Reviews

(On VHS, August 2000) This films fails on its own merit. But as if to illustrate who bad, and how cheap it is, consider this: I always watch TV with the captioning turned on. In Phantoms, it quickly became obvious that the poor captioner was working from the film itself, not the screenplay; whenever things got confused, the captioning included notes such as [inaudible]. Cheap, much like the rest of the film, which relies at first on big music (faithfully captioned as [music] regardless of importance) and then on increasing mumbo-jumbo backed by the National Enquirer to deliver what is after all the hype a completely standard monster movie. Not much fun, its only saving grace being that Joanna Guest is easy on the eyes.

(On VHS, August 2000) An unconventional tone is set early on as the film begins with a sassy, irreverent first-person narration. Unfortunately, there is such a thing as being too sarcastic, and The Opposite Of Sex, in whole, is a lot like that when it tries to hard to be twisted, mean, hip and darkly funny at the same time. Granted, some of the jokes are quite funny (there’s a great fake-death gag near the end), and Lisa Kudrow is simply adorable as the brainy spinster, but overall the film is simply too gratuitously self-aware to be enjoyable.

(On VHS, August 2000) This thriller shows some promise at first, with its visually interesting credits sequence and a growing sense of impending doom. Unfortunately, the murders stop making sense by the third one (the first two are respectively accidental and self-preservation, but the girl scouts were no threat. It gets sillier after that. There’s even one “surprise” victim whose body just turns up at the end without even a mention of the murder.) and the concept of the mousy copygirl being a serial killer doesn’t have much charm after a few minutes. With no sense of enjoyment, the low-budget production values and the claustrophobic directing (far too many character shots are framed “inside” other objects) really start to grate. After that, things degenerate quickly (it is a fairly short film) in this type of “evil goes unpunished” film that really gets tiresome once you’ve celebrated your fifteenth birthday and seen dozens of these films. There’s usually an excellent reason why these films go straight to video; they’re just not very good!

(On VHS, August 2000) Good concept, great first half, lousy third act. The film is presented as a mock-wildlife documentary about humans for extraterrestrials. Narrated impeccably by Frasier‘s David Hyde Pierce, the story follows the courtship of two relatively average humans. (One of them being the definitely not-so-average Carmen Electra—and yes, she shows some skin) When their story clicks, so does the film, and for nearly an hour, that’s what happens; a good film about sympathetic people. It’s when an unplanned pregnancy shows up that the protagonists start acting like idiots, thing suddenly become far less funny and the film starts getting tiresome. (Note to scriptwriters: Not a good idea to put a romantic comedy’s climax inside an abortion clinic. Not a good idea at all.) Still, the first hour works well, and there’s a hilarious “running” gag at a racetrack.

(In theaters, August 2000) Modern moviegoers will be shocked at the initial narrative drive of this film, where scenes steamroll across the screen one after another, setting up the plot with a raging, almost comical efficiency. Don’t be surprised to find multiple clichés in The Maltese Falcon, but don’t blame the film; blame the innumerable screenwriters who ripped off this film (and, reasonably, the original novel) for countless imitation, and the entire genre of noir film. There are a few rough spots, easy glossing over complex events (oh, so my partner’s been shot… wanna make out?) but the film eventually develops such an inherent fascination that most viewers won’t mind if the last twenty minutes of the film are little more than a theatrical play on film. Somewhat unpolished, maybe even a bit naive, but a lot of fun.

(Second Viewing, On Cable TV, June 2021) Even on a second viewing informed by decades of accumulated knowledge about classic Hollywood, film noir, Humphrey Bogart, writer/director John Huston and nearly everything else about the film, there isn’t all that much to say about The Maltese Falcon. It’s a classic for a reason, and a great example of how the studio system could end up creating a great movie through an accumulation of craftsmanship. Its influence of the following two decades of film noir is undeniable, and it launched Bogart to the superstardom he would solidify over the following two years. Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet (in his screen debut) have the first of several collaborations here (they’d next show up again with Bogart in 1942’s Casablanca). It’s fun to compare it to 1936’s Satan Met a Lady, the very different adaptation of the same original Hammett short story. But taken by itself, whether you’re seeing hot or cold, The Maltese Falcon is still quite a bit of fun.

