Review: "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse"

God help me, but I actually enjoyed a "Twilight" flick.

No, the mashup of teen romance and vampire mythology ain't Shakespeare, and it doesn't pretend to be. Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg does a fairly decent job of translating the uber-popular novel by Stephanie Meyer about a glum girl and the immortal blood-sucker who loves her ... and the shirt-resistant teen werewolf who also loves her.

But even the Bard himself couldn't do much with dialogue like this: "Your alibi for the battle is all arranged!"

For the third installment, new director David Slade is brought in to replace Chris Weitz (who in turn took over for Catherine Hardwicke), and he brings a welcome harder edge to the material. He previously made "30 Days of Night," a truly hardcore vampire flick, and while the noferatu-vs.-lycanthrope action stays safely within PG-13 bounds, "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" at least can boast more visceral thrills than the first two movies combined.

And Team Edward gets to do battle with Team Jacob as well. Whenever the movie isn't concerned with the impending arrival of an army of newly-made vampires, all the attention is focused on Edward (Robert Pattinson) trying to prevent his human lady love, Bella (Kristen Stewart), from falling into the occasionally hirsute arms of Jacob (Taylor Lautner).

For those who haven't been following the score: Bella is in love with Edward, part of a coven of "vegetarian" vampires who only feast on animals in the area around the soggy town of Forks. After successfully fending off multiple attempts on Bella's life by a rogue vampire, all is more or less well.

Bella wants to have sex, but Edward doesn't because his vampire super-strength might kill her in the midst of their, uh, labors. Also he's an old-fashioned dude -- literally, since he's about a century old -- and demands marriage before coupling. (This, incidentally, is enough to tell you that Edward is the figment of a female imagination and a horde of adolescents lapping it up.)

Edward agrees to turn Bella into a vampire, but only after they're married. This doesn't sit well with Jacob, who loves Bella himself and is a leader of the local American Indian tribe, who can turn into wolves. The tribe and the Cullens honor an uneasy truce, which the squabbling over Bella threatens to overtune.

Trouble threatens with rumors of mass disappearances to the north in Seattle. The Cullens suspect someone is building an army of "newborn" vampires, and suspect Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard), the mate of the foe they defeated in the last movie.

There's also the Vuluri, vampire royalty who lurk about the edges of the conflict.

But really, the main dynamic is the love triangle, and for once it seemed to have a little substance beyond a whole lot of Edward and Jacob strutting and threatening.

There's even room for a little humor, as when Edward and Bella meet with Jacob to discuss an alliance, and Jacob typically shows up bare-chested to show off Lautner's recently-acquired muscles. "Does he have a shirt?" Edward asks.

And who can resist the entendre when Bella is freezing to death, and Jacob offers to heat her up with his body -- something the undead Edward cannot. "Let's face it," Jacob insists. "I am hotter than you."

I also liked that some of the other Cullens, Rosalie and Jasper, are given a chance to show a little of their backstory and deepen as characters. Both stories are surprisingly dark and dreary.

Could it possibly be that, after three go-rounds, the "Twilight" movies are actually growing up a little?

3 stars out of four

Review: "Cyrus"

I don't really know what to call "Cyrus." From the presence of Jonah Hill as the title character, most people will probably take it as a comedy. But the humor is so dark and the mood so frequently unnerving that you don't much feel like laughing.

What I did feel was fully engaged, and enjoyment at drinking in some wonderful performances by Hill, Marisa Tomei and especially John C. Reilly. It's a movie that's not trying to provoke a reaction from the audience, but simply observes a small set of characters with sharp focus and a wry wit.

Reilly plays John, a sad sack who's finally pulled out of the tailspin since his divorce by starting a relationship with Molly (Tomei), a single mother to 21-year-old Cyrus (Hill), who's still living at home and doesn't show any inclinations about changing this fact. Cyrus sabotages their relationship, subtly at first but with increasing venom.

One scene sums up my reaction to this film. John has begun sleeping over at Molly's, which Cyrus accepts with a veneer of friendliness but clearly doesn't like. In the middle of the night, John gets up to find Cyrus standing in the kitchen nude from the waist down and holding a butcher knife. "C'mere," he says with a glazed stare, motioning with the huge knife.

