What Dreams May Come 15
Directed by Vincent Ward
Starring Robin Williams, Annabella Sciorra, Cuba Gooding Jr
A haunting and captivating audio-visual experience, this underrated and highly ambitious undertaking is a metaphysical fantasy assembled in a succession of breathtaking images which create the sensation of watching classical paintings in motion. Williams plays a doctor who is killed in an accident and when his disconsolate wife (Sciorra) commits suicide and is sent to hell, he embarks on a journey into the underworld as he attempts to save her.
Form triumphs over imperfect content in this film constructed and designed in a series of dazzling visual compositions inspired by 19th century painting. And in its spiritual nature Ward's film remains an admirable undertaking - a moving, tender reflection on the power of love.
The Mask Of Zorro
Directed by Martin Campbell
Starring Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta-Jones
Handsome, charismatic and remarkably athletic, Antonio Banderas is ideally cast as the masked Mexican avenger and saviour of the downtrodden in this lavish and largely entertaining swashbuckler. Hopkins is cast as his mentor, an ageing Zorro whose daughter was abducted as a baby and returns as a grown-up played by the spirited Zeta-Jones, herself no slouch with a sword. This all makes for spirited screen entertainment, but the movie unwisely overstays its welcome with a duration in excess of two hours.
The Siege
Directed by Edward Zwick
Starring Denzel Washington, Annette Bening, Bruce Willis, Tony Shalhoub New York City is in a state of siege after cold-blooded Arab terrorist extremists set off a series of bombs in public places - a bus, a Broadway theatre, a school - with catastrophic consequences. Washington plays the head of the joint FBI/ NYPD terrorism task force charged with tracking down the terrorists, and he's joined in an uneasy alliance by an undercover CIA agent (Bening) who smokes joints and has sex with a Palestinian informer. From a quite promising outset The Siege descends into a flaccidly paced thriller populated mostly by stereotypes and confounded by compromises.