FILM REVIEW OF "DIE ANOTHER DAY" (British 2002)

The twentieth installment in the long-running James Bond film franchise, “Die Another Day,” concluded Pierce Brosnan’s tenure as 007 and celebrated the 40th anniversary of the series with references galore to previous Bonds. The credibility of this epic 133 minute extravaganza suffers mildly from some hopelessly unrealistic but nevertheless exciting predicaments that challenge our globe-trotting British secret service agent. Ultimately, New Zealand director Lee Tamahori doesn’t let Ian Fleming fans down and he directs with a vivid sense of flair. Tamahori approaches “Die Another Day” (***1/2 of of ****) as if he were Hong Kong action director John Woo and often accelerates the editing with jump cuts to cover a lot of territory faster. Another example of Tamahori ratcheting up the action occurs when Bond kills the villain in the last quarter-hour of the plot.

Despite its outlandish reliance on some obvious computer generated imagery, this inventive Bond adventure qualifies as one of the better 007 sagas and a fitting conclusion for the Brosnan Bond. The race across the ice and Bond’s escape from this predicament is the primary culprit here as well as the chief villain’s frozen Icelandic residence. Gustav Graves has constructed an entire palace out of ice. Interestingly, “Die Another Day” incorporates African conflict diamonds in its serpentine plot, four years before the fashionable Edward Zwick thriller “Blood Diamond” (2006) with Leonardo DiCaprio dealt with these controversial gems. Naturally, Judy Dench returns as Bond’s superior M, and John Cleese was on his own for the first and last time as her Majesty’s quartermaster Q. The most incredible gadget that Bond receives is an invisible Aston Martin with the usual arsenal of weapons. Toby Stephens and Rick Yune make two audacious villains and “Reservoir Dogs’” Michael Madsen appears as a duplicitous, high-ranking C.I.A. executive.

“The World Is Not Enough” scenarists Neal Purvis & Robert Wade maintain the larger-than-life action with exotic locales, good-looking ladies, but a marginally darker tone since betrayal is involved. Bond amounts to a renegade British Intelligence agent out for revenge against those vile dastards who framed him for security transgressions that he would never made. In some ways, Purvis and Wade were inspired not only by John Glen’s “Octopussy” with North Koreans committing criminal acts just as the renegade Soviet general did in that outing, but also Guy Hamilton’s “Diamonds Are Forever” with a villain who deploys a satellite in outer space constructed of diamonds that can projects a monstrous beam of destructive energy. Hardcore 007 fans will spot the encore of Commander Bond’s small “Thunderball” underwater breathing gadget. The escape from a cargo plane at the end is reminiscent of “The Living Daylights.” Purvis and Wade spring a number of surprises—at least three if you are counting—that really shake up the movie. These surprises along with Tamahori’s sensational helming make “Die Another Day” a memorable 007 escapade.

“Die Another Day” opens on the Pukch’ong Coast of North Korea as 007 and two other agents surf unobtrusively into the beach. Bond and his companions steal an attaché case filled with diamonds from Mr. Van Bierk (Mark Dyman of “Until Death”) and appropriate his helicopter to fly to a secret rendezvous in the de-militarized zone in North Korea. Bond places two bricks of C-4 explosives with a timer under the diamond trays and set off to keep an appointment the arrogant Colonel Moon (Will Yun Lee of “Elektra”), son of General Moon (Kenneth Tsang of “The Replacement Killers”), who has no qualms during a U.N. embargo about trading arms for African conflict diamonds. Moon’s second-in-command, Zao (Rick Yune of “The Fast and the Furious”), takes a digital picture of Bond with his Sony Ericsson cell phone and uploads it to the Internet. Later, Zao shares the results of his search with Colonel Moon, and they discover that Van Bierk is really a British assassin named James Bond. Immediately, Colonel Moon arrests Bond and destroys the helicopter with a tank-busting weapon. General Moon calls his son because he is approaching the de-militarized zone where he has his headquarters. Hastily, Colonel Moon orders his men to disperse and take the weapons with them. He orders Bond executed, but the explosives in the attaché case ignite and Bond escapes. Zao is stricken by a shower of diamonds that embed themselves in his face. Colonel Moon and Bond battle it out on the hovercraft that Moon used to transport the weapons to the location. Thousands of land mines on the border of North and South Korea pose no problem to Moon because the hovercraft can float harmlessly float over them. Bond and Moon exchange small arms fire and Moon even resorts to a flame thrower. They run out of room to maneuver and Moon plunges over the edge of a cliff while Bond seized a bell and survives. “Saved by the bell,” he quips until he sees General Moon arrive with an army. Moon takes Bond and turns him over to North Korean interrogators and during the title credit sequence, Bond is tortured.

Eventually, months after his arrest, Bond learns that he is scheduled to be released as part of an exchange for Zao. M (Judy Dench of “Shakespeare in Love”) isn’t pleased to see 007. Not only did Zao kill three Chinese agents when he tried to blow up a summit meeting, but also because British Intelligence suspects that Bond spilled his guts and exposed deep cover agent in North Korean high command. M agreed to get Bond out of North Korea to ensure that he didn’t expose more agents. Naturally, Bond said that he didn’t capitulate to his captors and betray Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Bearded and ragtag, Bond vows to get the individual who set him up, but M rescinds his double-0 status. Furthermore, she informs him that he is going to be taken to an evaluation center in the Falklands. Bond has other plans and fakes a heart attack. After he escapes from British Intelligence in Hong Kong harbor, Bond begins his search for that mysterious person. Initially, with the help of the Red Chinese, 007 treks to Cuba to find Zao.

