Movie Review: Office Romance (2026)

Genre: Romantic Comedy  

Director: Ol Parker  

Starring: Jennifer Lopez, Brett Goldstein  

Running Time: 115 minutes  

Synopsis: Jackie Cruz (Jennifer Lopez) is the embattled CEO of Air Cruz, the company founded by her father (Edward James Olmos). With the airline embroiled in legal action initiated by a competitor, Jackie works closely with lawyer Daniel Blanchflower (Brett Goldstein) from her legal team, and they fall in love despite the company's strict policy forbidding office romances. Jackie's pregnant assistant Sydney (Betty Gilpin) starts to suspect that her boss is in a relationship, and when Jackie's private life is dragged into the legal action, the romance is threatened.

What Works Well: Jennifer Lopez makes for a glamorous CEO.

What Does Not Work As Well: It's difficult to believe that an HR policy can be the catalyst for a rom-com, and sure enough this limp effort leans heavily on adults behaving like (literally) horny teenagers. Daniel gets tongue-tied and develops a very visible erection in Jackie's presence, and his use of the "c" word, apparently quite acceptable in his native England, is over-deployed. It's never clear if the pregnant Sydney is supposed to be comic relief, a supporter, or an antagonist, but she is victimized by a shock-for-shock's sake birth scene. Equally, Daniel's incarcerated sister (Jodie Whittaker) is a sub-plot that goes nowhere.

Key Quote:

Jackie (to Daniel): Do you believe in magic?

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Movie Review: Angel Eyes (2001)

Genre: Romance  

Director: Luis Mandoki  

Starring: Jennifer Lopez, Jim Caviezel, Sonia Braga, Victor Argo, Terrence Howard, Shirley Knight  

Running Time: 102 minutes  

Synopsis: In Chicago, police officer Sharon Pogue (Jennifer Lopez) attends the scene of a fatal car crash and helps a man trapped in his vehicle. One year later, Sharon is estranged from her family because she had her abusive father arrested. After a drive-by shooting, Sharon is assisted by mysterious stranger Catch (Jim Caviezel), who wanders the streets in a trance-like state. Sharon and Catch start a relationship, although he does not reveal anything about himself. After an evening at a jazz club, Sharon starts to understand the tragic truth about her new lover, while struggling to reconcile with her parents.

What Works Well: This romantic drama deserves credit for taking risks, mixing street-level policing with an intense relationship. Catch is dealing with trauma, Sharon repeatedly fails at traditional dating, and there is logic in the attraction that develops between them. The fraught relationship with her parents (Victor Argo as the boorish dad and Sonia Braga as the long-suffering mom) and the downstream impacts on her brother's family add texture. Jennifer Lopez carries the central role with tender toughness, and Shirley Knight makes a welcome appearance as the one anchor in Catch's orbit.

What Does Not Work As Well: After a vigorous opening act, the middle third notably sags into sappiness, director Luis Mandoki understandably struggling to transition from high-stakes policing to the slower pace of a complicated romance. Jim Caviezel is trapped into one trance-like mode portraying a traumatized and incommunicative lover.

Key Quote:

Sharon (to Catch): You never said a word about yourself the other night, who are you?

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Movie Review: Marry Me (2022)

Genre: Musical Romantic Comedy  

Director: Kat Coiro  

Starring: Jennifer Lopez, Owen Wilson, Sarah Silverman  
Running Time: 112 minutes  

Synopsis: Music mega-star Kat Valdez (Jennifer Lopez) is about to get married (for the fourth time) to fellow music star Bastian (Maluma). But just as they are supposed to exchange on-stage vows in front of 20 million viewers, Kat discovers that Bastian has been cheating. On a whim, she plucks high school math teacher Charlie Gilbert (Owen Wilson), a divorced dad, out of the crowd and marries him instead. They subsequently agree to get to know each other for a few months, giving love an opportunity to blossom.

What Works Well: This romantic fairytale combines the fakery of living through the lens of social media saturation with a search for true love. Despite the inherent incompatibility of the central couple, Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson bring just enough chemistry to add an endearing layer of affection. A sub-plot revolving around Charlie's pre-teen daughter and a math club competition is a movie-within-a-movie, and adds real-life flavours away from the razzle-dazzle of superstardom.

