Review: "Moon"

"Moon" is fully aware of the tradition of movies like "2001: A Space Odyssey" where people venture out into space and go totally off their gourd. The existential angst-in-space thing has been done well, and been done poorly (see "Solaris" ... or rather, don't). With "Moon," director Duncan Jones and screenwriter Nathan Parker take us to familiar territory, and yet make it seem fresh and vibrant by playing against our expectations.

Sam Rockwell, a character actor who tackles leading-man roles in smaller films like this, plays Sam Bell. He's an astronaut in the near future who's living on the moon, collecting energy from the lunar rocks that is used to power nearly the entire Earth.

It's a one-man gig, and needless to say Sam is crushingly lonely as he nears the end of his three-year hitch. He's looking forward to getting back to his wife and the daughter he's never met. Because of persistent satellite problems, he can only communicate with them through prerecorded videos.

Sam's only company aboard the space station is Gerty (voiced by Kevin Spacey), a robot caretaker very much in the tradition of HAL from "2001." Gerty moves around the base via system of track embedded in the ceiling, has a single camera eye and emotes via a screen that displays smiley (or not) faces.

There really isn't that much work to do other than occasionally driving out to the collectors to pick up a canister of condensed gas, which are returned to Earth via rocket probes. So Sam bides his time exercising, tending to his plants and working on a tiny model city.

One day on a routine trip, Sam is distracted and crashes his moon truck into the collector. He wakes up back at the base, with Gerty telling him he was injured in the accident. Gerty tries to lock him up in the base, but Sam manages to talk his way out and makes it back to the crash site, where he finds an injured astronaut who looks just like him.

This is merely the beginning of the story, but it's impossible for me to say more without ruining the film.

If you're like me, I thought I had the entire movie figured out at this point. Jones and Parker know what the audience is thinking, though, and use it to their advantage, dropping hints and possibilities.

For awhile, the two Sams steer clear of each other, and we wonder about them. Are they two sides of the same personality? Is one a clone of the other? Hallucinations of a dying Sam, still stuck out on the barren moonscape?

The answer is teased out, and when it arrives it lands with the impact of a giant asteroid. Rockwell plays the two Sams as similar yet distinctly different, like twin brothers raised in separate circumstances. The "old" Sam is peevish and sarcastic, while "new" Sam is more of a hothead.

Gerty's role in the scheme of things is somewhat in limbo. He was programmed by the corporation that owns the base, but seems to have a genuine desire to help Sam in any way he can.

"Moon" is a hard movie to review, since to tell you how wonderful it is I have to give everything away, which I will not do. But here's this: Now that the Oscars have expanded the roster of Best Picture nominees to 10, hopefully it will allow outstanding smaller films like this to make the list.

3.5 stars

DVD review: "Knowing"

"Knowing" starts out as an intense little supernatural thrill, and slowly builds upon itself until it becomes a global disaster flick with computer-generated visions of the end of the world.

Nicolas Cage plays an MIT scientist whose son recovers a piece of paper put in a time capsule 50 years ago that contains a list of numbers that seems to predict every major disaster that's happened since. With several more as yet unfulfilled prophecies set to occur, it's up to him to figure out the clues to keep people from dying.

Cage gives a nuanced performance as a guy trying to wrap his mind around increasingly bizarre circumstances, while struggling to maintain a relationship with his young son. For those who only know him from his "American Treasure" movies or other bubble-gum pap, "Knowing" is a good excuse to reconnect with an actor of prodigious skills.

Director Alex Proyas ("Dark City") is a master at awe-inspiring visuals and building mood, but his handling of the more mundane demands of unfolding a plot tend to drag the movie down. Whenever we reach a scene where the scientists have to explain what's going on, it makes us long to get back to the weird glowing lights and strange blonde guys in black overcoats who appear from time to time.

The extras that come with the disc are better than average. There's a 12-minute making-of documentary that doesn't shed much new light, and a 17-minute feature talking to experts about how mankind has interpreted the apocalypse throughout time. Both are notable for the lack of any participation by Cage.

Proyas supplies a commentary track, using an unidentified questioner who prompts him on various topics. This has the benefit of keeping the commentary rolling virtually non-stop -- many one-person tracks have gaps of several minutes or more. It's moderately interesting stuff, but certainly not crucial.

