Spacey’s ‘Beyond’ does Bobby Darin no favors

In theaters

BEYOND THE SEA, directed by Kevin Spacey, written by Spacey and Lewis Colick, 121 minutes, rated PG-13.

The new Kevin Spacey movie, “Beyond the Sea,” stars Spacey as Bobby Darin, the former pop star and teen idol doomed to death at age 9 by a doctor certain he wouldn’t live past the age of 15.

Rheumatic fever nearly felled him, but thanks to the help of an enthusiastic stage mother (Brenda Blethyn) who encouraged his talent and made him believe he had the goods to be a star, Darin dug deep and found the pluck to live until age 37, when he died in 1973 after living life to its breaking point.

Now, in “Beyond the Sea,” Darin’s life is lived again – or at least a version of it is lived again. As directed by Spacey from a script he co-wrote with Lewis Colick, “Sea” is mined from Spacey’s years of interest in Darin, the likes of which, it turns out, have a whiff of star worship and fantasy about them.

Spacey is 45 and looks it. In spite of that, he has cast himself as a man whose first hit song, “Splish Splash,” was performed at age 22. I don’t care how good your lighting is, how talented your cinematographer or how swell your cosmetic surgery went: Onscreen, 45 is only 22 if you have a burlap bag tied over your head.

Aware of this, Spacey contrives a movie-within-a-movie structure, with Darin looking back on his life from the viewpoint of an older man gleaning insight from his inner child, literally portrayed here by William Ulrich. It’s all tricky, kitshy, hokey stuff, and I’d like to tell you it works, but unfortunately, it works only in parts.

Mirroring most biopics based on celebrities, “Beyond the Sea” follows its subject’s rise to fame. It chronicles Darin’s handful of pop hits, his marriage to actress Sandra Dee (Kate Bosworth), his Academy Award nomination for 1963’s “Captain Newman, M.D.,” his rage, his ego, his eventual undoing by the rapidly changing times.

As Spacey tells it, no accomplishment was ever too much to please Darin, whose insatiable drive was fueled by the lack of time he knew he had left as well as his eagerness to be bigger than his more talented contemporary, Frank Sinatra, a man he obviously tried to emulate.

It’s also Darin’s drive that strained his closest relationships, beginning with those who helped him reach the top, his manager, Steve (John Goodman), his brother-in-law, Charlie (Bob Hoskins), his sister, Nina (Caroline Aaron), and extending to Dee herself, who turned to booze and ciggies because life with Darin was at once too little and too much.

What ensues is a showy, energetic little soap opera whose best moments come when Spacey plays it straight. The whole inner child angle is a drag, it’s clumsy and self-conscious. But when Spacey takes to the stage as Darin and sings, the movie floats.

Spacey has a good voice and charm to spare, but in spite of all the little dramas that pop up throughout, the film never really gets to the root of who Bobby Darin was. Was he the real thing, or just a performer crafted by system and the times? Spacey allows him to remain an enigma, which could have worked for a bigger star, but which here does the middling Darin no favors.

Though it likely wasn’t Spacey’s intent, it cheats Darin of leaving his mark.

Grade: C

On video and DVD

SAW, directed by James Wan, written by Leigh Whannell, 100 minutes, rated R.

The horror movie “Saw” is bad, but not in ways that make bad horror movies good. It comes from the appropriately named Twisted Pictures, and it’s one of the more depressing buckets of swill to pour out of Hollywood last year.

The film’s point isn’t to scare us, it only wants to disgust us. That taps into pop culture’s enduring fascination with the gross-out, which can be fun when done well. But “Saw” fails to provide what the genre must have in order for it to work – characters worth rooting for and a seriocomic tone that’s infectious.

As directed by James Wan from a script by Leigh Whannell, the film’s two main characters are self-centered, unlikable types. You can’t invest yourself emotionally in them, so you have to wonder what the filmmakers were hoping would carry us through to the end. Just the graphic scenes of murder, humiliation, torture, degradation and amputation? Please.

The film opens with Lawrence (the horrible Cary Elwes), an oncologist, and Adam (Whannell), a photographer, locked in the bowels of an abandoned public restroom. Each has one of his ankles shackled to a pipe. Between them on the blood-soaked floor is a man whose head has been partly blown off. In one of his hands is a tape recorder, in the other, a gun. These elements – along with others, come together to form a raw, violent movie that doesn’t value imagination or its audience.

Danny Glover and Ken Leung add little interest as the detectives working the case; Monica Potter somehow manages to be at once colorless and hysterical as Lawrence’s wife. The identity of the madman is revealed at the start, but then, inexplicably, the movie ignores the revelation and tries to build a mystery out of who he might be.

During the few times the film offers traditional suspense, it succeeds.

But mostly the movie chooses gore for the sake of gore, and it cuts its own throat.

Grade: D

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, and are archived at RottenTomatoes.com. He may be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.