The wheel turns

"Pulse"

Dimension Films

Directed by Jim Sonzero

Written by Wes Craven and Ray Wright

Starring: Kristen Bell, Ian Somerhalder, Christina Milian, Rick Gonzalez and Jonathan Tucker

Rated PG-13/100 minutes

Opened Aug. 11, 2006

Two out of four stars

This muddled and mysterious techno-boo-flick supposedly takes place in the shadowy urban canyons of the most godforsaken city in America-Cincinnati! Shudder!-but the egg crate apartments and permanently overcast skies look more like Soviet utilitarianism at its most grimy and suicide-inducing than anything remotely American.

In other words, "Pulse" scores high on the creepiness scale.

The story is a mixed bag, as leeched of coherent plotting as the city is of hopeful colors. Mattie (Kristen Bell) and her blankly staring college friends unwittingly unleash a wireless signal that attracts all sorts of pale-skinned demons who have no qualms about piggybacking onto someone else's Wi-Fi. In the most foreboding of foreboding tones, "Pulse" warns us against our over-reliance on technological doohickeys.

Ah, so it's a horror movie with a message.

It held me in its grip until the crazy old man with the sash over his shoulder that read "Horror Movie Cliché" turned to Bell at the diner and raved about the end of the world.

That's when I realized the whole movie was stark-raving dumb.

-A.A.

"The Descent"

Lions Gate Films

Written and directed by Neil Marshall

Starring: Shauna Macdonald, Natalie Mendoza, Alex Reid, Nora-Jane Noone, MyAnna Buring and Saskia Mulder

Rated R/95 minutes

Opened Aug. 4, 2006

Four out of four stars

Now here's a horror film with a real pulse. Neil Marshall's "The Descent" is a descent in every meaning of the word: a descent into dank Appalachian caverns, the frayed female psyches of a group of extreme and extremely scared spelunkers, and the gaping maws of the most hellish beasts since those slope-headed xenomorphs from "Aliens."

It's fantastically frightening, gloriously gory, sadistically bleak and one of the year's best films.

A gung-ho adventuress (Natalie Mendoza) leads five of her gal-pals into the inky black bowels of the earth for some bonding and bickering. What starts as a lark quickly turns dangerous when cave-ins, sheer drops and a broken leg strand them in the darkness with flesh-eating monsters that could be described as the snuffling, malformed children of Nosferatu and Gollum.

The movie would be intense enough with hair-raising moments like the one in which the women cross a pit with only a rope, a few hooks and some incredible upper-body strength-but throw in the wall-crawling ghoulies and you have a nightmare of dizzying, claustrophobic proportions.

Maybe you're not the kind of person who likes these sorts of emotions stirred. Like it or not, it's hard to deny that writer/director Marshall has a genius's grip on the mixing spoon.

-A.A.

"Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Robby"

Columbia TriStar

Directed by Adam McKay

Written by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay

Starring: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Sacha Baron Cohen, Gary Cole and Michael Clarke Duncan

Rated PG-13/110 minutes

Opened Aug. 4, 2006

Three out of four stars

Ricky Bobby drives fast, and the jokes come fast, too, in "Talladega Nights," a stupendously silly comedy from the madcap wits behind "Anchorman."

Will Ferrell plays Ricky, a celebrity NASCAR driver with an ego the size of Texas and the accent to match-he sounds like a giddy George W. Bush at the go-kart track shouting "Look at me, daddy! Look at me!" Ricky places first in every race, followed in second by his dimwitted bud Cal Naughton Jr. (John C. Reilly, at his dopey best).

Their dominance is threatened by the flamboyantly gay French import Jean Girard (Sacha Baron Cohen), a Formula One racer who reads French existentialist novels while he drives circles around a flustered Ricky.

All of this is delightfully goofy-a fluffy, whipped cream premise made rich by surprisingly strong comedic performances from the pit.

Gary Cole (the annoying boss from "Office Space") plays Ferrell's wayward dad, a man who prides himself on being consistently thrown out of Applebee's for drunken rages. He's very funny, as is "Da Ali G Show's" Cohen, who steals every scene he's in with his outrageous Frawnch ack-sent ("I em watching eee-uuu, Reeky Boobie").

