Arts & Entertainment

Movie Reviews: Machete Kills, Gravity and Captain Phillips

Here's what movies are playing in Ankeny this weekend.

Movie information aggregated from moviefone.com

Captain Phillips

  • Run Time: 134min.

Find out what's happening in Ankenyfor free with the latest updates from Patch.

Find out what's happening in Ankenyfor free with the latest updates from Patch.

Slant Magazine: It works too hard to keep matters on an even, we're-all-more-alike-than-different keel, which is just one part of its chief problem of forcefully conveying information and intent. Full Review

New York Magazine: It’s when the Somalis spirit Phillips away in a closed lifeboat that Captain Phillips becomes a great thriller, in part because Barry Ackroyd’s camera is stuck inside with the characters and its jitters finally seem earned. Full Review

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Sandie Angulo Chen, Moviefone: "With the original, I was too upset that it was nothing like the classic children's book I loved reading to my children to give into the clever story line. But now that I know not to expect an adaptation at all, I was able to enjoy the sequel and think parents will feel for Mr. Lockwood as he tries to help his son Flint, and let's be clear, those little food-animals are just too cute to resist." Full review.

Do you plan on seeing this movie? Leave a review when you get home and tell your neighbors how it was!

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Don Jon

  • Run Time: 90min.

  • Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt , Scarlett Johansson , Julianne Moore , Tony Danza , Brie Larson

  • Director(s): Joseph Gordon-Levitt

  • Trailer

  • Reviews:

    Claudia Puig, USA Today: Johansson gives one of her best performances as the bossy, gum-chewing Jersey girl determined to change Jon into her image of a romantic hero. Tony Danza and Glenne Headly are hilarious as Jon's parents. Gordon-Levitt proves he can act, write and direct with equal dexterity. Full Review

    David Edelstein, New York Magazine (Vulture): The movie is a broad ethnic comedy, but there’s nothing broad about the wicked-smart way it’s executed. Full Review

    Do you plan on seeing this movie? Leave a review when you get home and tell your neighbors how it was!

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    Gravity

    Reviews:

    Slant Magazine: Alfonso Cuarón's triumph is an invigoratingly clean, elegant display of action choreography, a La Région Centrale you can still take grandma to see. Full Review

    NPR: Cuaron and his son Jonas have felt the need not just to come up with ways to keep the characters talking — there's even a mildly sneery reference to NPR at one point — but to brush in backstory and motivation, quite as if the peril of being isolated in space with a limited supply of oxygen weren't sufficient rationale for the characters' actions. Full Review

    Do you plan on seeing this movie? Leave a review when you get home and tell your neighbors how it was!

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    Runner Runner

    Reviews:

    Variety: Runner Runner’s appeal increases dramatically whenever Affleck enters the frame. Full Review

    USA Today: One of the film's biggest problems is that Richie is an unsympathetic and rather dim character. The badly drawn role does the likable Timberlake no favors. Full Review

    Do you plan on seeing this movie? Leave a review when you get home and tell your neighbors how it was!

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    Insidious: Chapter 2

    • Run Time: 105 Mins.

  • Starring: Patrick Wilson , Rose Byrne , Lin Shaye , Ty Simpkins , Jocelin Donahue

  • Director: James Wan

  • Trailer

  • Reviews

    Can we just say this about director James Wan? If you like horror films and you notice he’s directed a horror film, make the investment and see it.

    Wan helmed 2010′s “Insidious,” a movie that cost $1.5 million to make and went on to earn over $97 million — and it wasn’t just because of a clever marketing campaign. The guy knows how to manipulate a horror audience. And so, here we are with “Insidious: Chapter 2.” - ABCNews Full Review

    With his last helping of old-fashioned ooga booga, “The Conjuring,” still scaring up business in a few hundred theaters, James Wanreturns with two more hours of seat-clenching scares in “Insidious: Chapter 2,” a modestly scaled and highly pleasurable sequel to Wan’s low-budget ($1.5 million) 2011 smash that should have genre fans begging for thirds. Indeed, with a clever coda that suggests how this franchise might easily continue even without. - Variety.com See Full Review

    Do you plan on seeing this movie? Leave a review when you get home and tell your neighbors how it was!

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    Prisoners


    Reviews

    The New Yorker - Prisoners, despite its gathering anxiety, has some of the pleasures of ordinary thrillers. But Villeneuve, who previously directed “Incendies,” does volatile scenes without exaggeration; parts of the movie are exceedingly violent, though the violence isn’t “fun”— it makes you wince. Full Review

    The Guardian
     - In his first English language film, Quebeçois director Denis Villeneuve has produced a masterful thriller that is also an engrossing study of a smalltown America battered by recession, fear and the unrelenting elements. Full Review

    Do you plan on seeing this movie? Leave a review when you get home and tell your neighbors how it was!

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    Machete Kills

  • Starring: Danny Trejo , Mel Gibson , Michelle Rodriguez , Sofía Vergara , Jessica Alba

  • Reviews: Not Yet Available.

    Do you plan on seeing this movie? Leave a review when you get home and tell your neighbors how it was!

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    Rush

    Run Time: 123min.

    Reviews:

    NPR: A swift-moving, character-rich biopic whose kinetic Grand Prix sequences are constantly being overshadowed by genuinely riveting scenes of ... people talking.Full Review

    USA Today: Brilliantly captures the exhilaration that comes from facing death head-on. It's also an ode to joyous rivalry. Full Review

    Do you plan on seeing this movie? Leave a review when you get home and tell your neighbors how it was!

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