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'The Da Vinci Code'

By Ben Spierenburg

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As the old saying goes, "if you try to please everyone, you'll end up pleasing no one." This is definitely the case with the film adaptation of "The Da Vinci Code." Likely fearing boycotts from various Christian groups, it seems director Ron Howard and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman set out to appease their detractors first and foremost - the people who will never see the film anyway. They make numerous changes to the storyline, dialogue and characters, including considerably altering the ending. The result is a stiff, inconsistent and surprisingly dull film that fans of the novel will find woefully inadequate.

It's peculiar that the book failed to translate well on the big screen, especially since it read much like a promising screenplay. Written in simple language, with short scene-like chapters, the novel is a spellbinding scavenger hunt which also manages to persuasively convey a number of stimulating concepts regarding the foundations of Christianity. Yet despite a monstrous budget of $150 million, an all-star cast, a plethora of inventive camera effects and an international best-selling book to draw from, the film version fails to grab the viewer or create much of any suspense.

Harvard symbology professor Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), in Paris to give a series of lectures, is brought to the Louvre by police captain Bezu Fache (Jean Reno) to help investigate the bizarre murder of curator Sauniere (Jean-Pierre Marielle). Soon police cryptologist Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou) arrives to help Langdon escape from being framed, and from here on the film droops, as Hanks and Tautou have zero chemistry together. Tautou does a serviceable job, but two-time Oscar winner Hanks is particularly poor as Langdon, in perhaps the most lackluster performance of his career. As he previously indicated to the press, he found his character difficult to define. Apparently his strategy was to make up for this with a wacky haircut.

Langdon and Neveu must use their unique skills to crack the code of messages Sauniere left behind, as well as stay one step ahead of the cops. Along the way the pair is also pursued by a homicidal albino monk named Silas (Paul Bettany), who regularly punishes himself with a whip. This monk is part of a radical Catholic sect called Opus Dei, and is working under the direction of a Bishop Aringarosa (Alfred Molina), in a concerted effort to prevent the release of certain damning information which could undermine the power of the Church. Along with said information, it is largely these negative Catholic characters which have sparked such worldwide controversy.

Under an enormous amount of pressure from outside forces no less powerful than the Vatican itself, perhaps it shouldn't be so surprising that the movie crumbled under the weight. The film's main problem lies in the makers' extremely reluctant, apologetic approach to their contentious subject matter.

Any time a concept is proposed that's challenging to the Christian faith, either Langdon or Neveu (neither of whom are religious) are uncharacteristically made to say lines like "Oh, that's just an old wives' tale!" or "You don't really believe that, do you?" These frequent politically correct moments succeed only in sucking all tension from the film, annoyingly bringing us back to the real world and reminding us once again that yes, the ideas put forth in "The Da Vinci Code" are truly offensive to some people.

Although the film drips with money spent on special effects, exotic locations and historical flashbacks, it's not enough to save the production. Composer Hans Zimmer supplies a rather unremarkable score to mark the proceedings, and Ron Howard's cheesy influence is prevalent throughout. On the bright side, Sir Ian McKellan is delightfully brilliant as Sir Leigh Teabing, an affluent Holy Grail enthusiast who a desperate Langdon and Neveu must turn to for help. Jean Reno is also superb as head detective Bezu Fache. CV

'L'Enfant'

By Andrew Brink

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"L'Enfant" (The Child) could just as easily have been titled "Le Pere" (The Father), and if I knew any French at all I'd decorate the term with a few choice adjectives: "terrible," "appalling" or, more plainly, "bad." Not that I doubt the Dardenne brothers, Jean-Pierre and Luc, who co-wrote and directed the film. Their work has garnered them many a juried prize, including the twice-won Palme d'Or, which they first earned in 1999 for the film "Rosetta" and then again last year for this film. The child wearing the film's title is indeed central and sets the story in motion. But the father is unforgivable and, therefore, we don't dare take our eyes off of him.

