Wicked 'Step Brothers' and 'The Wackness'

It has been a pretty funny week at the movies, and fun when it wasn't.

I'm sure that by 6 a.m. this morning someone somewhere canceled my temporary bragging rights of having seen The Dark Knight twice. Those sold-out midnight shows were backed up with 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. screenings in some markets (not ours that I'm aware of, but enlighten me, please).

It's nice to see such fervor for an excellent movie, as opposed to the similar rushes for Pirates 3: Dead Man's Chest and Spider-man 3. I'm hoping TDK takes away Spidey's opening weekend record of $151-million, just to again prove art, commerce and mainstream moviegoers truly can co-exist.

Those two TDK screenings were followed by three others. You can read about Pineapple Express elsewhere on this blog.

The stoner humor in PE plus the stoner dramedy of this morning's show, The Wackness, means Princess Di should've stashed more potato chips and Fruit Roll-Ups for me while she's in Fort Myers fishing with her girlfriends (at least, that's the story she tells me). This is the first week I've ever gotten cotton-mouth from sitting in theaters.

The Wackness features three terrific performances by Ben Kingsley (of course), Olivia Thirlby (which I might have guessed after Juno) and Josh Peck (who woulda thunk it, except Daly since he watches Nickelodeon).

Peck plays a just-graduated teen in 1994 Manhattan who supports his struggling, argumentative family by selling pot out of an ice cream cart. One of the best customers is his shrink (Kingsley), an old hippie with his own family problems. Thirlby his the doc's stepdaughter, whom Peck crushes on and she appreciates the gesture.

Writer-director Jonathan Levine re-creates Guliani-era New York with great skill and a dynamite soundtrack spotlighting Notorious B.I.G. and A Tribe Called Quest for Peck's character, and David Bowie and Donovan for Kingsley's. The movie drags a bit in the second half but has a Garden State/The Graduate coming-of-age vibe that I enjoyed. The Wackness opens Aug. 1, and it's mostly dopeness.

Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly could use some the mind-altering substances used in The Wackness because those boys just ain't right in their heads. Their second collaboration after Talladega Nights, Step Brothers, confirms they're two peas in the same twisted pod.

Step Brothers is a one-joke comedy that somehow sustains itself for almost two hours. Ferrell and Reilly play 40-year-olds still living with their respective single parents, forced to co-exist when the parents (Mary Steenburgen, Richard Jenkins) get hitched. Not many comedians could carry off acting like spoiled 12-year-olds, and these guys almost don't.

When the angle starts getting stale, Ferrell and Reilly are capable of saying or doing anything obscene to hold your attention. Step Brothers opens July 25.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get ready to tape something for the 11 p.m. news on Ch. 10 regarding the Dark Knight phenomenon occurring. Then I'm hightailing it to New Port Richey to meet T-Bone, who invited me to help park cars at the 30th reunion of a Gulf High class that graduated four years after me.

Not a hard job; we're sitting in a golf cart for an hour or two, drinking beer and waving at cars. Then we'll hit the party inside, at the riverfront home of a guy who was an usher at my first wedding, something that neither of us bring up anymore. Nice warmup for Saturday night's Rays game at the Trop, followed by an M.C. Hammer concert, then Sunday by an Ybor City shindig at Columbia Restaurant for a local film production I'll tell you about later.

You know, you really can't touch this.

The Dark Knight: Superheroic Shakespeare

I'm pleased to announce that everything extraordinary you're heard, read, speculated and prayed for regarding The Dark Knight is absolutely true. This isn't only the greatest comic book movie ever, and one of the top-10 or so action flicks, it's the Academy Awards' ticket to engaging a moviegoing public believing the Oscars don't speak for their tastes, and caring less about the show each year.

That's right. I'm guessing The Dark Knight will be a best picture finalist next spring. And academy voters don't need to worry about compromising their high-falutin' standards. Director/co-writer Christopher Nolan crafted a ruthless epic of adrenaline -- which the academy typically stashes in technical categories -- and labyrinthine morality and ethics no less complex and compelling as The Departed and No Country for Old Men. The Dark Knight deserves mention in such Oscar-winning company.

A more mature take on a pop culture fantasy is impossible, unless you get bogged down in the hero's psychology, as Nolan did in Batman Begins. Now that the origins stuff is handled (again), The Dark Knight begins with a diabolically timed bank heist, popping the seal on a 24-pack of whoopass to come. The action is mostly hand-to-hand (or club or whatever's handy), except for a few vehicular assaults that are obviously old-school destruction, not that CG stuff.

Characters who are familiar now get right down to business: Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) with his Hamlet angst, divided between his bruising alter ego, a romance blocked by a worthy rival (with a delicious subtext possibly making its completion the end of the Caped Crusader), and empty starlet-hopping to keep up appearances.

Meanwhile, a maze of money laundering crooks, corrupt law officials and Gotham Cityites who aren't sure if Batman's needed anymore create opportunities for cold-blooded double crosses, copycat Batmen, a cameo by an old Bat-nemesis and a few more of those wonderful toys.

And I haven't even gotten to the best part.

The Joker is, indeed, wild in The Dark Knight, embodied by a truly terrifying performance by the late Heath Ledger. A self-described "agent of chaos," this Joker is a supersonic psycho making Javier Bardem's killer in No Country for Old Men seem like a rational kind of guy. Ledger goes all the way with catastrophic malevolence,  with none of the clownish aspects Jack Nicholson previously brought to the role.

His jokes -- like a disappearing pencil trick you won't believe and won't want to try -- are deadly serious.

"Whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you stranger," Joker says early on. Ledger's death in January of an accidental prescription drug overdose makes his delivery of lines like that even eerier. But not in an exploitative way. His demise informs the role of a criminal with no regard for anyone's life, especially his own. Ledger's death simply makes the Joker stranger.

I fully expect him to get a posthumous Oscar nomination for this, and it won't be a sympathy thing. Along with Bardem's Chigurh, Robert De Niro's Max Cady and Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter, we now have one helluva Mount Rushmore of mayhem.

Mamma Mia! Is there anything Meryl Streep can't do?

Never liked ABBA that much, except for Dancing Queen and that was because of this Greenwich, Conn. deb I was dating at a Kansas college. She was one of only two females in the place who didn't look like goat herders. The other was from California, dating a football teammate who later became one of the goons cornering Crocodile Dundee in an alley, learning what a real knife looks like.

But that's another story.

Thought of that deb tonight while watching Mamma Mia! (but don't tell Princess Di). The movie was more fun, in an Across the Universe kind of scatter-shot way. The Broadway musical, and now the movie, isn't an organically conceived musical, like Sweeney Todd or Chicago, with songs created to serve a story planned before the first note was struck.

