Philadelphia Daily News from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 39

Wednesday. Nov. 2t. 1990 PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS Page 39 rgDffflg Mwb: 4 for Ik GMdsOs Kevin Costner's Epic Feast By Gary Thompson Daily News Movie Critic II i flfrffilBMr- Kevin Costner has left behind the Durham Bulls for the prairie buffalos Dances with Wolves is not to be trifled with. Personally, I was already persuaded.

My first clues were the thirty or so humans that Predator gores and mutilates during the first 15 minutes of the picture. It's more or less a turkey shoot, considering the predator's formidable attributes. One, he's nearly invisible. Two, he's equipped with all sorts of high-tech weaponry, like laser-sighted rockets and razor-sharp, limb-severing frisbees. In the original "Predator," a representative of the Predator species wiped out a squad of commandos in a South American jungle.

It was finally destroyed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who dropped a log on its head. "Predator 2" includes an entirely new cast. The monster is also new, though governed by the same impulses: it is drawn to human violence andconflict.InLos Angelescirca 1997. the setting for the sequel, that conflict is between cops and drug dealers. The predator kills members of rival drug mobs, gutting them and hanging them upside down, as is its custom.

The investigating officer (Danny Glover) suspects he's up against something bizarre, and his suspicions are confirmed when a mysterious team of federal agents, headed by Gary Busey. takes over the case. By the time Glover figures out that he's dealing with a heavily armed galactic sportsman, and that human beings are in season, the thing has already killed some of his fellow cops. The feds only want to capture and study the beast. Glover wants to kill it.

"Predator 2" errs by never pausing to establish characters. There isn't a quiet moment in this movie. It's a noisy, bumpy and violent ride from the opening scene the movie doesn't even stop for credits. The people on screen are virtual strangers, and there is no reason to care who lives or dies. (The only character developments involve the predator itself information that sets us up for a possible "Predator To sustain interest, the movie relies almost totally on unremitting violence, action and an amazing array of special effects.

The cast, which includes Ruben Blades, Maria Conchita Alonso and Robert Davi, is far better than the material. (There are also roles for Kent McCord and Morton Downey Jr.) Action fans will enjoy "Predator 2." Others should bear in mind this is one of the goriest and most violent pictures of the year. IJI" I'U'iuw Predator 2 Produced by Lawrence Gordon. Joel Silver and John Davis, directed by Stephen Hopkins, written by Jim Thomas and John Thomas, distributed by 20th Century Fox. Running Tkao: 102 minutes Harrigan Danny Glover Keyes Gary Busey Danny Ruben Blades Leona Maria Conchrta Alonso Parents OoMo: Shewing at: Area Theaters A ances with Wolves" ED trendy epic.

It combines politically correct environmentalism with the current mania for decrying the cultural imperialism of the European immigrants who built this country. Or destroyed it, depending on your point of view. "Dances with Wolves" takes the latter. It is the story of a fictional soldier named John Dunbar, that rare white pioneer who took the time to understand the ways and the culture of the piains Indians. When we meet Dunbar (Kevin Costner), he is an officer in a Union Army platoon.

He is heavily drugged and about to have his leg amputated. Deciding that he'd rather die with two legs than live with one, he grog- gily struggles to his feet, then leads a one-man suicidal charge against the Confederate lines. This opening scene establishes two things that white men are a depraved and warlike race, and that Dunbar has begun to feel estranged from his own people. Dunbar miraculously survives his foolhardy charge, and is awarded the assignment of his choice. He chooses an isolated one a remote prairie outpost.

This isolation is all to Dunbar's liking. He is seeking a place to reinvent himself, to escape what he considers to be the madness of his own culture. His solitary condition proves to be his salvation literally and spiritually, A neighboring tribe of Sioux, Seeing that he is alone, feel no threat from him (in bis initial encounter with a Sioux scout he is naked, hardly a menacing figure). They decide not to kill him. Dunbar befriends the natives and begins to learn their ways.

He admires how the Sioux live off the land without altering it. They follow roving herds of buffalo, killing enough animals to provide food and clothing. This is in marked contrast to white hunters, who kill thousands of buffalo for only the skins, leaving the carcasses to rot. This is not shocking news to anyone who's taken a course in Ameri- can history. Knowing it happened is one thing actually seeing a vast stretch of land littered with the skinned remains of hundred animals brings history home with chilling effectiveness.

