Skyfall (***1/2)

Until recently, I had never especially cared for the James Bond series. It all seemed little cartoonish, and the various post-Sean Connery, pre-Daniel Craig Bonds seemed a bit too self-satisfied for my taste. But with Casino Royale, which made Agent 007 a little dirtier, a little sweatier, and, of course, unlucky in love (not sex), I was won over. The newest film, is, for at least the first half, the equal of that first Craig film. The opening is nearly as good as any chase sequence I’ve seen, with Bond tracking a computer drive, and the man carrying it, on a variety of wheeled vehicles, most notably a backhoe, while destroying much of Istanbul. The drive has the identities of secret agents on it; unlike other opening sequences, the chase sets up the rest of the movie.

Along with most of the other action, it’s highly improbable, but not obviously ridiculous. The primary villain, played by Javier Bardem with a blond dye job, verges on the cartoonish, but with certain human emotions and motivations. At times, the film both harkens back to the series’ past or consciously turns in a new direction. Nods to the past include the return, after an absence, of the character Q (Ben Whishaw), now retooled as the now-familiar type of the computer geek. Judi Dench again plays M; the character has a heightened role in the plot. At the same time, a scene in which Bond employs a simple radio-beacon device subtly mocks the reliance of earlier installments on elaborate gadgetry. This Bond does not order that his martini be “shaken not stirred,” but does take a picturesque drive in his Aston Martin.

But the most notable thing remains the Craig/Bond persona. He is not cocky, or especially debonair, at least compared to, say, Roger Moore or Pierce Brosnan; his characteristic expression is somewhere between dour and thoughtful, rarely smiling, never smirking. The toughness and physicality recollects Connery, but I doubt if anyone would have spoken of the 1960s model as having “unresolved childhood trauma,” as happens here. Moreover, Connery would not have been seen with gray stubble, as Craig is. He’s taken some time off, for reasons the opening makes clear, and gotten rusty enough that he has to pause and rest his hand while clinging to the bottom of an elevator in a Shanghai high-rise.

While Casino Royale was adapted from an Ian Fleming story, and Quantum of Solace directly related to events in that movie, the story here stands alone. Screenplay credit goes to Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who’ve collaborated on all Bond films from 1999’s The World Is Not Enough on, and Josh Logan (Hugo), with Sam Mendes (American Beauty) directing. Ralph Fiennes, as a British spy chief, and Naomie Harris, as a field agent who appears in the opening and later, are welcome cast additions with, it appears, recurring roles. Harris and Craig share some of the wittiest banter in the movie, but French actress Bérénice Marlohe, appears as the more traditional Bond girl. It would give away a plot point to say why her character arc is slightly distasteful, but in any case “romance” is a small part of the plot. After a nice sequence in a Shanghai skyscraper, the action flags in the middle before the literally explosive conclusion, whose setting finally explains the title.

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viewed 11/17/12 11:50 am at Riverview and reviewed 11/18–25/12

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (***1/4)

Until close to the end of this movie, you might be wondering what a small sci-fi film about a scientist (James Franco) and his genetically modified chimp Caesar (Andy Serkis) has to do with the old film series in which an entire world of intelligent chimps rule over humans. But you’ll keep watching anyway.

Like so many films about scientists, this may be deplored by real one because even the relatively kind protagonist played by Franco comes off as a reckless fool. (His boss is also money-grubbing.) (Unlike Contagion, it also sticks with the usual depiction of scientists as lone geniuses rather than collaborators.) It’s also, essentially, the usual Garden of Eden-inspired morality play about scientists meddling in arenas where they don’t belong. And it’s an allegory about human cruelty that’s only slightly less heavy-handed than, say, Avatar, another film in which the humans are, allowing a few grudging exceptions, the villains. (This criticism is purely a dramatic one; the recent documentary Project Nim shows, in fascinating and sometimes heartbreaking fashion, that, for chimps in capitivity, humans really are, allowing a few grudging exceptions, villains.)

