Statham strikes again in 'Shelter'

    Jason Statham has become a brand. The British actor has become so associated with tough-guy action that some fans refer to his movies without mentioning titles. A Statham picture is good enough, as someone at a preview screening described the phenomenon.

   Shelter, Statham's latest, finds him playing a bearded loner who lives in an abandoned lighthouse on a tiny rock pile of an island in the Scottish Hebrides. Statham's Michael Mason drinks vodka, wanders about with his dog, and plays chess games with himself. 

   If you know Statham movies, you can bet he'll soon be on the move.

   A series of early contrivances put Statham's Mason on the run with 13-year-old Jesse (Bodhi Rae Breathnach). Circumstances make him the girl's lone protector.  

   A former Special Forces assassin, Mason was part of a super-secret group called Black Kite. When Mason refused to assassinate a good guy, he went into hiding. An agency ally with computer skills (Daniel Mays) hacked the system and faked Mason's death. But the moment Mason leaves the island, his foes will know he's still alive. He'll become a target, and one with "baggage," as he puts it. 

    The baggage, of course, is Jesse, who found herself on the island when her uncle's boat stopped to deliver supplies. She nearly drowned trying to leave, but Mason saved her. The uncle didn't survive a vicious storm that sank his boat.

   The supporting cast includes Bill Nighy as Manafort, Mason's former boss and the man who most wants him eliminated. Naomi Ackie, who plays an uncorrupted MI6 officer.  Harriet Walter takes a turn as the British Prime Minister, a character as crooked as Nighy's Manafort. 

  Waugh (Angel Has Fallen, Greenland, and Greenland 2: Migration) loads the screen with fights, gunplay, and assorted examples of genre violence that build up the movie's prodigious body count.

   I guess you could say that Statham and Breathnach give the movie some heart, but relentless action rules with Mason adhering to the school of heroism that says little, fires many bullets, and proves inventive with anything that's available to be used as a weapon. When an industrial-strength chain fells one of Mason's foes, much of the audience applauded.

   Nothing much else to add here, other than to reinforce the notion that Shelter demonstrates its competence at delivering what's expected of it -- if not much more.

    

Mood can't carry 'Omen' prequel

 

  I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that Omen enthusiasts populate the MovieVerse, fans who enjoy repeated visits to the chilly hunk of 1976 horror that spawned several additional helpings.

  Still, fan service alone can't explain The First Omen, a moody but muddled prequel to the original, which acquired some of its cache from the presence of Gregory Peck and Lee Remick. 

 Arkasha Stevenson makes her directorial debut with a single task: To explain how the Antichrist Damien arrived in the world before being adopted by Peck's character, who secretly substituted the infant for the baby Remick's character lost during childbirth.

  In this edition, Nell Tiger Free stars as Margaret, a novitiate who arrives in Rome in 1971 to "take the veil." She's welcomed by Cardinal Lawrence (Bill Nighy), a high-ranking churchman who believes Margaret has a special destiny. 

  Nuns in movies always seem to require stern superiors. In this instance, Sonia Braga lands the job. Braga portrays Sister Silva, head of the creepy orphanage where much of the story unfolds.

  Early on, Margaret meets another novitiate (Maria Caballero), an aspiring nun who's intent on sowing some wild oats before taking her vows. 

  Agreeing to join her for an evening of clubbing, Margaret dons a sexy outfit that had me wondering whether First Omen might be ready for a touch of satire.

   Forget that. The movie seldom lets us forget that evil lurks, even it takes its time making an entrance.

  At the orphanage, a sympathetic Margaret becomes fascinated with Carlita (Nicole Sorace), an orphan who's regarded as a troublemaker. Carlita insists that she's seeing terrible visions. 

   About midway through, Margaret is sought out by Father Brennan (Ralph Ineson), an excommunicated priest who warns Margaret about a secret cabal that has hatched a cockeyed plan for restoring the primacy of a church that's losing its power. 

   I can't say more without introducing spoilers but the more you think about The First Omen, the more preposterous it may appear to be.

