Max and Mike On the Movies - Max Weiss & Mike Mayo

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Mike's Lists	Here's where the truth of the matter becomes less transparent. The good, bad, and ugly will be told to all whom wish to read on. If you would like to comment on a review, you may post on our message board. = Make plans now to see the Movie = Worth the price of admission = Flip a coin = A zero interest bank account is a better investment In Theaters: American Teen The Dark Knight Death Race Get Smart Gunnin' For That #1 Spot Hamlet 2 Hancock Hellboy 2: The Golden Army The House Bunny Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Journey to the Center of the Earth Kung Fu Panda The Longshots Mamma Mia! Man on Wire The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor Pineapple Express The Rocker Sex and the City Star Wars: The Clone Wars Step Brothers Swing Vote Tropic Thunder The Wackness Vicky Cristina Barcelona Wall-E Wanted The X-Files: I Want to Believe On DVD: The Bank Job Cloverfield Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay Nim's Island The Other Boleyn Girl Shine A Light Smart People The Year My Parents Went on Vacation For films no longer in theaters, visit our Movie Review Archive.
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	The Rocker (PG-13) reviewed by Max Weiss
	Behind-the-scenes casting decisions are rarely made public—it’s only way after the fact that we discover that John Travolta turned down the Richard Gere role in American Gigolo, or that Mel Gibson was tapped to play Russell Crowe’s part in Gladiator—but it seems pretty clear to me that Rainn Wilson was not the first choice for The Rocker. The role practically screams Jack Black, and, frankly, he would’ve been better at it. I like Rainn Wilson well enough—he was deliciously creepy in Six Feet Under and brings his own strange, uptight energy to The Office. But he’s not leading man material. Okay, maybe in some sort of Vincent Gallo-helmed indie film, but in a lovable family-style romp, not so much. His eccentricity has too much of an edge. In The Rocker, Wilson plays drummer Robert “Fish” Fishman, who was kicked out of the 80’s metal band Vesuvius right before they made it big... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	The House Bunny (PG-13) reviewed by Max Weiss
	Will The House Bunny finally be the movie that makes Anna Faris a star? I’ve watched this young actress with interest since she did a spot-on Cameron Diaz impression in Lost in Translation, waiting for her to catch fire. Since then, she’s been a fixture in that moronic Scary Movie franchise (playing the clueless blonde in distress) and had supporting parts in second rate comedies like Just Friends and My Super Ex-Girlfriend. But she hasn’t had a major breakthrough. If The House Bunny becomes even a middling hit, it’ll be because of Faris, who is adorable, game for anything, and has pitch-perfect comic timing. She’s a natural. Here, she plays orphan-turned-Playboy Bunny Shelley Darlington, who luxuriates in the stable sense of home that the Playboy Mansion provides. All that is taken away when she receives a note from Hef telling her to vacate the premises—at 27, she is no longer the D-cup of the month. Like Reese Witherspoon’s Elle Woods in Legally Blonde, Faris’s Darlington is unfailingly sunny and naively optimistic in the face of any setback. Undaunted by her predicament, she wanders onto a college campus and ends up as the House Mother for a sorority of misfits and nerds. Everything you expect to happen does... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	The Longshots (PG) reviewed by Mike Mayo
	On the surface, "The Longshots" is your basic inspirational sports movie. It's got the based-on-a-true-story concept; it's got the emotional score; it's got the plucky underdogs who are perennial losers. But it's also got the hat, that little porkpie that Ice Cube wears. Sylvester Stallone also wore it in the first "Rocky," and, flaws not withstanding, the comparison is apt. Jasmine Plummer (Keke Palmer) lives in the little town of Minden, Illinois, and has no interest in sports. Her father is absent, and so she needs adult supervision when her mother (Tasha Smith) takes on extra hours at the diner. Jasmine's disreputable uncle Curtis (Ice Cube) is enlisted to look after her in the afternoon. When he realizes that she has a natural throwing arm and that the local Pop Warner football team is in desperate need of a quarterback, he pushes her to try out. The rest of the story follows the familiar formula closely but not slavishly. The film works so well because the sports elements are the least important... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	Death Race (R) reviewed by Max Weiss
