By Staff Reports
Arizona Daily Wildcat
January 16, 1997

Movie Reviews

Hollywood dug up whatever talent it could, dressed them up in potato sacks, and gave them parts in film version of "The Crucible," Arthur Miller's biting satire of the McCarthy-era witch-hunts.

Miller worked with director Nicholas Hynter ("The Madness of King George") to work his play about the Salem with trials of 1692 into a screenplay format; unfortunately, the satire of the play translates into weak dialogue in the screenplay and falls flat in most places.

Abigail Willilams (Winona Ryder) has a fling with a married man, John Proctor (Daniel Day-Lewis), and when Proctor decides to go back to his wife, the girl resorts to witchcraft to kill Proctor's wife (Joan Allen). However, things get out of hand, and suddenly, the entire village is on a witch-hunt, and no one escapes suspicion.

The movie is mediocre for the most part. Ryder is laughably bad as Abigail. This was her please-take-me-seriously role, and well, I'm sorry, but I just can't. She just doesn't have the depth to carry a role like this one.

Daniel Day-Lewis is pretty convincing as the tormented husband guilty of adultery, but the real star of the movie is Joan Allen as his wife, Elizabeth . When the other actors seem to lose track of where a scene is going, Allen reels them in. Maybe you should just rent this one.

-Dorothy Parvaz

Jackie Chan's First Strike

Our old enemies, the Kommies, are back with a vengeance in "Jackie Chan's First Strike." This time, under the guise of the New Russian Mafia. They may have seen the error of their ways and renounced their pinko games in the name of a free market economy, but Russians will always be a shifty-eyed and morally bankrupt bunch. One especially unsavory flock has taken it upon themselves to sell nuclear weapons to third world terrorists. And while this sort of thing happens all the time, far be it for kung fu master Jackie Chan to encourage that sort of behavior.

It might not be "The English Patient," but it sure is cool. Character development - there isn't any, really. Jackie Chan plays the same goofy chop-saki master that he plays in real life, but this time he's fighting for Team America. Although he never sets foot on our hallowed shores, his escapades take him to the ends of the Earth: the wintry wasteland of the Ukraine, the urban jungle of Hong Kong, and the fearsome shark-infested aquariums of Australia.

The film plays like an old Charlie Chaplin movie, and Chan seems to have drawn inspiration from the Little Tramp's approach to physical comedy. The dialogue, in English this time around, could be dubbed easily into any tongue, as Chan is a sensei in the international language of cartoon violence. The story is just complex enough to take him all over the world fighting evil and performing all manner of spectacular, death-defying stunts.

He fights sharks, snowboards like an old pro, and utilizes a latter to fight two dozen angry Asians who think Jackie killed the patriarch of their clan. And he looks stunning in Koala Bear underwear, too.

If there's any real justice in this world, the editors and stunt coordinators will all win Oscarstm for their work on "Jackie Chan's First Strike." They make it all look so easy.

- Jon Roig

Turbulence

"Turbulence" is like "Speed in the air" if "Speed" starred perpetual b-movie stalker Ray Liotta. But Lauren Holly is no Sandra Bullock and Liotta is no Dennis Hopper. Essentially, he's Ted Bundy - a suave, handsome ladykiller. Literally. He's not even as good in the role as Mark Harmon was in the old made-for-television version of the Ted Bundy story. So, that said, the movie is pretty much blah. There's a plane, some random violence, a couple of people get killed by the desperate serial killer, and the sexy, yet determined and intelligent flight attendant (she's not a stewardess) teams up with the autopilot to save the day. If you happen to find yourself in the theater, you don't have to kill yourself to escape its onslaught, but don't waste your seven bucks. Spend it on crack instead. Maybe the people who made "Turbulence" will sell you some.

-Jon Roig