Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.

What a weird weekend at the theaters. There are seven or so movies coming out today, but I don’t know anyone who’s excited about any of them.

Capone’s got a look at the Bruce Willis/Halle Berry entry in this weekend’s race. Is it worth your time?

Hey, everyone. Capone in Chicago here.

There are two kinds of sexy in the world: real-life sexy (like Monica Bellucci in a low-cut dress or Ziyi Zhang kicking ass) and Hollywood sexy, which isn't sexy at all, but don't tell Halle Berry that. While I'm not denying that Ms. Berry looks good in almost every dress and hairstyle, when she's "playing" sexy, she has the sex appeal of a fried egg. Having said that, let's talk about her latest film PERFECT STRANGER, in which she plays a New York investigative newspaper reporter who specializes in breaking scandals involving important and powerful men, while on the side have aggressive flirtations and sex with former boyfriends and the like. When an old friend of hers is brutally murdered, Berry's Rowena Price begins to suspect that a man her friend met online might be a likely suspect. With the help of her faithful research assistant and resident hacker Miles (Giovanni Ribisi), Rowena confirms that the online lover is mega-powerful ad executive Harrison Hill (Bruce Willis), who has a thing for meeting hussies on the internet and cheating on his wife.

PERFECT STRANGER almost qualifies as a "so bad it's good" movie, but not quite. But there are plenty of laughs to keep you amused. For example, Miles installs a voice device on Rowena's computer using samples of Hill's voice whenever he sends her instant messages. So when she begins online sex talk with Hill, we hear Willis' voice coming out of the computer. You won't be able to hold back the chuckles. Eventually Rowena gets a temp job at Hill's company so she can track his movement on the job, especially his interactions with the pretty young things he tends to hire and allow to distract him constantly. Naturally, it doesn't take much for him to notice Rowena and begin hitting on her. Hill has no idea the woman in his office and the temptress online are the same, or that either are out to bust him for murder.

PERFECT STRANGER is silly and convoluted, but even that combination would be forgivable if Berry wasn't over playing her part so unconvincingly. She's just trying too hard to be desirable with Willis, or passionate about capturing this killer with Ribisi. We do catch glimpses of the well-shrouded murderer, which is a good indicator that this person is someone we would recognize, and there aren't that many suspects. I'll admit, I thought I had the killer's identity figured out early on, and I was wrong. But the person's real identity will make you groan in disbelief. Director James Foley has been hit (AT CLOSE RANGE; GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS; AFTER DARK, MY) and miss (WHO'S THAT GIRL?; FEAR; THE CHAMBER), and I'm afraid this film falls squarely in the latter category. It just never draws you in enough to buy anything that's happening, and the plot always seems intent on taking the long way around every unnecessary twist and turn. Buried deep inside PERFECT STRANGER was a good movie, but somewhere along the line, someone took a wrong turn in Stupidville and proceeded to drive around in circles for two hours.

Capone