TODAY'S MOVIE REVIEWS: 'Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason' and 'After the Sunset'


Oregonian movie reviews by yours truly. Click on the links to read the full writeups:




"Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason" -- "[The sequel] puts an exclamation point on the first film's biggest problem: Bridget Jones (Renee Zellweger) and Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) are a really boring couple. The first film took its time bringing the awkward Bridget and uptight Darcy together, playing her public humiliations against his stiff upper lip ... but the movie's best moments involved Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant), the lout who distracted Bridget with great sex, good jokes and a tenuous grasp on the truth. Cleaver was the villain of the piece, but you rooted for him the way you rooted for Alan Rickman in 'Die Hard'; he was clearly having so much fun needling Bridget that you hoped he would reform (a little) and go on teasing her about the size of her underpants for years to come...."




"After the Sunset" -- "A film that dares to ask the big questions, namely: Are all crime comedies set in exotic vacation locales, as a rule, just dog's-breakfast horrible? With the possible exception of the 'Ocean's Eleven' remake, I'm hard-pressed to think of a single film I've enjoyed in which crime and comedy intermingled amid sunshine, hotels and resorts.... Something about the shooting locale seems to compel even the best actors and filmmakers to phone it in between bouts of room service.... It's a dubious sub-genre, and no one's bringing their A-game to the table. 'After the Sunset' joins this less-than-proud poker game after popping off at the pool for a quick tan. It's limp, implausible, unthrilling, unfunny and vaguely sleazy -- a hairy-chested man in a Speedo behind the wheel of a luxury speedboat, gold chains a-jingling."


Posted: Fri - November 12, 2004 at 11:33 AM        

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