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Susan Granger’s review of “Dear John” (Sony/Screen Gems)
Best-selling writer Nicholas Sparks tugs at the heartstrings. If you’ve seen “The Notebook,” “Message in a Bottle,” “A Walk to Remember” or “Nights in Rodanthe,” you know that feel-good, romantic weepers are his specialty.
Back in 2001, serious, soft-spoken John Tyree (Channing Tatum) falls in love with bubbly Savannah Curtis (Amanda Seyfried) on the sun-dappled beach on the South Carolina coast. John is a Special Forces soldier on leave, visiting his taciturn father (Richard Jenkins) who is obsessed with his coin collection. Savannah is home on spring break, helping a family rebuild its hurricane-ravaged house. After their whirlwind two-week idyll, when John returns to Germany and Savannah goes back to college, they’re committed, promising to write for the remaining year of his service. But then 9/11 happens, he re-enlists and – for the next seven years – they’re separated by his increasingly perilous deployments. Melodrama reigns!
If you’ve ever been curious why Nicolas Sparks concentrates on themes involving death, loss and grief, his biography provides the answer: his mother was fatally injured in a horseback riding accident at the age of 47, his youngest sister died of cancer at age 33, and his father was killed in an automobile accident at the age of 54. And devoted Sparks’ aficionados should know that director Lasse Hallstrom (“The Cider House Rules,” “My Life as a Dog,” “Chocolat,” “Casanova”) and cliché-prone screenwriter Jamie Linden take artistic liberties with the lovers’ ultimate fate, which differs from the book’s ending. Reportedly, the conclusion was reworked after disappointing feedback from a test-screening.
But the primary problem is Channing Tatum’s (“Fighting,” “Stop-Loss”) lack of appeal; he’s hunky and photogenic but totally lacks charisma. Lovely Amanda Seyfried (“Mamma Mia,” HBO’s “Big Love”) does her best to feign carnal chemistry but to no avail. Curiously, supporting actors Richard Jenkins and Henry Thomas (as Savannah’s neighbor with an autistic son) delineate far more interesting characters.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Dear John” is a sudsy, syrupy 6, too often crossing the thin, star-crossed line between sentimental and schmaltzy.
Susan Granger’s review of “From Paris With Love” (Lionsgate)
You know things have gone from bad to worse when John Travolta starts riffing himself, evoking the far better bang-bang days when he was working with Quentin Tarantino and John Woo.
James Reece/Richard Stevens (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is a double agent in Paris, toiling as an adroit, multi-lingual, chess-playing attaché to the American Ambassador (Richard Durden) and as a low-level undercover CIA errand-boy who swaps license plates on cars in dark parking garages. Plus, he’s got a gorgeous French/Muslim fiancée, Caroline (Kasia Smutniak). Problem is: when he gets a really challenging assignment, he’s teamed with a foul-mouthed operative, Special Agent Charlie Wax (Travolta), a free-wheeling former mercenary, whose trigger-happy, bad-boy antics could well blow their cover as they’re trying to take down Chinese coke dealers and capture a suicide bomber tied up with a Pakistani terrorist ring. Uzi-toting, leather-clad Wax is introduced as he tries to sneak a precious suitcase full of energy drinks (whose contents hold firearms) through customs – before strapping on automatic weapons, loading a rocket launcher and embarking on exploding SUVs around the City of Light, exclaiming, “Welcome to Paris, baby!” And that’s when he’s not gobbling Cheese Royales and tearing-up when he hears “(They Long to Be) Close to You” on the car radio.
Directed as a kinetic, buddy/action adventure by Pierre Morel, who guided Liam Neeson through the far more intelligent kidnapping drama “Taken” a year ago, it’s a nonsensical shambles, pieced together by screenwriter Adi Hasak from a story by Luc Besson. The quirky humor is supposed to derive from the odd-couple mis-matching of the gun-slinging partners, and the stylish camerawork features a CGI-enhanced shoot-out at the Eiffel Tower.
