The Rock’s breakout performance was in the prequel to The Mummy, entitled The Scorpion King, where he reprised his role of the title character originally established in The Mummy Returns. Next up was last year’s The Rundown, and while the story was nothing to get excited about, it was the professional wrestler’s onscreen charisma with Seann William Scott that gave the film such an edge. Now the Rock is starring in MGM’s update to Walking Tall, a story of a man who returns home from the service to find his small, quaint town tainted with corruption, and just like the films before it, The Rock manages to save a film from mediocrity by simply appearing on screen.

The Rock (aka Dwayne Johnson) is Chris Vaughn, an Army vet who returns home after leaving the service to get reacquainted with his old life, visit old friends, and resume the life he had before leaving. It seems as though things have changed, and the town he remembers has also changed quite a bit. The economy supporting mill has been replaced by a seedy casino, and small mom and pop shops have been forced out by adult bookstores and major chains. Even without the story itself, you can see the film as a notice that small time shops and businesses are being forced out by the powering hands of Wal-Mart and Home Depot.

Chris, after viewing most of these changes first hand, settles in with his parents, and meets up with his old friend Ray (Johnny Knoxville), who just spent a few years in lockdown, and Jay (Neal McDonough), who closed the mill and opened the town’s casino. Chris soon learns of some of the sordid dealings going down at the casino, and after calling foul, and beating a few guards down, he is finally subdued and “punished.” After his nephew overdoses on crystal meth, which he received from the guys at the casino, Chris goes to town with a big piece of wood and a lot of anger. Eventually, Chris will be elected as the new sheriff, much to the distress of Jay, and now his life, and that of his families is in danger.

The film itself has one glaring problem; it’s only 75 minutes long, which makes it feel much shorter than it actually is. The flow of the film never is broken up with either action or story keeping the narrative from drifting too far off course, but the film really lacks a second act. We go right from Chris coming back to town, almost immediately to him becoming sheriff, having one “battle,” and then the film ends, seemingly with the standard happy, Hollywood ending, even though it is based on true story.

As I stated before the film is carried mostly by The Rock, and in part by Johnny Knoxville’s comedic timing. As he did with Seann William Scott previously, The Rock shows the ability to be teamed up with just about anyone, and bring the film alive with the interaction between the characters. The characters themselves get about as much developing as they could in such a short film, and occasionally standard Hollywood clichés pop-up to keep you grounded, and from getting too much into the film.

Even if it only came up short by 15 minutes from being traditionally considered “feature film length,” Walking Tall seems almost like half the film is missing, but maybe director Kevin Bray kept us from having to sift through 15 minutes of filler material before we get to the ass-kicking. Sure the film has its problems, and even though it is based on a true story, you still get the Hollywood glazed-over feel from it, like maybe too much liberty was taken in adapting the film to the screen, again, but with get performances from The Rock and Johnny Knoxville you will still leave happy, and, hopefully, walking tall.

With the recent trend in Hollywood to recreate and remake old movies, many holding a significant nostalgic experience for moviegoers, it seems that maybe studios have run out of new ideas for movies. So far this year we are already being treated to a re-envisioning of Dawn of the Dead and a remake of Walking Tall, and we aren’t even out of March yet. Yet, while New Line’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre update disappointed many fans of the original film, fans of Dawn of the Dead should be very happy with Universal’s update to the cult classic.

For those who have never seen the original film, you will be treated to an energetic, fast-paced zombie infested ride that never seems to let you go. Those that have seen the original will see an energetic, fast-paced update to the zombie infested classic that builds upon the strong points of George A. Romero’s classic, while adding a few of its own. Taking a cue from 28 Days Later, Dawn of the Dead brings in zombies who are not the stumbling, mindless bodies of our neighbors reanimated for an unknown reason; zombies now have super-human strength and the ability to run our heroes down.

