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.

        

No classic but 'Lightyear' proves likable

 The Pixar universe keeps expanding. Based on a character developed in 1995's Toy Story, Lightyear begins by telling us that young Andy (remember him?) received a Buzz Lightyear action figure after seeing the movie that we're about to watch. Andy loved the that movie.

  Me? I’d say it’s more “like” than “love.”

  I guess that suggests a touch of disappointment. The expectations for Pixar movies remains high and the Toy Story franchise has endeared itself to both parents and children. 

  But, hey, “like” isn’t nothing.

  The movie finds Buzz (voice by Chris Evans) as full of himself as ever. He and his fellow Space Rangers have traveled to a distant planet where a mistake by Buzz strands his fellow voyagers, some of whom were hibernating on Buzz's ship. 

  A chastened Buzz must then wrestle with an epic-sized helping of guilt. Buzz, after all, isn't supposed to fail.

  Buzz's hoped-for redemption involves being able to fly at hyper-speed, which -- should he accomplish the task-- will enable him to save those he stranded on a forbidding planet which hosts lethal insects and vines that latch onto human prey. 

   Buzz keeps trying but each time he returns to base, everyone else but him has aged. He's gone for four minutes but those who remained behind have aged four years.

   This includes Buzz's buddy Capt. Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba), a Space Ranger who marries a woman and becomes the matriarch of a couple of generations of space dwellers. Lesbianism is handled simply: It exists. No big deal.

   Eventually, Hawthorne's granddaughter Izzy (Keke Palmer) will form a ragtag crew with Darby Steel (Dale Soules), a felon with experience in explosives, and Mo Morrison (Taika Waititi), another in the movie's group of unlikely heroes.

    Evans, by the way, takes over for Tim Allen who did the Buzz voice work in previous Toy Story movies.

    Despite its sci-fi trappings, Lightyear isn't Pixar's most adventurous effort even though Buzz isn't a toy in this movie. He's a character in a futuristic adventure that gives him a robot companion, a cat named SOX (Peter Sohn). 

   Gifted with great computational powers, SOX proves a better problem solver than Buzz, who prides himself on finding solutions when the going gets tough.

   Eventually, Buzz learns to trust his new pals but not not before confronting Zurg (Josh Brolin), an emperor who  may remind you of evil imperial space characters from other movies.

   Director Angus MacLane (Finding Dory) may not have reached the stars with this one but Lightyear‘s animation upholds Pixar's standards of quality while telling a story that keeps us involved.

   

An entertaining mystery with a great cast

Knives Out couples a traditional approach with a cast of colorful contemporary characters.

Knives Out, a movie that unashamedly evokes memories of traditional whodunits, begins where it must: A group of disagreeable relatives gather in hopes of inheriting the fortune of the family’s obscenely rich patriarch.

Conveniently, the wealthy head of the family, a mystery writer played by Christopher Plummer, dies on the night of his 85th birthday celebration. Was it murder or suicide?

Director Rian Johnson isn't shy about declaring his intentions. The movie’s production design includes a rather large and prominently displayed collection of knives, part of the decor of the mansion where family members gather to snipe at one another and wait for the writer's will to be read. A greedy, duplicitous lot, the relatives all become instant suspects should it turn out that Plummer's Harlan Thrombey did not depart this life willingly.

To spark interest, the movie plays some intriguing games with casting.

To begin with, Johnson (Star Wars: The Last Jedi, The Brothers Bloom and Brick) gives Daniel Craig an opportunity to break the Bond mold. Craig portrays a private detective with an overdone Southern drawl that sounds as if the actor mastered it by bathing his vocal cords in Southern Comfort. Craig's improbably named Benoit Blanc claims that an unidentified person has hired him to assist the police in an investigation.

Michael Shannon also plays against expectation, stepping out of scary villain mode to play Harlan's pathetically ineffectual son, a man who has spent most of his life in his father’s shadow.

The writer's nurse (Mara Cabrera), an immigrant who's devoted to her boss, might be the lone character without an ulterior motive for wanting to see Harlan end his earthly journey.

Johnson flirts with caricature but a great cast won't let him get away with it. Toni Collette plays the widow of one of the late writer's sons, a woman who operates a company called Flam. The firm's business: the suspiciously broad theme of wellness. Jamie Lee Curtis appears as the haughty Linda, the writer's daughter. She's married to Don Johnson's Richard.

Like everyone else, Johnson’s character has his eye on the late writer's fortune -- as well as on the occasional woman who wanders into his view. He also delivers an anti-immigrant rant that adds a bit of topicality.

Then there's Ransom (Chris Evans), the writer's grandson, a guy who doesn't seem to care about money, but who nonetheless has become pretty good at spending it. In disdaining the rest of the family, the character of Ransom provides Evans with what must have been a welcome chance not to be Captain America.

