The 40 Year-Old Virgin- ****

God bless Steve Carrell.

In the past year he’s given us three great characters- Brick in Anchorman, Michael Scott in the American remake of "The Office," and now Andy Stitzer, the 40 year-old virgin. He specializes in playing stupid, yet hilariously smart, characters, and I’m hoping more people will follow his lead. Then maybe we will not have to be force fed any more lame, sophomoric comedies like Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo.

This is a sex comedy (of sorts), so we know what we're getting into. Andy is a sweet loser who loves to collect toys and play video games. When it comes out that he’s a virgin, his fellow coworkers David (Paul Rudd), Jay (Romany Malco) and Cal (Seth Rogan) decide to make it their mission to get him laid. Cue wacky hyjinks. Andy also meets Trish (Catherine Keener), who he really likes but is afraid to make a move on, especially considering the advice he’s getting from his pals.

Oh, and his pals… I have officially decided that Paul Rudd is a comedic genius. After Wet Hot American Summer, Anchorman, and now this, I believe there’s nothing he can’t do. Malco and Rogan round out the foursome, and at first I was a little dismayed because I didn’t recognize them. But like in Anchorman, they create a foursome that works perfectly together and on their own. There’s never a weak link, and each character is developed enough that you even start wanting to see them succeed. There are many great cameos, too, which I won’t spoil because half the fun is seeing them pop up when they do.

I was also happy to see that the obligatory “sad part” was short, quick, and never really stopped being funny. Unlike this summer's other big comedy, Wedding Crashers, which spent its last third mired in dramatic nonsense, the script by Steve Carrell and director Judd Apatow keeps the energy and humor level, and only dwells in drama long enough to get us to another funny scene. The script also gives us four very distinct people who never break character, even in the silliest parts of the movie. Andy himself is never made an object of ridicule. Like last year’s Napoleon Dynamite, he’s a lovable loser, and that makes you root for him all the more. The movie also makes good use of its R rating, never having to delve into gross out territory for a laugh (like American Pie and all of its shoddy sequels/rip-offs), but putting what raunchiness it has to good use.

That’s not to say the movie is entirely perfect, it’s a bit overlong, and I would like to see a comedy that can sustain itself without going to the obligatory sad part, but I got over these quibbles very quickly. It makes me unbelievably happy to see that comedies are moving away from the one-funny-scene-movies that have gained popularity since the end of the 90s, and turning into very funny, consistent movies. Yes, this is a comedy, and a silly one at that, but it shows that if you take some time with your script and your characters, the result is funnier, more involving, and definitely worth the admission price.

Or, if that’s too hard, I guess you could go see Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo. But really…does anyone really WANT to do that?

Fantastic 4- *

Now, I expected this to be bad. I really did, but I thought bad in a fun way. Boy, was I wrong. Fantastic 4, rather than follow in the footsteps of recent, well done superhero movies like Batman Begins and X Men, decides it’s better off following in the footsteps of crap like Daredevil and Elektra. So, fair warning.

The plot is relatively simple. Two scientists, Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) and Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis) have cut a deal with a former enemy, the rather obviously named Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon). Although, I know of a guy with the last name Kilbride, and someone still married him… Anyway, Von Doom will fund their research into cosmic storms if he gets a large share of the profits. Also joining them for the trip into a cosmic storm is Reed’s former flame, Sue Storm (Jesica Alba), and her 100% idiot brother, Johnny (Chris Evans), who is probably the most annoying character since Jar Jar Binks. Of course things go wrong, and they are all affected by the storm, gaining superpowers. Reed becomes stretchy like Gumby. Sue can become invisible and throw up plasma shields. Johnny gets the ability to light himself on fire. Ben Grimm turns into a hulking mass of rock called The Thing. Von Doom, of course, becomes evil, and turns into metal. The rest of the movie deals with Von Doom’s attempts to kill the other four, while the other four try to find a way to reverse the powers. With the exception of Johnny, who is into extreme sports and loves ever second of it.

So, all said, I am having a hard time coming up with anything worthwhile about this movie at all. The undercurrent of romance between Reed and Sue is pointless (only topped by the moronic romance between The Thing and a blind woman). Just because you try to include character development doesn’t mean it works. You pretty much want to kill Johnny the second he shows up on screen, and he only gets worse from there. The other characters are like pale imitations of better movies, running through the watered down superhero clichés until at the end they become a team and everything’s okay. The acting, with the exception of Michael Chiklis (and he barely has anything to do), is sub-par all-around. Well, I have to give Chris Evans something, because even though I hated his character with all my heart, he was the only other character I gave a damn about, even if it was utter hatred. His character never seems concerned about suddenly being able to create fire (in fact, all the characters seem to get used to their strange powers very quickly), and he spends the movie mostly just being obnoxious. His worst scene is when they stop the movie to have an extreme sports montage. Although, I give them credit more putting the product placement in one scene and just panning down a wall of ads.

