OPENING
Gertrud (Denmark, 1964) A middle-aged woman rejects a string
of suitors in her quest for true love in this Carl Theodor Dreyer film.
Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque. At 9:05 p.m. Friday, May 8,
and 7 p.m. Sunday, May 10.
Next Day Air This crime action-comedy directed by Benny Boom comes across like an African-American version of a Guy Ritchie caper (comically inept criminals, menacing masterminds, stylish cinematography and editing) crossed with Pineapple Express (criminal mix-up fueled by incessant pot smoking). While the level of violence — much of it implied and offscreen — might be aversive to some, the movie is a model of low-key humor and tense, economical storytelling (it runs a compact 84 minutes). Leo (Scrubs’ Donald Faison) is a Philadelphia delivery driver whose work performance is hampered by his copious pot smoking and whose exasperated boss is his mom (Debbie Allen). Stoned Leo delivers a package to the wrong apartment, allowing a pair of bumbling crooks, Brody and Guch (Mike Epps and Wood Harris) to get their hands on a huge shipment of cocaine. This sets off a series of dangerous events when they decide to sell the coke, while the vengeful dealer (Emilio Rivera) and intended recipients (Cisco Reyes and Yasmin Deliz) try to get it back. While it relies a little heavily on stereotypes (Latino characters named “Jesus,” “Chita” and “Bodega”), the movie maintains a nice balance of suspense and humor. The casual interplay between the characters, as written by Blair Cobbs, is a lot of fun. *** (Pamela Zoslov)
Our City Dreams (US, 2008) This new documentary profiles five
contemporary female artists. Cleveland Museum of Art Lecture Hall. At 7
p.m. Wednesday, May 13.
Sugar Miguel “Sugar” Santos (Algenis Perez Soto) is a
hard-throwing pitcher from the Dominican Republic who finally gets a
chance to play in the big leagues after a major-league team invites him
to spring training. Sugar ends up on a farm club in the middle of Iowa,
living with a devotedly Christian family and struggling to comprehend a
foreign culture and language. While he maintains friendships with his
Dominican Republic buddies who also end up on the team, the experience
is rather disorienting. The film goes to great lengths to show just how
uncomfortable Sugar is in his new environment, and as a result, he’s so
withdrawn and reticent, it makes it hard to sympathize with him, even
after his pitching abilities begin to rapidly diminish and he’s forced
to rethink his choice to play in the U.S. Cedar Lee Theatre.
1/2 (Jeff
Niesel)
Throw Down Your Heart (US, 2008) A profile of banjo man Bela
Fleck as he travels to Africa in search of the banjo’s roots. Cleveland
Museum of Art Lecture Hall. At 7 p.m. Friday, May 8.
Vampyr (France/Germany, 1932) An archival print of Carl
Theodor Dreyer’s vampire film. Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque.
At 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 8, and at 9:50 p.m. Saturday, May 9.
Waltz With Bashir (Israel/Germany/France, 2008) Can a cartoon be
a documentary and vice versa? That’s the question posed by Waltz
with Bashir, the wildly acclaimed genre-bender from
director Ari Folman that takes an impressionistic look at the
experiences of Israeli soldiers during the 1982 Lebanon war.
Bashir‘s visual style isn’t too far removed from the
rotoscoping technique employed by Richard Linklater in Waking
Life and A Scanner Darkly. But unlike Linklater’s
trippy slacker chronicles, Folman uses animation to distance us from
the horrors of war and bring us closer to the actual combat experience.
Framed as a series of interviews that Forman conducted with his fellow
veterans, the result feels so uncannily right, it’s hard to imagine
this material presented in a more conventional (and less poetic)
format. The impenetrable — and unreliable
— nature of memory lies at the heart of Folman’s dense
journalistic collage, and it probably explains why nothing is ever
truly clear-cut here. Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque. At 5:15
p.m. Saturday, May 9, and 9:15 p.m. Sunday, May 10.
*** (Milan Paurich)
Were the World Mine (US, 2008) While rehearsing the role of
Puck in a private boys’ school production of Shakespeare’s A
Midsummer Night’s Dream, Timothy (likable newcomer Tanner Cohen)
accidentally discovers a magic potion that makes people fall helplessly
in love with the first person in sight. Since Timothy is gay and a bit
of a practical joker, he uses this newfound power to teach his town’s
nastiest homophobes a lesson. Director Tom Gustafson’s charming,
micro-budgeted high-school musical — with original songs by
Jessica Fogle and Cory James Krueckeberg, who co-wrote the witty
screenplay with Gustafson — has the feel of a future cult movie.
