Time to play.
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After having her father and perverse stepmother killed by the cenobites, Kirsty Cotton (Ashley Lawrence) is sent to a psychiatric hospital. Even after trying to convince the authorities of what really happened with her family, nobody believes in her version of the history and they decide to place her in the institute, so that she rests and relaxes a little bit. The hospital is commanded by a brilliant and strange psychiatrist, Dr. Channard (Kenneth Cranham), who has been looking for the key for another dimension for a long time. The only person who believes in Kirsty is a young and kind assistant of Dr. Channard, called Kyle MacRae (William Hope). Following Kirsty's version of the story, Channard put his hands on the bloodstained mattress where her stepmother Júlia (Clare Higgins, from the first Hellraiser) died, Channard decides to resurrect her, killing his patients and offering them as food for Júlia. She returns without skin, and she decides to help Channard to bring the forces of the evil, but the plans of the two will be disturbed by Kirsty, who wants to end at once with the cenobites, and for Kyle, who doesn't want to see Kirsty being hurt...
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Generally speaking, there are two kinds of nightmares: the kind that you actually have, and the kind they make into movies. Real nightmares usually involve frustration or public embarrassment. In the frustrating ones, a loved one is trying to tell you something and you can't understand them, or they're in danger and you can't help them. In the embarrassing ones, it's the day of the final exam and you forgot to attend the classes, or you're in front of a crowd and can't think of anything to say, or you wandered into the hotel lobby without any clothes on and nobody has noticed you yet - but they're about to.Those are scary nightmares, all right, and sometimes they turn up in the movies. But "Hellbound: Hellraiser II" contains the kinds of nightmares that occur only in movies, because our real dreams have low budgets and we can't afford expensive special effects. The movie begins a few hours after the original "Hellbound" ended. A young girl named Kirsty has been placed in a hospital after a night in which she was tortured by the flayed corpses of her parents, who were under the supervision of the demons of hell. What this girl needs is a lot of rest and a set of those positive-thinking cassettes they advertise late at night on cable TV.But no such luck. The hospital is simply another manifestation of the underworld, hell is all around us, we are powerless in its grip, and before long Kristy and a newfound friend named Tiffany are hurtling down the corridors of the damned. Give or take a detail or two, that's the story. "Hellbound: Hellraiser II" is like some kind of avant-garde film strip in which there is no beginning, no middle, no end, but simply a series of gruesome images that can be watched in any order.The images have been constructed with a certain amount of care and craftsmanship; the technical credits on this movie run to four single-spaced pages. We see lots of bodies that have been skinned alive, so that the blood still glistens on the exposed muscles. We see creatures who have been burned and mutilated and twisted into grotesque shapes and condemned for eternity to unspeakable and hopeless tortures.We hear deep, rasping laughter as the denizens of hell chortle over the plight of the terrified girls. And we hear their desperate voices calling to each other."Kirsty!" we hear. And "Tiffany!" And "Kirsty!!!" and "Tiffany!!!" And "Kirstiyyyyyyy!!!!!" And "Tiffanyyyyyyy!!!!!" I'm afraid this is another one of those movies that violates the First Rule of Repetition of Names, which states that when the same names are repeated in a movie more than four times a minute for more than three minutes in a row, the audience breaks out into sarcastic laughter, and some of the ruder members are likely to start shouting "Kirsty!" and "Tiffany!" at the screen.But this movie violates more rules than the First Rule of Repetition. It also violates a basic convention of story construction, which suggests that we should get at least a vague idea of where the story began and where it might be headed. This movie has no plot in a conventional sense. It is simply a series of ugly and bloody episodes strung together one after another like a demo tape by a perverted special-effects man. There is nothing the heroines can do to understand or change their plight and no way we can get involved in their story.That makes "Hellbound: Hellraiser II" an ideal movie for audiences with little taste and atrophied attention spans who want to glance at the screen occasionally and ascertain that something is still happening up there. If you fit that description, you have probably not read this far, but what the heck, we believe in full-service reviews around here.You're welcome.Download here
Hellbound: Hellraiser II (Fantasy,Horror,Thriller)
BloodRayne (Action,Fantasy,Horror)
Revenge never tasted so sweet.
She's one Hell of a heroine...literally!
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In eighteenth century Romania, Rayne, a dhampir (half-human, half-vampire), prone to fits of blind blood rage but saddled with a compunction for humans, strives to avenge her mother's rape by her father, Kagan, King of Vampires. Two vampire hunters, Sebastian and Vladimir, from the Brimstone Society persuade her to join their cause.
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Mummy, The (Action,Adventure,Comedy,Fantasy,Horror)
Death is only the beginning.
Prepare. Beware. Behold.
The legend you know. The adventure you have yet to imagine.
The sands will rise. The heavens will part. The power will be unleashed.
Uncover the secret. Unlock the legend. Unleash the power.
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In ancient Egypt, high priest Imhotep started a forbidden relationship with Anck Su Namun, Pharaoh Seti's Mistress. When Seti finds out about what's going on, Imhotep and his loved one stab him, but can't escape the trustworthy guards: Anck Su Namnun chooses to commit suicide while Imhotep is bestowed with the Hom-Dai, the most feared curse of all: He is mummified alive in Hamunaptra, the city of the Dead. More than thirty-six centuries later, in 1923, to be exact, adventurer Rick leads Egyptologist Evelyn and her brother Johnathan to mysterious Hamunaptra. While Johnathan is keen on finding the legendary Egyptian treasures, Evelyn wants to search for the Book of the Living, which would clarify a lot in historical knowledge about the ancient Egyptians. Unfortunately, they and a rivaling group of careless American adventurers free Imhotep's mummy from his eternal prison. Now, with the ancient and quite agile high priest on the loose, the adventurers and scientists face not only a dangerous enemy, but also a massive threat to today's world: Imhotep wants to bring Ankh-su-namun back to life by using Evelyn's body, but he also wants to rid the world of the disbelieving crowd of democracy-supporters to be able to enforce his tyrannic dictatorship.
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Interstate 60 (Adventure,Comedy,Drama,Fantasy)
Get off on...Interstate 60.
It began as a wish, became an adventure, and ended as the ultimate road trip.
No rules, no boundaries.
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Neal Oliver is a young artist, but his father doesn't like his choice and wants him to go to Oxford. Everything changes after Neal's meeting with O.W.Grant, who grants exactly one wish per person, as his name suggests. Neal wishes for answers, and so he must travel to the nonexistent Danver by the nonexistent Interstate 60. In this trip he hopes to find the girl of his dreams, following the trail of her photos on the advertising stands along the route. Many encounters await him ahead. Will he receive what he asked for?
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Interstate 60 (Adventure,Comedy,Drama,Fantasy)
Get off on...Interstate 60.
It began as a wish, became an adventure, and ended as the ultimate road trip.
No rules, no boundaries.