Even before the opening credits flash on screen in smears of blood you know this film isn’t going to dilly around, something that hampered the original film with lots of downtime in between bouts of action. When Ana’s (Sarah Polley) husband is attacked by a neighbor girl in their bedroom, he is only down for less than a minute before he stands back up and has a thirst for blood and a hunger for flesh. Ana is able to escape and meets up with Kenneth (Ving Rhames). Together, with a few other survivors they seek refuge in a shopping mall. Whereas the original took nearly half the film to reach the mall, our updated characters reach it in nearly 15 minutes and then the fun begins.

Romero’s original version of the film was a stab against consumerism, but the updated version of the film drops this not-too-subtle metaphor in place of raw emotion and action. Adding into the mix is the feeling that humans worst enemy is other humans, something already established with the aforementioned 28 Days Later. Even without the deep meaning to the piece, Dawn of the Dead excels in every aspect of film making. It gives us characters that aren’t fully realized, but not completely 2D, it gives us internal and external conflicts, it gives us gore, it gives us love, and it gives us sacrifice and redemption. Everything you are looking for in a non-award-fishing film is presented wholly in this movie.

Fans of the original will find nods to the classic. The chopper, used as the primary mode of transportation in the original, makes a cameo appearance in the beginning of the film. Several of the stores at the shopping mall have been renamed for members of the original cast. For instance, during the first wide-angle shot of the mall a department store called Gaylen Ross can be seen, she is the actress who played Fran. The B.P. Trucking Company is back in the update as well as actors Ken Foree and Scott H. Reiniger in cameos along with the original’s make-up artist, Tom Savini. Luckily, the motorcycle gang does not return this time.

There are some problems here and there with the film. In the beginning the beginnings of a storyline are presented when a character suffers an injury and then falls into contaminated water, but the affects of this happenstance never come to fruition in the film. Also, while the film does contain a very high body count, the extreme gore of the original is not present here. Those looking for a screwdriver in the ear will have to look elsewhere.

Dawn of the Dead is one of the few films that can boast they are just as good, if not better, than the original film they were crafted from. Fans of the original may be a bit disenchanted by the thematic liberty taken by new comer Zack Snyder in the director’s chair, but as different as the film is from the cult classic that spawned it, Dawn of the Dead rises to the occasion.

The film isn’t necessarily bad, but it isn’t really that good either. One of the most uncomfortable portions of the film is a trip to a nude beach filled with only those possessing the Y chromosome, and director Jeff Schaffer decides that this would be the best time for a long, overdrawn wide angle shot with nearly 50 guys standing, staring precariously into the camera fully nude. To add insult to injury, Schaffer then decides it would be hilarious for these guys to chase after our heroes, still fully nude, and give us a front row seat to the sausage-fest. Adding together all the movies I have ever seen, and combining them all, I never seen so much full frontal nudity and it couldn’t be any more disturbing.

To make up for the situation there is a healthy amount of female nudity, and not bad nudity at that. In fact, I would go so far as to say Eurotrip has the most nudity, ever, in a film released in the United States that I have seen. For the most part, though, this serves no purpose to the plot other than shock value and bringing one man’s dreams to the big screen.

Eurotrip is just a mindless, spring film to hold us over to the big guns start firing this summer, or what we believe to be big guns. The film does have some funny moments, and the song sung in the beginning about Scotty not knowing about his girlfriend’s infidelity is really catchy, but when you walk out of the film, at the end, hopefully, you won’t remember much of what you have just seen. You’re better off popping in the Old School or Road Trip DVDs and seeing some good laughs and leave Eurotrip to the pre-pubescent teens how think a batch of naked guys running on a beach is gut-busting funny.

Director Todd Phillips is really enjoying himself on the director’s A-list, and he has ever right to be there. His three films have grossed hundreds of millions of dollars and become staples of college life. Road Trip introduced to us a break from the standard college teen comedy; Old School put us back into a college setting in our mid-thirties, and now Starsky & Hutch re-envisions the 1970’s television show for a new generation full of campy stunts and great personality.

