Bruckheimer's second adolescence

Rating: Null/10 (7 August 2000)

There's no way around it... it's 'Flashdance' for the millenium. It's almost as sparkly, almost as deep, almost as entertaining, and... even less original, as Bruckheimer's done it before. It is so familiar that my husband, who had no idea that it came from the same director and is well known to be anti-observant, commented that it was nearly exactly the same movie. It isn't as though we needed an updated homage to the older film this year... we had 'Center Stage' for that, if we had yearned for it. It certainly isn't that Bruckheimer had something new to relate through the lens of the wisdom he's theoretically garnered over the past couple decades. He's apparantly struggling with the intersection of a preternaturally extended mid-life crisis and a bad case of director's block. Let's hope that with this regression he's gotten it out of his system and can get on with his life.
That said, we hadn't intended to see it (we couldn't find the theater in time to go to our intended viewing of 'The Patriot'), so we weren't the intended audience. And we saw it on the supersaver's Matinee, so we only wasted three measly bucks per ticket. For that price it was relatively inoffensive, and an acceptable excuse to sit in an air-conditioned building and enjoy our popcorn.