Selected mini-reviews, rated on a system of 0 to 4 stars, by Rick Groen and Liam Lacey. Full reviews appeared on the dates indicated.
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel
**
As semi-animated musicals about high-pitched musical rodents go, this isn't too painful. Alvin, Simon and Theodore pick up from their 2007 hit with the same formula: Between musical covers, Alvin gets into mischief. Every time an adult ends up in traction or breaks wind, the three-year-olds in the audience will be freshly ecstatic. This time, the Chipmunks have to contend with going to high school and facing a rival group, the Chipettes, a tail-shaking female trio who resemble a small, furry incarnation of Destiny's Child. Weird. G (Dec. 23) L.L.
Avatar
***
Big money, big risk, pretty big reward - yes, James Cameron delivers. Avatar may not be the movie to revolutionize movies but, tricked out with 3-D wizardry and CG technology, it's definitely a movie to boost our faith in movie spectacle, and to remind us that Cameron is that rare technocrat who knows how to tell a story. An old-fashioned story, in this case, that sets sail into a sci-fi future even while retreating to a stone-age past, a visually rich combination that lets Cameron dip into his state-of-the-art toolbox and put the money right up on the screen - it's an eye-popping world. What's more, with its eco-friendly message and anti-imperialism thrust, the tale is so steeped in liberal sentiment that he runs the risk of attack from a whole new direction - damned if the guy isn't daring the Fox News crowd to brand him a tree-hugging pacifist. Yes, Cameron makes it easy to gaze fondly on his movie magic, but only in exchange for a hard look at ourselves. PG (Dec. 17) R.G.
Broken Embraces
***
There are terrific Pedro Almodovar films and pretty good Almodovar films. Broken Embraces is in the latter camp. This convoluted film noir stars Lluis Homar as a blind screenwriter who recalls his past as a director involved in a love triangle with a gorgeous actress (Penelope Cruz) who is married to a jealous old producer. Beautiful set pieces abound and Cruz slips in an out of many costumes and wigs in this elaborate tribute to cinematic story-telling. 14A (Dec. 18) L.L.
Did You Hear About the Morgans?
*
A dud. Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker play an estranged New York couple who witness a murder and are moved to rural Wyoming as part of a federal witness-protection program, under the care of straight-shootin' locals (Sam Elliott and Mary Steenburgen). The fish-out-of-water is both predictable and uncomfortably off-rhythm. PG (Dec. 18) L.L.
Fantastic Mr. Fox
***
The dysfunctional families in Wes Anderson's films have always seemed to exist in a fractured fairy-tale world, where adults oscillate between childish and childlike. So it's a natural fit for the director to adapt a children's book, especially one from such a master of strange doings as Roald Dahl. Yes, in its new animated home, Fantastic Mr. Fox is a happy marriage of sensibilities, yet make no mistake about who has the upper hand. The tale may be Dahl's, but there's a whole new wag to it - this is decidedly, weirdly and, at best, wonderfully a Wes Anderson movie. PG (Nov. 25) R.G.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
**
Horse-drawn sideshows in modern-day London, an immortal artist making bad bets with a philistine devil, a looking-glass that leads to a wonky wonderland - oh, we're deep into the imagination of director Terry Gilliam, which once was a splendid place to visit. But not here, because this film is less a coherent exercise of imagination than a haphazard lecture on its importance, a lecture that eventually dwindles into self-indulgence. Yes, it's Heath Ledger's last role, and, after his death mid-shoot, the same character is serially played by Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell. Each chews the scenery in his different fashion but, ironically, they all seem interchangeable here, just indentured servants to a master who's lost his way. PG (Dec. 24) R.G.
Invictus
***
Clint Eastwood's latest film captures a defining, unifying moment in modern South African history in 1995 when Nelson Mandela (a very good Morgan Freeman) encouraged the country to get behind the white-supported Springbok rugby team in the World Cup. Matt Damon plays the Springbok captain who is inspired by Mandela's interest. Somewhat conventional, and uncharacteristically optimistic for Eastwood, Invictus (Latin for "unconquerable") is a case where the sports-movie cliché "more than a game" really resonates. PG (Dec. 11) L.L.