Movie: 2.5 stars
Extras: 3 stars

Reeling Backward: The Stratton Story

Jimmy Stewart was not missing a leg, and he could not throw a big-league fastball. Despite this, he makes a fairly convincing portrayal of a real-life right-hander in "The Stratton Story."

This 1949 movie tells the real-life story of Monty Stratton, a promising young pitcher for the Chicago White Sox who had his right leg amputated following a hunting accident. Its shaky veracity pushes it more into the "based on a true story" category, as much of the facts have been changed around.

The film portrays Stratton as making a big comeback in the All-Star game a few months after his 1938 accident. In fact, Stratton never played major league ball again. The Sox took him on as a pitching coach for a few years, and then he tried to make a comeback throughout the 1940s, pitching on a variety of minor league and semi-pro teams.

Don't get me wrong: It's still very impressive that he was able to compete at a high level with a prosthetic leg -- and the crude wooden versions from 60 years ago, not the high-tech jobs they have now. But if you're going to make a movie about a one-legged guy who keeps playing in the big leagues, it would kind of help if he actually did.

It's like making a movie about someone with no arms who climbed Mount Everest, except he never made it closer than 500 feet from the summit.

But that aside, it's a pretty entertaining flick in that familiar vein of "humble country boy makes it big." The tone is very close to "Pride of the Yankees."

Stratton's wife is played by June Allyson, who also was married to Stewart in "Strategic Air Command," which I wrote about a few months ago and also had a baseball connection.

Not to rag on Jimmy Stewart, but his pitching motion is rather weak in the movie. I realize that an actor's goal is not to throw a 90 mph fastball, but to make the audience believe that he could. Well, in that regard they fail.

Director Sam Wood makes the bold choice of actually having his leading man throw the pitches himself, and shows the ball's progress all the way from mound to catcher's mitt in a single take. Stewart's throwing style is awkward -- he has a strange wind-up and virtually no follow-through. If this picture were being made today, you'd see the star in close-up winding up, then a bunch of fast edits to make it seem like the ball was screaming across the plate.

I liked the supporting performance by Frank Morgan as Barney Wile, a washed-up ex-ball player who discovers Stratton while he's hitching around the country as a train hobo. Stratton's meteoric rise also allows Barney to return to the game as a pitching coach. Morgan's crusty but warm-hearted presence lights up every scene he's in.

The redoubtable Agnes Moorehead plays Stratton's mother. Moorehead had a wonderful run as a supporting actress on film and TV, getting her first movie as the mother in "Citizen Kane."

I'd like to point out that Moorehead was only eight years older than Stewart, who was 41 when this movie was made -- 15 years older than Stratton was when he lost his leg.

3 stars

Review: "The Proposal"

"The Proposal" starts out as a really great screwball comedy, with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds trading fast-paced zingers with enough snap and zest to make one recall "His Girl Friday." Then, inevitably, it contracts a case of the sappies and gets all serious and gooey, and lines up all the clichés of the romantic comedy, and hits them like tripwires.

Bullock plays Margaret Tate, the boss from hell, who clocks around her New York publishing office in high heels that herald doom on the march. Indeed, the cubicle worker drones send text alerts that pop up on every computer when she's on the move, warning "the witch is on her broom," so they can duck for cover.

It would be the duty of Margaret's assistant, Andy Paxton, to inform her about nasty messages like that, if he weren't the one sending them. After three years of mindless toadying, he's desperate to be promoted to book editor.

So desperate, in fact, that when Margaret curtly informs him that they're going to be married, he goes along with it. It seems she's a Canadian with immigration problems, and unless she gets hitched, and soon, she loses her job and her home. Andy extracts a promise to be promoted, so both of them look upon it as a mutually beneficial business arrangement.

Until, that is, they fly up to visit Andy's parents (Craig T. Nelson and Mary Steenburgen) in remote Sitka, Alaska, to play up the charade for an immigration investigator who smells fraud. Of course, while basking in the glow of Andy's good-hearted family -- not to mention forced to share a bedroom -- they suddenly realize that they are, in fact, in love.

Ugh.

Now, it is a long-standing Hollywood tradition to make us believe that a man and woman can fall in love in a matter of days. But frankly, Margaret and Andy are so much more entertaining when they hate each other, that when they start to exchange doe-eyed stares, it's a comedown.

