Queen of Katwe

QUEEN OF KATWE (Mira Nair, 2016)

Katwe, a slum on the fringe of the Ugandan city of Kampala, is not the likeliest place for a chess champion to emerge, yet it is where Phiona Mutesi (Madina Nalwanga) calls home and picks up the game to a startlingly effective degree. In the fact-based QUEEN OF KATWE Phiona comes upon missionary Robert Katende (David Oyelowo) distributing cups of porridge and chess instruction to other children. She and her brother Mugabi Brian (Martin Kabanza) become interested and find learning the game to be a welcome break from trying to make a thousand shillings per day selling maize in the market and among traffic so their family can survive. Since their father and a brother died, their mother, Nakku Harriet (Lupita Nyong’o), has struggled to provide enough for them, their rebellious sister Night (Taryn Kyaze) and younger brother Richard (Ivan Jacobo and Nicolas Levesque).

Driven by his religious faith and experience as an orphan, Robert wishes to improve the lives of the kids he teaches through sports ministry outreach. He sees the possibility in Phiona not only to do well in chess competitions but also to escape the poverty around her. He sacrifices so his students can play against those much more fortunate and relishes their success. He does what he can to give them education. Still, Nakku is suspicious of Robert’s intentions and fears the effects on Phiona of the hope and dreams she may develop from seeing what exists beyond their harsh daily existences.

QUEEN OF KATWE is made in the inspirational sports movie mold with an underdog fighting her way to the top through skill and perseverance. Reduced to its plot, the film would be relatively unremarkable, just one more tale of triumph over adversity, yet director Mira Nair and screenwriter William Wheeler do something wondrous in telling Phiona’s true story. Nair’s strong sense of place captures the difficult living conditions and the moral challenges involved in growing up in extreme poverty without wallowing in miserabilism for its own sake. Nair doesn’t deny that the children can be happy as they work and play. There’s no question that Phiona’s family and those they live among have hard lives, but the film doesn’t condescend to them. As a family film stamped with the Walt Disney brand, some of the more unpleasant implications in the compromises to meet needs are hinted at, yet it’s not a matter of skirting the issues than being age-appropriate.

QUEEN OF KATWE is not explicitly a faith-based film, a term usually intended for the type of blandly reassuring and proselytizing movie meant to turn out church groups in droves, but it is deeply informed by the Christianity of its main characters. Religious belief is integrated into these protagonists through their actions rather than through statements or Scriptural quotations. While QUEEN OF KATWE looks admiringly at them, the film notices the burden associated with living by such principles. Nakku refuses to forsake what she holds dear in exchange for minimal necessities. Robert must decide between his commitment to the work of a servant of God and a career that will pay him more to care for his wife and child. The film treats their Christian faith as an ideology that guides their lives rather than a slogan.

Best known for playing Martin Luther King Jr. in SELMA, Oyelowo is just as charismatic in QUEEN OF KATWE. He exudes a softer presence here, one that gains strength through quiet insistence than the rousing speech. When he rallies the kids who feel that they don’t belong among their richer peers and tries to convince Nakku of Phiona’s potential, Oyelowo persuades because he speaks from a place of empathy. Nyong’o does affecting work through how Nakku watches her children. Nalwanga anchors the film with the determination she brings to Phiona. In observing the fundamental decency of these people, QUEEN OF KATWE identifies that being a champion may come with a medal or a trophy, but it doesn’t need to.

Grade: B+

Deepwater Horizon

DEEPWATER HORIZON (Peter Berg, 2016)

The somber drama and action in DEEPWATER HORIZON recreate the events surrounding the worst oil spill in United States history, but despite the good intentions of honoring those who were endangered, injured, and killed, it’s kind of the cinematic equivalent of a commemorative plate. The imagery calls for hushed voices and bowed heads in solemn remembrance while also stoking righteous anger about why the accident occurred. The action impresses as a technical exercise, yet being thrust into the catastrophe with the men and women aboard the doomed rig remains a curiously distant viewing experience.

Deepwater Horizon sat about forty miles off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico with the task of preparing wells for others to come in and extract the oil. The crew is already more than a month behind schedule in April 2010 when the crew chief Jimmy Harrell (Kurt Russell) and chief electronics technician Mike Williams (Mark Wahlberg) return. BP employees are pushing to speed up the process, even if it involves cutting some corners on safety. After a test result that raises some questions as to what it means, oil company man Vidrine (John Malkovich) insists that work proceed as though everything is shipshape.

Problems aren’t manifested immediately, but when they arrive, they have devastating consequences. The blowout and subsequent explosions engulf the rig in flames. The fire could seemingly burn forever because of all that oil gushing onto the ship from deep below the ocean. The distance from ship to shore means that rescuers cannot get to them right away, meaning that those who survived the initial blasts, especially those who did not get to a lifeboat, remain in danger from the fire and flying debris.

Director Peter Berg’s spatial awareness of the offshore platform provides capable guidance around the disaster site and conveys the sheer size of what is above and below the water. The hellish environment blooms when the bright interiors are smeared in orange and smothered in black. Berg batters the audience with the chaos and terror that would be felt when trapped in such a situation. Screenwriters Matthew Michael Carnahan and Matthew Hand do a solid job of laying out the process that contributed to what happened. While the trauma in the moment and the reasons for it are undeniable, DEEPWATER HORIZON fails to connect on a human level.

Establishing scenes of Deepwater Horizon workers with their families and the tearful news and reunions in the aftermath are meant to provide the emotional connections in an otherwise impersonal film. These scenes simply aren’t sufficient in building vested concerns in them beyond the standard response of not wanting people to be horribly killed. DEEPWATER HORIZON doesn’t spare BP for its contributing role to the disaster, but the cartoonishly villainous Malkovich performance jerks the film out of the realistic depiction Berg sets out to achieve.

Grade: C

The Mermaid (Mei ren yu)

THE MERMAID (MEI REN YU) (Stephen Chow, 2016)

Like the mythical half-human, half-fish, THE MERMAID (MEI REN YU) combines two dissimilar species to create something rarely seen. Director Stephen Chow, known best in the United States for SHAOLIN SOCCER and KUNG FU HUSTLE, takes his brand of broad comedy and merges it with social concerns regarding the environment and conspicuous consumption. The transitions between message boosting and silliness can make for some jarring shifts. Opening shots of devastation to land, water, and animals are followed by an over-the-top scene of a fraudulent museum of exotic animals being run out of the owner’s apartment. The result is like alternating graphic portions of the documentary THE COVE with goofy gags. While the beginning and the climactic fight between men and mermaids take some disorienting sharp turns, Chow keeps this unusual amalgamation of moral imperatives and comedic hijinks from becoming heavy-handed.

When playboy businessman Liu Xuan (Deng Chao) purchases nature and wildlife reserve Green Gulf, it does not seem like a sound investment, but he is using sonar transmitters in the surrounding waters to drive away the dolphins and other marine life, thus enabling reclamation that will yield huge profits. In THE MERMAID some of the creatures in the sea, now forced to reside in a rusting freighter, are determined to fight back. The half-human, half-fish population assigns Shan (Jelly Lin) to seduce their nemesis so that she or the others can get close enough to kill him.

Shan’s sweet disposition makes her an unlikely temptress and assassin. As she and Liu Xuan begin to fall in love, it becomes more difficult for her to carry out the order to end his life. Liu Xuan’s business partner Li Ruo-lan (Zhang Yu Qi) has romantic interest in him, so she doesn’t like that Shan appears to have captured his heart and might be changing his mind about development plans for Green Gulf. Although Liu Xuan is gradually becoming aware of the detrimental impact of his actions, half-man, half-cephalopod named Octopus (Show Lo) still desires to eliminate the person responsible for all of his kind’s suffering.

Chow brings a cartoon’s sensibility to much of THE MERMAID’s humor. Shan’s initial attempt to assassinate Liu Xuan with sea urchins or stab him with a crudely made dagger is beautifully choreographed as her actions are thwarted through unseen obstacles and unexpected movements. A riotous scene with Liu Xuan trying to convince the police that he was abducted by a mermaid feels like something out of Looney Tunes with Bugs Bunny as a sketch artist teasing the victim. THE MERMAID gets a lot of laughs out of all the wrong ways to draw something half-human and half-fish.

As a live-action film with assists from iffy visual effects, the film’s comedy sometimes plays as being more sadistic than it might in an animated movie. A romantic spin on an amusement park ride results in Shan and Liu Xuan barfing even as they’re enjoying the time together. Octopus disguises himself as the lovers’ chef so he can kill Liu Xuan but ends up having several of his tentacles seared, chopped off, and ground because the other cooks mistake them for the meal’s ingredients. The pained reactions to the trauma that Octopus tries to hide are very funny even as the comedic violence is made more concrete than is ordinary. Chow demonstrates playfulness as he pushes the humor slightly beyond the limits of what an audience might anticipate. THE MERMAID’s boldness and mix of tones can make for some awkwardness, but the anything goes attitude is responsible for the heights it reaches.