I doubt you'll leave the theater burdened by heavy philosophical baggage. Most post-movie conversations likely will focus on Johnson's preposterously wily characters and the actors who seem to be having such a good time playing them.

The point here is entertainment and aside from allowing the proceedings to run a trifle long (two hours and 11 minutes), Johnson delivers what Knives Out promises: wry amusement, a mystery resolved at the last moment, and enough snide observation to justify the appropriately caustic treatment these characters so richly deserve.

She's gifted. Is that good?

Chris Evans stars in a story that asks: What's the best way to raise a math genius?

Is it better for a child to be supremely gifted or ultra-normal? Let's define some terms. In the case of the new movie Gifted, a genius child is one who can hang with mathematicians twice or even three times her age, figure out brain-busting equations and become a splendid freak of nature, a prodigy who deserves to be separated from her rude and scoffing peers. Normal? Well, those kids play with other children, don't consider themselves part of brainiac aristocracy and generally fit into their surroundings.

If those sound like extremes, you're right. And that's part of the trouble with Gifted, which concocts many scenes designed to advance one side or the other. Nuance? Not really.

Frank (Captain America's Chris Evans) takes care of his seven-year-old niece Mary (Mckenna Grace). Mary's a math genius, but Frank -- who lives in Florida and who scratches out a meager living repairing boat motors -- doesn't want his niece to become an isolated outsider, a girl segregated from other kids by her astronomical IQ.

Mary lives with Frank because her mother (also a math genius) committed suicide. Before her death, Frank's sister suggested that Frank raise Mary. Mary's late mom grew up under the harsh tutelage of a mother (Lindsay Duncan) who focused on math prizes to the exclusion of nearly everything else.

Against the advice of his neighbor (a wasted Octavia Spencer), Frank sends Mary to public school. Her teacher (Jenny Slate) quickly recognizes Mary's capabilities and suggests -- along with the school's principal -- that Mary enroll in a school for gifted kids. A full scholarship will be arranged, but Frank resists.

To add to the movie's inflated poignancy, Mary has a one-eyed cat for a pet, another of the film's outcasts.

Before the movie ends, Duncan's Evelyn sues her son for custody of Mary. The drama takes us through foster homes, courtroom scenes, separations that are supposed to be heartbreaking, and the near-death of the one-eyed cat.

The movie ignores many potentially rich dramatic pathways, the most notable being its refusal to explore why Frank quit his job as a Boston philosophy professor to become a blue-collar dropout in Florida. If Frank really wanted to become Mary's guardian, he might have kept his job and his health insurance. He would have avoided looking irresponsible and bereft.

But Gifted isn't complex or subtle enough to explore such contradictions: They simply become part of a backstory that's more suggested than probed.

Shorn of his Captain America persona, Evans seems only a little less bland; Duncan does her best to convey the arch elitism if an IQ snob and young Grace proves cute and engaging.

The movie's basic conflicts are interesting enough, but director Marc Webb (The Amazing Spider Man and (500) Days of Summer) doesn't plumb enough depths: Instead, he throws lots of tasty ingredients into his stew and overcooks them until they soften and (alas) turn to mush.

'Captain America' takes sides

Opposing groups of Avengers square off in the latest movie from the Marvel Comics storehouse -- and it's all pretty entertaining.

I'm not sure what it means, but one of the best scenes in Captain America: Civil War doesn't involve Captain America. It occurs when Robert Downey Jr -- in Tony Stark mode -- visits Peter Parker (a.k.a. Spider Man) in the young man's Queens, NY apartment.

Downey and Tom Holland (the new Spider Man) play a comic duet in which the older more experienced Stark -- or Iron Man -- asks for help from a skittish teen-ager who'd rather finish his homework than join a major battle.

That's not to say that Captain America: Civil War shortchanges action, including a pitched battle at the Berlin airport between opposing Avenger factions -- the civil war of the title.

But even when its fighting, the movie often makes room for one-liners that serve as wry commentary on the preposterously swollen nature of what we're watching.

Following an Avengers movie isn't always an easy task for those who remain uninitiated in the mysteries of Marvel Comics.

Every character has a given name -- as in Natasha Romanoff -- and a superhero name. Romanoff, for example, is Black Widow. And then there's the task of remembering which actor is playing which Avenger. For the record, Scarlett Johansson portrays Black Widow.

Directors Anthony Russo and Joe Russo seem to assume we know all these characters, so he barrels ahead with a movie that mimics some of the concerns raised in the recent -- but much less enjoyable -- Batman v Superman.
As in that movie, we find superheroes struggling with consciences that have been piqued by growing awareness of the collateral damage they've wrought. Taking out bad guys creates much debris, some of it lethal to bystanders.