The film begins with a rosy young mother, Sonia, and her newborn son, happily named Jimmy, searching the city for what could make their family whole: daddy. As they hunt, we learn a great deal about Jimmy's father. Bruno is no stranger to sleeping under bridges. He waltzes between stopped cars, palm out for a free buck (or, in this case, a free euro). And, until Sonia finds him panhandling along a busy street, he had never before laid eyes on his son.

Once reunited, it is not hard to imagine Sonia and Bruno producing many more children. They are playful and connected by easy springtime love. By no means on the receiving end of luck, they are living. When Bruno sells some (stolen) jewelry to rent a convertible for the day, we see fortune's only ray of light shining on the threesome. Mom and dad smiling, laughing in the front seat with baby nestled in the back. They could very well be driving toward a beautiful future.

Later, though, when Sonia asks Bruno to take the baby for a stroll, he steers their lives in a different direction. Returning to their shelter beneath a bridge only to find an empty baby carriage, Sonia is suddenly confronted by a man and a world more vacant than a void. Three words destroy their family. "I sold him." Bruno has traded his son for cash as easily as he would a stereo or much less. And this is only the story's first act.

The film conveys the honest feeling of a documentary, not surprising since the Dardenne brothers honed their craft telling the stories of blue-collar life in Belgium. The camera work and acting erase any distance the audience might feel between its own steaming popcorn and Bruno's instant coffee. But as close as we may feel to the lives onscreen, we are left with many vexing questions. Is Bruno motivated by anything other than greed? Can we forget the unpardonable long enough to follow Bruno as he tries to work his way past the direst mistake of his life?

Perhaps, but it's not a journey that is easy to stomach.

What we come to know about Bruno is that he refuses to help himself and that he has never been offered much help. We know that he is young and that life has flattened any remaining dreams of youth. And we know, if we do the math correctly, that his child is worth 5,000-plus euros on the street, a bigger take than he's ever held in his hand. It would be easy to hate Bruno for his deeds, to blow past him like we would anyone else pushing an empty pram along the cold sidewalk. It might even be more pleasant to slip into the sunnier movie playing next door (or any other film that isn't about the dispossessed selling their children to live).

But Bruno's choices reveal the limited supply he believes he's inherited and we are reminded of another fact: When a life is assigned a price, it can only be undervalued. And that goes for both child and father. CV

'Poseidon'

By Ben Spierenburg

Movie Trailer

An overly swift and shallow ride, "Poseidon" is the latest in a never-ending parade of substandard remakes. Regrettably marred by update mediocrity this time is 1972's "The Poseidon Adventure," recreated with the latest in computer simulated 'special' effects, but with none of the personality of the original. Short on character development, plot, and compelling dialogue, director Wolfgang Peterson's slipshod remake devotes the majority of its 100 minutes to a nonstop stream of monotonous, emotionally empty action sequences. Technically a summer blockbuster which will undoubtedly do well in its first weekend, following that ticket sales will likely sink quickly on poor word-of-mouth.

Peterson was selected as director for his past success in making gripping sea dramas ("Das Boot" and "The Perfect Storm.") And although his first two maritime tries may have turned out great, in this case, third time's the clunker. Thanks to Peterson's complete unwillingness to spend the extra 15-20 minutes necessary to properly develop his characters, the film's dreadfully one-dimensional storyline becomes incredibly more pronounced. Clearly, an epic disaster film becomes boring fast when you barely know or care about the people involved.

Then again, even if Peterson had spent more time on character development, there's no guarantee this film would have been much improved. In a move which can only be described as mind-boggling, the makers of "Poseidon" decided to throw out the endearing characters which made the original a hit, in favor of an entirely new (and more bland) band of survivors.

