Reel Views, Review

Superman

After bringing his unique voice to the Guardians Of The Galaxy and Suicide Squad series, writer/director James Gunn now takes on one of the most iconic superheroes ever conceived. Superman is an exceptional comic book movie, clearly the product of someone who deeply respects the source material and truly understands what makes the central character special. Like the Spider-Verse films, it distills decades of on-page lore and storylines into one cohesive tale that is not only relentlessly entertaining but also artistically gratifying and a testament to the genre’s staying power. Gunn’s clearly studied Superman’s on-screen legacy — from Christopher Reeve’s outstanding portrayal in the 1978 original to Henry Cavill’s misbegotten cameo in the final seconds of Black Adam — and avoids every potential Man Of Steel-shaped pitfall along the way.

A brilliant set of title cards thrusts us right into the action, which finds Superman (David Corenswet) up against the ropes while fighting a new foe being instructed by maniacal billionaire Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult). All the while, he operates under a human alter ego as Clark Kent, an unassuming reporter working alongside Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo) and Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) in the newsroom. While Superman is occupied in Metropolis, Luthor and his nanotech-fueled henchwoman The Engineer (María Gabriela de Faría) break into the Fortress Of Solitude and steal his superpowered dog Krypto. Aided by Justice Gang members Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi) and Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), Superman sets out to retrieve his canine companion and weave around Luthor’s insidious masterplan in the process.

Gunn knows what we’ve seen before when it comes to this character (and superhero movies in general) and instead generates countless comedic and dramatic beats that feel fresh and rewarding. Besides forgoing an origin story — who’s unfamiliar with Superman at this point, honestly? — he makes other bold creative choices that pay off with stunning consistency. Often the films lean into the dichotomy of Clark Kent and Superman, depicting him as perpetually switching between the two and desperate to keep his true identity a secret from others. In Superman, several characters know they’re both the same person and the narrative conflict is instead focused on how Superman actually thinks and feels. He works tirelessly to save everyone everywhere and takes it to heart when he can’t. To quote The Smiths, “it takes strength to be gentle and kind” and in that way, this Superman flexes different muscles than we typically see from cinematic heroes.

Given how many performers have played these roles before, Superman is a difficult film to cast but casting director John Papsidera has done a super job top to bottom here. As the man in red and blue, David Corenswet taps into an earnestness and altruism that we haven’t seen from this character in a very long time. Somehow, he makes Superman’s underlying corniness compelling and finds a unique sense of humor that works perfectly for this modern iteration. Nicholas Hoult is likewise excellent as the follically-challenged foil pulling all the strings around Supes, bringing proper intellectual menace to his portrayal. Rachel Brosnahan has a kind of romantic spark with Corenswet that is desperately needed in a genre that’s been considerably chaste the past 10 or 15 years. They have a breathtaking scene in front of the Metropolis skyline at the beginning of the second act that’s more heartfelt than what we typically get from most full-blown romantic dramas.

Superman, being a superhero film, is naturally an effects-heavy affair and the CG work here is as great as you’d expect it to be. Gunn particularly has fun with the abilities of the lesser-known Justice Gang and Superman fights a fun variety of enemies from kaiju to robots and everything in between. The action is terrific but it’s not what makes this movie soar so much higher than the majority of its cohorts. It’s how physically and emotionally vulnerable the film makes its protagonist, who is typically depicted as indestructible unless someone has Kryptonite in their pocket. The heroism on display here isn’t just a superhuman carrying out extraordinary feats; it’s conveying a worldview that is genuinely stirring and oddly radical. In a world that has so normalized hate and cynicism, empathy is the new counterculture.

Score – 4.5/5

New movies coming to theaters this weekend:
I Know What You Did Last Summer, starring Madelyn Cline and Chase Sui Wonders, is a slasher reboot about another hook-wielding killer who appears and begins targeting a group of friends one year after they covered up a car accident in which they supposedly killed someone.
Smurfs, starring Rihanna and James Corden, is a musical reboot which finds Papa Smurf mysteriously taken by evil wizards Gargamel and his brother Razamel, causing Smurfette to lead the Smurfs on a mission into the real world to save him.
Eddington, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal, is a modern Western set during the COVID-19 pandemic where a standoff between a small-town sheriff and a mayor sparks a powder keg as neighbor is pitted against neighbor in small town New Mexico.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Review

Jurassic World Rebirth

Jurassic World Rebirth is the follow-up to 2022’s Jurassic World Dominion, the film that normalized the absence of a colon to separate the name of this series and the respective subtitle, though that’s the least of this franchise’s problems. The movie’s tagline promises “A New Era Is Born” but aside from some new faces and a minor plot tweak here or there, what exactly is “new” about this “era”? This entry follows the same formula that every one of the 6 sequels to 1993’s still-superlative Jurassic Park has abided by, though the proceedings come across as markedly haphazard and clunky this time out. It’s unclear at this point if Rebirth is meant to set up a trilogy, as Jurassic World did in 2015, but my hope is that audiences will finally let these dinosaurs get some rest so we don’t have to keep waking them up every few years for a crummy cash-grab.

