This franchise is officially drifting. More than a dozen prominent movie stars seem to be steering their own disjointed performances within the cluttered contours of a slight plot with a diminishing return of nifty car chases in Louis Letterier’s limping actioner Fast X (C). Vin Diesel has basically devolved into complete caricature as hero Dom, the former criminal and professional street racer, who tries to keep his loved ones safe as a supervillain endeavors to entrap his friends. Luckily that antagonist is played with foppish delight by Jason Mamoa, chewing the scenery in blouses, bell bottoms and chunky jewelry across multiple continents as a psychotic drug lord hell bent on revenge against Dom and his crew. Letterier can’t quite crack the code of new things to do with fast cars and set pieces, and the stunts don’t hold a candle to the likes of the recent John Wick: Chapter 4. We simply get bombs rolling through the streets of Rome like boulders nipping at the heels of Indiana Jones and CGI vehicles dropped from planes and down the slopes of dams somehow continuing to function with nary a flat tire. It’s just as far-fetched as past entries in the series, of course, but it’s just not all that interesting this time around. Many sequences border on parody including Dom’s plaintive glances at photos of people he’s encountered over the years framed on the walls of homes, and they all just look like glossy publicity stills. The dad jokes and macho quips fall rather flat without the stakes being better defined. In addition to a bonkers Mamoa, the only other actors who perform some scenes with relish are the funny John Cena and Alan Ritchson. Actresses Michelle Rodriguez and Charlize Theron are relegated to fight like damsels on Dynasty without benefit of shoulder pads. Most of the movie feels less like a fully fleshed out story than a big budget exercise in passing the time.
The luminescent cinematography within Benjamin Millepied’s peculiar adaptation of Prosper Mérimée’s novella Carmen (D) is inversely proportional to the film’s startling lack of competent plotting, passable dialogue, inspiring acting or cogent dance moves. Strangely, Millepied was the ballet choreographer behind Black Swan, and yet the movement aesthetic in this work flutters on the wobbly wings of a damp duck. Stunning Melissa Barrera in the title role as a woman on the run at the Mexican border and dashing Paul Mescal portraying a former Marine at a crossroads possess a staggering lack of chemistry. At the heart of what’s supposed to be a tragic romance, the acclaimed actor is particularly adrift and appears to wish he were elsewhere. There are some pretty poses afoot here but very little beneath the surface. Kudos to director of photography Jörg Widmer for finding an artful canvas within this wasteland, especially with Fellini-esque performer Rossy de Palma in a hint of a supporting part. Composer Nicholas Britell manages some grace notes with his original score, an alternate take on the story’s operatic roots. Ultimately this is a languid and joyless affair failing at both song and dance and social commentary. The only thing star crossed in this unsteady romance is its inability to transcend its own pretentiousness.
Writer/director James Gunn completes his trilogy of space-age strays, agile action, wily wisecracks and nifty needle drops with a wondrous and emotionally resonant finale in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (A-). Chris Pratt plumbs deeper emotions fighting the loss of his great romance in this go-round as the ensemble endeavors to save their injured and intubated collaborator Rocket Raccoon by infiltrating a series of treacherous lairs. This leaves a game Dave Bautista, Karen Gillian and Pom Klementieff to carry much of the franchise’s incredible comedy, and they get some wonderful zingers. The film is grimmer and more violent than past outings as it tells Rocket’s onerous origin story and terror at the hands of a truly diabolical villain memorably played by Chukwudi Iwuji. The world building and creature effects are first-rate, and the movie builds to a resonant final act. This epic rescues Marvel from its doldrums, but given its auteur has left to shepherd the DC universe, more greatness lies in store for the latter.
Kelly Fremon Craig’s joyfully innocent adaptation of the Judy Blume young adult novel Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (A) is the book club conversation a generation has waited a half century to manifest. And it’s a modern-day film classic. Raised by a Christian mother (Rachel McAdams) and a Jewish father (Benny Safdie), a 12-year old girl (Abby Ryder Fortson) embarks on a series of questions about religion and faith while averting the preteen perils of life in the sixth grade. Craig magnificently evokes the 1970s milieu of the source material, with a spin the bottle smorgasbord of funny and heartwarming episodes ranging from fitting into a curious club to fitting into a bra. Fortson is a natural as the titular character at the center of her own set of crushes and crashes; she anchors the film with fortitude and nary a false move. She’s worthy of all accolades. Graduating from her own mean girls mentality, McAdams is exquisite as the eternally plucky mom, and Kathy Bates is a hoot as the family’s wry paternal grandmother. The film maintains sublime seriocomic delicacy as it balances glimpses at various belief systems and plumbs some taboos on the verge of adolescence. It’s heartwarming throughout, without a dash of cynicism. See it with someone you cherish.
