Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
A-List actors slumming in a Tom Clancy novel based thriller? Why, friends, I think what we have here is a fat paycheck in the form of a movie. Chris Pine is Jack Ryan, a Clancy character recovering in a post-9/11 Afghanistan. He gets a gig at the CIA where he’s supposed to be pushing papers but instead becomes a spy (it’s totally like that at the CIA). His boss is Kevin Costner, his girlfriend is Keira Knightley and his evil overlord is Kenneth Branagh (who also directed.)
Perfect For: People who have already seen all the Bourne movies 200 times and can’t bear to watch them again.
What the Critics Say: Not purely awful, but nothing amazing. Writes the Wall Street Journal: “This is moviemaking in a modular mode, an inspiration-free action adventure-with cheesy cinematography-that fills its modest running time by fitting together familiar elements into something reliably, even insistently, not new.”
Our Take: Don’t you have some TV shows to catch up on? Rewatch the Wire?
Ride Along
January is where movie studios send clunkers to die. Enter Ride Along, a buddy cop comedy starring the tiny comic, Kevin Hart, and the formerly fearsome rapper-turned-actor, Ice Cube. The plot involves Hart (who is a lowly high school security guard) trying to woo Ice Cube’s girlfriend and Cube (a cop) is all, “well, to prove your worth, you need to go on an ultra-dangerous ride-along.” Because that totally happens.
Perfect For: You are a sucker for buddy cop movies.
What the Critics Say: The dregs. Rolling Stone: “Ride Along [is] a collection of moldy gags that director Tim Story tries to polish.”
Our Take: Isn’t Beverly Hills Cops playing on cable somewhere?
The Nut Job
An animated comedy caper about a nut heist (as opposed to a heist featuring bad things) planned by a squirrel, a rat and a Pug. Featuring Liam Neeson, Katherine Heigl, Will Arnett, Brendan Fraser, and Maya Rudolph counting money—ahem, we mean voicing the characters.
Perfect For: You have children and there are no Pixar movies out in the theaters.
What the Critics Say: Very, very bad. USA Today: “When the story gets stale, the movie inserts a "nuts" pun or, worse, resorts to a gas or burp joke. It doesn't work the first time, nor the fifth.”
Our Take: Only if the children need
