A flair for Owen meanie: Clive shows off his knack for playing badasses in Shoot 'Em Up.

Capsules

New Releases

Live-in Maid
Directed by Jorge Gaggero
B
Reviewed by Philip Malaczewski
Opens Fri., Sept. 14

Jorge Gaggero’s feature-length debut moves along with such steady confidence, you might think it the work of a seasoned pro. The story is told in a no-frills manner, and the naturalistic filming exhibits admirable restraint.

Like the titular maid, the film operates with a brisk, no-nonsense grace. Unfortunately, the story is too slight for its own good.

In present-day Buenos Aires during an economic downswing Señora Beba (Argentinean actress Norma Aleandro) is a divorced fiftysomething ex-socialite, and Dora (Norma Argentina, another impressive first-timer) is her tacit maid and one of the few remnants of her vanished wealth. Beba keeps her hair coiffed and strides up city sidewalks like an aged Paris Hilton; then she stops at a pawn shop to bargain over a tea kettle. Eventually when Beba can no longer pay her maid’s salary, Dora is forced to consider finding work elsewhere.

The film examines the awkward truth that financial woes expose about both maid and boss. Beba is like a hopeless child, alone and dependent on her maid. Gaggero seems content to simply sit back and watch his characters approach their odd relationship, thus putting the bulk of the movie’s weight on the two lead actresses. Fortunately, both handle their roles with considerable deftness.

The problem with the film lies in its limited character evolution. Though Beba’s financial situation changes significantly by the film’s end, her friendship with Dora appears to change very little. When the screen cuts to black and a jarringly bouncy pop song plays over the credits, you’ll wish the film would’ve shown more about Beba and Dora. Still, much of the reason the ending is so unsatisfying is because the characters are so endearing in the first place.

Taking notes during Manda Bala, Jason Kohn’s deeply affecting documentary about violence and corruption in Sao Paulo, Brazil, I scribbled the words “holy shit” so often that I eventually started abbreviating them as “HS.”

Manda Bala has horrifying images galore; the film begins with an actual ransom video. But upon rereading my notes, I realized the later footage of a kidnapped man’s ear being cut off didn’t merit an HS, nor did stomach-turning footage of a plastic surgery procedure (pioneered in Sao Paulo due to demand) that reconstructs the ears of kidnapping victims.

The triple-underlined HSes were beside notes on scenes such as one with Paulo Lamarao, an attorney who’s dedicated his career to bringing down Jader Barbahlo, a politician alleged to have embezzled $2 billion from Amazon poverty programs. Toward the end of the segment, a dry rehashing of Barbahlo’s rise to power peppered with pictures of smiley political billboards, Lamarao says, “I won’t rest until I see him behind bars.” He pauses, shrugs, then throws in the offhand comment, “Unless he kills me.” HS.

Kohn knows how to showcase the little moments that illustrate how utterly standard violence is for his many interviewees. He speaks with a fascinating range of characters immersed in and tangential to the class war in Sao Paulo, where the rich steal from the poor and the poor kidnap the rich for ransom.

We see the surgeon who finessed the ear-replacement surgery, the booming bulletproof car business, a kidnapping victim, a masked kidnapper (whom Kohn randomly met through a taxi driver), a fleet of private helicopters that have replaced walking the dangerous streets for those rich enough to afford them, Barbahlo (entertainingly credited as “Corrupt Politician”) and the workings of a $9 million frog farm—allegedly one of Barbahlo’s money-laundering facilities.

There are real frogs on the farm, though. Kohn holds the loosely connected interviews together by returning to the frogs as they’re herded through their life cycle, slaughtered and eventually chicken-fried for a bunch of yuppies. The images—the most memorable of which is an early shot of a large frog swallowing a smaller one whole, as a worker explains that frogs always attack from the front—are somewhat heavy-handed in a documentary about class war. But HS, they’re pretty effective.

From the first Sergio Leone close-up of Clive Owen incongruously chomping on a carrot stick until the moment you’ve secretly been waiting for—when the British badass finally purrs, “What’s up, Doc?”—writer/director Michael Davis’ cheerfully rotgut, fast and furious craptacular orgy of bullets and mayhem aspires to be nothing more than a kicky, kinetic, high-caliber gun-crazy live-action update of a Looney Tunes cartoon, and on that level it’s a smashing success.