Even the occasional directorial misstep seems oddly endearing within
the context of such a gay-positive agenda. As Frankie, Timothy’s
“hetero-flexible” tomboy friend, Zelda Williams (Robin’s daughter)
handily steals every scene she’s in. Cleveland Museum of Art Lecture
Hall. At 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 6. ***(Paurich)
IN THEATERS
Battle for Terra Originally called just Terra, this
movie was made in plain old 2D and converted to 3D, providing the
illusion that winged whales, spaceships and snowflakes are flying into
your lap. The 3D isn’t integral to the story, but it’s a pretty cool
novelty and no doubt fun for kids to experience. The modest,
independently made movie is technically impressive — nicely
detailed CG animation, a talented voice cast and an amusing crablike
robot sidekick voiced by the funny David Cross. But what’s most
remarkable is the movie’s explicit antiwar theme. Director Aristomenis
Tsirbas, who wrote the script with Evan Spiliotopoulos, wanted to tell
a story like H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds, but from the
aliens’ point of view. And so Battle for Terra became something
uncommon among sci-fi battle movies: a plea for humanity that asks us
to identify with an “alien” population threatened with imperialist
invasion. ***(Pamela Zoslov)
Crank: High Voltage Jason Statham reprises his role as
anti-hero Chev Chelios, still alive despite falling thousands of feet
from a helicopter at the end of the first Crank. In that film,
Chev had to keep his adrenaline level high to prevent a deadly poison
from reaching his heart. In this film, his heart has been removed by
organ harvesters and replaced with an artificial one. When Chev
realizes what organ they plan on taking next, he escapes, and the movie
becomes a nonstop barrage of brawls, bullets, blood and boobs, seasoned
liberally with profanity and black humor. Also returning from the first
film are the writing and directing team of Mark Neveldine and Brian
Taylor, who shoot with a style that makes Quentin Tarantino seem laid
back. The freshness of the original is missing, though, and despite
some fun moments, the whole thing feels thrown together.
** 1/2 (Robert
Ignizio)
Duplicity Julia Roberts and Clive Owen play a pair of
über-competitive corporate spies who fall in love (sort of) while
attempting to pull a multi-million dollar scam. Or maybe they’re just
scamming each other. It’s hard to tell who’s on the level in
writer-director Tony Gilroy’s screwy follow-up to the Oscar-nominated
Michael Clayton. Gilroy plays so many tricks with point of view
and jumbles the chronology in such a seemingly random, pell-mell
fashion that you could get a migraine just keeping track of all the
glamorous locales (New York, London, Miami, the Bahamas, Rome, Dubai)
fleetingly glimpsed along the way. Two actors who can class up any
joint (Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson, reuniting following their roles
as John Adams and Ben Franklin in HBO’s John Adams miniseries)
contribute a few stray moments of welcome mirth as Roberts and Owen’s
conniving bosses, but Gilroy’s stubborn refusal to tell his story
straight makes this more of an exercise in frustration than the larkish
screwball romp he seems to think it is. ** (Paurich)
Earth This film takes an old-school, National
Geographic-like approach to nature documentary. Though it does
mention global warming on more than one occasion, it’s no An Inconvenient Truth. Narrated by James Earl Jones, the film
starts at the Arctic as a couple of polar-bear pups are born. They slip
and slide in the snow like a pair of toddlers (the film’s constantly
guilty of anthropomorphism). The movie might have had more
narrative structure if it had simply followed the cubs as they became
bears. But instead, it sidetracks, heading south to sub-Saharan desert
to follow a herd of elephants and then stop at tropical rainforests
before returning to the Arctic to check back in on the polar-bear
family. Beautifully filmed, the movie serves as a decent educational
tool, depicting the sudden changes that come with the seasons and the
delicate balance required to keep life on Earth alive. But it’s pretty
dry stuff compared to something like March of the Penguins, which perfectly paired entertainment with education.
