by MATTHEW HAYS, SARAH ROWLAND and MARK SLUTSKY

Munich

Scant months after Steven Spielberg’s mostly amazing War of the Worlds, he comes up with this, his darkest and most complicated film yet. It’s absolutely his best in years, and had I seen it sooner it would have been at the top of my 2005 top- 10 list.

Munich’s starting point is the murder of 11 Israeli athletes by terrorist group Black September at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. But it’s the aftermath of that shocking attack that is its real subject. Eric Bana plays Avner, a fictionalized Mossad agent in charge of hunting down and killing the men presumably responsible for Munich. Although he and his team throw themselves into the task with enthusiasm, Bana finds himself questioning the moral sacrifice required to avenge his countrymen’s death—whether executions without trials can ever be justified, and more importantly, whether they’re just escalating an already intolerable cycle of violence.

This is perhaps the first time Spielberg has, while dealing with “serious” subject matter, strayed from a black-and-white moral stance. It’s a profoundly ambiguous movie, and sure to attract criticism from both Israel’s defenders and its critics, as it spares neither side. It’s a depth one really never expected from America’s most celebrated and populist director, and the film speaks just as much to today (the age of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay), as it does to the ’70s (which, incidentally, cinematographer Janusz Kaminski brings alive brilliantly). (MS)

Wolf Creek

A totally plausible plot that never veers into the ridiculous and a lack of comic relief make this Aussie slasher disturbingly scary.

Set in the outback, where roughly 30,000 people go missing every year, a lot of them tourists, director Greg McLean tells the terrifying semitrue story of two young British girl backpackers (played by Cassandra Magrath and Kestie Morassi) and Sydney stud Ben (Nathan Phillips).

The three set off on a road trip that consists of tequila shots, flirting and ghost stories around the campfire. The good times come to a screeching halt, though, when their beater breaks down somewhere in the middle of buttfuck nowhere. But just when they’ve resigned themselves to spending the night in their stranded car, an eccentric bushman pulls up in his monster truck and offers to tow them to the deserted mining field he calls home. Once there, he’ll fix the car and they’ll be back on the road by morning... or so they think.

And so begins the chase. Ben is presumed dead, so the girls are on their own, and, of course, they make all the usual horror mistakes that piss you off. The biggest being not killing their knocked-out assailant when they have the chance.

McLean more than achieves the desired effect of scaring the shit out of viewers, but by the end you’re left wondering if we really need a twohour re-enactment of women being hunted down like wild animals. And furthermore, if you’re going to turn up the sound on someone’s spine being ground up like hamburger meat, at least have the decency to make it funny. (SR)

Casanova

Would somebody please, please stop casting Heath Ledger as a continental European? After this year’s dispiritingly bad Terry Gilliam venture, The Brothers Grimm, he’s once again donning period costume for this Venice-set Lasse Hallström fiasco (and just when he’s getting all sorts of praise for Brokeback Mountain).

Ledger plays the legendary lover of the title, slipping in and out of the bedrooms of Venice’s fairest. Soon his antics come to the attention of Rome, and a depressed-looking Jeremy Irons is sent to ensnare the sinner. What follows is a farrago of mistaken identities and gender reversals, a painful rip-off of Shakespeare in Love without any of the wit, charm or heart. Ledger gives it his all, but the hearty Australian just can’t sell the role of the wily Italian seducer. And, worst of all, Hallström completely neuters the subject material—there’s nothing even remotely erotic about the film. So why even bother making a movie about the most famous lover of all time and leave out the sex? (MS)

The Producers

Because I’m gay, I’m supposed to enjoy madcap Broadway musicals like The Producers. Hey, it was one of the biggest hits ever to wind its way onto that magical theatre strip, the brainchild of Mel Brooks, based on his own madcap movie of the same name.

