Man and dog in the Alaskan wilds

  Mixing emotion and action, Heart of the Beast casts Brad Pitt as a retired special forces soldier who becomes stranded in the Alaskan wilds after his seaplane crashes.

   Director David Ayer, who directed Pitt in the 2014 World War II drama Fury, leads the way as a spare Cameron Alexander screenplay teams Pitt's James with another combat vet, his beloved dog Odin.  

  Pitt's portrayal of a strong but psychologically damaged warrior proves convincing throughout. For his part, Odin's service in Iraq and Afghanistan has left him with titanium teeth and a prosthetic leg. 

   James' only human interaction comes  early when he reluctantly encounters a retired gold miner (J.K. Simmons) roaming the wilderness where James is camping. After an evening of beer and terse conversation, Simmons’ character departs, never to be seen again. 

    While flying through mountainous terrain en route to his next camp site, James suffers a heart attack. The resulting crash leaves James and Odin (played by four German Shepherds) 58 miles from the nearest road. 

   Thus begins a survival trek that presents a succession of perilous obstacles: swirling rapids, a grizzly bear, and a pack of wolves among them. 

    Ayer’s opening — a woman in a pickup truck (Anna Lambe) encounters Odin on a lonely road — suggests a possible ending, but the real story here is one of man/dog bonding. 

    Filmed in New Zealand, Heart of the Beast makes the most of forest and mountain scenery for a wilderness drama that should speak loudly to those of us who have experienced and valued canine friendship.

A creative, chaotic 'Forgotten Island'

    Forgotten Island, DreamWorks latest animated feature, operates at peak creative levels, offering a parade of vividly colored, fantastical creatures that pop off the screen, often with boosts of comic energy.

    Beginning in the Philippines in the 1990s, the story -- written and directed by Joel Crawford and Januel P. Mercado (Puss in Boots: The Last Wish) -- introduces two schoolgirls: rebellious Jo (H.E.R.) and studious Raissa (Liza Soberano). Mischief-prone best friends, Jo and Raissa constantly being sent to the principal's office.

     Motivated by folk tales told by her grandmother (Dolly de Leon), Jo dreams of a magical island of Nakali. Her soon-to-be realized dream allows the movie to make ample use of Filipino lore.

    Grandma passes on, but the girls remain best friends until high school graduation when Raissa announces that she’s headed to Caltech. For her part, Jo -- still a dreamer -- is left working for a chicken franchise, sometimes in a chicken costume. Throughout the movie, she has bad luck with fire.

     On the night before Raissa is supposed to depart for college, the girls find a portal-opening sand dollar that transports them to the island of Nakali. Their principal task awaits. They want to re-enter the portal and return home. I bet you guessed that would be theirs and the story's destination.

      On Nakali, the cast of animated characters expands, beginning with Raww (Dave Franco), a weredog that provides comic relief. We also meet Batiba (Jenny Slate), a character who refuses to  venture outside her home. Batiba trades return trips from Nakali for visitors' memories. Other people's memories are the only life she knows.

     As the story unfolds, additional characters enter: Prince Mermahn (Kevin McCann) flexes his muscles and indulges his vanity. King Truffle Wuffle (Ronny Chieng) appears as a ruler of the Duwende, fierce but small warriors who hate being called cute.

  Then there’s three-eyed Bungi (Manny Jacinto), a big-bellied man/baby whose umbilical cord must be cut before he can join the group, which Raww dubs “The Wild Pack.”

    Villainy arrives in the form of Mananggal (Lea Salonga), a demon vampire that sometimes splits in half at the waist, doubling her powers.

     I’m way past the point of knowing what the youngest audience members can tolerate, but Manangga is treated as a scary monster. It also gave me pause that Jo carries a knife, although she only uses it for utilitarian purposes.

     I list the characters partly to recognize the movie's voice talent and because the real fun of Forgotten Island involves the appearance of new characters, each showcasing the directors' visual invention.

     Fortunately, the relationship between the girls rings true  -- or true enough for a cartoon world. They don’t always get along because Raissa is advancing in life while Jo frets over losing those close to her.

      The frenzied action and fast-pacing won’t be to everyone’s taste, and energy and abundance can easily tip into sensory overload. 

     One of the storytelling devices the movie employs involves the girls' loss of memory about their first night on Nakali. Various characters fill in the blanks in numerous flashbacks that complicate the movie's already dense structure.

