MOVIES
Movies are rated on a letter-grade scale, from A to F. Opinions by R-J movie critic Carol Cling (C.C.) are indicated by initials. Other opinions are from wire service critics.
Motion Picture Association of America ratings:
G – General audiences, all ages.
PG – Parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.
PG-13 – Parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children under 13.
R – Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or guardian.
NC-17 – No one under 17 admitted.
NR – Not rated.
AVENUE MONTAIGNE
(B) In a chic Paris neighborhood, a spirited gamine from the provinces (the irresistible Cecile de France) takes a waitressing job on the fashionable title avenue, where her charming, charmed presence impacts an aging art collector (Claude Brasseur), a rebellious concert pianist (Albert Dupontel) and a sitcom star (Valerie Lemercier) desperate to appear in a drama from a visiting Hollywood director (Sydney Pollack). The warmly defined characters move through their story as if on well-oiled tracks, which makes this feel like a foreign film intended for audiences that don’t really care for foreign films. In French with English subtitles. (106 min.) PG-13; brief sexuality, profanity.
AWAY FROM HER
(A-) An Alzheimer’s patient (an exquisitely subtle Julie Christie) goes into a nursing home and transfers her affections to an even more fragile patient (Michael Murphy), prompting an emotional crisis for her forgotten husband (Canada’s craggy Gordon Pinsent), in actress-turned-filmmaker Sarah Polley’s heart-piercingly poignant adaptation of Alice Munro’s short story "The Bear Went Over the Mountain." Despite the wrenching subject matter, it’s far from depressing — and at times downright exhilarating — to watch a movie as quietly precise and emotionally insightful as this one. (110 min.) PG-13; profanity, sexual references. (C.C.)
BLACK BOOK
(B+) Director Paul Verhoeven returns to his native Netherlands for this gripping, brilliantly perverse thriller about a Jewish singer (Carice van Houten) who joins the Dutch resistance during World War II — and seduces a Nazi officer ("The Lives of Others’ " Sebastian Koch) to find out who betrayed her family, leading to their slaughter. It isn’t pretty, but for all its melodramatic hoohah, it feels pretty real. In English, Dutch, German and Hebrew with English subtitles. (145 min.) R; strong violence, graphic nudity, sexual situations, profanity.
BLADES OF GLORY
(C+) Will Ferrell goes for the gold as an arrogant figure skater who teams with a flamboyant rival ("Napoleon Dynamite’s" Jon Heder) to shake up the pairs division when they’re both barred from solo competition. Like "Zoolander" with a Zamboni, this dumb-with-a-capital-D goofball farce takes its (almost) fleshed-out sketch-comedy idea as far as an ice-skating buddy movie with we’re-not-gay jokes and a psycho stalker can go. Which isn’t that far. (94 min.) PG-13; crude and sexual humor, profanity, comic violent image, drug references.
DELTA FARCE
(D) In this blue-collar comedy, three drinking buddies (Larry the Cable Guy, Bill Engvall and DJ Qualls) git ‘er done — sort of — when a gung-ho Army sergeant (Keith David) mistakes them for reservists and puts them on a plane headed for Iraq. It’s dopey Army comedy in the tradition of "Buck Privates" and "Stripes" — with the sights aimed lower and blissfully unaware of its own monumental tastelessness. It’s not very good, but at least it’s not evil. (90 min.) PG-13; crude and sexual humor.
DISTURBIA
(B-) Think of "Rear Window" with digital equipment and front lawns and you’ll know what to expect from this spirited, smart-alecky thriller in which an eavesdropping teen (Shia LaBeouf) tries to figure out if the soft-spoken bachelor (David Morse) next door is a cold-blooded killer. So what if you can see every plot twist bearing down like a rush-hour commuter express? "Disturbia" still boasts a scrappy charm. (104 min.) PG-13; sequences of terror and violence, sexual references.
THE EX
(C-) A Manhattan couple (Zach Braff, Amanda Peet) about to have their first baby move back to Ohio, where he’s forced to work for his father-in-law (Charles Grodin, who should have waited for another "Beethoven" sequel) and deal with the machinations of a wheelchair-bound workmate (Jason Bateman) determined to sabotage his progress in a completely forgettable comedy that mixes tired scenarios and combines them in a way that makes time stand still. And not in a good way. (92 min.) PG-13; sexual content, brief profanity, drug references.
FRACTURE
(C+) A calculating tycoon (Anthony Hopkins, who could play this role in his sleep) shoots his adulterous wife, confesses to the crime — and is determined to keep his cocky prosecutor (a mannered Ryan Gosling) off guard — in a slick but empty battle-of-wits thriller that once again proves "howdunits" are seldom as compelling as "whodunits." True to its title, cracks begin to appear the minute you look too closely at "Fracture," a movie that wants desperately to be clever — but turns out to be distressingly routine. (112 min.) R; violence, profanity, sexual references. (C.C.)
GEORGIA RULE
(D+) Three generations clash in a misbegotten comedy-drama about a rebellious teen (Lindsay Lohan) whose had-it, dysfunctional mother (Felicity Huffman) hauls her back to the Idaho farm run, with an iron hand, by her flinty mother (Jane Fonda). Very little about these characters is believable — including the idea that they’re related. It all suggests an Ingmar Bergman script as directed by Jerry Lewis. The subject matter is grim, the relationships are gnarled, the worldview is bleak — and, at any given moment, you suspect someone’s going to be hit with a pie. (113 min.) R; sexual content, profanity.