In Cuba, he finds out that Zao is in an island clinic run by Dr. Alvarez (Simón Andreu of “Bad Man’s River”) who specializes in DNA replacement. Bond meets into Jinx (Halle Berry of “Monster’s Ball”) in Cuba. She emerges from the sea like Ursula Andress did in Terence Young’s “Dr. No.” Jinx is after Alvarez, too. They team up in semi-sort of fashion and destroy Alvarez and his clinic. Bond fails to kill Zao and the villain escapes. Jinx is cornered on a cliff by two gunmen and performs a header into the ocean. She dives in just as Colonel Moon had plunged into the ocean in similar fashion.

Bond finds himself back in the good graces of British Intelligence. M meets him at an abandoned London subway station. They discuss the conflict diamonds and we get a thumbnail sketch of the latest villain, Gustav Graves, at about an hour into the action. M points out that Graves is a politically connected individual. Indeed, he is about to be honored by the Queen. She adds that Graves was an orphan who wound up working in an Argentine diamond mine. He learned engineering and discovered a trove of diamonds in Iceland, half of which he donated to charity. Bond suspects that Graves has been using his discovery of diamonds in Iceland as “a front for laundering African conflict diamonds. M allows Bond to return to M.I. 5 Headquarters and pick up several gadgets from Q, such as the invisible Aston Martin with adaptive camouflage as well as a sophisticated ring that can shatter glass. Q explains that the ring contains an “ultra-high frequency single-digit sonic agitator unit. Bond meets Graves during a fencing competition and the two fight each other for money. Graves loses control and the fight escalates with the use of cutlasses, but Graves’ public relations expert Miranda Frost (Rosamund Pike of “Doom”) intervenes and keeps the guys from killing each other. Tamahori does an excellent job of staging the cutlery clash between hero and villain. Graves gracefully accepts defeat at Bond’s hands and observes, “You’re a rare challenger, Mr. Bond.”

Several things differentiate Brosnan’s final outing as the redoubtable civil servant earlier as well as later entries. First, the bullet is finally seen entering the gun barrel during the pre-credit sequence. Thus far this represents the one and only time that this has occurred in the series. Second, the title theme sequence continues the narrative with Bond enduring torture while incandescent women appear on screen and scorpions are seen scuttling about to Madonna’s song. Third, this is the only time that James Bond appears with a full beard, giving Brosnan look like a 17th century buccaneer. Fourth, the initial action transpires in Korea, the first time that this location with its volatile real life implications for possible nuclear war has been appropriated. Fifth, the plot later takes 007 from places like Cuba to Iceland. Sixth, the C.I.A. has its own agent out there in the form of Halle Berry’s Jinx Johnson. Seventh, the pre-credit sequence qualifies as one of the livelier ones with Bond battling a crazed North Korean colonel as they sweep over a mine field in hovercrafts blasting away at each other with machine guns and flamethrowers. As usual, Bond still finds the time for the classical throwaway witticism and the women are seductive.

FILM REVIEW OF "NOSFERATU, A SYMPHONY OF TERROR (German-1922)

"Faust" director F.W. Murnau's silent 1922 classic horror film "Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror" (****out of ****) ranks as the earliest surviving vampire epic. As many as twenty movies about vampires, some of them short films, had been produced before the release of Murnau's landmark epic. Sadly, none of these earlier vampire movies have survived the ravages of time. Ostensibly, "Golem" scenarist Henrik Galeen and Murnau appropriated Bram Stoker's celebrated Gothic horror novel "Dracula," published in 1897, as the basis for their plot, but they neglected to obtain copyright clearance from Stoker's estate. Inevitably, Stoker's widow Florence sued Murnau and company, won the case in court, and demanded that the authorities confiscate and destroy every print and negative of "Nosferatu." Happily, despite its plagiaristic origins, "Nosferatu" survived the justice of this court order, and audiences can enjoy it today. Not only does "Nosferatu" qualify as the first adaptation of "Dracula," but it also is a touchstone picture in the vampire genre because its vampire, Court Orlok, was emaciated and hideously ugly. He looked nothing like the sartorially elegant princes of seduction that either Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee embodied. Max Schreck portrayed Court Orlok as a loathsome vampire. He sports needle type fangs in the front of his mouth, and he looks like a Nazi concentration camp inmate.  Mind you, in some prints of "Nosferatu," Court Orlok is referred to as Count Dracula.

"Nosferatu" isn't a slavish adaptation of "Dracula." Apparently, Galeen and Murnau thought they might skirt the copyright issue if they altered the setting and changed some names. Clearly, the courts saw the issue otherwise when it ruled in favor of Florence Stoker. Basically, the plot remains intact with some geographical revisions, name changes, and the marginalizing of certain characters. "Orlok doesn't set sail for England, but heads to Bremen. The Count takes six coffins for his journey rather than some forty or more. One major departure from Stoker's novel, however, involves the character of Professor Van Helsing. Usually, Van Helsing acts as Dracula's arch enemy. Galeen and Murnau have reduced his role here to providing exposition about parasitic vampire organisms. Furthermore, the Murnau film takes place in Germany in 1838 whereas the Stoker novel occurred in the 1890s in Victorian England. Interestingly, unlike Dracula, Orlok does not spawn other vampires with his bite. He kills his victims, and the plague that follows in his wake serves as a metaphor for his evil. One precedent that "Nosferatu" established was that vampires were susceptible to sunlight. Meaning, the sun could obliterate them, something that wasn't the case with Stoker's literary protagonist who would stroll around during the day, though his powers were considerably attenuated.

