'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.

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. 

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.

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. 

 

'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. 

'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.

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.

'F1' races into summer's sweepstakes

 

  Formula One racing -- and just about every other sport -- offers abundant opportunities for brand promotion. Brand names adorn cars, drivers' suits, and racing venues.  F1: The Movie, which immerses in the Formula One world,  may not shatter box office records, but it may be the envy of folks who work placing products in movies.

   Identifiable brands seem natural enough because Formula One racing leans heavily on branding. Evidently, 2024's sponsorships reportedly topped $2 billion. 

   So, yes, among other things, you can keep count of the number of brands you'll notice in F1, a movie starring Brad Pitt and cars that look as if they belong on launch pads in sci-fi movies.

    You'll find plenty of high-tech flourish in F1, but director Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun Maverick) isn't offering a crash course on the use of technology in racing. He's engineering a major helping of IMAX-level footage that seems intended to give viewers a feel for what it's like to drive at speeds exceeding 230 miles per hour. 

    Kosinski builds F1 around a script that cashes in on Pitt's increasingly grizzled star power while relying on clichés about an underdog team that seeks to beat the odds. What? You thought I was going to say that the movie proved why most underdogs never have their day?

   So is the movie any good?

   F1 begins well enough with Pitt's Sonny Hayes notching a NASCAR win in Daytona.  Sonny barely has time to celebrate when a Formula One bigwig and former racing pal (Javier Bardem) offers to fly him to London to join his losing APX team. APX badly needs a racing vet.

    Initially reluctant, Sonny agrees. He heads to London where he meets Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), a brash young teammate who's more confident than he has any right to be. Old-school Sonny and new-school Joshua compete to determine who'll lead the team. 

   So is the movie any good?

   I'm getting there.

   Once the rivalry is established, Kosinski introduces the APX team, which includes chief technical director Kate (Kerry Condon), presented as the first woman to hold such a post. She's also a potential romantic interest for Sonny.

   The movie then marches through a variety of races including the Hungarian Grand Prix and the Belgian Grand Prix as it builds toward the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the movie's last Formula One Race, which arrives complete with a military flyover and a bit of been-there-done-that racing fatigue.

    So is the movie any good? C'mon tell us already.

    Well, the sharply edited racing sequences have visceral kick, although they start to feel repetitive. A few wrinkles in the subplot -- a move by a rogue APX board member (Tobias Menzies) to oust Javier's character -- add little.

    The screenplay by Ehren Kruger and Kosinski plays it both ways with Condon's character. A staunchly independent woman in a man's world, Kate's still subject to Sonny's charms.

      Pitt brings old-pro savvy to Sonny, a guy who insists he doesn't race for money. Despite injuries and failure to realize his big dream, he keeps pursuing the rare feeling that occurs for him when everything clicks behind the wheel, and, in his words, he's "flying."

      Inside his helmet, Sonny almost looks like an afterthought while driving, a man whose reflexes might not be a match for the sensors lodged in the car's chassis. I half wondered whether racing could reach a point where drivers become obsolete. Cars could be "driven" by control-room techies. But wait ... Isn't that what video games are for?

     Still, I found the technical aspects of modern racing intriguing and the movie's crashes left me gasping.

    But I've dragged this on long enough. Is the movie any good?

     The best I can say is that it's not bad, and it's scaled to entertain in an environment that captures some of the glamor and grit of Formula One racing.  

     Pitt is playing a type -- something like a loner cowboy in a motorized world -- but he does it well, and the rest of the cast hits the right notes, although Idris's character doesn't have much dimension and Bardem drifts in and out of the movie without gaining much of a foothold.

     Both Ford v Ferrari (2019) and Ferrari (2023) were better movies. Why? Each had more compelling  characters, even if the racing footage in those films wasn't as impressive as what F1 offers during its two-and-half hour running time.

