Chicago Tribune: Michael Esposito
Christopher "C-Dub" Wang (Jimmy Tsai, who also was co-writer with director Yu) is a hoops-loving slacker with a doctor for an older brother (Roger Fan). That brother also is a perennial table tennis champ, whose efforts keep dad's (Jim Lau) table tennis supply shop in customers and his mom's (Elizabeth Sung) table tennis classes in students. When mom and brother are sidelined, C-Dub is faced with a challenge to step up and save his and his family's honor. Charming despite requisite training sequences and a cartoonishly evil opponent. more
Chicago Tribune: Michael Phillips
Steve Coogan is the whole show in "Hamlet 2," and while director and co-writer Andrew Fleming ("Dick") is strictly rudimentary in terms of technique and style, his British star pockets every available laugh plus a few unavailable ones. more
Chicago Tribune: Michael Phillips
Nothing in director Paul W.S. Anderson's schlock drawer - not "Mortal Kombat," not "Event Horizon," not "Resident Evil," not "Alien vs. Predator" - prepares you for the peppy, good-time nastiness that is "Death Race." It's a loose remake of "Death Race 2000" (1975), which imagined a bloodthirsty nation crazy for a cross-country rally full of flying, dying spectators and ruthlessly sociopathic drivers, not to mention Mary Woronov as the most fearsome thing on four wheels. Anderson's version goes its own frenetic way, and it's one of those vicious larks that just plain hit the spot. It hits the spot, throws 'er into reverse and hits the spot again, before machine-gunning it and ramming it head-on for the fun of it. Sadistic? Yessir. But our hero, a seething kettle of violence played by Jason Statham, is a devoted father of a sweet little girl who needs him, so it's sadism with a heart. more
Chicago Tribune: Tasha Robinson
Musicians in need of a metronome could pick up a steady beat from "The Longshots," a thoroughly conventional sports-underdog movie based on the real-life first female quarterback in Pop Warner football. The film ticks steadily through the setup about a perennial losing team, the turnaround and series of victories, the big setback, the crucial championship game. more
Chicago Tribune: Michael Phillips
I don't want to oversell "The Rocker," but in a summer of erratic, assaultive comedies all up and down the budget scale, this Rainn Wilson vehicle - a kind of "Home School of Rock" - stakes out its own corner of the market. It's a lot of fun. Its spirit is genuine and, even with the odd vomit gag, fundamentally sweet. more
Chicago Tribune: Michael Phillips
It's not a question that comes up every week. But this is the week for it. The two cruddiest animated films of the year, "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" and "Fly Me to the Moon," have precious little to take your mind or your eyes off the visual crimes against humanity. I suppose I'm overstating it. But woe be to us and our eyes if we get worse animation of any stripe this century. more
Chicago Tribune: Michael Phillips
"Henry Poole Is Here" is a gentle, mild comedy-drama about an opaque fellow (Luke Wilson) told he has an incurable disease and will soon die. He responds, numbly, by buying a house down the street from the one he grew up in and holing up in it with copious bottles of vodka and lots of junk food. more
Chicago Tribune: Michael Phillips
It's not a question that comes up every week. But this is the week for it. The two cruddiest animated films of the year, "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" and "Fly Me to the Moon," have precious little to take your mind or your eyes off the visual crimes against humanity. I suppose I'm overstating it. But woe be to us and our eyes if we get worse animation of any stripe this century. more
Chicago Tribune: Michael Phillips
My favorite gag in "Tropic Thunder" comes just before "Tropic Thunder" itself, in a movie trailer touting a fake movie called "Satan's Alley." (That's an in-joke for all you "Staying Alive" freaks; "Satan's Alley" was the Broadway musical John Travolta cavorted in.) The pretend drama, a kind of "Brokeback Monk-Man," stars five-time Oscar winner Kirk Lazarus as a tormented 18th century Irish priest who has big love for a fellow Man of God. Robert Downey Jr. plays Lazarus, and the wordlessly soulful goo-goo eyes he gives fellow sinner Tobey Maguire sets a high comic bar for "Tropic Thunder" to beat. more
