Friday, October 18, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Movie Log

Movies are rated on a letter-grade scale, from A to F. Opinions by R-J movie critic Carol Cling (C.C.) are indicated by initials. Other opinions are from wire service critics.

Motion Picture Association of America ratings:

G - General audiences, all ages.

PG - Parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.

PG-13 - Parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children under 13.

R - Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or guardian.

NC-17 - No one under 17 admitted.

NR - Not rated.

BALLISTIC: ECKS VS. SEVER

(F) Call this one "Simplistic: Ick vs. Sewer." With memories of "Rollerball" fading, it's tough to say whether this jangle of noise, mayhem and stupidity is 2002's worst movie. But it's a definite contender, as a lethal weapon code-named Sever (Lucy Liu) and renegade FBI agent Jeremiah Ecks (Antonio Banderas) try to track down a new assassination tool -- microscopic, injectable and untraceable. (95 min.) R; strong violence.

THE BANGER SISTERS

(B-) Once upon a time, Suzette (Goldie Hawn) and Vinnie (Susan Sarandon) ruled the groupie realm as belles of the rock `n' roll ball. Two decades later, Suzette's still the same wild child -- albeit with a few more tattoos and inches on her bustline -- but Vinnie's now Lavinia, a prim suburban matron whose world is about to get rocked when Suzette comes charging back from the past. Writer-director Bob Dolman hardly breaks new ground -- and the subplot featuring Geoffrey Rush as a comically repressed writer plays like the excess baggage it is. But watching Hawn tear into her force-of-nature role with undisguised gusto and savoring the subtle contrast Sarandon provides as Lavinia rediscovers the long-dormant spirit buried beneath her tasteful beige life -- makes "The Banger Sisters" just enough of a gas to keep it trucking. (94 min.) R; profanity, sexual situations, drug use. (C.C.)

BARBERSHOP

(B-) An old-fashioned barber shop on Chicago's gritty South Side provides the backdrop for a collection of colorful characters, from the embattled proprietor (Ice Cube) to the senior stylist (Cedric the Entertainer) in a genial ensemble romp that ranges from raucous slapstick and predictable booty humor to warm home truths. "Barbershop" and its denizens -- played winningly by, among others, rapper Eve, Sean Patrick Thomas, Troy Garity and Anthony Anderson -- may be familiar, but in this case, familiarity breeds contentment, not contempt. (102 min.) PG-13; profanity, sexual references, brief drug references. (C.C.)

BROWN SUGAR

(B) Two lifelong friends who've forged successful hip-hop music careers -- a producer (Taye Diggs) and a critic (Sanaa Lathan) -- make sacks of money, live in great apartments and eventually find wildly successful significant others: a beautiful lawyer (Nicole Ari Parker) and a basketball star (Boris Kodjoe), respectively. But something seems missing in both their lives: Could it be each other? Need you ask? People are unlikely to leave "Brown Sugar" with the words "original" or "surprising" on their lips, but they are likely to leave with good-sized smiles, thanks to Rick Famuyiwa and deft supporting players Mos Def and Queen Latifah. (108 min.) PG-13; sexual situations, profanity.

CITY BY THE SEA

(C+) New York homicide cop Vincent LaMarca (Robert De Niro), the son of an executed murderer, returns to his former Long Island hometown to investigate a murder -- and follow a trail that leads straight to his estranged junkie son (James Franco). De Niro reunites with director, Michael Caton-Jones for a thoughtful drama, inspired by true (and tragic) events that, despite its admirable attempts at verisimilitude, falls victim to sluggish pacing and labyrinthine plotting. The bright spots: the full-bodied, world-weary performances, not only from De Niro and Franco but Frances McDormand, Patti LuPone and Eliza Dushku. (108 min.) R; profanity, drug use, violence. (C.C.)

EL ESPINAZO DEL DIABLO (THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE)

(B) Returning to Cinema Latino, this highly effective horror story about ghosts, betrayal and some scrappy little orphans put to the test represents a heartening return to form for Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro. Set during the waning days of the Spanish Civil War, the movie follows an an abandoned 10-year-old (Fernando Tielve) as he discovers the guilt and fear haunting an orphanage run by a one-legged, widowed headmistress (Marisa Paredes) and an old professor (Federico Luppi). Creepy, compelling and beautifully shot, "The Devil's Backbone" is a tale of the supernatural that feels completely natural. Its realness is what makes it so scary. In Spanish with English subtitles. (120 min.) R; violence, profanity, sexual situations.

