The Imitation Game (2014)

“The Imitation Game” wants to be a liberal rage against the evil that was British law for a century: The criminalization of homosexuality, and the body-and-mind destruction – execution, really -- of WWII hero Alan Turing, because he was born gay. But it’s really an (sorry) ultra-straight drama that’s played so safe and virginal, my church-going parents would not blink. Benedict Cumberbatch is mesmerizing and coolly brilliant as Turing, the mathematician who is called on by Her Majesty to help break the seemingly impossible cryptic Enigma code used by the Nazis during World War II. Mr. Sherlock nails the part of the misfit thrown into the Army, where failure to fit in can get you shot or jailed. But Turing’s sexuality? Cumberbatch has nothing to work with. All sex is off screen, hidden like one of those impossible codes. Now I get Turing couldn’t act on desires during war, living under Army rule. fact. But here there is no desire. No anger. No frustration. Why? By the time onscreen Turing is forced to undergo chemical castration, one has to ask, why fret? This man, as written for the Oscar votes, seems to have been a unich all along.  B-

Penguins of Madagascar, Big Hero Six, Earth to Echo, and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (all 2014)

“Penguins of Madagascar”  … I saw it to take my niece and nephew out. Ehh. Have you seen the “Madagascar” films from DreamWorks? The zoo animals who ditched the Bronx for Africa? Pretty funny, the first one. Since then? Yawn. Snooze. Get me out. This fourth entry and add-on to a TV series focuses on sidekick comic-relief characters of wise-ass penguins who muck about in the Marx Brothers vein. New Yorker humor abounds. This is their origin tale. Cause we need that. The Penguins join a MI6 type group led by wolf Benedict Cumberbatch to take down power-mad octopus John Malkovich and we get jokes that play on actor names: “Nicholas, Cage them!” and “Helen, hunt them down!,” and oh my God, an hour in I pled for it to end, and it would not, and my nephew and niece loved it and I Give Up! C- 

Meanwhile, Disney, with no small help from Pixar, has CGI animated film “Big Hero Six,” based on a new-to-me Marvel comic for youngsters that pings “Scooby Doo” with boots, capes and robots. Our lead hero is Hero (Ryan Potter), a teen living with his aunt and older brother in a futuristic mashup of San Francisco and Tokyo. Hero is a budding roboticist with a punk-rebel streak who graduated high school at 13 and takes on college at 14 after a minor scrape with the law for amusing back-alley robot fights, only to suffer a devastating personal loss. Brother dies in a fire. Ouch. With the help of a cute puffy robot nurse named Baymax –- who looks like Shmoo on steroids and full of air and built by the dead older sibling -– Hero investigates the fire and finds himself a super villain right out of a four-color comic book. The simple story aims young with some edgy humor (there’s a stoner kid who’s far more a stoner than ever was Shaggy) but its charms are strong and its “Stargate” references worthy of fan-fiction tribute. B

Speaking of childish films, “Earth to Echo” is a fast-paced, found-footage jumpy cam version of “E.T.” meets “Goonies” as a group of school kid pals find a robotic alien near their housing development. The one their being forced out of. (That was the kick-off of “Goonies,” recall?) Using iPhones and video cameras to record their every moment to save Echo -– he’s metallic, bur cute, chirping, and a bit void of personality -– the kids run up against Big Brother villains, find a female pal along the way, and in a funny moment, find the cool older brother asleep in a bathtub as a party. They take his car. Harmless and sweet, I think my young self would have grooved to the film’s adventure. Even if the stomach and brain of my current body fell camera seasick. One of the boys, Reese Hartwig, eerily reminds me of a school friend. B

Another flick I took the niece and nephew to is “Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb,” the third and apparently final entry in the comedy-adventure series with Ben Stiller –- he once long ago of grungy grown-up films -– as a guard at the New York Museum of Natural History. You know the drill, right? Sun goes down, the exhibits come alive, Easter Island head, dinosaur, Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams), and cowboy (Owen Wilson) included, all mucking about, making “education” fun. And action packed. Here, the magical stone that powers our heroes is dying, and Stiller must zip away to London’s history museum to save the day. Why? Um, up ticket sales in Europe? It’s only mildly funny, despite a great M.C. Escher gag that plays like a classic 1980s A-Ha video and a cameo from a winking X-Man. Dan Stevens (“Downtown Abbey”) impresses as Lancelot. Williams? My heart breaks again. RIP. B-

