Published: January 08, 2009 10:30 pm      

Capsule reviews of ‘Bride Wars,’ ‘The Unborn’

By The Associated Press



Capsule reviews of films opening this week:

‘‘Bride Wars’’ — This cliched comedy tosses out stereotypes about female materialism and cattiness with all the giddy gusto of a newly married woman flinging the bouquet at her single girlfriends. It’s amazing that two of the film’s three writers are women: Casey Wilson of ‘‘Saturday Night Live’’ and June Diane Raphael (the third, Greg DePaul, also gets a story-by credit). But what’s just as baffling is the way in which director Gary Winick, who brought the radiant best out of Jennifer Garner in the 2004 charmer ‘‘13 Going on 30,’’ manages to squander the appealing screen presence of Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway. (Then again, the shrill material does him no favors.) Hudson and Hathaway star as Liv and Emma, best friends who’ve obsessively fantasized about the ideal wedding since childhood. When Liv and Emma both get engaged, they accidentally book their weddings at New York’s Plaza Hotel on the same day. Neither will budge, which leads to an increasingly destructive game of sabotage and one-upmanship. It’s unabashedly mean, yes — think of it as ‘‘The War of the Roses,’’ and the peonies, and the hydrangeas — but it’s also never all that funny. And since this incredibly shallow dilemma is the biggest problem facing these women, it’s impossible to root for them to be happy or care whether their friendship survives. Neither could have picked another date or found another venue? Really? PG for suggestive content, language and some rude behavior. 90 min. One star out of four.

— Christy Lemire, AP Movie Critic



‘‘The Unborn’’ — The Kabbalah. Hot college students. A creepy, abandoned mental institution. Gary Oldman. Jogging. Twins. Nazi scientists. A suicidal mother. A lost blue mitten. What do these things have in common? They’re all pieces in the convoluted mythology of ‘‘The Unborn.’’ Best as one can tell, writer-director David S. Goyer’s film is a sort of Jewish version of ‘‘The Exorcist,’’ which is a vaguely novel concept. Catholics are usually the ones who have all the fun purging demons. But Goyer, who wrote the ‘‘Blade’’ series and co-wrote ‘‘The Dark Knight,’’ makes things laughably more complicated than they needed to be. Well, there are some effective scares here, and you’ll laugh at yourself afterward for jumping like a little girl. But other images and pieces of dialogue are just as hilarious — and that probably wasn’t their intention. (Jane Alexander, as a Holocaust survivor with a secret, delivers a line abut Auschwitz that’s particularly off in tone.) Odette Yustman runs around in tight jeans, tank tops and boy shorts as Casey Beldon, a young woman being haunted by startling dreams, then a weird little neighborhood boy, then hallucinatory images of insects, and finally a full-blown spiritual attack. Only Oldman, who classes things up in his few scenes as a rabbi, can help her fend off the impending possession. Meagan Good gets a couple of amusing zingers as the obligatory wisecracking best friend. PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and terror, disturbing images, thematic material and language including some sexual references. 95 min. One and a half stars out of four.

— Christy Lemire, AP Movie Critic