Author Archives: natezoebl
Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)
A joke me and my friend Adam Kipp had going in a script we never started was about an elite tactical force known as the Superhuman Samurai Stereotype Squad. They were a group contained of all different minority killers but each was a bad stereotype of that minority – like the black man was a gangster rapper with one incredible fro, the Asian was a martial arts expert, the gay person was flaming etc. (this is not an example of how I feel toward minorities, just lampooning the lame stereotypes). So imagine my surprise when watching Disney’s Atlantis I see our joke played out in front of me, except it’s supposed to be taken seriously.
Nerdy historian and dreamer Milo (Michael J. Fox) gets teamed up with a ragtag group on an exploration to hunt for the missing land of Atlantis with the aid of a book his grandfather gave to him. Anyone else getting Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade déjà vu? This group features a tough blonde German girl Helga, a Latina mechanic who also happens to be a boxer, a crazy and dirty Frenchman, a kindly heroic black doctor that resembles Disney’s own John Henry, a lovably kooky Southerner cook, an old no-nonsense woman, and even a quirky Italian explosives expert. Assemble Superhuman Samurai Stereotype Squad!
Through some underwater mishaps the crew finally does get to the fabled city of Atlantis and is met by the King and Princess Kida, who takes a shine to clumsy Milo. They discover secrets of the lost civilization and, as always, members of the crew turn on each other in an attempt to plunder the city of its riches. The double-dealing is led by the ship’s captain Lyle Tiberius Rourke (James Garner) who has a chin that would make Kirk Douglas drop dead with envy.
There are plot holes in Atlantis big enough to build a Disney theme ride through. It turns out as revealed in the opening minutes of Atlantis that the Atlantians had mastered the technology of flight, mechanics, energy fusion, and other such scientific marvels. A race of people before even the Minoans around 800 BC had mastered the art of mechanical flight? And WE don’t even have flying cars yet but these people 2800 years ago had flying fish made with metals that they had no way of getting their hands upon? Or take for example the fact that Princess Kida greets the group in English, saying that they somehow know all languages. But if their civilization was plunged to the bottom of the sea a freaking 2800 years ago how can they remotely know languages that never existed until hundreds and hundreds of years afterwards?
Want more plot holes? Please, you know you do. How about when a character hurtles to their supposed death when they fall something like 250 feet down onto hard rock. Except later we return to this fallen character who still manages not only to live but also to turn around and fire one last perfect shot. There are so many others that they can’t all fully be mentioned.
Atlantis is supposed to be like one of the old 50s adventure films like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea except it never manages to be adventurous at all. The film does allow for people to actually die, though all off camera, which I can’t remember happening in a Disney picture unless it was the villain. There are some moments of excitement but they end too quickly and give the audience back to the characters and story it doesn’t want to return to. The animation is surprisingly sub-par with a few awkward moments that seem very rigid and static.
Atlantis is a general waste of talent and strung together with a bad script. The fact that not one kid in the audience, nor myself, laughed once in indicative of how this movie is flopping. The movie is not engaging for kids and the opening sequence with subtitles will surely go over their heads. This film is not a fun ride. It seems like the profitable-yet-creatively-stagnant Disney formula for the last decade is finally imploding. If you do have a choice go see Shrek instead.
Nate’s Grade: C
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Swordfish (2001)
Swordfish starts off with a helluva wallop. John Travolta opens with a monologue about why “Hollywood is full of shit,” specifically the problems with Dog Day Afternoon and what a real criminal with hostages could have done. When the conversation ends and Travolta finishes his coffee, he stands up, thanks his gentlemen, and then we quickly discover Travolta is holding hostages in a bank each strapped with powerful explosives. During some miscommunication and arrogance from the FBI brass (as always) snipers take out one of Travolta’s baddies and try and whisk away a hostage. As they try and rush her out in slow motion the pounds of C4 strapped to her chest detonate and a monumental explosion erupts. But as it slowly does the camera whips around in a circle, even entering various buildings, to give a full picture of the destructive wave of the explosion. The effect is magnificent and wonderfully pulled off. The beginning ten or so minutes really wake you up and keep your eyes open.
