New Releases for the Week of November 5, 2021

ETERNALS

(Disney/Marvel) Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Kit Harrington, Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Kumail Nanjiani, Brian Tyree Henry. Directed by Chloë Zhao

A group of near-immortal aliens living on Earth have taken no hand in human events, until an unexpected tragedy paves the way for their implacable enemies – the Deviants – to come to Earth, forcing them to reveal themselves and their dazzling powers. This new superhero team falls on the heels of the success of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Superhero
Now Playing: Wide
Rating: PG-13 (for fantasy violence and action, some language and brief sexuality)

Annaatthe

(Sun) Rajinkanth, Meena, Kushboo, Nayanthara. A young man’s sister marries and moves to another city. Soon, he begins to hear disturbing news about her and realizes that she’s in some kind of trouble. He refuses to sit back and do nothing, so he heads to a strange city to rescue his sister, even though he doesn’t know what from.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Action
Now Playing: AMC Avenue Melbourne, Cinemark Orlando, Cinemark Universal, CMX Plaza Café, Regal Oviedo Marketplace, Regal Waterford Lakes
Rating: NR

Christmas vs. the Walters

(Safier) Shawnee Smith, Dean Winters, Chris Elliott, Bruce Dern. If you think the stores are already gearing up for Christmas, you should see the Hallmark Channel. Here’s a movie that would fit right in over there: an overworked and over-stressed mom tries to create the perfect Christmas while her loving but dysfunctional family begins to fall apart.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Holiday Comedy
Now Playing: Regal Oviedo Marketplace, Regal Pointe Orlando
Rating: PG-13 (for some suggestive material)

Ida Red

(Saban) Josh Hartnett, Melissa Leo, Frank Grillo, William Forsythe. The son of a notorious crime boss is convinced by his mother to pull off one last heist to get out of jail. However, the FBI is closing in and he will find himself faced with a choice between freedom and family.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Thriller
Now Playing: Studio Movie Grille Sunset Walk
Rating: R (for language throughout, strong violence and some sexual content)

Mass

(Bleecker Street) Jason Isaacs, Martha Plimpton, Reed Birney, Ann Dowd. Two sets of parents are torn apart yet forever linked by an unspeakable tragedy. They agree to meet privately some years later in order to try and move on with their lives, but it won’t be so easy.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic content and brief strong language)

Red Notice

(Netflix) Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, Gal Gadot, Ritu Arya. An Interpol agent goes after the world’s most wanted art thief. This may be the biggest movie Netflix has produced to date.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Action Comedy
Now Playing: Cinemark Lakeland Square, Cinemark Orlando, Cinemark Universal, CMX Daytona, Premiere Fashion Square Mall, Studio Movie Grille Sunset Walk
Rating: PG-13 (for violence and action, some sexual references, and strong language)

Sooyavanshi

(Reliance) Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgan, Ranveer Singh, Katrina Kaif. A police anti-terror squad in India gets a lot more than it bargained for.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Crime
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC West Oaks, Cinemark Universal, Regal Pavilion Port Orange
Rating: NR

Spencer

(Neon) Kristen Stewart, Timothy Spall, Sean Harris, Sally Hawkins. A take on what might have happened during the holiday weekend when Diana, Princess of Wales, made the decision to divorce her husband Prince Charles. Early reviews have praised Stewart as a possible Oscar Best Actress contender.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Avenue Melbourne, AMC Disney Springs, AMC West Oaks, Cinemark Universal, CMX Daytona, Regal Oviedo Marketplace, Regal The Loop, Regal Waterford Lakes, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for some language)

Wife of a Spy

(Kino Lorber) Yû Aoi, Issei Takahashi, Masahiro Higashide, Ryôta Bandô. As Imperial Japan descends inexorably into a war footing, the wife of a progressive silk exporter begins to suspect he’s having an affair. But her boyhood friend, now the head of the military police, is sure he’s up to something far worse.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Thriller
Now Playing: Cinematique Daytona
Rating: PG-13 (for violent material, bloody images and some language)

COMING TO VIRTUAL CINEMA/VOD:

A Cop Movie
A Man Called Scott
Beta Test
Clifford the Big Red Dog (Wednesday)
Dead and Beautiful (Thursday)
The Deep House
The Drummer (Tuesday)
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain
Ending Disease
Finch
Her Fatal Family Secret
Highway to Heaven (Saturday)
Ida Red
Love Hard
Mark, Mary and Some Other People
Passing (Wednesday)
Sunken Roads: Three Generations After D-Day
Violet (Tuesday)

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain
Eternals
Finch
Spencer
Wife of a Spy

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How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

A dragon and his boy.

