Arts & Entertainment
Movie Reviews: The Family, Insidious Chapter 2, Riddick
Movie reviews and movie times for theaters in the Cedar Rapids and Marion area, including, "Kick-Ass 2," "Elysium," and "Mortal Instruments: City of Bone." Let Patch help you decide what you're going to see this weekend.
Run Time: 110 Mins.
Starring: Robert De Niro , Michelle Pfeiffer , Tommy Lee Jones , Dianna Agron , John D'Leo
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Director: Luc Besson
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Reviews:
Robert De Niro – wait for it – in the role of a mobster. Now there's an original idea. In The Family, not to be confused with De Niro's roles in GoodFellas, The Godfather: Part II, The Untouchables, Casino, Once Upon a Time in America, Analyze This, Analyze That (go on, make your list), De Niro plays Giovanni Manzoni, a mob snitch. For ratting out his own wiseguys back in Brooklyn, Giovanni is put in the witness protection program, dragging along his real family, wife Maggie (Michelle Pfeiffer), daughter Belle (Dianna Agron) and son Warren (John D'Leo). After working their way through the States, then Paris and now remote Normandy, the Manzonis are pretty fed up with their lot in life, which means living in fear that the mob will catch up with them at any time.-Rolling Stone Read more
The Family is a fish-out-of-water/buddy comedy/Mob flick. But most of all, it's a missed opportunity.
The bad pacing, humorless scenarios and repetitive gags (** out of four; rated R; opens Friday nationwide) undercut the few inspired moments, most of which hinge on the chemistry between Robert De Niro's Mob boss and Tommy Lee Jones' FBI agent. USA Today. Read More
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Insidious Chapter 2
- Run Time: 105 Mins.
- Starring: Patrick Wilson , Rose Byrne , Lin Shaye , Ty Simpkins , Jocelin Donahue
- Director: James Wan
- Trailer
Reviews
Can we just say this about director James Wan? If you like horror films and you notice he’s directed a horror film, make the investment and see it.
Wan helmed 2010′s “Insidious,” a movie that cost $1.5 million to make and went on to earn over $97 million — and it wasn’t just because of a clever marketing campaign. The guy knows how to manipulate a horror audience. And so, here we are with “Insidious: Chapter 2.” - ABCNews Full Review
With his last helping of old-fashioned ooga booga, “The Conjuring,” still scaring up business in a few hundred theaters, James Wanreturns with two more hours of seat-clenching scares in “Insidious: Chapter 2,” a modestly scaled and highly pleasurable sequel to Wan’s low-budget ($1.5 million) 2011 smash that should have genre fans begging for thirds. Indeed, with a clever coda that suggests how this franchise might easily continue even without. - Variety.com See Full Review
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Riddick
Run Time: 119 mins.
Starring: Vin Diesel , Karl Urban , Jordi Mollà , Matt Nable , Katee Sackhoff
Director: David N. Twohy
Having been left for dead in more ways than one after the critical and commercial failure of 2004’s “The Chronicles of Riddick,” Vin Diesel’s futuristic fugitive Richard B. Riddick gets his lean, mean, R-rated mojo back for “Riddick,” an improbable but very enjoyable sequel that recaptures much of the stripped-down intensity of Diesel and director David Twohy’s franchise starter “Pitch Black.” ~ Scott Foundas, Variety See Full Review
If only audiences, like the title character in Riddick (* out of four; rated R; opens Friday nationwide), were equipped with luminescent extra-vision eyeballs. Then it might be possible to muddle through the dark and incoherent action scenes. But to the ordinary naked eye, characters and landscape look bathed in dusty milk chocolate. See Full Review
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The Getaway
Run Time: 90 mins.
Starring: Ethan Hawke , Selena Gomez , Jon Voight , Paul Freeman , Rebecca Budig
Director: Courtney Solomon
Thanks to the improbable success of the "Fast & Furious" franchise, car chase movies are apparently back in vogue. That's still no explanation for "Getaway," a laughably terrible grindhouse thriller masquerading as a "major" motion picture. ~ Hitfix (Read Full Review)
Easily one of the dopiest major studio releases since Elie Samaha got out of the business, “Getaway” marks the not-very-anticipated return to the director’s chair of low-budget horror producer Courtney Solomon, whose prior helming credits include the risible 2000 adaptation of “Dungeons & Dragons” and 2005’s wan historical ghost story “An American Hunting” (where the scariest special effect was the squandering of stars Sissy Spacek and Donald Sutherland). Variety (See Full Review)
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This Is The End
Run Time: 107 mins.
Starring: James Franco , Jonah Hill , Seth Rogen , Jay Baruchel , Danny McBride
Director: Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg
"By the time September arrives, This is the End will probably be in the running for "funniest comedy of the 2013 summer." James Berardinelli, ReelViews. Full Review
"It's disheartening that, despite some half-hearted overtures toward shifting the comedy paradigm, the filmmakers make little attempt to expand their comedic palette." Jesse Cataldo, Slant Magazine. Full Review
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Run Time: 92 mins.
