Community Corner

Movie Reviews: Oz the Great and Powerful, Jack the Giant Slayer, Snitch

Find movie reviews and showtimes for theaters in Lakeville, Burnsville, Apple Valley and Rosemount.

Editor's Note: All reviews and information aggregated from Moviefone and RottenTomatoes.

Want to catch a movie this weekend? Here is Patch's roundup of movies playing at Lakeville 21 Theatre, Marcus Rosemount Cinema, Apple Valley’s Carmike Cinema and Great Clips IMAX Theatre at the Minnesota Zoo.

New this weekend:

Oz the Great and Powerful

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One sentence plot: When Oscar Diggs (James Franco), a small-time circus magician with dubious ethics, is hurled away from dusty Kansas to the vibrant Land of Oz, he thinks he's hit the jackpot-fame and fortune are his for the taking-that is until he meets three witches, Theodora (Mila Kunis), Evanora (Rachel Weisz) and Glinda (Michelle Williams), who are not convinced he is the great wizard everyone's been expecting.

Rotten Tomatoes viewer score: 99

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 58

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Reviews:

"Oz the Great and Powerful" isn't a masterpiece for the ages, but an agreeable family film that pleasantly reminds us of something greater - of a land that we heard of, once in a lullaby." Seattle Times Full Review

"The 3-D effects are plentiful - hats, lions, and baboons jump off the screen and into your lap - but the characters rarely lodge in the moviegoer's heart." Time Magazine Full Review 

"Though Oz has some of the same narrative issues and effects-heavy bloat as that highly personal fantasy film, every frame is infused with a deep-rooted, impassioned understanding of the cinema's magical power to captivate and inspire." Time Out New York Full Review

Other movies in theaters:

Jack the Giant Slayer

One sentence plot: 'Jack the Giant Slayer' tells the story of an ancient war that is reignited when a young farmhand unwittingly opens a gateway between our world and a fearsome race of giants.

Rotten Tomatoes viewer score: 95

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 62

Reviews:

"It's stuck in a big-budget-movie middle ground - not quite thrilling enough to be an action movie, not quite funny enough for a comedy - and, once you've pondered the impressive size of the beanstalk, there's not much else there." Seattle Times Full Review

"The action is a little too intense for very young children. But for everyone else, including cynical grown-up critics who didn't think they'd ever give a Fee, a Fi, a Fo or a Fum about this movie, it's a terrific adventure." Chicago Sun-Times Full Review

"By the time the giants have descended the beanstalk and laid siege to the king's castle, and the boiling oil comes out with the flaming arrows and the flying flaming trees, it's like: Enough already." Chicago Tribune Full Review

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Snitch

One sentence plot: In the fast-paced action thriller 'Snitch', Dwayne Johnson stars as a father whose teenage son is wrongly accused of a drug distribution crime and is looking at a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 10 years.

Rotten Tomatoes viewer score: 96

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 67

Reviews:

"'Snitch' is more of a dramatic thriller than an action movie, and director Ric Roman Waugh fills it with close-ups, dark interiors and tense faces." Seattle Times Full Review

"This movie executes two missions: A) to entertain us; and B) to put some big exclamation points on a couple of messages about certain drug laws in this country in need of a thorough re-examination." Chicago Sun-Times Full Review

"Unusual for this sort of thing, Snitch is a film for which you remember the characters and actors more than the big action moments." Hollywood Reporter Full Review

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Silver Linings Playbook

One sentence plot: Pat Solitano (Bradley Cooper) has lost everything—his house, his job, and his wife—and now finds himself living back with his mother (Jacki Weaver) and father (Robert DeNiro) after spending eight months in a state institution on a plea bargain.
Moviefone viewer score: 82
Moviefone critic score: 81
Reviews:
"Thankfully, this fractured fairy tale of mental illness, family drama, ragged romance and die-hard Philadelphia Eagles fandom has landed in the superbly capable hands of David O. Russell." Washington Post Full Review

"Silver Linings is consistently entertaining, with its scrappy, well-drawn characters, offbeat humor and indefatigable positive outlook." USA Today Full Review

"Everything comes together brilliantly in Silver Linings Playbook - for the film's crazed but uncrazy lovers; for the filmmaker, David O. Russell, and best of all for lucky us." Wall Street Journal Full Review

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A Good Day to Die Hard

One sentence plot: John McClane (Bruce Willis) heads to Russia in this fifth installment of the Die Hard film series. Skip Woods (The A-Team) provides the script, with Max Payne's John Moore directing. Jai Courtney co-stars as Willis' son.

