Butler's Cinema Scene

“THE BOURNE LEGACY” My rating: B- (Opening wide on Aug. 10)

135 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

There was  no reason to expect much from “The Bourne Legacy,” the fourth in the “Bourne” series and first without star Matt Damon. Going in, the whole thing smacked of a desperate case of sequel-itis.

But darned if it doesn’t actually work.

Oh, by comparison to the other “Bourne” titles it’s a tad thin, but writer/director Tony Gilroy (who’s been with the series since the beginning) provides the film with so much forward momentum and furious action that he almost overcomes a ridiculously stretched-out running time.

The picture begins in a remote part of Alaska where a lone man (Jeremy Renner) battles wolves, climbs mountains and exhibits astounding strength, endurance and agility. His name, we learn, is Aaron Cross, and he – like Damon’s Jason Bourne – is a product of Treadstone, that nefarious CIA-sponsored project to create superior secret agents.

But unlike Bourne – who merely had been brainwashed to be a conscienceless assassin – Cross is one of a new generation of genetically-altered agents. Only problem is that he’s dependent on these special pills. If he doesn’t get them he’ll have a mental meltdown. (more…)

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Colin Ferrell

“TOTAL RECALL”  My rating: C

 118 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

Director Len Wiseman  (of the “Underworld” series) gets paid millions of dollars to make movies in which his hot wife (Kate Beckinsale) dresses up in tight black outfits and kicks, punches and shoots other guys.

This must be one great job.

Wiseman’s latest is “Total Recall,” a remake/reboot of the 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger sci-fi film. And, sure enough, there’s  Beckinsale, once again in black and furiously kicking, punching and shooting.

But beyond the thrill of a bad-tempered Mrs. Wiseman generating a high body count, there’s not a whole lot to recommend this “Recall,” which delivers tons of CG eye candy and some overactive plotting but not one iota of recognizable human emotion.

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I’m not much feeling the need to see “The Amazing Spider-Man,” the latest movie (it opens July 3) based on a Marvel Comics character.

Been there. Done that.

And unless this version offers a new twist on what has come to be a very familiar story (early reports from my fellow critics suggest it doesn’t), I believe I’ll pass.

Yeah, the grumpy old man is drifting ever further from the mainstream of American movie going.

But the latest Spidey movie has crystallized my thinking about Hollywood’s superhero obsession. It’s become pretty obvious that we’ve settled into a cycle in which every decade or so major Marvel or D.C. characters will be rebooted for the screen.

It’s sort of like the model Disney had for decades, where every seven years the studio would re-release its animated classics, introducing them to an entirely new audience of youngsters. As long as Americans were having kids, the process could go on indefinitely.

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“BRAVE” My rating: B (Opens wide on June 22)

100 minutes | MPAA rating: PG

The problem with being Pixar is that in the wake of releases like “The Incredibles” and “Up” the merely good movie seems a bit of a letdown.

There’s really nothing wrong with “Brave,” the animation factory’s latest feature effort. In many if not most of its details it is exemplary.

But it doesn’t offer the big emotional wallop of Pixar’s finest work, and for those of us who found, say, the photo album sequence of “Up” to be one of the most moving film experiences of recent years, it makes for pleasant but hardly overwhelming movie watching.

Disney animated films over the last 20 years have made a point of featuring spunky heroines, but this is the first Pixar effort (Pixar is an artistically independent subsidiary of the Mouse House) to do so.

Our leading lady is Merida (voiced by Kelly Macdonald), a princess in what appears to be pre-Christian Scotland.

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Jason Segel, Emily Blunt

“THE FIVE YEAR ENGAGEMENT” My rating: C (Opening wide April 27)

124 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Movies made by Judd Apatow and his acolytes are guaranteed to deliver some hearty laughs.

You can also be sure that they will be afflicted with comedic elephantitis. They will go on. And on. And on.

The latest example of this wearisome trend is “The Five Year Engagement,” directed by Nicholas Stoller (“Get Him to the Greek,” “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”) and written by Stoller and star Jason Segel.

Tom (Segel) and Violet (Emily Blunt) have been dating for forever. He’s a chef in a trendy San Francisco restaurant. She’s…well, I’m not sure what she does.

But after years of happy cohabitation, Tom finally proposes. All is blissful. They tell their families, they dive into wedding planning. It’s just cute as hell.

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Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss in “The HungerGames”

“THE HUNGER GAMES” My rating: B+  (Opens wide March 23)

142 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

The champion — the warrior who enters the arena and through single combat carries the hopes and dreams of his countrymen on his shoulders — is as old as Troy or David and Goliath.

But it gets a highly satisfying updating in “The Hunger Games,” the big-budget adaptation of the first novel in Suzanne Collin‘s best-selling series of young adult fiction.

This is a smart, well-acted and effectively directed bit of dystopian fantasy, one so vastly superior to the “Twilight” franchise that this is the last time I’m even going to mention that endless slog through vampire romance.

In the hands of writer/director Gary Ross (“Pleasantville,” “Seabiscuit”) “The Hunger Games” delivers a potent political/social allegory while giving actress Jennifer Lawrence one of the best roles a young actress could ask for.

Of course, Lawrence has a knack for gravitating to terrific roles, as evidenced by “Winter’s Bone.” And in fact the opening moments of “The Hunger Games” almost look like outtakes from that Ozarks drama.

Here a decidedly unglamorous Lawrence plays 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, resident of what appears to be an Appalachian coal mining town during the Great Depression. Most people appear rawboned and half-starved (there’s not a fatty in sight) and Katniss supplements her family’s meager diet by hunting (illegally) with bow and arrows.

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“THE WOMAN IN BLACK” My rating: B- (Opening wide on Feb. 3)

95 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

“THE INNKEEPERS” My rating: C+ (Opening at the Screenland Crossroads on Feb. 3)

100 minutes | MPAA rating: R

The problem with most ghost movies is that they fall apart in the clutch.

Oh, there are a few, like Robert Wise’s “The Haunting,” that set the hook early and never let you shake it off.

But most movies in the genre end up delivering a few goosebumps and then run aground on the rocks of their own illogical premises.

Two new spookfests have opened simultaneously in Kansas City, one your traditional Victorian haunter, the other a vaguely hip modern interpretation. Oddly enough, in both cases the wandering spirit making life miserable for the living is a wronged woman.

Perhaps the makers of ghost stories have a misogynistic streak. Discuss among yourselves.

Daniel Radcliffe...chasing ghosts

The more elaborate of the two productions is “The Woman in Black” starring Daniel Radcliffe (that’s right, Harry Potter) as a widowed lawyer. The time is the turn of the last century (noisy automobiles are beginning to show up even in remote English towns) and our hero, Arthur Kipps, has journeyed to a small coastal burg to settle the estate of a wealthy old woman whose large and largely rundown home sits on an island cut off from the mainland with each high tide.

Arthur is a sad, morose fellow perpetually in mourning for the wife who died in childbirth and left him with a young son back in London. He has his hands full with the locals, who refuse to rent him a room at the local inn, decline to take him out to the island estate, and even try to block roads to prevent access.

The local gentry (Ciaran Hinds), a rationalist with a mad wife (Oscar nominee Janet McTeer) and contempt for the peasants’ superstitions, befriends the young stranger and facilitates his entry to the mouldering mansion.

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