Marital Strains in 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith'

June 10, 2005 -- -- Now in theaters: "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," "The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3-D" and "The Honeymooners."

Mr. and Mrs. Smith
We've heard all the gossip about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, how's the movie?

It's pretty good considering off-screen electricity doesn't always translate. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in "Eyes Wide Shut"? Remember Bennifer in "Gigli"? I've felt more electricity pulling a pair of socks out of the dryer. But there is electricity here.

Pitt and Jolie play a married couple, Mr. and Mrs. Smith. And you know what it's like: they've just had a fight, she's mad and wants to leave, he's mad and wants her to stay. It's happened to all of us, but not usually in a car going 80 mph.

These two are top-gun assassins whose real identities are top secret -- even from each other.

Some of the action scenes strain the credibility, especially when they fire more bullets at each other than we used in the entire War of 1812 and miss each other. Another scene that really bothered me has Jolie rapelling 40 stories down a New York building. That I'll buy. But she lands and there's a cab waiting? Only in the movies.

"Mr. and Mrs. Smith" is a 90-minute premise jam-packed into a two-hour movie that eventually blows up in its own excessive violence. But Pitt and Jolie make it work as satire and romantic comedy and it's saved by the performances of these two terrific stars.

I don't know what happened off-screen between Jolie and Pitt and I don't care. But on-screen there is high-voltage electricity, drop-dead perfect timing and surprising real laughs. Grade: B

The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3-D
Here's a quote: "The best movie I've ever seen!"

Not my quote, my son Dylan's. He's 7. I've never seen him like this at the movies. He wasn't watching Shark Boy and Lava Girl as much as he was living every scene, as if he had imagined the movie he was watching.

It's the story of a school kid who invents these superheroes and learns to be careful what you wish for. The film's really well-done by director Robert Rodriguez whose 7-year old son, Racer Rodriguez, invented the characters and came up with the story.

That's why it's such a great film for kids. And 3-D makes it even more fun. Grade: B

The Honeymooners

There are a couple of things that I hold too sacred for you to mess with, Hollywood.

You don't change the ending of "Casablanca."

You never let the cartoon coyote catch the roadrunner.

And you don't remake "The Honeymooners." If Jackie Gleason were still alive, he'd be turning over in his grave.

In this movie version, Cedric the Entertainer is Ralph Kramden with Mike Epps as Norton. They need to raise $10,000 before Alice finds out it's gone. This isn't funny. But look up "desperate" in the dictionary and there's a picture of Cedric the Entertainer break-dancing trying to get laughs.

Look up "offensively desperate" and there's a picture of him pretending he's blind. This is the first time I've given him a bad review but one more movie like this one, and Cedric the Entertainer is going to have to change his name. Grade: C-