This is not E.T., but A.I., and it’s a whole different movie. Haley Joel Osment(the “Sixth Sense” kid, not Donny’s son) stars as David, the robotic boy programmed to love. That’s the short version of it anyway.
Here’s a few details – “in the year 2525”, or something like that, global warming has screwed up the earth and flooded many major cities. The net result you need to know is that people are limited as to the number of times they may reproduce. Monica and Henry have a boy named Martin, but he’s been comatose for five years. So to snap Monica out of it, Henry brings home David. He’s the wonder child of Professor Hobby, played by William Hurt. He works for the robot factory, but so far they have only produced machines that perform functions, like nannies and gardeners and cooks. Or, in the case of the one played by Jude Law, gigolos.
David is special. The professor has created the kid with the capacity to love and the whole concept is debated rather academically as the movie opens. From there, we go slowly and carefully as Monica goes from being creeped out by the kid to accepting him, and then to, yes, even loving him. At first I thought this was a cheap shot at motherhood as Monica is depicted as an emotional mess, but you’ve got to hand it Haley Joel. The kid just makes you love him. This is one extraordinary child actor. And check out that robotic teddy bear that pals around with him. “Teddy” could have his own movie. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. They make such a cute couple. You can even forgive the movie as it goes off into “Pinnocchio” territory. Yes, the boy wants to become real. But you root for him and that’s in large measure due to Haley Joel and that darn bear.
This movie has the Spielberg touch all right. We get a very impressive, well thought out vision of the future with all the right touches. The only question I had is “will that many people still be wearing glasses?”
Eventually David and the Jude Law robot (Joe the Gigilo) team up to try and find a way to make David a real boy and I’m suddenly thinking “Wizard of Oz” (Joe makes a good scarecrow/tin man hybrid) . The movie lost me for a brief time at this point as it seemed like an excuse to show off fantastic visions of a future Las Vegas and Manhattan. I felt like the story had to take a time out for some special effects. But I hung in there because I had to know how this was going to end. Can David end up a real boy?
The last twenty minutes of the movie brings it all together in sensational fashion as the movie steps out of its fairy tale mode and back onto a logical path. It all really got me thinking even beyond the questions of love and human desire and wish fulfillment. That’s all stuff I’m not even sure I can express here. But as the movie ends up another two thousand years into the future, I did think how that movie theatre and all of us will just rot away and what does it all matter? We do obsess over trivial everyday things, don’t we? But the simple thing David desires, love, and will stop at nothing to get, is something most of us take for granted.
Does that all sound depressing? “A.I.” is not a feel good movie but it sure is one about feelings. I give it a “9” on the scale. The best I’ve seen so far this year.
Sunday, June 24th, 2001
I expected another loud car racing movie and I got one. But unlike that bore of a year ago, “Gone in Sixty Seconds”, this one got some of it right.
Paul Walker plays a guy named Brian who leaves Arizona for L.A. to join the excitement of “big time” street car racing. He takes a job in an auto parts store and works at catching on with the local street racing master, a guy named Dominic, played by Vin Diesel.
It isn’t long before we get a look at a pretty elaborate racing scene at night in downtown L.A.. And you thought downtown was pretty boring after dark? There’s a whole world of speed demons that come out. Hundreds of them lining the streets and monitoring police scanners while betting cash and sometimes their prized cars in looking to win the big race. And what an ethnic mix. Disney’s “It’s A Small World After All” has nothing on this group. There’s a Latino racing gang, and a black racing gang and even an Asian racing gang. And then there’s Dominic’s gang, which resembles, I don’t know what, mixed white trash or something.
If you think Brian’s too clean-cut and smart looking for this activity, you aren’t the only one. He’s actually an undercover cop trying to solve a series of truck hijackings. Talk about elaborate – these guys use their beautiful, fast cars to hunt down truckers leaving the ports and complete a series of death defying maneuvers to heist the goods. Seems like a lot of work to me against dangerous teamster guys for what turns out to be truckloads of DVD’s and TV’s, but, hey, it’s the movies. You can suspend belief for this, because the robberies are carried off in great stunt fashion. Check out the use of nitrous oxide to push the cars off to “Star Trek” warp speed in a matter of seconds. And the slow mo-to fast- mo mix to portray the actions of driver, car, engine and even fuel mix is pretty dazzling.
Of course, wrapped around all this is the mystery of who’s doing the hijackings. Is it the Latinos? The blacks? The Asians? Or is it Dominic and his motley crew? Also, there’s a couple of romances going on between Brian and Dominic’s sister and Dominic and one of his racing pals. She’s played by Michelle Rodriguez and boy can she scowl. Ah, but the women in this movie were put there mostly to emerge from fast cars wearing little clothing, so what does any of this matter?