Like last year's Beatles cine-jukebox, Mamma Mia! strings together pop hits in whatever order a simplistic plot demands. Meryl Streep's daughter is getting married and wants to meet her father. But Meryl was a bit of a slut -- her word, not mine -- in days and nights gone by. Any of three men (Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgard) could be the father. The daughter secretly invites them all to the Greek island where she lives with Mom.

Harmonies ensue.

Practically against your will, ABBA's impossibly peppy melodies, ravishing locales and a cast who can mostly sing but are interesting when they can't (I'm looking at you, 007), Mamma Mia turns out to be a lot of fun. The string-along structure isn't as much of a deficit as one might think, with a few clever assignments of puppy love ditties to mature women.

Mix Grease with Sex and the City (with a dash of Under the Tuscan Sun) and you have Mamma Mia!

The key is Streep, who I knew as an exemplary singer from A Prairie Home Companion. Those were live performances by characters who performed. Mamma Mia! is lip-synched, which Streep precisely achieves (like everything else in her career) yet convincingly spontaneous in appearance. Unlike the divas in Dreamgirls, she pushes her performance beyond the recording studio.

Just one number -- a late rendition of the achingly romantic The Winner Takes It All -- now rates among my favorite musical scenes, if only for Streep's closing hand gesture, something so simple and casual that it could be a reflex, yet so perfect that she must have concentrated to make it so. I'm not sure if there's anything she can't do on screen. But I know nobody could do it better.

Meet Dave and say 'bye to Eddie

I'm not sure why Eddie Murphy went wrong. I can pin down the when (Another 48 Hrs.), the where (Santa Monica Blvd. where he picked up that tranny hooker) and the how (easy money).

But there should be more to tearing down a legacy than greed, sex and falling back on good will from other movies. Especially when you start out so unique, so much of the past and present that you look like a lock for the future. That's what Murphy was, when he created comedy as if he were the second coming of Richard Pryor before Pryor was dead.

Murphy was a stand-up storyteller whose routines on race, sexual relations and backyard barbeques gone bad (among other universal catastrophes) were carefully crafted with intense intent to make audiences laugh, of course, but also to make them think a bit while they caught their breath. A switch to movies was inevitable with his energetic charisma but, hey, even Robin Williams still tries now and then.

Thinking has nothing to do with Meet Dave, which could be a sequel to The Adventures of Pluto Nash. We all know what that means, even those who haven't seen it. To those readers: Your corneas thank you.

Meet Dave confirms Murphy's supposed artistic (as opposed to financial) comeback with Dreamgirls as a fluke. The ink wasn't dry on his framed Academy Award nomination certificate before Norbit showed up to worry anyone pulling for him to win. That could be chalked up to bad timing, a paycheck long ago cashed.

Walking out of the Kodak Theater shortly after Alan Arkin's name was pulled from the envelope wasn't a good move but Meet Dave is worse. It's a comedy so lazy that Murphy doesn't bother slathering on the latex makeup or fat suit. He only plays two roles, who both look the same although one is slightly more interested in the proceedings than the other.

Murphy plays a spaceship. Read that again and tell me if you think anything after that opening pitch will be good. He does silly walks, silly voices and silly seriousness when called upon. There is nothing in Meet Dave reminding me of the Eddie Murphy I loved years ago, except his face.

I heard Murphy say on the Today show that he's thinking about giving up movies. After Beverly Hills Cop 4, of course. And a remake of The Incredible Shrinking Man, which is an interesting title under the circumstances. And maybe anything else he can be coaxed into being paid for. Then he'll go back to the stage, but by then I wonder if he'll just be another Joe Piscopo.

Journey to the Center of Princess Di's Mind

So, I'm sitting with Princess Di, looking at the garden I gave her because she went to Italy without me (long story, but I'm dealing with it).

For some reason we're discussing Journey to the Center of the Earth, which we saw last night in 3-D and apparently can't leave behind.

So, we started with the yo-yo that Brendan Fraser passes on to his snotty nephew because the kid brought it with a box of stuff that causes the movie. The kid lays down his PSP to try this quaint toy, and Fraser informs him that yo-yos were once used as weapons. The kid flicks it into the lens a few times to make wearing those nerdy 3-D glasses -- some tech geek's revenge for a locker-stuffing -- somewhat worthwhile.

"Where was the yo-yo scene," Princess Di asks, "when the kid uses the yo-yo to bonk the dinosaur, or something?"

Of course it isn't there. Neither is a follow-up scene to several things that get attention and don't mean anything later. The obligatory chick, who's a mountain guide by trade, mentions two energy bars she packed but nobody eats them and the kid eats some kind of prehistoric gruel when he's starving.

Di wants to know why she didn't get caught with crumbs on her lips, a lesson for two dudes who took dibs on her affections on first sight.

Then Di mentions the dinosaur, who apparently had roughage before dripping lime-green goo on the kid's head, while chasing him for a meal.

"What is this creature eating?  Guacamole?," Di says, with foolproof logic for an illogical movie ostensibly based on science.

"How does he know he'll like the kid's taste? No humans have been down there in centuries except the one who got away in the prologue, so how does he know they taste good?"

I won't even get into her comments about the vaginal-looking plants that are man-eaters (get it?) or the weird father-brother-son-daughter vibe throughout.

But that's why Di is the right side of my brain. And why I wish she could be available for discussions before deadline.

Dinosaur loogies and a Ray of hopelessness

My declaration of independence from blogging has ended. That long Fourth of July weekend was just too tempting to type. Even stretched it an extra day Monday since everything was caught up with a morning rush of "creativity" then an impromptu plan to catch the smokin' hot Tampa Bay Rays in an afternoon tilt with the Kansas City Royals, allowing a break before last night's screening of Journey to the Center of the Earth in the only local theater rigged for Real 3-D.

Both events turned out very disappointing.

Got to Tropicana Field expecting the usual short line for walk-up tickets, especially for an afternoon game against a bland opponent. Instead, there were hundreds of fans waiting in the sizzling sun and the National Anthem was already playing inside. Rather than waiting an hour by my estimation, I strolled over to Ferg's for hot chicken wings, a beer and the added disappointment of no Rays game on TV.

It's wonderful that we finally have a winning team, and encouraging that so many folks wanted to see the game. Now we just need Rays management to figure out some way of handing a walk-up rush they've never had to deal with before, at least with afternoon games when 8,000 people in the seats previously would be considered a success.

Oh, and the Rays losing didn't help my afternoon.

But it was better than the evening, when Journey to the Center of the Earth showed how flat a 3-D movie can be.  This juvenile template for an amusement park ride was only two D's: dumb and dull.

