Movie Capsules: Now showing : GoMemphis.com

Capsule descriptions and starred mini-reviews by The Commercial Appeal movie writer John Beifuss.

OPENING TODAY

Easy Virtue (PG-13, 93 min.)

Ridgeway Four.

Management (R, 94 min.)

Ridgeway Four.

The Proposal (PG-13, 108 min.) A romantic comedy with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds.

Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Studio on the Square, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

Year One (PG-13, 97 min.)

Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Studio on the Square, Raleigh Springs Cinema, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16, Southaven Cinema, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

OPENING WEDNESDAY

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (PG-13, 151 min.) More metal mayhem, plus Fox-y Megan.

SPECIAL MOVIES

Animal House (R, 109 min.) Bluto, Flounder, Dean Wormer, Mandy Pepperidge and Otis Day & the Knights return. A "Best Toga" contest precedes the movie.

7:15 p.m. today at the Orpheum, 203 S. Main. Admission: $6 per adult, $5 per senior or child (12 and younger). Visit orpheum-memphis.com or call 525-3000.

Black Magic (Not rated, 106 min.) This ESPN-produced documentary from director Dan Klores ("Crazy Love") examines the Civil Rights era through the experiences of basketball players at historically black colleges and universities, with much of the focus on Earl "The Pearl" Monroe. Others featured include Willis Reed, Charles Oakley and former Temple coach John Chaney. Co-hosted by True Story Pictures and Common Ground.

3 p.m. Sunday, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. Admission: $7, or $5 for Brooks members. Visit brooksmuseum.org or call 544-6208.

Grand Canyon Adventure: River at Risk: The latest IMAX documentary follows two environmentalists on a daring rafting ride down the Colorado river. Narrated by Robert Redford; music by Dave Matthews Band. Runs through Nov. 13. Tickets $8, $7.25 senior citizens, $6.25 children ages 3-12; children under 3 are free. Call for show times.

IMAX Theater at Memphis Pink Palace Museum, 3050 Central. Call 763-IMAX (4629) for general information or 320-6362 for reservations.

Mummies: Secrets of the Pharaohs: Follow researchers and explorers as they piece together archaeological and genetic clues of Egyptian mummies. The IMAX film plays through Nov. 13. Tickets: $8, $7.25 senior citizens, $6.25 children ages 3-12; children under 3 are free. Call for show times.

IMAX Theater at Memphis Pink Palace Museum, 3050 Central. Call 763-IMAX (4629) for general information or 320-6362 for reservations.

RiP! A Remix Manifesto (Not rated, 86 min.) This documentary by "Web activist" Brett Gaylor examines issues of copyright infringement, "fair use," file-sharing "piracy," corporate ownership of songs (including "Happy Birthday"!) and other controversies in the digital era of sample-based mash-ups and remixes created by artists such as Girl Talk, who is featured prominently in the film.

7:30 p.m. Thursday, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. Admission: $5, or free for Brooks and Indie Memphis members. Visit brooksmuseum.org or call 544-6208.

NOW SHOWING

Angels & Demons (PG-13, 139 min.) Menacing clerics, skull-lined catacombs, branding irons, the ancient cult of the Illuminati and the gimmicky serial murder of four Roman Catholic cardinals -- these elements promise a good, goofy time at the movies, yet director Ron Howard's bloated followup to "The Da Vinci Code" is even more burdened than its dull predecessor with a desire to avoid risibility. But how un-silly can a movie be when it's about a conspiracy to blow up the Vatican with an antimatter time bomb? Tom Hanks -- shorn of his Muck Sticky "Da Vinci" hairdo -- is back as Harvard "symbologist" Robert Langdon, recruited by the Holy See to trace a sort of Kook's Tour trail of crime through the chapels, obelisks and tombs of ancient Rome. The highfalutin science- vs.-religion philosophizing that occurs is little more than stained-glass window dressing that camouflages what otherwise might be a nice, entertaining murder mystery.

