‘Sweet Home Alabama’ formulaic but fun

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In theaters

SWEET HOME ALABAMA, directed by Andy Tennant, written by C. Jay Cox, 102 minutes, rated PG-13.

You can almost smell the apple pies baking and the moonshine brewing in Andy Tennant’s “Sweet Home Alabama,” a romantic comedy starring Reese Witherspoon as a small-town girl from Pigeon Creek, Ala., who’s willed herself to forget her white-trash roots by moving to Manhattan and immersing herself in haute couture.

The film, from a script by C. Jay Cox, has none of the biting wit of Witherspoon’s best films – “Election” and “Pleasantville” – but then, go figure, it’s not meant to.

Coming hot on the heels of last year’s megahit “Legally Blonde,” “Sweet Home Alabama” is the next step in a calculated move to broaden Witherspoon’s appeal, which means featuring her in less edgy films – you know, the unthreatening sort that appeal to most everyone, such as those in the breadbasket or, for that matter, in Alabama.

For the studios, the strategy is paying off nicely; “Alabama” made $35 million in its opening weekend and became the nation’s top film. It’s also paying off financially for Witherspoon, who’s set to earn $15 million for “Legally Blonde 2.” But for Witherspoon’s die-hard fans, those who first fell in love with her as the mean-spirited Tracy Flick and who prefer that she not be homogenized, the news is less bright. Indeed, it looks as if the actress will be spooning them cubes of sugar for a while.

In “Alabama,” Witherspoon is Melanie Carmichael, an up-and-coming fashion designer who has almost – but not quite – succeeded in obliterating any trace of the hick she was before fleeing to New York.

When Manhattan’s most eligible bachelor, Andrew Hennings (Patrick Dempsey), proposes to her at Tiffany’s, Melanie accepts but with reservations. When she fled Pigeon Creek seven years ago, she skipped out on everyone, including her blue-eyed, redneck husband Jake (Josh Lucas), who refused to give her a divorce because he was still in love with the girl he fell for when they were just children.

Now desperate for a legal separation so she can marry Andrew, who’s clueless about her past, Melanie returns home, confronts Jake and allows the long-dormant fireworks between them to erupt.

You’d have to be a shut-in to not know how the movie pans out, so it’s especially surprising that it works as well as it does in spite of its formulaic story. Once again, just as in “The Banger Sisters,” the film is lifted out of the ordinary by its cast. Witherspoon may be in the process of softening her image, but she still has some fight left to her yet and gives the film more depth and spunk than it deserves. As Jake, Lucas does his job and smolders on cue, but nobody here is hotter than Candice Bergen.

As Andrew’s mother, Kate, Bergen plays the mayor of New York City as if there were a broom and a black cat forever at her side. She’s given the film’s best lines and, with her trademark exasperated cynicism, effortlessly steals each scene she’s in.

Grade: B-

On video and DVD

THE SCORPION KING, directed by Chuck Russell, written by Stephen Sommers, William Osborne and David Hayter, 94 minutes, rated PG-13.

What saves Chuck Russell’s “The Scorpion King” from being just another souped-up, box-office hopeful in search of a mass audience is that it knows exactly what it is – an overblown cartoon starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as a barely clad superhero seeking peace in the Middle East.

As timely as that sounds, the film is actually set thousands of years before our time in the city of Gomorrah. As in Sodom and Gomorrah.

Billed as a precursor to 1999’s “The Mummy” and last year’s “The Mummy Returns,” “The Scorpion King” doesn’t recall those films as much as it does the Conan the Barbarian movies of the early 1980s: It stars a famous well-fed jock, gives him a sword, shoehorns him into a loin cloth, tosses him into the arms of a hot-to-trot sorceress (Kelly Hu), and then follows his battle against evil.

As executive produced by the Rock’s boss, the WWF’s Vince McMahon, it’s no surprise that “The Scorpion King” builds to what’s essentially a pre-Pyramid version of Smackdown.

Still, in spite of being little more than junk food, the film isn’t all salt and cheese.

With Michael Clarke Duncan living large as Mathayus’ friend-in-arms and Grant Heslov providing comic relief as a smartass horse thief, “The Scorpion King” is fast-moving fun, a guilty pleasure that’s been filmed so many times by Hollywood, it’s no wonder they got it right.

Grade: B

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, starting alphabetically with the most current releases.

Brotherhood of the Wolf ? B

The Scorpion King ? B

Enigma ? C

Monsoon Wedding ? A-

Murder by Numbers ? C

Death to Smoochy ? B+

40 Days and 40 Nights ? C-

Monsters, Inc. ? A-

Panic Room ? B

Changing Lanes ? B

Count of Monte Cristo ? B+

Frailty ? C-

Blade II: B+

High Crimes ? C

Queen of the Damned ? C-

Iris ? B

Joe Somebody ? D

The Rookie ? A-

The Sweetest Thing ? D+

We Were Soldiers ? B+

Birthday Girl ? B

The Business of Strangers ? B

Clockstoppers ? C

In the Bedroom ? A

The New Guy ? D

Showtime ? C+

Deuces Wild ? D-

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring ? B+

Collateral Damage ? D

Dragonfly ? D

Resident Evil ? C-

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-

Rock Star ? B

American Pie 2 ? C+