Within the first 20 minutes we are hastily introduced to all the important players. There's wealthy Robert (Kurt Russell) a former firefighter who apparently had a brief run as the mayor of New York. He's got problems with his daughter (Emmy Rossum), who he feels is moving too fast in her relationship with her boyfriend (Mike Vogel). Dylan (Josh Lucas) is a former navy guy who now makes a profitable living as a professional gambler. He briefly flirts with a single mom (Jacinda Barrett), which in the context of this ridiculously fast-paced film entails a full-out love story. The considerable acting talents of Richard Dreyfuss are underutilized in the role Richard, an affluent gay architect, who develops an affection for faint-hearted stowaway Elena (Mia Maestro).

If you're paying attention during these precious few moments of exposition, you can also catch that it's supposed to be New Year's Eve, another superfluous detail which ultimately bears no significance to the storyline. We are barely given the chance to appreciate how splendid the ship before a massive 'rogue wave' appears and strikes the ship, flipping it upside down and immediately killing most everyone on board. While Captain Bradford (Andre Braugher) decides to wait for help in the ballroom with his girlfriend Gloria (Stacy Ferguson, of the "Black Eyed Peas"), our band determines they must try to escape. From this point on the film is dominated by run of the mill special effects as the group faces one after another theoretically suspenseful obstacles.

Despite a preponderance of evidence to the contrary, the filmmakers would have you believe that in the world of 2006 there are no more overweight people. Gone is the charmingly corpulent Mrs. Rosen character, or anyone like her, replaced by a bevy of beauties (Barrett, Maestro, Rossum) who only serve to heighten the unrealism. A random smattering of more plausible female passengers would have served the story far better.

Besides coming up with an insipid group of characters, screenwriter Mark Protosevich does a heck of a horrible job writing dialogue on this disaster of a movie. Consider the film's most prominent line and ostensible premise, delivered by Russell: "There's nothing fair about who lives and who dies." Indeed. Indicative of the overall ineptness involved here, this is an unbelievably heartless point to make in post-Katrina America, especially given what happens in the film: the rich white people survive, and everyone else drowns. CV

'Art School Confidential'

By Joshua Tyler

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After a string of two genuinely fantastic, completely different films ("Ghost World" and "Bad Santa"), director Terry Zwigoff makes a major misstep with "Art School Confidential," a tedious affair about a gawky boy getting an undeserving girl. Is it supposed to be a "Revenge of the Nerds" style-campus comedy, a scathing lampoon of the art world, a serial killer thriller, or a humdrum romance drama? You won't be able to tell, and worse, by the end you probably won't care.

Jerome has dreamed of being a great artist since he was only a child. So he goes to art school to pursue it, only to learn that one in a hundred students actually becomes an artist, and those that make it probably don't deserve it anyway. By then Jerome is too obsessed with his drawing class's nude model to notice the futility of his goal. She's the daughter of a famous artist, and seems to bounce her attention between whichever boy in class has the most potential to make it big. In between the film fumbles about with comedy relief, in the form of Jerome's oddball roommates. They pop up kind of randomly throughout the movie, only to be abandoned for long stretches whenever their presence is no longer convenient.

There's no way to know whether Zwigoff actually likes artists, as he seems hell bent on portraying them all as burnouts, frauds, pedophiles, and mass murderers. But whether he likes them or not, his film spreads itself all over them like a sticky jam; setting up true art as some sort of mystical, unattainable pedestal. Who cares? If you're an art student, you'll probably buy the movie on DVD and rub it all over your body, but for the large majority that knows nothing about "real art," doesn't want to know anything about "real art," and could care less about "real art," "Art School Confidential" is another failed college movie about bland characters selling out to get sex. Zwigoff tries to mix in a murder mystery to further confuse things, but it's so out of place in the script that it, like the film itself, is easily ignored. CV

'Just My Luck'

By Scott Gwin

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What would you do if you were the luckiest person on the planet? Ashley Albright (Lindsay Lohan) faces that question every day and finds it simple enough to answer. On the rainiest of mornings she steps out of her fancy New York apartment building and the clouds immediately give way to balmy sunshine. The doorman, who hasn't been able to hail a cab all morning, finds them lining up for Miss Albright.

