Dan Owen reviews

DAN'S   MOVIE   DIGEST

2 0 0 2   r e t r o s p e c t i v e

P a r t   T h r e e

Adam Sandler must have sold his soul to Beelzebub. Surely. The US comedian with basically two settings to his comedy (loud-mouth male bigot, or squeaky-voiced timid idiot) again topped the US charts with Mr Deeds. Sandler had the audacity to remake Frank Capra's classic movie as another vehicle for his oh-so-unfunny brand of loud rants and fist-fighting. A nation of Yanks lapped it up. A nation of Brits rightly gave him the finger. Again. Sandler may be a comedy demi-God in the US of A, but elsewhere he's just seen as the one-note bore he truly is.

Not many people make movies as weird as David Lynch makes weird movies. The King of the big-screen brainfuck found himself with a mainstream hit in Mulholland Drive. Naomi Watts gave a bravura performance as a struggling actress who befriends an amnesiac car-crash victim. Featuring a sinister cowboy, a strange blue box, a creature behind a diner, and numerous other oddities � this was Lynch as his best. An engrossing trip into a delicious L.A underbelly of murder and madness. Fabulous.

Big surprise hits don't come much bigger, or surprise as much as My Big Fat Greek Wedding did. A worldwide phenomenon, despite the fact the premise merely exchanges 'Greek' for 'Jewish' and is, essentially, a predictable culture-shock comedy. Still, at least it managed to hit its target audience and do the predictable gags good service. **

Steven Soderbergh looks to have ended his run of critical success at the tail-end of 2002 after his independent flick Full Frontal bombed and Solaris confounded US critics. But earlier in the year Ocean's Eleven was just the latest in a truly amazing run of hit films. Effortlessly cool, this remake of the Brat Pack original threw a stellar cast (Clooney, Pitt, Roberts, Damon, Garcia) into a hip and witty heist flick. Las Vegas never looked so damned enticing.

This year saw an interesting new twist in Robin Williams' career. He went evil. Fed up with playing unfunny fools in comedy claptrap or saccharine prats in mushy dramas, Williams turned nasty in Death To Smoochy, Insomnia and One Hour Photo. It was in the latter that his best performance lay � as Si, a photo technician who takes an unhealthy liking to a family he develops snaps for. Cue a sinister stalker thriller with effective moments. Not quite the masterpiece it could have been, but well worth a watch.

Jodie Foster being cooped up in a small room for over two-hours doesn't sound like fun. But that's (essentially) mainly all that happens in David Fincher's Panic Room when Foster hides away in the titular room to evade three burglars. Fincher's Fight Club masterpiece sadly raised expectation to bursting point, but this is an altogether more restrained, experimental, affair. Of course, Fincher's visual shrewdness burned through every frame � making the difficult premise a minor edge-of-your-seat nailgripper. But in the end it's fair to say the films less than the sum of its parts.

Remember Michael Mann's 80's thriller Manhunter? Brett Ratner certainly hoped most people didn't when he remade the film for Dino DeLaurentis as Red Dragon � a true prequel to The Silence Of The Lambs. Anthony Hopkins lost weight and reigned in the pantomimic frivolity of Hannibal by going back to the soul of the chilling Hannibal The Cannibal Lecter. Edward Norton was slightly miscast as a psychic FBI agent, as was Ralph Fiennes as quiet nutter 'The Tooth Fairy'. Effective in parts, enjoyable throughout, and bound to cause a stir amongst fans of Michael Mann's version...

Christian Bale made another bid for deserved mainstream success � following the critical drubbing in the States of American Psycho � in the ex-X-Files director Rob Bowman's Reign Of Fire. The trailer promised more than the film's budget could deliver, but its heart was in the right place and the quality of acting was surprisingly strong and central to the plot. A modern B-movie winner (if only for the Empire Strikes Back scene). Best ever movie dragons, too.

Paul W.S Anderson's name is synonymous with the phrase movie hack. Ever since he achieved fame with his serviceable adaptation of the Mortal Kombat video-game he has been circling Hollywood plagiarising from the best. Hence, Resident Evil, where Anderson stole feverishly from the game itself (we'll let that pass, obviously), Aliens and Alice In Wonderland. The result was a shockingly unscary movie with just one trump card: the oh-so-sexy Milla Jovovich in thigh-high boots kicking undead ass.

