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Movie reviews
'Bad Teacher'
An employee of the Chicago Public Schools system, the ha-cha seventh grade educator Elizabeth portrayed by Cameron Diaz in "Bad Teacher" blows most of her classroom time showing her students (whose names she never learns) movies such as "Lean on Me," "Stand and Deliver" and "Dangerous Minds" while she nurses a hangover or longs for her next bong hit. Read more »
'Conan O'Brien Can't Stop'
'Conan O'Brien Can't Stop' — 1.5 stars Maybe this review is more about me than about Conan O'Brien, but I really couldn't get past the odor of self-congratulation emanating from nearly every scene in "Conan O'Brien Can't Stop." Director Rodman Flender's backstage account follows O'Brien and company on a 32-city performance tour, the one O'Brien put together last year after his separation from NBC. That separation, nicely compensated but no doubt embarrassing to O'Brien (who lost out to Jay Leno, time slot-wise), prevented the comedian and talk show host from doing any TV, radio or Web-based entertaining for six months. Read more »
'Green Lantern'
'Green Lantern' -- 2 stars Green just isn't the superhero color this year. Read more »
'The Trip'
'The Trip' — 3.5 stars In its sidewinding, frequently riotous fashion "The Trip" muses on friendship, commitment, narcissism and the onslaught of middle age, but it's really about specific, smaller questions such as: Who does the better Michael Caine impersonation, Steve Coogan or Rob Brydon? Read more »
'Super 8'
Call it an alien hybrid mash-up of 'E.T.' meets 'Stand by Me.' Too bad it's not as good as either of those two classics. Time to phone home, J.J. and Steven. The poster for the new movie "Super 8" is dominated not by an image but by two equally prominent names: writer-director J.J. Abrams and producer Steven Spielberg. Hybrids may be all the rage for cars, but this melding of two cinematic sensibilities, though effective at moments, is finally not as exciting or involving as it we'd like it to be. Read more »
'Beautiful Boy'
'Beautiful Boy' 2.5 stars "We decided to use a campus shooting and yet write nothing about it." Read more »
'X -Men: First Class'
Michael Fassbender lends gravitas to a predictably middling X-Men prequel -- 2.5 stars Primarily for dues-paying "X-Men" club members in good standing, rather than anyone wandering by a multiplex wondering if the prequel stands on its own, "X-Men: First Class" settles for moderately engrossing second-class mutant superheroism. Plus it includes January Jones as Emma Frost, here depicted as Austin Powers' dream shag, and Rose Byrne as a perpetually aghast CIA operative. Read more »
'L'Amour Fou'
This 3-star film tracks aspects of the life of famed designer Yves Saint Laurent According to his longtime lover and business partner Pierre Berge, the designer and global name-brand Yves Saint Laurent adored haute couture "but he was never fooled by it." He took it seriously, but just enough, Berge says. At the same time, he says, "a couturier brings to mind the fame, the triumphs, the applause, the catwalk. But that's not all. It's a terrible profession." Read more »
'Country Strong'
A strong cast elevates 'Country Strong' even when the story gets predictable, as Gwyneth Paltrow's recovering-alcoholic country singer tries for a comeback. There is a down-home comfort saturating "Country Strong," in that "somebody done somebody wrong song" way, that almost carries you through when its music-drenched melodrama gets predictable. Which is pretty much as soon as the fragile, still-in-rehab country superstar played by Gwyneth Paltrow starts talking about the baby bird she's found and is trying to save. So like, Scene 2. Read more »
'The King's Speech'
Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush give a master class in acting as the future king of England and his speech therapist in this engaging drama. It takes two, it always takes two. Read more »
'Tangled'
Disney's animated retelling of the Rapunzel fairy tale proves a pleasure after a shaky start. For "Tangled," the studio's 50th feature-length cartoon, the team at Disney has taken a deep breath and tried to be all things to all animation-loving people. There are some hiccups along the way, but by the end there is success. Read more »
'Nothing Personal'
Writer-director Urszula Antoniak and cast Stephen Rea and Lotte Verbeek fill silent spaces with profundity. Everything is personal in the haunting solitude of "Nothing Personal," starring Stephen Rea and Lotte Verbeek in this most unlikely of love stories. Read more »
'Legendary'
World Wrestling Entertainment's earnest efforts to make man-mountain John Cena a movie star take a turn toward "family friendly" with "Legendary," a film that puts Cena in a supporting role, mentoring a kid who wants to learn to wrestle. Read more »
'Takers'