     So in the end, the movie stands as a big summer package that tends to falter during its non-racing pit stops. F1 may not plumb any depths, but Kosinski works in unapologetically bold strokes that make it clear that the movie knows what it's after -- large-scale thrills. 

     

   

   

A strange, haunting '28 Years Later'

 

  Director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland return to a series they began in 2002 when they surprised audiences with 28 Days Later, a zombie movie that thrust Cillian Murphy into a post-apocalyptic dystopia. 

  That movie was followed in 2007 by 28 Weeks Later, another helping of post-apocalyptic horror with director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo in charge of a cast that included Robert Carlyle, Jeremy Renner, and Rose Byrne.

   28 Years Later begins as series fans might expect. Put another way,  the projectile vomiting of blood begins within the first eight minutes. And, yes, there are severed heads with spinal cords still attached, not to mention fast-moving zombies and the horribly infectious Rage Virus that turns people into flesh eaters.

   But Boyle doesn't wait long to let us know that the movie will be an exercise in unhinged weirdness, setting his story on Holy Island off the English coast. The mainland -- reachable by crossing a strip of land that's only available during low tide -- is populated by infectious zombies who have been kept off the island.

    Twelve-year-old Spike (Alfie Williams) becomes the movie's central character after being introduced to zombie hunting by his father (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) who takes him to the mainland for his first kill. Spike's initiation into manhood reveals that he can be queasy about killing -- which, in this diminished world, is accomplished with bows and arrows.  

   Cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle gives the forests and the sea a feeling of end-times emptiness, and Boyle makes effectively eerie use of a recording of Rudyard Kipling's poem, Boots. The movie's sound design by Johnnie Byrne and a score by an Edinburgh group called Young Fathers further suggest dread and perhaps even hopelessness.

   Jodie Comer plays a pivotal role as Spike's confused, bedridden mom. After returning from his first hunt, Spike learns that a doctor (perhaps the last one on earth) lives on  the mainland where he's noted for tending a fire in which he burns an abundant supply of corpses.

   Spike asks his mom to accompany him to the mainland in hopes that the doctor can cure the malady that seems to be killing her. En route to the doctor's camp, the two meet Erik (Edvin Ryding), a stranded Swedish soldier who joins them for a while. Mom also helps an infected woman deliver a baby who's born virus-free.

    Almost nothing feels normal in this tense, corrupted world, but the movie saves its most bizarre flourish for the moment when Ralph Fiennes appears as Dr. Kelson. Kelson coats himself with iodine to ward off the infected. 

   Looking as if he might have wandered in from the set of a Road Warrior movie or perhaps from the jungles of Apocalypse Now, Fiennes radiates an angelic benevolence  that elevates the movie and makes it clear that although  there are many ways to die, no one escapes. His motto: Memento mori, remember you must die.

    A linked prologue and epilogue provide violent punches  that remind us that we are, after all, watching a zombie movie. But Boyle and Garland approach mortality seriously, and 28 Years Later emerges as a piece of horror that speaks in a distinctive, haunting voice that one hopes will carry into two additional movies, one of them slated to be released early next year.

Pixar's 'Elio:' Creative enough to fly

   Eleven-year-old Elio is the recently orphaned main character of the movie that bears his name.  Elio's age suggests where to find the main point of identification for this latest Pixar offering. The movie tilts young.

   Like other Pixar productions, Elio offers a fantasy antidote to childhood loneliness before pivoting for the expected emotional conclusion.

   Obsessed with outer space, Elio (voiced by Yonas Kibreab) proves a handful for Olga (Zoe Saldana), the aunt who has become his guardian. Olga works at an Air Force base where she tracks space debris and keeps watch for extraterrestrials. 

   To combat his lack of acceptance, Elio decides that intergalactic aliens are trying to contact him. Turns out he's right. The screenplay contrives to transport Elio to a spaceship where a multi-species gathering works to create a better universe.

