Bovie Movie

Director Alex Proyas (Dark City, The Crow) helmed this sci-fi thriller inspired by the stories in Isaac Asimov’s nine-story anthology of the same name. In the future presented in the film, humans have become exceedingly dependent on robots in their everyday lives. Robots have become more and more advanced, but each one is preprogrammed to always obey humans and to, under no circumstances, ever harm a human. So, when a scientist turns up dead and a humanoid robot is the main suspect, the world is left to wonder if they are as safe around their electronic servants as previously thought. Will Smith stars as Del Spooner, the robot-hating Chicago cop assigned to the murder investigation. Bridget Moynahan, Bruce Greenwood, James Cromwell, and Chi McBride also star.

George Lucas draws the Star Wars film series to a close with this dark sci-fi adventure which sets the stage for the events of the first film and brings the saga full circle. After a fierce battle in which Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) and Anakin (Hayden Christensen) join Republic forces to help free Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) from the evil Count Dooku (Christopher Lee) and his minions, Anakin is drawn into Palpatine’s confidence. Palpatine has designs on expanding his rule, and with this in mind he plants seeds of doubt in Anakin’s mind about the strength and wisdom of the Jedis. Anakin is already in a quandary about how to reveal to others the news of his secret marriage to Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman) now that she is pregnant, and visions which foretell her death in childbirth weigh heavy on his mind. As Anakin finds himself used by both the Jedis and the Republic for their own purposes — particularly after Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson) expresses his distrust of the young Jedi — he turns more and more to the Force for help, but begins to succumb to the temptations of its dark side. Many of the Star Wars series regulars returned for Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith, including Frank Oz as the voice of Yoda, Anthony Daniels as C-3PO, Kenny Baker as R2-D2, and Peter Mayhew as Chewbacca.

Dan Brown’s controversial best-selling novel about a powerful secret that’s been kept under wraps for thousands of years comes to the screen in this suspense thriller from director Ron Howard. The stately silence of Paris’ Louvre museum is broken when one of the gallery’s leading curators is found dead on the grounds, with strange symbols carved into his body and left around the spot where he died. Hoping to learn the significance of the symbols, police bring in Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), a gifted cryptographer who is also the victim’s granddaughter. Needing help, Sophie calls on Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), a leading symbologist from the United States. As Sophie and Robert dig deeper into the case, they discover the victim’s involvement in the Priory of Sion, a secret society whose members have been privy to forbidden knowledge dating back to the birth of Christianity. In their search, Sophie and Robert happen upon evidence that could lead to the final resting place of the Holy Grail, while members of the priory and an underground Catholic society known as Opus Dei give chase, determined to prevent them from sharing their greatest secrets with the world. Also starring Ian McKellen, Jean Reno, and Alfred Molina, The Da Vinci Code was shot on location in France and the United Kingdom; the Louvre allowed the producers to film at the famous museum, but scenes taking place at Westminster Abbey had to filmed elsewhere when church officials declined permission.

A thesp-turned-crook gets a chance at career in movies as well as crime scene investigation in this offbeat action comedy with nods to Raymond Chandler. Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey Jr.) is a struggling New York actor who high-tails it to Los Angeles. Once there, Lockhart winds up at the posh home of the aptly-named homosexual private eye Gay Perry (Val Kilmer) amid a lavish Hollywood party, hoping to score a life-changing role in a Hollywood feature. Harry becomes reacquainted with Harmony (Michelle Monaghan), a girl he had a major crush on in his small-town Indiana high school, who may be a bit more interested in him now than she was years ago. He takes both her and her girlfriend home with him, but - in a moment of drunken stupor - accidentally sleeps with the wrong woman. Meanwhile, when a series of female bodies turns up across L.A., Harry slowly breaks into detective work, mentored by Perry. The biggest twist? Black riffs Adaptation and other films by having Harry (via satirical narration) write the movie while he is living it. Harry assures the audience that unlike Lord of the Rings, this one won’t have seventeen endings. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang marks the first directorial credit for Shane Black, who created the Lethal Weapon franchise.

