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Man of Steel (PG-13) 143 mins.
Zack Snyder's Man of Steel is a movie event with an actual movie inside, crying to get out. Despite its preposterous self-seriousness, its overgrown, CGI'ed-to-death climax, and its desperate efforts to depict the destruction of, well, everything... More »
Zack Snyder's Man of Steel is a movie event with an actual movie inside, crying to get out. Despite its preposterous self-seriousness, its overgrown, CGI'ed-to-death climax, and its desperate efforts to depict the destruction of, well, everything on Earth, there's greatness in this retelling of the origin of Superman, moments of intimate grandeur, some marvelous, subtle acting, and a superhero costume that's a feat of mad mod genius. There's almost a story here. And the actors, including the picture's quietly dazzling star, Henry Cavill, do their damnedest to draw it out. But there’s no stopping what comic-book movies have become, especially those bearing the royal seal of Dark Knight auteur Christopher Nolan. (He's one of Man of Steel's producers and also helped develop the story.) In Man of Steel, the titan in the red cape is almost a distraction from the movie's larger mission to impress us with its spectacle and vague, lofty ideals. And once Michael Shannon's General Zod shows up on Earth with his dumb little goatee, you know it will only get bigger and emptier. It's a relief just to watch the actors act once in a while, and thankfully, Snyder is astute enough to punch some breathing holes in this steel-clad colossus. Amy Adams is a fine, no-nonsense Lois Lane; she makes nosiness sultry. And Kevin Costner and Diane Lane, in their depiction of heartland parents, turn corn-pone dialogue golden. No wonder their pensive, angst-ridden kid grows up to be Henry Cavill, so who grounds the movie. His Superman is more a listener than a talker. That's probably what happens when you have X-ray vision, and you can see Cavill soaking it all in. « Less
Digital Projection (4:00 PM), 7:00 PM
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Fast & Furious 6 (PG-13) 130 mins.
Much more entertaining than you might expect for one with "fast" or "furious" or "six" in the title, director Justin Lin's Fast & Furious 6 offers the series' most resplendent parade of chases and crashes yet, all shot and cut in that radical new... More »
Much more entertaining than you might expect for one with "fast" or "furious" or "six" in the title, director Justin Lin's Fast & Furious 6 offers the series' most resplendent parade of chases and crashes yet, all shot and cut in that radical new style, the one where audiences can apprehend in one viewing just what is supposed to be going on. In the most exciting sequence, there's a tank to be brought down, a hilariously high and long bridge, and winning business with a harpoon. That ridiculousness is topped by the climax, when the franchise's action figures must stop a cargo plane from taking off. Everybody races at what seems to be impossible speeds, for what seems to be 15 minutes, down what certainly is the world's longest runway. There's nothing to laud here in terms of storytelling, and the dialogue is all quips and exposition, but Lin aces something rare: the spirit of freewheeling play. His chases seem to take place in the mind of a 10-year-old, and there are few of the stiff dramatic scenes that in earlier editions suggested that 10-year-old's Hot Wheels had gotten stuck in the sandbox. Tyrese is given more one-liners than he's had since 2 Fast 2 Furious. Warheaded leads Vin Diesel and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson leaven their hulking by making it clear their characters relish the mayhem. And the non-vehicular action is ace, especially an extended womano a womano between Gina Carano and Michelle Rodriguez, and one sublimely dumb bit of tag-team ass-kicking from Diesel and Johnson. « Less
Digital Projection (4:20 PM), 7:10 PM
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After Earth (PG-13) 100 mins.
Digital Projection (4:50 PM), 7:40 PM
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This Is The End (R) 107 mins.
