 Critics appear to have different conclusions about what the latest version of Bill Naughton's stageplay Alfie -- this one starring Jude Law in the Michael Caine role -- is all about. Wesley Morris in the Boston Globe calls the movie "a Vanity Fair pictorial ... a ditsy portrait of a happy-go-lucky bachelor. The movie has only flattering things to say and is driven by images of Law looking never less than scrumptious." Steven Rea in the Philadelphia Inquirer calls it a "lad-mag fantasy sprung to life." Eleanor Ringel Gillespie in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution remarks that "Law is splendid as a swaggering ladies' man whose ego serves as a shield against the harsher realities of life. His grin is devastating, and his eyes alone do more acting than Vin Diesel has done in his entire career." Sid Smith in the Chicago Tribune enthuses: "What a bright, entertaining, cleverly updated and utterly satisfying comedy the new Alfie turns out to be. Jude Law may have been rash in believing he could erase Caine's memory, but erase it he does, in one of the best exploitations so far of his edgy, cheeky, snake-like matinee seductiveness." On the other hand, Geoff Pevere in the Toronto Star clearly prefers Caine's original Alfie. As for the movie itself, Pevere writes: "It's lost its edge, focus and original purpose. ... Back in the mid-1960s, Alfie Elkins was one of the reasons a women's liberation movement was necessary. Today, he's just another bad date with a surplus of personal grooming products." But Roger Ebert in the Chicago-Sun Times suggests that there's little purpose in comparing the two films. "We don't go to see Alfie in order to make a sociological comparison of the two films," he writes. "Indeed, most of the audience members on opening night may not even know it's a remake. On its own terms, it's funny at times and finally sad and sweet." |