(2019) Animated Feature (DreamWorks) Starring the voices of Jay Baruchel, America Ferrara, F. Murray Abraham, Cate Blanchett, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Kristen Wiig, Kit Harrington, Justin Rupple, Robin Atkin Downes, Kieron Elliott, Julia Emelin, Ashley Jensen, AJ Kane, Olafur Darri Ólafsson, James Sie, David Tennant. Directed by Dean DeBlois

 

The DreamWorks animated franchise, based on the children’s books of Cressida Cowell, is neatly wrapped up with a big red bow in a satisfying if unoriginal conclusion. Hiccup (Baruchel) has turned Berk into a kind of sanctuary for dragons, who continue to be hunted down in the rest of the world, but the nefarious Grimmel (Abraham) is out to capture Toothless, Hiccup’s dragon and the alpha male of Berk.

=After a vicious attack brings the island village to its knees, Hiccup – now the leader of his incomprehensibly Scottish Vikings – decides the only way to truly protect the dragons is to lead them to The Hidden World, the place from which all dragon-kind has sprung. With Grimmel hot on their trail, they really have no choice if they are to save the dragons. Nobody’s ever actually been there and most consider it a fairy tale, but hey, this is a cartoon, no?

DeBlois does manage to go out with a bang, as the animation here puts nearly every other animated film to shame. Some of the sequences are actually moving (in a variety of ways) from scenes of sorrow to scenes of intense beauty and everywhere in between. Even jaded parents may well find themselves ooh-ing and ah-ing at the visuals here.

But the movie’s downside is essentially the same issue that has plagued the series from the beginning; a kind of standard plot of Hiccup lacking self-confidence when faced with a big challenge/major baddie and getting the confidence he needs from his buddy Toothless. Hiccup was never really a well-developed character to begin with; he’s fairly one-note and that makes the movie drag somewhat.

Nevertheless, it is gorgeous enough to be worth a family movie night. I’m not a huge fan of the franchise, but I will admit that if you’re going to bring a trilogy to a conclusion, this is the way to do it.

REASONS TO SEE: The strongest animation of the series by far.
REASONS TO AVOID: Feels formulaic.
FAMILY VALUES: There is mild rude humor and cartoon action.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The three movies in the trilogy were each distributed by different studios; the first one by Paramount, the second by Fox, this one by Universal.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AMC On Demand, AppleTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, Hulu, Microsoft, Movies Anywhere, Redbox, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 7/27/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 90% positive reviews, Metacritic: 71/100
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Days of the Whale

New Releases for the Week of February 22, 2019

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: THE HIDDEN WORLD

(DreamWorks) Starring the voices of Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, Cate Blanchett, F. Murray Abraham, Kit Harrington, Craig Ferguson, Gerard Butler, Jonah Hill. Directed by Dean DeBlois

The final entry in this trilogy has Hiccup and Astrid now leading the village which has turned into a chaotic paradise for dragons. The appearance of a female Night Fury coincides with the biggest threat the village has ever seen, forcing Hiccup and Toothless to journey to the near-mythic Hidden World, the original home of all dragons – if it exists. If it doesn’t, dragons may well disappear forever.

See the trailer, video featurettes and clips here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Animated Feature
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for adventure action and some rude humor)

Arctic

(Bleecker Street) Mads Mikkelsen, Maria Thelma Smáradöttir. A man stranded in the Arctic after a plane crash must make a life-or-death decision whether to stay in the relative safety of his camp and maybe never being rescued, or trekking through the harsh environment and unknown peril of the Arctic on the chance he might make it to safety.

See the trailer, video featurettes and a clip here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Adventure
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, Regal Winter Park Village, Rialto Spanish Springs Square
Rating: PG-13 (for language and some bloody images)

Fighting with My Family

(MGM) Dwayne Johnson, Florence Pugh, Vince Vaughn, Nick Frost. The true story of wrestling superstar Paige who along with her brother Zak get a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to try out for the WWE. When she is the only one selected, she leaves family and the familiar behind to enter the cutthroat world of pro wrestling alone.

See the trailer, video featurettes and an interview here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Sports Biography
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for crude and sexual material, language throughout, some violence and drug content)

Never Look Away

(Sony Classics) Tom Schilling, Sebastian Koch, Paula Beer, Saskia Rosendahl. Loosely based on the life of Gerhard Richter, an artist survives the horrors of Nazi Germany only to find himself trapped behind the Berlin Wall in East Germany. Determined to find his artistic freedom, he plans an escape that will take him to the West where he will become the vanguard of a new artistic movement.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for graphic nudity, sexuality and brief violent images)

Run the Race

(Roadside Attractions) Tanner Stine, Kristoffer Polaha, Mykelti Williamson, Mario van Peebles. Two orphaned brothers look to football as a way out of poverty. When one’s shot at an athletic scholarship to college is derailed by an injury, the other brother laces up the track cleats and hopes to make his brother’s dream come true anyway.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Sports Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, AMC Lake Square, Epic Theaters at Lee Vista, Regal Oviedo Marketplace, Regal Port Orange Pavilion, Regal Waterford Lakes, Regal The Loop, Regal Winter Park Village, Rialto Spanish Springs Square
Rating: PG (for thematic content and some teen partying)

Total Dhamaal

(Fox STAR) Ajay Devgn, Madhuri Dixit, Anil Kapoor, Sanjay Mishra. A small-time criminal gets his hands on a treasure but his partner double crosses him and disappears. However, the partner blabs the location of the loot to three rival gangs which gets back to his ex-partner and the race is on to get to the booty before the others do.

