10 years old and its effects are better than Kong's and that is not a point in King Kong's favor.

5) Rampant stupidity. In the original, Kong fights a T-Rex who has threatened Ann, and defeats it an fantastic fighting sequence. Jackson has Kong fight 3 T-Rexes utilizing a variety of martial arts moves, it was almost like watching Neo-Kong from the Matrix. To top it all off, the T-Rexes bite Kong but cause no damage. No wonder Kong wins, when your opponents can't hurt you the outcome of the fight is obvious.

6) Poor character development and story arch. Ostensibly there is a love story between Ann Darrow and Jack Driscoll, but Ann's love for Kong is so strong that it overwhelms whatever relationship she had with Driscoll. So why keep it in the movie? Given the changes Jackson made in the core relationships, he should have changed Ann and Jack's story as well, because as is, its utterly idiotic. And that's just one example, the movie is full of this kind of bad scripting and characterization.

The trivia for "Poolhall Junkies" says that the two individuals behind the movie spent two weeks on the script and ten years trying to get the movie made. Well, I believe the two weeks on the script part because the script is utterly wretched, but I don't know about the ten years part because this movie rips off "Rounders" to a huge extent. In fact, "Poolhall Junkies" is just like "Rounders" minus the great acting, the interesting story, the realistic dialog and the production values. "Poolhall Junkies" is a juvenile fantasy film about hustling and pool that never approaches the heights or depths of hustling and poker as depicted in "Rounders".

The story in "Poolhall Junkies" follows Johnny Doyle (Mars Callahan)a pool prodigy discovered and groomed by Joe (played by a slumming Chazz Palminteri) to be a pool hustler. Johnny double-crosses Joe for reasons that I'm not going to get into because they're stupid, and later has to face Joe's new hustler Brad (played by a slumming Rick Schroder) in a high-stakes game of pool, while suffering from a broken wrist given to him by an angry Joe. Okay, we all know what the ending will be in a film like this -- its the journey that makes it worthwhile, and "Poolhall Junkies" makes the journey painful and nausea inducing. Not even an appearance by Christopher Walken can save this Hindenburg of a movie.

The stupidity of this movie especially shines through when Johnny is having some trouble in the climatic final game versus Brad, who is revealed to be the 13th ranked pro pool player in the US. That's when Nick (Rod Steiger), the grizzled old hustler who owns the pool hall the match is being played in, reassures Johnny by saying "Don't worry. I've seen his type many times before... they always crack under pressure. He can't last, so hang in there." Well, no. Since the guy is the 13th ranked player in the US he obviously doesn't crack under pressure because if he did then he obviously would be unable to make his living playing pool for high stakes.

And why would a pro-player work for a two-bit hustler like Joe anyway? He could hustle for himself if he felt the need to make pocket money, there's nothing to be gained by hooking up with a small time criminal. The whole scenario makes absolutely no sense, except to the scriptwriters of "Poolhall Junkies". And the whole movie is full of idiotic sequences just like this one. Save your time and your eyes and watch "The Hustler" again if you're in the mood for a pool hall flick.

For some reason the 70's has the reputation for being the high point of American movie-making. Sure you have classics like Chinatown, The Godfather, Dog Day Afternoon and The French Connection, but then you have run-of-the-mill clunkers like "Three Days of the Condor." This movie is the 70's equivalent of a modern day Tom Cruise vehicle like "Mission Impossible 2" complete with poor acting by Robert Redford, plot holes aplenty, a silly premise and unconvincing action sequences.

This movie starts off interestingly enough as Redford plays a CIA analyst named Joe Turner (codenamed "Condor") who's job is to read books, magazines, etc.. and glean ideas and intelligence from the material. When the operation Turner is part of gets wiped out by assassins while he is out getting lunch (resulting in the deaths of all of Turner's co-workers), Turner has to fight to stay alive while solving the mystery.

While the beginning is good, the movie rapidly loses any believability as Redford's bookworm character instantly morphs into an action-hero super-spy. Redford doesn't even bother acting like a non-hero forced by events to go beyond his abilities; no just he transforms into James Bond as soon as the action starts. Faye Dunaway plays a woman kidnapped by Turner who, in the space of a day, ends up falling for Turner and sleeping with him while being held hostage at gunpoint by Turner in her own home. And then she helps Turner in his plan to find out what's going on. To her credit, Dunaway plays her character as slightly damaged and a little crazy, which is the only way that scenario makes any sense.

Going forward, the plot holes are gigantic and the mystery behind the destruction of Turner's operation is just plain idiotic. In the post-Watergate era, this kind of paranoid stupidity might have made sense, but now, it's utterly ridiculous. Lastly, much of the music was inappropriate and annoying; thankfully there wasn't too much of it.

Ultimately this is a very average movie with nothing to recommend it.

"Traffic" is a movie that features three characters -- a Mexican Cop (Benicio Del Toro), a Senator who is the head of the DEA (Michael Douglas) and the wife of a drug baron (Catherine Zeta-Jones)-- and their three stories in the drug business in the US and Mexico. There's also a fourth story concerning two US cops but it's more of a sub-feature. The stories are connected, but don't overlap and the characters don't meet each other.

Although this movie is intended as a "serious" look at the "drug problem" it comes across as a pathetic joke. Aside from the story featuring Del Toro, few of the situations, characters or resolutions are even remotely connected to reality. In addition, the themes and commentary are preachy and contrived. To me, this movie is a parody of Hollywood "message" movies. The more I think about it, as I am writing this review, the movie is... what's the word?... oh yeah, stupid.

Here's just one scene that is so idiotic that it defies description. The Senator's teen-aged daughter has become a drug addict, run away from home and is living with a drug dealer in the ghetto. The Senator finds out where she is and shows up at the ghetto tenement to get his daughter back. Threatened by the dealer, the Senator breaks down and begs the dealer to turn over his daughter, and then meekly leaves when the dealer says no. Is there any father in the world, especially one who is a US Senator, who would act like this when his daughter's life is at stake???

This movie was written and directed by a crew of idiots. And ironically enough, they were probably on drugs when they did it.