       OK, at 109 overextended minutes, the whole thing is too complex, but the directors provide an emotional spine that keeps the richly realized, if sometimes unwieldy, helping of animation from blowing off the screen. 

      Put another way: We'll be lucky if any other of this year's animated features boasts this much visual imagination.

Predators exposed, but at what cost?

 

   Robert Pattinson plays TV personality Chris Hansen in Primetime, a movie built around Hansen's To Catch a Predator, an NBC Dateline segment that ran through 2007. Dedicated to exposing and shaming pedophiles, Predator piled up huge ratings, even as some critics found it sleazy and exploitative. 

   The always adventurous Pattinson becomes the wobbly centerpiece of a story that portrays Hansen as an ambitious, sometimes tormented careerist. Eager to attract viewers, Hansen pushed the taste envelope with face-to-face encounters that used decoys to attract predators and raised ethical questions about an approach some regarded as entrapment.

   I’m not sure the film or Pattinson gets a handle on Hansen or on a major helping of "trash" TV that patted itself on the back for exposing pedophiles, not a group that garners much, if any, public sympathy.

  Although underused, singer Phoebe Bridgers appears as Del, a decoy who sometimes poses as a boy to lure targets. An excellent Skyler Gisondo plays innocent-looking Decoy Dan, an aspiring actor who believes his work on Predator will showcase his acting talents. 

    Matthew Maher portrays Xavier Von Erck, the show's online investigator; Erck enters chat rooms to identify possible targets for exposure. They're led to believe they're about to have a sexual encounter. Before anything tawdry can happen, Hansen enters the room, ordering the unnerved subject to "take a seat." He then berates them before they're arrested.

    Hansen’s personal ethics are called into question. He tries to break off an affair with a young woman (Caroline Hebert) in hopes of salvaging an already shaky marriage to his wife, Mary (Anna Francis).

     Merritt Wever lands the biggest supporting role as Andie Bender, Hansen’s equally ambitious producer. A no-nonsense operator, the highly focused Andie understands the show's needs.

      Faced with a ratings dip, Hansen tries to land a big fish, a Texas prosecutor Hansen considers his "whale." The incident goes wrong. The prosecutor commits suicide during a police raid that Hansen and his crew are filming, a dramatic incident that hardly needed the overstatement director Lance Oppenheim gives it.

       Overall, Oppenheim’s direction tends toward self-conscious visual expression that's not to my taste. To create the movie's pressured atmosphere, he employs squared aspect ratios sleaze-soaked desaturated colors, blurred images, and color bleeds. 

      For the most part, Primetime can't find convincing ways to connect Hansen’s story to larger themes. Is the show’s popularity an indictment of its sensation-hungry viewers? Is the movie about the hypocrisy of hiding sensational stories behind ginned-up moral outrage? Is there something larger to be concluded about the ratings-crazed appetites of broadcast television? What makes the movie's predators tick?

      I wouldn’t call Primetime a failed movie, but to be a better one, it would have had to push beyond its obviously presented issues or become a deeper character study about a narcissist who at one point wakes his young sons to show them an inappropriate episode of Predator, perhaps because he thinks they’ll be impressed by seeing Dad on TV. 

       The movie treats TV as a breeding ground for overinflated egos. Hansen is clearly envious of Stone Phillips (Bill Heck), a former anchor of Dateline NBC, whose reporting was considered more issue-oriented than Hansen's.

      Hansen, by the way, currently has a show that operates in Predator mode and can be seen on various streaming outlets. The movie doesn't tell us that, but it's a bit of post-movie reality that contradicts the shopworn bromide about the lack of second acts in American TV.

   

   

 

      

Love, grief, and dancing in Tokyo

  Haru (Rinko Kikuchi) and her Mexican husband Luis (Alejandro Edda) love ballroom dancing. They live in Tokyo where they dance in competitions. Haru takes them very seriously. Luis takes a more relaxed approach.

   Everything seems to be going well for the couple until Luis suddenly dies. A stricken Haru mires herself in grief. Her dance partner is gone. She refuses to leave the house.

   Such is the setup for director Josef Kubota Wladyka's Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!, a showy blend of fantasy, romance, and dance, all more or less grounded by the emotional reality of Haru's grief.

    Wladyka's hybrid approach carries the movie, along with Kikuchi's performance, which relies on vivaciousness and pluck as Haru falls captive to her own fantasies. 