  That's not to say that Stevenson doesn't have chops: She infuses the movie with dread -- and Mark Korven's suggestively ominous score adds flavor. Free's portrayal of Margaret's climactic aria of trembling, moaning, and quaking possession provides another highlight.

  First Omen offers some grisly sights, a fiery suicide and an auto crash that severs a body in two, among them. A few of the jump scares deliver the right jolts.

   The story, which can confound as much as it clarifies, heads toward a finale built around a weird birth ritual that goes heavy on blood, slime, and gore, which could be the name of a band if punk rock ever makes a comeback.

   I wish I could have taken The First Omen as seriously as it takes itself, but, for me, the movie seemed to carry on a heavy flirtation with horror hooey that even its rich atmospherics couldn't always mask.

   

   

     

Bill Nighy's memorable turn in 'Living'

   If a doctor, heaven forbid, were to tell Bill Nighy that his demise was imminent, we’d expect a clever retort or a subtle response that resisted turning the moment into high-stakes drama. Nighy has become an actor we feel we know.

   Of course, I have no idea how Nighy might respond to such devastating news, but in Living, Nighy plays a dying character whose emotions are expressed in ways that are bravely undemonstrative. 

   Nighy plays Mr. Williams, a bureaucrat in London’s Public Works Department. He’s a widowed commuter whose life, as he says at one point, has avoided either happiness or misery.

   Mr. Williams lives in the suburbs with his son (Barney Fishwick) and daughter in-law (Patsy Ferran) and governs his life with structured routine. If it’s “picture day,” Mr. Williams goes to the movies. 

   As the supervisor of a small group of paper pushers, Mr. Williams focuses on the stack of paperwork before him, reacting unemotionally to the bureaucratic buck passing that unfolds when his agency is asked to approve construction of a small playground. 

   The movie begins by introducing us to Peter Wakeling (Alex Sharp),  the newest member of the Public Works team.  Unbent by years of service, Wakeling questions what the others long have accepted — the absurd workings of a procedure-crazed government agency.

    Aimee Lou Wood portrays Margaret Harris, a young woman who, unlike her colleagues, seems not have lost touch with the rhythms of life. Not surprisingly, she has accepted a job at a restaurant, where she hopes to ascend into management.

   An English-language remake of Ikira Kurosawa’s Ikiru (1952), Living benefits from the stiff constraints that, in this movie, define  London life during the 1950s, the period when the story takes place. 

   The story's development hinges on what only can be described as Mr. William’s quiet rebellion.

   Once told that he’s dying, Mr. Williams stops going to work. He  travels to a beach town where he encounters a footloose fellow (Tom Burke) who tries to introduce him to the local pleasures.

   Mr. Williams doesn’t return to work, but a chance encounter in London with Miss Harris leads him to an attempt at capturing a bit of life before it’s too late. And, no, we’re not talking about a misguided sexual encounter.

    Working from a screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro, director Oliver Hermanus can’t blot out every trace of sentimentality, but Nighy’s restraint makes it clear that Mr. Williams is not the sort of fellow ever to gush and his performance serves to characterize the movie. When Mr. Williams lets down his hair, it’s strictly one strand at a time. 

   Nighy creates a memorable portrait of a decent man who has lived a dreary life but who comes to understand that small gains must be savored, perhaps because for him (as for most of us) that might be all there is.

Another ‘Emma’ reaches the big screen

An aggressively well-appointed version of a Jane Austen novel gets the job done.

We hardly need an introduction to Emma, the title character of Jane Austen's 1816 novel. The young woman was the subject of a well-received 1996 Douglas McGrath movie starring Gwyneth Paltrow. Even greater numbers of viewers probably are familiar with Amy Heckerling’s Clueless, which starred Alicia Silverstone in a smartly conceived, high-school updating of Austen’s story.

Other Emmas have come and gone and some adventurous souls may even have read Austen’s novel. But Austen never seems to lose her appeal, which may explain why we now get director Autumn de Wilde’s 21st Century addition to the Austen big-screen canon.

De Wilde's Emma stars Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch, Glass) as the smugly self-assured Emma, a young woman who has lived in happy isolation from life’s harder knocks.

