26 continued from page 24 M E T R O S P I R I T J U L Y 1 1 2 0 0 2
Winona Ryder is game and slyly charming. The real ace is John Tur turro as Deed's new manservant, Emilio. It's a fond update and funny comedy, even making good use of John McEnroe (still cocky) and the Rev. Al Sharpton (dit to). Cast: Adam Sandler, John Tur turro, Winona Ryder, Peter Gallagher, Jared Harris, Erick Avari, Harve Presnell. Running time: 1 hr., 31 mins. (Elliot t) ★★★ The New Guy (PG-13) — Af ter sealing his uncool reputation with an embarrassing ninth-grade accident, a high-school student is expelled and winds up in jail. While incarcerated, his cellmate coaches him into changing his image. Upon his release, he decides to switch schools and work on his new image as a cool kid. All goes well until his primary nemesis follows him to the new school. Cast: DJ Qualls, Eddie Griffin, Eliza Dushku, Lyle Lovet t, Zooey Deschanel. Panic Room (R) — Not since Hitchcock's "Rear Window" has a New York location been used more suspensefully than in "Panic Room." This New York home is a lavish town house that includes a "panic room," a top-floor security crib. Breaking into the seemingly vacant house on a stormy evening are three men who expect an easy job. Most surprised by this intrusion are Jodie Foster and her onscreen daughter, played by Kristen Stewar t. They flee to the panic room to find a phone that doesn't work and watch the frustrated crooks on the security screens. "Panic Room" is a cold sweat, fevered by frantic impulses. It's terrific entertainment. Cast: Jodie Foster, Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakam, Kristen Stewar t, Patrick Bauchau, Jared Leto. Running time: 1 hr., 48 mins. ★★★★ Pokemon 2 (G) — The second full-length movie based on the popular car toon television series follows Ash, a young, baseball-capped pokemon trainer, and pals (pokemon and otherwise) as he tries to stop a vicious collector from trapping three rare pokemon. As the villain sets his plan in motion, natural disasters sprout up all over the globe, and only then does Ash realize he’s been chosen to save the Ear th from cer tain doom. Tolerable for parents, enjoyable for pokemon-obsessed youth. Cast: Veronica Taylor, Ikue Otani, Megumi Hayashibara, Tomokazu Seki. Running time: 1 hr., 49 mins. The Powerpuff Girls Movie (PG) — The three saucer-eyed cuties (Bubbles, Blossom and But tercup), created by the benign but easily abstracted Professor Utonium in retro-cool Townsville, discover their "freakish powers" in a school game of tag, at first violently destructive (though the mayhem is merry). Tar takovsky's team has some freakish powers of visual charm, but the five writers slip into the modern rut of narrative banality. There is some kid-wor thy
diversion here, but for me (and for many?) the high point of the preview was a teaser trailer for the nex t Harry Pot ter movie, coming Nov. 15. Cast: Cathy Cavadini, Tara Charendoff, E.G. Daily. Running time: 1 hr. 27 min. (Elliot t) ★★1/2 Reign of Fire (PG-13) — In a post-apocalyptic England, a group of fire-breathing dragons has awakened af ter centuries of hibernation. An American militia leader, played by Mat thew McConaughey, and London’s fire chief (Christian Bale) must team up to save London and slay the queen dragon. Plenty of special effects. Cast: Christian Bale, Mat thew McConaughey, Gerard Butler. Road to Perdition (R) — Af ter his wife and one of his sons are brutally murdered, Depression-era hit man Michael O’Sullivan and his remaining son go on the run and seek revenge for the deaths of their loved ones. As O’Sullivan, Tom Hanks depar ts from some of his more lighthear ted roles to play the dark character brought to life from Ma x Allan Collins’ 1998 comic. Cast: Tom Hanks, Jude Law, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Paul Newman. The Rookie (G) — Dennis Quaid at 47 is a bet ter actor than ever in "The Rookie." He plays Jimmy Morris, who gets a late chance to become a baseball star. Morris is a lit tle league baseball coach in Texas, where football is king. He regrets he gave up on his at tempt to become a star bigleague pitcher. When his