Following a ludicrous cold open, Jurassic World Rebirth picks up 5 years after the events of Dominion. The majority of the remaining dinosaur populations have shuffled off to equatorial islands for a more favorable tropical environment. Not content with leaving well enough alone, pharmaceutical rep Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend) comes to mercenary Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) with an 8-figure offer to head up a high-stakes mission. Along with paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) and captain Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali), she’s tasked with collecting blood from three de-extinct dinos to fuel an in-development drug that can prevent heart disease. Their journey sends them to Ile Saint-Hubert, an island home to a research facility where experiments in “engineered entertainments” led to mutated dinosaurs that have thrived in isolation.

While cruising through the Atlantic, the team receives an SOS signal from a group of 4 civilians whose boat is capsized by rogue seafaring prehistoric creatures. After the crew picks up the survivors, it makes zero sense that they would continue their covert operation without dropping them off for safety first, but then Jurassic World Rebirth wouldn’t be able to hamstring its narrative by dedicating time to this new faction. Director Gareth Edwards and scribe David Koepp, the latter of whom co-wrote Jurassic Park, are most likely attempting to recapture the family-in-peril aspect of the original. But once the two camps are inevitably split up when they land, their stories really have nothing to do with one another and there’s little narrative consequence for the group evading the dinosaurs compared to the one tracking them down.

Everyone simply looks lost here and it’s not just because they’re on an unfamiliar island. Scarlett Johansson is already the highest-grossing box office actress of all time, so why is she here? Is she collecting appearances in big-budget fare from every major studio like Infinity Stones? Mahershala Ali has two Oscars; in Jurassic World Rebirth, he’s mainly relegated to howling like a fool every time Zora lands a shot with blood-capturing darts. Jonathan Bailey made a splash on the silver screen in Wicked last year but he’s completely anonymous here in a role that jettisons his considerable musical talents. Together, their efforts to establish pathos are about as discreet as a T-Rex trying to maneuver around a glass of water without making waves. While we’re on the subject, these Jurassic World movies need to quit with these cutesy sidekick dinosaurs like the one in Rebirth nicknamed Dolores. The creatures in this franchise can be terrifying, they can be majestic, but they are prohibited from being adorable.

During Loomis’ introduction scene, he spouts meta-commentary about how paltry sales for his dinosaur exhibits are now compared to 5 years ago, when people would wait hours in line for tickets; “nobody cares about these animals anymore,” he laments. It’s hard not to read this as studio chatter about how difficult it is to get general audiences back to the theaters for tentpole movies. But, fundamentally, it’s not wrong of us to expect more from our blockbusters. Certainly not every big release has to measure up to the all-time classics but just because a film costs $200 million to produce doesn’t mean it’s automatically worthy of overwhelming box office success. Jurassic World Rebirth is a prime example of vacant, IP water treading that Hollywood needs to make an endangered species.

Score – 1.5/5

New movies coming next weekend:
Playing only in theaters is Superman, a superhero movie starring David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan, retelling the tale of a superpowered being raised by an adoptive human family in Kansas before moving to the city of Metropolis to work as a reporter.
Also coming only to theaters is Skillhouse, a horror film starring Bryce Hall and Hannah Stocking, following ten influencers who are lured into a sinister content house and forced to compete in potentially lethal social media challenges.
Streaming on Shudder is Push, a home invasion thriller starring Alicia Sanz and Raúl Castillo, involving a pregnant realtor who is attacked by a sadistic killer at her open house, sending her into premature labor and forcing her to escape before she gives birth.

Reel Views, Review

M3GAN 2.0

M3GAN 2.0, the successor to the unexpectedly lucrative January release M3GAN from a couple years ago, is the cinematic equivalent of your phone prompting you to update an app that’s already functioning fine and when you open it back up, the experience is worse. It’s not as much a departure from its predecessor as last year’s wild swing Joker: Folie à Deux was compared to its preceding smash hit but different enough to categorize it as a “left turn” sequel. The closest analog would be Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which found the villain of the initial chapter reprogrammed to be the hero the second time around. Pivoting from campy horror to sci-fi action isn’t inherently a miscalculation but in this particular case, the idiosyncrasies of the first entry become lost in the homogenized genre swap.

Two years after her humanoid invention M3GAN goes haywire, roboticist Gemma (Allison Williams) continues to raise her niece Cady (Violet McGraw) while now advocating for regulation of artificial intelligence. They get a not-so-friendly visit from Colonel Sattler (Timm Sharp) of the Defense Innovation Unit, who informs them that AMELIA, a military robot based on M3GAN’s coding, has just gone violently rogue. Gemma thought M3GAN had been completely wiped out but it turns out she’s been hiding within the digital confines of their smart home, waiting for the right time to emerge. With no other viable options to stop AMELIA from her killing spree, Gemma reluctantly transfers M3GAN’s consciousness to a new robotic form, with combat upgrades to boot.

