Latest reviews – Page 457
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Reviews
The Haunted Mansion
Dir: Rob Minkoff. US. 2003. 98 mins.Disney's latest attempt to turn a theme park attraction into a movie relies on impressive design and effects work and a warmly funny performance from Eddie Murphy to pep up an otherwise rather anaemic ghosts'n'ghouls family comedy adventure. The selling points may well prove ...
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Reviews
The Missing
Dir: Ron Howard. US. 2003. 135mins.The versatile Ron Howard stirs up a melange of story elements in The Missing and the result, perhaps surprisingly, is a consistently engaging tale that is part stoic western, part spooky thriller and part dysfunctional family drama. Selling such a hard-to-categorise item to mainstream audiences ...
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Reviews
Michel Vaillant
Dir: Louis-Pascal CouvelaireLuc Besson is backseat driving again. The latest model to roll off his EuropaCorp action movie assembly line is called Michel Vaillant, the name of a champion race car driver who is indeed valiant on wheels or off but who won't keep the ghost of Steve McQueen up ...
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Reviews
Dr Seuss' The Cat In The Hat
Dir: Bo Welch. US. 2003. 82 mins. Taken on its own terms, the $100m-plus live-action screen version of Dr Seuss' signature children's book is a no more than typically gaudy and aggressive Hollywood comedy that appears to have been production designed for kids but written largely for adults. US reviewers, ...
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Reviews
4th Floor (Planta Cuarta)
Dir: Antonio Mercero. 100 mins. Spain (2003).4th Floor (Planta Cuarta) didn't create much of a buzz in Spain while it was in production, nor even after winning a special mention for its young cast at the Spanish Film Festival of Malaga last May. So it was all the more ...
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Reviews
Gothika
Dir: Mathieu Kassovitz. US. 2003. 99 mins.Featuring Halle Berry in her first solo-starring role, this latest offering from Joel Silver's mid-budget Dark Castle label is a creepy if rather one-note chiller blending the old-fashioned scare tactics suggested by its title with elements from the new wave of Asian horror. Warner ...
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Reviews
The Statement
Dir: Norman Jewison. Canada/France/UK. 2003. 120 mins. As enticingly cast and classically executed as it is, there's something naggingly unsatisfying about The Statement, a religio-political thriller directed by Norman Jewison and adapted by Ronald Harwood from the acclaimed 1996 novel by Canadian author Brian Moore. Co-produced by a string of ...
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Reviews
House Of Sand And Fog
Dir: Vadim Perelman. US. 2003. 126minsHouse Of Sand And Fog is a film that takes itself very seriously, and it should. Adapted from the novel by Andre Dubus III, which was featured on Oprah Winfrey's Book Club, it's drenched in poetic atmospherics that many will find haunting and others pretentious. ...
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Reviews
Old Boy
Dir: Park Chan-Wook. Korea. 2003. 135 mins (approx)Director Park Chan-Wook helped Korean cinema break into a front of mind position with international distributors with his first film Joint Security Area, a tense stand-off on the North-South Korean border. He showed a darker, edgier side with Sympathy For Mr Vengeance, a ...
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Reviews
Caterina In The City (Caterina Va In Citta)
Dir: Paolo Virzi. Italy. 2003. 106mins.This contemporary commedia all'italiana squeezes some enjoyable mileage out of the old "hick in the big city" trope, in its tale of a 13-year-old girl who moves to Rome from the provinces, and is immediately caught up in the factional politics of her new high ...
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Reviews
Looney Tunes: Back In Action
Dir: Joe Dante. US. 2003. 90mins.The edgy humour of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck et al takes a back seat to frantic and not terribly funny action-comedy in this Warner family offering (set for a Nov 14 US release) that puts the studio's Looney Tunes animated stars together with live-action characters ...
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Reviews
Nicotina
Dir: Hugo Rodriguez. Mex-Arg-Sp. 2003. 90minsNicotina, the latest candidate for admission into the School of Tarantino, is an always perfectly watchable caper-movie-cum-romantic-comedy that is spasmodically entertaining. Filled with the fast wipes and purposely nonsensical discussions about ersatz philosophical issues like smoking and coincidence that mark the Tarantinesque genre, this film ...
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Reviews
Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World
Dir: Peter Weir. US. 2003. 129 mins. One of the season's biggest productions is also one of its most intimate. For all the effort and expense that went into recreating an English battleship in the Napoleonic Wars, Peter Weir's thrilling film of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin characters plays out mostly in ...
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Reviews
The Return Of Cagliostro
Dir: Daniele Cipri and Franco Maresco. Italy. 2003. 100 mins.The films of Sicilian directing duo Daniele Cipri and Franco Maresco are an acquired taste. If you find physical deformities, speech defects and farting priests funny, you'll love them. The present reviewer was therefore doubled up in fits of laughter through ...
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Reviews
The Matrix Revolutions
Dir: Andy & Larry Wachowski. US. 2003.After their failed attempt to craft a compelling mythology out of The Matrix with The Matrix Reloaded, the brothers Wachowski resort to a straight action formula in their series finale Revolutions. And as a spectacular action movie, there are few films that could rival ...
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Reviews
France Boutique
Dir: Tonie Marshall, France. 2003, 95 min.After beauty parlours comes tele-marketing programmes. Tonie Marshall pursues the comic vision of French consumer society she deployed with wit and zest in her 1999 breakthrough hit, Venus Beauty Institute. But France Boutique, an inside look at a French tele-marketing and those who produce ...
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Reviews
Skagerrak
Dir: Soren Kragh-Jacobsen. Denmark-UK. 2003. 104minsA modern fairytale about friendship, second chances and the unpredictable nature of happiness, Skagerrak is an unwieldy romantic charmer from writer-director Soren Kragh-Jacobsen. Lacking the focus and obvious commercial appeal of Berlin prize-winner Mifune, his English-language debut is the kind of slow burner that worms ...
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Reviews
Cheeky
Dir: David Thewlis. UK/France. 2003. 94 minsTen years ago, Mike Leigh's Naked confirmed David Thewlis as one of the most electrifying actors of his generation. His tour de force earned him a Best Actor prize at Cannes and a far from satisfactory international career that includes the disastrous remake ...
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Reviews
Elf
Dir: Jon Favreau. US. 2003. 97 mins. Elf is a Christmas comedy that's as sweet-natured and goofily amusing as its title character, a gangly innocent played, in his first solo-starring role, by in demand former Saturday Night Live funny man Will Ferrell. Looking to get a jump on the extended ...
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Reviews
Sin Ton Ni Sonia
Dir. Carlos Sama. Mexico, 2003. 112 min.A real script and a tough editor would have done a world of good for this messy little comedy rushing all over Mexico City in its despondent attempts to cover three plots, a host of characters and several film genres at the same time. ...