When you think about it, calling Meet the Spartans a full length feature is funnier than any of the jokes that appear in the film itself. The movie itself runs just barely over an hour. To make up for this fact, filmmakers Jason Friedberg and Adam Seltzer stretch out the closing credits to ridiculous lengths. The credits routinely stop, so the movie can cut away to a good 10 or 15 minutes worth of deleted scenes or alternate takes on scenes from the film. This way, the movie can be credited as running for 85 minutes or so, instead of the 70 minutes it actually runs. Don't get me wrong, I definitely didn't want to see more of this movie. It's just as the credits kept on going and routinely stopping, Meet the Spartans started to resemble an obnoxious houseguest who just didn't know how to take a hint and leave you alone.

The stuff that comes before the ending credits can be pretty obnoxious, too. Meet the Spartans is intended to be a direct parody of last year's 300, and was most likely rushed into production the moment the opening weekend numbers for that movie came in. It shows in just about every aspect. The dubbing of the film's dialogue is occasionally off, the sets are cheap, and the screenplay was probably hammered out in an afternoon after a marathon session of television watching by the duo of Friedberg and Seltzer. For those of you who don't know, they're the guys who brought us Date Movie and Epic Movie. They like to do parodies of popular genres like romantic comedies or blockbusters, but always end up missing the point in the end. I naturally assumed that by narrowing their focus to just one movie instead of a genre, they might have an easier time hitting their target. If this movie proves anything, they couldn't hit a target if it was an inch away from them. It doesn't help that 300 has already been parodied to death on the Internet, comics, and the like. Meet the Spartans may resemble an obnoxious houseguest, but the guys behind the movie resemble a pathetic stand up comic telling year-old jokes to an audience who just couldn't care less.

The movie is more or less a run-through of 300's plot, only with amateurish humor and TV pop culture references thrown in. Leonidas (British TV actor Sean Maguire) must lead his army of Spartan warriors against the invading Persian army, led by the overweight Xerxes (Ken Davitian from Borat). Leonidas wants 300 soldiers, but his Captain (Kevin Sorbo) can only round up 13. They try their luck anyway, and ultimately battle their way to glory, while at the same time being completely oblivious to their blatant homosexuality. (They hold hands and skip off to battle while singing "I Will Survive".) Back at home, Leonidas' wife, Queen Margo (Carmen Electra) must prevent the appropriately named Traitoro (Diedrich Bader) from convincing the Spartans left behind into giving in and surrendering to the Persians. Along the way, for no good reason, we are bombarded with a variety of pop culture references that include movies (Spider-Man 3, Shrek the Third, Transformers, Happy Feet, Ghost Rider), television shows (Ugly Betty, Deal or No Deal, American Idol, The Apprentice), and celebrities (Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Ellen DeGeneres, Dane Cook, and Tom Cruise).

You know, I really want to be lazy and just re-write one of my reviews from one of their past films, only switching the words around in order to fit this one. After all, Meet the Spartans suffers from the exact same problems as Date Movie and Epic Movie. But, I take too much pride in my work to do that. Instead, I will devote the remainder of this review to some observations.

Observation 1 - If you're going to fill your movie with look-alikes of TV and movie celebrities, try to find people who actually look like the person they're supposed to be. When the three American Idol judges pop up to give their thoughts on Leonidas and his army, two of them don't look a thing like the people they're representing. Were they working with such a low budget they couldn't even hire decent look-alikes? Many of the celebrity impersonators play multiple roles throughout the film, and it's largely a mixed bag, which gives the movie an overall vibe that the filmmakers truly don't give a damn, as long as they can sucker some money out of bored teenagers.

Observation 2 - I want to perform an experiment with you. Try to think of the last funny joke you heard. Maybe it still made you laugh, but most likely, you didn't laugh as hard as the first time around. Now, I want you to keep on repeating that joke to yourself until you're just not laughing anymore. How many times did it take? What's the point of this experiment? I want to give you the feeling of watching Meet the Spartans, which routinely repeats the same gag a good 5 or 6 times during the course of the film, as if the movie thinks we didn't get it the first time around. By doing this experiment, you save yourself the price of a theater ticket and a good 70 minutes or so of your time, and still get the same experience as if you were sitting in a theater watching this movie.

Observation 3 - This movie creates a new low in product placement. Disguise your product placement as a parody of an actual commercial for the product! Of course, by parody, I mean recreate the commercial word for word, only having the actors holding up said product. (Budweiser beer, Krispy Kreme donuts, Dentyne Ice gum, Gatorade, take your pick.) That way, you can disguise it as humor, and the corporate sponsors still get their products mentioned in your film. I shudder to think of the imitators this method will inspire.

Observation 4 - It's not enough to reference every movie and TV show under the sun. You have to pretend your audience have been living in caves the past year, and awkwardly mention what it is you're supposed to be referencing in your dialogue. If a character makes a reference to the TV show Heroes, make sure you tell them it's supposed to be from that show in your next line of dialogue. If you're spoofing American Idol, make there's a giant sign with the show's logo nearby for the two people in the audience who have never heard of the show. Whenever a celebrity impersonator show up, make sure the first thing out of their mouths is saying who they're supposed to be. Remember, we are not sophisticated enough for the biting humor of Friedberg and Seltzer. They must hold our hands throughout, in case we are floored by their acute observations on pop culture.

Do I really need to say anymore? If you're still considering seeing this movie after reading this, you have my blessings and my condolences. I can only hope someday you will find something better to do with your time, but until then, enjoy Meet the Spartans.

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Did anyone involved with Untraceable stop and think just what kind of a movie they were making? I would assume not, because it's playing at a theater near you. Here is a movie that wants to make a statement about how voyeuristic our society has become. With the Internet, web videos, live feeds, and TV programs built around shocking video, you really have to stop and think when the line is going to be drawn. Untraceable asks that question, but doesn't provide an answer. It shakes its finger at us, while at the same time forcing us to be entertained by the very thing its speaking out against. Don't let the slick production values and the talented Diane Lane's name above the title fool you. This is mindless torture horror along the likes of Captivity, only dressed up as an adult thriller.

The hero of the story is Jennifer Marsh (Diane Lane), a woman who works for the FBI Cyber Crime Unit. With her partner, Griffin Dowd (Colin Hanks), she scours the Internet for hackers and identity theft criminals, bringing them to justice. A website called "killwithme.com" is brought to her attention early on, and even with the crimes she witnesses everyday, she is still shocked by what she sees. Someone is hosting live murders on the site, where people can log on and watch someone be slowly tortured and murdered through live streaming video. The more people that log on to watch, the faster the victim is killed. The site's first victim is a small kitten, but as word of mouth grows, the killer's methods become more elaborate and the victims become random people plucked off the street. Jennifer is placed at the head of the investigation to find out who is behind the killings, and is partnered up with a Police Detective named Eric Box (Billy Burke). It eventually becomes clear that the killer knows about Jennifer's involvement when streaming video of the outside of her house pops up on the site. With the lives of her young daughter (Perla Haney-Jardine) and mother (Mary Beth Hurt) on the line, the mission to track down the killer becomes personal for Jennifer.

Untraceable has an atmospheric look provided by cinematographer Anastas N. Michos (Perfect Stranger), and director Gregory Hoblit (Fracture) has gathered some good performances, and knows how to keep the action moving at least. The level of care that's been put to making this winds up being one of the most disturbing things about Untraceable. Why was so much effort put into such an undeserving project? This is a movie built entirely around forcing its audience to watch people and small animals tortured in inhumane ways. The screenplay credited to Robert Fyvolent, Mark R. Brinker, and Allison Burnett makes no attempt to hide this fact. It hits the same notes over and over again for the entire 100 minutes or so the film runs. The killer kidnaps someone, Jennifer and the officers gather around in horror as they watch the victim get tortured, the person dies, they investigate, the killer kidnaps someone else...The formula goes on almost uninterrupted. The movie doesn't even give us a mystery to solve, as the identity of the killer is revealed to us by the half hour mark. Actually, we get a brief glimpse of the murderer in a mirror in the film's opening scene as he sets up the kitten's death trap, but the camera doesn't linger on it for very long. So, we're forced to just sit there and watch people get their flesh melted off by acid, or get dangled over spinning blades, while the heroes run around gathering evidence on the person who we already know is the killer. There are no surprises, no revelations, and nothing for us to figure out on our own. The movie is just one gruesome execution after another with little bits of plot information thrown in-between.

