Taking a lead from “How to Train Your Dragon,“ and other movies were fearsome creatures reveal their kinder, gentler selves, “The Sea Beast,” a new animated movie now streaming on Netflix, gives the old “never judge a book by its cover” platitude a nautical twist.
Monster hunter Jacob Holland (Karl Urban) come by his job honestly. As a child his parents were killed in a sea monster attack, one that left him adrift, alone in the ocean. After his rescue by the fearsome Captain Crow (Jared Harris), he devoted his life to the eradication of the sea beasts. “I swore I would do everything I could to keep people safe,” he says.
The worst of the worst, the King Kong of sea beasts is the Red Bluster, a giant lobster-red creature, rumored to be a menace to seafaring society. When Holland and his crew set off in their ship, the Inevitable, to hunt down and kill the menace, they discover a stowaway. Young orphan named Maisie (Zaris-Angel Hator) lost her parents on a sea beast expedition, and she wants in on the action.
There is a lot at stake on this mission. The king and queen have threatened the monster hunters with dire punishment unless the beast is tamed. Maisie, Holland and the crew set off to vanquish the creature, but soon learn that there is more to the story than they could ever have imagined.
“The Sea Beast” has spectacular action sequences with well-crafted computer animation, a compelling story about finding family, and the usual kid movie messages about loyalty and the importance of role models, but what sets it apart is a more subversive idea.
At its heart this is a cautionary tale, a warning to never take things at face value, or blindly put your trust into accepted versions of history. History can be subjective, the movie suggests, depending the source. Are the sea beasts dangerous troublemakers, as king and queen claim? Or are they misunderstood creatures used by the rulers to instill fear and exert control over their subjects? Co-writers Chris Williams (who also directs) and Nell Benjamin have woven big ideas throughout the fabric of the story, encouraging kids to figure out things for themselves and not accept the conventional wisdom.
But don’t get me wrong, this isn’t some anti-imperialist, rebellious screed. It’s an action adventure with a conscience and some very cool “monsters” that kids will fall for at first sight. It slows down in the second half, but the combination of smarts and seafaring fun is a winner.
Imagine if Samuel Beckett wrote “Squid Game,” minus the giant Kewpie doll, and you’ll understand “Stanleyville,” a new darkly humorous social satire now on VOD.
The ennui of a dead-end job and unsatisfying relationship with her husband and daughter has draped over apathetic suburbanite Maria Barbizan (Susanne Wuest) like a shroud. One day, tired of… well, everything, she rids herself of her money and purse in a mall trashcan and wanders aimlessly.
Numb.
Into this fugue state walks the smartly dressed Homunculus (Julian Richings), a mysterious figure with an intriguing offer. She, he tells her, has been chosen, alongside a group of other idiosyncratic characters— spoiled brat Andrew Frisbee Jr (Christian Serritiello), Felice Arkady (Cara Rickets), Manny Jumpcannon (Adam Brown) and muscle-head Bofill Pancreas (George Tchortov)—to take part in a “platinum level contest” to “probe the very essence of mind/body articulation.” She doesn’t understand what that means, and the prize of a used habanero-orange compact sport utility vehicle doesn’t interest her either but the promise of true enlightenment or an “authentic personal transcendence” lures her in.
The promised so-called “platinum level contest” is actually a “Lord of the Flies” style reality show competition with Homunculus as host and referee. A series of strange games—at one point they are challenged to “write a national anthem for everybody everywhere through all time”—with escalating consequences pits the players against one another. Along the way they earn points and gain insight into their deepest held beliefs, “every man for himself” ethos and worst inclinations.
Actor-turned-director Maxwell McCabe-Lokos paints his characters in very broad strokes. Each one is an archetype that range from nihilist to failed performer to a Bay Street type, with easy-to-read characteristics that speak to one element of the human condition.
That, however, is the only easy-to-read aspect of “Stanleyville.”
Willfully weird, the movie is all journey. The strange situation doesn’t really go anywhere, and, given Homunculus’s ambiguous motivations, the movie doesn’t offer any closure to the characters or many questions it presents. It’s about the competition, the win-at-any-cost vibe so often evident in competition shows. This is an absurdist take on the same, but as the situation begins to unravel so does the story. The social commentary remains, but viewers hoping to for enlightenment, may enjoy the story’s oddball but thought-provoking themes, but, like Maria, leave the movie still in search of life changing spiritual illumination.
