Penguins of Madagascar (PG). Consistently funny and a candy-colored visual treat, “Penguins of Madagascar” will amuse kids 6 and older, as well as teens and adults. The pun-filled script earns far more guffaws than groans. Filmgoers will know the penguins from their sly mischief as supporting players in the animated “Madagascar” films. This movie is never very scary: Dave, the villainous shape-shifting purple octopus, inspires few shudders; he’s more of a grudge-holder than a killer. The penguins’ tale opens in flashback: Skipper, the order-barking leader; Kowalski, the pessimist; and Rico, the swallower of stuff bigger than he is, break away from the single-file march of their Antarctic brethren in pursuit of a stray egg and adventure. Cute little Private hatches on an ice floe and they adopt him. Ten years later, the four are robbing a vending machine when they encounter Dave. He tries to abduct them as part of a plot to turn all zoo and marine park penguins into monsters. Skipper aims to foil Dave, but the penguins must compete with a covert team called the North Wind. (92 minutes)
THE BOTTOM LINE: One visual joke shows a harbor seal swallowing a seagull, and another shows a wildlife documentary team shove Skipper, Kowalski and Rico off a cliff to get a better shot. Later in the film, the penguins face a machine that looks as if it could chew them up.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1. Although not a mere place-holder, this first part of the “Mockingjay” finale spends much time setting things up for “Part 2,” scheduled to open a year from now. For teens already into the books by Suzanne Collins and the first two films, this lollygagging pace won’t matter much: They’re seeing the characters in new situations. The film does, however, assume much prior knowledge. It is less intensely violent than the first two, without the lethal Hunger Games going on, but it depicts wartime devastation and mental anguish with measured intensity. After the last Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) awakes in a hospital. The rebel leadership had her taken to their secret headquarters in District 13, where they make plans to unify all the districts of Panem in an uprising against President Snow. The chilly rebel leader, President Coin, wants Katniss to be the rebellion’s propaganda mouthpiece. But Katniss’s sometime love, Peeta Mellark, languishes in the Capitol, brainwashed and forced to do anti-rebellion videos. Katniss cares only about his rescue. The rebel leaders send her to see the devastation in her own District 12, and she agrees to appear in a rebel video. (123 minutes)
THE BOTTOM LINE: The violence is relatively rare and not bloody, but scenes of devastation are disturbing. Katniss sees bombed-out rubble, piles of remains and wrapped bodies in a morgue. In a video from Snow, alleged traitors are shot on-camera. A hospital is bombed, but the dead are not shown. Katniss still has nightmares. An act of personal violence is more shocking than graphic.
Dumb and Dumber To. The doctors of doofus comedy have rehung their shingle. High-schoolers can chortle through “Dumb and Dumber To” right along with their parents, who doubtless chortled through the original. The humor is too lewd for middle-schoolers unless parents approve. But “Dumb and Dumber To” earns lots of laughs by celebrating idiocy. Harry (Jeff Daniels) visits Lloyd (Jim Carrey) at a hospital, where Lloyd has been catatonic for 20 years. Once awakened, Lloyd learns Harry needs a kidney. They must track down a daughter Harry fathered out of wedlock years ago, in hopes that she’ll donate one. That leads to the mother, who gave the child up for adoption; the adoptive father; his dopey daughter; and her homicidal stepmother. (110 minutes)
The bottom line: Raunchy sexual humor earns the PG-13 rating and edges into R territory. Crude language, occasional profanity and gross toilet humor stay more in the PG-13 range. References to sexual promiscuity abound.
Horrible Bosses 2. Every bit as raunchy and profane as the first film, this nearly-as-funny sequel is most emphatically not for viewers younger than 17. The trio of goofs who rid themselves of evil bosses have emerged from the mayhem they fomented. Now would-be inventors and entrepreneurs Nick (Jason Bateman), Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) and Dale (Charlie Day) market a soap-and-water gadget they call the Shower Buddy. An online catalogue mogul (Christoph Waltz) offers the gullible guys a deal, then pulls the rug out from under them. To get even, they attempt to abduct the mogul’s son but bumble it. The son then colludes with them to fake his own kidnapping and get back at his father. For advice, the three buddies again enlist the obscenely named and incompetent small-time crook (Jamie Foxx) they used the first time around. And, once again, they dodge the aggressive advances of the sex-addicted dentist (Jennifer Aniston). (108 minutes)
THE BOTTOM LINE: “Horrible Bosses 2” includes both lethal and comedic gunplay, profane and sexually explicit language, and scenes of lewd physical comedy that “accidentally” resemble sexual situations or purposefully depict them, back-view nudity and all.
Horwitz is a freelance writer.
Article source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-2840600/China-school-bus-crash-kills-11-kindergarteners.html
Penguins of Madagascar (PG). Consistently funny and a candy-colored visual treat, “Penguins of Madagascar” will amuse kids 6 and older, as well as teens and adults. The pun-filled script earns far more guffaws than groans. Filmgoers will know the penguins from their sly mischief as supporting p...
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