Click on Hunter S. H-Man, if you dare!

It goes down pretty easy… if you go for this sort of thing.

***Click here for more switch pix***

The H-Bomb: Wally (Jason Bateman) is a neurotic pessimist who always thinks he has some kind of disorder, wears ugly sweaters, and has a tendency to talk too much (not to mention his last name is Mars, for Christ‘s sake). In other words, the guy’s kind of a mess. The fact that he is such a mess has squandered every potential relationship he has ever had. One such old flame, Kassie (Jennifer Aniston), who has now been his best friend for several years, has just dropped a bombshell on him: she wants to have a baby via artificial insemination.

Wally has misgivings about this because, for one thing, he still has feelings for her, and because she’s not asking him to be the donor. Why? Well, basically because he is such a goddamn basket case. So instead, she puts out an ad on Craig’s list (!) and casts hunky college professor Roland (Patrick Wilson) in the role of “The Viking” (that term will make sense when/if you see this movie).

On the advice of her best friend Debbie (Juliette Lewis, playing the ditsy kind of BFF part that‘s required of this kind of movie), Kassie decides to throw a party for the insemination, where Roland will donate his… stuff… right there… on site… just typing that last part made me realize how wrong it really seems.

Anyway, something, I won’t say what for the sake of spoiling how it happens (which is hilarious), goes very, very wrong at the party, and unbeknownst to anyone, the daddy goop gets… switched (hence the title).

After this party, Kassie becomes happily pregnant, and decides to leave New York believing that it’s not a suitable place to raise her offspring. Wally, who got absolutely blasted at this bizarre insemination gathering, has little to no memory of what happened that night, and goes on living his life.

Seven years later, Kassie returns to the Big Apple with her young son, Sebastian (Thomas Robinson), in tow. When we, along with Wally, finally meet Sebastian, we notice a few peculiarities about him… he’s freakishly intelligent for his age, and pessimistic, and neurotic, and blunt, and he has weird hobbies like collecting picture frames, and… he sort of reminds us of… Wally… just a little too much. He even kind of… sort of… looks like Wally. Gee, what could this mean? (Amazingly enough, the characters, for the longest time, seem completely oblivious to all of this.)

In fact, despite a rocky start, when Wally spends time with Sebastian; taking him to the Zoo, picking lice out of his hair, giving him very bad advice on how to handle bullies at school, etc., etc., they actually get along like… father and son.

Wally finally catches on to this, and just as he starts to piece it all together, things are complicated even more when Kassie contacts Roland, the donor, and the two strike up a relationship, and it still takes the characters the full second half of the movie to figure what the audience already knew since the end of the insemination party scene.

The basic beef I have with this movie is that it is predictable as hell and basically follows the typical rom-com formula from beginning, to middle, to end. When the two lead characters are introduced, you basically know who’s going to end up with who and who the baby’s daddy is going to be. It’s essentially that kind of cookie cutter, dime-a-dozen romantic comedy that Hollywood cranks out on a regular basis. It’s one of those where the audience is way ahead of the characters every step of the way, and the big reason for watching is to see how these people on the screen will react when they find out what the audience already knows.

That said, this one is helped out considerably by a marginally above average script that keeps the chuckle inducing one liners rolling at a steady pace, a couple of gross out moments to keep the guys in the audience entertained, and a likable cast that has both good energy and chemistry. These elements admittedly, much to my chagrin, make the film very watchable and somewhat enjoyable for the most part.

The main ingredient for why this thing works as well as it does has got to be the cast. Bateman, who I’ve been noticing more and more over the years, I completely loved as Wally. The guy just has this kind of “everyman” charisma that, even when he’s playing a kind of sour puss, just makes him endearing and amusing. Aniston, an actress whose films are apparently a genre unto themselves, I genuinely liked as Kassie, though I suspect many will say that it’s the same role she’s been playing for years now.

