New Releases for the Week of November 27, 2015

THE GOOD DINOSAUR

(Disney*Pixar) Starring the voices of Raymond Ochoa, Jack Bright, Jeffrey Wright, Sam Elliott, Frances McDormand, Steve Zahn. Directed by Peter Sohn

In a world where the asteroid that caused the mass extinction of the dinosaurs missed the Earth, an Apatosaurus named Arlo who as the runt of the litter was always frightened of everything in the world around him, is forced to make friends with a feral human boy named Spot. Alone and far from home in a dangerous world, the two must work together to make it home.

See the trailer, clips, a featurette and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard, 3D
Genre: Animated Feature
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for peril, action and thematic elements)

Bone Tomahawk

(RLJ Entertainment) Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, Matthew Fox, Sean Young. After a small town in the Old West is attacked by savage cannibalistic cave dwellers (try and say that five times fast), a grizzled sheriff leads a dysfunctional posse after them to rescue the captives they took from the town. Little did they realize that the cannibals were far more ruthless and resourceful than they could have imagined – and that the rescue mission has become a fight for survival.

See the trailer and a clip here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Western
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: NR

Brooklyn

(Fox Searchlight) Saoirse Ronan, Domhnall Gleeson, Jim Broadbent, Julie Walters. A woman in the 1950s emigrates from Ireland to the United States to find herself a new life. At first beset by pangs of homesickness, she begins to ease into her situation, buoyed by a promising romance. However when personal matters require her to return to Ireland, she finds herself forced to choose between two lives – one in her homeland, one in her new home. Scripted by Nick Hornby.

See the trailer, clips, a featurette and an interview here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, AMC Loew’s Universal Cineplex, AMC West Oaks, Regal Oviedo Marketplace, Regal Waterford Lakes, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: PG-13 (for a scene of sexuality and brief strong language)

Creed

(MGM/New Line) Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Phylicia Rashad. The son of the late boxing champion Apollo Creed never knew his father, who died in the ring before he was born. Angry at life, he only feels comfortable in the boxing ring. Knowing that he needs the kind of training that he can’t get just anywhere, he seeks out his father’s one-time rival and closest friend Rocky Balboa, who sees something in the young man that Creed doesn’t see in himself. But Rocky has a deadly battle of his own to wage and young Adonis Creed will be taking on a foe that may be more than he can overcome. Jordan in the title role is reunited with his Fruitvale Station director Ryan Coogler.

See the trailer, clips and interviews here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Sports Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for violence, language and some sensuality)

Legend

(Universal) Tom Hardy, Emily Browning, David Thewlis, Christopher Eccleston. In the 1960s the Kray Brothers were the most notorious and feared gangsters in London. Their story, previously chronicled in The Krays starring Gary and Martin Kemp of Spandau Ballet, benefits from an Oscar-caliber performance by Tom Hardy – as both Kray twins. The movie will be opening on more screens in two weeks.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, promos and a featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village (opening wider December 11)
Rating: R (for strong violence, language throughout, some sexual and drug material)

Tamasha

(UTV) Deepika Padukone, Ranbir Kapoor, Javed Sheikh, Faraaz Servaia. A tourist and a nomad living on an island near France fall for one another as they organize “tamashas” all over the island.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Dramedy
Now Playing: AMC West Oaks, Touchstar Southchase
Rating: NR

Trumbo

(Bleecker Street) Bryan Cranston, Louis C.K., John Goodman, Diane Lane. Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo is called in before the House Un-American Activities Commission to testify about his beliefs and to incriminate other colleagues who might be leaning too far to the left for American tastes as of 1947. Instead, he stands up against Congress and is sent to prison before being blacklisted. Instead, he perseveres and becomes an American hero in the process.

See the trailer, clips, an interview and a featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre Biographical Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for language including some sexual references)

Victor Frankenstein

(20th Century Fox) James McAvoy, Daniel Radcliffe, Jessica Brown Findlay, Charles Dance. A reimagining of the Mary Shelley classic, as a medical doctor wishing to conquer death becomes obsessed to the point of madness. Only his faithful assistant Igor can save him from his own deteriorating mental state and from his horrifying creation.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for macabre images, violence and a sequence of destruction)

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I, Frankenstein

Aaron Eckhart is pissed off that his agent let him sign up for this film.

(2014) Horror Fantasy (Lionsgate) Aaron Eckhart, Bill Nighy, Yvonne Strahovsky, Miranda Otto, Jai Courtney, Socratis Otto, Aden Young, Caitlin Stasey, Mahesh Jadu, Steve Mouzakis, Nicholas Bell, Deniz Akdeniz, Chris Pang, Kevin Grevioux, Bruce Spence, Virginie Le Brun, Penny Higgs, Goran Kleut, Yasca Sinigaglia, Nicole Downs, Angela Kennedy, Samantha Reed. Directed by Stuart Beattie

We are born and then we are created. We are all of us blank slates that are filled up by our experiences and our mentors, parents and friends. Of course if you don’t have the latter, you are left to interpret things on your own.

