August Rush: Freddie Highmore is an abandoned kid whose parents (Keri Russell and Jonathan Rhys Meyers) don’t even know he exists. His parents are musicians, but the boy doesn’t know this. He senses it, though, and figures to find them by making music they’ll somehow hear. He goes from a country orphanage to New York City where he gets mixed up with a Fagin- like character (Robin Williams) who turns street kids into sidewalk buskers and leeches off their tips. He breaks free of bad-dude Robin, finds his parents, wows the faculty of Juilliard with his compositional skills and conducts a concert of his original work in Central Park to a throng of misty-eyed thousands? Maudlin, mawkish and mushy don’t completely convey how all this is handled in “August Rush.” But it’s a start. ** PG. 1 hour, 53 minutes. At area theaters. Soren Andersen, McClatchy Newspapers
Confessions of a Superhero: Documentaries about obsessive eccentrics are becoming increasingly common, but rarely are they as affecting as Matt Ogens’ chronicle of four celebrity impersonators who can’t decide if they are living their dreams or watching them dashed. These aspiring actors spend their days dressed as superheroes, posing cheerfully for pictures on Hollywood Boulevard. At night they go home to tiny apartments that are either starkly empty or cluttered to the point of suffocation. *** Not rated. 1 hour, 32 minutes. At the Starz FilmCenter. Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News
Enchanted: This is a pure comic treat that jumps from the world of animation to the real and gritty streets of New York City. Princess Giselle (Amy Adams), tossed by a wicked queen down a well, pops up in this new land where she is taken in by divorced divorce lawyer Robert (Patrick Dempsey), the single dad of a cute princess-starved daughter. Meanwhile, Prince Edward (James Marsden), her animated fiance, travels to New York to locate his lost love. The fish-out-of-water gimmick has been mined to exhaustion, but here it works. Everywhere you look there are sly references to Disney’s fairy-tale heritage, from Julie Andrews’ narration to the happy working tune that Adams trills while a squad of pigeons, rats and cockroaches clean up Robert’s apartment. Like the film, they hit all the right notes. **** PG. 1 hour, 47 minutes. At area theaters. Colin Covert, Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
Hitman: The thriller based on the mass-murdering-assassin video game is a “Bourne” knock-off, and not a very good one at that. Timothy Olyphant is the bald Bourne, a skinhead in a “Men in Black” suit with a bar-code tattooed on the back of his skull in plain sight. Our killer does in some nasty Nigerians in the opening moments. But it’s when he takes a shot at the ruthless Russian president that Interpol, in the person of an agent played by Dougray Scott, closes in. There’s an under-explained, under-developed conspiracy by something called “The Organization” that wants to keep our chatty killer quiet. And his own “Agency” sends dudes armed with pistols and samurai swords to get him as well. Olyphant, even with his head shaved and his silver guns with silver silencers always at the ready, seems miscast as an amoral automaton of a killer. It’s a character better left in the soulless void of video gaming, where we don’t have to fret over the psyche of somebody raised, from childhood, to murder. * R. 1 hour, 33 minutes. At area theaters. Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel.
I’m Not There: “I’m Not There” is Todd Haynes’ extravagant, boldly constructed collage about the life of Bob Dylan. The vignettes are not a biopic, and they unfold in an order and manner that might not please diehard fans of the singer. None of the film’s Dylan personas bears the legend’s moniker, but many of them — from Christian Bale to Cate Blanchett — reflect aspects of his personas and artistry. In the end, “I’m Not There” is an uncompromising, beautifully wrought essay on identity, artistic and otherwise. There’s no narrator to help navigate the twists this film takes, only the potent juxtapositions Haynes, co-writer Oren Moverman and editor Jay Rabinowitz have created. *** 1/2 R. 2 hours, 15 minutes. At area theaters. Lisa Kennedy.
The Mist: The latest and least of the collaborations between horror writer Stephen King and his house director, Frank Darabont (“The Shawshank Redemption,” “The Green Mile”), “The Mist” is a straight-no-chaser creature feature, one so poorly executed that you would be shocked to learn that Darabont cut his teeth writing “Nightmare on Elm Street” scripts. A storm hits Castle Rock in a remote part of Maine. The power goes out. Radio stations fall silent. Cell-phone service cuts off. A fog rolls in. A hysterical, bloodied man (Jeff DeMunn) crashes in on the folks stocking up at the Food House supermarket, and utters his warning. “Don’t go out there! There’s something in the mist!” The remainder of the movie has those trapped in the store break into two camps, a few of whom go into the mist and don’t come back, at least not intact. He shows us the monsters, early on, an icky grab-bag of Hollywood horror. That’s all you need to know. * R. 1 hour, 57 minutes. At area theaters. Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel.
This Christmas: Finally! A Christmas movie that is neither cynical nor saccharine in its handling of the holiday. It’s a relief to come across a movie that celebrates the family with a clear-eyed appreciation of and genuine affection for its characters. Written and directed by Preston A. Whitmore II, this is a home-for-the-holidays story in which the six grown children of a matriarch they all call Ma Dear (Loretta Devine) return to the nest for several days of intense family interaction. Whitmore has given each of them distinct personalities and remarkable emotional depth. Emotional crosscurrents tug the characters every which way, and the uniform excellence of the performances give the conflicts, and the picture, great resonance. For that reason “This Christmas” feels like a lovely gift. **** PG-13. 2 hours. At area theaters. Soren Andersen, McClatchy Newspapers
Vanaja: I can promise you that here is a very special film. In a rural district of South India, a 14-year- old girl named Vanaja (Mamatha Bhukya) lives with her shambling, alcoholic father. He takes her to the local landlady, Rama Devi (Dammannagari) and asks for a job for her. She hires her, and Vanaja, who dreams of becoming a dancer, persuades Rama Devi to give her lessons. The landlady’s 23-year-old son, Shekhar (Karan Singh), returns from study in America, prepares to run for office and notices the new beauty on his mother’s staff. But her lower-caste origins disqualify her for marriage into Rama Devi’s family, and although the landlady is very fond of her and covets her dancing, her son will always come first. The plot reminds me of neo-realism crossed with the eccentric characters of Dickens. The poor girl taken into a rich family is also a staple of Victorian fiction. But “Vanaja” lives always in the moment, growing from a simple story into a complex one, providing us with a heroine, yes, but not villains so much as vain, weak people obsessed with their status in society. **** Not rated. 1 hour, 51 minutes. At the Starz FilmCenter. Roger Ebert.
