John Carter, Silent House, and Eddie Murphy

Open Road Films

Big openings this weekend are John Carter, Silent House, and One Thousand Words.  Big holdover is The Lorax. 

So what’s the deal?  John Carter is a Disney movie starring Taylor Kitsch, the good looking bad boy from "Friday Night Lights".  He plays a Confederate soldier who gets transported to Mars and becomes a hero to the locals.  It’s based on a novel written in 1912 by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the author of "Tarzan and the Apes," but that came later.    Disney has high hopes for the film but the critics are lukewarm, although many say the visuals are wonderful and the plotline strange and entertaining; the rest were bored.  Thursday’s midnight ticket sales were just so so.


Silent House is a horror movie starring Elizabeth Olsen, a fabulous young actress who deserves to make some money. Word is that she does well here but the film disappoints, especially in the final scenes; early scares are pretty good.  In A Thousand Words Eddie Murphy plays a fast talking literary agent who gets his comeuppance when some kind of Zen curse threatens to strike him dead once he has spoken 1000 words.  So, Murphy has to do a lot of silent mugging – this from a funny man whose greatest gift is his comic delivery and ability to mimic voices.  The film sat collecting dust for four years, seems like it was too soon to take it off the shelf.  But the elephant in the room is The Lorax, which after its remarkable $70 million opening weekend looks primed to knock all the newcomers out of competition.  To sum up: slow weekend at the movies, at least for new releases. There are some holdovers still playing wide: if you want some action, try Safe House; if you’re after romance, look for The Vow, and if the Oscars are still on your mind, you can probably find The Artist playing at a theater near you.