Bob's Cinema Diary: April 12, 2024 -- 'Arcadian' and 'Damaged'

 Arcadian

Nicolas Cage headlines  Arcadian but the character he plays spends much of the movie off-screen and unconscious. Cage plays Paul, a father who flees an unspecified apocalypse with his two infant sons. The movie quickly leaps ahead to show how Paul and his now teenage sons (Jaeden Martell and Maxwell Jenkins) survive an onslaught of buggy monsters who seem to attack mostly at night. After an injury leaves Paul in a near comatose state, the kids take over. Sandwiched  between post-apocalyptic survivalist drama and straightforward horror, Arcadian benefits from the naturalistic performances of its young cast. Paul's sons are joined by Charlotte (Sadie Soverall), a girl from another outpost. She and Jenkins' Tommy try to be typical teenagers even as a hellish catastrophe unfolds. Director Ben Brewer skimps on explanations and shortchanges the initial potential of what might have been a more developed story about a stern but loving father trying to save his sons. In short, a movie whose narrative insufficiencies limit its chances for success.

Damaged

Director Terry McDonough tries his hand at a hardboiled serial killer movie that transports a Chicago detective (Samuel L. Jackson) to Scotland. Jackson's Dan Lawson, an alcoholic cop who still has some detective chops, has a reputation for investigating serial killings and for overstaying his welcome on the force. Acting as a consultant, Lawson teams with Scottish policeman Glen Boyd (Gianni Capaldi) in the hunt for a killer who dismembers his female victims as part of what appear to be perverted religious beliefs. The movie receives a substantial boost when Vincent Cassel shows up. Cassel plays Lawson's former Chicago partner, a French-born detective who left police work, moved to England, and still retains a bit of charm. An international flavor doesn't enhance a grisly tale, and the actors are limited by a screenplay that places them in too many improbable scenarios to keep the movie from misfiring.

'Argylle': a spoofy but hollow spy game

 

   The screen bursts with activity in the unashamedly silly Argylle, but too little of it matters.

   Known for his work on the Kingsman franchise, director Matthew Vaughn lifts tongue into cheek for a multi-layered espionage spoof that casts Bryce Dallas Howard as Elly Conway, a successful spy novelist who gets caught up in the real thing. 

   The title stems from one of Conway's characters, a  debonaire agent known as Argylle (Henry Cavill) who squares off against an evil consortium known as The Division.

  Conway's pet cat Alfie accompanies her everywhere, peering out from a plastic window in her backpack. And, yes, the cat -- or some CGI version of it -- eventually figures in the story.

   Vaughn jams the movie with names and faces, offering cameos from Dua Lipa, Ariana DeBose, John Cena, and Samuel L. Jackson. Jackson spends much of his screen time watching an NBA game. Aside from a punchy  opening scene, the others seem inconsequential.

    Vaughn includes extended work from Sam Rockwell, as Aidan, a real spy who meets Elly and, in the film's early stages, emerges as her protector. 

     Bryan Cranston turns up as the head of The Division and Catherine O'Hara plays Elly's Mom. 

     Most of the characters have dual identities, a ploy that mostly serves to muddy the already murky waters. Know, though, that Elly sometimes watches real-world characters morph into her fictional creations, blurring lines in a way that's not particularly confusing but becomes repetitive.

      Jason Fuchs's screenplay includes a few clever touches and a bit of amusement. Vaughn goes for broke when he turns a major fight sequence into a dance number shrouded in clouds of red smoke. In another fight, he makes clever use of an oil slick.

       And, yes, there's a big plot twist. And, no, it probably won't knock you out of your seat.

       Neither does Argylle, which feels like an evocation of similar movies -- some directed by Vaughn.  Little more than a helping of CGI-fueled cinematic play, Argylle  overstays its welcome at a length of two hours and 19 minutes.

       But play isn't enough to save the day -- or a movie that doesn't seem to have much else on its mind.

   

Maggie Q kicks butt; her movie -- less so

 

Maggie Q kicks a ton butt in The Protege, a thriller that can't quite decide whether it wants to leap into John Wick territory or play things straight. It winds up doing a bit of both -- albeit with uneven results. Q proves convincing as Anna, a woman plucked as a child from Vietnam in the late 90s and trained to be an assassin by Moody Dutton (Samuel L. Jackson), a guy who knows the killer's trade all too well and who recognizes young Anna's talent for the job. Director Martin Campbell tries to light some May/December sparks (tempered by plenty of nasty battling) when Michael Keaton shows up as Rembrandt, a man with his own killer chops and a sense that he's smarter than every other character in the movie. Rembrandt works for a rich white guy who has devoted his life to exploitative capitalism in Vietnam. Campbell stages plenty of action with violence levels that become increasingly outlandish as the movie makes its way from London to the British countryside and, finally, back to Vietnam. There, Robert Patrick turns up as a motorcycle-riding rogue who leads a band of scruffy associates. The actors seem fully committed to the screenplay's silliness, even in a scene that strains for humor when Q's Anna and Rembrandt, reach under a table and point pistols at each other's genitals. In her non-lethal life, Anna operates a bookstore specializing in rare volumes. She also drinks martinis. Remind you of anyone else? Like many such movies, The Protege requires a more than generous suspension of disbelief and never rises to the top of its kick-and-kill class. But it moves quickly, boasts a watchable cast, and features a performance by Q that doesn’t miss a beat, even when the movie tries to claim a bit of ethical high ground by telling us that Anna never kills anyone who doesn't deserve elimination. Nice of her, no?   

Chris Rock tries to revive the “Saw” franchise

 

   Someday, Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson may again find themselves in the same movie. Spiral: From the Book of Saw hints at what that movie might be, a story full of cutting banter and shrewd observation. But hints is all we get from Spiral, the ninth movie in the proudly revolting Saw franchise. 

   Spiral has the look and feel of  typically gritty police drama. But the movie's bloody acorn doesn't fall far enough from the Saw tree to refresh a series that has become a genre unto itself.

    Rock portrays detective Zeke Banks, a cop scorned by other cops because he once turned in his dirty-cop partner. 

    Jackson portrays Marcus, Zeke's father and a highly regarded former police chief. 

    Early on, a reluctant Zeke is assigned to work with a rookie partner (Max Minghella). Zeke's annoyance with Minghella's character isn't personal. As a victim of abuse from his fellow officers, Zeke doesn't want to work with anyone.

    The movie introduces another sadistic villain (unseen for most of the movie), a psychopath who specializes in torturing and murdering cops who've indulged their baser impulses.

    True to its Saw heritage, the movie creates sequences that are difficult to watch without wincing or turning away entirely. The villain creates elaborate devices that inflict horrifying forms of pain.

    The murderer gives his targets a chance to save themselves. A cop who routinely lied can trigger a mechanism that will cut out his tongue. Should he decline, the terrified officer will be smashed to a bloody pulp by an oncoming subway train.

   Amazing how in Spiral, murderous devices always seem to work. No short circuits. No design failures --- and no  relation to the mechanical woes most of us occasionally encounter.

