By Rene Rodriquez, McClatchy Newspapers –
MADEA’S WITNESS PROTECTION (PG-13): Writer-director-actor Tyler Perry thrusts his beloved alter ego, the Southern matriarch Madea, into the financial crisis when she’s forced to take in a corrupt Wall Street banker (Eugene Levy) busted in a Ponzi scheme.
MAGIC MIKE (R): Steven Soderbergh (“Che,” “Traffic,” “Erin Brockovich”) trains his inquisitive camera on the world of male strip dancers, drawing on the real-life experiences of actor Channing Tatum, who also stars as a dancer suffering a career crisis. Alex Pettyfer, Matt Bomer, Matthew McConaughey and Joe Manganiello are some of the other guys who love to take it all off. Like “The Avengers,” but for women.
PEOPLE LIKE US (PG-13): Screenwriter Alex Kurtzman (“Mission: Impossible III,” “Transformers,” “Star Trek”) puts aside the fantasy stuff for his directorial debut. After his father dies, a man (Chris Pine) must track down the sister (Elizabeth Banks) he’s never met and deliver her share of the inheritance.
TED (R): “Family Guy” creator Seth McFarlane makes his film directorial debut with this tale of a grown man (Mark Wahlberg) who can’t bear to part with the potty-mouthed, talking teddy bear of his childhood. We expect nothing less than the summer’s most subversive comedy.