• 42 (PG-13) Sports biopics are largely interchangeable. The sports and the players may change, but the obstacles to overcome are nearly identical. Heck, the same could be said of any biopic, musical, sport, etc. Still, something about the challenges faced by Jackie Robinson (gracefully inhabited by unknown Chadwick Boseman) as he broke the color barrier in professional baseball feels so much more singular than your average true tale of successfully bucking the odds. When signed to the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, Robinson faced derision by his teammates, opposing players and coaches (embodied by Alan Tudyk as Phillies manager Ben Chapman) and the fans. The role of Robinson requires a special actor giving a special performance. Boseman’s is not a skilled mimicry like so many other portrayals of famous persons; he imbues Robinson with such strength of character and composure. Equally important to this tale is Dodgers exec Branch Rickey, so gruffly played by Harrison Ford, who may finally be making the transition into grand old actor. Writer-director Brian Helgeland does nothing unique as he recounts this cinematic biography, but his film reads quickly, entertainingly and informatively. What more could you ask of a biopic?

ASK TESADUFLERI SEVER (NR) A Turkish film with the English title Love Likes Coincidences follows two young lovers who continue to come across each other but can never be together. Showing once on Wednesday, Apr. 16 at 8 p.m.(UGA MLC, Room 367)

THE CALL (R) Until a final act that is so predictably out of character for Halle Berry’s heroine, The Call knows exactly what it is; a pulpy genre thriller; and excels at its sole task of generating as much entertainment as possible via suspense. After feeling responsible for the death of a teenage girl, veteran 911 operator Jordan Turner (Berry) is reluctant to take another emergency call. But when another teenager, Casey Welson (Abigail Breslin), is kidnapped by the same nondescript white guy, Jordan makes it her mission to save this victim. Considering the leads interact via telephone for the majority of the movie, it was smart to cast a beautiful, if strangely bewigged, Academy Award winner and a cute, all grown up former child nominee. Couple those two talented actresses with the claustrophobia and helplessness of the central locations, and the audience is treated to a pretty gripping first two acts; the last act is not awful, just an uncreative, poor relation to its predecessors. Director Brad Anderson (Session 9, The Machinist, Transsiberian) gets as much tension as he can out of this script and should have his first bona fide hit to show for the effort. Answer this Call.

THE CROODS (PG) Despite its underwhelming trailers, The Croods stands out as one of the best non-Pixar animated family films released in the last few years. A family of cavemen—dad Grug (v. Nicolas Cage), mom Ugga (v. Catherine Keener), teen daughter Eep (v. Emma Stone), dumb son Thunk (v. Clarke Duke), feral baby Sandy and grandma (v. Cloris Leachman)—are forced on a cross-country road trip after their cave is destroyed by the impending “end of the world.” Fortunately, Eep meets Guy (v. Ryan Reynolds), whose developed brain filled with “ideas” might just help them all survive. Most cute family fun pics feel rehashed and overdone; The Croods does not. Its characters successfully, though unbelievably, combine the Flintstones with the Simpsons, and the voice acting, particularly by Cage, Stone and Reynolds sparkles. Cage was an inspired choice, for a role one would think is practically written for Kevin James. Most animated features, with their paint-by-numbers plot and rote, child-pleasing gags lose an adult’s attention within minutes of beginning. The Croods held my rapt attention for its entire entertaining run time and left me considering potential plots for its inevitable, disappointing sequel.