    As Capt. Angie Garza, a cop who still believes in Zeke, Marisol Nichols scores one of the few significant female roles.

    Director Darren Lynn Bousman, who directed three previous Saw movies, creates a convincing cop atmosphere -- at least as we know it from other amped-up movies. But at a time when police behavior has garnered more than the usual attention, Spiral  doesn't exactly further the conversation.

    Unapologetically committed to his portrayal and to genre demands,  Rock again shows that he doesn't need to be confined to comedy. In Spiral, though, he can’t escape the downward pull of two worn-out genres: pulpy police procedurals and gag-inducing horror.

     

Two black men outsmart a racist system

Anthony Mackie and Samuel L. Jackson play men who learned how to play a rigged game and win -- at least for a while..

Toward the end of The Banker, Joe Morris — a streetwise nightclub owner played by Samuel L. Jackson — explains why he has joined forces with brainy Bernard Garrett, Jr. (Anthony Mackie) in a plan to circumvent race restrictions and get rich in real estate.

“The game is fun, even when it’s rigged,” says Joe.

When The Banker, which is based on a true story, sticks to Joe's idea, it’s both informative and entertaining. Both Jackson and Mackie are in fine form as very different men who become partners out of necessity. As a black man, Mackie’s Garrett can’t raise sufficient money to enter the real estate game in Los Angeles during the 1950s. Thwarted by the financial establishment, Garrett turns to Morris for financing.

Although he claims to trust no one, Morris becomes involved. He believes in Garrett’s confidence and in his demonstrated ability to master the mathematics required to succeed in real estate.

The movie acquires additional social meaning when Garrett devises a plan to break the color barrier. He’ll school a white laborer (Nicholas Hoult) in how to play the part of a wealthy entrepreneur. Hoult’s Matt Steiner becomes a student with two teachers. Garrett tries to bring him up to speed in math; Morris teaches him how to play golf so that he can associate with the country-club crowd.

Steiner will play a role similar to a ventriloquist's dummy while an unseen Garrett pulls the strings. Garrett and Morris will own everything; Steiner will be an employee.

As the story develops, Garrett also uses his success to engage his social conscience. He rents and sells homes to black buyers in formerly white neighborhoods. He knows that a burgeoning black market can make his plans work.

All goes well until Garrett decides to buy a bank in the highly segregated Texas town where he grew up. Again using Steiner as a front, Garrett purchases the Mainland Bank and begins loaning money to aspiring black businessmen — on the QT, of course. A wary Morris reluctantly goes along.

Every story needs an arc, so we’re pretty sure that Garrett and Morris will hit some major snags, most relating to Texas-style racism. The town's white population would be appalled if they learned that two black men owned the town's bank. How long can Garrett and Morris remain invisible?

Morris proves himself a master of wily pragmatism, posing as Steiner’s chauffeur so that he can keep on eye on his charge. At one point, Garrett’s devoted wife (Nia Long) poses as a cleaning woman so she can observe Steiner, who eventually begins to confuse his faux prowess with the real thing.

Without Garrett's genius, Steiner's bound to mess things up.

Strongest as a commentary on how entrenched racism kept blacks from accumulating wealth, The Banker, director George Nolfi eventually allows the story to bog down in the details of deals that led to Garrett and Morris's undermining. They eventually did jail time.

But Mackie and Jackson never are anything less than convincing as a savvy odd-couple that wouldn't take "no" for an answer. The key: If the front door is locked, look for another way in.

Of course, the overall point trumps the movie's slyer observations: The doors to success never should have been locked in the first place. Or as Joe might have put it: The game shouldn't have been rigged in ways that worked against the smart, well-prepared Garrett from achieving his goals.

Spider-Man takes a European vacation

Can Peter Parker grow beyond his Queens neighborhood? Far From Home answers the question in passable fashion.

Whatever emotional kick you’ll find in Spider-Man: Far From Home comes from Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man. Don't get me wrong. Downey’s character isn't present. But Iron Man’s absence adds poignancy to a story in which 16-year-old Peter Parker wonders whether he’s capable of filling Iron Man’s shoes.

Riding the emotional wave that Marvel set off in Avengers: End Game, Spider-Man: Far From Home turns out to be a serviceable entry into the Marvel repertoire: a collection of less-than-impressively realized action, a surfeit of good-natured humor, and an appealing young cast headed by stand-out Tom Holland as Spider-Man.

This edition takes Spider-Man abroad. Peter Parker (Holland) joins his high-school class on a trip to Europe. Stops include Venice, Prague, and London as the story hop-scotches across cities that are threatened with destruction by creatures called Elementals: i.e., earth, water, and fire monsters that wreak havoc. Can any Marvel movie be considered complete without reducing some part of a major city to rubble?

In this edition, Spider-Man's classmates graduate to slightly larger roles. Zendaya portrays MJ, the girl who has stolen Peter Parker’s heart. Jacob Batalon plays Ned, Peter's best friend, a nerdy kid who this times winds up with a girlfriend (Angourie Rice).

Marisa Tomei returns as Aunt May; Jon Favreau appears as Happy, Tony Stark's former bodyguard and chauffeur; and Samuel L. Jackson, looking less than enthusiastic, reprises his role as Nick Fury, the head of the outfit that runs the Avengers.

Added to the mix is Mysterio, a superhero portrayed by Jake Gyllenhaal. Mysterio wears a helmet that looks like a some dropped a fishbowl on his head; he also has an alter ego. Out of uniform, he's Quentin Beck.

Super-sensitive about spoilers, Columbia Pictures has encouraged critics not to ruin the movie’s surprises. I won’t say more, except to note that not all of them have the hoped-for kick.

Holland works hard to be the energetic and conflicted, the not entirely mature Spider-Man that we’ve come to expect, and, yes, his naïveté and sincerity prove engaging.

All in all, this edition of Spider-Man is not only far from home, but it’s also far from being a disaster. Far From Home unfolds without giving offense or ascending into the upper ranks of Marvel's unending list of movies. Put another way: Far From Home passes muster.

But, know this, as well, Far From Home hardly lays a glove on the much more imaginative, Oscar-winning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, 2019’s Oscar winner for best-animated feature.

The Shaft family adds another generation

The new version of Shaft can be funny and brash, but it's also scattered and its unashamed political incorrectness can be grating.

One of them is hopelessly old school. That means he’s homophobic and misogynistic. He has built a reputation on the streets with his fists, his guns and a take-no-prisoners attitude.

The other is a millennial, an MIT graduate who works in data analysis at the FBI. He’s brainy and culturally adept, comfortable with the social fluidity of a multicultural world.

The gimmick: Both are named Shaft. They're father and son.

John Shaft, you’ll recall is the iconic black detective who emerged in the 1970s as part of the Blaxploitation wave that kept turnstiles spinning. In director Tim Story's new version of Shaft, the youngest Shaft (Jessie Usher) hasn't seen his rogue father in years.

The twist: The son must turn to his street-wise dad for help in discovering who murdered his best friend, a Muslim veteran (Avan Jogia) who seemed to be getting his life together after going through a difficult time with drugs.

