Author: David Riedel

One of these days someone is going to have to write a movie that explores—purposely—the irony of making a film that uses cutting edge technology to tell an anti-technology story. Transcendence is not that movie. Its storyline, character arcs, and politics are so hopelessly muddled, it’s unclear what its makers were thinking. In fact, there’s so little resembling an understanding of human emotion that I wonder whether it was written by computers trying to approximate the human experience.

Will Caster (Johnny Depp) and his wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) are brilliant scientist types. He wants computers to do something revelatory—it’s never made clear what—and she wants to use technology to change the world for the better.

One thing that’s clear is that there’s an anti-technology movement trying to stop their work. After giving a lecture, Will is shot by a would-be assassin. The wound appears minor but it turns out the shooter (Lukas Haas) dipped the bullet in some kind of chemical that gives Will fatal radiation poisoning.

Evelyn, along with her friend and colleague, Max (Paul Bettany), has a solution to save Will: Upload his consciousness to a computer. They do it. The results are disastrous (natch).

Along the way, Evelyn and Max’s purposes diverge. He thinks the technology is dangerous and tries to shut Computer-Will down. Evelyn kicks him out of their lab because she’s a woman and prone to letting her emotions get the better of her (I doubt that’s the intention but misogyny doesn’t have to be intentional). With Will’s now-sentient computer mind, she sets up shop in a dying town in the middle of nowhere. There she and Computer-Will start working on nanotechnology that will not only improve the physical constitution but will also connect every human’s brain to Computer-Will so the human race can evolve.

It’s not a bad concept, but the execution is just plain silly. For example, a group of anti-technology terrorists led by Bree (Kate Mara) kidnaps Max, beats the hell out of him, and then somehow convinces him to join their movement.

Then there’s Joseph Tagger (Morgan Freeman), a colleague of Will’s whose purpose is hazy; he and Human-Will had been working on nanotechnology, but his role in bringing Will back to Earth is unnecessary. Max can do everything that Tagger can do (and more).

Eventually, Computer-Will tries to take over the world. That’s how it goes in movies like this, as if there’s some sort of rule: Computers only want to kill us (see also the superior films The Terminator, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Danny Boyle’s Sunshine).

One could make the case that it’s delightfully subversive that the terrorists are the good guys, but they’re pretty rotten people. Plus, they use state of the art technology to thwart technology. The paradox!

Finally, Transcendence is director of photography Wally Pfister’s directorial debut. It’s a shame that a DP with such a great track record—Pfister shot the beautiful-looking Moneyball and The Dark Knight series, among others—has made a movie that looks dark even when its characters are standing in the middle of the sun-bleached desert. Transcendence is a total misfire.

Playing this week

A Haunted House 2
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Bears
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Divergent
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Draft Day
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

God’s Not Dead
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Grand Budapest Hotel
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Heaven Is For Real
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Le Week-end
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Lunchbox
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Noah
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Oculus
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Particle Fever
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Raid
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Rio 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Ten Commandments (1956)
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Under the Skin
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Movie houses

Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6
979-7669

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
244-3213

What’s with all the Kevin Costner movies lately? In the past 12 months he’s appeared in Man of Steel, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, and 3 Days to Kill. Given the quality of these movies, maybe he should have stayed semi-retired.

It’s not like the movies he made beforehand were much better, but at least his pre-2013 work had slowed to a crawl. One shitty movie a year is better than four shitty movies in one year, which brings us to Draft Day, an overlong NFL commercial that is nonetheless kind of charming in its stupidity and its aw-shucks love of football.

That’s not to say it doesn’t know football is a business; Draft Day is called Draft Day and not Football Rules!, and it’s all about buying and selling professional athletes, much like Moneyball is about the money and statistics of baseball. In other words, there’s no actual football here, just a lot of rich white guys vying for prospects who will soon be rich if they remain injury-free.

