FILMS IN FOCUS

ILMS IN FOCUS

‘17 Again’ and Star Efron
a Pair of Lightweights

Here’s the question: Will Zac Efron, 21, poster boy for teenage girls everywhere and Us Weekly’s Hot Hollywood Star of the Year, grow up to look like a jowled, pudgy Matthew Perry?
That’s what “17 Again” would have you believe. Perry, 39, his 10-season “Friends” career over, isn’t a bad actor. In fact, he was pretty terrific on NBC’s underappreciated “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.”
But a sex object? Efron, on the other hand, had the young girls who packed a preview of “17 Again” oohing and ahhing from the shirtless opening scenes of him on a basketball court, showing off his dance steps accompanying rather professionally choreographed high school cheerleaders. No doubt, the boy can dance.
“17 Again” has a decent premise: You’re approaching middle age, your wife (Leslie Mann), whom you married when she got pregnant in high school, has filed for divorce, your kids disrespect you, you’ve been passed over for a promotion at your job.
You were the former high school star who never lived up to his potential. What if you could go back and change things?
The movie is a light and bright time-traveling tale and has a number of laughs, mostly thanks to Thomas Lennon, the wild man from TV’s “Reno 911!,” who plays the grown-up nerd from school, Perry/Efron’s best friend who made millions as a software genius and lives in a house decorated like something out of “Star Wars.”
Efron, meanwhile, takes direction well enough, having been trained in the “High School Musical” mode, but he lacks warmth and an identity beyond his looks. Even hosting the recent “Saturday Night Live,” making jest of his image as a teenybopper’s delight, he seemed distant and cold.
His “Zac Efron’s Pool Party” is a riot on funnyordie.com (it’s closing in on 1 million views), but it’s not because he’s funny.
Zac Efron, maybe, needs to be 17 again.
“17 Again.” Rated: PG-13. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes. 2.5 stars.

Old-Style Journalist Builds
Case One Fact at a Time

“State of Play” is part political conspiracy thriller, part ode to old-style newspaper journalism, but neither part is coherent. It’s in a state of disarray.
Scottish director Kevin Macdonald (“The Last King of Scotland”) bangs out a run-of-the-mill picture, based on an admired BBC miniseries, that opens with a thrilling splash of deadly street crime and evolves into a connected murder of a pretty, young Washington researcher who is having an affair with a congressman (Ben Affleck).
Russell Crowe plays a funky, aging reporter at the Washington Globe (the credits give “Special thanks to The Washington Post”), a slob who scarfs junk food (chili cheeseburgers accompanied by chili cheese fries), drives a ratty old Saab, his apartment a pigpen. And there’s this strange, long hair out of another era.
Crowe’s Cal McAffrey finds himself digging into one aspect of the case and then the other, partnered with the newspaper’s young blogger, the nifty-named Della Frye (Rachel McAdams). He’s old-fashioned, working sources and double-checking facts; she, meanwhile, is ready to put the latest immediately on the website.
“You think he was having an affair with that girl?” she asks Crowe of the congressman, his old friend.
Says he, “I don’t know. I’d have to read a couple of blogs before I have an opinion.”
McAdams is supposed to be a spunky, ambitious, “cub” reporter attempting to impress the newspaper’s editor (queenly Helen Mirren, in snarky mode, dealing with her publication’s new owners), but the usually intriguing actress (“The Notebook”) is flat.
There’s only Mirren’s assessment: “She’s hungry, she’s cheap and she turns out copy every hour.”
The story has to do with Affleck’s philandering liaison and connections to a private military security firm operating rogue-like in Iraq and Afghanistan. The relationship between Crowe’s reporter and Affleck’s Washington heavyweight goes back to college when they were roommates. The men, though, seem from different generations, mismatched.
Meanwhile, Crowe is having death-defying adventures, escaping crazed gunmen, hijacking people to out-of-the-way motel rooms.
There’s an attempt at touching some of the issues facing a newspaper industry in survival mode, but “State of Play” loses its credibility in scenes like Crowe finishing a provocative Page 1 piece way past deadline (“we’ve been holding the front page for four hours,” howls Mirren), strolling out of the building, not hanging around for his editors to read it, let alone have lawyers look at it.
There are only a handful of films -- “All the President’s Men,” perhaps the best -- that have realistically captured the work of investigative reporters. Pouring through documents, hours on the phone, doesn’t always lend itself to vivid cinema.
“State of Play” endeavors to catch the aura of a newsroom -- notebooks are the right size, messy desks look fairly realistic, but how the editors carry themselves, for instance, doesn’t ring true (for that, check out the final season of HBO’s “The Wire,” which was filmed at the Baltimore Sun). It would’ve been good also to depict at least one news meeting where editors debate the merits of stories and decide what goes on Page 1.
There are some smart supporting performances, particularly Jason Bateman as a smarmy public relations guy with smarmy clients (he played a PR guy also in last year’s “Hancock”), and Jeff Daniels as a congressman spouting religion and patriotism when faced with the truth of his involvement in a cover-up.
Affleck’s long-suffering wife is portrayed by Robin Wright Penn, who brings dignity to those women standing by the side of their cheating husbands as they make public pronouncements of contrition.
It is disappointing to hear such dialogue as Affleck’s when he shows up at Crowe’s door: “I could go somewhere else (pause), but I have no other place to go,” particularly on a film that has three screenwriters -- one of them, the gifted Tony Gilroy (“Michael Clayton”).
Then again, there’s this exchange when Daniels, in all his arrogance, says to a cornering Crowe, “How did you find me?”
Responds the reporter, “I followed the trail of crumbs, congressman.”
Now that’s journalism.
“State of Play.” Rated: PG-13. Running time: 1 hour, 58 minutes. 2 stars.