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Collierville Towne 16, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema.

The Brothers Bloom (PG-13, 113 min.) Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel Weisz in a comic con-artist caper from writer-director Rian Johnson ("Brick").

Ridgeway Four.

Dance Flick (PG-13, 83 min.) Another movie-genre spoof, this time from the Wayans Brothers.

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Majestic, DeSoto Cinema 16, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16, Southaven Cinema.

Drag Me to Hell (PG-13, 99 min.) "Spider-Man" director Sam Raimi returns to his "Evil Dead" roots -- while borrowing liberally from "Night of the Demon" and EC Comics (the story here barely justifies its feature length) -- for a scary, wacky, gooey and timely tale of a young bank officer (Alison Lohman) cursed by the gypsy (Lorna Raver) whose housing loan she denies. The sleeve inside the Rolling Stones album Let It Bleed advised: THIS RECORD SHOULD BE PLAYED LOUD. Prints of this film must be stamped with a similar order: Much of the tension is created by ear-smashing NOISE, which isn't a cheat but a characteristically Raimiesque attempt to create a feeling of hell-on-Earth temporary insanity within the rattled viewer.

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, Raleigh Springs Cinema, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16, Southaven Cinema, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

Fast & Furious (PG-13, 107 min.) The definite articles are gone but the stars are back as Vin Diesel and Paul Walker reunite, eight years after "The Fast and the Furious."

Bartlett 10.

Fighting (PG-13, 105 min.) Terrence Howard introduces Channing Tatum to the profitable world of organized bare-knuckle street-brawling.

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8.

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (PG-13, 100 min.) Arrogant womanizer Matthew McConaughey learns a supernatural lesson in this Dickens-inspired romcom.

Stage Cinema, Collierville Towne 16, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16.

The Hangover (R, 100 min.) Or: Dude, Where's My Bachelor? Sometimes tasteless, frequently hilarious, this "Superbad" with grown-ups (the dentist played by Ed Helms even resembles an adult "McLovin") chronicles several hours of irresponsible, occasionally criminal male conduct, as three best buds (Helms, Bradley Cooper and Justin Bartha) and a tagalong demented future brother-in-law (Zach Galifianakis) road-trip to Vegas for an overnight bachelor party; director Todd Phillips ("Old School") cuts from the pals' Jägermeister toast to the painful morning after in a destroyed hotel suite, where the evidence of debauchery includes a live chicken, a missing tooth, loss of memory, an Elvis jumpsuit, Mike Tyson's Bengal tiger, an unidentified baby and the absence of the bachelor himself. The talented cast and the mystery structure of the plot keep the film fresh and funny; but as the title suggests, you might regret your good time the next day, as you contemplate the at best ambivalent, at worst hostile relationship to women that motivates the narrative: This is another film in which men's infantile behavior is celebrated as a necessary, sanity-preserving reaction against what's presented as the choking if essential civilizing influence of women.

Hannah Montana: The Movie (G, 102 min.) Drawing from the traditions of Cinderella (the scullery maid who is really a princess) and Superman (the superbeing who pretends to be a "normal" person), the push-and-pull tension of the Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana dichotomy provides the premise for this feature-length expansion of the hit TV show about a teen girl (Miley Cyrus) who enjoys the "Best of Both Worlds" through her secret life as a pop sensation. Deciding that his increasingly spoiled daughter needs a time-out for "Hannah detox," Miley's onscreen and real-life daddy, Billy Ray Cyrus, takes "the most popular teenager in the world" back to the family farm, where Miley regains her appreciation for Minnie Pearl collector's plates while also introducing the locals to a new "hip-hop" dance craze, "The Hoedown Throwdown." Shot in Middle Tennessee, this hit musical diversion for training-bra initiates should do wonders for the Volunteer State's film industry, if not for its reputation for worldliness. Says Billy Ray, after a waiter places a lobster in front of him: "That's a heck of a crawdad, isn't it?"

