The Matrix Reloaded / **** (2003)

There is a certain fondness to be felt during trips to the local multiplex lately, especially when passing through those front lobbies where studios tend to tease their upcoming releases like fishermen showing off fancy new lures. In the far corner of this shameless promotional gallery is a poster for "The Matrix Reloaded," one of two sequels arriving in theaters this year to a now-infamous sci-fi masterpiece, with an enigmatic tag-line that reads at the bottom, almost frivolously, "How far down does the rabbit hole go?" Ah, but if the answer was obvious, would that still have warranted anyone from devising follow-ups to this now-legendary sci-fi adventure? Surely not. Here is a world with so much left unanswered, so many things left unexplored, it has never really escaped our consciousness. It is all around us. It has pulled you into its web of complexity almost without even trying. This Matrix hasn't merely recaptured you—it has never left you.

Daddy Day Care / *1/2 (2003)

Ask the average man about raising a child, and chances are he will redirect your inquiries to a woman. If that's the sort of generalization that most of today's male population still happily embrace, then it's unlikely that any of them will find a shred of appeal in "Daddy Day Care," a film in which fathers decide to watch and manage the kids of strangers before realizing how lackluster their parenting skills are with their own youngsters. Indeed, as asked during an important dialogue exchange during the early half of the picture, "are men not capable of taking care of a kid the same way a woman can?" Perhaps so, perhaps not. In either case, the answer is probably too simple to even deserve the focus of an entire movie, especially one containing the likes of Anjelica Houston and Eddie Murphy in front of the camera.

Holes / *** (2003)

He who said you should not judge a piece of work based on its title sure said a mouthful. Andrew Davis' "Holes" is a movie that comes scurrying off the screen with one of the single most childish and unpleasant names in recent memory, outdoing even the horrendous stupidity of such endeavors as "Piglet's Big Movie" and "Bulletproof Monk" without even seeming to try as hard. The knee-jerk reaction to hearing it is to assume the worst of the product itself, and yet as the movie is being absorbed, suddenly we're forgetting all about our initial reservations and actually enjoying ourselves. Disney has not generally been a studio to leave pleasant surprises for audiences in the form of live action book adaptations (think for a moment about that horrendous "Tuck Everlasting' debacle last fall), but here they have broken the mold with what is perhaps one of the most interesting and amusing family adventures of the recent past. Holes may dominate the events of the plot, but the final product is far from being one itself.

X2: X-Men United / **1/2 (2003)

The stories of the X-Men and their intricate adventures in a world with instinctive to fear and hate them have always been a source of constant fascination in the ever-changing comic book market, but even more fascinating has been Hollywood's challenge of filtering that rich 40-year history of the series into a collection of two-hour action films aimed squarely at casual moviegoers. For those of us more familiar with the material than, say, the average theater attendee, the questions often outweigh the anticipation: who, for instance, decides what plots get covered in these endeavors? Who decides what characters to include and how to introduce them? Who or what doesn't quite make the cut? The answers maybe simple, but the brains behind Twentieth Century Fox's inevitably-ongoing franchise aren't immediately thinking about the cravings of hardcore series purists. No, these movie mutants are not a homage to those comic buffs who have waited patiently for years to see these plots and players make the leap to the big screen; they are colorful summer blockbusters designed to appeal to an audience that doesn't expect to know a thing about the source material.

Anger Management / *1/2 (2003)

Trying to make sense of the material in "Anger Management" is almost like trying to understand Adam Sandler's entire career: the longer you attempt it, the more of a headache you wind up with. For nearly three fourths of its overlong running time, the movie holds up a bizarre and baffling pretense in which simple behavior spawns major overreactions and harsh punishments from others, sometimes seeming so severe that it's a wonder no one makes a point of challenging it beyond an amazed stare. And then the movie plays its nasty trick; no, not the kind that sheds new light on previous stuff, but the kind that makes us wonder why we even had to endure it all in the first place. The only thing missing from the climax, in fact, is someone jumping out in front of the hero and saying "Smile, you're on Candid Camera!"

The Core / **1/2 (2003)

You know it from the title. You can see it in the trailers. Even before you've gawked at two finalized seconds of "The Core" on screen, you know it is the most blatantly silly disaster film ever made. The notion is imbedded into our heads before the theater even goes dark. And why wouldn't it be? Any movie teasing the idea that human technology has advanced fast enough to allow men to venture deep into the cores of this complex planet has little plausibility going for it. Of course, credibility isn't exactly essential to disaster movies to begin with, but even then, certain borders have still been drawn and stepping over them can possibly be more damaging than beneficial.

A Man Apart / ** (2003)

One of "A Man Apart"s early scenes features a specifically stressed dialogue exchange in which a commanding officer instructs the men in his anti-narcotics team, one member of which is played by Vin Diesel, to drop their firearms before descending into a deadly drug bust to capture an infamous cartel leader. They follow through on the order because, well, it's the safer scenario. Then we cut to the next scene where we witness both the good guys and the bad guys engaged in major gunplay, thousands of rounds of ammunition piercing everything in sight as a result. Emphasizing this specific event wouldn't ordinarily be necessary at the start of a film review, but in this movie, it underlines not only an exact logic problem with one scene, but with the whole film itself. Like a chain reaction, this kind of implausible subtext repeats itself over and over again throughout this endeavor, depleting us of basic patience and robbing the film of its essential function to make a shred of sense.

