Box Office Outlook: Some Enchanted Four-Day Weekend

By Katey Rich

Not too often does Friday come around mid-week, but thanks to our Plymouth Rock forebears, it's already time for another Box Office Outlook! While many of us will spend the weekend struggling our way out of a turkey coma, many more of us will make our way to the multiplex, where there's an onslaught of new releases in addition to the huge variety of offerings from last weekend. There's something for the horror fans, the action fans, the sentimental goop fans, and even the Dylan-philes. And for the rest of us there's Enchanted, with the widest imaginable appeal of any movie this year, and enough good buzz to turn a frog into a prince. Make the forest animals help with the housework? Get the clocks and candlesticks singing and dancing? Maybe once I actually see it my Disney references will be a little more polished.

ENCHANTED. A gleeful sendup of the conventions the Walt Disney Studio has spent the last 70 years inventing, Enchanted mixes live-action and hand-drawn animation to tell the story of a fairy tale princess sent on a wild adventure. Giselle (Amy Adams) wants nothing more than to marry her handsome prince (James Marsden), but is cast away by his wicked mother (Susan Sarandon) to the harsh world of live-action Manhattan. Taken in by a lawyer (Patrick Dempsey) and his daughter (Rachel Covey), Giselle navigates this strange new world, soon followed by the prince and his mother. Songs by Alan Menken (The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast) abound.

Reviews are comparing Amy Adams to Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins, praising the lavish musical numbers, and generally going gaga over this holiday treat. "One of [Disney's] most clever and entertaining films in years," says our Daniel Eagan, who also praises the musical number "That's How You Know" as "choreographed with all the vitality and ingenuity of classic Hollywood musicals." "Enchanted has the makings of a supersize sugarcoated hit, and Adams is just the spicy princess you want to take home and PG-love," writes Rolling Stone's Peter Travers. The Chicago Tribune recognizes that the film has its problems, but predicts, "Don't be surprised if the film's minor flaws fade away with time and repeated viewings. This is the kind of movie that will be around for awhile." And Manohla Dargis at the New York Times, like virtually every other critic, totally fell for Amy Adams: "Ms. Adams proves to be an irresistibly watchable screen presence and a felicitous physical comedian, with a gestural performance and an emotional register that alternately bring to mind the madcap genius of Carole Lombard and Lucille Ball." Gene Seymour at Newsday wasn't even that impressed with the film, but even he admits, "If I were an 8-year-old girl, I would think Enchanted was better than a week of snow days or 10 Justin Timberlake concerts."

HITMAN. Based on a successful video game that spawned several sequels, Hitman stars Timothy Olyphant as genetically engineered Agent 47, an assassin hired out for contract killings who finds himself on the run from both the Russian military and Interpol. He's accompanied in his journey by Nika (Olga Kurylenko), the Russian president's mistress. On their tail are two Interpol agents (Dougray Scott, Michael Offei), and NIka and Agent 47 must make like, well, hitmen and kill, kill, kill to uncover the truth.

Hitman seems to be one of those movies that's so bad the reviews are actually funny. "Theatrical playoff will be so quick that the DVD could serve as a stocking stuffer," cackles Variety. Manohla Dargis at the New York Times adds, "It's bang, boom, blah � action movies for bored dummies." Our Daniel Eagan is also less than amused: "Fails to deliver the kind of pounding, visceral action that genre fans expect, despite the high body count and R rating." The Boston Globe joins a number of other critics in questioning Olyphant's casting: "Olyphant seems like a boy sent to do a man's work. If this actually were a video game, he'd be toast before Level Two, and you'd be throwing your joystick across the room in disgust."

THE MIST. Writer-director Frank Darabont has made some of the most critically praised Stephen King adaptations ever-- 1994's The Shawshank Redemption and 1999's The Green Mile-- and he's at it again with The Mist, an adaptation of King's 1980 novella about a Maine besieged by a mysterious, malevolent mist. Thomas Jane plays David Drayton, a man who takes refuge with his son inside the local supermarket, where a religious zealot (Marcia Gay Harden) is riling up the crowd, convincing them the mist is a harbinger of the apocalypse. When strange creatures begin appearing out of the mist, though, the numbers inside the supermarket begin to dwindle until an escape becomes necessary. Toby Jones and Andre Braugher also star.

Most people wouldn't think of a horror movie as the perfect post-Thanksgiving outing, and neither do some critics. "It makes the fatal mistake of taking itself seriously," says our Rex Roberts, who also calls the movie "thick and smarmy." Anthony Lane at the New Yorker gives an overall hilarious review, concluding by comparing The Mist to John Carpenter's The Fog:"These movies are not meditations on the tragedy of human overreach. They're weather reports. Isn't that scary enough?" Lisa Schwarzbaum, on the other hand, was pretty pleased over at Entertainment Weekly, writing, "Nifty, unusually spry, and almost shockingly pessimistic." Indeed, The Mist is shaping up to be one of those weird anomalies, where the hoity-toitys at Rotten Tomatoes' "Cream of the Crop" shout "Boo!" (a 50% rating) but the critical community at large shouts "Yay!" (a 71% overall rating). E! Online gives it an "A," saying, "Unlike other horror films that only have torture porn to offer, this one will stay with you for a long time." Maybe, but their comparison of the movie's victims to "a few dozen pounds of raw chuck" sure does make me lose my appetite for a turkey dinner.