For reasons that I couldn’t entirely discern, de Wilde and cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt decided to present the movie in a kind of strange way. Everything about the movie’s settings and costumes seems perfect, yet nothing seems entirely right. It may be pushing the point but it’s as if we’ve landed in a theme park devoted to the novelist’s work. Think Austenworld, where visitors are separated from the exhibits by velvet ropes.

If the approach was meant to heighten the cloistered rigidity of the world Austen observed, it becomes superfluous. Austen was no satirist, but she needed no help in pointing out the pretensions, social limitations, and hypocrisies of her characters.

Thankfully, Austen’s attempts to humble Emma -- making her aware that the world may not revolve around her -- remains. Better yet, the secondary roles are well-cast, from Bill Nighy as Emma’s constantly fretting father to Miranda Hart’s annoyingly loquacious but well-meaning Miss Bates to Mia Goth’s Harriet, a young woman who falls prey to Emma’s thoughtless manipulations.

Early on, Emma dissuades Harriet from marrying Robert Martin (Connor Swindells), a farmer who makes an obviously perfect match for her. Not good enough, says Emma as she sets Harriet up for disappointment.

Such is Emma’s issue; her faith in her own judgment blinds her to the feelings of others.

The key role of Mr. Knightley goes to Johnny Flynn, who brings hunky appeal to the character and who has the distinction of being the only Knightley in the story’s long history to be given a rear-view nude scene.

Austen’s story revolves around misdirected romance and signals that are misread, some involving Jane Fairfax (Amber Anderson) and the supposedly irresistible Frank Churchill (Callum Turner).

The key scenes — Miss Bates’ humiliation by Emma, for example — work well and Austen’s idea that love must be earned with expressions of good moral character survives. Besides, it's reassuring to see that, even with limited screen time, the ever-resourceful Nighy refuses to be held prisoner by a costume so constricting it made me uncomfortable just looking at it. (See photo above.)

A small but intriguing 'Bookshop'

It has taken some time, but Penelope Fitzgerald's 1978 novel, The Bookshop, finally has made it to the screen. Spanish director Isabel Coixet (Learning to Drive) casts Emily Mortimer as a widower who opens a bookstore in an English shore town in 1959. The town's establishment -- led by the smiling but arch-tempered Violet (Patricia Clarkson) -- opposes the shop. Violet wants to see the house where Mortimer's Florence opens her bookstore converted into a local arts center. A reclusive resident (Bill Nighy) emerges as Florence's principal customer. In a role that mixes humor with deep sadness, Nighy creates a memorable portrait of a man whose life is steeped in regret. Mortimer handles her role with pluck and intelligence. Honor Kneafsey appears as the opinionated schoolgirl who earns after-school money as Florence's helper. Florence's support for Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita further annoys Violet, reminding us how controversial that novel was when first published. The Bookshop pays the expected homage to writing, reading and literature, but avoids the trap of becoming a celebration of one woman's dream. Instead, Coixet enfolds the story in a series of betrayals and power moves, all presented without undue melodrama. It may be slightly pejorative to call The Bookshop a little movie, but the label fits; it's small like the seaside town in which its set, but it's far from idyllic in outlook -- and that's its saving grace.