DJANGO UNCHAINED (R) Not many auteurs can take an academic cinematic exercise and turn it into one of the year’s most entertaining spectacles like Quentin Tarantino can in this Oscar winner for Best Original Screenplay. Slave Django (Jamie Foxx) is freed by dentist-turned-bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Best Supporting Actor Academy Award winner and Golden Globe nominee Christoph Waltz, the single greatest gift QT has given American movie audiences). Together the duo hunts bad guys and seeks Django’s wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), who belongs to plantation owner Calvin Candie (Golden Globe nominee Leonardo DiCaprio). For a critically acclaimed award nominee, Django Unchained is an ultraviolent blast. Every bullet creates an unbelievable explosion of blood, and every actor gives a gleefully energetic performance. DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson have a particularly grand chemistry. Modern cinema’s biggest cinephile-cum-director again proves how great a genre film can be. QT continues to bring exploitation flicks from the grindhouse to the multiplex and the award shows. Few modern movies convey their creator’s delight as a QT film does; one knows he is making movies he wants to see, not movies to which he thinks audiences will flock. Sure, detractors will slam Django Unchained for its bloody violence and offensive language, but it’s most notable for a perfectly rare combination of art and entertainment.

EVEN THE RAIN (NR) 2010. Icíar Bollaín directs this Spanish film based on a true story about a film crew that spurred protests in Cochabamba, Bolivia in 2000 over privatization of the water works. With Gael Garcia Bernal. (Ciné)

EVIL DEAD (R) The remake of Sam Raimi’s cult classic is more important for what it represents—an R-rated gorefest released into mainstream multiplexes—than what it is: an above average horror movie. Picking up some time A.A. (After Ash; see Ash’s car rusting away behind the cabin), 2013’s Evil Dead puts five new young people (including Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez and Lou Taylor Pucci) through the horrific, maddening, limb-threatening paces. When will young people learn not to read from a book bound in human skin? What Evil Dead gets right is the massive amounts of blood poured upon its actors. Director Fede Alvarez also shows (borrows) the stylistic imagination of a young Raimi. Still, the importance of Bruce Campbell’s Ash was underestimated. The new victims don’t generate any connection with the audience. Evil Dead also lacks a tonal identity. Does it want to be fun or discomfortingly intense? It’s neither. (I’d like to see Diablo Cody’s original version for its distinctive tone, if nothing else.) Gorehounds (like me) are going to see Evil Dead no matter what, but if the droves of teenage horror fans show up, a new generation of horror movies that deliver the gory goods we want can begin.

FRENZY (R) 1972. Screening as part of Ciné’s 6th Anniversary Celebration, Frenzy is Alfred Hitchcock’s penultimate film. A serial killer, whose M.O. is strangling young women with a necktie, is on the loose in London. Too bad the police have the wrong man. That description makes this Hitch flick sound very Giallo-like. Richard Allen, the chair of the Department of Cinema Studies at NYU’s Tisch School for the Arts and a Hitchcock scholar, will be discussing the film at the Monday, Apr. 22 screening. (Ciné)

G.I. JOE: RETALIATION (PG-13) G.I. Joe: Retaliation is everything that G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra was not. The second Joe movie is also the movie for which my inner child has been waiting since 1987. Mostly ignoring Stephen Sommers’ 2009 misfire, this franchise reboot introduces three new lead Joes: Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson), Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki) and my childhood favorite, Flint (D.J. Cotrona); Duke (Channing Tatum) and Snake Eyes (Ray Park) are pretty much the only other Joes to reenlist for the sequel. Featured Cobra players—Zartan, who appears as the President (Jonathan Pryce) for almost the entire movie, Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee) and Firefly (Ray Stevenson)—plot to break Cobra Commander, much improved from the first movie, from a super-secret prison. (Sadly, no love is shown for Destro in this prison break.) But the plot is inconsequential. G.I. Joe blows stuff up real good. Director Jon M. Chu (Step Up 2 and 3) proves as proficient filming action stunts as kinetic choreography. The mountainside ninja battle is an exciting sequence that could’ve been ripped right from the popular 80s cartoon. G.I. Joe: Retaliation has just the right amount of stupid smarts (and Bruce Willis) to be a nostalgic blast of action.

