Photo Source: Warner Bros.
Sam Worthington quickly became an A-lister after the back-to-back-to-back success of "Terminator Salvation," "Avatar," and the remake of "Clash of the Titans," and he generally gave the same performance in each: earnest, square-jawed, a bit lumbering, but undeniably muscular. With that in mind, the new "Clash" sequel, "Wrath of the Titans," might be his most Worthingtonian film yet. Boasting better effects and a tighter story, "Wrath" picks up the action 10 years later as Perseus (Worthington) must defeat the evil gods Hades (Ralph Fiennes) and Ares (Edgar Ramirez, superb in 2010's "Carlos") before they free the all-powerful Kronos. Taking a cue from its star, "Wrath" is ruggedly all-business as it goes about dispensing one brawny action sequence after another, although the film's self-serious tone sometimes clashes with the story's sword-and-sandals cheesiness. All in all, it's a better ride than "Clash," but it's a shame that the terrific Ramirez doesn't have more to do.
A very different battle with the supernatural takes place in "Intruders," a horror movie that finds a British construction engineer (Clive Owen) becoming increasingly concerned that the bedtime fears of his teen daughter (Ella Purnell) about a mysterious phantom named Hollow Face may be real. Owen brings his usual soulful intensity to the role, but the movie's true stars are director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and cinematographer Enrique Chediak (previous collaborators on "28 Weeks Later"), who drape their moody, atmospheric tale in all the creeping unease it can bear. "Intruders" will unnerve you, even if the twist ending turns out to be too clever for its own good.
"Clever" would never be an adjective you'd use to describe Doug "The Thug" Glatt, the sweet, simpleminded hockey enforcer played quite winningly by Seann William Scott in "Goon." This lowbrow comedy set in the world of minor-league hockey is almost perfectly divided among crass shenanigans, sports-movie cliches, and surprisingly moving performances. Scott impresses as a dimwit who nevertheless has a fierce sense of integrity, and his fine turn is complemented by Liev Schreiber playing a grizzled hockey veteran who, like Glatt, makes his money beating up opponents on the ice. Also strong is Alison Pill as an emotionally guarded hockey groupie who can't quite believe she's fallen for the dopey, lovable Glatt. Though familiar and overly broad, "Goon" boasts a genuine underdog tone that makes this oft-violent movie unexpectedly touching.
It's been a decade since Halle Berry won an Oscar for "Monster's Ball," and her career has had more valleys than peaks since. Sadly, here comes another valley: She stars in the lackluster "Dark Tide," a character-driven thriller receiving a cursory theatrical run before landing on DVD next month. Berry plays a marine biologist specializing in sharks who's hired by an adventurous millionaire (Ralph Brown) for an up-close-and-personal boat tour of the deadly fish. Tonally ambitious, "Dark Tide" wants to combine a marital drama and a father-son tale with a disaster movie. But although Berry and co-star Olivier Martinez have a relaxed chemistry as an estranged couple, the movie's deliberate pacing doesn't lead to a potent-enough payoff when, inevitably, this expedition goes terribly, terribly wrong.
"Bully" has received significant media attention because its distributor, the Weinstein Company, has waged a high-profile campaign to fight the documentary's R rating for language. (Instead, it's coming out unrated.) Director Lee Hirsch chronicles the problems affecting young people at the hands of school bullies, focusing on a small group of tormented adolescents in the South and Midwest. Offering a simplistic but affecting overview of an important, complicated subject, "Bully" isn't nearly definitive enough to be considered required viewing, but perhaps the bright side to the documentary's ratings fight will be that it encourages parents to take their children to the movie and discuss it afterward.
Both inspirational and sobering, the documentary "The Island President" introduces us to Mohamed Nasheed, who is president of the Maldives, a series of 1,200 islands that are being threatened by the rising tides of the surrounding Indian Ocean. Director Jon Shenk briefly summarizes Nasheed's remarkable early life - including being imprisoned and tortured while protesting the brutal 30-year dictatorship of former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom - before following along with Nasheed's current attempts to convince the planet's superpowers to curb climate change. A compelling, savvy David up against the world's Goliaths, Nasheed comes across as a heroic figure, even in the face of a battle he might not win.
Climate change, scary boogeyman, wrathful titans: None of that concerns Alma, the daydreaming teen hero of "Turn Me On, Dammit!" Nope, she just wants to get laid and/or fall in love. This likable but incredibly slight Norwegian coming-of-age comedy stars first-timer Helene Bergsholm as a pretty, insecure girl who escapes her dull small-town existence through fantasies, often sexual, that feature her oblivious classmate crush, Artur (Matias Myren). Bergsholm has the right deadpan melancholy for the role, but "Turn Me On" suffers from a weak narrative pulse that keeps Alma's hormonal angst from being that, uh, arousing.
