WHAT LIES BENEATH

As far as I can tell, the only people who might enjoy Robert Zemeckis’ supernatural thriller What Lies Beneath are the ones that haven’t yet seen its trailer, but I’m not sure if anyone qualifies anymore. That’s not just because the omnipresent trailer gives away far too many plot twists, but seeing the preview makes watching the entire first hour of the film pointless. Movie trailers have been getting worse and worse about providing too much information; this is the first time they came close to spoiling an entire movie for me.

X-MEN

Movie reviewers kill me sometimes. The same critics who raved about the "kinetic thrill-ride" that was the senseless Mission: Impossible 2 and who called the ridiculous The Patriot "passionate and engrossing" are now turning up their noses at Bryan Singer’s X-Men adaptation. According to most news sources, the movie is portentous, under-plotted, filled with too many characters (or, for X-Men fans, too few), and serves as nothing but the setup film for an obvious franchise.

THE ADVENTURES OF ROCKY & BULLWINKLE

One of the happier surprises of last summer was the release of South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut, a marvelously written musical comedy that transcended its source material and shot off into a madcap animated universe all its own, raising the bar for all future TV-show-turned-feature-film projects. And while it would be great to report that the film version of The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle approached South Park's level of cinematic exuberance, the filmmakers are facing an uphill battle: The animated series this one is based on is already such a whirligig of action, cliffhangers, and verbal and visual puns that raising the ante on it as a movie seems kinda pointless. (Clever and funny though it often is, the South Park TV series has nothing on the brilliance of the original R & B series.)

THE PATRIOT

In this analysis of The Patriot, the Revolutionary War saga starring Mel Gibson, let's begin by addressing that which is mostly blameless - Caleb Deschanel's cinematography. Whether lensing a battle scene, featuring what appear to be thousands of extras in red and blue coats, or a romantic tableau in the moonlight, Mr. Deschanel's work is impeccable; he's one of the best in the business. Ditto the folks behind the set design and costumes, which look marvelously right in their period detail and lend the film more than an air of authenticity.

CHICKEN RUN

To discuss the numerous, simple joys of Chicken Run is to risk ruining what's great about the film; how beautifully it's underplayed, and how sly and gentle its considerable streak of humor is. Using Nick Park's miraculous Claymation, the film tells the story of a group of miserable, caged English chickens who are trying, in vain, to escape from their evil human captor (voiced by Miranda Richardson). Their days appear numbered until the arrival of Rocky (Mel Gibson), an American circus-escapee known for his "Flying Rooster" act. The chickens' hope is that he'll teach them to fly away to safety; Rocky's hope is that they won't discover he's a fraud.