Movie Capsules: Now showing

Cetacean cinema: "Dolphins and Whales," a new undersea adventure directed by Jean-Michel Cousteau, is now at the IMAX Theater at the Memphis Pink Palace Museum.

OPENING TODAY

Looking for Eric (Not rated, 116 min.) Ken Loach directs this story of a middle-aged soccer fan whose muse is real-life Manchester United superstar Eric Cantona. See review.

Ridgeway Four.

Mother and Child (R, 125 min.) See review on Page 16.

Ridgeway Four.

SPECIAL MOVIES

The Alps: Runs through Nov. 12. Tickets $8, $7.25 senior citizens, $6.25 children ages 3-12; children under 3 are free.

IMAX Theater at Memphis Pink Palace Museum, 3050 Central. Call 320-6362 for show times, tickets and reservations.

Cetacean cinema: "Dolphins and Whales," a new undersea adventure directed by Jean-Michel Cousteau, is now at the IMAX Theater at the Memphis Pink Palace Museum.

Dolphins and Whales: Tribes of the Ocean: A new adventure from Jean-Michel Cousteau, narrated by Daryl Hannah. IMAX film runs through March 4, 2011. Tickets $8, $7.25 senior citizens, $6.25 children ages 3-12; children under 3 free.

IMAX Theater at Memphis Pink Palace Museum, 3050 Central. Call 320-6362 for show times, tickets and reservations.

Lewis & Clark: Great Journey West: IMAX film follows Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark as they lead the Corps of Discovery on the first overland expedition into the newly expanded territory of the United States. Through Nov. 12. Tickets: $8, $7.25 senior citizens, $6.25 children ages 3-12; children under 3, free.

IMAX Theater at Memphis Pink Palace Museum, 3050 Central. Call 320-6362 for show times, tickets and reservations.

Metropolitan Opera: Eugene Onegin (Not rated, 160 min.) Tchaikovsky's musical adaptation of the 19th-century verse novel by Alexander Pushkin is presented live via satellite from New York.

6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Paradiso. Tickets: $20. Visit malco.com.

Ocean of an Old Man (Not rated, 84 min.) Inspired by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, this "Global Lens" drama tells the story of a British schoolteacher (Tom Alter) on an Indian Ocean island coping with the loss of most of his students.

7 p.m. Thursday , Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. Tickets: $6, or free for Indie Memphis members. Visit brooksmuseum.org or indiememphis.com.

Thomas and Friends: Misty Island Rescue (Not rated, 60 min.) Shipwreck, a cliff crash and other challenges face the brave train engine and his chug-chugging pals in this new adventure.

10 a.m. Saturday and Sunday, Paradiso. Admission: $5. Visit malco.com.

NOW SHOWING

The A-Team (PG-13, 118 min.) "Overkill is underrated," quips Hannibal Smith (Liam Neeson), apparently speaking for director Joe Carnahan, but this time the A-Team's cigar-chomping genius commander is wrong: In fact, overkill is ubiquitous, at least in the modern American action movie, and it seriously damages this nevertheless pretty fun expansion of the campy 1980s TV series about ex-Army soldiers of fortune. Basically a bigger-budgeted version of "The Losers" (which arrived in theaters only seven weeks earlier), the movie is good-humored and well-staged, but the action quickly becomes too ridiculous to be exciting, as when a helicopter flies upside down or a tank falls from a plane with no real damage. Native Memphian and mixed martial arts champion Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson takes the Mr. T role; Sharlto Copley (last seen turning into a prawn in "District 9") is the insane pilot, Murdock; Bradley Cooper is "Faceman," the group's Romeo; and Jessica Biel is an antagonistic Defense Department investigator, added to dilute the testosterone onscreen while exciting the males in the seats.

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

The Back-up Plan (PG-13, 98 min.) Jennifer Lopez, Alex O'Loughlin.

Bartlett 10.

The Bounty Hunter (PG-13, 111 min.) Gerard Butler, Jennifer Aniston.

Bartlett 10, Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8.

