CONTINUING
Here are selected minireviews of films in theaters, listed alphabetically. Ratings range from zero to four stars.
“The Break-Up”
UN-ROMANTIC COMEDY|** 1/2|PG-13| No one will accuse wisecracking Vince Vaughn of being afraid of Virginia Woolf. While “The Break-Up” star, who co- wrote the story, hasn’t made a movie as dark as Mike Nichols’ classic, its bickering couple is as loud, and nearly as unpleasant to hang out with, as Taylor and Burton’s boozy battlers. Only Jennifer Aniston’s Brooke and Vaughn’s Gary don’t have any 86-proof excuses for their combustible relationship. Who knew the most anticipated romantic comedy of the summer would turn out to feel like a quasi-documentary? (Albeit with a few tart lines and so gruff fun from Jon Favreau.) The movie doesn’t come with a warning. Perhaps it it should: The filmmakers are not liable for any misunderstandings, parking-lot arguments or ruined dates. (Lisa Kennedy) |105 minutes
“Cars”
ANIMATION|***|G|Pixar is like the most gifted student in a classroom full of talent. Even its weakest effort has a gleam. “Cars” idles at times. And more than any other of the animation studio’s treats, this toon could easily exist in a live-action, albeit lesser, version. Yet the G-rated ride about Lightning McQueen, a cocky race-car who takes a wrong turn into a dusty burg on Route 66 and gets an attitude tune-up, revs in its final laps. And the carbureted citizens of Radiator Springs are a carlot of fun, especially a battered tow truck with an aw-shucks demeanor named Mater (the voice of Larry the Cable Guy). Whatever you do, stay through the closing credits. (Kennedy)|116 minutes
“Click”
COMEDY|*|PG-13|In a blatant and largely offensive rip-off of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Adam Sandler stars as a put-upon family man who discovers a “universal remote control” that can pause and fast-forward his life. The results – plumbing that tricky emotional range between the vile and the maudlin – make Sandler’s “Waterboy” look like “The Elephant Man.” Rarely does the first-grade comic sensibility of a star synch so perfectly with the basest opportunism of the filmmakers. (Michael Booth)|95 minutes
“The Da Vinci Code”
THRILLER|** 1/2|PG-13|Not so dark – or gripping – the con of man, it turns out. Ron Howard’s big-screen version of Dan Brown’s mega-selling thriller isn’t nearly as volatile a cocktail of the sacred and the profane. Brown mixed history with conjecture about the life of Jesus Christ, Mary Magdalene and the founding of the Catholic Church. As Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, Tom Hanks takes too long to deliver the type of performance that makes him such a classic American actor. Audrey Tautou plays French police cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, whose grandfather’s murder sets off the intrigue. Ian McKellen enjoys himself as Sir Leigh Teabing, Holy Grail expert and exquisitely enunciating expositor of way too much back story. (Kennedy)|148 minutes
“The Devil Wears Prada”
DRAMA/COMEDY|***|PG-13|Instead of a gossipy comedy, “The Devil Wears Prada” is more often a fairly sage fable about the price of work. Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway), has the enviable position of being fashion editor, Miranda’s (Meryl Streep) newest assistant at Runway. Hers is a job “that millions of girls would kill for.” Or so Andy is told time and again. Andy starts to be changed by her job, but she never calculates. It takes her a long time to understand what working for Miranda might cost her. Around the time Andy is ready to quit and goes whining to Runway’s wiseman Nigel (Stanley Tucci), the movie becomes interesting about ambition, power and fashion – both the art and industry of it. “The Devil Wears Prada” says that fashion is that odd meeting of the seemingly trivial with the pursuit of something that resonates. (Kennedy)|106 minutes
“The Fast and the Furious:
Tokyo Drift”