Download here
Neal Oliver is a young artist, but his father doesn't like his choice and wants him to go to Oxford. Everything changes after Neal's meeting with O.W.Grant, who grants exactly one wish per person, as his name suggests. Neal wishes for answers, and so he must travel to the nonexistent Danver by the nonexistent Interstate 60. In this trip he hopes to find the girl of his dreams, following the trail of her photos on the advertising stands along the route. Many encounters await him ahead. Will he receive what he asked for?
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Monster House (Animation,Comedy,Family,Fantasy,Mystery)
There Goes The Neighborhood.
This Summer......Cross Over to the Other Side........Of the Street.
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The teenage DJ is observing his neighbor Nebbercracker on the other side of their street in the suburb that destroys tricycles of children that trespass his lawn. When DJ's parents travel on the eve of Halloween and the abusive nanny Zee stays with him, he calls his clumsy best friend Chowder to play basketball. But when the ball falls in Nebbercracker's lawn, the old man has a siege, and sooner they find that the house is a monster. Later the boys rescue the smart Jenny from the house and the trio unsuccessfully tries to convince the babysitter, her boyfriend Bones and two police officers that the haunted house is a monster, but nobody believes on them. The teenagers ask their video-game addicted acquaintance Skull how to destroy the house, and they disclose its secret on the Halloween night.
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In a year when the Academy Award nominations are more diverse and international than ever before, it's anyone's guess who will win best picture. "Dreamgirls" garnered more nominations than any other movie, but was passed over for both picture and director.
But there are four categories that can be predicted with certainty -- best actress: Helen Mirren; supporting actress: Jennifer Hudson; best actor: Forest Whitaker, and supporting actor: Eddie Murphy. They have won almost every award, including the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the Golden Globes. If any one of them doesn't snag the Oscar at the Feb. 25 ceremony, it will be an upset.
BEST ACTOR
The world of the Academy Awards seems universally convinced that Forest Whitaker will take home an Oscar for "The Last King of Scotland." It would be well deserved, not only because Whitaker has a solid body of good acting behind him over the years, but because Oscar voters love it when actors remove themselves from the typecasting game and play a totally original character. Idi Amin, the Ugandan dictator in "The Last King of Scotland," is such a character. Whitaker's performance somehow combines Amin's blend of cruelty and jovial good fellowship in the portrait of an extroverted madman.
Whitaker will win the Oscar, although there are strong contenders, including Will Smith in an affecting role as a homeless dad determined to raise his son in "The Pursuit of Happyness"; Ryan Gosling as a crack-smoking but well-meaning junior high school teacher in "Half Nelson," and Leonardo DiCaprio as a mercenary Rhodesian diamond smuggler in "Blood Diamond."
Oh, and I left for last the sentimental favorite: Peter O'Toole in "Venus." What a one-of-a-kind performance from this actor, whose work always finds a new place to start from. Playing an aging, decrepit, broken-down actor relegated to mostly corpse roles, his character stumbles into an unlikely love affair with a troubled young woman, and finds it is too much a test for his frayed libido. In generous close-ups and sad, weary monologues, he shares with her what he knows about life, which he has apparently found mostly in barrooms and Shakespeare. O'Toole is such an interesting actor, who seems to know so much more than he tells, or dares to tell. He got an honorary Oscar in 2003, but has never won a "real" one.
Still, it is Whitaker's performance that will bring home the Oscar gold. I have especially great affection for O'Toole's work here, so I'll split my ballet, with affection on both sides.
Prediction: Forest Whitaker
Preference: Peter O'Toole
SUPPORTING ACTOR
The classic path to a Hollywood comeback is for a fading major star to find a great supporting role and work it for all it's worth. I predict that formula will win an Oscar for Eddie Murphy. Not many years after standing atop the box-office charts, Murphy became the victim of too many ego-generated projects and the enterprises of cronies.
Now, in Bill Condon's "Dreamgirls," Murphy forces Hollywood to take another long look at him. Bursting with what seems like fresh new talent, he plays James "Thunder" Early, a Motown star as a combination of James Brown and Jackie Wilson. Early gives a soul trio (think the Supremes) its start in show biz while fighting to preserve his own career. He's slick, extroverted, brimming with an inner joy (even in the sad scenes) because both he and his character know how good they are.
It would be an upset if anyone else wins this category. Yes, all four are worthy nominees -- (the most fun comes from veteran actor Alan Arkin as the earthy, foul-mouthed grandfather of a dysfunctional family in "Little Miss Sunshine"). Mark Wahlberg is compulsively watchable as a motormouth cop in the Scorsese film "The Departed." Jackie Earle Haley ventures far from earlier roles to play a pedophile in "Little Children" -- one of the least likable characters in recent movies. And Djimon Hounsou's portrayal of a proud, small-town fisherman in "Blood Diamond" is genuinely moving as he fights to regain his son from the reaches of a corrupt regime.
But Eddie Murphy wins the category, deserves to, and will be back in starring roles unless he continues to choose unfunny comedies done just for the money.
