The Hollywood Reporter - Film Reviews

Neither Mike Myers nor a group of hesitant actors -- who seem more like an endless number of sidekicks than supporting players -- show much confidence in the material. They seem to deliver lines or perform bits so they may quickly duck the rotten tomatoes surely headed their way.

The veil officially comes off the highly anticipated "Sex and the City" movie at the end of the month, and while the HBO series' ardent fans are certain to come out in droves, the end product is a case of bigger not necessarily being better.

In "The Happening," M. Night Shyamalan's manages to recapture some of the elements of his earlier movies, particularly the creepiness and supernatural thrills.

The film represents a sea change from Ang Lee's "Hulk" in 2003, which had the temerity to delve into Oedipal conflicts, repressed memory and scientific hubris. This movie emphasizes action over introspection.

Every now and then a horror film comes along that bucks the going copycat trends and manages to scare up some unique shivers. Say hello to "The Strangers," a spare, creepily atmospheric psychological thriller with a death grip on the psychological aspect.

A mean-spirited streak typical of today's studio-manufactured rom-coms escalates in Fox's "What Happens in Vegas," a film that views marriage as a combat sport.

You know from a song list that includes Smash Mouth, Lenny Kravitz and Kanye West that director Paul Weiland's film has something a bit edgier in mind than the usual, soft-focused wedding bell high jinks. For the most part, that's exactly what it delivers

In this aggressively rudimentary emotional drama designed -- literally -- around impossible racing car action, actors are painted into a cartoon world through CGI and vividly colored backgrounds as images move across the screen like shifting panels in a comic strip.

Although it certainly sets the stage for some fertile comedy, "Baby Mama" -- which pairs successful Philadelphia exec Tina Fey with her decidedly white-trash surrogate, Amy Poehler -- never fully delivers.

Writer-director Carlos Brooks delves into a netherworld of fetishisms and handicap worship in his daring first feature, "Quid Pro Quo." The trouble is the movie isn't daring enough.

Long on ethnographic detail and visual splendor but short on narrative coherence, Sergei Bodrov's "Mongol" relates the story of Genghis Khan's early years in a plodding, uninspired fashion that doesn't bode well for the next two entries in a planned trilogy.

Although it certainly sets the stage for some fertile comedy, "Baby Mama" -- which pairs successful Philadelphia exec Tina Fey with her decidedly white-trash surrogate, Amy Poehler -- never fully delivers.

A would-be heartwarming drama that also subtly extends a pro-life message, "Bella" is a modest indie. While Alejandro Gomez Monteverde's film has its heart in the right place, its effectiveness is ultimately hampered by its awkward and maudlin execution.

This crowded tropical isle is jammed with childhood fantasies, exotic creatures, outlandish plots and improbable characters both real and imagined. The idyllic island makes Disneyland's Jungle Cruise look like neo-realism and contains more well-meaning messages than an After School Special, yet this family comedy adventure from Walden Media is likable in a scruffy way.

A documentary with both brains and brawn, "Bigger, Stronger, Faster*" provides a lively and incisive look into the nation's growing preoccupation with pumped-up superlatives.

Tom McCarthy's new film touches on both personal and political issues, but is never about those issues. It's a story about its people, a college professor lost in his own life and two, then three, illegal immigrants working hard in the United States.

 

'I'll Come Running' is an affecting drama of people from different nationalities trying to bridge the gulf that divides them. 

“Largo” should find a warm welcome among fans of the kind of glitz-free, work-in-progress artistry it showcases. But there's something necessarily frustrating about the anthology format, with one song or routine for each performer.

East meets West with quietly droll results in "We Went To Wonderland," the second feature-length film by London-based Chinese filmmaker/novelist Xiaolu Guo. While her 2006 debut, "How Is Your Fish Today?," spellblindingly combined documentary and fiction, this time she takes a more straightforwardly documentary approach to record her elderly parents' first visit to Europe.

The list of prominent cinematographers-turned-directors is a short one -- Barry Sonnenfeld, Jack Cardiff, Nicolas Roeg, Freddie Francis and Jan De Bont spring to mind. On the evidence of the clunky Polish political thriller "Warsaw Dark," Christopher Doyle isn't likely to lengthen it anytime soon.

 

The debut American feature by successful Russian director Timur Bekmambetov, this over-the-top, ultraviolent, hyperkinetic action thriller pretty much has it all.

Refreshingly sincere and full of wholesome can-do spirit, the first big-screen incarnation of the American Girl doll-and-book series -- the anti-Bratz of collectibles -- offers solid, kid-friendly storytelling. Although it puts a warm gloss on the Great Depression, "Kit Kittredge: An American Girl" does so with heart and spunk and a minimum of fuss, particularly in Abigail Breslin's bright title-role performance.

As an example of issue-driven community film-making, "Trouble Sleeping," an ensemble drama "based on the experiences of members of Edinburgh's refugee community," is a respectable effort that almost transcends tight budgetary limitations.

Set against the backdrop of mixed martial arts, which combines jiu-jitsu, wrestling, boxing and kickboxing, this has all the ingredients in place to emerge as one of his more commercial efforts while still remaining true to those distinct David Mamet sensibilities.

This absurdist comedy clearly has aspirations to be this generation's "Dr. Strangelove," with its satirical attack on the privatization of the Iraq War. But despite its sterling cast and a screenplay written by experienced farceurs, the film is far more groan- than laugh-inducing.

Although "Blair Witch" filmmaker Daniel Myrick's film has an undeniably strong, suspenseful tone -- not to mention symbolic resonance -- it doesn't rise above its overly familiar setup.

This familiar melange trots out adolescent sex jokes along with dysfunctional family jokes, and some of them are even funny, though the tone established by first-time writer-director Brian Hecker is much too broad.

Not only does the Mike Myers film stumble badly from one skit to another, the skits themselves have too much dead air.

Croatian director Vinko Bresan's "Will Not End There" ("Nije Kraj") is a colorful, at times moving yet ultimately unsatisfying love story set against ongoing Serb-Croat tensions. Despite incorporating what have become staple elements of many Balkan movies -- brash and violent men, vulgar and scantily clad women and festive gypsies -- the title will probably have a harder time traveling out of the former Yugoslavia, or off the festival circuit, than the director's previous films ("Marshal," "How the War Started on My Island").

Writer/director Mia Hansen-Love's first feature, "All is Forgiven," a keenly observed study in intimacy that has the rhythm and feel of real life, announces the arrival of an intriguing sensibility. Technically accomplished and finely acted without artifice by a talented ensemble cast, it's an astutely written, mature work in its content, understated, naturalistic style and sensitive rendering of complex emotion.

A poet, a warrior and their two lovers form a complicated quartet in John Maybury's "The Edge of Love," a story of wartime romance in which fidelity and trust are put to the strictest test. It opened the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

Costing not just a few dollars more than Serge Leone's spaghetti westerns, Korean genre-twisting auteur Kim Jee-woon's $17 million homage to Leone's tour de force is a make-or-break venture.