High above the city of L.A. a team of terrorists has seized a building, taken hostages, and declared war. But one man has managed to escape detection...an off-duty cop. He's alone...tired...and the only chance anyone has. Bruce Willis stars as New York City Detective John McClane, newly arrived in Los Angeles to spend the Christmas holiday with his estranged wife (Bonnie Bedelia). But as McClane waits for his wife's office party to break up, terrorists seize control of the building.
After Sudden Impact, no one could have expected the Dirty Harry sequel to follow. But The Dead Pool is fairly inspired, even playful--check out a "chase" scene between Clint Eastwood's Harry Callahan character and a remote-controlled toy car wielding a bomb--and it ended the long-running series on an unexpectedly positive note. This time, Callahan investigates a series of murders that appears to be on a "death list," while becoming romantically involved with a television reporter (Patricia Clarkson).
Hong Kong wuxia films, or martial arts fantasies, traditionally squeeze poor acting, slapstick humor, and silly story lines between elaborate fight scenes in which characters can literally fly. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has no shortage of breathtaking battles, but it also has the dramatic soul of a Greek tragedy and the sweep of an epic romance. This is the work of director Ang Lee, who fell in love with movies while watching wuxia films as a youngster and made Crouching Tiger as a tribute to the form.
Hong Kong martial arts master Jet Li plays a bodyguard from the Beijing secret police, sent to Hong Kong to protect a beautiful young witness to a mob killing, played by Christy Chung. Li turns her home into a high-security prison, complete with video cameras surveying every room, even her bedroom. Furious, Chung resists his efforts to protect her--until the threat to her life is made abundantly clear in a spectacular shopping mall shootout. As is natural under such circumstances, romance begins to bloom, much to the dismay of Chung's lawyer boyfriend, who hired Li in the first place.
Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle is a big, fun, bubble-brained mess of a movie, and that's exactly as it should be. Its popular 2000 predecessor got the formula right: gorgeous babes, throwaway plots, and as many current pop-cultural trends as you could stuff into a candy-coated dollop of Hollywood mayhem. This sequel goes one "better": The plot's even more disposable (if that's possible), the babes, cars, and fashions even more outlandish, and the stuntwork (heavily digital, heavily absurd) reaches astonishing heights of cartoon silliness.
For every TV-into-movie success like The Fugitive, there are dozens of uninspired films like The Mod Squad. Happily--and surprisingly--this breezy update of the seminal '70s jiggle show falls into the first category, with Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore (who also produced), and Lucy Liu starring as the hair-tossing, fashion-setting, kung fu-fighting trio employed by the mysterious Charlie (voiced by the original Charlie, John Forsythe). When a high-tech programmer (Sam Rockwell) is kidnapped, the angels seek out the suspects, with the daffy Bosley (Bill Murray in a casting coup) in tow.
Directed by and starring Jackie Chan, and set in 1930s Hong Kong, Miracles (alternate titles include "Miracles: The Canton Godfather", "Kei Zik" and "Black Dragon") is a gangster film that is equal parts comedy and action film, with a touch of melodrama thrown in for good measure. Chan stars as a young man who rescues a dying crime boss in 1930s Hong Kong. When the boss passes away, he is tapped to become the new leader. He attributes his good luck to an old rose seller and the roses he buys off of her.
You know that old dramatic principle of suspension of disbelief? You'll have to rely on it for this box-office smash, but you won't be disappointed. Harrison Ford plays a U.S. president who single-handedly employs his rigid antiterrorism policy when a band of Russian thugs hatch a mid-flight takeover of Air Force One. Gary Oldman, who chews the scenery as the lead terrorist, will shoot a hostage at the slightest provocation. Glenn Close plays the sternly pragmatic vice president who negotiates with Oldman from her Washington seat of power.
