!["Deadfall," "So Undercover" and "The Solomon Bunch"](http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/image_content_width/hash/ee/8a/ee8af12754f63552e28cd3acb9dfd6d6.jpg?itok=L8yipFVJ ""Deadfall," "So Undercover" and "The Solomon Bunch"")
Among the movies that became available Tuesday, Feb. 5 on Blu-ray and DVD at retail stores and rental outlets throughout the Valley are a drama starring Eric Bana and Olivia Wilde, a comedic actioner starring Miley Cyrus and a family flick that warns against jumping to conclusions prematurely.
Tyler Perry plays a young homicide detective/psychologist who meets his match in a serial killer (Matthew Fox). The two face off in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse, but when the mission gets personal, he is pushed to the edge of his moral and psychological limits. (PG-13 – 101 minutes)
Had star Tyler Perry been dressed in drag, “Alex Cross” would likely have been an enormously entertaining motion picture. As is, director Rob Cohen's cinematic adaptation of James Patterson's novel “Cross” is unremarkable in every way. In fact, moviegoers who opt to see the flick on the big screen will wonder why they did not instead just stay home and watch a two-part episode of any given police procedural. Having said that, Matthew Fox is fantastic, transforming both his body and his behavior to become an unrecognizable force of nature. Mabel Simmons would have made an excellent foil for him. (Grade: F)
Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg play a couple who met in high school, married young and are now growing apart. They agree to separate, attempting to maintain their friendship while each of them pursues other people. (R – 91 minutes)
“Celeste and Jesse Forever” is a decent albeit unbalanced romantic dramedy. After all, from its title, one would anticipate that director Lee Toland Krieger's movie – which was written by Will McCormack and star Rashida Jones – would afford both leads an equal amount of screentime. And while the journey is enjoyable, too much time is spent with Jones' Celeste whereas Andy Samberg's Jesse – the more likeable of the two – draws the short straw, sort of speak. It arrives at some surprising and relatively realistic destinations but it could have been an even stronger effort had both characters' experiences been fully explored. (Grade: C)
‘Deadfall’
Eric Bana and Olivia Wilde play siblings who decide to fend for themselves in the wake of a botched casino heist. Their bond is pushed to its limit, though, when they reunite with one another during another family's Thanksgiving celebration. (R - 94 minutes)
“Deadfall” looks like it would be a good movie. After all, it has a significantly strong cast, its setting is slathered with snow ala “Fargo” and its story starts out in a such a way that suggests the viewer is in store for several surprises and salient intensity. However, while director Stefan Ruzowitzky certainly knows how to give this tale a stimulating style, he is simply in over his head with the task of turning Zach Dean’s stagnant screenplay into something suspenseful. In other words, hop on the first snowmobile you see and high-tail it away from this dull disaster. (Grade: F)
'Flight'
Denzel Washington plays a seasoned airline pilot who is hailed as a hero after miraculously crash landing his plane and saving nearly every soul on board during a mid-air catastrophe. However, as more is learned, more questions than answers arise as to who or what was really at fault and what really happened on the plane. (R – 138 minutes)
“Flight” is a promising motion picture but, unfortunately, it is occasionally a little upside-down in terms of tone. Director Robert Zemeckis' new flick – his first live-action effort since 2000's “Cast Away” - has some exceptional dramatic sequences, such as a heart-in-your-stomach mid-air catastrophe and an edge-of-your-seat NTSB hearing. However, its comedic sequences are completely out of place and even demerit the movie as a whole. Add to that an unnecessarily long runtime and an even more unnecessary subplot involving an unlikeable character portrayed by actress Kelly Reilly and the film is ultimately a mild disappointment despite still being somewhat entertaining. (Grade: C)
Kevin James plays a former collegiate wrestler and now apathetic biology teacher in a failing high school who begins to raise money by moonlighting as a mixed martial arts fighter when cutbacks threaten to cancel the music program and lay off its teacher (Henry Winkler). (PG – 105 minutes)
The greatest compliment that one could ever give “Here Comes the Boom” is that you would never know that the new comedy is an offspring of Adam Sandler's Happy Madison Productions. Granted, the movie still suffers from essentially the same thing that ails the character portrayed by star and co-screenwriter Kevin James – its heart is in the right place but its brain has been beaten to point at which it is no longer usable. That is to say that the flick is far from an intelligent piece of filmmaking but its good intentions and inherent likability are overwhelming. (Grade: C)