Especially with so much delicious repartee flying, courtesy of rookie screenwriter Peter Chiarelli. I loved the moment when Margaret first sees Andy's parents' palatial home, and accuses him of being "an Alaskan Kennedy." Another funny bit is when they're boning up on personal information a couple should know about each other, and she quizzes him what her allergies are, and Andy immediately comes back with: "Pine nuts -- and the full spectrum of human emotion."

Director Anne Fletcher also does a wonderful job of staging a delightfully daffy scene where they catch each other in the buff. With so many movies using naked men for comedic purposes lately, it's nice to see Bullock get in on the nude (well, nude-ish) escapades.

There's plenty more funny stuff going on, including the town's lone Latino who moonlights as its only male stripper, and Betty White as Andy's rambunctious grandmother, who knits fertility quilts and performs Indian chants in the woods.

If only "The Proposal" had stuck to its excellent comedy instincts, and shunted the lovey stuff aside, it would have audiences begging to say yes.

2.5 stars

Review: "Imagine That"

It's hard to even remember now when Eddie Murphy was the most cutting-edge comedian on the planet. In his stand-up bits and early film roles, he pulled out daring riffs that brazenly touched the third rails of race, gender and social divisions, and paved the way for guys like Chris Rock and Dave Chapelle.

I don't mind that Murphy has morphed into the king of family comedies. He's nearly 50 now -- though he barely looks different from his "48 Hours" days -- and even the hippest prankster must give way to daddy roles. But sometimes, as in his new film "Imagine That," it frankly seems like he's not trying very hard.

"Imagine" is the sort of film that's aimed squarely at children, but will leave most children bored for long stretches. As for the parents, they'll appreciate some of the tender moments where Murphy, playing a bad dad who works all the time, learns to bond with his daughter and live life a little.

But that probably leaves 80 of the movie's 105 minutes that don't seem to be made for anyone.

The movie's saving grace is Yara Shahidi, who plays Murphy's daughter, Olivia. She's cute as can be, of course, but also manages to project some pretty complex emotions for a tyke.

Olivia's problem is that she's living in a fantasy world, and doesn't want to come out. With the aid of a special blanket called a Goo-ga, she communicates with a trio of princesses and a queen. This causes big problems at school, and between daughter and father. It doesn't help that Evan (Murphy) is a financial investor who lives, breathes and eats his work.

When his ex-wife Trish (Nicole Ari Parker) asks him why he even agreed to become a parent, he mumbles that "I didn't think I'd be so bad at it."

Lo and behold, it turns out the Goo-ga really does have magical powers, and can help Evan pick the right companies to invest in. He needs the help, because his workplace rival is Danny Whitefeather (Thomas Haden Church), an American Indian who works some hokum about "dream sparrows" and mystic waterfalls into his pitches, and wows the clients.

So soon Evan is doing things like dancing in public and singing ridiculous songs to appease some invisible fairies with names like Sapata and Kupata, and delighting his daughter in the process.

Little kids will likely giggle at the notion of a grown-up acting the fool, but often these scenes devolve into moments that are just plain uncomfortable -- such as when Evan sneaks into a neighbor's house where Olivia is at a sleep-over so he can steal the Goo-ga for a big presentation he has the next morning.

It's hard to imagine that we used to look forward to a new Eddie Murphy movie, instead of wondering if it'll be tolerable. "Imagine That" manages to meet our shrunken expectations.

2 stars

Review: "Anvil! The Story of Anvil"

The act of watching "Anvil! The Story of Anvil" lies somewhere between schadenfraude and sob story. At times you feel guilty pleasure at watching the pathetic story of a pair of heavy metal rockers who are somehow both has-beens and wannabes. The next moment, you feel sympathy as their hopes of fame and fortune keep getting raised and then dashed.

Steve "Lips" Kudlow and Robb Reiner had a dream when they were teenagers, one millions of teens have had: To become rock 'n' roll stars. Now it's more than 30 years later, they never made it, and brutal truth be told, this real-life "Spinal Tap" is not good enough to make it. Except they're still pursuing the dream with all the vitality and self-delusion of a 15-year-old shredding chords in a garage somewhere.

The doc is directed by Sacha Gervasi ("The Terminal"), who used to be a roadie for Anvil back when they were on the cusp of fame.

