Movie reviews

The following are capsule reviews of movies recently reviewed by Catholic News Service.

Beautiful Creatures (Warner Bros.)
A restless teen in rural South Carolina finds his stultifying world transformed when he falls for the new girl in town, who turns out to be a witch. But their relationship draws the opposition of her warlock uncle and guardian (Jeremy Irons) and places them at risk due to the schemes of her spell-casting mother (Emma Thompson). A mixed religious outlook — white evangelical Christians are mercilessly caricatured while the burgh's African-American librarian (Viola Davis) blithely combines her role as a custodian of conjuring lore with faithful church attendance — makes the occult elements underlying writer-director Richard LaGravenese's screen version of Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl's 2009 novel more troubling than they might otherwise seem. Few in the targeted audience of teen date movie consumers are likely to possess the discernment necessary to bring all this into proper focus. An ambivalent portrayal of Christianity, brief sacrilegious behavior, restrained scenes of violence with fleeting gore, semi-graphic nonmarital sexual activity, at least one use of profanity, some crude and crass language. (L, PG-13)

Bullet to the Head (Warner Bros.)
A 90-minute killing spree interspersed with banal dialogue and a weak, stale plot involving Sylvester Stallone as a hit man fighting mobsters in Louisiana. Director Walter Hill and screenwriter Alessandro Camon adapt a French series of graphic novels by Alexis Nolent called "Headshot." In doing so, they send the body count into double digits and the boredom factor into overdrive. A fetid gumbo of gunfire and stabbing. Relentless violence, a vengeance theme, frequent upper female nudity, pervasive rough, crude and crass language. (O, R)

A Good Day to Die Hard (Fox)
With this fifth installment, the action franchise that started with 1988's "Die Hard" seems to have reached its own death throes. New York detective (Bruce Willis) and his son team up in Moscow to protect a government whistleblower from a variety of villains. In the process, of course, they kick up just the kind of carnage that made the quartet of earlier flicks box office gold. Director John Moore presents a jaunty view of bloodletting and, on occasion, invites the audience to revel in the mayhem. Slow motion death scenes make an obvious appeal to moviegoers' basest, most visceral instincts. The rudimentary efforts at character development in Skip Woods' screenplay, meanwhile, are drowned amidst a murky tide of run-and-gun action. Constant violence, some of it gory, occasional profanity, frequent rough and crude language and two obscene gestures. (L, R)

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (Paramount)
Hyperviolent updating of the Grimm Brothers fairy tale has the title characters grown and bent on missions of revenge against all the dark witches who inhabit the forests near medieval Augsburg, Germany. Writer-director Tommy Wirkola strings near-nonstop mayhem on a bare thread of a plot involving missing children and Hansel and Gretel's efforts to come to grips with their parents' abandonment of them. Pervasive gory violence, a vengeance theme, fleeting rear and upper female nudity, some rough and crude language. (O, R)

Identity Thief (Universal)
Morally murky comedy about a family man from Denver (Jason Bateman) who discovers that his identity has been stolen by an opportunistic Florida thief (Melissa McCarthy) who has racked up huge credit card debts in his name and incurred criminal charges against him. Despite an interesting, if slightly unbelievable, premise, director Seth Gordon and screenwriter Craig Mazin offer few fresh jokes. Instead, they rely on exploitative sight gags and foul language. They also wink at theft in situations far removed from those narrow and extreme circumstances within which Judeo-Christian morality might excuse it. Skewed moral values, much slapstick and other violence, considerable sexual content including a semi-graphic nonmarital encounter, off-screen masturbation and brief rear nudity, occasional profanity, frequent rough and crude language, an obscene gesture. (L, R)

Movie 43 (Relativity)
Sick collection of gross-out comedy shorts framed by the story of a madman pitching his perverse script ideas to a Hollywood studio executive. Directors too numerous to list — 10 in all — labor vainly to draw humor from subjects like incest, menstruation, aberrant sexual desires and abortion. Inexplicably, stars from Hugh Jackman and Kate Winslet to Emma Stone and Richard Gere seem to have flocked to the queasy project. Moviegoers can go them one better by staying away from it. Pervasive obscene and scatological humor, brief semigraphic sexual activity, full nudity, about a half-dozen uses of profanity, relentless rough and crude language. (O, R)

Parker (FilmDistrict)
Bloody and violent adaptation of "Flashfire," the 19th in the series of "Parker" novels written by Richard Stark, and directed by Taylor Hackford. A professional thief (Jason Statham) is betrayed by his partners in crime and left for dead. He recovers, and fueled by revenge and greed, tracks the gang to Florida where they are planning the jewel heist of the century. There, a lonely real estate agent (Jennifer Lopez) offers her help in return for a piece of the action. A benign view of stealing, considerable bloody violence including gunplay and knife fights, brief nudity, sexual innuendo, occasional profanity, frequent rough language. (O, R)

Safe Haven (Relativity)
Gooey adaptation of a tale by Catholic novelist Nicholas Sparks, directed by Lasse Hallstrom. A young woman (Julianne Hough) with a mysterious past steps off the bus in an idyllic seaside town in North Carolina and decides to stay. She's been running from something sinister, but is now determined to make a fresh start. She falls for a lonely widower (Josh Duhamel), and bonds with his two kids. But her new life is threatened by the arrival of a gun-toting adversary (David Lyons) who has doggedly pursued her for some time. Though attractive to look at, Hallstrom's latest Sparks-based cinematic confection has a morally dubious core that will leave ethically conscientious audience members with an unpleasant aftertaste. Brief violence, an ambiguous attitude toward marital fidelity, nongraphic adulterous sexual activity with fleeting partial nudity, a few instances each of profane and rough language. (L, PG-13)

Side Effects (Open Road)
Intriguing but somewhat sordid drama about a New York psychiatrist (Jude Law) who finds his career threatened when one of his patients (Rooney Mara) commits a sensational crime under the hypnosis-like influence of the anti-depressant drug he prescribed for her. As the shrink eventually discovers, all is not what it seems in director Steven Soderbergh's clever puzzler, which also stars Channing Tatum as the troubled woman's husband and Catherine Zeta-Jones as her former analyst. Mature viewers may enjoy following the twisting trail, and may appreciate the implicit questions raised in Scott Z. Burns' script about a society awash in pharmaceuticals. But a handful of sexual encounters, some of them aberrant — as well as the gory offense at the heart of the plot — preclude youngsters and those in search of casual diversion. Brief but bloody violence, graphic marital lovemaking with fleeting nudity, semi-graphic lesbian sensuality, mature themes, including mental illness and suicide, at least one use of profanity, some rough and crude language. (L, R)

Warm Bodies (Summit)
Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" meets the zombie flick in this monster mash that, unusual for its genre, goes light on the gore and contains a surprising number of Christian-friendly themes. Writer-director Jonathan Levine's screen version of Isaac Marion's novel presents love as the source of redemption and follows its protagonist's discovery that self-denial in the form of resisting base desires can make us more human. Some restrained gory violence, occasional profanity, at least one instance of rough language, about a half-dozen crude terms. (A-III, PG-13)

—CNS

Catholic News Service classifications: A-I — general patronage; A-II — adults and adolescents; A-III — adults; L —limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling; O — morally offensive. Full-length reviews: www.catholicnews.com/movies.htm.