POSEIDON

Theater: Regal Cinemas Savannah 10, Savannah, Georgia

If Poseidon were fact, not fiction, I would advise no minorities to go on a cruise ship, because you wouldn't make it out alive.

The black captain: crushed by a wall of water.
The Hispanic cook: impaled by spikes AND crushed by a falling elevator.
The Hispanic girl: drowned and/or blunt force trauma to the head.

Other than that, the thrills of escaping an ocean liner that's upside down and sinking has a lot of good thrills, even though a lot of it seems like a refresher from Titanic with the projector flipped over.

The cast? Josh Lucas as a professional gambler, Kurt Russell as a fireman turned mayor, Emmy Rossum as his daughter with a secret fiancee, and let's not forget Richard Dreyfuss as the suicidal rich and probably gay guy.

See it if - you like seeing boats go under.
Rent it if - you remember the original.

THE SENTINAL

Theater: Carmike Cinemas Wynnsong 11, Savannah, Georgia

Yes, I realize the movie is called The Sentinel ... but this is what the marquee said, and it's what is on my ticket stub ... so I won't be one to argue with Georgia's education system.

Michael Douglas is a Secret Service agent on a mission to uncover a ... plot to kill the president! Figure that. But the trailers sell it as a sort of man on the run movie, when the running doesn't even start until halfway through the movie.

The supporting cast is decent, from Kim Basinger as an unfaithful First Lady to Kiefer Sutherland and Eva Longoria as SS Investigators tracking down a killer, and then finally Douglas.

The movie is at its best when you see Douglas pull a Fugitive trying to clear his name and track down the bad guys, but sadly it takes a while to get going.

See it if - you want a decent thriller.
Rent it if - you like your Douglas aged ... more than he already is.

M:I:III

Theater: GTC Liberty Cinema 7, Hinesville, Georgia

The third MI movie has parts I would expect. But a rescue mission where Tom Cruise is sent against 16 bad guys with only some remote controlled machine guns is much more like a video game than a covert operation.

Granted, they are very cool machine guns, but come on ... Mission Impossible was never (or should never have been) about gunfights ... it was about out-thinking the enemy and using violence as the last possible resort.

So when Tom Cruise et al break into the Vatican it's awesome. Over the wall, blending in, impersonating their villain and kidnapping him without anyone knowing ... it was awesome.

Until you think about it ... why would a prolific international arms dealer be at the Vatican?

Because the characters mentioned his clients would be there.

His clients are buying weapons of mass destruction ... but also devout Catholics who believe in morality on fundamentalist levels?

Seems like a pretty risky place to do a transaction, if you ask me.

But then we're back to gunfighting. And while the gunfight on the Florida Keys Highway is cool (and reminds everyone too much of True Lies) ... why is Ethan Hunt the only one going around shooting the bad guys? The other three agents he operates with are still alive ... but they're helping civilians and not shooting back?

I would focus on killing the UAV armed with rockets and the Huey loaded up with commandos first ... but hey, that's just me ... you know, with military training. And whatever happens, his sidekicks seem to be invincible ... sidekicks were MEANT for killing off, but it doesn't happen nearly enough. Damnit.

The final battle ends too abruptly, and the whole romance thing ... it drives Ethan's actions, but does he really need to be driven like that? He was always so bad ass that he would do what needed to be done ... but now he's suddenly changed? His last mission (in MI2) wasn't nearly catastrophic enough for him to call it quite and become a trainer.

See it if - you want to see Tom Cruise gush over a girl, but on the big screen this time.
Rent it if - you want to add the DVD case to your "Wall of Tom", you would rather save your money for a better action movie.

SILENT HILL

Theater: Showcase Cinema de Lux 16, Okolona, Kentucky
Director's Hall

Never played the video games, but like Resident Evil, I'm pretty sure there wasn't as much scantily-clad womenfolk in it originally. And what little I know about the game, it starts with a mother in a car crash, and when she wakes up her daughter is gone ... a much better opening to get us into the movie rather than dealing with meaningless exposition to explain things in words that are covered later anyways.

And of course, you can't market a movie with a mother all alone in a ghost town searching for her daughter ... you need people for her to interact with.

Hence the female motorcycle cop who happens to drop in, and adds the awkward lesbian flair so standard in horror fare nowadays, and who sacrifices her life for no good reason ... but we'll get to that later.

The film starts creepy, then gets creepy with lesbian overtones, then just gets disgustingly brutal and violent. But nowhere in here is even the hint of a good movie, much less one that makes sense. Maybe I should have played the video games, but I find that to be a weakness in an adaptation: it's your duty to explain the narrative as clearly to both those familiar with the material to those seeing it for the first time.

See it if - you like female motorcycle cops.
Rent it if - you played the game; you like gore; you like female motorcycle cops in the privacy of your own home.

LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN

Theater: Showcase Cinemas Stonybrook, Louisville, Kentucky

The beginning of the movie does not start out where you expect it to. And it's great.

You have Josh Hartnett being confused for someone else. Problem is, he's being confused by two rival mob bosses (Ben Kingsley and Morgan Freeman). Throw Lucy Liu in as the hot neighbor and Bruce Willis in as a hitman, and you have a mind-bending romp through a man's forced choice to serve one side or the other. And did I mention the NYPD is on his case now too?

It's filled with dry humor and surprises but doesn't get too clever for its own good. And Bruce Willis kills more people here than he does in 16 Blocks, I'm pretty sure ... and he's only a supporting character!

The movie won't keep you bored, may keep you guessing, and won't make you sorry you paid some money to see it.

See it if - you like being entertained in the theater; you were disappointed in Willis' previous outings.
Rent it if - go see it instead.

LORD OF WAR

DVD

A bullet is manufactured, packaged, sold, shipped, smuggled, lost, found, loaded, and shot into a person's head.

It's an inventive opening to the movie, dealing with Nicholas Cage's gun-running in the Cold War and after. Not high on moral value, except that perhaps giving people the means to kill each other is not the most noble of professions, it is a disturbing look at what happened specifically after the fall of the USSR and how all those cold war weapons vanished into third world countries.

It's one of those movies where you root for the bad guy because he's really the best person you have to root for. Would you rather root for the ruthless competition that car-bombs people, or the oppressive president of Liberia? Thought not.

It's not that inventive, but it's entertaining ... and recently, we can't really ask anything else from Nic Cage.

Rent it if - you like guns.
Buy it if - if you really like guns.

SLITHER

Theater: Movies Palace 6 Theaters, Elizabethtown, Kentucky

So I went to see a horror movie, hoping this would do for alien worms from outer space what Scream did to killers in masks ... unfortunately, it was low on wit.

Was it a bad horror movie? No. But not as tongue in cheek as I would have wanted. The recent Dawn of the Dead, with celebrity zombie sniping, I thought was great. This was ... not great. But have no fear, there is plenty of disgusting gore.

The story isn't that great, but it doesn't have to be. Alien pod impregnates man with worms, which impregnate woman who explodes giving birth to thousands of worms ... and anyone with a worm becomes a zombie/hive-mind person.

It stars the captain from Serenity, the receptionist from The Office, the father from Mallrats, and the bad guy from Payback ... how many obscure cast members can you get in one film?

My main disappointment was, while expecting a B-movie with funny parts, I got a REALLY B-movie with not enough funny parts ... what would Evil Dead 2 been without the comedy? Not good.

See it if - you want to see the first Serenity follow-on project for Nathan Fillion
Rent it if - you believe B-movies deserve your money at home as opposed to at the theater.