Costner is Sonny Weaver Jr., the Cleveland Browns general manager and the guy in charge of draft picks. Except he isn’t in charge. The team owner, Anthony (Frank Langella, who you’d think would be better as the heavy), wants Bo Callahan (Josh Pence), a hotshot quarterback who’s bound to be the first pick in the first round, but there’s no way the Browns can get him because they have seventh pick. Plus, the head coach (Denis Leary) wants a bigger say than he has.

Enter the wheeling and dealing. The Seattle Seahawks general manager, Tom Michaels (Patrick St. Esprit), calls Sonny up with a terrible deal and Sonny takes it. He doesn’t want the deal and Michaels is a prick. (How do you know he’s a prick? Because he eats food loudly on the phone and tells you he’s eating.)

The pawns in all the wheeling and dealing are Vontae Mack (Chadwick Boseman), an outside linebacker Sonny wants, running back Ray Jennings (Arian Foster), oft-injured Browns quarterback Brian Drew (Tom Welling), and the Browns’ salary cap executive, Ali (Jennifer Garner, who’s always game despite being relegated to second fiddle roles like this). And don’t forget Sonny’s dead father, the former Browns head coach, whose shadow still looms large. There’s always a dead father.

How does it all shake out? Well, duh. This is a sports movie starring Kevin Costner. If you can’t guess, you haven’t seen many sports movies. But despite Draft Day’s overcomplicated premise and easy-to-grasp machinations, it’s highly watchable. Costner is at his best in sports tales, and he displays grit, determination, and wit that are missing from most of his other work.

Director Ivan Reitman (?!!) does his best to suck the air out of the movie—there are seemingly endless establishing shots of various team cities that must have been a condition of NFL permissions—and there’s a clunky split screen/moving screen editing trick that keeps popping up whenever someone’s on the phone. But when all the old white men are yelling at each other, it kind of works.

Playing this week

And The Oscar Goes To…
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Divergent
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

God’s Not Dead
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Grand Budapest Hotel
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Heaven Is For Real
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Mr. Peabody and Sherman
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Monuments Men
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Muppets Most Wanted
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Noah
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Oculus
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Particle Fever
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Raid
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Rio 2
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Son of God
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Movie houses

Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6
979-7669

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
244-3213

Forget all of the hype surrounding Noah. What really matters is whether the movie is any good.

It isn’t. To paraphrase Edward Burns, it is dull, dreary, dry and a bore. Noah—and by implication its director and co-screenwriter Darren Aronofsky—can’t decide whether it’s a big head trip (an Aronofsky specialty) or an action picture or some odd version of a Bible story. It ends up muddled, and instead of providing substance, we get lots of close-ups of Noah (Russell Crowe) looking constipated.

If you know your Noah (the Bible version), you’re going to find lots of familiar things, and many, many liberties taken. One of the nice surprises is the movie’s Icelandic environs; much of it was filmed on beautiful black volcanic ash, a welcome change from the desert setting of every other biblical epic ever made.

Of course, one of the things that irritates even while gazing upon the setting is Noah’s insistence that the land is barren when there’s an enormous green mountain behind him. But no matter, there’s a flood comin’.

Noah has a vision that the world will end in water and that God (here called “The Creator”—cue the outrage) means for them all to die, but first Noah is to save the innocents. That is, Noah and his family are to save the animals.

So Noah collects his wife Naameh (Jennifer Connolly, whose teeth are decidedly 21st century), his sons Ham (Logan Lerman), Shem (Douglas Booth) and Japheth (Leo McHugh Carroll), along with an orphan, Ila (Emma Watson), and they set about building an ark in a forest The Creator provides.

Neat computer-generated trick: The animals arrive two by two, first the birds, then the crawling factions, and then the big, big mammals. They’re put to sleep for the journey in a cute fashion that’s demonstrated for the audience on what appears to be a red-headed woodpecker.

But there are people who want to board the ark: Namely Tubal-cain (Ray Winstone) and his followers. And it’s at this point that Noah—with help from the Watchers, fallen angels made of ash—becomes an action hero, slaughtering more people than I care to count.