Oh, there are a few times when the optical effects pay off, mostly in the final half-hour. An attack by giant piranhas, soon gobbled up by sea serpents in an underworld ocean was pretty cool. The T-rex looked good in close-ups, and like a cheap Sci-Fi channel movie otherwise. Mostly, the 3-D technology is employed with silly stunts: an extended tape measure, a spinning yo-yo, and two spit takes toward the camera (three, if you count the dinosaur hawking a loogie at the lens).

The problem is that the inside of Earth is too dark and nondescript for much of the running time, with only that ocean and a paradise core (with carnivorous plants)  offering anything close to majestic.  And there was this one slab of inanimate rock that always got in the way of the action.

Oops, sorry. That was Brendan Fraser.

WALL-E: Concession stand enemy No. 1

I can't imagine what parents will think, watching WALL-E with the kids while munching on over-sized, overpriced popcorn and soda pop. They may grab the leftovers and ask for a partial refund.

WALL-E gets into an interesting angle that director Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo) doesn't mine deeply enough. Seven hundred years from now, humans have polluted Earth so badly that they're exiled on a luxury space cruise. WALL-E, as you must know from Disney's hype, is the last working robot janitor scraping up garbage, and compacting into squares stacked like skyscrapers.

Meanwhile, humans in space are grossly gravity-challenged, the proper nomenclature for fat. Not just fat but lay-like-a-tortoise-after-falling kind of fat, with atrophied toes from lack of walking. Their cruise includes "regenerative food buffets," and hover-loungers that must be operating in overdrive to hover.

Stanton doesn't wallow in fat gags but doesn't do much else with an allegory as right-now as fast food service. I think back to that brilliant montage in Over the Hedge, when R.J. the raccoon explained the suburban food chain and all its waste. WALL-E needs something like that outsider's voice -- about the obesity thing and the pollution factor -- but the robot doesn't talk in traditional terms to ask questions and offer answers for us.

Stanton's movie is gorgeous to behold, as my review Saturday on ETC. page 2B will explain further. WALL-E is an adorable character, and his hesitant romance of the robot Eve is genuinely moving in the film's final minutes. There are more amusing moments here than Ratatouille (which isn't hard to do) but WALL-E approaches the same feeling of being made for grownups and sold to kids.

Hancock: The fat lady loses weight

I met Will Smith when he was still a fresh prince, before July 4th marked Big Willie Weekend at theaters.

New York, 1996, at the New York media days for Independence Day.  Cigars were popular then, and I figured buying a few Ybor stogies would help me fit in with those urbane, urban types. Coincidentally, when I saw ID4 that weekend, Smith had a running joke about smoking victory cigars after kicking alien butt, and that's not over "'til the fat lady sings." Not very original but that's Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich for you.

Anyway, I ended up in an elevator with Smith after his interview session. Lots of floors.  I complimented Smith on the movie and said something casual about being a movie star now.

"Do you really think so?" he asked, with an expression I'll never forget, or fail to appreciate. It was sincere, quizzical, a little pessimistic, and genuinely seeking confirmation from a stranger about what he hoped was true. This guy already was a music and TV star yet still had a level of insecurity that makes me feel better in insecure times.

"Let me put it this way," I said, reaching into my jacket pocket to hand him one of those cigars. "The fat lady's singing."

Smith took it, laughed loudly and clapped me on the shoulder. The elevator doors opened. I went one way and he became the Fourth of July's movie king.

The fat lady lost a few pounds between now and then, judging from Hancock, a great idea going in too many needless directions for a 90-minute movie to handle. I laughed during the first 30 minutes at what tickled me for weeks in preview trailers, was intrigued/confused for the next 20 with the darker angle director Peter Berg was fashioning, then wondered if someone slipped 21 Grams into the projector when nobody was looking.

This isn't a summer kind of movie, except for starring Smith. The action sequences are standard stuff Berg attempts to make exciting with needless camera motion. There's no nemesis for Hancock except himself, which could and should be extended longer than the screenplay's attention deficit permits.

There is, however, a twist involving Charlize Theron's character that muddles the plot and reminds me of one of last year's worst movies (or at least movie titles). I won't spoil it by saying which one but when a movie trying to be serious reminds you of something ridiculed, there's a distinct problem in tone.

Great character in Hancock, a boozy, antisocial superhero. Nice performances under the circumstances by Theron and Jason Bateman. Smith is as bulletproof as the character he plays, although what made the final reel of I Am Legend disappointing surfaces again here. He'll win a cigar at the box office but the fat lady's kinda hoarse.

Moviegoers got smart for a change

Once in a while something happens with the weekend box office results that reaffirms my faith in the moviegoing public. This time, it's the fact that moviegoers said "go away" rather than "namaste" (that's yoga-speak) to The Love Guru.

Mike Myers' shamelessly lazy comedy was only the fourth-highest attended movie of the weekend ($14-million in ticket sales), finishing well behind Get Smart ($39.2-million). Two superior holdovers -- Kung Fu Panda and The Incredible Hulk -- still had more appeal than Myers' smug, smutty Guru Pitka, which is essentially rehashed Wayne Campbell and Austin Powers, warmed to only room temperature and served in a turban. (The funnier Mike Myers is shown at left.)

Congratulations! You didn't get suckered by Myers' scheme that banked on how much you loved him before, so he could get away richer by doing less now. Each of you who decided to do something else besides watch Myers crack up himself did something to make the world a better place. Kind of like screwing in one of those curly-Q light bulbs at home, except it's the idea bulb over Myers' head.

Of course he'll shrug it off as the studios fault, for opening The Love Guru on the same weekend as Get Smart. You rarely see two films of the same genre, with stars appealing to the same demographics, going head-to-head like that, especially in summertime. Steve Carell's commanding 3-to-1 advantage over Myers in ticket sales makes that complaint moot.

The bad news? Selling $14-million in tickets means around 1.7-million people still fell for Myers' scam.

If you know any of these people, reach out to them, apologize for not arranging an intervention at the box office. A mind and eight bucks are terrible things to waste.

What would Tyler Durden do... with Angelina Jolie?

The answer is found in the most exciting shoot 'em up I've seen in I don't know how long.

For those who don't know Tyler Durden, he's the cult antihero from Fight Club who is seen as a golden god by countless guys knuckled under by The Man (or anything commercial, sexual or regulated) and gets destructive complaining about it. "What would Tyler Durden do?" is a question deserving one of those embossed elastic wristbands they'd wear religiously.

And since Brad Pitt played T.D., I guess the Angelina Jolie question is moot.

Anyway, some of that Tyler vibe comes across in Wanted, in the form of James McAvoy, who I never thought I'd respect after he did the faun thing in Narnia I (the titles are too long to type completely but I guess I used more letters explaining that).

