Movie/TV Reviews

Mr. Deeds

Susan Granger’s review of “Mr. Deeds” (Columbia Pictures and New Line Cinema)

Back in 1936, Frank Capra made the classic comedy “Mr. Deeds Goes To Town” with Gary Cooper as Longfellow Deeds, a New Englander who inherits 20 million dollars and wants to give it to needy people, while Jean Arthur co-stars as a big-city reporter who tries to figure him out. To compare this loosely based sequel to Depression-era original is more than insulting; it’s blasphemy! On the other hand, there are Adam Sandler fans out there who not only have never heard of the original, they’ve also never heard of Capra or Cooper. So this lame-brained comedy must have been made for them. Yet, there’s a second problem: the difference between ‘simple’ and ‘simpleton.’ Longfellow Deeds is a simple man, meaning he’s without guile or deceit. Sandler plays him as a simpleton, a person of weak intellect, a fool. Sandler’s Longfellow Deeds is a pizzeria owner/wannabe greeting card poet in Mandrake Falls, New Hampshire, who inherits $40 billion from a distant relative. When this infantile, goofball Deeds gets to Manhattan, he not only becomes Gotham’s most eligible bachelor but he’s also the rags-to-riches target of villainous power monger Peter Gallagher and Winona Ryder, a scheming tabloid-TV reporter named Babe whose nasty motives are duly suspected by his sneaky butler, John Turturro. Sure, Deeds gives away his money – but not to the needy – and, predictably, the dude’s folksy virtue triumphs over big-city avarice and cynicism. Heavy-handed director Steve Brill and screenwriter Tim Herlihy butcher Robert Riskin’s original screenplay, unable to decide whether it’s a parody of corporate culture, a slapstick comedy or a sappy romance. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Mr. Deeds” is a dimwitted, dumbed-down 3. I urge you to rent the real “Mr. Deeds Goes To Town.”

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Hey Arnold! The Movie

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Hey Arnold! The Movie” (Paramount Pictures)

Following in the footsteps of “Rugrats,” this popular Nickelodeon TV animated series is making its big-screen debut. Arnold (voiced by Spencer Klein) is the ever-optimistic, good-hearted hero with his football-shaped head and blue baseball cap. When he learns that Future Tech Industries is about to tear down his working-class urban neighborhood – including Green’s Meats and Jolly Olly’s Ice Cream, not to mention Arnold’s grandparents’ dilapidated boarding-house – to create a mega-mall, he rounds up his friends to prevent this disaster. Arnold has a jive-talking buddy – that’s Gerald (voiced by Jamil Smith) – and a sharp-spoken, pigtailed companion, Helga (Francesca Marie Smith), who pretends to despise him but secretly adores him. The villain is a greedy land developer, the villainous industrialist Scheck (voiced by Paul Sorvino), along with several other unscrupulous businessmen, one of whom is Helga’s father. The only way Arnold and his chums can save their homes from demolition by the ominous bulldozer is to find a document that proves his community is a historical site. There’s a shadowy secret informer named “Deep Voice,” alluding to Watergate’s notorious “Deep Throat,” and a sexy spy kid named Bridget (voiced by Jennifer Jason Leigh) who leads them to the creepy city coroner (voiced by Christopher Lloyd). Will the kids succeed? You guess. Writer/creator Craig Bartlett and co-writer Steve Viksten, along with director Tuck Tucker, propel the plot along but what works on TV for a half-hour gets a bit boring at twice that length, although there are timely references to “Men in Black” and “Godzilla.” On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Hey Arnold! The Movie” is a formulaic yet funky 5 with typical Saturday-morning-cartoon animation.

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Thirteen Conversations About One Thing

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s “Thirteen Conversations About One Thing” (Sony Pictures Classics)

