Elvis Cinemas Arvada 8

There are big, tall, terrible, fleshy, bulbous-headed giants in the sky-- and, eventually, on earth-- in Jack the Giant Slayer, X-Men director Bryan Singer's big-budget, gently revisionist, 3-D spin on "Jack and the Beanstalk." It's a journey... More »

There are big, tall, terrible, fleshy, bulbous-headed giants in the sky-- and, eventually, on earth-- in Jack the Giant Slayer, X-Men director Bryan Singer's big-budget, gently revisionist, 3-D spin on "Jack and the Beanstalk." It's a journey facilitated by the eponymous Jack (Nicholas Hoult), the naïve farm boy who trades his horse for magic beans that sprout up like some unholy tincture of Miracle-Gro and HGH, putting both Jack and an intrepid princess (newcomer Eleanor Tomlinson) face to face with mankind's potential extinction. The story is hardly original or surprising, but the supremely confident Singer lends Jack an enjoyably old-fashioned showmanship that recalls a time when movie illusions were created by hand rather than by computer. Hoult (Warm Bodies) makes for an appealing lead, with the hesitant milk-fed smile of the young Tom Cruise and an unforced chemistry with Tomlinson. Simply put: Any five minutes of this is preferable to all of The Hobbit. « Less

(1:30 PM), (5:00 PM), 7:30 PM, 9:45 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

(1:30 PM), (3:30 PM), (5:30 PM), 7:30 PM, 9:30 PM

As with her Twilight series, the infelicities of Stephenie Meyer's The Host-- drab dialogue, ridiculous plotting, more emotional crises than story-- are enlivened by its thematic eccentricities. For all her programmatic love triangles, Meyer's... More »

As with her Twilight series, the infelicities of Stephenie Meyer's The Host-- drab dialogue, ridiculous plotting, more emotional crises than story-- are enlivened by its thematic eccentricities. For all her programmatic love triangles, Meyer's fantasy is at least humane. You know how most fantasy adventures films have their orcs or stormtroopers or Germans who the good guys have a grand time genociding? The Host's heroine-- or heroines, more on that later-- actually forbids her friends from killing any of the parasitic space-protozoa who have taken over the bodies of most of the Earth’s population and are actively hunting down the last human survivors. Of course, that's only after she's slumped about for much of the story (in true Meyer fashion) trying to choose between two hunks who seemed to me interchangeable—despite living holed up in a Utah cave, far from civilization, both appear to have gym memberships and limitless access hair product. Once she is stirred to action, the heroine-- a part-human, part-alien frump played by Saoirsie Ronan-- argues for peace. This isn't quite like if Princess Leia, post-Alderaan, urged appeasement with the Empire as she sulked over whether she preferred Luke or Han. Instead, Ronan's Melanie understands the low odds of a human victory and hits upon a solution that isn't all pew-pew. She even suggests to the surviving Earthlings that best way to handle the invading force is to show it love-- the thing that makes us human, and the thing that the aliens can learn from. The movie's a slog, but it's nice to see Hollywood offer an option besides killing every motherfucker in the room. « Less

9:15 PM

In this wittily gory remake of the revered 1981 debut of Oz the Great and Powerful filmmaker Sam Raimi, five college-age friends go to the ol' cabin in the woods where the nerd of the group (Lou Taylor Pucci) commits a common camping mistake:... More »

In this wittily gory remake of the revered 1981 debut of Oz the Great and Powerful filmmaker Sam Raimi, five college-age friends go to the ol' cabin in the woods where the nerd of the group (Lou Taylor Pucci) commits a common camping mistake: reading aloud from a book of the dead. Cue an invisible demon that uses tree limbs to rape and thereby possess Mia (Jane Levy), who returns to the cabin eager to slice and dice her friends, as well as her brother (Shiloh Fernandez). In a virtuoso feature debut, Uruguayan-born writer-director Fede Alvarez and co-writer Rodo Sayagues honor the motifs of the original, from the camera rushing pell-mell through the woods to signal the demon's arrival, to the deployment of a chainsaw in the final showdown. But the plotting as a whole feels fresh, as does the emphasis on women strong enough to defend themselves. Alvarez also honors Raimi, who co-produced this remake, in another key way: The film's special effects are created with old-fashioned prosthetics and buckets of blood, which lend a horrifically tactile reality to such moments as when the possessed Mia slices her own tongue in two. Dare ya not to look. « Less