First-time screenwriter Stelios Pavlou enjoyed a major success with this script that he wrote while working in an English liquor store by sending it to actor Samuel L. Jackson, who signed on for one of the lead roles. Jackson is Elmo McElroy, a kilt-wearing, golf club-wielding Los Angeles native who has invented an illegal drug formula that he hopes will provide him with a last major score of 20 million dollars before he retires from a life of crime. He travels to Liverpool, England, where he hopes to find a buyer for his creation among the denizens of the city’s rave scene, but his plans go awry when those who are in on the deal start turning up dead. Elmo’s only protector is a chain-smoking, Yank-hating local hood named Felix De Souza (Robert Carlyle), who reluctantly partners with the violence-prone American to finish the deal and cash in, sparking a gang war between Elmo’s vengeful one-time employer, The Lizard (Meat Loaf); Felix’s boss, Durant (Ricky Tomlinson); crooked cop Virgil Kane (Sean Pertwee); a beautiful assassin, who also happens to be Felix’s ex-girlfriend (Emily Mortimer); and an offbeat, yoga-practicing nightclub owner and mobster named Iki (Rhys Ifans). For its U.S. release, the title of The 51st State was changed to Formula 51.

The greatest monster hunter of them all has his work cut out for him as he tracks down three deadly foes in this action-adventure saga. Gabriel Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman) is a man who has dedicated his life to battling evil forces who exist outside the bounds of nature; Van Helsing’s work has not always made him friends, and a false accusation of murder still trails him. But when he’s summoned to Transylvania at the behest of Anna Valerious (Kate Beckinsale), whose family has been fighting supernatural beings for generations, Van Helsing wastes no time answering her call. There, Van Helsing discovers that the undying vampire Count Dracula (Richard Roxburgh) has put a misshapen creature named Igor (Kevin J. O’Connor) under his spell, and, in turn, has forged an alliance with a hideous monster (Shuler Hensley) who was created by the misguided Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Samuel West). Adding to Anna’s burden is her brother, Velkan (Will Kemp), a lycanthrope who becomes a bloodthirsty wolf under the light of the full moon. Van Helsing also co-stars Elena Anaya, Silvia Colloca, and Josie Maran as Dracula’s vampire brides.

In Paul Verhoeven’s wild sci-fi action movie Total Recall, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a 21st-century construction worker who discovers that his entire memory of the past derives from a memory chip implanted in his brain. Schwarzenegger learns that he’s actually a secret agent who had become a threat to the government, so those in power planted the chip and invented a domestic lifestyle for him. Once he has realized his true identity, he travels to Mars to piece together the rest of his identity, as well as to find the man responsible for his implanted memory. Verhoeven has created a fast, furious action film with Total Recall, filled with impressive stunts and (literally) eye-popping visuals. Though the film bears only a passing resemblance to the Philip K. Dick short story it was based on (”We Can Remember It For You Wholesale”), the movie is an entertaining, if very violent, ride.

Famed producer Dino De Laurentiis tries to steal the thunder from Jaws, then the top-grossing film of all-time, in this big budget remake of King Kong. (De Laurentiis related his tactics to Tom Snyder: “When Jaws dies, nobody cries. When Kong dies, they all cry.”) Updated to the 1970s, the original Robert Armstrong character is now Fred Wilson (Charles Grodin), a big-shot oil magnate from Petrox Oil, looking for new petroleum deposits on a recently discovered Pacific island. Jack Prescott (Jeff Bridges) is a counter-culture paleontologist, stowing away on Wilson’s ship, who warns that they are headed for “Skull Island,” where prehistoric monsters still live and roam free. Also along for the ride is Dwan (Jessica Lange, in her film debut), a down-on-her-luck starlet, shipwrecked in the ocean after the sinking of a yacht. She really becomes down-on-her-luck when the group lands on the island and a giant ape, Kong, takes a shine to her. Kong kidnaps her and Dwan takes umbrage when the ape tries to remove her clothes by shouting, “You male chauvinist ape!” But Prescott comes to her aid and rescues her from the gorilla’s big mits. Wilson, seeing money to be made on Kong, locks him in the cargo hold of his ship and transports him to New York City. Once there, Kong manages to escape and wreak havoc upon the beleaguered town, before being compelled to climb up the World Trade Center for sanctuary.

