Jennifer Garner glows like a rising star in 13 Going On 30, a girly version of the Tom Hanks classic Big. Jenna (Garner, Alias, Daredevil), a frustrated teenage girl, just wants to skip past all those annoying adolescent years and arrive at a glamorous adulthood--and thanks to some inexplicable wishing dust, she does.
Like Gattaca did before it, Code 46 extrapolates from the present to posit a chilling, dystopian look at our genetically regimented future. In the corporate-controlled, near-future scenario presented by prolific director Michael Winterbottom and his regular screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce, nations and languages have merged to form a polyglot society in which genetic imperfections are avoided by the strict enforcement of Code 46, which prohibits sex between people who share 100%, 50%, or even 25% matching DNA.
Ever dream of inheriting unlimited wealth? Simple Italian auto mechanic Guido Falcone (Terrence Hill) has just inherited a billion dollar financial empire from his late uncle. To claim it, he must arrive in San Francisco within twenty days. What could be simpler? But along the way Guido is kept hopping by a strange mix of allies and enemies as he travels by every mode of transportation imaginable.
A comic battle of wills and an outrageous test of endurance ensues when this trio is grudgingly assigned to keep vigil -- as unobtrusively as possible -- in a small, upscale resort community. Pretending to be an average American family on vacation, it's an unlikely domestic arrangement at best. But, like a typical family, they're stuck with one another.
Val Kilmer plays suave espionage hero Simon Templar--aka The Saint--and Elisabeth Shue costars in this atmospheric mix of bold adventure and grand romance. An array of sophisticated gadgetry is at Templar's command as he plunges into a cloak-and-dagger netherworld of move and countermove. Cool, too, is Templar's knack for coming up with the right disguise at theiright time. Now you see him. Now you don't... or do you? Each close-call escape is a breathless miracle--and no one knows miracles better than a saint.
A flashy, splashy summer-movie blockbuster that's fun and exciting without being mindless? That's the impossible mission accomplished by director Brian De Palma, star-coproducer Tom Cruise, and the crack team of Mission: Impossible.
They don't really make many romantic comedies like Notting Hill anymore--blissfully romantic, sincerely sweet, and not grounded in any reality whatsoever. Pure fairy tale, and with a huge debt to Roman Holiday, Notting Hill ponders what would happen if a beautiful, world-famous person were to suddenly drop into your life unannounced and promptly fall in love with you. That's the crux of the situation for William Thacker (Hugh Grant), who owns a travel bookshop in London's fashionable Notting Hill district.
As a baby, Ella (Anne Hathaway) receives a visit from Lucinda (Vivica A. Fox), her fairy godmother, and is bestowed with a magical talent that requires her to obey anything that she is told to do. This proves to be more of a curse than a blessing, particularly once her mother dies and she is forced to live with the cruel Dame Olga (Joanna Lumley). Eventually, Ella embarks on a journey to find Lucinda and break the spell, accompanied by the handsome Prince Charmont (Hugh Dancy).
The year is 1878, Lincoln County, John Tunstall, a British ranch owner, hires six rebellious boys as "regulators" to protect his ranch against the ruthless Santa Fe Ring. When Tunstall is killed in an ambush, the Regulators, led by the wild-tempered Billy the Kid (Estevez), declare war on the Ring. As their vendetta turns into a bloody rampage, they are branded outlaws, becoming the objects of the largest manhunt in the western history.
X2 does a fine job of picking up where X-Men left off, giving fans more of what they liked the first time around. Under the serious-minded custody of returning director Bryan Singer, the second film of this Marvel comics franchise ups the ante on Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and the superhero mutants from the first film, pitting them against a mutant-hating scientist (Brian Cox) who's determined to wipe out the mutant race by tricking Xavier into abusing his telepathic powers.
