Cinema goers are in a for a treat this week, with films ranging from the mundane to the magnificent opening across the country.
A Christmas Carol (3D)
Don’t feel too bad if the idea of a Charles Dickens classic done with Jim Carrey in 3D has you scratching your head in confusion. This movie is strange and awkward and really no fun at all. Miserly Ebenezer Scrooge (below) hoards his money and cares for no one; worst of all, he has no Christmas spirit. One Christmas Eve he’s visited by the ghost of his former business partner who tells him to mend his ways or face damnation. Scrooge is then visited by three ghosts who take him on a trip to his past, present and future. The problem with A Christmas Carol is that it has no spirit. Instead, you get the feeling that it’s just an excuse to show off some trick or other. Jim Carrey pulls an Eddie Murphy and provides voices for half the characters, while animators go wild with effects. — Faranaaz Parker
Departures
This Japanese film, winner of the 2008 Oscar for best foreign-language film, is about those who have left for the next world. The orchestra in which cellist Daigo (Masahiro Motoki) plays goes bankrupt and he and his wife Mika (Ryoko Hirosue) have to leave Tokyo to live in Daigo’s small home town. One day, looking through the classifieds, he sees a job with vague specifications. Soon afterwards, he works out that it involves the ritual cleansing of the dead before burial. He needs the job badly, but can’t find the courage to tell his wife. Perhaps only in Japan (where 30 000 people commit suicide a year) could death be the subject of such delicate drama. Departures is a competently made movie; its problem is that its take on death and mourning is rather predictable. Its crisis plot points are resolved without much struggle. Still, it’s worth watching for its mournful idiom. — Percy Zvomuya
Law Abiding Citizen
Director Gary Grey’s Law Abiding Citizen might not be the best piece of cinema on the bill, but for a world busy exhausting its stock of grand narratives, it does well to flirt with a critique of the American justice system. It explores the story of Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler), whose wife and daughter are killed in a house robbery. One of the two criminals involved benefits from a plea bargain overseen by assistant district attorney Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx), so Shelton goes out killing people. The film seems to rely on the actors’ stellar reputations but their acting here is tepid. For those who like such things, there’s a feast of blood and explosions. — Percy Mabandu