MOVIE REVIEWS

The Apparition
By John Mulderig
Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) — Note to self: never take on a dark supernatural force armed only with a baseball bat; whatever it is, it’s unlikely to be intimidated. We have actor Sebastian Stan to thank for that lesson. He plays Ben, half of the couple who are bewitched, bothered and, dare we say, driven batty by The Apparition (Warner Bros.). His live-in girlfriend Kelly (Ashley Greene), sad to say, reacts to their sinister situation in equally illogical ways.

At least Kelly can plead ignorance. She knows nothing of Ben’s past dabbling in the occult, nor of his participation in a parapsychology experiment that unleashed an otherworldly entity. So when that same pesky something-or-other starts opening locked doors and growing unsightly mold in the suburban investment property Kelly and Ben are minding for her parents, it’s hardly surprising that she’s perplexed.

Helming his feature debut, writer-director Todd Lincoln borrows rather shamelessly from the Paranormal Activities franchise with results that are mostly bloodless — in both a good and bad sense.

Thus, though it manages to avoid offending, his house of horrors tale fails to engage. Sometimes inept dialogue combines with generic characters and their unlikely behaviour to blunt any potential impact.

As the forgoing plot description may have made clear, there is some metaphysical gobbledygook of the H.P. Lovecraft variety on offer here. But grownups will easily dismiss these jumbled references, along with a theory that purgatory holds beings besides as-yet unperfected human souls. These notions are spouted by Patrick (Harry Potter stalwart Tom Felton), organizer of the seance that got Kelly and Ben into their mouldy mess in the first place.

Either as an homage to Hitchcock’s Psycho or for less lofty reasons, we follow Kelly into the shower at one point, though we see her only from a distance and through the modesty-preserving medium of a semi-opaque shower curtain.

She also does some under-the-sheets canoodling with Ben and demonstrates her distracted state by spending a series of scenes clad only in her underwear. Presumably, she’s not the only one who’s meant to be distracted.

The film contains minimal violence and gore, cohabitation, a brief, non-graphic bedroom scene, blurred upper female and partial nudity, a couple of crude words, at least one crass term and fleeting innuendo. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.
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Mulderig is on the staff of Catholic News Service.

Premium Rush
By John Mulderig
Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) — For many New Yorkers, especially those who like to perambulate their city without risking life and limb, few subcultures are less sympathetic than that of Gotham’s bicycle messengers. So it’s a pretty safe bet that there are at least a few hundred thousand peripatetic potential viewers out there who will have to suspend a great deal of disbelief to take a liking to the characters in Premium Rush (Columbia).

Further stumbling blocks along the energetically traversed path of director and co-writer (with John Kamps) David Koepp’s drama include gritty dialogue that catches viewers in a slipstream of unrelieved vulgarity and vivid scenes of accidental injury and purposeful inhumanity.

All that said, star Joseph Gordon -Levitt goes a long way toward making his character, fleet of foot pedaler Wilee — yes, boomers, as in Wile E. Coyote — more amiable than expected. He’s cocky, to be sure, but not in the odious way of his main speed-rival Manny (Wole Parks). Along with trying to outstrip and out-trash-talk Wilee on the streets, Manny has his eye on Wilee’s girl, their co-worker Vanessa (Dania Ramirez).

Yes, Virginia, there are some characters in this movie who are not employed as messengers. Take Vanessa’s roommate Nima (Jamie Chung), for example; she toils at prestigious Columbia University.

Dispatched to Columbia’s campus for a pickup one day, Wilee is surprised to find his acquaintance Nima in the role of client. She has an envelope she wants to have delivered to Chinatown post haste.

No sweat. Except that — for reasons Wilee can’t initially fathom, nor can we — someone else wants the contents of Nima’s envelope really, really bad. That would be half-crazed rogue cop Bobby Monday (Michael Shannon).

Dangerously in debt due to his gambling addiction — his game of choice, oddly enough, is a Chinese version of dominoes called Pai Gow — Monday is on the run from loan sharks. He’s convinced that Nima’s package holds, shall we say, the ticket to his salvation.