    Hoping to join this Communiverse, Elio presents himself as the Leader of Earth. He wants to become a permanent part of what looks like an alien petting zoo, a screenful of amiable creatures whose only threat might be that they'll cuddle each other to death.

   But wait. A threat looms. 

   Denied admission to the Communiverse, Warlord Grigon (Brad Garrett) vows to destroy it. 

    Ambitious and resourceful, Elio hopes to become the savior of this cartoonish world. He's helped along the way by Grigon's son Glordon (Remy Edgerly). 

    The two form a bond that gives Elio what he most needs, a friend.

   A trio of directors (Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, and Adrian Molina) handles Elio's developing relationship with his aunt well enough, using the character to help Elio get his feet back on the ground. 

   But back to Glordon. Glordon and Elio have adventures as they search for the bargaining chip that will persuade Grigon to abandon his destructive plans. 

    At this point, Glordon takes on more importance, giving the story another point of familiarity; Glordon  has yet to undergo the installation ritual in which he'll be placed inside the fearsome warrior armor that will make him big, bulky, and menacing.  

   Fair to say, Glordon doesn't want to follow in his daddy's footsteps, which would be difficult anyway because I'm not sure Grigon has feet.

   A slightly generic thematic tilt tends to keep Elio from earning a top spot in the Pixar family. Still, those looking for easily deciphered life lessons and colorful displays of imagination should find enough creative energy to sustain Elio's one hour and 39 minutes.

Lives swept away by major changes

 

   

   Although I didn't grasp every detail in director Jia Zhang-ke's Caught by the Tides (more familiarity with China's emergence into the 21st Century would have helped), the gist of the movie is clear enough to make it worth exercising the patience Jia’s movie demands. 

    The title suggests the film's meaning. Jia follows two characters whose lives unfold against a backdrop of social upheaval. Shot over a 23-year span, the film begins in Datong, a city dominated by coal mining. 

    No main character emerges until we meet Qiaoqiao (Zhao Tao), a young model whose lover Bin (Li Zhubin) leaves her to find something beyond the life he's living. Eager to cash in on the new world that's dawning in China, Bin promises to send for Qiaoqiao once he's settled. Fat chance.  Eventually, Qiaoqiao sets out to find Bin. 

    Jia's characters age through years that include some of China's major developments, notably the construction of the massive Three Gorges Dam. 

   By the end of the film when Bin returns to Datong, robots can be found in the city's department stores and development has obliterated much of a past where entertainment once consisted of women gathering to sing.

  The film is anchored by Zhao's performance, which takes her from gamin-like playfulness to a settled middle age, not quite resigned but self-sufficient — and, yes, alone.  

    Backgrounds shot in documentary fashion almost consume the characters, which might be part of Jia's point. Transformation can devour communities and the people who rely on them. The tides of modernization may roll, but their undertow will drag some down and not everyone will land on the bright new shores of a re-imagined future.

Love vs. money in a modern romance

 

   Director Celine Song’s Past Lives (2023) was a small wonder,  a movie about fated love untracked by time and circumstance. In Materialists, Song dips her toe into Hollywood waters, employing a name cast — Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal, and Chris Evans — as she flirts with and sometimes ignores rom-com cliches.

   Johnson's Lucy works for a matchmaking service called Adore. She's good at her job. For Adore, matchmaking extends an algorithm mindset. Before dating begins, the matchmaker obtains a list of requirements. Perhaps a lasting union will occur.

    Set in Manhattan, the screenplay, also by Song, creates a triangle. Harry (Pascal) is the rich brother of one of Lucy's clients. Charming and self-assured, Harry sees Johnson’s Lucy as a potential match. A superior strategist, she'll make a great helpmate, and it doesn't hurt that she's attractive.

   A match with Harry may make sense for Lucy, as well. She broke up with her struggling actor boyfriend (Evans) when she got sick of being down-and-out in Manhattan, a place where the good life comes with price tags that exclude wannabes. 