Grade: B

Kubo and the Two Strings

KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS (Travis Knight, 2016)

Childhood for the one-eyed boy named Kubo (Art Parkinson) is magical and mystifying in the stop-motion animated KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS. He brings origami to life as he tells enchanting stories to the villagers near the cave where he and his mother are hiding out. Kubo can shred his three-stringed musical instrument, a samisen, like MAD MAX: FURY ROAD’s Doof Warrior, although no fire shoots out of the neck. While these are marvelous skills for a kid wield, there is much for him to be concerned about. His mother is ill, and and his grandfather, the Moon King (Ralph Fiennes), has killed Kubo’s samurai father and is responsible for the eyepatch the boy must wear. Kubo’s mother insists that he always carry a monkey totem and be home before sundown lest her two sisters (Rooney Mara) and the Moon King find them and complete the task they did not finish.

One night Kubo stays out past his curfew with the predicted tragic results. The Sisters torch the village and try to harm Kubo, but his mother uses her magic to save him and send him on quest. To defend himself from the Moon King Kubo must search ancient Japan for an unbreakable sword, impenetrable armor, and invulnerable helmet. Helping him on his journey are Monkey (Charlize Theron), which is the enlarged totem brought to life, and the samurai Beetle (Matthew McConaughey), a forgetful, wise-cracking insect.

KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS comes from the animation studio Laika, which, with the films CORALINE, PARANORMAN, and THE BOXTROLLS, has developed a reputation for delivering quality children’s fare that is unafraid of handling material that can be visually and thematically darker. The deep oranges and dark blues dominate the palette for a story steeped in legend, like something witnessed through the flickering flames deep in the belly of a cave. The stop-motion animation provides a tactile sense of wonder at the imaginations tapped to bring this fantastical and early historical world to life in the style of folded paper.

KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS puts two kinds of immortality in opposition. The Moon King offers Kubo the chance to live forever with him among the stars, although the price to be paid is his one good eye. Alternatively, the boy can find strength and inspiration in the memories of his deceased parents to resist the Moon King and, in turn, survive through generations because of the bravery he shows. This may sound like rather heavy subject matter--and it is, implicitly--but director Travis Knight and screenwriters Marc Haimes and Chris Butler treat this as a grand challenge to be met with the spiritual guidance of his mother and father than an oppression heaped upon a protagonist unsuited to deal with it.

The film is not left wanting for humor, however. Theron’s voicework reveals a delicacy in the figure entrusted to assist Kubo, but she also brings a sarcastic edge to Monkey, especially as she clashes with Beetle. At face value McConaughey seems like a curious casting decision, as he makes no effort to alter his Texas drawl, but the warmth and orneriness in his voice serves the act-before-thinking character well. The love-hate dynamic between Monkey and Beetle produces some amusing sparring. Likewise, Kubo’s journey encompasses the spectrum of emotion, concluding with a beautiful testament to the ties that bind. The importance of family is hardly a new theme for children’s entertainment, but the gentleness and unsentimentalized handling of it in KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS allows the idea to be seen anew.

Grade: B+

Don't Breathe

DON’T BREATHE (Fede Alvarez, 2016)

Rocky (Jane Levy), her boyfriend Money (Daniel Zovatto), and their friend Alex (Dylan Minnette) keep cash in their pockets by breaking into houses and committing small thefts in the Detroit area in DON’T BREATHE. Alex’s father runs a home security company, so the three thieves know how to disable the systems and have access to keys for the properties they target. Rocky and Money are eager to skip town for California but need a big score to make that possible.

Rumor has it that a blind Gulf War veteran (Stephen Lang) has squirreled away a large amount of cash from a lawsuit over his daughter’s wrongful death in a car accident. The blind man lives alone in a neighborhood that has been otherwise abandoned. From scouting his place, it appears that he doesn’t leave very often, which would be a problem for them in almost every other instance. Ordinarily they wouldn’t rob a residence when someone is in it, but based on the homeowner’s visual impairment and the supposed $300,000 waiting to be taken, they decide it is worth the risk. Things don’t go according to plan, though. The blind man becomes aware of the intruders in his home and locks them in with the intention of killing them.

Although the blind man’s home has numerous points of egress, director and co-writer Fede Alvarez does nimble work in eliminating escape routes for the thieves to maintain the tension. When they find what seems like a sure way out, the option is inevitably removed for a sound reason. Alvarez treats the house as a labyrinth whose dead ends also contain some unwelcome surprises. Rather than battering the audience with lots of quick cuts and a clamorous soundtrack, DON’T BREATHE provides space via longer, smooth shots to let the dread-raising hunt develop and through the quiet stillness necessary for the hunted to avoid detection.

For all of the solid effort put into sustaining a high degree of uncertainty regarding who will endure the ordeal, DON’T BREATHE’s brief, in media res opening seems like a significant dramatic mistake. With the limited number of characters trying to flee the house, revealing one of those who will survive at least close to the film’s conclusion reduces much of the guesswork and thrills related to this person’s path to that point. It isn’t a fatal error, as Alvarez is skilled at conveying the urgency of individual moments, but the choice seems misguided in view of the care put into the thriller’s suspenseful design.

Although DON’T BREATHE features no conventional heroes, Lang’s blind man is, without question, the villain. The character already is at an advantage by knowing the layout of the house, and with some scenes occurring in near or total darkness, his blindness can serve as an edge he holds over his prey. Lang’s rippling arms and intense demeanor solidify his position as the predator. The thieves, while clearly on the wrong side of the law, are in over their heads. Levy in particular registers the terror of the situation and the instinctive will to live beyond the traumatic experience. The requirement to hint at potential sequels is a lamentable staple of the genre--continuing this story seems like a fool’s errand--but it doesn’t undermine the scares DON’T BREATHE musters.

Grade: B

Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench

GUY AND MADELINE ON A PARK BENCH (Damien Chazelle, 2009)

In GUY AND MADELINE ON A PARK BENCH the splashy Hollywood musical of yesteryear converges with low-budget independent filmmaking that draws inspiration from the French New Wave. The jaunty orchestral music by Justin Hurwitz suggests a widescreen Technicolor extravaganza. Instead, writer-director Damien Chazelle employs the jazz score and songs for the intimate and boxy black-and-white 16mm frame. As the music swells, it stands in stark contrast to the drab, grainy monochrome images and thus reveals the rich emotional symphony inside the characters.

The story is the essence of simplicity. Jazz trumpeter Guy (Jason Palmer) and Madeline (Desiree Garcia) are a happy couple in Boston until he meets the flirtatious Elena (Sandha Khin) on the subway. Guy breaks up with Madeline and takes up with Elena. Madeline drifts for awhile before relocating to New York City and finding a new man. Still, Guy and Madeline seem to have difficulty letting go of what they had together.

GUY AND MADELINE ON A PARK BENCH places greater emphasis on mood than story. Naturally, this is best achieved in scenes built around musical performance. At a cramped house party Chazelle captures the feeling of having a good time while shoulder to shoulder with friends and acquaintances. In an unbroken shot the camera whips back and forth to see a singer and the trumpeter performing in close quarters but separated from the observer by the crowd and a passageway. A production number at a restaurant conveys more through song and dance about Madeline’s pent-up frustration and her decision moving forward than a mere plot point. While the comparatively bigger moments are the most demonstrative in expressing feeling, Chazelle is also capable of bringing the interior experience of loneliness to the surface through tight close-ups and lingering medium shots.

GUY AND MADELINE ON A PARK BENCH deconstructs the film musical to its basic elements: a guy, a girl, and a song. Perhaps with a nod to Godard, Chazelle and his co-editor collapse time and dispense with narrative details that can be inferred from the gaps. Unlike the impeccably cut WHIPLASH, which Chazelle made after this, the editing rhythms are more ragged and make this relatively short feature feel much longer than 82 minutes.

Whether or not GUY AND MADELINE ON A PARK BENCH was Chazelle’s thesis film, it comes across as an ambitious project mounted to cap the pursuit of a graduate degree in the arts. The filmmaker’s raw talent is on display while the learning happening behind the camera remains evident. While the roughness in Chazelle’s debut adds some vitality, the film may be more of interest as an intriguing first pass than as a wholly successful enterprise. Based on the huge leap from this to WHIPLASH, it’s exciting to anticipate how his upcoming musical LA LA LAND with Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone might turn out.

Grade: C+

Hell or High Water

HELL OR HIGH WATER (David Mackenzie, 2016)

The Howard brothers turn to a life of crime to save their deceased mother’s West Texas ranch in HELL OR HIGH WATER. Older brother Tanner (Ben Foster) has already done hard time for stealing, so he has no compunction about holding up branches of the bank they owe in order to raise the capital to retain ownership of family property. Toby (Chris Pine) is less enamored of the idea of using illegal means to provide for the well-being of his two sons living with his ex-wife, but if this is the only option available to him, then at least he can concoct a plan that will hopefully keep them or anyone else from getting hurt.