It sounds like there’s a lot happening, but there isn’t. Noah is thin on narrative. After figuring out the visions aren’t a form of insanity, Noah has to build the ark, survive the flood, and repopulate the planet. But much of the second half of Noah centers on Noah’s face as he wonders how he’s failed The Creator and how they should all die. It’s as much fun as it sounds.

It’s not a particularly pro-faith story—there are scenes that suggest it’s pro-evolution—and it gets pretty far from the Bible. And there’s a pro-environmentalism angle, too. Mostly, it just drags on as Noah acts righteously.

Word of warning: This is a PG-13 movie, and it is the single most violent PG-13 movie I’ve ever seen. People gets axes in the head, chest and neck, and there’s beaucoup spurting blood. Why couldn’t Aronofsky have adapted Bill Cosby’s version of the flood?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC8xVgiFglY

Playing this week

300: Rise of an Empire
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Bad Words
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Divergent
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

God’s Not Dead
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Grand Budapest Hotel
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Lego Movie
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Mr. Peabody and Sherman
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Monuments Men
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Muppets Most Wanted
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Need for Speed
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Non-stop
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Sabotage
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Silence of the Lambs
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Single Moms Club
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Tim’s Vermeer
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Movie houses

Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6
979-7669

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
244-3213

It’s the distant future. The citizens of what was once Chicago live in a dystopian society—is there any other kind of post-apocalypse?—that is divided into five factions. Members of Erudite are intelligent. Amity are peaceful farmers. Candor speaks truthfully and handles the law. Abnegation is selfless and runs the government. And then there’s Dauntless, the brave. They handle security. The factions exist to keep peace.

That’s what Beatrice Prior (Shailene Woodley) lays out in Divergent’s opening voiceover, and that’s as much backstory as we get. Maybe that’s because Beatrice has blindly accepted the world in which she lives. She’s part of Abnegation, the faction that helps others and doesn’t look in mirrors. (Maybe if she looked in a mirror, she’d realize how odd it is that she’s always wearing false eyelashes.)

The central conceit of Divergent—that society willingly lives in these factions—is pretty thin. No one, post-war, said, “Hey, we’re all individuals. I want to read books and help the poor and fire guns.”

Of course not! Then there wouldn’t be obstacles for Beatrice to overcome, starting with what happens when she has to choose a new faction. See, each kid is tested at roughly 18, and the test results reveal which faction they should join as adults. Most kids choose the faction they’ve been brought up in. Some go to a different faction. And once you choose: No take backs!

Beatrice has a problem: She tests as a divergent, a person who shows aptitude for more than one faction. Her tester, Tori (Maggie Q), who has a habit of showing up when the plot needs her to, fudges Beatrice’s results to make her appear as Abnegation. Divergents, apparently, are a threat and usually killed.

At the choosing ceremony, Beatrice joins Dauntless. Based on the actions of other Dauntless members, they should be called “Careless Assholes,” but why quibble with Divergent’s grand design?

Beatrice renames herself Tris and develops gooey feelings for her trainer, Four (Theo Jones, who’s admittedly dreamy). She makes friends with Christina (Zoë Kravitz, a great example of the perils of nepotism), and enemies with Peter (Miles Teller, who’s given too little screen time) and Eric (Jai Courtney). Eventually she runs afoul of Jeanine (Kate Winslet, who’s just right), the Erudite leader who’s maybe plotting to overthrow the Abnegation faction.

There’s a lot of fat in Divergent’s 139-minute running time that could be trimmed. But without teeth, what qualifies for cutting? Who would say, “Nah, these recruits can have fewer heartfelt conversations, and fewer trips to the tattoo parlor, and fewer conversations that are pure exposition.”

And there’s also the troubling notion that all people with intelligence (that’s Erudite) are scheming to control everyone else. Does Divergent know it’s anti-intellectual?

There are some nifty moments amid the humdrum. The psychological tests that each new Dauntless member must undergo provide some stunning visuals. And Woodley, who’s mostly pitch-perfect, has a dynamite scene during which she, in order to save the planet (or maybe just Chicago), points one of her enemy’s guns directly at her forehead and tells him to shoot.

