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Reviews
Donnie Darko (2001)
Wonderful
It's entirely too bad Fox couldn't ante up and give this film the wider distribution it deserved. I would simply like to thank all those who had anything to do with this terrific picture, including Drew Barrymore, who put her faith and money into a left-of-center endeavor, and saw that this film was made.
I find it mentally crippling when something like this is essentially overlooked or hidden away, while crap like Pearl Harbor and Behind Enemy Lines makes millions. Thanks for this movie, for what it's worth, Donnie Darko has made my top 10 list.
Behind Enemy Lines (2001)
It's all Owen Wilson
I really wanted to like this film. I was hoping for an updated Bat 21 with Hackman on the other side of the radio, but instead got a 80's-like action flick complete with music video scenes that play out like unused Top Gun footage...I kept waiting for that Smashmouth anthem found in every other movie to come out the last two years to blare out of the speakers during every single action sequence...but alas, I think they only used bad 80's music. The director uses every cinematographic trick from the bag without scrutiny, creating such an awareness that this is only a movie with actors filmed by a director and a cinematographer, that it was entirely distracting. It's like what would happen if you gave a grade-school kid a box of 1000 crayons to color a picture--you can bet that he's going to find a way to use every single crayon whether or not it's for the benefit of the picture...it's no wonder though, all the director's done before this is TV commercials.
This is yet another movie that made me squirm with embarrassment to be in the same theater with when the credits rolled. However, Owen Wilson...this film's only ongoing bright spot. In a film full of cliched dialogue, story and scene representation, every one of Wilson's reactions, spoken lines...everything, has a nuance that removes itself from the rest of the drivel. He's such an unlikely casting selection for this role that's better suited for the likes of Stephen Baldwin or Casper Van Dien, and his unwillingness to play an action hero here works so well that this film confuses me. It's a movie I dislike so much, but still want to see again for Wilson's performance. I guess I'll be good to myself and just wait for The Royal Tenenbaums.
Route 666 (2001)
Mindless, humorous B-horror
As Lou and Lori transport 'Rabbit' (Steven Williams), a Federally protected witness from the deserted Route 66 badlands to LA, they must evade mafiosos who want Rabbit dead. They take the cursed and closed 'Route 666' road as a short cut and find themselves tormented by the zombies of four murderer/prisoners who were the center of a violent debacle years earlier.
Entertaining B-horror can be enjoyed if you just sit back and take some meds. There are some humorous examples of bad acting, attempts at taking on a Pulp Fiction sort of dialogue and plot-holes bigger than the desert sky. But hey, that's what you came for. Apparently the FBI doesn't believe in helicopters in this world. I found it particularly humorous when the witness, while handcuffed to the car in the middle of the desert, not only survives a hit attempt, but also survives an attack by the worker-zombies all-the-while Lou is busy having a fist-fight in the desert with one of the other agents while Lori watches the fight, and two of the other agents are getting it on in the back of one of the transport vehicles...the bulletproof suburban as opposed to the convertible the 'protected' witness has been riding in. Awesome.
Evolution (2001)
Awful
I think I chuckled once during this movie and the rest of my time was spent in utter amazement of how much of an entertainment disappointment this film is. Gags are thrown in and just kind of hang there not sure what to do with themselves...it's almost like they had one of those kinds of people who always state the obvious & quote bumper stickers when they're trying make an ironic statement, writing the script between takes. This is not even entertaining in a 'let your hair down' kind of way; it was embarrassing to watch intelligent talent such as Duchovny, Moore and Jones be a part of this mess and ultimately, at the end of the film, I was embarrassed to be in the same theater with this useless, mediocre, dumbed-down, flairless excuse to showcase special effects. --Haven't felt this way since 'Wild Wild West.'
Pay It Forward (2000)
Crap
It's frankly too bad to see any project with talent such as in 'Pay it Forward' suck as much as this film ultimately does. I felt embarrassed for Hunt and Spacey--undisputedly priceless and tremendous actors--for being involved in this trite, fluffy piece of Hollywood crap. As far as the young Osment, I'm curious to see him in another movie. His performance in 'The Sixth Sense' is impressive considering his age, but Oscar-worthy, about as worthy as Gwyneth Paltrow's winning over Cate Blanchett in 1998. In this film, if he's not whimpering unconvincingly, he's busy trying (unconvincingly) to be an icon of innocence for the adults in his world to take example of. Please don't fall victim to this film's abusive attempts to manipulate your emotions with After-school special caliber traumas, dramas and tragedies...if you do fall prey to this emotional man-handling, you just may be fooled into thinking that this sap-fest makes some critical social commentaries and that all of the unrealistic events may possibly change the world. Yuck.
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
I wish I was twelve again
I was fortunate enough to have heard enough bad feedback before seeing this film (24 hours after release) that my expectations were not misled by the multi-million dollar yearlong hype. Fortunate enough to be prepared for the very PG production that had the comic relief gags and sidekicks that pad your typical Disney animated full-feature musical adventure. Don't get me wrong...I enjoyed this movie very much, however, my grins of being entertained were often interrupted by grimaces of pain (a fart-joke scene, R2-D2's introduction to the audience as a 'droid worthy of a commendation' and just about every single scene with 'Ja Ja' or whatever--the amphibious rastafarian sidekick whose screen-time triples that of Obi-Wan-Kenobi). There are few slow moments in this film--important to the twelve-year-olds who become restless during those boring snags called necessary plot development. Thankfully, most of the story has been revealed to us through the original trilogy, so Lucas was able to pull off barreling through this Episode I...never looking back. Although the computer animated characters and locations were probably the best I have ever seen...they still had that way about them that say "this is computer animated." I have been attempting to figure out why these are identifiable in any film that utilizes the technology and I think this film helped me out--the motions of computer animated characters are simply exaggerated. Almost as if too much work has been put into high-lighting their movements rather than allowing them to subtly blend in with the live-action players. Editing in this film also the commendation that R2-D2 received...very choppy at times almost as if it was shot in 45mm and re-formatted to fit your 35mm screen. Although it seems I have been overly critical of this film, I really truly enjoyed it...the pod race was an amazing achievement, the fights between our two Jedi heroes and Darth Maul (I want more Darth Maul--he's like Boba Fett, the most popular and least used character) make Luke and Darth Vader's fights seem like two kids hitting each other with sticks, and John Williams untraditional score hits a homerun. All this and I normally dislike movies that are generally directed toward General Audiences. One last thing: Even though everybody should go into this film almost entirely dismissing the trilogy...it is still difficult to not miss the rogue starship pilot and his Wookie.