(On VHS, August 2000) Mob-film parody that’s better than some of its contemporaries, but not by much. Succeeds mostly on the strengths of the Casino rip-off scenes. (“Fifty-Four Pickup”, “Guess a Number”, “Give us your money” games…) There are occasional laughs here and there. Christina Applegate makes a great president. At least we’re spared the toilet humor, but the rest is hit-and-miss.

(In theaters, August 2000) Let’s get something out of the way first: The special effects in Hollow Man are some of the best seen so far. A variety of techniques keep the effects from getting stale, some of the shots cannot be improved upon and, yes, we really believe there’s an invisible man in the room. This being said, let’s put something else out of the way: Paul Verhoeven isn’t as smart as he thinks he is. No amount of satire-claiming is going to save the exploitative trash that was Starship Troopers, for instance. Similarly, if he here manages about an hour of creepy SF (Verhoeven should stick to straight horror; it’s what he does best), Hollow Man becomes increasingly moronic as it transforms itself into full slasher film mode. Probably the most technologically advanced slasher ever, but a slasher nevertheless. You know the drill; monster kills off everyone in a remote area one by one until protagonist and lover triumph over it. No change here, even through the special effects are cool. Hollow Man approaches offensiveness not by its shock killings, but by the contempt it treats its audience, as invisibility is confused with invincibility and stupid plot mechanics take over plausibility. You ask me, and the invisible man should’ve stuck with peeping on naked models; I would’ve rather seen that than what may have been the 664^th slasher/monster film of my life.

(In theaters, August 2000) Nominally a romantic comedy about a record-store owner at sentimental crossroads in his life, High Fidelity is much more than that: It’s a thought-piece for everyone -yours included- that would rather criticize than create, imitate than build or analyze rather than take chances and do something new. A light-hearted, nearly pitch-perfect comedy, High Fidelity blends music with romance and comes up with a winner. John Cusack proves why he’s one of the best young actors in the business today (he also produced the film) and Jack Black finally gets a starring credit after stealing scenes in so many films (I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, The Jackal, Enemy Of The State) as a character actor. Often hilarious, often touching, the only quibble I’ve got about High Fidelity is that the female love interest seems too average to warrant such interest… but isn’t that the lesson of the film?

(In theaters, August 2000) This has pretty much everything you need in a Japanese monster movie: A lot of monster for one thing, plus the required iffy dubbing, haughty tone, silly lines and tons of Tokyo stomping. Just make sure that you’re with an audience that understands that proper respect for these type of movie means laughing all the way through. Granted, Godzilla 2000 isn’t uninterrupted delight (there’s a boring stretch maybe halfway through), but the fantastically appropriate ending more than redeems the film, along with the tagline “Maybe there’s a little bit of Godzilla in all of us”, as the big G trashes Tokyo once again. For added intellectual stimulation, compare and contrast the chutzpah of this film’s wide-angle shots (along, yes, with the inconsistent special effects) with the constrained feel of the American Godzilla (with its almost perfect effects) for a study in how being audacious and exciting is often better than being perfect.

(On VHS, August 2000) Much like Jackie Chan, Jet Li alone can make an average film seem worthwhile, and that’s what happens here. More serious, dramatic, emotional and family-oriented than Mister Chan, Li here plays a policeman forced to live undercover as his wife is dying and his son yearns to find out what his dad does for a living. Plenty of rather brutal scenes (the kid gets beaten up a lot) illustrate the difference between North-American action fare and Hong Kong. Action-wise, the film stays tepid for most of its duration, only to kick up by the end (watch for the yoyo-kid fighting technique) and deliver a product that it far inferior to the excellent Fist Of Legend, but still worth a look for fans.

(On VHS, August 2000) This isn’t completely successful as a sustained parody, but it would be a shame to use this as an excuse to miss out on a fairly funny send-up of those oh-so-important black gangster/’hood films. There are several hilarious moments, though they are scattered here and there between long stretches that, at best, only elicit a grin or two. Keep your eyes open for tons of background jokes. The best concept of the film, of course, is to set the ‘hood in a completely average suburban community. Uneven, but definitely better than some of its parody contemporaries such as the execrable Spy Hard, Dracula: Dead And Loving It, etc…

(On TV, August 2000) Good action, sharp characters, funny scenes and a well-defined (if minimalist) plot make up the strengths of this action film. The hero is strong without being too tragic for the light-hearted framework of the film, not too many characters die, everyone gets to shine in the ensemble cast and the directing is non-obtrusive. Definitely worth a look for fans of Hong Kong action cinema.