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Review of the day for the week of March 22, 1999.

Monday:
Ghost

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My favorite character in Ghost is Oda Mae Brown (Whoopi Goldberg), a phony psychic who, to her shock, suddenly starts contacting real spirits.

The first spirit is Sam Wheat (Patrick Swayze), a recently killed ghost who needs Oda's help in warning his girlfriend Molly Jensen (Demi Moore) that his killer will soon come after her. He pesters Oda until she relents and talks to Molly, who is at first understandably skeptical of ghosts, psychics, and the like. Eventually, though, she believes. Meanwhile, Sam needs to find out who his killer's accomplice was, and why he was killed.

Although the story about Sam and Molly was obviously the focal point of this movie, I would have enjoyed this film more if it had focused on Oda's hilarious misadventures as she is a more fascinating character than either of the ill-fated lovers. If they had been a subplot, or not even in the film at all, this movie would have been vastly improved.

My Rating =

Rent

Wednesday:
Wing Commander

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Wing Commander reminded me of Starship Troopers without the arachnids. It's one of those by-the-book, pathetically unoriginal sci-fi films for people who will watch anything tawdry enough to be called sci-fi.

Although it contained a few mildly amusing moments, it was primarily a dull, wearisome, uninspired movie. Freddie Prinze Jr., who isn't much better here than he was in She's All That, plays Christopher "Maverick" Blair, a soldier in an intergalactic space war. No one likes him because his mother was a Pilgrim, the alien race they're fighting in this war. Along with several other soldiers, he flies around in little jet-machines that appear strikingly similar to the army aircraft flown today. (Yet they fly from a huge space station in the sky-curious.)

It's gratifying to note that some intergalactic wars make great movie plots while others produce incredibly boring and monotonous junk. The Star Trek movies, for example, are a shining example of films in which this plot is highly entertaining. Starship Troopers, the Star Wars films, and of course, Wing Commander are examples of films in which this plot is irksome and useless. Perhaps actors, and, even more importantly, the characters, affect a film's entertainment value as much as or even more than plot. Certainly the actors and characters could have been better in Wing Commander.

My Rating =

Rent

Friday:
Forces of Nature

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Forces of Nature is a romantic comedy movie starring Sandra Bullock and Ben Affleck.

Affleck plays Ben, a jacket-copy writer - who is about a day away from getting married. While on the plane to Georgia, where his elaborate wedding will take place, he meets a rather unusual woman named Sarah. When the plane makes a detour - after nearly crash landing- they join up together and hitch a ride with a drug addict named Vic. Needless to say, they temporarily end up in jail too.

Somehow Ben just can't shake Sarah - and not only do her wild misadventures lead him into big trouble but they lead him away from his from his fiance. Obviously, Ben is attracted to Sarah, but he doesn't want to ditch his fiance just yet either.

Although the end was a little disappointing, Forces of Nature is an amusing movie. Both main actors are excellent, and the plot moved quickly enough that it keeps your interest.