Clash of the Titans (PG-13, 110 min.) Sam Worthington, the Kraken.

Bartlett 10.

Date Night (PG-13, 88 min.) Tina Fey, Steve Carell.

Bartlett 10.

Death at a Funeral (R, 93 min.) Provocateur Neil LaBute is the unlikely director of this remake of a British comedy that's less than three years old. The cast includes Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence and (returning from the original) Peter Dinklage.

Bartlett 10, Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8.

Grown Ups (PG-13, 102 min.) High-school buds Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade and Rob Schneider reunite for a Fourth of July weekend.

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, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

How to Train Your Dragon (PG, 98 min.) Directors Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders (who previously collaborated on "Lilo & Stitch") deliver DreamWorks Animation's best feature film yet, a charming and sincere revamp of "Androcles and the Lion" in which a hapless teen Viking named Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel) befriends an injured "Night Fury" dragon and helps his village end its ruinous, age-old battle with the flying, fire-breathing and misunderstood monsters that share the Norse seacoast. The dragon designs are wonderful, the action is exciting and the anti-warmongering message is timely and persuasive.

Bartlett 10.

Iron Man 2 (PG-13, 125 min.) Even in a summer blockbuster in which metal-mouthed Mickey Rourke slices race cars in half with crackling lightning-bolt bullwhips and backflipping Scarlett Johansson dons skintight black leather to smack security guards into submission, wry Robert Downey Jr. remains returning director Jon Favreau's most sure-fire "special effect." As narcissistic billionaire Tony Stark, the alter ego of the title Marvel Comics hero, Downey -- mouthing the multiple bon mots supplied by screenwriter Justin Theroux ("Tropic Thunder") -- is a delight, as is Gwyneth Paltrow as unacknowledged love interest Pepper Potts and scenery-chomping Sam Rockwell as a smarmy rival arms manufacturer. Enjoyable if overstuffed (the fanboy in me enjoys the presence of Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury, but he's unnecessary), the movie lacks the focus of its predecessor; more objectionably, it fails to resolve the fascist implications of Stark's claim to have "privatized world peace," which is greeted with understandable apprehension by a supposed fool of a U.S. senator (Gary Shandling). The politician has a point: As presented here, the human and machine sides of Iron Man essentially correlate to Klaatu and Gort in 1951's "The Day the Earth Stood Still," the alien duo that demanded the world accept the presence of a robotic peacekeeping force, or else.

Stage Cinema, CinePlanet 16.

Jonah Hex (PG-13, 90 min.) It's Tea Party vs. Terrorism as Josh Brolin's Jonah Hex -- an ex-Confederate soldier who disapproved of slavery, we're told, but supported the South because he didn't like the federal gummit telling him what to do -- battles a megalomaniacal "terrorista" (John Malkovich) who plans to blow up Washington D.C. during the July 4, 1876 Centennial Celebration. Started by the team of Neveldine & Taylor ("Crank") and credited to debuting live-action director Jimmy Hayward ("Horton Hears a Who!"), with additional material shot by Francis Lawrence ("I Am Legend"), this patchwork box-office bomb is as ugly as Jonah's "cooked piehole" of a burned face, but it's a surprisingly entertaining disaster -- a sort of Roger Corman/Concorde-New Horizons picture for the new millennium. Yes, it squanders its Sergio Leone-worthy DC Comics source material, but its goofy mix of supernatural and Western motifs never bores, especially since the movie runs only 74 minutes, minus the end credits. Many have complained about that length, but to me, that's an asset -- why should "Jonah Hex" be longer than, say, "Little Caesar" or "Bride of Frankenstein"?

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

Just Wright (PG, 101 min.) This efficient starring vehicle for Queen Latifah should provide a great deal of temporary comfort and vicarious pleasure to moviegoers eager to embrace the idea that a 35-year-old, plus-sized, physical-therapist "homegirl" can capture the heart of a millionaire NBA All-Star. It helps the plot as well as the romantic fantasy that the two-time MVP (played by the actor/rapper known as Common) is a "perfect gentleman" who plays jazz piano, listens to Joni Mitchell and refuses to lend his name to a children's charity unless he gets to spend time with the kids.

