Movie Reviews: Berkeley, The Heartbreak Kid, Lust, Caution

ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE Nine years after proffering her origin story, director Shekhar Kapur revisits Queen Elizabeth I, once more played by Cate Blanchett beneath towering wigs and a deathly pale visage, some 30 years after her ascendancy to the throne. Only now, England is on the brink of war with Spain’s King Philip II (Jordi Molla), who wants England reclaimed as a Catholic stronghold under the rule of Mary Queen of Scots (Samantha Morton). As though any of that matters: The audience should have a very hard time taking too seriously a film in which Clive Owen, as Sir Walter Raleigh dressed in baggy pantaloons, dangles like a romance-novel cover boy from a ship’s mast while the ocean laps him like a faithful hound. Halloween’s come early, and the kids who can’t get their hands on a Jack Sparrow costume might do well to see whether Target’s carrying a Sir Walter Raleigh outfit this year. Kapur’s original Elizabeth was no less a fanciful soap opera — Dynasty in Renaissance Fair drag, Dallas with a much fancier Southfork Ranch. But the sequel is considerably more garish and voluble. If Elizabeth was BBC stuff writ large, a history lesson made enchanting for soap fans, its successor is more like an Indian import — how is it these people don’t break into song or skip into a dance routine every five minutes, honestly? (Citywide) (Robert Wilonsky)

FEEL THE NOISE The “noise” referred to in the title of this inane uplift tale for teens, which was co-produced by singer-actor Jennifer Lopez, is the sexy, melodic sound of reggaeton, a fusion of reggae, hip-hop, electronica and salsa born in Jamaica in the 1990s. Its rhythms soothe Rob (Omarion Grandberry), a troubled Harlem teen and would-be rapper who’s sent to Puerto Rico to live with the father (Giancarlo Esposito) he’s never met. Rob snubs Dad but hits it off with his stepbrother Javi (Victor Rasuk), an amateur DJ with a killer track in need of a vocal. First-time screenwriter Albert Leon appears to have turned for music-industry insight not to his famous producer (who has no excuses) but to other music-themed movies (Mariah Carey’s Glitter, perhaps?). That would explain an unbearably trite third act in which the brothers, as well as Rob’s sexy girlfriend (Zulay Henao), are whisked off to Manhattan by a record exec who smells a hit in the boy’s one-song demo. Making his English-language debut, Argentine director Alejandro Chomski can’t do a thing with the American sequences, but he does find momentary grace in the dance clubs of San Juan, where the young know to close their eyes and let the music speak for them. (Citywide) (Chuck Wilson)

THE FINAL SEASON Formulaic but not cynical, The Final Season has some sweet, thoughtful passages in what is otherwise just one more well-meaning inspirational sports movie. Based on true events, the film eulogizes the Norway Tigers, Iowa’s greatest high school baseball team and the pride of a town of less than 600 people. In the early ’90s, Norway’s school board opted to merge with a larger nearby city, dismiss the Tigers’ revered manager, Jim Van Scoyoc (Powers Boothe), and essentially erase the team’s legacy of 19 state championships. In the school’s final year of existence, Van Scoyoc’s assistant coach, Kent Stock (Sean Astin), took the reins in the hope of leading the disheartened boys to one last hurrah. Directed by David Mickey Evans (The Sandlot), The Final Season will exasperate those who automatically roll their eyes at the mention of Field of Dreams or Hoosiers, and certainly the film relies on Midwestern small-town minutiae, underdog heroics and baseball worship. Evans does convincingly articulate how sports form the spiritual center of America’s neglected non–media centers, and baseball purists will appreciate the movie’s careful attention to the game’s rituals — particularly the simple pleasures of infield practice. But while Astin and Boothe lead a commendably understated cast, it’s ultimately The Final Season’s unflinching modesty that keeps the movie from transcending its own conventionality. Though a nice change of pace from the usual sports flick’s incessant rah-rah sentimentality, Evans and his film forget that you can’t win too many games if you don’t occasionally swing for the fences. (Citywide) (Tim Grierson)

FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO Though it opens with the cathartic spectacle of Anita Bryant getting a cream pie in the kisser and closes with an act of civil disobedience against Jim Dobson’s reprogramming outfit, Focus on the Family, Daniel Karslake’s documentary, For the Bible Tells Me So, is more human interest than agitprop. Four gay Americans — including Anglican Bishop Gene Robinson and former House leader Dick Gephardt’s daughter, Chrissy — are profiled in the context of their accepting, religious families. One, who was repudiated by her mother and consequently committed suicide, is memorialized. An embedded educational cartoon amusingly explicates current scientific notions of homosexuality. Two Harvard theologians are on hand to parse Scripture. And some scholars deconstruct biblical text: To call something an abomination is to call it a transgression of ritual law (that is, unkosher) rather than a mortal sin. Others point out that fundamentalists are highly selective, taking the Bible literally only when it suits them. But mainly the movie stresses the importance of unconditional parental love (itself a reproach to the notion of a cruel fundamentalist God). For this reason, For the Bible Tells Me So will find its real audience on DVD — it’s a movie to give to one’s folks. (Nuart) (J. Hoberman)