Both completely retarded and totally fucking awesome, Shoot ’Em Up finds Owen’s scowling, angry homeless man-with-no-name accidentally sucked into blazing away with both barrels to defend a newborn baby (between this and Children of Men, Clive clearly has a thing about sticking up for infants) from scenery-chewing Paul Giamatti and his seemingly inexhaustible supply of sinister henchmen, who for reasons too stupid and complicated to explain here, are all hell-bent on smiting this poor child.

So much for plot mechanics, as the movie is basically an 80-minute shootout that defies every known law of physics—it’s the last half-hour of John Woo’s Hardboiled stretched out to feature length, ramped up beyond absurdity and firing metric tons of lead into the silliest, most improbable scenarios imaginable. At one early crucial juncture, Owen and Giamatti are on separate rooftops, shooting out the bulbs of neon signs in order to spell out obscene messages to one another. It only gets goofier from there.

Bombshell Monica Bellucci turns up as a lactating hooker, and once Clive manages to clear away all the suckling johns in adult diapers, she’s enlisted to feed the kid and join his lonely crusade. Their flinty chemistry leads to a motel room assignation/ambush that should theoretically be a clear-cut case of coitus interruptus, but somehow that diligent multitasker Owen is enough of an acrobat that he can keep boning Bellucci even while simultaneously dispatching a room full of hitmen. (Clive even makes a lame joke about blowing his load. We haven’t heard these kind of groaner one-liners since Schwarzenegger took over California.)

The shooting just never stops, escalating into all sorts of increasingly preposterous situations. Shoot ’Em Up wears its cruddy, cheapo production values like a badge of honor, so exuberantly trashy and low rent you’ll almost forget it’s also toplined by two Academy Award nominees and an international supervixen. Owen in particular finds exactly the right poker-faced, half-kidding tone for the material, selling you on the silliness with an Eastwood-ian scowl and brawny movie-star charisma. It’s garbage-y, socially irredeemable nonsense, and just plain fun.

Genital-obsessed and painfully predictable, Freshman Orientation aspires to be a gay-friendly rom-com but winds up more like Chuck and Larry Go to College, reinforcing absurd stereotypes and insulting every kind of person imaginable.

Sam Huntington stars as Clay Adams, an all-American dude starting college and pumped to “tap into the campus hoasis.” Towing an even blander sidekick, Clay pretends he’s gay to get closer to the girl he likes. So original, right?

The lucky lady is Amanda (Kaitlin Doubleday), a cute blond freshman who’s in her mom’s old sorority only for the scholarship. She’s smart enough to reference American Beauty and Dylan, and even to sometimes see through frat guys’ bullshit. But she’s reeled right in by Clay’s unconvincing act, hastily assembled amid montages and declarations like, “You don’t know shit about being gay!”

The film’s subsequent observations are roughly as follows: Sororities and fraternities are dumb; it’s tough forging your own identity in college; and gay people love to break into spontaneous Britney singalongs. Factor in rape and gay-bashing as plot devices, and a challenge where sorority girls pick minorities to date and dump, and we’re left with a racist, homophobic piece of trash that can’t even muster any originality.

Adding insult to injury, an enviable supporting cast is wasted throughout. Heather “Weiner Dog” Matarazzo shrieks and swears nonstop as a shrill Jewish stereotype with a voice worse than Fran Drescher’s. SNL’s Rachel Dratch scores a giggle or two as a perma-drunk perma-student in her mid-30s, only to morph into a fairy godmother. Ditto John Goodman, the resident sage at a campus gay bar that never seems to check IDs.

It’s even worse than it sounds. Clay stumbles his way into Amanda’s heart and learns valuable life lessons, complete with a “no means no” message tacked on. The film’s original title was Home of Phobia—hinting that Ryan Shiraki is in on every would-be joke. But made in 2004, there’s a reason this is only now slinking quietly in and out of theaters: It’s irredeemable junk.

In this violent revenge flick, Jodie Foster plays Erica Bain, a poetic New York radio host forced to cope as a victim of a senseless crime. The film begins with Erica cooing over the radio waves, sounding like a whispery operator for a phone sex hotline as she waxes philosophical about New York’s disappearing charms. The intro sets the tone for the rest of the film, which unfolds like Kill Bill for the Lifetime Channel and takes itself far too seriously.

Garage banned: Corrupt board members investigate Steve Wiebe's arcade machine after he breaks the record in The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters.

