This martial arts movie kicks butt

 I can't say I've been eagerly hoping for another martial arts movie. After a string of John Wick movies, I thought I'd had enough. It didn't take long, though, for me to get caught up in the preposterously exaggerated action of The Furious, a movie that begins by telling us that it's set "somewhere in South East Asia." That may sound generic, but so what? The precise location doesn't matter because The Furious isn’t about geography, it’s about punch-and-kick action. A threadbare plot -- children are kidnapped and trafficked by sneering villains -- becomes a launch pad for what amounts to a nonstop helping of fighting. Director Kenji Tanigaki, who did some of the design work for John Wick: Chapter 4, has a field day as he follows Wang Wei (Xie Miao), a mute handyman who tries to rescue his kidnapped daughter. Eventually, Wang Wei teams with Navin (Joe Taslim), a husband who's investigating the disappearance of his wife, a journalist who tried to expose the kidnappers. Marked by inventive fight choreography, and outsized villains, The Furious offers an opportunity to delight in the ways that Tanigaki ups the ante with each successive fight.  For the record, Xie, who appeared in Jet Li movies as a child, practices Wushu style martial arts. Taslim focuses on Judo and once belonged to the Indonesian National Judo Team. OK, those aren't Actors Studio credentials, but both of these stars are masters of the art of acrobatic showmanship the movie boldly displays. Ouch!

Aliens visit Spielberg again

 

 In a recent interview, Steven Spielberg said that if anyone deserves to have a close encounter with aliens, it’s him. Who, after all, has done more to prompt interest in extraterrestrial visitors with big-screen movies that lend a magical aura to the notion that Earth already has hosted interplanetary guests? For me, Close Encounters of the Third Kind leads Spielberg's alien-picture pack.

    But Spielberg is not a philosopher or, as far as I know, a geek who’s in love with astrophysics; he’s an entertainer and storyteller who operates in the old Hollywood tradition, using his considerable prowess to serve up gripping narratives that have mass appeal. At his best, Spielberg delivers pop-cultural implants that can buoy fatigued spirits.

    This brings us to Disclosure Day, Spielberg’s latest foray into alien visitation, this one brimming with a message that aliens — seen but not freshly imagined — are healers who come to Earth to spread a conciliatory message.    

    The movie tells us that the human capacity for empathy has more to do with evolutionary progress than brute force. We've forgotten how to listen to one another, to feel one another's sorrows. Precisely why alien life forms would want to offer their help to beleaguered earthlings remains unclear.

   There’s little point in arguing against Spielberg’s case, advanced with obviousness in David Koepp's screenplay. But Disclosure Day is more than a lecture; it's a scattered collection of intrigue-laden bits that sing a familiar song: A corporate/military cabal tries to stifle individuals who want to spread the truth about alien visitations. They've been happening since the last century and maybe even before that  -- or so the movie says.

     It’s instructive to note that I’m writing more about Spielberg than about the characters in Disclosure Day. That may be because, aside from Emily Blunt’s portrayal of an aspiring TV journalist who feels stuck in a weather person’s job — the characters tend to be the kind of archetypal figures a schematic story needs.

    The list includes the scowling corporate boss (Colin Firth) of Wardex, the company that insists humanity must be protected from knowledge of alien visitors lest chaos erupt. Math whiz Danny (Josh O’Connor) defects from 

Wardex, having realized that knowledge about aliens belongs to everyone.

    Tag-along characters include Danny's girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson), a former novitiate who left convent life. Jane thinks Danny must be stopped because the truth might undermine faith in God, thus rendering life meaningless for believers. Jane conveniently presents an opportunity for Spielberg to accomplish a feat that has eluded others; the melding of science and faith.

     Faith puts man in the center of God’s gaze on Earth, but who’s to say that that gaze isn’t wider than the faithful presume? Put another way, maybe God made ET, too.

    The faults in Disclosure Day are not with the film’s making, but with a screenplay that’s bound to ideas expressed with a heavy hand and which tamp down the movie's sense of mystery. 

