“Avatar”
*** 1/2 (out of 4)
The bells ring and the whistles beckon in James Cameron’s technologically advanced sci-fi epic about a wheelchair-bound Marine named Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a moon called Pandora and the N’avi, an indigenous tribe under siege. This bare-bones DVD lacks the 3D spectacle of the theatrical release. But it’s the immersive tug of the story — rife with nods to “gone native” flicks, Ray Harryhausen creatures and Cameron’s own “Terminator” and “Aliens” — that make for a wondrous, wild, even wise, ride. Sigourney Weaver co-stars as head of the research program that links humans telepathically to avatar bodies. PG-13. 2 hours, 41 minutes.
Lisa Kennedy, The Denver Post
“Crazy Heart”
*** 1/2 (out of 4)
Bad Blake is a wayward, aging country singer played by Jeff Bridges. There is always room for another version of that old song about the guy who messed it all up and kept on going. Especially when that guy can play the tune as truly and as well as Jeff Bridges, who won an Oscar for the role. R. 1 hour, 51 minutes.
A.O. Scott, The New York Times
“The Lovely Bones”
** 1/2 (out of 4)
In “The Lovely Bones,” director Peter Jackson displays a deft grasp of the dismaying parallel universes of the ordinary and pathological. And much of this adaptation of Alice Sebold’s best-selling novel about a murdered child’s observations of those left behind (her beloved family as well as her killer) beautifully splices the utterly familiar with the shattering. Yet something central to Sebold’s raw and elegant tale remains elusive. PG-13. 2 hours, 15 minutes.
Lisa Kennedy, The Denver Post
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