In the end, it’s much ado about nothing, especially when the ending—after the necessary gun fights—doesn’t really set up a sequel. The movie peters out, as if they grew tired of stretching a 90-minute idea into nearly two and a half hours.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=336qJITnDi0

Playing this week

12 Years A Slave
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

300: Rise of an Empire
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

American Hustle
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Frozen
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

God’s Not Dead
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Lego Movie
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Mr. Peabody and Sherman
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Monuments Men
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Muppets Most Wanted
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Need for Speed
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Non-stop
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Shawshank Redemption
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Single Moms Club
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Tim’s Vermeer
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Wind Rises
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Movie houses

Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6
979-7669

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
244-3213

During the closing credits in Veronica Mars, there’s a text crawl that reads: “This movie would never have been possible without the endless faith and support of our fans around the world, and especially the 91,585 backers who pledged on Kickstarter to bring Veronica back to life. Thank you for never giving up, and for helping us do the impossible.”

As a Veronica Mars Kickstarter backer and loyal Marshmallow, I’m glad I donated. I do wish Veronica Mars, the movie, were better.

As it is, Veronica Mars is basically a long, better looking episode of “Veronica Mars,” the canceled-too-soon Kristen Bell-starring teen private eye show from the mid-aughts, but without the freshness or pluck. It brings together almost all of the original cast (Leighton Meester, who played Carrie Bishop on the show, has been replaced with Andrea Estella, and Teddy Dunn does not appear as Duncan Kane). That includes Bell as Veronica, Jason Dohring as Logan Echolls, and Weevil (Francis Capra), Mac (Tina Majorino), Wallace (Percy Daggs III), and, delightfully, Enrico Colantoni as Veronica’s dad Keith.

Here’s what you need to know: Veronica left Neptune, California and Hearst College nine years ago. She finished her psychology degree at Stanford and graduated from Columbia Law. When the movie opens, she’s interviewing for an associate’s position at a big New York City law firm, and her boyfriend, Piz (Chris Lowell, who appeared in the show’s final season), works for Ira Glass at “This American Life.”

But then Logan is accused of murder (again) and screws everything up. Even though Veronica hasn’t spoken to him in nine years, she returns to Neptune to help him hire a lawyer when he calls.

It’s appropriate that a large part of Veronica Mars revolves around Veronica’s 10-year high school reunion, because much of the movie feels like a high school reunion. You know, it’s nice to see everyone, but it’s disappointing for a variety of reasons: In the movie’s case, the mystery at its center is pretty soft, and it features a retconned character who, from the moment he arrives on screen, feels off. He’s introduced as a Neptune High alum—it’s just that the audience has never seen him before.

For non-nerds, a retcon, or retroactive continuity, in movies and T.V. is used to alter previously established facts. For reference, see Chekov and Khan couldn’t possibly know each other in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and Marty getting angry at being called “chicken” in the two Back to the Future sequels.

Besides the retcon, there’s lazy plotting—lots of info gleaned when characters happen to be passing a T.V. or laptop, for example—that in the six years since the show was canceled could have been cleaned up.

For people who didn’t watch the show, it won’t matter. And really, it doesn’t matter so much for the movie, though as a critic I can’t imagine why non-fans would want to watch it. But if the whole purpose was to put Veronica back in action, mission accomplished and well done. Only Nixon can go to China. Only Veronica Mars can go to Kickstarter. And hopefully, if there’s another Veronica Mars movie, it resembles Wrath of Khan and not Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Playing this week

12 Years A Slave
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

300: Rise of an Empire
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

American Hustle
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Frozen
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Gloria
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Grapes of Wrath
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Gravity
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Lego Movie
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Mr. Peabody and Sherman
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Monuments Men
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Need for Speed
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Non-stop
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Philomena
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Robocop
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Single Moms Club
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Son of God (Hijo de Dios)
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Wind Rises
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Movie houses

Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6
979-7669

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
244-3213

Need for Speed is a movie in need of two reviews. In fact, I read somewhere that its original title was Need for Speed: Judge Us On Our Merits, Not On Yours. And I either made that original title up or the movie is so subversive it planted that title in my head. But whatever. This movie should be viewed by two critics with two dichotomous sets of criteria.

