Month: March 2017

Renny Harlin should seriously consider having his name legally changed to Alan Smithee. That way, whenever some movie is released that credits the infamous pseudonym as its director, Harlin could at least say, “Nope, that wasn’t me,” and it would be plausible that he’s telling the truth. Yes, “The Covenant” is that bad. Granted, we’re talking about one of the best bad-movie directors of all time (“Cutthroat Island,” “Driven,” “Deep Blue Sea”), so no one was expecting much from him to begin with…and he still under-delivered. Harlin’s 1996 movie “The Long Kiss Goodnight,” one of the best bad movies ever made, looks like “The Godfather” compared to this.

The movie begins with a crawl that explains how four families with supernatural powers escaped to America hundreds of years ago to avoid persecution, then entered a vow of silence to maintain their safety. One of the families was ratted out and killed, while the other four stayed true to their word. The power has been passed down to the present day to first-born sons Caleb (Steven Strait), Pogue (Taylor Kitsch), Reid (Toby Hemingway) and Tyler (Chase Crawford), who all attend a ritzy boarding school. Caleb meets cute with Sarah (Laura Ramsey), while Pogue’s girlfriend Kate (Jessica Lucas) gets a little too close to new guy Chase (Sebastian Stan). The four covenant members begin to notice some strange goings-on – a disturbance in the Force, if you will – and Caleb suspects the hot-headed Reid is getting addicted to his power, which apparently will age you prematurely with excessive use. Pretty soon, though, the boys realize that the fifth family was not exterminated after all, and the surviving heir is out for revenge.

The movie is all wrong from the very first scene. The four boys pull a “Lost Boys”/”Underworld”-style drop from a cliff down to a beach party, a gross misuse of their powers (but nothing compared to what they do when chased by the police). The shot implies that the boys are corrupt narcissists when they’re not, which means that the scene only exists for the sake of doing a fancy FX shot. Even worse, from that scene on, the whole Three Musketeers credo that we assume the group maintains is thrown out the window, replaced with Caleb ruling the other three boys with an iron fist, making it less of a covenant than a dictatorship. Snotty jerk Aaron (Kyle Schmid) gets in the boys’ faces at the beach and establishes himself straight away as a villain, but he’s tossed aside about 30 minutes in and is never heard from again. (Speaking of Schmid, good luck telling the difference between him and good guy Kitsch, as they could pass for twins, which should go down on the casting director’s permanent record.) They set up Reid as a potential third dot in a love triangle with Caleb and Sarah, only to drop the thread almost as soon as they start it. Two of the characters are visited by nasty beasties called darklings, though the significance of the darklings is never explained. And I’d love to see a school anywhere in the world that has showers as fancy as the one Sarah uses here.

And let us discuss the acting, shall we? The supposedly hot-headed Hemingway has all the menace of one of those lap dogs that pees when it gets excited. (The producers surely thought they were clever when they had him say “Harry Potter can kiss my ass!”, since Hemingway is a dead ringer for Tom Felton, who plays Potter nemesis Draco Malfoy in that series.) Strait looks a little like Josh Hartnett and Keanu Reeves, but luckily can out-act both of them. Kitsch and Crawford are window dressing by the second act, especially Crawford, whose existence is barely acknowledged. Lastly, there’s Sebastian Stan, who has to be the lovechild of Scott Wolf and Sean Astin with the acting “talents” of Matthew Lillard. None of that last sentence, sadly, is an exaggeration, especially the bit about Lillard. Hoo boy, is he bad in this.

Someone at Screen Gems must have pictures of Harlin in a compromising position with some kind of farm animal. Either that or the summer house in Vienna needed some work. Those are the only reasonable explanations why he would take on a project like “The Covenant,” which is slumming even by his standards. It’s going to take him years to work this one off, assuming he ever does. In fact, this movie might be the long kiss goodnight to Harlin’s career. A bit of advice, Renny: sometimes the best moves are the ones you don’t make.

If the animators behind Tim Burton’s love letters to Ray Harryhausen put as much effort into the story they’re telling as they put into the ten-inch stick figures that tell it, they would truly be dangerous. His first stop-motion foray, 1993’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” was charming but flawed, too impressed with its technical achievement for its own good. The same affliction mars “Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride” as well; it’s visually stunning, leaps and bounds beyond both “Nightmare” and 1995’s “James and the Giant Peach.” The story, however, is seriously lacking, and the tunes aren’t that good, either.