Tanner and Toby try to strike early when fewer people are around and stick to stealing loose, low denomination bills in the cashiers’ drawers so that the money is untraceable. Their thefts aren’t big enough to attract the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, leaving the pursuit of these bank robbers to Texas Rangers Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) and Alberto Parker (Gil Birmingham). Marcus is close to a retirement he’s less than eager to settle into, so he welcomes the opportunity to mix it up in the field perhaps one last time.

HELL OR HIGH WATER alternates scenes between duos on opposite sides of law with the expectation that at some point their paths will cross. Dividing the time about evenly gives space for empathizing with the circumstances that have brought Tanner and Toby to this point and to admire the ingenuity of and poetic revenge in the thieves’ methods. What they’re doing is wrong, yet it doesn’t seem entirely unwarranted either. The split focus also permits the lawmen to take on some added gravity. Rooting interests may favor the righteous brothers, but Marcus and Alberto come across as principled upkeepers of the code.

While the recession and its aftermath weigh on characters grieving for what has been or will be lost, screenwriter Taylor Sheridan, who also wrote SICARIO, manages to carve out ample room for humor. Foster has a grand time savoring the bond Tanner forms through crime with his less enthusiastic sibling. HIs character would probably commit these acts for kicks, so being able to carry them out in the name of self-justified justice and familial preservation is the icing on the cake. Bridges’ gruffness is never not a source of amusement. He busts the chops of his partner in a way that is easier for men in a tough job to express affection. Marcus baits Alberto with cracks on his heritage and may get under his partner’s skin on occasion, but mostly they give the sense of mutually respecting co-workers who have to tease one another to share the closeness they feel.

HELL OR HIGH WATER takes delight in the color found in declining small towns dotting the landscape. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the scene in which an elderly, no guff-taking waitress asks for the Rangers’ diner orders by barking “What don’t you want?” at them. Coming from her it’s an accusation more than a question. 88-year-old actress Margaret Bowman makes a meal of her handful of lines by pinning them to their seats with enough sharp attitude to castrate a bull in a single flick. In a film that examines the motivating force of taking what one feels is deserved, such behavior could not be encapsulated more effectively.

Grade: A-

Sausage Party

SAUSAGE PARTY (Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon, 2016)

With computer-animated foodstuffs discussing the involvement of a divine force in their lives, SAUSAGE PARTY bears some similarity to VEGGIETALES, although the relentlessly vulgar comedy with an atheistic perspective makes abundantly clear where it parts ways with the Christian lessons for kids. There’s no denying the boldness of SAUSAGE PARTY in using the forms of animation and raunchy comedy to explore something more serious than audiences might expect. Imagine TOY STORY, in which inanimate objects receive a revelation about the whims of those they are devoted to, and cross it with the muddled theology and scatological comedy of Kevin Smith’s DOGMA for some approximation of what has been cooked up.

The items on grocery store shelves patiently await the day when they will be chosen by the gods, otherwise known as the shoppers. WIth the 4th of July nearing, chances are greater for many that their time to discover the life that awaits beyond what they can observe is imminent. Among the faithful waiting their turn is Frank (Seth Rogen), a sausage who hopes to be selected at the same time as his hot dog bun girlfriend Brenda (Kristen Wiig), who is in a package next to his on an endcap display.

Indeed, fortune smiles upon them when a woman puts them both in her cart, but a returned jar of of Honey Mustard (Danny McBride) warns that the paradise they’ve been promised does not exist outside Shopwell’s doors. An accident separates Frank, Brenda, Sammy the bagel (Edward Norton), and a contentious lavash named Kareem (David Krumholtz) from the items that leave the store. Also left behind in the scrum is Douche (Nick Kroll), who is damaged and discarded. He holds Frank accountable for his fate and vows revenge. Meanwhile, Frank learns that Honey Mustard was right about the horrible truth outside the grocery and wants to share the news with the others.

SAUSAGE PARTY is every bit as self-satisfied and strident as any evangelical entertainment meant to witness to the masses. Those looking for well-reasoned arguments critical of and against religious beliefs best look elsewhere from the gleeful bomb-throwing here. The screenplay by Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Kyle Hunter, and Ariel Shaffir possesses the intellectual swagger of a college freshman with a smidgen of exposure to the work of Friedrich Nietzsche. The rebellious pushback manifests as reductive posturing masquerading as cogent thought. Such a shrill response to faith kind of makes the film as humorless as those the makers might accuse their opposition of being.

SAUSAGE PARTY also treads the line between ironic stereotyping and demeaning characterizations based on ethnicity, sexuality, and creed. For comedians pushing boundaries to mock unenlightened thinking, this is notoriously tricky terrain. In execution SAUSAGE PARTY’s jokes play closer to regressive reinforcement than comedic immolation of stereotypes. The filmmakers pay a lot of attention to the planks in the eyes of those with whom they disagree but fail to notice those in their own views.

Grade: C-

Pete's Dragon

PETE’S DRAGON (Don Chaffey, 1977)

Pete (Sean Marshall) and his best pal, the cartoon dragon Elliott (voiced by Charlie Callas), run away from the abusive, dirt-encrusted Gogan family that bought the orphan to perform manual labor on their farm. In the musical PETE’S DRAGON the boy and his protector wander into the fishing community of Passamaquoddy hoping to make a fresh start. Elliott can turn himself invisible, which he does so as not to spook the townsfolk, but as might be expected with a big, friendly monster galumphing through town, he creates a mess in his wake, thus earning Pete the scorn of most of these new people.

Nora (Helen Reddy) spots Pete--but not a cloaked Elliott--as they prepare to take shelter in a cave along the coast. She operates the lighthouse with her probably alcoholic father Lampie (Mickey Rooney) and invites the boy to come with her for a warm home and meal. Like Pete, Nora is also adrift, having lost her fiancé Paul (Cal Bartlett) at sea a year ago. Nora quickly takes a shine to Pete, and he to her even if the rest of Passamaquoddy’s citizens hold his dragon accountable for the fishermen’s now-empty nets. More trouble arrives when Dr. Terminus (Jim Dale) and his traveling medicine show come crashing into town. The doc’s assistant Hoagy (Red Buttons) tells his quack boss about Elliott, whom he encounters when he and Lampie are getting loaded. Dr. Terminus considers a dragon to be a jackpot to harvest for his elixirs and potions and plots to acquire Elliott, whether by purchase or force.

With his bottom-heavy physique and two small, pink, bat-like wings, Elliott does not look a creature that nature designed to function. The same goes for the disproportional PETE’S DRAGON. Nearly three-quarters of its slightly more than two hours seem like first act establishment. There’s a remarkably small amount of time devoted to Pete and his animated friend but more than enough to go around for the shilling and scheming by the snake oil salesman. The pacing lumbers too. When multiple conflicts converge in the final quarter, the resolutions take seemingly forever.

Although the song “Candle on the Water” and the original song score earned the film two Academy Award nominations, this is not a classic Disney musical. The music and lyrics by Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn result in a set of passable but unmemorable show tunes. The Broadway-style mugging in the performances attempts to inject feeling into the emotional void of a screenplay. Pete ought to be a really sympathetic character. The film doesn’t make a fuss about the treatment he previously endured, but it’s unmistakable that the Gogans beat the boy. Nevertheless, Pete gets lost among the other storylines. Everything that unfolds happens in such a schematic manner that it fails to achieve the impact that a more focused script might have.

The hand-drawn animated Elliot is integrated nicely into the live action, but the character lacks personality. The biggest miscalculation may be having Elliott communicate through gibberish and clicks rather than speaking (although he can say “boo”). This just leads to is Pete performing a lot of translation. When Pete chastises Elliott for ruining everything in town and then makes up with him, it’s a potent emotional moment because it’s a rare occasion that the two are interacting rather than Pete serving as a conduit to explain Elliott’s side of the conversation. Remove the fantastical element and PETE’S DRAGON is essentially a boy and his dog searching for a home, yet it fails to develop the relationship between them or Pete and his newfound family beyond broad strokes.

Grade: C-

Bad Moms

BAD MOMS (Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, 2016)

Amy Mitchell (Mila Kunis) manages to juggle two kids in school and all the associated obligations, part-time work at a coffee co-op that’s more like a full-time job, and the culturally expected duties of an American wife at home. When she discovers her man-child husband having an affair via webcam, she kicks him out of the house. In BAD MOMS Amy can deal with a failing marriage, but she can no longer put up with the demands of the Parent-Teacher Association president Gwendolyn James (Christina Applegate). Her refusal to go along with rigid PTA orders puts her on Gwendolyn’s enemies list but wins her the appreciation of Carla (Kathryn Hahn) and Kiki (Kristen Bell), two other overwhelmed mothers.

