3:10 to Yuma
**1/2 RATING Director James Mangold (“Walk the Line”) and his writers didn’t improve much upon the 1957 original of “3:10 to Yuma,” in which a down-on-his-luck farmer discovers his gumption while helping transport an infamous outlaw to a train that’ll take him to the noose of justice. Yes, the action is tighter — the shootouts grittier, bloodier. And it can only help to have Russell Crowe and Christian Bale as the outlaw and the homesteader. Their performances are more nuanced than their characters are written. But the filmmaker’s shift to a tale about good fathers and bad — and sons fuming and doggedly loyal — hasn’t added substantially to the genre. Those with a hankering for Westerns might be sated. Those looking for a good, bad, ugly tale that resonates more fully with the moment will leave with a powerful thirst. R; 117 minutes. Released today.
Eagle vs. Shark
***RATING This feature debut by New Zealand director Taika Waititi is one of those movies — “Napoleon Dynamite” is a recent precursor — that invites you to laugh at its misfit characters and empathize with them at the same time. Jarrod (Jemaine Clement) and Lily (Loren Horsley), the couple whose passive-aggressive, on-and-off romance anchors the film, are easy targets of mockery. At the fast- food restaurant where Lily works, her co-workers laugh behind her back and sneer in her face. Only the unconditional love of her equally eccentric brother (Joel Tobeck) saves her from a complete loss of dignity. R; 94 minutes. Released today.
Golden Door
***RATING In its basic outline, the story told in “Golden Door,” Emanuele Crialese’s beautiful dream of a film, is hardly unfamiliar. Some version of this immigrant’s tale — setting out from the old country, crossing the Atlantic in steerage, arriving at Ellis Island — is part of the family history of millions of Americans. But what makes Crialese’s telling unusual is that his emphasis is on departure and transition, rather than arrival. PG-13; 112 minutes. Released today.
Lisa Kennedy
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