MOVIES

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CHIMPANZEE

Polo Park, St. Vital. G

A Disneynature documentary featuring some stunning nature footage following a baby chimp as he grows up and faces adversity in the African jungle.

THE HUNTER

Globe. 14A

Willem Dafoe stars as a mercenary hired by a biotech firm to capture the last Tasmanian tiger, only to discover some harsh truths as he shares a base camp with the family of a missing zoologist.

KEYHOLE

Globe. 14A

Guy Maddin's newest feature stars Jason Patric as a gangster named Ulysees Pick embarking on a surreal odyssey in a house where he must move, room by room, to the boudoir of his estranged wife (Isabella Rossellini).

THE LUCKY ONE

Grant Park, Kildonan Place, Polo Park, St. Vital. PG

After serving three tours in Iraq, a U.S. Marine (Zac Efron) returns home to North Carolina and searches for the unknown woman (Taylor Schilling) in a photograph he carried, a woman he credits with being his good luck charm during combat.

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The following movies have been previously reviewed

by Free Press movie critic Randall King, unless otherwise noted.

AMERICAN REUNION

Grant Park, Kildonan Place, Polo Park, St. Vital, Towne. 18A

A 13-years-later sequel in which all the characters from the original American Pie, including the sexual-disaster-prone Jim (Jason Biggs) and priapic horndog Stifler (Seann William Scott) gather together for a high school reunion. It's a slow and sad, crude and cruel, tame and timid return to the scene of the crime against pastry, undertaken by a cast of mostly desperate actors whose careers peaked with these movies. 'Ö1/2 (Reviewed by Roger Moore)

DR. SEUSS'S THE LORAXKildonan Place, Polo Park, St. Vital, Towne. G

Danny DeVito takes on the role of Dr. Seuss's seminal environmentalist, the Lorax, in this big-screen 3-D adaptation of the book about greed and its devastating effects on the planet. Boiling it all down to human emotion, this kids' movie cuts through layers of calcified optics and political posturing to show us the real issues shaping our current reality. Greed, love, parental approval -- it's all part of this rather dense, but altogether useful, weave of a cautionary tale that may have been written 40 years ago, but never gets old. 'Ö'Ö'Ö1/2 (Reviewed by Katherine Monk)

THE HUNGER GAMES

Grant Park, Kildonan Place, Polo Park, St. Vital, Towne. 14A

Jennifer Lawrence is the best reason to see this otherwise disappointing adaptation of the beloved bestseller, bringing poignance, grit and grace to the heroine Katniss Everdeen, a young woman who finds herself in a battle to the death in a dystopian future where young teens are obliged by a despotic government to participate in a cruel televised spectacle. 'Ö'Ö1/2

IN DARKNESS

Towne. 14A

Polish director Agnieszka Holland audaciously sets this story in a dark, dank sewer where a group of Second World War Jews avoid detection by the Nazis by hiding out in the drains under Lvov. A sewer worker/thief offers to help them for a price, and his conversion from opportunist to rescuer is a thing to behold. 'Ö'Ö'Ö'Ö (Reviewed by Chris Lackner)

LOCKOUT

St. Vital. 14A

A badass agent (Guy Pearce) falsely accused of treason is sent to a prison in outer space and gets a chance to prove his innocence at the same time as he rescues the captive daughter (Maggie Grace) of the U.S. president. It's outer space variant of Escape from New York with big digital effects and much wisecracking, but little reason to keep paying attention. Snake Plissken, where art thou? 'Ö1/2

MIRROR MIRROR

Kildonan Place, Polo Park, St. Vital. G

A campy live action rendition of the Snow White tale from director Tarsem Singh (Immortals) with Lily Collins as the pure-hearted spunky heroine and Julia Roberts as the wicked Queen. If not quite a poison apple, this is a bit of embarrassment. The narrative purity of the Brothers Grimm is smudged with arch performances, camp dialogue and, instead of natural beauty, digital artifice up the wazoo. 'Ö'Ö

THE RAID: REDEMPTION

Polo Park. 18A

A SWAT cop finds himself trapped in an apartment building filled with bad guys in this Indonesian action movie. It ups the ante on martial arts violence -- imagine Bruce Lee with knives instead of nunchuks -- yet is restrained in its dramatic tone, making for a gripping experience punctuated by moments of: What the heck did I just see? 'Ö'Ö'Ö'Ö

SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN

Grant Park. PG

A fisheries expert (Ewan McGregor) is drafted by a consultant (Emily Blunt) to help realize an eccentric sheik's vision of bringing the sport of fly-fishing to the desert. The title may be unwieldy, but there's an easy flow to this film by Lasse Hallstrm, the Swedish master of dry toasts to life. 'Ö'Ö'Ö1/2 (Reviewed by Katherine Monk)

STREETDANCE 2

Towne. G

The British purveyors of StreetDance 2 brought you its successful predecessor, StreetDance 3D, in 2010. Just as dance is built on formulas and repeated steps, the sequel follows a familiar format and storyline: The protagonist wants to win a dance competition. Cue dancing. He falls in love. Cue dancing. He can't make it to the finals. In the end, he triumphs. Cue awesome dancing. If you're a dance fan, suspend judgment and go for a whirl. Otherwise, I'd sit it out. 'Ö1/2 (Reviewed by Melissa Leong)

THE THREE STOOGES

Grant Park, Kildonan Place, Polo Park, St. Vital, Towne. PG

It may seem a kind of slapstick sacrilege to cast actors other than Larry, Curly and Moe to play Larry, Curly and Moe. But this film by the Farrelly brothers pays loving tribute to the violent shtick of the original Three courtesy of Will Sasso, Chris Diamantopoulos and Sean Hayes, crackerjack clowns all. 'Ö'Ö'Ö

TITANIC 3D

Globe, Grant Park, Polo Park, Polo Park IMAX, St. Vital. 14A

The 3-D effects added to James Cameron's blockbuster are only occasionally arresting, and the seams are showing on the state-of-the-art visual effects circa 1997. Yet this great disaster melodrama holds up well both as a portrait of early 20th-century hubris, as a timely reminder of the iron-clad class system that took on deadly implications when the unsinkable ship hit that iceberg a century ago. 'Ö'Ö'Ö'Ö

21 JUMP STREET

Grant Park, Kildonan Place, Polo Park, St. Vital. 14A

A couple of underachieving rookie cops (Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum) go undercover as students at a high school to crack a drug ring in this comedy based on the '80s TV cop series starring Johnny Depp. The property is transformed into a raunchy-druggy buddy comedy with a few decent laughs, but little else. 'Ö'Ö1/2

UNDEFEATED

Towne. PG.

Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin picked up the feature-documentary Oscar for their work in this movie about a losing football team in North Memphis. Known for being the worst team in the State, the Manassas Tigers could have their first winning season in recent history, thanks to a group of outstanding players, but in order to win on the field, the coach has to keep his team together. Despite the mound of sports-movie cliché, Undefeated dekes the dog pile of expectation and makes it to the end zone unscathed. 'Ö'Ö'Ö1/2 (Reviewed by Katherine Monk)

WRATH OF THE TITANS

Grant Park, Polo Park, St. Vital. 14A

This sequel once again pits the heroic hunka hunka burning demi-god Perseus (Sam Worthington) against the treacherous Hades (Ralph Fiennes) in a war against the weakening Zeus (Liam Neeson). If the 3-D is better than the last entry, one has the sense all the movie's real creativity went into constructing all the elaborate and impressive visual effects, as opposed to a reason for us to be emotionally invested in these adventurers. 'Ö'Ö1/2

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition April 19, 2012 E15