Murder and mystery in Victorian England

There aren't many actors I can say this about, but I'd watch just about any film that features work from Bill Nighy. In The Limehouse Golem, a melodramatic period piece set in Victorian London, Nighy sheds the customary twinkle in his eye (and, yes, it's always a wry twinkle) to play Inspector Kildare, a detective whose colleagues scorn him because of rumors that he might prefer men to women. As played by Nighy, Kildare doesn't seem particularly interested in having sex with anyone; Nighy brings a spirit of existential weariness to his portrayal of a man desperately in need of one last battle to fight. Kildare finds it when he's assigned the unenviable task of solving murders committed by a fiend who refers to himself as The Limehouse Golem. Olivia Cooke portrays Lizzie, a music hall star who becomes the wife of wannabe playwright John Cree (Sam Reid). When Cree, whose career failed to launch, is found dead, Lizzie is accused of having poisoned him. Kildare believes in Lizzie's innocence and thinks that he can exonerate her by solving the Limehouse murders, which are conducted in particularly brutal fashion. Adapted from a novel by Peter Aykroyd, The Lime House Golem includes a string of real-life characters, among them Karl Marx (Henry Goodman), novelist George Gissing (Morgan Watkins) and music hall performer Dan Leno, rendered in a terrific performance by Douglas Booth. Many of the characters become suspects as the movie hops from one red herring to the next before reaching its somewhat strained conclusion. Director Juan Carlos Medina (Insensibles) delivers a richly appointed evocation of 19th Century London in a movie that makes use of twists that are revealed in flashback and speculative scenes about the Golem's true identity. Well acted and richly atmospheric, The Limehouse Golem doesn't quite terrify, even though its talented cast and abundantly colorful artifice sustain interest. Eddie Marsan has an unnervingly creepy turn as Uncle, a music hall master of ceremonies who harbors secret perversities.

Movies in the time of war and heartbreak

A great cast makes Their Finest irresistible.

I can't recall the last time I saw a movie set during World War II that made me feel better than when I sat down to watch it. Don't get me wrong, Their Finest, the movie to which I refer, never mires itself in cheap sentiment. Rather, it celebrates the pluck required to persevere in the face of terrible loss -- and, in this movie, those losses can be felt.

On one level, Their Finest is a comedy about British moviemaking during the World War II. It's 1940, and the British government wants films that are both authentic and inspirational. In search of a realism that also will appeal to the female audience, the Ministry of Information recruits an advertising copywriter (Gemma Arterton), who may have a flare for such matters. Initially, Arterton's Catrin is assigned to writing only women's dialogue, which -- in the trade -- inelegantly was referred to as "slop."

Danish director Lone Scherfig (Italian for Beginners and An Education) offers period-piece comforts and a cast that hits every note, including the most acerbic, with bracing clarity.

The heart of the story involves a burgeoning relationship between Arterton's Catrin and a snidely witty screenwriter played by Sam Claflin. Because of his writing skills, Claflin's Tom Buckley has been exempted from the military; perhaps his position at the home front explains Tom's cynicism. But Claflin reveals a man who genuinely cares about the movies and hopes to make a good one.

There's a complication: Catrin happens to be married. I won't say more about how the movie works this out, but know that Arterton and Claflin make a great screen couple. They argue plenty, but also set off sparks -- and, even better, their attraction springs from something akin to an appreciation of each other's skills. They're unlikely soul mates.

Joining Arterton and Claflin are Richard E. Grant, as a studio head, and Bill Nighy as an actor whose ego is stronger than his recent successes. If you didn't already know, Nighy qualifies as a comic treasure, an actor who can inflate a character's sense of self-importance without turning an audience against him. His timing remains exquisite, and he brings sincerity to scenes that require it without being cloying.

I'd love to see an entire movie about Nighy's character and Sophie (Helen McCrory), the woman who eventually inherits the job of being his agent.

The movie's writers and filmmakers are working on a screenplay for a film about Dunkirk, which is supposed to buoy British spirits, bring tears to the eyes of war-weary Londoners and help persuade the US to join the war effort. To support the latter purpose, a hunky American (Jake Lacy) who has been flying in the British air force is foisted on cast and crew. He flies better than he acts.

Set during a time when most of Britain's young men were away, Their Finest shows how the door of opportunity opened for women. Arterton's character is more than ready to walk through it. It also makes clear the horrors of the Blitz, the ceaseless bombings that made life in London truly hellish. Young men were dying at the front and civilians were dying at home.

OK, it's not exactly a revelation to say that we must keep on even when times become terribly bleak, but I had no problem watching this group of actors deliver the message.

Scherfig manages a neat trick. She has made a movie that juxtaposes smiles and heartbreak and emerges on the far side of maudlin. Good for her.

Another stay at the Marigold Hotel

Judi Dench and Maggie Smith highlight a less-than-wonderful return trip to India.

When it movies do reasonably well at the box office, one go-round no longer seems sufficient.

