![]() ![]() This faith-based drama, with a strong teen theme, could engage middle-schoolers and high-schoolers rather well. ![]() She and Ellis spend nights together, but nothing is shown beyond kissing and cuddles. THE BOTTOM LINE: Car-accident scenes in which Adaline nearly dies are startling but not graphic. A blast from her past adds complications. When Adaline meets Ellis (Michiel Huisman), she falls hard. Only her daughter (Ellen Burstyn), who now looks like her grandmother, knows. Cut to the present: Still a beautiful 29-year-old physically, Adaline has led a solitary life, avoiding loss by avoiding relationships and changing her name to escape scientific scrutiny. ![]() Revived and rescued, she resumed life, slowly realizing that she had become incapable of aging. Adaline was trapped underwater and near death when a bolt of lightning struck. She was 29 when her car skidded off a bridge in a snowstorm. She married, had a child, then became a young widow. A narrator explains that Adaline (Blake Lively) was born in the early 1900s in San Francisco. Kids 10 and older, if they like romantic tales laced with fantasy, might get caught up in “The Age of Adaline.” This modern fairy tale doesn’t hang together well, with gaps in its own logic and chintzy production values (apart from the fab vintage dresses). The script includes rare mild profanity and mild sexual innuendo. But ordinary humans shown in danger are rescued by various Avengers. THE BOTTOM LINE: The big special-effects battles show massive destruction that must, if you use normal logic, result in many innocent civilian deaths. Old villains perish and a new pair, the twins Pietro Maximoff/Quicksilver and Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch, join the fray. An artificial intelligence called Ultron, the wayward brainchild of Stark, breaks free, replicates itself into highly destructive robotic warriors and aims to “save” the world, probably by destroying it. The superheroes must juggle teamwork with their go-it-alone instincts and occasional mistrust. But the evolving relationships among Tony Stark/Iron Man, Bruce Banner/Hulk, Steve Rogers/Captain America, Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow, Clint Barton/Hawkeye and Thor (a Norse god who needs no “regular” name) keep things interesting. The film is way too long, and, as with most special-effects epics, the battle scenes start to look alike. Director Joss Whedon’s brainy-funny script even includes tasty literary, theatrical and biblical allusions. The camaraderie and snappy repartee among the terrific cast of the “Avengers” make this latest Marvel epic consistently entertaining and likely to please teens and also tweens who are into comic-book heroics and fantasy. Racial and ethnic characters are deliberately and ironically stereotyped. ![]() THE BOTTOM LINE: The comedic use of sexual innuendo, obvious sexual euphemisms, direct references to private parts, sexually suggestive choreography and lyrics, as well as ordinary mid-range profanity, all stay barely within those ever-expanding PG-13 boundaries. A scary German group called Das Sound Machine, the current champs, taunt the Bellas mercilessly. They welcome a songwriting freshman (Hailee Steinfeld), but their brilliant arranger, Beca (Anna Kendrick), is distracted by career goals. Dissed by competition announcers John (John Michael Higgins) and Gail (Elizabeth Banks, who also directed), the Bellas go after the international a cappella title anyway. Three years on, the Bellas from fictional Barden University, now seniors, lose their national championship because of a mortifying costume malfunction (not shown, but graphically referred to) involving Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson). The college kids who compete in a cappella groups doing harmonized and choreographed covers of hits wouldn’t fit in doing anything else. Lovable weirdos - that’s the genius concept behind the “Pitch Perfect” brand. So it’s problematic entertainment for middle-schoolers and tweens, many of whom may be itching to see it. Easily as funny and musically fresh as the 2012 original (also PG-13), “Pitch Perfect 2” toggles similarly between good clean fun and good-natured raunch. ![]()
1 Comment
7/17/2023 02:19:32 am
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