But the saving graces are two. First, it doesn’t confer upon apes some kind of spiritual purity. Instead, the film gives us, in Caesar, chimpanzee as warm and cuddly friend (like Spielberg’s E.T.), then (as Spielberg does with his robot in A.I.) yanks the curtain away from that sentimental view, then kind of balances it out, granting the non-human primates their, for lack of a better word, humanity. Second, unlike the the original Planet of the Apes (1968), or the misbegotten film of the same name from 2001, this is more in the vein of a modest thriller than some sort of epic. Somehow, when I don’t feel like the filmmaker is trying to make a grand statement, I am less inclined to quibble that a non-genentically modified orangutan is supposed to be able to have a complex discussion with Caesar simply because he too was once taught sign language. Or that the scientist’s apparently bright girlfriend can’t figure out in five years that Caesar might not be an ordinary ape.

This Rise, then, is a probably fantastic, but still entertaining extrapolation of the idea of what might happen if these creatures who are so similar to us, yet so much more powerful, got smarter. With the help of Serkis (repeating his motion-captured acting from Lord of the Rings), director Rupert Wyatt creates some arresting visuals to accompany the action-oriented second half of the film. The script from the team of Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa (An Eye for an Eye, The Relic) apes (pun intended) E.T. and probably any number of other films, but the originality of having a non-human central character mostly compensates.

IMDB link

viewed 9/15/11 at UA Riverview and reviewed 9/16/11

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (***1/4)

Unlike with other movies, I feel compelled to categorize myself in reviewing Harry Potter films, of which this is, as everyone must know, the last. And so, I declare myself a non-reader of the J. K. Rowling series. I have liked, but not been enthralled by, all of the previous movie adaptations. The series is in good hands in wrapping up, with David Yates returning to direct his fourth one and Steve Kloves, who’s written all but one of the films, again handling the screenplay. And, of course, the familiar faces of the primary cast; for once, no new major character is introduced.

The plot is at once devastatingly simple—Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) must locate the last of the “horcruxes” and finally confront evil Voldemort—and typically complex. That is, the big picture stays in focus, but, without having read the books, or at least having a deep recall of earlier installments, one is confronted with a succession of minor and medium characters with  dimly remembered back stories. Once or twice I had the sensation that a character was only present in the film as a sop to fans of the novels, and that there was a back story I was missing.

In temperament, though, the movie is plain spoken. It’s as dark as one expects, but without the sense of ennui and melancholia that pervaded parts of Deathly Hallows, Part 1. The three principals, Harry, Hermione (Emma Watson), and Ron (Rupert Grint), though together for a great deal of the film, interact mostly in a functional way. “Brilliant!” and “That’s It!” are the sort of dialogue that most often passes between them. No time for post-adolescent angst when the devil’s afoot. Any emotional heft comes from the cumulative force of nine films in ten years, though also, later, from bloodied children. Yet you can’t help noticing the very “adult-ness” of these actors/characters first seen as pre-teens. It’s perfect that the series should end now.

Visually, the film is stately, emphasizing especially the imposing edifice of the Hogwarts school, where events take Harry, though he’s graduated. Special effects are not lacking, but in service of the plot, and only a few times drawing attention to themselves. There is quite a lot of wizardry, though; it’s a wonder there’s no “kill Voldemort” spell that would quite simplify the plot. Instead, we get smaller versions of this; no sooner does an obstacle present itself than a heretofore unknown spell, substance, or magic object provides a way out. Most magical of all, though, might be Helena Bonham Carter as…Hermione, in disguise, doing an uncanny Emma Watson imitation and supplying the limited comic relief.

The most wicked and satisfying plot turn has little to do with spells, a lot to do with creepy professor turned nasty headmaster Snape (Alan Rickman), and everything to do with human qualities good and not. Harry’s inevitable face-off with evil is almost unavoidably trite, simply for being so inevitable, just as Voldemort himself is trite and unsatisfying compared to the evil in one’s imagination. It’s something like the gun battle in High Noon, both the whole point of what’s come before and not the point at all. Wisely, the film doesn’t quite end there. It ends right, finally.