Johnny Depp stars as Victor Van Dort, the son of two new-money fishing magnates who have arranged for Victor to marry Victoria Everglot (Emily Watson), the daughter of old-money royalty whose family is in fact dead broke. Victor is smitten with her when he finally sees her, but is utterly terrified when having to rehearse his vows and screws them up repeatedly. Walking through the woods after his embarrassing ordeal, Victor is determined to get the vows right when it counts, and rehearses to the trees, even placing the ring on a branch on the ground. He soon realizes, though, that the branch is not a branch but the bony, dead finger of Emily (Helena Bonham Carter), a lovely girl who was murdered on her wedding day and swore that someday she would be a blushing bride (buried in her wedding dress and everything). Emily takes Victor “underground,” where she and all of her dead friends live, thinking they will “live” happily ever after, but is none too pleased to learn of this other living woman that’s complicating things.

Tremendous potential abounds here. There’s a living fiancé and a dead wife. You have journeys between this world and the land of the dead. You have scheming parents (Emily’s, voiced by Joanna Lumley and Albert Finney) forsaking their daughter’s happiness in exchange for money. You have the family thinking Victoria’s nuts when she sees a dead girl claiming to be Victor’s wife. You have a worm that lives in Emily’s head that looks and sounds like Peter Lorre. Lastly, you have a man who wants to experience love on his own terms, but instead has to deal with it in the most unlikely terms imaginable. They had the makings of something both deeply moving and tragic.

Had the filmmakers put as much effort into storytelling as they did in the animation, that is. The conversations suffer from the age-old joke about movie dialogue, where if any complications could easily be cleared up with one simple sentence, then for God’s sake don’t say it. Also, Victor makes a decision with regard to one of his betrothed that’s more convenient than plausible, and the manner in which they deal with a meddling suitor of Emily is mighty convenient as well. For as many concepts as they brought to the table, no one seemed terribly worried about making the concepts work together. Even Danny Elfman’s songs (there are only a few of them) are half-baked compared to his work in “Nightmare.” A shame, especially when considering that Burton assembled a staggering list of voice talent to bring it all to life, a veritable who’s who of Burtondom that includes not just Depp, Bonham Carter and Finney but Christopher Lee, Tracy Ullman, Michael Gough (Alfred from the “Batman” movies), Jane Horrocks and Richard E. Grant.

What the moviemakers working in cutting edge technology must remember is that audiences will be perfectly happy with a movie that doesn’t look spotless as long as it means something. There’s enough empty-headed nonsense out there already, and “Corpse Bride,” sadly, only contributes to the clutter. A golden opportunity, missed.

Every animated movie headed for the multiplexes this year looks like it will be tricked out with the latest in 3-D technology (“Monsters vs. Aliens,” “Up,” “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs”), and “Coraline,” the latest stop-motion adventure from director Henry Selick – he’s the mastermind behind “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and “James and the Giant Peach” – is no exception. But the real question with “Coraline” is not whether to see it in 3-D (the added depth was cute, but nonessential); it’s whether to bring your kids. Yes, Focus is spending nearly all of its TV ad budget on Nickelodeon, but “Coraline” is one creepy movie, up there with “Monster House” on the bad dreams scale. (It’s definitely creepier than Tim Burton’s last stop-motion effort, “Corpse Bride.”) However, while I would advise parents to use caution in deciding whether to take their kids to see “Coraline,” I would highly recommend that any grown-up with a taste for fantasy should see the movie at once. The source material is from Neil Gaiman, after all. He knows a thing or two about that whole fantasy thing.

Coraline (voiced by Dakota Fanning) has just moved with her parents (Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman) to a new apartment in the middle of nowhere. Her parents work from home but pay Coraline little attention. One night Coraline hears a noise and follows it to a small door in the wall. She finds the key to the door, crawls through, and finds a parallel world where her “other mother” (also voiced by Hatcher) is making a feast in the kitchen (her real mom is a lousy cook), and her other father plays piano. Coraline loves this other world, though the fact that everyone has buttons for eyes naturally disturbs her. Still, this doesn’t stop her from visiting her other mother whenever she can, though she ultimately realizes that her other mother is in fact a sinister beast that feeds off the hopes and dreams of unhappy kids, and she is now trapped in the other world.

