2003 REVIEWS Updated 1/4/04 Rated on a scale of 1-10 P A Y C H E C K We liked this one. It may not be a blockbuster but it was fun and not too predictable. It was of a mixture of several previously used themes rolled into something new. Score: 7.5 DVD: No T H E   L O R D   O F   T H E   R I N G S The Return of the King I have to say this picture is tops for the year, decade, my life so far. I've been waiting over 20 years for this moment, ever since first reading the novels back in college. In a way it's sad. What's left to look forward too? Well, foremost, the extended DVD. The original cut of the ROTK was 4.5 hours long, so much was lost in the theatrical version. Next on my wish list is a resolution to the rights issues for "The Hobbit". Peter Jackson and Ian McKellen have both said they'd love to do it. Finally, let us hope that the success of the LOTR films brings some of the other great fantasy works to the big screen. The success of X-Men brought a slew of other comics to film. Some great, some not so, but all worth watching. If they put the proper mixture of time, money and passion into a fantasy work like Peter & Co. did on the LOTR films, then the rest of this decade may be interesting indeed. I have few quibbles with ROTK. It's silly to think they could put a 4.5 hour movie in the theater but still, there were a few things cut that I'd have liked to see. Score: 9.999999 DVD: Yes G O T H I K A I read a couple of bad reviews for this one but that usually doesn't stop me from seeing a movie. Angela and I both really liked this one. It was creepy and a little twisted. Makes you never, ever want to find yourself in a mental hospital. Score: 7.5 DVD: No T H E   H A U N T E D   M A N S I O N Well I guess Disney can't win them all. Nobody went to see The Country Bears but everyone went to see Pirates of the Caribbean. This third movie based on a park attraction falls somewhere in the middle. It had a few funny moments but was very predictable and formulaic throughout. Eddie Murphy was his usual annoying self. Perhaps he should stick to voicing animated characters, ala Mulan and Shrek. Score: 7.0 DVD: No T I M E L I N E It sucked. My wife and I liked the book and were looking forward to the movie. It was nearly a waste of time. It wasn't the worst adaptation I've ever seen, that would be Battlefield Earth but it was pretty bad. Surprising considering how much money went into it's making and the quality of the director. Score: 6.5 DVD: No M A S T E R   AND  C O M M A N D E R This is not the rousing adventure flick it is advertised to be. It plays almost as an historical drama. The detail of everyday life on a ship at sea is vividly portrayed. The hardships, the reality of war at sea, the camaraderie and loyalty of the crew and to the captain is quite evident. I enjoyed the movie but could have waited for DVD. Though I'm not sure the violence and intensity of the battles would have had the same impact on the small screen. Score: 7.5 DVD: No M A T R I X   R E V O L U T I O N S So, Mr. Anderson, we come to the end at last. Most questions were answered and he saved the day (at least for a while) but still there was something lacking. Perhaps I was just wishing for the traditional happy ending. Sure Zion was saved but the Hero and the Girl pay the price. Still, it was an excellent movie and I can't understand why it's tanking at the boxoffice. Should they have waited a year or two instead of releasing it 6 months later? Maybe. Back to the Future II and III were released the same way and suffered a similar lack of interest. The Lord of the Rings trilogy was originally planned to be released at 6 month intervals but the FX time requirements for each film forced them to space them out, which was probably for the best. Score: 8.5 DVD: Yes B R O T H E R   B E A R A good story but nothing terribly new here. It's a shame. Word on the street is that Disney has officially cancelled all of it's forthcoming traditionally animated films, save one: Home on the Range. Range is a throwback in style and humor to old style Disney fare, pre-Little Mermaid. I'm guessing that it's success or failure will be the deciding factor on future films. Why can't they get good stories anymore? Who wrote Toy Story, Monsters inc and Nemo? Would those films have been just as successful if done in cell animation instead of CG? Is it the story or is it the "coolness" of computer animation? The success of nearly all things CG makes one wonder if people would go see it no matter how bad the story. Score: 7.5 DVD: Yes K I L L   B I L L  Vol 1 Wow. I've seen bloody, violent movies before but this takes the cake. We're not talking squirts here, it's more like lawn sprinkers of blood spewing out of people. There's not a lot of story but what there is suffices. This is a no holds barred revenge flick. Score: 7.0 DVD: No O U T   O F  T I M E Kind of twisty little frame up story. Not as gritty as Denzel's last couple of movies but still a good show. Score: 7.5 DVD: No C O L D C R E E K   M A N O R Fun movie though not quite what I expected. I was expecting a ghost tale but got a murder mystery and psycho stalker instead. There were some great moments but overall the film was just so so. Score: 7.0 DVD: No T H E   O R D E R This film is a thinker. Not a lot of action. Most of these religion movies are interesting but dull to watch. The premise of the order was quite intriguing and makes you question if such things can or do