Best films on the box: October 6-12

DARK STUFF: Kate Beckinsale stars in Underworld on TV2 on Sunday night.

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Film and television critic Philip Wakefield assesses the best movies on offer on the box this week, for Tuesday, October 6 to Monday, October 12.

Tuesday, October 6

Austin Powers in Goldmember
2002, AO, 8.30pm, TV2
The third and funniest in the-spy-who-came-in-from-the-cold franchise is smarter and more inventive than its predecessors, thanks to novel casting (including Michael Caine as Austin’s father), inspired pop-culture parodying and extravagant stunts that would do James Bond proud. The movie peaks too early with an ingenious MI:2 send-up, and too often lapses into the scatological with redundant gutter gags. But it’s such a likeable, occasionally even hilarious lampoon that its excesses are easier to overlook than Mini Me.

Wednesday, October 7

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
2007, AO, 8.30pm Rialto Channel
Veteran director Sidney Lumet (The Verdict, Dog Day Afternoon, Fail-Safe) is 85 years old but hasn’t lost his touch with intelligent, atmospheric, agonisingly suspenseful thrillers for adults. His latest stars Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke as deep-in-debt brothers whose victim-less plan to rob their parents’ jewellery story goes tragically awry. Marisa Tomei co-stars.

Thursday, October 8

Get Smart
2008 PGR, 8.30pm, Sky Movies
This is less a remake of the ‘60s spooks spoof than a shrewd reinvention that references the original without trying to outsmart it. Steve Carell makes a terrific new-millennium Maxwell Smart who isn’t as absurd as Don Adams’ yet still manages to squeeze in most of the catchphrases that made the character so memorable. Wisely, he doesn’t attempt to mimic Adams’ unique style while Terence Stamp’s sinister Siegfried couldn’t be more different from Bernie Kopell’s (who has a droll cameo). Anne Hathaway and Dwayne Johnson co-star.

Friday, October 9

The Bucket List
2007, AO, 8.30pm, Sky Movies
This hokey but decently crafted carpe diem comedy-drama stars Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman as a terminally ill odd couple - one’s an ornery billionaire the other’s a grease monkey oracle - who learn the twilight truth about themselves while ticking off a death wish-list of everything from skydiving to kissing the most beautiful girl in the world. The breezy old geezers premise reeks of formulaic filmmaking but somehow the stars rise above their second-skin characterisations and The Bucket List’s seize-the-day sentimentality to make the movie much better than it sounds. Rob Reiner directs.

Saturday, October 10

Barnyard
2006, G, 7.30pm, TV2
The Far Side meets Old McDonald's Farm in this computer-animated romp that should keep the kids entertained until the cows come home. Adults, however, will wish the writing was half as groundbreaking as the ‘toonmanship (although it’s hard to get past the hero being a male cow whose most prominent feature is his udder). Features the voices of Kevin James, Courteney Cox and Sam Elliott.

Days of Thunder
1990, AO, 8.25pm, TV3
Corny Top Gun retread starring Tom Cruise as a hotshot maverick who triumphs against all odds to win the Daytona 500. Robert Duvall lends it some stature and Nicole Kidman curiosity value - it was on the set of this film that she and Cruise fell in love.

Freedomland
2006, AO, 8.30pm, TV One
There are shades of Spike Lee’s Clockers to this racial powderkeg thriller, partly because it’s based on another Richard Ford novel with similar characters and settings. But director Joe Roth (America’s Sweethearts) isn’t another Lee and despite terrific performances from Samuel L Jackson and Julianne Moore, this investigation into a child’s abduction never captivates.

Lethal Weapon 3
1992, AO, 9.20pm, TV2
Top stunts and a third lethal weapon - Rene Russo’s sassy investigator - make this sequel a real pistol after its mean-spirited predecessor. Released soon after the LA riots, its jokey police thuggery sits uncomfortably within the context of the Rodney King beating but Mel Gibson and Danny Glover are the best shoot-‘em-up double-act since Butch & Sundance, and the scene in which Gibson and Russo compare battle scars gives screen foreplay a fresh and funny twist.

Sin City
2005, AO, 11.45pm, TV2
Viewing this ultra-cool, ultra-violent, live-action, digital noir ‘toon is like reading a black-and-white comic book on film. Instead of trying to turn Frank Miller’s graphic novel into a movie, director/editor Robert Rodriguez tried to make cinema into a comic book. The result is gorgeous to behold but also grotesquely and gratuitously ghoulish. Bruce Willis, Clive Owen and Jessica Alba star.

Sunday, October 11

Hitch
2005, AO, 8.30pm, TV2
Will Smith plays a smooth talking 'date doctor' who helps men make it through the minefield of romance, in this case an overweight geek (Kevin James) that he tries to match with a beautiful heiress (Amber Valetta). The movie stumbles with a tritely dramatic third act but otherwise is highly recommended for everyone who loves to laugh and who loves New York City.

William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet
1996, AO, 8.30pm, C4
Australia’s Baz Luhrmann directed this strictly unconventional and audacious update starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Clare Danes as the doomed star-crossed lovers. Daring and dazzling but ultimately the victim of its own extravagance.

Underworld
2003, AO, 10.55pm, TV2
Sleek, chic conspiracy thriller about a millennium-long blood feud between vampires and werewolves that’s set in a gothic netherworld. It tries to transcend horror conventions by explaining the creatures’ rise through science instead of mysticism but comes across as a clichéd, noisy, graphic-novel pastiche of Batman, Blade and The Matrix. Still, the special effects are spellbinding, Kate Beckinsale’s a belter action figure and Bill Nighy’s vampire elder would give even Grandpa Munster nightmares.

Monday, October 12

Fantastic Four
2005, PGR, 8.30pm, TV3
The cheesy, cheerful concoction of comedy and carnage puts the fun back into comic-book cinema. After the brooding angst of the new-millennium Batman, it’s a hoot to cheer superheroes who are as playful as they are powerful. The gang’s all here - Mr Fantastic, The Human Torch, Invisible Girl, The Thing - and even Stan Lee, who created the DNA dynamos 45 years ago, plays a character instead of a cameo for a change. Ioan Gruffud, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis star.

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Tim   #2   04:51 pm Oct 06 2009

This is one of the poorest reviews I've ever seen. Its like the diary entry of a 10 year old

Ben R   #1   11:30 am Oct 06 2009

You rate Hitch ahead of Sin city, call the third Austin powers movie the funniest when it's a reharsh of the second, and have the stupidity to give fantastic four four stars? I'm thinking you just make these ratings up for 'ratings'! Yiu can't have that poor taste.

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