ALIEN VS. PREDATOR: REQUIEM (R) Two sci-fi franchises, one once noble and one not-so, go head to head again as undemanding fans line up to watch the acid-blood fly. Stars Steven Pasquale, Reiko Aylesworth, John Ortiz and Ariel Gade. Opened Dec. 25 at local theaters. (Not Reviewed)
THE BUCKET LIST (PG-13) Director Rob Reiner layers on the schmaltz, and Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman supply the star power in a meathead's delight that might just have well been called Grumpy Old Terminally Ill Men. Freeman's obligatory opening voice-over sets the tone, cramming in the words "love," "fate," and "folks" in under a minute, as dying roommates Carter (Freeman) and Edward (Nicholson) decide to spend their final months, and a sizeable chunk of the latter's fortune, doing all the things they never got around to doing. Endless footage ensues of the old coots skydiving, getting tattoos, driving fast cars, and popping up in a virtual travelogue encompassing the Taj Mahal, the pyramids of Egypt and the Great Wall of China. Freeman's wise but slightly prickly character periodically pontificates on the nature of the world, eventually teaching the meaning of life to the considerably richer but far more cynical Nicholson, and it all feels like the spitting image of a made-for-TV movie. Also stars Sean Hayes and Beverly Todd. Opened Dec. 25 at local theaters. 2 stars
THE GREAT DEBATERS (PG-13) Denzel Washington stars and serves as director in this inspirational drama about the unexpected triumphs of a debate team from a small black college during the Depression. Based on a true story, as if you didn't know. Also stars Forest Whitaker, Nate Parker and Jurnee Smollett. Opened Dec. 25 at local theaters. (Not Reviewed)
THE WATER HORSE (PG) A charming coming-of-age fantasy filled with local color, The Water Horse is the legend of the Loch Ness monster recast as E.T. in the Scottish countryside during World War II. Wee Angus (Alex Etel), an overly serious lad pining for his departed dad, brings home a magical egg that promptly hatches a mythical beastie resembling a slightly cuter version of the mutant baby from Eraserhead. The creature soon evolves into a playful puppy-like thing with flippers, and boy and beastie bond as battalions of soldiers station themselves around the area, and chaos ensues within the household. The adults with guns predictably freak out as the titular creature eventually grows to terrifying proportions, momentarily transforming the movie into a dark Iron Giant-esque allegory about death and war, but The Water Horse just misses the mark for that sort of substance. Also stars Emily Watson, Ben Chaplin and David Morrissey. Opened Dec. 25 at local theaters. 3 stars
RECENT RELEASES
ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS (PG) You might expect that Dave Seville's singing rodents would have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century, but they make the transition fairly painlessly thanks to this sweet and occasionally amusing big-screen outing. Jason Lee stars as the aspiring songwriter who learns about family and responsibility (and all the other things people are supposed to learn in movies like this) when a trio of talking chipmunks moves into his house and turns his world upside down. The CGI is fairly high quality, and the fart and poop jokes are held to a blessed minimum, but even at not-quite 90 minutes, the movie feels padded, and the last act drags on for what seems like forever. On the up side, the hip-hop beat grafted onto "Witchdoctor" isn't quite as ridiculous as you might imagine. Also stars David Cross, Cameron Richardson, Jane Lynch and Ross Bagdasarian. 2.5 stars
THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD (R) A languorous art-western in the fabled mold of McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Heaven's Gate and Pat Garret and Billy the Kid, Andrew Dominik's two-hour-and-40-minute The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is a love-it-or-hate-it proposition. Some will see it as a pretentious slog, others as sheer poetry, but one thing's for sure: They don't make 'em like this anymore. The film presents Jesse James (Brad Pitt) as an early contender in the Cult of Personality — he and Mark Twain were the only Americans known in Europe in the late 19th century — and much is made here of the urge to bask in the outlaw's celebrity, of people wanting to hang around him, even to be him. Meandering back and forth through time, the movie lays out its elliptical story assisted by a melancholy, matter-of-fact voice-over that gives up its details as methodically as Robert Bresson making his case in The Trial of Joan of Arc. The movie throws out much of the James legend, meditating upon its