ACTION SEQUEL|***|PG-13|”Tokyo Drift,” directed with revving, swerving awareness by Justin Lin, stars the twangy, appealing Lucas Black as Sean. A wild race in a uninhabited cookie-cutter subdivision gets this rebel without a clean driving record sent to Dad in Japan. There he meets Neela, Twinkie, and Han (played with magnetic calm by Sung Kang). He also makes a nemesis of D.K., reigning king of the drift, the high-speed hard turn made by the timely manipulation of the clutch and the emergency brake. Sounds technical? Nah. What it is really is silly summer fluff with some winking cultural critique topping off its tank. (Kennedy)|105 minutes
“Garfield: A Tail
of Two Kitties”
ANIMATION|* 1/2|PG|”Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties” is the best of movies, it is the worst of movies. More of the worst, though. The title implies a take on Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities,” but “Kitties” is more akin to Mark Twain’s “The Prince and the Pauper,” with the American Garfield journeying to England, where he’s mistaken for a British prince. (By Chris Hewitt, Knight Ridder Newspapers)|75 minutes
“An Inconvenient Truth”
DOCUMENTARY|*** 1/2|PG|Al Gore gives great speech these days, and Davis Guggenheim’s documentary is largely a filming of Gore’s PowerPoint presentation warning of the dangers of global warming. It’s a terrifically effective stand-up routine, but there’s no perspective offered on Saint Al. Has he made any progress convincing people of peril? Does anyone dispute his numbers, or his political approach? The issue cries out for multiple points of view, even if the science is largely undisputed. (Booth)|95 minutes
“The King”
DRAMA|** 1/2|R |It’s an intriguing cast and a meaty plot, but the story proves too much in the end for one coherent movie. Gael Garcia Bernal is Elvis, a young man shipping out of the Navy. He goes to an evangelical church in a Texas town to confront the pastor, William Hurt; turns out Hurt is his father, from a sordid, pre-clerical past. Elvis seeks justice, or retribution, or both, in his quiet way, evoking “The Talented Mr. Ripley” along the way. The cast performs beautifully, but writer-director James Marsh takes his story beyond where the audience would be willing to follow. (Booth)|102 minutes
“The Lake House”
ROMANTIC DRAMA|**|PG-13|Reteaming Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock for the first time since “Speed,” this romantic fable begins when two people living exactly two years apart start communicating by letter. It doesn’t take long for Dr. Kate Forester and Alex Wyler, an architect-developer, to accept that by writing each other they are rewriting the laws of physics. What director Alejandro Agresti doesn’t help his personable leads do is achieve much chemistry. The closer Kate and Alex come to meeting in the same time zone, the more convoluted the movie becomes. Christopher Plummer plays Alex’s formidable father and Shohreh Aghdashloo brings a husky warmth as Kate’s boss. (Kennedy)|93 minutes
“Mission: Impossible III”
ACTION|*** 1/2|PG-13|Maybe they can’t quite humanize Tom Cruise, but they’ve made a good effort to humanize his signature character, Ethan Hunt, for the best of the three “MI” movies. Hunt has a new marriage and a desire to settle down a bit, thwarted by Philip Seymour Hoffman’s attempts to unleash a doomsday machine. Three terrific action sequences and a welcome sense of humor help propel “MI:III” to the top of the spring/summer action heap. (Booth)|125 minutes
“Nacho Libre”
COMEDY|** 1/2|PG|Nacho best effort, Jack Black or director Jared Hess. There seemed to be a great breeding line for this wacky farce, with “Napoleon Dynamite” writer and director Hess teaming with his partner/wife Jerusha, “School of Rock” writer Mike White and the unstoppable Black. But the Hess technique doesn’t translate so well from Idaho to Mexico, and the long, slow pauses between jokes tie this wrestling movie into knots. Black plays a Mexican priest who dons a mask and wrestles anonymously to raise money for his orphanage. (Booth)|91 minutes
“The Omen”
