Denton Attractions on wimgo
Denton Attractions on wimgo
Lake Dallas Attractions on wimgo
OPENING FRIDAY
Safe House (**) "Forgettable" probably isn't a word you'd expect to use to describe a film starring Denzel Washington, Ryan Reynolds, Vera Farmiga, Brendan Gleeson and Sam Shepard. But unfortunately, that's one of the most apt. Washington plays the notorious Tobin Frost, a brilliant former CIA operative who's turned traitor, selling secrets to any nation or enemy cell willing to buy them. After years on the run, he's captured and brought to an agency safe house in Cape Town, South Africa, where Reynolds, as the ambitious and idealistic Matt Weston, is its bored minder. Matt longs to prove himself and see some real action in the field, and he gets it sooner than he expects when the house comes under attack and he and Tobin must go on the run. Farmiga, Gleeson and Shepard play the suits back in the United States who are tracking their whereabouts and wondering whether they're in cahoots. Rated R, 115 minutes. One and a half stars out of four. - The Associated Press
The Vow After waking from a coma caused by a car accident, a newlywed wife copes with severe memory loss while her husband tries to win her heart again. With Rachel McAdams, Channing Tatum, Sam Neill and Scott Speedman. Rated PG-13, 104 minutes. - Los Angeles Times
NOW PLAYING
The Artist (****) Near-silent, black-and-white film about a star of silent films (Jean Dujardin) who falls on hard times with the arrival of talkies. He once gave a helping hand to an unknown starlet (Berenice Bejo) who then helps him recover his life and career. Charming mix of comedy and pathos makes this one of the year's joys. And with the best ending of any film this year. Rated PG-13, 100 minutes. At the Angelika Dallas and Plano. - Boo Allen
Beauty and the Beast 3-D A 3-D version of the classic animated tale about a princess taken captive by a monster who may be more than meets the eye. With the voices of Paige O'Hara, Robby Benson, Richard White, Angela Lansbury and Jerry Orbach. Rated G, 84 minutes. - LAT
Contraband (**1/2) Standard action-thriller with a heavy emphasis on the action. Mark Wahlberg plays a so-called retired smuggler forced into the requisite "last job" to save a relative. He travels to Panama to bring back some illicit booty and becomes involved with an armored car hold-up. Naturally, things go awry as do several other of the film's copious plots. With Kate Beckinsale, Ben Foster and Diego Luna. Rated R, 110 minutes. - B.A.
Chronicle After making a surprising discovery, three high school students develop uncanny powers and begin to lose control. With Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell and Michael B. Jordan. Rated PG-13, 84 minutes. - LAT
A Dangerous Method (***) Viggo Mortenson plays Sigmund Freud and Michael Fassbender is Carl Jung in director David Cronenberg's compelling film based on Christopher Hampton's stage play based on John Kerr's book. Keira Knightley plays one of Jung's first patients and eventually his lover. Overly talky at times but still with a connecting human factor. Rated R, 99 minutes. - B.A.
The Descendants (****) George Clooney stars in director Alexander Payne's film about a rich Hawaiian whose wife lies in a coma while he must deal with dispersing huge land holdings for his extended family. His two young daughters resent him, causing greater obstacles as he tries to hold the family together. Payne deftly portrays a man under fire trying to act gracefully. Rated R, 115 minutes. - B.A.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (**) A child (Thomas Horn) loses his father (Tom Hanks) in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on New York City. He takes more than a year to come out of his withdrawal as he traipses through the city's five boroughs on a chaotic quest. Clumsy, mawkish film manipulates the audience for its cheap effects. Rated PG-13, 129 minutes. - B.A.
Haywire (**1/2) Mixed martial arts star and impressive newcomer Gina Carano plays Mallory, a rogue governmental agent who travels the globe to demolish a series of adversaries (including Channing Tatum, Ewan McGregor and Michael Fassbender) in order to find out who double- and triple-crossed her. Director Steven Soderbergh keeps things fast and brainless. Rated R, 93 minutes. - B.A.
Joyful Noise (**) If some incarnation of Glee were to be developed for the Christian Broadcasting Network, it would probably look a lot like this. It's not really effective as entertainment, especially during the musical numbers - which theoretically should serve as the most rousing source of emotion, since the film is about a gospel choir - when instead there's a weird disconnect, a sense that the songs are simultaneously overproduced and hollow, and repeated cutaways to reaction shots of singers nodding and smiling further undermine their cohesion. Queen Latifah and Dolly Parton co-star as longtime enemies battling for control over a small-town Georgia church choir. Keke Palmer and Jeremy Jordan play teens sharing a forbidden love ... through song. Rated PG-13, 118 minutes. - AP
The Devil Inside Twenty years after her mother confessed to three brutal murders, a woman travels to Italy and recruits two young exorcists to find out what really happened and set things right. With Fernanda Andrade, Simon Quarterman and Evan Helmuth. Rated R, 87 minutes. - LAT
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (****) Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) forges an unlikely bond with anti-social hacker Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) in this adaptation of the bestselling novel by Stieg Larsson. The pair hunt down the person or parties responsible for the disappearance of Harriet Vanger - a young woman presumed murdered 40 years ago. Harriet's doting uncle, Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), is compelled to find the evil maniac sending him anonymous reminders of his beloved niece. Stomach-churning violence ensues. Rated R, 158 minutes. - Lucinda Breeding
The Grey (***) Joe Carnahan co-wrote and directed this survivalist story of a group of men in an airplane downed in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness. They must fight for survival not only against the elements but also against a ferocious pack of wolves. Liam Neeson stars as the de facto team leader. Exhausting yet involving saga. Rated R, 114 minutes. - B.A.
