Bovie Movie

Jet Li takes his first starring role in a US movie here, playing an ex-cop convict who flees to America to avenge the death of his brother and gets entangled in a Mob war. During his investigation, he continually mixes with the daughter (played by singer Aaliyah) of the rival gang’s head thug, yet the film-makers are too cowardly to take the interracial relationship beyond mere friendliness. Even for an American movie, the martial arts sequences are very badly choreographed, and there is far more hip-hop music and lingo than either plot or action. Fortunately, Anthony Anderson provides some welcome comic relief as a dim-witted henchman. 

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer focuses on family audiences with this boisterous and likeable action feature. While too lightweight for most adults, its slapdash mixture of cheeky humour, speedily shot chase sequences and dim-witted monkey business should hold the attention of youngsters. Surprisingly, Liz Hurley’s erstwhile boyfriend Steve Bing co-wrote the story and screenplay, in which calamity-prone friends Jerry O’Connell and Anthony Anderson are dispatched to Australia by O’Connell’s mobster stepfather (Christopher Walken) to deliver $50,000 to a shady associate. When a wild kangaroo runs off with the cash, the pals set off across the outback in pursuit, assisted by wildlife conservationist Estella Warren. Though Warren adds little more than tight T-shirt titillation and Walken’s so stereotyped he’s almost boring to watch, it’s O’Connell and Anderson’s spirited banter that carries the film. As for the eponymous marsupial, this semi-CGI creation pops up so infrequently you almost feel cheated. 

Romeo Must Die duo Jet Li and rapper DMX here reunite with director Andrzej Bartkowiak for another frenetic slice of cultural fusion. This unpretentious action thriller with its combination of eastern martial arts and western urban grit may not be rocket science, but it’s still an enjoyable ride. Playing with the clichés of the buddy movie, this has DMX’s streetwise entrepreneur forced into an uneasy alliance with Taiwanese intelligence agent Li after his young daughter is kidnapped by Li’s former partner (Mark Dacascos). Though the hip-hop influences of Bartkowiak’s previous work still dominate the tale’s soundtrack and language, he seems to have refined his film-making style. There’s a lot more wit, stereotypes are inverted and both the action sequences and special effects are imaginative yet believable. Li’s English remains clumsy, but he’s a gloriously entertaining fighter, and it’s pleasing to see a feature where all the female protagonists give as good as they get. 

Martin Lawrence plays an “underblubber” agent in this mix of Stakeout and Mrs Doubtfire, trying to catch an escaped bank robber (Terrence Howard) by posing as the 300lb southern momma of the villain’s ex-girlfriend (Nia Long). The comedy derives both from Lawrence’s roly-poly impersonation and from his falling for the girl he’s guarding. The humour is pretty obvious, but Lawrence works hard to give this one-joke film enough crowd-pleasing moments to justify the ticket price. 

Hasbro’s ever-popular toy franchise takes centre stage in Armageddon director Michael Bay’s super-sized sci-fi action adventure. When teenager Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) buys a second-hand car, he soon finds out that it has a life of its own. As well as helping him get close to the girl of his dreams (Megan Fox), it draws him into the long-running war between the alien Autobots and their evil nemeses the Decepticons, which is now taking place on Earth. The film may be a robotic replay of (executive producer) Steven Spielberg’s ET with elements from other popular fantasies grafted on, but the humorous high-octane thrills are never less than astonishing. Most impressive is the seamless integration of CGI animation into live action — and the sheer scope of its ambition. The conversion from cars and helicopters into enormously detailed iron giants in seconds is breathtaking. Despite a finale overloaded with spectacle and massive explosions, Transformers is that rare thing — a truly innovative blockbuster. 

The tired format limps on here with Scary Movie 3 director David Zucker returning — but now well past his Airplane! prime. The intersecting parodies include the Saw films, The Grudge, War of the Worlds and The Village with nods to Million Dollar Baby and Brokeback Mountain thrown in for good measure alongside pop culture references to Oprah and Michael Jackson. Anna Faris gamely plays the naive, accident-prone Cindy Campbell for the fourth time, in a fatigued franchise that is still recycling the most ancient slapstick and toilet gags. Witless, obvious and completely devoid of anything remotely funny, even the most undemanding audience will find little to laugh at in this practically unwatchable dud aimed (presumably) at the post-pub DVD rental market. 

Little Red Riding Hood gets a low-grade Shrek makeover in this cheap-looking slice of computer-generated animation. Fitfully clever rather than funny, sluggish when it should be sassy, this uses a Rashomon approach to retell the classic tale from four perspectives. Kung fu fighting Red (voiced by a strident Anne Hathaway) remains closest to the original characters, while extreme-sports enthusiast Granny (Glenn Close), undercover reporter Big Bad Wolf (Patrick Warburton) and down-on-his-luck Woodsman (James Belushi) wander off the page. A moustached frog named Nicky Flippers (David Ogden Stiers) is the Poirot of the piece, trying to unravel the anachronistic puzzle. Despite the occasional amusing line and non-stop references to other fairy tales, the sameness of each character’s version of events soon becomes tedious, while the bland songs, ranging between hard rock and show tunes, don’t help. 

Steven Seagal looks far from the svelte fast-moving hero he should be in this action drama. He plays Orin Boyd, a disgraced cop who is transferred to a tough inner-city precinct where he discovers his new colleagues are selling heroin to drug dealers. Seagal’s comeback film, based on the novel by John Westermann, sees Warner Bros reunite many of the cast and crew of the equally disappointing Romeo Must Die, including director Andrzej Bartkowiak and producer Joel Silver. Seagal’s performance is typically wooden, and the Toronto locations are hardly convincing as downtown Detroit. However, rapper DMX provides some relief from the usual Seagal shenanigans. The poster reads “This is gonna hurt”, and indeed it does, for just under two hours. 

This daft comedy tells the tale of an FBI supermutt who teams up with a postman to thwart an attempt by the Mob on the dog’s life. Toss into the mix a cute kid, two half-baked Italian-American hitmen, some boring sequences and third-rate scatological humour, and you have the recipe for a dog’s dinner. Yet David Arquette gives an enthusiastic performance as the postman, and there are some nice, relatively straight-faced support performances from Paul Sorvino, Joe Analyze That Viterelli and Michael Clarke Duncan (the man-mountain from The Green Mile). Two parts Home Alone to one part Turner and Hooch, this may not have the best pedigree, but children won’t be disappointed.