	To say that I’m not the target audience for Death Race is a bit like saying that NFL player Ray Lewis is not the target audience for Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Suffice it to say, I held up my end of the bargain: I hated this loud, violent, retrograde movie, a remake of the Roger Corman sci-fi B-movie Death Race 2000. The year, curiously enough, is 2012. (A sly joke that the world will be radically altered in four years? Or, more likely, the byproduct of a budget too low to get properly futuristic?). Corporations have taken over the prison system and are staging vicious car races to the death for online and television viewing pleasure. The evil prison ward, played by a seriously slumming Joan Allen, presides over the event in power suits and a scowl. Any resemblance to former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is strictly intentional. Ugh. Into this mix comes former race car drive Jenson Ames (Jason Statham), who is accused of killing his wife. (We know it was the prison ward’s henchman who actually did the deed.) A few words about Jason Statham: This guy is turning into a major movie star and I simply don’t see the appeal. Bald, pumped up, and ready to rumble, he’s like a (British) Bruce Willis, but without the charm. In the last two films I’ve seen him in (this and The Bank Job, which was pretty great, by the way), he’s been paired with an impossibly fresh-faced wife, as if to convince the audience that he really is a sweet guy beneath that blandly stoic macho routine. I’m not buying it... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	Hamlet 2 (R) reviewed by Max Weiss
	As Hamlet 2 begins, a British narrator (uncredited, but I think Jeremy Irons) begins intoning pretentious truisms about the craft of ahcting, as our hero, Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan), is shown in one ignominious acting gig—herpes ad; TV shopping network shill; Xena the Warrior Princess villain—after the other. That disconnect, between harsh reality and Marschz’s high opinion of himself, is at the heart of the movie. Having failed even as a failed actor, Marschz is now teaching high school drama in Tucson, Arizona where he has two devoted students, a Bible-thumping goody-two-shoes named Epiphany (Phoebe Strole) and a closeted gay sycophant named Rand (Skylar Astin, incredibly funny). His students are content to star in Marschz’s ridiculous reenactments of popular films like Erin Brockovich, until a group of new transfers—mostly Latino—arrive. Epiphany and Rand are mortified by this unruly disruption of their blissful threesome, but Marschz, who tends to view himself as the star of his own life’s movie, is thrilled at the chance to play some heroic cross between Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds and Robin Williams in Dead Poet’s Society. Further complications include Catherine Keener, brilliantly funny as Marschz’s bitter and hateful wife (naturally, he thinks he’s the apple of her eye) who is having an affair with the couple’s sub-literate boarder (David Arquette). There’s also the school’s pint-sized drama critic who excoriates all of Marschz’s plays; and the school principal, who wants to shut down the drama department. In an effort to save his job—and work out his own daddy issues—Marschz decides to write a time-traveling musical, a buddy play of sorts, featuring Jesus and Hamlet (together at last!) called Hamlet 2... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	Tropic Thunder (R) reviewed by Max Weiss
	Never has the expression “no guts, no glory” been more apt than in describing the new comedy Tropic Thunder. The film demonstrates tons of guts—it has one character in blackface, another making fun of a mentally disabled man, and yet a third who is a vulgarian Jewish film executive. (What, no jokes about killing pandas? Oh wait. . .it has that, too.). With those risks comes a fair amount of glory. When Tropic Thunder is funny, it is awesomely so. However, when it fails, everyone involved looks like a bunch of schmucks. Directed and co-written by Ben Stiller (who also stars), Tropic Thunder depicts a film crew making a war movie in Vietnam. Stiller plays Tugg Speedman, the fading action star hoping for big screen legitimacy. Jack Black plays Jeff Portnoy, a comic actor (and closet crackhead) best known for farting on cue. Most famously, Robert Downey Jr. plays Australian method actor and multiple Oscar winner Kirk Lazarus, who undergoes a “controversial” skin-dying procedure to play a black sergeant. When newbie director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) decides his actors are too spoiled for their roles, he sends them deep into the jungle, rigging it with scary obstacles set up by the film’s gung ho special effects guy (comedic flavor-of-the-month Danny McBride). But unbeknownst to Cockburn, a group of drug warlords are hiding in the jungle, putting the cast in real danger... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	Vicky Cristina Barcelona (PG-13) reviewed by Max Weiss