The ensuing dash all around the town gives Koepp the opportunity to serve up some fluid and suspenseful chase scenes, and he capitalizes on it with style.

But he and Kamps irresponsibly glamorize the recklessness of the couriers’ lifestyle as a thrilling alternative to the boredom of office work. Thus daredevil Wilee — his bike literally has no brakes — is portrayed as a veteran, perhaps a graduate, of Columbia’s law school who refuses to take the bar lest he have to wear a suit all day. Way to stick it to the Man, Wilee!

Though various characters fly through the air and land with a thud, they take their lumps with such indifference that any implicit warning about a downside to all this quickly gets left behind on the pavement.

As for Monday, in his increasing desperation and quasi-lunacy, he resorts to a level of cruelty that even most adults may find difficult to witness.

The film contains scenes of violence, including beatings and torture, about 20 instances of profanity, at least one use of the F-word, pervasive crude and crass language and obscene gestures. The Catholic News Service classification is L — limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

The Awakening
By Joseph McAleer
Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) — Things go bump in the night — and during the day — in The Awakening (Cohen Media Group), an old-fashioned horror movie set in a big haunted house in the remote English countryside.

First-time director Nick Murphy, who co-wrote the screenplay with Stephen Volk, has crafted a stylish murder mystery with an intriguing historical context. The early 1920s were “a time for ghosts” in Europe since millions had died between 1914 and1919 because of the double scourges of the First World War and the Spanish influenza. Some survivors turned to the occult and the paranormal as they desperately sought to “connect” with their departed loved ones.

But that’s all nonsense, insists Florence Cathcart (Rebecca Hall). Her mission is to expose the hoaxers and charlatans who stage phony seances. She eschews the label “ghost hunter,” though: “You can’t hunt what doesn’t exist,” she says.

Florence will have to change her mind rather quickly after she gets a visit from Robert Mallory (Dominic West) and accepts the challenge he sets her. Robert teaches history at Rookwood, a boys’ boarding school that occupies what was once a grand country manse. A student there has died under mysterious circumstances, and his classmates are blaming a specter who, they claim, haunts the place dressed like one of them.

“These boys are frightened to death,” Robert informs Florence.

Florence — who relies exclusively on science and palpable facts — is dismissive. “Boys believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy,” she says. “I’m sure some of them even believe in God.”

To prove her point, Florence sets up all sorts of electrical contraptions and cameras in the sprawling school. She is assisted by Maud (Imelda Staunton), the establishment’s sympathetic matron, and by Thomas (Isaac Hempstead-Wright), a pale, withdrawn lad who, unlike all his peers, has not gone home for vacation.

As Florence begins her investigation, a cast of stock characters comes under suspicion, including the peeping-Tom gardener (Cal Macaninch) and a sadistic teacher (Shaun Dooley) who administers corporal punishment with relish.

Before long, wires are being tripped and cameras are flashing as mysterious phenomena come to light. The Awakening morphs into a roller-coaster ride through a maze of rooms and hidden passageways. It’s a mildly scary game of cat and mouse as Florence tracks the ghost — and uncovers her own personal demons in the process.

The film contains some bloody violence, an attempted rape, a non-graphic non-marital sexual encounter as well as brief upper female and rear nudity in a non-sexual context. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.
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McAleer is a guest reviewer for Catholic News Service.

Hit and Run
By Kurt Jensen
Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) — Vroom-vroom, boom-boom, yee-haw! Pretentiously droll and ostentatiously vulgar, Hit and Run (Open Road) is a dreary road trip of a comedy.

Dax Shepard, who wrote the screenplay and co-directed with David Palmer, plays Yul Perkins, a sensitive former getaway car driver for a group of bank robbers who is now in the witness protection program. He decided to change his name to Charlie Bronson because he thought it sounded macho.

Kristen Bell is his girlfriend Annie, a brainy type with a doctorate in conflict resolution who has been offered a college teaching job in Los Angeles. The catch? She has to get there in two days. Her only shot is for Charlie to drive her the 500 miles from Milton, Calif., to La-La Land, in his souped-up Lincoln Continental.