David Kirmani (Naveen Andrews) is Erica’s charmingly British-accented doctor fiance. Don’t get too attached to David, though—he ends up serving as a cheap excuse for Erica to embark on a vengeful killing spree. You see, a group of young, belligerent Latino men shatter David and Erica’s dreams of marriage (and their faces) by viciously assaulting the couple as they stroll with their dog through the park one night. Erica awakes from a coma three weeks after the attack to find her fiance dead and his murderers still at large.

Left completely alone and without comfort (she inexplicably has no family or friends willing to do more than leave her an answering-machine message), Erica decides she must illegally buy a gun. Almost immediately she’s forced into a kill-or-be-killed scenario with a convenience store robber. She chooses to kill, and so begins a long string of questionable vigilante-style murders packaged as a tale of healing and empowerment.

The film is odious, not just because its cheap premise wastes a solid cast (which also includes Terrence Howard as a detective investigating the bloody corpses Erica leaves behind), but also because it maintains an air of self-righteousness all the while. There’s a weak attempt to wring a morality play out of Erica’s rampage, but Erica seems too comfortable with her role as self-elected executioner. She’d probably give Clarice Starling the creeps.

Creepiest of all, though, are the filmmakers, who seem intent on constructing different scenarios that permit Erica to pump bullets into sneering men and racial stereotypes. The film ends up coming across as a latent misandrist’s/racist’s wet dream, more shameless than brave.

Not Reviewed

Eastern Promises
Viggo Mortensen plays the driver for a notorious Eastern European crime family who gets tangled up with Naomi Watts’ troubled midwife in David Cronenberg’s latest. (Opens Fri., Sept. 14.)

Mr. Woodcock
Sean William Scott plays a self-help author intent on stopping his mother (Susan Sarandon) from marrying his former nemesis—his high school gym teacher Mr. Woodcock (Billy Bob Thornton). (Opens Fri., Sept. 14.)

Ongoing

Balls of Fury
Washed-up, overweight former prodigy Randy Daytona (Dan Fogler) is recruited by the FBI to infiltrate a mysterious crime lord’s ping-pong tournament. But first he must regain his skills by training under blind ping-pong master Wong (the excellently deadpan James Hong), regain his confidence and secure the love of a good woman. From its title to its frequent double entendres to its fascination with guys getting kicked in the crotch, Balls of Fury doesn’t aim high. But seeing Christopher Walken starring as Christopher Walken in a funny costume got old a while ago. And although his costumes are admittedly pretty funny, it’s hardly enough to carry a movie. C- (E.G.)

Becoming Jane
Anne Hathaway plays a young Jane Austen in the story of the writer’s purported real-life romance with a charming law student (James McAvoy). (Not reviewed.)

The Bourne Ultimatum
Director Paul Greengrass is back for The Bourne Ultimatum, a large chunk of which takes place between The Bourne Supremacy’s despairing Moscow climax and that feel-good studio-mandated N.Y.C. epilogue that never felt quite right. Having lost the one person he cared about, and still tormented by memories of murder, Jason’s heading home to confront the men who made him what he is. This is whip-smart genre filmmaking with a seething political undercurrent keyed directly into the here and now. The thrill lies in watching Jason strategize and outwit his would-be captors, improvising his way out of impossible situations with a Boy Scout’s resourcefulness and lightning-fast moves. The Bourne Ultimatum isn’t just the best movie of this trilogy—it’s one of the best films of the year. A (S.B.)

The Brothers Solomon
Two socially challenged brothers (Will Arnett and Will Forte) attempt to become parents in order to give their dying father a grandchild. This is a comedy, supposedly. (Not reviewed.)

Daddy Day Camp
Cuba Gooding Jr. is no Eddie Murphy. But could Murphy even help? (Not reviewed.)

Dans Paris
Louis Garrel runs around sleeping with a trio of girls and reading thematically relevant books in bed. And just when you’re wondering how director Christophe Honoré, the provocateur of the Oedipal Ma Mère, made such an unpretentious, freewheeling romp, in walks estranged mom Marie-France Pisier, resembling no less than his brother’s ex-flame. The result is pure experiment, a director working out a nutty thesis. But there’s a certain melancholy to it all. By the time Garrel and his brother meet up again, chatting more like sisters than brothers, the film’s ode to family—or even just film movements—is surprisingly hard to shake off. B (Matt Prigge)