HORROR REMAKE|** 1/2|R|There wasn’t really much excuse to remake the spooky classic from 1976, and they didn’t even bother hiring a new screenwriter. Liev Schreiber and Julia Stiles don’t pack the same emotional wallop as Gregory Peck and Lee Remick, but this do-over has its moments. Still, you want to shout at the screen, “Don’t name him Damien! Didn’t you see the first movie?!!” (Booth)|105 minutes
“Over the Hedge”
ANIMATED|*** 1/2|PG|Just when you thought you’ve had enough of cute talking animals, a good story and great comic timing revive the genre. Forest animals are newly hemmed in by a monstrous suburban development and must find new ways to forage for food. Meanwhile, a duplicitous raccoon is duping them into stealing junk food. The set piece with an over-caffeinated squirrel is worth the price of entry. (Booth)|77 minutes
“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest”
ACTION|*** 1/2|PG-13|Disney delivers a rousing, guilt-free action movie for the summer, blowing away the brooding pretenders and extending the joy of the “Pirates” franchise. Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley are about to wed when they’re put in shackles by a new bad guy: Find Captain Jack Sparrow, or else. Meanwhile, the good, fey Captain (Johnny Depp) has troubles of his own. Seems Davy Jones wants his soul back, and Sparrow may have to pay up on his bargain with the devil. Tour de force action scenes follow, along with some of the snappy humor that made the first “Pirates” such a hit. Long, but never dull. (Booth)|140 minutes
“A Prairie Home Companion”
DRAMEDY|***|PG-13|Welcome to the fictional final night of the decades-old radio broadcast “A Prairie Home Companion.” A Texas conglomerate plans to pave Garrison Keillor’s homespun paradise and put up a parking lot. Joining “PHC” regulars in this sweet, not overly long, goodbye are Johnson sisters Yolanda and Rhonda (Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin), and cowpoke troubadors Dusty and Lefty (Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly). In a wink to the geneaology of Robert Altman flicks, there’s moonlighting detective Guy Noir (Kevin Kline) and a femme fatale in a white trenchcoat played by Virginia Madsen. Altman directs. Keillor, playing a version of himself, wrote this bittersweet trip that mixes mortal melancholy with Midwestern homilies to beguiling effect. (Kennedy)|109 minutes
“RV”
FAMILY COMEDY|** 1/2|PG|Proof that a movie about a family driving an RV across country can feel almost as stifling as actually driving an RV across the country. Robin Williams tries to liven up this family comedy, and it has a few laughs, but the loser-dad jokes get old quickly. And we saw enough RV sewage in “Meet the Fockers,” didn’t we? (Booth)|90 minutes
“The Road to Guantanamo”
POLITICAL DOCUMENTARY|***|R|
To retell the story of three British friends who traveled to Pakistan in October 2001 for a wedding and wound up detained at the U.S.-run camp in Cuba until 2003, directors Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross mix first-person interviews, re-creations and news reports. In his narrative feature “In This World,” about two Afghan refugees hazarding a journey to London, Winterbottom displayed a keen sensitivity to his subjects’ plight. He brings that same intelligent care to the Muslim who share their stories here. Given the Supreme Court’s recent rebuff of the Bush administration’s handling of Guantanamo detainees, the movie couldn’t be more timely. But Winterbottom’s smart hybrid is better than supplementary viewing. (Kennedy)|95 minutes
“Superman Returns”
ACTION|***|PG-13|Turns out there’s not a lot left to say about Superman, even though he’s been gone from the big screen for nearly 20 years. Director and co-writer Bryan Singer does a serviceable job of recreating the Superman mythology for a new generation, but there’s not much spice here or personal style to revive a comic book franchise the way “Batman Begins” did last summer, or “Spider-Man” did in summers previous. Brandon Routh alternates between imitating Christopher Reeve and trying hard not to invoke imitate him, so it’s impossible to forget Reeve’s iconic role in the franchise. A good action movie, not a great one. (Booth)|148 minutes