I'll save you the trouble by letting you know "Cyrus" does not veer into slasher flick territory. But the sensation one gets in that moment -- nervous laughter that morphs quickly into fear and then melts into a profound discomfort -- is strangely enjoyable.

"Cyrus" is written and directed by sibling duo Jay and Mark Duplass ("Baghead"), part of the "mumblecore" indie movement. The dialogue has an ungroomed, improvisational feel, and the trio of stars give naturalistic performances without an ounce of ego.

Reilly, who's done a lot of lunkhead comedies lately but has shown serious acting chops in the past, certainly doesn't seem to have any vanity in his role. When we first see John, his ex-wife (Catherine Kenner) catches him masturbating in his slovenly wreck of a home.

She reveals that she and her boyfriend (Matt Walsh) are going to get married, which crushes him despite the seven years since they parted. To cheer him up, they invite John to a party where he gets stupendously drunk, and even the homely girl sitting alone on the couch blows him off.

Molly, however, overhears his moment of total vulnerability and is touched. Soon they're an item, but John quickly senses something wrong about her relationship with her son. Cyrus calls her Molly instead of mother, and they spend hours every day together wrapped in a cocoon of co-dependency.

Cyrus deeply resents any division of Molly's affections with another -- she tellingly reveals she hasn't had a serious relationship since Cyrus was born -- and sets about to use himself as a wedge between them.

In essence, John has walked into the middle of an Oedipal complex, with him taking on the role of the guy about to get whacked.

Hill is terrific, and what's most striking about it is that it isn't all that different from what he does in his comedic roles. He's become a master of the deadpan stare where he says seemingly benevolent things, but in a cutting way. His Cyrus is a sweet-faced emotional terrorist.

I really liked Reilly in this. He starts out as such a pathetic figure, we practically cringe for him. But he slowly gets his baggage together, and has enough self-respect to fight back against Cyrus' manipulations.

Tomei's role is a bit under-realized -- Molly acts as a vessel into which these two flawed men pour their emotions, good and bad. I kept wishing she would take a proactive role, and kick both of them out.

3 stars out of four

Video review: "The White Ribbon"

"The White Ribbon" makes for an interesting exercise in discriminating between American and European films. This highly stylized German drama was a top prize winner at Cannes, and an Oscar nominee for best foreign language film. It received good write-ups from most American critics, but wasn't much of a hit here, even by art house standards.

I consider myself pretty egalitarian in my cinematic tastes, but I admit I found this movie dense and off-putting. It seems to revel in its own mysteriousness, in confounding and misdirecting its audience, rather than taking them someplace.

Set in a tiny pastoral German town before World War I, "Ribbon" opens with the local doctor being seriously injured in a horse riding accident when someone strings a wire across his garden. As the folk grow more angry and fearful, more attacks occur with increasing violence.

The baron's son is kidnapped and whipped, and for awhile the unrest appears to be rooted in resentment between the classes. But answers never come with any sort of clarity.

Visually it's a dazzling film, shot in austere black-and-white by writer/director Michael Haneke. But if American films are often formulaic and predictable, "The White Ribbon" is just too ... foreign.

Extras are a fairly generous mix, though the emphasis on on-set footage grows a bit tedious.

There's a 38-minute making-of documentary, which is dominated by Haneke. He reveals that he first began thinking about the film 20 years ago, and at one point considered making it as a three-part television movie.

More than 7,000 children were considered for roles -- a casting process that took six months. In one interesting aside, Haneke reveals that they bused in Romanians to play the village extras, since German actors were too modern-looking for his taste.

Another tidbit: The manor house featured in the film was the only one in Germany that wasn't in ruins or fully restored.

There's also a 50-minute retrospective on Haneke's career, an 18-minute featurette on the film's debut at Cannes, and a solo interview with Haneke that runs 14 minutes.

Movie: 2.5 stars out of four
Extras: 3 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "Aguirre, The Wrath of God" (1972)

It's said that Werner Herzog wrote the screenplay for "Aguirre, The Wrath of God" in less than three days. I believe it, since this 1972 German film eschews narrative for hallucinatory images and long takes that plunge you into the whirlpool of the main character's madness.

It's less storytelling, and a visually disturbing fever dream.