What Does Not Work As Well: The plot is as far-fetched as rom-coms go, Kat and Charlie sharing nothing in common before or during their romance. The running time is padded by at least 15 minutes, and instead of tackling the comprehensive sacrifices needed for this romance to work, the script is instead occupied by the predictable beats of unlikely love found, unlikely love challenged, and unlikely love confirmed. 

Key Quote:

Charlie: Is this smart?

Kat: I think we left smart six weeks ago.

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Movie Review: The Mother (2023)

Genre: Action  

Director: Niki Caro  

Starring: Jennifer Lopez, Joseph Fiennes, Omari Hardwick, Gael Garcia Bernal  

Running Time: 118 minutes  

Synopsis: FBI informant and ex-US Army sniper "Mother" (Jennifer Lopez) is pregnant and pursued by the rival gangs of her former associates Lovell (Joseph Fiennes) and Alvarez (Gael Garcia Bernal). After giving birth she surrenders her newborn daughter Zoe and disappears into the Alaska wilderness, with FBI Agent Cruise (Omari Hardwick) her only contact. Twelve years later Cruise sends a message that Zoe (Lucy Paez) is in danger, forcing Mother to come out of hiding to try and protect her daughter.

What Works Well: The action scenes are varied and well staged, and the energy level never dips across the two hours. The filming locations (British Columbia standing-in for Alaska, the Canary Islands representing Havana) are quite attractive.

What Does Not Work As Well: Mother's backstory, as revealed in flashback fragments, is abbreviated towards irrelevance, abandoning bad guys Lovell and Alvarez into bloodthirsty faceless villains territory. The plot features heavily-armed marauding gangs repeatedly showing up and running riot as they please, while Jennifer Lopez goes through the movie with a singular annoyed non-expression. The attempts to forge a mother-daughter bond are soiled by all the blood-letting.

Conclusion: Basic mindless action, competently delivered but indiscernible from countless similar efforts.



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Movie Review: An Unfinished Life (2005)

A quiet drama about repairing family connections, An Unfinished Life is earnestly soulful and utterly predictable.

Escaping an abusive relationship with boyfriend Gary (Damian Lewis), Jean (Jennifer Lopez) packs up her 11-year-old-daughter Griff (Becca Gardner) and heads to the Wyoming ranch of her gruff father-in-law Einar Gilkyson (Robert Redford). He is not thrilled to see her, still blaming Jean for her role in the death of his son Griffin. In addition to running the ranch, Einar also cares for his long-time friend Mitch (Morgan Freeman), who is slowly recovering from severe wounds suffered in a bear attack.

Jean finds a job at a diner in the nearby town and initiates a relationship with local sheriff Crane (Josh Lucas), while Einar starts to bond with his granddaughter. With the bear captured and held in a cage, Mitch reflects on his near-death encounter and prods Einar to forgive Jean and move on from the past. The tension level rises when an agitated Gary shows up, looking for his ex-girlfriend. 

All the characters and issues residing within An Unfinished Business are introduced within 20 minutes of the start. From there a straight, clear line can be drawn to the ending, and no surprises get in the way of the safest predictions. Director Lasse Hallström brings his expertise in docile human-centred dramas to this adaptation of a Mark Spragg book, and delivers quality but staid entertainment.

Without narrative twists, time is invested painting a rustic picture of life on a Wyoming farm (pickup trucks to be fixed, cows to be milked) and the nearby one-street town (drunk young cowboys to be taught a few lessons). Jean finds a job at the local diner, and of course the owner Nina (Camryn Manheim) is the earth mother type with her own dramatic backstory, introduced and wrapped up in all of one scene.

The performances are excellent, Jennifer Lopez rising to the challenge of matching two legends. As Einar, Redford is dusty and distressed but mostly stubbornly determined to hold a grudge. Morgan Freeman brings the familiar physically-damaged-but-emotionally-prescient seen-it-all-before sidekick persona to Mitch. Becca Gardner keeps young Griff refreshingly real, balancing curiosity with uncertainty in her new surroundings.