While British Jonathan Rhys-Meyers does a creditable American accent and is convincingly bland and oafish, toting a cocaine-filled vase, John Travolta goes over the top – and then some – with bald head, goatee and dangling earring. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “From Paris With Love” is a bullet-riddled, forgettable 4, filled with bloody violence and an astonishingly high corpse count.
Susan Granger’s review of “From Paris With Love” (Lionsgate)
You know things have gone from bad to worse when John Travolta starts riffing himself, evoking the far better bang-bang days when he was working with Quentin Tarantino and John Woo.
James Reece/Richard Stevens (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is a double agent in Paris, toiling as an adroit, multi-lingual, chess-playing attaché to the American Ambassador (Richard Durden) and as a low-level undercover CIA errand-boy who swaps license plates on cars in dark parking garages. Plus, he’s got a gorgeous French/Muslim fiancée, Caroline (Kasia Smutniak). Problem is: when he gets a really challenging assignment, he’s teamed with a foul-mouthed operative, Special Agent Charlie Wax (Travolta), a free-wheeling former mercenary, whose trigger-happy, bad-boy antics could well blow their cover as they’re trying to take down Chinese coke dealers and capt
Susan’s DVD UPDATE for week of Friday, Feb. 5th:
Lady Diana Spencer was the direct descendent of glamorous, trend-setting Georgiana Spencer, Duchess of Devonshire, who was famously painted by Gainsborough. In “The Duchess,” vivacious Keira Knightley stars in a frivolous recounting of her exploits.
Based on a graphic novel, “Surrogates” is set sometime in the not-too-distant future, when robot technology has enabled mankind to live ‘virtually,’ through remote-controlled cyborgs but when something goes wrong, two FBI agents (Bruce Willis, Radha Mitchell) must track down the culprit.
The silly, slapstick/teen romance/horror satire “Zombieland” follows four resilient survival strategists (Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin) across a country that’s ravaged by the virus-infected, flesh-hungry un-dead.
The psychological thriller “Law Abiding Citizen” explores how our flawed justice system can be infuriating, as a vengeance-driven Philadelphian (Gerard Butler) fiendishly defies a plea-bargaining prosecutor (Jamie Foxx) to avenge the murder of his family.
Songbird Mariah Carey’s understated dramatic performance is the only surprise in “Tennessee,” a road picture in which two brothers (Adam Rothenberg, Ethan Peck) help her sad-eyed waitress escape her abusive husband (Lance Reddick), a Texas cop.
Does art imitate life or does life imitate art? You’re not quite sure as real-life unlucky-in-love Jennifer Aniston plays an unlucky-in-love florist who falls for a self-help author/psychologist (Aaron Eckhart) in the cliché-riddled comedy “Love Happens.”
“No Impact Man” follows the travails of Colin Beavan, a contemporary urban Thoreau who experimented with biking around Manhattan, eating only locally-grown food, using little or no electricity, depositing his waste in a can of worms, etc. But it’s his wife, Michelle Conlin, a senior writer at Business Week, whose candid complaining provides this provocative documentary with a welcome dose of humor.
“More Than a Game” is a documentary that looks back on the achievements of a high-school basketball team in Akron, Ohio, that happened to include superstar LeBron James.
PICK OF THE WEEK: Hilary Swank stars in “Amelia,” Mira Nair’s candy-colored, sugar-coated traditional biography of America’s most famous aviatrix, Amelia Earhart, a daredevil who was destined to make her mark on history.
Susan Granger’s review of “When in Rome” (Touchstone Pictures)
Be very wary of any movie poster that features a winsome blonde biting her pinkie. That’s the primary lesson learned from this wretched romantic comedy in which cutesy nail-nibbling is supposed to be seductive.
