Rapping for the Irish language

     

  The Irish rap group Kneecap anchors its message in language. The group’s three members — Naoise O Caireallain, aka Moglai Bap; Liam Og O hAnnaidh; aka Mo Chara, and JJ O Dochartaigh, aka DJ Provai— portray themselves in Kneecap, a movie that uses Irish Gaelic as a free-spirited emblem of independence.

   Writer/director Rich Pappiatt creates a fictionalized portrait of the group. Staunch advocates of all things Irish, the Belfast-based rappers come off as a new generation of revolutionaries, drawing their energy from a potent blend of irreverence and defiance.

   Two of the group’s members are introduced as drug dealers, giving the movie a decidedly bad-boy vibe. DJ Povai, who handles the group's beats, plays an Irish language and music teacher who discovers his calling in rap.

   Provai frequently appears wearing an orange-green-and-white balaclava, colors of the Irish flag and an expression of hope for Irish unification. 

   In a brief but ultimately affecting performance, Michael Fassbender portrays Moglai Bap's dad, a member of the IRA who we're led to believe was killed by the British during the Troubles. A persistent cop (Josie Walker) believes Fassbender's Arlo has gone into hiding.

   You may not agree with every item on the group's political agenda, but much of the film has been tailored to speak to disaffected young people -- in this case, Irish Republicans who want unity between the north and south.

  Seasoned with a hip-hop version of a Romeo-and-Juliet style romance (Catholic and Protestant) and dark currents provided by an Irish liberation organization that opposes the group's shameless drug use, Kneecap's creative flourishes include English versions of the lyrics splashed across the screen, as well as a bit of animation. 

   I'll let others judge the music, but the rappers turn in credible, often funny, performances that are rooted in the culture they ardently represent and which, in a way, they're helping to invent.

   I don't know whether Kneecap, which had its premiere at last January's Sundance Film Festival, will appeal to American audiences.

    For the most part, I saw it as a sharply irreverent portrait of young Irishmen fighting their war with words and hard-core attitudes rather than bullets. I suppose we should view that as a form of progress.

The simple life — sort of

Let's keep it simple: Peak Season -- the story of New York yuppies who vacation in Jackson Hole, Wyo. -- is a pleasant diversion. Directors Steven Kanter and Henry Loevner speak to the part of us that wishes to shed hectic lives for something simpler and more satisfying. The movie begins with Amy (Claudia Restrepo) and her fiancé Max (Ben Coleman) visiting Jackson Hole for a romantic vacation and a bit wedding planning. Preoccupied with businesses and distracted by his phone, Max exits to deal with a financial crisis back in New York. He leaves Loren (Derrick Joseph DeBlasis), a local, to serve as Amy's guide in matters pertaining to fishing, tubing, and hiking. Having recently quit her high-pressure consulting job, Amy surrenders to Jackson Hole's charms, but will she also surrender to Loren's laid-back ways? The Tetons enhance a story that borders on cliche but concludes with a touch of ambiguity.  Kanter and  Loevner capture the feeling of mountain locals whose cobbled-together livelihoods enable them to escape what they see as busy but hollow lives. No mention of Wyoming political leanings clouds the movie's azure skies, the performances are engaging, and, the movie serves as a reminder of the kind of small enjoyments that too few movies deliver.

A dizzying look at two rooftoppers

 

Skywalkers: A Love Story holds your interest in ways that more hyped up films can't. That's because director Jeff Zimbalist's look at two Russian rooftoppers (climbers who scale skyscrapers) contains more vertiginous footage than any film since 2008's Man on A Wire followed Philippe Petit's World Trade Center tightrope walk. Zimbalist focuses on Angela Nikolau and Ivan "Beerkus' Kuznetsov, two climbers who practice what she (and subsequently he) refer to as artistic expression. The story builds toward an attempt to scale Merdeka in Malaysia, which -- at the time of the filming -- was the world's tallest building, 118 floors rising 2,227 feet into the sky. (The title now belongs to Dubai's Burji Khalifa, which is 2,717 feet tall.) Every climb presents a variety of technical challenges that must be met while prepping, which also includes plans to avoid detection by law enforcement. For good reasons, rooftopping remains illegal. Nikoklau grew up with circus performers for parents; Kuznetsov began his climbing career with other boys but rooftopping soon became an irresistible full-time passion. Nikolau and Kuzentsov complement each other's skills but the partnership is threatened when Nikolau insists on climbing despite an injury. Zimbalist makes no effort to present a counter-argument; no one argues against rooftopping, which -- if you stop to think about -- is a crazy, high-risk enterprise. Zimbalist explains how the pair finance their efforts -- sponsorships at first and then through the sale of NFTs. The film makes use of GoPro cameras (operated by the climbers) and drones to obtain its spectacular footage. I don't know quite how to think about rooftopping, but Skywalkers makes you look away from the screen in disbelief that anyone would attempt what these two have turned into their life's work. Skywalkers is available for screening on Netflix.