There are parts of “Coraline” that are absolutely stunning – the other garden, the mist-covered scene, the dancing mice, the “Coraline” song – and other, smaller bits that look unfinished (nearly every shot of the cat, running water). It leads to some inconsistent visuals, but the good absolutely outweighs the bad. The same goes for the voice work. Hodgman and Robert Bailey Jr., who voices the neighbor boy Wybie, are both appropriately odd, and Fanning has the sarcastic teen thing down. Hatcher, however, is a liability. She sounds like she’s reading a different script than the rest of the cast, emphasizing all the wrong words.

These squabbles are minor, though. The story is the key (of course, I’m a writer, so I’m a tad biased about that), and this is the one thing that elevates “Coraline” above its stop-motion predecessors. There are songs, but they are brief and don’t drive the plot like they do in “Nightmare” and “Corpse Bride.” The story is always front and center, and it never fails to delight, and at times terrify, the audience.

Tim Burton had nothing to do with “Coraline,” but fans of his work should run to see this. With any luck, it will reach a wider audience than the last adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s work, the woefully underrated “Stardust.” I’m still scratching my head over why that movie bombed so badly.

Nothing about “Conviction” makes sense. For starters, how did this routine Lifetime Movie of the Week (with excessive profanity) get the green light to become a major motion picture? And once that happened, how did Fox Searchlight, the best and most tasteful live action studio working today, become its home? Lastly, how did they convince Hilary Swank and Sam Rockwell, good actors both, that it was worth doing? Was it the faint whiff of Oscar bait? You’d think that Swank knows what that smells like, and this movie isn’t it.

Set in rural Massachusetts in the year 1980, Betty Anne Walters (Swank) and her hot-tempered older brother Kenny (Rockwell) have essentially survived their childhood after shuffling through foster homes. When a resident is found brutally murdered, Kenny is brought in for questioning but released. Three years later, he’s arrested for the crime, convicted and ultimately sentenced to life in prison. Betty Anne is so convinced of her brother’s innocence that she goes to law school part time in order to represent her brother and earn his freedom. Her family doesn’t share her enthusiasm, though, and her classmates and professors are unsympathetic to her familial responsibilities. But Betty Anne soldiers on, and gains a valuable ally in the process: Barry Scheck (Peter Gallagher), attorney from the Innocence Project, and together they fight the system tooth and nail.

It’s a great story, really – it’s the execution that doesn’t work. Before Betty Anne could get into law school, she had to earn her GED (remember, bad childhood), then a bachelor’s degree, then a masters, and then finally pass the bar. The movie thankfully doesn’t show us all of this, but it sure feels like they do, perhaps due to the stock characters and plot developments that populate Pamela Gray’s script. The snotty law school students, the dirty cops, the two children (one sullen, one supportive), the disapproving ex-husband-to-be, the big break, the political red tape – it s difficult to get emotionally involved, because the audience knows exactly when she’ll fly and when she’ll be tripped.

The movie’s biggest roadblock is the trial itself, which any casual “Law & Order” viewer could eviscerate on cross-examination even if they were watching the proceedings on a bar TV with the sound turned off. The prosecuting attorney makes much of the blood type found on the victim – it’s type O. Kenny has type O, therefore he must be the killer, even though over 40% of the population has the same blood type. The other evidence is almost entirely eyewitness testimony, and we never see Kenny take the stand to refute any of the claims. The lopsidedness in the presentation of Kenny’s case is so egregious that it borders on parody. Swank, Rockwell and Minnie Driver, who plays Betty Anne’s law school buddy Abra, are all perfectly good here (and Juliette Lewis steals the movie in her most white trash role to date), but the material doesn’t deserve them.

One wonders if the Oscar buzz following movies like “Conviction” is simply the ripple effect of the Academy Awards bumping the number of Best Picture nominees from five to ten. Allow us to burst that bubble; this is not an Oscar-caliber movie. It’s not even an Emmy-caliber TV movie. All concerned have done better, and will do better again. Move along, people. Nothing to see here.