Prediction: Eddie Murphy
Preference: Eddie Murphy
BEST ACTRESS
In movies where a famous character is being portrayed, there is always the dramatic "reveal" moment when we see ... why, that's Warren Beatty! This moment will inspire reams of disposable prose about how much the performer playing the famous character does or does not resemble its real-life counterpart. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't, and most of the time it makes no difference to the success of the film."The Queen" is a movie in which Helen Mirren, a British actress of limitless skills, often seen as a very ordinary person, plays the Queen of England. The "reveal" is boldly stunning -- not a coy glance over a shoulder, but a straight-on head shot. She levels a steady gaze at the camera. It contains a vast self-confidence that she truly and deeply takes very seriously her role and responsibilities. It is the best performance by any actress this year and deserves the Academy Award. It embodies all of the ways in which she tells us who this queen is, and why she is so stubborn about holding the line against a state funeral for Princess Diana.There are four other notable nominated performances by actresses this year. Penelope Cruz embodied joy and fancy as a high-spirited woman who inherits the ghost of her own mother in "Volver." Judi Dench always great, doesn't disappoint as the ruthless and sly schoolmistress who discovers a new colleague is having an affair with a young boy -- and uses that information to advance her own erotic ambitions -- in "Notes on a Scandal." Meryl Streep was superb as a fashion editor of great ego and heartless ambition, whose career depends on cutthroat rivalry in "The Devil Wears Prada." And Kate Winslet gives an erotic performance as one of a group of suburbanites whose lives are played out in the playgrounds and bedrooms of their less than satisfied existences in "Little Children."All good movies, powerfully acted. One of the strongest actress categories in years. All deserving of the Oscar. But I will not soon forget Mirren's sober conviction that she and no one else is the Queen of England, and don't you forget it!Prediction: Helen MirrenPreference: Helen Mirren
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
It's not often that a movie audience breaks into spontaneous applause, but you're likely to hear it after Jennifer Hudson's solo in "Dreamgirls," and there's no doubt the audience is sincere. Jamie Foxx plays a music impresario loosely based on Berry Gordy Jr., explaining to Hudson's character, Effie White, why they are breaking up personally and professionally. Effie sees this not as a matter of business but of the heart. "And I'm telling you ... I'm not going!" she sings, in a broadside of talent and feeling and emotion. That moment isn't the only reason she'll win as best supporting actress, but it's a good one.Hudson's story is the kind beloved by movie audiences -- how she was voted off "American Idol" and now seems on the brink of an Oscar. And it's the kind of performance movies like this need to anchor its show-biz familiarities.Also nominated: Cate Blanchett, ethereal in her role of a teacher having an affair with her young student; Abigail Breslin as a smart, irrepressible offspring of a dysfunctional family in "Little Miss Sunshine" (she has her emotional hooks into everybody); Rinko Kikuchi, as a deaf grieving teenager in "Babel" whose life becomes a target in her world, and Adriana Barraza as the Mexican maid who becomes the victim of a border guard while returning from her son's wedding in "Babel." These latter two characters symbolize the way no one in "Babel" really seems to communicate. Hudson's character doesn't communicate very well with the others in her rags-to-riches story of three girls who become overnight singing stars in the 1960s. Maybe that's because she speaks with honesty and openness, and doesn't understand their lingo of ambition and career shortcuts. Not since Barbra Streisand's show-stopper "Don't Rain on My Parade" in "Funny Girl" has an actress brought a movie to a sudden, shuddering halt of emotion and applause. But Hudson does, showing the kind of talent she must have been born with.Prediction: Jennifer HudsonPreference: Jennifer Hudson
BEST FOREIGN FILM
I've seen four of the five foreign film nominations this year and they are so gloriously diverse, hold such promise for the future that you could do worse than starting your Oscar viewing here. I'm predicting that Mexico's submission, Guillermo del Toro's brilliant "Pan's Labyrinth" will win this category -- not least because it is probably the most widely seen. The political fable of a young girl drifting between emotional times at home and a scary forest wonderland amidst the backdrop of Spanish fascism and war, it crosses the visual fancies of comic books, video games and graphic novels, combining them in a work stirred up from the depths of his soul.Consider also the other nominees, including Algeria's "Days of Glory" by Rachid Bouchareb. It involves young North Africans, mostly Algerians, who are required to leave home and family and fight for their French "homeland." After the war, their sacrifice is completely forgotten. Consider, too, Canada's submission, Deepa Mehta's "Water," the heartbreaking story of young brides, already widows, who are expected to live the remainder of their lives in solitude and involuntary labor. And also nominated from Germany is "The Lives of Others" by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. Using long-secret files of the Stasi, the East German secret police, it shows lives being methodically destroyed by a sadistic bureaucracy.All four of the films I've seen (I have not seen "After the Wedding" from Denmark) are serious, focused, take their mission seriously. Any of them would be a worthy nominee. To choose one is not to choose against the others. But "Pan's Labyrinth" is fresh and innovative, and was rumored to be in the running for a best picture nomination. It is the one to beat.Prediction: "Pan's Labyrinth"Preference: "Pan's Labyrinth"
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
A dark, scary, visually inventive sleeper named "Monster House" came out of nowhere to become an artistic success. But it has no chance to win the Oscar ahead of "Cars," a bright and cheery story with a little something profound lurking around the edges. This Disney/Pixar production is smart in the way that its 1951 Hudson Hornet manages to look simultaneously like itself and Paul Newman. And I suspect the academy voters will agree with the picture's nostalgic look at the simplicity of the "good old days."Neither will "Monster House" win over another real sleeper, the unexpected "Happy Feet," which audiences loved for its heart and sentiment, not to mention its music and dancing penguins. Nevertheless, I don't predict these little penguins will waddle right up to the Oscar like "March of the Penguins" last year. I predict that the more mellow "Cars" will take home the gold. But I wish more people had seen "Monster House," the story of a group of children mesmerized by a seemingly intelligent haunted house.Prediction: "Cars"Preference: "Monster House"
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Screenplays are the mysterious engines that lurk beneath a movie, often much edited, sometimes rewritten beyond recognition. But the general rule is, if it ain't on the page, it ain't on the screen. I haven't read one of the actual screenplays of any of the nominees, but how many Oscar voters will have? Nonetheless, that doesn't prevent me from predicting that Guillermo Arriaga's work for "Babel" will win this category. It will win in part because it generated the best movie, and in part because its great complexity and ingenuity takes on a dread fascination.Of the other nominees, isn't it a shame that the Academy Awards make no distinction between drama and comedy? Michael Arndt's work on "Little Miss Sunshine" uses inspired casting and Arndt's rapid-fire dialogue to create a comic gem. It's a story of a dysfunctional family driving cross-country to enter its beloved daughter in a beauty pageant. It has a lot of heart and soul, and is very funny. It deserves to compete in a separate category. Peter Morgan's "The Queen" not so much creates but evokes a convincing Queen Elizabeth. Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" is one of the most original fantasies since Grimm's Fairy Tales. Iris Yamashita's "Letters From Iwo Jima" hauntingly humanizes the Japanese soldiers fighting in one of the bloodiest battles of World War II and shows the chilling realism of that war.But the academy will honor "Babel," not only because of its complex achievement, but also because of the thought and care that went into it.Prediction: "Babel"Preference: "Babel"
BEST DIRECTOR
I reviewed Martin Scorsese's first film in 1968, something I never tire of reminding patient readers. In the review, I predicted, essentially, that he would stand astride the film world in, oh, say, 10 years. And so he did. But where is the recognition? Where is the Oscar after 39 years?America's greatest director has been passed over time and again for the Academy Award. This time, with his popular "The Departed," I have a feeling he will finally win his golden trophy. It is only a feeling, an instinct, but let's see if I'm right. The movie returns to Scorsese's favorite subject, gangsters in America, and once again stars some of the most colorful of American actors, led by Jack Nicholson. And in its story of double identities, it is surprisingly entertaining. I admired all the other nominees, not least Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's "Babel." The mercurial young director moves far outside genre to portray a world where terrorism criss-crosses with crime and ordinary lives. I also admired Stephen Frears' "The Queen," with Helen Mirren's haunting portrait of Queen Elizabeth; Paul Greengrass' uncanny realism in "United 93 (which deserved the comparisons with a documentary), and Clint Eastwood's visionary, incredibly ambitious war drama, "Letters From Iwo Jima," which considered the bloody struggle from the Japanese point of view.But Eastwood has won twice in recent years, the others are less familiar to Oscar voters, and Scorsese's time has come around at last. And, to cement this, he recently won the Director's Guild Award. Prediction: Martin ScorsesePreference: For reasons of tact, I prefer not to reveal my preference.