	When it comes to the more recent works of Woody Allen, we film critics have begun to rely on a standard script. There’s the “he’s washed up!” line that came on the heels of such disappointments as Hollywood Ending and Anything Else. There’s the “it’s not half bad but he’ll never be truly great again” line that followed efforts like Melinda and Melinda and Sweet and Low Down. There is the “Woody’s back!” line that came breathlessly after Match Point. I suspect that there will be more “He’s back!” enthusiam with Woody’s new film Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Such praise will be followed by more lines from the Woody review script: “Scarlett Johannson is his new muse!” (Oh yeah? Then how do you explain Scoop?) “He’s so energized by these foreign locations!” (Hmmm, then why was Cassandra’s Dream such a flop?) So let’s try to avoid knee-jerk responses to his new work. Here’s how I see Woody today. He’s not as funny as early Woody, he’s not as artistically fertile as middle period Woody, and he clearly cranks out way too many films. These films are capable of being mediocre, good, and even great. Just don’t expect any patterns. That being said, Vicky Cristina Barcelona is one of the good ones—and damn close to being great. Here Woody is exploring his favorite subject (other than himself)—love. Vicky (Rebecca Hall) is smart, beautiful, and pragmatic. Her best friend Cristina (Scarlett Johannsson) is smart, beautiful, and wildly unpragmatic. Together, they embark on one last summer fling to Barcelona, where they meet artist Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem)... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	Star Wars: The Clone Wars (PG) reviewed by Max Weiss
	About 5 minutes into Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the new animated film from Lucas Studios, I turned to my friend Travis and said, “Wait. I thought Anakin went bad in Revenge of the Sith. Then why is he swashbuckling right alongside Obi-Wan Kenobi?” “Because this film takes place before that one,” he explained. Let me get this straight: The most recent three Star Wars films—Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Sith—were not sequels, but prequels, right? So what does that make this? A midquel? Episode 2.5? A palate cleanser? The mind reels. Actually, the mind doesn’t reel at all. It’s quite clear what Star Wars: The Clone Wars is—a giant advertisement for Lucas’s next project, an animated Star Wars TV series that will run on the Cartoon Network and TNT... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	Pineapple Express (R) reviewed by Max Weiss
	There’s a certain contract that the creators of a stoner comedy make with the audience: There will be lots of doobie jokes, lots of infantile men over-reacting (and sometimes, drastically under-reacting) to the madcap misadventures they’ve gotten themselves into, and, most importantly, the whole proposition will be amiable, no-consequence fun. While Pineapple Express follows most of the rules of stoner comedy—it’s funny and the pot jokes fly a plenty—it commits a cardinal sin: The violence in this film has consequences—people get maimed and they even die. Duuuuude. Seth Rogen, channeling a young Albert Brooks, plays Dale Denton, a process server who witnesses a drug kingpin commit a murder and, in his haste to leave the scene, drops the rare strain of pot he was smoking. The drug kingpin (Gary Cole), who has ties to Dale’s dealer, Saul Silver (James Franco), immediately recognizes the contents of the roach: Pineapple Express pot. Now both Saul and Dale are on the run. The best thing about Pineapple Express is Franco’s Saul, a happy wanderer, who, when he isn’t sitting on his couch howling over The Jeffersons reruns, visits his “nana” in a retirement home. Franco is just doing another iteration on the stoner dude we’ve seen many times before—from Spicoli to Keanu’s Ted—but he brings to the character a blissed-out sweetness all his own... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (PG-13) reviewed by Max Weiss
	A few questions will perplex you as you watch The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Here, I will attempt to answer them. Q: Where is Rachel Weisz? A. She got her Oscar and got the heck out. She has been replaced by Maria Bello, who is sporting a dark wig and a British accent. Perhaps the filmmakers thought we wouldn’t notice? Q. How did Brendan Fraser and Maria Bello end up with a 20-year-old son? A: Apparently, 20 years have passed since the last film. The fact that Fraser’s Rick O’Connell looks exactly the same as he did before he had a 20-year-old son should not distract you. Q: Who’s the charmless actor who plays the son and why does his voice sound so funny? A: His name is Luke Ford and he’s Australian. Q: Why does this whole plot about raising a dead army led by an evil king (Jet Li) feel so familiar? A. Because it was done, much better, a few weeks ago in Hellboy 2.... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	Swing Vote (PG-13) reviewed by Max Weiss
