Category Archives: 2000 Movies
Titan A.E. (2000)
In the year 3000-something an alien race of blue figurines known simply as the Drej pretty much obliterate Earth. There’s your starting point for a movie – a few billion deaths. The last survivors drift through the ends of the universe at the bottom of the interstellar ladder. One survivor (voiced by Matt Damon) is later visited upon by a rag-tag ship led by Korso (Bill Pullman) and the shapely purple-locked Akima (Drew Barrymore), survivors of Earth as well. They rescue Damon and inform him that in his hand he holds the key to reaching a ship his father hid long ago that could create a new home world for all the drifter humans. And the Drej don’t like this idea and will stop at nothing chasing him until they find the location of this ship, the Titan, for themselves.
Sure, the effects and painted backgrounds are nice but the animation is choppy at times and the constant rotating of sets incorporated with traditional 2-D animation rates high on the annoyance scale and only shows how the 2-D stands out even more. To learn how to mix and match these styles effectively watch The Prince of Egypt. There are some sequences that are truly visionary, most notably a cat-and-mouse chase through a cluster of gigantic reflective ice crystals. But a movie is not made or saved by one scene.
The most disappointing aspect of Titan A.E. is the flat and tired script from three incredibly talented writers I admire very much (the creator of The Tick, Joss Whedon – creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and John August – writer of Go). The story owes many debts to ‘Star Wars’ but even more to ‘The Wizard of Oz’. The Drej are merely faceless pop-up bad guys with zero personality or development. They wish to destroy humanity but no explanation as to “why” is ever given. They’re clouded in lifeless ambiguities. As a result you can never really care for the heroes when you could care less about the villains.
Why is Titan A.E. rated PG? Well despite its lack of fear to show some blood, and gun shots for that matter, it features the animated posterior of Damon with some light sexual banter that will thankfully fly over most kids’ heads. A quibble of mine is for equal opportunity for animated nudity. If I can see a cartoon male ass in a PG-flick, or on prime time television even, why must female nudity be slapped with an R? Let’s erase this gender double standard and let all sexes be equal under one animated nudity.
Titan A.E. may have the look but it never can maintain the feel of good sci-fi. Often times it’s either heavy-handed or overly dull. Everything is “been there, done that” but set to a non-stop playing of a soundtrack that just keeps screaming “BUY ME! BUY ME! BUY ME!” For those hoping for Disney to take its stranglehold off animation and entertainment, this picture isn’t your fabled messiah. You’ll have to wait… again.
Nate’s Grade: C
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Michael Jordan to the MAX (2000)
IMAX’s next trip is an NBA’s dream of promotion but also an indication of what exactly they’re missing — that is a basketball God. Jordan to the MAX is basically a pat documentary featuring Jordan’s upbringing and his dreams. It’s all the typical uplifting never-stop-trying stuff that’s routinely handed out to the kids. What makes this documentary worthwhile though is the format it’s presented in. Seeing Jordan do his numerous acrobatics in slow-mo on IMAX’s 50-foot screen makes him seem even more immortal then he already is considered to be. You can see the grace and overwhelming talent he possesses in every flexing of muscle and bead of sweat. It’s quite impressive and worth the remaining dull moments.
Nate’s Grade: B-
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Mission: Impossible II (2000)
John Woo’s loud and flashy sequel to DePalma’s overwrought Mission: Impossible comes with both guns blazing — and doves flying. Since EVERYONE from the show, minus Tom Cruise, was killed in the first movie, the series starts off with a fresh cast complete with weak villain. Dougray Scott plays the rouge MI agent who steals a virus and its subsequent antidote to only release the super virus onto the world and make a super steady pharmaceutical profit from the the antidote. One wonders what the MI agency does except create rogue operatives for movie plotlines. Oval-faced, glass-eyed beauty Thandie Newton, who was last seen croaking and spitting river water in Beloved, plays Cruise’s new love interest. Her role isn’t really fleshed out but she provides the sparkle and charm, not to mention plenty of spice, that is necessary. The real problem MI:2 has is the action. Now Woo is a marvelous choreographer of action, his visions are poetry — but they all seem so cliche now that most of the action came across as hollow and just empty noise. There are moments of excitement but they are few and far between a hackneyed lumbering plot. Still, in a summer wishing for fireworks you can’t fault MI:2 for delivering.