A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD (R) Do audiences find Bruce Willis’ New York Detective John McClane running into trouble for a fifth time, in Russia, with his CIA operative son (Jack Reacher’s Jai Courtney), believable? Does it matter? Maybe. R-rated action is not doing so hot, with Arnold’s The Last Stand and Sly’s Bullet to the Head both underperforming their already low expectations. Respectable but unexciting action director John Moore (Behind Enemy Lines, Flight of the Phoenix, The Omen and Max Payne) should be better than Live and Let Die Hard’s Len Wiseman.

HANSEL & GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS (R) Wondering how Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters made it to theaters is a far more interesting way to spend the action fairy tale’s sub-90-minute runtime. The fabled origin of Hansel and Gretel is well-known. Two kids are left alone in the forest and stumble upon a witch’s candy house; the kids kill the witch. Dead Snow’s Tommy Wirkola imagines what happens next, as Hansel and Gretel (Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton) grow up to be traveling hunters of deadly witches. Apparently, the biggest, baddest witch (Famke Janssen) is hatching a plot that requires Gretel, due to a not-so-surprising mid-film reveal. Renner deserves better starring roles than this, or the ones in The Avengers and The Bourne Legacy. He needs a role to highlight his dry delivery and superheroics. Arterton’s pretty and British, but her Gretel is an interchangeable part that could have been played by many a former Bond girl. Wirkola also seems to have some difficulties with tone, shifting from mean and callous to slapstick in seconds. Perhaps the presence of Will Ferrell and Adam McKay as producers pushed the movie to be funnier than it needed. Hansel & Gretel will be forgotten soon.

THE HOST (PG-13) What Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight novels did to horror, she does to science fiction in The Host. (Twilight was horror without the horror; The Host is science fiction without those pesky tropes particular to science fiction.) Alien invaders have conquered Earth. Most of humanity has had their bodies taken over by an extraterrestrial tenant. (How do you know if someone’s possessed? Their icy blue Fahey eyes.) When the invaders implant a soul named Wanderer into the body of Melanie Styder (Saoirse Ronan), Melanie fights back, eventually convincing/leading Wanderer to Melanie’s human family and friends, a group of desert-living rebels led by William Hurt. Once there, Wanda, as the humans call her, falls for one boy, while Melanie continues to love Jared (Max Irons). You knew Meyer would work her love triangle (or in this case, love rectangle?) into the plot somewhere. Writer-director Andrew Niccol has had varying levels of success in the science fiction (his peak seems more and more to have been his first feature, Gattaca), and The Host’s flaws don’t belong so much to him as to Meyer. Niccol only had so much flimsy material with which to work; his resulting film feels empty, sparsely populated and worst, boring.

IN THE HOUSE (R) Francois Ozon riveted audiences with Swimming Pool; now he peels back the curtain to reveal what goes on inside the home of a perfect family. A teacher (Fabrice Luchini) takes an interest in a bright young writing student. That student turns a little too Tom Ripley, as he insinuates himself into the life of a fellow student and writes about what he discovers. The trailer offers a very intriguing film. With Kristen Scott Thomas and Emmanuelle Seigner.

JURASSIC PARK 3D (PG-13) Some movies are made to be watched dozens upon hundreds of times at home on TV; Jurassic Park is not one of those movies. It deserves, nay, requires being seen in a theater, on a big screen, accompanied by booming theatrical sound. One thing JP does not require is 3D; a 2D theatrical screening of Steven Spielberg’s last classic blockbuster will suffice. This 20-year-old, effects-laden, dino-disaster pic, based on Michael Crichton’s giddy sci-fi adventure, has aged much better than your last home viewing experience has you remembering it. The first moment Drs. Alan Grant (Sam Neill), Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) and Ian Malcolm (the always entertaining Jeff Goldblum) see a dinosaur can still thrill, even after the intervening years and improved effects. (A hefty chunk of that credit goes to John Williams’ score, which stands alongside his greatest works.) If you’ve got a kid or a younger sibling that has never seen Jurassic Park, take them on a visit to John Hammond’s magically dangerous kingdom, courtesy of the wonderful cinematic imagination of Steven Spielberg. Or see it on your own and relive the memories of that glorious summer afternoon in 1993 when dinosaurs again ruled the Earth.