An overloaded 'Deadpool & Wolverine'

   I saw Deadpool & Wolverine on a giant IMAX screen, yet I wouldn't call this wild foray into the Marvel Universe a movie. It's more like a variety show featuring a surfeit of Marvel characters, two bantering hosts (Deadpool and Wolverine) and enough chaotic action to barrel through two hours and seven minutes. 

  Director Shawn Levy punctuates the show with profane one-liners, self-conscious swipes at Marvel tropes, playful violations of the illusory fourth wall, and an appearance by Peggy, a mixed-breed dog named as Britain's Ugliest Dog in 2023.

    In short, no one will accuse Deadpool & Wolverine of skimping.

    Ryan Reynolds (as Deadpool) and Hugh Jackman (as Wolverine) headline the show, which does have a plot of sorts. Deadpool and Wolverine join forces to save the multiverse time stream in which Deadpool (aka Wade Wilson) operates --  or some such.

    Do we really care about the outcome? Not much; the movie has less to do with plot than with the collection of sideshows that dominate its superhero circus.

     A second-tier group of villains includes Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen of Succession fame), Cassandra Nova (Emma Corbin), who happens to be Professor X's evil twin, Lady Deathstrike (Kelly Hu), and Pyro (Aaron Stanford). If these names mean nothing to you, you've either avoided or escaped the MCU web and can stop reading.

     At one point, Deadpool and Wolverine are banished to The Void, which seems to be a place composed of Mad Max outtakes and where characters from various strains of the multiverse mix and mingle. 

     A team of additional Marvel characters eventually joins  Deadpool, whose goal is to earn his place as an important contributor in the Marvel Universe of superheroes. He wants to be part of the Marvel A-team.

    One of the movie's producers,  Reynolds offers a steady stream of Deadpool snark, much of it aimed at Wolverine, whose chiseled torso and bulging biceps suggest an abiding aversion to body fat.

     As for Jackman's performance, let's just say that if there's ever an Oscar for sneers and snarls, challengers should throw in their towels now.

      Nostalgia becomes part of the mix. Wolverine even dons the yellow and blue suit that harkens back to another comic book era. 

      The screenplay makes several references to 20th Century Fox, the studio associated with the X-Men films. Disney acquired Fox and that's mentioned as well, an over-used inside joke that tells us that Marvel fans are supposed to be as familiar with MCU's corporate saga as they are with the characters.

      Need more info? Early on, Deadpool returns to ordinary life, working as a used car salesman. Wolverine's return from the dead receives a humorous gloss. At one point, an army of alternate universe Deadpools appears: A bloated baby Deadpool tops the list of sight gags.

    Known for the Night at the Museum franchise, Levy makes his Marvel debut with a shamelessly raucous addition to the Marvel Universe. It's not worth pointing out instances of fan service in Deadpool & Wolverine; the entire movie qualifies as fan service.

      My bet. Hardcore fans will gorge on this heaping Marvel meal; others might prefer to seek their big-screen nourishment elsewhere.

     

     

Historic trial impacts ordinary Israelis

 