   Lucy meets Harry at the wedding of one of her clients. Conveniently, Evans John happens to be working the same wedding as a waiter for the company that's doing the catering. It seems apparent that neither John nor Lucy has totally moved on.

   Materialists outsmarts the average rom-com, which doesn’t mean it couldn’t have been even smarter. Enjoyably satirical when it comes to elucidating the impossible demands of a privileged generation, the movie doesn't commit to a rom-com blueprint nor does it rip it to shreds. 

   Song occupies a middle ground that sets up the movie's major problem: Should a marriage make sense in much the same way as a business merger? Is it a bad bet to surrender to love, which can't be reduced to a series of boxes one checks? 

    Considering the charm and posh surroundings in which Harry effortlessly moves, he’s playing with a clear advantage. But Song doesn’t turn Harry into a jerk; he’s sensitive and considerate, a man of taste and intelligence.

     John, on the other hand, is a 37-year-old actor who's close to the point where he may have to accept that his life as a cater waiter isn't as temporary as he once hoped.

     Moreover, Lucy seems to have abandoned the idea that two people can survive on love and a dime. When Harry takes Lucy to his apartment for the first time, she responds to his amorous advances, but also manages to eagerly eye the richly appointed surroundings. 

    In a flashback, we see the incident that drove Lucy from John. Short on funds, he couldn’t pay for parking before a dinner marking their fourth anniversary together. She called it quits.

    A pivotal incident occurs when Sophie (Zoe Winters), one of Lucy’s clients, experiences a terrible outcome on a date. Lucy's conscience is tweaked. For her, Sophie had been a lingering failure; in other words, Sophie was a tough sell in the dating market.

     Materialists leaves it to us to decide what to think about a world in which money has become the most meaningful metric and where few seem to regard virtue or decency as an asset.

     It’s not possible to make a rom-com, even a self-aware one, without some contrivance. Although Materialists has its share of them, many are easy to overlook. A law suit brought by Sophie against Adore receives short shrift, and Song ties up a variety of loose ends -- not all of them neatly.  

    Materialists ultimately kneels at the altar of formula, although it tries to expand its reach with a prologue and an epilogue involving prehistoric romance. Did the movie need to introduce cave people to prove that love hasn't necessarily evolved? I don't think so.

    Still, I wouldn't discourage anyone from seeing Materialists, which is well-acted and engaging. I wish, though, that I felt the same way about it as I felt about Past Lives; i.e., that I had seen something truly special.

        

Can a wayward daughter be saved?

     

    In Echo Valley, Julianne Moore plays a mother whose life is crowded with stress. She's grieving the recent death of her partner (Kristina Valada-Viars) and trying to deal with her antagonistic drugged-out daughter (Sydney Sweeney). She's also worrying about keeping her Pennsylvania horse ranch afloat, and late in the movie, her daughter's drug dealer (Domhnall Gleeson) tries to snare her in an elaborate extortion scheme

     Director Michael Pearce, working from a screenplay by Brad Ingelsby, begins as if the movie is going to be a disturbing examination of the problems faced by a mother whose daughter constantly promises reform but never follows through.

     Lonely and desperate, Moore's Kate refuses to abandon hope, supporting her daughter despite ample warnings that the young woman has little interest in turning her life around. 

     Pearce has hold of a premise that, though familiar, offers an opportunity for a deep dive into problems faced by parents who feel helpless when their kids venture into dangerous turf.

     Despite an initially realistic focus, the movie soon turns into a thriller involving double crosses and schemes that pull Kate into a situation in which a far-fetched plot begins to dominate.

      Fiona Shaw signs on as another ranch owner and Kate's friend, and Kyle MacLachlan appears briefly as Kate's ex-husband, who in an early scene reluctantly gives Kate $9,000 to repair the roof of her horse barn. It doesn't take much guesswork to know that the $9,000 will be spent bailing Sweeney's Claire out of a life-threatening jam.