Along the way, they’re pursued by Annie’s possessive ex-boyfriend, Gil (Michael Rosenbaum), Gil’s brother Terry (Jess Rowland), a lovelorn gay sheriff’s deputy, and bumbling federal marshal Randy (Tom Arnold), who is befuddled both by driving and by firearms. Also finding their way into the chase are the thieves (led by Bradley Cooper) with whom Charlie used to work. They want Charlie to lead them to the loot he has buried on his father’s property.

When a hillbilly mechanic steals the Lincoln’s engine, Charlie is forced to purloin other forms of high-powered transport and, as a result, must confess his past to Annie.

Whoops, there’s some wrinkly naked people holding a motel-room orgy. And looky at them-there speedin’ cars!

If one detects the Burt Reynolds good ol’ boys oeuvre in this, that’s probably not the intent. Everyone is far too foul-mouthed to be likable, and there’s a high gross-out factor as well. Mercifully, at least the speeding vehicles don’t talk.

The film contains bloody violence and gunplay, strong sexual content — including full male and female nudity and references to rape and homosexual activity — marijuana use, a few instances of profanity and pervasive rough language. The Catholic News Service classification is O — morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

Jensen is a guest reviewer for Catholic News Service.

ParaNorman
By John Mulderig
Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) — Though the horror-themed animated adventure ParaNorman (Focus) is obviously directed at children, it includes a smattering of sexual humour and, more significantly, a concluding plot twist that ought to put parents of faith on their guard. That’s all the more unfortunate since co-directors Sam Fell and Chris Butler’s frequently witty stop-motion celebration of the macabre has a basic message to convey that’s valuable for adults and kids alike.

The story focuses on Norman Babcock (voice of Kodi Smit-McPhee), an 11-year-old boy whose ability to communicate with ghosts — principally his beloved Grandma (voice of Elaine Stritch) but also deceased strangers whom he passes in the street — has caused him to be shunned and bullied by his unbelieving peers.

Things only get more complicated for Norman when his eccentric great-uncle Mr. Prenderghast (voice of John Goodman) calls on him to save their Salem-like hometown from the apocalyptic fulfilment of an 18th-century witch’s (voice of Jodelle Ferland) curse.

Soon Norman is battling the enraged spirit of the falsely accused sorceress, as well as the zombielike specters of the puritan judges who condemned her, through all manner of spooky environments.

He’s helped along the way, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, by his tubby best friend and fellow outcast Neil (voice of Tucker Albrizzi), his cheerleader sister Courtney (voice of Anna Kendrick), school quarterback (and Neil’s older brother) Mitch (voice of Casey Affleck), and even by reformed bully Alvin (voice of Christopher Mintz-Plasse) whom the sight of the sprites has scared straight.

What Norman’s quest principally teaches us is that evil acts are often motivated by fear and that the vengeful desire to retaliate in kind only makes things worse.

Butler’s screenplay, however, which dabbles in sexual humour throughout, concludes with the ironic revelation that a seemingly he-man male character has a boyfriend.

The film contains acceptance of homosexual acts, some sexual and scatological jokes and potentially frightening scenes of peril. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG — parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.

Sparkle
By Kurt Jensen
Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) — Sparkle (TriStar) is a soundtrack album packaged as a motion picture. But since this is evidently a point of pride for the filmmakers, take it as an observation, not a criticism.

This remake of the 1976 melodrama about a girl trio, set in 1968 Detroit, manages to be both as predictably familiar as your grandmother’s living room and as subtle as a runaway freight train. More overwrought and stale dialogue you’ve seldom heard. But the charisma of the performers and the consistently expressed desire of all the principal characters to lead moral lives hold the enterprise together.

Director Salim Akil together with his wife, screenwriter Mara Brock Akil, creates a grittily authentic, pulsating period club scene. There are skinny ties on the men, bouffant hairdos on the women; everyone smokes cigarettes wherever and whenever they choose. And we’re shown the precise moment in which wearing an Afro became a political statement.