He opens in 1984 at a huge metal concert in Japan featuring bands that would all (except one) go on to sell millions of records. Figures like Lars Ulrich from Metallica and Slash from Guns N' Roses talk about how Anvil influenced them, and put on live shows that made them envious.

Cut to today: Kudlow, known to everyone as Lips, is trudging through the Canadian snow delivering meals to schools. Working for a catering service doesn't pay much, but it's a steadier gig than playing music in tiny bars in front of a couple dozen fans.

The film really belongs to Lips, even though Robb is supposed to be an equal partner in their boyhood fantasy. But Lips is such a compelling figure, so utterly guileless and naked in his desire to make it big, that at first one thinks the whole movie is a put-on.

Soon it becomes clear, though, that he really has sacrificed everything for the gods of rock, and truly believes that someday they'll smile on him.

Others, including Robb, are not convinced. Robb's sister puts it flatly: "It's over. It's been over for a long time." Even Lips' wife, while completely supportive of his dreams, seems to recognize his chance was blown.

The film follows the band through one disappointment after another. Their manager, the girlfriend of one of the temporary band members, books them on a disastrous European tour. She barely speaks English and can't even arrange adequate transportation. When Lips stands on a metro station, staring forlornly at the empty tracks and says, "We missed our train," his yearning hits the audience like a power chord.

The absolute low point comes when they arrive two hours late for a gig, put on a show for the handful of people who remain, and Lips nearly gets into a fight with the club owner who refuses to pay them.

They start work on a new album -- their 13th -- by borrowing money from a relative. The pressure drives a wedge between Robb and Lips; but we sense it is fleeting, because there have been a hundred such quarrels like this before.

"Anvil! The Story of Anvil" is sad, funny, touching, and loud.

3 stars

Review: "Land of the Lost"

Two words: Sleestak porn.

Yes, in case you were wondering how the film version of "Land of the Lost" would go, it's full-out Will Farrell bumpkinness coupled with gross-out humor perfectly pitched to the mentality of a 14-year-old.

Thus, there's a scene where Farrell and his gang witness a pair of the slow-moving reptile man knocking boots ... er, claws. Mercifully, it's more implied than seen, since this is a PG-13 flick.

Look, it was obvious to all concerned that the only way to translate this phenomenally cheesy time-traveling kids' show from the 1970s to the big screen was to go the parody route. I mean, would you rather have seen a super-serious version with a lantern-jawed hero and a ton of CGI stunts?

Well, there's still plenty of computer-aided action, mostly due to a grumpy T-rex that chases around Ferrell, Danny McBride, girl scientist Anna Friel and Chak-Ka -- a prince among the ape-men. That's pretty much the whole movie -- big action scene interrupted by goofy one-liners from Ferrell and McBride.

A few jokes hit the mark. There's one bit where Ferrell gets bitten by a prehistoric mosquito, which proceeds to suck out enough blood to supply a small blood bank. And in another genuinely funny scene, Ferrell instructs his team to douse themselves from a large jug of dinosaur urine in order to hide their scent, which turns into an inquisition about how exactly he acquired said urine.

But the rest of it is pretty dreary stuff, and there are long stretches where the movie drags almost to a dead halt.

I don't mind the idea of making fun of kitschy old TV shows. But if you're going to do that, it should at least be ... fun.

Review: "Tyson"

The idea of spending 90 minutes alone with Mike Tyson probably scares most people half to death. But "Tyson," the new documentary by James Toback about the infamous boxer, surprises with its fascinating portrait of a compelling and unexpectedly sympathetic figure.

The movie is essentially the audience alone with Tyson, looking directly into the camera and talking about his life. There is some archival footage, old photographs and home movies. But for the most part it's just the man, talking unblinkingly about the rage inside him, and how he's struggled -- usually unsuccessfully -- to master it.

Toback (who last directed the tidy erotic thriller "When Will I Be Loved" starring Neve Campbell) employs overlapping split-screens as he weaves together more than 30 hours of footage of the ex-champ. Even though Toback has known Tyson since he was 19, the director wisely does not impose himself in the picture. Rather than appearing as interlocutor, Toback provides the answers while eschewing the questions.

That's why the film has such a confessional feel to it -- a man trying to make a new start in life by unburdening himself of his grotesque past.

