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While The Cricket was in Las Vegas this week for CinemaCon, his colleagues bravely forged ahead reviewing this week's studio output — with mixed results.

The Tribune's Kathy Stephenson enjoyed "The Age of Adaline," a romantic drama starring Blake Lively as a woman who is eternally 29 — and when she falls in love with a young philanthropist (Michael Huisman), only to find that his aged father (Harrison Ford) is a former love. "Romantics will have no problem giving in to its timeless magic," Stephenson wrote.

Scott D. Pierce had double duty, and The Cricket really owes him big-time. He found "The Water Diviner," with Russell Crowe (who also directed) as an Australian father after World War I trying to determine his sons' fate in the battle of Gallipoli, was an uneven mix of wartime grit and magical realism. And the faith-based drama "Little Boy," which centers on an 8-year-old (Jakob Salvati) desperate to see his father (Michael Rapaport) return from World War II, is a ham-fisted drama that tries too hard to manipulate audience's emotions.

The Cricket did review two movies opening this week. "Ex Machina" is a sleek and smart science-fiction drama, about a programmer (Domhnall Gleeson) brought in by a tech guru (Oscar Isaac) to test the newest breakthrough in artificial intelligence: A robotic woman (Alicia Vikander) who may be more human than human. Writer-director Alex Garland (who wrote "28 Days Later") creates a stylish and thought-provoking drama that's also a riveting thriller.

"Desert Dancer" delivers moments of emotional punch in its telling of the true story of Afshin Ghaffarian (Reece Ritchie), a young dancer trying to express himself in Iran, where dancing is forbidden. The movie suffers from too many subplots, but finds its strongest moments in evocative dance productions that artfully illustrate Afshin's need to express himself.