SPIDER-MAN 2
Director: Sam Raimi
Genre: Marvel Comics Superhero Adventure
Year: 2004
Watson Scale rating (0 being worst and 6 being perfect): 5

Most superhero flicks cater exclusively to adolescent boys and those supposedly adult males, such as myself, whose emotional development was arrested at age 13. Sam Raimi aims higher. The sweetness, purity, and intensity of Peter Parker's love for Mary Jane make the first SPIDER-MAN appealing to man and woman, girl and boy, grandma and even grouchy old grampa too. In SPIDER-MAN 2 Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) gives Peter (Tobey Maguire) the cold shoulder, but the driving force and dramatic energy of his love is not suppressed, just redirected toward the imperiled citizens he rescues. Thus the emotional high point of the movie comes not with an upside-down kiss but when Spidey saves the passengers on a runaway elevated-train car from a ghastly death, exhausting his powers in an all-out effort, and then they band together to save him, mustering up a bravery equal to his own. If this scene doesn't bristle your epidermis with goosebumps and pump up your tear ducts with renewed faith in human nature, you're already dead from terminal cynicism. Want a bonus treat? Check out Alfred Molina's stylish performance as Doc Oc, the hero-trapped-inside-a-villain cyborg scientist whose grotesque ambulation is clumsy yet somehow graceful at the same time. I could watch him lurch and leap and stagger and whip around all day long.

SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW
Director: Kerry Conran
Genre: Comic-Bookish Science-Fantasy Adventure
Year: 2004
Watson Scale rating (0 being worst and 6 being perfect): 3.5

The producers of SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW planned to release it early in the summer in direct competition with SPIDER-MAN 2, then made a wise decision and delayed its release until September. In the SPIDER-MAN movies, Peter Parker's face and voice radiate nice-guy feelings, and this makes us care about him. In SKY CAPTAIN, fearless fighter pilot Captain H. Joseph Sullivan (Jude Law) and ace reporter Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow) hide their emotions behind masks of perfect imperturbability as they exchange snappy wisecracks after the fashion of Hollywood films from the 1930's and 1940's. It's impossible to identify with, empathize with, or care about anyone as cool as Polly and Sky Captain. though of course we wish we could be that cool too. The real stars of the film are the settings, especially the stylized film-noir tinted-black-and-white alternate-history version of Manhattan in 1939, where the action begins with a mammoth dirigible, the Hindenburg III, docking at the top of the Empire State Building. Other settings include Sky Captain's high-tech air base, the legendary land of Shangri La, and a Noah's Ark spaceship, each locale created entirely by computer and crafted by the CGI wizards to enchant us with its own particular ambience. Being a geezer, I especially enjoyed director Conran's numerous allusions to 1930's and 1940's pop culture. He pays homage to comic books, pulp fiction, and dozens of movies including METROPOLIS, KING KONG, and THE WIZARD OF OZ. He even brings in Sir Lawrence Olivier in the form of a holograph of the villain, a scoundrel named Totenkopf. The breakneck pace of the action hurtles you through these delights – there isn't a slow scene in the entire movie. But before you get too excited, gentle reader, let me warn you that the plot is all too familiar, and the soundtrack relentlessly noisy.

THE STORY OF THE WEEPING CAMEL
Directors: Byambasuren Davaa and Luigi Falorni
Genre: Docudrama
Year: 2004
Watson Scale rating (0 being worst and 6 being perfect): 2

