Dwayne Johnson

Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – While a cop film take-off is filed under the fish-in-a-barrel category, writer/director Adam McKay manages to spin some absurd gold threads into the thin blue cloth. In other words, Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg are damn funny in this all-in cop farce, with enough familiar co-star support to prop up the whole enchilada.

Rating: 2.0/5.0

CHICAGO – Observing the new “Get Smart” film, which is based on the 1960s TV sitcom of the same name, is to note how much has changed since the Cold War ended.

KAOS and CONTROL – the U.S. and Russian spy agencies that square off in the movie – seem like relics of another era.

CHICAGO – Unlike the world, “Southland Tales” starts with a bang but ends with a whimper. Richard Kelly’s opus of a film is little more than sensory overload meant to look like a political statement on the state of privacy, the war, news, entertainment and celebrities.