anti-hero as he goes through wild mood swings, alternately depressed, buoyant and unhinged, and ultimately even takes on a weirdly Christ-like aspect, wondering which of his squabbling gang members is going to betray him. James' Judas turns out to be Robert Ford (Casey Affleck), a confused hanger-on whose obsession borders on the homoerotic and whose titular act of violence briefly makes him even more famous than the celebrity killer he kills. An appreciation of The Assassination of Jesse James hinges less on suspension of disbelief than on suspension of our reliance on snappy pace and linear plotting, but those who do give themselves over to the film's demanding poetry may find themselves well rewarded. Also stars Sam Shepard, Paul Schneider, Sam Rockwell, Jeremy Renner, Garret Dillahunt, Mary-Louise Parker and Michael Parks. 4.5 stars
AUGUST RUSH (PG-13) A quasi-mystical fable about the healing power of music, and a gushing love letter to the nuclear family, August Rush is a movie where twists of fate fall from the sky and where couples are destined to be together because of the alliterative qualities of their names. So musicians Louis and Lyla (Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Keri Russell) fall in love at first sight, then are immediately and tragically separated — but not before conceiving a prodigiously talented child, the eponymous August (Freddie Highmore), who is likewise summarily whisked away. August Rush positively overflows with sincerity and cosmic concurrences, and we're obviously not meant to take any of it literally (the characters are clearly ciphers: Russell and Meyers are simply supposed to look good together, and Highmore's brave little face is mainly required to cry buckets on cue) — but the movie's magical reality unfolds in such a fantastically slick, superficial way that it almost feels like we're watching an extended trailer rather than the movie itself. August Rush is not without its glib charms, but the cumulative effect is like scanning a series of bumper stickers for New Age churches. The path of the movie's loved ones toward one another is as efficient and inexorable as the trajectories in Sleepless in Seattle and brimming with warmed-over sentiments pilfered from everything from Mr. Holland's Opus to Forrest Gump. Also stars Terrence Howard and Robin Williams. 2 stars
BEE MOVIE (PG) Jerry Seinfeld returns from the stand-up comedy wilderness with this CGI-animated offering about a spunky little bee who wants more (as apparently do all animated creatures these days). The voice cast alone might be reason enough to investigate: Besides Seinfeld, Renee Zelwegger, Matthew Broderick and John Goodman, there's an eclectic ensemble including Rip Torn, Sting, Oprah Winfrey and Larry King. (Not Reviewed)
BEOWULF (PG-13) Another animated dip into flesh and fantasy for the graphic novel-reading crowd, Robert Zemeckis' Beowulf pumps up the "motion capture" techniques pioneered in Polar Express, coming up with a testosterone free-for-all that out-300's 300. Co-scripters Roger Avary (Pulp Fiction) and fanboy guru Neil Gaiman manage to remain faithful to their source's thousand-year-old essence while bringing a distinctly modern sensibility to this epic about a warrior-king's confrontation with a monster and his mother. Zemeckis and his writers pump up the story with some juicy pop psychology, irreverent humor and a pervasive bawdiness that pushes the limits of the movie's PG-13 rating. The contemporary feel extends to the title character, who morphs into a curiously modern hero by nature of crucial, hidden flaws that link him to the very monster he vows to destroy. Best of all is the monster himself, the marvelously imperfect Grendel, who stumbles about with his skin turned inside-out, alternately howling and blubbering like a cross between the ravaged soul from Hellraiser and an overgrown special-needs child (an effect sealed by the exquisitely pathetic voice supplied by Crispin Glover). Visually, Beowulf kicks ass, but the only way to fully appreciate the movie is to see it in Imax 3-D, where the film's digital animation takes on a scale and a depth that's nothing short of thrilling. Features Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich, Robin Wright Penn, Brendan Gleeson and Crispin Glover. 3.5 stars
CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR (R) Based on true events from the Reagan years, Mike Nichol's new film stars Tom Hanks as Charlie Wilson, a hard-partying Texas congressman who sets monumental forces in motion, almost without realizing it, when he begins lobbying to supply Afghanistan's Mujahideen in their struggle against Russian invaders. Urging Wilson on is his occasional lover, a rich, ultra-right-wing dragon lady played by Julia Roberts. The individual players are fairly engaging, but Charlie Wilson's War never manages to muster up much dramatic momentum. The movie's tone is all over the place, veering from screenwriter Aaron Sorkin's trademark sitcom style to quasi-screwball satire to something approaching sentimental mush, and then straight into agitprop, with tears welling up in Hanks' eyes in the midst of multitudes of mistreated Afghan orphans. Charlie Wilson's War starts out strong and then slowly fizzles out just as it should be getting interesting. The covert war waged by Hanks' congressman results in the Soviet empire crumbling just as the film is ending, all but ignoring the more interesting twists that followed (specifically, how Afghan "freedom fighters" transformed into the legions of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, using American weapons and training against their so-called benefactors). The movie opens with a dreamily stylized image of a Muslim praying beneath a starry sky, then picking up his rocket launcher and aiming at squarely at the camera — which is to say, at us — but that's about as close as Nichols gets to that particular can of worms. Stars Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Julia Roberts and Amy Adams. 2.5 stars
ENCHANTED (PG) From its knowingly retro intro (an animated send-up of Snow White and a zillion other Disney classics) to its climatic CGI showdown, Enchanted is a mostly live-action romp that's both perky family-friendly entertainment and a sly spoof of all things Disney-fied. Amy Adams is spot-on as Princess Giselle, a wide-eyed romantic with perfect diction and an inner circle of animal confidants. She lands on the Upper West Side and progresses from sweetly clueless fish out of water to avid admirer of Madame Curie. The movie has a ball poking fun at its absurdly anachronistic storybook princess, with much comedic mileage generated from her encounters with various jaded real-worlders. But when push comes to shove, those same hardened souls begin kicking up their heels whenever the infectiously upbeat Giselle is around, as Enchanted makes it clear that it's firmly on the side of anyone who can turn the world on with a song. Also stars Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, Timothy Spall and Idina Menzel. 3.5 stars
FRED CLAUS (PG) Vince Vaughan stars as the black sheep brother of none other than jolly old St. Nick himself (Paul Giamatti) in this kid-friendly comedy of sibling rivalry and holiday cheer. Also stars Miranda Richardson, Elizabeth Banks and John Michael Higgins. (Not Reviewed)
THE GOLDEN COMPASS (PG-13) A handsome but weirdly turgid fantasy, The Golden Compass is everything you expect it to be and less. What we get here is a disappointingly transparent patchwork of Lord of the Rings meets Narnia in Harry Potter Land, packed to the gills with magical creatures, talking animals and airborne witches but without much feel for building an involving story or characters worth caring about. Based on the first book in Philip Pullman's popular His Dark Materials trilogy, The Golden Compass takes place in a parallel universe where people's souls exist on the outside of their respective bodies in the form of animal companions called daemons. This alternate world is also populated by groups of uneasily co-existing groups with names like Gyptians and Magisterium (the totalitarian villains of the piece), and the convoluted rivalries and competing objectives of the various sects are presented with all the bloodless efficiency of a CPA reading an annual report. Into this pointlessly frenetic fray comes Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards), a 12-year-old orphan who finds herself at the center of a quest to save the world. The movie's production values are high; its special effects beyond reproach and a few of its actors appealing (Nicole Kidman is gloriously monstrous here, and Eva Green makes a fine, sexy witch), but The Golden Compass still winds up feeling confused, aloof and more often than not dull. Also stars Daniel Craig and Sam Elliott. 2.5 stars
HITMAN (R) Deadwood's Timothy Olyphant stars as a professional assassin who finds himself on the run from Interpol and the Russian military when he's set up as the fall guy in a political take-over. Also stars Dougray Scott, Olga Kurylenko, Robert Knepper and Ulrich Thomsen. (Not Reviewed)