Hugo (****) Martin Scorsese uncharacteristically directs an elegiac, moving 3-D film about Hugo (Asa Butterfield), a boy hiding and living in a Paris train station around 1930. He befriends a toy store owner (Ben Kingsley) who turns out to be George Melies, a forgotten silent film pioneer. Various other subplots from Brian Selznick's novel play out with an excellent cast, and are complimented by stunning special effects in which 3-D is, for once, appropriate and put to positive use. Rated PG, 126 minutes. - B.A.
Man on a Ledge (**) This so-called thriller about a disgraced cop (Sam Worthington) who threatens to jump off a building to divert attention from a heist going on across the street isn't even implausible in a fun way. Ledge is so cliched and reheated, it almost feels like a parody of a generic action picture - only no one seems to be in on the joke. At the center is a bland Worthington - doing a horrible job of disguising his Australian accent - as Nick Cassidy, a fugitive who insists he was wrongly imprisoned. As Nick teeters along the title ledge, his brother Joey (Jamie Bell) and Joey's stereotypically saucy Latina girlfriend Angie (Genesis Rodriguez) are trying to pull off a real burglary across the street. With Edward Burns, Elizabeth Banks, Kyra Sedgwick and Ed Harris. Rated PG-13, 102 minutes. - AP
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (***1/2) The Impossible Mission Force (Tom Cruise, Paula Patton, Jeremy Renner and Simon Pegg) finds itself abandoned just as they need to break into the Kremlin and, later, to scale the world's tallest building in Dubai. This latest Impossible entry delivers on constant action and white-knuckle sequences, all ably rendered by animation director Brad Bird (The Incredibles), who makes an impressive first effort with humans. See it in Imax for maximum effect. Rated PG-13, 133 minutes. - B.A.
One for the Money A newly divorced, recently laid-off woman (Katherine Heigl) lands a job with a shady bail-bond business and gets swept up in a world of murder and deception. With Jason O'Mara and Daniel Sunjata. Rated PG-13, 106 minutes. - LAT
Red Tails This World War II historical drama tells the story of the black fighter pilots known as the Tuskegee Airmen. With Nate Parker, David Oyelowo, Ne-Yo and Terrence Howard. Written by John Ridley and Aaron McGruder. Directed by Anthony Hemingway. Rated PG-13, 125 minutes. - LAT
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (**) Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law bicker and banter and bob and weave with diminishing returns in this sequel to the 2009 smash hit Sherlock Holmes. Director Guy Ritchie once again applies his revisionist approach to Arthur Conan Doyle's classic literary character, infusing the film with his trademark, hyperkinetic aesthetic and turning the renowned detective into a wisecracking butt-kicker. Here, Downey's Holmes faces off against brilliant supervillain Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris), who's cooked up a scheme to pit European nations against each other in hopes of benefiting from the demand for arms. Noomi Rapace tags along for some reason as a gypsy fortuneteller looking for her missing brother. Rated PG-13, 129 minutes. - AP
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (***) Gary Oldman stars as spy novelist John le Carre's British secret operative George Smiley. In the 1970s, someone seems to be a double agent for Russia and Smiley returns from recent retirement to find him out. Slow but methodical. Frequent jumps in time, scene and character make this a challenging yet rewarding experience. Rated R, 127 minutes. - B.A.
Underworld: Awakening After 12 years in captivity, the vampire warrior Selene escapes and enters a new world in which humans are waging war on her kind and werewolves. With Kate Beckinsale, Stephen Rea, Michael Ealy and Theo James. Written by Len Wiseman, John Hlavin, J. Michael Straczynski and Allison Burnett. Directed by Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein. In 3-D. Rated R, 88 minutes. - LAT
War Horse (**) Steven Spielberg's glossy rendition of a London play about a magnificent horse bought by a poor English farmer (Peter Mullan). The horse is raised lovingly by his son Albert (Jeremy Irvine) before they are both recruited for duty in World War I. The story travels through consecutive episodes with different owners and protectors of the horse, all the while being tracked by Albert. Overly maudlin yet handsome film never rises above the mundane. Rated PG-13, 146 minutes. - B.A.
We Bought a Zoo (**) The father (Matt Damon) of a troubled family buys a troubled Los Angeles zoo. Together the zoo and family formulaically recover. And, of course, dad has a romance with one of the zoo workers (Scarlett Johansson). Sappy, imminently forgettable yet family-friendly film from underachieving director Cameron Crowe. Well photographed by Rodrigo Prieto. Rated PG, 124 minutes. - B.A.
The Woman in Black Daniel Radcliffe plays grieving young widower Arthur Kipps in gothic ghost story that marks the revival of Hammer Horror. Kipps travels to a chilly village for his law firm to settle the affairs of a deceased woman. He finds angry, vengeful ghosts in the shadows of the creepy manor, and few friendly faces in town. Rated PG-13, 96 minutes. - L.B.
