ACTION
Want to feel old? The first Terminator came out 25 years ago. Now, after a six-year absence, the franchise is back and looking remarkably spry, given its advanced age. Terminator Salvation, a solid fourth entry in the series, is set in 2018 and sticks to the established mythology. An adult John Connor (Bale, better than he has to be), now a leader of the human resistance movement against the ruling Skynet machines, must find Kyle Reese (Yelchin), the teenager whom Connor will send back in time to father him (see the original Terminator). Confusing? You bet, but it makes a wacky kind of sense. The film has a gritty futuristic look, rousing action and a ruggedly appealing costar in Worthington, who plays a hybrid man-machine. Even original metalhead Arnold Schwarzenegger returns—making good on his "I'll be back" vow—for a nifty digital cameo.
Ben Stiller, Amy Adams, Owen Wilson, Hank Azaria | PG |
ANOTHER NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM!
FAMILY Maybe it's the history major in me, but I was amused by this sequel to 2006's Night at the Museum. It's packed with departed greats who come to life (howdy, Abe Lincoln!) in Washington, D.C.'s Smithsonian Institution to help ex-museum guard Larry Daley (Stiller) foil a despotic reanimated Egyptian pharaoh (Azaria, ripely amusing). Unlike the first film, which was loud and labored, this one is loosey-goosey and crammed with fun asides. It includes one chase too many, but why complain when General Custer (Bill Hader) is leading the charge? Minor quibble: Museum sneaks in paintings, such as Grant Wood's "American Gothic," that actually hang in other cities. Shhh, don't tell the children.
Jessica Biel, Colin Firth, Kristin Scott Thomas | PG-13 | 2
COMEDY Remember the Sesame Street song that went, "One of these things is not like the others. One of these things just doesn't belong"? It kept running through my mind while watching a fetching Biel gamely try to keep up with practiced British comedy-of-manors experts Firth and Scott Thomas in this droll film version of a 1924 Noël Coward play. Biel plays a sexy American flapper who finds herself doing battle with her battle-ax of a snobby mother-in-law (Scott Thomas) in a musty English country mansion. Biel works hard but the effort shows, while Scott Thomas and Firth (as Biel's boozy sympathetic father-in-law) sail along, earning laughs with the simplest of gestures or looks and yet conveying bitterness that runs deep.
>We know the original Terminator has been battling the California budget deficit, but what have the other stars of the series been up to?
LINDA HAMILTON Quietly living what Hamilton, 52, has called "the country life" in Malibu, the mom of two and original Sarah Connor became a mental-heath advocate after being diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1996.
EDWARD FURLONG The T2 star, 31, fought addiction, getting sober in 2002. He wed actress Rachael Bella in '06, and the couple have a son, Ethan, 2.
NICK STAHL T3's John Connor starred in the HBO series Carnivàle and remains an independent-film mainstay. Now 29, he lives full time in Austin.
>Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, in 1932. Then she disappeared over the Pacific in 1937 while trying to fly around the world. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian isn't the only film to resurrect Earhart; Diane Keaton took a flyer at the role in a 1994 TV movie, Amelia Earhart: The Final Flight. Still to come: Hilary Swank in Amelia, a biopic due this October.
<.The two-time Oscar nominee, 34, shows off her sassy side as pilot Amelia Earhart, who comes back to life in the new sequel.
ARE YOU AS FEARLESS AS EARHART? Not at all! I'm definitely somebody who thinks about things too much and looks before I leap. And I'm afraid of flying! It was fun to play somebody who lacked fear and was living in the moment.
HOW DID YOU PREPARE FOR THE ROLE? I'm a bit of a detail-oriented perfectionist, so I did research on her. [The character] is sassy and fun. I work really hard to be polite, but I'm actually quite a bit sassy too.
WAS IT FUN WORKING WITH THE GUYS ON-SET? I was like their adoptive younger sister. Ben [Stiller] is a big Rock Band fan, so we spent a lot of time playing. I'm not as good at it, so Ben learned that the safe place for me was on vocals.
YOU'RE ENGAGED TO ACTOR DARREN LE GALLO. HOW'S THE WEDDING PLANNING COMING ALONG? I haven't planned it! I haven't had any time.
>Yes, there's a new generation of Wayanses! Damon's kid, 26, takes on his first lead role in the spoof Dance Flick.
ON ACTORS IN DANCE MOVIES Channing Tatum ['Step Up"] is the realest. Sean Patrick Thomas [Save the Last Dance] is very theatrical. Zac Efron always looks like he has to use the bathroom.
ON HIS BIG FAMILY Nobody knows who's who. Sometimes I don't even know. I'll be like, "Dad!" And the guy will be like, "No, I'm Shawn."
>• Now 37, the fantasy flick's kid star has turned his passion for tattoos into a family business.
25 YEARS after playing boy hero Atreyu in the 1984 fantasy tale, Noah Hathaway still gets fan mail with a common confession: "'I had the biggest crush on you when I was 12,'" he says. "My wife and I read them and crack up." The former child actor and his wife, Sameerah, a tattoo artist, now run Wild Child Tattoo and Clothing in L.A. "I've loved tattoos forever," he says. "They bring something out in a person. They're sexy." Hathaway got his first tattoo at 15 but insists his sons Tre, 16, and Jared, 11 (pictured above), will wait longer to go under the needle: "They have to be 18!"
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