Wilson does well as the affable Roland, but being familiar with his other work (“Watchmen“, “Little Children“, “Hard Candy“), I really do think that he’s too good an actor to be playing third banana in assembly line comedies like this. Jeff Goldblum has a funny turn as Wally’s best friend/colleague who pops up throughout the movie to give our hero the sage-like advice he needs to eventually get the girl. He’s yet another stock character in a movie full of stock characters, but Goldblum adds an extra layer and makes him something more.

But the true stand out in this movie for me was the young Robinson as Sebastian. When it comes to child roles like these, casting is crucial. Sebastian is the pivotal character of the movie, and putting the wrong kid in the role would totally kill it. Fortunately, with Robinson, they hit the nail right on the head. He’s quirky, hilarious, and, most importantly, endearing. He steals this movie and I think he’s got a bright future ahead of him.

Overall, “The Switch” definitely isn’t a game changer in the genre of rom-coms (or in the genre of Jennifer Aniston movies), but it is a perfectly decent date movie, which while it isn’t really my thing, for you couples out there, it’s definitely worth checking out.

A film about men who hate women, among other things…

The H-Bomb: Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvyst (Michael Nyqvyst) has just been convicted of libel and steps down from the magazine he created, Millennium. But before he has time to stew over his losses, he is hired by Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube), an elderly business man who‘s a member of the wealthy and powerful Vanger family, to investigate the disappearance of his niece, Harriet, who vanished some four decades ago and is believed to have been murdered.

At first Blomkvyst seems to be getting absolutely nowhere in his investigation, but out of the blue he is helped by a computer hacker named Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), an emo-ish goth chick who has some… er… issues of her own, to put it kindly. Lisbeth ends up joining Blomkvyst’s investigation and the two strike up an unusual relationship while digging into the mystery, discovering a link to Harriet’s disappearance and the murders of other young women, and uncovering some very dark secrets about the Vanger brood.

Okay, where to start, where to start. “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is a Swedish import that is the first part of the “Millennium” trilogy, which is based on a series of books that is insanely popular in Europe. I’ve been reading the hype and praise for this for a good long while, with reviewers giving it four and five star ratings and calling it things like “Brilliant!”, “Amazing!”, and “A Mind Bending Thriller!” I was actually really looking forward to this one… well, you know how too much praise can be a bad thing?

When I finished watching this for the first time (notice I say first time), my reaction was simply “Meh. That‘s it?” I mean, can we say over-hyped?! Don’t get me wrong, I thought it was a perfectly decent film, but I wasn‘t amazed or blown away. I certainly didn’t think it was any kind of a masterpiece, and I felt it had a lot of problems. Mainly, on first viewing, I found it to be very unfocused, where it kept going off on tangents that just seemed kind of pointless to me. Lisbeth being jumped in the subway by a pack of young hooligans, flashbacks to her as a child setting a car on fire, and an entire first act subplot about her being sexually exploited by her social guardian (Swedish version of a parole officer, I guess). These, amongst other things, seemed extraneous and distracted from the central murder mystery.

The mystery of the missing, dead girl was very intriguing, and that aspect of the film kept me completely immersed. I also thought the performances by both the leads were superb, and the chemistry between them was quite compelling. The film is also strikingly well directed (by All Niels Arden) in places… but goddamn, there just seemed to be so much fat in the movie – things that seemed irrelevant to the main plot that made it all seem so unnecessarily drawn out, that it really just muted the impact of the entire picture for me.

On top of all that, this movie also has enough false endings to give the third “Lord of the Rings” film a run for its money. At some point, during the fifteen minutes or so, I was literally chanting at my TV “End! End! End! End!!!!” Then it FINALLY ended… thank Christ for small favors.

Now, that was how I reacted the first time I saw the film. I did give it a second go, and while I still find it bizarrely over-rated by the uber-hip, we-love-all-things-foreign latte slurping cinephiles, something did strike me on the second viewing. Bear in mind, I have not read the books or seen the later films, so I’m simply venturing a guess, but it occurred to me that this is the first part of a trilogy, so many of the elements that seemed out of place and gratuitous to me the first time around will probably be of greater significance in the sequels, as the characters are developed further, particularly Lisbeth (like why she’s as royally fucked up as she is). So that considered, I was more forgiving of those elements on my second viewing and enjoyed the film considerably more.