The killer in the story is also one of those magical teleporting killers who can always be exactly where he needs to be, know exactly what he needs to know, and show up hidden in the back seats of the cars at just the right moment, even though it should be physically impossible for him to be in such places. I also found myself asking how he can set up so many elaborate murders in his basement in such a short amount of time. Surely building a tank that slowly fills with acid would take some amount of time to throw together, especially with it being tied to the hit counter on his website. This is not a movie that's interested in looking into the mind of its murderer. It just uses him as a prop to stage some grisly torture scenes for our "amusement". The lead character doesn't hold up much better, as the only thing we learn about Jennifer is that she's a widow, and that her husband was on the force when he was alive as well. That's because the movie isn't interested in anyone who enters the movie, nor is it interested in giving them anything interested to do or say. It just wants to shamelessly rip off Silence of the Lambs, and just about every other psycho killer movie in existence, and rub our faces in exploitive, grisly images.

Who is this movie intended for? Budding serial killers themselves, perhaps, who I'm sure will get some wild new ideas by watching this. Untraceable literally has no entertainment value, not even in a shock sense. In order for us to be shocked, there has to be something for us to attach ourselves to. The movie doesn't want to be smart, it doesn't want to thrill us, and it most certainly does not want us to leave the theater with any sort of thought other than the world is a nasty and cruel place. It doesn't offer any sort of message, it just wants to kick us in the dirt for almost two hours, then leave us walking out of it feeling bitter, angry, and exploited. It doesn't even have the brains to be scary. What an ugly, awful, stupid movie this is.

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With all the teen urban dance dramas hitting theaters these past couple years, you'd think eventually filmmakers would get it right. If How She Move didn't exactly win me over, it did at least give me a glint of hope that there is something to the genre. The movie's closest comparison is Stomp the Yard, a movie that came out around this time last year, and didn't exactly win me over with its cliched plot and characters. How She Move is just as cliched, but it has a lot more energy in its performances and especially in its dance sequences. While I wasn't entirely engrossed in the film's story, I did find my feet moving a little to the expertly choreographed and staged music sequences.

A lot of this energy is supplied by Rutina Wesley, a dancer who makes her acting debut here. She plays Raya, a teenage girl who grew up in a ghetto, but made strives to better herself and has been studying at a private school these past couple years. Her beloved older sister, unfortunately, wasn't so lucky to escape the influence of the streets and has recently died of a drug overdose. Raya's parents can no longer afford to send her to the private school, so she has to return to her old neighborhood with the hopes that she can escape the streets again by applying for a med school scholarship. Before she left her old neighborhood, Raya and her sister used to do a lot of step dancing. When she hears that a competition is coming up with a big cash prize, she knows she can use that money to help pay for her college dreams. Unfortunately, not all of her former friends are happy to see her, including a rival step dancer named Michelle (Tre Armstrong), who still holds a grudge against Raya for leaving them all behind the first time. Raya eventually teams up with a group of dancers led by a fellow student at school named Bishop (Dwain Murphy), and begins training for the upcoming competition. But with her sister's death hanging heavy over everyone at home, and loyalties in the step dancing group being questioned, it will not be an easy journey for her.

The screenplay by Annmarie Morais does not do anything to break any new ground, and plays it completely safe. The characters look, talk, and act the exact same way as they do in other films similar to it. Morais also throws a lot of unnecessary confusion by having her lead character switch loyalties numerous times throughout the movie. After she has a fall out with Bishop, she teams up with another leading dance group led by Garvey (Cle Bennett), who also happens to be a local drug dealer. I don't think it's any surprise to reveal that Raya eventually finds out that Garvey has ties to her sister's death, so she switches back once again to Bishop's side. The relationship between Raya and former friend Michelle also seems rather strained. Some scenes they loathe each other, some scenes they seem to be breaking the ice. It all depends on what the current scene needs. Their relationship doesn't seem developed, rather it seems manipulated by the screenplay itself. The only thing that held my attention during the story moments are the better than average performances. There are some talented young performers displayed in this movie, and I hope they get chances to move on to better things. They bring energy to their roles that never quite made me forget I had seen it all before, but at least didn't make me mind sitting through it again.

It's not exactly the drama that grabs our attention in How She Move in the first place. It's the dancing and musical sequences, which are lively, fun to watch, and really show off the talent and skill of the cast. All of the dancing is unique and it always seems fresh, so we don't feel like we're watching the same moves over and over again. These sequences are obviously where director Ian Iqbal Rashid put all of his attention, and it pays off with energy and style to spare. This is one of the rare times I felt like cheering right along side the audience members on the screen watching the dance routines, as there's some impressive stuff on display. The choreography is credited to Hi-Hat, who only has a small handful of films to his credit including Bring it On and Stick It. She's also credited as the choreographer of the upcoming Step Up 2 the Streets, so it will be interesting to see if that movie holds the same amount of energy when it is released next month. Hopefully it utilizes her talents as much as this film does.

I'd like to make a plea before closing this review. Just once I'd like to see one of these urban dance movies that did not revolve around the exact same plot of escaping from the ghetto, or people from different walks of life falling in love. Surely there must be another story that can accompany this energetic form of dance. How She Move does not get a recommendation from me, but I still found myself liking it a little bit more than expected. I just wish it had a title that didn't make me cringe every time I typed it while writing this review. Is it so hard to add an "s" at the end?

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Even though the movie came out in 1993, I finally understand just what a dead-on parody Hot Shots: Part Deux was of the 80s/early 90s action formula. One scene in particular from that movie came to my mind while watching Sylvester Stallone's Rambo. It was a scene where Charlie Sheen's character was blowing away countless bad guys in over the top, gratuitously violent fashion. As the killing continued, a score counter appeared at the bottom of the screen, keeping track of the bodies falling. As the numbers climbed, we were informed just how violent the scene had become via subtitles. ("Bloodier than Robocop. Bloodier than Total Recall...") This movie has an action sequence that is eerily similar to it near the end, with Stallone wiping out thousands of extras for about 10 minutes non-stop. The only difference is Stallone isn't playing it for laughs. The thing is, if it included that body count indicator at the bottom of the screen, it'd be just as ridiculous as the scene from the parody.

Rambo is obviously Stallone's attempt to revive his other most iconic character, after successfully reviving Rocky Balboa back in 2006 to surprisingly warm reviews and strong box office. Much like Balboa, this movie will most likely play big to the fans who have stuck with the character over the years. I have to give the man credit where it is due. The guy knows how to speak to his fanbase, give them what they want, and obviously cares about these characters who cemented his career. I also have to give him credit for being in amazing physical shape when you consider he's 61-years-old. That being said, there is very little here to entertain unless you have been following the character, or still hold a fondness for cheesy 80s action films. There were moments in Rambo that made me smile and admire the film, but before it got to that point, I had to sit through a lot of meandering build up of the paper-thin plot. There's just too long of a wait before Stallone and the movie start to give us what we want.

It's been 20 years since John Rambo's last adventure, and as the film opens, we find he's taken up residence in Thailand working somewhat as a man for hire, mainly specializing in transporting people up and down the river on his boat for a price. A group of Christian aid workers approach him, wishing to use his boat to take them to war-torn Burma. Rambo flat out denies them initially, saying the area is too dangerous, but apparently he just can't say no to a pretty face. The sole woman in the group, Sarah (Julie Benz from TV's Dexter) eventually convinces him to take the job. John Rambo does his job, dropping them off at the border, and a few days later, he is approached with the news that the entire Christian aid group was captured when violent terrorists invaded the village they were visiting. Although he has been trying to avoid war, Rambo knows that it is forever a part of him, and joins up with a band of mercenaries who are sent into Burmese territory to rescue Sarah and the others who were captured.

Stallone co-wrote and directed this film, and as soon as the studio logos fade, he makes his intentions known. We see some archival news clips of the war terrors in Burma, followed by a staged sequence where a group of poor villagers are forced to partake in a deadly game of chance. He seems to be trying to take a stand against the violent atrocities, by showing them to us first hand and in graphic detail. That's all well and good, but we know that this is Rambo, and we're not exactly here to be educated on world events. The first time Stallone stepped on the screen as Rambo, I smiled. He still had that same glare, the same imposing stature, the same sense of sheer power. It doesn't matter if the actor playing him is pushing 60, John Rambo himself is timeless, and Stallone proves that fact almost immediately. I settled in my seat, and started to wait for the fun to begin. If only I knew how long I would have to wait. For his most recent outing, Stallone has the character spending too much time staring at people people he doesn't like and walking through jungles, than doing what he's supposed to be doing - Being the granddaddy of all badasses. Oh, we get to see some fleeting moments of it, like when he takes out a small band of pirates who threaten the Christian aid workers while he's taking them to Burma. But, the action is over so quickly and edited so rapidly, it almost comes across as a blink and you'll miss it moment. The true carnage does not really begin until the last half hour or so. The rest of the time is devoted to the bad guys torturing the aid workers, raping women, and killing children. I don't want to see that, I want to see Rambo in his glory! Why does the movie take so long?