Francis Ford Coppola was clearly influenced by this film when he made "Apocalypse Now" several years later. Thematically, the movies are similar in that they take place on a nightmarish river journey whose destination grows more figurative they further they get.

Herzog based the film on actual historical figures and events, but has acknowledged that the story is entirely fictitious. In 1560 Spanish adventurers led by Gonzalo Pizzaro search the Andes for the mythical city of gold, El Dorado. Mired in the thick jungle and unable to make progress, Pizzaro organizes an expedition of 40 men to sail downriver to find food or help. Pedro de Ursua is appointed to lead, with Don Lope de Aguirre as his second-in-command.

Aguirre clearly has greater ambitions than his superiors, and will not let anything stop them. When one of the rafts is caught in an eddy and the men slain by Indian arrows, Aguirre blows it up with a cannon rather than allow Ursua to waste time recovering the bodies for burial.

Soon Aguirre overthrows Ursua, who is shot but not slain in the mutiny, so he can continue the journey. He forces the election of Fernando de Guzman, a fat and lazy nobleman, as the new leader, intending to use him as a puppet. They declare their independence from Spain, establishing a new kingdom of El Dorado. In a surprise to Aguirre, Guzman grants Ursua clemency and allows him to live.

After their rafts are borne away by the rising river, they build a new, larger one to carry the entire expedition. Eventually they leave the rapids behind and find themselves slowly floating down the river with little to do. Guzman sits on an erstwhile throne decreeing all the land they see as part of their new kingdom. At one point he gleefully estimates their nation is six times the size of Spain -- despite the fact that they are too afraid of Indians to even go ashore.

Aguirre is played by Klaus Kinski, the volatile actor who would have a long collaboration with Herzog. The two clashed during filming, with Kinski wanting a raving mad portrayal, while the director wanted something more restrained and creepy. Herzog won the argument by simply waiting until Kinski's rages had subsided, and then filming the quieter takes.

It's an amazing performance, one of pure venom and unbridled ambition. In the film's remarkable closing scene, with all of his men and his own daughter slain by arrows, Aguirre stumbles around the raft, which has become overrun by hundreds of monkeys. He vows to mate with his daughter and start a new, pure royal bloodline, and to conquer not only this land but the colonies of Spain.

One interesting thing about Kinski's performance is that he always seems to be looking at the camera sideways. He's constantly turning and twisting his body and head, as if trying to present the most oblique angle possible to the camera.

Another aspect that adds to the film's hallucinatory quality is the blurring of languages and nationalities. You've got a largely German cast portraying Spaniards, so their dialogue is in German. Except the dialogue was actually spoken in English on the set, since it was the only common language on a very multicultural crew. So you've got Germans speaking English pretending to be Spanish. Plus, Kinski refused to re-dub his lines in German without considerably more money, so another actor was brought in to do his dialogue.

"Aguirre, The Wrath of God" remains an often mesmerizing tone poem, about man's folly and lust for wealth, power and fame.

3 stars out of four

Review: "Grown Ups"

"Grown Ups," the new Adam Sandler comedy, is about what you'd expect. A quintet of childhood buds reunite 30 years later to recapture a bit of their glory days, in between hassling with their wives and kids and razzing each other mercilessly.

There's potty humor, there's sexual put-downs galore, there's inappropriate ogling of each other's daughters and/or wives. The humor is crude and broad, the hearty laughs few and far between.

In other words, it's another thingamajig stamped out by the Sandler assembly line.

You'll note I call it an Adam Sandler movie, despite the presence of co-stars Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade and Rob Schneider -- all "Saturday Night Live" alums like Sandler, except James, who had his own lowbrow TV show. Sandler wrote the screenplay (with Fred Wolf) and brought along his pet director, Dennis Dugan.

It's not very funny, but as the mob tough in "The Untouchables" said about their illicit booze, it's not supposed to be good, it's supposed to be bought. Sandler has a built-in audience that will show up for anything he does. Occasionally, something decent ("50 First Dates") slips past the machine.

Sandler plays Lenny, the leader of the 1978 summer basketball champs who've gone their separate ways. When their old coach dies, it brings them back for his funeral and a weekend at the old lake house.

