Heaven Is for Real (PG) In this adaptation of Todd Burpo’s memoir, Greg Kinnear portrays a Nebraska pastor and volunteer fireman whose 4-year-old son (Connor Corum) has a near-death experience and comes back talking about seeing heaven. Two things are wrong here: First, Corum is a standard-issue cute Hollywood kid without the weird edge that would have made his revelation as unsettling as it should be. Second, director Randall Wallace (We Were Soldiers) brings zero inventiveness or sense of wonder to the boy’s vision of heaven. The resulting movie works fairly well as an account of the day-to-day life of a small-town pastor, but it comes up fatally short as a vision of the afterlife. Also with Kelly Reilly, Thomas Haden Church, Lane Styles, Jacob Vargas, and Margo Martindale.
Maleficent (PG) Angelina Jolie gives her best performance in years in this re-telling of the Sleeping Beauty story, playing a fairy who’s jilted by a prince (Sharlto Copley) and responds by cursing his daughter (Elle Fanning) into falling into a death-like sleep. It’s good that she’s so powerful, because the rest of the movie is crap. Special-effects artist Robert Stromberg steps into the director’s chair for the first time. He makes the CGI look great, but the storytelling has no flow, the non-Maleficent characters are incomprehensible, and the dramatic parts, comic relief, and lyrical interludes all come willy-nilly on each other’s heels. It’s good to see movies about women and girls defy industry wisdom and sell lots of tickets, but we need better ones than this. Also with Imelda Staunton, Lesley Manville, Juno Temple, Sam Riley, Brenton Thwaites, and Kenneth Cranham.
Million Dollar Arm (PG) Ever hear the one about the benevolent rich white guy who drops into a Third World country and gives some lucky underprivileged people a chance to make it in America? That’s how this Disney sports flick plays out, despite the wealth of talent that went into it. Jon Hamm plays a desperate sports agent who sets up a reality TV show in India to find baseball players to take back to America. Writer Tom McCarthy (Win Win) and director Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl) are both swallowed up by the Disney house style, and the lack of any insight into the Indian characters only adds to this film’s nauseating air of self-congratulation. Also with Suraj Sharma, Aasif Mandvi, Madhur Mittal, Pitobash, Darshan Jariwala, Lake Bell, Bill Paxton, and Alan Arkin.
A Million Ways to Die in the West (R) I liked Seth MacFarlane a lot better when he was Mark Wahlberg’s cuddly teddy bear. He’s regrettably onscreen in this failed Western spoof as a cowardly sheep farmer who has to save his Arizona town from an evil gunslinger (Liam Neeson). As a director, MacFarlane comes up with a few inventive sight gags and a dance number in a saloon. The jokes, however, find a million ways to die, and the actors (barring Neil Patrick Harris as a self-satisfied fop) seem at sea. With all the talent assembled here, this movie really should have done more than make us pine for Blazing Saddles. Also with Charlize Theron, Amanda Seyfried, Sarah Silverman, Giovanni Ribisi, Wes Studi, Gilbert Gottfried, Christopher Lloyd, Ewan McGregor, and an uncredited Bill Maher.
Moms’ Night Out (PG) The white people’s version of The Single Moms’ Club. That’s not a compliment, if you’re wondering. Sarah Drew, Patricia Heaton, and Logan White star in this strenuously unfunny comedy about three suburban mothers who leave the children at home with their husbands for a night on the town. Andrew and Jon Erwin’s script is nowhere near as offensive as the one for their anti-abortion drama October Baby, but the material just isn’t here, and the actors either sleepwalk or over-emote to try to make something funny happen. It doesn’t. Also with Sean Astin, Harry Shum Jr., Robert Amaya, Kevin Downes, Alex Kendrick, Lou Ferrigno, and Trace Adkins.
Neighbors (R) Possibly the greatest fraternity comedy ever. Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne play the proud parents of an adorable baby girl who are horrified to find a fraternity moving into the house next door and throwing wild parties. The movie makes hay out of making the parents into young people not far removed from their hard-partying pasts who care about seeming cool to the college boys. The setup fits Rogen nicely, but it’s Byrne who gets the best showcase of her career, and Zac Efron slides so easily into the raunchfest that you’ll forget he ever starred in High School Musical. Comic highlights abound, but watch for the “bros before ho’s” verbal riff, the breast-feeding sequence, and the climactic fistfight between Rogen and Efron, a great piece of physical comedy. Also with Dave Franco, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Ike Barinholtz, Carla Gallo, Jerrod Carmichael, Craig Roberts, Liz Cackowski, Hannibal Buress, Jake Johnson, Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone, Adam Devine, and Lisa Kudrow.
