EAT PRAY LOVE (PG)
LIZ’S marriage to Stephen (Billy Crudup) ends in acrimony and she seeks temporary refuge with best friend Delia (Viola Davis) before pursuing a divorce. A brief dalliance with an actor called David (James Franco) convinces her to embark on a year-long odyssey. Liz heads to Rome where she makes friends with Swedish beauty Sofi (Tuva Novotny), language teacher Giovanni (Luca Argentero) and their coterie, and rediscovers her passion for food. “Ruin is the road to transformation,” Liz surmises, heading next to India to an Ashram to find inner peace. Returning to Bali, Liz continues to search for food for her wounded soul, including a very pleasant flirtation with divorced father Felipe (Javier Bardem).
STAR RATING: **
THE HOLE IN 3D (12A)
SUSAN Thompson (Teri Polo) is forced to uproot her family to a new, secluded neighbourhood, causing friction with her older, teenage son, Dane (Chris Massoglia). Younger son Lucas (Nathan Gamble) accepts the situation far more readily. Playing in the basement one day, Dane and Lucas discover a trapdoor secured with several padlocks. Foolishly, the boys decide to remove the locks and open the trapdoor to reveal a seemingly bottomless pit. When they seek answers from the previous resident, Creepy Carl (Bruce Dern), the Thompsons learn that the hole is a portal to The Darkness, a terrifying force which preys upon human fears.
STAR RATING: **
THE OTHER GUYS (12A)
DETECTIVES PK Highsmith (Samuel L Jackson) and Christopher Danson (Dwayne Johnson) are the golden boys of the NYPD, monopolising newspaper headlines with their gung-ho antics. When the two officers are sidelined, hot-headed Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg) and his mild-mannered partner Allen Gamble (Will Ferrell) vie with rival detectives Fosse (Damon Wayans Jr) and Martin (Rob Riggle) to lead the team. “I’m a peacock. You’ve got to let me fly!” Terry implores Captain Gene Mauch (Michael Keaton), desperate to be included on a case involving multi-millionaire David Ershon (Steve Coogan). When his pleas fall on deaf ears, Terry drags Allen into the field with only a wooden replica gun for protection.
STAR RATING: ***
RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE (15)
AFTERLIFE continues the adventures of Alice (Milla Jovovich) as she battles the evil Umbrella Corporation. The film opens in rain-soaked Japan with the outbreak of the T-virus engineered by the Umbrella Corporation, which sweeps the globe, transforming the infected into the ravenous undead. Fast-forwarding four years, the action moves to Los Angeles via Alaska and a prison stronghold where Alice and old friend Claire Redfield (Ali Larter), who is suffering amnesia, meet fellow survivors Luther (Boris Kodjoe), Bennett (Kim Coates), Crystal (Kacey Barnfield), Angel (Sergio Peris-Mencheta) and Kim (Norman Yeung). Claire’s long lost brother, Chris (Wentworth Miller), just happens to be imprisoned in the basement and he leads the motley crew against a ferocious new evolution of the undead.
STAR RATING: **
TAMARA DREWE (15)
TAMARA Drewe (Gemma Arterton) is a London newspaper journalist who returns to the cosy village of Ewedown to sell her late mother’s cottage and sees her sense of style and smaller nose (thanks to plastic surgery) turn the heads of many of the village’s men folk including her childhood sweetheart Andy (Luke Evans), celebrated writer Nicholas (Roger Allam) and rock band drummer Ben (Dominic Cooper).
STAR RATING: ***
TETRO (15)
FRANCIS Ford Coppola returns to form with this tale of Bennie, a youth who travels to Buenos Aires to find his missing older brother, a writer named Tetro (Vincent Gallo). But he gets more than he bargained for when he also finds a controversial play Tetro has written about their domineering father, a famous musician. Showing at Clwyd Theatr Cymru in Mold from Tuesday-Wednesday.
STAR RATING: ***
THE TOWN (15)
DOUG MacRay (Ben Affleck) is doomed to repeat the mistakes of his father Stephen (Chris Cooper), who is serving time in a maximum security prison, as mastermind of a four-strong team of bank robbers comprising trigger-happy best friend Jem (Jeremy Renner), Gloansy (Slaine) and Desmond (Owen Burke). On their final job, Jem takes bank manager Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall) hostage, releasing her once they are safely away from pursuing cops. Fearing that the terrified woman may identify them, Doug engineers a meeting in a laundrette and slowly develops an attraction to Claire, who has no idea that she is falling in love with the man who pointed a gun at her head hours earlier.
STAR RATING: ***
VIDEOCRACY (15)
ERIK Gandini explores Berlusconisma, the phenomenon o celebrity obsession that has gripped Italy, much of it driven by Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s long time Prime Minister and owner of the majority of the country’s media. Showing at Clwyd Theatr Cymru in Mold on Thursday only.
STAR RATING: ***
WHATEVER WORKS (12A)
WOODY Allen returns with this New York comedy starring Larry David as a retired Nobel prize-winning physicist and misanthrope who finds an unlikely insight on life from a teenage girl he finds sleeping rough outside his apartment. Also starring Evan Rachel Wood and Patricia Clarkson. Showing at Clwyd Theatr Cymru in Mold on Thursday only. Showing at Clwyd Theatr Cymru in Mold from Friday-Monday.
STAR RATING: ***