Lenny's a Hollywood super-agent, married to Roxanne (Salma Hayek Pinault), a famous fashion designer. Their two sons are borderline brats addicted to their Playstation and ordering the nanny around.

The rest of the crew: Eric (James) is the funny fat guy, married and with a couple of kids of his own. Rock plays Kurt, a house-husband who receives a daily tag-team henpecking from his wife (Maya Rudolph) and her mother. Marcus (Spade) is the boozy swingin' single dude. And Rob (Schneider) has gotten all New Age-y and uptight.

They're stale, unimaginative parts, but let's face it: Spade, Schneider and Rock's film careers have gone ice cold lately. It's almost sad how they always run home for supporting roles in Sandler's lame flicks.

(If that's not bad enough, fellow SNLers Colin Quinn and Tim Meadow are trotted out for walk-ons in the obligatory rematch of the big game. Meadows' part is so small, I actually felt sorry for him.)

I found a handful of chuckles here and there. I liked Maya Rudolph, very pregnant, doing a little booty-and-belly dance and chanting, "Baby got front!" And there's some doofy slapstick scattered about.

But mostly the jokes are one-note, or quickly grow tiresome with repetition. Some examples:

Rob's wife (Joyce Van Patten) is much older than him, and their constant sexual fervor for each other grosses out the rest of the gang. It's funny because she's old!

Eric tries to water ski, but the boat can't budge his heft. It's funny because he's fat!

Rob's giving his (old!) wife a heated-rock massage, and burns his hands on one that stayed in the steamer too long. Then he drops it on her back and she screams. It's funny because it's hot!

Eric's improbably gorgeous wife (Maria Bello, slumming) still breast-feeds their son, even though he's four years old. It's funny because it's boobies!

I could go on, but let's save each other the trouble. We both know "Growns Ups" is the very definition of a critic-proof movie. But I'll bet the $9 you're thinking about plunking down for this moronic flick that there's something better playing at the cinema.

Well, not "Jonah Hex." Yech. But something.

1.5 stars out of four

Review: "Mother and Child"

Karen and Elizabeth are two fractured souls living in Los Angeles, connected by a bond of pain and love that neither one of them can sense.

Karen (Annette Bening) is 50ish, a physical therapist who demands an impossible level of perfection from everyone around her, and herself. Elizabeth (Naomi Watts) is in her late 30s, a powerful lawyer who doesn't connect with other women, and uses men as sexual playthings.

Though in very different ways, these two women push back against interpersonal relationships and intimacy. They live apart from others in prisons of their own choosing.

When a handsome new nurse at Karen's work (Jimmy Smits) makes overtures of romantic interest, she reacts with hostility. Elizabeth begins a sexual fling with her older, dashing boss (Samuel L. Jackson) after two days at her new job, but when he shows indications of wanting something deeper, she slips away like a breeze.

"The wind changed, didn't it?" he asks, guessing well.

Karen and Elizabeth are mother and child, which is also the title of this powerful, superbly acted drama from writer/director Rodrigo Garcia. "Mother and Child" is about mothers who give their daughters up for adoption, or are trying to adopt a child of their own.

The film explores uncomfortable themes. One could read it as a condemnation of women who let their children be adopted, judging by the irreparable wound it has inflicted on Karen.

Giving her daughter away, even though she was only 14 at the time, literally ruined Karen's life. Elizabeth's own life seems well on its way to disaster, despite her seemingly impenetrable shell of self-confidence.

"The adoption thing is so unnatural. Why don't people just say it?" one of the characters says.

But I think while Rodrigo flirts with this notion, he ultimately is arguing that love is something that you grow in time, and is not something automatically granted through a quirk of fate and biology. Consider Karen's non-existent relationship with her own elderly mother, who hopes for death every day.

Layer upon layer, Rodrigo builds his story, adding more characters and relationships, which (ultimately) intersect.

There is Lucy (a terrific Kerry Washington), an ambitious young woman who owns her own bakery and desperately wants to adopt. She and her husband -- who seems onboard with the plan -- meet with Ray (Shareeka Epps), a 20-year-old expectant mother who has already turned down several couples who wanted to adopt her baby. Ray puts them through such paces Lucy says it's like being taken to the principal's office.

