Opens Fri March 26.
Things have been a tad rocky for Ben Affleck as of late. First came his much-publicized stint drying out from booze, then came Jennifer Lopez--a vice in her own right, and one that may lead to a hangover all her own. Though final word remains pending on just how much damage the Bennifer whirlwind did to Affleck's career, his recent movies have not been encouraging. Daredevil... Gigli... Paycheck? How's that for a deadly trifecta?

Jersey Girl continues the brutality. Written and directed by Kevin Smith, it is a picture void of nearly all creative life. This, as it turns out, is a bit of a twist, because the film itself aims to be about life--specifically, life's cohorts love and loss. The story: Affleck is Ollie Trinke, a New York P.R. flack who, as the picture opens, lives a life of perfection: a perfect job, a perfect apartment, a perfect wife. His apartment offers a stunning view; his wife Gertrude (Jennifer Lopez) offers a still more stunning one--so much so that Ollie, placing career and apartment in possible disarray, has decided to plant his seed. Yes indeed, things are swell in the Trinke household--a child on the way, the future gleaming and tantalizing--and Smith piles on the sugar during the film's opening stretch. Ollie and Gertrude are very much in love; in fact, they're not just in love, they're in that over-saturated movie love--they are in lub.

Still, if the movies have taught us anything, it's that couples who are preggers and gaga for each other so early in their running time rarely arrive at a cheery finale. And sure enough, at about Jersey Girl's 15-minute mark, tragedy strikes: Gertrude Trinke, RIP. Cause of death: complications during childbirth. This, of course, brings us to the heart of the film, which can be summed up like so: Ollie struggles to raise daughter; Ollie learns valuable lessons thanks to said daughter (who, predictably, is cute as a button and smart as a whip); Ollie, having learned said valuable life lessons from said daughter, falls in love with a video-store clerk named Maya (Liv Tyler). Fin.

Now, I freely admit that I'm being (probably unnecessarily) glib about matters, but here's the thing: Kevin Smith's talent does not lie with schmaltz, and Jersey Girl--though beautifully photographed (thanks to the work of the great Vilmos Zsigmond)--is not just schmaltz, but surprisingly predictable schmaltz. Smith may have set out to make a film that celebrates family (spurred, no doubt, by the birth of his own child), but what he's made instead is little more than a Lifetime movie. It may be a Lifetime movie costarring the brilliant George Carlin, but it's still crap. It's also his worst film to date--and, yes, I've seen Mall Rats. BRADLEY STEINBACHER

Never Die Alone

dir. Ernest Dickerson

Opens Fri March 26.
Directed by Spike Lee's former cinematographer, Ernest Dickerson, Never Die Alone is about a pimped-out New York drug dealer named King David (DMX) who double-crosses his pimped-out boss (Clifton Powell) by moving to Los Angeles with bags of the boss' unsold cocaine. Under the light of the sun and on movie sets, King David deals drugs and establishes two love affairs: one with a white bimbo (Jennifer Sky), who turns out to be smart; the other, with a smart sister (Reagan Gomez-Preston), who turns out to be a bimbo. He kills the sister. He also has another murder on his hands, and narrates all of this from inside a coffin. One other thing: A young white writer (or white Negro, as Mailer would have it), played by David Arquette, who dates a beautiful upper-class sister (a Vanessa Williams look-alike), stumbles upon tapes that contain King David's autobiography. Finally, the white writer can access the true stuff of a black man's mind, a place that evidently affords him a great deal of excitement. As bad as all of this sounds, the movie has a number of brilliant scenes. Indeed, Dickerson never settles for a middle point, never strikes an average. He is either soaring or in the gutter, which may very well be the definition of good (ghetto) pulp. CHARLES MUDEDE

Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed

dir. Raja Gosnell

Opens Fri March 26.
Prior to screening Scooby-Doo 2, I was given the good news that I had free rein to absolutely rip the film apart if necessary. Always looking for an excuse to possibly make someone cry--especially if that someone is Sarah Michelle Gellar, or Freddie Prinze Jr. --I walked into the theater ready to tear the feature to shreds (because, you know, Sarah Michelle and Freddie probably spend their Sunday afternoons giving a shit about what I say), and armed with a variety of clever one-liners to note how unentertaining and time-wasting the Scooby-Doo sequel really is.

Except that it isn't. I mean, it isn't great, but it is strangely charming--charming enough that I would actually feel kind of bad for unnecessarily attacking it. It's just a kids' movie, after all, and to pick on it would feel like picking on an 8-year-old; Ruben Studdard, of American Idol fame, makes a cameo, and that kind of made me want to barf, but other than that, it's a sappy, lesson-to-be-learned kid flick.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I didn't dislike this movie nearly as much as I probably should have, which kind of makes me hate myself. MEGAN SELING

Intermission

dir. John Crowley

Opens Fri March 26.
Here is a small film from Dublin that steals your attention with its very first scene. Starring Colin Farrell, Colm Meaney, Kelly Macdonald, and Cillian Murphy, Intermission, which had its Seattle debut at the recent Irish Reels Film Festival, may at first glance appear to be a lob back to those bleak days of the '90s when indie films appeared to exhaust all angles of the crime genre (the film's plot: bank job, dirty cop, eager but simple-headed crooks). But the writing and the performances (what you can make out of them, at least--Dublin accents are not always easy to decipher) make up for the staleness of the premise, and Crowley frames the entire endeavor with a skilled lens, going the jittery hand-held route but still somehow managing to create something fairly fresh for the eyes. The result is a film worthy of a look, even if it's not an entirely memorable one. BRADLEY STEINBACHER