The Omen

Posted on June 3, 2006 at 3:17 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for disturbing violent content, graphic images and some language.
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Extreme, intense, and graphic peril and violence, apparent suicide, characters impaled, beheaded, shot, many killed
Diversity Issues:	Themes of religion and religious practice and belief
Date Released to Theaters:	2006
Date Released to DVD:	2006
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000EYK4KS

Director John Moore knows one thing — how to compose some compelling images with swirling white (flakes of snow, scraps of paper) and something creepy and scarlet to catch your eye. But those swirling flakes and glimpses of red have more movement than the film itself; most of it is just a bunch of static set-pieces that will be overly familiar to anyone who has ever heard a ghost story.

As in the 1976 original starring Gregory Peck and Lee Remick, a mysterious priest tells Robert Thorn (Liev Schreiber), an American diplomat, that his newborn baby has died. Another woman has just died in childbirth, and the priest persuades Robert to take that child as his own, telling no one about the substitution, not even his wife Katherine (Julia Stiles).

As Robert achieves extraordinary success, becoming Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Katherine is left to care for the child, Damien. But Katherine cannot feel close to him and many disturbing incidents and dead bodies later, Robert begins to learn the truth about Damien’s real parents.

Scheiber acts as though he’d rather be back in Ukraine directing Everything is Illuminated. He and Stiles (who played siblings in Hamlet) are supposed to have a loving relationship, but there is no chemistry whatsoever. Indeed, hardly anyone in this movie seems to have any connection with anyone else; it’s as though each actor performed in front of a blue screen and chroma-keyed in later. The only exceptions are Mia Farrow as Damien’s mysterious nanny (and what a trippy experience it is to see the star of Rosemary’s Baby playing the Ruth Gordon-ish role) and David Thewlis as a photographer who discovers a strange stripe of smoke as a portent in his pictures of people who are later killed.

There’s a long tradition of stories based on scary evil children. It taps into some nicely primal and disturbing feelings we have about these adorable creatures who take over our lives. But when it isn’t done well, it just seems silly, and this child’s supposedly feral stares just seem petulant.

Yes, the gory gross-outs are there, with various characters getting impaled, beheaded, hanged, and knocked off a balcony. But the in between scenes, what is supposed to be a creepy increasing dread is just time to check your watch and munch some popcorn before the bad stuff starts up again. If it gets too dull, you might try counting the parallels to “Harry Potter,” with two of the same actors and a similar theme of a young boy with strange powers revealed at a zoo….

Parents should know that this is an intense and creepy thriller about the spawn of the devil. There are graphic scenes of peril, injury, and death. Characters drink and use some bad language. Some audience members may be disturbed or offended by the portrayal of some clergy and a devil child.

Families who see this movie should talk about why Robert agreed to the priest’s proposal and why he did not tell Katherine or anyone else what he was learning about Damien. Families may also want to discuss their own beliefs about God and the devil.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy The Da Vinci Code, The Name of the Rose, Rosemary’s Baby (starring Farrow),and the original.

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X-Men: The Last Stand

Posted on May 24, 2006 at 3:30 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action violence, some sexual content and language.
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Intense peril and violence, some graphic, many characters injured or killed
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	2006
Date Released to DVD:	2006
Amazon.com ASIN:	B001PPGAK8

A concerned father bangs on the door of the bathroom, insisting that his son open the door. Inside, his son sobs as he tries frantically to get rid of the evidence that his body is changing in a way he cannot control. It seems he is…growing wings.

Like many comic book stories, the X-Men, mutants with secret powers who are unappreciated and misunderstood by their families, are a superb allegory of adolescence. The X-Men are mutants with special powers that make “normal” humans feel threatened and uneasy. Some humans want to accept the mutants. In this third chapter, there is a U.S. President who has even appointed a mutant to a cabinet position, Secretary of the Department of Mutant Affairs (who coordinates with the Department of Homeland Security, of course). That would be Dr. Hank McCoy, otherwise known as Beast, looks sort of Muppet-y with his blue fur and sounds like Dr. Frasier Crane because he is played by Kelsey Grammer. For once, the students at the school led by Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) can focus on learning to use their powers instead of hiding from the authorities.

But just as a political balance seems possible, with a big blue guy wearing suit and glasses consulting with the President in the Situation Room, technology turns everything upside down, providing ammunition to the separatist mutants led by Magneto (Ian McKellen). That same father from the other side of the bathroom door has discovered a “cure” for mutantism. Should it be offered to the X-Men? Should it be forced on them? Are the mutants “sick” or is it the humans who are now substandard, with the mutants a new normal?

