“Battle for Terra”
When a spacecraft full of humans, forced to flee Earth after it’s destroyed by war, attacks peaceful Terra, Mala (voice of Evan Rachel Wood) captures a human pilot, Jim Stanton (Luke Wilson), and his robot (David Cross). Together they uncover the secret history of Terrian civilization and attempt to stop the genocidal plans of Gen. Hemmer (an over-the-top Brian Cox).
It’s a real shame that the character design is so terrible — besides the spermatozoic Terrians, the human characters are interchangeable waxworks — because the rest of “Battle for Terra” is quite beautiful to look at, though it doesn’t do much for the film’s pacifist message that, as spacecraft zip across the screen and fire lasers into your popcorn, you may find yourself wishing that the director had replaced the movie’s poorly written dialogue and implausible plot with more battle scenes.
Rated: PG for sci-fi action violence and thematic elements
“Ghosts of Girlfriends Past”
Modeled as a kind of sexual athlete’s counterpart to Ebenezer Scrooge, photographer Connor Mead (Matthew McConaughey) shuns emotional attachments and disdains marriage.
The inspiration for Connor’s approach to relationships is his late Uncle Wayne (Michael Douglas), an ardent misogynist whose ghost appears with a warning for his nephew to change his ways, then says that Connor will be visited by three ghosts to drive home the message.
The relentless vulgarities here would be almost tolerable if they were amusing, but Mark Waters’ direction is so tentative that the film’s single laugh happens more than an hour in.
Rated: PG-13 for sexual content, language and a drug reference
“O’ Horten”
The recently retired title character of “O’ Horten” is a cinematic cousin to Warren Schmidt of “About Schmidt,” the 2002 movie in which Jack Nicholson played a reserved man whose retirement confuses rather than liberates him.
Both Horten and Schmidt are agreeable career men who are just learning to operate in a world that no longer accommodates their habits. While “About Schmidt” is tart, accessible and ultimately moving, “O’ Horten” is dry, distant and slightly absurdist — in a word, it’s more Scandinavian.
Rated: PG-13 for brief nudity
The Washington Post
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