All articles by John Hazelton – Page 25
-
Reviews
Bad Company
Dir: Joel Schumacher. US. 2002. 111 mins. Given producer Jerry Bruckheimer's track record with odd-couple action movies (Beverly Hills Cop, Bad Boys, Enemy Of The State), and the promising pairing of Anthony Hopkins with Chris Rock, action comedy Bad Company could hardly be a better proposition or a bigger disappointment. ...
-
Reviews
Enough
Dir: Michael Apted. US. 2002. 115 mins. One of a handful of non-traditional chick-flicks hitting US screens this summer, Enough starts out as a promisingly taut woman-in-peril thriller but eventually degenerates into a questionable cross between a female Rocky and a Mission: Impossible-style action romp. Still, younger female moviegoers will ...
-
Reviews
The Importance Of Being Earnest
Dir: Oliver Parker. UK/US. 2002. 97 mins. Three years ago, writer-director Oliver Parker and the UK's Fragile Films re-invented Oscar Wilde's relatively obscure An Ideal Husband for the big screen, opening out the play to delightful effect and earning critical plaudits as well as some impressive box office grosses ($18.5m ...
-
Reviews
Jason X
Dir: Jim Isaac. US. 2002. 93mins.Putting hockey-masked slasher icon Jason into space sounds a desperate idea for reviving the Friday The 13th horror franchise. But while this 10th instalment in the 22-year-old series relies on the same crude, high-body-count schlock appeal as its predecessors, it still manages to have some ...
-
Reviews
Life Or Something Like It
Dir: Stephen Herek. US. 2002. 103 mins. "Live every day as if it was your last" is the none-too-original moral of Life Or Something Like It, an insipid romantic-comedy/drama that casts Angelina Jolie as a post-feminist Marilyn Monroe who discovers the drawbacks of blonde ambition and the virtues of true ...
-
Reviews
The Scorpion King
Dir: Chuck Russell. US. 2002. 92mins.The Mummy franchise lives on in this rumbustious, two-fisted prequel that serves up breathless, B-movie action with A-level production values. Promoted to centre stage, Dwayne Johnson, aka wrestler The Rock, lays down a persuasive marker as a 21st-century action hero and the heady mixture of ...
-
Reviews
Changing Lanes
Dir: Roger Michell. US. 2002. 98 mins. Part psychological thriller, part urban morality play, Changing Lanes is that rare Hollywood offering that works both as genre entertainment and as something more complex and thought-provoking. Deftly directed - in a significant change of mood from his 1999 romantic-comedy Notting Hill - ...
-
Reviews
Big Trouble
Dir: Barry Sonnenfeld. US. 2002. 84 mins. Delayed from last September because of its stolen bomb and plane hijacking plot points, Barry Sonnenfeld's Big Trouble arrives belatedly on US screens as a lightweight but pleasantly zany farce with a never-ending supply of gags and a more than capable ensemble cast ...
-
News
Clockstoppers
Dir: Jonathan Frakes. US. 2002. 94 mins. Nickelodeon Movies' Clockstoppers is the kind of calculatedly wholesome youth entertainment that seems more likely to appeal to protective parents than to a target audience of older kids and tweens. Thanks to Nickelodeon owner Viacom's aggressive company-wide marketing campaign, this effects-laden sci-fi adventure ...
-
Reviews
Death To Smoochy
Dir: Danny DeVito. US. 2002. 109 mins. A dark, subversive comedy enthusiastically realised by some big-name Hollywood talents - most notably Robin Williams, for whom it is the first of three big-screen comeback projects - Death To Smoochy takes an amusing premise and flogs it well beyond the point of ...
-
Reviews
Sorority Boys
Dir: Wally Wolodarsky. US. 2002. 93 mins.Combining elements of Animal House and Tootsie - considerably more of the former than the latter - Sorority Boys is a college comedy that optimistically attempts to blend social commentary with bawdy campus humour. Predictably enough, it fails to fully deliver in either department. ...
-
Reviews
Resident Evil
Dir: Paul W S Anderson. UK-Ger. 2002. 100mins.Resident Evil is strictly for the game boys. Of course, given that the computer games on which the film is based have sold more than 16m units worldwide, the game boys - lured by the promise of gory zombie effects and Milla Jovovich ...
-
Reviews
Ice Age
Dirs: Chris Wedge, Carlos Sladanha. US. 2002. 81 mins. It may not have the stuff to top - either commercially or creatively - Shrek and Monsters, Inc, but with its impressive computer animation, appealing characters and well-crafted blend of comedy, action and drama Ice Age certainly has the necessary ingredients ...
-
Reviews
All About The Benjamins
Dir: Kevin Bray. US. 2002. 96 mins. With three mid-level hits for New Line - Friday, Next Friday and The Players Club - already under his belt, rapper -turned-multihyphenate film-maker Ice Cube continues in a cheerfully generic vein with the studio's All About The Benjamins, only this time with the ...
-
Reviews
Rollerball
Dir: John McTiernan. US. 2002. 100mins.Delayed from last summer and re-edited to better appeal to the youth market, John McTiernan's remake of 1970s cult favourite Rollerball finally arrives on screen as a confused and none too thrilling blur of tenuously linked action sequences. The videogame-style violence, flashy cars, semi-naked chicks ...
-
Reviews
Big Fat Liar
Dir: Shawn Levy. US. 2002. 87 mins.The appeal of rising teen stars Frankie Muniz and Amanda Bynes, coupled with some broad comedy and a parent-friendly moral message, have already been enough to give Big Fat Liar a good start at the US box office, taking $13.5m from 2,531 sites in ...
-
Reviews
Return To Never Land
Dirs: Robin Budd, Donovan Cook. US. 2001. After turning out a string of video sequels to recent Disney hits like The Little Mermaid and The Lion King, Walt Disney Television Animation does a more than respectable job on this animated theatrical sequel to the studio's beloved 1953 classic Peter Pan. ...
-
Reviews
Kung Pow: Enter The Fist
Dir: Steve Oedekerk. US. 2002. 80 mins. Kung Pow: Enter The Fist is a late-night college joke done on a Hollywood budget. Masterminded by writer-director Steve Oedekerk (whose credits include Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, The Nutty Professor and Patch Adams), the film takes an obscure 1970s Hong Kong karate ...
-
Reviews
The Count Of Monte Cristo
Dir: Kevin Reynolds. US. 2002. 131mins. Hollywood's latest take on the ever-popular yarns of Alexandre Dumas is a straightforward but handsomely staged and consistently entertaining version of the author's classic tale of betrayal and revenge in post-Napoleonic France. Rather than attempting to jazz up the material for younger moviegoers (as ...
-
Reviews
Orange County
Dir: Jake Kasdan. US. 2001. 81 mins. Teen comedy Orange County is as sweet and as insubstantial as its title suggests. Relatively subtle by today's gross-out standards, it won't be an easy sell either at home or, especially, abroad. However, the MTV imprimatur and some intriguing credits - star Colin ...