FILM REVIEW OF ''THE PEACEMAKER" (1997)

Stolen Russian nukes are up for grabs in the George Clooney & Nicole Kidman escapade “The Peacemaker,” a sloppy but serviceable global thriller that drowns its audience in sentiment rather than buoys them with entertainment. Despite the millions the DreamWorks Pictures sunk into their first major film release, director Mimi Leder in her cinematic debut struggles with a second-hand, warmed over story. The cliffhanger predicaments and their resolutions emerge as more hackneyed and pretentious than virile and exciting. Enough with these adventure sagas set in the new Russia! Few surprises enliven this downbeat, humorless, technical Tom Clancy clone. Although “The Peacemaker” boasts a couple of decent scenes, the film grovels under a heavy-handed script, dull villains and equal opportunity his’n her plotting.

The Michael (“Crimson Tide”) Schiffer screenplay follows the strenuous efforts of U.S. Army Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel Tom Devoe (George Clooney of “ER”) and scientist Dr. Julia Kelly (Nicole Kidman of “Far & Away”) to recover 10 nukes that corrupt Soviet General Aleksandr Kodoroff (Aleksandr Baluyev 0f “Deep Impact”) has purloined. The action ignites with sizzling promise as a team of commandos armed with machine guns and night goggles stages a daring night train robbery. With the red laser beam sighting systems on their guns and the twinkle of red from their night vision equipment, they manage to evoke an evil, sinister look. General Kodoroff explodes one of the nukes to delay the response time of the authorities, so his henchmen and he can spirit the stolen warheads out of Mother Russia.

Meanwhile, an assassin guns down a member of the Bosnian parliament scheduled to attend a United Nations peace conference. Piano teacher Dusan Gavrich (Marcel Iures of “Hart’s War”) replaces him. Dusan’s wife and child die as innocent bystanders in a street shooting; Dusan resolves to spread the tragedy of Bosnia beyond his borders so the world can experience his pain and anguish. His cohorts lay claim to one of Kodoroff’s nukes. Dusan intends to sneak a warhead into the United States and trigger it at the United Nations. Consequently, as one of the members of the Bosnian diplomatic team, Dusan represents the title character.

“The Peacemaker” evolved from journalistic exposes by political reporters Andrew and Leslie Cockburn. Schiffer’s predictable script recycles familiar elements from the 1983 James Bond thriller “Octopussy” where the villains attempted a nuclear blast to inflame the anti-nuclear protest groups and compel Western nuclear disarmament. Of course, “The Peacemaker” occurs against the backdrop of the anything goes ‘new’ Russia, a setting a little overdone recently by “GoldenEye,” “The Saint,” “Crimson Tide,” and “The Hunt for Red October.” The stolen nukes theme can be traced back to the 1965 Bond epic “Thunderball” as well as the more recent John Travolta extravaganza “Broken Arrow.” The reliance on satellite technology as well as cooperation between the military and civilians at the highest levels of the government has the Clancy imprimatur inscribed on it. Little more than Jack Ryan with a sex change, Nicole Kidman’s Dr. Julia Kelly combines literary detective Nancy Drew with the sexy 1960s TV heroine Honey West.

Feminist touches such as allowing the characters to savor quiet moments when they can cry are out of character for this kind of adventure that DreamWorks has served up. “The Peacemaker” could be accurately described as a macho chase melodrama that collides with a soapy chick flick. Quite often Leder aims for the cerebellum when she should smash the solar plexus. The best scenes in “The Peacemaker” bristle with volatile action. Nevertheless, even they falter between the lack of zip in the directing and the absence of zing in the plot.

Unfortunately, even the heroes are compromised in “The Peacemaker.” First, Clooney and Kidman never generate any chemistry. Second, forget any love subplot that would catapult them into a bare and share nude coupling. At best, these two bitch at each other. Eventually, they earn each other’s respect. They are about as much fun as two drenched cats. Clooney is the brawn of the movie, a rogue Boy Scout who alternates between a rough spartan action figure and a sensitive guy. He possesses the on-camera grace of a James Coburn, but his character is saddled with too many inconsistent quirks. Kidman has the better role as the brains of the film. She evolves from a passive scientist to an active “His Girl Friday” action heroine. If General Kodoroff is Devoe’s primary nemesis, then Dusan serves as Dr. Kelly’s arch foe. Equal opportunity plotting expands the running time of the film and makes “The Peacemaker” seem like two movies for the price of one when neither proves remotely rewarding.

Composer Hans Zimmer deserves credit for a strident but pulsating instrumental score that effectively strokes the film’s action sequences. The demolition derby in the streets of Vienna is still a yawner, marginally redeemed by Clooney’s bad boy antics. Clooney’s Lt. Col. Devoe cannot miss a shot until the end of the movie when he fails inexplicably to nail a full-sized man scrambling past him in an alley!
If sobbing heroes and heroines aren’t enough, director Leder and scenarist Schiffer deploy a villain who is more of a sob than an S.O.B. As Dusan Gavrich, Iures creates a bland antagonist. He resembles the later horror movie icon Boris Karloff, and he looks incredibly lugubrious with his totem mask of a face. There’s nothing charismatic about Dusan, so the filmmakers have stacked the cards in this drama against themselves. You cannot really hate the Dusan Gavrich character in a way that a great villain should be despised.

Even in his death scene, Dusan is compared with Christ on the cross, so you can neither sneer nor jeer at his motives. Iures’ soulful performance stirs up more pity than rage. When Hollywood uses a no-name actor as the villain and gives him a conscience, it sacrifices a major trump card. Nobody goes to thrillers to watch the heroes. People go to indulge in the enormity of the villains. Not so here in “The Peacemaker.”

Worse, as so many recent Bond movies have done, splitting the duties between the villains makes for not only one too many villains, but also one too many anti-climaxes. Although Aleksandr Baluyev’s renegade Russian general makes a more acceptable villain, he is a no-name actor, too, who American audiences can neither identify with nor boo with any emotional intensity. “The Peacemaker” has villains that pose little threat; they simply slip the plot into gear four our her’n her heroes.

When Leder stresses the human elements in “The Peacemaker,” she allows her audience to think instead of react. Thinking audiences are less susceptible to the hokey rollercoaster machinations that convulse “The Peacemaker.” In a good adventure movie, audiences mentally dodge what the heroes must physically evade. Moreover, members at an action movie are better served when they flinch instead of furrow their brows. Otherwise, they’d realize how phony the predicaments are and that they could never occur in real life. Our heroes deduce who the terrorist is with a nuke in his backpack, but they underestimate him so often that their efforts strike a ludicrous note. When somebody dies in the line of action, our hero and heroine break down and cry.

