Selected mini-reviews, rated on a system of 0 to 4 stars, by Rick Groen, Liam Lacey, James Adams, James Bradshaw, Michael Posner, Kate Taylor, Stephen Cole, Alan Niester and Jennie Punter. Full reviews appeared on the dates indicated.
Adam
**
Boy-meets-girl romantic comedies thrive on miscommunication, but in this mostly breezy feature-directing debut from New York theatre vet Max Mayer that notion has a more serious cause. Adam (Hugh Dancy), a brilliant electronics designer, has Asperger's syndrome, a form of high-functioning autism that makes intimacy difficult. But Adam's new neighbour, Beth (Rose Byrne), an aspiring children's author, takes a shine to his eccentric ways, and romance blossoms. A subplot about Beth's doting father, a rich businessman facing a fraud trial, distracts from the lovers' gentle story. PG (Aug. 6) J.P.
Brüno
**
The most anticipated comedy of the season delivers a lot of in-your-(uh)-face laughs, and there's no denying the chutzpah of star Sacha Baron Cohen as the eponymous randy gay Austrian fashion reporter determined to be "the second greatest Austrian superstar since Adolf Hitler." Unfortunately, Brüno's lewd, rude and crude high jinx don't add up to much of a film - if, that is, you think a film should have things like character elaboration, narrative shapeliness and plot development. It's more an accumulation of prankish sketches, with the shameless Baron Cohen channelling the ghost of Candid Camera creator Allen Funt to set up various marks. They include a Christian "gay converter," presidential candidate Ron Paul, drunken wrestling fans, a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade and a trio of homophobic hunters. 18A (July 10) J.A.
Cold Souls
**
This surrealist spoof has Paul Giamatti (playing himself) agreeing to have his soul removed (and put on ice) so he can make his way through an off-Broadway production of Uncle Vanya. An fun-for-a-while exercise in whimsy that demands and suffers from comparison to Being John Malkovich. With David Strathairn in a very funny cameo as a medical researcher who is more salesmen than scientist. PG (Aug. 6) S.C.
The Cove
***
Made like an espionage thriller, with night-vision cameras and others camouflaged in rocks, this compelling documentary exposes the iniquitous, but not illegal, global traffic in dolphins, carried on from an otherwise quaint fishing village in southern Japan. A brilliant exercise in guerrilla filmmaking. PG (Aug. 7) M.P.
District 9
**
Blazing a fresh sci-fi trail, the premise is terrific: Twenty years ago, intergalactic visitors paid a visit to Johannesburg, only to get separated from the mother ship. Since then, the aliens have become, well, aliens - illegal refugees ghettoized in a Soweto-like township of corrugated shacks and abject poverty. These establishing scenes are intriguing. Too soon, though, the fresh premise ends and the stale action returns. Having exhausted its blazed trail, the film simply steers back to the rutted road of excess. 14A (Aug. 13) R.G.
G-Force
**
New from Disney: a strictly-for-kids Jerry Bruckheimer 3-D action comedy about superhero rodents. Think Hammy the Hamster on steroids. Don't be a sap; get your spouse to take the kids to this one. With the voices of Nicolas Cage (he has no shame), Penelope Cruz and Sam Rockwell. PG (July 24) S.C.
The Goods:
Live Hard. Sell Hard.
*
Entourage's Jeremy Piven is used-car "mercenary" Don "The Goods" Ready in this raunchy, fast-paced comedy that, nevertheless, is trapped in TV sketch mode and running on empty when it comes to laughs. Hired by a small-town dealer (James Brolin) facing bankruptcy on the July 4 weekend, Don arrives ready to "sell the metal," but doesn't suspect that love, loss and a long-lost son will speed him toward emotional meltdown. A surreal cameo by Will Ferrell is hardly worth it. 14A (Aug. 14) J.P.
The Hangover
**
From Todd Phillips ( Old School) comes another story of men behaving badly. Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and stand-up comedian Zach Galifianakis star as three groom's men who lose the groom on a pre-wedding Las Vegas blow-out. The script works quickly to pile up absurdities - a baby in a trashed hotel room, a tiger, Mike Tyson - but the wind-up's much more fun than the resolution. 14A (June 5) L.L.
Harry Potter
and the Half-Blood Prince
***
The team behind the Harry Potter movies is comfortably in the groove with the sixth film, which plays down the fantastic elements and introduces contrasting playful teenaged romance and a new tone of adult gloominess with the death of a major character. Director David Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves blend a succession of narrative and mood shifts from ominous foreboding to humorous romantic growing pains to flat-out gothic horror over a 2½-hour running time. As the years roll by, the acting is constantly improving from the younger stars - Daniel Radcliffe as Harry, Rupert Grint as Ron and especially Emma Watson's piquant Hermione. And as usual, the performances of the Hogwarts faculty - Michael Gambon, Alan Rickman, Robbie Coltrane and Maggie Smith - are first-rate. PG (July 14) L.L.
