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Reviews for DVD Releases

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2
Mack Chico
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2008/11/17 at 12:00am

DVD ReviewsReviews

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2

11.17.2008 | By |

Rating: 3.5

Rated: PG-13 for mature material and sensuality.
Release Date: 2008-08-08
Starring: Elizabeth Chandler (guión), Ann Brashares (novela)
Director(s):
Distributor:
Film Genre:
Country:NULL
Official Website: http://sisterhoodofthetravelingpants2.warnerbros.com/

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Men who are film critics, such as myself, stereotypically aren’t fond of the movie genre known as ‘the chick flick’. We usually have to remove our male biased opinions towards them and see it for the cinematic work that they are. In this particular case, I must admit, ‘The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2’ was an enjoyable and delightful film that engrossed me for its 2 hour duration.

I really wasn’t expecting to like it, so the fact that I did, makes it even more memorable. Sisterhood, based on a book by Ann Brashares, is a reunion for the actresses that have now made it ‘big time’ on their respective TV shows; Hondurean American America Ferrera stars in ‘Ugly Betty’, Blake Lively in the hot sexy Gossip Girls, Amber Tamblyn is widely known for Joan of Arcadia and Argetinian-Mexican American Alexis Bledel (who knew she was a hardcore Latin?) currently stars in Gilmore Girls. This year more than ever, television stars are making Hollywood look real good.

One of the great things about the film outside of the physical and cultural diversity of the cast, is the chemistry they share onset. They seem to really get what their characters are all about. It’s three years later and each of the girls are exploring their professional goals. Their only apprehensiveness is the potential estrangement from themselves that distance could impose on them. The four story lines are alluring enough to not lose you to lassitude.

Ferrera is the best actress of the group, evident when she spews out Shakespeare lines as if they were vernacular English. Tamblyn, with her caustic and mordant personality, provided the much needed comic relief from the emotional pounding the film takes with Lively’s character. Bledel, unfortunately was the weakest link and didn’t really provide enough believable gravitas to take the film to the next level.

As my colleague Alex Florez termed it, ‘The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2’ is a ‘slice of life’ movie, and I believe it will resonate not only with tween audiences, but also with mom and dad adults. That combination will surely squeeze out a third part out of those magical jeans.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Mack Chico
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2008/11/11 at 12:00am

DVD ReviewsReviews

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

11.11.2008 | By |

Rating: 3.5

Rated: PG for some thematic elements.
Release Date: 2008-08-15
Starring: Henry Gilroy, Steve Melching, Scott Murphy
Director(s):
Distributor:
Film Genre:
Country:USA
Official Website: http://www.starwars.com/theclonewars/

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Unless you are a hardcore Star Wars fan, it will be difficult for the average moviegoer to remember all six, oh my humble apologies, seven Star Wars film episodes. With that said, in preparation to see the new computer animated ‘Star Wars: The Clone Wars’ film, questions were beginning to emerge in me about George Lucas’ creativity. Is he stuck for eternity in this Star Wars bubble and is he incapable of filming anything else? I believe it is a warranted question. This is the same guy who wrote, directed, casted, and edited ‘American Graffiti’, a cinematic effort that earned him five Oscar nominations in 1974. That is evidence he can do something else outside of ‘the force’ – so why doesn’t he? This, my friends, is the million dollar question.

Lucas has been driven, for some time now, to create this new animated feature to coincide with the launch of his Lucasfilm Animation universe. The movie transports us to the middle of episodes two and three (as communicated to me by a Warner Bros. representative) where Jedi Knights struggle to maintain order and restore peace. Systems are falling prey to the forces of the dark side as the Galactic Republic slips further under the sway of the Separatists. Anakin Skywalker (soon to be Darth Vader) and his Padawan learner Ahsoka Tano (a sort of intern) find themselves on a mission that brings them face-to-face with crime lord Jabba the Hutt. But Count Dooku and his sinister agents, including the nefarious Asajj Ventress, will stop at nothing to ensure that Anakin and Ahsoka fail at their quest. Notable is a cameo of Samuel L. Jackson lending his voice for his character Mace Windu.

