Film clips

By The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Posted: June 8, 2012 at 2:21 a.m.

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LITTLE ROCK — At area theaters 89 THE AVENGERS, PG-13 The title superheroes of all those preceding Marvel-based, big-screen comic book adventures, including Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America: The First Avenger (Chris Evans), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) in a major-movie mash-up. Nick Fury, director of the international peacekeeping agency SHIELD, pulls together a team to battle the unexpected enemy threatening global safety and security. (142 minutes)

65 BATTLESHIP, PG-13 Based, believe it or not, on Hasbro’s classic naval combat game, our heroes sail aboard the USS John Paul Jones as the planet fights for survival against a superior force of what the trailers suggest are big, nasty aliens and/or robots. (131 minutes)

90 BERNIE, PG-13 A black comedy from director Richard Linklater, based on the true-crime story of East Texas mortician Bernie Tiede (Jack Black). (104 minutes)

86 THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL, PG-13 A group of British retirees is lured to move to India by exotic advertising. (120 minutes)

71 CHERNOBYL DIARIES, R Six young tourists looking to go off the beaten path find themselves stranded in a town near the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, supposedly totally abandoned for 25 years - where, of course, they discover they’re not alone. (90 minutes)

83 CHIMPANZEE, G In the long tradition of Disney nature documentaries, directors Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield take us deep into the African forests and introduce an adorable baby chimp named Oscar and his entertaining approach to life. (78 minutes)

80 CROOKED ARROW, PG-13 An American Indian lacrosse team from a poor high school goes up against tony prep schools in a tournament. With Brandon Routh, Michael Hudson, Gil Birmingham; directed by Steve Rash. (105 minutes)

74 DARK SHADOWS, PG-13 Director Tim Burton brings to the big screen TV’s campy bloodsucker Barnabas Collins (via favorite actor/collaborator Johnny Depp), turned by a witch’s curse into a vampire in the late 18th century and discovering, after being freed from a tomb in 1972, that the world has become a very different place. (113 minutes)

78 THE DICTATOR, R Sacha Baron Cohen plays the title role, a dictator who risks his life to ensure that democracy will never come to the country he has so lovingly oppressed. With Anna Faris, Ben Kingsley, Megan Fox, John C. Reilly, J.B. Smoove; directed by Larry Charles. (83 minutes)

73 FOR GREATER GLORY, R Andy Garcia plays the secular general who led a Catholic uprising against the Mexican government in the 1920s. With Eva Longoria, Oscar Isaac; directed by Dean Wright. (143 minutes)

87 THE HUNTER, R A skilled and ruthless mercenary hunting in the Tasmanian wilderness for a tiger believed to be extinct becomes increasingly close to the family he’s staying with, which leads him down a path of unforeseen danger. With Willem Dafoe, Sam Neill, Frances O’Connor; directed by Daniel Nettheim. (102 minutes)

70 JOHN CARTER, PG-13 Based on the novels by Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs, with Taylor Kitsch as the titular war weary former military captain whisked away to Barsoom (aka Mars), where he becomes reluctantly embroiled in a conflict of planetary proportions. (132 minutes)

80 JOURNEY 2: THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, PG In this follow-up to 2008’s remake of Journey to the Center of the Earth, Dwayne Johnson (playing the new stepfather of a 17-year-old portrayed by Josh Hutcherson) and a helicopter pilot (Luis Guzman) and his “beautiful, strong-willed daughter” (Vanessa Hudgens) set out to find the title island, rescue its lone inhabitant and escape before it sinks into the sea. (94 minutes)

70 THE LUCKY ONE, PG-13 Zac Efron plays a Marine sergeant who searches for the unknown woman in the photograph he credits for keeping him alive during three tours of duty in Iraq. (101 minutes)

86 MEN IN BLACK 3, PG-13 Agent J (Will Smith) goes back in time to put things right, with partner K’s (Tommy Lee Jones, with Josh Brolin as his younger self) life and the fate of the planet in the balance. (106 minutes)

82 MIRROR MIRROR, PG A “fresh and funny” retelling of the Snow White story, with Julia Roberts as the evil queen and Lily Collins as a princess in exile whom seven “courageous rebel” dwarfs help fight to reclaim her birthright and win her prince (Armie Hammer). (106 minutes)

87 SAFE, R After the Russian Mafia kills his family and banishes him forever from the mixed-martial-arts circuit, a second-rate cage fighter tries to save a 12-year-old orphaned Chinese math prodigy with a deadly secret and finds himself in the heart of a deadly high-stakes war. (95 minutes)

78 SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN, PG-13 Definitely not a kiddie version of the classic Snow White story. Kristen Stewart is not the only one in the land fairer than the evil queen (Charlize Theron), but she has been training in the art of war with the huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) dispatched to kill her. With Sam Claflin, Ray Winstone, Ian McShane, Eddie Izzard, Bob Hoskins; directed by Rupert Sanders. (127 minutes)

87 SOUND OF MY VOICE, R A couple of dogged, if not terribly experienced, journalists go undercover to expose what they believe is a creepy scam: a cult leader (Brit Marling) who claims to be from the future. With Christopher Denham, Nicole Vicius; directed by Zal Batmanglij. (85 minutes)

87 THINK LIKE A MAN, PG-13 Four guys, whose love lives are shaken up after the women they are pursuing buy comedian Steve Harvey’s best-selling book of that title and start taking his advice to heart, conspire to turn the tables by using the book’s insider information. (122 minutes)

67 A THOUSAND WORDS, PG-13 Eddie Murphy plays a fast-talking literary agent hoisted with his own petard when his target, a New Age guru, fixes it so he must find some other way of communicating besides speech to save his life. (91 minutes)

85 TITANIC 3D, PG-13 Steerage passenger Leonardo DiCaprio and socialite Kate Winslet, “on top of the world” as the prow of the mega-liner heads toward the iceberg, will now come right out of the screen at you in 3-D. With Billy Zane, Kathy Bates, Frances Fisher, Gloria Stuart, Bill Paxton, Bernard Hill, David Warner, Victor Garber; directed by James Cameron. (194 minutes)

86 21 JUMP STREET, R Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum play ex-adolescents who return to high school as youthful-looking undercover cops to investigate a violent and dangerous drug ring. (109 minutes)

70 WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU’RE EXPECTING, PG-13 Five couples’ intertwined lives are turned upside down by the challenges of impending parenthood, including the question of what to do when your first child precedes your first date. (110 minutes)

86 WRATH OF THE TITANS, PG-13 In this Clash of the Titans sequel, Sam Worthington returns as Greek demigod Perseus, a decade after his defeat of the Kraken, once again caught up (now with a 10-year-old son) in the war between the gods and the Titans that threatens to unleash hell on earth. (99 minutes)

Movie-rating point system

Movies are rated on a scale from 50 to 100. Guidelines for moviegoers:

96-100 Transcendent

90-95 Exceptional

80-89 Better than most to remarkable

70-79 Average

60-69 Awful to mediocre

50-59 Irredeemable

MovieStyle, Pages 33 on 06/08/2012

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