BROWN SUGAR As far as I'm concerned, Brown Sugar is nothing if not aptly titled, seeing as how my review for director Rick Famuyiwa's previous film, 1999's The Wood, dismissed it as "a movie so light and sugary that it could easily be mistaken for an artificial sweetener." His follow-up feature is equally as saccharine, a predictable romantic comedy about two lifelong best friends, music business executive Dre (Taye Diggs) and music magazine editor Sidney (Sanaa Lathan), who spend the entire movie fighting the fact that they're meant for each other. Or at least that's what Famuyiwa would have us believe, but Lathan (so terrific in Love & Basketball) and Diggs (so bland in just about everything) are never able to convince us that their characters are truly meant to be together. What's more, the movie's whole point is that these two are forever linked through their love of hip-hop, but aside from the obligatory music biz cameos and lots of lip service from the leading characters, hip-hop rarely comes alive as its own fire-breathing entity in this picture, meaning that Dre and Sidney might as well be joined together by a mutual love of pro wrestling, Alan Rudolph flicks or Pokemon trading cards. Rapper Mos Def, memorable in a small role in Monster's Ball, effortlessly steals this film in the key supporting role of a wisecracking hip-hop musician whose integrity won't allow him to sell out as an artist. 
TUCK EVERLASTING A movie that the less charitable might describe as a castrated cross between Highlander and Lolita, this is actually based on the beloved 1975 children's book by Natalie Babbitt. In the hands of the Disney studio and director Jay Russell (who helmed the sweet family flick My Dog Skip), this sounds like it couldn't miss -- and yet it does, thanks largely to an overly reverential tone that, ironically, ends up sucking the life out of a movie that's about living forever. Set in 1914, the story centers on the encounter between 15-year-old Winnie Foster (Alexis Bledel), daughter of the richest man in town, and the Tucks, a poor family living deep in the woods on her father's property. Winnie eventually discovers that all the members of the clan -- dad Angus (William Hurt, whose peculiar accent sounds more Swedish than Scottish), mom Mae (Sissy Spacek) and sons Jesse (Jonathan Jackson) and Miles (Scott Bairstow) -- once drank from a mountain spring whose water has given them immortality. Winnie falls for Jesse, a 104-year-old man stuck in a 17-year-old body, but their May-December romance gets interrupted by the aptly credited Man in the Yellow Suit (Ben Kingsley), whose banana of an outfit makes him seem less a malevolent figure and more like an adornment on one of Carmen Miranda's old outfits. A movie as tightly drawn as the corset that Winnie must endure, Tuck Everlasting is simply too plodding and ponderous to evoke the sense of magic and wonder that this story demands.
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BALLISTIC: ECKS VS. SEVER Here's a question to ponder: Why did Warner Bros. elect to hide The Adventures of Pluto Nash from critics yet willfully preview Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever in advance? Yet another motion picture that owes its allegiance to the video game market, the stridently simplistic Ballistic is an absolute failure on even its most basic level as an action movie. Ineptly directed by a Thai filmmaker who bills himself as Kaos (short for Wych Kaosayananda), this 90-minute equivalent of having one's head trapped between two clanging cymbals Chuck Jones-style might contain more explosions, gun battles and car chases per square foot of film footage than any other movie around, yet every boring moment of it is highly derivative, clumsily executed and stridently illogical (one of the heroes keeps setting off explosions away from the villains rather than next to them; what's the point of that?). When a filmmaker goes on record citing director Michael Bay (Armageddon, Pearl Harbor) as a major influence without even tossing an honorable mention to the likes of John Ford or Howard Hawks (who knew a thing or two about action), it's enough to send a cold chill through the entire industry. As a villainous lackey, Ray Park reveals himself to be an incredibly dull actor when he's not buried under makeup as The Phantom Menace's Darth Maul or X-Men's Toad. And as Ecks and Sever, two former government agents who square off against each other until they learn they have a common foe, Antonio Banderas and Lucy Liu mumble their lines to the point of unintelligibility (not that the dialogue is even needed to follow this dum-dum plot). Both stars have made crisp action heroes in the past -- he in Desperado, she in Charlie's Angels -- but here they wearily trudge through a bog of ennui, dragging the rest of us right behind them.
