Opening this week: Fantastic mr. Fox, Ninja Assassin and Old Dogs, with a midnight showing of 1996 Bruce Willis Thriller 12 Monkeys.
* 2012 – It’s the end of the world as we know it, by way of the P.T. Barnum of the apocalypse, Roland Emmerich (Independence Day). this epic adventure is about a global cataclysm that brings an end to the world and and offers the chance for heroic struggle to the survivors. With John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Thandie Newton, Danny Glover and Woody Harrelson. in the end it’s just big, loud and dumb. H½ out of four. Rated PG.
* a Christmas Carol – Lionel Barrymore. Alastair Sim. Laurence Olivier. Albert Finney. George C. Scott. bill Murray. Michael Caine. mr. Magoo. Scrooge McDuck. Of the many to play Ebenezer Scrooge, Jim Carrey now adds his name, starring in Disney’s new 3-D animation version of Charles Dickens’ a Christmas Carol. The appeal of the part is clear: you get villain and redemptive hero rolled into one, plus you spend most of the movie in your pyjamas. But the allure of Scrooge alone wasn’t enough for Carrey. in this latest incarnation of Dickens’ Christmas fable, Carrey plays not only the penny-pinching miser, young and old, but also the three ghosts that visit him: the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. on the whole, the film feels suffocated by its design, and the liveliness of Carrey and the rest of the cast (including Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and Cary Elwes) struggles to shine through. HH out of four. Rated PG
* Fantastic mr. Fox – The painstaking process known as stop-motion animation has brought all kinds of things to life, from that big ape King Kong to the very British Wallace and Gromit, but in the playful and funny Fantastic mr. Fox it goes those feats one better: it reanimates filmmaker Wes Anderson’s career. With George Clooney and Meryl Streep voicing the Foxes, the sophisticated Nick and Nora Charles of the vulpine world, this adaptation of the Roald Dahl tale does more than occupy its own particular space between the worlds of childhood and adults. it provides a pleasantly cerebral experience, exhilarating and fizzy, that goes to your head like too much Champagne. The basic thrust of the book remains the same, and that is the battle of wits between the larcenous title character and the combined forces of Boggis, Bunce and Bean, who are not a pugnacious law firm but “three of the meanest, nastiest, ugliest farmers” in mr. Fox’s part of the world. Feeling a midlife crisis coming on, mr. Fox consults with Badger the lawyer (Bill Murray) and moves the family from their safe hole to an exposed beech tree. and, working with Kylie the opossum (Wally Wolodarsky), an old partner in crime, he plans that gangster movie staple, one last job, that will set him up for life. or so he hopes. HHH out of four. Rated PG.
* Ninja Assassin – When considering the meagre merits of this bone-snapping, blood-splattered film, it’s best to remember the words of John Goodman’s PC-challenged character in The Big Lebowski: “The man in the black pyjamas, Dude. Worthy… adversary.” The makers of Ninja Assassin want to make those words real and rescue the ninja from the province of turtles. Ninja Assassin, though, has a funny way paying its respects. Director James McTeigue (V for Vendetta) and his producing partners, Larry and Andy Wachowski (The Matrix), are clearly more interested in spraying geysers of digital blood. The Ozunu Clan is a secret society that for the past thousand years has supplied killers to any government that has a “hundred pounds of gold.” their artery-severing antics have come to the attention of beautiful Europol agent Mika Coretti (Naomie Harris). Fortunately for Mika, the clan’s deadliest assassin, the brooding Raizo (Korean pop star Rain), has decided to betray his brothers after watching them butcher the love of his life. To work, Ninja Assassin needn’t have equated a seriousness of purpose with self-seriousness. But it’s clear from its opening round of mayhem and decapitations that McTeigue simply wants to satiate fanboys’ bloodlust in the most simple-minded fashion possible. H½ out of four. Rated 18A.