M3GAN 2.0 once again features Amie Donald portraying the sassy killer doll that gives this series its name, with her voice being provided once more with glitchy hiccups by Jenna Davis. The latter is featured more this time than the former, as M3GAN doesn’t get her body back until about halfway through the story, and Davis continues to excel with caddy witticisms in line with the spirit of the original film. Also carried over are musical moments for M3GAN to showcase her skills and while the dancing sequence this time is too contrived, the instance she breaks into song is even better than the singing scenes in M3GAN. There are running bits of humor too between Gemma and Cady, the latter of whom has taken up aikido and subsequently developed an affinity for the cinematic stylings of Steven Seagal.

Taking over screenplay duties from Akela Cooper, writer and director Gerard Johnstone seems to be channeling 90s tech-action movies like T2 for M3GAN 2.0 as much as his previous film was a 21st century riff on Child’s Play. Using the finest sci-fi actioner of all time as a blueprint certainly isn’t a poor strategy but the storytelling here is much more unwieldy and convoluted, relentlessly piling on subplots and side quests to an exhausting degree. AMELIA’s capabilities are also such that it barely seems like she would need to carry out any of her plan in the physical world as opposed to just maneuvering around cyberspace. Of course that would make for a much more boring movie, so it makes more sense instead to impose limitations on what M3GAN and AMELIA can do as characters. They’re both so overpowered that the humans are effectively nullified within the story, hardly a new bug when it comes to films involving evil AI.

M3GAN‘s social commentary on how technology affects modern parenting wasn’t anything groundbreaking but it worked well within the confines of its satirical horror. Comparatively, M3GAN 2.0‘s messaging around artificial intelligence is muddled at best. There are cyphers like a tech billionaire (played by Jemaine Clement) and a Center For Safe Technology rep (played by Aristotle Athari), who finds breaks between the fighting to lecture us about the moral quandaries associated with tech. Johnstone is sadly out of his depth not only with these dramatic moments but also with the action sequences, which get redundant and tedious due to uninventive staging that doesn’t make the best use of the robot characters’ mechanics. Like the latest model of a smartphone that jettisons useful features of the previous iteration, M3GAN 2.0 reinforces the concept that newer doesn’t always equal better.

Score – 2/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Playing only in theaters is Jurassic World Rebirth, a sci-fi action film starring Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali, which finds a high-stakes expedition underway to extract DNA from three massive prehistoric creatures for a groundbreaking medical breakthrough.
Streaming on Amazon Prime is Heads Of State, an action comedy starring John Cena and Idris Elba, which follows the two world leaders who must set aside their rivalry to thwart a global conspiracy after becoming targets of a ruthless foreign adversary.
Premiering on Netflix is The Old Guard 2, a superhero movie starring Charlize Theron and KiKi Layne, picking back up with the group of immortal warriors as they grapple with the resurfacing of a long-lost entity who threatens their world.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

F1

Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski endeavors to bring back that legacy feeling with F1, a viscerally engaging, if narratively bland, sports drama that finds another aging megastar in the danger zone. Instead of Tom Cruise soaring in the air, we’re along with Brad Pitt on the ground this time as he zooms around numerous Formula One tracks in an open-wheel single-seater. Kosinski’s modus operandi continues to be dedicating as much screen time as possible to our movie stars in action, proving that they didn’t just tap in the stunt doubles but actually had their hands at the controls. While I imagine Pitt had more backup help in this than Cruise has in just about all of his action extravaganzas these days, the illusion remains convincing in the final product.

As F1 opens, the glory days of Sonny Hayes (Pitt) seem to be in his rear view mirror. Carrying the scar of a near-fatal crash from the mid-90s, he’s given up Formula One racing for other sports car competitions like the 24 Hours Of Daytona. Before the bubbles in his popped champagne have time to fizzle out, Hayes is visited by his previous F1 frenemy Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem), whose Apex Grand Prix team is in trouble. Their rookie driver Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris) has yet to place top 10 in any of the season’s races and shareholders are antsy to clean house unless things get turned around. After a plot-mandated initial refusal, Hayes agrees to join the team and teach Pearce his ways of winning behind the wheel, with pit stops to strike up a romance with Apex technical director Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon).

