A Good Day to Die Hard, Beautiful Creatures, Side Effects: Movie Reviews

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 theaters near Richfield: Southdale AMC and Theaters at Mall of America.

New this weekend:

A Good Day to Die Hard

One sentence plot: John McClane (Bruce Willis) heads to Russia in this fifth installment of the Die Hard film series. Skip Woods (The A-Team) provides the script, with Max Payne's John Moore directing. Jai Courtney co-stars as Willis' son.

Rotten Tomatoes viewer score: 82

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 13

Reviews:

"Few fans of the series would disagree that this sclerotic fifth installment should probably be the last." Slate Full Review

"This is the Magpie School of action filmmaking: Anytime things start to make so little sense that you might lose the audience, just throw something shiny up on screen to distract." NPR Full Review

"A Good Day To Die Hard is a movie for people who like blowin' stuff up, evidently a favorite pastime of director John Moore, whose action scenes make about as much sense as his script, which was likely written on a cocktail napkin." Boston Phoenix Full Review

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Beautiful Creatures

One sentence plot: A supernatural love story set in the South, 'Beautiful Creatures' tells the tale of two star-crossed lovers: Ethan (Alden Ehrenreich), a young man longing to escape his small town, and Lena (Alice Englert), a mysterious new girl.

Rotten Tomatoes viewer score: 78

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 48

Reviews:

"This fantasy about witches and warlocks walking among us was clearly produced for the Twilight crowd, but a witty script and the enjoyably hammy performances from Emma Thompson and Jeremy Irons broaden its appeal." Chicago Reader Full Review

"Within the needlessly complicated script and CGI special-effects overkill, there are some promising moments." Globe and Mail Full Review

"As supernatural types, Oscar winners Jeremy Irons and Emma Thompson overact so strenuously and with such outrageously awful Southern accents that you fear the damage this crock may do to their reputations." Rolling Stone Full Review

Other movies in theaters:

Side Effects

One sentence plot: Steven Soderbergh reteams with his Contagion screenwriter Scott Z. Burns for this psychological thriller starring Rooney Mara as a woman who turns to drugs in order to deal with her husband (Channing Tatum) being released from jail.

Rotten Tomatoes viewer score: 97

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 84

Reviews:

"Ultimately, think of the movie as a puzzle box in which all the pieces fit together wonderfully well. Once you step back and take a look at how it’s all put together, you have to marvel at how cleverly constructed the whole thing is." Arizona Republic. Full Review

"Like Magic Mike, Side Effects is enlivened by Soderbergh's jazzy style and laidback moralism, bringing to mind the work of another connoisseur of genre, Robert Altman." Slant Magazine Full Review

"Side Effects is mostly a good Saturday-night movie, but by the end, it's caused a few unintended side effects of its own: a bit of head-scratching, and a giggle or two of disbelief." Entertainment Weekly. Full Review

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Identity Thief

One sentence plot: Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy lead the cast of 'Identity Thief', an all-star comedy in which a regular guy is forced to extreme measures to clear his name.

Rotten Tomatoes viewer score: 97

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 29

Reviews:

"The only thing Identity Thief steals is your time and your expectation of inventive comedy. The concept may be high, but the yield (in terms of laughs) is depressingly low." Huffington Post. Full review

"Gordon is lost, and his style of shooting - telescopic close-ups, which never give us enough space to appreciate the performers - feels wrong for comedy." Chicago Tribune. Full Review

"Of the many qualities I adore about Melissa McCarthy as a comedian and as a dramatic actor, the best is how fully she gives herself to every character she plays." Entertainment Weekly. Full Review

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Bullet to the Head

One sentence plot: A hitman (Sylvester Stallone) and a New York cop team up to get revenge on the killers who murdered their old partners in this action thriller from veteran tough-guy filmmaker Walter Hill 

Rotten Tomatoes viewer score: 60

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 46

Reviews:

"Like the amped up comeback tour of two rockers who had their heyday sometime in the mid-'80s, Sylvester Stallone and director Walter Hill (48 HRS., The Warriors) join forces for a hard-hitting exercise in beefy, brainless fun with the New Orleans-set actioner Bullet to the Head." Hollywood Reporter Full review

"Sly can still fill a too-tight polo shirt at 66 - in the same way Jack LaLanne did in his later years. But no amount of movie magic can make him pass for a lethal and nimble juggernaut." Philadelphia Inquirer Full review

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Warm Bodies

One sentence plot: A funny new twist on a classic love story, 'Warm Bodies' is a poignant tale about the power of human connection.

Rotten Tomatoes viewer score: 83

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 77

Reviews: 

"Hoult's genuinely awkward charm and Palmer's tomboyish wholesomeness disarm an audience overfamiliar with this story. The two ably communicate the primitive and irrational feelings of falling in love." New York Daily News Full review

"In doing a little genre bending of romantic schmaltz and horror cheese--some fundamental zombie mythology is turned on its head--the film breathes amusing new life into both." Los Angeles Times Full review

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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

Moviefone critic score: 42

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

Moviefone critic score: 21

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

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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

Moviefone critic score: 58

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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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
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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Django Unchained
One sentence plot: Set in the South two years before the Civil War, Django Unchained stars Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx as Django, a slave who forms an unlikely partnership with German-born bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz.
Moviefone viewer score: 73
Moviefone critic score: 80
Reviews:
"A sharp shock of a film in an Awards season very full of movies so noble they become immobile. It's wildly unlikely to get much love from the Academy, and that's fine-bluntly, it's too good for them. With its bloody stew of history and hysteria, action taken from movies and atrocities taken from fact, Django isn't just a movie only America could make-it's also a movie only America needs to." Boxoffice Magazine Full Review.

"Exactly what you might expect from the fearless, controversial director of "Pulp Fiction" - it's overlong, raunchy, shocking, grim, exaggerated, self-indulgently over-the-top and so politically incorrect it demands a new definition of the term. It is also bold, original, mesmerizing, stylish and one hell of a piece of entertainment." New York Observer Full Review.

"Django Unchained also has the pure, almost meaningless excitement which I found sorely lacking in Tarantino's previous film, Inglourious Basterds, with its misfiring spaghetti-Nazi trope and boring plot. I can only say Django delivers, wholesale, that particular narcotic and delirious pleasure that Tarantino still knows how to confect in the cinema, something to do with the manipulation of surfaces. It's as unwholesome, deplorable and delicious as a forbidden cigarette." The Guardian 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." 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." Time Out New York. Full Review.

"Fortunately, this sprawling epic is well-anchored. There cannot be a better big-screen showman than Jackman." 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.