Call the Croods

Reel advice: Call the Croods

The Call (Tri-Star): Poor Halle Berry. The personification of the Academy Awards curse since winning her Best Actress Oscar a dozen years ago, her film output has been less than stellar. That includes cinematic calamities including Catwoman, Cloud Atlas, Gothika and Movie 43. Fortunately for Berry, she's been able to affiliate herself with successful movie franchises (Bond and X-Men) so that her post-Oscar work hasn't been a total waste.

Poodley fright wig aside, Berry gives her all in The Call, playing Jordan, an operator at a 911 call center in Los Angeles. It's a stressful job, to be sure, but there are moments of reprieve including at-work visits with cop boyfriend Paul (Morris Chestnut) and regular amusing calls from Terence (Steven Williams) in the drunk tank. But all that changes when teen Leah (Evie Thompson) calls about an in-progress break-in at home where she's all alone. It's terrifying stuff, some of the best on-screen suspense we've seen in a long time. It also gets ugly when, in her excitement to keep Leah on the line until the police arrive, Jordan makes a costly error resulting in the girl's abduction and subsequent murder.

Six months later Jordan is working as a 911 call center trainer, a job for which she thinks she is better suited. Meanwhile, in another part of LA, teens Casey (Abigail Breslin) and Autumn (Ella Rae Peck) are hanging out at a mall. Autumn, late for picking up her little brother, abandons Casey in a hurry. As Casey walks to her car in the mall's enclosed parking structure, she is abducted, thrown into the trunk of a man's car. Regaining consciousness and realizing her situation, she uses a mobile to call 911. As luck would have it, Jordan and her trainees happen to be nearby and she assists in the call.

At this point, the suspenseful edge of The Call returns as Jordan, still feeling the residual effects of her previous failure, rises to the occasion. The Call rapidly becomes the kind of movie where audiences cheer, shriek and can't resist talking back to the screen (although they should). We learn more about the kidnapper, Michael (Michael Eklund), who is, of course, the man who killed Leah. He's got a bit of Buffalo Bill (from The Silence of the Lambs) in him, as he attempts to create a sort of shrine to his late sister. With a mounting body count, including a limo driver and a gas station attendant, not to mention the police in hot pursuit The Call calls viewers to the edge of their seats.

However, The Call gets fuzzy when the frustrated Jordan joins the search for Casey. To call the revenge fantasy finale over the top would be an understatement. That's too bad, because up until that point, this was a call most people wouldn't have minded taking.

The Croods (DreamWorks/20th Century Fox): Thanks to the popular animated Ice Age series, we have a pretty good idea of what some in Hollywood think the earth looked like before our ancestors arrived and began the process of messing up the planet. The Croods introduces us to the titular prehistoric cave clan, including father Grug (Nicolas Cage), mother Ugga (Catherine Keener), rebellious teen daughter Eep (Emma Stone), son Thunk (Clark Duke), feral baby Sandy (Randy Thom) and matriarch Gran (Cloris Leachman). Simple folk just trying to stay fed in a hard world. The only survivors in their neighborhood, Grug likes to think it's because he keeps his family safe by keeping them afraid of fun, night and almost anything else outside of the cave's safe confines.

Of course Eep disagrees. When she meets the more advanced, fire-making Guy (Ryan Reynolds), Grug disapproves immediately. But Eep has a mind of her own and soon a battle of the wits (or lack thereof) unfolds between the father and his daughter's potential love interest. That's not the only conflict in The Croods. The tectonic plates are shifting. There are cave-destroying earthquakes and volcano eruptions. As the new world reveals itself in all its splendor and danger we get to experience it with the characters.

The Croods' fantastical vision of the past is clever, colorful and entertaining. There's enough here to keep adults entertained and children riveted. Home-schooled kids will, no doubt, be kept away from The Croods, but that's their parents' loss. No kids, of any age (or creed), should be deprived of having this much fun.