As a single mother and shameless flirt, Carla is pleased to make the acquaintance of someone else who has run afoul of the school’s parental hierarchy. Kiki is just happy to socialize with anyone, as her four kids give her virtually no time for herself. Amy, Carla, and Kiki are tired of the pressure to live up to an unattainable standard and thus vow from now on to be bad moms, although Carla was kind of already on that path regardless. If they want to do lunch and hang out at the movies in the middle of the day, so be it. They enjoy cutting loose for a while, but inevitably their flouting of the unspoken rules for mothers begins to have adverse effects on them and their families.

BAD MOMS is written and directed by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, the duo that also wrote THE HANGOVER. While the women get to exercise some of their worst behavior, within reason, the film contains the sentimentality and platitudes of a Mother’s Day card, albeit one with a lot more dirty words. Unlike THE HANGOVER’s Wolfpack, whose raucous and destructive behavior gets accepted with a wink because boys will be boys, the moms don’t behave irresponsibly to a similar degree. The moms, of course, aren’t really bad; they just feel that way because of how they and others have defined their societal roles. Even within a film providing fleeting wish fulfillment for mothers, BAD MOMS has a hard time letting these women enjoy some guilt-free relief because we know somebody has to keep everything just so and it won’t be dads, amirite. *fist bump*

In fairness, the double standard gets challenged with Hahn’s Carla, who presents herself as an exception to the hard-striving mother ideal. She doesn’t seem to sweat her questionable actions or much of anything. When the moms share stories of parental mistakes, only her anecdotes cross the line between female bonding through mutual understanding and thinking about calling children’s protective services. Where Amy and Kiki are held back as characters because they are ultimately intended to be empowering figures, Hahn gives a bawdy performance that delivers on the concept of suburban moms breaking bad. Carla isn’t trying to impress anyone, so Hahn is allowed to let her wildness be expressed most humorously.

Bell’s reactions are quite amusing when Kiki unwittingly finds herself and her hooded sweatshirt being used to demonstrate how to manipulate an uncircumcised penis. She’s also funny responding to any bit of socializing like patiently-awaited scraps from the table. BAD MOMS is less sure of how to use Kunis’s comedic skills and often resorts to the jokes stemming from her aggression and humiliation. Overall, the film leaves the lingering feeling that these funny women and others in the cast have been shortchanged by a screenplay that finds the idea of moms who buck the norms to balance their lives as parents, spouses, and individuals more hilarious than the reality of them doing it.

Grade: C

Jason Bourne

JASON BOURNE (Paul Greengrass, 2016)

In JASON BOURNE the title character (Matt Damon) is regaining his memory while staying off the CIA’s radar, but he still has questions about his nebulous past before becoming an operative for the agency. Former colleague Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) hacks into the CIA and obtain files key to helping Bourne understand who has used and deceived him for many years. Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander), head of the CIA’s cyber unit, spots Parsons’ activity and manages to place malware on the downloaded files, although important information is still in the hands of a rogue agent.

Parsons arranges to meet Bourne in Athens while intelligence officials strategize how to nab or eliminate them. As the chase spreads to Berlin and then London, Lee appeals to CIA Director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones) to let her oversee the operation to bring Bourne back in and reestablish him as the valuable asset he is. Meanwhile, Dewey faces another threat to the agency’s power and secrecy when Aaron Kalloor (Riz Ahmed), the CEO of a social media corporation, threatens to come clean about the confidential funding that makes his company complicit with government surveillance of the population.

As the fifth film in the series, the fourth with Damon’s Bourne character, it comes as no surprise that JASON BOURNE is essentially another serving of what has been delivered in the past. Director and co-writer Paul Greengrass is at the helm for the third time of the frenetically-shot and crisply edited action series. Editor Christopher Rouse has a co-screenwriting credit. Without knowing Rouse’s specific contributions, it makes a lot of sense for him to be credited there, as JASON BOURNE is told largely through how it’s cut. Strip the film of its dialogue, and there’s probably little crucial information the audience would miss. In the global marketplace, this film represents close to the ideal: an action movie that translates regardless of language or subtitles.

There’s much to admire on a purely technical level about how the action is sculpted. Although events often unfold in chaotic situations with a bobbing camera and short shot lengths, Greengrass and Rouse keep the viewer oriented. For all of the activity within the frames and the speed with which they change, these sequences remain coherent rather than merging into one big blur of sound and sensation. The sheer volume of frenzied pursuits and combat threatens to engulf all else. After JASON BOURNE arrives in Las Vegas and builds to a furious climax, the unrelenting motion earns hard-won appreciation, but for the first half the busy nature and usual cover-up particulars make a bland return of the star actor to the franchise.

Damon may be back back in the role for the first time in nine years, but he’s treated as if a computer scan was made of him and then animated to suit the script’s needs. It’s no reflection on Damon as a performer; he’s just playing an impersonal part in a two-hour action whirlwind. If Bourne is being fashioned as an American James Bond, then the character needs to be given the space to have a personality or be somewhat less task-oriented. Otherwise he’s just an avatar in well-executed fight scenes.

Grade: C+

Goodnight Mommy (Ich seh ich sech)

GOODNIGHT MOMMY (ICH SEH ICH SEH) (Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, 2014)

During lazy summer days twin brothers Elias and Lukas (Elias Schwarz and Lukas Schwarz) keep busy in the usual ways young boys do. They explore the woods behind their glamorous and remote country home, go swimming, collect bugs, and generally enjoy the freedom that comes from having no obligations. Aside from the conspicuous absence of any adults, it seems like a pleasant situation. Things change when their mother (Susanne Wuest) returns in GOODNIGHT MOMMY (ICH SEH ICH SEH). She has undergone an operation, presumably cosmetic surgery, that has resulted in her head being heavily bandaged while she recovers.

At first the boys are happy that their mother is back, but it doesn’t take long for them to sense something different about her. In fact, they suspect that she is not actually their mother. She’s sterner than the woman they last saw. She insists that the blinds be closed at all times. The twins are not to bother her, and if they must, they need to knock on her bedroom door. She demands that they stay quiet while playing in or close to the house and are not to have anyone over. The more time passes, the more Elias and Lukas look for ways to test if this woman is who she is presenting herself to be.

GOODNIGHT MOMMY thrives on a dread-filled atmosphere. Common sounds, like the scratchy static of a walkie-talkie, the roar of a vacuum, and the sharp snap of closed blinds, are violent interruptions in a sleek, spacious home already tense with silence and suspicions. The artwork and photographs on the walls do nothing to ease the impression that something is off-kilter about this place. Paintings that seem to resemble the mother have blurred her face. A grouping of family pictures have empty spots where some have clearly been removed. Snapshots have clearly been purged from a photo album, as if their physical absence might erase the existence of whatever was captured in them.

Co-writer/directors Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala build GOODNIGHT MOMMY around the terror of living with someone who behaves in a way no longer familiar to you. Although physical violence is a comparatively lesser portion of the horror, the bloodletting and torture are felt more acutely because of who performs these deeds and the tactile nature of them. The film draws its unsettling power from the psychic disturbance of coexisting in an environment where two oppositional realities compete in the minds of the inhabitants. If one side in a home perceives the fundamental truth of a relationship unlike the other, then trust and security are under a constant strain.

GOODNIGHT MOMMY provides a good example of how the approach to material can matter more than what the story is. Franz and Fiala take a boilerplate scenario and minimize plot details and the characters’ backgrounds. Such ambiguity heightens the stakes as the viewer’s perspective on the situation is charged with uncertainty. GOODNIGHT MOMMY stokes the anxious ambience and seems to be unconcerned with a secret hiding in plain sight because the goal is to chill, not to make a mystery worthy of Sherlock Holmes.

Grade: B+

River of Grass

RIVER OF GRASS (Kelly Reichardt, 1994)

In depicting the Everglades as populated by dumb criminals and cloddish cops, writer-director Kelly Reichardt’s first feature, RIVER OF GRASS, resembles an arty, low budget Elmore Leonard adaptation. The deadpan comedy flows from the stark difference between the reality of the situation and the bumbling duo self-misperception that they are menaces to society with the fuzz hot on their trail of lawless behavior. They envision themselves as dangerous outlaws akin to Bonnie and Clyde when they’re really more like latch-key kids who freak out believing they broke mom’s favorite vase and decide the best course of action is to run away by going to the neighborhood park before anyone gets home. They don’t have a well-reasoned plan and don’t have the means to venture far from where they started.

If her policeman father Jimmy (Dick Russell) hadn’t lost his gun, Cozy (Lisa Bowman) would likely never meet the man who changes her life. Having misplaced his weapon, Jimmy is unable to detain Lee Ray Harold (Larry Fessenden), a petty thief with the Aristotelian ideal of a southern man’s name. Cozy is a bored housewife seeking relief from the mundane grind of raising three kids and maintaining her Broward County home. From the minimal effort she puts into her domestic duties, Cozy’s restlessness doesn’t appear to be rooted in being overwhelmed so much as being disinterested in what’s expected of her as a mother and spouse.

