LITTLE ROCK — At area theaters
68
ALEX CROSS, PG-13 Tyler Perry takes on the role of the title homicide detective/psychologist, who may have met his match in a serial killer (Matthew Fox). (101 minutes)
89
ARGO, R Based on supposedly recently declassified documents. Ben Affleck directs and plays a CIA rescue specialist who concocts a cockeyed plot to create a fake movie as a way of rescuing six Americans who escaped the 1979 Iranian takeover of the American embassy and subsequent 444-day hostage crisis. (120 minutes)
71
ATLAS SHRUGGED PART II, PG-13 With the global economy on the brink of collapse and brilliantly creative folks continuing to mysteriously disappear, a tycoon discovers in an abandoned factory a revolutionary motor that could seemingly power the world. (112 minutes)
84
BRAVE, PG A courageous young Scottish princess (voice of Kelly Macdonald) inadvertently unleashes chaos in the kingdom while battling tradition, destiny and the fiercest of beasts and finding the meaning of true bravery. Animated. (100 minutes)
75
THE CAMPAIGN, R When a long term North Carolina congressman (Will Ferrell) commits a major public gaffe before an election, a pair of ultra-wealthy CEOs plot to put up an unlikely rival candidate (Zach Galifianakis) to gain influence over their district. (97 minutes)
86
CHASING MAVERICKS, PG Based on the true story of surfing icon Jay Moriarty, involving a young man’s quest to surf Northern California’s most dangerous wave, and the local legend who takes him under his wing. With Gerard Butler, Elisabeth Shue, Leven Rambin, Abigail Spencer; directed by Curtis Hanson. (117 minutes)
87
CLOUD ATLAS, R A soul is shaped from a killer into a hero and a single act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution in the distant future. With Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, James D’Arcy, Keith David, Susan Sarandon, Hugh Grant;directed by Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski. (172 minutes)
72
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, PG-13 Christian Bale returns as the Caped Crusader, converted from hero to fugitive after he takes the blame for the death of District Attorney Harvey Dent, this time pitted against the deadly masked terrorist Bane (Tom Hardy) and cunning cat burglar Selina Kyle, aka Catwoman (Anne Hathaway). (164 minutes)
88
END OF WATCH, R Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena play young cops patrolling the meanest streets of south-central Los Angeles. (109 minutes)
78
THE EXPENDABLES 2, R The reunited Expendables (Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Terry Crews), with a couple of new members (Liam Hemsworth, Yu Nan) aboard, take on what appears at first to be a simple job - until things go wrong, whereupon they are compelled to seek revenge in hostile territory where the odds are, of course, stacked against them. (102 minutes)
73
FUN SIZE, PG-13 Victoria Justice plays a sarcastic teenager forced to take her little brother trick-or-treating, and must then recruit a trio of friends to find him when he disappears into a sea of trick-or-treaters. With Thomas Mann, Thomas McDonell, Thomas Middleditch, Chelsea Handler; directed by Josh Schwartz. (90 minutes)
85
HERE COMES THE BOOM, PG A former collegiate wrestler (Kevin James) is now a 40-something,apathetic biology teacher in a failing high school who begins, as cutbacks threaten to cancel the music program and lay off its teacher (Henry Winkler), to raise money by moonlighting as a mixed-martial-arts fighter. (105 minutes)
86
HOPE SPRINGS, PG-13 Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones play a devoted, longtime couple looking to spice things up through a week of marriage therapy with a renowned couples specialist (Steve Carell). (100 minutes)
80
HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA, PG Dracula opens a lavish five-stake resort - where monsters and their families can live it up in safety and comfort, free from meddling from the human world - as a way of controlling the adventurous spirit of his teenage daughter, who’s in grave peril of falling for an ordinary human. Animated. (91 minutes)
70
ICE AGE: CONTINENTAL DRIFT, PG Squirrelly Scrat’s nutty, timeworn pursuit of the accursed acorn triggers a continental cataclysm, in the midst of which Manny, Diego and Sid encounter a ragtag menagerie of characters determined to stop them from returning home. Animated. (94 minutes)
88
LOOPER, R In the not-too-distant future, time travel is real but illegal and only available on the black market, and the mob uses it to get rid of folks they don’t like by sending them 30 years into the past, where hired gun Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is waiting. Then the mob decides to close the loop and sends back Joe’s future self (Bruce Willis). (118 minutes)