BEST PICTURE
Five films more different in style, subject and form would be hard to imagine, but here they are, the nominees for best picture. The daring, original "Babel" is thought to be the frontrunner, and I think deserves to be, but each of these movies is excellent in its own way. Rumor has it that "Little Miss Sunshine" is poised to be an upset winner, and in fact it won an ensemble SAG Award.Martin Scorsese has made better films than "The Departed," but then he has never made a bad film. The prospect of a great young director, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, winning his first Oscar is matched by the possibility that Scorsese will win a much-delayed one. With the loss of Robert Altman, is any active director more senior and better than Clint Eastwood? And what a pure, stark war movie he has made in "Letters From Iwo Jima." His conception is so original -- two movies (the other is "Flags of Our Fathers"), one in English, one in Japanese. Both considering the same battle, both detached, low-key, lacking in action cliches. No movie is harder to make, in a technical sense, than a comedy. But what a priceless one Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris have made in "Little Miss Sunshine." It has this combination of the transgressive and the risk-taking of this particular American genre, with Alan Arkin leading the parade as a vulgar but family-loving grandpa.And what an achievement from Stephen Frears in "The Queen," where Helen Mirren bares everything in an original closeup that asserts she "is" the Queen, not an imitator, but an embodiment.And yet Oscar voters often prefer serious, big-themed subjects of the kind seen in "Babel," a powerful group of international stories in which the secret human connections only gradually unfold. But the big upset could be "Little Miss Sunshine" because it touched something deep in the American psyche, and had people identifying with this odd family who pulls together when it matters the most.Prediction: "Babel"Preference: "Babel"
BONUS CATEGORY: BEST DOCUMENTARY
I have only once in my almost 40 years as a film critic written these words: "You owe it to yourself to see this film." That was the power of Al Gore's movie about global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth." My review was divorced from politics or political leanings. It reflected the truth as I understood it, that global warming is real, and is partly caused by human activity. That view has just been ratified in a recent meeting of scientists. But aside from the content, the movie is well done cinematically. The other nominees: "Deliver Us From Evil," "Iraq in Fragments," "Jesus Camp" and "My Country, My Country."Download here
Golden Child, The (Action,Adventure,Comedy,Fantasy,Mystery)
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Eddie Murphy plays a detective with a speciality of finding lost children. He is told he is the 'Chosen one' who will find and protect the Golden Child, a Bhuddist mystic who was kidnapped by an evil sorcerer. Murphy disbelieves the mysticism but finds more and more evidence of demon worship as he investigates.
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Mummy, The (Action,Adventure,Comedy,Fantasy,Horror)
Death is only the beginning.
Prepare. Beware. Behold.
The legend you know. The adventure you have yet to imagine.
The sands will rise. The heavens will part. The power will be unleashed.
Uncover the secret. Unlock the legend. Unleash the power.
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In ancient Egypt, high priest Imhotep started a forbidden relationship with Anck Su Namun, Pharaoh Seti's Mistress. When Seti finds out about what's going on, Imhotep and his loved one stab him, but can't escape the trustworthy guards: Anck Su Namnun chooses to commit suicide while Imhotep is bestowed with the Hom-Dai, the most feared curse of all: He is mummified alive in Hamunaptra, the city of the Dead. More than thirty-six centuries later, in 1923, to be exact, adventurer Rick leads Egyptologist Evelyn and her brother Johnathan to mysterious Hamunaptra. While Johnathan is keen on finding the legendary Egyptian treasures, Evelyn wants to search for the Book of the Living, which would clarify a lot in historical knowledge about the ancient Egyptians. Unfortunately, they and a rivaling group of careless American adventurers free Imhotep's mummy from his eternal prison. Now, with the ancient and quite agile high priest on the loose, the adventurers and scientists face not only a dangerous enemy, but also a massive threat to today's world: Imhotep wants to bring Ankh-su-namun back to life by using Evelyn's body, but he also wants to rid the world of the disbelieving crowd of democracy-supporters to be able to enforce his tyrannic dictatorship.
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Hellbound: Hellraiser II (Fantasy,Horror,Thriller)
Time to play.
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After having her father and perverse stepmother killed by the cenobites, Kirsty Cotton (Ashley Lawrence) is sent to a psychiatric hospital. Even after trying to convince the authorities of what really happened with her family, nobody believes in her version of the history and they decide to place her in the institute, so that she rests and relaxes a little bit. The hospital is commanded by a brilliant and strange psychiatrist, Dr. Channard (Kenneth Cranham), who has been looking for the key for another dimension for a long time. The only person who believes in Kirsty is a young and kind assistant of Dr. Channard, called Kyle MacRae (William Hope). Following Kirsty's version of the story, Channard put his hands on the bloodstained mattress where her stepmother Júlia (Clare Higgins, from the first Hellraiser) died, Channard decides to resurrect her, killing his patients and offering them as food for Júlia. She returns without skin, and she decides to help Channard to bring the forces of the evil, but the plans of the two will be disturbed by Kirsty, who wants to end at once with the cenobites, and for Kyle, who doesn't want to see Kirsty being hurt...
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Generally speaking, there are two kinds of nightmares: the kind that you actually have, and the kind they make into movies. Real nightmares usually involve frustration or public embarrassment. In the frustrating ones, a loved one is trying to tell you something and you can't understand them, or they're in danger and you can't help them. In the embarrassing ones, it's the day of the final exam and you forgot to attend the classes, or you're in front of a crowd and can't think of anything to say, or you wandered into the hotel lobby without any clothes on and nobody has noticed you yet - but they're about to.Those are scary nightmares, all right, and sometimes they turn up in the movies. But "Hellbound: Hellraiser II" contains the kinds of nightmares that occur only in movies, because our real dreams have low budgets and we can't afford expensive special effects. The movie begins a few hours after the original "Hellbound" ended. A young girl named Kirsty has been placed in a hospital after a night in which she was tortured by the flayed corpses of her parents, who were under the supervision of the demons of hell. What this girl needs is a lot of rest and a set of those positive-thinking cassettes they advertise late at night on cable TV.But no such luck. The hospital is simply another manifestation of the underworld, hell is all around us, we are powerless in its grip, and before long Kristy and a newfound friend named Tiffany are hurtling down the corridors of the damned. Give or take a detail or two, that's the story. "Hellbound: Hellraiser II" is like some kind of avant-garde film strip in which there is no beginning, no middle, no end, but simply a series of gruesome images that can be watched in any order.The images have been constructed with a certain amount of care and craftsmanship; the technical credits on this movie run to four single-spaced pages. We see lots of bodies that have been skinned alive, so that the blood still glistens on the exposed muscles. We see creatures who have been burned and mutilated and twisted into grotesque shapes and condemned for eternity to unspeakable and hopeless tortures.We hear deep, rasping laughter as the denizens of hell chortle over the plight of the terrified girls. And we hear their desperate voices calling to each other."Kirsty!" we hear. And "Tiffany!" And "Kirsty!!!" and "Tiffany!!!" And "Kirstiyyyyyyy!!!!!" And "Tiffanyyyyyyy!!!!!" I'm afraid this is another one of those movies that violates the First Rule of Repetition of Names, which states that when the same names are repeated in a movie more than four times a minute for more than three minutes in a row, the audience breaks out into sarcastic laughter, and some of the ruder members are likely to start shouting "Kirsty!" and "Tiffany!" at the screen.But this movie violates more rules than the First Rule of Repetition. It also violates a basic convention of story construction, which suggests that we should get at least a vague idea of where the story began and where it might be headed. This movie has no plot in a conventional sense. It is simply a series of ugly and bloody episodes strung together one after another like a demo tape by a perverted special-effects man. There is nothing the heroines can do to understand or change their plight and no way we can get involved in their story.That makes "Hellbound: Hellraiser II" an ideal movie for audiences with little taste and atrophied attention spans who want to glance at the screen occasionally and ascertain that something is still happening up there. If you fit that description, you have probably not read this far, but what the heck, we believe in full-service reviews around here.You're welcome.Download here
Hook (Adventure,Comedy,Family,Fantasy)
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Peter Pan (Williams) has grown up to be a cut-throat merger and acquisitions lawyer, and is married to Wendy's granddaughter. Captain Hook (Hoffman) kidnaps his children, and Peter returns to Never Land with Tinkerbell (Roberts). With the help of her and the Lost Boys, he must remember how to be Peter Pan again in order to save his children by battling with Captain Hook once again.
