SYNOPSIS: In the popular 2003 fantasy comedy “Freaky Friday” Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan played Tess and Anna, a mother daughter combo who switched identities. “Mom,” said Anna in Tess’s body, “you have to let me live my own life!” Twenty-two years later they’re back at it in the sequel, “Freakier Friday.” This time around they double the body swap chaos as Tess and Anna switch identities with their step granddaughter and teenage daughter respectively.
CAST: Jamie Lee Curtis, Lindsay Lohan, Julia Butters, Sophia Hammons, Manny Jacinto, Mark Harmon. Directed by Nisha Ganatra.
REVIEW: More sweet and nostalgic than funny, “Freakier Friday” milks the body-swapping premise for a few laughs, mostly courtesy of Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan who are clearly having a blast revisiting this material. There are a handful of big laughs, but Canadian director Nisha Ganatra is more interested in plucking your heartstrings than tickling your funny bone.
The gimmick that fueled the 2003 film is in place, but since this is a direct sequel, it’s been amplified. Just as “Jurassic World” upped the ante with the genetically engineered super-dinosaur Indominus Rex, and “Age of Ultron” introduced the massive, titular CGI villain, “Freakier Friday” increases the story’s scale by doubling up on the body switching—Tess Coleman (Curtis) switches bodies with her soon-to-be stepdaughter, Lily (Sophia Hammons), and Anna Coleman (Lohan) switches bodies with her daughter, Harper (Julia Butters). But like a stick of Spearmint gum—double the flavor and double the fun—instead of diluting the emotional stakes, as is so often the case when sequels get bigger and louder, the extended swapping amplifies the film’s message of learning about others by walking a mile in their Manolos.
It’s a blended-family journey of discovery, of getting a deeper understanding of one another, crammed into a story fed by a hodge-podge of misunderstandings and slapstick. Curtis is the MVP, embracing her inner teen, deftly playing a pouty Lily for much of the film’s running time. “I’m bloody decomposing,” she shrieks, as teenager Lily sees herself as Tess for the first time.
Lohan is more restrained. Her moments of physical comedy are overshadowed by Curtis’s uninhibited work, but she conjures up a misty sentimental feel in the film’s more heartfelt scenes.
The intergenerational jabs provide most of the humor. “I bent down and didn’t toot,” says an amazed Tess from her young body. Add to that some updated Pickleball and crypto gags, and you have an amiable family comedy that, while predictable, occasionally confusing and definitely overlong at 1 hour and 51 minutes, preserves enough of the original movie’s fairy tale charm to sell its story of fantasy and unconditional love.
“The Gray Man,” a new shoot ‘em up starring Ryan Gosling, and now streaming on Netflix after a quick trip to theatres, overwhelms the senses with an underwhelming story.
The story begins in 2003 with convicted murderer Court Gentry (Gosling) accepting a job offer from a CIA operative named Donald Fitzroy (Billy Bob Thornton) to live in the “gray zone” in return for a commuted sentence. He will be part of the top-secret Sierra program, trained to be a “ghost,” live in the margins and assassinate people who need killing. He’ll be the kind of guy you send in when you can’t send anyone else in. “Take all the pain that got you here,” says Fitzroy, “turn it around, and make it useful.”
Cut to 18 years later. Gentry, now known simply as Six, because “077 was taken,” he deadpans, is on assignment in Bangkok. On the orders of CIA honcho Denny Carmichael (Regé-Jean Page), he’s there to assassinate an asset and retrieve an encrypted drive. When Six refuses to pull the trigger because there is a child in the way—he’s not all bad!—things quickly spiral out of control.
With the help of CIA agent Dani Miranda (Ana de Armas), Six gets the disc, but, in doing so, becomes a target himself. Turns out the disc contains info proof of unsanctioned bombings and assassinations ordered by Carmichael, in his bid to turn the CIA into his own personal army. Carmichael wants the disc destroyed and to eliminate any traces of the only people skilled enough to expose him, the Sierra program.
But how do you kill the CIA’s most deadly assassin? You hire morally compromised independent contractor Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans) to “put a Grade A hit” on Six. To lure Six into his web, Lloyd kidnaps the closest thing Six has to family, Fitzroy and his young niece (Julia Butters). “You want to make an omelet,” says Lloyd, “you gotta kill some people.”
“The Gray Man” is a big-budget, globe-trotting adventure that makes up in exotic locations and gunplay what it lacks in intrigue and interesting characters. Filtered through the endlessly restless camera of Anthony and Joe Russo, the movie has all the elements normally associated with high end action movies. Fists fly. By times it is a bullet ballet. Things explode. There are tough guy one liners (“Are you OK?” Miranda asks after one city-block destroying action sequence. “My ego is a little bruised,” Six snorts.), double-dealing and death around every corner.
So why isn’t it more exciting?
The story is fairly simple. It’s the kind of superkiller on-the-run we’ve seen before in everything from “John Wick” and “Nobody” to almost any Jason Statham movie, but it isn’t the simplicity or familiarity that sinks “The Gray Man.” It’s the overkill. And I don’t just mean the unusually high body count. It’s the more-is-more Michael Bay by-way-of-the-“Bourne”-franchise approach that overwhelms. The story is constantly on the move, jumping from country to country, from time frame to time frame, never pausing long enough to allow us to get to know, or care, about the characters.
Six is meant to be an enigma, and while Gosling can convincingly pull off the action and deliver a line, but he’s basically unknowable, a stoic man with a number for a name. His relationship with Fitzroy’s niece gives him some humanity, but he remains a dour presence in the center of the film.
At least Evans, as the “trash ‘stached” sociopath, appears to be having a good time. Nobody else does. That could be because there are so many characters, most of which are underused or underdeveloped. No amount of fancy camerawork could make Carmichael interesting. As the big bad meanie at the heart of all the trouble, he’s a pantomime character with only one gear.
More interesting are Indian superstar Dhanush playing a killer who values honor over cash, in his striking debut in a Hollywood film, and de Armas who does what she can with an underwritten part.
“The Gray Man” is big, loud popcorn summer entertainment that spends much time setting itself up for a sequel, time that would have been better spent creating suspense.