Death at a Funeral
Matthew Macfadyen lords over an ensemble cast of mourners at his father’s funeral, but more important is the arrival of the two major plot complications. The first: Alan Tudyk unwittingly imbibes some high-test recreational pharmaceuticals procured from aspiring chemist/druggie Kris Marshall and loses it. The second: Peter Dinklage, recently seen as the baddie in Underdog, takes the far more dignified role as a gay dwarf out to blackmail the family with saucy pictures of him and the deceased. Death at a Funeral is really about only those two ideas—drugs and gay blackmail—at which the film pounds wearily away while lurching feebly toward the 90-minute mark, often fueled on nothing more than British accents. There’s a pretty good payoff to all this, but it’s like an oasis 100 yards away from where you just collapsed. C- (M.P.)

Death Sentence
When his family is attacked as part of a savage gang ritual, Kevin Bacon’s unassuming executive decides to take revenge on the perpetrators. From James Wan, the director of Saw. (Not reviewed.)

Deep Water
A documentary about the first solo ’round-the-world yacht race in 1968, and the psychological toll it took on one particular sailor. (Not reviewed.)

Halloween
Rob Zombie remakes the 1978 John Carpenter classic. (Not reviewed.)

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
The most exciting thing about David Yates’ Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is that, four sequels into this saga, it finally feels like we’re watching a bona fide, honest-to-God movie. Slashing J.K. Rowling’s almost 900-page opus down to a relatively trim 138 minutes, screenwriter Michael Goldenberg (new to the series; the previous pictures were penned by Steve Kloves) has shed countless subplots and fan favorites, at long last reconceiving Harry Potter in purely cinematic terms. It’s a tight, thematically unified piece of work, and the moral of the story is: Adolescence sucks. B+ (S.B.)

The Hottest State
Ethan Hawke’s second directorial effort (which he adapted from his semiautobiographical novel of the same name), State follows the love and heartache between a young actor (Mark Webber) and an aspiring singer (Catalina Sandino Moreno). (Not reviewed.)

Illegal Tender
Produced by John Singleton and directed by Franc. Reyes (Empire), Illegal Tender begins with an overly confident drug dealer being backstabbed by his trusted associates and then ceremoniously gunned down, just as his son is born. It then jumps to 21 years later, with said newborn now a high-marked collegiate (Rick Gonzalez) in bumfuck, Conn., driving a souped-up car and living with his moppet brother (Antonio Ortiz) and widowed mom (Wanda De Jesus) in a McMansion. How do they afford it, given De Jesus doesn’t appear to have a job? Gonzalez has never thought to ask that question, but when gun-toting thugs start frequenting their house, he’s confronted with the truth about his mother’s bankrolling tactics, the crimelord who wants them dead and the father he never met. As the woman who’s survived a dealing husband and put her family at risk, De Jesus works some guilt into her fiery performance, but Reyes’ film seems singularly unperturbed about the cost of living in the lap of luxury. C- (M.P.)

Tied together: Reece Thompson plays a stuttering high school student who joins the debate team in the well-executed indie Rocket Science.

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
Seth Gordon’s weirdly enthralling, hilarious documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters proves that old adage about battles being more vicious when the stakes are so low. Purportedly the most difficult arcade diversion ever unleashed, Donkey Kong demands all sorts of convoluted pattern recognition skills to master, as well as an ability to improvise around the machine’s more devious, randomized elements. What makes the film improbably compelling is how something as trivial as Steve Wiebe’s video-game score blossoms into a rallying cry for the noble underdog, battling against a crooked system of cronyism and arrogant, entrenched power. Director Gordon knows exactly what he’s doing here, pushing all the right nostalgia buttons with music cues like Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger,” and that annoyingly catchy montage tune from The Karate Kid. A- (S.B.)

Molière
Molière follows a recognizable formula: Take a famous dead artist. Imagine his most well-known works were not original creations but were instead cribbed from his life. Make a fictional biography of the artist including all these events, cobbled together by an implausible plot. Some of the antics are incredibly funny, whether you adore “Le Misanthrope” or think it sounds suspiciously like homework. The danger of this form is that an audience member unfamiliar with Molière, the French playwright and actor who transformed comedic theater in the 17th century, will be bored. This viewer will still laugh out loud at some of the ridiculous hijinks the characters get into, but also will be left with the nagging sense of not being in on the joke. B- (Nadine Kavanaugh)

Mr. Bean’s Holiday
Apparently someone still thinks Rowan Atkinson is funny. (Not reviewed.)

