Barry’s Movie Reviews
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Looper ***1/2
A time-travel movie like none you’ve seen before. In the futuristic action thriller Looper, time travel will be invented – but it will be illegal and only available on the black market. When the mob wants to get rid of someone, they will send their target 30 years into the past, where a “looper” – a hired gun, like Joe – is waiting to mop up. Joe is getting rich and life is good… until the day the mob decides to “close the loop,” sending back Joe’s future self for assassination. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis play the young and old versions of the same character in writer-director Rian Johnson’s surprising, exciting sci-fi adventure set in the near future. Also starring Emily Blunt, Piper Perabo and Jeff Daniels (R) 118 minutes. Three and a half stars
Won’t Back Down ***
Frustrated by bureaucracy and politics, two mothers (Viola Davis and Maggie Gyllenhaal) decide to do something to save their kids’ failing inner-city school, playing two determined mothers, one a teacher, who will stop at nothing to transform their children’s city school. Facing a powerful and entrenched bureaucracy, they risk everything to make a difference in the education and future of their children. This powerful story of parenthood, friendship and courage mirrors events that are making headlines daily. Every educator, parent, school board should see it. (PG-13) 115 minutes. Three stars
The Perks of Being A Wallflower **1/2
Friends (Emma Watson, Ezra Miller) try to help an introverted teenager (Logan Lerman) become more sociable. (PG-13) 103 minutes. Two and a half stars
Pitch Perfect **
Anna Kendrick is a college freshman who leads her all-girls singing group in a school competition against the boys’ team. You know, like Glee, but in college. When she joins her college’s female a cappella group, she takes the women out of their comfort zone of traditional pieces and introduces them to innovative arrangements. (PG-13) 112 minutes. Two stars
Hotel Transylvania *1/2
Welcome to the Hotel Transylvania, Dracula’s lavish five-stake resort, where monsters and their families can live it up, free to be the mosters they are without humans to bother them. On one special weekend, Dracula has invited some of the world’s most famous monsters – Frankenstein and his wife, the Mummy, the Invisible Man, a family of werewolves, and more – to celebrate his daughter Mavis’s 118th birthday. For Drac, catering to all of these legendary monsters is no problem – but his could come crashing down when one ordinary guy stumbles on the hotel and takes a shine to Mavis. Adam Sandler, Kevin James and Andy Samberg provide the voices for this animated comedy about a boy who discovers Dracula is real — and falls in love with his daughter. (PG) 91 minutes. One and a half stars
