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REVIEWSPREVIEWS: Waking up in Reno
Waking Up in Reno is nothing but a direct flight to boredom. The movie feels as if it was made in a hurry as there are no well-defined characters and no proper plot. When the basic elements of a movie are weak, how can one expect a flick to be entertaining? To add to the gaping holes, the choice of actors is also inappropriate.
Directed by Jordan Brady, Waking Up in Reno is about two couples who plan to visit Reno, Nevada to watch a monster-truck show. The couples get along with each other quite well and everything seems to be going smooth until it is found that Candy (Charlize Theron), who is Roy’s (Patrick Swayze) wife is pregnant. The next day Roy is informed by the doctor that lab tests show he can’t produce children. Roy keeps wondering how his wife got pregnant considering the situation. Things clear up when she confesses that the baby belongs to their friend Lonnie (Billy Bob Thornton), who is accompanying them to Reno. At this point in the movie there is some progress in the story, but after this the director loses his grip on the script completely.
The laughs in the movie are so dumb that they make you do anything but laugh. Most of the situations are stretched beyond the limits of one’s patience. The sequence in which Lonnie’s wife (Natasha Richardson) comes to know the truth is exaggerated and the director has failed to distinguish it from a comic situation. Except Charlize Theron, no other actor seems to gel with the character they are playing. Another basic element of a romantic comedy which is missing is the chemistry between the couples. All in all, this film is easily one of the year’s worst pictures.—Azeem Haider
2 Fast 2 Furious
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The thought of making a sequel to the 2000 runaway smash The Fast and The Furious without Vin Diesel seems ludicrous. After all, Diesel is touted to be the next Arnold Schwarzenegger and was simply awesome in the original. Yet when he turned down the offer to appear in 2 Fast 2 Furious, the producers didn’t pause for a second. They realized the real charm of the original was not in any of the actors but in the real lead players: the cars. They were right. In 2 Fast 2 Furious, the wheels are back and cooler than ever.Director John Singleton (Boyz In The Hood) brings electricity to this testosterone-fueled tale in which leading man Paul Walker and rapper Tyrese are hired as drivers to transport stolen cash, but are really working undercover for the law. Tyrese was brought in to fill Vin Diesel’s boots, and surprisingly does a really good job. The fast-paced movie is easy on the eyes and at times feels like it was filmed on cruise control. The plot (which is incredibly credited to three writers) is suspiciously like a rejected Miami Vice script, but it doesn’t matter because the two heroes do some very daring and dangerous stunts en route (they drive more recklessly than O. J. Simpson at times). To add to the mix, the screen is filled with souped up Camaros, Mustangs, Vipers, BMWs, Corvettes, and some babelicious hotties. Let’s get ready to rumble.—T. U. Dawood
Rugrats Go Wild
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Nickelodeon gives us a combination of two of its successful shows, Rugrats and The Thornberrys in the animated feature film Rugrats Go Wild. It is about a high-seas vacation which ends up on a desert island with six kids, eight adults and a dog.Stu Pickels’ dinky cruise ship sinks and puts his friends and family in a fix. While the parents try to figure out what to do next, Tommy, the baby, decides that only his hero Nigel Thornberry can get them out of the situation. The brave kid is convinced that Thornberry is nearby and drags his friends along to seek him out. The search involves getting past a few obstacles such as a hungry leopard. The movie has Angelica Pickles and her infant brother Tommy in the forefront.
The humour is mild and crude. The voices are shrill and very unpleasant, except for Lacey Chabert as Eliza, Tim Curry as Nigel and Bruce Willis as Spike. Last year’s The Wild Thornberrys Movie was a thoroughly entertaining film, but this one is a complete disappointment. Rugrats and The Wild Thornberrys are good on their own, but Rugrats Go Wild proves to be an awful merger.—Shamama Shabbir
Wasabi
Wasabi stars Jean Reno as a cool-headed tough cop living in Paris whose Japanese wife left him 19 years ago, and he still can’t get her out of his mind. One day he receives a call from Japan that his wife has died and has left him a daughter and $200 million. On reaching Japan, things get nasty when some Yakuza-like thugs keep following him and his daughter. Also, he finds out that his wife was poisoned. The rest of the movie revolves around him searching for the truth and getting to know his daughter.
Not only is the plot full of holes, even the action sequences are ridiculous. Moreover, in spite of being an action flick, there is a conspicuous dearth of action. Even the final showdown is nothing more than a damp squib. To provide some comic relief to the script, Reno is teamed up with an undercover agent, Momo, prone to committing blunders.
The only strong point of the movie is Reno’s acting. He gives a convincing performance as a man struggling to cope with his hyper teenager. Wasabi looks like a clone of The Professional, which also happened to feature Reno protecting a girl from the mob. In fact, the screenplay has been written by Luc Besson; the writer, director and producer of that smash hit. Watch this flick only if you haven’t seen The Professional, otherwise, it is definitely not recommended.—-Saqib Khan
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