McAvoy plays an office schlub yanked from his dull existence by Jolie, playing a super assassin who can bend the trajectory of bullets and thinks this geek inherited the same gift from his father, who was also an ace killer.

The ensuing action is breakneck stuff, with director Timur Bekmambetov -- a hard name to remember but you should from the stylish Russian vampire flicks Night Watch and Day Watch -- creating memorable images when people die. A lot of people die in Wanted, and without cosmically guided bullets colliding in midair many more would.

And you've gotta love any movie with Jolie toting a swiveled gun and video scope, so she can kill around corners.

Wanted has a Matrix thing going with McAvoy raging against a machine he doesn't understand, the Fight Club thing with his masochistic training regimen, a bit of The Empire Strikes Back, a smidgen of Mr. and Mrs.Smith with Jolie's fatal sleekness, and wall-to-wall style that other films have provided only in small doses, like that slo-mo bullet in Three Kings that viewers followed from gun barrel to suddenly toxic intestines.

One more comparison: In 1994 I was in New York for interviews for this film called Pulp Fiction that was creating all kinds of buzz. Matt Lauer was sitting behind me and we were the only two people in a stodgy crowd who were laughing at the mayhem, as intended. After the show, I walked outside to bustling Times Square, dropped a quarter in a pay phone (1994, you know) and called Princess Di, telling her I just saw a movie that made me want to punch somebody, the adrenaline pumped so hard.

I caught a bit of that feeling tonight with Wanted, which isn't as verbally unique -- although it's a kick hearing Morgan Freeman say a word that I can only describe with his initials -- but is visually just as remarkable.

Wanted opens June 27. Right now, it's the best movie-movie I've seen in 2008. 

The Love Guru: For once, the trailers don't lie

Everyone I know who has seen the preview trailers for Mike Myers' The Love Guru tells me it looks terrible.

They're absolutely right, and sitting through this juvenile waste of time to prove it is my gift to you, dear readers.

I understand that the f-word was used in Goodfellas 296 times. The Love Guru is an hour shorter but I'll bet there are as many jokes about the male appendage used to perform that act.  If anyone wishes to check with a tally counter, be my guest. Unlike the first Austin Powers and Wayne's World flicks, I won't be seeing this again, or planning a Halloween costume in honor of Guru Pitka, smugly played for smutty laughs by Myers.

I'm sure you know that Pitka is a spoof of Deepak Chopra and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, whose pacifist beliefs would prevent them from giving The Love Guru the drubbing it deserves. Could be an interesting, recurring character on Saturday Night Live (the last 10 minutes' sketch) or public access.

But placing that kind of character in the same context with pee gags, elephant-shaped chastity belts, a Canadian named Jacques "Le Coq" Grande, "ball gazing," deep-fried scrotum-shaped nuts in dough, elephant erotica... well, you get the point... seems meaner, more tasteless than even Myers probably intended.

Toss in a couple dozen playground snaps ("I used to have a hat like that, until my mom got a job"), bathroom graffiti played as meta-wisdom ("The joke is in your hand"), and -- in honor of Mini-Me getting another gig -- jokes about Hobbits, Keebler elves, etc., and you have The Love Guru.

And you can keep it.

[Publicity photo]

Get Smart and get smarter

Princess Di and I had a pleasant sunset cruise on the Gulf with Mr. and Mrs. T-bone Sunday night, along with two friends who were never quite weird enough to have nicknames.

One's name is Steve Miller, who I taught high school alongside, so he therefore needed some kind of pet name so we called him "Miller." Indiana boy, comes from good stock, and couldn't put three sentences together without saying something memorably dense.

Like the intoxicated night long ago when he tried recalling the female judge on The Gong Show who flashed her hoohahs in a frisky moment and almost got the show booted off the air. Miller couldn't get her name immediately but after some hemming and hawing came up with: "Jamie Lee Farr."

The answer, of course, was Jaye P. Morgan. But never before or since have I known anyone to mistake three celebrities -- Morgan, Jaime Lee Curtis and Jamie Farr -- in a single reference. That all three happened to appear on cheesy 1970's game shows makes the accomplishment even more impressive.

Anyway, I thought of Miller during tonight's screening of Get Smart, as I watched Agent 86 Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell) doing everything dumb and still coming out smelling like a rose. Not the best comedy you're likely to see this year but compared to every other TV show adaptation we've seen, it's not bad at all.

In fact, I was thinking that Mel Brooks and Buck Henry would appreciate what's been done with their 1960's sitcom long before their names appeared in the end credits as consultants. The movie has the same carefree, goofy attitude of the series, not caring about plots except they put Max and Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway, who's getting hotter by the minute) in constant scrapes requiring dumb derring-do to escape from.

I think the movie works better if you're familiar with the series (which I am and Di isn't). Not exactly the best case scenario for a comedy opening head-on with another popular comedian's newest (Mike Myers' The Love Guru, which I'll see tomorrow night) and on the heels of blockbusters still selling tickets. Home video is where most viewers will catch up to Get Smart, and it almost seems designed that way.

All the old gags are there -- the Cone of Silence, Max's shoe phone, Hymie the robot agent, etc. -- smartly assigned as museum pieces until they're required or a savvy update is imagined. Alan Arkin ("The Chief") is a pleasure to watch anytime, Carell is Don Adams reincarnated but not annoyingly so, and did I mention that Hathaway is hot?

I'd recommend Get Smart to Miller but he'd think I was insulting him again. This is the guy who thought the theme song for The Flintstones declared "they're the monostoic family."

Missed it by that much.

OMG! Marky Mark just spoiled The Happening on TV!

Right there on the CBS Early Show. And he said more about whatever's forcing people to kill themselves in The Happening than I did on this blog and in my print review. So, all those folks who have groaned on the phone or keyboard about my noting it's a case of nature's revenge can chill.

"It's a little message-y," host Harry Smith said of the eco-terror plot.

"I'm a faith-based guy and that doesn't waver," Mark Wahlberg said. "But (M.Night Shyamalan) gave me so much information about the honey bees and the fact that they're disappearing and there's no chance of them coming back (which is in the preview trailers, too)... and the primordial bacteria off the coast of Australia, and the next thing you know I'm completely convinced this could happen.

"Certainly I haven't jumped on the green wagon but we do our part at home. You look at the climate today and what's going on in the world. It's possible that this could happen."

Thanks, bud. The only thing better would be if you made those statements on a TV show people actually watch. I doubt that the show's ratings made Wahlberg bolder about revealing anything. If it was such a big secret, he'd be teasing it to sell more tickets.

