AMC Burbank Town Center 8

Picture Zero Dark Thirty with bright pullovers and laser guns and you’ll have Star Trek Into Darkness, whose heavy-handed political parallels just might feel smart in a summer of Vin Diesel crashing cars. In the opening minutes, Khan Noonien... More »

Picture Zero Dark Thirty with bright pullovers and laser guns and you’ll have Star Trek Into Darkness, whose heavy-handed political parallels just might feel smart in a summer of Vin Diesel crashing cars. In the opening minutes, Khan Noonien Singh (Benedict Cumberbatch) terrorizes London, then makes like Osama and flees to the mountains of an enemy planet, causing Starfleet Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller) to order his assassination, sans trial. Here justice will be served by the blubbering James T. Kirk (Chris Pine), who so bleeds his humanity across the Enterprise’s deck that it’s a wonder Chekhov (Anton Yelchin) doesn’t slip. Again, the central conflict is between the Captain’s swaggering impetuousness and the cold-blooded logic of First Mate Spock (Zachary Quinto). After setting up its War on Terror allusions, Star Trek Into Darkness becomes Paradise Lost in Space: It’s a battle for the good captain’s soul, as Kirk is torn between Spock’s wisdom and Admiral Marcus’s war-mongering. Can Khan destroy him simply by smashing his moral code? J.J. Abrams externalizes Kirk’s turmoil by making him spend every second scene suffering unsolicited advice about what to do. The character feels neutered, despite an early romp where he beds twin hotties with tails. His only real love is for the Enterprise, that hermaphroditic ship shaped like three phalluses and a flattened boob. Abrams, meanwhile, lifts Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan’s climax, thievery that will enrage the devout as it suggests the Star Trek saga is merely a game of Mad Libs in which he plugs characters and catastrophes. « Less

CC-Closed Captions;Digital Presentation (10:00 AM), (11:30 AM), 12:40 PM, 3:00 PM, 4:00 PM, 6:05 PM, 7:15 PM, 9:15 PM, 10:35 PM

Regardless of its cavemen-acquire-brains plot, The Croods is no more evolved than your average kids' film, boasting modern attitude, animal-sidekick comic relief, familial struggles, and roller coaster action. While rife with contemporary lingo... More »

Regardless of its cavemen-acquire-brains plot, The Croods is no more evolved than your average kids' film, boasting modern attitude, animal-sidekick comic relief, familial struggles, and roller coaster action. While rife with contemporary lingo that makes little sense for a story about a prehistoric clan facing extinction, Kirk DeMicco and Chris Sanders's bouncy CG adventure at least partially offsets its stock formula with passable one-liners and sincere heart. The latter comes from the tense relationship between cro-mag dad Grug (Nicolas Cage), who values survival in dark caves over living in the light, and curious and headstrong daughter Eep (Emma Stone), whose rebelliousness blossoms after meeting creative-thinking, fire-making hunk Guy (Ryan Reynolds). Amid chase sequences set in an Avatar-ish old-Earth of colorful fantasy animals and enormous vegetation, Guy introduces the Croods to inventions like shoes and umbrellas — newfangled ideas that threaten Grug's patriarchal authority and bond with Eep. That these ancient ancestors of ours have superhuman strength and speed is as perplexing as their banter is incessant. Their good-natured tale, however, does sweetly reconfirm that there's life still in the oldest jokes, such as a father's fear of his daughter dating-- or, via a running gag involving Grug and Gran (Cloris Leachman), of a husband's hatred of his mother-in-law. « Less

CC/DVS-Closed Captions & Descriptive Video;Digital Presentation (10:00 AM), 12:30 PM, 6:15 PM, 8:50 PM

Where has Robert Downey Jr. gone? There’s no doubt he’s the star of Iron Man 3; he sprints through the picture like a neurotic panther. And yet he’s curiously absent, detached in a Zenlike way from the whole affair. The nakedness that defines his... More »

Where has Robert Downey Jr. gone? There’s no doubt he’s the star of Iron Man 3; he sprints through the picture like a neurotic panther. And yet he’s curiously absent, detached in a Zenlike way from the whole affair. The nakedness that defines his best performances has become, paradoxically, a kind of mask, not unlike the sleek, airbrushed-looking one he wears as the superhero incarnation of cocky kajillionaire Tony Stark. Today, Downey could play Stark in his sleep. The jittery self-doubt, the look-at-me hubris, the Boy Scout cluelessness about women: He’s become so proficient in his believability that you can hardly believe a minute of it. Maybe you don’t need to believe much in Iron Man 3. This is the first in the franchise to be directed by Shane Black, and only the second picture the prolific action screenwriter has made. (The first was the marvelously nerve-jangling Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, also starring Downey.) On the plus side, Black has a puckish sense of humor, and shows a healthy resistance to the comic-booky self-seriousness of the Batman movies. The villains in Iron Man 3, for example, include the Mandarin, a pointy-bearded sage who’s half Osama bin Laden, half Ming the Merciless. He’s played with bug-eyed hamminess by Ben Kingsley, and the movie is spooky, silly, or both whenever he’s onscreen. But the big problems with Iron Man 3 are less specific to the movie itself than they are characteristic of the hypermalaise that’s infected so many current mega-blockbusters—too much plot, too much action, too many characters, too many pseudo-feelings. The mechanics of Iron Man 3 are complex and rambunctious, like Keystone Kops, bouncing off one another and ultimately canceling one another out. « Less