There’s really nothing F1 has in the storyline glove box that we haven’t seen before but most of what it pulls out tends to do the trick. Pitt and Idris go through the motions of the old gunslinger-young hotshot routine and generate a few sparks in the friction, most notably during a poker showdown. Elsewhere, Pitt has fireworks-caliber chemistry with Condon, whose Kate swears she doesn’t get involved with drivers but just can’t turn Sonny away. Tobias Menzies pops up as the closest thing to a human antagonist the film has to offer: a conniving Apex board member who doesn’t care whose head has to roll to get back in the green. Across a bloated 156-minute runtime, I’m not sure how Kosinski and screenwriter Ehren Kruger couldn’t squeeze in a third driver character to develop as a mutual foil for Hayes and Pearce.

As with Top Gun: Maverick, the aim for Kosinski and crew with F1 is in creating a sensuously overwhelming experience designed to play better in the theater rather than the living room when the film streams on Apple TV+ later this year. Perhaps no composer is more synonymous with momentous movie music than Hans Zimmer, whose characteristic onomatopoeia “BRAAAM” is ubiquitous enough to garner its own Wikipedia entry. Zimmer’s score here is more of the same — mountainous synths and pounding percussion aplenty — but there remains enough gas in the creativity engine to underline the action. Besides an early introduction scene that gives the John Reid Bohemian Rhapsody scene a run for its money when it comes to cuts, editor Stephen Mirrione does a great job commanding the flow of sequences on and off the track.

The focus, so to speak, for cameraman Claudio Miranda is to find as many creative shots possible while mainly being constrained to the inside of an F1 car so we can see Pitt behind the wheel. While he does an admirable job with whip pans and short siding, there aren’t enough contrasting shots above the other cars where we can see how the drivers’ moves affect their position in the race. It’s surprising, given Kosinski’s “you’re in the driver’s seat” ethos, how few POV shots actually make it into the movie too. Yes, Brad Pitt is still very handsome, even with his face squished under a racing helmet, but it’s to the movie’s detriment that it includes an overabundance of reaction shots instead of action shots. Still, F1 is a fine racing movie that makes it over the finish line with its undeniable star power and convincing car choreography.

Score – 3/5

More new movies coming this weekend:
Coming to theaters is M3GAN 2.0, a sci-fi sequel starring Allison Williams and Violet McGraw, finding the creator of the titular AI doll turning to it for help with a dangerous new military robot based on code that was used to make M3GAN.
Streaming on HBO Max is The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, an animated comedy starring Eric Bauza and Candi Milo, which follows Daffy Duck and Porky Pig as they try to save Earth from a chewing gum-based alien scheme.
Also premiering on HBO Max is My Mom Jayne, a documentary from actress Mariska Hargitay examining the life and career of her late mother Jayne Mansfield, who died in a car accident when Hargitay was three years old.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

The Life Of Chuck

After having success adapting Stephen King novels Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep to the big screen, writer and director Mike Flanagan goes to the King well once more with The Life Of Chuck. Besides departing from the horror genre, what sets his third King film in a row apart from the previous two is that the source material this time is a novella, a part of the 2020 compilation book If It Bleeds. But just because the story is shorter doesn’t mean it’s short on big ideas and weighty themes, all of which Flanagan wrings out from the 100 or so pages for his cinematic rendering. With a sprawling cast filled with faces that have popped up throughout Flanagan’s oeuvre, it’s an existential drama that will land as life-affirming and soul-stirring to some but predominantly hit me hollow, despite its best efforts and intentions.

Told in three acts that move in reverse order, The Life Of Chuck opens things on a dire note, introducing us to high school teacher Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor) trying to hold the attention of his students as the world seems to be falling apart. Constant news of cataclysmic weather events and a worldwide internet outage has folks more divided and scared than ever, prompting Marty to reach out to his ex-wife Felicia (Karen Gillan) for comfort. As they join hands for what seems to be the end of the world, billboards and TV ads crop up everywhere, thanking a man dressed in accounting garb named Chuck (Tom Hiddleston) for “39 great years”. We then flash back to pivotal moments in Chuck’s life, those marked by love, loss and lighting up the dance floor with some electric moves.

Structurally, The Life Of Chuck begs us to ask the questions who is Chuck and how does his story relate to the end of the known universe but Flanagan seems content to let us stew for a while. The film’s first act — well, technically the story’s final act — is both portentous and pretentious, introducing myriad characters who wander around waxing philosophical in staid tones appropriate for dreary mood. I admire Flanagan starting this tale out on such unapologetically apocalyptic terms, rivaling the terror he brewed up with his The Haunting series on Netflix, despite this not overtly being a horror movie. But the unnerving pall cast over this opening chapter is completely at odds with the obstinately chipper demeanor of the two sections that follow.

The middle act of The Life Of Chuck might be the shortest of the three but is no doubt the linchpin of the film’s marketing and showcase for the film’s implicit “dance like no one’s watching” thesis. It also finds Nick Offerman filling us in on character detail via voiceover, initially helpful given the tonal switch-up but gradually doing too much of the heavy lifting that Flanagan should be doing as a storyteller. It turns out Chuck only has 9 months to live due to a brain tumor and while he’s away on an accounting conference, he’s taken to dance in front of a drummer busking on the streets of Boston. Thanks to La La Land and The Eras Tour choreographer Mandy Moore, the moves that Hiddleston puts on are genuinely impressive and mostly help us shake off the seemingly overwhelming sadness present in the segment previous.

