Recently Seen Movies V: We Don't Need No Stinkin' Franchise!

1. THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES Money and talent has clearly been lavished on this movie - but why? The 'true' story is strictly B-grade. Another in the line of ripoffs exploiting uncritical belief in the supernatural. Overlong, but the last ten minutes are worth waiting for: a very well done sfx sequence - by far the best part of the movie.

2. THE MAJESTIC Jim Carrey's newest bid for Serious Actor status. In the tradition of such movies as It's A Wonderful Life and Mr Smith Goes to Washington - very Capraesque. Or is it? You tell me.

3. THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO Alexandre Dumas' classic tale of jealosy, betrayal, suffering, revenge and love gets yet another turn on the screen, and it's a pretty good one. The long and involved story is told with admirable economy and clarity. The director, Kevin Reynolds, gets adequate to good performances from his cast, and finds ways to keep eye, ear and mind occupied at all times. If you've never encountered the Count before, give this one a go.

4. DIE ANOTHER DAY It's been five days since I saw this and I'm finding it surprisingly unmemorable. The bits I do remember are the opening action sequence, Halle Berry's emergence from the sea - at least as memorable as Ursula Andress's similar scene in Dr No - and the ending from when Bond takes off in the jet-powered sleigh . Oh, and John Cleese's Q scene. I also remember thinking that the architecture of the ice palace, or whatever it was, partly resembled Sydney Opera House. But maybe it's me. I certainly don't want to discourage anyone from the fun of loving or hating the 20th Bond movie.

5. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST Let me say first up that the DVD is really value for money. Three different versions of the movie, and even the menu on the bonus features disc is probably the most entertaining I've seen (tip: don't make your choices too quickly). As for the movie, it's good: good story, good songs (especially M.Gaston's song of self-praise, which has some hilarious lyrics), and good animation - for 1991 - though its 2Dness is glaring in these days of 3D animation. Good, but I think SHREK, for one, is better, and TOY STORY for another.

6. CATCH ME IF YOU CAN The first fifteen minutes had me worried - not all that interesting, apart from the period (the 60s) detail. But soon I became engrossed as the story began to reveal depths, ironies and echoes (e.g. Les Miserables). Christopher Walken steals all the scenes he's in - one of his very best performances. But Hanks, and, to a lesser degree DiCaprio, do strong impressive work. The movie is an emotional roller-coaster ride, with hilarious highs and depressing lows. And it's not very clear how happy or sad the ending is meant to be. Probably not among Spielberg's greatest, but well worth seeing.

7. MINORITY REPORT For the first ten or fifteen minutes you worry about how much sense this sf story's concepts make, but then you just accept and become engrossed. Like Spielberg's A.I., this movie is very 'science fictional' (and I'm afraid only experienced sf fans will know what I mean by that). This is not as significant a movie as A.I., however. Visually it's quite amazing - particularly the scenes involving the future transportation system. The story is clever, but not profound; though it does raise the interesting question of whether infallible prediction is compatible with free will. The thing I liked least about it is that it has one of those endings that you think will never end. [Question for buffs: apart from being sf, what does this movie have in common with BLADE RUNNER and TOTAL RECALL? The answer can be found on this page.]

8. THE SUM OF ALL FEARS Has Jack Ryan found the Fountain of Youth? (Rhetorical question - you'll know why I ask it when you see TSOAF and if you've already seen the other Jack Ryan movies.) Talk about bold plotting, this movie has it in spades. Unfortunately I can't fully illustrate this comment without spoiling. I can say that the bad guy is...wait for it...a Neo-Nazi!!! - bold enough for ya? If not, it does get bolder, the plot goes in a direction you don't expect. Or this sucker didn't. Is it a good movie? Not bad. Watchable. Not the best JR movie. But it does have that bold plotting.

9. ROAD TO PERDITION This movie's greatest strength is its bleak but beautiful visual style. It also has very good acting, good music, and a strong story. There are some bad blemishes in the details of the script, however (e.g.where does Michael Sullivan Senior's gun come from in the final shootout with Maguire? In the lead-up to that scene we are led to believe he isn't carrying a gun. And, anyway, why doesn't Maguire, after he shoots Sullivan, frisk him for weapons?) Things like these are cheats and insults to the viewer's intelligence. They rob a film of its potential greatness.

10. THE BOURNE IDENTITY I'm seriously thinking of starting a new list to be called "Movies That Could Have Been Great Except For Stupid Action Scenes". On it would be Black Hawk Down, Road To Perdition, and The Bourne Identity. Anyone who's seen TBI knows the scene I mean: it involves a stairwell and a corpse. Except for that stupid scene, TBI is superb, one of the best action movies I've seen. Do not miss.