Meanwhile, enough similarities existed to seal the filmmakers' fate. In Bremen, Germany, a creepy real estate agent Knock dispatches Thomas Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim), to travel the Carpathian Mountains in distant Transylvania to discuss a business deal with the Count. In Stoker's novel, the Hutter character was named Jonathan. Anyway, Thomas is a rather adolescent, happy-go-luck fellow. He dismisses the warnings of the local folk as superstitious nonsense. He discovers a book entitled "Of Vampires, Terrible Phantoms, and and the Seven Deadly Sins left in his room and casts it aside in contempt. Presumably, the local equivalent of the Gideons stash this tome in every wayfarer's room as a sort of admonition. An eerie moment occurs when the coachmen take Hutter to a bridge and leave him afoot because they refuse to cross over into the province of phantoms. Later, a sinister coach drawn by horses decked out in dark hoods arrives with a creepy looking driver. Hutter climbs aboard for a whirlwind ride to the foreboding castle where a peculiar nobleman awaits his arrival. When he meets Hutter, The Count (Max Schreck) explains that his staff has gone to bed so he must attend to his needs.  Later, The Count explains without reason that he wants to pull up stakes in and relocate in Bremen right across the street from Hutter's house.

Camparatively, the two eponymous vampires forsake their homeland and embark on a voyage to another city. Before the Count departs, he attacks Hutter and leaves him for dead. Meanwhile, the Count loads his coffins by himself onto a wagon, climbs into the topmost coffin, levitates the lid into place on it, and sets the horses in motion for the harbor. This "Dracula" is very supernaturally endowed. Moreover, not only can Count Orlok control things nearby, but he can also control things at a great distance and has acquired power over Hutter's employer Knock. Eventually, Knock goes insane, and he is put in a strait-jacket and placed in a psychiatric asylum. In the Stoker novel, the character of Knock was named Renfield.  Like Knock, Renfield referred to the vampire as his "Master."


During the voyage, both Dracula and Orlok assume command of their vessels. For the record, Orlok embarks on his seagoing passage in August of 1838. In "Nosferatu," the outbreak of the plague is associated with the rats that infest Orlok's coffins. We learn that the dirt in the Orlok's coffins is plague dirt. Everybody dies on the respective ships in both yarns. The Count arrives in the ship at Wisborg with nobody left alive, but the ship is teeming with rats carrying a plague that wrecks havoc. German officials examine the ship, peruse the captain's log, and dread the worst: plague. Before long, panic grips the public about the plague, and people start to perish. The scenes where town officials mark front doors looks almost Biblical. Meanwhile, Hutter escapes from Orlok's castle and nearby peasants nurse him back to health. By now, Orlok has killed everybody on the ship. Orlok is entranced by Hutter's wife Ellen, and he takes a dilapidated building across the street from Hutter's house. While all of this is going on, Ellen has developed a psychic connection with Nosferatu. She will exert her power, but in the process she will die as she lures the undead villain to dally in her room until the morning rays of sunlight penetrate his body and he disappears.

The problem with watching public domain copies of "Nosferatu" is that these versions lack the tints that distinguish whether a scene occurs during either the day or after dark. Consequently, when Hutter meets Orlok at his foreboding castle, they appear to be drenched in bright sunlight. The blue tints on the Kino and Image DVD versions of "Nosferatu" make it clear that this scene takes place after dark. The absence of these tinted scenes is not confined strictly to "Nosferatu," but is also a problem with many public domain prints of silent films.

Although many critics try to pigeonhole Murnau in with the German Expressionist movement, he was not entirely enamored with expressionism. For instance, Expressionists prefer to shoot inside the orderly confines of a studio, whereas Murnau took his cameras onto location to shoot some scenic footage for the film. Incredibly, some of the settings, particularly the warehouse like building facing Hutter's home is still intact. Watch closely and you will see that Schreck never blinks. "Nosferatu" qualifies as one of the greatest horror films and Schreck's performance as the "Dracula" vampire is without parallel.  Indeed, for most people, watching "Nosferatu" poses many problems, not the least of which is that it is silent and looks tacky.  The ride through the woods on the haunted coach may look bad, but Murnau was striving to generate atmosphere.  There is an interesting moment when Murnau uses a hyena as the visual equivalent of a werewolf.  After you watch it several times and grow accustomed to its 'otherness,' "Nosferatu" is really great.  Some viewers might prefer the version that David Carradine introduces and has Type O Negative performing the soundtrack. Boo!

FILM REVIEW OF "BAD COMPANY" (1972)

"Bad Company" (**1/2 out of ****) qualifies as a modest, offbeat, revisionist western. No, this unconventional oater about youth in revolt with Jeff Bridges and Barry Brown doesn't celebrate the golden opportunities that awaited settlers out west like the typical John Ford horse opera would have. Instead, everybody complains about the lack of hospitality and the arduous ordeals that the pioneers weathered on the rugged frontier. Benton's directorial debut with this tale of the survival of the fittest won't overwhelm you, but neither will it underwhelm you. Think of "Bad Company" as art-house fare. Benton is more indebted to Charles Dickens than Zane Grey.

"Bonnie and Clyde" scenarist Robert Benton teams up again with co-scribe David Newman, but Benton is calling the shots now rather than somebody else. He depicts crime on the prairie as neither glamorous nor simple. Moreover, he presents violence as impersonal, arbitrary, and without a shred of sentiment. For example, a young thief steals a pie on the window ledge of a farm house. As the youth scampers away with the pie, the back of the head erupts in a geyser of blood and the impact of the bullet hurls him headlong into the dirt. Benton stages an impressive hanging scene without the usual ostentation. A small group gathers around the convicted man. They place him astride a horse, and a deputy ambles away with the horse without warning so that the criminal slips off it and sways momentarily with a kick or two. Everything about the hanging takes place in such a matter-of-fact way that the punishment itself lacks any impact, except for the strung-up casualty.

