Superhero Movie *

Director: Criag Mazin

Cast: Drake Bell, Sara Paxton

Christopher McDonald, Regina Hall, Leslie Nielsen

With the idea that with low budget comes no accountability, "Superhero Movie" is the latest in a series of cheap parodies made with the sole intention of earning a quick buck, disregarding the minimum audience respect in terms of plot coherence.

This time around it pokes fun at superhero, comic book movies by focusing on Rick Riker (a very likeable Bell), the type of geekishly handsome young man that is obviously the school's loser, has a crush on the popular blonde (Paxton) and can never get things right.

After he's bitten by a radioactive dragonfly he becomes known as "The Dragonfly" who appears just in time to stop a crazy villain (McDonald) trying to obtain immortality by absorbing people's energy.

During its short running time the film makes references to "Spider-Man", from which it draws most of its plot from, and both sequels, as well as "X-Men", "Batman Begins" and "Fantastic Four" among others.

It also has the obligatory Britney Spears and Tom Cruise jokes, plus characters played by Leslie Nielsen and Regina Hall, who albeit funny, have started to overstay their welcome from the genre.

And as with most entries in this style, "Superhero Movie" has huge troubles drawing laughter from the audience, mostly because the films it makes fun of have been, almost, consistently good; leaving absolutely no space for you to find ridiculous flaws in them.

Sadly the same can't be said for this one.

Definitely, Maybe **

Director: Adam Brooks
Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Abigail Breslin
Isla Fisher, Elizabeth Banks, Rachel Weisz
Kevin Kline, Derek Luke

After learning about sex at school, 10 year old Maya (Breslin) begins to question her father, Will,(Reynolds) about his own experience before her mom.
Slightly surprised by this request Will comes up with the original idea to tell his daughter the story of his life, but changes the names of the women in order for her to guess which is her mom.
Flash back to 1992 when Will is working for Bill Clinton's campaign and the three mother candidates are: Emily (Banks), Will's college sweetheart who is having trouble following his pace, sexy erudite Summer (Weisz) who has a thing for a seasoned writer (Kline) but can't help liking Will and finally April (Fisher) a kooky, free spirit working as copygirl for the campaign.
While original in concept, the film lacks spirit in the execution and before long ends up feeling like the extension of a joke that wasn't so good to begin with.
Sometimes forgetting that it's supposed to feel like a love jigsaw, it tries to cover all the right bases and instead of focusing on something, goes for a "feel good" sense in every single way.
Nobody is dislikeable and the script manages to be condescending without ever feeling selfconscious.
Reynolds makes for a satisfying lead, even if his performance is fueled by inertia more than anything else, since he knows everyone can overact him here, which is why it's the girls who stay with you the most.
Banks' "all American" beauty has a sweet effervescent mood, while Weisz is sexy, intriguing and the most real of the characters.
But leaving the film you will probably have stronger impressions from Fisher who does her best Amy Adams impersonation to become the girl you root for the most and of course Breslin, who unlike other child actresses is able to keep a balance between being a child and a child thinking they can act like an adult, which helps her deliver a performance that goes from "staple cute kid" to fully formed character.
While it's true that revisiting our love histories is a double edged sword, "Definitely, Maybe" has the innocence none of its characters does and is able to remain hopeful amidst a world that constantly tries to remind you hope is practically gone.
Whatever you decide to make out of it, the one unforgivable thing the film does is try to treat you like Maya, when truth is even she knows best...

Kung Fu Panda **1/2

Director: Mark Osborne, John Stevenson

To date, Dreamworks Animation Studios has been characterized by creating films that rely on pop culture references, crass humor, sloppy animation and other than for the green ogre, haven't come up with a real icon to represent them.

"Kung Fu Panda" might be the closest thing they've come so far to creating animation that won't feel irrelevant ten years from now.

Set in a magical Chinese valley it tells the story of Po, a chubby Panda who works in his adoptive father's noodle restaurant. While Po dreams of one day becoming a great kung fu master, his hopes are often shattered by others' misconceptions and his own self esteem which has convinced him that someone with his weight will never succeed.

Things change after tortoise Master Oogway has a premonition revealing that the evil snow leopard Tai Lung will escape prison and return to seek revenge in the valley. The only one able to stop him will be the mysterious Dragon Warrior, a legendary savior whose identity is yet to be revealed.

On the day of the ceremony, the Furious Five - Tigress, Monkey, Mantis, Sanke and Crane - a group of brilliant kung fu artists trained by master Shifu, are sure that one of them will be chosen, but to their surprise, and in what becomes one of the film's first attempts at philosophical depth, it's Po who gets chosen as the Dragon Warrior.

