Buckle up for thrilling edge-of-your-seat action and laugh-out-loud fun in Disney’s family comedy adventure G-Force. Just as the G-Force — an elite team of highly trained guinea pigs — is about to save the world, the F.B.I. shuts the secret unit down. But these next-generation action heroes — Darwin, loyal team leader; Blaster, weapons expert with attitude to spare; Juarez, drop-dead gorgeous martial arts diva; and tag-along Hurley — won’t be stopped. Armed with the latest in high-tech spy equipment, and with the F.B.I. on their tails, the fur flies as they race against the clock to save the world. From the producer of the Pirates Of The Caribbean trilogy and National Treasure, and filled with high-octane action, daredevil stunts, cutting-edge special effects and outrageous comedy, G-Force is fantastic fun for the whole family.
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The making of honest action movies has become so rare that Kathryn Bigelow’s magnificent The Hurt Locker was shown mostly in art cinemas rather than multiplexes. That’s fine; the picture is a work of art. But it also delivers more kinetic excitement, more breath-bating suspense, more putting-you-right-there in the danger zone than all the brain-dead, visually incoherent wrecking derbies hogging mall screens. Partly it’s a matter of subject. The movie focuses on an Explosive Ordnance Disposal team, the guys whose more or less daily job is to disarm the homemade bombs that have accounted for most U.S. casualties in Iraq. But even more, the film’s extraordinary tension derives from the precision and intelligence of Bigelow’s direction. She gets every sweaty detail and tactical nuance in the close-up confrontation of man and bomb, while keeping us alert to the volatile wraparound reality of an ineluctably foreign environment–hot streets and blank-walled buildings full of onlookers, some merely curious and some hostile, perhaps thumbing a cellphone that could become a trigger. This is exemplary moviemaking. You don’t need CGI, just a human eye, and the imagination to realize that, say, the sight of dust and scale popped off a derelict car by an explosion half a block away delivers more shock value than a pixelated fireball.
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Resurrection. After enduring unspeakable torture, Dean escapes from Hell, rescued by an all-powerful creature he’s never seen before – an Angel – a warrior of God who recruits Sam and Dean into Heaven’s battle against Hell. And there are whispers that a certain fallen angel will soon be freed from his prison deep in Hell: Lucifer. If Sam and Dean can’t stop it – if Lucifer walks free – he’ll bring on the Apocalypse. Meanwhile, the Winchester Brothers reunite and hit the road, battling the supernatural wherever they go. They encounter demons, spirits, Dracula himself and even a drunk, heavily armed 7-foot-tall teddy bear. All the while, the ultimate war draws them into its horror throughout this enthralling 6-Disc, 22-Episode Season Four. Caught between Heaven and Hell, between God and the Devil, the Winchester brothers must battle for the future of humankind.
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It remains as true today as it did in the days of the ancient Samurai: the weapons of the Ninja hold legendary powers for both good men and evil. The deadly weapons of the last Koga Ninja have now been entrusted to an American Ninjutsu student studying in Japan. Commanded by his Sensei to return to New York and protect the weapons at all cost, he must defeat the skilled Yakuza assassins hunting him and prevent the power of the weapons from falling into evil hands.
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From Troy Duffy, writer and director of The Boondock Saints, comes the much anticipated sequel to the tough, stylized cutting edge saga of the MacManus brothers (Norman Reedus, Sean Patrick Flanery). The two have been in deep hiding with their father, Il Duce (Billy Connolly), in the quiet valleys of Ireland, far removed from their former vigilante lives. When word comes that a beloved priest has been killed by sinister forces from deep within the mob, the brothers return to Boston to mount a violent and bloody crusade to bring justice to those responsible. With a new partner in crime (Clifton Collins Jr., Star Trek) and a sexy FBI operative (Julie Benz, TV’s Dexter) hot on their trail…the Saints are back!
