‘Ideal Husband’ helps out uneven summer

AN IDEAL HUSBAND. Directed and written by Oliver Parker. Based on the play by Oscar Wilde. Running time: 97 minutes. Rated PG-13.

With all of its bitchy wit and mean-spirited one-liners, Oliver Parker’s excellent adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s “An Ideal Husband” feels as if it’s a late 19th century rendering of the television show “Dynasty.”

Indeed, all that’s missing here is a mud fight between its two female leads, Cate Blanchette’s too-good-to-be-true Gertrude Chiltern and Julianne Moore’s mincing and conniving Mrs. Cheveley.

The film is all high style, great costumes, strong acting and painstakingly detailed sets wrapped around a story of blackmail and manners, love and deception. It’s light, but it’s nevertheless great fun, a smart addition to an uneven summer of mindless “blockbusters.”

With Rupert Everett dashing as the meddling Lord Goring and Minnie Driver unforgettable in what could have been a throwaway role, “An Ideal Husband” is an ideal dose of summer mischief frequently sparked with extended moments of Wilde’s signature dialogue. Don’t miss it.

Grade: A-

THE HAUNTING. Directed by Jan De Bont. Written by David Self, based on the novel by Shirley Jackson. Running time: 113 minutes. Rated PG-13.

Jan De Bont’s rotten film, “The Haunting,” is all dressed up with a story that has no place to go.

The film, which is an updating of the much better 1963 original starring Julie Harris, has rich, opulent sets to spare, but its laughably bad script and Gee-I-wish-I-were-in-a-better-picture performances prove, at least in this case, that less is not more — but much less.

With Liam Neeson bravely speaking reams of mindless psychobabble, Catherine Zeta-Jones forever looking as if she’s on the verge of orgasm, and poor Lily Taylor having to say lines such as “I can be a victim or I can be a volunteer. I’m gonna be a volunteer,” this woefully unscary and ultimately embarrassing film about skeletons in the ash pit suffers from a debilitating case of osteoporosis.

Grade: D-

Christopher Smith’s “The Week in Rewind” appears each Thursday in the scene. Each Tuesday on WLBZ’s “News Center 5:30 Today” and “News Center Tonight,” he appears in Cinema Center.