The three Anderson sisters are Sparkle (Jordin Sparks), a talented songwriter too shy to sing leads; aggressively sexual Sister (Carmen Ejogo), who yearns for a show business career as a way to get out of her dead-end job at a department store; and Dolores (Tika Sumpter), who also sees performing as a means to an end. In her case, the goal is to earn enough money to pay for medical school.

Their mother, Emma (the late Whitney Houston in her final role), had attempted a music career when younger. Embittered by her failure, she tries to keep her daughters toeing the line with a church-centred life. They have to conduct their club adventures on the sly.

Everyone takes different paths to their respective dreams, and for a brief time, it even appears that Emma might have succeeded in keeping all of them off the stage.

Sister ditches the struggling Levi (Omari Hardwick) to marry the abusive Satin (Mike Epps), a comedian who has built a career telling racist jokes to white audiences. He beats Sister and gets her hooked on cocaine.

Dolores finds scholarships for med school, while Sparkle continues to receive gentle encouragement from boyfriend Stix (Derek Luke).

But decision-making processes and “big” conversations do not appear. Situations simply change, either for better or worse, and the audience has to fill in the rest. Shunted to the side is a clergyman, Rev. Bryce (Michael Beach), who ought to have advice to give, but doesn’t.

Sparkle’s strongest argument to her mother is, “Why did the Lord give me this gift if he didn’t want me to use it?”

The film builds to the time-honoured conclusion of all show-business tales, demonstrating that it’s possible to maintain moral standards and reach one’s potential — and with stunning high notes, too.

Houston’s hauntingly emotional rendition of the gospel classic His Eye Is on the Sparrow, performed in church, is about as nice an epitaph for the singer as anyone could wish.

The film contains marital violence culminating in a homicide, cocaine use, sexual banter, several racial epithets and a fleeting scatological reference. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.
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Jensen is a guest reviewer for Catholic News Service.

The Odd Life of Timothy Green
By Kurt Jensen
Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) — The first thing to understand about The Odd Life of Timothy Green (Disney) is that, despite its genuinely wholesome approach, its themes of infertility and death make it unsuitable for younger children.

The film strains not to offend. But even older children may find parts of this fable — in which the enchanted 10-year-old boy of the title (CJ Adams) passes through life leading others by cheerfulness and good example — somewhat puzzling.

Let’s put it this way: This film has “Discuss it with your child afterward” written into nearly every scene. There’s nothing contrary to, or derogatory of, Christian faith. But there’s a mishmash of imagery, since the original story by Ahmet Zappa draws on both Christian and wiccan beliefs.

However, there’s no indoctrination going on. There’s just a lot to think about. And, on the upside, from start to finish, the story celebrates familial love.

Opening scenes show Jim and Cindy Green (Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Garner) at an adoption agency explaining why they’re qualified to become parents. To do so, they first have to explain what has just happened to them, which is where Timothy Green comes in.

Deeply saddened to learn they were infertile, the Greens wrote down all of their ideas about what the perfect child ought to be: Honest to a fault, able to love and be loved, possessing a lively sense of humour, and so on. They then buried the notes in a wooden box in their backyard garden.

That night, there was a heavy rainstorm, and the next morning, the couple discovered a precocious, dirt-covered naked boy, freshly sprung from their garden, exploring their house.

He’s just what they hoped to have, except that he has what looks like vine leaves on his shins. (This is the wiccan imagery.) These leaves cannot be cut off.

No problem there: They simply advise him to keep his socks on at all times. And they begin the process of becoming involved and dedicated parents.

Timothy is extremely kind, very patient, very much an outsider among other children and endures suffering in a Christ-like way (thus the Christian analogy).

He is smitten with Joni Jerome (Odeya Rush), a slightly older girl who also feels like an outsider because of a large birthmark. Together, they construct a sort of chapel in the woods with “stained glass” made from colourful autumn leaves (this is the mixed aspect).