* Old Dogs – John Travolta plays swinging bachelor Charlie to Robin Williams’ mopey Dan, pals since childhood who run a successful sports-marketing agency. The movie opens with a flurry of ham-fisted flashbacks as Charlie inexplicably starts a crucial business meeting by chronicling Dan’s whirlwind marriage to Vicki (Kelly Preston, Travolta’s real-life wife) seven years earlier. Dan and Vicki split immediately, but the brief marriage resulted in twins (Conner Rayburn and Ella Bleu Travolta, Preston and Travolta’s daughter). With Charlie and Dan caught up in negotiations for the biggest deal of their careers, Vicki arrives needing to stash the kids with their dad for two weeks while she’s off doing jail time for a political protest. Will the parentally inept Dan prove he can be a dad to his twins? Will the kids’ shenanigans foul up Charlie and Dan’s big deal? Will their friendship survive the strain, will business or family win out? We all know the answers before the movie starts. The fun is supposed to be in getting there, but Old Dogs is no fun whatsoever, just a collection of stale kibble. H½ out of four. Rated G.
* Planet 51 – this sci-fi family tale offers passable computer imagery but is an aborted liftoff when it comes to the lame story of a human astronaut among little green aliens who, for some uninspired reason, are living the serene Ozzie and Harriet life of 1950s America. Video-game veteran Jorge Blanco shifts to the big screen with an adventure as bland as the sitcommy decade that fostered it. Likewise, voice stars Dwayne Johnson, Jessica Biel and Justin Long seem to take their cue from the Ward Cleaver school of parental droning. even vocal gymnast John Cleese sounds neutered as a partly mad alien scientist, while only Gary Oldman adds some bark as an alien general. Johnson provides vocals for the astronaut hero, who is befriended by a few young aliens while the rest of their planet wants to hunt him down as a monster. Though set on another world, the jokes are as derivative as they come, the filmmakers endlessly mining human pop culture in a vain search for laughs. H½ out of four. Rated PG.
* The Blind side – this redemption-minded sports flick serves its inspiration straight-up with no twist. Writer-director John Lee Hancock wisely lets the true story of Michael Oher – the African-American teen who found a home and, eventually, football stardom, after being adopted by a wealthy Memphis family – speak for itself. That direct focus delivers a feel-good crowd-pleaser, but it also drains the film of the kind of subtle nuances that might have separated it from other Hollywood Hallmark-like efforts, including Hancock’s own The Rookie. For everything he lacked in life (family, food, a place to sleep), Oher had been blessed with the rare blend of size, strength and quickness sought by football coaches for the valuable left tackle position. The Blind side dutifully chronicles the transformation of Oher (played by newcomer Quinton Aaron with the proper less-is-more approach) from blank slate to a fully formed young man, emphasizing Leigh Ann (Sandra Bullock) at the expense of Sean (Tim McGraw). Bullock brings her trademarked spunkiness to the mother hen role, delivering an iron-willed woman who looks past appearances to do the right thing. Why did the Tuohys take in Oher? Without definitively answering that question, the film poses one of its own: Why don’t more people follow their lead? HH½ out of four. Rated PG.
* The Twilight Saga: New Moon – As every Stephenie Meyer fan knows, this is the one where studly vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) dumps human girlfriend Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) for her own safety, and she turns to old chum Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) for solace, unaware that he’s a werewolf, and therefore Edward’s sworn enemy. Fans will turn out in blockbuster legions, but here are a few of the many things wrong with director Chris Weitz’s adaptation: It’s really two half moons, or two halves of a movie that don’t quite fit. Mopey teenager Bella has all the lustre of, well, a mopey teenager. The real rivalry is whether werewolves or vampires can behave with greater preposterousness and pretension. Finally, “New Moon” is boring, eternally so. The soap-opera melodrama of Stewart, Pattinson and Lautner’s performances provides some unintentional laughs. Yet Stewart is on screen almost all the time, and her Bella is just a drag to be around. With her flat speech and listless presence, it’s unfathomable how two different sets of monsters could fixate so completely on her. H½ out of four. Rated PG.
- With files from The Canadian Press, the Washington Post, The Associated Press and the New York Times news service.
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