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Home , Callie Khouri, Dana Scully, Zhang Hanyu

16 發光的城市 A R O U N D T O W N FRIDAY, AUGUST 1, 2008 • TAIPEI TIMES

Scully and Mulder are back on the case in a dark supernatural thriller that will please hard-core fans but may not convert viewers unfamiliar with the television series

wanted to believe. But with his big-screen blowup of his great and weird television series The -Files, Chris Carter has turned me into a reluctant skeptic. Baggy, and Dana Scully’s relationship still simmers in The draggy, oddly timed and strangely off X-Files: I Want to Believe. Photos courtesy of Fox Movies Ithe mark, The X-Files: I Want to Believe is the generally bad-news follow-up to the show’s first Spotnitz, another series regular, creates its own feature-film incarnation, The X-Files. Released deadening effect. It’s no wonder Mulder and in 1998 and directed by , one of the Scully seem so diffident. show’s regular frontmen, that earlier film was a The first X-Files movie, released before seamless translation of the series’s paranoid vibe the show ended, added nothing substantive. and trademark geek cool. The series supersized It came off like a contract clause writ large, nicely, filling the larger spatial dimensions by a shot at a potential franchise. The new film, staying true to its conceptual parameters. Carter’s debut as a feature director, adds even Not that it isn’t swell to see Mulder and Scully, Just when they thought they less, but it won’t hurt the show’s legacy, at least the Nick and Nora of paranormal freakouts — aka among die-hard fans who appreciated it as a and — once wittily sustained pop take on what the historian again trading dark, searching looks under the Richard Hofstadter has called “the paranoid cover of the long night, or even by bright eerie style in American politics.” In the years since day. Mulder may be wearing a bushy beard the show’s demise, US politics has grown all (Carter builds up the character’s entrance so the more paranoid, an observation that Carter dramatically I expected something rather more — who throws out an easy laugh about US leprous), and Scully looks thinner, more angled, a President George W. Bush to no real purpose touch weary. But it’s still them, the sexy renegade were out ... — might have run with instead of stumbling in agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation less interesting directions. who, for almost a decade, poked into strange goings-on, partly driven by Mulder’s belief that By MANOHLA DARGIS NY Times News Service, New York his sister had been kidnapped by extraterrestrials and partly by a work relationship that became something more. That relationship still simmers, though at a reduced temperature. There’s nothing stirring The X-Files: the air between Mulder and Scully, who, having I Want to Believe left the bureau, come across as unmoored and unfocused, even when they’re working on Directed by: Chris Carter the outlandish criminal case that drags them back into the twilight zone. A similar lack of Starring: David Duchovny urgency characterizes the movie, which despite (Fox Mulder), Gillian Anderson (Dana Scully), its yowling dogs, barking Russians, screaming Amanda Peet (Dakota Whitney), Billy Connolly women, swelling choral voices and moody (Father Joseph Crissman), Alvin (Xzibit) Joiner cinematography by Bill Roe — which turns even (Agent Mosley Drummy) dark blue a deeper shade of black — never finds Running time: 104 minutes a sustainable pulse. Carter knows how to grab your attention visually, but the amalgam of trashy Taiwan : Today thriller cliches that he has compiled with Frank