Lee, who is pushing thirty and has been booted out of his grandmother’s house one county over in Dade, isn’t exactly a model of ambition or success either. Still, when he meets Cozy at a bar and persuades her to sneak into someone’s backyard pool, he provides more excitement than she would get otherwise on a Friday night. Lee is carrying a gun a friend of his found--ironically, it’s her father’s missing piece--and hands it to Cozy shortly before they are interrupted by the homeowner whose property they’re trespassing on. She panics and accidentally pulls the trigger. Believing they are complicit in a crime, they go on the run and plan to flee the state.

Reichardt’s style in RIVER OF GRASS favors little camera movement and functional close-ups and medium shots. The boxy frame conveys a sense of being confined or stuck, that the marshy regional landscape doesn’t give sufficient footing to allow forward movement. Thematically, the film reinforces the frustration of not being able to progress. Whether trying to sell Lee’s grandmother’s record collection or exploring payphones’ coin returns, Cozy and Lee can’t scrounge up the money to keep the tank full to wherever they might want to go or even get on the toll road. The gleaming highway ramps stretching into the sky are so close yet inaccessible. Cozy’s newfound freedom on the lam keeps her hiding in a motel room or waiting in the car while Lee attends to matters. Her embrace of being a fugitive still comes with restricted motion.

The feeling of being trapped north of Miami allows RIVER OF GRASS to capture another side of Florida than what gets splashed across tourist brochures and billboards. The palm trees and blue sky are still there but stand in contrast to the seediness.  Reichardt establishes a firm sense of place, the one where people grind out their days than visit for a dose of sun.

Grade: B+

Ghostbusters

GHOSTBUSTERS (Paul Feig, 2016)

There’s something strange in the neighborhood, namely the matter of the GHOSTBUSTERS remake (or reboot or however this film is positioned as brand extension) becoming a cultural flashpoint, at least in the online realm where all sorts of unpleasant things become manifest. Apparently for some the 1984 Ivan Reitman film has taken on the status of sacred writ such that making a version with women in the main roles is likened to heresy. Maybe demons are real if a special effects comedy bolstered by a flippant Bill Murray represents the last line of defense, a cinematic Alamo to rally around. The original GHOSTBUSTERS is funny but hardly the pinnacle of film as an art. Reworking it with a women as the heroes is surely not a bellwether of men or male-driven entertainment becoming maligned in Hollywood.

The 2016 iteration of GHOSTBUSTERS written by Katie Dippold and director Paul Feig unfolds roughly in the same way as its source but with a few variations. Physicist Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig) has buried her past in paranormal research as she seeks tenure at Columbia University. The ill-timed online availability of the book she wrote about ghosts and the like with Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy) prompts her to visit her formerly close friend with the hope of getting it pulled to preserve her reputation. In the intervening years Abby has continued to investigate the supernatural with engineer Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon). Abby agrees to take the book out of circulation if Erin will tag along to check out a nearby historical site reporting some ghostly activity.

The field work reawakens Erin’s once deeply-held beliefs in the metaphysical, but online video of the trio’s celebration after spotting an evil spirit leads to their professional ruination. They decide to use their unemployment as an opportunity to expand upon their research and go into business. They hire Kevin (Chris Hemsworth), a handsome but exceedingly dumb receptionist, and take on another partner in Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones), a Metro Transit Authority worker who has seen other ghosts in the subway system and can provide a car for hauling their bulky equipment. Even when they obtain seemingly incontrovertible proof of paranormal activity, skeptics continue to doubt them.

Having rewatched the original GHOSTBUSTERS within the last two years, it’s abundantly clear that Murray runs away with that film and doesn’t leave much for his other proton pack-carrying pals to do. This new GHOSTBUSTERS has standout performances, but overall there is more balance among the members of the team. Wiig doubles down on Erin’s awkward and relatively unassuming nature to get laughs. McCarthy brings child-like enthusiasm as a scientist who is thrilled at how cool it is to have her theories validated and test new, amazing technology. Jones adds the common perspective as she funnily and sensibly reacts to the unbelievable things she encounters. These Ghostbusters aren’t just Murray and a bunch of hangers-on.

Nevertheless, McKinnon and Hemsworth are implicated in stealing scenes in GHOSTBUSTERS. McKinnon’s dry performance suggests that Holtzmann may have spent too much time working in isolation and exposed to radiation. She is the embodiment of the weird last sketch on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, like a singer trying to perform a piece in a key or that exists only in her head. Hemsworth builds up the hilarity of Kevin’s blithe idiocy by playing it straight and with unwavering directness. Like McKinnon’s Holtzmann, his character seems to mentally occupy another plane of existence.

GHOSTBUSTERS gets bound up too much in plot development and drags when all hell literally breaks loose in Manhattan. The big special effects moments really are secondary to letting the funny women run with the material. It’s a solid, amiable mainstream comedy, which, in the end, is all that its inspiration was too.

Grade: B

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates

MIKE AND DAVE NEED WEDDING DATES (Jake Szymanski, 2016)

The Stangle brothers know how to have a good time at family gatherings, which is exactly why the rest of their family insists they bring stabilizing guests with them to their sister’s impending nuptials in MIKE AND DAVE NEED WEDDING DATES. Mike (Adam Devine) and Dave (Zac Efron) tend to wind one another up and indiscriminately hit on women at family functions, so the hope is that requiring them to bring dates when Jeanie (Sugar Lyn Beard) marries Eric (Sam Richardson) will keep them from ruining the big day.

Mike and Dave love their sister and want to do right by her. They place an ad on Craigslist that goes viral and appear on a television talk show with the aim of finding the perfect women to accompany them to the destination wedding. A free trip to Hawaii attracts all sorts of eager applicants, although the brothers manage to have the good sense to realize that these particular women are probably bad choices. Tatiana (Aubrey Plaza) and Alice (Anna Kendrick) are wild partiers looking for an adventure and thus not the nice, steady types who are supposed to be picked. Nevertheless, they get selected after conspiring to bump into Mike and Dave under the pretense of being sweet, responsible professionals who are unaware of the island vacation that awaits those who make the best impression on the brothers.

The tables are turned on the Stangle boys, as they gradually become aware that they have brought the female versions of themselves to the wedding. While some humor is found in observing the wreckage Tatiana and Alice create in MIKE AND DAVE NEED WEDDING DATES, this comedy tends to equate funniness with the volume at which people are speaking. The operating principle seems to be that nearly everything is more amusing if it is being yelled. (For the record, it isn’t.)

MIKE AND DAVE NEED WEDDING DATES tries mightily to trade on the energy and appeal of its cast. Despite their willingness to go for broke, the film has little to offer beyond a lot of overly familiar or borrowed gags, one of which is essentially copped to on screen as being lifted from WEDDING CRASHERS. I don’t know how much was scripted and how much was improvised on set, but the recurring use of montages hint at an effort to patch together something from ad libs. MIKE AND DAVE NEED WEDDING DATES consists mostly of concept. The rest is dog-paddling to last long enough to capture sufficient footage to assemble.

The general laziness aside, the lack of definition to the core characters stands out as a clear weakness. The performances by the main four show the strain of trying to compensate for little to work with. Plaza emerges most unscathed, perhaps because her apathetic screen persona comes across almost like a knowing dismissal of the film from within. Kendrick is woefully underserved, in part because the film doesn’t really know who her altar-jilted party girl is. The flimsily-conceived Mike and Dave leave Devine trying to fill the void by sheer force of will while Efron gets the thankless task of playing the one learning life lessons. MIKE AND DAVE NEED WEDDING DATES coasts on fleet pacing and residual appreciation for the primary cast, which is another way of saying it’s running on fumes.

Grade: C

Dressed to Kill

DRESSED TO KILL (Brian De Palma, 1980)

Bringing up Alfred Hitchcock as an influence on Brian De Palma’s films is the most obvious way to start the discussion, yet in the case of DRESSED TO KILL it is virtually impossible to consider the thriller outside the context of a major shaping element. The film works on a fundamental level as lurid entertainment in which sex and murder intersect, yet the writer-director’s referencing of and conversation with Hitchcock’s films, one most significantly, is so intertwined in DRESSED TO KILL that to ignore it is like discounting DNA evidence. There may be another way to analyze what is presented, but the process is going to be far more difficult and suffer some inaccuracies.

To get specific about the plot is to spoil the surprises De Palma has in store for the audience. Suffice it to say that the film revolves around five characters in New York City. Housewife Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson) seeks counsel from psychiatrist Dr. Robert Elliott (Michael Caine) for a solution to her unsatisfactory sex life with her husband. Her clever son Peter (Keith Gordon) puts his technological ingenuity to work to try and solve a homicide. Hooker Liz Blake (Nancy Allen) happens upon a murder scene in which she accidentally touches the razor used to butcher the victim, potentially implicating her in the crime and making her another target for the killer. Dr. Elliott is also linked to the killing when he learns his transsexual patient Bobbi, for whom he refuses to approve a sex change operation, stole his razor and used it as the murder weapon.

