Philadelphia Weekly

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Thanks to the slow boat of modern movie production, we’re still feeling the rippling effects from last year’s writers strike. Too many unfinished scripts were rushed too quickly into production, and if 2008’s resolutely underwhelming holiday releases weren’t bleak enough for you, just remember: Those were the flicks Hollywood suits were actually hopeful about.

The spring release slate tends to be a graveyard even under the best of circumstances, which, for several obvious reasons, we’re not in right now. That said, when called upon to comb over the dockets for the next couple months, a few titles leap out as worthy of mention.

First and foremost comes a harrowing tale of bifurcated identity. This is the tragedy of a gifted young woman torn between the pressure to embody an empty artificial projection of what she thinks the world wants from her versus a more genuine life as the sadder, quieter person her heart wants to be. Breathtakingly illuminated through that tricky “same actress/different persona” doppelganger school of film popularized by David Lynch in Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire—that’s right, I’m talking about Hannah Montana: The Movie.

Just kidding … sort of. (Miley/Hannah’s dad Billy Ray Cyrus did indeed play a bit part in Mulholland Drive.) In any case, this wholly owned subsidiary of the Walt Disney Corporation hits theaters in April, and it’s times like these I’m glad I never had kids.

More genuine, if no less embarrassing, are my sky-high hopes for Fast & Furious, the third sequel to 2001’s sublimely homoerotic muscle-car manifesto. Hey, so remember how that original cast bowed out of the sequels, boasting about being headed for bigger and better things? Well, now everyone’s back where they began for this belated fourth go-’round.

The presumably chastened Vin Diesel and Paul Walker will once again make goo-goo eyes at each another while speeding around at 115 mph, and I presume there will be at least one throwaway gag regarding co-star Michelle Rodriguez’s real-life DUI troubles. Director Justin Lin helmed the technically superlative third installment, Tokyo Drift, so here’s looking forward to this April release for more awesome car chases and barely suppressed gayness.

While we’re talking about sequels to movies I never expected to like in the first place, April also brings Crank: High Voltage, in which snarling Jason Statham returns, attempting to one-up the glorious gimmick of that 2006 charmer. Instead of requiring constant rushes of adrenaline to combat a fatal poison, this time Statham’s unlucky hitman must constantly zap himself with electricity to kick-start his artificial heart.

No, it doesn’t sound nearly as novel. But I’ll still be there on opening day to see how the hell these guys wrote themselves out of the original Crank’s ending, which if you recall boasted Statham falling out of a plane and plummeting to his doom for so long that he was able to make several telephone calls on the way down. (It was like the comedic version of Leo DiCaprio’s hilariously distended Blood Diamond sign-off.)

The 11 people who saw Crossing Over a few weeks ago will tell you that nothing begins to rot faster than Oscar bait left on the shelf for too long. Such are the worries regarding The Soloist, which for many months occupied a prime Christmas Day release slot … until people actually got a look at the damn thing. Then it got shoved to the weekend-before- summer-begins dead zone.

Robert Downey Jr. stars as a glib, twitchy, altogether Downey-ish journalist based on former Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Steve Lopez. He befriends a kooky homeless guy (Jamie Foxx) who just so happens to be a Julliard-trained violinist. Faster than you can say, “Didn’t I see Josh Hartnett and Sam Jackson in this movie already when it was called Resurrecting the Champ?” there’s an inevitable triumph of the human spirit. I’ve always claimed I’d happily watch Robert Downey Jr. in anything; now comes my chance to prove it.

More promising is April’s Observe and Report, a supposedly nasty little number that looks a lot like Taxi Driver, except relocated to the suburbs and played for (even sicker) laughs. Seth Rogen stars as a deeply disturbed mall security guard who goes off his meds and becomes obsessed with rescuing a drunk, ditzy perfume counter girl (Anna Faris) from the shopping center’s resident flasher. The film’s NSFW Internet-only trailer is a creepy, offensive wonder, and while I’ll never be mistaken for a fan of writer- director Jody Hill’s cult-favorite debut The Foot Fist Way, even I must admit his fervent commitment to icky unpleasantness sticks to your rib cage. Angrily divisive reactions ever since the movie’s premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival have me cautiously optimistic and more than a little bit frightened.

Speaking of frightened, everything old is new. Or at least that’s what the makers of 17 Again would like you to believe. In the glorious body-switching tradition that once provided countless hours of hilarity way back when Kirk Cameron became Dudley Moore, or when Fred Savage and Judge Reinhold traded places, or even as recently as when Rob Schneider turned into Rachel McAdams, Matthew Perry now gets a second chance at high school.

The twist this time is that Perry transforms from his annoyingly over-ingratiating self into High School Musical’s Zac Efron, presumably proving that trying times are always a whole lot easier for ambiguously metrosexual tween icons than for washed-up pill-head sitcom actors who can’t even get Aaron Sorkin on the phone anymore. Whatever the case, I’m not fucking seeing this one. Life does have an expiration date, after all.

And finally, silly-season takes off in earnest this May with X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which we can only assume is the start of a franchise spin-off series targeted at everybody who was worried that the rest of the X-Men movies didn’t spend quite enough time having everybody stand around explaining their origin stories. Gavin Hood, director of the deadly dull Rendition, takes the helm for this prequel about the early days of that pointy-haired, bear-clawed berserker. Friday Night Lights MVP Taylor Kitsch shows up as comic book fan favorite Gambit, and as long as he can keep Hugh Jackman from singing again, we’ll all breathe a sigh of relief.