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City of Angels (Drama,Fantasy,Romance)
What if angels walked amoung us, and one of them fell in love with us?
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Angels are among us and when we feel an invisible presence, you better believe they are watching you. For a Los Angeles heart surgeon named Maggie, that is too much of a stretch. She believes that it is her job to save the lifes of her patients and when she meets Seth after visiting hours are over, he tells her it's simply just their time to go. She becomes intrigued by his presence and opinion. Seth is not just normal, he is an Angel. He meets Messinger while visiting patients. Messinger can see him because he was once a Angel but gave his power up to become human. This makes Seth want to become human so he can feel, smell, and love Maggie.
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Angels are big right now in pop entertainment, no doubt because everybody gets one. New Age spirituality is me-oriented, and gives its followers top billing in the soap operas of their own lives. People like to believe they've had lots of previous incarnations, get messages in their dreams and are psychic. But according to the theory of karma, if you were Joan of Arc in a past life and are currently reduced to studying Marianne Williamson paperbacks, you must have made a wrong turn.When there's a trend toward humility and selflessness, then we'll know we're getting somewhere on the spiritual front. That time is not yet. ``City of Angels'' hits the crest of the boom in angel movies--and like most of them, it's a love story. Hollywood is interested in priests and nuns only when they break the vow of chastity, and with angels only when they get the hots for humans. Can you imagine a movie in which a human renounces sexuality and hopes to become an angel? Still, as angel movies go, this is one of the better ones, not least because Meg Ryan is so sunny and persuasive as a heart surgeon who falls in love with an angel. This is one of her best performances, as Dr. Maggie Rice, who loses a patient early in the film and then, in despair, finds herself being comforted by an angel named Seth (Nicolas Cage). The amazing thing is that she can see him. Angels are supposed to be invisible, and hang around in long black coats, looking over people's shoulders and comparing notes at dawn and dusk.Seth is deeply moved that he is visible to Maggie. He has wondered for a while (which in his case could be millions of years) what it would be like to have a physical body. ``Do you ever wonder what that would be like--touching?'' he asks another angel. Maggie has a patient named Nathaniel Messinger (Dennis Franz) who is due for a heart operation, and as she watches him sleeping she tips her hand: ``No dying, now, Mr. Messinger--not until you give me Seth's phone number.'' She knows Seth is special: ``Those eyes. The way he looked right down into me.'' Soon she has him over for dinner, and he slices his finger but does not bleed. She feels betrayed, and cuts him again. Still no blood. She slaps him: ``You freak! Just get out! Get out!'' This is jarringly the wrong note, forced and artificial, but required by modern screenplay formulas that specify that the loving couple must fight and break up so that later they can get back together.There are revelations in the story, involving Mr. Messinger and others, that I will leave you to discover. There's also a surprise development toward the end that the movie sets up so mechanically that it comes as an anticlimax. It's not a perfect movie, and there are times when Cage seems more soppy and dewy-eyed than necessary. But it has a heart, and Meg Ryan convincingly plays a woman who has met the perfect soul mate.The movie is based on ``Wings of Desire,'' the great 1988 film by Wim Wenders. But it's not really a remake. It's more of a formula story that benefits from some of Wenders' imagery (solitary angels standing in high places, solemnly regarding humanity) and his central story idea (in his film, an angel played by Bruno Ganz falls in love with a trapeze artist and chooses to become human, with the guidance of a former angel played by Peter Falk).The Wenders film is more about spirituality. The decision to fall to earth comes toward the end. In ``City of Angels'' the angel's decision to fall is only the necessary theological prelude to the big scene in front of the fireplace (``Do you feel that? And that?''). To compare the two films is really beside the point, since ``Wings of Desire'' exists on its own level as a visionary and original film, and ``City of Angels'' exists squarely in the pop mainstream. Using Dwight Macdonald's invaluable system of cultural classification, Paradise Lost would be highcult, ``Wings of Desire'' would be midcult, and ``City of Angels'' would be masscult.Example of the difference. In ``Wings of Desire,'' an angel simply says, ``I learned amazement last night.'' In ``City of Angels,'' Seth says, ``I would rather have had one breath of her hair, one kiss from her mouth, one touch of her hand, than eternity without it. One.'' That's too much icing on the cake. Much more effective would have been simply, ``I would rather have had one breath of her hair.'' Period. And then give the audience the pleasure of mentally completing the implications of that statement. By spelling it all out, the dialogue keeps the emotion on the screen, instead of allowing it to unfold in the viewer's imagination.What I did appreciate is that ``City of Angels'' is one of the few angel movies that knows one essential fact about angels: They are not former people. ``Angels aren't human. We were never human,'' observes Seth. This is quite true. Angels are purely spiritual beings who predate the creation of the physical universe. That leaves us with the problem of why Seth is a male who is attracted to a female, when angels are without gender. But Maggie doesn't seem to have any complaints there in front of the fireplace.Download here
Good Boy! (Comedy,Drama,Family,Fantasy)
This Fall...Earth is going to the dogs.