Hitchcock’s FRENZY provides an idea of how the content of his films might have become more graphic under a more permissive ratings system. With the shocking nature of the sex and violence in DRESSED TO KILL, particularly in the director’s preferred unrated cut, De Palma presents what such a hypothetical film might look like. Doubles and reflections figure prominently in De Palma’s visual strategy in his mirror version of a Hitchcock movie. For the characters in DRESSED TO KILL it is not enough just to see; they must be able to comprehend what is being seen. As the same applies to the audience, De Palma is being rather confrontational with the essence of cinema itself, requiring a voyeuristic look at the erotic and horrific and expecting them to be understood beyond prurient and savage curiosity.

Plot peevers will have a field day with the logical gaps in DRESSED TO KILL, but fantasy sequences, Pino Donaggio’s lush score, and the general air of unreality clearly point toward De Palma’s intention for the film to be enjoyed as amplified drama. It thrives on the excitement of flirting with the illicit, such as the bravura scene at the art museum when Kate follows a handsome stranger, pauses to rethink her actions, and then resumes her pursuit of him. Although the scene is nearly wordless, the passion driving it requires no dialogue. DRESSED TO KILL operates on the intuitive knowledge of acting on impulse.

As unnerving as parts of it can be, a wicked sense of humor runs through DRESSED TO KILL. A moan of pleasure mingles with a car horn. (There’s another tip of the hat to Hitchcock.) A frank description of a surgical procedure is overheard by a woman in the background, who displays a variety of appalled expressions as those in the foreground carry on as if it’s ordinary dinner banter. One of the biggest laughs comes from the close-up of a letter from the Department of Health. Especially as it becomes more apparent what film De Palma has essentially remade, the sheer audacity of the entire enterprise tickles.

Grade: B+

Swiss Army Man

SWISS ARMY MAN (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, 2016)

Alone and stranded on an island somewhere in the Pacific, Hank (Paul Dano) has lost all hope and is about to kill himself when a body washes up on the shore in SWISS ARMY MAN. The corpse is especially flatulent and thus can serve as a makeshift jet ski for Hank to ride back to the continent. The journey is just partially complete, though. Hank still has to make his way through California’s coastal wilderness to civilization, assuming he can muster the will to press on. Lucky for him, the dead body he totes with him functions as a multi-tool and, when Manny (Daniel Radcliffe) starts to talk, a companion.

Manny hasn’t retained any knowledge, so he relies on Hank for an education about the world. Manny also has no frame of reference for social cues, so he encourages Hank to stop bottling up the feelings and embarrassing bodily expulsions. Hank talks about his own past as though he left behind a life filled with loneliness and heartbreak. Based on flashbacks and the picture on his smart phone’s lock screen, a woman (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) plays a major factor in his sadness and his desire to go home. Manny mistakes the phone for his, and when he sees her photo and is told about love, he believes that it is his purpose to return to her.

With its decidedly quaint style and sensitive protagonist, SWISS ARMY MAN risks twee overload, but the offbeat humor and the actors help to keep the affectations from making the film into something overly precious. The scatological jokes keep Hank’s painful sincerity in check, as does Manny’s innocent bluntness. Writer-directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert empathize with Hank and want the character to be more at ease with his weirdness, but to their credit, they don’t treat the odd aspects of him as being immune from distancing others. SWISS ARMY MAN accepts Hank for who he is and wants him to do the same, with the understanding others won’t always validate his unusual qualities. He’s special in his own way, but he can’t expect everyone to like it.

Dano does fine work in showing Hank’s vulnerability, particularly with how he lets down his guard with Manny. Belief is suspended in this absurd scenario because Dano opens up so tenderly to this talking corpse and becomes reliant on Manny as if he’s an imaginary friend who has taken physical form. In explaining to Manny how feelings and relationships work, Hank is better able to comprehend how he has failed at dealing with these things. Dano’s performance is touching when, through Manny, he can reflect how he observes and wants to be seen. Radcliffe’s acting as Manny produces a glorious mix of physical comedy and deadpan line delivery. The pure, matter-of-fact way he asks awkward questions and offers uncomfortable suggestions softens the crudity and makes such things all the funnier. Radcliffe comports himself like a ventriloquist’s dummy, which also heightens the comedy in his reactions and statements.

Although SWISS ARMY MAN is undeniably strange, it isn’t perhaps as original as it might sound from the description. Kwan and Scheinert are working in a similar domain as Michel Gondry, who, like them, also transitioned from music videos to feature films. Like Gondry’s ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND and THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP, Kwan and Scheinert use unconventional means, not to mention all the handcrafted items, to look at self-doubt and romantic frustration. Even if SWISS ARMY MAN doesn’t blaze a new trail, the filmmakers have succeeded at making something distinct, funny, and curiously affecting.

Grade: B

Independence Day: Resurgence

INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE (Roland Emmerich, 2016)

Movie theaters have been chockablock with ill-advised and hard-to-justify sequels in 2016, so Roland Emmerich’s bid to make a franchise out of INDEPENDENCE DAY seems like business as usual for Hollywood. Still, it’s some feat that INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE feels like a rush job even though twenty years have passed between the original and this sequel. Will Smith does not return, leaving his character’s absence to be explained with about as much elegance as Poochie being written off THE ITCHY & SCRATCHY SHOW on THE SIMPSONS. Some of the special effects impress, but a number of scenes don’t look much different than television dramas with conversations in front of chromakeyed backgrounds. The hash made from several weightless narrative threads does nothing to diminish the sense that this is a cash-in project timed to align with an anniversary ending in a zero.

INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE picks up two decades after the events of humanity’s defeat of the alien invaders. Knowing that a common enemy is out there among the stars, the world has become a more peaceful and unified place. Scientists have reverse engineered alien technology to improve Earth’s defenses in the event that another attack comes. Former President Thomas J. Whitmore (Bill Pullman) is haunted by the the previous battle and worries another is imminent. His fears are confirmed when scientist David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum), among others, discovers that a distress signal is being sent by the first mothership.

When an unidentified vessel appears at the moon defense base, the snap judgment among world leaders is to destroy it. This victory is short-lived, as a ship three thousand miles in diameter follows and begins drilling into the Earth in pursuit of the molten core. Those fighting for Earth Space Defense against the aliens include Patricia Whitmore (Maika Monroe), the onetime First Daughter and pilot who assists the current Commander-in-Chief; her fiancé Jake Morrison (Liam Hemsworth); and her friend Dylan Hiller (Jessie T. Usher), the stepson of Will Smith’s INDEPENDENCE DAY character.

The aliens wipe out the United States’ East Coast, London, and presumably much of Europe and Asia, yet the massive toll doesn’t register at all. The lack of impact could be attributed to scenes of spectacular destruction becoming commonplace in comic book films and the like, so the imagery of large-scale catastrophes has become overly familiar to moviegoers. Emmerich doesn’t help matters by putting no emotional investment in these sections. There isn’t really any proportional human reaction to the incomprehensible carnage that occurs. Emmerich dispenses with the faceless masses and fleetingly recalled characters from the first film as if he’s stepping on an ant colony. INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE goes even bigger than before, although perhaps not as near-extinction level as THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW or 2012, but the tragedy merits little more than a shrug of the shoulders.

Emmerich’s large-scale disaster films are knowingly outrageous and campy to a degree, and INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE is no different even as it verges on self-parody. Brent Spiner hams it up as Dr. Brakish Okun, who has been in a coma since the previous film. Judd Hirsch is back as Julius Levinson, the father of Goldblum’s character, and he brings some levity via his matter-of-fact acceptance of all the nonsense happening around him. Spiner and Hirsch’s performances demonstrate awareness that this is all big and dumb, so why not have fun with it? The rest of the film subtracts fun from the equation and substitutes it with an earnest insistence that a good time is being had. Emmerich’s salesmanship is not convincing.

Grade: D-

Hot Rod

HOT ROD (Akiva Schaffer, 2007)

In the comedy HOT ROD, Rod Kimble (Andy Samberg) aspires to be a stuntman like his deceased father, an assistant for Evel Knievel who died trying to get out of his boss’ shadow. Rod is using a moped to attempt jumps, so it may not take long for him to follow in his father’s footsteps in dying a horrible death. Rod also desperately wants to earn the respect of his stepfather Frank (Ian McShane), a tough old coot who withholds his love until Rod can beat him in a fight. When Rod is told Frank is in need of a heart transplant that insurance won’t cover, he decides to stage a 15-bus jump to raise money to save Frank’s life so he can beat him to a pulp.

Supporting Rod in his pursuit of stunt glory and charitable fundraising are his younger half-brother Kevin (Jorma Taccone), who is also team manager and videographer, and his friends Dave (Bill Hader) and Rico (Danny McBride), who builds ramps and oversees the explosives used for showmanship. Rod also invites his next-door neighbor and crush Denise (Isla Fisher) to join the crew. She has a soft spot for Rod and helps with his training regimen, but to his chagrin, she’s dating Jonathan (Will Arnett), whose loathsomeness she somehow hasn’t noticed.

