Director Raja Gosnell takes Smurfs where they shouldn’t go: out of Smurf Village (an alternate universe that “knows no sadness”) and through a blue moon-induced portal to modern day Manhattan. Hiding from evil wizard Gargamel (Hank Azaria with a prosthetic shnoz)—who’s on a mission to extract the Smurfs’ happiness to become invincible—a band of Smurfs […]
Empire Theatres – Dartmouth Crossing
Posted inArts + Music
Predictable Friends With Benefits
Just when you thought Hollywood was going to break some rules and get all polyamorous, it cranks out another predictable, if R-rated, romcom. Two hotties—an “emotionally damaged” recruiter, Jamie (Mila Kunis), and “emotionally unavailable” GQ recruit, Dylan (Justin Timberlake)—become best buds who just want a li’l hanky-panky on the side, sans relationship. Complications ensue (kinda) […]
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Captain America: The First Avenger worthy of the stars
It’s no small feat to make a movie about a patriotic weakling transformed into a chiselled slab of prime soldier meat—outfitted in a stars-and-stripes uniform, no less—without succumbing to jingoistic excess. Yet the makers of Captain America somehow do just that, softening the corny edges of the comic book story with several well-placed winks at […]
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Winnie The Pooh sweet like “hunny”
With a heavy dose of “hunny,” hand-drawn animation and John Cleese’s narration, Winnie the Pooh is a tongue-in-cheek rendition of AA Milne’s lovable “bear of very little brain.” What starts as a search for Eeyore’s tail (aka “A Very Important Thing To Do”) turns into a quest for Christopher Robin, whom Pooh and his cronies—Kanga, […]
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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 “an appropriately grand finale”
Director David Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves very nearly meet the impossible demands of wrapping up the past decade’s most successful film series, resolving character and story arcs while serving up the requisite action. Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) continue to search out and destroy the pieces of Voldemort’s (Ralph […]
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Stinky Zookeeper
For reasons unbeknownst to me, director Frank Coraci and a slew of writers birthed Zookeeper. Dumped by his bombshell GF (Leslie Bibb), zookeeper Griffin (Kevin James) schemes to win her back half a decade later with the help of the chatty animals he cares for and his sexy colleague (Rosario Dawson), who harbours a crush […]
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Horrible Bosses not bad at all
The creators of this comedy are so enamoured of their premise that they almost forget to convert their slick concept into actual entertainment. A sluggish half-hour is dedicated to the setup, as financial guy Nick (Jason Bateman), chemical company middle manager Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) and dental assistant Dale (Charlie Day) decide to murder the work […]
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Larry Crowne sweet, schmaltzy
Larry Crowne is very cute and very slight. Director Tom Hanks is also the titular Crowne, one of his typically effervescent-but-naive characters, a wageslave at the local big box suddenly downsized. His neighbour clues him into the possibility of adult education, so off he goes to community college, where the decades-younger students welcome him as […]
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Monte Carlo not worth the gamble
This female buddy flick with elements of chaste rom-com and coming-of-age conventions teeters to the edge of decent escapist entertainment but doesn’t quite make it over. Teen queen Selena Gomez stars as Grace, a recent high school grad from Texas who’s been saving the money from her waitressing job for a trip to Paris with […]
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Transformers 3 fails to excite
Mega-budget schlock director Michael Bay re-imagines the space race and historic moon landing not as products of a Cold War pissing contest, but rather a military mission to investigate the crash landing of an alien ship. That’s the lone decent idea in this otherwise formulaic and tedious sequel, which once again finds the good-guy extraterrestrial […]
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Reviewer unmoved by Cars 2
Pixar’s run of quality animated movies is stellar, with the first Cars the exception proving the rule: It looked good, but was hollow as a wheel-well. The sequel exists only because the merch haul of the first one was so large, and somehow it manages to be slicker, more action-packed, and even less moving. Its […]
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Bad Teacher barely passes
Jake Kasdan’s comedy is a series of disjointed gags and one-liners without a satisfying through-line, intermittently amusing but ultimately unsatisfying. Cameron Diaz plays the unprofessional educator, Elizabeth, whose teaching repertoire consists of R-rated movies and whose life ambition amounts to finding a sugar daddy. Spotting a candidate for that role in a wealthy colleague (Justin […]