On paper “Chaos Walking,” a new dystopian movie starring Daisy Ridley and Tom Holland and now on PVOD, seems like a can’t fail for sci fi fans. In execution, however, the story of a world where men’s thoughts are manifested for all to see, is a letdown.
Based on “The Knife of Never Letting Go,” the first book of the Patrick Ness “Chaos Walking” trilogy, the story takes place in the year 2557 in a place called Prentisstown on the planet New World. Colonized by refugees from Earth, New World’s original inhabitants, the Spackle, fought back, slaughtering many of the male settlers and all the women. The surviving men contracted something called “The Noise.”
“It happened when we landed on the planet,” says Mayor Prentiss (Mads Mikkelsen). “Every thought in our heads is on display.”
Prentisstown residents, like Todd Hewitt (Holland), walk around with their thoughts exposed like wisps of multicolored cigarette smoke swirling around their heads.
When her spaceship crash lands on New World it leaves earth woman Viola (Ridley) stranded in this strange world. Todd, who has never seen a woman before, helps her navigate the dangers of her new home, as they both discover the deeply held secrets of New World.
“Chaos Walking” has ideas that feel ripe for satire, social commentary and drama but squanders them in favor of crafting a tepid young adult friendly dystopian story. Todd’s “Noise” reveals the kind of thoughts a teenager may have when first laying eyes on a girl, although in a g-rated fashion. His inner voice mumbles “Pretty” in Viola’s presence, but that’s about as deep into his psyche we get. It’s a shame because the “Noise” device could have been used to provide some much-needed humour into this earnest story. Or to more effectively drive the plot or the tension between the two characters. Instead, it is inert, a ploy to add some interest to a generic dystopian tale.
“Chaos Walking” was shot in 2017, deemed unreleasable, and has been fiddled with ever since. It hits PVOD as a film of unrealized potential, a minor footnote on the IMDB pages of its stars.
This is Spider-Man like you have never seen him before. “Cherry,” a new drug drama based on the novel of the same name by Nico Walker and now available on Apple TV +, features Tom Holland in his grittiest role to date.
The fresh-faced Holland is the unnamed title character, let’s call him Cherry for ease of explanation, an underachieving college freshman from an affluent family, head-over-heels for Emily (Ciara Bravo). Based on author Nico Walker, he’s a jittery collection of insecurities who finds a soul mate in Emily (Ciara Bravo), a young woman whose decision to move to Montreal to go to school sends him on a downward spiral. Impulsively, he quits school and joins the army.
Turns out Emily was bluffing, but it’s too late. They marry before he ships out, but he leaves the one good thing in his life behind for a tour of Iraq.
Woefully unprepared for the military, the death, despair and drugs take their toll and he returns to civilian life a hollow shell, riddled with PTSD. He finds comfort in drugs, and is soon swallowed up and spit out by Ohio’s opioid crisis. Financially drained and disenfranchised, he robs banks to support his heroin addiction, losing Emily and what was left of his self-respect.
It does not reveal a major plot point to let you know that “Cherry” was written while Walker was in jail, serving an eleven-year sentence. Negotiations for the film rights actually broke down when Walker, still behind bars, ran out of prison phone minutes. He’s out now, and is apparently using the money earned from the book to pay back some of the money he stole.
But back to the film.
Directed by the Russo brothers, the dynamic duo behind a good chunk of the Marvel Cinematic Universe—”Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “Captain America: Civil War,” “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Avengers: Endgame”—the movie is a departure for them. Like their other films it’s slick and stylish, but there’s a darkly humorous tone that’s been absent their best-known work. It’s the spoonful of sugar that makes the tragic events of the main character’s life palatable but make no mistake, this isn’t a comedy. While the Russos find the funny in some very bad situations, this is a bleak film. “Sometimes I feel like I’ve already seen everything that’s going to happen,” Holland’s character says, “and it’s a nightmare.”
It’s also a rather long film. At two-and-a-half hours it luxuriates in the ambitious set-up of the story, creating a vivid sense of the character’s search for purpose in a life that feels cut adrift. The early moments feel acutely observed, but as the movie gets grittier the visual flair overwhelms the story, engaging the eye but not the brain. Ideas of toxic masculinity, the destructive nature of opioids and he very nature of war are soon abandoned in favor of a more standard crime biopic approach.
Keeping us interested is Holland, who grounds the high-flying coming-of-age story with a career best performance that never loses sight of the film’s basic premise, that this is a young man, out of his depth in almost every way.
“Cherry” is ambitious and raw but the scope of the story is too wide to be truly effective.
