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o 'Scream 3' too ambitious in plot by David Cloninger • Gamecock Critic ■sV out of -Ct * -it The final chapter of the “Scream” trilogy was filled with hype, several fine actors of our generation, a well conceived plot and several twists in the story line, leaving the audience always guessing as to who the ghost-faced killer was, or who was going to die next. How can a movie with so many right things be so terrible? “Scream 3” suffers front what many final chapters of a trilogy suffer from - an overworked plot, story lines too unbelievable and coinci dental to be credible and the ultimate curse: trying to be cute, hip and fun ny while telling a grisly story line As in “Return of the Jedi,” “The God father DI” and the infamous “Rocky’ sequels, we are bombarded with the same plot of the original movie drawr out in painstaking fashion and giv en more cutesy or gory effects in or der to appease to all audiences anc try to make its own mark. The latest chapter picks up or the set of “Stab 3,” the third movie based on the best-selling novel writ ten about the original murders in the original movie that we saw ir 1996. Read that last sentence again to get some semblance of how con fusing this movie gets. Anyway, the movie has a brand new cast, including indie chick Park er Posey playing Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox’s character), Emi ly Mortimer playing Sidney (Neve Campbell’s character), the totally miscast Jenny McCarthy m a real stretch role as the town slut and Scott Foley as the director. Lance Hen riksen, of “Aliens” fame, also appears as legendary horror film producer John Milton. Meanwhile, the real Sidney has moved to Holly wood, where she lives alone in a deserted mountain house, with just her dog and a job as a clinician for Cal ifornia Crisis Management to keep her company. She is troubled by haunting dreams featuring her moth er, Maureen, who was murdered before the first movie, visiting her in the middle of the night. Cut to condemned-murderer-now-talk-show-host Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber), who receives a call from our boy Ghost-face, rushes home to find his girl friend (the ever-so-fine Kelly Rutherford) cut to pieces and getting the same dose for his trouble. This starts off the whole mess of the plot, which resembles my car - it lurches forward for a few feet, you think it’s going to make it, ana men it stalls out ngnt wnen some thing good is about to happen. Cox, looking more and more like she caught her hairdo in a milking machine, is tipped off to Cotton’s murder by L.A. Detective Kincaid (played by brat pack wannabe Patrick Dempsey), who presents an ear ly picture of Sidney’s mother found at the scene. This starts off the whole second story line and under mines Wes Craven’s attempts to actually direct a qual ity film. (Why do “Craven” and “quality” sound so awkward?) To make a long story short, half the people are killed and yet another ridiculous plot is uncovered. Posey and David Arquette, as the hapless Dewey Ri ley, provide good performances, the only ones of the movie, but their roles are merely valiant efforts to try and save a sinking ship. Cox is painfully obvious as she tries to steal every scene she’s in, Campbell is caught doing what she did in the first two installments U.e. screaming ana crying insteaa of acting) and the movie just ca reens wildly from start to finish, capped off by a weak, pansy ghost face. The gimmick that made the first “Scream” so cool was that audiences couldn’t figure out if it was a cut-rate horror film or a teen-age film making fun of cut rate horror films. Thanks to Craven’s dastardly attempts to make more money from a tired premise, the gimmick has been shot so full'of holes that it is no longer useful. Also, the maniacal killer, so frightening and merci less in the first movie, now stands and watches his victims run away, even playing in the film’s canned laughter effects by throwing his blade at Arquette, only to see the handle glance off his head instead of sticking him. Ghost-face is more of a coloring-book character now. sure, mere are a couple or surprising moments in the end, but the final result is that the characters everybody’s sick of usually live while the good ones (Jamie Kennedy as Randy, Skeet Ulrich as Billy, Fonzie as the principal) get killed. Although the film suc cessfully closes the “Scream” chapter, it kills the au dience getting to it. Special to The Gamecock Neve Campbell and David Arquette return in “Scream 3” the third installment of the honor trilogy. by Kevin Langston Encore Editor AAA out of A A A A When I first saw the trailer to “Scream 3,” I scoffed and wrote it off as a failure. Nevertheless, I made all plans to see it. You can’t not watch the third one if you’ve seen the first two. You have to go see it. However, I left the theater quite surprised at how much I actually enjoyed the film. While I can under stand those who would criticize it for being too mixed up in plot, I just sat back and let it freak me out. Sure, it is far from brilliant, but let’s consider what we’re dealing with hererlt’s a horror movie that makes fun of horror movies that has a horror movie in its plot. You can’t walk in and expect Oscar-quality ma terial. You should only expect to be scared in ways the previous two didn’t scare you. This movie did that. There was more blood, more death scenes, more ways to spook you and more suspects. While I had fig ured out the direction of the plot early on, .1 was still surprised when the killer was eventually unmasked at the end. It might have been a bit disappointing, but it was still surprising. Some redeemable ones lingered about for the fi nale, makiug the casting director’s job quite easy. David Arquette and Courtney Cox actually had more screen time than Neve Campbell. While I was surprised these two characters actually made it to the third film, I wan’t too disappointed in their performances. I just think the whole relationship aspect between these two is a lit tle far-fetched. Like we’re supposed to believe that Gale Weathers, or Cox for that matter, would ever be interested in Dewey, or Arquette. Whit a minute, here. Campbell’s limited screen time was atypical to her work in the other two films. She basically screams, runs, kicks the crap out of the killer a few times and manages to keep her composure. Wdking into this one, you either hope that she finally bites it or that she throws out the “no nudity” clause in her acting con tract. There are elements of this film that make it a de cent horror picture. However, these elements are ei ther abandoned or tossed into a blender and mixed with too many other confusing and intricate plot elements. For example, in the beginning you learn that the killer is killing people according to one of the movie scripts. However, this is more or less forgotten about. If there is one problem I had with this movie, it was that the plot reached too high at times. Pulling out all the stops can be confused with a swan song. I think Wes Craven did the former. I just hope he doesn’t let the success of this film push him to make another one. USA Today's top 30 best selling books • Staff Reports Associated Press 1. “The Testament" by John Grisham 2. “Angela’s Asbes”by Frank McCourt 3. “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s State”by J.K. Rowling 4. “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”by J.K. Rowling 5. “Dr. Atkins’New Diet Revolution” by Robert C. Atkins 6. “The Seat of the Soul”by Gary Zukav 7. “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”by J.K. 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