Also this issue: Xed Off X2 is better than its predecessor -- but that doesn’t mean it’s good. -Sam Adams The Rules of the Game A would-be player rethinks his ways in Raising Victor Vargas. -Cindy Fuchs Screen Picks -Sam Adams Continuing Repertory Film Showtimes

May 1- 7, 2003

movie shorts

New

THE LIZZIE MCGUIRE MOVIE

In 1999, Jim Fall directed Trick, featuring a dear little campy bit by Tori Spelling. He then directed for TV’s Grosse Pointe, a campy love letter to Aaron Spelling’s primetime soaps. Now he’s made a generally sluggish movie based on Disney’s super-hit TV series, in which 15-year-old Lizzie (Hilary Duff) goes to Roma. As always, she’s adorable, in incessant beaming close-ups, whether hanging with her best friend (Adam Lamberg), quarrelling with her little brother (Jake Thomas) or competing with her classmate (Ashlie Brillault). She’s even adorable while pretending to be sick so her stern chaperone (Alex Borstein, channeling Christian Slater) won’t know she’s sneaking out to see a cute Italian boy (Yani Gellman). He’s convinced her she can replace his dark-haired ex-singing partner (also Ms. Duff, with an Italiana accenta) -- that is, she can drag herself. Whether zipping about on a moped to Vitamin C’s cover of "Volare" or teetering on a runway to Taylor Dayne’s cover of "Supermodel," Lizzie brings her usual energy to tamped down camp. Queer edges or no, the girls at my screening loved Lizzie.--Cindy Fuchs(AMC Orleans; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Main St.; UA Riverview)

XX/XY

Perhaps the least opportune co-release since Shanghai Ghetto shared a weekend with Shanghai Noon, Austin Chick’s cut-rate Jules and Jim probably won’t appeal to fans who stumble in looking for X2, but then it probably won’t appeal to people with brains in their heads either, alas. Jumping from the early ’90s (cue Sonic Youth’s "Kool Thing") to the present, XX/XY follows the improbably named Coles (Mark Ruffalo) from overgrown adolescence to slightly less overgrown adolescence. Opening with a drunken collegiate ménage à trois (how sophisticated!), Chick exhausts his pseudo-sophistication quickly, unable to muster any kind of real insight. As a boho cartoonist dating Sam (Maya Stange), Coles is a self-centered schumck; years later, as a sellout ad exec (oh, the subtlety!), he’s still a self-centered schmuck, only more well-heeled, and married to the long-suffering Claire (Petra Wright). Haircuts change, but the characters stay shallow.--Sam Adams (Ritz at the Bourse)

-- Respond to this article in our Forums -- click to jump there