CAPSULE REVIEWS OF FILMS NOW SHOWING AT CALGARY THEATRES
2 Guns ★★★
out of five Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington become unlikely allies in this revisionist western. The leads share sassy man banter, ensuring this violent movie remains entertaining, even when it’s knee-deep in cliché. (Katherine Monk)
Blue Jasmine ★★★★
Cate Blanchett hands in a crazily entertaining performance as a woman forced to rebuild her life after her husband (Alec Baldwin) is convicted of fraud.
Captain Phillips ★★★ ½
Paul Greengrass’s you-are-there drama recreates the real-life 2009 hijacking by Somali pirates of an American container ship. Tom Hanks is believably strong as the boat’s skipper, but the story lacks the urgency of Greengrass’s United 93.
Carrie ★★★
This remake is remarkably similar to the 1976 original, which means if you liked that one you don’t need to see it again; ditto if you hated it. For those new to the story, it’s a mix of puberty, bullying, bad parenting and out-of-control telekinesis, with Chloë Grace Moretz shoulder-hunching her way through the title role, and Julianne Moore excellent as her religious-nut mother.
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 ★★★
In this animated 3-D sequel, animal-food hybrids threaten the world — man-eating cheeseburgers! shrimpanzees! — and Flint must save the day. It’s big on food puns but the story may confuse the youngest viewers.
Cottage Country ★★★ ½
Todd and Cammie (Tyler Labine, Malin Akerman) are in love, and head to his family’s Muskoka cottage for a week’s vacation. But when Todd’s loutish brother shows up, murder ensues. And then a party. Director Peter Wellington drives this story down the narrative highway like an out-of-control hearse late for its own funeral. Funny, violent and unexpected.
Despicable Me 2 ★★★ ½
Super-villain Gru (Steve Carell), now a devoted father, is recruited by agent Lucy (Kristen Wiig) to capture a new criminal. It lacks the heart of the first film, but the madcap anarchy never stops.
Don Jon ★★★ ½
Joseph Gordon-Levitt writes, directs and stars in this feature debut about a young, handsome fellow with a dirty little addiction to online pornography. Despite the gritty subject matter, the script has a deft touch that keeps the comedy coming, while the drama sighs quietly in the corner and brings the film emotional depth.
Elysium ★★★
Neill Blomkamp’s sci-fi action thriller pushes the concept of the income gap to its logical conclusion: Rich people live on a pristine space station with access to medical attention while the billions of poor people
live on a toxic Earth and work for slave wages without health care.
Enough Said ★★★ ½
Nicole Holofcener (Friends With Money) writes and directs this story of Eva (Julia LouisDreyfus), a middle-aged masseuse who realizes she’s dating the ex of her new best friend. Louis-Dreyfus and her co-star, the late James Gandolfini, bring humanity to every moment.
Escape Plan (Not reviewed for critics) When a structural-security authority (Sylvester Stallone) finds himself set up and incarcerated in the world’s most secret and secure prison, he has to use his skills to escape with help from prisoner Emil Rottmayer (Arnold Schwarzenegger) on the inside.
The Fifth Estate ★★★
An account of Julian Assange and the founding of WikiLeaks. It’s awash in details, and Benedict Cumberbatch gives a good performance as Assange, but there’s no real life or meaning to it: like a big WikiLeaks exposé, it just lies there, waiting to be understood.
Gravity ★★★ ½
Sandra Bullock plays a medical engineer who ends up free-floating in outer space without any hope of rescue in this taut thriller from Alfonso Cuaron. Because the 3-D visuals are jaw-dropping and Cuaron creates a complete sense of real space and real time, it’s hard not to feel all the excitement and terror of being in orbit.
The Heat ★★ ½
Prim Sandra Bullock and vulgar Melissa McCarthy can’t get much chemistry going in this buddy film about two mismatched police officers on the trail of a drug gang.
The Hunt ★★★★
Thomas Vinterberg (The Cel- ebration) directs this elegant but highly disturbing story about a kindergarten teacher falsely accused of molesting a student. Though it functions well on the surface as a dramatic thriller, the deeper story indicts society at large, and our insatiable thirst for villains worthy of ceremonial destruction.
Insidious: Chapter 2 ★★ ½
The sequel to the 2010 hit about a family haunted by a malevolent presence is less successful, mostly because it has to explain too much. Living in a series of haunted houses, the family stumbles on a story about a mad killer.
