Cameron Diaz

more images

The New York premiere of 'Precious'
more images

Mariah Carey
more images

Capsule reviews: ‘Precious’ and others

Capsule reviews of films opening this week:

“The Box” — Cameron Diaz and James Marsden have a moral dilemma: Press a button on a mysterious container and they’ll get $1 million, but someone they don’t know will die. What button, on whose box, did writer-director Richard Kelly push to get the money to make this awful, preposterous thriller? Diaz and Marsden play a couple offered the box, button and deal described above by a grotesquely disfigured stranger (Frank Langella). Adapting this mess from a Richard Matheson story that was the basis of a 1980s “Twilight Zone” episode, Kelly roams ponderously beyond that tale’s snappy ending, into an installment of “The X-Files” in its post-Mulder death throes, when the show turned to rot. Kelly piles on government conspiracies, abductions, mobs of automatons controlled by forces beyond human comprehension. The hammy dialogue and hammier performances eventually start to provoke laughs as the movie shambles toward its overdue demise. PG-13 for thematic elements, some violence and disturbing images. Running time: 115 minutes. One star out of four.

— David Germain, AP Movie Writer

“A Christmas Carol” — The time, not just the season, is ripe for a new version of “A Christmas Carol.” When Charles Dickens wrote his classic story, it was a cautionary tale to greedy capitalists of the 19th century (Scrooge recalls his deceased partner, Jacob Marley, as “a good man of business.”). Dickens’ story is about as sturdy a one as we’ve got — it would be nearly impossible to mar what might be the finest ghost story this side of “Hamlet.” Unfortunately, our 2009 version is defined only by its technology. Animated in 3-D, Disney’s “A Christmas Carol,” directed by Robert Zemeckis, suffocates from its design. Despite (or because of) Zemeckis’ approach to using performance-capture animation, the film comes off oddly inanimate. Jim Carrey, playing not just Scrooge but the three ghosts who visit him, clearly has the zest and range for the parts. But he — like the rest of the cast, including Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and Cary Elwes — struggles to break through the film’s excessive wizardry. PG for scary sequences and images. Running time: 95 minutes. Two stars out of four.

— Jake Coyle, AP Entertainment Writer

“The Fourth Kind” — This flat-lining, alien-abduction thriller offers a close encounter that buries an interesting idea under a barrage of gimmicky, carnival-like hokum. The movie’s unwieldy mix of degraded pseudo-documentary footage and “Unsolved Mystery”-style re-enactments is as unconvincing as it is distancing. In a sleep-inducing performance, Milla Jovovich plays an actress re-enacting an Alaska psychologist’s research into patients’ reports of strange phenomena. Writer-director Olatunde Osunsanmi presents these events in split-screen fashion with the “real,” raw videotaped footage of patients’ recollections playing side-by-side with the actors’ reconstructions. Osunsanmi invests so much time and energy trying to convince the audience of the events’ veracity that he forgets to create even a rudimentary sense of tension. His split-screen divide between “reality” and “re-enactment” is almost as distracting as composer Atli Orvarsson’s boom-boom score. PG-13 for violent/disturbing images, some terror, thematic elements and brief sexuality. 98 minutes. One star out of four.

— Glenn Whipp, For The Associated Press

“The Men Who Stare at Goats” — A fun tone is undermined by disjointed storytelling in George Clooney and producing partner Grant Heslov’s romp based on Jon Ronson’s amusing nonfiction book about the U.S. military’s research into psychic warfare and espionage. First-time director Heslov crafts a hit-and-miss fictional narrative ornamented with some of the brighter anecdotes Ronson uncovered about efforts to create warrior monks who try to walk through walls or glare animals to death. Clooney plays a prodigy of this New Age militarism, with Jeff Bridges as his Dude-like mentor, Kevin Spacey as a psychic rival and Ewan McGregor as a reporter uncovering the story amid the war in Iraq. The movie opens with the promise of a Catch-22 or Strangelove-style satire, but while it maintains much of the book’s drolly incredulous spirit, the dots of absurdity just don’t connect that well. With “Star Wars” vet McGregor on hand, the repeated Jedi knight references are jarring. R for language, some drug content and brief nudity. 93 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.

— David Germain, AP Movie Writer

“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” — Director Lee Daniels assembles some of the unlikeliest ingredients — Mariah Carey, Mo’Nique, and a lead actress plucked from an anonymous casting call — to create a wondrous work of art. The film isn’t easy to watch and will test your tolerance for despicable behavior as a long history of physical abuse and incest unfolds involving an illiterate, obese Harlem schoolgirl. Yet “Precious” — both the film and its grandly resilient title character — will steal your heart. Daniels crafts a story that rises from the depths of despair to a place of genuine hope. Gabourey Sidibe offers a phenomenal screen debut as Precious, who makes an utterly believable and electrifying rise from an urban abyss of ignorance and neglect. The normally lowbrow Mo’Nique delivers an Oscar-worthy performance as Precious’ viper of a mother, while great support is provided by Paula Patton, Lenny Kravitz and Carey in a small but honest role. This is great American cinema. R for child abuse including sexual assault, and pervasive language. 109 minutes. Four stars out of four.

— David Germain, AP Movie Writer