** 1/2 (Niesel)
Fast & Furious This sequel to The Fast and the
Furious starts out firing on all cylinders as Dom (Vin Diesel) and
his gang, including girlfriend Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), pull off a
daring fuel truck heist. That’s followed by a foot chase in which FBI
Agent Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) smashes through at least two windows
and the roof of a parked car in order to get his man. A surprising
early twist reunites these old adversaries, as well as Dom’s sister Mia
(Jordana Brewster). Justin Lin’s direction remains confident
throughout, especially in the action scenes, and the film also benefits
considerably from the screen presence of its stars. But as it goes
along, it gets bogged down by a convoluted plot and never quite lives
up to the promise of its early scenes. As a mindless popcorn movie
about fast cars it’s not bad, but it felt like it had the potential to
be better. ** 1/2
(Ignizio)
Fighting This is like a cross between Rocky and
Midnight Cowboy that’s been watered down for easy consumption.
Shawn (Channing Tatum), a naïve country boy trying to make it in
the Big Apple, gets introduced to the world of underground fighting by
self-proclaimed two-bit hustler Harvey (Terrence Howard). Evan (Brian
White), a rival fighter, has a past with Shawn, and, as the film’s
title implies, they brawl like brothers. On the plus side, director
Dito Montiel makes good use of his New York locations to give the film
a nice gritty feel, and Howard gives a fine performance in his
supporting role. But that’s not enough to compensate for the recycled
plot and Tatum’s bland lead performance. As for the fight scenes,
they’re OK, but if you just want to watch a couple of guys brutally
beat the crap out of each other, you’d be better off ordering
Ultimate Fighting on pay per view. **(Ignizio)
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past This diverting bit of nonsense
blends romantic comedy with A Christmas Carol in a blatant ploy
for feminine hearts: The lead is swoon bait Matthew McConaughey, and
the story is a sharp rebuke against womanizing. McConaughey plays
Connor Mead, a successful magazine photographer who uses and discards
women like Kleenex, even breaking up with three on a conference call.
On the eve of the wedding of his younger brother (Breckin Meyer),
Connor makes a cynical speech denouncing love. That night, the ghost of
his idolized swinging Uncle Wayne (Michael Douglas, having a grand
time), appears, warning Connor not to end up as he did, old and alone.
The ghost tells him he’ll be visited by Ghosts of Girlfriends Past,
Present and Future, who take Connor on a journey to confront the
origins and consequences of his caddish behavior. Connor predictably
realizes he’s missed out on true love with childhood sweetheart Jenny
(Jennifer Garner), who now regards him with pity and contempt. This
labored conceit plays better than it sounds, since the script by Jon
Lucas and Scott Moore (Four Christmases) has enough funny, acid
dialogue to compensate for absurdities like the bride’s middle-aged
militarist dad, described as a Korean War vet, which would make him
around 80. ***(Pamela Zoslov)
Gomorrah Winner of the Grand Prix award at last year’s Cannes
Film Festival, director Matteo Garrone’s adaptation of Roberto
Saviano’s 2006 international best-seller is a no-holds-barred expose of
the Camorra, Italy’s most notorious mob cartel (their profits are
estimated at $233-billion per year). Five intersecting storylines
describe how the trickle down effects of organized crime affect the
lives of ordinary Neapolitan citizens in southern Italy. With its
multiple protagonists and dueling narrative arcs, Garrone’s
impressionistic mosaic is a lot closer to HBO’s Dickensian-dense The
Wire than it is to the gritty, hyper-romanticism of, say, The
Sopranos. If the film’s wealth of sociological detail takes some
getting used to — the first half hour may seem needlessly
confusing if you aren’t familiar with the Saviano source material–the
artistry and rigor of Garrone’s dispassionate, yet harrowing vision is
its own reward. Cedar Lee Theatre. **** (Paurich)
Hannah Montana: The Movie Hannah/Miley (Miley Cyrus) is out
of control. Well, as out of control as a Disney diva can get. After a
good old-fashioned shoe fight with Tyra Banks, she shows up late for
her best friend’s birthday party and doesn’t make it to her brother’s
going-away get-together. But dad (Billy Ray Cyrus) has a plan to get
her back on track. He takes her to her Tennessee home so she can get in
touch with her true self. Predictably enough, Miley learns that “you
can always find your way back home,” as she puts in a syrupy song.
