MR. DEEDS
|
  Year Released: 2002 MPAA Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 96 minutes |
IN THEATERS! Any Adam Sandler fan will more than likely react to “Mr. Deeds” with the same amount of enthusiasm as the excitable recruited audience members at my screening. After all, this movie finds Sandler falling back on old tricks that worked for his public prior to the critical and commercial crash-and-burn that was “Little Nicky.” “Deeds” plays as if it were spat out by a “Make Your Own Adam Sandler Vehicle” computer program…
Posted on June 29, 2002 by Michael Dequina
THE FIRST $20 MILLION IS ALWAYS THE HARDEST
|
  Year Released: 2002 MPAA Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 90 minutes |
Watching this loose adaptation of Po Bronson’s novel of the same name, it’s no mystery why Fox wants to fulfill its bare minimum theatrical release obligations before sweeping it under the rug and into video store oblivion…
Posted on June 28, 2002 by Michael Dequina
MINORITY REPORT
|
  Year Released: 2002 MPAA Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 127 minutes |
IN THEATERS! Likely to generate post-film discussion are touches such as creepy and morbidly humorous sequences involving Anderton’s eyes–whether it be some scary business with retina-scanning spider-like robots or a “Clockwork Orange”-esque encounter with a black market eye surgeon…
Posted on June 28, 2002 by Michael Dequina
LILO & STITCH
|
  Year Released: 2002 MPAA Rating: G Running Time: 85 minutes |
IN THEATERS! This sublimely silly and genuinely sweet film will make kids and adults alike interested in seeing the inevitable Saturday morning spinoff…
Posted on June 23, 2002 by Michael Dequina
THE BOURNE IDENTITY
|
  Year Released: 2002 MPAA Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 118 minutes |
IN THEATERS! “A new action hero is Bourne.” As incredibly cheesy and precious that advertising tag line for “The Bourne Identity” is, there’s no discounting the truth it does hold. Yes, it heralds a new potential action franchise character in Jason Bourne, and the film also reveals a different type of action hero in director Doug Liman, who further proves his multifaceted moviemaking mettle with his deft steering of this change-of-pace project…
Posted on June 17, 2002 by Michael Dequina
DIVINE SECRETS OF THE YA-YA SISTERHOOD
|
  Year Released: 2002 MPAA Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 116 minutes |
IN THEATERS! A group of friends that engages in the time-tested and socially accepted activity of… hanging out. Is there really any need to complicate the practice by sprinkling fairy dust on each other in forests at night? I didn’t think so…
Posted on June 7, 2002 by Michael Dequina
BAD COMPANY
|
Year Released: 2002 MPAA Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 117 minutes |
IN THEATERS! Watching “Bad Company” is like peering into a window into a bygone era not long passed but still so far away, when the threat of nuclear annihiliation was par for the popcorn movie course, with a trusty red digital readout counting down to not so much a tragic disaster than a Really Cool Special Effect…
Posted on June 7, 2002 by Michael Dequina
THE SUM OF ALL FEARS
|
Year Released: 2002 MPAA Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 124 minutes |
IN THEATERS! “The Sum of All Fears” not only succeeds by that standard — it is a smart, complex, and engrossing idea-driven action thriller — but more importantly for Paramount, it also gets the more pressing job done: to breathe fresh life into a durable film franchise that, based on this installment, still has a promising future…
Posted on May 31, 2002 by Michael Dequina
SPIRIT: STALLION OF THE CIMARRON
|
Year Released: 2002 MPAA Rating: G Running Time: 90 minutes |
IN THEATERS! After a beautifully rendered opening passage where an eagle flies over a breathtaking expanse of the American West, DreamWorks’ latest animated feature, the horse opera “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron,” wastes no time in daring viewers over the age of five to not roll their eyes…
Posted on May 24, 2002 by Michael Dequina
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST
|
Year Released: 2002 MPAA Rating: PG Running Time: 100 minutes |
As identities are swapped and mistaken, all manner of frothy farce ensues…
Posted on May 22, 2002 by Michael Dequina
ABOUT A BOY
|
Year Released: 2002 MPAA Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 117 minutes |
IN THEATERS! “About a Boy” will warm your heart without making you feel guilty about it…
Posted on May 17, 2002 by Michael Dequina
STAR WARS: EPISODE II – ATTACK OF THE CLONES
|
Year Released: 2002 MPAA Rating: PG Running Time: 127 minutes |
IN THEATERS! Another FT Writer’s Opinion! Perhaps the words that will most commonly be uttered in association with “Star Wars: Episode II–Attack of the Clones”–that is, right behind “Yoda is one badass motherfucker,” but more on that later–are “It’s better than ‘The Phantom Menace.’” But to leave it at that is to damn the film with faint praise, for George Lucas’ venerable sci-fi film franchise is back on track with this satisfying installment…
Posted on May 12, 2002 by Michael Dequina
UNFAITHFUL
|
  Year Released: 2002 MPAA Rating: R Running Time: 121 minutes |
“Your eyes are amazing, you know that? You should never shut them. Not even at night.” In real life, if a guy used this line on a woman, she would most likely bust out laughing in his face…
Posted on May 10, 2002 by Michael Dequina
SPIDER-MAN
|
  Year Released: 2002 MPAA Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 120 minutes |
IN THEATERS! After years of starts and stops, various legal wranglings, and an extended flirt with an Oscar-winning, self-professed “king of the world,” the “Spider-Man” feature film has finally come to pass, and the long and winding path to the big screen has led to the right hands: those of director Sam Raimi, who has set the bar unusually high for the rest of the summer film season with this exciting and exhilarating adventure…
Posted on May 3, 2002 by Michael Dequina
BARAN (Rain)
|
Year Released: 2001 MPAA Rating: PG Running Time: 94 minutes |
IN THEATERS IN LIMITED RELEASE! Writer-director Majid Majidi could not have possibly imagined just how timely his film has become in the wake of recent events…
Posted on May 1, 2002 by Michael Dequina