If you want proof that the phrase "truth in advertising" is an oxymoron, see THE STORY OF THE WEEPING CAMEL. Publicity releases inform us that the directors aspired to film a family of nomadic sheepherding Mongols in the Gobi Desert in a docudrama that would be as authentic as Robert Flaherty's 1922 classic NANOOK OF THE NORTH. If authenticity was Davaa's and Falorni's objective, why is it that all the clothing worn by the sheepherders looks brand new? Why do the rugs and tools and utensils and all the other items inside their yurt shine brightly like they've never been used? Why is it that closeups reveal that the sheepherders' hands are freshly washed and nicely manicured, with no dirt under their fingernails? During a key scene two of the sheepherders help a mother camel give birth by grabbing the protruding legs of the baby camel and pulling him out of her body. The newborn is covered with placental goop, and there's blood everywhere, but when the two sheepherders stand up, their hands and the sleeves of their coats are spotlessly clean. What miracle is this? Whatever those sheepherders have, I could use some of it the next time Frosty asks me to clean the bathroom. Relying on artful camera angles and special lighting, Davaa and Falorni have staged every shot to be as postcard-pretty as the photographs in National Geographic. Each scene showcases a particular custom or ritual, and as characters demonstrate the charm and colorfulness of their culture, they themselves glow with good health, their bodies apparently free of all disease and defect. Only the camels are authentic, but judging by all the oohing and ahhing and cooing and gushing in the theater lobby afterwards, the ladies and gentlemen of the audience simply adored this sanitized and deodorized idealization of peasant life in the Gobi.

WHAT THE BLEEP DO WE KNOW?
Directors: Betsy Chasse, Marc Vicente, William Arntz
Genre: Docudrama
Year: 2004
Watson Scale rating (0 being worst and 6 being perfect): 2

If you want additional, even more convincing proof that the phrase "truth in advertising" is an oxymoron, see WHAT THE BLEEP DO WE KNOW? (also referred to as WHAT THE #$*! DO WE KNOW?), an independent film that became a surprise hit in Seattle and is now sweeping its way toward the East Coast. Newspaper ads promote BLEEP with the catchphrase "It's time to get wise." No lie. Sadly, your reviewer and his faithful companion Frosty were foolish enough to bicycle six miles through nasty traffic to see this steaming, pretentious, pseudo-intellectual hodgepodge of high-volume MTV-video-style music, perky computer animation, fuzzy New Age psychobabble, and bogus science mixed with a few snippets of real science. BLEEP's format intersperses interviews of scientists and gurus among the scenes of a corny personal-crisis melodrama in which a professional wedding photographer (Marlee Matlin) renounces the false values, anxieties, and obsessive fears that are making her unhappy, shoots one sweet jumpshot (this is a basketball flick on top of everything else), and thereupon metamorphoses into her fully realized, spiritually enlightened, blissful true self. BLEEP indeed. There is some amusement to be had in scrutinizing the makeup and clothing favored by several of the scientists and gurus, and you can have fun for a few minutes by imagining you're watching a goofball parody of one of those old 16mm educational documentaries they used to show kids in school. But this is no parody. It's hard to believe considering its content, but BLEEP's directors have no sense of humor whatsoever. If you insist on learning how Heisenberg's uncertainty principle proves that a person can create the world around him just by looking at it, then go ahead and shell out a few of your hard-earned greenbacks. But my advice is to follow the advice in the newspaper ads. Get wise. Get wise and instead of suffering at BLEEP, catch ANACONDAS: THE HUNT FOR THE BLOOD ORCHID or some other stinker that won't give you as severe a migraine headache.

OPEN WATER
Directors: Chris Kentis and Laura Lau
Genre: Juvenalian Satire
Year: 2004
Watson Scale rating (0 being worst and 6 being perfect): 4.5