After this the plot turns into a rehash of "The Karate Kid" by way of "Hero" as Po must rise to the ocassion and fulfill his destiny.

Briskly paced and with a simple, sweethearted sense of humor, "Kung Fu Panda" shines because of how unpretentious it is. The characters aren't really that memorable, except for the panda who is built as someone we can't help but root for, which in a sense is all the movie really needed to work.

The animation is often breathtaking, especially in the stylized action scenes which seem to defy gravity, but other than this practically nothing else is challenged by the filmmakers.

In a way "Kung Fu Panda" is best described as its main character: something that shouldn't really work, but when it does stil feels as if it's missing something.

Happy Birthday Meryl.

That screen goddess known to us mortals as Meryl Streep turns 59 today.

With a career spanning three decades, two Academy Awards, thirteen other nominations, six Golden Globes, a steady, and extremely intimate and normal, family life and usually regarded as the greatest living actress, Streep probably has nothing to wish for today, does she?

What would you wish for if you were her?

In Bruges ***

Director: Martin McDonagh

Cast: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes

Clémence Poésy, Jordan Prentice, Jérémie Renier, Thekla Reuten

After a job gone bad, hitmen, Ray (Farrell) and Ken (Gleeson) are sent by their boss, Harry Waters (Fiennes), to hide for a while and await further instruction in Bruges, Belgium.

For Ken, the medieval architecture and quaintness of the city comes to indulge his inner history buff, while for the emotionally unstable Ray it becomes a terrenal representation of whatever purgatory must feel like.

Things turn around when Ken receives orders to get rid of Ray, while Ray falls for a seductive drug dealer (Poésy).

Feature length debut by writer/director McDonagh, "In Bruges" is a well done pastiche of comedy, gangster and action that works mostly because of its inspired dialogue which at times is made out of offensive, racist and sexist remarks that somehow fit because of how true they remain to the characters uttering them.

McDonagh's theatrical background is felt throughout the film by the way in which the characters and settings are usually treated as symbols.

While Ray represents the conflicted conscience, Ken brings a sense of weird morality that we should be questioning because of its source and with the somber inclusion of Harry ends up having Shakespearean repercussions.

Influenced by classic noir (watching "Touch of Evil" play in the TV during one scene is enough to put a smile on your face) the movie owes itself to many gems of the cinematic style as much as it does to Tarantino and Scorsese.

Gleeson does a terrific job playing a sensitive mentor, while Fiennes goes into psychotic Amon Goeth mode to deliver a great star turn (his line about why he deserves a "normal gun for normal people" might be the most offensive thing you've heard in your entire life), the real surprise here though is Farrell who does more with his character than you'd ever expect.

While Ray is written as a guy who just killed someone he shouldn't have and has time to flirt and do girls, Farrell gives him a damaged soul that he can't hide despite his lines.

His combination of humor, sadness and humanity is outstanding.

With fast cuts, even faster lines and a droll sense of humor, the plot unfolds before your eyes in an almost surrealistic way which in a way might come from Bruges, which ends up being its most influential character.

The city, which has never gotten cinematic justice, comes to life as a sort of limbo where time has stood still. The Flemish jokes and clichés fly like bullets, but without this sense of timeless dread the hitmen wouldn't really have anything to work with.

It is because of the magic of Bruges that we even care about their problems, its "fairy tale" qualities as they call them, are what makes us believe that people like them deserve to have a second chance.

The Happening *

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel

John Leguizamo, Ashlyn Sanchez, Spencer Breslin, Betty Buckley

If such things as film deities exist, M. Night Shyamalan is seriously out of favor with all of them.

After the stupifyingly stupid "The Village" and the masturbatory "Lady in the Water", he returns with his take on the impending apocalypse to deliver a thriller that ends up being mostly unintentional comedy.

"The Happening" begins in New York City, Central Park to be exact, where all the people suddenly freeze like extras from "Last Year at Marienbad" before they start comitting suicide.

Construction workers jump from buildings, policemen shoot themselves and teenage girls use their hair pins as weapons.

The media begins to assume its terrorism, while others debate it might have natural causes and Shyamalan does his best pseudo-Hitchcock impersonation relishing in the creepy factor raised by the unknown.

The story then moves to Philadelphia (where else?) where high school science teacher Elliot Moore(Wahlberg) listens about the event and flees town with his wife Alma (Deschanel), his friend Julian (Leguizamo) and his little daughter Jess (Sanchez).

When their train makes an unexpected stop they realize they're on their own and must travel cross country until the event ends and before they perish.

The acting is appalling, the writing lazy, to say the least, and together they end up with a weird plant raiser (Frank Collison) saying "You know, hot dogs get a bad rep. They gotta cool shape, they got protein." while all everyone else can think of is running away.

