Arts & Entertainment

Movie Reviews: The Getaway, The World's End, Mortal Instruments: City of Bone

Movie reviews and movie times for theaters in the Iowa City area, including, "Kick-Ass 2," "Elysium," and "We're The Millers." Let Patch help you decide what you're going to see this weekend.

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The Getaway

Thanks to the improbable success of the "Fast & Furious" franchise, car chase movies are apparently back in vogue. That's still no explanation for "Getaway," a laughably terrible grindhouse thriller masquerading as a "major" motion picture. This is a film that goes to the trouble of staging a certifiably insane amount of car crashes, wrecks, stunts and tricks and then buries them under a hyperactive visual style that ensures audiences can't see a damn thing. It's destruction porn run amok -- not so much a movie as a 90-minute headache. ~ Hitfix (Read Full Review)

Easily one of the dopiest major studio releases since Elie Samaha got out of the business, “Getaway” marks the not-very-anticipated return to the director’s chair of low-budget horror producer Courtney Solomon, whose prior helming credits include the risible 2000 adaptation of “Dungeons & Dragons” and 2005’s wan historical ghost story “An American Hunting” (where the scariest special effect was the squandering of stars Sissy Spacek and Donald Sutherland). Here, Solomon tries for his best Kathryn Bigelow or George Romero, thrusting us straight into the action, in medias res, with Hawke and the aforementioned Shelby careening wildly through a crowded Sofia park and adjacent pedestrian mall crowded with Christmas shoppers.  ~ Scott Foundas, Variety (See Full Review)

World's End
Despite a too-long third act, dragging action sequences and an epilogue that would have been better left on the cutting room floor, the wordy wit and ingenuity of The World’s End is a sloppy triumph over this summer’s other alien/robot hybrid flick, "Pacific Rim." Full Review ~ New York Observer

A mix of comedy, science fiction, nostalgia, adolescent wish-fulfillment and beer, beer, beer, its parts shouldn’t fit together as neatly as they do. But somehow Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg have again managed to make a movie that is knowing, touching and hilarious. Full Review Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic

Mortal Instruments: City of Bone
Though imaginatively directed by Harald Zwart, Mortal Instruments, which is adapted from Cassandra Clare's YA novels, is marred by significant flaws. Full Review ~ David Hiltbrand, Philadelphia Inquirer
The storyline is at times muddled and incoherent. This won't bother readers much since they have the "inside track" on what's happening. Then again, the narrative is so predictable that maybe it doesn't matter. Full Review James Berardinelli, ReelViews

Everything chugs along briskly and reasonably entertainingly until running off the rails a bit with a wildly overcomplicated finale. Full Review Bruce Ingram, Chicago Sun-Times

Kick-Ass 2
"A fun if sporadically schizoid return to one of the brighter, brasher comic-bookers of recent years." Total Film. Full Review

"The film doubles down on the love-hate relationship with ultra-violence that typified its predecessor, but A History of Violence this is not." Chris Cabin, Slant Magazine. Full Review

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Jobs
"The movie is constantly at war with attempts to provide an honest portrayal, almost as if its subject were reaching beyond the grave to steer any negativity back in the direction of a hagiography." Eric Kohn, IndieWire. Full Review

"Ultimately, Jobs is a prosaic but not unaffecting tribute to the virtues of defiance, nonconformity, artistry, beauty, craftsmanship, imagination and innovation, qualities it only intermittently reflects as a piece of filmmaking." Justin Chang, Variety. Full Review

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Paranoia
No reviews are available at this time.

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The Butler
"Make no mistake, Daniels is gunning for awards here; the movie has that sheen, that Big Important Feel. But the performances keep it grounded. Let someone else decide winners and losers. Just enjoy “The Butler” for the sometimes-moving experience it is." Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic. Full Review

"Crudely powerful. You can object to the thuggish direction and the script that’s a series of signposts, but not the central idea, which is genuinely illuminating." David Edelstein, New York Magazine. Full Review

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Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters
"This "Percy Jackson" is a gentler-spirited, less flashy enterprise, though it still presents a natural world that can morph at the whim of a god. I like that." RogerEbert.com Full Review

"In Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, choosing the dumbest character is a colossal task." Connie Ogle, Miami Herald. Full Review

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We're The Millers
"Though the cast partially eschews the family-friendly timidity that the film defers to in the end, this would-be wild thing remains little more than a rowdy endorsement of the status quo." Chris Cabin, Slant Magazine. Full Review

"Get past the comedy and there's something almost weird at the movie's core - a deep cynicism about family and a longing for family, both at the same time." Mike LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle. Full Review

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2 Guns
"2 Guns is a much-needed reminder that the best summer surprises can come when you least expect them." Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly. Full Review

"There’s nothing about 2 Guns that doesn’t feel prefab, like someone poured a packet of Insta-Movie into a glass of water." Gabe Toro, The Playlist. Full Review

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Elysium
"Hollywood loves these apocalypse-soon stories, however, because they function as blank canvases for ruin porn, and if nothing else, Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium gives us the realistically trashed tomorrow we suspect we deserve." David Fear, Time Out New York. Full Review

"Not perfect, but a much more satisfying Earth-in-ruins film than Oblivion or After Earth. It is a little more conventional than District 9 (what isn’t?), but confirms Blomkamp as one of the potential science-fiction greats of this decade." Kim Newman, Empire. Full Review

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The Conjuring
"Like the wood-grained farmhouse itself — a beautiful piece of production design by Julie Berghoff — The Conjuring has an analog solidity that makes the terror to come almost unbearable." Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out New York. Full Review

"Though The Conjuring claims to be based on a true story, in truth it's based on every horror film that's come before it." Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine. Full Review

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