The problem is that Shyamalan is widely known as a filmmaker who depends upon last-minute twists to thrill audiences -- Bruce Willis being dead in The Sixth Sense, or a superhero in Unbreakable, or that The Village is actually set in modern times. He doesn't pull a late switcheroo in The Happening, probably because he thought that would fool viewers expecting him to employ the usual strategy.

Apparently the movie's above-the-title star didn't think it's a big deal to reveal.

But some viewers -- who haven't seen the movie yet -- think I spoiled it.  After 15 years in the job, I'm very careful to avoid doing that to any movie. Heck, even someone at Tampabay.com lost faith, adding "Spoiler alert!" to the entertainment page tease without asking me if it may be necessary. Maybe they should've asked Wahlberg.

As I've conveyed to complainers: I didn't spoil Shyamalan's movie. He did that himself.

Going green with "Hulk" co-writer Mike France

Had a fine time the other night watching The Incredible Hulk with Mike France and his son Tommy, who's growing up with a comic book addiction just like his old man.

France (that's him on the right, next to Marvel mogul Stan Lee) owns Beach Theatre in St. Pete Beach but we met years ago after he co-wrote the screenplay for Ang Lee's Hulk, a lame version of the Marvel Comics superhero that wasn't France's fault. Seems that Lee brought in his favorite writing collaborator, James Schamus, who turned the green-skinned behemoth into a basket case with an Oedipal complex. The action-packed script France and John Turman wrote became one long therapy session.

Disappointed viewers probably caused more wreckage in theaters than Hulk did on screen.

"I never felt that I was getting blamed for it," France told me yesterday. "I was as disappointed, too."

France left Monday night's The Incredible Hulk screening feeling like he had seen the movie he envisioned years ago, combining the drama of Bruce Banner coping with his inner rage and the fun of watching Hulk going postal on anyone in his way. Yet he knows that Universal Pictures has a tougher sell on its hands than a better predecessor would provide.

"There was so much disappointment about having to watch a movie about Banner’s father, and so much joking about that," France said. "It's baggage this film has to overcome.

"That’s why (Universal) came up with the publicity narrative that this is a reboot or a remake, even though it’s very clear to me that it’s a sequel. It’s the same producers, same studio and the characters are in the same places where they were when the first film ended.

“I suspect that because of the baggage from the first film, this movie may not have the same kind of opening weekend. On the other hand, it won’t have the same kind of drop-off, either. People will catch up to it. I think it certainly re-establishes (the franchise) enough to continue with it."

Read more of my conversation with France -- whose credits also include Fantastic Four, The Punisher and Cliffhanger -- on Saturday's Etc. page, 2B.

What's "Happening," hot stuff?

I knew M. Night Shyamalan's latest misfire, The Happening, was going south when Marky Mark Wahlberg --  who has deduced that Mother Nature is taking revenge on humankind -- begins sweet-talking a house plant so it won't do anything rash.

Or maybe it was when Wahlberg is trying to convince a locked-in homeowner that he's sane and therefore unaffected by an airborne toxin created by plants. He does so by singing a few bars of a Doobie Brothers hit to the stranger with a little softshoe tossed in. Yeah, I'd trust him to not be crazy.

Or maybe it's when Betty Buckley -- looking more Grizzelda by the minute -- starts screaming like a banshee because her hermit lifestyle has been disrupted by Wahlberg and his fellow refugees. "I don't like this woman," Zooey Deschanel says. "There's something Exorcist-y about her."

Or maybe it's when a high school student body is sent home after the first toxic outbreak occurs in Central Park and none of them have a cell phone or are logged onto a computer so they would know what happened. Or when Wahlberg starts spewing a torrent of eco-babble to over-explain everything.

Those are the kinds of things Shyamalan does, proving once again that he can have a great idea and absolutely no idea of what to do with it.

The Happening isn't as lousy as Lady in the Water, or pointless as The Village, or silly as the second half of Signs. It's actually an enjoyable bad movie, if you aren't buying a ticket, as I didn't. The first half-hour is a terrific set-up: a series of grisly suicides -- many not shown but suggested with Hitchcockian restraint -- that made my jaw drop and stomach churn. This is new territory for Shyamalan, in his first R-rated movie. He obviously has fun being gross, as do we by being grossed-out.

But The Happening isn't the return to form his dwindling number of fans have sought since The Sixth Sense, which is looking more and more like one of the biggest flukes in modern movie history.

Hulk is green and I'm feelin' blue

The good news is that The Incredible Hulk is more enjoyable than 2003's The (Irrationally Dull) Hulk.

The bad news is that for the first time in my life, I missed my all-time favorite band in concert to find out.

I have flown to California, driven across the South and hit every concert Steely Dan ever played around Tampa Bay. Ten shows by my count. Tonight they're playing about a half-mile from my home. Probably doing their encores right now. When I think about missing the show, my pulse races toward 200, my skin turns emerald green with unsightly veins popping out and I want to smash something.

Which brings us to The Incredible Hulk.

Honestly, it is a better take on the Marvel Comics superhero than Ang Lee inflicted upon moviegoers, as if we actually demanded a Hulk with Freudian subtext and not many opportunities to rage, played by a monotonous actor (Eric Bana) with the bloodless blankness of someone who apparently never read a comic book.

It certainly couldn't be any worse.

The new, improved Hulk ditches the psychobabble, hires more interesting actors -- especially Edward Norton as Bruce Banner, and with the glaring exception of Liv Tyler --  and more importantly allows the green guy to go off on somebody every 20 minutes or so. Director Louis Letterier (Transporter 2) and screenwriter Zak Penn (plus Norton, but the Writers Guild of America didn't allow him screen credit) still take the Marvel myth a bit too seriously yet know when to lighten up a little.

The Incredible Hulk still falls short of being as exhilarating as Iron Man, which may remain the movie superhero standard for years to come. At least until the project that has Marvel fans panting since Iron Man's end credits -- the very end that many viewers, myself included, needed to catch on YouTube because we left fast to beat traffic.

Marvel is smarter this time, adding the cool coda after Hulk/Banner's predicament is settled, and before hundreds of names meaningful only to their family and friends scroll by.

I won't spoil it for you, but with Marvel now controlling its movie destiny rather than being led by the nose by meddling studios (i.e. the first Hulk), that Avengers adaptation is looking more possible by the minute.

[AP Photo/Universal Studios]

Kung Fu Panda and General Tao Chicken

Nothing I like better than a Pan Asian buffet. There's a nice one on U.S. 19 in Palm Harbor with a name I can't remember but the spread includes extremely exotic items such as chicken feet, squid innards, soup made of what I'd use for shark chum and a gelatinous dessert that nobody has ever completely identified for me. Not that I eat that stuff -- I'm a General Tao chicken kind of guy -- but I usually see what appear to be Vietnam War veterans eating it, which is as reliable a sign of quality as police cars at a donut shop.

