Mystic River / ***1/2 (2003)

Clint Eastwood's "Mystic River" opens with an event that will inevitably challenge every moral character throughout the movie, a scene in which one of three childhood friends is dragged off against his will in the back seat of a car as his buddies watch on in paralyzed gazes. Two days later, the lad emerges from a nearby wooded area shaken and scarred by the abduction, enough so that it actually prevents him from openly discussing specific events of it with anyone. For some, that kind of detached response is just step one in dealing with the trauma and moving on, but for innocent little Dave, it is like an infected wound that is simply too painful to medicate. The passage of time doesn't do much to help soothe the soars, either, and eventually they evolve into something far more devastating and tragic than even the victim himself could have imagined. He may have escaped his captors, but his spirit never came home with him.

Pieces of April / *** (2003)

Peter Hedges's "Pieces of April" is the kind of movie you have to watch without the slightest cynicism, otherwise you find yourself dismissing a perfectly acceptable story because of a technical shortcoming that nearly buries its virtues. When I refer to this problem, I don't actually mean to dismiss it completely as a flaw, either; for what it's worth, this is the kind of movie that knows what it is doing and genuinely believes the technique is appropriate for the material. But alas it is not; shot on a minuscule budget completely with handheld digital cameras, the film is ugly and shoddy, almost as if the celluloid had passed through a coat of bleach before winding up on the projection reel. Scenes of high emotion are undermined by a washed out exterior, while less important moments seem lifted to much greater importance because they have strangely different contrasts and hues from other surrounding scenes. This is not just a miscalculation for the source material, but a significant distraction as well.

Runaway Jury / ***1/2 (2003)

The typical John Grisham crime thriller has this irritating tendency of assuming that excitement can be spurred by the heated exchange of a lot of legal psycho-babble. As a device for generating thrills, this is as halfhearted an approach as they come. Even the average Joe at a movie theater will tell you that establishing tension depends on more than just characters saying things or making threats; it depends on a combination of elements falling into place, each of them stressing one another in order to generate interest and create buildup without letting ambiguity become implausible blather. With a casual look back at the films utilizing Grisham's novels as source material, one or more of the aforementioned necessities is either misplaced or detached from the setup. In "The Firm," for example, a strong sense of tension is undermined by countless scenes of foolish storytelling, while in "The Client," we get the interesting buildup without the actual final payoff.

Veronica Guerin / *** (2003)

Defining the spirit of a hero conjures up more than just images of stealth and perseverance, but also those of sacrifice and tragedy. That's because most true heroes, particularly in the movies, are martyrs; their attempts to spur change for the better often come at the cost of their own happiness, even when the price is high enough for them to clearly realize the deadly risks involved. Yet somehow, someway, they shrug off the danger and face the odds head-on, seemingly invulnerable to the threats and almost surprised when their own lives are put in potentially mortal danger. Is it foolishness that guides them? Perhaps. But at the core all they want to do is make a difference, a factor that buries every trace of naivety until it's too late.

Jeepers Creepers 2 / *1/2 (2003)

When it comes to sequels, movie reviewers are ordinarily encouraged to revisit an impending film's universe before even thinking about seeing the follow-up, but that alas is a practice I overlooked when it came to observing "Jeepers Creepers 2." According to a stack of promotional materials, my only source of foreknowledge in the inevitable journey to seeing this product, the film's predecessor sets a scenario that is more or less a platform for countless franchise installments; in other words, it suggests that any and all future additions to a series will either a) depend on prior events for any plot development, or b) simply repeat the same exact setup over and over again without adding anything other than higher body counts. We can usually get away with bypassing older series installments if the latter selection is implored (after all, what's the significance in revisiting a series if it is merely repeating itself?), but on the rare occasions that sequels are advancements of older stories, acquaintance with the original premise is sometimes essential.