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8.

The Haunting in Connecticut (PG-13, 92 min.) Never play hide-and-seek in a haunted house, unless you want to discover you're sharing your dumbwaiter hidey-hole with a ghostly charred corpse. That's what happens to one of the unfortunate kids in director Peter Cornwell's lukewarm chiller, perfectly timed for the current housing crisis. Virginia Madsen stars as a mother-I'd-like- to-(haunt) who relocates her family to unfortunately named Goats Woods, Conn., so her teenage son, Matt (Robert Pattinson-lookalike Kyle Gallner), can be closer to the hospital treating his cancer. Mom picks out a rambling old house that is "spacious and affordable... I'm just wondering, what's the catch?" The catch: The house was formerly a funeral home-cum-crematorium where seances were conducted by a boy medium who spit ectoplasm from his orifices like supernatural toothpaste from a squashed tube while also opening a gateway to our world for the disgruntled dead. "Based on the true story," according to the credits -- not a true story, but the true story, as if this post-Amityville boofest has been vetted for authenticity by some sort of paranormal accreditation agency.

Bartlett 10.

Imagine That (PG, 107 min.) Hey, kids! Nickelodeon, one of your favorite companies, has produced a movie with Eddie Murphy as a career-obsessed financial analyst, so you'll get to hear a lot of grownups in suits in grim offices talking about "specs" and "yields" and "pension funds" and "magnesium futures" and -- hey, kids! Wake up! As Murphy's 7-year-old daughter, who is able to forecast stock market trends when her security blanket becomes a magical "securities" blanket (a pun that seems to have inspired the entire project), Yara Shahidi is utterly charming; her opening narration is a bit of misdirection, however: Director Karey Kirkpatrick quickly cedes the point of view to the Murphy character, whose parental and career anxieties may bore children and adults in equal measure.

Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Raleigh Springs Cinema, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16, Southaven Cinema.

Knowing (PG-13, 122 min.) A preposterous meld of in-your-screaming-face end-times anxiety, special-effects cataclysm and booga-booga M. Night Shenanigans, this wacked-out, quasi-religious "Donnie Darko" for dummies earns my endorsement not because it's coherent but because it's so over the top that it's engrossing, even when director Alex Proyas (the intriguing "Dark City," the rusty "I, Robot") is focusing on the emoting of Nicolas Cage rather than on an scary plane crash, a shocking subway disaster or (in what may be a movie first) a burning moose. Cage plays a widowed MIT professor whose belief that life is a result of "chemical accidents" with "no grand meaning" is shaken when he discovers that a 50-year-old note contains details about five decades of disasters, including 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and several tragedies yet to come. The film exploits fears of ecological and infrastructural collapse while also providing a distressing yet reassuring parable (you know, like the Flood) for an increasingly skeptical nation.

Bartlett 10.

Land of the Lost (PG-13, 102 min.) Revamping the 1970s Sid & Marty Krofft Saturday-morning cult classic as a family-friendly comedy-adventure would have made sense, but this misbegotten project immediately alienates kid-toting parents with shameless and incessant product plugs, surprisingly foul language and other inappropriate references (the perfect woman, children are told, would have big "boobs" but no head; show tunes are "gay"). Will Ferrell is a goofy "quantum paleontologist" who lands in a timeless alternate dimension, along with an eye-candy colleague (Anna Friel) and a crude self-appointed sidekick (Danny McBride); there, they befriend Jorma Taccone as Chaka, the ape-boy, and are menaced by cool-looking dinosaurs and reptilian alien Sleestaks. Between the tired Matt Lauer cameos that bookend this dud, director Brad Silberling manages three or four funny scenes. My favorite: Ferrell is punctured by a thirsty prehistoric mosquito.

Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16, Southaven Cinema, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

The Last House on the Left (R, 109 min.) Unlike its grungy inspiration, director Dennis Iliadis' remake of Wes Craven's infamous 1972 shocker is shot and scored with such delicacy and technical professionalism it might as well be, say, the life story of Gandhi rather than a wallow in rape, murder and sadistic, audience-rousing vengeance (true to the domestic associations of the title, the evildoers are dispatched with garbage disposal and microwave oven). The varnish of "art" applied to the story's ugly content is supposed to serve as a defense against the movie's critics; instead, it's evidence of the film's cowardice and cynicism.

Bartlett 10.

Madea Goes to Jail (PG-13, 103 min.) Tyler Perry's pistol-packin' grandmomma is raising hell behind bars.

Bartlett 10.

My Life in Ruins (PG-13, 96 min.) Just as the removal of a pair of eyeglasses could transform a mousy secretary into a bombshell in an old movie, the shaving of a beard changes a bus driver from Sasquatch to Fabio in the latest sitcom-style romantic wish-fulfillment fantasy for women from writer-star Nia Vardalos, creator of one of the biggest surprise hits in recent film history, 2002's "My Big Fat Greek Wedding." Vardalos plays Georgia, a lonely classics professor-turned-tour guide in Athens; Alexis Georgoulis is the strong, silent tour-bus driver, whose name, Poupi Kakas, sounds like "Poopy Caca," a coincidence that generates much hilarity among Georgia's nitwit clientele (stereotyped vulgar Americans, drunken Australians, priggish Brits, and so on). Director Donald Petrie shoots some pretty pictures of the Parthenon, but the movie is so lacking in surprise and originality, the grecian formula this time just doesn't get the gray out.

Collierville Towne 16, Cordova Cinema.

Next Day Air (R, 84 min.) Forty years from now, this Guy Ritchie/Quentin Tarantino-influenced crime comedy about a misdelivered cache of cocaine may be fascinating for its relentless early 21st-century "urban" slang and attitude; let's hope it also seems antique for the idea that guns are as accessible as Kleenex and as amusing, when used as comic props, as rubber chickens. Novel only for its African-American and Hispanic cast and African-American director (music video veteran Benny Boom, making his feature debut), this coarse and visually ugly movie gets by solely on the appeal of its talented ensemble, which includes Donald Faison and Mos Def as stoner deliverymen, Mike Epps and Wood Harris as bumbling bank robbers and Yasmin Deliz as a head-bobbing hottie.

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Majestic, Palace Cinema.

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (PG, 105 min.) As Amelia Earhart, Amy Adams adds plenty of welcome "moxie" (and a tight pair of aviator's britches) to an extraordinarily busy but simple-minded scenario that finds security guard-turned- infomercial magnate Ben Stiller traveling to Washington when his New York living-exhibit pals (Owen Wilson as a cowboy, Steve Coogan as a centurion, etc.) are relocated to the Smithsonian, where an evil pharaoh (Hank Azaria) with a Karloffian lisp plans to take over the world the help of Napoleon, Al Capone and Ivan the Terrible (who prefers to be called "Ivan the Awesome"). Director Shawn Levy's sequel contains a few cool ideas (the Lincoln Memorial statue comes to life) and a few decent gags involving such Smithsonian artifacts as Archie Bunker's chair, but there's not much here besides noise, chaos and monkey-slapping.

Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16, Southaven Cinema.

Obsessed (PG-13, 109 min.) Beyoncé gets mad when skank Ali Larter goes after her man.

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Majestic, Hollywood 20 Cinema.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop (PG, 91 min.) Kevin James is the title bumbler in this surprise box-office hit.

Bartlett 10.

Race to Witch Mountain (PG, 99 min.) Director Andy Fickman and wrestler-turned- family-friendly movie star Dwayne Johnson (no longer billing himself as "The Rock") follow their bland collaboration "The Game Plan" with a noisy, action-heavy revamp of "Escape to Witch Mountain," the well-remembered 1975 Disney film about a pair of fugitive children who prove to be paranormally gifted extraterrestrials. (Times change: In the first film, the kids were pursued by Ray Milland in a luxury car; this time, they're on the run from a Predator-like alien assassin in a flying saucer.) AnnaSophia Robb and Alexander Ludwig are fine as the space siblings, and Johnson is both cut and cute as a heroic cabbie, but this "X Files" for small fry has about as much heft as a bubble of swamp gas.

