Cinemark Paradise 24 and XD

Cinemark XD RealD 3D 10:55 AM, 12:30 PM, 2:10 PM, 3:45 PM, 5:30 PM, 7:00 PM, 8:45 PM, 10:15 PM, 12:01 AM

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

Digital Cinema 10:25 AM, 12:55 PM, 3:25 PM

Digital Cinema 10:30 AM, 11:35 AM, 1:40 PM, 2:50 PM, 4:55 PM, 6:10 PM, 8:15 PM, 9:30 PM, 11:25 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

Digital Cinema 10:05 AM, 11:45 AM, 1:05 PM, 2:50 PM, 4:10 PM, 5:55 PM, 7:15 PM, 9:05 PM, 10:20 PM, 12:05 AM

The good news: Here's a lavish, serious science-fiction picture, one that on occasion transcends big-budget hit-making convention to glance audiences up against grandeur. Joseph Kosinski's Oblivion, based on his own graphic novel, is one of those... More »

The good news: Here's a lavish, serious science-fiction picture, one that on occasion transcends big-budget hit-making convention to glance audiences up against grandeur. Joseph Kosinski's Oblivion, based on his own graphic novel, is one of those futuristic puzzlers whose dramatic energies are most invested in the slow revelation of its own premise. You'll doubt the initial set-up-- it's 2077, and the Earth has been nuked in humanity's defeat of an invading alien force-- the second the hero mentions having recently had his memory wiped and that his wife has been "assigned" to him. Which brings us to Tom Cruise, the not-good news, that plot-moving app producers can download for their blockbusters but is still stuck with the usual bugs. He models sunglasses, races dirt bikes, and runs like a .gif titled "Tom Cruise Running." He's called Jack Harper-- is there a spigot in Hollywood that dispenses action hero names?―and each day he zips down to Earth from his home in the clouds, a Frank Lloyd Wright casserole dish speared atop a Jetsons pole. With the rest of our kind sent off to live on Titan, Harper traverses a ruined U.S. to monitor and repair the patrol drones designed to protect―well, what exactly they're protecting is a third-act revelation you’ll just have to wonder about until Harper finally does so himself. (The Cruise app never thinks more than required.) At its best, as Harper explores a cratered library, Oblivion takes on the immersiveness of video games. Here's your cypher/avatar, picking through a wide-open alien environment, with time given for you to savor the world around you. But then come the twists and explosions. « Less

Digital Cinema 1:30 PM, 4:25 PM, 7:20 PM, 10:10 PM

Picking up a mere seven years after the previous installment, Scary Movie V features no original cast members, no Wayans brothers producing (they bailed after No. 3) and a new director (first-timer Malcolm D. Lee). It's still terrible. For an... More »

Picking up a mere seven years after the previous installment, Scary Movie V features no original cast members, no Wayans brothers producing (they bailed after No. 3) and a new director (first-timer Malcolm D. Lee). It's still terrible. For an alleged comedy, it's remarkably laugh-free; as insta-parody, it already feels dated (Inception references?). Some observations: I'd wager all the gold from The Italian Job there are more laughs in the Pain & Gain trailer than are to be had in the whole Scary Movie franchise. The appearances of the movie’s guest stars almost perfectly mirrors the descending order of the squandered potential of their prior acting careers: Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan, Molly Shannon, Heather Locklear, Kate Walsh, Jasmine Guy, Darrell Hammond, Katt Williams, Jerry O'Connell. The Black Swan-inspired scene (don’t ask) in which Ashley Tisdale humps a microwave oven (really, don't) is only slightly more embarrassing than the entirety of High School Musical 3: Senior Year. Charlie Sheen calls his cat "Emilio." That was in the first five minutes, and it was the last time in the movie-- or the subsequent three days-- that I've come close to cracking a smile. Because Scary Movie V murdered my capacity to feel joy. « Less

Digital Cinema 10:20 PM, 12:05 AM

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

Digital Cinema 11:55 AM, 2:10 PM, 4:30 PM, 6:55 PM, 9:35 PM, 11:55 PM

Digital Cinema 10:35 AM, 1:35 PM, 4:35 PM, 7:35 PM, 10:35 PM

There's a scene in Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby in which Leonardo DiCaprio's hyperrich, super-awkward Jay Gatsby takes it upon himself to redecorate the bachelor pad of his less-prosperous friend, Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire). Gatsby's old... More »

There's a scene in Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby in which Leonardo DiCaprio's hyperrich, super-awkward Jay Gatsby takes it upon himself to redecorate the bachelor pad of his less-prosperous friend, Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire). Gatsby's old flame, Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan), is coming to Nick’s for tea. Eager to impress her, Gatsby has brought in boughs draped with explosive white flowers, macaroons in every color of the paintbox, and tiered cakes straight out of Marie Antoinette's court. "You think it's too much?" he asks Nick. Nick offers the polite answer: "I think it's what you want." The Great Gatsby is both too much and what Luhrmann wants, less a movie version of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel than a movie version of Jay Gatsby himself. It’s polished to a handsome sheen and possesses no class or taste beyond the kind you can buy. And those are the reasons to love it. The performers often look lost, but the movie moves, breathes, and has color on its side. Though Fitzgerald couldn't have known it, he wrote a scene tailor-made for 3-D, the one in which Gatsby rummages through his collection of brilliantly colored silk shirts and tosses one after another toward his lady love. In Luhrmann's vision, they float down around Daisy like polychrome snowflakes. It's all so fake. It should all be so horrible. But really, all Luhrmann has done is build a crazy art deco Taj Mahal to the glory of The Great Gatsby. Like Gatsby, Luhrmann is a faker but not a phony. Fitzgerald knew the difference. Can we see it, too? « Less