AUGUST RUSH. Two young musicians come together for a romantic night together near New York City's Greenwich Village, but the next morning are separated forever. Twelve years later their son, whose mother mistakenly believed she had miscarried, is intent on using his extraordinary musical gifts to reunite with the parents he never knew. Freddie Highmore stars as the titular musical whiz kid August Rush, with Keri Russell and Jonathan Rhys Myers as the unknowing parents, and Robin Williams as "The Wizard," a street performer who takes young August under his wing. Terrence Howard also stars.

Our Shirley Sealy made me laugh out loud with her capsule review of this one: "Stop, stop! I love movies�I even love sappy romantic movies�but I can't take this anymore!" Newsday is also unamused, calling August Rush "the kind of fairy tale that makes Cinderella look like kitchen-sink realism" and also pausing to note that poor, pubescent Freddie Highmore is "a little long in the tooth to be playing the 11-year-old title character." Many other critics, though, were charmed. The Village Voice calls it "an urban fairy tale whose rapturous finale stakes a wishful claim on the redemptive power of love and art." The Hollywood Reporter admits, "Clearly, the film does not work on any realistic level," but adds that it's "an often charming urban fantasy." And Edge Boston takes to task the "less-introspective" critics who booed the film, saying, "For those who are wont to find music and poetry in the world around them, August Rush will deliver a heartwarming holiday treat that will lift your spirits."

THIS CHRISTMAS. Holidays are hectic for everyone, but for the Whitfield family, where everyone has a secret they're trying to keep hidden, this Christmas will be crazier than usual. Family matriarch Ma'Dere (Loretta Devine) has invited all six of her children home for the holidays, but must keep her relationship with her boyfriend (Delroy Lindo). In the meantime each of the siblings come with their own baggage, including two secret musical careers, a philandering husband, a secret wife, and a whole lot of resenment. Regina King, Laz Alonso, Columbus Short, Lauren London, Sharon Leal and pop star Chris Brown star as the squabbling siblings.

Most critics recognize there's a whole lot of artifice and sentimentality going on here, but fall for the holiday film regardless. Our David Noh appreciates a black family film not made by Tyler Perry, and adds, "Whitmore has assembled a highly attractive, talented cast who do all they can with this less-than-golden material." "A family reunion comedy with appealing, if familiar, characters and a soundtrack upbeat as its story," writes Carrie Rickey at the Philadelphia Inquirer. The Hollywood Reporter sees too much soap opera in the plot but admits This Christmas holds up against a similar classic: "Not a single moment feels even slightly real, but then, Kaufman and Hart's chaotic family comedy 'You Can't Take It With You' never felt real, either." And the Arizona Republic is definitely feeling the Christmas spirit: "It's a relief to come across a movie that celebrates the family with a clear-eyed appreciation of and genuine affection for its characters."

I'M NOT THERE. In just one theatre this weekend is Todd Haynes' anti-biopic about Bob Dylan, which has sparked fierce discussion ever since its debut at the New York Film Festival in October. Six actors take on the role of the Dylan figure, among them a woman (Cate Blanchett), two Brits (Ben Whishaw and Christian Bale), and an adolescent African-American (Marcus Carl Franklin). Heath Ledger and Richard Gere round out the cast, with each actor taking on an entirely different character who connects, somewhere, to Dylan's legend: a rail-riding troubadour who dubs himself Woody Guthrie (Franklin), a Greenwich Village protest singer (Bale), a strung-out rock star on a world tour (Blanchett), a restless Hollywood icon (Ledger), a sassy juvenile delinquent (Whishaw) and a rustic mountain man (Gere).

Critics admit that Haynes' film is a challenge, and not for everyone, but many of them were swept away by the inventiveness. "A fascinating experiment that, if the viewer is willing to surrender to Haynes's sometimes hermetic meditations on Dylan's life, heartily rewards the investment," writes the Washington Post. Our Ethan Alter works a "Visions of Johanna" reference into the first line of his review and compares the film to a complex Dylan song: "After all, who could explain what 'Desolation Row' is about after a single listen?" Even those bewildered by the film give Blanchett credit for her performance as the Don't Look Back-era Dylan: Anthony Lane at The New Yorker says the film has a problem of "what authority a movie retains when its component parts fly off in different directions," but adds, "If the new film does cohere, for a while, that is thanks to Cate Blanchett." Rex Reed can often be counted on for a scathing review; I heard him in person say recently that I'm Not There was the worst movie he had ever seen, and he added in his review, "It's a 135-minute Cobb salad, what I call jerk-off filmmaking." Talk about a mixed metaphor. I'm Not There seems to be a very different kind of critic-proof movie: so inscrutable and ready to be interpreted in 100 different ways, that each person can take the film they want away from it-- genius masterpiece or, uh, Cobb salad.

In addition, No Country for Old Men is expanding to 800 theatres this weekend. You can read the critical roundup from its limited bow two weeks ago here.