	Anyone who knows me, already knows that I am no fan of Kevin Costner. I find his whole self-styled Everyman routine tiresome and pretentious. He’s had some great movies over the years—Bull Durham remains one of my all-time favorites—but every time he gets into that preachy, Jimmy-Stewart-wannabe mode, I check out. So Swing Vote, which was produced by Costner (most likely explaining a prolonged scene featuring him and his band), was something of a special ordeal for me. There was Costner, playing Bud Johnson, a (supposedly) lovable loser from New Mexico, who, through a remarkable series of events, has 10 days to cast his vote and determine the next president of the United States. Costner is in his full-on hang dog, sheepish, aw shucks persona here. Yuck.... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	American Teen (PG-13) reviewed by Max Weiss
	Anyone who watches the new documentary American Teen, about high school life in a small town in Indiana, will be compelled to cast a fictitious version of the film in their mind. Alt-rocky, angsty teen girl Hannah Bailey could be played by Julia Stiles, who played a similar character in 10 Things I Hate About You. Nerdy, but deceptively self-aware Jake Tusing could be played by Michael Cera, who played a similar character in Juno (and Superbad). Wealthy queen bee Megan Krizmanich, who is probably just responding to fierce pressures at home, could be played by Rachel McAdams, who played a similar character in Mean Girls. Sensitive popular kid Mitch Reinholt, who dates Hannah until peer pressure compels a break-up, could be played by Zac Efron, who plays a similar character in the High School Musical movies. And so on. These similarities point out what is good—and not so good—about this documentary... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	Man On Wire (PG-13) reviewed by Max Weiss
	I have a vague early memory of a blurry picture in my parents’ New York Times of some nutjob who strung a wire from one Twin Tower to the other and walked across it. That nutjob was Philippe Petit and he was an acrobat, provocateur, performance artist, and utterly magnetic life force. In Man on Wire, filmmaker James Marsh chronicles Petit’s death-defying adventure—and his devoted band of accomplices (some in love with Philippe, some in love with adventure, others simply bored), who helped make this high-wire feat possible... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	Step Brothers (R) reviewed by Max Weiss
	Judd Apatow loves to make movies about grown men who are secretly arrested adolescents. In Step Brothers, which is produced by Apatow and reunites Talladega Nights co-stars Will Ferrell and Jon C. Reilly, the concept is taken one step further: These grown men aren’t secretly adolescents, they are living as adolescents—both still dressed like it’s 1984, both still living at home with a single parent, and both still drifting from one after-school-level job to the next. But what happens when those single parents—Mary Steenburgen (who looks radiant) as Ferrell’s overly doting mother and Richard Jenkins (brilliant as ever) as Reilly’s slightly exasperated dad—get married and the overgrown children are forced to co-exist as step brothers? Well, hilarity ensues. No . . . really.... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	The X-Files: I Want to Believe (PG-13) reviewed by Max Weiss
	This is going to hurt you more than it hurts me: The new X-Files movie kind of stinks. I was never a big fan of the show (I mean, I wasn’t a detractor or anything, I just never got into it), so the fact The X-Files: I Want to Believe plays like a pretty standard horror/thriller with uninteresting characters (unless, I suppose, you are predisposed to find them interesting) and tired scenarios that wouldn’t look out of place on an episode of Medium (or, uh, The X-Files) doesn’t bother me much. But I know that the cultish fans of the show were expecting big things from this movie. They wanted to believe, you could say. And show creator Chris Carter has really let them down... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	The Dark Knight (PG-13) reviewed by Max Weiss
	Halfway through The Dark Knight, I realized that it reminded me of another film I had seen in the past year. The Incredible Hulk? Iron Man? Hellboy II? Try No Country For Old Men. Yes, director Christopher Nolan is dealing with themes as dark and resonant as those explored by the Coen Brothers in their Oscar winner. There are even a few handy corollaries. Javier Bardem’s Anton Chigurh can be easily replaced by Heath Ledger’s Joker. Both characters represent a new kind of villain—sick, amoral, hellbent for destruction. While Bardem’s Chigurh was eerily calm and methodical, Ledger’s Joker is a twitching, chortling, punk rock goblin. The performance of the late young actor is as good as advertised (almost too good, the film sags a bit when he’s not on screen). In place of Tommy Lee Jones’ wizened sheriff Bell, we have three men: There’s idealistic District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) who, like Chigurh, flips a coin to determine the fate of himself and others (a clue to his character’s dastardly fate?). There’s old school police lieutenant James Gordon (Gary Oldman), who remains the film’s honorable voice of the law. And mostly we have the Dark Knight himself, Batman (Christian Bale.) Like Jones’ sheriff, Batman knows that evil for evil’s sake can not be defeated in traditional or savory ways. Unlike Bell, he doesn’t give up. If it all sounds like heady stuff, well, it is. Sure, The Dark Knight is a thrill ride with the requisite jolts of adrenaline and black humor (provided mostly by Ledger’s dazzling Joker). But it’s also a grim examination of vigilante justice, heroism, and man’s need for order... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	Mamma Mia! (PG-13) reviewed by Max Weiss