I’m not sure what Story had in mind with this new version of Shaft, which checks so many boxes you might call it with a multiple choice movie. It’s a buddy comedy (albeit between father and son), an action thriller with a plot that’s so disposable you don’t really need to follow it, a generational comedy in which a son continually taps the breaks on his father’s out-dated, politically incorrect views on women and gays, as well as a movie that features high-caliber weapons taking out what can seem like hordes of bad guys.

Samuel L. Jackson portrays Shaft, as he did in director John Singleton’s 2004 entry into the Shaft series. The role, of course, dates back to the 1971 original and a variety of sequels starring Richard Roundtree, who makes a movie-stealing appearance late in this edition.

To reiterate: Jackson's Shaft is the son of Roundtree's Shaft and the father of Usher's Shaft. Got it?

Here’s something to consider. Jackson is 70. Roundtree is 76. The movie tells us Jackson’s Shaft is 60. Even at that, the math doesn’t quite work. Oh well, looking for realism in this version of Shaft is about as useful as thinking you’re going to get through the movie without a substantial quotient of MF expletives. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you have no business seeing the movie anyway.

Jackson has played variations of this character before; his performance not only reprises his previous work as Shaft but includes echoes of Jules, the hitman he played in Pulp Fiction.

All of this results in a hit-and-miss affair, a movie that's probably best seen with a large audience that’s willing to get raucous — roughly in the way the ‘70s movies were received.

Story tries to evoke ‘70s nostalgia with Shaft’s throwback attitudes, with a score that makes ample use of the Isaac Hayes' theme from the original and with an immersion in the mean streets of Harlem -- not to mention the suede dusters you see all three characters wearing in the movie's sequel-promising final shot.

Usher makes a fine foil for Jackson, slowly emerging as something less than the guy his father accuses him of being. Jokes about whether Usher's JJ can be called a "real" man embody the movie’s conflicted spirit. Yes, some of these jokes can be taken as insulting and even homophobic. I guess they're supposed to explain how an out-of-touch father tries to taunt a son who grew up with his mother and who's fluent in the language of the 21st century.

So can these two men find a single page on which both can thrive — and, oh yeah, solve the mystery at the movie’s core?

You already know the answer. Turns out that Shaft the Younger is skilled with guns and well-trained in a Brazilian form of martial arts and both men are capable of laying out their enemies without feeling an iota of compunction about taking human lives.

Women in Shaft basically serve the plot. Mom (Regina Hall) isn’t around for much of the movie; young shaft’s love interest (Alexandra Shipp) has a bit more to do. But when they do appear, these women have no trouble establishing their presence, claiming equal footing with the male characters.

Did I laugh at some of the comedy? Yes. Did I find the violence excessive and not stylish enough to turn into something that could be appreciated purely on cinematic terms, as we might in a John Wick movie? Yes to that, as well. Were the jokes about gays a bit repetitive? Yes, again. Did the movie get better when Roundtree finally makes his appearance? Another yes. Was there at least one piece of action that caught me by surprise. Well, there would have been had I not already seen it in the movie's trailer.

So where do I stand on Shaft?

The whole movie may be too preposterous to take offense; remember Story also directed two Ride Along movies. But know this as well, there’s no character here who’s likely to attain the iconic status of the original Shaft. That movie was tightly wedded to its time. This one is less of its time than it is a spawn of dozens of other movies. As I said at the outset, a box checker.

How much you enjoy it depends on how many of those boxes you're able to check.

A less-than-marvelous ‘Captain Marvel’

Marvel's female superhero tries to work her way out of a frenzied movie.

Brie Larson is up to the task of playing Captain Marvel, a welcome female entry into Marvel Comics’ galaxy of superheroes. But -- and this is a major "but" -- the rest of Captain Marvel is a scattered, frenetic effort that jams action and backstory together without a great deal of finesse.

Even the movie's attempts at humor -- which arrive in the form of retro flashes from the 1990s -- tally only mixed results when it comes to brightening the proceedings.

One never entirely knows the reasons a movie goes wrong, but judging from a preview screening of Captain Marvel, I'd speculate that this effects-laden helping of Marvel mania was co-directed by a couple of filmmakers (Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck) whose indie cred from movies such as Half Nelson and Sugar didn't easily transfer to a major studio production.

Summarizing the plot poses a challenge for reviewers because any such attempt must be extracted from the bric-a-brac that sometimes feels tossed at the screen. Larson portrays a former US fighter pilot who will -- over the course of this origins story -- emerge as Captain Marvel, a hybrid of human and Kree (i.e., alien) biochemistry.

Jude Law portrays Yon-Rogg, a Kree who tries to teach Larson's character how to harness energy that she fires in undisciplined bursts from her fists.

There's conflict, of course. The Kree, it seems, are battling the Skrull, a rubber-faced collection of aliens who travel to Earth under the guidance of Talos, a heavily disguised Ben Mendelsohn who brings a bit of winking humor and happily jaded line readings to his role. I say "winking," although I'm not sure the heavy make-up allows much by way of facial movement.

As the plot leaps from battle-to-battle, Larson's character also lands in the U.S. where she picks up an ally, Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury, a familiar figure from the Avengers movies. Larson's Carol Danvers also reunites with her former best friend, another fighter pilot played by Lashana Lynch. A single mom, Lynch's Maria Rambeau has a daughter (Akira Akbar) who, at a crucial point in the plot, cheers Carol on.

Carol, who reaches Earth during the mid-90s, has lost any memory of having spent time on beleaguered earthly soil before awakening on the planet where the Kree hang out. Eventually, we'll learn how she got from to the good old USA to the home of the Kree, but the question doesn't exactly compel intrigue.

Minor pleasures arise. It’s of some interest to discover more about Jackson's Nick Fury, who in this edition displays a tight cap of hair. Annette Bening turns up as a character called Supreme Intelligence. I'll pass on any attempt at a joke. Too easy.

One of the movie's problems involves the abrupt way it handles its back story, introducing Carol's past in intermittent flashbacks that can prove as disorienting as they are revealing.

As is the case with many comic book extravaganzas, the movie leans heavily on effects -- albeit, in this instance, with the approximate elegance of a drunk seeking support from a lamp post. Many of the effects seem to involve flashing bolts of energy. At various times, the characters chase a device known as the "energy core,'' which is hidden in a lunchbox boasting a picture of the Fonz from the Happy Days era.

This energy core emits great power; perhaps it's responsible for discombobulating the story and keeping the movie's action sequences from cohering in any way that might be called thrilling.

Captain Marvel tries to zip and zap its way into the pop-cultural canon dropping jokey references to such bygone stalwarts as Blockbuster stores along the way. Some, I suppose, will enjoy the frenzy, but for me, the point turns out to be inadvertent: Incessant movement doesn't necessarily get you anywhere.

'Glass' sounds a weak final chord

James McAvoy still stands out, but director M. Night Shyamalan brings his trilogy to a tepid close.