IMDB link

viewed 8/7/11 at UA Riverview and reviewed 8/7/11 and 8/8/11

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (**3/4)

This is the third film (though based on the fifth of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia novels), so I guess it had to be in 3-D. Visually, it’s fairly well done. But most of the characters are still two-dimensional. An exception is Lucy, who is the youngest, though actress Georgie Henley, who plays her is noticeably older than in the other two films. She is here the most prominent character, entering Narnia with her older brother, Edmund, and a new character, detested cousin Eustace. Obnoxious, haughty, and disbelieving (skepticism is not a virtue in Lewis’s world), he functions as comic relief for the first half of the film, sharing that function with Reepicheep, the talking, fencing mouse voiced by Simon Pegg. Of the several other new characters, they are much less memorable than the ones in the other two films, and their appearances are briefer. The other major character who returns is Caspian (Ben Barnes). As the title character of the previous film, he had a lot more to do, though. For the purposes of this film, to say that he is the brave, young, and wise ruler of Narnia is to say all that needs to be said. As for the other two Pevensie children, they make only token appearances.

All in all, this was the weakest of the three films. The first, built around the children’s discovery of Narnia and the task of unfreezing it, and the second, centering on an epic battle, were satisfyingly cohesive in a way that this was not, even if it’s shorter. I have not read the novels, so my reaction is not based on that, but for the first time I felt in watching that the story was clearly culled from a larger work. Themes and events whiz by, never to be revived. Yes, everyone is supposed to be searching for magic swords to free some people entrapped by a magic mist, but truly, this is a pretty boring uniting theme, since neither the mist nor the swords have significant stories behind them (in the movie version). Could be also I just don’t care for movies about random magic objects. Maybe that’s why I thought the Lord of the Rings trilogy was so overrated. Perhaps too the lack of input by Andrew Adamson, who directed and cowrote the first two movies, is missed. (Michael Apted helmed this one.) It reminded me a little of the last Pirates of the Caribbean movies, where they just keep wandering from one setting to another, but nothing seemed really to happen. It’s not as dull as that, nor as misguided as the last of the Austin Powers movies, or of the Spy Kids franchise (also in 3-D), but does help make the case that when it comes to film series, the third time is not always the charm.

IMDB link

viewed at Rave UPenn (PFS screening) and reviewed 12/2/10

Star Trek (***)

They used to just have sequels, and then they had prequels, and now they have “reboots,” attempts to financially, and maybe artistically, resuscitate a movie series that had seemed to play itself out. New actors are cast, a new writer and director are hired, and the story returns to its origins. In this case, it returns to an even earlier period, though that happens to be over 200 years in the future. Beginning with the birth of future starship captain James T. Kirk, it ends more or less at the starting point of the original 1967–1969 series. The director is J. J. Abrams, creator of TV’s Alias and Lost.

I tend to like origin stories, but to be honest the childhood stuff is pretty perfunctory. Kirk (Chris Pine) reveals his brash nature and impulsivity via that hoariest of clichés, a bar fight. (He’s trying to pick up his future shipmate Uhura, who gets to be a love interest in this version.) Meanwhile, on planet Vulcan, Spock (Zachary Quinto) gets teased for being half-human, behavior that seems odd, and not at all alien, for such a logical race. But the series, and this movie, always seemed to have as a core theme that trying to be logical makes no sense. Hence, Spock is always the secondary hero to Kirk, who believes every battle can be won and reflects creator Gene Roddenberry‘s optimistic view of humanity.

