Continuing Shorts

FINDING NEMO

Our little Pixar is all grown up. Written and directed by Andrew Stanton, who’s had a hand in every Pixar feature since Toy Story, Nemo introduces Marlin (voiced by Albert Brooks) and Coral (Elizabeth Perkins), a happy young couple of orange-and-white-striped clownfish, eagerly awaiting the hatching of dozens of eggs. Attempting to defend his brood from a vicious predator, Marlin is knocked unconscious, and when he awakes, the eggs, and Coral, are gone. All that remains is Nemo (Alexander Gould), whose egg somehow detached from the cluster. He’s tiny, with one underdeveloped fin that makes swimming an erratic adventure. But to Marlin, Nemo’s the one rebuke to the feeling that he failed his paternal duties, and consequently overprotected as all get-out. Lo and behold, further trauma ensues, as Nemo, showing off in front of his new classmates, swims out into open water and is scooped up by a scuba diver. The rest, of course, is adventure: Marlin swims the ocean, desperately searching for his lost spawn, while Nemo plots escape from a dentist’s aquarium. Nemo finds camaraderie in the tank -- with, among others, Gill (Willem Dafoe), a veteran of several escape attempts -- while Marlin hooks up with Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), an absent-minded fish who can’t remember anything other than her own name: The bond that develops between her and Marlin is a sweet, contentious one. Humans make an appearance in most of Pixar’s films, sometimes as disembodied appendages; they focus our attention on the unrecognizability of humans so we don’t notice how we’re covertly being coaxed to identify with toys, bugs, monsters and fish. Pixar’s creatures have humanity that most flesh-and-blood movies can’t touch. --S.A. (AMC Orleans; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Riverview)

THE HEART OF ME

Emotionally captivating at times, restrained and distant at many others, The Heart of Me never consistently reaches the dramatic heights it strives for, but is held together by a strong cast. Set in WWII-era London, the film uses flashbacks to trace the love triangle between dispassionate socialite Madeleine (Olivia Williams), her straight-laced husband Rickie (Paul Bettany) and her sultry, free spirited sister Dinah (Helena Bonham Carter). Director Thaddeus O’Sullivan mistakenly rushes into the affair, putting the focus entirely on the illicit lovers without properly fleshing out the history between the three. (Madeleine is especially underdeveloped and could have given the film a much-needed dramatic push early on.) That said, O’Sullivan kindles the affair’s sparks with subtlety, despite the occasional resort to more obvious gestures (as the lovers kiss, fireworks explode behind them) and keeps the film moving over its lean 95-minute running time. Emotional resonance is felt, however, only when the affair is eventually revealed: Madeleine’s icy exterior finally fades and she seethes with regret and vitriol at Rickie, who is slowly deteriorating in front of us. Dinah, her flame-red hair exuding raw sexuality, melts down stirringly as she is torn between her love and her family. These brief moments of passion bring the characters to life, but only momentarily. Fans of Carter (in familiar territory here) or period romances may be interested, but the film is otherwise disappointing. --Marc Berzenski (Ritz at the Bourse; Ritz 16)

HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE

Much like his last film, Dark Blue, Ron Shelton’s latest guy-bonding saga takes as its backdrop an approximation of recent news from the ’hood, setting its detective heroes -- ever-angling Joe (Harrison Ford) and his young partner, K.C. (Josh Hartnett) -- smack in the middle of music-industry drama. Assigned to investigate the murder of a rap group, they’re out of their element and then some. The case vaguely but pointedly resembles the Biggie and Tupac murders, in that the killer looks to be a Suge Knight figure, an intimidating label executive named Antoine Sartain (Isaiah Washington). The artists are killed in a club owned by Julius (Master P, in entertaining full-on self-love mode). Hollywood Homicide adopts Shelton’s usual tack of deconstructing generic formula. It’s a buddy movie where the arguments are petty and off-topic, an action comedy that moves slowly and it’s less interested in the plot than in secondary characters, detouring to spend time with colorful oddballs, including Lou Diamond Phillips’ turn as an undercover cop in drag (which abruptly cuts off) and Andre 2000’s appearance as a producer. The case becomes increasingly convoluted, with a side trip into K.C.’s personal past (his cop dad was killed on duty, and the kid has a little vengeance working on the prime suspect) and Joe and Antoine’s enmity devolving into an outright ridiculous climax of a chase scene. As it’s pointedly an unglamorous way to bring down the villain, it seems an apt way to end this anticop movie cop movie. --C.F. (AMC Orleans; Bridge; Ritz 16; UA Grant; UA Riverview)