A few days prior to this incident is where the story then sets off to fill in. Gabriel Shear (Travolta) is a powerful man with the world at his fingertips. He sends out his seductive siren Ginger (Halle Berry) to recruit the recently released Stanley Jobson (Hugh Jackman) for a special mission. Stanley is a hacking genius and has been ordered to stay clear of any computer as well as from his young daughter. Gabriel’s offer comes with a cash advance just for a meeting that is too good to pass up. After an initiation of Stanley’s skills he is set up to create a super virus that will drain the CIA of billions of dollars in unused and unknown funds. All the while FBI agent A.D. Roberts (Don Cheadle) is on the trail of Gabriel the super spy and trying to coerce Stanley into helping him bring the superman crashing.
The script is nothing new. It is complete with the familiar double crossings and surprise affiliations to render out the duration of our film. Some moments are just over-the-top stupid, like Jackman’s initiation test which requires him to break a computer code whilst a gun is pressed to his head and a blonde gives him a blowjob. Stanley has a boozing ex-wife now remarried to a porn king with custody of his daughter, and he doesn’t think he can win because he was in prison?
Dominic Sena gave us the driving-on-empty Gone in 60 Seconds last summer. Sena seems to really love florescent lighting when it comes to his films. The actors are bathed in bevy of bright greens and oranges for two hours. Sena delivers a film that pretty much has an idea its nothing but fast food, and it seem to not let something like that drag it down but actually help improve itself. It’s like Wild Things in the aspect it knows it’s just slick trash but damn if it isn’t going to be a fun ride.
Swordfish has been made critic proof. One could complain about the plot contrivances and the pat ending, but you can always go back to Travolta’s opening dissertation. Certain revelations occur in the film that will make you question who really is the bad guy in the end. The makers of Swordfish have gone about and made their action flick critic proof.
A disappointment is that there really is only three action sequences in the entire movie. I will say this now and may it be heard clear – TYPING IS NOT EXCITING! Watching someone type fast at a keyboard is never entertaining. Do not build an action movie around typing. If you do you might as well have action while people play Turbo Pong.
The acting is irrelevant, though Jackman is a winning face and actor. Travolta looks like the lower half of his face has freakishly widened. Much has been made about Halle Berry going topless for the movie. This was entirely gratuitous and used for comic effect for God’s sake. But the movie is unabashedly about sleek violence and sex, so it can be forgiven.
Swordfish is the right kind of mindless action for the summer. It keeps you awake and engaged. And I’d rather see this eighty times again before seeing Tomb Raider one more time.
Nate’s Grade: B-
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Pearl Harbor (2001)
It turns out we went to war in 1941 not because of Japanese aggression, Hitler’s dominance in Europe, or the protection of freedom and democracy. Sorry kids. The real reason we went to war was to complicate and then clear up Kate Beckinsale’s love life. At least that’s what director Michael Bay and screenwriter Randall Wallace would tell you with their indulgent epic Pearl Harbor.
We open in Tennessee in the 20s with two boys who dream of being pilots. Rafe (Ben Affleck) and Danny (Josh Hartnett) grow into strapping young lads who flash their hot dog flyin’ skills at basic training, which brings them chagrin from superiors but admiration from peers. Rafe falls in love with a young nurse named Evelyn (Kate Beckinsale), who goes against ARMY rule and passes Rafe in his eye exam portion when he has a slight case of dyslexia. But he’s just so cuuuute. The romance builds but Rafe feels like he’s grounded when all he wants to do is fly, and volunteers to fight in the RAF over in Europe. He promises he’ll be back to see his lovely Evelyn. Of course he gets into an accident and everyone assumes that poor dyslexic Rafe is fertilizing a lawn somewhere with his remains. Hence Danny slowly but surely develops something for Evelyn in their periods of mourning, and the two consummate their puppy love with a tango in parachute sheets.