Of course, there must be balance in the universe, and Jake Hardin (Chris Pine) is the sort whose bad luck evens out Ashley's good. He always steps in the deepest possible puddle when crossing the street and the one time he finds five bucks in a trash can it turns out to be coated in puppy poop.

Jake and Ashley are perfect opposites and therefore destined to attract. They collide one night when they wind up dancing together and share an ill-fated kiss. Two days later, Ashley's luck is gone. With help from a psychic, she concludes the kiss is to blame for her bizarre swap of fortune. Armed with the headshot of every dancer at the party and some lottery scratch tickets for litmus tests, she and her friends set out on a hopeless citywide kissing crusade to get her luck back.

"Just My Luck" has the feel of a film that, in some earlier manifestation, might have been a fun Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan romantic comedy. That's easy enough to understand when you consider the screenplay was penned by two women, one who wrote for "Sex and the City" and the other the writer of the popular chick flick "Now and Then." And perhaps that's what attracted Lohan to the part. Where the script went wrong becomes painfully clear when you see who else is credited as having tinkered with the story: three guys who wrote "Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector" and "Max Keeble's Big Movie."

So while "Just" may be somewhat cute, spattered with entertaining humor and touching chick flick tenderness, but everything that might have made it a quality romantic comedy has been tainted by ridiculous teen marketing. Good performances and some physical comedy keep the movie afloat, but it's not enough elevate the story to something audiences over the age of 18 can embrace as entertainment. CV

'Mission Impossible: III'

By Ben Spierenburg

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Absolutely packed with pulse-pounding action and edge-of-your-seat excitement, "Mission: Impossible III" kicks off the summer season with a rollercoaster ride audiences are sure to love. For health concerns, small children, pregnant women and people with heart conditions should avoid excessive caffeine intake before viewing.

Largely due to the determined efforts of director J.J. Abrams, "MI:3" succeeds brilliantly. Abrams delivers the franchise's most intense installment to date. Having thoroughly conquered television with the hits "Alias" and "Lost," he continues his pattern of success with a masterful big-screen debut.

In fact, this picture is so marvelously engaging and fun, it makes you realize how comparatively flawed the previous two films were. Brian De Palma's 1996 original, while visually stimulating enough, featured a plot most people found excessively confusing. John Woo's 2000 film made the reverse mistake, still providing ample action but pairing it with an overly simplistic, hackneyed story. Abrams gets it just right, with a mix of action and story that has perfect pitch. Add a superb performance by Best Actor Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman as a delightfully malicious villain, and you've got easily one of the best-action movies of the year.

Even so, what about all those distracting off-screen concerns with the film's star? While it's true that Tom Cruise may have earned himself a lot of flak as of late, he's a skilled enough performer to make you swiftly forgive him. From crazily bouncing around on Oprah's couch, to needlessly attacking Brooke Shields, to vigorously espousing the evils of psychiatry, there's no doubt the past year has been the worst of his storied career. However, Cruise once again proves his worth as these PR gaffes are immediately forgotten within the first few nerve-racking moments of the film.

The opening teaser shows us sinister arms-dealer Owen Davian (Hoffman) threatening to blow a pretty young woman's head off while interrogating a captive Ethan Hunt (Cruise) about the location of the "rabbit's foot." This is some kind of new doomsday device (the filmmakers cleverly avoid cliché by never explaining exactly what it is) that Hunt and his MIF team will have to frantically search the world for.

This startling scene snaps us to attention, the stirring TV theme music kicks in, and the narrative jumps back to Virginia, where Ethan is thoroughly enjoying himself at an engagement party with his fiancèe Julia (Michelle Monaghan), who has not been told about his secret life as a spy. She thinks her beau is a boring bureaucrat with the Department of Transportation. It seems Ethan has decided to settle down and is now only training operatives.

