Confession time. I did not see Madagascar. Nope. The trailer did nothing for me – and I was thoroughly penguined out, in any case. Thus, you can imagine my surprise when the trailer to Escape 2 Africa actually caught my attention. Further, you can probably imagine my surprise when I sat through the film and found myself laughing. Not uproariously, mind you, but laughing.

There’s probably no point in providing a plot description. Other reviewers will have covered that in enough detail that only the ending will be in doubt [though I’m not spoiling anything when I say it’s a happy one].

What you need to know is that Madagascar 2 is funny, frequently very much so. Also that the main characters – Alex the lion [Ben Stiller], Marty the zebra [Chris Rock], Melman the giraffe [David Schwimmer] and Gloria the hippo [Jada Pinkett-Smith] – are only half the story, laugh-wise. The second string – King Julian the lemur [an unrecognizable Sascha Baron Cohen], Mort the squirrel [Andy Richter] and head penguin Skipper [Tom McGrath], among others – more than hold up their end of the comedy tentpole.

There are some scenes that might scare younger kids [a toddler was taken, crying, from the theater when the villainous lion, Alec Baldwin’s Mukunga, was being particularly nasty], but as a whole, this is a film that will thrill kids while not boring parents. Fans of CG animation will also enjoy the film.

Now I’m going to have to rent the first film. Nuts!

Final Grade: B

In my review of Iron Man during its theatrical run, after noting that the film worked mainly because of its honouring the source material from the Marvel comics, I wrapped up with:

“While the action scenes aren’t as accomplished as something by Michael Bay, they come off better because director Jon Favreau understands that it’s the characters that make everything else in the film work. He keeps the pace high enough to prevent lessening of interest and knows how to make the film’s effects serve the story. This is a film with surprising wit and genuine intelligence.”

Repeated screenings [twice more in the theater and twice more on DVD] convince me that I was remiss in grading the film a mere A-. Considering that the film’s only real flaw is that the big fight scene between Iron Monger and Iron Man is a bit clunky [which, when you think about it, is appropriate for the big, clumsy looking Iron Monger], and considering that the film translates extremely well from big screen to small, I have to revise that upwards.

Then there are the multitudinous features. How many are there? Check this out: Disc One: Eleven Deleted and/or Extended Scenes; Iron Man Adventures Teaser; Disc Two: I Am Iron Man [Seven Featurettes Documenting the Making if Iron Man: The Journey Begins; The Suit That Makes The Iron Man; Walk of Destruction; Grounded In Reality; Beneath the Armor; It’s All In The Details; A Good Story Well Told]; The Invincible Iron Man [Six Featurettes Covering the History of Iron Man In Comics: Origins; Friends and Foes; The Definitive Iron Man; Demon In a Bottle; Extremis and Beyond; Ultimate Iron Man]; Robert Downey’s Screen Test; The Actor’s Process [Downey, Jeff Bridges and Jon Favreau figure out a scene]; The Onion: Wildly Popular Iron Man Trailer To Be Adapted Into full-Length Film; Galleries: Concept Art [Environments: Afghan Cave, Stark Estate, Stark Garage, Stark Industries; Characters: Iron Man, Iron Monger, Tony Stark]; Tech; Unit Photography, and Posters. There is no commentary track and that costs the Features grade.

The DVD’s menus are patterned after the 3D Hologram effects in the film and are both really cool and easy to navigate. The DVD comes in a standard box inside an embossed card stock slip cover.

Grade: Iron Man – A

Grade: Features – B+

Final Grade: A

Eagle Eye marks the fourth time Shia LeBeouf has worked on a Steven Spielberg production, and the second time that he’s worked with both Spielberg and director D.J. Caruso – and the triple team may well be turning into one of modern cinema’s most potent.

Eagle Eye is a techno-thriller that comes across as a twisted tale that might make Tom Clancy duck for cover. It opens with a missile launch intended to take out a major terrorist – a launch that is undertaken with only a 51% chance of the target being correctly identified. From there we move into the life of Jerry Shaw [LaBeouf], who seems to be a typical, ambition-free slacker, watching him at work as a “copy associate” for Kinko’s-like copy shop; fleecing a few friends in a poker game, and attending the funeral of his identical twin brother.

