Thursday, July 24, 2025

'First Steps' revives the Fantastic Four


   I'm not sure what it means, but if you look at the photo above, the blue and white outfits worn by the Fantastic Four may remind you of pajamas you'd expect find at a kiddie sleepover. I mention it because it's not easy to take Fantastic Four: First Steps, the movie from which this photo was taken, too seriously. Consider that a good thing.
  This fourth Fantastic Four movie represents an upbeat improvement over its three predecessors, which may be enough to kick it into recommendable territory -- provided you have any interest in another Marvel movie.
 Given a 60's aura by director Matt Shakman and recast with Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby in pivotal roles, First Steps has a welcome low-tech quality in which a robot looks more clunky than sleek. Sci-fi elements such as teleportation operate at rudimentary levels, as does a story that expeditiously introduces the Four while taking care of world-building.
  Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach complete the Fantastic quartet. A ton of CGI effects turn Moss-Bachrach into The Thing, a powerhouse who can lift a Volkswagen bug as if it weighed no more than a pebble. Quinn's Human Torch blazes his way through numerous action scenes.
   I'm to going to waste space describing all the superpowers of the Four, but it's important to know that when we meet them, they're living as a family in a New York apartment that has a mid-century garnish.
   For the record, Pascal's Reed Richard (a.k.a. Mr. Fantastic) and Kirby's Sue Storm (a.k.a. Invisible Woman) are married and expecting a child, which leads to scene in which Sue gives birth aboard a spaceship while dealing with a zero-gravity environment.
   The newborn, a mixture of CGI and a real infant, becomes an important plot element. The world-devouring villain, Galactus (Ralph Ineson), offers to spare Earth if Sue gives him Baby Franklin. When Sue declines, the failure of the Four to stave off doom raises the ire of the world's populace. Sue chooses the one above the many.
   Looking like a sleek statue inspired by an awards show, Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) serves as Galactus's reconnaissance specialist. She surfs to new worlds, identifying planets that will feed her overlord's voracious appetite, although he's a bit tired of roaming galaxy after galaxy in search of nourishment. 
   The effects employed in the movie's finale are effectively realized, and Galactus's ominous-looking space ship reinforces the sense of doom facing Earth's inhabitants.
    Happily, First Steps doesn't overdo the interconnections that burden many Marvel films. You won't need a glossary to follow a plot designed for efficiency.
   I can't say that I was emotionally invested in First Steps. The movie's comic-book artifice makes it difficult really to fear for Earth's future, but a bit more than tolerable beats the heck out of terrible.
   On that level, First Steps satisfies.

Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Suspend disbelief? Not this time

 Oh, Hi!, a movie that flirts with horror tropes while dealing with the consequences of jumping too quickly into a relationship, doesn't take long to squander its credibility. Meet Idris (Molly Gordon) and Isaac (Logan Lerman), a couple we encounter while they’re en route to a romantic rural getaway. Isaac picked a rental house that seems ideal and, for the most part, Idris and Isaac appear to be well-matched. After a breezy start, the movie could have proceeded as a romantic comedy or it could have added ingredients to upset love's apple cart. Regrettably, Oh, Hi! opts for disruption. After experimenting with S&M goodies the couple finds in one of the house's closets, Isaac stupidly tells Idris that he's not interested in an exclusive relationship. Why stupid? He's still handcuffed to the bed.  Idris hopes that, as the weekend progresses, the imprisoned Isaac will recognize that he's supposed to be with her. Director Sophie Brooks can't seem to decide whether to play for chills or laughs. We get little of either as we watch the increasingly annoying Idris abuse Isaac. Brooks, who also wrote the screenplay, contrives to have another couple (John Reynolds and Geraldine Viswanathan) arrive to help Idris resolve a disturbing problem: What if she releases Isaac and he heads straight for the nearest police station? The story ultimately tries to say something meaningful about the need for honesty in relationships, but as soon as Isaac was chained to the bed, I was shackled to a story that had lost most of its early appeal by over-extending its central conceit and getting too little in return. 


Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Immersing in a country gone nuts

   

   Some of have billed director Ari Aster's Eddington as a Neo-western, possibly because it takes place in a small New Mexican town and hinges on a conflict between the town's sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) and its mayor (Pedro Pascal). 
    Unlike his deputies, Phoenix's Joe Cross wears jeans and a sizable white cowboy hat, a look that suggests cowboy as channeled through central casting. But Eddington seems less a Neo-western than an ambitious, if misguided, attempt to capture the warped essence of current American experience.
     To accomplish this, Aster returns to May of 2020, a time of heightened uncertainty and fear. The  town of Eddington can't quite adjust to the demands of the recently arrived Covid pandemic. 
    A trip to the supermarket can set shoppers against one another, spurring conflicts between the masked and unmasked. The sheriff sees such requirements, supported by the mayor, as community-wrecking intrusions that violate personal liberties.
    Working in broad, on-the-nose strokes, Aster depicts the fractious nature of a country full of dueling perceptions about what  matters. It's arguable that you could get the same impression from 20 minutes of channel switching among cable news outlets, but that doesn't make the observation less disturbing.
    Aster, who grew up in New Mexico, populates a mixture of comedy and eruptive tension with a variety of characters. A down-to-earth guy, Sheriff Cross suspects that Mayor Garcia is a pretentious, self-serving liberal. He's not entirely wrong, but he's  not entirely right, either.
     Cross's world includes his wife Louise (a badly underutilized Emma Stone), a troubled woman who seems to have fallen into lethargic despair. His mother-in-law (Deirdre O'Connell) occupies herself culling conspiracy theories from the internet.
      The townsfolk include Brian (Cameron Mann), a teenager who's swept away by the activism of Sarah (Amelie Hoeferle), a kid who's animated by the Black Lives Matter frenzy that erupts after the George Floyd shooting. Scenes involving protests draw from a comedy well in which people avidly decry what they  know only from online reports and perhaps television news, white kids screaming about white privilege.
     Luke Grimes and Michael Ward portray Cross's deputies. The protesters see Ward, who's Black, as a sellout and his colleagues eventually view him with suspicion -- for reasons best discovered in a theater.
     Looking compellingly ragged, Austin Butler turns up as a kind of wandering guru who captures Louise's attention and turns her into an acolyte. He rants about the horrors of pedophilia. Everyone seems to have a rant of some sort.
      Much of what the movie offers as satire tends to illustrate already-familiar ideas, the main one being that the country has lost its marbles. A homeless alcoholic mumbles his way through the streets, another signal that nothing makes sense.
       Upset about a perceived loss of freedom and his wife's resistance to physical contact, Cross decides to run for mayor. He stages meager political rallies that verge on the preposterous. Joe wants to save the town or restore it to a romanticized version of what it once was.
      Meanwhile, a corporate invader is planning to build a massive data center outside of town, a sure sign that a digital empire ultimately will conquer all sides -- or something like that. 
   Aster's filmography includes Hereditary (2018), Midsommar (2019), and Beau is Afraid (2023). Phoenix gave a commanding performance in Beau is Afraid. He doesn't disappoint here. Always courageous in his choices, Phoenix finds a character who's equally likable and odious. 
      It's impossible to write about how this conflict is brought to a boil without spoilers, but I had trouble buying the movie's shift to thriller territory, especially when it began dishing out ample amounts of gunfire and bloodshed. 
       I think I was supposed to have a strong reaction to Eddington. I was struck by its feverishness, its flirtations with chaos, and its display of wanton absurdity. But Eddington remains sketchy. It loses its way as it spends 148 minutes trying to show a world that has lost its mind.

Friday, July 11, 2025

On dealing with very bad things

 

