WORST OF THE WORST ('08 and '09 Jan-Feb)

Ok, so I won't bother to review the following films in-depth individually if you promise to not rent them.

APPALOOSA
Maybe it was a great book, but not all things that provide for stimulating reads are adapted for the big screen with the same success. I'm thinking a film with Ed Harris, who delivered the only performance I enjoyed in A Beautiful Mind, and Viggo Mortensen, (who if you haven't seen him in Eastern Promises, you are missing out), would capably deliver something intriguing. No such luck! Appaloosa is a virtually action-free Western, centered heavily on a story that is very much, lost in translation.

HOTEL FOR DOGS
Awww, these kids with no resources, no real parents, and apparently no school, turn their love for their pet into a hotel for displaced pups. It's a kid movie. I can't be too hard on it, except to say that kid movies are all about peaks and valleys, highs and lows in the stories. Because apparently being an adult means you can finally understand a tempered storyline without the throws of elation or depression. Hmmm. I think kids are smarter than that, and they don't have to be put to tears to understand sadness or disappointment. Happy ending for kids and dogs alike - whew...what a shock!

LAKEVIEW TERRANCE
Snooze...haven't we come far enough to rise above a neighborhood of one volatile who just happens to be a large African American man pitted against his white Hybrid-driving neighbor. I was largely indifferent to the technical qualities of the film, but the storyline is the same crap we get fed every year: he's the aggressor, he's the guy you thought he was going to be and he's totally tortured. Here's the hero, he's unassuming and everybody, I mean everybody would want to be his friend, and oh yeah, he's just WASPier than you can probably stand. Barf. I'd rather watch Samuel L. Jackson in Snakes on a Plane or Patrick Wilson in Hard Candy, both of which incidentally are far better films.

MAX PAYNE
No way! What-to-Rent is actually going to tear apart a sci-fi film? Actually, no, but only because I am writing only this snippet of a review. Taking a video game, comic, or graphic novel, and developing it into something that is worthy of the big screen is more challenging than one would think. This film casts Mark Whalberg, who, hey everybody, is a decent if not a good actor. It shouldn't stumble, but it does, as if it were a drunk, not yet out of a stuper that may have involved a toxic combination of NyQuil, O'Doul's, and TylenolPM. Joking aside the mettle of the film is tested in character development, story, and creating a singular compelling antagonist.

NIGHTS IN RODANTHE
The Officer and a Gentleman and Pretty Woman money ran out long ago and despite his reputation for being a bit lackluster, Richard Gere continues to get work. But really, let's put the blame where the blame is due...writing. Who wants to watch an hour of struggle to get to the end where there's just more disappointment. Billed as a rentable watchable film for couples, that billing might be more appropriated for the lovelorn or estranged. I gleefully rejoiced when the disc ejected from the DVD player. By the way, the Outer Banks backdrop is incredible, and if you can't make something out of nothing -you could have made something out of that!

WALL-E
What is this? Ok, it is a kid movie and I can go hard on it. This is from the Monsters Inc. folks who have delivere on quality family entertainment in the past! Don't feed me this BS about droids, robots, and their like falling in love and getting their feelings hurt. There is nothing incredible about the animation, and the story is lame. Let's stop worrying about the marketing, i.e. the kind of toys, sheets, and pencils, we can create based on the characters in the story and start actually giving our kids something that inspires and entertains them. The rest will follow! Basically, it's I-Robot in outerspace, but without the pleasure of Will Smith as a hero.