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Film Forum will feature more reviews in the coming weeks, as this is just the beginning of the response. In the meantime, there are always the books. If you live in or near Seattle, click here to read about "A Hobbit's Holiday," a celebration of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien taking place this Saturday, December 8. (I'm hosting the event.)

That other blockbuster fantasy, Harry Potter, ruled the box office once again, largely due to lack of competition. Over the weekend, its total take rose to $220.1 million, which is actually a lot lower than the studio anticipated.

Regardless, Harry Potter just doesn't measure up as a movie, according to The New Republic's Stanley Kauffman. "In one way the story is a great surprise—it doesn't exist," he writes. "The screenplay … is a series of episodes with not a shred of growth or purposeful drama. Almost all the children's perennials that I can remember, such as Treasure Island and Robinson Crusoe and The Swiss Family Robinson, had stories that gripped, that made me eager to learn the fate of the people I cared about. [Potter's] episodes are entertaining, and virtually all of them are immediately forgettable. Nothing persists except the yawning absence of continuity in a film that runs two and a half hours." He admits, "Certainly I am not attempting to predict a child's reaction … I speak as someone hopelessly adult."

Even as U.S. pilots are on active duty in dangerous territory, Owen Wilson is on the big screen this week playing a pilot who gets shot down in Behind Enemy Lines. He ends up dodging bullets in Bosnia while his superior officer, played by Gene Hackman, decides not to leave a good man behind.

Michael Elliott (Movie Parables) remarks that director John Moore's stylish action scenes "certainly do get our attention. But they don't lead us to anything more worthwhile. Explosions for explosions' sake don't seem to hold the same fascination they once might have."

Likewise, Douglas Downs (Christian Spotlight on the Movies) sums it up: "Lots of action, but no substance."

Bob Smithouser (Focus on the Family) calls it fare for "adrenaline junkies who lack the attention span required for a cerebral thriller like Spy Game." He adds that this "chaotic testosterone-fest" seems "all the more juvenile in light of current events. It all makes Top Gun seem downright poignant."

The critic at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops goes easier on the film: "Moore pumps up a simple premise with skillfully choreographed action scenes, depicting the brutality of war while attempting to comment on the importance of saving even one life despite the risks."

Meanwhile, Movieguide's Tom Snyder, who describes the movie as "a white-hot, action-oriented war movie," is upset that this movie, set in the center of the Serbian-Bosnian conflict, portrays "ultra-war violence" and a "significant amount of foul language." He declares, "There is no sane reason why any movie, even one for older audiences, has to include any foul language at all."

Focusing on the story, Ed Crumley (Preview) testifies that "the gung ho, can-do attitude of the rescue team members, who volunteer to risk their lives to save one man, is inspiring." But he too disparages the film for "foul language, violence, and gore."

Family-minded critic Holly McClure was impressed with "a unique visual style that sets it apart from other war films." She likes Wilson—"a hero the audience can relate to"—and decides that "the timing for this movie couldn't have been more perfect. A movie about an 'unconventional war' … can't help but play on patriotic emotions."

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December (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45