So it's hardly surprising that director John Madden and the ensemble cast of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel have reunited for a sequel, this one appropriately titled The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. And second best, it most certainly is.

Three years after the original, Sonny (Dev Patel) has joined with the reliably acerbic Muriel (Maggie Smith) to try to interest an international franchiser in their small Indian operation, selling it as a charming spot where the elderly can enjoy their golden years at a low cost.

The movie never seems to question whether expansion and franchising are consistent with maintaining the hotel's rumpled charm, but a movie such as The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel never strays too far out of an audience's comfort zone.

Among the new but hardly pressing questions: Will Douglas (Bill Nighy) overcome his shyness and finally confess his growing love for Evelyn (Judi Dench)?

Called upon to be diffident, Nighy loses access to the wit that has marked his best work. For her part, Dench continues to bring warmth and dignity to a role that otherwise might be at home in a sitcom -- sitcom sensibilities being the operative force here.

Meanwhile, Sonny and his fiancee (Tena Desai) are planning their engagement party and wedding -- albeit not without obstacles stemming mostly from Sonny's insecurity. He frets about a potential rival.

Norman (Ronald Pickup) continues to work out the details of his relationship with Carol (Diana Hardcastle), and Madge (Celia Imrie) flirts with two Indian suitors.

Also added to the mix is a miscast Richard Gere, who plays a man who says he's writing a novel after the collapse of his marriage.

Lest he be left out of the romantic stew, Gere's character is smitten by Sonny's mother (Lillete Dubey) in what amounts to a pro forma and sparkless attempt at romance.

What was the point of adding Gere anyway? The reason people might want to see this movie rests almost entirely on their affection for characters they already know -- not on the expectation that newbies will arrive.

Less distracting is David Strathairn: He's briefly seen as the owner of a chain of hotels that may want to add The Marigold to its burgeoning empire.

The script even finds a way to return Douglas's miserable but estranged wife (Penelope Wilton) to the proceedings before all the loose ends are neatly tied.

You know from the start that any movie set in India must include energetic Bollywood-style dancing, which this one does, although it tries to leave us with a slightly reflective aftertaste.

For my money, Dench and Smith provide the major reasons to make a second trip to Jaipur, India, that and any incidental travelogue pleasures the journey may offer. Put it this way: Aging seldom has been made to seem more colorful.

Beanstalk scales few new heights

Jack the Giant Slayer comes up short on magic.
Fee Fi, Ho Hum!
That pretty much sums up my response to Jack The Giant Slayer. This spiffed-up retelling of the Jack and Beanstalk fairy tale boasts a strong cast, a host of giants (one with two heads), a spunky princess and a beanstalk capable of putting Giant Redwoods to shame.

Director Bryan Singer, who tried to restart the Superman franchise with 2006's regrettable Superman Returns;but who has done better with the X-Men movies, seems to be looking for another franchise. In the process, Singer turns a fairy tale into a Medieval adventure (in 3-D, of course) that tries for mythic reach with a beanstalk that connects to a mysterious region where giants have dwelled since being banished from Earth.

Exactly how a land full of cliffs, rocks and forests remains suspended five miles above the Earth qualifies as a mystery, but why quibble about the laws of gravity in a fairy tale?

The appealingly modest Nicholas Hoult portrays Jack, a poor lad who's sent to market to sell his uncle's horse. Jack winds up trading the slightly emaciated horse for a handful of beans that results in the skyward growth of the mythic beanstalk, an impressive enough CGI creation.

In this sometimes awkwardly structured telling of a familiar tale, Jack must climb the beanstalk to rescue Princess Isabelle (Eleanor Tomlinson). Jack meets the princess in the town market, where she's trying to escape the overly regulated confines of the palace. On a later such foray, the princess winds up being transported (via beanstalk) to the land of the giants.

To accomplish his rescue mission, Jack joins a search party dispatched by King Brahmwell (Ian McShane), Isabelle's father. The courageous Elmont (Ewan McGregor), a knight in Brahmwell's court, leads the expedition, which is joined by Isabelle's conniving finance, the melodramatically duplicitous Roderick (Stanley Tucci).