See the trailer, clips and a video featurette here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: AMC West Oaks, Cinemark Universal Citywalk, Touchstar Southchase
Rating: NR

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Alone/Together
Mithrai
NTR: Mahanayakudu

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

Alone/Together
Kumbalangi Nights
LKG
Mithrai
NTR: Mahanayakudu
We Are the Heat

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

Alone/Together
The Changeover
Extreme Job

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

Alone/Together
Blue Alchemy: Stories of Indigo
NTR: Mahanayakudu

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Arctic
Fighting with My Family
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
We Are the Heat

Silent Hill: Revelation

Videogame or bondage fantasy?

(2012) Horror (Open Road) Adelaide Clemens, Kit Harrington, Carrie-Anne Moss, Sean Bean, Radha Mitchell, Malcolm McDowell, Martin Donovan, Deborah Cara Unger, Roberto Campanella, Erin Pitt, Peter Outerbridge, Jefferson Brown, Milton Barnes, Heather Marks, Rachel Sellan, Michel C. Foucault, Arlene Duncan, Jason Best, Jacky Lai. Directed by Michael J. Bassett

Videogame adaptations have a history of being lousy movies. There have been some exceptions to be sure, but for the most part they have been awful cinematic experiences. Many gamers say that it is impossible for videogames – a truly interactive medium – to translate to movies which is a fully passive medium. Occasionally they are proven wrong, like in the case of the Silent Hill movie. Would the sequel be as good?

Heather Mason (Clemens) has, along with her father Harry (Bean) been on the run for as long as she can remember from dark forces that she doesn’t fully understand. Her mother Rose (Mitchell) is gone, taken in a car accident. As Heather approaches her 18th birthday, she is plagued by terrible, horrific visions. When Harry disappears, she discovers that nothing she knows is as she believes it to be.

The truth is that she is being chased by the Order of Valtiel, a cult that inhabits the damned town of Silent Hill which burns eternally. Years ago, a young girl named Alessa Gillespie (Pitt) was burned alive by the Order and its leader Claudia Wolf (Moss). The reason they are chasing them is that Heather, whose real name is Sharon Da Silva and who was once part of Alessa whose agony caused her to create the shifting dimensions that plagues Silent Hill.

Assisted by her boyfriend Vincent (Harrington), Heather decides to go to Silent Hill to find her father. Tormented by hideous, disturbing monsters that appear as dimensions shift in the blasted town which burns endlessly. There, she will confront the monsters of her past, present and future as she discovers betrayals that will rock her to the core and secrets that will change everything.

Christophe Gans directed the first Silent Hill but was unable to direct its sequel. Bassett, who directed Solomon Kane was instead hired and in all fairness to Bassett he was given a terribly convoluted script to work with. The problem is, he wrote it. There is a ton of exposition here and even that isn’t enough to really adequately explain what’s going on. The movie careens from scene to scene and often even with all the exposition it is incredibly confusing to the audience. The characters don’t have much going in the way of personality, particularly Vincent – and Heather, Harry and the rest aren’t much better.

The movie gets much better when it shows the monsters that are kind of a combination of Clive Barker bondage demons and H.R. Giger’s nightmares. Some, like the Red Pyramid or the cleaver-wheeling Nurses, are likely to haunt more than a few dreams. The blasted landscapes of Silent Hill and the other dimensions therein are also compelling.

The main problem though is not just that the movie is difficult to follow; the gravest sin the film commits is of being bland. There are plenty of flames but no fire; lots of shadows but no depth. Silent Hill: Revelation may have been originally filmed in 3D but the movie is flat as a pancake. The monsters, demons and landscapes are cool without a doubt but the movie left me actually bored and if there is one cardinal offense that a movie can commit it’s that.

I don’t know that gamers are correct in saying that their medium can’t be translated to one that is less interactive; after all, books and films are completely different mediums and there have been some great movies based on books. I think the problem lies in that Hollywood doesn’t really respect videogames or gamers and doesn’t understand the mindset; they basically throw videogame-based movies together without much regard to building a universe in the same way that they have for comic books. Videogames are inherently cinematic; there is absolutely no reason that they can’t translate to the multiplex. The fact is that a crap movie is a crap movie regardless of its source.

And Silent Hill: Revelation is far from being a crap movie. The videogame franchise has a rich background and is a good looking movie. Yes, it is terribly flawed – something tells me that Bassett didn’t really get the franchise or maybe he didn’t care to. This could have been a much better movie but it is at its core deeply unsettling and atmospheric. I would have liked a less convoluted story but from a simply visual point of view could admire the film on that basis alone.

WHY RENT THIS: Awesome demonic creatures. Bleak landscapes.
WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Bland characters and performances. Lacks force or fire.
FAMILY VALUES: Plenty of violence and foul language, disturbing images and some brief nudity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Bean and Harington played father and son in Game of Thrones; Harrington went on to work with Moss again in Pompeii.
NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.
BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $52.3M on a $20M production budget.
SITES TO SEE: Netflix (DVD/Blu-Ray Rental only). Amazon, iTunes, Flixster
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Resident Evil
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: Six Days of Darkness continues!