Even the title “The Peacemaker” with its inherent irony not only conveys little pizzazz, but its significance may also be lost on audiences. Director Leder well-intentioned message about the horrors of a nuclear blast would make a better disaster of the week television movie than a globe-trotting Clancy/Bond wannabe thriller. Undiscriminating audiences looking for a distracting bit of action with exotic scenery and juvenile heroes may appreciate “The Peacemaker” until the tragedy dampens the aura of escapism. Veteran action adventure moviegoers will find “The Peacemaker” more disappointing than tolerable. For all the film’s smart moves and cool looking imagery, “The Peacemaker” is too derivative to be a milestone in the thriller genre.

FILM REVIEW OF ''HOODLUM'' (1997)

Snap-brim fedoras, vintage autos, blazing Tommy guns, corrupt public officials and greedy mobsters battling it out over turf rights recur throughout director Bill Duke’s violent, 1930s’ racketeering epic “Hoodlum” (**1/2 out of ****) a pictorially authentic actioneer that evokes memories of the classic Robert Stack television series “The Untouchables.” Although “Hoodlum” boasts a top-drawer cast, including Laurence Fishburne, Vanessa Williams, Tim Roth, and Andy Garcia, this lavishly mounted but uneven gangster saga suffers from its rambling length, garrulous script and a shortage of shoot-outs. As the first major film to headline the crimes of Harlem’s infamous Black Godfather Ellsworth ‘Bumpy’ Johnson, this production offers a novel departure for audiences that are weary of superheroes, female warriors and hard-bitten cops who have were crowding the big-screen when “Hoodlum” appeared in 1997.

The Chris Brancato screenplay introduces Bumpy in 1934 as he exits Sing Sing Prison. Duke and Brancato exert great pains to differentiate Bumpy from the typical African-American mobster. He peruses books, plays chess, and pens poetry. As literate as Bumpy is, he can pull a trigger or wield a knife without a pang of remorse when somebody threatens a person who he loves. Like “The Godfather II” and “Once Upon A Time in America,” “Hoodlum” charts the rise of the Godfather of Harlem in a ruthless game of survival that claims his best friend Illinois Gordon (Chi McBride of “I, Robot”) and leaves Bumpy forever altered by the gory experience. Ostensibly, you won’t see anything in “Hoodlum” that you haven’t seen in dozens of other crime films. “Hoodlum” features notorious real-life racketeers such as Dutch Schultz (Tim Roth of “Pulp Fiction”) and Lucky Luciano (Andy Garcia of “Godfather III”) as well as corrupt special prosecutor Thomas Dewey (William Atherton of “The Sugarland Express). When Bumpy arrives in Harlem, he watches a numbers runner working for Madam Stephanie St. Clair (Cicely Tyson) who is the so-called ‘Queen of the Numbers.’ The Dutchman craves to absorb the territory that the Madam has struggled for a decade to build into the number one home-grown Harlem business. Bumpy vows to prevent any takeover by the Irish mob.

Meanwhile, the boorish, grubby, low-life Schultz refuses to appease Lucky or Bumpy. Along the way, Bumpy falls in love with righteous Francine (Vanessa Williams) who wants him to find respectable work. Bumpy refuses to stoop to menial employment. When Dutch cannot kill the Madam, he bribes a judge to send her to the pen. Bumpy supervises the Madam’s empire at her request during her absence. Bumpy’s bloodthirsty methods clash with her live-and-let-live notions. Eventually, Luciano and Bumpy strike a deal, and Dutch finds himself out in the cold. Suddenly, gangster gunfire chops down a young, innocent numbers runner. Now, Bumpy’s cronies think that he has gone too far. Francine bails out on him more out of the formulaic dictates of the story than for any motivated reason. So do the filmmakers. The second half of the movie shows Bumpy losing favor with everybody.

The film’s publicity notes claim that “Hoodlum” is complete fiction, but historical characters populate the story. Of course, movies rarely recreate history with any fidelity. History is more chaotic than dramatic, so filmmakers recast it to fit their dramatic formulas. One way is by cutting the number of characters. Refusing to portray these events as they actually occurred, Duke and Brancato blow a fantastic opportunity to exploit their melodramatic potential. Duke, whose directorial credits include “Deep Cover” and “A Rage in Harlem,” wrestles with the obvious lapses in Brancato’s script. The length of “Hoodlum” may have been cut by the studio to squeeze in more showings in a single evening. The action grows and takes on an episodic quality when Bumpy becomes callous. After the first half, the film’s momentum bogs down, and “Hoodlum” loses its air of fun. The time has come for the characters to pay the piper.

The filmmakers embrace a curious morality. In most gangster movies, the hoodlum hero must die. Bumpy gets off easy, as does Luciano and only Dutch antes up with his life. Duke and Brancato allow their criminals greater leniency. The gangsters are less cancerous than the defenders of justice. Consequently, “Hoodlum” concludes on an anti-climax. Moreover, the filmmakers neglect to post an epilogue about Bumpy’s outcome. For the record, the gangster who hires Shaft to find his kidnapped daughter in “Shaft” is a variation on Bumpy” as is the kingpin mobster in “American Gangster” with Denzel Washington. The problem with Brancato’s script is its uneven quality. The action-packed first half is more entertaining than the tedious, long-winded second half. The filmmakers glorify Bumpy initially as a Robin Hood gangster who steals from a rival mob and gives to Harlem’s starving citizens.

Fishburne is riveting as a tough-as-nails but warm-hearted criminal. Roth takes top acting honors, however, as Dutch Schultz and looks like he had a ball exaggerating those vile elements in Schultz’s psychotic behavior. Garcia epitomizes sartorial urbanity as the peace-making Italian gangster who divides his time between Bumpy, Dutch, and special prosecutor Dewey. Williams brings substance and physical beauty to the role of Bumpy’s mistress, but the Brancato script jettisons her too early from the action when she finds her lover’s gunplay repellent. Atherton’s egotistical special prosecutor bristles with revulsion in his dealings with these crooks, but accepts their bribes. The filmmakers make the repressive Dewey appear particularly loathsome, a Judas whose contempt for the mob is exceeded only by his mockery of justice. Clarence Williams III has finally landed the kind of role that should banish the typecasting stigma of his 1960s “Mod Squad” character. As Schultz’s fearless right-hand henchman, Williams III breathes a cold-hearted, steely presence into his hired gun that makes him another stand-out in a stellar car.