Wahlberg seems stale and zombie like, or out of "The Blob", Leguizamos is satisfying and Deschanel seems to be so aware of the garbage dialogue she's given that she doesn't even try to hold back her mocking smile.

Audiences familiar with Shyamalan will be expecting a surprise twist (which isn't completely fair of them to expect or of him to feed) and while that moment arrives they will undoubtedly try to figure out what the hell is actually going on.

Things that might pop in your head might include extraterrestrial attacks, some sort of lazy metaphor for not thinking before we act, bees (don't ask) or even the preposterous idea that the disaster is only deviced to aid the leads realize that they do love each other.

This time around, unable to sustain his egocentric charade long enough for us to care, Shyamalan tries to deliver his own philosophical take on what we're doing to the planet and before you can say "an inconvenient fool", his preachy message has made Al Gore look like the most subtle speaker out there.

But while apathy, irresponsible behavior towards the planet and the unbeknownst future of the human race are things that provoke fear, the only thing that induces terror in "The Happening" comes off in the opening credits when the words "Written, Produced and Directed by M. Night Shyamalan" appear.

The Incredible Hulk **1/2

Director: Louis Leterrier

Cast: Edward Norton, Liv Tyler

Tim Roth, Tim Blake Nelson, William Hurt

Last time we saw Hulk he had left the United States in order to learn to control his powers without hurting those he loved and to escape being used as an army guinea pig.

He was also being played by Eric Bana, directed by Ang Lee and had more psychological backstory to it than a patient at Betty Ford.

All of those elements were apparently too much, or not enough, and "Hulk" has gone down in history as a bizarre example of a very good film, with adequate box office, being deemed as a flop.

Five years later comes "The Incredible Hulk" which in a nutshell is everything the original Hulk was not: loud, big and mindless.

Because a complete reboot would've been a waste of time, a summary of what happened before serves as opening credits, Bruce Banner (Norton) is now living in the slums in Brazil where he's trying to learn to control his anger and find a cure to avoid transforming into Hulk.

He takes lessons with a breathing specialist, is careful never to let his heartbeats reach 200 which sets off the transformation and shares information with a New York scientist (Blake Nelson) trying to develop an antidote.

He is being hunted by General Thaddeus Ross (Hurt) who wants to create a whole army of Hulks using Banner and tries a sample of the formula on bloodthirsty bounty killer Emil Blonsky (Roth).

After a forced return to the States, Banner seeks help from his sweetheart Elizabeth Ross (Tyler) who unlike others believes inside the Hulk lies a human conscience and is constantly threatened by General Ross and Blonsky who becomes a creature known as the Abomination.

With an action setpiece around every corner, director Leterrier's film is everything a summer blockbuster should be, but definitely not everything a good film should amount to.

Even when he tries to remove every trace of character development his cast makes this a difficult feat.

Norton, buff but with a geeky, longing attitude, gives Banner a little bit extra despite the fact that the plot insists we should disregard this soulsearch and demand more explosions.

Hulk has never been a superhero in the full sense of the word because Banner wants to get rid of his powers and everyone else fears him.

He has a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde dynamic which forces a protrait of him to be an internal battle, while Leterrier doesn't care for any of this, Norton gets away with a few moments of great acting, especially in his scenes with the lovely, but dull, Tyler who bats her eyelashes and screams "no!" more often than she has something important to do.

When the film puts their relationship as the epitome of chaste love, Norton gives it a twist during a moment where Bruce can't take his hands off Betty, but his heartbeat starts increasing forcing him to stop.

As many size jokes and "Gamma ray poisoning as birth control" comments as you can come up with, the truth is that this is the only moment in the film where you will feel a connection to these people, the rest of the time they're being treated like Ann Darrow and King-Kong at Skull Island.

Roth and Hurt have delicious star turns as the villains. Roth as the maniac, pure evil one and Hurt as the villain with a chance to undo his wrongs.

But in the end what makes this film bearable is the recent interrelationships take on movies mastered by Marvel Studio, it has to be said that this film ends up being stolen by someone who isn't even billed among the cast, but without who this Hulk would've had nothing really incredible.

It seems we are coming to a completely new era of filmmaking in which for once people will feel the need to return to theaters and live the film experience as it was meant to be lived.

Marvel is starting, but who knows how long will it be before this take is used with different genres and styles?

The idea that a movie, despite its quality as cinema, is able to ellicit gasps and real excitement from audiences comes off as a double edged sword; will it make people think less or will it inspire in them a spirit that demands real quality?

Never before had a film been saved so much by its sense of possibility.