Bartlett 10.

Rudo y Cursi (R, 103 min.) Charismatic actors Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna are reunited eight years after the superb "Y Tu Mamá También"; the result is an extremely winning comedy-drama written and directed by the earlier film's writer, Carlos Cuarón (brother of the earlier film's director, Alfonso Cuarón, who went on to helm "Children of Men"). Bernal and Luna are "hick" futbol-loving brothers recruited from a banana plantation to the professional soccer leagues of Mexico City, where they become unlikely stars, a development that makes the film a cautionary fairy tale as well as a cornpone comedy when the brothers squander their good fortune on women, drugs and dreams of pop stardom.

Ridgeway Four.

17 Again (PG-13, 102 min.) Matthew Perry finds himself transformed into Zac Efron.

Bartlett 10.

The Soloist (PG-13, 117 min.) Robert Downey Jr. is Los Angeles Times reporter Steven Lopez and Jamie Foxx is homeless, schizophrenic, classically trained street musician Nathaniel Ayers in this based-on-a-true-story inspirational drama -- and American movie debut -- from British director Joe Wright (the ampersand version of "Pride & Prejudice"), who resists tugging at the heartstrings even as Ayers coaxes the melodies of his beloved Beethoven from the catgut of his violin and cello. Emphasizing wry humor and gritty "realism" over in-your-face uplift, Wright has created a sort of mainstream art film; but even in what is essentially a two-man drama, he seems a man born to make epics: The colorfully choreographed, impeccably composed Bedlam of bedbug-infested bedhead insanity found in the homeless shelter depicted here is a rival for the organized chaos of Wright's already famous Dunkirk beach sequence in "Atonement."

Bartlett 10, Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Hollywood 20 Cinema.

Star Trek (PG-13, 127 min.) Director J.J. Abrams' megabudget reboot of the beloved science-fiction franchise rushes along at warp factor 12, crowding its story with an impressive amount of characterization and action as it introduces new actors (Chris Pine is Kirk, Zachary Pinto is Spock) in youthful Starfleet-recruit versions of the roles made famous by William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and others in the 1966-69 TV series. The result is fun and ingenious (a time-travel subplot enables this new "Trek" series to exist alongside the "alternate history" of the original program), but like most of the 10 previous movies, it doesn't approach the quality of the best television episodes of "Star Trek" or "Star Trek: The Next Generation." Obviously eager to guide his redesigned Enterprise to where no "Star Trek" film has gone before (into the box-office stratosphere, alongside that other space opera, "Star Wars"), Abrams let the phones of most past "Trek" actors remain quiet, but he did recruit king-of-all-media Tyler Perry to play a Starfleet admiral. As Nimoy's Spock (the one oldtimer who does appear here) would say about that decision, if he were a Paramount stockholder: Logical -- not fascinating, but logical.

Stage Cinema 12, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16.

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (R, 106 min.) According to reports, the cast and crew of this remake of a 1974 thriller about a hijacked subway car were required to attend New York Transportation Authority safety classes before production started, because much of the shooting was to take place on location, on active train tracks.

But why bother with such realism when a couple of minutes into your movie you're going to reveal that your bad guy is John Travolta, looking "street" in a wool cap, a leather jacket, a pistol neck tattoo, a diamond ear stud and a Village People mustache? Travolta is a stock broker turned jailbird turned criminal mastermind who demands $10 million in cash in exchange for a carload of terrified hostage commuters; Denzel Washington is his symbolic double ("You're just like me," taunts the villain), a subway dispatcher accused of bribery who is forced into the role of chief negotiator. Directing, as usual, with a surfeit of flash, Tony Scott allows his big-name stars to meet only as voices over a radio until the climactic confrontation that ends this efficient but non-essential actioner.