June Zero has enough poignant and insightful moments to carry it past its lapses. Director Jake Paltrow tells three intertwined Israeli stories that take place during the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann, followed by his hanging in 1962. June Zero isn't a reenactment along the lines of The Man in the Glass Booth, an Eichmann-centered play that became a movie in 1975. Paltrow, who wrote the movie's screenplay with Tom Shoval, offers a speculative footnote about Eichmann that leads to considerations about the weight of Holocaust history and the value of memory. Three characters carry the story's burden. David (Noam Ovadia) is a 13-year-old Libyan Jewish immigrant who works in a factory run by the gruff but caring Zebco (Tzahi Grad). Haim (Yoav Levi) is a Moroccan Jewish prison guard assigned to watch Eichmann in his cell. Tom Hagi portrays a Holocaust survivor who becomes a focal point for issues involving the importance of giving testimony.  Paltrow and Shoval anchor their story in historical truth. Once Eichmann was hanged, the Israelis faced a challenge: What to do with his body? It was decided that Eichmann would be cremated. His ashes would then be dumped in the ocean, a preventive measure against the establishment of any shrine that might encourage neo-Nazi veneration. The problem: Cremation was not allowed under Jewish law, so Israel had no crematoriums. The screenplay contrives to have Zeboc's factory build a single-body crematorium based on a German blueprint for ovens that were used in Auschwitz. The shift to Hagi's story can be disorienting, and a brief epilogue adds little. Overall, though, Paltrow's movie unsettles, never shrinking from complexity as it details how a major trial impacted the lives of ordinary Israelis.

OK 'Twisters' twirls into summer

 

Quick takes after watching Twisters, a semi-sequel to the popular 1996 blockbuster.

1. Advances in effects have made tornadoes feel more nerve-rattling than they were in 1979. But if you rewatch the 1979 movie, you may be surprised to discover that the effects don’t look hopelessly dated. The new movie's strategy: To convey and underscore tornadic ferocity in Oklahoma's tornado alley and then repeat. After that, do it again.

2. The new edition rewrites one of the original's equations, pitting greedy capitalism (a real estate company exploits tragedy by underpaying for tornado damaged homes) against do-good impulses. Good-guy storm chasers help those whose lives are destroyed by tornadoes. They also struggle to disarm lethal twisters.

3. Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt (as a divorced couple reunited in their fight against tornadoes) were a more interesting pair than Glenn Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones. Powell plays Tyler Owens, a cowboy storm chaser from Arkansas, a subculture superstar who calls himself "The Tornado Wrangler." Powell underscores his magnetism and proves that in movies, a gleaming smile can outdo a tornado. Edgar-Jones, passable.

4. Twisters has been criticized for ignoring global warming as a contributor to increasingly powerful and more frequent tornadoes. Rising temperatures are mentioned, but, hey, this is an aspiring summer blockbuster; it wasn't written by Bill Nye, the science guy.

5. The screenplay toys with another conflict found in the original -- individual creativity vs. organizational conformity; the split allows for the introduction of underutilized supporting characters, colorful individuals who defy corporate authority, Keep an eye out for Sasha Lane and Brandon Perea.

6. If you’re familiar with the original, you’ll notice that director Lee Isaac Chung restates but tries to freshen plot points from the original. An example: A visit to Aunt Meg (Lois Smith) in the original becomes a stop at the home of Kate’s mom (Maura Tierney). I didn’t mind. 

7. Chung, widely hailed for the indie hit Minari, tries to layer a melancholic tone into the proceedings: Tornadoes can wipe out years of old-fashioned striving in an instant.

8. Some of the set pieces are great, including one in which a movie theater is destroyed, its screen ripped to shreds, thereby hinting at the destruction of theater culture or maybe trying to pit escapist thrills against the real thing, which — of course — is a little weird for a movie in which the storms are artificially created.

9. Chung doesn’t have the kind of sardonic streak that might have given the story more edge. An example: He presents a rodeo as a shining example of Americana, even though it’s disrupted by a tornado. He unabashedly celebrates the open spaces of the American heartland.

10. Do the characters have psychological resonance? Edgar-Jones’s Kate is driven by guilt over losing her significant other during an early picture prologue involving an experiment gone awry. A one-time bull rider, Tyler tells her to ride her fears, not face them. When it comes to motivation, the movie scores a meh.

11. What about the romance between Tyler and Kate? In another wrinkle, Anthony Ramos plays the chaser who lures Kate back into storm chasing but loses the love game to Powell. The movie’s love triangle is rigged; the deck is stacked against Ramos's character from the beginning.

11. Tired of this yet?

12.  Me, too.

13.  All in all, Twisters is a reasonably effective attempt at creating a summer box office storm that delivers what it promises. But a word of caution:  It’s possible to grow weary of getting pounded by tornado after tornado (I eventually did). It's possible, though, that some will see the punishing stream of tornadoes as a virtue, even if the vividly presented storms aren't  likely to boost Oklahoma tourism.

'Longlegs': A horror promise unfulfilled

 

    Longlegs opened on Friday, June 12, mostly to laudatory reviews. I was eager to see it. I hoped that I'd find something I've been patiently awaiting, a great horror movie.

