9 3 stars (PG-13) In a post-apocalyptic city, robotic ragdolls, including inquisitive 9 (voiced by Elijah Wood), fight off the remnants of the war machines that destroyed humanity. With so many computer-animated cartoon features devoted to pop-savvy kiddie comedies about talking animals, it's refreshing to see a CGI adventure with a unique vision. Director Shane Acker's vision of jerry-rigged, Rube Goldberg-style inventions and landscapes can be fascinating. That said, 9 is PG-13 for a reason, and may be too intense for little kids and too dark for many adults. It's like Pinocchio vs. Terminator. — Curt Holman
AMELIA 2 stars (PG) Two-time Best Actress Oscar-winner Hilary Swank certainly looks the part as toothy, tomboyish aviatrix Amelia Earhart, playing opposite Richard Gere as Earhart’s publisher, promoter and husband-to-be George Putnam. But, unbelievably, director Mira Nair shows virtually no interest in the excitement of aviation, preferring to focus on Earhart’s love triangle with Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor) and her celebrity as a 1930s feminist icon. A beautifully photographed biopic, Amelia generates almost no dramatic interest until the re-creation of the last leg of her final flight. — Holman
ASTRO BOY 4 stars (G) When Dr. Tenma’s (Nicolas Cage) son Tobio (Freddie Highmore) meets an unfortunate end, the grief-stricken scientist creates a robotic boy in his son’s image powered by an experimental power source — blue-core energy. Tobio soon learns he’ll never replace his flesh-and-blood predecessor and flees when facing deactivation from his father and war-mongering General Stone (Donald Sutherland). His escape takes the young robot on an action-packed journey where his destiny is ultimately revealed.
BLACK DYNAMITE 4 stars (R) Mack daddy and one-man killing machine Black Dynamite (Michael Jai White) wages a vendetta against jive turkeys who killed his brother and peddled dope to kids. His righteous battles uncover a conspiracy that takes him from the 'hood all the way to "the Honky House." Giving credit where it's due, White's portrayal of Dynamite is effortless and shows a rarely seen comedic side. As the story progresses, the jokes start to get a bit stale, but the film revives itself as it reaches its oddly climactic ending. Although Black Dynamite successfully spoofs the campy essence of blaxploitation films of the '70s, it perfectly balances its riffs as an homage to the badass alpha-male leads and social-message vehicle the genre spawned.— Edward Adams
BRIGHT STAR 4 stars (PG) The Piano director Jane Campion offers a deeply felt retelling of the doomed love affair between romantic poet John Keats (Ben Whishaw) and neighbor/clothing designer Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish). Though set around the same time as all those Jane Austen movies, Bright Star presents far more of the dirt, pungency and claustrophobia of the era than the usual period piece. Avoiding melodrama, Bright Star captures the aching futility of love and its redemption — at least in the textbooks — through Keats' immortal verse. — Holman
CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY 3 stars (PG-13) In a semi-sequel to his 1989 documentary Roger & Me, Michael Moore offers a critique of the excesses of the capitalist system, focusing most of his ire on the huge banks and mortgage companies at the center of the 2008 economic meltdown. Moore doesn't have to look far to uncover horrifying tales of corporate greed and malfeasance, and offers some optimistic anecdotes about the benefits of worker-owned companies. His patented showboating stunts prove as empty and annoying as ever, however, and he waffles the issue as to how to replace the free-enterprise system.— Holman
CIRQUE DU FREAK: THE VAMPIRE’S ASSISTANT (PG-13) About a Boy and American Pie director Paul Weitz helms this light-hearted horror fantasy about a teenager who becomes the apprentice to a supernatural carnival. The cast includes Salma Hayek, “Fringe’s” Michael Cerveris, Orlando Jones and John C. Reilly, cast against type as a vampire.
CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS 3 stars (PG) Young crackpot inventor Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader) accidentally revitalizes his struggling hometown with a gizmo that causes "food weather" to fall from the sky. When greed and pride cause ginormous menu items to wreak havoc, it's like a Roland Emmerich disaster film combined with an all-you-can eat buffet. The sight gags, splendid animation and effective use of 3-D make up for the thin characterizations, and the metaphors for excess consumption make the film comparable to a Happy Meal version of Super Size Me. — Holman
COCO BEFORE CHANEL 3 stars (PG-13) Audrey Tautou portrays Coco Chanel, the famed style icon and fashion designer in this French biopic.