     Moore conveys the deep torment that Kate faces as she's overwhelmed by one problem after another. And scenes between Moore and Gleeson become a tense battle for control that pushes Kate to criminal extremes.

     Despite strong moments created by a well-chosen  cast, the movie can't balance its thriller elements with attempts to explore an agonizing question: When is it time to stop trying to save a wayward child from a life ruined by one betrayed trust after another? 

 

Walking in John Wick's footsteps

   

  If you've seen the trailer, you already know that Keanu Reeves appears in From the World of John Wick: Ballerina, a spinoff set at the same time as the third Wick installment took place. But true to its title, Ballerina brings a woman to its center. 

   Ana de Armas plays Eve, the woman destined to pick up the Wick mantle and perhaps carry the franchise forward. I wish the movie had done more to distinguish Eve from her predecessor, but Ballerina does well enough in setting the stage for more deftly choreographed violence. 

    Story-wise, director Len Wiseman keeps things simple. Eve wants to avenge the murder of her father. A member of the Ruska Roma assassins team, Dad wanted his daughter to live free of bloodshed. That being the case, he should have died in a different movie.

     Once Daddy's gone, Ian McShane's Winston Scott introduces Eve to the head of Ruska Roma, a role reprised by Anjelica Huston, who brings blood-red lipstick and sadistic relish to her job as head of an institution that combines ballet instruction with lessons in the assassin's art.  Eve becomes a trainee.     

       Early in her training, Huston's character tells Eve she must learn to fight like a girl. Eve must use her small size and limited power to advantage -- or some such. Despite the advice, much of the fighting resembles what Reeves has done in the Wick series -- although when comparing de Armas to Reeves, she comes in second. How could she not? 

     Still, de Armas proves convincingly serious; Eve displays no second thoughts about her job's brutal requirements. 

     A character called the Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne) supplies the movie's villainy.  The Chancellor runs a snowy mountain town where his group of assassins try to live "normal" lives. Unlike Ruska Roma, Byrne's group doesn't kill for money. Its members murder for kicks.

     After the battle on the steps of Sacre-Coeur in Chapter 4 -- a mini-masterpiece of action -- it's difficult for the spinoff to come up with an equivalent, but Ballerina tries. Eve wields a wicked ice skate. And a battle involving dueling flame throwers makes no bones about lighting a big-time action fire.

      Before it's done, Ballerina introduces some old standbys (the late Lance Reddick's concierge, for example), and throws Eve into fight after fight.

      Whatever else it accomplishes, Ballerina proves fluent in the Wick language, ably using a vocabulary composed of bullets, grenades, axes, knives, fists, and swords. Now, let's see if it can expand what it has to say.

A Stephen King adaptation with heart

          

    Hardly a fright fest, The Life of Chuck -- a big-screen adaptation of a Stephen King novella --tells three interrelated stories in reverse order, beginning with the final chapter and working its way back to the start. 

    Life of Chuck might be classed with such big-screen King adaptations such as The Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me. The Life of Chuck isn't as memorable as either of those, but it makes room for scenes with heart, even if it tends to wear its sentiments on its sleeve.

    The stories are connected by a character named  Chuck Krantz, a fellow who appears on TV and billboards during the first segment. "39 Great Years ! Thanks Chuck!," the ads read. Sounds important, but no one knows who Chuck Krantz is. A politician? A salesman? A banker? 

    Director Mike Flanagan, who directed King's Doctor Sleep, reveals more about Krantz as the movie progresses, but The Life of Chuck is less a mystery than a collection of small moments played against a doom-laden backdrop.

     Life of Chuck rests on a thematic cushion that includes stuffing from Carl Sagan's Cosmic Calendar (an encapsulation of the history of the universe in a single year) and Walt Whitman's Song of Myself.  The signature line from  Whitman's poem ("I contain multitudes") is introduced by a teacher (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the character who anchors the film's opening chapter.