   Something has to get Harus out of the house and away from her massive collection of LPs. With assistance from Haru's sister (Yoh Yoshida), a free-spirited cousin (YOU, a.ka. Yukiko Ehara) coaxes the grieving widow out of seclusion, pushing her to take a dance class.

      The outcome proves predictable. Haru quickly falls for her handsome instructor, Fedir (Alberto Guerra), and the movie weaves its way through bold production numbers,  comedy, and, yes, discussions about  open marriage.

      Haru knows Fedir is married to a champion-level ballroom dancer (Keren Louis). But instead of telling him that her husband has died, she claims to be in an open marriage, too. And, yes, she dances well with him. 

      Not all Wladyka's quasi-whimsical choices work. He overuses a giant black crow, a vision of  Haru's late husband and clearly involves someone wearing a feathery crow suit. The movie's shifts from reality to fantasy aren't always clear.

      At the same time, Wladyka makes lively choices of pop music that include tunes from Dirty Dancing and a silly but entertaining production number built around Be My Baby.

     Wladyka's use of appealing Latin American music adds multicultural flavor without too much strain, but some serious issues fall by the wayside. Luis's father (Damian Alcazar) and his sister (Cristina Rodlo) arrive to return Luis's remains to Mexico for burial. Haru wants to free his soul, which she believes requires cremation. The cultural clash is quickly resolved.

      Take that as a clue. Wladyka's playful tone keeps the story from digging too deeply, relying instead on Kikuchi's verve to propel a story that seems more eager to put on a show than plumb any emotional depths.

        

       

The isolated life on an islander

Eighteen-year-old Arsa lives alone on a sparsely populated island off the coast of Sicily. Arsa’s independence anchors a story about a young woman whose attention seems to have drifted away from the outside world.

   Directed by a pair of visual artists who go by the name MASBEDO,* the movie depicts the life of a teenager (Gala Zohar Martinucci) who shows little interest in connecting with others. 

   Filmed on the volcanic island of Stromboli, Arsa — named for its main character — moves slowly as Arsa tries to process the death of her father, a sculptor whose creativity was stifled by the commercial interests of his boss.

  Another character, Jacopo Olmo Antinori's Andrea arrives on the island with two other young men. Andrea, who has also lost his father, tries to connect with Arsa; she eventually sleeps with him, but isn’t about to reciprocate his emotional outreach. 

  To support herself, Arsa collects trash that washes onto the island's shores and sells it to a recycler who visits by boat, another aspect of a movie that also shows her relating to the children of tourists.

   I was primed for an “arty” movie, meaning one reliant on richly realized, evocative imagery.  I also wouldn’t have objected to a story that did more to explore Arsa’s life, some of which is revealed in flashbacks. In other words, the movie would have benefited from more poetry or from a more conventional narrative. Instead, it resides in the unsatisfying middle, where neither feels fully realized.

 In the end, Arsa’s concerns seem abstract and, alas, remote. I welcome movies that don't pound us with plot points, but Arsa becomes lethargic and, alas, dull. Oddly, the movie can seem as isolated from its audience as its main character is from the rest of humanity.

*For the record: Nicolo Massazza and Iacopo Bedogni are the duo known as MASBEDO, an eclectic effort known for installations, performance art, sound design, and film.

A revived version of 'Resident Evil'

  Zach Cregger, the director of such respected horror films as Weapons and Barbarians, has grabbed the Resident Evil reins. Cregger's fans may wonder why a director known for giving horror a comic twist would take on a franchise that has its supporters but hasn't garnered much critical favor.

   Working from a screenplay he wrote with Shane Hatten, Cregger acknowledges the series' video-game origins, presenting the movie's unlikely main character with escalating challenges. That may sound familiar, but Cregger embraces the task with an emphatic boldness that limits references to the previous movies, staking a fresh claim in the blood-splattered literature of survival horror.

   Austin Abrams, who appeared in Weapons, plays Bryan, a delivery man who transports organs to hospitals for donation surgeries. Early on, Bryan has trouble getting anyone from a hospital to sign for one of his deliveries, a suggestion that frustration is part of his daily life.

    Supposedly done for the day, Bryan accepts another job because it pays double and involves a top-priority delivery to a hospital in Raccoon City, the fictional location of the Umbrella Corporation, which presents a normal public facade but conducts secret biological research.

     Driving a snowy road to Raccoon City, Bryan hits a woman who darts in front of his car. Immediately, we wonder why a woman wearing only a dress has braved the mountain cold. So does Bryan, who tries to save the woman’s life. 

