127 Hours ★★★★ Even if you know the real-life story of Aron Ralston, you won’t be prepared for the way James Franco, as Ralston, plays the moment when he realizes he’s had his arm pinned to a canyon wall in Southern Utah — a frozen look not of fear or pain, but sheer incredulity. Franco’s brilliant as a guy slowly realizing that he’s completely screwed, yet he never over-plays what could have turned into a showy actor’s playground. Co-writer and director Danny Boyle comes perilously close to over-playing the melodrama of Ralston’s growing despair; he’s much savvier at building visual variety into Ralston’s static story. Smartest of all, he knows when to ease up and let Franco’s performance carry the narrative, so that even the harrowing, graphic scenes never feel like exploitation. It’s a tragically human story, captured by something as simple as one incredulous glance. (R) (AMC Dutch Square; Carmike 14; Regal Sandhill)
Black Swan ★★★★ Once again, director Darren Aronofsky conveys what the world looks like to people who have fallen into madness and obsession. Ballerina Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) begins to crack under the pressure of being cast as the lead in a production of Swan Lake that demands she play both the White Swan and its darker counterpart. The psychological tension involves Nina’s relationship with her controlling mother (Barbara Hershey), and what the pursuit of perfection can do to the soul — and it hardly takes a road map to find that subtext. But Aronofsky makes those ideas enthralling as we watch Nina crumble into hallucinations (or are they?) of physical transformation, Portman effortlessly playing someone whose sense of self is falling apart. There are bound to be viewers who find Black Swan too archetypal to be emotionally satisfying — or, for that matter, too just-plain-weird. Maybe that’s just further indication that Aronofsky has once again nailed the experience of prowling around inside someone else’s subconscious, seeing things you’d really prefer you hadn’t seen. (R) (AMC Dutch Square; Carmike Wynnsong; Regal Columbiana Grande; Regal Sandhill)
Blue Valentine ★★★★ It could have felt like just another affected indie-drama gimmick, but Derek Cianfrance’s use of split chronology proves crucial to this heartbreaking story of a dissolving marriage. When we first meet Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams), it’s clear that all isn’t sun and roses between them; as we flash back four years earlier to the start of their relationship, it becomes clearer how they might have been doomed from the start. Both leads pitch their performances brilliantly — Gosling as a simple guy who never over-thinks his simple satisfaction with his life, Williams as a woman whose ambitions were forever altered. But the genius of Cianfrance’s screenplay is watching the tug of war between the moments of affection it’s clear they still share, and the unsteady foundation that renders their affection too little to sustain a marriage. The pace drags occasionally, but it would have been hard to add pep in an organic way to a story brimming over with the sadness of a couple built on good intentions. (R) (Carmike 14; Regal 7)
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader ★★★ Attempting to revive its appeal to the “faith audience,” this third installment of the Narnia series peppers its episodic adventure with unsubtle allegory. Youngest Pevensie siblings Lucy (Georgie Hensley) and Edmund (Skandar Keynes) return to Narnia with their annoying cousin Eustace (Will Poulter) to join King Caspian (Ben Barnes) in battling a nameless, faceless evil force. Nameless, faceless evil forces don’t make for the most compelling cinema, of course; a green mist doesn’t match Tilda Swinton’s smooth White Witch malevolence. There is, however, the welcome addition of Eustace, and the terrific casting of Poulter. He’s one of many characters with important lessons to learn, which is where the collision between conventional fantasy and Christian subtext gets awkward; scenes dealing with moral struggle are plunked down as though required to fill some quota. The charms of the film are challenged by the realization that, once again, Aslan is bound to turn into the leo ex machina that will solve all the really difficult problems with a mighty roar. (PG) (Carmike Wynnsong; Regal Columbiana Grande)
Country Strong ★★ At the outset, when writer-director Shanna Feste drops us without any background into the interaction between Kelly Canter (Gwyneth Paltrow), an alcoholic country music star in rehab, and Beau (Garrett Hedlund), an orderly and would-be singer-songwriter, it feels like a bold move. Then it becomes clear that Feste just doesn’t have the time to give any of the film’s relationships the context they need. It’s really sort of a romantic rectangle, involving not just Kelly and Beau but also Kelly’s manager/husband (Tim McGraw) and the beauty queen-turned-singer who accompanies them all on Kelly’s comeback tour. And every one of the various subplots feels half-formed, like short stories that have been pasted together to make a feature. The music, even to a non-country fan, sounds pretty good; Hedlund in particular has a wonderful, earthy baritone. But it gets swallowed by a tale that resorts to melodrama when it can’t find the time to develop any actual drama. (PG-13) (Carmike 14; Regal 7)