In its first non-sequel since 2017’s “Coco” Pixar takes us to a whimsical world where strange winged creatures like The Manticore (voice of Octavia Spencer) run theme restaurants to tell a story with a human heart.
“Spider-Man’s” Tom Holland provides the voice of Ian Lightfoot, a flannel-shirt-wearing elf who, with his blue skin, bushy hair and Converse High Tops, looks like a cross between Krist Novoselic and a Troll. His boisterous older brother Barley (Chris Pratt in a role that once would have been played by Jack Black) is more Judas Priest than Nirvana, and spends his days absorbed in a fantasy role-playing game.
They lost their father to illness years ago when the boys were young. Barley has vague memories of him but Ian doesn’t remember him at all. Dear old dad left behind a present for the guys to be opened when they were both over sixteen. “No way!” says Barley. “It’s a wizard staff. Dad was a wizard!” “No,” corrects mom (voice of Julia Louis-Dreyfus), “Your dad was an accountant!”
Whether Dad was an accountant or wizard doesn’t matter, the staff does have magic powers. When mixed and matched with a Visitation Spell, the right Phoenix gem and a hint of mojo, Dad will appear for one whole day. Eager to meet the man they never knew Ian and Barley start the spell, but, as Dad starts to materialize, something goes wrong and the magic gem dissolves. “Aah!” Barley says. “He’s just legs! There’s no top part. I definitely remember having a top part!”
Hoping for a do-over they set off to find another Phoenix gem. “We’ve only got twenty-four hours to bring back the rest of dad,” says Barley.
A mix of the role-playing game “Dungeons & Dragons” and Terrence Malick’s “Tree of Life,” “Onward” mixes the journey genre with an absent-father story. The search for the gem is the McGuffin that keeps the action moving forward but ultimately, it’s not that important. It provides an excuse for director Dan Scanlon to stage large scale scenes involving winged fairies, giant gelatinous cubes and dragons but thematically this is more about a journey of self-discovery than search for a magic stone.
As such, “Onward” is at its best when it focusses on the relationships. Ian and Barley’s occasionally rocky but always loving bond lies at the heart of the film, but Pixar also remembers how to ratchet up the emotional content in other ways. The film’s most effective scenes are its simplest. Ian, listening to an audio tape of his late father and improvising a conversation he never got to have with the old man has the sprinkling of Pixar magic we expect from the folks that brought us stone cold classics like “Up” and “WALL-E.”
“Onward” doesn’t rank up with the very best of Pixar but few films, animated or otherwise, do. But what it lacks in storytelling innovation it makes up for in heart. The movie’s strength is in the way it handles the somber subject matter—the loss of Ian and Barley’s father—in the context of an exciting adventure filled with optimism.
Another franchise, another eccentric genius. Robert Downey Jr. laves Tony Stark behind to return to the big screen in a reboot of a remake of a classic story of a man who could talk to animals.
When we first meet Dr. John Dolittle (Downey) he’s at the Howard Hughes recluse stage of his life. The passing of his wife has left him despondent, unable to enjoy the company of humans so he lives in seclusion with only a menagerie of animals for company.
To pass the time he plays chess with a timid gorilla named Chee-Chee (voice of Rami Malek) and in conversation with the various animals who crowd his home, including his trusted macaw advisor Polynesia (voice of Emma Thompson) and Jip (voice of Tom Holland), a bespectacled dog.
“I don’t care about anyone, anywhere, anymore,” the doctor says.
Of course, that’s not true. When animal lover Tommy Stubbins (Harry Collett) shows up at Dolittle’s gate with an injured squirrel (voice of Craig Robinson)—“I’m too beautiful to die,” the squirrel says.—on the same day the doctor is summoned to Buckingham Palace to see the ailing Queen Victoria (Jessie Buckley), he is brought back into the human world. Her Majesty is gravely ill and if she dies the treasury will take the animal sanctuary Dr. Dolittle calls home. Worse, all his animals will be thrown out into the world during hunting season.
To save the Queen‘s life he must embark on a journey to find the Eden Tree and its magical, healing fruit. It’s trip fraught with danger and is the same journey that cost his beloved wife her life. Add to that some palace intrigue, an island of misfits and thieves, turbo boosting whales, a vengeful squirrel and even a dragon and you have a new chapter in the life of the man who can talk to animals.