If the movie kills too much time before giving us what we want, is it worth the wait? Well, gorehounds will certainly be appeased. Rambo once again makes us question where an R-rating ends and NC-17 begins with graphic depictions of decapitations, rape, murder, vivisections, and just about any form of violence with a gun or blunt object you can think of. The climactic violent showdown made me think two things. The first was I'm glad this movie wasn't filmed in 3D, given the amount of times we see exploding blood and limbs flying toward the camera. The second was that they gave the title There Will Be Blood to the wrong movie. Of course, the movie has long since contradicted itself by this point. The movie starts out by using its violence to shock and disgust, and by the end, we're supposed to be cheering, because it's Rambo doing the violence, not the bad guys. Makes you wonder why the movie tried to make any sort of a statement to begin with if it's just going to shoot itself in the foot. Why can't we just have a fun, dumb movie? The screenplay gives us plenty of dumb, but is light on the fun. I wasn't exactly expecting deep characterizations walking into this movie, but these people went below even my expectations. The people Rambo is trying to rescue are laughably thin, and barely have any dialogue to start with. As much as Stallone seems to be trying to make us care about the situation in Burma, it's hard when he keeps on focusing on his character walking through a jungle with some mercenaries, instead of his intended topic. We see the atrocities, but don't see anything behind them.

I think in the end, Stallone's intentions were confused. He obviously wanted to send a big love letter to his long-time fans, but at the same time, he wanted to try to do a sort of message movie. The two styles do not mix, and Rambo ends up being a lesser movie because of it. There's really nothing to get excited about here, unless you really have been one of the people waiting 20 years for a sequel. If you have been, just the sight of seeing the character on the big screen again is probably worth the ticket price. Anyone else can and should find something better to do with their time. Rambo may be timeless, but the movie that shares his name most likely will not be.

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If there's one movie trend I wish I would just go away, it's the "gotcha" moment! It's a moment usually employed by comedies, where the movie tries to fool you into thinking the characters are talking about one thing, but then it turns out to be something completely different. I guess we're expected to smack our foreheads in surprise, and shake our heads over how clever the film is. Of course this never happens, because the audience is usually smarter than the movie itself, so why is it trying to fool us in the first place? 27 Dresses opens with such a "gotcha" moment. We see the lead star, Katherine Heigl, being fitted for a wedding dress. I guess we're supposed to think that this is her wedding she's getting ready for, but wouldn't you know it, she gets a phone call and...wait for it...It's from the bride! Heigl is just trying on the dress for her! And I wind up looking at the screen in dumb disbelief, wondering who the movie thinks its fooling.

Of course, the audience is too smart to fall for such a switcheroo, because we know what the movie is about. We've seen the ad campaign, and we've seen the actors go on talk shows during the week leading up to the release, talking about the story. Why do the filmmakers go through such pains to try to fool us when we already know she's not the intended bride in the first place? For those of you not in the know, Katherine Heigl plays Jane, a woman who has been a bridesmaid 27 times, and has a dress to represent each one stuffed in her closet. Her closet is so stuffed with bridesmaid gowns that it doesn't even close all the way anymore. Why does she do this? Because she's a generic romantic comedy lead who thinks only about weddings, clips out articles about weddings, and pretty much doesn't seem to have a life outside of planning every single detail of everyone else's wedding, and her job. She doesn't do anything at her job except pine for her boss, George (Edward Burns, who after One Missed Call and now this is not having a very good month). Naturally, George doesn't even notice her affections, and she's too shy to speak up. Things get even worse when Jane's sexy and slightly ditzy sister Tess (Malin Akerman) comes to visit, and George immediately falls for her. Whoa! Another "gotcha" moment we can't see coming only if we lack the mental ability to get dressed by ourselves in the morning!

Tess and George only hit it off, because Tess lies to make herself look better to the guy. (She tells him she's a vegetarian, loves animals, and enjoys the outdoors, when she hates all those things.) George is too much of a dimwit to realize this, and proposes marriage about a week after knowing her, by my estimate. Now poor Jane has to prepare everything for her sister's wedding to the guy she's always wanted. Of course she doesn't say anything, not even that Tess is lying to George, because if she said that the movie would be over a lot sooner, we'd all be much happier, and could go on with our lives. But wait, there's another "gotcha" moment waiting in the wings to spring itself on us. You see, there's this obnoxious jerk who keeps on popping up everywhere Jane goes named Kevin (James Marsden). He hates weddings, because he got stood up at the altar himself, and doesn't believe in true love. He says he's a writer, but there's absolutely no way he can be the guy who writes all the articles about weddings for the newspaper that Jane loves so much, and clips out every week. No, absolutely not. But wait, they start to slowly fall for each other the more time they spend together. Could it be that they are made for each other? Will the movie ever realize we're two steps ahead of it, and stop trying to surprise us with bargain basement romantic comedy cliches?

27 Dresses is a movie that's been assembled from the bits and pieces of better screenplays, hastily glued together, and then slapped up on the screen with little care. I'm not asking that every movie be a shining example of originality, but I really get annoyed when it assumes I'm a total idiot, and acts like I'm supposed to be surprised by these kind of developments. I'd be able to forgive this if there was some evidence that the filmmakers understood the material was old and worn, and tried to hold our attention with some clever dialogue. Unfortunately, there is nothing here to give the impression that anyone involved gave this project even a second thought. The direction by Anne Fletcher (Step Up) holds absolutely no originality, and the screenplay credited to Aline Brosh McKenna (The Devil Wears Prada) may have been torn directly from a "how to write a romantic comedy" textbook. The movie almost seems to know how dull and desperate it is, and makes no effort to cover it up. Even the casting seems to be inspired by past romantic comedies. Jane's best friend is played by Judy Greer, and she seems to have been made up to somewhat resemble Joan Cusack, an actress who has played more than her share of "best friend" roles in other films.

The sad thing is, I can see Katherine Heigl succeeding in this kind of material. She's attractive without being impossibly so, and has a pleasant screen presence. The movie forgets to give her a character to play here. Like everything else, her Jane is cobbled together from lead characters in other romantic comedies, and does all the things we expect her to do. Heigl tries her best, but because the movie gives her nothing to do, she just has to stand there and give a lot of energy for nothing. I was one of the few people that was not taken by her breakout movie role in last summer's Knocked Up, but I liked her performance there, and I liked her here too. Now she just needs a script and a character to match her talent. Malin Akerman as her sister seems to be channeling some of Cameron Diaz's comedic roles, but without the spark and wit they usually hold. Filling in the two male lead roles, both Edward Burns and James Marsden seem to be wondering what they're doing here. Burns, in particular, seems to be in danger of falling asleep from boredom at any moment in a couple of his scenes. Maybe he should start looking at his scripts before he signs on to do them.

27 Dresses crams everything I hate about contrived comedies into one unappealing package. It's a movie about dumb people saying things no one in their right mind would say, and doing things no one in their right mind would do. The kind of people displayed in this film could never exist, and if they did, you probably wouldn't want to know them in the first place as they'd have nothing intelligent to say. When a movie thinks its smarter than me, it usually annoys me. When a movie as dumb as this thinks its smarter than me, it infuriates me.

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What we have here is a movie that works beautifully in moments, and sags in others. Atonement is a powerful story, there is no denying that. What it lacked is the ability to hold onto that power all the way through. The film is at its best when it is focusing mainly on one of the three central characters. That character is Briony. She is played at different ages by three different actresses - Saoirse Ronan at 13, Romola Garai at 18, and Vanessa Redgrave as an elderly woman at the end of the film. Although none of these women get top billing above the title, they are the true heart of the piece, and get the best scenes of the film. Keira Knightly and James McAvoy play the other main leads - a pair of young lovers whose lives are changed forever by the Briony character. They seem to be the focus of the film's ad campaign, and strangely enough, were the most forgettable part with me. The end result is a highly uneven film, but one still worth watching.

The story begins in the English countryside in 1935. The character of Briony is 13 at the time, and is watching a relationship developing between her sister Cecilia (Knightly) and a family servant named Robbie (McAvoy) with great interest and suspicion. Briony does not trust Robbie after she discovers an unfortunately-phrased letter that was intended for Cecilia's eyes only. Her suspicion of Robbie is furthered when she discovers her sister and him in an uncompromising sexual position that her young mind misinterprets. When another young girl staying with the family is raped, Briony makes a fateful decision that will change all of their lives forever. She claims she saw Robbie as the culprit of the act, and he is sent away. The remainder of the film is split into two separate storylines. Robbie goes off to fight in World War II after a stint in prison, and tries his best to keep contact with his beloved Cecilia through the great distance between them. As for Briony, she has come to regret her lie, and is trying desperately to atone for her mistakes that haunt her for the rest of her life.