HULK

Remember how when Barton Fink was assigned to write a wrestling movie, he wrote about a man wrestling with his soul? If he’d taken a crack at Marvel Comics’ not-so-jolly-green giant, this would’ve been the result. Ang Lee and constant collaborator James Schamus have concocted a psychobabble-drenched tale where the Hulk (or, sorry, Hulk) is merely an outward manifestation of Bruce Banner’s memories of childhood trauma; if the X-Men are really teenagers in disguise, dealing with their changing bodies and social ostracism, then the Hulk is, literally, a big baby. That Nick Nolte stars as Bruce’s long-post pappy seems appropriate, given that he starred in one of the most literal minded daddy-didn’t-love-me movies of all time, Affliction. (That with his flyaway hair and scraggly beard he seemed to have transformed himself into James Coburn’s character in that movie is merely a plus.) As Bruce, Aussie Eric Bana has the thankless task of finding dozens of different ways to seethe, while Jennifer Connelly, in the Fay Wray role, gets a bunch of weepy, overwrought scenes, but is essentially The Girl, Oscar or no Oscar. Lee tarts up the movie with a variety of CGI wipes, partial dissolves, split screens and so forth, obviously trying to draw inspiration from his nine-panel source, but he’s so far from tapping the pulpy lifeblood of comic books you can only howl in frustration. (That he’s convinced a genetically modified poodle makes a scary antagonist is about all you need to say.) The movie Hulk most obviously wants to be is King Kong, but Hulk’s CGI beast doesn’t have the grandeur of his far-cheaper predecessor, and the movie’s so mired in hypnotherapy recriminations it just feels like a prolonged niggle. Hulk trash. --S.A. (AMC Orleans; Bridge; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Main St.; UA Riverview)

THE ITALIAN JOB

Stella (Charlize Theron, earnest as ever) is the only girl in The Italian Job. Being as it’s a remake of a 1969 Michael Caine heist picture, you’d think that her input would be minimal. But Stella brings surprising edge to her by-the-numbers part (originally male), not to mention crucial elements to the plot -- namely, safecracking skills, a thirst for vengeance and a Mini Cooper. Still, she’s up against it in this too-many-guys-vying-for-supporting-pizzazz picture. Her veteran safecracker father, John (Donald Sutherland), calls her on his cell from Venice. It turns out that dad’s skipped parole and is about to embark on one last job, after which he promises to go straight. John’s crew -- all predictable types -- includes his son-like favorite student, master planner Charlie (Mark Wahlberg); driver/womanizer Handsome Rob (Jason Statham); computer nerd Lyle (Seth Green); explosives expert Left Ear (Mos Def); and inside man Steve (Ed Norton). Though they get away with the gold, one of their number -- Steve, whose grumpiness is evident from frame one -- double-crosses the bunch, steals the gold and shoots John dead in the process. The others are, of course, soon fixated on vengeance. Steve’s snarky meanness comes to a strangely distant climax when the film eventually comes to its end -- a car "chase" in L.A. featuring a trio of tricked-out Mini Coopers careening along sidewalks and up and down subway stairs. (In the 1969 version, the Mini Coopers, then equally cute and stylish, raced through the streets of Torino.) Steve, meanwhile, watches from an appropriately menacing black helicopter, such that Norton’s performance is rendered in the most tedious sort of reaction shots: "Hmmm, what are you up to, Charlie?"--C.F. (Bridge; Ritz 16; UA Grant; UA Main St.; UA Riverview)