Our protagonists are a footloose Union Army draft dodger from Ohio and an ill-bred ruffian who preys on the unsuspecting. As "Bad Company" unfolds, the Union Army is rounding up young men who have tried to avoid enlisting in the military. An idealistic Ohio youth, Drew Dixon (Barry Brown of "Halls of Anger") evades the Union troopers when they search his house and then his parents pack his belongs, give him some dough, and send him on to Fort Joseph, Missouri, where he plans to catch a wagon train west to Virginia City. When he arrives in St. Joseph, Missouri, naive Drew falls in with the unprepossessing likes of roguish Jake Rumsey (Jeff Bridges of "Rancho Deluxe") who leads him down a side alley and clubs him. Drew has a wad of cash stashed in his shoe, but Jake walks off with less than ten dollars. Later, Drew looks for a Methodist woman. Jakes' cohorts rob her, but he returns her purse and breaks into her house without realizing that Drew is waiting for her return. Drew and Jake tangle in a knock-down, drag-out brawl, and Jake is so impressed with Drew's sparring skills that he takes a liking to him. The Methodist woman returns to her home and screams at the sight of destruction, prompting Jake and Drew to exit before they are caught on the premises. Whereas Jake is a cheerful thief, Drew tries to stick to the straight and narrow. For example, Jake and his gang coerce Drew into proving his mettle by robbing a storekeeper. Drew takes money from his shoe and smashes up his fist to prove that he dealt with resistance from the storekeeper. Jake and his riff-raff accept Drew as one of their own. They are all teenagers and they dress like the children of Eastern settlers. Nobody wears traditional western gear.

Two well-helmed scenes illustrate the theme of the West as a land of woes rather than promise. Benton has an amusing incident happen when the boys encounter a farmer with his wife on a wagon in the middle of the prairie. The farmer warns them the nothing good can come of the west. They tried to till the land, but Mother Nature threw one obstacle after another in their way. Finally, the farmer, Zeb (Ted Gehring of "The Thomas Crown Affair") strikes a bargain with the boys that they can have intercourse with his wife, Min (Monika Henreid of "The Omega Man"), for eight dollars. Of course, Jake is the first one to mount her and he finishes up in lightning fast time. Zeb comments about Jake's celerity, and Jake is proud that he came so rapidly, not realizing the onus attached to premature ejaculation. Later, our heroes are caught off-guard by an older gang of outlaws led by Big Joe (David Huddleston of "McQ") who laments the day that he went west. Big Joe and his minions rob the boys, but they leave them their horses. Inevitably, Jake's gang begins to fall apart, especially after the encounter with Big Joe and his outlaws. They dine with a farmer who keeps them covered with a shotgun. At one point, they steal chickens from another farm and one of them dies ignominiously stealing a pie. Before long, Jake and Drew are set afoot when their friends betray them. Jake and Drew turn on each other and Drew joins a posse led by a marshal (Jim Davis of "The Honkers") and he catches up with Jake, but he cannot stand to see Jake swing.

Altogether, irony permeates "Bad Company," and our two anti-heroic leads dabble with little success in crime until the last scene when they emerge as bank robbers. In a sense, the end is the beginning for them as mature criminals. Most of the action occurs on the prairie, and the prairie here looks dreary, overgrown with foliage, and never scenic. Mountains don't crouch ominously on the horizons. Despite the lackluster setting, Benton's low-budget oater is blessed by the cinematography of "Godfather" lenser Gordon Willis. Willis imparts a sense of muted beauty to the surroundings of this Spartan tale shot in the Flint Hills area near Emporia, Kansas. Again, "Bad Company" isn't a traditional western and only one important character sports a Stetson. Nobody dresses like the usual cowboy, though the sets have a western flavor. The big shoot-out between our heroes and Big Joe’s gang is realistically handled, but nothing truly stands out about the action. "Bad Company" ranks as an above-average movie, probably more sophisticated than it needed to be. Newman and Benton has written an interesting tale of initiation, but the stakes here are pretty low and the filmmakers are more prone to poking fun—subtle fun—at the genre rather than delivering slam-bang shoot-outs, breathless chases, and knuckle-bruising bar room brawls. Geoffrey Lewis, John Quade, and Ed Lauter make memorable henchmen.

FILM REVIEW OF "THE BIG STEAL" (1949)

"Out of the Past" leads Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer team up again in director Don Siegel's fast-paced, lightweight, romantic crime thriller "The Big Steal." Although "Crime by Night" scribe Daniel Mainwaring and "Dead Reckoning" writer Gerald Drayson Adams have penned a fairly conventional actioneer, the narrative exposes one vast difference between Americans and Mexicans. Americans work up a lather getting to where they are going, while the Hispanic populace takes it easy. Several times our fast and furious American protagonists find themselves being slowed down by the Hispanics who appear in no particular hurry to get things done. Not only does Siegel snap up the suspense, but he also turns this frenzied chase into a scenic travelogue.

The hero and heroine rampage from the port of Vera Cruz through sun-drenched Mexico after an elusive as well as larcenous criminal. Jim Fiske (Patric Knowles of "Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman") owes Joan Graham (Greer) the sum of $2-thousand that she loaned to him. She has followed him below the border to retrieve her money. They were apparently going to get married. Meanwhile, it seems that Fiske has waylaid an Army Lieutenant, Duke Halliday (Robert Mitchum) who was picking up a $300-thousand Army payroll to take back to the base. As the finance officer, Halliday was responsible for the loot. When he explains that Fiske robbed him, Captain Blake suspects Halliday put Fiske up to the robbery. Halliday goes AWOL to recover the loot and finds Captain Vincent Blake (tough guy William Bendix of "Guadalcanal Diary") in hot pursuit, too. The fight that Blake and Halliday get into at the outset of the action is pretty rough. Siegel appears to have accelerated the film so that Halliday's elbow blow against the unsuspecting Blake stuns the captain.