Lee Daniels’ The Butler ★★★
A combination of black history lesson and melodrama with Forest Whitaker as a butler in the White House. His story and the parallel tale of his son — an angry activist — provide a cross-section of the civil rights movement more pedantic than personal.
Machete Kills ★★ ½
The further adventures of the grindhouse creation — an exfederale hired to stop a Mexican madman from bombing Washington. The magnificently wrinkled Danny Trejo heads a list of unlikely stars in a so-bad-it’s-good story that’s losing its ironic appeal.
Monsters University ★★★
Designed as a prequel to Monsters, Inc., this reel lacks the imaginative power of its predecessor but it still proves entertaining as it gives us the backstory behind Mike and Sully’s friendship, two monsters who dream of inhabiting children’s nightmares. The Mortal Instruments: City of
Bones ★★ ½
This film seems like just another entry in the get-special-quick franchise of young adult fantasy, with a plot well tread enough to warrant a toll road.
But touches of humour and selfdeprecation help redeem it somewhat.
One Direction: This Is Us ★★
½ Morgan Spurlock’s signature smirk is hard to find in this 3D documentary spectacle that follows the popular boy band on its 2011 world tour. The movie feels more like a commercial.
Pacific Rim ★★★ ½
Director Guillermo del Toro blends the best of Godzilla and Blade Runner in this story of a war between extraterrestrial monsters and human beings. Del Toro crafts a film that exploits Bmovie tradition with intelligence and humour.
Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters ★★★
Coming across a bit like something an exhausted father might try to conjure on the fly as his child begs for an original bedtime story late at night, this second instalment in the Percy Jackson series about a young demigod (Logan Lerman) trying to save the world — again — is a bit all over the map.
Planes ★★
In this animated Disney offering starring Dane Cook, Stacy Keach and Brad Garrett, Dusty Crophopper is a lowly crop-dusting plane with dreams of winning an around-the-world aerial race. The problem? He is hopelessly afraid of heights.
Prisoners ★★★ ½
Denis Villeneuve directs Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal in this smart, well-conceived thriller about two girls who disappear, and the desperate search to find them.
Red 2 ★★★
Bruce Willis and Helen Mirren head this sequel to the comic book yarn about Cold War spies recruited to save the day one more
time. It tries to cook up a romantic comedy side dish that goes nowhere while the rest of the movie cruises on the gag of action movie cliché played out by older folk.
The Right Kind of Wrong ★
A childish romantic comedy, directed by Jeremiah S. Chechik — his return to the big screen after 15 years of exile following the 1998 fiasco The Avengers. TV heartthrob Ryan Kwanten (True Blood) stars as Leo, who is dumped by his girlfriend and soon falls in love with someone else’s bride (Sara Canning).
Romeo & Juliet ★★★
Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes offers a traditional but accessible Romeo & Juliet for a new generation. The screenwriter abbreviates speeches and shaves down scenes, and the effect is a condensed study guide version for the impatient 21st century junior high set. Hailee Steinfeld (Juliet) is a little awkward with Shakespeare, but Damian Lewis (Lord Capulet) seems patently uncomfortable with the language.
Runner Runner ★★ ½
The world of online poker is the focus of this thriller that finds a college student (Justin Timberlake), who thinks he has figured out how to beat an Internet gaming site, see all his winnings go down the drain. He sets out to meet the owner of the company (Ben Affleck) and soon falls under his sway.
Rush ★★★★
A compelling film about car racing and the men who do it. Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Bruhl play James Hunt and Niki Lauda, who staged a monumental duel to be Formula One champion in 1976.
The Smurfs 2 ★★ ½
In the Smurfs sequel, the scheming Gargamel kidnaps Smurfette. It isn’t for everyone but the characters remain as lovable as ever, and will likely entertain the desired pint-sized demographic even if they leave parents a little blue.
Turbo ★★★ ½
Ryan Reynolds voices Turbo, a little garden snail with big dreams of winning the Indianapolis 500. Director David Soren and his cast have enough new turns to keep this underdog from becoming roadkill.
Unfinished Song ★★★
Terence Stamp and Vanessa Redgrave play an elderly couple facing the final curtain in this predictable, but nonetheless sincere, story about the importance of self-expression and singing the song in your heart without fear.
Watermark ★★★★
Jennifer Baichwal and Edward Burtynsky, the filmmakers behind Manufactured Landscapes, return with a new documentary in a similar vein. This time, they fly us around the world and show how water has been redirected to meet man’s insatiable needs.