Genocide and revenge are themes here too, but it’s not the humans but the alien Romulans who threaten both. This plot, too, is unremarkable, but provides the framework for the main characters to reveal their personalities, and for the special-effects crew to show up those 1960s TV folks and most of the earlier films based on their exploits. You don’t need to know anything about any of that to follow the film, but it probably makes it more enjoyable. Even if the story is new, it’s careful about hitting as many of the familiar touchstones as possible, from Spock’s “Live Long and Prosper” to “Bones” McCoy’s “I’m just a doctor!” schtick to the “These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise” voiceover, moved from the intro to the coda. The actors, too, definitely aim to preserve some of the mannerisms of the old cast. Pine’s Kirk, especially, has more than a hint of Shatner in his movements, though there’s less of his oft-parodied halting vocal style.

With Shatner represented in spirit, Leonard Nimoy shows up in the flesh, shoehorned into a couple of scenes via a time-travel plot that Spock himself might call “highly illogical.” Again, plot is not the strong point, but with that exception the script Transformers writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have crafted is a sturdy vehicle for the action scenes (I liked the one with a wild animal) and the rivalry-cum-friendship of Kirk and Spock. Reboot successful, more or less.

IMDB link

viewed 5/26/09 at Moorestown; reviewed 5/26 and 5/29/09

Superman Returns (***)

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X-Men director Bryan Singer’s long-in-the-making screen revival restores the luster of the world’s best-known superhero, loosely following the framework of the first two Christopher Reeve movies while giving the character a patina of angst.

This aptly titled fantasy comes 28 years after Superman made a star of Christopher Reeve and started the still-continuing wave of modern superhero movies. Director Bryan Singer’s revival of the series (scripted by his X2 partners Michael Dougherty and Don Harris) doesn’t retell the whole origin story, the way Batman Begins did for that series, but follows loosely on the first two Reeve films and regains the serious tone lost in the last two. Where 1987’s Superman IV showed the Kent family farm as abandoned, Returns starts with Superman (Brendan Routh) crash-landing and finding his widowed mother (Eva-Marie Saint) worried sick. Seems Krypton’s last son had left home five years earlier to check out the remains of his home planet. He never called, he never wrote. Nothing. More angry than concerned is his old flame Lois Lane, who has aged even less than him and looks just like Kate Bosworth with dark hair. Still writing for the Daily Planet, she’s gotten herself an award for an article called “Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman.” No doubt she’d seen the last two Reeve movies. A lot of this earlier part of the movie is setup. Family farm, check. Daily Planet, yep. Photographer Jimmy Olsen still worshipful, certainly. Lois Lane an unwed mother with an asthmatic kid and a boyfriend? Hmm, that’s new. Archenemy Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) still scheming, definitely. Some needed excitement arrives with the film’s first major action sequence, in which Superman rescues Lois from a space-shuttle accident, apparently Luthor’s doing.

Luthor is the only villain, so it’s good that Spacey is a worthy replacement for Gene Hackman, making lines that seem flat on the page sound like dryly evil wit. (Parker Posey as his bubble-headed sidekick, a new character, brings some minor comic relief.) Star Routh won’t win any awards, but he looks right in the part, particularly in the scenes where he plays nerdy Clark Kent. (Even though Kent’s returned to the Planet right at the same time as his faster-than-a-speeding-bullet alter ego, ace investigative reporter Lois still can’t tell they’re the same person.) For the most part, Singer gives the series the old-fashioned yet timeless feel superhero fans are likely to favor while utilizing convincingly updated special effects. Returns also incorporates some of John Williams’s 1978 score, an old-style credit sequence, and even a digitally resurrected Marlon Brando as Jor-El, the Man of Steel’s wise biological dad. There’s also, however, a patina of angst about this resurrected demigod of Metropolis. The film itself is frequently literally dark. It’s long and slightly ponderous, with Superman often seen looking pensive as he flies about. Is he bummed out about wasting five years checked out the destroyed Krypton? Or about the people he failed to save when he was gone? His lost innocence, as a flashback boyhood scene may suggest? Does he feel guilty for allowing Luthor to get out of prison? (He wasn’t around to testify.) Hard to tell. All the cinematic superheroes lately—Spider-Man, Batman, and certainly Singer’s X-Men—seem like they could do with a few sessions with a therapist. Surely the Man of Tomorrow could have resurrected the more optimistic brand of heroism I remember from the original series, or even a movie like the underrated Rocketeer. Luthor’s outright brutality in one scene is another thing that gives the movie a somber feel. But I quibble. The plot (involving Luthor’s use of stolen Krypton technology) is absorbing (though not more), the effects terrific, and the conclusion fairly satisfying (while leaving enough open for a sequel). Overall, a welcome Returns.

