Ill-Informed Gadfly

“The Secret in Their Eyes” is a Latin lover of a thriller: It seduces you slowly, with suave confidence and courtly flair. This Argentine Oscar winner chronicles a murder mystery that spans a quarter century, but it’s no procedural. There are no red herrings, no gratuitous twists. “The Secret in Their Eyes” is adult, literate, restrained. Its themes of loss, stasis and long-dormant passions can be parsed from fleeting glances and tossed-off gestures. The movie begins in 1999, with Ricardo Darin as a retired federal justice agent who’s trying to write a novel about his investigation of a 1974 rape and murder. He reconnects with his former boss, the subject of his unrequited ardor. The sad-eyed Darin and the elegant Soledad Villamil make a handsome would-be couple with a deep, unspoken bond. Film acting doesn’t get any better. In the flashbacks, director Juan Jose Campanella keeps the exposition light and engaging, thanks to the irrepressible performance of Guillermo Francella as Darin’s drunken right-hand man. Then Campanella boldly disrupts the movie’s rhythm, using an exhilarating single shot to stage an elaborate pursuit inside a packed soccer stadium. He follows that up with an incendiary good-cop/bad-cop interrogation. It appears that justice will prevail, but Argentina in 1974 was corrupt and unstable, with Juan Peron serving his short-lived final stint as president. Picking up the case in calmer times, our hero confronts the psychic scars of the period. “The Secret in Their Eyes” wrings compelling human drama from crime, politics and the shortcomings of well-meaning people.

Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood” tries to tap into the appetite of contemporary moviegoers for comic-book-style origin stories and franchise reboots. That’s an appropriately modest goal for Scott, who’s shown little vision or creativity in the nearly 30 years since “Blade Runner.” There’s nothing new in his tepid and humorless take on the mythical bandit of Sherwood Forest, unless you consider it innovative to transform Robin into a dour grump who, like so many comic-book heroes, has unresolved Daddy issues. And please don’t buy into the marketing that touts this movie as realistic or historically accurate. The Robin Hood of this tale is a lowly archer called Robin Longstride, an absurd and transparently made-up name for a 13th-Century English yeoman. Scott also seems to believe his native country is around the size of San Diego. You might as well watch Errol Flynn wage exuberant swordfights in a doublet and hose, but if it’s a gritty “Robin Hood” you’re after, that’s been done, too. Check out Richard Lester’s bleak, anti-heroic “Robin and Marian,” in which Sean Connery plays Robin Hood as a grizzled warrior and a charming rake. That’s beyond the capabilities of Russell Crowe, whose charisma has deserted him. Scott and screenwriter Brian Helgeland waffle ineffectually between medieval politics and Robin’s mild personal struggle. There are some amusing performances at the margins, and Scott lavishes welcome attention on King John’s French mistress-turned-queen. But his “Robin Hood” is several arrows short of a quiver.

With “Iron Man,” Marvel Studios and director Jon Favreau asked star Robert Downey Jr. to carry them to glory. They hoped his charisma was so overwhelming that audiences would flock to a movie in which he spends much of his time welding — that is, when he’s not off-screen entirely, replaced by a computer-generated guy in a silly metal suit. I thought they failed spectacularly, but I was squarely in the minority. Nonetheless, I couldn’t help but snicker at the beginning of “Iron Man 2,” as the audience is treated to a long sequence of Mickey Rourke … welding. Is this a superhero saga or a dreary two-part episode of “Dirty Jobs”? Thankfully, “Iron Man 2″ gets better from there, but the welding torch is the only thing that catches fire. It’s a reasonable exercise in big-budget escapism — competent but uninspired. I got my kicks mostly from the intermittently clever one-liners and from the hammy antics of the first-rate cast. Downey, Rourke, Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson and Garry Shandling perform with gusto. Beyond his able handling of the actors, I remain mystified that Favreau is allowed to direct these movies. He can’t stage action with any tension or verve, and his images just sit there, indifferently lighted and framed. Maybe he hopes we’re watching through an “Iron Man” mask. The first movie had novelty on its side — it introduced an intriguingly flawed superhero, played by an actor with a notably checkered past. But I’m not sure “Iron Man 2″ will generate much excitement beyond the marketing-driven opening-weekend bonanza.