Four vignettes about New Yorkers whose lives intersect form the crux of this gloomy, slow-paced philosophical contemplation. The strange story begins with a Columbia physics professor (John Turturro) who been mugged and is cheating on his wife (Amy Irving) with a colleague (Barbara Sukowa). Meanwhile, at a neighborhood bar, an embittered insurance company manager (Alan Arkin), who loathes the optimism of one of his claims adjusters (William Wise), downs a drink while a self-righteous assistant district attorney (Matthew McConaughey) celebrates a verdict with colleagues. Abrasive words are exchanged. Then, driving home, the cocky lawyer hits a pedestrian (Clea DuVall), flees in panic and suffers pangs of guilt. The injured woman is a naive house-cleaner who was chasing a wind-blown shirt down the street. Each of the 13 fragments, or conversations, begins with a clichŽ fortune-cookie saying, like “Fortune smiles at some and laughs at others,” “Ignorance is bliss” and “Wisdom comes suddenly.” Writer/director Jill Sprecher (“Clockwatchers”) and co-writer Karen Sprecher indulge in facile pop psychology, exploring anger, despair, penance and redemption, in an existential search for the meaning of happiness. They favor stylized symbolism: a forehead wound on the man with a guilty conscience, a leaky pen in the shirt pocket above the heart of an angry man, a black eye on someone who can’t see clearly. While the naturalistic ensemble acting is convincing, on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Thirteen Conversations About One Thing” is, nevertheless, a stilted, depressing 5, mystically indicating that nothing is random or inconsequential when viewed in a larger context.

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Men in Black II

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Men in Black II” (Columbia Pictures)

It’s been four years since agents Jay (Will Smith) and Kay (Tommy Lee Jones) teamed up as intrepid detectives monitoring alien activity for a secret society for the protection of Earth. With his memories erased, or ‘neuralized,’ Agent Kay, is now postmaster of Truro, Massachusetts, where “Just about everybody who works in the post office is an alien.” Lonely Agent Jay, who has ‘neuralized’ his last eight partners, has turned to a civilian, pizza parlor waitress Laura Vasquez (Rosario Dawson), for companionship when he is told by MIB chief Zed (Rip Torn) to retrieve Agent Kay. Hidden deep in his former partner’s brain is an important clue that can save the planet from its new enemy: Serleena (Lara Flynn Boyle), a slimy, shape-shifting Kylothian monster who takes the form of a slinky Victoria’s Secret model. Working with a two-headed, half-witted accomplice (Johnny Knoxville), she firewalls and flushes Agents Jay and Kay while taking over MIB’s New York headquarters in her search for the ominous Light of Zartha. It’s all ho-hum routine except for Frank, the brazen, sarcastic Pug, once just an informer but now promoted to Agent F. This cigar-smoking pooch gets the most laughs, along with alien pawnshop owner (Tony Shaloub) and the obnoxious Worm Guys. Martha Stewart pops up on TV and Michael Jackson does a cameo as wannabe Agent M, a hopeful in the alien affirmative action program. Screenwriters Robert Gordon and Barry Fanaro, director Barry Sonnenfeld, production designer Bo Welsh and creature creator Rick Baker simply recycle what succeeded before. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Men in Black II” is a short, sardonic 6, a slapstick diversion dedicated to eliminating more extra-terrestrial scum. Frankly, I expected more.

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Like Mike

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Like Mike” (20th Century-Fox)

There’s not much that’s original in this Cinderella basketball story but that doesn’t seem to diminish its juvenile appeal. Hip hop rapper Lil Bow Wow is Calvin Cambridge, a 4′ 8″ tall, hoops-loving 14 year-old orphan whose teacher, Sister Theresa (Anne Meara), gives him a pair of old Nikes inscribed on the tongue with the faded initials M.J.. Could this Salvation Army donation really have belonged to Michael Jordan? Suddenly, Calvin possesses the skills of an NBA player and miraculously becomes the star of a fictional team called the Los Angeles Knights. His specialty is a 30-foot jump and the conversion of 3-point shots. Morris Chestnut plays Tracey Reynolds, Calvin’s incredulous on-the-road roommate and rival who, predictably, becomes his buddy and father substitute. Of course, there’s a bizarre bad guy – that’s Crispin Glover (“Charlie’s Angels”), head of the Chesterfield Group Home, who rips off Calvin’s earnings and burns the only snapshot Calvin’s buddy, Jonathan Lipnicki (“Jerry Maguire,” “Stuart Little”), has of his late mother. NBA players Allen Iverson, Chris Webber and Jason Kidd show up in cameos as Robert Forster (“Jackie Brown”) and Eugene Levy (“Best in Show”) play the Knights’ coach and general manager, respectively. So where’s the Michael Jordan cameo that would have been the real slam dunk? Not there. Too bad. And writers Michael Elliot & Jordan Moffet and director John Schultz go for the feel-good ending with unabashed schmaltz. “Take Ya Home” from the soundtrack is already big on MTV but, perhaps, with this vehicle, Shad ‘Gregory’ Moss can shed the Lil Bow Wow moniker and achieve a coming-of-age screen persona. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Like Mike” is a kid-friendly 5. And if you enjoy this, rent “Rookie of the Year” (1993).

