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Here are selected minireviews of films in theaters, listed alphabetically.
Some reviews originate at other newspapers that do not award star ratings.
“Burn After Reading”
Dark lark. ***1/2. R. Brad Pitt and George Clooney star and one could fear too much chuminess from Joel and Ethan Coen’s zippy comedy about secrets, lies and an errant computer disk two gym employees Chad and Linda (Pitt and Frances McDormand) attempt to turn to their advantage. Instead the brothers’ departure from the brutal terrain of “No Country for Old Men” provides a crisp belt of Beltway absurdism. John Malkovich is furiously amusing as Osborne Cox, an intelligence analyst who up and quits the CIA when his role is downgraded. That disk has his notes for a memoir. Tilda Swinton plays Ozzie’s wife. She’s carrying on an affair with U.S. Marshal Harry Pfarrer (Clooney). “Burn” is a juggling act of mistaken identities and misjudged reactions. One of the funniest miscalculations comes when shake-down numbskull Chad gets popped in the nose by Ozzie. Ouch. (Kennedy) 95 minutes
“The Dark Knight”
Superhero action. PG-13. ****. More than any other recent comic-book hero flick, Christopher Nolan’s tour de force sequel provides an enduring, unsettlingly bleak fable of our moment. The theme of the lawman’s reliance on those outside the law to take down those who know not the rule of law beats at the bruised heart of this flick. Christian Bale’s modulated presense as sour billionaire Bruce Wayne/Batman finds competetion in the performances of the late Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart as the Joker and D.A. Harvey Dent. Maggie Gyllenhaal proves a superior Rachel Dawes, Wayne’s beloved who’s fallen for Dent. Ledger’s portrayal of the scarred, face-painted arch-villain is uncanny and kitch-proof, even when he dons a dress. An evil clown has taken the sensitive actor’s place. He’s not a Bozo but an even creepier character than the E-Trade baby springs for. (Kennedy) 152 minutes
“Death Race”
Action/Thriller. **. R. Of all the Z-movies in the Roger Corman catalog, they had to remake “Death Race 2000.” But if the original “Death Race,” with its murderous road-rally drivers who take down pedestrians for “points,” seemed darkly prophetic when it came out in 1975, the new one feels ripped from the pages of tomorrow’s TV Guide. Jason “Stick Shift” Statham is Jensen Ames, an ex-driver framed for his wife’s murder. He winds up on Terminal Island, the prison where the worst of the worst are held. And there he’s given the choice: Drive, or else. (Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel) 105 minutes
“Fly Me to the Moon”
Space cartoon. ***. G. “Fly Me to the Moon” is the last and least of the animations of summer, a good-looking, nostalgic but underanimated and thinly scripted child’s-eye view of that ancient history known as the Apollo program. The story: A group of young flies living on Cape Canaveral in the 1960s tries to join the Apollo 11 crew and fly to the moon. The kids concoct spacesuits, a plan to sneak into the capsule, an excuse to tell their parents. They think the flights last only a few minutes. Meanwhile, some sneaky Russian flies (Tim Curry does a voice) are out to foil the mission. (Roger Moore. Orlando Sentinel) 80 minutes
“Frozen River”
Drama. ****. R. When Ray Eddy quietly weeps in the opening moments of “Frozen River,” the tears follow age lines formed by worry, poverty and cigarettes. Ray, played by Melissa Leo in one of those career-defining performances, has two children, a crummy part-time job that won’t cover expenses and a husband who has just run off with all her meager savings — again. She’s earned the right to cry. But she has one dream: a new double-wide, insulated against the upstate New York cold, a home for her two sons, Ricky, 5, and T.J., 15. (Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel) 97 minutes
“Ghost Town”
Haunted comedy. ***1/2. PG-13. Bertram Pincus DDS hasn’t much use for the living and even less for the dead. Indeed, Pincus DDS is such a bitter pill, there are times you wonder if David Koepp’s comedy about the dour doctor and the deceased cad who enlists his earthly help to help wreck his widow’s new relationship stands a ghost of a chance of pulling off the transformations it hints at. But Koepp, who co-wrote the screenplay with John Kamps, has delivered a gem of a movie. Ricky Gervais, Greg Kinnear and Téa Leoni are terrific working the pain and pleasures of comedy. Kristen Wiig is impossibly funny as the surgeon who must explain to Pincus that well, yes, something happened during a routine medical procedure: he died. (Kennedy) 103 minutes
“Girl Cut in Two”
Thriller. ***1/2. Not rated, but for mature audiences. A triangular romantic comedy until we discover that all three of the lovers are hurtling headlong to self-destruction. At the center of everything is Gabrielle Deneige, a peppy young blond who does the weather at the local TV station. A bookstore in Lyon and holds a signing for the best-selling author Charles Saint-Denis. Also at the event is a spoiled local rich kid, Paul Gaudens. The three central characters are in an emotional fencing match, and Gabrielle lacks a mask. (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times) 114 minutes