Since new characters are introduced here, and not continued in the following adventures of the Jedis, it is hard to say whether or not this film fits in nicely with the rest of the episodes. We will have to wait and see.

Nevertheless, boy was it entertaining! It began with great animated fighting sequences and it kept that tempo throughout the very end, a characteristic that spells out pure fun. I would actually dare to say it was more entertaining than Lucas’ recent Star Wars trilogy – Episodes I, II and III. Most of this decision is based on Hayden Christensen’s vapid and uninspiring acting as Anakin Skywalker in the aforementioned works, resulting in an unmemorable experience. These computer generated ‘actors’ did a better job of engaging me than he.

The premise was easy enough to understand, the characters were likable, the sequences were dynamic and full of brio. The film is obviously for fans of the Star Wars saga, but looking to attract young new legions of fans.

Get Smart
Mack Chico
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2008/11/04 at 12:00am

DVD ReviewsReviews

Get Smart

11.4.2008 | By |

Rating: 3.5

Rated: PG-13 for some rude humor, action violence and language.
Release Date: 2008-06-20
Starring: Tom J. Astle, Matt Ember
Director(s):
Distributor:
Film Genre:
Country:USA
Official Website: www.getsmartmovie.com

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Get Smart is delightfully silly and at times very funny. The characters are likeable and feel connected to their TV counterparts. And, although Mel Brooks and Buck Henry (creators of the original) are not directly involved, the filmmakers have crafted something that both men would likely agree is in the spirit of what they shepherded to the small screen.

Steve Carell’s portrayal of Max is just about perfect for the material. He doesn’t try to ape Don Adams – that would have been a mistake – but there’s enough of the late actor in the performance that the original Max hasn’t been obfuscated. Carell delivers many of Max’s signature lines (“Would you believe…?”, “Missed it by THIS much”) with similar inflections. When it comes to re-interpreting a well-established character from the past, Carell is far more successful than Steve Martin’s hatchet job in the remake of The Pink Panther. There’s a little of Barbara Feldon in Anne Hathaway’s Agent 99, although her outfits and attitudes are more modern. If there’s a downside to the casting of Carell and Hathaway, it’s that there’s not much romantic chemistry between them (although they’re fine as spy buddies). Then again, Adams and Feldon had the leisure of over 100 episodes to develop what Carell and Hathaway have to convey in less than two hours. Get Smart has its share of cameos. Bernie Koppell (the original Sigfried) has a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance. James Caan (who appeared in two Get Smart episodes) is the President. Bill Murray lives in a tree. And several other Saturday Night Live veterans show their faces.

The plot doesn’t make a lot of sense – it has to do with KAOS getting its hands on nuclear weapons. As with the series, however, this is just a skeleton to be fleshed out by gags and physical comedy. While the original Get Smart was a fairly direct satire of the James Bond series, this movie version is more an updating of the TV series than a lampoon of spy movies. That sort of thing was done to death by Austin Powers and its sequels. One of the supporting thugs (Dalip Singh), however, appears to have been modeled after The Spy Who Loved Me‘s Jaws.

If Get Smart faces a hurdle, it could be that viewers are tiring of these TV-to-movie transitions (perhaps because so many have been so bad), and Get Smart lacks the cachet of some of its contemporaries. It is not widely available on DVD (only as an entire series box set from Time Life) and thus has not re-entered the popular culture of the 2000s the way so many older TV shows have. This is one instance, however, when a TV series-based movie rewards nostalgia without demanding it. Get Smart is funny enough in its own right to attract younger viewers while paying homage to its 40-year old predecessor. Director Peter Segal, whose resume includes several Adam Sandler movies, shows an understanding of what made people laugh in the context of the original Get Smart and applies that knowledge to this contemporary setting. Along with his actors, screenwriters, and the rest of the crew, he has made an enjoyable mid-summer night’s comedy. Would you believe that?

Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D
Mack Chico
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2008/10/28 at 12:00am

DVD ReviewsReviews

Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D

10.28.2008 | By |

Rating: 3.0

Rated: PG for intense adventure action and some scary moments.; Rated PG-13 for some bloody sci-fi violence. (special edition)
Release Date: 2008-07-11
Starring: Michael Weiss, Jennifer Flackett, Mark Levin, Jules Verne (novela)
Director(s):
Distributor:
Film Genre:
Country:USA
Official Website: http://www.journey3dmovie.com/

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Journey to the Center of the Earth is the first live-action feature to take advantage of the new digital 3-D technology. However, in generating what amounts to a 90-minute theme park ride, the filmmakers lost track of the need to tell a compelling story to supplement the eye candy. Despite taking its name from one of the most famous science fiction novels of all time, Journey to the Center of the Earth is as weak when it comes to “fiction” as it is when it comes to “science.” This movie is an overlong gimmick, an opportunity for special effects whiz-turned-director Eric Brevig to “wow” an audience with his technical bravura. With 3-D, a little goes a long way and, in the absence of a legitimate script with credible characters, the fun dries up long before the running time has expired.

Brevig’s film, based on a screenplay credited to three writers, is not intended to be a strict adaptation of the Jules Verne novel. Instead, it’s more of a sequel. It postulates that the novel’s hero, Professor Lidenbrock, made the trip described in the book and related the details of that trek to Verne, who recounted them in the novel. The characters in this movie – Professor Trevor Anderson (Brendan Fraser); his nephew, Sean (Josh Hutcherson); and their mountain guide, Hannah (Anita Briem) – follow in Lidenbrock’s path as they travel to the top of a mountain in Iceland that reveals tunnels leading deep beneath the Earth’s surface. Below, they discover a prehistoric world where dinosaurs and man-eating plants exist. But it’s getting hot down there, and the trio must find a way to escape before they are broiled alive.

The absence of a villain means that the only conflict is between our heroes and their environment. Under normal circumstances, this would not be inherently uninteresting, but the film’s grip of physics is so confused that the rules display an alarming lack of consistency and change at the director’s whim, depending on what he needs for a particular scene to work. Normally, I’m tolerant of flaws like this in a movie, but the so-called “science” on display in Journey to the Center of the Earth is so atrocious that it creates towering barriers to the suspension of disbelief for anyone knowledgeable about such things. Fortunately for New Line Cinema, the majority of potential customers won’t care.

The film’s “drama” is as painful as its science. The bonding between Trevor and Sean is trite; neither is developed as more than a toy to play around in the 3-D environment. Hannah’s role is to make Trevor look like an idiot and eventually provide some low-key romantic tension. Brendan Fraser tries to bring some of the charm he exhibited in The Mummy to this project, but it feels forced. Trevor is neither likeable nor dislikeable; he’s there to provide us with a human face as a means of entry into a world that’s a cross between Jurassic Park and Land of the Lost.

Ultimately, Journey to the Center of the Earth is about spectacle, so the characters and storyline are of secondary concern. The movie views them as, if not irrelevant, at least inconsequential. This is all about making the digital world come to life and having things jump out of the screen at us. The 3-D work is admittedly done very nicely but, after 30 minutes (or so) of pretty images, one starts to desire more. And the movie can’t deliver. The experience of watching this film in old-fashioned 2-D, while it would brighten the images a little (polarized glasses darken things), must be a hollow one indeed. Take away the 3-D, and there’s little remaining.

Ten years ago, I can recall standing in line at the Universal Studios theme park in Florida to see Terminator 3-D, a twelve-minute sequel to Terminator 2 that was projected in 3-D. Technology has advanced so that now it’s possible to have essentially the same experience in any theater equipped with a digital projection system. However, as with any visual effects tool, 3-D should be applied in service of the overall production, not vice versa. And that’s where Journey to the Center of the Earth goes wrong. Like the virtual roller coaster ride we go on mid-way through the proceedings, there’s something critical missing. Seeing, even in 3-D, is not the same as feeling. And once a movie has lost the capacity to reach us on more than a trivial level, what’s the point?