The next part of the film is pretty much what we got in the trailer: Jerry finding a lot of money in his account and a lot of weapons components in his living room: the warning call and his being taken in by the FBI – introducing us to Special Agent Thomas Morgan [Billy Bob Thornton] – and his escape by incredible means and ultimately, his teaming up with Rachel Holliman [Monaghan], whose participation in what follows is coerced by threats to her son. From there, we do, eventually, learn the identity of the mysterious female voice that can call them even from pay phones, or a cell phone belonging to the napping guy across from Shaw on a train.

Part of the reason that Eagle Eye works is that a lot of it [but not all, as you’ll see when you learn the identity of the mystery woman] is technically feasible right now. The film hooks us with what’s possible then draws into the realms of the definitely not yet real. The transition is smooth and the shocking reveal of the source of the voice, and the over-the-top plot that follows, zip by quickly enough that we buy them in the context of the film. The way all the various parts of the film connect may be a bit of a stretch, but the sheer fun of the film supersedes that.

LaBeouf does a good job as slacker Jerry; Thornton keeps Agent Morgan from being just another federal grunt, and Rosario Dawson simmers as an Air force investigator looking into the death of Jerry’s brother – though Monaghan is barely adequate as Rachel.

Michael Chiklis gets the role of the Secretary of Defence Callister - a role that leads everyone to the key plot point of the film: the identity of the mysterious female voice that hounds Jerry and Rachel - and the voice’s grandiose plans.

The special effects are very good and the CGI have enough weight that we buy them even if they are used to create something that is way over the edge of the possible. There may be a nod to societal commentary in the way that various devices [security cameras, traffic cameras and cell phones among them] are used to shred the duo’s privacy, but it’s a surface thing that comes as the by-product of a thriller that aims more toward entertaining than saying stuff.

Final Grade: B

Bertram Pincus [Ricky Gervais] is a solitary man, rude and generally misanthropic, he lives alone and has a job [he’s a dentist] where he can make sure his patients don’t to him. He even has his office literally a few yards from he works so he can avoid as many people as possible – until he goes in for a routine colonoscopy. After the procedure, he finds himself being assailed by the ghosts of people who had unfinished business when they died – the most insistent of whom, Frank Herlihy [Greg Kinnear], believes that his unfinished business is to prevent his widow, Gwen [Tea Leoni], from marrying a “scumbag lawyer.” Problems arise when Pincus manages to weasel his way into her life via the manner in which an important mummified Egyptian died, and he gets the opportunity to meet Gwen’s finance´.

Ghost Town reminded of the superb Truly, Madly, Deeply, though it’s a good deal more superficial. David Koepp and John Kamps’ script works best when director Koepp allows the rhythms of the dialogue to dictate the pacing and when he leads Gervais into some genuinely poignant moments of revelation – regarding himself and how much he’s been missing while he wastes his life. There are moments where the film verges on maudlin, but Koepp manages to walk that line reasonably well throughout.

It’s not a surprise that Gervais made me laugh here. What is a surprise is the deftness with which he handles the poignant moments mentioned above. Both work because he has terrific chemistry with both Kinnear and Leoni. Kinnear plays Frank as a seeming good guy with a surface smarm but takes it to a level where it masks a smarmy guy who projects a superficial good guy over his smarm, but beneath an equally superficial level of smarm [please don’t ask me to say that again...]. Leoni, who has always had terrific comic chops, matched Gervais mood for mood – and she matches his banter equally well.

There’s a scene where Pincus goes off on politically incorrect riff on the Chinese that really isn’t funny, but because Gwen thinks he’s joking, and laughs, it becomes a far more disarming scene than it might have been. Gervais and Leoni work this potentially awkward scene in such a way that we believe because they’ve established their odd rapport from early on. In the end, it’s the chemistry between Gervais and Leoni – and the way they play off each other – that raises Ghost town above the average romantic dramedy – supernatural or otherwise.

