Boxoffice-Febuary.1998

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56 (R-14) BoxoFnCE
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REVIEWS
FOR RICHER OR POORER •
Starring: Tim Allen, Kirs tie Alley,
Wayne Knight. Directed by Bryan Spicer.
Written by Jana Howington, Steve LuKanic.
Produced by Sid, Bill and Jon
Sheinberg. A Universal release. Comedy.
Rated PG-13for Richer or Poorer. PG-13
for some sexual innuendo and one use of
strong language. Running time: 114 min.
Super-builder Tim Allen and his wife
Kirstie Alley flee the IRS to Pennsylvania
in this humorless Amish-bashing fest in
which every convention and conviction of
these people are impaled by the childish
antics of the leads. Screenwriters Jana
Howington and Steve LuKanic found room
in their script for every tired cliche in the
book about farming, bam raising, baking,
and shopping at Sears. Jon A. Walz
HOME ALONE 3 y^^^1/2
Starring Alex D. Linz, Olek Krupa,
David Thornton, Rya Kihlstedt and Lenny
Von Dohlen. Directed by Raja Gosnell.
Written by John Hughes. Produced by
John Hughes and Hilton Green. A Fox
release. Comedy. Rated PG for slapstick
violence, language and mild sensuality.
Running time: 103 min.
Instead of simply relying on the slapstick
humor from the first that became silly in the
sequel, audiences are made to believe that
the new villains—highly-trained spies
seeking a stolen military computer chip
are a real threat. But all of their training
didn't prepare them for a school kid home
sick ("One Fine Day's" Alex D. Linz) and
his armory of plaster-filled balloons, a haircutting
lawn mower and flying flower pots.
Combining some old antics with a lot of
new pranks, director Raja Gosnell revives a
dying franchise. This refreshingly funny
film produces more laughs than its predecessors.—
Dwayne E. Leslie
SCREAM 2
^•^
Starring Neve Campbell and Courteney
Cox. Directed by Wes Craven. Written by
Kevin Williamson. Produced by Cathy
Konrad and Marianne Maddalena. A
Miramax release.
Comedy/horror. Rated
R for language and strong bloody violence.
Running time: 120 min.
A beautiful young girl is receiving disturbing
calls from a psycho killer. "Hang up
the phone and Star 69 his ass," Jada Pinkett
advises the ill-fated character in "Stab," the
movie-within-a-movie in the comically
self-aware "Scream 2." But no one abides
by logic in the horror flix, and our foolish
heroine is, well, stabbed. Several times.
Barely seconds later we see the flash of a
knife again—only this time, it's a patron at
the moviehouse who's on the receiving end.
The copycat crime immediately brings the
survivors of the original massacre together
in hopes of putting a stop to the murders.
A few new characters replace those
butchered in the last film to recreate the
same tensions, the same pacing, the same
questioning of loyalties, the same chases.
But the self-parody and some great one-liners
make the familiarity fun as the audience
is let in on the gag. For all the deja vu, there
are some welcomely unexpected plot twists;
you'll never guess whodunnit until it's revealed
in the final frames. Christine James
AMISTAD ifirifVZ
Starring Morgan Freeman, Anthony
Hopkins, Nigel Hawthorne, Djimon
Hounsou, Matthew McConaughey, David
Paymer, Pete Postlethwaite and Stellan
Skarsgard. Directed by Steven Spielberg.
Written by David Franzoni. Produced by
Steven Spielberg, Debbie Allen, Colin Wilson.
A DreamWorks release. Period
Drama. Rated Rfor some scenes ofstrong
brutal violence and some related nudity.
Running time: 152 min.
Commercially and critically bookending
1997 as he did 1993, Steven Spielberg follows
up his summer blockbuster "The Lost
World" with the Oscar-tuned "Amistad," an
epic telling of a remarkable 1 839 shipboard
slave revolt whose subsequent legal and
social ramifications helped shape and forever
change the mechanics of the young
American political system.
