The original 1979 version of The In-Laws is a comedy treasure, with impeccably zany performances by Peter Falk and Alan Arkin that I'm confident Michael Douglas and Albert Brooks won't match in the remake, rated PG-13. Douglas plays Steve Tobias, a rogue CIA agent involved with a shipment of illegal weapons, a switch from the stolen U.S. Treasury printing plates in the original. Brooks plays Jerry Peyser, a neurotic dentist who has nothing in common with Steve except the impending wedding of their offspring. Steve drags Jerry into a dangerous mission for reasons that fell into place like lock tumblers in the original. The remake, directed by Andrew Fleming (Dick), looks in previews like every other caper movie today. Douglas doesn't play farce well; it's difficult to imagine him delivering Falk's memorable lines about massive Amazon tsetse flies called: "Jose Greco de la Muerte ... flamenco dancers of death," or telling Brooks' character to "serpentine" in an effort to dodge gunfire. It's just as hard imaging Brooks doing the serpentine moves with Arkin's crazed panache. The new, likely unimproved In-Laws, which wasn't screened for critics in time for review in Weekend, also has the misfortune of opening on the same day Jim Carrey gets back to funny business in Bruce Almighty, while The Matrix Reloaded still dominates theater screen counts. Do yourself a favor and rent the original.
The body on the really big screen
IMAX films have taken viewers to outer space and have showed how some of nature's most marvelous locations were created and thrive against odds imposed by humanity. Now the process takes us inside ourselves with The Human Body (not rated, probably G), a microscopic examination of our physical processes expanded to the immense IMAX format. We see a brain cell rushing to its cognitive assignment at 250 mph; minute hairs in our ears vibrate in response to sounds; a 100-mile voyage by a single blood cell through a circulatory system; and the fusion of DNA cells making each of us individual. The details of such routine bodily functions regularly slip by us without notice until they don't work. One viewing of The Human Body can change the way we see ourselves, the same way IMAX documentaries educate about the world around us. The Human Body will be shown in rotation with other IMAX films through Nov. 20 at the Museum of Science and Industry's IMAX Dome Theater in Tampa.
