Movie Weekend #3: January 22, 2010

Now this looks like a January weekend. These are the films that studios put out and then hold their collective breaths as they watch between their fingers. We have two movies both starring well-known actors with wings, plus two more films whose titles are so vague and non-descript that they could have swaped with eachother and it would have still made sense in the context of the movie. Needless to say, things look bad.

EXTRAORDINARY MEASURES (CBS Films) [2,549]

Whenever the title font for a film has gold pixie-dust surrounding it, you know it's a heartwarming true-life tearjerker. Harrison Ford stars as a scientist attempting to find a cure for Brendan Fraser and Keri Russell's children. The film's working title was apparently The Pursuit of Schmaltziness. 19% RT, 38 Metacritic.

LEGION (Screen Gems) [2,476]

Humanity is on the brink of destruction again, this time because God has sent a legion of angels to bring on the apocalypse, with only a group of strangers at a roadside diner and an archangel played by Paul Bettany standing in their way. This thing didn't even screen for critics - look out. (No reviews)

THE TOOTH FAIRY (Fox) [3,344]

In the spirit of The Game Plan, this very family-friendly comedy sees Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as a hockey player (um....) who becomes a tooth fairy. 12% RT, 37 Metacritic.

TO SAVE A LIFE (Samuel Goldwyn)

Look, it's a high-school film about white jock-guilt. I'm not sure how many theaters it's opening at tomorrow, but it's playing near me. I'm not going. (No Reviews)

CREATION (Newmarket Films)

Paul Bettany's second movie of the weekend, this time his plays Charles Darwin in this biopic which takes place just before the English naturalist wrote "The Origin of Species." It opened the Toronto Film Festival and it's coming out in January without an iota of buzz. 49% RT.