That leads us to Act One, subtitled “I Contain Multitudes”, with all the professed profundity that Walt Whitman reference may connote. We learn of Chuck’s tragic loss of his parents at age 7, causing him to live with his grandparents, played by Mark Hamill and Mia Sara. What follows is effectively a montage of opportunities taken and paths unexplored as we see Chuck transition from boyhood into young adulthood. There are indeed some touching moments but the sentimentality is at odds with a narrative that feels conspicuously thin. I assume Flanagan wants his audience to come away with questions like “what does it all mean?” as opposed to “what was the point of that?” Stephen King novella adaptations Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption proved that the prolific writer’s shorter stories can work on-screen but The Life Of Chuck can’t quite find its own rhythm.

Score – 2.5/5

New movies coming to theaters this weekend:
28 Years Later, starring Jodie Comer and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, is a post-apocalyptic horror film following a group of survivors from a zombie-like Rage virus as their carry out their lives on a small island until one of the group leaves the island on a mission into the mainland.
Elio, starring Yonas Kibreab and Zoe Saldaña, is a science fiction adventure involving a young space fanatic with an active imagination who finds himself on a cosmic misadventure where he must form new bonds with alien lifeforms and navigate a crisis of intergalactic proportions.
Bride Hard, starring Rebel Wilson and Anna Camp, is a female-led action comedy which finds a mercenary group taking a lavish wedding hostage but meeting their match with a maid of honor who is actually a secret agent ready to defend her best friend’s wedding at any cost.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Column, Midwest Film Journal

Career, Uninterrupted: Gone In 60 Seconds

Originally posted on Midwest Film Journal

By the year 2000, Jerry Bruckheimer Films was in the middle of a hot streak, following the box office successes of both Armageddon and Enemy Of The State two years prior. Teaming back up with Nicolas Cage, the star of their 1997 vehicle Con Air, the production company looked to strike lightning again with the heist remake Gone In 60 Seconds. In addition to Cage, the movie boasted a talented ensemble cast featuring fellow Oscar winners Robert Duvall and Angelina Jolie, the latter of whom received second billing on the project. But even with the components for a hot-rodded blockbuster under the hood, the film was a financial failure for Touchstone Pictures and ultimately written down as a $212 million loss for Disney. Critically, it was even more of a crash-and-burn affair and while it doesn’t exactly hold up 25 years later, it encapsulates the turn-of-the-millennium penchant that studios had to outdo each other in the “edginess” department.

Gone In 60 Seconds opens in the middle of a “boost” under cover of darkness at the hands of car thief Kip Raines (Giovanni Ribisi), who makes a noisy getaway with a Porsche 996. Ever the screw-up, Kip brings heat back to his crew’s warehouse, forcing them to ditch the cadre of confiscated cars they’ve spent weeks acquiring. This puts them way behind for the job they’re completing for ruthless gangster Raymond “The Carpenter” Calitri (Christopher Eccleston), who threatens to kill Kip if he can’t make things right. Doubtful that Kip can finish the job, Calitri’s right-hand man Atley (Will Patton) reaches out to Kip’s older brother Randall “Memphis” Raines (Cage), a notorious carjacker who went straight years ago. Up against a ludicrous 72-hour deadline to steal 50 luxury vehicles, Randall recruits — among many others — his mechanic ex-flame Sway (Jolie) and mute mortician Sphinx (Vinnie Jones) to pull off the high-octane heist.

Though Jolie is riding shotgun on the cast list and appears caddy corner with Cage on the one-sheet, she doesn’t appear in Gone In 60 Seconds as much as one may expect. After Randall surprises her by popping by work unannounced, Sway slides out on her creeper to reveal a suspiciously clean uniform and bleached blonde dreadlocks that kids today would deem “a choice”. Randall follows Sway to her second job bartending, her pouty lips and ice-blue eyes reluctantly refusing his recruitment opportunity but, of course, reconsidering the next day. She interrupts a meeting between Randall and Atley, pulling up on her motorcycle and insisting that she’s only taking the job for Kip. From here on, just about every subsequent line Jolie utters is paired with a raised eyebrow, a salacious smirk or both at the same time.

