On7 Movie Caps

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This article was published 03/10/2010 (5763 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The following movies have been previously reviewed by Free Press movie critic Randall King, unless otherwise noted.

ALPHA AND OMEGA

Polo Park, St. Vital, Towne. G

Hayden Panettiere and Justin Long lend their voices to this thoroughly mediocre tale of star-crossed carnivores in Jasper National Park. Just before alpha wolf Kate (Panettiere) is set to mate with a vain, possibly impotent, suitor, the leader-in-training is abducted by park rangers along with pack clown Humphrey (Long) in an effort to repopulate an Idaho park. An intermittently amusing jaunt back to Canada follows, with bit parts for Danny Glover and, in a final kick to a once-great career, Dennis Hopper. ‘Ö’Ö (Reviewed by Barry Hertz)

THE AMERICAN

Polo Park. 14A

This too-cool-for-school crime thriller stars George Clooney as a morally haunted black-market gunsmith for hire at the service of international assassins, signing up for one last assignment in Italy. There, he is befriended by a priest and a prostitute. Assuming you buy into the idea that a guy who looks like Clooney may be forgiven any sin, you may still be turned off by the movie’s sheer pretentiousness. ‘Ö’Ö1/2

CASE 39

Grant Park, Polo Park, Towne. 14A

A family services social worker (Renée Zellweger) saves a young girl (Jodelle Ferland) from her dangerous parents, only to discover dark supernatural forces surrounding the girl are a danger to everyone she meets. ‘Ö1/2 (Reviewed by Roger Moore)

DEVIL

Polo Park, Towne. 14A

M. Night Shyamalan produced (but did not direct) this horror thriller about a quintet of strangers on an elevator. Bad news: Rescue workers can’t access the elevator. Worse news: The devil is among them. For all its preaching about guilt, redemption, punishment and salvation, Devil delivers its chills in a compact, efficient package of extreme closeups, decently timed surprises and the terror of dread-anticipation. It’s not great, but it’s not bad. ‘Ö’Ö1/2 (Reviewed by Roger Moore)

EASY A

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

This contemporary comic variation of The Scarlet Letter stars Emma Stone as a virginal high school wallflower who, reasoning that a slutty reputation is better than no reputation, allows word to get out that she’s no angel. Stone has great comic chops and projects a fiercely sardonic undercurrent that belies the cutie-pie facade. It’s a good time, but note that the movie is also worthy of a class discussion as a timely look at how viciousness is spread in the age of Twitter, as well as a timeless portrait of sexual hypocrisy that persists over centuries. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö’Ö

FUBAR II

Polo Park. 14A

Terry and Dean, the headbanging duo of Michael Dowse’s 2002 hit Fubar, tired of the hand-to-mouth existence, go north to the Alberta oil sands to make some serious coin in this rarest of phenomena: the English-Canadian movie sequel. Actually better than the first movie, the unscripted Fubar II is funnier than most scripted Hollywood fare. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö1/2

GET LOW

Towne. PG.

An old backwoods coot (Robert Duvall) plans his own funeral — while he’s still alive — as a means of clearing up some misunderstandings in his Tennessee community and Bill Murray co-stars as the cash-strapped mortician who agrees to handle the arrangements. The two actors have been known to fall back on actorly shtick, but this satisfying, leisurely-paced drama allows them each to work in subtler shadings. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö1/2

I’M STILL HERE

Globe. 18A

Joaquin Phoenix and his brother-in-law Casey Affleck collaborated on this extremely elaborate goof wherein Phoenix announced he was retiring from acting to begin a career as a rapper. A year’s worth of shenanigans ensue, and while one has to admire Phoenix’s extraordinary commitment in playing himself as a shambling narcissist, the film’s examination of downward-spiralling celebrity culture isn’t really worth its two-hour running time, let alone the year out of Phoenix’s life. ‘Ö’Ö