Matchstick Men / ***1/2 (2003)

Poor ol' Roy just hasn't got a clue. A man married to his work is bound not to have much of a personal life, but when the person in question is actually a very successful manipulator and con artist, you'd expect him or her to have some kind of free time to spend on developing social skills. So is not the case with this reclusive dude, however; aside from being an incessant neat freak who obsesses over the slightest possibility of germs contaminating his environment, he's short-fused, pigheaded and outwardly pitiful to himself and to all those who cross his path. And yet we admire him anyway, because once you peel away the hypertensive demeanor and most of those erratic impulses of his, you have a sweet, charming and lovable guy living underneath. It's not everyday you find yourself rooting for the con man.

Underworld / ***1/2 (2003)

Len Wiseman's "Underworld" launches with a premise that is easily one of the most inspired concerning vampires and werewolves since the creatures themselves first appeared on the big screen. In the murkiest corners of a shadowed gothic metropolis, the familiar horror film adversaries are driven not by bloodlust, but by their own personal struggle to endure. For a thousand years, the movie's heroine tells us in the opening shot, both the vampires and the werewolves (referred to as "Lycans" through most of the picture) have been in a heated war with each other, one that reached catastrophic proportions for the werewolves at one point when one of their most important leaders was killed by the opposition. Thus, in a state of fragmentation, the Lycans scattered into the city as the vampires assumed control of the highest point in the food chain, and though their control has gone fairly unchallenged since the days when the werewolf society was crippled, fear of a resistance persists and the vampires are encouraged to destroy every last breathing creature they can find.

Gigli / 1/2* (2003)

If life has been difficult for director/writer Martin Brest in the recent years, then there are plenty of reasons to see why. Once considered one of Hollywood's most promising filmmakers, he quickly developed a notoriety for making the most ambitious bad movies of his day, big-budgeted stinkers that featured big-name actors reciting amateurish dialogue from screenplays that rambled on and on without any sense of direction or purpose. His last and most damning endeavor of all, the overlong and pretentious dud "Meet Joe Black," not only exercised that declining general perception of his talent as a moviemaker, but reinvigorated the tradition of the bad movie itself, too, setting a benchmark for all those beyond who could waste millions of dollars and countless frames of celluloid as they were tossing turds onto unsuspecting moviegoers. Many have lived up to that precedent, others have surpassed it—but being the first prominent figure to do such a thing is a feat that shouldn't go ignored, and Brest maintains that reputation even when his peers aim higher and land much lower than he has. He is a modern Ed Wood with a much larger bank account.

Grind / ** (2003)

They say it takes a certain knowledge of a subject to truly empathize a movie based on it, but I'm guessing it will take more than that to show any sort of genuine interest in a movie like "Grind." With this rugged excursion into the world of skateboarders and their constant uphill battle into making it as professionals, one must not simply have basic affection for the sport itself, but patience with the film's other elements as well, like a story that takes nearly forever to actually get off the ground and characters who don't begin to reveal themselves until long after the adventure is underway. Much like the ramp that serves as a platform for these kinds of extreme sports participators, this is the kind of movie that is in an uphill battle with itself before it finally finds the courage to soar. By that point, we're not exactly bored or too exhausted to care, but the thrill factor is decidedly thinned and our interest is too minuscule to warrant an enthusiastic reaction.

Lucia Lucia / **1/2 (2003)

The movie narrator is expected to be nothing if not consistent with the audience's perception of events, but unless that person is the kind that takes material seriously, viewers will often run the risk of falling into traps or blindly following false pretenses. In "The Opposite of Sex," a movie about a girl who begins to understand life by reassessing the twisted way she lives it, Christina Ricci played such a person, a girl whose cynical demeanor made it impossible for us to accept her version of the events at face value, as she spouted on about irony and fabricated scenarios so that certain events played out without clear distinction to the viewer. In that picture, nothing was necessarily as it seemed, and yet every manipulative impulse was relevant to the characterization, as it allowed the person in question to be seen in a light separate from what other characters could see. In endeavors like this, the one who is telling the story can offer a lot more dimension if he or she comes equipped with their own arsenal of insecurities and personality flaws; that way, they can reveal themselves to the audience in a way that they couldn't ordinarily do by simply participating in the plot.