The bear sub-plot occupies too much screen time, from capture to feeding and then a breakout, all forming a clumsy metaphor for getting back up stronger when life knocks you down. This applies directly to the bear and Mitch, but figuratively to all the characters. An Unfinished Life is every life accumulating scars of pain and wisdom, a story both genuine and common.



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Movie Review: Hustlers (2019)

A jaunty crime drama set in the sordid world of strip clubs, Hustlers accentuates a culture of sisterhood but glosses over both victims and accountability.

In 2014, Dorothy (Constance Wu), who uses the stage name "Destiny", is being interviewed by journalist Elizabeth (Julia Stiles) about her career as a stripper. Her story begins in 2007, when Destiny starts working at New York City's Moves Club and meets star performer Ramona (Jennifer Lopez). The two women strike up a friendship and start performing as a duo, entertaining Wall Street executives in the VIP rooms for huge tips. 

Times are good, until the economic crash of 2008. Wall Street hollows out and the easy money stops. Destiny falls on hard times, has a child, but breaks up with the father. Unable to find other work, she returns to stripping. But the industry has changed, with Russian performers dominating and clients expecting explicit sexual favours. Destiny reconnects with Ramona, who has a new plan: target men at bars, drug them, take them back to Moves, maximize their credit card spending, and share in the proceeds.

If Hustlers was about a group of men drugging women and robbing them blind while they are semi-conscious, it would be a lot less celebratory. But here writer and director Lorene Scafaria downplays the criminal behaviour, and allows messages of female empowerment and women enjoying their self-justified chemical assaults to predominate. The energy is palpable and joy crackles from the vibe of underdogs turning the tables, but with the victims all but ignored, the feel-good parties get tiresome.

The film is inspired by real events chronicled in Jessica Pressler's The Hustlers at Scores magazine article. Especially in the opening context-setting 20 minutes, Scafaria adopts a glitzy aesthetic at the strip club, but from the women's perspective. The men fuel the industry, but here they are either bank machines or leaches. Admitting the drudgerous reality beneath the glamour, the strippers are portrayed as good natured and doing a job as best as they can, but also battling fatigue and age, and scrapping for whatever crumpled dollars they accumulate at the end of the night.

The strongest elements evolve from the bond between Destiny and Ramona. Their friendship anchors the narrative, and is a heartfelt portrayal of two different women riding the industry's ups and downs. Jennifer Lopez is a confident force of nature as Ramona, while Constance Wu is more quietly perceptive. The cast also includes Kiki Palmer, Lili Reinhart, Madeline Brewer, and Mercedes Ruehl, while singer Lizzo and singer/ex-stripper Cardi B add a spike of stunt casting in minor roles.

Outside the stripping milieu, Destiny looks after a grandmother then a new child, while Ramona has a teenaged daughter. The family members are little more than expedient props, but more disappointing is an obsession with materiality. Every dollar the women earn seems to be spent on expensive fashions and accessories, concepts of saving for a rainy day or self-improvement discarded in favour of the next shopping spree.

Hustlers provides a welcome voice to performers who are often just the background decoration in other movies. It's unfortunate these characters are only humanized after resorting to criminal behaviour.



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Movie Review: Second Act (2018)

A lightweight corporate comedy, the frivolous Second Act is even unsure what story it wants to tell.

In New York, fortysomething Maya DaVilla (Jennifer Lopez) is the Assistant Manager at a Value Shop store. Despite 15 years of experience and plenty of streetsmarts, she is passed over for a promotion because she lacks a college degree. Her relationship with boyfriend Trey (Milo Ventimiglia) is strained because he wants to start a family and she isn't ready, still haunted by the baby she had to place in adoption as a 17 year-old single mother.

Maya's best friend is the foul-mouthed Joan (Leah Remini). For Maya's birthday, Joan's teenaged son gifts her a spruced up on-line profile, inventing advanced education degrees and a sparkling record of philanthropy. She is soon offered a job by a major cosmetics company, where she is welcomed by the president Anderson Clarke (Treat Williams) and his vice president daughter Zoe (Vanessa Hudgens). Maya feels guilty about landing a job based on fake credentials, but is quickly thrust into a competition with Zoe to develop a new skincare product. A shock revelation awaits.

