Review – The Game

Ever wonder what A Christmas Carol would have been like if it had been written by Kafka instead of Dickens? No? Well, if this particular curiosity ever does strike you, by all means rent this movie. Otherwise skip it. See if desperate

Review – Scream 2

When you’ve made as many sequels as Wes Craven has, maybe this self-referential stuff starts to appeal to you. He started toying with the lines between film and reality with the last Nightmare on Elm Street movie, and he carries on the tradition here. He’s also stirred in a mess of cameos (Tori Spelling as herself, for example) and in-jokes to add flavor. Otherwise run-of-the-mill slasher stock, particularly missable if you saw the first one. Mildly amusing

Review – Humanoids from the Deep (1998)

So okay, what was it about the original that cried out for a remake? Apparently the plot made too much sense, the acting was too good, the effects were too professional and there were too many tit shots in it. Certainly the remake remedies all these shortcomings. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Zero Effect

Ben Stiller plays the loyal sidekick to Bill Pullman as a super-genius private investigator, a man whose brilliance in the arts of deduction and disguise are matched by his problems with personal relationships and drug abuse. There’s such a fine line between homage and rip-off. This actually would have been a mildly amusing caper film if the filmmakers hadn’t started stirring in some of the classic elements of the date movie. See if desperate

Review – Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

I must confess to being one of the thousands (if not millions at this point) of dupes that bought and read the book upon which this movie is based (hey, my excuse is that I was stuck in New York’s Penn Station waiting on a train that was very late and the only other thing I had with me was a bag full of law books). I guess it’s sort of nice to see this northeastern-seaboard-oh-tee-hee-look-at-all-the-quaint-locals crap turned on southerners rather than midwesterners. For what it’s worth, Eastwood’s film version does an admirable job of capturing most of the letter and the essence of the book while at the same time avoiding some of Berendt’s shortcomings (particularly his lack of candor about his ties to Jim Williams). And speaking of Williams: Kevin Spacey plays him, or at least the Berendt version of him, perfectly. Mildly amusing

Review – U.S. Marshals

This sequel to The Fugitive recycles a lot of the plot from the original (mixing it up a bit and stirring in a little fresh stuff just to keep it from getting dull). Here we have Wesley Snipes in the Harrison Ford role, and we’ve substituted international intrigue and government conspiracy for the more down-to-earth Hitchcockian “wrong man” and corporate conspiracy from the first one. Still, if you’ve seen one, you’ll at least recognize the other one. I’ve seen worse sequels. Mildly amusing

Review – The Borrowers

It’s rare to find a really solid piece of family entertainment, something that’s neither too sophisticated for the kids nor too simpleminded for grownups. Many will recognize the plot from childhood reading to the series of books upon which this film is based: a whole society of tiny people called Borrowers lives among us, and they’re responsible for all the items that go missing every day. The script is well-paced, and the actors do an admirable job of pulling it off. Even the effects hold up pretty well, with the scale remaining fairly consistent between that miniatures and the oversized sets. Worth seeing

Review – Urban Legend

My guess is that the success of Scream a couple of years ago is going to fuel at least a mini-renaissance of teenage slasher movies. And here we have a prime example: a psycho-killer inexorably cutting through the young, attractive population of a small east-coast college. The killer’s shtick is to off victims using urban legends as leitmotif, which is just about this movie’s only claim to distinction from other representatives of its genre (unless you count our natty maniac’s decision to use a parka as scary costume of choice, which probably wasn’t the best fashion call ever made). I guess I’m getting old, or at least out of practice, because it look a little more than an hour for the list of suspects to get winnowed down enough for me to guess the culprit. Enough in-jokes to make it worthwhile to at least try to pay attention. Warning, however: gratuitous (though not excessively graphic) dog violence. Mildly amusing

Review – Jaws

Stephen Spielberg does an excellent job adapting Peter Benchley’s novel for the screen. Of course, he’s got a running start thanks to the casting director, with Roy Scheider (as the everyman protagonist), Richard Dreyfus (as the nerdy scientist) and Robert Shaw (as the crusty old fisherman) all turning in outstanding performances. Even the now-legendary soundtrack plays a major part. Of course, by now much of the drama has become cliché, and the big rubber shark doesn’t compare favorably with the effects work Hollywood is doing now. But when it first came out, it was the film everyone in grade school wanted to see, and the one film our parents wouldn’t let us attend until we were older. Worth seeing

Review – Under Siege

Quite possibly Stephen Seagal’s finest moment. The story’s the usual implausible melange of testosterone-driven nonsense, with terrorists taking over a battleship and Seagal, as a ex-SEAL-turned-cook, taking revenge on the bad guys. Tommy Lee Jones is one of the better villains Seagal has ever faced, and the studio spent enough on the production to make it look slick. Mildly amusing

Review – From Beyond the Grave

This was one of those British horror movies composed of vignettes loosely meshed together by some flimsy bracketing plot. The best example of this particular genre is Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors, though in this movie the tie-together is an antiques store rather than a tarot deck. Most of the sequences are pretty lame, even by the genre’s standards. However, in one a man and a woman actually work together against the forces of evil, unusual for a genre where women are typically either objects to be saved from the forces of darkness or are themselves agents of evil. Sadly, the other three segments (not to mention the tie-together) just weren’t that good. Mildly amusing

Review – Rumble in the Bronx

Low production values. No plot to speak of. Awe-inspiring stunt work. Athletic, acrobatic flying fists of kung fu death. In other words, yet another typical Jackie Chan movie. This one finds Chan fighting bad guys who trash the grocery store where he works and beat up the love interest’s handicapped younger brother. Worth seeing