Opening Everywhere: Non-Stop, Son of God
Opening Somewhere: Stalingrad, Odd Thomas
FilmDrunk Suggests: Stalingrad looks phenomenal, while Odd Thomas looks like it could have campy potential. Meanwhile, Non-Stop is… a movie, apparently.
Non-Stop
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 57% critics, 73% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
Why demand logic of an action movie released in February, when audiences just want a nice, bumpy ride? – Richard Corliss, TIME magazine
Neeson is such an eloquent hunk of Irish melancholy that he gives everything he does – snapping a neck or taking a drink of water – a classical gravitas. – David Edelstein, Vulture
Armchair Analysis: As much as I have enjoyed the mindless stupidity of the Taken movies, I watch the commercials and trailers for Non-Stop and wonder if Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes made a pact during Clash and Wrath of the Titans to “just have fun” with the rest of their careers and not try so hard anymore. So Neeson signed on for Non-Stop, Taken 3 and the Entourage movie while Fiennes was like, “LOL sucker.”
Son of God
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 21% critics, 83% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
This is more a pageant than a story about characters and their motivations; it’s as brusque in its storytelling as an illustrated children’s bible, which would at least offer some mystery and grandeur in the composition of its images. – Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice
By playing it so safely reverential, Son of God tends to plod its way to Calvary, begging to be discussed among Bible study groups and positively name-checked in the Sunday sermons. – Geoff Pevere, Globe and Mail
Armchair Analysis: Thank goodness, a movie about Jesus. I was worried that an entire generation would miss out on his story for a month. Sorry, I don’t mean to sound blasphemous. I just think it’s time that Peter got his own movie. That guy would have some HILARIOUS misadventures.
Stalingrad
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 47% critics, 44% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
Overall, Stalingrad is a bizarre concoction, part Putin-era patriotic chest-thumping and part creaky war melodrama, all set in a superbly recreated ruined city. – Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail
To wave a flag, sing a song and celebrate it as the uncomplicated and inevitable victory of good over evil is the sort of easy message only an old propagandist – or a president for life – could really cheer. – Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger
Armchair Analysis: Well, I thought this movie looked phenomenal. Apparently the trailer included all of the best parts, because those reviews are whatever the Russian word for bad is.
Odd Thomas
Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 30% critics, 64% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes:
An endearing, witty romantic dramedy-slash-supernatural-thriller about a small desert town in California beset by demonic apparitions and a satanic cabal of deranged would-be mass murderers. – Tirdad Derakhshani, Philadelphia Inquirer
This expensive-looking indie, adapted from a supernatural book series by sci-fi author Dean Koontz, tries too hard for a wacky tone, and winds up merely brain-dead. – Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News
Armchair Analysis: I just want this movie to be good. I’m bored with the run of crap movies that have opened 2014, with The LEGO Movie as the most obvious exception. And a few others. Whatever. I just want to like this movie, because I watched Vampire Academy this week and my brain is depressed.