The grand tradition of the dramatic road trip movie, so splendidly rendered in films such as Rain Man andY TuMamá También, can add a new sentimental two-hander to its ranks in Sheridan O’Donnell’s Little Brother (A-), an intimate and inspiring indie that world premiered at the Atlanta Film Festival. Jake, portrayed by Daniel Diemer, has been tasked by his father (J.K. Simmons) to reluctantly transport his suicidal older brother Pete, played by Philip Ettinger, home for a family intervention. The dynamic between the central brothers in motion through a brittle journey to face their sometimes fractured bond, is thoroughly captivating, alternately heartbreaking and hilarious; and their pathway through the gorgeous West in locations such as Albuquerque and Twin Falls makes for an enjoyable and enlightening ride. As Pete, Ellinger diffuses the effects of mental illness with humor and regression to juvenile highjinks to mask his inner tumult. He’s consistently absorbing and magnetic in the tricky part. As the sometimes stoic straight man, Diemer has a tough role too and slays it with steely restraint. His tender depiction of abiding brotherly love is also sublime. When the siblings come to breakthroughs in how to confront and reconcile mental distress that’s not likely to vanish from looming large, O’Donnell continues to nourish the story with direction and dialogue which is rarely reductive or overly sentimental. This is the kind of movie that can save lives, and its notions of making the most of one’s lived experience and savoring the familial bonds to lift us when most needed have the power to deeply move.
Indie writer/director Kelly Reichardt is generally regarded as the matriarch of “slow cinema,” and her leisurely paced drama Showing Up (B-) focused on a ceramics artist played by Michelle Williams could be characterized as next of kiln: a slow burn with the effect of making the viewer feel quite glazed over at times. But ultimately the minimalist auteur punctures the porcelain veneer of her peculiar observational character study with moments of pathos and humor bordering on therapeutic. There’s nary a plot, aside from Williams’ character readying her whimsical figurines for an exhibition night while nursing an injured pigeon back to health and checking in on a brother suffering a declining mental state. This sibling is effectively portrayed in an off-kilter performance by John Magaro, providing an allegory about how artistic obsession isn’t too far removed from going a little crazy. Williams sculpts an idiosyncratic performance at the film’s center opposite a talented cast in bit roles including Maryann Plunkett and Judd Hirsch as her estranged parents and Hong Chau (winning as always) and André Benjamin as fellow denizens of an insular artist colony. Reichardt’s voyeurism into the process of creation has a way of growing on the viewer and soon enough conjures a mild bit of a maelstrom in its timid teacup. Although the pigeon might be the undisputed VIP character in the heart of this art house fare, this film should reward those seeking a story that breaks the mold.
Do you hear the peoples’ strings? A French Revolution set historical costume drama about a virtuoso violinist whose contributions to classical music had been heretofore lost to history, Chevalier (B+), directed by Stephen Williams, is old-fashioned entertainment with a twist. The illegitimate son of an African slave and a French plantation owner, Joseph Bologne. brilliantly portrayed by Kelvin Harrison Jr., rises to inconceivable heights in French society as a celebrated violinist-composer and fencer, dangerously liaising with a married woman (Samara Weaving) and Queen Marie Antoinette (Lucy Boynton). The women in the ensemble are uniformly strong (including a vamping Minnie Driver) and more than compensate for the supporting male performances, largely a predictably disapproving lot of prune faces. Although Williams won’t win any prizes for cinematic breakthroughs, he moves the story along briskly and frankly hits some operatic crescendos at times. In the lead role, Harrison commands his every sequence and commendably connotes his heartbreak of being caught between two worlds punctuated by the braggadocio of his public persona. It’s a rousing, crowd-pleasing biography with high relatability for those who liked Moulin Rouge or The Woman King, plus the music is also magnificent at the end of the day.
If you’re hankering for that sensation of having your head smashed with a mallet for three hours, this is your film. Director Ari Aster parlays his skills at horror moviemaking into an absurdist examination of trauma in the bloated, tonally challenged folly of Beau is Afraid (D). What starts out promising wears out its welcome quickly as the mawkish title character played with commitment by Joaquin Phoenix endeavors against great madcap odds to visit his controlling mom, portrayed briefly with campy relish by Broadway legend Patti LuPone. There’s no denying Aster’s mastery of the camera, and he orchestrates occasionally clever and sometimes whimsical sequences illustrating the video game style obstacles thwarting the protagonist’s mental health – but the shrill outweighs the droll in his prolonged one-note allegory. A handful of delirious dark comic laughs can’t fully compensate for the extended and sometimes pretentious march into the mental abyss. Whatever thesis statement Aster is trying to present about the peculiar familial relationship afoot in this tale is buried in distracting artifice. It’s a disappointing miss, cynical and nightmarish without proper payoff to its downhill slide.
