Dir: David Mirkin

St: Sigourney Weaver, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ray Liotta, Jason Lee, Jeffrey Jones, Gene Hackman

“How was the wedding?”

“Beautiful – just like all my weddings.”

Conners by name, conners by nature. Mother and daughter Max and Page have a devious racket – mum smooth talks rich guys into marriage (on a strictly “no sex before” basis) and gets daughter to seduce the over-enamoured male after an inevitably uneventful honeymoon hence leading to hefty divorce settlements for “irreparable psychological damage” and a lifestyle of glamour. But Page wants out and out means one last job. Well at least it would if her mother would be honest about the exact amount of remuneration she receives for the stings and then there’s the matter of the IRS needing $250,000 in unpaid taxes in super-quick time. There’s only one thing for it – Palm Beach, home of the obscenely rich and the outrageously paranoid to pick up a mega-payout. The question is who to choose. Mum plumps for Tensy, a tabacco mogul with $3 billion in assets and a chain-smoking habit that screams “days to live”. Page on the other hand fancies the super-rich (and at least cuter than a wheezing bigot, although “Cute is dangerous”) Dr Davis but discovers the extent of the good doctors molly coddling when she encounters his mum in a little bar. That bar is owned by Jack, an easy-going guy who is doomed to spend much of the rest of his life on the receiving end of Page’s aggressive put-downs and misplaced tantrums. Until, that is, Page finds out that Jack’s little bar is worth three million in hard cash…

Comment

With it’s aggressive casting and plot/character driven script Heartbreakers has all the pedigree of a return to more classical Hollywood comedies, albeit with a noughties spin. The Palm Beach settings provide the glamorous opulence of Hollywood’s golden age without appearing incongruous and the pairing of Weaver and Love Hewitt provides the bickering partnership central to many classic comedies. In many respects this is Dirty Rotten Scoundrel-esses where the main characters are both loathsome rogues but somehow manage to retain audience sympathy. However Heartbreakers is not classic Hollywood; at best it’s amusing, at worst it’s dull. First off is the desire to appeal to perceived “modern” comedy tastes; thus we are treated to the hilarity’s of “hair caught in zipper as wife bursts in on surreptitious blow job” or the “statue with the big knob that gets broken off” (this is the second well-endowed statue riff in as many weeks – The Parole Officer also played with the idea). In it’s place this is all and well (no-one likes a puerile gag better than me) but it’s so out of tune with the rest of the production that it seems there because it is perceived as “necessary” for commercial success.

Despite the fact that the film doesn’t drag too much it is none-the-less a good half an hour too long. This is perhaps surprising given Mirkin’s heavy involvement with The Simpsons (indeed Danny Elfman provides the theme for Heartbreakers), where timing is razor sharp and the requisite 22 minutes filled with detail and humour. Here too the best laughs are in the minor moments or in the background; witness our first introduction to Palm Beach – the camera pans across the travelogue friendly sight of the glades, the sun is shining and a little duck floats gently on the water… only to be munched by a huge alligator. Sadly the foregrounded story rarely manages to get this funny due to the pacing which maintains a steady flow rather than building up to a series of comedy climaxes. Ultimately the parlour antics and on-off love affairs wear thin and you are left waiting for the inevitable disastrous climax to be (unconvincingly) superseded by the “happily ever after” coda.

Heartbreakers is by no stretch a bad film it’s just another in this years seemingly endless parade of average flicks. Please someone come up with more to loathe! (Actually with American Pie 2 and Scary Movie 2 on the way it may be a very short wait…) Another case here of see if you must, otherwise catch it on television (but make sure they put it on properly, at least this one is in 1:2.35) where, despite the sexual situations and basic premise, it is probably better suited.

Dir: Jeff Tremaine

Jackass: The Movie (2002)Hard though it may be to contemplate, Jackass: The Movie is a real first – the first real multiplex (as opposed to arthouse) film that is entirely non-narrative. Now while it could be argued that there are plenty of “no brain” flicks out there they do at least make some concession to plot or structure. Not so in the anarchic f-you world of the Jackass boys. The whole raison d’etre of the film is to provide a series of sketches that range from the stupid to the just plain vile and that’s it. No moral agenda, no apologies and just like the TV series, only without the bleeps and the optical blurring of any “naughty bits”. It also marks a film that is clearly marketed at its teenage demographic – who are the very people who are not allowed to see the film here in the UK (it’s going to be a cinema manager’s nightmare folks!) where it has been given an 18 certificate by the BBFC.