Tinkerbell
Mack Chico
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2008/10/28 at 12:00am

DVD ReviewsReviews

Tinkerbell

10.28.2008 | By |

Rating: 2.5

Rated: For the whoe family.
Release Date: 2008-10-28
Starring: NULL
Director(s):
Distributor:
Film Genre:
Country:USA
Official Website: NULL

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The Strangers
Alex Florez
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2008/10/21 at 12:00am

DVD ReviewsReviews

The Strangers

10.21.2008 | By |

Rating: 2.0

Rated: R for violence, terror and language.
Release Date: 2008-05-30
Starring: Bryan Bertino
Director(s):
Distributor:
Film Genre:
Country:USA
Official Website: http://www.thestrangersmovie.com/

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The Strangers is a chilling horror film about a home invasion. This movie doesn’t break any new ground on a plot level, but its interesting cinematography suffuses the production with an overpowering combination of paranoia and claustrophobia. This is one of those rare horror movies that concentrates on suspense and terror rather than on gore and a high body count. By keeping the premise simple and making the small group of characters seem like genuine human beings, Bertino sets the audience up for a tense and uneasy 85 minutes.

 

It’s 4:00 am when Kristen (Liv Tyler) and James (Scott Speedman) arrive at his cabin in the woods. It has not been a good night for them – Kristen turned down his wedding proposal – but it’s about to get much worse. As they’re preparing for bed and trying to figure out how to bridge the gulf that has suddenly opened between them, there’s a knock at the door. This is the first of many such interruptions of the still night, and it isn’t long before harassment develops into something darker and more dangerous. The woods, normally empty and serene, now hold the promise of terror and death.

 

The Strangers (there are three of them) wear masks. They are simple masks but, as we know from the lesson taught by Michael Myers, even a blank white covering of the face can be terrifying in certain circumstances.

The Strangers is not a perfect motion picture, but it’s one of the horror genre’s rare recent standouts. The melodrama at the beginning is weak, failing to connect us to the characters to the degree Bertino intends, and the final shot is a bit of a cheat. 

 

The Strangers is so effectively produced that if you arrive home after a night showing to find the electricity off, you will have misgivings about going inside. Horror movies come in two categories: those that deal in supernatural creatures and those that have their roots in very real dangers. The escapism that often categorizes and distances viewers in the former is absent in productions like this. There’s pain and blood in The Strangers, but the movie is more about psychological torture than the physical variety. It’s intense but not necessarily fun and may disappoint less sophisticated horror fans. However, for die-hard supporters of unsettling peeks into the dark side of human nature, this is a welcome excursion.

The Incredible Hulk
Alex Florez
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2008/10/20 at 12:00am

DVD ReviewsReviews

The Incredible Hulk

10.20.2008 | By |

Rating: 3.5

Rated: PG-13 for sequences of intense action violence, some frightening sci-fi images, and brief suggestive content.
Release Date: 2008-06-13
Starring: Jack Kirby, Stan Lee
Director(s):
Distributor:
Film Genre:
Country:USA
Official Website: http://incrediblehulk.marvel.com/

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For five years, Marvel has been trying to figure out what to do with one of the biggest potential franchises of its universe. Ang Lee’s Hulk proved to be a dud with fans and producing a direct sequel was as unlikely an alternative as altogether forgoing additional Hulk movies. So the decision was made to “re-imagine” the character, which is a nice way of saying that the 2003 feature would be ignored. The Incredible Hulk is a more traditional superhero movie than its predecessor and should please those who want their not-so-jolly green giant served with helpings of action. This film provides less talk and more smashing.

 

Structurally, The Incredible Hulk is a fairly straightforward superhero movie. While it is not an “origin story” in the strictest sense, it functions as one in the way it must introduce characters, establish situations and relationships, and open a series. As a result of so much backstory, there’s not a lot of room for a complex plot. So the principal villain remains half-formed and the storyline as a whole revolves around three confrontations between the Hulk and this nemesis.