	So you want the good news or the bad news? Okay, the good news: Mamma Mia! is a sun-kissed, spirited camp romp, with lots of fun moments and some inspired bits of musical comedy. The bad news: At times the whole enterprise feels a little desperate. Let’s start with La Meryl herself (aka Meryl Streep): She plays Donna, the owner of a slightly dilapidated inn in Greece. Her 20-year-old daughter Sophie (adorable Amanda Seyfried) is getting married and wants her father to give her away. The problem? Sophie doesn’t know who her father is and Donna has been stubbornly mum on the subject. So Sophie steals Donna’s diary and finds out that her father could be one of three men—her mom’s first love Sam (Pierce Brosnan) or one of the two rebound guys, uptight Harry (Colin Firth) and adventurous Bill (Stellan Skarsgard). She invites them to the wedding and, for reasons that are never made completely clear, doesn’t tell her mother. Like every other red-blooded American filmgoer, I am an admirer of Meryl Streep. She is obviously a brilliant, nearly peerless actress, with an incredible bag of acting tricks. But lately, she has apparently decided to stop doing what my Uncle Richard fondly calls the “Sophie Goes To” series (Sophie Goes to Africa, Sophie Goes Down Under, etc.) and decided to reinvent herself as a comedienne. Results, as they say, have varied... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	Hellboy 2: The Golden Army (PG-13) reviewed by Max Weiss
	My friends were all pretty stunned when I told them I was looking forward to Hellboy II: The Golden Army—I’m not usually a Hellboy kinda gal. But what many people don’t realize is Hellboy is not just a high-budget comic-book action film featuring a cigar-chomping, do-gooder demon and his band of mutant sidekicks, it’s a high-budget comic-book action film directed by Guillermo del Toro. Yup, the same visionary genius who did Pan’s Labyrinth. Color me stoked. In some ways, Hellboy II is a strange cross between the gruesome/beautiful otherworld depicted in Pan’s Labyrinth and your standard summer blockbuster. I love Ron Perlman’s take on Hellboy—he plays him as a lovable lug with a fearsome temper—but is it really all that different from Michael Chiklis’s take on a similar character in The Fantastic Four? And while some of the film’s wit is spot-on—a scene where Hellboy sings a bad Barry Manilow duet with his lovesick amphibian pal Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) is both touching and funny... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	Journey to the Center of the Earth (PG) reviewed by Max Weiss
	There was much breathless buzz about Journey to the Center of the Earth being the bestest 3-D movie ever! Indeed, the 3-D effects are pretty eye-popping: Yo-yos spring off the screen at you, dinosaurs slime on you, Brendan Fraser spits on you, etc. It’s all quite vivid. But I’m still not convinced. Generously speaking, the film utilizes true 3-D effects for about 30 of its 90-minute running time. That means you spend a useless hour in those clunky glasses that slightly distort the normal image and give you a headache. (Hey, at least I remembered to wear my contact lenses this time). It just ain’t worth it. So how’s the rest of the film? It’s pretty standard adventure movie stuff—yet another riff on the Jules Verne classic novel about scientists who fall into a portal into the earth’s core where they discover an alternate universe filled with dinosaurs and luminescent birds and molten hot waterfalls... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	Hancock (PG-13) reviewed by Max Weiss
	It’s such a great concept, you wonder why it hasn’t been done before: A superhero with a bad attitude, one who saves people, but does so reluctantly, who crash lands, leaves a costly mess, and performs his life-saving duties with a snarl. And for a while, Hancock pulls off this concept brilliantly. For starters, Will Smith makes a great Hancock. This might’ve seemed like a stretch for Smith—an actor who at times seems desperate to be loved (and we, the movie going public, dutifully oblige). But Smith is actually spot-on as the heavy-drinking, anti-social hero. He makes Hancock both funny (because he’s so darn surly) and sad (because he’s misunderstood). And the director, Peter Berg, has a great way with a visual joke (sometimes it’s amusing to just see Hancock help a beached whale by hurling it into the ocean—and promptly capsize a small boat).... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	The Wackness (R) reviewed by Max Weiss
