New Releases: October 26, 2012

1. Fun Size (Paramount, 3,014 Theaters, 90 Minutes, Rated PG-13): On one hand, this film is a starring vehicle for Victoria Justice, star of such Nickelodeon shows as Victorius, iCarly and Zoey 101 (Nickelodeon is also a producer of this film) and certainly an attempt to transfer her small screen success to the big screen.

On the other hand, it has a plot that harkens back to such 1980’s classics such as Adventures in Babysitting. Justice plays Wren, a girl who is forced to spend Halloween night babysitting her little brother. However, when her brother gets lost in a sea of trick or treaters, Wren has to get him back before her parents know that he is gone.

We’ll see if this film works and what effect it has on Justice’s career. But Elisabeth Shue garnered an Oscar nod in her post  Adventures in Babysitting career.

2. Silent Hill: Revelation 3D (Open Road Films, 2,933 Theaters, 94 Minutes, Rated R): It wouldn’t be the weekend before Halloween without a horror film, typically a sequel, to get us in the mood. This year, it’s this one.

This film is a sequel to 2006’s Silent Hill and adapts another installment of the successful Konami video game.

Heather Mason is drawn into an evil alternate reality when her father is kidnapped. She is drawn to the evil town called Silent Hill, and must figure out the macabre secrets of the town in order to bring her father back home alive. Of course, the town, and Heather’s connection to it, is not what it seems.

3. Cloud Atlas (Warner Brothers, 2,008 Theaters, 172 Minutes, Rated R): It’s rare that the most talked about film of any given week would be the one appearing in the third most number of theaters, but here we go.

This the first film the Wachowski siblings have wrote and directed since 2008’s noble failure Speed Racer. And for their first movie back, they aren’t shying away from a challenge, joined on both fronts by Tom Twyker, they are adapting David Mitchell’s ambitious novel to the big screen.

The story travels from the far flung past to the distant future, as the narrative passes from one era to the next in the form of journals, letters, and other forms of entertainment. Much of the cast, which includes Oscar winners such as Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Susan Sarandon and Jim Broadbent, play multiple characters over the span of the six stories the film portrays.

It’s a risky venture. It has a rock solid cast that could make the most of even the worst story work. If they pull this off, there could be talk of the film around Oscar time (most likely about how it was hideously snubbed), and if the don’t, well, it will be another noble failure.

4. Chasing Mavericks (Fox, 2,002 Theaters, 115 Minutes, Rated PG): Finally, we get this one. It’s a surfing movie that applies some of the plot points from the Karate Kid to it. And, of course, it was based on a true story.

This is based on the life of surfer Jay Moriarty(Jonny Weston),  who has a dream of surfing the biggest, most dangerous wave in America. To accomplish this task, he enlists surfing legend Frosty Hesson (Gerard Butler) to teach him to not just surf the wave, but also to survive it. The mentor/student relationship morphs into a surrogate father/son dynamic, which cause problems with both men.

I’m impressed by how the trailer shows that surfing is far more difficult than I originally thought. But whether or not it will make a mark for itself in a busy weekend for films is anybody’s guess.