The Hurt Locker
****
The only significant feature film inspired by the Iraq War, Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker is pure stripped-down tension - a series of episodes in the final days of a three-man bomb-defusing squad. Without any overt political message, Bigelow's film captures the sense of the soldiers' alienation and constant fear in a war where death can come from 360 degrees. Jeremy Renner has a break-out performance as the country-boy detonation expert who always seems to go a bit too far, daring death as a coping mechanism. 14A (July 10) L.L.
Ice Age: Dawn
of the Dinosaurs
*
There's been a serious case of devolution going on since the first Ice Age movie. The current one is all frantic action and fanciful nonsense, as Manny (Ray Romano) and Ellie (Queen Latifah) descend into an underground world inhabited by dinosaurs and are led about by an antic weasel (Simon Pegg). Jokes seem to be aimed at some juvenile void between adult and childhood worlds. PG (July 1) L.L.
Julie & Julia
***
This movie is a double-header based on chef Julia Child's memoirs and blogger Julie Powell's Julie & Julia: 365 days, 524 recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen, but the drama is all provided by scenes of Europe in the 1950s dealing with the protracted genesis of Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. In the role of the great cook, the wonderful Meryl Streep offers a rich imitation that never descends to caricature, largely overshadowing Amy Adams's cute little version of the contemporary blogger and the diluted romantic comedy that director Nora Ephron has crafted for her. PG (Aug. 7) K.T.
Moon
***
A fascinating, disturbing space oddity from British filmmaker Duncan Jones, son of Major Tom himself - David Bowie. Sam Rockwell is Sam, a spaceman sent to the moon on a mission to harvest helium-3. Outside his station, he finds a wounded astronaut in a mangled space tractor. Opening the dying man's visor, Sam finds his dying self. A thoughtful sci-fi probe in the tradition of Silent Running and Solaris. Rockwell has never been better. 14A (July 3) S.C.
Orphan
**
Creepy kid flicks don't come slicker than Orphan, in which nine-year-old Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman), a mysterious adopted Russian girl, wreaks havoc on an upscale family with mostly predictable results. The "bad seed" first charms then divides her new parents (Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard), manipulating her new siblings into silence when they witness her deadly high jinks. Orphan delivers a nifty twist explanation for the mayhem, but by then we're deep into formulaic nonsense. 18A (Aug. 7) J.P.
Paper Heart
**
This sloppy, sort-of-documentary sneaks up on you and threatens to steal your heart, just like it's protagonist, the geeky comic Charlyne Yi, who professes ignorance of romantic love. She and her director (played by actor Jake M. Johnson) go looking for answers from biology profs, long-married couples and the Las Vegas clergy, before Yi finds herself dating Hollywood super nerd Michael Cera. There are only microscopic hints here that this film might be fictional, but in interviews, Yi is now claiming the pair were never a couple. Duped viewers may want to remind her that love is all about trust. PG (Aug. 7) K.T.
A Perfect Getaway
***
The rarest of film treats - a B-movie that knows where it's going and how to get there. Newlyweds Cliff (Steve Zahn) and Cydney (Milla Jovovich) are backpacking around a remote Hawaiian island when they encounter two strange couples. One pair wants to kill them. The other, protect them. But appearances can be deceiving. Timothy Olyphant ( Deadwood) is lots of fun as a special-ops nut who just rotated out of Iraq. 14A (Aug. 7) S.C.
Ponyo
***
Japanese animation godfather Hayao Miyazaki's latest import plays more for the kids than for adults, though judging by its success at home, the anime groupies love it too. It tells the tale of Ponyo, a goldfish who falls in love with a human boy. Ponyo uses deep-sea magic to make herself human, but in so doing throws the universe out of kilter. Madness ensues, but love triumphs in the end. The story may be a little convoluted, but it's Miyazaki, so the animation is magical. G (Aug. 14) A.N.
Post Grad
*
Vicki Jenson's live-action directorial debut (her previous experience was with animated features) has a promising premise: A graduated college student - played by Alexis Bledel - struggles to find work in a recessed economy. But the movie loses its thread, evolving into both a tepid romantic comedy and a pointless treatise on family values. Too many story lines, none satisfactorily resolved. PG (Aug. 21) A.N.