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Owen Baker is a 12-year-old loner who has been working as a neighborhood dog-walker so he can earn the privilege of getting a dog of his own. His hard work pays off when his parents let him adopt a scruffy mutt he names Hubble. Both boy and dog get more than they bargained for when Owen wakes up one morning to discover he can understand every word Hubble says, including the ominous phrase: "Take me to your leaders." Owen learns that dogs came to Earth thousands of years ago to colonize and dominate the planet. Hubble (who is really named Canid 3942) has been sent by the powerful Greater Dane on a mission from the Dog Star Sirius to make sure dogs have fulfilled this destiny. Despite the best efforts of Owen's rag-tag group of neighborhood dogs to convince him otherwise, Hubble soon discovers the awful truth about Earth dogs: "You're all pets!" Now Owen (a boy who never had a friend) and Hubble (a dog who never needed one) must work together to prepare the neighborhood dogs for a visit from The Greater Dane—or all dogs will be removed from the planet! The fate of Earth dogs hangs in the balance, and it's up to Owen, Hubble, and their canine companions to save man's best friend.
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Millions of Dog Owners Demand to Know: 'Who's a Good Boy?' -- Headline in The Onion If a child and a dog love each other, the relationship is one of mutual wonder. Making the dog an alien from outer space is not an improvement. Giving it the ability to speak is a disaster. My dog Blackie used his eyes to say things so eloquent that Churchill would have been stuck for a comeback. Among my favorite recent movie dogs are Skip, in "My Dog Skip," who teaches a boy how to be a boy, and Shiloh, in "Shiloh," who teaches a boy that life is filled with hard choices. Hubble, the dog in "Good Boy!," teaches that dogs will be pulled off Earth and returned to their home planet in a "global recall." I've told you all you really need to know about the movie's plot. Owen Baker (Liam Aiken), the young hero, adopts a terrier who turns out to have arrived in a flying saucer to investigate why dogs on Earth are our pets, instead of the other way around. This will be a no-brainer for anyone who has watched a dog operating a pooper scooper. Nor do dogs look like the master race when they go after your pants leg. But I am willing to accept this premise if anything clever is done with it. Nothing is.Having seen talking and/or audible dogs in many movies (how the years hurry by!), I have arrived at the conclusion that the best way to present animal speech is by letting us hear their thoughts in voice-over. Sometimes it works to show their lips moving (it certainly did in "Babe"), but in "Good Boy!" the jaw movements are so mechanical it doesn't look like speech, it looks like a film loop. Look at "Babe" again and you'll appreciate the superior way in which the head movements and body language of the animals supplement their speech.But speech is not the real problem with "Good Boy!" What they talk about is. The movie asks us to consider a race of superior beings who are built a few feet off the ground, lack opposable thumbs and walk around nude all the time. Compared to them, the aliens in "Signs" are a model of plausibility. The dogs live within a few blocks of one another in Vancouver, and we meet their owners. I kept hoping maybe Jim Belushi had moved to the neighborhood with Jerry Lee, from "K-9," or that I'd spot Jack Nicholson walking Jill. (Jack and Jill: I just got it.) But no. The humans are along the lines of Kevin Nealon and Molly Shannon, as Owen's parents. The dogs are voiced by Matthew Broderick (as Hubble), Brittany Moldowan, Brittany Murphy, Donald Faison, Carl Reiner and Delta Burke. Voicing one of the dogs in this movie is the career move of people who like to keep working no matter what. At least when you do the voice of an animated animal, they make it look a little like you, and your character can be the star. But when you voice a real dog, do you have to stand around all day between shots talking to the trainer about what a good dog it is?Download here
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Adventure,Fantasy,Mystery,Thriller)
Dark And Difficult Times Lie Ahead.
On November 18 Everything Will Change.
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Harry's fourth summer and the following year at Hogwarts are marked by the Quidditch World Cup and the Triwizard Tournament, in which student representatives from three different wizarding schools compete in a series of increasingly challenging contests. However, Voldemort's Death Eaters are gaining strength and even creating the Dark Mark giving evidence that the Dark Lord is ready to rise again. In the unsuspecting lives of the young wizard and witches at Hogwarts the competitors are selected by the goblet of fire, which this year makes a very surprising announcement: Hogwarts will have two representatives in the tournament, including Harry Potter! Will Harry be able to rise to the challenge for the Tri Wizard Tournament while keeping up with school or will the challenges along with Voldemort's rebirth be too much for the young hero?
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Well into "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," Albus Dumbledore intones as only he can: "Dark and difficult times lie ahead." What does he think lay behind?In this adventure Harry will do battle with giant lizards, face the attack of the Death Eaters, and in perhaps the most difficult task of all for a 14-year-old, ask a girl to be his date at the Yule Ball.
That Harry survives these challenges goes without saying, since in the world of print his next adventures have already been published, but "Goblet of Fire" provides trials that stretch his powers to the breaking point.
Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) was just turning 13 in the previous movie, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" (2004), and the Potter series turns PG-13 with this installment. There is still at least a mail-owl, and what looks like a mail-raven (it may represent FedEx), but many of the twee touches of the earlier films have gone missing to make room for a brawnier, scarier plot. Is it fair to wonder if the series will continue to grow up with Harry, earning the R rating as he turns 17?
Certainly Lord Voldemort seems capable of limitless villainy. Although we glimpsed his face in "The Sorcerer's Stone," we see him in full on screen for the first time in "Goblet of Fire," and he does not disappoint: Hairless, with the complexion of a slug, his nostrils snaky slits in his face, he's played by Ralph Fiennes as a vile creature who has at last been rejoined by his Death Eaters, who were disabled by Harry's magic earlier in the series. Hogwarts School and indeed the entire structure of Harry's world is threatened by Voldemort's return to something approaching his potential powers, and the film becomes a struggle between the civilized traditions of the school and the dark void of Voldemortism.
The film is more violent, less cute than the others, but the action is not the mindless destruction of a video game; it has purpose, shape and style, as in the Triwizard Tournament, which begins the film. Three finalists are chosen by the Goblet of Fire, and then the Goblet spits out an unprecedented fourth name: Harry Potter's. This is against the rules, since you have to be 17 to compete in Triwizardry, and Harry is only 14, but Dumbledore's hands are tied: What the Goblet wants, the Goblet gets. The question is, who entered Harry's name, since Harry says he didn't?
The Triwizard Tournament begins near the start of the film, but after the Quidditch World Cup, which takes place within a stadium so vast it makes the Senate Chamber in "Star Wars" look like a dinner theater. The cup finals are interrupted by ominous portents; the Death Eaters attack, serving notice that Voldemort is back and means business. But the early skirmishes are repelled, and the students return to Hogwarts, joined by exchange students from two overseas magic academies: From France come the Beauxbaton girls, who march on parade like Bemelmans' maids all in a row, and from Durmstrang school in central Europe come clean-cut Aryan lads who look like extras from "Triumph of the Will."