Veteran black character actor Paul Benjamin scintillates in a minor role as a gravel-voiced gunsel named Whisper who sports a razor-slash scar across his throat. Benjamin has not appeared in a role this invigorating since he played a convict opposite Clint Eastwood in “Escape from Alcatraz. The vastly underrated actor Richard Bradford generates nothing but disgust as a corrupt police captain who takes special delight in torturing his gangster victims. Ironically, the most despicable characters that emerge from “Hoodlum” are not the criminals but the lawmen.

Despite some flavorful dialogue, “Hoodlum” plays it straight down the line as a dramatic shoot’em up. Audiences expecting a variation on Eddie Murphy’s “Harlem Nights” may leave this Fishburne film disappointed. Although it’s no “Godfather,” “Hoodlum” is definitely above-average and far beyond those quickie classics of the 1970s that headlined Fred Williamson as the black Caesar of crime in “Hell Up in Harlem.” If you enjoy gangster epics, “Hoodlum” is worth the price of admission. Some critics have savaged “Hoodlum” for its debatable morality. Indeed, Bumpy rises to the summit of his profession. At fade-out, however, Duke and Brancato show that the gangster’s life, in spite of its many frills, is one that leaves you standing alone in the rain outside the church door without a friend.

FILM REVIEW OF ''TOO LATE THE HERO'' (1970)

The Cliff Robertson & Michael Caine World War II epic “Too Late the Hero” (**1/2 out of ****) qualifies as another searing indictment of warfare. Producer & director Robert Aldritch recaptures some of the flavor of “The Dirty Dozen,” but the films differ in narrative closure. Each film takes place during World War II. “The Dirty Dozen” occurred in Nazi-occupied France, while “Too Late the Hero” transpires in the Japanese controlled South Pacific in spring 1942. Each group of warriors performs a special mission. The U.S. Army convicts in “The Dirty Dozen” receive a pardon offer to participate in combat. The British soldiers in “Too Late the Hero” aren’t exactly convicts, but they are neither elite troops nor military role models. They are survivors from the fall of Singapore. Although it never made the millions that “The Dirty Dozen” grossed at the box office, “Too Late the Hero” has ten times the depth and irony in its storyline than “The Dirty Dozen.” Conversely, “The Dirty Dozen” is far more entertaining on a visceral level, while “Too Late the Hero” turns rather depressing until the final foot race across open ground with mortar teams lobbing shells and snipers blasting away nonstop as the brave Allied souls try to cross it. The ending is this movie’s chief surprise. Actually, this ending seems inspired by Jefferson’s run past the ventilation pipes at the end of “The Dirty Dozen.” While “The Dirty Dozen” killed a chateau filled with high-ranking German officers, the men in “Too Late the Hero” only blow up a radio transmitter. Nevertheless, the performances are flawless, and the characters are truly interesting. You’ll recognize several familiar British faces, such as lantern-jawed Harry Andrews, Percy Herbert, Denholm Elliot, Ian Bannen, and Ronald Fraser, from other World War II movies. The settings and production values are more than adequate. Aldritch filmed “Too Late the Hero” on location in the Philippines. Along with its inanimate mission goal, the chief problems with “Too Late the Hero” are its uneven storyline and the lack of sympathy that mars our rapport with the protagonists. “Too Late the Hero” is similar to at least two World War II movies. First, it is comparable to David Lean’s “The Bridge on the River Kwai” (1957) where an American officer is loaned to the British for a special mission behind enemy lines. Second, “Too Late the Hero” is like John Boorman’s “Hell in the Pacific” (1968) because the Allies and the enemy share the same island. Although only Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune shared the island in “Hell in the Pacific,” the remnants of Colonel Thompson’s British troops have a toe-hold on the southern tip of the island while the Japanese outnumber them vastly and occupy the greater part of the island.

Oscar-winning actor Cliff Robertson of “Charly” plays U.S. Navy Lieutenant (J.G.) Sam Lawson who has an easy job eavesdropping on Japanese radio chatter and interpreting it. Lawson is nowhere near combat, until his Commanding Officer, Captain John G. Nolan (Henry Fonda0, assigns him to join a British commando team to blow up a radar station in the New Hebrides east of Australia. After an interesting opening sequence that features British, American, and Japanese flags slowly disintegrating as they fly in the breeze, the action shifts to a quiet U.S. Naval base in the South Pacific in spring 1942 as the Shore Patrol searches for the elusive Lawson. They find him and take him to Nolan. Lawson has been planning a four week leave and news that he is about to embark on a combat mission doesn’t set well with him. “This is something the British are organizing for us that involves a certain amount of physical hardship,” Nolan brusquely informs him. Initially, Robertson believes that if he resigns his commission then he can get out of being sent on the mission because the British need an officer. Nolan is prepared to send him on the mission as an ordinary seaman if Lawson resigns. “I can’t win, can I?” Lawson reluctantly accepts the mission. This scene provides an interesting reunion for both Fonda and Robertson who played presidential rivals in Franklin Schaffner’s “The Best Man” (1964), and Fonda appears in this scene only as a ‘special guest star.” Anyway, the disgruntled Lawson is flown out, and then put aboard a PT boat and finds himself in a British camp run about 11 minutes into this film. Robertson plays Lawson as an anti-hero from start to finish and unless you are a Robertson fan, you’re not going to like his negative attitude. Clearly, “Too Late the Hero” couldn’t have been made during World War II when war movies were hopelessly patriotic.

Producer & director Robert Aldritch co-wrote the story with Robert Sherman and the script with Lukas Heller. Although “Too Late the Hero” takes place in World War II, the film undoubtedly reflects the contemporary dislike for the Vietnam War. Ninety percent of the action occurs in the jungle, and Aldritch gives the jungle a claustrophobic nature. Between the opening and ending no-man’s land scenes, “Too Late the Hero” encloses the audience within high green walls. Once Lawson arrives at the British camp, he meets the camp commandant, Colonel Thompson (Harry Andrews of “633 Squadron”), and Captain Hornsby (Denholm Elliot), who will lead the mission, but none of Hornsby’s men respect him. Hornsby is as worthless an officer as you can imagine, but he commands troops almost as worthless as he is. Indeed, Hornsby is taken aback by Lawson’s negative attitude when he first meets him. “What an extraordinary fellow,” Hornsby observes of Lawson. Colonel Thompson retorts, “Well, he’s an American.” Thompson then inquires about Hornsby’s health and if he is up to commanding the mission. “It seems to me to be a marvelous opportunity to really hurt them,” Hornsby replies to Thompson. Before Lawson, Hornsby, and the patrol head out, they watch as an incoming patrol scrambles across the no-man land and try to avoid sniper bullets. Lawson asks why they cannot proceed at night across no-man’s land, and Hornsby points out that it took so long for them to locate Lawson that they must leave immediately on miss the target date for their mission. At the outset of the film, everybody is fuming because they cannot find Lawson and he realizes that he has made his own mission that much more difficult. Again, “Too Late the Hero” is a cynical a war movie as you will find.