89
MADAGASCAR 3: EUROPE’S MOST WANTED, PG Alex the Lion, Marty the Zebra, Gloria the Hippo and Melman the Giraffe, still fighting to get home to their beloved Big Apple, find the perfect cover for a transit of Europe: a traveling circus. Animated. (93 minutes)
90
THE MASTER, R A young drifter(Joaquin Phoenix), picked up by the charismatic leader (Philip Seymour Hoffman) of a fringe religion, begins to doubt the faith - and his mentor. (137 minutes)
83
THE PAPERBOY, R Lured by imploring letters from a beautiful siren, a hard-nosed reporter and his partner return to a Florida town to investigate a seemingly unjust imprisonment of a hardened backwoods criminal, convicted without conclusive evidence or even a fair trial in the killing of the town’s sheriff. With Matthew McConaughey, Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron, John Cusack, Scott Glenn; directed by Lee Daniels. (101 minutes)
81
PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4, R More paranormal activity has been occurring since the new neighbors moved in next door. (88 minutes)
88
PARANORMAN, PG Misunderstood Norman (voice of Kodi Smit-McPhee) is the only available ghoul whisperer when his small town comes under siege by zombies. Stop-motion animated. (93 minutes)
89
PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER, PG-13 Logan Lerman plays a high-school freshman whose social prospects are limited by the recent death of a friend and an even more recent breakdown of sorts, until he befriends a charismatic, openly gay senior (EzraMiller) and his stepsister (Emma Watson). (103 minutes)
81
PITCH PERFECT, PG-13 Anna Kendrick plays a college kid who finds herself in the midst of an unpopular group of misfit girls with one thing in common: how well they sing together. So of course they set forth to conquer the cutthroat world of college a cappella groups. (112 minutes)
68
THE POSSESSION, PG-13 After their youngest daughter becomes oddly obsessed with an antique wooden box she bought at a yard sale, a couple (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kyra Sedgwick) discover the presence of a malevolent force: The box was built to contain a dibbuk, a dislocated spirit that inhabits and ultimately devours its human host. (91 minutes)
67
RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION, R In this fifth installment in a continuing franchise, a deadly virus continues to transform humanity into legions of the flesh-eating undead, and globe-trotting Milla Jovovich remains humanity’s last hope. (97 minutes)
89
SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS, R A comedy, believe it or not, in which a struggling screenwriter (Colin Farrell) inadvertently becomes entangled in the Los Angeles criminal underworld after his oddball friends (Christopher Walken, Sam Rockwell) kidnap a gangster’s (Woody Harrelson) beloved Shih Tzu. (109 minutes)
79
SILENT HILL: REVELATION, R A young woman (Adelaide Clemens) and her father (Sean Bean), on the run from dangerous forces that she doesn’t fully understand, discovers she’s not who she thinks she is, and the revelation leads her deeper into a demonic world that threatens to trap her forever. With Radha Mitchell, Deborah Kara Unger, Carrie-Ann Moss, Malcolm McDowell, Martin Donovan; directed by Michael J. Bassett. (94 minutes)
82
SINISTER, R Ethan Hawke plays a true-crime novelist whose discovery of a box of mysterious, disturbing home movies plunges his family into a nightmarish experience of supernatural horror. (110 minutes)
72
TAKEN 2, PG-13 The retired CIA agent (Liam Neeson) who in the first movie stopped at nothing to save his daughter from Albanian kidnappers now has been taken hostage with his wife during a family vacation in Istanbul by the vengeful father of one of the original kidnappers, and it’s up to the daughter to help them escape, get the family to safety and systematically take out the kidnappers - one by nasty one. (92 minutes)
74
TOTAL RECALL, PG-13 A remake of the Paul Verhoeven/Arnold Schwarzenegger 1990 sci-fi trailblazer (based on Philip K. Dick’s short story, “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale”), this time with Colin Farrell as a factory worker haunted by dreams of a previous life that turn out to be actual suppressed memories. (118 minutes)
86
TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE, PG-13
Clint Eastwood plays an ace baseball scout with whom age is starting to catch up, but he refuses to be benched for what may be the final innings of his career. The one person who might be able to help is also the one person he’d never ask: his high-powered lawyer daughter (Amy Adams). (111 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 37 on 11/02/2012