I AM LEGEND (PG-13) Will Smith stars as the last human survivor of a deadly plague that has turned the world's population into bloodthirsty nocturnal creatures, and virtually the entire first half of the film consists of our hero and his faithful canine companion wandering the deserted streets of New York City. Director Francis Lawrence (Constantine) imbues these early scenes with both tension and an eerie poetry, finding undeniable power in the post-apocalyptic imagery of a depopulated Manhattan where stray weeds poke up through cracks in the pavement as if once again laying claim to the land. Smith holds down the film fairly well, but his character veers unconvincingly from rational man of science to unhinged paranoid to cartoon action hero, inconsistencies that are hard not to notice since there's so little else going on here. We don't often see the creatures, but when we do, the movie unravels further as they're a pretty derivative lot, a fusion of familiar elements from 28 Days Later and The Descent, all largely rendered via cheap and thoroughly uninspired CGI. Traces of elegantly creepy atmosphere can be found throughout, but the effect is all but ruined by packs of dopey looking zombie dogs (honest) and a little too much Bob Marley music at the wrong moments. Also stars Alice Braga, Charlie Tahan, Salli Richardson and Willow Smith. 2.5 stars
I'M NOT THERE (PG-13) A Bob Dylan biopic in which the name "Bob Dylan" is never once uttered, Todd Haynes' I'm Not There is essentially five or six biopics crammed together and fighting it out to see what rises to the surface. Much like Dylan himself, Haynes' enormously unconventional movie revels in contradictions and disguises, offering up no less than half a dozen Dylans played by multiple actors — a concept that's a near-perfect fit with an escape artist who's successfully re-invented himself more often than anyone this side of Bowie. The mini-army of quasi/crypto/ersatz Bobs weave around and through each other's lives, as images from Dylan's extensive mythology, both real and fabricated, pile up and smash into each other. The movie barrages us with densely layered, competing accounts, until the true lies reach critical mass, and separating the truth from legend eventually begins to seem completely beside the point. I'm Not There is as faithless to the particulars of Dylan's life as it is faithful, but the film's elegantly fractured narrative absolutely nails the essence of its subject. Stars Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Ben Whishaw, Marcus Carl Franklin, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bruce Greenwood and Julianne Moore. 4 stars
INTO THE WILD (R) This is Sean Penn's meandering but strangely compelling take on the true story of Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch), a child of privilege who burned his IDs, gave away his money and, reborn as Alexander Supertramp, hit the open road. Into the Wild unfolds on a certain level as a road movie, with Chris/Alex hooking up with fellow travelers as he makes his way across the country, but the film also offers frequent flashbacks providing a parallel story obsessing on the familial tensions supposedly being left behind. The flashback structure and ominous, anguished tone of the voice-overs leave little doubt that we're witnessing a tragedy, however, and the movie's pervasive fatalism provides a bottom note even to Into the Wild's brighter moments. To his credit, and despite a soundtrack studded with painfully sincere Eddie Vedder songs, Penn doesn't turn Alex into a hero — his quest ultimately seems as foolish as it is noble. The film is too long by at least a half hour, and its frequent attempts to provide Alex with metaphorical surrogate families are a bit transparent, but there's something important being communicated here about the beauty and folly of attempting a personal spiritual revolution, the closest corollary being Herzog's Grizzly Man. Also stars Marcia Gay Harden, William Hurt, Jena Malone, Catherine Keener, Vince Vaughn, Brian Dierker, Kristen Stewart and Hal Holbrook. 3.5 stars
THE KITE RUNNER (PG-13) The breathlessly anticipated big screen version of The Kite Runner turns out to be as handsome as it is curiously bloodless — unless, of course, you're counting the picturesque spattering of crimson dotting the ground after a noble character's off-screen rape. Director Marc Foster's adaptation of Khaled Hosseini's much-admired book spans several decades and no less than two far-flung worlds while laying out a scrupulously symmetrical tale of friendship, loss and jumbo-sized redemption. The story begins in Afghanistan in the late '70s, where privileged 12-year-old Amir (Zekeria Ebrahimi) and household servant Hassan (Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada) are the best of friends despite obvious differences in class and ethnicity. The young actors are extremely engaging, but Foster doesn't dig too deep beneath the surface of Hosseini's novel, often reducing political and cultural nuances to glossy ethnic exotica, and eschewing shades of grey for big, black and white emotions. Too many huge upheavals are crammed into too tight a space, with Afghanistan summarily gobbled up by the Soviets and then by the Taliban, followed by a barrage of coming-to-America soap-operatics culminating in an Act of Personal Courage redeeming the hero from the Very Bad Thing that occurred earlier in the film. Also stars Kalid Abdalla, Homayon Ershadi, Shaun Toub and Nabi Tanha. 3 stars
