If you’re going to make a movie out of Frank Miller’s gritty comic noir fables – which put the ‘graphic’ back in ‘graphic novels’ – you’re not going to do much better than this gleefully gory gem from digital auteur Robert Rodriguez. Despite some weak performances and the lack of a truly feature-length plot, this series of brutal vignettes is about as close to geek fanboy heaven as a film adaptation has ever been.
Perhaps the biggest surprise about ‘A Simple Plan’ is that it was directed by Sam Raimi.
‘Sixth Sense’ writer-director M. Night Shyamalan returns with another promising but ultimately disappointing paranormal thriller, this time concerning mysterious crop circles that appear around the world and, more importantly, in Mel Gibson’s backyard.
Writer-director Alexander Payne finds the perfect representative for his special brand of mid-life despair, sending the always-wonderful Paul Giamatti on a bachelor’s wine tasting road trip with old college buddy Thomas Haden Church. Vintage Payne.
With more of an epilogue than a sequel, Dreamworks manages to squeeze a few more drops of humor out of William Steig’s beloved ogre, but like Mike Myers’ Scottish accent, the story is getting thin.
DreamWorks tears a page out of Pixar’s book and presents a goofy, scatologically funny Ogre-Knight success story which is not quite as clever as the ‘Toy Story’ films, but still features some first-rate vocal performances by Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy and John Lithgow, as well as the requisite mind-blowing animation.
Writers Edgar Wright, who also directs, and Simon Pegg, who also stars, have taken the zombie genre and injected it with just the right amount of goofiness to make a surprisingly funny and clever zombie horror parody, with just a smattering of romantic comedy.
It turns out that Hong Kong’s highest grossing comedy is actually pretty darn funny. Writer-director-star Shephen Chow tweaks the kung-fu action genre with his story of a martial arts master applying his skill to the titular sport. As is usual for Hong Kong comedies the acting is way over-the-top but, somehow, that’s what makes it work.
Jackie Chan turns up his irresistible cuteness and teams with the irresistibly odd Owen Wilson in a convoluted tale which allows for much of his standard brand of chop-socky.
I want to say that ‘Shakespeare in Love’ is a near-perfect romantic comedy, but I can’t find a flaw to make it near-perfect.
