Movie & Music

When a female FBI agent goes missing in mysterious circumstances, the Agency calls on the very retired and reticent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) - through his ex Agency partner, the now busy and committed physician, Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson). She has her own problems, trying to save the life of a young boy with serious brain disease. But she convinces Mulder, who is soon intrigued by convicted pedophile priest Father Joe (Billy Connolly) whose apparent psychic powers lead the FBI to their first grisly clue. As another woman goes missing, the urgency intensifies but Mulder's willingness to believe is shaken and those around him, even Scully, draw back from the inexplicable.

Review by Andrew L. Urban:
It's complicated - but not too much so. And I'm referring to the revived old relationship between Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) - as well as the plot. The fans will lap up this thrilling new feature that has gestated in the belly of the hugely popular series for years. From its no holds barred start to its heartfelt finish, the film is compelling entertainment, thanks in part to a great script and in part to the top performances.

Mature in every way, the film and its characters lead us scene by scene through a maze of clues and scares as the story elements start to converge. I don't want to spoil the revelations by saying more about that, except that it's clever and credible. The writers have woven a rich and complex story in which the characters move with great dramatic payoffs.

Duchovny and Anderson bring a maturity to their characters, infused with a well worked subtext about their relationship, which sustains throughout, without relying on gimmicks or stretches of credibility. Both actors bring depth and emotion to the film, as does the wonderful Billy Connolly, who clearly responded to the challenge of playing Father Joe, a repentant pedophile with a psychic gift - or is it just fantasy? Connolly is superbly in command of his character and shows us a level of complexity that elevates his support role to a higher plane.

Great support from Amanda Peet and Alvin Xzibit Joiner as FBI agents, the former very matter of fact and let's get the job done, the latter dismissive of Mulder and his openness to the psychic.

The film's great achievement is that even within the bounds of its genre as a supernatural thriller, it generates a much deeper resonance about a range of issues, from God and faith to the mysteries of daily life.

Review by Louise Keller:
The white of snow provides the setting for this dark tale in which the unexplained provides the most provocative questions. It's hard to believe it has been ten years since the highly popular X-Files TV series finally found its way to the screen, but it's no surprise that the chemistry between David Duchovney's Mulder and Gillian Anderson's Scully remains as binding as ever. Nothing is simple: from the tense plot involving severed body parts and animal tranquilisers to Billy Connolly's remorseful pedophile priest whose psychic visions are punctuated by tears of blood. And not least is the complexity of Mulder and Scully's multi-layered relationship, beginning with their personal bond before ricocheting into areas of their fundamental individual differences. Superbly made with an edge of the seat tension that lingers, X-Files fans will be more than satisfied as the credible and incredible sit side by side in an explosive melee.

There's something eerie about the opening snow-covered sequence in Somerset West Virginia, when Billy Connolly's grey, messy haired psychic is flanked by an army of FBI agents, as he uses his talents to locate frozen body parts buried in the snow. Connolly himself is buried as deeply inside his tortured character as is the arm wrapped in black plastic beneath the snow, as he delivers a ghost of a man whose sins have stripped him of a soul. Amanda Peet and Xzibit join the cast as agents on the case, but all the warmth and humanity belong to Mulder and Scully, who both reveal the scars from their past as well as the unshakeable bond that keeps them together. Mulder has become a recluse, while Scully questions her right as a doctor to make decisions for her young patient. As they unwittingly become involved in this new case involving a missing FBI agent, their involvement becomes deeper and deeper, like footprints in the snow.

Our comic-book-movie culture is 30 years old (it kicked off in 1978, with the Christopher Reeve Superman), and in those three decades of speed and light and destruction, of well-coiffed demigods in bodysuits zipping through the air and shimmying up walls, comic-book films have yielded more than their share of spectacle and thrills yet virtually nothing in the way of mystery. But in The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan's ominously labyrinthine and exciting sequel to Batman Begins, good and evil aren't just separate forces — at times, they're a whisper away from each other — and the movie exudes a predatory glamour that makes the comic-book films that have come before it look all the more like kid stuff. The Dark Knight is jammed with thorny underworld conspiracies, obscenely oversize tank-cars, and action scenes that teeter madly out of control, all blanketed by the psycho-anarchic musings of a villain so warped he turns crime into a contest of Can you top this? At two hours and 32 minutes, this is almost too much movie, but it has a malicious, careening zest all its own. It's a ride for the gut and the brain.

Batman (Christian Bale), that snake-hiss-voiced vigilante who plays out the vengeful fantasies that Bruce Wayne can only dream about, has now gone a good way toward cleaning up Gotham City; he has even inspired copycat Batmans. Then why so serious? Our hero is regularly referred to as ''the Batman'' (a phrase lifted from Frank Miller's graphic novel), with that the suggesting he's less a superhero than a sinister urban creature — just one among many. The woman Bruce loves, Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal), has been driven away by his moonlight escapades; she's now the squeeze of the lantern-jawed, shining-knight DA Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). What's more, thanks to Batman's crime-fighting spree — which the honorable lieutenant Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) winks at under the table — a void has opened up. Into that space steps the Joker (Heath Ledger), a sick puppy in smeary clown makeup who wants to make the world feel his pain.