First there’s the “rational” critic. He says, “This movie sucks. In fact, it doesn’t just suck. It blows. It’s stupid and self-serious and full of shit and the stunts ignore physics. I defy anyone to take it seriously—or to like it!”

Then there’s the “whatever” critic. He says, “Dude, this movie sucks but it’s so awesome, I can’t believe how much fun I had. Did you see those driving stunts? Most of them were practical. Like, with real cars. When they launched the Mustang over those two lanes of traffic? That shit was unreal, yo! If it was computer-generated, I couldn’t even tell.”

The rational critic replies, “Maybe, but what about Aaron Paul’s super serious performance? Why is he growling? Is he Clint Eastwood in training? For one thing, he’s too short. For another, how often is he going to rub his mouth and chin with his hand? How often, I ask you?”

The whatever critic shoots back, “Look, I grant you he’s a little stern. Maybe even morose. But what do you expect? He watched his best friend die in the first 20 minutes and then spent two years in the joint for a crime he didn’t commit. And the asshole bad guy got away with everything!”

“Let’s talk about that,” says the rational critic. “The bad guy, played by Dominic Cooper, isn’t much of a bad guy. No charisma, no menace. He’s just a weasel. And what fun is a weasel?”

The whatever critic sighs. “That’s the point. Who gives a shit about that asshole? This is about driving, man!”

“And why are we driving?” says the rational one. “Aside from dumb personal vengeance? To win some stupid race funded by Michael Keaton that no one could possibly drive without dying? In fact, I’m sure most of the guys in the climactic race, along with a bunch of cops, totally died. And that’s a weird thing to cheer on like the screening audience was.”

The whatever critic shouts: “Yes, it’s stupid! Of course it’s stupid! The movie is based upon a goddamn video game! Why do you think each character, especially the heroine, is made of cardboard and glued together from other better characters in other better movies? The purpose of Need for Speed is to drive and watch shit blow up.”

There is a pause in the conversation. “You really yelled at me,” says the rational one.

“I’m sorry,” says the whatever critic. “But if you take this movie too seriously your head will explode. You have a choice. Live in its world or live in yours. You can’t live in both and enjoy it.”

Playing this week

3 Days to Kill
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

12 Years A Slave
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

300: Rise of an Empire
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

About Last Night
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

American Hustle
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Chicago
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Dallas Buyers Club
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Frozen
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Gravity
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Lego Movie
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Mr. Peabody and Sherman
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Monuments Men
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Non-stop
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Past
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Philomena
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Pompeii
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Robocop
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Son of God (Hijo de Dios)
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Wind Rises
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Movie houses

Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6
979-7669

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
244-3213

Is there any way to appropriately review 300: Rise of an Empire? This is a movie that has—whether it knows it or not—no ideology or purpose or ambition to be anything but a blood-and-guts spectacle on a massive scale. In fact, the blood and guts are so prevalent and unsparing they grow monotonous.

Sure, there are serious voiceovers uttered by Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey) that hint at higher thinking—the power of a people and the rules of nation-states and uniting against a common enemy and blah blah—but those voiceovers become as monotonous as the action, especially when they interrupt the climactic swordfight (which, by the way, is monotonous).

At least 300: Rise of an Empire’s predecessor, 300 (which can be thanked or blamed for making Gerard Butler a household name), had visuals we’d never seen before. If nothing else, it provided visceral thrills simply because it looked spiffy.

But 300: Rise of an Empire is muddled, stupid and pointless. It tells the story of Persian God-king Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) and his desire to rule Greece by having the Persian navy transport soldiers to Greek shores who then kill the hell out of every man, woman, and child.

The Persians are led by a disaffected Greek, Artemisia (Eva Green), who has great reasons for wanting to destroy her home country. She was sold into slavery at a young age and rescued by a Persian who taught her to fight. She gained the favor of the Persian king, and with his son (that’s Xerxes) is going to wreak havoc.