The movie begins by introducing us to parallel stories, one about Jack as a young boy, and the other about Isabelle, as a girl. Both characters lose their loving mothers. To add to Jack's misery, he also loses his father. He's then pressed into farm labor by the uncle (Christopher Fairbank) who takes him in.

Last seen the surprisingly engaging Warm Bodies, Hoult proves well-cast as a young man who falls for a princess who's far above him in social station. Jack's farm-boy status isn't the only obstacle to love: Isabelle's father has promised his resistant daughter to Tucci's Roderick.

After a few adventurers fall by the wayside, the rescue party reaches the land of the giants -- and the movie tries to whip up some menace. Bill Nighy (with a stop-action assist) portrays the evil General Fallon, who not only has a malicious head on his shoulder; he's got two. A character listed only as General Fallon's Small Head resides on Fallon's right shoulder and is voiced by John Kassir.
The rest of the giant crew looks appropriately motley. But this gaggle of Shreks gone bad doesn't inspire much real fear -- unless you happen to be very young, and although the giants (all male) feed on humans, I don't remember much gore.

I do, however, recall what felt like a excessively protracted finale. Singer builds toward a big battle sequence that takes place long after the movie's central conflict has been resolved. The movie's tumultuous ending plays like a special-effects add-on in which the destructive giants stage an earthly comeback, hoping to dine on lots of human prey.

Aside from a scene in which a haggard, nose-picking giant gives new meaning to the idea of "pigs in a blanket," Jack seems to be caught in an uncertain limbo: It's neither totally serious nor a major goof.

Bit by bit, Jack is seldom awful, but taken as a whole, the movie's too easy to shrug off. Maybe that's because Jack the Giant Slayer has been engineered for a blockbuster-sized splash this familiar story can't deliver.

No matter how much tinkering has been done to a classic tale, Jack seldom seems nimble or quick. But wait, that's a whole other Jack. As yet, no word on whether Hollywood plans to turn nursery rhymes into action adventures, but in these days of diminished expectation, I wouldn't rule it out.

A great cast checks into this hotel

Judi Dench and Tom Wilkinson paint portraits of characters in their twilight years..

In a season when most movies spend inordinate amounts of money creating adolescent thrill rides, a film that delivers a pep talk to the geezer crowd almost immediately qualifies as worthy -- if only from counter-programming point of view. Before you knock over your Metamucil, know that I'm old enough to disqualify myself from accusations of ageism. If I'm not a full-fledged geezer, I'm certainly a geezer in training.

Let me be even more specific. I'm older than both Bill Nighy and Tom Wilkinson, who -- in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel -- play characters who have stumbled into a post-retirement twilight zone.

A terrific British ensemble cast -- Judi Dench and Maggie Smith join Nighy and Wilkinson -- helps overcome some of the sentiment that inevitably bubbles through a movie that insists on telling us that it's never too late for ... well ... something.

Maybe romance. If not romance, maybe a bargain-priced hip replacement. And if not that, perhaps a swan song roll in the hay.

Director John Madden -- who can hit wonderfully right notes (Shakespeare in Love) as well as obvious clinkers (Captain Corelli's Mandolin) -- follows a group of seven Brits to a shabby hotel in Jaipur, India.

It's instructive to compare Madden's movie to last week's Darling Companion, another movie populated by characters in their '60s. I wouldn't call Madden's movie a triumph, but at least it springs from more than marriage ennui among the affluent, a prime focus in director Lawrence Kasdan's movie. The characters in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel face real problems of aging: diminished income, ravaged nest eggs, ill health and loneliness.

Thats' not to say that Madden's movie wouldn't have been better had it not treated the woes of aging quite so dutifully, almost as if compiling a checklist for a late-life self-help book.

Working from a script by Ol Parker, who adapted a novel by Deborah Moggach, Madden puts his capable cast to best use when it comes to delivering sharp dialog or sharing tender moments. He also understands that India offers a rich and colorful backdrop for a story in which each character overcomes at least one problem.