Starsky & Hutch (TV) ran for 88 episodes in the 1970s in a decade that was known for putting out some zany television shows. The pairing of a by-the-book cop and one who takes things now quite as seriously isn’t a new concept in Hollywood, in fact, you could say the idea has been beaten into the ground more times than you can count, but for Starsky & Hutch the formula is fresh with an excellent screenplay and enough jokes to get you through the films 90 minute running time.

David Starsky (Ben Stiller) is the aforementioned by-the-book kind of guy who is out to catch the bad guys, shows up to work on time, and never does errands while on city time. Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson (Owen Wilson) is the exact polar opposite of Starsky, so it is only natural that they would become partners in this wacky world of fighting crime. Along for the ride is Snoop Dogg’s wondrous portrayal of Huggy Bear, one of Hutch’s most valuable informants. To say that Snoop steals the movie would be an understatement. He steals every scene that he is in, which is refreshing after such disappointments as Bones.

The antagonist this time around is Old School alumni Vince Vaughn playing Reese Feldman and arrogant drug cartel kingpin who has a short temper and a ditsy mistress (Juliette Lewis). Starsky and Hutch soon learn of Feldman’s goal in selling cocaine that cannot be detected by dogs, and tastes strangely like sugar, as one of the film’s funnier moment’s points out. After the disappointment of Club Dread, Starsky & Hutch was a welcomed change.

Phillips doesn’t want this film to be a parody or a spoof of the original series, rather a re-envisioning of the show and that is precisely what it is, but we aren’t to forget the film’s roots. The film is shot in a distinctive 70s style with wide angle shots from across the street that zoom in on a pair having a conversation to the way some of the scenes are cut together. Even the stunts scream 1970s with flying cars and big shoot outs in the streets of Bay City. The retro feel to the film only stimulates the nostalgia felt throughout, even for non-fans of the series. I’m willing to bet an equal number of patrons bought tickets to see this film based on Phillips name attached to it as those that bought tickets based on the franchise name. Also the headlining pair of Stiller and Wilson couldn’t have hurt.

The film is not without some problems. There is a general lack of story throughout, and what is present is laced relatively thin. The screenplay is very strong, and as mentioned before, the direction is top notch by Phillips. The 1970s overacting by Stiller and Wilson is just what you would expect from the duo, which could be a problem in itself. The dynamic pair virtually play the very same characters they play in every film, and now Wilson has been paired up with just about everyone in the industry, there aren’t too many people left besides Chris Tucker who has mysteriously disappeared since Rush Hour 2. Still, even with the basic plot and devices to progress it along, Starsky and Hutch is a fun and enjoyable film that rightfully opens the door for a franchise to bloom.

Let me preface this review by saying that I have never seen Get Shorty in any form, edited or not, so my experiences with Be Cool are holding it up to the light as a stand alone film. Be Cool, from The Italian Job directory F. Gary Gray, is a tricky film to review in its own right. The film, hosting a cast of characters only second to Ocean’s Twelve, can be confusing at times, funny at others, and still rather boring through its runtime. Like a giant wheel, each scene could land on any one of the three, and that’s why you’ll, more than likely be disappointed in the end.

The film reintroduces us to Chili Palmer (John Travolta), the hit man turned movie producer is looking for a new business to get in to. When his friend, Tommy (James Woods), is gunned down by a toupee wearing Russian, Chili steps in to help Tommy’s wife run her record label. Fortunately for us, Tommy’s wife, Edie, is played by the beautiful Uma Thurman. Through the course of the movie we’ll meet an eclectic cast of misfits including Sin (Cedric The Entertainer), Raji (Vince Vaughn), and the scene-stealing Elliot (The Rock).

