Because of embargoes (those happy little restrictions on when critics can post reviews, good or bad), a lot of our critics aren’t able to share links with you until release day. Here are some last-minute reviews for this weekend’s upcoming films. We’ve kept in all the reviews posted yesterday as well so you can have more help in deciding what to see (if you haven’t already).
Our critics have been hard at work reviewing the latest films. Here is a look at what’s coming out this weekend (in select cities, check your local listings) and what else may be in theaters right now.
Opening: Jan. 9-11, 2015
Wide (United States)
Taken 3
[New Today] Mark Dujsik @ Mark Reviews Movies
- Excerpt: Taken 3 isn’t just superficially lazy. That quality is the core of the movie’s being.
[New Today] Susan Granger @ www.susangranger.com
- Excerpt: Tediously trifling domestic melodrama, punctuated by a discordant series of screeching, seemingly endless car chases, careening around the Southern California freeways.
[New Today] MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: This is a movie as its own death wish. To call it cheap, lazy, and perfunctory grants it a dignity that implies there was another path it could have taken.
[New Today] Ben Kendrick @ Screen Rant
- Excerpt: Taken 3 takes the franchise past the point of absurdity – purely for the sake of selling a third series installment.
- Excerpt: Liam Neeson’s third outing as over-protective family man Bryan Mills sees him on the run for murder after his ex-wife (Famke Janssen) turns up dead in his apartment. Forest Whitaker heads the investigation, which soon enough uncovers the involvement of nasty Russian gangsters, but Olivier Megaton’s uneven, anaemic direction ensures Taken 3 fails again to recapture the magic of the original.
[New Today] Sarah Ward @ artsHub
Expanding (United States)
Inherent Vice
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Selma
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Limited (United States)
It’s All So Quiet
- Excerpt: Obviously striving for “elemental,” It’s All So Quiet winds up torpid and vacuous, yet another willfully emptied-out exercise in festival-friendly austere naturalism.
2015 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
[REC] 4: Apocalypse
Jeremy Kibler @ Diabolique Magazine
- Excerpt: [REC] 4 may not put itself in the vein of the first two installments, but as a visceral, relentlessly paced ride, it works like a flesh-ripping charm.
Jeremy Kibler @ Diabolique Magazine
- Excerpt: [REC] 4 may not put itself in the vein of the first two installments, but as a visceral, relentlessly paced ride, it works like a flesh-ripping charm.
The Beautiful Risk
- Excerpt: Take a risk on something else.
Let’s Kill Ward’s Wife
Jeremy Kibler @ Diabolique Magazine
- Excerpt: Somewhere in between “Horrible Bosses” and “Very Bad Things” lies “Let’s Kill Ward’s Wife,” a slight but mildly morbid and wryly twisted indie black comedy.
Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Somewhere in between “Horrible Bosses” and “Very Bad Things” lies “Let’s Kill Ward’s Wife,” a slight but mildly morbid and wryly twisted indie black comedy.
Predestination
[New Today] Nicholas Bell @ Ioncinema
- Excerpt: Perhaps more ambitious than its means, it’s a film that manages to intrigue and engross with a narrative that virtually creates the odor of the musty, yellowed pages of the writing style it’s been borrowed from.
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Those who were floored by “Looper” need to check this out – it’s a far better film, despite a lower budget look and features a breakout performance from Sarah Snook who’s like a cross between Tatiana Maslany and Dane DeHaan in this role.
Mark Dujsik @ Mark Reviews Movies
- Excerpt: It’s a neat trick.
[New Today] Brent McKnight @ The Last Thing I See
- Excerpt: Predestination is definitely not the movie you expect to see going in, but is one worth checking out if you’re looking for an interesting, rewarding piece of hard science fiction.
Frank Swietek @ One Guys Opinion
- Excerpt: A cerebral sci-fi time-travel puzzler that proves consistently engrossing and, for all its contrivance and complication, satisfying.
The Search for General Tso
[New Today] Nicholas Bell @ Ioncinema
Seventh Son
José Arce @ LaButaca.net [Spanish]
- Excerpt: Pobre nuevo intento de seducir a la muchachada desde parámetros fantásticos naturalmente franquiciables. No aporta nada, tampoco ofende; se ve y se olvida. Poca sorpresa, la verdad.
Vadym Grygoriev @ kinoblog.com [Ukrainian]
[New Today] Jason Pirodsky @ Expats.cz
- Excerpt: Jeff Bridges is a grizzled 1890s prospector hunting witches in a medieval fantasyland in Seventh Son, a derivative film in which the actor’s bizarre performance is the only item of interest during the proceedings.
The Water Diviner
[New Today] Sarah Ward @ artsHub
The World Made Straight
[New Today] Stacia Kissick Jones @ She Blogged By Night
The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
2014 Films In Theaters Now In Select Areas
At the Devil’s Door
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Big Eyes
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Big Hero 6
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Better Angels
Jonathan Richards @ www.jonrichardsplace.com
- Excerpt: Edwards’s impressionistic approach gives a flavor of backwoods life in the early 19th century, but doesn’t really explore what made Abe tick.
Birdman
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Boyhood
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Congress
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Dumb and Dumber To
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Enemy
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Exodus: Gods and Kings
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
For No Good Reason
[New Today] Sarah Ward @ FilmInk
Foxcatcher
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Fury
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
If You Don’t, I Will
Jonathan Richards @ www.jonrichardsplace.com
- Excerpt: What is it that entices filmmakers to make movies about disagreeable couples whose marriage is falling apart?
The Gambler
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Green Prince
[New Today] Sarah Ward @ Concrete Playground
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Horrible Bosses 2
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Imitation Game
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The Interview
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Into the Woods
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles
Jonathan Richards @ www.jonrichardsplace.com
- Excerpt: The test of Workman’s collection of clips and stories will be not so much in whether it breaks new ground, but in its success in bringing a new audience to its subject, and in reminding Welles’s fans of what amazing things he accomplished, and what a tantalizing lot he left undone.
A Most Violent Year
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Mr. Turner
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
The One I Love
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Particle Fever
[New Today] Sarah Ward @ FilmInk
Penguins of Madagascar
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
St. Vincent
[New Reviews Today] For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Stage Fright
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon
[New Today] Sarah Ward @ artsHub
Tales of the Grim Sleeper
The Theory of Everything
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Wild
For member reviews of this film, follow this link
Winter Sleep
[New Today] Sarah Ward @ FilmInk
2015 Films (Coming Soon)
Coming Home
[New Today] Sarah Ward @ artsHub
Corner Gas: The Movie
- Excerpt: Aka ‘Tim Horton’s: The Movie’
Dying to Know
Jonathan Richards @ www.jonrichardsplace.com
- Excerpt: Gay Dillingham’s profound, uplifting documentary takes us on a journey to that border no fence can keep us from crossing.
Fall
- Excerpt: Michael Murphy (Away from Her) gives an exceptionally subtle performance as Father Sam. He plays the conflicted clergyman with a caring, beleaguered grace.
Felix and Meira
[New Today] Marina Antunes @ Quiet Earth
I Put a Hit on You
- Excerpt: This darkly charming indie drives a bullet straight at the heart
Jimmy’s Hall
[New Today] Sarah Ward @ FilmInk
Messi
Diego Salgado @ Guía del Ocio [Spanish]
The Mystery of Happiness
[New Today] Sarah Ward @ FilmInk
Super Duper Alice Cooper
[New Today] Sarah Ward @ artsHub
Tevar
[New Today] Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
A Thousand Times Good Night
[New Today] Sarah Ward @ Concrete Playground
The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet
[New Today] Sarah Ward @ FilmInk