Truth in advertising? Not likely in this lifetime. The pitch for OPEN WATER attempts to sell it as the scariest movie of the summer, an edge-of-your-seat nail-biter with more teeth than JAWS. Yes, OPEN WATER does have the superficial form of a suspense thriller, but underneath the surface (pun intended), it's a ferocious black comedy whose real purpose is not to scare us but to provide a scathing criticism of false yuppie values. Susan (Blanchard Ryan) and Daniel (Daniel Travis) are a young, attractive, successful married couple who think life's highest goals are the accumulation of material possessions and the enjoyment of entertainment and recreation. They both work very hard to earn the money they need to achieve these goals – so hard, in fact, that when they go on vacation, instead of relaxing, they remain wired, keyed up, high strung, and irritable. They've been so busy making money they don't have the time to work at liking each other, so their love, if that's what they felt when they got married, has now degenerated into annoyance, resentment, and indifference. What happens when Susan and Daniel find themselves left behind by a scuba-diving boat, alone on the surface of the ocean, far from the comfort and security of their artificial world, exposed to the harshness and dangers of the natural world? They are young and physically strong, they have with them a number of high-tech toys that may prove useful, and Daniel knows some key bits of information on how to survive while bobbing around in the salty brine, waiting to be rescued, but what they lack is far more important than what they have. They lack each other's emotional support, and they lack the inner strength that comes from basing one's life on solid values. Susan and Daniel cling together for warmth and protection, each clutching the other, sometimes desperately, but they have nothing to say, nothing to share, and they hardly speak at all except for occasional outbursts of peckish bickering. What's scary isn't the possibility they'll be eaten by the sharks. What's scary is their relationship. OPEN WATER has some minor weaknesses, but for the most part it's well planned, well acted, and well edited, with a dramatic soundtrack, realistic dialogue, and believable action. Directors Kentis and Lau are wickedly clever at using visual symbols to emphasize the movie's underlying themes. A buzzing mosquito in a hotel room conveys more irony than you'll find in all of WHAT THE BLEEP DO WE KNOW?, and during the closing credits, the sudden appearance of Daniel's camera resonates with sardonic meaning. It is, in fact, one of the most savagely biting (pun intended) movie images you'll ever see.

HERO
Director: Zhang Yimou
Genre: Martial-Arts Ballet
Year: 2004
Watson Scale rating (0 being worst and 6 being perfect): 5.5

When TV commercials and newspaper ads told us that HERO stars Jet Li in a spectacular epic jam-packed with exciting combat, millions of action fans flocked to the theaters, propelling HERO to the top of the moneymaker list during its opening week. After that, attendance dropped off. Perhaps potential moviegoers were learning by word of mouth that although HERO is spectacular, it's not exactly an epic, more art film than entertainment, and while there is a lot of combat, all the fights are ethereal rather than exciting. The commercials and ads would have been more honest if they had told us that HERO is a stately 99-minute formal dance, a flawless recital of terpsichorean wire-work, an exquisitely choreographed martial-arts ballet. (Of course, if they had called it a dance movie, then only a few thousand people would have bothered to see it.) Sky (Donnie Yen), Broken Sword (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai), Flying Snow (Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk), and Nameless (Jet Li) have numerous fights, some real, some imaginary. During each scrap, these master assassins leap and spin and thrust with the perfect control and fiery intensity and emotional fury of a flamenco dancer. In other scenes we see the entire corps de ballet perform with the precision of a thousand rehearsals. When vast numbers of Qin archers move into battle position and load their bows, they do so with such astonishing quickness, fluidity, and synchronicity that the sight snatches away your breath. Equally jawbone-dropping is the scene when hundreds upon hundreds of Qin courtiers scurry into position around the inner perimeter of the royal castle's keep, their black robes swaying and their black Ku-Klux-Klannish headgear bobbing up and down, then begin to chant, as if with one voice, "Permission to execute! Permission to execute! Permission to execute!" Richly atmospheric settings enhance the dances – the gray-on-gray wetness of an unroofed courtyard during a rainstorm, the sundappled windswept woods in autumn swirling with bright yellow leaves, a calligraphy school where every color is a shade of red, a library of bundled rod-shaped books bathed all in blue. Dramatic cinematography will ravish your eyes. Dramatic music will ravish your ears. In a ballet, the plot is not particularly important, but Zhang Yimou has not neglected the plot of HERO. Recounted in a series of flashbacks, the storyline seems simple at first, but then, with a clever twist of trickery, it becomes intricate, deeply layered, and subtly complicated. The only aspect of HERO that didn't click for me is one of its two main themes, the idea that a group of warring kingdoms can never be united in peace unless a brutal warlord conquers all of them and forces them to cooperate. But in a ballet, theme, like plot, is not so important. HERO is a gorgeous, enthralling film. Don't miss it!