New Movies In Theaters Oct 26th - Rotten Tomatoes

New Movies In Theaters Oct 26th - Rotten Tomatoes

There are four new films in wide distribution this week, three of which have not been reviewed yet:

• Silent Hill: Revelation 3D (2900 theaters) is a horror film (hey, Halloween is coming!) rated R for (among other things) brief nudity, but I don't know what it is. It has not been pre-screened for critics.
  
  
• Fun Size (2800 theaters) is a PG-13 teen comedy which also has not been pre-screened for critics.
  
  
• Chasing Mavericks (PG, 2000 theaters) is the Gerard Butler surfing film, and is yet another one which the critics have not seen.
  
  
• Cloud Atlas (1900 theaters or more) is the new film from Tom Tykver and the Wachowskis. It's rated R for various reasons, including a topless scene from Korean actress Du-na Bae. Ruminating about reincarnation and the meaning of existence, it is an ambitious film in which the stars play multiple roles at various points in history from the past to the future. The critics have designated it a "love it or hate it film." 64% of the reviews have been positive, but that score is as high as it is thanks to the film geeks. Only 27% of the top critics have given it a thumb up, and some have been scornful:
  
  "A trash heap of rubber noses and implausible high school accents that give new meaning to the word 'pretentious.'"
  
  "There is a great deal of humbug about art and love in Cloud Atlas, but it is decidedly unlovable, and if you want to learn something about feeling, you're at the wrong movie."
  
  "The cast comes off like a third-rate stock company on the matinee after the night on which everyone got bombed on mescal (and possibly mescaline)."
  
  "A bloated, pseudo-intellectual, self-indulgent slog through some notions that are really rather facile."
  

The box office is expected to shake out as follows:

• Silent Hill 3D: low to mid teens, possibly enough for first place, probably in the top three
  
• Cloud Atlas: about the same as Silent Hill 3D
  
• Fun Size: high single figures, somewhere between fourth and eighth.
  
• Chasing Mavericks: 1965 called. They want their film back. I like the multi-talented Gerard Butler, but the guy needs to read the scripts before signing on to movies. This guy makes more bad movies than Kutcher and Katherine Heigl added together. Gerard's immediate family may go to see this movie, although probably not if they have seen any of the previews (although the surfing footage looks pretty cool). In other words, it is not expected to make the top ten.