‘Battle for Terra’ looks better than it sounds
‘Battle for Terra’
When a spacecraft full of humans, forced to flee Earth after it’s destroyed by war, attacks peaceful Terra, Mala (voice of Evan Rachel Wood) captures a human pilot, Jim Stanton (Luke Wilson), and his robot (David Cross). Together they uncover the secret history of Terrian civilization and attempt to stop the genocidal plans of General Hemmer (an over-the-top Brian Cox).
It’s a real shame that the character design is so terrible – besides the spermatozoic Terrians, the human characters are interchangeable waxworks – because the rest of “Battle for Terra” is quite beautiful to look at, though it doesn’t do much for the film’s pacifist message that, as spacecraft zip across the screen and fire lasers into your popcorn, you may find yourself wishing that the director had replaced the movie’s poorly written dialogue and implausible plot with more battle scenes.
War! What is it good for? Awesome animation! (1:25; PG for sci-fi action violence and thematic elements)
‘Ghosts of Girlfriends Past’
Photographer Connor Mead (Matthew McConaughey) shuns emotional attachments and disdains marriage. The inspiration for Connor’s approach to relationships is his late Uncle Wayne (Michael Douglas), an ardent misogynist.
Then Wayne’s ghost appears with a warning for his nephew to change his ways, saying that Connor will be visited by three ghosts to drive home the message. That admonishment is followed by the specters, including the childhood sweetheart at the bottom of his childhood traumas, Jenny (Jennifer Garner), who gives him grief at a wedding as one of four bridesmaids whom Connor has jilted over the years.
The relentless vulgarities here would be almost tolerable if they were amusing, but Mark Waters’ direction is so tentative that the film’s single laugh happens more than an hour in. (1:40; PG-13 for sexual content, language and a drug reference)
‘Observe and Report’
“Observe and Report” is thematically akin to the recent “Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” and in fact the Seth Rogen film has been described as a “darker” version of the goofy Kevin James movie. But that sounds like studio spin.
Rogen is playing a delusional, violent, sexist, racist, homophobic mall cop with a bipolar disorder, so there’s not really a lot to laugh at. In fact, how the movie got made at all is going to remain one of those mysteries, like decaffeinated coffee, or little ships in bottles. (1:26; R for violence, drugs, rampant vulgarity, sex, nudity)
‘O’ Horten’
The recently retired title character of “O’ Horten” is a cinematic cousin to Warren Schmidt of “About Schmidt,” the 2002 movie in which Jack Nicholson played a reserved man whose retirement confuses rather than liberates him. Both are agreeable career men learning to operate in a world that no longer accommodates their habits.
While “About Schmidt” is tart, accessible and ultimately moving, “O’ Horten” is dry, distant and slightly absurdist – in a word, it’s more Scandinavian.
Depending on your patience for oddball mood pieces, you will either sleep through “O’ Horten” or be oddly captivated. Either way, it’ll be like dreaming. (1:33, PG-13 for brief nudity; in Norwegian with English subtitles)
Also available: “Rage,” “Lymelife,” “Castle: Complete First Season,” “30 Rock: Season Three,” “The Complete Monterey Pop Festival: Criterion Collection,” “The Mentalist: Complete First Season,” “Paul Newman: The Tribute Collection,” “Star Trek: The Next Generation Motion Picture Collection,” “Taxi: Complete Fourth Season,” “Wallace & Gromit: The Complete Collection”