Terminator Salvation (PG-13, 115 min.) It's crabby human freedom fighters vs. even crankier Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots of all models and makes (hey, fanboys, dig those literally electric eels!) in this appropriately mechanical fourth film in the series, programmed for maximum blockbuster efficiency by the director who calls himself McG. Essentially, this is a grim and gritty war movie, airlifted and updated from 1940s Europe to America in 2018, complete with ambushes in bombed-out city streets, ego clashes among resistance fighters, Holocaust references of dubious tastefulness (the robots shuffle their human prisoners into what we presume to be death camps) and a final-act secret infiltration of the enemy's headquarters. Christian Bale -- whose infamous leaked-from-the-set tirade is longer and more passionate than any monologue in the movie -- stars as rebel soldier John Connor, the prophesied hope of mankind, but the true lead is Sam Worthington as a convicted killer from 2003 who wakes up from a medically induced coma to find himself in the nightmare world of the "Terminator" franchise. In its own blunt-force-trauma way, the film's man-vs.-machines theme confronts viewers with the same key question that is at the center of such such less-hardware-heavy fantasy masterpieces as "Frankenstein," "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," "Planet of the Apes" and, yes, "Pinocchio" -- a question that that never loses relevance: What makes us human?

Stage Cinema, Majestic, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16, Southaven Cinema, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

Up (PG, 102 min.) "Up," up and away -- Pixar, with its 10th feature film in 14 years, again demonstrates it has no intention of losing ground to the competition, which at this point includes not just other animation studios but all of Hollywood. If "Up" (in 3-D at some theaters) doesn't quite soar to the heights of some previous Pixar releases, it nonetheless is unfailingly charming, exciting, inventive and moving. It's kind of weird, too -- a vibrantly colored, highly stylized and literally uplifting tale of house-hoisting helium balloons, talking dogs and prehistoric goony birds that owes as much to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, L. Frank Baum, Frank Capra and even Richard Connell (author of "The Most Dangerous Game") as to Walt Disney. Having already turned a rat and a robot into movie stars, Pixar's artists have no trouble making a surly septuagenarian into an admirable cartoon hero: Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Ed Asner) is a widower and would-be explorer who's as blocky as the old house he refuses to abandon. When he and a chubby boy scout land on a lost plateau in South America, director Pete Docter's story takes on something of the craziness of the classic Donald Duck adventures created by comic-book artist Carl Barks in the 1940s and '50s.

Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema (in 3-D), Majestic, Collierville Towne 16 (in 3-D), DeSoto Cinema 16 (in 3-D), Studio on the Square, Raleigh Springs Cinema, Cordova Cinema (in 3-D), Paradiso (in 3-D), Hollywood 20 Cinema (in 3-D), CinePlanet 16 (in 3-D), Southaven Cinema, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (PG-13, 109 min.) It's no surprise the pirated, incomplete version leaked to the Internet didn't dent this Marvel Comics adaptation's muscular box office: "Wolverine" without special effects is like "King Kong" without the ape. Reprising his scene-stealing (scene-slashing?) role from three previous films, Hugh Jackman is the title mutton-chopped mutant, a surly Canadian with retractable adamantium claws and an intractable personality who -- even in his pre-"X-Men" days -- attracts trouble the way Magneto attracts metal: Among the "freaks" he battles and befriends are Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds), John Wraith (Will.i.am), the Blob (Kevin Durand) and his bloodthirsty brother, Sabretooth (Liev Schreiber). As staged by director Gavin Hood ("Tsotsi"), the almost nonstop action in this sometimes callous tale of revenge is poised halfway between the ADD whiplash of "Crank" and the more elegant spectacle of "Spider-Man"; as pure pulp entertainment, it works.

Stage Cinema, Majestic, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16.