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Bright Young Things
* * 1/2

If you are going to make a film that makes satirical sport of self-abosrbed youth and their relentless superficialty (not the most untimely subject in the era of Paris Hilton), wouldn’t you try to make sure that the film itself wasn’t silly and one-note as the attitudes being skewered in the first place? That is the central flaw of "Bright Young Things", a glib, ultimately shallow adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s satirical 1930 novel "Vile Bodies". In chronicling the misadventures of a group of spoiled kids-centering on the relationship between struggling writer Stephen Campbell Moore and party girl Emily Mortimer and how his financial situations affects her attitudes towards him-writer/director Stephen Fry hits a lot of the comedic notes perfectly and lets his enormous cast (including nifty cameos from the likes of John Mills, Richard E. Grant, Dan Aykroyd, Jim Broadbent and a hilarious Peter O’Toole) cut loose in an entertaining manner. The problem is that when the story takes its serious turn in the last 20 minutes, the juxtaposition of the somber tone with the glibness of the preceding 90 minutes is more jarring than affecting. A little better than a typical "Masterpiece Theatre" production, but not enough to warrant a recommendation to anyone other than Waugh completists.

Written and directed by Stephen Fry. Starring Stephen Campbell Moore, Emily Mortimer, Dany Aykroyd, Jim Broadbent, Imelda Staunton and Peter O’Toole

Like all of his other achievements as a director, George Lucas’s film debut, the 1971 paranoid sci-fi drama "THX-1138" has been given a digital swabbing and re-editing, complete with additional CGI-effects married into the original footage. Perhaps because the additions are, for the most part, relatively subtle (no computer-generated characters interacting with the real actors) and don’t alter famous scenes in fundamental ways (like that "Greedo Fired First" nonsense), this is probably the best of his reworkings. Of course, it might have something to do with the fact that the film, an Orwellian saga about a man (Robert Duvall) in a loveless, emotionless society who yearns to break free, is still one of his most intriguing works. The story (conceived by Lucas and co-writer Walter Murch, who also did the still-stunning sound design) is both predictable and perplexing but while the details are sometimes difficult to comprehend, the basic narrative drive never falls apart. A fascinating experiment in intellectual filmmaking from a man regularly accused of dumbing down the entire industry, "THX-1138" is a more-than-worthy first effort and while it would be nice to still have the original version around, this refurbishing is a more-than-worthy substitute.

Written by George Lucas & Walter Murch. Directed by George Lucas. Starring Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasance and Maggie McOmie.

With a half-hearted promotional campaign, low-level star power-her performance in "The Door in the Floor" notwithstanding, Kim Basinger, the top name here, has not exactly had the most sterling post-Oscar career-and a premise (from cult screenwriter Larry Cohen, who contributed the original story) that sounds like it has a plot hole large enough to sink it before it can get started, "Cellular" has the look and feel of a dog being dumped by a studio before popping up on video in a few weeks. Amazingly, the film is a genuine sleeper surprise-a nifty thriller that takes an outlandish premise-a slacker kid (Chris Evans) gets a frantic call on his cell phone from a kidnapped woman (Basinger) and has to keep her on the line while trying to save her and her family from their abductors (led by Jason Statham)-and manages to ingeniously stretch it out to an exciting 89 minutes. Although there is one gaping logical flaw right at the beginning (I won’t spoil it but it should be pretty obvious to anyone watching it), director David R. Ellis keeps things moving briskly as an astonishing, though generally logical, series of obstacles pop up to prevent Evans from saving the day. While Evans and Basinger serve the same purpose here that rats have in a maze, they both turn in credible performances amidst the chaos. Best of all is the turn by William H. Macy, who gets one of the biggest cliche roles of all-the harried cop on the verge of retirement-and invests it with a lot of humor. "Cellular" isn’t a masterpiece but it is an unusually effective bit of pop entertainment that is a lot better than the ads would have you believe.

Starring: Chris Evans, Kim Basinger, Jason Statham, Jessica Biel, Noah Emmerich. Directed by David R. Ellis. MPAA Rating is PG-13 (violence, terror situations, language and some sexual references). Distributed by New Line Cinema

Far worse than the ads would have you believe (a not-inconsiderable achievement if you have seen how bad those ads are), the Mel Gibson-produced vanity film "Paparazzi" is truly one of the silliest, tone-deaf films I have ever seen; a 90-minute rant about how terribly celebrities are treated and how they should be entitled to kill anyone who bothers them. Cole Hauser plays rising action star Bo Laramie (perhaps the silliest action-hero name since Dirk Pitt), whose battle of wills with a group of monstrous paparazzi (led by Tom Sizemore in a drooling, twitching performance that makes his work in "Natural Born Killers" seem quiet and refined by comparison) escalates when, in a scene tastelessly designed to resemble the death of Princess Di (and can it be a coincidence that the release was timed to coincide with the anniversary of her death?), he, along with his wife (a thoroughly wasted Robin Tunney) and son are seriously injured in a car crash while evading flashbulbs. In response, Bo Laramie (yes, the name is as fun to write as it is to say) goes around killing off the shutterbugs; luckily for him, the police (led by Dennis Farina) are so idiotic that it is relatively easy to outwit them.

Even more idiotic than it sounds, "Paparazzi" tries to be a rabble-rousing thriller but the subject is one that precious few in the audience will be able to relate to or particularly care about and the notion that a celebrity can kill a bunch of people and pin the murders on someone else, yet still somehow be considered a good guy with a clear conscience is too repellent to even begin to consider. (Even in "Death Wish", Charles Bronson’s character-who had far better justifications for his actions-was permitted a couple of moments of self-doubt.) Instead, all that anyone addled enough to actually pay money to see this nonsense will get is faulty plotting, a navel-gazing attitude, bad performances and a finale so stupid and shameless that the audience I caught it with burst out laughing. The only other thing of note is that we can now jot down another group of people that Mel Gibson appears to hate with an irrational passion, just below gays and Jews. Perhaps for his next film, he can do a story where he winds up battling his ultimate nemesis-a Nikon-wielding Harvey Fierstein.

Starring: Cole Hauser, Robin Tunney, Dennis Farina, Tom Sizemore, Larry Cedar. Directed by Paul Abascal. MPAA Rating is PG-13 (intense violent sequences, sexual content and language). Distributed by 20th Century Fox.

-- Capsule Reviews by Peter Sobczynski

Copyright © 2004 Peter Sobczynski
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While the views expressed by Peter Sobczynski do not necessarily reflect the views of Criticdoctor.com, the Critic Doctor will occasionally examine Mr. Sobczynski's film reviews to bring forth an honest examination of those views expressed.