After watching the riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in Cate Blanchett in drag that is “I’m Not There,” there was something refreshing about “Control,” Anton Corbijn’s look at the life and death of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis. There is no cryptic symbolism – hell, there isn’t even any color – opting for a straight-forward story of a man at war with his thoughts, his fame and even his own body.

The movie begins in the early ‘70s with Ian (Sam Riley), a Bowie-worshiping school boy poet, stealing Deborah (Samantha Morton), his best friend’s girlfriend. Their life is simple enough; they finish school, they get married, he gets a job at an employment agency, Deborah gets pregnant. When Ian’s friends Peter (Joe Anderson) and Bernard (James Anthony Pearson) tell him they’re looking for a new singer for their band, Ian tells them he’ll take the job. The band, christened Joy Division by Ian, begins to gain a loyal following, but Ian begins to suffer from violent seizures, and the meds that his doctors prescribe – they admit that they’re not sure which combination of pills will do the trick – are of little use. If the stress of managing a music career with a home life wasn’t enough, Ian falls for Belgian reporter Annik (Alexandra Maria Lara), and Debbie fights like hell to keep her husband.

One small but crucial detail that Corbijn absolutely nails is the band’s live performances. Riley has Curtis’ mannerisms down to a science, from the spastic dance moves to his tendency to swallow the microphone. Likewise, Anderson and Pearson look and play exactly like Hooky and Barney. Usually no one pays attention to anyone but the singer in these biopics, so bonus points to Corbijn for getting everything right. Corbijn also gets three gold stars for his tasteful, though disturbing, framing of Curtis’ final moments and Deborah’s discovery of him.

Pity, then, that the movie isn’t really about Joy Division. The movie uses Deborah Curtis’ book “Touching from a Distance” as source material, which is why Morton gets top billing. Ian is still the star of the movie, of course, but the movie is a 50/50 balance of home life and band life, though it feels more like 70/30. Huge aspects of the band’s evolution are glossed over (“We need a singer.” “Not anymore.” “Oh, all right. We’re called Warsaw.” “No, we’re Joy Division now.” “Oh, all right.”) in order to spend more time analyzing Ian and Deborah’s troubled home life. It’s valuable information, sure, but the movie does such a remarkable job selling Joy Division that when the focus shifts elsewhere, the movie temporarily grinds to a halt.

It’s one thing to be the anti-“I’m Not There,” but “Control” is actually too streamlined for its own good. Good for them for wanting to include as much information in as short a time as possible, but while we learn a lot about Ian Curtis, we don’t exactly get to know him. It has lots of what, but little why. Still, what is better than huh? any day of the week.

It would have been very easy for a movie like “Contagion” to push the panic button and hold it down, but it does something much smarter – it simply allows the events to unfold with little personal commentary to sully the narrative. Even better, the movie dares to take the seldom-traveled path between pre-epidemic containment (“Outbreak”) and post-apocalyptic wasteland (pick any zombie movie other than “Shaun of the Dead”). Like other movies with multiple narratives, some threads go dark for long periods of time while others disappear unexpectedly, and the fact that the movie doesn’t hit the panic button means that the third act will seem anticlimactic by comparison. Still, it’s tough to fault a movie, especially one about a deadly virus, for being too grounded.

The story begins on the second day of the outbreak, as a handful of people around the world begin experiencing deadly seizures that baffle the local medical authorities. As the cases begin pouring in, World Health Organization epidemiologist Leonora Orantes (Marion Cotillard) travels to Hong Kong after concluding that it is the source of the virus’ origin, while Center for Disease Control spokesman Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne) tries to come up with a cure for the virus while his window in which to deliver results before societal meltdown becomes increasingly smaller. To make matters worse, both the CDC and WHO have to deal with people who view the epidemic as an opportunity, and think nothing of hindering the greater good for personal gain.

If something this horrific were to actually happen, it would almost certainly go down like it does here. People would find out things about their newly deceased loved ones that they’d rather not know. The careers of good people would be needlessly ruined. The ones trying the hardest to prevent the outbreak would likely be among the first wave of casualties. (Director Steven Soderbergh does not spare the whip when it comes to offing his Oscar-caliber cast.) Eventually the public hits a breaking point, resources are stretched to the limit, all hell breaks loose, and even good people begin reexamining their morals. And yet, despite the chaos, and the cynicism of those who exploit the virus for profit, the ultimate message is a hopeful one. What a pleasant surprise.