BARBERSHOP Despite the presence of rapper-actor Ice Cube and the occasional booty shot, it's the PG-13 rating and the tag line "From the Producers of Soul Food and Men of Honor" that should tip viewers off that this ensemble comedy has more in common with Sunday school values than Friday film vileness. Forsaking the raunchiness of that Ice Cube hit (as well as its sequel, Next Friday), this one is mostly a sweet-natured and sweet-tempered affair, with the Cube cast as a decent bloke who, like Jimmy Stewart with the Bedford Falls Savings and Loan in It's a Wonderful Life, has inherited a business from his kindly father that has become like an albatross around his ambitious neck. He agrees to sell the shop to a loan shark (Keith David) who plans to turn it into a strip joint, but immediately regrets his decision once he realizes how his establishment serves as a bedrock for the local black community. Ensemble comedies rise and fall not only on the strength of the humor but also on the appeal of the various characters, and in both instances, Barbershop only manages to part down the middle, with some choice wisecracks (most courtesy of Cedric the Entertainer as an opinionated, elderly barber) and amiable personalities having to wrestle screen time away from an inane subplot involving the theft of an ATM machine. It's nice to see Ice Cube in such a relaxed mode, though, and film buffs will want to note that actor Troy Garity (as the shop's sole white barber) is the son of Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden. 1/2
THE FAST RUNNER To state that The Fast Runner (a.k.a. Atanarjuat) is primarily notable as the first major release to be shot in the Inuktitut language is to pay disservice to its staggering visuals, among the most breathtaking to be seen on the big screen in a while. And yet to state that The Fast Runner is primarily notable for its postcard-pretty visuals is to similarly pay disservice to its storyline, which is based on an ancient tale that's been circulating among the Inuit people for countless centuries. Set in the upper reaches of Canada's frozen turf, the story centers on Atanarjuat (Natar Ungalaaq) and Amaqjuaq (Pakkak Innukshuk), two brothers who are constantly in opposition with a surly tribe member named Oki (Peter-Henry Arnatsiaq). Oki and Atanarjuat are both in love with Atuat (Sylvia Ivalu); that dispute is eventually settled with Atanarjuat emerging the victor, but when he also becomes involved with Oki's Lady Macbeth-like sister Puja (Lucy Tulugarjuk), tensions escalate and betrayal, rape and murder all rest on the horizon. Like many great films, The Fast Runner is able to wholly immerse us in a completely alien culture, yet one of its strengths is that it doesn't treat its characters with kid gloves. On the contrary, the messy emotions raging throughout this three-hour effort are instantly recognizable, allowing the film to paradoxically feel familiar and foreign at the same time. 1/2
MOONLIGHT MILE It's hard to imagine anyone managing to steal a movie not only from charismatic rising star Jake Gyllenhaal (The Good Girl, Donnie Darko) but also from accomplished Oscar winners Susan Sarandon, Dustin Hoffman and Holly Hunter, yet newcomer Ellen Pompeo pulls off the feat with aplomb. She's one of the main reasons to see Moonlight Mile, a highly likable if somewhat calculated melodrama partly inspired by an incident in writer-director Brad Silberling's life. Silberling, who was dating actress Rebecca Schaeffer (TV's My Sister Sam) when she was murdered back in 1989, has taken that tragedy as the basis for this film about a young man (Gyllenhaal) who, after the senseless slaying of his fiancee, moves into the home of her parents (Sarandon and Hoffman) so they can retain a connection with their daughter. Hiding his own secret regarding his relationship with the bride-to-be, he finds his emotions becoming even more tangled once he falls for a local bar owner (Pompeo) working through her own personal pain. A few plot developments seem extraneous and certain conclusions feel too glib, but overall, this is a moving and occasionally insightful study of how individuals learn to cope with loss and grief in their own idiosyncratic manner. Hunter has little to do as a prosecuting attorney, but Sarandon and Hoffman haven't been this interesting to watch in years, while Gyllenhaal gets to show more emotion here than in his previous roles. Still, the big story here is Pompeo, a striking newcomer who will get to build on this early promise with upcoming roles in Daredevil and Speilberg's Catch Me If You Can.
RED DRAGON Manhunter, the 1986 adaptation of Thomas Harris' novel Red Dragon (and the first film to bring Hannibal Lecter to the screen), was directed by Michael Mann, a master visualist whose works (The Last of the Mohicans, The Insider) almost always shimmer with tasteful artistry. Red Dragon, on the other hand, is helmed by Brett Ratner, a more commercially mindful filmmaker whose past efforts (the Rush Hour pair, The Family Man) have exposed him as the sort of director who churns out product without bothering to give it his own distinct stamp. That Manhunter should remain the better movie should surprise no one, and yet, the contest is a lot closer than it would appear at first glance. Red Dragon works on its own terms, thanks largely to the efforts of scripter Ted Tally (who won an Oscar for The Silence of the Lambs) and a dream cast that makes the most of the material. Anthony Hopkins, of course, is the star attraction, essaying the role of Hannibal for the third time. Set before the excellent Silence and the execrable Hannibal, this one begins with the good doctor being captured by FBI agent Will Graham (Edward Norton), who promptly retires from the bureau until he's asked to help track down a serial killer (Ralph Fiennes) who's been carving up entire families. Graham needs help tracking down this madman, and he's soon forced to seek advice from his old nemesis, the unflappable Hannibal. Hopkins' Lecter has lost much of his menace over the years, but he's still enjoyable to watch, as is the rest of this sharp thriller.