New Releases for the Week of July 10, 2015

MINIONS

(Universal) Starring the voices of Sandra Bullock, Jon Hamm, Michael Keaton, Allison Janney, Steve Coogan, Jennifer Saunders, Steve Carell, Geoffrey Rush. Directed by Kyle Balda and Pierre Coffin

Before Gru, the world’s greatest criminal mastermind, there were Minions and those Minions have been a merchandising bonanza for Universal. It was only inevitable that the cute little yellow pill-shaped creatures would get a movie of their own and here it is. Here we discover the story of the Minions, a race of creatures existing only to serve the greatest criminals of all time. However, in 1960s New York City, they discover that this could end up being a much more dangerous undertaking than ever before – and could mean the end of Minionkind forever.

See the trailer, clips, an interview and a featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website .
Release Formats: Standard, 3D (opens Thursday)
Genre: Animated Feature
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for action and rude humor)

Amy

(A24) Amy Winehouse, Tony Bennett, Blake Fielder-Civil, Mitch Winehouse. Singer Amy Winehouse had the world by the tail. A Grammy winner with million-selling albums, she was bringing back jazz singing almost singlehandedly. She had an unusual honesty, confronting her own issues in song. And she had plenty of issues, including an unhealthy lifestyle and troubled relationships with people who didn’t have her best interests at heart, leading to a tragic end for what might have been a bright future.

See the trailer, clips and a featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Documentary
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Downtown Disney, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for language and drug material)

The Gallows

(New Line) Reese Mishler, Pfeifer Brown, Ryan Shoos, Cassidy Gifford. Students at a small high school decide to honor a tragedy 20 years earlier in which the lead actor was killed during the performance of a play by re-enacting the play. Of course, they do it at night without any adult supervision which is dangerous enough but worse still, their “tribute” stirs up restless spirits they’d have been better off not disturbing.

See the trailer, clips and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard (opens Thursday)
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for some disturbing violent content and terror)

Self/Less

(Gramercy) Ryan Reynolds, Ben Kingsley, Natalie Martinez, Matthew Goode. When a billionaire discovers he has inoperable cancer, his prospects look grim. However, a radical new procedure allows him to transfer his consciousness into the body of a younger man who is brain-dead but otherwise healthy. Grasping at straws, he doesn’t ask too many questions until after the procedure is completed. Then he discovers that the origin of the body is not what he was told and that those who made this miracle happen will stop at nothing to keep their sinister plans from going public.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard (opens Thursday)
Genre: Science Fiction
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for sequences of violence, some sexuality and language)

Testament of Youth

(Sony Classics) Alicia Vikander, Kit Harrington, Taron Egerton, Emily Watson. A woman, who sees her brother go marching off to World War I, decides to volunteer herself as a nurse thus beginning a journey into the horrors of war. Based on the memoirs of actual nurse Vera Brittain, this powerful indictment of war has been quietly flying under the critical radar thus far this year.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic material including bloody and disturbing war images)

Seventh Son

“No more cracks about Jedi Knights, okay?”

(2014) Fantasy (Universal/Legendary) Jeff Bridges, Julianne Moore, Ben Barnes, Olivia Williams, Djimon Hounsou, Antje Traue, Alicia Vikander, Kit Harrington, John DeSantis, Gerard Plunkett, Jason Scott Lee, Kandyse McClure, Luc Roderique, Zahf Paroo, Timothy Webber, Lilah Fitzgerald, Marcel Bridges, Libby Osler, Primo Allon, Taya Clyne. Directed by Sergei Bodrov

In Hollywood’s seemingly unceasing attempt to grab the newest Harry Potter, Bella Swan or Katniss Everdeen from a Young Adult novel series, they have moved on to their latest attempt with a cemetery full of potential candidates who didn’t make any sort of box office impact behind them. So will this enter that final resting place of dismal cinematic failures or will it be the next license for the studio to print money?

Master Gregory (Bridges) is the last of a once-vaunted but now nearly extinct order of Knights, the Knights of the Falcon – more popularly known as Spooks. That’s because this particular order hunted the supernatural, witches and dragons and such. In order to be effective in such a venture, they are all made up of the seventh sons of seventh sons, which makes them stronger than ordinary humans as well as more sensitive to magic and wizardry.

With his most recent apprentice (Harrington) indisposed, Master Gregory needs to find one in a hurry. That’s because one of his most powerful foes, Mother Malkin (Moore), a particularly powerful and malevolent witch, has escaped her entombment in a mountain and becomes more powerful by the moment with the approach of a once-in-a-century Blood Moon. She has the means to perform a ritual that will allow her to be all-powerful and to strike down Gregory which will allow the witches of the land to rule with impunity.