Examples: Wilkinson's Graham, a sad and emotionally burdened gay man, tries to rectify a mistake he made in his youth; Dench's character is dealing with the travails of recent widowhood; Smith plays a bigoted woman who has come to Jaipur as a medical tourist. She needs a hip replacement.

Living in India has its difficulties. One couple exemplifies opposing responses to a land of heat, spice, poverty, beauty and exuberant street life: Dogulas (Nighy) learns to delight in the city's pleasures. By way of contrast, his embittered wife (Penelope Wilton) complains about the food and refuses to leave her hotel room.

Libidos don't always go gently into the good night of old age. Norman, the aptly named Ronald Pickup, is looking for a last fling. Celia Imrie would like to find a rich husband.

The cheerfully chaotic young man (Dev Patel) who runs the hotel is prone to exaggerating the splendor of its amenities, which mostly are non-existent.

Patel's Sonny Kapoor has his own troubles. He's romantically involved with a young woman (Tena Desae) who works at a call center. Sonny's mom (Lillete Dubey) opposes her son's relationship with Desae's character, and wants to sell the hotel, which she views as both a social embarrassment and a financial burden.

There's no faulting any of the performances, and there's enough wit and humanity in the screenplay to keep The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel from turning smarmy. And if -- in the end -- it's a bit of a fantasy for the over 60 crowd ... well ... not everyone wants to groove on The Avengers.

Leapin' lizards! Rango is one wild ride

Rango has some rough spots, but it's clever and creative -- and maybe not for kids.

Rango, an animated western, is too enjoyably weird to ignore - even if it's not entirely clear exactly who the movie is for. Film buffs? Maybe. Fans of clever invention? Sure. Kids? I'm not certain.

Think Sergio Leone meets Chuck Jones with traces of Chinatown thrown in, and you'll begin to understand what director Gore Verbinski has wrought, an animated western that plays with genre clichés and assembles some of the year's most vivid imagery.

Rango, from another script that feels as if it has been composed by tossing ingredients into a Cuisinart, is made tolerable by its blend of silly humor, arch wit, savvy movie references and a few major surprises. The movie can be fun, but it's difficult to imagine that the littlest kids will get much beyond the cartoon antics supplied by Verbinski, who proved himself a master of visual comedy in a couple of Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

Did I mention that Rango's hero is a lizard voiced by Johnny Depp, an actor who's no stranger to nutty proceedings? Well, that's what Verbinski gives us, a bug-eyed wannabe gunslinger who - I'm giving away nothing here - ultimately saves the day.

Expelled from his terrarium early in the movie, the lizard - apparently a pet chameleon - wanders into the desert where he winds up in the aptly named town of Dirt, a dusty outpost that's on the verge of running out of water.

Our lizard hero tells a tall tale, defends the town from a ravenous hawk (sort of), winds up as sheriff and begins fulfilling his destiny, something he's been encouraged to do by a sagacious armadillo called Roadkill (Alfred Molina).

Verbinski doesn't skimp on characters. In fact, he overloads the screen with everything from rats to bats. There's Beans (Isla Fisher), a spunky lizard gal who's trying to save her daddy's ranch. Ned Beatty gives voice to the town's mayor, a turtle with a big hat and an ego to match, and Bill Nighy gives sinister life to the hired gun in the piece, the frightening Rattlesnake Jake.

This highlight reel only skims the surface of a big-time voice cast that also includes Abigail Preslin, Ray Winstone, Harry Dean Stanton and Timothy Olyphant - not to mention a mariachi band composed of four owls.

Visually striking, Rango eventually floods the screen with action that includes a heavy barrage of gun fire that's appropriate to a genre spoof, but a bit much for little kids. Rattlesnake Jake gave me the willies, so I'm assuming that younger kids may find him scary, as well. And some of the language is ... well ... indelicate.

Somewhere around the three-quarter mark my enjoyment flagged, maybe because the story suffers from literary indigestion: It's overstuffed.

Still, Verbinski deserves credit for turning Rango into an impressively creative entertainment whose excesses are redeemed by the twang of its best dialog and the sheer wildness of its heart.