I have enjoyed Will Smith for quite a while. He’s had a few flubs, such as Wild, Wild West, but generally even in those, he can be entertaining to watch.
This time around, Smith plays Alex “Hitch” Hitchens, matchmaker extraordinaire. He doesn’t advertise, and won’t even talk to you if your plan is just to get the girl for one night. For Hitch, it’s all about the long ball.
I’m going to take a bit of a departure on this one, and say that if you’re looking for a plot, go elsewhere, because there isn’t much. Deep in Slovakia (actually, it might be just inside Slovakia, we never really know), a group of ultra-rich people do what ultra-rich people do – they get together and create for themselves what they can’t find anywhere else: A warehouse where they can kidnap and ultimately maim and murder wandering teens who would not be missed if they go missing.
Did you follow me? I hope so, because it isn’t really much to work with, and it really goes downhill from there.
The rumor says that if Elektra (Jennifer Garner) is going to kill you, she will whisper in your ear before you even know that she is there.
As the movie opens, we see that Elektra can indeed defeat an entire army of people who have been assigned the task of defending a single person. Naturally she gets past them without so much as breaking a sweat or even making it seem like a difficult task. But that is what she does.
Matt Stifler (Tad Hilgenbrink) wants to be just like his big brother. This is, presumably, the same character played by Eli Marienthal in American Pie and American Pie 2 – that character was just named “Stifler’s Brother”.
In any case, he can’t get big brother Steve to give him the time of day. So he figures that what he can do is make enough noise to get him to notice him in other ways. He decides to sabotage the school band that’s getting ready to play during some sort of graduation ceremony.
Unfortunately, what happens is that not only does he ruin the ceremony, but he exposes himself to the entire crowd, and he gets himself in so much trouble that he gets sent to the one place that no Stifler should ever want to end up. In fact, it’s the one place that no one would want any Stifler to be. He gets sent to Band Camp.
Max Bialystock (Nathan Lane) has just suffered another in a long line of failures. So when accountant Leo Bloom (Matthew Broderick) comes to do the books, and notices that he collected more money than he put out, he’s not too anxious to worry about such details.
But when Leo makes the comment that it’s actually easier to come up with deductions and make money on a losing production than it would be to do so on a success, Max perks right up, and decides that perhaps it’s time that he and Leo go into business.
While Leo may be an accountant, you see, he’s always wanted to be a Broadway producer, so the timing is perfect. Max just needs to convince Leo that it’s worth the effort.
Anothony Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal) has joined the marines. He admits that this may not have been the best decision that he has ever made.
When he arrives for training, he witnesses another marine being branded, and before he can even get his equipment into his locker, they come after him. There’s only so much that you can do when you’ve got a dozen guys on you, and they heat the torch and roll up his pants leg as the heated metal nears his body. He passes out.
When he wakes, there’s no sign of a brand, and one of the other marines tells him that it’s just something that they do to new recruits. You have to earn your brand. Scary.
In the not-so-distant future, it seems that one of the last frontiers of travel has been broken. An enterprising (greedy) soul has discovered a scientist who has uncovered the secret to time travel, and he has developed a plan for marketing it to ultra-wealthy clients, bored with their mundane existence. There are two problems with this plan.
The first is that government, as they are likely to do, gets involved in regulating what he does. The second is that the potential for catastrophe is great. But being a greedy capitalist, Charles Hatton (Ben Kingsley) proceeds anyway, and disaster seems the likely outcome. Unless, of course, the loner scientist who has his own noble goals for working for Hatton can save the world. What do you think will happen?
This movie tells the twenty-year tale of two cowboys, who meet as they prepare to head up Brokeback Mountain one year to watch sheep. Yes, they are headed up the mountain to keep an eye on the sheep. The two will stay there and one will keep the camp while the other keeps an eye on the sheep.
It’s not a glamorous job, but apparently the pay is good (they don’t actually mention it – I’m assuming that it must be, or they wouldn’t do it for months on end). Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) go up the mountain as strangers, but they come down as a whole lot more than friends, which is a tough thing in the sixties. It’s not an easy thing now. Then they go their separate ways.
Domino Harvey (Keira Knightley) is a bounty hunter. And it would seem that she’s in some sort of trouble, as she’s in a dimly-lit room, being questioned by Lucy Liu.
We’re told by Domino that most people in her position who found themselves in this predicament may not give anyone up, but in her case, she’s going to give them everything she has – which is good, because otherwise it would be a very short movie. The big problem is that it makes for a very choppy tale.
This sequel to the 2003 release takes us back to the Baker clan, but this time things have changed a bit. Tom Baker (Steve Martin) is presumably still at a small college, while wife Kate Baker (Bonnie Hunt) has still only written the one book (according to comments in the movie) – yet they are still in the massive house in the city that they purchased, so you have to wonder how they make ends meet.
Nonetheless, life moves on, and the third eldest Baker, Lorraine (Hilary Duff) is graduating high school. This is a time of change for Tom, and change isn’t always good.
Welcome to Celluloid Heroes! Here you will find movie reviews of all shapes and sizes. No stone is left unturned, and that is meant quite literally. In fact, you are probably quite unlikely to find the best of the best, as that's something that you can find elsewhere. Here you're more likely to find the dregs of the movie world than anything else.
As to the name? It's actually from a song by The Kinks, and while it may or may not have anything to do directly with the movies, it does mention quite a few movie stars, and things that make you think about movies, and well, it just seemed appropriate. Hopefully you'll agree, and if not, I suspect it won't get in the way too much.
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