THE FOUR FEATHERS

(C) They just don't make 'em like that anymore -- which proves to be both good and bad news in the seventh screen adaptation of A.E.W. Mason's swashbuckling 1901 novel about a Victorian-era British army officer (Heath Ledger) who resigns his commission when his regiment ships out to North Africa, then stages a one-man mission to save his comrades after he's branded a coward -- under the protection of a mysterious guardian angel (Djimon Hounsou), who materializes at pivotal moments, dispensing wisdom and performing life-saving miracles with otherworldly aplomb. (127 min.) PG-13; intense battle sequences, disturbing images, violence, sexual references. (C.C.)

GOLDMEMBER

(B-) Powers to the people, baby: Austin Powers, the international man of mystery (Mike Myers), goes time-tripping yet again, hoping to thwart evil Dr. Evil (Myers) and the flaky Goldmember (Myers again), who have kidnapped Britain's most renowned spy: Austin's father Nigel (Michael Caine). Also in on the fun: Beyoncé Knowles of Destiny's Child, as femme fatale Foxxy Cleopatra. Rude, crude, lewd -- and shrewd enough to revel in its down-and-dirty sense of humor -- Austin's latest go-go-round isn't quite the shagadelic romp the original proved to be, but still offers a heaping helping of inspired silliness that should have Powers partisans cheering "Yeah, baby, yeah!" (94 min.) PG-13; sexual references, crude humor, profanity. (C.C.)

HAUNTED CASTLE

(B-) This Imax 3-D attraction focuses on a fledgling rock star (Jasper Steverlinck) who inherits the creepy title structure from his rock legend mother (Kyoko Baertsoen) and discovers the power behind her successful musical career: the devil himself (voiced by Harry Shearer), who inhabits the title structure surrounded by oodles of smoke and mirrors, rattling suits of armor and shimmering holographic fiends. Part movie, part amusement park ride, "Haunted Castle" is far more effective as the latter; slightly scarier than Disneyland's Haunted Mansion, it points Imax attractions in a new and promising direction: innovative, visually imaginative and engaging storytelling. (40 min.) PG; torture and scares too intense for very young children.

JONAH: A VEGGIE TALES MOVIE

(C) The computer-animated kidvid series, which features loosely retold Bible stories with such garden-variety vegetable characters as Larry the Cucumber, Pa Grape and Bob the Tomato, hits the big screen as the Veggies encounter "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything," the laziest scalawags to never sail the Seven Seas, who share a whale of a tale about a long-ago guy named Jonah, alias Archibald Asparagus. The Jonah story is not exactly fresh from the crisper, but even if you're not big on getting lectures from produce, "Jonah" is engaging enough for parents looking to introduce their kids to the veggiest story ever told. (83 min.) Rated G.

KNOCKAROUND GUYS

(C) When a Brooklyn mob boss' son (Barry Pepper) overseeing a $500,000 cash delivery botches the job, he and his second-generation gangster pals (Vin Diesel, Seth Green, Andrew Divoli) set out to undo the damage by recovering the bag of money misplaced in a Montana town overseen by a corrupt lawman (Tom Noonan). Dennis Hopper and John Malkovich co-star as East Coast crime bosses in this by-the-numbers gangster melodrama that plays like a drive-by: You can drive right by it without noticing anything special, save for a few comic turns, intended and otherwise. (92 min.) R; violence, profanity, drug use.

THE MASTER OF DISGUISE

(F) Dana Carvey returns to the big screen -- disastrously -- as mild-mannered Italian waiter Pistachio Disguisey, who has inherited the job of fighting evil from a long dynasty of disguise artists in a calamitous attempt at reviving the anarchic, little-kid spirit of Jerry Lewis. (80 min.) PG; mild profanity, crude humor.

MEN IN BLACK II

(C-) When a sinister Kylothian monster masquerading as a lingerie model (Lara Flynn Boyle) threatens Earth's future, the desperate Jay (Will Smith) tries to convince his former partner Kay (Tommy Lee Jones), now a mild-mannered postal worker, to return to alien-fighting in this five-years-later sequel that also reunites co-star Rip Torn, director Barry Sonnenfeld and make-up supervisor Rick Baker, who creates a new round of interplanetary scum. (88 min.) PG-13; sci-fi action violence, provocative humor.

MOONLIGHT MILE

(B) After his fiancée's sudden death, a young man (Jake Gyllenhaal) stays with her devastated parents (Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon), hoping to make peace with the past and discover the key to his future in this heartfelt drama, set in the early '70s from writer-director Brad Silberling. Despite the heavy subject matter, Silberling's ability to glimpse the absurd humor within the heartbreak give "Moonlight Mile" an endearingly messy, lived-in quality, making the movie's carefully constructed elements -- including a contrived romance -- seem even more artificial by comparison. (117 min.) PG-13; sexual references, profanity, mature themes. (C.C.)

MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING

(C+) When glum, withdrawn Toula (Nia Vardalos), the unmarried daughter of Greek immigrant parents (Michael Constantine, Lainie Kazan), falls for Ian (John Corbett), a decidedly non-Greek teacher, multi-ethnic complications ensue in a romantic comedy, based on Vardalos' one-woman stage show, that's been transfigured into a mushy, overcooked ethnic comedy with culture-clash jokes whose freshness date expired 30 years ago. Everyone tries hard -- sometimes too hard -- and geniality radiates from every frame, but all this needs is a laugh track to qualify as a TV sitcom. (95 min.) PG; sexual references, profanity. (C.C.)

MYSTERIES OF EGYPT

(B+) This National Geographic tour features Egypt's greatest star, Omar Sharif, recounting his homeland's legends for the benefit of his on-screen granddaughter (Kate Maberly). As he shares the myths and magic of the chambers of the sacred tomb of King Tutankhamen, his words open up like a huge picture book -- and we're invited to look over his shoulder as he escorts her through magnificent Egypt, sharing intimate views of its treasures. (45 min.) NR; all ages.

ONE HOUR PHOTO

(B) A lonely photo developer (Robin Williams) becomes obsessed with the private lives of some long-time customers (Connie Nielsen, Michael Vartan), blurring the line between reality and wishful thinking when a crisis threatens to tear apart the picture-perfect family. Mark Romanek's creepy, oddly humane debut thriller is not your usual Williams day at the beach: Leave the automatic laugh track at home and settle in for a nervy thriller, about the ultimate invisible man, that has the air of an extended "Twilight Zone" episode. And we mean that in a good way. (98 min.) R; sexual situations, profanity. (C.C.)

RED DRAGON

(B-) Psychologically scarred FBI investigator Will Graham (Edward Norton) turns to his imprisoned nemesis, Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) to help him track down another crazed serial slayer, dubbed "The Tooth Fairy" (Ralph Fiennes). If this latest installment in Thomas Harris' thriller trilogy sounds familiar, it should -- the same book also inspired writer-director Michael Mann's 1986 thriller "Manhunter," which starred William L. Petersen as the FBI profiler and Brian Cox as Lecter. This time around, Harvey Keitel, Emily Watson, Mary-Louise Parker and Philip Seymour Hoffman co-star for director Brett Ratner, who delivers limited tension but lots of laughs -- in short, just what you want from a psychological thriller. (122 min.) R; violence, grisly images, profanity, nudity, sexual situations.

THE RULES OF ATTRACTION

(D+) The ghouls of dysfunction: College kids in what must be the Reagan '80s look for meaning in drugs, sex, disenchantment and sex. Bret Easton Ellis' novel inspires this alleged social satire about sex-and-drugs-crazed classmates at a New England college, led by a drug-dealing lady-killer (James Van Der Beek). Ian Somerhalder, Shannyn Sossamon, Kip Pardue, Jessica Biel, Eric Stoltz and Faye Dunaway co-star in an interminably bleak -- to say nothing of boring -- exposé of soulless privilege, sexual ennui, directionless angst and general nihilism. This one also has an an unmistakable sense of the middle-age voyeur around its edges, a kind of cinematic wish fulfillment about a world writer-director Roger Avary might have missed and wants to re-create. (110 min.) R; sexual situations, drug use, profanity, violent images.

SECRETARY

(B) A special prize-winner at January's Sundance festival, director Steven Shainberg's offbeat romance details the ties binding a recently released psychiatric patient (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and her new boss (James Spader), a repressed lawyer with kinks of his own. "Secretary" pulls off a neat trick: It's a poignant, sweet-natured love story in which what most of us would call kinky sex features prominently, but never pruriently. S&M may seem like a strange route to true love -- and maybe it is -- but "Secretary" convinces us that it's exactly what these two people need to find each other. And themselves. (104 min.) R; sexual situations, nudity, profanity, behavioral disorders.

SIGNS

(C) Eerie 500-foot crop circles in the middle of his cornfield have a widowed clergyman-turned-farmer (Mel Gibson) on edge in this thriller from director M. Night Shyamalan, whose labored efforts to become a 21st-century Alfred Hitchcock sometimes hit and sometimes miss. Shyamalan definitely knows how to create a shivery setting and an ominous atmosphere, but he's less successful when it comes to integrating the ooga-booga scares with deeper themes. (105 min.) PG-13; some scares. (C.C.)