Of course, this plan can't last, as he is called away during the party and implored to go on a mission to Berlin to rescue abducted agent Lindsey Ferris (Keri Russell), one of his finest trainees. Joining him in his quest is veteran agent Luther (the outstanding Ving Rhames), and fresh recruits Declan (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) and Zhen (Maggie Q).

After this first mission goes awry, the real fun begins, as Ethan and his team learn they must break into the Vatican for the chance to nab Davian. As always, the MIF team does its duty with expert precision, stealing the rabbit's foot and kidnapping the criminal while simultaneously faking his death. However, Davian soon regains the upper hand as his posse uses an attack drone, a helicopter and a platoon of high-tech commandos to stage a daring rescue.

Julia is quickly seized, and Ethan is informed he must find the rabbit's foot within 48 hours or else. He reunites with his team in Shanghai to make an impressive last-minute raid on a heavily guarded skyscraper, followed by a high-speed car chase/gun battle through the city's congested streets, before we reach the relatively calm (but no less dramatic) finale. Naturally, production values are superlative throughout. CV

'Don't Come Knocking'

By Bethany Kohoutek

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Wim Wenders' films have this way of making you homesick for the American West. Even if you haven't actually been to the particular object of his affection - here, it's Butte, Montana - you leave the theater with a heavy, melancholic nostalgia for the brand of Americana that Wenders, who is German, captures with a touch that is at once stark and tender.

Everything else in "Don't Come Knocking," Wenders' latest effort, seems predictable, secondary and even contrived. It's not that the script or the actors are particularly bad; they're just as good as what we've come to expect from Wenders - the sort of standard-bearing filmmaking he offers in true beauties like "Paris, Texas" and "Wings of Desire."

Sam Shepard plays Howard Spence, an actor whose Hollywood relevance has long since faded. After 30 years of boozing, wrecking cars, snorting lines and screwing random female fans, the aging Spence has been relegated to the role of cowboy-for-hire in cheapo Westerns. Within this context, Spence is one day struck by a sudden attack of the "what does it all mean?"s. He ditches the set of his latest film and decides to look up his mother (Eva Marie Saint), whom he hasn't seen in three decades.

Mom, who seems unperturbed by the fact that she hasn't seen her kid for his entire adult life, informs Spence that he has a son of his own, apparently conceived 20-odd years ago while he was working on a film set in Butte. Armed with only a photo and a vague recollection of who he could have knocked up, Spence sets off for Montana to peer into the windows of the life he could have - and, he's convinced himself, should have - lived.

But things don't work out as tidily as they do in the movies Spence is cast in. When he wanders into the M & M Cafè (an actual Butte landmark), he finds Doreen (Jessica Lange), the mother of his child, waitressing at the same place she did when they hooked up. Lange, perhaps the strongest role in the film, is the embodiment of the sensible Western ethos. There are no stars in her eyes when the father of her only child meanders back into town, and, realizing Spence is in the throes of a full-blown three-quarters-life crisis, Doreen regards him with a sort of vaguely condescending amusement.

Spence then meets his son, Earl (Gabriel Mann), in a bar where Earl's band is playing. Their first encounter is a trainwreck; Earl is so rattled by his father's sudden entrance into his life that he tries to kick the shit out of Spence, who leaves, dejected. At the same time, Spence is being tailed by a mysterious girl, Sky (Sarah Polley), who's lugging around an urn full of her mother's ashes. Spence tries to shoo her away, figuring she's a straggling groupie, until he realizes she, too, is the result of another indiscriminate affair. All the while, an investigator hired by the film company that Spence abandoned is trying to track him down and deliver him back to the set.