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Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (**1/2)

Garfield gets to live the life of a look-alike British feline who’s also just inherited a castle. Okay, but Garfield: The Movie had a better story.

I expected to hate Garfield: The Movie but found it unexpectedly amusing, thanks in part to Bill Murray’s surly rendering of the title character’s voice. (The cat and some other animals are computer-animated; the dog Odie, other animals, and the humans are real.) Breckin Meyer, who is plaid personified, returns as Garfield’s mild-mannered owner, Jon. Perky Jennifer Love Hewitt returns as his perky girlfriend Liz. Notwithstanding the Dickensian title, Mark Twain, specifically The Prince and the Pauper, is the inspiration for the sequel. Even if you don’t know Twain from Grisham, you’ve seen this mistaken-identity plot before. True, the British prince that Garfield switches places with is a cat. But, although I liked Billy Connolly as a villainous usurper, I was less engaged than in the first film, which presented better opportunities for Murray to do his curmudgeon act. And the scene where Garfield teaches the other animals to make lasagna is tedious and, well, cheesy.

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Lady Vengeance (***1/2)

The third of Park Chan-Wook’s “vengeance trilogy,” reminiscent in tone of Kill Bill: Vol. II, represents an excellent chance for American action fans to see the work of one of Asia’s leading directors.

Movies like this tend to fall between the cracks when it comes to getting released here. The multiplexes bypass them because they’re not in English, and the art houses tend to favor drama. So even though Asian action movies are often celebrated by video buffs, they don’t often get released here theatrically. (The mythical martial-arts subgenre currently represented by The Promise represents a recent exception, the historical settings perhaps rendering them sufficiently high-brow for import.) This is all by way of saying, if you like action films, check this out. It’s actually the last part of what’s been dubbed Park Chan-Wook’s “vengeance trilogy,” but the films are linked primarily by theme, not plot. (The second and most celebrated part of the trilogy, Oldboy, currently ranked #116 on IMDB.com’s list of top films, had a meager run in 2005 in a few American cities, but only played here at the Philadelphia Film Festival.)

Star Lee Young-Ae’s character has been convicted of kidnapping and murder of a child. Beginning with her surreally filmed release from prison, we follow her forward as she seeks revenge on her former mentor (Oldboy star Choi Min-Sik), who’s set her up, and backward as we see the events surrounding her imprisonment. The prison scenes present a motley assortment of women who (mostly) become her allies on the outside. The best American analog to this film is probably Quentin Tarentino’s Kill Bill: Vol. II. (Not coincidentally, Tarentino is a huge fan of Park.) Its mix of toughness, tenderness, and off-kilter humor is rare in American cinema. Granted, in the same way as Kill Bill, it’s probably too strange to be a tearjerker, but there’s an emotional core to the film absent from most action films, and it’s certainly not predictable. This movie should be opening in 2000 theaters, but it’s a happy circumstance that Americans will get to see it at all.

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X-Men: The Last Stand (***1/4)

--> In the third film in the series, a  possible “cure” for the mutants creates a new rift between humans and the X-men, raising some fascinating, though insufficiently explored, moral issues.