lit tle league boys urge him to get back into pitching, he does, and tries to get into the show again. It's a Disney movie, G-rated, with safe lingo, gentle humor, buddy bonding and a firm net of family values. What works about "The Rookie" is the grounded verity of its places and people. Cast: Dennis Quaid, Rachel Griffiths, Brian Cox, Beth Grant, Angus T. Jones. Running time: 2 hrs., 9 mins. (Elliot t) ★★1/2 Scooby Doo (PG) — is derived from the longest-running TV car toon show (beginning in 1969 on CBS), and is mostly set in an island theme park. The 'toon gang loved by their TV fans — ginchy-dish Daphne, plain but brainy Velma, blond ego dude Fred (author of "Fred on Fred"), grinning par ty dude Shaggy — are now played by actors locked into onenote roles. Great Dane hero dog Scooby appears computer generated. They go to Spooky Island to solve a criminal conspiracy, where special effects and cute theme park crit ters whiz by and the top villain is revealed to be ... a puppy. This is one lollipop of a movie, OK for the 4 to 9-year-olds who like the TV show. 1 hr., 23 mins. ★★ The Scorpion King (PG-13) — The Rock (Dwayne Douglas Johnson) plays Mathayus "the Akkadian." Up nor th are hairy Vikings, or Visigoths, or Who, but deser t lands, including sinful Gomorrah, are ruled by the crazed tyrant Memnon (Steven Brand). Mathayus leads the tribal remnant
THE CAST OF
“Halloween: Resurrection”
of free humans against him. First, Rock abducts and wins over the mean guy's sorceress (Kelly Hu). She joins him, a camel, a cute scamp, a silly sidekick and a vast dude who should be called the Meat (Michael Clarke Duncan of "The Green Mile"). The movie has epic sand, computerized vistas, harems of buff women, ex treme violence dry-cleaned of blood, lines that roll off the tongue like bricks, and costumes wor thy of an old DeMille show. The pulp purity goes back before silent films and is breezy fun on a toy-macho level. Cast: The Rock, Steven Brand, Michael Clarke Duncan, Kelly Hu, Bernard Hu. Running time: 1 hr., 32 mins. (Elliot t) ★★ Spider-Man (PG-13) — Sweetly dorky Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) is bit ten by a new form of lab spider on a school trip. He morphs into a speed master with arachnid powers, but keeps his real identity masked from the girl literally nex t door, Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst). SpiderMan casts webs from his hand, climbs and leaps around New York and bat tles a capitalist nut turned Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe). Always sidelined is the nut's son, Peter's best friend, Harry (James Franco). The film is high-craf ted and amusing, though the POW! style so right for Marvel pages can be numbing in this tech-loaded, hypersonic approach. "Spider-Man" has the heat of a newborn franchise.
The costumed hero finally makes a brilliant match with Old Glory, in a gleaming Manhat tan. Cast: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, Willem Dafoe, James Franco, Cliff Rober tson, Rosemary Harris. Running time: 2 hrs. (Elliot t) ★★★
Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (PG) — This is No. 5 in the series and is visually spectacular
(entirely filmed in digital, and projected that way in some theaters). It moves swif tly and has action payoffs, but George Lucas is still a turgid storyteller, and stiff dialogue drags the actors down to mere plot function too of ten. Ewan McGregor seems to be coming into his own as wise ObiWan. 2 hr., 23 mins. (Elliot t) ★★1/2 The Sum of All Fears (PG-13) — Another morbid Tom Clancy nightmare of big power and dire danger (the nuclear devil unleashed), with a trivial romance trampled by politics and spy games. Phil Alden Robinson directed with spruce if pompous flair, and the nerve-raked cast has Ben Affleck as the hero, Morgan Freeman, Alan Bates, James Cromwell, Liev Schreiber and (ace as the Russian prez) Ciaran Hinds. Running time: 2 hrs. (Elliot t) ★★★ —Capsules compiled from movie reviews written by David Elliott, film critic for The San Diego Union-Tribune and other staff writers.
PLAYGIRL Magazine
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