"BAMBOOZLED"
- Spike Lee spikes the old watermelon of racist cliches, but the result is that we get splattered by seeds of facile satire. 
This sloppy comedy (it makes "Bulworth" seem suave) centers on a a crisp black yupscaler (Damon Wayans) at a TV network. He slyly pleases his racist boss (Michael Rapaport) and an absurdly receptive, mostly white audience with a retro show of blackfaced minstrels. Talents like Wayans, Rapaport, Jada Pinkett-Smith and (really stuck in "coonshow" cliches) Savion Glover and Tommy Davidson, are reduced to poster acting and mood malarkey. Lee's energy is too rampant to focus his themes. He tries to rally with a spew of old clips of "tomming" figures, but his acid indigestion about nearly everything (including rappers, yuppies, raffish club comics, even malt liquor) sours the movie. And we suspect that Lee holds the old troupers of "yassuh" show-biz in more respect than his angry politics allows. 132 minutes. (Elliott). Rated R. 2 stars.
"BEDAZZLED"
- Brendan Fraser ably anchors this cheerful new take on the old, old theme. He plays Elliot, a dweeb with a personality so repellently effusive ("Hi, guys!") that even his not-so-hot-themselves colleagues in tech-support cubicle hell avoid him like the Melissa virus. After striking out yet again, this time with Alison 
(Frances O'Connor), a woman he's yearned after for years, he is propositioned - after a fashion - by a playful knockout (Elizabeth Hurley) who claims to be Satan. She offers him seven wishes in return for his soul. He signs. She grants him the wishes. The devil being in the details, the scenarios play out quite differently from what Elliot had in mind. But it's a pleasant enough outing, for a trip to hell and back. Cast: Brendan Fraser, Elizabeth Hurley, Frances O'Connor, Orlando Jones. Running time: One hour, 33 minutes. (Salm) Rated PG-13. 2 1/2 stars.
"BOUNCE"
- Ben Affleck plays Buddy Amaral, a benignly arrogant ad exec stuck at a snowed-in airport. He meets up with both a friendly blonde named Mimi (Natasha Henstridge) and a homesick writer named Greg (Tony Goldwyn), who has written a flop of a play. 
Buddy figures he'll help everyone, himself in particular, by giving Greg his boarding pass for the one flight out, thus freeing himself up for an evening with Mimi. The plane goes down. So does guilt-ridden Buddy, into an abyss of alcoholism. And back in L.A., Greg's widow, Abby, is left to struggle with two young sons and a nowhere job in real estate. A year later, out of rehab and determined to make amends, Buddy tracks down Abby. From the moment they meet, the movie starts to take on a sense of inevitability. Cast: Ben Affleck, Gwyneth Paltrow, Joe Morton, Natasha Henstridge, Tony Goldwyn, Jennifer Grey. Running time: One hour, 42 minutes. (Hebert) Rated PG-13. 2 1/2 stars.
"CHARLIE'S ANGELS"
- After an action-packed opening scene that has nothing to do with the rest of the movie, we finally meet Charlie's new Angels. First comes Natalie (Cameron Diaz), a "Jeopardy!"-winning nerd with a thing for fast cars and disco dancing. Then there's Dylan (Drew Barrymore), a martial-arts specialist with a kick-butt 
attitude and a weakness for questionable men. Rounding out the photogenic trio is Alex (Lucy Liu), a well-bred beauty with a knack for crossbows and computers. Keeping a paternal eye on the gals is Bosley (Bill Murray). The gals are ostensibly hired to find kidnapped computer genius Eric Knox (Sam Rockwell) and spy on Roger Corwin (Tim Curry), the flamboyant competitor who may have stolen Knox's top-secret voice-identification system. Loud, fast and uproariously excessive, "Charlie's Angels" is the kind of empty-calorie good time you can enjoy in the moment and forget about on your way to the parking lot. Cast: Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu, Bill Murray, Sam Rockwell, Tim Curry, Kelly Lynch. Running time: 92 minutes. (Peterson) Rated PG-13. 3 stars.
"DR. SEUSS' THE GRINCH WHO STOLE CHRISTMAS"
- For about an hour this high-pressure "event" maintains some of the old Seuss charm about the Grinch who grabs the Christmas goodies of Whoville (Anthony Hopkins' narration of the rhymed text is a big help). But 
then director Ron "Never Say No to Too Much" Howard succumbs to bad habit, piling on special effects, loud climaxes and the amusing yet overcooked energy of Jim Carrey's Grinch. We become very aware of the $120 million budget, but there is a swell dog and little girl. Also, a touch of hypocrisy (the movie is a merchandizing bonanza, yet the story condemns holiday consumerism). 94 minutes. (Elliott). Rated PG. 2 1/2 stars.
"THE LEGEND OF BAGGER VANCE"
- Robert Redford directed this attempt at warm, folksy myth set in the Dixie golf world of the '30s. It's a pastoral fantasy of golf, a nice snooze at the clubhouse, and Charlize Theron floats through as an ample dream. 
Matt Damon is the budding star of the sport who was wrecked by World War I but now, over a decade later, easily recovers his form with the whimsical advice of a mysterious, saintly caddy (Will Smith). Here we are in 2000, a great year of the Tiger Woods era, and Hollywood chooses to give us a black golfing hero who is a caddy. Bruce McGill is amusing and sanely savvy as the great Walter Hagen; the film should be about him. 127 minutes. (Elliott). Rated PG-13. 2 stars.