Guggenheim Museum curator Beth (Kristen Bell) is unhappy. She works for an authoritarian boss (Anjelica Huston), her parents (Peggy Lipton, Don Johnson) are divorced and she’s dumped by her longtime beau (Lee Pace) in the middle of an art gala. To add to her misery, her younger sister Joan (Alexis Dziena) is marrying Umberto (Luca Calvani) in Rome. That’s where she meets Nick (Josh Duhamel), the Best Man, a sports reporter who shares her cynicism. Convinced that she’ll never meet Mr. Right and far too inebriated to exercise good judgment, Beth visits an enchanted Trevi-like fountain where, instead of tossing in coin and making a wish, she wades in and takes five coins out. That’s a big mistake because the guys who once owned those coins are destined to fall in love with her and stalk her throughout Manhattan. There’s the struggling artist (Will Arnett) who paints an enormous nude portrait of Beth on the side of a building, the self-centered model (Dax Shepard), the street magician (Jon Heder) and the sausage tycoon (Danny DeVito) bearing a basket of “encased meats.” Meanwhile, what about Prince Charming – a.k.a. klutzy Nick? Will he turn out to be Beth’s true love? Guess.
Having graduated from TV’s “Veronica Mars,” Kristen Bell deserves better than the cringe-worthy, chick-flick fantasy drivel dumped on her by screenwriters David Diamond and David Weissman, who not only devise caricatures instead of characters but also seem to confuse the duties of a museum curator with those of a party-planner or event coordinator. And why did director Mark Steven Johnson (“Ghost Rider”) cast this tiny waif opposite tall Josh Duhamel (“Win a Date with Tad Hamilton”) because their height disparity makes for an awkward pairing? On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “When in Rome” is an inept 3. This frothy, predictable rom-com deserves exile.
Susan Granger’s review of “Edge of Darkness” (Warner Bros.)
Having been absent from the screen as an actor since “Signs,” Mel Gibson unleashes his anger in this violent revenge-fueled thriller, playing a grief-stricken veteran homicide detective whose 24 year-old daughter Emma (Bojana Novakovic), is gunned down in his arms on the doorstep of his Boston home.
Driven by guilt, believing he was the intended target, Thomas Craven (Gibson) is determined to track down her killer. But during his investigation, he finds her cell phone and Geiger counter and discovers that she may have been a whistle-blower, threatening to expose corporate corruption and a political conspiracy involving a Republican U.S. Senator (Damian Young) from Massachusetts. Emma was a research assistant at Northmoor, a private research-and-development compound with top-secret government research contracts, run by slick ‘n’ slimy CEO Jack Bennett (Danny Huston), who diabolically inquires what it “felt like” for Craven to lose his only child. Craven’s dogged pursuit of the secretive culprit puts him in direct conflict with cigar-smoking Darius Jedburgh (Ray Winstone), a lethal, cleverly manipulative British wheeler/dealer who works for an unnamed employer. Then there’s Emma’s bizarre boy-friend (Shawn Roberts) who’s terrified he’s going to be shot too.
Directed by Martin Campbell (“Casino Royale”), it’s actually a condensation of his award-winning helming of Troy Kennedy Martin’s six-hour BBC-TV mini-series (1985) that’s been adapted by William Monahan (Oscar-winner for “The Departed”) and Andrew Bovell (“Lantana”). During the quiet, talkative first half of the film, Gibson builds his complex, sympathetic, loner character; during the second half, the overwrought, convoluted plot disintegrates into standard-order, often senseless and inconsistent action with a ‘surprise’ villain who is easy to spot from the get-go.
It’s back-to-basics for Gibson whose first claim-to-fame was “Mad Max,” in which he played a police officer who went after the motorcycle gang that killed his wife and son. And as a side note, Robert DeNiro was originally attached to this project but reportedly withdrew due to creative differences.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Edge of Darkness” is an excessive, sinister 6, centering on maniacal, Mad Mel.
Susan’s DVD Update for week of January 29:
You gotta love Drew Barrymore! Her first directorial job, “Whip It,” follows a frustrated 17 year-old (Ellen Page) as she discovers real “girl power” at a rowdy roller derby match. This rough-and-tumble coming-of-age story celebrates friendship and camaraderie while delineating the struggle within families to understand one another.