This nifty but notorious little B-picture went into production about the same time that Robert Mitchum was arrested for smoking marihuana. A large amount of action occurs on the roads as the characters careen through towns. Eventually, a sly Mexican police officer, Inspector General Ortega (Ramon Novarro of "Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ"), who is brushing up on his English, takes an interest in the activities of these Americans and has them shadowed. He intervenes at one point and everybody lingers at a hotel. Basically, "The Big Steal" (*** out of ****) unfolds like a game of cat and mouse. Fiske cleverly eludes Halliday and Graham while they elude a determined Blake. Blake goes to Inspector General Ortega and tells him that he has lost his credentials; specifically extradition papers to take Halliday back into custody and return him to America. Fiske literally erects roadblocks for our hero and heroine and they do likewise to Blake. At one point, Halliday loosens a flock of goats to block the road. A rather lengthy scene finds Halliday and Joan stalled on a remote road where a bridge is being torn up. The Mexican official is initially reluctant to help them. Furthermore, they cannot turn around and retrace their path because Blake breathing down their collective necks. Joan explains to the road superintendent that they are eloping, and her father doesn't like Halliday. She explains that her father wants her to marry "a short ugly man" and she prefers "a big pretty" man. Joan's lie prompts the road superintendent to create a momentary way through the construction so they can continue onto the highway.

The action concludes with a wilderness shoot-out. A guy named Cole armed with a revolver and a rifleman named Jose ambush Duke and Joan as they approach Seton hacienda. This Seton is the same Julius Seton that Joan encountered earlier in the plot. She almost destroyed a priceless artifact by distracting Seton's assistant. Now, in the fourth quarter, Seton reappears. We learn that he is a fence as well as a collector of priceless artifacts. Seton is paying Fiske $150-thousand for the hot $300-thousand. Duke kills Jose, but Cole gets the drop on both Duke and Joan. Cole brings Duke and Joan to Seton. Moments later Blake bursts in with his gun drawn. Fiske explains the deal about the $150-thousand and Blake agrees to split it with Fiske. As Fiske is leaving, Blake guns him down. Afterward, Blake assures Joan, "You can't trust a guy like that." Blake phones Inspector General Ortega that he was bringing Duke in for Ortega to arrest. Unfortunately, he adds, Duke tried to escape and he had to kill him. A fight erupts with Duke and Blake tangling again while Joan scuffles with Seton over a priceless artifact. Interestingly, their first encounter led to his assistant nearly dropping a priceless artifact. Seton doesn't fare so well in the second encounter that begins with Joan smashing a priceless artifact. Joan wounds Seton and Duke triumphs over Blake. The big revelation is that Blake and Fiske were accomplices. The picture wraps up with the leads observing mating ceremonies and then children parade pass them as if to suggest that procreation after marriage is the suitable thing to do.

Siegel does a nice job of helming this mayhem. The pace rarely slackens and the characters convey exposition about their predicaments without slowing down the action. Interesting enough, Siegel likes to show the shadow of some characters on the wall before he reveals who they are. When Blake approaches Halliday's state room aboard the ship, we see his shadow on the wall before we see him. Later, after Fiske leaves his hotel room with Joan in the shower, he heads down on hall while we see the shadow of Halliday approaching Fiske's door.

FILM REVIEW OF ''IRON MAN 2" (2010)

“Iron Man 2” (**1/2 out of ****) ranks as an overblown, CGI-riddled, second-rate sequel.

Director Jon Favreau’s original 2008 Marvel super hero saga delivered a slam-bang, refreshing blend of super-heroism and bad attitude on the part of its egotistical protagonist, while Jeff Bridges proved a worthy opponent as his treacherous vice president who replicated his high-tech suit of armor and challenged him. While Favreau’s ambitious sequel delivers more than enough pyrotechnics, “Iron Man 2” is neither as nimble nor as engrossing as its groundbreaking predecessor. Indeed, Iron Man faces a new contender. Brutal Ivan Vanko isn’t as memorable as the sinister Obadiah Stane, but he does appropriate high moral ground as part of his crusade to topple our hero. Meantime, Robert Downey, Jr. is every bit as good as he was the first time, and he tackles bigger problems for his encore in this follow-up adaptation of a popular comic-book series that first appeared in 1963. Unfortunately, “Tropic Thunder” scenarist Justin Theroux wraps everything up a predictable plot that presents a plethora of complications but few surprises. Some movies suffer from too many characters and too great an agenda. Too much of everything cripples “Iron Man 2.” The middle section of this 124-minute marathon buckles under the weight of excessive plotting and extra characters before the film recovers sufficiently for a triumphant ending.

The action unfolds in chilly Moscow as destitute Soviet physicist Anton Vanko (Yevgeni Lazarev of “Lord of War”) dies with his son, Ivan (Mickey Rourke of “Sin City”), at his side. While this is happening, the local news contains a broadcast of Tony Stark coming out of his metal closet to admit that he is Iron Man. Before the elder Vanko passes away, he assures his son that Ivan should have been in billionaire industrialist Tony Stark’s shoes as Iron Man. As it turns out, Stark’s late father Howard (John Slattery of “Traffic”) and Anton were partners who collaborated on the invention of the arc reactor. Eventually, Anton was deported to the Soviet Union where he managed to scrape out an miserable livelihood. Ivan finds the blueprints that his father created with Howard Stark. He sets about to construct a primitive version of Iron Man’s breastplate and adds two crackling fiber-optic whips that can slice through metal as if it were butter. Look out Tony Stark! If Ivan doesn’t represent a minor threat in the overall scheme of things, Tony discovers that the very suit that enables him to carry out his vigilante crime fighting exploits is contaminating his blood and gradually killing him. In other words, our hero has got to find a new energy source that won’t kill him. Meantime, a United States Senate Investigation committee, headed up by slimy Pennsylvania Senator Stern (Garry Shandling of “What Planet Are You From?”), insists that Stark hand over the technology of his Iron Man outfit to the government for military application. Naturally, Stark refuses to cooperate. He explains that the suit and he are one, and that America need not fear anybody cloning his flying suit of armor.