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Majestic, Palace Cinema.

The Karate Kid (PG, 140 min.) Devotees of the 1984 film with Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita have cried foul over this remake's digressions from its source (for one thing, the kids here are significantly younger); but taken on its own terms, this is an entertaining button-pusher that is certain to engross viewers near the age of the title character. Jaden Smith (son of Will and Jada Pinkett Smith) stars as 12-year-old Dre, who moves with his single mom (the always welcome Taraji P. Henson) from Detroit to Beijing, where he is frustrated by chopsticks and beaten by bullies (including Wang Zhenwei, a charismatic mini-Jet Li) until getting lessons in kung-fu atop the Great Wall from the shabby local handyman (Jackie Chan, who is excellent in the first serious role of his extra-Hong Kong career) . Director Harold Zwart's film benefits from Chan's presence and from the novelty of its locations, but Chinese audiences may object to the idea that a skinny U.S. kid can master in a few weeks the skills that the story's homegrown martial artists spent years acquiring.

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, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

Killers (PG-13, 100 min.) Computer tech Katherine Heigl discovers new boyfriend Ashton Kutcher is a super-assassin.

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Collierville Towne 16, DeSoto Cinema 16, Cordova Cinema, Paradiso, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16.

Knight and Day (PG-13, 110 min.) Tom Cruise is top-billed, but this spy spoof's point of view belongs to Cameron Diaz: The latest from director James Mangold (whose "Walk the Line" was as much about June Carter as Johnny Cash) is not really a male-oriented action thriller but a romantic fantasy for a plugged-in generation of green screen-savvy girls sympathetic to the idea of courtship as a hyperadrenalized series of deliriums and fugue states, with Cruise -- the "Cocktail" star now a self-caricature of cockiness -- the dubious modern knight who rides to the rescue on a motorcycle steed.

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

The Last Airbender (PG, 103 min.) See review on Page 10.

Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema (in 3-D), Majestic, Collierville Towne 16 (in 3-D), DeSoto Cinema 16 (in 3-D), Raleigh Springs Cinema, Cordova Cinema (in 3-D), Paradiso (in 3-D), Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema, CinePlanet 16 (in 3-D).

The Last Song (PG, 107 min.) Miley Cyrus, Greg Kinnear.

Bartlett 10.

Letters to Juliet (PG, 93 min.) Will Amanda Seyfried find romance in Italy?

Palace Cinema.

Marmaduke (PG, 88 min.) The adorable troublemaking Great Dane wags his way from the funny papers to the big screen.

Forest Hill 8, Stage Cinema, Majestic, CinePlanet 16.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (R, 96 min.) The idea that repressed or concealed knowledge of child abuse can emerge years later to traumatize victims and family members has never had more currency (just ask the Catholic Church), but director Samuel Bayer's slack remake of Wes Craven's influential 1984 horror movie about a supernatural, scar-faced molester named Freddy Krueger fails to be either persuasive or scary. Jackie Earle Haley seems an ideal choice to inherit the ratty striped sweater and knife-fingered gloves of Robert Englund, but the witless script gives Freddy nothing interesting to do, and his teenage victims seem all too aware that the "nightmares" they inhabit will soon be in the DVD cut-out bin at Wal-Mart. Not worth waking up for.

Bartlett 10.

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (PG, 120 min.) Logan Lerman, Pierce Brosnan.

Bartlett 10.