 

The film opens with a re-telling of how Dr. Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) entered his Jekyll and Hyde state. This allows the 2003 Hulk to be “erased” from the record for those who care about such things. As we join the story, Banner is in South America, on the run from himself and the military, trying to keep a low profile while he searches for a cure to what plagues him. A mishap at a factory alerts General Ross (William Hurt) to Banner’s location. A tactical team, led by the amoral Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), goes in to capture Banner. After turning into the Hulk, he escapes and heads back to the United States, where he is reunited with his former love, Betty Ross (Liv Tyler). Meanwhile, the General and Emil plot a “foolproof” method of capturing Banner – one that involves injecting Blonsky with a serum that makes him superhuman.

 

The Incredible Hulk takes place in the same “universe” as Iron Man (a point that is driven home by a Robert Downey Jr. cameo), but the movies aren’t on quite the same level. Iron Man was rightfully described as a “comic book movie that you don’t have to be a comic book fan to like.” The same is not true of The Incredible Hulk. This film’s appeal, while not as narrowly focused as Sex and the City, is designed primarily with fanboys in mind. Director Louis Leterrier’s approach lacks the wit and sophistication of Iron Man. While The Incredible Hulk has some emotional resonance, it’s built on a foundation of action. When Lou Ferrigno (providing the main character’s voice) shouts “Hulk Smash!”, it encapsulates the attraction.

 

As Banner, Edward Norton takes over for Eric Bana but there’s little apparent difference in the way the character is interpreted. Banner is still the same tortured soul he was in 2003. Liv Tyler’s version of Betty Ross is surprisingly awkward and at times unconvincing, but maybe that has a lot to do with her dialogue. It’s as if George Lucas was brought in to ghost write her lines. At least there’s a real sense of affection between Banner and Betty; that goes a long way toward redeeming weaknesses in Tyler’s performance. As Blonsky, Tim Roth is at his badass best, even if all he really has to do is sneer a lot. William Hurt is fine, if a little bland, as Ross. Then there’s Downey, who’s on-screen for about 30 seconds, but steals the movie and brings down the house. That says a lot about the popularity of Iron Man and indicates how big Iron Man 2 will be.

 

The Incredible Hulk pays homage in many ways to the popular late-’70s/early-’80s TV show of the same name. In addition to providing the little-used voice of the Hulk, Ferrigno reprises his role from the 2003 movie as a nameless security guard. Bill Bixby gets a little face-time via some archival footage that’s inserted in such a way that anyone not looking for it won’t be bothered by it. There’s also a brief snippet of the TV show’s theme tune, a character named “Jack McGee,” and an iconic shot of Banner walking alone, hitchhiking. Plus, Stan Lee makes his obligatory cameo. (He and Ferrigno are the only two to appear in both Hulk and The Incredible Hulk.)

 

After a slightly protracted introduction that puts all the pieces in place, The Incredible Hulk stays action-oriented for the remainder of its running time, pausing occasionally for some exposition or to advance the Banner/Betty relationship. Granted, a lot of the action consists of chase scenes with soldiers running after Banner, but whenever the Hulk appears, things get interesting. The final battle, bits of which have been shown in TV commercials and trailers, recalls one of those Japanese monster-a-thons where giant creatures collide. And it’s a lot more kinetic (and shorter) than the climactic conflict in Transformers. The Incredible Hulk builds to this, and it doesn’t let us down.

 

The special effects used to create the Hulk aren’t flawless but they’re good enough. The CGI is evident mainly during the final battle, when it’s apparent that a lot of what we’re seeing was crafted in a computer. The word “cartoonish” comes to mind but, considering that this is adapted from a comic book, that’s not an inappropriate descriptor. The work here passes muster, and the Hulk is no longer the bright green of the 2003 feature. Letterier has rendered him in a grayish-green.