Crime does pay, for movie stars Assembly (集結號) Is wealth, ill-gotten or not, the answer to everything? Yes, yes, yes! proclaims ‘Mad Money’ Directed by: (馮小剛) By STEPHEN HOLDEN Bridget initially decides to Oprah Winfrey and Jerry Springer made her Hollywood’s go-to NY Times News Service, New York steal just enough to allow her crowds. gal for stories of empowered Starring: Hanyu (張涵予) In the breezy, amoral heist family to get out of debt and Having grabbed some loot sisterhood, lends it a feminist as Gu Zidi, Liao Fan (廖凡) as Jiao comedy Mad Money, Fun With not have to sell its fancy house. being caught, the credential. And because two Dapeng, Wang Baoqiang (王寶強) Dick and Jane meets 9 to 5 But just enough soon becomes women go wild and deliriously of the film’s women become as Jiang Maocai, (鄧超) on the way to recession. If more than enough, as she toss it into the air. As the movie their family’s breadwinners, as Er Dou, Yuan Wenkang (袁文康) uncomfortably timely movie amasses a basement’s worth of invites you to share their delight, Mad Money is another fable of as Wang Jincun lacks the political bite of the first dirty money. you may feel a tad unclean. Is sisters doing it for themselves. and the cozy star chemistry of Bridget and her partners wealth, ill-gotten or not, the Danson’s stay-at- Running time: 124 minutes the second, it sputters to fitful — Nina Brewster (Queen answer to everything? Yes, husband becomes a reluctant life in the crooked grin of Diane Latifah), a single mother raising yes, yes! proclaims the movie, collaborator who agrees to run Language: in Mandarin with Chinese and English subtitles Keaton, whose character, Bridget two children, and Jackie Truman directed by Callie Khouri from a sham consulting business from Assembly features unfamiliar actors, all of whom turn in able performances. Cardigan, an upper-middle-class (), a flibbertigibbet a screenplay adapted by Glenn the house as a cover story for  photo courtesy of Deepjoy Picture Taiwan release: Today homemaker in suburban Kansas who lives in a trailer with her Gers from the British television their affluence. City, Missouri, develops an husband, Bob (Adam Rothenberg) film Hot Money. The movie’s weakest link is insatiable lust for larceny. — are a demographically oddball The attachment to the project Holmes’ underwritten Jackie, As in Fun With Dick and threesome calculated to appeal of Khouri, whose screenwriting a one-note character who Whose historical truth is this? Jane, financial crisis inspires equally to the , debut, Thelma and Louise, dances around the bank wearing serious theft. No sooner has Don headphones. While Bridget and by Ho Yi their PLA unit, ill-equipped and and piles of corpses. (Ted Danson), Bridget’s husband, Nina bond amiably (Nina is staff reporter outnumbered, is sent to the front There’s nothing noble in sprung the alarming news that one of Latifah’s meatier recent Noted for his popular comedies to delay the Chinese Nationalist the war depicted, nor is there he has been downsized from screen roles, which isn’t saying that satirize the enormous social Party (KMT) forces, in 1948. patriotic fervor or triumphalism. his cushy corporate job and is much), Jackie registers as a changes has undergone The call never comes and Gu The soldiers are not heroes but US$286,000 in debt, than she Mad Money ditsy afterthought. Nina is given in the past decade, director finds himself the sole survivor ordinary people gripped by fear springs into action. a love interest in Barry (Roger Feng Xiaogang (馮小剛) tested of the battle, who is unable to and are blindly obedient. Love Is there a place in the work- Directed by: Callie Khouri Cross), a soft-hearted security his talents in the martial arts prove what happened. Wracked for their compatriots produces force for an upper-middle-class guard who, spotting the signs of historical genre with the less- with guilt, the veteran carries on acts of bravery. woman of a certain age with a Starring: (Bridget Cardigan), (Nina money stuffed under her shirt, than-successful Banquet (夜宴) fighting through the Korean War. The film takes a more degree in comparative literature Brewster), Katie Holmes (Jackie Truman), Ted Danson remarks, “Unless you have very in 2006. Against all odds, he survives. contemplative tone in its latter and no job experience? Yes, if (Don Cardigan), Adam Rothenberg (Bob Truman), Roger Cross hard, rectangular breasts, we The director returns with When hostilities end, Gu half when the action gives way to she accepts humiliating work (Barry), Stephen Root (Glover), Christopher McDonald need to talk.” Assembly (集結號), his first returns to the battle site, now a a drama about the veteran as a janitor in the local Federal (Bryce Arbogast), Finesse Mitchell (Shaun) The film’s other feminist attempt at a wartime movie, coal mine, and tries to uncover Gu’s fight for to have his dead Reserve Bank. Surrounded Running time: 104 minutes predecessor is 9 to 5, another which received rave reviews evidence of the battle and the comrades’ sacrifice recognized by by money in a high-security movie in which three smart and became a blockbuster last fate of his fallen comrades. the authorities. To some viewers, environment of surveillance Taiwan release: Today women defy the system. But in year in China; an unexpected Assembly tackles universal the movie’s true strength may be cameras, checkpoints and Mad Money, Glover (Stephen achievement as the film features themes rather than historical the examination of humanity the employees subject to random Root), the stubbornly doltish an unfamiliar cast, except for Hu specifics, with PLA and KMT trauma and injustice of war. searches, Bridget, while pushing bank manager who thwarts Jun (胡軍), who plays a small role. forces that resemble nothing like The sugarcoated ending, a mop, becomes obsessed with investigators by insisting his A story about a People’s those taught in history lessons. however, is a letdown. The getting her hands on some of security is unbreachable, isn’t Liberation Army veteran who Stylistically similar to Steven Communist authorities emerge the dough. half as pungent a villain as the survives the Japanese invasion, Spielberg’s Saving Private as a benevolent, paternalistic The lucre she craves is literally evil sexist boss in 9 to 5. Chinese Civil War and Korean Ryan, the film eloquently force that grieves for and honors filthy. Every day carts of old This movie is awkwardly War, Assembly is likely to crack shows the absurdity and follies the country’s fallen sons. Given bills are transported under lock structured. Beginning with a open the international market of war through brutal realism China’s strict control of the and key to shredding machines. scene of the thieves frantically for the Chinese director with its and gory violence. For the first country’s movie industry, that Since the money is going out disposing of their stolen cash masterful camera work, well- hour of the film, the terror on Feng stuck to the safe path of circulation, diverting some by and flushed toilet as the developed and moving story and the battlefield creeps through comes as no surprise. wouldn’t really be theft, would it? feds close in, it jumps back appealing moral message. the relentless camera work. With Assembly, Feng not That’s how Bridget rationalizes three years, then periodically The film’s title refers to Audiences are pulled into only sets a new benchmark for her scheme, in which she enlists leaps ahead to show snippets the bugle call used to order a the madness by witnessing Chinese war movies, but has two handpicked co-conspirators of the women under police retreat, which captain Gu Zidi mutilated arms and legs flying proven himself to be a talented to change the locks on the carts interrogation. The confusion is (played by Zhang Hanyu (張涵予) across the screen and torsos blockbuster maker who excels so they can grab some moola a sign that Mad Money doesn’t and his 47 men listen out for as being dragged through pools of in different genres. during its transit to the shredders. trust its audience to stay seated She airily calls it recycling.  Photo courtesy of Group Power until the caper is underway.

TT-970801-P16-IB.indd 1 2008/8/3 上午 01:22:31