Not since the Three Stooges has nonsense been this much fun. Over five movies, the frantic, Tic Tac-shaped Minions, the silly sidekicks to former supervillain Gru (voiced by Steve Carell), have brought the most kid friendly anarchy to the screen since Curly said, “Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk,” for the first time.
Their new movie, “Minions: The Rise of Gru,” now playing in theatres, sets a new standard for silliness.
Set in 1976 San Francisco, the story begins with awkward twelve-year-old Gru and his dream.
“There are a lot of villains in the world,” he says, “but I am going to be a supervillain.”
To make his evil wish come true, he interviews to become a member of the world’s top outlaw team, the Vicious 6. But, he is not taken seriously. At all.
“I am pretty despicable,” Gru says proudly. “You don’t want to cross me.”
“Evil is for adults who steal powerful ancient stones and wreak havoc,” says Belle Bottom (Taraji P. Henson), the newly-appointed head of The Vicious 6, who took over from the former, recently deposed Wild Knuckles (Alan Arkin). “Not for tubby little punks, who should be at school learning, taking a recess and sucking his thumb! Come back when you’ve done something evil to impress me!”
To prove he’s got what it takes to be a supervillain, Gru steals something near and dear to the peach-pit sized hearts of the Vicious 6, their prized Zodiac Stone. Instead of impressing Belle Bottom, the theft turns her against Gru and his loyal Minions. With the mad, bad and dangerous to know Vicious 6 on their tail, Gru is kidnapped by Wild Knuckles. “My favorite villain is also my kidnapper,” marvels Gru. “This is going to be a great opportunity if you don’t kill me.”
Cue the Minion mayhem.
“The Minions: The Rise of Gru” provides fans of the franchise exactly what they want, no deep thoughts, just sublime silliness.
If you want to get all film critic-y about this, I suppose you could say the leitmotif is that of sweetly-inspired mayhem that follows the Minions wherever they go. But this isn’t a movie with layers of subtext or loads of diegetic elements. There is a denouement, a resolution to the story, but why overthink this? It’s short, fast and stupid, with an easily digested message of, as Armistead Maupin always says, finding your logical, not biological family. Or, as Gru says, “find your tribe and never let them go.” More zesty than arty, it’s made for kids, who I’m sure will gobble it up, while parents sit patiently through the 85 minute runtime with visions of the Three Stooges dancing in their heads.
A satire of the privilege enjoyed by the upper classes, “The Forgiven,” starring Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain and now playing in theatres, is a morality play almost completely without morality.
Based on the 2012 Lawrence Osborne novel of the same name, “The Forgiven” centers around a married couple on the way to a week-long bash in the desert of Morocco. He is the drunken, bigoted Brit David (Ralph Fiennes), she’s Jo (Jessica Chastain), a bored American with a sharp tongue.
After an afternoon of drinking, they head out into the Saharan darkness for the “long slog of a drive.” Along the way, “in the middle of bloody nowhere,” David, feeling the effects of the afternoon wine, hits and kills Driss (Omar Ghazaoui), a young fossil seller who stepped out in front of the car. They load the body into the backseat, and proceed to the party for dinner and more drinks. “The kid is a nobody,” David sneers.
The hosts (Matt Smith and Caleb Landry Jones), who brag they throw the best parties in all of West Africa, call the police, who quickly close the case, deeming it an accident. The next morning Driss’s father arrives, demanding that David accompany him to the boy’s burial. “It’s only right and proper that the man responsible for his death should do this,” the father says. “It’s the custom.”
David reluctantly agrees. “What does it matter one way or the other,” he says. “Everyone thinks I’m guilty.” David’s humbling journey stands in stark contrast to Jo, who takes advantage of the more hedonistic aspects of life back at the party.
“The Forgiven” is a story of the collision of the East and West. Director John Michael McDonagh places his wealthy, debauched characters in a place, where, because of their money and power, the rules simply don’t apply to them.
It’s an intriguing premise, played out in the movie’s dueling storylines; David and Jo, separated by distance and purpose, for most of the film’s running time. They are on different paths, but both are headed for some sort of comeuppance, the wage for their sins, but as the shroud of decadence covers Jo’s journey, and an existential dread clouds David’s, “The Forgiven” stops just short of providing some sort of enlightenment for its characters.
