Abigail Breslin and Ryan Reynolds in "Definitely, Maybe"
courtesy of Universal Home Entertainment
“How I Met Your Mother”

The TV series “How I Met Your Mother” has found an audience and is a very popular show. A movie out on DVD this month may not prove to be as popular and that is a shame. "Definitely, Maybe" is a movie full of romance and fun. It has a great cast and an intriguing storyline but somehow after it is all over the memories aren't so good. It has something to do with the silliness of the plot, which is a man telling his daughter stories about his old girlfriends and then having her guess which one is her mother. (See the resemblance!)

Ryan Reynolds stars as Will Hayes, a man who is in the process of getting a divorce. His daughter Maya (Abigail Breslin) asks him to tell her about his old girlfriends. He begins to do so and explains that one of the three women in the story ended up being her mother. It seems the young girl knows nothing about her mother and father's background even though she appears to be overly intelligent.

The first woman Will mentions is Emily (Elizabeth Banks). He changes the women's names so Maya won't know which one is her mother. Emily was his college sweetheart and the one he leaves to go to New York and take a job in the Bill Clinton campaign office. 

In New York he meets Emily's friend Summer (Rachel Weisz). She writes for a magazine and is having an affair with her college professor Hampton Roth (Kevin Kline). Will later gets involved with her too. But even while this is happening he is cultivating a friendship with April (Isla Fisher), a girl who also works at the campaign headquarters.

Emily comes back into his life and the other two women are good friends of his so the revelation of who Maya's mother is adds a nice surprise to the film. It could be any of the three and you wouldn't be surprised. Still it is amazing that Maya has never asked her mother how she and her father met, or even about her background before she met Will.

This lack of logic reduces the movie from a great film to an okay one. You like the basis for the premise but you don't like the premise itself. It all feels fake and that makes the movie feel fake. For the time you are watching it, it is alright; but once you start thinking about it then it goes downhill.

Reynolds is developing into an appealing leading man. He is handsome in a boyish way and the scenes with Breslin have a real tenderness to them. Fisher is the most appealing of the three women and she has the best lines and the best character to portray. Weisz is almost too cool and Banks is almost too cold.

"Definitely, Maybe" could'ave, should'ave, would'ave been a better movie had the plot not gotten snagged and snarled. It has a warmth and a sweetness to it but the illogical plot minimizes that appeal.

In 1966 there was a movie released titled "One Million Years B. C." It featured a lollapalooza named Raquel Welch. Now in 2008 we get a DVD titled "10,000 B. C." All I can say is where is Raquel Welch when you need her? This new film is long on saber toothed tigers but short on anyone with sex appeal. This is a movie in which everybody needs a bath and matted dreadlocks are the fashion statement of the day.

The film concerns the adventures and misadventures of a young man named D'Leh (Steven Strait). He is in love with a woman named Evolet (Camilla Belle). She is special because she has blue eyes where everyone else has brown. Their love is true because the narrator of the film, Omar Shariff, tells us it is.

One day a barbarian horde swoops into the village of D'Leh and takes Evolet and others away. D'Leh swears he will find Evolet and bring her back. He sets off on a trek that takes him to Egypt, or at least it looks like Egypt as they are building a pyramid there. It is here that D'Leh asks his friends and acquaintances he has met while on his journey to help him battle these people and rescue Evolet.

This skinny plot is what they hang the entire movie on, and it gets tedious and boring. The only fun of the film involves the huge tiger and the wooly mammoths that D'Leh encounters. They appear to be computer generated but they are still impressive.

The actors are not impressive. Neither Strait nor Belle makes much of an impression. It is amazing that the filmmakers thought they could hire a group of unknowns and make people want to see the film. On TV this may work but not in the movies.

Taking a look back in history is fun sometimes, but these people seem to have much too modern things for the time period. If they had fire, the wheel, boats, spears, agricultural knowledge, etc what did they develop in the next ten thousand years? 

"10,000 B. C." is a puny story filled with characters played by a bunch of unknowns. It just doesn't work - except for the special effects. They are pretty good.

Everything the Disney Channel comes up with seems to be a hit, and nothing proves this point more than the comedy series “The Sweet Life of Zack and Cody” starring identical twins Cole and Dylan Sprouse. On the new DVD “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody: Lip Synchin’ In the Rain” you get four episodes from the hit series.

You also get a gag reel and an interview of the twins with Brenda Song. She asks all the questions your kids want answered. Brenda is one of the co-stars of the series along with Ashley Tisdale.

Your kids love this show and will eat up this DVD. Get it today!

There are a lot of chills and thrills in the new DVD “The Tattooist,” starring Jason Behr. This is a film about the supernatural and it involves a man (Behr) who is a tattoo artist. He steals an ancient Samoan artifact and this unleashes an evil spirit. Now his life is on the line unless he learns a way to control or demolish this demon.

Co-starring in the film are Mia Blake and David Fane. They give good support to Behr but it is his movie all the way. Make sure you listen to his commentary on making the movie, and look for the deleted scenes that are included in the DVD.

The Jessica Alba film “The Eye” was based on a Japanese film of the same name. There is a new sequel to this original film and it is now out on DVD. It is titled “The Eye 3” and it deals with ghosts and visions much as the first film did.

If you like the Jessica Alba movie you will like this one even better as it is much scarier and believable. Make sure you watch it when you are not alone.

Finally there is “Telling Lies,” a suspenseful movie starring Melanie Brown and Jason Flemyng. This film involves a college student who invents a man to make her boyfriend jealous. When a body is found people say it is the man the girl was seeing, and she can’t convince anyone there was no real man.

She tells the police and her father that she and her friend Eve made the whole thing up, but then her father and others begin to suspect that her friend Eve is the real imaginary person. Which lie is the real lie!

It is great to see Brown on screen and Flemyng is impressive in his role as the unbelieving father. This one is one of the week’s best.
 

 

 

 

 

©2008 Jackie K. Cooper

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