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Dan Owen reviews
P a r t T w o
One movie that deserved more success than it managed was The Count OfMonte Cristo the latest movie adaptation of the classic revenge tale.Guy Pearce made an entertaining boo-hiss villain, while Jim Caviezel wasalmost unrecognizable in his titular role. Good action and great fun inthat joyously old-fashioned sense of the word. 
Intrepid Aussie madman Steve Irwin made an unlikely transition from cultnatural history show to movie action hero with Crocodile Hunter:Collision Course. Sadly the whole effort was totally unnecessary, as thefilm was a somewhat cynical big-screen rendition of his hit show mixedwith a decidedly poor downed CIA satellite subplot. Very weak, butIrwin’s infectious love of dangerous animals just about held the filmtogether.
Danny DeVito didn’t do much this year (beyond cameoing as Mini-Me inGoldmember, and directing one of the year’s biggest box-office duds Death To Smoochy.) The premise was delicious kids TV entertainer RobinWilliams is fired for taking bribes and replaced by Edward Norton’sSmoochy The Rhino. Smoochy becomes an instant TV sensation, while abitter Williams plots the rhino’s downfall as revenge. Sounds good,don’t it? Well, occasionally the film hits its targets, but usually thescript is far too pedestrian and unwilling to go that extra step. And,fundamentally, it’s just not that funny. The germ of a good idea wasted.
Still licensed to kill after 40 years, Pierce Brosnan returned for hisfourth outing as James Bond in Die Another Day. The producers must havebeen scared. Bond films don’t come much more important: the 20th film inits 40th year. Gulp! Thankfully for the millions of tuxedo-wearing fansthey managed a taut, effective piece of fun that deliciously providedBond anoraks with in-jokes galore and yes! the return of TheVillain’s Lair! 00-Heaven!
A very disappointing, but noteworthy, low-budget horror flick DogSoldiers topped the charts for awhile this year. Sean Pertwee and arag-tag group of poor British actors frolicked around Scotland shoutingobscenities while being snarled at by Alsatian-headed extra’s. Goodlate-night alcohol-fuelled bunkum to laugh at, but sadly a hugedisappointment for the sober few that believed the cleverly marketedhype-machine…
Technically not a film released in 2002 (only for us in the UK) butnevertheless deserving of note and high-praise was newcomerwriter/director Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko. Jake Gyllenhaal (one towatch alert!) played the title role in the kind of trippy High Schoolteen drama David Lynch may have attempted once upon a time. Creepy,unsettling, laugh-out-loud funny, and terribly unique Donnie Darko wasone of the best kept secrets at UK cinemas. Cult adoration beckons onDVD…
2002 saw Steven Spielberg continue to reinvent himself after hispost-Oscar run of worthy projects like Saving Private Ryan and Amistad,by moving into high-concept sci-fi (AI, Minority Report). But 2002 alsosaw a 20th Anniversary Special Edition re-release of one of his biggesthits: E.T The Extra-Terrestrial. Audiences didn’t seem so enamouredwith the midget alien two decades years after he first phoned home perhaps due to extra footage apathy, a dislike for the CGI interventions(walkie-talkies instead of guns?), or maybe UK audiences just couldn’tshake the memory of those dodgy BT adverts from their heads? Whateverthe reason, E.T – Special Edition was a fairly successful revamp of the80’s classic, still packed a satisfying emotional wallop, but justdidn’t recapture the magic of 1982…
Arachnophobes take cover! As if Spider-Man wasn’t enough, the producersof Independence Day resurrected the B-movie genre again with EightLegged Freaks; the predictable tale of a desert town being overrun bygiant, mutated spiders. Sounds like fun and should have been fun, butthis dreary film’s unsurprising plot and wooden characters are not evenbacked up by consistently good CGI effects. 10% fun, 90% boredom.
The Guru (of Sex, originally) was a minor hit that deserved to dobetter. Jimi Mistry starred as a jobbing actor who heads to New York andbecomes an Indian Guru with the help of sexpert Heather Graham. Veryfunny in places, with a fantastic Grease-meets-Bollywood dance-number.Graham is good value, Mistry should make studio execs take notice, andoverall the film is an enjoyable slice of entertainment riding theIndian culture wave. Shame it didn’t do better.