Bored with the routine of running his massive corporation, Tony promotes his right hand woman, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow of “Great Expectations”), as the CEO of Stark Industries. Of course, Pepper is flabbergasted by this extravagant gesture on Tony’s part. Our hero flies off to Monaco to race in the Grand Prix and collides with Ivan and his razor-sharp whips. Pepper and Tony’s chauffeur Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau of “Couples Retreat”) careen onto the race course and toss our protagonist his portable suitcase version of his outfit. In no time at all, Iron Man emerges and defeats Ivan. Not long afterward, Tony’s worst enemy--rival weapons manufacturer Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell of “Moon”) -- breaks Vanko out of prison and then cuts a bargain with him to clone Tony’s Iron Man outfit. Ivan, however, is no flunky, and he embarks on an entirely different program. Instead of replicating Iron Man’s outfit, he masterminds an army of drones that Hammer plans to sell to the Pentagon. Stark stages the Stark Expo in Flushing Meadows, New York, to carry on his father's legacy. Anybody who creates a worthwhile contribution to technology can display their handiwork. Hammer unveils his drones, but learns too late that Ivan’s infamous scheme supersedes his own plans.

The chief problem with “Iron Man 2” is its lackluster villain. As Ivan Vanko, Rourke appears appropriately nefarious as a walking, talking tattoo with a grudge against our champion, but he poses only a disposable threat. Mind you, he looks menacing enough, but his lack of charisma is only matched by his absence of hygiene. Now, Ivan’s outfit looks more interesting, but Iron Man turns it against him in no time as he does the drones. Basically, Ivan combines Iron Man's adversary the Crimson Dynamo and the super villain Whiplash. Sam Rockwell’s buffoonish second string villain spends most of his time making an idiot out of himself. Essentially, he is an expendable character. On the other hand, comedian Garry Shandling virtually steals every scene that he has as a Congressman, particularly the last scene when he decorates Tony Stark for saving the country from Ivan. Sexy actress Scarlett Johansson shows up as Natalie Rushman, a mysterious undercover female commando who defies gravity in the scenes of close combat that she has with men. She is a feminine looking Amazon with graceful acrobatic moves. She replaces Pepper since Tony promoted Pepper upstairs. Don Cheadle takes over the role of Lieutenant Colonel "Rhodey" Rhodes from Terence Howard. Rhodes snatches one of Tony’s Iron Man outfits because he doesn’t want his friend to have a monopoly on world power. Favreau gives actor Samuel L. Jackson more screen time this time as Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., but this character does little more than act as a press agent for the eventual "Avengers" team-up movie.

Unfortunately, this installment generates neither enough excitement nor irony to overwhelm its own inertia. Anybody who walks out before the long end credits conclude their tedious roll will miss a brief scene where our hero’s new antagonist leaves his calling card in a sprawling pit.

FILM REVIEW OF "COTTON COMES TO HARLEM" (1970)

Not only did “Cotton Comes to Harlem” (***1/2 OUT OF ****) mark the directorial debut of actor & writer Ossie Davis, but also this pre-blaxploitation epic introduced audiences to a couple of tough-talking, incorruptible New York Police Detectives nicknamed ‘Gravedigger’ Jones (Godfrey Cambridge of “Watermelon Man”) and ‘Coffin Ed’ Johnson (Raymond St. Jacques of “Cool Breeze”) who suspect that a charismatic religious figure may be swindling his own poor people. Technically, since the term “blaxploitation” didn't enter the lexicon until 1972, this movie poised itself on the cutting edge before the edge starting cutting with films such as the “Shaft” franchise, “Superfly,” and “Slaughter” movies. The chief difference between “Cotton Comes to Harlem” and a standard-issue, formulaic white crime thriller is the protagonists are African-American. The slang is predominantly African-American, but other minorities participate in the action, primarily the Italian mafia. The protagonists are the usual iconoclasts who have alienated themselves from higher authority with their abrasive behavior. Predictably, about three-quarters of the way into the action, a superior officer removes them from the case, largely because he feels that they are acting out of prejudice against one of their own people. Early, the same police captain had complained bitterly that Gravedigger and Coffin Ed have smart mouths, are quick with their fists, and too fast with their guns. Clearly, as far as the captain is concerned, Gravedigger and Coffin Ed qualify as maniacs who have no business in an investigation that is a powder keg of racial tensions. Nevertheless, their white police lieutenant defends their behavior. He explains that they have a special way of handling Harlem crime and if they suspect somebody of criminal behavior, the lieutenant defers to their judgment. Meantime, Gravedigger and Coffin Ed see their job has protecting “the Black folks from the White folks.”

