Movie Reviews: Parker, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters

Editor's Note: All reviews and information aggregated from Moviefone and RottenTomatoes.

Want to catch a movie this weekend? Here's Patch's roundup of movies playing at the Marcus Shakopee Cinema.

New this weekend:

Parker
One sentence plot: Parker (Jason Statham) is a professional thief who lives by a personal code of ethics: Don't steal from people who can't afford it and don't hurt people who don't deserve it.
Moviefone viewer score: 85
Reviews:
"How does Hackford fall so far off the rails with the pedestrian crime thriller Parker, based on the 19th book in the Parker series by the late Donald E. Westlake (no slouch himself, with scripting credits on The Grifters and The Stepfather)? For starters, Westlake didn’t pen this script, and the John J. McLaughlin screenplay is a mess, both highly ludicrous and predictable. McLaughlin – yeah, the same dude who wrote Black Swan and the recent Hitchcock — really treads in the shallow end of the gene pool here." Montreal Gazzette. Full review

"'Parker' plays like the bloodiest promotional video ever made for Palm Beach tourism. Stabbings, explosions and furniture-smashing brawls occur at some of the ritziest (and name-checked) locations within the sun-splashed, pastel-soaked slab of Florida opulence. Kinda gives a whole new meaning to the idea of The Breakers." Star Tribune. Full review

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Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters
One sentence plot: After getting a taste for blood as children, Hansel (Renner) and Gretel (Arterton) have become the ultimate vigilantes, hell bent on retribution.
Moviefone viewer score: 91
Reviews:
"High-concept pitch or no, the movie doesn’t really work. They were shooting for sort of a witch-hunting 'Zombieland,' an F-bomb-riddled 'Van Helsing' packed with comical anachronisms — a Bavarian forest past with witch trials, pump shotguns and primitive Tasers, where bottles of milk have woodcut pictures of 'missing children' on the labels." Norfolk Daily News. Full review

"In the 3D Witch Hunters, the kids were taken into the woods and left on their own by their father. They stumble into a candy-covered witch house, are taken prisoner and when they figure a way out of their fix - working as a team - they've found their calling. They'll track, shoot, stab, behead and burn witches. Whatever it takes." The Age. Full review

"Even though their skillsets are essentially limited to finding and killing witches, Hansel and Gretel decide to rescue the children themselves. Really, the film should have been called Hansel and Gretel: Occasional Child Recoverers, but that doesn't scan so well. So, who could have abducted the children? A witch?" The Guardian. Full review

Other movies in theaters:

Mama
One sentence plot: Guillermo del Toro presents 'Mama', a supernatural thriller that tells the haunting tale of two little girls who disappeared into the woods the day that their parents were killed.
Moviefone viewer score: 84
Reviews:
"What's under the bed? Who's behind that door? What's making those vaguely satanic noises? These and other thought-provoking questions are entertained in Mama, a visually polished but overly repetitive chiller." Variety. Full Review

"It never hits the high notes of Mr. del Toro's own films or successfully weaves between reality and fantasy as it should." New York Observer. Full Review

"Nothing in the movie is quite original, yet Muschietti, expanding his original short, knows how to stage a rip-off with frightening verve." Entertainment Weekly. Full Review

Do you plan on seeing this movie? Please tell us what you thought in the comments below.

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Broken City
One sentence plot: The mayor of New York City hires a disgraced ex-cop to identify his wife's lover, setting into motion a scandalous series of events in this post-noir thriller from director Albert Hughes.
Moviefone viewer score: 91
Reviews:
"'Broken City' is an evocative and over-ambitious title for a so-so political potboiler that wants to be a gritty, expansive epic of moral and urban decay." Variety. Full review.

"Broken City tells a sordid tale of big city corruption that would have made for a fine film noir sixty years ago but feels rather contrived and unbelievable in the setting of contemporary New York... It's never really convincing that the characters would do some of the far-fetched things required of them by the script, resulting in a sense of detachment that is never helpful for a thriller." The Hollywood Reporter. Full review.

Do you plan on seeing this movie? Please tell us what you thought in the comments below.

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Zero Dark Thirty
One sentence plot: The filmmaking duo behind The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal) takes on the hunt for -- and the killing of -- Osama bin Laden in this Annapurna Pictures production that tracks SEAL Team Six, the special-ops team who eventually brought down the terrorist leader.
Moviefone viewer score: 63
Moviefone critic score: 95
Reviews:
“Telling a nearly three-hour story with an ending everyone knows, Bigelow and Boal have managed to craft one of the most intense and intellectually challenging films of the year.” The Guardian. Full Review.

“Like the fictional Clarice Starling in ‘The Silence of the Lambs,’ Maya is a consummate professional who brilliantly performs her job in an often hostile work environment.” New York Post. Full Review.

“A monumental achievement that documents a coordinated and complicated response to a monumental tragedy.” Philadelphia Enquirer. Full Review.

Do you plan on seeing this movie? Please tell us what you thought in the comments below.

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The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
One sentence plot: The adventure follows the journey of title character Bilbo Baggins, who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor from the fearsome dragon Smaug.
Moviefone viewer score: 72 percent
Moviefone critic score: 58
Reviews:
“Charming, spectacular, technically audacious; in short, everything you expect from a Peter Jackson movie. A feeling of familiarity does take hold in places, but this is an epically entertaining first course.” Total Film. Full Review.

“A mesmerizing study in excess, Peter Jackson and company's long-awaited prequel to the Lord of the Rings saga is bursting with surplus characters, wall-to-wall special effects, unapologetically drawn-out story tangents and double the frame rate (48 over 24) of the average movie.” Time Out New York. Full Review.

“I'm holding the filmmaker responsible for getting us all back again - to feelings of excitement and delight. Vital as they are, Gollum and Bilbo can only do so much to keep us enchanted. Is Jackson able to sustain the magic in two more installments? I peer into Tolkien's Misty Mountains and embrace the journey.” Entertainment Weekly. Full Review.

Do you plan on seeing this movie? Have you seen it already? Leave a review of the film with a comment below.

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Les Miserables
One sentence plot: Set against the backdrop of 19th-century France, Les Miserables tells an enthralling story of broken dreams and unrequited love, passion, sacrifice and redemption, in a timeless testament to the survival of the human spirit.
Moviefone viewer score: 81
Moviefone critic score: 63
Reviews:
"Stirring and striking, Hooper's epic musical won't be wanting for awards and plaudits. Danny Cohen's cinematography is stunning and Hathaway's Oscar is guaranteed." Neil Smith of Total Film. Full Review.

"Russell Crowe's pained vocal stylings (they sound more like barks) as relentless Inspector Javert can be forgiven after hearing Hugh Jackman's old-pro fluidity in the central role of Jean Valjean, hiding a criminal past." Joshua Rothkopf of Time Out New York. Full Review.

"Fortunately, this sprawling epic is well-anchored. There cannot be a better big-screen showman than Jackman." Elizabeth Weitzman of New York Daily News. Full Review.

Do you plan on seeing this movie? Have you seen it already? Leave a review of the film with a comment below.