“The Fast and The Furious” passes the speed limit but Paul Walker is miscast in the lead role, his voice sounding too much like Keanu Reeves. He’s a lightweight next to Vin Diesel who’s got the look, sound and body for a bigger career. I get the “fast” part of this movie, but the “furious” part puzzles me a bit. I guess it’s just a catchier title that way. I give it a “6.0”
Saturday, June 16th, 2001
This movie came out last week and I was not going to review it, but it’s so bad I couldn’t pass up the chance.
Let’s start, in honor of the phony critic Sony Pictures used in newspaper ads, by quoting a few for this movie. Here’s someone named Steve Iverolino with something called “The Launch Radio Network”, calling “Evolution” “the summer’s biggest surprise…Men in Black meets Ghostbusters”. What the hell is the Launch Radio Network? Is that some kind of NASA thing? Here’s Bill Muller of the Arizona Republic with his proclamation “oozing with laughs…Evolution goes to work on the funny bone”.
Let me say here I did not laugh once during this movie. I was, yes, annoyed. There was a guy down in the front row who was cackling and cackling. I needed a gun because it’s bad enough when what is supposed to be a funny movie, one that goes to work on the “funny bone”, is so totally not a funny movie. It gets worse when somebody who falls under the category of “easily amused” is so totally taken by the horrible junk up on the screen.
Here’s the little you need to know. David Duchovny and Orlando Jones are professors at some small Arizona community college. A meteor has fallen to earth out in the desert. Before long, life forms from the meteor begin evolving at an incredible rate. So fast, within days we end up with ape like beings and our whole country of human beings is threatened with extinction. I guess I know why the Arizona newspaper guy said something nice about this slop. The movie is set in Arizona. How many movies are set in Arizona? What a hellhole. Nice scenery, huh? Now I know. All I remember about Arizona growing up is that old people went there to breathe better and to live cheaper. Now I know people also go there to make really bad, unfunny movies. And get this. The Dan Ackroyd theory lives! He has a knack for showing up in really bad movies that get mislabeled “comedies”. I won’t bore you with the list, but think Dr. Detroit or Dragnet. He shows up in “Evolution” as the Governor of Arizona. And he’s not funny either.
This is a movie for a seven year old boy and even he won’t laugh that much. There’s a particularly painful scene where a spider type creature crawls inside Orlando Jones’ body and he’s rushed to an operating room to remove it. We’re supposed to laugh over amputation jokes and, of course, the spider heads towards his manly parts and the real panic sets in. Oh boy, the movies in high gear now. This type of stuff goes on scene after scene. I kept waiting to even smirk and I just got more annoyed. Julianne Moore shows up as a Center for Disease Control officer and you’re supposed to find her pretty girl/clumsy girl act funny. Believe me, it isn’t. She flops here, she flops there, oh, just hilarious. A two year old will be doubling over, anyone older than that screams “I paid nine bucks for this?”. She and Duchovny strike up a small romance and as bad as that is, it almost helped.
This movie won’t get a zero because the premise is actually a good one. Creatures that evolve in days, and they came up with some odd looking ones too. Fake looking, but still interesting. There, I’ve said enough good things about “Evolution”. Remember “Ghostbusters 2?” Not the first one, the second one. Right, I thought so. I barely remember it but I know I didn’t laugh. Two middle fingers up, way up, for “Evolution”. I give it a “2.0”
Sunday, June 10th, 2001
Which is the code name for a government operation to launder drug money. Now, many years later, a guy named Gabe, played by John Travolta, wants to hack into government computers and steal that money which amounts to over nine billion dollars.
What does he want the money for? It should have been enough for the writers to say he’s a bad guy and who wouldn’t want nine billion dollars, but no, that isn’t enough. Wait, just wait and see what Gabe wants to do with all that loot. If you aren’t falling over laughing from it, you should at least be snickering because it’s kind of silly. I think the writers thought you’d be saying “ooooohhh” or something like that.
I won’t tell, gee, that might ruin this almost ruined story, which is full of cyberspeak and explosions and hostages and Halle Berry’s exposed breasts. She needed to do that since about the biggest line they give her is “don’t you want your daughter back?” Okay, I’ll explain that part. Gabe and Halle (playing a character named “Ginger”) recruit a super computer hacker named Stanley, played by Hugh Jackman. He’s the “moral center” of the movie even though he’s fresh out of prison. All he wants is his daughter back and that will take millions because she’s in the custody of his alcoholic ex-wife and her rich porn king husband. Millions to win that custody battle? I think if I were the judge I’d take the computer hacker over the alkie and her Larry Flynt type spouse, but you know that wacky court system.
