‘Island’ slick, loud and commercial

PEGGY J. ROGERS

Movie genres lock characters and their actions into a given place and

time. Characters are a product of their time and limited in action by

the available technology of the day.

In Westerns, for instance, cowboys and train robbers ride horses

and send messages by telegram. If the town sheriff rode off to catch

the bad guys on a motorcycle or send word ahead via cell phone, the

audience would realize something was out of time or place.

Science fiction, however, gets to bend the rules in ways most

other genres cannot. Sci-fi movies are free to create any type of

place in any given time and have access to mind-boggling technology

that only exists in the writer’s imagination.

Although futuristic films concern themselves with things that may

or may not happen in future, the story is usually rooted in a present

day socio-political issue or scientific discovery that may or may not

be good to pursue.

“The Island” uses the controversial ongoing medical-ethical debate

of cloning humans and, like the ghosts of Scrooge, shows the audience

a potential outcome if humans were to be duplicated.

In 2050, somewhere in America, Lincoln Six-Echo (Ewan McGregor of

“Star Wars”) and Jordan Two-Delta (Scarlett Johansson of “Lost In

Translation”) are living in an underground, segregated and regimented

sterile environment. Their lives are controlled, monitored and

regulated every moment. Lincoln, Jordon and hundreds of others accept

the prison-type lifestyle, lured by the promise of being sent to a

tropical paradise soon.

Just as Jordan is ready to leave for the island, Lincoln discovers

the awful truth about what really happens to those who make the

one-way trip. Hand in hand, Lincoln and Jordon look for a way out

and, in the process, learn the awful truth about who they are.

Even though science fiction flicks are free to speculate about the

future, including a sense of continuity and believability helps the

audience to suspend their disbelief.

“The Island,” directed by Michael Bay (“Pearl Harbor”) opts for

slick wall-to-wall action, comprised of crashing and exploding every

type of vehicle known to exist and escapes on foot over every type of

asphalt, concrete or metal that has been flattened, poured or shaped

by man, taking place above ground, below ground, across the desert

and down the city streets of the West Coast.

“The Island” is slick and commercial from the get go. With rare

exceptions, everyone is drop dead gorgeous, as if they stepped out of

a 60 second spot for the newest perfume. The only thing better

looking than the people are the cars, motorcycles, helicopters and

boats used to chase down Lincoln and Jordan. The machines have more

personality and depth then the characters.

Viewers will have an easy time knowing who is good and who is bad,

since the good guys wear white and the bad guys dress in black. It is

even easy to know which camp the fence sitters will finally decide in

the end.

For all its slickness, loud music and handsome people, something

is out of place in the movie. “The Island’s” brutally high body count

by film’s end spoils the thrills. Everybody, good, bad or

indifferent, finally participates in the carnage in order to survive.

The more the bullets and bodies fly, the faster the entertainment

factor gets killed off for the audience.

Wait for “The Island” to come out on DVD. It may look better on

wide screen then it does on the big screen.

* PEGGY J. ROGERS, 40, produces commercial videos and

documentaries.

‘Rejects’ has one flaw;

it’s just not scary

When people talk about family values, they probably don’t include

the values of Rob Zombie’s sociopathic Firefly family. Zombie first

introduced us to the Fireflys in “House of 1000 Corpses.” He brings

them back to the screen in his new movie “The Devil’s Rejects.”

This movie is a faithful reproduction of low budget 1970s horror

movies that only played at drive-ins. Like most of those movies, its

fatal flaw is that it’s just not scary. The story is so confused that

it looks like Zombie wants us to see the sadistic Fireflys as heroes,

villains and victims simultaneously. Without anyone to really root

for or hate or fear, there’s no real focus and no reason to care what

happens to any of these characters.

Zombie’s first movie, “House of 1000 Corpses,” was a psychedelic

low budget gorefest that borrowed heavily from 1970s horror movies

like “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” “Last House on the Left” and even

the awful Chuck Connors movie “Tourist Trap.” Although it wasn’t a

terribly original story, “House of 1000 Corpses” provided plenty of

scares and worked well as a low budget genre movie. Innocent

travelers taking a wrong turn went to the Firefly home looking for

help. Instead, they found nothing but psychological torture and slow

lingering death.

In “The Devil’s Rejects,” Zombie has put the Firefly family on the

run from the law and turned them into outlaw gangsters. The problem

is that putting these sociopaths on the defensive makes them far less

menacing. Instead of being more frightening than your worst

nightmare, they’re just an average group of stupid thugs.

Their eventual victims are a group of touring country music

entertainers staying at a cheap motel in the middle of nowhere. This

once again proves my theory that people who leave the main road are

always doomed.

The biggest reason this movie fails to deliver is that the focus

isn’t the hapless victims of the Firefly family; it’s the Fireflys

themselves. Zombie doesn’t seem to want us to empathize with the

Fireflys’ prey and feel afraid for them. Instead, he wants us to

empathize with the Fireflys.

