Add to Vince Vaughn’s canon of gonzo enthusiasm the blissful image of him using a makeshift blowtorch on a suburban block, screaming, “I’m going to burn your face off!” His act maybe isn’t as fresh as it once was, but Vaughn still puts a charge into movies. Ron Howard’s comedy begins and ends in hokey cliche, but for a brief period in the middle, it carries a slight hint of Billy Wilder, playing uncomfortable stuff for not entirely dumb laughs. Chicago engineers and buddies Ronny Valentine (Vaughn) and Nick Brannen (Kevin James) each have long-term partners: Ronny’s girlfriend, Beth (Jennifer Connelly), and Nick’s wife, Geneva (Winona Ryder). After Ronny sees Geneva cheating on Nick with another man (Channing Tatum), he descends into a world of infidelity where seemingly everyone is cheating. Unfortunately, Howard’s light-but-thorny examination of marital disfunction becomes distracted by pratfalls and standard bromance comedy. Ryder matches Vaughn’s wildness, but Connelly isn’t given a chance and James isn’t up to it. Sports metaphors proliferate until the film sinks into them, finally, senselessly concluding on an NHL rink. PG-13 for mature thematic elements involving sexual content. 110 minutes. Two stars out of four.
Someday soon, hopefully, 3-D will be exposed for the sham that it is. We will all realize that, for the vast majority of films, shooting in or converting to 3-D offers absolutely nothing from a narrative standpoint, and very little visually; all this gimmick really adds is money at the box office through higher ticket prices. But until that blessed day comes, we will continue to be bombarded with mediocre action pictures like this. It didn’t have to be this way. There was reason for hope. “The Green Hornet” comes from director Michel Gondry, who’s known for visually inspired films including “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “The Science of Sleep.” Hearing his name attached to a big, studio superhero movie — starring Seth Rogen, of all people — may have sounded incongruent, but at least it was intriguing. Instead, Gondry has come up with a surprisingly generic, bombastic action movie. Based on the 1930s radio show, “The Green Hornet” stars Rogen as Britt Reid, playboy heir to the Los Angeles publishing empire built by his father (Tom Wilkinson). But when his father dies suddenly, Britt realizes he has a chance to use his fortune for good, and decides to become a vigilante crime fighter with the help of his father’s mechanic, the soft-spoken but ever-resourceful Kato (Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou). PG-13 for sequences of violent action, language, sensuality and drug content. 118 minutes. One and a half stars out of four.
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It begins with an intriguing premise: A guy and a girl agree to have sex wherever they want, whenever they want, without all those pesky emotions getting in the way. This is what the kids these days, with their rock ‘n’ roll music and their video games, refer to as being “friends with benefits.” What’s intriguing about it is that the girl in the equation, a young doctor played by Natalie Portman, is the one who suggests this arrangement, and the guy, an aspiring TV writer played by Ashton Kutcher, is the one who breaks the rules and falls in love. It’s a reversal of traditional gender roles, and an indication that we might be in for something fresh, daring and different. Except, we’re not. This romantic comedy from Ivan Reitman — the first film he’s directed since the less-than-super “My Super Ex-Girlfriend” from 2006 — falls into all the usual traps. The fear of commitment that plagues Portman’s character is enough of a contrivance without all the additional troubles that get piled on. Letting the tension evolve naturally from the insecurities of relatable, well-developed figures would have been preferable, but once Kutcher’s character goes all soft and gooey, the movie does too. For a while, though, the very modern relationship writer Elizabeth Meriwether lays out for us has a snappy, spirited energy and an appealing, unexpected raunchy streak. Greta Gerwig, Mindy Kaling and Kevin Kline are among the well-chosen supporting cast. R for sexual content, language and some drug material. 102 minutes. Two stars out of four.
An exquisite example of style over substance, of vast visuals dwarfing the characters and nearly swallowing the story whole. Veteran Australian director Peter Weir has crafted an old-fashioned historical epic, inspired by the true story of prisoners who escaped a 1940 Soviet labor camp and trudged thousands of miles across unforgiving terrain to their freedom. Not all of them made it, which we might have guessed on our own, but Weir, working with co-writer Keith Clarke, informs us with a title card at the start that three men would walk out of the Himalayas at the end of this arduous journey. The result: Despite the seriousness of the subject matter, the film loses some of its tension because we pretty much know the outcome, leaving us only to wonder who will live and who will die, as if we’re watching an episode of “Survivor: Siberian Gulag.” And it is serious — or at least, it should be. Weir alternates between vivid, convincing images of the harsh surroundings — sweepingly shot on location in Bulgaria, Morocco and India — and detailed close-ups of the toll this trip has taken on the characters’ faces, their bodies, and most especially their feet. But except for Ed Harris as a mysterious American, Jim Sturgess as an idealistic Polish officer and Colin Farrell as an over-the-top Russian thug, the remaining characters are essentially interchangeable. PG-13 for violent content, depiction of physical hardships, a nude image and brief strong language. 133 minutes. Two stars out of four.
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