It's Complicated
**
Actually, it's very simple. Just as she did in Something's Gotta Give, director Nancy Meyers has given a middle-aged, single woman (Meryl Streep) everything her heart desires: rewarding career, terrific children, fabulous house and two successful men (Alec Baldwin as her ex-hubby, Steve Martin as her architect) competing for her sexual favours. And the problem is? Well, a gal already empowered to the nth degree struggles comically to reach the nirvana of n+1 - that's the complication. This is wish-fulfilment fantasy. Meyers makes crowd-pleasers and, if you're a dues-paying member of the crowd, you'll surely be pleased. If not, to carp about it is like dumping on a Walmart greeter - Meyers is just doing her happy-face job. 14A (Dec. 24) R.G.
Nine
**
Rob Marshall ( Chicago) directs this adaptation of the 1982 Tony-winning musical, based on Federico Fellini's 1963 self-reflective movie, 8½, about the difficulties of a creatively-blocked womanizing film director in the midst of his latest project. Daniel Day-Lewis is convincing at conveying lechery and bewilderment (which the viewer may share). Most of the film consists of a bevy of stars in revealing lingerie outfits performing in elaborate, stage-bound production numbers. There's Nicole Kidman (muse) Penelope Cruz (mistress), Kate Hudson (American journalist), Fergie (prostitute), Judi Dench (confidante and costume designer) Sophia Loren (mother) and Marion Cotillard (wife). Lingerie is top-notch, singing is so-so and lyrics frequently awful. Only Cotillard, who plays the bereft spouse, achieves any real poignancy in her performance. PG (Dec. 24) L.L.
The Princess and the Frog
***
Disney's return to hand-drawn animation after five years features its first African-American princess (Anika Noni Rose) as a New Orleans girl in the 1920s who kisses a frog and is turned into one herself. Directed by veterans John Musker and Ron Clements ( The Little Mermaid, Aladdin), the new film is often funny, with an authentic-sounding period score from Randy Newman and a lush visual style, but is not quite first-rank Disney. The film suffers from a rather cluttered story of voodoo, a surfeit of sidekick characters and a general tendency to too much frog, not enough princess. G (Dec. 11) L.L.
Sherlock Holmes
**
Director Guy Ritchie launches a new action-film franchise with Robert Downey Jr. as a slovenly, bare-knuckle-fighting Sherlock Holmes and Jude Law as his constantly exasperated crime-fighting partner, Dr. Watson. The brooding Victorian set design suggests The Dark Knight, while the bantering buddy comedy and outsized villain (Mark Strong as an aristocrat showing the worst tendencies of Hitler and Dracula) feels like something out of the playbook of producer Joel Silver ( Lethal Weapon). Rachel McAdams as "the only woman to have bested Holmes" gets forgotten too often amid the fireballs and chase sequences. PG (Dec. 24) L.L.
A Single Man
***
Every movie is a performance, but so very seldom is a performance a movie. As an expat Brit, living in California in the early sixties and mourning the death of his male lover, Colin Firth isn't the only reason to see A Single Man, but he's certainly the best. His eyes do all the work, dripping with profound world-weariness, yet with humour too, and empathy and anger and an intelligence so fierce that it's more foe than friend. Better still, watch for his extended sequence with Julianne Moore. A tête-à-tête dinner scene, perhaps 10 minutes long, it's a screen acting clinic put on by a matched set of pros at the top of their game - truly, a mini-movie onto itself. PG (Dec. 11) R.G.
The Young Victoria
**
Yes, that would be Queen Victoria, best known these days for her stern moral rectitude and for looking like a black teapot with a doily on top. How to spice up that rep? Clearly, catch up with her when she's young, headstrong, has the hots for Prince Albert and, apparently, bears an uncanny resemblance to Emily Blunt. Nice try, but the tepid result is just a lot of costumes in fond search of some drama. And finding precious little. Still, the gowns are colourful (a vast improvement over that teapot look), the bowing and nodding are bowed and nodded with aplomb, and Blunt's performance is engaging, the one jewel in the picture's otherwise barren crown. PG (Dec. 18) R.G.