Nate’s Grade: B-
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Battlefield Earth (2000)
I don’t have enough time nor the patience to actually write down a full review for this “movie” so instead I’m going to just list things that make this movie the toilet paper it is.
1) It’s based on a 1000+ page novel that even sci-fi purists regard as corny. Writer/Religious founder L. Ron Hubbarb certainly hasn’t found any grail in writing. The film of his novel only covers half of the book with the other half Travolta had planned for a sequel. Let me tell ya, you’d have to be a really REALLY devout Scientologist to believe that a sequel’s on its way here. There’s more of a chance that Howard’s End will be granted a sequel then Battlefield Earth.
2) Travolta has never been more nasal-voiced annoying before in his life. He’s the snarling Security head of the vastly “advanced” alien species that has enslaved Earth yet he knows nothing about his prisoners. Doesn’t sound like the person (or alien) you want in charge of… security now does it?
3) Why are the aliens 9-feet tall? Why do they have nose tubes? Why do they have long tongues — except for a really awful overt oral sex joke? Why do they do and look like anything if nothing happens? All they are is tall and that’s it. So form a basketball team out of them and tell them to watch their heads. Nothing makes sense, it’s all just added for the sake of being added – with the consistency of chicken broth.
4) Travolta hatches a plan to steal gold from the planet. My God, did we just fall into a Western? Because of course gold is worth the same amount and value on a distant alien home world as it is here. Makes total sense. This part I actually hit myself in the head over.
5) The human survivors dupe Travolta with gold bars they find at Ft. Knox — just stumbling onto it 1000 years later. Man who needs any sense of direction in a post apocalyptic war-world?
6) The humans counter the aliens in the end by flying 1000 year old ARMY aircraft. These fighter planes are spic and span and fully mobile after 1000 years of rust and mildew Cascade couldn’t touch?
7) Everything is shot tilted, I mean EVERY single shot in the damn movie — EVERYONE! You’ll come out with a stiff neck to compensate. It’s like the camera man fell asleep and nobody had the heart to wake him up during the whole picture. I know I’d want to get away.
8) The aliens figure man to be incompetent and no threat despite the fact that he was highly civilized beforehand with plenty of weapons accessible. Go fig.
9) Every action sequence in this movie is either a blithe series of close-ups or slow mo shots. And don’t forget the slanted pictures.
10) Travolta is so annoying, even his action figure I saw on a clearance sale is just as annoying, he gets mentioned twice. How the hell did he think this movie would sell I’ll never know?
11) There’s only one hot girl in the entire scavenged world and she has to end up being Barry Pepper’s love interest, probably because he is given his “knowledge” back which means he also is now only interested in hot girls. And what is her fate? Only to be eventually held hostage later… of course!
12) Travolta’s character is the greatest moron in the universe! No person would even have them in charge of anything except a cafeteria lunch line.
13) The effects are really cheesy.
14) The dialogue is BEYOND the realm of cheese.
15) Battlefield Earth tried to brainwash me into a 9-foot tall Scientologist with a thirst for gold and a requisite for calling those around me “rat brain” to mask my own insecurities and nasal voice.
I think The Washington Post said it best when they said “A million monkeys with a million crayons in a million years could write something better then Battlefield Earth,” and I’d have to agree.
Nate’s Grade: F
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Gladiator (2000)
Director Ridley Scott has given the world of cinema some of its most unforgettable visual experiences. But can Scott breath new life into a genre whose heyday was when a badly dubbed Steve Reeves oiled his chest and wrestled loincloth-clad extras in the 1950s?
