Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012

Reviews to help you choose

RATINGS: ★★★★ : Excellent; ★★★ : Good; ★★ : Fair; ★ : Poor

THE ARTIST ★★★★ Everything old is new again in this deft, delightful black-and-white silent film set in late 1920s Hollywood, as the industry transitions to talking pictures — leaving some of its biggest stars behind. With Jean Dujardin as a screen idol and Berenice Bejo as the ingenue he mentors and falls for, as her career takes off, and his plummets. 1 hr. 40 PG-13 (adult themes)

CHRONICLE ★★★ 1 / 2 stars. Smart, fun, and increasingly dark, this reality-grounded sci-fi tale finds three high school friends climbing into a hole — and emerging with telekinetic powers. But instead of using their newfound abilities to fight crime, they just do what guys in high school would do if they could levitate stuff and crush stuff and hurl stuff through the air. 1 hr. 23 PG-13 (violence, adult themes)

THE DESCENDANTS ★★★★ George Clooney in one of the most satisfying performances of his career — angry, sad, vulnerable, loving, foolish, comically discombobulated — as a Hawaiian lawyer coping with a family crisis and a daunting inheritance. From Alexander Payne, of “Sideways” and “About Schmidt” fame. Satisfying on every level. 1 hr. 55 R (profanity, drugs, adult themes)

EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE ★★★ Thomas Horn stars as an 11-year-old who loses his father on 9/11 and who, over a reconnaissance expedition that takes him to all five boroughs,negotiates peace with tragedy. 2 hrs. 09 PG-13 (disturbing images, profanity)

THE GREY ★★ 1 / 2 stars. Liam Neeson is a soul-torn sharpshooter in the Alaskan outback, trying to lead a band of fellow plane crash survivors across snowbound, sub-zero terrain, when a pack of wolves descend. They're not wearing Team Jacob T-shirts, but they're snarling and mean. R (violence, profanity, adult themes)

THE IRON LADY ★★★ Meryl Streep is uncanny as Margaret Thatcher — as an old and mentally shaky retiree, and then as the grocer's daughter who defied the mostly male and mostly upper-crust British political establishment to become the country's first female prime minister. A surprisingly moving portrait of one of the 20th century's most controversial leaders. 1 hr. 45 PG-13 (violence, adult themes)

JOURNEY 2: THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND (Rating not available): Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson takes over for Brendan Fraser in the second installment of the Jules Verne-flavored family adventures, this one set on a mythical island crawling with monsters. PG

JOYFUL NOISE ★★ 1 / 2 stars. Queen Latifah and Dolly Parton co-star in this Gospel-inflected “Glee” about a church-choir competition. The musical numbers are exuberant fun in Todd Graff's otherwise threadbare film that co-stars Keke Palmer and Jeremy Jordan. 1 hr. 57 PG-13 (sexual innuendo and references, brief profanity)

RED TAILS ★★ 1 / 2 stars. George Lucas produces a simplified, heavy-on-the-aerial-combat account of the all-African-American Tuskegee Airmen's triumphs in World War II — in the air, where they shot down Nazis, and on the ground, where they shot down the institutional racism of the military. Cartoonish, but the dogfights are exhilirating. 2 hrs. PG-13 (violence, adult themes)

SAFE HOUSE (Rating not available): A CIA agent (Ryan Reynolds) charged with protecting a dangerous fugitive (Denzel Washington) must go on the run with his prisoner after their safe house is attacked. R

STAR WARS: EPISODE I — THE PHANTOM MENACE 3D (Rating not available): It was a terrible movie in plain old 2-D. Will 3-D make it any better? George Lucas really hopes you'll buy a ticket and find out, because his mortgage payment is due. PG

UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING ★★ 1 / 2 stars. Kate Beckinsale returns as the trigger-happy vampiress Selene. The body count rises quickly when humans threaten her kind with extinction. 1 hr. 29 R (intense violence, gore, profanity)

THE VOW (Rating not available): A man (Channing Tatum) helps his wife (Rachel McAdams) regain her memory after an accident gives her amnesia. PG-13

THE WOMAN IN BLACK ★★ stars. Daniel Radcliffe stars in this pallid Victorian ghost story. Slow-moving, old-fashioned and not terribly scary. 1 hr. 39 PG-13 (violence, disturbing images)

Compiled by MCT