last week<\/a><\/b>, along with my predictions about them…<\/p>\nWill Smith is back as another cocky young guy who swept into a world he didn’t know existed in Enemy of the State<\/i>. Think Men in Black<\/i> without the aliens or UFO in-jokes. Robert Dean (Smith) is framed for murder by a corrupt intelligence official (Voight) attempting to commit the perfect crime and conceal a political coverup that makes Watergate look like kindergarten. Dean’s only hope is Brill (Hackman), a former conspirator. Enemy<\/i>‘s preview is full of snappy specials, brilliant actors (Gabriel Byrne, Gene Hackman, Jon Voight, etc.), and some chuckles, and hints at a good thriller flick. My prediction: a good, tight film for conspiracy buffs.<\/p>\n
A Civil Action<\/i> stars John Travolta as a small-time, confident personal-injury lawyer who takes on an apparently straightforward case involving the possible tainting of a community’s water source. As the case unfolds, however, it becomes clear that it is anything but straightforward. This looks like a tight film, has a top-notch supporting cast (Robert Duvall, Dan Hedaya, John Lithgow, William H. Macy) and has a lot of potential to be a great courtroom drama. My prediction: if it isn’t too pompous and contrived (which is a possibility), it could be fabulous. It certainly has some great black humor (at one point, Duvall exclaims, “the truth? I thought we were talking about a court of law!”), which is generally a good sign.<\/p>\n
Monster fans need not despair that Godzilla<\/i> is leaving the theaters — Mighty Joe Young<\/i> is looking to fill the gap. Joe is a 15-foot gorilla, raised by a 21-year-old orphan, Jill (Charlize Theron of The Devil’s Advocate<\/i>) and discovered by zoologist Gregg O’Hara. When Gregg and Jill rescue Joe from poachers by moving him to a California animal preserve, he is beset by two problems: a poacher from his past who wants to steal him for the endangered species black market, and his dislike of captivity. Finally, Joe escapes, and makes his way across a large city with both heroes and villains trying to recapture him. My prediction: harmless fluff. Realism is definitely not something one should look for here, but for lovers of big animals and mayhem, it’s a dream come true.<\/p>\n
Come back next week to see me take on Simon Birch.<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Originally written for The Occidental.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2oSX4-t","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3081,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions\/3081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ealasaid.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}