Directed by Peter Segal, Second Act is a nausea-inducing affair, with a soapy self-empowerment song breaking out on the soundtrack every two minutes. Somehow the limp plot meanders from an oh-so-shallow streetsmarts versus booksmarts theme to a mother-daughter reunion and laments about past decisions and present lies. The race to develop a new skincare product works hard to demonstrate cluelessness about product research methods and the modern corporate work culture, while simultaneously underlining women's fixation on looks in a film supposedly about valuing anything but.

Some jokes from the script by Justin Zackham and Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas do land, mainly delivered by the supporting cast. Leah Remini is often the only tolerable presence on the screen, while Annaleigh Ashford (as an acerbic junior executive) and Charlyne Yi (as an intern with a fear of heights but no shortage of courage in other places) add the occasional spark. In contrast Jennifer Lopez never convinces, while Vanessa Hudgens struggles to hide the strain required to deliver lines.

Once all the saccharine resolutions are wrapped up in a bland bow, prolonged dreamy narration winds down the story, amplifying the sound of scraping at the bottom of the ideas barrel.



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Movie Review: The Boy Next Door (2015)

A woman-in-peril drama thriller with erotic undertones, The Boy Next Door creates a reasonable premise but unravels into poorly executed psycho-on-the-loose territory.

High school literature teacher Claire Peterson (Jennifer Lopez) is separated from her cheating husband Garrett (John Corbett) and contemplating divorce. In the meantime they share custody of their teenaged son Kevin (Ian Nelson). Hunky 19-year-old Noah Sandborn (Ryan Guzman) moves into the house next door to help his ailing uncle, who is about to have surgery.

Noah, who lost his parents in a car accident, is polite and affable, helping Claire with small projects around the house and mentoring Kevin. Although Garrett is working hard to regain Claire's trust, she cannot help but be attracted to Noah, culminating in a night of lust. But when Claire proclaims their affair a mistake and seeks to immediately end it, Noah turns hostile.

A rather cheap re-imagining of Fatal Attraction, The Boy Next Door offers a not-bad opening 30 minutes. With Jennifer Lopez in decent form, Claire is a comfortably familiar woman juggling parenting with a career and debating whether her husband deserves a second chance, while Noah offers forbidden but irresistible young fruit. Director Rob Cohen uses the one smouldering sex scene to distance the movie away from typical made-for-television fare.

What happens next is an awkward transition undermining all the good work. Noah instantaneously flips from seducer, lover, mentor, and all-round interesting and literate guy into a manipulative raving lunatic. Barbara Curry's script never regains balance, and layers on far-fetched incidents to strain all credibility. In a demonstration of fury Noah bashes-in another student's head in the busy school hallway, but appears to suffer no meaningful repercussions. A car brake-failure incident is poorly staged from inception to conclusion, and Noah's smarts don't extend to deleting incriminating files from his laptop - or even using a password.

The climax is a flaming gong show suddenly introducing globs of gore while regurgitating every possible iteration of not-dead-yet fakery. Interesting when he moves in, The Boy Next Door does not know when to leave already.

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Movie Review: Parker (2013)

A revenge action thriller, Parker plugs into Jason Statham's crackling persona but otherwise offers placid engagement.

Professional thief Parker (Statham) joins a gang led by Melander (Michael Chiklis) to rob a State Fair in Ohio. They get away with close to $200,000 each, but Melander insists they use the money to seed a much bigger job. When Parker refuses he is shot and left for dead.

He survives and through his contact Hurley (Nick Nolte) learns Melander's gang is connected to powerful Chicago-based mobsters and is now planning a big jewel heist in Palm Beach, Florida. Parker safeguards his girlfriend Claire (Emma Booth) and secures false identity papers as a wealthy Texan. To find Melander's Palm Beach hideout Parker pretends to be interested in buying a house and connects with struggling real estate agent Leslie (Jennifer Lopez). She spots an opportunity for a big commission and maybe more as Parker plots his revenge.

