Movies
Excellent: Movies this great are rare, so don't miss it. Good: At least worth the price of admission. Okay: See it 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.
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (星星)
PG, 107 minutes, South Wind 12
PG, 107 minutes.
Does anyone remember watching a movie and simply being in awe? Enjoying the film in a pure state, away from cynicism and judgment? Remember when you first watched ET; you didn't think to yourself, "this couldn't happen" and you didn't think anything of the clunky, cheesy dialogue. You took ET's word that he would be "right here" without rolling your eyes at the cheese of the moment. Not that I'm comparing Sky Captain to ET, but I'm talking about that pure unadulterated state of movie watching. As we grow older it's difficult to watch a film in this pure state, but necessary when watching Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.
Maniacal machines have invaded the world and it is up to Sky Captain (Jude Law) and Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow) to stop them. With the help of mechanical genius Dex (Giovanni Ribisi) and feisty pilot Frankie (Angelina Jolie), Sky Captain and Polly race against time to save the world.
reminded me of Casablanca; remember the way Ingrid Bergman seemed to have a glow about her? That is how Paltrow glaws. The film has a flash of The Wizard of Oz, the energy of Indiana Jones and the savvy of Star Wars, but ultimately comes up with a style that is all its own. And although at times you may feel your eyes wanting to roll or your mind starting to judge the magic of movie moments otherwise considered cheese, do try to resist. Because at the core, Sky Captain follows in the steps of all the greats of old filmmaking. It looks brand new ... or old-fashioned ... or just good.
Polly race against time. Much has been written about the film's digitally created environments and its somewhat sepia-toned look, but I'll only say one thing: It works. The look of the film
— Lindsey Ramsey
The Forgotten
(☆☆)
PG-13, 5 MINUTES
The foundation of a paranoid thriller like The Forgotten is a conspiracy that sparks correct wrongs against the hero
PG-13,91 minutes
but is nebulous enough that the audience can only grasp at its outlines for most of the movie. Why does the heroine's husband keep hiding mementos of their dead son? Why do the contents of the son's photographs
son's photograph change? And why does her therapist keep asking her just how much she remembers him? This exposition hits all the right notes of sympathy and indignation, but once the grieving mother decides she is not crazy and everyone really is out to get her,the movie slows to a crawl. It drags on and on with hardly any progress made towards finding who's behind the scheme or what they want.
scheme of what they want Julianne Moore plays Telly, whose nine-year-old son died in an airplane
find what really happened in the plane crash. Unfortunately, it's a very dull search. She seeks out a slow-witted hockey player (Dominic West) who lost his daughter in the same crash. The two of them run around with-
crash. She can hardly get on with her life. Her therapist (Gary Sinise) and husband (Anthony Edwards) worry over her, and she resents it. When she decides the two of them, as well as everyone else in the world, have crossed a line trying to get her to move past her grief, she sets out to
out finding out much for a long stretch of the movie. Some government agents chase them, but it's never clear exactly how involved in the conspiracy they are.
how involved in the coprises The "they" that persecutes Telly is suitably ominous and intimidating. Long, overhead shots throughout the movie dovetail with the actions of these villains. This clever technique, however, cannot hide the dearth of activity in the middle stretch of The Forgotten.
Bob Ward
Wimbledon
(☆☆)
PG-13, 100 minutes
PG-13, 100 minutes
At the least, Wimbledon shows us how big Paul Bettany is going to be some day. We've seen him before outside of Russell Crowe's shadow — Bettany played supporting characters in A Beautiful Mind and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. This is the first time we get to see him carry a movie on his own, and he is up to the task.
In Wimbledon, Bettany plays Peter Colt, an English journeyman professional tennis player at the end of his career. The film opens with him accepting a job at a country club, which he will begin after he announces his retirement from professional tennis at his last Wimbledon tournament. By accident, he walks into the hotel room of an up and coming, flamboyant American tennis star named Lizzie (Kirsten Dunst), and the two immediately fall for each other. Somehow her presence injects life into Peter's rusty tennis game, and he starts winning again. This relationship is much to the chagrin of Lizzie's father (Sam Neil) because he
doesn't want his daughter to have any kind of distraction from her game.
Bettany is charming as the lead, and I couldn't stop thinking of Hugh Grant as I was watching him. Like Grant, Bettany brings a kind of bumbling affection to his role and we can't help but love him. Sadly though, Wimbledon is like a lot of other sports movies in that it is filled with clichéd characters (Jon Favreau's sports agent couldn't be any more stereotypical) and predictable outcomes. The tennis scenes are impressive, mostly done in long, uncut shots, and some nice camera tricks. But Bettany and the tennis do not make up for a movie that doesn't add anything new to its genre.
— Jon Ralston
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Jayplay 9.23.04