Public Enemies — Give Michael Mann this much credit: his testosterone-soaked ode to the days of Dillinger gives good tommy-gun. As long as Public Enemies dances to the rat-tat-tat rhythm of automatic weapon fire (cranked up to ear-splitting levels on the soundtrack, so you feel every sickening thwack of bullets hitting flesh), it commands your attention. Whenever the movie slows to a human pulse, however, Mann loses track of the beat entirely.

Under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup), FBI agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) has already taken down one of the Depression era’s most notorious gangsters, Pretty Boy Floyd. Hoover and Purvis have their sights set on larger game, however: John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), the brazen outlaw whose broad-daylight bank raids have made him as much a folk hero as a wanted man. It’s not enough to simply capture Dillinger, as it soon becomes clear that no jail can hold him, so the grimly determined Purvis is forced to play a cat-and-mouse game on Dillinger’s own deadly terms.

Sounds like exciting stuff, but the movie only reaches its potential during a sequence in which the FBI lays siege to a deep-woods lodge where Dillinger and his gang are holed up. Even the bank jobs and prison breaks feel perfunctory and enervated, never approaching the visceral immediacy of the centerpiece heist from Mann’s 1995 crime epic Heat. Depp coasts on movie-star magnetism, while Christian Bale is so tightly wound as his Purvis, he barely registers. Still, both fare better than poor Marion Cotillard, who struggles so much with her American accent she may as well be speaking her lines phonetically as Dillinger’s gal pal Billie Frechette. Maybe Mann was too busy fussing with the movies glossy, hi-def surface to notice there was nothing of interest happening beneath it.



Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs — The third installment in the digitally animated series finds woolly mammoths Manny (Ray Romano) and Ellie (Queen Latifah) expecting a little mammoth (if that’s not a complete oxymoron), and Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo) attempting to start a family of his own with baby dinosaurs. Will the 3D effects be dazzling enough to distract from the Jurassic-era gags?



I Hate Valentines Day — Your eyes are not playing tricks on you. This is, in fact, the second Nia Vardalos rom-com in as many months, following June’s now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t release of My Life in Ruins. (Why a Valentine’s Day movie is being released on the Fourth of July weekend is a marketing mystery for the ages.) This one reunites Vardalos with her My Big Fat Greek Wedding co-star John Corbett, at least five years after anyone would possibly care.

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