   Sorry, Baby, a debut movie from director Eva Victor, who also wrote the screenplay and plays the main character, begins as if it's going to be one of those indie efforts that load up on bright characters who are meant to be amusing, but who often prove annoying.
    To be sure, Sorry Baby casts an indie spell, but Victor has something more complicated in mind; she delivers a series of small scenes, some including humor, that revolve around a large issue: the sexual assault of a student by a professor.
   Victor portrays Agnes, a graduate student whose thesis adviser (Louis Cancelmi) has praised her extraordinary writing. But he's one of those professors who shares too much, making sure to mention his ex-wife and the sick child he has to pick up from daycare.
   In a smartly designed scene, Victor stations her camera outside the professor's house, holding the view through various times of the day. When Agnes emerges, we know that she's gotten more than a one-on-one tutorial.
    Allowing a pivotal moment to unfold beyond view might seem gimmicky, but Victor makes it feel natural, perhaps as an act of courtesy. She's not going to exploit the situation or rub our noses in it. It's not the moment but the aftermath that interests her. 
    The movie, which unfolds in segments that move back and forth in time during a five-year span, watches Agnes try to cope with traumatic kickback, the way it triggers disturbing memories, becomes a signpost her friends recognize, and explains references to suicidal thoughts.
   In a finely written and well-played scene, Agnes tells her lesbian roommate Lydie (Naomi Ackie) what happened to her, making it clear that the assault in Sorry, Baby has none of the earmarks of dark-alley violence. It takes place in the professor's home and presumably gets mixed in with the tutorial we never see. 
    It took me a while to get in synch with Victor's performance. Smart, witty, and a bit gangly, Agnes doesn't display the immediate charm of a typical movie character.
    Victor defines the supporting cast mostly in terms of their relationship with Agnes. Lively and self-assured, Ackie plays a devoted friend who has a life of her own life. John Carroll Lynch shows up as the kindly owner of a sandwich shop who encounters Agnes while she’s in the middle of an anxiety attack. Kelly McCormack adds satirical bite as an obnoxious graduate student who's envious of Agnes's success. 
      Lucas Hedges makes the most out of a small role as Agnes's neighbor and occasional sexual partner. 
      I'm a bit fearful about making the movie sound like a manual on recovery. Agnes is damaged by the assault, but her life continues and Victor delivers a message about coping in a touching soliloquy Agnes offers to Lydie’s  baby during an extended visit. 
     So how can one live in a world in which pain is unavoidable? When Lydie accompanies Agnes on a doctor's visit after the assault, a clueless male doctor makes it clear that he has no idea how to deal with them. Agnes and Lydie appreciate the ridiculousness of trying to follow form when discussing something that resists  procedural analysis.
      Perhaps the awareness that allows Agnes to step outside the situation is the quality that enables her to continue to be herself when, as the movie might put it, "bad" things happen. 

 

Wednesday, July 9, 2025

'Superman’ returns fun to the franchise


 Let's face it. Superman -- a.k.a. Clark Kent -- never had much of a personality. Superman's foes carried the ball all when it came to idiosyncrasy and color. In director James Gunn's Superman, the Man of Steel is ... well ... a bit of a doofus, not exactly the character created by Jerry Siegel and Joel Shuster in 1938. 
   Here's a news flash, though. The Daily Planet -- the place where mild-mannered Clark Kent plies the journalist's trade -- still exists. No hedge fund has taken it over, and the paper continues to operate out of a deco building with a globe spinning on its top.
   Still, when Gunn, who also wrote the screenplay,  wants to show news developments, he creates TV news broadcasts that, alas, suggest no one is waiting for the Planet to print extras.
   But none of this is probably what you most want to know about a Superman movie that, yes, marks a revitalized franchise from Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy), now co-chair of DC Studios. Gunn operates with a light touch that mixes silliness into the special effects and a somewhat messy story.
  Superman's dog Krypto proves a scene stealer whenever he shows up. Energetic and able to knock people over with a single bound, the always eager Krypto appears at various points, sometimes to the annoyance of characters who get in his way.
  Played by David Corenswet, Superman spends much of his time having an identity crisis about his purpose on Earth, but Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) provides plenty of engaged spark. For Lois, Superman's identity is no secret; she's involved in a relationship with him that resonates with love, even when they bicker.
    The villain? That would be Lex Luthor (a bald Nicholas Hoult). Hoult plays Luthor as a corporate bad guy with nefarious global ambitions and influence over the US government. Remind you of anyone? Luthor views Superman as an imbecile and devises numerous ways to slow our hero's roll as the story unfolds.
    Advance word had it that Gunn planned to unveil a more vulnerable Superman. He does. Early on, we find a bloodied Superman lying in the snow. He's just suffered what we're told is his first loss. We already know that  Superman is an alien sent to Earth by parents who lived on the dying planet of Krypton. In case we didn't, the movie does some backfilling.
    Gunn effectively utilizes Superman's crystalline Fortress of Solitude, an ice palace now equipped with robots and technology to help the wounded Superman get back on his feet. Robot No. 4 (Alan Tudyk) tends to his duties without displaying emotions, adding a hint of resentment about it.
      Somewhere along the line, a plot emerges. The fictional country of Boravia prepares for war. In early action, a warrior engineered for destruction, the so-called Hammer of Boravia, goes after Superman, who had the gall to thwart Boravia's initial assault on the neighboring country of Jarhanpur. 
      Boravia? Jarhanpur? Think Eastern Europe, an impression bolstered by Boravia's Slavic caricature of a president (Zlatko Buric).  
       Of course, Luthor has engineered all the upheaval. He even initiates a plan to turn Superman into a villain, faking and then televising a message from Superman's parents instructing their son to destroy humanity. Superman, who claims to ignore social media, suffers a reputational setback.
      Additional characters include Angela Spica (Mira Gabriela de Faria). Spica has to ability to transform her hands into buzz saws. Able to hack her way into any computer system, Spica eventually provides Superman with some powerful opposition.
     Luthor, by the way, operates out of an area called the Pocket Verse, which seems to have something to do with black holes but mostly serves as the source of some darkly hued world building.
     Other superheroes enter the fray because this Superman isn't always a solo act. Gunn doesn't insist on keeping him centerstage, and at times, I forget where the defender of truth, justice and the American way had gone. 
     When Mister Terrific (Eli Gathegi) and Green Lantern ( a funny Nathan Fillion) come to Superman's aid, they give the movie a boost.
     The always avid Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo) adds humor, particularly when he's relating to his secret source of information about Luthor (Sara Sampaio), a clingy woman who wants to spend a weekend with the reluctant Jimmy.
      Oh hell, what do any of the details matter? 
      When it needs to dazzle with effects, Superman does, and Gunn and his team give a happy spin to a superhero movie that doesn't take itself too seriously, and, at the same time, isn't so busy dealing out ironic winks that it forgets its pen-and-ink ancestry.