The British plan cross the island to the north and destroy the Japanese radio so that the enemy cannot wire a nearby island and request air support to bomb a U.S. Navy convoy which will pass near the radio camp on the coastline. Just before our heroes are to raid the Japanese camp and blow up the transmitter, the British soldier carrying their radio drops it by accident and permanently damages it so that it cannot be used. Predictably, Hornsby reacts with rage, but concocts another plan. They will overpower the Japanese radio operator and transmit their false message on the Japanese radio and then destroy it. Lawson refuses to follow Hornsby into the radio hut because he believes Hornsby is violating the orders that Colonel Thompson gave him. Earlier, Hornsby had proved what an incompetent commander he was when he laid an ambush with his men on both sides of a column of advancing Japanese and five of his men died in the cross-fire from their own men. Once they reach the Japanese camp, he improvises rather well, but dies when Lawson refuses to participate in Hornsby’s new scheme to relay the false message by the Japanese transmitter rather than their own transmitter. A battle breaks out and our heroes mow down their share of Japanese troops before they retreat into the jungle. Accidentally, the next day, our heroes stumble onto a Japanese airfield that has been so cleverly camouflaged that U.S. aerial reconnaissance hasn’t spotted it. Our heroes flee but this time they are pursued by a Japanese officer who deploys speakers to try to lure them back to him so word will not reach enemy lines about the presence of their hidden airfield. Our heroes must now survive long enough to get back to base and inform Colonel Thompson about the enemy airfield.

Aldritch directs old school style. When Hornsby shoots two mortally wounded Japanese soldiers after the first battle, you see him fire at them but they do not appear in the same shot when he fires his revolver. However, what sets “Too Late the Hero” apart from most war films is Aldritch’s portrayal of the Japanese. They don’t wear Coke bottle glasses and they use psychological techniques to create friction about the British soldiers. The Japanese officer sets up a series of loudspeakers and tries to convince our heroes to give themselves up. Some do and then he threatens to kill them if the others do not. Indeed, the enemy is the enemy, but Aldritch doesn’t depict the Japanese as heinous. The British spend more time killing each other than the Japanese. The irony here is that the enemy really isn’t all that villainous. Just as Hornsby found his nerve at the Japanese camp, Lawson finds his nerve later when he realizes that he must get the valuable information about the concealed Japanese airfield back to Colonel Thompson to save the fleet.

If you look at the “Too Late the Hero” trailer, it reveals the message. Most people become a hero too late. An above average war film.

FILM REVIEW OF ''MASTER AND COMMANDER" (2003)

Watching the Russell Crowe Age of Sail epic "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" is enough to make anybody sea-sick. In other words, you'll get sick of seeing this formulaic flotsam of cliches long before its interminable 138 minutes has washed over you. Unlike those popular Errol Flynn swashbucklers from the 1930s, Gregory Peck's "Captain Horatio Hornblower" (1951), or the Johnny Depp "Pirates of the Caribbean" epics, "Master and Commander" takes itself far too seriously and features a predominantly male cast, with no damsels-in-distress awaiting rescue from depicable villains. The fleeting moments when women do appear on screen seem designed to reassure any doubting spectators about the heterosexual orientation of the entire HMS Surprise crew. Worse, "Master and Commander" lacks a hardcore villain in either character or physical stature. This lack of villainy undercuts director Peter Weir's film and its overall dramatic impact. The earliest glimpse that we catch of the villainous French captain is after Russell Crowe and crew have stormed their adversary's ship. Oops, did you ever doubt Russell wouldn't feast on frog legs at fadeout?

Nevetheless, this literate, authentic looking, tactical game of cat and mouse on the high seas set in the year 1805 between an under-gunned English vessel and a well-armed Napoleonic man-of-war excels in visual and narrative storytelling. Athough writer & director Peter Weir of "Gallipoli," "The Mosquito Coast," and "The Truman Show" fame and co-scenarist former physician John Collee have written well-thought out characters with clearly delineated motivations, they have failed miserably at making any of them charismatic, much less memorable. You won't find yourself cheering on Russell Crowe here as you might have in "Gladiator" because his character behaves like a good-two shoes.

Some will applaud the documentary verisimilitude that Aussie helmer Peter Weir brings to "Master and Commander" without exposing either the unsavory homoerotic or sadomasochistic undertones persasive in the British Navy during the 19th century. Weir and his collaborators must have poured considerable time and research into "Master and Commander" because each scene appears thoroughly credible, especially with regard to loading and firing cannon. Weir lensed this turbulent ocean-going voyage in the huge aquatic tank in Baja, Mexico, built for "Titanic." Meawnhile, others less enamored of historical detail may keep glancing at theircell phone clocks, chafing in eager anticipation for the inevitable comeuppance that ultimately takes too long to materialize. The battle scenes are the best that "Master and Commander" has to offer. Indeed, the ships appear genuine enough, whether either life-sized or miniature, and teh atmospheric cinematography always provides viewers with the most intereseting perspectives. Sadly, the drawn-out scenes on the Galapogos Islands amount to nothing more than malingering. Bloody without being sanguinary, Weir stages gritty action scenes, such as a broading party assault during a ship-to-ship battle, well enough. No, the violence in "Master and Commander" won't make you flinch like the graphic bloodshed in Mel Gibson's superior but bloody colonial epic "The Patriot." In a model of restraint, Weir has characters talk about the gore that occurs off screen and only shows its consequences on-screen. Okay, one guy does take a bullet between the eyes, but he doesn't stand around and talk about it. Unfortunately, if you dread closed confines, you'll find yourself sweating like a claustrophobic. Eighty per cent of "Master and Commander" transpires within the cramped confines fo the HMS Surprise. Meaning, time drags its sea legs between the first encounter with the French and the final showdown. No, "Master and Commander" dispenses with the rip-snorting escapades of the gender-bending Geena Davis swashbuckler "Cutthroat Island" and avoids the harsh rivalry between the skipper and subordinates of the 1962 Alec Guinness effort "Damn the Defiant." Suffice to say, were any 19th century British marines alive, they'd consider life aboard HMS Surprise more akin to a pleasure cruise than a British warship, but then that's Hollywood for you.

