Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg) is the telepod fusion of two very chilly visionaries – novelist Don DeLillo and screenwriter/director Cronenberg, who aren’t exactly stylistically simpatico, but Cronenberg might be the only filmmaker who would try to adapt DeLillo’s 2003 tale of a financial wizard’s personal and professional meltdown during an endless limo ride across Manhattan. It offers the same sort of vaguely hallucinatory, suffocating internal journey as Naked Lunch or eXistenZ. Nothing seems entirely real – not the explosive protests outside Robert Pattinson’s cocoon-like limousine, nor his stilted conversations with his wife (Sarah Gadon), his head of security (Kevin Durand) or his theory consultant (Samantha Morton). The film glides along on dreamy inertia, with characters popping up for random conversations before vanishing from the narrative. The result is more interesting as an intellectual experience than as entertainment you watch it fully aware that it wants to be deconstructed rather than enjoyed. 108 min.
Rating: NNN (NW)
Opens Jun 8 at Grande – Yonge, Kennedy Commons 20, Scotiabank Theatre, Varsity. See here for times.
High School (John Stalberg) is a goofy comedy about two friends (Matt Bush, Sean Marquette) trying to invalidate a drug test by baking the entire student body (and most of the faculty) with a batch of super-potent pot brownies. The premise sounds like an idea you’d come up with while stoned, but director Stalberg and co-writers Erik Linthorst and Stephen Susco use it as an excuse to make one of the broadest, silliest (yet somehow still endearing) stoner comedies in a while, indulging the adult members of the cast with particular gusto. I’m not sure what Oscar winner Adrien Brody is doing as the wild-eyed drug dealer Psycho Ed, but he seems to be enjoying himself. 99 min.
Rating: NNN (NW)
Opens Jun 8 at Kennedy Commons 20, Yonge & Dundas 24. See here for times. See here for times.
Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted (Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath, Conrad Vernon) is zippy, silly, antic fun with Alex the lion and his team of continent-hopping friends. Making a break for New York City by trekking across Europe, the gang joins a travelling circus that includes a sneering Siberian tiger (Bryan Cranston) and a sleek jaguar (Jessica Chastain, who oozes sex appeal even as a cartoon animal). On their tails is a villainous animal control chief, voiced with malevolent glee by the magnificent Frances McDormand. The humour is often pandering, but there are some cute zingers, particularly in reference to Canadians. The plot makes no attempts at logic – but, hey, it’s a movie about talking animals. They also dance, walk tightropes, swing from trapezes and get fired from canons, all to put on an extravagant neon 3-D show to wow kids and their babysitters. 85 min.
Rating: NNN (RS)
Opens Jun 8 at 401 & Morningside, Beach Cinemas, Carlton Cinema, Coliseum Scarborough, Colossus, Courtney Park 16, Eglinton Town Centre, Grande – Steeles, Grande – Yonge, Queensway, Rainbow Market Square, Rainbow Promenade, Rainbow Woodbine, SilverCity Fairview, SilverCity Mississauga, SilverCity Yonge, SilverCity Yorkdale, Yonge & Dundas 24. See here for times.
Double Trouble (David Hsun-Wei Chang) offers Jackie’s son Jaycee Chan a crack at slapstick action stardom, playing a security guard who joins up with a tourist (Xia Yu) to retrieve a 400-year-old painting stolen by a pair of stiletto-healed models. Though it desperately aspires to the exhilarating comedic tone of one of Jackie’s 80s action romps, the film never finds the right balance of laughs and fisticuffs. Jaycee is an entertaining screen presence but not much of a fighter, while director Chang apparently has never seen a pratfall or sex pun he didn’t love. It’s too fast-paced and goofy to be described as boring, yet too insubstantial to register. Subtitled. 89 min.
Rating: NN (Phil Brown)
Opens Jun 8 at Kennedy Commons 20, Yonge & Dundas 24. See here for times.
Prometheus (Ridley Scott) follows a team of corporate explorers to distant celestial body LV-223 in search of the origins of human life. They encounter something very similar to what the crew of Nostromo found in Alien – or will find, since this film takes place a good quarter-century or so before that one. After about 80 minutes establishing its cool, sleek elegance, Prometheus explodes into an incoherent rush of action and monsterism, abandoning both the merciless logic of Alien and the clever world-building of the sequels for an ending that makes no fucking sense at all. Seriously, I’m furious at how badly Scott and screenwriters Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof have botched this project. Prometheus doesn’t enhance or complement the original Alien as much as it builds a videogame module onto it, a weightless digital creation that can’t hold a candle to the original’s grimy analog impact. 119 min.
Rating: NN (NW)
Opens Jun 8 at 401 & Morningside, Beach Cinemas, Coliseum Mississauga, Coliseum Scarborough, Colossus, Courtney Park 16, Docks Lakeview Drive-In, Eglinton Town Centre, Empire Theatres at Empress Walk, Grande – Steeles, Humber Cinema, Queensway, Rainbow Market Square, Rainbow Promenade, Rainbow Woodbine, Scotiabank Theatre, SilverCity Fairview, SilverCity Yonge, SilverCity Yorkdale, Varsity. See here for times.
Beyond the Black Rainbow (Panos Cosmatos) is a simple mad scientist story tarted up with arty visuals. In an institute that promises spiritual healing through new technologies, a doctor keeps a young girl with a Scanners-like ability to blow up heads heavily sedated. She escapes. He reveals his inner monster and pursues. The story, told at a lugubrious pace, is leached of drama and thrills. 110 min.
Rating: N (AD)
Opens Jun 8 at Yonge & Dundas 24. See here for times.
Barrymore (Érik Canuel) is a high-def broadcast of William Luce’s play about the legendary actor John Barrymore, starring Canada’s Christopher Plummer in the lead. 143 min.
Opens Jun 7 at Coliseum Mississauga, Coliseum Scarborough, Grande – Yonge, Queensway, Scotiabank Theatre, SilverCity Yonge, Varsity. See here for times.
Wagner’s Dream (Susan Froemke) looks at Canadian director Robert Lepage’s controversial staging of the monumental Ring cycle for the Metropolitan Opera. 115 min.
Opens Jun 9 at Grande – Yonge, Queensway. See here for times.