One would assume Jolie shot a good deal more footage for Gone In 60 Seconds that didn’t make the final cut and there are several plausible reasons her scenes hit the cutting room floor. The most obvious is that she doesn’t have much on-screen chemistry with Cage, despite the movie’s best effort to steam up windows with a stakeout-turned-makeout scene. As Sway shimmies over the gear shifter while Randall seduces her by reciting auto parts, they briefly lock lips before she puts the brakes on and insists they get back to work. Cage’s scenes with Jolie are peppered with the actor’s typical eccentric line reads and she tries to return the volleys but for some reason, their freak frequencies don’t quite line up. It doesn’t speak well of the film that Cage has better chemistry with the Shelby Mustang GT500 nicknamed “Eleanor”, overtly identified as “the one that got away”.

At the same time, it’s a wonder director Dominic Sena is even able to accommodate a potential romantic subplot when he has so many other storylines to address. Delroy Lindo and Timothy Olyphant collectively have more screen time than Jolie as detectives chasing down leads and shaking members of the crew down while trying to put the elusive Randall behind bars for good. Portraying the wise old mentor coming back for one last ride, Robert Duvall is relegated to crossing off the female code names for automobiles in canted-angle close-ups during the film’s climax. Elsewhere, rapper Master P plays Johnny B, a gang leader who pops up guns blazing in several scenes to settle a score with Randall left over from his past life. Michael Peña even turns up in an early film role as a thug appalled by the ease with which one of the crew members digs through dog feces to procure a set of laser-cut car keys.

In Gone In 60 Seconds, the cars should be the props and the actors should be the stars but in actuality, the opposite ends up being the case. Much of the movie’s second half is devoted to flashy montages set to big beat remixes on the soundtrack of vaunted vehicles being broken into and illegally revved up. Car nuts might drool at the sight of some of these exotic beasts in action but those watching, like me, who top out at “sensible sedan” will be bored watching what feels like all 50 of those on the checklist being picked off. When I first watched the movie with my friends, I think I was more in awe of the fact that the PlayStation 2 we used to watch it on could play DVDs; clearly, this was no 20th century video game console. Fittingly, Jolie had more success adapting the PlayStation title Tomb Raider just a year later, catapulting her onto the A-list after Gone In 60 Seconds didn’t quite turn the engine over.

Reel Views, Review

Dangerous Animals

Even though it’s statistically more likely for one to die by a falling coconut than by a shark, that hasn’t stopped filmmakers from framing the finned fish as killing machines hungry for human flesh since Jaws first terrorized audiences 50 years ago. While the new Shudder release Dangerous Animals continues this trend by depicting them as violent, it’s decidedly more nuanced than a standard creature feature. Instead, director Sean Byrne’s latest project exists in the middle of a horror-based Venn diagram, where the shark movie, survival film and slasher subgenres somehow swim together. Set in the deceptively idyllic location of the Gold Coast in Australia, this is a creepy and creative export glowing up from the land down under.

After a brutal cold open that perfectly ripples the waters, Dangerous Animals introduces us to Zephyr (Hassie Harrison), an attachment-averse surfer whose beat-up van doubles as her domicile. An ask for jumper cables from fellow surfer Moses (Josh Heuston) leads to a one night stand, where Zephyr skedaddles in the morning before he can treat her to a pancake breakfast. On her way to the next sunrise surf spot, she borrows a fin key from nearby bloke Tucker (Jai Courtney), just before he ambushes her with a bag over the head and drags her unconscious onto his boat. Under the guise of Tucker’s Experience Cage Diving & Adventure Tours, it turns out the captain has been moonlighting as a serial killer, using his victims as bait for hungry sharks miles off the coast. Pitted against a physically imposing murderer, Zephyr’s only hope is to outsmart her captor and make it safely back to shore.

The premise is a bit ridiculous and stretches credulity more than once but Dangerous Animals works as well as it does in large part due to the two central performances from Harrison and Courtney. Zephyr may seem like a free-spirited surfer girl at first glance but Harrison shades her with survivalist grit that has us fighting tooth-and-nail along with her. She also has a movie star quality to her that lights up the screen; I was reminded of Helen Hunt in the mid-90s around Twister‘s release. On the subject of Hollywood presence, Courtney’s maniacal role recalls fellow Aussie Russell Crowe’s menacing turn in 2020’s Unhinged. He’s an actor who hasn’t had much success as a leading man in blockbuster fare like Terminator Genisys and Insurgent but he seems to be a much better fit as a ruthless antagonist.

While Nick Lepard’s script doesn’t contribute much new on the page when it comes to serial killer tales, Sean Byrne adds loads of little flourishes in his direction that remind us Dangerous Animals is a shark of a different color. The way he uses Aussie singer Stevie Wright’s “Evie” diegetically to show off his killer’s not-so-killer dance moves recalls how “Goodbye Horses” was used in The Silence Of The Lambs to get us into the antagonist’s headspace. The set design inside Tucker’s quarters is full of easy-to-miss visual clues as to how this guy developed his MO and has gone undetected for as long as he has. Even in the digital age, he still has a fondness for video tape and a shot of his chillingly well-populated VHS closet portends a grisly fate for Zephyr.

