All articles by John Hazelton – Page 19
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Reviews
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
Dir: Garth Jennings. US.2005. 108mins.Douglas Adams fans don't need to panic and neither,probably, do producers Spyglass and Disney: the long-awaited movie version ofAdams' classic British sci-fi comedy - made with US money and a transatlanticcast but directed with a definite English accent by UK pop video whiz GarthJennings - preserves ...
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Reviews
A Lot Like Love
Dir: NigelCole. US. 2005. 104 mins.The coupling challenges faced by ambitious andgeographically mobile twentysomethings drive the plot in A Lot Like Love, a romantic comedy that casts Ashton Kutcher in hisstraightest romantic role to date and gives British director Nigel Cole, hotoff the success of Calendar Girls,his first shot at ...
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Reviews
Fever Pitch
Dirs: Peter Farrelly,Bobby Farrelly. US. 2005. 103mins.Predictably, and not toopainfully, the Hollywood version of Nick Hornby's Fever Pitchsubstitutes baseball for football and a cutesy comic tone for the wistful moodof the British author's classic memoir about having 'measured out my lifein Arsenal fixtures.' The result is a slight but sweet ...
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Reviews
The Pacifier
Dir:Adam Shankman. US. 2005. 97mins.Itworked for Arnold Schwarzenegger, so it's not surprising that Vin Diesel tooshould now take a career diversion from action into family comedy. ThePacifier, from Spyglass, Disney and Bringing Down The House directorAdam Shankman, puts the XXX muscle man together with some unruly kidsand a supporting cast ...
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Reviews
Be Cool
Dir: F Gary Gray. US.2005. 115 mins.Imperturbablemobster-turned-movie-producer Chili Palmer tries his hand at the music biz in BeCool, the long-awaited sequel to Barry Sonnefeld's deftly funny 1995 ElmoreLeonard adaptation Get Shorty. In musical terms, the sequel doesn'tswing like the original did and neither does it ever quite find a more ...
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Reviews
Son Of The Mask
Dir: Lawrence Guterman.US. 2005. 86mins.A decade after the aggressively manic original helped make Jim Carrey astar, New Line's family-oriented sequel to The Mask tries to make up forCarrey's absence by adding warm and fuzzy elements to the cartoonish,CG-enhanced (and still pretty in-your-face) comedy.It's a logical approach to abelated sequel: plenty ...
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Reviews
Constantine
Dir: Francis Lawrence.US. 2005. 121mins.The Matrix meets The Exorcist in Constantine, orat least that how things superficially appear. In fact, while it does sharesome characteristics - including its distributors and star Keanu Reeves - withthe Wachowski brothers' trilogy, this graphic novel adaptation from Warner andVillage Roadshow also has enough atmosphere ...
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Reviews
Boogeyman
Dir:Stephen Kay. US. 2005. 86mins. Hollywood'srun of low-cost, high return horror movies looks set to continue with Boogeyman,a young-skewing chiller that's better than its generic sounding title suggests.With a stronger than expected US opening under its belt, this second projectfrom Ghost House Pictures - the joint venture between Mandate Pictures(formerly ...
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Reviews
Alone In The Dark
Dir: Uwe Boll. US. 2004.96mins.Feeling like a throwbackto the video quickies of the late 1980s, Alone In The Dark, from Germandirector Uwe Boll, is an amusingly cheesy screen version of the popular Atarivideo game of the same name. Economical screen versions of video game hits havesometimes worked well in the ...
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Reviews
Hide And Seek
Dir: John Polson. US.2004. 105mins.A good cast and somespooky build-up fall victim to cliched plotting and an unlikely surprise endingin suspense thriller Hide And Seek, the second US film from Australiandirector (and actor) John Polson. The cast, headed by Robert De Niro and rising10-year-old star Dakota Fanning, might get the ...
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Reviews
Elektra
Dir:Rob Bowman. US. 2005. 96mins.Sheappeared - and apparently died - in last year's Ben Affleck vehicle Daredeviland now Marvel Comics character Elektra gets her own movie, withJennifer Garner, from TV's Alias, once again playing the mysteriousaction heroine with the sexy costume and lethal martial arts skills.This comics-to-screen transfer, however, produced ...
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Reviews
White Noise
Dir: Geoffrey Sax.UK-Can. 2004. 98mins.The idea of communicatingwith the dead has always had an irresistibly spooky appeal and with WhiteNoise production outfit Gold Circle and a team of mainly Britishbehind-the-scenes talents do a decent job building a movie around the hi-techequivalent of ouija boards and seances.Financed as a UK/Canadaco-production but ...
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Reviews
Meet The Fockers
Dir: Jay Roach. US. 2004.114mins.Despite the welcomeaddition of Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand for this sequel to surpriseworldwide hit Meet The Parents, getting to know the Fockers turns out tobe less fun than meeting the original folks was four years ago.The sequel - which alsoreunites Robert De Niro, Ben Stiller ...
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Reviews
Flight Of The Phoenix (Flight Of The Phoenix)
Dir:John Moore. US. 2004. 112mins.Featuringmore special effects and fewer white males, the pumped-up re-make of RobertAldrich's 1965 ensemble drama Flight Of The Phoenix is a lightweightaction adventure apparently designed to grab as broad a range of moviegoers ascinematically possible. The push to please everyone leads to some pretty daftepisodes, but ...
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Reviews
Blade: Trinity
Dir:David S Goyer. US. 2004. 114mins.There'sas much joke cracking as blood sucking in the third episode of New Line'ssolidly successful Blade franchise, a young-skewing horror outing withWesley Snipes again starring as the titular Marvel Comics vampire slayer.Theraunchy humour, together with some boisterous action and a coven of newcharacters, gives the ...
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Reviews
The Aviator
Dir: Martin Scorsese. US.2004. 169 mins. He's perhaps best knownas a nutty old recluse, but it's the younger Howard Hughes, the ambitious movieproducer, industrialist and aviation pioneer, that interests Martin Scorseseand Leonardo DiCaprio in The Aviator, their epic period biopic forMiramax, Warner and Initial Entertainment Group. Director and star paint ...
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Reviews
Closer
Dir:Mike Nichols. US. 2004. 98mins. Adouble love story with a brutally forthright view of modern relationships, thescreen version of British writer Patrick Marber's acclaimed stage play Closer,incisively directed by stage-to-screen expert Mike Nichols, is not a film forthe faint hearted. And that may prove to be a mixed blessing at ...
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Reviews
Seed Of Chucky
Dir:Don Mancini. US. 2004. 87mins.Poor old Jennifer Tilly. She was turned into a doll in Bride Of Chucky,the 1998 revival of the Child's Play horror franchise, and now shesuffers even worse indignities in the follow-up. It wouldn't be so bad - forTilly or the audience - if Seed of Chucky, ...
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Reviews
The Incredibles
Dir/scr:Brad Bird. US. 2004. 121 mins.Thesixth - and probably penultimate - Disney/Pixar collaboration is a technicallybrilliant piece of CG animation that also manages to introduce muscular actionand real family drama to a genre known mostly for bubbly fun. Not that TheIncredibles isn't also fun; it's just that in this, his ...
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Reviews
Team America: World Police
Dir: Trey Parker. US.2004. 98mins.Gung-ho Americans,turbaned terrorists and Hollywood peaceniks - they're all fair comedic game forTrey Parker and Matt Stone's Team America: World Police, a raunchyaction movie satire with the weird distinction of being performed by a cast oftraditional Thunderbirds-style puppets. Parker and Stone - best known,of course, as ...