mrchaos33

In a summer brimming with high flying angels and gravity defying archaeologists comes a movie designed to appeal to that most neglected segment of the movie-going population, adults. Nothing blows up and there isn't a flaming helicopter or open running wound anywhere in sight. In an attempt at counter programming Universal has scheduled Seabiscuit to go mano-e-mano against drunken Caribbean pirates, scantily clad adventurers and three dimensional spy kids, hoping to bring in the parents of the kids who have been dropping their allowance money at the box-office all season.

Who knows, it just might work. The last time I checked people over the age of fourteen enjoyed movies too.

Seabiscuit is the inspiring story of a horse who became an American folk hero during the depression years. Everything about this movie screams prestige, from the Academy Award winning cast to the narration by PBS regular David McCullough to the sumptuous art design. Hell, screenwriter / director Gary Ross even used to write speeches for President Clinton! The result is a predictable, but likeable movie that demands nothing more from you than to feel better when you leave the theatre than you did when you came in.

Based on a book of the same name by Laura Hillenbrand, Seabiscuit reintroduces us to one of the great sports stories from the early part of the last century. There was a time when everyone knew the story, he was so famous in fact that on one occasion hundreds of businesses closed for half a day so their employees could tune in to hear Seabiscuit race against Triple Crown winner War Admiral on the radio. These days, though, because Seabiscuit didn't endorse Nike or Pepsi, his story has been largely forgotten.

The film begins in the heady days before the stock market crash of 1929. Businessman Charles Howard (Jeff Bridges) made his fortune selling cars, and promoting his vision of `the future.' After the tragic death of his son, the future doesn't seem so bright anymore. Tom Smith (Chris Cooper) is an outsider, shunned by most horse professionals because he believes in healing, not killing wounded animals. At a head taller than any other jockey on the horse racing circuit, Red Pollard (Tobey McGuire) is considered a fringe player, but he loves horses and prefers this life to the alternatives – starving on the streets or getting the tar knocked out of him in underground boxing matches.

Seasbiscuit, an undersized horse of good breeding but little in the way of talent is the center around which each of these men revolve. Through hard work and care Seabiscuit is transformed from a candidate for the glue factory into a champion, and basking in the reflected glory are Howard, Smith and Pollard.

Seabiscuit picks up speed in the middle stretch, after a slow first hour. Much of the opening of the film feels like a history lesson, disrupting the flow of the story. Not that you could easily derail this story. Ross has played fast and loose with the facts – for example, Pollard was actually a mean drunk, not the nice guy presented here – cobbling together a story that sometimes feels like Chicken Soup for the Equine Soul.

Inspirational messages tumble from everyone's lips, as though pearls of wisdom flow from their mouths as easily as turning on a facet and watching the water coming pouring out. The script overuses several of these nuggets – ie: `Sometimes when the little guy doesn't know he's the little guy he can do big things…' – which only reinforces their corny sentiments.

If the dialogue seems stilted, the racing sequences certainly do not. Ross puts the viewer directly in the action in a series of beautifully realised shots that seem to be taken from the horse's point of view. In those days racing was a brutal sport where jockeys would punch and shove one another in mid-race. Seabiscuit does an admiral job of recreating the tension and aggression involved in the races with long shots that give the viewer the opportunity to follow the action without confusion.

In the end Seabiscuit is clichéd and predictable, but good work by Bridges, McGuire and Cooper coupled with the movie's indomitable spirit make it a pleasure that is hard to deny.

Anyone who saw Lara Croft: Tomb Raider will agree that it didn't make a great deal of sense. That apparently didn't matter to the people who flocked to the multi-plex to see Angelina Jolie run in slow motion and hang upside down while fighting bad guys. Enough people agreed that trifles like plot and believability were secondary to seeing Jolie battling a frantic robot that a sequel was commissioned.

I'm glad to report that Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life not only has one of the longest titles of the summer, but also has a story that almost makes sense! Not that we demand much from these movies. The story is simply a peg to hang Ms Jolie's bikini on while temples crash, motorcycles rev and people defy gravity, flying through the air as Lara Croft punches a shark. It's a popcorn movie, not Dostoyevsky, although at times this movie feels as long as a Russian novel. Here's the story as I remember it… Somewhere between diving in a skintight silver wetsuit and riding side-saddle on her English country estate archeologist Croft learns that a shining golden globe – which she had in her possession, then lost – is actually a map to the mysterious Cradle of Life where the famous Pandora's Box is said to be hidden. While wearing a natty kimono Croft learns that former Nobel Prize winner and `modern day Dr. Mengele' Jonathan Reiss has the orb and is close to uncovering its secret. She must don a skin-tight motorcycle jacket and find him, before he discovers the deadly secret of Pandora's Box and sells its poison to the highest bidder.

For support Lara entices an old flame named Gerrard (Terry Butler), currently doing time in a Siberian ultra-high security prison for crimes against the state. Looking fetching in a white fur trimmed winter coat she offers him freedom and a great deal of money to help her. Thus begins their whirlwind world tour of destruction as the dynamic duo travel to Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Africa in their attempt to recover the globe and unlock its secrets. Dutch director Jan de Bont (Speed, Twister) makes good use of the scenery – both Ms Jolie and the international locales – showcasing the beauty and the danger of each. A nicely staged gun battle involves inventive use of a neon sign and a pole vault to a helicopter; another scene shows the couple `flying' over the skyline of Shanghai. In both cases de Bont actually shows us the action. If Charlie's Angels director McG had shot those scenes we would have seen a glimpse of the helicopter blade, a quick cut of someone flying through the air and heard the whoosh of a bullet as it cut through the air. My major complaint with recent action sequences is that we don't actually get to see anything. It's all quick cuts and loud techno music. Jan de Bont avoids that trap, allowing the scenes to play out, and while sometimes they drag on a bit too long, at least we know what we are looking at.

Angelina Jolie plays Lara Croft like a Barbi doll come to life, batteries, but no heart included. She is powerful, sexy, agile, adventurous and no-nonsense (as Gerrard learns the hard way), but like the videogame character she is based on, doesn't seem to have anything going on under the pretty façade. Unlike that other famous cinematic archaeologist, the quirky Indiana Jones, there is no vulnerability to Croft at all.

Jolie's beautiful face is a blank slate, expressionless for most of the film with only the occasional arching of an eyebrow to remind us that a real person lives beneath her perfect skin. Perhaps in Lara Croft Tomb Raider 3: The Saga Continues In More Exotic Lands she will transcend her computer generated origins, and we'll get a glimpse of the real person behind that raised eyebrow.

Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life is like its name, a bit too long, and kind of silly, but a vast improvement on its predecessor.