    As it turned out, Longlegs puzzled me: It's well-crafted, and brimming with dread-provoking atmosphere. On top of that, a wild-ass performance from Nicolas Cage (who else?) as the movie's title character provides added appeal.

     Under a ton of make-up and sporting a gray wig that makes him look like an aging hag, Cage's voice travels the upper registers as he plays a suspected serial killer. His wild fairy-tale solo plays against a chorus of gloom, almost a sideshow to the main event.

   Longlegs has been compared to Silence of the Lambs, probably because its story centers on Lee Harker (Maika Monroe), a fledgling FBI agent  assigned by her boss (Blair Underwood) to catch a prolific serial killer.

   The killer makes life-sized dolls that become one of his calling cards. Longlegs also leaves notes with strange lettering, one of several suggestions that demonic influences may be at play.

    For her part, Harper has unexplained psychic powers that link her to Longlegs.

    Director Oz Perkins (I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House) and cinematographer Nico Aguilar shroud the Seattle area in darkness, dropping hints that the story is unfolding during the 1990s. A pay phone and photos of Bill Clinton on the walls of government offices establish the period.

    The atmospherics are strong, but Perkins gives the movie's grim realism a supernatural gloss that dilutes rather than enhances its eerie power.

    The supporting cast doesn't have much to do, but Alicia Witt has an unsettling turn as Harker's mom, a woman who seems to be on the edge of a breakdown -- or maybe already has taken the plunge.

      Perkins primes us for a high-impact finale but devotes the movie's ending to an extended and far-fetched rationale for the evil we've seen. Less explanation would have said more.

       I'll avoid spoilers and say only that the ending didn't fulfill the promise of the build-up. For me, Longlegs stumbled before it crossed the finish line. By leaving too little mystery for us to unravel, the movie outsmarts itself.

A romcom mashup that sputters

 

   Fly me to the moon or so goes the lyric. On second thought, if it means sitting through the mashup of romcom moves, intrigue, and satire that's being peddled in the new comedy Fly Me to the Moon, I'll happily remain on Earth.  

  Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum star in roles that seem intended to evoke memories of the comedies of yesteryear -- updated with a dose of conspiratorial thinking on the part of screenwriters Keenan Flynn, Rose Gilroy, Bill Kirstein, and director Greg Berlanti.

  Fly Me to the Moon isn't meant to be taken too seriously, but it often feels slight, and inconsequential, a big-screen bauble hasn't been polished enough to shine.

  Johansson plays Kelly Jones, an unscrupulous marketer who's recruited by a shadowy government agent (Woody Harrelson) to help sell the public on NASA's Apollo 11 mission, which, in 1969, landed the first humans on the moon.

  As the Apollo launch chief stationed in Cocoa Beach, Fla., Channing's Cole Harris resists efforts to commercialize the mission. He gradually yields, accepting   the idea that putting astronauts on cereal boxes will help provide much-needed support for NASA funding.

   The movie attributes Cole's all-business attitude to the seriousness of the task and to a past tragedy. He was the launch director of Apollo 1, which resulted in the deaths of three astronauts.

   Harrelson's Moe Berkus has more in mind than elevating NASA's popularity. He involves Kelly in a scheme to set up a faux moon landing that he plans to televise regardless of what the real astronauts accomplish. Berkus refuses to risk losing what he views as an ideological battle with the Soviets.

   Blather about a faked moon landing isn't new, but little of the movie's maneuvering passes the credibility test, and the romance between Kelly and Cole poses no threat to the likes of Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert or any of the other great romcom pairings.

   At the same time, a lively Johansson brings plenty of verve to a role that allows her to employ a variety of accents. Channing's character, on the other hand, seems to have been written in ways that minimize some of the actor's strengths, notably charm and good humor.

    The supporting cast adds little. Anna Garcia portrays Kelly's assistant, and Jim Rash plays the deluded director Kelly hires to fake the moon landing. A frustrated director of commercials, Rash's character is waiting for Hollywood to recognize his brilliance.

   The movie wastes Ray Romano as a NASA engineer and the movie's resident sadsack.

    The Apollo astronauts, of course, reached the moon. This one? If not a case of crash and burn, its overlong two-hours and 11 minutes hardly rocket to new heights.