Interestingly, the “cure” itself comes from a mutant (Cameron Bright), whose special power is that he disables any mutant power that comes into contact with him.

The result is a story that is as absorbing as the special effects and stunts. The movie takes on a number of challenging issues, from prejudice and distinctions within the mutant communities to the notion of a “cure” — “Since when do we become a disease?” asks Storm (Halle Berry) — that becomes a weapon to the deeper problems of genocide. Magneto shows the number tattooed on his arm by the Nazis and we know why he will always feel like a rejected outsider. And, as in previous chapters, it has a subtle and complex approach that goes beyond the usual good guy/bad guy divisions.

And once again, we have the pleasures of classically trained actors giving Shakespearean line readings to comic book dialogue (“Will you control that power or let it control you?”) and American actors toss off tough-sounding wisecracks and a few longing glances while a lot of stuff explodes all around them. Once again, the low-key, throwaway effects are as dazzling as the let’s-rip-apart-the-Golden-Gate-Bridge stunners. Hurray for summer movies!

As in the other films, there are so many tantalizing characters that we never get to spend enough time with them, and those unfamiliar with the comics may have a hard time remembering who has what powers (and what friends/romantic involvements/enemies). That contributes to the fast pace and the sense that we are getting a glimpse of a fully realized world. You won’t want this to be the last chapter. And if you stay all the way until the end of the credits, past the caterer’s niece’s special assistant, you might find some reason to hope that this isn’t the last last stand after all.

Parents should know that the movie has a great deal of intense comic book-style action violence, some graphic. Many characters are wounded or killed. There is some strong language (the b-word, etc.) and brief nudity and a sexual situation. A character smokes a cigar. A strength of the story is its literal and metaphorical treatment of diversity.

Families who see this movie should talk about the story’s parallels to some current events (like the division between the Sunni and Shiite Muslims or the Palestinians and the Israelis) and to issues about “cures.” For example, there are debates and lawsuits over the use of cochlear implants to treat deafness. Some syndromes that were considered in need of a cure in the past are now generally considered healthy expressions of inddividual biochemistry or choice. They might like to explore these themes in a short story by Kurt Vonnegut called Harrison Bergeron.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy the first two in the series. They will also enjoy the Harry Potter movies, a funny treatment of some of the same issues for kids in Sky High, and Men in Black.

The Da Vinci Code

Posted on May 17, 2006 at 3:45 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for disturbing images, violence, some nudity, thematic material, brief drug references and sexual content.
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drug user, drug joke
Violence/ Scariness:	Frequent peril and violence, including shooting, punching, slapping, graphic scenes of mortification of flesh
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie, some characters and situations that may be viewed as heretical or offensive
Date Released to Theaters:	2006
Date Released to DVD:	2006
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00005JOC9

A character in this movie’s version of the Catholic organization Opus Dei explains that their mission is to follow doctrine very strictly. That was director Ron Howard’s secular mission as well with this adaptation of the world-wide best-seller. He and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman knew that the fans of the book would want to see every word up on the screen. And that’s pretty much what they give us, a color-by-numbers adaptation of the book instead of a movie.

Indeed, the book was more cinematic than its on-screen version, with little description, a lot of dialogue, and short, propulsive scenes with a lot of cliff-hangers. The very act of adapting it throws it out of balance. What is left to the imagination in the book comes across as heavy-handed and over the top on screen, from the very first appearance of Paul Bettany as Silas, with a sit-com-style Italian accent. The gossamer-thin plot is even wispier on screen and the book’s eneergetic pacing is slowed down by overly cautious and respectful direction. Its equally thin characterizations give even talented and charismatic performers like Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Bettany, and Alfred Molina too little to do. Only Ian McKellen as scholar Leif Teabing brings his character to life.

Hanks plays “symbolgist” Robert Langdon, in Paris to speak about his new book. Policeman Bezu Fache (Jean Reno) asks him to take a look at a recent homicide victim, a curator at the Louvre who had been scheduled to meet with Langdon that day. As Langdon observes the body, naked and arranged in a peculiar way, and the message he wrote in his own blood, they are interrupted by a police cryptographer, Sophie Neveu (Tautou). Soon after, Langdon and Neveu find themselves on the run from the police and some bad guys as they try to solve a mystery that is hundreds of years old.

