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Star Wars: Attack of the Clones (2002)
Yes, it’s easy to say that Attack of the Clones is better than Phantom Menace, but hey, most anything was better than watching that movie about trade and taxes. The truth of the matter is that for a long while Clones is just as boring as Menace, especially anything involving Anakin onscreen. It’s slow moving, dull, and remarkably poorly written. Lucas cannot write dialogue and someone needs to take away his yellow writing notebooks before he strikes again. The movie only shows life during the last 45 minutes when it finally cooks with a non-stop rush of action. Before then though I would recommend resting up for this period.
Can anyone ever say “no” to the Jedi master in plaid? What Lucas needs desperately is collaboration, writing and directing. Lucas needs to loosen up the reign of his empire before the three Star Wars prequels undermine the original set. He may have the technology to create any manner of CGI creature but he has no power to get his actors to show any of the realistic and animated life. It seems all Lucas cares about is directing blue screens and leaving his actors out to dry.
And that much ballyhooed romance between Anakin and Amidala? Oh ye God, what romance? You could find something more alive in a monastery. Portman and Christenson have as absolutely no chemistry (unlike the romantic pairs in another, huge Hollywood movie out now). Portman has perfected the staring ahead method. I don’t know if that’s supposed to be romantic. Now I like Natalie Portman, I really do. Her performance in The Professional gets me every time, but her acting is stiff and overly serious here.
I thought Anakin could not get any more annoying than Jake Lloyd’s awful “yippee”-filled run in Menace, but I’m starting to reconsider this begrudgingly. It’s easy to see why Christenson was chosen, he looks like the lost N’SYNC member. His acting on the other hand is not with the force. The Clones Anakin mopes around and when he gets upset he whines in a falsetto voice. It’s actually quite funny to see the future Darth Vader, evil master of the Dark Side and much feared, whining like a six year old throwing a tantrum. This Anakin needs a time out and a lolly.
When Anakin returns to become a protector for the senator, upon their first meet in ten years he shoots her the puppy eyes and says, “I see you have grown as well — grown more beautiful.” Subtlety, thy name is not Anakin Skywalker. The very next scene where they’re alone he’s trying to put the moves on her, though he does not try and use the force to undo her bra. Then somewhere along the line his dogged persistence just wears Amidala down and she relents. She says, “I’ve been dying a little bit day by day, ever since you re-entered my life.” Ugh. You’re likely to find more romantic passages in a Harlequin bodice ripper at 7-11.
The romance in Clones is like spontaneous romance. There is no beginning, the nurturing of it is not shown, we don’t see the eventual progress. All that happens is he shows up and then instant romance. It just happens. I don’t think so. It’s like a kid went to a girl’s third grade birthday party, then they meet in high school for the first time since that day and are instantly in love. Do you buy that? Well I certainly don’t.
The scenes revolving around Obi-Wan are the only ones worth opening your eyes for. Ewan McGregor has got the Alec Guiness voice down and proves to be a capable leading hero. His voyage to see the clone army and Jango Fett is the subplot that we want, but the movie keeps skipping back and forth between this and the inept romance. By this time everyone knows that Yoda shows off his fighting mettle with a light saber. This is a great idea and the audience I saw it with was having the time of their life during this moment. It’s the only part of the movie that taps into the feeling of whimsical fun of the original trilogy.
Lucas curtailed the criticism of Menace saying it was the setup for all five other movies. I imagine he’ll say the same thing with this one, except that it was setup for four movies. Yes it’ll make a huge amount of bank. Yes it’s a technical achievement but what good are all the bells and whistles if we as an audience are bored? You’ve got one more Star Wars left George, please do it right.
Nate’s Grade: C+
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Spider-Man (2002)
Hollywood take note, Spider-Man is the prototype for a summer popcorn movie. It has all the necessary elements. It has exciting action, great effects used effectively, characters an audience can care for, a well toned story that gives shades of humanity to those onscreen, fine acting and proper and expert direction. I recommend movie execs take several note pads and go see Spider-Man (if they can get in one of the many sold out shows). What summer needs are more movies in the same vein as Spider-Man, and less Tomb Raider’s and Planet of the Apes.
Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) is a dweebish photographer for his school yearbook clinging to the lowest rung of the popularity ladder. He lives with his loving Aunt and Uncle who treat him like a son. Peter has been smitten with girl-next-door Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) ever since he can remember, but he’s been too timid to say anything.
At a field trip to the genetically altered spider place (there’s one in every town) Peter is snapping pictures when he is bitten by one of the eight-legged creatures. He thinks nothing of it and awakes the next day to a startling change. He has no need for his rimmed glasses anymore and has a physique that diet ads would kill for. He also discovers he can cling to surfaces, jump tall building in a single bound and shoot a sticky rope-like substance from his wrists. Hairs on his palms and shooting a sticky substance from his body? Hello puberty allusion! Peter tries to use his new abilities to win the girl and when that doesn’t work out he turns to profiting from them. He enters a wrestling contest in a homemade costume and proceeds to whup Randy Savage. Following the fight Peter’s Uncle Ben is dying after being involved in a car jacking Peter inadvertently let happen. Haunted by grief Peter becomes Spider-Man and swings from building to building as an amazing arachnid crime stopper.
But every hero needs a villain, and that is personified in the Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe), scientist and businessman. Osborn is experimenting with an aerial rocket glider and a dangerous growth serum. When the military threatens to cut his funding and shop elsewhere Osborn haphazardly undergoes the serum himself. What it creates is a duality of personalities; one is Norman, the other is a sinister and pragmatic one. The evil alter ego dons the glider and an exoskeleton suit and calls himself the Green Goblin. The Goblin destroys all that are in his way, and has his yellow eyes set on the pesky Spider-Man.
The casting of mopey-eyed indie actor Tobey Maguire over more commercial names like a DiCaprio or a Prinze Jr. (I shudder to think of a Freddie Prinze Jr. Spider-Man) left some people scratching their heads. Of course the casting of Mr. Mom to portray the Dark Knight likely got the same reaction in the 80s. Maguire plays the nerdish and nervous Peter Parker to a perfected awkwardness with his sensitive passivity. When he explores his new powers with exuberant abandon then begins crime fighting, we as an audience are with him every step of the way pulling for Peter.
Kirsten Dunst was also a surprising casting choice but works out very well. She allows the audience to fall for her along with Peter. Her chemistry with Maguire is great and could be a major reason why rumors have surfaced about the two leads taking the onscreen romance off screen.
Willem Dafoe is one of the creepiest actors in the business (though he made an effective creepy-free Jesus) and delves deliciously headfirst into the cackling menace of Spider-Man’s nemesis. Dafoe, with a face that looks like hardened silly putty and jutting rows of teeth, relishes every maniacal glare and endless evil grin. But instead of being one-note he adds certain amounts of sympathy and understanding as Norman Obsorn. No one could have done this role better than Dafoe.
Director Sam Raimi was most known for his cult splatter house Evil Dead series, but he’s got a new resume topper now. Raimi was chosen over a field of directors because of his passion for the character and story. Raimi brings along integrity but with a joyous gluttony of spectacular action sequences. He expertly handles the action and daring-do all the while smoothly transitioning to the sweet love story. He has created the movie Spidey fans have been dreaming of for 40 years.
Spider-Man swings because of the respect the source material has been given, much like 2000’s X-Men. The story follows the exploits of the comic fairly well but has some stable legs of its own. The multitudes of characters are filled with life and roundness to them, as well as definite elements of humanity. You can feel the sweet romance budding between the two young stars, the tension and affection between Osborn and son, but also the struggle with Norman and his new sinister alter ego.We all know villains are the coolest part anyway. Isn’t that the only reason the last two Batman films were made?
There’s the occasional cheesy dialogue piece but there is that one standard groaner line. In X-Men it was Halle Berry’s query about what happens when lightening hits a toad. In Spider-Man it was the response to the Green Goblin’s offer to join him, to which he asked “Are you in or are you out?” (Obviously channeling George Clooney). The dreaded response: “You’re the one who’s out Goblin. Out of his mind!” Sigh. Maybe a well placed “freaking” before “mind” would have made the line better.
