What to see this weekend

Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters

One could argue that the plot of Neill Blomkamp’s (District 9) Elysium has some ties to Joseph Kosinski’s Oblivion — but there are some marked differences. In both films, the general population no longer inhabits Earth, but in Elysium it’s a difference of class that keeps certain people struggling on Earth in the year 2154. Max (Matt Damon) wants to bring about equality and takes on an impossible mission to enter Elysium. You can read our review here — Brenden Fletcher claims it’s the best genre film of the summer.

If you have a Harry Potter-sized hole in your literature-film lovin’ heart, perhaps you should check out Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters. This is the second film based on the second book of the series and it stars Logan Lerman (The Perks of Being a Wallflower) as the titular character. In this chapter, Percy has to find the Golden Fleece in order to thwart evil forces.

Rawson Marshall Thurber’s (Dodgeball) new comedy We’re the Millers stars Jason Sudeikis as a pot dealer trying to bring strangers together to form a “family” as a cover for him to transport a large amount of weed. Jennifer Aniston plays a striper hired as his wife, Emma Roberts his daughter and Will Poulter is a random kid chosen as his son. I’m particularly stoked to see British actor/writer Poulter playing this side of the ocean as he’s hilarious in the U.K. series School of Comedy (which you should also check out).

If you’d like to get in touch with your inner child, Disney is offering Klay Hall’s Planes, essentially 2006’s Cars and 2011’s Cars 2 but with a different mode of transportation. Bringing the cars and planes to life are big-name actors like Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Teri Hatcher, but also legends like John Cleese.

Joshua Oppenheimer’s documentary The Act of Killing finally arrives in Montreal. The film challenges Indonesian death squad leaders to reenact the murders of their victims using Hollywood film genres. In his review, Malcolm Fraser called it “devastatingly dark.” ■