A quick look at movies opening in theaters this week.
WRECK-IT RALPH When it comes to dumb ideas for a movie, “Ralph” rates. At least it has John C. Riley lending his voice to an animated apocalypse in which Riley’s Ralph, a villain in a video game, suddenly goes off the reservation and inserts himself into other games inside the video arcade with (and I don’t use the term loosely) disastrous results.
THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS
Give RZA credit for trying, but I fear for how well the hip-hop star will fare playing a 19th-century Chinese warrior. Russell Crowe and Lucy Liu add to the film’s interesting casting choices.FLIGHT
Denzel Washington teams with Oscar-winning director Robert Zemeckis (“Forrest Gump”) for a high-flying character study about a substance-abusing airline pilot whose vices threaten to send his life into a tailspin after he performs a Sully Sullenberger-like miracle in the sky. Melissa Leo, John Goodman and Don Cheadle costar.A LATE QUARTET
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Walken and Catherine Keener star as members of a celebrated string quartet that is about to hit some sour notes as they approach their 25th anniversary as an ensemble.HOLY MOTORS
We all know a cat has nine lives, but in Leos Carax’s ambitious flick, a rich man (Denis Lavant) becomes nine different people in one day after stepping into a magical limousine. Kylie Minogue, Eva Mendes and Michel Piccoli co-star.THE LONELIEST PLANET
Gael García Bernal and Hani Furstenberg play a betrothed couple who question their love after a quick but pivotal incident occurs while they are backpacking through the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia.THE DETAILS
Tobey Maguire and Elizabeth Banks play a long-married couple whose relationship is on the rocks when an infestation of raccoons threatens to bring down their bourgeois existence in this dark comedy from director Jacob Aaron Estes.THE HOUSE I LIVE IN
Eugene Jarecki’s penetrating documentary takes a comprehensive look at America’s losing war on drugs.