MR. MAGORIUM'S WONDER EMPORIUM
Is this what has become of Dustin Hoffman? After rewriting the book on Hollywood sexiness in "The Graduate" 40 years ago, he has since been reduced to playing an overgrown Oompa Loompa in Zach Helm's colorful bit of family-friendly treacle. Natalie Portman shows up as Magorium's apprentice, who is next in line to inherit her boss's magical toy store, assuming boring ol' Jason Bateman doesn't get in the way as a troublesome accountant.
-- A.J. Fox
BEOWULF
There are two ways to watch "Beowulf," Robert Zemeckis's action spectacular. The first is with an attitude of academic solemnity; the story is adapted from an Old English ballad and will no doubt attract a host of scholars hoping for a resonant adaptation of their favorite Scandinavian myth. These viewers will be sorely disappointed. What they will find is a dizzying pop spectacle, a bastardization of classical source material into a bloody, sexy, relentlessly entertaining roller coaster of a movie. These viewers will get their money's worth. -- A.J. Fox
LIONS FOR LAMBS
A sanctimonious piece of political propaganda, Robert Redford's new movie will disturb liberals who agree with its politics and delight conservatives who will tear it apart. Redford plays a grizzled professor trying to browbeat a student out of political apathy, while Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep spar over the Iraq War on Capitol Hill. In its least offensive moments, "Lions for Lambs" is boring and preachy; when the film moves from the halls of power into the field of battle, it descends into the exploitative and the ludicrous.
-- A.J. Fox
