Although credited as a remake of the 1969 Michael Caine movie of the same name, “The Italian Job” is so original that it’s practically a remake in name only. The plot still centers around a heist by a professional band of thieves, but the action and emotions heat up with the addition of betrayal and revenge. In the original film, Charlie Croker (Caine) was simply looking to make the heist of a lifetime. In the current version of “The Italian Job”, Croker (Mark Wahlberg) is taking over his “father’s” trade as a criminal mastermind. John Bridger (Donald Sutherland) comes out of retirement to perform the safecracking end of the heist. The few minutes of onscreen time that Wahlber and Sutherland have sets the tone as something more than a breaking-all-the-speed-limits, fist-in-your-face actioner, which it easily could have been. Director F. Gary Gray gets a lot of emotional mileage out of these small scenes, and ...

  Wannabe treasure-hunter Jared (Paul Walker) makes do with jobs that keep him in the water down in the Bahamas, but his heart longs to be out there chasing in the wake of pirates. His girlfriend Sam (Jessica Alba) loves him and supports him, understanding him better than he understands himself. A recent storm has passed through the area and Jared feels certain that something might have been unearthed because storms above the water also affect the shifting sands of the sea, sometimes uncovering wrecks that have been hidden for hundreds of years. Still, Jared knows he’s not going to get much treasure hunting done with the leaky boat he has. Their lives change forever when Jared’s lawyer brother Bryce (Scott Caan) shows up with a brand-new girlfriend Amanda (Ashley Scott) whom he met only five hours previously. They get to stay at a mansion house owned by one of Bryce’s clients. In fact, ...

  Michael Newman (Adam Sandler) is a loving father and husband but his overscheduled workaholic nature and his career ambitions are gradually alienating him from his family. While searching for a universal remote to help him manage all his various gadgets, he enters “Bed Bath and Beyond,” and in the “Beyond” workshop comes across Morty (Christopher Walken), who offers him a high-end prototype to help him get control of his life. Back at home, Michael finds that the amazing remote allows him to control his world, and he starts using it to fast-forward his way through the tedious parts of his life: arguments with his wife, illnesses, traffic and his long wait for a promotion. Adam Sandler is a nice fit for Michael Newman, in a role that requires a greater range (as in “Punch Drunk Love”) than his typical vehicles. Henry Winkler and Julie Kavner are adorable as Michael’s parents and Christopher ...

  Seven years after the original, modestly budgeted “The Terminator,” director James Cameron and co-screenwriter William Wisher returned to continue the story, this time with an enormous budget and cutting-edge special effects capable of realizing their ideas. Two robotic Terminators are sent from the future—the new T-1000 model (Robert Patrick) to kill John Connor, the other, the familiar T-800 model (Arnold Schwarzenegger), to protect him. The new Terminator can change its shape. On the run with the T-800, John (Edward Furlong) must rescue his mother Sarah (Linda Hamilton, from the first film) from a mental hospital, where she’s been put by Dr. Silverman (Earl Boen, also from the first film). Determined to stop the Cyberdyne company before they create the Skynet program, which will trigger the apocalypse, Sarah seeks Dr. Miles Dyson (Joe Morton) and the Cyberdyne lab itself. At the same time, they must avoid the implacably pursuing chameleon-like Terminator determined to stop ...

  Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) and Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) were the buddy-cop movie icons of the 1980s and 1990s. Movie cops just didn’t come any tougher than Vietnam vet Riggs and his—at first—conservative partner. Richard Donner slammed audiences with his over-the-top approach to the action genre, and stunt crews were challenged to keep up with the frenetic pace. Then 22-year-old-writer Shane Black exploded onto the Hollywood scene, quickly scripting the original “Lethal Weapon” movie, then contributing to the story for the sequel, before netting a record-setting 1.75 million dollar price tag for “Last Boy Scout”. He drove that price up again with “The Long Kiss Goodnight” when he got 4 million for the script. His latest movie was “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang”. In the original “Lethal Weapon.” Riggs was a good cop one step beyond sane, harboring a death wish after the accidental death of his wife. The opening scenes of Riggs in action, ...