Leading Ladies: January 14, 2005
Heading to the movies this weekend? Find out what's worth your time according to the top women film critics at the nation's best publications. Every Friday morning we'll give you the female perspective on what to expect when the curtain rises.
A note about the links: Some sites require registration or are for paid subscribers, and some links are good for a limited time only.
Elektra
Stars: Jennifer Garner, Goran Visnjic, Terence Stamp
Director: Rob Bowman
Rating: PG-13
Anyone who thinks female movie critics might cut some slack for a movie revolving around a butt-kicking heroine needs only take a spin through the Elektra reviews by our Leading Ladies to disavow themselves of that notion. In fact, the pundits find little to like about Jennifer Garner's spin-off action babe (yep, she was reincarnated after her Daredevil death), though it did give the women a chance to unleash their sharpest barbs.
Says USA Today's Claudia Puig: "We are supposed to feel her pain. Instead, we feel our own for having to sit through this silly movie." The Los Angeles Times's Carina Chocano finds Garner's step down from Alias "dispiriting." Meanwhile, Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwartzbaum says, "Just as all regular models can't be supermodels, so all action chicks can't be superheroines."
Forget Sydney, says LA Weekly's Kim Morgan, Garner "lacks the feral intensity that an Angelina Jolie or a Milla Jovovich would naturally bring to the role." And those costumes... "It's worth noting that whenever Elektra slips on her satiny outfit, she also puts down her long hair, which you would think would impede her warrior skills. It never does. That must be some kind of superconditioner," says Manohla Dargis of the New York Times.
Female consensus: Maybe Elektra was better off dead.
Coach Carter
Stars: Samuel L. Jackson, Ashanti, Robert Ri'chard
Director: Thomas Carter
Rating: PG-13
Does Coach Carter, starring Samuel L. Jackson as a high school basketball coach, successfully maneuver past the sports cliche trap? The movie "uses a familiar playbook" according to the L.A. Times's Carina Chocano. However, the Philadelphia Inquirer's Carrie Rickey thinks the supercharged game scenes and Jackson's leading man turn make for pleasant viewing. "In the title role, Jackson holds himself like an exclamation point," Rickey writes. And, though she agrees that the film is heavy on cliches, the Austin Chronicle's Marrit Ingman says it scores on a few fronts. "Come to this movie for the prominent hip-hop soundtrack and glossy sports action; leave with a message about teamwork, decency, and self-respect scorched into your brain," she says. Ditto Salon's Stephanie Zacharek, who says the film is "one of those highly effective conventional pictures that remind us that conventionality isn't always a bad thing."
Female consensus: It's not a slam dunk, but the movie does take the feel-good-flick genre to heart.
Racing Stripes
Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Frankie Muniz, Mandy Moore, Snoop Dogg
Director: Frederik Du Chau
Rating: PG
Racing Stripes fancies itself in the same class as Babe, but our female critics say it's really a horse of another color.
"Sweet, innocuous and about as fresh as yesterday's lettuce," says LA Weekly's Ella Taylor. And the Chicago Tribune's Allison Benedikt agrees that Stripes is clearly a wannabe, calling it a "predictable celebrity- and joke-packed yakking animal pic." But the critics also agree the movie is a must-see for kiddies and horse aficionados, as well as anyone who might just be looking for an engaging trip to the theater. "It's no classic, but its heart's in the right place," says the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Eleanor Ringel Gillespie.
Female consensus: It's far from a thoroughbred, but there's plenty of entertaining horsin' around.
In limited release:
The animated cyborg-versus-humans war story Appleseed features characters and scenery so "photorealistic that it's hard to believe it's the product of computer generation," says the Philadelphia Inquirer's Carrie Rickey. The Green Butchers, a Danish film about a pair of best buds who are also cannibalistic butchers, is "neither high flying enough for the art house nor low down enough for the cult-video shelf," says Manohla Dargis of the New York Times. French drama The Chorus (or Les Choristes in France) aims to tug at your heartstrings with its tale of an inspirational boarding-school music teacher. Or, as the New York Times's Manohla Dargis says, "Think Lean on Me meets Mr. Holland's Opus with soaring sopranos and a soupçon of drama."
Seen these films? Tell us what you think.
Find out about last week's releases: White Noise and In Good Company.