Pity, then, that the story is woefully lacking emotional depth. Matt Damon loses two members of his family, and it is months before he sheds a tear. Most of the other characters stay well out of harm’s way, and the ones that do fall ill have the courtesy to be single and leave no spouses or children behind. This may help streamline an already busy narrative, but it also makes for one cold movie. The acting, though, is quite good, however Jude Law’s muckraking blogger Alan Krumwiede oozes too much sleaze for a freedom fighter. The one who winds up outshining all of the Oscar winners and nominees (of which there are eight, by the way) is Jennifer Ehle, who plays the tireless CDC researcher Ally Hextall. If her performance here is any indication, she is about to have a moment.

“Contagion” doesn’t rewrite the rules of virus movies, but it gets points for daring to suggest that the government consists of dedicated civil servants who are actually working in the best interests of the people. That may not be the sexiest angle – most movie governments go full-on tyrannical when the bad stuff goes down – but there’s nothing particularly sexy about the subject matter, either. It’s nice to see a movie deal with the whole sordid mess in as black and white a manner as possible.

The strange thing about horror movies of the last 10 years is that they’ve rarely been scary. They’ve been grotesque – take, please, “Evil Dead” from earlier this year – but few of them have been legitimately frightening. “The Conjuring,” on the other hand, understands that violence is not horror, and delivers a truly disturbing viewing experience. It may use a little Hollywood pixie dust to make it to the finish line, but the pre-Hollywood psychodrama is positively chilling, and the use of old-school techniques only adds to the creep factor.

It’s the fall of 1971, and Roger and Carolyn Petton (Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor), along with their five daughters, are moving into an old farm house in Rhode Island. From the very beginning, the place seems a little off (the dog won’t go in the house, the basement is boarded up), but the family puts up with all of the seemingly unrelated annoyances (cold, the occasional foul stench, youngest daughter April’s new imaginary friend) and attributes it to, well, something rational, something explainable. It is not long, though, before the “house” ramps up the offensive, and an exasperated Carolyn asks local paranormal researchers Lorraine and Ed Warren (Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson) to come to the house and evaluate their problem. Lorraine, a clairvoyant, gets bad vibes from the very beginning, and after doing a little research on the former homeowners, she is fearful for the lives of the entire Perron family, Carolyn in particular.

Screenwriting twins Chad and Carey Hayes wrote the script of their lives here – though to be fair, one look at their IMDb profile and you’ll see that that is a backhanded compliment – by framing the ‘A’ story (the Perrons) and the ‘B’ story (the Warrens) side by side until such time that the families can come together organically. It’s a shrewd move, because it gives the audience the occasional, much-needed break from the terror that the Perrons are suffering, while slowly allowing the audience to get to know the Warrens and the, um, ghosts of their past that they bring with them to this case. That, plus Wan’s refusal to resort to the cheap ‘boo’ scare, gets the audience emotionally invested early, and never lets them go.

Lorraine makes several decisions of the ‘don’t you go in there’ variety, and it’s actually awesome to see, because they make sense; she’s not afraid of what she’s dealing with, so of course she would do what she does here. Likewise, Roger and Carolyn walk into a boarded basement because, hey, it’s 1971. The age of irony hasn’t happened yet, and they have no reason to suspect that they just bought a haunted house. Present-day audiences may scoff – and ours did – but they forget: the people they’re watching don’t realize they’re in a horror movie.

Director James Wan must be a big fan of “Poltergeist,” because similarities abound between the two films, right down to the shot of the static-filled TV screen. And really, if you’re going to pay homage to a scary movie, that’s as good as they get. His effects are simple and direct, with only a handful of CGI involved. There is also a minimal amount of language and blood, meaning that this movie earned its ‘R’ rating the hard way. That’s downright noble anymore.

