New Releases: February 28, 2014

1. Son of God (Fox, 3,256 Theaters, 138 Minutes, Rated PG-13): Very seldom does there come a film that has the highest theater count and I know nothing about it. This is one of those times.

Based just on the name of this film, I thought it be a drama about kids living in a slum in some Second or Third World country. I felt foolish when I found out that it was another in a long line of Jesus bio-pics.

It is being release on the weekend before the start of Lent. But it has no promotion, no stars (the biggest name, nay, only name in the film, is Roma Downey, who also produced), which gives the inflated theater count an air of a desperate cash grab. The critical drubbing the film is getting over at Rotten Tomatoes adds more evidence to that claim.

2. Non-Stop (Universal, 3,090 Theaters,106 Minutes, Rated PG-13): And now, Taken on a plane.

Okay, that’s a bit unfair. It’s more like Die Hard on a plane. It only gets compare to Taken because it has Liam Neeson in it.

Neeson plays a U.S. Flight Marshall who gets a text saying that one person on the plane he is protecting will die every 20 minutes unless a great deal of money is transferred into a bank account. Problem is, the back account is registered to him. Now the extortion has become a frame job. And Neeson has to figure out what’d going on before he’s grounded permanently.

The film has a great cast–Neeson, Julianne Moore, Michelle Dockery (YES!), Lupita Nyong’o,–but will it be enough to overcome the tricky concept. We’ll see.

3. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues Super-Sized R-Rated Version (Paramount, 1,317 Theaters, 143 Minutes, Rated R): For those of you who thought this film needed some more language, drug use, sexual material and references when it was released last year, well, you’re in luck.

The film returns back in theaters this week for one week only with a R-Rated cut that is 24 minutes than last year’s version with an nigh impossible 763 new jokes included.

You can rush out to go see it this weekend, or you can wait a few weeks until it comes out on home video on April 1st and get all the versions in one convenient package. Your choice.