Besides Harry, Cedric Diggory is the Triwizard contestant from Hogwarts, and the other finalists are Viktor Krum, a Quidditch master from Durmstrang who looks ready to go pro, and the lithe Fleur Delacour, a Beauxbaton siren. Together they face three challenges: They must conquer fire-breathing dragons, rescue captives in a dark lagoon and enter a maze, which, seen from the air, seems limitless. The maze contains a threat for Harry that I am not sure is anticipated by the Triwizard rules; within it waits Voldemort himself, who has been lurking offstage and now emerges in malevolent fury.
Against these trials, which are enough to put you off your homework, Harry also must negotiate his fourth year at Hogwarts. As usual, there is a bizarre new teacher on the faculty. Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody (Brendan Gleeson) is the new professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, and seems made of spare parts; he has an artificial limb, and a glass eye that incorporates a zoom lens and can swivel independently of his real eye.
There is also, finally, full-blown adolescence to contend with. I'd always thought Harry would end up in love with Hermione Granger (Emma Watson), even though their inseparable friend Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) clearly has the same ambition. But for the Yule Ball, Harry works up the courage to ask Cho Chang (Katie Leung), who likes him a lot. Ron asks Hermione, but she already has a date, with the student most calculated to inspire Ron's jealousy. These scenes seem almost in the spirit of John Hughes' high school movies.
Most of the Potter series regulars are back, if only for brief scenes, and it is good to see the gamekeeper Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane) find love at last, with Madame Maxime (Frances de la Tour), headmistress of Beauxbaton. Hagrid, you will recall, is a hairy half-giant. Frances is even taller, but she's a mercifully less hairy giantess. One new character is the snoopy Rita Skeeter (Miranda Richardson), gossip columnist of the Daily Prophet, a paper that has pictures that talk, like the portraits in earlier films.
With this fourth film, the Harry Potter saga demonstrates more than ever the resiliency of J.K. Rowling's original invention. Her novels have created a world that can expand indefinitely and produce new characters without limit. That there are schools like Hogwarts in other countries comes as news and offers many possibilities; the only barrier to the series lasting forever is Harry's inexorably advancing age. The thought of him returning to Hogwarts for old boys' day is too depressing to contemplate.
"Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" was directed by Mike Newell, the first British director in the series (he turned down the first Potter movie). Newell's credits range from the romantic "Four Weddings and a Funeral" to the devastating "Donnie Brasco" to the gentle "Enchanted April."
Such varied notes serve him well in "Goblet," which explores a wide emotional range. He balances delicately between whimsy and the ominous, on the uncertain middle ground where Harry lives, poised between fun at school, teenage romance and the dark abyss.Download here
Last Mimzy, The (Adventure,Drama,Family,Fantasy,Sci-Fi)
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Two siblings begin to develop special talents after they find a mysterious box of toys. Soon the kids, their parents, and even their teacher are drawn into a strange new world and find a task ahead of them that is far more important than any of them could imagine!
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Birds, The (Drama,Fantasy,Horror,Thriller)
It could be the most terrifying motion picture I have ever made!
Nothing You Have Ever Witnessed Before Has Prepared You for Such Sheer Stabbing Shock!
Suspense and shock beyond anything you have seen or imagined!
The Birds is coming!
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Guaranteed to make you want to stop bird-watching and put the old bird feeder to the ax—at least for a while. The whole thing starts when Melanie Daniels is crossing a lake and is nipped by a gull. Gradually, incidence of bird damage to humans by pecking increases. Glass windows splinter before diving birds, children are sent home from school to safety, townspeople take refuge in a lunchroom, Miss Daniels in a phone booth, and finally everyone hides in homes tightly boarded up against repeated attacks by the birds. It's enough to make you kick the next pigeon you come across.
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At this point when I walked out of "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" -- some 45 minutes into the movie -- the hero had learned to avoid garbage and fly high, but the film, alas, had not. I hardly ever walk out of movies, and in fact I sometimes make a point of sitting through bad ones, just to get ammunition for a juicy review. But this one was too much.
It is based, to begin with, on a book so banal that it had to be sold to adults; kids would have seen through it. "The Little Engine That Could" is, by comparison, a work of some depth and ambition. Consider that the movie made from the book has now been made the object of a lawsuit by the book's author and you have some measure of the depths to which we sink as Jonathan dives.Jonathan not only dives, and perfects his aeronautical ability, and makes his name as the flocks leading nonconformist, but he also talks. Allowing him to talk is perhaps the movie's basic strategic error. I can't imagine how the movie could have been made without spoken dialog, to be sure, but then was this movie really necessary at all? Jonathan talks under his breath with great gasping urgency: He talks to himself about how if only he could hold his wings a little different, etc., he, too, could dive for fish and not have to scavenge garbage. He sounds like he's giving himself a pep talk on the occasion of a terminal case of constipation.And then there's the problem of the birds. The movie uses real birds. Contrary to the hope of the book, these birds in fact are just your average garden variety seagulls, and it's a little sickening to show them being knocked out and batted around in the interest of the story line. I left when Jonathan had dragged himself, groggy and bleeding, onto some flotsam, This has got to be the biggest pseudocultural, would-be metaphysical ripoff of the year.Download here
Night at the Museum (Action,Comedy,Family,Fantasy)
Everything comes to life.
See the side of the museum you won't see on the tour.
This Christmas, it won't be a silent night.
When the lights go off, it's on.
Where History Comes To Life
Where history really does come alive
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In New York, the unemployed divorced Larry Daley is a complete loser. His son Nick is very disappointed with his father that is gong to be evicted, and Larry accepts the job of night watchman in the Museum of Natural History as the substituted for three old security guards that have just retired to raise some money and pay his bills. In his first nightshift, Larry realizes that everything at the museum comes to life at night. The Museum transforms in a complete chaos with the inexperienced Larry, and he learns that since an old Egyptian stone came to the Museum in 1950, the was statues comes to life until dawn. When Larry brings his son to spend a night with him, the three old guards break in the Museum to stole the magic stone. Larry organizes the historic characters to help him to arrest the criminals and save the museum.
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Stuart Little 2 (Adventure,Comedy,Family,Fantasy)
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Stuart's mother is being over-protective of him, especially when he narrowly escapes injury in a soccer game. His big brother George has also made a new friend, Will, so Stuart is feeing lonely. Stuart rescues a canary, Margalo, from a falcon; she moves in with the Littles. One day, Margalo is nowhere to be found, so Stuart and Snowbell set out across the city to find her while George covers for Stuart (the first time he's had to lie).