Director M. Night Shyamalan's superheroes arrived on screen without the cache of Marvel or DC Comics branding. No comic books made Shyamalan's characters familiar to legions of young people. In Unbreakable (2000) and Split (2016) -- the first two parts of Shyamalan's trilogy of superhero films -- Shyamalan tried to stake out his own territory.

I have friends who admire Unbreakable, a movie that I was happy to forget. I was more inclined toward Split, which featured a bravura performance by James McAvoy as a disturbed young man with 23 personalities. A 24th loomed in the person of The Beast, a superhuman killer who terrorized young women.

Before Split, Unbreakable brought two main characters to the fore: Bruce Willis portrayed David Dunn, a former football player turned security guard who discovered that he had amazing survival powers because his bones couldn't be broken. Samuel L. Jackson played Mr. Glass, an evil genius who was Dunn's opposite: Glass -- a.k.a. Elijah Price -- was born with bones that shattered easily. Ergo, Mr. Glass.

Now comes Shyamalan's attempt to bring these three characters together for a finale. Before it reaches its dreary conclusion, Glass proves downbeat and lumbering with Shyamalan vainly and (misguidedly) trying for some last-minute inspiration. Glass stands as a big-screen fizzle rather than what it should have been: a resonant symphonic chord at the end of a pop-cultural symphony.

Willis's Dunn -- a.k.a. The Overseer -- returns to stalk Philadelphia's streets with the help of his now-grown son (Spencer Treat Clark). Dunn dons a hooded rain parka when he's serving as a vigilante for good. Early on, he finds himself battling with The Beast, the most horrific member of The Horde, the name given to McAvoy's character's collection of personalities.

As those who've seen Split already know, McAvoy's Keven Wendell Crumb captures young women and torments them, turning them into an audience for a dazzling display of his multitude of personalities. He also does what some entertainers might occasionally fantasize about doing to their audiences: He kills them.

In Glass, McAvoy remains the liveliest member of the trio. Jackson's Mr. Glass spends much of the movie in a state of drug-induced stupor and Willis presents a grizzled version of a character whose economy of expression suggests an abiding depression.

Putting the three characters together inevitably reduces McAvoy's screen time, which doesn't help dispel the movie's gloomy inertia.

Credit Jackson with delivering the movie's twisted philosophy with an eloquence that makes you wish he didn't have to spend half the movie slumping in a wheelchair and not speaking.

The screenplay more or less succumbs when it contrives to place the three characters in a mental institution that's being run by Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson), a psychiatrist who insists that she wants to save these misfits by convincing them that they're not superbeings but ordinary folks operating under grand delusions.

A couple of other actors reprise roles from earlier movies. In some very bad make-up, Charlayne Woodard plays Glass's mother. Anya Taylor-Joy reappears as the only young woman to have survived The Beast's murderous ways, although she seems to have forgotten that several of her friends didn't. Casey now believes she can speak to the real -- i.e., normal -- person behind all those Horde personalities, which include the conniving Patricia and fan-favorite, nine-year-old Hedwig.

You can get the general idea of what's going on without having seen either of the two previous movies, but the story will be clearer to those who understand its references and who recall prior plotting. Besides, I can't imagine why anyone who isn't a fan of the first two movies would want to see this one.

Glass can be faulted for many sins, some of them forgivable, dullness being the only one that really condemns it, a kind of torpor perhaps bred by all the gloomy atmosphere.

The movie doesn't end the way most superhero movies do. Even so, the odor of musty irrelevance settles over the whole enterprise. If you see Glass, I advise not thinking too much about what Shyamalan might be trying to say. I wonder if he knew.

The bicker, they kill. That's the movie

Medicore Hitman's Bodyguard breaks little new ground.

In The Hitman's Bodyguard, bickering buddies shoot lots of people amid a flood of explosions, car chases and other forms of visual mayhem. There's also ample use of the "MF" word and a mounting pile of action sequences that have been edited to create a feeling of maximum frenzy.

The buddies in question are played by Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson, two stars who have branded their big-screen personalities to the point where it's almost impossible for either of them to do anything unexpected.

Reynolds can be smart in the glib way of characters created by snark-capable writers. Jackson does variations on the savvy, profanity-spewing killer who eventually reveals a moral foundation for his seemingly reprehensible actions.

Watching Reynolds and Jackson go through their standard motions provides most of the pleasure in The Hitman's Bodyguard, an action comedy that tries to blast its way through the brick wall of late summer indifference.

The title pretty much tells the story. Reynolds portrays Michael Bryce, a bodyguard whose A-list career shatters when he fails to protect an important client from assassination. Reduced to second-rate protection jobs, Michael basically hangs around waiting for the plot to arrive.

The story kicks in when Jackson's Darius Kincaid turns up. Imprisoned for being a hitman with hundreds of kills, the notorious Kincaid makes a bargain with Interpol. If he testifies against a vicious Belorussian dictator (Gary Oldman), the authorities will release Kinkaid's equally lethal wife (Salma Hayek) from the Amsterdam prison where she's being detained.

At various points throughout, Hayek's Sonia is seen terrorizing her cellmate, exposing her cleavage, and trying to make up for limited screen time by contributing her own carload of profanity to the movie's "R" rating.

Elodie Yung plays Amelia Roussel, an Interpol agent, and Michael's former lover. She promises to help Michael regain his status as a high-priced bodyguard if he'll agree to escort Kincaid from prison to the Hague, where Oldman's character awaits trial for crimes against humanity.

You don't need to be a genius to know that the trip will leave many bodies strewn in its violent wake or that credibility takes an early hit.

After taking a bullet in his knee, Kincaid limps through action sequence after action sequence with the movie stopping for occasional flashbacks to explain how Kincaid met Hayak's character or how Michael developed a relationship with Yung's character.

Director Patrick Hughes (The Expendables 3) seems to buy into to the theory that all action should be edited into fragmented shards, and the incessant banter between Reynolds and Jackson provides little that would make Oscar Wilde envious.

There's not much else to say about this formula job, which never rises above genre mediocrity, but may satisfy those who find this sort of rampant destruction appealing.

For Kong, it's tough being king

Kong: Skull Island introduces many monstrous sights. It's fun, even if the movie ultimately exhausts itself.

Some movies live in a world beyond ordinary standards, so much so that they liberate us from the need to parse or pick at what we were watching. Kong: Skull Island ought to have such a free-wheeling feel -- and much of the time, it does.

Deriving from the 1933 classic, Kong: Skull Island offers a new take on Hollywood's greatest ape, the thrust of which I'll leave you to discover in a theater, but know that Skull Island bursts with giddily presented carnage, much of it presented against a jukebox full of throwback rock by groups ranging from the Jefferson Airplane to Creedence Clearwater Survival.

For at least half of its 118-minute running time, Kong has some real hop to it, and director Jordan Vogt-Roberts isn't shy about putting his cards on the table. A Japanese and American solider square off in a mano-a-mano World War II prologue that dispenses with any suspense about when we'll see the towering ape. We meet Kong before the opening credits are done.

The movie turns the rest of those credits into a flickering newsreel, leaping through successive decades before landing in 1973.