CC-Closed Captions;Digital Presentation (11:45 AM), 2:50 PM, 6:00 PM, 9:15 PM

Justin Zackham’s vile The Big Wedding opens with a foray back through silver-screen history. When Ellie (Diane Keaton) walks in on her ex-husband, Don (Robert De Niro), as he moves to perform kitchen-counter cunnilingus on his new girlfriend,... More »

Justin Zackham’s vile The Big Wedding opens with a foray back through silver-screen history. When Ellie (Diane Keaton) walks in on her ex-husband, Don (Robert De Niro), as he moves to perform kitchen-counter cunnilingus on his new girlfriend, Bebe (Susan Sarandon), it’s possible to see aging legends of the cinema imagined suddenly together, as if Annie Hall and Travis Bickle and Louise Sawyer one day found themselves playing out some producer’s laziest scene ideas . There is, in other words, a lot of history in The Big Wedding—a history the film not so much squanders as utterly defaces. The wedding here is an excuse to draw together cardboard characters whose prefab arcs end as obviously as they begin. The moment we’re introduced to virginal doctor Jared (Topher Grace), we can be assured that we’ll see him pop his proverbial cherry by film’s end. Same goes for elder sister Lyla (Katherine Heigl), whose pained journey from barren womb to baby bump is too predictable to bother spoiler-warning. All this is held together by casual racism. The son about to be married is Alejandro (Ben Barnes), adopted as a child from Colombia. His biological mother, the devoutly religious Madonna (Patricia Rae), will be visiting for the ceremony, joined by Nuria (Ana Ayora), Alejandro’s biological sister, and together the two represent some of the most repugnant foreign stereotyping in years. The film divides these women—the only non-white characters—into a literal mother/whore dichotomy. Nuria is relegated to the demeaning role of an exotic Other only present to strip nude and seduce one of the white male leads. « Less

CC-Closed Captions;Digital Presentation (10:15 AM), 1:00 PM, 3:15 PM, 6:00 PM, 8:15 PM

A likable hagiography as nuanced as a plaque at the Cooperstown Hall of Fame, Brian Helgeland's Jackie Robinson bio 42 finds a politic solution to the challenge Quentin Tarantino faced last year with Django Unchained: How to craft a... More »

A likable hagiography as nuanced as a plaque at the Cooperstown Hall of Fame, Brian Helgeland's Jackie Robinson bio 42 finds a politic solution to the challenge Quentin Tarantino faced last year with Django Unchained: How to craft a crowd-pleasing multiplex period piece whose villain is, essentially, "all white people"? Helgeland solves this by—to flip a racist phrase of the day—showing us that Brooklyn Dodgers GM Branch Rickey (a phlegmatic Harrison Ford) is one of the good ones, a white guy who transcended his upbringing to become a credit to his race. In the first half, the big moments of drift past like parade floats: well-crafted, incidentally arresting, but not strung together into a dramatic narrative. Things pick up the closer Robinson gets to Ebbets Field—here a video-game recreation that never quite fools the eye. In the majors, we have a story, one that grows more and more compelling right up until the climax's ridiculously protracted slow-mo baserunning. Some Dodgers revolt against Robinson's arrival, pitchers aim for his face, and a Philadelphia coach shouts "You don't belong here! Get that through your thick monkey skull!" A dusty intimacy distinguishes the baseball scenes, which are excellent, if abbreviated. Robinson's duels with pitchers are especially involving, both at the plate and on base, where he harrows the bastards like Bugs Bunny might Elmer Fudd. Chadwick Boseman (playing Robinson) mostly manages to play a flesh-and-blood man despite 42's attempts to present him as a statue just unveiled. Movingly, as Robinson suffers the white world's abuse, Boseman's eyes moisten, redden, and finally seem to scab over with anger and hurt. « Less

CC/DVS-Closed Captions & Des;Digital Presentation 2:40 PM, 10:30 PM

Until his arrest in 1986, most people believed Richard Kuklinski to be an all-American family man. In reality this suburban New Jersey "banker" made his fortune working as hit man for the Mafia, killing over 100 people and often freezing and... More »