	There is a great scene in The Wackness, a coming-of-age film about a teen pot dealer in New York named Luke (Josh Peck) who sells drugs to his depressed shrink Dr. Squires (Ben Kingsley) in exchange for free therapy. In it, Squires, feeling estranged from his cold wife (Famke Janssen), takes Luke to his favorite old dive bar and is dismayed to discover that the bar is no longer a happening scene, but actually kind of desolate and depressing. Both Luke and Dr. Squires talk about their need to get laid—Luke for the first time, and Dr. Squires because he feels that sometimes it’s okay to cheat, but only when completely necessary. While the two are drinking beer and commiserating, hippie chick Union (Mary-Kate Olsen), who is one of Luke’s customers, floats into the bar. As Luke looks on incredulously, Dr. Squires begins to flirt with her. A few minutes later, it’s Squires, not him, who’s hooking up with Union in the bar’s vintage phone booth. Luke shakes his head in misery. He clearly can’t decide what’s more disgusting: That Dr. Squires is macking on a teenage girl or that he, Luke Shapiro, has no game? That scene, funny, sad, slightly disturbing, is The Wackness at its best. But the film can’t sustain that delicate balance. It occasionally wears its “movieness” too loudly... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	Wall-E (G) reviewed by Max Weiss
	Oh what a curious—and sometimes flat-out weird—movie WALL-E is. I have to admit, it took me a while to grasp its shades and rhythms—and even now I’m not sure if it’s a masterpiece or a miscue or both. For starters, the beginning feels more like a horror film than a Pixar romp for kids. We hear a corny song from a musical—later it’s identified as “Put On Your Sunday Clothes” from Hello, Dolly—and then zero in on a post-apocalyptic earth. You see, waste has overrun the planet and all humans are exiled to space. Alone doing the clean up is the robot WALL-E (or Waste Allocation Load Lifter—Earth Class) and others of his kind. He looks a bit like a cross between Johnny Five, the robot in Short Circuit, and E.T. But actually, the Spielberg film that WALL-E owes its biggest debt of gratitude to is AI. It was in that film that our boy robot finally got his wish of being human by simply being the most “human-like” robot of the future. Likewise, WALL-E, whose only friend is a cockroach (a nice joke, as earth is supposed to be uninhabitable; also the Twinkies are still fresh) and a VCR tape of Hello, Dolly, is a most humanoid of creatures. Mostly, he compacts trash, but he also stockpiles trash of interest, like shoes and lighters and fire extinguishers, and he seems to have a love for pretty things. (In a scene that shows the film’s enormous capacity for sly visual wit, WALL-E salvages a diamond ring from a trash heap—then tosses the diamond and keeps the box)... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	Wanted (R) reviewed by Max Weiss
	How do you solve a problem like Angelina Jolie? To me, she is one of the great movie stars of our time. Notice I didn’t say great actress—although she certainly is a better than average one—I said movie star. When she’s on screen, you can’t take your eyes off her—she's almost ridiculously sexy and magnetic. (Hey, I may be a female, but I’m not blind.) So why, may you ask, is this a problem? Well, two reasons. For one, it’s hard to find the right role for her. This is partly her own fault, her do-goodism (and desire for another Oscar?) often leads her to well-intentioned but DOA films like A Mighty Heart and Beyond Borders. Superhero adventurer Lara Croft seemed like the right role, except both movies sucked. Mr. and Mrs. Smith was pretty good (at least for the first half), but Brad Pitt couldn’t quite keep up with her. Which leads to the other problem: The woman—and I don’t know how else to put this—is a maneater. Every actor she works opposite seems timid and emasculated in her presence, even a stud like Brad. (I’d like to see her work with George Clooney, he’s pretty much the only guy I can see going to toe-to-toe with her.) With all that in mind, Wanted is a near perfect Angelina Jolie vehicle. Her character is supposed to be ridiculously sexy and powerful, that’s part of the joke. And our hero, Wesley (cutie patootie James McAvoy) isn’t supposed to be her physical or sexual equal, he’s a worker drone, saved from his bland cubicle existence by Jolie’s Fox, who tells him that he’s actually a member of an elite group of super assassins... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	Gunnin' for That #1 Spot (PG-13) reviewed by Mike Mayo
	I reviewed this documentary about top high school basketball players for the Washington Post. <Click Here> for the complete review!

