Van Helsing
PG-13
2 stars
Director: Stephen Sommers
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Kate Beckinsale
Van Helsing
PG-13
2 stars
Director: Stephen Sommers
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Kate Beckinsale
Writer-director Stephen Sommers seizes on a minor Bram Stoker character, Van Helsing, the wheezy old vampire hunter of a thousand horror movies, gives him a sexy makeover in the person of Jackman, outfits him James Bond-style with an arsenal of quaintly Victorianized assault weapons and explosives, and sends him to Transylvania to battle a hoarde of supernatural evildoers. The storyline is a monster mish-mash of plot elements borrowed from other movies, monster lore, and Catholic voodoo. Instead of deploying all those weapons, it would be more satisfying if the heroes actually used their brains to outwit the villains once in awhile. But all we get are loud, obnoxious effects battling even louder and more obnoxious effects. Just because technology makes it possible to make so-called live-action films that are just as fast, noisy, one-dimensional, cartoony, and meaningless as a video game doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. – Lisa Jensen
13 Going on 30
PG-13
Director: Gary Winick
Starring: Jennifer Garner, Mark Ruffalo
Jennifer Garner stars in this romantic comedy in the Freaky Friday/Big mode as a 13-year-old girl who suddenly finds herself trapped in the body and the lifestyle of a 30-year-old woman.100 minutes.
– reprinted with permission from The Good Times
Mean Girls
PG-13
3 stars
Director: Mark Waters
Starring: Lindsay Lohan, Tina Fey
Teen queen Lindsay Lohan plays a home-schooled teen who finally enters public school and gets a crash course in how to maneuver through high school’s treacherous waters. A funny and sometimes poignant discussion of how women treat each nother, wrapped sneakily inside a teen comedy, Mean Girls is a lot deeper than it seems on paper. Lohan transitions from wide-eyed innocent to sneaky backstabber with scary believability. Her other teen cohorts don’t have as much range, but they handle their one-note roles with humor and honesty. The film’s ending is on the saccharine side, but the rest of Mean Girls so well-captures the horrors of the high school experience you’ll be willing to forgive it’s makers for a little optimism.
Godsend
PG-13
1 star
Director: Nick Hamm
Starring: Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Greg Kinnear, Robert DeNiro
When a couple (Romijn-Stanos, Kinnear) loses their eight-year-old son in a freak car accident, they accept a sympathetic doctor’s (De Niro) offer to clone them a new child. Everything goes fine until the boy turns eight and gets all Damian on them. An interesting premise that comes nowhere near to living up to it’s potential, Godsend asks the intriguing question, “If you could bring a loved one back from the dead, would you do it?” If you want a spine-tingling answer to that question, try Pet Cemetery. If you want slow pacing, B-rate performances and gratuitous shots of Rebecca Romijn-Stamos in her underwear, it’s Godsend all the way.
Laws of Attraction
PG-13
2 stars
Director: Peter Howitt
Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Julianne Moore
Laws of Attraction is a romantic comedy that settles for dreamy settings and a few good one-liners, as opposed to actual chemistry or consistent humor. Brosnan and Moore play the star-crossed-lovers, two divorce lawyers who find themselves being drawn together even as they fight dirty to save their warring clients’ assets.
