Tom Cruise, Robert Duvall
Gentlemen, start your clichés.
In this running of the Star Trip Generic Auto Racing Film Classic, Richard Dix in Racing Hearts (1923) gets the pole position for old time's sake. Then come James Cagney in The Crowd Roars (1932), Mickey Rooney in The Big Wheel (1949), Kirk Douglas in The Racers (1955), James Garner in Grand Prix (1966), Elvis Presley in Speedway (1968), Paul Newman in Winning (1969), Steve McQueen in Le Mans (1971) and Al Pacino in Bobby Deerfield (1977).
And there's the green flag!
Cruise, as a driver trying to break into big-time speedway racing, has lots of competition here. Elvis got to sing, Rooney looked grimly determined, Garner had John Frankcnheimer to direct. Newman even had his missus, Joanne Woodward, in Winning.
But then Cruise has his near-missus, Nicole Kidman, playing the can't-stand-to-watch-this romantic interest. (Kidman does get to be a doctor and scoff at race drivers as "infantile egomaniacs.") Cruise also has his Top Gun director, Tony Scott.
What's this, though! Tom's bogged down in product plugs! Even more plugs than are plastered over cars, drivers' suits and all plasterable surfaces in real racing!
Wait, Cruise is gaining! In boy-meets race, boy-loses-race stuff, predictable dialogue is vital. Tom gets to say, "Racing is all I know"; crew chief Duvall says of a big race, "This is it. What it's all about." Randy Quaid, owner of a car Cruise drives, says, "Whatever we do from here, promise me we'll win Daytona."
Oh-oh! Looks like a pit stop to figure out subplots. That accident involving Cruise and Michael (Sea of Love) Rooker—it's never clear whether Rooker caused it on purpose. Does Quaid turn into a villain midway into the film or not? And how did Duvall's old driver die, anyway? But now Cruise is getting a boost from the redoubtable Duvall and a subtle—under the circumstances—job by Rooker. Tom is making up for the fact that the race footage is not all that spectacular and that there are such dumb scenes as one where he and Rooker engage in a bumper car battle on the streets of Daytona Beach.
Okay. Cruise is looking fine; he's acting well. And now, taking the checkered flag...
Is Richard Dix! (Give the guy a break. He hasn't had a big year in a while.) (PG-13)
JETSONS: THE MOVIE Animated
Even when the Jetsons first appeared on TV in 1962 they would have seemed hopelessly square for a children's show, let alone for the prime-time spot they occupied. And like their cousins The Flintstones, they haven't gotten any hipper or even campier over the years, just older—and more popular.
The original 24 Jetsons episodes Hanna-Barbera made have been rerun over the past 27 years; 41 new shows were done in 1985, 10 more in 1987. So the futuristic cartoon family clearly has a following that should like this full-length animated feature, which is full of a lack of surprises.
The plot involves George's new assignment: managing a glitch-plagued Spacely Sprocket plant on an asteroid. This allows George to mess up, Mr. Spacely to sputter and everyone to bring about a tidy conclusion with a restrained ecology message.
There is one fascinating fantasy sequence set to a pop tune sung by pop star Tiffany: a kaleidoscopic series of images that include flash-by allusions to Picasso, Klee, Warhol and O'Keeffe, among other artists. The sequence stands out partly because it is so imaginative compared with the usual prosaic Hanna-Barbera animation.
There is also a good joke involving a TV soap opera, All My Androids. But Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera, sharing director-producer credits, and writer Dennis Marks follow a tame path. Original cast members George O'Hanlon (George) and Mel Blanc (Spacely), both of whom have since died, headed the voice-over cast. Tiffany, as Judy Jetson, acts a bit as well as sings, and Don Messick as Astro the dog, sounds like Scooby-Doo, another canine voice he specializes in.
If you can imagine Total Recall and Gremlins without the violence and meanness—a lot of imagining there—and throw in a touch of Father Knows Best, then animate the whole business, you get the picture. (G)
Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia
One might think a movie with a reported budget of $62 million would have had a few bucks to spend on a gaffe spotter.
For instance, Willis, again playing cop John McClane, opens the film at Dulles International Airport. This is outside Washington, D.C., but not so far outside that the pay phones—prominent during one long scene—should be labeled Pacific Bell.
Then there's the central plot: that terrorists seize Dulles so they can spring a Latin American drug lord from custody. The villains threaten to turn off all the guidance equipment so planes won't be able to land, will run out of fuel and crash. A fleet of airliners proceeds to meekly circle the field for two hours, even though dozens of alternate fields are within range of two hours' fuel.
Meanwhile Willis, who is on to the scheme, runs miles around the airport, terminal to tower to runway and back. Then the bad guys trap him in a plane's cockpit. They spray only 17,000 rounds or so into the plane, so it's understandable they don't even wound him. But when they toss grenades in the cockpit windows, Willis has time to lie there, note he is being bombarded with grenades, lie there some more, think of a way out, notice the grenades are still there, scramble into the pilot's seat, fasten the seat belt, then trigger the ejector seat.
One could go on, and director Renny (Nightmare on Elm Street 4) Harlin does.
Willis, though he has perfected his ability to roll on the ground really fast so he can avoid being shot, is limited as an action hero. Bedelia is fun as Willis's wife, who is on one of the circling planes. But Reginald VelJohnson, whose radio relationship with Willis was one of Die Hard's best touches, has only a small role in this sequel.
While the film is co-written (with Doug Richardson) by Steven E. de Souza, who wrote Die Hard and such other admirable caper-adventure films as 48Hrs., the script is as big a dud as those hand grenades.
The language is macho baloney-rec room commando stuff: "Let's kick ass" and, in a VelJohnson-Willis exchange about Bruce's buttinsky tendencies, "You're not pissing in somebody's pool, are you?" "Yeah, and I'm fresh out of chlorine."
When one character shouts "Code red!" and another responds "Sitrep!," everyone in the theater ought to stand up and yell, "Gobble! Gobble!" (R)
>L.A. LAWLESS: INTERNAL AFFAIRS
Los Angeles police officers—led by Richard Gere—go corrupt, and in chic ways too. Gere's flashy lifestyle seems dumb for a cop on the take—realistic this isn't. But there's nice acting by Andy Garcia and Laurie Metcalf as internal affairs investigators and a sleazy Gere. (Paramount)
OR COMICS EITHER, FOR THAT MATTER: WE'RE NO ANGELS Robert De Niro and Sean Penn try, with agonizing futility, to be cute in a lame spoof about two cons masquerading as priests. (Paramount)
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!