Final Grade: B

Tropic Thunder may well be the most [deliberately] politically incorrect film I’ve ever seen - and one of the funniest. The fake trailers alone are worth the price of admission! Ben Stiller’s film takes aim at every level of Hollyweird culture, from trailers to fraudulent writers to explosive studio executives – and is on target far more often than not.

When the writer of a book about the Vietnamese War [Nick Nolte] suggests that a first-time director [Steve Coogan] send his actors into the jungle – which has been seeded with cameras and various practical effects [explosions, gunfire and the like] – the cast members find themselves mixed up with a heroin cartel headed by a twelve-year warlord [Brandon Soo Hoo].

The actors are a truly motley assemblage of stereotypes: Tugg Speedman [Ben Stiller] the action star seeking legitimacy; Jeff Portnoy [Jack Black], star of the Fatties franchise and drug addict, also seeking legitimacy; Alpa Chino [Brandon T. Jackson], a rapper breaking into the acting game; Kevin Sandusky [Jay Baruchel], an actor in his first big movie, and Kirk Lazarus [Robert Downey Jr.], an Australian actor with multiple Oscars, who has his skin darkens to play a black character. None of them really has much of a clue, which leads to explosive ranting by studio head Les Grossman [a virtually unrecognizable Tom Cruise].

Stiller’s direction is pretty much on the money as his movie-within-a-movie allows him to show Hollywood at both its strangest and its worst. When we see the trailer for Simple Jack, for example, we aren’t seeing an attack on the mentally handicapped – unless we’re looking at Tugg Speedman for playing a mentally handicapped man solely to win an Oscar – or Kirk Lazarus for explaining, in a very funny bit, why simple Jack didn’t work. And speaking of trailers, the fake trailers that open the film are spot on satires of specific genre trailers, and are among the funniest moments in the film.

Other highlights include black rapper Alpa Chino keeping Lazarus honest as he plays a black character, even while he [Chino, that is] tries to flog his line of merchandise on camera; Coogan’s director, Damien Cockburn, taking charge; Speedman using what he’s learned from Lazarus to wow his captors in a live, less-than-no-budget performance; that the film becomes a big honkin’ war movie even as it satirizes the culture that creates an Apocalypse Now; Matthew McConaughey’s turn as Speedman’s TiVo-obsessed agent, and Danny McBride who steals every scene he’s in as the film’s special effects expert, Cody.

Tropic Thunder may be the best film Ben Stiller has ever made. It’s loud and crass, joyously politically incorrect, and well under two hours and gives us all the action of movies thirty minutes longer. In a summer that has had a number of good comedies, Tropic Thunder literally blasts its way to the next level.

Final Grade: A-

Imagine the sound of one hand clapping. Not in the Zen koan way, but in the actual one hand impacting on nothing but air way. This was the sound that accompanied eighty-five of The Love Guru’s ninety-one minutes at the screening I attended – and another four minutes were closing credits.

In a nutshell: Toronto Maple Leafs owner Jane Bullard [Jessica Alba] hires the number two self-help guru in the world, Guru Pitka [Mike Myers] to help her team’s superstar, Darren Roanoke [Romany Malco] get his mojo back after his girlfriend leaves him for the Jacque Grande [Justin Timberlake], goalie of the Leafs’ Stanley Cup opponents, the Los Angeles King.

Myers performance is smarmy and self-indulgent; Alba is her usual wooden self and virtually no is funny. In the course of the film, I laughed six times – two because of actual humor and four because if the sheer awfulness of the attempts at humor. That was four more times than the group of fifteen-year olds [allegedly the film’s targeted audience]. Otherwise, the theater was silent.

Writing, acting, cinematography, directing – all pretty much suck. The only things preventing The Love Guru from being the worst movie I’ve seen in the last few years would be Norbit and Delta Farce. The Love Guru makes The Cat in the Hat look like Shakespeare. You have been warned.