THE RULES OF ATTRACTION In one sense, this adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' novel might be one of the best "youth" movies ever made, but we'll never know because its salient points are simultaneously buried, drowned and smothered in the excesses of writer- director Roger Avary (not having read the book, I don't know how much of the blame falls on Ellis himself). Equally as heavy-handed as the screen versions of the author's American Psycho and Less Than Zero, this college-set satire nevertheless serves as a much- needed affront to the numerous teen comedies that view those coming-of-age years as a time of great joy tempered with just a smidgen of awkwardness and insecurity. Rules mercilessly explores the dark side of this period in one's life, centering on some of the troubled students attending a New England college: Sean Bateman (James Van Der Beek), who uses and abuses people (especially women) as he sees fit; Paul Denton (Ian Somerhalder), a bisexual infatuated with Sean; and Lauren Hynde (Shannyn Sossamon), a virgin whose basic decency stands no chance of survival amid all the casual cruelty surrounding her. The Rules of Attraction dares to bring up issues that other movies of this nature wouldn't even consider touching, but Avary scarcely gives them their due because he's too busy trying to gross out audiences at every turn (nose picking, ass wiping, puking on one's partner during sex -- Avary films it all in living color) while also using numerous cinematic techniques to further distance viewers from the action -- aside from an expertly edited sequence detailing one student's European vacation, the show-off stylistics prove about as pointless as anything else in this thoroughly obnoxious endeavor.
SWEET HOME ALABAMA It's sad to witness once-exciting actresses like Ashley Judd and Angelina Jolie now wasting their talents in exceedingly generic studio products, and it will be even more tragic if Reese Witherspoon follows their lead. Witherspoon was a delight in last year's Legally Blonde, but I'm afraid the success of that film might mean she'll start turning her back on quirky projects like Election and Freeway (fabulous in both) and settle into a stereotypical rut. Sweet Home Alabama certainly lends credence to my fear: A lazy romantic comedy that apparently looked no further back than 1991's Doc Hollywood for its inspiration, this finds the actress basically mining the same Blonde emotions (albeit mining them well) in a picture that relies on the usual narrative props found in seemingly every other comedy these days. Witherspoon plays Melanie Carmichael, a rising New York fashion designer who's just accepted a marriage proposal from the son (smarmy Patrick Dempsey) of the city's mayor (Candice Bergen). First, though, she has to go back to her Alabama hometown and get her first husband (Josh Lucas) to sign the divorce papers, something he's been reluctant to do. From there, everything plays out exactly as expected: Melanie rediscovers her spark with her down-home hubby; she's condescending toward her former friends until the sound of music (in this case, Lynyrd Skynyrd) reawakens her soul; Southern hospitality wins out over Northern arrogance; the sole gay characters, one depicted as fundamentally lonely, the other depicted as on the prowl (in cinema, these are the only two types that seem to exist), hook up; Melanie makes the oh-so-predictable decision regarding her suitors; and the end credits roll and audience members head for the exits. Did I leave anything out?
THE TUXEDO The best special effect in a Jackie Chan movie is always Chan himself, which makes the affable performer's latest American vehicle an especially ill- fitting and ill-conceived affair. Chan stars as Jimmy Tong, a bumbling, insecure chauffeur who works for a James Bond-like secret agent named Clark Devlin (Jason Isaacs). After getting seriously injured, Devlin insists Tong don the spiffy tuxedo hanging in his closet; upon doing so, the lowly driver discovers that the suit is top-of-the-line government issue, with the ability to tailor itself to its wearer's needs and allow him to do everything from fighting martial arts-style to climbing the walls in the best Spider-Man manner to even executing some smooth moves on the dance floor. Now dressed to thrill, Tong soon finds himself teaming up with a rookie partner (Jennifer Love Hewitt, enjoyably awful) to stop a bottled-water magnate (Ritchie Coster) plotting to contaminate the world's drinking supply so that his own line will be the only safe one in the world (even the occasionally flailing 007 series never stooped to a level this inane). It's always a rush to witness Chan in his purest form kick and chop his way across the screen, but The Tuxedo miscalculates badly by forcing the star to play second fiddle to the dull effects that allow the suit to come to life. Still, this is hardly the picture's only problem, not when the villain (British, brooding, and boring) is the standard one employed by lazy screenwriters everywhere, nor when Chan and Hewitt demonstrate so little chemistry that they might as well be acting in two separate movies. 1/2
