Reel-View Ratings: The Bigger The Beard, The Better The Movie

REVIEWS BY PAIGE TAKEYA

EFFIE GRAY

Euphemia Chalmers Millais is the woman at the center of one of the most famous love triangles of the Victorian era — but you wouldn’t really get that impression from Emma Thompson’s carefully feminist, distinctly passionless adaptation of Effie Gray’s story. Effie endured a loveless, unconsummated marriage with art critic John Ruskin before she wed his prot g John Everett Millais. Dakota Fanning’s Effie is a wisp of a waif, giving a nuanced, dreamy performance amidst a series of unpleasant caricatures of oppressive, dreary Victorian men. It’s dull and shallow most of the time, but it does find some redemption in its pitch-perfect costuming and cinematography.

Opens April 3 at Kahala Theatre

FURIOUS 7

There are only two things anyone could ask of Furious 7: that it pays tribute to the late Paul Walker and that somebody does something unbelievably awesome while driving a very expensive car. And the film succeeds at both objectives, with a very game attempt at unifying all seven movies into one cohesive timeline. There’s really not much more to say: The action transcends logic and is better than ever before, there’s still plenty of sexy girls and sexy cars to ogle, The Rock breaks a cast by flexing his arm, and Walker gets no less than the loving sendoff he rightly deserves.

Opens April 3 in wide release

WOMAN IN GOLD

The premise of this based-on-a-true-story film is compelling (aren’t they always?): a woman fights the Austrian government over a priceless painting that was stolen from her family by Nazis and never returned. (Austria kept Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I and put it in a museum, instead.) But rather than explore the gray morality of this struggle, the film decides to paint the struggle in stark black and white (spoiler: The Austrians are the unabashed villains here). Other issues with the film: Ryan Reynolds is in it (he should not be), the script is painfully blunt and the pacing is uneven. Luckily, Helen Mirren is here to salvage some dignity from this mess.

Opens April 1 at Kahala Theatre