Final Grade: D-

Pandas are perceived as being laid back, relaxed and just enjoying munching on bamboo shoots. Kinda like your fat, old uncle Kenny – only bigger and with fur. Casting a panda as a kung fu master is one of those contradictory images that just automatically provoke smiles and chuckles – if not hysterical laughter. Which is why Kung Fu Panda had to be more than just another animated movie. In order for it to work, the film would have to find a way to make us believe – in with excellent CGI – that Po [voiced by Jack Black], a poor panda working for his father in a noodle house, could make that leap to… wait for it… Dragon Warrior!

In anticipation of the evil snow leopard Tai Lung [Ian McShane] breaking out of the most secure prison in the country, Master Shifu [Dustin Hoffman] has trained the Furious Five – Masters Crane [David Cross], Mantis [Seth Rogen], Monkey [Jackie Chan], Tigress [Angelina Jolie] and Viper [Lucy Liu] – in hopes that one of them would be chosen to fulfill the prophecy of the Dragon Warrior and obtain the Dragon Scroll that would take them to an almost exalted level of martial arts mastery. Through a fluke involving fireworks and a chair, Po finds himself chosen to become the Dragon Warrior by Master Oogway [Randall Duk Kim] – and fierce lessons must be learned by all of them so that, when Master Oogway’s time comes, the Dragon warrior will be ready to face Tai Lung.

Kung Fu Panda is a small miracle in both character and animation development. The script, by Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger [from a story by Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris] packs as much character into the film as action [and there’s a lot of action!]. Watching Po and his father, Mr. Ping [James Hong] deal with the changes in Po’s life are fraught with genuine emotion; the disbelief of Shifu and the Furious Five combine to make things even harder for the poor Po. The animation of the martial arts sequences add to the depth of the film with their intricacy and clarity.

Directors Mark Osborne and John Stevenson have done a masterful job of matching voices to characters [Jolie and Liu especially, bring it – and Rogen, counter cast as the tiny Mantis gives his character a surprisingly supple quality] and staging both moments of frenzy and unexpected beauty [the passing of a key character]. Kung Fu Panda is a movie that might have been wholly summarized by its title, but instead is so much more. Thanks to the factors mentioned plus the unexpected range of Black as Po, this is a classic in waiting.

Final Grade: A

Indiana Jones is back – and it’s a Very Good Thing!

Indy has faced many obstacles in his life, but never before has he been considered a potential threat to national security! And let me tell you, it really bugs his @$$!

The problem arises because of a [former] friend who helps a covert Soviet team steal something highly magnetic from Area 51. The consequences of that incident even lead to Indy being put on “on indefinite leave of absence” from his teaching job – the timing of which is conveniently perfect for him to meet a Brando/Dean/Fonzie wannabe named Mutt Williams [Shia LeBeouf], who says his mother told him that Indy could help them. Indy is further persuaded by the KGB goons who try to grab him and Mutt [which leads to the revelation of one of the most poorly kept secrets in the history of cinema...].

It seems that an old colleague of Indy, “Ox” Oxley [John Hurt] may have found the location of the legendary lost city of gold – and the Commies want something that should also be there – something that ties in with the object they nabbed in the film’s opening. “Mother” turns out to the former Marion Ravenwood [Karen Allen] is as feisty as ever [if she could have duped her guards into a drinking contest, she might well have escaped].

Now we come to the key to the whole film – the Crystal Skull of Akator. Spalko believes it’s one of thirteen and when united with its fellows will give the Soviets the ultimate weapon. She’s sure of this, because it speaks to her. Apparently she’s a bit on psychic side…

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is the kind of adventure that many of us would kill to have, if only they didn’t happen in some wonderful parallel universe that looks like our own but has as much magic as science. There are chases [and we never even think to question how there could be two parallel roads next to each other in the Mayan jungle]; sword fights on jeep hoods [see parallel roads], and strange and wondrous artifacts, like the exquisitely beautiful, if oddly shaped crystal skull. There’s even a lost city [and a pretty cool explanation for why our modern satellites have never encountered it].

