The Wife - 3 smiles

The main reason to see "The Wife" is for Glenn Close's performance as Joan because she is thoroughly gripping as, literally, the power behind the throne. Otherwise, the film is just 'meh.' And maybe that's because I'm not a fan of Jonathan Pryce, whose Joe Castleman, an author up for the Nobel Prize, is a totally unsympathetic character. You see, Joe, a consummate philanderer, might not have authored his books. Maybe Joan did. And as things play out, you wonder why these issues haven't bubbled to the surface earlier in their marriage. It's a fault of the script that "The Wife" hangs on such a preposterous premise.

The film, directed by Swedish filmmaker Bjorn Runge, flashes back to the beginnings of their relationship, when Joan was a brilliant student and Joe was her literature professor. The very nature of their courtship was rooted in deceit - Joe was married to another woman at the time. And things haven't changed. Some 30 years later, he's still chasing anything female and dropping the same lines he used on Joan. Christian Slater is effective as a smarmy writer who has the jump on Joe's secret and is openly threatening to expose him. An under-developed subplot is the father-son rivalry between Joe and David (Max Irons).

The House with a Clock in its Walls - 2 1/2 smiles

"The House with a Clock in its Walls," a children's movie for the under 10 crowd, is an odd choice for gore-master Eli Roth, the director of hard R films like Hostel, Knock Knock, Inglorious Basterds and the remake of Death Wish last year. However, there are things he gets right and a few that create tonal problems with the overall film. The highlight of the movie is pairing Jack Black and Cate Blanchett as friends whose insulting banter toward each other create genuine laughter and casting Owen Vaccaro as the oddball Lewis, who is desperately lonely and dangerously curious. Overall, the movie's sense of atmosphere is weak. The house lacks the kind of mystical aspect that should inspire wonder. Sure, there's an armchair that acts like a puppy, a stained glass window that changes its images and the ticking that resonates throughout the building in the middle of the night. But for a young boy's first exposure to magic, it's all pretty pedestrian. And the transition between fairly benign events to menacing, end-of-the-world destruction is too abrupt.

The three mail characters are an orphan, a warlock and a good witch. Jonathan Barnavelt (Black) invites his young nephew Lewis (Owen Vaccaro) to live with him after the boy's parents are killed in a car crash. Jonathan is a recluse of sorts, his only friend is his sharp-tongued compatriot of many years, Florence Zimmerman (Blanchett), whose prodigious magical powers have faded. Jonathan's house once belonged to the black wizard Isaac Izard (Kyle MacLachlan) and his wife, Selena (Renee Elise Goldsberry), but the two died when an experiment to create a doomsday clock went wrong. Since then, Jonathan has been working to find that clock. He happily welcomes Lewis, informing him that there is only one rule: the contents of a locked cabinet must not be disturbed under any circumstances. Of course, as soon as he says that, you know what's going to happen. "The House with a Clock in its Walls" is an adequate Halloween treat for children who enjoy scary movies that don't go too far over the top. It's a straightforward story, lacking complexity, more for children than adults.

The Predator - 2 smiles

"The Predator," the latest iteration of the Predator movies, is a confusing mess of offensive quips, flagrant sexism and over-the-top violence. Director Shane Black, who was the first person killed in the original 1987 Predator, has made a movie that causes us to wonder why sequels like this ever get made. The movie starts with a strike team (led by Boyd Holbrook's sniper Quinn McKenna) getting ready to storm the jungle compound of a Mexican drug cartel. But before they can execute their mission, a spaceship rips through a breach int he sky and crash lands nearby. In the wreckage, McKenna finds the helmet and arm gauntlet of one of the predators. The sole survivor of his mission, McKenna escapes and mails the alien gear home to the States, where his son (Jacob Tremblay) discovers its sic-fi powers. Meanwhile, a team of government baddies (lead by Sterling K. Brown, one of the films few highlights) not only want the extraterrestrial goodies, but also want to know what McKenna knows. And so begins a race to both battle and understand these alien hunters and why they've decided to visit earth now. Olivia Munn, as a brainiac biologist, is on had to provide a lot of cornball exposition. She does, however, also get to join the macho action and there's no explaining why a scientist would be able to handle some of the weapons she gets to use.

