BY LEAH ROZEN
DRAMA
Buried somewhere in the murk that is Reign Over Me is a compelling movie trying to get out. But by the time this muddled comedic drama about a healing friendship between two troubled men nears its end, it has piled on melodramatic plot twists so high that it creaks like an overloaded coatrack about to topple.
Alan Johnson (Cheadle), a successful Manhattan dentist, runs into Charlie Fineman (Sandler), his old college roomie, who has been near-catatonic since losing his wife and three daughters on 9/11. Alan begins hanging with Charlie, hoping to coax his pal into rejoining the living but also as an excuse to duck out on confronting irksome issues in his own marriage (to Pinkett Smith).
Writer-director Mike Binder (The Upside of Anger) creates sympathetic main characters but neither they nor their plights ever really grip a viewer. Sandler seems to be modeling his stumbling, mumbling Reignman on Dustin Hoffman's autistic turn in Rain Man, while Cheadle may be taking acting cues from his buttoned-down wardrobe. Pinkett Smith and Liv Tyler (playing a therapist) both liven up their brief scenes. (R)
Terrence Howard, Bernie Mac, Kimberly Elise, Tom Arnold
DRAMA
Is there another male actor working now who can cry with as much feeling and hurt as Terrence Howard? His tears—whether they are caused by frustration, anger or happiness—are only part of the waterworks in this inspirational sports movie about real-life swim coach Jim Ellis (Howard), who transformed a ragtag group of inner-city Philadelphia teenagers into a championship team by teaching the fundamentals of swimming, discipline and self-respect. You've seen it all before, just never this wet. But Howard is reason enough to go. (PG)
Rainn Wilson, Joely Richardson
FAMILY
Be nice to your little sister. She might save mankind. That's the message I'm taking away—the actual onscreen one was too confusing for grown-up me to fully understand and certainly will baffle many younger viewers—from this convoluted, drawn-out children's film. The Mimzy of the title is a stuffed toy rabbit that a young brother and sister (Chris O'Neil and Rhiannon Leigh Wryn) find inside a magical orb, which has been sent to Earth by a dying civilization from the future. Thanks to the bunny and other nifty objects inside the orb, these two kids develop supernatural powers. After they inadvertently plunge Seattle into a blackout, they and their parents are brought in by federal agents for questioning on suspicion of being terrorists. Nice, huh? If I were a kid, this would all be mighty mystifying and more than a little scary. But then again, the bunny is incredibly cute and cuddly. (PG)
Mark Wahlberg, Michael Peña, Danny Glover, Kate Mara
SUSPENSE
Here are two shots I never, ever want to see in a movie again: 1) the hero purposefully struts toward us in slow-mo and 2) the hero leaps high in slow-mo, just in time to avoid the massive explosion behind him. Both are in Shooter, a let's-blow-up-a-whole-lot-of-stuff action film that will—faint praise—entertain fans of the genre.
What Shooter, directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day), does have going for it is a twisting, deeply cynical plot, one that assumes dishonesty at the highest levels. "This is a country where the Secretary of Defense can go on TV and say this war is about freedom, not about oil, and nobody questions him," a U.S. senator says here. The movie's honorable, lone wolf hero (Wahlberg) is an ex-Marine sniper who finds himself framed for supposedly having tried to assassinate the President. Wounded and on the run, he fights back the only way he knows how: with resourcefulness and a steady trigger finger.
Wahlberg is a continuing puzzlement. In supporting parts, like his recent Oscar-nominated role in The Departed, he sizzles. But give him the lead, like here, and he goes stolid, turning into a walking void. (R)
The Movies I Loved Growing Up
A teacher in The Last Mimzy, The Office's oddball says he never went to kids' movies himself. Here's what he loved instead.
MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL Every pimply adolescent boy of my generation had it memorized from start to finish.
THE NUTTY PROFESSOR Classic Jerry Lewis. He made some of the biggest faces in the history of cinema.
ANIMAL HOUSE The greatest movie ever made [with John Belushi, right].
STRIPES The second greatest movie ever made.
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY The third greatest movie ever made. It was one of the very first movies I ever saw. 2001 and the image of the giant baby fetus rising over the earth at the end gave me nightmares for like 12 years.
TMNT: Not that they've been missed, but the masked Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles return to the big screen, this time in a frantic, CGI-animated film. The green quartet battle an army of giant monsters commanded by a Donald Trump-like mega-mogul bent on—what else?—world domination. (PG)
The Page Turner: In an elegant, sexy French thriller (with English subtitles), a celebrated, married concert pianist (Catherine Frot) finds herself drawn to her young, newly hired page turner (Déborah François, a compelling actress last seen in L'Enfant). What she doesn't know is that the younger woman may be messing with her head (and heart), seeking revenge for a decade-old grievance. The two leading ladies are note-perfect. Denis Dercourt wrote and directed. (Not rated)
Children of Men ($29.98) Shamefully overlooked during awards season, director Alfonso Cuarón's tour de force about a man (Clive Owen) living in 2027 London asked to safeguard the first pregnant woman in 18 years is utterly breathtaking. A third-act sequence that traps Owen inside a war zone will keep your adrenaline surging for days. Extras: The best featurettes reveal how Cuarón executed Men's many wondrous shots (including a bravura four-minute action scene inside a car); the worst of them showcase pontificating philosophers. (R)
Movie:
Extras:
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