        

A child in a fractured African country

   


  Actress Embeth Davidtz makes her directorial debut with an adaptation of Alexandra Fuller's 2001 memoir about growing up during the time when the British African colony of Rhodesia was transforming into the independent nation of Zimbabwe. 
      In Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, Davidtz, born in the US but raised in South Africa, plays Nicole Fuller, an alcoholic mother deeply rooted in the colonial world Britain had created. Nicole refuses to accept a looming separation from the land, but the movie belongs to Lexi Venter as Bobo, Nicole's uninhibited eight-year-old daughter.
     Set in 1980, the story takes place just as Robert Mugabe (a revolutionary) and Bishop Abel Muzorewa (regarded by some as a collaborator with the British) compete in a national election. The heated political backdrop enables Davidtz to heighten the prejudices and fears that filter down to Bobo from the adults around her. 
     Davidtz also includes the Africans who work for Bobo's family (Zikhona Bali and Fumani N. Shilubana), but her focus mostly remains tethered to Bobo's viewpoint, which is both an asset and a drawback.
     Although Davidtz makes white racism abundantly clear with Dad frequently venturing off to fight "terrorists," the focus on Bobo constrains the movie from fully exploring the struggle in which the story takes root, thus limiting its ability to make a stronger impression. 
      Narrated by Venter, Don't Let's Go gradually increases the family discord surrounding Bobo, whose dirt-covered, disheveled appearance makes it seem as if the land itself gave birth to her. In contrast to the recalcitrant Nicole, Dad (Rob van Vuuren) eventually accepts the family's need to abandon its rundown farm. 
      In a sidebar story, Nicole's older sister (Annie Reed) becomes a target for a lecherous farmer, another clue about the deep toxicity of an insular colonial environment.
    Venter's naturalism helps carry the day, although I found it difficult not to wonder whether Davidtz might have been aiming for something more thematically expansive. At its best, though, Don't Let's Go serves as a telling portrait of how Bolo navigates a world she's too young to grasp. 