Bale, all steely reserve, once again captivates as the haunted caped crusader who must shed morality to beat the devil at his game. But just as Tim Burton's 1989 Batman was anchored by the joy-buzzer glee of Jack Nicholson's party-down Joker, The Dark Knight takes its cue from its Joker and his deadly circus of chaos. Heath Ledger's mesmerizing, scary-funny performance begins with the creepiness of his image: the greasy long hair, the makeup that looks as if he'd drawn it on with crayons, then messed it with tears. That ghostly rotting paint job covers his scarred smile (explained by a backstory that gives you the willies, even if he just made it up), and the disturbing thing is that when Ledger's Joker talks, with those ''Ehhh, what's up, Doc?'' vowels that make him sound like Al Franken crossed with a nerdish pedophile, you realize that the icky sloshing sound you hear is him sucking on his cheeks; he uses his attachment to those scars to fuel his sadistic (and masochistic) whims. This Joker may be a torture freak, but he also has a lost quality, a melancholy hidden within those black-circled eyes. He turns slaughter into a punchline; he's a homicidal comedian with an audience of one — himself. In this, the last performance he completed before his death, Ledger had a maniacal gusto inspired enough to suggest that he might have lived to be as audacious an actor as Marlon Brando, and maybe as great.

The Joker organizes the riffraff mobsters of Gotham City, but only to use them as bait, creating a whirlpool of corruption that sucks everyone down. He's an improv maniac, with no grand plan; his ultimate joke is to show that nobility won't hold in a world of disorder. At moments, the film's center doesn't hold. The deranged twist of what happens to Harvey Dent, for instance, seems at once too much and not enough. Mostly, though, that's because the movie didn't need it. Bale's seething, demon-saint Batman, locked in his dance of death with the Joker (''You complete me!'' says the villain, and for once he isn't kidding), is already an indelible figure of good battling it out with the darkness, right there in his own heart.

Fans of "Sex and the City" will find everything they loved about the TV series in the movie of the same name: four catty, chatty, fashion-forward women talking about the problems with the men in their lives, including copious amounts of shopping, dining, drinking and, yes, sex.
If, like me, you're not one of those fans, you may plan to steer clear of this movie. But if you are dragged to a screening by the "Sex and the City" fan in your life, the good news is that you will survive the experience - and maybe even have fun.
After a spirited opening-credits sequence in which he summarizes the series for novices, writer-director Michael Patrick King throws us back into the New York social swirl of newspaper columnist Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) and her gal-pals: brittle Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon), wide-eyed Charlotte York-Goldenblatt (Kristen Davis) and, winging in frequently from L.A., sexually voracious Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall).
All four are paired up with men, though the relationships are not without problems: Miranda and her bartender husband, Steve (David Eigenberg), are in a sexual dry spell, while Samantha feels tied down to her actor-model boyfriend, Smith (Jason Lewis). Carrie's life with Mr. Big (Chris Noth), the source of much of her romantic angst during the series, is going along smoothly - until they decide, in an oddly businesslike manner, to get married.
What begins as a small wedding mushrooms into a Vogue-bankrolled circus (complete with a Vivienne Westwood wedding dress that has higher billing than half the cast). Without divulging major plot points, know that things unravel, leading to more commiseration, which for these women means more shopping, dining and drinking.
Fans of the show will lap up this stuff like a well-mixed cosmopolitan, while nonfans will get some hearty laughs, especially from Davis' dizzy Charlotte. But I couldn't help but wonder (as Carrie always says) how fans will avoid some nagging questions, such as:
- Why couldn't King make more of "Dreamgirls' " Jennifer Hudson, Carrie's can-do assistant and plus-size version of Carrie's younger self, than just a Human Plot Device?
- Why is product placement for Coca-Cola and Doritos considered whorish and tacky in other movies, but here the slathering of luxury brand names - Tiffany, Louis Vuitton, Oscar de le Renta, Dior, Gucci, etc. - is considered classy?
- Why is Carrie allowed to sport a look - wearing a bra with backless dresses - that would get you laughed out of most redneck bars?
- Why is this movie so darn long?
- Finally, was this bonbon to the show's fans, four years after the "happily ever after" series finale, really necessary?

What was so urgent?

Why did Steven Spielberg have to get Indiana Jones' famed fedora out of the Smithsonian and revive a movie franchise that first appeared 27 years ago?

Why all the hype and mystery?

True, this was a chance to bring back a character ardent fans from the not-too-distant past thought was gone forever. Yes, this was a chance to bring back the man who seemed an almost impossible combination of prodigious intellect, academic accomplishment and cowboy swagger.

But if this is one of the iconic figures in film history, certainly he deserved a better vehicle.

There is not much to distinguish this story from the very first one because both follow practically the same path. It goes something like, Jones is given a treasure to find. But he must do it before some sort of evil empire gets their hands on it because this treasure yields some sort of otherworldly power that humanity can't afford to let fall into the wrong hands.

Substitute the Nazis in the first film with Cold War Russians (circa 1957) this time. Cate Blanchett plays KGB agent Irina Spalko who wants to get her hands on a crystal skull belonging to an ancient Peruvian society because it may give her the power to read others minds.

Of course there are big military applications for such power; The ease with which to interrogate enemies, knowing their moves ahead of time during combat. Probably not the best bet to place during the Cold War to establish one's superiority. But this is the movies.