Be Cool manages to bring together the large cast in inventive ways, although the script doesn’t stretch things too far. Everyone has some part in the record business. Raji, who works for record-mogul Nick Carr (Harvey Keitel) is a white guy who talks like he’s black, although not really. Vaughn’s performance is commendable, he’s just must more likable when he plays characters more like him (see: Dodgeball and the upcoming Wedding Crashers). For the most part each character is playing someone we’ve seen before, Cedric The Entertainer is Cedric The Entertainer, Uma Thurman is Uma Thurman, etc.

The two stand out performances come from The Rock as the flamboyantly gay bodyguard Elliot and Andre Benjamin (one half of the hip-hop group Outkast) as Dabu. Both are given the majority of this limp-movie’s funny lines and/or bits, and make up for about half the ticket price. It’s just too bad the other half isn’t made up somewhere as well. The Rock succeeds in this film simply because he can play the part and has the charisma and class to not only make fun of his character, but make fun of his real-life self in the process. As the list of film’s the ex-wrestler has been in grows, it becomes more and more apparent just how well he can act, and how well liked he is in Hollywood. While it’s hard to say this about any wrestler, The Rock has made the jump to cinema successfully and is posed to take over the action-star reigns.

Yet, I digress…

While I normally hate to see singers cross over to film, as it usually brings laughable results, Andre 3000 does a decent job in the film, while I’m not going to be buying any Outkast CDs, or waiting for his first top-billed movie, the performers first film outing raises the bar a bit for anyone else looking forward to movie work.

Overall Be Cool is a film of missed opportunities. From the very beginning I had high hopes when Chili and Tommy started taking stabs at the film industry as a whole pointing out the clichés and well-known-facts, but after half of the first act had passed, we loose this funny satire to make way for the cliché. The only memorable moments are when Chili manages to stay cool through it all and pull a fast one on everyone else trying to kill him. If you didn’t know, John Travolta has still got it, and is as cool as ever, when he wants to be. One of the biggest missed opportunities is the dance scene between Thurman and Travolta in which everyone was waiting for a small recreation of the infamous dance scene from Pulp Fiction, instead of throwing the audience any morsel of homage, we get nothing. It’s not every year we get to see Uma and John paired up again and to waste this screen time was annoying.

I found it hard to enjoy parts of the film because it seemed to really drag on with very little of a coherent story to follow. While there are some very entertaining parts, many of them mentioned in this review, there just isn’t enough to bring the entire movie out of the range of mediocrity. Fans of Get Shorty many find something to like, but anyone who hasn’t seen the previous installment is better off waiting for the rental.

I had to buy myself a thesaurus for this review to think of as many different ways to say how disappointed I am with this film: let down, dissatisfied, disenchanted, and saddened. Those should get me by for a little while. Broken Lizard’s Super Troopers wasn’t an all out laugh-fest and it didn’t differ too much from the beaten path of past films, but it had funny moments, a testament to the writing ability of the Broken Lizard troupe. Yet, after watching Club Dread I may be ready to take back all the nice things I said about their first film.

I was eagerly awaiting the release of Club Dread mainly because I enjoyed Super Troopers so very much, and while the film makes an honest effort to spoof the horror genre it can’t compare to mastery works like Scary Movie and Scream. For those who can’t believe I called Scary Movie a mastery work, I just did. Club Dread plays with the clichés that we find in all horror movies, but when old-school films such as Freddy vs. Jason begin to make fun of themselves, do we really need poorly conceived spoof films to make fun of work that is already being parodied by its progenitors?

Club Dread takes place on a tropical island where the drinks flow freely and there are not strings attached. Coconut Pete (Bill Paxton) runs this swanky island paradise with the money he earned making hilarious sounding records referring to many things people would do on brain-altering drugs. When someone begins picking off resort workers (no doubt a throwback to the killing of camp counselors in Friday the 13^th), our fearless crew must stay alive until a boat comes to retrieve them and return them to safety. This isn’t award winning cinema, but it is still dangerously thin to get by with.