The Nanny Diaries
A college student (Scarlett Johansson) takes a job as a nanny for a wealthy Manhattan family with a spoiled child. Based on the novel by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus. (Not reviewed.)

No End in Sight
Charles Ferguson’s astonishing No End in Sight has arrived just in time to show the agitprop crowd exactly how to open a productive conversation. With a marked absence of partisan editorializing and nary a hint of snark, this no-nonsense, just-the-facts-ma’am chronicle of our ill-fated Iraq occupation turns into a chilly autopsy of what might be the biggest foreign policy clusterfuck of our lifetimes. It’s all talking heads, facts, dates, timelines, eyewitness accounts and hard evidence—and it’s absolutely riveting. This is a film every American needs to see. A (S.B.)

No Reservations
Catherine Zeta-Jones plays an uptight master chef challenged by the laidback likes of Aaron Eckhart. She’s also just taken in her young niece (Abigail Breslin), who along with Eckhart teaches her to loosen up. (Not reviewed.)

Rocket Science
Debate is simply a backdrop for the painful adolescence of our hero, frail freshman Hal Hefner. Hobbled by an intermittent stutter, Hal knows the answers in class but won’t raise his hand, and faces a Herculean task in choosing pizza or fish at lunch. When approached by chipmunk-y senior Ginny Ryerson (Anna Kendrick) about being her debate partner Hal can’t believe someone could have confidence in him, let alone a girl with actual curves. He still has to overcome his stutter, though. While the script can be overly literal, Rocket Science doesn’t aim to be anything more than a funny, heart-smart coming-of-age flick. The omniscient narration marks a logical step from documentary to fiction for director Jeffrey Blitz, whose spelling bee doc Spellbound was a surprise hit in 2002. A- (D.W.)

Rush Hour 3
On the heels of Brett Ratner’s billion-dollar-director day, declared so by a Variety ad celebrating the cumulative gross of his seven feature films, the Hollywood wunderkind has this to say: “It took 20 years to build a pyramid, 14 years to build Mt. Rushmore, 13 years to lose my virginity and six years to get Chris Tucker to make Rush Hour 3.” Let’s hope it was all worth it. (Not reviewed.)

The Simpsons Movie
The best you can hope for is a couple of half-decent late-period episodes laid out over 87 minutes that never make you feel like your youth is being anally violated. Which, yippee, is exactly what you get. C+ (M.P.)

Stardust
Tristan (Charlie Cox)—the bastard offspring of a princess held captive by an evil witch—ventures into a magical kingdom to find a falling star who turns out to be hot blond Claire Danes. Evil 300-year-old witch Michelle Pfeiffer wants to cut the star’s heart out so she can live forever. Then there’s a shitload of amusingly fratricidal princes who need to get a hold of the ruby the star’s wearing before they can become king. Cue tons of black magic, snogging and sword fighting. Peter O’Toole, Ricky Gervais and Robert De Niro kick scene-stealing ass as, respectively, a dying king, a venal merchant and a closeted gay pirate captain. And a swashbuckling great time is had by all. B (Steven Wells)

Superbad
Graduation looms large on the horizon for Seth (Jonah Hill). He’s already sick with separation anxiety, as his best friend and constant companion Evan (Michael Cera) just got into Dartmouth, while Seth barely squeaked his way into State. A typical Friday night of Web-surfing and sneaking Dad’s beers gets postponed by something that has never happened before to our dorky twosome: an honest-to-God party invitation. From pretty girls! The only catch is Seth and Evan are asked to supply all the alcohol. The most cutting and straightforward teen sex comedy since Fast Times at Ridgemont High, it’s a dirty movie with an overabundance of empathy and heart. A (S.B.)

Talk to Me
Broad as a barn door but shamelessly entertaining, Kasi Lemmons’ loud populist biopic chronicles the tumultuous career of legendary D.C. DJ Ralph Waldo “Petey” Greene Jr., a straight-shooting, shit-talking streetwise hustler played to the hilt by the great Don Cheadle. Heavily indebted to everything from Good Morning, Vietnam to Private Parts, screenwriters Michael Genet and Rick Famuyiwa paint their subject in gigantic folk-hero brushstrokes, structuring the saga around Petey’s unlikely friendship with his uptight Johnny Carson-worshipping producer/manager Dewey Hughes (Chiwetel Ejiofor). The film serves as a rebuke to our iPod-happy, private-playlist-addicted pop culture, saluting that quickly eroding community of radio, and remembering the way we used to share our sadness over the airwaves together. One nation, under a groove. B (S.B.)