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Faithful readers will know that I question the logic of a human-sized family with a son who is two inches tall, particularly when the son is a mouse. In watching the first "Stuart Little" (1999), I cringed every time the heavy footfall of one of his parents landed near little Stuart. The mouse is cute, but he was born to be squished.I vowed to approach "Stuart Little 2" afresh. I would go into full-blown suspension-of-disbelief mode. If there must be a movie about a mouse-child in the real world, then I must accept it--even if the film toys with my fears by putting Stuart into a soccer game with full-sized kids. Even Stuart's mom (Geena Davis) gets the shivers at "the thought of all those boys running around with those cleats in their shoes." Stuart's dad (Hugh Laurie) is more optimistic, believing that a Little can do anything he sets his mind to, and sending the little tyke on dangerous missions, as when he is lowered down the kitchen drain to look for his mother's diamond ring. For that matter, Stuart's daily commute to school in his tiny little red sports car must not be without its hazards."Stuart Little 2" is not indifferent to the problems involved, not least the compositional problems faced by Steve Poster, its cinematographer, in framing both the 6-foot Davis and the 2-inch Stuart in the same shot. It provides Stuart (voice of Michael J. Fox) with a friend about his own size, a yellow bird named Margalo (voice of Melanie Griffith). She falls from the sky with a wounded wing, lands in Stuart's sports car, is taken home for first aid, and soon becomes his chum.There is even a hint of cross-species romance, as Stuart and Margalo go on a date to the drive-in movies (by parking his red sportster in front of the TV). The movie they're watching is Hitchcock's "Vertigo," about a man who falls in love with a woman who is deceiving him, but Stuart doesn't take the hint, and is blindsided when it turns out (spoiler warning) that Margalo is a con artist, teamed up with a snarky falcon (voice by James Woods). The falcon's advice: "Don't ever make a friend I can eat." By this point the movie has located itself pretty much two inches about ground level, although there are important roles for the family cat, Snowbell (voice of Nathan Lane), and the family son, George (Jonathan Lipnicki). There's an exciting sequence involving entrapment in a skyscraper, entombment in a garbage barge, and an aerial dogfight between the falcon and Stuart, piloting a model airplane.Yes, reader, I enjoyed the movie, in its innocent way. It has some of the same charm, if not the same genius, as the movies about Babe the pig. "Stuart Little 2" imagines Manhattan as a sunny, peaceful place where no one is surprised to see a mouse driving a car, and where the parents are so optimistic that when Stuart goes missing they drive around looking for him--as if you could see a two-inch mouse from the middle of New York traffic.Of the voices, Griffith makes Margalo lovable and as sexy as a little yellow bird can be, and Lane does a virtuoso job with Snowbell, the only cat with dialogue by Damon Runyon. Fox's Stuart is stalwart and heroic--the Braveheart of mice. As for the parents, Davis and Laurie deserve some kind of award for keeping straight faces. My only question involves the sweet scene at the end, when Margalo bids them farewell to join the southward migration of geese in the autumn. I think there is a good chance she is a canary, and they don't migrate.Download here
Small Soldiers (Action,Adventure,Comedy,Fantasy,Sci-Fi)
Smart, Funny and Action-Packed
The few, the proud, and the small.
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Alan, son of a Toy Store owner, tries out some new action figures: The Commando Elite vs. The Gorgonites. What he does not know, is that both sets of toys were designed to move, talk and play back. The Commando Elite's purpose is to destroy the Gorgonites. Unfortunately, the toy designer who was responsible for the programming, bought highly intelligent military computer chips that are usually used for steering missiles - and are able to learn. Now, the Commando Elite, led by Major Chip Hazard, is up to destroying the Gorgonites, led by peaceful Archer, who hide in Alan's parent's house. Now, a battle, in which the destructive ability of creative computer chips against creative computer chips with a different attitude comes to light, is about to begin.
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``Small Soldiers'' is a family picture on the outside, and a mean, violent action picture on the inside. Since most of the violence happens to toys, I guess we're supposed to give it a pass, but I dunno: The toys are presented as individuals who can think for themselves, and there are believable heroes and villains among them. For smaller children, this could be a terrifying experience.It's rated PG-13, but if the characters were human the movie would be a hard ``R,'' just for the scene where characters get run over and chewed up by a lawn mower. I was a little amazed, indeed, by the whole concluding sequence, in which fireballs are lobbed, toy helicopters attack, and there's a struggle high in the air between killer toys and the movie's young hero, who are trying to electrocute one another. This is not a sequence a lot of grade schoolers are ready for.The movie's premise is intriguing. A toy company is purchased by a defense manufacturer, and the tough-skinned new owner (Denis Leary) orders his people to make ``Toys that actually do what they do in the commercials.'' Toys with batteries that don't run down, and with minds of their own. His designers take him at his word, and develop lines of toys using the company's X-1000 computer chip, which is also the brains of smart bombs and other military technology.When these toys get into the marketplace, it's war. The toy characters are divided into two camps, the peaceful and zany Gorgonites and the professional killers of the Commando Elite. The problem is with the commandos, who are humorless martinets who strut through the movie looking like mercenaries and making threats like pro wrestlers. They are truly evil, and they throw off the movie's moral balance.A lot of the other stuff in the movie is funny and entertaining, and, to be fair, all of the special effects are top drawer, seamlessly combining live action, models and animation. (Industrial Light and Magic supplied some of them, and the figures were designed by Stan Winston.) The Gorgonites are led by a pensive, thoughtful Yoda figure named Archer (voice of Frank Langella). They include little guys who kind of grow on you, including Ocula, who is basically an eyeball with three limbs. The Commando Elite have names like Chip Hazard and Butch Meathook. One of the inside jokes is that many of their voices were supplied by veterans of ``The Dirty Dozen,'' while the Gorgonites are voiced by actors from ``This Is Spinal Tap.'' The movie's human hero is Alan (Gregory Smith), a kid who inadvertently sets off the toy wars. His new girlfriend is Christy (Kirsten Dunst), who gets a shock when she sees Barbie-type dolls being fitted with X-1000 chips so that they can join the battle, too. Among the adults are Alan's parents, who are taken out of action after the commandos use a mousetrap as a catapult to drop sleeping pills into the their drinks.Part of the inspiration for ``Small Soldiers'' may have come from ``Toy Story,'' where toy soldiers were among the characters. But too much of it may have come from Sid, the human kid in that movie who lived next door, and entertained himself by taking his toys apart and reassembling them in grotesque ways. In ``Small Soldiers,'' toys have unspeakable things happen to them, and many of them end up looking like horror props. Chip Hazard meets an especially gruesome end.What bothered me most about ``Small Soldiers'' is that it didn't tell me where to stand--what attitude to adopt. In movies for adults, I like that quality. But here is a movie being sold to kids, with a lot of toy tie-ins and ads on the children's TV channels. Below a certain age, they like to know what they can count on. When Barbie clones are being sliced and diced by a lawn mower, are they going to understand the satirical purpose? Roy Rogers died the other day, and that reminded me of how gentle and innocent his movies were. Sure, we called them ``shoot-em-ups,'' but Roy spent more time singing than shooting. Kids didn't leave the theater in a state of shock. Now they go to a kiddie movie, and there are scenes where toy characters are disemboweled and vivisected, and body parts crawl around in the street, separated from one another. Then there are other scenes that are perfectly innocent. We get two movies for the price of one. The nice movie would have been enough.Download here
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