Miley Delivers Feel-Good Message in
‘Hannah Montana: The Movie’

The lights went down in the movie theater and the crowd screamed. The Disney logo flashed on the screen and they screamed more loudly. And when Miley Cyrus appeared in the opening scene, the audience of hundreds, average age about 9, went nuts.
“Hannah Montana: The Movie” will be a hit with its target demographic. And why not? The “Hannah Montana” series on The Disney Channel is huge. Miley Cyrus, its star singer/songwriter/actor, is huge.
So, what kind of movie is it? Well, above all, it’s a film to extend the Hannah/Miley franchise -- about a young girl (Miley Stewart) who lives a normal life by day and is a rock star (Hannah Montana) at night and tries to keep that double life a secret.
In the film, Miley is close to losing her identity, as Hannah takes over more and more of her life. The action opens in L.A., where Miley is almost late for her own concert. She and her BFF, Lilly (Emily Osment), are careening down the halls at the concert venue in a golf cart they grabbed. We watch as Miley adds makeup and more to emerge as Hannah onstage before thousands of adoring fans. Then it’s off to say a quick goodbye to brother Jackson (Jason Earles), who’s bound for college, and then on to Lilly’s 16th birthday party at Santa Monica Pier.
But Miley/Hannah, accompanied by her agent, Vita, played perfectly by Vanessa Williams, is detoured at a shoe store, where she spies a present for Lilly. Enter Tyra Banks, one of many cameo performers in the film, who does a hilarious bit with Hannah, fighting over a pair of shoes.
It’s the first of several slapstick scenes that show Cyrus to be a natural at physical comedy, possibly making grandparents in the theater think of Lucille Ball.
After the disastrous birthday party where Hannah is supposed to show up as Miley, but doesn’t have time to change and draws all attention away from Lilly, Miley misses the meeting with her brother and is going to bail on her grandmother’s birthday because Vita’s gotten her a gig in New York. That’s when dad steps in. Played in the film and on the TV show by Miley’s real-life dad, Billy Ray Cyrus, Robby Ray Stewart has had it. He accompanies her on the small jet for the gig, but it lands in Crowley Corners, Tenn.
That’s when the film turns heartwarming. She’s home -- her real home is Nashville, where much of the filming took place, including a farm not far from the one where Miley grew up. She is surrounded by loving family, especially her grandmother, Ruby, the talented Southern actress Margo Martindale. And she meets Lucas, played sweetly by hunky Southern newcomer Travis Brody.
The audience at the screening “ooh-ed” at the romance building between Miley and Lucas, and the one Ruby encourages between Robby Ray and the farm foreman, Lorelai (Melora Hardin).
To complicate matters, there’s a tabloid reporter, ably played by Peter Gunn, who follows Miley to Tennessee, trying to figure out her secret. And there are comedic turns by Barry Bostwick as the bad guy who wants to change the town by adding a mall, and the mayor, played by Beau Billingslea, who wants things to stay the same.
There’s a ton of good, down-home music -- some provided on-screen by Rascal Flatts and Taylor Swift -- and one great dance number that every young kid in the country will be attempting to learn after they see it. (Billy Ray Cyrus gets into the act, too, singing a song from his brand-new album, “Back to Tennessee,” released by -- surprise! -- Disney.)
The cinematography nicely showcases the bucolic Tennessee countryside, and able direction by Peter Chelsom (“Serendipity”) holds things together.
In the end, this is a feel-good film that feeds what seems to be an insatiable appetite for all things Miley. But it also explores the importance of family, the relationship between a father and daughter, and remembering where you came from no matter how far you go. Let’s hope that works for one talented 16-year-old.
“Hannah Montana: The Movie.” Rated: G. Running time: 1 hour, 42 minutes. 2.5 stars.

