FILM / Easter Island turkey

Rapa Nui (12) Dir: Kevin Reynolds (US) Fear of a Black Hat (15) Dir: Rusty Cundieff (US) Major League II (PG) Dir: David S Ward (US) A Midsummer Night's Dream Dir: Max Reinhardt (US) Kevin Reynolds, who directed the more famous Hollywood Kevin in Robin Hood, must give great pitches. How else can you account for his being able to mount Rapa Nui, a handsome, wilfully uncommercial project that has 'director's folly' stamped across its every frame? It's set on Easter Island and was mostly filmed there; it was shot under hazardous conditions, with a huge cast of Polynesian actors; it required the building of 32 full-sized moai (those eerie statues with flattened features); it has no stars except Jason Scott Lee.

If Reynolds' achievement had matched his passion, Rapa Nui (Kevin Costner co-produced) would be a masterpiece, and for a few minutes it puts up a fair show. Shot in Widescreen, the film gorges both on the natural beauty of Easter Island and the unnatural beauty of labouring crowds dragging moai into their allotted places. But there's a sad disparity between the film's rich visuals and its risible script. Set in 1680, it follows the travails of one Noro (Lee) of the ruling Long-Ear tribe as he woos a lady (Sandrine Holt) from the oppressed Short-Ear Tribe, takes part in a deadly swimming competition and angles to replace his evil grandfather as chief.

Worse is to come. The dialogue, spoken or dubbed in a medley of accents from California to Sydney via the MCC bar, runs to the likes of 'Did I tell you, I've lost three more teeth, do you think it means anything?' or (a personal favourite) the more petulant 'I don't need this - I've got chicken entrails to read.' As you might expect, the whole thing ends in tears.

Rapa Nui is said to mean 'navel of the world'; rap ennui is the condition induced by too many sequences of Rusty Cundieff's comedy Fear of a Black Hat. Not that the main joke - it's a spoof documentary about the fictitious rap band Niggaz with Hats - is unpromising; indeed, it's so promising that we've already seen it, in CB4, a spoof documentary about the fictitious rap band CB4. The sense of deja vu is deepened when you consider that both CB4 and Black Hat imitate This Is Spinal Tap so sedulously that Rob Reiner must be dying from an overdose of flattery.

For anyone who overlooks these precedents, Black Hat can be jolly enough, if rather too good-natured to carry much of a sting. Some of the sharper gags are throwaway, such as a passing reference to the band's 'controversial, never-released album Kill Whitey (an innocent song, they explain, about their late manager Whitey DeLucca). Cundieff, who wrote and stars in the film as well as directing, parodies rap video styles keenly: the best of these pastiches is a bit of Daisy Age whimsy by NWH's most spiritual member, Tone Def.

David S Ward, who made Major League, has said that he didn't want to make a sequel until he had a storyline worthy of the original. This may explain why the plot of Major League II is an almost exact replica of I. The Cleveland Indians, having lost their winning edge overnight, must once more struggle their way up the league table, overcoming romantic, physical and financial obstacles on the way.

With the exception of Wesley Snipes, who has been replaced by Omarr Epps, all the old actors are back, too: Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, and Dennis Haysbert as Cerrano, the Voodoo man turned Buddhist. There's also a new Japanese player, Tanaka (Takaaki Ishibashi), who says things like 'You're lower than rat's excrement', in subtitles. If this gag sounds amusing to you, book tickets now; there are plenty more like it.

Warner Brothers released Max Reinhardt's A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1935 as one of their occasional prestige productions, designed to show that they were more than a factory for gangster flicks; they wanted a cross between European art and US box-office. What they got (apart from a couple of Oscars) turned out to be almost pure camp, but camp bordering on genius.

Reinhardt's film now looks uneven, and neither the lovers nor the rude mechanicals have worn well: Dick Powell, wearing a silly perm and simpering even at the height of passion, must be one of the irritating Lysanders of all time, and almost all the comic business falls flat - despite a bit of dutiful knockabout, it's much too genteel to be any fun. (Honourable exception: Joe E Brown, who plays Flute with a glorious deadpan.) Even so, it's fascinating to watch James Cagney take on the part of Bottom, and to hear the rhythms of his gangster-boss snarl tugging against the Elizabethan prose.

Where Reinhardt's direction really springs to life is with the other-worldly scenes. These are vast tinselly panoramas shot through gauze and sequins, whose compositions are haunted by the shades of Arthur Rackham and Gustave Dore: squadrons of fairies congealing magically out of night fog; big-eyed goblin orchestras which anticipate the Muppets band; Oberon and Titania swooping through the skies like Fred and Ginger miraculously freed of gravity; and the pre-pubescent Mickey Rooney as a cruel and demonic Puck, cackling and whooping over the mischief he spins. No wonder little Kenneth Anger (who plays the changeling prince) had such a strange life.

Reinhardt's Dream has been re-released in a fine new print and will be screened as a main attraction in the Barbican's Shakespeare on Film 1908-1994, a 65-film jamboree that takes in everything from Buster Keaton, Tom and Jerry and the Carry On team to Kurosawa and Nureyev. A programming feat, and a feast.

(Photograph omitted)