Ready to Rumble

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

For all those out there who can’t wait for the next Adam Sandler movie, and especially for those who find those Adam Sandler movies a little too intellectually challenging, we now have “Ready to Rumble,” a sort of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Wrestling Adventure.

David Arquette and Scott Caan play Gordie and Sean, two likeable doofuses who worship “the King” — wrestling champion Jimmy King (Oliver Platt), who seems to have appropriated his accent and substance abuse problem from that other King, Elvis. Horrified when the King is defeated by Diamond Dallas Page, they resolve to help him regain the title.

This process leads them to encounter a van full of nuns singing Van Halen’s “Driving with the Devil,” a sultry Nitro Girl named Sasha (Rose McGowan), a tough old wrestling coach (Martin Landau), the King’s bitter ex-wife (Caroline Rhea) and snaggle-toothed son, and an average of one joke about poop or testicles every 10 minutes.

Arquette and Caan are hard to resist, though. Most actors who play clueless characters can’t resist show-boating to let us know how clever they are. Arquette and Caan just open themselves up to the inner dope. Their simple exhuberence, loyalty, and sweetness keep this movie from feeling too sour or tired. The able support of character actors like Platt, Landau, Joe Pantoliano (as the wrestling promoter), the sadly underused Rhea, an assortment of wrestling superstars like Goldberg and Sting and some good music help to keep it moving. This may also be the only soundtrack in history to feature both Kid Rock and Aaron Copeland.

Parents should know that despite the rating, this movie has a lot of R- type material, including incessent and very raw potty humor, strong language, sexual references, and a bare behind. Part of the adventure is sexual initiation for both of the leading characters. A bad guy tells an employee to have sex with someone to find out what he is up to. A girl “presents” a boy with sex as a gift.

Families who see the movie should talk about how we pick our heroes, how we live up to our dreams, and how we learn which dreams to follow.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy the much funnier and less raunchy “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.”

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Angel Eyes

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

Watch out — they’re trying to sell this movie as a thriller with supernatural overtones, but it turns out that it is a very traditional love story, and a surprisingly touching one, too.

Jennifer Lopez plays Sharon, a cop who is fearless on the streets but not ready to get close to anyone. As she tells one guy when he tries to get to know her over dinner, “I’m not very good at the whole dating thing,” She goes home to her apartment and lies on her bed in her bulletproof vest.

One day, just as an assailant is about to shoot Sharon, a mysterious stranger (Jim Caviezel) arrives to save her life. She is surprised to find herself drawn to him even though he tells her nothing about himself. All he will tell her is that his name is Catch.

Sharon investigates and interrogates people for a lving. She is not sure how much it is fair to expect to learn about someone in a relationship, so she does not push. In fact, it gives her some breathing room because she does not feel crowded by questions about her own past. She finds something freeing about a relationship between people who have only the present.

The connection between the two of them will be a mystery only to those people who have never seen a movie. But there is an appealing lightness and even a little wisdom the way their relationship unfolds. Sharon calls Catch and when he answers she tells him to hang up so that she can call his machine. She is not comfortable enough to talk to him directly, but at least she is able to tell him that.

Sharon and Catch both have to accept their pasts before they can face the future together. Although it is terrifying, they have to be honest with themselves before they can really be close to each other. Both blame themselves for family tragedies, and both have to accept that it is all right to go on from that. The movie has the great good sense to leave things a little messy.

Maybe Jennifer Lopez should stick with playing cops. This is her best performance since she played a marshall in “Out of Sight.” Caviezel, following roles in “Frequency” and “Pay it Forward,” seems to be the current go-to guy for playing “guys weird stuff happens to.” Screenwriter Gerald DePego and director Luis Mandoki show us the warm, easy connection between Sharon and Catch, and they make it clear that love alone is not the cure, just the motive to allow yourself to heal.

Parents should know that the movie is rated R for very strong language, brief non-explicit nudity and sexual references and situations. Characters are in peril and some are shot. There is a fatal automobile accident and a child is killed offscreen. Sharon jokes that she was looking for a man to “clean her pipes.” There are references to domestic abuse, and we see a woman who has been hit in the face.

Families who see this movie should talk about how we can find a way to create a balance between privacy and intimacy, between mourning a loss and moving on, between trying to make things better and accepting something less than perfect. They may also want to talk about Sharon’s conflicts over how to respond to her father’s abuse of her mother. When Sharon and Catch first become close, she asks him to kiss her somewhere she has never been kissed before — it may be worth discussing with teenagers the importance of keeping yourself precious enough so that you can give the person you love something that is just for the two of you.

Audiences who enjoy this movie will also enjoy some of the classic old romances like “I’ll be Seeing You” with Ginger Rogers and Joseph Cotten, “Love Letters” with Cotten and Jennifer Jones, and “One Way Passage” with William Powell and Kay Francis.

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Return to Me

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

No surprises here, but it is a pleasant date-movie, a romance that tries hard to transcend its gimmick and just about succeeds. Let’s get the gimmick out of the way first – guy has girl (architect Bob — David Duchovney — married to beautiful Elizabeth — zookeeper Joely Richardson). Then guy loses girl in a car accident, guy meets new girl named Grace (Minnie Driver) who doesn’t want to tell him that she had a heart transplant, guy finds out that the heart came from his late wife, and everyone gets over it and gets on with living happily ever after.

