Branagh Glad To Travel 'Road'
Shakespearean Actor Gets Animated In Interview; Movie Reviews Of 'Cast Away,' 'Miss Congeniality' And 'The Family Man,' Plus DVD Spotlight On 'Shaft'
While he's earned respect from his colleagues for years for bringing Shakespeare to life with his indelible stage and screen presence, actor Kenneth Branagh has also quietly carved out a fine reputation as an actor behind the screen.
Previously a narrator for several projects, he's now taken his vocal talents a step further by starring in an animated film, traveling a road that's taken him to "El Dorado."
In the new video,"The Road To El Dorado" (PG), Branagh stars with Kevin Kline as a pair of con men who follow a map to the lost city of gold. And while the film is predominantly a comedy, Branagh takes the whole business of animation very seriously. Respecting the years of meticulous handiwork that artists put into a film, Branagh didn't look at his vocal role as just a matter of reading lines to match up with the images, but as a chance to further inform his abilities as an actor.
"Being inside an animation process like 'El Dorado' over the course of four years introduces you to an understanding of other people's creativity," Branagh told me in a recent interview. "You also start to understand even more about your own voice, like when to be straight with it and when to be colorful with it. And unless you really engage into the material you're doing, you aren't making a proper contribution. You might as well be doing a robotic voice."
While he wasn't playing a role, per se, Branagh's rich narration added further depth to the recent BBC production "Walking With Dinosaurs," a Discovery Channel series that combined live-action shots and animatronics with groundbreaking computer animation. Having achieved success with both the series and "El Dorado," Branagh has had quite a memorable year.
"It's been a great treat," Branagh said. "'Walking With Dinosaurs' was an extraordinary, pioneering piece of television, and 'El Dorado' was delicious fun."
'Cast Away' (PG-13)
Forget about that TV show -- the peril faced by this "Cast Away" in the form of Tom Hanks is the real deal. Hanks stars as Chuck Noland, a diehard FedEx systems engineer whose life is literally run by the clock (the film screams the FedEx logo -- it'd be fun to learn how much they sank into product placement fees). But when one of the company's cargo planes on which he's riding crashes into the ocean, Noland suddenly finds himself the sole inhabitant of a deserted island with nothing but time, and the clock is ticking on his life. And while he finds the means to physically survive, his biggest journey still lies ahead of him, and it's not on the deserted island.
There's no question that the extraordinary success of "Forrest Gump" has afforded Hanks and director Robert Zemeckis the opportunity to take risks, of which they take full advantage with "Cast Away." After a brief introduction to the characters and a nightmarish plane crash scene, Zemeckis plants you alone with Hanks and only Hanks on the island for an hour and a half. There's no music or cutaway shots to search parties or loved ones on the mainland to manipulate your emotions -- only beautifully shot island vistas, the sounds of the waves, winds, storms and Noland's sanity (but not hope) slipping away. Essentially, Zemeckis is providing you the movie from your point of view, which effectively can't help but make you want to see Noland find a means to an end. It may not meet your standards of movie drama, but it is certainly satisfying from a humanistic standpoint.
As for Hanks, he displays his subtle acting brilliance once again with "Cast Away," and his effort to gain and lose an extraordinary amount of weight for the film makes the portrayal even more riveting. It's clearly his movie, which begs the question why somebody with the status of Helen Hunt was chosen for the pivotal role of Noland's wife. While she's a capable actor, she doesn't quite have the mettle in this instance to absorb herself into the character the way Hanks can, and it essentially makes her presence a distraction, albeit brief -- essentially, it's a thankless role that could have been played by a number of actors. --Tim Lammers
'Miss Congeniality' (PG-13)
Bullock, who also produced the film, shines as sarcastic and tomboyish FBI agent Gracie Hart, forced to go undercover as a Miss America pageant contestant in order to catch an infamous criminal. Former "Law and Order" star Benjamin Bratt plays a fellow agent, and as Hart, Bullock is delightfully nerdish, perpetually tripping over her clunky shoes, spilling food on herself and snorting as she laughs. But as the audience finds out, underneath the frizzy hair, thick-rimmed glasses and masculine clothes is a beautiful, graceful woman ready to flourish. Well ... a beautiful woman, anyway.