Having said that, the final act is a bit over the top. There are children in peril, an unlikely hero, the protagonists staring into the face of evil…these are all cornerstones of thrillers and horror movies, and artistic license was surely taken with both the events and the timing of said events. Still, it’s an easy thing to forgive that late in the game, and any filmmaker will tell you not to let the truth get in the way of a good story, since the truth would almost certainly have been a lot less interesting. With any luck, “The Conjuring” will lead potential future horror filmmakers raised on a diet of torture porn and slasher films to rethink their approach. One can hope, at least.

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer, along with partner Don Simpson, went from in-demand talent to persona non grata in a nanosecond (as is the way in Hollywood), but in the mid ‘90s they experienced a phoenix-like resurrection – well, Bruckheimer did anyway; Simpson died in 1996 – thanks to a (terrible) little movie called “Bad Boys.” Over the next four years, Bruckheimer was bulletproof; “Crimson Tide,” “Dangerous Minds,” “The Rock,” “Armageddon” and “Enemy of the State” were all huge hits, action movies that dealt with matters from an underwater nuclear standoff to the end of the world as we know it. Surprisingly heady stuff for what is supposed to be a fluff-filled genre.

Which is precisely why “Con Air,” the silly little convicts-on-a-plane flick that hit the multiplexes in the summer of 1997, is the most enjoyable movie Bruckheimer produced during that time. The cast is spectacular, nabbing an Oscar winner (Nicolas Cage), a Gen-X heartthrob (John Cusack), two indie darlings/Quentin Tarantino regulars (Steve Buscemi and Ving Rhames) and the ultimate actor’s actor, John Malkovich. What attracted them to such a ridiculous premise? A script from Scott Rosenberg that is both clever and stupid, appealing to the Spinal Tap fan in us all. You can keep the Michael Bay crane shots (he was responsible for “Bad Boys,” “The Rock” and “Armageddon,” ugh) that defined this part of Bruckheimer’s career: Bay never made a movie as undeniably fun as this.

The setup, admittedly, is flimsier than flimsy: Army Ranger Cameron Poe (Cage) gets in a fight with a drunken redneck on his first night back from service, and kills the man in self-defense. Poe’s lawyer, who was clearly roommates with Lionel Hutz at law school, tells him to plead guilty, and the remorseless judge gives Poe seven to ten years. Even worse, Poe is sent to the clink before he ever sets eyes on his daughter Casey, who is still in the womb of his wife Tricia (Monica Potter, and no, they don’t explain how Poe is capable of impregnating his wife while on duty). Eight years later, Poe is paroled, and thrown on a cargo plane with the worst criminals the system’s ever seen, from Cyrus “The Virus” Grissom (Malkovich) to serial killer Garland Greene (Buscemi), who scares the daylights out of even the cons. Poe is slated to get off on the one stop the plane had scheduled, but after the cons take over the plane, Poe stays onboard in order to save his buddy Baby-O (Mykelti Williamson) and the police guard Bishop (Rachel Ticotin). US Marshal Vince Larkin (Cusack), who’s supervised the entire flight, realizes he has an ally on the plane, and tries to work with Poe to sort everything out.

Of course, I’ve told you too much, and not remotely enough. This is the kind of movie that you or I could have directed, and it would have turned out the same way, which is why it was the perfect directorial debut for Simon West, who has done nothing, and I mean nothing, of merit since (“The General’s Daughter,” “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,” and that god-awful remake of “When a Stranger Calls”). The guitar-heavy rock score, by Trevor Rabin (of Yes fame, natch), adds the perfect dose of kitsch to the goings-on. And then there is Cage’s laughable Alabama accent, which is odd given his magnificent accent work as H.I. McDunnough in “Raising Arizona.” Gosh, it seems that there’s nothing but faults with this movie…

…and yet, for all its flaws, “Con Air” is giddy, crazy fun. Malkovich has to utter some of the worst lines in his acting career – “If your dick jumps out of your pants, you jump out of this plane” springs to mind – and Dave Chappelle has to make a terribly dated Ebonics joke. But Rosenberg’s dialogue is by and large snappy and funny. (When Cyrus jokingly asks the guard what the in-flight movie is, the guard says, “You’ll love it, Cyrus. It’s called, ‘I’ll Never Make Love to a Woman on the Beach Again,’ followed by ‘No More Steak for Me, Ever.’”) Cage is the rock of the movie, with a performance that is both sober and sly, the straight man amidst all the chaos that dutifully dodges fireball after fireball in order to “save the fuckin’ day.” Cusack and Malkovich are clearly having fun, and one wonders why they didn’t do another action movie, like Cage, Rhames and Buscemi did. “Con Air” also has one of the most solid supporting casts you will find, from Williamson and Ticotin to Danny Trejo as rapist Johnny 23 and Tom Waits soundalike Nick Chinlund as Billy Bedlam. And let us not forget M.C. Gainey, who would find success later in his career as the naked guy in “Sideways” and the sometimes bearded Other on “Lost,” as the gonzo pilot Swamp Thing.

