The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep

THE WATER HORSE: LEGEND OF THE DEEP is your basic “boy befriends wild animal” movie. In this case, the wild animal is the Loch Ness Monster, so there’s your hook.

I like “boy befriends wild animal” movies, and I like the actors in this one (Brian Cox, Emily Mortimer, the kid from MILLIONS and some guy who looks familiar). It moves along quite well, and it’s appealing enough to young and old that my 8-yr-old turned to me and said, “Thanks for making me watch this, Dad.” What more can you ask for?

The Butterfly Effect

THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT is so depressing, so unrelentingly bleak, that I have no idea how any film executive ever said, “This is a movie people will want to see on a Saturday night. Green light it!”

Here’s the setup: Ashton Kutcher has a profoundly terrible childhood. While in college, he discovers that he has the ability to inhabit his pediatric self and change the course of past events. When he does so, however, things get even worse. And worse. And worse. This movie is like some kind of weird exercise in excruciation, daring the audience to hang with it a little while longer in the hope that things will improve. They never do. THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT is hopeless, depressing, and a lousy way to spend a Saturday night. I wish I could go back in time and tell myself to skip it.

Snakes on a Plane

During one of his promotion interviews for SNAKES ON A PLANE, star Samuel L. Jackson said, “Look, it’s all there in the title. Either you’re down with snakes on a plane, or you aren’t.”

I’m down with snakes on a plane.

Now, make no mistake: there is no way SNAKES ON A PLANE qualifies as a “good” movie. It’s high B-grade, at best, and it boasts a blatant disregard for even the most basic research on snakes or planes. But it you’ve ever wanted to see someone take a snake in the eye, this is your movie. If you’ve ever wanted to see a giant boa constrictor eat a snotty jerk, this is your movie. Heck, you find the idea of Mr. Jackson shouting, “I have had it with these @#$%ing snakes on this $%^ing plane!” amusing, this is your movie.

Just, please, if you know anything about aviation, let it go. If you know anything about human nature, let it go. It’s snakes. On a plane. With Samuel L. Jackson.

Dig it.

THX-1138

THX-1138 is solid, ‘70s experimental science fiction. It presents with an antiseptic Orwellian world and one man, THX-1138, who begins to realize that there’s more to life than he’s been led to believe. Robert Duvall plays THX-1138, and it’s a masterful, understated performance. THX lives in a society in which emotion is discouraged, and Duvall is a master of showing us the deep currents swirling beneath his character’s calm exterior.

Where THX-1138 triumphs in the performance of its lead, however, it flounders in its actual story. Though the film begins with an intriguing vision of a dystopic future, it ends as one extended chase, going from foot to high-speed vehicle to foot again. Nothing really happens during this chase, story-wise. THX doesn’t learn anything about himself, nor does he develop in any way. It’s as if the film didn’t know where to go, but figured audiences love chases and that would do as well as anything.

So, should you see THX-1138? If you’re a fan of George Lucas, whose first science fiction feature this was, then I suppose you should. If you’re a fan of Robert Duvall, then you definitely should. If you’re neither, it may be worth your while if you find it on cable. That’s good enough, I suppose.

Transformers

If you like your movies bright and loud, then TRANSFORMERS is for you. I like my movies bright and loud, so I blocked out a chunk of time, darkened the basement, fired up the big screen, and got the surround speakers humming. I was ready to be blown away.

And TRANSFORMERS tried hard to blow me away. Lots of stuff blew up. It was very bright. And loud. But it was so unreal that I was unable to suspend my disbelief enough to care about any of the giant robots or believe, on a visceral level, that the havoc they were wreaking was anything more than a combination of pixel arrangement and foley work. In fact, during the climactic battle, I was more concerned with whether protagonist Shia LaBeouf was gonna score with the apple of his eye than I was with the fate of the world (There's something unsettling about Megan Fox, the romantic interest, btw. Since she reminded my of a psycho ex-girlfriend, I was torn between rooting for LaBeouf and urging to run far, far away.). Romantic subplots are great and all, but that’s no way to run a movie.

On the up side, LaBeouf is a likeable presence, and John Turturro was utterly brilliant in his role as a slightly unhinged Man in Black. Never before have I seen a government heavy played for laughs in an action movie such as this, and it was a wonderful choice. Every time Turturro showed up on screen, the film recaptured my complete attention, making TRANSFORMERS worth watching for him alone.

I didn't go into TRANSFORMERS expecting CRIES AND WHISPERS, but I was hoping for something more evenly entertaining than Michael Bay's latest turned out to be. A little more Turturro and a little less CGI, and this one could have been a winner.