	Get Smart (PG-13) reviewed by Max Weiss
	A conspicuously big budget and some game work by the leads elevates Get Smart from utter mediocrity to serviceable entertainment. But still, this update of the popular 60’s series never truly gains its footing. Is it an homage to the show? If so, they should’ve made Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell) more of a bumbling wannabe, as he was on the sitcom. (In this version, he’s more of a brainy nerd who’s good with a gun—he’s like Napoleon Dynamite if those numchuck skills actually came in handy). Is it a spoof of spy films? If so, get in line behind the superior Casino Royale, Austin Powers, Top Secret, et al. Still, the physical comedy can be quite funny—there are two stand-out set pieces (one involving darts in an airplane bathroom stall; the other a dance extravaganza at the home of a Russian warlord) and Anne Hathaway graduates from The Princess Diaries to believable sexpot as Agent 99. Even the Rock—now known exclusively as Dwayne Johnson, la di da—is funny as the alpha male spy who takes Max under his wing... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	Sex and the City (R) reviewed by Max Weiss
	Sex and the City ran for six seasons on HBO and, amazingly, it never once jumped the shark. If anything, the final seasons were its strongest—with the show’s addictive blend of fashion, sex, friendship, and clever bon mots honed to near perfection. When the show went off the air in 2004, women around the world mourned—and rumors of a Sex and the City movie immediately surfaced. Once those rumors became a reality—confirmed by paparazzi photos of our four fashionista galpals filming in New York—anticipation reached a frenzied pitch. I can safely say that no movie that I’ve ever reviewed has been more buzzed over—with more of my friends helpfully “volunteering” to accompany me to my critics’ screening (thanks, girls)—than Sex and the City. So, does it live up to the hype? Hell yes. Sex and the City, the movie, really does feel like a giant, gift-wrapped present (from a high-end Fifth Avenue boutique, naturally) to fans of the show... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (PG-13) reviewed by Max Weiss
	We can all agree that sequels made several years after the fact are generally duds. For proof, look no farther than The Godfather 3, The Two Jakes, and the recent crop of Star Wars prequels. (For the record, there are also horrible, delayed sequels to Terms of Endearment and The Last Picture Show—doesn’t anyone in Hollywood know how to leave a brilliant moment alone?). So I had reason to be skeptical about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Not only has it been 19 years since the last Indiana Jones flick (The Last Crusade—so much for truth in advertising) but in the interim, star Harrison Ford has lost touch with his inner Indy. When did Ford, an actor known for being roguishly cavalier, become such a sourpuss? I can’t pinpoint it exactly (although I suspect that neither he, nor I, have fully recovered from Regarding Henry) but his recent work has been rather brittle and joyless. Just by putting on a fedora and brandishing a whip, was he magically going to regain his sense of playfulness and verve? Well, I’ll be darned, yes.... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	Smart People (R) reviewed by Max Weiss
	It started with the white, beat-up Saab. That was the first character note we got on college professor Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid)—he drove it in the first scene—and I thought, “Hmmm, a bit of a cliché.” But I was willing to forgive it on grounds of, well, accuracy. (Have you checked out the employee parking lot of a liberal arts college lately?) Then, Lawrence parked his car... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (R) - Comedy - Max [Now Available on DVD]
	Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle was really less of a stoner film and more of a clever sendup of cultural stereotypes (okay, and a stoner film). Throw in a now-legendary Neil Patrick Harris cameo, and you’ve got all the makings of a cult classic. (Indeed, while the film did middling box office, it cleaned up on DVD.) Very much to the producers’ credit, they don’t stray far from the formula with the sequel, which has the boys being mistaken for terrorists and sent to (and escaping from) Guantanamo Bay... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	Nim's Island (PG) reviewed by Max Weiss [Now Available on DVD]
	Last year brought us Bridge to Terabithia, with AnnaSophia Robb as a spunky, imaginative, resourceful little girl who loved to play in the great outdoors. Without giving too much of that film’s plot away, suffice it to say, things did not end well for little AnnaSophia. So it’s with great pleasure that I report that no such dark fate awaits Abigail Breslin’s casually rough and tumble Nim, who lives... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	Shine a Light (PG-13) reviewed by Max Weiss [Now Available on DVD]
	Entire villages could get lost in the deep crevices of Mick Jagger’s face. I noted this, with some alarm, in the opening frames of Martin Scorsese’s excellent Rolling Stones “documentary” (really, just a super-sized concert film) Shine a Light. Those openings scenes are shot in... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	The Bank Job (R) reviewed by Mike Mayo [Now Available on DVD]