Please Give (R, 90 min.) The characters are often disagreeable, spiteful, petty and self-centered, but writer-director Nicole Holofcener's fourth feature ends with the polite, sincere exchange of the words "Thank you" and "You're welcome." How often do those simple phrases carry weight in a movie? The heart soars, and the memory of Catherine Keener's wonderful performance keeps it aloft. Keener plays a conscience- plagued woman (all those homeless people!) who owns a vintage furniture store with her husband (Oliver Platt); Sarah Steele is the couple's weight-conscious 15-year-old daughter; Ann Guilbert (Millie from "The Dick Van Dyke Show") is the ancient, crotchety neighbor in the apartment next door; and Amanda Peet and Rebecca Hall are the old woman's granddaughters. Like Woody Allen but with a generous heart (and a non-sexist perspective -- a mammogram montage may be the first scene in film history to truly desexualize breasts), Holofcener follows these relatively privileged New Yorkers over several days as they cope with various levels of guilt and feelings of inadequacy. The result is a warm and generous film.

Ridgeway Four.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (PG-13, 116 min.) Sporting new muscles and a puzzling English accent, Jake Gyllenhaal stars as an acrobatic street orphan-turned-royal heir who battles an evil vizier (Ben Kingsley) with the help of a princess (Gemma Arterton -- a woman so juicy her upper lip throws a shadow toward her nose). Director Mike Newell proved an adept handler of computer-generated spectacle with "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," but he allows the unreal effects of this Disney/Bruckheimer video game adaptation to overwhelm story and actors. The prince's jumping-jack heroics borrow from the French discipline known as parkour, but the chaotic editing and frequent closeups sabotage the admirable work of the stunt men and disrupt any sense of genuine athleticism; meanwhile, the script's self-conscious parallels to the modern Middle East -- the plot concerns a misguided invasion inspired by false reports of weapons-of-less-than-mass- destruction -- prove meaningless. The title refers to a magical dagger that is able to turn back the clock, which would be a handy device for anyone who squanders two hours of life on this film.

Hollywood 20 Cinema, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

Robin Hood (PG-13, 131 min.) If the twinkle-eyed heroic archer played by Errol Flynn in 1938 was a New Deal advocate of wealth redistribution, Russell Crowe's dour AWOL soldier is a Robin of the Hood that Tea Partiers can embrace: a rebel against the heavyhanded taxation and centralized- government tyranny of a callow young ruler who is the successor to an older man who squandered his reputation and the nation's fortune on a protracted Crusade in the Holy Land.

Collierville Towne 16, CinePlanet 16.

Sex and the City 2 (R, 146 min.) To the list of insults, real and imaginary, committed by the Great Satan against the Arab world, add this presumptuous and hypocritical sequel, in which Carrie Bradshaw and friends bring their name-brand materialism, exhibitionist licentiousness and Western silliness to opulent Abu Dhabi, where they manage to offend not only their hosts but sensitive viewers of all persuasions. Writer-director Michael Patrick King tries to posit the famous HBO alumni (Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis) as sexual freedom fighters and exemplars of liberty at odds with a female-stifling Muslim culture, but they're walking environmental disasters whose conspicuous consumption enables the very oil-based culture that oppresses their Arab sisters. The sense of entitlement is grotesque: When too-much- woman in too-little-clothing Samantha Jones (Cattrall) is arrested by United Arab Emirates authorities for lewd public behavior involving a hookah, one may not agree with the law, but one can sympathize with the impulse. Even the fashions are hideous, from Samantha's Thunderdome-ready spiked shoulder pads to Carrie's tacky "J'Adore Dior" T-shirt, which seems more suitable for a cookout in Munford than cocktails in Manhattan.

Cordova Cinema.

Shrek Forever After (PG, 93 min.) Directed by Mike Mitchell (whose dubious live-action accomplishments include "Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo"), this promised "final chapter" (in 3D) borrows from "It's a Wonderful Life" and the Spock-has-a-beard episode of "Star Trek" to pull the title fairy-tale monster hero from his domestic midlife crisis and plunk him into a dark alternate world where the kingdom of Far, Far Away is ruled by sinister Rumpelstiltskin (voiced by Walt Dohrn), whose tyranny is opposed by the Brünhildesque warrior princess, Fiona (Cameron Diaz), and her ogre underground. The winking nonstop pop-culture references are as annoying as ever, but Rumpel's witch army is cool, and there's no denying that Donkey (Eddie Murphy), Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas), the Gingerbread Man, Pinocchio and the other supporting characters are pretty funny.