All seems well until Rafe returns back from the dead throwing a wrench into Evelyn’s second date parachute plans. Thus the Hollywood favorite of the love triangle endures until the end when the two fly boys enlist in the Doolittle attack against Japan, months after the ferocious attack on Pearl Harbor. The real purpose of the Doolittle attack was not militarily, but merely for morale. The real purpose it serves in the movie is to shave off an end on our love triangle.
Pearl Harbor allows us to follow a group of youthful and innocent starry-eyed kids from training to combat. Each seems pretty much exactly the same to each other. It’s near impossible to distinguish which character is which. It’s like the screenwriter didn’t even have the gall to resort to cliche supporting character roles, and he just made one character and duplicated it. The only one who was noticeable for me was the character of Red (Ewen Bremner, julien donkey boy himself), but that was simply because the man had a speech impediment. We also have our handful of young nurses alongside Beckinsale, and I had an easier time distinguishing between them; everyone had different hair colors.
]If you look in the pic, or the credits, you’ll see that two of the nurses would turn out to be Jennifer Garner (Alias) and Sara Rue (Less than Perfect), both stars of ABC shows, and ABC is owned by, yep, Disney. Coincidence? Probably. When they ran this on TV they actually advertised Jennifer Garner above Kate Beckinsale. That reminded me of when Seven ran on TV shortly after Kevin Spacey had won his well-deserved 1999 Best Actor Oscar for American Beauty, and they gave him second-billing in the advertisement over Morgan Freeman, the movie’s true main character.
Affleck has a hayseed Southern twang, but seems to mysteriously disappear for long stretches. Hartnett seems to talk with a deep creak, like a door desperately trying to be pushed open. Beckinsale manages to do okay with her material, but more magnificently manages to never smear a drop of that lipstick of hers during the entire war. We could learn a lot from her smear-defying efforts. Gooding Jr. is pretty much given nothing to work with. I’m just eternally grateful he didn’t go into a usual Cuba frenzy when he shot down a Zero.
Michael Bay has brought us the ADD screenings that are the past, loud hits of The Rock and Armageddon. Teamed up with his overactive man-child producer Jerry Bruckheimer once more, Pearl Harbor is less Bay restrained to work on narrative film as it is Bay free-wheeling. His camera is loose and zig-zagging once more to a thousand edits and explosions. Bay is a child at heart that just loves to see things explode. When he should show patience and restraint he decides to just go for the gusto and make everything as pretty or explosive as possible. This is not a mature filmmaker.
Despite the sledge hammer of bad reviews, Pearl Harbor is not as bad as it has been made out to be. The love story is inept and the acting is sleep-inducing, unless when it’s just funny. It doesn’t start off too badly, but twenty minutes in the movie begins sinking. The centerpiece of the film is the actual Pearl Harbor bombing that clocks in after ninety minutes of the movie. The forty-minute attack sequence is something to behold. The pacing is good and the action is exciting with some fantastic special effects. The movie is bloated with a running time a small bit over three hours total. Maybe, if they left the first twenty minutes in, then gave us the forty minute attack sequence, followed by a subsequent five minute ending to clear up our love triangle’s loose ends… why we’d have an 80 minute blockbuster!
Pearl Harbor doesn’t demonize the Japanese, but it feels rather false with their open-minded attempts to show both sides as fair minded. It gets to the point where they keep pushing the Japanese further into less of a bad light that it feels incredibly manipulative and just insulting. It seems like the producers really didn’t want to offend any potential Pacific ticket buyers so the picture bends backwards to not be insulting. The only people who could be offended by Pearl Harbor are those who enjoy good stories. Oh yeah, and war veterans too.
