MOVIES

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This article was published 02/10/2011 (5165 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ABDUCTION

Polo Park, St. Vital, Towne. 14A

Twilight’s Taylor Lautner discovers he was abducted by his seemingly benign parents as a toddler and is now targeted by sinister international bad guys. The high-quality supporting cast is meant to prop up Lautner but instead they tend to show him up as a thespian lump whose career is as destined to fade as inevitably as his pin-up posters. ‘Ö1/2

BREAKAWAY

Polo Park. PG

A limp hockey film about a young Sikh (Vinay Virmani) who wants to be a hockey player, much to his father’s disappointment. Rob Lowe sleepwalks through a role as his team’s coach in a film that borrows widely from similar movies, such as Bend It Like Beckham, but lacks the charm. ‘Ö’Ö (Reviewed by Jay Stone)

CONTAGION

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

Genre-traversing director Steven Soderbergh (Oceans 11, Erin Brokovich) offers up an astringent version of the disaster movie with this crisp, apocalyptic portrayal of a modern-day plague with a solid latter-day disaster movie cast including Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law and Laurence Fishburne. It’s a compelling thriller, but underneath that, it’s a smart repudiation of the anti-intellectual zeitgeist in contemporary America. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö’Ö

COURAGEOUS

Polo Park. PG

Four police officers give their all to the job, but discover they are lacking when it comes to their roles of fathers to their children. The filmmakers who gave us the faith-based hit Fireproof have mastered some narrative skills, making this a cut above their last film. But it’s also preachier and long-winded, like a pastor so caught up in the moment that he can’t see that the air conditioning has given out and the congregation wants to go home. ‘Ö1/2 (Reviewed by Roger Moore)

CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE

Kildonan Place. PG

Steve Carell stars as a guy who married his high-school sweetheart (Julianne Moore) and has the rug pulled out from under him when he finds out she is having an affair and wants a divorce. He soon finds himself getting pickup advice from Ryan Gosling’s practised ladykiller, whose invincible pickup line “You’re the perfect combination of sexy and cute” fits the movie’s delightfully contradictory qualities. It’s romantic, touching, a little risqué and screwball, yet reassuringly down-to-earth. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö’Ö (Reviewed by Colin Covert)

THE DEBT

Grant Park. 14A

Jesper Christensen played a bad guy in the last two James Bond movies, but as a Nazi war criminal hunted by a trio of undercover Mossad agents, he is a villain in a bleak landscape of severely compromised heroes, played by Jessica Chastain, Sam Worthington and Marton Csokas. The Debt offers gritty suspense and real-world espionage drama, sans escapism, as the aged agents (with Helen Mirren as the mature version of Chastain’s character) are obliged to contend with a mistake made in a 30-year-old mission. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö1/2

DOLPHIN TALE

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

Harry Connick Jr. and Ashley Judd play human sidekicks to a very cute dolphin amputee in this heartwarming and undeniably sincere story of an animal who gets a second chance, thanks to some kids, and a group of empathetic grown-ups. A true charmer as a result of its simplicity, Dolphin Tale has the earmarks of a kids’ classic. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö1/2 (Reviewed by Katherine Monk)

DREAM HOUSE

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

A horror thriller starring Daniel Craig as a man who discovers the house he and his family have bought has a violent, and potentially deadly history. Co-starring Rachel Weisz and Naomi Watts. ‘Ö1/2 (Reviewed by Roger Moore)

DRIVE

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

Ryan Gosling stars as a getaway/stunt driver who attempts to intercede on behalf of a neighbour (Carey Mulligan) when her ex-con husband is muscled into participating in a heist. Director Nicolas Refn Winding deliberately directs both action and drama with a slow and/or static eye, which helps delineate things we might otherwise miss in the slam-bang style action movies, such as the fact that the hero is a bit of a psychopath. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö1/2

ECO-PIRATE: THE STORY OF PAUL WATSON

Cinematheque. PG

Director Trish Dolman offers a compelling portrait of anti-whaler eco-activist Paul Watson finding an admirable fighter, but a less admirable man. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö1/2