Yet, KGB agents aren't archaeologists, so they force Jones into helping.

It also helps that one of Jones' colleagues, Harold Oxley (John Hurt) is captured while looking for the skull himself and if Jones doesn't help, Oxley will die.

Shia LeBeouf plays Mutt Williams, whose mother is being held with Oxley. So he and Jones start to work together.

Make no mistake, this is an action film. There is just enough set up to justify motorcycle chases, fistfights and secret antechambers with moving walls within ruins thousands of years old. And each temple, again, has some sort of maniacal Rube Goldberg device meant to kill all who attempt to find it's treasure.

Everything here resembles the first film and that's the gist of my complaint. Didn't Indy deserve something more than a mere retread of his first movie? Or did Spielberg not trust audiences to flock to the box office if he gave them something too different, too fresh?

And as much as I liked seeing Karen Allen again, was this an attempt to bring back a forgotten actress or a lame attempt to hearken back to the first movie?

Whatever the reason for this revival is, it all looks too familiar. There is nothing new to embrace, nothing new to discover. There isn't the same kind of excitement brought on by the first film. That is unless we think LeBoeuf's character, which is more Arthur Fonzarelli than Indiana Jones, is going to take over.

Make no mistake, with all the money the two National Treasure movies have made, they look utterly silly in comparison. And this is the model for them, no doubt.

But either it's time to infuse Jones next movie with more writing talent, if there is to be another. Or it might be time to send the whip and the hat back to the museum.

This unremarkable sci-fi gagfest begins with a bang, when a spaceship in the form of Eddie Murphy smashes face-first into New York's Liberty Island. Inside the mechanical body is a crew of micro-size humanoids whose commander also looks like Eddie Murphy.

The Eddie ship and the Eddie captain are on a mission to deploy a tiny orb into Earth's ocean so that their home planet can be saved from extinction (they need the salt). What follows is in the service of vignettes that let Murphy do some signature mugging in the context of a family-friendly story about discovering that things work out pretty well if everybody just helps each other.

The sight of Murphy strutting stiffly around Manhattan in a spotless white suit makes for a few laughs (the aliens' concept of fashion comes from intercepted broadcasts of Ricardo Montalban in "Fantasy Island"). But the typical grinning and goofing that made Murphy who he is don't get enough backbone of spirit to keep the goof running for long. The same goes for the other Murphy character, the Lilliputian ship's captain, who gets hardly any gags of his own.

Scenes inside the spaceship, which depict the crew furiously working out Earth culture and the proper ways to manipulate their vehicle, are integrated nicely into the real-world action. Unfortunately, the banter sometimes comes off like a rehash of "Herman's Head." There's a good ensemble cast filling typical spaceship roles. Gabrielle Union is especially appealing as the captain's junior officer, foil and co-conspirator as the entire crew learns about humanity.

Spaceship Eddie also gets sidekick shtick from Gina (Elizabeth Banks) and her son, Josh (Austin Lynd Myers), who has the orb. They make an agreeable if fairly saccharin trio who inhabit a fantasy version of New York City.

The movie packs a fair amount of visual pizazz, from the squeaky-clean cityscapes to the understated special effects. Families who take an evening to "Meet Dave" could do worse in the risky world of innocuous summer fun.

If you can see Journey to the Center of the Earth in 3D, go for it! It’s a very straight forward, sometimes Disney-esque silly movie, but one worth your time if you can see it the way it was intended to be viewed by audiences (with stuff flying off the screen at your head!), but they missed out when we weren’t given a theme song by Steve Perry (I'll never stop believing).

Brendan Fraser stars as Trevor – a college professor who studies volcanoes, just like his brother, who disappeared several years ago. While the brother’s son, Sean (Josh Hutcherson), is staying with Trevor for a few days, our volcanologist discovers an old copy of Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth complete with all sorts of notes made in the margins by his brother (Detective Bookman better not find out about that link to IMDB page). Trevor assumes this could be the key to finding his missing sibling, because the classic Verne story could be true, and his brother went off to find this mysterious, legendary passage way to the center of the Earth.

Can Trevor and Sean follow the book and find the center of the Earth?

Is that a good idea?

Journey to the Center of the Earth is the first movie to be filmed in digital 3D, which has some great benefits and pitfalls for the movie on several levels. First, this is the wave of the future. Theaters across America and worldwide are starting to convert to a new digital format that will lead to all sorts of benefits for moviemakers and studios, but you don’t care about them. What does it mean for you when you buy a $9 ticket to a movie?

In the case of Journey to the Center of the Earth, it means a film with a continuous 3D look adding depth to every set and situation (visual depth, not emotional or intellectual depth, but more about that later), some cool special effects, but some other scenes where director Eric Brevig is trying too hard to use the 3D effect to wow the audience. In one scene, a yo-yo flies out at the audience, and, in another, balls spill out and bounce around the screen. Both scenes feel forced to show off the 3D effect, but other scenes, where the action already is enthralling are enhanced by the 3D view (floating magnetic rocks and center of the earth piranhas!).

The four person writing team doesn’t make Journey to the Center of the Earth very challenging for the audience, because it relies on the tried, true, typical and trite plotlines, which leads to a kid friendly action movie with lots of theme park ride-type moments. However, Journey to the Center of the Earth is a great example of the kind of movie visuals we can expect in the future.