The cast of Pearl Harbor almost reads like another Hollywood 40s war movie where all the big stars had small roles throughout, kind of like The Longest Day for the Pepsi generation. Alec Baldwin plays General Doolittle and is given the worst lines in the film to say. Tom Sizemore shows up as a sergeant ready to train the men entering Pearl Harbor. He has five minutes of screen time but does manage to kill people in that short window. Dan Akroyd is in this for some reason or other, likely because Blues Brothers 3000 has yet to be green lighted. John Voight is easily the most entertaining actor to watch in the entire film. He gives a very authentic portrayal of President Roosevelt. I still find trouble believing it was Voight under the makeup.
The blueprint for Pearl Harbor is so transparent. They took the Titanic formula of setting a fictional romance against a disaster, with the first half establishing characters and our love story, and then relegating the second half to dealing with the aftermath of the disaster. It worked in Titanic (yes, I liked the film for the most part), but it doesn’t work here. Pearl Harbor is a passable film, but the mediocre acting, inept romance, square writing, and slack pacing stop it from being anything more. Fans of war epics might find more to enjoy, especially if they don’t regularly have quibbles over things like “characters” and “plot.” To paraphrase that know-it-all Shakespeare: “Pearl Harbor is a tale told by an idiot. It is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Nate’s Grade: C
Reviewed 20 years later as part of the “Reviews Re-View: 2001” article.
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Moulin Rouge! (2001)
Director Baz Luhrmann’s last project was the MTV-friendly William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (like someone else has a Romeo and Juliet) which was adored by the under 15 set that now buy N*SYNC merchandise. Luhrmann waited a long time for his follow up with Moulin Rogue, a manic musical that seems like candy for the eyes. It may have been a long time but it was well worth the wait.
The sparkling world of Moulin Rogue is around turn of the century France. Christian (Ewan McGregor), an aspiring writer, has traveled to this place against his father’s wishes. Christian believes in the beauty of love and the pull of the heart. Within minutes of setting foot in France he gets wrapped up into a production by a dwarf (John Leguizamo) and his cadre of assistants. Christian is sent to the most provocative club in town, the Moulin Rogue. Here he attempts to persuade the most famous showgirl Satine (Nicole Kidman) to help push for their musical to get financial backing. Satine inadvertently confuses Christian for the man she is supposed to seduce for a large some of money, the Duke (Richard Roxburgh). And thus the merry band of misfits get their play the backing while Christian blossoms a love for Satine. But their love must remain hidden for the Duke is led to believe that Satine is his and his alone.
Kidman owns this movie, plain and simple. From her first shattering entrance being lowered from the ceiling to the last scene, she is absolutely magnificent. McGregor gives a nice performance as the dough-eyed lover. Jim Broadbent plays the Moulin Rogue’s owner, Zidler with howling delight in all his manic expressions. Even Roxburgh gives an underwritten antagonist the right amount of weasely twitch.
One of the more surprising features is how well the two leads can actually sing. Kidman gives a soft and sexy take on “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” and McGregor can belt out a tune with some admirably throaty pipes. As these two veer in and out of songs it’s a pleasure to watch and hear.
Luhrmann has crafted a musical with ADD, but I say this as a compliment. Moulin Rogue‘s pace is fast and pounding. People twirl above the sky, the camera zooms wildly through town streets, and dump trucks worth of confetti fly through the air. Moulin Rouge is exploding with glitz and never lets up. The editing and visual artistry is stirring. By about ten minutes into the proceedings when a green fairy starts singing a seductive version of “The Hills are Alive” you know you are in for something else. And what a something else the film delivers. There was not a moment I didn’t have a smile glued to my stupid face.
Moulin Rogue could be described as a musical for people who dislike traditional musicals. In traditional musicals people go along stuffy formula, then break out into great choreography song-and-dance. With Lurhmann’s musical is a breakneck of pomp where the characters zip around to exaggerated Hanna-Barbara sound effects and start chiming away with 70s and 80s pop songs that we all know. After the initial shock/humor of hearing characters belt out renditions of “Roxanne” and “Like A Virgin,” a familiarity sets in and it blends in to produce a surprising artistic addition.