Again, though, I still don’t think this is the modern classic that many proclaim it to be. There are still pacing issues, the movie is still too long, and there are many, many scenes of characters looking at old photos, newspaper stories, and doing online research, which I’m sure work fine in the book, but in the film, they’re not very cinematic nor exciting to watch. Another issue is that there are so many characters and names to remember that unless you’re paying the strictest attention, you could lose track of who’s who and who’s what to who very quickly. This is definitely not a “check your brain at the door” type of film.

After all is said and done, I did like this movie, despite my criticisms. It’s a sophisticated, well crafted, ambitious film with very richly developed characters and the performances are top notch. It, as I’m sure you’ve heard, is being remade in the U.S. with David Fincher directing and Daniel Craig starring, and even though I loathe this remake trend, I must confess that I am interested in seeing what they do with this story. I do recommend it overall, but I must warn you to take the hype with a grain of salt.

It will blow your mind!

***More mind melting fresh images here***

The H-Bomb: Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is an Extractor, someone who goes inside people’s dreams in order to steal their secrets and ideas. Naturally, his most frequent clients are shady corporate types looking to commit various kinds of industrial espionage. After his latest job gets bungled, Cobb is commissioned by a Japanese business man, Saito (Ken Watanabe) to perform an Inception. What is an inception? It’s the opposite of an extraction, of course. Instead of stealing someone’s idea, it’s the act of planting an idea into someone’s mind through a dream.

Most in Cobb’s line of work believe that inceptions are impossible, but not Cobb. Why? Because Cobb has performed one before. That’s just one of the many dark secrets of Cobb’s past that are buried inside his mind and his dreams. Another being a mysterious Brunette (Marion Cotillard) who constantly turns up in Cobb’s extractions as a threatening force. Who is she, and what is she to Cobb? Wait… I’m getting ahead of myself here.

The other members of Cobb’s extraction crew include Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), his icy right hand man, Eames (Tom Hardy), his forger- someone who can disguise himself to look like other people in a dream- and Ariadne (Ellen Page), an architect who designs the inside world of the dreams and the latest addition to Cobb’s crew. It’s during her recruitment that Cobb explains to her (and us) the rules of the dream world. First, never design a place in a dream based on your own memories, it will make it harder to establish what’s real and what isn’t. Second, if you die in a dream, you will simply wake up, but if you die when under sedation, you will sleep into an even deeper dream state from which you may never wake. Third, the background characters in a dream are the subconscious projections of the person having the dream, and if they find out there are outsiders inside the dream, they will attack and kill them.

Now, for the sake of not giving away spoilers, I won’t delve any further into the specific plot of the film. I’m also going to avoid any kind fancy critic talk and just say straight up, I fucking loved this movie! In this dire age of filmdom where it seems everything is either a remake, or a sequel, or a sequel of a remake, or a remake of a sequel, it is unspeakably refreshing to see a movie bursting at the seams with this kind of intelligence and imagination. It’s one of those films where I felt exhausted at the end of it… but in a good way.

Much like with his epic “The Dark Knight” (which is the BEST comic book film ever made, I don’t give a fuck what the being-contrary-to-sound-hip naysayers say), writer/director Christopher Nolan has cooked up another complex, cerebral film that is of course embraced by critics, and that is also palatable and exciting enough for typical moviegoers to enjoy. He manages to match the thrilling spectacle of both of his Batman films, and create a mindfuck that equals the intrigue of his breakout film, “Memento”. In my oh-so-humble view, I think he is one of the single most talented, intelligent filmmakers working today, and he could be the next Spielberg in how he makes movies that have both brains and Box Office muscle.

An interesting thing I noticed was how Nolan took two themes from his previous films and reversed them. “Memento” was about a man with a very rare form of amnesia, and in this film, the protagonist has memories that could potentially harm and destroy him. “Insomnia” was about a cop with said sleep disorder, while this film is about characters who, one could argue, sleep too much. Just something that occurred to me on the drive home from the theater.