Gregory seeks Tom Ward (Barnes), an honest hard-working sort whose mother (Williams) seems to know more about what he’s in for than she’s saying. Gregory doesn’t have time to train Tom properly but he’ll just have to learn on the job; Malkin is gathering her forces including her right-hand witch Lizzie (Traue), master assassin Radu (Hounsou) and were-cheetah Sarikin (McClure). There’s also young Alice (Vikander) who Tom becomes sweet on but she’s actually Lizzie’s daughter, which complicates things.

All will come to a head in the witch’s castle high in a forbidden and desolate mountain range where a sacrifice needs to be made for the witch to become all-powerful. With the world at stake, can Gregory the aged knight triumph with an untested apprentice at his side?

Like many of the Young Adult fantasies to come our way in recent years, there is a heavy reliance on CG creatures which here have a kind of Ray Harryhausen-like aesthetic, only without the jerky movement of stop motion. One definitely has to give Bodrov, who wowed Russian and American audiences with the epic sweeping Mongol back in 2007, props for the respect.

Unfortunately, he has a very weak script to work with, one that was evidently written by Captain BeenThereDoneThat. We get an untested young protagonist who seems destined to fail, despite trying his hardest time after time but when a significant event occurs, he finds the power within himself and turns out to be even more powerful than anyone ever imagined. Most of those who litter the Cemetery of Young Adult Fantasy Would-Be Franchises That Failed have very similar storylines.

Sadly, this doesn’t have a Jennifer Lawrence or a Daniel Radcliffe either. Ben Barnes is an attractive young actor and he’s certainly got the looks that you need to pull in the hormonal teen girl crowd, but he’s got about as much charisma as his character name implies. Not to knock Barnes who shows moments of talent, but this kind of part requires charisma of a once-in-a-blue-moon sort. Barnes does his best and makes a likable lead, but not a messianic one.

Bridges and Moore, both familiar with Oscar (and in Moore’s case, likely to become even more familiar shortly) get to chew the scenery and they have at it with abandon. In Moore’s case, she becomes a sexy femme fatale who has been wronged and who has seen her people persecuted. If only the writers had chosen to explore that aspect of it more and make Mother Malkin less of a black hat and more of a tragic villain, this might have been a far different – and far better – movie.

Bridges mumbles and slurs his speech like a drunkard (which, to be fair, Master Gregory is) which wouldn’t be a problem except that he’s donned a similar affectation in his last four films. His Van Dyke beard looks a bit anachronistic considering this is supposed to be set during a medieval period but I can overlook that. There’s just little chemistry between him and Barnes so there’s a distance between the two characters that belies the fatherly affection that Gregory displays later in the film.

Part of the problem is that for a Young Adult series to succeed cinematically, it has to appeal to an audience beyond the target. In other words, Old Adults have to find something to latch onto as well, thus the casting of Bridges and Moore. However, the lead character needs to be charismatic and memorable and Barnes simply has not shown that he has that kind of screen presence, not as Prince Caspian and not as Tom Ward. Not yet anyway.

The attempts at humor mostly revolve around Gregory’s drunkenness leading me to think that this is a movie that takes itself way too seriously. While the supporting crew – in particular Hounsou, Williams and Vikander – are satisfactory, Moore and Bridges are both fine actors having a fine time with Barnes trying to and falling a little short. This isn’t a bad film, you understand – there have been far worse in this genre – but it’s just fairly ordinary entertainment, making this a likely candidate for a headstone in the Cemetery of Young Adult Fantasy Would-Be Franchises That Failed.

REASONS TO GO: Some nice monster effects. Julianne Moore and Jeff Bridges. Some decent support.
REASONS TO STAY: Humorless. Clunky. Predictable.
FAMILY VALUES: Plenty of swords and sorcery violence, some frightening images of monsters and mayhem and some brief foul language.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Originally to have been released in early 2014 by Warner Brothers, when Legendary’s distribution contract with that studio expired and a new one signed with Universal, this was one of the movies whose release date was delayed as Universal took over distribution.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/19/15: Rotten Tomatoes: 10% positive reviews. Metacritic: 31/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Seeker: The Dark is Rising
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: Harvey

How to Train Your Dragon 2

Hiccup and Toothless are flaming mad.

(2014) Animated Feature (DreamWorks) Starring the voices of Jay Baruchel, Cate Blanchett, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, America Ferrara, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Kit Harrington, T.J. Miller, Kristen Wiig, Djimon Hounsou, Kieron Elliott, Philip McGrade, Andrew Ableson, Gideon Emery, Simon Kassianides, Randy Thom. Directed by Dean DeBlois

Becoming who we are is no easy proposition. It’s a search of discovery and the answers can be elusive, particularly when we’re not especially sure who we want to be.

The movie takes place five years after the first one. Hiccup (Baruchel) has been successful in integrating dragons into the daily life of Berk which has become a much happier place as Vikings and Dragons are living in harmony. Dragon riders show their stuff in highly contested dragon races (a kind of combination between Quidditch and Rollerball). While his father Stoick (Butler) is eager for his son to take over the family business and become chief, Hiccup spends much of his time making maps of the surrounding islands, expanding the world the Vikings have lived in into a much larger place. He is also continuing to invent things, in this case a flying suit so that he can soar with his best friend Toothless (Thom) as they explore.