The story of the movie is nothing new or extraordinary; it’s well worn territory. But where Moulin Rouge breaks apart and shines are with its style and exposure. The visuals are astoundingly lush and lively, the music is game and pumping, and the movie is just screaming to be seen. This was a true work of love.
The movie is bursting to the seams with life. I loved every single second, every single frame, every single moment of Moulin Rouge. I can’t wait to go see it again.
Nate’s Grade: A
Reviewed 20 years later as part of the “Reviews Re-View: 2001” article.
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Shrek (2001)
Shrek is Dreamworks’ kick in the pants to fairy tales and some of the staple creations of the Mouse house. There’s nothing a bug eating green ogre named Shrek likes more than his peaceful privacy. But this is brought to an immediate halt when all sorts of fairy tale creatures invade his swampy domain. To regain his privacy Shrek takes it up with Lord Farquad (say the name fast) who agrees to relocate the fairy tale creatures he outlawed to Shrek’s swamp in the first place if he travels to a castle and rescue a princess. Shrek agrees and along the way gets a buddy for the trip with a talking donkey, named appropriately enough, Donkey.
Shrek is amazing world of computer artistry. The characters move so life like and the detail is so magnified that it is a living and breathing world all its own. Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy are the comic duo of Shrek and Donkey and provide a good portion of laughs on their journey. With Mulan and now Shrek, Murphy seems like a natural when it comes to animation voicing. He gives it his all. Cameron Diaz is also a nice contributor as the voice of Princess Fiona, which kinda’ looks like her too creepily enough. Rounding out the cast is the always over-the-top John Lithgow as the stilted Farquad.
The humor of Shrek is enough to please kids with the fart and burp jokes, but lends its aim for more adult humor as well. There are a few jabs at the Disney Empire that are more than hilarious and the story keeps them coming. Shrek turns out to be a delightful tale of an ogre who’s a green softy at heart.
Nate’s Grade: A
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The Mummy Returns (2001)
Does this mean the following sequels will be called The Mummy Forever and The Mummy and Robin? Our tale takes place ten years after the first. Our archeological heroes in Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz are now married and the proud parents of a blonde English boy (Freddie Boath) – who of course, gets into as much trouble as his parents do. Supposedly there’s this buried army of dog warriors from an Egyptian God. The trick is, you have to defeat their leader The Scorpion King to gain control over their ranks. So our good guys stumble upon setting things in motion accidentally, while our bad guys raise Imhotep (our mummy from the first one) with plans of him toppling The Insect Marvel.
The story of Mummy redux deals a lot with past lives and destinies. It seems miraculously everyone in our story is related to one another be it past or present (and we ain’t talking inbreeding). They fulfill their destinies – or whatever, mainly just fight with pointy things.
Many of the same characters return from the first one, almost like an ongoing serial. There’s the cowardly bumbling brother-in-law (John Hannah), the Arabic prince sworn to protect society form the evils of mummy-ness (Oded Fehr), and hell, even the damn mummy himself (Arnold Vosloo). We even get more of Vosloo’s dead girlfriend from the first picture. She has the honor of sharing a grotesque screen lip-lock with the decaying mummy. Talk about commitment.
Somehow pro wrestler The Rock (Is he in the phone book as “Rock, The”?) got into this film. His role is The Scorpion King, a cursed uber warrior of ancient Egypt. As you would expect from someone so elegantly named after a large, un-moving, mineral – The Rock’s acting is largely un-moving. He has one line in a different language, poorly delivered as well, then has five minutes of screen time battling people two feet smaller than him with the pearliest whites this side of the Nile. He shows up again later as a scorpion/human hybrid but is replaced with (say it with me class) CGI.