Initially, when we first see the Reverend Deke O'Malley (Calvin Lockhart of “Dark of the Sun”), he is riding in a Rolls Royce, cruising through gritty Harlem streets to a rally for his "Back To Africa" campaign. A gold-colored armored car with the black silhouette cut-out of a luxury liner displayed prominently on its roof follows. Rev. Deke refers to this ship as ‘Black Beauty.’ He is selling tickets for it at a $100 minimum to take African-Americans back to Africa, away from the white man and his rats and poverty. Although the white establishment supports Deke, Gravedigger and Coffin Ed believe Deke is swindling poor blacks out of their hard earned dollars. During the rally, Deke explains that God anointed him while he was in jail to build an ark and take his people back to Africa. While this self-proclaimed Noah assures blacks he can provide them with a better way of life away from racist white America, masked thugs in orange suits armed with submachine gun shoot up the gathering and rifle the safe in Deke’s gold-armored truck. They kill one of Deke’s uniformed guards, John (Tony Brubaker of “Slaughter's Big Rip-Off”), and his wife Mabel watches him die. The robbers careen off in a meat truck with Deke following them and Gravedigger and Coffin Ed in hot pursuit.

During the chase, a cotton bale tumbles from the rear of the truck onto the sidewalk. The robbers strafe Gravedigger and Coffin Ed. Our heroes collide with a produce wagon transporting watermelons. Eventually, the robber’s truck and the armored car crash and burn up. Meanwhile, Gravedigger and Coffin Ed search for Deke. They visit his girlfriend, Iris (Judy Pace of “Three in the Attic”), and question her with luck about Deke’s whereabouts. While they are interrogating Iris, Sergeant Jarema (Dick Sabol of “Come Back Charleston Blue”) enters and informs them Lieutenant Anderson (Eugene Roche of “The Happening”), wants them at the scene of the accident. They order Jarema stay behind to keep an eye on Iris. Iris taunts Jarema into having sex with her. She makes him wear a brown paper bag. While he is putting on the bag, she escapes. Jarema locks himself out of her apartment, completely naked in the hallway for the other residents to see.

Captain Bryce (John Anderson of “Young Billy Young”) reprimands our heroes for suspecting that Rev. Deke O’Malley is a confidence artist. Bryce points out that the State Department and other high-prolife white groups have the highest regard for O’Malley. Later, Bryce complains to Anderson about their behavior. Deke decides to stay out of sight and conduct his own investigation. He convinces the wife of one of his dead guards to let him stay with her. Eventually, Gravedigger and Coffin Ed get Iris to inform on Deke and he goes to jail, but his attorney gets him out. Everybody is looking now for the bale of cotton that contains the stolen $87-thousand. Uncle Budd (Red Foxx of “Sanford & Son”) finds the bale and sells it for $25 to Abe Goodman. A mysterious stranger in black with a beret, Calhoun (J.D. Cannon of “Lawman”), visits Uncle Budd on his junk barge and inquires about the bale of cotton. Calhoun comes on tough until Deke’s second-in-command Barry (Teddy Wilson of “Cleopatra Jones”) confronts him and runs him off. Uncle Budd buys the cotton bale back for $30 from Goodman. Later, that night, Calhoun and his gang and Deke and his men converge on Goodman’s Junkyard. A firefight erupts and Digger is nearly struck by a truck. Nevertheless, our heroes nab Deke, haul him in for questioning, and expose him for the swindler that he is. Iris, who was found unconscious at Mabel Hill’s apartment, has told the authorities that Deke hired impostors to masquerade as the District Attorney’s Office. These impostors showed up at Deke’s rally moments before the orange jump-suit clad gunners raked the spectators with gunfire and killed John Hill.

Davis dilutes the thrills and chills of the meat truck & armored car pursuit scene with four smaller scenes within it. These four sub-scenes feature mild comedy, while the primary scene depicts a chase through the streets of New York City. The first sub-scene involves a guy trying to attract the attention of three lovely ladies strolling on the sidewalk. None ever acknowledge his existence. The second involves a hustler stealing a rack of dresses from a street vendor when the chase momentarily distracts him. The third concerns a stoned individual trying to ignite a joint. The smoker staggers into the street and miraculously neither the armored truck nor the police cruiser collide with him. This gag resembles the physical comedy that Buster Keaton practiced in silent movies. The fourth gag involves a street artist painting an expressionist portrait of a gullible Christian woman while the pickpocket Early Riser wields a pair of scissors to cut through her skirt to steal the purse that she is clutching between her legs. These four sub-scenes feature mild comedy, while the primary scene depicts a straight-forward chase through the streets of New York City that ends with the pickpocket being struck and killed. During the chase, the gunmen in the meat truck riddle the unmarked police car, shatter its window into shards, blow out its headlights, and obliterate the outside rearview mirrors. Oops, the driver’s outside rear view reappears after bullets have torn it off the door when our heroes crash into a watermelon wagon.

Geoffrey Cambridge and Raymond St. Jacques make a believable pair of cops who interact as if they have known each other for a long time. As Coffin Ed, St. Jacques is the hard-nosed detective of the two with a short fuse who prefers to get physical with suspects, meaning pummel them with his knuckled up fists. During a confrontation with a black street vigilante gang, our heroes are compared to monsters. The beret wearing, tan-uniform clad brothers refer to Gravedigger as 'King Kong' and Coffin Ed as 'Frankenstein.' As the villain, Calvin Lockhart gives a dynamic performance and makes a serviceable villain.