With a signature blend of action, humor and character-based spectacle, the saga of the world's toughest, kitten-loving hero from Hell continues to unfold in Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. Bigger muscle, badder weapons and more ungodly villains arrive in an epic vision of imagination from Oscar®-nominated director Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy).

After an ancient truce existing between humankind and the invisible realm of the fantastic is broken, hell on Earth is ready to erupt. A ruthless leader who treads the world above and the one below defies his bloodline and awakens an unstoppable army of creatures. Now, it's up to the planet's toughest, roughest superhero to battle the merciless dictator and his marauders. He may be red. He may be horned. He may be misunderstood.

But when you need the job done right, it's time to call in Hellboy (Ron Perlman). Along with his expanding team in the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Development--pyrokinetic girlfriend Liz (Selma Blair), aquatic empath Abe (Doug Jones) and protoplasmic mystic Johann--the BPRD will travel between the surface strata and the unseen magical one, where creatures of fantasy become corporeal. And Hellboy, a creature of two worlds who's accepted by neither, must choose between the life he knows and an unknown destiny that beckons him.

When Bruce Banner gets angry enough to morph into the huge green creature, he's little more than a wild animal driven by the survival instinct against whoever torments him.

There seems to be very little semblance of rationality in anything the Hulk does, and he strikes back driven by blind rage.

Director Louis Leterrier establishes that quite early and very clearly.

As the U.S. Army zeroes in on the fugitive Banner, they awaken the Hulk and all he does is strike back at those who make him change.

As the story unfolds, Banner is in Brazil to find a cure for his affliction and to escape Gen. Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross (William Hurt).

Ross wants Banner back so the government can refine the procedure that affected him and weaponize it into a super soldier.

As characters inspired by comics go, there really isn't a whole lot to have to understand here. This is a chase movie, pure and simple.

The government wants something from Banner, and it is going to hunt him down until the government gets what it wants.

Just as we're understanding the rules, though, they are changed for the worse.

A soldier meant to bring Banner in has a similar treatment so he can fight the vagaries of advancing age and to combat the Hulk on a more level playing field.

This soldier, played by Tim Roth, becomes a more sinister threatening creature.

Banner then takes it upon himself to do battle with this new creature and somehow is able to channel a sense of right and wrong and carry that through his metamorphosis into the Hulk.

But where or how did this happen?

How was it that the Hulk, who was once pure brute force without reason, suddenly developed the ability to apply such force toward more constructive purposes?

There is the suggestion that a botched experimental procedure was the reason, but I'm not buying it.

This film is meant to be enjoyed on a very basic level, where everything is very clearly mapped out. Why would the director become so vague at one point?

This is a rather unsettling change, one that lacks sufficient explanation. And I imagine it will leave more than a few audience members scratching their heads as they leave the theaters.

Marvel Studios really has done well with the Spider-Man franchise and hit a home run in May with the release of "Iron Man."

The Hulk is one of the comic company's least developed characters, and the story that it's packaged with is about as basic and unsophisticated as the creature itself.

What made "Iron Man a huge success was screenwriting that could hold its own against the beautiful special effects. You don't get that here.

After the first film, the disappointing "Hulk" by Ang Lee, I'm not sure why this franchise had to be resurrected. And I'm not convinced there needs to be any more attempts.

IT'S easy to imagine the pitch that sold Dreamworks on the notion of an animated comedy called Kung Fu Panda. The title says it all. Round, cuddly, slow-moving animal turns into the unlikeliest of heroes by getting hooked on the sharp and pointy disciplines of Chinese martial arts.

Since kung fu movies are reliable crowd-pleasers, all that remained was to join the dots. Yet the idea languished for quite a while before the studio eventually got down to business. The clincher turned out to be the casting of Jack Black, the rotund comic who is now first port of call for any director in search of a star who can deliver geeky loveableness with wisecracks and pratfalls.

While Black was hired only to give voice to the panda, Dreamworks' animators have inevitably been inspired by his body language in coming up with their bumbling hero's particular brand of bounce and bravado.

In publicity for the picture, there has been a lot of talk about maintaining respect for Chinese history and culture. The film's elaborate website features a potted summary of relevant kung fu moves and rituals, and the word "timeless" has been bandied about in describing its story. We're meant to see it as a departure from the Dreamworks house style, which was established seven years ago when Shrek became such a hit by spoofing the Disney breed of animated fairytale. The studio's animation has leaned heavily on jokes about pop culture ever since. In contrast, its rival, Pixar, has taken a less glib approach. For a quick take on their differences in sensibility, compare Dreamworks' Shark Tale with Pixar's Finding Nemo. Dreamworks' aquatic adventure was a Mafia movie with Robert De Niro voicing the shark as an underwater Godfather. In contrast, Pixar came up with a story that echoed the Disney classics Bambi and Pinocchio. Finding Nemo was a story about the complications of parenthood, loss, grief and survival in hostile circumstances. These tough truths were lit with laughter but implicit in the film was the fact that the world is a tricky place and its creatures are endowed with complexities that need to be accommodated if a film is going to take you anywhere you haven't been before.

