Domesticated animals moved back to the wilderness after annoying human beings.  What would happen to these creatures?  Will they be able to adapt when living in the wild?  On paper, this sounds like a good concept for a family animated feature, but the resulting film, OPEN SEASON comes across as a lackluster, unfunny, manipulative and predictable flick – especially after a glut of mediocre animation films released this year. 

A poor start for the newly formed Sony Pictures Animation, whose logo is proudly flashed across the screen at the start.

Retiring legend meets cocky rookie.  This is by no means a novel theme in adventure films, but for the new action flick, THE GUARDIAN, the setting of the U.S. Coast Guard Rescue Swimmers School makes the difference. 

It all starts with a disastrous rescue where veteran coast guard Ben Randall (Kevin Costner) emerges the only survivor.  Forced to teach at the school as a result, Ben takes training into his own hands.  He meets his match with a new recruit, a championship swimmer with the better than best attitude, Jake Fisher (Ashton Kutcher)

Redemption comes in mysterious and unexpected ways.  This is the theme of Zhang Yimou’s latest offering moving the respected director back to Chinese territory of the countryside (RED SORGHUM, STORY OF QUI JU, JU DOU) after a foray into martial arts flicks (HERO, HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS).  The story concerns a Japanese fisherman Takata (Ken Takakura) accomplishing a difficult task of filming a Chinese singer perform a mask opera for his dying son.  Trouble is that singer, Li is in prison in China and Takata speaks no word of Chinese.

The FLYBOYS are the young American volunteers joining the Lafayette Escadrille fighter pilots in France.  The time is 1914 before the U.S. entered the war in 1917. 

An assortment of characters is handpicked for Tony Bill’s FLYBOYS.  Led by rancher Blaine Rawlings (James Franco), the others include a rich good-for-nothing, Lowry (Tyler Labine), African-American boxer, Skinner (Abdul Salis) and among others, they undergo rigorous training under a stern French Captain Thenault (the always excellent Jean Reno).

A suicide or murder occurs on June 16, 1959.  The private investigator film noir genre, typically adopted for mysteries set during the 50’s, is given a little overhaul with director Allen Coulter’s debut feature.

Interspersed with flashbacks of the deceased, HOLLYWOODLAND makes a welcome change with two stories tied effectively into one.  The victim, in this case is the actor playing Superman, George Reeve (played with subdued aplomb by Ben Affleck), a man sick of being used MGM studio executive Eddie Mannix’s (Bob Hoskins) wife, Toni (Diane Lane) as her boy toy.  His grieving and suspecting mother (Lois Smith) hires P.I. Louis Simo (Adrien Brody) to solve the case.