The acting is pure cornball, but to some degrees pleasantly so. We can’t have people taking themselves too seriously while being chased by little dead pygmy babies. Fraser seems to be leading the way for the next generation of action stars. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje appears in a small role as one of the big bad’s henchmen. After watching him for years on Oz it was a personal pleasure to see him on screen. Boath is the real surprise. If he were grating (like some lil’ Star Wars kid) I’d root for any undead creature to suck his nine year-old bones dry. He is fun to watch and acts like a kid, not a child actor acting like a kid.
The Mummy Returns will enchant you if you were enchanted by the first one. My stance on the mummy’s predecessor was that it was a tongue-in-cheek dose of cheese and adventure. It was nothing to write home about but it was a fun popcorn flick. However, The Mummy Returns throws the gauntlet down with the “bigger is better” rule of thumb almost tripling everything the first tried. It practically throws everything at you in its onslaught including a CGI kitchen sink. You’ll get computer everything. It’s almost like the producers are having a mummy wholesale – “everything must go!” As in reference to there is so much computer generated images in this film that it could be classified as the first living cartoon.
The action in The Mummy Returns is relentless. The pacing is fast and must be the bane to all those people who must squirm in their chair afraid they will miss something – you will. Most movies move through plot points, like from A to B. With The Mummy Returns, on the other hand, everything just bleeds together in a linear mess. It’s rather exhausting to watch.
The Mummy Returns continues to have its tongue firmly planted in cheek. Except with its onslaught it almost resembles a scene from Species with said tongue going in cheek then outside of brain cavity. If you’re hungry for an all-you-can-eat version of a movie, then The Mummy Returns might whet your appetite.
Nate’s Grade: C+
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Freddy Got Fingered (2001)
The beauty of Tom Green (if you’ll cal it such) works in the realm of television. His bizarre humor and meddling nuisance on the streets worked in a “Can’t believe he’s doing this” way. He thrives in this environment where he can wreck havoc amongst the unknowing. Take him out of this environment into a scripted venture where people are acting against him, and the reality is killed along with why it was funny in the first place. It’s not so much funny that Tom Green can hump dead animals on camera, it’s so much funny that he’ll do it in front of bystanders.
As it stands, Freddy Got Fingered is plot-less. It is basically Green doing one weird and bizarre antic after another with little relation to anything. It’s basically a meandering mess, almost like an abstract artist’s work if that artist were insane. Freddy Got Fingered is Green’s attempt at cinematic gross-out stardom. Sure, he does things that would be considered in poor taste but they are scripted and lose their appeal. Green guts an animal and wears its skin like a poncho, he bites the umbilical cord of a birth, he even eroticises a horse and aids in its… release. But all the charm is gone when it’s Green just doing zany things in a closed environment. What is the fun of seeing people do scripted reactions to Green’s antics? He needs to be in the real world, he needs to piss people off, he NEEDS reality. A movie will do no justice to Tom Green and this one surely does not.
Nate’s Grade: F
Reviewed 20 years later as part of the “Reviews Re-View: 2001” article.
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Blow (2001)
The tale of Blow follows a kid named George Jung (Johnny Depp) as he travels to the sunshiny coasts of California. Here he finds everyone with a David Cassidy haircut and an insatiable appetite for pot. He strikes a small scale dealing business with some help from a flamboyant hair dresser (Paul Rubens) and rocket in riches. They eventually discover the powers of cocaine, a.k.a. blow to the uninitiated, and set it loose upon 1970s America. Jung becomes the top trafficker of cocaine and practically single-handily leads to its explosion. And of course, these good times can’t last as Jung’s life falls apart as the 80s go.
Blow is too stylistically similar to earlier 70s epics of violence and music like Boogie Nights and Goodfellas. The same moves and looks are evident, even the same overall tone, but it is missing all of the feel. Blow moves along and feels like something is missing as it continues to ape the flavor of those earlier excellent films. There’s a distinct feeling while viewing that you aren’t viewing something complete. The sense of loss permeates the screen with Blow.