An adaptation of the book Flashfire by Donald E. Westlake with a script by John J. McLaughlin, Parker's plot carries similarities to earlier Westlake adaptations including Point Blank and Payback. Despite generous injections of unnecessary gore and Statham's charismatic presence, director Taylor Hackford fails to refresh the familiar story of a principled crook intent on recovering his fair share from double-crossing ex-colleagues.

Among the criminals, the script demonstrates no interest in complex character definitions or development. Parker is an honourable thief with strict adherence to a code of conduct, while all the thick-necked bad guys are designated as thick-necked bad guys. The rest of the movie concerns itself with decent-enough but soulless and mostly joyless action set-pieces, with just one or two moments of wit cracking a smile.

Jennifer Lopez as Leslie arrives relatively deep into the movie carrying a sob story consisting of a scoundrel ex-husband, bankruptcy, and the ignominy of living with her insufferable daytime soap-loving mother. Lopez lands with the thud of misplaced star power: Leslie initially belongs in a rom-com, and her subsequent plotting to carve a cut for herself out of Parker's quest for revenge (and maybe find a husband as part of the bargain) is more appropriate for a light-hearted crime misadventure. Meanwhile Parker is engaged in brutal fights to the death with a merciless assassin involving bloody limb perforations and bodies flying off balconies.

Parker seeks pulpy vengeance from previously squeezed ideas, but only succeeds in spraying flavourless juice in uncoordinated directions.



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Movie Review: The Wedding Planner (2001)

A banal romantic comedy, The Wedding Planner is devoid of wit, humour and crisp ideas.

In San Francisco, Mary (Jennifer Lopez) is a hyper-competent wedding planner but has no love life of her own. When her heel is caught in a utility hole, she is rescued from disaster by pediatrician Steve (Matthew McConaughey). Mary's assistant Penny (Judy Greer) sets them up on a date, hoping to help Mary snap out of the emotional doldrums.

Although Mary and Steve have a good time, she is then shocked to learn he is the fiancé of her latest client, wealthy businesswoman Fran (Bridgette Wilson-Sampras). Mary feels deceived by Steve but continues organizing his wedding. Meanwhile, her widowed father (Alex Rocco) pushes her to consider marrying Massimo (Justin Chambers), a passionate young man recently arrived from Italy.

Directed by Adam Shankman, The Wedding Planner is an easy to forget, by-the-numbers rom-com. In the central roles Jennifer Lopez and Matthew McConaughey hardly seem to be trying and spend most of the movie bickering, while the supporting characters consist of mechanically recycled assorted friends, family members and business colleagues.

The romance is devoid of both laughs and any moments of poignancy, but stuffed full of the typical plastic devices lovers have to navigate before the pre-ordained ending. And so Steve is marrying Fran despite their obvious incompatibility, Mary is being pushed by her father to wed Massimo and learn to love him later, and the script by Michael Ellis and Pamela Falk chokes on superficial references to what love is or is not. The insipid soundtrack featuring interchangeable self-empowerment musical fluff does not help.

To obscure the lack of content Shankman takes a tour of wedding preparation scenery, from selecting the venue to finding the flowers, including a desperate detour to a statue park that degenerates into an adventure with crazy glue and detached private parts. Steve gets one scene at his workplace hospital, but otherwise must be the most under-employed doctor in San Francisco. 

And somehow it's not sufficient for Steve to save Mary's life once from her heel-stuck-in-the-utility-hole predicament, so the old standby of a damsel in distress on a runaway horse being rescued by her white knight is wedged into the proceedings. The Wedding Planner is regretfully cancelled due to an utter lack of creativity.



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Movie Review: Anaconda (1997)

A horror movie about a voracious giant snake, Anaconda offers a predictable premise, cheesy good special effects, and a ready-to-eat buffet of decent cast members.

