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Film Clips
JANUARY 26, 1998:
 FALLEN. Aside from an eccentrically amusing but all-too-short
performance by Elias Koteas as a mass murderer singing in the
electric chair, this film is relentlessly boring. It's hard to
believe this made it past test audiences, as my informal poll
revealed that 40-percent of viewers spent the film thinking about
work, 35-percent had unrelated sexual fantasies, 20-percent worried
about environmental issues, 4-percent were there as part of a
field trip from a traumatic head injury clinic, and the remaining
1-percent actually paid attention to the screen. The film's format
is oddly cyclical: There are three minutes of plot, then Denzel
Washington does a voice-over describing what just happened, then
he tells his partner (John Goodman) what happened, then he tells
an Angelologist what happened, then he walks around in the mist
and the rain, then there's another three minutes of plot and the
cycle starts again. This allows for nearly 12 minutes of action
in a five hour film. At least I think it was five hours...I kind
of lost track of time when I realized there were only two years
left until the millennium. --DiGiovanna
HALF BAKED. Why would anyone make a movie about drug-addled
losers in the nineties? I mean, Cheech and Chong were killed by
an angry mob in 1984 for a reason. Watching people pretend to
act stoned is not exactly my idea of a good time, but there were
some brief and amusing cameos. Janeanne Garofalo's three-minute
sequence is a gem; and oddly enough, Bob Saget, who only has three
lines, is sort of fabulous, mostly by playing against type. Still,
the whole thing can basically be explained by switching a couple
of nouns in the old joke, "What did the Deadhead say when
the drugs wore off? Hey, this music really sucks!" --DiGiovanna
HARD RAIN. If you flushed your toilet non-stop for the
rest of your life, you wouldn't come anywhere near the quantity
of water wasted in Hard Rain. An action thriller set during
an ever-rising flood in a small Midwestern town, the flick is
overflowing with freaky situations like high-school halls that
become jet ski highways, jail cells turned into drowning traps,
and rooftops that double as boat ramps. At first, there's an almost
surreal quality to the film, like we're inside some sort of symbolic
dream world. But the blandly calculating script soon turns everything
into soggy cereal. Other than Morgan Freeman, who plays a refreshingly
non-sadistic villain, most of the characters just tread the usual
action-cliché waters, and the movie forfeits any claim
it had to inventiveness when it climaxes with a last-minute bad-guy
revival in slow motion. Ugh, get me a towel. With Christian Slater,
Minnie Driver, Randy Quaid, and, in sadly humiliating roles, Ed
Asner and Betty White. --Woodruff
STAR KID. Hey, it's E.T. meets Robocop! As
combinations between Steven Spielberg and Paul Verhoeven films
go, we could do a lot worse ("Hey, it's Schindler's List
meets Showgirls!") than this pleasantly executed--if
completely unoriginal--boys' movie. Joseph Mazzello, best remembered
as the little scrub who got zapped off the electric fence in Jurassic
Park, plays a frustrated lad whose workaholic, widower father
hasn't the time to help poor Mazzello overcome his persistent
bully problem and his catatonic shyness around the cute girl at
school. What better solution than the alien-assisted omnipotence
of an extraterrestrial cybersuit? If the film's revenge and love
fantasies aren't enough, Mazzello must also fight an intergalactic
war--complete with a scary, slobbering morphing monster. Totally
awesome! Star Kid too often resorts to gratuitous destruction
and bodily functions scenes, and will never be mistaken for a
children's classic. But it's cute, and displays enough overall
restraint to keep parents (and reviewers) from going bonkers.
--Woodruff
WAG THE DOG. Director Barry Levinson makes a brave attempt
at political satire, but he can't resist the impulse to water
it down. And what is it with the aging big stars? They can't resist
playing it cute. Dustin Hoffman is an adorable movie producer;
Robert DeNiro is a cuddly spin doctor working for the President.
Together they concoct the ultimate diversionary device--a war.
(This is necessary because the President seems to have broken
one of the Ten Commandments with a girl scout). Occasionally Wag
the Dog is very funny; the first half hour is especially good.
But then it starts to repeat itself, and Levinson and his screenwriters
seem to feel far more comfortable making fun of Hollywood than
of Washington. Eventually, it all degenerates into the regular,
old, predictable ruts. --Richter
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