LIONS FOR LAMBS (PG-13) Relentlessly wordy and almost painfully static, Lions for Lambs is essentially a series of dialogues — or, more plainly put, a collection of scenes in which pairs of people sit in various rooms, talking. There are three loosely linked scenarios here, including an up-and-coming Republican Senator (Tom Cruise) being interviewed by a somewhat suspicious journalist (Meryl Streep); two American soldiers (Michael Pena and Derek Luke) stranded on a snowy mountaintop in Afghanistan; and a college professor (Robert Redford) trying to get a bright but terminally cynical student (Todd Hayes) to become engaged with the world. The segments ramble on and eventually intersect, characters get to periodically exclaim Oscar-ready lines like, "Rome is burning!" and the implication is that we — every last man, woman and child in the audience — are all to some extent fiddling while the professional dickheads in Washington thrive on our collective apathy. Ultimately, the movie says nothing more controversial than "Bush screwed up" and "Get involved" — two all-purpose slogans for any party in this election year — and even these innocuously noble assessments are funneled into something as safe as any politician's prepared statement, a lifeless My Dinner with Andre reduced to sound bites from the evening news. Also stars Todd Hayes, Peter Berg and Kevin Dunn. 2 stars
MARGOT AT THE WEDDING (R) A feel-bad comedy about people doing terrible things to each other in the name of love, Margot at the Wedding isn't a bad film by any stretch, but it is a difficult one to sit through without squirming. Writer-director Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale) crafts some of the sharpest dialogue around, but the filmmaker seems more interested here in purging personal demons that in entertaining his audience — consequently, Margot often steps over that fine line straddling pain-based comedy and pure pain. As with Baumbach's other films, most of the characters here are monumentally self-absorbed East Coast artists and intellectuals — Volvo-driving, white wine-drinking neurotics who relentlessly poke and prod at one another but are powerless to stop their own aggressive, self-defeating behavior. The director positions his angsty characters amidst idyllic surroundings, at a rambling country home in the Hamptons, where a wedding unfolds more like a competition than a celebration. Baumbach reminds us a bit of Woody Allen during his initial transition from crafter of neurotic comedies to chronicler of contemporary angst, but if The Squid and the Whale was Baumbach's Annie Hall, then Margot at the Wedding is very nearly his Interiors, filled with characters so essentially unlikable that it's hard to see the things that are genuinely interesting about them. Stars Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jack Black, Zane Pais and Ciaran Hinds. 3 stars
MICHAEL CLAYTON (R) A character study of a man defined by his compromises, Michael Clayton stars George Clooney as a former prosecutor gone to seed and long reduced to working as a fixer for a big law firm. It's a no-brainer Clayton's in trouble from the first moment we see him — the GPS on his swanky Mercedes is on the blink, after all, movie-metaphor-ese for the guy's moral compass being out of whack — but half the pleasure of Michael Clayton is watching its title character's slow-mo meltdown lead up to that revelatory moment of painful self-knowledge. The other half of the movie's pleasure takes the form of a curiously gripping conspiracy thriller that percolates on such an ominously low frequency it almost catches us off guard when it finally officially announces itself. What lies at the heart of Michael Clayton isn't ultimately that far removed from conventional socially-conscious melodrama, but where the movie excels is in how it puts all this together, coming at the story from unexpected angles and neatly folding its sweeping political agenda into the personal struggles of its individual players. Also stars Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton, Sydney Pollack, Michael O'Keefe and Ken Howard. 3.5 stars