Kids will likely find “Dolittle’s” chatty animals amusing but this isn’t simply a movie about wise cracking beasts. At its beating heart it is a movie about pain, but, as one character says, not the kind of hurt inflicted by a bullet or a knife. It’s about the agony of losing someone. Dolittle’s heart is broken by the death of his wife, and that ache is the engine that propels the entire movie. So, while the young’uns may giggle at the animals but the movie’s underlying downer vibe and generic approach suggests that Dolittle’s wife isn’t the only lifeless part of this movie.
Downey plays the character with a sense of bemused confusion, topped with a mealy-mouthed Billy Connolly impression that changes from scene to scene. It’s a pantomime performance that makes the best of his finely tuned comic timing but feels sloppy and needlessly mannered.
“Dolittle” contains some good pop psychology for children about working together—”Teamwork makes the dream work!”—and facing their fears but overall a movie featuring talking animals shouldn’t be this banal.
The animated “Spies in Disguise” features the voice of one of the biggest movie stars in the world and one of the strangest premises we’ve seen all year.
Will Smith voices Lance Sterling, the world’s greatest spy. “I’m out here saving the world,” he says. “That’s what I do.”
Back at HQ after a daring mission, he’s drinking from his #1 Spy mug when he’s taken into custody for stealing a secret weapon called the M9 Assassin. He claims he’s innocent, that a villain named Robot Hand (Ben Mendelsohn) stole his identity and made off the weapon. One daring escape later Sterling sets off to prove his innocence.
Trouble is, he’s easy to find so he tracks down the one person who can help him, MIT grad Walter (Tom Holland), a junior inventor in the agency’s Gadget Lab. “I need to disappear,” he tells the youngster.
Walter obliges, sharing his biodynamic concealment potion with Sterling. The spy disappears but not in the way he hoped. Instead of becoming invisible the next best (or worst, depending on how you look at it) thing happens. He turns into a pigeon. “There are pigeons in every major city,” Walter says. “It’s the perfect disguise.”
It’s a good way of going incognito perhaps but not practical in the hunt of Robot Hand. “I’ll come with you,” Walter says, “and show you all the advantages of being a pigeon. It might even make you a better spy.” Together they set off to find Robot Hand as Marcy (Rashida Jones), the agency’s head of security, tries to find and arrest them.
Featuring Pierce-Brosnan-era-007-style action and gadgets “Spies in Disguise” is frenetic, family friendly James Bond Lite. Directors Nick Bruno and Troy Quane keep the pace brisk, pausing only to emphasize a gag but the movie works best not when it’s in action but when Sterling is adjusting to life as a pigeon. As his latent avian instincts come on strong, for instance, he finds he can’t resist eating garbage on the road. It’s goofy good fun that is more interesting than Sterling’s human form, which is all swagger.
The script, by Brad Copeland and Lloyd Taylor, also mines a considerable amount of humor from the odd couple pairing of Sterling and Walter. Sterling is a shoot first and ask questions later kind of spy while Walter favors unusual methods, like disarming the baddies with wild, glittery cat videos because, well, everyone loves a cat video. “You can do more by bringing people together than blowing them up,” he says.
“Spies in Disguise” is buoyant enough to entertain the eye but the messages for kids about the benefits of being part of a flock and celebrating our differences are expertly woven throughout.
This weekend, Peter Parker swings back into theatres, but it’s not Tobey Maguire or Andrew Garfield behind the familiar red-and-black-webbed mask. Instead, for the third time in 15 years the web-slinging role has been recast. This time around, 21-year-old English actor and dancer Tom Holland wears the suit as the star of Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Holland’s extended Captain America: Civil War cameo in 2016 almost stole the show, displaying the character’s bright-eyed, boyish spark but this is his first outing as the title star. So far he’s getting rave reviews. After a recent critics screening the twitterverse lit up.
“Tom Holland is perfect,” wrote one poster, “He’s having the time of his life and it shows.” “I don’t want to spoil it,” wrote another, “but they found a way to make Spider-Man relatable like never before on screen, that’s where @TomHolland1996 shines.”
Spider-Man: Homecoming is poised to hit big at the theatres, breathing new life into a character we all know but it is also a shining example of the old adage, “The only constant is change.” Hollywood loves to reboot movies — we’ll soon see new versions of It, Flatliners and Blade Runner — but while the titles stay the same, the faces change.
Not everyone embraces the changes. When Garfield took over for Maguire in 2012 1234zoomer commented on The Amazing Spider-Man: “IS NOT GOING TO BE THE SAME WITHOUT TOBBY!!!,” (her uppercase and spelling, not mine), but Maguire was gracious, saying, “I am excited to see the next chapter unfold in this incredible story.”
