L.A. Times Movie Reviews
'Star Trek Into Darkness' ramps up action, leaves room for heart
"Star Trek Into Darkness," bursting at the seams with enemies, wears its politics, its mettle, its moxie and its heart on its ginormous 3-D sleeve. Director J.J. Abrams and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise try to build a better sequel with action spectacles to get lost in, clever asides to amuse,...
'Frances Ha' a charming portrait of youth and spirit
Effortless and effervescent, "Frances Ha" is a small miracle of a movie, honest and funny with an aim that's true. It's both a timeless story of the joys and sorrows of youth and a dead-on portrait of how things are right now for one particular New York woman who, try as she might, can't quite get...
'The English Teacher' has a class of underachievers
"The English Teacher" is a tragedy masquerading as a comedy and doing a disservice to both. The same could be said for the film's normally fine cast. Julianne Moore, Greg Kinnear, Nathan Lane and Michael Angarano have all had better days.
Review: 'Erased' lacks originality but not cliches
The thriller "Erased" divides neatly by influence. When Brussels-based tech security expert Ben Logan (Aaron Eckhart) shows up for work one day, there's no trace of his company anymore, a la "Three Days of the Condor." Like the "Bourne" movies, he's then targeted for elimination, (when we learn he's...
Director's style overwhelms 'Gatsby'
"The Great Gatsby" began on paper, with F. Scott Fitzgerald's celebrated novel, and on paper "Gatsby" sounds like quite the film. On screen, though, things start to fall apart.
'Peeples' a refreshing and warm romantic comedy
Tyler Perry is credited as a producer on "Peeples," but don't let that scare you away. Written and directed by Tina Gordon Chism, "Peeples" is witty, charming and light, standing apart from the heavy-handed moralizing of so many of Perry's own movies.
'No One Lives' is bad horror
"No One Lives" is a cheap horror prank that's ultimately not clever or accomplished enough to sustain its eccentricities, and they are very bloody eccentricities indeed.
Review: 'The Source Family' follows a spiritual father-megalomaniac
Hippie cult leader and Sunset Boulevard restaurateur Jim Baker (a.k.a Father Yod, a.k.a. YaHoWha) inspired a devoted following and no small amount of outrageous stories during his early '70s L.A. heyday. Apparently he killed two men with his bare hands. He may have funded his hip health-food...
Movie review: 'Leviathan' casts wide net to show fishermen at sea
More an accumulation of often indefinable images than any kind of even remotely traditional feature, the documentary "Leviathan" proves a strange and unsatisfying endurance test.
'Iron Man 3': Solid, with some cracks in the armor, reviews say
After headlining two of his own movies and teaming up to save the world in "The Avengers," the billionaire-playboy-turned-superhero Iron Man is a known quantity. Anytime he shows up, audiences can rest assured that high-tech battle suits, scheming villains, big explosions and snappy banter are...
'Iron Man 3' is a smart reboot
Batman's done it. Spider-Man too. Superman is about to try. As studios attempt to inject new life into overly familiar comic-book franchises, reboots — with changes in tone, directors and stars — are all the rage. But "Iron Man 3" proves there is more than one way to skin this particular...
Holocaust films get personal with descendants of Nazis
The Holocaust has long been a deep and disquieting source of material for filmmakers, especially documentarians. As firsthand accounts of World War II naturally dwindle, though, cinematic inquiries on the subject have been shifting into more personal territory, where the focus isn't factual findings...
Review: 'André Gregory,' minus the dinner
Watching "André Gregory: Before and After Dinner" often feels like visiting with an elegant, genial, slightly mystifying old friend. Too bad Cindy Kleine, the documentary's producer-director-narrator — and Gregory's wife — didn't better organize this rangy survey of the eclectic...
Review: 'Kiss of the Damned' a bit of handsome nonsense
The sly joke in Xan Cassavetes' "Kiss of the Damned" is that her vampire couple just want to be normal — read: boring. When not devouring possums in the countryside, Djuna (Joséphine de La Baume) and Paolo (Milo Ventimiglia) are happiest listening to classical music in their sedan...
Review: Blank stares in 'Generation Um...'
At 48, Keanu Reeves is twice the age of his nubile costar Adelaide Clemens in "Generation Um..." and the generation gap might explain why they spend the film staring at each other blankly. Reeves plays John, a driver for an escort service who works nights shuttling Mia (Clemens), a placid baby-...
Review: 'Greetings From Tim Buckley' fails to connect
The twin tragedy of the late, acclaimed singer-songwriters Tim Buckley and son Jeff Buckley is that each died young — Tim in 1975 at age 28, Jeff in 1997 at 30 — without ever really knowing each other.
Review: The magic sputters in 'Midnight's Children'
Salman Rushdie's Booker Prize-winning 1980 novel "Midnight's Children" is many things — ambitious, chaotic, fantastical, mythic — but generic it isn't. Which makes the long-awaited film version a real head-scratcher, a pretty but staidly linear epic drained of the novel's larkish,...
Review: Warmed-over tropes in 'Paris-Manhattan'
To say that Sophie Lellouche, writer-director of the French rom-com "Paris-Manhattan," was inspired by the films of Woody Allen is not to suggest that her movie is inspired. A wan homage to l'oeuvre de Woody, the feature siphons off bits of "Play It Again, Sam," "Hannah and Her Sisters" and...
Review: 'Paradise: Love' lacks a real purpose
For those who find the films of Michael Haneke too warm and accessible, there is always fellow Austrian Ulrich Seidl, who mixes up actors and real people in structured situations with improvised dialogue to disconcerting ends. "Paradise: Love," the first film of his recent triptych, is getting a...
Bay's 'Pain & Gain' is bargain-budget, still excessive
When Michael Bay goes small, "Pain & Gain" happens.
'The Reluctant Fundamentalist' considers 9/11 effects
If there ever was a time to see "The Reluctant Fundamentalist," that time is here and now.
Review: A by-the-'Numbers' spy thriller
Spycraft has long been associated with the use of numbers stations — shortwave radio outposts sending cryptic numerical messages over the airwaves, often in a female voice. The thriller "The Numbers Station" employs this low-fi, high-enigma gimmick for a story about a disillusioned CIA hit man...
'Lords of Salem' taps Rob Zombie's dark side
Even from his earliest days as a musician, Rob Zombie displayed a deep-rooted interest in aesthetics and visual style, in creating an entire world stewed in a distinctive brew of horror movies, true crime, the occult and general weirdness.
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