Chicago Tribune: Christopher Borrelli
"Taken," which tells the story of how Liam Neeson blows a gasket and flies off to France and kills 75 Albanians in 90 minutes, is crisp, efficient and deeply insane. Neeson, who now resembles an aging Labrador retriever, all angles and mournful eyes and jumpy eagerness, plays a former CIA spook whose clandestine career bled into his home and made blood sausage of his family. His wife has divorced him, taken their 17-year-old daughter and remarried. She now lives a life of entitlement behind the stone walls of a Los Angeles mansion, the estate of her new industrialist husband. Neeson's character, Bryan Mills, is so protective of his daughter that he moves to L.A. to be within reach of her. He is paranoid about the potential dangers, and so humorless he could be played for parody - thankfully, though, St. Guilty Pleasure has shined upon us, and this thing is serious. more
Chicago Tribune: Michael Phillips
"Inkheart" was a busy, crowded, hugely successful book to start with. Instead of stripping it for parts, the film version retains nearly all of author Cornelia Funke's story complications. It's a mixed bag and a serious load for a movie to carry without audibly grunting. Still, there are compensations: a fine ensemble, some gorgeous Italian Riviera locales, intermittent flashes of magic amid a more manufactured air of whimsy. more
Chicago Tribune: Michael Phillips
"Slumdog Millionaire" is a ruthlessly effective paean to destiny, leaving nothing to chance. It also has a good shot at winning this year's Academy Award for best picture, if the pundits, Allah, Shiva and Fox Searchlight Pictures have anything to say about it. more
Chicago Tribune: Michael Phillips
No historically grounded film is obliged to stick to the facts, and having made "Glory," "The Last Samurai" and "Blood Diamond," in order of decreasing effectiveness, director Edward Zwick knows firsthand the difficulty of forging potentially uncommercial subject matter into satisfying popular entertainment. more
Chicago Tribune: Michael Phillips
So many canines are going potty in the nation's multiplexes this month, what with "Marley & Me" and now the ensemble bowser adventure "Hotel for Dogs," I wouldn't be surprised if Lars Von Trier re-released "Dogville" just for fun. He'd make $10 million before the kids knew what hit 'em. more
Chicago Tribune: Michael Phillips
There's not a believable minute in the 92 minutes of "Last Chance Harvey," but Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson smooth over most of the problems just by showing up and doing what they do for a living. more
Chicago Tribune: Glenn Whipp
"Paul Blart: Mall Cop" is as sticky and gooey as a Cinnabon cinnamon roll, a snack the movie's title character has no doubt sampled once or twice over the years during his shifts. A high-concept smash-up of "Die Hard" and "Kung-Fu Panda," "Blart" gives sitcom star Kevin James a showcase for broad-comedy pratfalls, providing him 87 minutes to plop, flop and crash into things. more
Chicago Tribune: Michael Phillips
Director Steven Soderbergh's two-part, four-hour "Che" is part folly and part fulfillment, a methodical if coolly romantic portrait of the most familiar 1960s T-shirt icon outside the peace symbol. Some would argue way, way outside the peace symbol. Whatever your political sympathies, Soderbergh's project is likely to exasperate, less for what's there than for what it excludes. It's a triptych with the middle panel missing. Why ignore such a provocative part of any subject's life, the one in which idealistic political theory is tested by controversial, bloody practice? more
Chicago Tribune: Michael Phillips
Director Steven Soderbergh's two-part, four-hour "Che" is part folly and part fulfillment, a methodical if coolly romantic portrait of the most familiar 1960s T-shirt icon outside the peace symbol. Some would argue way, way outside the peace symbol. Whatever your political sympathies, Soderbergh's project is likely to exasperate, less for what's there than for what it excludes. It's a triptych with the middle panel missing. Why ignore such a provocative part of any subject's life, the one in which idealistic political theory is tested by controversial, bloody practice? more
Chicago Tribune: Michael Phillips
If Clint Eastwood wins his first Academy Award for acting come February, besting Sean Penn for "Milk" and Mickey Rourke for "The Wrestler" among other probable nominees, it'll be like 1971 all over again, the year Helen Hayes snagged a supporting actress statuette for her shifty-stowaway routine in "Airport." Longevity and sentiment count for a lot with the Oscars. And Eastwood is a titan. He's an international movie star who developed into a confident, defiantly old-school director, and whose best work behind the camera examines the tradition and enduring attraction of warrior machismo, as well as its cost. more