Every Indy film is very much of the time in which it takes place: Raiders and Last Crusade, set in the forties, dealt with Nazis, as well as supernatural artifacts; Temple of Doom [set in the late thirties] was a pulpy adventure that revolved around a Kali death cult. So it’s no surprise that Crystal Skull uses the trappings of the cold war as the basis for its story [and riffs on the best known film cold war allegories for its trippy conclusion].

Even when it’s dealing with exposition [as in most of the middle act], Indy 4 entertains by making the “Basil Exposition” character [John Hurt’s Oxley] interesting – and tossing in some action or surprise every time things look to be slowing too much. Many of the best allusions to the previous films happen here – watch for a great gag with a snake, in particular.

Though there are some significant CG effects used in the film, a lot of the best stunts are practical, and Ford can be seen, clearly, doing more than enough of Indy’s stunts to make us believe it’s still him when a stuntman takes over. Even little things [like the over-the-top meaty sounds of the fist fights] perfectly recapture the feel of the previous films.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is much better than I was expecting [and I was expecting a lot!]. Steven Spielberg does what he does best – marrying action and adventure to interesting characters. He keeps the film moving and provides some wonderful sights along the way.

If you want to put it in terms of the entire series, Crystal Skull fits in, quality-wise, at about the same place as Last Crusade. The two films even deal with daddy issues, so that’s a pretty natural conclusion.

Final Grade: A-

It’s been awhile since Kimberly Peirce directed a feature film [that would be her first, 1999's Boys don't Cry], but she’s back with another character driven drama that is important for more than just its characters - Stop-Loss.

After fulfilling his tour of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq, Staff Sergeant Brandon King [Ryan Phillipe] returns home to his family, expecting that he’ll be free to get on with his life. Instead, he is stop-lossed - ordered back to duty for another tour of duty in Iraq. With his life completely turned inside out - what value can there be in honor if the military won’t honor its promises? - King decides to fight the orders.

There is a clause in the contract volunteers sign when they join the armed forces that allows the military to force them back into battle in times of war. Strictly speaking - as Sgt. King notes in speaking with his C.O. - what is going on in Iraq doesn’t actually seem to be a war, legally speaking.

While King takes to his heels in order to try to find help from a senator who had just pinned a Purple Heart on him, two of his best buddies [one of whom grew up with him] are having issues of their own.

Steve Shriver [Channing Tatum] has dug into his front lawn under the impression that he’s back in Iraq and trying to avoid discovery by the enemy. Tommy Burgess [Joseph Gordon-Leavitt] is even worse off - he’s drinking uncontrollably and has so thoroughly frightened his wife that she has taken out a restraining order against him.

In King’s search for help, he is aided by Michelle [Abbie Cornish], Shriver’s fiancée - who’s more than a little disturbed by his [Steve's] behavior. In the background, more or less, are King’s parents [Ciaran Hinds and Linda Emond], who are prepared to stand behind their son even if he decides to sneak across a border into Canada - or Mexico.

After the opening scenes, which deal with King, Shriver and Burgess’ last action in Iraq - being led into an ambush, where two men die and another is badly injured - Stop-Loss becomes the story of these three men, and how their experiences have led to problems that would have disqualified them from further service in any previous war. Both King and Shriver are having flashbacks, and Burgess’ behavior is purely self-destructive.

By keying in on these three men, Peirce [who co-wrote the script with Mark Richard] not only shows us the effects of war on three different personalities, but also the injustice in ordering even one of them back to the front [such as it is].

In Shriver, she gives us a man with the mindset that re-signing is the right thing to do, regardless of whatever mental health problems his previous tour might have left him with. When King goes AWOL in search of help, Shriver decides to sign up for sniper school [then he'll be the one raining death from hidden locations].

In King, we are shown a man who has done his duty, with honor, and expects that his country treat him with no less honor in return. When he flees, in order to try to find a way to fight his stop-loss, he is trying to come to grips with what honor and duty mean - to him and to his country - in these unique times.