The year is roughly 180 AD and Rome is just finishing up its long-standing assault on anything that moves in the European continent. General Maximus (Russell Crowe) merely wants to retire back to his loving family and get away from the doom and war that has plagued his life. This is made all the more difficult when the ailing Emperor bypasses his treacherous son Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) and decides to crown Maximus as the Defender of Rome. Because of this Commodus rises to power through bloody circumstances and has Maximus assigned to execution and his family crucified. You’d think crucifixion would be so passé by now. Maximus escapes only to be sold into slavery and bought by a dirt-run gladiator training school. As he advances up the chain and learns the tricks of the primal sport he seeks but vengeance for his fallen family.
Gladiator is an absorbing and sweeping spectacle of carnage and first-rate entertainment. The action is swift and ruthlessly visceral. The first movie in a long time to literally have me poised on the edge of my seat. The blood spills in the gallons and life and limb go flying enough your theater owner may consider setting down a tarp.
What Gladiator doesn’t sacrifice to the muscle of effects and action is storytelling. Are you listening George Lucas? Gladiator may unleash the beast when the rousing action is loose, but this is coupled with compelling drama and complex characters. Phoenix may at first seem like a snotty brat with an unhealthy eye for his sister (Connie Nielsen), but the further Gladiator continues the more you see in his eyes the troubled youth who just wants the love of his father that was never bestowed to him. Maximus is a devoted family man who regularly kisses clay statues of his family while away, and must ceremoniously dust himself with the earth before any battle.
The acting matches every sword blow and chariot race toe-for-toe. Russell Crowe marks a first-rate staple of heroism. Every calculating glare he exhibits shows the compassion and ferocity of this warrior. He becomes a rare breed – an action hero who can think and actually act. Oliver Reed, in what sadly was his last role, turns in a splendid and charismatic turn as the head of the gladiator school of Fine Arts and Carnage. Mysteriously everyone carries a British accent closer to them then a toga two sizes too small. Even Crowe who is nicknamed “The Spaniard” speaks like he walked out of Masterpiece Theater.
The effects and visuals are a sumptuous feast. The aerial shots of Rome and the Coliseum are simply breath taking. Gladiator rivals American Beauty for the most rose petals used in a movie, except in this one they don’t shoot out of Mena Suvari’s breasts.
Ridley Scott’s track record may be hit or miss but Gladiator is definitely one sorely not to be missed.
Nate’s Grade: A-
Reviewed 20 years later as part of the “Reviews Re-View: 2000” article.
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Final Destination (2000)
“A group of teens prepares for a field trip overseas to Paris when one gets a panic attack screaming of their impending doom. He’s taken off along with a group of reluctant others. And then the plane explodes and they are the sole survivors. Except they haven’t cheated death, only delayed it. Death’s got prerogatives and is tracking them down one by one to recapture the souls it let slip out.” Ladies and gentlemen, there you have the BEST premise for all of the year 2000.
Final Destination may seem like another teen horror pic but it’s a clever slash above its insipid competition. No fisherman is chasing them, no pop-culture references fall from their lips — they’re being stalked by death itself. How do you escape death? Death just doesn’t come in the form of a knife but sets up its dirty deeds in everyday household objects in elaborate schemes that would seem like coincidences. The way death dispatches its teenagers is truly ingenious – he must love his work.
After seeing Final Destination it made me paranoid of everything around me somehow managing an attempt to kill me. The movie stays with you after you see it and sticks in your system quite well. It’s got some truly clever and jump moments, plus adding some scary moments of its own. Final Destination is a great movie that deserves to be selected from the mush of teen horror placating our theaters.