On the sonic side of things, composer Michael Yezerski lends a tense and thrilling music backdrop that always hints at more danger right below the surface. The soundtrack counters the tension nicely in some of the earlier quiet scenes, set to ethereal cuts from Fleetwood Mac and Cigarettes After Sex, where Zephyr and Moses connect. There’s even a running joke about Zephyr being gobsmacked that Creedence Clearwater Revival’s take on “Ooby Dooby” is Moses’ all-time favorite tune. For those curious: the Arctic Monkeys song that shares its name with the movie does not pop up in the soundtrack. Though the title initially reads as a touch generic, Dangerous Animals reminds us that man remains the most dangerous animal, especially when compared to seemingly sinister sharks.

Score – 3.5/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Playing only in theaters is How To Train Your Dragon, a live-action remake starring Mason Thames and Gerard Butler, retelling the story of a timid Viking who defies centuries of tradition when he befriends a feared but misunderstood dragon.
Also coming to theaters is Materialists, a romantic comedy starring Dakota Johnson and Chris Evans, following a young and ambitious New York City matchmaker as she finds herself torn between the perfect match and her imperfect ex.
Premiering on Apple TV+ is Echo Valley, a family thriller starring Julianne Moore and Sydney Sweeney, involving a horse trainer whose world is turned upside down when her daughter arrives at her door covered in blood that is not hers.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

Friendship

Now playing at Cinema Center, the new comedy Friendship isn’t technically an adaptation of the sketch show I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson but it’s about as close an approximation as we’re likely to get. Across three seasons, the Netflix series has found a considerable audience since debuting in 2019, filled with bizarre and profane vignettes that creator and star Tim Robinson may have first dreamed up during his three-season writing stint at SNL. It’s a show that leans heavily into the awkward and absurd, often featuring characters who are unable to navigate social situations and whose trepidation typically triggers outlandish consequences. If you don’t like this brand of humor, this film will be an unpleasant experience. If you delight in “cringe comedy”, then this movie is likely to be your new best friend.

Robinson plays Craig Waterman, a marketing exec “living the dream” in suburbia with his wife Tami (Kate Mara) and their teenage son Steven (Jack Dylan Grazer). A piece of misdelivered mail leads Craig to meet Austin Carmichael (Paul Rudd), a meteorologist living down the street with whom Craig develops a strong bond upon meeting. Where Craig is more cloistered and spends most of his evenings sitting in his La-Z-Boy, Austin is comparatively more free-spirited and gigs out with a local rock band after his night shift as weatherman. The two hang out in a group of Austin’s friends but a handful of vibe-killing faux pas from Craig cause Austin to scale the relationship back considerably. Predictably, Craig doesn’t get the message and commits a series of increasingly poor decisions in an attempt to rekindle the spark with Austin.

Much like Adam Sandler comedies of the 1990s, the success of Friendship for viewers will depend on how heavily one buys into the schtick of the intentionally abrasive protagonist. Tim Robinson’s persona is effectively a deconstruction of the everyman type, someone who can converse appropriately with friends or co-workers up to a point until they hit an obstacle. Where more emotionally enlightened folks may try to delicately traverse or politely withdraw, this guy digs in with temerity and crashes through the metaphorical road block. It’s a comically exaggerated form of what we all do in our brains when we butt up against social conventions that elude us; we can’t do this in real life but it sure is fun watching someone else try. Naturally, the scenario of one friend “breaking up” with another is a perfect premise upon which to implement this character.

What makes Friendship work so well at feature length is how director and writer Andrew DeYoung keeps finding new avenues to send Craig down without betraying the central dilemma. Much like the hidden tunnel system that Craig and Austin tread through during one of their initial hangs, there are many places this story could go and still arrive at a fitting and earned conclusion. Whether it’s a misjudged pitch to the town’s mayor for a PR refresh or a psychedelic trip with hilariously banal results, DeYoung sees the comic potential for this put-upon putz within innumerable crannies in the storyline. There are also moments centered around male bonding that don’t have to do with Craig’s incompetence and are just funny on their own terms. Men don’t usually sing Ghost Town DJ’s tunes spontaneously a capella in the round but, come to think of it, maybe they should.

Robinson also has support from reliable players who aren’t typically known for comedy — this style of comedy, anyway — but plug into the narrative nicely. Paul Rudd starts off with the cocksure poise of his field reporter character from Anchorman before revealing shades of darkness and doubt. Kate Mara is similarly playing things straight off Robinson in what could be considered a thankless role but she keeps finding surprising ways to make it her own. I Think You Should Leave regular Conner O’Malley pops up for a brief but memorable scene; the way he chooses to finish up an impromptu toast at a party is the hardest I’ve laughed in a theater all year. Those who are already put off by Tim Robinson’s specific comedic styling will not be won over by Friendship but those who already beat the drum for him will find even more here to love.

