I join the CTV NewsChannel to talk about the big movies from the weekend, including Edgar Wright’s “The Running Man,” rhe magical thieves of “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t,” the Oscar worthy “Sentimental Value” and the animated “In Your Dreams.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I joined CTV NewsChannel to have a look at new movies coming to theatres including Edgar Wright’s “The Running Man,” rhe magical thieves of “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” and the Oscar worthy “Sentimental Value.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to make the bed! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about Edgar Wright’s “The Running Man,” rhe magical thieves of “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” and the Oscar worthy “Sentimental Value.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t,” a new comedy heist flick, now playing in theatres, illusionist thieves The Four Horsemen—think Robin Hood types who use magic instead of bows and arrows—recruit three young magicians to stage their biggest heist yet. “I’m talking about a trick that is bigger and better than anything you have ever seen,” say head Horseman Danny Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg).
CAST: Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Isla Fisher, and Morgan Freeman, alongside new cast members Justice Smith, Dominic Sessa, Ariana Greenblatt, Rosamund Pike. Directed by Ruben Fleischer.
REVIEW: Midway through “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman) tells the assembled magicians that in the magical house they’ve just entered, “Up is down. Left is right.” He‘s right about the house, it’s a topsy turvy place, but everything else about this movie is pretty much the same from the previous entries in the franchise, 2013s “Now You See Me” and “Now You See Me 2” from 2016.
That means loads of movie magic, but not the good kind. The magic word in this story of the world’s greatest magicians isn’t “Abracadabra,” it’s “CGI.” Because the magic is mostly computer-generated-imagery at its best it feels inorganic, at its worst, dull. There’s no childlike wonder, no astonishment on display, just cold pixels, polygons and texture maps.
I wasn’t expecting the cast to all become David Copperfield, but if Margot Robbie can learn to land triple axels for “I, Tonya,” and Tom Cruise can learn to fly a helicopter through a 360° death-spiral at 8,000 feet, Eisenberg and company can at least learn convincing sleight of hand.
When director Ruben Fleischer isn’t staging big CGI spectacles, he moves the story along with less than magical exposition that over describes the film’s most obvious details. Now you see it, now it is explained for you. The endless chatter slows the momentum and blunts some of the story’s thrills and surprises right up until the film’s sequel ready ending.
There is a generation gap spark between the younger magicians Charlie (Justice Smith), Bosco Leroy (Dominic Sessa) and June (Ariana Greenblatt) and the returning cast—Danny Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) and Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher)—but the twelve-year-old franchise’s magic has disappeared.
“I Saw the TV Glow,” a new existential drama starring Justice Smith, and now playing in theatres, is a coming-of-age story about someone who never quite comes-of-age.
When we first meet Owen (Ian Foreman), he’s an awkward, suburban seventh grader drawn to Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine), a ninth grader obsessed with a young adult TV show called “The Pink Opaque.” He’s interested in the series, an “X-Files” for teens with a villain called Mr. Melancholy, but it’s on after his bedtime.
The pair share a love of the show—he clandestinely sleeps over at her place to watch the show on the weekends—and troubled home lives.
In “The Pink Opaque” they find an escape.
Jump forward two years. Owen, now played by Smith, still can’t stay up late enough to watch the show, so he voraciously consumes it on the VHS tapes Maddy makes for him.
On the eve of the show’s cancellation, Maddy disappears, leaving Owen at the mercy of his cruel stepfather Frank (Fred Durst). Years later, she re-enters his life, with a wild tale of where she has been, as his grip on reality slowly slips away.
“I Saw the TV Glow” owes a debt to the surreal stylings of David Lynch. In their telling of the story director Jane Schoenbrun embraces Lynchian themes of appearance vs. reality, surrealism and often impenetrable storytelling. It can make for a confounding experience, as the exploration of pop culture’s effect on identity and individuality reveals itself in increasingly inscrutable ways.
“I Saw the TV Glow” is audacious in its execution, introspective in its narrative and interesting in its aesthetic, but it’s also a bit of a schlep, more ambitious than actually entertaining. It is not a feel-good movie, and has no aspirations in that direction, but as the storytelling becomes opaquer, the film loses its way, revelling in Owen’s awkwardness and mundanity rather than what makes him interesting. The result is a movie that confuses impenetrability with depth.