Bullock's scenes with co-star Michael Caine as a refined and snotty pageant consultant are the best in the film. Caine, faced with the near-impossible task of making Gracie glamorous, looks at her with disdain and has some pretty cunning comebacks to her sarcastic jabs. The most endearing part of this Pygmalionesque tale is that Gracie's change isn't totally unrealistic. While the jokes are plentiful, there are some sly and subtle observations about pageant life, including deliberate brownnosing in front of host Stan Field (William Shatner) and pageant head Kathy Morningside (Candice Bergen). Also, Bullock employs a more physical form of comedy in this film, and it works for her. It's hard not to smile when she emerges, sexy and confident, to her FBI cohorts, only to fall on her freshly waxed behind.
"Miss Congeniality" should mark Bullock's return to the kind of box office success that she experienced early in her career with "Speed" and "While You Were Sleeping." It might not win a "Best Picture" crown, but it's a contestant with class and style. --Suzanne Ellis
'The Family Man' (PG-13)
Nicolas Cage and Té Leoni are both affecting in this often funny romantic drama, about a big, bad, filthy-rich corporate Scrooge who makes the mistake of telling a magic spirit, "I have everything I need." The angel (Don Cheadle) takes that as his cue to teach Cage a lesson: The bachelor executive wakes up the next morning in a life that isn't his: wife, two kids, big slobbering dog, house in the New Jersey 'burbs. It's a fun device, and it has some great moments both comedic and full of emotion. But rather than build to a soaring climax -- the way that both "Wonderful Life" and "Christmas Carol" managed to do -- "The Family Man" just kind of putters along toward the end. As a holiday movie, it does the trick of putting that warm feeling in the pit of our stomachs -- we laugh, we cry, we get the point. But the all-too-predictable theme driving the movie -- a man does not live by riches alone -- sometimes makes this feel like a trifle that we've all eaten before. -- Joseph Ruttle
Also New In Theaters
Samuel L. Jackson stars not as new version of the original John Shaft (Richard Roundtree), but as his nephew -- looking to put away a racially motivated murderer (Christian Bale) with his own baaaad brand of justice. But as director John Singleton describes in the behind-the-scenes documentary on the disc, the new "Shaft," while presented with a contemporary feel, had to be reincarnated with three qualities associated with the original. The film had to feature a "leather coat," "great music" and "an actor who could talk a lot of mess" -- and he got all three and them some with Jackson (could you expect less from the "Pulp Fiction" icon?).
But what Singleton also got for the new "Shaft" are two vital elements of the original -- the original "bad mothers (shut your mouth!)," Roundtree and Isaac Hayes. Both substantially contribute to the film and are featured prominently in the DVD special features. There's interview and background footage aplenty, with observations of Jackson from Roundtree and great footage of a recording session with Hayes and a huge group of his fellow funksters updating the Oscar-winning original theme for the new film. We get to see the finished product, too, as the DVD includes the ultra-sleek music video that features Hayes in action, as well as scenes from the film.
Aside from the behind-the-scenes documentary, the disc features "Reflections on Shaft," featuring cast and crew interviews; the music video "Bad Man" from R. Kelly; and a widescreen presentation of the film. --Tim Lammers
Catch up with Tim on these recent @ The Movies interviews:
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New In Theaters This Week
If there was a competition for "Miss Congeniality" in Hollywood, Sandra Bullock would be a sure-fire contender. The affable actress, coming off a string of lackluster films, should return to the winner's podium with her latest comedy. "Miss Congeniality" is good-natured and fun to watch, with some really funny bits to boot. 
The recipe for this little modern fable about the importance of love and family is pretty simple, as is its message: Take a big helping of Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life," give it a twist, then add a dollop of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." Stir these ingredients into the slick setting of millennial New York City, and serve up warm and fuzzy. The result is the new holiday movie "The Family Man." 
Director Ang Lee combines martial arts with romance for the epic period drama "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (PG-13), starring Chow-Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh ... Horror film and "Scream" maestro Wes Craven gets back to some serious business with "Dracula 2000" (R), an update of the classic gothic tale starring Jonny Lee Miller, Omar Epps, Jeri Ryan and Christopher Plummer ... Famed playwright-screenwriter David Mamet assembles an impressive cast (Alec Baldwin, William H. Macy, Sarah Jessica Parker and Phillip Seymour Hoffman among them) under his direction for "State and Main" (R), in which a small community gives up its values for a taste of showbiz when a film production rolls into town. DVD Spotlight
'Shaft' (R) 
If you're wondering whether the iconic character "Shaft" still has the mettle to be a "bad mother" in the new millennium, then this bad (as in good, of course) DVD version of the hit film makes the bust (as in arresting, of course -- not as in failure).