Quickly, and without much time for reflection (a mercy, I think), the story swings into action. John Goodman plays a man who obtains government funding so that he can map an uncharted island.

From Washington, we're off the Vietnam to round up a crew. A disaffected Lt. Col. Packard (Samuel L. Jackson) takes charge; he's looking for a mission that offers compensation for a war that he believes should have been won. Packard and his subordinate (Toby Kebbell) gather other disaffected troopers, and join the trip to Skull Island.

Tom Hiddleston plays a tracker who's also recruited for the mission, along with a war-hardened photographer (Brie Larson).

With echoes of Apocalypse Now ringing in our ears, we're headed for Skull Island, which happens to be surrounded by a ferocious and possibly impenetrable storm system. If the movie's adventurers were even mildly sane, they would have abandoned any effort to penetrate the storm with helicopters. But sanity isn't the point here. Instead, unbridled mania prevails, which perhaps explains the presence of a jiggling Nixon bobblehead on one of the helicopters.

After the screening, someone pointed out to me that the number of helicopters inexplicably increased once the choppers took off from the ship that's carrying them to Skull Island.

Continuity aside, the helicopters make it through the storm only to be confronted by Kong, who has little interest in allowing them into his kingdom. He begins swatting choppers out of the sky as if they were pesky mosquitos.

If you're looking for proof that we live in an age of overload, you'll find ample evidence in the rest of the movie. As it turns out, Kong isn't the only dangerous creature on the island. The worst foes are reptilian monsters with forked tongues, hearty appetites and the ability to reawaken any tremors still lingering in audiences from Jurassic Park.

In IMAX 3D, Kong oozes the tropical density of an island where just about every living thing is over-sized and predatory, and the human characters, if these stick figures can be called that, are simply prey.

Did I mention that our adventurers have three days to accomplish their mission and reach the rendezvous point at which they'll be rescued? Yes, the proverbial clock ticks as loudly as the gunfire on the soundtrack.

To further spice the proceedings, the story introduces us to a World War II vet (John C. Reilly) from the movie's prologue. Reilly's character has been stranded on the island for almost 30 years. He's gone a bit whacky after living among a group of locals with a preference for heavily applied mud make-up.

In addition to battling the beasts -- a task that produces enough gore to slime the entire state of Maine -- the adventurers must decide whether to follow the vengeance-hungry approach of Jackson's character or just get the hell off the island.

For his part, Jackson glowers with so much furious conviction you half expect he might be reading one of Skull Island's more negative reviews.

Burdened by bloat, Kong: Skull Island can't help but generate some battle fatigue -- not only for its human and creature combatants, but for an audience. That's another way of saying that if you over-inflate a B-movie, it just might blow up in your face.

And in a digitally enhanced world, you'll notice that the actors are asked to spend a lot of time gaping at sights that had to be filled in long after they'd left the scene, not many dinosaurs being available via calls to central casting.

Minimal acting opportunities not withstanding, it might have been nice to care a little about whether any of these characters were destined to become something more than monster food.

Oh well, perhaps there's justice after all. At one point, a beast throws up the head of a man it has devoured. These creatures may be difficult to kill, but take heart: It's evidently easy to give them indigestion.

Bringing James Baldwin's voice to life

A powerful documentary that's full of a writer's searing truths.

In 1979, the great, sometimes incendiary and often heartbreaking author, James Baldwin, decided that he would study three pivotal lives of the Civil Rights movement. Baldwin planned to write about Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., all of whom were murdered and none of whom lived to be 40.

It's shocking to be reminded that Martin Luther King Jr., now enshrined in ageless-icon status, was only 26 when he emerged as a national Civil Rights leader and moral force.

Director Raoul Peck uses elements of Baldwin's writing (beautifully delivered by an off-camera Samuel L. Jackson) to give life to Baldwin's passion, intelligence and insight, often playing Baldwin's words against photographs and news footage that evoke the volatility of a country torn by racism, particularly a South mired in cruel Jim Crow segregation.

As the Civil Rights movement grew more heated, Baldwin left Paris where he'd taken up residence in 1948. He knew he had to return home to pay dues that he was watching others pay. He missed the life that had produced and nourished him, but he also had become a stranger in America.

Peck's movie becomes a kind of blistering diary in which Baldwin assesses his responses to what he saw as a child and what he's rediscovering as an adult.

Baldwin talks about the films he saw as a young man. He despised and feared white heroes who took vengeance into their own hands, as in John Wayne vs. Native Americans. He opines that a black man who sees the world as the John Wayne of popular culture sees it would be deemed a "raving maniac."

Such piercing observations are intercut with a research trip Baldwin took through the South. During those travels, Baldwin saw the line between witness and participant become thinner.

The years covered by the movie were marked by successive tragedies. Baldwin communicates the hollowed out feeling that comes from hearing streams of bad news.

"Medgar, gone," he says after Evers was murdered, a simple line delivered by Jackson with shattering finality.

That's a clue to the sorrow that underlies I Am Not Your Negro, a movie steeped in the pain of loss and the rage inspired by injustice.

As Baldwin says toward the movie's end, "The story of the Negro in America is the story of America. It is not a pretty story."

Baldwin, who died at the age of 63 in 1987, raged at American racism. Today, his voice sounds as powerful as ever. Baldwin reminds us that much of America's economic success was built on the backs of black people, through slave labor and oppression.

Peck uses clips of Baldwin speaking and many well-chosen scenes from movies that prevailed during Baldwin's life as a way of bringing his stunning documentary to its compelling, still necessary life.

I Am Not Your Negro, as much about Baldwin as it is about the men he hoped to study, makes us wish that in our days of turmoil, strife and division, we still had Baldwin's invaluable voice to pierce and illuminate the rancid din.

'Miss Peregrine' runs a cluttered home

Tim Burton tries his hand a weird YA novel.

The YA novel, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, seems a perfect vehicle for director Tim Burton, whose ability to blend effects, story and mood tilts toward the dark and perverse without sacrificing something we might call general appeal.

With movies such as Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow and Corpse Bride, Burton has developed a following based on his distinctive style and a willingness to dip into the dark side of his palette.

Considering all that, Miss Peregrine should have been a slam-dunk.

But for reasons having to do with a glut of plot and the somewhat confusing creation of an alternate reality, Burton's adaptation of Ransom Riggs' 2013 novel proves only fitfully engaging.

Burton mounts a variety of captivating images -- from scary monsters to moments frozen in time to a floating girl who wears weighted shoes to keep herself earthbound.

At times, Burton seems to have been inspired by the Quay brothers, whose work with stop-motion animation surpasses almost all other cinematic peculiarities.

The story finds young Jake (Asa Butterfield) mourning his grandfather (Terrence Stamp). Just before his death, Grandpa instructed his grandson to travel to Wales to locate Miss Pergerine's School for Peculiar Children: Put anther way, Grandpa sends Jake on a destiny-defining journey.

After consultation with a child psychologist (Allison Janey), Jake's parents (Kim Dickens and Chris O'Dowd) decide that Dad should take the boy to Wales.