In South America, documentary filmmaker Terri Flores (Jennifer Lopez) is embarking on a dangerous river journey to find an elusive Amazonian tribe. Her crew includes cameraman Danny Rich (Ice Cube), anthropologist Dr. Steven Cale (Eric Stoltz), production manager Denise Kalberg (Kari Wuhrer), sound engineer Gary Dixon (Owen Wilson), and pompous actor/narrator Warren Westridge (Jonathan Hyde).

Boat skipper Mateo (Vincent Castellanos) navigates the group along the river and early in the journey they rescue Paraguayan snake hunter Paul Serone (Jon Voight) from his stranded boat. Grizzled and caustic, Serone starts to take charge. His singular objective is to find and capture alive a mammoth human-eating anaconda, placing Terri and her crew in grave danger.

An old-fashioned creature feature, Anaconda follows a traditional construct by lining up a small group of victims as sumptuous meals. Peruvian director Luis Llosa delivers an ultra economical thriller within 89 minutes with all the requisite creepy, scary and disgusting moments, and still invests the film's first half in getting to know the characters and terrain. The mist-shrouded spooky Amazonian setting proves more interesting than the people, who never rise above stock soft-meat targets.

Except for Serone. Following in the footsteps of Quint and many previous cinematic acerbic hunters on destiny's path to confront their greatest nemesis, Jon Voight bites into the role with reptilian venom. He deploys an upside down smile and exotic accent to express unbridled disdain at the urbanite civilian film crew, easy to manipulate and easier to kill as necessary.

The ridiculously large and frequently angry snake, a special effects creation slithering between funny and hideous, does not welcome visitors and starts to attack with satisfying regularity in the second half. But Serone proves just as treacherous, leaving Anaconda with two oversized villains and plenty of hissing.

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Movie Review: The Cell (2000)

A serial killer drama with a difference, The Cell combines imaginative horror, psychology and science fiction to invade a murderer's psyche.

Psychologist Dr. Catherine Deane (Jennifer Lopez) is part of team attempting experimental treatments for schizophrenia. Using revolutionary technology developed by Dr. Miriam Kent (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) and Henry West (Dylan Baker), she enters the mind of young patient Edward to try and lure him out of his coma.

Meanwhile Carl Stargher (Vincent D'Onofrio) is a deeply disturbed schizophrenic serial killer. He kidnaps young women and isolates them for days in an automated holding tank, gradually increasing the level of water in a cleansing ritual before the kill. After kidnapping his latest victim Julie Hickson (Tara Subkoff), Carl succumbs to his illness and drops into an irreversible coma. FBI Agent Peter Novak (Vince Vaughn) desperate needs to know where Julie is being held, and turns to Catherine with a request to enter Carl's mind to search for clues.

More of a visual feast than a traditional serial killer thriller, The Cell most resembles a visit to an elaborate modern art gallery as director Tarsem Singh brings music video panache to his cinematic debut. Stunning production design, outlandish costumes and make-up, an imagination on steroids and crisp cinematography combine to produce a memorable and knowingly disturbing experience.

The Cell is rich in symbolism, some of it religious, as well as echoes of inspiration from other films, including an opening shot that salutes no less than Lawrence Of Arabia. Water plays a key role in Stargher's agony and derangement, while horses help Catherine navigate foreign minds.

For all the emphasis on ostentatious style, the Mark Protosevich script does also provide an intriguing and relatively original race-against-time narrative. There is a short segment of detective work where Novak and his colleagues frantically work to identify and apprehend Stargher as his kill rate increases, but the real drama resides in the urgent infiltration of a killer's mind.

And it's up to Catherine to navigate a horror show where childhood trauma and a history of brutal abuse co-exist with an adult damaged beyond repair, trapped in his own grandeur but holding one last secret that may yet save a life. The link between deep childhood emotional upheaval and the adult descent into the worst kind of criminality is typical Hollywood fare, and here it amped up with sexual repression, sado-masochism and some disgusting gore.

Just as the film's strength are vivid, so are some suspect moments. The Peter Novak character almost literally wanders in from another movie, and some of the protocols in the mission-critical mind invasion science room, including dog privileges, are loosey-goosey at best. Singh's rush to the next spectacular tableau often overwhelms the pacing, The Cell sometimes resembling a hypnotic experience on warp speed.