Burgess, on the other hand, is so completely unable to readjust to civilian life that, even after he’s gotten drunk and behaved criminally, he can’t face leaving the army because it’s now the only place he feels he belongs.

Special mention should be made of Australian actor Abbie Cornish, who makes Michelle tough and vulnerable in just the right ways. It’s almost impossible to watch her talk about her inability to live the life of an army wife without it breaking your heart - and yet, she’s tough enough to help her fiancés best friend on his quest for honor.

Although Peirce gives us a film that shows the effects of the War on Terror on these three men, she also makes a point of covering the subject of stop-lossing with enough emphasis to make us aware that there is something very wrong going on here. And despite comments from cast and crew to the effect that the film is just about the characters, there are facts shown before the closing credits that reveal some staggering numbers - one of which is that of the troops that served in Iraq prior to The Surge, 81,000 - that’s eighty-one thousand - of them were stop-lossed.

In Stop-Loss, we’re getting a film that says something important as it introduces us to the plight of some memorable characters. If Peirce has a bit of a tendency toward holding certain shots overlong - and letting the music build a bit too much - on occasion, her ability to draw some powerful performances from her cast, and the way she captures the feel of what’s best about Texas, is more than enough to make up for that.

Stop-Loss is at least as smart as Boy’s Don’t Cry in the way that it gets to the core of its characters, and in the way Peirce uses light and shadow - both for the Iraq and Texas arcs - to emphasize [and occasionally counter] mood and tone. She captures the feel of action in Iraq as well as the feel of a bar full of partying Texans. And if the final scene seems to make the entire exercise seem pointless, maybe that’s the point.

In terms of entertainment, Stop-Loss is frequently gripping and more than a little humorous. Peirce’s biggest accomplishment may be that in exploring three troubled characters and bringing the little known stop-loss clause into the public light, she has enabled more people to understand what American armed forces are going through both at home and abroad. In that way, she’s shown honor and support for the troops while making an eminently watchable movie.

Final Grade: A-

In this age of bowdlerized fairytales and Political Correctness, it would seem that most venues for storytelling are more concerned with not offending someone than actually telling a story. The writers of the five volumes of The Spiderwick Chronicles created their stories with a refreshingly dark edge – something that kids of all ages immediately gravitated toward. It is my great pleasure to tell you that the makers of the film adaptation have not watered the books down. Any changes [and there are a few] are solely to bring the books’ dark enchantment to the big screen.

A brief prologue finds Arthur Spiderwick [David Strathairn] finishing his Field Guide and being swept away by sylphs, after telling his friend Thimbletack [voiced by Martin Short], a brownie, to keep the book safe. He is swept away before the eyes of his young daughter, Lucy [Jordy Benattar].

Eighty years later – or, now – the Grace Family pulls up in front of a house of the sort that usually means serial killers, monsters or other generally dire circumstances/creatures. Helen Grace [Mary-Louise Parker] and her children, athletic Mallory [Sarah Bolger who is a splendid fencer, and the twins, bookish Simon and adventurous, but gloomy Jared [Freddie Highmore], are here because they have nowhere else to go. The house is a legacy from Helen’s Aunt Lucinda [Joan Plowright].

Immediately things go weird. Jared hears something in the walls – something that raps back at him when he raps on the wall. The discovery of a dumbwaiter leads to the discovery of a secret attic room – and The Book. When Jared breaks the seal on Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide, it sets in motion a series of events that could cause the end of everything.

The Spiderwick Chronicles is a beautiful movie. From the eerie house to the goblins, trolls and sylphs and the forest surrounding the Grace home, though, that beauty has an edge that creates a singular mood. The film looks like it could have been designed by Brian Froud [The Dark Crystal], though it’s actually very close to the line drawings that illustrate the books [I’m thinking that Tony DiTerlizzi must have been influenced by the same great artists who influenced Froud – or Froud, himself].

The CG effects are extremely good and folded into the story in a way that shows respect for both the story itself, and the audience. There are some excellent practical effe3cts too, and it’s sometimes difficult to tell which is which.

