The best films on the box: October 21-27

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IT'S IN THE GENES: Scarlett Johansson stars in futuristic genetic engineering flick The Island, screening on TV2 on Tuesday 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 21 to Monday, October 27.

Tuesday, October 21

The Island
2005, AO. 8.30pm, TV2.
Transformers director Michael Bay’s first flop borrows heavily from futuristic conspiracy thrillers like Minority Report and Logan’s Run, and is undermined by an execrable ending. But for the most part The Island is an exciting, startling take on genetic engineering that’s worth a look just to see how Scarlett Johansson acquits herself in her first action hero role. Ewan McGregor, Sean Bean and Steve Buscemi co-star.

Wednesday, October 22

MISS POTTER
2006, G. 8.30pm, Sky Movies.
Who better to direct this scintillating tale of Peter Rabbit scribe Beatrix Potter’s early years than Babe’s Chris Noonan? His dramatisation is a stirring, poignant, captivating account of how a 30-year-old woman defied her Victorian family by refusing to marry for convenience, comfort and convention. Instead, she forged her own identity and livelihood with a series of bucolic best-sellers whose beloved critters would make her the most popular children’s author until that other Potter woman, JK Rowling. Ewan McGregor and Emily Watson co-star.

Thursday, October 23

THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT
1996, AO. 8.30pm, Sky Movies Greats.
Rollicking mix of mystery, mayhem and smarts starring Geena Davis as a sweet suburban mum with amnesia who years later discovers the killer within - a government assassin whom her former bosses now want dead. Helping her to piece together her jaw-dropping jigsaw of a life is an ex-jailbird-cum-private detective played by Samuel L Jackson. Highly-recommended for its cliffhanger finesse, double-barrelled banter and the divine Davis’ stunning transformation from Betty Crocker to La Femme Nikita.

Friday, October 24

EIGHT BELOW
2006, PGR. 7.30pm, TV2.
Director Frank Marshall should stick to Arachnophobia rather than anthropomorphism. There’s more mush on screen than at the South Pole in this formulaic adventure about heroic huskies who hang together after being abandoned in Antarctica. Paul Walker stars.

Saturday, October 25

ANALYZE THAT
2002, AO. 8.30pm, TV2.
It didn’t take critics long to analyse this sequel to the pre-Sopranos Billy Crystal-Robert De Niro hit about a gangster in therapy: “A loose-jointed series of skits, laced with running jokes that poke mild fun at mob movie clichés and therapeutic psychobabble” (New York Times); “painfully padded” (Rolling Stone); “dull and awful” (Washington Post); “a moment of silence, please, for the career of Robert De Niro” (Newsday).

THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN
2005, AO. 8.30pm, TV3.
This ribald romantic-comedy about a bachelor with a monk’s personal life stars Steve Carell as a 40-year-old who’s never had sex – until his workmates find out and try to engineer some close encounters of the fervid kind. Virgin is smarter – and sweeter -- than it sounds but not even its likable leads and surprisingly sensitive take on nerdish sexuality can disguise a coarse, misogynistic streak and uneven writing that veers from mean-spirited to sentimentally contrived. Knocked Up’s Judd Apatow directs.

HARDBALL
2001, AO. 10.25pm, TV2.
Keanu Reeves drama about a gambler-cum-scalper who reluctantly starts coaching a junior baseball team to get out of debt. Brian Robbins (Meet Dave, Norbit) directs this Dangerous Minds meets The Bad News Bears.

FOR RICHER OR POORER
1997, AO. 10.30pm, TV3.
You’ll be the poorer for investing time in this impoverished sharks-out-of-water comedy about New York socialites on the verge of divorce who hide out in an Amish community to duck tax fraud charges. Tim Allen and Kirstie Alley star.

Sunday, October 26

MONSTER-IN-LAW
2005, AO. 8.30pm, TV2.
Why would double-Oscar winner Jane Fonda choose a romantic-comedy this monstrous for her screen comeback? The former wife of CNN-founder Ted Turner plays a dumped talk show queen who tries to thwart the marriage of her son, a doctor (Michael Vartan), to an office temp-cum-dog walker (Jennifer Lopez). Think Mommie Dearest meets Bridezilla but with the kind of banter that makes every mother-in-law joke you’ve heard sound like an Oscar Wilde witticism.

COLORS
1988, AO. 8.30pm, C4.
Handsome, brutal, cynically predictable indictment of American law and order set against the backdrop of gang warfare. Caught in the middle are Robert Duvall and Sean Penn as odd-couple centurions: Duvall’s the blue knight vet who believes in peaceful arbitration, Penn the gung-ho greenhorn who thinks the only talk that counts comes from the barrel of a gun. The premise is cliched but Dennis Hopper’s unsensational direction makes for a restrained, thoughtful insight into a vexing social issue that also entertains as highly-charged drama.

SINGLE WHITE FEMALE
1992, AO. 10.30pm, TV2.
Swish New Yorker Bridget Fonda plays a self-made woman who ditches her philandering boyfriend (Steven Weber) and invites to be her flatmate a small-town girl (Jennifer Jason Leigh) who turns into the little sister from hell. Barbet Schroeder (Murder by Numbers, Reversal of Fortune) directs with suspenseful finesse, and while Single White Female rarely surprises, it intrigues and startles often enough to be a satisfying if overfamiliar thriller.

Monday, October 27

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 Hulk, Dare-Devil and 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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