Jennifer Lopez maintains a steady presence without achieving any breakthrough moments, while Vince Vaughn struggles to grab a hold of Novak. Vincent D'Onofrio plays to his strength as an unhinged murderer responding to vile impulses.

The Cell tackles horrid subject matter, wrapping grotesque inhumanity in incongruous yet gorgeous packaging.

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Movie Review: Money Train (1995)

A buddy cops action thriller, Money Train is overcooked and underwhelming.

John (Wesley Snipes) and Charlie (Woody Harrelson) are bickering foster brothers who both work as undercover cops for the New York City transit authority. John is confident and has his life in order. Charlie is a free spirit, always in trouble and depends on John to bail him out. They both manage to infuriate railway operations chief Donald Patterson (Robert Blake). And when fellow officer Grace (Jennifer Lopez) joins their enforcement unit, both brothers decide to romantically pursue her.

Charlie runs afoul of poker game loan sharks and finds himself $15,000 in debt. Grace becomes a wedge between the brothers, and John grows tired of saving Charlie from himself. Meanwhile a psychotic arsonist known only as Torch (Chris Cooper) is on the loose in the subway. With the world closing in on him Charlie begins to dream of hijacking the nightly money train that collects the system's fare revenue.

Directed by Joseph Ruben, Money Train is bloated yet empty. Despite decent production values, everything here is heightened to childhood levels of exaggeration. The action scenes involving Torch and the climactic train heist are wildly over-the-top, defying all laws of logic and physics. The villainy of Patterson reaches caricature levels, the bickering between the brothers is contrived, and the three-way lust triggered by Grace splatters all over the screen, based on nothing more than one woman arriving to work alongside two men.

After the success of 1992's White Men Can't Jump, this was an attempt to nurture the on-screen buddy chemistry between Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson. The screenplay by Doug Richardson and David Loughery overplays its hands and asks too much of the actors. John and Charlie engage in scene after scene of predictable verbal sparring lacking in wit and originality, and it all grows tired and old very quickly.

And when it comes to the action set-pieces, Ruben appears oblivious that more can be less, and much more disintegrates into nothingness. Bodies are summarily dangled off high rises, bullets fly on passenger-filled subway platforms, and in the name of seeking the next cheap on-screen thrill, every safety protocol is broken by cops who should know better. And when the climax arrives, Charlie's hairbrained idea to hijack a highly secured train is a most unconvincing screen heist in both planning (none to speak of) and rational cinematic execution (botched).

Money Train superficially looks good and makes decent use of elaborate sets recreating the New York subway system. But this is an otherwise bumbled movie, a child's clumsy fist rummaging through what could have been an elegant train set.

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Movie Review: Shall We Dance? (2004)

A romantic comedy, Shall We Dance? is a gentle twirl through the turbulent waters of middle age.

In Chicago, John Clark (Richard Gere) is a well-established lawyer specializing in executing wills. Happily married to Beverly (Susan Sarandon) and the father of two teenagers, John is nevertheless hitting a full-fledged middle age emotional crisis, feeling empty inside after nearly 20 years of the same marriage and the same career. On his daily train commute he regularly spots a sad-looking Paulina (Jennifer Lopez) staring out of the window of Miss Mitzi's ballroom dance studio. On a whim John signs up for evening dance classes and keeps his new hobby a secret.

At the studio John meets fellow novice dancers Chic (Bobby Cannavale) and Vern (Omar Miller), and veteran resident dancer Bobbie (Lisa Ann Walter), who still dreams of competing to win. He also stumbles onto co-worker Link Peterson (Stanley Tucci), who leads a secret life of dancing. John learns that Paulina is recovering from a broken relationship, but she rebuffs his tentative advances. John is reinvigorated by the joy of dancing and new friendships, but Beverly starts to suspect that her husband is having an affair and hires a private detective (Richard Jenkins) to investigate.

Directed by Peter Chelsom, Shall We Dance? is a remake of a 1996 Japanese film. The Hollywood version settles down for a relaxed tone, sprinkling mild humour and melancholy in equal measures while avoiding extremes in any direction. The film is easy to like as it works its way to the predictable uplifting resolutions, but also stays at the shallow end of the pool.