A band of renegades on the run in outer space get in more hot water than they anticipated in this sci-fi action-adventure adapted from the television series Firefly. In the 26th century, the galaxy has been colonized by a military force known as the Alliance, but its leadership has not gone unquestioned. The Alliance was once challenged by a league of rebels known as the Independents, but the Alliance emerged victorious after a brutal civil war, with the surviving Independents scattering around the galaxy. Also wandering the edges of the galaxy are the Reavers, who have won few allies due to their violent behavior and habit of ripping apart their enemies and eating them before they’re dead. Capt. Malcolm “Mal” Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), who fought as an Independent in the galactic war, is the head of Serenity, a rogue frieghter ship whose crew includes Mal’s first mate, Zoe (Gina Torres), who fought alongside him in the war, her husband, hotshot pilot Wash (Alan Tudyk), sunny but dependable mechanic Kaylee (Jewel Staite), and hard-nosed gunman Jayne (Adam Baldwin). The crew of Serenity wander the galaxy, taking on whatever work they can get, from criminal activities like smuggling and stealing to legitimately offering transport to travelers. Passengers aboard Serenity include professional “companion” Inara (Morena Baccarin) and holy man Shepherd Book (Ron Glass), but the real trouble aboard the ship comes with the arrival of Simon (Sean Maher) and his teenage sister, River Tam (Summer Glau). In time, the crew discovers that River has remarkable psychic powers and was being held captive by Alliance forces until Simon came to her rescue. Now the Alliance is hot on the heels of Serenity and its passengers, with The Operative (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a sinister Alliance tracker, leading the chase. Serenity was written and directed by Joss Whedon (in his directorial debut), creator of Firefly, which only lasted 11 weeks on the air but gained a powerful cult following who rallied to get the show released on DVD after its cancellation, leading to impressive home-video sales and and an eventual motion picture deal. A couple of months prior to Serenity’s theatrical release, reruns of Firefly were picked up by the Sci-Fi channel, adding even more fans to its cult following.

Three stars team up for this unusual look at America’s role in the war against Iraq. In 1991, as the Gulf War winds to a close, three American servicemen find themselves happy to have achieved victory but wondering about the ultimate importance of what they’ve done (especially since Saddam Hussein is still in power). Major Archie Gates (George Clooney) is a decorated Vietnam veteran and special forces officer with two weeks to go before he retires; Sgt. Troy Barlow (Mark Wahlberg) has a new baby at home; and Chief Elgin (Ice Cube) is probably just going to end up back in Detroit. So when one of them comes across a map that seems to point out where Saddam’s forces have stashed a large cache of gold they stole from Kuwait, they decide to follow the trail and take some of the war booty for themselves. However, the deeper they journey into Iraq, the more they see of the consequences of America’s policies in the Middle East. Although President George Bush and the American military urged Iraqi citizens to rise up against Saddam Hussein, and pledged their support to a people’s movement against the leader, Iraqis found that when they took to the streets against Saddam, the United States did not back them up, and the loss of Iraqi lives was fearsome. When Gates, Barlow and Elgin become aware of what’s happening, they’re torn between their desire to grab the fortune they came for and the demands of their conscience to help the people they came to liberate. Three Kings was directed by David O. Russell and marked a significant change of direction after his dark-humored relationship comedies, Spanking the Monkey and Flirting with Disaster.