Depp uses a subtle acting approach making Jung one real mellow dude man. One can never feel a connection for any of the characters because the plot is not interested in the characters and only a masochistic orchestra of bad events that happens to Depp. You feel unattached to the characters as a whole, but you do manage to feel a level of sympathy for Jung. His mother is a card to watch, and it seems history repeats itself when it comes to family squabbles.
Penelope Cruz plays one spoiled hell-cat of a drug lord’s girl, who later becomes Depp’s wife. Cruz’s character is possibly the most horrible love interest I have ever seen on film. She shrieks about money and wealth, acts apathetic to their innocent daughter, and single-handily gets Depp busted a few times without guilt. Upon deeper reflection she seems (if she happened not to actually exist, which she does) like a cheap foil to make the audience sympathy sway dramatically to our “tryin’ to do good” flawed hero in Jung. It almost seems insulting.
Ray Liotta (who was IN Goodfellas by the way) gets the pleasure of aging through the years with makeup, which basically consists of slapping gray and more skin to his neck. It’s rather humorous that Liotta is playing Depp’s father in the flick when in reality they are roughly the same age. Though I guess it’s better for Liotta to age after seeing Depp’s character age drastically and gain twenty pounds all in his neck. Older Depp looks like a zombie Ludwig von Beethoven.
Blow is written and directed by Ted Demme and is based on the memoirs of Jung while in prison. It is fairly entertaining in its own right but you can’t help but feel you’ve seen it all before and better. Still, with this lackluster year as it is Blow is a decent pic to sit down and chew through a box of overpriced popcorn. Any movie with Franka Potente (my titular hero in Run Lola Run) and Paul Ruebens is worth the price of admission.
Nate’s Grade: B-
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Along Came a Spider (2001)
Anybody not tired of the serial killer genre yet? To that one out of the millions who raised their hand in the far back – you’re in luck! Enjoy Kiss the Girls? That same one in the back is even more fortunate. Here comes Along Came a Spider and its banality will knock you off any tuffet. Is that a word even used anymore? Spider is a continuation of the characters in Kiss the Girls (even though Spider was written before Girls). Morgan Freeman returns as Alex Cross, a hard-nosed police detective and best-selling novelist on criminal profiling. He’s suffering from Cliffhanger syndrome: the amassing of guilt from seeing someone close die in the line of duty and blaming themselves for it. See Morgan lost a female partner in a botched sting that opens the film with the worst CGI scene I’ve ever seen. He has a scene of regret then moves on to the case at hand, only to inevitably have the situation come up again and be the test of his nerves. It’s all standard cliche.
The crime that draws all our characters in revolves around the kidnapping of a Senator’s daughter at a lofty private school in Washington D.C. This is no serial killer movie, no, it’s a kidnap movie. Whatever the crime this flick centers on it still follows the superfluous serial killer movie rules to a grizzled T.
Monica Potter plays a Secret Service agent assigned to protect the girl who becomes involved with the case with her extensive knowledge of the kidnapper, Professor Sonje (Michael Wincott). Potter has previously been seen as the sad wife in Con Air, the dead chick in Patch Adams, and the girl who stars next to the guy whose acting is all about flat-lining in Head Over Heels. So in these terms Along Came a Spider is a step up. Her character is pedestrian and un-involved. She has no edge or depth and every time she’s on screen.
Freeman, God love him, needs to start learning how to say “no” to any serial killer (kidnap film) offered to him. He’s a great actor but the Alex Cross solves killers (kidnappers) franchise isn’t one to tie his rope around. Freeman does his best and brightens the film when it sags, but even he can’t save it. And his Executive Producer credit seems all the more ominous.
Naturally, an audience is left to disbelieve some of the absurdities of the genre but Along Came a Spider piles them too high and too fast to disbelieve. The kidnapper disguises himself as a plump British history teacher for a whole two YEARS in preparation for his act. Two years?! What would happen if she ever transferred? The worst part is his name – Sonje. Every time I hear the name it makes me giggle a bit. I cannot take anything seriously when the bad guy is named Sonje (“We’ll do whatever you want Sonje, just don’t harm the girl!”). Sprinkle unintentional laughter throughout. And for kidnappers and criminals these have got to be the dumbest since Colonel Klink. There is a scene where the kidnapper gives the detained child a meal… with a fork and knife! It’s like going to a prison and giving certain members scissors and leaving them alone for two hours.
