ey toward
make one of movies, but and motion performed on events were this process and every innately lifefew' chared by Tom and features restrictions of capture in the con- mera" can the action. wood's most nakers, and though show-acclaimed rabbit and Foronally resoagic. It's not drill-seekers.
Movies Coming soon
sephen Shupe
a of extraordi-
ordinary life.
few darker
subject matter.
deaths by jet
to see a Pixar
ed at the kidless and each tumor is darker, ar movies, this and as a result is
Jon Ralston
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (★★)108 minutes
Movie Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, cigarettes 5 (good), number. of times
Bridget makes total arse of herself, 15, cute British sexpots in her life, 2 (drool), laugh units, 24 (mh).
Three years ago, Bridget Jones made her movie debut. Based on Helen Fielding's book of the same name, the film captured the essence and spirit of the novel, of course helped by Renée Zellweger's Oscar-nominated performance of the title character.
Cleaver (Hugh Grant, sexpot number two), in full charm and sleaze mode, gets a job at the same station as Bridget, she is torn between the two men in her life.
The sequel continues immediately where the first book left off, at the start of a new year with fabulous new boyfriend, Mark Darcy (Colin Firth, sexpot number one). Bridget keeps finding new ways to embarrass herself at her on-air reporting job. Her relationship with Mark is up and down, as she doesn't exactly fit in with his upper class friends. When Daniel
The movie contains a lot of Bridget falling down and saying exactly the
wrong thing at exactly the wrong moment. While this is funny at times, I wondered if this girl would ever get some common sense and a clue. There are some funny moments, such as when Grant and Firth face-off in a not exactly battle royal, and when Bridget gets mistaken for a drug-runner and has to spend some quality time in a Thai prison.
What the first movie did so well was bring to the screen the bumbling humanity of Bridget in her attempt to find romance and lose pounds. The sequel, while having its moments, seems like a forced retread of the original, lacking in the charm this time around.
—Jon Ralston
Finding Neverland (★★★)
PG, 101 minutes, South Wind 12
Following last Christmas' underrated screen adaptation Peter Pan (directed by P.J. Hogan) and this year's novelized prequel Peter and the Star Catchers (coauthored by humorist Dave Barry), Finding
Neverland is the latest Pan project to tackle the boy who won't grow up.
Marc Forster's fancifully wide-eyed biopic stars Johnny Depp as J.M. Barrie, the eccentric Scottish playwright who first created Peter Pan on the stage in early 1900s London. When we first see him, Barrie is peeking behind the curtains, waiting for his latest uninspired play to fail. Inspiration comes in the form of the Davies family;
widow Sylvia (Kate Winslet) and boys George, Jack, Michael and, of course, Peter (newcomer Freddie Highmore, who will play opposite Depp again next year in
Tim Burton's remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory).
The film is like a sexless redo of Shakespeare in Love. When Forster focuses on evocative visuals, such as the scene where Barrie imagines the boys flying out of their bedroom window, Finding Neverland is a light and touching spectacle. But too much of its screen time is filled up with long, theatural passages of dialogue. The screenplay, based on Allan Knee's play, The Man Who Was Peter Pan, tends to tell when it should show.
Depp displays a mischievous sense of fun opposite the kids. The performance spreads like an electrical current through the rest of the movie, spinning key moments — like when Barrie envisions the boys' scolding grandmother growing a hook for a hand — into the realm of enchantment.
Depp does believe in fairies, and so we do too.
— Stephen Shupe