11. CHICAGO Wow!!! A great (though dark) musical. Amazingly inventive presentations of mostly familiar songs. Even if you're not a fan of musicals, you should see this. Give 'em the old razzle dazzle, indeed.

12. MURDER BY NUMBERS If you're familiar with Hitchcock's ROPE, you'll know where this movie got most of its plotwise inspiration. However, MBN is something like a cross between ROPE and SCREAM. But that isn't all; it has more. The main role, played by Sandra Bullock, is one of the strongest female roles ever for this genre of movie, and she handles it very well. My brother isn't fond of Bullock, but he liked MBN. So did I.

13. RED DRAGON When I first heard this movie was being made, I groaned. For one thing, the novel on which it's based had already been filmed about a decade before under the title MANHUNTER. Worse, Anthony Hopkins was going to have to play a Hannibal Lecter younger in this story than he was in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and much younger than he was in HANNIBAL. The good news is that RD is such a high-quality movie that these things don't matter. Hopkins, Edward Norton and Ralph Fiennes are all great in their roles. To my taste, Emily Watson overplays the blind girl bit, but just a tad. I'm now pleased this movie was made: it rounds off the Hannibal trilogy about as well as it possibly could have.

14. APOCALYPSE NOW - REDUX According to Dictionary.com, 'redux' means 'brought back'. But this dvd doesn't just bring back a great film, it underlines its greatness by restoring to it episodes that were edited out of its original theatrical release. I use the word 'episodes' deliberately, because this story is very much a series of episodes. The trick to appreciating this film is to realise that most of its episodes are surrealistic in style; they are not meant to be taken as literal but as emphatic. Some of them are very darkly funny, others are horribly serious. Coppola's style here reminded me very much of the novels of J.G. Ballard (although the film was reportedly based on the short novel "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad). Apocalypse Now is surely close to being the greatest film set in the Vietnam War.

15. ONE HOUR PHOTO Contrasts feature in this impressive film. The environment in which the characters move is presented as neat and clean. This contrasts with their inner, psychological environments which are potentially chaotic, and then actually so. The life of the character played by Robin Williams is lonely and damaged. This contasts with the lives of the family with which he is obssessed, which are, apparently, happy. We expect, early in the story, to hate Williams's character. By the end we pity him. I was fascinated by the way this story is told. Williams performs his role excellently, but the film is dominated by its (first time) director, Mark Romanek.

16. INSOMNIA Al Pacino's acting usually pisses me off (exceptions being his Godfather performances), but I have to admit his performance in INSOMNIA is up there with his best. The story told here is of a good cop gone bad under various sorts of accumulated pressures. The setting, the Alaskan summer, in which the sun is always up, is just one of those pressures. Another is a fiendishly cunning bad guy, played very well by Robin Williams (who looks set for a notable career in dramatic acting). Pacino's final words in the film, "Let me sleep. Let me sleep," are very movingly delivered.

17. LIBERTY STANDS STILL Not to make light of a serious issue, gun control, but...hotdog stands have featured in many movies, almost always briefly; however, this movie is pretty much set at a hotdog stand. Sound interesting? Well, as a matter of fact, it is. A very well prepared sniper-bomber (Wesley Snipes, and he does) manages to pin down the wife/business partner (Linda Fiorentino) of a gun manufacturer and forces her to manacle herself to the aforementioned hotdog stand, which contains a large bomb set to explode when her cellphone's battery runs out. Why does he do this? His young daughter has been shot dead at school by a fellow student. He finds that the gun involved was allowed to reach the streets by the corrupt business practices of its makers. The way this story develops is continuously interesting, sometimes predictable, often not. As much a psycholigical thriller as an issue movie. I recommend it. If you watch it with others, get ready to argue over the rights and wrongs.

18. BELOW This is three good movies in one: a good submarine movie, a good mystery movie, and a good ghost movie. No big name stars, but the acting is above average. Photography and fx are also excellent. Well worth seeing.

19. IDENTITY Who is killing, one by one, a group of strangers stranded at a motel by floodwaters? I'll tell you two things: one, the killer is the very last one you would suspect, and two, nothing is as it seems. A clever and extreme mystery.

20. REIGN OF FIRE An excellent post-apocalypse movie. Apparently some viewers have had trouble swallowing what causes the apocalypse, but it didn't bother me at all. Exciting action scenes and first-class special effects.