Starring: One Direction: Harry Styles , Niall Horan , Zayn Malik , Louis Tomlinson , Liam Payne
Director: Morgan Spurlock
Reviews
What’s the opposite of warts-n-all? ‘No warts’ doesn’t even begin to describe Morgan Spurlock’s fly-on-the-wall film about One Direction. No warts, no acne – there’s not even a pimple on the butt of this on-tour portrait of the reality-bred boy popsters. Full Review
The director is known for visually quirky choices and offbeat interviews and asides. These techniques can be a mixed bag; sometimes they help lighten up a deadly serious segment, other times they seems silly. But it’s distinctive, and “This Is Us” could have used more of it. Full Review
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The Butler
Run Time: 126mins.
Starring: Forest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey, John Cusack
Director: Lee Daniels
"Make no mistake, Daniels is gunning for awards here; the movie has that sheen, that Big Important Feel. But the performances keep it grounded. Let someone else decide winners and losers. Just enjoy “The Butler” for the sometimes-moving experience it is." Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic. Full Review
"Crudely powerful. You can object to the thuggish direction and the script that’s a series of signposts, but not the central idea, which is genuinely illuminating." David Edelstein, New York Magazine. Full Review
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We're The Millers
Run Time: 110 mins.
Starring: Jennifer Aniston, Jason Sudeikis, Emma Roberts
Director: Rawson Marshall Thurber
"Though the cast partially eschews the family-friendly timidity that the film defers to in the end, this would-be wild thing remains little more than a rowdy endorsement of the status quo." Chris Cabin, Slant Magazine. Full Review"
Get past the comedy and there's something almost weird at the movie's core - a deep cynicism about family and a longing for family, both at the same time." Mike LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle. Full Review
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World's End
Run Time: 109 mins.
Starring: Simon Pegg , Nick Frost , Rosamund Pike , Martin Freeman , Paddy Considine
Director: Edgar Wright
Despite a too-long third act, dragging action sequences and an epilogue that would have been better left on the cutting room floor, the wordy wit and ingenuity of The World’s End is a sloppy triumph over this summer’s other alien/robot hybrid flick, "Pacific Rim." Full Review ~ New York Observer
A mix of comedy, science fiction, nostalgia, adolescent wish-fulfillment and beer, beer, beer, its parts shouldn’t fit together as neatly as they do. But somehow Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg have again managed to make a movie that is knowing, touching and hilarious. Full Review Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic
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You're Next
Run Time: 96 Minutes.
Starring: Sharni Vinson , Joe Swanberg , A.J. Bowen , Nicholas Tucci , Barbara Crampton
Director: Adam Wingard
One of the smartest and most terrifying films in years, 'You're Next' reinvents the genre by putting a fresh twist on home-invasion horror. When a gang of masked, ax-wielding murderers descend upon the Davison family reunion, the hapless victims seem ... Read More
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Mortal Instruments: City of Bone
Run Time: 130 mins.
Starring: Lily Collins, Robert Maillet, Kevin Durand, Lena Headey, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers
Director: Harald Zwart
Though imaginatively directed by Harald Zwart, Mortal Instruments, which is adapted from Cassandra Clare's YA novels, is marred by significant flaws. Full Review ~ David Hiltbrand,
Philadelphia InquirerThe storyline is at times muddled and incoherent. This won't bother readers much since they have the "inside track" on what's happening. Then again, the narrative is so predictable that maybe it doesn't matter. Full Review
James Berardinelli, ReelViewsEverything chugs along briskly and reasonably entertainingly until running off the rails a bit with a wildly overcomplicated finale. Full Review Bruce Ingram, Chicago Sun-Times
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Elysium
Run Time: 109 mins.
Starring: Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley
Director: Neill Blomkamp
"Hollywood loves these apocalypse-soon stories, however, because they function as blank canvases for ruin porn, and if nothing else, Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium gives us the realistically trashed tomorrow we suspect we deserve." David Fear, Time Out New York. Full Review
"Not perfect, but a much more satisfying Earth-in-ruins film than Oblivion or After Earth. It is a little more conventional than District 9 (what isn’t?), but confirms Blomkamp as one of the potential science-fiction greats of this decade." Kim Newman, Empire. Full Review
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Planes
Run Time: 92 Mins.
Director: Klay Hall
Starring: Jon Cryer , Stacy Keach , Dane Cook , Carlos Alazraqui , Val Kilmer
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Despicable Me 2
Run Time: 98 mins.
Starring: Voices of Steve Carell , Russell Brand , Miranda Cosgrove , Steve Coogan
Director: Chris Renaud, Pierre Coffin
Trailer
"The minions give good mayhem and the twig-armed animation’s lovely. Despite the coolest submarine-car since Bond’s Lotus Esprit, though, Despicable Me 2 is light on gadgets – and surprises, too." Total Film. Full Review
"It falters in the middle and hesitates unnecessarily in setting up the love story, but Gru still has charm and kids will adore the Minions." Helen O'Hara, Empire. Full Review
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