The following, rated on a system of 0 to 4 stars, are by Rick Groen, Liam Lacey, Ray Conlogue, Kevin Courrier and Jennie Punter. Full reviews appeared on the dates indicated. Austin Powers in Goldmember*** Really pretty funny. After three movies and six years of Mike Myers's shagadelic, flouncy-shirted, buck-toothed homunculus, and of his ever-expanding cartoon world, it's become easier to surrender than resist. Place it against any of a host of barren summer comedies, and the difference is obvious: Myers's sheer fertility of invention is of a higher order, and even if he misses as often as he hits, he's definitely a swinger. PG (July 26) -- L.L. Blood Work** It once was a pleasure to watch a Clint Eastwood-directed movie. Now it's all duty. He stars here too, as an aging FBI agent with a new heart but the same old attitude. The picture has flashes of merit early on, yet soon gets tired and careless -- an apparent case of chronic fatigue syndrome. Blood Work needs a transfusion, and so does Clint. AA (Aug. 9) -- R.G. Full Frontal**½ Director Steven Soderbergh, who has made it very big in studio-land, chooses here to work small again -- to shoot a little film at a hectic pace on a modest budget. In truth, the result is more a regression than a retreat, a rather self-indulgent exercise in Godardian deconstruction, stripping away those layers of cinematic artifice. His ontologicial puzzle has its moments of interest but, ultimately, the whole game seems long on effort and short on reward. AA (Aug. 2) -- R.G. Happy Times*** In this bittersweet comedy from Chinese director Zhang Yimou ( Raise the Red Lantern) a retired, fast-talking factory worker secures a bride through seemingly harmless, self-aggrandizing lies (the hotel he manages is actually an abandoned bus).
Complications arise when he takes pity on her blind teenage stepdaughter, whom he employs at his "hotel," and the two form a brief but ultimately life-altering bond. PG (Aug. 9) -- J.P. K-19: The Widowmaker** Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson assume Russian-tinted accents in re-enacting the real-life story of the Russian nuclear-powered ballistic sub that nearly turned the North Atlantic into a nuclear soup in 1961. Most of the movie is a formulaic exercise in chest-beating between Harrison as the tyrannical captain and Neeson as his troubled executive officer, but both the movie and the sub heat up dramatically when the reactor begins to leak, and the ordinary sailors try desperately to patch a radioactive leak that leaves them violently ill almost instantly. It's the one point where director Kathryn Bigelow brings something to the movie, before it concludes in a generic tribute to military patriotism. PG (July 19) -- L.L. Lovely and Amazing*** A film about the lives and minds of two self-obsessed New York women (Catherine Keener and Emily Mortimer) may scare off some as the worst sort of 'woman's movie' -- but the pleasant shock here is that Lovely and Amazing is about a group of women so well observed and so freshly written that questions of genre don't matter at all. This is a fine, funny, humane film. AA (July 19) -- R.C. The Master of Disguise* Not so cleverly disguised as a feature movie, this is really just an 80-minute excuse for Dana Carvey to do countless impressions of people and animals and things. Carvey is fine, the script is non-existent -- as are the laughs. PG (Aug. 2) -- R.G. Men in Black II**½ A short, flashy and slight comic sequel to the 1997 blockbuster, with Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones reprising their roles as federal agents who don dark suits and Ray-Bans to track down illegal extraterrestrials. This time they're fighting a nasty creature dressed up as a Victoria's Secret model (played by Lara Flynn Boyle). After the initial setup, when Agent Jay (Smith) must once again recruit Agent Kay (Jones), the movie devolves into a tour of rubbery alien encounters. PG (July 3) -- L.L. Minority Report**½ At the very least, you expect a Steven Spielberg film to show signs of his oversized imprimatur, to contain within it a few sequences only available to a director of his kinetic gifts. But not here.
Minority Report is a major disappointment not because it's a minor movie. Coming from anyone else, it would be an acceptably average summer flick, a lightweight dabbling in futuristic film noir. Coming from Spielberg, however, the merely average starts to seem woefully bland, just everyday film beige. AA (June 21) -- R.G. The Road to Perdition*** Pulpy, solemn and meticulous, director Sam Mendes's follow-up to the Oscar-winning American Beauty is based on a graphic novel and a Japanese comic, and is designed to bring attention to every curl of smoke and weather-beaten shingle.