Later on, in classic Hollywood style, Timothy comes up with a way to keep the town’s pencil factory — at which his father is a foreman — from closing.

It’s not a spoiler to disclose that, with the arrival of autumn, Timothy finds that his leaves are deciduous, and knows his time is drawing short. Yet it’s made clear that his life has had a purpose.

Writer-director Peter Hedges has a little trouble keeping his sentimental tale on an even keel. The uplifting, break-out-the-hankies ending, though, is likely to appeal to anyone who enjoys a good cry.

The film contains mature themes, some pagan overtones and a single scatological reference. The Catholic News Service classification is A-II — adults and adolescents. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG — parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.

The Expendables 2
By John Mulderig
Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) — True to its title — and that of its 2010 predecessor — The Expendables 2 (Lionsgate) is indeed best dispensed with, done without or, in a word, eschewed.

Though director Simon West’s blood-soaked action sequel trots out an array of genre veterans, their appearances only go to show that experience isn’t always the best teacher.

Bruce Willis (first movie circa 1980) gets things rolling when he shows up to task Sylvester Stallone (screen debut 1970) and his titular band of mercenaries with recouping a bit of top secret information that went down in a plane crash.

But villainous — and thus aptly named — Russian gang leader Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme, whose Brussels-bred muscles were first sighted on screen in 1984) is out to get his hands on the same intel.

Since the item in question is a blueprint showing exactly where in a vast underground mine a trove of Soviet-era nukes can be found, the Fate of the World now depends on Stallone and his followers. They include Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren (who also first hit celluloid in the mid-1980s), Terry Crews, Randy Couture and Liam Hemsworth. (Granted, Hemsworth has only been kicking around Hollywood for a few years. But then again, there’s a reason his character is nicknamed Billy the Kid.)

As our heroes tangle with Vilain and his hordes of henchmen, aging action stars become even thicker on the ground with the arrival of Chuck Norris (first, uncredited role 1969) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (initially seen that same year in Hercules in New York).

Though it serves to relieve the macho insult-trading to which too much of the dialogue in Stallone and Richard Wenk’s script is devoted, the cast’s self-referential and self-deprecating humour fails to retrieve the queasily gore-stained proceedings.

The film contains excessive bloody violence, including torture and decapitation, a vengeance theme, about a dozen crude terms and half that number of crass expressions. The Catholic News Service classification is O — morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

The Bourne Legacy
By John Mulderig
Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) — Can the Bourne franchise continue without Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne? If the mediocre extension The Bourne Legacy (Universal) is all we have to go on, perhaps the answer is: Yes, but with considerably diminished results.

Based on a series of novels by Robert Ludlum, the popular — albeit frequently violent — trilogy that began with 2002’s The Bourne Identity reached a satisfying narrative wrap-up, five years later, with The Bourne Ultimatum.

But Hollywood’s reliance on proven box-office winners is such that an attempted resuscitation was probably inevitable. Though Damon abstained from participating, Tony Gilroy, veteran scribe of all three previous installments, returns to direct and co-write this tangentially related tale.

Standard shootouts, fatal vehicular accidents and at least one close-up scene of medical unpleasantness mark the results as off-limits for youngsters. Most adults, though, will probably take these elements — along with the script’s occasional lapses into foul language — in stride.

In the wake of Bourne’s public exposure of a top secret program that biologically altered government spies to enhance their skills, the intelligence establishment — led by retired Air Force Col. Eric Byer (Edward Norton) — decides to terminate a similar defence Department project. Terminate, that is, with extreme prejudice: They plan to kill everyone involved.

However, one subject, Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), manages to escape assassination. The weapon sent against him as he trains for future missions in the Alaskan wilderness? A drone; how topical!

Making his way back to civilization, Cross seeks out Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz), the researcher who treated him as he was being endowed with his heightened powers. Shearing has just had a close call of her own — no coincidence, that — when a drugged or brainwashed colleague shot up their lab, thus disposing of all his other co-workers.

Together, the two survivors go on the lam, and struggle to evade their pursuers’ global reach.