Once in Wales, Jake finds Miss Peregrine's school in ruins, destroyed by a direct hit from a German bomb during World War II.

But as he rummages through the bombed-out rubble, Jake begins to see the peculiar children of the movie's title. Eventually, he time travels back to the day the school was bombed.

He soon learns that Miss Peregrine (Eva Green), the school's head mistress, has the ability to stop time by creating time loops. Moments prior to the German bombing, Miss Peregrine stops the clock, and the day again repeats. Her charges are saved, although they're suspended in time. They never age another day.

For emotional heft, the movie focuses on the developing relationship between Jake and Emma (Ella Purnell), the girl who floats. He also meets Enoch (Finlay MacMillan), a kid who knows how to give life to expired creatures.

There's also an invisible kid and a girl who has a mouth with sharp predatory teeth on the back of her head; at times, the movie feels like an off-kilter take on X-Men, a story about young people who are heroic precisely because they don't fit into any mold.

Burton embeds all of this in a jargon-heavy screenplay that requires those unfamiliar with the novel to master a new vocabulary. An example: Ymbrynes, of which Miss Peregrine is one, can create time loops. You'll also find monsters called Hollowgasts -- or some such.

By the end, a new villain surfaces, Samuel L. Jackson's Barron, a creature known as a wight; i.e., a Hollowgast that can assume human form after devouring lots of eyeballs plucked from peculiar children.

And, yes, I gave Google a workout to catch up.

No stranger to over-the-top menacing, Jackson does what's expected of him. Butterfield doesn't bring much by way of expression to his role; and it falls to Purnell's Emma to make the biggest impression.

Not surprisingly, all of the actors are a bit outdone by the movie's copious effects.

Finding the story less than compelling, I drifted from scene-to-scene, wondering how Burton achieved some of the movie's more impressive images and trying to decipher the screenplay's murky references to the Holocaust.

What I didn't do was emerge with a coherent feeling about a movie that doesn't seem to have an entirely coherent feeling about itself. Miss Peregrine felt like movie I'd just as soon thumb-through as watch.

Trying to make Tarzan relevant

Nothing legendary about the latest look at the King of the Apes.

Filmmakers tackling a Tarzan movie face a variety of problems -- not the least of which are the racial attitudes that tinge Edgar Rice Burroughs' hopelessly dated fantasy.

Obviously aware of such pitfalls, director David Yates tries to cleanse The Legend of Tarzan of offensive elements, putting an anti-colonial spin on a movie that becomes a kind of CGI zoo. What, you thought they'd be using real apes?

For all the digital effort, Yates, who directed the final four Harry Potter movies, can't entirely liberate The Legend of Tarzan from Hollywood imperialism. He's still dealing with a story in which the white Lord Greystoke, a.k.a. John Clayton (Alexander Skarsgard), leaves the comforts of Great Britain with his wife Jane (Margot Robbie) to rediscover his animal self and save Congolese tribesmen from being enslaved by Belgian mercenaries.

You needn't look past Christoph Waltz's name in the credits to know who's playing the bad guy. Waltz's Leon Rom makes deals with a fierce chief (Djimon Hounsou), captures Jane and generally makes it clear that he's indifferent to all forms of African life.

Waltz, who has been menacing innocent lives since his breakthrough in Inglourious Basterds, may not seem particularly enthusiastic about his jungle-bound villainy, but at least he's well dressed.

Rom wears a white suit and tie in even the most remote locations. He carries a rosary that he uses to strangle people. A less-than-wry comment about possible connections between Christianity and the exploitation of Africa's abundant resources?

Then there's George Washington Williams (Samuel L. Jackson), an American Civil War veteran who wants Tarzan to accompany him to Africa to see whether Africans really are being enslaved. If they are, Tarzan can expose this crime to the world. Who, after all, wouldn't believe Tarzan, a man with impeccable jungle cred?

Yates also offers flashback to Tarzan's youth. After his widowed father is beaten to death by apes, baby Tarzan is snatched by the same apes, one of whom raises him with motherly affection.

As the adult Tarzan -- bare chested and in britches rather than loincloths -- the Ape Man swings through trees, leaps off cliffs, and fights the apes who thinks he deserted them.

I haven't said much about Skarsgard's Tarzan because he isn't exactly loaded with personality. Tarzan's hands are swollen and a bit deformed because he spent much of his youth running on all fours. He knows how to speak to animals and regards them as friends.

Still best know for playing a vampire in HBO's True Blood, Skarsgard mostly displays his abs and looks noble.

As for Jackson? He has seen better days, and, I hope, better hairpieces.

Robbie's character takes no guff, but this Americanized Jane seems like another product of authorial engineering, one more strained attempt to accommodate contemporary sensibilities.

It takes more than an hour for Tarzan to deliver his trademark yell, and this rumble in the jungle may not fool audiences who've seen too many digitally created animals to suspend much disbelief.

Legend of Tarzan doesn't exactly die on the vines that Tarzan uses to swing from tree-to-tree, but did the world need another Tarzan movie? If so, it should have been one that didn't make the mistake of delivering its most exciting moments in the short prologue that precedes the rest of the movie.

'Hateful Eight' : blood, racial conflict -- at length

Tarantino's overlong and, of course incendiary, foray into the West.

A B-movie trying to wear A-movie clothes -- and not always doing a good job of it.

That's part of what I thought about The Hateful Eight, director Quentin Tarantino's three-hour opus, a Western that was filmed in Telluride, Colorado. Like the so-called road shows of yore, Hateful Eight begins with an overture (Ennio Morricone wrote the score) and includes an intermission.

The movie can be seen in 70mm at certain locations, although the necessity of seeing it that way can be argued. The movie's "prestige" trappings struck me as overkill, a phenomenon not unknown to a director whose seven previous movies have been known to go over-the-top.

As usual, Tarantino plays with structure, but he's decided to go against the Western grain. The snow-covered landscapes of the movie's opening suggest a spacious background, but the bulk of The Hateful Eight takes place indoors.

Tarantino's screenplay revolves around a simple premise: More than a decade after the Civil War, bounty hunters take shelter in a cabin during a blizzard. It doesn't take long before these bounty hunters are interacting with strangers in a high-stakes game not all of them will survive.

Before the movie's done, its characters are given ample opportunity to prove that they've earned the movie's title. They're a hateful bunch, several of them steeped in racism stemming from North/South divisions that haven't begun to scar over.

If there's a main character here, it's probably Samuel L. Jackson's Marquis Warren, a savvy bounty hunter who led a group of black fighters during the Civil War.

Early on, a stranded Warren stops a stage coach to ask for a ride. He's transporting two dead outlaws across the snow-covered hills: His destination: the Wyoming town of Red Rock. His goal: to collect bounties.

The stage coach has been hired by John Ruth (Kurt Russell), another bounty hunter who's headed to Red Rock. Ruth is transporting a murderous woman named Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to an appointment with the hangman.

It doesn't take long before another traveler joins the group. Walton Goggins portrays Chris Mannix, a former Confederate soldier and the guy who's supposed to take over as Red Rock's new sheriff.