So when Dreamworks says that it's laying off the parody to give you a story that is "timeless", you're entitled to expect the unexpected.

And the film does look great. Its designers have have taken their cues from Chinese art and architecture, and its directors, John Stevenson and Mark Osborne, have ensured the animation is a delight. Stevenson, who began as a puppeteer with Jim Henson, has since worked for all the major animation companies and Osborne has made innovative short films and music videos. They know how to marry the beauty of hand-drawn images with the scale and impact of CGI.

It‘s 1965. You could catch “Goldfinger” at second-run drive-ins. “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” was in its second season. Four years earlier a superpower dust-up over Cuba threatened nuclear devastation. You can imagine, in short, what gave two 30-something writers the idea that a sitcom about a bumbling spy might strike a chord with the American people. That the two writers happened to be Mel Brooks and Buck Henry certainly didn’t hurt. But without the Cold War context, “Get Smart,” the five-season television show, would have been inconceivable.

Now comes the puzzlingly timed “Get Smart,” the summer comedy-action blockbuster, and a Steve Carell vehicle to boot. Forty-three years from the début of the small-screen original, we certainly have our own set of problems related to botched intelligence. But given the public’s revulsion with foreign affairs, topicality is not on the menu for any movie with nine-figure box-office ambitions. (Consequently, it’s now quite clear that “Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay” may have a higher integrity quotient than any other current Hollywood response to our present calamities.)

What we have, then, is a satire determined to stay well clear of its natural targets. In place of barbed humor, we get a ton of generic explosions, hairbreadth escapes, bombs in concert halls and other action mainstays that don’t really gel with the classic camp comedy worldview. There’s nothing to despise here, certainly, but over the appealing performances and kinetic frenzy hangs an air of flailing pointlessness.

The weak link in the chain, naturally enough, is the script, concocted by Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember, the team responsible for the feeble rom-com “Failure to Launch” (2006). To be sure, they should be given credit for trying to reconceive Maxwell Smart, who in Carell’s incarnation isn’t a button-down nitwit, but rather a crack analyst whose difficulties in the field have more to do with inexperience than ingrained stupidity.

But the film’s sometimes beguiling special effects — a slickly updated CGI take on the irredeemably bug-prone Cone of Silence, for example — can’t offset the sheer unevenness of the gags, few of which rise to the level of those on a typical episode of “The Office,” still the prime source of Carellana. Brief hints of inspiration, such as a wan Bill Murray as Agent 13, doomed to live out his life disguised as a tree on the banks of the Tidal Basin, only heighten our disappointment when the movie settles back into its blow-to-the-groin mode.

Agent 99, Max’s alluring partner in the field, has been given a weird back story to explain why she looks so young, in spite of being a highly seasoned operative. That’s because she’s played by a pretty, bland 25-year-old Anne Hathaway (“The Devil Wears Prada”). Doubtless the idea of casting a contemporary of Carell in the role was dismissed out of hand. After all, who would pay to see a 45-year-old woman in a summer hit? (Plenty of people, it turns out, as “Sex and the City” has taught us.) Hathaway, however, an ingénue to her polished fingertips, never establishes 99 as the rock-solid professional she’s supposed to be. If Carell had had someone of sterner stuff to play off of, the script’s lackluster repartee might have been given a lift.

The movie’s episodic riffs on spookdom are loosely strung together with a plot that resuscitates the shadowy criminal empire of KAOS and its evil mastermind, Siegfried (the venerable Terence Stamp), along with his portly sidekick Shtarker (Ken Davitian, best known as Borat’s helpmate). As Max’s long-suffering Chief, Alan Arkin injects a bracing dose of spleen into the proceedings, a task that has become something of a specialty for him in his welcome, late-career blossoming. And Dwayne Johnson (The Rock no more) provides the requisite muscle.

Occasionally the film makes glancing allusions to our real-world predicaments. In Max and 99’s intercontinental peregrinations they stumble onto a stash of yellowcake. The vice president is referred to as a belligerent jerk. The briefly appearing president (James Caan) is a boorish clown. All told, these elements probably account for less than three minutes. The rest of the time “Get Smart” just pages through the summer movie playbook, selecting this or that until an acceptable run time has been reached. Another pop-culture icon lazily mined for ready cash. Mission accomplished.

For the average movie goer 10,000 BC will probably have them shrugging at the film being just okay. But for anyone looking closer at the film, at its actual filmmaking, they will see the bad film it really is.

Set, yes you guessed it, in the year 10,000 BC the film tells the story of a young, brave mammoth hunter and his journey through uncharted territories to save his people.

The film is at an immediate disadvantage with me as I am not a fan of action/adventure films involving huge creatures, fantasy or otherwise, that people have to battle. It’s purely a thing of personal taste and not a thing I can hold against the film for the general public. I can, however, hold the sub-par action, historical inaccuracy and boring and plodding plot against it. You feel every minute of the film’s near two hour runtime, all the time aching for something exciting and attention grabbing to happen on-screen. Instead you get action scenes we have scene a million times before, not-so-special-special effects and unconvincing actors that look like they’ve just walked off a soap opera set. It’s all very hap-hazardly done in favour of what the makers think are stunning set pieces and visuals.

