Holiday a winning reunion

Speciality Theatre

The Best Man Holiday

***

Stars: Morris Chestnut, Taye Diggs, Sanaa Lathan, Nia Long, Terrence Howard, Monica Calhoun, Harold Perrineau, Eddie Cibrian.

Director: Malcolm D. Lee

Rated: R

Showing: Fri-Sat 2:30pm, 6pm, 9:30pm; Sun 4:30pm, 7:30pm; Mon-Thurs 2:30pm,  6pm, 8:45pm.

Runtime: 122 minutes

Comedy.

The Best Man Holiday is a most welcome sequel to the 1999 sleeper hit, The Best Man, about a tight-knit circle of black friends who gathered then for a wedding, now to spend Christmas together.

Yes, it’s occasionally maudlin and melodramatic, and it’s entirely too long. But it’s also heartfelt and often downright hilarious, and shows off just how canny Malcolm D. Lee’s casting was all those years ago.

Everybody’s paired up now. Pretty much everybody, anyway. And everybody seems successful, with careers, families and high-end cars.

The cute stuff — the men do a lip-sync “talent show” as New Edition — is balanced against the raw language and the downers that come in the serious and sad second half of the film. Tonally, it’s hard to reconcile the film’s raw bits with a shoehorned-in nod to faith.

That weighs down Holiday and makes it overstay its welcome. But it’s still an amusing, well-acted and sharply-timed holiday comedy — old friends getting together to prove that careers, families and kids aside, they’ve still got their R-rated edge. 

Last Vegas

***

Stars: Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, Robert De Niro, Mary Steenburgen, Kevin Kline. 

Director: Jon Turteltaub

Rated: PG-13

Showing: Fri 6:30pm; Sat

6:30pm, 9pm; Sun 2pm, 5:15pm, 7:45pm; Mon-Thurs 

2:15pm, 6pm, 8:30pm.

Runtime: 105 minutes

Comedy. 

Paddy is a widower who spends his lonely days watching TV in his bathrobe. Sam can barely summon the energy to wisecrack about the aged wrecks who share the pool in his jazzercise for seniors class. Archie has a post-stroke regimen of pills and Billy wears the stress of keeping up with a fiancee half his age.

Yeah, you’ll want to PARTY with these guys. Especially after you learn that they’re played by Oscar winners Robert De Niro, Kevin Kline, Morgan Freeman and Michael Douglas, respectively.  Last Vegas isn’t “out there” in a Hangover sense. It’s comical comfort food, with actors doing the sorts of things they’ve done for decades. But even if this is the safest Vegas romp of them all, this cast never lets us forget we’re in good hands. 

Liberty Theatre & Neptune Theatre

Thor: The Dark World

****

Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston. 

Director: Alan Taylor. 

Rated: PG-13

Showing: Liberty — Fri 2:30pm, 6pm, 9:30pm; Sat 2:30pm, 6pm, 9:30pm; Sun 2:30pm, 5:30pm; Mon-Thurs 2:30pm, 7pm.

Nepotune — Fri-Sat 7:30; Sun 5:30pm; Mon-Thurs 7:00pm.

Runtime: 112 minutes

Action, adventure, fantasy.

What weird sorcery is this? Thor: The Dark World may not be thunder from the movie gods, but it is — shock! — an entertaining journey into mystery, action and fun. Director Alan Taylor, a TV vet (Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, and Game of Thrones), has given The Dark World a streamlined feel. There’s also a jolt in here of Lord of the Rings. It has its faults, but this is in the upper sphere of superhero sequels. 

Southside Theatre

Carrie

****

Stars: Chloë Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore. 

Director: Kimberly Peirce 

Rated: R

Showing: Thurs-Sat 7:30pm; Sun 4:30pm; Mon 7:30pm.

Runtime: 100 minutes

Horror.

If you look past all of the blood and gore, Carrie is the kind of movie director Kimberly Peirce likes to make. The original was released almost 40 years ago, but it has a message about bullying that resonates clearly today. That element, makes Carrie a smarter movie than most horror films. It’s a strong point, but it’s not enough to make fans of the original film change their loyalties. As for Carrie virgins, they get both an entertaining and socially relevant take on the King classic.

ALL REVIEWS MCT unless stated