The Dilemma ★★ I’d bet there was the germ of something unique in Alan Loeb’s original script, a high concept that turns into a darker comedy about the secrets everyone keeps. Ronny (Vince Vaughn) and Nick (Kevin James) are best friends since college and business partners on the verge of a big contract — so is this the right time for Ronny to tell Nick that he caught his wife, Geneva (Winona Ryder), with another guy? Vaughn has solid moments in prime motor-mouth mode, and there’s an unexpectedly sly supporting turn by Channing Tatum as Geneva’s lover. There are also individual scenes that suggest what might have been, had director Ron Howard been willing (or able) to commit to an edgier tone rather than pretending it’s all a light-hearted lark. The resulting mess isn’t funny enough to disguise its fear of saying anything really interesting. (PG-13) (AMC Dutch Square; Carmike Wynnsong; Regal Columbiana Grande; Regal Pastime; Regal Sandhill)
The Fighter ★★★ Like Rocky, David O. Russell’s tale of a scrappy, working-class nobody who gets a title shot works not just because of its underdog sports-movie machinations but because of its quirky sense of character and place. It’s the real-life story of “Irish” Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg), a brawler from Lowell, Mass., who struggles between looking out for his own career and staying loyal to his family, including employing his ex-boxer, crack-addict half-brother Dickie (Christian Bale) as his trainer. While Russell includes stuff like the obligatory “winning streak” montage, he offers plenty of smaller character moments, allowing the story and the terrific performances — particularly Bale’s sensational, motor-mouthed Dickie — room to breathe. Of course, eventually we’re going to need to see Micky in the ring, and while there’s nothing overtly wrong with the fight scenes, there’s nothing particularly interesting about them, particularly after the looser, funkier opening 90 minutes. The Fighter understands that we need to care just as much about what happens when the hero isn’t wearing a pair of gloves. (R) (AMC Dutch Square; Carmike 14; Regal 7)
Green Hornet ★★★ Nerdy-goof superhero fan Seth Rogen co-writes and stars in a movie that’s much more nerdy-goofy than it is superheroic — much to its advantage. Rogen plays Britt Reid, a slacker billion-heir who decides to turn his new combination of money, ample free time and a genius engineer and kung fu dynamo named Kato (Jay Chou) for a partner into a stab at masked crime-fighting. Unfortunately, he’s utterly inept and kind of a jerk — which Rogen plays up to very funny effect. Director Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) feels like entirely the wrong choice for this sort of movie, and the action sequences are perfunctory when they’re not frantically edited. But in a way, the whole story is just a terrific gag at the expense of blockbuster moviemaking — a satire of egomaniacal boys wanting to make sure everyone knows they’ve got the coolest toys. (PG-13) (AMC Dutch Square; Carmike Wynnsong; Columbia Place; Regal Columbiana Grande; Regal Pastime; Regal Sandhill)
Gulliver’s Travels ★★ Jack Black looms massively over the rest of the landscape, overwhelming everything around him — or at least that seems to have been the intent. In an adaptation that it’s best to pretend has nothing to do with Jonathan Swift, Black plays newspaper mail-room slacker Lemuel Gulliver who — in an attempt to impress the travel editor (Amanda Peet) he’s crushing on — feigns the ability to take on an assignment in the Bermuda Triangle. And thus he winds up shipwrecked in Lilliput, a big man at last among its tiny inhabitants. Aside from a few amusing pop-culture gags — Gulliver builds himself up among the Lilliputians by telling the Star Wars and Titanic stories as stuff that happened to him — it all feels mostly designed as a vehicle for Black to do his familiar shtick as a blustering loser. And while he generally doesn’t force things to the point that he becomes annoying, neither can he support a bunch of random, episodic nonsense with the same basic premise delivered more cleverly in Kung Fu Panda. (PG) (Carmike 14; Regal 7)
The King’s Speech ★★★ It’s too easy for laud Colin Firth for his performance here, yet it’s also too easy to fold your arms defiantly against the high-toned look of the film, thus missing its considerable charms. In 1934 England, the Duke of York (Firth) begins working on his crippling stutter with unconventional speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), even as events rush him toward the likelihood that he may become king. The relationship between Logue and the monarch-to-be is the focal point, and director Tom Hooper gives a delightful spark to their sessions. There’s nothing profound going on in this tale of a prince finding common ground with a commoner — simply a satisfying pairing of two talented actors. While Firth is certainly good, Rush actually proves more impressive; his performance is a unique mix of simple self-confidence and roguish humor. It’s a bit harder to embrace the woes of an emotionally stunted blue-blood, but while Firth might not give the performance of the year, he makes for half of one hell of a team. (R) (AMC Dutch Square, Regal Columbiana Grande; Regal Sandhill)
