Lakeville 21

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 Presentation (10:45 AM), (11:15 AM), (12:45 PM), (1:15 PM), (2:45 PM), (3:15 PM), (4:45 PM), (5:15 PM), 6:45 PM, 8:45 PM

Digital Presentation;Muller Monster Screen (11:05 AM), (1:50 PM), 4:30 PM, 7:15 PM, 9:55 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 Presentation (10:40 AM), (11:00 AM), (11:30 AM), (12:25 PM), (1:30 PM), (2:00 PM), (2:30 PM), (3:25 PM), (4:15 PM), (4:40 PM), (5:10 PM), 6:15 PM, 7:05 PM, 7:40 PM, 8:15 PM, 9:10 PM, 9:45 PM

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 Presentation (11:00 AM), (1:40 PM), (4:25 PM), 7:00 PM, 9:35 PM

Digital Presentation (11:35 AM), (1:35 PM), (3:35 PM), 5:40 PM, 7:35 PM, 9:40 PM

Digital Presentation (10:55 AM), (1:25 PM), (4:10 PM), 6:50 PM, 9:30 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 Presentation (12:40 PM), (3:45 PM), 6:45 PM, 9:25 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 3D;Digital Presentation (11:25 AM), (2:20 PM), 5:35 PM, 8:40 PM

Digital 3D;Digital Presentation (10:40 AM), (1:20 PM), (4:00 PM), 6:40 PM, 9:20 PM

Blue Valentine director Derek Cianfrance makes a concerted stab at the epic with this two-and-a-half-hour roundelay of failed fathers and unloved sons trapped in a vicious cycle of emasculated rage. Ryan Gosling (and his chiseled abdomen) stars... More »

Blue Valentine director Derek Cianfrance makes a concerted stab at the epic with this two-and-a-half-hour roundelay of failed fathers and unloved sons trapped in a vicious cycle of emasculated rage. Ryan Gosling (and his chiseled abdomen) stars as a motorcycle stunt driver in a traveling carnival who, upon learning he's fathered an infant son, puts down roots in upstate New York and becomes an armed bank robber instead. He eventually crosses paths with a rookie cop (a terrific Bradley Cooper), who becomes the central figure of the movie’s second act, a charismatic climber in a precinct full of dirty cops (one played—in a folly of typecasting—by Ray Liotta). Finally, it's 15 years later, and the sons of both cop and robber (excellent newcomers Emory Cohen and Dane DeHaan) find themselves sorting out their entwined destinies. Cianfrance's third feature has a go-for-broke, everything-I-ever-wanted-to-put-into-a-movie quality to it; it seems to have been conceived in a dazed rush after marathon readings of Aeschylus, Hemingway and Larry Brown. But while the acting is excellent, the metaphors are heavy, the plotting thin and repetitive. Sure to inspire indifference and cultish admiration in nearly equal measure, this extravagant mess may someday be reevaluated as a misunderstood masterpiece. « Less

Digital Presentation (12:35 PM), (3:40 PM), 6:30 PM, 9:15 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

Digital Presentation 7:15 PM, 9:45 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 Presentation (10:50 AM), (2:05 PM), (4:50 PM), 7:20 PM, 9:50 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 Presentation (11:10 AM), (1:55 PM), (4:35 PM), 7:10 PM, 9:45 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 3D;Digital Presentation (12:05 PM), (3:05 PM), 5:45 PM, 8:50 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

Digital Presentation (11:55 AM), (2:25 PM), (4:55 PM), 7:25 PM, 9:50 PM