• Home
• /
• Entertainment

Mad about movies

This Means War

Chucking together disparate movie genres like a tombola at a studio exec’s picnic, This Means War sees two best buddies – who also happen to be (wink) CIA agents – butting heads over a woman.

After returning from a dangerous mission in the Far East, ladies man FDR (Chris Pine) and divorcee Tuck (Tom Hardy) get back into the swing of normal life back home.

When they discover they’ve been dating the same woman, Lauren (Reese Witherspoon), the duo use all their espionage skills and cunning against one another to gain the upper hand. Oh, and there’s a vengeful crime lord on his way to get them too.

Shockingly, critics have accused the film of being stupid and shambolic.

“We have our first lock for the Worst of the Year list,” noted Richard Roeper of Richardroeper.com.

“You can imagine how the ball got rolling on This Means War. You can also imagine how the folks who rolled the ball started to lose their minds,” said Wesley Morris of the Boston Globe.

The Woman in Black

Daniel Radcliffe tries to prove to the world there’s life after Hogwarts in this old-school British chillfest.

Based on the long-running West End play, itself taken from the 1983 novel by Susan Hill, the Edwardian era tale has been adapted to the silver screen by Jane Goldman (Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class).

Radcliffe plays Arthur Kipps, a young solicitor sent to a remote village to handle the estate of the deceased Alice Drablow. But as the village’s residents begin dying mysteriously, rumours of a vengeful female ghost surface.

A product of the legendary Hammer Film Productions, itself back from the grave (so to speak), The Woman in Black has already tripled its paltry $13 million budget at the box office. Reviews have been largely kind as well.

“A tasteful, old-school frightener, emphasising suspense and foreboding over blood and guts,” said Claudia Puig of USA Today.

“The Woman in Black is a welcome addition to the old canon; renouncing innovation, embracing anachronism, it’s almost The Artist of ghost movies,” said Richard Corliss of Time Magazine.

Young Adult

FROM THE SHARPENED quill of Oscar-winning Juno scribe Diablo Cody comes Young Adult, starring Charlize Theron as a conniving 30-something intent on stealing her childhood sweetheart away from his wife.

But after Theron’s Mavis Gary returns to her smalltown Minnesota roots, the teenage fiction writer discovers that reliving her youth isn’t quite the cinch she assumed it would be. The teddy bear-esque Patton Oswalt co-stars as her newfound confidant, as she goes about her wicked mission.

The film, which also uses Juno director Jason Reitman, has won plaudits for not pulling its mean-spirited punches and Theron’s unapologetically awful character.

“Shorter than a bad blind date and as sour as a vinegar Popsicle, Young Adult shrouds its brilliant, brave and breathtakingly cynical heart in the superficial blandness of commercial comedy,” said AO Scott of the New York Times.

“The really pretty Theron captures that state of really ugly inner childishness (articulated so sharply by Cody) with such precision, it makes you want to hear stories of her own high school experience,” claimed Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly.

adam@khaleejtimes.com