So amidst the hype, the media cries of anguish at the lowering of standards and the film’s “unexpected” (apparently!) high box-office performance in the US the question remains: is it any good? The answer is an unequivocal no but, before you turn your eyes away in disgust at some old fuddy-duddy reviewer who is clearly out of touch with it all let’s expand on that. As a film Jackass is poor (impressive post credit ending aside) and even wears its crude DIY aesthetic with pride. But really: why do people go to the cinema? The answer is, generally, to be entertained and in this respect Jackass goes out of its way to provide a constant stream of “money-shots” unburdened by such yawn-inducing matters as character development. Whether you find bungee wedgies, having a tattoo done while bouncing around in an off-road car, someone eating a snow-cone doused in their own urine or dangling over a pool of hungry alligators wearing only underpants and two dead chickens funny or not is entirely down to personal choice. Crude: yes. Funny: yes. If there is one sour note (and it affected the TV series too) it is the team’s rampant and unpalatable xenophobia that manifests itself here in their Japanese excursion (the TV show’s trip through Eastern Europe was similarly blighted) but other than that gross reality entertainment for the strong of stomach and unoffendable.

Something else survived too.

Jurassic Park III (2001)There are dangerous sports and there are dangerous and stupid sports. Parascending with a small boy around an off-limit island swarming with carnivorous dinosaurs most definitely falls into the latter category and sure enough the whole affair ends in disaster. The boy’s biological parents are convinced that he is still alive so set about launching a mission to find him – clearly stupidity runs in the family. They do however have the foresight to take on board top dino-expert Dr Grant, a plane load of mercenaries and an irritating satellite phone with one of those jingles that is the bane of decent cinema-goers the world over. The slight snag is that they haven’t been entirely straight with the good doctor about their intended plan to actually land on the island and sure enough he is more than a little disgruntled when their true intentions are revealed to him, by means of a gentle coshing. Still the party have little choice once they are there because they foolishly go and wreck their plane, making their chances of escape slim to say the least. With Dr Grant’s realisation that his theories about velociraptors’ communication skills are correct and a dinosaur that trounces tyrannosaurs is on the loose, not to mention the flying peril offered by nests of pterodactyl, what possible chance is there that a lone child could survive for six minutes let alone six weeks? HAve a guess, this is executive produced by Spielberg after all…

Comment

Oh no. After the unmitigated travesty that was The Lost World you would have thought someone would have cried “Stop!” before greenlighting a further part but it was not to be – part two raked in shed-loads of currency and that’s the kind of action that’s hard to ignore. So Jurassic Park III arrives with less of a fanfare than its prequel, Mr S taking a sojourn from directing and Sam Neill back on board after wisely ducking away from The Lost Plot. So any improvement this time around? Well sort of. It is shorter…

Due to advances in CGI there are once again more dinosaurs and they are on-screen for longer, indeed the film wastes very little time outside the island before getting on with what is, in effect, one long ‘middle’ of a film. Any sense of more than superficial character development is ditched in favour of attribute revelation and a series of encounters, which could easily be shown in virtually any order (survivors excepting). Naturally market testing has determined that the public want – dinosaurs munching on humans, but even then, after the initial spate of killings there is very little sense of genuine danger. The Spielberg trait for sadism is still evident in a scene where one of the lackeys has his back deliberately broken (while he remains alive) by a pack of velociraptors in order to smoke out the remainder of the party who are cowering in the tree-tops. This is probably the only really objectionable scene in the (PG-rated) movie. The rest is solid, if uninspiring, family action fare. What you are left with is a relatively fact-free version of Walking With Dinosaurs but without Kenneth Brannagh.

One thing that Jurassic Park III manages to do effectively is provide a definitive solution to the all-too-common problem of divorce and its effects on the children in a manner that puts Relate to shame. By simply dumping your child on a dinosaur infested hellhole, the very process of getting them back solves all your relationship problems making a life-time of happy marriage a certainty. Maybe some resourceful government could instigate this policy as compulsory for would-be divorcees in order to maintain a stable family-based society. Or maybe it’s just horrible script writing.

