Reel critics

The sequel to “Scary Movie” is pretty much a clone of the original

with a twist. Instead of being a parody of one movie, it spoofs a number

of movies and even one basketball commercial. The main difference is this

version is a little grosser than the first one.

Wayans brothers Shawn and Marlon co-wrote and again appear in the

movie. Cindy (Anna Faris), returns and is at her screaming best. There

are also a few new comers like James Woods, the irreverent priest and

Chris Elliot who plays the custodian.

The six survivors of the original massacre are chosen by a professor

at a local college for an experiment on sleep disorders. Funny I seem to

remember all six “survivors” were killed in “Scary Movie,” but I guess

there are special rules for sequels that I wasn’t aware of.

The group of six assemble at “Hell House,” a haunted looking place

complete with secret doors, weird sounds and moving objects. Cindy

arrives first and meets the creepy custodian Hannsen, who has a mangled

hand. It seems Cindy bears a striking resemblance to the original lady of

the house who killed her husband and his mistress.

All the other guests arrive and sit down to dinner. Here we meet the

professor’s assistant who’s in a wheelchair. The custodian and assistant

go back and forth with handicap jokes. It’s not politically correct but

it was funny. With the exception of that, the whole dinner scene could

have been left out. It was disgusting, and worst of all, not one bit

funny.

The rest of the cast, including the Wayans brothers and the professor

contribute a few laughs. Gay jokes, marijuana situations and unseen sex

with ghosts round out the rest of the eighty-two minute, uh, feature.

Teenagers might like this if they can get in, since it’s rated R.

People who enjoyed “Scream” or “Scary Movie” might find this

entertaining. I give it a C+, with hopes we’ve seen the last of the

“Scary Movie” sequels.

* CLEM DOMINGUEZ, 57, is an aspiring screenwriter and film fanatic.

Choreographed kicks can’t save Dragon

Can one Chinese policeman physically defeat the corrupt French police

and their commander, while defending his own innocence and the honor of a

skanky, heroin-addicted street whore? Does anyone care?

Poking fun at all of the script holes in “Kiss of the Dragon” is as

entertaining as watching Jet Li beat people senseless with steam irons.

The story is ridiculously flawed. At times it’s bizarrely illogical and

pathetically stupid. However, no one in the theater was there for the

plot. The attraction is seeing Li do his thing with person after person,

taking all they have to offer and moving on to the next.

“Kiss of the Dragon” played to sold out shows all weekend. At the end

of the film I heard people cheering and clapping. I wondered if we were

all watching the same movie.

Jet Li plays a Chinese policeman sent to help French police commander,

Tcheky Karo, close down a heroin smuggling operation. Karo murders their

surveillance subject, and a prostitute. Karo then finds Bridget Fonda,

another prostitute, in the bathroom throwing up. Rather than killing her,

Karo chooses to keep Fonda alive so she can continue to work the streets.

It is up to Li and Fonda to expose Karo and serve justice.

That is the story of “Kiss of the Dragon,” but unfortunately the

script isn’t nearly this straight forward. During the first half of the

movie, Li and Karo’s characters are shrouded in mystery. We have no idea

who they are or what they are doing. When Li and Karo meet, it looks more

like Matt Helm meeting the head of the Corleone family than a meeting of

two foreign police agencies. Waiting until much later in the movie to

reveal who these characters are -- and why they met -- doesn’t make this

early sequence any less absurd.

In addition to being a master of kung fu, Li is also a master of

acupuncture fu and chopsticks into the throat fu. “Kiss of the Dragon” is

violent. There’s a lot of well-choreographed fight scenes, which are

obviously the focus of the movie. The climactic fights at the end of the

movie combine humor with fast-paced butt kicking.

Although the movie is violent, the violence is sanitized. Rarely does

anyone bruise or bleed after being hit. Keeping with this genre, most of

the fighting includes some juiced up, bone breaking sound effects.

Because the script is so incredibly atrocious, the sequences between the

fights tend to make the movie feel slow and even laughable. Bridget

Fonda’s tirades about her hellish life as a prostitute reminded me of

Elizabeth Berkley’s “I am not a whore,” rants in Showgirls.

“Kiss of the Dragon” has some entertaining martial arts fight

sequences, but is hindered by a terrible script. The predictable cliches,

combined with moronically absurd plot twists, make this one of worst

movies I’ve ever seen. Judging this movie by the script doesn’t seem

fair. People don’t judge porn by the scripts, and in a similar vein, no

one watching this movie really cared about the story. Kiss of the Dragon

is about martial arts fight sequences. These are well done, but I need a

little more out of a movie.

* JIM ERWIN, 39, is a technical writer and computer trainer.