Box Office Outlook: Is This The Best We Can Do?

By Katey Rich

It's still rough going in these early days of the year. Few movies are being screened for critics, and with most of the new releases you can tell why. You know it's January when a Uwe Boll movie is one of the biggest openers of the weekend. Nicolas Cage and National Treasure 2 may take the top spot for a fourth weekend in a row on top, or perhaps one of the upstarts of the weekend will steal the crown. There aren't too many critics to round up this Friday, but I'll do my best to give you a sense, if you didn't have one already, of what's waiting for you in the multiplex this weekend.

FIRST SUNDAY. Tracy Morgan has become more than just another guy who used to be on SNL thanks to his high-profile (and unendingly hilarious) role on 30 Rock. Now he's taking that quasi-fame in a different direction with First Sunday, half-caper and half-inspirational comedy about three petty felons who decide to rob a church to pay off their debts. Once they're inside the sacred doors, though, they are caught up in the spirit of the place, which makes their robbery scheme that much more difficult. Ice Cube plays Morgan's partner in crime, with Katt Williams, Loretta Devine, Chi McBride and Michael Beach as some of the many churchgoers who help the men change their evil ways.

"Weak, weak stuff," writes the Philadelphia Inquirer, calling the movie out for presenting black stereotypes in the same setting (Baltimore) as TV's acclaimed "The Wire" (probably an unfair comparison there). "At no time does First Sunday threaten to become actually funny," writes The Hollywood Reporter, adding, "A forced happy ending doesn't remove the bad taste from your mouth." Over at The New York Times, though, A.O. Scott goes along with the ride: "First Sunday sometimes feels more like a script read-through than like an actual movie, but its warmth is likely to carry you through the stretches of clich and tedium." And The Washington Post found some room for praise, too: "It's Katt Williams who steals the show in this by turns trite and mildly amusing B-comedy [...] When First Sunday succeeds, it's mostly due to terrific casting."

THE PIRATES WHO DON'T DO ANYTHING: A VEGGIETALES MOVIE. Try as I might, I still can't figure out why this movie is called The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything, since even though it's a movie about vegetables, they are, in fact, being pirates. Three vegetable friends work at a restaurant and dream of going on real-life adventures, until a magical device actually transports them back to the swashbuckling era. They go through a series of adventures and at some point learn important lessons about the Bible. This is the latest installment in the wildly popular VeggieTales series, all of which carry Biblical messages.

Our Ethan Alter, for one, wasn't particularly moved by the word of God: "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything seems symptomatic of the laziness that pervades the majority of today's G and PG-rated romps. It's little more than a video babysitter that gives kids something to watch, but leaves them with almost nothing to think about." The Village Voice is even less enthralled: "Makes the prospect of scarfing down a plateful of unseasoned brussel sprouts enticing by comparison." Newsday, on the other hand, clearly has kids in need of entertaining and found what they were looking for: "After the garish excessiveness of the last pair of live-action Pirates of the Caribbean installments, the pokey charms of The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything provides a mildly soothing tonic." And Variety writes, "Should easily win over tots with its reliable menu of silly songs, easily digestible morals and wholesome (if not always fresh) produce-based characters."

IN THE NAME OF THE KING: A DUNGEON SIEGE TALE. An action movie based on a videogame, directed by the critically reviled Uwe Boll? Need I say more? There aren't too many reviews out there for this one, but I've gather that it's about a man who is a farmer, named Farmer (Jason Statham), whose wife is killed by or perhaps because of an evil sorcerer (Ray Liotta). There's also an aged king (Burt Reynolds), and Leelee Sobieski and Claire Forlani show up at some point to look attractive. Seriously, I can't make any sense of this movie's plot, so let's move on to the two reviews that exist.

The review from Toronto's Globe and Mail actually takes the form of a live blog, going blow by blow through each ridiculous bit. "8 p.m. Am getting the hang of the dialogue. Didn't know that Middle Ages farmers wintered in Beverly Hills. Try out the new lingo on my fetching seatmate: 'Ye dost truly turn me on.' Get slapped." You can see where this is going. "8:30 p.m. King Burt is on his deathbed. Still looking good. His rug immaculate. His last words even better: 'Wisdom is our hammer; goodness will be our nail.' My goodness. King Burt dies. I die laughing." Over at the Montreal Film Journal there's a more traditional, if equally hilarious, review: "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale is not just awful, it's an insult to the art form that is cinema. Seriously, if I'd ran into Boll after the screening and he'd asked me what I thought of it, I would have punched him in the gut. 'That's what I thought of your movie, you German bastard!"