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Valentine's Movie Watch!

Coming to Theatres February 15, 2008
by Chad Boudreau
 

There are not a lot of new releases coming to theaters on February 15, which is disheartening considering the batch of deadbeats that were released the previous week. To frustrate the mature moviegoer further, three of the four mainstream films being released are for a younger audience. Looks like I’ll be relying on zip.ca to provide my motion picture fix once again.

 

Definitely, Maybe

Over Her Dead Body released on February 1 was a date movie to avoid. Last week I recommended Fool’s Gold as a potential date movie, one that would deliver relationship comedy and cutes plus a dose of female friendly action. February 15 has the release of yet another date movie, and while it doesn’t have the action of Fool’s Gold it does promise to have better comedy and relationship drama than Over Her Dead Body. 

Ryan Reynolds drops the fratboy humor and graduates to a more serious relationship comedy in which he plays a political consultant trying to explain his impending divorce and past relationships to his 11-year-old daughter. Reynolds is joined by the lovely Rachel Weisz, who can always be counted on for a solid performance, and the equally talented Kevin Kline. 

Definitely, Maybe is definitely the date movie to see in February. 

Step Up 2 the Streets

 

I’m man enough to admit I watch the reality television show So You Think You Can Dance? and not just because my wife watches it and it’s a chance to spend some time together. I actually like the show. It’s a reality show in which everyone actually enjoys themselves, even the poor bastards that truly can’t dance. Plus, the dancers really do have talent and it’s amazing to watch them display their skills through a variety of dance styles. Now, even though I dig this show there’s no way you’d get me to sit through a dance movie like Step Up 2 the Streets.  That’s just not entertainment to me. I just want the dancing. I don’t want some crafted story about bad girls falling in love with good boys or vice versa depending on which movie in a recent string of dance movies you’re watching.

Whether I’m absent from the theatre or not isn’t a concern to the makers of this movie. I’m not the target audience. The target audience is pre-teen and teen girls, and the history of these dance movies proves they fill enough seats to justify the continued existence of the genre. 

The Spiderwick Chronicles

 

When The Lord of the Rings was released and proved to be both a commercial and critical success I got very excited about the future of the fantasy genre film, a genre that is sorely lacking in quality material. Surely, a revitalization of the genre was imminent. 

My hopes were quickly dashed when it became apparent Hollywood was going to eschew mature themed fantasy and instead focus its attention of more kid friendly fare. This, of course, is thanks to the widely popular and successful Harry Potter franchise, which, though enjoyable to adults, certainly lacks the complexity of The Lord of the Rings films. Following on the heels of Potter, we’ve had The Chronicles of Narnia, Eragon, The Golden Compass, The Seeker: The Dark is Rising and now The Spiderwick Chronicles.

I’ll admit I enjoy the Harry Potter films (more so than the books) but I don’t have any interest in these other more family friendly offerings. There’s just not enough complexity for an adult to chew on.    

Jumper

 

I’m curious about Jumper. The premise intrigues me. A young man discovers he has the ability to teleport from one place to another. He decides to use his ability to search for the man he believes is responsible for the death of his mother, but his mission is complicated by the existence of a secret organization that wants to exterminate people that can teleport.

The trailer excites with its images of the jumpers moving impossibly from place to place in a blink of an eye. The movie is helmed by Doug Liman. He’s the best director in the Bourne franchise and he’s also the guy who directed the equally excellent Go and Swingers. To top it all off, Jumper stars Hayden Christensen, who can act when given the chance, the always enjoyable Jamie Bell, and the screen chewing force known as Samuel L. Jackson. 

The one thing that perturbs me though is the book upon which the movie is based is classified as a young adult reading, suggesting this movie might be made with a younger audience in mind.  As such, I’m going to wait for a few reviews to be written to see if it’s a movie that plays well to an adult audience. 

Diary of the Dead

 

I certainly would never discredit George A. Romero as the master of the zombie movie. He rightly achieved that status because of his first trilogy of films: Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead. The more recently released Land of the Dead was a big disappointment, but fortunately didn’t cheapen his earlier work. His latest film, Diary of the Dead, which has a limited release on February 15, feels like a sad attempt to cash in on recent successes enjoyed by the zombie genre as a whole (The Walking Dead and Marvel Zombies in comics; World War Z in books, for instance).

A group of young film students run into zombies while filming a horror movie of their own. The movie uses a documentary style of filmmaking but thankfully doesn’t rely solely on shaky, nausea inducing handheld camera bullshit recently seen in Cloverfield. Instead, Romero tells his story through a variety of personal recorders, security cameras, cell phones, news footage, etc. It’s an interesting concept, but I don’t understand Romero’s need to create more zombie films. His original trilogy is the definitive zombie franchise. There is no need to expand upon it.  
 

***

 

The first half of February hasn’t given us many reasons to head to the local movie houses. The good news is the latter half of the shortest month of the year contains some promising films in the genres of comedy, action, horror and drama. Stay tuned and I’ll tell you what’s what in the coming weeks. 

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