April and the Extraordinary World
⋆⋆⋆ out of four stars
Rated: PG for gunplay and rude humor. In French with English subtitles.
Theater: Lagoon.

Mid-20th-century Paris doesn't look exactly as you've seen it in this imaginative, animated marvel. People travel by bicycle-propelled dirigibles, and the city boasts two Eiffel Towers, side by side. The structures form a transportation gateway where people board and disembark airborne cable cars. How did this happen? For decades, scientists have been abducted — Einstein, Edison — which means that innovation stalled somewhere around steam engines. That explains the movie's grim palette. One young scientist has managed to evade capture: April (voiced by Marion Cotillard) is a third-generation potionmaker who hasn't seen her parents since they vanished a decade earlier. Since then, she's been hiding out with her only friend, Darwin the talking cat. The adventure begins when April gets word from a cyborg rat that her parents are still alive. In truth, the story is practically beside the point with all the spectacular visuals. The hand-drawn animation gives the film a retro feel after so many computer-generated Pixar creations. But the style fits the subject. Innovation has its place, but imagination is just as important.
Stephanie Merry, Washington Post

My Golden Days
⋆⋆⋆½ out of four stars
Rated: R for nudity, sex, profanity.
Theater: Lagoon.

Yes, "My Golden Days" is a prequel, but it isn't necessary to know Arnaud Desplechin's "My Sex Life … or How I Got Into an Argument" (now 20 years old) to grasp what's going on as the director revisits his soul-searching protagonist, Paul Dedalus. Mathieu Amalric, the busy French actor and filmmaker, is back as Paul, now a successful anthropologist, reflecting (via an amusing interrogation framing device) on pivotal episodes from his life. The original title of Desplechin's new film translates to "Three Memories of My Youth," and that's what we get: wonderfully evocative, funny, sad, complex and essential passages from a man's childhood and adolescence. "My Golden Days" feels connected to François Truffaut's Antoine Doinel stories, but also to a wide sample of films and filmmakers (the 1980s clothes, the American cars, and the beating Paul takes from a gang on the street all echo early Scorsese, playfully). The storytelling is simple, the emotions intense and the way Desplechin dives into a life — into these lives — is exquisite.
Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer

Criminal
⋆⋆ out of four stars
Rated: R for strong violence and language.

The opening of "Criminal" might make you think you're in for a Jason Bourne movie starring Ryan Reynolds. Nope. What you're in for is a delightfully cheesy '90s-style action movie starring Kevin Costner, Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Oldman, with Costner doing a Liam Neeson-style tough guy career reinvention. It's quite the bait and switch. Jones plays Dr. Franks, a researcher who has developed a process to transplant one person's memories into another person's brain. When the need arises to get CIA agent Bill Pope's (Reynolds) memories out of his head, Dr. Franks (-enstein) has the perfect candidate — Jericho Stewart (Kevin Costner), a killer and psychopath in a maximum-security penitentiary. They need Pope's memories to find a Dutch hacker who has hacked into the U.S. "Vigilant Shield" missile system. The movie is actually kind of good. The emotional stakes are there. Costner is also pretty great. "Criminal" feels like the kind of high-concept, preposterous action movies of yesteryear. If that's your thing, it's a hoot.
Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service

The First Monday in May
⋆⋆⋆ out of four stars
Rated: PG-13 for brief strong language.
Theater: Edina.

Andrew Rossi's documentary about the making of the Met's costume show, "China: Through the Looking Glass,'' and the planning of the annual gala in conjunction with that show, is a compelling study of pulling and pushing. On the one hand, curator Andrew Bolton presides over the exhibition, which is a collaboration between the Anna Wintour Fashion Institute at the Museum and its Department of Asian Art. Bolton is obsessed with pulling in the largest crowds ever. On the other hand, Vogue editor Wintour, after whom the Costume Institute has been renamed, presides over the party, pushing out the riffraff while she beckons hordes of Spanxed movie stars. Curators who watch over the Asian art fret over the possibility that their treasures will be used mainly to accessorize the dresses. In the end, there are 800,000 visitors to the exhibition, a record. And Wintour raised $12.5 million for the museum at the gala. Everybody is happy, at least everybody shown in the movie. "Isn't it amazing,'' observes a museum official, how fashion can bring two cultures together?''
Leah Garchik, San Francisco Chronicle