The Bottom Line

Twilight

Directed by: Catherine Hardwicke
Starring: Robert Pattison, Kristen Stewart, Billy Burke
Rated: PG-13 for some violence and a scene of sensuality.
Parental Notes: The scene of sensuality is pretty mild, it's a makeout session cut off by Edward's fear he is about to lose control and bite Bella. The violence is brief and not graphic or particularly realistic.

"Twilight" is based on an immensely popular series of books, and if you love the books, chances are you will love the movie. The film stays very close to what little I've read of the novel, changing things mostly to make them fit the flow of a movie. Large chunks of dialog are identical, as are many of the scenes.

This is a story thoroughly reminiscent of the self-indulgent scribblings vampire fans do in the backs of their notebooks during high school classes, tales of beautiful and mysterious beings who whisk ordinary girls away from their ordinary high school lives to whirlwinds of adventure and romance. It covers the same ground, and is about as well-crafted.

Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart, "Into the Wild") moves to the rainy, green, forested town of Forks, Washington to live with her father after her mother remarries. She hates it there, until she meets the beautiful and mysterious Edward Cullen (Robert Pattison, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire") -- who is, she eventually discovers, a vampire.

Bella and Edward are little more than cyphers for the audience to project themselves onto. Bella is the sort of girl every high school age girl fears she is: clumsy, awkward, out of place. She's also the sort of girl every high school girl wants to be: all the boys in her social circle ask her to the dance, and she is mysteriously bonded to an inhumanly beautiful, elegant, and rich young man who turns out to be a powerful vampire.

Edward has no personality to speak of; his only motivations revolve around Bella, so he's easy for the audience members to reshape however they like. Pattison has mentioned in interviews that he had difficulty preparing for the role because even after reading all five hundred or so pages of the novel the film is based on, he had no feel for Edward as a person. This is because Edward is not a person, he's a collection of traits: gorgeous, passionately in love with Bella, afraid that he will lose control and drain all her blood. It's very romantic, but doesn't give him much of a personality.

The vampires in this tale are a bit unusual. Some of them have extra powers -- Edward can read humans' minds (but not Bella's, which intrigues him), and his sister Alice can see the future. Also, they sparkle. Literally. They cannot go out in direct sunlight because their skin sparkles like an overenthusiastic tween with a Bedazzler got a hold of them. There's even a sound effect for it so we can hear the shininess. Edward thinks (woe!) that his pale, sparkly skin is the mark of a killer. Bella thinks it's beautiful. But then, Bella thinks everything about Edward is beautiful. That is, apparently, what makes her love him. Most of the rest of the time he irritates her: first, by refusing to explain his obvious superpowers, then by refusing to make her a vampire too.

That's the biggest problem I had with this film: Bella and Edward are meant to be "unconditionally, irrevocably in love" as Bella puts it. But we don't really see it. The kindest thing Edward says about Bella is that she smells really, really good -- she's like his "own personal brand of heroin." Bella trusts Edward and thinks he's beautiful. That's it. Romeo and Juliet at least had the grace to deliver the occasional monologue on why they adore each other. With Bella and Edward, we are simply to accept by fiat that they do, because the script says so in a few brief lines.

Ultimately, what you think of "Twilight" will depend on how eager you are to relive teenage fantasies. Are you eager enough to forgive the lacking character development and thin story? If so, you will doubtless enjoy the beautiful people and overwrought story. If not, avoid it. There are plenty of good vampire movies on DVD to rent.

Quantum of Solace

Directed by: Marc Forster
Starring: Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Mathieu Almaric, Judi Dench
Rated: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, and some sexual content.
Parental Notes: This is a solid PG-13. The sexual content is not graphic and the violence, while pervasive, is not gory or gratuitous.

"Quantum of Solace" is the latest installment in the rebooted and more down-to-earth James Bond franchise. Everyone's back, from Daniel Craig as 007 to Judi Dench as M to Giancarlo Gianni as Mathis, and while you don't have to have seen "Casino Royale" to enjoy "Quantum of Solace," it might help a bit. This is less a sequel and more a continuation of the previous story.

As M aptly puts it, in this film Bond is so full of inconsolable rage that he doesn't care who he hurts. In "Casino Royale" he fell deeply in love and the girl died; "Quantum of Solace" follows his attempts to avenge her. Luckily for Bond, events provide him with an excuse: it is revealed during an interrogation that the mysterious organization which got Bond's beloved killed has operatives everywhere, and one of those operatives tries to kill M.

Craig continues to effortlessly blend sheer savagery with the more traditional Bond suaveness and charm. The best example of this may be the many fight scenes: sure, Bond has lots of training and executes martial arts moves with great accuracy and efficiency, but he's just as likely to pick up any object at hand and slam it into his opponent's head. If he seemed rough around the edges in "Casino Royale," he's positively serrated in "Quantum of Solace."