Digital Cinema 10:35 AM, 1:50 PM, 5:05 PM, 8:20 PM, 11:35 PM

There's a scene in Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby in which Leonardo DiCaprio's hyperrich, super-awkward Jay Gatsby takes it upon himself to redecorate the bachelor pad of his less-prosperous friend, Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire). Gatsby's old... More »

There's a scene in Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby in which Leonardo DiCaprio's hyperrich, super-awkward Jay Gatsby takes it upon himself to redecorate the bachelor pad of his less-prosperous friend, Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire). Gatsby's old flame, Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan), is coming to Nick’s for tea. Eager to impress her, Gatsby has brought in boughs draped with explosive white flowers, macaroons in every color of the paintbox, and tiered cakes straight out of Marie Antoinette's court. "You think it's too much?" he asks Nick. Nick offers the polite answer: "I think it's what you want." The Great Gatsby is both too much and what Luhrmann wants, less a movie version of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel than a movie version of Jay Gatsby himself. It’s polished to a handsome sheen and possesses no class or taste beyond the kind you can buy. And those are the reasons to love it. The performers often look lost, but the movie moves, breathes, and has color on its side. Though Fitzgerald couldn't have known it, he wrote a scene tailor-made for 3-D, the one in which Gatsby rummages through his collection of brilliantly colored silk shirts and tosses one after another toward his lady love. In Luhrmann's vision, they float down around Daisy like polychrome snowflakes. It's all so fake. It should all be so horrible. But really, all Luhrmann has done is build a crazy art deco Taj Mahal to the glory of The Great Gatsby. Like Gatsby, Luhrmann is a faker but not a phony. Fitzgerald knew the difference. Can we see it, too? « Less

RealD 3D 11:40 AM, 12:45 PM, 2:55 PM, 4:00 PM, 6:10 PM, 7:15 PM, 9:25 PM, 10:30 PM

Digital Cinema 6:35 PM, 9:15 PM

Digital Cinema 10:45 AM, 1:25 PM

"They do move in herds," Sam Neill marvels, purportedly gazing at his director's miracle dinosaurs but in reality directing his wonderment right into the camera-- and right out at us, the viewers whose herdability made such smash successes of... More »

"They do move in herds," Sam Neill marvels, purportedly gazing at his director's miracle dinosaurs but in reality directing his wonderment right into the camera-- and right out at us, the viewers whose herdability made such smash successes of Jurassic Parks one and two. (Our failure to turn out for director Joe Johnston's part three suggests that we at least prefer to be corralled by a master.) If you want to feel better about how Steven Spielberg can cue your brain to stirrings of fear or awe, it helps to think of him not as an artist but as an m.c.: Dude moves the crowd. Now converted to more-impressive-than-usual-3D, the original Jurassic Park is again set to herd in an audience, this time of parents already appreciative of its uneasy mix of Spielbergian wonder and Spielbergian terror, and of kids ready to discover the perverse pleasure of watching actors in their own demo scream and weep at the gnashing of T. rexes. Schindler's List, the other Spielberg hit of ’93, acknowledged that children in terror are actually no fun at all; perhaps that's why that one's shown as homework and this one's given a multiplex re-issue. The T. rex is worth the wait, but the wait itself is even more memorable—that water-shaking rumble scene was the go-to demo reel for peddlers of surround-sound home theater systems for most of the '90s. For all the still-dazzling CGI and creature puppetry, what sells this is the storm's-coming wonder Spielberg hadn't summoned so smartly since Close Encounters, here spliced with the candied dread of Jaws. « Less

RealD 3D 12:15 PM, 3:10 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

Digital Cinema 12:35 PM, 3:35 PM, 6:35 PM, 9:35 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

Digital Cinema 12:15 PM, 3:35 PM, 6:20 PM, 8:55 PM, 11:30 PM

Digital Cinema 1:20 PM, 3:55 PM, 6:30 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

Digital Cinema 11:10 AM, 1:35 PM, 4:45 PM, 6:05 PM, 7:10 PM, 8:30 PM, 9:35 PM, 11:00 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 shoot-outs, slow-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

Digital Cinema 12:25 PM, 3:30 PM, 7:05 PM, 10:25 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

RealD 3D 10:55 AM, 2:00 PM, 3:40 PM, 5:05 PM, 6:45 PM, 8:10 PM, 9:50 PM, 11:15 PM

Digital Cinema 10:20 AM, 1:10 PM, 4:40 PM, 7:30 PM, 10:30 PM

Digital Cinema 5:30 PM