THURSDAY, MARCH 27, 2003
MOVIES AROUND TOWN
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN - 13
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LIBERTY HALL
Adaptation Grade: A- (Opens Friday)
Charlie Kaufman's Mad Hatter idea to write himself into his own screenplay pays off in spades in Spike Jonze's latest comedic stunner. Nicholas Cage gives a blistering performance as the screenwriter hired to adapt Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief, a decidedly non-cinematic book about flowers. Meryl Streep plays Orlean in some of the best sequences in the film, which feature an Oscar-winning Chris Cooper as a greasy horticulturist who journeys through the swamplands to lift endangered orchids. Charlie's descent from artistic integrity to derivative hell is one of the movies' most memorable unraveling acts in years, and 'Adaptation's restless originality all but guarantees it cult status.
The Quiet American
Grade: A-
Thomas Fowler (Oscar nominee Michael Caine), a British journalist chasing the dragon and other interests in 1952 Saigon, meets Alden Pyle (should-havebeen-nominated Brendan Fraser), an American charmer who falls in love with Fowler's Vietnamese girlfriend. When Fowler investigates a violent political faction, one that's fighting both the Communists and the rebels, he finds Pyle waiting for him around every corner. Phillip Noyce's incredibly suspenseful rendering of Graham Greene's novel is the most politically inflammatory American movie in years, one that should provide plenty of fuel to the fire for today's anti-war movement.
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SOUTHWIND12
Agent Cody Banks Grade:C
Malcom in the Middle's Frankie Muniz makes the leap to the big screen with this unexceptional kid adventure. Muniz plays a typical Seattle teen with girl issues who's secretly a CIA super-agent. I loved this movie the first time when it was called Spy Kids and directed by Robert Rodriguez, who makes movies with eye-popping visuals and plenty of conceptual wit. Apart from a few laughs and some snappy casting, Agent Cody Banks is dull to look at with a silly robot plot that's way too complicated for kids to follow. There's enough bikini-wear on display here that it prompted one tyke at my screening to call out, "Oh, my gosh!" When I was his age we were treated to such family-friendly classics as Home Alone and Who Framed
Roger Rabbit. But today, kid flicks have fully embraced the overly violent world of monster-mayhem cartoon television.
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Basic(not reviewed)
(Opens Friday)
A promising thriller with a silly title, Basic reunites John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson for the first time since Pulp Fiction. Jackson plays a colonel both feared and loathed who disappears along with several of his elite Special Forces trainees during a hurricane in the jungles of Panama. Travolta is the DEA agent who's drawn into the mystery. John McTiernan (Die Hard and The Hunt for Red October - but also Rollerball) directs.
Chicago Grade:B-
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Everybody sings and dances just swell in this Academy Award-nominated take on the Bob Fosse Broadway hit, but after Chicago is over you may wonder what all the fuss was about. Director Rob Marshall's carbon-copy theatricality ensures you'll have a good time, but for less style over substance, see Björk in the daring Dancer in the Dark.
The Core (not reviewed) Opens Friday)
The earth's inner core has stopped rotating, and pretty soon hundreds of people are sliding off the Golden Gate Bridge to their deaths. Delayed for nearly two years and released now in a time when the masses aren't exactly craving the escapism of a disaster epic, 'The Core' stars Aaron Eckhart and Hillary Swank as scientists who travel to the center of the earth to detonate a nuclear device. Sounds cheery.