 

The Incredible Hulk provides Marvel with its second superhero hit of the summer. For comic book fans, Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk represent a solid one-two punch. If the former movie was a triple, the latter is a solid single, and good enough to drive the earlier one home. Now, the wait is on for The Dark Knight, to see whether D.C. can hold its own. Certainly, Marvel has succeeded in wiping away the hangover from last summer’s crop of superhero movies and revising the future look more promising.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Alejandro Arbona
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2008/10/14 at 12:00am

DVD ReviewsReviews

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

10.14.2008 | By |

Rating: 2.0

Rated: PG-13 for adventure action and violence.
Release Date: 2008-05-22
Starring: David Koepp, George Lucas
Director(s):
Distributor:
Film Genre:
Country:USA
Official Website: http://www.indianajones.com/intl/es/teaser/

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Finally, people will stop saying “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” was the bad one. “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” opens in the thick of the cold war, with Soviet agents forcing Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) to retrieve a mysterious artifact of great power. This early sequence and the few that follow it are when the cold war theme and anti-communist paranoia are most evident.

But shortly after, the story circles back to an extraterrestrial theme, which comes off extremely leaden here. The film briefly mentions Indy’s years of service as a colonel in World War Two, and his turn as a double agent in Berlin. I for one would have MUCH preferred to watch a movie called something like “The Treacherous Colonel Indiana Jones and the Valkyries of the Führer.” It’s not that the alien theme of this movie disappointed me, not in the least; it’s that once “Crystal Skull” sinks into that mystery, it loses the spirit of the 1950s suspense and horror movies it should be aping.

All those 50s genre movies were charged with the public’s fears: the cold war, nuclear weapons, communist subversion (or satire on the unfounded fear of that subversion), etc. Spielberg placed touches of that on the surface, but not the slightest hint of the subtext that can be explored so eloquently with that era. When only “Crystal Skull” flirts with these themes is when the Soviet Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett) describes the power of the titular skull: mind control. I was reminded of one of the classics of cold war paranoia, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” albeit without the slightest subtlety. And aside from that description, we never again identify what exactly the skull’s power is – we never get to really see it in action. Spielberg breaks the first rule of the very adventure storytelling he perfected into an art form: show, don’t tell.

The Happening
Mack Chico
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2008/10/07 at 12:00am

DVD ReviewsReviews

The Happening

10.7.2008 | By |

Rating: 2.0

Rated:
Release Date: 2008-06-13
Starring: M. Night Shyamalan
Director(s):
Distributor:
Film Genre:
Country:NULL
Official Website: http://www.elincidente.es/

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M. Night Shyamalan’s latest movie, The Happening, is not merely bad. It is an astonishment, so idiotic in conception and inept in execution that, after seeing it, one almost wonders whether it was real or imagined. It’s the kind of movie you want to laugh about with friends, swapping favorite moments of inanity: “Do you remember the part when Mark Wahlberg … ?” “God, yes. And what about that scene where the wind … ?”

The problem, of course, is that to have such a conversation, you’d normally have to see the movie, which I believe is an unreasonably high price to pay just to make fun of it. So rather than write a conventional review explaining why you should or shouldn’t see The Happening (trust me, you shouldn’t), I’m offering an alternative: A dozen and a half of the most mind-bendingly ridiculous elements of the film, which will enable you to marvel at its anti-genius without sacrificing (and I don’t use that term lightly) 90 minutes of your life. 

The single most absurd element of The Happening, the wellspring from which all other absurdities flow, is its conceit: Across the Northeastern United States, people are succumbing to a toxic airborne agent that makes them commit suicide, often gruesomely. At first it hits major population centers, followed by smaller towns, and on down to groups of even just a handful of people. Initially, it’s assumed to be some kind of terrorist attack. But as we learn pretty early in the film, it’s not. It’s trees. Yes, the trees (and perhaps some bushes and grass, too, the movie’s never too clear on this point) have tired of humankind’s ecological despoilment and are emitting a complicated aerial neurotoxin that makes us kill ourselves en masse. I bet you wish you were the one who came up with this blockbuster idea.