One of the central themes behind Atonement is the power of the word, both written and spoken. When we first meet Briony, she is a budding novelist and playwright. It is her love and talent for fiction, combined with her somewhat immature mind, and her overprotective feelings of her sister that creates the lie in the first place. One thing that the screenplay by Christopher Hampton (The Quiet American) does that I admired is that during the first half of the film, we first see a sequence through the eyes of Briony, and then the movie goes back, and shows us what really happened immediately afterward. In lesser hands, this approach could be confusing and awkward, but the direction of Joe Wright (Pride and Prejudice) and the tight editing makes it work. Briony's story is a heartbreaking one of a young girl who does not fully understand the world around her, and perhaps doesn't even understand her own actions. As she grows older and wiser, she learns to regret her past actions, and finds forgiveness almost impossible to find. Her powerful words continue to haunt her. The movie emphasizes this by having the thundering keys of a typewriter ring out on the soundtrack in tune with the music score. This method, surprisingly, gives the film an urgent tone. The keys pound away as percussion, adding a sense of urgency to the proceedings.

The first half of the film detailing the events that led to the lie is where the film is at its most tense. The relationships created between the three characters, and how they are torn apart are powerfully portrayed in the dialogue, the almost claustrophobic atmosphere of the family home, and the events leading up to the fateful night in question are all beautifully laid out. It's only when the story switches to Robbie's point of view as a soldier fighting on the frontlines that things start to dip somewhat. While there is nothing exactly wrong with the approach, the war scenes do not really offer nothing new, and consequently did not captivate me the same way the first hour or so did. Robbie, Cecilia, and their relationship are mostly left at the side to begin with, the movie mainly focusing on Briony and her misinterpretation, so when they are forced to be torn apart, it does not hit quite as hard as it should. Their story is just as tragic as Briony's, if not even more so, but it felt lesser to me due to the fact that their story seems to get less attention. Their relationship lacks passion, and at times even seems somewhat cold. Knightly's portrayal of Cecilia, in particular, is lacking warmth, as the movie never quite develops us into a character that we can truly get behind. When we are following Robbie, I found myself admiring the skill that the sequences were made more than the character or the story itself.

It's only when the attention returns to the older Briony that the film returns to form. Now 18, she is a nurse working for the war effort, trying to get in touch with her sister, who has dropped contact with her since the incident. The screenplay and the movie itself does a great job of developing her character, and what the years have done to her. It also certainly helps that Romola Garai does indeed bear a striking resemblance to young Saoirse Ronan, who plays the character at 13 during the first half of the film. They are both wonderful performances that are strong enough not only to hold our attention, but the film itself. When the movie steps away, we miss the strong presence of the character and the performances. When it is Vanessa Redgrave's turn to step in as the character during a sequence set in the present, it is a small but wonderful scene that adds a final touch of tragedy and loss to everything. The film does eventually come together, but I got a sense that as effective and emotional as the film's final sequence is, it would be even more so if the two young lovers were as strongly developed as the Briony character. I came to realize that she is truly the heart of the entire story. While the lovers are obviously important, they are nowhere near as compelling.

I am recommending Atonement in the end, because what it does well, it does beautifully. If the movie had managed to keep this going all the way through, we'd be looking at nothing short of a masterpiece. The movie continues to play with our expectations and our interpretations right up to almost the very end, but because it leaves part of its story unfortunately underdeveloped, it never quite gains the emotions that it wants to. I definitely was affected by what I was watching, but I couldn't help but wonder if perhaps those feelings could have been even deeper if the two lovers were more tragically human instead of being tragically underwritten.

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As I was getting my things gathered to leave the theater, I overheard a woman a couple rows behind me sum up her feelings on Mad Money as "It wasn't a movie I needed to see, but I didn't mind watching it". That pretty much nails it for me too. Mad Money is a rainy day movie - a little time waster of a film that doesn't do anything special, but never offends in any way. Much of the film's appeal relies on the three lead actresses, who attack the material head on and with much more liveliness than it probably deserves. Director Callie Khouri (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood) delivers plenty of good feelings and energy, but none of the tension that a caper comedy needs.

The story kicks off when pampered housewife Bridget Cardigan (Diane Keaton) is forced to take a job so that her husband, Don (Ted Danson), and her can keep their home. Don's been laid off for over a year, and a new job just doesn't seem to be in his future. Since Bridget has been out of the workforce for so long, the only job she can get is a janitorial position at a Federal building. During her training session, she discovers a room where old money is destroyed and shredded. She thinks its wrong that the government destroys so much money every day, and since no one apparently wants it, she figures why not "recycle" the money set to be destroyed? She devises a plan to secretly sneak money out of the building, but she'll need some cohorts to pull it off. After scanning her fellow employees for possible candidates, she eventually settles on straight-talking single mother Nina Brewster (Queen Latifah) and the slightly ditzy Jackie (Katie Holmes). The plan is put into action, and goes off without a hitch. But, as with any scheme, it threatens to break apart as more people become involved, and personal feelings begin to get in the way.

Mad Money wants to be a light, fluffy comic fantasy of female empowerment. In order to keep the audience on the side of these three women who are stealing from the government, the movie tries bend over backwards to make the lead characters sympathetic and likeable. The problem is, the movie doesn't quite dig deep enough. Keaton's Bridget seems spoiled and materialistic, since she's doing this simply so she can continue to enjoy her fairly lavish lifestyle. Katie Holmes' character isn't developed nearly enough, since she exists mainly to be the ditzy comic relief. She lives in a trailer park and likes to dance to music on her headphones, but that's pretty much all we learn about her. The closest the movie comes to a truly sympathetic character is in Latifah's portrayal of Nina, a lower class single mother who is trying to put her gifted children into a better school. She not only acts as the moral center for most of the film, she seems to make the most sense as well. The characters may not exactly be deep, but the three actresses have good chemistry together, and their performances are what mainly attach us to the women they're playing. The screenplay by Glenn Gers (Fracture) often opts for being cute and likeable over actually being funny, but there are a couple scattered laughs to its credit, such as when Latifah's character receives a note from her son's school about a list of weapons that are not allowed on school grounds, and she wonders out loud what weapons are allowed.

While the movie creates an overall breezy tone, what it can't create is any sort of sense that maybe, possibly things will go bad. This is surprising, since the movie actually opens late in the story, with the characters trying to destroy the money, and the Feds closing in. It then flashes back to when it all began. Despite the fact that we know where the story is headed, we never get a sense of how it got to that point. The subplot of the possibility of the scheme being uncovered is haphazardly introduced late in the film, and seems to come out of nowhere. For a majority of its running time, the girls don't even come close to getting caught, discovered, or even seem to have second thoughts. The movie makes robbing a Federal building seem to be about as effortless as your morning routine. The fact that the characters constantly stress how heavily monitored and seemingly impossible it is to rob the building makes it all the more laughable, and makes it hard to swallow that no one had come up with Keaton's plan to get the money out of the building years ago. Even when the scheme does become threatened to fall apart, the movie seems to be trying to reassure us everything will be okay constantly. The overly light and fluffy tone the film carries pretty much assures us that these girls won't be facing the most obvious and logical outcome to their crime.

Mad Money has a lot of talent behind it, more than it probably deserved. The talent isn't enough to make the film come out a winner, but it does turn it into passable entertainment if you're not interested in anything else playing and there's nothing better to do. Not exactly the most glowing of endorsements, I know, but that's just the kind of movie it is. It plays it completely safe, and at least comes across as likeable escapism. Calling it anything more than that would be giving it too much credit.

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One of my long-held beliefs when it comes to film is that it's impossible to care about the human characters in a monster movie. After all, the monster is the star, and is usually what we have come to see. Sure, it usually doesn't get its name above the title, but its name is usually somewhere in the title itself. Cloverfield changes the rules. The humans are the stars this time around, as the movie is seen through the eyes of a group of people caught in the middle of a monster attack. It is shot entirely through the eyes of a handheld camera, and although this obviously limits the filmmakers with what they can do, they make every moment of the film's brief and mostly tense 84 minute running time. Cloverfield goes beyond simply being a gimmick, and ends up being a film experiment that succeeds for the most part.

