Need for Speed can’t find top gear

Speciality Theatre

Need for Speed

••

Stars: Aaron Paul, Dominic Cooper, Scott Mescudi

Director: Jaume Collet-Serra. 

Rated: PG-13

Showing: Fri-Sat 2:15pm, 6pm, 9pm; Sun 2:30pm,  5:30pm, 8:30pm; Mon-Thurs 2:15pm, 6pm, 8:45pm.

Runtime: 130 minutes

Action, crime, drama.

For anybody tired of digital movie car chases that, while fast and furious, routinely defy the laws of physics, here’s one where the cars and stunts are real (mostly) and spectacular. A cross-country sprint followed by a daredevil dash through rural California by the superest of today’s supercars, Need for Speed is a car-lover’s dream, a showcase for everything from Bugatti Veyrons to vintage Camaros.

It’s a Cannonball Run throwback, with drivers punching through gears and burning through tyres as they dodge the cops in illegal street races. Given state-of-the-art stunts and 3-D cinematography, it’s a trip.

But Need for Speed also makes the journey from video game to big screen without the curse of logic and without the benefit of a punchy, pithy script for its cliched characters to quote. Dumb? They’ve almost out-dumbed the dumbest Fast and Furious movie.

Aaron Paul of Breaking Bad is Tobey, a car builder and racer from rural New York whose rivalry with the hometown boy (Dominic Cooper) who made it to the Indy 500 reveals the consequences of tearing it up on public highways. Somebody gets killed, on top of all the innocent bystanders and their SUVs, school buses and mommyvans that they run off the road.

Tobey gets out of jail, rounds up his posse (Scott Mescudi, Rami Malek, Ramon Rodriguez) and sets out for revenge. 

300: Rise of an Empire

***

Stars: Sullivan Stapleton, Eva Green, Lena Headey

Directors: Noam Murro. 

Rated: R

Showing: Fri-Sat 2:45pm (2D), 6:30pm (3D), 9:30pm (2D); Sun 2:30pm (2D), 5:15pm (3D), 8pm (2D); Mon-Wed 2:45pm (2D), 7pm (2D), Thurs 2:45pm (2D), 6pm (2D), 8:30pm (2D).

Runtime: 102 minutes

Action, drama, war.

The first 300, director Zack Snyder’s 2006 take on the legendary showdown between Persians and Spartans at Thermopylae in 480 B.C., was all about the guys and their abs.

The sequel, 300: Rise of an Empire, is more about the women. Specifically, seafaring Greek-born Persian warrior Artemisia, a figure who — if this movie is to be believed — ruled the ancient world through a combination of cunning, cruelty and the ability to look great while waging war on the high seas.

It’s Artemisia, played with a mixure of cool and camp by Eva Green (Dark Shadows, Casino Royale), who gives this CGI-saturated sequel a jolt of energy, as her male Athenian adversaries are as flavourless as week-old hummus. If not for Artemesia, Empire would be just a retread of its predecessor.

Set at the same time as the first film, when a brave force of 300 men valiantly tried to hold off an invading Persian army led by Xerxes, Empire details the sea war between Artemisia and Greek leader Themistokles (Sullivan Stapleton). He spends much of his time trying to unite the Greek city-states to thwart the threat. He even travels to Sparta to try to convince Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey, reprising her role from the first film) to help him, but she wants to handle things on her own. 

Liberty Theatre

Mr Peabody & Sherman

****

Stars: Ty Burrell, Max Charles, Stephen Colbert.  

Director: Rob Minkoff

Rated: PG

Showing: Fri 4:30pm, 6:30pm; Sat 1pm, 4pm, 6:30pm; Sun 2:30pm, 5pm; Mon-Thurs 2:30pm, 6pm.Runtime: 92 minutes

Animation, adventure,
comedy.

With Mr. Peabody & Sherman, Dreamworks Animation sets its “Wayback Machine” to the early 1960s and charmingly revives one of the most popular features of the old Rocky & Bullwinkle Show — the one about a dog, and his boy.

This winning, witty and warm cartoon captures the flavour, the tone and some of the snappy pace of the TV shorts that began with the droll voice of Bill Scott intoning, “Peabody here, my boy, Sherman ...”

Mr. Peabody is a Nobel Prize-winning pooch who “invented the fist-bump, auto-tune and Zumba”, and then adopted Sherman. 

He’s given the boy, now seven, a head-start on school by taking the kid time-travelling. The Wayback Machine has, we can see from the photos decorating their apartment walls, allowed Sherman to meet everyone from Gandhi to Einstein, Leonardo to the Wright Brothers. He’s given Van Gogh painting suggestions, caught a Jackie Robinson home run and short-circuited Ben Franklin.

“Where are we going today, Mr. Peabody?”

“Not where, Sherman. When.”

As long as Sherman keeps this a secret, nobody will be the wiser as to why he knows, for a fact, that George Washington never chopped down a cherry tree. Of course, Sherman can’t keep a secret — not even from the mean girl, Penny, who bullies him.

And that’s when the trouble starts. Actually, the first “when” is ancient Egypt. Then they check in on Leonardo Da Vinci and try to make Mona Lisa crack a smile. The movie drops in on The Trojan War.

Fans of the old Jay Ward TV show may take longer in adjusting to the new voices — Ty Burrell of Modern Family is a droll-enough Peabody, Max Charles (The Neighbors) is Sherman. But the witty word play and the pull-out-all-stops supporting cast start to pay off.The movie takes a while to find its footing, but the laughs come fast and furious. 

Neptune Theatre

Tyler Perry’s The Single Mom's Club

No preview screenings 

Stars: Nia Long, Amy Smart, Wendi McLendon-Covey.

Director: Tyler Perry.

Rated: PG-13

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

Runtime: Unknown

Comedy, drama.

Brought together by an incident at their children’s school, a group of single mothers from different walks of life bond, and create a support group that helps them find comedy in the obstacles of life. 

ALL REVIEWS BY MCT