Don’t worry folks, only one more week until Robert Downey Jr. and co. give us a reason to believe in big budget Hollywood fare with “Iron Man 2” (the film has already opened internationally). Until then, we’ve got a lame horror reboot and an even lamer Brendan Fraser family vehicle going head-to-head against the continued success of the Dreamworks’ “How to Train Your Dragon.” Serious as the legs on that fire-breathing beast may be, Freddy should be anything but dead at the box office this weekend.
In Wide Release: Everyone’s favorite razor-fingered dreamweaver finally gets a reboot in this week’s “A Nightmare On Elm Street.” The feature debut by music video director Samuel Bayer, stars the reliably fantastic Jackie Earle Haley replacing Robert Englund as Freddie Krueger. A whole generation has grown up knowing Krueger as an icon, but, not necessarily the films in the series, so a reboot makes sense right about now. We smacked the flick with a big fat F in our review yesterday, so don’t blame us when it goes straight to #1. Rotten Tomatoes tracks the film with a 13% rating, while Metacritic is slightly kinder with a 33 score.
Brendan Fraser once again tries to spin dirt into family comedy gold with “Furry Vengeance.” Encino Man plays a developer who moves to the Oregon woods with his family to oversee an eco-friendly housing development, only to find himself at war with the native creatures who inhabit the land. Expect lots of cheap groin shots, cartoony violence, and spotty acting from the human cast. To think that director Roger Kumble once helmed the horny high school classic “Cruel Intentions.” Oh, how the mighty have fallen. RT says you shouldn’t even bother, with a lousy 3% rating, Metacritic chimes in with a 22 score.
In Limited Release: Director Nicole Holofcener (“Lovely & Amazing,” “Friends With Money”) re-teams with her muse, Catherine Keener for the acidic comedy “Please Give.” Keener plays a furniture scavenging Manhattan mother struggling to keep her family functioning in the modern world. Oliver Platt, Amanda Peet, and Rebecca Hall co-star in the film, which we reviewed yesterday, finding it mean, funny, but ultimately forgettable. RT: 88%, Metacritic: 74.
Michael Caine gets a meaty starring role in the British thriller “Harry Brown.” The 77-year-old legend plays the titular ex-Marine living in a run-down modern day London neighborhood with an escalating youth crime problem. When his best friend is killed, Harry Brown gets all vigilante on us and cleans up the hood with his own bare hands. While the film has some thrills, as we noted in our review, it ends up completely unsatisfying. RT: 69%, Metacritic: 56.
A crazed doctor surgically joins three victims together, mouth to anus, in the horror film “The Human Centipede (First Sequence).” The Tom Six-directed picture has won several awards at various international film festivals and is getting a joint cinema/VOD distribution through IFC films. We reviewed the film this week, having a hell of a lot of fun with the undeniably frightening picture, which makes a great alternative to that other big horror release this week. RT: 59% Metacritic: 38.
Also out in limited release: Brian Cox plays a bar owner slowly drinking himself to death in “The Good Heart.” When he meets a young homeless man Lucas, played by Paul Dano, he finds a natural heir to his legacy and begins to teach him the tricks of the trade. RT: 36%, Metacritic: 40. Scott Caan writes, produces, and stars in “Mercy” about a romantic novelist. RT: 29%, Metacritic: 49.