If there’s one area that Nolan has truly grown as a visual director, it would be the action. He has finally learned how to shoot action scenes in a way that doesn’t just rely on quick cutting and shaky cam, though there was a notable improvement between “Batman Begins“ and “The Dark Knight“. The gunfights and chases are thrillingly shot, and there’s a sequence in a hotel hallway that I thought was truly fantastic. There’s also a scene set on a snowy slope that may conjure up fond memories of the old school James Bond films for some viewers.

Moving on to the performances, DiCaprio is terrific in this movie. He suffered the stigma of being a pretty boy after “Titanic”, but he has always been a gifted actor, and I would put this up there with “The Departed” as being one of my favorite performances of his. He plays a very complex, conflicted character with a painful past, who we learn more and more about as the movie progresses, and he hits every note just right. I won’t go out on a limb like I did with Sandra Bullock and say that he will win the Oscar for this, but I think he’ll certainly be nominated.

Nolan not only gave Leo a great character to chew on, but he’s also loaded the film with some top notch thespians who have emerged in recent years. Gordon-Levitt kills it as Cobb’s super cool number two. He actually makes a more convincing bad-ass than I thought he would. Page is very good in her sort of audience surrogate role, once again giving us her geeky, girl next door charm. Cillian Murphy, who plays the target of the inception, is given a number of great moments to shine, and he does, in spades. Watanabe and Cotillard I had trouble understanding in places, because of their accents, but they were both quite good as well.

Now on to my minor quibbles, which are indeed very minor, the first of which being the movie’s length. It’s very well paced, and there’s more than enough happening to hold interest throughout, but it is two and a half hours long, and towards the end, I was starting to feel its length. Again, it didn’t really hinder my enjoyment of the film, but it could have been tightened just a little. Another slight grievance is that, as stated, it’s a very complex film. A very complex film with a complex plot set in a world with very complex rules, almost too complex for it’s own good. If you don’t catch every single piece of information thrown your way, you could find yourself getting lost completely. Even if you do catch it all, you could find your brain getting twisted into a knot just trying to keep track and keep up with it all.

Again, these are very minor. At the end of the day, what we have with “Inception” is something that only pops up on the rarest of occasions, a popcorn movie with a brain. There are points where this will remind people of “The Matrix”, but this is truly its own film, and a far better one, in my view, at least. This is one that I definitely intend to go see again, and I can’t recommend it enough. If you’ve had enough of vampire-werewolf soap operas and talking toys, then I highly urge you to go check this one out.

Three reviews to choose from!

For an up and coming critic from the Windy City – just click Limacher or on Jacob’s pic.

Or a no-nonsense mom about town –  just click Starshine or Bella’s pic. 

Finally, for an uber cynic - just click H-Man or on Edward’s

Who got it right?  Let the battle commence!

Hex hears dead-people, and who gives a Horton?

***Need Megan Fox images?  No!?!  Well, screw you then, don’t CLICK HERE***

The H-Bomb: There seems to be some kind of consensus that thus far this summer movie season has, for the most part, been dull, dreary, and lackluster. Sadly, the release of “Jonah Hex” is going to do very little to buck that trend. As a comic book action western, it’s about as dull, dreary, and lackluster as they come. All this despite the impressive cast (well… impressive on paper, anyway), loud action, and flashy direction.

The last time, at least that I can think of, that Hollywood tried to make a summer blockbuster out of the western genre, they ended up with the truly abominable Will Smith turd sucker “Wild Wild West”. “Jonah Hex” is marginally better, but that’s kind of like saying that drinking cat piss is preferable to eating dog shit… neither is very appetizing.

What’s it about? Please, stop me when this sounds clichéd (no, seriously, please do stop me). “Jonah Hex” tells the oh so original story of a scarred Civil War vet named… you guessed it, Jonah Hex, who has made it his mission to track down the dastardly Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich), the man who murdered his wife and son. But, unfortunately for our hero, fate steps in reins in his revenge.