Luminescent Performances
Light up Rich ‘Two Lovers’

“Two Lovers” is too good to be true.
In a cinematic season when studios dump their leftovers from the year before, a salient picture like this one shows up with rich characters, a heartfelt story and fine performances from a trio of 30-something actors.
Joaquin Phoenix plays Leonard, a damaged man living with his parents in the deeply rooted Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn. He toils in the family dry cleaning business, a law school dropout healing from a suicidal breakdown.
This home with old-country parents, portrayed by the divine Isabella Rossellini and the Israeli actor Moni Moshonov, is a respite of calm. As parents do, they want what’s best for him, and that means meeting Sandra (impressive Vinessa Shaw), a nice Jewish girl and the daughter of a businessman buying their store. Leonard likes her, sharing his passion for photography, and they form a gentle, romantic relationship.
Then, tall, willowy blond Michelle moves into the building (tall, willowy blond Gwyneth Paltrow). Michelle’s being put up by the married Manhattan lawyer (Elias Koteas, perfect in his arrogant way) with whom she’s having an affair.
Phoenix’s excitement with this shiksa from heaven, who appears so suddenly in his life and is willing to share deep, personal feelings, is palpable. He’s seduced by this once-in-a-lifetime adventure. Cutesy cell phone calls and voyeuristic shenanigans from their across-the-way apartment windows are natural and touching.
“You’re like a brother to me,” she says to him. “I can talk to you as a friend.”
Invited to meet Michelle and her lover for dinner in Manhattan, Leonard dresses up and takes the subway, getting to the restaurant early. He downs a Brandy Alexander through a straw because that’s what she drinks. The scene is delicious, chocolate-rich.
There’s also a beautifully shot vignette when Leonard accompanies Michelle and her girlfriends to a hot Manhattan club. There, he shows off his dancing skills. Director James Gray catches the steam of the venue, the quivering bodies and the action.
Paltrow, the “Shakespeare in Love” Oscar winner who returns as Pepper Potts, super-secretary to Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark, in next year’s “Iron Man 2,” is a talent too often taken for granted. She shouldn’t be. In “Two Lovers,” Paltrow shows off a radiant depth of character.
At one point, visiting Leonard’s home, it’s as if she entered a foreign country. “What are those things?” she points at a cabinet. Explains Leonard, “Those are dreidels.”
Gray, a native New Yorker who guided Phoenix in “The Yards” and “We Own the Night,” captures the neighborhood environment he knows well (“Little Odessa,” his first film, was set in Brighton Beach).
“Two Lovers” isn’t autobiographical like the “Brighton Beach Memoirs” of Neil Simon, which centered on a teenager’s hormonal cravings. But it does re-create an old-fashioned household reminiscent of a grandparents’ where seltzer is the drink of choice and the aromas of chicken soup are in the air.
And it tests this dilemma: What if someone loves you and you love someone else? Gray handles that exquisitely.
Phoenix, whose strange countenance on a recent “Late Show With David Letterman” is a YouTube sensation, has quit the film business, he said, to try his hand as a rapper. Let’s hope this major talent will walk that line gingerly and reconsider.
“Two Lovers.” Rated: R. Running Time: 1 hour, 48 minutes. 3.5 stars.

‘Friday the 13th’ Has
More Gore in Store

Parents: Need an effective approach to abstinence-only education? Fire those fire-juggling clowns with their insipid inspirational messages. Instead, load your teenagers into the SUV for an educational matinee of “Friday the 13th.” It’ll scare the pants onto them.
Like many teen horror movies, the lesson of “Friday the 13th” is that sinners die. Die good. Debauchers decease, onanists get obliterated, drinkers depart, and those who smoke pot, rot. Most importantly, premarital sex ends in coitus murderuptus.
The film’s teen victims pay the price for having unrestrained fun. As killer Jason Voorhees’ mother wails during the film’s shoddy title sequence, “You need to be punished.” Donning the world’s cheapest scary costume, Jason transforms himself into Puritanism’s Charles Bronson -- a vigilante goody-goody.
This is the 13th movie in the series, and if the producers (including Michael Bay) had any wit, they’d have put “Friday the 13th: The 13th” on marquees. The franchise began in 1980 with a super-low-budget chiller that starred Kevin Bacon back when he was way more than six degrees separated. Most of the actors in the 2009 version weren’t even born yet.
Maybe that’s why this “Friday the 13th” has no story frills -- no city relocation a la 1989’s “Jason Takes Manhattan,” no outer-space setting a la 2001’s “Jason X.” Instead it’s a standard-formula, dead-meat-and-potatoes horror film for the next generation of sadomasochistic Americans. Shaggy haircuts and clothing styles have come full circle since 1980, so at times you can’t tell whether “Friday the 13th” is meant to be modern or retro.
It starts with a campfire at a place called Crystal Lake, where five young people -- two couples and one brainy dork -- have gathered to enjoy nature and flaunt their freedom from authority. After referencing a line from David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet” about foreign versus domestic beers, the movie wastes no time wasting people (and dropping a more gruesome Lynch reference). With 20 minutes of slash-and-burn mayhem, the opening scenes are practically a “Friday the 13th” movie in miniature.
Jumping ahead six weeks, the story introduces us to a wider demographic of soon-to-be victims. There’s a nubile Nordic-looking blond couple (Ryan Hansen and Willa Ford), soon running off to the lake for some topless water-skiing and impalement.
There’s also a rich cabin-owner (Travis Van Winkle) who resembles Christian Bale with feathered hair. His two girlfriends represent the dichotomy of the virgin (Danielle Panabaker, meekly exasperated) and the whore (Julianna Guill, barest of three bare-breasted babes). Winkle’s sex talk with the latter is laughable: During the height of passion, he calls her “Dude.”
That’s two more girlfriends than the wacky Asian (Aaron Yoo) or the flippant black (Arlen Escarpeta) get. Instead, they get drunk, stoned and feebly aroused by the pages of a Macy’s winter catalog. They also get most of the movie’s funny lines: When the goalie-masked killer approaches Yoo, he helpfully hands him a hockey stick and tells him it completes his ensemble. Quiet and mindless, Jason does not laugh.
It’s hard to say whether Escarpeta’s and Yoo’s thankless roles are ethnically offensive, winking old-school in-jokes, or emblematic of equal-opportunity slaughter. A smarter film would surprise us by turning one of them into the unlikely hero, bravely defeating Jason by drinking him under the table or impaling him with a bong.
Instead, the hero role goes to Jared Padalecki (from TV’s “Supernatural”), who rides around on a motorcycle looking for his missing sister (Amanda Righetti) from the first group of victims. Padalecki is the only character that isn’t a caricature, yet he remains entirely boring.
Suffice to say that “Friday the 13th” is garbage that no intelligent adult has any business viewing. But it’s well-paced, steadily delivered garbage, and the actors seem to be having a pretty good time before they’re predictably stabbed, slashed, bear-trapped or punctured on mounted deer antlers. For abstinence-only propaganda purposes, it kills.
“Friday the 13th.” Rated: R. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes. 2 stars.