Would you want to be a mutant? That’s one question presented by the third film adapted from the Marvel Comics series. All of the mutants return from the second film, even the one, Famke Janssen’s Jean Grey, who seemed to have been killed. She doesn’t seem herself, though, and the movie spends some time explaining why, utilizing in part a helpful childhood flashback. In contrast to the second film, which I felt strained under the need to demonstrate all of the mutants’ powers, this one does a pretty good job of making everyone seem part of the story. Most of them seem to like being mutants, but it makes some of them, like Rogue (Anna Paquin), feel blue. Or look blue, in the case of the newly introduced character of Dr. Hank McCoy/Beast, who’s become first mutant appointed to a cabinet post. As played by Kelsey Grammer, he somehow reminded me of a hairy Hubert Humphrey, a moderate figure trying to placate two constituencies without much success. Which returns us to the recurring theme of the series as a whole. Are humans and mutants natural enemies? The mutants themselves speak in language reminiscent of the gay-rights movement. There’s nothing wrong with us, some of them say, when told they can be “cured.” 

But I was thinking of another metaphor, the gun-control debate. These superpower-possessing humans are like people with ultra-powerful, unlicensed weapons. Jean Grey herself has the power of whole armies, although the movie doesn’t explore the implications of this as thoroughly as it might. In a world where they represent an increasing proportion of the population, are “ordinary” humans bound to end up as endangered as chimpanzees? Does the mere existence of these superhumans inherently threaten everyone else, because inevitably some will do great harm, even if most don’t? Having posited these questions, at least implicitly, the film actually gives them less consideration that I had hoped for. It’s the rare thriller that I wish had been just a little bit longer. Instead, the film rather tidily uses Patrick Stewart’s Professor Xavier and Ian McKellen’s Magneto as symbols of the accomodationist and confrontational approaches to the issue. The penultimate sequence is a big special-effects action extravaganza (there’s very few action scenes before that) that mostly works, even if it wraps things up too tidily. Perhaps the more straightforward plotting is due to the replacement of director Bryan Singer with Brett Ratner (Rush Hour). Notwithstanding the caveats above, I found this at least as absorbing as the other two films. Stay to the very end of the credits for a hint about the plot of a potential fourth movie.

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posted 8/16/13

Mission Impossible III (**3/4)

Employing acrobatics, stealth, and firepower, agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) aces three impossible missions and learns not to hide the truth from his new fiancée. Good for action fans.

This was a weird movie to see after the ultra-realistic Flight 93. Here, “IMF” [Impossible Mission Force] agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) concocts in an hour or two a series of break-and-enter missions that al-qaeda might have rejected as too complex. I guess the collective Islamofascist mind just can’t compete with good-old American know-how. Three such set pieces, and another sequence in which a barrage of artillery is unleashed against Hunt on a bridge, comprise the bulk of the action scenes, set on three continents. They’re pretty good, but not spectacular, and certainly not believable. At least two of them result in many dead bodies and explosions, though. The ever-versatile Philip Seymour Hoffman is the villain, who, as the movie begins, is threatening to kill Ethan and his beloved if he doesn’t get something called the Rabbit’s Foot. Also impressive is Laurence Fishburne as Hunt’s superior, who gets the best dialogue. (“I will bleed on the flag to make sure the stripes stay red.”) Directed by J.J. Abrams of Lost and Alias fame, this installment offers less character development than either of those TV series, but should satisfy action fans.

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posted 8/20/13

Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Family Reunion (**3/4)

Perry’s comic “mad black housewife” returns, but mixed in with a romance and melodrama involving two of her nieces. The plot is trite but the characters are pretty good.

Madea was the title character of the critically lambasted but popular Diary of a Mad Black Housewife. As played by writer-director Perry in drag, she’s the same sort of comical character as Momma in the Big Momma’s House movies, except without an alter ego. She’s feisty but supposedly wise, although her solution to most problems seems to involve whacking somebody upside the head. But she—and her elderly brother, also played by Perry—are only in about a third of the movie. The other two thirds are taken up by her nieces, and these stories are straight soap opera, for better and worse. There’s the younger daughter (Rochelle Aytes), afraid to escape a fiancé (Blair Underwood) who beats her, and her older sister (a convincing Lisa Arrindell Anderson), afraid to believe that the ridiculously handsome bus driver who asks her out could be a nice guy.