Victor Frankenstein (Young) had found the secret of creation, animating a sewn-together quilt of body parts and grafted skin. Part scientist and part madman, he had promised his creature (Eckhart) that he would one day animate a companion for him but later went back on his promise. In a fit of rage, the creature murdered Frankenstein’s wife (Le Brun) which completely unhinges his creator, who follows his creation up above the Arctic circle and promptly freezes to death. For reasons even he probably can’t understand, the creature carries the body back to the graveyard to bury his creator alongside his wife when the creature is attacked by demons. A pair of gargoyles witness the event in which the creature kills (and sends their spirits back to Hell) most of his attackers. Sounds plenty biblical to me.

They take him back (none too willingly) to a huge Notre Dame-like cathedral in some unnamed Eurocity where he is introduced to Leonore (Otto), Queen of the Gargoyles. She explains to the creature (whom she names Adam) that there is a war going on between the Demons of Hell and the Gargoyles who are the agents of Heaven (apparently the angels didn’t want to get their wings dirty) and that for whatever reason the demon Prince Naberius (Nighy) had chosen to involve Adam, he was nevertheless caught in the middle. However, Adam who is kind of pissed off at life in general (talk about someone who never asked to be born) chooses to turn his back, heading someplace where humans can’t find him. Or demons. Or gargoyles.

200 years pass and Adam, tired of being stalked by demons and still pissed off at life in general, decides to go on the offensive. Things haven’t changed much in gargoyle-land except that they are now willing to win by any means necessary and they don’t trust Adam much. Naberius, masquerading as a tech industrialist, has hired Dr. Terra (Strahovsky), a respected scientist, to help Naberius figure out a way to replicate Victor Frankenstein’s work. Of course, she doesn’t realize she’s working for a demon prince or she’d probably have asked for enough of a salary increase to afford a better apartment.

She’s able to re-animate rats but not humans yet; the reappearance of Adam and the existence of Victor Frankenstein’s journal in the possession of the gargoyles gives her a shot at actually reanimating human corpses. But what does Naberius want with reanimated corpses and how will that lead to the end of the world? And what will Adam, still pissed off at life in general, do about it – if anything?

Based on the Kevin Grevioux (who has a small role in the film) graphic novel, this has a lot of the same elements of the Underworld series; since some of the producer of that series are involved, it isn’t a stretch to figure out why the movie has much the same look as that hit movie franchise. Mainly set at night or at dusk, with palates of blue and grey predominant in the mix, the movie looks slick.

There is of course plenty of CGI gargoyles and demons to augment the slick look, with lots of digital flame and blue light to denote when a gargoyle or demon respectively bites the dust (the flames descend downward, the blue light ascends upward). The only thing missing is a black leather catsuit for Strahovsky.

Eckhart has been one of Hollywood’s most interesting leading men over the last decade but this is a definite misfire. His only expression is anger with a side trip into annoyed. He’s like the Clint Eastwood character in Gran Torino only with a murderous glare and lots of scars. He’s still charismatic but we get no sense of his inner journey – he eventually decides to help (not much of a spoiler gang) but we never get a clear sense of why; for someone who just wants to be left alone he really sticks his nose in things.

Nighy is one of my favorite actors and he’s essentially entertaining in everything he does. He can be light and charming, or dark and menacing as he is here. He makes for a fine demon prince, urbane and charming on the surface but with a whole load of delicious evil below it. Something tells me that a movie about his character would have been much more fun. Strahovsky, best known as the love interest in the TV show Chuck, looks pretty good on the big screen. I think she’ll make the transition just fine if that’s where she wants to go. Sadly, all three of these fine actors deserved better (as does Miranda Otto as the wishy-washy gargoyle queen).

In movies like Legion and Max Payne we get a very similar background story with a very similar look to both movies, and this one doesn’t really distinguish itself from those other two (and a whole mess o’ B-movies with similar themes). While some of the effects are nice and the leading actors do their job, the dialogue can be cringeworthy and you get the sense that director Beattie – who has some pretty good movies to his credit – lost a whole lot of battles to the producers and/or studio. In any case, this is bound to be heading to home video pretty quickly and while I won’t say it’s a complete waste of your time, you might be better off waiting for it to be a cheaper ticket than the ten dollars plus for the 3D version that are out there now.

REASONS TO GO: Bill Nighy is always entertaining. Aaron Eckhart is a solid leading man. Some nice eye candy.

REASONS TO STAY: Plot is very much paint-by-numbers. All concept and no substance.

FAMILY VALUES:  Throughout the movie there’s plenty of action and violence although not much gore.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The monster was given the name Adam in Mary Shelley’s original novel. Few of the movies have utilized it but this one does.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/4/14: Rotten Tomatoes: 5% positive reviews. Metacritic: 30/100.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Constantine

FINAL RATING: 4/10

NEXT: Labor Day