Movie Tagline Match: 2000 Trivia Quiz

Answer: "A hero will rise"

Ridley Scott directed "Gladiator", which stars Russell Crowe as the sweaty but dreamy Maximus, a Roman general who is betrayed and forced into slavery. Well, one thing leads to another, and he eventually finds himself fighting for his life in the arena as a gladiator. Joaquin Phoenix plays the wonderfully slimy Commodus. Connie Nielsen, Oliver Reed and Richard Harris play supporting roles.

It's a big, brutal, wonderfully shot historical epic, with all the swords, sandals, inappropriate sexual partners and shouting you could ever want from a movie.

Answer: "Trust a few. Fear the rest"

"X-Men" stars Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, Patrick Stewart as Professor Charles Xavier, and Ian McKellen as Magneto. Directed by Bryan Singer, the film takes place in a world where mutants with extraordinary (and sometimes frightening) abilities are increasingly feared by us mortals who lack adamantium skeletons and retractable knife-claws.

Meanwhile, two very different leaders spend their time arguing over how mutants should respond to human concerns. Staying true to the tagline, the whole movie boils down to one big question: who can you trust when everyone is afraid of everyone else? Xavier trusts his students and hopes humans can be reasoned with, while Magneto trusts his fellow mutants and assumes the worst from humanity. I sure hope the good guys will win.

Answer: "One taste is not enough"

This one was directed by Lars Sven "Lasse" Hallström and stars Juliette Binoche as Vianne, the insufferably cute and mysterious single mother who arrives in a buttoned-up French village and opens a chocolate shop during Lent. Naturally, the locals are absolutely scandalized... and then increasingly unable to stay away from the place. Johnny Depp plays a charming riverboat traveler (of course), while Judi Dench and Alfred Molina round out the cast.

It's a warm, slightly mischievous movie about temptation and tradition. And letting yourself enjoy life once in a while. One taste is definitely not enough.

Answer: "No mercy. No shame. No sequel"

"No mercy. No shame. No sequel." It works for the attitude behind "Scary Movie", although that last bit aged about as well as you'd imagine in the modern age of sequels. The film itself is a charmingly stupid spoof of late-1990s horror movies, giving special attention to "Scream" and "I Know What You Did Last Summer". Anna Faris, Regina Hall, Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans, and Carmen Electra all get plenty of chances to be silly. For the most part, the film, which was directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans, takes the familiar rules of horror movies and defenestrates them, with lots of crude jokes and very little dignity.

Answer: "Killer looks"

I've never been to the 1980s, but "American Psycho" makes the period seem fun enough. (Between this and "Stranger Things", it looks like I dodged a bullet.) The movie was directed by Mary Harron and stars Christian Bale as the charming and sophisticated Patrick Bateman. He's your normal wealthy, impeccably groomed Wall Street bro whose obsession with status and appearances hides a mildly upsetting mental condition that may or may not make him an axe-murder. Maybe.

Willem Dafoe, Jared Leto, Reese Witherspoon, and Justin Theroux are all there among the supporting cast. But it's Bale who steals the show repeatedly with a performance that is both comical and brutally horrific at the same time. The movie is as much a satire of '80s yuppie culture and consumerism as it is a horror film. And "Killer looks" is quite possibly the perfect tagline for this movie. (The movie is also a surprisingly good primer on Genesis and Huey Lewis and the News.)

Answer: "She brought a small town to its feet and a huge corporation to its knees"

Steven Soderbergh's "Erin Brockovich" features Julia Roberts as the title character, an unemployed single mother who talks her way into a job as a file clerk at a small law firm. She ends up uncovering a massive case against a utility company. Albert Finney is there as well, playing her boss, Ed Masry, with David Brisbin as Dr. Jaffe and Aaron Eckhart as George.

It's based on a true story and follows Ms. Brockovich as she digs into contaminated water in a California town and stands up for residents against a powerful corporation. "She brought a small town to its feet and a huge corporation to its knees." Indeed.

Answer: "Getting there was the easy part"

"Getting there was the easy part." Most definitely. Brian De Palma's "Mission to Mars" is not as weird as Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey", but it really, really wants to be. The movie stars Gary Sinise, Tim Robbins, Don Cheadle, and Connie Nielsen as astronauts on - you'll never guess! - a mission to Mars. That mission goes very wrong after they discover something that NASA doesn't train you for, at least I highly doubt they do.

It's kind of a slow-burn sci-fi mystery more than an in-your-face space adventure, but it boasts some impressive effects and a deliciously eerie atmosphere.

Answer: "At the edge of the world, his journey begins"

Chuck Noland is a FedEx employee whose life goes in the toilet after a plane crash leaves him stuck alone on a remote island with lots of FedEx product placement hanging around. The star? You know him, you love him: it's Tom Hanks. The movie was directed by Robert Zemeckis and also features Helen Hunt as his girlfriend Kelly, while the volleyball Wilson... well, Wilson deserves a mention here too, I suppose, since Noland's volleyball companion gets almost as much screentime as the FedEx logo.

Much of the movie is simply Hanks trying to survive with almost nothing, which manages to make it pretty gripping despite having very little dialogue. "At the edge of the world, his journey begins" is a pretty fitting tagline, since Chuck's physical isolation becomes the start of a much bigger journey within, if therapy-speak is your thing.

Answer: "First comes love. Then comes the interrogation"

"First comes love. Then comes the interrogation." That's the tagline for "Meet the Parents", and it fits like a glass slipper. Meet Greg Focker (Ben Stiller), a mild-mannered nurse who travels to meet his girlfriend's parents and immediately realizes that her father, played by Robert De Niro, is not easily impressed. Teri Polo plays Pam, while Blythe Danner plays her mother, Dina, while Owen Wilson pops up as the annoyingly perfect former fiancé.

It's one awkward disaster after another, demonstrating that fathers-in-law can be a pain, too.

Answer: "Stealin' Stones and Breakin' Bones"

It's a Guy Ritchie movie. It's a messy, chaotic crime comedy thriller that features stolen diamonds, fixed boxing matches, lots of gangsters, people who talk funny, hungry pigs, small time pawn brokers, one hungry dog, and just a lot of people who wouldn't want their mothers to know what they were up to. It features Jason Statham, Brad Pitt, Benicio del Toro, and Vinnie Jones, with Pitt stealing most scenes he's in as the nearly impossible-to-understand bare-knuckle fighter Mickey (his ma is "terrible partial to the periwinkle blue").

Like other movies by Guy Ritchie, all the weird subplots eventually crash into each other, and all hell breaks loose. "Stealin' Stones and Breakin' Bones" is as descriptive a tagline for this movie as any.