Actor/writer/director Emilio Estevez casts his dad (Martin Sheen) as Tom Avery, whose only son, Daniel (Estevez), is killed as he commences his pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago. The 60-something Tom decides to make the pilgrimage himself, Daniel’s ashes in tow. En route, he collects a slew of companions—Sarah (Deborah Kara Unger), Joost (Yorick van […]
Zuppa Theatre
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Tower Heist a limp caper
(image-1) A big-budget, mindless blockbuster entertainment, Brett Ratner’s (Rush Hour, The Red Dragon) Tower Heist doesn’t quite hit the mark. When businessman Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda) defrauds the employees of the swanky high-rise he calls home, ex-building manager Josh Kovacs (Ben Stiller) leads a robbery of Shaw’s apartment with the aid of a team of […]
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In Time a waste
Andrew Niccol (Gattaca, The Truman Show) brings another clever idea to the screen with a future-world where people’s bodies stop aging at 25 and time literally is money, but doesn’t execute well enough to make the most of it. Justin Timberlake plays a poor worker who’s given an extra century by a suicidal old dude […]
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Bollywood superhero movie Ra. One exhausts
Anubhav Sinha’s Ra. One links a video game-inspired storyline and liberal dollops of CGI to Bollywood storytelling staples such as high melodrama, raucous musical numbers and an ass-numbingly long running time. Game designer Shekhar (Shah Rukh Khan) impresses his son (Aman Verma) by creating an invincible virtual villain, but things get messy when the bad […]
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Paranormal Activity 3 familiar but scarily effective
Like the charity haunted house at your nearest community centre, Paranormal Activity 3 arrives in time for Halloween with familiar but nevertheless effective scares. A prequel to its two predecessors, the film travels back to 1988 and the childhoods of sisters Kristi and Katie as they are plagued by a sinister apparition. Mom’s boyfriend attempts […]
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Sharp blades but dull wit of The Three Musketeers
Once upon a time, we didn’t need CGI to be lured into theatres. It’s now a staple of any action flick, including Paul W.S. Anderson’s (Resident Evil) iteration of Alexandre Dumas’ classic novel. It does a good job pretending it’s part of the Pirates franchise—befuddled plot, sword fights and Orlando Bloom included—only in Louis XIII’s […]
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Atkinson shines as Johnny English Reborn
Rowan Atkinson doesn’t need a gargantuan budget to be funny. (Remember Mr. Bean or the Blackadder series?) Oliver Parker’s Johnny English Reborn, the sequel to Peter Howitt’s 2003 English debut, reinstates English as an MI7 agent after his five-year retreat as a Tibetan monk. His mission: to stop Vortex, a CIA-MI7-KGB assassination trio, from killing […]
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Real heart in Real Steel
Emotions run high in this beautifully rendered sci-fi/sports movie. An ailing grifter, boxer and deadbeat dad, Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) keeps afloat by taking any robot he can scrap together to the ring to knock the block off any other metal head for money. Silly premise aside, this underdog robo-boxing movie shows real heart and […]
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The Ides of March a powerful political thriller
The Ides of March may be a political thriller co-written by, directed by and starring leading man George Clooney, but hot property Ryan Gosling steals the show in an award-worthy performance. He’s Stephen Myers, an idealistic campaign staffer working on the presidential bid for democratic candidate governor Mike Morris (Clooney). As the campaign trail progresses, […]
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Here’s Killer Elite, action junkies
Killer Elite is a jet-set action thriller about an ex-military operative named Danny (Jason Statham) who must rescue his mentor (Robert DeNiro) by uncovering the truth behind a series of assassinations commissioned by the British government. Not to be confused with the mostly terrible James Caan film by the same name, Killer Elite is a […]
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Moneyball hits for the cycle
Moneyball is an inside-baseball movie about the inside of baseball—there is precious little sports footage; it’s about team-building from statistical and budgetary perspectives, which is a hard sell. Luckily it’s got a terrific Brad Pitt at the centre. Pitt is Billy Beane, the spirited general manager of the worst team in baseball in 2001, the […]
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Mediocre Abduction
A heavily mediocre spy thriller, Abduction finds Taylor Lautner (The Twilight Saga) essentially playing Jason Bourne Jr. When seemingly normal high school student Nathan (Lautner) discovers his face on a missing persons website, it triggers an improbable manhunt from both government and criminal forces. Director John Singleton (Boyz n the Hood) slums his way through […]