LIFE OF PI (PG) Having last thought of Yann Martel’s novel when I read it nearly 10 years ago, the ineffective trailers for Ang Lee’s adaptation failed to remind me of how wonderful and energetic Pi Patel’s life had been. I recalled a shipwreck, a lifeboat and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. The imaginatively conceived and beautifully told work of art created by Brokeback Mountain Oscar winner Lee, who certainly deserved the award he received this year for Best Director, reminded me of the many, small joys that add up to make the life of Pi. Do not let the underwhelming previews deprive you of one of the year’s most moving, most artistic films of the year. The opening anecdote relating the origin of Pi’s name conjures up the modern fairy tale magic of past crowd-pleasers Amelie and Hugo. Newcomer Suraj Sharma, stranded for lengthy sequences with nothing but a tiger for a costar, and the ever-excellent Irrfan Khan (most recently seen in The Amazing Spider-Man) deliver delicate performances.

THE LORDS OF SALEM (R) Rocker turned filmmaker Rob Zombie returns with his sixth feature film. Judging from the trailers, Zombie’s wife, Sheri Moon Zombie, stars as a young woman being sought by the titular lords to give birth to Satan on Earth. At least that’s what it looks like. No matter the plot, Lords appears to be a chip off the Zombie movie block, which appeals to me and my ilk. Could it find moderate success at a post-Evil Dead box office? Horror fans should enjoy appearances from Bruce Davison, Meg Foster, Patricia Quinn, Ken Foree, Dee Wallace, Michael Berryman and Sid Haig.

LOW BLOW (R) 1986. Joe Wong (Leo Fong) is a private investigator hired by a rich dude to save his daughter from the cult, led by blind, wheelchair bound Yarakunda (Cameron Mitchell, best remembered for the TV series “The High Chaparral”), who has brainwashed her. Teenage heartthrob Troy Donahue appears, but nobody cares. The old VHS box sports the great tagline, “The Deadliest Weapon Is Still Your Fist.” Director Frank Harris has a filmography that would not recommend his hiring. Part of Ciné's Bad Movie Night. (Ciné)

MAMA (PG-13) As much of a horror movie fan as yours truly is, the ghostly stories often favored by Spanish filmmakers are not my subgenre of choice. In Mama, produced by Guillermo del Toro and based on a short expanded by writer-director Andrés Muschietti, two young girls are found in a cabin, where they have lived alone for five years. Unfortunately, when Annabel and Lucas (Academy Award nominee Jessica Chastain and Nicolaj Coster-Waldau) get Victoria and Lily home, they discover the two girls were not alone in the woods, and they’ve brought their rather angry “Mama” with them. The buildup is slow and foreboding, but the final act asks far too much of its CGI creature, whose overly digital appearance elicits more giggles than screams. When coupled with Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, Mama sucks a bit more wind out of del Toro’s producing sails; so long as summer’s Pacific Rim doesn’t dim his writing-directing luster, everything should be okay.

NO (R) Pablo Larrain’s fourth feature is one of the Academy Award nominees for Best Foreign Language Film. In 1988 Chile, ad exec Rene Saavedra (Y Tu Mama Tambien’s Gael Garcia Bernal; think Don Draper en Español) plots to defeat Augusto Pinochet. Larrain’s previous features Fuga, Tony Manero and Post Mortem have yet to break through in the United States; this Oscar nominee could be it. Featuring Jane Fonda, Richard Dreyfuss, Christopher Reeve and Augusto Pinochet as themselves. (Ciné)

OBLIVION (PG-13) Tom Cruise’s latest movie is a pre-summer, sci-fi, potential blockbuster. After an alien invasion devastated the Earth, few people remain to mine the last planet’s remaining resources. One of the last people on the planet, Jack Harper (Cruise), discovers everything might not be as it seems after finding a 22-year-old woman and a 102-year-old insurgency leader, Malcolm Beech (Morgan Freeman). Tron: Legacy’s Joseph Kosinski directs this sci-fi actioner that kind of reminds me of the popular videogame, Mass Effect. With Olga Kurylenko, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (“Game of Thrones”’ Jamie Lannister) and Melissa Leo.

OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN (R) Olympus Has Fallen feels like a relic from the bygone era of the 1980s, where audiences were satisfied by old-fashioned, bloody action movies wherein stone-faced heroes faced off against despicable bad guys without obfuscating their violent exploits with frenetic camerawork. Too bad director Antoine Fuqua’s latest flick isn’t the new Die Hard, as this Gerard Butler-saves-the-president actioner easily bests John McClane’s latest misfire. Disgraced Secret Service Agent Mike Banning (Butler, who needs to stick to action movies) is the only person in America who can save the President (Aaron Eckhart) after North Korean terrorists take over the White House. The movie relies quite heavily on Butler’s manliness. Luckily, no one is more badass than the Scot best known as 300’s King Leonidas (when he’s not wooing Katherine Heigl or Jessica Biel). The supporting cast keeps up better than usual, which should not surprise considering the presence of Morgan Freeman (as the Speaker of the House), Melissa Leo, Angela Bassett, Robert Forster, Dylan McDermott, Radha Mitchell and Cole Hauser. With a franchise-worthy new hero and a well-choreographed, well-shot focus on physical conflict, Olympus Has Fallen kicks butt better than the muscular bulk of recent action movies.

OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL (PG) First and foremost, Sam Raimi’s The Wizard of Oz prequel is no Wizard; it’s not even Return to Oz, the very dark, very underrated 1985 sequel. Disney’s latest family blockbuster reveals the wizard’s own cyclonic entry to Oz. Carnival magician and con man Oscar Diggs (James Franco, whose performance is nothing if not inconsistent) meets three witches—Theodora (Mila Kunis), Evanora (Rachel Weisz) and Glinda (Michelle Williams)—who believe him to be the great wizard whose appearance in Oz was prophesied. In the void left by the recently deceased king, Oscar must determine which witches are wicked and which are good. Raimi trots out his usual visual wizardry, and Oz is as successful as his first Spider-Man entry once it gets going. The middle act gets a bit logy as the good people of Oz prepare for battle via sewing montages. The climax is filled with whiz-band special effects, used effectively, and ties in well with the classic film being emulated. I just wish Raimi had chosen to make his Wicked Witch via makeup, like the original’s Margaret Hamilton, as opposed to CGI. Oz won’t make anyone forget the original, but it doesn’t shame its memory either.

• THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES (R) The Place Beyond the Pines is an easy film to laud, an easier film to critique, but a tough film to recommend. At two hours and twenty minutes, writer-director Derek Cianfrance’s follow-up to Blue Valentine is constructed like three short stories, all connected by one major event. In the first story, Ryan Gosling stars as Luke Glanton, a stunt bike rider who turns to bank robbery to take care of his young son and baby mama (Eva Mendes). The second story stars Bradley Cooper as Avery Cross, a rookie police officer turned hero turned whistleblower. The final arc connects the two men via their similarly aged sons in ways much less profound than the somber film or its imperious running time imply. The Gosling-led initial sequence is the strongest; it carries the aura of Michael Man(n)hunter that influenced Drive, thanks largely to the soundtrack by Faith No More’s Mike Patton, which offers hints of Clint Mansell and Angelo Badalamenti. (Despite its enigmatic title, the film lacks any other similarities to David Lynch.) An ambitious character study of fathers and sons, The Place Beyond the Pines isn’t an easy watch, but is ultimately more rewarding than arduous.