MR. MAGORIUM'S WONDER EMPORIUM (PG) The directorial debut of Zach Helm, who wrote the absurdly over-praised Stranger Than Fiction, the bland and listless Mr. Magorium stars Dustin Hoffman as the 243-year-old owner of a magical toy store wedged amongst the skyscrapers of some modern metropolis. Hoffman's performance is as lazy as it is irritating — out-of-control eyebrows and an effected lisp are the main things alerting us to his "wildly eccentric" nature — and Natalie Portman seems distinctly uncomfortable as the reluctant employee chosen to take over the store. There's also a little boy wandering around acting pointlessly lonely and a straight-laced accountant who can't see the magic all around him — and none of it goes anywhere. The influences here are painfully obvious, but Mr. Magorium never lives up to its Willy Wonka meets Toys meets pretty-much-anything-by-Tim-Burton prototypes. None of the elements tie together in a particularly coherent way; the characters exhibit little discernable personality; the story plods; and the movie even lacks the visual panache to pull off this sort of thing. Also stars Justin Bateman and Zach Mills. 1.5 stars
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (R) Much has been made of No Country for Old Men being some sort of contemporary Western, but when the filmmakers are Joel and Ethan Coen, you can bet the "Western" in question is going to scream for quotation marks. An expertly crafted nail-biter steeped in the beloved noir the filmmakers have repeatedly tinkered with, the Coen Brothers' new film takes place in a dusty Texas wasteland as redolent with alienation as a vintage Antonioni landscape. Enter Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), a certified piece of trailer trash who happens upon a drug deal gone south and winds up fleeing the scene of the crime with a briefcase filled with cash. This inevitably puts some very bad people on Llewelyn's trail — chief among them a soulless super-psycho named Anton Chigurh (an exquisitely chilling Javier Bardem) — and right behind is Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), a small-town lawman resigned to the nasty ways of the world. No Country is a beautifully modulated film, folding intense bursts of periodic violence into a carefully orchestrated atmosphere of mounting tension that is both eerily poetic and a bit melancholy. In its elegantly world-weary way, this is as iconic a chase film as The Night of the Hunter, as deeply mysterious as the Coens' masterpiece, Barton Fink, and not without perverse grace notes all its own. Also stars Kelly Macdonald, Tess Harper and Woody Harrelson. 4.5 stars
SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET (R) Unfolding in a perpetual moment just before the light gives out entirely, Tim Burton's new film is a velvety noir boasting more nuances of black than the Eskimos have names for snow. It's also a musical, based on Stephen Sondheim's popular 1979 stage production, although Burton eschews all but the faintest trace of Broadway glitz, giving the movie an exquisitely morbid look and an intimate, even claustrophobic feel. The director plays it close to the bone here, toning down personal ticks while letting his unmistakable style shine through the darkness, so that Sweeney Todd emerges as a blood-rare slice of Broadway for people who normally can't stand the stuff. Johnny Depp inhabits the title character with heartbreaking intensity and a hint of self-mockery, while the film layers on style in luxuriously decaying heaps, its cleverly devised color scheme — an essentially monochromatic palette with tasteful splashes of blood-red — a distillation of everything Burton's done to date. As elegant as it all is, be warned that Sweeney Todd doesn't spare the blood, and throats are slit with gleeful abandon, in abundant and graphic detail. Also stars Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall and Sacha Baron Cohen. 4.5 stars
WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY (R) John O'Reilly makes the leap from second banana to top fruit in this appealingly ridiculous comedy from director Jake Kasdan and co-writer Judd Apatow. The movie is basically framed as a spoof of Ray (which was itself an unintentional spoof of the whole musical bio-pic genre), but it's also a Forrest Gump-like trip through time, with O'Reilly's title character morphing from '50s crooner to Dylanesque poet to Brian Wilson-esque acid casualty and recluse. Some gags tend to go on too long and repeat themselves too often, but most of what happens here is unabashedly outrageous and very funny. The cameos alone are worth the price of admission, with Jack White showing up as Elvis, Frankie (Malcolm in the Middle) Muniz turning up as Buddy Holly, Jack Black and Paul Rudd as squabbling Beatles, a whole bunch of faces from Tina Fey's SNL/30 Rock inner circle, and Eddie Vedder as himself. Also stars Jenna Fischer, Tim Meadows, Kristen Wiig and Raymond J. Barry. 3.5 stars
