Dan Owen reviews
P a r t T h r e e
Adam Sandler must have sold his soul to Beelzebub. Surely. The UScomedian with basically two settings to his comedy (loud-mouth malebigot, or squeaky-voiced timid idiot) again topped the US charts with MrDeeds. Sandler had the audacity to remake Frank Capra’s classic movie asanother vehicle for his oh-so-unfunny brand of loud rants andfist-fighting. A nation of Yanks lapped it up. A nation of Brits rightlygave him the finger. Again. Sandler may be a comedy demi-God in the USof A, but elsewhere he’s just seen as the one-note bore he truly is.
Not many people make movies as weird as David Lynch makes weird movies.The King of the big-screen brainfuck found himself with a mainstream hitin Mulholland Drive. Naomi Watts gave a bravura performance as astruggling actress who befriends an amnesiac car-crash victim. Featuringa sinister cowboy, a strange blue box, a creature behind a diner, andnumerous other oddities this was Lynch as his best. An engrossing tripinto a delicious L.A underbelly of murder and madness. Fabulous.
Big surprise hits don’t come much bigger, or surprise as much as My BigFat Greek Wedding did. A worldwide phenomenon, despite the fact thepremise merely exchanges ‘Greek’ for ‘Jewish’ and is, essentially, apredictable culture-shock comedy. Still, at least it managed to hit itstarget audience and do the predictable gags good service. **
Steven Soderbergh looks to have ended his run of critical success at thetail-end of 2002 after his independent flick Full Frontal bombed andSolaris confounded US critics. But earlier in the year Ocean’s Elevenwas just the latest in a truly amazing run of hit films. Effortlesslycool, this remake of the Brat Pack original threw a stellar cast(Clooney, Pitt, Roberts, Damon, Garcia) into a hip and witty heistflick. Las Vegas never looked so damned enticing.
This year saw an interesting new twist in Robin Williams’ career. Hewent evil. Fed up with playing unfunny fools in comedy claptrap orsaccharine prats in mushy dramas, Williams turned nasty in Death ToSmoochy, Insomnia and One Hour Photo. It was in the latter that his bestperformance lay as Si, a photo technician who takes an unhealthyliking to a family he develops snaps for. Cue a sinister stalkerthriller with effective moments. Not quite the masterpiece it could havebeen, but well worth a watch.
Jodie Foster being cooped up in a small room for over two-hours doesn’tsound like fun. But that’s (essentially) mainly all that happens inDavid Fincher’s Panic Room when Foster hides away in the titular room toevade three burglars. Fincher’s Fight Club masterpiece sadly raisedexpectation to bursting point, but this is an altogether morerestrained, experimental, affair. Of course, Fincher’s visual shrewdnessburned through every frame making the difficult premise a minoredge-of-your-seat nailgripper. But in the end it’s fair to say the filmsless than the sum of its parts.
Remember Michael Mann’s 80’s thriller Manhunter? Brett Ratner certainlyhoped most people didn’t when he remade the film for Dino DeLaurentis asRed Dragon a true prequel to The Silence Of The Lambs. Anthony Hopkinslost weight and reigned in the pantomimic frivolity of Hannibal by goingback to the soul of the chilling Hannibal The Cannibal Lecter. EdwardNorton was slightly miscast as a psychic FBI agent, as was Ralph Fiennesas quiet nutter ‘The Tooth Fairy’. Effective in parts, enjoyablethroughout, and bound to cause a stir amongst fans of Michael Mann’sversion…
Christian Bale made another bid for deserved mainstream success following the critical drubbing in the States of American Psycho inthe ex-X-Files director Rob Bowman’s Reign Of Fire. The trailer promisedmore than the film’s budget could deliver, but its heart was in theright place and the quality of acting was surprisingly strong andcentral to the plot. A modern B-movie winner (if only for the EmpireStrikes Back scene). Best ever movie dragons, too.
Paul W.S Anderson’s name is synonymous with the phrase movie hack. Eversince he achieved fame with his serviceable adaptation of the MortalKombat video-game he has been circling Hollywood plagiarising from thebest. Hence, Resident Evil, where Anderson stole feverishly from thegame itself (we’ll let that pass, obviously), Aliens and Alice InWonderland. The result was a shockingly unscary movie with just onetrump card: the oh-so-sexy Milla Jovovich in thigh-high boots kickingundead ass.
