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Another quick buck made for executive producer Sam Raimi. With his Ghost House Pictures production company, the low budgets horror flicks usually earn their budget back their first week, and so too does The Grudge 2 with $22 million, good enough for the top spot.
At 2, The Departed holds good retention, down to $18.7 million (a respectable 31% decline). At three, Man of the Year (starring Robin Williams) doesn’t impress, with just $12.6 million. Rounding out the top 5 are left-overs Open Season with $11 million and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning with $7.8 million.

In general, James Bond copies for kids are bad. You’ve seen this formula fail (at least, for the adult audience) for Cody Banks and Spy Kids (why in heaven’s name were there sequels made ?). Now the UK tries to strike back with their pet “let’s show Hollywood” project based on the Alex Rider novels. A more mature hero figure, and besides a moderately high budget they threw in some bigger names too (Ewan McGregor, Alicia Silverstone, Mickey Rourke, Stephen Fry, Bill Nighy). Did it help ?
Unfortunately, no. It’s still a kids movie. Well, maybe teens can also be included in the target demo now. But leaving the adults in the cold, it can’t bear the name family flick. Besides using the very same formula I just told you didn’t work, the script is dull and the screenplay unimaginitive. Add to that the predictibility of a Tic Tac Toe game heading for a draw, and you wish the budget wasn’t wasted all on just making a flashy trailer, because the movie doesn’t add anything to it.4+.

One of the break-out comedies that’s been doing well Stateside, but also doing well currently abroad. It should mostly appeal to the female audience, but as an all-round comedy, it’s just about average. It’s the discovery period that’s the most fun, and the middle part already suffers from introducing nothing new. Predictability is also a weak point, but all in all, if the girls drag the guys along for this movie, it’s not a disaster, coz Anne Hathaway surely doesn’t hurt the eyes.7.

Martin Scorsese scores his best with a remake (Hong Kong’s critically acclaimed Infernal Affairs). Not only does The Departed earn a solid $27 million, it earns much of the same critical acclaim as the original.
At two, actually doing better money-wise, is low-budget horror The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, with $19 million.
Open Season has to settle for a third place in its second week, with $16 million. Rounding out the top five is new comedy Employee of the Month with $11.8 million and left-over The Guardian with $9.6 million.

It’s getting a bit old now, those animated “animal buddies against will” type of stories. Ever since Shrek, it’s been a Shrek/Donkey copying game. It might not have been so bad if only the story was up to par, or the jokes were inventive. But it wasn’t. Only go if you want your kids to have a good time. But be advised, you probably won’t be.5½.

It’s getting hard to distinguish all those animal 3D animated movies, but every studio wants to give it a try, and this one has a bear and a mule in it, and is from the Sony Pictures Animation division. I thought animal-tiredness would have set in by now (for instance, do non-descript titles like Barnyard and The Wild job your memory ?), but somehow this one ends up at the top spot with $23 million.
Second up is The Guardian, a Disney distribution featuring Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Costner, with $17.7 million.
Jackass Number Two will have to do with the third spot, with $14 million. At four a new comedy, School for Scoundrels starring Billy Bob Thornton and Jon Heder, opens with $9.1 million. Rounding out the top 5 is Jet Li’s Fearless, with $4.7 million (dropping a whopping 56% from last week).

If you expect nothing more than a campy popcorn flick, this is the real deal. If you are a Samuel L. Jackson fan, you’re in for quite a flight too. Sure, it was a bit overhyped during its conception, preproduction, production and post-production (even including re-filming the end sequence after a test audience screening, which didn’t lead to a massive box office income), but as a brainless entertaining object, it’s still solid. There’s enough action and there’s enough humor and gore to fill a nice hundred minutes. For what’s it intended to do, it’s delivers.7½.