The mixture of pathos and very broad comedy is mildly jarring. Judging by the guffaws I heard during the Madea parts, I probably thought a little less of the humor than some. The plotting is ordinary. But there were some interesting things, things you don’t see too often in typical movies. (Read: movies where white people have speaking parts.) For example, you probably don’t see an older woman beating a child’s behind, not played for laughs, anyway. You don’t see the romantic lead tell his date that he’s a Christian, or her telling him she’s staying celibate until marriage (and meaning it). You don’t see Cicely Tyson make an interminably weird speech about how the young’uns have forgotten family and black men need to be strong. Finally, you don’t get to see what must be the tackiest wedding since the Britney Spears-Jason Alexander Vegas quickie.

IMDb link

posted 9/11/13

The Pink Panther (**1/2)

Steve Martin reprises Peter Sellers’s bumbling Inspector Clouseau character. He’s not bad, but the screenplay he coauthored eventually falters.

The only comedy album I ever bought was Steve Martin’s Wild and Crazy Guy back in 1978. One bit I still remember is Martin imitating a Frenchman saying, “We don’t even have our own language. All we have is this stupid ac-cent.” I guess there’s still something funny to me about the idea, so well promulgated by Hollywood movies, that everyone in the world speaks English, badly. Who knew that Martin would be using his earlier-perfected bad ac-cent nearly three decades later to essay a role made famous by Peter Sellers. Given that Sellers, who last played bumbling Inspector Clouseau in that same year of 1978, is dead, Martin does a pretty good job of getting the laughs to be had, as does Kevin Kline (with an even worse accent) in Herbert Lom’s old role of Inspector Dreyfus.

Reprised from the Sellers films (all directed by Blake Edwards) are Henry Mancini’s famous theme, the plot revolving around the stolen Pink Panther diamond, the slapstick humor, and Dreyfus’s contempt for Clouseau. The uneven screenplay, cowritten by Martin, is new. The gags feel strained when they get too elaborate. The simpler ones are better. For example, when Clouseau learns that a dying man’s last words, before being shot, were “It’s you!” he tells his right-hand man (Jean Reno) to find everyone in Paris named “Yu.” The film falters in the second half for two related reasons. First, Clouseau is made to suddenly realize he is a laughingstock. Then, he is made to wise up and quite cleverly solve the crime. The idea behind the character, and the humor, is that he is always confident but never competent.

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posted 9/11/13

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (***1/4)

A dangerous contest tests Harry’s magical skills, while quarrels with his friends and a school dance reveal gaps in his social skills. The emphasis on character dynamics as well as the contest effects (particularly dragons) make this fourth film in the series perhaps the most enjoyable yet.

In the previous Potter films, I’ve always enjoyed the parts detailing the Hogwarts school rituals and the character dynamics more than the parts about the various nefarious plots against Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and his friends. This fourth entry, which might have been subtitled “Harry Enters Puberty,” leans in that direction. Harry’s bad dreams about Voldemort mean evil will crop up eventually, but meanwhile he faces the toughest test yet of his skills, a dangerous contest against three older students. Included is a brilliantly staged battle against a dragon. The most significant new cast member, Brendan Gleeson as a mildly demented new instructor, teaches an amusing lesson featuring some new spells. But, as Harry learns, being the star pupil doesn’t make it easier to find a date to the school dance. The contest and the dance reveal fissures in the friendship among Harry and his pals Ron and Hermione, as well as hints of sexual tension in the boys’ relationship with Hermione. No doubt Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will pursue this tension further. This nicely paced entry (thanks to new director Mike Newell and returning screenwriter Steve Kloves) has me looking forward to 2008.

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circulated via email 11/23/05 and posted 9/21/13