Movie Stars
"Beauty in Trouble" Unhappy wife of Prague chop-shop owner meets cultured Czech expatriate; sparks fly. But while you can take the girl out of the garage, the reverse isn't quite as easy. Ana Geislerová plays Marcela, the wildly beating heart of Jan Hrebejk's intricately plotted, well-acted drama, and she is both beauty and trouble in equal measure. Will she make the right choice between the two men in her life? Neither she nor we know. (110 min., unrated) (Leighton Klein)
"Chris & Don: A Love Story" A documentary more or less about the 32 years the writer Christopher Isherwood and the painter Don Bachardy spent romantically, domestically, and artistically entwined. Bachardy is the surviving half of the relationship, and the movie is less enthralling than he is. As loving and welcome as it is, the film isn't well enough conceived to create equilibrium among its many parts. (90 min., unrated) (Wesley Morris)
"The Dark Knight" A grimly Wagnerian summer blockbuster with a diseased butterfly named Heath Ledger flitting through its murk. Much more serious than 2005's "Batman Begins," Christopher Nolan's sequel feels carved from an even longer film, with confusing subplots and loose ends left hanging. Yet it works as an agonized big-muscle action epic with weighty themes, and the late Ledger gives his final performance a squirrelly incandescence. Costarring Christian Bale, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman, and Morgan Freeman. (152 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)
"Elsa & Fred" A pleasant but fatally mild drama about the romance between two 80-somethings in Madrid. He (Manuel Alexandre) is an elegantly composed widower; she (China Zorrilla) is a playful force of nature who upends his life until he gives in. It's cute, but under Marcos Carnevale's tepid direction, the film goes far too gently into that good night. In Spanish, with subtitles. (106 min., PG) (Ty Burr)
"Hair Extensions" It's natural. It's textured. It's alive. Yes, the detached hair in this absurd Japanese horror film wants you dead. The director and co-writer, Sion Sono, positions his killer hair as a ridiculous last stand and his star, Chiaki Kuriyama, in a rare state of chipper vulnerability. When the giant nest of extensions goes on the attack it's scary insofar as it looks as if Tyra Banks's hair has finally lost its mind. In Japanese, with subtitles. (108 min., R) (Wesley Morris)
"Hellboy II: The Golden Army" The most unapologetically comic book-y of the summer's comic-book movies, and thank goodness for that. Since the first "Hellboy" movie, director Guillermo del Toro has hit the big time with "Pan's Labyrinth," and here he seamlessly blends his art-house and gonzo genre sides. Ron Perlman again plays the big red fella, a demon working for the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. (110 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)
"Journey to the Center of the Earth" The umpteenth screen version of the 1864 Jules Verne novel is also the latest to attempt to take 3-D technology mainstream. The movie's engaging in a low-rent Saturday-matinee way, but when Brendan Fraser, as a goofball adventurer, spits toothpaste at the camera, you know the spirit of 1981's "Comin' At Ya!" lives on. Costarring Josh Hutcherson, Anita Briem, and a hungry T. Rex. (92 min., PG) (Ty Burr)
"Love Comes Lately" This adaptation of three Isaac Bashevis Singer stories is certainly iffy enough, but it has an immensely adorable center in Otto Tausig, an old Austrian-born veteran who makes dottiness and wisdom seem like the world's most natural combination, despite the reality that this project seems ever so unnatural. The writer and director Jan Schütte's idea isn't terrible, but this movie chooses to reduce the author's work to mirrored tales of lonely, randy seniors, all of whom Tausig plays. In a sense, it's a disservice. Imagine a film based on some James Baldwin writings whose conclusion was: Boy, he was frisky. With Rhea Perlman, Barbara Hershey, Elizabeth Peña, Olivia Thirlby, and Tovah Feldshuh. (86 min., unrated) (Wesley Morris)
"Mamma Mia!" Unexpected bliss. The movie takes the jukebox musical that ate London and is still eating Broadway (20 ABBA songs whose hooks are the pop equivalent of gum on your shoe) and turns it into an alarmingly sensual experience. A jolly Meryl Streep plays a hotel proprietress on a remote Greek isle who, in time for her daughter's wedding, is reunited with three exes (Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, and Stellan Skarsgard) and her two best friends (Julie Walters and Christine Baranski). After more than 30 years of movie acting, Streep is still finding fresh approaches to roles. This time she's a movie star. Finally. The rest of the cast, including Amanda Seyfried as her daughter, is almost just as good. (108 min., PG-13) (Wesley Morris)
"Meet Dave" Or don't. Eddie Murphy is supposed to be playing a spaceship controlled by microscopic human-looking aliens, but he looks like an escapee from Madame Tussaud's. Murphy also plays the tiny captain controlling his human-size self from a control deck in the spaceship's head. The movie has the amateurish earnestness of a school play and the sad overnight construction of certain science projects. The special-effects here may as well be by Mattel. (90 min., PG) (Wesley Morris)
"Space Chimps" A rambunctious circus chimp (voiced by Andy Samberg of "SNL") is drafted for an interstellar mission and learns about love, responsibility, and honor. This computer-animated family film is short, cheap, weird, and diverting enough for the toddler set; others beware. Cheryl Hines, Jeff Daniels, Patrick Warburton, and Kristin Chenoweth provide additional voices. (81 min., G) (Ty Burr)
"The Wackness" 1994 Manhattan: Josh Peck plays a high school grad who sells pot to his psychiatrist (Ben Kingsley, delightful) while falling for the doctor's stepdaughter (Olivia Thirlby of "Juno"). A coming-of-age drama from writer-director Jonathan Levine, it's a smart, sentimental, period-specific labor of love. It also runs along the track of earlier coming-of-age dramas, with appointed station stops at Cynicism, Puppy Love, Puppy Sex, Puppy Heartbreak, and Greater Wisdom. (95 min., R) (Ty Burr)
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