Like WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER, HOT ROD successfully spoofs a film niche without requiring knowledge of what it’s sending up. In this instance the target is 1980s inspirational sports dramas about working class teenagers. As part of the meta humor about older actors playing high schoolers, like a 23-year-old Ralph Macchio in THE KARATE KID, Rod acts like a petulant adolescent but appears to be in his early twenties, although the character’s age is never clarified. The soundtrack swells to the bombastic music of Swedish hard rock band Europe, which establishes the period the film is trying to evoke even though it is seemingly set in the present day. Arnett hilariously plays every jerk boyfriend in teen movies standing in the way of the sensitive hero and the girl of his dreams.

The jokes favor the absurd over the referential. Rod’s punch-dancing scene in the forest calls back to Kevin Bacon doing something similar in FOOTLOOSE, but the weirdness of the comedy is paramount. That sequence concludes with Rod’s lengthy tumble down a hill. Director Akiva Schaffer extends the fall well past the usual point so that it becomes funnier as it seems like it may go on forever. The same strategy is at work with Samberg and Taccone’s surreal repetition of “cool beans” being transformed into a proto rap song. The exclamation points to scenes often break traditional rules of humor, and the punchy editing rhythm keeps the film moving without making it seem like a series of sketches.

HOT ROD was initially intended to be a Will Ferrell film. While the screenplay is attributed to Pam Brady from that version of the project, the uncredited rewriting by Samberg, Taccone, and Schaffer adapts the script to The Lonely Island’s sensibility. There’s no denying that much of what gets laughs in HOT ROD is dumb, but the creativity and rambunctious spirit build a lot of momentum. This very funny film is remarkably consistent because of the strange chances it takes.

Grade: A-

Central Intelligence

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE (Rawson Marshall Thurber, 2016)

Calvin “The Golden Jet” Joyner (Kevin Hart) was a star athlete, student, and all-around big man on campus at Central High School, but as his twentieth reunion approaches in CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE, he feels like his best days were when he was a teenager. Calvin married his high school sweetheart Maggie (Danielle Nicolet) and is gainfully employed as an accountant, so it’s not like he’s a failure by any means; he just hasn’t done anything that would seem to fulfill being voted “most likely to succeed” by his classmates.

Calvin’s self-esteem gets a major boost when he meets up with Bob Stone (Dwayne Johnson), another class of 1996 member who thinks the world of him. During a high school assembly Calvin helped Bob, then going by his eminently mockable given name Robbie Weirdicht, preserve some dignity when he was the victim of a cruel prank. Beyond the name change, Bob has since undergone a major transformation. The once-tubby teen has traded the flab for muscle so that he looks like a beefy action figure in the flesh.

After a fun night of reminiscing Bob asks Calvin to check some accounts he’s been having trouble with. The next morning three CIA agents, led by Agent Pamela Harris (Amy Ryan), appear at Calvin’s front door looking for Bob, who they claim is a government operative gone rogue. When Bob turns up at Calvin’s workplace, he assures him that he’s really a good guy trying to stop terrorists from exchanging United States satellite codes. Calvin doesn’t want any part of this but finds himself dragged into it anyway.

When describing action comedies, charming isn’t the first word that typically comes to mind, although it suits CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE to a T. This very funny buddy movie is surprisingly sweet thanks in large part to Johnson. He looks like a superhuman warrior but portrays the character like a sensitive teenager on the inside. Bob’s reshaping of his body has not altered his tender soul. Johnson brings so much joy and enthusiasm in playing Bob like a child eager to win Calvin’s approval and show him what he can do. The humor stems from the disconnect between this hulking specimen of masculinity and his unabashed love of unicorns, SIXTEEN CANDLES, and 1990s girl groups, yet the film never judges him as being less manly because of his interests. Bob Stone is the character’s best self, and Johnson is a hoot as Bob demonstrates the confidence he’s gained since the most humiliating moment of his life.

Director Rawson Marshall Thurber doesn’t use the size difference between Johnson and Hart for comedy. Instead he relies upon the chemistry the two have playing off one another. Calvin is a reluctant participant when Bob and the CIA place him in uncomfortable situations. Hart milks Calvin’s confusion and mounting exasperation for all it’s worth, resisting in the limited ways available to him.

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE doesn’t lack action sequences, but the showcase moments tend to be small and silly, like when a slap fight breaks out when Calvin and Bob role-play as husband and wife or when Calvin is forced to riff to distract an airport security guard while Bob steals a plane. This remarkably good-natured film lets its stars trade on their likability and is all the stronger for it.

Grade: B+

Faults

FAULTS (Riley Stearns, 2014)

If Dr. Ansel Roth (Leland Orser) hasn’t hit rock bottom as FAULTS begins, he doesn’t have much farther to fall. He gets booted from a hotel restaurant for trying to use an already-redeemed meal voucher he fished out of the trash. Presumably just about everything he owns fits into his compact hatchback, including the boxes of books he schleps to his speaking events in hotel meeting rooms. Ansel is an expert on mind control and cults, but the suicide of a woman he tried to deprogram cost him a television show, his wife, and virtually everything else of value.

He’s so tired of his specialty and the point it has brought him to that he initially declines an opportunity to assist a middle-aged couple (Chris Ellis and Beth Grant) who are desperate to break the grip a cult named Faults has on their 28-year-old daughter. When his agent demands repayment of a large sum of money or else, Ansel reluctantly agrees to perform the expensive deprogramming work. He is upfront with the parents that the success rate is just fifty percent. He and two hired hands abduct Claire (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) from a grocery store parking lot. They take her to a motel room where, over five days, Ansel will attempt to weaken and sever the cult’s hold on her.

As Ansel is at wit’s end, he’s not exactly in the best state of mind to be facing off against someone with a newfound sense of inner strength. Naturally Claire is concerned about being snatched in public and kept captive, but it could be argued that she is better suited to withstand the immediate strains in the situation than her counselor. For all of his personal shortcomings, FAULTS shows Ansel to be professionally skilled, if somewhat of a bumbler. Writer-director Riley Stearns makes clear the seriousness of what’s at stake but uses a darkly comedic sensibility to toy with Ansel’s dignity. The scenario seems more fraught with danger because of the doctor’s vulnerability, not the patient’s.

To breed trust, Ansel alternates periods of intense discussion with restful time for Claire to reconnect with her parents. FAULTS also takes pauses so Ansel can address the increasing pressure he’s getting to set things right with his agent. Such moments are important in the process of bringing him even lower, but they don’t function so much as necessary releases from the tension but as interruptions. FAULTS rivets when Ansel and Claire duel in their cat-and-mouse confidence game, not quite knowing which is gaining the upper hand. The other stuff matters but is established well enough that returning to it isn’t essential.

A cult leader strives to strip a person of self-assurance and prior relationships and then take the place of what has been removed. A deprogrammer is essentially doing the same in reverse by attempting to clear away the cult-inspired certainty and connections so as to reestablish healthy foundation. Orser and Winstead’s performances convey the mental forces in opposition, with Ansel trying to weaken Claire’s defenses while her resistance rubs against the spots where he is exposed. Although Ansel is trying to present a rational, empathetic appearance, Orser plays him tightly coiled. The line between his suggestibility and his patient’s is narrow. Orser wears the demeaned nature of the character that can make it funny that Ansel is the one trying to eliminate someone else’s dysfunction.

Winstead brings a serene air to Claire that shows her capable of compliance as the circumstances demand yet not willing to yield her agency to the man aiming to shatter and reform how she views the world. In light of her role in 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE, which opened two years after FAULTS debuted on the festival circuit, Winstead’s Claire stands as a fascinating variation of the woman held against her will. Both characters generate power in maintaining the impression of assenting to their antagonists’ commands, but watch out when the facade ruptures.

Grade: B-

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING (Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone, 2016)

Pop sensation Conner4Real (Andy Samberg) is preparing to release his second solo album and has a documentary crew around to capture every moment in POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING. Conner’s ascent started as a member of the Style Boyz with childhood friends Owen (Jorma Taccone) and Lawrence (Akiva Schaffer), but the rap trio breaks up when Lawrence gets angry about not receiving writing credit for Conner’s guest verse on an award-winning hit. Lawrence drops out of the music industry and becomes a farmer. Meanwhile Conner enjoys even greater success as a solo performer. Owen helps make beats for Conner’s tracks and DJs during his concerts, but for the next album and tour cycle Conner has reduced his contribution to pushing play on an iPod.

Questionable singles, bad reviews, and a backfiring release strategy that automatically pushes Conner’s new material to home appliances begin to erode his popularity. Album sales are suffering and his concerts aren’t selling out, so at the suggestion of his manager Harry (Tim Meadows), he agrees to take on underground hip-hop star Hunter the Hungry (Chris Redd) as an opening act. Ticket sales get a boost, but a string of embarrassing incidents threaten to damage his career even more.