The undertones of exploitation of the poor and violence that are embedded in the story remain, but are left unchallenged. The ultimate understanding and judgement of the characters and the situation is left to the viewer to untangle.
With such rich material available, the vagueness of “The Forgiven” is frustrating, but compelling because of Fiennes, Chastain, Smith, Said Taghmaoui who brings real warmth to the character of driver Anouar and Mourad Zaoui as the perceptive house manager and translator Hamid.
The petticoats may be more pronounced and the dialogue right out of Jane Austen, but make no mistake, “Mr. Malcolm’s List,” a new romance now playing in theatres, is the kind of rom com that kept Drew Barrymore and Kathryn Heigl busy for years. The only thing missing is the traditional rom com run through the airport and into the arms of the beloved, an omission brought on by time period, not for lack of trying.
Based on a best-selling novel of the same name written by Suzanne Allain, the movie begins with a bad date between London’s most eligible bachelor, Mr. Jeremiah Malcolm (Sope Dirisu) and the eager but dim-witted (“Thinking too deeply causes forehead furrows,” she says.) Julia Thistlewaite (Zawe Ashton). She has her hopes set on a marriage proposal, but he seems more inclined to talk politics, a subject she knows little about.
Despite her best efforts, the night ends with them going their separate ways. The next day, to Julia’s horror, the newspaper carries a caricature of Mr. Malcolm waving her off with a curt, “Next!”
Turns out, Mr. Malcolm has a list of requirements for his potential new bride. Candidates must be able to converse in a sensible fashion, exude an elegance of mind, have a forgiving nature and genteel relations from good society, among other prerequisites. Julia’s sin? Not knowing about the newly enacted Corn Laws and fluttering her eyelashes too much.
Julia is horrified by the publicity. “I would love for Mr. Malcolm to receive the comeuppance he deserves,” she says. To that end she enlists Selina Dalton (Freida Pinto), a country mouse from out of town, gives her a crash course in high society, and sets her off to seduce Malcolm. When he falls for her charms, she will produce a list of her own and he will be “judged and found wanting in front of the whole of good society” just as she was.
You know the rest and if you don’t, you’ve never seen a rom com before. This is a gussied-up Kathryn Heigl movie with high-brow accents and the promise of a ripped bodice or two. Mix in jealousy, trickery, a handsome alternate love interest in the form of Captain Henry Ossory (Theo James) and comedic relief from giggly Mrs. Covington, wonderfully played by Broadway star Ashley Park, and you have a diverting but rather predictable movie.
“Mr. Malcolm’s List” succeeds mostly because an engaging, diverse cast who breathe life and loads of personality into a well-worn genre.
“Elvis,” the new King of Rock ‘n Roll biopic from maximalist director Baz Luhrmann, begins with a sparkling, bedazzled Warner Bros logo and gets flashier and gaudier from there.
The movie is told from the point of view of Elvis’s (Austin Butler) manager Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks under an inch or two of makeup), a huckster with a flair for spotting talent and a gift for manipulation.
Working on the carnival circuit taught Parker that a great act “gave the audience feelings they weren’t sure if they should enjoy,” a standard the early, hip-shaking Elvis met and exceeded.
Their partnership is one of the best known, and well documented success stories of the twentieth century. For twenty years, through the birth of rock ‘n roll of the late 1950s and the cheesy Hollywood years to the legendary 1968 Comeback Special and the Las Vegas rise and fall, Elvis and the Colonel shimmied and shook their way to the top of the charts and into the history books.
“Elvis” covers a lot of ground. From young Elvis (Chaydon Jay) discovering his love of music from the Black rhythm and blues artists and Mississippi church music he absorbed as a kid to his final white jumpsuit days in Vegas, Luhrmann shakes, rattles and rolls throughout in a blur of images and spectacular sound design.
It entertains the eye but feels akin to skipping a stone on a lake. If you hold the stone just right and throw it across the still water at the correct angle, it will skim along for what seems like forever without ever piercing the surface.
“Elvis” is a great looking movie. A pop art explosion that vividly essays the story’s various time frames and styles, it makes an impact visually and sonically. Unfortunately, Luhrmann is content to make your eyeballs dance, your gold TCB chains rattle and simply skim across the surface.