Unfortunately, finding out what else is out there in that wider world can be a good and bad thing. For Hiccup, the good is in finding a Dragon Rider whose ice-riddled island hides many secrets including more dragons than anyone has ever seen in one place – and their human protector, Valka (Blanchett) who turns out to be Hiccup’s mother. This is something of a surprise since Hiccup had heard all his life that Valka had died protecting him from dragons when he was a baby but it turns out that Valka, who had always defended dragons to a Stoick who was deaf to her pleas had left in order to protect her family from the dragons – and vice versa.

On the bad side, Hiccup and his girlfriend Astrid (Ferrara) as well as their buddies Snotlout (Hill), Fishlegs (Mintz-Plasse), Tuffnut (Miller) and Ruffnut (Wiig) have also discovered a tracker named Erit (Harrington) who captures dragons for the villainous Drago (Hounsou) who wishes to create a powerful dragon army under the control of his gigantic Leviathan dragon who can control the dragons – and whom Drago controls through torture and violence. This is a challenge the likes of which Hiccup has never had to face and when a tragedy strikes Hiccup closer than he could have possibly imagined, he will have to find the strength to lead his people to overcome this threat – or else lose their dragons and their freedom forever.

In many ways, this isn’t a typical summer animated feature, although it appears to be the most likely to be the kidflick hit of the summer at first glance. The tone here is much darker with a main character being killed and the abuse of animals being a central theme. That may have made some parents wary to bring their kids to the multiplex for this one, which has underperformed at the box office although it seems likely to be profitable enough to warrant further sequels. I’m sure DreamWorks Animation executives were expecting windfall profits considering that there would be no animation competition this summer essentially other than from the sequel to Disney’s Planes which although a surprise hit didn’t look especially promising as a blockbuster.

Baruchel’s nasal, deadpan delivery is perfect for the character of Hiccup and while he isn’t nearly as awkward as he was in the first movie, continues to have a kind of gawky, outsider quality that is endearing. Butler endows Stoick with plenty of proud papa and – when he discovers that Valka is alive after all – tender love and caring. Craig Ferguson also returns as Gobber, mainly as comic relief.

While I thought the first film was really meant for smaller kids, this one isn’t so much. I get the sense that they wanted to grow up along with their core audience and while younger kids will still be delighted with the variety of dragons and their often goofy behavior as well as the cartoonish depiction of humans (this isn’t photorealistic CGI animation by any stretch), the kids who fell in love with the original will have matured some and the movie gives them credit for that and treats them accordingly. That’s a pretty refreshing point of view for a genre which often reads as a giant advertisement for toys and merchandise geared at kids.

I’m giving this a rating just a smidge under the first film because I think that parents may want to be wary about letting the more sensitive and immature young ‘uns in their brood see this – at least one little tyke at the screening we went to had a very adverse reaction to one of the darker scenes in the movie. I also thought the plot could have used a little more originality but essentially those who really like the first one will really like this one and those who didn’t care for the original will feel the same about the sequel. They’re essentially interchangeable in many ways but I will admit that I am much more intrigued to see How to Train Your Dragon 3 than I was to see this one.

REASONS TO GO: Some really beautiful moments.  Treats kids with respect.

REASONS TO STAY: The dragons are often too cartoonish. May be too dark for the impressionable.

FAMILY VALUES:  A bit of animated cartoon action and some rude (but not offensively so) humor. There is a moment in which a young man deals with an event that might be upsetting for really young kids.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: DeBlois, who co-directed the original, accepted the sequel on the condition that he be allowed to direct a third film to make up a trilogy. The third film is already scheduled for June 17, 2016.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 7/15/14: Rotten Tomatoes: 92% positive reviews. Metacritic: 76/100.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Battle for Terra

FINAL RATING: 6.5/10

NEXT: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

New Releases for the Week of June 13, 2014

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2

(DreamWorks) Starring the voices of Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, Cate Blanchett, Kit Harrington, Djimon Hounsou, Craig Ferguson, Kristen Wiig, Jonah Hill. Directed by Dean DeBlois

Hiccup, the Viking who united Vikings and dragons, is faced with a new and darker challenge – a warlord who controls some fierce dragons of his own and wants all of them under his thumb. Hiccup will have to organize his own tribe with the aid of someone unexpected whom he literally never thought he’d see again – his mom.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, B-roll video and footage from the premiere here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard, 3D, IMAX 3D (opens Thursday)

Genre: Animated Feature

Rating: PG (for adventure action and mild rude humor)

22 Jump Street

(Columbia/MGM) Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Ice Cube, Amber Stevens. Fresh from their triumph of breaking up a high school drug ring, the two misfit cops go undercover – in college. However, their experiences there lead them to question their partnership as the two overgrown teenagers are dragged into manhood, kicking and screaming.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, footage from the premiere and B-Roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday)

Genre: Action Comedy

Rating: R (for language throughout, sexual content, drug material, brief nudity and some violence)