This is not the one-liner spouting, womanizing Bond of previous actors; this is Craig's Bond, who is slowly evolving into the experienced agent we know from the later stories in the continuity. Sure, he drinks martinis -- but he drinks too many of them trying to soothe the ache of his loss. Bond's a stiff-upper-lip type in general, but Craig is a good enough actor to give us glimpses of the emotions hidden under that icy exterior, and Bond's grief and fury over the loss of Vesper are all the more powerful for being understated.

Bond's investigation of the mysterious organization takes him to Bolivia, where he meets Camille Montes (Olga Kurylenko, "Max Payne"), a beautiful woman with a revenge mission of her own. The remainder of the film is a mash of double-crosses and revelations that doesn't lend itself to a summary or even to perfect understanding, but if you're willing to go along for the ride, you'll have a good time. "Casino Royale" had its incorrect poker depictions; "Quantum of Solace" has more complexities than you can shake a martini at.

It also has that up-close, frenetic cinematography that's in so many modern films. It puts you in the moment, mimicking the view one gets in a real fight or chase, but it can make things a little tricky to follow and makes it difficult to enjoy the fight choreography properly. Still, the stunts and fights are fairly breathtaking, from the astonishing car chase which opens the film to the mano-a-mano fight in an exploding hotel which closes it.

"Quantum of Solace" is not a traditional Bond film any more than "Casino Royale" was, and fans who disliked that in the previous film should probably stay away. Those in search of a piece of great art to watch would also be better served elsewhere -- while this is less silly than previous Bond films, it's not exactly "Citizen Kane." This is a thoroughly enjoyable action and espionage film, and a solid followup to "Casino Royale."

Zack and Miri Make A Porno

Written and Directed by: Kevin Smith
Starring: Seth Rogan, Elizabeth Banks, Traci Lords, Jason Mewes, Craig Robinson
Rated: R on appeal for strong crude sexual content including dialogue, graphic nudity and pervasive language.
Parental Notes: This is a film about a group of people making a pornographic movie. It contains frank discussions of sex, lots of graphic nudity, and some very, very dirty humor. It was re-edited to receive an R rating instead of the original NC-17.

Kevin Smith has the ability to blend slapstick and over-the-top gross-out humor with a vein of real sweetness and humanity, and "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" is no exception. Here, though, the sexual content that's always present in Smith's films is cranked up to eleven.

The protagonists are a couple of engaging losers. Zack (Seth Rogan) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) have been platonic best friends since grade-school. They share an apartment, but are up to their ears in debt. When they go to their high school reunion and discover that the boyfriend of a classmate is a gay porn star raking in the bucks, Zack has an epiphany: they can make enough to pay off their debts by making a low-budget, independent porn flick! He talks Miri into it, and they both agree that what happens in the porno stays in the porno; no letting having sex on film make things "weird" between them.

You can imagine how well that works.

Anyway, they bring in an old buddy who used to film the varsity basketball games back in high school to run the camera, Zack's coworker from the coffee shop agrees to be the producer (he's looking forward to vetting potential starlets' assets), they have a casting call, and they're off and running. Everything goes pretty well until Zack and Miri's big scene, when the pair wind up making love instead of just acting, and they realize they each have long-buried feelings for each other.

The plot may be full of standard tropes (when was the last time you saw a movie with platonic best friends of the appropriate genders that didn't end with them getting together?) but it has plenty of laughs and some genuinely sweet moments scattered through it. Rogan and Banks have surprisingly good chemistry, and the moment in which their characters realize their feelings for each other is incredibly intimate and sweet.

Sure, the laughs are pretty vulgar -- Kevin Smith seems to specialize in the sort of vulgarity that becomes acceptable simply by being so incredibly over the top. Once you've heard enough swear words close enough together, they cease to be shocking and simply become ridiculous.

This is not a movie for people who don't like Kevin Smith's work. Or who can't stand a little (okay, a lot of) nudity. If you love Smith and his work and enjoy the sort of over-the-top vulgarity, profanity, and graphic nudity that earned early cuts of "Zack and Miri" an NC-17 rating, then you shouldn't miss it.

Changeling

Directed by: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich, Jeffrey Donovan, Colm Feore
Rated: R for some violent and disturbing content, and language.
Parental Notes: This is a film aimed squarely at adults. There is some nastiness involving missing and murdered children which, while not graphic, renders the film unsuitable for youngsters -- but children of that age would probably find the movie boring anyway.

"Changeling" is the latest film from Clint Eastwood, and while it's set in the roaring twenties, it's no lighthearted, zany period piece. It isn't quite a period thriller, either. It feels more like the unraveling of a sweater: a firm, consistent pull on one thread leads to the popping loose of one connected thing after another until a vast, interconnected web is dismantled.