After the phenomenon of American Beauty could British ex-theatredirector Sam Mendes continue to churn out the goods? Road To Perditiondidn’t match Beauty at the worldwide box-office, yet Mendes’ talent withactors is again clear for all to see. Tom Hanks (the Nicest Guy InHollywood) broke audience expectations to play a hitman in 1930’sChicago with superb results. Make no mistake, this is a fantasticpiece of cinema and one of the best gangster films in a long, long time.
John McTiernan directed Die Hard with phenomenal high-octane results.This year he directed a remake of 70’s sci-fi classic Rollerball – withmind-achingly offensive results. The actors were dire, the script wasterrible, the actual rules of the game indecipherable, and the actionsequence edited to shreds. A sad, tragic waste McTiernan quickly triedto put behind him by making the altogether better Basic.
A family of failed geniuses (geniae?), living together in a huge NewYork house face the return of Royal Tenenbaum their exiled father(played by a fantastic Gene Hackman). Comedy ensues in The RoyalTenenbaums Wes Anderson’s follow-up to Rushmore. It’s another expertlycrafted piece of filmmaking full of witty lines, but very few bellylaughs. Intellectual high-brow comedy with plenty of invention, actedimpeccably by the starry cast, but… without that indefinable spark ofmagic.
Scooby Doo, where are you? Sadly for most, starring in a garishhalf-insult to the memories of young adults the world over. The actingmight of Freddie Prinze Jr put a jinx on the project from the start, butthe woeful script had a big hand with its downfall. As perhaps to beexpected with these things, kids still poured into cinemas and made thefilm a box-office smash, helped along by a clever marketing campaignthat hyped the film’s one jewel Matthew Lillard’s spookily spot-onimpression of Casey Kasem’s Shaggy voice… Yoinks!
Wrestling superstar The Rock (or Dwayne Johnson to his mother) brokeninto movies proper this year in The Scorpion King, a spin-off adventurebased on his small role in last year’s The Mummy Returns. The Rock’sperformance was surprisingly capable, even if everything in the moviewas strictly Conan-lite. One for undemanding kids and/or WWE fanatics.
M. Night Shyamalan (a.k.a. The New Spielberg) bounced back from hissomewhat disappointing Unbreakable with Signs a sci-fi spookfeststarring Mel Gibson and fields of crop-circles. It was the subject ofcritical wavering due to its split-the-audience ending, but Signs stillproved Shyamalan is a huge filmmaking talent. Now if only he can moveaway from the single-parent and/or father-son setups in all his films!Shyamalan the new Spielberg? Nah. The new Rod Sterling more like…
Summer 2003 was dominated by one thing, however. He wore spandex, hadsticky stuff dripping from his wrist and no, not that dodgy uncle youmet once at a party I’m talking about Spider-Man! From the talentedhands of Sam Raimi (who should really have become a Hollywood big cheeseyears ago) came a perfect screen adaptation of the enduring ‘Marvel’human-arachnid. Big effects, big action as we’d expect – but alsobalanced with excellent performances and strong belief in characterdevelopment. Made you remember when the words Summer Blockbuster meantsomething…
One film that’s become quite a mystifying success is Spy Kids 2 TheIsland Of Lost Dreams. The 2001 original was a harmless romp with asimple premise: two siblings save their spy parents using high-techgadgetary. The 2002 sequel (and they’re already gearing up for another!)gave us a similar adventure for Hispanic brats Carla and Juni. Theeffects continued to be extremely poor, the actors only adequate, butthe imagination admittedly strong. However, Robert Rodriguez’s departureinto kids’ films (he gave us From Dusk Till Dawn, remember!) a littleworrying. Too often his film becomes a bore of horrid CGI-work, OTTvisuals, weak characters and weaker gags. Interestingly, Spy Kids 2 wasa major hit in the US but practically died in the UK. Let’s see if wecan get Spy Kids 3 a straight-to-video release in Blighty…
Star Trek Nemesis beamed down onto cinema screens this year for atenth adventure (the fourth for the Next Generation crew). This timeTrek decided to shake itself up slightly by hiring a screenwriter anddirector with no prior Trekspertise (sorry). The result was a moreepic-looking adventure, but with a plot that lazily remade The Wrath OfKhan – with Captain Picard facing off against his Romulan-created cloneSchinzon. Easily the most enjoyable Next Generation movie regardless,although the whole franchise remains stale in storytelling terms andstill in need of an overhaul.
Page Content copyright © Dan Owen, 2003.
Email Dan Owen
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.