The Ten
David Wain and Ken Marino—the Wet Hot American Summer wing of The State spill-over—unleash loopy, star-studded shorts on each of the Ten Commandments. (Not reviewed.)

Ten Canoes
Ten Canoes summons a vision of Australian Aborigine actor David Gulpilil’s ancestors, pre-Western contact. But this isn’t the neo-Cornel Wilde rush of Apocalypto—more like its better-behaved (and only slightly less interesting) cousin. There’s no overarching narrative, or even a climactic, apocalyptic wave of corruption from pesky colonialists. Instead the film splits its time between anthropological tidbits and tales performed by modern Aborigines. Between ethnography and storytelling, Ten Canoes falls hard on the latter, eventually devoting a large chunk of running time to the disappearance of a tribeswoman, and her colleagues’ suspicions that it’s the work of another tribe. B- (M.P.)

Them
This French/Romanian chiller from first-time co-directors David Moreau and Xavier Palud is less a movie than a photographed premise. We meet Clementine (Olivia Bonamy) and Lucas (Michaël Cohen), a French couple living in Bucharest, who’ve barely bedded down for the night when all sorts of creepy shit starts happening. It’s obvious Moreau and Palud are from the less-is-more school of terror, offering only the most jarring, fleeting glimpses of … well, something lurking. Them deliberately and skillfully obscures the threat, allowing our imaginations, with a bit of help from an aggressive sound design, to fill in the blanks. But a full hour of the film’s slender 77 minutes is spent running and jumping and shrieking and screaming—and frankly, it’s all a bit wearying, before it finally becomes just boring. C (S.B.)

This Is England
Director Shane Meadows takes us back to Thatcher-era 1983, a period awash in post-Falkland Islands skirmish shame, ska, Dr. Martens and, most important, skinheads. But the refreshing thing about This Is England is it doesn’t simply offer up a simple message about the skinhead subculture. Meadows reminds us that it grew out of not racial hatred but working-class unity, and only later splintered off. Thomas Turgoose plays a 12-year-old who lost his father to the Falklands. Alienated in new surroundings, he finds himself adopted by a crew of older skinheads, led by the ingratiating, laid-back Joe Gilgun. Enter Stephen Graham, a skinhead of another, more familiar kind. Graham is an incredible discovery, molding a character capable of bottomless sincerity and the unmistakable sense that this guy could explode any minute. But eventually This Is England goes from uncommonly smart to pat, and Graham goes from a fascinating creation to just another monster who’s really crying on the inside. B- (M.P.)

3:10 to Yuma
Based on an Elmore Leonard short story, the gritty, bare-bones oater gets a cluttered update full of annoying modern screenwriting conventions, extraneous characters, laboriously overexplained back-stories and superfluous action sequences. But the story’s unshakable pull somehow survives the clunky translation. The movie is exciting even when it’s stumbling all over the place. Christian Bale gives yet another ferociously committed performance as Dan Evans, a down-on-his-luck rancher who somehow finds himself stuck watching over Russell Crowe’s silver-tongued malevolent jailbird, waiting for that fabled prison train from which the tale takes its title. The film’s flaws can’t detract from the pure pleasure to be had in watching these two actors clearly having a blast, circling and sniffing around each another, trying to figure out what makes the other guy tick. B (S.B.)

2 Days in Paris
Over the course of the titular two days in the City of Lights, Parisienne Marion (Julie Delpy) and New Yorker Jack (Adam Goldberg) make each other’s lives hell, raising the question of whether their two-year relationship will survive—and ultimately, whether it should. Julie Delpy—who wrote, directed, starred in, edited, produced and composed the music—is clearly interested in what keeps people together. However, the film’s ultimate conclusion—that relationships last because people decide to stay together—lets these characters off too easily. There’s no catharsis for Marion or Jack, no moment of transformation. B- (N.K.)

Underdog
Have no fear: After gaining superpowers and the ability to speak from a lab experiment gone wrong, the caped beagle (voiced by Jason Lee) swoops in to save Capitol City from mad scientist Simon Barsinister (Peter Dinklage) and his henchmen. (Not reviewed.)

War
Jason Statham and Jet Li face off as, respectively, a vengeful FBI agent and the assassin who murdered his partner. (Not reviewed.)