So, now a man without a mission, Hex becomes a fearsome, famed bounty hunter who can speak to the dead (don’t ask). But unbeknownst to Hex, a new cretin is plotting to get a hold of some super cannon dubbed a “Nation Killer” that he plans to level Washington D.C. with during the celebration of the U.S.’s Centennial. Now it’s up to our charred faced, ghost whispering anti-hero to try and stop the plan.  Do I really need to tell you where it goes from there?

From beginning to end, this is the epitome of “been there, done that.” Despite all the over the top gun-play, violence (the PG-13, spatter-free variety, naturally), and shit blowing up in every direction, the movie is just a plodding, predictable 80 minutes of sheer boredom. It was one of those rare films where I found myself glancing at my watch periodically just to see how much longer it would drag on. It’s not a slow movie, it’s just curiously devoid of any kind of a pulse.

Jimmy Hayward (whose previous directing credit was “Horton Hears a Who”) over does it behind the camera and directs the thing like a music video, throwing in all sorts of wild visuals, including animation, in a desperate attempt to breathe some sort of life, any sort of life, into this D.O.A., flatter than a pancake script. He failed.  If Horton heard this who, he’d hang himself with his own trunk.

In fact, not only was the director short changed by the script, but so was the cast. This is particularly true of Josh Brolin. As we’ve seen in recent years, he’s a helluva good actor, and even though he’s no Clint Eastwood, he’s got the grizzled look and the gruff voice, and he could’ve been great in this role, if only he had the material to back him up.

Malkovich, one of modern cinema’s best go to bad guys, is a real disappointment here. He wears his boredom on his sleeve and phones in his performance completely. He looks like he’d rather be stuck in a traffic jam on a hot summer afternoon in a car with no A/C than be anywhere near this movie set.

Megan Fox, as the whore with the heart of gold (for Jonah, at least), is shown prominently on the posters and in the TV spots, but in reality she’s barely in the film at all! If I added up every single moment of her screen time, it would probably only amount to about ten minutes, if that much. I must admit, though, I can think of worse things to stare at than her sweaty, working girl cleavage, which the movie did display in generous amounts. For that I am grateful.

Other somewhat familiar faces (Wes Bentley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Michael Shannon) pop up briefly throughout the picture, but they’re given so little to do that I wonder why they even bothered to show up.  In fact, I wonder why anybody who worked on this movie in any capacity bothered to show up, given the limp dick results of their labor.

Now, this isn’t a terrible film. It’s not, “Oh my God, this horrid shit bomb is gonna make me slit my fucking wrists” bad, it’s just really not that good, and there are certainly better ways to put your ten bucks to use, such as; donating it to the Salvation Army, or using it as toilet paper, or giving it to an alcoholic vagrant so he can go get tanked up… anything. Because despite all the bangs and booms and bams that this flick provides, it’s ultimately nothing but a tired action yarn that is never even remotely exciting nor suspenseful. It could probably make a decent rental someday… maybe. But only if you’re really, really bored.

The H-Bomb: The entire planet has been devastated by some unspecified catastrophic event. All of the animal life and most of the plant life has been completely destroyed. Society has collapsed and human beings have, for the most part, regressed back to a savage state, often resorting to cannibalism in order to survive.

Wandering through this ugly, barren, post-apocalyptic world are a Father (Viggo Mortensen) and his young Son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) who struggle to get by any way they can, while trying to maintain their own humanity in this literal Hell-on-Earth.

From the above synopsis, it’s pretty fair to say that this is not a candidate for “Feel Good Movie of the Year.” In fact, if anything, it’s a shoo-in for “Most Depressing Movie of the Decade,” right alongside “Children of Men”, “Million Dollar Baby”, and “Sex and the City 2”. Based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Cormac McCarthy (“No Country For Old Men”),  “The Road” is dark, grim, and relentlessly downbeat, with practically no moments of levity to be found anywhere.