Director Ossie Davis and television scribe Arnold Pearl penned the screenplay from Chester Himes’ novel. Some of the dialogue is very sharp as are the blaxploitation slogans: “Keep it black till I get back.” “Is that black enough for you?” Several messages pervade this above-average crime thriller about the search for stolen loot. First, the meek shall inherit the Earth. Second, crime doesn’t pay and criminals have to pay to ply their criminal vocation. Harlem blacks should control Harlem, not the Italian mafia. Our heroes force the Italian mafia to turn over their Harlem operation to a Black racketeer. Black women can outsmart white men. One black woman is depicted as a ‘stone fox,’ and she makes a buffoon of a cretinous white police sergeant. The interesting question that arises but is never resolved—and by extension gives “Cotton Comes to Harlem” a surreal quality—concerns the raw, unprocessed bale of cotton. Where did it come from and what is it doing in Harlem? Nobody ever answers this question.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE BACK-UP PLAN" (2010)

Admittedly, when some gals can’t find Mr. Right, they resort to artificial insemination to jump-start a family on their own. The premise of freshman director Alan Poul’s chick flick comedy about planned parenthood, "The Back-Up Plan" (** OUT OF ****), is flawed from the outset. We’re asked to believe that drop dead gorgeous Jennifer Lopez has had no luck landing a father material. The irony here is that once our desperate heroine allows her physician to impregnate her with frozen sperm, she meets Mr. Right. Sitcom scenarist Kate Angelo has penned a predictable but frivolous saga about single motherhood that relies incredibly enough on delivery-related gross-out gags and scatological humor. No, nothing in the “The Back-Up Plan” qualifies as offensive. Some guys may find the subject matter uncomfortable, like too much information about the birthing process. Unfortunately, the fair-to-mellow humor doesn’t hoist this bland comedy out of the doldrums. A typical girl-finds-guy, girl-loses-guy, girl-wins-guy-back comedy, “The Back-Up Plan” comes with all the obligatory obstacles but lacks anything like spontaneity. In other words, this J-L0 epic generates only half of the hilarity of either “Knocked Up” or “Baby Mama.” Indeed, the humor here is aimed primarily at women. Poul gets the antics off on the right foot, but the story doesn't go anywhere you haven't been before in a thousand other comedies. Our thirtysomething heroine endures the usual bouts of morning sickness, hormonal episodes, and culinary cravings. Ultimately, the complication that splits up our two lovers drums up nominal drama. Meanwhile, no matter how dumpy J-Lo gets, the diva still looks dazzling. The most interesting but least developed faction of characters is a lesbian support group who have banded together to help single moms through pregnancy.

Zoe (Jennifer Lopez of “U-Turn”) owns a New York City pet shop called Hudson Mutts in Greenwich Village with the usual wisecracking employees. She also owns a small but playful handicapped Boston bull terrier named Nuts hat scrambles around in its own little doggie wheelchair. Basically, whenever Zoe needs to say something at home, she talks to the bull terrier. Undeniably, the pooch is an endearing scene-stealer, and it’s a shame that he’s mute. Having a supernatural pup might have made this movie more entertaining. J-Lo gets to slip in a message about puppy farms and the dangers of inbreeding. Nevertheless, our heroine has to contend with a hormonal clock that is ticking. The problem is she has not been able to land the right man. Basically, Zoe had a traumatic childhood. At age eight, she watched her mother die from cancer and her father abandon her because he couldn’t take the responsibility. Consequently, our heroine doesn’t believe that she can hook up with a guy and keep him. Despite all the warnings that her life-long best friend, Mona (Michaela Watkins of “Inconceivable”) gives her about the trials and tribulations of motherhood, Zoe remains adamant about having kids. No sooner has Dr. Harris (Robert Klein of “Hooper”) artificially inseminated Zoe than she collides with Mr. Right while hailing a cab. Predictably, Stan (Alex O'Loughlin of CBS-TV’s ill-fated “Moonlight”) jumps into the same cab that Zoe has flagged down. Neither can decide who should have the taxi so both get out and the cabbie cruises away. This incident is funny, but like most of the humor in “The Back-Up Plan” falls short of side-splitting. Later, at a Tribeca farmer’s market, Zoe and Stan run into each other again. He sells organic cheese and owns a goat farm. Stan has had little luck with the opposite sex, too. He dreams about owning an organic gourmet restaurant and is currently attending night classes to get his college degree. The two manage to hit it off and move in with each other. They shop for strollers and imagine what the future holds. Suddenly, Zoe fears that Stan will leave her. Guess what, he does. Just when Zoe thinks she cannot trust Stan, her grandmother Nana (Linda Lavin of CBS-TV’s “Alice,” who raised her after her mother died, decides to marry her fiance, Arthur (Tom Bosley of "Happy Days”), after keeping the poor fellow on tenterhooks for twenty-two years. Nana tells Zoe that Zoe and Stan looked so happy together that she had to marry Arthur. Imagine how Zoe feels.

The ladies that watch this romantic comedy may not be able to take their eyes off virile Aussie heartthrob Alex O'Loughlin who parades around without a shirt. Sadly, the chemistry between Lopez and O’Loughlin registers only minor tremors on the Richter Scale. They are agreeable and pleasant, but they don’t look like they were meant for each other. Some familiar faces from the past flesh out this lackluster romantic comedy. Namely, Linda Laven and Tom Bosley lighten up this meandering mess as a couple who haven't been able to commit to marriage for 20 years. Comedian Anthony Anderson seems restrained in his two scenes with O'Loughlin as an anonymous playground dad who contends with a son who brings him a fistful of feces. The crude humor about human feces doesn’t make you laugh as grimace because the filmmakers struggle to make these poop scenes funny. The bizarre single mom support group that our heroine attends early on in the action contains a scene near the end where a tattooed dame delivers a baby in a wading pool while making goofy barnyard noises. She also lets one go in the pool much to the chagrin of our hero. The outtakes, especially with the wheelchair doggie, are worth sticking around for as the end credits roll. The laughs in “The Back-Up Plan” are mellow just as the drama is soft-headed. Mind you, this movie marks Lopez’s first starring role in a theatrical feature since the 2006 movie “An Unfinished Life.” Clearly, Lopez didn't have much of a back-up plan with she selected this superficial potboiler.