This reminds me more of a clichéd exploitation movie than anything else. We have our mandatory scenes of Jessica Alba stripping down for no reason at all (of course only to PG-13 rated underwear). We have the new, strange trait of having the big action scene in the middle, and ending with an anticlimactic, stupid battle. And the big action scene? Again, another highway scene with cars flying about. Don’t get me wrong, I do love highway action scenes and cars flying about. But just because it worked in The Matrix Reloaded and Bad Boys II doesn’t mean it works all the time. And why does all of NY suddenly love the Fantastic 4 (shades of the incredibly stupid end of Spider-Man), when the Fantastic 4 is the REASON there was a huge pile-up of cars on the bridge to begin with?

I guess I could go on all day complaining about this movie, but I can sum it up pretty easy: it sucks. It just plain sucks. There’s not enough action for an action movie, not enough drama for a drama movie, and what they try to pass off as both is just miserable. This is the kind of movie studios normally release in February, and has no business occupying the same theaters as the much superior Batman Begins. Avoid at all costs.

The Island- **1/2

The Island is this year’s I, Robot, only much, much lazier. It’s a movie with an interesting idea, but two very conflicting ways of dealing with it. Rather than suck it up, pick one, and make the movie, they took the lazy way and tried to do both, with extremely mixed results. This is confused movie, with no center, and it tries to cover this up with blustery action and pretty costars. Sadly, it doesn’t work.

The Island starts out in a facility for the survivors of a world “contamination.” It is a calm, sterile world, where the people are given mundane jobs and are allowed almost no contact with the opposite sex. Their only hope is to win the lottery, which sends one lucky inhabitant to The Island, the last uncontaminated place on Earth. One particular inhabitant, Lincoln Six Echo (Ewen MacGregor) begins to question his world, and soon discovers the secret: they are actually clones of rich people, created so the rich people can use them to harvest organs when needed. Of course, this movie is directed by Michael Bay, and this plot doesn’t lend itself to explosions, so something must be done. Lincoln Six Echo escapes with Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson) in tow, and suddenly there are several guns and explosions. I’m assuming this is supposed to be a plot twist, but like most movies that come out now, the plot twists are given away in the previews, so I find myself wondering why they bother even pretending.

I used to like Michael Bay movies, simple things like The Rock, full of manly pomp and bluster and fights and guns. But it’s movies like this where he tries to do too much where he fails (Pearl Harbor anyone?). The large action scenes, specifically in the middle (which seems to be a very strange turn moves are taking now- putting the huge action scenes in the middle and ending with a lame climax), seem completely out of place. Do they need to fall from a skyscraper on a giant letter R? No, especially since the writers didn’t bother to write a creative or even vaguely believable way out of it. Do they need to have the highway chase? No, especially when it’s nearly the same exact scene as in Bay’s earlier Bad Boys II. Even the addition of the flying motorcycles doesn’t seem to raise the bar. All it does is make me wonder why everyone is still driving cars if there are flying motorcycles available.

So the sci-fi bits are just dull, and the action bits are unexciting, so what are we left with? Well, there’s the merciless product placement (the worst offence being Scarlett Johansson standing on the street watching the Calvin Klein ads from a few years back that feature Scarlett Johansson. It’s the most obnoxious bit of smug winking-to-the-audience since Julia Roberts in Ocean’s Twelve). There’s Ewen MacGregor’s spotty American accent. There’s Scarlett Johansson’s rather odd-looking lips, which seems to have gotten larger and strangely flatter since Lost in Translation. On the upside, there’s Djimon Hounsou, who’s always fun to watch. But Sean Bean is again predictably cast as the predictable bad guy with the predictable bad guy name of Merrick. Will someone please give Sean Bean a decent role for God’s sake?

I know this is a pretty scathing review for two and a half stars, but I do have to admit I can’t even really hate it for being bad, because it very well could’ve been Armageddon. But I do hate it for being mediocre. I hate it for having the pretense of being something interesting, but being so unwilling to do anything at all interesting at all. I hate it because it wasn’t a movie, but a 127 minute advertisement for Clavin Klein, Aquafina, Chrysler, Michelob, MSN, Adidas, Puma and any others I may have forgot. I hate it mostly because they didn’t try. This is the laziest movie I’ve seen in a while, and I saw Fantastic 4. I think the fact it’s flopping at the box office should prove that. Maybe the producers, instead of setting up website devoted to passing all the blame to the actors, should actually watch their crappy movie and learn from their mistakes. But somehow, I doubt that.