This just doesn’t work. It’s like asking people to empathize with

serial murderer/rapist John Wayne Gacy and not his victims.

Zombie’s Southern rock soundtrack doesn’t really fit with the

action and just adds to the story’s overall confusion. Seeing the

Fireflys ride down the highway to the sound of “Freebird” makes you

wonder what on earth Zombie is trying to say.

The cast is full of cameos, and you get the general idea that

people wanted to be in this movie just to have fun working with Rob

Zombie. If you see this movie, be sure to look for cult movie icons

P.J. Soles and Ken Foree, television wrestler Diamond Dallas Page and

porn queen Ginger Lynn.

If you’re hoping for an all-out gore-fest that will make you cover

your eyes instead of watching the screen, I recommend you skip “The

Devil’s Rejects.” If you enjoy really bad movies that could have

starred Peter Fonda 30 years ago, then you might enjoy this one.

My advice is to wait for “The Devil’s Rejects” to come out on DVD.

* JIM ERWIN, 40, is a technical writer and computer trainer.

If easily offended, skip ‘Wedding Crashers’

Good comedies seem to be the most difficult films to make. We have

all sat through countless films in which the trailers contained all

the really funny moments.

I suppose this is why there are so many romantic comedies -- or

even more suspect, “dramadies.” Such formats allow the writers to

place a few choice humorous moments in the film rather than sustain

the hilarity.

Some of the laugh-out-loud funny movies of recent years have

depended on foul language, sexual situations and even bathroom humor.

Virtually anything by the Farrelly Brothers (“Kingpin,” “There’s

Something About Mary.” “Shallow Hal”) falls into this category, as

well as last year’s vulgar but hilarious “Bad Santa.”

More clever perhaps is “Wedding Crashers,” starring Owen Wilson

and Vince Vaughn. “Wedding Crashers” got a bit of notoriety due to

the assignment of an “R” rating, which has been considered box office

poison in recent years. Nonetheless, “Wedding Crashers” seems to be

doing brisk business nationally and the theater I attended was nearly

sold out on a Sunday night.

As the title implies, John Beckwith (Wilson) and Jeremy Grey

(Vaughn) attend weddings to which they are not invited. Their sole

purpose for doing so is to prey on the young women who are all in

some type of romantic stupor due to the nuptials. Jeremy is the main

perpetrator for this farce, having learned the seemingly endless

rules of the game from a former associate named Chaz.

From the montage shown at the beginning of the film, we see that

John and Jeremy do their homework and actually pass themselves off as

distant relatives of the family. Not only that, the two are front and

center at each event, doing everything they can to be noticed in a

positive light, thus ingratiating themselves to all the women

present. To do this, the two dance with the flower girls and little

old ladies, make balloon animals and offer sappy toasts to the bride

and groom.

All is fun and games until the boys decide to crash the Cleary

wedding. The head of this clan is the Secretary of the Treasury

(Christopher Walken). The wedding is the social event of the season

and unbelievably lavish. Once there, John and Jeremy proceed as

usual, but are soon derailed by two beautiful Cleary daughters.

John is instantly smitten with Claire and is crushed, after things

get off to a promising start, to find she is there with her

boyfriend. Jeremy hooks up with the younger Gloria Cleary, who turns

out to be a manic and clinging nymphomaniac.

Despite Jeremy’s desire to leave immediately, John jumps at an

invitation to stay a few days at the Cleary compound to get some more

time with Claire.

Once at the family home, the full picture of the Kennedy-like

Cleary family comes into focus. Claire’s boyfriend, Sack, is a cruel,

sadistic bully who uses the requisite touch football game to inflict

punishment on Jeremy. The entire Cleary clan is slightly off,

including the seductive mother (Jane Seymour), the foul-mouthed and

opinionated grandmother (Ellen Abertini Dow) and the “artist” son

(Keir O’Donnell).

Of course, when a love affair begins amid such subterfuge, matters

are very likely to go awry. The plot of “Wedding Crashers” throws

more than its fair share of barriers in the path of John and Claire,

often with hilarious results.

Wilson and Vaughn very early on demonstrate a pleasing ebb and

flow of comedic interaction. Vaughn particularly delivers lengthy

soliloquies in a staccato cadence that is a joy to watch and

downright funny.

At one point, John decides to confer with Chaz, the originator of

the wedding crasher rules. Chaz is played by an uncredited Will

Ferrell and he steals the few scenes in which he appears.

I feel “Wedding Crashers” is exactly as advertised: a risque

comedy with rampant profanity (though not inappropriate in its

context), sexual situations and somewhat gratuitous nudity. If this

offends you, by no means should you see “Wedding Crashers.”

However, if you are a fan of the Farrelly Brothers and their ilk,

you will enjoy it completely.

* VAN NOVACK, 50, is the director of institutional research at Cal

State Long Beach and lives in Huntington Beach.