Four Hollywood studios banded together (Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Miramax Films, and Samuel Goldwyn Films) to produce this colossal $150 million dollaryarn. "Writer & director Peter Weir and John Collee combined two of the late Patrick O'Brien's historical novels, "Master and Commander" and "The Far Side of the World," to serve as the basis for their above-average but predictable screenplay. Set during the Napoleonic Wars, "Master and Commander" opens with the Acheron, a mysterious but appropriately named French battleship, sneaking up on HMS Surprise and giving Captain 'Lucky' Jack Aubrey (Russell Crowe) and his crew the surprise of their lives. Not only does the rest of teh plot chart how Aubrey cleverly evades the French, but also his egoistical refusal to tuck his rudder between his sails. Half-way through the story, this phantom French ship reappears without warning and sends our heroes scurrying again, though they do cobble together a skillful ruse to mislead the enemy.

Once again, the British are cast as underdogs! Eventually, 'Lucky' Jack turns to his right-hand man, the ship's surgeon Dr. Stephen Maturin (Paul Bettany, Crowe's co-star in "A Beautiful Mind") who shows his life-long friend how the study of biology can bail him out of tough straits. The biggest problem with this sumptuously produced reinactment of early 19th century naval warfare is its PG-13 realism about life on a British warship. Weir and his scenarist appear more committed to lecturing audiences about good citizenship than depicting events with nominal realism. Torn between the needs of his crew versus the demands of command, Crowe's Captain Aubrey emerges as hopelessly sentimental. Yes, one scene features a flogging, but Weir and company bring PG-13 restraint to the fore with a little blood in sight as possible when a crew member takes his lashes. Perhaps the worst misstep is a subplot about a wounded lad who lost his right arm to a French cannon ball. During the climactic fight, this fearless midshipman plunges into the battered Acheron with a single-shot musket pistol. Come on, give me a break, one-armed kids to the rescue! The other misstep occurs with the relationship between Aubrey and Maturin. They behave like clones of Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy from the "Star Trek" movies. Furthermore, their solitary interludes when they indulge their musical urges with violin and cello respectively seem wholly out-of-place in a briny, sea-faring saga.

Altogether, despite its top-drawer production values, gorgeous cinematography, and inspired staging of its sea battles, "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" fall far short of those entertaining swashbucklers of yesteryear. Furthermore, its obsession with gratuitous good citizenship propaganda, its abysmal lack of a villain, and a shortage of charismatic heroes nearly sinks this ambitious yarn.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE SCORE'' (2001)

Crime pays only for the best of the bad guys in director Frank Oz’s “The Score,” (*** out of ****) an entertaining, straightforward, procedural heist melodrama in the tradition of Michael Cimino’s “Thunderbolt & Lightfoot” (1974) and John McTiernan’s “The Thomas Crown Affair” remake. Not surprisingly, a gifted, powerhouse casting of Robert De Niro, Edward Norton, Marlon Brando, and Angela Bassett make “The Score” both interesting and easy to watch. Oz depicts the crime of safe-cracking in fairly realistic, down-to-earth terms, in his version of the oft-told tale about the professional criminal that wants to quit the rackets and settle down. Nothing in “The Score” struck me as implausible. Anybody over age thirty who suffers from attention deficit disorder might find it difficult to endure both the quieter, contemplative moments and the deliberate, suspenseful pacing. Not surprisingly, too, Edward Norton excels as a lawbreaker modeled on Kevin Spacey’s Keyser Soze character in Bryan Singer’s first-rate epic “The Usual Suspects.”

All performances in “The Score” are above reproach, even Brando’s flaky Sidney Greenstreet stock character with his Truman Capote wardrobe. Scenarists Kario Salem of “The Fast and the Furious,” Lem Dobbs of “The Limey,” and Scott Marshall Smith of “Men of Honor” have crafted a derivative but solid nail-biter based on a story by Daniel E. Taylor. Never do they let these thieves off the hook, and they confound their every move in an intricately woven yarn of disasters and double-crosses. “The Score” reminded me of those classy, high-stakes European crime thrillers from the 1950s, such as Jules Dassin’s “Rififi” (1954), and “Topkapi” (1964), Giuliano Montaldo’s “Grand Slam” (1968), Henri Verneuil’s “Any Number Can Play (1963), and “The Burglars” (1972), Antonio Isasi-Isasmendi’s “They Came To Rob Las Vegas” (1968), Peter Colllinson’s “The Italian Job” (1968), and Michele Lupo’s “The Master Touch” (1974).

Sure, Hollywood has pulled off its share of these sagas, such as John Huston’s “The Asphalt Jungle” (1950), Phil Karlson’s “Five against the House” (1955), and Lewis Milestone’s “Ocean’s Eleven” (1959), but they don’t compare with these classics. Ironically, “The Score” qualifies as the flip side of Oz’s earlier comedy “Bowfinger,” but the latter boasts a more upbeat ending. Where Steve Martin struggles to produce a movie around Eddie Murphy’s nutty actor in “Bowfinger,” Robert De Niro must outsmart Edward Norton’s devious miscreant during a complex heist. The conflict in “The Score” boils down to an account about the survival of the fittest. The worse criticism is the writers have visited the well once too often for inspiration.

Robert De Niro of “Ronin” plays Nick Wells, a world-weary professional safecracker who owns a jazz club in Montreal when he isn’t pulling jobs out of the country for Max (Marlon Brando of “The Island of Dr. Moreau”), his longtime friend and fence. Nick has survived over the years because he rarely takes chances. Nick recites a speech that sounds like the speech he gave in Michael Mann’s superlative “Heat” about knowing when to walk away from a job. The opening scene brilliantly demonstrates Nick’s imperturbable under pressure in tight spots aplomb. As he is breaking into a safe at a mansion during a late-night party, two young lovers interrupt him. When they cuddle, Nick conceals himself behind a couch. When the girl prefers to smoke a joint before having sex, her boyfriend leaves the darkened room in disgust. Nick grabs the hapless girl from behind when she spots his safecracking tools. He threatens her if she doesn’t keep quiet, and then coolly finishes the heist. Once again, Hollywood warns us smoking pot can get you into deep trouble you never imagined. Something similar happened in the Peter Hyams’ horror movie “Relic.” A deadly creature stumbles onto its first victim, a helpless security guard, and devours him. During the off screen chomping, the camera zooms into a smoldering marijuana cigarette that the guard had been smoking. The message is obvious. If the guard had not been where he was sneaking a few puffs of pot, he would never have been gobbled. Anyway, Nick gets away without being discovered because he believes in discipline. As he later tells an accomplice, “Talent means nothing. Lasting takes discipline.” Max delivers the bad news the day afterward, the person they had planned to sell the jewelry to has died. Nick is upset because he had to finance the jewel heist with $20-thousand of his own money. Max calms him down and tells him about a new job.

