Review – The Interpreter

Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn star in yet another one of those “thrillers” that thrives almost exclusively on its own cleverness. And that’s a skimpy diet here. The premise has potential – evil African leader may be assassinated during UN speech if Secret Service and eavesdropping interpreter can’t foil the plot. Then the interpreter turns out to be more than she seems, and things start to slide downhill from there. This one might actually have kinda worked if not for Penn, who has apparently spent so long playing the mentally-differently-abled that even a straightforward government agent character gets twisted in his hands into a borderline head-case. The plot also turns on a few too many improbables to sustain a really good international political drama. Otherwise this is slick but slightly boring Hollywood fare. Mildly amusing

Review – The Wicker Man (2006)

Lackwit writer/director Neil Labutte somehow manages to combine the worst parts of the original Wicker Man and The Dark Secret of Harvest Home into one royal stinker of a movie. Though I can’t honestly say that this left me longing for the days of the Britt Ekland nekkid pagan booty dance, it did make me wish that the remakers’ money had been better spent. Nicolas Cage plays a cop lured to a strange island of new-age, man-hating cultists who all seem intent on covering up the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of a young girl. Perhaps the protagonist is made deliberately unsympathetic in order to make his ultimate fate a bit more palatable, but smoothing the way for the end doesn’t make the rest of the movie any easier to swallow. Several spots in the production also left me wondering if we won’t ultimately be treated (and I use the term loosely) to a DVD release that includes scenes too explicit for a PG-13 rating. But that in turn made me wonder whom they thought would be in the audience. Aiming for the mid-teen crowd seems like a waste of time with something this dull, so why not spice it up and settle for the R? Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Cry Wolf

I just never get tired of movies about teenagers getting savagely murdered by serial killers. There’s some kind of wrinkle here about an elaborate game of liar’s poker played between privileged kids at an exclusive prep school. But that’s really just the excuse to get the ball rolling. Once the guy with the ski mask and the hunting knife shows up, things proceed according to formula. Mildly amusing

Review – Top Secret!

All these years later I’m still amazed that a movie with so many explicit anal sex jokes could ever get a PG rating. On the other hand, most of the humor here is on an emotional level that cries out for the sixteen-and-under audience. A young Val Kilmer stars as a singer based on – if not directly parodying – Elvis in some of the worst of his movies. The overall plot is very much a creature of the 80s, but fortunately the story isn’t really the point. The gags that form the bulk of the screen time and entertainment value are as timeless as they are corny (though sometimes they do manage to be clever as well). Thus there’s a good time to be had here as long as one doesn’t expect too much. Mildly amusing

Review – Days of Thunder

I hated this one the first time I saw it, only that time it was Navy pilots rather than NASCAR drivers. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Inside Man

Would a typical Hollywood bank robbery thriller be better if Spike Lee directed it? Apparently yes, at least a little. The elaborateness of the robbery scheme is the big draw here; without the hearty supply of novel twists and turns even Lee’s direction wouldn’t have helped much. The picture has a few drawbacks. Jodie Foster is miscast as a creepy “fixer,” a character that could have been removed entirely with some simple re-writing. The movie also goes on for ten minutes or so after its natural conclusion. However, overall this show breathes some fresh life into a drastically overworked genre. Mildly amusing

Review – Robots

In the hit-and-miss world of kid-oriented, computer-generated, feature-length animation, this one’s a miss. They got quite the cast together (Robin Williams was unwelcome, but everyone else is adequate), and the technical quality of the animation’s not bad. But I’m surprised that Fox would go to production with a script this weak. The story is trite and the dialogue pitched straight into the limbo between “goofy enough for kids” and “smart enough for adults,” ultimately succeeding with neither audience. With plenty of good examples to borrow from, this could have been a better picture. See if desperate