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Cradle 2 the Grave
Grade: C
A bungled thriller about a booty of black diamonds with nuclear capabilities, Cradle 2 the Grave opens with an elaborate heist followed by a full hour of zero excitement. The filmmakers rarely find the time to showcase Jet Li's poetic acrobatics. At one point, DMX walks up a wall like a ninja. It's a cool idea to blend cultures and conventions like that, but this is the only time Cradle 2 the Grave tries to reinvent some of the East-meets-West vocabulary created by Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker in Rush Hour
Daredevil
Grade: D+
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Art and commerce collide in Daredevil, easily the worst comic-book
fiasco since Dolph Lundgren played The Punisher. Ben Affleck stars as a blind Hell's Kitchen lawyer who sees audible objects in his head and haunts dreary New York rooftops to brutalize bad guys. The film's list of flaws (choppy effects, unnecessary killings, corny lines ...) scrolls longer than the "pizza" section of the Lawrence yellow pages. A cheap, self-conscious bore.
Dreamcatcher
Grade: B-
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Four telepathic friends enter the snowy New England woods for a weekend hunting expedition, only to be hunted themselves by little green men. At the heart of this Stephen King story is one of the more intriguing ideas about alien invasions ever where interplanetary monsters draw upon dreams and hide behind the friendly-neighbors imaginings of such movies as Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In King's book, this concept was overwhelmed by a seemingly endless race against time, and Dreamcatcher's director, Lawrence Kasdan, possesses no other ambition than to film it faithfully. Some of the acting — especially by Damian Lewis as a shape-shifting alien with a James Bond accent — is fun. But the demands of big budget sci-fi creatures and special effects quickly take over the picture.
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Head of State (not reviewed) Opens Friday
Mays Gilliam (Chris Rock) is on a bad streak and about to lose his job when his political party, the neighborhood Aldermen, calls him up to run for president. Rock's last comedy, Down to Earth, made worst-of-the-year lists, so this time he's producing and directing himself. Bernie Mac co-stars as Gilliam's older brother and take-no-prisoners running mate.
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days Grade:D
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Despite a few clever insights and twists, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is neither good nor distinctive enough to rise above the level of generic romantic comedy. This, despite appealing performances by Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey.
(Ends today) — Carrie Rickey/KRT Campus
The Hunted
William Friedkin directed two classics back in the '70s (The French Connection and The Exorcist) and then faded fast. He has another shot at a comeback with this thriller about an AWOL assassin (Benicio Del Toro) who
murders four deer hunters in the Oregon wilderness. Tommy Lee Jones plays the Special Forces trainer hired to track down the killer.
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The Life of David Gale Grade: C+
The Life of David Gale has the courage of its own convictions. What it lacks is the grace to transmit them with subtlety. Director Alan Parker has assembled an impressive cast topped by Kevin Spacey, Kate Winslet and Laura Linney. But he presents each scene with flourishes usually associated with musical production numbers. It's as if Parker thought he was still directing Madonna in Evita. Overwrought and over-directed.
Carrie Rickey/KRT Campus
Old School
Grade: B+
A mile-a-minute tummy-tickler, Old School follows the travails of three 30ish friends unwilling to leave behind the glory of their collegiate yesteryear. A movie that spoofs the greek experience has the artistic license to be rowdy, bawdy and completely lacking in moral fiber. The director, Todd Phillips, plays by those rules while also giving the film an exquisite sixth sense for the kitsch 1980s nostalgia most yuppies just can't escape. And as a newlywed streaking his way to a quick divorce, Ferrell goes Farley in a comedy that's savvy enough to give him free rein.
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Tears of the Sun Grade: C-
A Nigerian war film about genocide and American intervention, Tears of the Sun plays like 'Black Hawk Down' minus the wall-to-wall slam-bang action of that previous film, leaving only the sketched-in human relationships to fill up a two-hour running time. Director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) strives for a more contemplative war film a la The Thin Red Line, but the script has so much ground to cover that familiar faces like Isaiah Washington and Donnie Wahlberg barely register. Only the cinematographer, Mauro Fiore, seems to realize this is a movie designed to engage an audience, and he enthralls with striking tropical landscapes. Bruce Willis leads this solemn enterprise, a movie that undercuts his back-to-back M. Night Shyamalan triumphs, 'The Sixth Sense' and 'Unbreakable'.
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Willard(Reviewed on pg.12)
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