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Road to Perdition

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Road to Perdition” (DreamWorks)

Tom Hanks takes a risky turn playing Michael Sullivan, a husband, father and ruthless mob hit-man, in this original, deceptively simple, yet unpredictable, 1931 Depression-era tale. Based on Max Allan Collins & Richard Piers Rayner’s graphic novel, it’s a violent story of betrayal, revenge and self-discovery. When Sullivan’s wife (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and younger son (Liam Aiken) are killed, he vows vengeance while protecting his sole surviving son (Tyler Hoechlin), who has seen too much and knows too much. There’s a conflicted relationship with his adoptive father, a patriarchal Irish-American gangster (Paul Newman) whose sleazy son (Daniel Craig) has always been jealous of Sullivan. So he seeks the support of Al Capone through his Chicago-based enforcer, Frank Nitti (Stanley Tucci), who sends a maniacal assassin/ photographer (Jude Law) after him. It’s too early to start talking Oscar but the indelible performances of Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jude Law and newcomer Tyler Hoechlin must rank as among of the best of the year. Hanks seems cold, calculating and inscrutable until you realize that emotional distance is his only defense against despair, while the tragedy of Newman’s conflict of loyalty becomes etched on his face. Director Sam Mendes (“American Beauty”) and screenwriter David Self fearlessly delve into the many agonizing, unspoken, often ironic permutations of father-son relationships. Conrad L. Hall’s visually poetic cinematography is darkly shadowed yet unflinching, and drenched with rain, while Dennis Gassner’s production design meticulously evokes the bitterly cold, bleak period. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Road to Perdition” is a poignant, mythic, powerful 10. It’s a brutal Irish “Godfather” epic that definitely ranks as a c

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The Powerpuff Girls

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “The Powerpuff Girls” (Warner Bros.)

If it seems like there are more family films right now, that’s true. There are 40 G and PG-rated movies set for this summer – and it’s already paying off at the box-office. Most of these have moderate budgets and a built-in small-fry audience who bring along their parents. The heroines of this animated adventure are the squeaky-voiced, saucer-eyed five year-old triplets who have captivated the Cartoon Network. Created by director Craig McCracken with a collaborative screenplay by Charlie Bean, Lauren Faust, Paul Rudish and Don Shank, the story tells how they were accidentally created in the laboratory of Professor Utonium (voiced by Tom Kane). Each energy-propelled girl has a distinctive signature color. Redheaded Blossom (voiced by Catherine Cavadini) is the leader. Adorable, blond Bubbles (voiced by Tara Strong) is the artist, and green-tinted, brunette Buttercup (voiced by E.G. Daily) is the feisty fighter. Narrated by the Mayor (Tom Kenny) of Townsville, the good vs. evil plot shows how the sly kindergarten girls must earn their superhero status after making two disastrous mistakes which nearly destroy the city which they’re supposed to protect. Eventually, they marshal their forces to battle the nefarious outcast monkey, Mojo Jojo (voiced by Roger L. Jackson), and his ape army of warlords who have been instructed: “Wake up and seize the town!” While there are some raucous, scary scenes of destruction and death, they should not adversely affect the rambunctious rugrats who routinely view this kind of cartoon mayhem on the tube. Think of the violence in “Pokemon.” On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Powerpuff Girls” is a fast, frenetic, funny, even punny 6 – aimed specifically at a grade-school audience. More power to the teensy, candy-colored trio!