The story is as close to a modern fairytale as it can get. The Graces, it turns out, have moved into Aunt Lucinda’s old mansion because the parents are getting divorced. Right there, you have enough drama for a good movie, but here it just sets the stage for the sullen Jared to be blamed for the antics of Thimbletack after his home is unwittingly disturbed.

All good fairytales must have what Joss Whedon refers to as a Big Bad. Here, an ogre named Mulgarath [Nick Nolte in voice, and briefly, in form] is the Big Bad. You see, the Field Guide contains the secrets of all the various creatures of Faery – and Mulgarath can use the book to enslave or destroy them – and after them, all humans. 

Mulgarath’s army of goblins is kept at bay by a circle of toadstools around the house – kind of like those energy fields made popular by Star Trek. Unfortunately, if the Graces are outside the circle, they can be caught – and Simon finds himself in a cage at one point. Naturally, there are other ways to defend against these creatures.

Aunt Lucinda, Arthur Spiderwick and even a pet griffin all have parts to play in the ensuing drama. And we find out why the Grace pantry came well [possibly over] stocked with things like honey, tomato sauces, salt and such. A hobgoblin named Hogsqeal [voiced by Seth Rogen] plays a part, too – especially his saliva can enable humans to see faery creatures without the use of a seeing stone [a stone with a naturally occurring hole in it].

The Spiderwick Chronicles works, in part, because the writers [Karey Kirkpatrick, David Berenbaum and John Sayles] know how to capture that Grimm’s Fairytales feeling of genuine danger in and amongst the fun bits, and director Mark Waters takes their screenplay and runs with it.

What really makes the film work is the way issues like trust and abandonment are treated here. The fairytale world conjured here is not a place where you can go to escape your problems. Instead, it reflects them and, in a way, amplifies them and forces you to confront them. There are lessons to be learned here and the beauty if The Spiderwick Chronicles is that the lessons are learned without a feeling of having been taught.

While the film will undoubtedly enthral kids, it is also done with the kind of intelligence [insofar as it doesn’t talk down to them] that will appeal to adults, as well.

It doesn’t hurt that the adult cast are so good, or that the kid cast is even better. Freddie Highmore, it seems, is capable of a great deal. He not only succeeds at playing twins, I doubt we’d have any trouble figuring it out if they were to swap clothes – he makes both characters that distinct and memorable.

David Strathairn’s Arthur Spiderwick is a gentle, slightly confused gentleman whose influence is felt throughout the film, though he’s only in a few key scenes. Joan Plowright makes Aunt Lucinda a kind of cheerfully knowing old woman who has never quite let her inner child die. Mary-Louise Parker has the toughest role of all – she has to communicate love, irritation, anger, disbelief and more in a role that really is underwritten and does so flawlessly.

The sibling relationships between Mallory, Simon and Jared feel authentic, too. And since they get to deal with Mulgarath’s army far more than the adult characters, their fear and courage have to have more depth than the adult characters. Bolger and Highmore do an especially good job in making us believe them, emotionally, throughout.

The Spiderwick Chronicles from having the kind of budget to pull off its otherworldly atmosphere and the kind of cast required to allow the audience to buy into its premise. Who knows? It might even takes peoples’ minds off Harry Potter for awhile.

Final Grade: A

It’s a good thing that Cloverfield is only eighty minutes long [not including closing credits] – otherwise I might not have been able to leave the theatre afterward! As it was, I felt like I had been through an actual wringer when the lights came up.

There are different types of intensity: the kind of emotional intensity that comes with a disintegrating relationship, or an abusive one; the intellectual intensity of a well-crafted mystery, and the visceral intensity that comes from a good thriller, or horror film. Cloverfield provides plenty of that last one. After setting up the scenario with some careful characterization, Cloverfield shifts to warp speed and maintains it until the final frame.

The trailer has done one thing exceptionally well, set up the situation of the film. Some friends have organized a going away party for a guy named Rob [Michael Stahl-David] whose promotion to vice-president of something within some unnamed company is taking him to Japan. Not long after the party gets underway, the building shakes and the most terrifying night of their lives begins.