Unusually for a relatively lightweight film about dance and angst, this is a male perspective. While Chelsom never quite explains why the first world problems in John Clark's privileged life are worth caring about, the numbness brought upon by a daily routine simultaneously drudgerous and frantic is familiar enough. Gere does a fine job as man quietly venturing outside his zone of comfort without knowing quite why and feeling deeply guilty about keeping any secrets.

The dance sequences are staged with a mixture of fun and flamboyance. None of the performances are meant to showcase expert dancers, and the film benefits from the self-deprecatory attitude conveyed by dance amateurs stepping out for personal reasons. Paulina is the exception, and Jennifer Lopez delivers a subdued performance as the temporarily fallen star licking her wounds as she gathers the courage to go again.

Mimicking the studio awkwardness, the relationship dynamics between the characters remain refreshingly clumsy, John never quite knowing how to say the right things to neither Beverly nor Paulina. And that may not be a bad thing. The loudmouthed Bobbie speaks her mind, causes carnage and may be the loneliest character in the film.

A simple message delivered in a fleeting package, Shall We Dance? is an invitation to refresh a stale psyche by embracing small risks.

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Movie Review: Maid In Manhattan (2002)

A romantic comedy derived from Cinderella, Maid In Manhattan showcases the worst of the genre in a gag-inducing saccharine package.

Single mom Marisa Ventura (Jennifer Lopez) works as a maid at the swanky Beresford Hotel in New York City. Marisa looks after her young son Ty as best as she could, and harbours ambitions to apply for the management training program. One of the guests at the hotel is Chris Marshall (Ralph Fiennes), a third generation politician running for a Senate seat. Marshall's campaign manager is the highly strung Jerry Siegal (Stanley Tucci).

Chris bumps into Marisa just as she is surreptitiously trying on a designer Dolce & Gabbana suit belonging to Caroline Lane (Natasha Richardson), another guest at the hotel, and he is immediately smitten. They start an unlikely relationship, and Marisa keeps her identity as a maid a secret. Meanwhile Jerry recognizes that his candidate is inviting bad publicity, while Caroline has ambitions of her own to seduce the handsome Chris.

Directed by Wayne Wang, Maid In Manhattan is an inoffensive fairy tale with a predictable start, middle and end, fully dependent on coincidences and misunderstandings due to characters never saying what needs to be said when it needs to be said. There are maybe two sharp lines of dialogue delivered by Jennifer Lopez to underline issues of classicism, but otherwise the Kevin Wade screenplay is an exercise in vanilla bland dialogue set to a vanilla bland music soundtrack.

The tired ingredients are all here: the cute kid, the lovable dog, Marisa's sassy maid friends, the romantic competition in the form of the conniving Caroline Lane. Two elderly French sisters provide attempted comic relief as incompetent hotel burglars.

Lopez is not a horrible actress and spends long intervals in a deglamorized maid outfit, but she does tend to over emote at every opportunity. The supporting cast contains plenty of talent taking the day off, with Ralph Fiennes, Bob Hoskins (as the hotel's head butler), Natasha Richardson, Stanley Tucci and Frances Conroy slumming it in the overacting department for an easy paycheque. Fiennes never comes close to establishing chemistry with Lopez, and the comic moments are more silly than funny.

The only miracle of Maid In Manhattan is that it ever got made.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

The Movies Of Jennifer Lopez

All movies starring Jennifer Lopez and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Money Train (1995)

Blood And Wine (1996)

Anaconda (1997)

Out Of Sight (1998)

The Cell (2000)

The Wedding Planner (2001)

Angel Eyes (2001)

Maid In Manhattan (2002)

Shall We Dance? (2004)

An Unfinished Life (2005)

The Back-Up Plan (2010)

What To Expect When You're Expecting (2012)

Parker (2013)

The Boy Next Door (2015)

Second Act (2018)

Hustlers (2019)

Marry Me (2022)

The Mother (2023)

Office Romance (2026)

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.
The Movie Star Index is here.