Cineman
Friday - May 09, 2008
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Del.icio.usMAY 9 MOVIE RELEASES
THE FALL
While convalescing in a Los Angeles hospital circa 1915, a movie stunt man and a 5-year-old girl spin a tale of romantic adventure featuring a bandit, a princess and an evil potentate. Set in faraway lands, their imaginary story-within-a-story pulses with exoticism and a histrionic despair echoing both patients’ real-life plights. A visual tour de force with stunning scenery and architecture, director Tarsem Singh’s work is a labyrinth of harlequin melodrama that revels in the fecundity of fevered, impressionable minds and the potential of the nascent motion picture industry. Opposite talented youngster Catinca Untaru, the versatile Lee Pace demonstrates why his star is on the rise. (R)
SPEED RACER
The Wachowski brothers (The Matrix) use layer upon layer of primary-colored visuals to construct a universe based on the Japanese cartoon series. With the support of family and in memory of his late brother, Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch) laps corruption from behind the wheel of the Mach 5. Members of the NASCAR nation, young and old, will appreciate the technical horsepower on display. But what will they make of the eroticism coursing through the otherwise traditional story? Drinking milk in the winner’s circle gains new meaning; and though it takes a long time get there, traveling this virtual circuit is rarely dull. (PG)
AT OAHU MOVIE THEATERS THIS WEEK
Iron Man
Action and character are not mutually exclusive in all superhero movies, but this adaptation of the Marvel Comic favors the latter thanks to the casting of Robert Downey Jr. as playboy industrialist Tony Stark. Stark is held captive in Afghanistan and has an epiphany that pits him against his business associate (Jeff Bridges). Downey exudes personality even from beneath a suit of gold titanium alloy. (PG-13)
Baby Mama
Former SNL mates Tina Fey and Amy Poehler limn an infertile Philadelphia career gal and the white trash vessel she chooses as a surrogate. Steve Martin and Sigourney Weaver are good for a few chuckles, but Poehler’s antic presence plus satirical jabs at the birthing and health food industries are the movie’s lifeblood. (PG-13)
Harold & Kumar Escape From Quantanamo
The sequel to 2004’s hilariously raunchy reefer comedy takes liberties that are hard to defend. If the two movies were graded like cannabis, White Castle would be Maui Wowie and this would be ditch weed. An enlightened satirical premise is replaced by blunt attempts to skewer post-911 security hysteria and jingoism. (R)
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Structured like a traditional romantic comedy - boy loses girl, cries and tries to move on (in Hawaii) - the laughs and commentary on corporate-driven escapism are organic. They spring naturally from the story, along with full frontal male nudity and the most explicit sex talk heard onscreen since Knocked Up. (R)
The Forbidden Kingdom
This mixed effort wants to blend ethereal Hong Kong martial arts with earthbound coming-of-age fare about maladjusted American teens. The fight choreography is first-rate and it looks decent, but the movie is deflated by boilerplate dialogue and the young actor portraying a traveler from contemporary Boston, fated to free an ancient warrior by returning his magic staff. (PG-13)
Prom Night
On prom night, a girl is stalked by the psycho who years earlier killed her family. What ensues is pitifully un-scary, though the film is truly intolerable thanks to its characters, whose soul-crushingly vapid dialogue makes one hate high school all over again. (PG-13)
Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears A Who
Jim Carrey’s titular elephant discovers a civilization of tiny people living on a speck of pollen, which prompts a kangaroo (Carol Burnett) to go on a rampage of indignation over such nonsense. Meanwhile, the dim-bulb Mayor of Whoville (Steve Carell) talks to God and knows what’s best for everyone, the heck with democracy. (G)
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