A Telling Story, and
Worth the Effort

Watching “The Secrets” is work. It’s a multilayered film, in Hebrew with English subtitles, about complex religious concepts. It’s also a story about human relationships, love, courage and redemption. And that’s why you work to stay with it.
Set in Israel, the film opens in Naomi’s home, at the funeral for her mother. Naomi (Ania Bukstein, in a stellar performance) is stoic, while her sister, Rachel (Alma Zack), sobs. The message and the feminist subtext are quickly clear that this young woman is different from the others in her ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. She studies the Talmud with her father, Rabbi Hess (Seffy Rivlin), and longs to be a rabbi herself, a goal out of reach in her faith.
She doesn’t want to go through with the arranged marriage to Michael (Guri Alfi), one of her father’s students. Rabbi Hess, sensing Naomi’s grief, relents and allows her to take some time away to go and study at Knowledge and Truth Seminary, where young women deepen their understanding of their religion and, as becomes clear, look for husbands.
Naomi is fixed only on the former and makes an impression on the woman who is headmistress (Tiki Dayan). She excels, thanks to the lifelong tutoring by her father, something not unnoticed by her roommates -- husband-seeking Sheine (Talli Oren) and newly religious Sigi (Dana Ivay) and, particularly, Michelle (Michal Shtamler), who’s been sent to the seminary from her home in France where there’s been some trouble, which is left unsaid.
Naomi is appalled by Michelle’s brusque, even rude behavior toward everyone as she acts out her unhappiness at being in this place. But the headmistress pairs them up to take food to a woman who has come to Safed seeking absolution from the religious community after being released from prison for the murder of her lover. The headmistress believes Naomi is the most mature of the students and can handle the situation. Michelle goes along since the woman, Anouk (the memorable Fanny Ardant), speaks only French.
An unlikely alliance forms as the two young women get to know the older woman and respond to her plea for help. Anouk is dying and begs Naomi to use the religious “secrets” and do what the rabbis won’t: help her cleanse her soul.
At Michelle’s urging, Naomi accepts the challenge and studies even more diligently, coming up with a redemptive ritual that they both know is dangerous for her to perform, should anyone in the community find out. They are deeply committed to easing Anouk’s emotional pain, despite the societal price, and they become deeply committed to one another in the process.
Enter Yanki (Adir Miller), a graduate of yeshiva who would rather be a musician than a rabbi. He takes a fancy to Michelle and is of some help to her and Naomi, unbeknown to him, as they conduct the series of Tikkuns (holy rituals) for Anouk. Sigi and Sheine ultimately catch on to what’s happening and want to participate, a decision Naomi and Michelle eventually will rue.
Despite the fact that so much of what is happening on-screen will seem foreign to outsiders, Israeli director Avi Nesher and screenwriter Hadar Galron skillfully inform viewers about the Jewish faith, while also telling a powerful story about the connections between human beings and the yearning that exists in every soul.
“The Secrets.” Rated: R. Running time: 2 hours. 3 stars.