The Other Woman (PG-13) Cameron Diaz and Leslie Mann enact the cheating husband’s worst nightmare as a mistress and a wife who discover each other’s existence at the same time and conspire to punish the husband (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) who’s cheating on both of them. Diaz is miscast as the buttoned-up, cynical, high-powered businesswoman half of this pair, but she does well with the physical comedy that results from the setup, and Mann gives a compelling performance as a wife who comes unhinged when she finds out what her husband has been up to. The movie crashes and burns in the last 30 minutes or so, but up until that point it’s an agreeable comedy. Also with Kate Upton, Don Johnson, Taylor Kinney, David Thornton, and Nicki Minaj.
Rio 2 (G) I watched this whole thing without once being clear on exactly what was going on or why it needed to go on. Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway reprise their roles as rare blue macaws who discover the existence of a flock of more of their species living deep in the Brazilian jungle. The parrots’ old nemeses (voiced by Jemaine Clement and Kristin Chenoweth), three parrot chicks, and a bunch of ranchers bent on deforestation all pop up here, as do even more musical numbers. The sloppiness of this loud, overstuffed sequel only underscores the cynicism of this movie designed to cash in on parents whose kids liked the original. Additional voices by Jamie Foxx, Andy Garcia, Leslie Mann, Rodrigo Santoro, Miguel Ferrer, Tracy Morgan, will.i.am, Amandla Stenberg, Bebel Gilberto, Sergio Mendes, Janelle Monáe, Bruno Mars, and Rita Moreno.
X-Men: Days of Future Past (PG-13) Director Bryan Singer rejoins the series and reminds us why the original movies struck such a chord. In a dystopian near future, Professor Xavier and Magneto (Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen) send Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) back in time to 1973 to prevent an assassination that started the chain of events. Wolverine has his sardonic mojo back, and the erotically tinged relationship between young Xavier and young Magneto (James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender) pays handsome dividends here, as does Xavier’s need to reclaim Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from the dark side. The world has changed much since the first movie, but the overarching story’s parallels with gay rights haven’t lost their power, and the final image of Xavier’s school restored to its former glory is deeply moving. This is the comic-book superhero movie to see this year. Also with Halle Berry, Ellen Page, Nicholas Hoult, Peter Dinklage, Shawn Ashmore, Omar Sy, Fan Bingbing, Evan Peters, Thai-Hoa Le, Josh Helman, Anna Paquin, and uncredited cameos by Kelsey Grammer, James Marsden, and Famke Janssen.
Cold in July (NR) Michael C. Hall stars in this thriller as an East Texas man in 1989 who becomes targeted for revenge after he kills an intruder in his house. Also with Don Johnson, Vinessa Shaw, Wyatt Russell, Nick Damici, Kristin Griffith, and Sam Shepard.
Fed Up (PG) Stephanie Soechtig’s documentary exposes the efforts of America’s food industry to defeat anti-obesity campaigns.
Ida (PG-13) Paweł Pawlikowski (Last Orders, My Summer of Love) directs this drama about a 1960s Polish novitiate nun (Agata Trzebuchowska) who is about to take holy orders when she learns a terrible secret about her family. Also with Agata Kulesza, Dawid Ogrodnik, Jerzy Trela, Adam Szyszkowski, Halina Skoczynska, and Joanna Kulig.
The Immigrant (R) Marion Cotillard stars in this drama by James Gray (Two Lovers, We Own the Night) as a Polish woman who is forced into prostitution in New York in 1921. Also with Joaquin Phoenix, Jeremy Renner, Angela Sarafyan, and Dagmara Dominczyk.
Palo Alto (R) James Franco co-stars in Gia Coppola’s adaptation of his short story about a high-school girl (Emma Roberts) who’s torn between her crush on her soccer coach and her affection for her best friend (Jack Kilmer). Also with Zoe Levin, Nat Wolff, Chris Messina, Talia Shire, Olivia Crocicchia, Claudia Levy, Marshall Bell, Colleen Camp, Janet Jones, Emma Gretzky, Bailey Coppola, and Val Kilmer.
Particle Fever (NR) Mark Levinson’s documentary about the team of physicists who discovered the Higgs boson particle.