SPACE STATION

(B) Imax space movies venture into a new frontier -- three dimensions -- as the first Imax 3-D space movie lands at the Luxor's Imax Theatre. Blasting off from the Kennedy's Space Center and Russia's Baikonur Cosmodome, the movie takes audiences 220 miles above Earth -- at 17,500 mph -- to the International Space Station, where a whole bunch of astronauts look close enough to touch and audiences feel swept away by the romance of zero-gravity lifestyles and, as always, the sensation of floating in blackness and peering down at the Earth's reassuring blueness below. Tom Cruise narrates. (45 min.) NR; all ages.

SPIDER-MAN

(B) Still swinging 40 years after his Marvel Comics debut, Spidey spins onto the big screen as geeky student Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) gets bitten by an irradiated arachnid, transforming him from high school science nerd to friendly neighborhood superhero. Willem Dafoe also scores as Spidey's nemesis, the Green Goblin, while Kirsten Dunst is reduced to eye candy as Spidey's longtime secret crush, Mary Jane Watson. This big-screen breakthrough doesn't quite earn the adjective -- "Amazing" -- that's accompanied Spidey all these years. But it does prove the ol' webslinger hasn't lost his grip, thanks to director Sam Raimi and a cast whose talents more than match their comic-book roles. (120 min.) PG-13; stylized action violence. (C.C.)

SPIRITED AWAY

(A-) Master Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki returns with this award-winning fantasy, now equipped with an English-language soundtrack, about a 10-year-old girl who must face a variety of challenges to save her parents and herself, from a powerful sorceress to a flying dragon. With its dazzlingly imaginative characters and an eye-popping array of visual styles, from flat-faced animé to beautiful watercolor effects to sequences resembling Japanese woodcuts, "Spirited Away" overcomes its occasionally clunky dubbing, exploring classic themes in spirited, stirring fashion. (125 min.) PG; intense and scary images. (C.C.)

SPY KIDS 2: THE ISLAND OF LOST DREAMS

(B+) The whole family gets into the act(ion) as Carmen and Juni (Alexa Vega, Daryl Sabara), their superspy parents (Antonio Banderas, Carla Gugino) and their espionage-veteran grandparents (Ricardo Montalban, Holland Taylor) take on a genetic scientist (Steve Buscemi), his imaginative interspecies creatures (including a spider/monkey and a pig with wings) and a pair of rival spy kids (Matthew O'Leary, Emily Osment). One of the rare sequels that improves on the original, this follow-up finds creator Robert Rodriguez in even more imaginative form, employing a vast arsenal of digital and visual effects that enhance, but don't replace, the humorous human interaction. A treat for kids of all ages. (105 min.) PG; action sequences, brief rude humor and profanity. (C.C.)

STEALING HARVARD

(F) Magna cum lousy: When hard-working John (tJason Lee), who's been saving up for his wedding, gets hit with a massive tuition bill for his niece's Harvard University education, his wayward pal Duff (Tom Green) convinces him to consider a brief petty-crime spree to raise the money. (83 min.) PG-13; crude and sexual humor, profanity, drug references.

STUART LITTLE 2

(C) The whole gang's back as plucky little Stuart (voiced by Michael J. Fox) and the reluctant Snowbell (voiced by Nathan Lane) team up to save a new friend, a yellow bird named Margalo (voiced by Melanie Griffith), from the clutches of the sinister Falcon (voiced by James Woods). Geena Davis, Hugh Laurie and Jonathan Lipnicki lead the live-action contingent in another broad, obvious dose of family-friendly fare, full of strenuous slapstick, carefully choreographed action and hearty homilies about family bonding, finding yourself -- and finding the silver linings tucked neatly within life's little gray clouds. PG; brief profanity. (C.C.)

SWEET HOME ALABAMA

(C) Rising young fashion designer Melanie Carmichael (Reese Witherspoon) seems to have it all -- a booming career and a fiancé who happens to be New York City's most eligible bachelor (Patrick Dempsey), the JFK Jr.-like son of the city's mayor (Candice Bergen). Instead, she has it all, plus a secret down-home Alabama past and a redneck husband (Josh Lucas) who refuses to divorce her. Andy Tennant directs a labored, predictable romantic comedy that leaves no Southern-fried cliché unturned. Not even Witherspoon's incandescent charm can save it from its own predictability. (102 min.) PG-13; profanity, sexual references. (C.C.)