The topic clear and hence controversial, so Oliver Stone had to endure quite a few accusations of all kinds. But unlike the cold approach of United 93, this is a simple drama based on true facts (though many survivors complained over a few factual inaccuracies). Nothing more, nothing less. Script isn’t overly dramatised to jerk the tearducts (and if it is, it didn’t have too much of an effect). There’s also no trace of alternative (like conspiracy theories) story lines focusing on anything else than the obvious helplessness, hope and heroism. So, all this points a straight line to the most average grade available.7.

Half stolen, half cliche, which actually means it bombs as a whole. Well, okay, it’s not that bad, Uma Thurman and Anna Faris are keen to the eye, and even the less successful brother of Owen Wilson is still a funny dude.
Still, it is kinda sad that you don’t need super-powers to see the whole plot laid out before the first ten minutes are over. So just give in, and enjoy every chuckle you can muster.6-.

Stupid stunt-show Jackass Number Two stumbles to the top spot, painfully grabbing no less than $28 million along the way. With a non-existent budget (even the most simple and mind numbing stunts will get the target demographic crowd cheering), this is pretty clean money flowing in.
Chopping his way into the second spot is Jet Li with Fearless, his supposedly last martial arts flick, with $10.5 million. Dropping 2 places is Gridiron Gang, last week’s number one grabs another $9.7 million.
A risky project of passion for producer Dean Devlin (Stargate, Independence Day), Flyboys drops a $6 million cargo package. Not much for a $60 million budget, but it could be expected, leaving his sci-fi roots for a real World War I fighter pilot story.
Rounding out the top 5 is animated movie Everyone’s Hero with $4.8 million.

Football dramas still seem like the winning formula, as Gridiron Gang opens at number 1 (starring Dwayne The Rock Johnson), while Invincible is still hanging around the top 6. Like Invincible, this movie is also inspired by a true story, and leads with $15 million.
At number two, while nabbing a Golden Lion nomination at the Venice Film Festival, but still not convincing the lot of critics, is The Black Dahlia with $10.4 million.
At three, animated movie Everyone’s Hero opens with $6.2 million. Christopher Reeve was still working on it during his untimely demise, and is solely credited for it, even though two other directors finished the picture.
At four The Last Kiss (starring Zach Braff) opens with $4.7 million, while rounding out the top 5 is left-over The Covenant with the same amount of money.

Brick: Pretentious youthful film noir (but filmed in color), with no real story or excitement to back it up.4.
Friends with Money: A frank unpretentious view on a group of friends, while ultimately not about the story, delivers through candid dialogue.7-.

The lowest box office total this year, is led by Renny Harlin helmed The Covenant. Horror/thriller only gets a measly $9 million. Second up is Hollywoodland with $6 million. Time will tell if Ben Affleck’s Best Actor prize from the Venice Film Festivals will help this George Reeves (TV’s Superman) inspired story fly in more dough. At three, Invincible finally gives in, dropping 2 places with $5.8 million.
The Weinstein Company does quite well with foreign martial arts actioner Tom Yom Goong, at 4 with $5 million. Rounding out the top 5 is Crank, dropping 3 spots with $4.8 million.

Akeelah and the Bee: Very decent independent drama (starring and produced by Laurence Fishburne) that while predictable is still heart-warming, inspirational and dynamic in direction and storytelling.7½.
RV: Really silly, non-funny low-budget comedy.3.
Derailed: Not as half bad a thriller as it sounds.7-.

Can you say “He did it again” ? You certainly can. Both on Shyamalanism and on creativity, he wins again. While M. Night boggles you with mind games all the time, the real boggler is why Disney let him go, since this story contains a lot of elements fitting their profile. It’s a mystery, it has morale, Night’s weird sense of scare and humor, and most importantly, that slight touch of originality (of course, money-wise, it was probably a good choice, since it doesn’t track well at all around the world).
While mixing in quite a few reaching elements into this movie makes it less potent than some of his previous more focused box office hits (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs), like always, he masterfully controls it with his keen sense of understanding the human mind.7½.