What Lies Beneath (2000)
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Written by Clark Gregg

There's not much to this very paint by numbers thriller except some shots of a barechested Harrison Ford that will have you panting with anguish as you furiously stroke yourself to a barbaric orgasm. The man looks good for his age, I'll tell you that. Hell, he looks good for my age, and I'm only 13. Anyway, this is one of those "Is she crazy? Yes, she's so crazy. No, wait, maybe she's not crazy after all. Oh, bullshit, she's totally crazy. No, holy shit, she isn't crazy at all!" type movies. Michelle Pfeiffer plays a woman who is experiencing a haunting. Is she crazy? You figure it out, what, do you want me to give the whole thing away?

The movie uses my favorite lame exposition technique, the ol' "document the character's history through a series of news articles in a scrapbook" routine. Can't someone think of something better than that by now? They should have to root through the character's garbage, or toil through hours of poorly produced 4-track demos, to discover the character's history.

Ah well. The plot is effective enough, but there's nothing too sticky about the movie. Nothing scary, and way too many winking Hitchcock references for anyone's good. And as a sequel to Zemeckis's smash hit Forrest Gump, it is frankly quite a disappointment. You find out nothing about what happened to little Forrest, nor to Bubba and the shrimp boats (coincidentally the name of a bar band whose demo I am currently producing on my 4-track).

And what is it about beautiful and smart people anyway? They get all the movies made about them. What about us medium height people? I have never seen myself represented on film. It is always Michelle Pfeiffer as an impossibly beautiful former professional cellist, and Harrison Ford as the brilliant and debonair physicist. How about me as a medium height person, going to work everyday and then coming home to watch old tapes of "Law & Order?"

And have I yet complained that this has to be one of the worst Indiana Jones movies in the series?

Um … well, I really don't have anything to say about this one. Kinda forgettable. Not good, not bad. Some good shots, some good cinematography, all washed out and ghostly blue. A relatively ridiculous ending full of supernatural hokum, but at least it does have an effective twist in the climax, where you'd normally have Michelle Pfeiffer running around all screaming and shit, and here she is actually paralyzed while the villain tries to kill her.

Well, whatever, I've already wasted enough "Law & Order" time discussing this movie. Feel free to rent it, I mean, it won't kill you, and I certainly don't give a shit if you do or don't.

Review by Ivan Goolagalong