Go and see it you really have nothing else to do.

Written, Produced and Directed by Brian Helgeland

William Thatcher learned about life from the school of hard knocks – literally – as from childhood he was taken from his father John (a thatcher, funnily enough) to be a practice sparring partner for Sir Ector. Getting hit by big pointy sticks is a serious business, one that can only be engaged in on a professional level by those of excellent pedigree and verifiable lineage. However when the good knight shuffles off his mortal coil just prior to a simple jousting contest conclusion, William assumes the mantle of his departed boss and wins his first bout the only way he knows how – by being hit and still remaining alive. Enflamed with the success offered by having a pole smashed in your face he and his two companions create an alter ego for the peasant – that of Sir Ulric von Liechtenstein. A chance encounter with a naked Geoffrey Chaucer provides the requisite papers to pass off as nobility and enter the numerous European competitions. Ulric/William proves adept at winning all his contests except when facing the devious Count Adhemar, whose departure from competition to fight on the front leaves revenge for William hanging in the air. To make matters worse Adhemar has designs on the fair maid Joyeline, a noble beauty above the aspirations of an incognito peasant like William, despite their obvious attraction, and is determined to humiliate his now bitter enemy.

It may sound like a work from Chaucer, it may even feature Chaucer but Chaucer it most definitely ain’t.

A Knight’s TaleRight at the start of A Knight’s Tale our hero William, in the mantle of his recently deceased sire Sir Ector, enters his first joust. The medieval crowd are being hyped up by the blaring of Queen’s We Will Rock You (featuring Robbie Williams), food salesmen and the pre-fight banter of the jousters’ promoters. However despite the deliberate anachronisms and the attempts at making this more appropriate for a modern audience this is actually a fairly old-fashioned kind of film. After the initial amusement of contemporary music in an undefined middle age (it’s all a bit vague on this front) it boils down to the simple story of working class boy rising through the ranks to woo the maiden, collecting a band of oddball friends and confronting the arrogant aristocrat. Of course the status quo isn’t over-ridden, this is wholesome escapist fantasy without a single subversive weapon in its armoury, but ultimately that’s the point. What A Knight’s Tale has in its favour is that it never gets too bogged down in its own self-worthiness. In many respects this is like Gladiator but, you know, for kids – sure it lacks Joacquin Phoenix and an army full of pathos – but the point of William’s character is that he never was nobility, he has to rise up, not rise back up.

Key to the film is, of course, the jousting. In many ways this is the ideal sport for the film because the rules are simple and the action is violent but always armoured. Thus the sloshing blood of Gladiator is replaced here by the shattering of wood on armour, just as effective but so much more PG-friendly. Prior to the bouts the audience are roused by the jousters’ entourage, it comes as no surprise that having Geoffrey Chaucer on your side is a huge help… or hindrance. This is all fine and dandy; there’s the romance, the mistaken identities, the comedy, a bit of very mild moralising (no heavy handed BIG STATEMENTS here) and attempts to evoke the effortless feel-good nature of early Hollywood romps (despite the insistence that no-one wears hose you still get the feeling they wanted to be making Michael Curtiz’s The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)).

Despite this A Knight’s Tale fails on one major point – its length. Almost in an attempt to win over the WWF crowd, the film-makers seem to have taken the ‘more is better’ approach which, while not dragging out any particular scene, hampers the film. Coming in seriously at the wrong side of two hours, the film’s middle section seems decidedly flabby as we re-establish the love affair, go through more competitions and basically re-emphasise everything we already know. Again the problem isn’t individual scenes per se (presumably this is why they weren’t cut) but they are better suited to DVD where they could be multi-threaded at the viewer’s discretion. This is especially galling as the setting up of the film’s entire premise is as succinct as you could want – barely five minutes (including titles) have passed and you are clued into a good 60% of the film.

A Knight’s Tale is popcorn fun for kids of all ages and taken as anything else will only lead to bitter disappoint. It may be no more than diverting but at least it’s never dull.