Saving Private Ryan
A decade ago, who could have guessed that Steven Spielberg would become our most spectacular poet of war? "Saving Private Ryan" (DreamWorks), his World War II epic about the invasion of Normandy and its aftermath, is a movie of staggering virtuosity and raw lyric power, a masterpiece of terror, chaos, blood, and courage. More than Coppola, Stone, or Kubrick, all of whom apotheosized the druggy morass of Vietnam, Spielberg has captured the hair-trigger instability of modern combat. He puts us directly inside the consciousness of men in battle, and he does it from the outset, using the famous attack at Omaha beach on June 6, 1944, as an occasion to stage one of the most brutal and revolutionary sequences ever filmed. As Higgins boats pull up under blue-black skies, the American soldiers stare silently, occasionally vomiting with seasick fear. The fronts of the boats drop open, and the enemy gunfire explodes with a sickeningly dense and relentless cracking, the camera trembling as if the earth itself were coming apart. Red bullet holes appear on the men’s helmets, and bodies drop like rag dolls. This may be D-Day, but it looks more like a mass suicide, and the profound shock and horror is that it doesn’t stop. For nearly half an hour, Spielberg uses his unparalleled kinetic genius to create an excruciatingly sustained cataclysm of carnage, nausea, and death. Spielberg is making a perceptual statement about World War II: He’s saying that it was every bit as merciless and agonizing, as “insane,” as Vietnam. Still, among the anonymous faces of the soldiers, we can’t help but cleave to a familiar one -- the calm, somber visage of Tom Hanks as platoon captain Miller, who wriggles to a safe spot on the beach and lies like a trapped animal, then starts to cobble together a survival strategy. "Saving Private Ryan" is Spielberg’s vision of what war is -- all war, even America’s fabled Good War. Yet the film is no pacifist tract. It’s a portrait of nobility and grace amid the madness of technological slaughter, and it melds these elements together with an organic intensity that "Schindler’s List," for all its brilliance, didn’t. Spielberg records what the sacrifice of World War II actually entailed: ordinary men diving into an existential inferno. Captain Miller receives an assignment to locate a certain Private Ryan, the only one of four enlisted brothers who is still alive. As Miller leads his squad into the French countryside, the dread of that opening massacre haunts their every move, and, in a sense, it recurs every time the film erupts back into violence. We get to know the soldiers slowly, eavesdropping on their wary camaraderie, so that when one takes a bullet, the platoon’s loss is ours. Among the sterling cast, Tom Sizemore as the rumpled, devoted Sergeant Horvath, Barry Pepper as the stoic marksman-sniper Private Jackson, and Giovanni Ribisi as the ghostly, haunted medic Wade all have indelible presences, and the scrawny, pale, slit-eyed Jeremy Davies, from "Spanking the Monkey," has more. He shows you the creepy-crawly anguish of the cowardly Corporal Upham, who has barely fired a shot in his life and is like a stricken angel struggling to stay aloft. The platoon finally stumbles onto Ryan (Matt Damon), who turns out to be a likably stubborn kid who refuses to leave his platoon behind. They’re set to defend a bridge in the middle of a bombed-out village, and as Miller and his men join forces with them, and the Germans roll up in their jeeps and tanks, the film becomes a true Armageddon, with Spielberg’s camera seemingly every-where at once. The epic battle that concludes "Saving Private Ryan" may be the greatest episode in any war film. "Saving Private Ryan" says that only by confronting the pitiless horror of World War II can we truly know its heroism. For the first time, a movie has shown us both. A
The Mask Of Zorro
The peasants are revolting. (Rim shot.) They’re in a swivet because lip-curlingly ruthless Don Rafael Montero (Stuart Wilson), apologist for the Spanish in Mexico, is about to execute some local rebels. A firing squad awaits his go-ahead. But look! Up in the sky! Who is that masked man? It’s the legendary pulp-fiction hero Zorro (Anthony Hopkins), armed with nothing more than his sword, his skill, and his highly evolved sense of personal style! "The Mask of Zorro" (TriStar) wastes no time establishing its old-fashioned, deep-crimson approach: Zorro thrusts and dares, frees the prisoners, confounds the jailers, bows to the crowd, then gallops off on his trusty steed. But that’s just the prologue of this pleasant movie anachronism, an assemblage of traditional Robin Hooded scenarios (and superior swordplay) that, in the right light, is a nostalgic treat, and