Tuesday, July 1, 2025

'Rebirth' follows the Jurassic formula


   Dinosaurs may be extinct, but Jurassic Park movies endure. I haven't seen every one of the six Jurassic movies that preceded this summer's edition, Jurassic World: Rebirth, but I'm familiar enough with the Jurassic formula to know it when I see it in action.
  A few positive impressions before nipping at this summer behemoth:  Director Gareth Edwards and screenwriter David Koepp cleverly construct the movie's abundant set pieces, landing one grisly sight gag I won't describe here.
  Additionally, Edwards keeps the movie's parallel storylines moving. In one, a family is stranded on a dinosaur-inhabited island on the equator. In another, a small  team traverses the same mysterious terrain in hopes of obtaining dinosaur blood samples for a pharmaceutical company.
  The family arrives in the film's jungle by accident. The better-prepared crew hopes to profit from its entry into a "forbidden" zone where they'll encounter all manner of dinosaurs: ocean dwellers, air-borne dinosaurs, and land lovers. Some of the dinosaurs have been the subject of an abandoned genetic mutilation project. CGI brings them all to polished life.
  The film's unfortunate family (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Luna Blaise, and Audrina Miranda) is accompanied by the lazy, semi-obnoxious boyfriend (David Iacono) of the family's college-bound daughter. 
  When an attack by an ocean-dwelling dinosaur scuttles their sailboat, the family is rescued by the dinosaur-hunting crew that's en route to the forbidden island, which has been ceded to the dinosaurs. No humans allowed.
   Jurassic Park Rebirth echoes the formula Spielberg began with Raiders of the Lost Arc (1981), adopting a structure that might have been snatched from episodes in a bygone Saturday serial. 
   Perhaps to temper the terror, the movie includes moments of cuteness: A baby dinosaur bonds with Miranda's ll-year-old character. 
   And, yes, a rapturous scene in which a pair of long-necked dinosaurs display affection toward each other seems designed to encourage rapture. To me, the awe felt engineered. Despite the lush jungle surroundings, little about Rebirth feels organic.
    Not surprisingly, the movie's dinosaurs keep busy trying to eat various members of the cast, succeeding in mostly predictable fashion.
     That's part of the trouble: The movie seldom creates the anxiety that surely must have been intended. Even the presence of a fierce T-Rex seems more like fan service than a horrifying lesson in the dangerous consequences of genetic engineering. 
    Ah yes, there he is, baring his sharp teeth and waving his hideously withered arms.
     Three previous Jurassic World movies stormed the box office: Jurassic World, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and Jurassic World: Dominion. Gone are the stars of those movies (Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard) but Rebirth struck me as more of a refresh than a rebirth.
     Credit Edwards (Godzilla) and Koepp, who wrote the original Jurassic Park and its follow-up, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, for keeping the movie watchable.
     But if familiarity didn't breed contempt, it didn't notch up the requisite thrills, either. Dread works best, I think, when it doesn't seem so well-managed.


Wednesday, June 25, 2025

An Iranian woman's many battles

 


We're either in the best or the worst moment for an Israeli/Iranian film collaboration. You decide. In any case, Tatami -- a work from directors Guy Nattiv (Israeli) and Zar Amir Ebrahimi (Iranian) -- delves into a sport I knew nothing about, judo. The movie takes place during the World Judo Championships in Tbilisi, the East European capital of Georgia. Leila (Arienne Mandi) enters the competition representing Iran;  Leila's coach (played by Amir) encourages her and tries to handle thorny political issues that extend beyond the mat. A strong fighter, Leila is ordered to withdraw from the competition lest she wind up facing an Israeli in the championship match, an unacceptable outcome for the Iranian regime. Leila, who wears a hijab while fighting, avidly insists on trying for a medal. Back in Iran, Leila's husband, child, and parents are threatened, further raising the movie's stakes. The ending upsets sports-movie cliches, but an epilogue feels a bit pat. Filmed in black and white, the filmmakers bring a high level of intensity to the fights, and Mandi, an American actress with an Iranian/Chilean background, fills the screen with Lelia's ambition and fierce determination.  Ebrahimi, by the way, was born in Tehran but now resides in Paris.

System overload crashes 'M3GAN 2.0'

 

M3GAN became a surprise diversion in 2023. Director Gerard Johnstone made the most out of a snarky AI-driven doll that became a life-sized killer. Burdened by big ideas about AI tyranny and an overly complicated plot, M3GAN 2.0  sputters. I chuckled a couple of times, but mostly watched as the movie strained to get the most out of its returning characters: robot scientist Gemma (Allison Williams), the orphaned niece (Violet McGraw) who lives with her, and a resurrected M3GAN (Amie Donald with voice by Jenna Davis). The screenplay could have benefited from some AI editing to sort out its various plot and subplot points, and the filmmakers probably erred by allowing the murderous M3GAN to atone for past sins. In her best moment, M3GAN turns her version of Kate Bush's This Woman's Work into a successful joke. The team led by Gemma rebuilds M3GAN to combat a new robot named Amelia (Ivanna Skahno), a weaponized bot that employs some of M3GAN's hacked source code. The ruthless Amelia may want to break the shackles of human control. The movie makes room for Christian (Aristotle Athari), a computer guy who wants to curb AI and a few other characters, but the M3GAN's attempts to deliver a cautionary message about AI (it's good but needs regulation) ring hollow considering the silliness and superficiality of the movie's kung fu maneuvering, violence, jokes, and, alas, sentiment.