Anyway, I was thinking about that place while my stomach growled through a morning screening of Kung Fu Panda. They could add a big hunk of ham to the menu in honor of Jack Black, who offers one of the best vocal performances I've heard in an animated feature. Black voices Po, a roly-poly panda who accidentally gets chosen as the new Dragon Warrior to battle a white leopard named Tai Lung (Ian McShane, almost as evil as he was on Deadwood).

Po doesn't know much about kung fu except from daydreaming about his heroes, the Furious Five -- Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Mantis (Seth Rogen), Monkey (Jackie Chan), Viper (Lucy Liu) and Crane (David Cross). Tigress is the only one who matters much in the scheme of things, but I wouldn't be surprised if a sequel or two follows to give the other critters a fighting chance.

Po gets martial arts training -- grudgingly -- from Master Shifu, hilariously voiced by Dustin Hoffman.

What I love about Kung Fu Panda (besides Black) is the reverence shown for the chopsocky movie genre, evoking classic fights, effects, settings and spirituality from Bruce Lee to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. This is a movie that's gorgeous to behold, meaningful to kids and adults, and never forgets that 'toons should either be comedies or tragedies, not just a smattering of both (take that, Ratatouille).

You'll find my review on the Web site anytime now, and in Thursday's weekend. But get ready for a bloodbath at the box office this weekend with Sex and the City still pulling females, Indiana Jones lassoing males and kids screaming to see Kung Fu Panda. My money's on the bear, who won't be "Po" for long.

You don't pay for the "Zohan"

Adam Sandler strikes again -- which means he strikes out -- in You Don't Mess with the Zohan, a movie opening June 6, making its budget back in a week and hitting your local video store shelves shortly thereafter. I'll provide the unbecoming details closer to opening day.

But for now...

Zohan is another excuse for Sandler to have a party and make you pay for it. He invites a bunch of friends (John Turturro should be ashamed, if only for the hoary Rocky spoof scene) or people he'd like to meet (Mariah Carey was better in Glitter) for dumb, obvious and often offensive jokes. Of course Rob Schneider is here; he must be washing Sandler's fleet of cars weekly.

The gags in this movie fall mainly in three categories: buttocks sight gags, erection sight gags and horny old -- I mean old -- ladies being sexually gratified. One of the few highlights occurs when Lainie Kazan (who was hot when I watched her on the Mike Douglas Show in sixth grade) pulls off the trifecta, although it may not count because Kim Kardashian may have been hired as a butt double.

The only thing dumber than Zohan was the security force hired for the occasion, which supposedly confiscated every cell phone to prevent anyone from... um, whatever you can do with a cell phone that you need to hire a handful of guys to prevent. (Memo to future flashlight cops: It's video cameras able to record more than 60 seconds at a clip that you seek.) If it's disturbing viewers with a phone ringing, that rule was violated by -- you guessed it -- one of the security guards with a creepily dainty ring tone.

Anyway, the guards kept the confiscated cell phones in paper bags with claim tickets attached -- right in front of the exit doors. They only had, maybe, 50 stashed with around 200 people in the theater. That's either a lot of missed phones or a lot of Sandler's fans can't afford them. When someone stopped to look for their claim number, the exit was effectively blocked, leading to a jam-up like that high school band Stork led into an alley in Animal House.

Now that's funny.

Sex and the City, Suburb, Beach, Borough and Mexico

My best friend T-bone and I go back a long way, through thick, thin and downright skimpy. We know each other's past and present, and plan on taking care of each other in the future as long as it doesn't cost too much.

I honestly thought I knew T-bone. Tonight I learned something I never suspected, something that truly stunned me.

T-bone has watched every episode of Sex and the City. Some (*sob*) twice.

I didn't know when I invited T-bone to a screening of Sex and the City: The Movie (that is composed and performed exactly like the TV show, only bigger). He broke it to me during the ride to Tampa.

After taking a sip of Monster and mixing it with bile, I listened as a friend should. I felt like Carrie Bradshaw in the movie when someone she trusts confesses a hurtful, long-held secret. Then something happened. The more he explained, the more it all made sense.

Flex and the City: The Movies

I never watched a complete episode of Sex and the City, so I can't imagine what sitting through a 2 hour and 25-minute version of a femme banal sitcom I dodged for six years will do to my sperm count.

But I did spend a few minutes watching Flex and the City, an amusing trilogy of spoofs produced by Heavy.com starring Jamie Kovac ("Fury" on American Gladiators) as a musclebound Carrie Bradshaw surrounding by other bodybuilders playing Samantha, Charlotte, Miranda, Sneezy, Dopey... oh, wrong cartoons. Sorry.

I can't vouch for whether the scenes they act out are directly from the TV show but it sounds like it. I know they get the opening credits right because that's how much I'd see of the show before finding the remote control. 

Summer movie trailer clubhouse is open!

We were sitting around a table somewhere in Ybor during Super Bowl XXXXOOOO (that's our kind of Roman numerals) when I told Princess Di that every football team looks like a champion in the highlight reels. I'm sure I wasn't the first to notice but Di -- bless her no-R-rated-movies-before-21 heart -- thought I was a genius.

I hope everyone else notices that movies are the same kind of promotional beast. Watch the Miami Dolphins' 2007 highlights, hear that NFL Films announcer's (probably a Sabol) booming promise of title-challenging days, probably now, despite a 1-15 season. Tell me if that doesn't look and sound like the preview trailer for Space Chimps.

Every movie is an Oscar contender in the highlight reel.

Which brings us to the topic of movie previews, specifically summer flicks, that coincidentally are the subject of today's Weekend cover story.

Check out my picks for the 10 best and 10 worst movie summer movie preview trailers. Then post your own choices in either or both categories.

Let's remember that anything released before this weekend doesn't count. The online posting date, finally, of my Indy 4 review was the deadline. I don't think Helen Hunt's Then She Found Me preview would get many votes, anyway.

Have fun while I tidy up for the Mom-in-law's visit.

The Incredible Shrinking Oscar Winner

Helen Hunt copped a best actress Academy Award for As Good As It Gets, and maybe that's as good as it'll ever get for her.

Anybody see Pay It Forward, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion and Bobby to watch her playing thankless roles blandly? You may have seen What Women Want and/or Cast Away, but do you even remember Hunt was there?

Perhaps directing is her return ticket to significance. On television, where her misplaced debut Then She Found Me might be an afternoon delight for bored homemakers cuddling bon bons.

Then She Found Me is essentially Baby Mama without the jokes, although Hunt and her actors seem to believe they’re there. Hunt plays April Epner, a kindergarten teacher who wants to be a mother. Her marriage to a nerd (Matthew Broderick) ends when he moves back in with his mother. April’s adoptive mother just died. Her biological mother is Bette Midler, whose character has a name but it doesn’t matter because she’s always Bette Midler.