The creature that eventually attacks New York City remains a mystery for the entire film, which I feel is for the best. After all, the movie is told from the point of view of the victims. They don't know what it is, where it came from, or what they should do. There are no ominous signs, no warnings, and no reason for them to think that anything will be different. At the start of the film, we are watching a farewell party for Rob Hawkins (Michael Stahl-David). He's taken a job where he'll be Vice President for a company in Japan. All of his friends and well-wishers are there, and we see them leaving personal farewell messages for him. The party introduces us to the characters we will be following. The man behind the camera is Hud (T.J. Miller), Rob's best friend. Other characters gathered include Rob's brother Jason (Mike Vogel) and Jason's girlfriend Lily (Jessica Lucas). There's another girl named Marlena (Lizzy Caplan), whom Hud is infatuated with, and an old flame of Rob's named Beth (Odette Yustman), who stirs up some controversy when she show up at the party with a new man, even though everyone knows that Rob has strong feelings for her. The mostly festive mood is interrupted when what appears to be a massive earthquake rattles the entire city. Seconds later, fireballs are raining from the sky, skyscrapers are crumbling, and the Statue of Liberty's head has found a new home in the middle of the street outside Rob's apartment building after some unseen force tears it right off.

One of the appeals of Cloverfield's approach is that it really does put you in the middle of the action with its documentary style. We learn the facts along with the characters, and what we learn is usually very vague or government-approved speculation from the news media and military soldiers that start swarming into the city to combat the menace. It's impossible to watch some of the images and not think of September 11th, especially a scene where it shows a group of people running from a massive cloud of dust, debris, and smoke pouring down the street after a building topples to the ground. It does not dwell on real world parallels, nor does it focus on the creature. Aside from a few fleeting glances, the creature attacking the city remains mainly unseen. We do get to see the large parasitic insects that drop off the creature, and scurry about, creating chaos of their own. The fact the effects are mostly unseen is not to say the movie looks cheap, or that the special effects are questionable. Despite a fairly modest $25 million budget, the design and execution on the monsters is top class from what we get to see. There is a sense of chaos that director Matt Reeves (The Pallbearer) creates by showing us the action through the camera lens held by a man who is fearing for his life. The man, and his companions, are watching the world fall apart around them, and we're right there with them. I liked the sense that although there is a credited screenwriter (Drew Goddard), the movie has a mostly unscripted and completely improvised tone to it. The characters frequently talk at the same time, step on each other's lines, and their reactions to being thrown into such a situation seems natural. They argue and debate their courses of actions, attempt different means of escape, and slowly come to realize that maybe hope isn't coming.

It'd be easy to peg the film as a sort of Godzilla meets Blair Witch Project, but there's more to it than that. At the center of Cloverfield is a love story that drives most of the action and emotion of the story. When Rob receives a distressing voice mail message from Beth, he becomes determined to track her down before he starts looking for a way out of the city. While it may sound like a contrived way to keep the characters in the middle of the action instead of high tailing it out of Manhattan as quickly as possible (after all, we wouldn't have much of a movie if they did that), the movie takes advantage of this aspect by including a bookend sequence of the two characters in happier times before the attack, and also before their recent personal differences. It adds another layer to the story, and helps it stand out from being simply a movie with a gimmick. There is also some individual moments of surprising power, such as when Rob is forced to give his mother some news when she calls him on his cell phone. We only get to hear one side of the conversation, but the reaction on the face of actor Michael-Stahl David is all we need. That it manages to take time for such personal moments is surprising, as the movie seldom if ever seems to slow down. Once the first tremors of the monster's arrival are felt, the movie plows full speed ahead into its premise, and gives us a haunting, terrifying, and surprisingly heartfelt depiction of a small group of people just trying to survive what seems like the end of the world.

And yes, the movie is effectively creepy, mainly through its use of imagery and sound. The creature may mainly lurk just out of sight for most of the running time, but its presence is constantly felt. The images of the post-apocalyptic New York are also undeniably eerie, and manages to add to the overall emotion. A lot of what creates the illusion of reality are the performers, who are all relatively unknowns, but create real personas that we can cling to. We only learn a little about these people, but this is intentional, as it's only set during a couple hours in their lives. The film is quite frequently unflinching, putting the characters through the emotional and physical wringer in different ways. We may not know much about them, but the powerful and very human performances of the entire cast help us get involved even more with the story. What's perhaps most effective of all is how the movie constantly plays with us and the characters. There are no rules in this monster movie, and since these people are all just bystanders to something much bigger than they could ever understand, we know about as much as they do about what's going to happen to them. Despite the film's PG-13 rating, it does not shy away from carnage and horrifying imagery. Remember all those Godzilla movies that would show the creatures knocking down buildings? For once, we get to go inside and see the aftermath of one of those buildings.

Ever since the cryptic teaser trailer made its debut last summer (back when the film didn't even have a title), speculation has run rampant about Cloverfield. As the details started to emerge, I was intrigued, but thought there was no way the filmmakers could pull it off successfully. I am proud to say they have succeeded. The movie is quick, dirty fun that doesn't stick around for very long, but leaves a surprising impression. This is the rare early year release treat that is much better than it probably has any right to be. It's a grand piece of entertainment that not only pays tribute to the monster genre, but also pays respect to its audience by having more brain and heart than one would expect walking in.

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When I'm stuck watching a movie that doesn't quite grab my attention, I find my mind tends to wander. The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A Veggie Tales Movie sent my mind spinning with a thousand questions. It's not just the fact that the entire cast is made up entirely out of CG veggies, fruits, and even killer cheese puff snacks. It's the fact that the characters have no arms or legs, but are somehow able to pick up objects. The objects just float in front of them, making it seem as if the characters are performing some kind of bizarre form of telepathy every time they "pick up" a sword. The movie also raises a lot more questions, but I'll get to those later. For now, onto the review.

The Veggie Tales are a series of animated videos that teach Christian values to children through goofy characters, fun songs, and off the wall humor. This is not their first theatrical release, as they had an earlier one back in 2002 with Jonah. That movie went unseen by me, and will remain so. I've come to understand that the characters have earned quite a large adult fanbase over the years. Perhaps the videos are clever, but this movie certainly is not. The animation is simplistic, the jokes are uninspired, and the entire product seems like a second thought that's been rushed into theaters to squeeze more money from the fans. In an attempt to go mainstream, even the Christian value angle has been dropped in favor of an uninspired pirate adventure for kids. Speaking of the kids, they might like this. Real little kids, I suppose. Any adult in the audience, however, will probably feel the strong urge to walk off a plank before the movie hits the half hour mark.

The story opens in the 17th Century, where an evil half-veggie/half-mechanical pirate named Robert the Terrible (voice by Cam Clarke) is attempting to take over a local kingdom by overthrowing the Royal Family. He attempts to kidnap the Prince and Princess, but the resourceful young Princess Eloise (Laura Gerow) manages to elude capture. She seeks out help to rescue her brother the Prince, and relies on a metallic orb her father gave her that's designed to seek out heroes in times of great need. Flash forward to the present, and we're introduced to three waiters at a pirate-themed restaurant who all have self-esteem issues. Elliott the cucumber (Mike Nawrocki) is afraid of everything, Sedgewick the gourd (Phil Vischer) is lazy, and George the grape (once again Phil Vischer) is seen as a loser in the eyes of his two children. Never once asking why a grape is hanging out in a world made entirely of vegetables, the movie plows ahead when the three unlikely heroes discover the time-traveling orb from the past, and are sent back in time to the situation in the 17th Century. The trusting Princess mistakes them for being real heroes, and charges them with the task of saving the kingdom. The three friends will discover bravery they never knew they had as they face off against Robert the Terrible's army, giant rock monsters, and those previously mentioned killer cheese puff snacks.

The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything seems to have been designed with the most basic elements in mind. The animation barely rises above the CG kids watch every Saturday morning on television, the dialogue is immediately forgettable, and the "hip" pop culture references thrown in for adults include such things as The Days of Our Lives and The Weather Channel. The word that kept on springing up in my mind while watching this was "generic". There are some scattered musical numbers that seem to be shoehorned in, and have nothing to do with anything that's happening in the movie, including a music video during the end credits that I didn't stick around to see the end of. Maybe it's me, but I found it hard to get wrapped up in the exploits of wether a kingdom of vegetables would be saved or not. For what is supposed to be a goofy kids movie, it sure takes its plot a lot more seriously than it should. The one liners are scattered too far apart, and aren't even that funny to start with. The movie is brightly colored and all, but the much-needed energy is completely lacking.

The one thing that kept me in my seat was the countless questions about the world of the Veggie Tales that I kept on asking myself. The movie continuously showed me things that interested/bothered me greatly. For example, many times we see the vegetable characters eating. At one point, one of them is eating a hamburger. Seeing a carnivorous vegetable somewhat disturbed me for some reason. What also disturbed me were the early scenes at the pirate-themed restaurant, where it showed the patrons having what looked like a cooked potato on their plates. Do the veggies support cannibalism as well as Christianity? It made me glad the movie never shows us what goes on in the kitchen, as it probably involves a form of human sacrifice. And then, of course, there's the whole they don't have arms or legs thing. They get around by bouncing around on their bottoms (except for the villain, who moves via a robotic body), and as mentioned earlier, pick up objects through apparent mind power. And although it is never shown, they also apparently have the means to create waste, as one character complains about the need to use the bathroom. Seeing the little gourd jumping around looking for the bathroom made me wonder where it comes out from, as there appears to be no means for it to exit.
I probably shouldn't be thinking about these kind of things while watching a kids movie, but the filmmakers keep on shoving these facts in our faces throughout it. It's like the udders on the male cows in that Barnyard animated movie. You can't ignore it, no matter how hard you try. The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything is so basic and dull, I had to find someway to amuse myself, and sometimes the thoughts that enter my head aren't pretty. Shake your head if you must, but you have to admit, the idea of a vegetable eating a cooked vegetable is funny in a morbid sort of way.