Until his arrest in 1986, most people believed Richard Kuklinski to be an all-American family man. In reality this suburban New Jersey "banker" made his fortune working as hit man for the Mafia, killing over 100 people and often freezing and dismembering their bodies to obscure the time of death. Depicted in the tone of a film noir and tinged with the tensions of a horror movie, Ariel Vromen's The Iceman follows this sociopath over the course of his career. Michael Shannon portrays Kuklinski in his dual lives, the highs of success spliced with acts of brutal murder, from the courtship with his wife, Barbara (played by a doe-eyed and anxious Winona Ryder), to his induction into a mob run by Ray Liotta, and a temporary partnership with a bohemian hit man who drives a Mr. Freezy truck (Chris Evans, untamed). Shannon gives an unnerving performance as a man caged in a cruel apathy, maintaining a controlled façade that seems to twitch with barely sublimated distress. Vromen hints at the motivations behind the psyche of a killer-- an abusive father and a Catholic yet godless upbringing (see James Franco cameo)-- and allows fragments of sympathy to slip in for Kuklinski and the fate set out for him from the film's clanking start: a life behind bars. The slasher gore is lightened with moments of humor, like David Schwimmer's handlebar mustache and dopey portrayal as Liotta's right-hand man, which elicits unintentional laughter. Ultimately The Iceman is a blend of Mafia-film cliché and the jarring reality of lives undone by crime. « Less

AMC INDEPENDENT;Digital Presentation (10:20 AM), 12:50 PM, 3:30 PM, 6:20 PM, 9:10 PM

Recently, African-American-directed relationship movies have hewed toward either incongruous absurdity (Think Like a Man), overt sentimentality (Jumping the Broom), or, in Tyler Perry's work, both. Long gone feel the days of complex films like... More »

Recently, African-American-directed relationship movies have hewed toward either incongruous absurdity (Think Like a Man), overt sentimentality (Jumping the Broom), or, in Tyler Perry's work, both. Long gone feel the days of complex films like Two Can Play That Game, Mark Brown's modern screwball comedy that provided hilarity alongside a clear-eyed critique of romantic battle. Writer-director Tina Gordon Chism's Peeples lacks the energy of Two Can Play That Game, but like that picture it manages to deliver farce without compromising realism. Craig Robinson (The Office) stars as Wade Walker, a musician who shows up uninvited at his girlfriend’s parents' house for the weekend, planning to win the approval of her father, Virgil (David Alan Grier), and propose. (Kerry Washington plays the betrothed-to-be.) Unfortunately, Wade hardly fits in with what he terms Virgil's "chocolate Kennedys" lifestyle, and the expected sparks get to flying. Peeples finds effective comedy exploring secrets underneath the familial "perfection" Virgil assiduously cultivates, via his closeted lesbian daughter (Kali Hawk) and thieving son, Simon (Tyler James Williams), a nerd who thinks he must establish thuggish bona fides, and insists on being called "Sy." However, physical comedy set pieces, like an elaborate fraternity dance Virgil performs, feel uninspired. Malcolm Barrett is given a plum role as Wade’s wacky sidekick, but fails to knock it out of the park as Mike Epps or Anthony Anderson would have once done. Yet while she doesn't quite achieve the screwball zaniness she strives for, Chism deserves commendation for crafting a farcical work that feels like it concerns real characters. « Less

CC-Closed Captions;Digital Presentation (11:20 AM), 1:50 PM, 4:20 PM, 6:40 PM, 9:20 PM

Doesn't America promise riches and luxury to people who deserve it? Daniel Lugo-- the lead in Michael Bay's neon-noir ode to Miami, muscle tone, and the modern American dream-- believes so, but is stuck as an underpaid personal trainer at Miami... More »

Doesn't America promise riches and luxury to people who deserve it? Daniel Lugo-- the lead in Michael Bay's neon-noir ode to Miami, muscle tone, and the modern American dream-- believes so, but is stuck as an underpaid personal trainer at Miami Lakes' Sun Gym, where he boosts the confidence of customers far less chiseled than he and dreams of a better (read: richer) life. So, together with some muscle-bound accomplices, Lugo plots to kidnap his rich and ever-sneering Colombian client Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub) and torture him until he gives up everything he owns: his swanky mansion, successful deli, bright orange speedboat, the works. Bay's film is based on, and mostly faithful to, a true story penned by Pete Collins for the Miami New Times in late 1999. The Sun Gym Gang isn't made up of professional mobsters. They’re musclebound egotists with a sense of importance more inflated than their steroid-pumped pecs, and Bay wastes no opportunity for laughs at their bungling. Dressed in military fatigues, they show up at Kershaw's home expecting to catch him alone; he's hosting a seder. Though this story needs no embellishment, Bay can't help himself. He adds wild shootouts, slo-mo effects, Instagram-esque freeze-frames and B-movie–style gore. (Those who remember the Sun Gym Gang's murdered victims probably won't appreciate seeing one of their heads explode like a pumpkin beneath a falling barbell weight.) When the story crashes into a too-perfect ending, it's because Bay was led astray by the same things that got the Sun Gym Gang into this mess in the first place: superficiality, ambition and the belief that reality just isn't good enough. « Less

CC-Closed Captions;Digital Presentation (10:05 AM), 1:00 PM, 4:00 PM, 7:00 PM, 10:10 PM