You don’t have to know or understand the role-playing game D&D to get the movie “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.” Those who know that the acronym BBEG stands for Big Bad Evil Guy (or Gal) or that Monty Hall doesn’t refer to the game show host, but to a type of campaign based on accumulating as much wealth/magic items as possible, will have a better chance at deciphering the in-jokes and Easter Eggs, but for non-players, it still works as a fantasy action-comedy, complete with sorcerers, trolls and dragons.
The story begins with impish single father Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine) and barbarian Holga Kilgore (Michelle Rodriguez), making a daring escape from prison. They wound up behind bars when their planned robbery to steal the Tablet of Reawakening, an artefact with the power to resurrect the dead, went sideways. Their cohorts, Edgin’s daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman), conman Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant), Sofina (Daisy Head) and sorcerer Simon Aumar (Justice Smith), escaped justice, disappearing into the wind.
Upon their “release” they discover that Fitzwilliam double-crossed them, has taken custody of Kira and is now living the high life as the wealthy Lord of Neverwinter. When it becomes clear Fitzwilliam is no longer an ally, Edgin and Holga go on a quest to find the Tablet of Reawakening, resurrect Edgin’s dead wife, bring Kira back to the family and settle a score with Fitzwilliam.
But first they must find the Enchanted Helmut, a sideline aided by Sophia Lillis as Doric, a tiefling druid and shapeshifter and the heroic Xenk Yendar (Regé-Jean Page).
There’s more, like Red Wizards and necromancy and talking corpses, but for all the fantasy on board the movie, this is really a very earth-bound story of friendship and family. With dragons and magic.
What could have been another dull game adaption transcends the nasty reputation left behind by bombs that were not nearly as fun as the games that inspired them, like “Battleship” and “Candy Land: The Great Lollipop Adventure.”
Co-directors Jonathan M. Goldstein and John Francis Daley roll their twenty-sided dice (look it up) that audiences will value a fantasy story that uses humor as the backbone of the movie, the same way the “Lord of the Rings” flicks used allegories on the human condition to fuel theirs.
Luckily, mostly thanks to Pine’s nimble touch, it works really well. His performance sets a lighthearted tone followed by fun work from Rodriguez et al. Page also impresses as a handsome hero who feels like a combo of Dudley Do-Right and Errol Flynn.
We are so used to serious, heavy fantasy that the rambunctious “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” feels like a breath of fresh sir. It is old-fashioned, an old-school action adventure that aims to entertain above all else. It doesn’t take itself seriously—although it is respectful to the world that inspired it—but does handle the action scenes, the world building, the characters, and the story with care.
The new Apple TV+ movie “Sharper,” starring Julianne Moore, Justice Smith and Sebastian Stan, is a story of love and lies, of swindles and avarice, of plot twists and, unfortunately, despite the zig-zaggy story, predictability.
The film opens with a rom-commy meet cute between book store clerk Tom (Smith) and Sandra (Briana Middleton), a student at NYU studying Redefining Radicalism the Rise of Black Feminism in American Literature. He asks her out for dinner, she demurs, but, like all good New York City romances, fate intervenes and they fall deeply in love.
But soon into the relationship it appears that Sandra isn’t as buttoned down as she first appears.
Welcome to the no-spoiler zone.
At this point director Benjamin Caron, best known for helming the acclaimed Benedict Cumberbatch “Sherlock” series, “The Crown” and “Andor,” goes episodic, breaking the film into sections to provide backstories for the characters and insight on their interconnecting relationships.
We meet Max (Stan), a shady character who always comes prepared with a quick line and a plan for parting some poor unsuspecting sucker with their hard-earned cash.
Moore and Lithgow play high society types Madeline and Richard. He is a self-made billionaire; she is a trophy wife with a troubled son.
Other chapters fill in Tom and Sandra’s comings-and-goings.
These seemingly unrelated characters are, of course, all closely related in a high stakes game of deception and duplicity where there will be big time winners and losers, cast aside to be forgotten about.
The film’s title refers to someone who is a gambling cheat or confidence man, and there is certainly enough of that on display, but taken in a different context, the story of “Sharper” isn’t as sharp as the literal meaning of the title might suggest. The structure is interesting, the characters compelling, if a little by-the book—there is the rich old man who falls for a beautiful younger women, the cold-as-ice conman and his emotional victims—but the multiple, crisscrossing con games on display aren’t clever enough by half to provide the payoff necessary for the movie to make an impression.