The fleeting moments of wit and quirk that ensue seem forced. Rather than weaving these Wender trademarks seamlessly into the plot line, he deposits them into the script at inopportune times, rendering the film incongruous. As a result, the actors seem unsure how to evoke the emotions expected of them and overact to compensate. Mann's Earl, for example, is amateurish and obnoxious; his overwrought freak-outs at his father grow dull quickly. There are times where you almost care about what happens to the pitiful Spence, but his character never scratches deep enough to garner any sympathy - and perhaps that's the point. If so, this serves only to strip Spence's awkward attempts at reconciliation with his family of any true impact.

T-Bone Burnett provides the standout soundtrack, an aching and forlorn score that, more than the actors, sustains the film's oddball, Americana backbone. It makes you wish you could mute the dialog and appreciate, through Wenders' adoring lens, the beauty of the Western landscape, without a halfhearted script muddying the view. CV

'United 93'

By Bethany Kohoutek

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Afew years ago, I met a Vietnam veteran at a VFW bar in Colorado. He was in his mid-60s, and only recently had he begun to deal with the severe post-traumatic stress and emotional issues stemming from his experience. He'd been declared 100 percent disabled by the government after the military truck he was riding in tripped a crude explosive device buried in the road. It detonated and shot the truck into the sky. The truck landed on his legs.

On one particular day, we got to talking about Vietnam War movies. As a rule, he detested them. "The Deer Hunter." "Platoon." And, especially, "Apocalypse Now." He classified them either as films which drew upon war as an excuse to portray guts and gore, or movies that sacrificed facts as a means toward political ends. Both types, he said, did a disservice to history, and to the people - the soldiers and the civilians - actually involved.

I think my friend would appreciate "United 93."

It would have been easy for writer/ director Paul Greengrass to attempt to attach some sort of lofty moral statement or overarching political agenda, but he didn't have to, and his offering is better for it; the facts speak for themselves.

The film is comprised mainly of two parts: The most immediately gripping is Greengrass' portrayal of what could have happened aboard United Flight 93 on the morning of September 11, 2001. Like Greengrass' 2002 film, "Bloody Sunday," which chronicles the 1972 murders of 14 Irish civil rights protesters by the British military, you know how it's going to end for the passengers of Flight 93. And, for the majority of the film, you're locked into cringe mode. Never have I heard a theater so pin-droppingly silent, or heard people openly sob during closing credits.

In reality, however, no one knows exactly what happened on that plane. We've gleaned bits from cockpit recordings and final phone calls to loved ones, but all of the other harrowingly human details Greengrass shows - the stewardesses chatting amongst themselves, the two passengers planning a hiking trip, the old woman asking for water with breakfast so she can swallow her pills - are speculation.

It's the film's depiction of the utter chaos among - and ultimate failure of - government agencies and the military that strike a deeper chord of fear. For those who didn't read the "9/11 Commission Report," "United 93" presents what are likely new and startling facts: that the fighter jets deployed by the military in response to the hijackings actually took off in the wrong direction; that the military could not locate the president to get his approval to engage the planes; that some government officials first learned of a plane crashing into the Trade Center because it was on CNN.

This is not an attempt by Greengrass to Michael Moore-ize the events of 9/11. Most of these facts, though not granted the wide berth they deserve in the mainstream news, were published in the "9/11 Commission Report" in July of 2004. In this Sunday's Washington Post, John Farmer, a senior counsel for the 9/11 commission, attested to the accuracy of the movie:

"The film is closer to the truth than every account the government put out before the 9/11 commission's investigation," he wrote. "Its release marks our passage through the post-9/11 looking glass, with our wildest fairy tales now spun not in Hollywood, but in Washington."

A recent poll found that half of Americans think it's too soon to release a 9/11 film. I'd urge them to give "United 93" a chance. It took decades for my friend in Colorado to face his personal horrors surrounding Vietnam; the human elements of "United 93" may actually provide catharsis for those emotionally involved in this ordeal (which is pretty much all of us, to one extent or another).

At the very least, the film highlights internal mistakes that were made. A mainstream awareness of those mistakes - more so than any war or any federal civil liberties legislation - is perhaps a step toward preventing similar tragedies in the future. CV

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