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It seems like there's a lot of Tyler Perrys out there. Just like Perry, writer-director David E. Talbert got his start doing plays that reflect urban culture and religious themes. Now he's trying to follow Perry by breaking into movies, and if his theatrical release debut is any indication, he's already got a leg up on the competition in that he doesn't lay down the melodrama as thick. First Sunday has a lot of problems. It meanders and lags, when it should be spirited and uplifting. It may never quite get off the ground, but its not for lack of trying. The cast is spirited, and there is the rare mild chuckle scattered few and far between. At the very least, Talbert spares us the sight of seeing him dressed in drag and a fat suit. Can I get a hallelujah for that?

Life-long best friends, Durell (Ice Cube) and LeeJohn (Tracy Morgan), always seem to be in trouble with the law, and their latest scheme has landed them 5,000 hours of community service. Durell has even bigger problems at hand, as his ex-wife Omunique (Regina Hall) can't afford to live in Baltimore anymore, and is threatening to take their young son (C.J. Sanders) with her when she moves to Atlanta in a couple weeks. Not wanting to lose contact with the one thing that still matters to him anymore, Durell is desperate for money. That's why he agrees to LeeJohn's plan to rob a local church that is earning money for some much needed repairs. LeeJohn needs the money as well, as he's run afoul of some dangerous criminals who deal in underground wheelchair theft. (The way the movie treats wheelchair smugglers as a serious threat is funnier than just about any joke in the script.) The two men break into the church, only to find it's a lot more occupied than they would like. They're forced to stage a hostage situation, and before the night is done, they will both be forced to face the path that has brought them to this point and begin to question not just their recent action, but their lives.

First Sunday is a movie full of noble intentions and messages, but not a lot of common sense. It exists mainly to preach virtues, but at least unlike the heavy-handed approach of Perry, it takes its time before it gets to that point, and tries to actually tell a story. Maybe it takes a bit too much time, as it takes a good 40 minutes or so before the church actually becomes part of the plot. The movie spends too much time dealing with Durell's personal problems, and far too much time on deadly wheelchair smugglers, that it starts to test our patience. There's even a pointless stop at a massage parlor that exists simply to throw in some dated homophobic humor. The fact that Cube and Morgan don't have very good chemistry together doesn't help matters. They seem to struggle with Talbert's amateurish dialogue and humor. They at least put on game faces. Ice Cube is pretty much playing the same gruff exterior, but a softie at heart, guy he's played in many other films. He does the part well, but it's about time he learned to play a different character type. Tracy Morgan as the more dim-witted of the duo seems to exist mainly for comic relief, but most of his humor (which basically resorts to him acting like a man-child) falls flat. Cube's character at least seems to contribute to the plot and has scenes that have emotion. Morgan just seems to be here to set things in motion, and stand in the background.

It's not until the movie actually arrives at the church that things become a bit more tolerable, thanks to a lively and strong supporting cast including Chi McBride as the patient pastor, Katt Williams as the somewhat off-kilter choir director, and Malinda Williams as the strong-headed and beautiful daughter of the pastor. They tackle their roles with much more ambition than the two starring leads, and most of them come the closest to earning some genuine laughs, especially stand-up comic Katt Williams. I also smiled at the blind and deaf janitor who kept on interrupting scenes, completely oblivious to the hostage crisis going on around him. Though most of these characters do exist to deliver the film's message of forgiveness and finding religion, the screenplay gives them enough personality to make them not come across as completely preachy. They're not enough to save the movie or make it worth spending your money on, but they at least help liven things up. Maybe if the movie had gotten to these characters faster, I would have left with a slightly more positive impression.
First Sunday is far from a success, but I'll gladly take it over any of Perry's efforts. David E. Talbert can get comic energy out of his cast, he just needs to strengthen the screenplay and storytelling. His method of getting his message across could also be more subtle, but at least he doesn't fall back on cheap over the top melodramatics. In the end, the movie does little to truly offend, and will certainly reach its intended audience. You should already know wether or not you fall within that audience.

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Here at long last is the relief that horror movie fans have been waiting for. After months of workman-like scare cliches and thrillers that just didn't thrill, The Orphanage is exactly what I needed after sitting through One Missed Call last weekend. For some viewers, the scariest part of the film will be that it is a foreign film, and therefore is subtitled. The two women sitting in front of me certainly couldn't get over the fact, and were constantly whispering back and forth that they couldn't believe the movie wasn't in English. Those who can deal with some words at the bottom of the screen are certain to find a genuinely effective and very intelligent haunted house thriller that falls on a lot of "things that go bump in the night" cliches, but somehow manages to make them scary once again. All I can say is if this movie winds up being outgrossed by One Missed Call at the box office, it will be a sad day for humanity.

The set up centers itself on a woman named Laura (Belen Rueda), who along with her husband Carlos (Fernando Caya) and adopted son Simon (Roger Princep), have moved into an old abandoned orphanage in the hopes of re-opening it as a home for children with special needs. Laura has fond memories of the building, as she grew up here as a child before she herself was adopted. However, the house may have some sinister secrets that are trying to get in touch with the new occupants. Little Simon, a withdrawn boy suffering from HIV, begins talking constantly about "imaginary friends" who live within the house and the old cave on the beach nearby. After Laura lashes out at her son for talking about invisible children, Simon mysteriously disappears, and that's when Laura herself starts to see mysterious apparitions walking the halls, and loud banging coming from the walls late at night. When a lengthy police investigation turns up no leads, Laura begins to fear that whatever is haunting their home has her child, and slowly becomes obsessed with exploring the realm of the supernatural and the unexplained. Her husband Carlos tries his best to support her, but even he is beginning to question her sanity when she starts seriously digging into the paranormal.

The Orphanage has all the usual trappings of many inferior haunted house films. There's the abandoned old house with the past. There's a spooky old cave and an empty lighthouse nearby. There's lots of doors slamming, windows shattering, and the ghostly laughter and whispers of children on the soundtrack. There's even a creepy old woman (Montserrat Carulla), who was seen snooping around the property shortly before Simon went missing, and may know more about the building's past than she lets on. What sets this movie apart is that the screenplay by Sergio G. Sanchez does not rely heavily on these cliches, nor does he constantly fall back on ghostly special effects or jump scares. The movie does have a few jump scares, but they are successful this time, because they are spaced far apart enough from each other and are actually quite jolting, compared to the rather somber and quiet mood of the rest of the film. Although it is being advertised as a horror film (and it certainly fits that description at times), The Orphanage is more a drama that asks a lot of tough questions about death, a parent's responsibility, and a woman who finds herself slowly drawn from everything she knows into another world right inside her home that she knows nothing about. There is a growing sense of mystery and dread that the movie successfully builds, but there is also a sense of wonder. We're right there along with Laura, wanting to discover the secrets the house holds. It's not so much the scares that enrapture us, but the journey and discoveries along the way.

The movie sets itself from the norm by letting the story slowly unravel, rather than throwing us right into the ghostly goings on. There are small hints early on that something's just a little bit off, such as the boy wandering off into the cave and having conversations with someone his parents cannot see, but the early moments are spent developing the characters and setting up the story. This truly allows us to sympathize with the characters once the hauntings start to get stronger. And these are not the paper-thin victims that populate so many horror films as of late. Laura is a woman with a lot on her mind. She's trying to deal with getting this new business running. She's trying to help her son deal with his personal and emotional problems, as well as figuring out how she and her husband are supposed to deal with them at the same time. When Simon does disappear seemingly without a trace, we can actually sympathize with her, as the movie has spent enough time with the family that we can understand their relationship. It's actually even more complicated than that, as the movie weaves multiple plot threads running both in the past and the present. And yet, the story never becomes bogged down, nor is there any glaring unfinished business. Some details are left up to discussion with the audience, but if you are paying attention, you should be able to fill in the blanks quite easily.