“Hancock”
Superhero action. PG-13. ***1/2. Played with finesse by Will Smith, damaged superhero Hancock shows scant signs of shaking off his bitter moods. The unkempt L.A. denizen is sleeping it off on a bench when a major freeway shootout transpires. Signs of Hancock’s disenchantment range from alcohol abuse to rank personal hygiene to sorry interpersonal skills with regular folk. His don’t-give-a-damn rejoinders tip the movie’s PG-13 rating toward R. A typically clumsy intervention by the super-gifted bum leads to an intervention of a different sort, and sends this action-FX ride in surprisingly humane directions. (Kennedy) 92 minutes
“Igor”
Animated comedy. **. PG. Malaria is where every lad can dream of opening his own lab, having his own comely milkmaid girlfriend or diabolical mad scientist moll. Unless he has a hunch on his back and is named “Igor.” John Cusack plays an Igor with a dream, to be his own evil genius someday. But he is tied to the clumsy Dr. Glickenstein (John Cleese, terrific). Still, if Igor can get his pet project into the annual Evil Science Fair and win, it’ll be a big win for Igors everywhere. But “Igor” is chatty and dull, a bit too reliant on innuendo for a kids’ film. (Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel) 80 minutes
“Journey to the Center of the Earth”
Action/adventure. ** 1/2. PG. Essentially a three-character story, the movie casts Brendan Fraser as absent-minded geologist Trevor Anderson, who forgets his nephew Sean (Josh Hutcherson) is coming for a visit. Just as Sean arrives, Trevor stumbles on clues left by his brother that lead him to believe Jules Verne’s fantasy novel actually was based on a real journey to the Earth’s center. So he takes the boy along to Iceland to follow his brother’s footsteps to the center of the Earth. They are aided by Hannah, a Icelandic guide. (David Germain, Associated Press) 93 minutes
“Lakeview Terrace”
Rorschach Drama. **1/2. PG-13. Samuel L. Jackson’s once good cop makes for a very bad neighbor in this drama about an interracial couple moving next door to 30-year LAPD veteran Abel Turner (Jackson). Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington are the young couple excited about their new home. But all is not right and as the distant hills burn with California brush fires, the story smolders. Washington is especially interesting as the sort of character we haven’t seen onscreen: a quasi-bohemian African American woman. Neil LaBute directs David Loughery and Howard Korder’s screenplay that challenges generation attitudes about race by flipping the script on whether this is or isn’t a film about interracial relationships, black bigotry, abusive of authority, or all of the above. “Lakeview Terrace” is most intriguing when it simmers with interpersonal tensions. Once those tensions are set ablaze in a final-act escalation, it falters. (Kennedy) 106 minutes
“Mamma Mia!”
Musical redux. ** 1/2. PG-13. Fans of the ABBA musical will likely bring a happy sense memory of the play with them into the multiplex. That will be all they need to be off and humming along to this story of a daughter on the cusp of marriage, her mother and the three men who may be her father. Those hoping to be wowed by what is a tantalizing, grown-up cast — Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Christine Baranski — are in for choppier waters. But you can’t accuse Streep and Co. of not being super troupers. They sing. They dance. Only too often, it seems like exertion when play should be the thing. Instead theater director Phyllida Lloyd has made “the play the thing.” One of the three creators of the onstage smash, LLoyd has little sense of cinema’s less-is-more powers. Not to say she’s delivered a dud or a dirge. Far from it. It’s just that “Mamma Mia!” feels like a souvenir program: something to revive the feelings you had watching the stage performance. (Kennedy) 108 minutes
“Mister Foe”
Offbeat drama. ****. R. “Mister Foe,” improbably but beautifully, balances creepiness and tenderness as perfectly as young Hallam Foe teeters on the pitched roofs of Edinburgh while he’s spying on a pretty young woman he’s seen in the street. 17-year-old Hallam believes his late mother was murdered by his new stepmother, Verity. Hallam may have an Oedipal attachment, but that doesn’t obviate the fact that he’s still a kid trying to find a place in his own fractured family and, beyond that, in the world. (David Wiegand, San Francisco Chronicle) 95 minutes
“The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor”