This new release of “Con Air” is called the unrated extended edition, but don’t let ‘unrated’ make you think ‘more violent.’ The added scenes, about seven minutes’ worth, are all dialogue, but they’re good ones, especially Ticotin’s justification for choosing her cat over her husband. We also get to see Garland Greene satisfy his blood lust, something that’s only talked about in the original. These extras are probably not worth upgrading an older DVD of the movie, since there are no other extras to speak of (really, is Simon West so busy that he couldn’t have done a commentary on the only good movie he’ll ever make?), but if you have been blowing off buying the DVD, the extra scenes actually improve the movie by, surprise, giving the characters some extra depth. Or, in some cases, depth.

“Con Air” is movie escapism at its finest; the setup is preposterous, and the characters have no basis in reality, but the sheer joy exuded by all concerned is wildly contagious. It’s okay for a movie to be a little dumb, as long as it’s smart about the right things, and few movies demonstrate that better than “Con Air.” Don’t forget to put the bunny back in the box.

While “Cloverfield’s” approach to monster movies is indeed unique – it’s “Godzilla” from the point of view of the guy on the street who points and yells, “Oh nooooooooo!” – the truth is that there isn’t a single technique employed here that you haven’t seen before. That, however, does not stop “Cloverfield” from delivering some legitimate thrills and downright creepy moments. The “Blair Witch Project”-style camerawork is effective in terms of revealing as little or as much as the movie wants you to see, but it’s also nauseating, like Paul Greengrass hopped up on Red Bull and NoDoz.

The movie opens with a title card informing us that the following video is evidence into a government case called Cloverfield, shot in the area “formerly known as Central Park.” The video begins with a clip of Rob (Michael Stahl-David) and Beth (Odette Yustman) planning a trip to Coney Island. The tape then jumps six weeks in time to Rob’s brother Jason (Mike Vogel) and girlfriend Lily (Jessica Lucas) hastily putting together a going –away party for Rob, who has taken a job in Japan. Jason cons best friend Hud (T.J. Platt) to handle video duties during the party, which Hud uses as a chance to talk to longtime crush Marlena (Lizzy Caplan). As Rob, Jason and Hud are having some deep boy talk on the stairwell the entire apartment building shakes with earthquake velocity. They hit the roof to investigate, and see complete chaos taking place in downtown Manhattan. When they get down to the street, the chaos is at their front door, in the form of a giant monster of undeterminable size and origin. And it’s just left the head of the Statue of Liberty in the street as a greeting card.

The most unsettling part of “Cloverfield” is that no one in the movie knows more about what is going on than anyone else, including the military personnel. There is no long-winded story about the monster being some military experiment gone horribly awry; they’re just as much in the dark as the rest of us, and that lack of information gives the action an extra level of tension, yet is strangely comforting. It also makes the movie’s money shots during the climax even sweeter, because you still don’t know what kind of monster the characters are up against.

The catch to doing a movie like this is that there are times when it’s damned for its realism, and there are times when it’s damned for not being realistic enough. The dialogue gets grating in a hurry with its innumerable exclamations of “Oh my God” and shouts of “Rob! Rob!,” even though any actual tape of the events here would sound almost exactly like that. On the flip side, when director Matt Reeves grants the audience a pardon and lets up on the queasy-cam, it yields some improbable moments of camera dexterity, especially when T.J. jumps from one building to the roof of another. Lastly, does anyone ever survive a helicopter crash? Just curious.

“Cloverfield” may have monster movie origins, but the movie is really the ripple effect of “gimmick” movies like “Memento.” It may seem clever now, but this is not a movie for the ages. It is worth seeing once, but that one viewing will be plenty