Spider-Man is the best kind of popcorn film: one that leaves me anxiously anticipating the sequel (which will come out two years to the day the first one was released).
Nate’s Grade: A-
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Metropolis (2002)
It has the screenplay penned by Katsuhiro Ôtomo, writer/director of Akira. The director is Tarô Rin, director of numerous anime including X. And it’s based upon a classic manga by the same name. If you understood any of this, especially if you successfully identified anyone, then you are a prime candidate for Metropolis.
Metropolis is a future wonderland of a city, with the coronation of Duke Red’s gigantic Ziggurat building, to which he plans to rule the world. He’s evil. Detective Shunsaku Ban and his nephew Kenichi have been hired from Japan to find an illegal organ trader who they believe has some connection to Duke Red. Sure enough, with his help the duke is building the most powerful robot named Tima who also happens to look pristine like his deceased daughter. His adopted son Rock takes offense, kills the organ trader, and chases Kenichi and Tima through the subterranean bowels of the city. Then there’s some chase scenes. And… um… the disaster montage ending. There’s your story folks.
Time for an anime checklist. Androgynous heroes? Check. Sprite looking females with super duper powers? Check. Bad guys with snozes like Toucan Sam? Check. Robots, robots, robots? Check. A story that bites off more than it can chew? Check. Gratuitous nudity and grotesque gore? Nope. Well this is a PG-13 movie.
Metropolis is without a doubt one of the most beautiful animated films I have ever seen. The dazzling vistas of the city are a wonder to behold. Metropolis is an amazing movie to watch. To say it is candy for the eyes is an understatement; it’s Girl Scout cookies for the eyes. The visuals are astonishing but the story lacks any character development. The script borrows heavily from Blade Runner, Brazil and the original Fritz Lang silent masterpiece Metropolis. There’s also a rather dumbfounding sequence where the montage of destruction, including the annihilation of the Ziggurat, set to Ray Charles’ “I Can’t Stop Loving You.”
For anime fans it all won’t matter. The film is a sight to behold. It’s gorgeous but flaccid in its thinking and plotting.
Nate’s Grade: B-
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The Count of Monte Cristo (2002)
Call it swash without the buckle. While The Count of Monte Cristo does an adequate job of telling the Alexander Dumas story (heavily editing chapters and making the leads friends in this version) the whole experience feels very rote. The sword fighting scenes are nowhere what they were billed as and the direction is surprisingly lackluster. Only the actors allow this film to arise mediocrity particularly with a devious turn from Guy Pierce (Memento). Kevin Reynolds (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) directed this film and proves he doesn’t need Kevin Costner to screw something up. Somewhere Costner is laughing. Actually, somewhere Costner is likely crying in his beer wondering what happened to him. “I was the king of the cinema…”
Nate’s Grade: C+
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Planet of the Apes (2001)
Taking a storied, and for the most part successful, franchise like Planet of the Apes and trying to rework it is frightfully difficult. You don’t want it to turn off the original’s fans but not be different enough to have its own voice. When I heard that Tim Burton was going to helm this reworking I became optimistic about the prospects of a Burton Planet of the Apes and began to eagerly anticipate its release. What I got, despite some stellar visuals, is a disappointing low point for many people involved, and that does include the man that gave us “Good Vibrations.”
Capt. Leo Davidson (Mark Wahlberg) is a trained pilot inhabiting a space station orbiting the rings of Saturn. The members inside are performing tests on the intelligence of apes (foreshadowing poking you in the eye) and seem to be coming back with optimistic results. A cosmic energy storm erupts near the station and Leo’s chimp is sent out into a pod to investigate. When the ape disappears (oh the foreshadowing is starting to hurt) Leo decides to venture out himself to save his monkey despite the instructions of his superiors. He gets pulled into the energy field and crashes on a distant planet where he discovers that apes are on top of the food chain and humans are the sport. Captured by the ape commander Attar (Michael Clark Duncan), he is taken to Ape City. He is sold into slavery but wins the attention of a human rights activist Ari (Helena Bonham Carter) who agrees to help him escape and get to his crashed vessel. General Thade (Tim Roth) still carries a torch for Ari but has an entirely different viewpoint when it comes to humans. At one moment he grabs Wahlberg and pulls apart his mouth to murkily inquire “Is there a soul in there?” When Thade begins to learn about Ari’s assistance to the human escape he mounts a full army to travel to the Forbidden Zone and annihilate the humans once and for all.