Tomb Raider redux. **. PG-13. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor,” the third installment in the kin-of-Indy franchise, finds the son of explorer Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser) on his own archaeological dig in China in search of the tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Alex (Luke Ford) is tempting a disaster in digging for him. If the emperor (Jet Li) is revived and his army of terra-cotta warriors called forth, well you know the action-fantasy drill. (Kennedy) 111 minutes
“Pineapple Express”
Action comedy. ***. R. This action comedy finds customer Dale (Seth Rogen) and toasted dealer Saul (James Franco) on the lam from a drug kingpin and his cop accomplice (Gary Cole and Rosie Perez). A process server with a bag of tricks and some odd costumes in the trunk of his car, Dale thought he was just going to deliver a subpoena. Instead he witnesses a gang murder. He panics, tosses his smoldering joint. It’s funny, sad, and very careless. It’s also got a strange joy to it. (Kennedy) 112 minutes
“Red Roses and Petrol”
Dark Family Dramedy. ***1/2. R. “Red Roses and Petrol,” boasts its share of moments — I’m thinking especially of the point when one of the characters snorts two lines of his father’s ashes, mistaking them for cocaine. Those ashes are the remnants of Enda, tyrannical father and an unfaithful husband, who has bequeathed to his family a lifetime’s worth of grievances. But between its extraordinary performances and some of the most inventive cursing I’ve ever heard (all in a creamy Irish brogue), this film deserves its own place in the sun. (Michael Hardy, Boston Globe) 97 minutes
“The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants”
Young chick flick. ***. PG. The girls are linked by an usual pair of blue jeans. The embroidered, sequined denim fit each girl perfectly. Over the course of a summer, the pants are passed from character to character with powerful effect. This sequel finds the quartet half-heartedly committed to the ritual of the pants and pursuing new goals after their first year of college. Their are no slackers here: Tibby attends New York University, artist Lena goes to Rhode Island School of Design, Blake is studying at Brown and Carmen is a Yalie. But in a film that depends as much on chemistry as individual effort, the sisterhood of the pants remains strong. (Kennedy) 111 minutes
“Space Chimps”
Animated comedy. G. ***. “Chimps,” from the animation studio that gave us “Valiant,” is one of those cartoons parents won’t mind sitting through while little Miss or Mister 8-and-under chuckles at the cute talking primates. And chuckle they will. With adorable critters and icky monsters and oodles of potential toy accessories (to say nothing of a video game tie-in), this movie looks for that sweet spot in every 7-year-old’s heart for chimpanzees and movies about them. And the script manages the occasional wisecrack or movie lovers’ inside joke to keep the grown-ups awake, too. (Roger Moore, The Orlando Sentinel) 81 minutes.
“Tell No One”
French thriller. Not rated. *** 1/2. What a terrific pas de deux of withholding and revelation Guillaume Canet’s adaptation of Harlan Coben’s novel (co-written by Philippe Lefebvre) is. The thriller balances a story of upended love with a mystery that wields power till the very end. Eight years after the death of his wife, still-grieving pediatrician Alexandre Beck (Francois Cluzet) comes under suspicion when two bodies are unearthed near the site of wife Margot’s brutal murder. At the same time, Alex receives an anonymous email showing a woman who looks like his wife caught on a surveillance camera. What gives? Cluzet resembles a Gallic Dustin Hoffman circa “Marathon Man” — and not just because he leads the police on a fantastic foot chase. The dark-haired actor has a moving intensity. “Tell No One” is rich with intriguing characters: a thug who dotes on his hemophiliac toddker, a skeptical police shrink, a wealthy senator who employs Alex’s sister. Canet avoids the nighttime hours of noir. Better, he hasn’t much use for femmes fatales, though there is a chilling hitwoman. Marie-Josee Croze does her part to make us yearn for Margot. Kristin Scott-Thomas provides fine ballast as Alex best friend and sister in law. Helene. Nathalie Baye gives a nicely fierce turn as the lawyer Helene hires for Alex. (Kennedy) 125 minutes
“Traitor”
Political thriller. ***. PG-13. Globe-trotting political thriller “Traitor” begins with a tender moment between a father and a son as they pore over the Koran and later as they ponder their moves on a chessboard. Violence and loss leave an imprint on the sensitive boy who grows up to be the protagonist. Thrillers that avoid insulting our intelligence are not as common an occurrence as they should be. Don Cheadle is Samir. The son of an Islamic holy man and an American mother, he was born in Sudan but raised in the U.S. When we meet him, the special-ops explosives expert is hawking Cemtex to some bad actors in Yemen. Whether Samir is a devout Muslim or a purveyor of mayhem, or both, provides the tension at the heart of the film, which at once takes belief seriously and scrutinizes it. (Kennedy) 90 minutes
“Transiberian”
