Roger Ebert – Movie Reviews

January 23, 2010 by admin
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Read the latest movie reviews from Roger Ebert, the best-known and most widely read film critic in the world.

Cop Out (R) – One and a half stars
“Cop Out” (R, 110 minutes). An outstandingly bad cop movie, starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan as partners who get suspended (of course) and then try to redeem themselves by overthrowing a drug operation while searching for the valuable baseball card Willis wants to sell to pay for his daughter’s wedding. Morgan plays an unreasonable amount of time dressed as a cell phone, considering there is nothing to prevent him from taking it off. Kevin Smith, who directed, has had many, many better days. (2/24/10)

The Ghost Writer (PG-13) – Four stars
“The Ghost Writer” (PG-13, 124 minutes). In Roman Polanski’s thriller, a man without a past rattles around in the life of a man with too much of one. Ewan McGregor plays a ghost writer hired by a former British prime minister (Pierce Brosnan), whose previous ghost has mysterious drowned. In a rain-swept house on Martha’s Vineyard, McGregor meets the PM’s wife (Olivia Williams) and his assistant/mistress (Kim Cattrall), as an international controversy swirls. A splendidly acted and crated immersive story. (2/24/10)

The Crazies (R) – Two and a half stars
“The Crazies” (R, 101 minutes). People in friendly Ogden Marsh, Iowa, start lurching around and killing tier love donnas, and it’s up to the sheriff (Timothy Olyphant) and his doctor wife (Radha Mitchell) to figure out why–and survive. Well enough made and acted, but zombies for me have worn out their interest. They lurch at you, you kill them, and maybe they’re dead. (2/23/10)

District 13: Ultimatum (R) – Three stars
“District 13: Ultimatum” (R, 100 minutes). A preposterous but well-made French action thriller, centering on the newly popular martial art of parkour, which means “the art of flight.” There’s a plot to blow up a ghetto outside Paris and profitably rebuild it by the “Harriburton Corporation,” and two hero cops race to stop this, which involves leaps from tall buildings, sliding down wires, climbing walls, breaking into prisons, and so on. The co-star is David Belle, well known in parkour circles because he named the art. The stunts and effects are sensational, and edited so you can actually see actors completing entire movements. (2/24/10)

Shutter Island (R) – Three and a half stars
“Shutter Island” (R, 135 minutes). Leonardo Di Caprio and Mark Ruffalo are U.S. Marshals called to a forbidding island in Boston bay, the home of an old Civil War fort now used as a prison for the criminally insane. A child murderer has escaped her cell. Martin Scorsese relentlessly blends music, visuals, special effects and all of film noir tradition into an elegant horror film as fragmented as a nightmare. If you’re blind-sided by the ending, ask yourself: How should it have ended? How could it have? (2/17/10)

The Wolfman (R) – Two and a half stars
“The Wolfman” (R, 125 minutes). Suitably gloomy, Gothic and violent retelling of the classic 1941 story, with dark and atmospheric settings of foggy moorlands and a decaying mansion. Benecio Del Toro stars as a long-estranged son who returns to the family home after the death of his brother, to encounter his grieving sister in law (Emily Blunt) and his sinister father (Anthony Hopkins), who doesn’t seem as grief-stricken as he should. (2/10/10)

Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief (PG-13) – Three stars
“Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief” (PG-13, 119 minutes). A teenage New Yorker ( Logan Lerman) discovers he is a demigod: The son of the Greek god Poseidon Kevin McKidd and a human mother (Catherine Keener). Accused by an angry Zeus (Sean Bean) of having stolen his lightning bolt, he finds himself in the middle of an Olympian feud also involving Hades Steve Coogan), Medusa (Uma Thurman), Persephone (Rosario Dawson) and Pierce Brosnan as the centaur Chiron. Directed as goofy fun by Chris Columbus. (2/10/10)

Dear John (PG-13) – Two stars
“Dear John” (PG-13,105 minutes). A Special Forces soldier and a sweet South Carolina rich girl Meet Cute, fall in love, and pledge to meet and marry when his tour ends in a year. But it s not to be. Another one of those bittersweet Nicholas Sparks stories that laboriously endeavor to wring from us a sad smile. I was sadly smiling not at their loss, but of mine. Although Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried are attractive and well-matched as the would-be lovers, and Richard Jenkins makes autism seem kinda sweet (if it’s a mild case), this movie is so doomed to end exactly the way it does that we wonder why the characters don’t prevent it, if they want to. (2/3/10)

Edge of Darkness (R) / * * 1/2
“Edge of Darkness” (R, 117 minutes). When a Boston cop (Mel Gibson) sees his daughter murdered, his search for the killers leads him to a sinister, shadowy corporation and its oily chairman (Danny Huston). An intriguing free agent (Ray Winstone) materializes, with unexplained knowledge about the case. The corporation seems recycled from a Bond movie and the action scenes are boilerplate CGI, but Gibson and Winstone have some nice moments. Two and a half stars. (1/27/10)

The Book of Eli (R) / * * *
“The Book of Eli” (R, 118 minutes). Denzel Washington strides west across an apocalyptic post-war America, in possession of a precious book that Gary Oldman, boss of a small town, will kill to possess. Denzel, a dab hand with knife and firearm, is poised somewhere between invulnerable and mystical, and Mila Kunis plays a victim of Oldman who walks along to escape. To call the conclusion implausible would be an insult to the world, but the film is very watchable. Three stars (1/13/10)

Daybreakers (R) / * * 1/2
“Daybreakers” (R, 98 minutes) Ten years in the future, a global epidemic has infected most of the population with vampirism. Humans, the blood supply, near extinction. Ethan Hawke plays an ethical vampire who works to develop a blood substitute and builds a bond with human survivors, who are opposed by the fanatic Vampire Army. An intriguing future where most people live by night; but the story holds few surprises and the ending is routine violence. Lots of bloody vampire explosions, though. Two and a half stars (1/6/10)

Avatar (PG-13) / * * * *
“Avatar” (PG-13, 163 minutes). James Cameron silences his doubters by delivering an extraordinary film. There’s still one man in Hollywood who knows how to spend $250 million wisely. Involves a mission by U. S. Armed Forces to an earth-sized moon, Pandora, in orbit around a massive star. They encounter a graceful race of towering blue-skinned forest dwellers living in harmony with their environment. Sam Worthington plays the hero, whose is befriended by a Na’va woman (Zoe Saldana), and chugs his allegiance. Awesome special effects, good storytelling. Four stars. (12/11/09)

Crazy Heart (R) / * * * *
“Crazy Heart” (R, 112 minutes). Jeff Bridges is a Best Actor front-runner for his performance as Bad Blake, a broke-down, boozy country singer with a stubborn pride. Maggie Gyllenhaal finds all the right notes as a much younger reporter who comes for an interview and stays to be kissed. The songs, the singing, the milieu, the wisdom about alcoholism, are all convincing. The stuff of countless country songs, made true and new. With Robert Duvall and Colin Farrell in key supporting roles. Written and directed by first-timer Scott Cooper. Four stars (12/23/09)

Invictus (PG-13) / * * * 1/2
“Invictus” (PG-13, 134 minutes). Strange, that the first of many proposed biopics about Nelson Mandela centers on the South African rugby team. Mandela took an intense interest in the Springbok’s drive to an eventual World Cup championship, and it was a famous victory for the parish apartheid state. Here it is foregrounded, and who would have expected this film to be structured around who wins the big match? Yet Clint Eastwood has crafted a strong film with many other key moments, and Freeman and Damon are well cast. Entertaining, but not a companion-piece for “Gandhi.” Three and a half stars. (12/9/09)