Teens and tweens will hyperventilate as Miley makes mistakes and then
quickly learns from them. But between the predictable plot and the
god-awful songs (all of which are rather poorly lip-synced), this movie
is simply dreadful. * (Niesel)
Hunger More gallery installation than movie, British visual
artist Steve McQueen’s highly praised, extravagantly stylized account
of the last months in the life of IRA figurehead Bobby Sands (decently
played by Michael Fassbender) is so grueling an experience that
watching it borders on masochism. While McQueen is to be commended for
jettisoning the standard docudrama approach (Jim Sheridan’s In the
Name of the Father told a fictionalized version of Sands’ story in
a far more compelling, albeit conventional fashion), his clinical objet
d’art treatment never remotely engages the audience on an emotional
level. By (literally) stripping Sands and his fellow prisoners down to
slabs of quivering meat, McQueen robs them of their humanity. It’s one
of those impossible-to-love critics’ darlings that’s more interesting
to discuss — and even argue about — than it is to watch.
Cedar Lee Theatre. **
(Paurich)
I Love You, Man I Love You, Man isn’t a Judd Apatow
production; it was directed by John Hamburg (Along Came Polly), who
wrote the script with Larry Levin. But it pays homage to the formula,
and stars Apatow alumni Paul Rudd and Jason Segel (Forgetting Sarah
Marshall). Rudd plays Peter Klaven, an L.A. realtor who has just
proposed to Zooey (Rashida Jones, The Office), whose parents
apparently named her in a fit of Salinger worship. Peter is a dream
boyfriend: handsome, ambitious but not aggressive, talented in the
kitchen and bedroom, and a man who enjoys an evening watching Chocolat
with his fiancée. But he has, in Apatovian terms, a problem:
he’s a “girlfriend guy.” He has no close male friend who can be his
best man. Quelle horreur! The movie advances the notion that men can
enjoy greater intimacy with men than with women, though of course,
they’re not gay. Wobbly premise aside, the movie, while not raucously
hilarious, has a breezy likeability, mainly owing to the charismatic
Rudd, whose character spends much of the movie trying to master the art
of casual banter. ***(Zoslov)
The Informers Based on a Bret Easton Ellis novel, Gregor
Jordan’s film starts with a sudden car crash that kills a young
could-be-a-Calvin Klein-model. The narrative, however, doesn’t center
on the dead guy at the party. Rather, it follows several different
storylines. There’s Bryan Metro (Mel Raido), the rock star who sleeps
with underage girls and has a drinking problem. There’s Les (Chris
Isaak) and his son Tim (Lou Taylor Pucci) who are vacationing in Hawaii
in an attempt to get away from the craziness of L.A. And there’s the
bellboy (Brad Renfro) whose trouble-making friend (Mickey Rourke) just
won’t leave him alone. If the film has a center, it’s the relationship
between William (Billy Bob Thornton) and his wife Laura (Kim Basinger).
An estranged couple that keeps trying to reconnect with its fucked up
kids, William and Laura might have more problems than their delinquent
offspring. But what any of this means isn’t clear. After making such an
impressive comeback with The Wrestler, Rourke must be kicking
himself that he ever signed on to have a role in this inconsequential
film. **(Niesel)
Monsters vs. Aliens Even though Monsters vs. Aliens incorporates new characters to the talking-animal genre (actually,
Pixar got there first eight years ago with the otherworldly creatures
of Monsters, Inc.), it’s still the same mix of animated
elements. The opening scenes set up the plight of Susan (voiced by
Reese Witherspoon), a bride hit by a piece of space junk on her wedding
day. She soon begins glowing and growing. The government tosses her
into a cell with other imprisoned oddities: Dr. Cockroach, an
oversized, lab coat-wearing roach (Hugh Laurie); a fish-man called the
Missing Link (Will Arnett); Insectosaurus, a ginormous bug; and B.O.B.,
a jumbo blob of blue Jell-O that sounds like (and is) Seth Rogen. When
a four-eyed, tentacled alien attacks Earth, the monsters are recruited
to save the planet from the imminent invasion. Monsters vs.
Aliens certainly makes good on its promise of the titular
creatures. And it looks great (be sure to see it in 3D — the
sci-fi spectacle leaps off the screen). But there isn’t much of a story
here. ** 1/2
(Michael Gallucci)
Obsessed “A lot of these single gals see the workplace as
their hunting ground,” warns co-worker Ben (Jerry O’Connell) when Lisa
(Ali Larter), a pretty blonde temp, shows up at the office one day.