That said, it’s a beautifully made, thought provoking film that examines two key aspects of human nature: hope and survival. The Father and Son struggle so hard to survive in this brutal, frightening, desolate world. A world that is devoid of any hope for any kind of a positive future, that I had to ask myself, “Why? Why are they even bothering?” The Father even carries around an old revolver, loaded with only two bullets, one for him, and one for his Son. Yet we get the sense that no matter how dire things get, he will never be able to bring himself to use it.

It’s the undefined hope, the vague notion that there is something better out there, that motivates these two to forge ahead. That, to me, is the ultimate point of this story; even in the worst situations imaginable, ones that would cause many to revert back to barbaric savagery, there are good people who will always retain hope, and the will to survive.

As directed by John Hillcoat- who made the equally bleak Aussie western “The Proposition”- the film has an appropriately cold, dreary, colorless look to it. It’s the look of a cruel, dying world, and was perfect in selling the shear desperation of its inhabitants. As the Father, Viggo Mortensen is excellent, as he is in everything, even in shit like the “Psycho” remake. Here he is perfect as a calloused, hardened man who is only driven on by his love for his Son.

Young Australian actor Kodi Smit-McPhee is also terrific as a boy who has grown up in this shit hole of a world, which has forced him to mature beyond his years. Charlize Theron appears in flashbacks as Mortensen’s practical, but not exactly sympathetic wife, and Robert Duvall has a poignant cameo as an old loner who the Father and Son meet on the road. But for most of the film, the Father and Son are alone on screen, as they scrounge around for food, seek out safe places to sleep and stay warm, and of course, avoid those nasty, unpleasant cannibal gangs.

Again, this ain’t no date movie. This is an incredibly dark, depressing film that is not for everyone. It’s a very difficult movie to enjoy and many will come out of it feeling like they’ve just been to a funeral (or like they’ve just spent a weekend with their in-laws). However, for those of you who look for more in a film than just two hours of car chases, explosions, and fart jokes, I would say that “The Road” is a journey that is very much worth your time.

An adventure of epic(lite) proportions.

***Want more Prince of Persia?  Click the image above for more***

The H-Bomb: Before I get into this review, I have a question to pose to all you fine readers; Who out there can name for me a good, or even okay, movie based on a video game? It’s a serious question, because I pondered it myself, and I truly cannot think of one. “Super Mario Bros.”? No. “Street Fighter”? Hell no. “Mortal Kombat”? I enjoyed it the one time I saw it back in ‘95… when I was fourteen and completely undiscriminating! But alas, I am older now, and a bit more discriminating, so, in other words… no. “Resident Evil”? That boring as hell “Aliens”-meets-Romero knockoff… don’t think so. Therefore, in my estimation, it‘s fair to say that every single film based on a video game has been pure, unadulterated shit.

That was the main obstacle for “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” to overcome. It has a strong cast, a good director, but… it’s based on a fucking video game! And, as said, video game movies are notoriously awful (even the ones NOT directed by Uwe Boll). So, was “Prince of Persia” able to jump that hurdle? Break that seemingly unbreakable trend?  Well, in a pleasantly surprising way… yes. Despite the stigma of its interactive entertainment source material, it manages to buck the odds and emerge as a perfectly decent movie. Mind you it’s a pure popcorn flick that requires a heavy dose of suspension-of-disbelief, but overall, it’s pretty damn fun.

Set in a mythical ancient Persia (duh), it tells the story of Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal), a street kid who was adopted by the noble King Sharaman (Ronald Pickup) and grows up to be quite the warrior prince; exceptionally brave, very adept at combat, you know the drill. While out on a military campaign with his brothers Tus (Richard Cole), who’s next in line for the throne, and Garsiv (Toby Kebbell), who’s not exactly Dastan’s biggest fan, they discover evidence that the city of Alamut was making weapons and selling them to Persia’s enemies. Despite the reservations of Dastan, Tus, following the sage advice of Uncle Nizam (Ben Kingsley), decides to invade the city with his army and conquer it.