Nick wants to settle down with his flight attendant girlfriend, Diane (the lovely Angela Bassett of “Music from the Heart”), but she refuses to marry him if he continues his life of crime. Nick and Diane are seriously contemplating marriage when Max offers Nick a job that will pay $4-million. During their opening dialogue sequence, Nick and Diane discuss what sounds like a crime that Diane participated in with a partner who didn’t make it back from Istanbul. This plot point is left dangling; making it sound like Diane resembles the Pam Grier stewardess in Quentin Tarantino’s “Jackie Brown” who smuggled in money. As much as he loves Diane, Nick has second thoughts. He wants to wed Diane, but the prospect of a $4-million paycheck and the potential for paying off the mortgage on his club appeals strongly to him. When Nick reveals his illicit plan to Diane, she walks out in a huff.

Meanwhile, things grow complicated because Max tells Nick that the job is in Montreal.
One of Nick’s standard rules is never to pull a job in his backyard, an idea Max instilled in him, but the payoff is so big that not even Max can resist. Later, Nick learns that Max is deep in debt to another criminal. Like Nick, Max wants to use the proceeds to clear himself. Getting Nick to agree to pull the job in Montreal isn’t as difficult as getting him to team up with Jack Teller (Edward Norton of “American X”), the guy who shopped the idea to Max in the first place. Jack bristles with ambition. He masquerades as a part-time janitor with cerebral palsy. All the guards and the head janitor treat Jack like a son, and he used their sympathy to case the Customs House. All classic crime movies have those scenes where the criminals learn everything that they need to know about who they are going to hit, such as routines, etc. This is what I mean by ‘case the joint.’

One of the chief problems with the script is the lack of a back story about how Jack learned about the object of his avarice. Jack wants to steal a 17th century French scepter smuggled into Canada in the leg of a piano, but Far Eastern insects have contaminated the piano. The authorities have decided to incinerate the piano so the bugs don’t spread their contagion. The Customs House officials discover the priceless scepter when Jack points it out as the legs blaze in the furnace. Jack aggravates Nick when he meets him in public doing his cerebral palsy act. Max and Nick argue about Jack. Nick sends his thuggish strong-arm man, Burt (Gary Farmer) to scare him off. Jack proves more resourceful than Nick imagine. Eventually, the two guys patch up their differences and decide to go forward with the heist. About the same time they learn that the Customs House officials are beefing up security. Nick turns to his hacker friend Stephen (Jamie Harrold) who lives in a dark basement at his mother’s house where he surrounds himself with computers. Clearly, the people who made “Live Free Or Die Hard” borrowed this idea with their Kevin Smith character. Anyway, Stephen comes through. “Give me a KayPro 64 and a dial tone and I can do anything,” he proclaims. They need Stephen to get them the specs for the super vault where the scepter is now stashed. More problems occur. Our anti-heroic heroes bribe a hacker inside the security firm. Nothing goes according to plan in “The Score,” and these chaotic screw-ups heighten the drama and its outcome.


Despite the obvious loopholes in the script, director Frank Oz gets away with this crime caper for the most part. He generates considerable tension during the logistical planning scenes when Nick searches for a safe entrance into the Customs House from the Montreal sewer system. Oz knows how to induce anxiety, especially when Nick and Jack have to bribe the computer hackers. Dressed from head to toe in commando garb, De Niro’s Nick Wells looks like the saboteur plumber from Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil” when he breaks into the Customs House. Moviegoers who like to hear the explosions of uncooked popcorn kernels hitting the floor of a cinema during the taut crime sequence will relish this atmospheric white-knuckler. If you thrive on gratuitous nudity, sex, and violence set to the tune deafening rap music on a soundtrack, “The Score” is not for you. Jazz lovers will appreciate the cameos Mose Allison and Cassandra Wilson make in Nick’s nightclub.

FILM REVIEW OF ''LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT" (2009)

The only thing surprising about the new remake of Wes Craven’s landmark horror chiller “Last House on the Left” is that Craven and co-producer Sean S. Cunningham waited so long to do it. A former humanities professor, Craven ranks as one of the maestros of movie mayhem. He launched the Freddie Kruger “Nightmare on Elm Street” franchise back in 1984 and then scared up the “Scream” trilogy in 1996. Before those two successful series, he helmed “The Hills Have Eyes” (1977) and “The Hills Have Eyes 2” (1985), and served as producer on both remakes in both in 2006 and 2007. He is known for his 1982 horror comedy creature feature “Swamp Thing.”

Craven’s first film, “Last House on the Left,” marked him for future notoriety. Sean S. Cunningham produced “Last House” for Craven in 1972. Eight years later in 1980, Cunningham made horror movie history himself with “Friday the 13th.” Craven and Cunningham have teamed up to produce Greek director Dennis Iliadis’ “Last House on the Left” remake. Best known for “Hardcore” (2005), a grim drama about prostitution set in Athens, Greece, Iliadis appeared to be the ideal director for this new, updated, R-rated remake starring Sarah Paxton, Monica Potter, and Tony Goldwyn. Comparatively, Iliadis’ “Last House on the Left” (** out of ****) lacks the sadism of both the “Saw” and the “Hostel” movies and the eerie atmosphere of the original. Nevertheless, audiences that crave watching make-believe characters stab, rape, and then shoot other make-believe characters to death may applaud this lackluster remake.

