Jennifer Garner, Mark Ruffalo, Judy Greer, Andy Serkis
CRITIC'S CHOICE
This is Garner's Pretty Woman, the movie that will make her America's next sweetheart. You can even spot the exact moment it happens: When Garner's newly adult character in this story—think Big but about a girl—discovers that all her childhood dreams have come true, she leans against a doorway and flashes a warm, how'd-I-get-so-lucky smile. There's magic, the kind only a few stars can radiate, in that smile.
13 Going on 30, directed with a sweet touch by Gary Winick (Tadpole), is an immensely likable if unchallenging comedy. At her 13th-birthday party, dweeby, retainer-wearing Jenna Rink (a terrific Christa B. Allen) wishes that she was 30 with the angst of adolescence behind her. Poof! She wakes up to find herself transformed into lovely, grown-up Garner, living in a chic Manhattan apartment, working as a top editor at a glamorous fashion monthly and dating a pro hockey star whose nick-name for her is "Sweetbottom." The hitch: Jenna still feels as if she's 13. And she is horrified to learn that her adult self is considered a stuck-up diva.
The problem with 13 is that Garner is required to act more like a 7-year-old than a teenager. When distressed, she climbs into bed with her parents. Cute, but it wouldn't happen. That's nitpicking, though, about what is clearly meant to be a fairy tale and one with a worthy message at that: To thine own self be true. In addition to Garner, Ruffalo (In the Cut) is excellent as the guy Jenna regrets having left behind. Greer is an amusing ball of jangled nerves as Jenna's duplicitous best friend, and Serkis (The Lord of the Rings) offers a serviceable Tim Curry imitation as her effete British boss. (PG-13)
ROMANTIC COMEDY
Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning, Christopher Walken, Marc Anthony
When John Creasy (Washington), a burned-out ex-CIA assassin turned bodyguard, decides to kill the kidnappers of a young girl (Fanning) he was hired to protect in Mexico City, he shows no mercy. "Forgiveness," he explains, "is between them and God. It's my job to arrange the meeting." Although Man on Fire strongly suggests there is divine purpose to Creasy's mission, you have to wonder whether God would necessarily approve of the man's methods. After tracking down one lowlife, Creasy slices off the fellow's fingers and then cauterizes the bleeding stumps with a car's cigarette lighter. Nice.
Fire isn't a simple, bloody revenge drama. And that's the trouble. The film starts off promisingly but soon trips up on its own ambitions, trying to be a character drama, a violent story of crime and punishment and a tale of faith and redemption. It doesn't help that director Tony Scott (Spy Game) serves all this up with distractingly jumpy, we-don't-want-you-to-get-bored visuals. Washington does superior work, finding humor where he can. Fanning (Uptown Girls) continues to impress as a talented, serious little actress, and Walken turns in what for him is a restrained performance as a longtime pal of Creasy's. (R)
THRILLER
Goran Visnjic, Shirley Henderson, Miranda Otto, Paddy Considine
A female cop in London visits a hypnotist to stop smoking. When he puts her into a trance, both see a disturbing vision of a possibly dead girl floating in water. The cop (Henderson) enlists the hypnotist (Visnjic) to help her track down a killer who has been preying on children, ritualistically draining them of their blood.
Although it may sound gruesome (and is indeed that in its final scenes), Close Your Eyes is an intelligently crafted, psychologically complex thriller in which suspense keeps building. The hypnotist has secrets of his own that are only slowly revealed. It is an indication of this movie's concern for its characters rather than bloody special effects that it spends as much time delving into the hypnotist's sometimes tense relationship with his pregnant wife (Otto) as it does having him hunt for the killer. Visnjic, who has shown himself to be an accomplished brooder as Dr. Luka Kovac on TV's ER, effectively dips into the same dark pool of self-loathing and depression here. (R)
HORROR THRILLER
Tom Jane
Little more than eye candy in 2002's The Sweetest Thing, 35-year-old Tom Jane—part-time stay-at-home dad to Harlow, his 15-month-old daughter with fiancée Patricia Arquette—scores with the comic book adaptation The Punisher.
ON HIS BREAKTHROUGH ROLE It's basically a '70s, stripped-down, bare-knuckle, punk-rock action film. That's what I grew up with, what inspired me to be in pictures. I've been waiting years for this sucker to come my way. [Costar] John Travolta called me after he saw the film and gave me great advice. He said, "Enjoy this, man, it's not always this easy."
ON HIS PUNISHING TRAINING I hit the gym twice a day for six months, mixing Filipino martial arts, hand-to-hand combat and firearm training. I put on 25 lbs. of muscle. The Krispy Kremes and Guinness came out the day we stopped. When the checks stop coming, I stop going to the gym. Patricia's like, "Get that cheeseburger out of your mouth and go to the gym, I'll write you the check!"
ON HIS COMIC BOOK COLLECTION
[In high school] I wanted to be a comic artist—I used to draw skulls on my notebooks. I collect 1950s horror and sci-fi comics like Tales from the Crypt and The Vault of Horror. It's a dirty habit, and I'm trying to break it because they're from $3,000 to $15,000 apiece. [But I guess] they're gonna pay Harlow's college tuition.
ON PLAYING DAD It's the greatest thing that could ever happen to me. She's made me a better man. Patricia and I switch off [acting jobs] so someone's always with her. I watch SpongeBob and Teletubbies with Harlow. I gotta TiVo Teletubbies, I'm obsessed with it.
ON WEDDING PLANS
It's in the works right now, sometime this fall. Patricia's a lot better at planning. I think, as a man, my job is just to let her take the lead. She'll tell me where and when to show up, and I'll be there.—SONA CHARAIPOTRA
Gypsy 83
Less Than Perfect's Sara Rue is beguiling in a drama about a pair of outcasts, although the film strains too hard to be fresh. Rue plays a would-be rocker who journeys from Ohio to New York City with a gay pal (Kett Turton) to sing in a Stevie Nicks look-alike contest. (Not rated)
Rhinoceros Eyes
A strange youth (Michael Pitt) who works at a prop house goes to criminal lengths to satisfy requests for hard-to-obtain props. Tyro writer-director Aaron Woodley shows promise, but this surrealistic thriller wears thin fast. (R)
The Twilight Samurai
An Oscar nominee for Best Foreign film, this moving, measured Japanese drama is the non-Hollywood version of Tom Cruise's The Last Samurai. In the 1800s, a low-level widowed warrior (Hiroyuki Sanada) just wishes to raise his two daughters and tend his farm in peace. Fate has other plans. (Not rated)
- Contributors:
- Leah Rozen.
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!