Derek (Idris Elba) says he has no trouble staying loyal to his wife
Sharon (Beyoncé Knowles) and his young son Kyle (Nathan Myers).
So when the temp throws herself at him at the company Christmas party,
he refrains from reciprocating. But hell hath no fury like a secretary
scorned, and it’s not long before Lisa starts stalking Derek, showing
up unannounced at a company retreat and sending him sexy photos from
her e-mail account. It’s all rather preposterous (the film would have
been much more effective if it kept the harassment more realistic) and
predictable, though the movie deserves props for not making race an
issue (Derek is African-American and Lisa’s white). It’s not giving too
much away (you can see it coming from the start) to say that it all
culminates in a vicious catfight that finds the petite white girl
outmatched by big, bad Beyoncé. *
(Niesel)
Observe and Report Writer-director Jody Hill specializes in
deluded, self-important antiheroes (The Foot Fist Way), and in
this movie, he casts Seth Rogen as Ronnie Barnhardt, a volatile,
bipolar mall security guard who lives with his doting mom, lusts after
a pretty cosmetics clerk (Anna Faris) and dreams of becoming a real
cop. If you think you’ve seen this before, know that this is the evil
twin of Paul Blart: Mall Cop: same basic story, funnier but with
the violence cranked up to 11. The story is about Ronnie’s plan to
catch a flasher and thereby seize his chance at law-enforcement glory.
His inept efforts pit him against an ambitious police detective (Ray
Liotta). Rogen is always enjoyable, but he is defeated by Hill’s wobbly
screenplay, which hasn’t decided whether Ronnie is a psychotic gun nut
or a sweet, well-intentioned slob. The movie is replete with funny
lines, and the scenes between Ronnie and his alcoholic mom (Celia
Weston) are brilliant. It’s hard to understand, then, why Hill found it
necessary to include so much ugly mayhem. You can’t just throw a lot of
shooting into your movie and call it a “dark comedy.” Generally
speaking, comedy and serious gun violence are a queasy mix.
** 1/2 (Zoslov)
Paris 36 Things go from bad to worse for a sad sack named
Pigoil (Gérard Jugnot) in this period piece that uses a
vaudeville theater as a microcosm for life in Paris in 1936. When the
theater closes, Pigoil’s wife leaves him, and he subsequently loses
custody of his accordion-playing child JoJo (Maxence Perrin), whom he
adores. But Pigoil doesn’t despair; rather, he gathers a group of
two-bit actors and actresses and “improvises a revolution,” re-opening
the theater. A lovely young girl named Douce (Nora Arnezeder) is the
saving grace, drawing big crowds and turning the venue into a
money-making business. Not quite as good as 2007’s La Vie En Rose, the film’s an emotional roller-coaster ride that’s
alternately tragic and comic, sad and happy. Cedar Lee Theatre.
***(Niesel)
17 Again The premise of this supernatural comedy — an
adult is magically transformed into his teenage self and goes back to
high school — is so much like countless other movies that just
reciting the plot elicits groans. Yet director Burr Steers and writer
Jason Filardi bring some freshness to the old fable. In 1989, Mike
O’Donnell (teen heartthrob Zac Efron), a high-school basketball star,
forfeits a scholarship to marry his girlfriend. Twenty years later,
Mike has grown (improbably) into a disappointed Matthew Perry. He’s
been passed over for a promotion, his wife Scarlett (lovely Leslie
Mann) is divorcing him and he’s living with his sci-fi nerd buddy Ned
(Thomas Lennon). A mysterious school janitor (Brian Doyle-Murray)
grants Mike a second chance. Now a teenager again, Mike enrolls at the
old school, where he endures generational culture shock and tries to
protect his son (Sterling Knight) from bullies, his daughter (Michelle
Trachtenberg) from a loutish boyfriend and win back Scarlett, who’s
confused by the appearance of Mike’s teenage doppelgänger. The
movie is silly in places and flirts with squeamish incest ideas, but
it’s winsome and well played. Efron is surprisingly deft, never letting
us forget he’s a grown man living in a teenage body.