But I gotta say, sitting through this wretched rehash of cheeseball jokes, tired slapstick and over-thetop (in a bad way) performances seemed like some kind of hellish torture to me. You know the plot: A couple of con artists (Matthew Brodtheir stage roles) realize they can make more money from their investors if they have to claim a loss. They devise to put on a surefire flop, Springtime for Hitler (perhaps this show’s one genuinely funny conceit), but it turns into a hit (oh, the irony!) and the two are left to try to answer to the police concerning their cooked books.

This is clearly a very faithful adaptation of the stage success that shook Broadway. Which leads me to a sense of wonder: Can there really be that many tasteless, stupid tourists about to keep a show this witless and sorry afloat for so long? (MH)

The Ringer

Well, this is sort of a tricky one. The Ringer has perhaps the most offensive premise of the year: that a man, desperate for cash (and played by Johnny Knoxville, no less), would pose as mentally challenged in order to rig the Special Olympics for betting purposes. But don’t recoil in horror quite yet—as it turns out, The Ringer is one of the least offensive movies of the year. Produced by the Farrelly brothers, the film was created with the co-operation of the Special Olympics organization, and great pains seem to have been taken to ensure a sensitive handling of the subject matter.

But is it funny? Well, no. Not in the slightest. You can’t fault the filmmakers’ intentions, but to start with such an outrageous concept, to cast Jackass’s Knoxville, and then to not exploit the comic potential of the situation at all... well, what’s the point, really? There’s a million ways they could have made a respectful movie about the Special Olympics, so why pretend to be offensive and then do a complete about-face? The movie is so tame, so bland and so uninspired, it just feels like a wasted opportunity. (MS)

Fun With Dick and Jane

With more than a nod and a wink to the Enron scandal, Jim Carrey plays Dick, the naive VP who basically takes the fall for his company’s fraudulent business practices. Alec Baldwin plays the corrupt CEO who jumps ship by selling off all his stocks right before declaring bankruptcy, essentially swindling all of his employees out of their severance pay and pension plan.

Dick is left virtually unemployable and completely destitute, so he and his yuppie wife Jane (Téa Leoni, who makes yet another uninspired attempt at comedy) resort to robbing and stealing. Their slapstick stick-ups keep escalating till they realize that all of Dick’s former co-workers have also turned to a similar life of crime. This is when Dick and Jane set their sights on taking down Baldwin.

The whole film (a remake of a 1977 comedy starring Jane Fonda and George Segal) relies on a series of strung-together skits and montages, in which Carrey delivers a watered-down imitation of his former self—Carrey singing in the elevator when he thinks no one can hear him, Carrey bored at home trying to amuse himself, Carrey experimenting with a voice-distorter etc. The once spasmodic comedian seems really tired here, and it’s hard to tell if he’s making a concerted effort to tone down his shtick of yesteryear or if he’s genuinely washed up. Whatever it is, it ain’t funny. (SR)

Cheaper by the Dozen 2

A sequel to the 2003 film, or, in other words, this is another family movie starring Steve Martin as a harried but loveable dad presiding over a brood of mischievous malcontents. Ashton Kutcher doesn’t return, but most of the original cast is back. That would include the always likeable Bonnie Hunt as the matriarch of the Baker clan, a gaunt, huge-toothed and scary Hilary Duff as daughter Lorraine, Piper Perabo as pregnant daughter Nora, and a bunch of other rascally kids all knee-high to a grasshopper.

The movie’s tagline may be, “This Christmas, you better watch out!” but Cheaper by the Dozen 2 has nothing to do with the holiday season, set as it is over a Labor Day weekend, which the Bakers are spending relaxing at a lakeside cottage. Across the water is the competitive dad of the Murtaugh clan (Eugene Levy), and soon he and Martin are at odds, enlisting their kids to try and one-up each other. The stakes aren’t particularly high, though, as this is a pretty relaxed and non-confrontational movie, largely inoffensive and mostly forgettable. (MS)

Fun With Dick and Jane and Cheaper by the Dozen 2 are now playing. Munich and The Ringer open Friday, Dec. 23. The Producers, Casanova and Wolf Creek open Sunday, Dec. 25

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