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☆☆☆ Excellent: Movies this great are rare, so don't miss it.
☆☆ Good: At least worth the price of admission.
☆ Okay: See if you have nothing better to do.
☆ Bad: If you absolutely have to see it, wait for the DVD.
No stars: Frickin' terrible; give us our two hours back, you director from hell.
Alfie (✩✩1/2)
R,106 minutes, South Wind 12 Jude Law is pretty.
This cannot be denied, and I have already used (some may say wasted) enough ink conveying this fact, so this is the last time I promise. In Alfie, his prettiness is thrusted upon us; some may welcome this (me included), others may groan. As he speaks and leans toward the camera, I dare anyone not to be charmed or at least impressed that he is able to talk directly to the camera so effortlessly. However, despite Law's best efforts, Alfie
is not as perfect as his portrayer might have you believe.
Standing on its own, Alfie is fun although full of fluff. It suffers from clichés and no one is surprised that Alfie starts to rethink his approach to women. There are a few precious moments as Alfie is rethinking his actions that are genuinely sweet and even touching. As with any movie with a pretty actor in it, one must wonder if it suffers from the, to quote Joey Tribbiani, "when the package is this pretty, no one cares what's inside" syndrome, but in Alfie's case it's (unfortunately) true.
Now I know this is a remake of a 1966 classic starring a young Michael Caine as Alfie. I will admit I have never seen the original. This Alfie, directed by Charles Shyer, follows Alfie as he tries to sleep with any beautiful face that happens by. His women are many, including a single mom (Marisa Tomei), a sexy businesswoman (Susan Surandon) and a party girl (Sienna Miller). As he moves through all these women, Alfie starts to ponder what life is all about as Mick Jagger sings about just that in the background.
— Lindsey Ramsey
The Polar Express (★★★)
Christmas is ultimately a cruel rite of passage for children. After eight or nine years of reindeer and sleigh bells and a fat man sliding down chimneys, up comes the wool over their eyes and a world of magic is replaced by a sense of mistrust numbed only by the sweet candy of consumerism.
G,100 minutes, South Wind 12
The best Christmas movies (Miracle on 34 $^{th}$ Street, The Muppet Christmas Carol) make us forget our adult resentments so that we experience, if only for a short while, some of the purest feelings of early childhood. The Polar Express does all that and more.
Directed by Robert Zemeckis from the children's book by Chris Van Allsburg, Polar Express is about a little boy on the brink of his own rite of passage. Late on Christmas Eve, when his doubts about the big man in red are beginning to stir, the boy is awakened by the appearance of a magic train outside his snow-banked house. The conductor informs him that he's on his way to the North Pole, and the boy joins the other children on the train
for a long and perilous journey toward the Northern Lights.
The Polar Express looks like one of Pixar's computer-animated movies, but in fact the production involved motion capture effects; live actors performed on a soundstage and their movements were transmitted into a computer. This process took $165 million to complete, and every penny is up on the screen. Alternately lifelike and highly stylized, Zemeckis' characters (five of them are played by Tom Hanks) have slightly rounded features that perfectly recreate the illustrations of Van Allsburg's 1985 book. Motion capture also frees the director from the constraints of CGI, so that his "camera" can swoop and dance around the action. Zemeckis is one of Hollywood's most dizzyingly imaginative filmmakers, and here he comes up with enough showstoppers to rival his most acclaimed films, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Forrest Gump.
Action-packed and emotionally resonant, Polar Express is pure magic. It's not so much for kids as it is for thrill-seekers.
— Stephen Shupe
The Incredibles (★★★)
PG, 115 minutes, South Wind 12
Pixar is growing up. After G-rated fare such as Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, and the Toy Story movies, Pixar gives us The Incredibles, darker and more mature than any of its predecessors.
The movie looks like a computer animated version of a James Bond movie from the '60s, set in a world where superheroes are an everyday part of life, but are forced into hiding when a few citizens get
lawsuit happy. The story follows a family
of superheroes: there's dad, a.k.a. Mr. Incredible (voiced by Craig T. Nelson); mom, a.k.a. Elastigirl (voiced by Holly Hunter); daughter Violet, son Dash and infant son Jack Jack. Mr. Increible is frustrated and unhappy with his job at an insurance company
and jumps at any opportunity to get back in the superhero game.
What makes The Incredibles so great is
the Incredibles so great is its obvious love for the superhero genre of comic books and movies. The movie is cocky in a good way, always knowing what it is and isn't afraid to poke fun at itself with a grin and a one liner. It's more of a satire of the genre than anything else,
meant for an older audience. Some of the movie's funniest parts come from the way
the filmmakers use the idea of extraordinary people trying to fit into ordinary life. There are more than a few darker moments because of the subject matter. For instance, there are two deaths by jet engine, but it is refreshing to see a Pixar movie not exclusively aimed at the kiddies.
The voice acting is flawless and each role is perfectly cast. The humor is darker, as is the story. Of all the Pixar movies, this one is the most complex and as a result is the most rewarding.
— Jon Ralston