The biggest problem with the film is the general lack of laughs. There are only two times that a real gut-buster of a joke is told and when you don’t see them coming, they just aren’t that funny. Surprisingly the film tries to enter the drama realm, something Broken Lizard managed to do in Super Troopers, but stumbles here even with the added incentive that people may get naked and killed.

Naked and killed you say? For a comedy piece there is a surprising amount of gore and bloodshed with gruesome deaths being suffered by almost every member of the principle cast including stomachs sliced open, decapitations, and machetes impaled through the chest. While not containing the body count or gore of Freddy vs. Jason, it certainly raises the bar a bit for the comedy genre. As for the nudity, the film has an ample amount of both male and female, depending on where your interests lie. Most notable of the birthday-suit baring is that of Cabin Fever‘s Jordan Ladd who shows us here gymnastic abilities in the comfort of a hotel room.

Without any laughs you are forced to look at the drama components of the film, but when the killer is finally revealed, and when the reason for his killing is explained the whole thing is suppose to be funny, yet it isn’t, which can be said for a majority of the film. There just isn’t that much that compels you to keep watching. You aren’t going to laugh, the film offers little to no suspense, and it isn’t the most heartwarming piece of cinema ever, so why keep watching? The only reason I can give you is the funniest moment of the film which lies at the very end. Aside form this parody of returning killers only the outtakes during the ending credits present you with any real laughs.

Unfortunately Club Dread was the first big disappointment of the new year, aside from the lackluster and completely average Along Came Polly. Those expecting the comedic timing and laughs of Super Troopers will be the most disappointed as we are forced to sit through nearly two hours of jokes that miss their mark and gags that don’t quite instill the uproarious laughter we were expecting. Here’s one more for the road: thwarted.

Since the debut of American Pie in 1999 the teenage-sex comedy has made a resounding comeback on movie screens, but the overflow of sequels, copy-cats, and parodies has left the genre in the same stagnate punch it was in at the end of the 1980s when such films were a dime a dozen. Now, 5 years since the original American Pie, and nearly 8 months after its successful, final, chapter FOX launches its latest entry into the crowded market in the form of The Girl Next Door, which may very well be the genre’s second wind.

The film is something different than the standard lose-your-virginity-on-prom-night-caper which has been so prevalent in the industry since we had our first slice of Pie. National Lampoon came back to life and delivered the uproarious Van Wilder, Sony decided to make fun of 20 years of these films with the mildly amusing Not Another Teen Movie, and DreamWorks put thirty-year-olds into the mix with the wholly original and entertaining, Old School.

Matthew (Emile Hursh) is the perfect student in school. He never ditches, he never misses class. While the football team is getting “service” from the cheerleaders he sits in his boring classes thinking about getting into Georgetown and working on the speech that will get him there. Everything is going fine for Matt until Danielle (Elisha Cuthbert) moves in next door, and everything changes. Danielle, you see, is a “retired” porn actress who is trying to escape the life. Before Matt knows about Danielle’s previous life she opens up new doors for him, getting him to take risks, but after he knows about her past their relationships falls apart. When Kelly (Timothy Olyphant), Danielle’s producer returns to take her back to her old ways, she sees no reason to stay in suburbia.

The film does some things amazingly well, and others not so much. There are a few moments during the movie when events happen, but they really don’t. It would seem that Matt has a very overactive imagination and plays out events in his mind, then when the action takes a screwball left turn, everything flashes back to show it was only in his imagination. The old saying, “Fool me once, fool me twice…” comes into play here. The film also suffers from somewhat of an identity crisis throughout. There are times when it is a straight up comedy, others where it blends the line between humor and drama, and still others where the needle is completely on the drama side of the spectrum.

