MovieBabe Blog

Under discussion:

Kiss of the Dragon  (2001)

Perhaps you're thinking that Kiss of the Dragon is this summer's big action/martial arts offering, but, to judge by the audience's reaction at a recent screening, Jet Li's latest is actually a comedy. The laughs were constant as faces were bloodied, a body was cut in half, and skin was burned by hot irons. (Hoo, these guys sure know how to fight!) Only one particularly torturous death made these moviegoers squirm -- and, because I was watching the film with the general public and not, say, at a prison, the lighthearted response to the rather serious violence onscreen made me more than a little cautious walking back to my car.

I'll grant that Li is a likable fellow and certainly worth cheering on. Unlike many action figures, he seems human: His eyes widen with a hint of fear when things go awry, he looks frantic and confused when running away from the bad guys, and, in a post-whupass moment early in the film, he asks with disarming, childlike horror, "Why did you kiwl him?" The enemy in this case, Richard (Tchéky Karyo), has enticed Li's government agent -- whom Richard insists on calling "Johnny," unwilling to pronounce his real name -- to France to help him in a sting operation whose true intention is to frame Johnny, for reasons unexplained. While waiting for the ensuing manhunt to cool down so he can proffer evidence of his innocence to the authorities, Johnny becomes involved with Jessica (Bridget Fonda), a prostitute who's also entangled with evil Richard but who has to play nice until the baddie decides to tell her where he's keeping her daughter.

Fonda's near-whine was put to better use in light movies such as Singles and It Could Happen to You, and her one-dimensional role as the hooker with a, well, you know, becomes officially unbelievable when she complains that her exhausted co-workers get more work in one day than she gets in a week. (Although Fonda's vanilla prettiness is unremarkable by Hollywood standards, I'd think she'd be top of the line as far as strung-out French streetwalkers are concerned.) But Johnny pities her anyway, maybe even falls in love a little bit, and, like a true gentleman, risks his life as he fights what seems like most of France to get Jessica's daughter back. It's the funniest thing you've ever seen.

Under discussion:

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider  (2001)

For a virtual babe, Lara Croft has a pretty cool life. When she's not traveling the world -- the heiress is as skilled at photojournalism and archaeology as she is at tomb-raiding -- she lives in an elegant, light-filled mansion, has spiderlike robots specially designed for her fightin' pleasure, and employs a foxy butler to ensure that all of her other aristocratic needs are promptly met. And, as brought to life by the boobalicious Angelina Jolie, Croft also believably commands both respect and dropped-jaw fascination from the cadre of men she keeps in her company.

Jolie spends the majority of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider chasing myriad and sometimes unidentified bad guys with her double guns, smiling deliciously at each new challenge, and -- a little something for those who are rightfully frustrated watching the PG-13 flick -- even takes a slo-mo shower and unabashedly drops her towel as she saunters to the closet, her butler scolding her for not being ladylike while he droolingly marvels at his professional luck. Oh yeah: There's also something about an impending planetary alignment, an all-seeing eye, an evil secret society, and the need for Croft to complete her late father's mission of finding half of an ancient triangle in the interest of saving the world.

But who cares? The action sequences are rote and hardly summer-blockbuster-exhilarating (no insult to Bono, but maybe some Mortal Kombat-style industrial-strength techno would have helped) and most of them seem rather tangential to the plot, which is senselessly overdetailed. (When Croft is asked by one of her hangers-on why she's taking off to some exotic locale this time, the writers have her trot out the tired "If I told you, I'd have to kill you," apparently to avoid having to reiterate the whirl of events leading up to her departure.) Occasionally, a character will growl, "You're the tomb raider!" abruptly reminding the audience of the movie's whole alleged point. Moviegoers, however, will have already gleaned the real purpose of the film: to whet everyone's appetite for more ass-kickin' Jolie in Tomb Raider 2.

Under discussion:

The Forsaken  (2001)

Wooden stakes and crucifixes are so last century. Nowadays, vampires have other worries, such as driving a suckmobile that doesn't stall at inopportune moments and always having a trustworthy "day driver" (preferably someone who's been bitten but hasn't yet "turned" and therefore won't mind the sun -- but a plain old dumbass will work in a pinch).

The Forsaken, starring a handful of pretties from the WB, is the latest attempt to update the undead. This one involves Sean (Kerr Smith), a film editor who is trying to make some extra bucks by returning a swanky Mercedes to its owner across the country via lonesome desert roads. Soon, Sean is having weird visions -- a babe in an adjacent car flashes him and, even more strangely, disappears -- and immediately breaks his boss's No. 1 rule: No hitchhikers. Nick (Brendan Fehr) bums a ride with Sean and at first hides his status as a not-quite-turned vampire hunter with existential arguments justifying his drifter lifestyle.

But when the two encounter a young woman who alternates between screaming bloody hell and falling into catatonia, Nick has to fess up. He knows just what's wrong with her: Turns out she's been infected with the vampire virus (which can be controlled with drugs, by the way) and is serving as a telepathic transmitter to the group of car-trouble-plagued ne'er-do-wells who infected her. It doesn't take long for her to nip Sean, who, although he likes the fuzziness he's suddenly feeling, appreciates Nick's worldly wisdom even more and places himself in the vampire hunter's pharmaceutical care. The solutions to everyone's problems? Jumper cables, gas cans, and killing the source of the virus on hallowed ground. (Luckily, there's an ancient graveyard nearby.)

The vampire action borders on cannibalistic -- there's more than simple sucking going on here -- but the effects are delivered mostly in unexciting, indecipherable flashes (except for when a couple of the afflicted explode in the sun -- that's damn cool). The acting is as flat as can be expected from a group of young teen-soap crossovers, but there's a nearly touching moment when Sean begins to take stock of what life has thrown at him: "It's weird. Three days ago, I had a phat job and not a worry in the world -- and now I'm going to turn into a vampire." At that point I, too, reflected on what I was experiencing and had to agree: It doesn't get much worse than this.