New Releases for the Week of February 24, 2012

GONE

(Summit) Amanda Seyfried, Jennifer Carpenter, Wes Bentley, Sebastian Stan, Michael Pare, Nick Searcy, Socratis Otto, Emily Wickersham, Joel David Moore. Directed by Heitor Dhalia

A young woman working nights returns home one morning to find her sister missing. She knows immediately what’s happened; you see a year previously, the woman had been kidnapped by a serial killer, taken to the woods and thrown into a hole along with the remains of previous victims. She managed to escape, but the police were never able to find proof that her story was genuine. Now her sister is in the hands of a madman and the police are again less than helpful and with time ticking away, she realizes that the only way her sister is going to survive is if she herself throws herself in harms way.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Thriller

Rating: PG-13 (for violence and terror, some sexual material, brief language and drug references)

Act of Valor

(Relativity) Active Duty Navy SEALs, Roselyn Sanchez, Nestor Serrano, Jason Cottle. A group of Navy SEALs are assigned to rescue a captured CIA operative from a group of terrorists. What they discover is a plot that will unleash a catastrophe that will kill thousands on American soil and they must race against time to stop it from happening.

See the trailer, promos, featurettes and a clip here.

For more on the movie this is the website

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Action

Rating: R (for strong violence including some torture, and for language)

Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos

(Eleven Arts) Starring the voices of Shelley Calene-Black, Rie Kugimiya, Shinichiro Miki, Roy Mustang. A pair of young alchemists discover a poverty-stricken people who carry a secret of enormous power. Eventually they find themselves in the middle of a revolt, led by a fiery young alchemist who will stop at nothing to restore her people to their former glory, even if it means unleashing destruction of unimaginable power.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Anime

Rating: NR

Shame

(Fox Searchlight) Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan, James Badge Dale, Hannah Ware.  A successful New York man dreads intimacy but craves sex, so he goes from one meaningless physical relationship to the next. When his sister comes to live with him, some old skeletons hiding in his closet come rattling out, forcing him to deal with old emotional pain.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, a featurette and web-only content here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Drama

Rating: NC-17 (for some explicit sexual content)

Tyler Perry’s Good Deeds

(Lionsgate) Tyler Perry, Thandie Newton, Brian White, Rebecca Romijn.  A wealthy businessman who has always followed the course laid out for him by his father and family finds his life taking a left turn when he meets a homeless single mom and her kid. Suddenly his life is turned upside down and he begins to question the priorities set out for him and wonder if the course he’s set upon shouldn’t be changed to what makes him happy.

See the trailer, a promo and a clip here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Urban Romantic Drama

Rating: PG-13 (for sexual content, language, some violence and thematic material)

Wanderlust

(Universal) Paul Rudd, Jennifer Aniston, Malin Akerman, Justin Theroux. A New York couple comfortable living the conspicuous consumption lifestyle find their lives thrown into disarray when he gets laid off. He packs them up and moves them into his brother’s house in Georgia but when that doesn’t work out, they find their way into a commune whose lifestyle runs pretty counter to what they’re used to. Will the changes tear them apart, or bring them closer together with a new appreciation for life? I think we all can guess the answer to that…

See the trailer, promos and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Comedy

Rating: R (for sexual content, graphic nudity, language and drug use)

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X-Men: First Class

You can tell it's the 60s: they're playing chess on an actual chessboard.

(2011) Superhero (20^th Century Fox) James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Kevin Bacon, January Jones, Rose Byrne, Nicholas Hoult, Oliver Platt, Jason Flemyng, Alex Gonzalez, Zoe Kravitz, Matt Craven, Lucas Till, Caleb Landry Jones, Edi Gathegi, James Remar, Rade Serbedzija, Ray Wise, M. Ironside, Bill Milner, Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Romijn. Directed by Matthew Vaughn

It is a failing of humanity that the things we don’t understand, we tend to fear and the things we fear we tend to destroy. This is what leads to genocide, and that kind of hatred and malevolence can have unintended consequences.

Erik Lensherr (Milner) is the son of Jews who have been taken to a concentration camp, displaying great power over magnetism when angered. A Nazi scientist (Bacon) notices this and determines to find out how he can use Lensherr as a weapon for the Third Reich. In order to force Lensherr’s co-operation, he executes his mother in front of him.

After the war, the adult Lensherr (Fassbender) goes on a rampage, hunting down Nazis who had anything to do with his torture, with emphasis in particular on the scientist who now goes by the name of Sebastian Shaw. His powers still only manifest when he’s angry but he’s not yet grown into the powerful mutant he will become.

Charles Xavier (McAvoy) is graduating from Oxford and has become an expert on human mutation, o much so that he is approached by Agent Moira MacTaggert (Byrne) of the Central Intelligence Agency to give expert testimony to the higher-ups of the CIA, including a skeptical agency chief (Craven). It seems that MacTaggert has been chasing Sebastian Shaw as well, and witnessed the telepathic powers of his associate Emma Frost (J. Jones) and the teleportation powers of Azazel (Flemyng), one of the associates of the Hellfire Club that Shaw runs. Xavier brings along Raven Darkholme (Lawrence), a young orphan his family adopted. When Xavier’s scientific presentation fails to impress, he reveals that both he and Raven are mutants; he a powerful telepath and she a shape-shifter.

