Directed by Chris Columbus

Written by Steve Chobsky, from the play by Jonathan Larson

Starring: Anthony Rapp, Idina Menzel, Rosario Dawson and Taye Diggs

135 minutes in CinemaScope

Chris Columbus continues to leave no fingerprints in this big, loud, colorful version of Jonathan Larson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway show. As in the case of A Chorus Line, successfully adapting stage to the screen, particularly a musical with so much built-in over-theatrical theatricality, appears more insurmountable than translating cuneiform.

We follow a band of scruffy Bohemians living in a gutted tenement. Collectively, they can’t raise one month’s rent, let alone five, yet they still have plenty of booze to drink, pot and cartons of Marlboros to smoke, and only the flashiest of trend-setting rags to wear. Mark (Anthony Rapp), a nerdy, heterosexual “documentarian” who makes Andy Dick look like Sid Luft, acts as our narrator. On a purely technical note, Mark’s 16mm spring-wound Bolex camera (that he never reloads and never puts down) holds maybe five to seven minutes of film. His Kodak bills would cost more than a Manhattan penthouse. Attempts to “open-up” the play (Mark singing and peddling his heart out down the streets of New York, etc.) might have been pulled off in more skilled hands, but a director with a vision would never tackle such a pre-ordained, tamper-proof project.

Mark still loves his ex, Maureen (Idina Menzel), who jumped ship for Joanne (Tracie Thoms), a public interest lawyer. HIV-positive Roger (Adam Pascal) rooms with Mark and loves Mimi (Rosario Dawson), an HIV-positive stripper at a gentleman’s club where the dancers wear more than the customers. Tom Collins (Jesse L. Martin) – Mark and Roger’s former roommate – is a computer genius involved with Angel (Wilson Jermaine), an HIV-positive transsexual street performer. Former group member Benny (Taye Diggs) is the “Buppie” who rose above it all and now holds the lease. With all the broad, Liza-like theatrics, forced cheer and eagerness to elongate every note, it plays like a special, AIDS-themed edition of “American Idol” written by Andrew Lloyd Weber.

The simplistic “moon/June/spoon” lyrics comprise almost 75 percent of the film’s dialogue. Rare exceptions (Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort, Milos Forman’s Hair, Ken Russell’s delirious Tommy and would I dare overlook the Three Stooges in Women Haters) come to mind, but this trademarked A. L. W. talk/sing approach to musicals leaves me cold. You should also note that all but one (Hair) of the five films cited above were created for the big screen. While Tommy was drawn from a rock-opera, it remains one of the great (and few) movie musicals of the past 30 years. A friend pointed out that, after all, this is based on Puccini’s La Boheme. Rent has as much to do with legitimate opera as the Marx. Bros.

On a positive visual note, the film is photographed by the superb Stephen Goldblatt (who knew Batman and Robin would make a perfect warm-up?), and Howard Cummings’ production design encourages the eyes to wander while bored with the music. Maureen and Joanne’s engagement party (reminiscent of Hair’s title number) was the film’s only saving moment.

The story takes place of the course of a now famous “five-hundred-twenty-five-thousand-six-hundred minutes.” Where do I put in for a one-hundred-thirty-five-minute refund?

Rating:

Directed by Mike Newell

Written by Steve Kloves

Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Maggie Smith and Brendan Gleeson

157 minutes in CinemaScope

For years I successfully avoided the Harry Potter franchise. Fantasy films were never my drug of choice. After a screening of the original Star Wars, I remember turning to a friend and asking, “Who the hell wants to see this?” A bunch of midgets in garbage cans with laser beams spouting dialogue that would embarrass the Bowery Boys. So much for having my finger placed firmly on the pulse of popular taste.

The problem with most contemporary fantasy films is their inability to establish and sustain a fantasy universe. That filthy puppet E. T. is able to strap a full-grown boy to his bicycle and pilot him past the moon, yet he can’t figure out how to phone home. So much for suspension of disbelief…

In the Harry Potter films, magic presents an escape hatch that the filmmakers, and audiences eager to buy in, jump through whenever logic rears its ugly kisser. Continuing plot points notwithstanding, the one thing that perplexed me throughout was the noticeable absence of electricity. The kids appear dressed in contemporary garb, yet everything is lit by candles. If these students are so smart, why can’t they figure out how to plug in a lamp? Didn’t their parents inform them of the horrors of reading in low light levels? A friend’s son informed me that electricity is beneath Hogwarts’ student body. When asked why a band complete with an electric guitar and amplifier was able to rock out, his response was, “Magic!”