Whether Holland acknowledges Maguire or Garfield is yet to be seen, but at least one replacement had the manners to recognize his precursor.
In On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 007 No. 2 George Lazenby paid a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the original Bond, Sean Connery. After a wild battle to rescue Contessa Teresa (played by Diana Rigg) the new James Bond didn’t get the girl. “This never happened to the other fellow,” he says, looking dejectedly into the camera.
Connery went on to co-star in The Hunt for Red October with Alec Baldwin playing Jack Ryan, a character later portrayed by Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck.
In 2014 Chris Pine (who also took over the part of Captain Kirk in Star Trek from William Shatner) played the super spy in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. He admits, “We didn’t totally get that right,” but still has hopes for the series. “It’s a great franchise, and if it’s not me, then I hope it gets a fifth life at this point. I hope it’s done again and with a great story.”
The Batman franchise also has had a revolving cast. Since 1943 eight actors have played the Caped Crusader, including Lewis G. Wilson, who at 23 remains the youngest actor to play the character, and George Clooney who admits he was “really bad” in Batman & Robin.
Most recently Ben Affleck, dubbed Bat-Fleck by fans, has played the Dark Knight but probably the most loved Bat-actor of all time is the late Adam West. West, who passed away last month at age 88, admits playing Batman typecast him but says, “I made up my mind a long time ago to enjoy it. Not many actors get the chance to create a signature character.”
The folks behind “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” the second reboot of the web slinging comic superhero following franchises lead by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, wisely decides not to rehash the Peter Parker’s origin story. We know he’s an orphan being raised by his Aunt May and Uncle Ben when a bite from a radioactive spider caused mutations in his body, granting him the superpowers of super strength and agility.
Been there, done that twice before.
Instead, it picks up the story a few months after “Captain America: Civil War’s” epic airport tarmac battle. After that taste of big league crime fighting with the Avengers, 15-year-old Parker (Tom Holland) returned to normal life as a high school student in Queens, New York, living in a small apartment with his Aunt May (Marisa Tomei).
Mentored by Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) he’s slowly figuring out what it means to be a superhero at night while and Peter Parker, a scrawny science nerd by day. “I am a kid,” he says, “but a kid who can stop a bus with his bare hands.” When he ‘s not fighting crime he’s acting like a teen, building a 3803-piece Lego Death Star with his best friend or getting shy in the presence of his crush Liz (Laura Harrier). He likes Liz but Liz loves Spider-Man. What to do?
It’s just one of many problems Parker encounters as his ambition to become a full-fledged Avenger puts him on a crash course with Vulture (Michael Keaton), a villain with wings and a bad attitude.
“Spider-Man: Homecoming” is easily the best web tale since 2004s “Spider-Man 2.” Director Jon Watts channels John Hughes in the high school scenes, Sam Raimi in the action scenes. There’s comedy and a more light-hearted tone as Parker comes of age as a crime fighter and hormonal teen. Holland finds the right mix of the character’s vulnerability and arrogance, nerdiness and impulsiveness. Together they spin a new web that is the most diverse entry in the Marvel Universe to date and one of the most entertaining.
There are new Spidey toys—his suit now speaks to him à la Jarvis in “Iron Man” for instance—but while cool, the effects aren’t the things that give “Homecoming” a recommendation, it’s the movie’s sense of fun and humanity. It’s a fantastical story about real people. Parker is simply a teen coming to grips with the changes in his body and even the villain is essentially a working class guy who wants to provide for his family. He’s tired of being pushed around so he’s pushing back. By going back to basics Watts grounds the movie in the comic book lore that made the character popular in the first place. He’s not the tortured superhero we’ve come accustomed to seeing on the big screen, instead he’s a regular teen in extraordinary circumstances. How regular is he? Sometimes his crime-fighting escapades are spoiled by after school detention.
“Spider-Man: Homecoming” is over two hours long and, like all other superhero movies, features a CGI heavy climax, but somehow doesn’t feel bloated. It also features the best last line of any Avengers movie and, for once, an after credit scene that is worth waiting for.
“The Lost City of Z” is an epic true-to-life tale of adventure and intrigue. Based on the book of the same name by David Grann it stars Charlie Hunnam as a determined explorer who obsession with the Amazon led to his mysterious disappearance.