    Like everyone else, Ejiofor's Marty Anderson is puzzled by the Krantz billboards. Marty also tries to cope with an escalating variety signals that suggest a possible end to ... well ... everything: the demise of the Internet, abandoned cars lining the streets of vacated cities, and massive power outages.

    Blame a mixture of man-made issues and cosmic comeuppance for the fraught condition that threatens humanity. But causes matter less than the way characters behave in the face of impending doom.

    Ejiofor and his estranged wife (Karen Gillan) eventually share a tender scene under a vast night sky, two lonely people facing a looming finality neither can comprehend. 

    The second story features a lively dance number (no, I'm not kidding) in which Tom Hiddleston, as the title character, sheds Chuck's buttoned-up  demeanor. Contrary to what the opening suggests, we learn that Chuck is no man of mystery: An otherwise anonymous accountant, he serves as the film's everyman.

     While attending a convention, Chuck passes a street drummer (Taylor Gordon), a Juilliard dropout who lays down some infectious beats. Chuck begins to dance. Annalise Basso plays a woman who joins the dance, a stranger Chuck pulls from the small crowd of gathered spectators. She becomes his partner in what might be the crowning moment of his life.

    The movie becomes more King-like in the first chapter, really its last. We meet Krantz as a boy, played at various ages by Cody Flanagan, Benjamin Pajak, and Jacob Tremblay. Chuck's parents died in an automobile accident, leaving him to live with his grandparents (Mia Sara and Mark Hamill). 

    Not long after arriving in Chuck's grandparents' home, the movie introduces a mystery centered on the cupola that Grandpa, otherwise genial but a bit too fond of alcohol,  keeps locked. The cupola opens the door to a bit of supernatural woo-woo.

     In keeping with the film's more grounded aspirations, Grandma teaches Chuck to dance; later, he must overcome his inhibitions to take the floor at a school dance, the kind of triumph that recalls too many other teen movies.

     I don't want to oversell the Life of Chuck. An over-explanatory narration delivered by Nick Offerman sometimes falls short of eloquence, and the movie loses steam during its coming-of-age conclusion.

     Moreover, The Life of Chuck can't quite bring off its ambitious juxtaposition of cosmic-scale extinction and personal mortality. But in the movie's best moments, Flanagan wisely encourages us to accept the inescapable while still mustering enough spirit to dance.

        

Wes Anderson's grand scheme movie

 I use a notebook during screenings to keep track of specifics -- dates, locations, and colors. Things like that. If my handwriting were better these notes would be more useful, but even as they drift toward indecipherability, they serve as a memory aid.

  During the screening of director Wes Anderson's The Phoenician Scheme, I reached a point where I stopped taking notes. I couldn't keep up with the surfeit of detail that cropped up in Anderson's carefully constructed sets, each of which becomes a kind of destination that can outweigh the importance of where the story might be headed.

    Anderson tends to indulge in detailed design, so much so that it's only a mild overstatement to call his scenes  dioramas with actors. There's world building and then there's world building that feels chiseled; movies such as the Phoenician Scheme flood the screen with their drolly express detailing.

     The Anderson aesthetic is richly displayed in Phoenician Scheme, but the movie also includes dull stretches that take us from episode to episode, some set off by title cards expressing variable amounts of wit.

      So what's The Phonecian Scheme about? A greedy tycoon named Zsa-zsa Korda (Benicio Del Toro) aims to control the resources of a fictional region called Modern Greater Independent Phoenicia. Zsa-zsa's ambition sends him to a tour to raise funds for an intricate infrastructure project.

     Kate Winslet's real-life daughter Mia Threapleton plays Korda's daughter Liesl, the character who brings the movie's father/daughter theme into focus. Korda wants Threapleton's Liesl to take over his empire, choosing her over his nine sons, the equivalent of non-player characters in video games.

