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Battlefield Earth
With Battlefield Earth, it's clear that everyone tried really hard and wanted to make a really good sci-fi movie from a really good sci-fi book. Sadly, they failed.Gladiator
Gladiator manages to somehow put the World Wrestling Federation into a historical context. It's got good fight scenes involving cool guys who kick major ass.Groove
Groove explores the culture of the underground rave scene. The next generation of young revelers will look back at this film as an inspiring nostalgic trip to a time they were too young to be a part of.High Fidelity
High Fidelity boasts as many twists and turns as the book on which it's based. It will careen headlong toward a hysterical punchline and then pivot into bitterness, or undercut moments of brutal honesty with huge laughs. It's as real as life, full of earthy sincerity and truth.Mission: Impossible 2
Action master John Woo really knows how to direct an action scene, and who even cares if it's plausible. What the heck does plausible even really mean because if it looks kewl, then it is KEWL!The Patriot
The Patriot succeeds--very well as entertainment, and not too terribly badly as history. Despite an almost three-hour running time, it holds the viewer's interest throughout.Shaft
The presence, the poise, the style--it's all Shaft and it's all Sam Jackson. It's a shame, then, that the screenwriters couldn't have come up with a more elegant plot for this big, beautiful action hero to participate in, because the storyline in Shaft is exactly the kind of bloated, overconcieved jibberish that you'd expect from a relentlessly mediocre summer crime film.
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