The production design is appealing and the special effects enormous, but in service of what? Another joyless blockbuster, void of wonder and geared for 17-year-old boys that whisks us from one “adventure” to another. Sadly, stylistic flourishes and any form of personality on the part of the filmmakers are discouraged. As far as cinema is concerned, this is a vision-proof series. Don’t you find it odd that directors come and go, but all four films were authored by the same screenwriter? Were it not to remain unflinchingly loyal to the text, the result would be more in-theater shootings than at a 30-plex with all screens showing Get Rich or Die Trying.

There is one addition to the story that almost made it worth the two-and-a-half hours. As Alastor “MadEye” Moody, Brendan Gleeson steals every scene he’s in. In an era where everyone wants to be a star, Gleeson is content to plug away as one of the most reliable character actors at work today. It doesn’t hurt that MadEye earned his nickname from a transplanted left eye that resembles a floating-ball car compass gone wild.

Fortunately for me, this one is beyond criticism. Whether reviewers love it or hate, it won’t put a dent in the cinematic coffers. Given what I saw, unless trapped with one on an airplane, there is zero chance that I’ll be checking out the first three installments in this lifetime.

Rating:

Directed by James Mangold

Written by Gill Dennis and James Mangold

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Robert Patrick and Ginnifer Goodwin

133 minutes in CinemaScope

Country and western singers rank close behind mimes and bagpipe players in my Pantheon of least-loved entertainers. Only two C&W players have a permanent home in my DVD collection: Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash (although after seeing Mindy McCreedy’s Creedmoor-worthy performance on “Larry King Live,” I may have to check out her kitty-in-a-Cuisinart vocal stylings.) A DVD copy of Walk the Line will never darken my shelf.

Consider 10 bucks and 133 minutes of your life spared. Here is everything you need to know about Walk the Line in two sentences: 1) It stinks. 2) Johnny Cash was a singer/songwriter, hooked on speed, who loved June Carter. Wow! How’s that for a flash? What next? Air travel? Color TV? A better title would have been Johnny Cash: The Public Service Announcement, for all this film does is reduce the life of a great singer to yet another plea to “just say no.”

The Johnny Cash depicted on screen is so dull and superficial you’ll question whether or not he knows which end of the guitar to blow into. Not for one second did I believe Phoenix in the lead role. He doesn’t look the part, and at times he sounds more like a mumbling Mr. Ed than The Man in Black. Bypassing the Jamie Foxx imitation-is-the-sincerest-form-of-failure route, Phoenix pitched the performance somewhere between his persona and that of the legends. If they managed to transform Kevin Spacey into Bobby Darin (Beyond the Sea, another unsatisfying biopic), this should have been a cake-walk. Instead, Joaquin sings, Joaquin broods and Joaquin self-medicates. The film managed to bring one smile: As an inducement for Johnny to try speed for the first time, one of the roadies confides, “Elvis takes ’em.”

Mangold and Dennis’ ham-fisted direction and screenplay ensure that nothing, and I mean nothing, mentioned in Act 1 won’t come clumsily back into play during the final two-thirds. A lingering shot of a shoe-shine boy plants the seed for a future song. The table saw Johnny contemplates while awaiting his performance at Folsom Prison anticipates his older brother’s death. June gets laryngitis in reel two, Johnny in reel five. Even a Foghorn Leghorn impression attempts to evoke cheap resonance. Layering is one thing, but after the fourth or fifth coat of epoxy, the fumes felled me.

The supporting cast fares slightly better. Robert Patrick is the disapproving father Cash spent a lifetime silently doing battle with. As hard as he tries, once the father’s single-minded “they took the wrong son” stance is established, there is little for Patrick to do but play by the numbers. Reese Witherspoon’s hillbilly cheer can only go so far in a film that does its best to ignore anything even remotely upbeat.

Instead of wading through this mess, may I suggest No Direction Home, Martin Scorsese’s recent “American Masters” documentary about Bob Dylan’s early years? Twice the length, none of the bullshit.

Rating: m