The Tyson we see before us barely resembles the 20-year-old who became the youngest heavyweight champ in 1986. Gone are the gold teeth, '80s fade haircut and playful public persona. Tyson is older, lumpier, and with the Maori facial tattoo he got an a whim, he resembles a grizzled junkyard dog with a jigsaw face. The brutal physique that earned the label "Iron Mike" is gone; when he pulls up his shirt to reveal another tat he got while in prison, his belly lops over his belt.

Right away, he startles us by revealing that he was a shy kid who was bullied and robbed in his rough neighborhood. He took to boxing, and later to street thuggery, as a way to protect himself, psychologically as much as physically.

The relationship with elderly trainer Cus D'Amato, who died right before Tyson won his first belt, is fleshed out satisfyingly, despite being a familiar story. Many have wondered, as Tyson himself does, if he still would have wallowed in the excesses of sudden fame and fortune if his mentor were around a little longer.

Tyson also touches on his short-lived marriage to actress Robin Givens, a public spectacle that he takes responsibility for, while deflecting some of the more outrageous claims.

The infamous ear-biting of Evander Holyfield is explored in full. While not in any way excusing himself, Tyson's account shows how some foul tactics by his opponent, coupled with Tyson's feelings of persecution, drove him to "just want to inflict pain" -- simultaneously degrading himself and his sport.

Interestingly, the one misstep Tyson refuses to acknowledge is his rape of a Miss Black America contestant in Indianapolis, for which he served three years in prison. He refers to the victim as "that wretched swine of a woman." Why he would freely admit to all the other shameful things he's done in his life, from robbery to drug abuse, without confronting this one, is perplexing.

But that's the often mesmerizing portrait we see in "Tyson," a contradictory figure who went as high and low as one can go in his sport, and in life.

3.5 stars

Review: "American Harmony"

They say that every good story needs conflict, but there's not much discord in "American Harmony."

Sure, this documentary centers on a competition, between barbershop quartets from all over the country vying for the top prize. But it's more a pageant of hugs and well-wishes than in-your-face standoffs. The snarkiest moment comes when a contestant's wife texts him, calling a competitor's performance "weak."

But even if you aren't a fan of barbershop -- I am -- you'll find this movie an enjoyable plunge into a slice of Americana. And it goes without saying that it's impossible to keep from humming or tapping your toe afterward.

The most amazing thing about the International Championships of Barbershop Singing is that the winner has to call it quits. Once they win a gold medal, that group is forbidden from competing ever again. Imagine if the reward for winning the Super Bowl was that the team had to be split up and all the players sent to other franchises.

That's why Max Q is such an odds-on favorite going into the 2007 contest, which was held in Indianapolis. It's an all-star foursome of superstars within the world of barbershop, including Tony DeRosa and Jeff Oxley, who have each won the top prize (with other groups) twice before. Oxley is a confident competitor, but lead singer DeRosa admits to getting the jitters.

One of the best aspects of the film -- a hallmark of any good documentary -- is that it immerses you in a world that you may not know much about, and that even seems strange or silly to you. But by seeing what this endeavor means to its participants, we come to understand their little piece of society.

So it's tantalizing to watch these guys in their normal lives -- and most of them are very normal indeed: Middle-aged husbands and workaday drones. But in the subculture of barbershop, they're the Michael Jordan or Peyton Manning of their day.

The main competition to Max Q is OC Times, a group of twentysomething upstarts from California. They're handsome and polished and not a little cocky, yet still eager and a little bedazzled by their burgeoning fame. There's a great scene where Shawn York, who's an anonymous manager of a Chick-fil-A, takes a photograph of their poster outside New York's Lincoln Center, where they will perform in a few hours.

There are a couple of other groups who don't get quite as much time in the spotlight, but add layers to the picture. Vocal Spectrum is a bunch of kids fresh out of college who can't believe they're competing against guys they grew up idolizing.

Reveille is on the other side of the journey, an aging and decidedly frumpy foursome who use comedy in their performances to make up what their singing lacks. But a health issue for one of its members adds a somber tone to their yuks.

"American Harmony," directed by rookie filmmaker Aengus James, may take the soothing route rather than trying to conjure up some dramatic tension. But like the delicious sounds it spotlights, sometimes the right tone is one you create yourself.

3 stars

Review: "Shall We Kiss?

