AP Movies Headlines
Capsule reviews: 'From Paris With Love' and others | ||
Capsule reviews of films opening this week: "Dear John" - Yes, there's a character named John and, yes, he's a soldier who, sure enough, receives dozens of letters from his sweetheart back home, including one emotionally wrought missive that begins with "Dear John" and ends with him vowing to permanently switch to e-mail. And because this earnest romance comes from a Nicholas Sparks novel, death and disappointment hover over the events, ready to strike - and strike often. For Sparks, grief is good. Maybe greed, too, given the number of times he has recycled the same themes. Here John (Channing Tatum) and Savannah (Amanda Seyfried) fall in love in the spring of 2001 and promise their lives to each other. But then 9/11 happens and John, a Special Forces soldier, has to decide between love and country. The leads click effortlessly during the movie's romance section, but then comes the inevitable loss and disappointment, events that seem overwrought even by Sparks' operatic standards. PG-13 for some sensuality and violence. 102 minutes. Two stars out of four. - Glenn Whipp, For The Associated Press --- "From Paris with Love" - As 2008's "Taken" turned Liam Neeson into an action star, director Pierre Model again attempts the feat with two distinctly un-tough actors: John Travolta and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. The Rock needn't worry about his day job. With a shaved head, thick goatee and a leather jacket, Travolta resembles a biker from Soho. He's Charlie Wax, a brutal but chatty CIA agent. Meyers is James Reese, an aspiring spy who's teamed with Wax in a race to prevent a terrorist plot. Rhys, more hollow-cheeked model than gun-totting tough, plays Reese as quickly adapting to the carnage - he's from a hard New York neighborhood, after all, he boasts. (One foresees South Bronx crowds cackling in the theaters.) The bodies pile up, but "Paris" never feels like anything more than action movie dress-up. R for bloody violence throughout, drug content, pervasive language and brief sexuality. 95 minutes. One star out of four. - Jake Coyle, AP Entertainment Writer --- "Frozen" - This thinnest of horror tales asks the question, what would you do if you were stranded on a ski lift, forgotten and left to freeze after the resort staff goes home? It's an utter bore watching as writer-director Adam Green struggles and fails to keep his one-note idea interesting for the length of a feature film. There's maybe enough material here for a short film, so Green pads things with a lot of dreary scenes of chattering teeth and chattering characters as Emma Bell, Shawn Ashmore and Kevin Zegers share thoughts of their plight and the odd childhood anecdote as frostbite sets in. Since three people shivering on a ski lift would be about as action-packed as "Waiting for Godot," Green also adds wolves - you know, the sort of ravenous wolves that hang out at all the finer New England ski resorts waiting for dalliers on the slopes that they can hunt down and devour. Need we say more? R for some disturbing images and language. 93 minutes. One and a half stars out of four. - David Germain, AP Movie Writer --- "Terribly Happy" - This, the Danish foreign film submission to the Oscars, is all moodiness, midnight black comedy and noir mystery. Director Hendrick Ruben Genz transplants the familiar genre of city folk being stuck in a country backwater to a small, sparsely populated village on the plains of southern Denmark. A police officer, Robert Hanson (Jakob Cedergren), arrives from Copenhagen and quickly chaffs with the shifty locals who have the habit of tossing those they don't like in a bog on the outskirts of the town. Hanson soon makes enemies with the town tyrant, Jorgan (Kim Bodnia), while simultaneously making friends with his attractive, abused wife, Ingelise (Lene Maria Christensen). It would be a simple enough film if we were left to root for Hanson to outwit the crafty country bumpkins. But "Terribly Happy" throws several wrinkles into the old formula that reveal a much broader and cynical view of corruption. By the end, there's no distance between city and country. Cinematographer Jorgen Johansson uses a cool, drab pallet to create the tense atmosphere. Unrated. 100 minutes. Three stars out of four. - Jake Coyle, AP Entertainment Writer © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy. |
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