MovieReviews
RATINGS GUIDE
BBBB Masterpiece BBB Good BB Pretty good B Not so good
No stars: Failure
SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD
The zombies are getting old in this sixth installment of George A. Romero’s “Dead” series.
34
PLUS
Family Filmgoer 39 DVDs 37
OPENING NEXT WEEK
Marmaduke, the
comic-strip Great Dane, moves to California and has to make new friends. . . . A graduate student goes to Uruguay and becomes entangled with the family of a deceased author in
The City of Your Final Destination.
. . . A record company intern must deliver a British rock star to a
concert in Get Him to the Greek. ... A
young Hasid becomes a drug smuggler in Holy Rollers. . . . A woman discovers she’s married to a hit man in Killers. . . . The King Lear story relocates to Japan in the rerelease of Akira Kurosawa’s 1985 epic Ran. . . . Genetic engineers venture into forbidden territory in Splice. ... The
documentary Living in Emergency follows
four members of Doctors Without Borders through the war zones in Liberia and Congo.
CRAIG BLANKENHORN
“The girls” and their shoes are back for another big-screen sequel to the popular HBO series. In this thin tale, from left, Kristin Davis, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall and Cynthia Nixon unaccountably find themselves partying in Abu Dhabi.
SEX AND THE CITY 2
Not much reason to Carrie on
by Ann Hornaday
“Sex and the City” is, was and always will be for the fans. The first movie, like the raunchy HBO series on which it was based, could be ap- preciated on its own hedonistic terms, but “Sex and the City 2” — an enervated, crass and grue- somely caricatured trip to nowhere — seems conceived primarily to find new and more cyn- ical ways to abuse the loyalty of its audience. That is evident from the first strained mo- ments, as the movie picks up the story of Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) and her friends Miranda
(Cynthia Nixon), Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and Samantha (Kim Cattrall) two years after the last film ended. Carrie, happily married to Mr. Big (Chris Noth), has been feathering their hand- some Upper East Side nest, while the others nav- igate motherhood, careers and menopause. As the story takes them, inexplicably, to a free- bie junket in Abu Dhabi, the script visits one in- dignity after another upon “the girls,” from Mi- randa’s desperate whoops of fake glee to con- vince herself she’s having fun to Samantha’s compulsive penchant for dirty puns. While the show and first movie managed to thread a tricky needle between the traditionally
girly concerns of clothes, shoes and romance and a far more sober, clear-eyed view of female solidarity and autonomy, “Sex and the City 2” us- es feminist arguments to preempt the criticism it so richly deserves. Thus Carrie & Co. can run amok in Abu Dha- bi, dressed like the offspring of Barnum & Bailey and Alexis Carrington, making jokes about bur- qas and, in Samantha’s case, engaging in exhibi- tionistic displays that border on the psychotic, but to disapprove of their behavior is tanta- mount to punishing female desire — or, in the
sex and the city 2 continued on 34
‘PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME’
Welcome to the Jake Gyllenhaal stunt show
by Michael O’Sullivan
K View movie trailers K Read reviews of all movies in area theaters K Buy tickets
With the greasy, unkempt hair of an emo rock- er and a Bart Simpson smirk, Jake Gyllenhaal goes swinging, leaping, slashing and joking his way through “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time,” an energetic if empty-headed adventure
based on the popular video game. Though set in a sea of sand that’s supposed to be ancient Per- sia, the movie features a titular hero whose anachronistic catchphrases — “That all ya got?” and “Whoa,” uttered in an incongruous Cockney accent — makes him sound less like a Middle Eastern prince than an East End pothead. The focus of Prince Dastan’s acrobatic exer- tions, which careen from ninja-like moves to the wall-bouncing gymnastics of parkour, is a spe- cial dagger he has stumbled upon. When a jewel is pressed on its hilt, releasing the few thimble- fuls of sand inside, it has the ability to rewind time, but only for one minute. It’s like Adam Sandler’s magical remote control in “Click,” but with a weak battery. When you run out of sand, you run out of power. Not just any sand will work, either. Hidden
prince continued on 34
33
ANDREW COOPER/DISNEY ENTERPRISES AND JERRY BRUCKHEIMER
Jake Gyllenhaal gamely plays the hero of the mindless action film “Prince of Persia.”
THE WASHINGTON POST • FRIDAY, MAY 28, 2010
ALSO REVIEWED
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128