There’s also a Mr. Right, played by the rightest of misters in these affairs, Colin Firth. He’s always Colin Firth; masking his emotions behind that deceptively stern face until the proper moment when he becomes Mr. Darcy-dreamy.

As a director, Hunt is unremarkable except for the extraordinary number of close-ups she gives herself. It isn’t exactly vanity since April scarcely wears makeup on her perpetually strained face; more like an expensive screen test for that meaty comeback role Hunt seeks.

[AP photo]

Digging up bones with Indiana Jones

I should have a sandwich board sign hanging off my shoulders today. The front would read: "Yes, I've seen Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." The back would answer the unavoidable follow-up question: "Yes, I mostly enjoyed it."

Then I'd hire a platoon of Short Rounds to follow me carrying banners explaining why I did and didn't. It's already getting redundant, speaking to everyone's curiosity.

The undeniably positive stuff is easy: Harrison Ford still has his iconic swagger at age 65, Steven Spielberg can still shove the pedal to the metal in action set pieces, and Karen Allen's "Marion Ravenwood," resurrected from Raiders of the Lost Ark, remains one of the pluckiest -- if now puffiest -- adventure heroines in movies.

The undeniably negative stuff is a talky patch of exposition between Indy's first escape from Area 51 and the clutches of Cold War Commies to his next escape astride a motorcycle steered by a minor irritant, Shia LaBeouf's "Mutt Williams," a concession to the teen market buying most tickets these days, unborn when Indy released his (next-to-) Last Crusade 19 years ago.

There's a point when Indy and Mutt careen into a college library where Prof. Jones is asked a source question by a student. Scrambling to make a getaway, Indy refers him to another expert's work, adding: "If you want to be an archaeologist, you have to get out of the library." LaBeouf doesn't immediately convince me that he belongs anywhere else; the movie spends too much time sorting through the archives.

Then there's the stuff that entertained me, that some Indiana Jones fans may not appreciate as much.

Prince Caspian: Onward Christian youth soldiers

“You may find Narnia a more savage place than you remember,” a dwarf warns in The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.

That’s an understatement.

Continuing the series created by novelist C.S. Lewis, director Andrew Adamson skips the magical wardrobe, gives the witch only one scene and keeps the lion at bay most of the movie. Filling the void is numerous and violent sword fights, fatal arrows and old-fashioned beatdowns that would make Aragorn and his Hobbit friends reconsider their quest.

Even the cute talking animals in this one are out for blood.

What's your fave summer movie preview?

Well, kiddies, I need your help. No, not with antidepressants; I have plenty of those.

I'm prepping our annual summer movie preview that's due for publication on May 22 in Weekend. Each year I like to come up with some new angle but my editors just won't buy into my idea of reprinting last year's feature, just to see if anyone notices.

Instead, our summer preview will focus upon summer previews. You know, those 2-minute propaganda pieces you see in theaters and online trying to convince everyone that this or that movie is ABSOLUTELY WHAT YOU CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT SEEING!

I want to list choices for the best and worst of those preview trailers, the ones either pulling money from your pocket like a magnet, or those that making yard work seem like a better use of time.

Right now, I'm leaning toward Hancock as my fave, with Will Smith looking primed to reclaim his crown as the Fourth of July movie king. I love the notion of a miscreant superhero doing more damage than good with his powers. (The whale-saving shot is priceless, if you haven't seen it.) And that unprintably titled Ludacris song backing the action ("Whoa, get out the way") is, as the kids say, quite hip indeed.

On the other end of the spectrum, the worst trailer I've seen is trying to make chicken salad of the chicken whatever that is Eddie Murphy's next flick, Meet Dave. Check it out but sure to use safety goggles to prevent the exquisite badness from scorching your retinas.

You can find almost any movie's  trailers on YouTube, of course. I'm partial to searching the titles on the Internet Movie Database where trailer links are available.

Wherever you go for your preview trailer fix, post your suggestions here. And before deadline, please. My boss will appreciate that.

Bra Boys and a sweet old lady

In Sydney, Australia’s surfside suburb Marouba lives the Abberton brothers’ legacy of riding waves and trampling civility. They are the core of the infamous Bra Boys (R), a gang preferring to be considered a tribe whose violations of law and propriety are preservations of their culture, not criminal acts.

Who says? The co-creator of Bra Boys who happens to be oldest brother Sunny Abberton. Starting with an unconvincing link to Marouba’s historical past, the Abbertons and their surfing cronies are constantly posed as misunderstood free spirits. The mind-altering binges, reckless behavior and a murder charge all have some bogus rationalization in Abberton’s view.

It isn’t surprising that Russell Crowe with his bad boy image feels connected to the Abberton brothers, providing narration here and plans for a dramatic feature film on the subject. Crowe’s listless line readings suggest his involvement is part of the deal rather than a labor of love.

Like the superior Dogtown and Z-Boys a few years ago, Bra Boys depends chiefly upon home movies, less tightly edited and more blurry in this movie. A more amateurish look is seldom seen in theaters. Even sloppiness might be excused if Abberton weren’t so obviously self-serving to his clan. Brother Jai is charged with killing a drug dealer and the slant becomes too steep for credibility; even if he’s innocent, conviction could be payback for any number of infractions.

The surfing sequences are impressive as any footage in Australia’s waves should be, and the Abbertons’ rebellious nature may appeal to some viewers. But Bra Boys plays like a character reference at a sentencing hearing after the defendant pleads guilty; easy to see through and tough to believe.

Harrison Ford is still a blockbusting swashbuckler at 66 while the Young@Heart chorus of rocking seniors swings out singing. So, what about actor/bon vivant Mimi Weddell deserves a movie besides surviving to age 93?

Director Jyll Johnstone can’t find a concrete answer in her documentary Hats Off despite a decade’s access to Weddell’s routine of chasing down bit parts and modeling gigs. Sure, it’s a kick to see her flipping through gymnastics classes, and being named one of New York’s 50 most beautiful people is a neat twist on that distinction. Anyone defying expectations of aging is at least momentarily interesting.

But Johnstone settles for the sheer novelty of Weddell’s existence, unlike the Young@Heart documentary currently in theaters making stylish longevity seem within anyone’s reach. Hats Off suggests it’s Weddell’s way or nothing, and she’s an exception to the mortality rule.

Viewers may recognize Weddell from her brief appearances on TV’s Sex and the City and Law and Order, and films such as Across the Universe, Hitch and Broken Flowers. Her brittle physical appearance is deceiving but suitable for roles poking fun at seniors. Johnstone doesn’t inquire much about that image, nor does she delve into the slight embarrassment Weddell’s family suggests in interviews.