Two teenage girlfriends, Mari Collingwood (Sarah Paxton of “Sydney White”) and Paige (Martha MacIsaac of “Superbad”), get together back when Mari arrives in town with her parents. Dr. John Collingwood (Tony Goldwyn of “Ghost”) and his wife Emma (Monica Potter of “Con-Air”), are taking a vacation in the country where they own a lake-front house. Overachieving swim champ daughter Mari borrows mom and dad’s Chevy Suburban to visit Paige in town. Paige works the cash register at a convenience store. Things take a turn for the worse when a hooded teenager, Justin (Spencer Treat Clark of “Superheroes”), asks for a pack of cigarettes. Paige won’t sell them because Justin appears underage. Justin has been eavesdropping on the gals and knows Paige wants to score some marijuana. Reluctantly, Mari drives Paige and Justin back to Justin’s motel where he rolls up some premium grade-A Columbian. Yes, Paige sold Justin cigarettes because she had to have some weed. Everybody is huffing and puffing on pot when Justin’s Manson-looking dad, Krug (Garrett Dillahunt of HBO’s “Deadwood”), his Uncle Francis (Aaron Paul of “Mission Impossible 3”), and Sadie (Riki Lindhome of “Gilmore Girls”) walk in on them.

Krug is an escaped convict. The police were taking Krug to prison when Sadie and Francis rescued him. They caught two unsuspecting cops off guard at a railroad crossing and T-boned the police cruiser with a big truck. Sadie shot the driver in the head and Krug strangled the detective beside the driver. Since the authorities have launched a manhunt, our evildoers cannot turn Mari and Paige loose. Mari and Paige realize too late that their geese are cooked. Krug commandeers Mari’s Suburban, and they cruise off into the woods to avoid roadblocks. They pass not far from where Mari’s parents live. Mari’s unexplained disappearance has Emma and John upset. Meanwhile, Mari and Paige attempt to escape from their captors by scorching Sadie with a cigarette lighter. In the confusion, Krug crashes the truck into a tree. Enraged by the girls’
defiance, Krug and company torture them.

Although the violence in Iliadis’ “Last House” remake is graphic, Craven’s original--even after almost 40 years--surpasses the remake in terms of its depravity. Iliadis and “Disturbia” scenarist Carl Ellsworth with newcomer Adam Alleca have made many drastic changes that prove the old saying ‘they don’t make movies like they used to.’ Indeed, they have eliminated a great deal about the original “Last House” that made it such a memorable nightmare. Iliadis and his writers have retained the basic premise, but the current crop of torture porn pictures overshadows their remake. The remake’s most talked about moment—if you’ve glimpsed the trailer—is the notorious microwave scene. A man’s head is jammed into a microwave and cooked until it explodes. Several friends have assured me that microwaves don’t work with the door open, but reality rarely dictates what Hollywood presents in movies.

Like its horrific predecessor, the “Last House on the Left” remake depicts poetic justice. The depraved deviants slaughter the innocent in the first half, while the parents turn the tables on the dastards in the second half. Ultimately, the villains suffer more than their innocent victims. This difference is what separates “Last House on the Left” from the “Saw” and “Hostel” movies. When the parents pay back the perpetrators in “Last House on the Left,” you may find yourself howling for blood and that’s what makes the movie so wicked.

FILM REVIEW OF ''JURASSIC PARK 3" (2002)

“Jurassic Park 3” (*1/2 out of ****) doesn’t take itself seriously like its predecessors and neither should you. Director Steven Spielberg and bestselling author Michael Crichton, who collaborated on the superlative “Jurassic Park” (1993) and its knockout sequel “The Lost World (1997), had something to say about scientists who play God and the dangers of cloning. (I’m not given to handing out high praise to anything Spielberg does, but the first two “Jurassic Park” epics, like “Jaws,” are exceptions to the rule.) Sadly, Spielberg and Crichton had nothing to do with this sequel, and former “Star Wars” art director Joe Johnston of “October Sky” (1999), “The Rocketeer” (1991), and “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” (1989) replaced Spielberg at the helm. You’d think Johnston’s experience on “Jumanji” (1995) where zoo animals stomped everything in sight, would have made him the ideal candidate. Unfortunately, it didn’t. You can count the major differences between Johnston’s “Jurassic Park” and Spielberg’s “Jurassic Parks” in minutes. “JP3” clocks in at about 90 minutes, while both Spielberg epics exceeded two hours. Although it isn’t as pretentious—we’ll say—as the first two movies, “JP3” relies far more on humor than horror to its detriment.

This lukewarm, less-than-savage installment in the cloned-dinosaurs-run-amok series makes references to its predecessors that only hardcore, nitpicking “Jurassic Park” fans could catch. The joke about Jack Horner was cute. The dinosaurs are just as menacing, even though bloodthirsty moviegoers may feel cheated. (Imagine what Italian gorefest cult director Lucio Fulci would have done with a “Jurassic Park” movie.) Missing this time around is ‘chaos theoretician’ Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum of “Independence Day”), who enlivened both the original and the follow-up with his sarcasm. Paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill of “Jurassic Park”), who skipped out on “The Lost World,” returns as the dullest of dull heroes, while Grant’s former colleague Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern of “October Sky”) reappears in a welcome cameo. Grant visits her in the opening scene and finds her happily married to a U.S. State Department official with a toddler son and baby daughter. Before she waves goodbye, Ellie reminds Grant to call her if he ever needs her help. Predictably, freshman scenarist Peter Buchman, along with writers Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor of “Election” and “Citizen Ruth” don’t let her welsh on her promise. Film scriptwriting manuals classify this as ‘foreshadowing,’ setting up some future action so it doesn’t appear to haphazardly pop up out of the blue.

Basically, “JP3” follows the formula that “Jurassic Park” and “The Lost World” created with greater detail and daring. Reportedly, after Johnston perused the shooting script, he tore it up and ordered rushed rewrites. If this was the best they could contrive, no wonder “JP3” is so forgettable. Not only did “The Lost World” raise the stakes, but it also surpassed the original with its thrills and chills. Clearly, the third time wasn’t the charm. “Jurassic Park 3” is as pedestrian as “Jaws 3.” If you’ve seen the others, you know Laura Dern’s cameo at the outset is standard “Jurassic Park” practice. In “The Lost World,” Malcolm reunited briefly with John Hammond (Richard Attenborough of “The Great Escape”) and his grandchildren: Timothy ‘Tim’ Murphy (Joseph Mazzello) and Alexis ‘Lex’ Murphy (Ariana Richards) in an early scene. Children cannot die in the “Jurassic Park” franchise. Neither apparently can mother nor fathers. So much for suspense. Like “Jurassic Park,” “Jurassic Park 3 has our desperate heroes plundering piles of dinosaur dung in search of a satellite phone that could serve as their salvation. That stinking satellite phone infuriated me initially when I heard it ring. I figured that some fool had left their cell phone ringer on in the theatre! Nevertheless, Sarah Harding owned a tattered camera bag she called her lucky bag, just as Belly Brennan sorts a similar camera bag. The scene where Tea Leoni hangs from a tree as ravenous raptors leap up at her alludes to the kitchen scene near the end of “Jurassic Park.” Instead of being jostling about in small recreational vehicles, Dr. Grant finds himself slammed around in the wrecked fuselage of a plane by a dinosaur. This scene lacks the sheer terror of the T-Rex’s introduction in “Jurassic Park” and doesn’t generate the suspense of “The Lost World” cliffhanger scene. Billy steals raptor eggs, and the mothers pursue them across Isla Sorna in a variation on “The Lost World” heroes that freed an injured T-Rex baby with a broken leg and found its irate mother pushing their motor home over a cliff. “The Lost World” T-Rexes subjected the motor home to more hair-raising demolition than the “JP3” T-Rex does to the plane. This time around baby Pterodactyls attack a teenager, much as “The Lost World” lizards swarmed after a little rich girl. The major revelation here is the raptors can communicate with each other and might possibly have supplanted primates. Wait, didn’t those same raptors communicate with each other back in “Jurassic Park” in the kitchen scene?