exist. Catholicism is so steeped in mystery, ritual and lore, one wonders how much of it is just mumbo jumbo and how much is based on some long forgotten fact. Score: 6.5 DVD: No S E A B I S C U I T Great movie. I like period pieces like this. All the actors did a good job. William H. Macy was particularly funny. The story was well paced and the action was exciting. The insights and flashbacks of life and events that took place during that time period were well done and interesting. Score: 8.0 DVD: Yes L A R A  C R O F T  T O M B  R A I D E R The Cradle of Life We really enjoyed this sequel. I think it was far superior to the original. I can't understand why it didn't do better at the boxoffice. This film should easily have made blockbuster status but perhaps the public was satiated with action by the time it came out. If it had been release a month or two earlier I think it would have done better. It's doing well overseas but I doubt that will be enough to save the franchise. Score: 7.5 DVD: Yes B A D  B O Y S  2 Another buddy cop movie sequel, just what we need. The action was great, the story was ok. I like Smith but Lawrence is beginning to grate on my nerves. Score: 7.0 DVD: Yes T H E  L E A G U E  O F  E X T R O R D I N A R Y  G E N T L E M A N I had really high hopes for this film and I was not entirely disappointed. It was such an interesting concept, so different from anything else that's come out of Hollywood lately. I liked the film a lot and will want to see it again on DVD to see what all I missed. The film does have it's problems though. Some of them may stem from trying to squeeze too much into one film. Even though the main characters are famous literary figures, they needed more development and backstory. Some of the fight scenes were not well choreographed, they came across as just a lot of movement and chaos. The transformation of Jekyll into Hyde was particularly bad also. The Fantom (evil bad guy) twist was good but the portrayal of the character left me wanting something more sinister. It's doing alright at the boxoffice though I sincerely doubt it will make it to blockbuster status. That will make the chances of a sequel very iffy. Score: 7.5 DVD: Yes P I R A T E S  O F  T H E  C A R I B B E A N Good, very good. Pirate movies have never been big money makers and the last major pirate film (Cutthroat Island) was such a flop that the whole genre was shunned by the studios for almost a decade. Seems Disney's idea of making movies based on their theme rides is not all bad. The Country Bears may have tanked at the boxoffice but Pirates has more than made up for it. The forthcoming Haunted Mansion looks to do well also. Pirates is a rollicking adventure with gorgeous imagery and truly inspired acting on the parts of Depp and Rush. The film is showing strong legs and may come near or even surpass the $300 million mark by the end of it's run. Score: 8.5 DVD: Yes T E R M I N A T O R  3 :   R I S E  O F  T H E  M A C H I N E S Great movie! Bring on T4! Ok, let's face it, it's not T2 but did anyone really think T2 could be topped? Still, at the rate it's going, T3 will give Arnold the second biggest boxoffice take of his career and that's nothing to knock. It's great to see the Oak back in the blockbuster club again. Now if he would just make King Conan! Score: 8.0 DVD: Yes S I N B A D :   L E G E N D  O F  T H E  S E V E N  S E A S A fun little animated adventure. I thought it was well done. As with Titan AE and Treasure Planet, it was a mix of traditional and computer animation. Unfortunately, just like those two, it has flopped at the boxoffice. Are the kids not interested or is it the parents that aren't taking them? They sure are flocking to see Nemo all summer. Sure, I like CG animation but I also like traditional cell animation and don't want to see it die. The studios better get a handle on this. None of them could ever match Disney's success with traditional animated movies. Now Disney/Pixar's CG Finding Nemo is about to surpass the highest grossing animated movie of all time: The Lion King. Once the Disney/Pixar contract ends, what's Disney going to do? Will Pixar become the new king? Will the other studios/CG houses be able to pull another Shrek out of their hats to compete? Last year's traditional Lilo and Stitch was moderately successful though not in the same league as past Disney greats or with recent CG films. Their next film, Brother Bear, looks promising but I just can't see it being an uber blockbuster. What happens if it bombs too? Is this the end of an era? Update: Dreamworks has announced that it will not make any more traditionally animated films. Another nail in the coffin.... Score: 7.0 DVD: Yes C H A R L I E ' S  A N G E L S : Full Throttle I liked this one but I can't say if I liked it better than the first one. On the one hand, it wasn't quite so silly and overdone as the first and on the other maybe it wasn't quite as fun because of that. I liked Bernie as Bosley better than Bill, though I hope in the next one he isn't quite so "bumbling". Having Jacyln Smith cameo as Kelly Garrett was a great touch. Demi, well lets just say all women should look so good at 40. Score: 7.5 DVD: Yes H U L K This turned out to be not quite what I expected. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't all that. I think it was well done but the whole reinvented backstory of Bruce's life and all the atrocities his father committed were a bit too heavy. I'm not an "all action" kind of guy but still, it was too involved and dark for my taste. Apparently the public thinks so too since it had a 70% drop in sales after the first weekend. As always with these kind of films, there's mounds of opportunity for a successful sequel. Now that the whole sordid backstory is out of the way, they could go anywhere they want with the next film. Heck, if the cheesy TV show was successful, they ought to be able to do wonders with this. The hulk as a CG animated character was well done I thought. It's interaction with the real world was very well timed and realistic. As the tech improves, future iterations of the hulk should be even more convincing. Score: 7.0 DVD: Maybe F I N D I N G  N E M O Another winner for Pixar. As always the CG visuals are superb. The story was good but not nearly as complex as most of their other films. It's sure to be popular with the kiddies but unlike all the rest of their films, I found it just OK. Their next endeavor, The Incredibles, looks like it might be the best yet. It'll be interesting to see what direction Pixar goes in once their contract with Disney ends. Score: 7.5 DVD: Yes B R U C E  A L M I G H T Y Jim Carrey is back doing what he does best - comedy. I've liked pretty much all of his movies, comedies and dramas but the former is definitely his forte. Perhaps the right script just hasn't come along. As long as he keeps putting out a good comedy every couple of years, he can keep trying for an oscar in between time. His latest is quite a hoot and pulling in a lot of loot. The film isn't entirely a comedy, there is the love story subplot and the whole "what it's really like to be god" side of it. The story was well balanced though I'm sure most people came to see the funny stuff. Jim Carrey as God, heh, can you think of anyone better to play the role? Score: 8.0 DVD: No T H E  M A T R I X  R E L O A D E D The big question with movies like this is, did it deliver on the hype? I'd have to say yes for the most part it did. The flying was cool, the fights were good and the effects were generally better than the original. The much touted "you can't tell what's CG and what's not" line is not entirely true. I'm sure that a great deal of what was on the screen was "not real" but some of it was obvious. However, it was the best work yet in any film. Instead of trying to create graphics that look real, they overlayed real images over computer models. This has been done before in limited extent, like pasting an actors face on a CG body. In Reloaded, they do the whole body. The plot was alright, though not outstanding, perhaps because it is only part of the story. Many questions were raised that won't be answered until Revolutions comes out in November. Ah, the eternal wait... One thing missing - and this is the bane of all sequels - is the magic. They can never recapture the sense of wonder of seeing something new. We get to see Zion (I wasn't impressed) and we're introduced to some new facets of the matrix and meet some new characters but it's all kinda old hat now. We've met most of the characters, know the most of the history and we've seen Neo come into his own so everything else is just add ons. Still, it was quite a ride for 2 hours and 18 minutes. We even paid full price to see it. Score: 9.0 DVD: Yes X 2 Wow! Bigger than the first, better than the first. Loved it, can't wait for X3! This is what you get when studios allow the director to make the movie he wants to make. Half way through production of X-Men, Fox got panicky and yanked back a large portion of the budget. Can't blame them too much I guess, no one had produced a decent superhero movie in years and it was unknown if the public would come see a lesser known set of characters like X-Men. Fortunately, it was a success and paved the way for all the other studios to roll out the films they've had waiting in the wings, like Spiderman, Daredevil and the Hulk. Also characters in production are Punisher, Ironfist and Hellboy. Warner Bros. is still trying to get new Superman and Batman franchises started but so far they're still stumbling. X2 carries on and expands the story from X-Men. We get to meet some other mutant characters from the comics and there are loads of references to yet more mutants. Spiderman was always my favorite as a kid and I loved the movie but as of now, X2 has it beat. Next year's The Amazing Spiderman will really have to be amazing if they want the Spidey franchise to stay on top. Score: 9.0 DVD: Yes I D E N T I T Y Great movie. Many twists and turns. The big twist is similar to the one in A Beautiful Mind. If you're a gore fan, there's lots of interesting killing methods used. I didn't know a baseball bat could fit down your throat. The twists keep you guessing until near the end and just when you think it's done, ha ha, think again. Score: 7.5 DVD: No T H E   C O R E I liked the core. I didn't have high expectations for it so I found it pleasant entertainment. It's kind of a poor man's Armageddon. There's only so much you can do when trapped on a ship boring through thousands of miles of molten rock. I think a remake of journey to the center of the earth would be more entertaining since the adventurers run into a variety of places and creatures. What we have in The Core is your standard team of good guys, with one rogue along, who set out to save the world. A few die, the rest come back heroes, the end. Score: 7.0 DVD: No