Nate’s Grade: B+
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Here on Earth (2000)
The story is nothing groundbreaking: new guy arrives in town, sweeps girl off her feet because he’s “different” than the rest, earns ire from mean boyfriend, and eventually gets the girl. It’s been the plot from everything from Lady and the Tramp to Edward Scissorhands. But even though the theme is based in predictability, the creators of ‘Here on Earth’ seem to have lazily put forth an execution.
The movie and its screenwriter have their logic completely reversed. The girl’s boyfriend is supposed to be the wife-beating snotty jerk, and the new kid is supposed to be the nice sensitive “different” guy. But in Earth, Klein is the snotty Richy Rich whose colors never change, and Josh Hartnett is the dependable and established nice guy boyfriend. The structure of this tragic tale is no way to build drama, only contempt for the female lead.
Whatever high-minded message Earth is hopelessly aiming for is destroyed by dialogue so cheesy that it could be considered a side dish at a local Taco Bell. By the time Klein starts naming Leelee’s breasts after different states in the Union the movie loses what little credibility it had or thought it did (“Massachusetts welcomes you”). It’s a wonder most of these young actors can even say what they do with a straight face.
Spoilers follow as I make fun of this movie. Just when you’re wondering why the hell Leelee is doing the things she does and it looks as if we may reach a conclusion or insight – BAM! – she has cancer and dies. This ranks up with “it was all just a dream” as one of the cheapest ways to sneak out of an uncomfortable or unexplained position. It turns out our Joan of Arc bumped her knee and somehow that has exploded into unstoppable cancer. The doctor tells the distraught family members that they always suspected this could happen. Like hell! Every time I stub my damn toe it never crosses my mind I’ve contracted cancer.
Here on Earth is supposed to be the tearjerker for the teen audience out there; the Love Story for the under twenty. But the only thing wringing from this formulaic clunker of a sob story is a healthy outpouring of sap, moral high ground, and a warning to always wear knee pads.
Nate’s Grade: C-
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U-571 (2000)
Think of every major movie where the action centered on a submarine — now add every cliche and a dash of boredom and U-571 is your dish.
The movie centers around the launch to retrieve the German coding during the later stages of WWII and the brave men and women who risked their lives and honor out of duty for their fellow man. This sounds like a great premise for a movie but why must it be fictionalized and steamed for mobile suspense when I’m sure there are many heart-pounding stories of courage that are true. You’d also think with every major cliche of the action world that U-571 would at least be able to stand to its feet for excitement but it’s quite easy to doze off on this underwater snoozer. The characters are all one-in-the-same that I had to identify them by haircut and height in order to know who was who at all times. And when some of them died it took me awhile to process which one it was.
U-571 is full of every old and new Hollywood convention itself that adds nothing to the story or enjoyment as a whole. The up and coming leader is advised he doesn’t “have the stuff to let a man go in order to save others” so let’s try and guess what position he will ultimately be put into. Why is the only black man in the movie a jive-talking chef and why does he jump at the controls and knows what to do INSTANTLY trouble’s afoot. I guess a nuclear submarine and engineering physics is so closely related to spices and stews. Of course everyone’s favorite bad guys (say it with me now together “Germans are always evil”) are in the middle and slaughter a whole group of sea-faring survivors just for the hell of it. Why do they do this? Because they’re Germans, and they have to be more evil so they kill innocent people.
U-571 isn’t a terrible movie, it does hold some credible acting and set designs to bring the look and feel of the 1940s to breathing life. The effects are well done but are sporadically used. Most of the tale takes place about trying to get past one Destroyer – just one. Two hours of this? U-571 may be a prelude to the summer, and if it is it’s going to be a long long movie season.
Nate’s Grade: C
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American Psycho (2000)
American Psycho is based on the controversial 1991 best seller by Bret Ellis though it got old fast. One can easily grasp how the lead connects with brand names on page one, but repeat it for 300 more and you’re tempted to add the book to your collection of firewood. Ellis’ novel was sadistically perverse, but director Mary Haron (I Shot Andy Warhol) has somehow managed to pull out an entertaining social satire from the pages of blood and name brands.