POPSTAR puts a poptimist twist on THIS IS SPINAL TAP. It takes the music and the industry seriously while goofing hard on both. As outlandish as much of the lyrics and behavior can be, the main joke is that a lot of it isn’t far removed from real songs or public artist missteps. The absurdity is certainly turned up, but the humor reflects what life looks like inside and outside the pop bubble. Samberg, Schaffer, and Taccone employ a lot of referential jokes but have the good sense not to make the funniness contingent on being able to spot what they’re satirizing. It’s an added bonus if you recognize the film’s analogues to Tyler, The Creator and a Macklemore & Ryan Lewis hit, among many other zingers, but the jokes still land for those who don’t read Pitchfork or Stereogum every day. Considering the broad nature of the jokes, the film tends to relatively subtle, such as how Conner adapts his real last name for showbiz.

As members of The Lonely Island, Samberg, Schaffer, and Taccone are pop stars in their own right, and their ties with popular artists surely helped in getting many of them to cameo in POPSTAR. Whether appearing as themselves or playing parts, like Justin Timberlake as Conner’s approval-seeking personal chef, the presence of so many celebrities may take some of the teeth out of the comedy. POPSTAR pokes fun at the music business, but it adopts more of an insider’s perspective. That quality doesn’t make the film less funny, but it does seem like the humor is somewhat soft-pedaled. One of the most savage and funniest bits is reserved for the vultures at a TMZ-like television show, which is indicative of where the film’s sympathies are.

Still, implicit criticism is found in POPSTAR and is identified through the form it takes and the recent slew of pop star documentaries it riffs on. The title calls back to JUSTIN BIEBER: NEVER SAY NEVER. The style suggests that, at face value, the film is an unvarnished look at an artist, as if Conner or any other pop act, like One Direction, are just humble folks with ordinary origins even as such statements celebrate their excess and inspire envy. POPSTAR slyly draws attention to the fact that social media postings and theatrically-released documentaries for fans as ostensible promotional campaigns are just the current way of managing perception to keep revenue flowing. There’s a reason why artists authorize something unflattering being distributed widely. The joke may seem like it’s on the pop stars, but if we believe it, isn’t it on us?

Grade: B

Me Before You

ME BEFORE YOU (Thea Sharrock, 2016)

In broad strokes the romantic drama ME BEFORE YOU is a fairy tale of a sort. A sad young man rarely leaves the grounds of the castle where he lives. His parents worry about him to the point where the mother hires an exuberant young woman from the small English town to try and lift his spirit. In time she does. Whether they will continue together happily ever after is quite a bit trickier than it is in storybooks, though.

Louisa Clark (Emilia Clarke), or Lou for short, gets knocked down when she loses her job, but she gets up again and is willing to take virtually anything that can help support the parents, sister, and nephew she lives with. Although she’s never assisted a quadriplegic before, Lou is offered a well-paying position and six-month contract to be a caregiver for Will Traynor (Sam Claflin) in the family castle. She’s to be more of a companion than a home health care worker, which in its own way can be a greater challenge as there isn’t a medication or procedure for how she can make him feel better. Before he was hit by someone on a motorcycle, Will was a big mover and shaker in the London business world and highly active in his free time. The two years since he lost almost total use of his limbs and became confined to a wheelchair have not diminished the grief the 31-year-old feels over what his life has become.

Lou’s bubbliness and Will’s prickliness put them in opposition for awhile, but she is undeterred in wanting to make him happy. Eventually her openness and warmth softens Will, and he appears to be happier than he has been in a long time. Lou’s satisfaction with the progress she’s made takes a major hit, though, when she learns that, despite his better mood, Will still intends to go through with his long-planned, doctor-assisted suicide in Switzerland. Rather than quit, Lou is determined to show him all that life has to offer and to make it worth pressing on.

With her sparkly personality and bold wardrobe, Lou epitomizes the film type whose exceedingly whimsical nature is the cure-all for a man in need of reshaping his life. She’s Tinkerbell rather than a 26-year-old woman. At times director Thea Sharrock leads Clarke’s performance past familiar and adorable into shameless mugging. The character often seems to be at battle between being child-like but mature or childish. Her loving but frustrated selflessness with oblivious workout fiend boyfriend Patrick (Matthew Lewis) brings a needed edge to Lou. Clarke fares better when she doesn’t have to be unsustainably perky. For the significant stretch of ME BEFORE YOU when the romantic angle isn’t in play, chemistry builds between Lou and Will during their many conversations. Their evolution from a working relationship to friendship and beyond isn’t rushed and makes sense.

ME BEFORE YOU ventures into iffier territory when dealing with the right to die question. The problem arises because, first and foremost, this is a romance, not an issue film. The love story works because these are beautiful people speaking from their hearts and acting with concern for each other. That also means the most unpleasant aspects of Will’s condition are largely dealt with off-screen, lest they spoil the atmosphere. ME BEFORE YOU doesn’t have to be graphic in depicting the pain and lack of dignity that Will experiences, but the character’s wish is less easily understood when, all things considered, he’s doing well given the circumstances. Because this is Lou’s story, Will’s psychological state remains hidden.

Without fail Lou puts everyone else’s happiness before her own, so per narrative conventions, it is right that in the end she benefits from the sacrifices she makes. The ending thus seems a little unintentionally gross, as though the film’s events are a means to a deserving reward of putting her on the path to self-actualization. ME BEFORE YOU is an effective tearjerker, but dabbling with a controversial topic to yield more sobs cheapens the entire enterprise.

Grade: C+

Love & Friendship

LOVE & FRIENDSHIP (Whit Stillman, 2016)

The tart comedy LOVE & FRIENDSHIP savors passive-aggressive verbal fencing under the guise of polite conversation. Writer-director Whit Stillman’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s novella LADY SUSAN arms Lady Susan Vernon (Kate Beckinsale) with a devastating rapier-like wit with which she makes ribbon of her counterparts. Beckinsale expertly wields the veiled put-downs and Jedi mind tricks in Lady Susan’s arsenal, using perfect inflections to sound civil while criticizing or manipulating those on the receiving end of her words. At a time when being a widow made women particularly vulnerable, Lady Susan’s facility with language and persuasion is a means to survival.

When suspicion at Langford of her affair with Lord Manwaring (Lochlann O’Mearáin) makes staying there untenable, Lady Susan makes a hasty departure to visit her in-laws’ estate Churchill. The widow’s reputation as a flirt precedes her and is cause for her sister-in-law Lady Catherine Decourcy Vernon’s (Emma Greenwell) concern, as her eligible brother Reginald Decourcy (Xavier Samuel) proves susceptible to Lady Susan’s diabolical charm. With no husband and little of her own to speak of, Lady Susan is calculating how she can ensnare a man to provide for her comfort and security.

She fears that the arrival at Churchill of her daughter Frederica (Morfydd Clark) could potentially shift Reginald’s attention until Frederica’s intended, Sir James Martin (Tom Bennett), appears there as well. Sir James is a fool and of no interest to Frederica, but as a wealthy landowner, Lady Susan has strategically identified him as an ideal match for her daughter, thus securing their welfare. Nevertheless, Frederica, having promised her mother not to trouble her aunt and uncle with her lack of affection for Sir James, confides in Reginald. Lady Susan adeptly stamps out this potential undoing of all she is putting into motion, but the complications of controlling her daughter, maintaining Reginald’s fascination, and continuing to see Lord Manwaring on the sly are increasing.

LOVE & FRIENDSHIP treats matters of the heart in purely practical terms. Beckinsale’s performance does not apologize for Lady Susan’s ruthlessness and, in fact, delights in her devious brilliance. Lady Susan comes across as an effortless conversationalist, which obscures how Beckinsale is often closely observing the cues in social settings and revealing the character’s hyper-awareness in shaping her every utterance. The morality of her guiding principle can be fairly questioned, but the film sympathizes with Lady Susan, as she is attempting to maximize the benefit in a game social structure has rigged against her. The significance of the introductory narration is impossible to comprehend in the moment, but by the end, it becomes clear that the person speaking of Lady Susan’s time at Langford understands the difficult position she inhabits.

Stillman’s remarkable screenplay requires careful parsing of what is being said implicitly. The entire film is best understood by reading between the lines. Many of the most consequential events in LOVE & FRIENDSHIP happen off-screen, yet Stillman leaves no confusion regarding such developments and the motivations behind them. Discretion is of the utmost importance for these characters, yet scenes tend to be framed as though eavesdroppers on the grounds and in the hallways could be privy to what personal information is being shared. Privacy is thus presented as something of a mutually agreed-upon illusion just as forthright opinions are shrouded in well-manned discussions.

Much of the humor derives from cutting remarks, with the hilarious exception of the buffoonish Sir James. Bennett plays the silly suitor like a computer with latency problems. Sir James hears the other side of a conversation and takes noticeably longer than normal to process it and respond. His muddled replies are usually in a stilted cadence indicative that his mental faculties are still lagging. LOVE & FRIENDSHIP exhibits no similar operational defects but rather runs smoothly on Stillman’s aptitude for dissecting the social order and knack with pointed and cultured jokes.

Grade: A