The Visitor
Alex Florez
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2008/10/07 at 12:00am

DVD ReviewsReviews

The Visitor

10.7.2008 | By |

Rating: 4.0

Rated: PG-13 for some strong language.
Release Date: 2008-04-11
Starring: Thomas McCarthy
Director(s):
Distributor:
Film Genre:
Country:USA
Official Website: http://www.thevisitorfilm.com/

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It’s a pleasant thing to encounter occasionally a movie in which people are portrayed as decent (if flawed) individuals. In The Visitor, there are no human villains. No one wears a black hat. The antagonist is The System – the nameless, faceless arm of a bureaucracy that flexes its muscles and crushes whoever happens to be in its grip at the time. In this case, it’s the Immigration Department, but it might be any of thousands of government and private organizations where the “human element” has been eliminated in favor of procedures. However, while the struggle against The System forms an important aspect of The Visitor, this is much more about the growth of one man who discovers that the island of solitude is a cold and lonely place.

We all know Richard Jenkins even if we don’t recognize the name. He’s a character actor who has appeared in supporting roles with increasing regularity since the early ’80s. The Visitor, written and directed by The Station Agent‘s Thomas McCarthy, gives Jenkins a rare lead part and he brings to it a mixture of pathos and wit. The chief pleasure of The Visitor is in watching Jenkins’ character, Walter Vale, grow. Jenkins never overplays the role, opting for a low-key approach that makes the one scene where Walter boils over all the more effective. A lot of heart goes into the performance; when Walter encounters something that gives him a brief flurry of happiness, we smile with him.

Walter lives alone in a suburban Connecticut home. He’s a widower and all the passion left his life with the death of his wife. He gets no joy from his work as a university professor and his attempts to find a hobby that will engage him are fruitless. He is sent to New York to present a paper and that’s where his safe, compartmentalized existence takes an unexpected turn. Entering his rarely used city apartment, Walter finds it to be lived-in. Two squatters, Tarek (Haaz Sleiman) and Zainab (Danai Gurira), have moved in. In the wake of a confrontation that entails much discomfort and embarrassment on both sides, Walter invites them to remain in the apartment for as long as they need to find a new place to live. And, while Zainab keeps Walter at arm’s length, the gregarious Tarek befriends him. But Tarek, who was born in Syria, and Zainab, who comes from Senegal, are in the United States illegally and, when a minor infraction lands Tarek in jail, he is scheduled for deportation.

We know how the Hollywood version of this movie would end. Al Pacino, playing Walter, would show up at the deportation hearing and give a big speech that ends with a gutsy “Hoo ha!” The Visitor, however, seeks to drain some of the fantasy element from the situation. People in real life don’t give Pacino-like speeches and, on those rare occasions when they do, those orations rarely cause any change. That’s because The System doesn’t care about pretty words or flowery speech. Terry Gilliam had it right in Brazil.

Music is an important element. It forms the initial bridge between Walter and Tarek and becomes a critical element of Walter’s re-birth. Tarek plays African drums and he gives lessons to Walter, who has been haltingly trying to play the piano. Some of Walter’s early attempts to practice provide a few chuckles but he develops into a surprisingly adept pupil. We learn that Walter’s late wife was an accomplished pianist and now he has rediscovered the joy of living through another form of music. He gives up the past, as represented by the piano, and embraces the future, as represented by the drums. The symbolism is simplistic but effective.

The Visitor might easily be called The Awakening of Walter Vale. As the movie progresses and Walter becomes more embroiled in Tarek’s cause, the film gives us longer and more frequent glimpses of the man he must have been before his wife’s death. His quasi-romantic relationship with Tarek’s mother (Hiam Abbass), which takes up the bulk of the production’s second half, is a little forced and doesn’t always ring true, but it aids in the protagonist’s revival. The Visitor ends on an ambiguous, bittersweet note, but the last scene offers a portrait that is tinged more with hope than sadness. This is a simple story of human drama that provides an incentive to spend a couple of hours in a movie theater during a spring that has not provided many such reasons.

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