Open Range / *** (2003)

It doesn't take much of an investigation to see why movie westerns died out following John Wayne's demise. Without the charisma and the energy that the Duke pumped into it during his 60-year career, the genre lost its only source of redemption, inevitably exposing it as the cliché-ridden world of limited ideas that it had become in the years since its inception. Of course, no one bothered to argue about those traits in old Hollywood because the concept of being formulaic was still too primitive for anyone to really care. But when Wayne passed on in the late 70s, so did the wall shielding the eyes from the truth. Like the documentary, a western is only as good as the one who carries you through it, and there is no denying that few (if any) could compare to the way in which Wayne kept fans of the films interested and caring, at least towards the end when the concept grew tired.

The League of Extraordinary Gentleman / * (2003)

Only halfway into the summer of 2003, and the most dreadful studio blockbuster of the year finally reaches the multiplexes. "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" tramples across the screen like a stampede of destructive elephants, wrecking everything in its ferocious path without necessarily intending to do so in the process. And that's a sad prospect, because when the movie opens, the intriguing premise suggests that there is, indeed, a valuable product hidden beneath the coarse exteriors. But then without hesitation, the movie goes nuts and becomes this giant web of chaos, sometimes even at points when we least expect it to. In this league's "extraordinary" universe, there is no rule book, no presence of logic, and no factor of intelligence whatsoever; it exists merely on its own plane of stupidity, feeding off ineptitude at such an alarming pace that it's a wonder any kind of filmmaker could salvage a product worthy of a wide theatrical release.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl / *** (2003)

"Pirates of the Caribbean" is probably the most ambitious B-movie ever made, a rollicking spectacle of color and adventure that strives continuously to be more than what it could ordinarily get away with. In a few ways, that pitch of energy makes the experience so much more enjoyable than anticipated; in others, it simply keeps the film moving on longer than it has to. In fact, by the time the movie passes the ever-dreaded 2-hour mark, it no longer becomes a question as to how the movie will end, but when it will end. Sword fights, treasure hunting and pirate lingo exist here as visual pleasures that don't know when to cease; they simply move on and on without a regard to time or fuel. The fact that the name Jerry Bruckheimer precedes the credits as executive producer is only the first clue to this distracting misfortune.

Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas / ** (2003)

The generations that were raised on 2D feature animation have long since dissipated into the age of CGI, leaving behind a medium still so pervaded with promising ideas that it's discouraging to see most of them go almost completely ignored at the box office. Consider Disney's last traditional feature cartoon "Treasure Planet," a dazzling adventure with visual spectacles outside of the studio's norm—produced on a budget estimated to be between 140 and 150 million, the film took in a measly 30 million dollars during its initial theatrical run last fall, making it one of the genre's biggest commercial disasters of the recent past. Meanwhile, the current animated champ, the PIXAR-produced computer cartoon "Finding Nemo," looks about ready to upset "The Lion King" as the most successful of all time in feature animation, a feat that seemed impossible even to the CGI giants like "Shrek" and "Toy Story."

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines / ***1/2 (2003)

During the opening moments of "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines," the voice of our hero John Connor informs the audience, somewhat reluctantly, that the "future is not yet written." This, however, is not the voice of the same John Connor who has accepted a past plagued by memories of time-traveling machines both sent to protect and destroy him; this is the mentality of a full-grown man detached from reality, hopping from one location to the next with minimal social contact in hopes that denial will make all the trauma of his rocky life disappear. But try as he might, those dark times still follow him around like glaring physical scars, and the fact that he tries so hard to hide them only prevents him from leading the life he so clearly hopes is not ordained by any specific destiny.