Reviews

Well, I guess it's a foregone conclusion that an Indiana Jones knock-off will be made about every much-sought artifact history has produced. In the case of the Spear of Destiny(the spear plunged into the side of Christ while He was on the cross to prove He was dead; wielded by such historical notables as Charlemagne of the New Roman Empire and Napoleon Bonaparte), do we have Harrison Ford and Sean Connery? No, looks like we'll have to settle for such box-office powerhouses(sarky) as Noah Wyle and BOB FRIGGIN' NEWHART.

Supremely overacted by ham actors, in a screenplay written by hack writers, loaded with historically accurate yet completely irrelevant facts to prove that the writers did their research, and a plot obviously written by geeks portraying their ultimate fantasy: saving the free world as we know it by solving archaeological riddles and winning the girl that is so far out of their league -- to quote the leading lady in this movie -- "if your league exploded, I wouldn't hear the boom for three days".

SPOILERS BELOW, but you probably won't care.

There's a scene ripped straight out of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and Saturday Night Live veteran Jane Curtin flexes her acting muscles by playing a character that must have had her sense of humor surgically removed. But hey, if Madonna can play a lesbian in one movie, and a nun in another, then I guess Jane Curtin can do what she wants. None of it works, though. To add insult to injury, BOB FRIGGIN' NEWHART beats up a legion of bad guys who, in a previous scene, try unsuccessfully to act like some creepy satanic cult by chanting "Hey!" over and over again. Why Kyle McLachlan's character abducted the leading lady, stole the spear and let The Librarian sleep through all of it after spending the previous scenes trying to kill him, I'll never know. Wait. I do know. It was the writers cheaply trying to instill some sense of betrayal in all of us. Likewise with the scene where we THINK the bad guy has stabbed Noah Wyle with the Spear, but somehow managed to USE THE WRONG END.

I normally wouldn't have given this movie the time of day, but since my regular Sunday night viewing fare was pre-emptied with Christmas movies, I found myself stuck with this. TNT says they "know drama", but when it come to producing original action movies, they don't have a clue.

First off, I'll say that John Travolta's performance was wooden at best. Maybe I attribute this to having seen "Swordfish" the week previous, where his character was devastatingly evil, prone to dark humor, and has a diabolical soul patch beard. Travolta's Howard Saint in this movie seems to have the same emotion throughout, which looks like boredom.

I have no idea why moviemakers indulge in the bad-guy-and-hero-fall-down-stairs-bad-guy-dies-and-hero-walks-away angle. It just doesn't make sense.

In the fight scene with The Russian, a grenade goes off, yet the next-door neigbors treat it like somebody lit a firecracker and go back to what they were doing as if nothing happened. I'd be sprinting for cover if a grenade went off next door, no matter how loud my music was.

What's the deal with facial-piercing boy? Can't he just lie and say Joan took Castle to the hospital instead of waiting there like a bump on a log just begging to be tortured? And please, people. The boy's a wimp. He'd be screaming out Castle's location after Glass just tugs a little on the eyebrow ring. I don't think Navy SEALs can withstand that much torture. Pile on top of that the fact that Castle was immobilized with pain one second, then about a minute later takes out one of Saint's henchman. If Castle can recover that quickly, where was his strength during piercing boy's torture moments earlier?

And Glass is gay? That takes all the machismo out of the prime henchman role. Every time I saw him after this revelation, I kept expecting him to start skipping and acting like the gay character in "Will And Grace" instead of paying attention to the movie. I hope nobody explores that possibility again.

I expect a little dark humor in these movies, but some of the comic situations were just downright silly.

I'll say this much, though. It was much better than the SCREAMINGLY bad Dolph Lundgren Punisher, which one can go nowhere but up from.

In my honest opinion, Dolph Lundgren has only turned out ONE good acting performance(out of his 28 movies so far)-- "Rocky IV". The only other movie I'll recommend is "Red Scorpion", and that's only when you want to test the ground-pounders on your surround-sound stereo system with its helicopter scenes.

Lundgren's Schwarzeneggerian one-liners fall flatter than a Kansas skyline. The last thing I would do if somebody finished torturing me on an electric version of the medieval rack is smile and say "Hey. Have a nice day."

WHY must heroes always have irritatingly quirky sidekicks? Certainly not to make Castle look like he has some semblance of sanity in this movie.

The scene in the carnival funhouse was astonishingly lame. The bad guys have machine guns, so why can't they hit Castle? He wasn't moving. It's so typical of one-man-against-the-odds action movies to have highly trained assassins who can't hit the broad side of a barn at point-blank range, while the heroes can successfully shoot the villains(with pistols) without even looking.

And the Yakuza villains! Wearing shiny black leather to look diabolical is SO cliche! Plus, walking and talking slowly to show smug superiority is even worse.

Lou Gossett Jr. does a good job, but the expressions on his face show that he can't hide his embarrassment to be in this totally crappy movie. Same thing about his role in "Firewalker".

Two thumbs so far down, they're six feet under, which is where this movie should be. Few comic books adapt well to live-action venues. Remember 1992's "Captain America"? Bomb-o-rama!

SPOILER HERE --I'm sure the writers could have come up with some better way for Castle to escape than to enable the discovery that he has wingnuts on his hand restraints. Villains wouldn't be rich and successful if they were THAT stupid.

The movie was probably called "Batman" because of the continuity required of the franchise, but it is "Batman" in name only. The movie should have been called "The Joker". Why? The Joker got the most screen time! Plus, he got the best lines, and he had peaks and valleys in his character which made him entertaining! Batman/Bruce Wayne as the hero was virtually an afterthought. His best lines weren't NEAR as entertaining, and the characters were as flat as Kansas. The Joker was flamboyantly insane, and you enjoyed every minute of him. B/BW's insanity portrayal that was all but implied was limited to close-ups of his stony visage, sharp pivots and monotone dialogue delivery(probably due to the fact that Michael Keaton was paid less than Jack Nicholson. Jack was paid $80 million, an actor's wage so high it holds a world's record. At that rate, Jack had better pour his heart and soul into the character, and he did). All in all, it was a good movie, but its priorities were skewed.

SPOILER HERE---That last scene with the Batwing was stupid. Batman had tons of machine guns, missiles and advanced sighting technology. It ALL missed the Joker, who was in a stationary, wide-open, "free target" position. What's worse, the totally unscathed Joker shot the *moving* Batwing down WITH ONE BULLET from a small handgun that had primitive line-of-sight aiming. Wayne's rich, but he's not dumb when it comes to technology that supports his anti-crime vendetta.