Sticking it to The Man

THE YES MEN

Directed by Chris Smith, Dan Ollman, Sarah Price. (STC) 80 min. Opens Oct 1.

Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum have figured out a way to fight the nefarious forces of globalization that does not involve getting bludgeoned by a riot cop. No, Mike and Andy believe it's sometimes better to make your point by wearing a gold leotard with an inflatable metre-long phallus.

As the principals behind The Yes Men -- described as a "genderless, loose-knit association of some 300 imposters worldwide" -- they perform elaborate pranks that ridicule the agenda of the World Trade Organization and other international institutions.

A hilarious documentary by the team that created American Movie, The Yes Men highlights Mike and Andy's finest achievements and details the events leading up to the unveiling of the "Management Leisure Suit" at a textiles convention in Finland.

Thanks to their bogus WTO website (http://gatt.org), Mike and Andy intercept invitations and interview requests intended for bona fide WTO officials. Appearing under pseudonyms such as Hank Hardy Unruh and Granwyth Hulatberi, they say absurd things that become eerily plausible when rendered in the slick prattle of corporate PR. In one clip, a Canadian Alliance MP is bamboozled by the announcement of the WTO's disbandment. At a seminar in Salzburg, Andy argues that siestas in Spain and long lunches in Italy should be outlawed for contravening standardized business hours. And despite nearly missing their appearance due to confusion over time zones, they triumphantly present their suit to a smattering of confused Finns.

Though the pranks are more lighthearted than cruel, it's genuinely disturbing to see how much audiences let the Yes Men get away with -- even pro-fascist rants are greeted with polite applause. Such is the general response that it's surprising when American students vent their disgust at a PowerPoint presentation about recycling human waste as burgers for Third World consumption.

Because the directors don't probe too deeply into the issues at hand or the lives of the pranksters, The Yes Men mostly serves as breezy fun. But agitators who want new ways to stick it to The Man will find the movie an inspiration. JASON ANDERSON

THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES

Starring Gael García Bernal, Rodrigo de la Serna. Written by José Rivera. Directed by Walter Salles. (14A) 126 min. Opens Oct 1.

Before Ernesto "Che" Guevara was a face on a t-shirt, he was a young man with more modest ambitions than worldwide revolution. Brazilian director Walter Salles' gentle-spirited biopic presents Guevara (Gael García Bernal) in 1952, when he was a 23-year-old medical student who'd been shielded from the harsh realities of the world by his bourgeois upbringing in Argentina.

That changes when he leaves his doting family and journeys across South America with his friend Alberto (Rodrigo de la Serna) and la Poderosa, a temperamental Norton 500 motorcycle. Both men are eager for adventure, though the Falstaffian Alberto deems Ernesto a bit of a square. "You know what your problem is?" he asks him during one predicament. "Your fucking honesty -- you could help out with a lie once in a while."

Alas, Ernesto is as pure as they come. Such is his generosity that he gives a destitute couple the money his girlfriend gave him to buy a bathing suit. The idealist is politicized by what he witnesses on the trip, including the exploited workers at a mine in the Andes. By the time he and Alberto have reached their destination, a leper colony in Peru, Ernesto is proposing toasts to "a united America" and "a single Mestizo race."

As Ernesto is gradually transformed into the Che of legend, The Motorcycle Diaries becomes something uncomfortably close to hagiography. Though Salles stops short of presenting Guevara as a saint, it's still a largely sentimental portrait that climaxes with an inspirational (and not very factual) finale worthy of a Rocky pic. What's more, the director can't help making the poor and oppressed seem nearly as picturesque as the scenery la Poderosa flies past.

A festival crowd-pleaser at Sundance, Cannes and Toronto, The Motorcycle Diaries is engaging and sometimes moving, yet ultimately too soft to put the man back in the myth. JA

SHARK TALE

Featuring the voices of Will Smith, Robert De Niro. Written by Rob Letterman, Damian Shannon, Mark Swift, Michael J Wilson. Directed by Bibo Bergeron, Vicky Jenson, Rob Letterman. (G) 92 min. Opens Oct 1.

In the battle of the fishies, Nemo wins fins-down. Where Finding Nemo swam into theatres complete with heart, soul, brains and a funny bone, Shark Tale is tossed like chum in after it, offering nothing of nutritional value except a couple of loopy lobster jokes. Kids may eat it up, but then again, kids will eat dirt.

To be fair, Shark Tale was already in production before Finding Nemo was released, so strictly speaking it's not a rip-off. If anything, it's closer in spirit to Shrek 2, which makes sense, since they both came out of the snark factory known as Dreamworks. As with Shrek 2, the world of Shark Tale is populated with groan-worthy pop-culture puns (Kelpy Kreme donuts, The Gup clothing store) and cringe-worthy pop songs. Even the colour scheme has been dumbed down, with garish hues that seem inspired more by a Maybelline eyeshadow kit than anything in the natural world.

And then there's the baldly uninspired story. Will Smith voices a hip-hoppy fish named Oscar who longs for fame and fortune. Jack Black adopts a grating whine as Lenny, a shark whose Mafia-esque dad (Robert De Niro) longs for him to grow a set of balls. When Lenny's brother is accidentally killed, Oscar accidentally gets credit for it, then he and Lenny learn that fame isn't all it's cracked up to be, yadda yadda. Consider the hollowness of these multiple storylines against the simple poignancy of a dad searching for his lost son.

The big draw for adults will be all the Godfather in-jokes in the shark world (now we know what the cast of The Sopranos was doing during their hiatus), but these grow tiresome after a while. Renée Zellweger and Angelina Jolie add little in the conventional girlfriend parts. But whoever wrote the lobster puppet show was clearly smoking something creative. KIM LINEKIN

WARRIORS OF HEAVEN AND EARTH

Starring Jiang Wen, Nakai Kiichi. Written and directed by He Ping. (14A) 119 min. Opens Oct 1.

Less ostentatious than Hero and a good deal more fun, Warriors of Heaven and Earth is an unapologetically grandiose period piece. Everything has been super-sized: the performances run the short gamut between stone-faced heroism and moustache-twirling villainy, the desert landscapes loom ominously in wide-screen, and the score offers rousing fanfares with alarming regularity.

Subtlety, then, is not the order of the day. Rather, writer-director He Ping has seemingly fashioned his film with accessibility as his chief aim. And on that front, he's succeeded. Warriors of Heaven and Earth is entertaining without being at all challenging, redeeming its tired thematic leitmotifs of honour among swordsmen (see also: virtually every Chinese action film ever made) with truly spectacular visual presentation and enough plot for an entire miniseries.

Lai Xi (Nakai Kiichi) is a Japanese soldier turned Chinese mercenary, enlisted by his superiors to hunt down a dissident soldier, Lieutenant Li (Jiang Wen). As a reward, he will be granted his return home. What seems like a set-up for a simple pursuit narrative changes abruptly once the two warriors meet, battle to a draw and decide -- after much manly grumbling and gnashing of teeth -- to pool their energies into protecting an imperilled Silk Road caravan transporting a monk and a valuable artifact to the capital.

As armistices go, it's hardly the sweetest. The agreement is that they will fight to the death upon the caravan's safe arrival. But once they turn their attention to other matters -- such as the presence of marauding Turkish bandits, not to mention the henchmen of the local warlord -- they become quite the dynamic duo.

This is compelling enough, but where the film knocks it out of the park is in its special-effects-aided conclusion, wherein the properties of the much-sought-after artifact are revealed, Raiders of the Lost Ark-style. No face melting, but impressive supernatural vengeance is doled out. ADAM NAYMAN