Returning to keep us under his spell was Daniel Radcliffe as HarryPotter, back just 12 months after his screen debut with Harry Potter &The Chamber Of Secrets. Director Christopher Columbus ironed out thekinks in last year’s movie (better effects, better story) and delivereda far more entertaining visit to Hogwarts. The actors looked confident,the action was slicker, ILM’s visuals improved Quidditch ten-fold, andPotterphiles salivated at the prospect of the best book so far in2005…
Ice Age grabbed some plaudits amongst the animation fraternity with itsenjoyable prehistoric-set CGI adventure. The graphics were good, yet nomatch for Shrek, while overall it lacked the spark of Toy Story, et al.But, it was still a strong entry in the increasingly successfulbig-budget CGI animation canon.
Robin Williams. If visions of a lovable rainbow-braced alien loonpulsate through your head right about now good for you. If, however,visions of a red-nose wearing funny doctor take precedence continuereading. Insomnia marked an apparent trilogy of Williams’ movies thisyear that (shock, horror!) didn’t make you want to shake him to death.British director Christopher Nolan (never to live-up to Memento,methinks…) chose Williams to play the unhinged could-be murderer forhis Al Pacino starring remake set in snowy Alaska. The movie’s successis debatable, but it was well-crafted and not sunk by Williams who’sstrictly on Serious Mode.
The franchise that won’t die returned this year with a post-modern edgein Jason X. The tenth instalment of Jason-induced slaughter supplantedthe hockey-masked fiend to the distant future, where he is discovered bya spaceship full of soon-to-be victims. Not exactly Shakespeare, butcompared to all the previous sequels, Jason X was far more enjoyablethan it had any right to be.
K-19 The Widowmaker. Confusing title? That was one reason given forKathryn Bigelow’s underachieving true story of submarine-based disaster.Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson both exceeded themselves in the badRussian accent competition, but beneath all that K-19 was actually afairly good bit of entertainment that just never hit the right note ofurgency and drama.
The mouse-house have been starved of a true hit (‘Pixar’ joint effortsomitted) for some years now. That all changed slightly with the moreadventurous Lilo & Stitch; the tale of a rogue alien befriended by ayoung Hawaiian girl. The 2D animation had a contemporary edge, the gagswere strong, the storyline suitably sweet, and there were no musicaldebacles in sight! Not a massive smash hit, but a strong step in theright direction for ‘Disney’.
At the beginning of the year Hobbits were dominating the charts. TheLord Of The Rings The Two Towers should make sure 2003 mirrors thatachievement. Peter Jackson’s stunning sequel totally eclipsed theachievement of last year’s film effects-wise – bringing us somegroundbreaking CGI animation for the digital actor Gollum and atour-de-force of filmmaking for the Helm’s Deep action sequence. Sadlythe expanding cast size meant many actors were sadly wasted (McKellen,Lee, Monaghan, Boyd…) and its split, less immersive plot meant thefilm didn’t capture the imagination as readily. But this sequel wasstill epic, fun and a fitting continuation for the trilogy.
Barry Sonnenfield came out of the wild, wild wilderness to lazily remakeMen In Black as (clever this) Men In Black II. Will Smith and Tommy LeeJones went through the motions to the backdrop of variablespecial-effects and numerous rehashes of the original. Again anunderwritten villain holds the world to peril, again Smith releases ahit single on the back of the project, and again Frank The Pug stealsthe show. It’s like 1997 never ended.
Spielberg continued his mid-life crisis with another stab at the sci-figenre following AI, with Minority Report. Tom Cruise starred in thehandsomely produced and immaculately plotted adaptation of the Philip K.Dick short-story, although it lacked the indefinable sparkle usuallyassociated with Spielberg. Still, top-class entertainment was assured as well as a believable mid-21st Century setting. And this was justSpielberg in neutral gear…
The Mothman Prophecies was a commendable left-field choice forstraight-laced Richard Gere to star in, although it’s a shame thefinished article is a film of two differing halves. The first half is aneffective Lynchian mindbender that delves into spooky X-Files territory with Gere discovering a prophesizing entity that haunts a small town.The second half just becomes rather dull and repetitive, although it atleast manages a good climax.
Page Content copyright © Dan Owen, 2003.
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Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.