    

A porn star's bumpy road to fame

 

   At one point in the movie MaXXXine, a porn star (Mia Goth) seeking crossover fame as a horror movie queen,  tries to evade a slimy private investigator (Kevin Bacon). To avoid her pursuer, Goth's Maxine seeks refuge inside the famous Psycho house on the Universal Studios lot.

   Mark the Psycho house as one of many movie references in the third installment of director Ti West's horror trilogy, which began in 2022 with X and Pearl. 

   West primes us to see Norman Bates, or a facsimile, pose a frightening new danger, but he purposefully undermines the suspense he creates. Once inside, all we see is the wooden scaffolding that keeps the house from collapsing. 

     We're behind the facade, a strategy West repeatedly employs as he plays with horror and movie tropes from the 1980s. The result ranges from smartly mounted jests to self-conscious displays of pop-cultural savvy.

    MaXXXine feels like an ambitious movie that can't quite shed enough of its genre skin to emerge as something startlingly fresh, even as West works to expose the seaminess behind Hollywood’s bright lights.

     The movie's casting probably broadens its reach. Employing a southern accent that makes his words sound as if they've been dipped in grease, Bacon scores as PI John Labat. 

     The rest of the cast includes Giancarlo Esposito, as  Teddy Night, Maxine's unscrupulous agent. Two homicide detectives (Bobby Cannavale and Michelle Monaghan) figure in the plot. Elizabeth Debicki portrays the ambitious director of the crossover horror movie Maxine hopes will make her a star. Of course, it's a sequel. 

     Then there's Goth, who has staked out impressive territory in three of these movies, most notably in Pearl, the best of the trilogy. 

    Goth plays the only character who survived the first movie, which saw a group of young filmmakers trying to break into the biz by making a porno. Post X, Maxine  traveled to Hollywood where she made a mark in the adult-film world.

     Goth's performance embodies one of West's central observations; those who don't wish to become monsters shouldn't aspire to stardom. The movie never forgets that Maxine's past is bathed in the first movie’s bloodshed. Her freckled face looks innocent, until it curdles into an expression of monstrous ambition.

        Although it’s difficult to take seriously amid all of West’s showmanship, a story emerges. During the 1980s, a real-life serial killer called The Night Stalker terrified Los Angeles. News footage tells us about this horrific chapter of LA history, which West uses as a springboard to put Maxine in danger.  More can't be said without spoilers.

     West's movies have become known for adding layers of meaning that elevate them from the usual Hollywood gore ghetto -- while also not abandoning major plasma flows.

    The gore in MaXXXine slashes and smashes its way onto the screen like exclamation points.

     The movie's conclusion struck me as more risible than chilling; it's followed by a needless epilogue that restates the movie's ideas.

      It's also arguable that the parade of movie allusions gets out of hand.  West even finds a way to put a bandage on the nose of Bacon's PI. We're clued to remember Jack Nicholson's Jake Gittes, the detective who discovered Los Angeles's dark side in Chinatown.

     Chinatown (1974), of course, was not an '80s movie, but West uses the reference to draw thematic connections to his LA foray -- the story that festers beneath the surface, the lowdown.

      Garish, glitzy, and gruesome, MaXXXine can’t outdo its predecessors. Still, if you’re a fan of the first two movies, West gives you no particular reason to avoid the trilogy’s semi-successful finale.

       Oh, I almost forgot an important question: Is  MaXXXine scary and creepy enough to haunt you once you leave the theater? I don't think so.

Kevin Costner’s Western has its virtues

   

  In a perceptive article in Variety, critic Owen Gleiberman assessed the lackluster opening weekend of Kevin Costner's Horizon: An American Saga -- Chapter 1,  $11 million for a three-hour Western that cost $100 million to make. Chapter 1 is only the first part of what Costner conceives of as a four-part movie. Chapter 2 releases in August.

     Not a fan of the movie, Gleiberman likened Horizon to fare we might see on TV, calling it  "the seedbed for a miniseries." Although he admired Costner's courage and commitment (the actor/director spent a reported $38 million of his own money on the production), Gleiberman went on to say that the movie teaches the following lesson:

       "Don't turn movies into television."

       Initial box office returns appear to be proving Gleiberman right. 

       But Costner's gamble on the form was interesting and perhaps justified. Audiences, after all, have grown accustomed to watching lengthy novelistic series on small screens; it's reasonable to think they might embrace the form if it were successfully transposed to the big screen.

