Movies

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER

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

Those four words of the title, strung together in that order, sound like a lot of fun, don't they? The ridiculous premise should have provided the basis for a free-wheeling, campy good time, but the filmmakers take this concept entirely too seriously. What ideally might have been playful and knowing is instead uptight and dreary, with a visual scheme that's so fake and cartoony, it depletes the film of any sense of danger. 'Ö'Ö (Reviewed by Christy Lemire)

THE AVENGERS

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

Superhero franchises assemble! This witty, thrilling comic book movie from writer-director Joss Whedon elegantly combines four existing Marvel movie franchises -- Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Captain America (Chris Evans) and The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) -- for an action spectacle that still manages to be smart and savvy. 'Ö'Ö'Ö'Ö

BERNIE

Globe. PG

Jack Black gives a delicate and winning performance as Bernie Tiede, a real-life mortician in Carthage, Tex., who commits a terrible crime but is forgiven because everyone loves him. Using actors and real-life townspeople, director Richard Linklater creates a dark and eerily comic piece of the American mosaic. 'Ö'Ö'Ö1/2 (Reviewed by Jay Stone)

THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL

Globe. PG

The cream of elder English actors (Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson) play retirees who travel to India to take up residence in what they believe is a newly restored hotel, only to discover their new home is less luxurious than advertised. This movie would have been little more than an episode of Fantasy Island with English accents, but thanks to great detail work from the cast and a gentle hand from director John Madden, Best Exotic Marigold Hotel proves you're never too old to bloom. 'Ö'Ö'Ö (Reviewed by Katherine Monk)

BRAVE

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

Pixar Animation turns its high technology to the service of an old-fashioned adventure about a Scottish princess whose rebellion against an arranged marriage results in a perilous, magic-infused mission. In so doing, Brave bravely steps away from that kind of boys-and-their-toys material of their past in favour of material that is more nuanced, more beautiful, and decidedly more feminine in its perspective. 'Ö'Ö'Ö'Ö

DARK SHADOWS

Portage Place IMAX. 14A

The gothic soap opera of the '60s gets cinematic, courtesy of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, who plays Barnabas Collins, an 18th-century vampire released from entombment to reunite with the Collins clan in the future wonderworld of 1972. The movie's best comedy is purely visual. Blocking actors in soap-opera style gives Burton the opportunity to pose his cast like figures from an Edward Gorey storybook in a perverse blend of gothic with macramé owls, beanbag chairs and shag carpeting: Kitsch relics dwelling among the kitsch relics. 'Ö'Ö'Ö

HIGH SCHOOL

Globe. 14A

The day after soon-to-be valedictorian Henry Burke (Matt Bush) samples pot for the first time, his school principal institutes a zero-tolerance drug policy and administers a mandatory drug test for all students. The ensuing adventure might actually be endurable if one was under the influence of cannabis, hallucinogens, etc. Otherwise, this registers as a teenager's stereotypical fantasy land where the teachers are horny buffoons and the students are one-dimensional tropes. 'Ö1/2 (Reviewed by Melissa Leong)

MADAGASCAR 3: EUROPE'S MOST WANTED

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

An animated film that's vertiginous, explosive, ridiculous, frantic, and anti-Canadian (they joke about our "work ethic.") Inspired 3-D and non-stop silliness make this the most fun you can have at the movies so far this summer. 'Ö'Ö'Ö'Ö (Reviewed by Jay Stone)

MEN IN BLACK 3

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

Will Smith rejoins the summer movie circus in this franchise entry featuring a time-travel plot, Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin as a much younger, '60s-era Tommy Lee Jones. It may come in 3-D, but this is very much the same eccentric, wide-angle approach as the previous entries, with the added value of Brolin's comic flair in a deft impersonation of Jones. 'Ö'Ö'Ö

MOONRISE KINGDOM

Polo Park. PG

Wes Anderson's latest follows a pair of young teen runaways (Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman) in love, tracing the ripples of their blossoming, forbidden love affair among a scout leader (Edward Norton), a lonesome lawman (Bruce Willis) and the girl's bickering lawyer parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand). In the foreground, the movie is a celebration of youthful passion and purpose, but lurking behind that, the adults in the cast offering a wistful, sad forecast of estrangement, doubt and compromise to come. 'Ö'Ö'Ö'Ö

PROMETHEUS

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

Director Ridley Scott returns to the sci-fi realm that put him on the map, culture-wise, with this prequel to Alien in which a space crew (including Noomi Rapace, Charlize Theron and Michael Fassbender) travel to a distant planet that promises to explain the source of humanity. It may lack Alien's primal terror and no-frills narrative, but it is weirdly rich in biblical imagery and tantalizing subtext, enough to justify a second viewing. 'Ö'Ö'Ö'Ö

REVENGE OF THE ELECTRIC CAR

Cinematheque. G

A sequel to Who Killed the Electric Car? in which director Chris Paine examines the current reality of the consumer-driven electric car. Not reviewed.

ROCK OF AGES

Kildonan Place, Polo Park, St. Vital. PG

The Broadway jukebox musical plays the rock anthem hits of the '80s against a backdrop of a tawdry, on-the-edge-of-bankruptcy club where rock god Stacee Jaxx (Tom Cruise) has scheduled his band's last gig and a couple of young musicians (Julianne Hough and Diego Boneta) are falling in love. Rock of Ages is not so much an organic movie musical but a calculated two-pronged effort to grab a demographic of middle-aged former metalheads and Glee fans. Yet it is not without its unlikely pleasures, including Cruise bringing his star quality to bear on the dissipated rock god. 'Ö'Ö1/2

SEEKING A FRIEND FOR THE END OF THE WORLD

Polo Park. 14A

With a cataclysmic, world-ending event about to take place, an unlucky-in-love guy (Steve Carell) decides to track down the love of his life with an assist from a weird neighbour (Keira Knightley). There are touches of laziness in the script, but in the end, the movie redeems itself with some ironically uplifting moments. Seeking a Friend isn't a film you'd begrudge for stealing 100 minutes of that time, no matter how precious. 'Ö'Ö'Ö'Ö (Reviewed by Chris Knight)

SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN

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

The storybook heroine Snow White (Kristen Stewart) gets made over as a kick-ass warrior princess taking arms against an evil queen (Charlize Theron) with the aid of the huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) who has been assigned the task of killing her. The sombre Lord of the Rings-meets-The Brothers Grimm tone is preferable to earlier ninny burlesque Mirror Mirror, but the pace is cumbersome and Kristen Stewart lacks both the classical beauty and the gravitas to qualify as the fairest of them all... although we might accept her as the fairest of the mall. 'Ö'Ö'Ö

THAT'S MY BOY

Polo Park, St. Vital, Towne. 18A

Adam Sandler's new movie is a gross-out comedy of witless penis and poop jokes that nonetheless seems to delight his fans. He plays a wasted man who had a son from an affair with his junior high teacher and now wants to reunite with him. The idea of child abuse is just one of the gags. 'Ö (Reviewed by Jay Stone)

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 24, 2012 A13