Under the Same Moon
As the title suggests, there is a little bit of fairy-tale moondust sprinkled over this story of a 9-year-old boy who runs away from his home in Mexico to find his mother in Los Angeles. As with all fairy tales, the magical glow makes it easier to address some heart-wrenching themes that might be too disturbing if told in a more straightforward manner.
Rosario (Kate del Castillo) has come to the United States because it is the only way she can care for her family. Her son, Carlitos (Adrian Alonso), lives with his grandmother in Mexico. Carlitos and Rosario do their best to stay closely involved with each other. But after four years, both of them wonder whether sending money home from America is worth being so far apart for so long.
When his grandmother dies, Carlitos crosses the border illegally, hidden in the car of an American citizen of Mexican heritage (America Ferrara of Ugly Betty) and her brother.
Because Carlitos and Rosario are in America illegally, their efforts to find each other are especially treacherous. They have to look for each other without the help of police, social services, a phone directory or the Internet, based only on what they know after four years of limited phone contact.
Some adults Carlitos meets are kind, but a strung-out junkie tries to sell him for drug money, and a person from his past lets him down. Another illegal immigrant (Eugenio Derbez) at first refuses to have anything to do with Carlitos, but gradually becomes his friend.
The story is formulaic and a little syrupy, but sensitive performances and skillful storytelling from writer Ligiah Villalobos (of Go Diego Go) and director Patricia Riggen hold our interest.
As we see Carlitos and his mother wake up in the first scene, their stories are intercut, making the mother and son seem so closely connected that we do not realize at first that they are hundreds of miles apart. This sense of their bond throughout the film sheds a glow of hope over the harshness of the circumstances and makes us, for a moment, believe that we, too, are under the same moon that shines gently on this mother and son. — Nell Minow
Under the Same Moon
Two and a half stars
Stars: Adrian Alonso, Kate del Castillo and Eugenio Derbez
Director: Patricia Riggen
Rated: PG-13 for some mature thematic elements
The Forbidden Kingdom
Beware when a new film insists on reminding you of its “first” onscreen pairing of star actors X and Y. Like Nigerian “investors” e-mailing strangers for their credit card number, it’s the kind of scam that can leave you in the cold.
It’s a clever way to divert your attention away from the other parts of the film that might fizzle and flop. Think of Danny DeVito and Arnie in the subpar comedy Twins, or the Bennifer tag team in the dud Gigli. This year’s edition couples fu fighters Jackie Chan and Jet Li in Rob Minkoff’s The Forbidden Kingdom, a promising adventure movie whose potential is sweep-kicked to the curb.
Minkoff has the charming Lion King and Stuart Little series under his belt, but he applies those same quaint sensibilities to what might have been stronger as an all-out martial-arts genre flick. The hokey but whimsical storyline (based loosely on a traditional Chinese legend) could’ve been a boon if it weren’t so mired in John Fusco’s unmemorable script.
Michael Angarano (24, Seabiscuit) is Jason, a wimpy South Bostonian who gets pushed around by the neighborhood gang. He’s an avid martial arts DVD collector and finds a hangout in a slummy Chinatown pawnshop. The teen discovers that the store’s aging proprietor, Old Hop (a heavily powdered Jackie Chan), has an ancient sword in the back room with powers untold. When the bullies decide one night to rob the shop, Jason defends himself with the magical instrument. Then at the brink of death, he finds himself transported back to ancient China.
His troubles have only begun. Instead of dopey hoods from South Boston, he’s confronted by the wicked Jade Warlord (Collin Chou), who has turned the all-loving Monkey King (Jet Li) into solid stone. Jason’s mission is to set him free and restore order to civilization, but he first needs a lesson or two in kung fu vernacular.
Chan doubles as the wine-addled Lu Yan, who teaches young Jason those very skills he’s long admired on those bootlegged DVDs. Along the way, they meet the Silent Monk (Jet Li, again) who delivers excitement in his every frame. Unfortunately, the principal female lead (Yifei Liu) is subjected to every eye-rolling stereotype as the submissive, grief-stricken Golden Sparrow, who plays sorrowful melodies on her lute-like instrument. Of course she naturally falls for the clumsy American hero.
Kung fu just isn’t as fun to experience when it feels like a synthetic video game. Rather than letting the natural flow of the action take over, extended slow-motion sequences dice it all up. It’s one thing to remind us of the craft’s balletic qualities, but it’s another to impede its driving motion. Which is too bad, since action choreographer Wo Ping did wonders with The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Kingdom falls even harder when it gets the urge to genre hop. In one rare comical scene, Chan tries to conjure up some raindrops in the desert, only to realize that Li is urinating on him. Then there are long, irritating stretches where characters want to wax contemplative and share phony, hoary truths. “Music is the bridge between Earth and heaven,” says the straight-faced Golden Sparrow to Jason. This patchwork mess of slapstick, computer-generated Buddhist fantasy, Eastern epic, etc., doesn’t ever quite allow the viewer to happily abandon to any of them. — Bryant Manning
The Forbidden Kingdom
One and a half stars
Stars: Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Michael Angarano
Director: Rob Minkoff
Rated: PG-13 for sequences of martial arts action and some violence
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