Review – Sahara (2005)

This action adventure picture sinks swiftly under the weight of its own ridiculousness. Matthew McConaughey stars as a former SEAL turned underwater treasure hunter in search of a Confederate ironclad that somehow managed to show up in western Africa. Before we even hit the midway point, our heroes end up entangled with a WHO doctor (Penelope Cruz) hunting for the source of a mysterious illness, local warlords, creepy billionaires, and no end of other nonsense. I don’t mind a little silliness in an action movie, but this seriously abuses the privilege. Mildly amusing

Review – Solaris

Wow, this one really puts the “space” in “spacey.” George Clooney plays a space psychiatrist dispatched to a station orbiting a planet that appears to be driving people insane. When he gets there, he discovers first that a chunk of the crew is dead, second that the remaining two are mentally unstable, and three that his dead wife is suddenly alive again. The rest of the picture is the planet playing mind tricks and the humans playing tricks back. It’s pretty. It’s not too noisy. But I remember Stanislaw Lem’s novel as better than this. Mildly amusing

Review – Requiem

One of the big differences between the book and movie versions of The Exorcist was that the book was a good deal more ambiguous. Was the girl really possessed, or was she merely suffering from serious psychological problems? In this indie outing, film-makers explore this conundrum using a real German case of a college student who died after months of exorcism. We don’t get any crotch stabbing, head twisting or soup puking here. Instead, this is the sad story of a young woman running into trouble – mental, theological or both – while away from her family and off her meds. You’ll have to read subtitles, but overall it’s worth it. Mildly amusing

Review – Horsemen

Seven gets a Biblical twist (along with teenagers and the Internet, of course) as tortured and mutilated victims start showing up with references to Revelations festooning the crime scenes. Dennis Quaid plays the forensics specialist who must track down the cadre of killers before they can complete the set of four ritualized murders they appear to have in mind. And once again, the psychos whip wildly back and forth between meticulous attention to detail and scatterbrained improvisation. But the biggest disappointment here is that they bet the farm on the mystery element. Now, I’m no great mystery solver, but by halfway through I’d figured out who the mastermind was and how it was going to end. So that’s 45 minutes worth of the movie that I didn’t need to sit through. Mildly amusing

Review – The Haunting in Connecticut

No matter how good a trick is, it isn’t going to carry a whole movie. I suppose what they were going for here was the “true story” thing, so if your “real life” ghosts have a limited bag of tricks, it restricts what your movie can do. This is the tale of a family that moves into a rental house to be closer to the clinic where the eldest son is getting cancer treatments. Turns out the rent is cheap because the place used to be a combination mortuary and séance headquarters. Naturally the place is packed with restless souls trapped by creepy, post-mortem carving rituals. Some of the visuals have impact. But when the same thing gets used over and over again, it wears thin. Further, the whole “true story of a family with financial troubles moves into a house possessed by evil spirits” thing sounds vaguely familiar. Mildly amusing

Review – Coraline

I genuinely enjoyed this movie. Henry Selick – the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas – once again proves his gifts for both storytelling and the technical aspects of stop motion animation. Coraline is bored and frustrated in her family’s new house until she discovers a secret door that leads to an alternate version of her life in which everything is perfect and everyone has buttons for eyes. Needless to say, something’s wrong here. The production is full of pretty, odd little moments that are endearing without being cloying. And though it contains a line or two that will go over most pre-teens’ heads, this isn’t as vulgar as some kids-and-adults-both productions. For some reason – perhaps the voice work by Dakota Fanning – this reminded me of My Neighbor Totoro. That’s a good thing, because both productions do an excellent job of being clever and entertaining while avoiding many of the pitfalls that often ruin animations designed for family audiences. Worth seeing

Review – Watchmen

I should start by admitting that I’m not an uber-fan of the original comic books. I liked them, but I don’t have the kind of obsessive love for them that would make me hate a movie that deviated from them in any way. With that in mind, I thought this was a reasonably good adaptation. Sure, some chunks (such as the weird pirate thing) are gone. And it may help to be familiar with the story and the characters before you watch the movie. But overall this works as a big-budget superhero picture. The flashy special effects and quirky little sub-references here and there make up for at least some of the lost nuance. Don’t expect too much from it (and don’t plan to do anything else with the next two and a half hours of your life) and you should be able to get your money’s worth. Mildly amusing