Dunbar eventually gives himself completely over to the Sioux, adopting their dress, living in their lodges, taking a wife and adopting a Sioux name Dances with Wolves. He also tries to make the tribesmen understand the implications of the white man's advance, a development that Dunbar knows will obliterate their way of Danson: gets the laughs 'Little Lady': Leftover Affair By Gary Thompson Daily News Movie Critic iBTJi hree Men and a Little II Lady" sounds an awful lot like something from the "back room" at West Coast Video. In reality, though, "Three Men and a Little Lady" is as mainstream as movies get a slapdash sequel to a movie whose main accomplishment was to make money. "Three Men and a Baby." the original, was basically an extended skit about three hunky guys Tom Sel lock, Ted Danson and Steve Gutten berg changing diapers. A woman named Sylvia (Nancy Travis) left the baby the product of her one-night stand with Danson' character on the doorstep of the apartment the men shared.

If you See LADY Page 41 Three Men and a Little Lady Produced by Ted Field and Robert Cort. directed by Emile Ardolino, music by James Newton Howard, written by Charlie Peters, distributed by Touchstone. Running Ttma: 97 minutes Peter Tom Seileck Michael Steve Gutten berg Jack Ted Danson Sylvia Nancy Travis Mary Robin Weisman Edward Christopher Cazenove Vera Sheila Hancock Miss Lomax Fiona Shaw Parents Quid: PG-1 3 Showing at: Area theaters Sugarplum Pudding By Russell Smith Dallas Morning News im he Nutcracker Prince," a II new animated version of the II enchanting Christmastime story, is sweet enough to cause cavities. It's sometimes wonderful to look at with an unusually rich sense of color but the cloy ing screenplay is enough See NUTCRACKER Next Page murderous gluttons. And all of the movie's moralizing on the subject of the environment seems more than a little hypocritical.

It's a simple thing to scold Old West pioneers for being greedy and insensitive after all, we already have our Burger Kings and our interstates and multiplexes, the better to view pictures like "Dances with Wolves." On the whole, Costner's movie is a success. And in an age when most movies are made by people who used to shoot commercials or music videos, the panoramic vistas of "Dances with Wolves' are an enjoyable reminder of the potential of the big screen. See it in a theater. The Alien Who Came to Dinner By Gary Thompson Daily News Movie Critic he monster in "Predator 2" is such an interstellar badass, it even has one of the creatures from in his trophy case. As in the original, the title monster in "Predator 2" is a being who 'roams the universe' looking for things to kill.

As we learn in the sequel, the predator likes to preserve in i if mil Glover Produced by Kevin Costner and Jim Wilson, directed by Costner, music by John Barry, written by Michael Blake, distributed by Orion Pictures. Run Blag Tkao: 180 minutes Dunbar Kevin Costner Stands with a Fist Mary McDonnell Kicking Bird Graham Greene Parents GoMo: PG-13 Showing at: Area theaters Oar Mo via Rating OoMo: Excellent Good Very Good Wart for the Video Though all this Indian-bonding could have been made insufferably pretentious, it is handled with good humor, and made all the more entertaining by winning performances. Costner is solid in the lead role. The native Americans hired to play the roles of the Sioux are all good. They speak only in their native tongue (there are subtitles), which adds to the movie's air of authenticity.

-The standouts are Graham Greene as a holy man and Rodney A. Grant as an angry Sioux warrior. My one quarrel: for a race of supposedly underfed, athletic people, these Sjoux seem awfully flabby, as if they've downed more Doritos than deer meat. Costner is the director of'Dances with Wolves." And he's a shrewd one. He recognized that it would take an epic effort to condense a national experience into the story of one man.

The epic is not a popular form in these MTV-influenced times, but Costner correctly judged that "Dances with Wolves" could only succeed on a large scale. He allows the drama to play out at a leisurely pace the movie runs longer than three hours though he spices it with battle scenes and a rousing buffalo hunt. As long as the movie is. it could have used more "Dances with Wolves" explains its issues in overly simplistic terms. All the Sioux are charming, dignified people, and all Xsave Dunbar) are crazed.

the skeleton of his victim as a fond memento. Evidently. Predator bagged one of the fearsome "Alien" monsters as casually as a small game hunter would drop a squirrel. message is clear; Mr. Predator.