Train thriller. ****. R. A worldly “bad-girl” wife, a naive husband, two too-chatty strangers, drugs, Russian cops and a very long train ride — that’s a combo Alfred Hitchcock would be happy to call his own. “Transsiberian” is a paranoid, chilling train trek that borrows freely from the best Hitchcock pictures to give us that rare adult summer thriller. Woody Harrelson is Roy, the rube hardware-store owner from Iowa whose church has just finished a help-kids outreach in China. Emily Mortimer is Jessie, his onetime “bad-girl” wife, a photographer, a smoker and probably a little wilder than Roy can handle. (Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel) 111 minutes
“Tropic Thunder”
War flick parody. ** 1/2. R. The disaster-beset war flick within Ben Stiller’s action comedy is not the only bungle in the jungle taking place when five actors are stranded and believe the cameras are still rolling. No, those aren’t extras. They’re a drug gang. Stiller improbably stars as a has-been action hero Tugg Speedman. Jack Black overplays Jeff Portnoy whose chief complaint is the lack of illicit substances to abuse. As Aussie method actor Kirk Lazarus (who underwent a procedure to make him appear African American), Robert Downey Jr. seems to be working in a different, better movie. Stiller and cowriters Justin Theroux and Etan Cohen had the makings of a wry satire about the pampered insularity of Hollywood denizens. Instead they settled for an above par parody movie with some sub-par gags about disability. In spoofing war movies and their disconnect with real combat, “Tropic Thunder” seems even more clueless. Thanks to Downey and Tom Cruise, there are a few incandescently insane set-pieces: Lazaruz argues racial authenticity with Alpa Chino, an African American rapper-turned-actor. And Cruise’s performance is reminiscent of his chilling turn in “Magnolia.” He’s nearly unrecognizable beneath the balding-hairy guy get-up and yet… (Kennedy) 107 minutes
“Vicky Cristina Barcelona”
Romantic Travelogue. *** 1/2. PG-13. They are best friends and in matters of the heart like night and day. And Woody Allen teases their contrasts when he sends sensible Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and yearning Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) to Barcelona for a summer where they flirt with pleasure and minor disaster. Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz are vibrant as a painter and his volatile and talented ex-wife. They are catalysts in the women’s deeper if confounded appreciation of “Catalan Identity” (Vicky’s masters thesis). Agile and warmly sexy, Allen’s romp is a study in how a place and its denizens, familiar enough but distinctly different, upend what one knows about oneself. Patricia Clarkson adds texture as Judy, who along with her husband, puts the duo up for their adventure. An amused Allen adds to his wry treatise on character contrasts — American and Meditteranean, pragmatic and romantic — Vicky’s fiancé arrives shirt tucked in his khakis, laptop at the ready. (Kennedy) 97 minutes
“WALL*E”
Animated. ***. G. “Finding Nemo” director Andrew Stanton returns with a vivid and rather dystopian fable set in the future. Little, curious Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class aka WALL*E stacks garbage skyscraper-high centuries after humans have departed for space. When sleek probe EVE arrives in search of vegetation, the lonesome bot falls, hard, then follows. On a cruise-style spaceship, hefty pampered humans could use some shaking up. After a bleak start that might have gotten sci-fi author Philip K. Dick’s seal of approval, “WALL*E” finds its rousing, hopeful groove without ever sacrificing its far-from artificial intelligence. (Kennedy) 97 minutes
“The Women”
Declawed comedy. *1/2. PG-13. The best intentions don’t always lead to the best films. The long-awaited version of George Cukor’s 1939 classic (based on Claire Booth Luce’s Broadway hit) has a impressive roster of stars: Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Eva Mendes and Jada Pinkett Smith flips the script dramatically. And Diane English, “Murphy Brown” creator turned first-time film director, should be lauded for wanting to rescue the original from its negative ideas about female friendship. Here Ryan plays the morally upstanding Mary Haines, whose husband has strayed. Bening is Sylvia, Mary’s frenemy is now her best friend. Debra Messing and Smith fill out Mary’s clique of love. Eva Mendes is the knockout perfume hawker who KOs the Haines marriage (Joan Crawford did the damage in 1939). Original gossip girl Hedda Hopper referred to “The Women” as “that feminine kennel.” And it was the kind of bitchfest that has given drag queens yards of fabric to work with. This version wields little razor-sharp repartee. Still, you don’t have put it up against Cukor’s film to find it lacking. Ironically, a television series beat English to the punchline. The women of “Sex and the City” made this “Women” late to the party. (Kennedy) 104 minutes
