By Katey Rich
It's a weekend filled with good intentions. One of Hong Kong's most respected auteurs makes his English-language debut, Jodie Foster returns to her childrens' comedy roots, and George Clooney makes good on those Cary Grant comparisons we've been making for years. As is so often the case, though, good intentions haven't exactly translated to good movies. In this brief respite between the dreck of the early months and the loud recycled content of the summer, we have April, a time for original stories, quiet moments, and OK but not great movies. In the first weekend of the month, April is living up to expectations.
NIM'S ISLAND. Opening in 3,513 theatres. Child star of the moment Abigail Breslin stars as the titular Nim, a girl raised on a remote island in the South Pacific with her father Jack (Gerard Butler), a scientist obsessed with the ocean's micro-plankton. When Jack sets off on a two-day research trip, he receives an e-mail from the author Alex Rover (Jodie Foster), doing research for her upcoming adventure novel. Nim, a huge fan of the novels starring an action hero also named Alex Rover (also played by Butler in fantasy sequences), keeps up an e-mail correspondence even as she worries that her father might not return after a big storm. Finally Nim asks Alex, a housebound agoraphobic, to help her fight off the Australian cruise line that wants to set up a base on her private island.
Critics are mixed on the old-fashioned adventure, though no one seems to be as over-the-moon as I was. "The story of three people and their individual journeys to one another packs an emotional wallop while providing thrills aplenty," I wrote. The Arizona Republic liked it too, writing, "The story is a little silly and a lot far-fetched, but its innocence goes a long way toward overcoming all that." And Ann Hornaday at The Washington Post hits on the nose precisely what I loved most about the film: "How refreshing, for once, to see a girl embark on derring-do that, in Nim's own words, makes her the hero of her own story." But the Onion AV Club demurs, writing, "Kids might like the animals and probably won't be bothered by the forced enthusiasm of Breslin's performance, but there are much more interesting worlds out there for them to visit." And Variety scoffs, "The story bogs down in an excess of dialogue, half-hearted action-adventure mayhem, the usual supporting cast of friendly wildlife, and hyperactive cross-cutting among the principal characters."
LEATHERHEADS. Opening in 2,777 theatres. Back in 1925, when professional football was first getting started, it was not the (vaguely) respectable and (vaguely) rule-abiding sport we know today. Players got no respect and the teams had no money, which put Duluth Bulldogs manager Dodge Connolly (George Clooney) in a tight spot. To improve his team's fortunes he hires college football star Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski) for the team, but little does he know a brassy lady reporter (Renee Zellweger) is planning to debunk his sterling war record and reveal Rutherford as a fraud. Clooney directed this throwback to 1930s screwball comedies.
Most critics gave Leatherheads boos and hisses, but our Rex Roberts was one of the few dissenters: "Leatherheads may be too nostalgic for twenty-somethings, but it captures the Roaring Twenties." On the other end of the spectrum, The New York Times' A.O. Scott eviscerated it, saying it "looks to have been nearly as hard to make as it is to watch." David Ansen at Newsweek calls it "tepid," and complains, "Clooney exhibits so little interest in football that he forgets to show us what was so good about the good old gridiron days." Peter Travers at Rolling Stone, on the other hand, is tickled by the romance: "Clooney keeps the pace bouncy and charm at the ready as he, Zellweger and the appealing Krasinski put a sweet spin on Bull Durham's erotic triangle." And the Philadelphia Inquirer falls somewhere in the middle, calling it "an admirable, if not altogether successful affair."
THE RUINS. Opening in 2,812 theatres. In Hollywood's mind, it seems twenty-somethings can't go on vacation in an exotic location without running into some kind of trouble. This time, in The Ruins, they're in Mexico, and planning to spend their entire time on the beach until a fellow tourist convinces them to go visit some Mayan ruins. Once there they find themselves cornered by some native villagers, who plan to tangle them up with a nasty force that lives inside...wait for it...the ruins.
This is another one of those movies that went unscreened for critics, though given the extensive fanbase for the book on which it was based, some online critics have bent over backwards and gotten reviews out there already. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have been worth the effort. EFilmCritic.com calls it "a would-be horror film that is far more tepid than it is terrifying," and MetroMix says it "doesn't achieve squat as a horror movie." The blog Reel Times, on the other hand, is a little more satisfied, calling it "a stripped down genre exercise that goes about its business with brutal efficiency."
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