The disappearance of a pregnant preteen exposes the raw wounds at the heart of an isolated southern New Zealand community in the absorbing and richly atmospheric Top of the Lake. Centered around Elisabeth Moss’ excellent performance as a detective for whom the case uncovers disturbing echoes of her own troubled history, this multistranded crime saga from writer-director Jane Campion and co-creator Gerard Lee is satisfyingly novelistic in scope and dense in detail. Yet it also boasts something more, a singular and provocative strangeness that lingers like a chill after the questions of who-dun-what have been laid to rest. more »
“Oops! … I Did It Again” isn’t one of two Britney Spears hits performed onscreen in Spring Breakers, but that song’s self-aware spirit of coy misbehavior is stamped all over Harmony Korine’s most mainstream provocation to date. Following four college girls’ descent from Florida spring-break debauchery to the even more vertiginous lows of thug life, this attractively fizzy pic may be a shock to the system for fans of teen queens Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens, but remains pretty toothless titillation by its writer-helmer’s standards. Unfamiliar multiplex exposure awaits the aging enfant terrible, though the youthful target audience may seek it out on newer media. more »
Representing a slightly skewed take on 2004’s Cellular crossed with a lobotomized Silence of the Lambs, Brad Anderson’s high-concept thriller The Call would be an unremarkable bit of women-in-peril dreck were it not for two distinguishing factors — the sexualized sadism inflicted upon the half-dressed 16-year-old Abigail Breslin, and the equally sadistic Sideshow Bob coiffure affixed to the otherwise lovely Halle Berry. These indignities aside, there’s little to differentiate this high-pitched screamer from a particularly feverish Law and Order rerun, and it might be tough for such a film to dial in sizable auds to theaters. more »
Neatly balancing brightly sentimental comedy with slightly edgier funny business, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone pulls off the impressive trick of generating laughs on a consistent basis while spinning a clever scenario about rival magicians waging a Las Vegas turf war with a wide multi-demographic appeal. And while it may fall short of working B.O. magic when it hits theaters March 15, the pic — which played well with the opening-night crowd at the SXSW Film Festival — could wind up generating steady biz on a long-term basis rather than pulling a quick vanishing act. more »
The rare remake that likely will be enjoyed most by diehard fans of its predecessor, Evil Dead often comes off as the cinematic equivalent of a cover-band concert tribute to a supergroup’s greatest hits — albeit with a lot more gore. First-time feature helmer Fede Alvarez’s blood-soaked reprise of Sam Raimi’s franchise-spawning low-budget shocker, The Evil Dead, boasts far better production values than the penny-pinching 1981 original and conceivably could delight genre fans who have never seen the first version or its previous remakes/sequels. But it’s bound to play best with those who catch Alvarez’s many wink-wink allusions to Raimi’s pic. more »
Though smarter than your average dramedy, Paul Weitz’s forced Admission faces some major identity issues. Tina Fey plays a discombobulated Princeton admissions officer who must confront the limits of her morals when she learns that a potential Princeton applicant might be the son she gave up for adoption. What appears on paper to be an ideal three-dimensional, morally complex role for the quick-witted comedienne backfires in practice, relying on Fey to be funny in a movie that works better serious. Despite offering consolation to the world’s many Ivy League rejects that the gatekeepers sometimes make mistakes, low entrance levels await. more »
Consciously evoking the structure and iconography of MGM’s classic The Wizard of Oz without attempting to rival its impact, Disney’s Oz the Great and Powerful can be enjoyed, up to a point, on its own colorful, diverting but finally rather futile terms. Offering an eye-tickling but gaudily depersonalized Land of Oz populated by younger, sexier versions of well-known characters (most incongruously the Wicked Witch of the West), this elaborate exercise in visual Baum-bast nonetheless gets some mileage out of its game performances, luscious production design and the unfettered enthusiasm director Sam Raimi brings to a thin, simplistic origin story. more »
At the risk of sounding ungrateful for a fresh Die Hard sequel, Russia needs its own John McClane movie the way Uncle Sam needs a bright red babushka. On the flimsiest of pretexts, Bruce Willis' obstinate hero travels all the way to Moscow to find trouble in A Good Day to Die Hard, teaming up with his never-before-seen son to stop a generic terrorist from stealing weapons-grade uranium from Chernobyl — a subpar plot that feels suspiciously like someone tried to plug McClane into a preexisting screenplay. Fox's shaky bid to boost this installment's international appeal could backfire domestically. more »