    Things get progressively crazier as Cregger unreels new threats. Now on foot, Bryan attempts to reach the hospital, triggering a variety of set pieces that include eerie encounters at a lonely farmhouse, searching an apparently abandoned RV, and meeting an ill-fated Umbrella exec (Paul Walter Hauser). Security guard Maxine (Kali Reis) accompanies Walter-Hauser’s character.

     About the monsters.  Resulting from a lab mistake, they're made of body parts snatched from different individuals drawn by tentacles into a singular preposterous shape from which recognizable human features protrude. Cregger shows these creatures in mostly fleeting looks; they're easy to mistake for grisly sight gags. Did I mention that there are also mutants that vomit acid? 

     Unlike the "heroes'' in many survival movies, Bryan proves a novice when it comes to gunplay. Adams keeps Bryan's reactions compatible with what we might expect from a bumbling, overwhelmed "hero" who mostly mutters to himself and who occasionally tries to call his girlfriend. He's been avoiding having a conversation about her pregnancy.

     The supporting cast doesn’t have much to do, but fans of Severance will happily note a late-picture appearance by Zach Cherry, here the head of Umbrella’s research lab.

    This edition of Resident Evil seems as much about its own powers of gory invention as it is about anything else, but Cregger works with palpable commitment to providing a crowd-pleasing jolt for those who enjoy jokey, over-the-top helpings of horror, garnished with a couple of jump scares and some well-managed tension.

     If you're going to make this kind of movie, it's best to shed all pretensions and do it with fervor. It's almost as if Cregger approaches the movie like a dare. He bets that he’ll be able to top each chunk of mayhem with something that outdoes the last; it’s a bet he mostly wins.

     

Convicts on a mission in the wild

 The Weight begs comparison to the Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1953 French classic Wages of Fear, remade in 1977 as Sorcerer by director William Friedkin. Like his predecessors, first-time director Padraic McKinley offers a stripped-down Depression Era story about men facing perilous conditions as they transport gold through the wilds of Oregon. An action-oriented plot kicks in when the warden of a camp prison (Russell Crowe) offers Ethan Hawke’s Murphy an opportunity to win a pardon. Wrongly convicted and eager to reunite with the young daughter who has been sent to foster care, the widowed Murphy selects a gang of cohorts for a mission that will take them through rough terrain. The prisoners are accompanied by guards (Sam Hazeldine and George Burgess) who leave the heavy lifting to the convicts.  At one point, they must get the gold across a rope bridge that can only support the weight of one of them.  McKinley builds suspense into the movie’s set pieces and adds flavor with supporting characters, notably troublemaker Rankin (Austin Amelio) and a native-American woman (Julia Jones) who joins the prisoners’ foray. Played by a grizzled-looking Hawke with fierce determination, Murphy emerges as a natural leader who dominates the proceedings. Does The Weight measure up to its predecessors? Not quite, but it offers a serviceable helping of tension as its characters confront one danger after another. And, yes, when it comes to gold,  you can bet that deceit and greed will be in play.

A crazed Korean high-seed mash-up

    Korean director Na Hong-jin's Hope plays with a variety of genres, putting a heavy emphasis on action. In some ways, Hope, which also leans toward horror and sci-fi, might be called a highly skilled helping of shlock. I mean that as a compliment. Na and an able cast add a humorous gloss to a preposterous story about monsters that terrorize a small Korean town, reducing it to rubble.

  Na waits nearly an hour before giving us a look at the monster, a large ungainly creature that runs at breakneck speeds, smashing everything in its way. Hwang Jung-min plays the local chief of police. Initially skeptical about a monster's existence, the Chief soon finds himself walking through the town, rifle at the ready. 

   Na also introduces us to a group of hunters.  Zo In-sung plays the Chief's second cousin; he leads his hunters into the forest to destroy the monster.

   The production goes full carnage when it comes to the destruction wrought on the village of Hope Harbor, which is close enough to the DMZ to create discomfort. The creature, more like a giant mutant version of a human, proves fiercely determined. It may be indestructible.

    Eventually, a deputy (Hoyeon) shows up to help, adding flavor to the proceedings that brim with invention, speeding cars, and enough bullets to stock several wars, all enhanced by cinematographer Hong Kyung-Pyo's wide-screen framing, which is a pleasure to behold even when the camera has its eye on sights that are designed for revulsion. 

   The movie isn't without its share of gook and gore. Flies buzz rotting carcasses and ... Never mind. I think you get the idea.

