BABIES (***1/2) - Just 80 minutes of watching four babies from four different areas of the world (San Francisco, Tokyo, Mongola and Namibia) live and laugh and cry. It winds up being a very captivating experience.
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ONDINE (**1/2) - Colin Farrell, Alicja Bachleda. - Colin Farrell, atoning for blockbuster success following by binge drinking and Alexander, has come back to do some small movies, and here's one where he's an Irish fisherman who pulls a young woman out of the sea. For the first two acts, it's as though we're getting a dramatic Splash, but then the final third, it becomes more intense, and the movie never really justifies the dark turn.
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THE ECLIPSE (**1/2) - Ciaran Hinds, Iben Hjejle. - A melancholy tale. I like Ciaran Hinds, and I was glad to see him get a lead role. He usually injects life into anything he does (Munich, Amazing Grace, HBO's Rome...), but here he's more subdued. He's a bit of a sadsack, a man struggling to cope with his wife's death. He becomes interested in an author (Aidan Quinn) doing a book tour who claims the ability to talk to those who've died. The author, we learn soon, is a con-man, and a bit of a jerk.
There's a love story in here too, and all of this would be fine, but there's also a few horror-movie moments thrown in. Maybe the low-budget restrained them from doing more, but I question why they did it at all. It seemed very out of place to have a jump-scare moment after thirty minutes of quiet dialogue and mournful drives.
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