'Jack Reacher' and 'This is 40' add to holiday movie madness

Two more big presents are under the Christmas tree. Tom Cruise-led Jack Reacher and the comedy This is 40 will both unspool today, joining Wednesday releases The Guilt Trip and Monsters Inc. 3D.

"Action fans and Cruise junkies" will like Jack Reacher (3,352 theatres), predicts critic Daniel Eagan. The "superior genre film" is pleasing, but it also feels old-fashioned. I'm not saying I want
the handheld camerawork of the Bourne films, but the plotting is more pulpy and comforting than truly thrilling or challenging. Call me spoiled by the more realistic Zero Dark Thirty, which kicked off to a $25,000 per-screen average in five theatres on Wednesday.

Judd Apatow returns to the married couple from Knocked Up in This is 40 (2,912 theatres). Leslie Mann, his real-life wife, plays a version of herself, as do their two daughters, and Paul Rudd stands in for Apatow as their father. The "foolproof comic situations mixed with some genuine emotional moments" made Eagan a fan. Some in the industry are worried that the middle-age-centered
subject matter will alienate Apatow's younger fans, while others raise a eyebrow that those who aren't as well off or on the East Coast or West Coast will even care about the elitist problems of a bourgeois L.A. family. The New York Times' A.O. Scott notes that the main characters, "cushioned by comforts that most of their fellow citizens can scarcely
imagine, nonetheless feel as if things were starting to go
pear-shaped." The flawed, funny characters have been garnering the comedy mixed reviews. It's currently tracking a perfect split, 50% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Paramount is releasing Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away with just two showtimes a day in just 840 theatres. The idea is to make the movie feel more like the live events it's recording. Using techniques like "slo-mo, close-ups
and inventive camera angles [smooths] the transition from big top
to big screen," according to THR's Megan Lehmann.

A harrowing, true-life tale of a family separated by the tsunami in Thailand, The Impossible (15 theatres) was one of my picks for the top ten films of 2012. The "extraordinary visceral
experience," as described by Doris Toumarkine, features award-worthy performances from not only Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor, but also "beautifully nuanced performances" from the child actors, directed by Juan Antonio Bayona.

One of FJI editor Kevin Lally's top ten picks for 2012, Amour (3 theatres) is "grim but incredibly poignant," according to Toumarkine. The tale of an aging couple is depressing but accomplished enough that it's one of the finalists for Best Foreign Language Film.

A long-gestating adaptation of On the Road (4 theatres) finally accelerates into theatres. The "honorable, informed attempt
to transcribe an American classic and capture youthful frenzy" fails for critic Erica Abeel. She notes that the "period detail is perfect," but a "literal-minded approach" leads to its downfall.

Another look back at decades past, via an unsuccessful rock band started by a group of New Jersey teens, is Not Fade Away (3 theatres). Directed by David Chase ("The Sopranos"), the movie succeeds as an "engaging time capsule" of the '60s, according to Lally, offering "a vivid reminder of how thoroughly the ’60s shook up the
culture, reverberations that are still felt and remain unsettled
five decades later."

On Monday, we'll check in on the Wednesday and Friday releases and weigh in on the prospects of Les Misérables, Parental Guidance and Django Unchained, which will open on Christmas Day.

Could 'This is 40' suffer the same fate as 'Five-Year Engagement'?

The Five-Year Engagement was about as entertaining as the average romantic comedy, but it had marked differences in the treatment of its subject matter. Love was dull sometimes, complicated by the mundane, and the difficulty of balancing one's own career with the future of a relationship. Audiences, apparently, weren't so into the latter part, and the film had a disappointing debut last weekend, earning just $10.6 million when it was expected to take in 50% more.

Judd Apatow produced The Five-Year Engagement, and he returns to the director's chair with Christmas release This is 40, which he also wrote and produced. The "sort-of" sequel to Knocked Up focuses on Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann, Apatow's wife), who are dealing with a crisis: middle age. The just-released trailer has plenty of funny moments sure to appeal to parents everywhere, with a couple of potential gross-out moments for which Apatow is famous. However, part of me wondered if the humdrum sources of comedy will be a turn-off to audiences. After all, Knocked Up had a real crisis, an unplanned pregnancy, while This is 40 appears (at least in the trailer) to be about the couple's self-improvement kick.

Ultimately, though, The Five-Year Engagement just wasn't that good of a movie. This is 40, with its prime end-of-year placement, at least has the time-slot endorsement of its studio. Universal has reaped the benefits of Apatow's productions, including last year's megahit Bridesmaids, and stood by when Funny People, Apatow's previous directorial effort, didn't quite catch on. Growing older and raising children isn't the kind of whacky premise that sold tickets to Knocked Up and Bridesmaids, but it could be a nice halfway point between those films and the didn't-quite-work identity crisis in Funny People.