QUARTET (PG-13) In his directorial debut, Dustin Hoffman fashions a delightful trifle filled with deliciously British performances from Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, Billy Connolly, Pauline Collins, Michael Gambon and more. At Beecham House, a home for retired musicians, plans are afoot for a gala to celebrate Verdi’s birthday. Drama arrives in the form of an aging diva, Jean Horton, who is also the ex-wife of another resident (Courtenay). Smith is her usually grand self (and as her actual age, not older, for once!). It’s wonderful to see Courtenay and Collins as featured players. Renowned scene stealer Connolly is up to his old tricks as aged horndog Wilf. Hoffman unfussily directs Oscar winner Ronald Harwood’s play with an actor’s generosity for his actors. Anyone who enjoyed their stay at The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel should also enjoy the performances of Quartet. (Ciné)

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK: THE ADAPTATION (NR) 1989. After watching Steven Spielberg’s classic film, three teenage boys decided to stage their own shot-for-shot reenactment. The boys from Mississippi spent the next seven years doing just that; they also created a cult phenomenon in the process. The sweet ode to cinema is screening on Thursday, Apr. 18 at the UGA Tate Center and on Saturday, Apr. 20 at Ciné, as part of Ciné’s 6th Anniversary Celebration. The Adaptation’s own Indiana Jones, Chris Strompolos, will be in attendance for both screenings. (Ciné, UGA Tate Theatre)

• SCARY MOVIE V (PG-13) So Scary Movie is back. What do you really need to know? A Paranormal Activity/Mama mashup provides the frame that is rattily covered by an hour and thirty minutes of puerile, scattershot jokes. A Black Swan B-plot? Real timely, David Zucker and Pat Proft, who’ve done this parody thing so much more successfully in their shared Naked Gun past. Airplane! worked as a spoof of disaster movies that developed its own witty gags. The Scary Movies simply tosses pop culture references and cameos by celebrities who have passed their sell-by date with no real interest in spoofing the genre they allegedly came to spoof; if Mike Tyson meets Fifty Shades of Grey jokes make you giggle, be my guest. How did they get that Evil Dead sequence (the movie’s strongest, at that) into theaters within a week of its release? At least A Haunted House had Marlon Wayans. Simon Rex is some weak comic sauce. The absolutely frightening aspect of this movie is the thought that enough people might venture to see it to warrant a sixth entry.

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK (R) 2012. After being released from a state mental hospital, Pat (Academy Award nominee Bradley Cooper) meets Tiffany (Academy Award winner Jennifer Lawrence), who lost it after the death of her husband. Instead of exacerbating each other’s unhealthy flaws, the relationship between these two cracked souls heals both, much to the surprise of everyone, including Pat’s parents (dual Oscar nominees Robert De Niro and Animal Kingdom’s Jacki Weaver). Silver Linings Playbook has an awkward edge that makes even the smallest successes so much sweeter. David O. Russell’s fiery demeanor and beautiful writing certainly ignites his actors; Cooper and Lawrence give two of the year’s most generous and honest performances. Silver Linings Playbook should not be missed. (Ciné, UGA Tate Theatre)

• TRANCE (R) Do not think too hard about Trance’s mesmerizing complex plot once it’s over, or else risk smashing the exquisitely designed psycho-thriller. Academy Award winner Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) reunites with his Shallow Grave and Trainspotting writer, John Hodge (word of warning: Hodge also wrote Boyle’s disappointing A Life Less Ordinary and The Beach), but either Hodge wrote too smartly for the film’s own good or Boyle couldn’t care less about whether or not his films make sense (a fair critique of many of his films). Here, the third act is thrilling, but good luck unraveling it without unknitting the entire narrative carpet. What starts as an art heist flick, starring James McAvoy as an art auctioneer and Vincent Cassel as a criminal, ends as a head trip about hypnosis, memory, domestic violence, pubic hair in classical art (don’t ask unless you really want the answer) and more. Rosario Dawson contributes to the latter as MacAvoy’s hypnotherapist. Boyle gets every last stylish drop out of this film. The set designs (see Cassel’s apartment), lighting and wickedly danceable soundtrack mask any narrative flaws. Trance is hypnotically watchable; just don’t try and recall too much of it once you’ve been awakened.

