Little Fockers
You know a comedy franchise has hit rock bottom when, within the first 15 minutes of a movie, you've watched an obese man receiving an enema and a 2-year-old boy projectile vomiting into the face of his dad. So it goes with Little Fockers, the third and (let's cross our fingers here) presumably last installment in the series about the put-upon nurse Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) and his ex-CIA agent father-in-law, Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro). Greg and his wife, Pam (Teri Polo), are happily, if busily married and living in Chicago with their twins. But our hero faces temptation in the form of a knockout pharmaceutical sales rep (Jessica Alba). Yet there's nothing at stake here: Greg would never cheat on Pam. The filmmakers pile on the puerile sight gags and struggle to find new ways to humiliate performers who have been humiliated plenty.
Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a spirited revival of the film franchise based on C.S. Lewis' "Narnia" novels. There are fresh threats to the kingdom, islands to be visited, slave traders to be fended off and a quest to be completed. Director Michael Apted gives this chronicle an emotional resonance and lightness of touch lacking in the previous films.
Casino Jack stars Kevin Spacey as Jack Abramoff, the notorious lobbyist who brought down Texas Congressman Tom DeLay. The film is ambitious but muddled -- it never gives us a sense of what Abramoff did and why we should care.
