The Bucket List

STARRING: Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman View Trailer RELEASE DATE: 12/25/2007 DATE SCREENED: 12/10/2007 The Verdict OK - Wait for DVD

A-list actors Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman team up to bring us The Bucket List. Nicholson plays Edward Cole, a rich a-hole whose business model is “two people to a room, no exceptions”. When he himself is hospitalized with cancer, he ends up sharing a room with Carter Chambers (Freeman), an auto mechanic also suffering from cancer. Edward wants nothing to do with Carter at first, as he suffers through surgery and chemo alone while Carter is either watching Jeopardy or talking with his visiting wife. Carter remembers an old college assignment to create a Bucket List, which is a list of things you want to do before you “kick the bucket”.

Edward and Carter both receive the bad news that their cancer is terminal. They have only six months to a year to live. Carter balls up his bucket list and throws it away, but Edward retrieves it from the trash and begins to add things to the list. He convinces Carter that there is still time to complete the list, and he will foot the bill. Carter’s wife is very upset with this idea, as she wants to spend as much time as possible with her husband. But Carter can not resist Edward’s offer.

The film becomes a road trip movie, as Edward and Carter bond over their adventures, which include skydiving, auto racing, and visiting the pyramids. Things get serious when Carter adds a visit to Edward’s estranged daughter to the list. But that’s just a minor bump in the road as the two men enjoy their last year of life.

The movie is very predictable, and I couldn’t help but wonder if the striking writers are even worth what they get paid. Two people who seem like opposites meet… they don’t like each other… they discover a shared interest… they embark on some type of journey that bonds them… they have an argument… things get smoothed over in the end as they have learned some kind of life lesson. How many times have we seen that story? On the other hand, Nicholson and Freeman are worth every penny as actors. They have great chemistry together and keep you from getting bored despite the script. You just can’t help but get some enjoyment from watching them together on screen. But I didn’t enjoy them enough to be able to recommend that you spend your time & money seeing this in the theater. Wait for the DVD.

P.S. I Love You

STARRING: Hilary Swank, Gerard Butler View Trailer RELEASE DATE: 12/21/2007 DATE SCREENED: 11/29/2007 The Verdict NOT GOOD - Wait for cable

Academy Award winning actress Hilary Swank, who will always be the female Karate Kid to me, teams with Gerard Butler in P.S. I Love You. I would have expected any late year film from her to be an attempt to nab her 3^rd Oscar, but there is no way she could have expected any Oscar buzz from this romantic comedy.

P.S. I Love You does have a twist to differentiate itself from the generic romantic comedy we’ve seen countless times before. The twist is that one of the characters is dead. That’s not a misprint, as early in the film Holly (Swank) is devastated when her husband Gerry dies of a brain tumor. Gerry does not come back as a ghost, but knowing how his impending death would affect Hilary, he devised a way to speak to her from the dead.

To the chagrin of her friends and family, Hilary reacts to her husband’s death by spending all her time locked in her apartment crying, watching tv, and ordering in. When they come over to surprise her for her 30^th birthday, there is also a surprise gift from Gerry. He has left a recorded message for Holly that not only wishes her a happy birthday, but tells her that she can expect more letters from him over the course of a year and she must do everything asked of her in the letters. Holly is now able to go on with her life, knowing that she will hear from her husband again. Every letter ends with the line “P.S. I Love You”. Does anyone other than me have a problem with this premise? Not Holly’s two friends, played by Lisa Kudrow & Gina Gershon. A bartender, named Daniel, who befriends Holly does end up having a big problem with it. While he’s falling in love with Holly, she is not able to get over her husband. The tasks she must complete range from doing karaoke to visiting Gerry’s family in Ireland. All the while we also see flashbacks that show how Holly & Gerry met and how they ended up falling in love. Eventually, Holly must decide if she can let go and give her heart to another man, like Daniel, or if she is going to spend her life in mourning over her dead husband.

For a romantic comedy, this movie is not funny or romantic. Lisa Kudrow is amusing at times, but her best lines can be seen in the trailer. I did not find anything romantic about a husband not allowing his wife to let go by ordering her around for an entire year after his death. I actually found the idea offensive. The story of how Holly & Gerry met and fell in love was not based in any kind of reality, and they don’t have any kind of chemistry together. The crowd at the screening had almost no reaction to the film, so I don’t know that any women found it romantic either. Hillary Swank does do her part by giving another very good performance, but there is nothing that she could have done to save this script. So what you have is a film that is well acted but forgettable. Wait for cable.

I Am Legend

STARRING: Will Smith View Trailer RELEASE DATE: 12/14/2007 DATE SCREENED: 12/10/2007 The Verdict GOOD - See it in the theater

This was the year of the ‘threequel’, with the 3^rd installment of Spiderman, Bourne, Rush Hour, and Oceans 11 hitting screens this year. With the release of I Am Legend, we get a ‘three-make’, as this is the 3^rd theatrical version of Richard Matheson’s book “I Am Legend”. Having recently viewed the 1971 version, called Omega Man and starring Charlton Heston, my enthusiasm was dulled for this release. Omega Man was a bad movie filled with huge plot holes. But I always hope for the best from a Will Smith movie, since like Will, I am “west Philadelphia, born and raised”.