Armando Iannucci’s “In the Loop” is a cynical, profanity-laden British geopolitical satire about the incompetence of government officials, as a low-level dolt (Tim Hollander) makes a verbal blunder, causing international chaos; there’s a memorable scene in which James Gandolfini uses a toy calculator to explain the costs of war to Mimi Kennedy.
With a cast headed by Gerard Butler, Michael C. Hall, Kyra Sedgwick and Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges, “Gamer” is a sci-fi action thriller in which gaming and entertainment evolve into an exhilarating yet terrifying new hybrid. And “Blood Creek” is a supernatural horror tale concerning two brothers at the center of a terrifying occult experiment that began in 1936 in Town Creek, West Virginia, when a German scientist comes to stay with their family and continue Third Reich experiments.
Timely and courageous, “Tru Loved” tells the story of a 16 year-old (Najarra Townsend) who is uprooted by her lesbian moms from gay-friendly San Francisco and moved to a conservative Southern California suburb.
“Prom Night in Mississippi” documents how and why the tiny town of Charleston, Mississippi, integrated its senior prom, accepting an offer by Oscar-winner Morgan Freeman; the result is black, white and a whole lot of taffeta.
“Jackie Chan Presents Wushu” introduces a new generation to the art of combat; it’s recommended for those who love a good kung-fu actioner.
Rapidly turning rancid, Bob Gosse’s bitterly misogynistic adaptation of Tucker Max’s bed-notching memoir “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell” revolves around a bachelor party descending into drunken debauchery.
PICK OF THE WEEK: In “Bright Star,” New Zealand filmmaker Jane Campion revels in the captivating-yet-chaste Victorian romance between early 19th century poet John Keats (Ben Whitshaw) and radiant Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish). It’s a visually resplendent, lyrically seductive superbly acted, intimate drama.
Susan Granger’s review of “Tooth Fairy” (20th Century-Fox)
In this featherweight, family-oriented comedy, Derek Thompson (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) is an arrogant, aggressive former NFL hockey player who’s now in the minor leagues and known as “The Tooth Fairy” for his brutal penchant for knocking out opponents’ bicuspids and molars. Continuing his destructive cynicism off-the-ice, he blithely informs Tess (Destiny Whitlock), the young daughter of his girl-friend, Carly (Ashley Judd), that there’s no real tooth fairy; it’s just a fantasy.
That infuriates Lily the Fairy-in-Chief (Julie Andrews), who magically punishes him for “first degree murder of fantasy” by turning his nickname into a real job for two weeks, or until he learns to believe in dreams. Presto! Hard-bodied Derek is prancing about in a pale pink tutu, ballerina slippers and tights with huge wings sprouting out of his back and a wand in his band. Granted, it’s an amusing image. But that’s about as funny as it gets. His stealthy tooth-retrieval training from under the pillows of sleeping children is assigned to a wingless caseworker, Tracy (British comic Stephen Merchant), and an ancient wizard (Billy Crystal) who supplies Derek with gadgets like invisibility spray, shrinking paste, amnesia dust, cat repellent, etc.
Sloppily written by Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel, Joshua Sternin, Jeffrey Ventimilia and Randi Mayem Singer and sluggishly directed by TV actor-turned-director Michael Lembeck (“Santa Clause” sequels), there’s a crushing cavity where there should be whimsical inspiration. Beyond unconvincing, Derek’s tough-guy character is a total misfit. I mean, what kind of brutish louse would steal the tooth-fairy dollar from under little Tess’s pillow to ante in a poker game? And why can’t he even try to bond with Carly’s sullen, guitar-playing teenage son, Randy (Chase Ellison)? For those who expect more from the “Race to Witch Mountain” Dwayne Johnson, it’s a definite disappointment.
Even though there’s a comical compensatory scene with Billy Crystal and Julie Andrews under the closing credits, the incoherent concept doesn’t pay off, so on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Tooth Fairy” is a flimsy, forced 4. Keep flossing and wait for the dvd.