After the phenomenon of American Beauty could British ex-theatre director Sam Mendes continue to churn out the goods? Road To Perdition didn't match Beauty at the worldwide box-office, yet Mendes' talent with actors is again clear for all to see. Tom Hanks (the Nicest Guy In Hollywood�) broke audience expectations to play a hitman in 1930's Chicago � with superb results. Make no mistake, this is a fantastic piece of cinema and one of the best gangster films in a long, long time.

John McTiernan directed Die Hard � with phenomenal high-octane results. This year he directed a remake of 70's sci-fi classic Rollerball - with mind-achingly offensive results. The actors were dire, the script was terrible, the actual rules of the game indecipherable, and the action sequence edited to shreds. A sad, tragic waste McTiernan quickly tried to put behind him by making the altogether better Basic.

A family of failed geniuses (geniae?), living together in a huge New York house face the return of Royal Tenenbaum � their exiled father (played by a fantastic Gene Hackman). Comedy ensues in The Royal Tenenbaums � Wes Anderson's follow-up to Rushmore. It's another expertly crafted piece of filmmaking full of witty lines, but very few belly laughs. Intellectual high-brow comedy with plenty of invention, acted impeccably by the starry cast, but... without that indefinable spark of magic.

Scooby Doo, where are you? Sadly for most, starring in a garish half-insult to the memories of young adults the world over. The acting might of Freddie Prinze Jr put a jinx on the project from the start, but the woeful script had a big hand with its downfall. As perhaps to be expected with these things, kids still poured into cinemas and made the film a box-office smash, helped along by a clever marketing campaign that hyped the film's one jewel � Matthew Lillard's spookily spot-on impression of Casey Kasem's Shaggy voice... Yoinks!

Wrestling superstar The Rock (or Dwayne Johnson to his mother) broken into movies proper this year in The Scorpion King, a spin-off adventure based on his small role in last year's The Mummy Returns. The Rock's performance was surprisingly capable, even if everything in the movie was strictly Conan-lite. One for undemanding kids and/or WWE fanatics.

M. Night Shyamalan (a.k.a. The New Spielberg) bounced back from his somewhat disappointing Unbreakable with Signs � a sci-fi spookfest starring Mel Gibson and fields of crop-circles. It was the subject of critical wavering due to its split-the-audience ending, but Signs still proved Shyamalan is a huge filmmaking talent. Now if only he can move away from the single-parent and/or father-son setups in all his films! Shyamalan the new Spielberg? Nah. The new Rod Sterling more like...

Summer 2003 was dominated by one thing, however. He wore spandex, had sticky stuff dripping from his wrist and � no, not that dodgy uncle you met once at a party � I'm talking about Spider-Man! From the talented hands of Sam Raimi (who should really have become a Hollywood big cheese years ago) came a perfect screen adaptation of the enduring 'Marvel' human-arachnid. Big effects, big action � as we'd expect - but also balanced with excellent performances and strong belief in character development. Made you remember when the words Summer Blockbuster meant something...

One film that's become quite a mystifying success is Spy Kids 2 � The Island Of Lost Dreams. The 2001 original was a harmless romp with a simple premise: two siblings save their spy parents using high-tech gadgetary. The 2002 sequel (and they're already gearing up for another!) gave us a similar adventure for Hispanic brats Carla and Juni. The effects continued to be extremely poor, the actors only adequate, but the imagination admittedly strong. However, Robert Rodriguez's departure into kids' films (he gave us From Dusk Till Dawn, remember!) a little worrying. Too often his film becomes a bore of horrid CGI-work, OTT visuals, weak characters and weaker gags. Interestingly, Spy Kids 2 was a major hit in the US but practically died in the UK. Let's see if we can get Spy Kids 3 a straight-to-video release in Blighty...

Star Trek � Nemesis beamed down onto cinema screens this year for a tenth adventure (the fourth for the Next Generation crew). This time Trek decided to shake itself up slightly by hiring a screenwriter and director with no prior Trekspertise (sorry). The result was a more epic-looking adventure, but with a plot that lazily remade The Wrath Of Khan - with Captain Picard facing off against his Romulan-created clone Schinzon. Easily the most enjoyable Next Generation movie regardless, although the whole franchise remains stale in storytelling terms and still in need of an overhaul.