Hunnam, who will soon be seen playing another legendary character in “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword,” is Colonel Percy Fawcett, a man convinced of the existence of a lost city deep in the Amazon. When he discovers pottery, evidence of an advanced civilization in the region, he is ridiculed by the scientific establishment who hang on to old-fashioned ideas about indigenous populations. “Your exploits have opened every door for you,” he’s told, “but keep your ideas to yourself. It is one thing to celebrate the people it’s another to elevate them.” At a boisterous Royal Geographical Society meeting he says, “If we can find a city where one was for not to be able to exist we could rewrite history,” only to be drowned out by dismissive chants of, “Pots and pans! Pots and pans!” from his peers.
Determined to prove his theory he returns, aide-de-camp Corporal Henry Costin (Robert Pattinson) and crew at his side only to be side-tracked by James Murray (Angus Macfadyen), a fellow explorer unfit for the journey.
Fawcett doesn’t give up despite Murray’s lawsuits, family trouble, his resignation from the Royal Geographical Society and World War I.
His search for the Lost City of Z provides the subtext for the movie. As much as this is an adventure tale, it’s also the story of a man desperate to not only prove himself personally and professionally. Personally he was, as the mucky mucks say, “unwise in his choice of ancestors.” Professionally he needs to prove to his British countrymen that the forgotten South American civilization were not “savages,” but people who have tamed the jungle and created empires.
His third and final try is a stripped down affair with son Jack (Tom Holland) in tow.
Traditionally made, “The Lost City of Z” feels old fashioned, as though you could almost imagine James Mason and Gregory Peck in the leads. It takes us back to a slower time, a moment in history before there were Starbucks on evefy corner and movies had to have gotcha moments woven throughout. It throws the modern adventure movie playbook out the window. There is no timetable for the action, no crash-and-burn scene every 10 minutes, just a story of survival and class warfare.
For much of the running time that’s OK. Director James Gray takes his time laying out Fawcett’s obsession, allowing us to get under the skin of a man with much to prove. It begins to feel overlong at the hour-and-a-half mark during a scene, wedged between the second and third explorations were a psychic goes on at length about the importance of Fawcett’s work and we still have WWI and the third expedition to go! It is the movie’s “dropout moment,” the scene that loses the audience and the film never recovers.
It’s a shame because “The Lost City of Z” is a handsome movie, ripe with subtext and solid performances. It’s also self indulgent, in need of one of Fawcett’s jungle machetes to chop it down to size.
Like the recent Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, which saw the Caped Crusader and the Man of Steel go head-to-head in a showdown over how best to police the world, Captain America: Civil War sees the Avengers go mano e’ mano e’ mano e’ mano e’ mano e’ mano (there’s a lot of them) in an effort to settle their differences.
As anyone who has seen the Avengers movies knows, the superhero team have caused havoc all over the world, blowing things up dropping buildings on people, all in the name of law and order. It’s been a wild ride but after a rescue mission leaves 11 innocent people dead the United Nations decides it’s time to rein them in.
The proposed restrictions divide the group. Tony ‘Iron Man’ Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) wants more oversight while Captain America (Chris Evans) refuses to compromise.
Watching from the sidelines is Sharon Carter, ex-S.H.I.E.L.D field agent and love interest of Captain America. Played by Port Perry, Ont., native Emily VanCamp, the character is firmly onside with her superhero suitor.
“It’s an interesting debate,” she says, “because there is no real right or wrong at any given moment. It is difficult to take sides. I know where my character stands. I understand that. Because I play her, I get it but at the same time, as Emily, I really do feel it would make much more sense to be on Iron Man’s side. That’s what makes it interesting. You think you’re going to go into it with a very clear vision of whose side you’re on but you don’t leave feeling that way.”
With two Captain America films under her belt VanCamp is part of the Marvel Universe. That means she has a whole new group of fans with ideas about her character.
“The fans are incredibly invested,” she says. “There are a lot of people with very specific ideas of who they want to see with Steve (aka. Captain America) and sometimes Sharon is not that person. I certainly hear about that. You have to admire how invested people are, whether they’re on your side or not. You have to respect it. I just have to do the best job I can do as Sharon and create the best version of the character and not take some of it personally. You hope, for the most part, the fans are happy.”
The 29-year-old actress began performing in dance class when she was just three years old.
“There were a lot of us in my family so it was a way to tire us out,” she laughs. “It was an outlet to run around which then turned into more serious dance training.”
Those lessons came in handy while shooting one of Civil War’s wild fight scenes. “Dancing teaches you to be connected with your body,” she says.
“We had to shoot the scene in Civil War where Sharon and Black Widow take on Bucky, quite fast. We didn’t practice it. They were running behind that day and they shot the reaction to getting slammed on the table the next morning but all of the fight stuff was in an hour-and-a-half. I don’t think I would have been able to do that unless I had some formal training in dance.”