50/50

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

A radio producer (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) learns he has cancer and his best friend (Seth Rogen) resolves to help him get through it, despite the titular odds of his survival. If this comic take on serious subject matter has a jolt of veracity, it’s because screenwriter Will Reiser based the story on his own cancer battle (and his friendship with Rogen). ‘Ö’Ö’Ö1/2

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART II

Polo Park IMAX. 14A

The richly diverse Harry Potter saga comes to a close as Harry, Ron and Hermione return to Hogwarts School for a final apocalyptic reckoning with Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) and his mob of minions. This wrapup to the franchise is big, thrilling and even moving at times as Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) learns unsettling revelations about his past and his destiny. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö’Ö1/2

THE HELP

Globe, Grant Park, Polo Park. PG

Emma Stone stars as Skeeter, a woman who decides to shake the foundations of Jackson Mississippi in the early ’60s by compiling a book telling the experiences of black housekeepers in southern white homes. If the premise sounds like a southern liberal’s fantasy, the cast sells it, particularly Viola Davis as a maid who has raised 17 white children, but could not save her own son. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö1/2

I DON’T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT

Kildonan Place, Towne. PG

Sarah Jessica Parker stars as a professional struggling to keep her work life and her personal life in balance. Despite some heavy bouts of formula, the film actually lets us watch grown-ups deal with grown-up problems without cheap devices or juvenile humour. ‘Ö’Ö1/2 (Reviewed by Katherine Monk)

KILLER ELITE

Polo Park, St. Vital, Towne. 14A

Danny (Jason Statham), a retired assassin, is compelled by an Arab oil sheik to kill rogue British special forces agents in an effort to save his mentor (Robert De Niro), while a retired SAS man (Clive Owen) is on a parallel mission to stop Danny. While more grounded than the usual Statham action oeuvre with its edgy action set pieces and its tone of who’s-screwing-whom treachery, it doesn’t quite reach the bar set by De Niro in the violent-professionals-behaving-badly classic Ronin. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö

THE LION KING 3D

Polo Park, St. Vital. G

The most successful of the cel-animated Disney ‘toons gets a 3-D conversion. The planned two week theatrical run has been expanded due to its unexpected big box office. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö’Ö

MONEYBALL

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

A screwball that catches the corner of the plate. Brad Pitt stars as Billy Beane, a baseball manager who tries to change the traditions of the game, and Jonah Hill is his nerdy assistant who has all the statistics to back him up. The result is an offbeat buddy comedy that challenges an established culture in a surprisingly entertaining way. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö’Ö (Reviewed by Jay Stone)

PAGE ONE: INSIDE THE NEW YORK TIMES

Cinematheque. 14A

Rumours of the Grey Lady’s impending death have been greatly exaggerated, but this documentary about a year in the life of the great newspaper, financially threatened by newer, faster, pithier media, offers insights as to how the Times is attempting to adapt, while offering a ringing defense of old-school independent journalism. If you love newspapers, this is a must-see. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö’Ö

STRAW DOGS

Kildonan Place. 18A

A redundant remake of the 1971 landmark of violence. In this version, James Marsden and Kate Bosworth play a Hollywood screenwriter and his actress wife who move to Mississippi and upset the locals with their big-city ways, and her sexual appeal. It’s a predictable march to a gory finish. ‘Ö’Ö1/2 (Reviewed by Jay Stone)

WARRIOR

Polo Park, Towne. 14A

A pair of brothers, one a troubled Iraq war vet (Tom Hardy) and the other a high-school physics teacher (Joel Edgerton), are compelled to enter a mixed martial arts event with a $5 million payoff. Nick Nolte plays their estranged, recovering alcoholic father. Writer-director Gavin O’Connor (Miracle) offers up two-hour and 20 minute work that has enough solid drama and startling action to fill a fight movie double bill. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö1/2

WHAT’S YOUR NUMBER?

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

Anna Faris stars as a woman who suspects she may have let her Mr. Right slip through her fingers and resolves to reacquaint with every man she’s ever dated. Chris Evans co-stars as a hunky neighbour enlisted to help in her dubious mission. Faris comes through with a spirit and quirkiness far more engaging than the material: forgettable fluff that’s as dull and predictable as they come. ‘Ö’Ö (Reviewed by David Germain)