Bovie Movie

Hollywood’s plundering of classic TV series has produced its fair share of turkeys, but this is a glorious exception. This is partly owing to director Barry Sonnenfeld’s wise decision to stick with the black humour of Charles Addams’s original and very popular New Yorker cartoons and, perhaps more importantly, some inspired casting — Anjelica Huston and Raul Julia are note perfect as loving Morticia and Gomez, while Christopher Lloyd was equally born to play Fester. However, these stars are almost surpassed by the astonishingly agile Thing and by Christina Ricci’s splendid performance as the young Wednesday. The plot — a confidence trickster (Lloyd) poses as Fester to steal the Addams fortune — is a tad contrived, but Sonnenfeld makes a confident transition from cinematographer to director (he proved himself again with Get Shorty in 1995) and the result is a witty family comedy that has enough sly humour to keep adults chuckling throughout. The massive success of the film inspired the cast to return for a sequel. 

This proficient remake of the old David Niven/Marlon Brando screwball comedy Bedtime Story attempts to cruise by on star power alone. Michael Caine plays the veteran conman making a comfortable living on the Riviera, who takes brash American Steve Martin under his wing. However, the pair fall out when they compete to take rich heiress Glenne Headly to the cleaners. Caine more than holds his own against the manic Martin, and, if the script holds few surprises, the south of France looks great and director Frank Oz ensures the action slips along smoothly. The result is harmless, frothy fun. 

Reese Witherspoon returns as ditzy blonde socialite Elle Woods in this frothy but dumb sequel to the 2001 hit comedy. Having graduated from Harvard, the pink-clad cutie is now a rising young lawyer, intent on legally ending the animal experimentation that’s keeping her beloved dog’s mother locked up in a cosmetics lab. Fans of the original will love the rose-tinted confection that follows as our stilettoed heroine teeters off to Washington to lobby the politicians directly. Reprising her tenacious sorority girl role, Witherspoon is astonishingly authentic in the lead and it’s to her credit that she pulls off such an airheaded turn with so much charm and grace. Without her, the film would be a mess — some of the scenes are toe-curlingly embarrassing, while the plotline and conclusion are beyond preposterous. Ultimately there’s fun to be had, but you’ll need to disengage your brain to get the most out of this sugary romp. 

Sandra Bullock plays a liberal lawyer who fights for environmental causes; Hugh Grant is a real estate tycoon who plans to knock down her local community centre in Coney Island to build condominiums — she agrees to work for him if he doesn’t go ahead with the demolition. So, the pair are thrown together in true romantic comedy tradition: opposites fighting an attraction. Bullock ends up running the hapless tycoon’s life — everything from handling his divorce to choosing his shirts — until she gets fed up, hands in her (two weeks) notice and quits. Will they overcome their differences and find a way back to each other? The formulaic plot is not the main problem here as even the best romantic comedies have genre conventions. It’s Bullock and Grant. Both natural, charming actors with the ability to play light comedy, they should have been the dream rom-com team, but they’re just trying too hard and with little result. All this effort only highlights that what really makes a screen romance work — a magical chemistry between the protagonists à la Tracy and Hepburn — is missing.