Smith stars as Robert Neville, a military scientist who may be the last survivor of a deadly virus. What started out as a miracle cure for cancer in the year 2009, somehow turned into a deadly virus that wipes out 90% of the world’s population. 1% of the population was immune, like Neville, and the other 9% have turned into vampire like creatures that can only come out at night. The creatures began to feed on those that were immune. It’s 3 years later, and Neville spends most of the day time hanging out with his German Shepard, working out, hunting dear, looking for other survivors, or going to the video store where he talks to the mannequins he presumably set up. He spends his nights locked in his home, huddling with his dog in a bathtub. It’s the same routine, day after day after day. Through flashbacks we see that Neville was a married father of a daughter, who worked tirelessly to find a cure before things got out of hand. He told his wife that he would “fix this” and he refuses to give up. Even now he has a basement lab in which he spends time working on a cure. In his daily log, after a close encounter with the creatures he comments that they are completely mindless having lost any sense of humanity. That statement turns out to be only partially correct. In reality, they have a leader who has put together a plan to capture and kill Neville as a response to the creatures Neville has captured in order to test his cures. Neville must work quickly, as the creatures are organized and getting closer and closer to finding him.

The plot isn’t very complicated, and I’m happy to report that all the plot holes from Omega Man have been plugged. I’ve never read the book, so I can only compare it to the previous movie version. Although the movie is very quiet, as the daytime scenes take place in a deserted New York City, every shot and line of dialog is advancing the story in some way. Some may feel that the movie is starting off slow, but everything pays off in the end. And you don’t have to wait long for everything to start paying off as the movie is only slightly more than 90 minutes. Will does a great job depicting Neville as a man who is fighting a growing insanity as he refuses to give up on finding a cure. This is not the usual Will Smith action film. It’s very tense and somewhat scary at times. After all, he is fighting vampire like creatures. It all culminates in a outstanding action sequence, with a much better ending than Omega Man. The crowd at the screening seemed to enjoy themselves, as they oohed and aahed at all the right moments. See this one in the theater.

The Golden Compass

STARRING: Nicole Kidman, Dakota Blue Richards View Trailer RELEASE DATE: 12/07/2007 DATE SCREENED: 12/04/2007 The Verdict OK - Wait for the DVD

Based on Northern Lights, the first novel in a trilogy called His Dark Materials, The Golden Compass seems like the kind of fantasy film that I would really enjoy. With thoughts of the wonderful Chronicles of Narnia in my head, this was my most anticipated December release. The film takes place in a parallel universe in which every person’s spirit is always right by their side as a daemon. The daemon will take the form of a talking animal, but a child’s daemon can change into other animals until the child reaches adulthood. If a person dies, their daemon dies as well.

The film centers around Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards) , a young girl with a dislike of authority. Living at a college, she listens in on a meeting of scholars run by her uncle, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig). He needs funding to go on a quest to the North Pole to gather a mythical Dust that will allow people to travel to the other parallel universes. She quickly learns that people are not allowed to talk about Dust, but that does not stop her curiosity. Marissa Coulter (Nicole Kidman) takes a liking to Lyra and decides to take her on a trip. Marissa is secretly trying to catch up with Lord Asriel to stop him from finding the Dust. Before embarking on her adventure, Lyra is given a Golden Compass called an alethiometer. If someone can learn how to read it on their own, it will allow you to see the true answer to any question on past or present events. It is supposedly the last one in existence. On her trip Lyra discovers that Marissa is an evil woman. She escapes from her and embarks on her travel to the North Pole on her own. She does get help on her journey from people called the Gyptians, from witches, and even a polar bear warrior. She figures out how to read the Compass, learns all about the Magisterium (the dictators running society), and learns of a plot to kidnap children and separate them from their daemons. It turns out that Lyra is receiving so much help because there is a prophecy about how she will be the one to end an impending war.

There is no real ending to this movie, as it will be continued in the next movie in the series. I would have liked to have had a better ending, and the plot is a bit too complicated for a family fantasy film. I was really disappointed. The movie starts off slow, just plodding from point A to point B, and people around me were falling asleep. It does get better as it goes along, but I was never able to completely escape into this fantasy world. There was just not enough interesting things going on, and the first half of the film bored me. The special effects are great, as each person’s daemon is always in the background and always looked like a real animal. The shape shifting was also smooth.

The standout scene in the film is the fight between two warrior polar bears, which is all special effects. This battle had the crowd cheering. The fight at the end between the people who have kidnapped the kids and a team of Gyptians and witches is also thrilling.

The Catholic League had called for a boycott of the film due to a perceived anti-Catholic theme in the source novels. If you pay close attention, the Magisterium who want to strengthen their dictatorship can remind someone of the Catholic church. But it’s not something that most people will notice.

The reaction of the crowd was very mixed. Some people clapped at the end, but I heard others saying that they wasted almost two hours watching a movie that doesn’t even end. I also had a mother tell her son that he will have to read the book if he wants to know how it really ends. The book supposedly had a great ending, which was not used in the movie. It pains me to tell people to wait for the DVD on this one. I won’t be anxiously awaiting the sequel, but I won’t let this disappointment dampen my enthusiasm for Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, due out in May of 2008!