The evening is documented by Hud [T.J. Miller], whom we only see onscreen for a few minutes. The most prominent partygoers are Lily [Jessica Lucas], the woman who organized the party; Jason [Mike Vogel], Rob’s younger brother; Marlena [Lizzy Caplan], who hadn’t even planned on being there, and Beth [Odette Yustman], a long-time platonic friend of Rob’s.

Oddly, the film opens with Rob and Beth having a seemingly perfect day, but before we can be sure of that, it cuts to the party. Jason, who was to have documented the evening, forgot to change the tape, so the dire moments of the night are occasionally broken up by moments from that day.

Once the building shakes, though, those brief moments from that perfect day seem ancient history. In a rush, we get the scenes from the trailer – people rushing to the roof – then rushing for the stairs when an explosion sends something flashing in their direction; getting to the street; watching the head of the Statue of Liberty crash to the ground nearby.

It’s all they can do to maintain any semblance of sanity. What could do that? As they stare at the head in stunned disbelief, the ground shakes again and they begin to run in the opposite direction – taking shelter in a convenience store in hopes that whatever is out there will pass by. We get scenes with people in the street being covered with ash, reminiscent of 9/11. We get glimpses of part of the monster. As Hud shouts, “It’s huge and it’s alive!”

Over the course of the next fifty minutes, we gain looks at more and more of the monster. Godzilla it ain’t! It would probably eat Godzilla for a snack! A tentacle destroys the Brooklyn Bridge, killing thousands and preventing our partiers from escape. When the behemoth is hit by tank fire, smaller monstrosities fall from it. Nowhere is safe – not inside; not in the subway tunnels.

The film’s cinematography is credited to Michael Bonvillain, but much of the filming was done by T.J. Miller [Hud], according to a recent piece in the L.A. times. Another article [in USA Today, I believe] noted that many of the main cast did some Handicam work over the course of the shoot. And here, is where the genius of J.J. Abrams comes in [he had the idea for the film] – the story isn’t told from outside the action. We see, essentially, what the five main characters see. We are inside the movie!

Now, some critics will likely say something to the effect that Cloverfield is a feeble attempt to bring a kind of documentary sensibility to monster movies. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even though Hud starts out documenting Rob’s farewell party, this no documentary he’s making – it’s a home video gone horribly, tragically wrong. It’s an evening of merriment and fond farewells turning into Armageddon.

That Bonvillain and various cast members have managed to take all kinds of shots – including CG effects shots – and made them all look like Handicam shots caught by a terrified partygoer in the midst of Ragnarok, is absolutely amazing!

Almost as amazing is the way that Drew Goddard [who took Abrams’ idea and crafted the framework for the story] and Matt Reeves have made us care about five characters who would’ve been denounced as yuppies not that long ago. Considering that they do it through the device of a going away party – when most of these people would likely be at their lamest – only adds to the overall impact of the film.

As for the monster itself, well, it seems to be cobbled together out of a combination of alien insect and H.P. Lovecraft’s Old Ones. Even when we see it from a helicopter, we only see its back. And when its head becomes visible near the end, we don’t see the rest of it. Over the course of the film, we see all of it – a bit at a time – but we have to put it together as a whole, in our imaginations. It’s that brilliant bit of storytelling craft that combines with the film’s unique point of view to make Cloverfield a masterpiece of the genre.

Final Grade: A+

Los Angeles CA, January 16, 2008

As we all know, most shows are currently in reruns until the end of January when new episodes will be trotted out for February Sweeps Weeks. To put themselves ahead in the ratings game, CBS/Paramount has come up with a unique way to draw viewer interest to the reruns currently airing of CSI and has sent around a publicity image titled ‘Behind the Crime Scene: Ten things you didn’t know about this week’s episode of CSI’. This week’s rerun of CSI is a rebroadcast of the episode ‘Go to Hell’, which airs this Thursday, January 19^th at 9pm EST on CBS. Above is the publicity image containing the ten things we didn’t know about ‘Go to Hell’.