Susan Granger’s review of “Extraordinary Measures” (CBS Films)
If this reminds you of a TV-disease-of-the-week tearjerker, that’s because it’s the first theatrical release from CBS Films, a division of the broadcast network that seems to be testing whether audiences will pay for cable-caliber melodramas at the box-office.
John Crowley (Brendan Fraser) is a pharmaceutical executive at Bristol-Myers Squibb. He and his wife Aileen (Keri Russell), have three children. Their oldest son (Sam M. Hall) is fine, but their two younger children, eight year-old Megan (Meredith Droeger), and six year-old Patrick (Diego Velazquez), suffer from a rare, genetic form of muscular dystrophy called Pompe’s disease. They live on respirators and in wheelchairs. Medicine offers no treatment and no cure.
Terrified that they may die at any moment, John’s persistent Internet research leads him to an eccentric University of Nebraska professor, Dr. Robert Stonehill (Harrison Ford), who believes he has isolated an enzyme that has the potential to arrest the painful progress of Pompe’s disease, which generally kills children before they reach the age of 10. In desperation, Crowley impulsively agrees to finance Stonehill’s neuromuscular drug therapy experiments and sets up a nonprofit foundation for that purpose. But time is running out and Crowley needs an influx of investment from venture capitalists. So he proposes selling the firm and Stonehill’s findings to a big biotechnology company in Seattle, a concept that does not sit well with the cantankerous, rock music-loving doctor, even though it will propel the experimental drug to a first trial much faster.
Inspired by real events and adapted from “The Cure,” a 2006 nonfiction book by journalist Geeta Anand, screenwriter Robert Nelson Jacobs has fashioned Ford’s somewhat one-dimensional character as a composite of several different, real-life scientists. Scottish director Tom Vaughn (“What Happens in Vegas”) never rises above a straightforward, expository TV-style – with little shading or subtlety – while Andrew Dunn’s cinematography can only be described as tedious.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Extraordinary Measures” is a formulaic 5, satisfying only in its revelations about how medical research is conducted and financed.
Susan’s DVD Update for week of Friday, Jan. 22nd:
Frustrated N.Y. Giants supporters can cheer Patton Oswalt as an obsessive parking-garage attendant from Staten Island, the self-described “world’s biggest New York Giants fan” in the black comedy, aptly titled “Big Fan.” And an Aussie sportswriter (Clive Owen) has to stop jet-setting when his wife dies, forcing him to raise his two sons solo in the charming, poignant drama “The Boys Are Back.”
Ricky Gervais stars in “The Invention of Lying,” a rambling discourse in an alternate reality in which everyone tells the truth. Hearing people converse when there’s no deceit, no tact and no fiction is funny – but only for about 20 minutes.
In “Trucker,” Michelle Monaghan leads a carefree life of long-haul trucking, one-night stands and all-night drinking until her estranged 11 year-old son (Jimmy Bennett) is dumped on her doorstep; it’s authentic roadside Americana.
Set in Belfast in the 1980s, a small-time Catholic hustler (Jim Sturgess), goaded by a covert British agent (Ben Kingsley), infiltrates the IRA in “50 Dead Men Walking”
Plausibility hits the “Breaking Point” early in this crime thriller about a coke-addled Manhattan defense attorney (Tom Berenger) who gets mixed up in a series of unlikely murders, feuds and double-crosses. And “Whiteout” is an ice-scholcky thriller with Kate Beckinsale as a U.S. Marshal in Antarctica who races to find a mysterious killer before she becomes his next victim.
Spike Lee’s “Passing Strange: The Movie” is basically canned rock musical theater, preserving the Broadway show by singer/songwriter Stew and Heidi Rodewald. And “Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself” continues his grandmotherly Madea franchise, focusing on love and loss.
PICK OF THE WEEK: Since the U.S. is sending an additional 30,000 troops abroad, “The Good Soldier” could not be timelier. This documentary follows five combat veterans from different generations of American wars as they sign up, go into battle and eventually understand what it means to be a good soldier. At this moment in history, when American support for the war in Afghanistan is divided, it’s important to recognize the difference between supporting the war and supporting our soldiers.
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