Shiny Oblivion can’t hide its flaws
OBLIVION Two and a half stars
Tom Cruise realizes the ultimate Tom Cruise fantasy of acting opposite Tom Cruise in this high-concept sciencefiction movie that plays on themes of the apocalypse as well as a terrorist threat from the outside. Everything about the movie is clean and shiny, especially Cruise, who plays a squeaky-clean maintenance technician floating above Earth with his girlfriend (Andrea Riseborough). Everything seems safe and comfortable until a survival pod crash-lands on the planet, forcing Cruise’s character to probe his own memory banks for clues.
THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES Three stars
Few actors are capable of combining so much sex appeal with innate pathos, but Ryan Gosling does it with mere glances, resuscitating the Brando-inspired tradition of the broken yet muscular and potent emotional man. It’s a truly beautiful thing to behold, and it’s the biggest — if not the only — reason to embrace Derek Cianfrance’s latest artsy melodrama, The Place Beyond the Pines. A cumbersome two-story idea that begins with a gritty Gosling love story featuring Eva Mendes, Cianfrance tries to show us the consequences of our actions by introducing the next generation via Bradley Cooper as a cop. It doesn’t work at all, but the ideas are strong enough for us to follow along before we forget.
MUD Three and a half stars
Carefully crafting films that fly just below the political radar, director-writer Jeff Nichols is slowly but surely reweaving the very fabric of the American Dream. He pulls this off in
Mud, a moody piece of Southern Gothic, starring Matthew McConaughey that traces its knobby roots to the swampy source of American fiction as it revisits the landscape of Huck Finn. Opening with a shot of two boys getting into a boat and heading off to a deserted island in the middle of the Mississippi, Nichols immediately ramps up the suspense by making our youthful heroes curious and impulsive — as well as highly vulnerable. When they meet Mud, a mysterious man on the beach who believes in the paranormal and true love, everything around them starts to float. It works. More impressive still, McConaughey keeps his shirt on.
TO THE WONDER Three stars
To the Wonder, indeed. This latest Terrence Malick piece will make you wonder about a lot of things as your mind wanders through the nooks and crannies of his spinning labyrinth of textures and fragmented narrative. Malick ensures we pause and reflect at every available moment as we observe, from an artsy but nonetheless voyeuristic perspective, a dual manifestation of romantic love.
ON THE ROAD Two stars
Though Walter Salles creates some of the most evocative period images we’ve seen in decades, this adaptation of the seminal Beat work by Jack Kerouac finds absolutely no satisfaction as it drags us through one flat scene after another. Perhaps Salles wanted to make his viewer feel trapped in an endless hangover, but it turns out to be entirely draining and more than a little depressing. Not even the supposedly emancipatory sex scenes feel sensuous. In fact, everything looks so seedy and soaked in booze you start to feel dirty by merely observing the debauchery. A truly disappointing tip of the pork pie hat to the era, On the Road lingers a little too long at the rest stop. Also released today: Bruce Lee: The Legacy Collection Cavalcade The Clearing Cream: The Farewell Concert Dogs on a Run: Tom Petty Musical Documentary Duck Dynasty: Season Three The Earrings of Madame De… Eddie: The Sleepwalking Cannibal Gordon Lightfoot Greatest Hits Live Ishtar Midsomer Murders One Direction: All the Way to the Top Pagemaster Political Animals: The Complete Series Robin Hood: 40th Anniversary Edition The Sapphires Secrets of Althorp: The Spencers The Sword in the Stone: 40th Anniversary Edition Silver Streak Smash: Season Two Storm Surfers 3D Swamp Thing Tomboy Tower of Evil West of Memphis Wing Commander The World Before Her WWII Top Secret: Dieppe Uncovered