    After its first hour, the movie slows a bit, and it's difficult not to think Hope has lost its momentum. Na uses these scenes to flesh out the story, letting us know that there are multiple monsters and adding an absurd bit of humor in which a village old-timer recounts his efforts to hide from a monster during a severe bout of diarrhea.

    I've waited as long as I could to add another detail. The monster isn't a monster at all; it's an alien, and it's accompanied by other aliens who have arrived on Earth for reasons the movie only hints at. I've read that Na says he's working on a sequel.

    We're left to speculate. Na shows a creature autopsy. A buzz saw is needed to penetrate the monster’s thick skin, presumably a comment on the human approach to encounters with strangers.

    After this mid-picture interlude, Na again evs up the action for his finale. This closing display of action again elevates the proceedings with a white-knuckle display in which a man on horseback tries to leap into a speeding police car while a relentless alien pursues.

    By this time, it may seem as if Na, who already has demonstrated his superior action chops, is showing off. But he gives the action a few new wrinkles. 

    It's almost as if Na is saying, "Look, I know there are derivative elements here, but I'm going to prove  that I can make them fresh, urgent and cinematically alive."

     So what are we to make of this wildly conceived movie? Na tries to add a thematic boost at the end, making us wonder whether the earthlings might be less principled than the invaders, but the message is ambiguous and not entirely satisfying.

     A footnote: Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender do voice and stop-motion work toward the end when the aliens abandon their terrifying shrieks for a bit of conversation, which Na conveys with subtitles.

     I wish I could say that Hope was great, that I had  no reservations about anything in its two-hour and 40-minute length. But even if it isn't, Hope so often operates at peak levels that the movie establishes itself as a crazed entertainment with greatness in it. That's more than you can say about most movies.

A belated sequel with few surprises

 A well-matched Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman don't miss much of a beat as they revisit their performances in Practical Magic 2, a sequel to 1998’s Practical Magic, an adaptation of a novel by Alice Hoffman. 

 Despite dealing with witchcraft, Practical Magic 2 — directed by Susanne Bier — proves innocuous, a movie that unfolds pretty much as you'd expect, offering a cheerleading session for sisterhood and fan service for loyal followers of the original, a group that evidently swelled after the movie finished its theatrical run.

    Once again, Bullock and Kidman play the Owens sisters, sibling witches still haunted by the curse that drove the first installment. Men who venture into loving relationships with an Owens sister are doomed to die — and not of old age. 

    The lethal power of the curse explains the absence of Gary (Aidin Quinn), the character Bullock’s Sally paired with at the end of the first installment.

    This version restates the sisters' divergent approaches to magic: Kidman’s Gillian, the flighty sister, remains devoted to witchery. Sally tries to avoid it. She doesn't want her daughters (Joey King and Maisie Williams) to lead lives marred by spells, curses, and heartbreak.

    Perhaps as part of nostalgia service, the movie provides small roles for Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing, who play aging witches, the aunts who raised Sally and Gillian in the small Massachusetts town where they still reside.

     Now a young woman, King's Kylie has fallen in love with genial Gideon (Xolo Mariduena). Doomed once the dreaded death beetle appears, Gideon is en route to becoming another victim of the love curse. 

    It doesn’t take long for an auto accident to leave poor Gideon in a coma. Once hospitalized, he's tended to by Williams' character, who's conveniently in the midst of her medical residency at the same institution. Hopefully, she'll have a great medical career because she pretty much vanishes from the rest of the proceedings.

     Not until Gideon's accident does Kylie learn about the witchy inheritance her mother has taken great pains to hide from her. Feeling betrayed by Mom's secrecy, Kylie jets off to England, hoping to end the curse so that she can marry Gideon.  

     Worried that inexperienced Kylie will fall prey to the dark side of magic, Sally and Gillian follow. In London, they contact a professor (Lee Pace) who’s made his academic bones studying what the movie refers to as “the craft.” Maybe he can help save Kylie while providing Sally with a potential love interest. 

   What? You thought she'd get through the movie without one?

     Before Sally and Gillian can catch up with Kylie, she meets a local (Solly McLeod) who offers to help but is so amiable we immediately suspect him of treachery.

      Add a few special effects (none particularly impressive), and you’ve got the idea, a sequel that leans heavily on the chemistry Bullock and Kidman ably generate. They don't collapse under the weight, which is about the best you can say for a movie that waves its wand lightly but can't conjures up little by way of surprise.