    Sometimes, the film seems to rehash familiar Spielberg tropes. Blunt’s Margaret and O’Connor’s Daniel are deeply influenced by signature events from their youths, childhood in Margaret’s case. They've been touched (or perhaps selected) by aliens as possible carriers of the messages. Both Danny and Margaret are being driven by forces they don't understand, but which they feel compelled to follow, shades of the character Richard Dreyfuss played in Close Encounters.

     Early in Margaret’s hectic Kansas City life as a weather forecaster, a cardinal flies through the window of the loft she shares with her partner (Wyatt Russell ). Margaret’s capabilities are transformed. She can speak languages she never studied. Equally important, she can enter the minds of strangers, grasping their feelings with uncanny accuracy. 

   A scene in which Margaret applies her new skills when pulled over by a cop brilliantly brings the matter to life. Delivering dialogue at breakneck speed, Blunt makes the whole business credible. Margaret's abilities go public during a TV broadcast in which she begins speaking in strange clicks. Her colleagues think she's lost it. We take it as a sign that she’s channeling an alien language. 

    The movie’s design features a hand-held alien device Wardex has snagged; it allows people to appear in different places at the same time and to penetrate and manipulate others. Never mind how it works; it also can turn on power when generators are shut down, a universal remote of sorts.

    The dangers of unwanted intrusions are obvious, which partly explains why Wardex renegade Hugo (Colman Domingo) has organized a clandestine opposition to the company and why Danny made off with evidence of horrible abuse of aliens and other solid proofs that of earthly alien existence. Humanity has been deceived.

      Hugo and his team even reconstruct Margaret's childhood home so that she can reconnect with a signature event in her childhood, cloaking the whole business with a bit of pop psychology, something about returning home before being able to move forward.

     Spielberg’s magic touch can be felt sporadically, but too much of Disclosure Day functions as a sci-fi procedural that espouses lofty ideas about how humanity might save itself from conflict, one of which simmers in the background as tensions between the US and Russia mount.

     Don't get the wrong impression. Disclosure is far from awful. It's just not up to Spielberg's best. Spielberg’s undeniable skills are well displayed. Blunt’s performance has a distinctive edge. And, if nothing else, skeptics can giggle quietly, if by the end, they haven't been convinced to take the whole business seriously.

      So, yes, greatness eludes Disclosure, and for all its supposed weighty themes, the best thing about it involves a mismatched battle between a red car and a speeding train. We're talking down-to-earth action that makes the pulse pound in ways the movie's headier aspects don't. Spielberg’s skill at concocting this action wowed me more than the movie's benevolent aliens.

Bob's Cinema Diary: 'Unidentified' and 'The Currents'

Two new movies deal with women struggling on their own -- albeit with very different issues. The Saudi movie Unidentified focuses on Noelle, a woman who lost a child shortly after its birth, a tragedy that colors everything that follows. Made in Argentina, The Currents takes us into a middle-class milieu where a fashion designer's life seems to be coming apart at the seams. Both movies are deliberately paced, but each illuminates the life of a woman trying to cope (or not) with very different social circumstances.

Unidentified

In Unidentified, Saudi director Haifaa al-Mansour (Wadjda) follows a newly divorced woman (Mila Al-Zahrani) as she searches for the killer of a young woman who, early in the movie, turns up dead. A fan of crime podcasts, Al-Zahrani's Noelle feels wronged by her ex-husband, who -- after the loss of their child shortly after its birth -- declared his intention to take a second wife. Presenting herself as a seeker of justice, Noelle drives and owns a car, a bit of business we take for granted but couldn't have been part of a Saudi movie before 2018, the year Saudi women were first allowed to obtain driver's licenses. Defying the men who run the police station, Noelle begins to function like a detective. Her search eventually brings her into contact with the victim's mother (Fatima Alsharif), a well-heeled woman who's unwilling to identify her daughter's body lest her family be humiliated. The young woman might have been on her way to a meet a man, a taboo in this patriarchal setting. The movie plods here and there, but as a peek into the way Saudi society deals with gender, Unidentified proves eye-opening. Don't be misled, though. Al-Mansour doesn't preach; her film qualifies as a low-key thriller that includes the kind of bracing twists, you probably won't see coming.