"Shall We Kiss?" is a frothy French romance about deception. The principal characters lie to each other, of course, but mostly they're lying to themselves. They work overtime at self-deception, telling themselves they're acting out of passion, when really they're just selfish and immature. They may speak beautiful French, wear expensive clothes and drink the most exquisite wines, but really they're children.

There are several overlapping sets of couples. The main one is Nicolas and Judith, played by Emmanuel Mouret (who also wrote and directed) and Virginie Ledoyen. They are close friends who reveal everything to each other, even though they are both in relationships. One day, on an apparent whim, Nicolas decides he needs physical affection, and Judith is the only one who can help him. He tried a prostitute, but was put off by the impersonal nature of the transaction.

The other couple is Emilie and Gabriel (Julie Gayet and Michael Cohen), who provide the framing story for the film. They meet one day on the street, he asks for a kiss, and she refuses him because of the story of Nicolas and Judith, who is a friend of hers. These two spend several intimate hours as Emilie relates the story, with their own attraction growing by and by.

The other not-quite couple is Claudio and Caline, who are the partners of Judith and Nicolas. They don't know each other, but Judith and Nicolas conspire to for them to meet, in the hopes they will hit it off and end their respective relationships. They say they do this out of love for their soon-to-be-ex partners, but anyone can see they're making it easier on themselves, not acting out of altruism.

I enjoyed "Shall We Kiss?", even though the characters are mostly unlikable. It's entertaining to watch as they use their well-educated minds to justify their deplorable behavior, convincing themselves they're good people forced into terrible positions by fate. It's a high-stakes con game where the swindler and the mark are the same person.

3 stars

Review: "The Hangover"

If it's possible to make a brainy raunch flick, then the gang behind "The Hangover" has done it.

The set-up for "The Hangover" is like a thousand movies before it -- a bunch of young guys getting stoned, hooking up with loose women and making fools of themselves. The setting is Las Vegas, with its deliberately amoral motto of "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."

But rather than belly-flopping into a pool of standard-issue debauchery, the filmmakers take a clever route. They start at the ending, with three buddies unable to find their friend, who's supposed to get married in five hours. After getting so wasted that none of them can remember a thing that happened, they must attempt to piece together their actions during the lost weekend in hopes of finding the groom in time to get him to the altar, and avoid the unholy wrath of the bride.

So it's a mystery potboiler-cum-fleshpit, with the timeline zagging around as more of their exploits are recalled.

Bradley Cooper plays Phil, the libidinous ringleader of the gang; Ed Helms is Stu the repressed, henpecked dentist; and Justin Bartha is Doug, the bridegroom who promptly gets himself lost. Rounding out the cast is Zach Galifianakis as Alan, the bride's hirsute and chubby man-child of brother, who gets invited along out of pity.

Galifianakis is both hilarious and somehow touching in the role -- he desperately wants to be one of the boys, but he's so clueless that he can't tell when he's included in the joke and when he's the butt of it. One senses Alan doesn't care either way, as long as he's in the mix somewhere. Galifianakis puts a distinctive stamp on what was clearly written as the Jack Black role.

Whatever happened to the boys, it obviously was quite an adventure. Stu's missing a tooth and his grandmother's wedding ring, Phil has an unexplained hospital band on his wrist, and Alan nearly gets eaten by the tiger lounging in the bathroom, which they discover belongs to boxer Mike Tyson.

During their investigation, they come across a cheerful stripper-hooker (one leads to the other) who has married Stu at a quickie chapel, played by Heather Graham; a lost baby, whom Alan dubs Carlos and manipulates into some wildly inappropriate mime; and an Asian gang leader (Ken Jeong) whose combination of ching-chong pigeon English and urban slang makes you laugh uproariously, then immediately feel guilty about it.

A warning to anyone thinking of bringing youngsters along: Despite the higher-than-normal I.Q. quotient, "The Hangover" revels in filth. Make sure to stick around for the end credits, when their debauchery is fully revealed in an eye-popping slideshow. However it got past the MPAA without getting slapped with an NC-17 rating was the cleverest move of all.

3 stars

Review: "Terminator Salvation"

If you can still keep the time-space continuum for the "Terminator" franchise straight in your head, you must be a Nobel-winning astrophysicist.