Christian Bale, mainly known as the boy-next-door in period piece films, plays Patrick Bateman with ferocious malevolence and vigorous life. Teen scream Leo was once considered for the part but after seeing Bale’s startling performance it should prove why he’s on screen and Leo’s swimming in The Beach. Bateman is an up-and-up Wall Street yuppie who glosses over appearance more than anything else. The only outlet it appears for our sinister shark from the soulless decade is by random acts of gruesome violence.
If Bateman blows off steam by blowing off companion’s heads than it only becomes more frustrating when no one believes his random confessions. Haron takes the grisly material of Ellis’ novel and mines it for pure 80s pulp. It only gets better the further it gets as you have so many points to discuss: Is Bateman acting out to prove his existence in a world that doesn’t humor him or others? Is he acting out deep-seeded rage from the actions of the decade on its people? Is he desensitized and so jaded that death does not even fracture him anymore? The questions are boundless.
The hit list of stars in Psycho includes Chloe Sevigny as a nailed home addition, Willem Dafoe as an investigative detective, Jared Leto as an axed co-worker, and sweet Reese Witherspoon as the apple of Bateman’s twisted eye. Everyone has fun in their tongue-in-cheek nostalgia romp through the absurd.
American Psycho should not be confused with the successful teen sex farce American Pie. The only desserts in this film are just, and they’re usually left of the mayonnaise and behind the frozen head in the refrigerator. American Psycho is the thinking man’s slasher movie. A flick that slices, dices, and always entices. It only gets better after you’ve seen it. One of the best films of 2000 for now.
Nate’s Grade: A
Reviewed 20 years later as part of the “Reviews Re-View: 2000” article.
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The Skulls (2000)
In the prestigious college of Yale there exists an actual club known as the Skulls and Crossbones which is now the basis for a teenybopper thriller. Don’t say Yale never paid its debt toward society.
The Skulls are the campus country club, the boy’s only tree house, the velvet rope of the Ivy League. When most go on father/son picnics the Skulls posture about and brood in Gothic castles with large words melded to larger walls. So sunshine and proper education be damned. They posses a long list of alumni, including Craig T. Nelson and a senator who appears driving around on campus so much you’d think he’s scouting girls.
Enter WB heartthrob Joshua Jackson who wishes to join the elite boy scout troupe. Who wouldn’t with the cars they hand out at you? Sadly the only black guy in the film, and probably the Ivy League for that matter (not a comment on racial intelligence) -who of course happens to be Jackson’s friend- gets killed. Jackson starts having second thoughts on joining the overzealous organization. The rest of the flick is Jackson’s quest to bring down the Skulls which somehow coincides with a lot of silly car chases. You think the Skulls could afford a car that could outrun a Dawson’s Creek kid.
The Skulls have bigger problems at hand than Joshua Jackson. Anyone with basic knowledge of turning a doorknob could break into this security behemoth. And what kind of working secret society is it when everyone on campus knows all about your organization? Doesn’t this defy the meaning of “secret”? Usually a secret is better kept without large Skull banners, let alone Skull insignia branded onto members’ flesh. You won’t be fooling any people about being a member of the Skulls with a huge skull branding singed on your damn arm in plain sight! There is so much Skull merchandise I figured there would be a Skulls home pregnancy test and some items endorsed by ad-man Michael Jordan. The reach the members of the Skulls posses defies logical thinking. Turns out these groups of angsty kids are more powerful than the CIA, FBI, KGB, and KFC combined. Must be their self-imposed lock on Clearasil and the WB’s Wednesday lineup.
The Skulls is teeny camp portrayed at its venerable worst. It starts to enter the so-bad-it’s-good range but then you remember easily again that it is bad. Why do I have the feeling the actors involved in this will be signing their Skulls checks under false names? Too bad you can’t be anonymous with a damn Skull branding on your wrist.
Nate’s Grade: D
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