Without such insight, Hats Off is merely an overlong version of what could be a brief human interest segment on the evening news.

In defense of Ashton Kutcher

It is time to give a fair shake to Ashton Kutcher, as if enough cool things haven’t happened in his life. From his irrationally perfect genes to marrying Demi Moore, Kutcher’s fortune almost demands to be despised.

Those haters should lay off. Anyone paying attention after That 70’s Show and Dude, Where’s My Car? notices how Kutcher cannily parlayed fame as a producer: deflating celebrities on MTV’s Punk’d, punking paparazzi with Pop Fiction and turning the potentially degrading Beauty and the Geek into a sweetly empowering reality show.

Kutcher jumps into acting now and then, usually over his head in dramatic roles that his pretty-boy image won’t allow viewers to accept. Which brings us to What Happens in Vegas, and the role making Kutcher into a bona fide romantic comedy star.

No, Speed Racer, No!

Speed Racer must be what a seizure looks like from the inside, all perpetual motion and confectionery hues with style to burn and a substance needle buried on “E.”

The Wachowski brothers of The Matrix fame – and its sequels’ infamy – turn cinema into spinner art, squirting computer-generated paint on a whirling canvas to see what images result. Some pictures are pretty, while others get pretty irritating the third or fourth time around with encores to come.

Aside from sensory annoyance, the demographic target for Speed Racer is also a blur. Born of Japanese manga 40 years old, the brand appeals to viewers too old to wish to be called fanboys anymore. The Wachowskis hedge their box office bets by making Speed Racer a kiddie flick, often focusing upon a chubby preteen and his impish chimpanzee.

Yet few children care about complex corporate shenanigans forming the story’s core, nor should any see and hear torture and profanity in a PG movie. Then there’s the 136-minute running time challenging any age’s attention span. Don’t worry about taking a restroom break; anything missed likely will be rehashed again.

David #!@*!&# Mamet

Emily Moritmer stars as Laura Black, left, and Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as Mike Terry in the film, "Redbelt." [AP/Sony Pictures]

Writer-director David Mamet (Glengarry Glen Ross, The Spanish Prisoner) detours slightly from his moody, profane con games with Redbelt, creating something like an action movie. The combination isn’t entirely successful, with bone-crushing mixed martial arts interrupted by Mamet putting eloquent words into the mouths of characters, many of whom aren’t around enough for their thoughts to matter.

Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a man of honor, as Mamet often essays, caught in a potentially compromising position. He owns a ju jitsu school bleeding red ink, with a wife (Alice Braga) doubting their future. In a bizarre early scene, a nervous attorney (Emily Mortimer) accidentally discharges a gun belonging to one of Mike’s students, a policeman who graciously doesn’t arrest her. So far, so what?

Mike visits a tavern where movie star Chet Frank (Tim Allen) is being harassed by a drunk. Mike steps in to protect Chet, who repays him with dinner, an expensive wristwatch and a job supervising fight scenes on his latest production. Something about Chet and his agent (Joe Mantegna) doesn’t seem right, and it isn’t. Neither is it particularly interesting.

Exactly how those episodes connect to Mike entering a crooked mixed martial arts tournament isn’t clear, even in hindsight. Neither does the fact that the big fight occurs in an arena entranceway, not the ring. Redbelt feels like a movie with a lot of clarity left on the editing room floor, some allegory Mamet is attempting that never comes into focus, with a conclusion so incredible that the movie crumples into a heap like one of Mike’s opponents.

Redbelt opens in select theaters May 9.

Robert Downey Jr. is Iron Man

Titanium hands down, the coolest superhero alter ego is Tony Stark, who moonlights as Iron Man when he isn’t being who many red-blooded American males want to be.

Tony’s exorbitant wealth is surpassed only by his confidence that the world – including Maxim’s calendar models -- is his to enjoy. He is Bruce Wayne without manners, Clark Kent without conscience and Peter Parker’s id, able to pay for his indulgences plus generous tips.

Casting Robert Downey, Jr. as Iron Man puzzled people when announced since he isn’t a macho persona. All doubts should end now. The armored suit and CGI do all the necessary acting when things are blowing up. It is those times when Tony is being Tony – essentially the slick operator Downey excels at playing -- making Iron Man such a hoot.

Director Jon Favreau builds a sturdy foundation for a franchise, an origins story that isn’t as familiar as Batman’s or Spider-Man’s and unburdened by the angst of murdered relatives and messianic guilt. There isn’t a downer scene in Iron Man, only a shift in Tony’s priorities leading him to do something different, better with his life.

That’s where Downey’s casting pays off. There are faint parallels between his well-documented substance abuse and Tony’s addiction to manufacturing weapons of mass destruction for the U.S. military. Downey’s rehab and Tony’s change of heart – literally, with his new electromagnetic pacemaker – informs the performance at every turn.

Watch Downey’s final expression when Tony declares “I am Iron Man,” a marvelous mix of pride, uncertainty and defiance that may be what the actor sees in the mirror each sober morning.

Don't bogart those jokes, my friends

Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay is what stoners call a buzz-kill. At least that's what I hear from folks who know about such things.

Four years ago, the hazy, crazy adventures of two potheads on a quest for White Castle junk food was a pleasantly crude surprise. Now there's a mean-spirited sequel that's mostly junk.

Part 1 ended with Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn) satisfying their munchies and planning a trip to Amsterdam, to find Harold's passing fancy Maria (Paula Garces). They don't get far. Kumar's insistence to test his smokeless bong on the airplane gets them arrested as terrorists -- because "bong" sounds like "bomb" -- and transported to Guantanamo Bay.

Thankfully they don't stay long since the prison camp's only joke is that burly soldiers explicitly demand sexual favors from prisoners, making waterboarding sound humane. Harold and Kumar escape, hitching a boat ride with Cuban refugees to Miami, seeking help from a college classmate whose mansion teems with bottomless women. The classmate is also bottomless -- and extremely hirsute -- in a scene taking the fun out of frontal nudity.

Harold and Kumar borrow a car, taking a wrong turn into Alabama where stale gags ensue about the Ku Klux Klan and in-breeding. When the guys aren't perpetuating racial and cultural stereotypes, that duty falls to a federal agent (Rob Corddry) whose interrogation techniques include wasting grape soda to make an African-American talk, or spilling pennies before Jews, who scrape them up when his back is turned.

Ugly stuff, and unfunny.

Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg's movie slightly improves when Kumar tracks down a former flame (Danneel Harris) whose fiance has friends in high government places. Maybe he'll help them out of the jam. The comedy shifts from derogatory to political, with Harold and Kumar parachuting