It is fun to see the real locations portrayed in the book and there are some good twists in the plot. But Hanks looks tired and distracted and Tautou (of the lovely Amelie) does not seem comfortable with the English dialogue. The same is true for some of the Americans and Brits in the cast, though and it’s tough to blame them as some of the lines must have felt like chewing on wood: “We cannot let ego deter us from our goal.” “The mind sees what it chooses to see.” The historical flashbacks are overdone, with the exception of one subtle flicker between present and past that works nicely. Fans of the book may find what they are looking for, but everyone else may feel that it is a watered-down and dragged-out version of an Indiana Jones movie.

Parents should know that the movie has a good deal of peril and violence. Characters are shot, punched, killed in a car crash, and poisoned. There are also explicit scenes of a character hurting himself as an expression of his religious commitment. A character is an intravenous drug user. There is some strong language (spelled out in subtitles when characters swear in French). The movie also has themes that some audience members may find disturbing, even heretical. While the film-makers have stated clearly that the incidents depicted in the film are fantasy, some audience members may be upset by allegations of illegal activity on the part of some church members or the challenges to traditional doctrines.

Families who see this movie should talk about different groups through history that have believed that information needed to be kept from others. They may also want to talk about the views of different religions and cultures and eras about the role of women.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy reading the book. They will also enjoy movies like National Treasure, Die Hard 3 (very strong language), Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. They should learn about the real Opus Dei (whose response to the movie is here) and the real-life characters and locations, including Leonardo da Vinci and the Louvre. They may also want to explore some responses and critiques like this one and this one. Author Dan Brown responds here to questions about what is fact and what is fiction in the book and why he believes his book should not be considered offensive but an invitation to exploration and dialogue.

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Drama Movies -- format Mystery Thriller

Poseidon

Posted on May 10, 2006 at 4:18 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for intense prolonged sequences of disaster and peril.
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Social drinking, character is inebriated
Violence/ Scariness:	Intense and graphic peril and violence, characters injured and killed, many dead bodies
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters, including gay character
Date Released to Theaters:	2006
Date Released to DVD:	2006
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000R209NY

This remake is so stripped down it doesn’t even have time for two of the three words of the original: this isn’t The Poseidon Adventure — it’s just “Poseidon.” If they remake it, it will be called “Pos.” Top-notch action director Wolfgang Peterson (Air Force One, Das Boot) gets the two most important things right in this thrill ride of an update on the corny classic.

First, the special effects are stunning. It is astonishing how far the technology has come even since Peterson’s The Perfect Storm. The effects are the star of the movie and, with a couple of exceptions, they are so powerfully vertiginously believeable that audiences looking for the roller-coaster sensation of controlled chaos will happily spill their popcorn.

Second, Peterson is a master of pacing, knowing exactly how much tension to string out before a crash or a laugh or a twist is needed to let audiences catch their breath, even if it’s a gasp. The characters and plot are stripped down to the basics to keep the action center stage.

It operates like a well-designed wind-up toy. A few cranks of the plot key efficiently introduce the characters and the story shoots out in a straight line retaining its top speed until the end. Here is the entire movie: an enormous ocean liner hit with a “rogue wave” flips over and just about every character played by an actor whose name is in the opening credits, each with some knowledge, experience, ability, or tool that will prove crucial, spends the next 90 minutes trying to find a way off the ship, while a lot of stuff crashes, explodes, floods, and ignites all around them.

Peterson wisely relies on the appeal of his cast rather than the script to carry our interest. All we need to know about each of them is (1) what he or she has to contribute, and (2) what he or she has to triumph over. All of that is neatly laid out and just as neatly tied up without getting in the way of (1) the special effects and (2) the action, though some insensitivity to diversity issues is careless and distracting.

An architect (Richard Dreyfus), a fire fighter-turned mayor (Kurt Russell), a Naval veteran-turned gambler (Josh Lucas), a single mom (Jacinda Barrett) with her son, a steward (Freddy Rodriguez) and a stowaway (Mia Maestro) — for tonight’s performance their skills play the role normally played by those gadgets that Q hands out to James Bond. We know what they can do. The fun is seeing how each of them will be required.

A character who contemplated suicide will find why and how much he wants to stay alive. A character who can’t let go of what matters most to him learns that letting go can be the best way to hold on. Characters learn what they are capable of — whether it means great sacrifice on behalf of the group or devastating choices to ensure survival.

But mostly, it’s about the special effects and the stunts, which are, for all the good and bad that implies and with the significant and jarring exception noted in the spoiler below, the best of what Hollywood has to offer when it comes to summer action films. As for the dialogue — well, someday I forsee a college drinking game that will require everyone to take a swig every time someone says something like, “Do it or we DIE!”