Karen has a housekeeper/caretaker, Sofia (Elpidia Carrillo), who brings her own young daughter to work with her, much to Karen's consternation. She grows even more upset when she learns her mother gave Sofia's daughter a cherished necklace, and seems closer to these strangers than her own daughter.

"Mother and Child" is well-made and heartfelt, though not perfect. The story tends to get stuck in eddies needlessly; for example, Karen has a reunion with the father of her child, her first (and one suspects only) boyfriend. The encounter is brief, emotional and doesn't fit with the rest of the film.

I also wanted to spend more time with Elizabeth. Watts draws such an intriguing character, we want to penetrate the mystery a little deeper. The film concludes -- a little too tidily -- before we get a chance.

But that's a complaint wrapped in a compliment: We're left wanting more.

3.5 stars out of four

Review: "Knight and Day"

What a fun, fun ride "Knight and Day" is. Yes, it's totally a summer popcorn movie, empty cinematic calories forgotten almost as soon as they're consumed. But Tom Cruise reminds us why we used to like Tom Cruise so much -- before the couch-jumping and the creepy interviews and all the other stuff that gave his star a sour taint.

This new action-comedy features Cruise doing the stuff he was born to do on the big screen: Seeming larger than life, dangerous but charming, flashing that Klieg light smile and making a girl's eyes positively twinkle at his attentions.

The girl in question is Cameron Diaz, whose own career has seemed on autopilot lately. She plays June Havens, a sweet gal from Boston who restores old cars for a living. June is traveling through the Kansas City airport with a suitcase full of carburetors and other parts, which makes her a perfect target for Roy Miller, the mystery man of the hour.

(By the way, I'd like to believe that a woman who looks like Diaz could be a mechanic, but I just didn't buy it. First of all, her hands are too smooth and clean to have had them inside the guts of a Pontiac on a daily basis. Ever looked at a mechanic's hands? They look like gorilla mitts. And who flies across the country to pick up car parts when UPS will ship them for a fraction of the cost?)

It turns out Roy and June are on the same flight back to Beantown. When it appears she'll be bumped from the flight, he comments that maybe some things are for the best. Then she gets on at the last minute, and he seems kind of disappointed. They talk, flirt some, and when she decamps to the lavatory to freshen up, Roy kills everybody on the plane, including the pilots.

Turns out Roy's a super-agent gone rogue -- or at least that's what the authorities tell June when she wakes up the next day back at home. Roy landed the plane safely (well, they both survived) and then promptly drugged her.

The rest of the movie is a nearly non-stop game of chase-chase, kiss-kiss. It seems Roy is in possession of a new kind of battery that can run an entire city, forever -- "the first source of perpetual energy since the sun." Various parties, including a Spanish arms dealer and the U.S. government, want it for themselves.

The battery is a classic MacGuffin -- an object that is critical to the plot despite remaining a total mystery. How the battery was built or how it works are unimportant (it sort of resembles an old camera film roll, before everything went digital) except to say that everyone wants to get their hands on it.

Rookie screenwriter Patrick O'Neill obviously understands about MacGuffins, and treats it as such. His clever script plays with the conventions of the action/thriller genre, throwing winking nods to the audience -- especially in the playful banter between Cruise and Diaz, who manage to invest their characters with a little soul in between the many car chases and gun battles.

Director James Mangold, not exactly known for lighter fare ("Walk the Line," "3:10 to Yuma"), does a nice job of keeping things in happy-time mode. His action scenes are crisp and stupendous without seeming totally implausible.

I admired how Mangold and O'Neill treat theirs stars like stars, but still invest the minor characters with distinctive presences. Paul Dano has a deer-like innocent quality as the brilliant young inventor of the battery, and Peter Sarsgaard sneers admirably as the heavy. Marc Blucas has a tiny but hilarious turn as June's doofy-but-decent ex.

But mostly, "Knight and Day" will be seen as Tom Cruise's comeback role -- though I doubt he'd acknowledge he went anywhere. He'll turn 48 a couple of weeks after this movie comes out, but if he wasn't Tom Cruise, just a guy on the street, I think most people would peg him at about 32.

Based on this flick, his career is certainly looking fresh again.

3 stars out of four