COUPLES RETREAT 2 stars (PG-13) Jason Bateman and Kristen Bell play spouses contemplating divorce who invite six friends to a resort that requires conspicuously more "couples skill-building" than Jet-Skiing. Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau star and co-wrote the script (with Dana Fox), presumably so they could take a paid vacation in Bora Bora. At any rate, a laziness infuses the performances (with Malin Akerman and Kristin Davis thanklessly playing their spouses) and script, which offers shallow insights about relationships. Droll performances from Faizon Love and Bateman and scene-stealing work from Jean Reno and Peter Serafinowicz as touchy-feely islanders keep Couples Retreat from being a lost vacation.
FAME (PG) The High School Musical franchise no doubt inspired this PG-rated "reinvention" of the R-rated Alan Parker film from 1980 about the students and teachers at the New York School of Performing Arts.
HALLOWEEN II (R) Laurie Strode struggles to come to terms with her brother Michael's deadly return to Haddonfield, Ill. Meanwhile, Michael prepares for another reunion with his sister.
I CAN DO BAD ALL BY MYSELF (PG-13) Heavy-drinking nightclub singer April (Benjamin Button's Taraji P. Henson) attempts to care for three troubled young people with a little help from Madea in Tyler Perry's latest feature film. Look for such local stage actors as Tess Malis Kincaid and Eric Mendenhall.
I SELL THE DEAD 3 stars (NR) In 19th-century Ireland, a pair of bickering body snatchers ("Lost's" Dominic Monaghan and horror director Larry Fessenden) discover that the real money lies in the undead. First-time director Glenn McQuaid clearly grooves on the grisly morality tales of the old-school Tales From the Crypt comic books, as well as the lurid look of England's Hammer Studios horror films. Cult character actors like Hellboy'sRon Perlman and Angrus Scrimm contribute to the film's shlocky entertainment value. Dig it. — Holman
THE INFORMANT! 3 stars (R) Looking more like Philip Seymour Hoffman than Jason Bourne, Matt Damon plays an Archer Daniels Midland executive who blows the whistle on the company's corporate malfeasance, even though he's a pathological liar up to his neck in personal misdeeds. Erin Brockovich director Steven Soderbergh takes the genre of crusading David vs. corporate Goliath on its head and reveals the commonplace banality of corporate chicanery and the flaws of the criminal justice system. Soderbergh shows little faith in the material as comedy, larding the soundtrack with whacky, kazoo-heavy ragtime, but supporting players like Tony Hale deliver enough laughs to balance the books. — HolmanINGLOURIOUS BASTERDS 3 stars (R) In Quentin Tarantino's World War II revenge fantasy, the Basterds are a band of Jewish-American G.I.s, led by Brad Pitt's drawling lieutenant, who murder Nazis behind the lines in occupied France. Inglourious Basterds spends surprisingly little time on the title characters, or even caper-style action scenes of WWII mission movies, and opts for long, talky confrontations involving French, German and British agents. Christoph Waltz's misleadingly polite Nazi lives up to the hype as the villain of the year, but the film's restless approach to its multiple storylines makes it feel less, rather than more, meaningful. — Holman
THE INVENTION OF LYING 3 stars (PG-13) On an alternate world that knows no deceit or falsehood, underachieving screenwriter Mark Bellison (Ricky Gervais) discovers the ability to lie and turns society upside down. Gervais and co-writer/co-director Matthew Robinson take the premise to fascinating lengths when the Biblically-named Mark describes an afterlife and implies that organized religion is a lie. Unfortunately, the film backs off from its more provocative ideas and contorts its concept to create rom-com complications for Mark and his true love (Jennifer Garner). Still, its funny lines, big ideas and parade of amusing cameos make Lying one of the year's most interesting comedies. Honest. — Holman
JENNIFER'S BODY 2 stars (R) A hot, slightly bitchy high schooler (Megan Fox) turns into a hotter, bitchier, boy-eating cannibal when a satanic ceremony goes wrong. A mousy teen nicknamed "Needy" (Mamma Mia!'s Amanda Seyfried) tries to stop her former BFF. The sophomore script from Diablo Cody, Oscar-winner for Juno, goes off in too many thematic directions, including high school spoof, Sept. 11 satire, female-phobic shlock and feminist empowerment fantasy. A versatile, witty lead actress could have pulled Cody's ideas together, but Fox's slammin' body can't compensate for her flat delivery and empty eyes. — Holman
LAW ABIDING CITIZEN 3 stars (R) After home invaders kill his wife and daughter, “tinkerer” Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) exacts revenge on Philadelphia’s criminal justice system, particularly district attorney Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx), who cut a deal to give a sleazy killer a light sentence. If you like films with inventive “kills” but are too embarrassed to see theSaw series, Law Abiding Citizen puts a thin veneer of respectability over the bloodshed. It’s hard to care very much about Foxx’s crises of conscience, but Butler makes a fine villain, less like Charles Bronson in Death Wish than The Joker in The Dark Knight. — Holman
ONG BAK 2 (R ) Tony Jaa stars and co-directs this prequel to his ass-kicking martial arts flick, Ong Bak.
PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 stars (R) Director Oren Peli’s Blair Witch-style horror flick unfolds from the point of view of the video camera of a daytrader (Micah Sloat) who hopes to chronicle the supernatural experiences that bedevil his girlfriend (Katie Featherston). Costing an estimated $15,000, Paranormal’s most skin-crawling moments frequently come from a stationary camera trained on the couple’s bed and the darkened hallway leading to the bedroom. Deeper characterization could have enriched the film, but it’s still an effective horror flick that lives up to the claims of its viral promotional campaign. — Holman
SAW VI (R) They’re still making these?
A SERIOUS MAN 4 stars (R) A Jewish physics professor (Michael Stuhlbarg) endures crises of family, career and religion in the Minneapolis suburbs of 1967. The Oscar-winning Coen brothers mine their own childhood for a Kafka-esque, seriocomic spiritual quest in which God, if He even exists, refuses to provide answers to the protagonist’s sufferings. The Coens offer caricatures of most of the Jewish characters, but nevertheless touch on provocative issues of the ineffability of the universe. —Holman
SOMERS TOWN (NR) Two teenage boys form an unlikely friendship in central London. The pair not only bonds over little adventures like stealing laundry and making money from an eccentric neighbor but also become closer through their shared love of a French waitress at their local café.
THE STEPFATHER (PG-13) A teen returns from military school to discover that his mom (Sela Ward) has remarried, but his new stepfather (Dylan Walsh) may not be the all-American aad he appears. A remake of the nifty 1987 suspense film starring Terry O’Quinn of “Lost.”
STILL WALKING 3 stars (NR) Japanese director Hirokazu Koreeda presents 24 hours in a gathering to observe the death of a family’s eldest son, who, even in death, casts a shadow over his younger brother, Ryota (Hiroshi Abe). In this quiet, closely observed story, tenderness can disguise cruelty and the communication breakdowns can serve as a cautionary tale to keep your own family ties from growing frayed. — Holman
SURROGATES 2 stars (PG-13) In the near future, most Americans vicariously live their lives through perfect android "surrogates" that they operate safely from home. Bruce Willis plays an FBI agent who unplugs his surrogate self to investigate a conspiracy in the flesh. This adaptation takes the premise of the graphic novel (from Atlanta's Top Shelf Productions) and pushes it into fascinating directions that resonate with contemporary trends in the Internet and social networking. The sheer number of twists push the film into silliness and director Jonathan Mostow doesn't distinguish between robotic acting and simply bad acting. — Holman
WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE 4 stars (PG) The talented, intriguingly named Max Records plays “Max,” a boy who flees his neglected, latch-key existence for the land of the Wild Things, but he discovers the challenges of meeting the emotional needs of his monstrous but childlike playmates. Director Spike Jonze and co-writer Dave Eggers freely adapt Maurice Sendak’s archetypal picture book and render the wild things as chubby costumes with highly expressive, CGI-tweaked facial features (and such voice actors as James Gandolfini and Lauren Ambrose). Too melancholy and occasionally draggy for young kids, Where the Wild Things Are nevertheless offers a visually remarkable meditation on the complex emotions of childhood. — Holman