There's a shootout in "Takers" that reaches far beyond the movie's generic heist picture storyline and generic one-note performances. It's set in a hotel suite, and it is a symphony of shotgun shells, a tarantella of Tech 9s -- bullets spitting, furniture exploding in clouds of padding, stuffing and splinters. Read more »
'The Last Exorcism'
The preacher is a charlatan, a huckster. And he knows it. Read more »
'The Switch'
After an hour, fertility farce germinates 2 1/2 stars Read more »
'Nanny McPhee Returns'
Emma Thompson is back as the wonder worker, this time teaching manners to some warring cousins. When Emma Thompson donned a bulbous nose and a protruding snaggletooth to play the title character in 2005's charming family fantasy "Nanny McPhee," she was seen as playing a kind of anti-Mary Poppins, using a magical walking stick instead of a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. Read more »
'Vampires Suck'
If Kristen Stewart ever saw "Vampires Suck," she'd be scarred for life. Read more »
'Piranha 3D'
Nubile "Playboy" bunnies do an underwater ballet pas de deux in 3D. "Piranha 3D" sells itself. Read more »
'Eat Pray Love'
The generations of American women who have grown up with, identified with and love Julia Roberts may relish her star turn in Eat Pray Love, one woman's journey in search of herself and other things. Read more »
'The Expendables'
2 stars Read more »
'The Other Guys'
The comedy starring Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg is funny and clever. Just don't think too hard. There is something so richly subversive, so vicariously appealing about turning accountants into action heroes who aim their big guns at Wall Street Ponzi schemers that the idea alone makes the new buddy-cop comedy, "The Other Guys," clever and funny from the first frame. Read more »
'Step Up 3D'
Take away the 3D from Step Up 3D and what you're left with is, wait for it…Step Up. Read more »
'Middle Men'
2 stars Read more »
'Charlie St. Cloud'
Zac Efron shows promise as an actor. But director Burr Steers fails to fully embrace the film's weepy potential. "Charlie St. Cloud," which stars the very swoony Zac Efron as a haunted hunk in need of saving, is a study in restraint when restraint is really the last thing needed here. Read more »
'Dinner for Schmucks'
Not even Steve Carell and Paul Rudd can save this story of misunderstanding and humiliation from being distinctly unfunny. What do you get when you combine a swell French comedy concept, a top American comedy director and two of the best comedy actors around? Against all reason and expectation, the result is a distinctly unfunny film. Read more »
'Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore'
This sequel is a modest upgrade over the weak 2001 film on which it's based, but it's not worth the ticket surcharge for the needless conversion to 3-D. The title might be "Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore," but you can't really talk about this OK sequel to the best-forgotten 2001 kids movie without addressing another animal — namely, the elephant in the room. Read more »
'Salt'
"Salt" is a Hollywood stuntman (and stunt woman) stimulus package, an espionage thriller filled with epic brawls, shootouts and a chase across the roofs of assorted semi trucks and tankers along the highway interchanges of Greater Washington, D.C. Read more »
'Ramona and Beezus'
It's so sentimental and sweet that you can almost forgive the kids' comedy "Ramona and Beezus" for not being nearly funny enough. Read more »
'Inception'
'Delirious' describes the movie, which assuredly offers audiences sights heretofore unseen.
Sometimes the first adjective spoken in a movie speaks volumes. The first one you hear in the new thriller "Inception" is "delirious," describing the psychological state of a man, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who has washed up (or awakened) on a beach and is brought into the home of a wealthy man he has known in other circumstances, somewhere in time.
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'The Sorcerer's Apprentice'
Nicolas Cage stars in Jon Turteltaub's loud live-action feature that unfortunately features more special effects than magic. My son and I attended a screening of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" at a schmantzy new multiplex, and heading out to the car afterward he observed that the only thing louder than the film was the supersonic hand dryer in the restroom. Read more »
'Predators'
Predators is a workable revival of the B-movie hunters-become-the-hunted franchise that Arnold Schwarzenegger and John McTiernan launched back in 1987. It sets up as a taut, nervy Eight Rough Characters in Search of an Exit, flirts with the idea of being a bloody and profane episode of TV's , and only goes seriously wrong in the last half hour. Read more »
'Despicable Me'
An agreeable jumble, the animated feature "Despicable Me" sells its 3-D in ways you wouldn't call sophisticated or witty. But you certainly notice it. Front car in a roller coaster, up, up, up, then down, down, down — aaaaahhhhAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!! And like that.