Though it winds up in Manila, Gilroy’s convoluted cat-and-mouse game — written in collaboration with his brother Dan — doesn’t amount to much of a thrilla.

With his subdued demeanour, Renner’s Cross makes a less-than-charismatic centrepiece around which to try to orbit the overly detailed proceedings. Norton’s Byer, meanwhile, gives vent to such weighty — make that ponderous — announcements as “We are morally indefensible, and absolutely necessary!”

Byer is also given no fewer than five malign cohorts (Stacy Keach, Dennis Boutsikaris, Albert Finney, David Strathairn and Scott Glenn) with whom to debate, in heated tones, the fate of various hidden organizations and codenamed schemes. Treadstone, Blackbriar, Outcome, Candent. . . . “There was never just one,” declares the movie’s advertising slogan. Well, OK, but did there have to be so many?

The film contains considerable, at times harsh, violence with some gore, about a half-dozen uses each of profanity and crude language and a few crass terms. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.


The Campaign
By Adam Shaw
Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) — After helming two much-lauded HBO political dramas — 2008’s Recount and 2012’s Game Change — director Jay Roach (“Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery” and sequels) tries a more humorous approach to the same subject with The Campaign (Warner Bros.).

Roach’s potentially salient big-screen critique of the nation’s electoral process, however, gets buried under a landslide of vulgarity and sex jokes. The ill-chosen topics from which his picture attempts to draw laughs range from adultery and masturbation to pedophilia and bestiality.

North Carolina congressman Cam Brady (Will Ferrell) is enjoying a safe, undisturbed career until an obscene phone call intended for his mistress is accidentally received instead by a clan of devout Christians in the midst of a family dinner.

Poll numbers plummet, and Brady’s formerly supportive backers, the wealthy and powerful Motch brothers (John Lithgow and Dan Aykroyd), decide a shake-up is required at the next election. The money-flushed siblings settle on Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis) — the bumbling director of a local tourist centre, and son of a political operator of their acquaintance (Brian Cox) — as the change they can believe in.

Huggins is a lovable but naive dunce who simply wants to make a difference for his hometown. So the brothers install ruthless Tim Wattley (Dylan McDermott) as his campaign manager. Wattley soon transforms Huggins into a win-at-all-cost contender — much to the disapproval of the candidate’s lonely wife Mitzi (Sarah Baker) — and the race begins in earnest.

As election day approaches, decency and civility are tossed aside by both individuals as the contest descends into farce.

Although Chris Henchy and Shawn Harwell’s screenplay includes a few relatively serious passages of commentary — specifically a dour-faced final 20 minutes — dealing with issues like campaign finance reform, the majority of the running time is devoted to sophomoric humour and repellant shock gags.

While taking some funny swipes at how politicians try to use religion to win votes, moreover — “America, Jesus, Freedom” runs Brady’s risible slogan — The Campaign also includes material genuinely odious to viewers of faith. In particular, a scene involving Brady’s campaign manager Mitch (Jason Sudeikis) and the words of the Our Father — which, in a potentially embarrassing lapse, his pseudo-pious employer has managed to forget — sinks (albeit briefly) into obscene sacrilege.

The film contains an instance of blasphemy, some mild violence, an adultery theme, obscured frontal male and partial upper female nudity, a few uses of profanity, much sexual and occasional irreverent humour, pervasive rough and crude language and an obscene gesture. The Catholic News Service classification is O — morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

Shaw is a guest reviewer for Catholic News Service.

Hope Springs
By John Mulderig
Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) — Although fundamentally moral, Hope Springs (Columbia) — a skillful mix of comedy and drama that focuses on the problems of one long-married couple — is also significantly flawed.
Primarily, that’s because the frankness with which director David Frankel’s film approaches marital intimacy veers, at times, into intrusiveness. Additionally, in keeping with the under-refined values of contemporary society, his picture implies that virtually all methods of obtaining sexual gratification — at least between married partners — are acceptable.