Majestic, Collierville Towne 16 (in 3-D), DeSoto Cinema 16 (in 3-D), Cordova Cinema (in 3-D), Palace Cinema, CinePlanet 16 (in 3-D).

Solitary Man (R, 90 min.) This amusing film is to Michael Douglas as "Crazy Heart" is to Jeff Bridges: a tailor-made career not-quite-capstone about a faded but still unruly minor-league celebrity who's reluctant to trade his unhealthy horndog ways for what movie publicists like to describe as a final shot at redemption. Conjuring memories of Gordon Gekko and Grady Tripp ("Wonder Boys"), Douglas steals the show as yet another dubious charmer, a self-centered wheeler-dealer who was famous for his television commercials as "New York's honest car dealer" until a criminal investigation of his financial "irregularities" brought an end to his auto empire. Directed by Brian Koppelman and David Levien, the film fades in the stretch, but for most of its length it offers the rare pleasure of following a lead character who revels in casual misbehavior (he sleeps with his girlfriend's college-bound daughter) and is so cynical he refers to even friendship as "a racket."

Ridgeway Four.

Splice (R, 104 min.) This chilling, modestly scaled surprise delivers the creepiness and the topicality that makes a horror movie both memorable and meaningful. It's energetic and smart -- a worthy offshoot of the twisted family tree that yielded such strange fruit as "Frankenstein," David Cronenberg's "The Fly" and Larry Cohen's killer-baby opus "It's Alive," to cite the three most apparent genetic blueprints in the "Splice" DNA. Believably brainy actors Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley star as hotshot scientists/lovers Clive and Elsa (named for actors Colin Clive and Elsa Lanchester of "Bride of Frankenstein") who engineer a part-human female creature that grows into a sort of bald fashion model with jackrabbit legs. As the couple copes with its "offspring," the movie becomes a discomfitting parody of parenting and domestic dysfunction that touches on such disturbing issues as adultery, incest and child abuse and neglect. Director Vincenzo Natali (known for the Kafkaesque "Cube") allows his movie to risk and even embrace ludicrousness as events (sexual and otherwise) accelerate toward the inevitable, tragic extreme.

Wolfchase Galleria Cinema 8, Majestic, Hollywood 20 Cinema.

Toy Story 3 (G, 109 min.) Among many other wonderful things, the latest Pixar triumph is a very witty spoof of the classic Hollywood jailbreak drama; from now on, any list of the best prison movies will have to include this Disney release alongside "I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang" and "Cool Hand Luke." In director Lee Unkrich's marvel, however, there is no failure to communicate: The themes of loyalty, abandonment, the inevitability of age and, yes, love, come through loud and clear -- even the stoniest viewers may have to clench their face like a fist to keep from bawling like a baby before the movie's over. (And I don't mean Big Baby, the movie's scary plastic infant with the lazy marble eye and the Crayola tattoos.) In this installment, the boy Andy (who has grown up parallel to the real-life kids enraptured by the first "Toy Story" in 1995) is bound for college, causing a crisis in the toy box: What will happen to Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks), Buzz (Tim Allen) and the rest when Andy's gone? Viewers will think of the plight of pets and even of old folks and orphaned or unwanted children during these debates. If these notions are tough on adults, younger viewers may be more disturbed by a frenzied finale in which the toys face destruction on a junkyard conveyor belt: The "G" rating doesn't take into account the strong sense of deadly peril conveyed during the brilliantly animated action scenes.

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), Palace Cinema, Hollywood 20 Cinema (in 3-D), CinePlanet 16 (in 3-D), Summer Quartet Drive-In.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (PG-13, 124 min.) Bella, Edward and Jacob are back, under the apparently robust direction of David Slade ("30 Days of Night").

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, Summer Quartet Drive-In.

Why Did I Get Married Too? (PG-13, 121 min.) Janet Jackson in Tyler Perry's latest.

Bartlett 10.

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