Run Clive Run: Owen Shines
in Gripping Financial Thriller

“The International” is not quite world-class, but it is a timely, involving thriller set in the miasma of global banking, and it crackles with tension.
In this era of economic meltdown, the movie resonates. There’s a squirm when a grubby monetary executive explains, “You control debt, you control everything. This is the essence of the banking industry. Whether countries or individuals, it is to make us all slaves to debt.”
Clive Owen is a nifty fit as a weary Interpol detective tracking the nasty dealings of a huge European bank that has its tentacles in money laundering, small arms sales to Middle Eastern countries and the financing of Third World coups.
Joining him in the investigation is Naomi Watts, a frazzled assistant New York City district attorney. Watts and Owen have negligible wattage. In “21 Grams” and “The Ring,” she displayed attitude and grit. In “The International,” Watts is distant and dull.
In an unbelievable moment, she gets hit straight-on by a speedy car only to be up and about in the next scene with a bruised shoulder and an arm bandage. Instead of dead, apparently she heals like Wonder Woman.
Owen, with grizzled face and stubbly beard, is rumpled all the way through. Says Watts, checking out his frazzled demeanor, “You look awful. When’s the last time you got any sleep? When’s the last time you had a good meal?” He may look terrible, but his acting isn’t.
“The International” is directed by the internationally respected Tom Tykwer, the German visual virtuoso who 10 years ago made a reputation with the hot “Run Lola Run.”
For “The International,” the action is set in Berlin, Milan, New York City and, crucially, Istanbul. A chase scene through the corridors and rooftops of that teeming city’s Grand Bazaar is gripping, a cinematic tour de force as Owen weaves among the stalls and the thousands of visitors.
As the film takes on a labyrinthian web of corporate greed, two superb villains emerge:
Armin Mueller-Stahl, the great 78-year-old German actor from “Avalon,” portrays a mysterious bank associate arranging the assassinations of those opposing the corporation’s nefarious business.
Irish actor Brian F. O’Byrne, a Tony Award winner (“Frozen”) who is part of the gifted cast of Showtime’s “Brotherhood,” plays a hired gun called The Consultant who eerily blends into the background, a wicked trick considering he’s a coldblooded sniper.
The film’s great action chunk takes place at New York City’s circular Guggenheim Museum amid the modernistic installations and sculpture. Tykwer took six weeks to film it. It shows. He created an explosive and exquisite vignette of destruction and body count.
The movie could’ve used a less-lecturing screenplay. First-timer Eric Warren Singer’s dialogue is overstuffed with aphorisms: “Sometimes, man can meet his destiny on the road he took to avoid it,” for instance, and “Sometimes, the hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which to burn.”
Let’s bite on that one. “The International” is a bridge worth crossing.
“The International.” Rated: R. Running time: 1 hour, 58 minutes. 3 stars.

In ‘Doubt,’ a Catholic School’s Presiding Nun Grapples with Uncertainty

It’s a pretty serious leap from “Mamma Mia!” to Mother Superior, but Meryl Streep manages to go from the singing siren of last summer’s ABBA-centric flick to the scolding sister of “Doubt” with amazing grace.
Streep’s Sister Aloysius, presiding nun of a Catholic school in 1960s New York, is the stern, implacable and unflappable center of “Doubt,” director John Patrick Shanley’s sharp adaptation of his own Pulitzer Prize-winning play.
Her character is a woman of deep faith -- not just in a higher power, but in the infallibility of her own power to know right from wrong, truth from lies.
Her sense of rectitude is a source of terror for her students -- when we first see Aloysius, she’s hissing “Straighten up!” at a boy starting to drift off at his desk. But there’s a subtle folksiness to her ferocity that keeps Streep’s portrayal from being just a cartoon of the cruel, ruler-brandishing Nunzilla.
Streep’s appearance might startle anyone who last saw her flouncing around the screen singing “Dancing Queen” on a sunny Greek isle; here, her skin has the pallor of a November sky, her face pinched into a nun’s hood as she peers from behind dowdy spectacles.
What she thinks she sees through those granny lenses -- and through the prism of her own moral certainty -- is improper behavior on the part of Father Flynn, the new parish priest.
Flynn, in Philip Seymour Hoffman’s layered, gruff-but-kindly portrayal, seems admired by the boys for his relaxed approach and plainspoken humor. When one of them asks what to do if a girl refuses to dance with him, Flynn cracks: “Then you become a priest.”
But Aloysius’ first wisps of suspicion about Flynn come with a sermon he delivers that begins: “What do you do when you’re not sure?”
Flynn is trying to honor doubt as a path to deeper understanding of self and others; Aloysius sees it as a weakness and a sign of moral relativism, as suspect as those faddish ballpoint pens and the Christmas song “Frosty the Snowman” (which she believes fosters pagan beliefs).
Her crusade really takes off, though, when a young nun at the school, Sister James (an appealingly vulnerable Amy Adams), relays her own concerns about Flynn’s behavior toward Donald Miller (Joseph Foster II), the only black student at the school.
The story line has echoes of the Catholic abuse scandals, but Shanley has a much broader concern in mind here: How do we balance a sense of moral order with a strength and willingness to question our assumptions and beliefs?
To his credit, Shanley doesn’t offer any easy answers; the unresolved mystery at the center of the movie is testament to its title and message. Though there is no real evidence that Flynn has made advances on Donald, the boy’s mother -- in a brief but memorably tense and sensitive turn by Viola Davis -- seems to hint that such issues have come up before.
And there is humanity to the stark portrayal of Aloysius, who sees herself as the students’ protector and has her own affecting moment of reckoning near movie’s end.
Shanley’s use of weather as premonition (gusting winds, throttling thunder) can feel pushy at times, but the otherwise soft-spoken, deeply atmospheric “Doubt” has the power to shake up received beliefs, about anything from family quarrels to war.
“Doubt can be as powerful and sustaining as certainty,” as one line has it. And at least as provocative.
“Doubt.” Rated: PG-13. Running Time: 1 hour, 44 minutes. 3 stars.