in shadow evokes Monty Python. In fact, The "Mask of Zorro" -— executive-produced by Steven Spielberg -- is really about that classical heroic rite of passage, the one where an older man trains a younger one. Captured after his derring-do and thrown in jail, Zorro -- the street name for Don Diego de la Vega -- escapes decades later and, vowing revenge on Montero, recruits a trainable ally. He finds a star pupil in Alejandro Murieta (Antonio Banderas). The onetime bandit graduates from the master’s boot camp, having learned the fine points of fighting, chivalry, conversation, and personal hygiene. “I look like a butterfly,” Zorro Jr. assesses, gussied up for a night of intelligence gathering at Montero’s mansion. The evening includes a sexy dance-floor pas de deux with Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who thinks she’s Montero’s daughter but is really old de la Vega’s abducted child. (One giveaway: She inherited her father’s flashy way with a blade.) I wish director Martin Campbell ("GoldenEye") could have given "The Mask of Zorro" a more cohesive vision and more powerful motor, something more original (to take advantage of 1990s-style sensibilities) than the inevitability of a rematch with Montero. But I couldn’t have wished for a better floor show from a more passionate pair of Zorros. Hopkins, once again tackling the most outlandish of character roles and making the work look like fun, conveys contemplative elegance and maturity, everything one could want in a mentor; Banderas keeps the romantic-hero stuff light, especially early in his apprenticeship when he flubs with a gangliness more usually seen among baby animals in Disney animation. The fiery relationship between Alejandro and Elena, meanwhile, has an equality Lethal Weapon’s Martin Riggs and Lorna Cole might emulate. And while Riggs is at it, why not try subduing enemies by slashing Zs in their necks? It’s what all the best heroes are doing these days. B
There's Something About Mary
Who's got the biggest penis joke? No contest. It's the Farrelly brothers, the absurdist sick-comedy pranksters who made Dumb and Dumber and Kingpin, and whose new movie, There's Something About Mary (Twentieth Century Fox), tells you right off where it's aiming (hint: below the funny bone). In a flashback to 1985, we meet Ted Peloquin (Ben Stiller), a high school sad sack with braces, wounded eyes, and the kind of scraggly bad hair that screams, "I wish I were the keyboard player in Toto!" Ted does what desperate nerds have always done -- he covets the most delectable girl in school. Her name is Mary Jenson (Cameron Diaz), and she asks Ted to the senior prom (fat chance!) after he defends her mentally retarded brother in a fight. Once at Mary's, Ted, in the bathroom, gets his member stuck in his zipper, resulting in an S&M slapstick sequence you'll find either excruciatingly hilarious or (in my case) just painful. As Ted writhes, we're meant to guffaw at the Farrellys' defiant crudity, but the scene goes on for so long that it wears out its outrageousness. Years later, Ted has yet to get over that humiliating night, or the puppy-love crush that spawned it. He hires a detective, Pat Healy (Matt Dillon, doing cocky shtick in a check-out-what-a-sleaze-I-am mustache), who locates Mary in Miami. She's so babelicious that Healy, a pathological liar, starts to pose as her dream guy, a bit cribbed from Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You. Then Ted arrives. The romantic-stalker plot is really an excuse for the Farrellys to indulge their over-deliberate brand of madcap tastelessness. Mary's neighbor is an aging South Florida pixie, and the film lingers on her melanoma tan, wrinkled flesh, and penchant for tongue kissing her dog. There are swipes at "retards," gay serial killers, and the handicapped. The dog gets a dose of electroshock. Even when the Farrellys score, they overshoot: A masturbation gag features an uproarious visual shock, doused by Mary's staggeringly contrived reaction. The jokes carry an implication: If you don't laugh, you're elitist or overly "correct." But you don't have to be a prude to be put off by the strenuousness with which the Farrellys telegraph their taboo-smashing glee, or by the way they seem locked into the very teen-dweeb vision they're satirizing. Mary isn't a character--she's a geek's dream of cover-girl beauty made lonely and pliant. Stiller and Dillon fail to generate an electron of charisma between them. The Farrellys may well be the new kingpins of adolescent slob comedy, but There's Something About Mary doesn't approach the witty anarchy of movies like Animal House, The Naked Gun, or Hairspray. This is the prefab version. I loved this movie cause it was so funny so I give it an A.