Burton’s Apes remake, excuse me… “re-imagining,” lacks the social commentary, originality, and heck, even entertainment level that its predecessor possessed. Burton adds his usual great touches of style and the sets are vast and a wonder to see, but what movie is all set watching? This isn’t the simian Home and Garden channel. Burton dresses his players up nice thanks in part to Rick Baker’s fantastic makeup but the components in Apes redux are all dressed up with nowhere to go.
The script is credited to four writers but I wonder why anyone would want to take any credit for it. The story is not only half-baked it seems to never have come out of the oven. The tale is full of numerous incongruities that make this new Apes feel stagnant, especially during its middle portion. The story never gives us any real characters or an exciting line to follow. It’s more like a story pitch than a full story. There are many moments where dialogue is paraphrased from the original in an attempt at a humorous wink, but it’s worthy of more groans than applause.
Unlike the first Apes series, the humans of Burton’s ape world can speak… they just don’t have anything interesting to say. Estella Warren fills in as the good looking and useless heroine that spends her days frolicking about in ripped rags. She’s supposed to be the love interest for Mark but she fails at that (even though she’s the planet’s only attractive female) with Carter getting more googly eyes cast her way. There’s something weirdly natural seeing Kris Kristofferson as a scrubby post-apocalyptic dweller. It seems like he was made to lurk through caves and grunt. Wahlberg himself seems to sleepwalk through the entire film and speaks in only one monotonous tone.
Roth gets to huff and puff a lot and does quite a good menacing job. Every expression of his has a dominating glare of power and every piece of dialogue spoken in a gruff snarl. He has total capture of a great villain and serves his end well enough as the story provides. Carter gives a light touch as the sympathetic human defender but the long awkward moments where her and Mark gaze at each other gave way to great howls from my audience. Giamatti hams up his role with verve and provides some of the best moments of levity for this overwrought film.[
The original Planet of the Apes ending was one of the greatest twists of cinema. It was entirely logistical and packed a great punch. The ending of Burton’s “re-imagining” packs as much punch as a wet noodle. The ending is TOTALLY IMPOSSIBLE given the set-up of the events in the film. Not only is it a disappointing head-scratcher but ]it also manages to rip off the first film’s ending with no shame. It truly may be the worst ending possibly ever. I bet a room full of monkeys could have written a better ending, and I’m willing to put money on it.
Let me explain why it’s impossible through the use of spoilers. So Mark is in the future. He follows his little monkey friend and crash lands on a separate planet IN THE FUTURE. On this planet, Mark’s space station has been looking for him and crash landed. Their monkey experiments get loose and bing, bang, zoom, we got fully evolved monkeys ruling the place (don’t even bother asking where the horses came from). Now, after learning all this, Mark takes a space pod and zooms his way back to present day Earth. He crash lands against the Lincoln Memorial steps only to discover that Lincoln has been replaced with General Thade and Earth is populated with highly evolved apes that still speak English. What? How? What? This cannot be because the film establishes a frame where Earth already has a long history of non-evolved monkey rule. Wahlberg crash landed on a DIFFERENT planet in THE FUTURE that should, therefore, have no bearing whatsoever on what happens to Earth or its past. The Apes remake rips off the most famous twist ending ever by serving up an incongruous version that makes no sense and cannot happen.