LEGEND OF THE GUARDIANS: THE OWLS OF GA’HOOLE

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

This epic animated adventure focuses on a barn owl named Soren (voiced by Jim Sturgess) who seeks the legendary owl guardians when an owl fascist dictatorship kidnaps his family. Visually, it’s a hoot as director Zack Snyder (Watchmen, 300) employs his talent for mayhem in the realm of owls, but the story is a tad too familiar, the all-owl cast notwithstanding. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö1/2

LET ME IN

Polo Park, St. Vital, Towne. 14A

This Americanized remake of the sublime Swedish horror film Let the Right One In is, sorry, not a masterpiece like the original. But under the restrained direction of Matt Reeves, it remains a chilling character study about a troubled young boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee) who makes a friend of the supernaturally cursed new girl (Chloe Moretz of Kick-Ass) in the apartment next door. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö1/2

MACHETE

Towne. 18A

Robert Rodriguez cobbles together an entire feature film from the revenge melodrama movie trailer he submitted for Grindhouse back in 2007. Danny Trejo plays the titular Mexican-American avenger. It’s both a gory goof and a cutting-edge spoof of ’70s B-movies – a Hispanic-American version of a blaxploitation film of the Super Fly school, with bloody action, titillating nudity and a catchphrase-riddled script. ‘Ö’Ö1/2 (Reviewed by Roger Moore)

RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE

Polo Park, St. Vital, Towne. 18A

Milla Jovovich gets well and truly in your face in this latest hotties-vs.-zombies offering, shot in the same 3-D process as Avatar. Unfortunately, it’s a humourless movie of morphing zombies (they take on beastly attributes), phoned-in performances and trite dialogue. The 3-D is mainly used to hurl shell casings into the audience. ‘Ö (Reviewed by Roger Moore.)

THE SOCIAL NETWORK

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

David Fincher expertly directs this dramatization of the creation of Facebook in 2003 by Harvard computer programming genius Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), who would become the youngest billionaire in history. For a movie with no significant action (except legal action), it still has the breathless pace and excitement of one of Fincher’s flat-out thrillers. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö’Ö

STREETDANCE IN 3D

Polo Park, St. Vital. PG

From the country that gave us Lady Chatterley’s Lover comes this cheesy but sprightly British variant of Step Up wherein a saucy hip-hop dancer (Nichola Burley) joins her street-wise crew with students at a posh ballet school. ‘Ö’Ö1/2

THE TOWN

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

Ben Affleck directed this crime drama as well as starring as a bank robber who forms a romantic relationship with a traumatized bank manager (Rebecca Hall) whom, unbeknownst to her, he took hostage during the course of a heist. After redeeming his Hollywood career directing Gone Baby Gone, Affleck doubles the achievement here, turning in a solid crime thriller and offering up a decent performance as the tortured hero in the bargain. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö1/2

TOY STORY 3

Polo Park. G

Woody, Buzz and the rest of Andy’s toys face the inevitable when Andy packs up for college, but it turns out being accidentally donated to a daycare centre lands them in serious peril. This third and reportedly final entry in the franchise stays firmly in the tradition of the first two, which is to say, it’s darn near perfect. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö’Ö’Ö

WALL STREET 2: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS

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

Michael Douglas reprises his role as the lovable but greedy eel, Gordon Gekko, in this sequel that picks up the narrative 23 years later. This time around, Gekko has to rebuild his fortune, but he can’t do it without the help of his estranged daughter (Carey Mulligan) and a young trader (Shia LaBeouf) Despite the newsy content, the delivery is facile and patronizing, and drains the movie of dramatic energy. Fortunately, Douglas is brilliant as the broke baron and — along with the David Byrne soundtrack — redeems the entire reel. ‘Ö’Ö1/2 (Reviewed by Katherine Monk)

YOU AGAIN

Grant Park, Polo Park, St. Vital. G

Button-cute Kristen Bell plays a young woman who believes she must intercede when she learns her brother is engaged to her bitchy high school nemesis (Odette Yustman). The plot contrivances are screamingly obvious, and despite the presence of a solid supporting cast, including Jamie Lee Curtis, Sigourney Weaver and Betty White, no one can overcome the stupid, trite screenplay. ‘Ö1/2