Rundown

Since I've been lax in reviewing movies, here's a quick rundown of the last week and a half:
Matrix Revolutions
All visuals, no story--and yet, I was compelled to know what happened at the end. Seeing it in IMAX was probably the reason I was able to bear the cheap, seventh-grade level "depth" purveyed by this piece of claptrap. The flying scenes with Smith and Neo, the crashing into walls and drilling into the pavement, the piloting skills of Niobe, all of these were sights to see amid a screenplay almost bereft of any memorable lines (unless you remember lines for how they made you laugh at their awfulness). Fortunately, the theatre had the sound cranked in all its 12,000 watt fury, so most of the dialogue quickly drowned from memory amid a crash of artificial sonics. Of course you should see this, if you've seen the first two, just to be done with it--but don't pay any more than you absolutely must, unless IMAX is an option.

The Emperor's Club
Finally, someone makes a movie like Dead Poet's Society ! Well, no, not exactly. I'm a sucker for Kevin Kline, and it's hard to argue with his performance--or Emile Hirsch's--in this film. But the script again screws the actors. This isn't a terrible movie--it's a pleasant enough way to pass a few hours--but the promise of the obvious comparisons to the Robin Williams hit makes it a disappointment. And just wait for the whammy that hits ten minutes from the end--a total repeat of the plot from the first half of the movie. The lesson, apparently, is that some folks never learn from their mistakes. Including Hollywood folk who tag good actors with a bad script...

The Two Towers--Extended Edition
There's little to quibble with in this trilogy. Sure, it would be nice if Elijah Wood had more facial expressions than close-to-tears and grateful-to-Sam, but that's a minor distraction in a fantasy franchise that threatens to replace the original Star Wars films as the greatest trilogy of all time provided there are no Ewoks in Return of the King .

But I'll quibble anyhow. The extended edition of Fellowship of the Ring --which also added about 40 minutes of material to the theatrical version of the film--didn't feel any slower or longer than the original. This film suffers a bit under the weight of the new scenes. It's still a phenomenal movie, and I have every confidence that Peter Jackson is just helping us understand the story that he'll conclude in ROTK . Still...the Ents are as close to Ewoks as Jackson has come, and he treads dangerous territory here by spending so much time with them--particularly as the sound mix muffles John Rhys-Davies' voice to the point that much of Treebeard's new dialogue is beyond comprehension. (It doesn't appear to be intentional--he's telling an important story.) In Jackson's defense, added scenes that enlarge the role of Aragorn in the coming war are vital to the coming resolution, as are flashbacks to Boromir that make Faramir's choice at the end of the movie--and Sam's response--more poignant than in the original. Three and a half hours is a lot to ask--especially for the middle third of a trilogy. But you've got to believe it'll be worth it come December 17th.

Avoid Like the Plague

I'll let you know what I thought of Matrix Revolutions soon--the headline above might be apt--but in the meantime I want to warn you away from a movie that will waste two hours of your life more surely than any I've seen in a while.

Alex and Emma was shown on the United flight I took home from San Francisco last week. As if sitting in a middle seat between two sleepers on a four-hour flight weren't bad enough...I was trapped watching Luke Wilson and Kate Hudson--both of whom star, independent of one another, in two movies I love, Almost Famous and The Royal Tenenbaums --as they tried to breathe life into a truly terrible script.

What was Rob Reiner thinking? The director of such splendid fare as A Few Good Men , The American President , When Harry Met Sally , The Princess Bride , and This is Spinal Tap appears to have lost his touch--he hasn't made a good film since 1995.

But I blame Jeremy Leven, best known for the dud The Legend of Bagger Vance , for writing this movie in the first place. Who could have possibly thought that a movie about writing a book under threat of death due to gambling debts--and falling in love with your mouthy stenographer--would make for an entertaining movie? (OK, maybe the premise doesn't sound that bad. The execution is.)

Lines are delivered without any conviction. The mildly humorous convention of changing the appearance of the book's characters to reflect how Wilson is rewriting it works once, maybe twice, but begins to grate by the third try. The denouement is silly--in a very unfunny way--and the ending is both hokey and overblown through one of the most cringe-inducing closing scenes in recent memory.

Please, follow the advice in the headline and avoid this film like the plague. Rent the delightful and charming Finding Nemo , or the thoughtful and artfully filmed Far From Heaven , both of which I enjoyed more over the course of last weekend, instead.

The Season is Upon Us

Mystic River

In one sense, a movie like Mystic River is simply a surefire indicator that entertainment magazines will soon be swamped with Oscar talk. Any movie with six above-the-title actors and a big-name director isn't merely sniffing around for a bit of box office glory.

Unlike many recent heralds of the season, however, Clint Eastwood's latest dalliance with the camera (and the composing pen--he wrote the original score) lives up to its hype. While Marcia Gay Harden seems to overact in places, and Sean Penn is a bit much in any role, the ensemble holds up its end of the bargain. What makes the movie work, though, is a clever screenplay that forces the viewer to again and again reconsider the motives of the characters.

This is the story of a murder, that of Sean Penn's daughter. It is the story of secrets between friends, and of how one terrible event can haunt the lives of everyone involved, whether participant or bystander. And, while there are holes, and a few red herrings (particularly one involving Bacon's estrangement from his wife, whose face isn't fully shown through most of the movie), it is a story that resonates.

Robbins is outstanding; the initial off-putting nature of his character is part of the remarkability of his performance. And Linney works magic in her limited screen time; her final scenes drive an icy dagger through the heart of the film and, more than anything else, give the ending its murky character. Bacon and Fishburne make a strong team, particularly in a scene with Robbins that offers a brief bit of comic relief to the deadly serious proceedings.

Whether surpassed in the Oscar race by Christmastime or not, Mystic River is a film worth seeing.