‘Freaks’ crawls with simple fun

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In theaters

EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS, directed by Ellory Elkayem, written by Elkayem, Jesse Alexander and Randy Kornfield, 99 minutes, rated PG-13.

Leave it to Hollywood to try to keep spinning gold from toxic waste.

Ever since the mid-1950s, when B-movie classics such as “Them!” “Tarantula” and “The Deadly Mantis” proved there’s nothing financially itsy-bitsy about big bugs gone berserk, Hollywood has delivered a wealth of creature-features starring the leggy beasts, from such insect-infested shockers as “Beginning of the End,” “Earth vs. The Spider” and “Invasion of the Bee Girls” to the more recent “Tremors,” “Starship Troopers” and “Mimic.”

Now, in this definitive summer of the spider, the toxic creepy-crawlies have come creeping again, this time in the form of Ellory Elkayem’s “Eight Legged Freaks,” a postmodern homage to the B-movies of yesteryear that features scores of huge, mutant spiders taking over the woefully misnamed town of Prosperity, Ariz.

Obviously, any film that features spiders as large as a city block isn’t going to be for everyone, certainly not those who prefer their spiders beneath the heel of their shoe or at the business end of a can of Raid.

Still, for those who dig this sort of thing, “Eight Legged Freaks” is mindless fun, especially during its lively first half, which has a great time winking at the absurdity of its premise before getting kneecapped by repetition midway through.

In the film, David Arquette is Chris McCormick, a mining engineer who returns to Prosperity after his father’s death to collect his inheritance – a gold mine, no less – and to rekindle a romance with his old flame Sam Parker (Kari Wuhrer), who’s now Prosperity’s no-nonsense sheriff and a single mother of two, Ashley (Scarlett Johansson) and Mike (Scott Terra).

Unfortunately for Chris, his plans to put the squeeze on Sam are shelved temporarily when a barrel of toxic waste accidentally is dumped into a pond, an event that inadvertently leads to one man’s spider collection mutating out of control and viciously mugging the folks of Prosperity.

As produced by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich, the duo who botched 1998’s “Godzilla,” “Eight Legged Freaks” takes itself a lot less seriously and scores because of it. It pointedly pilfers from other films, particularly George Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead,” whose influence is realized at the end when the townsfolk, fleeing the spiders, take refuge at a shopping mall and realize some unexpected savings. Specifically, their lives.

Grade: B

On video and DVD

THE TIME MACHINE, directed by Simon Wells, written by John Logan, 96 minutes, rated PG-13.

With director Simon Wells turning his great-grandfather H.G. Wells’ classic novella “The Time Machine” into an $80 million spectacle, one would think that keeping the book in the family would have been a good thing, a way to honor the family icon.

Shame that isn’t the case.

The film is dreadful, a long-winded gasbag filled with unintentional laughs and underwhelming special effects, that’s about as exciting as tracing patterns in a carpet.

Set not in London but in turn-of-the-century New York City, one of several changes from the original text, the film follows Guy Pearce as Alexander Hartdegen, a scrawny genius who loses the love of his life, Emma (Sienna Guillory), to tragedy just moments after asking her to marry him.

Four years later, Alexander has built himself a gleaming brass time machine, zipped back into the past and reconnected with Emma.

Initially, it’s a scene played for all it’s worth. But then another tragedy strikes this doe-eyed couple that’s so awkwardly handled and such a hoot, it had the audience at my screening last March first catching their breath – and then howling with laughter.

That’s pretty much how the rest of the movie goes. After brief trips to the years 2030 and 2037, during which Alexander witnesses the colonization of the moon and then its eventual destruction as parts of it collide into the skyscrapers of New York City, pop star Samantha Mumba shows up as an Eloi in the year 800000.

One genuinely thrilling scene does evolve from the ensuing madness, but with Jeremy Irons wasted as Uber-Morlock, a villain whose blast of white hair, exposed spine and pale face suggest the actor isn’t entirely opposed to camp, “The Time Machine” mostly sputters, grinding through the centuries without a clear purpose or intent – not even, apparently, to entertain.

Grade: D-

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, occasionally on E! Entertainment’s “E! News Weekend,” Tuesdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5” and Thursdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5:30” on WLBZ-2 and WCSH-6. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.

The Video-DVD Corner

Renting a video or a DVD? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores.

Crossroads ? C-

Kung Pow: Enter the Fist: B-

The Time Machine ? D-

Amelie ? A

John Q. ? C-

Pinero ? B

Charlotte Gray ? B+

Hart’s War ? B

The Royal Tenenbaums ?

B+

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius

? B+

Shallow Hal ? C

A Beautiful Mind ? B

Gosford Park ? B+

I Am Sam ? C

The Majestic ? D-

Max Keeble’s Big Move ? B

Orange County ? C-

The Shipping News ? C

Rollerball ? F

Black Hawk Down ? B

Kate & Leopold ? C+

Monster’s Ball ? A

The Mothman Prophecies ?

C

Harry Potter and the

Sorcerer’s Stone ? B 3/4

Sidewalks of New York ? B-

Lantana ? A

Vanilla Sky ? B+

Corky Romano ? D-

From Hell ? C

The Others ? B+

Snow Dogs ? B-

Ocean’s Eleven ? B

Waking Life ? A

Ali ? B+

Not Another Teen Movie ?

C-

Behind Enemy Lines ? C-

No Man’s Land ? A

Black Knight ? F

The Deep End ? A

Domestic Disturbance ? C

The Man Who Wasn’t There

? B+

Mulholland Drive ? A

Spy Game ? C+

Bandits ? D

13 Ghosts ? F

Donnie Darko ? B

K-Pax ? B-

Life as a House ? C

Original Sin ? F

Our Lady of the Assassins ?

B+

Riding in Cars with Boys ?

B-

Training Day ? B-

Heist ? B+

Joy Ride ? B+

Zoolander ? C-

A.I. ? B-

The Last Castle ? C-

Sexy Beast ? B+

Jay and Silent Bob Strike

Back ? F

The Musketeer ? D-

The Taste of Others ? A-

Don’t Say a Word ? C-

Hardball ? C+

O ? B+

Hearts in Atlantis ? B

Life Without Dick ? D

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

? D

Ghost World ? A

Lost & Delirious ? C-

Atlantis: The Lost Empire ?

C

The Curse of the Jade

Scorpion ? B-

Lisa Picard is “Famous” ? B

Kiss of the Dragon ? B-