Capsule reviews of films playing the week of Jan. 12 

Page 3 of 5

LOVE & OTHER DRUGS For all the pleasure it reportedly provides, Viagra does flirt with potential side effects, including headache, upset stomach and blurred vision. Similarly, while Love & Other Drugs offers its own pleasures, this adaptation of Jamie Reidy's Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman results in such possible side effects as irritation, frustration and disgust. For the most part, this is an intelligent piece in which cocky pharmaceutical salesman Jamie Randall (Jake Gyllenhaal) tries to make his mark in business while also engaging in a no-strings-attached relationship with the no-nonsense Maggie Murdock (Anne Hathaway). The picture is initially as light and carefree as their romance, but as their mutual commitment deepens, so does the film, with Maggie's medical misfortune — and Jake's reaction to it — resulting in some standout sequences and coaxing a knockout performance from Hathaway. Alas, the idiotic character of Jamie's odious brother (Josh Gad) cheapens an otherwise mature seriocomedy, and some formulaic romcom trappings feel equally out of place. The mental and emotional stimulation caused by the film is strong enough to recommend it, but had some flaccid passages been trimmed, its studio could have had an awards contender on his hands. ***

MEGAMIND 2010 has brought us two animated features about a supervillain who eventually discovers his long-buried humanity, yet viewers who check out Megamind needn't have seen Despicable Me to feel slightly let down by this similar outing. Will Ferrell handles vocal duties as the title villain, whose joy at finally destroying his arch-nemesis, the preening Metro Man (Brad Pitt), soon turns to depression once he realizes there's no one around to challenge him. He ends up creating his own superhero (Jonah Hill), but it isn't long before the supposed do-gooder realizes it's more fun to be bad and sets about destroying the city and kidnapping TV reporter Roxanne Ritchi (Tina Fey). Megamind now finds himself in the unlikely position of having to save rather than terrorize the civilians who have long feared and despised him. Megamind is perfectly fine for the kids, but adults might find their own megaminds wandering at various points throughout a film that doesn't compare to The Incredibles when it comes to affectionately tweaking the superhero genre. Certainly, there are some moments of delightful inventiveness — I love how Megamind occasionally disguises himself as Marlon-Brando-as-Jor-El-in-Superman — but all too often, safe and sentimental scriptwriting proves to be this film's fatal Kryptonite. **1/2

127 HOURS Let's be honest with one another. I'd be dead. You'd be dead. Almost everyone we've ever known would be dead. But not Aron Ralston. After five days of slowly withering away while his right arm remained lodged between a boulder and a rocky wall in a Utah canyon, Ralston did the unthinkable and used a small, dull knife to cut off the arm so that he might continue to live. 127 Hours, based on Ralston's memoir, is writer-director Danny Boyle's mesmerizing account of those fateful days in the outdoor enthusiast's life. But while a stirring parable about the indomitability of the human spirit, this story doesn't quite lend itself to a cinematic rendition — it just sounds too simple, too constricted. But Boyle and co-scripter Simon Beaufoy expand the picture in all sorts of marvelous ways. Visually, the film is always hopping with the same energy as its protagonist (played in a career-best performance by James Franco), relying on split-screen techniques and other lively tricks of the trade. And thematically, the picture doesn't settle for the expected "man vs. nature" route, instead realizing that it isn't nature that's at fault but one man's own near-fatal folly. By turns funny, frightening, inspiring and, yes, nauseating, 127 Hours turns cinema into an extreme sport, leaving us satisfactorily spent. ***1/2

RED One of the better action spectacles of recent vintage, Red is a smart, slick endeavor that gets added mileage from its cast of seasoned screen vets. How seasoned? The arithmetic mean of the five top-billed stars' ages is 59; throw 93-year-old supporting player Ernest Borgnine into the equation, and the calculator starts to overheat. Based on the DC comic book, this plays like a wink to Danny Glover's classic line from the Lethal Weapon series: "I'm too old for this shit." In Red, these aging ex-agents (played by Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich and Helen Mirren) are definitely not too old for the challenges placed in front of them, all of which stem from the fact that they've been marked for termination for shady reasons. Frank Moses (Willis) is one of these former CIA hotshots trying to save his own skin, a task made more difficult by the fact that he also has to protect the innocent woman (a winsome Mary-Louise Parker) inadvertently mixed up in these dangerous dealings. By employing imagination in all facets of the production, Red manages to avoid being lumped together with another recent title with AARP credentials: the generic, geriatric The Expendables. Besides, in a celebrity smackdown between Sylvester Stallone and Helen Mirren, my money's on the great Dame. ***