The single thread is a heartbreaking event: single mother Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) comes home from her job at the telephone company to find that her nine-year-old son Walter is missing. She reports his disappearance to the LAPD, who eventually tell her Walter has been found in Illinois and is on a train home.

But the boy she meets on the train platform is not young Walter Collins. He says he is, and Captain Jones (Jeffrey Donovan) insists upon it -- the LAPD are under fire for corruption and have held this case up as an example of their good work, and Jones has no intention of letting it be turned against them -- but Christine knows the truth. Jones bullies her into taking the boy home, but as time passes it becomes very, very clear that he is not her son.

He's too short, his dental records don't match, he doesn't know his classmates, and so on. However, the more Mrs. Collins protests, the harder the LAPD fight her, bringing in faux experts to cast doubts on her abilities as a mother and, when that fails, having her locked up in a mental hospital with other women who have proved inconvenient.

Fortunately for Christine, Gustav Brigleb (John Malkovich), a minister who has made it his mission to bring the corruption of the LAPD to light, has taken an interest in her struggle, and his connections and sheer determination are of immense help. Malkovich is playing against type here, but it works. His anger and ferocity are on the side of good here, and it is a joy to watch Brigleb taking on the establishment with thundering, righteous rage.

If Malkovich embodies the righteous anger of the story, Jolie gives it heart. Her Christine Collins is tenacious and heartbreaking, but not maudlin or sappy. She weeps more than any movie character I have seen in recent years, but her determined refusal to cave in the face of overwhelming opposition is inspiring. Jolie gives her the quiet steel that one imagines a single mother of the time must have needed.

The story, as its opening titles tell us, is based in truth, and the screenplay by J. Michael Straczynski (of "Babylon 5" fame) has a slow, rolling pace which makes it feel more like a miniseries seen in one viewing than a single film. It suits the subject matter, however, and puts us in Christine Collins' shoes -- just when we think it's all over, yet another rock is overturned.

"Changeling" not a particularly feel-good film; while justice can be said to have triumphed, it is a bittersweet victory. It is, however, a beautifully crafted film and a must-see for fans of serious, artistic filmmaking.

Pride and Glory

Directed by: Gavin O'Connor
Starring: Edward Norton, Colin Farrell, Jon Voight, Noah Emmerich
Rated: R for strong violence, pervasive language and brief drug content.
Parental Notes: This film deserves its rating. The violence is nasty and dark, and while it's not always graphic on screen, we're given enough to have vivid images in our minds.

"Pride and Glory" is a dark film, a take on the good cop vs. corrupt cop story we've seen so many times. It's a complex film, one where none of the characters are even close to perfect, including our "good cop." It's not a terribly new story, apart from a few details, but it's familiar like the scorch on an inattentive relative's grilled hamburgers or the tannins in one's favorite red wine. If that's what you like, then you like; if it bugs you, then you hate it.

The film starts, as many good cop movies do, with a terrible crime. In this case, it's a shootout which leaves several hoods and four police officers dead. The officers were all under the command of Francis "Franny" Tierny, Jr. (Noah Emmerich) and his brother-in-law, Jimmy Egan (Colin Farrell). Francis Tierny, Sr. (Jon Voight) is the police chief, and when he forms the task force to investigate the incident, he calls another of his sons, Ray Tierny (Edward Norton), from behind his desk in missing persons. Ray used to work the streets, but something bad happened a while back and he's been hiding in the station. He lets his father push him into joining the task force, and winds up uncovering a complex web of corruption which threatens his family's legacy in the precinct.

Norton is in fine form here, giving us a man haunted by his past and determined not to make the same mistakes again without making the portrayal hackneyed or cliche. Ray is a gifted investigator, which means he has sympathy and empathy in spades -- both potential weaknesses in a family of hard-nosed cops serving on the hard streets of New York.

His father is your classic hard-drinking police chief who cares more about protecting his men than sticking to all the little rules in the book. It's not a particularly challenging role, but Voight doesn't sleepwalk through it. Every nuance is spot-on. Franny is a nice guy, but overwhelmed by his wife's terminal illness and perhaps resting a little too hard on his past hard work, and Emmerich makes him sympathetic without minimizing his failures.

Then there's Jimmy Egan. He's married to Ray and Franny's sister, and is not a well man. Farrell has a knack for playing nasty pieces of work, and he's dialed up to eleven here. Jimmy may be able to be a loving father and sweet family man when he's at home, but put him on the streets and he will hold a hot iron to a baby's face without blinking if he thinks it will get him what he wants faster than just beating his source of information with his fists. Farrell makes both sides of the man believable, which makes him all the more creepy.

This is a well-worn set of plot pathways, but the excellent cast and top-notch portrayals make it worthwhile, particularly if the thought of yet another family-members-who-are-cops-together story doesn't make you roll your eyes. This is an old and familiar song, but sung well.