in a better world - Movieline

Newswire || BY Jen Yamato || 03 31 2011 8:20 PM

Weekend Forecast: Will Hop Poop Jelly Beans of Victory All Over Source Code, Insidious, and King George VI?

Now that everyone's seen the opening six minute sequence, Zack Snyder's Sucker Punch is poised to empower its way to a box office comeback in its second week of release. Just kidding; April Fools came early this year! Oh, laughs. (Sadface, Sucker Punch.) There's plenty more where that came from as we head into this week's candy coated weekend forecast. Monday morning prediction: Cadbury eggs and jelly beans for everyone at Universal!

Review || BY Stephanie Zacharek || 03 31 2011 2:50 PM

REVIEW: Oscar Winner In a Better World Needs a Tighter Focus on This One

Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier's In a Better World raises a number of intriguing questions about the true meaning of masculinity, about how kids view their parents, about the necessity of knowing when it's not a good thing to turn the other cheek. But too many of these ideas simply hang in the air, like fruit that can't decide whether it's ripe or not. In a Better World won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Picture, and at the very least, it's a tight piece of craftsmanship. But it's at once too polished and vaguely unfinished, and its final act of forgiveness demands a huge leap on the part of the audience. The movie isn't just looking toward a better world; it has way too much faith in an unrealistically perfect one.