They are taken charge of by an eager, jovial section chief (Platt) who has built a facility for the study of mutants, only without any mutants. That changes when one of the scientists working for them, Hank McCoy (Hoult) turns out to have hands for feet and has animal-like powers. He discovers a kindred spirit in Raven, who like Hank longs to be normal-looking (Raven in her natural appearance has blue skin, golden eyes and brick-red hair).

During a government attack on Shaw’s boat, the government is foiled by Azazel and Riptide (Gonzalez), a mutant who can generate tornado-like windstorms. Shaw, Frost, Azazel and Riptide escape on a submarine that Shaw had built inside his boat despite the efforts of Lensherr who arrives mid-fight in an attempt to murder Shaw, who recognizes his old pupil.

Xavier rescues Lensherr from drowning and recruits him to be part of the government team. Lensherr really isn’t much of a team player, but his growing friendship and respect for Xavier keeps him around. They realize that since Shaw has a mutant team that can easily wipe out even a military attack, a mutant team of their own will be needed. Using Cerebro, a computer that enhances Xavier’s telepathic abilities and allows him to “find” mutants, he and Lensherr go on a recruiting drive, allowing him to find Angel Salvadore (Kravitz) – a stripper with wings, Darwin (Gathegi) who can adapt to any survival situation, Banshee (C.L. Jones) who can project sonic blasts that allow him to fly and also act as sonar, and Havoc (Till) who fires lethal blasts out of his chest.

Shaw finds out what Xavier and Lensherr, who are now going as Professor X and Magneto (suggested by Raven who’s going by Mystique, while McCoy is Beast), are up to and orchestrates an attack on his new recruits, killing one and recruiting Angel to his cause. Shaw, who sees the mutants as the next step in evolution, is up to no good – he is the one who has through subtle and not-so-subtle influence in both the Soviet Union and the United States, created the Cuban Missile Crisis in hopes of starting World War III, from which he and his fellow mutants would rise from the ashes to rule the world. Xavier and his X-Men (a play on G-Men bestowed on the group by MacTaggert who is their CIA liaison), must stop it despite the group’s youth and inexperience.

Vaughn, who has done the superhero thing before with Kick-Ass (he was originally supposed to direct the third X-Men movie but dropped out because he didn’t think he could finish it in the time allotted by the studio) and is also the man behind Stardust, one of my favorite movies of recent years, does a pretty spiffy job here. He has a great visual eye and has done this as essentially a James Bond movie from the 60s with superheroes. It’s a brilliant concept that he doesn’t always pull off but manages to enough to make the movie interesting.

One of the main reasons the movie works is the chemistry between McAvoy, Fassbender and Lawrence. These are three talents rising in the industry – Lawrence already has an Oscar nomination for her stellar work in Winter’s Bone – and all have enormous potential to be stars. McAvoy plays the contemplative Xavier with an even keel, rarely raising his voice or seemingly getting excited but that doesn’t mean he isn’t emotional; it is amusing to watch him trying to pick up girls with his line about mutations at various Oxford pubs.

Fassbender is much more intense as Magneto, making the pain of his childhood palpable but well-covered by layers of anger. His need for revenge has driven him to hate all humans, wanting to forestall another Holocaust-like fate for his fellow mutants. The leadership of the CIA and the military will certainly not assuage his paranoia much.

Lawrence does Mystique as a troubled soul, whose power is wrapped up in deception but yet yearns to be perceived as normal. She develops an attraction for Magneto despite Beast’s obvious crush on her, and she is very much attached in a sisterly way to Xavier.

The movie goes a long way into showing how Xavier and Magneto went from the best of friends to the most implacable of foes. It also depicts how Xavier was paralyzed and shows the founding of his school where the X-Men would eventually be based. While Wolverine and an adult Mystique make cameos (both very playfully done I might add), the mutants from the first trilogy of the X-movies largely are absent.

Fox has made no secret that they plan to make a new trilogy starting with this one. The question is, will I want to see the next one? The answer is a resounding yes. While the 60s atmosphere that was created was rife with anachronisms (the miniskirt, which is clearly worn by several characters and extras during the film, wasn’t introduced until a few years after the Crisis for example and the soundtrack is rife with music that wasn’t recorded until afterwards either), the feel of the Bond movies is retained and that makes the movie special.

The action sequences (particularly the battle with the Russian and American fleets with the mutants that ends the film) are well done. As summer superhero movies go, this is definitely a cut above, although lacking the epic scope of Thor earlier this year. It certainly is a promising reboot of the franchise and continues the run of quality Marvel films that we’ve been getting over the past five years. Hopefully Fox will continue to follow Marvel’s lead and keep the quality of this franchise high.

REASONS TO GO: Great action sequences and good chemistry between McAvoy, Fassbender and Lawrence.

REASONS TO STAY: Doesn’t capture the period as well as it might have.

FAMILY VALUES: There’s some partial nudity and a few mildly bad words, along with some action sequence that may be too intense for the youngsters.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Fassbender and McAvoy both appeared in the HBO miniseries “Band of Brothers” early on in their careers but haven’t appeared together in the same project since.

HOME OR THEATER: The action sequences are huge and need a huge canvas.

FINAL RATING: 7/10

TOMORROW: Outlander