The script offers a few surprises (just don’t watch the trailer before watching the film) but the big game, the elaborate scams, feel a bit shopworn, especially if you’ve ever seen “The Sting.”
“Sharper’s” biggest con isn’t perpetrated by the characters, but by director Caron, who skillfully finds a way to string along the audience for almost two hours before leaving them empty handed in the finale.
“Bigger,” says Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) in the trailer for “Jurassic World Dominion.” “Why do they always have to be bigger?”
It’s a legit question. The good doctor is, of course, referring to the dinosaurs that, once again, are causing problems in our modern world.
But the question might also apply to the movie itself.
The follow-up to “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom,” and the sixth and final film in the franchise, is bigger and louder than the movies that came before it, but as a viewer you may ask yourself, “Why?”
Set four years after Jurassic Park was destroyed by an erupting volcano, “Jurassic World Dominion” begins with dinosaurs let loose worldwide, living among humans.
Dino whisperer Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and girlfriend, founder of the Dinosaur Protection Group Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), are in hiding, protecting Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon). As a teenage clone of Jurassic Park co-founder Benjamin Lockwood’s daughter, her DNA is of great interest to Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott), the villainous CEO of Biosyn. When she is kidnapped, Owen and Claire give chase.
At the same time, locusts with prehistoric DNA devastate the globe’s grain supply, prompting paleobotanists Ellie Sadler (Laura Dern) and Alan Grant (Sam Neill) to launch an investigation. Their search for answers leads them to Biosyn and a familiar face, chaos theory mathematician Ian Malcolm (Goldblum).
The dinosaurs and the story may be bigger than the last time round, but remember, bigger is not always better. The original “Jurassic” franchise worked because if a streamlined simplicity to the storytelling mixed with masterful execution. Oh, and lots of dinosaurs.
“Jurassic World Dominion” has lots of dinosaurs and some fan service but misses the mark otherwise. It is a talky dino-bore with none of the suspense that made “Jurassic Park” edge of your seat stuff. The action scenes are murky and few-and-far-between, there’s lots of dodgy CGI and unlike the reconstituted dinosaurs, it feels lifeless. Luckily Goldblum reappears after a quick cameo off the top to shake things up with his trademarked droll wit in the third act.
Near the beginning of the film Dern’s character Ellie sees a small dinosaur and coos, “this never gets old.” She clearly hasn’t seen “Jurassic World Dominion.”
Someone you know spends far too much time playing the adventure videogame “Detective Pikachu.” The enormously popular Nintendo game is a time waster of epic proportions, eating up minutes faster than old school Pac Man gobbling up Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde. Now a live action movie, “Pokémon: Detective Pikachu” starring Ryan Reynolds as the title character, a little yellow rodent-like creature with soulful eyes, vies for your time at the movies.
Set on the day-glo neon streets of Ryme City, “a celebration of the harmony between humans and Pokémon,” the movie begins with the disappearance of police detective Harry Goodman at the hands of a ruthless Pokémon.
Looking to get to the bottom of the case Harry’s insurance salesman son Tim (Justice Smith) joins with his dad’s Pokémon partner, the wise-cracking but amnesiac Detective Pikachu (Reynolds). The two have a connection that goes beyond words… sort of. Only Tim can understand what the little pocket monster is saying. “People try and talk to me all the time and all they can hear is ‘Pike, pika.’” They’re a natural fit. One can talk to humans, the other to Pokémon. “If you want to find your Pops we’re gonna need each other.” With the aid of investigative journalist Lucy Stevens (Kathryn Newton) they uncover a criminal conspiracy that threatens Ryme City’s human/ Pokémon harmony.
The worldwide popularity of Pokémon pretty much guarantees an audience for “Pokémon: Detective Pikachu” but it’s hard for me to imagine anyone who hasn’t spent hours whiling away the time with the game to enjoy this as much as already established fans. It is probably the cutest crime noir film ever made but it’s also a slog that should be a lot more fun. Not even Reynolds’s trademarked way with a one-liner can liven up this convoluted script.
“Pokémon: Detective Pikachu” feels like a retro kid’s flick. Echoes of “Gremlins,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and even “Howard the Duck” reverberate throughout, but with an emphasis on spectacle rather than charm and story.
