POMO

Mission: Impossible III has only one absolutely great action scene (and we’ve already seen it in the trailer) and it lacks the high-tech charge that was typical of the preceding instalments. However, these shortcomings are offset by the film’s superb balance of authenticity (!) with a detached sense of humor and, mainly, its dynamic story in which something important is constantly happening, driven by urgency and emotions. Ethan’s relationship with his new wife works very well and when her life is hanging in the balance, it’s about more than saving the world. The less we see of the super-villain played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, the more impressive are the scenes featuring him. This is a different but effective instalment in the franchise. It’s a popcorn movie that, like the Bourne films, won’t insult your intelligence. I was most pleased with the breakneck shots, starting on Cruise’s face and continuously following his subsequent acrobatic stunts (jumping off of a skyscraper, running across Chinese rooftops). This makes up for the absence of De Palma and Woo’s eye-candy action from the previous M:I films.

Take away everything that made the first Basic Instinct engaging, original, unpredictable, exciting and sexy, and you have Basic Instinct 2. The opening credits are provocative, but David Morrissey kills any potential for any other sex in the film, and there is VERY little of it and it is VERY brief. And the other actors aren’t much better – it would be difficult to find another film so debased by its casting. It can’t be salvaged even by Sharon Stone, whose aged hand obscures her heavily made-up face every time she takes a drag on her cigarette. The screenplay hopelessly parasitizes on the ideas from the first film. The result is a below-average thriller in the style of Color of Night. Basic Instinct 2 is primed to sweep the Golden Raspberry Awards.

The first Ice Age was pretty much about nothing, but it was very entertaining (I gave it four stars). The second one, on the other hand, is completely about nothing and minimally entertaining (only the squirrel saves it). The animation is excellent (with the exception of the big wave) and the sound of cracking ice is great, but the screenplay – from the one-liners and jokes to the use of the characters’ potential for cuteness – ranks among below-average, straight-to-DVD animated B-movies. For a mega-project like Ice Age 2, that is bewildering.

Speed 2 is a standard action B-movie with a motorcycle, an airplane, a boat, a scooter, a chainsaw and cool music by Mark Mancina. It’s a bit worse than Water World, but still sufficiently entertaining, though sometimes in a different way than its makers intended. And the ending is bombastic.

This is an old-fashioned (in the good sense of the word) crime flick about a duel of characters rather than firearms. Depardieu suits the role of the villain as if it was created specifically for him, the supporting characters make sense, and there’s not a single hole in the plot, which is not in any way complicated. Police action in a respectable and intelligent European package. The only drawback is a few overly sentimental and drawn-out scenes, which make the film seem longer than it actually is.

The ambition to make a black comedy that would stand out from the mainstream and qualitatively overshadow the competition (with a great cast and sets) is appreciated, but Keeping Mum only gets about halfway there. The film doesn’t offer anything that we haven’t already seen elsewhere, as it mixes playful cuteness with British black humor in the most overwrought way without bringing any surprises. But the gilding on the formulaic screenplay is nice. And Rowan Atkinson is not just a comedian, but a real actor.

Infidelity, jealousy and passion through the poetic eyes of a woman – in other words, a load of talking and no action. Anne Fontaine successfully draws the eroticism out of what’s left unseen. And any screenwriting missteps that would bore male viewers are justified by the ending, which makes the film an extremely refined “thoughtful romance” for more mature viewers, particularly for individuals wandering in the mazes of faltering long-term relationships.

I’m giving this a very questionable four stars. Unfortunately, Spielberg has grown up and the emotional flatness and academic coldness that could be excused in his War of the Worlds cannot be forgiven in Munich. War of the Worlds worked perfectly as a pure horror movie that delivered amazement and chills through its technical aspects. Munich is an attempt to inventively examine serious issues for which supreme technical precision is not enough. Therefore, only one thing in this long film really works, namely the naturalistically cold-blooded murders, especially that of the female assassin on the boat. Some may argue that Munich didn’t appeal to me because the Muslim-Jewish conflict is beyond me, but I’m not Jewish and Schindler’s List is one of my top ten favorite films. Because it has a huge heart.

Shades of Happiness is a run-of-the-mill drama about relationship problems, filmed through the lens of a television movie. It is not for those who want to escape from reality into the world of a film, but for those who want to compare their own reality with someone else’s. Personally, that’s not my thing, but on the other hand, it’s definitely better than soap operas made for the same purpose.

Though it doesn’t have the impact of the first one’s originality and the opening scene of the second one, Final Destination 3 is the juiciest and sharpest of the bunch, including the splatter-packed scenes of the individual killings. And the chemistry between the likable and well-acted duo of actors works surprisingly well. In the context of teen horror flicks and the fact that this is the third instalment of the franchise, it’s satisfying.