Plumbers mysteriously vanishing into an unknown universe isn’t just the scenario homeowners find themselves in when their toilets are backed up; it’s also the premise dogging video game siblings Mario and Luigi for damn near four decades. Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie (B-) animates Brooklyn’s cunning craftsmen with Chris Pratt spryly voicing heroic Mario and Charlie Day endearingly embodying his timid fraternal twin brother Luigi. Partnered with feisty fighter Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy), Mario must save his brother from the clutches of Bowser (Jack Black) who threatens to topple an idyllic Mushroom Kingdom the guys discover in an underground pipe lair. The movie is full bounce off the walls energy with kaleidoscopic colors and clever details dotting every horizon. But the uninspired script often throws a wrench in the good time with lackluster color by number plot points and groaner catch phrases. The highlight is Black’s Bowser chewing the scenery with relish and even tickling the ivories. He’s clearly in on the joke. Ultimately it’s hard not to be swept up in the parkour and pinball wizardry of the action sequences, and it’s largely good clean fun for the family. Despite some rather obvious needle drops on the soundtrack, Brian Tyler composes rousing music inspired by classic game play. The nostalgia factor is strong, and as Donkey Kong barrel battles and kart races on rainbows commence for the film’s mercifully brisk run time, you simply surrender and take the plunge.
It’s the ultimate “inside baseball” about the world’s most iconic basketball shoe. Director Ben Affleck’s ‘80s-set chronicle about Nike’s courtship of rookie hoops star Michael Jordan, Air (B+) is a crowd-pleasing triumph. Matt Damon is effective as the wonkish mid-level exec fixated on attaching his swoosh to a champion of the court, with Affleck offering comic relief as the new-age company head. Jason Bateman and Chris Tucker also get plum roles as their business associates in a film that’s essentially a talky bake-off between Nike and adversaries at Adidas and Converse, not to mention a battle to outwit a sleazy sports agent middle man, played masterfully and mercilessly by Chris Messina. Delivering grace and gravitas to her role, Viola Davis makes her mark as MJ’s mom and unofficial sponsorship gatekeeper. The film succeeds with the rat-tat-tat of hilarious bro banter and the sparks of being scrappy. Setting his movie to a banger of a vintage MTV greatest hits soundtrack, filmmaker Affleck tells an unlikely true story with humor and pathos, giving Damon space to set just the right tone at the center of the quest. These real-life underdogs fight red tape with metaphorical mixed tapes in glorious fashion. For a movie about famous sports shoes, it keeps things loose and limber and pivots in an instant.
Jonás Cuarón’s Chupa (C+) wastes no time jumping right into the action; and while there may not be much here to captivate someone above the age of ten, there’s still plenty of fun to be had with this Netflix original. Cuarón manages to turn a piece of Mexican folklore into a cute creature feature fallowing Alex (Evan Whitten), a kid from the U.S. who visits his grandfather (Demián Bichir) in Mexico for spring break. Alex initially doesn’t show much interest in his familial heritage; but along his journey, through discovering his father and grandfather were luchadores, and by making friends with a cuddly Chupacabra cub, our protagonist is launched into a whimsical adventure. The hero endeavors to dramatically dodge a researcher (Christian Slater) wanting to capture his new friend while also braving personal trials related to connecting with Latino culture. The lead creature is certainly the main attraction, stealing attention from anyone else on screen. Cuarón succeeds in making Chupa believable, leveraging a canine stand-in to allow a natural connection to form between the younger actors and the mythical animal. While this movie might not be on anyone’s re-watch list, its runtime makes it bearable, resulting in an easy film to throw on with the kids.
Sitisiri Mongkolsiri’s Bangkok-set Hunger (B-) is a visually appealing film meant to provide commentary on the upper echelon of society as far as it applies to perceived (and perhaps well substantiated) pretentiousness when it comes to the finer things in life. Aoy, played by Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying, is a chef working at the family restaurant she is intended to inherit, but when a customer working for a fine dining chef tells her she’s too good for the establishment, she decides to make a switch. This is where Chef Paul (Nopachai Jayanama) comes into play, the owner of a private catering service serving high paying clients. The film makes a point to present the food in a manner that isn’t entirely appetizing, showcasing scenes of surrealism as the clients devour dishes such as animals. The film, while well executed, slips into some derivative territory with its “eat the rich” mentality. It puts forth the message that decadence and money aren’t everything and when compared with the simple things life can provide, the alternative is soulless. We’ve heard this message before so don’t go into the film thinking you’ll be met with any deep philosophical questions. It’s still a fun watch, while not particularly challenging, and will certainly be palatable for a Friday Netflix night.
