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Volume 3, Issue 12
MOVIE REVIEW WHAT'S THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN?Here's a riddle to ponder next time you're standing in line trying to decide what movie to see: What do you get when you combine three talented comedians and a script that seems to have been in Danny Devito's basement since the mid-'80s? You get a ridiculously boring film titled What's The Worst That Could Happen? Martin Lawrence plays Kevin, a high-end thief who considers himself a businessman, simply because he's in the business of thieving. Danny Devito stars as Max Fairbanks, the Ted Turner-esque billionaire tycoon whose business decisions and unwise political moves are forcing him to file for bankruptcy. These two meet the night Kevin decides to break into Max's mansion. In a twist of fate, as Kevin is being carted off by the cops, Max decides to rob him and claim the ring on the crook's finger is indeed his own. Since the ring was a gift from Kevin's girlfriend, he will go at any length to get it back; meanwhile Max feels his new ring has brought him nothing but good fortune. Other stars who make appearances are John Leguizamo, as Lawrence's partner in crime Berger, and Saturday Night Live vets Nora Dunn and Anna Gasteyer. The only saving grace for this film comes from William Fichtner, (The Perfect Storm, Go). Here he plays a detective, who unlike his questionably homosexual character from Go, is extremely gay and very funny in this film. It is sad to see Lawrence make a very unfunny film such as this. Granted, Big Momma's House wasn't a howl, but it definitely showed some range in his acting skills. As for Devito, he should stick to producing films rather than starring in them (his last two films, Screwed and Drowning Mona, both tanked at the box office). Unfortunately for us, this film never really takes off, and the jokes that are inserted aren't very effective. This film comes across as a great idea for a short (robber gets robbed during robbery), but it can't hold its own as a 90 minute feature film. D --Neal James Movie ReviewATLANTISWhat would happen if you took all the Disney scripts from the last decade and fed them into a computer? Chances are you would get something resembling Atlantis. Disney's latest animated feature borrows most directly from Pocahontas; both stories revolve around the discovery of a new land and the bad guy's attempts to deplete its natural resources. And once again, the hero falls in love with the leader's daughter. I know Disney isn't supposed to go out of its way to challenge us, but they could at least assume our memories go back more than five years. Pocahontas isn't the only victim of theft here, just the most prominent. The whole of Atlantis has a familiar feeling to it, like Disney is out of fresh ideas and decided to try combining a few of the old ones. It is unfortunate the story doesn't stand up, because both the animation and some of the voice work are better than most of what the studio has produced lately. One of the aspects fairly new to Disney (although it's been done everywhere else) is the rag-tag ensemble of ethnically diverse supporting characters. As is often the case, here it serves only to fill the screen with two-dimensional characters, ranging from almost likable to excessively annoying. James Garner voices the only character whom we don't know everything about within five minutes of meeting, but even his depth would be dwarfed by a wading pool. Another element lifted from outside the Disney coporation are the climactic battles which, while nice to look at here, looked better when George Lucas did them in Return of the Jedi. It is very apparent writer Tab Murphy didn't expect his audience to bring its brain to the theater. Atlantis is filled with logic-defying impossibilities for the sake of moving the story along. The worst example is the Atlantians' ability to speak several modern languages, despite being under water for the past several millennia. The script is all the more unfortunate when you take into account that Atlantis has some of the best animation to come out of Disney yet. The CGI fits well with the hand-drawn elements, and the motions of both are smoothly rendered. Although it will be lost this summer between Shrek and Final Fantasy, the animation of Atlantis is quite good, probably the movie's strongest element. The other pleasant surprise here is the complete lack of singing. The characters never spontaneously break into song, and there's no Phil Collins or Elton John in the background. Perhaps Disney is completing the steps they took with The Emperor's New Grove and moving toward 90 minutes of actual storytelling, without the musical interludes. If only they had included a better story to back it up. C- -- Chris Ward DVD REPORT
BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA (1986)on (Kurt Russell) really wants is to get his beloved big rig truck and some money owed him. But when your day starts with a kidnapping and attempted rescue, segues into a martial arts gang war, and then you find yourself up against a 2,000-year-old cursed sorcerer and his three magic-slinging bodyguards-- well, it just gets complicated. By and large, Big Trouble is an American version of deliriously fantastic Hong Kong fantasies like Zu:Warriors of the Magic Mountain and Peacock King. Disc one contains the movie and an audio commentary track by Kurt Russell and John Carpenter. Disc Two contains all the other extras. There are three trailers (one in Spanish) and six TV spots. "Deleted Scenes" is something of a misnomer-- in order to attain the picture's breakneck speed, lines of dialogue or small character bits were excised from within sequences, rather than cutting whole scenes. "Extended ending" is an untrimmed version of the film's end (though I'd feel better if they'd excised that damned "shock" ending). "Music Video"? Good Lord! It's Carpenter, Nick Castle and Tommy Lee Wallace (as "The Coupe de Villes") singing the theme song-- and yes, that's Carpenter doing the basso lead vocal. Don't remember seeing this on MTV.... Moving on to the third screen of extras:"Magazine Articles" reprints pieces from American Cinematographer and Cinefex, with photos embedded in the text pages, which can be enlarged to full screen. "Interview with Richard Edlund" contains a videotaped interview with the visual effects supervisor, with a small window displaying behind-the-scenes photos of the FX crew at work. Once you're finished with the interview, press left on your remote to highlight some glowing eyes in the background and you can access an easter egg:20th Century Fox's genre lineup for the Summer of '86:Big Trouble, Aliens and The Fly, with trailers for each. And don't skip "DVD Production Credits" because it will yield your last surprise: screenshots for the Activision "Big Trouble in Little China" video game for the Commodore 64, which looks pretty painful. That's a lot of material for a pretty low price point. I'm certainly spoiled-- how about you? A --Dr. Freex movies |