This studied, dark examination of betrayal and vengeance features Tom Hanks as a dignified hitman in rural Illinois in 1929, with Paul Newman as the avuncular gang-boss who is his spiritual father and subsequent enemy. The story follows Hanks's character as he goes on a bank-robbing spree with his young son in an effort to force the gangsters to give up one of their own.
Emotionally reserved, and flat-footed in its ending, The Road to Perdition is nevertheless a worthwhile journey. AA (July 12) -- L.L. Scooby-Doo*½ Part homage, part parody and mostly a mess, Scooby-Doo is $100-million dollars worth of computer-generated monsters, fart jokes and visual and narrative chaos, in the service of adapting a 30-year-old cartoon about teenaged ghost-busters and a talking Great Dane. Freddie Prinze Jr. (as Fred) and Sarah Michelle Gellar (as Daphne) star, though Matthew Lillard (as Shaggy) is the only cast member who emerges from the wreckage with his reputation enhanced. F (June 14) -- L.L. Signs**½ Lots of atmosphere and some spooky moments don't entirely compensate for a thin story in the latest philosophical thriller from M. Night Shyamalan ( The Sixth Sense). Mel Gibson stars as a Pennsylvania farmer and former pastor who lost his faith when his wife died. An attack by aliens -- who seem determined to win the Earth home-by-home -- teaches him what's what.
Joaquim Phoenix and Rory Culkin also star. PG (Aug. 2) -- L.L. Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams***½ In this blissfully entertaining sequel to Spy Kids (2001), Robert Rodriguez effortlessly employs a vast arsenal of digital and visual effects with such assurance and imaginative aplomb that you're enthralled, even as you're gasping with laughter.
While trying to establish their reputation in the espionage network, Carmen (Alexa Vega) and Juni (Daryl Sabara) find themselves at odds with two rogue spy kids. When a cloaking device is stolen and taken to a mysterious island, Carmen and Juni try to retrieve it before their counterparts do. PG (Aug. 7) -- K.C. Stuart Little 2** Stuart Little 2 takes to the skies in a sequel to the 1999 movie, loosely based on E. B. White's 1945 classic children's book about a gentlemanly mouse in Manhattan.
This time out, the filmmakers wisely take a page or two from White's tale,including the introduction of Stuart's sweet bird friend Margalo. The wise-cracking cat Snowball again appears, and again steals the show. Vacillating between sappy and snappy, this is featherweight family fare. F (July 19) -- J.P. Sunshine State**½ A loving look at a beleaguered island community, Sunshine State has the structure, the theme, the style and, at 141 minutes, the length of a great John Sayles film. What it doesn't have, alas, is the merit. Coming from any other director, this would be a relatively worthy effort. But from one of the founding fathers of the American independent movement, it's a mild disappointment. PG (Aug. 9) -- R.G. Thirteen Conversations About One Thing*** A quietly dramatic interweaving of tales about four New Yorkers whose placid lives are knocked off course by random events. The prosecutor turned hit-and-run driver, and the housemaid who despairs when a good deed goes awry, are interesting in themselves, but it's Alan Arkin as a cynical insurance-company manager who steals the film. When he thinks violent thoughts, a red pen in his shirt pocket tends to leak. This kind of near-European symbolism makes Jill Sprecher's film a refreshingly different New York story. PG (July 5) -- L.L. XXX**½ There's nothing more predictable than a rebel with a cause. XXX wants to be a high-octane, ultramodern pic boasting (in hunk du jour Vin Diesel) a brand new breed of antihero -- shaven of head, tattooed of body, snarl on lip and trigger finger itching for video-game carnage. But scratch the surface (a fingernail will do) and what lies beneath is just another arch-conformist lurking in our token rebel. Despite Diesel's considerable screen presence, the result is no more than a generic action flick wrapped in some fashionable stars-and-stripes. AA (Aug. 9) -- R.G.
Liam Lacey