TYLER PERRY’S TEMPTATION (PG-13) Is it possible for a filmmaker to “jump the shark?” If so, Tyler Perry’s Temptation might be that point for Atlanta’s multi-hyphenate filmmaker. He cast Kim Kardashian, for goodness’ sake. And wait for Brandy’s climactic reveal. It’s the sort of melodramatic gem that could turn this dreck into popular camp were it less dull. A marriage counselor, Judith (Jurnee Smollett-Bell), who feels neglected by her nice guy, pharmacist husband, Brice (Lance Gross), waltzes off with a handsome, ripped billionaire, Harley (Robbie Jones), after he offers her the good life of shopping, drugs, sex, etc. By the time Judith’s religious mother (Ella Joyce) wanders in to preach at her daughter (and the audience), it’s too late. Old Judith done let the devil in. Remember that post-Basic Instinct period of the early-to-mid '90s when a new erotic thriller was coming out each week? Well, imagine one of those Basic rip-offs minus all the risqué, headline-making sexuality; substitute a sermon instead, and you’ve got Temptation. Unfortunately, Perry seems too caught up in making easy box office cash to worry that much about reinforcing stereotypes. He’s probably got another hit, but at what cost? Not enough to outweigh his millions upon millions of benefits.

WARM BODIES (PG-13) Having witnessed many a zombie apocalypse, I can say with complete assuredness that Warm Bodies is not your usual end of the world via the flesh-eating living dead flick. This zomrom stars X-Men: First Class’ Nicholas Hoult (poised for a big year with March’s Jack the Giant Slayer) as R, who is not your typical zombie. Blessed (or cursed) with a rather rich inner life, R still munches brains but he’s conflicted about it, especially after meeting Julie (Teresa Palmer, Take Me Tonight). She kickstarts his heart, starting a chain reaction amongst all the corpses (the survivors’ term for zombies), except for the too far gone Boneys. Working from Isaac Marion’s oddly delightful premise, filmmaker Jonathan Levine, who’s on quite a roll (he’s 4-for-4 in my book) after 50/50, whips up a still horrific, mostly romantic early Valentine for adventurous couples and soft-hearted horror fans. Levine retains his spot on the young filmmaker’s to watch list (that maybe only I am keeping). Not wasting Rob Corddry, as R’s BLDF (Best Living Dead Friend), and John Malkovich, as Julie’s overbearing, military father, is another of the film’s boons. Ignore the mawkish CW-meets-Twilight marketing and enjoy some rare bloody romance/heartfelt horror.

WRECK-IT RALPH (PG) 2012 was a good year for animation, including Brave, Frankenweenie, ParaNorman and now Wreck-It Ralph. In Disney's latest, Wreck-It Ralph (v. John C. Reilly), the bad guy from popular arcade game Fix-It Felix Jr., decides he wants to be a good guy. Leaving the safety of his own regenerating world, Ralph enters a Halo-ish first-person shooter named Hero's Duty in search of a medal. Too bad Ralph is better at wrecking things than fixing them. This cute, inventive cartoon boasts several creative game worlds like the cavity-friendly candyland of Sugar Rush and a treasure trove of Easter eggs for lifelong and newer gamers. Director Rich Moore definitely learned a thing or two from his time working on the inside joke-heavy worlds of Matt Groening, "The Simpsons" and "Futurama." The voicework by Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer, Jane Lynch, Alan Tudyk, Mindy Kaling and more is top-notch, but one expects that level of competence from a high-profile animated feature. It's the plentiful heart and laughter Wreck-It Ralph offers viewers of all ages, gamer or not, that sets it apart.