Christopher Walken, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener and Mark Ivanir play four musicians who are bound together by their passion for music and long years of working together. But when one of them is diagnosed with a terminal illness, the repercussions hit the group deeper than they could imagine. (R – 105 minutes)
Although “A Late Quartet” is a bit prosaic due to its deliberate pace – an effect that is amplified by the classical music that runs throughout each and every inch of the new drama's veins – pitch-perfect performances by its first-rate cast push it just over the point at which it warrants a recommendation. Watching these seasoned performers act out writer/director Yaron Zilberman's engrossingly melodramatic screenplay is reason enough to fight the overwhelming urge to succumb to the soothing sounds and drift into dreamland, thereby discovering that even families forged by shared musical creativity can be dysfunctional. (Grade: C)
Keanu Reeves narrates a tour of the past and the future of filmmaking, explores the development of cinema and the impact of digital filmmaking via interviews with James Cameron, David Fincher, David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Steven Soderbergh and other directors. (NR – 98 minutes)
Unless you are a filmmaker, an aspiring filmmaker or a retired filmmaker, “Side by Side” will likely garner the following audible reaction: “TMI!” (For those who are not knowledgeable of abbreviated lingo, that is translated as “Too Much Information!”) In other words, filmmaker Christopher Kenneally's new documentary includes details about the motion picture production process that require such specific knowledge that they lose all sense of meaning – not to mention entertainment – to the Average Joe. Having said that, the directors that participate in the discussion possess such genius that you are guaranteed to learn something interesting. (Grade: D)
Miley Cyrus plays a tough, streetwise private investigator who must transform herself into a refined, sophisticated university girl when she is hired by the FBI to go undercover at a college sorority to help protect the daughter of a one-time Mobster. (PG-13 - 96 minutes)
If ever you have been so blinded by pop-star-turned-actress Miley Cyrus’s Texas-sized pearly whites that you conceded that she is indeed a talent young woman, “So Undercover” will single-handedly force you to recant the statement as well as apologize profusely for your enormous overestimation. Cyrus’s vacuous performance in the new comedic actioner suggests that she is just as underwhelmed as viewers are with the silly sitcom of a story. After all, if the FBI’s go-to-girl for anything - including a quick coffee run - is Hannah Montana, then our national security is even flimsier than anyone ever believed it could be. (Grade: D)
When a group of friends see a stranger and overhear something that they do not understand, they jump to the conclusion that he is up to no good. Soon, the new club is devising secret missions and elaborate schemes to warn the town about this "bizarre" new resident. (NR - 71 minutes)
“The Solomon Bunch” certainly has its heart in the right place but, like most movies with Christian roots, the film forgets that messages and morals are much more effectively communicated with a whisper than with a megaphone. That is to say that writer/director Jason Prisk and his co-writer Jack Gregory have either never heard of the world “subtlety” or have a completely different definition of it than the rest of us. Their new family flick’s lesson about never judging a book by its cover or jumping to conclusions prematurely would have been more palatable had they not insisted on bringing out the Bible. (Grade: D)
Dave Annable plays an unassuming pet photographer who is thrown head first into a series of unforeseeable events when he is forced to marry a Croatian mobster's daughter (Katharine McPhee) and spend his honeymoon at a secluded Tahitian resort where the bride is kidnapped. Mena Suvari, Kathy Bates and Rob Schneider also star. (PG-13 – 100 minutes)
“You May Not Kiss the Bride” is an enjoyable albeit silly screwball comedy. That is to say that writer/director Rob Hedden new movie guarantees you a good time so long as you do not take it too seriously and instead appreciate it for what it is. Fortunately, that is easy to do as a result of the quick-witted pace of its plot and a supporting cast of recognizable actors playing extremely eccentric characters. Having said that, all of the absurdity also holds the motion picture back, preventing it from being as heartwarming as it is humorous. (Grade: C)
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