Southern goth-chic gets a swoony supernatural makeover in Beautiful Creatures, a teen franchise-starter that suggests what Twilight might have looked like with a reasonable budget, a competent script and halfway-decent special effects, but still saddled with next-best source material. Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl's book, the first of four, reps a calculated synthesis of proven YA-lit elements and recent publishing success tactics, which makes for ingratiating storytelling on the page. Fortunately, writer-director Richard LaGravenese has jettisoned most of the novel and refashioned its core mythology and characters into a feverishly enjoyable guilty pleasure, unapologetic in its mass-market rebel 'tude. more »
What begins as a barbed satire of our pill-popping, self-medicating society morphs into something intriguingly different in Side Effects. Steven Soderbergh's elegantly coiled puzzler spins a tale of clinical depression and psychiatric malpractice into an absorbing, cunningly unpredictable entertainment that, like much of his recent work, closely observes how a particular subset of American society operates in a needy, greedy, paranoid and duplicitous age. Discriminating arthouse audiences not turned off by the antidepressant-heavy subject matter should be held shrink-rapt by what Soderbergh, after years of flirting with retirement, has said will be his last picture "for a long time." more »
With Identity Thief, Melissa McCarthy proves she's got what it takes to carry a feature, however meager the underlying material. Sustaining the same brand of unpredictable energy that made her such an effective scene-stealer in Bridesmaids and This Is 40, McCarthy plays the tornado to Jason Bateman's uptight nebbish, an accountant who drives halfway across the country to confront the zealous con artist who stole his personal information, maxed out his credit cards and tarnished his good name. Though this adult-skewing comedy looks like a midrange performer at best, McCarthy's credit rating should skyrocket. more »
Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is not a good film — it's inconsistently acted, and somehow both underwritten and overplotted — but it has some good things going for it. For one, it's not outrageously dumber than its revisionist fairy-tale predecessors Van Helsing, Red Riding Hood or TV's Once Upon a Time, and it's far more goofily violent. It also boasts a nice title credit sequence and a brisk running time. But most importantly, the long-shelved pic is set to bow with little serious B.O. competition, ensuring suitable time for crumb gathering before it's consigned to obscurity. more »
The cops play things as dirty as the crooks in Gangster Squad, an impressively pulpy underworld-plunger that embellishes on a 1949 showdown between a dedicated team of LAPD officers and Mob-connected Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) for control of the city. Set squarely in classic-noir territory, the bombastic crimer applies a pre-Production Code amorality to this world of vice, though its gleeful depiction of violence backfired once already, forcing the removal of a scene featuring Tommy guns blazing in a crowded movie theater due to the shootings in Aurora, Colo. A six-month delay should heal all wounds for this Warners release. more »
The makers of Texas Chainsaw — or Texas Chainsaw 3D, as it's being widely advertised — would like to you forget all about nearly 40 years' worth of sequels, prequels, remakes and reboots, and pretend that only a couple of decades or so have passed since the events depicted way back in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). Helmer John Luessenhop (Takers) and a small army of scripters go back to the bloody roots of the long-running franchise to concoct a better-than-average horror-thriller that relies more on potent suspense than graphic savagery or stereoscopic tricks. Don't be surprised if it scores a B.O. killing. more »
Scoring more than $160 million in three weeks to become China's highest-grossing domestic film ever, Lost in Thailand is a boisterous, joyously hokey comedy that connects with auds through its explicit desire to please. Helmed by lead actor Xu Zheng, the $2.2 million-budgeted follow-up to 2010's modest hit Lost on Journey is unexpectedly well honed for a debut feature. Peppering this feel-good road movie with the perkier thrills of a cat-and-mouse chase, Xu draws sparks from a talented comic trio cast as three Beijingers on an accident-prone journey to Chiangmai. Boffo B.O. should stoke offshore ancillary interest. more »
