This is Valentine's Day weekend and unfortunately the new film Valentine's Day has been getting generally unfavorable reviews. A new kids movie, Percy Jackson & The Olympians has better reviews. Dear john is back for another week.
This is Valentine's Day weekend and unfortunately the new film Valentine's Day has been getting generally unfavorable reviews. A new kids movie, Percy Jackson & The Olympians has better reviews. Dear john is back for another week.
Valentine's Day
Starring Jessica Alba, Kathy Bates, Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Eric Dane, Patrick Dempsey, Hector Elizondo, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Topher Grace, Anne Hathaway, Ashton Kutcher, Queen Latifah, Taylor Lautner, George Lopez, Shirley MacLaine, Emma Roberts, Taylor Swift, and Julia Roberts.
Valentine's Day, a big romantic comedy from director Garry Marshall, has many critics less than impressed. The story involves multiple story lines about love over a 24 hour period in Los Angeles, featuring top actors. However, the wealth of big names is not enough to propel this story forward, as Variety's Todd McCarthy explains, "this [movie] would rate high on any list of pictures featuring the greatest number of talented actors given the least interesting things to do..." So many stars means so many plots which many critics seem to cite as the problem. As Roger Ebert explains, "The form of the movie may remind you wistfully of a much better one, Love, Actually which created characters we cared a great deal about." but as Village Voice critic Karina Longworth points out this structure doesn't work, "Valentine's Day's rote episodic construction reduces each of its couplings to a couple of shopworn money shots, flattening any potential for their chemistry or our vicarious pleasure."
RATING: PG-13 for some sexual material and brief partial nudity.
Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief
Starring Logan Lerman, Brandon T. Jackson, Alexandra Daddario, Sean Bean, Pierce Brosnan, Steve Coogan, Rosario Dawson, Catherine Keener, Kevin McKidd, Joe Pantoliano, Uma Thurman, and Ray Winstone.
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief may be the best reviewed of the major motion pictures released this weekend, but critics are far from universal in praise. The film involves a 17 year old boy who discovers he is the son of Poseidon and, along with the help of his friends, must find Zeus' lightning bolt in order to save his mother. Most critics have focused on comparing the youth-oriented fantasy with Harry Potter, though not all can agree on the outcome of such a comparison. The UK Mirror's Mark Adams explains the film "deserves to find an audience with teens now bereft of any Harry Potter magic" though The Boston Globe's Wesley Morris is less favorable, stating,"Watching this movie, adapted by Craig Titley, your appreciation for the complexity and vastness of Rowling’s vision only grows." However, none of the critics suggest that this will be able to outdo Potter. Possibly the most consistent complaint is the title, with Wesley Morris calling it reminiscent of an "Otis Redding cover band." Roger Ebert gives it 3 stars, but says "Director Chris Columbus has fun with this goofy premise, but as always I am distracted by the practical aspects of the story. Does it bother the Greek gods that no one any longer knows or cares that they rule the world?"
RATING: PG for action violence and peril, some scary images and suggestive material, and mild language.
Dear John
Starring Channing Tatum, Amanda Seyfried, Henry Thomas, Richard Jenkins, and Keith Robinson.
Directed by Lasse Hallström and based on the novel by best-selling author Nicholas Sparks, DEAR JOHN tells the story of John Tyree, a young soldier home on leave, and Savannah Curtis, the idealistic college student he falls in love with during her spring vacation. Over the next seven tumultuous years, the couple is separated by John's increasingly dangerous deployments. While meeting only sporadically, they stay in touch by sending a continuous stream of love letters overseas—correspondence that eventually triggers fateful consequences.
RATING: PG-13 for some sensuality and violence.
Visit the Anacortes Cinemas Web site for showtimes.