JETLAG

Working against her usual role, Juliette Binoche is here a fluttery beautician, inclined to wear much makeup and caught up in an abusive relationship with Sergi López (stunning as the psycho killer in With a Friend Like Harry…). By chance (or rather, by cell-phone-as-meet-cute device), she meets chef-turned-frozen food mogul Jean Reno at the airport; when he stands up for her in front of villainous López, their coupling is imminent but put off by a series of coincidences and evasions. Both yearning for connection but afraid of commitment, they keep meeting (still cute) as their planes are delayed. Directed by Danièle Thompson, from a formulaic romantic-comedy script she co-wrote with her son Christopher, the film offers few surprises: She finds he’s not so gruff as he pretends, and he appreciates that she’s actually very earnest. That, and when he spills salad dressing on her and she’s forced to take a shower, she emerges from the bathroom in terry robe and makeup-less, that is, as fabulous as Binoche usually looks. --C.F. (Ritz Five; Ritz 16)

LEGALLY BLONDE 2: RED, WHITE & BLONDE

More than awful, Legally Blonde 2 is a big fat nothing; it doesn’t exist enough to be called bad. It doesn’t seem right to yearn for the sticky gloss of the first film, but at least it fit the story. Director Charles Herman-Wurmfeld (Kissing Jessica Stein) films the proceedings like an out-of-focus sitcom, in a drab palette you just know Elle Woods would never approve. Just as the first movie’s Elle seemed like a smudged Xerox of Election’s Tracy Flick, so the sequel finds Reese Witherspoon fighting the law of diminishing returns. Here, Elle’s a Senator’s aide who campaigns for doggie rights, but the clip of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington she watches for inspiration just shows up LB2’s cynical facetiousness: Paying lip service to democratic ideals, it doesn’t have a sliver of the tough-minded honesty Frank Capra got away with six decades ago. Apart from a few well-executed reaction shots by Mary Lynn Rajskub, Legally Blonde 2 is pure flab -- why bother getting Sally Field and Bob Newhart if you’re not going to give them any decent lines? At least Terminator 3 knows how dumb it is. --S.A. (AMC Orleans; Bridge; Roxy, UA 69th St.; UA Grant; UA Main St.; UA Riverview)

THE MAN ON THE TRAIN

The Man on the Train opens, sensibly enough, with a man on a train: spike-haired, leather-jacketed Milan (Johnny Hallyday), trundling around this provincial village and looking absurdly out of place, the iconic image of him striding alongside the railroad tracks already replaced with the image of him stumping peevishly down a cobblestoned hill, a thin, frail old man following in his wake: Manesquier (Jean Rochefort), who offers him a room for the night, as the only hotel in town is closed. Even so early in the film, the stage is set for a fairly odious, touchy-feely affair, full of sharing, and learning, and men with gruff exteriors who melt into teary little puddles. Patrice Leconte knows that an audience can see the outlines of such a story looming, and The Man on the Train works overtime to convince us that it has nothing so reductive in mind. By the time the movie finally gets around to giving us what it’s all but promised it wouldn’t, we’re almost relieved. While Leconte has nothing so self-conscious in mind as a buddy movie that comments on buddy movies, the casting of lead actors as iconic as Hallyday and Rochefort is surely no accident. Leconte knows that part of the joy of The Man on the Train is watching these old hands square off against each other, and what’s more, he knows we know it, but rather than turn his two personalities into caricatures of themselves, Leconte lets us see beyond their façades. Even though Milan turns out to have come to town for criminal purposes, he’s not the outlaw he appears; the photograph drawn from his jacket pocket, which looks to have been taken in the American West, turns out to be from a fun fair where he worked as a stunt man. And for all his defeated self-loathing, the self-proclaimed "silent onlooker" Manesquier has enviable qualities of his own, though having Milan grab him by the lapels and shout, "Don’t you see how extraordinary you are?" may not be the best way to reveal them. --S.A. (Bryn Mawr)