Frank Langella’s Nixon gives ‘Frost/Nixon’ its bite

Over three nights in the summer of 1977, British personality David Frost interviewed disgraced former President Richard Nixon in a major TV event that gripped the nation.
It was a mesmerizing, probing, give-and-take for which the combatants trained vigorously, a world-class intellectual battle.
More suited to PBS or HBO, director Ron Howard’s “Frost/Nixon” should’ve ended up on TV, too. It’s simply not very cinematic, the excitement coming in whether Frost, the lightweight used to going one-on-one with the Bee Gees, could trap the jabbing-and-weaving Nixon into admitting culpability in the Watergate scandal.
Despite the mixed pedigree of Howard (the Oscar-winning “A Beautiful Mind,” the lethargic “The Da Vinci Code”) and outstanding performances from Frank Langella as Nixon and Michael Sheen as Frost, and a screenplay by Peter Morgan, author of the play on which the movie’s based, “Frost/Nixon” sparks but doesn’t ignite.
If you think outgoing President George W. Bush has been the object of ridicule (David Letterman’s “Great Moments in Presidential Speeches,” a nightly shot), in his time, Nixon faced a similar fate. In Steve Martin’s new book, “Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life,” he recalls how there was always a sure laugh at the comedy clubs: “You mention the word ‘Nixon’ and you’d get a cheer.”
Unlike Josh Brolin’s uncanny take on Bush in Oliver Stone’s “W.,” or Sean Penn’s transformation into gay rights activist Harvey Milk in “Milk,” Langella’s portrayal begins as an impersonation -- hunched back, prominent jowls. He could’ve crawled out of a “Saturday Night Live” sketch.
Then a character emerges, damaged and tragic. It’s a credit to the actor that by the end, Langella is living, it seems, in Nixon’s skin. Langella, who initiated the role on Broadway (and won a Tony), gets at Nixon’s soul -- the desperation and sadness, loneliness and surprising graciousness.
Negotiating on his behalf was famous Hollywood agent Irving “Swifty” Lazar (Toby Jones, the sprightly actor who became Truman Capote in “Infamous”). Lazar informs his client that he garnered $500,000 for the interviews. Mumbles Nixon, “Could you have gotten $550,000?” The price, in the end, was $600,000.
Sheen, who has also played a world leader -- British prime minister Tony Blair in 2006’s “The Queen” -- is terrific as the jet-hopping Frost. On one Concorde flight, he charms socialite Caroline Cushing (Rebecca Hall from “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”). She becomes his constant, supportive companion.
Much of “Frost/Nixon” focuses on the event’s planning, as if the two were preparing for a title fight -- Nixon, say, Oscar de la Hoya, Frost as Manny Pacquiao. You know the result of that bout.
The ring, the venue, was TV and its political impact, a subject cogently dealt with by director George Clooney in 2005’s “Good Night, and Good Luck,” a film set in the ‘50s that also centered on two men -- CBS correspondent Edward R. Murrow and notorious, red-baiting Sen. Joseph McCarthy. “Frost/Nixon” is not in that class.
Frost brought with him strategic consultants, including author and university lecturer James Reston Jr. (Sam Rockwell). He trains Frost to set up Nixon with softball questions and then go for the throat. “I’d like to give the man the trial he never had,” says Reston. “He devastated the presidency and left the country traumatized.”
On the other side, protecting Nixon, was Lt. Col. Jack Brennan (Kevin Bacon), his chief of staff in retirement. An underrated actor, Bacon is both fierce as a champion of Nixon’s legacy and threatening. It’s a memorable performance.
The event takes place at Nixon’s seaside abode in San Clemente, the former Western White House. There, out of the spotlight, Nixon reluctantly hits golf balls, away from the action he sorely missed.
A tender moment emerges when Langella’s Nixon, sitting in the interview chair, eyes welling, portrait of a lost soul, acknowledges the abuse of presidential power: “I made mistakes, I let them down (the American people). I let down my friends, I let down the country. I let down our system of government and all those young people . . . and I’m going to have to carry that burden with me the rest of my life . . . my political life is over.”
Not so fast, Mr. Former President. It lives on in Langella and “Frost/Nixon.”
“Frost/Nixon.” Rated: R. Running Time: 2 hours, 2 minutes. 3 stars.