(1:45 PM), (3:45 PM), (5:45 PM), 7:45 PM, 9:45 PM

It's not enough to call this the rare franchise action movie to bring the goods; it's the even rarer one whose creators seem to understand what the goods even are. Your ticket should come with a fight card: squad versus squad, bruiser versus... More »

It's not enough to call this the rare franchise action movie to bring the goods; it's the even rarer one whose creators seem to understand what the goods even are. Your ticket should come with a fight card: squad versus squad, bruiser versus bruiser, ninja versus ninja, second-string ninja versus ancient ninja training lady, jeep-tank versus tank-jeep, bullets versus throwing stars, everyone versus Walton Goggins, dumb pleasures versus your higher brain function. Ninjas swing and zipline through Himalayan peaks, giving dizzier Spider-Man thrills than The Amazing Spider-Man bothered to. A three-soldier escape from deep in a well is more satisfying-- and abbreviated!-- than Bruce Wayne's ponderous pit-climb last summer. Charming Dwayne Johnson declaims Jay-Z as scripture to pump up his Joes before a mission; he's so commanding that nothing pump-uppable in you is likely to languish un-pumped. In short, if you think it's possible you might have a good time at a picture named G.I. Joe: Retaliation, you will almost certainly have a good time, though it's still dumb as catbutt. The script, from Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, is touched with absurdist comedy and some of-the-moment wingnuttery. Here's a movie in which gun-toting lugs become convinced the president is an imposter who they have to take out—not really something we should be encouraging so soon after 2016: Obama's America. But director Jon M. Chu comes to dudes-fighting filmmaking from the most welcome of backgrounds: directing dance. When his characters battle, we see the bodies of accomplished physical performers moving together through space, mostly in shots that the eye can actually track. « Less

(1:00 PM), (3:30 PM), 7:00 PM, 9:20 PM

With animated kiddie product as generically sugary and dim-witted as this-- the directorial debut of Despicable Me storyboard artist Callan Brunker-- parents should prep a cost-benefit analysis including (a) the two-hour price of a babysitter,... More »

With animated kiddie product as generically sugary and dim-witted as this-- the directorial debut of Despicable Me storyboard artist Callan Brunker-- parents should prep a cost-benefit analysis including (a) the two-hour price of a babysitter, (b) the toxifying effects of exposing children to consumer waste, and (c) whether they're forced to sit through it, too. "Turn off your brain and hang on," warns Kira Supernova (voiced by Sarah Jessica Parker) as she and her nerdy scientist hubby Gary (Rob Corddry)-- noseless, blue humanoids from a planet bafflingly more Jetsons-futuristic than extraterrestrial—rocket-race to save their son. Their kid, in turn, has foolishly run after his barrel-chested, celeb-astronaut uncle Scorch (Brendan Fraser), captured by a villainous general (William Shatner) on the dangerous "Dark Planet" we call home. We're supposed to wonder, "Will Gary ever overcome his timidity and become an intergalactic hero to his family and dismissive bro?" Between the frequent cribbing of character designs (The Smurfs, Toy Story) and hoary catchphrases (Titanic, The Warriors), to its unfunny, dated references (Simon Cowell? ZZ Top?!) and pointless excuses for 3-D gimmickry (food fights, paddleballs), Escape From Planet Earth makes a compelling case for our disposable culture to finally get wiped out by malevolent aliens. « Less

(1:15 PM), (3:15 PM), (5:15 PM), 7:15 PM

Here's a breakthrough, of a sort: The funniest scenes in Identity Thief are of Melissa McCarthy and Jason Bateman beating the hell out of each other. McCarthy-- playing a multi-named serial liar and credit-card fraud artist we'll call Diana--... More »