The special effects within the film would have been impressive a few years ago. But CGI has moved on this since then, and after such showcasing like Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the recent bringing to life of the Transformers, and thus 10,000 BC’s aren’t bad in any way but just are nothing we haven’t seen before.

The film, above most other things, is blatantly historically inaccurate. Correct me if I’m wrong but people didn’t speak English as we speak it now back in those times. They attempt to tackle this by having the characters speak in broken, not fully formed English when actually it comes off as a foreigner trying to speak our language so that we, the audience, can understand. Obviously if the film was in the appropriate language, with accompanying subtitles, then it wouldn’t draw in the masses, which is a sad thing indeed. And also correct me if I’m wrong but they didn’t have good dental plans and make-up in those days either. So outwith the boring story and same-old action sequences we also have implausibility’s and inaccurate details that made me countless times roll my eyes in disbelief.

The acting in the film leaves something to be sorely desired. Apart from the actors being unconvincing that they would actually be in this time period and not in 21st century Los Angeles, their mannerisms, look, and actions are what irked me the most. Like I said, if I’m not mistaken, they didn’t speak English in those days and they also didn’t have the morals, values and ways of looking at things like we do now. It’s not only totally unconvincing on the actors parts but at points really embarrassing.

Despite my general less than enthusiastic interest in battle scenes involving huge fantastical creatures I was at least clinging onto that to carry away with me a vague sense of enjoyment. But those action sequences are not only the kind we have seen plenty of times before but they are also short lived. There is more boring dialogue and concentration on the plodding storyline than there is action and visuals.

10,000 BC is a disaster on virtually every intended level. The acting is bad, the special effects not so special, it’s very historically inaccurate and to top it all off I can’t even recommend it on a pure action-oriented level as it’s nothing we haven’t seen a million times before. It all amounts to a film you should completely avoid.

Tony Stark has the world on a string - gorgeous women, a Malibu mansion to die for, and more money than any one man should ever be allowed to accumulate. Oh yeah, life’s sunny on Stark’s side of the street. But karma is a bitch and Tony’s ticket is almost punched when he visits the US troops in Afghanistan and his convoy comes under enemy fire. Pulled barely alive from the wreckage, Stark is taken to a hillside hideaway and tortured into building his most powerful weapon – the Jericho missile - for a brutal batch of terrorists.

Kept alive only by a special battery-powered electromagnetic device which keeps metal fragments from piercing his heart, Tony and his fellow captor, interpreter Yinsen (Shaun Toub), decide to create their own little Shock and Awe moment. Instead of building the Jericho missile, Stark and Yinsen design an iron suit. This special suit can withstand pretty much anything shot at it and is loaded down with an arsenal of weapons capable of annihilating the terrorist camp and its inhabitants.

After destroying the terrorists’ supply of Stark Industry manufactured weapons, Tony’s new suit shoots him skyward, safely out of the camp and into the inhospitable desert. With his suit destroyed on impact, Tony gets a lift home to America courtesy of his close friend and military liaison Jim ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes (Terrence Howard) who never stopped searching for Tony during all the time he was held hostage.

Once back in the States, Tony holds a press conference to announce he’s done with providing the means for men to blow up cities and kill innocent people. This new direction for the company doesn’t sit well with Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges), Stark Industries second-in-command and a guy who values money over innocent lives. While Tony shifts direction and works on upgrading his specially designed red and gold Iron Man suit of armor, the company he believes he’s in charge of continues about the business of arming terrorists. But when he gets wind of these backdoor deals, Tony vows to reverse the damage done by the company his father founded decades before.

A real legend is...well, the stuff of legends. But much harder to reproduce on film, because of the depths of human expression that tend to get lost in the business of making it on time, on budget, and on a subject the public will "buy". Which means 2005's "Walk The Line" is that rarest of movies, one that dug deep into the story, put it up as it really unfolded, and managed to bag actors that could carry it off.

"Walk The Line" is the hard fighting/drinking/loving story of country icon, Johnny Cash and his love affair with wife June Carter. It lays the foundation for the movie's focus, and Cash's real life, by detailing his boyhood in Arkansas, the early death of a brother, and impulsive first marriage that ended in disaster. All of that contributes to the way Cash's life was already drifting when he sang for Sam Phillips of Sun Records, where he brushed shoulders with another newcomer, Elvis Presley. Chastised for offering a hymn, Joaquin Phoenix rips off a version of Folsom Prison Blues that snags him the prized contract, and sets his foot on a path that will lead him to depths he never dreamed of, and the woman who would pull him out of then, June Carter.

Both Phoenix, and Reese Witherspoon who plays June Carter, did their own vocals, which added immeasurably to the reality of their performances. Witherspoon at times was perhaps a tad too ebullient, but also managed to reach inside herself to pull out both the feminine side of Carter, and her fury at Cash's moral and physical deterioration as their relationship progressed from an initial backstage meeting to the final, enduring chapter written at the Folsom Prison concert.

Not strictly a love story, "Walk the Line" is nonetheless a sometimes moving, infuriating, and emotionally charged tale of two people both struggling towards the same goal- to be with each other.