Public Enemies
***
John Dillinger, whose brief bank-robbing career paralleled the heyday of the Hollywood 1930s gangster film, should have been a natural fit for Michael Mann, a poet of shoot 'em up mayhem. But his latest movie has no more dramatic momentum than a coffee-table book. The scrambled script attempts to blend docudrama, social history and fanciful romance. The best parts are the re-enactments of legendary shoot-outs. But the social history of the founding of the FBI (Billy Crudup as a young J. Edgar Hoover and Christian Bale as dogged agent Melvyn Perkins) feels hasty and superficial. And the central romance, between Depp's inscrutable, princely bank robber and Marion Cotillard, is never really convincing. 14A (July 1) L.L.
Spread
**
Give director David Mackenzie credit. He works hard to keep this film from lapsing into a predictable love-or-money redemption story and steers actor Ashton Kutcher through some strong scenes. But there's no question that Spread spends too much time wallowing in the surface glamour of Hollywood to avoid feeling a little empty itself, and one can't help wondering what the moral of this immorality tale is supposed to be. 18A (Aug. 14) J.B.
Star Trek
***
Star Trek gets its mojo back in J. J. Abrams's swinging reboot of the franchise. Smart and youthful, with a well-balanced package of humour, romance, crisp action and character-based drama, the new movie side-steps the franchise's overwrought history, focusing on the beginnings of the relationship between cocky Earthling Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) and prudent, logical half-human, half-Vulcan Spock (Zachary Quinto. PG (May 7) L.L.
The Taking of Pelham 123
**
Tony Scott's remake of the 1974 semi-classic New York subway-heist thriller has lots of whirling cameras and busy montage sequences of New York, but lacks the wit and pungent personality of the original film. Denzel Washington as the humble subway dispatcher undersuspicion, and John Travolta as the subway heist mastermind, turn in good performances, but the plot, which never made much sense, makes even less in this version. 14A (June 5) L.L.
Terminator Salvation
**
The fourth film in the Terminator series is a very dark film (as in, did something go wrong with the colour processing?), made by the director Joseph McGinty Nichol, aka McG ( Charlie's Angels), and starring Christian Bale as John Connor, fighting against the big machines in the year 2018. Salvation is so loud it suggests a two-hour-long, heavy-metal drum solo as various kinds of robots, airplanes, cars, motorcycles and artillery clang, rattle and smash across the screen. What's missing is the humour, heart-tugging moments and visual pleasure that made the first two movies of the series modern pop masterpieces. 14A (May 20) L.L.
Tetro
***
Francis Ford Coppola's best film since Apocalypse Now is a return to the themes that made The Godfather movies so great. Tetro is the story of a warring Italian-American musical family that spills as much blood and tears as the Corleones. Newcomer Alden Ehrenreich steals the show as a smiling, junior varsity Michael Corleone. 14A (Aug. 14) S.C.
The Time Traveler's Wife
**
Based on the bestseller, this is a romance with a doozy of a problem. When a girl (Rachel McAdams) tumbles for a time-travelling guy (Eric Bana) with a habit of appearing today and then disappearing into the vast reaches of tomorrowland, well, talk about your long-distance relationships. But here's the weird thing: Beyond that problem, there are damn few complications. Seldom has the course of true love run more smoothly, a happy fact that's good for the lovers but bad for us. We need a romance with ruts deep enough to collect our puddled tears; instead, this is definitely a Kleenex-free zone. PG (Aug. 14) R.G.
Up
***
The three-act structure and emotional arc follow the usual formula, but sheer whimsy carries this inventive Disney-Pixar 3-D animated feature high above the crowd. Old man Carl (Ed Asner) fulfills his late wife's long-held fantasy of visiting the magical Paradise Falls in Venezuela by tying helium-filled balloons to his house. Off he floats with Russell, the eager boy scout who happened to be standing on his doorstep, as an unwitting stowaway. Landing in the jungle, they discover an exotic bird stalked by talking dogs and the long-lost explorer who was Carl's childhood idol. The effects are visually impressive but parents beware: The dogs prove vicious, the explorer murderous and, in the long Disney tradition, the scary bits are gruesomely animated. PG (May 29) K.T.
Valentino: The Last Emperor
**
Vanity Fair correspondent Matt Tyrnauer created this dishy, backstage look at the world of Italian fashion designer Valentino Garavani, his opulent lifestyle, his friend and manager for 50 years, Giancarlo Giammetti, and the blow-out Roman retrospective he held in 2007. Amidst the melt-downs and crisis preparing for various shows, there's some poignancy here as well, as Valentino faces the end of an era for the old European fashion houses. PG (July 10) L.L.
Liam Lacey
James Bradshaw
Kate Taylor