Lethal Weapon 4
In "Lethal Weapon 4" (Warner Bros.), about the only thing that's changed between stable family man Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) and hot-wired widower Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) since "Lethal Weapon 3" is that the bantering, bickering LAPD partners have gotten older, just as the actors themselves have thickened in middle age. Murtaugh is about to become a grandfather, courtesy of his daughter's mouthy cop boyfriend (Chris Rock, providing some very funny stand-up riffs that have nothing whatever to do with the story). Riggs and his fiery "Lethal 3" sweetheart, Internal Affairs officer Lorna Cole (great-gal Rene Russo), have stayed together and Lorna is pregnant. Leo Getz (Joe Pesci) is still a nattering shnook. Veteran producer-director Richard Donner is still turned on by explosions, chases, and showers of bullets 'n' stuff. The strain of carting a creaking premise from situation to situation shows in jibes and staging much coarser than any the "Lethal" series has copped to in the past: Murtaugh panics when he mistakenly thinks his daughter's beau is coming on to him; thugs hold Lorna hostage with a knife to her pregnant belly. As a set-up for a lesson in social responsibility, the partners take on Chinese gangsters involved in immigrant smuggling and counterfeiting, and Murtaugh temporarily hides a sweet-natured family in his home. Nice. Riggs, meanwhile, makes jokes about "flied lice." Not nice. good guys face off against martial-arts star Jet Li, playing a young warlord who speaks little but who, with his delicately expressive face and powerful, balletic moves, makes himself perfectly understood. Whirling and flying in There's one great benefit to the Riggs-Murtaugh Asian connection, though: The fights, the charismatic actor demonstrates the kind of concentrated vitality that can lift an action movie from the standard-issue to the sublime. When Li is center screen, the ooofs and arggghs of Gibson and Glover add about as much to the ambiance as the hoked-up grunts of professional wrestlers. Why not give the guys a nice party and let them retire these roles with dignity? C+
Armageddon
The second big budget asteroid movie of the summer starring action film Mega Man Bruce Willis as the president of a drilling corporation which has been contracted by the government to save the world from an asteroid the size of Texas. The intention is much the same as deep impact is to drill a hole into the asteroid and plant a rather large nuclear weapon into its core in an attempt to destroy it. Being a Willis fan i liked this movie alot but be that as it may i cant ignore this movie's faults. First of all the movie is too damn long with a running time of 2 hours and 30 minutes it seemed like they were killing time just to make it longer. Second there is no point to Liv Tyler's character who plays Willis's daughter. Lastly Steve Buschemi the comic relif man of all time is nothing more in this movie than a combination of his role in fargo and his role in Con Air. I liked this movie so I give it a B.
Dr. Doolittle
Despite its cut-and-paste editing and sometimes sophomoric humor, Doctor Dolittle has just enough undeniable heart and laughs to keep the tots in their seats. Retooled as an Eddie Murphy vehicle, this loose adaptation of Hugh Lofting's charming children's stories is a patchy but fun cross between The Nutty Professor and Babe. The idea is clever: Take the ex-Saturday Night Live star's natural gifts for mimicry and surround him with an adorably furry bunch of wisecrackers (courtesy of Jim Henson's Creature Shop and the vocal talents of enough famous comedians to make for a mini Comic Relief). The downside is that the film is sloppily directed by Betty Thomas (Private Parts) and has an uncertain tone that veers from warm and fuzzy family moments to raunchy adult gags. Still, it delivers enough formulaic laughs to make for a pleasant summer outing, even if it's got nothing on Murphy's last comic smash. In a very '90s twist, Dolittle is a physician who resents that his practice is being bought out by a conglomerate—unlike his wholeheartedly greedy co-worker (Oliver Platt), who is thrilled by the promise of big money. In addition to that, the Doc's gift for talking to the animals, dormant since childhood, is back in a big way. First, his daughter's guinea pig (voiced by Chris Rock) starts singing and gettin' on the James Brown good foot, and then a stray dog (Norm Macdonald) becomes his best pal and confidante. After Dolittle mends the wing of a comely owl (Jenna Elfman), news spreads like wildfire throughout the animal kingdom: Finally, there's a doctor that understands their needs. (And to think we humans gripe about health insurance premiums while constipated ducks can't get a quack in edgewise.) The doc gets a second lease on life by helping God's creatures big and small, but his wacko behavior might just cost him his job and his family. Standouts among the animal voices include Garry Shandling and Julie Kavner as neurotic married pigeons and Albert Brooks as a suicidal circus tiger suffering from double vision. (I loved a bizarre little scene in which a Spanish-speaking orangutan seems to be asking Murphy, "Tu conoces Will Smith?") Their snappy retorts come courtesy of sitcom writers Nat Mauldin (Night Court) and Larry Levin (Seinfeld), but since most of them will be lost on little kids, Dolittle relies heavily on scatological physical gags (rats with gas, dogs subjected to anal exams, etc.) to compensate for the slapdash plotting. Sporting scholarly specs and baby dreadlocks, and exuding a laid-back, parental charm, Murphy is terrific in the leading role. The former shock comic seems delighted to be playing a kinder, gentler family man, and he has the rare ability to communicate with kids and critters without condescension. In lesser roles, the green-eyed Kristen Wilson is lovely as Dolittle's wife, Ossie Davis is characteristically fine as Dolittle Sr., and Bulworth's Oliver Platt dances in and out of frame with malevolent glee as the baddie. At the very least, Fox's latest take on the doc is better than its bloated 1967 musical; the only remnant of the original is Louis Armstrong's delightfully jazzy rendition of "Talk to the Animals," which makes the credits worth staying for. B.
Out of Sight
The first movie that has truly gotten an Elmore Leonard novel on screen. Jack Foley played by George Clooney, heist artist extra-ordinary, breaks out of prison and ends up stashed away in a gettaway car trunk with the sexy federal marshal played by Jennifer Lopez. To her surprise, she discovers she kinda likes nuzzling up to this raffish criminal. The director Stephen Soderbergh, has a ball playing with funky freeze frames and a pretzel logic time structure, and he uses his superb cast to get inside Leonard's ramshackle glorification of criminal haplessness. Out of Sight is so light it barley stays with you, but it's more fun around the edges then most movies are at their centers. I give this movie a B +