Planet of the Apes had all the right components for an exciting and sleek sci-fi ride but falls far short. Burton adds enough of his Gothic vision but this will likely go down as the weakest film on his resume. The usually reliable Danny Elfman’s score is nothing more than hyped up symphonic white noise. Burton may go home with a large check but I pray they don’t do a “re-imagining” of the next Apes picture. Marky Mark and the Furry Bunch are stuck in a hollow, head-scratching bore. Fans of the original series may find interest in comparing and contrasting, but if that’s cause enough to make a film then give me 100 bucks and I’ll make my own versions in my backyard. And they’ll at least make more sense than this monkey mess.
Nate’s Grade: C
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Jurassic Park III (2001)
Jurassic Park 3 – or – How I Stopped Worrying About Plot and Started Loving Dinosaur Mayhem
As we last left Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) he is still making the rounds to financially support his ailing archeological digs in Montana. A couple (William H. Macy and Téa Leoni) ask the good doctor to be their guide as they have chartered a plane to fly over the island of Isla Sorna (or Nublar, I forget which, they’re both really Hawaii anyway). Grant hesitates at first but when their checkbook comes out he begrudgingly accepts – proving again like the first two, that no matter what the danger, archeologists will do whatever for grants. The truth is that the couple is searching for their lost boy (Trevor Morgon) who was stranded on the island when he partook in an idiotic para-sailing sight seeing adventure by the island. Of course the plane gets destroyed and they must all fend for themselves.
Jurassic Park 3 makes no bones about what it really is – a dino thrill ride. There’s no opportunities to flesh out characters, there’s no time for set-up, it’s just straight to the island and constant running from peril from there. The pacing of the film and structure is like an amusement park; the people are on one ride that thrills, then they quickly move to another within minutes, and repeat for an afternoon of fun. To boil it down it’s dinos chase humans, stir, and bake for 90 minutes.
It seems that in every Jurassic movie we have some kind of new scientific theory being explored and eventually vilified. In the first it was dinosaurs behaved more like birds and perhaps evolved into them, the second had something to do with maternal behavior and parenting. And now in Jurassic Park 3 the new scientific dig is that raptors could communicate verbally to one another – in essence talk. There’s even a sequence late into the flick where they basically “talk” straight for something like a minute. I was hoping Dr. Doolittle would waltz in at any moment and start singing, but, despite my best hopes and wishes, it was not to be.
The effects and animatronics have gotten better than ever, and they were stellar to begin with. There are moments of great thrills and fun, but too often then not, it all feels routine. What should be an awesome sight of dinosaurs roaming is now blasé. What should be fearsome coming face to face with the familiar predators like T. Rex and the raptors now seems, well… too familiar. The only true moment of great awe and freshness is when the group is walking along a rickety walkway only to discover they’re inside a giant aviary complete with hungry pterodactyls.
Acting in a Jurassic Park film usually consists of a healthy scream and some fast legs. Everyone is okay by those standards, but Leoni’s character is just far too annoying. I would’ve enjoyed the flick more if she had been eaten. In another stroke of sure luck, all of the major Hollywood cast members survive yet all the extras or unknowns perish. Call it the Poseidon Adventure syndrome (Thank you Ebert for writing this first so that I might rip you off in the future).
Director Joe Johnston (The Rocketeer, Jumanji) inherited the dino franchise from master guru Spielberg and has done a fairly capable job with his efforts. The action is fast and there are a couple of particularly nice visual set-ups sprinkled through out the film. The marvel that was in Spielberg’s touch is the most missing however. The “script” (and I use this in a very loose sense) is actually co-credited to Alexander Payne, which is a rather interesting morsel. The most interesting one though has to be that the young Morgon has actually starred in another dinosaur picture before in his short career – Barney’s Great Adventure.
For action fans in this bleak summer release period Jurassic Park 3 will serve a fine dish at 90 minutes of fast dinosaur attacks and squeals. Hopefully though the ‘Jurassic Park’ franchise will be stopped before the wonder it used to have turns passé. Because right now it’s teetering on the brink.