In the lead role of Laura, Spanish TV actress Belen Rueda has the difficult role of not only carrying almost the entire movie by herself and creating a sympathetic heroine, but she must also convincingly give up on all rational logic as she is drawn into the other world that seems to exist within the orphanage, while at the same time not come across as being crazy to the audience. She is constantly believable in her performance and her reactions to everything going on around her, so we feel like we are going along with her, rather than sitting in the audience watching her go through these things. She is driven by the love for her son, and the decisions she makes may seem hard, especially near the end, but her performance manages to completely convince us of the feelings behind her actions. None of the supporting cast is quite as compelling as her, but all of the actors do the best with what they've been given. More than the wonderful lead performance, it is the tension the movie creates that draws us in. The tension is slow to build at first, but it shoots up soon enough, and director Juan Antonio Bayona is wise to spread these sequences out enough so that they never wear out their welcome, but not so far apart that the story loses its speed. Two scenes in particular (Laura's first encounter with a ghostly child who constantly wears a mask over his head, and an extended sequence in the middle of the film where paranormal experts are called in to do an investigation on the house) stand out as some of the eeriest in any recent horror film.
The Orphanage is that rare blend of successful thrills and dramatic character building that allows the people inhabiting the story to endear themselves to us. The conclusion it reaches is certain to create some debate amongst audience members as to just what exactly happened, but as I mentioned earlier, if you're paying attention and think carefully back on everything that came before it, you should have a slightly clearer picture. Most of all, The Orphanage is more than just mere escapism able to cause a couple quick thrills. It's a genuine thought-provoking story that is sure to stick with you long after it's done. This movie may not reinvent the haunted house genre, but it does show that with the right approach, it can still entertain and capture our attention.

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Infamously inept filmmaker Uwe Boll has made a name for himself as one of the worst directors to come along in years, many comparing him to a modern day Ed Wood. His credits include a series of misguided video game adaptations including House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, and Bloodrayne. Perhaps more than his films, Boll is famous for his bizarre stunts, such as challenging his harshest critics to fight him in a boxing ring. I've always had a perverse appreciation for the man, as while his films will never be mistaken for being art, they are at least entertaining in a bizarre fashion. His latest and most ambitious film, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, will not disappoint those who walk into the theater knowing what to expect. The movie is confusingly edited, underwritten, and contains a number of laugh-out-loud worthy performances by B-List actors who seem to be wondering what they're doing here in the first place. And yet, this is probably the closest thing Boll has made to a real movie. At times awful, at times unintentionally hilarious, but always interesting to watch in that train wreck sort of way, this is another masterpiece of cheese from one of the masters.

Loosely based on a series of video game RPGs, but more closely resembling a third rate knock off of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings film trilogy, the story centers on a simple turnip farmer who simply goes by the name of Farmer (Jason Statham). An army of beasts called the Krug invade his village, killing his young son and kidnapping his faithful wife, Solana (Claire Forlani), in the process. Farmer is fortunately handy with a sword and a boomerang, and manages to fend off the horde of monsters. Now seeking revenge, he teams up with Lord of the Rings-era Orlando Bloom look-alike Bastian (Will Sanders) and best friend Norick (Ron Perlman) to search for his wife. Meanwhile, the noble ruler of the land, King Konreid (Burt Reynolds, in one of the most hilariously miscast "king" roles since Tom Selleck portrayed King Ferdinand in 1992's Christopher Columbus: The Discovery) has set forth to fight back against the invading monsters, while at the same time trying to avoid a royal uprising by his loopy and traitorous nephew, Duke Fallow (Matthew Lillard). The King's loyal wizard and advisor, Merick (John Rhys-Davies), sees great potential in the simple Farmer and his companions, and tries to convince them to join the King's army. It's going to take all the help they can get to fight back against the mad wizard, Gallian (Ray Liotta), who is not only controlling the vicious Krugs, but has his sights set on overthrowing the entire kingdom.

In the Name of the King blends The Lord of the Rings with just about every fantasy movie cliche, puts them all in a blender, and then pretty much splatters them on the screen in a vain attempt to tell a coherent story. It takes a mad sort of genius to take 2 hours of screen time and a reported $60 million budget, turn it into something that would seem amateurish by film school standards, and still get a wide theatrical release. Unintentional humor abounds in this movie. The Krug monsters look sort of like what the Orcs from the Rings trilogy would look like if Peter Jackson was working with a budget equal to your standard episode of Power Rangers. The editing is haphazard and spastic, making the film's many battle sequences impossible to decipher at times, and often confusing us with scenes starting and stopping at random. (My personal favorite moment occurs when a character is being chased by a Krug on hosreback one moment, then it suddenly cuts away, and the next time we see the character, she is perfectly fine, and no mention of the previous scene is made.) The costumes and sets also have their comedic value. I loved the women who live in the forest, swing around and hang from vines for no particular reason, and dress like they just came from a local production of Peter Pan. The movie never quite explains who they're supposed to be. My best guess is they're supposed to be forest spirits or something, but they looked more to me like a group of magazine models who got stuck in a forest somehow, and decided to make the most of it by flying through the air like a Cirque du Soleil production.

This movie is truly all over the map. Boll didn't so much direct this movie, more so he probably just pointed a camera and told the actors to do their thing. How else can you explain that nobody in this movie seems to be on the same page? Some of the character talk in a modern day voice and slang, while some talk as if they just walked out of the local Renaissance Fair. (One character actually says, "Hip hip huzzah" at one point.) Most of the actors, however, just seem downright pissed off, like they've realized too late what they've gotten themselves into. In the lead role, Jason Statham mumbles and scowls through most of his dialogue, as if he just really wishes he was somewhere else. He can't be bothered to bring forth the slightest emotion, not even when the body of his dead child is lying before him. He looks like he's longing for revenge all right, but not on the film's villain, rather the director. Poor Burt Reynolds as the good King of the land literally looks like he lost a bet. Every time the camera's centered on him, you can almost hear him saying "What the hell did I do to deserve this"? His boredom is on display for any viewer who wants to pay theater price. Reynolds does get one of the biggest unintentional laughs, however, when he steps somewhat out of character and yells "What the hell are you talking about?" at another character. You had to wonder if this line was scripted, or if Reynolds had just gotten fed up with the lame dialogue by credited screenwriter Doug Taylor.

The two performances that really stand out belong to the main villains, Ray Liotta and Matthew Lillard, who set some kind of bizarre record for overacting. As the evil wizard Gallian, Liotta cackles at inappropriate times, bugs out his eyes, and makes no effort whatsoever to drop his modern day Jersey accent. He dresses like a Vegas magician, and spends most of his screen time chewing the scenery and acting so off the wall you start to think he mistakenly thought he had signed up to do a bizarre parody of fantasy films. Matthew Lillard, best known for playing Shaggy in the Scooby-Doo films, portrays the King's scheming nephew, who is trying to murder his Uncle so that he can take the throne. Like everyone else, Lillard seems to be acting in a completely different movie, but his movie seems to be set on Planet X. His accent sounds like nothing of this world and keeps on changing in each scene. To show menace, he spits and drools as he gnashes his teeth and snarls his way through his dialogue. It's too bad he completely disappears from the movie without so much as a word, since his loopy performance is strangely entertaining in a bizarre way. The few scenes he gets to share with Liotta are comic gold, since it's almost like we're seeing a contest between the two men as to who can chew the most scenery. You're almost surprised that the cardboard walls representing the castle are still standing when their scenes are over.
Now that Uwe Boll has a number of films under his belt, there's no excuse not to know what you're getting into when you buy a ticket to In the Name of the King. The man's not going to change, and in a way, that's what I love about him. Even with a budget most filmmakers would kill for, he still stays the same. Please do not take this as an endorsement. This movie is only for those experienced in bad cinema. It's certain to become a regular on late night TV in a couple years. This is a very bad movie, but unlike the awful One Missed Call or the dreary Bucket List, it is strangely entertaining in its ineptness. I'm most certainly never going to sit all the way through it again, but it's good for a laugh at least once.

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Remember those old soft drink commercials that would show elderly people drinking the product and acting young by listening to rap music, doing the latest street dances, and talking about "catching waves"? If you hated those commercials as much as I did, you will hate The Bucket List, which is basically a 100 minute variation on the same idea. It features two great actors running around acting young, but it adds a couple disturbing twists. The first is that they are both terminally ill with only months to live. The second is that they don't seem to care about anything but themselves, not worrying about friends or loved ones who may be concerned about them. The Bucket List seems to want to be a movie that inspires us to follow our dreams. All it inspired within me was a lot of eye-rolling, and the overwhelming desire to slap some sense into the two lead characters.