“Waist Deep”
OUTLAW THRILLER|*|R|Tyrese Gibson stars in this shallow parable about a father who must break some laws – OK, plenty of them – to get his young son back from a L.A. gang boss. After he’s carjacked at an intersection, O2 believes Coco, the merchandise hustler he’d been flirting with minutes before, was in on it. He hunts her down and enlists her in his scheme to get the $100,000 ransom. Hip-hop artist the Game debuts as the movie’s sadist du jour. Meagan Good (impressive in “Brick”) plays Bonnie to O2’s Clyde. Or so the filmmakers hope. Only “Waist Deep” is a genre weakling. And, director Vondie Curtis Hall and co-writer Darin Scott treat any of their socially astute insights as so much background bleating. (Kennedy)|97 minutes
“X-Men: The Last Stand”
SUPERHEROES|* 1/2|PG-13|The weakest of the three “X” episodes goes too talky and too silly at the same time. The government offers a “cure” for mutant human genes, and both sides of the “X” battle must choose a future. Promising plot, but tired writing makes it seem like a junior varsity version of the first two. Halle Berry gets a bigger role for Storm, but still can’t carry the action. Ian Mc-
Kellen spends far too much time in his goofy Magneto roller-derby helmet. (Booth)|100 minutes
GIANT SCREEN
“Greece: Secrets of the Past”
IMAX: The story of a 21st-century Greek archaeologist who is uncovering the secret history of his ancient ancestors|$8, $6 ages 3-12 and 65-plus|Denver Museum of Nature & Science, 2001 Colorado Blvd., 303-322-7009, dmns.org
“The Human Body”
IMAX: A look at the everyday functions that keep us alive|$8, $6 ages 3-12 and 65-plus|Denver Museum of Nature & Science, 2001 Colorado Blvd., 303-322-7009, dmns.org
“Wired to Win: Surviving
the Tour de France”
IMAX: The true story of two elite cyclists, Australian Baden Cooke and French teammate Jimmy Casper, as they compete in the legendary race|$8, $6 ages 3-12 and 65-plus|Denver Museum of Nature & Science, 2001 Colorado Blvd., 303-322-7009, dmns.org
Wildlife Experience
IWERKS: The museum presents “Lost Worlds” and “Dolphins” on its 45-by-
60-foot screen|$4.95-$7.95; free 2 and under|10035 S. Peoria St., 720-488-
3300, wildlifeexperience.org|PARKER
SPECIAL SCREENINGS
Civic Center Park Film Series
|The Civic Center Conservancy presents “The Great American Comedy,” a new free film series continuing various Fridays through Aug. 25. The series opens today with “Ghostbusters” (1984). Bring a picnic dinner, blanket, seat cusions or folding chairs. Wine and beer will be available|Greek Amphitheatre, 14th Avenue Parkway and Bannock Street, 303-312-4286, denverccc.org
Film on the Rocks 2006
M|The Denver Film Society presents the annual outdoor film festival continuing with “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.” Live music with two bands and live comedy from ComedyWorks is offered before each film. Gates open at 6 p.m., music begins at 6:30 p.m., movies begin at dusk, approximately 8:45 p.m. $10, $8 in advance, $44 Film Fun Pack| 866-464-2626, redrockson line.com, denverfilm.org| MORRISON
Films on Fillmore
TH|The free outdoor movie series continues Thursday with “Caddyshack.” Participants are welcome to bring a picnic dinner, blankets and lawn chairs. Free seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis. Rental chairs are available for $2. Movies begin at dusk. The series continues Thursdays through Aug. 24|Fillmore Plaza, East Second Avenue and Fillmore Street, Cherry Creek North, 303-394-2904, cherrycreeknorth.com
Flicks on the ‘Fax Film Series
SA|The movie series offers family films Saturday nights through Aug. 12. The free series continues with “Madagascar.” Films begin at sunset. Blankets and lawn chairs welcome. Refreshments available. No alcohol or dogs. Pre-show activities including crafts and trivia games |Fletcher Plaza, 9898 E. Colfax Ave., 303-326-8804, auroragov.org|
AURORA