        Or maybe not. Most miniseries are presented in digestible one-hour segments. Pause buttons allow for bathroom breaks, and concessions are no further away than the refrigerator.

         So, a quick Q&A on Horizons.

         Q. Did it deserve to be widely panned, as it was after premiering at last May's Cannes Film Festival?

          A. No. We've all seen plenty of catastrophes on the big screen. Horizons isn't one of them.

          Q. Are some of the criticisms of the movie justifiable?

          A. Of course.

          Q. Is Horizon a commercial folly -- considering cost and possible returns?

          A. Not my concern.

          Q. Can you summarize your reaction?

           A. Horizon held my interest, kept me from looking at my watch, and included enough tension to build a series of mostly involving mini-dramas.

         Beyond that, Horizon proves adventurous -- albeit not always in expected ways.

      The movie, or more accurately, its form tends toward abstraction. I don't mean to suggest that those who see the movie won't be watching gritty characters who operate in realistic settings. Nothing about Horizon feels avant-garde. 

       I'm talking about the way Costner breaks his Western opus into chunks. Presumably, upon the movie's completion, all these fragments will cohere in ways that justify the "American Saga" part of the movie's title. Perhaps we'll emerge with a comprehensive picture of the forces that helped shape the American West with all its rawness, fiber, decency, and deceit.

      I agree with those who've pointed out that it's difficult to watch Horizon without thinking about Costner's treatment of Native Americans. He did, after all, direct Dances With Wolves, widely hailed for recognizing a Native American perspective.

      One of Costner's most gruesome scenes occurs early and involves Apaches. A band of warriors attack a settlement, ravaging those they view as invaders of their land.

      Although the movie's Apache attack could have been lifted from an older, less sensitive era of moviemaking, Costner -- who wrote the screenplay with Jon Baird -- adds nuance by including a scene in which an aging chief warns the Apache warrior (Owen Crow Shoe) who led the assault that he's fighting a losing battle. 

    A later raid on a peaceful Native American village provides an example of bloody white brutality: Greedy marauders collect scalps for money.

    The movie's structure might be called partially successful. Like clumsy couples on a dance floor, the episodes in Horizon sometimes bump abruptly into one another. Some episodes are better (and more compelling) than others, and I sometimes forgot characters by the time they reappeared.

      It's also possible that the movie has been overpopulated with characters. A mother (Sienna Miller) and her daughter (Georgia MacPhail) survive the early-picture Apache attack. Soldiers (Danny Huston and Sam Worthington) help depict the cavalry as  incapable of protecting so much open terrain. 

      After roughly an hour, Costner appears as Hayes Ellison, and the movie takes on a more conventional Western tone. A hard-bitten horse trader, Ellison kills the brother of an outlaw who's then intent on revenge. In the process, Ellison becomes the protector of a flirtatious prostitute (Abbey Lee) who has taken charge of another woman's two-year-old boy.

     That's a lot for one movie, and I haven't even mentioned Matthew Van Meyden (Luke Wilson), the leader of a wagon train that becomes another source of small dramas, one involving a tender-foot Brit and his wife.

      But the overriding theme seems to be the settlement of the West, which the movie sees less as a matter of cowboy grit or settler pluck than as a wave of history breaking across the land, leaving plenty of carnage in its wake. 

     When the movie opens in 1859, a nameless white man and his assistant are seen surveying a remote patch of land. Two Native Americans observe, and a point is made in schematic form: The untamed West is about to be carved into discreet chunks of property. 

      I suppose we should be uneasy about judging a movie that has yet to finish. It's also possible that "good" -- how I'd describe Chapter 1 -- might not be enough for a movie with so much epic ambition.

      Still, in my view, Costner does more than enough to get us to the next chapter. Horizon gives us a version of the West that stems from Costner's knowledge of the genre. The movie often matches the seriousness of its intentions, and Costner doesn't indulge in mythologizing romanticism or cynical deconstruction. The movie acquires its forward motion from the broadness of its sweep.

      I hope the remaining chapters of Horizon  -- unlike this installment -- will be made available to critics in every market before their release. Chapter 1 was not screened for critics in my city.

    So to get back to where we started... Sure, the opening weekend was far from glorious, but it's possible that by the time he's done, Costner will have made a movie that will look quite different.

     What some now see as a misbegotten labor of love may, in time, be viewed as a laudable achievement. After the first helping, Costner left me rooting for the latter.