Little Fockers ★★ In the closing scene of this latest return to the clash between neurotic male nurse Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) and his hard-nosed father-in-law Jack Byrnes (Robert DeNiro), Greg’s dad (Dustin Hoffman) says, “We have to laugh at the things that make us human: farts, burps …” And thus is excused a simmering heap of pointlessness-cum-sentimentality. The ostensible plot has Jack worrying about the family legacy after he has a heart attack, and hoping Greg has the stuff to become a patriarch. But really it’s all an excuse for an episodic parade of broad physical gags and situations where a third party arrives at precisely the moment required to completely misunderstand what’s going on. Owen Wilson provides low-key appeal returning as Kevin, but his refusal to overplay a scene only makes the manic desperation of the rest of the film more depressing. You know what else makes us human? The ability to use at least an ounce of brains to avoid complete wastes of our time and money. (PG-13) (AMC Dutch Square; Carmike 14; Regal Sandhill)
The Mechanic ★★ An elite assassin (Jason Statham) takes on an apprentice (Ben Foster) who has a connection to one of his earlier targets. (R) (AMC Dutch Square; Carmike Wynnsong; Columbia Place; Regal Columbiana Grande; Regal Pastime; Regal Sandhill)
No Strings Attached ★★★ The premise, of course, is very naughty and edgy: Two people trying to have a purely sexual relationship without letting inconvenient things like emotions get in the way. But there’s such a thing as overplaying your hand. Emma (Natalie Portman) and Adam (Ashton Kutcher) bump into each other repeatedly over the years, until medical resident Emma suggests the physical-only arrangement to fit her hectic life. Portman and Kutcher are both solid — though the psychology behind their characters’ respective views of romance seems logically reversed — and there are laughs spread throughout from a supporting cast including Kevin Kline and Greta Gerwig. It’s just a shame that Elizabeth Meriweather’s script seems so determined to be as outrageous as possible, at the expense of a natural flow to the relationship. It’s a movie that doesn’t seem to understand its own message — that you’ve got to find a way to integrate the heart and the groin. (R) (AMC Dutch Square; Columbia Place; Regal 7; Regal Columbiana Grande; Regal Pastime; Regal Sandhill)
The Rite ★★ A disillusioned American seminary student who attends exorcism school at the Vatican, encountering demonic forces and an unorthodox priest (Anthony Hopkins) who introduces him to the darker side of his faith. (PG-13) (AMC Dutch Square; Carmike Wynnsong; Columbia Place; Regal Columbiana Grande; Regal Pastime; Regal Sandhill)
Season of the Witch ★ A heroic Crusader and his closest friend return home after decades of fierce fighting, only to find their world destroyed by the Plague. The church elders, convinced that a girl accused of being a witch is responsible for the devastation, command the two to transport the strange girl to a remote monastery where monks will perform an ancient ritual to rid the land of her curse. They embark on a harrowing, action-filled journey that will test their strength and courage as they discover the girl’s dark secret and find themselves battling a terrifyingly powerful force that will determine the fate of the world. (PG-13) (Carmike 14)
Tangled ★★★★ Disney might be concerned about emphasizing that this is a musical fairy tale about a princess — but even if this feels like a greatest-hits medley, it’s still charming, funny and deliciously entertaining. As per tradition, Rapunzel (Mandy Moore) is held captive in a tower by an evil stepmother (Donna Murphy), until her true love (Zachary Levi) comes to rescue her. But the filmmakers are savvy enough to build an emotional hook of teen rebellion and over-protective parenting on which to hang a familiar format. And while plenty of Tangled feels familiar, from the song types to individual scenes, they nail the execution. Alan Menken’s tunes are Broadway-catchy; all three central voice performances are terrific. The comic relief proves genuinely amusing, while the action beats are choreographed for excitement and for laughs. It’s a shame that marketing worries appear to have inspired the studio to disavow a genre that has brought so much cinematic pleasure. Say it with me now: It’s a musical fairy tale about a princess. When we’re all humming and smiling our way through the happily-ever-afterward of watching, those silly words shouldn’t matter. (PG) (Carmike Wynnsong; Regal Columbiana Grande)