The two men at the center of the story are played by a pair of great actors, namely Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. Unfortunately, these are not great characters that they are playing. They are merely playing rifts on the same roles they've occupied for the past 10 years or so. Freeman is once again the sagely type who gives advice to anyone who will listen, and also acts as the film's Narrator. It's a role he perfected in Million Dollar Baby, and this seems like nothing more than a mere rehash. Nicholson is once again the seemingly-grumpy "I don't give a damn" type, who is eventually revealed to have a heart of gold after spending time with a person who changes his life. It's a role he perfected in As Good as it Gets, and once again we are stuck with a rehash here. They both find out early on that they are dying of Cancer, and that they only have a few months to live. Freeman's character introduces an idea to the other about a "bucket list" - a list of things you want to achieve before you die. Nicholson's character just happens to be a devil-may-care millionaire who figures they should act upon this list, since they only have a short time left. The two men supposedly pack their bags (I say supposedly, as no luggage is ever used or seen), and go on a whirlwind around the world journey.

The Bucket List obviously wants to be a big, heartfelt movie that leaves us walking out of the theater with a tear in our eyes and a spring in our steps. The heart at the center of the movie, however, is completely artificial and calculated. Okay, I can sort of buy the fact that two men near the end of their lives could just suddenly up and leave at a moment's notice on a trip around the world. But, you'd think they would require medication and constant monitoring given their current states. Not only do these men not need any luggage to travel around the world, but they also don't need any medicine or professional medical evaluation the moment they leave the doctor's care. As soon as they decide to take their journey, they're skydiving out of a plane. Well, actually, a pair of stunt doubles are skydiving out of a plane. The movie uses special effects to paste the faces of the two actors onto the heads of the stunt doubles diving through the clouds in an effect that does not look the least bit convincing. Their globe-trotting adventure that leads them to such places as China, the Himalayas, and the Pyramids of Egypt is mostly accomplished through special effects. We're usually not watching these two actors visiting these places, we're watching them sitting in front of a blue screen while an image of their current location is projected behind them. I'd like to think that director Rob Reiner is making a statement on how phony and unrealistic the screenplay he's been stuck with is, but I'm afraid that's not the case here.

You'd think the movie would handle the most obvious question. What about the people these two guys leave behind? Wouldn't they be worried sick that these guys who are terminally ill and will be dead in a year or less are jumping out of planes and flying souped-up race cars off of ramps? The script by Justin Zackham dodges this issue by basically ignoring it. Nicholson's character is a grump who doesn't really have any friends, so he's covered. But Freeman's character has a concerned wife and family. We get a scene before they go on their adventure where his wife tries to talk him out of it, but the guy doesn't back down, basically saying he has to be his own man. Not once during his trip does he make any attempt to contact his wife, friends, or loved ones to let them know that he's doing okay or even if he's still alive. He does eventually return home to his family, but he doesn't get to share any real scenes with them. His entire family is treated like a prop, used only to sit at his bedside when he's not jaunting about with his friend. There is a subplot about Nicholson having a daughter that he doesn't talk to, but the movie is not interested, and merely tosses it out as a vague attempt to give his character something resembling humanity. In movies where someone is dying, there's always some unresolved family crisis. The script knows this, and includes it, but doesn't care. The inevitable reunion with his daughter is treated as a throw away scene that gives us what we expect, but no reason to care.

The Bucket List pushes all the emotional buttons, but it either pushes too hard, or it doesn't push hard enough. This gives the film a very sloppy and uneven tone. Each scene varies wildly from one to the next. Sometimes it resembles an overly cute sitcom about two guys fulfilling their dreams. Sometimes it resembles a made for TV movie of the week about a disease. What it never resembles is anything remotely similar to reality. The people are hollow shells that have been written to suit the actors' best known screen personas, but gives them nothing to work with. Nicholson and Freeman work their usual charm, but it can only take them so far until we realize there's nothing underneath Nicholson's usual devilish grin, and Freeman's grandfatherly smile. They're still a joy to watch as always, and the one thing that makes the whole thing bearable. Without them, this thing would have no reason to exist, and they seem to know it. At least they seem to be trying to keep this mess afloat. Everything else is uninspired, right down to the manipulative music score by the usually talented Marc Shaiman, who seems to be trying to force out emotion with every note.
It was a pretty sneaky move for Warner Bros. to give this movie a limited release late last year, then open wide in January. They were probably hoping this would prevent The Bucket List from being screened by most critics, and avoid bad word of mouth. Nice try, but no such luck here. Eagle-eyed readers will notice that there is a new addition to my "Dishonorable Mentions" at the bottom of my Worst of 2007 list. This is a shameless movie that wastes the wonderful talents of two great actors, and puts them through a dopey screenplay that's far beneath their talents. They deserved better, and so do their fans, who will no doubt flock to this movie expecting something great. Despite the best intentions of everyone involved, this movie falls far short of even being good.

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How hard is it to write a supernatural horror movie in Hollywood these days? Not very, if One Missed Call is any indication. All you need is a young hero or heroine who discovers some kind of cursed device is killing off all of their friends. The device may be anything, just as long as it's something we use everyday. After a group of the hero's faceless and underdeveloped friends die (The depiction of said deaths will depend on whether your film is PG-13 or R.), the hero must then team up with a second hero, and try to discover what's going on. After going through old files and visiting creepy old buildings that hold secrets of the past, the lead characters must discover that the cursed object is tied into some tragic past event, usually revolving around a spooky little girl. A little boy can also work, but girls are apparently creepier for some reason. As the clock ticks down to the hero's own death, they must race to right the wrongs of the past. After the past has seemingly been corrected, the characters breathe a sigh of relief, only to discover that they were wrong, and that someone or something else is responsible for the evil at hand.

It is a formula that has been employed by numerous films, many originating in Japan or some other Asian country. One Missed Call follows this formula to the letter, right down to the originating in Japan part. The only problem is that it seems to know we've seen it all before. The actors sleepwalk through their dialogue, and many times the hero of the story - a college student named Beth Raymond (Shannyn Sossamon), forgets to even react to the deaths of her friends. You see, all of Beth's friends are being killed off by a cursed cell phone voice mail message. It appears on your phone, and when you play it back, you hear the exact moment of your death. The friends are haunted by spooky visions of ghouls and decaying people walking around in broad daylight, until the character suddenly meets an untimely end in some sort of "accident" that makes me think the evil ghost in this movie took lessons from the ghastly spirit in the Final Destination films, as its method of killing people is somewhat similar. The Final Destination villain is much more flashier and complex in its killings, but you have to remember, the ghost in this movie is working under a much more restricted PG-13 rating, so you can't really blame it if its kills are not as bloody or grand.

Now, let me ask you something here. If you knew that people were dying because of a mysterious voice message that appears on your cell phone, wouldn't you just try not listening to the voice message in the first place? This never dawns on Beth or her friends. They try smashing their cell phones to pieces, but this doesn't seem to halt the killer spirit's advances. I don't know if not listening to the message would save your life or not, but I figure if all of my friends were being killed after listening to it, I'd be willing to give it a shot. The movie continues down the expected path, and introduces our second hero, a police detective named Jack Andrews (Edward Burns). He's the only person who believes Beth's story about the cursed voice mail message, because his sister was a victim of it, too. They join forces to discover the truth behind the curse, and the clues fall right into place, leading them to a hospital that burned down a while ago. Everything that we saw happen in films like The Ring, The Grudge, Pulse, and the like happens, and not even the characters don't seem to be all that surprised. They go through the expected motions, and so does the movie itself.

When I say One Missed Call follows a rigid path, I am dead serious. There's not one single instant we haven't seen in similar-themed movies. I have not seen the Japanese movie that inspired this remake, so I don't know if the original was as uninspired as this. I will give the original the benefit of the doubt that it had a lot more life and energy than this. The characters all seem to be walking a pre-determined path, and what's worse, they seem to know it. There's nothing worse than when the characters seem to be smarter than the movie they're in, but they're forced to act like idiots, because it's expected of them to do so. The movie doesn't even do a good job of explaining itself from time to time. I'm trying hard not to go into spoilers here, but should you see this movie (not that I'm recommending you do), ask yourself why the corpse they discover in the tunnels underneath the burnt hospital was there in the first place? Also ask yourself how many reality TV shows are filmed live? And wouldn't having someone die on your show live on national television kind of cause more attention than it seems to in this movie? My personal favorite moment of the movie actually comes early on, when the film's first victim meets an untimely end. The ghost then decides to not only kill her, but comes back for the victim's pet cat moments later. The movie doesn't even bother to ask the obvious question if the cat got an eerie voice message too.One Missed Call is the very definition of an early January release, a time of the year when the studios usually unload their stinkers that they don't know what to do with. The fact that it's the only new movie opening this weekend in wide release means that it will most likely find an audience with kids and teens looking for a cheap thrill. It saddens me that teens will waste money on this, when the much better and smarter teen-targeted film, Juno, is probably playing in the cinema right next door. If you're bored this weekend, and actually consider this movie, please don't. This movie does not alleviate boredom, it only causes it.

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