Score – 4/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Playing in theaters is Ballerina, an action thriller starring Ana de Armas and Anjelica Huston, spinning off from the John Wick series to tell the story of a specific “Ballerina” assassin who sets out to seek revenge after her father’s death.
Also coming only to theaters is The Phoenician Scheme, a spy comedy starring Benicio del Toro and Mia Threapleton, following a wealthy businessman as he appoints his only daughter as sole heir to his estate before becoming the target of scheming tycoons.
Premiering on Hulu is Predator: Killer Of Killers, an animated sci-fi action film starring Lindsay LaVanchy and Louis Ozawa Changchien, involving three of the fiercest warriors in human history as they become prey to the extraterrestrial hunters known as Predators.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

Concluding both the Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One chapter from 2023 and possibly the whole series, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning seems to at least be the final time we’ll see Tom Cruise in the superspy Ethan Hunt role he first portrayed almost 30 years ago. Naturally, it’s a bittersweet sendoff: necessary given how much unmatched physicality the now-62-year-old Cruise puts into these productions but unfortunate that it winds down one of the very best action franchises around. While this last adventure is both the most narratively simplistic and somberly apocalyptic in the series, it’s bolstered by a terrific ever-expanding cast and two extended setpieces that are unmatched in their guileless ambition and technical coordination.

We pick up the action two months after the events of Dead Reckoning, with the world in chaos due to the proliferation of The Entity’s reality-bending influence on the digital landscape, and with Ethan Hunt in possession of the key to stopping it. The locked chamber that holds The Entity’s source code is aboard a sunken submarine buried deep in the ocean, the coordinates of which are known only by Ethan’s enemy Gabriel (Esai Morales). Bent on triggering nuclear annihilation, The Entity has every world leader, including US President Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett), up against the wall watching control of the arsenals being seized by the evil AI. IMF team regulars Luther (Ving Rhames) and Benji (Simon Pegg), along with new members Grace (Hayley Atwell) and Paris (Pom Klementieff), are all in with Ethan to put an end to The Entity’s reign.

Combined with Dead Reckoning, The Final Reckoning caps off a storyline that runs over 5 and a half hours and now that we’ve seen this second portion, I would’ve preferred the series not end on a two-parter. The main reason is that Gabriel and The Entity are promising villains that would’ve worked better separately in their own films, as opposed to having them split time to face off against Ethan. Dead Reckoning teases exposition with Gabriel that The Final Reckoning doesn’t properly pay off, likely because there are too many other narrative threads that need to be tended to. As for non-human villains, The Entity has a couple moments of menace but in this final chapter, the articulation of its power is mainly relegated to people in power distressingly staring at screens. There are plenty of terrifying ways to depict a rogue artificial intelligence and this Reckoning arc doesn’t fully realize that potential.

But anyone who has watched the Mission: Impossible series knows that Ethan’s truest archnemesis is gravity and as such, The Final Reckoning has what may be their most exhilarating showdown to date. The climactic biplane sequence has been the focal point of the film’s marketing but no matter how many glimpses you’ve seen of it so far, it’s an entirely different experience watching it play out at-length in an ideally IMAX theater. The Burj Khalifa setpiece in Ghost Protocol remains my favorite scene in the series but this new plane chase is a very close second. It’s a peerless showcase of stunt work and if the Academy Award For Achievement In Stunt Design was being handed out for the first time next year instead of in 2028, I would be appalled if it didn’t go to this crew.

The Final Reckoning dedicates plenty of its extended runtime looking back on the series it’s summing up and likewise inspires us to reflect on what’s given the franchise its staying power. The most obvious answer would be Tom Cruise as the lead actor but I would argue Tom Cruise the producer is equally as important to what’s made each of these entries so consistently enjoyable. Though he’s technically never been credited with directing a film, Cruise clearly has an almost innate infatuation for storytelling and his influence in that regard has been particularly felt during the Christopher McQuarrie-directed Missions over the past ten years. It’s hard to argue there’s someone who believes in the magic of the movies more than Cruise and though he’ll likely be wearing a different hat the next time we see him on-screen, I can’t wait to see what he’ll pull out of it next.

Score – 3.5/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Coming to theaters is Bring Her Back, a horror film starring Sally Hawkins and Billy Barratt, centered around a brother and sister who are introduced to their new sibling by their foster mother, only to learn that she has a terrifying secret.
Also playing only in theaters is Karate Kid: Legends, a martial arts sequel starring Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio, following a kung fu prodigy who embarks on a journey to enter the ultimate karate competition with the help of two seasoned veterans.
Premiering on Max is Mountainhead, a satirical dramedy starring Steve Carell and Jason Schwartzman, which finds four ultra-wealthy friends in the tech industry retreating to a snowy mountain mansion amidst an ongoing financial crisis.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

My thoughts on the movies