BE COOL

title: BE COOL

year: 2005

cast: John Travolta, Uma Thurman, The Rock, Harvey Keitel, Vince Vaughan

rating: *1/2

For a movie that pokes fun at bad sequels and corporations, this is a bad sequel which is as corporate as can be. John Travolta returns as the ever-cool "Chili Palmer" and, unlike his turn in "Get Shorty" (perhaps his best performance ever), he's simply going through the motions. We get a budding love story with Uma Thurman for all those "Pulp Fiction" fans who wanted to see them hook up, and even a VERY FAMILIAR dance sequence to boot. The plot centers on the music industry as opposed to the movie industry, and there are no decent bad guys (Vince Vaughan as a "wigger" and Harvey Keitel are weak), no decent almost-bad-guys-who-turn-good (Cedric the Entertainer is even weaker), and the someone-is-in-the-house-because-they-purposely-left-the-TV-on, which was great in the original, is overused to the hilt. Attempts of mazy-double-crossings that Elmore Leonard (and Quentin Tarantino for that matter) do so well are all but col de sacs leading to dead ends. But I gotta give credit to The Rock. Although I am not a fan his turn as a gay bodyguard who wants to be an actor is the only decent character.