	Heist pictures follow a formula. It might be reduced to: gang gets loot, gang loses loot, gang gets loot back. O.K., the gang doesn’t always get the loot, but these movies usually end on a positive note of some kind. The Bank Job works some nice fresh twists into the standard-issue plot, and is simply one of the most enjoyable movies of the young year. Supposedly based on a true story, it’s set in early 1970s London. For their own reasons, a bunch of shady intelligence officials want to get their hands on the contents of a safety deposit box in a bank on Baker St. (around the corner from Sherlock Holmes’ digs). But they can’t just waltz in and confiscate the stuff and so they blackmail fashion model Martine Love (Saffron Burrows, looking very modelish with cheekbones that just won’t quit) into recruiting a bunch of “villains” to rob the bank. These villains are hardly master criminals and that’s where the movie is at its best. Terry (Jason Statham, from the Transporter series) is essentially a used car salesman who has a criminal past and a history with Martine. He persuades a few of his pals to join in for what promises to be nothing more than a weekend’s work. His gang consists of a photographer, an ex-porn star, a welder and a tailor. If the robbery itself is simple, the supporting characters make the rest of the story insanely complicated. We’ve got black revolutionaries, a porn magnate, a high class madam, more spies, crooked cops, the royal family, and a guy with a ham radio. All of them are played by British character actors whose faces are more familiar than their names. To a man and woman, they’re excellent. The film earns its “R” rating honestly with lots of discreetly kinky sex and violence, so it’s not recommended for kids, but, for my money, it’s the best of its kind since Spike Lee’s Inside Man.

	The Year My Parents Went on Vacation (PG) reviewed by Max Weiss [Now Available on DVD]
	Luckily, there’s complicated South American politics at the center of The Year My Parents Went on Vacation. Otherwise, we’d certainly be treated to a mawkish American remake of this film, which focuses on the unlikely relationship between an abandoned little boy and a cranky village elder. It’s 1970 Brazil and the parents of 12-year-old Mauro (Michel Joelsas, a natural) are political dissidents, forced to leave their soccer-loving son behind with his grandfather... <Click Here> for the complete review!

	The Other Boleyn Girl (PG-13) reviewed by Max Weiss [Now Available on DVD]
	With HBO having recently aired a Helen Mirren-led mini-series on Elizabeth I and Showtime entering its second season of The Tudors (about the many loves of King Henry VIII), it’s safe to say that our favorite 16th-century Brits have become the hottest source material—on cable. So, with The Other Boleyn Girl, the question remains, do we really need to see the same royal family in theaters? I’m not so sure. The director, Justin Chadwick, clearly thought that the combined star power of Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson would give the film its big screen oomph. But the two stars manage to show both their talent—and their limitations... Click here for our full length review.

	Cloverfield (PG-13) reviewed by Mike Mayo [Now Available on DVD]
	Max gives this big-monster flick 2 ½ stars. I’ll raise her a ½ star simply because I love big-monster flicks, from the original King Kong to Them to The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, and even the silly remake of Godzilla. What can I say? I’m just a sucker for giant critters looming over the horizon. I’ve been intrigued by this one ever since I saw the trailer last summer, but I was unsure about the whole Blair Witch hand-held camera thing for a full-length feature. I’m happy to report that while it is a bit off-putting at first, it is a legitimate way to tell this admirably succinct (84 min.) story. Actually writer Drew Goddard and director Matt Reeves are using the same technique that H.G. Wells used in his novel The War of the Worlds. He told the story from the point of view of an unnamed first-person observer who witnesses the important events of the invasion. It’s not really giving anything away to say that the action here begins with a gigantic beastie rising out of the ocean near New York and attacking the city. (At least that’s what seems to happen. Many details are properly uncertain.) We see it all from the point of view of a guy named Hud who has been given a camcorder to document a going-away party for his friend Rob. When things get nasty, he keeps the camera running. That’s ridiculous, of course; in that situation any of us would either be in a stunned stupor or stampeding away as fast as we could run. But our boy Hud is also the source of the film’s dry humor. It’s established early on that he is not the brightest star in the sky, and even though many of his observations are hard to understand, they are funny. The thing is that we never see anything more than Hud and his friends see, and we do get to know them as individuals. Click here for our full length review.