NOW PLAYING
Capsule reviews of first-run films now showing at Calgary theatres
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
★★★ out of five An all-star cast of veterans led by Judi Dench and Maggie Smith star in this new film from John Madden that takes us to an old folks home in India. Hoping to revitalize his dilapidated hotel with English guests, Sonny (Dev Patel) takes on a group of crusty personalities who eventually transform the hotel, as well as each other. Contrived and laden with cliche, the movie still pulls off some gentle comedy because the acting is so solid.
Chernobyl Diaries ★½
A group of American tourists takes a trip to the radioactive wasteland surrounding the Ukrainian disaster site where they encounter threats not commonly found in nature. While the idea of an abandoned city and unchecked genetic mutation has promise, this low-budget effort amounts to endless shots of jiggling flashlights in the darkness and shadowy figures emerging from faux fog.
Cosmopolis ★★★
David Cronenberg directs Robert Pattinson in this somewhat minimal adaptation of Don DeLillo’s novel that follows a multimillionaire over the course of a single day. At the top of the reel, our hero is a master of the universe who controls the world financial markets. By the final frames, he’s lost a fortune and may well lose his life. Despite the dramatic potential at his disposal, Cronenberg fails to find a heartbeat — rendering the film more mechanical than human.
Dark Shadows ★★ ½
Johnny Depp stars as Barnabas, a vampire who awakens after a 200-year imprisonment to find his family has fallen on hard times in 1972 Maine. Tim Burton’s film is an exercise in style that’s drowned in characters — the large cast includes Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Green and Helena Bonham Carter — and tedious subplots.
The Dictator ★★★
The bad boy of smart comedy, Sacha Baron Cohen, returns with another risque outing that takes a sarcastic and somewhat sentimental look at the fading era of the dictator. Baron Cohen stars as General Aladeen, a tyrant sitting on oil wealth who wants to build a nuclear weapon. When the UN threatens sanctions, he flies to New York, where he’s promptly kidnapped and replaced by his body double. Can love transform the evil dictator’s heart, or will his wily old ways grow back with his beard? Either way, it’s twisted and wicked entertainment.
Headhunters ★★★ ½
Although this Norwegian movie is little more than a modern take on film noir, it finds a surprising amount of novel terrain, thanks to its hero: a short man who steals art to keep his statuesque wife. Even the gory bits feel fresh, ensuring this smart and tidy feature keeps you pinned for the duration.
The Hunger Games ★★★★
A grim, persuasive version of the Suzanne Collins novel about teenagers who are forced to compete in a fight to the death in a dystopia of the future. Jennifer Lawrence is a steely heroine, and director Gary Ross makes the spectacle in a grimly believable extension of reality TV.
In The Family ★★★★ This first film by theatre director Patrick Wang, who also stars, is a long, intelligent and wonderful movie about family. Wang stars as a man whose partner dies, leaving him in charge of their son . . . until his sister-in-law wants custody. The results are clear-eyed and compassionate.
The Intouchables ★★★ A sentimental but wry French buddy comedy about an uneducated black immigrant (Omar Sy) who becomes the caregiver to rich white connoisseur (Francois Cluzet). They both learn lessons in an obvious but undeniably charming way.
Jesus Henry Christ ★★ Toni Collette returns to the land of single moms in this cloying and contrived piece by Dennis Lee. When ardent feminist Patricia (Collette) gives birth to a talking baby genius, she tries to shelter him from the world, but young Henry (Jason Spevack) takes control of his own coming-of-age drama, and pushes his mother into a new understanding of the world. At times, the movie has a quiet charm, but mostly, it’s so self-conscious and scattered it’s irksome. Madagascar 3 Europe’s Most
Wanted ★★★★ An animated film that’s vertiginous, explosive, ridiculous, frantic, and anti-Canadian (they joke about our “work ethic.”) Inspired 3-D and non-stop silliness make this the most fun you can have at the movies so far this summer. Marvel’s The Avengers ★★★ ½ The summer season lifts off with this mega-budget action movie about a group of superheroes who band together to stop a hostile takeover of planet Earth. With Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and The Hulk sharing screen time, director Joss Whedon is forced to spend most of his time dealing out the dramatic cards — without creating genuine dramatic suspense. A movie that seems to hover without effort, The Avengers looks good suspended in the sky, but it doesn’t actually go anywhere.
Men in Black 3 ★★ ½ A tired sequel to the comic sci-fi franchise about two special agents (Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones) who hunt the aliens among us. They go back in time, allowing Josh Brolin to give a funny impersonation of a young Jones, but the franchise is beginning to show its age.
Moonrise Kingdom ★★ ½ Wes Anderson tells the story of two outsider kids who fall in love during the summer of 1965 and attempt to realize the happy-ever-after ending. Although the movie looks good, and the performances from an ensemble cast that includes Bill Murray, Frances Mcdormand, Bruce Willis and Ed Norton are solid, the movie feels like a work in miniature — where everything is drawn to scale, but carries little emotional heft.
Prometheus ★★★★ Noomi Rapace emerges as the logical emotional heir to Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley in this Ridley Scott “prequel” to Alien. Set several decades before the crew of the Nostromo had the beast in their belly, we voyage to the far side of the galaxy with a crew of Earthlings seeking the answers to a Paleolithic mystery, and why cave paintings around the globe feature the same planetary cluster and giant humanoids. Though the film suffers from a lack of character development on the edges, the core trio finds the requisite depth to create a micro-cosmos of human emotion, where our redeeming traits are tested against our drive to survive. Smart, gorgeous and dripping with positive nostalgia, Prometheus sets the Alien franchise ablaze once more.
Rock of Ages ★★ Adam Shankman (Hairspray) returns to the land of big screen adaptations with this Broadway musical about the heyday of arena rock. A standard story of starcrossed love mingles with the musky afterglow of the rock gods to create a familiar landscape, but for all the familiar landmarks, the movie never hits home. Despite a soundtrack laced with Top 40 hits from the likes of Journey and Bon Jovi, Shankman can’t get beyond the glitzy surface — and gets lost in the contrived creases of Tom Cruise’s stab at raw sexuality. None of it works, but Alec Baldwin and Russell Brand are fun to watch and offer this glitzy mess a sliver of dramatic redemption.
That’s My Boy ★ Adam Sandler’s latest is a grossout comedy of witless penis and poop jokes that nonetheless seems to delight his fans. He plays a wasted man who had a son (Andy Samberg) from an affair with his junior high teacher and wants to reunite with him. The idea of child abuse is just one of the gags.
Snow White and the Huntsman
★★★
The Lord of the Rings version of the story, with Kristen Stewart as a brave heroine and Chris Hemsworth as the hunky huntsman who leads a company of companions on a quest to overthrow the wicked queen (Charlize Theron). The result is a constricted epic. What To Expect When You’re Expecting ★★★ Cameron Diaz, Anna Kendrick and Elizabeth Banks play women struggling to conceive in this big screen adaptation of the bestselling book about pregnancy. Despite the endless genre conventions, this multi-pronged comedy has enough depth of feeling to keep us engaged in the characters., even when it proves to be exactly what we were expecting.