"LITTLE NICKY"
- Oddly endurable idiocy, if you need humor crafted for frat house jocks in hell. Twisting his mouth and using his adenoidal voice in a cute Igor manner, Adam Sandler is the nerdy, most likeable son of Satan. He goes to Earth, meets a dog and a girl, outwits (well, outyucks) the mischief of his two devilish brothers. The vulgarity is nearly all harmless and sometimes funny, and we get Rodney Dangerfield, Henry Winkler, Regis Philbin, Reese Witherspoon, Bill Walton, Quentino Tarantino and, as a weirdly shrunken Satan with many horns, Harvey Keitel. 92 minutes. (Elliott). Rated PG-13. 2 stars.
"MEET THE PARENTS"
- Ben Stiller, as an easily freaked and foolishly lippy fiance, and Robert De Niro, as the scowling CIA control freak who might become the jellied suitor's father-in-law, are a funny pair; their grinding edges hum comically. Teri Polo is the dream bride, 
Blythe Danner her daffy-headed mom, Owen Wilson a wealthy "born again" going nuts from carpentry and stymied desire. Jay Roach directed with smoothly mechanical craft, if no art, assuring regular laughs. The script comes perilously close to being a cornered-Jew tale of unleashed snobbery and bigotry. 107 minutes. (Elliott). Rated PG-13. 3 stars.
"MEN OF HONOR"
- A military museum of every stale but ramrodded macho cliche, with Cuba Gooding Jr. trying very hard (inside a weak script) to play the actual hero Carl Brashear, the first black man to be an elite salvage diver for the Navy. Robert De Niro displays his own museum, 
of effects he's used before, including the creepy "Cape Fear" scowl and the sudden eruption of "Raging Bull" fists. Charlize Theron and Aunjanue Ellis are the stand-around females, there's a rather ridiculous series of diving thrills, and Hal Holbrook is a nutcake base commander who makes Capt. Queeg seem the pride of Annapolis. George Tillman Jr. directed with rugged piety. 129 minutes. (Elliott). Rated R. 2 stars.
"102 DALMATIANS"
- You don't know fat-fried ham acting until you've seen Glenn Close as Cruella De Vil (like the biggest queen at Truman Capote's Black and White Ball) rip up scenes with the equally overdressed Gerard Depardieu as a vile Parisian furrier (he's like Attila plus Liberace). 
This lavish kibble pile of Disney fun is made somewhat charming and always active by the 102 pooches plus many other breeds. The sequel goes for more rather than better and, on that level, seems to satisfy kids. 87 minutes. (Elliott). Rated G. 2 1/2 stars.
"RED PLANET"
- Visually absorbing space thriller. A crew is sent to Mars in 2045, to seed it for colonization. Everything goes wrong, and there are desperate (not always plausible) acts of recovery, but also a spiffy robot, some pensive talk about destiny and spirituality, and sexual sparks between Val Kilmer, with his goofy stud-hipster's smile, and Capt. Carrie Anne-Moss (21st century empowered, but still ripe for that old reliable, a nude shower scene). Terence Stamp as an astro-sage passes through wryly, as if remembering finer duty in "The Limey." 102 minutes. (Elliott). Rated PG-13. 2 1/2 stars.
"RUGRATS IN PARIS - THE MOVIE"
- The animated Rugrats go less to Paris than to a big theme park outside Paris, a blatantly whopping parody of Euro Disney. Susan Sarandon voices the main French character, a grimly "chic" shrew and yuppie egotist who almost marries Chuckie's dad. The highlight for most young viewers, apart from the diaper jokes, is the song "Who Let the Dogs Out?" 80 minutes. (Elliott). Rated G. 2 stars.
"THE 6TH DAY"
- A thriller about criminal cloning in the near-future, when progress seems to mean better guns that cause lurid explosions. 
It's as if someone tried to clone Hitchcock but left out his brain. Arnold Schwarzengger does "sensitive," family-values acting when not piling on grim payback as a man who is cloned, hates his replica and then learns to love the guy (by the end, we almost expect them to marry). Among the disposable villains in this vacant but not exactly boring movie are Tony Goldwyn, Robert Duvall and that bone pile of Cro-Magnon machismo, Michael Rooker. 124 minutes. (Elliott). Rated PG-13 1 1/2 stars.
"UNBREAKABLE"
- A smooth but faltering attempt by young "auteur" M. Night Shyamalan to duplicate his whatzit hit "The Sixth Sense." Bruce Willis is the dazed victim of a train wreck who walks away unscratched, then discovers his miraculous, 
genetci invulnerability after a sly "devil" figure (Samuel L. Jackson, stealing scenes) leads him to clues he should have fathomed years before. It's all brooding, teasing, murky and incredible, with nice little Spencer Treat Clark trying forlornly to fill the "mythic" kid shoes of Haley Joel Osment in the 1999 hit. Serious fans of comic books had better avoid this one (also, fans of drama). 123 minutes. (Elliott). Rated PG-13. 2 stars.
RATINGS 4 STARS - Excellent.
3 STARS - Worthy.
2 STARS - Mixed.
1 STAR - Poor.
0 - Forget It.
NR - Not Rated.Capsules compiled from movie reviews written by David Elliott, film critic for (beginital) The San Diego Union-Tribune, (endital) and other staff writers.
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