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CON AIR

Last year, producer Jerry Bruckheimer teamed with star Nicholas Cage for The Rock, a fun action picture which was criticized for occasionally going way over the top, particularly during an awkwardly and gratuitously inserted chase sequence. Here, they've taken that lighthearted cornball atmosphere and spread it over the length of an entire feature. The sooner you get in on the joke the better - otherwise you'll have a hard time swallowing this ridiculously cartoonish movie.

Cage reprises his H.I. McDonnough drawl to play a Special Forces agent who has just finished serving eight years in prison for a manslaughter charge (the prison scenes especially recall that character from Raising Arizona). He's on his way home aboard a special Department of Prisons airplane when his fellow convicts - a group of public enemies with particularly nasty reputations led by John Malkovich and Ving Rhames - break loose from their cages and take over the plane.

As prison dept. official John Cusack comments to DEA agent Colm Meany, "This is a well-oiled machine.", and indeed, Con Air roars along at a furious pace once it gets going, with plenty of both oil and machinery flying across the screen. There's hardly a minute without any action, and the cast adds to the comic atmosphere by firing off as many one-liners as bullets. Even the supposedly 'serious' scenes depicting Cage's desperation to reunite with his family or psycho killer Steve Buscemi's mental problems are overlaid with a layer of corny artificiality. Director Simon West acts more as pilot than artist, keeping all the pieces in their proper places. He knows hokum when he sees it, and expects you to be smart enough to know it, too.

This is mayhem to be enjoyed with a wink, a smile, and a tub of popcorn.

FOR ROSEANNA

"Sweet" is the foremost word in the dictionary to describe this heartwarming romantic comedy written by Saul Turteltaub and directed by Paul Weiland. Though a Hollywood production, the setting and atmosphere are taken from Italian features like Il Postino and The Story of Boys and Girls.

Roseanna (Mercedes Ruehl, displaying her delightful dimples to maximum effect) is dying of a heart condition. Her last wish is to be buried in the village cemetery alongside her late daughter. This poses quite a difficult problem for her loving husband Marcello (Jean Reno), as the cemetery is already overcrowded and only has three plots left. While caring for Roseanna, he finds himself increasingly obsessed with the health and welfare of the entire village, going to great lengths to prevent, delay, and even conceal any possible corpses that might take her coveted resting place. Adding to his stress are Roseanna's efforts to fix him up with her gorgeous sister Cicilia (Polly Walker), and gangster hunting for a stash of loot.

This a mixture of charm, romanticism, and black comedy that comes off extremely well - well enough that you can forgive its phony Italian accent.

HEAD ABOVE WATER

Though it debuted on the Showtime network earlier this year, producer Jim Wilson's first feature as director is being given a limited theatrical run. Harvey Keitel and Cameron Diaz are a couple vacationing on an island off the coast of Maine. After an evening out, Keitel returns to find Diaz with an extremely unwelcome visitor: the dead body of his wife's ex-boyfriend (Billy Zane). Knowing that the circumstances will look highly suspicious, the couple attempts to get rid of the body - a process complicated when Diaz's childhood friend Craig Sheffer shows up for a visit.

A thriller with overtones of farce, Head Above Water does an okay job keeping everyone off balance, shifting suspicion from one character to another, but never really breaks a sweat in the suspense department. On cable it was an acceptably enjoyable time-waster, but it's probably not worth the full eight bucks to see it in the theater.

IRMA VEP

Oliver Assayas' 1996 feature takes us behind the scenes for a look at the present state of French cinema, which is increasingly losing its respect for the Old New Wave, while embracing a more international and commercial attitude.

Jean-Pierre Léaud (The 400 Blows, Last Tango in Paris) plays a director attempting to remake the famous 1915 serial thriller Les Vampires as a modern feature. Struggling in recent years after initial critical success in his earlier years, he's torn between his vague artistic ambitions and a desire to capture the modern audience's attention. He hires Asian superstar (and one of my personal favorites) Maggie Cheung to play Irma Vep, femme fatale leader of the secret Vampire gang of jewel thieves.

The story rambles through the chaotic production, with lots of temperaments flaring and backstage gossip - the project takes on a doom-laden atmosphere, as if it might be a bad idea in the first place. While Cheung strives to capture the director's muddled vision of her character (even going for a night on the prowl in her skin-tight latex costume), she finds herself the object of costume designer Nathalie Richard's fumbling romantic intentions.

It's great to have Cheung playing such a standout role (and in English), though she's mostly used as an outside observer in a confusing world without the benefit of subtitles. Hopefully, this will lead to bigger things for this veteran of over 70 features. As for Irma Vep, it achieves its goal of presenting a view of an out-of-control, unresolved mess in progress - a story which could be applied to any number of productions on any kind of budget anywhere in the world, not just in modern Paris. Whether that makes it entertainment is a matter of personal taste - for myself, my above-average interest in film made it worth the trip. ½

SPEED 2: CRUISE CONTROL

The Scene opens on the Promenade Deck of the Love Boat. Captain Merrill Stubing and Cruise Director Julie McCoy are watching the passengers board.

Stubing: "Say, who's that young couple? Isn't that the girl who drove the bus with the bomb?"

Julie: "Yessir, Captain. That's Annie (Sandra Bullock) and Alex (Jason Patric). Annie's upset because she just found out that Alex's LAPD assignment is much more dangerous than she thought, just like her old boyfriend Keanu Reeves. Plus, she's a really bad driver and Two If By Sea tanked at the box office. That makes it tough going for Alex, since he's planning to propose on this trip and his character is pretty dull and one dimensional."

Stubing: "Oh, what a pretty little girl!"

Julie: "Flush with blooming puberty and deaf, too. Pretty, isn't she? She's got a crush on Alex - we'll be showing Lolita on the ship's cable system just to underscore the point."

Stubing: "And what about that handsome young gentleman with the evil, maniacal grin?"

Julie: "Oh, we're very excited to have Mr. Geiger on board! See that golf bag he's carrying? It's full of drugs and leeches and explosives and all kinds of gadgets left over from a James Bond movie. He plans to take control of the ship with ridiculous ease and send it crashing into an island amid the best special effects money can buy while he steals a fortune in gems. There's sure to be plenty of thrills on this trip - more explosions and corpses than usual, too."

Stubing: "Good lord! Why would he want to cause all that trouble? Something to do with Body of Evidence?"

Julie: "Um, I'm afraid he's got the shakiest motivation since Lex Luthor lost his hair. Seems he's dying from some kind of computer related poisoning after designing the ship's software. Then he got fired. Not much poor Willem DaFoe can do with his bad dialogue either. Guess he's not high profile enough to be a Batman villain."

Stubing: "Wow, that sounds almost as farfetched as driving into a tornado just to throw Pepsi cans into it. I'm sure glad my character gets killed off early in this carelessly written sequel. Maybe Keanu's not so dumb after all."

Julie: "Oh, Captain! Didn't you see Chain Reaction?!"

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