The story begins at sea as a would-be
slave named Cinque (Djimon Hounsou)
frees himself from the hold of the Spanish
slave ship La Amistad and leads his fellow
prisoners in a bloody revolt. But they're
soon intercepted by an American naval vessel
and imprisoned on charges of murder
and piracy. Fortunately for the Africans, the
case is not nearly so simple as it seems.
While the ensuing trip through the tenebrous
early American judicial system is often
exceptionally engaging, it is the friendship
between young attorney Roger Baldwin
(Matthew McConaughey) and Cinque that
anchors the film's dramatic course.
Despite its occasional imperfections,
"Amistad" must be regarded as a monumentally
impressive achievement and further
proof of Spielberg's ongoing
maturation as an artist. It is likewise noteworthy
that from amid the star-laden cast,
unknown West African native Hounsou
emerges the standout. Wade Major
ALIEN RESURRECTION •^^ 1/2
Starring Sigoumey Weaver and Winona
Ryder. Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet.
Written by Joss Whedon. Produced by
Gordon Carroll, David Giler, Walter Hill
and Bill Badalato. A Fox release. Action/thriller.
Rated Rfor strong sci-fi violence
and gore, some grotesque images
and language. Running time: 108 min.
Brought back to life through cloning, our
bold Giger guerilla Ellen Ripley (Sigoumey
Weaver) is just as tough as we remember.
But now, with alien DNA co-mingled in her
blood, she is eerily apathetic, or at least
ambivalent, upon discovering that the creatures
she risked her life to exterminate over
the course of three harrowing movies have
been bred by the same class of megalomaniac
idiots who endangered her and the rest
of the human race in the first place.
With new instincts and possibly new allegiances,
the reinvented Ripley is intriguing
to watch as her true nature unfolds.
Weaver renders the resurrected Ripley with
relish, obviously enjoying the opportunity
to play her trademark character m a whole
new way. Her rivetingly creepy performance,
along with some truly memorable
monsters, frees this fourth film in the
"Alien" franchise from the redundancy one
might expect, instead engineering an entertaining,
if excessively gory and goo-splattered,
thriller. Christine James
SPECIAL FORMATS: 3-D IMAX *
THE NUTCRACKER ••
Starring Miriam Margolyes,
Heathcote Williams, Lotte Johnson and
Benjamin Hall. Directed and written by
Christine Edzard. Produced by Olivier
Stockman and Ijjnie Orleans. An Imax
release. Drama. Not rated. Running
time: 37 min.
"The Nutcracker" has remained one
Christmas tradition in which dance is
king—except in the new IMAX movie.
'The Nutcracker," which shows almost a
contempt for dance, putting off the dance
numbers until the last scene and using
them merely as holiday trimming.
Eliminating the dancing and retaining
the visual elements of the (frankly)
strange original ballet leaves nothing but
the strangeness. The story is of a young
girl who receives a nutcracker doll for
Christmas from an eccentric uncle. The
nutcracker leads a battalion of toy soldiers
in a victorious fight against a group of
mice and then leads the girl off to a fantasy
land filled with more exotic characters.
The staging in this production is'
blocky, and that blocking is weird. The
battle between the soldiers and mice is
crowded and confused. A couple waltzes
through. The action is close-up and adds
to a general sense of '"Wliat the...?"
Mechanical toys and circus acts at the
delicious spun-sugar palace aic whimsical,
but one wants to ci\, "'Brine on the
dancing girls!" The cxpcciaiicin lor " Ihe
Nutcracker" ballet elements is loo siiong
to break without good reason.
Without this element, the audience
looks to character interplay, but the acting
is often false.
This ceremony is all spectacle. The
stars arc inanimate objccts^the handsome
costumes and properties that move
across the camera.
"The Nulcrackei" is onl\ a inuseuni
come to life, perhaps due to having the
direction and writing done by someone
who also handles costume and production
design. Ann Kwinn