And it wouldn't be a Will Ferrell comedy without at least one scene in which Ferrell runs around in his underwear, displaying his flabby paunch with its curly-cue hairs and marshmallow whiteness. Here we get two such scenes. It's as comforting a sight as Ferrell's crooked-toothed smile.

Like "Anchorman," "Talladega Nights" is too long, with soggy dramatic stretches in the final third that will be skipped over in subsequent DVD viewings. That's the time when this movie will really emerge a winner.

-A.A.

"World Trade Center"

Paramount Pictures

Directed by Oliver Stone

Written by Andrea Berloff

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Michael Pena, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Maria Bello

Rated PG-13/125 minutes

Opened Aug. 9, 2006

Three-and-a-half out of four stars

Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center" doesn't spout off long-winded conspiracy theories, but it's still the distinct work of the same director who made such controversial hits as "JFK" and "Born on the Fourth of July." All three films wear their patriotism on their sleeves-if you consider doubt and discourse the truest form of patriotism in the case of those last two.

"World Trade Center" celebrates a gentler form of national allegiance-the helping-hand kind-in telling its true story about the rescue of two Port Authority policemen pinned under the rubble of the collapsed Twin Towers on Sept. 11. Stylistically, "World Trade Center" may not resemble the visual bombast and aural assault of Stone's earlier films (the editing and cinematography are downright tranquil), but thematically it slides right into his rah-rah, hero-worshipping canon. How our nation came together on that tragic day, how the buried cops (Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena) persevered, was truly a heroic feat. For the most part, Stone avoids artificially pumping up the drama, allowing the true-life details to honestly involve our emotions.

The whole cast is very good, including Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaal as the men's worried wives. I like what guest-critic Kevin Smith said on "Ebert and Roeper" a few weekends ago: "Cage gives his most believable and subdued performance in years…you almost want to bury him in rubble in future films."

The pacing drags a bit as we spend long, claustrophobic stretches with Cage and Pena in the dark, the shots consisting mostly of their dirt-encrusted faces. It's hard to imagine how the narrative could've been sped up without sacrificing the integrity of the story, and for that amount of restraint, Stone should be commended. He honors the heroes of Sept. 11, living and dead, with the fiery passion he's known for.

-A.A.

"The Night Listener"

Miramax Films

Directed by Patrick Stettner

Written by Armistead Maupin, Terry Anderson and Patrick Stettner, based on the novel by Armistead Maupin

Starring: Robin Williams, Toni Collette, Bobby Cannavale, Rory Culkin, Joe Morton and Sandra Oh

Rated R/82 minutes

Opened Aug. 4, 2006

Two out of four stars

Gabriel Noone is a world-class storyteller. It's how he makes his living, taking to the airwaves every night at 11 p.m. to tell his dedicated listeners another sinister tale of mystery and intrigue. The plot of "The Night Listener" is one such tale, or so we're led to believe through Noone's opening narration. But it's not the kind of thing you'll find in any old novel-no, this one is personal for Gabriel (Robin Williams). It involves his most avid listener, a 14-year-old boy named Pete Logand (Rory Culkin), a child-abuse victim dying of AIDS who has written a disturbing soon-to-be-published book about his experiences.

Gabriel grows close, via telephone, with both Pete and his foster mother, Donna (Toni Collette, in another excellent performance). But as events and circumstances begin to unfold, Gabriel begins to question not only whether the tell-all is authentic, but also whether or not Pete exists at all.

"The Night Listener" premiered at Sundance earlier this year, and one prominent critic noted that the film goes directions "we can't possibly anticipate." A curious statement, since as far as I can tell, the story never really goes anywhere at all. As sparsely detailed and uneventful as the story is, I have no idea how Noone could possibly stretch this "story" out for an hour on his radio show, when the fact is that practically nothing happens. The film is supposed to be a mystery, but it is so straightforward and conventional that it provides little substance and absolutely no insight.

There is one question at the heart of this story-whether or not Pete Logand actually exists. "The Night Listener" is only a halfhearted attempt to find out, and then just like that, it's over, and nothing has been satisfied.