Curtis’ ‘Love Actually’ a sprawling romantic comedy

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In theaters

LOVE ACTUALLY, written and directed by Richard Curtis, 129 minutes, rated R.

It’s “the absolute torture of love” that the new romantic comedy, “Love Actually,” has in its sights, and the net it casts over the whole sprawling affair is about as broad as it gets.

As written and directed by Richard Curtis, who wrote the popular “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Notting Hill” and “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” “Love Actually” is the year’s busiest and most relentlessly shameless comedy. It’s also among the year’s funniest and most disarming, with an expert cast on hand to help smooth over the rough spots.

The film doesn’t so much star anyone as it co-stars everyone. It’s an ensemble comedy, with Hugh Grant as England’s disco-dancing prime minister who falls for a foul-mouthed tea girl (Martine McCutcheon); Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson as a couple facing a marital impasse thanks to Rickman’s attraction to his secretary (Heike Makatsch); Laura Linney as a woman torn between her love for the smoky-eyed office stud (Rodrigo Santoro) and her devotion to her mentally ill brother; and Colin Firth as a famous crime writer who falls hard for his Portuguese cleaning woman (Lucia Moniz).

Adding to the laundry list of subplots and characters are Liam Neeson as a recent widower whose 11-year-old son (Thomas Sangster) has declared his love for a girl who happens to share his dead mother’s name; Martin Freeman and Joanna Page as fellow porn stars who create a spark off set; a threesome (Keira Knightly, Andrew Lincoln, Chiwetal Ejiofor) muddied by love and jealousy; an English lad (Kris Marshall) off to Wisconsin to leave his mark with the American ladies; and the hilarious Bill Nighy as Billy Mack, a has-been pop singer who has knowingly cranked out an awful Christmas cover song in an effort to launch a comeback.

With some luck and hustle, his manager (Gregor Fisher) believes the song just might go to the top of the charts, with the wonderfully caustic Billy agreeing to perform the song nude on television should it do so.

As if this weren’t enough, Curtis finds room for cameos by Billy Bob Thornton, Rowan Atkinson, Denise Richards, and former supermodel Claudia Schiffer, all of whom help make this movie seem like a dream episode of “The Love Boat.”

With so much to tuck under its belt, “Love Actually” is hardly as neat as it could have been; some subplots go nowhere and there’s no denying that it could benefit from some trimming (do we really need the two porn stars?).

Still, since it doesn’t know when to quit or where to begin, it cheerfully bulldozes forward, swinging in and out of scenes with such haste, its characters – all 20-plus of them – sometimes literally can’t get out of each other’s way.

Normally, a movie as scattered and as stretched as this would wear itself out by the second act. But “Love Actually” defies the odds by becoming infectious. In spite of some horribly cheesy moments, you can’t keep it down. There are a lot of laughs here and as such, the film lifts you up – sometimes way up – regardless of the formula that drives it.

Grade: B+

On video and DVD

THE SANTA CLAUSE 2, directed by Michael Lembeck, written by Don Rhymer, Ken Daurio, Ed Decter, Cinco Paul and John J. Strauss, 95 minutes, rated G.

No amount of love can make you feel good about Michael Lembeck’s little lump of coal, “The Santa Clause 2,” a mostly boring, chaotic wreck that rarely recalls the comparatively clever moments that defined its predecessor, 1994’s “The Santa Clause.”

Back as Santa is Tim Allen, who, this time out, finds himself stuck in a ho-hum plot that forces Santa to snag a wife before Christmas day. Barbaric? Yes. But if Santa doesn’t find a Mrs., he’ll cease being Santa and children around the world will go without their gifts come Christmas morning.

Working with two elves, Curtis (Spencer Breslin) and Bernard (David Krumholtz), Santa – who the first film revealed is really just a divorced dad named Scott – returns home, where his troubled teenage son, Charlie (Eric Lloyd), is conveniently at odds with his knockout principal, Carol (Elizabeth Mitchell), a single, gorgeous blonde with an attitude problem.

Before you can say “Santa has a playmate,” Curtis and Bernard have unleashed an animatronic Santa Claus at the North Pole to take over toy production in Santa’s absence – which is just what he does with predictably disastrous results.

In spite of featuring a script credited to five writers, apparently nobody bothered to check it twice. Occasionally the movie does offer a few laughs and one smart nostalgic scene that showcases the toys many thirty- and fourtysomethings played with in their youths, but mostly it lacks the element of surprise, mischief and wit that could have made it a winner.

Grade: C-

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, 5:30 p.m. Thursdays on WLBZ 2 and WCSH 6, and are archived on RottenTomatoes.com. 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. Those capped and in bold print are new to video stores this week.

Adam Sandler’s Eight Crazy Nights ? D

A Mighty Wind ? B+

Anger Management ? C-

Bend it Like Beckham ? A-

Bringing Down the House ? B

Charlie’s Angels 2 ? D+

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind ? C

Confidence ? B-

The Core ? B

Daddy Day Care ? D

Down with Love ? C+

Dreamcatcher ? C-

Dumb and Dumberer ? D-

Finding Nemo ? B+

Holes ? B+

Hollywood Homicide ? D-

Hulk ? C-

Identity ? B+

The In-Laws ? C

The Italian Job ? A-

It Runs in the Family ? C+

LARA CROFT TOMB RAIDER: THE CRADLE OF LIFE ? B

Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde ? C+

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers ? A-

The Matrix Reloaded ? A-

Nowhere in Africa ? A

Owning Mahowny ? B-

Phone Booth ? B

The Quiet American ? A

Real Women Have Curves ? A-

The Recruit ? B

SANTA CLAUSE 2 ? C-

Shanghai Knights ? B

SINBAD: LEGEND OF THE SEVEN SEAS ? B-

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines ? B

2 Fast 2 Furious ? C-

The 25th Hour ? A

28 Days Later ? B+

View from the Top ? C+