During the ensuing battle, Dastan comes into possession of a very peculiar dagger that everyone seems a little too interested in, particularly Tamina (Gemma Arterton), the fallen city’s princess. It was Dastan’s strategy that won the day in the battle for Alamut, so it’s only right that he be celebrated as a hero. Sadly, the celebration is cut short when King Sharaman is murdered and Dastan is framed for the crime.

After making a quick escape, Dastan is forced to go on the lam with the beautiful but rather bitchy Tamina in tow, who is constantly trying to reacquire that weird dagger. During his quest to clear his name and uncover the truth behind his father’s murder, Dastan discovers that the dagger is an instrument of the gods that has the power to turn back the sands of time (turn back time, in other words), and that the real reason for invading Alamut was not to seize hoards of weapons, but to find and control this dagger. Wait, wait, wait… A powerful country invades another under false pretenses to seize control of a certain commodity… Really, Hollywood? An Iraq War reference? In a movie, set in ancient Persia, based on a fucking video game… really? Or maybe I’m just reading in to it too deeply.

Anyhow, in order to stop the dagger from falling into the hands of whoever this traitor is, Dastan and Tamina must take it back to crystal in some secret temple somewhere and return it to the gods. But it’s not going to be that easy, because not only does Dastan have a huge bounty on his head, he’s also being tracked by Hassansins, an elite society of scary super-goons who are tasked with killing him and retrieving the dagger. Oh, did I mention that if this dagger fell into the wrong hands, the entire world would be destroyed as a result? Let the chase begin…

Essentially, there’s nothing all that new going on here. This movie is basically “Gladiator-lite”, meets “Lord of the Rings-lite”, meets “Monty Python and the Holy Grail-lite” (okay, that last bit was an overstatement, but you get what I mean). It’s a period fantasy yarn kind of in the vain of “Troy”, and on that level, it works pretty well. I have zero knowledge of the game it’s based on, so I can in no way attest to how faithful the film is to it, though Dastan does do a lot of hopping, and flipping, and climbing, all of which I suspect came from the game.

At first, I wasn’t too sure about Jake Gyllenhaal in the lead. I can buy him as a schizophrenic teen or a gay cowboy, but as a full blown, muscle bound action hero? That was a big pill to swallow. However, I will admit, that while he’s no Russell Crowe, he did grow on me in the part. Gemma Arterton, who played the requisite disposable Bond girl in “Quantum of Solace”, is promoted to requisite leading lady here and comes off well. There were actually quite a few sparks of chemistry between her and Gyllenhaal, and it’s nice to see her have more to do in a film than lie naked in oil… though I didn’t mind seeing that.

Ben Kingsley brings some welcome gravitas to the film as Dastan’s Uncle, who isn’t all that he seems, as does Alfred Molina, who fills in the requisite comedy relief role as a greedy, amoral “Entrepreneur” that Dastan encounters in his travels.

Director Mike Newell keeps things moving at a snappy pace and gives the film an appropriate summer movie tone; one that’s never too light and never too dark, though the script was a bit heavy on the quips, and the action got a little too “Matrix-y” in places. The movie’s climax is an over-the-top light-show of special effects that will numb your eyes and your brain alike.

All-in-all, “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” is an entertaining fantasy adventure that should please young and old alike, even if it is- Heaven forbid- based on a video game.

The H-Bomb: Lt. Terence McDonagh (Nicolas Cage) is a highly decorated cop working the mean streets of a post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans. After suffering a back injury, he is prescribed Vicodin and in six months time moves on to other (illegal) drugs and becomes a full blown addict, but that’s only part of McDonagh’s many nefarious activities. After a low level drug dealer and his family is found murdered, McDonagh does everything he can to function and solve the case, despite the fact that both his personal and professional lives are going on a seemingly unstoppable downward spiral.