Broken Flowers S- **1/2 B- ****1/2

Sarai:
This movie starts with an interesting premise, what happens when a former "ladies man" discovers through an unsigned letter that he has a son from a relationship 20 years ago? What follows is not so much about the discovery of the son, but more about the discovery of the man himself (Don Johnston), deftly played by an always funny Bill Murray.

The Journey this film takes us on is full of memorable, sometimes outlandish, characters that ultimately gives Don a better look at his own life. Murray's straight faced, understated humor is a perfect match for the film and works well. The story, however, is ultimately unsatisfying and in the end you're not as impressed by the journey because you actually wanted a decent ending to the movie. Sorry, you don't get one in this movie, you get a fade to black then credits.

The pacing of the film is rather slow and there are entire scenes that seem to have little to no point at all. For example, in one scene we are left staring at Bill Murray's back as he watches traffic for about 2 minutes. I found myself wondering if the director was doing these types of scenes to give people a chance to reflect on the characters or if we were supposed to be gleaning some insight from Murray's ass?
It's an interesting premise with some good acting, but overall it's an oddly put together journey that leaves you wondering why you spent your cash on this. Wait for video

Brandon:
The entire time I was watching this movie, I had a very rude old lady next to me commenting on how much she hated it. Apparently it escaped her that maybe some people DID enjoy the movie. But that’s the danger of something like this. Everyone was so enamored with Lost in Translation that they just assume Bill Murray’s next movie is going to be Lost in Translation. I think that’s funny, because truly great actors and directors will not do the same thing every time out, and that’s something American audiences have a hard time with.

Broken Flowers follows Don Johnston (Bill Murray) as he is attempting, rather half-heartedly, to track down an anonymous woman who may be the mother of a son, who may or may not exist. After being dumped by the latest in a long line of girlfriends, Johnston receives a mysterious, unsigned letter. His mystery-obsessed next door neighbor, Winston (a hilarious Jeffrey Wright), takes the case on and sends the reluctant Johnston across the country, trying to track down the women who fall into the general time period the son could have been born.

I don’t really love or hate the director Jim Jarmusch. I’ve seen a couple of his movies, and I’ve generally liked them, but this is easily the best I’ve seen. While the story still moves at a Jarmusch pace, it is never boring. The movie is constantly giving us new characters which we only see for a woefully short time, and new situations, which we keep hoping will clue us in a bit more. There is a mystery in the plot, but it’s not the mystery of the movie. It’s almost as if there are two movies going on, the one you think you’re watching, and the one that slowly bubbles up to the surface as the movie unfolds. This is one of the best written, most carefully thought-out movies I’ve seen in a long time (although, the movie I saw immediately before, The Island, was one of the laziest movies I’ve ever seen and maybe my brain was just excited to be used again).

And of course, there’s Bill Murray, who is proving himself to be one of the best actors out there. He may look like he’s repeating himself, but Don Johnston has none of the humor that Lost in Translation’s Bob Harris had, none of the ability to joke about the world around him. Johnston can barely even speak to anyone. The best and most touching scene is the one where he visits the grave of an ex. It’s quiet, with almost no dialogue, but Murray carries the scene so well you don’t even notice. It’s a great scene that shows as much about the character as it does about Murray’s ability.

I could go on a bit about the past girlfriends, but we can suffice it to say that each own is different and distinct in and of themselves. The actresses all do perfect jobs, and the differing reactions to seeing Johnston again is great. I particularly liked Sharon Stone and Frances Conroy. The two women they portrayed were as different as possible, but the conclusion reached by both was interesting. And they helped to delve into one of the unexplained mysteries of the film- why do Johnston’s relationships fall apart so easily? And why do women go for him in the first place? We see glimpses of the answer in the graveyard scene, and in a scene where Johnston buys flowers and half-heartedly flirts with the young cashier.

Many people will be upset with the ending, and the movie in general, but this is Jarmusch and answers will not come easily. Having seen and pondered on the movie, I feel like there is nothing in it that is out of place. There are still pieces I haven’t put together in my head, but part of the fun is dwelling on these moments, trying to figure out exactly what Jarmusch is saying and why it’s there. True, this isn’t a movie for everyone, with its slow pacing and sometimes painfully realistic situations (the awkwardness of a dinner with an ex and her husband is so piercing I found myself squirming in my seat). But those who can fall into its rhythm will find themselves very well rewarded.