Archive for October, 2005
My Best Friend’s Wedding
Posted by frothy in Uncategorized on October 29, 2005
Julia Roberts has had an interesting career, one that’s seen her try (in vain, at times) to escape the “adorable” roles in favor of something with some meat. This 1997 offering was the first in a string of romantic comedies (her forte, I’d say), followed by Notting Hill and Runaway Bride. She’s good in this type of role, whether she likes it or not, but she’s much better – as is the film – when she’s cast against an actor who can hold his own in the same kind of movie.Here, this isn’t the case. Dermot Mulroney plays Julia’s BFF from way back when; they’d apparently made a pact that they’d marry each other if they were both single when they turned 28. Of course, they’re both about to turn 28, and lo and behold Michael (Mulroney) is getting hitched to the bubbly, rich Kimmy (Cameron Diaz). Naturally, Julianne (Roberts) has an epiphany in which she belatedly realizes she’s in love with Michael, and she sets off to ruin the wedding – er, I mean, convince Michael he’s marrying the wrong gal. With a setup like that, it sounds like this would be a madcap comedy, doesn’t it? Wacky hijinks should ensue, with Julianne getting into one zany predicament after another. Well, some crazy things do happen – there’s a wedding afoot, and we know from our movies that weddings are always fraught with discord – but there is a decided edge to the proceedings. Julianne isn’t some naive klutz who’s just completely convinced that she’s The One for Michael; she’s mean, duplicitous, arrogant, and self serving. It takes her the bulk of the movie to figure this out, but I was a bit tired of her schtick after the first twenty minutes or so.Mulroney is just not a strong enough actor for this role; he has so little screen presence anyway, and being on stage with Miss Julia made him seem even more underwhelming. Really, the casting could have been better for his role – this is the kind of part Hugh Grant could do in his sleep. Cameron Diaz is acceptable but not remarkable, but that’s fine; this is basically Roberts’ movie, anyway. Aside from the bitter edge that sometimes pervaded the script, I did find myself laughing, albeit only intermittently. A big plus was the presence of Rupert Everett, who plays Roberts’ New Bestest Buddy and whose character happens to be gay. Everett easily steals every scene he’s in, but that seemed like it was a simple task, given the thespians involved. A big negative, however, was that Julia Roberts really doesn’t look that good without well-applied makeup. In many scenes, she looked much older than her (then) 30 years. Big on schmaltz and adding a tint of cruelty, the movie just never settled into any kind of entertaining rhythm, choosing to rely on the wattage of a megastar to carry the story.My Best Friend’s Wedding: **# 2,687
228 – Sahara
Posted by frothy in Sahara (2005) on October 17, 2005
I swear, when I first heard that Sahara, a movie based on the Dirk Pitt books by Clive Cussler, was finally coming out, I didn’t have very high expectations. I’ve read several of the books, and they always seem almost made for action movies, complete with larger-than-life (but one-dimensional) characters and wild, exotic locales. So I skipped watching this in the theater, and I now strongly regret that decision.
The basic plot is that Dirk Pitt, Director of Special Projects for the National Underwater and Marine Agency, thinks an old Civil War-era ironclad ship has somehow found its way to a river in Africa. At the same time, a luscious doctor with the World Health Organization discovers there’s been a viral outbreak in the same general area in Africa. Might these two meet up at some point during the movie?
Pitt (Matthew McConaughey) is part Superman, part daredevil, part Lothario, part Jacques Cousteau, and part Albert Einstein. Naturally, such a person would never exist in real life, but the character is so likeable – a devilish rogue, if you will – on paper that one forgives the transparency of his personality. He’s adept at solving mysteries large and small, but he can’t be without his trusty sidekick Al Giordino (Steve Zahn). Dirk and Al head to Mali, off the southwestern coast of Africa, because they think the old ironclad Texas somehow landed there; Dirk’s evidence is a single gold coin supposedly commissioned by Jefferson Davis. The two are joined by Dr. Eva Rojas (Penelope Cruz), the WHO doctor who is trying to trace the source of a deadly virus.
I won’t bore you with the plot, but it’s important to note that unlike the recent James Bond movies, the settings do not exist as simple travelogues (as in, “Wow, look! We’re in Finland! Now we’re in Australia! Now we’re in Swaziland!” and so forth); instead, everything does make perfect logical sense. Also, the storyline isn’t so complicated as to be confusing; sometimes action movies overplot themselves to distract the viewer from its incoherence. The photography is fantastic, and even simple acts like Stuff Blowing Up look wonderful.