As many of you probably already know, this is the sort-of-is but sort-of-isn’t remake of Abel Ferrara’s 1992 indie classic “Bad Lieutenant”, which starred Harvey Keitel as a woefully corrupt New York cop. Many critics have stated that there are no connections between the two films, but I think those critics need to pay a little more attention. Yes, the two films and their protagonists are very different. Ferrara’s film was grim, nasty, and entirely humorless, whereas Werner Herzog’s (“Rescue Dawn”, “Nosferatu: The Vampyre”) “remake” has a slightly more playful and darkly humorous tone. Cage’s McDonagh, as crooked as he is, is a considerably more sympathetic character than Keitel’s Lt., who was more or less a complete scumbag. The original “Bad Lieutenant” also had heavy(handed) religious overtones, whereas this one thankfully left out anything resembling Catholic guilt.

However, there are undeniable similarities that both films share. Both characters have chemical dependency problems. Both have gambling problems and owe money to bookies. Both often abuse the power that their badges give them, using their position to procure everything from drugs to sexual favors. Both carry gigantic revolvers that they wave around and fire off recklessly. Both are prone to hallucinations; Keitel had hallucinations of Jesus standing in front of him, while Cage has hallucinations of iguanas sitting on his coffee table. Most importantly, both films are character studies of men who gradually dig themselves deeper and deeper into holes that ultimately seem impossible to climb out of.

Which film do I prefer? Well, as great as the original is, it’s a very bleak and oppressively downbeat film that, while I do admire it, I don’t really enjoy it. The “remake,” however, as dark, raw, and appropriately sleazy as it is, also manages to be quite entertaining at the same time. So while I feel that Ferrara’s film is probably the better of the two, I personally like “Port of Call- New Orleans” more… if that makes sense.

It’s become quite fashionable to rag on Nicolas Cage lately, as many of his more recent choices in projects has been unfortunate, to say the least (“Wicker Man“ remake, anyone?). But he is a damn fine actor and when given quality material, he is more than capable of delivering an impressive performance. Such is the case here. He really puts his back into this role and gives us a character who is fully rounded and compelling. Everything about his Bad Lt., from his voice, to his gestures, his postures, and his horrible haircut, really suggests a man who was perhaps once good and honest, but who has gone horribly astray over the years, and now has to struggle every waking second to keep his shit together.

As we’ve seen in “Leaving Las Vegas”, Cage is very adept at portraying hopelessly self-destructive characters, and after years of slumming in Le Cinema de Shit, it’s a treat to see him finally firing on all cylinders again. The scene where he employs some “advanced interrogation techniques” against an elderly woman on a respirator is fucking classic!

The supporting cast is made up of well known character actors, including Brad Dourif, Fairuza Balk, Tom Bower, Michael Shannon, Irma P. Hall, and Jennifer Coolidge. They all add color and flavor to the picture, and every one of them leaves an impression, despite that many of them only have a scene or two. Alvin “Xibit” Joiner is both slimy and menacing as the local drug kingpin who becomes the number one suspect in McDonagh’s murder investigation. Eva Mendes, who plays McDonagh’s hooker girlfriend with a nose candy habit herself, provides solid support for Cage and allows him to show a more sympathetic side to his character. Val Kilmer is also good as a fellow cop who is perhaps as dirty as McDonagh, but his role is sadly underwritten. I really think they could’ve used him more than they did.

As great as the supporting players are, though, this is entirely Cage’s show, and the only other element that is just as crucial to this film’s success as Cage‘s performance, is the director, Werner Herzog. In the hands of a lesser filmmaker, this could have ended up being just another police drama, but Herzog, bringing with him his attention to detail, his oddball sensibilities, and his quirky sense of humor, makes it something entirely different. He gives us a vivid look at a devastated New Orleans that is both real and surreal at the same time. Whether he’s showing us the rundown slums, or a snake swimming around a flooded jail cell, or a road killed alligator in the middle of the road, he gives us a real feel for the place. I also appreciate the fact that, despite the setting, there isn’t one phony Cajun accent to be heard. Thank you, Mr. Herzog, for not having the actors go down that road.

Despite the fact that this movie is called “Bad Lieutenant” and shares some thematic similarities with the earlier film, this really is a movie that stands on its own with its own style and mood. It’s a unique, bizarre film that alternates between being violently ugly and perversely funny. Ultimately, I can’t guarantee you’ll like it, but I do recommend you take a chance on it.