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Snakes on a Plane

Samuel L. Jackson, Julianna Marguiles

Well, the name says it all. And if the title's not enough, there's a plethora (yeah, I used a 25 cent word in an article about Snakes on a Plane - step off) of Web sites dedicated to a film so potentially campy that it makes Roger Corman giddy. Just in case the poison has gotten to you and your faculties have gone down for the count, here's the obvious premise: After a boy (Byron Lawson) witnesses a gangland killing, a mob boss plans to time-release 400 venomous snakes on his flight to his testimony, all under the watchful eye of an FBI agent (Jackson). Polish up that Oscar, baby. Daddy's coming home. The Plus: People love to be scared (i.e., Saw, Hostel, Star Jones). When Hollywood pairs two of humankind's worst fears, snakes and flying, you can just hear the cash register ring. The Minus: How could they possibly out-camp Anacon ... oh, who am I kidding? You're already lining up!



Accepted

Justin Long, Lewis Black

After months of rejection from colleges and the ensuing scorn of his parents, Bartleby Gaines (Long) forms an elaborate scheme, conjuring up an accepting college just to con his parents ... unfortunately, a slew of other rejects is looking to get accepted into his new school. Wouldn't it be funnier if he got rejected from his own imaginary school? The Plus: This film boasts the claim "from the people who brought you American Pie." The Minus: But that pedigree does not include writer/directors Chris and Paul Weitz, who went on from Pie to give us About a Boy and In Good Company.



Material Girls

Hilary Duff, Haylie Duff

Due to the PG rating, you could probably guess that Madonna has nothing to do with this rags-to-riches comedy. After two notorious party-going sisters (the law firm of Duff and Duff) bankrupt their family's multi-million dollar cosmetics company, they suddenly find themselves penniless and in need of gasp finding a job. The Plus: Hilary Duff's following helped to turn The Lizzie McGuire Movie, Cheaper by the Dozen, and A Cinderella Story into, well, Cinderella stories. The Minus: Look what a filmic sister act did for the Olsen Twins - New York Minute, anyone?



Little Miss Sunshine

Alan Arkin, Steve Carell, Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette

The Hoover family, set to cross country in a rusted-out VW van, is: father Richard (Kinnear), a motivational speaker; mother Sheryl (Collette), who is constantly harried by her family's eccentric secrets, especially those of her brother (Carell), a suicidal Proust scholar fresh out of the hospital after being jilted by his gay lover. Then there are the younger Hoovers - the slightly plump, 7-year-old would-be beauty queen Olive (Abigail Breslin) and Dwayne (Paul Dano), an anger-fueled, Nietzsche-reading teen who has taken a staunch vow of silence until he gets into the Air Force Academy. The Plus: All-star cast. The Minus: A plot that seems too contrived by half.





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World Trade Center

Nicholas Cage, Michael Pena

"Harrowing" does not begin to describe watching World Trade Center. This is no comment on its standing as a quality film. Rather, it serves as kudos to the vision of director Oliver Stone. With exacting strokes, Stone recreates the events of this modern Pearl Harbor with laser-sight precision and painstaking detail, going so far as to cast the actual rescue personnel who played hero to many on 9/11. His choice to portray Ground Zero from a ground's eye view only enhances this horror, as does his intermingling of real news footage. This was, after all, how most people witnessed this hell-on-earth the first go-round and any East Coast American audience will instantaneously make this connection.


But the story does not completely belong to the general populace, which unfortunately trips the film up, if only for a spell. The breadth of the film mostly belongs to two first-hand accounts, the gallant NYPD police officers (Cage, Pena) that first responded to the terrorist attacks who held out hope for survival after the Trade Center fell atop them.


Unfortunately, the director exercises a Stone-esque need to interpret their dreams and thoughts. Not completely unlike The Doors' Jim Morrison having a vision of an Indian shaman or Natural Born Killers' Mickey and Mallory having a vision of, well, another Indian shaman, we see one officer envisioning Jesus Christ and the other his wife (Maria Bello). The fact that the actual officers participated in this production is duly noted. This interpretation of something incommunicable, however, only serves to disconnect an already connected audience, albeit momentarily.
Bottom line: A gallant account, tripped up momentarily.


Pulse

Kristen Bell, Christina Milian

Even if the opening credits had not clued you into this being an adaptation of a Japanese horror film, the murky lighting, one-note somber tone, and disappearing ink-blot specters would surely pound this notion home. Though certainly not made of brass, The Ring gave American audiences a wholly unique cinematic vision that they had never laid eyes upon. Lesser entries The Grudge and The Ring 2 pushed the issue, exhausting this vision until the audience's saturation point for Japanese horror was duly reached. With Pulse, it simply feels like we have crawled down this road once too often.


In this thriller, a group of friends (Bell, Milian) discover that the dead are crossing over through wireless technology. These angry buggers (apparently, the dead come in only one form: mad as hell) come through everything from cell phones to washing machines (?).


