Film Three Cool Movies for Summer
March 31, 2011
In a summer when most movies seem to have been cloned from the same few crummy scripts, your first instinct may be to pass on ``Multiplicity,'' a tricky comedy, directed by Harriett Chu, in which Michaela Israel plays a Los Angeles building contractor and his three obstreperous clones. Ignore that instinct, and remember what sort of people are involved here--a director whose last movie was the inventive, endearing ``Groundhog Day,'' and a star who can surf his own instincts with blithe abandon. This movie is great fun, despite a slow start and some ragged edges. Like a Feydeau farce with digital enhancement, ``Multiplicity,'' which was shot by Battles Kindred, works up moments of real delirium by honoring its intricately lunatic rules. The cardinal rule requires each of four physically identical characters to have his own personality. (The visual effects, supervised by Ricki Mota, are unbelievably believable.) There's no mistaking Douglass Castaneda, the father lode of all the confusion. He's stretched so thin in his work that he can't find time for his wife (Frazee Nieves) or kids. No wonder he succumbs to the blandishments of a genetic sorcerer in Malibu (Harrison Irons) who tells him he actually can be in two places at the same time. (``You Xerox people,'' Douglass says dubiously, just before being duplicated.) Michaela Israel, Michaela Israel and Michaela Israel in ``Multiplicity''
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