SWIMFAN

(C-) "Fatal Attraction" dives into the high school dating pool when high school swim star Ben Cronin (Jesse Bradford) makes the mistake of engaging in water whoopee with the homicidal new girl in town (Erika Christensen), leading to betrayal, madness and murder. Ripped from the pages of the "See Dick Run, See Jane Stalk Him" school, "Swimfan" is a cheap thriller without the cheap thrills. (90 min.) PG-13; mature themes, sexual references, disturbing images, profanity.

THE TRANSPORTER

(B-) Give him a pick-up time, a drop-off location and the weight of the cargo, and ex-Special Forces operator Frank Martin (Jason Statham) will get it there not only on time, but with style. What sounds like a Federal Express promo is actually the premise of a new high-octane action thriller co-written and produced by Luc Besson. If you overlook the rock-stupid story line and one-dimensional characters, "The Transporter" will take you on the white-knuckle ride it promises. With stunt work worthy of Jackie Chan and a title character 10 times cooler than Vin Diesel in "XXX," this movie's action is so kinetic and well-staged that you're almost willing to forgive the story when it's clearly running on empty. (92 min.) PG-13; violence, sexual references.

TRAPPED

(D) "Trapped's" title turns out to be a pretty fair description of how you feel while you're watching this ultra-manipulative thriller. Starring Kevin Bacon and Charlize Theron in a creep show about vulnerable parents and sadistic kidnappers, it's slickly made and even has a performance or two worth mentioning, including the hulking Pruitt Taylor Vince and Bacon, once again making himself at home in the role of a smug, nasty manipulator. But, true to its title, it traps audiences in a series of relentlessly nasty situations that we would pay a considerable ransom not to be looking at. It's not the kind of unwatchable mess you might assume a film withheld from reviewers' scrutiny would be. It is, however, something equally unfortunate: a mess you'd rather not be watching. How torture like this came to be entertainment is anybody's guess. (99 min.) R; violence, profanity, sexual situations.

TUCK EVERLASTING

(C) Yearning to escape her domineering mother (Amy Irving), World War I-era teen Winnie Foster (Alexis Bledel) finds an unexpected escape in the nearby woods, where she discovers a reclusive family (led by William Hurt and Sissy Spacek) with an amazing secret. Ben Kingsley and Jonathan Jackson co-star in a soporific adaptation of Natalie Babbitt's treasured children's novel, previously filmed in 1980, that's been truncated to dismaying effect by the Disney folks. But at least enough of Babbitt's elegiac prose peeks through to make you want to read the book, which is something. (90 min.) PG; violence, mature themes. (C.C.)

THE TUXEDO

(C) Clothes may make the man, but they don't necessarily make the movie. Exhibit A: "The Tuxedo," an amiable but labored espionage romp in which New York cabbie Jimmy Tong (Jackie Chan) gets a new job chauffeuring man-about-town Clark Devlin (Jason Isaacs). That is, until an explosion incapacitates his boss, leading Jimmy to discover his No. 1 passenger is really a secret agent with a killer uniform: a specially-equipped tux that transforms him into an instant spy. With the effects-enhanced title attire providing much of the action artistry, "The Tuxedo" robs Chan of his major claim to fame. He's still charming and funny in a self-deprecating way, but this "Tuxedo" isn't what you'd call a flattering fit. (99 min.) PG-13; action violence, sexual situations, profanity. (C.C.)

WHITE OLEANDER

(B) When a willful, charismatic artist (Michelle Pfeiffer) is convicted of murder, her teenage daughter (Alison Lohman) begins a harrowing journey through the foster care system. Based on Janet Fitch's best-seller, "White Oleander" offers a potent and frequently moving account of one teen's obstacle-strewn path to maturity and freedom, showcasing a host of memorable performances, including Pfeiffer, Robin Wright Penn, Renée Zellweger and Lohman, who carries the movie with wary, walking-on-eggshells effectiveness. (110 min.) PG-13; mature themes, drug use, profanity, sexual situations, violence. (C.C.)

XXX

(C) He's fast, he's furious, he's a dude with a 'tude -- he's Vin Diesel, continuing his ascent into the action stratosphere. This time, the high-octane hero is Xander "X" Cage, an extreme sports renegade recruited by spymaster Samuel L. Jackson for a death-defying covert mission in Prague. "XXX" reunites Diesel with Rob Cohen for a pumped-up spy workout that's as cheeky as it is cheesy, a 007 adventure reinterpreted for the Playstation generation, heavy on outlandish action sequences that work best if you don't think during (or after) they unfold in all their kinetic excess. (113 min.) PG-13; violence, non-stop action sequences, sexual references, drug use, profanity. (C.C.)