Rotten Tomatoes viewer score: 82

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 13

Reviews:

"Few fans of the series would disagree that this sclerotic fifth installment should probably be the last." Slate Full Review

"This is the Magpie School of action filmmaking: Anytime things start to make so little sense that you might lose the audience, just throw something shiny up on screen to distract." NPR Full Review

"A Good Day To Die Hard is a movie for people who like blowin' stuff up, evidently a favorite pastime of director John Moore, whose action scenes make about as much sense as his script, which was likely written on a cocktail napkin." Boston Phoenix Full Review

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Side Effects

One sentence plot:
Steven Soderbergh reteams with his Contagion screenwriter Scott Z. Burns for this psychological thriller starring Rooney Mara as a woman who turns to drugs in order to deal with her husband (Channing Tatum) being released from jail.

Rotten Tomatoes viewer score: 97

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 84

Reviews:

"Ultimately, think of the movie as a puzzle box in which all the pieces fit together wonderfully well. Once you step back and take a look at how it’s all put together, you have to marvel at how cleverly constructed the whole thing is." Arizona Republic. Full Review

"Like Magic Mike, Side Effects is enlivened by Soderbergh's jazzy style and laidback moralism, bringing to mind the work of another connoisseur of genre, Robert Altman." Slant Magazine Full Review

"Side Effects is mostly a good Saturday-night movie, but by the end, it's caused a few unintended side effects of its own: a bit of head-scratching, and a giggle or two of disbelief." Entertainment Weekly. Full Review

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Identity Thief

One sentence plot: Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy lead the cast of 'Identity Thief', an all-star comedy in which a regular guy is forced to extreme measures to clear his name.

Rotten Tomatoes viewer score: 97

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 29

Reviews:

"The only thing Identity Thief steals is your time and your expectation of inventive comedy. The concept may be high, but the yield (in terms of laughs) is depressingly low." Huffington Post. Full review

"Gordon is lost, and his style of shooting - telescopic close-ups, which never give us enough space to appreciate the performers - feels wrong for comedy." Chicago Tribune. Full Review

"Of the many qualities I adore about Melissa McCarthy as a comedian and as a dramatic actor, the best is how fully she gives herself to every character she plays." Entertainment Weekly. Full Review

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Argo
One sentence plot: When militants seize control of the U.S. embassy in Tehran during the height of the Iranian Revolution, CIA agent Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) creates a fake Hollywood film production in order to rescue a group of American diplomats who have sought refuge at the home of the Canadian ambassador. 
Moviefone viewer score: 87
Moviefone critic score: 86
Reviews:
"Ultimately, the thrill of Argo is in watching how the illusion-making of movies found such an unlikely application on the world political stage, where the stakes were literally life and death." Variety Full Review

"This captivating, expertly machined political thriller jumps through every hoop the naysayer can set up: It's serious and substantive, an ingeniously written and executed drama fashioned from a fascinating, little-known chapter of recent history." Washington Post Full Review

"Finally, a voice-over from Jimmy Carter, lauding the efforts of those involved. All this is, frankly, uncool - a pity, because the rest of Argo feels clever, taut, and restrained." The New Yorker Full Review

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Zero Dark Thirty

One sentence plot: The filmmaking duo behind The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal) takes on the hunt for -- and the killing of -- Osama bin Laden in this Annapurna Pictures production that tracks SEAL Team Six, the special-ops team who eventually brought down the terrorist leader.

Moviefone viewer score: 63
Moviefone critic score: 95

Reviews:
“Telling a nearly three-hour story with an ending everyone knows, Bigelow and Boal have managed to craft one of the most intense and intellectually challenging films of the year.” The Guardian Full Review.

“Like the fictional Clarice Starling in ‘The Silence of the Lambs,’ Maya is a consummate professional who brilliantly performs her job in an often hostile work environment.” New York Post Full Review.

“A monumental achievement that documents a coordinated and complicated response to a monumental tragedy.” Philadelphia Enquirer Full Review.

Do you plan on seeing any of these movies? Have you seen them already? Leave a review of the films with a comment below.


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