Soaking in 'Water for Elephants'

It was the rare occasion when I was actually able to get to the movie theater Thursday night and our selection was the Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson flick “Water of Elephants.”

The movie, adapted from the Sara Gruen novel, is set in The Great Depression and follows a young man (Pattinson) as he hops a train for a new life only to discover it’s a circus train. You can guess a love story ensues between him and a circus performer (Witherspoon). The catch is the performer is married to the tyrannical leader of the circus played well by Christoph Waltz.

It’s fun to be along for the ride as the circus train goes from town to town. You learn there’s all sorts of things that goes on inside these cars. One thing that had me thinking was that Pattinson’s character had perfectly highlighted hair — I’ve never seen that look in any pictures of men from the 1930s.

I’d give “Water for Elephants” a 7.5 out of 10. It’s worth seeing if you have the time, but no need to sprint to the theater to see it.

In other film news, it looks like Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts will star in a film together called “Larry Crowne,” which is due in theaters July 1. From the preview I saw it seems overly quirky. Hopefully, it can top their last venture together “Charlie Wilson’s War,” which left me unimpressed.