With four movies now, a TV show (which was canceled on Monday) and original director James Cameron and star Arnold Schwarzenegger long departed from the scene, "Terminator Salvation" is the latest in a long line of endeavors to rejigger history's orderly march in the name of science fiction mayhem.

You'll remember that Arnie played a cyborg who travelled back from the future to kill the mother of John Connor, who would become the leader of the human resistance movement to Skynet, the machine hegemony. To fight the terminator, Connor sent a soldier named Kyle Reese, who knocked boots with mom and thus became Connor's own father.

The first movie made it very clear that the time machine was destroyed after Reese and the cyborg went through, but in subsequent iterations more and more terminators and human protectors have popped up, every one of them trying desperately to alter the future.

So in "Salvation," it is the future --- 2018, to be specific. And Skynet is now trying to change the past, by hunting down Reese, so Connor can't send him back in time to change the future, which is right now, but it might be a different now if they succeed.

Or something.

"Terminator Salvation" is the latest attempt to revive a moribund film franchise via pyrotechnics. There are so many explosions it seems the movie itself is combustible. Christian Bale, as John Connor, survives two separate helicopter crashes, two thermonuclear detonations and dozens of exploding cars, buildings and robots. One starts to expect random things to blow up during quiet dialogue scenes.

In the supporting roles, Anton Yelchin (who played Chekov in another recent franchise reboot, "Star Trek") is Kyle Reese; rapper/actor Common is Connor's right-hand man; Bryce Dallas Howard is Connor's very pregnant squeeze; Helena Bonham Carter is a Skynet flunky; and Moon Bloodgood (stage name, ya think?) is a hot pilot.

The x-factor is Marcus (Sam Worthington), a burly Aussie who we see executed in a prison in 1993. He wakes up in 2018 not knowing what happened to him, but now he has amazing physical abilities. Even a Nobel-winning astrophysicist's janitor can figure out that it's not Marcus' personality that is magnetic.

"Terminator Salvation" would operate pretty well if it was a standalone flick about humans battling robots in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. It's fast-paced and often exciting -- director Joseph McGinty Nichol (I refuse to call him by his asinine handle "McG") may be ham-handed at scenes where people just talk to each other, but the man knows how to stage action scenes.

Where the movie gets bogged down is in having to shoehorn itself into the limitations of the previous "Terminator" shows. Astute fans will be able to spot a half-dozen inconsistencies in the "Terminator" universe -- I know, because they were doing so after the screening I attended. ("Why don't the robots just kill Reese the minute they capture him?")

It's never good when your fan base knows more than you do.

2.5 stars out of four

DVD review: "Taken"

Part of the joy of a movie like "Taken" is that it seemed to come out of nowhere. It was released earlier this year with virtually no marketing or fanfare, starring an actor, Liam Neeson, who's well-regarded by hardly a box office heavyweight, with a storyline about an ex-spy that seemed overly familiar. But its spare style and intense energy propelled it to become the sleeper hit of early 2009.

Neeson is perfectly suited to the roll of Bryan Mills, a former spook who has retired so he can be closer to his teen daughter Kim (Maggie Grace). Mills at first seems a bit of a loser, moping around a tiny apartment and crashing his daughter's birthday party at her wealthy stepdad's mansion. But when Kim is abducted by a prostitution ring while in Paris, he springs into hunter mode.

Neeson skillfully underplays, turning his character into the antithesis of the boasting, self-regarding cinematic action hero. He can take out a small army of goons by himself, but there's no bravado in the way he does it -- it's simply the job, one he's gotten very good at. He's coldly efficient, saving the life of a prostitute strung out on heroine not out of benevolence, but because it helps his quest.

There's a healthy set of DVD extras, including both the theatrical and unrated versions of the film, though I was hard-pressed to tell the difference. A making-of documentary is fairly rote; a more clever addition is a feature showing how they shot some of the more harrowing scenes, with side-by-side comparisons of the stunts and the final version. A commentary track (in French, with subtitles) by director Pierre Morel and cinematographer Michel Abramowicz gets bogged down in the technical aspects of filmmaking. But a separate (English) track by co-screenwriter Robert Mark Kamen (who also wrote the first two "Transporter" flicks) is much livelier -- including his description of an ending that was tacked on by the French backers against his wishes.

Movie: 3.5 stars
Extras: 3 stars