Phone Booth / **** (2003)

It's not very safe to be on a phone anymore. Just ask anyone who gets stuck in traffic next to a driver with his ear glued to a highly-distracting cellphone, or the guy who takes a call inside the house when he should be keeping an eye on his kids at the deep end of the swimming pool. Consider the working woman who is receiving obscene phone calls because of the way she dresses, and think of the teenagers who are cleverly manipulated into a death trap by murderous men who ask with a certain rustic charm in their voice, "do you like scary movies?" The phone itself isn't necessarily a culprit to these kinds of conflicts—after all, would Alexander Graham Bell have invented it if he knew it would cause so much dismay?—but as the movies continue to tell us, they can be merciless magnets for deception and betrayal, easily turning an ordinary day into one we'd rather forget ever happened.

Boat Trip / zero stars (2003)

So here it is already, just three short months into the year—the single worst movie of 2003. "Boat Trip" hurls itself onto the screen like an endless diatribe of amateurism, slashing its way through one bad scene after another before it ultimately sinks into the murky depths of nothingness. The movie is an insulting, pathetic and tone-deaf assault on our senses; to watch it unfold from beginning to end is to feel imprisoned by the screening room it is playing in.

Dreamcatcher / *1/2 (2003)

Promotional trailers tend to build great expectations without even revealing the smallest narrative clue, and that is the situation—or more appropriately, the downfall—with Lawrence Kasdan's "Dreamcatcher." In the recent weeks, television screens and theater projectors have been bombarded by swiftly edited teasers that are almost too incoherent to grasp the basic context. They are deliberately ambiguous, converged on rapid camera shots and pulsating thuds in the soundtrack as they shamelessly maneuver every plot angle they can. Normally this approach can suggest shortcomings, but we as moviegoers are too optimistic to live by such ideals, so when people enter the movie theater to finally see the final product, they will be going in not with worry or reservation, but with genuine excitement. Only in the end, however, will they realize exactly why all the advertising spots lack an outline of the premise.

Mommie Dearest / *1/2 (1981)

"Mommie Dearest" is a book by a woman whose motives seem questionable. During the closing moments of the film adaptation, which examines the life of Joan Crawford through the eyes of her adoptive daughter Christina, the narrator shakes her head in disbelief when her mother's last will in testament reveals no inheritance for either her or her younger brother. "Mommie always gets the last word," he explains, to which Christina answers with a certain determination in her voice, "does she?" Having not read the book itself, immediate instinct is write off this closing reaction as a plot device simply meant to tie the picture to its source material. But if it is more than that? What if that moment reflects Christina's entire reasoning behind the initial purpose of the novel? Certainly, under that kind of scenario, it is aptly possible that any truth told about Ms. Crawford and her malicious behavior is anything but the whole truth.

Bringing Down the House / ** (2003)

"Bringing Down The House" is a movie under the inane delusion that old and ignorant white people can be the least bit amusing when they're clumsily trying to act like hip and young black people. I can live with Steve Martin spouting out dialogue like "Yo Mama," but words still escape me after watching the lovely Joan Plowright transformed into an uptight and bitter little socialite, who in one scene unforgivably mocks slavery in front of Queen Latifah and then later finds herself sitting between two black men at the neighborhood bar puffing on a joint. Moments like these defy the essence of comedy not because they lack luster or even ambition, but because they're basically just clichéd plot contraptions designed to simply further along the formula. In a movie as obvious as this, we know exactly what is expected of people at specific intervals, and it's never very funny.

Dark Blue / ***1/2 (2003)

Sergeant Eldon Petty Jr. is a cop at nonstop war with both internal and external forces, not the least of which is his own distorted sense of ideology. Produced in an atmosphere tattered by the hysterics of rebellion and the blood of the innocent, he's at the core of the biting commentary so vividly utilized in Ron Shelton's cop drama "Dark Blue," emerging as a man without personal motive or free will because the system he is trapped in refuses to accept its slaves as thinkers or individuals. We don't automatically assume he was easily snared into this behavior, and yet it's difficult to imagine any other possible scenario or outcome. After all, what kind of person would you be if you had surrendered your dedication over to a world where corruption and politics were the only two integral driving forces?

Tears of the Sun / *1/2 (2003)

"He was trained to follow orders. He became a hero by defying them."
- Tagline from "Tears of the Sun"

It's a shame that A.K. Waters didn't learn anything about humanity before he descended into the bloodstained jungles of Nigeria, otherwise he might have spared the audience from enduring the painful first half hour of "Tears of the Sun." A the leader of a Special-Ops unit sent into the African nation to rescue selected American citizens from an impending "ethnic cleansing," you'd expect him to immediately emerge as someone who has some sense of priority other than merely getting a mission completed. So is not the immediate case, however, and like a confused child, the movie tiptoes around him for a good 30 minutes before it allows him to make any kind of personal epiphany. And even then, things still don't begin to line up the way they should.

Willard / * (2003)

The twisted and mangled images that serve as the opening credits to "Willard" are not just exemplary to a movie of this nature, but also some of the most fierce and visually striking ones to have been scrawled across the movie screen in the recent years. Part-Tim Burton and part-Tarsem Singh in their modern yet primitive delivery, they fittingly tease the product's eccentric ideas without throwing away too much information or robbing the audience of its impending anticipation. Normally the movie itself would only emphasize the greatness of its introductory scenes, but alas, so is not the case with this rather bizarre result. There is a great idea in the fabric here somewhere, no doubt, but it gets lost, and it gets lost very fast.