Holbrook is fine enough as the film's central hero. It's not his fault that Black veers between action and cheesy comedy and it doesn't take long for "The Predator" to spiral into campy, comic nonsense and aimless carnage. The biggest waste of talent is casting young Jacob Tremblay as Quinn's son Rory. Unfortunately, he's asked to play an autistic boy with so much stereotypical baggage that it just adds another negative for the movie. "The Predator" isn't exactly a dumb movie, but it's not a smart one either. Even worse, it's open-ended enough to suggest a sequel. Guess that will be dependent on box office receipts.

Peppermint - 2 smiles

Ever since 1974's Death Wish, the vigilante revenge thriller has become a viable sub-genre. But there's nothing new to see in "Peppermint," which offers Jennifer Garner as an avenging angel Riley North, who survives a gang shooting which takes down her husband and adorable daughter Carly. To insure that the audience knows Riley has valid reasons for going after the people she does, there's a flashback to five years earlier, with Riley bravely identifying the culprits in court only to have the judge throw out the case for lack of evidence, while the defense lawyer smirks and the prosecutor shuffles some papers. She even gets tasered in court for her troubles. It's galling how manipulative the script is at this point: there's a whole host of folk who've got it coming and they certainly deserve it.

Riley spends the next five years traveling the world and learning various useful fighting techniques and the mastery of firearms before coming back to the big city where she holes up in a homeless encampment while plotting and executing her revenge. Director Pierre Morel, who helmed the unexpected box-office hit Taken in 2008, is back in familiar territory and he certainly adds a stylish touch to what is mostly fight scenes with a lot of red paint thrown around. Too bad the script is so cookie-cutter standard with few surprises. Garner, whose career got a kick start when she starred as a super spy in the TV series Alias back in the early 2000s, knows how to do the kick-ass stuff and she's actually pretty engaging in the role. If she manages to do a sequel, she needs to have a better script. If you like action flicks, "Peppermint" is a diverting way to spend an afternoon. If not, skip it.

Juliet, Naked - 4 smiles

There's something special about "Juliet, Naked," based on a novel by Nick Hornby and starring Rose Byrne and Nathan Hawk. Tucker Crowe (Hawk) is a singer-songwriter who made a few records and then walked away from an emerging career. Now, 25 years later, few remember him and almost nobody knows where he is, but he's the obsession of a small coterie of rabid fans. The most fanatical is Duncan (Chris O'Dowd), who, in between teaching what looks to be a fairly worthless college course about television, he spends his life collecting Tucker Crowe memorabilia and arguing with other Crowe obsessives on Skype. Annie (Byrne) lives with Duncan in a small English city and is beginning to realize she made a wrong turn somewhere. She's almost 40, wishes she had kids and has come to see Duncan for what he is - an antisocial snob. But she hangs on, miserable, but not seeing an alternative path. Then, one day, unable to take it anymore, she posts a negative comment to Duncan's review of an obscure Tucker Crowe album. The next day, she gets an email all the way from the United States: it's Crowe himself, telling her how much he agrees with her. He doesn't have much use for his albums either. And a long-distance friendship begins.

"Juliet, Naked" is a lot like other romantic comedies, but it's much better in that each scene is full of wit and emotion and the dialogue more meaningful. Hawke brings to Tucker the weight of unspoken regret and the wisdom that comes from a complicated past. And Rose Byrne demonstrates an impressive comic facility and unerring truthfulness that develops her Annie into a sympathetic character. Director Jesse Peretz brings a light touch and a genuine understanding for the human comedy. "Juliet, Naked" is certainly worth seeing. You won't be disappointed.