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Stuart Little 2

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Stuart Little 2” (Columbia Pictures)

Eureka! A sequel that’s even better than the original. As his second action-packed adventure begins, the mouse-boy Stuart Little (voice of Michael J. Fox) has settled in with his adoptive parents (Geena Davis, Hugh Laurie), older brother (Jonathan Lipnicki) and baby sister Martha (Anna & Ashley Hoelck). Even Snowbell (voice of Nathan Lane), the caustic white Chinchilla Persian cat, seems to have accepted him. While there are disagreements about how much independence Stuart should have, more than anything, Stuart longs for a friend his own size. So when Margalo (voice of Melanie Griffith), an injured bird, drops out of the sky into the passenger seat of his car, Stuart is bedazzled by her beguiling charm. Margalo tells him that she’s terrified of the fierce and evil Falcon (voice of James Woods) but she doesn’t reveal the total truth, the dodgy part about her being a feathered thief sent to steal Stuart’s mother’s diamond ring. Then when Margalo – and the ring – suddenly disappear, Stuart sets off through Manhattan’s disgusting underbelly to find her. “When you’re friends with Stuart Little, you’re friends for life,” he explains. “I hope I live to regret this,” mutters Snowbell, his reluctant companion. Written by Bruce Joel Rubin, based on E.B. White’s characters, and directed by Rob Minkoff, the story not only delves into facets of Stuart’s character but also the perennial conflicts of adolescence and the importance of optimism and empowerment. (“You’re only as big as you feel.”) While the original got a 2000 Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects, this surpasses the first, particularly the lifelike birds and the action in Stuart’s car and model plane. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Stuart Little 2” is magical, family-friendly 10. Stuart is a mighty mouse indeed!

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K-19: The Widowmaker

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “K-19: The Widowmaker” (Paramount Pictures)

Action thrillers don’t get more powerful and intense than this! Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson deliver formidable performances yet what’s truly riveting here is director/producer Kathryn Bigelow’s exploration of the sensuality of suspense in all its harrowing permutations. Inspired by actual events, the story chronicles Captain Alexi Vostrikov’s assignment to take over the nuclear missile submarine K-19, the top-secret flagship of the Soviet Navy, in 1961 at the height of the Cold War. Of critical and strategic importance, his orders are to counter America’s weapons expansion by launching a missile from the Arctic Circle, then to proceed down the North Atlantic coast to an off-shore patrol position between Washington, D.C. and New York City. But there’s a malfunction that may lead to a core meltdown and explosion that could trigger a global nuclear war. Under unprecedented pressure, Vostrikov must choose between Kremlin directives and the lives of his crew. Written by Christopher Kyle (with uncredited assist from Tom Stoppard), themes of duty, patriotism and heroism pervade as the senior officers (Ford and Neeson) struggle with one another, the crew and their Communist leaders. While their characters lack complexity – Ford stoically assuming the dignified, no-nonsense, serious stand with Neeson shouldering the paternal pathos – their challenges are daunting – and it’s fascinating to view the precarious balance of power from a Russian perspective. Joss Ackland, Christian Camargo and Peter Sarsgaard score as stressed-out submariners. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “K-19: The Widowmaker” is a claustrophobic, chilling, compelling 8. You really feel their grim, gut-wrenching anxiety, fear and terror within the tight, confined quarters of a submarine.

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Reign of Fire

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Reign of Fire” (Touchstone Pictures)

Combine a pinch of “Highlander” with a generous dollop of videomania and you come up with this “Road Warrior”-type of apocalyptic adventure. The story begins in present-day London where, after school one day, a British schoolboy, 12 year-old Quinn, joins his project engineer-mother (Alice Krige) who is working in an underground subway construction site. Suddenly, the deep drilling disturbs a cave where a massive, fire-breathing dragon has been hibernating for centuries. While escaping to the surface, Quinn’s mother is killed. Skip ahead several decades, and dragons have conquered the world, devouring everyone except militant groups of survivors who have barricaded themselves in fortresses. There’s one in Northumberland that’s led by the now-grown and muscular Quinn (Christian Bale). (In the evenings, he and a cohort amuse their orphan charges with a play based on George Lucas’s “Star Wars” mythology.) Into their midst comes an American search-and-destroy dragon-hunting squad led by a bald, buff, tattooed brute (Matthew McConaughey) and his blond-babe helicopter pilot (Izabella Scorupco). They drop paratroopers, called archangels, from a helicopter to net flying dragons and slay them with crossbows. They’ve deduced that, while there are many females, only one male dragon exists – and killing him would mean the survival of the human species. While the giant, computer-generated, fire-breathing dragons are awesome and scary, the writing trio (Gregg Chabot, Kevin Peterka, Matt Greenberg) and director Rob Bowman rely too much on montages and shadowy insinuations. Plus, the supporting actors’ thick Cockney accents are often indecipherable. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Reign of Fire” is a scorched 4, giving a new meaning to global warming.

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