TOM MEEK

The House Bunny

TOM MEEK — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:57:13 GMT

Cheap gags and the requisite amount of T+A
Once again Anna Faris, the only reason to see the Scary Movie franchise, adds undeserved riches to an awful premise.

Elegy

TOM MEEK — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:25:45 GMT

Sex and power dominate in this Roth adaptation
Cruz, who bares all in her finest performance since her days as Pedro Almodóvar’s muse.

Fly Me to the Moon

TOM MEEK — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:36:48 GMT

Doesn't muster much buzz
First chimps and now bugs get to go into orbit — that’s right, the title of this film refers to the common housefly.

Hell Ride

TOM MEEK — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:13:57 GMT

Spaghetti western and Hell's Angels turf war
Bishop the director loses touch with Bishop the actor, and then, as scriptwriter, he sails overboard with inane cunnilingus cockamamie.

Step Brothers

TOM MEEK — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:15:40 GMT

Farting sets the standard of good taste
Step Brothers should answer any doubts as to whether Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly are cinema’s reigning lovable losers.

Space Chimps

TOM MEEK — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:45:27 GMT

Witty and ingeniously conceived
Audiences may be ga-ga over WALL•E these days, but as far as space-faring animation for the family goes, Space Chimps is a respectable also-ran.

Meet Dave

TOM MEEK — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:04:33 GMT

A humorless ET-tale
Murphy gives it his best shot, but the humorless script and the overuse of funhouse FX by director Brian Robbins implode Dave on the launch pad.

Wanted

TOM MEEK — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:29:47 GMT

A knockoff lacking zing
Leveraging the graphic novel by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones, the film manages one juicy nugget of inspiration with its bland protagonist.

The Happening

TOM MEEK — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 14:59:30 GMT

Shyamalan has lost his sixth sense
If you’ve ever seen a M. Night Shyamalan film, you know what’s happening.

Control freaks

TOM MEEK — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 21:19:38 GMT

Get Smart dumbs down
Back in the ’60s, those crafty cranks Mel Brooks and Buck Henry spun the red-scare spook biz into a sit-com full of wit and absurdity featuring rival agencies KAOS and Control.

VIDEO: The trailer for Get Smart

Back in the ’60s, those crafty cranks Mel Brooks and Buck Henry spun the red-scare spook biz into a sit-com full of wit and absurdity featuring rival agencies KAOS and Control. Not such a hot concept since the fall of the Berlin Wall, perhaps, but the 2008 version does wise up by casting affable everyman geek Steve Carell as Maxwell Smart, Control Agent 86. He makes for a more self-aware and self-consciously ironic nebbish than Don Adams’s wisecracking imp on the small screen. But the film’s only real updating of the savvy, witty, and often inspired original entails dumbing it down to today’s lowered standards of comedy.

Oh and there’s a new backstory of sorts. The big-screen format gives 86 room to grow — or slim down, as the case may be, since in flashbacks we learn that Smart was too fat to pass the agent field-test requirements and had to settle for a position as a desk jockey. That is, until an assault on Control headquarters and the resulting breach of security compels the Chief (Alan Arkin filling in ably for the show’s long-suffering Edward Platt) to assign a newly svelte Smart to more-challenging duty.

That includes teaming up with the lethally competent Agent 99, with whom a generation of adolescents fell in love when she was played by the reserved, indulgent, inscrutable, and seductive Barbara Feldon. Portrayed here by a hotted-up Anne Hathaway, 99 has also thinned out, into a one-dimensional kick-ass, can-do Amazon sexpot along the lines of Angelina Jolie’s Lara Croft. This changes the romantic chemistry between the two from awkward and funny to awkward and phony.

An equally artificial plot device, as cobwebby as the Warsaw Pact, spurs them into action. The bad guys who raided Control have stowed away rogue nukes somewhere in Russia, and 86 and 99 must find them. In such a scenario, the original series could indulge in the dark Doctor Strangelove satire of the Cold War days, but the boldest the new version gets is to offer up a Cheney-esque vice-president (Geoffrey Pierson) who secretly directs Control.

As for director Peter Segal, he does a more competent job than you might expect given his previous remake, the dismal The Longest Yard (2005). He maintains a perky pace, hopping from gag to gag; if one goes flat, the next one, or the one after that, will raise a smile or a passing chuckle. There are brief encounters with enduring series icons like the immortal shoe phone and the Cone of Silence, but don’t expect any classic Mel Brooks gag sequences involving, say, a man on a stretcher and a revolving door.

Mother of Tears: The Third Mother

TOM MEEK — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 17:52:15 GMT

Schlock of the finest cult caliber
Horror impresario Dario Argento rounds out his “Three Mothers” trilogy some 30 years after he titillated gore fanatics with Suspiria and Inferno .

The Strangers

TOM MEEK — Wed, 28 May 2008 22:09:09 GMT

A home-invasion nightmare
Bryan Bertino’s psycho-thriller gets the job done for nearly two-thirds of its length. But when it shows its hand, it folds.

What Happens in Vegas

TOM MEEK — Wed, 14 May 2008 17:57:20 GMT

Clunky and predictable
Despite its aching predictability, Kutcher’s clunkiness, and Tom Vaughan’s jerky direction, the film and the couple actually grow on you — mostly thanks to Diaz.

Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantánamo Bay

TOM MEEK — Thu, 01 May 2008 03:01:58 GMT

Too much melodrama
The tone shifts erratically, but not enough to blunt the appeal of a bottomless bikini party or Neil Patrick Harris downing ’shrooms and ravaging a whorehouse.

88 Minutes

TOM MEEK — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 21:11:10 GMT

Beat the clock or die
Al Pacino may have The Godfather and Dog Day Afternoon to rest his laurels on, but some of his later endeavors, like this ill-conceived thriller, are best forgotten.

Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?

TOM MEEK — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:17:17 GMT

Nobody knows
Last time we saw documentarian Morgan Spurlock, he was downing McDonald’s fries in Supersize Me.

Prom Night

TOM MEEK — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:08:03 GMT

A bloodless slasher flick
The original Prom Night (1980) wasn’t all that original.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

TOM MEEK — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:09:33 GMT

A limp comedic effort
Judd Apatow gave the dick joke a shot of Viagra in Knocked Up and Superbad .

The Forbidden Kingdom

TOM MEEK — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:14:43 GMT

Big screen fairy tale
Hong Kong action stars Jackie Chan and Jet Li don’t stray too far from type in this big-screen fairy tale: Chan plays a drunken kung fu master and Li’s a stoic monk with lethal reflexes.

The Ruins

TOM MEEK — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 19:41:24 GMT

Vegetation and gore
A group of archæologically minded twentysomethings check out an ancient Mayan temple in the Mexican jungle and wind up with hell to pay.