"Only God Forgives" At one point in this cartoonishly dark revenge saga starring Ryan Gosling, a man is terrorized by having sharp chopstick-like blades rammed through both arms, then both legs. And the torture session's just getting going. By this point, alas, you've so thoroughly given up any hope of caring about these miserable characters that you're thinking less about what this poor guy is feeling, and more about what you're feeling, sitting there in your seat. As in, what time is it? As in, I'm thirsty. As in, I wonder what would feel worse, watching some more of this or actually being stabbed by sharp chopstick-like blades? There's a word for this feeling: boredom. And that's the biggest surprise and disappointment of this film by Nicolas Winding Refn, though some may take issue with the stylized violence, which also involves limbs being sliced off (albeit very quickly), and a scene involving a hand stuck into a bloody womb. On the plus side, Refn has created an evocative underworld in Bangkok lonely, dark and tinged in a seductive neon red. But the movie's real saving grace can be summed up in three words: Kristin Scott Thomas. You may know her as regal and graceful and British (or sometimes French), but here, she is American, garish, profane, and very, very nasty. It's delicious to see this wonderful actress sink her teeth into something so off-type. And it's a shame that Gosling, a terrific actor, doesn't get to do more here. Mostly we just look at him as he, in turn, looks somewhere else, silently and stoically. He's nice to look at. But still. At the end, you'll be thinking of Thomas, whose exit is as splashy as her entrance. R for "strong bloody violence including grisly images, sexual content and language." 89 minutes. One and a half stars out of four.
Jocelyn Noveck, AP National Writer
"The Conjuring" As sympathetic, methodical ghostbusters Lorraine and Ed Warren, Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson make this old-fashioned haunted-house horror film something more than your average fright fest. In 1971, they come to the Perrons' swampy, musty Rhode Island farmhouse newly purchased from the bank to investigate the demonic spirit that has begun terrorizing the couple (Ron Livingston, Lili Taylor) and their five daughters. Lorraine is clairvoyant, and Ed is a Vatican-sanctioned demonologist. They're best known as the married, devoutly Catholic paranormal pros whose work with the Lutz family served as the basis for "Amityville Horror." The film is built in the '70s-style mold of "Amityville" and, if one is kind, "The Exorcist." Does it live up to it? More than most horror films, certainly. But as effectively crafted as it is, it's lacking the raw, haunting power of the models it falls shy of. "The Exorcist" is a high standard, though: "The Conjuring" is an unusually sturdy piece of haunted-house genre filmmaking. The director is James Wan, who's best known as one of the founding practitioners of that odious type of horror film called "torture porn" ("Saw"). Here he goes classical. Though it comes across as a self-conscious stab at more traditional, floorboard-creaking horror, Wan has succeeded in patiently building suspense (of which there is plenty) not out of bloodiness, but those old standbys of slamming doors and flashes in the mirror. R for sequences of disturbing violence and terror. Running time: 112 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
Jake Coyle, AP Entertainment Writer
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