The formula for studio comedies the last 20 years has been simple: Dude acts like a dick for an hour, turns blandly sweet toward the end, and then everyone on the DVD commentary can claim to have made a movie about redemption. Perhaps Seth Rogen... More »
The formula for studio comedies the last 20 years has been simple: Dude acts like a dick for an hour, turns blandly sweet toward the end, and then everyone on the DVD commentary can claim to have made a movie about redemption. Perhaps Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's wrath-of-God hang-out flick This Is the End can kill redemption cold. A deeply nondenominational Left Behind rip, the film makes absurdly literal the prick-becomes-a-man plotting that has held sway since Billy Madison. Here, it's judgment day, and our schlubby everydudes (playing themselves, who aren't everydudes at all) are holed up for the apocalypse in James Franco's compound. After much talk of where it's appropriate to ejaculate, the lugs--including Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson, and Franco--realize the obvious: Good people have already been raptured, and these guys haven't. ("I'm an actor," one moans in disbelief. "I bring people joy!") If they want a happy ending, and not to be devoured by horizon-straddling hellbeasts with schoolbus-sized phalluses, they'll have to stop being dicks and give the universe a reason to love them. Baruchel treats us to a winning shy-dude turn reminiscent of his itchy, appealing work years back on Judd Apatow's TV comedy Undeclared, and when all the cock-talk lets up, Rogen and Goldberg parade memorable surprises. There are ridiculous cameos (Emma Watson spits "fuck" like the word still means something), shock-effect horror kills (often of those cameo-ing actors), and stoned riffs on The Exorcist and Pineapple Express. Especially pleasurable are the light, hilarious gags on the cluelessness of Hollywood actors, especially from Jonah Hill, who has rarely been this disarming. « Less
Digital Projection (4:40 PM), 7:20 PM
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Man of Steel 3D (PG-13) 143 mins.
Zack Snyder's Man of Steel is a movie event with an actual movie inside, crying to get out. Despite its preposterous self-seriousness, its overgrown, CGI'ed-to-death climax, and its desperate efforts to depict the destruction of, well, everything... More »
Zack Snyder's Man of Steel is a movie event with an actual movie inside, crying to get out. Despite its preposterous self-seriousness, its overgrown, CGI'ed-to-death climax, and its desperate efforts to depict the destruction of, well, everything on Earth, there's greatness in this retelling of the origin of Superman, moments of intimate grandeur, some marvelous, subtle acting, and a superhero costume that's a feat of mad mod genius. There's almost a story here. And the actors, including the picture's quietly dazzling star, Henry Cavill, do their damnedest to draw it out. But there’s no stopping what comic-book movies have become, especially those bearing the royal seal of Dark Knight auteur Christopher Nolan. (He's one of Man of Steel's producers and also helped develop the story.) In Man of Steel, the titan in the red cape is almost a distraction from the movie's larger mission to impress us with its spectacle and vague, lofty ideals. And once Michael Shannon's General Zod shows up on Earth with his dumb little goatee, you know it will only get bigger and emptier. It's a relief just to watch the actors act once in a while, and thankfully, Snyder is astute enough to punch some breathing holes in this steel-clad colossus. Amy Adams is a fine, no-nonsense Lois Lane; she makes nosiness sultry. And Kevin Costner and Diane Lane, in their depiction of heartland parents, turn corn-pone dialogue golden. No wonder their pensive, angst-ridden kid grows up to be Henry Cavill, so who grounds the movie. His Superman is more a listener than a talker. That's probably what happens when you have X-ray vision, and you can see Cavill soaking it all in. « Less
(4:30 PM), 7:30 PM
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The Purge (R) 85 mins.
The hook of this R-rated horror film would also work for a superior young-adult novel. A decade from now, the U.S. has mostly solved its crime and unemployment problems with one Hunger Games-style tweak: On one night in March it's perfectly legal... More »
The hook of this R-rated horror film would also work for a superior young-adult novel. A decade from now, the U.S. has mostly solved its crime and unemployment problems with one Hunger Games-style tweak: On one night in March it's perfectly legal for Americans to kill anyone they want to. With the wealthy locked down in their homes, it's the poor who tend to die on purge night, often at the hands of gangs of "hunters" shouting things like "Die, homeless pig!" The movie disapproves of this behavior but lends it ugly credence in the implication that the economy is booming thanks to the elimination of what Paul Ryan would call "the takers." As always in YA, one sensitive kid figures out that all of society is evil or phonies or whatever. In this case it's the excellent Max Burkholder, playing a likable inventor geek holed up with his family to wait out purge night. After some misadventures, he sees a black homeless man (Edwin Hodge) running down the street of their ritzy subdivision. The man screams "Help me!" Gunshots crack in the night. The kid, not up on his Ayn Rand, disables the elaborate security system and invites the man inside. Think Guess Who's Coming to Be a Moral Quandary? Soon, a lynch mob demands the man be surrendered-- or the family be killed. Writer-director James DeMonaco wrings this for some memorably tense scenes, but all this big-idea drama soon gives way to too many scenes of Ethan Hawke dispatching more faceless adversaries than is justifiable in a film committed to reminding us of the horribleness of violence. « Less
Digital Projection 5:00 PM, 7:50 PM