Palo Alto

(Tribeca) Emma Roberts, James Franco, Val Kilmer, Nat Wolff. Four teens – a popular soccer player, a promiscuous loner who seeks validation through sex, an introspective artist and his increasingly reckless and irresponsible best friend, try to navigate through very complicated situations that may destroy their lives – or perhaps even end them. Based on a series of interlinked stories written by Franco. Gia Coppola, the granddaughter of Francis Ford Coppola, makes her directing debut.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Drama

Rating: R (for strong sexual content, drug and alcohol use, and pervasive language – all involving teens)

The Signal

(Focus)  Brenton Thwaites, Olivia Cooke, Beau Knapp, Laurence Fishburne. Three college students on a Southwestern road trip make a harrowing detour into a waking nightmare that has them as the focus of a government investigation.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Sci-Fi Thriller

Rating: PG-13 (for some thematic elements, violence and language)

Pompeii

Emily Browning mournfully checks out Kiefer Sutherland’s imperial ass.

(2014) Swords and Sandals (TriStar) Kit Harrington, Emily Browning, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Kiefer Sutherland, Carrie-Anne Moss, Jared Harris, Jessica Lucas, Sasha Roiz, Joe Pingue, Currie Graham, Dylan Schombing, Rebecca Eady, Maxime Savana, Ron Kennell, Tom Bishop Sr., Jean-Francois Lachapelle, Jean Frenette, Dalmar Abuzeid, Melantha Blackthorne. Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson

There’s an old saying that “man proposes, God disposes” and if by God you mean a volcano then you have a point. The best-laid plans of mice and men do not stand well before an erupting Mt. Vesuvius.

Milo (Harrington) is a gladiator. He wasn’t always a gladiator – as a young boy (Schombing), he was the only survivor of a Celtic Horse Clan that was wiped out in rebellion against Rome by the Centurion Corvus (Sutherland) and his right hand swordsman Proculus (Roiz).  He only survived by playing dead but not before witnessing the butchering of his mother (Eady) and father (Lachapelle). He was discovered by slavers and trained as a gladiator.

As a gladiator in the British isles he soon became known for his speed and his skills and as a young man was virtually unbeatable. Recognizing that he was far too skilled for the hinterlands, it was decided that Milo be taken to Pompeii to see how he fares. Pompeii is just a hop, skip and a jump from the big time in Rome.

Pompeii, a seaside resort town, is having some issues of its own. Much of it is dilapidated and aging and leading citizen Severus (Harris) is eager to rebuild much of it, attracting more tourism. In particular the arena is obsolete and cannot accommodate the extremely popular chariot races, so his grand plan includes the construction of a new arena. He is hopeful that the new emperor will invest but instead he gets Corvus.

Corvus however has an agenda of his own and it involves Severus’ daughter Cassia (Browning). She had spent a year in Rome but sickened by the corruption she saw there, had returned home to her father and mother Aurelia (Moss). However, her principle reason for leaving had been the dogged and unwanted pursuit by Corvus who now means to use her as leverage against her father.

In the meantime however a chance roadside meeting had led Cassia and Milo to meet. Sparks flew immediately, an event not unnoticed by Ariadne (Lucas), Cassia’s servant. However, Milo has more to worry about – he is set to meet Atticus (Akinnuoye-Agbaje), a champion gladiator who needs one more win to earn his freedom. The two end up respecting one another and becoming unlikely allies. However, Vesuvius is rumbling, the clock is ticking and all Hell is about to be unleashed on the city that sleeps at its base.

Anderson is no stranger to effects movies with budgets that are far from extravagant as a veteran of the Resident Evil series. Like several of those movies, the CGI run hot and cold with in the case of Pompeii some of the green screen effects of the city stretching off in the distance and the mountain rising ominously in the distance look exactly like green screen effects. Nonetheless during the sequences in which the mountain is erupting in full fury and visiting its wrath upon the city below, the effects can be breathtaking – at times it seems like the ash floating down from the sky are going to nestle into your lap. Although I saw the standard version, friends and colleagues who have seen the 3D version have asserted that it is one of the best in that department.

Harrington, best known as the Stark bastard Jon Snow in the Game of Thrones HBO series, bulked up considerably for the role and while not having a whole lot of dialogue (Milo is depicted as being a brooding, unfriendly sort), nonetheless shows great promise as at least an action film leading man and maybe for other types of roles in the future as well. However, the wispy facial hair has to go – it makes him look like a high school junior.

The doe-eyed Browning never really seems to grasp what her character is supposed to be; at times she is a strong, Roman-style feminist who has more cojones than her milksop father. At other times she is a helpless damsel in distress. I don’t think this is a particular problem with Browning so much as a problem with the writing. I suspect that the character would have been strong throughout but the powers that be might have taken a hand in it.