Becoming Jane marvelously chronicles a supposed biographical sketch of the one, the only, Jane Austen. What a poignant message it tells of the power writing has in bearing the soul of the writer and how the true values of a person are revealed in their actions. Sadly, this story shows that by choosing certain values, one must make count the cost and at times the cost is painful, changing the course of one’s life forever. Becoming Jane reminds us, the viewers, of a phrase we’ve heard and come to believe in: It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved before.

Austen’s life was not as glorious as the witty, romantic tales described in her novels Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility. Instead, her life was as realistic as could be. As an avid reader of her books, I have always been encouraged with the hopeful endings that Austen left her readers with at the end of each novel. Does not a peaceful, easy feeling come to those who read that despite all odds, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy end up together in the end? And how about Miss Dashwood hooking up with Edward Ferrars in spite of many misunderstandings and bumps in their road to fulfillment and love?

What one finds after viewing Becoming Jane is the reality of the webs we weave for ourselves. The power of our lives comes from the choices we make each day. Though Jane Austen did not perhaps live out her hopes, dreams, and unfulfilled desires, she left behind hope for new generations of women to live out their hopes and dreams, that we may fulfill our desires and live lives true to ourselves and our souls.

Know this, an hour and a half of your life will not be wasted if you choose to watch Becoming Jane with this disclaimer: pick up one of Austen’s renowned novels and read. Then and only then, watch the author’s life come to life on screen. The background information you gain from reading at least one of Austen’s novels will be of much worth in what you gain from the cinematic feature.

A recent thriller film entitled “Disturbia” starring Shia LaBeouf, who was also the lead character in the Transformers movie, has topped the movie charts. The title “Disturbia” is a portmanteau (or morpheme) that means disturbance in a suburban environment.

This 2007 movie revolves around Kale, a character portrayed by Shia LaBeouf, and how his spying led to a confrontation with a serial killer. The story began in a car accident scene that showed how Kale lost his father. A year after the car accident, Kale was still haunted by the death of his father. In one scene, Kale was caught sleeping in class by a Spanish language teacher. To humiliate Kale, the teacher made comments about how Kale's father would be disappointed about his behavior in school. Angered by his teacher's statement, Kale stood up and punched his insensitive Spanish language instructor.

After he was hailed to court, Kale was sentenced to three months of house arrest. The house arrest included the attachment of an ankle monitor with a proximity sensor that stopped him from going away from the house. To prevent boredom, he watched TV, played video games, and surfed the Internet. But when his mother canceled these services including his subscriptions to Xbox live and i-Tunes, Kale turned to voyeurism to escape boredom. Using a pair of binoculars, Kale began spying on his neighbors and found amusement as a Peeping Tom. One night, while spying, he became suspicious of his next door neighbor, Robert Turner. Mr. Turner returned home driving an old Ford Mustang with a dented fender, perfectly describing a serial killer from Austin, Texas that had been all over the news.

Filled with fear and anxiety, he called up his best friend Ronnie and let him know about this suspicious neighbor. In one of their spying sessions, they saw a pretty girl who just moved into their neighborhood. Being typical teenagers, they spied on her while she was dressing up and when she was swimming. The girl named Ashley eventually found out that she was being spied upon and eventually joined Kale and Ronnie in their spying activities. Mr. Turner also finds out that they have been spying on him. Eventually, Mr. Turner warned the teenagers about their spying. Teenagers were filled with fear and anxiety about the threat made on them by Mr. Turner. As the story ends, the thrill intensifies when the boys found out that Mr. Turner really is a serial killer. Even with all his fear and anxiety, Kale managed to save his mother and Ashley who were abducted.

Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is taking no prisoners and he’s determined to uncover the truth about his identity. Talk about building up to a climax in a movie series, this roller coaster saved the best for last. What a ride!

The story picks up near the end of the second one, The Bourne Supremacy, where Jason is limping around Moscow trying to escape the authorities, and of course he does. He later finds an article that seems to have a lot of information about him so he pursues that reporter to then pursue the reporter’s source. The CIA, however, was doing the exact same thing. The CIA and Jason stumble upon each other and so continues the hunt. But it won’t stop Jason from obtaining that which he wants more than anything: his memory and the secrets about his life.

“This is Jason Bourne, the toughest target that you have ever tracked.” Indeed he is and Matt Damon IS Jason Bourne as much as Harrison Ford IS Indiana Jones, Arnold Schwarzenegger IS the Terminator, and Johnny Depp IS Jack Sparrow, sorry, Captain Jack Sparrow. He masters the role and leaves nothing to envy from any other of the blockbuster actions stars, past or present. He has made the character so real that even though some of the action in the film pushes the envelope on realism, he keeps Jason well grounded. You will want to be there fighting right beside him. Joan Allen is back as Pamela Landy and she gave a solid performance demonstrating how she can play with the big boys. Julia Stiles is also back as Nicky Parsons and brings an unexpected twist to the story. The new wave of agent/assassin Bourne hunters, like Edgar Ramirez, were just as professionally cold-blooded as the ones from the first two pictures.