‘Earth’ is a Not-so-Subtle Update of the 1951 Classic

One of the shiny, festive orbs that descends on the planet in “The Day the Earth Stood Still” contains a blob of goo known as Keanu Reeves. More precisely, it holds an alien being named Klaatu, who uses his cosmic powers to fashion a Keanu suit so as not to freak out the earthlings with his real appearance (said to more closely resemble Jack Black).
And if only for the sake of harmonious names, who better to play Klaatu than Keanu? (Possible runners-up: Kato Kaelin and the late Klaus Kinski.)
Reeves offers more than that, though; his naturally impassive, detached persona is an eerily good fit for a character not wholly conversant with human emotion.
The movie is a remake of Robert Wise’s 1951 picture about an alien who, with his robot sidekick, Gort, arrives on a mission to save mankind from itself.
Director Scott Derrickson’s effects-juiced version ostensibly updates the original’s Cold War jitters to suit a world that’s sweating global warming. He and screenwriter David Scarpa have Klaatu chastising mankind for treating the planet so shabbily, and some of the crystal spheres sent by his home civilization are actually arks, scarfing up sea snakes and bees so they’ll survive after the Earth is wiped clean of people.
But so much of the movie really seems to be about what the ‘51 version also fixated on: militarism, aggression, tanks, guns and the all-inclusive category of stuff that blows up.
As a matter of cinematic practicality, it seems sensible: Depicting man’s selfish and senseless nature through lingering shots of polar icecaps melting does not scream Big Opening Weekend.
So, instead of Al Gore, we have an allegory -- a not-so-subtle evocation of terrorism and the reflex for revenge it can engender. When the main alien orb lands in Central Park, New Yorkers are seen running from terrifying clouds of dust and debris.
We’ve seen these images before, and they certainly weren’t in that slide show spectacular “An Inconvenient Truth.” (Come to think of it -- impassive, detached? Al Gore would make a pretty good Klaatu, too.)
In this scenario, Kathy Bates -- who plays the U.S. secretary of defense -- is our Don Rumsfeld, although the way she seizes control on behalf of an absentee president feels more Al Haig.
Her rude treatment of Klaatu -- having him shackled for a Gitmo-style “interview” -- convinces the visitor that humans just aren’t worth the trouble. He gives the OK for the 26-foot-tall Gort, who’s like a massive, death-ray-equipped Cycladic figurine, to unleash the ultimate weapon: a plague of metallic termites. (So much for Blackwater; what the Pentagon really needed was Terminix.)
Fortunately, humanity has a secret weapon: the microbiologist Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly). And she has a secret weapon, which happens to be ... humanity.
Also, cuteness, in the form of her adopted son, the wisecracking Jacob. He’s played by Jaden Smith, son of Will, who starred just a year ago in another end-of-the-world saga, “I Am Legend.” (Doom is becoming a family franchise.)
Their show of emotion over Jacob’s dad -- who gave his life, naturally, in service to the Army -- plays a big part in whether Klaatu spares mankind.
We’ll spare you the spoiler. And though it has its moments, you might want to spare yourself the movie.
“The Day the Earth Stood Still.” Rated: PG-13. Running Time: 1 hour, 50 minutes. 2 stars.

A Fast, Furious and
Fascinating ‘Dark Knight’

“The Dark Knight” is as dark as night.
From the specter of rancid Gotham City’s gloomy landscape to the blowtorch viciousness of the demented Joker (a magnificent Heath Ledger), director Christopher Nolan’s Batman tale of good versus evil seldom leaves the gutter of human emotions.
What’s amazing is the lure to jump in and wallow in this down-and-dirty cinematic excursion.
There’s not a laugh along the way -- maybe a chuckle or two -- and the violence is unnerving. It’s rated PG-13, but a youngster gets a pistol pointed at his head and is tossed off a building.
That said, “The Dark Knight” is a summer superhero picture for adults, with powerful moralistic themes of duty and friendship, personal rights and revenge. This despite the product tie-ins for children -- everything from the Hot Wheels Batmobile and Batman stunt figures in boxes of Cheerios to Domino’s Gotham City pizza and Reese’s dark peanut butter bats.
The filmmaking is state-of-the-art, utilizing IMAX technology. When Batman (the stoic Christian Bale) perches on the top ledge of a skyscraper and then sails off into the atmosphere, your heart leaps along with him.
There’s also a villain for the ages. Ledger, who died in January at the age of 28, creates in the Joker a scary, cockeyed demeanor far deeper and more disturbing than the cartoon psycho of Jack Nicholson in 1989’s “Batman.” His visage is a raucous nightmare -- black eye shadow, red lipstick, white pancake makeup, stringy hair, tongue darting like a cobra’s, face pocked by gashes inflicted by a tortuous father.
What makes him so appalling is his nature -- inflicting punishment without conscience. He kills because it feels good. “I’m an agent of chaos,” he blurts. There’s a visceral shudder as Ledger’s maniac explains the origin of those ugly facial scars. This Joker is no joke.
From the film’s first moments -- a tense, frightening, high-body-count bank robbery -- “The Dark Knight” gallops for 2 1/2 action-engorged hours. It’s fast, furious and fascinating.
Bale, a powerful and provocative presence, recreates his dual role from 2005’s “Batman Begins” as playboy Bruce Wayne and crime fighter Batman. In one scene, he arrives at a fundraising party for the virtuous district attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) with a coterie of supermodel-types, kind of like Hugh Hefner might. The man knows a good time.
He’s also facing a crisis of confidence, wondering just why he needs to maintain his Batman role in a city that doesn’t champion his special talents. Meanwhile, there are a series of chases -- the Batmobile becomes a Batmotorcycle -- and brawls. They’re filmed like punches to the gut; they take your breath away. The director of photography is Wally Pfister, who shot Nolan’s memorable “Memento” and “Batman Begins.”
Back again is classy Gary Oldman as police Lt. James Gordon, a Batman ally, who sets meetings on rooftops and in dark alleys and tells him, “The Joker has no rules; you have rules.”
There’s also Michael Caine, 75, as Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne’s trusty manservant, who has the kind of disheveled look of someone who doesn’t quite get all the hairs on his face when he shaves. Morgan Freeman, 71, in a selection of bow ties, is resplendent as Lucius Fox, the man responsible for the Batman gadgets. Cool one: a pocket drill that burrows through concrete.
Eckhart doesn’t quite make a dent as Harvey Dent, who suddenly finds himself in a ghastly, two-faced predicament. There was something deeper to be found there than bellowing, “You thought we could be decent men in an indecent world.” Eckhart misses it.
And Maggie Gyllenhaal as attorney Rachel Dawes (replacing languid Katie Holmes from “Batman Begins”) doesn’t connect emotionally with either Bale or Eckhart, both seeking her affections. The usually fine Gyllenhaal has no heat.
There’s high-rise action galore with folks either smashing through windows or crashing out. If you’re leery of heights, pre-medication might be in order.
In the end, it’s Ledger’s chilling Joker that sticks in memory. “I’m not a monster,” he says. “I’m just ahead of the curve.”
“The Dark Knight” is ahead of the curve, dense and demanding, an art film on a grand scale. It won’t make you smile, but it will make you ponder this mesmerizing experience.
“The Dark Knight.” Rated: PG-13. Running time: 2 hours, 32 minutes. 3 1/2 stars.

