FILM: New to the Box Office - 8/10/07

STARDUST

Alright, alright, enough with the Michelle-Pfeiffer's-still-hot-at-50 crap! Let's focus on the movie. Okay so a star falls out of the sky and when it makes impact with the Earth it turns into...Claire Danes. Apparently gutting her like a fish and ripping her heart out will give Pfeiffer's wicked witch character back her youth. Why are witches always vain? Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the most vapid of them all? Charlie Cox (Casanova) plays Danes' knight-in-shining-rags who protects her at every cost and of course falls madly in love with her--despite the fact that he begins the film doting on Sienna Miller. From the trailer, you can tell Cox is really good at interchanging between bumbling idiot to brave swordsman. Ricky Gervais ("Extras") is the actual comic relief. And somehow Robert Deniro factors himself into this peculiar equation as a pirate captain to a flying ship. Let's see. Magic + Pirates + Witches + Romance + Heroism = the perfect topping to a summer full of fun blockbusters.

RUSH HOUR 3

One really loud obnoxious black man and one really heroic Asian guy go to Paris, and even in the city of love they can't go five seconds without getting in trouble. Apparently the Chinese triad is "vacationing" in Paris--offing French secret policemen left and right. Piggybacking on all the slapstick fun are Vinnie Jones (X-Men: The Last Stand), Hiroyuki Sanada (Sunshine) as the kingpin, Roselyn Sanchez ("Without a Trace"), and newcomers French Noemie Lenoir, as a valuable informant, and Chinese Jingchu Zhang, who'll join in on the action. It should have a lot of laughs mixed with insane action.


DADDY DAY CAMP

I thought the first film, Daddy Day Care, was pretty funny. But not funny enough for a sequel. I get it. Kids say and do the darndest things, but not for 2hrs. Maybe the newest generation will find it quite enjoyable, because a tall fat guy getting hit in the head and a kid spontaneously puking on an adult is too overdone for any teenager. And of course they also diminshed the sequel's credibility by switching out the original main characters, Eddie Murphy and Jeff Garlin, for two other black and fat guys, replacing them with Cuba Gooding Jr--who has hit a new low--and Paul Rae (Air Buddies).


SKINWALKERS

There was a time when Jason Behr ("Roswell") had potential. That was five years ago. Now he's getting parts like Buffy's boyfriend in The Grudge and C-grade horror flicks about warring werewolf clans called skinwalkers who want to abduct a 13-year-old boy who's about to go through puberty in the most mystical way possible. This poor kid is the deciding factor on whether or not these werewolves survive. Apparently, there's a gene that separates humans from animals and skinwalkers are born without it. The good skinwalkers want to end the curse and make sure the boy never tastes blood, and the bad skinwalkers want to feast on the flesh of all mankind. The boy has until the rise of the red moon to decide, and chances are his non-skinwalker mom might have to kill him. Despite all the mysticism, there's a lot of gunslinging and explosions. It's not hard to imagine that this isn't exactly worthy of a place in your DVD collection, but if you're feening for some blood lust this could be your ticket.


2 DAYS IN PARIS

Juliette Delpy (Before Sunset) and Adam Goldberg (Deja Vu) play a couple who vacation in Paris. Delpy, being the Parisian-native, visits her parents and runs into a truckload of ex-lovers, making Goldberg the insecure, jealous, muttering boyfriend. By the trailer I can tell there'll be a lot of French-hateration as well as plenty of signature Goldberg humor.


ROCKET SCIENCE

It's your usual coming-of-age story about a geeky kid, Reece Thompson ("Three Moons Over Milford"), who's learning about girls and trying to master socializing, while also trying to survive his screwy family and a bully of an older brother. If anything it could be Thompson's stepping stone into better roles.