No matter where Dr. Alan Grant lectures, everybody only wants to quiz him about Isla Nublar and the San Diego disaster. He refuses to answer any questions about the first and reminds everybody that he wasn’t around when the dinosaurs stormed the California mainland. He insists fossils still provide the only legitimate source of information for paleontologists. “No force on Earth or Heaven will get me back on that island,” vows an incredulous Grant when tycoon Paul Kirby (William H. Macy of “Fargo”) and his ex-wife Amanda (Tea Leoni of “Deep Impact”) wave their checkbooks at him. No, we never learn what price Dr. Grant put on his services. While this dearth of information is deplorable, had we known Grant’s fee we might have felt less sympathetic toward him. All the Kirbys want him for is to serve as their guide as they fly over Isla Sorna, where “The Lost World” took place, and snap pictures of the wildlife. Paul assures him his import/export business contacts have cleared their flight with Costa Rican authorities to fly closer than anybody since the hurricane swept the island. Reluctantly, Grant changes his mind when his new assistant Billy Brennan (Alessandro Nivola of “Face/Off”) reminds him that they need funds to maintain their latest archeological expedition. Grant realizes his error when they land on the island. By the time he regains his wits they have landed. Watching them knock Grant out make him appear even more sympathetic. Kirby’s crew consists of Udesky (Michael Jeter of “The Green Mile”), the big-gun toting Cooper (John Diehl of “Pearl Harbor”) and pilot Nash (Bruce A. Young of “Trepass”). These expendables should have worn numbered jerseys in the order of their deaths by dinosaur. Anybody who has seen John Diehl in anything knows that he has become strictly a bit player since being one of the back-up narcotics partners in “Miami Vice.”

Director Joe Johnston misses the mark with “Jurassic Park 3.” Every movie he has helmed since “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” has been an improvement. Unfortunately, along with an abysmal, cut-rate script, Johnston never establishes the proper tone of terror. The talking dinosaur in Dr. Grant’s nightmare gets things off on the wrong foot. Tea Leoni’s ad nauseam scream sequence when a decaying skeleton dangles from a tree in classic textbook horror fashion struck me as a bad Mantan Moreland impersonation. She spends too much time dancing in revulsion. The scenarists shoulder part of the blame for their predictable, uninspired screenplay. Of course, the characters least attached to the audience die first. Neither Johnston nor his scribes spring a surprise until the abruptly quirky conclusion. Don’t look for character depth or development. The filmmakers didn’t have enough time. Obviously, violence was curbed for a family friendly PG-13 rating. Johnston never focuses on a death scene after the first chomp and keeps the aftermath pretty spotless. Munched bodies don’t bleed; though our heroes do extract human bones from dinosaur dung. Instead, to his credit, Johnston keeps the action moving at a gallop. Ultimately, “Jurassic Park 3” degenerates into a mediocre “The Most Dangerous Game: rehash with the dinosaurs stalking humans rather like a big game hunter stalking a human. Universal Studios must have blown the better part of their budget on the dinosaurs because “Jurassic Park 3” looks almost as low tech as “Alien3.”
Although Dr. Grant fires a flare gun once to distract a dinosaur, nobody packs a real gun for any length of time. The plot boils down to a series of random encounters in the jungle on their trek to the sea and a boat. Johnston stages none of these scenes with any verve.

Apparently, their 14-year old son Eric Kirby (Trevor Morgan of “The Sixth Sense”) and his guardian Ben Hildebrand (TV actor Mark Harelik) disappeared eight weeks ago while paragliding dangerously near Isla Sorna, and the Kirbys have launched an impromptu rescue mission without the consent of Costa Rican officials. Kirby carps about how useless the State Department is, and ironically his complaint comes back to haunt him in the end. Worse, Kirby confesses he is not a millionaire, merely a plumber. When our heroes discover it was a bad idea to land, they try to take off, and a dinosaur knocks their aircraft out of the air. They spend the remaining 75-minutes searching for Eric and dodging ravenous T-Rexes, velociraptors, flying Pteranodons, and a new lethal lizard called a Spinosaurus. Half of the fun of any horror movie is watching the idiots wander off from the main group and imperiling themselves. Nothing drastic enough occurs to get you to talk back to the screen about the characters behavior in “Jurassic Park 3.”

“Jurassic Park” and “The Lost World” definitely weren’t for the squeamish, but “Jurassic Park 3” should give nobody nightmares. As in the first two entries, the genetically engineered dinosaurs walk tough, howl vividly, and snap up hapless humans in their jaws. Indeed, the visual effects technology has improved exponentially; sadly, the art of scriptwriting has regressed just as much. Unlike Spielberg, Johnston takes neither the plot nor the stakes to a higher level. Moreover, nothing in “Jurassic Park 3” matches either the T-Rex gobbling up the lawyer, Donald Gennaro (Martin Ferrero of “Get Shorty”), in the original or the scenes from “The Lost World” where two T-Rexes tore poor Eddie Carr (Richard Schiff) apart. Grant calls Ellie when a real dino tries to chomp and/or drown everybody. Hilariously, her young son delays taking her the phone so he can watch his favorite Barney the Purple Dinosaur episode! The out-of-place Barney scene deflates any suspense and tension that the Site B dinosaur causes as he rips away at a cage housing our heroes. Anybody who thrilled to the first two “Jurassic Park” creature features will probably roll their eyeballs in disbelief at the infantile idiocy of “Jurassic Park 3.”