30 FEET OF UNFUNNY FOR 'WHOLE TEN YARDS'.Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic 'THE WHOLE Nine Yards'' was a moderately funny crime comedy due entirely to some clever plotting and Amanda Peet's naked aspiring-hit-woman act. In the sequel, predictably labeled ``The Whole Ten Yards,'' Peet shies shies 1 v. Third person singular present tense of shy1. n. Plural of shy1. away from frontal nudity - and the plot is awful. Talk about firing blanks. In a story too convoluted and ridiculous to bother synopsizing, former neighbors Nicholas ``Oz'' Oseransky (Matthew Perry) and Jimmy ``The Tulip'' Tudeski (Bruce Willis Walter Bruce Willis (born March 19, 1955) is an American actor and singer. He came to fame in the late 1980s and has since retained a career as both a Hollywood leading man and a supporting actor, in particular for his role as John McClane in the Die Hard series. ) are reunited after Oz's wife and Jimmy's ex Cynthia (Natasha Henstridge Natasha Henstridge (born August 15, 1974) is a Canadian fashion model turned actress. Her most notable roles include Species and Species II. Biography Early life & modeling career ) is taken hostage by the father of the mobster they took out in the first film. Said bad guy, Lazlo Gogolak, is played by Kevin Pollak Kevin E. Pollak (born on October 30, 1957) is an American actor, impressionist and comedian. As an actor, Pollak's trademark is usually playing the best friend or confidant characters to the leading men, as he did in Ricochet, End of Days, again, with a lot of plastic-looking old-age makeup. He's also got a road-show Hungarian accent and so much casual Stooges slap-sadism that he has to keep telling people that it's meant to be funny - or maybe he's just speaking directly to audiences on the movie's behalf. Nothing in George Gallo's screenplay or Howard Deutch's direction gets the funny across. Nor does anybody's performance. Willis' reformed professional killer has become an emasculated e·mas·cu·late tr.v. e·mas·cu·lat·ed, e·mas·cu·lat·ing, e·mas·cu·lates 1. To castrate. 2. To deprive of strength or vigor; weaken. adj. Deprived of virility, strength, or vigor. domestic goddess in his Mexican hideaway. His new wife, Peet's Jill, was frustrated enough about not having pulled off her first proper assassination Assassination See also Murder. assassins Fanatical Moslem sect that smoked hashish and murdered Crusaders (11th—12th centuries). [Islamic Hist.: Brewer Note-Book, 52] Brutus conspirator and assassin of Julius Caesar. [Br. ; now, with their sex life gone, she's really getting edgy. Dithering Simulating more colors and shades in a palette. In a monochrome system that displays or prints only black and white, shades of grays can be simulated by creating varying patterns of black dots. This is how halftones are created in a monochrome printer. dentist Oz, meanwhile, is an even more frantic scaredy cat than he was in the first movie. He seems to fall down more in this one, too. When the sequel's not drowning in rudimentary slapstick slapstick Comedy characterized by broad humour, absurd situations, and vigorous, often violent action. It took its name from a paddlelike device, probably introduced by 16th-century commedia dell'arte troupes, that produced a resounding whack when one comic actor used it to , its characters argue with each other. This quickly becomes wearying. For a change of pace, a 108-year-old woman with gastric issues is introduced. This is just desperate. Long ago, Gallo wrote the well-balanced ``Midnight Run,'' and Deutch directed some unaccountably un·ac·count·a·ble adj. 1. Impossible to account for; inexplicable: unaccountable absences. 2. beloved John Hughes movies (``Pretty in Pink,'' ``Some Kind of Wonderful''). Perry can be funny on ``Friends,'' and Willis once was on ``Moonlighting.'' None of this was brilliant, but it all worked. I never thought any of these guys had too far to fall. But ``The Whole Ten Yards'' proves that failed humor knows no depths. On a 1-to-10 scale of bad comedy (10 being the unfunniest), this one rates an 11. Bob Strauss, (818) 713-3670 bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com THE WHOLE TEN YARDS - One star (PG-13: violence, language, sex, nudity) Starring: Bruce Willis, Matthew Perry, Amanda Peet, Kevin Pollak, Natasha Henstridge. Director: Howard Deutch. Running time: 1 hr. 37 min. Playing: Wide release. In a nutshell: Most of the creativity went into the title of this sequel to hit-man comedy ``The Whole Nine Yards.'' What creativity did that require, you ask? Precisely. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: Matthew Perry lays an egg in ``The Whole Ten Yards,'' a sequel in which no one involved escapes unscathed. |
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