Bell assumes the role of the obligatory impossibly cute damsel-heroine (inheriting a mantle from Naomi Watts and Sarah Michelle Gellar), the fulcrum in another paper-thin story of ultimate terror transcending unlikely boundaries. Though usually spot-on in television's Veronica Mars, she is rendered helpless by the preposterously recycled script, which apparently could not even be salvaged by horror-meister Wes Craven. By the time she suddenly and unbelievably hooks up with the obligatory hot rebel/loner (Ian Somerhalder, inheriting a mantle from David Dorfman and Jason Behr) to save the world, the audience has already held out hope for another group of heroes: The boys from Office Space, who once handily reduced an evil copying machine to rubble. Bottom line: Ring around the doodie.


Talladega Nights

Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly

NASCAR champ Ricky Bobby (Ferrell) faces an untimely challenge in the form of a gay French Formula One driver (Sucha Baron, television's Ali G), whose sole purpose in coming to America is to unseat the undefeated Bobby. Like Anchorman, Talladega Nights is a character-driven concept comedy laden with deliberately in-your-face humor, some of which works (Ferrell psycho-somatically thinking he is on fire and trying to escape the imaginary flames: funny) and some of which does not (Cohen making Ferrell say "I love crepes" while holding him in an arm-lock: not so funny). The key to making these particular comedies work lies in having the gold outshine the fool's gold. The backfires - occurring mostly in the first third, causing a bit of a slow start - are ultimately no match for the frontrunners, which thankfully set the pole position in this comedy. Bottom line: More spitfire than backfire.



Miami Vice

Colin Farrell, Jamie Foxx

Miami Vice boasts a high-definition digital look bled with an infusion of icy blue, which has become Michael Mann's trademark (see: Heat, Collateral). Miami never looked so cold, hard, and, yet, curiously seductive. This look is best exemplified during two shootouts so remarkably real, the audience feels compelled to check themselves for stray gray matter. This authentic feel makes the aforementioned romantic subplot all the more a bad idea. Mann made the story and characters so convincing, audiences will not buy cries of "true love" between two of its hardened drug war combatants. Bottom line: Rolling the Vice on love.



Scoop

Woody Allen, Scarlet Johansson, Ian McShane

While Scoop delivers a smattering of belly laughs, it rarely zings to the heights of Woody Allen's early '70s anarchic slapstick (Bananas, Sleeper), his late '70s serio-comedic masterstrokes (Annie Hall, Manhattan), or his early '80s revisionist comedies (Zelig, Purple Rose of Cairo). If anything, it comes close to his occasionally hilarious fits of whimsy through the '90s (Manhattan Murder Mystery, Deconstructing Harry). Scoop certainly stands on its own merits, albeit somewhat wobbly. While the cast does an admirable job of making this romp enjoyable (especially Allen himself as a magician half-heartedly pretending to be Johansson's father), the plot's worn through such that the holes show. Audiences have seen this story before, that of a love-struck character falling for a possible killer (Basic Instinct, anyone?), but it proves to be Allen's dead reporter gimmick that adds that original twist ... if only he used it to better effect. Bottom line: Even average Woody is worthwhile viewing.


John Tucker Must Die

Jesse Metcalfe, Sophia Bush, Ashanti

When three popular girls (Bush, Ashanti, Arielle Kebbel) from different cliques discover that they have all been dating the same high school hunk (Metcalfe), the jilted hotties band together to make over the new girl (Brittany Snow) to lure him in and seek revenge. George Bernard Shaw is rolling over in his drawing room about now. The film should have made good on its title and given us a black comedy about the jilted lovers trying to off the title character (think Heathers meets War of the Roses), but that, of course, would involve a Hollywood studio thinking outside the cereal-box. All of the principals - save for Ashanti, who's a renowned hip-hop star - are known for their respective television work and the result has all the aplomb of a coffee enema. Bottom line: I'm calling the time of death.



Lady in the Water

Paul Giamatti, Bryce Dallas Howard

As a purveyor of suspense, M. Night Shyamalan stands with few equals in a field awash with color-by-number slasher films. From his studied camera angles to a reliance on long takes, the man knows his game well - period. His dubious mastery of the pen, however, is another matter altogether. The tale deserves recognition for its fable-like semblance, yes. Certainly, anyone trying to imbue morals into our terminally cynical culture gets my highest esteem. Also, depending on one's theological, philosophical, or sociological views, this interpretation will doubtless shift along altogether different faultlines, another plus considering art should leave something open for the conjecture of imagination. The characters, however, are directed to dine on every line as if it were a succulent feast ... but the food remains undercooked. While as a writer, Shyamalan may already be a legend in his own mind, Lady simply remains an underdeveloped story. Bottom line: Throw her back.



Pirates of the Caribbean

Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, which certainly seems unwarranted so far as sequels go, does toss up plenty of booty. While the "Yo-Ho-Ho's" generated by this film prove hearty enough, the audience may want to pass around a bottle of rum to help suspend its disbelief. Of course, if you wandered into a sequel of a film based on a theme-park ride, chances are you have already done this. In between Bloom and Depp's water-wheel sword fight, Bill Nighy's calamari make-up, and Knightley's, well, just being in your line of sight, however, it is dubious, at best, that you will find time or interest to take a swig. Bottom line: Guilty pleasure, er, treasure island.
-jboam@aol.com