If you are having a serial whatever movie you must make your serial whatever man intriguing or turn the flick into a guessing game until the end credits. The serial killer (I’m saying this now because he does kill multiple people – so there!) in Along Came a Spider is bland as can be, despite the wonderfully rich and venomous voice of Wincott. How as an audience are we to be enthralled with a whiny adversary that bores us?
There are numerous other head-smacking absurdities. Like when our ace Morgan Freeman looks to a computer belonging to a suspect and instantly remembers an off-hand remark in one conversation that of course is the password. And he even spells it correctly with an inclusion of a symbol!
The movie is based on James Patterson’s novels all seeming to have nursery rhyme style titles. Directed by Lee Tamahori (Mullholland Falls, The Edge), it has moments of briskness that at least keep the pacing alive. On its whole the film still does not work. It feels like reheated serial killer (kidnapper) movie just out of a Tupperware container. Along Came a Spider is nothing new, nothing different, and nothing truly entertaining. Pray for Morgan Freeman please.
Nate’s Grade: C-
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Memento (2001)
A film is taking the nation by storm and it isn’t anything from a big studio. In fact it’s the first release of a new indie production house called New Market, and these people have lassoed a real winner. Memento is a murder mystery bubbling with perfect elements of noir, suspense, and trickery. Memento is the tale of Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) who is searching desperately for John G., the culprit he believes that raped and murdered his wife. Along the way Leonard gets assistance from his friend Teddy (Joe Pantoliano) and Natalie (Carrie Anne-Moss), a down on her luck bartender.
Except Leonard has a peculiar problem plaguing his one-man investigation for justice. After the attack on his wife the assailant knocked him out, and Leonard was left with no short-term memory whatsoever. Leonard cannot develop new memories. So if something happens to him, he is liable to immediately forget it within five minutes. To aid himself he write on small post-its telling him which car is his, what hotel he’s at, etc. all over his body are tattoos of clues he has amassed. He takes Polaroids of people and writes their names on them to remind him of the faces he sees that he won’t remember. Leonard’s investigation is about what his notes tell him. He doesn’t know whom he can trust and whom he cannot.
If this wasn’t enough to make Memento interesting the entire tale is told out of sequence and run from end to beginning. The entire film is told backwards. This action robs the audience of the same information that escapes Leonard. We too know neither who to trust. The effect could fall into gimmick territory but makes the movie fresh and adds for some great comic situations as well, like when Leonard awakens with a bottle of champagne in his hand and tells himself he doesn’t feel drunk.
Pearce is gripping as the emotionally shattered and fractured Leonard. He is a man that can trust nothing and must live from repetition, but is intent on bringing his wife’s killer to bloody justice. Pantoliano and Moss provide good support as the weary characters that weave into Leonard’s plight. The acting it excellent all around. They leave us guessing and reassembling our perceptions as more of the puzzle unravels.
Memento is top-notch film noir. It’s a breathless thriller of a first rate caliber. The direction given by Christopher Nolan from his screenplay is tight and highly effective. The character of Leonard is fleshed out in all his paranoia, pain, and frustration. Nolan has delivered a gift to movie audiences always hungry for fresh material. One has to see the film a second time just to see how well the segments play together.
Memento is the coolest movie around. Rush out and see it, then see it again, and then again. It’s the best movie of 2001 by far as of now and has the Best Original Screenplay Oscar locked [Editor’s note: it lost to Gosford Park of all things.] It’s destined to be a cinematic classic people will talk about for years.
Nate’s Grade: A
Reviewed 20 years later as part of the “Reviews Re-View: 2001” article.
nathanzoebl 
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