Box Office Outlook: Taking Card Counters To The Bank

By Katey Rich

Since Horton Hears A Who! has dominated the box office for the last two weeks, Hollywood is sticking it to the kids this weekend and offering movie only for grown-ups. Well, at least one movie for grown-ups, a few for teenagers or grown-ups with low expectations, and one for no one with intelligence, which may guarantee that it becomes the #1 movie of the weekend. None of the reviews so far have been particularly enthralled, which might make the whole scheme backfire, handing the keys to the castle once again to that blasted elephant. You'd think that with superheroes, card sharks, marathon runners and soldiers in the mix, at least one of them could make a fair run at the crown.

21. Opening in 2,648 theatres. It's the movie Vegas (probably) doesn't want you to see! Based on the true story of M.I.T. students trained to count cards and walk away from casinos as millionaires, 21 stars Jim Sturgess as a student with big dreams that also involve big amounts of cash. He gets involved in a campus group organized by a professor (Kevin Spacey) who teaches the math whizzes to count cards, all the better to win at blackjack. As is usually the case, though, the casinos don't like it when people come in and actually win money, so soon the M.I.T. scammers are wrapped in a world a whole lot more complicated than Boston Common. Kate Bosworth and Laurence Fishburne also star.

Appropriately enough, 21 screened at ShoWest in Vegas two weeks ago; our Kevin Lally caught it there and writes, "There's less here than meets the eye, but the show is bright and brisk enough that audiences will likely be happy they took the gamble." Owen Gleiberman at Entertainment Weekly agrees, calling it "a clever and novel card-sharp thriller." The Washington Post, on the other hand, deems it "slick but resoundingly empty," and the Village Voice calls Sturgess "a bust [...] in a movie that wastes a lot of time and money and really, really shoulda stayed in Vegas."

SUPERHERO MOVIE. Opening in 2,960 theatres. Superhero Movie has not been screened for critics, but it's another in the long line of ____ Movie titles so you can probably guess why. And the poster features pretty much all of the film's characters, so you can string together your own plot that seems like it would entertain you as well as the movie would. I figure you can fill this space with a long list of critical pans come Monday, so don't say I didn't warn you.

STOP-LOSS. Opening in 1,291 theatres. Kimberly Peirce has waited nine years to make a movie since her debut with Boys Don't Cry, and Stop-Loss is what she came up with. Ryan Philippe stars as a young sergeant who, along with his two childhood friends who served with him in Iraq (Channing Tatum and Joseph Gordon-Levitt), is thrilled to come home after his tour of duty.  Before he can even unpack his bags, though, he's "stop-lossed," a.k.a. re-enlisted with his consent. Refusing to return to Iraq, he goes on the road instead with his best friend's fiancee (Abbie Cornish), hoping to seek justice from the government.

The movie has some mixed overall reviews over at Rotten Tomatoes, but by and large the top critics are pleased. Our Frank Lovece credited "the filmmakers' own expansive sense of humanity" as well as Cornish's "performance of remarkable subtlety and evolution." The Chicago Tribune acknowledges the general Iraq war movie malaise but hopes it won't affect this one: "Chances are you don't want to see this movie. In the case of Stop-Loss, [...] one can only hope audiences will make an exception." Peter Travers at Rolling Stone goes straight for the hyperbole, calling it "the first major movie of the new year that touches greatness." Variety, on the other hand, is a bit more skeptical: "The work of well-intentioned filmmakers whose stumbling efforts suggest that, much like the Vietnam War, the Iraq War won't inspire truly great and substantial dramas until the passing of time allows for perspective."

RUN, FAT BOY, RUN. Opening in 1,133 theatres. Simon Pegg, who makes a legitimate claim to be Britain's sweetheart, stars in Run, Fat Boy, Run as Dennis, a man equally afraid of exercise and commitment. He left his fiancee (Thandie Newton) at the altar five years ago, and now he's working as a lingerie store security guard and struggling to be a good example to his son. When the ex starts dating a hunky, obnoxious American (Hank Azaria) who is training for the London marathon, Dennis figures he can do the same thing, getting in shape and winning back his beloved in one fell swoop.

In case you can't tell from the plot description that the movie is a little formulaic, the critics will explain it for you. In my Film Journal review I called it "uniformly predictable," and noted that director David Schwimmer (a.k.a. Ross from "Friends") "just doesn't have the directorial wit to elevate the intermittently amusing script." Newsday cries foul on the third act sentimentality: "Despite an all-out effort by an appealing cast, the movie hits the proverbial wall toward the end through needless overexertion of its sentimental side." Rex Reed at the New York Observer, on the other hand, finds something to love, namely the star: "Simon Pegg steals this otherwise minor but enjoyably unpretentious little comedy and pockets it like a Mars bar." And The New York Times gets into it as well, writing, "Fat Boy will never be mistaken for art [...] Yet it's effective and affecting."