I know, I know, it is a very creaky premise. At least it isn’t one of those movies that drags out the telling part and then just as she is about to spill the beans he finds out anyway and it takes another half hour to straighten it all out. And at least there is no maudlin “Chicken Soup for the Soul”-type stuff about how this is the gift his late wife brought to him or anything like that. Grace tells Bob as soon as she finds out and it does not take him too long to figure out that he loves her anyway, and if it just happens that the big clinch happens in Italy, where he was always trying to take Elizabeth, we won’t make too big a thing of it.

We know where it is all going from the first five minutes. So we can sit back and enjoy the ride, in the capable hands of director/co-star/co- scriptwriter Bonnie Hunt. Hunt, a terrific character actress (Renée Zellweger’s sister in “Jerry Maguire” and Tom Hanks’ wife in “The Green Mile”) lets the couple’s friends and family add a lot of life and depth to the story. They give Bob and Grace more personality and interest, sort of character by association.

Grace lives with her grandfather (Carroll O’Connor), owner of an Irish-Italian restaurant that is home to a community so adorable and loving that they could be birds and cherubs perching on the finger of an animated Disney heroine. Her friend Megan (director Hunt) is living in happy domestic chaos with her husband (James Belushi) and four children. Bob’s friend Charlie (David Alan Grier) is there to fix him up with Ms. Wrong, so that he can have a reason to go to Grace’s grandfather’s restaurant and leave behind the 21st century equivalent of a glass slipper – his cell phone.

Everyone has to cope with the risks of letting others see us clearly. It is not just major secrets like heart transplants that people are afraid to share with others. Families who see this movie should talk about how people decide how much of themselves to share, about how people cope with loss that seems devastatingly overwhelming, and about Grace’s grandfather’s comment that “It is the character that’s the strongest that God gives the most challenges to.” Before Grace goes out with Bob for the first time, Megan advises her not to shave her legs, as insurance against “going too far.” This is a rare movie in which the couple does not go to bed together almost immediately, partly because of Grace’s sensitivity about her scar, and possibly also because Bob needs to take things slowly, too. Some families will want to talk about how couples make decisions about the risks of physical intimacy as well as emotional. And families should also talk about the loving way the people in this movie care for each other and enjoy each other.

Parents should know that though the movie is rated PG, there are a few strong words, including some used by children, and some mild sexual references.

Families who enjoy this movie will also like “Sleepless in Seattle.”

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An American Tail

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

Feivel Mousekewitz is a little Russian mouse who emigrates to the United States with his family, after they are told that “there are no cats in America and the streets are paved with cheese.” He becomes separated from his parents and sister, and is forced to work in a sweatshop by the evil Warren T. Rat (a cat in disguise). Feivel is resilient and courageous, and finds friends (including a kind cat) who help him until he finds his family. The score features the hit song, “Somewhere Out There.”

Families who see this movie should talk about how their own ancestors came to America (or wherever else they settled) and about the immigrant experience.

The sequel, “An American Tail: Feivel Goes West” features the voice of Jimmy Stewart as the slow-talking Sheriff Wylie Burp.

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Romeo Must Die

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

Hong Kong action star Jet Li (“Lethal Weapon 4”) and R&B artist Aliyah are a hip-hop Romeo and Juliet in this tired tale of rival gangters. Fans of martial arts will do well to wait for it to come out on video, so they can fast-forward through all the meaningless exposition and endless shots of people giving mean and meaningful looks at each other and get to the good stuff.

Delroy Lindo is Isaak O’Day, a gangster who dreams of going legit, “making deals in country clubs instad of pool halls.” He loves his children, Colin (D.B. Woodside) and Trish (Aliyah) deeply and wants to protect them. But Colin wants to “be a man,” and for him that means taking matters into his own hands.

Kai Sung (Russell Wong) is the leader of the rival gang. Like O’Day, he has a son who wants to be a player. He and O’Day are trying to get the deeds to the shoreline property in their districts, to turn it over to a sleezy developer who is competing for a football franchise. We know he’s sleezy because he keeps saying fake profound things in an arrogant way, like,” golf is a game of finesse, not power, much like life,” and “If I say there is caviar on the mountain, you just bring some crackers.”

When Sung’s son is killed, his brother Han (Jet Li) breaks out of a Hong Kong prison to come to the US to avenge his death. He meets Trish, and they find that they have more in common with each other than with their sides in the fight.

There are some nice fight scenes, though it seems an insult to Jet Li’s extraordinary talent to trick them up with computer graphics. If we want to see people suspended in the air while they kick each other, we can rent “The Matrix.” Little flashes of x-ray shots of bones being crunched are an interesting touch. When you’re fast-forwarding the video, be sure to stop and see it.

Parents should know that the movie has very strong violence, some girl/girl kissing, drug use, and that it is really dumb. (I especially love the ending, with Han and Trish wandering out of the house with all the dead people, the police completely ignoring them.) Families who see the movie may want to talk about racism and the way that children prove their independence, or maybe just how such bad movies get made.

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