Sutherland chews the scenery as the corrupt and vicious Corvus but has a good time doing it (although I can’t help thinking what Jack Bauer would have done in a season of 24 set in Pompeii). Yeah, he’s over-the-top but why the hell not? The whole city is about to be buried under tons of lava and ash after all so why not make a mark while there’s still a mark to be made. His arrogant patrician muscle Proculus, portrayed by Roiz who some may know better as Grimm‘s Captain Renard makes an ideal foil. Finally Akinnuoye-Agbaje is fine in what is essentially the same role played by Djimon Hounsou in Gladiator which is a much superior film.

Much of the reason this doesn’t measure up is that the story is so ludicrous and takes liberties with simple common sense. Why would anyone want to piss off a trained killer as happens repeatedly throughout the film? Historical evidence shows us that ancient Romans tread carefully around gladiators simply because as slaves who had only death to look forward to they had nothing to lose if they killed a tormentor. Quite the opposite, gladiators were treated with respect and honor.

Still, if one forgives the movie its pedestrian and predictable plot, the effects and action are certainly worthwhile. It’s the portions in between these action and special effects sequences that are often excruciating and leave one longing for a pyroclastic cloud  to come your way.

REASONS TO GO: Harrington a promising leading man. Some nifty disaster effects.

REASONS TO STAY: Hokey story. Some of the green screen effects are pretty poor.

FAMILY VALUES:  Gladiator battle-type violence, some of it bloody as well as disaster-related action – people getting crushed by falling masonry and so on. There is also some implied sensuality.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Harrington underwent a regimen to attain the absolutely ripped body of Milo by going on a 3000 calorie diet for five weeks in what he called his “bulking” regimen. He cut back on this and went on a four week “cutting” regimen with intense training. During this time he went to the gym three times a day six days a week, developing body dysmorphia – extreme anxiety about the appearance of one’s body – forcing his trainer to step in and reign in the regimen. However, Harrington was very pleased with the overall results and proclaimed himself in the best shape of his life.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 3/4/14: Rotten Tomatoes: 25% positive reviews. Metacritic: 40/100.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Volcano

FINAL RATING: 5/10

NEXT: The Past

New Releases for the Week of February 21, 2014

POMPEII

(TriStar) Kit Harrington, Carrie-Anne Moss, Emily Browning, Kiefer Sutherland, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Paz Vega, Jessica Lucas, Jared Harris. Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson

A gladiator falls in love with the daughter of a patrician merchant who instead goes ahead to betroth her to a corrupt Roman senator. All this becomes less of an issue when Mt. Vesuvius blows it’s top and the residents of Pompeii must race against time to avoid becoming charcoal briquettes.

See the trailer, clips and a promo here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard, 3D (opened Thursday)

Genre: Swords and Sandals

Rating: PG-13 (for intense battle sequences, disaster-related action and brief sexual content)

3 Days to Kill

(Relativity) Kevin Costner, Amber Heard, Hailee Steinfeld, Connie Nielsen. One of the agency’s top field agents is anxious to leave his profession behind to spend more time with his estranged wife and daughter whom he’d kept at arm’s length so that he could keep them out of danger. However when he contracts a virulent fatal disease, he is forced to undertake one more mission so that he might get an experimental cure.

See the trailer, a promo and a clip here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Action

Rating: PG-13 (for intense sequences of violence and action, some sensuality and language)

Highway

(UTV) Alia Bhatt, Randeep Hooda, Durgesh Kumar, Pradeep Nagar. A vivacious young woman, on her way to being married, is kidnapped by a group of brutal men for ransom. At first she is terrified. Her father due to his position is unwilling to pay the ransom. The leader of the gang who kidnapped her refuses to let her go. As the stalemate progresses the victim begins to develop feelings for her captor.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Drama

Rating: NR

In Secret

(Roadside Attractions/LD) Elizabeth Olsen, Tom Felton, Jessica Lange, Oscar Isaac. In glittering Paris of the 1860s, a beautiful young woman – sexually repressed and trapped in a loveless marriage overseen by her domineering aunt – embarks on an affair with an exciting young man. The ramifications of her actions will lead to tragic consequences. This is the most recent remake of the classic Emile Zola novel Therese Raquin.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Bollywood

Rating: R (for sexual content and brief violent images)

The Past

(Sony Classics) Berenice Bejo, Tahar Rahim, Ali Mosaffa, Pauline Burlet. Returning from Tehran to Paris after a four year separation, an Iranian husband arrives to finalize the divorce from his Parisian wife. However, once there he discovers a tense situation with her teenage daughter and her impending marriage to her new boyfriend bothers him more than he thought it might. On top of all of it, a secret from their past might just tear their fragile world apart.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Drama

Rating: PG-13 (for mature thematic material and brief strong language)

Starting Over Again

(Star Cinema) Toni Gonzaga, Piolo Pascual. Iza Calzado. Four years after their breakup, a couple are brought back together when her architectural firm is selected to restore an old Manila mansion to be repurposed as a restaurant and he turns out to be the new eatery’s co-owner. However her feelings that this chance encounter is fate’s way of telling her she needs to seize her second chance and run with it may be derailed when she discovers that he intends to use the restaurant as a means of proposing to his American girlfriend.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Drama

Rating: NR