Once the travelers reach the stage stop -- the oddly named Minnie's Haberdashery -- they encounter more characters: an English hangman (Tim Roth), a cowboy who scribbles in a diary (Michael Madsen), an aging Confederate general (Bruce Dern) and a Mexican (Demian Bichir) who claims to be taking care of the place for Minnie, who's off visiting someone or other.

No one who's familiar with Tarantino's work will be surprised to learn that Hateful Eight includes considerable violence, profanity and racial slurs.

If you thought that Tarantino made his racial movie with Django Unchained, think again. Warren instantly is pitted against southern, racist sensibilities and once again, Tarantino gives the "n" word a workout. Its use here can be piercing, raw and maybe a bit forced: One presumes that Tarantino wants to use the movie's isolated setting to get at what he regards as the ugly, bottom-line truth of racial hatred.

Perhaps, but you'd think by now, Tarantino (who writes his own scripts) would have developed a severe case of "n" word fatigue.

Tarantino and cinematographer Robert Richardson, who has filmed many of Tarantino's movies, don't always find ways to make the depressingly brown interiors of Minnie's Haberdashery all that interesting, and this time, they're stuck in a situation in which talk mostly trumps action -- at least in the movie's pre-intermission segments.

That shouldn't be a problem for Tarantino, whose speciality is dialogue, but there are times when you're a little too aware that the characters aren't exactly talking; they're indulging in Tarantino-speak. Put another way: You can hear the writing.

Now, there are surprises here, so there's not much point saying more about what happens in this God forsaken Wyoming outpost other than to note that Tarantino breaks the movie into five acts, each introduced by a title card.

Know, though, that Jackson seems to be playing a character who's not entirely unlike Jules, the hit man he played in Pulp Fiction; he's whip smart and nasty when he needs to be.

Russell's character specializes in what appears to be misogynistic brutally, punching Daisy when he thinks she's out of line. Leigh spends much of the movie with a bloodied face. Of course, Daisy's no angel, either.

Of all the performances Leigh's feels the freshest, reaching near-demonic proportions. An enraged Daisy is something to behold; she could be a guardian at the gates of hell.

When it comes to color palette, Hateful Eight might be the brownest movie I've ever seen. I'm not sure what that signifies, other than that it breeds a whiff of monotony, a condition not unknown to the movie, particularly as it approaches its intermission.

Intense violence explodes during the movie's protracted finale, generating enough plasma to fill a blood bank before Tarantino brings the movie to its rueful dead-end of a conclusion. These westerners know how to get medieval on one another, to borrow one of Tarantino's signature phrases.

As is often the case with Tarantino, we're not sure whether he's reading reality or commenting, expanding on and sometimes subverting pop-cultural tropes, some of them his own. Put another way, I can't say I really believed much of anything I was watching.

Besides, volatile as it is, even hate gets boring after a while.

'Kingsman' goes too far, but ....

Not for every taste, but this spy spoof has some kick.

If you're planning to kick some butt, it pays to be well-dressed. We're not talking well-dressed in the sense of neatly pressed jeans and a clean T-shirt. We're talking impeccably tailored Savile Row suits that might cause an opponent to underestimate your ferocity.

The secret agents in the new action comedy Kingsman: The Secret Service base their small, private army (members are named for Knights of the Round Table) at an upscale British clothing store named Kingsman.

The agents of Kingsman do not work for any government; they're privately funded James Bonds who fight for truth, justice and well ... expensive clothes.

This entirely crazy notion fuels a movie from director Matthew Vaughn, who became known to most moviegoers in 2010 for another equally bold action comedy, Kick-Ass.

Kingsman may not be an unalloyed triumph, but its high points soar and its finale -- or should I say many finales -- create a woozy intra-movie competition in which each additional set piece tries to top its predecessor.

That's no easy task for a movie in which the heads (as in craniums) of a group of elites already have exploded, creating gorgeous smears of color that travel upward with silky grace. All of this to the accompaniment of Edgar Elgar's stirringly patriotic Land of Hope and Glory.

Clearly, Kingsman is not a movie for all tastes; it requires a tolerance for mordant humor that brushes up against (but doesn't fully embrace) political satire.

Vaughn has taken on a difficult task: He's out to spoof spy movies without entirely abandoning their pleasures.

That means the movie can be as rash as it is brash.

Consider: At one point, an agent named Galahad (Colin Firth) goes berserk in a fundamentalist Christian church in the U.S., wiping out the entire congregation. It's not possible to say with any certainty whether Vaughn is straining to push the envelope or engaging in a perverse exercise in counter-cultural wish fulfillment.

Behind all Vaughn's bold excess, you'll find a plot of sorts. Firth plays an agent who recruits a street tough (Taron Egerton) for Kingsman. The movie follows Egerton's character as he trains to become a Kingsman, competing with other hopefuls for the lone open spot.

Of course, there's a villain. Samuel L. Jackson plays Valentine, a genius who wears Yankee baseball caps, lisps (huh?) and has contrived a brutal population reduction scheme that he believes will save the planet.

Valentine's aide (Sofia Boutella) has two, spring-loaded prosthetic legs that look like those that carried Oscar Pistorious to fame in the Olympics. These artificial limbs are also equipped with blades that can cut a man in half as neatly as you please.

Michael Caine adds a bit of gravitas as Arthur, the seasoned veteran who runs the Kingsman operation.

Now, when someone attempts a movie such as Kingsman, chances are that some of its violence will cross lines that shouldn't be crossed. In this area, you'll have plenty of eligible candidates.

Recognize, though, that Vaughn has tried to make a movie that might be called a "violent romp." When it's working -- which I'd say is more than half the time -- Kingsman is a kick.

'Oldboy:' Reworking a cult classic

Spike Lee tries hand at a story that attempts to bring the shock of a South Korean movie to American multiplexes.

I wasn't a major fan of director Chan-Wook Park's Oldboy, but I admired its shocking audacity: Park's revenge saga featured the kind of violence that tends to delight certain genre enthusiasts. Among other things, the movie's main character ate a live octopus and extracted an adversary's teeth with a claw hammer.

Released in 2003, Oldboy was not a movie for the squeamish: It appealed mainly to those who were caught up in Park's revenge trilogy, which included Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (2005). Personally, I liked Lady Vengeance best.

I have no idea how Spike Lee's remake will play with those who are unfamiliar with the original. But for those of us who know Park's movie, watching Lee's version becomes little more than an exercise in comparative viewing.

Lee doesn't skimp on shock or violence as he brings Mark Protosevich's screenplay to life. The remake offers a mixture of new wrinkles and familiar ploys that should keep fans of the original guessing right up until the finale.

In this version, Joe (Josh Brolin) -- the main character -- is a hopelessly crude advertising executive whose offensive behavior is matched only by his alcoholic intake. After a particularly awful drunken binge, Joe awakens in what appears to be a shabby motel room. He has no idea how he got there. It eventually dawns on Joe that he's being held prisoner, although he has no idea why. He remains in this state -- being fed nothing but dumplings from Chinese takeout -- for 20 years.