Here's a breakthrough, of a sort: The funniest scenes in Identity Thief are of Melissa McCarthy and Jason Bateman beating the hell out of each other. McCarthy-- playing a multi-named serial liar and credit-card fraud artist we'll call Diana-- clocks Jason Bateman with a vicious neck punch. Bateman-- as yet another sane fellow whose life is infested with plot-driving crazies--clocks, tackles, and even brains her with the stolen bric-a-brac that clutters Diana's home. I'm not going to argue that this man hitting this woman for laughs is a progressive triumph. But it is at least a victory for whatever is the opposite of sexism. McCarthy gets bashed about like a Stooge, and she bashes back with riotous abandon. Sadly, the rest of the movie is a shambles. So, let it be said, this one time only: Here is a comedy that really could use more inter-gender violence. (I’ll leave it to you to parse the sexual politics of McCarthy's insult after Bateman beans her with a knickknack: "You throw like a fuckin' girl!") The rest of the film, they’re solo acts, each doing what audiences expect: She yells and exhibits an unsocialized horniness; he regards her with dismay and disgust. Yes, disgust. There's no way around it: The producers of Identity Thief seem to find McCarthy's real-world body loathsome. Her big comic sex scene is ruined by director Seth Gordon's refusal to shoot her below the chin, and her Diana is later freighted with a sad-clown back story and given a princess makeover—penance, perhaps, for having roughhoused like the boys in the first reel. « Less

(1:15 PM), (5:00 PM), 7:15 PM, 9:30 PM

The first of this year's dueling Die Hard in the White House opuses (to be followed in June by Roland "Independence Day" Emmerich's White House Down) begins with a slo-mo Old Glory and the first horns and snare drums of composer Trevor Morris's... More »

The first of this year's dueling Die Hard in the White House opuses (to be followed in June by Roland "Independence Day" Emmerich's White House Down) begins with a slo-mo Old Glory and the first horns and snare drums of composer Trevor Morris's John-Williams-on-steroids score—and, well, things get a lot more "America! Fuck yeah!" from there. Directed at a jingoistic fever pitch by Training Day's Antoine Fuqua, Olympus Has Fallen quickly hurtles through the bare minimum of exposition—a square-jawed, newly widowed POTUS (Aaron Eckhart); a brooding ex–Secret Service hotshot (Gerard Butler) who blames himself for the First Lady's death-- before unleashing a small army of North Korean baddies on Pennsylvania Avenue's most desirable address. What follows is an all-you-can-eat buffet of shlock, from the retro, Robocop-era visual effects to the Delta Force–worthy parade of Oscar winners and nominees in peril (Secretary of State Melissa Leo, Speaker of the House Morgan Freeman, Secret Service Director Angela Bassett, Army Chief of Staff Robert Forster) to the utterly shameless 9/11 imagery (including Beltway tourists crushed by chunks of an imploding Washington Monument). A Red Dawn for the Tea Party era, Olympus Has Fallen is pretty ridiculously entertaining-- or at least entertainingly ridiculous-- for long stretches, dulled only by the realization that there are many parts of the country where this will play as less than total farce. « Less

(1:00 PM), (4:00 PM), 7:00 PM, 9:30 PM

WWE Studios, the film production arm of World Wrestling Entertainment, breaks from its usual target audience of guys who like films about shirtless, muscley men with The Call, a suspense thriller starring adequate actress and Academy Award... More »

WWE Studios, the film production arm of World Wrestling Entertainment, breaks from its usual target audience of guys who like films about shirtless, muscley men with The Call, a suspense thriller starring adequate actress and Academy Award recipient Halle Berry as an overcommitted, hotshot 911 emergency operator. When she makes a rookie-level error that costs a teenage girl her life, she opts to hang up her call center headset-- until the girl's killer kidnaps another teen victim. Locked in a car trunk with a prepaid cell phone, she calls 911. The middle third of the film comprises the phone call, a tight 40 minutes in which the girl, guided by Berry, deploys the contents of the trunk (screwdriver, paint roller handle, cans of white matte finish) to make her kidnapper's vehicle more conspicuous while Berry presses her for details she can relate to the police. In a nod to the studio's usual demographic, two-time WWE tag-team champion David Otunga plays officer Jake Devans, though fans hoping for spinning headlock elbow drops or backflip kicks will be disappointed. When the emergency call ends, Berry drives out to the crime scene the cops traced down and goes all Clarice Starling inside the spooky cabin where the bad guy keeps his Saw basement, which has to be seen as a departure from the film's thin blue line of realism, or the workaday reality that WWE became known for when the Undertaker defeated Kane with his signature Tombstone piledriver at Wrestlemania XX. « Less

(1:45 PM), (3:45 PM), (5:45 PM), 7:45 PM, 9:45 PM