Page 2 of 3
CATWOMAN Only time will tell if this dud will become a camp classic on the order of Myra Breckinridge or Plan 9 From Outer Space, but for now, it will have to content itself with being the best bad movie of the summer. Halle Berry struggles gamely as a mousy murder victim who's resurrected as Catwoman, a leather-clad, whip-wielding dominatrix who looks like the star attraction on an S&M website. The early sequences are deadly dull, but once Berry suits up, the movie enters MST3K territory and never looks back. Ultimately, it's impossible to ascertain what's most laughable: the chintzy effects, the leaden dialogue, or villainess Sharon Stone's attempts to out-vamp Faye Dunaway's similar turn in Supergirl. In any event, cat lovers will be horrified by this film -- does PETA handle defamation suits? 
THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR Based on a sizable chunk of John Irving's A Widow for One Year, this outwardly melancholy but inwardly hopeful movie stars Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger as children's book author Ted Cole and his wife Marion, silently suffering parents who, years later, are still unable to cope with the deaths of their two teenage sons. Their grief is impacted by the arrival of Eddie (Jon Foster), a young man who's been hired for the summer to apprentice under Ted but who ends up spending more time in the sack with Marion. The "coming of age" angle involving Eddie is the weakest part of the story; far more potent are the sequences in which Bridges (terrific), Basinger (touching) and/or young Elle Fanning (as their daughter) illustrate the difficulties in holding together a family when obligations are in arrears.
HAROLD AND KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE Harold and Maude Go to White Castle might have been a better bet, but this is nevertheless a gross-out comedy with a difference -- it tosses some sharp social satire into the usual mix of amiable dopeheads, repulsive rednecks and homosexual bit players. And instead of making its lead characters typical morons like Bill and Ted, this gives us two smart kids in mild-mannered Korean-American Harold (John Cho) and rebellious Indian-American Kumar (Kal Penn). The plot is lifted from the Cheech and Chong playbook, as Harold and Kumar spend a Friday night getting high and then deciding their munchies can only be satisfied by White Castle burgers. The crass humor only works sporadically, but the movie's knowing digs at the casual racism witnessed by the pair provide it with a whiff of added subtext. 1/2
I, ROBOT "Inspired" by Isaac Asimov's book, this delivers the goods as a zippy piece of sci-fi pulp. Will Smith stars as Del Spooner, a detective in 2035 Chicago who's convinced that a scientist has been murdered by one of his own robot creations. Only thing is, robots are programmed not to harm humans -- ever -- and Spooner's suspicions are dismissed as prejudice and paranoia. This recalls a couple dozen futuristic flicks from our collective past (Blade Runner, Minority Report, you name it), but director Alex Proyas (The Crow) still manages to give the film a distinctive look. And even if Asimov's deep delving into the complexities and contradictions inherent in these artificial beings is only given lip service, the movie works as a compelling murder-mystery. And the robots are out of this world.
LITTLE BLACK BOOK Brittany Murphy trots out so many adorable tics during the course of this film that she ends up making Meg Ryan in Sleepless In Seattle seem as dour as Anne Ramsey in Throw Momma From the Train. Better to focus on the excellent performances by Holly Hunter and Julianne Nicholson, the primary reasons that this mean-spirited comedy can be tolerated at all. That the film centers around one of those reprehensible trash-talk TV shows of the "My grandmother is a hooker" variety immediately signals the sort of crowd this is targeting -- it's feeble stuff, with Murphy as a TV show producer whose peek at her boyfriend's Palm leads her to suspect he might be cheating on her. Hunter is stellar as usual, while Nicholson almost humanizes this otherwise nasty tale.
THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE Granted, this isn't a masterpiece like the '62 edition, which still reigns as one of the finest thrillers ever made. Yet in most other respects, this is that rare remake that paves its own way without exploiting or cheapening its predecessor. No longer a Cold War product, this finds the action updated, with Denzel Washington as an army officer who realizes that a former comrade (Liev Schreiber), now a politician running for his party's Vice Presidential slot, might be the unwitting pawn of a major corporation (Manchurian Global) that's trying to seize control of the country. The film's topicality can't hurt -- this could easily have been called The Halliburton Candidate -- yet director Jonathan Demme's principal goal is to produce a taut, efficient thriller. On that score, he succeeds.