Nate’s Grade: C+
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Kiss of the Dragon (2001)
Jet Li is a man with fantastic martial arts skills and splendor. I have no doubt in my mind that if this man were given a proper American vehicle he could knock ’em dead. Romeo Must Die was too tired and the fight scenes were too cramped (not to mention the hilarious spine flashing kick at the end). Li takes off this time as a Chinese intelligent officer who travels to France to unwittingly become the center of corrupt cops’ ire. Li dispatches people in some unintentionally uproarious manners like the use of chopsticks or acupuncture. The story is meaningless and just a door to the action sequences to show off the muscle of Li.
The biggest detriment of Kiss of the Dragon happens to be in the area of why the audience is forking over their green – action. The action scenes in Dragon are horribly choreographed and edited together. Nothing astounds the eye or makes the pulse race; it only annoys and agitates. The audience is coming to see some awesome kung fu delivered by its maestro Li, but what they end up getting is dull fight sequences horrendously spliced together. No sense of time or geography comes from these edits, which means there might be stuff happening but you don’t know what and to whom. If you’re going to showcase Li at least give the man a workable stage for his talents.
The story of Dragon is laughably bad with some perfect forehead slapping moments, like when Li is running from the bad guys and ducks into a martial arts class where everyone then takes him on. Bridget Fonda hits a career low as a woman forced into prostitution so she can retrieve her little girl again. The entire supporting cast is about as animated and well put together at the atrocious fight sequences. Only true die-hard fans of Li or kung fu should go see Kiss of the Dragon. The rest of the public should just hide their chopsticks when Li comes for dinner.
Nate’s Grade: C-
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Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)
Final Fantasy is an exciting venture in the history of animation. It’s the second video game to be turned into a feature film this summer, though exponentially better than Tomb Raider. It took the makers of Final Fantasy four years and the creation of new technology to capture what will be a benchmark in animation for years to come.
The story concerns a future Earth where aliens have crashed and invaded long ago. These “phantoms” are slightly invisible energy creatures of different size and roam around various areas with the ability to suck the life force or soul from a human being. General Hein (James Woods) is trying to convince the Earth council to allow him to fire a satellite called the Zeus Cannon to obliterate the alien menace. In opposition to Hein is Dr. Sid (Donald Sutherland) who believes with his adventurous pupil Aki Ross (Ming-Na) that the Zeus Cannon will obliterate the “spirit” of Earth. Their solution it to collect eight spirits in whatever forms they might be including plants and small animals to gather together and… do something that will send the alien life force repelling.
Now I know Hein is supposed to be the bad guy as he’s a military man complete with the evil looking black leather cloak, but I couldn’t help but find myself agreeing with his logic. He wants to use something that has already been proven to kill the aliens whereas these two new age scientists want to collect a bunch of plants and animals and have their collective spirits ward off the interplanetary menace. I’d stand in my chair and say thank you to Hein when he dismisses the doctor’s plot. I know that Aki and Sid are the heroes and of course whatever theories they have will be proven true, but hell, I found myself agreeing more with General Hein than these two.
Complicating matters Aki is infected with a piece of the alien phantom that is slowly taking control over her body. Along in her quest to discover the final spirits is aided by a military commander Grey (Alec Baldwin) and his company of men. Turns out Grey and Aki are former sweethearts, so of course expect them to reconcile before the end credits.
The plot consists of something that could be an average episode on Star Trek: Voyager but does meander along at times. The dialogue is typical sci-fi buzzwords like “Fire in the hole” “The perimeter’s been breached” and the sort. Final Fantasy does have great excitement to it and some terrific action sequences better than most anything this summer. The ending is a disappointment as all the action hinges on two globs of energy propelled against one another. Globs or energy are not exciting. I thought we would have learned this by now.
Final Fantasy is a landmark in animation. Never has so much detail been put into a movie and pulled off so amazingly well. To the nit-pickers out there the animation isn’t exactly the Holy Grail of photo-realism, but it’s closer than anything ever before. At times the characters come off as too plasticy (like Jude Law in A.I.) and tend to move too much, notwithstanding that their mouths don’t always follow the words coming out of them. Put aside these small grievances and what you have is stunning animation that makes one constantly forget it is animation. There are numerous moments of eerie precision like when a character’s nostril flares and their nose scrunches up in response, and the movement of every one of Aki’s 60,000 strands of gorgeous hair, to even a kiss between two characters. Even inanimate objects like a crumbled wall, a glass of alcohol, or a gun and its rounds are given startling accuracy. Backgrounds and scenic vistas are beautifully rendered with great care. There has been nothing ever like Final Fantasy before and it is the first movements toward an exciting area in animation.