THE MATRIX RELOADED

Watching The Matrix was like being injected with pure adrenaline, but the experience also served as its own vaccine -- you could only do it once. If you had seen it, and saw it again, Andrew and Larry Wachowski’s cringeworthy dialogue, their adolescent grasp of both philosophy and sexuality, came rather abruptly to the fore. There’s no chance that The Matrix Reloaded could instill the same awe as the original, but it’s not just sequel-itis that keeps Reloaded from connecting. The script acknowledges the imperative to top the original early on; as Neo (Keanu Reeves) faces off against a handful of Matrix-defending Agents led by Agent Smith (the fabulous Hugo Weaving), he remarks, "Hmmm. Upgrades." Reloaded introduces the human stronghold Zion, located near the Earth’s core. When the human forces organize for defense against the machines who are burrowing through the Earth’s crust to destroy them, the parliamentary disputes take on an unfortunate Star Wars cast, but the subterranean caverns also provide an opportunity for Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) to doff his shirt and beat the war drums Spartacus-style. The bind in which Reloaded finds itself is due in no small part to the standards set by the first film. It’s no longer enough to have characters perform stunts that defy not only human physiology but the laws of physics -- it has to look real. We know that Weaving’s being doubled either digitally or by stuntmen -- not to mention all the times that the patented "bullet-time" camera moves reduce Reeves to a phony-looking digital stand-in. The Matrix’s whole mythology is caught up with the difference between reality and (computer-generated) fantasy, so when the line is blurred in places where it’s not supposed to be, the whole movie gets knocked off course. --S.A. (UA Riverview)

RESPIRO

Emanuele Crialese’s film, as its title suggests, is about breathing, in a spiritual, vivacious sense. Inspired by an Italian folktale, Crialese’s film is at once vibrant and delicate, a study of a family unraveling and a fearfully traditional culture. Rendered through the experience of young Pasquale (Francesco Casisa), the film’s evident focus -- an all-too-familiar tale of the tantalizing madwoman -- is both diffused and complicated. The family is nominally headed by Pietro (Vincenzo Amato), a fisherman in tune with the traditions of the Mediterranean island Lampedusa. He goes out in the morning and returns at night, darkened and weary from his hours in the sun. His gorgeous young wife, Grazia (Valeria Golino), works at the fish-packing plant and looks after their three children: Pasquale, the younger Filippo (Filippo Pucillo) and Marinella (Veronica D’Agostino), now old enough to be eyeing a cute traffic officer. For all the routine of their lives, tensions are escalating. Bored, Grazia seeks mini-adventures with her kids, and takes both sons to the beach, where she alarms and thrills them when she undresses to swim. This scene introduces Grazia’s history of grating against local customs and causing her husband embarrassment. As free and exhilarating as she seems to Pasquale, she also brings confusion and chaos (in one scene, she suffers a kind of fit, frothing and fainting as Pietro endeavors to soothe her, the kids looking on in horror). Her excess is simultaneously distressing and inspirational, personal and broadly symbolic. By its end, Respiro offers hope in the form of irresolution, a lesson learned by the son at the expense of the father. Perhaps the next generation can be different, and more importantly, allow for difference. --C.F. (Ritz Five; Ritz 16)

RIVERS AND TIDES

Some artists paint landscapes, but for Andy Goldsworthy, the Scottish artist at the center of Thomas Riedelsheimer’s hypnotic documentary, Rivers and Tides, making art about the land is a two-way street. Goldsworthy’s medium of choice, if he can be said to have one, is nature. From Canada to his home in the Scottish countryside and back to the woods of upstate New York, we see Goldsworthy craft sculptures that range from a chain of leaves held together with thorns to a massive blanket of bracken. Though Goldsworthy often photographs his creations -- the only way anyone else would know most of them existed -- they actually seem better captured on film, where time is the most basic unit of measurement. --S.A. (Ritz at the Bourse)

RUGRATS GO WILD!

(Not reviewed.) A haiku:

Together again:

Bruce Willis and Aerosmith.

It's Armageddon.