While imprisoned, Joe -- whose room has a television set that mostly broadcasts advertisements for exercise equipment -- sees a newscast in which he learns that his estranged wife was murdered. His three-year-old daughter has been placed in the care of others.

Poor Joe: He's the only suspect in the crime.

When Joe's finally released, he dedicates his life to proving his innocence and wreaking vengeance on his captors. Of course, he must first find out who his captors are.

It's difficult to say more without spoilers, but it's worth knowing that Lee and Protosevich (I Am Legend) approach Park's story by offering variations on many of the same issues that concerned Park: namely perverse sex and brutal violence. Like Park, Lee gradually doles out revelations that are intended to rock Joe's already shaky world.

Lee brings an eclectic approach to casting. South Africa's Sharlto Copley (District 9) plays Joe's nemesis; Elizabeth Olsen portrays a social worker and former drug addict who tries to help Joe after his escape; and Michael Imperioli signs on as a bartender who has known Joe since the days when they both attended the same prep school.

Lee also finds a role for Samuel L. Jackson, who plays the man in charge of Joe's imprisonment. He also works in one of his trademark dolly shots lest we forget who's behind the camera.

Fans of the original will want to know that Lee replicates the hammer fight that became a signature of the original. The way Lee tweaks the story may be slightly more preposterous than the way in which Park brought it to its chasenting conclusion. The American version also has a tendency to over-explain things that remained more beneficially murky in the original.

But the main thing missing from this American version is the soulful, agonized performance of Choi Min-shik, who played the imprisoned man in Park's movie. The other actors don't compare as well, either. It's not that they give bad performances; it's more that the raw quality of the original (as difficult to take as the outré violent touches) isn't always in evidence.

What's left is a weird plot and dreary atmospherics as Lee dips into waters that reminded me not only of Park but of Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg.

It would be wrong to deem Oldboy a total failure: I was interested in how Lee and Protosevich approached their task, but I never figured out why they wanted to take on the job in the first place.

'Django Unchained,' also unhinged

A different setting, but it's the same old Tarantino.

Having taken vengeance for the horrors Jews suffered at the hands of the Nazis in Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino shifts his attention to blacks in Django Unchained, a wild assault on the antebellum South: land of plantations, slavery, sexual perversity, leering sadism and bloody violence.

If you're wondering -- as I am -- why Tarantino has assumed so many vengeful burdens, I'll wonder along with you. I leave it you to decide whether Jews and blacks should be grateful, offended or indifferent to revisionist fantasies conducted on their behalf.

I wasn't a total fan of Inglourious Basterds, but I'd rank it above Django Unchained, another Tarantino exercise in genre eclecticism that twists the past into something as lurid as an exploitation movie -- only one in which the comic elements have ceased being inadvertent and clearly were intended.

Django Unchained borrows from Spaghetti Westerns (notably 1966's Django by Sergio Corbucci), rap music (I'm not kidding), Blaxploitation movies of the '70s and even other Tarantino movies. In assembling the movie's several acts, Tarantino creates a work that's wanton in its excessiveness -- and that includes its two-hour and 46-minute length.

That's an awfully long time to tell a relatively simple story about Django (Jamie Foxx), a slave who's freed by a bounty hunter and who develops into a kind of laconic cowboy hero with whom no one would want to mess.

Those who know Tarantino's movies (and who doesn't?) won't be surprised to learn that Django Unchained lets the N-word flow freely, includes a surfeit of vividly mounted violence and splashes its way through the kind of old-fashioned southern racism that looks indistinguishable from sadism.

Tarantino fans probably won't mind any of this, and those who don't count themselves among the director's devotees may be consoled by performances that include tasty turns from the incomparable Christoph Waltz (as the bounty hunter who frees Django from slavery and makes him a partner) and Leonardo DiCaprio (as a genteel southern slave owner and monstrous example of humanity).

In many ways, Django is a tonal free-for-all, even boasting a scene that may remind you of Mel Brooks. Tarantino depicts a gathering of Klansman as a convocation of dimwits who complain about not being able to see through the eye holes in masks that have been crudely and ineptly made by the wife of a Klansman.

Other scenes seem to transpose familiar Tarantino tropes (exchanges of dialog that play like gunfights) into new settings.

The story seems nothing more than an outline onto which Tarantino grafts numerous riffs. Waltz's Dr. King Schultz, a former dentist turned bounty hunter, liberates Django in the early going. Schultz's motives aren't entirely altruistic; he knows Django can identify a couple of hoodlums he's been hunting. He wants to collect the reward money.

Django and Dr. Schultz work together before heading to Mississippi to rescue Django's wife (Kerry Washington), who was sold to another slaver after the couple was caught trying to run away. Washington's Broomhilde even speaks a little German, a skill that the screenplay makes use of later.

During this phase of the movie, Foxx pretty much holds himself in reserve, saving Django's blossoming fury for a finale in which it emerges with explosive force.

But Foxx carries a big -- and perhaps impossible -- burden here: He's not only playing a character, he's illustrating ideas about the ways in which blacks have been portrayed on screen with a view, one supposes, toward ultimately subverting such stereotypical images.

To rescue Broomhilda, Django and Dr. Schultz must invade the preposterously named Candieland, a massive planation owned by DiCaprio's Calvin Candie, a plutocrat who enjoys watching dogs tear apart runaway slaves, has a black mistress and forces strapping black men to fight to the death for his personal amusement.

Schultz and Django concoct a ruse that gains them entry into Candieland. They pretend to want to buy a fighter of their own. They hope that Candie will include Broomhilda as an add-on, someone with whom the German-born Schultz can enjoy chatting in his native tongue.

Once in Candieland, Django and Schultz also encounter Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson), a house slave whose speech and inflections recall Jules, the character Jackson played in Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. Stephen, who has served the Candie family for years, isn't outwardly subservient, but he knows where his Big House bread is buttered. He remains loyal to his master.

Tarantino builds tension, and some of the scenes in Django Unchained are beautifully executed, DiCaprio, Waltz, Foxx and others at a tense formal dinner in Candieland, for example.

Enjoyable in bits and pieces Django Unchained is another off-the-hook helping of Tarantino. If you want to take the movie seriously, you can argue that Tarantino is playing around with film iconography from several generations of "B" and mainstream movies, although that may make Django Unchained a tough talking entertainment for cinema geeks. You also can look at it as a full-blown exercise in absurdity or as a simple revenge saga.

But whatever it aspires to be, Django Unchained felt a little old hat to me, Tarantino strutting his stuff in another genre playground. And by now, Tarantino movies have acquired an almost clubby aura in which cinematic in-jokes, outré slices of violence and ample helpings of the "MF" word act as signifiers of a brand of movie "cool" that forgives every indulgence and all manner of cruelty, so long as the tables eventually are turned.

But the trouble with revisionist revenge sagas is that they don't really loosen the grip of the past; they take aim at images and play with situations we know from other movies, often standing them on their heads. The whole business is a bit like shooting at ghosts. You make a lot of noise, but, in the end, you have to wonder whether you've actually hit anything.