Movie Scoreboard: 'Big Miracle,' 'Chronicle,' 'Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close'

"Big Miracle" * * * Hollywood delivers a family-friendly embellishment of events that unfolded in Alaska in 1988 when a family of gray whales became stranded under ice and faced certain death. The story captivated the media and forced oil men, environmentalists, native people, the Reagan administration and even the Soviets to collaborate on a rescue mission. John Krasinski plays the small-time TV reporter who broke the story. Drew Barrymore is a shrill Greenpeace activist, and Ted Danson portrays the oilman who has to be conned into helping. The film wisely shows that the would-be villains have a human side and that the supposedly righteous -- environmentalists and Alaska's native people -- can be downright unpleasant. Rated PG; language. 1 hour, 44 minutes. By Roger Moore, McClatchy-Tribune News Service. "Chronicle" * * * Three teenagers acquire super powers in this entertaining comics-like adventure. Featuring effects that put the last two "Spider-Man" movies to shame, engaging characters and a sort of melodramatic screenplay, the movie is entertainment based on that ever-popular question asked by children: "What would you do if you had super powers?" The young actors are charismatic, sympathetic and charming. The flying effects are first-rate, a marvelous next-generation version of something we've seen done reasonably well since "Superman." The script sets us up for obvious payoffs, then takes detours. That makes "Chronicle" a semi-serious sci-fi romp. Rated PG-13; action, violence, mature themes, language, sexual content, teen drinking. 1 hour, 23 minutes. By Roger Moore. "Contraband" * * * Mark Wahlberg plays a smuggler-gone-legit who is lured back into his former life of crime to get his brother-in-law out of trouble. Though the film is largely formulaic, it manages to deliver a few surprises and nail-biting moments as Wahlberg's character sets out by ship to pick up contraband in Panama on that proverbial one last job. Director Baltasar Kormakur, who starred in and produced the Icelandic thriller "Reykjavik-Rotterdam" (the film on which "Contraband" is based), ratchets up the suspense via a series of miscalculations, accidents of timing and betrayals. We pretty much know where everything is going because we've been here before, but "Contraband" is still a thoroughly entertaining boat ride. Rated R; violence, language, drug use. 1 hour, 50 minutes. By Roger Moore. "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" * * * Based on a Jonathan Safran Foer novel, this film is a sometimes tearful remembrance of Sept. 11, 2001, and the lives it ended or forever disrupted. Loner tween Oskar (Thomas Horn), still troubled by the loss of his dad on that day, discovers a key inside an envelope that says only "Black" on the outside. He decides it is part of a game planned by his father and sets out to find all the Blacks in Manhattan and ask whether they know what the key fits. Director Stephen Daldry ("The Hours") is too reliant on the boy's narration, but gets fine work out of a cast that includes Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, Viola Davis and Max Von Sydow. "Extremely Loud" is engrossing and emotional in ways no other 9/11 drama has managed to be. Rated PG-13; emotional themes, disturbing images, language. 2 hours, 9 minutes. By Roger Moore. "The Grey" * * Liam Neeson stars in director Joe Carnahan's tale about a wintry plane crash in the Alaskan arctic in which the survivors are stalked by wolves. Their only protection is the hunter (Neeson) whose job has required him to understand wolves and shoot them when they get too close to Alaska oil workers. The script suggests that the stressed-out humans revert to a sort of pack mentality. Neeson's character is the alpha dog, but he's challenged by others as the weak and the careless are picked off. It has the makings of a solid adventure tale, but "The Grey" is ultimately much like its title. It's too bland and, thanks to wolves that look "Twilight"-fake, too digital for its own good. Rated R; violence, disturbing content, bloody images, language. 1 hour, 52 minutes. By Roger Moore. "Man on a Ledge" * Prison escapee Nick Cassidy (Sam Worthington) checks into a swank hotel in New York, then climbs out onto a ledge several stories above the street and sets this ridiculous tale into motion. As it turns out, Cassidy is a disgraced police officer who has been saddled with a crime he did not commit: stealing a diamond from all-around jerk and rich guy David Englander (Ed Harris, chewing scenery like he's famished). But wait, there's more: Cassidy's brother and his brother's girlfriend enter the picture, and we learn that his threats to jump are maybe not what they seem. Before it's all over, viewers not only have to suspend disbelief but also throw their good sense off the side of the building. Rated PG-13; violence, language. 1 hour, 42 minutes. By Bill Goodykoontz, Gannett News Service. "The Woman in Black" * * * Film adaptation of Susan Hill's 1983 novel about a spectre whose appearances in a small English town foreshadow the deaths of children. Daniel Radcliffe plays Arthur Kipps, a failing young barrister in early-'20s Britain who heads to the marshy northeast coast to attend to the sale of an abandoned mansion. The house is on an island that's surrounded by the incoming tide several times a day, and no thump of a rocking chair or glimpse of a ghostly woman in a black mourning dress goes without investigation by Arthur. Though the movie delivers some hair-raising jolts -- a simple look of doomed resignation on a child's face, an unearthly hand slapped against a window -- there's not a lot of urgency in the storytelling. Still, for Radcliffe, it makes a convincing case for life after Harry Potter. Rated PG-13; mature themes, violence, disturbing images. 1 hour, 35 minutes. By Roger Moore. 影视帝国台湾综艺节目排行榜 山东电视台综艺频道 台湾综艺