Still, all of those aspects don’t detract from the fact that the parts that are suppose to be funny are, and the parts that are suppose to be heartwarming are as well. Even with a film that feels like it has three different endings, you are still rewarded with an excellent film that, while not radically different from everything else out there, delivers a unique experience that you haven’t seen in a good many years. The originality of portions of the script is keenly evident by the dead-on performances from the cast, including Matt’s two friends Eli (Chris Marquette) and Klitz (Paul Dano) who bring some of the movie’s funniest jokes alive.

The Girl Next Door may be inadvertently shunned because of its cliché-looking storyline and characters, but once you commit to viewing the film you find it to be a dose of originality in a decaying genre (a phrase I’m overusing way too much). Whether your intentions are to see the beautiful Elisha Cuthbert, or to laugh your ass off for two hours you will find that the movie delivers on these promises, and even more. This film is definitely one of the best comedies of the year so far, and I don’t see that changing any time soon, after all, she is a porn star.

The Butterfly Effect is much like Final Destination and Fight Club in the way that you will always find someone who likes the movie for what it is, maybe because it is a genre film, or maybe because the movie actually makes you think. For what ever the reason, those films stay in your mind as a fond memory of cinema where you could enjoy yourself for 120 minutes and not have to worry about the outside world. They also asked you to leave the theater with a thought in your head, the thought of what could really happen if such a situation presented itself. As with The Butterfly Effect, what if you could go back and change the way things happened? What if everything, and everyone, would have a better life if only one such thing changed?

The Butterfly Effect gets its name for Chaos Theory which states that a butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the world could cause a hurricane on the other. It’s those sorts of things that really make you think. Just like Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) in Jurassic Park, as he describes the theory, what expect to happen, actually never does.

This film centers on Evan (Ashton Kutcher) a college student with a seemingly normal life after a childhood filled with hardship. Through the first part of the film we are introduced to Evan and his friends Kayleigh (Amy Smart), Tommy (William Lee Scott), and Lenny (Elden Henson). Tommy is an abused, possibly molested, sibling to Kayleigh and very protective of his sister. As a child Evan experiences blackouts that inhibit him from remember the actions that led up to an event, and his actions after the fact. When his memories start to unfold in college he seeks his friends out to help him fill in the gaps. After talking with Kayleigh, and upsetting her, she kills herself and Evan vows to save her. Using his journals as guides he focuses in on the blackouts of a certain event and is transposed back in time to alter the event, but like Homer Simpson stepping on a bug in the past, these time travel exploits have vast repercussions on the future.

The film has more than one thing going for it. First off the story is not grade-A-quality, but it really makes you think at times, and intrigues you with the surprising results that Evan’s little changes make. At times you think his life has gotten better, in one instance he is a member of the frat he despises in the “real” world, but that life puts him in prison after brutally beating Tommy. The conflicts between the characters are portrayed excellently, with a special shout out to young rising star, Amy Smart.

The biggest story in the post-release press for The Butterfly Effect was the quality of Ashton Kutcher’s acting, and I, personally, don’t think he did a bad job in the film. Its hard to see him in any other role that a stoner (Dude, Where’s My Car?) or the dim-witted Kelso (That 70’s Show), but if you set aside any predetermining factors about the man, and his tabloid inspired news, you can actually see a young actor that, with some training, can become a worthy drama actor. His portrayal as the older Evan in this film isn’t worthy of any awards, but it shouldn’t dog him later in his career. It’s nice to see him branching out.

The special effects in the film are done fairly well. Most notable is the “time-warping” sequence that the audience sees whenever Evan travels in time. On part, towards the end of the film, may not look as good as a similar sequence in Forest Gump, but it does earn a passable rating.

The Butterfly Effect is sure to become a cult favorite, if not a mild box office hit. The film has all the makings of something great, but comes up a bit short in the story and directing departments. Luckily the story doesn’t leave any room open for a sequel, as that would defeat the purpose of such a film as this. Now if we could only go back in time and stop the Wachowski Brothers from ruining The Matrix franchise, everything would be hunky-dory.