We do learn that Elvis was the sum of his country music and R’n’B experiences and influences, was fueled by the adoration of his audience and aware of the social change of the 1960s, but there is no excavation, no real exploration of what made the singer or his manager actually tick. It may seem fitting that a movie about a man who drove pink Cadillacs and wore phoenix embroidered jumpsuits and capes is over-the-top, but those images are so woven into the fabric of popular culture already that this feels clichéd, more like greatest hits album than a biography.
Butler is a charismatic performer, playing Elvis through several stages of his life, and despite the superficiality of the storytelling hands in a rounded performance that transcends impersonation of a man who spawned a generation (or two) of impersonators.
It’s rare to see Hanks play a character with no redeeming qualities. “I am the man who gave the world Elvis Presley,” he says, “and yet there are some who would make me out to be the villain of this story.” His take on Colonel Parker grates, with the theatrical Dutch accent and imperious, manipulative manner, he is certainly the villain of the piece. He’s a pantomime of the big, bad music manager, one who saw his client as a musical ATM machine and little more.
By the time the end credits roll “Elvis” emerges as an idealized look at the boy from Tupelo who became the King by paying tribute to the power of the music that made a legend.
Ethan Hawke appears to have entered the bad guy phase of his movie career. After a popular turn as religious zealot and cult leader Arthur Harrow on Disney+’s “Moon Knight,” he returns to haunt your dreams as a masked serial killer nicknamed The Grabber in “The Black Phone,” now playing in theatres.
Adapted from a short story of the same name by acclaimed author, and Stephen King’s son, Joe Hill, and set in 1978, “The Black Phone” centers on shy baseball pitcher Finney (Mason Thames, who resembles a teen Patrick Swayze).
Bullied at school and ostracized by his classmates, things aren’t much better at home where his abusive, alcoholic father (Jeremy Davies) doesn’t seem to have a clue how to be a parent to him or his potty-mouthed sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw).
In town, kids are disappearing, lured away by The Grabber, a serial killer who approaches his prey dressed as a macabre children’s entertainer and a question. “Wanna see a magic trick?”
Finney becomes the sixth victim when The Grabber knocks him unconscious and whisks the boy away to a soundproof basement with an antique black phone on the wall. Although disconnected, Finney soon discovers he can communicate with The Grabber’s previous victims on the phone. In the dungeon the voices of the dead attempt to help him escape, while sister Gwen looks for clues in a series of very vivid psychic dreams. “Please, please,” she says, “let the dreams be true.”
“The Black Phone” is an intense, efficiently told horror story of captivity, dread and friendship. Finney spends most of the film trapped in the Grabber’s basement, relying on ingenuity, a little help from some otherworldly entities and an untapped reserve of courage to survive.
The creepy supernatural element aside, it’s the real-life terror of the very earthbound Grabber that shocks. With no motive other than satisfying is own twisted desires, he is the specter of mindless malevolence. Hawke, performing through a mask for 99.9% of the film, projects pure evil. Most of his dialogue might sound almost innocent on the page, but add a high-pitched affectation and expert delivery, and a line like, “I will never make you do anything you won’t like,” becomes, “I will never make you do anything you won’t… like.” That pause is where the menace is, and Hawke plays those goose-bump raising moments beautifully.
Thames hands in an authentic and resource performance, but it is McGraw as the firebrand Gwen who steals the show. She wouldn’t have been out of place in any number of 80s Amblin flicks. She s resilient, has a way with a cuss word and brings the heart and soul to her dysfunctional family unit.
Director Scott Derrickson faithfully recreates an inviting 1970s backdrop, painted with a mix of teen concerns, like bullies and the cute girl in lab class, edged with a darker, more violent hue. It may have been a simpler time, but Derrickson isn’t all about nostalgia. You might still get beaten up on the way home from school, or worse. It feels authentic, and when the real horror enters the picture, it hits hard.
“The Black Phone” is an unsettling horror thriller that doesn’t rely on gore, just heaps of tension, suspense, atmospherics and fright that doesn’t rely on a supernatural entity to terrify.