GHOST RIDER
(D) Crash-and-burn: Motorcycle stunt superstar Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage) makes a deal with the devil, becoming a demonic bounty hunter in a Marvel Comics adaptation that’s an unholy melding of religious mumbo-jumbo to motorcycle worship, Western folklore, father-son psychology, and Elvis Lives wish fulfillment. (110 min.) PG-13; horror violence, disturbing images.
HOT FUZZ
(B) Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, who teamed up for 2004’s zombie romp "Shaun of the Dead," reunite in a buddy-cop spoof about a gung-ho London officer who’s transferred to a sleepy village — just in time to take on a serial killer. A pedal-to-the-metal kick, two parts delirious mayhem and one part deafening noise, that could put the final digit to "Lethal Weapon" and its kind, if there’s any mercy in the world. (120 min.) R; violent content, graphic images, profanity.
THE INVISIBLE
(C) It’s tough to be in love and in limbo at the same time, as a promising young writer (Justin Chatwin of "War of the Worlds"), attacked and left for dead, finds himself invisible to those still alive — and desperate to discover what happened to him before it’s too late. A retread of the 2002 Swedish film "Den Osynlige" (based on a novel by Mats Wahl), this latest recycling of foreign-grown frights shows less interest in horror than in healing. (97 min.) PG-13; violence, criminality, sexual references and profanity, all involving teens.
THE NAMESAKE
(A-) A young Calcutta couple (Bollywood veterans Irfan Khan and Tabu) starts a new life in New York, only to have their all-American son (Kal Penn, stretching far beyond "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle") reject his cultural roots in director Mira Nair’s beguiling adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. The spices may be exotic, but the basic ingredients are universal; the resulting cinematic dish is rich, complex and utterly delicious. (122 min.) PG-13; sexuality, nudity, drug use, disturbing images, brief profanity. (C.C.)
NEXT
(C+) Leaving Las Vegas proves a complicated proposition for a small-time showroom magician (melancholy Nicolas Cage, back in Glitter City for the fourth time) gifted — and cursed — with the ability to foresee a few minutes into the future, especially when Eurotrash terrorists threaten to detonate a nuclear device, prompting an FBI agent (Julianne Moore) to track him down in hopes of averting disaster. Like a lot of junk food, this cinematic twaddle proves ridiculously easy to swallow, thanks to director Lee Tamahori, who guns the engines and plows ahead — whether it makes sense or not. (96 min.) PG-13; violent action, profanity. (C.C.)
PERFECT STRANGER
(C-) An investigative reporter (Halle Berry) goes undercover at an advertising agency to find out whether its sleazy owner (Bruce Willis) had anything to do with a childhood pal’s murder. This alleged thriller boasts more smelly red herrings than a wholesale fishmarket — not to mention plot holes the size of a wholesale fishmarket, unappealing characters with murky motivations and a director (James Foley) forced to distract the audience by any means necessary. (109 min.) R; sexual situations, nudity, violence, disturbing images, profanity. (C.C.)
SHREK THE THIRD
(C+) Talk about your middle-aged spread. This latest (and hardly greatest) installment in the fractured fairy-tale franchise attempts to solve the problem of what to do for an encore by doing exactly the wrong thing — more of same — as the title ogre (once again voiced by Mike Myers) and his pals Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) search for an heir to the throne of Far, Far Away while the jilted Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) plots to seize with a little help from his villainous f(r)iends. Proves yet again that it’s tough to generate uproarious laughter when audiences already know the joke. (93 min.) PG; crude humor, suggestive content, swashbuckling action. (C.C.)
SPIDER-MAN 3
(B-) The third time’s hardly the charm in this diverting but definitely less-than-equal sequel (also in Imax at the Palms), as our friendly neighborhood webslinger (Tobey Maguire) confronts his dark side, quarrels with a whiny Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) and battles not one, not two, but three villains (James Franco, Thomas Haden Church, Topher Grace). It all adds up to too many plot twists and not enough plot, too many characters and not enough character. (139 min.) PG-13; intense action violence. (C.C.)
28 WEEKS LATER
(C-) The deadly virus that rampaged through "28 Days Later" didn’t disappear, it merely took a break. So has everything that made Danny Boyle’s 2002 horror hit feel fresh and human-sized. It’s as if director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and the entire cast had guns trained at their heads (which many of them do) in a sort-of sequel that’s a screeching, hyperbolic exercise in film-school nihilism, about survivors of the "Rage" plague (including Robert Carlyle, Rose Byrne and Catherine McCormack) who return to London, where a dormant form of the virus flares up, transforming the uninfected into crazed brain-munchers. (113 min.) R; strong violence and gore, profanity, nudity.
VACANCY
(D-) Bickering spouses (Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale) suffer car trouble and wind up in an isolated motel’s honeymoon suite — the locale for a series of snuff films starring unsuspecting guests. Yes, it is a horror flick and supposed to be violent. But the way in which it gets off on the violence — and, ostensibly, hopes the audience does the same — is especially distasteful. When it’s over, you’ll feel grimy, sickened and desperately in need of a shower. (97 min.) R; brutal violence and terror, brief nudity, profanity.
WILD HOGS
(D) Weekend warriors (Tim Allen, John Travolta, Martin Lawrence and William H. Macy) go from mild to wild when they rev up their suburban lives on a cross-country motorcycle trip. Or, more precisely, they embarrass themselves by falling off motorcycles, setting fire to inanimate objects and indulging in hissy fits with spectacularly unfunny results, while others (including those of us in the audience) watch helplessly. (100 min.) PG-13; crude and sexual content, violence.
