Titan A.e.

It’s the mid-31st century, and A.E. stands for after earth in this brisk animated extravaganza directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman. Much of it is Starship Troopers without the irony, mixed together with the usual predictable sources (Star Wars, 2001, This Island Earth, Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination), a lot of lousy rock, enough military hardware to destroy several planets (most of it rusty in more ways than one), and better-than-average action sequences that characteristically become monotonous through overkill. The modeling of human figures and the sense of depth are both impressive; the characters themselves are mainly idiotic. Five people are credited with the story and script; among the voices used are those of Matt Damon, Drew Barrymore, Bill Pullman, Nathan Lane, John Leguizamo, and Janeane Garofalo, all obviously enlisted to make this intergalactic adventure sound as familiar as possible. 94 min. (JR) Read more

Gone In Sixty Seconds

Seven thousand and twenty seconds is more like it. This celebration of auto thefta big-budget remake of H.B. Helicki’s populist B movie of 1974, with more explosions and fewer bell-bottomsstars Nicolas Cage as a former car thief who has to return to the profession and hijack 50 cars in a weekend, with a little help from his friends, in order to save the life of his kid brother (Giovanni Ribisi). The grungy tone is agreeable, the directorial savvy of Dominic Sena less so; apart from a couple of preposterous stunts, this doesn’t have as much suspense as it tries for, despite periodic reminders of how little time remains, because the movie only starts to breathe whenever it becomes laid-back. But I found it more pleasurable as a time waster than either Mission: Impossible. The backup castincluding Angelina Jolie, James Duval, Will Patton, Delroy Lindo, and Robert Duvallcertainly helps. Scott Rosenberg is credited with the script. (JR) Read more