movie reviews

April 21, 2011

Water For Elephants

Reese Witherspoon, Robert Pattinson, Christoph Waltz

Directed by: Francis Lawrence

Sara Gruen's 2006 bestseller about forbidden love in the heated atmosphere of a Depression-era circus seemed a natural for the screen. And director Francis Lawrence (I Am Legend) and screenwriter Richard LaGravenese (The Fisher King) keep it carefully tended. So do its three stars. It's good to see Robert Pattinson, Twilight's pale vampire prince, with color in his cheeks in the role of Jacob Jankowski, a Cornell student in veterinary medicine about to take his final exams when... | More »

The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

Morgan Spurlock

Directed by: Morgan Spurlock

Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) has this habit of making documentaries that come hidden in the Trojan horse of silly and then stab at your conscience. If you still have one. For The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, Spurlock whores himself out big-time. To skewer the plague of product placement, he hustles the brands themselves into financing his $1.5 million budget. That's right, we watch Spurlock at pitch meetings getting rejected until Ban deodorant signs on and others follow, all willing to ... | More »

Rio

Anne Hathaway, Jesse Eisenberg

Directed by: Carlos Saldanha

Rio is a brightly-colored, dizzying pinwheel of 3D animation in which nothing much happens. Sounds like summer is here early. Coming from Fox's Blue Sky Studios (the Ice Age trilogy), Rio is an attempt to beat Disney/Pixar at its artful game. No way. But for those searching for something — anything — to take the family to besides the horrid Hop, Rio is a decent bridge until the sequels to King Fu Panda and Cars rev up the multiplex. Get more news, reviews and interviews f... | More »

Incendies

Lubna Azabal

Directed by: Denis Villeneuve

A will is read. after her death, Montreal secretary Nawal Marwan (Lubna Azabal) has requested that her adult children — twins Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) and Simon (Maxim Gaudette) — deliver two sealed letters to the father and brother they never knew existed. Get more news, reviews and interviews from Peter Travers on The Travers Take That's the hook that will lead you into Incendies, a devastating mystery thriller from Quebec filmmaker Denis Villeneuv... | More »

April 15, 2011

Scream 4

Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, David Arquette

Directed by: Wes Craven

Scream 3 hit theaters in 2000, which in Bieber years is about a century ago. Did we need another sequel? Not really. But writer Kevin Williamson and director Wes Craven, who've been working this gig since 1996 with the scary-funny original, have a high time laughing at themselves from the perspective of the new world of tweets, texts and torture porn. And some of that laughter is damn contagious. Scream 4 should be subtitled That's So Meta, so pervasive is the movie's habit of ... | More »

The Conspirator

Robin Wright, James McAvoy

Directed by: Robert Redford

As actor, filmmaker and founder of the Sundance Film Festival, Robert Redford has long prized storytelling over sensation. Redford doesn't star in The Conspirator, but as the film's director he eases with hypnotic skill into this largely untold tale of American justice in the aftermath of Abraham Lincoln's assassination. The Complete Archive: Over 20 Years of Peter Travers' Movie Reviews Now Online The conspirator in question is Mary Surratt (a stoic, superb Robin Wright... | More »

Atlas Shrugged: Part I

Taylor Shilling, Grant Bowler

Directed by: Paul Johansson

Ayn Rand's monumental 1,168-page, 1957 novel gets the low-budget, no-talent treatment and sits there flapping on screen like a bludgeoned seal. It's the first in a planned trilogy of films. Let's hope the other two parts are quickly aborted. The story, set in 2016 and hailing the individual in the battle against big government, concerns the disappearance of the world's most creative minds after they are asked the question: "Who is John Galt?" Who's the idiot responsi... | More »

April 7, 2011

Arthur

Russell Brand, Helen Mirren, Greta Gerwig

Directed by: Jason Winer

Beware! The multiplex has officially become a no-fly zone for laughs. Hum "Taps" while I call out recent comedy screw-ups: Just Go With It, No Strings Attached, Hall Pass, Take Me Home Tonight, From Prada to Nada and Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son. Peter Travers reviews Arthur in his weekly video series, "At the Movies With Peter Travers" The epidemic continues with the limp-dick remake of 1981's Arthur, starring Russell Brand in the happy-drunk role indelibly created by Dudley Moor... | More »

Your Highness

Danny McBride, James Franco, Natalie Portman, Zooey Deschanel

Directed by: David Gordon Green

The comic mojo of Danny McBride can be a thing of fucked-up beauty. See him in The Foot Fist Way or HBO's Eastbound & Down. Or watch him achieve stoner nirvana with director David Gordon Green in Pineapple Express. Peter Travers reviews Your Highness in his weekly video series, "At the Movies With Peter Travers" So I was stoked that McBride signed on as star and co-writer (with Ben Best) of Your Highness, with college buddy Green at the helm. But the air goes out of that balloon pr... | More »

Hanna

Saoirse Ronan, Eric Bana

Directed by: Joe Wright

Once upon a time, a widowed father (Eric Bana) kept his feral daughter, Hanna (Saoirse Ronan), in a remote Finland shell, teaching her to hunt, fight and kill like an assassin. Social skills, not so much. Now, at 16, Hanna is pushed into the real world and the dangers of wicked witch Marissa (Cate Blanchett, superb), a CIA agent who shares dark secrets with Hanna's dad. Get more news, reviews and interviews from Peter Travers on The Travers Take And so begins a fairy tale of lightning ... | More »