D R E A M C A T C H E R WARNING! If someone you know starts farting and speaking with a british accent, RUN! They are possessed by giant alien slugs whose upper third peel open to reveal multiple rows of razor sharp teeth. No, I'm not kidding, that's what this movie is about. For at least 25 years, these critters have been coming to earth and there is an elite secret military force whose only purpose is to seek and destroy them. In Dreamcatcher, one of their ships has crashed and they spread out and start taking over the locals. To include the four main characters who happen to be there on vacation. But wait, it gets better. Those four have special powers granted to them by a retarded kid they met when they were kids themselves. There's more absurdity to mention but I'll stop there. This was one freaky film and you're probably wondering why anyone would go see it. Hey, it's a Stephen King story...all his stories are freaky. It's like Men in Black, The Thing and bit's and pieces of several other films all rolled into one. I liked it. Score: 7.0 DVD: No B R I N G I N G   D O W N   T H E   H O U S E Lots of laughs in this one. It's a comedy but there's also a more serious side concerning solving a crime and Martin reconciling with his Ex. I read some bad reviews of this film before seeing it but we liked it and to judge by the reactions of the crowd in the theater, most everyone else liked it too. Score: 7.5 DVD: No T H E   L I F E   O F   D A V I D   G A L E This is a sad twisted little tale. Just when you think you know what happened, they throw another twist at you. No happy ending here either. Still, it was a good movie with excellent acting and good suspense. Accused of a crime he didn't commit, David has just a few hours left before he's executed. He brings in a reporter to record his story. You think it's to get him set free but instead it's to prove he's innocent, which is not the same thing. I can't say much more about it without ruining the ending. Score: 7.5 DVD: No S H A N G H A I   K N I G H T S Another romp with Owen and Jackie. I enjoyed their first team up in Shanghai Noon and I'm looking forward to their third film, Shanghai Dawn. The films are a little like the Rush Hour movies but set in the 1800's. Of course, they don't gross nearly as much as the Rush Hour films...maybe they should add Chris Tucker to the third film. That could be hilarious. Score: 7.5 DVD: No D A R E D E V I L The first of this year's crop of superhero flicks got off to rousing start. Unless it crashes in it's second weekend, Daredevil looks to be the year's first blockbuster. The film was good but it's not in the same class as other recent comic adaptations like X-Men or Spiderman. I know the basic Daredevil story though I've never actually read the comic. Elecktra and Bullseye were new acquaintances. The Kingpin is a familiar character from some Spiderman comics I've read. Michael Clark Duncan is the right physical size to play the part but it takes a while to get used to the idea of Kingpin being black. All in all, good performances by all the cast, great fights, a little romance and an open-ended story leave us waiting for the sequel. Until then, we get to be consoled by the likes of X-Men 2 and Hulk. Marvel Comics is running high these days. Every one of their comic adaptations has been a roaring success. DC comics is still waiting for Warner Bros. to get their act together. They killed the Superman franchise in the 80's and Batman in the 90's. They want to resurrect both but so far it's just a lot of talk and script shuffling. It looks as though a new re-envisioned Superman may be coming in the next year or two but I think they should let the Batman property lie for a while longer. The recent success of the WB network's Smallville (Superman) and the failure of Birds of Prey (based on the Batman mythos) seems to back up my belief. Score: 7.5 DVD: Yes C H I C A G O It's great to see musicals coming back in style again. I was beginning to think it was a lost art. Moulin Rouge did quite well last year and I thought it was quite zany and refreshing. Evita did well back in 96 but I never particularly cared for it. The story didn't interest me that much and there is such a thing as too much singing. Further back in 82 is one of my all time favorites, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. I still hear those songs in my head. Chicago was not quite what I expected but I really liked it. Most musicals that I can recall have a traditional story going on when suddenly everyone breaks out in song. When the song is over, they go on as if they weren't just singing and dancing a moment before. Chicago did something new (to me anyway). The song/dance routines are separate acts. Sometimes the film cuts from the story for the duration of the act and sometimes it snaps back and forth between the two. This technique worked quite well I thought. Even more interesting was the instances where the singing/dancing was overlayed on top of the story. Sometimes ghostlike other times the overlays were in the fore. It was fun watching as they cut from scene to scene. One moment you see reality and the next there'd be all sorts of people/props/etc all around the "real" people without them knowing they were there. The courtroom sequence was inspired. It was a blend of cuts and overlays. I'm not sure how it was accomplished - a lot of creative editing and computer wizardry I'm sure. Score: 8.0 DVD: Yes