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Guy Ritchie (Snatch, RocknRolla) attempts to reinvent one of the world’s most iconic literary figures as an action hero in this brawny, visually arresting period adventure. Robert Downey Jr. is an intriguing choice for the Great Detective, and if he occasionally murmurs his lines a pitch or two out of hearing range, his trademark bristling energy and off-kilter humor do much to sell Ritchie’s notion of Holmes. Jude Law is equally well-equipped as a more active Dr. Watson–he’s closer to Robert Duvall’s vigorous portrayal in The Seven Per-Cent Solution than to Nigel Bruce–and together, they make for an engaging team. Too bad the plot they’re thrust into is such a mess–a bustling and disorganized flurry of martial arts, black magic, and overwhelming set pieces centered around Mark Strong’s Crowley-esque cult leader (no Professor Moriarty, he), who returns from the grave to exact revenge. Downey and Law’s amped-up Holmes and Watson are built for the challenge of riding this roller coaster with the audience; however, Rachel McAdams as Holmes’s love interest, Irene Adler (here a markedly different character than the one in Arthur Conan Doyle’s “A Scandal in Bohemia”), and Kelly Reilly as Mary Morstan, the future Mrs. Watson, are cast to the wind in the wake of Ritchie’s hurricane pace. One can imagine this not sitting well with ardent Sherlockians; all others may find this Sherlock Holmes marvelous if calorie-free popcorn entertainment, with the CGI rendering of Victorian-era London particularly appealing eye candy. –Paul Gaita
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The Blind Side takes the true story of a young man who went from abandonment to success as a pro-football player and treats it with respect. The movie doesn’t oversell what is, on the face of it, already compelling. It’s almost impossible to describe the plot without sounding painfully inspirational: Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron, Be Kind Rewind), a hulking but gentle African-American teen in Tennessee, gets taken in by a well-to-do white family; the mother, Leigh Anne Touhy (Sandra Bullock), pushes and mothers the boy, who eventually wins a football scholarship to the University of Mississippi. In the wrong hands, this could have been maudlin, manipulative, and condescending. To the credit of writer-director John Lee Hancock, adapting Michael Lewis’s acclaimed book, the result is intelligent, genuine, and alternately funny and moving. Leigh Anne could easily have been grandstanding and virtuous, but Bullock doesn’t shy away from her vain and domineering side. The football scenes will be gripping even to non-sports fans because they’ve been so successfully grounded in Michael’s emotional life. The all-around solid cast includes country music star Tim McGraw, pint-sized Jae Head (Hancock), and Kathy Bates as the tutor who guided Michael’s academic success. Don’t be surprised if you can’t keep yourself from watching all the real-life photos of Michael, Leigh Anne, and the rest of the family that are featured in the credits; by the end of the movie, you will care about them all. –Bret Fetzer
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Through his handcrafted ode to the trials of childhood, Spike Jonze puts his own unique imprint on Maurice Sendak’s enduring classic. In the prologue, 9-year-old Max (Max Records) stomps around the house, feeling neglected. When his mom (Catherine Keener) sends him to bed without supper, Max runs away (something he doesn’t do in the book). He finds a boat and sails to a distant land where fuzzy monsters are raising a rumpus in the forest. Since his wolf suit allows him to fit right in, he joins the fray, catching the eye of Carol (James Gandolfini, excellent), who notes, approvingly, “I like the way you destroy stuff. There’s a spark to your work that can’t be taught.” With that, they pronounce the diminutive creature king, hoping he can bring cohesion to their fractured family. After Max comes across Carol’s scale-model town, he decides they should build a real one, but the project stalls as Alexander (Paul Dano) and Douglas (Chris Cooper) mope, Judith (Catherine O’Hara) browbeats Ira (Forest Whitaker), and Carol pines for K.W. (Lauren Ambrose), who prefers the company of owls Bob and Terry. Max realizes he has to make a choice: stay with the wild things or return home, where he has to keep his aggressive impulses in check. For readers of Sendak’s slim tome, his decision won’t come as a surprise, but Jonze ends the story on a lovely grace note. Until that time, the squabbling is a bit much–these monsters never stop talking–but Jonze, cowriter Dave Eggers, the Jim Henson Company, and singer/songwriter Karen O. have gone all-out to re-create the inner world of a child with as much empathy as was mustered for the inner adult world of Jonze’s Being John Malkovich. –Kathleen C. Fennessy
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