The Queen's 'last' fling

"Last Holiday" might not seem so bad on the surface, but after closer examination it becomes clear that it is an entity of pure evil. That is the only possible explanation for why a poignant dark comedy staring Alec Guinness ("Bridge over the River Kwai," "Star Wars") would be remade into a honey-dripping, predictable mess staring Queen Latifah ("Chicago," "Barbershop 2"). Who on earth watches Guinness movie and says, "Well this guy is OK, but you know who would be better is a big, fat lady rapper." Clearly, the devil is somehow involved. Then again, I didn't stay through the end credits, so I can't be entirely sure.\n"Last Holiday" is the story of Georgia Byrd (Queen Latifah) who is diagnosed with a terminal illness. She decides she will get together as much money as she can and go on a lavish European vacation, instead of brooding around her home in her dying days. After that, ironically, everything starts to go right. \nShe wins money, makes friends and gets to meet a personal hero of hers, Chef Didier (Gérard Depardieu). And then she learns some life lessons about living life to the fullest and the audience vomits from a cliché overload. I swear they don't even use writers in Hollywood anymore. I think they just have a big script writing machine, powered by the blazing fires of Hades, into which they enter some marginally talented actor's name and then out pops a variation on the same movie we have been presented for the last 10 years. This one even comes complete with an overly enthusiastic love interest (LL Cool J) and a cartoonishly villainous boss (Timothy Hutton).\nUnfortunately, predictable dreck like this is all we can expect for the next couple of months. Most of the good movies were released in December for Oscar consideration and the Summer blockbusters don't start coming until May. Welcome to the cavernous void of entertainment that is January, and what better movie to kick things off than "Last Holiday"