Selected mini-reviews, rated on a system of 0 to 4 stars, by Rick Groen, Liam Lacey, Kamal Al-Solaylee, Stephen Cole, Catherine Dawson March and Jennie Punter. Full reviews appeared on the dates indicated.
Adventureland
***
A post-adolescent comedy set back in the mid-eighties, Adventureland deposits its Renaissance Studies grad square in the midst of a dreary summer job at a run-down amusement park. There, the delight of this movie lies in its devilish details. Working from his own loosely autobiographical script, writer-director Greg Mottola knows the turf well, supplementing the basic comedic farce with a dash of raw sociology and a dollop of real feelings. The menu is admirable, if a bit overcooked on occasion. The laughs are usually fresh, the sociology is fairly crisp, but those feelings are the bottled jam of emotions - a bit too sweetly calculated for my taste. 14A (April 3) R.G.
Duplicity
***
Everyone here is scamming everyone else, not least of all writer-director Tony Gilroy, who's cleverly pulling a fast one on the audience. Essentially, he's made a formula flick that plays with the formula, a breezy romantic thriller (with Clive Owen and Julia Roberts) that simultaneously exploits and explodes the genre's familiar conventions. Sure, he cheats a bit - what scam artist doesn't? - but, with a few exceptions, his chicanery leaves us sufficiently off-balance to pique our interest and keep the fun quotient high. Mainly, it's a light/bright treat. PG (March 20) R.G.
Fast & Furious
**
The fourth entry in the franchise wisely reunites the old gang, Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster. This time out our hot-rod heroes spend a few tonnes of fossil fuels chasing down a Mexican drug lord. Good to see everyone back, although Diesel's mumbling sulk gets to be a drag. Action heroes should be prepared to lift their tongue to the roof of their mouth when they talk. 14A (April 3) S.C.
Hannah Montana:
The Movie
*** Love her or hate here, Miley Cyrus has an undeniable charisma that radiates from the big screen as strongly as it does on the small one. The movie plays out like one long episode of her TV show, and that's a good thing. The funniest scenes occur when she's joined by her TV co-stars Emily Osment and Jason Earles. The story is much of the same as what we see every week, except here schoolgirl Miley Stewart believes her own pop-star press. She's spending too much time promoting Hannah Montana and blowing off her family and friends. Now, that don't sit right with her pa (Billy Ray Cyrus), who sends her home to the farm in Tennessee for a Hannah detox. Goodbye Rodeo Drive, hello rodeo. Cue the handsome farm hand, country music and plot turn that (almost) overturns the Hannah/Miley premise altogether. G (April 10) C.D.M.
I Love You, Man
***
Paul Rudd, a familiar sidekick in films from The Forty-Year-Old Virgin to Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, emerges as a lead character in this comedy about a likable nerd named Peter whose fiancée (Rashida Jones) wants him to find a male friend. Peter goes on a "bromantic" quest and discovers Sidney (Jason Segel) who becomes his mentor in the world of maleness. I Love You, Man is familiar but also very funny, thanks to Rudd and Segel's often nuanced comic timing and sharp, improvised banter. 14A (March 20) L.L.
Knowing
**
Knowing is a catalogue of made-in-America delusions, hallucinations and cosmic catastrophes that draws on environmental fear-mongering in one reel and evangelical lore the next. Nicolas Cage plays an MIT professor whose young son brings home a letter full of numbers that was written 50 years earlier by a troubled child. The numbers correspond to dates of major disasters from the last five decades and predict three coming ones, including the Big One. Can Cage stop the end of the world? He sure tries, but the frenzy, predictability and utter disdain for logic with which Alex Proyas directs his heroics result in a confused film that's only partially successful as a supernatural thriller. 14A (March 20) K.A.-S.
The Last House on the Left
***
Informed remake of Wes Craven's 1972 cult film. A good family is set upon by wolf-pack killers in the woods. Rape and murder follow. But this isn't Scream 2. There is no gruesome fun here. The rarest of things: a deliberate, underplayed horror movie that is truly shocking. 18A (March 13) S.C.
Monsters vs. Aliens
**
Mere seconds into Monsters vs. Aliens, an animated feature "wholly conceived in 3-D," a rubber ball gets whacked by a wooden paddle and flies off the screen smack toward us - yep, tricked out in our plastic glasses, we duck. In other words, through generations of computerized advances, the high-tech wizards are still stooping to the same low-brow shtick. As for the tale itself there's a musty odour to the script, a committee job that spins dull variations on stock figures and ends with the usual pillow-soft moral. PG (March 27) R.G.
The Pool
****
An American-made Hindi film that is every bit as tranquil as the blue-green reservoir that serves as its abiding metaphor. Venkatesh is an impoverished teenager whose lone pleasure is climbing a tree to study an unruffled turquoise pool. The pool's owner adopts him, offering the use of his swimming facility. "But be careful," he warns, "My son drowned there." An artful, unresolved mystery that lingers in the mind after we leave the theatre. PG (April 3) S.C.
Pontypool
***
A very smart, distinctly Canadian zombie movie. The issue? A small Ontario town is being destroyed by a virus spread through the English language. The solution? A radio commentator and his producer fight past trouble speaking French in the manner of every Anglo toastmaster who has broken into a flop sweat negotiating our other official language. Directed with considerable aplomb by Bruce McDonald. With Stephen McHattie and Lisa Houle. 14A (March 6) S.C.
Sin Nombre
**** The destinies of a young Chiapan gangster and Honduran immigrant collide on top of a Mexican train in 31-year-old Cary Joji Fukunaga's thrilling and beautifully crafted debut feature, winner of top directing and cinematography awards at Sundance this year. Rooted in the filmmaker's deep first-hand research, Sin Nombre ("Nameless") was shot in real locations, stars Mexican and Central American actors and is sprinkled with eye-catching details that lend an authentic feel. But it unfolds almost like a fairytale, anchored in contemporary versions of archetypes - rites of passage, prophecies and border crossings, both physical and moral. 14A (April 3) J.P.
Watchmen
***
Director Zack Snyder ( 300) offers a solid adaptation of Alan Moore's (writer) and Dave Gibbons's (illustrator) ambitious meta-pulp graphic novel about the folly of hero worship. The film should almost satisfy the 1985 book's fans while risking alienating the uninitiated with its time-jumping narrative, layers of pop parody and enthusiastic gore. The story re-imagines the United States of the postwar era, in which the USA wins the Vietnam War, and President Nixon keeps getting re-elected. Splashy violence and trippy visuals combine, along with a lot of boomer music (Dylan, Hendrix) underlying key scenes. The acting (Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Malin Akerman, Jeffrey Dean Morgan) has a comic-book simplicity, with the exception of former child actor Jackie Earle Haley as the twisted anti-hero, Rorschach. 18A (March 6) L.L.