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)

Peter Jackson pushes on his with his uber-epic 9-hour adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” with “The Desolation of Smaug,” a near-three hour action epic that -– behold, wonders –- improves from last year’s “An Unexpected Journey.” That film played crazy indulgent as it OD’d on “Lord of the Rings” nostalgia (Frodo checks the mailbox!) and eye-roll flashbacks. Here we again follow young Hobbit Bilbo (Martin Freeman) now in the middle of his adventure helping 13 dwarves recapture their mountain home from the monstrous dragon Smaug. (Smaug is voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch, making this a love-fest for BBC’s “Sherlock,” where Freeman is Watson to Cumberbatch’s Holmes.) Jackson and his team ramp up the action and add new material including a Errol Flynn-era Robin Hood-like female elf, played by Evangeline Lilly of “Lost.” Despite past grumblings of Jackson re-working Tolkien, this addition is welcome. I can’t recall a single female in the “Hobbit.” This middle chapter still is too long, far too “LotR” obsessed, and I still couldn’t care if most of the dwarves died by dragon fire, but Freeman carries it. He dazzles strong with physical comedy that could stand beside Chaplin. B

The Fifth Estate (2013)

Working on the “Twilight” films must have sent director Bill Condon to an eternal junior high hell of filmdom because his new drama “The Fifth Estate” –- about Julian Assange -– plays to the lowest IQ who will walk into a cinema, expecting history retold. This is history for people who don’t read. We all know of Assange and his WikiLeaks website and the mass files he unleashed, gutting U.S. bravado with footage of an army helicopter crew mowing down innocents, and dumping State Department files on U.S. spy infrastructure. Condon assumes we don’t and goes for obvious at every turn. When an Assange protégé (Daniel Brühl) dumps WikiLeaks’ main server, we flash to the man smashing up make-believe desks and computers, setting fire to all around him. Just in case anyone fails to grasp “delete.” I was done before the end, tired of drivel talk such as “He’s bigger than the New York Times!,” but Condon has more. Benedict Cumberbatch -– smartly cast and a shade creepy as Assange -- breaks the screen wall, stares out, and tells us to get angry and find the truth, and I was glad to get up. And go out the door. C

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

In 2009 when J.J. Abrams rebirthed the “Star Trek” franchise into eyeball-popping entertainment with enough heart to make you weep 5 minutes in, I wondered what he could do with “Star Wars.” So, I got goose bumps watching “Star Trek Into Darkness,” a stellar summer sequel packed with franchise-glory-era political bite that also puts the “alternate reality” roles of Kirk and Spock in full ownership of Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto. But Abrams isn’t afraid to dip back into lore and resurrect ideas and enemies, taking beats we know by heart and spinning them 180 with new blood or a wink. Here, a Starfleet wonder boy named John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch, fuckin’ awesome) declares war on his own and, of course, our heroes must stop him. But with Abrams, nothing is simple as –- nerd alert –- Peter “RoboCop” Weller, is the boss in charge. This boasts ego, characters crashing and lifting each other up, American commentary, crippled tech, a self-sacrifice, a perfect cameo, and a madman so … beloved … to us geeks and electrifyingly alive, we want to fall under his spell. What Abrams can do with “Star Wars” has me dizzy with anticipation. A-

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) – A Second Look

I reviewed Thomas Alfredson’s “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” in January, calling it a good film, moody, with an overly complicated plot. Not worthy of a Top 10 for 2011. I just saw it again, and fell spellbound by how Alfredson frames his characters within windows, library stacks, doorways, and gates, every character boxed in, objects cut off, by the life they lead: Serving queen and country as spies. It’s the smartest, most intense spy film I’ve seen in years, taking away every thrill we expect in a spy flick. It’s a marvelous move from Alfredson, who has taken the classic novel – I’m re-reading it right now – and reworked into a drama about men not just battling the enemy, but each other for “treasure.” Absolutely perfect is Benedict Cumberbatch’s soul-crushed homosexual, dispatching his live-in boyfriend for career and country. That wasn’t in the book. Gary Oldman, as the fired spy tasked with finding a mole, marveled me all over, as a man who has spent so long repressing his own life and wife, he is left horrified at his loneliness. Give the man an Oscar. Absolutely one of 2011’s best. A