Review of Happy Endings (2005) by Diana S — 16 Nov 2005

I see Happy Endings as a return to form for director Don Roos ("Bounce"). Endings shares many parallels with Roos earlier work, The Opposite of Sex. Like Sex, Endings is a black comedy. So dark that sometimes I found myself on the verge of tears. The plot follows several different characters, some of whom are only loosely connected, as they search for love, happiness and/or family. Instead of clever voice-over, here Roos uses clever on screen descriptions of what's happening, or what's to happen. Sort of annoying, but mostly funny. What I really like about this movie is that, amid the craziness, there are moments of real truth. I know that sounds hokey, but I can't think of another way to describe it. There are just lines of dialogue or moments of character where I thought, "I've felt that" or "I've known that person." I also love seeing Lisa Kudrow ("Wonderland") being a hard-ass.

Stealth. I just don't know what to say about it. I wasn't the worst movie ever. But it was pretty darn bad. Besides a mostly ludicrous plot, I just got bored watching it. And to see some fine actors, Jamie Foxx ("Jarhead") and Josh Lucas ("An Unfinished Life"), deal with such poor dialogue just makes me sad.

As for Vlad, well, the movie was terrible, but I found myself liking it anyway. Perhaps because I'm into that whole vampire thing. And it was an interesting idea. The story follows four grad students with theses surrounding either Vlad himself or the Dracula legend. They go to the Carpathian mountains to retrace one of Vlad's historic journeys. One of the students has an amulet belonging to Vlad and as they follow his path, mysterious things start happening and the line between the past and the present becomes blurred. The dialogue is terrible. The accents, too. But the effects were pretty good. And the movie gets an extra star for featuring Billy Zane ("BloodRayne"), whom I love.