“Wall-E” gets an “E” for energy, and for entertaining, at times, and for erratic.

From the spectacular creative team at Pixar, that enclave of inventiveness in Emeryville that turns out memorable animation pictures from “Monster’s, Inc.” to “Finding Nemo,” “Toy Story to “Ratatouille,” “Wall-E” has too many moments that’ll drive you up, well, the wall.
At an AMC San Diego preview, the crowd, heavy with kids, cheered in appreciation of a movie that creates a relationship between two robots that incessantly squeal “WallEEEEEEEEEEE” and “Evvvvvvvvvvvvvve.” OK, it’s a love story, a mechanical one, so to speak, but those sounds are irritating.
Wall-E, which stands for Water Allocation Load Lifter, Earth Class, is the lone survivor (except for his cockroach pal) of an Earth that has been overrun by trash and pollution. It’s 2077, and the remaining humans have been evacuated to a first-class spaceship where they’re all obese, nestled in lounge chairs and having robots do everything for them. Can’t they brush their own teeth?
Back on Earth, the little guy with the “E.T.”-like eyes, does the custodial job he’d been programmed for - gather up mounds of material and compact it in his belly. At night, he retreats to a kind of secluded cell where he stores a collection of tchotchkes from a cigarette lighter to a Rubik’s Cube.
His only companion is that roach and it’s to director-screenwriter Andrew Stanton’s credit that the one bug that’ll survive a nuclear war, the most reviled of insects, is sympathetic. He, too, needs a friend.
Meanwhile, unexpectedly arriving on Earth is a different kind of robot, one that looks like it came from the Apple Store (former Pixar chairman Steve Jobs is CEO of Apple). It’s named EVE (Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), and she’s been sent by the folks on the spaceship to see what’s happening on their home planet.
Wall-E, who takes his romantic cues from the movie version of “Hello, Dolly!” (the lone tape he can play on an old machine) is smitten. He aches to imitate the young lovers in the film who hold hands. To say this is a stretch, well, where’s a Beatles tune when you need it, or a Metallica one?
Wall-E is cute and clumsy, lonely and decrepit, waddling through a post-apocalyptic world of abandoned Buy N’ Large stores. A newspaper’s front page sails by with this headline, “Too much trash!”
On board the spaceship called Axiom, the captain sees the light when Eve brings back a living plant. He wants to return his passengers home to Earth. Voiced vapidly by Jeff Garlin, a stand-up comic and Larry David’s best friend on HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” it’s a wooden performance.
One can’t fault Pixar for taking a risk. But “Wall-E” smacks of creative people in a room playing with toys (and a $180 million budget, according to reports), trying too hard, thinking too much. You admire the work, the edgy animation, the chutzpah, but there’s only so much heart you can get into a mechanical contraption.
The film is preceded by “Presto,” a hilarious short cartoon about a magician who neglects to feed his rabbit and how the bunny gets revenge. It’s magical.
“Wall-E.” Running time: 1 hour, 37 minutes. Rated: G. 2 1/2 stars.

RATINGS

4 STARS - Excellent.

3 STARS - Worthy.

2 STARS - Mixed.

1 STAR - Poor.

0 - Forget It.

NR - Not Rated.