It’s not easy to read the books and picture Al Giordino as a pale, skinny guy instead of a stocky Italian, but Zahn was quite believable in the role. One might have figured that talent would take a back seat to whimsical casting on the order of stereotypical, stock characterizations. Uh-uh, one would be wrong. Zahn is so perfectly cast, he actually manages to walk off with scenes, no mean feat considering the special effects and the natural charisma of McConaughey. In the books, Al is just the kind of pal you want to be with in a tight situation, but he can also toss off the random bon mot. Zahn was able to do that and much more, a pleasant surprise.
Perhaps most importantly, McConaughey and Zahn had perfect chemistry together, and I could be convinced that they truly were lifelong buddies. Even better, both played off Cruz pretty well, too. I had a little trouble buying her as a smart doctor, but I can suspend my disbelief a little. It’s not as if she were Denise Richards in that James Bond movie I can’t remember because it wasn’t very good.
Often, action movies have logical holes you could drive a Hummer through, moments in which you actually stop and think, “Wait, that can’t happen… you cannot use snakes to pick a lock,” or something similar. If a movie makes you stop and think, and it’s not a thinking-man’s movie, then it’s failed somehow. Bombs are good, but let’s make ‘em plausible bombs! At any rate, Sahara never does this. Everything ties in, but not obviously so. Sure, you know Eva and Dirk will meet cute and wind up together, but anyone reading any of the Dirk Pitt books knows this. He always gets the girl. And then the next book, he gets another. He’s so cool.
So, to sum up: Sahara is in the grand tradition of adventure movies like Raiders of the Last Ark, but unlike most pretenders to the Indiana Jones throne it’s frantically entertaining.
Sahara: ***
227 – The Ring Two
The sequel to 2002′s The Ring, itself a remake of the Japanese film Ringu, is pretty well done, sacrificing only some logical consistency for the sake of shiver-inducing atmosphere, solid and believable acting, and an underlying sense of dread, if not despair.
The movie picks up a few months after the events in the original, with Rachel (Naomi Watts) toting her young son Aidan (David Dorfman) from Seattle to Astoria, a small town in Oregon, hoping to Start Over as so many horror-movie survivors before her have attempted. Naturally, the big bad tape that caused so much trouble the first time around follows her up there, as she fortuitously discovers while in the employ of the local newspaper.
The Ring Two was directed by Hideo Nakata, who directed the Japanese original (and its own sequel), and under his direction the movie has only two speeds – deadeningly slow, whereupon the viewer feels as apprehensive as the movie’s heroine, and screamingly, bracingly quick. This pacing is a huge asset to what’s otherwise a slightly better-than-mediocre film. A good recent comparable film is Skeleton Key, which also features a smart, sexy young blonde heroine (Kate Hudson), although there’s no underlying theme of child endangerment.
Watts is fantastic, but the true shining light of the film is Dorfman, who at twelve years old appears to have all the poise and none of the hubris of most adult actors. He and Watts interact very well together; that they are mother and son is eminently believable, and their chemistry lent plenty of gravitas to the movie. The real question is whether Dorfman can successfully make the transition into adult roles, but luckily that decision is still a few years off.
Still, despite the fine work turned in by Watts and Dorfman (and, to a lesser extent, Sissy Spacek), there were enough “What the heck?” moments to give one pause. Most of them are integral to the plot, so I won’t discuss them here, but general one sticks out: Even though Rachel states over and over that everything she does is for her son, she makes some questionable mothering decisions. There are also steps she takes that cause one to wonder why she hadn’t taken them earlier in the film, when it would make more sense to.
Even so, the movie never seems to deal in horror cliches, such as various unnecessary characters going into dark basements or attics. It also doesn’t merely replay the events of the original film, a copout many horror sequels seem to use (or, in the case of the worst of the lot, a mere rethinking of ways for youngsters to die). Rachel and Aidan are flawed, but with depth; Rachel in particular is well developed because she’s able to convey the sense of protecting her child, even to the point of considering the ultimate sacrifice to save his skin.
I look forward to seeing more Hideo Nakata movies – he appears to have three coming out next year.
The Ring Two: **1/2
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