Movie Reviews: The Internship, Finding Joy, Much Ado About Nothing, The Purge

The Internship

• Run Time: 119 mins. 
• Starring: Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Josh Gad, Joanna Garcia, Aasif Mandvi
• Rated: PG-13
• Find local showtimes on Moviefone.com

Stephanie Zacharek, The Riverfront Times: "Eager young people can't find jobs; qualified older people can't find jobs. There's nothing funny about that, which is exactly why someone ought to be making comedies about it. The Internship, in which downtrodden old-school salespeople Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson enter the 21st century and land internships at Google, might have been just the palliative for this sad state of affairs. But when you need cheering up about your inability to pay the rent or your lack of health insurance, do you really want to drop 10 precious shekels (or more) on a movie so desperately unfunny it makes you want to slit your wrists?" More on Riverfront Times --

The Purge

• Run Time: 85 mins. 
• Starring: Lena Headey, Ethan Hawke, Max Burkholder, Adelaide Kane
• Rated: R
• Find local showtimes on Moviefone.com

Kevin C. Johnson, STLToday.com: "In this barely futuristic thriller, set in 2022, all crime is legal for one night a year as Americans are urged to 'release the beast,' letting hate and violence run wild for 12 hours. Doing so reduces crime the other 364 days of the year, it is reasoned. From 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., all emergency services are suspended, and absolutely anything goes" More on STLToday

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Much Ado About Nothing

• Run Time: 109 mins. 
• Starring: Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof, Nathan Fillion, Clark Gregg, Reed Diamond
• Rated: NR
• Find local showtimes on Moviefone.com

A. O. Scott, The New York Times: "Joss Whedon’s adaptation of 'Much Ado About Nothing' — perhaps the liveliest and most purely delightful movie I have seen so far this year — draws out the essential screwball nature of Shakespeare’s comedy. It may be the martini-toned black-and-white cinematography, the soigné Southern California setting, or the combative courtship of Amy Acker’s angular, sharp-tongued Beatrice and Alexis Denisof’s grouchy, hangdog Benedick, but from its very first scenes, Mr. Whedon’s film crackles with a busy, slightly wayward energy that recalls the classic romantic sparring of the studio era." More on The New York Times
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Finding Joy

• Run Time: 90 mins. 
• Starring: Josh Cooke, Liane Balaban, Barry Bostwick, Lainie Kazan, Tyler Bunch
• Rated: NR
• Find local showtimes on Moviefone.com

Nicolas Rapold, The New York Times: "A clumsy mixed-nuts comedy, Carlo De Rosa’s 'Finding Joy' suggests Mad Libs with its story of an uptight, failed writer who moves back in with his family. Whether stuffing its graceless hero into a clown suit on a construction site or sending him on a first date with an offbeat neighbor to give a safe-sex talk at a home for the elderly, the film is funny only on paper, if that." More on The New York Times