Still, a resounding pro-marriage message undergirds the proceedings as aging Omaha, Neb., suburbanites Kay (Meryl Streep) and Arnold Soames (Tommy Lee Jones) work to rekindle their spark. Worn down by routine after three decades together, they’ve gradually grown physically and emotionally distant, occupying separate rooms at night and hardly exchanging a word during the day.

While grumpy Arnold seems resigned to this fate, feisty Kay is unwilling to give up so easily. So, at her insistence, the pair sets off to Maine for a week of intensive therapy with marriage counsellor and self-help author Dr. Bernard Feld (Steve Carell).

Even discussing their personal problems — much less solving them — proves a challenge for the buttoned-up duo. Much of the humour plays off the contrast between their verbal and behavioural inhibitions and Feld’s unflappable straightforwardness on any and all subjects.

Yet, as he peers into every aspect of their history, as well as their unfulfilled desires and fantasies, viewers need not be puritans to share in Kay and Arnold’s discomfiture.

While “Hope Springs” celebrates determined fidelity, and finds its leads in top form, the proportion of screenwriter Vanessa Taylor’s script devoted to talk about, or activity in, the bedroom narrows the appropriate audience for this keenly observed study. Only mature moviegoers well formed in faith and morals will be up to the task of gleaning its virtues from its failings.

The film contains considerable sexual content, including semigraphic scenes of marital lovemaking and masturbation; pervasive references to sexuality; a benign view of aberrant sex acts; about a half-dozen uses of profanity; and at least one crude and a few crass terms. The Catholic News Service classification is L — limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

Total Recall
By Adam Shaw
Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) — Remakes are all the rage in the movie industry at the moment. While some retreads manage to introduce classic films to a new generation, others leave theatregoers scratching their heads, wondering why anyone involved bothered. The latter reaction, alas, is likely to be provoked by Total Recall (Columbia).

Director Len Wiseman has sanitized Paul Verhoeven’s extremely violent 1990 action thriller — an adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s 1966 short story We Can Remember It for You Wholesale, that starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yet although toned-down, the new version still contains more than its fair share of objectionable content.

The year is 2084. After an apocalyptic war that blighted the global environment, Earth has been divided between the United Federation of Britain on one side of the world and the Colony, a stand-in for Australia, on the other. While people in the Federation live in luxury, the oppressed working classes who serve them are housed in the Colony. The two regions are connected by a transport line through the Earth’s core known as “The Fall.”

Unhappy with his boring life and troubled by nightmares, Everyman Colony drudge Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell) seeks relief through the services of a company known as Rekall. Rekall specializes in turning fantasies into memories, thus allowing its customers to believe they really are whoever it is they wish to be.

Before Rekall can work its magic on Quaid, however, a routine mental screening uncovers the surprising fact that this blue-collar grunt is, in fact, some sort of secret agent who has had his memory wiped.

Stunned by this revelation — which instantly makes him a wanted man — Quaid goes on the lam with the authorities in hot pursuit. He’s thrown even further off balance when his seemingly devoted and loyal wife Lori (Kate Beckinsale) turns against him.

Things take a political turn when an Irish Republican Army-like guerrilla group known as the Resistance reaches out to Quaid in the person of young activist Melina (Jessica Biel), a figure Quaid has already encountered in his dreams.

Clever plot twists and impressive futuristic visuals can’t make up for an ensemble of humorless two-dimensional characters — nor for their favoured vocabulary of foul language. The dialogue in Kurt Wimmer and Mark Bomback’s screenplay, moreover, is bloated with cliched ruminations on the nature of reality, e.g. “The past is a construct of the mind.”

One tiresome philosophical diatribe succeeds another.

By the time the infamous three-breasted prostitute from the original film makes her reappearance, viewers of faith may be hoping for a mind-wipe of their own.

The film contains frequent action violence, including gunplay; upper female and brief rear nudity; references to prostitution; occasional uses of profanity; at least one rough term; and pervasive crude language. The Catholic News Service classification is L — limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.
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Shaw is a guest reviewer for Catholic News Service.
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