I think. I mean, none of that matters. This movie is just an exercise in bloodletting. At least we’re living in a time when blood can be recreated with computers because the cleanup on set would have taken longer than shooting the battle scenes had the filmmakers used practical stage blood.

Imagine doing a take in which four soldiers are beheaded, gored, a femoral artery is severed and an arm sliced off at the elbow. The amount of vital fluids spilled in each battle scene must be more than several hundred industrial-sized bucket loads. The makeup effects would have cost more than the talent they were tasked to make up.

One Greek who manages to stay fully limbed is Themistocles (Sullivan Stapleton), the leader of this six pack-having crew of motley swordsmen. Question: Why does a guy who lives his life at war keep taking off his helmet when he sees his greatest enemy across the battlefield?

Why don’t these men wear armor? Mythology and history be damned, put on some armor! It makes a sword to the chest easier to deflect. But whatever. It’s hard to care much about any of it when the filmmakers are more interested in stunts that defy the laws of physics and creating a blood spatter pattern that ends up on the camera lens. If that’s your idea of a great flick, please enjoy. If not, avoid it. Or if you must go, count how many times the Greeks tell each other they’re Greek and wait for the odd remix of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” during the closing credits.

Playing this week

3 Days to Kill
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

12 Years A Slave
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

About Last Night
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

American Hustle
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues Supersized
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Endless Love
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Frozen
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Gravity
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Her
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Lego Movie
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Monuments Men
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Non-stop
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Philomena
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Pompeii
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Rear Window
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Robocop
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Ride Along
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Son of God (Hijo de Dios)
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Stalingrad
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Wind Rises
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Winter’s Tale
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Wolf of Wall Street
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Movie houses

Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6
979-7669

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
244-3213

There’s a line in the song “So Lonely” by The Police that seems relevant when discussing the Academy Awards: “No surprise, no mystery.” Was anyone surprised that Chiwetel Ejiofor, who gave the best performance in the most important movie of 2013 (that’s 12 Years a Slave), lost out to Matthew McConaughey, who gave a nearly-as-good performance in Dallas Buyers Club?

Was anyone surprised that Alfonso Cuarón won Best Director for the paper-thin, no-character-development, seen-it-before Gravity over 12 Years a Slave’s Steve McQueen? Nah. (Or at least probably not.) Remember when considering your Oscar chances, kids: Space adventures beat the suffering of millions of people.

Maybe that’s the cynic in me, but at least some things about the Oscars did surprise: Jared Leto’s hair was wonderful. Ellen DeGeneres’ pizza gag—which tanked on multiple levels—was saved for a moment or two by Brad Pitt, who started handing out paper plates.

Then there was John Ridley’s win for Best Adapted Screenplay. The win itself isn’t a surprise, but it did surprise me that a guy who used to be a sitcom writer (and wrote the story for David O. Russell’s early movie Three Kings) would become one of the most sought-after scribes in Hollywood. Lesson to Ted Cohen and Andrew Reich, creators of “Work It,” ABC’s famously unfunny 2012 men-in-drag sitcom: There’s hope for you.

Other surprises: The tone deaf (literally) performance by Bette Midler of the 1980s tearjerker “Wind Beneath My Wings.” (At least they kept the period keyboard sound that dates the song so badly.) John Travolta’s odd hairline was upstaged only by his garbled pronunciation of Idina Menzel’s name. Menzel sang “Let It Go,” which beat Pharell’s superior “Happy” for Best Original Song. (His performance was better, too.)

All that griping leaves out one salient point. The Academy got something right in an era when it gets so many things wrong. As my friend and fellow film critic Kristofer Jenson said on Twitter last night, “12 Years a Slave wins. I don’t tell you this enough, society, but I’m proud of you. #Oscars.”