Tiny Furniture ★★★ It takes a deft touch to create a protagonist who’s both sympathetic and an indictment of an over-privileged generation. But that’s what writer-director-star Lena Dunham pulls off playing Aura, a would-be filmmaker who has graduated from college and returned home to New York to crash with her artist mother (real-life mom Laurie Simmons) and over-achieving teenage sister (real-life sister Grace Dunham) while she “figures some stuff out.” Dunham is a disarmingly appealing on-screen presence, and she’s just as deft behind the camera, putting together precise compositions that make any comparison to mumblecore just lazy. But her savviest work comes as a writer, constructing a story of 20-somethings-including Aura and the two guys who become sort-of-romantic-interests treating their financially strapped journeys of self-discovery as an inalienable right. Aura’s interaction with a saucy high-school friend (Jemima Kirke) doesn’t always feel fully integrated, and the supporting performances are at times perfunctory. But there’s a wonderfully wise level of self-deprecation to a movie that knows the dismissive power of describing someone as “famous in, like, an Internet kind of way.” (NR) (Nickelodeon Theatre)
The Tourist ★★★ If you look too closely at anything about this remake of a 2005 French caper, it’ll fall apart entirely — so best to enjoy its purely superficial pleasures. Under heavy surveillance in Paris, Elise (Angelina Jolie), the lover of an on-the-lam thief, tries to throw authorities off the trail by picking a random guy on a Venice-bound train — American traveler Frank (Johnny Depp) — and pretending he’s the post-plastic-surgery target. Unfortunately, that suddenly puts Frank in the crosshairs not just of the authorities, but of the homicidal businessman from whom he stole billions. Don’t try to buy that authorities have engaged for two years in an operation as clumsy as what we see, or that all the plot turns make any logical sense. Simply enjoy Depp’s cagy performance — his startled utterance of the film’s lone F-bomb is priceless — and the way director Florian Henkel von Donnersmarck (The Lives of Others) uses the music and scenery to capture the vibe of vintage romantic capers. (PG-13) (Carmike 14)
Tron: Legacy ★★★ The 3-D version of the film only kicks into 3-D when the action moves from the real world to The Grid, the digital universe first visited by Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) in the original 1982 computer-animation groundbreaker. That Wizard of Oz-ish transition feels like it might be necessary after we get the angsty back-story of how Flynn’s now-20-something son Sam (Garrett Hedlund) needs to enter The Grid to resolve his daddy abandonment issues. The Grid 2.0 proves unexpectedly breathtaking, serving up a break-neck 20 minutes of pure visual cool. But the minimalist narrative of the original is lacking here, and it’s hard to embrace the idea that there’s anything at stake emotionally in something that feels like you should be pumping quarters into it every 15 minutes. Tron: Legacy wants to lecture us about immersing ourselves in the digital world at the risk of our interactions in the real world. We could have enjoyed its candy-coated delights without having to be warned that there’s no place like home. (PG) (Carmike 14; Regal 7; Regal Sandhill)
True Grit ★★★★ Joel and Ethan Coen — always unfairly accused of favoring craftsmanship over emotion — might have crafted their most deeply felt movie yet. Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld), the 14-year-old daughter of a murdered Arkansas farmer, hires infamous U.S. Marshal “Rooster” Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to track and bring to justice the man responsible. Even the least-loved Coen films have offered superficial pleasures, and this one has plenty: punchy dialogue; shimmering cinematography; Matt Damon’s nimble performance as a puffed-up Texas Ranger. The soul of the story, however, is the relationship between Rooster and Hattie, both brilliantly performed; what develops between Mattie and Cogburn is pure respect for someone with a toughness each had thought only existed in themselves. Mattie might be the perfect Coen heroine, with a controlled exterior that makes it seem as though there’s nothing more emotional going on beneath the surface. Her final act in the film shows that perception to be a miscalculation — and maybe folks have been making the same miscalculation about the Coens all these years. (PG-13) (AMC Dutch Square; Carmike Wynnsong; Columbia Place; Regal Columbiana Grande; Regal Sandhill)
Yogi Bear ★★ A documentary filmmaker (Anna Faris) travels to Jellystone Park to shoot a project and soon crosses paths with Yogi Bear (voice of Dan Aykroyd) and his sidekick Boo-Boo (voice of Justin Timberlake). (PG) (AMC Dutch Square; Carmike Wynnsong; Columbia Place; Regal Columbiana Grande; Regal Pastime; Regal Sandhill)
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