The Currents

Alienation isn't easy to film, but director Milagros Mumenthaler brings a high-level of artistry to the task in The Currents, a movie about a fashion designer (Isabel Aime Gonzalez-Sola) who -- early on -- attempts to commit suicide in Switzerland, where she's traveled to receive an award. A wife and mother, Gonzalez-Sola's Lina returns to Argentina but can't seem to re-connect with her husband (Esteban Bigliardi) and her five-year-old daughter (Emma Fayo Duarte). Lina, who never seems present in her life, becomes the elusive centerpiece of a movie that relies heavily on Gonzalez-Sola's ability to convey the ambiguity of Lina's detachment. The Currents might have been titled Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and Mumenthaler's sly splashes of color reminded me of Pedro Almodovar's work. So what's up with Lina? We don't really know, and Mumenthaler keeps it that way, avoiding a single explanation for the way in which Lina floats through her life. There's much to be gleaned from The Currents, which slowly discloses bits of backstory, including a late-picture introduction to Lina's eccentric mother. But don't expect a big reveal. Some will find Mumenthaler's slowly paced movie trying, but a character who may not fully understand her inner life is made intriguing by a director whose imagery can reflect the deep and mysterious richness of lived moments. 

Rock stardom on a shaky foundation

  Irish director John Carney has created a filmography rooted in his love for music. Carney's first hit, Once, reached screens in 2007 with a story about two unlikely partners who made music together. Carney, who followed with other films that fit his mold, now delivers Power Ballad, which feels familiar but dips its toe into the world of rock stardom.

   Paul Rudd plays Rick Powers, a once rising rock star who settled in Ireland, married Rachel (Marcella Plunkett), and raised a daughter (Beth Fallon) who's now a teenager. 

    As his dreams of stardom faded, Rick supported himself as a singer and guitarist with Bride and Groove, a band that specializes in wedding parties. Bride and Grove works from a popular hit list, doing energetic covers of songs meant to keep a dance floor hopping.

     On one such gig, Rick meets Danny Wilson (Nick Jonas), a young singer who made it big with a boy band and who's trying to launch a solo career. Danny  happens to be a guest at the wedding, and Rick and Danny spend a post-party evening jamming and talking about writing songs. Rick shares one of his songs, How to Write a Song Without You.

     The movie then leaps ahead. Danny has returned to the US, where his agent (Jack Reynor) informs him that only a breakthrough tune will establish his independence and maintain the standard of living he achieved as a boy-band phenom.

     Danny writes a bridge to How to Write a Song and steals the rest. Before you can say, "Of course it's a major hit," the song becomes a major hit, and Danny regains his stardom.

     When Rick discovers that his tune has become popular, he tumbles into a mixture of depression, self-loathing, and, yes, satisfaction -- at last, one of his tunes has connected with a large audience.

    Power Ballad expands on Rudd's affable persona, allowing Rudd to turn Rick into a manic guy who's obsessed with getting his due. Rick even enlists a bandmate (Paul Reid) to travel to the US to confront Danny. Mostly, Rick wants Danny to confirm that he stole  the song. Rick has no proof of authorship, and no one believes his claim.

    Too formula-averse to turn Rick into an unalloyed hero, Carney also refuses to turn the undeniably talented Danny into a pop-star jerk. Self-doubt undermines Rick's quest for recognition, and Danny wrestles with his conscience. Should he explain what happened and get on with it? His manager dissuades him.

     The long-awaited face-off between Rick and Danny takes place in a hot tub at one of Danny's LA parties, an over-the-top crescendo that feels silly and strained.

      Of course, there's plenty of music and a near-overexposure of the film's signature tune. Carney's at his best when the film operates in the minor key of the wedding band, a group that, aside from Rick, has accepted its role as a party band.   

      Carney also makes sure to acknowledge his respect for  people who make music regardless of their circumstances. A street musician, seen a couple of times, underscores the idea that music belongs to everyone.       

       Building toward a crowd-pleasing coda, Power Ballad qualifies as an anomaly, an upbeat drama about the downside of dreams, as well as an ode to the power of song. Rudd does his own singing, and Jonas, a member of the Jonas Brothers, a pop-rock band that split up in 2013 and reunited six years later, knows this turf.

       Whatever the movie's weaknesses, one thing remains clear: Carney still fuels his work with an infectious love for music and the people who make it.