The opening minutes of “Lightyear,” the new, Pixar origin story now playing in theatres, inform us that what we are about to see is the film that inspired “Toy Story’s” Buzz Lightyear character. In other words, it’s the movie that inspired the merch that inspired a movie that inspired even more merch.
Chris Evans voices the square-jawed, heroic and slightly goofy Space Ranger Buzz Lightyear. After a disastrous crash landing on a strange planet, his attempt to rescue the crew, including Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba), his best friend and commanding officer, goes wrong, leaving everyone stranded on a hostile planet 4.2 million light-years from Earth. His famous Space Rangers helmet weighs heavy on his head. “Everyone is stuck here because of me,” he says.
Determined to return home Buzz embarks on a series of experimental flights using various configurations of jet fuel, trying to find the right formula to achieve the hyper speed needed to cut through space and time.
But something strange happens. For every minute he’s in space, a year passes back on the planet. As Buzz tries trip after trip, his BFF Alisha ages, gets married has a child, and later a grandchild Izzy (Keke Palmer), while Buzz remains, more or less, unchanged.
On the planet, sixty years has passed before Buzz, and his smart and adorable computer companion cat Sox (Peter Sohn) try one last test trip, one that will unite him with Izzy, her “volunteer team of motivated cadets” and Zurg, a menacing force with an army of robots.
At first blush, “Lightyear” may seem like the origin story we don’t really need. Twenty-seven years, three sequels, one direct to video flick and a television series later, you wouldn’t think there would be much left to say about the character, but Pixar has found a way.
“Lightyear” is a Pixar film through and through. You expect the top-notch animation, some cool looking robots, cutesy side characters and the occasional laugh for parents and kids. Less expected is how fun the action-adventure is and how effective the patented poignant Pixar moments are.
It’s a hero’s journey, one that actually humanizes the little hunk of talking plastic (or coded series of bits and bytes) and imbues a catchphrase like “To infinity and beyond” with a new, heartfelt meaning.
“Lightyear” may well inspire a renaissance in the character and spawn more toys, but this movie is much more than merch.
I compare the experience of watching “Spiderhead,” a new psychological prison thriller starring Chris Hemsworth, Jurnee Smollett and Miles Teller and now streaming on Netflix, with going to a nice restaurant with a dirty bathroom. The food, service and atmosphere are top notch, but go to the restroom after dinner and if it’s dirty, that’s what you’ll remember most about your visit.
Such is the fate of “Spiderhead,” a movie that makes a good impression right up until the final minutes.
Hemsworth is visionary Steve Abnesti, a chemist who runs Spiderhead, a remote penal institution where his experimental, mind-altering drugs are tested on inmates. Prisoners live in beautiful cells that resemble hip hotel rooms and eat gourmet food. There are no bars on the doors and not a single orange jumpsuit in sight. “Your presence in this facility,” says Abnesti, “while technically a punishment, is a privilege.”
In return for the relaxed rules and relative luxury of the prison, inmates are equipped with a module or Mobi-Pak containing mood altering drugs. Administered by the amiable Abnesti, these concoctions are part of a larger study analyze the effects of manipulating emotions. “Our work will save lives,” says Abnesti. “Not just one life, many lives. We’re making the world a better place.”
Inmate Jeff (Teller) is Abnesti’s go to guinea pig. The pair have a special bond forged over a shared belief that the inmate experiments are for the good of all humanity. But when Jeff is forced into partaking in a cruel drug trial, he suspects his trust has been misplaced. “The time to worry about crossing lines,” Abnesti says, “was a lot of lines ago.”
Based on the New Yorker short story “Escape from Spiderhead” by George Saunders, the film explores moral dilemmas and the ethical quandary of exerting control over the powerless for personal gain. The very idea of forced injections is an even bigger hot button topic than when Saunders wrote the short story.
So why did I feel like I just left a dirty bathroom as the end credits rolled?
It’s the recency theory. The last thing you see is the thing that makes the lasting impression and “Spiderhead,” despite an interesting premise, some good performances and a growing atmosphere of apprehension and mistrust, rushes the ending to the point where you wonder if the filmmakers ran out of film, time or interest in the story. Tonally, the all-of-a-sudden action packed ending feels tacked on and uninspired.
Ultimately, “Spiderhead” disappoints because it gets so much right, but, in the end, doesn’t trust the idea-driven story to satisfy.