The discussion must be raised can actors be phased out by computers now and will they ever? No, never. Actors can portray nuances that computers will never be able to master. Despite some actors best attempts to prove otherwise, we will always need actors. Now that you have the near photo realism one might be led to question what is the greatness of creating a fully realistic looking CGI tree when one can just be shot on film for millions of dollars cheaper. The all CGI world will not replace the real world of film making.
The mediocre story can be excused by the awe-inspiring animation. Despite the clunker of a plot Final Fantasy is entirely enjoyable because it always gives the viewer something to sit in wonder and take in. There’s always something to mesmerize the eyes on screen.
Nate’s Grade: B
Reviewed 20 years later as part of the “Reviews Re-View: 2001” article.
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Tomb Raider (2001)
Lara Croft is an adventurer with a taste for action along the lines of the Raiders of the Lost Ark kind. It seems that time is drawing close to a planetary alignment that occurs once every 5,000 years as they always do in movies. This alignment supposedly unleashes an ancient object that has the ability to alter time itself. Croft is drawn in by a secret society that wants a mysterious artifact she discovers in her property that can lead to the locations for the time altering device. Now Croft must step out and try and beat the big bad guy (Ian Glenn) to the chase and get to the device before he and his society get their grubby hands all over it.
This is a movie that is light on characters yet at the same time has so many extraneous ones. The bad men are being led by fellow tomb raider Alex Cross (Daniel Craig), who also happens to be a former flame of Croft’s. Lara is saddled with a geeky computer whiz who just happens to be British, because he keeps spouting phrases like “blimey” and “bugger” all the freakin’ time. Croft also employs a butler, because, someone has to take care of that huge house. If this wasn’t enough the big bad employs an assortment of typical evil henchmen that are distinguishable by tattoos alone. Add on top of this heap the flashbacks Croft has of her long missing father Lord Croft (played by Jolie’s real father, Jon Voight). All of these dueling personalities clog the action and the pacing.
Front and center, Angelina Jolie is the living embodiment of Lara Croft. She fills out the attitude and the look to a perfected T. Jolie gives Croft the muscle but the screenwriters fail her in giving her the flesh and blood. Tomb Raider falls into the “rule of five”: if there are five or more people credited with the script (including in this instance the director himself) then there was no script at all.
The action of Tomb Raider is loud and explosive but rather lifeless and dull. West has managed to create bombastically mundane action sequences. Never once did anything from the screen arouse my interest, except for the female lead of course. The story has its characters travel to exotic locales and impressive sets of ancient caves and temples, but it’s all window dressing. The pretty scenery and locations only mask how ineffective and boring the action is. And for an action picture, when the audience begins to notice how pretty the scenery is compared with the action – you’re not doing your job.
Simon West is not exactly a director to be trusted with any sort of project. West brought audiences Con Air and The General’s Daughter, a film that tried to decry rape but then took sadistic pleasure in recreating it again and again. So what better man to helm the project of the buxom video game heroine than a man who has brought us cartoonish violence and horrific rape? The camera framing of Tomb Raider takes a few notes from the Jennifer Love Hewitt experiment that was I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. Jolie’s breasts are always in frame, and at certain times it seems like the camera is lowering just to get them in there for the sake of exposure.
Despite the attempt this video game turned into a movie feels exactly like a video game turned into a movie. It’s complete with some laughably atrocious dialogue (“You know what today is?” “The 15th.” “And that is never a good day.”), and despite the running time of an hour and a half, it feels like an eternity longer. Tomb Raider never gets off the ground even with the added push of some pretty good special effects. Jolie may have an action vehicle at her helm and that’s fine with me. Keep her. Just make sure to get rid of everyone else.
Nate’s Grade: D
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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
nathanzoebl 
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