It’s important to note that, for once, the Academy, as they loftily call themselves, made the correct choice. I’d been bracing for a Gravity win for Best Picture of the Year (or worse, American Hustle) and was pleasantly surprised to see a beautiful—if heartbreakingly difficult—picture such as 12 Years a Slave get the recognition it deserves.

And “deserves” is a difficult word for awards such as the Oscars. This is the same rich-people-partying larf-fest that encourages the world’s most doofus-like selfie be retweeted more than any other photo in history (see above).

Such is life, and it’s the little victories that count. The Oscars are a sham, but they’re a sham that rewards people like Steve McQueen, Slave’s director. That picture’s big-name producer, Brad Pitt, had the good taste to step aside and let McQueen talk after a sincere introduction. And if the trade-off is that a dumb photo is in the headlines this morning, that’s OK. At least Lupita Nyong’o, Best Supporting Actress winner for 12 Years a Slave, made it in the pic.

By now we’re all familiar with Luc Besson’s oeuvre, right? You may remember him as the writer responsible for resurrecting Liam Neeson’s career with Taken, a movie in which young women can do nothing for themselves while older men beat the shit out of other men who would do the women harm.

With Taken, Besson sort of launched the older-white-guy-as-killing-machine genre that had previously been ruled by younger guys in the 1980s (yes, Stallone and Schwarz-
enegger were young once). Neeson has made it his bread and butter. Following Taken, Neeson made Taken 2, The Grey, Unknown, and coming soon, Non-Stop.

Besson has moved on, sort of. Whereas once all the women in his movies were helpless, they now kick ass (The Family, which is a terrible movie) or avoid it altogether (3 Days to Kill), unless they’re Amber Heard, in which case it’s unclear what she does (again, 3 Days to Kill).

This time around the old white guy is Ethan Renner (Kevin Costner), a secret agent lifer who kills with speed but usually leaves a mess. Vivi Delay (Heard) is running an operation to kill The Wolf (Richard Sammel) and The Albino (Tómas Lemarquis)—it should be noted that these names are said throughout the movie with straight faces. Ethan blows killing The Albino in the opening minutes, but that’s because he has undiagnosed brain cancer and passes out during a foot chase. He does, however, shoot The Albino in the ankle and leave him with a limp.

Fast forward: Ethan is diagnosed, told he’ll die in three months, and he subsequently retires and moves to Paris to spend his remaining time with his estranged wife Christine (Connie Nielsen) and daughter Zooey (Hailee Steinfeld). Neither of them is thrilled, but Christine agrees to let him back into their lives because of his illness. She makes Ethan promise he won’t tell Zooey he’s dying and that he’ll never go back to the life. He agrees to both.

If only life were so simple! Vivi has other plans, and like Michael Corleone, Ethan finds himself pulled back in. Soon he’s tracking The Albino and The Wolf while dispatching lots of bad guys and beating French dudes who make fun of him for wearing what, to them, look like cowboy clothes.

3 Days to Kill wouldn’t be so awkward if it knew what to do with itself. Like lots of Besson-written movies, it treads uneasily between super violence, drama, and clumsy comedy. It also, like lots of Besson movies, treats the young women as objects to be ogled or saved, except for Heard’s Vivi, whose character makes no sense. More than once she sends Ethan to kill some guys but then kills them herself. So what’s his purpose? Or hers?

In addition to father-daughter storylines, there’s also a marriage storyline, a how-do-we-raise-kids storyline, an African family squatting in Ethan’s apartment, and Ethan’s hallucinations resulting from an experimental drug regimen. And, last but not least, The Albino drops an elevator on a woman’s head in the first five minutes of a PG-13 comedy.

Playing this week

12 Years A Slave
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

About Last Night
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

American Hustle
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Endless Love
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Frozen
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Gravity
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Her
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

In Secret
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

The Lego Movie
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Lone Survivor
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Monuments Men
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Nut Job
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

On the Waterfront
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Philomena
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Pompeii
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Robocop
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Ride Along
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

Winter’s Tale
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX

The Wolf of Wall Street
Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6

Movie houses

Regal Downtown Mall Cinema 6
979-7669

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
244-3213