***(Zoslov)
The Soloist With this immensely satisfying movie about a
newspaper writer who discovers that a homeless man playing Beethoven on
the streets of L.A. is a trained musician fallen on hard times,
director Joe Wright finds an ideal vehicle for his talent. Wright’s
glossy, slightly eccentric style, predictably suitable for English
drawing-room fare like Atonement, is delightfully
unexpected for a movie about “the people of the abyss.” The story,
based on Steve Lopez’s Los Angeles Times columns, casts
Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez, who finds a compelling subject in Nathaniel
Ayers (Jamie Foxx), who is serenading traffic with a two-stringed
violin. Lopez learns that Ayers studied at Juilliard and pieces
together his story. He was raised in Cleveland (some scenes were filmed
here), and his talent took him to Juilliard, where he was a promising
cello student sidelined by schizophrenia. Foxx ably depicts the
sometimes lucid, sometimes nonsensical speech patterns of
schizophrenia, and his symptoms are illustrated with terrifying
vividness. Lopez’s efforts to help Ayers — giving him a donated
cello, arranging an apartment — are by turns rewarding and
frustrating. Susannah Grant’s screenplay is deeply sympathetic to the
struggles of the homeless, and Seamus McGarvey’s brilliant
cinematography gives the human landscapes the look of a Hieronymus
Bosch painting. **** (Zoslov)
State of Play Based on a BBC miniseries, State of
Play aspires to be something along the lines of All the
President’s Men but doesn’t quite get there. The drama centers on
Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe), a renegade Washington reporter who’s
trying to do a good old-fashioned exposé about an international
mercenary company attempting to privatize American law enforcement so
that it can make billions of dollars. He’s assisted by his old college
roommate Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck), a former grunt who’s now a
congressman conducting an investigation into the company’s dirty
dealings. But when Collins himself gets involved in a scandal involving
one of his pretty female aides, the case gets even more complicated.
The movie is thrilling for the first half, but when conspiracy theories
turn into actual conspiracies, it loses a good deal of its credibility.
Helen Mirren, Rachel McAdams and Jason Bateman round out the fine
supporting cast. ** 1/2
(Niesel)
Sunshine Cleaning This bittersweet comedy about two sisters
who launch a crime-scene cleanup business was produced by the team
responsible for Little Miss Sunshine, which it resembles in its mordant
affection for its hard-luck characters and the casting of Alan Arkin as
an eccentric grandpa. Amy Adams is Rose, an Albuquerque ex-cheerleader
who cleans houses and is having an affair with a married cop (Steve
Zahn), who tells her there’s money to be made cleaning up after murders
and suicides. Rose, who needs to pay for private school for her
imaginative young son (Jason Spevack), recruits her hapless sister
Norah (Emily Blunt) and plunges into the messy business. The sisters,
who along the way meet a gentle, one-armed janitorial-supply salesman
(Clifton Collins Jr.), are affected by the tragedies they encounter,
particularly Norah, who’s so moved by a dead woman’s family photos that
she tries to befriend the woman’s daughter (Mary Lynn Rajskub).
Eventually, the sisters begin to heal the wounds left by their mother’s
premature death. Some situations are strain credulity, and Megan
Holley’s script wanders a bit, yet the movie achieves moments of
sublime poignancy. The acting is superb, and the mood artfully balanced
between sadness and hope. *** 1/2 (Zoslov)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine Everyone’s favorite mutton-chopped
mutant, Logan a.k.a. Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), takes center stage in
this X-Men prequel. Beginning in 1845, the story centers on the
relationship between Logan and his brother Victor a.k.a. Sabretooth
(Liev Schreiber). The two eventually become part of a Special Forces
unit led by Stryker (Danny Huston), but as the unit’s activities turn
increasingly violent, Logan goes his own way. He settles down with
schoolteacher Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins), but the couple’s domestic
bliss is short-lived. The story frankly feels pedestrian at times, and
the plot gets cluttered trying to shoehorn in too many characters from
the X-Men canon. And yet Jackman and Schreiber, who both seem to have a
great time without condescending to the material, deliver great
performances. Fans of the series should enjoy this, but for those
already overdosed on superhero films, it’s unlikely Wolverine will renew their appetite for the genre.
** 1/2 (Ignizio)
This article appears in May 6-12, 2009.
