A weekly feature from ctvnews.ca! The Crouse Review is a quick, hot take on the weekend’s biggest and most interesting movies! This week Richard looks at “Downtown Abbey,” the punk rock genre film “Riot Girls,” Brad Pitt’s trip into outer reaches of space and his own psyche in “Ad Astra.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard has a look at the new movies coming to theatres, including the big screen adaptation of “Downtown Abbey,” the punk rock genre film “Riot Girls,” Brad Pitt’s trip into outer reaches of space and his own psyche in “Ad Astra” and the music doc “Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Set against a teenage wasteland where adults have been killed off by a mysterious disease, “Riot Girls” is a throwback to grindhouse genre films but with a new and improved attitude.
It’s 1995 and in the aftermath of a deadly plague the film sees the mohawked Scratch (Paloma Kwiatkowski), girlfriend Nat (Madison Iseman) and their small band of “Eastsiders” brave a post-apocalyptic world, divided by geography and ideology from the bloodthirsty Westside Titans.
When Nat’s brother Jack (Alexandre Bourgeois) is kidnapped by the jocks from the other side of town, led by the psychotic Jeremy (Munro Chambers), the Eastsiders, with the help of Sony (Ajay Friese) who knows his way around the westside, go to war.
Although set in a dystopian world “Riot Girls” is a more universal (although bloody) story of high school rivalry between freaks and the bullies. The stakes are higher and the story heightened, but this is an age-old story with a new twist. It’s “Lord of the Flies” with letterman-jackets but, more importantly, it also places its focus and power on the female characters. With a behind-the-scenes team lead by director Jovanka Vuckovic and writer Katherine Collins, “Riot Girls” is a rarity. It’s a genre film, set to a throbbing punk and metal soundtrack, that delivers with the culty-thrills you hope for while also throwing typical gender roles out the window.
“Riot Girls” is a propulsive story of survival that feels, simultaneously, like a throwback to the drive-in and completely fresh.
In “The Space Between Us” Gardner Elliot (Asa Butterfield) is a regular kid with the usual litany of teen problems. Slightly nerdy and a tad socially awkward, he passes the time texting with Tulsa (Britt Robertson), a pretty girl he’s never actually met. You see, Gardner is a normal teen in all respects except one—he lives on Mars.
Raised by scientists on the Red Planet after his astronaut mother died in childbirth Gardner lives in a settlement called East Texas founded by scientist Nathaniel Shepherd (Gary Oldman). As the only human ever born on Mars he’s alone, save for an R2-D2 clone called Centaur, astronaut/guardian Kendra (Carla Gugino) and a team of scientists. He longs for information about his mother so when the chance to return to Earth comes up on his sixteenth birthday he jumps at it, eager to track down Tulsa and find his biological father.
On Earth he marvels at the colour of the sky, the feel of the ocean but worries that he’ll be sent back to Mars before he has the chance to really live. He escapes, on a quest to find Tulsa and daddy, a man he never met. The boy who fell to Earth finds Tulsa and together they go off in search of papa with Shepherd and Kendra hot on their tails.
Is “The Space Between Us” a sci-fi film? Ish! Is it a teen adventure? Almost! Is it a doomed teen movie? Sorta! A romance? Not really! A fish out of water flick? Kinda! Is it a road trip? Maybe! It’s all those things and more wrapped up in an underwhelming Young Adult story.
At the centre of it all is Butterfield whose wide eyes give him a slightly otherworldly look, perfectly suited to play Tulsa’s favourite Martian. Robertson is spunky and even if everything that happens doesn’t really make sense, the two leads are appealing.
They stand in stark contrast to Oldman chews the scenery with unusual gusto. He over does it all the way, emoting as if acting was going to be declared illegal the next day and he’d never have a chance to do it again.
“The Space Between Us” a.k.a. “The Loneliest Boy On Mars” has some good moments but in its attempt to be all things—see paragraph four of this review—clutters up a story that would have been better served by streamlining the story and tone.