If you consider the storyline of this movie by itself, there really isn’t much there. It does need to remain in context with the full story which would include the other two releases. There is actually a very interesting chronological tie between the second movie and this one that I don’t think I’ve ever seen done before. The Bourne series is like a fireworks show and The Bourne Ultimatum is the grand finale. It doesn’t say a whole lot, but there sure are a lot of fireworks. This movie is one of those cases where the action outweighs and outdoes the story. It is fast, constant and mature. It is difficult to look away. Even in the “slow” scenes when there was actual dialogue, I was still tense and anxious. Priscilla held her need to go to the restroom for a good hour until the movie ended so as not to miss anything. The icing on this cake are all the fascinating locations where the story develops. James Bond ain’t got nothing on Jason Bourne when it comes to world travel . . . except maybe a bit more frequent flyer miles.

I'm not sure exactl when American Pie became a cultural juggernaut, but I do know when it started to suck: Right after the second movie came out. Now in its fifth installment, the once cheeky Pie has become about as funny as a late-stage Porky's sequel, just biding time until the producers can no longer find girls willing to spend 90 minutes topless and kids willing to pay $20 to watch them.

This installment of the American Pie universe offers a Stifler cousin named Erik (John White), who's in his third year of a sex-free relationship with girlfriend Tracy (Jessy Schram). Generous to a fault, she finally gives Erik a "free pass" for one weekend, and he and his friends decide to go visit another Stifler cousin at his college, where a "naked mile" is being run. (You know, drunk students running across campus in the buff.) Erik meets a girl there. Will he go for it?

You can see all that coming, and you can probably see the midgets (a major side plot), the Viagra mishap, and the scenes of bodily fluids flying. None of this is altogether funny, but it's mightily vulgar. Be advised this is not one to expose the kiddies to.

Most difficult is actually keeping track of the four male leads. One has darker hair than the other three. Aside from that, I actually had a lot of trouble keeping track of who was who. I never thought I'd believe that the characters in American Pie were rich and nuanced, but compared to the disjointed, half-written affair here, they may as well be from Shakespeare.

It's sad that George Lucas in Love wunderkind Joe Nussbaum has already been relegated to this kind of material. His sole released-in-theaters directorial experience was the not-terrible Sleepover, and now he's makin' pie. Oh, the humanity.

Based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, 300 takes over the screen like an invading horde. With all the gushing blood of a horror movie and the scope of a classic epic, the second film from Zack Snyder (who helmed the 2004 remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD) is an impressive visual spectacle. Gerard Butler (THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA) plays Leonidas, the king of ancient Sparta. The city is famous for its warrior philosophy, and Leonidas won't kneel to the demands of Persia's King Xerxes (LOST's Rodrigo Santoro).

Instead, Leonidas leads his 300-strong army against Xerxes's army of millions. Meanwhile, his wife (Lena Headley, THE BROTHERS GRIMM) campaigns in Sparta for the city to send reinforcements as she butts heads with the treacherous Theron (Dominic West, THE WIRE). With its gore and scale, 300 marks director Snyder as a possible successor to Peter Jackson's throne. Jackson also got his start in horror with BAD TASTE and DEAD ALIVE, and the two men share a penchant for ambitious battle scenes. The huge fights in 300 rival Jackson's efforts in the LORD OF THE RINGS films. David Wenham, who starred in two of the Tolkien-based films, plays Dilios, one of the Spartan soldiers.

Though the cast doesn't boast any A-list stars, the actors ably fill their larger-than-life roles. In a film filled with men, Headley stands out as Queen Gorgo. She matches her warrior husband in strength, while showing love toward Leonidas and their son. Though there are scenes that demonstrate the humanity of the characters, 300 is undeniably about bravery and blood, and it succeeds because of the stylish depictions of both.

There are heroes… there are superheroes… and then there’s Hancock (Will Smith). With great power comes great responsibility – everyone knows that – everyone, that is, but Hancock. Edgy, conflicted, sarcastic, and misunderstood, Hancock’s well-intentioned heroics might get the job done and save countless lives, but always seem to leave jaw-dropping damage in their wake.

The public has finally had enough – as grateful as they are to have their local hero, the good citizens of Los Angeles are wondering what they ever did to deserve this guy. Hancock isn’t the kind of man who cares what other people think – until the day that he saves the life of PR executive Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman), and the sardonic superhero begins to realize that he may have a vulnerable side after all. Facing that will be Hancock’s greatest challenge yet – and a task that may prove impossible as Ray’s wife, Mary (Charlize Theron), insists that he’s a lost cause.

What if mankind had to leave Earth, and somebody forgot to turn the last robot off?

Academy Award®-winning writer-director Andrew Stanton (“Finding Nemo”) and the inventive storytellers and technical geniuses at Pixar Animation Studios (“The Incredibles,” “Cars,” “Ratatouille”) transport moviegoers to a galaxy not so very far away for a new computer-animated cosmic comedy about a determined robot named WALL•E.

After hundreds of lonely years of doing what he was built for, WALL•E (short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) discovers a new purpose in life (besides collecting knick-knacks) when he meets a sleek search robot named EVE. EVE comes to realize that WALL•E has inadvertently stumbled upon the key to the planet’s future, and races back to space to report her findings to the humans (who have been eagerly awaiting word that it is safe to return home). Meanwhile, WALL•E chases EVE across the galaxy and sets into motion one of the most exciting and imaginative comedy adventures ever brought to the big screen.

Joining WALL•E on his fantastic journey across a universe of never-before-imagined visions of the future, is a hilarious cast of characters including a pet cockroach, and a heroic team of malfunctioning misfit robots.