     The problem: Liesl is on the verge of taking her vows as a nun, an occupation that would limit her ability to play Zsa-zsa's ruthless game. To the extent that it's possible, Liesl adds moral fiber to Zsa-Zsa's project: Unlike her father, she refuses to use slaves to help with any required construction. 

     A scorecard might be needed to keep track of the actors who appear in small roles. Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston turn up in a sequence involving a strange H-O-R-S-E-like game of basketball. Anderson also makes room for appearances by Riz Ahmed, Benedict Cumberbatch, Mathieu Amalric, and Scarlett Johansson. 

     Michael Cera gets more screen time as Bjorn, an insect collector who travels with Korda and Liesl. He serves as Liesl's tutor and Zsa-zsa's "guy Friday."

     The performances fit into the Anderson's deadpan presentation of a playful weirdness that extends to costumes (a striking set of pajamas) or personal appearance (Cumberbatch's graying two-tone beard).  

     Set in the 1950s, Phoenician Scheme seems more subdued than previous Anderson efforts, although it begins with a plane crash that might be read as a commentary on the preposterous inhumanity of contemporary action sequences. Zsa-zsa we learn has survived many plane crashes. He's like man living on perpetual borrowed time. Perhaps that's why he seems a bit bored with himself.

      Anderson's devoted fans who wouldn't miss one of his movies. Should others venture into The Phoenician Scheme they may have to settle for quiet appreciation of the environments Anderson creates and his occasional displays of audacity -- e.g., the basketball sequence. 

       I'm not sure where to rank Phoenician Scheme

in Anderson's extensive catalog. The movie struck me as one more stop on a continuing journey, something like a restaurant with a forgettable main course, but lots of tasty side dishes.

Another creepy helping of horror

   The ever-expanding catalog of horror movies sometimes makes me wonder what the hell’s wrong with us —- or more precisely why we desire to be grossed out, fearful, and knocked about by jump scares. If nothing else, horror movies present us with dangers from which we happily walk away. After all, it’s not our entrails that are spilling onto the bathroom tiles.

   Bring Her Back, a dose of horror from the Australian twins, Danny and Michael Philippou, asks us to set aside any reservations we might have about putting children in danger of losing their lives at the hands of a crazed adult.

   Sally Hawkins plays a retired social worker who takes foster care children into her secluded Australian home.

Aided by Cornel Wilczek's throbbing score, the directors treat early scenes as manifestos of intent. We know horrible things will happen when two recently orphaned children (Billy Barrett and Sora Wong) are placed with Hawkins’s Laura.

  No one will be fooled into thinking that Laura’s welcoming facade doesn’t conceal rich veins of depravity. 

Barrett’s Andy, who will soon turn 18, plans to petition for guardianship of his sister ASP. 

  He believes that he and his sister have arrived at a way station en route to a better future. Younger of the two, Wong’s Piper falls under Laura' s sway. Why not? She’s too young to think she can survive with adult help.

   Grief permeates the proceedings. An inconsolable Laura lost her blind daughter when the child drowned in the now-empty swimming pool behind Laura’s home. That’s where we meet Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips), a gaunt-looking boy who doesn’t speak and whose creepy presence suggests demonic possession. 

  Oliver, who functions as a kind of unnerving special effect,  serves to push the movie over the top when, at a three-quarter mark, he bites his way through various objects that shouldn't be chewed on (a kitchen counter, for example) or chomps on a knife that he’s put in his mouth. Bloody.

   Video segments of a weird ritual add an arty touch and build toward a reveal that attempts to explain their jarring presence.

   Attempts at providing psychological depth involve  tensions between Andy and his late father and a mother's twisted denial of mortality. Laura is driven by a crazy idea about how she can bring her late daughter back to life.

   For its skillful atmospherics and amped up weirdness, Bring her Back seems to unfold without generating either fear or intense emotional involvement. Despite an all-in performance from Hawkins, Bring Her Back struck me as a moody muddle.