hokeybutt

PIRANHA (3 outta 5 stars) If you are in the mood for a stupid movie but don't want to waste your time with total crap... then Piranha may be the movie for you. It is an early collaboration between director Joe Dante and writer John Sayles (who went on to much bigger and better movies) and, in spite of the obviously low budget, their talents shine through. The dialogue is much better than you tend to get in movies like this... even though the actual plot (government-bred fresh water piranha mistakenly get fed into the US river system) is quite silly. Bradford Dillman makes a good leading man... this is probably one of the best roles he ever had... a drunken recluse who rises to the challenge when his young daughter's life is threatened. The movie was obviously made to capitalize on the success of "Jaws" (just check out the original poster artwork) but it is by far the most entertaining of the countless rip-offs that came out after Spielberg's blockbuster. Even though the fish puppets are far from convincing there are some very gruesome special effects... it's very unnerving to see young children screaming in terror as the bloody water starts churning... you'd never see anything like this in a mainstream horror movie nowadays.

CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (3 outta 5 stars) A decent enough version of the classic children's story which was the basis for the beloved musical "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory." I didn't find this movie any better or worse than the original version... just different. Johnny Depp's bizarre performance as Willy Wonka is definitely the best thing about this movie... just as Gene Wilder was the best thing about the original "Wonka". I was a bit puzzled as to why they decided not to use the original songs from the first movie... but then they went ahead and created new songs for the Oompa-Loompas anyway... I guess it was cheaper to make up new songs than to pay the original composer for the rights to re-record them. I like the character of Charlie more in this new version that the annoying little goody-goody in the first movie... but I think I prefer Jack Albertson as the original grandpa. The storyline basically is the same as the earlier flick... except for the conclusion (I'm not sure which ending is closer to what was written in Roald Dahl's novel... I guess I'll have to read it one day). I was a bit dismayed by the fact that the greedy, nasty kids in this movie don't seem to learn a lesson from their harrowing experiences in the chocolate factory... they seem just as selfish and ill-mannered when they leave as when they arrived... you'd think a near-death experience would shake them up a bit more...

KING KONG (4 outta 5 stars) Of course this movie is not quite as good as the 1933 original movie... how could it possibly be? But for a remake of a certified film classic to be as good as this movie is... that's still a significant achievement. Sure, I could nitpick about little things here and there where this movie goes awry... I hated the fake CGI native pole-vaulting from rock to rock, I hated when they brought in the "celestial choir" to pump up emotion at the end when anyone who was going to be affected was *already* choked up, I hated when Naomi is climbing the ladder to get to Kong at the end and the ladders breaks away from the building... helloooooooo, does *every* ladder have to break in *every* movie whenever someone is climbing one... there was more than enough exciting stuff going on... did we really have to see Kong reach out and pull Naomi back to safety once again? These are all minor flaws, though... the bulk of the movie is truly awe-inspiring... some of the best CGI effects to date (and I am *really* picky about CGI), a decent script and better performances and characterizations than one tends to see in a "blockbuster" movie like this. The action on Skull Island might seem a little overdone at times (the brontosaurus stampede could probably have been cut without anyone feeling cheated) but the most exciting sequence for me was the most superfluous: Kong fighting off a bunch of hungry dinosaurs while tumbling through a thick tangle of jungle vines. Great stuff... much more fun than those dreary "Lord of the Rings" flicks.