POMO

At 160 minutes, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is just too long. It’s brilliantly filmed, the characters haven’t lost any of their charm and the darker approach suits the film, but it still seems more routine and static. As a fan of J.K. Rowling, I was definitely excited to see it. But as an impartial viewer, I missed having a remote control with a rewind button in places.

As of 2002, Die Another Day was the most bombastic, most spectacular and most elaborate and flashiest Bond flick yet. It’s also the goofiest and most entertaining. Within the franchise, it’s a similar turning point as Lethal Weapon 4 was in that franchise. Bond chases two Batman-esque villains in an invisible car and when he eliminates them, the head of the American National Security Agency, Michael Madsen, contentedly lights a cigarette, referencing his Vic Vega character from Reservoir Dogs. Halle Berry gets special recognition for attractiveness, as she beautifully combines feminine fragility with the diligence and aggressiveness of an agent. Conversely, the casting of Madonna was a mistake here. For me, the only thing that keeps this exciting movie (though it is a bit drawn out in the last third) from getting the highest rating is its slightly over-the-top silliness. By the final scene, I had started seeing both of the bad guys as Power Rangers action figures.

Though Full Frontal is not as experimental and cold as Mike Figgis’s movies (e.g. Hotel) and it’s more on target and entertaining, it’s still just a small, insignificant and unnecessary flick that’s not worth the price of admission.

Entrapment suffers from the fact that its screenplay is full of holes. But there is such a spark between Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones and so many of the scenes are easy on the eyes that I can’t give it a lower rating. A film that’s like a good perfume.

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is a spectacular and deadly seriously intended monster movie. But it’s just not very entertaining. The attempt at a semi-documentary approach goes hand in hand with keeping a certain distance from the characters, which doesn’t even matter because the main character here isn’t a scientist, detective or journalist, but the titular primordial beast. Paradoxically, there are too few of the scenes in which we can enjoy the monster, with high-quality visual effects, no less. I would have enjoyed this film if I could have seen it in the 1950s, but in the modern age of Jurassic Park movies, this relic is an overly chatty and stale attempt at a Hollywood blockbuster. The banal scenes of the monster walking through the streets of New York are no longer the delight for viewers that they were back then. And the climax in an amusement park could also have been more imaginative and better developed.

Heist is a pleasantly nostalgic film. It’s intelligently written and skillfully directed, and Hugh Jackman is excellent in it. But in the age of The Usual Suspects, it’s slightly dull. One great heist (the plane) and a few unsurprising twists aren’t enough.

Road to Perdition is a very nice film with excellent acting and cinematography. But that’s where the praise ends. In order for it to be a gangster flick on the level of Coppola’s The Godfather, it would have had to focus more attention on the relationship between Paul Newman and Tom Hanks. And no humor should have intruded on the gloomy atmosphere. As it is, it’s more like Eastwood’s A Perfect World, scented with the perfume of American Beauty and ending with an overwrought climax. And the formulaic nature of the plot doesn’t do it any favours either. The phrase “he was my father” was on the tip of my tongue before young Sullivan even said it.

Produced in response to the success of the blockbuster The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Them! is the first movie about a big mutant insect. It’s a reasonably well-made big-budget movie about giant ants that very much foreshadows James Cameron and his Aliens (underground catacombs + eggs + flamethrowers). But beware! Them! is no horror movie about giant ants eating people. It’s a detective movie about people searching for a nest of giant ants. The few scenes with the ants themselves are disappointing, but the lively camerawork, the constant changing of location and the fast-paced plot are pleasing.

The Final Chapter is a terribly stupid but relatively entertaining horror movie with a likably aberrant climax. But, again, it is catastrophically stupid. That said, it’s pleasantly perverse entertainment for highly uncritical gore fans.

Changing Lanes (2002) Changing Lanes is a brilliant psychological probe into the world of two New Yorkers with different social statuses, but carrying the same psychological burden on their shoulders. The acting is perfect and the directing is even better. It might be a bit cold, but that’s just part of the deal. As oppressive a drama as Schumacher’s Falling Down.