So Stanley(which by the way, is not a good name for a movie hero), against his better judgment, helps Gabe steal the money and ends up way over his head. Before long, we go from quiet computer keyboard scenes to killer car chases and shoot-outs. This is inevitable because who would pay to see a movie about boring cyber crime. We need real dead bodies.
We therefore have to end up in a bank, and there have to be hostages, and about the only thing that almost saves this movie are some pretty cool action scenes involving a bus lifted by helicopter over downtown Los Angeles. It smashes into buildings and causes some pretty wild destruction. But it’s the nuance of an action picture that separates the good ones from the average ones, and “Swordfish” doesn’t quite cut it. By that, I mean characters we halfway care about and twists we can halfway follow. I didn’t care if Stanley gets his kid back, and good luck following the twists at the end of this movie. Travolta’s character Gabe tips them off by telling Stanley about “misdirection”, but I sat there at the end and still wasn’t sure what to make of Gabe and Ginger. Besides, Gabe is an annoying villain. Cartoonish, always smoking cigars, Travolta takes him to an absurd level and the reason he’s after the money doesn’t help. I figure only militia type guys in the audience will really buy that one.
All in all, a fairly weak effort despite a frantic, puzzling ending. But even with all Gabe’s talk about “misdirection”, I eventually got out of my seat and just directed myself towards the exit, forgetting all about “Swordfish”. I give it a “5.0”
Saturday, June 2nd, 2001
I went into this movie with a pretty bad attitude. First, I couldn’t tell what this movie was about, except I knew it had singing and dancing and I generally hate musicals. Then it started and within five minutes I already felt better. That’s because Ewan McGregor, playing the character named Christian, basically explains much of what is to come. And also because I soon realized the songs were not some of those horrible, made-up things I hear when I see stage musicals, but were the hits of today, or at least of the last thirty years or so.
The Moulin Rouge is a Paris nightclub. It’s the Paris nightclub. Sort of like the Studio 54 of it’s time. The rich and powerful go to see the action at the place where anything goes. And the star of that nightclub is Satine, played by Nicole Kidman. Christian is a writer, drawn to Paris to follow his dreams. He ends up as a playwright for the Moulin Rouge, whose owner has big plans to renovate the club into a great theatre. Christian also falls in love with Satine. Satine has plans of her own to be a star. She’d like to be one of the world’s leading actresses.
Meanwhile, the Moulin Rouge owner needs heavy financing to meet his goals and is wooing a rich guy named “the Duke” to put up the bucks. He offers the guy Satine to make him happy. So Christian is in love with Satine, who is in love with him too, but must not let the Duke know as she tries to keep him satisfied and keep that new theatre opening on track. Does it all matter? Not really. I liked “Moulin Rouge” for a number of reasons and none of them have to do with this love story, which is clichéd and simple and at times, corny. It was painful to watch that story unfold with it’s bad sitcom plottings. That is, misunderstandings and people hiding in bedrooms so as not to be caught by jealous lovers. Pretty bad, but you’ve got to love a movie that can turn around a scene that bad by having the characters blast out a tune like Elton John’s “Your Song” or do a new take on “The Can-Can” tune. I started laughing because it was like saying “isn’t this ridiculous?”, and we’re going to take this ridiculous situation and turn it on it’s head with a pop tune from out of nowhere that has no business being sung in the year 1899. That worked for me. It may not for you.
I also appreciated the pace and stamina of this movie. I mean, the editing, the choreography, the whole production must have been a nightmare to put together. In fact, I like this movie for all the wrong reasons. I enjoyed the songs, the dances were actually very brief, and there’s so much in front of your eyes every ten seconds you can’t be bored. I wasn’t crazy about the story, but the fast paced comical musical interludes actually save the whole thing. Also, I was trying to figure out the sets. I know they’re fake, but they’re fascinating anyway. All of this helped me ignore Nicole Kidman’s pasty white skinny looks. This is one of those movies that says, “well, if you don’t like this, how about this?” You have to laugh when the club owner sings and dances to Madonna’s “Like A Virgin” as he tries to convince the Duke he’s going to have a great time with Satine. At least I knew the song. I often complain that too many movies rip-off too many ideas from other movies. Well here’s one movie that you is simply in a class by itself and that’s a good thing. This movie plays like an easy musical farce to me and I had a great time looking at it. I give “Moulin Rouge” an “8.0”.
