Action/Adventure Rated PG-13
“…part action flick and part vaudeville act, On Stranger Tides suggests a pirate movie made by Buster Keaton.
Based on the Marvel comic-book series that was tellingly launched during the civil-rights movement, X-Men has all the action and costuming a comic property requires, but it’s most interesting as an allegory about discrimination and intolerance. When super-powered mutants begin to appear and the United States government moves to control them, Magneto (Ian McKellen) calls
“…a movie that lets its nerd flag fly.
“This is twice now that Marvel Studios has made me care for a comic-book figure who initially struck me as dopey.
“…like the sci-fi flick Alfred Hitchcock never made.
“Every moment is prettified as if this were some sort of prestige project; there isn’t an image shot plainly if it couldn’t be reflected in a puddle.
“Too often, Damon resembles a besotted, middle-school boy who’s chasing his crush not at recess, but in the Matrix.
“Considering there are so many new ways to tell an alien-invasion story (found footage, mockumentary, spoof), Battle: Los Angeles is almost defiantly old-fashioned.
“This isn’t the imagination of a young girl; it’s the fantasy of a 14-year-old boy steeped in kung fu, Call of Duty and online porn.”
Action/Adventure Rated PG
“It must have taken a lot of computers to pull this thing off; too bad the movie talks like one of them.