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'The Last Airbender'
OMG, M. N. Shyamalan, when are you going to show us something cool? M. Night Shyamalan peers over the edge and into the abyss with The Last Airbender. Yes, that's water ahead of him, water all around him. And it's swirling. This colossal folly, the fiasco of the summer of 2010 -- gives us all a ringside seat at the sight of Mr. "I See Dead People's" career gurgling down the drain. Read more »
'The Twilight Saga: Eclipse'
Actors breathe life into characters, and the new director keeps things moving in the new installment of the vampire-werewolf saga. Anyone worried about the fate of Bella, Edward, Jacob and the rest of the "Twilight" gang after the moody blues of movie No. 2 can breathe a sigh of relief. "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" is back with all of the lethal and loving bite it was meant to have: The kiss of the vampire is cooler, the werewolf is hotter, the battles are bigger and the choices are, as everyone with a pulse knows by now, life-changing. Read more »
'Knight and Day'
Why is everyone giving Tom Cruise such a hard time? Can't we just forget about what happened on Oprah's couch? Is that asking too much? Is the movie business so flush with charismatic stars who can carry a picture that it can afford to eat its young? I don't think so. Read more »
'Grown Ups'
Co-writer and costar Adam Sandler teams with 'Chuck & Larry' director Dennis Dugan for a middling comedy about childhood friends who reunite. Whoever said the road to hell is paved with good intentions probably got an early look at "Grown Ups." The new Adam Sandler comedy has all the charm of a home movie that does not star your own family, which means it's overly sentimental, filled with you-had-to-be-there moments, bad jokes and even worse camera angles. It's also far too long and an excellent reminder of why most of us spare our friends this sort of share. Read more »
'Jonah Hex'
Jonah Hex reminds us of how cool Josh Brolin looks on a horse, how at home he seems with a six-shooter, and how perfect his growl is for a laconic, cowboy bounty hunter one-liner. Read more »
'Toy Story 3'
Brims with style, confidence and Pixar magic
If "Toy Story 3" had sprung, Slinky Dog-like, from any creative think tank besides Pixar Animation Studios, it might be considered a classic.
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'The A-Team'
Revived and ready to rumble "The A-Team," like "The Karate Kid" an 1980s artifact blown up for a 21st Century audience, has a hard time topping the moment when Liam Neeson's Hannibal Smith takes time for a philosophical heart-to-heart with one of his men, B.A. Baracus, played by mixed martial arts star Quinton "Rampage" Jackson.
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'The Karate Kid'
"New" being relative, the new version of "The Karate Kid" — which relies on the heart and cheery bloodthirstiness of the original — marks the first time the city of Detroit has been played on screen by parts of Beijing.
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'Killers'
They could have had the meeting in the production offices of Killers or even in one star's respective trailer before that first shot from the first scene was filmed. Read more »
'Marmaduke'
The big-screen adaptation is a real dog
"If you're a teen and the world doesn't fit you, you're totally hosed."
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'Splice'
Gene-splicing sci-fi drama cooks up something that's a little in-between
Equal parts "Species" and "The Savage is Loose," the eccentric and crafty new thriller "Splice" isn't for audiences who require strong, noble rooting interests in their questing protagonists of science.
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'Get Him to the Greek'
Raunchy comedy delivers the laughsExtremely raunchy, "Get Him to the Greek" is also very funny. Like the film that first paired Jonah Hill and Russell Brand, " Forgetting Sarah Marshall," the new comedy is unexpectedly sincere about the thing that matters most in a relationship: trust. It is also creatively diverse in exploring the ways boy-men — a misbehaving rock star on drugs, and his star-struck, increasingly addled handler — will be boy-men.
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'Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time'
Jake Gyllenhaal is never quite right as Dastan, but Gemma Arterton, Alfred Molina and the visual effects and camerawork impress. With apologies to Ben Franklin, the only things certain in life are death, taxes and that a Jerry Bruckheimer film will do its bombastic best to pummel, pound and, now, parkour you into submission. "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" is all that — deaths by the thousands and the sort of spectacular spectacle possible with a rumored budget of $150 million and change. Read more »Advertisement
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