Parents should know the movie has non-stop intense peril and violence, some quite graphic. Characters are injured and killed and there are many dead bodies. Characters drink and at least one gets inebriated. There are sexual references, some crude, including the exchange of sexual favors for other benefits. SPOILER ALERT: A serious problem with the movie is its portrayal of the minority characters. While the white leads are professionals, the two Hispanics are a steward and a stowaway, both sacrificed to move the plot along and keep the white characters alive. A strength of the movie is the low-key, positive portrayal of a gay character.

Families who see this movie should talk about the decisions made by Nelson and Ramsey — what went through their minds as they evaluated their options?

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy the original, as well as disaster film classic The Towering Inferno.

Mission Impossible III

Posted on May 10, 2006 at 3:55 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of frenetic violence and menace, disturbing images and some sensuality.
Profanity:	Brief strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Social drinking, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Intense and graphic peril and violence, including torture, graphic injuries and death
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	2006
Date Released to DVD:	2006
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000HRMAPE

At this point, the impossible mission may be finding some way to make this story work once more.

That Lalo Schifrin score still jumps and in this version there is a propulsive shot of percussive adrenalin. The idea of super-spies who speak every language, are in superb condition, and know every aspect of spycraft from shooting to fighting to explosives to computers to physics to finding the coolest sunglasses — that still works pretty well, too, and it’s always a treat to see who the new bad guy will be. But making it more than ever-bigger explosions and chases? That’s where this mission self-destructs long before it’s over.

This time, it’s personal — the script tries to turn up the heat by giving the hero a love interest and the movie begins with both of them tied up and man threatening to kill her if Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) does not give him something called a rabbit’s foot. She is Julia (Michelle Monaghan), a nurse. Flashback to their engagement party, where he is explaining his boring job with the state Department of Transportation monitoring traffic patterns.

The men find him snoozerific, but the women in essence, say, “Hey, he’s Tom Cruise! We’d marry him even if he jumps on sofas.”
Hunt has given up spying for love, and now has a nice, safe, teaching job underneath that boring Transportation Department office building. But his best student (“Felicity’s” Keri Russell) has been captured, so he’s quickly back on board with old friends (Ving Rhames as computer whiz Luther) and new ones (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and Maggie Q).

The bad guy at the center of all this is Owen Davian (“Capote” Oscar-winner Philip Seymour Hoffman). And that rabbit’s foot is some kind of end of the world device (“the anti-God”) locked away in some kind of impenetrable building blah blah blah. And maybe one of the good guys isn’t good all the way through. And maybe there will be some of that face-and-voice switching we always expect from the MI series.

That’s the problem. It’s just what we expect. It’s been a long dry stretch since last summer’s bang-bangs, and all those months of Oscar-bait dramas and winter doldrum leftovers have left audiences so parched for blow-em-ups that they might not notice the under-written script. Just don’t try to think.

The bright spots are Hoffman, who gets more out of the word “fun” than Cruise gets out of his big dramatic reaction to seeing his fiancee at gunpoint, Laurence Fishburne, as a superspy boss-man, who dryly points out that his reference to The Invisible Man is “Welles, not Ellison, in case you want to be cute again,” and the Q-equivalent, “Shaun of the Dead’s” Simon Pegg. Decidedly unbright spots are Cruise, who seems to have suffered charisma-extraction, the bantering about getting married in the middle of split-second calculations, chases, and explosions and seeing a character disguised as another doing stunts that even by the low standards of probability for this genre just seem silly.

Same with all the just-miss bullet dodging. For a bunch of characters who are supposed to be the world’s most accurate shots, they miss a lot. And with the “make the explosions really loud and they won’t notice” plot omissions and inconsistencies.
The real problem that keeps interfering with what would otherwise suffice as popcorn pleasures of the movie-as-thrill-ride is that in the midst of all the faux resolute jaw clenches and corny banter there is something genuinely troubling — the specter of torture of prisoners and Machiavellian corruption. Intended to give the movie a jolt of “Law and Order”-style ripped-from-the-headlines electricity, instead it throws the movie fatally off-kilter.

Parents should know that this movie features extensive and explicit peril and violence with many explosions and chases, torture, and many injuries and deaths. There are some sexual references and brief, non-explicit sexual situations. Characters drink, smoke, and use brief strong language.

Families who see this movie should talk about the conflict Ethan faces between doing what makes him happy and doing what he thinks is right and between telling Julia the truth and protecting her from it. They should also talk about one character’s comment that you can always tell people’s characters by the way they treat someone they don’t have to treat well.
Families who see this movie will enjoy the two earlier films and the James Bond series and Lord of War. They might also enjoy taking a look at the original television series, which is available on DVD.