At one point, an increasingly tormented Iron Man is confronted by a mother (Alfre Woodard) who lost her son during one of Iron Man's escapades. Iron Man feels really bad, and Woodard -- in small appearance -- unloads on him with startling conviction.

The suggestion that people actually die and that others are left to grieve is welcome, but unlike the insistently dismal Batman v. Superman, a touch of seriousness doesn't undermine Civil War's comic-book instincts. Captain America takes a grim turn or two, but it's still fun.

Here's the gist: Upset by all the damage that the Avengers have caused, the US Secretary of State (William Hurt) decides to rein them in. The Avengers are asked to submit to the rule of a UN panel. Exactly why anyone thinks this will work remains a mystery.

Some Avengers agree to the new rules; others rebel against what they view as crippling restraints.

Among those who refuse to accept the new reality are Captain America (Chris Evans) and Falcon (Anthony Mackie). They want to remain independent fighters for ... well ... whatever it is they fight for.

Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) reluctantly goes along with the new order, as does Iron Man.

Meanwhile, the villainous Zemo (Daniel Bruhl) wreaks havoc, and Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stans) tries to renounce violence.

The Russos move the story with reasonable alacrity, and try to add emotional kick by straining old friendships and dredging up a haunting incident from Iron Man's past.

You've probably noticed that I haven't said much about Evans; maybe that's because there's not a whole lot to say about this straightforward guy who plies his trade with all-American efficiency. The movie is named for Captain America, but it belongs to the other Avengers, as well.

If you want to be cynical, you could say that the introduction of Spider Man and Chadwick Boseman's Black Panther are commercial ploys intended to revivify or expand Marvel's big-screen universe, but Civil War, finally, stands as its own entertainment.

Besides, fans may greet each introduction of a character from the Avengers' roster with satisfying smiles of recognition. Yes, that's War Machine (Don Cheadle). And look, it's Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye. Paul Rudd's Ant-Man? Yes, he's there, too.

It's hardly surprising that the Avengers civil war drags on too long or that it assaults us with noisy action and nerve-rattling clangor. But for all that, the big winner in this civil war may be the audience.

Captain America isn't exactly mindless, but it doesn't let a thought or two stand in the way of anyone's fun.

All aboard for a compelling ride

A wild, weird dystopian journey that demands to be seen.

Lately, I've been wondering why we can't seem to get enough of dystopia? I don't need to recount all the ways in which the world's a mess, but it's intriguing that just about every tentpole movie (from Edge of Tomorrow to Transformers: Age of Extinction to The Hunger Games) mires itself in the gloomiest possible vision of a future we once saw as endlessly bright -- or at least that's the story we tell ourselves about the past.

TV, of course, has joined the vigorous march toward doom. This week, I watched the opening episode of HBO's The Leftovers, which (happily) is not another cooking show. The jury may be out on the show's merits, but it brings dystopian flavor to a present in which a third of the population has vanished -- for no apparent reason. The great disappearance seems to have resulted in a thorough demoralization of those who remain, the leftovers of the title.

That shows airs at the same time as The Last Ship, a TNT production about the lone surviving naval ship in a world vanquished by a plague-like virus.

As a culture, we seem to be wallowing in mass depression -- and even if the box office has flagged a bit -- we seem to be enjoying our gloom immensely.

Me? I've grown weary of the dystopian thinking that has burdened the artistic imagination. But maybe even that attitude reflects the general malaise. What the hell's wrong with me? I'm having trouble enjoying mass destruction.

Now comes Snowpiercer, an international hybrid of a movie from Korean director Bong Joon-ho (The Host), and it may help restore my faith in hopelessness.

Perhaps because its director is Korean and perhaps because Bong bases his movie on a French graphic novel called Le Transperceneige, Snowpiercer has become an art-house offering.

Don't be misled. Snowpiercer is an action movie wrapped in an iron-clad vision of a society in which survival depends on brutally enforced class divisions that may have resulted from an intense competition for limited resources.

Bong's refreshingly preposterous movie takes place on a train that circles the globe. The lives of those on board are maintained, but the train goes nowhere. The whole idea of destinations seem to have vanished.

How did this happen? Global warming was heating the planet to intolerable levels. Someone figured out how to cool the planet, but the solution went too far, turning the entire Earth into a snow-covered wasteland. The only survivors are on the train to nowhere, lurching endlessly through sub-zero temperatures.

As can happen when a group is totally suppressed, the lower classes who occupy the rear of the train are becoming restless. Curtis (Chris Evans) and his friend Edgar (Jamie Bell) decide it's time for a revolt.

This means organizing their fellow sufferers and fighting their way to the front of the train, where people haven't been reduced to living in squalor and eating nothing but protein bars that look as if they're made from a combination of recycled rubber and Gummy Bears. They're not.

A mysterious figure we don't see until the film's final act presides over the train and its regimented inhabitants.

Bong creates plenty of excitement as the rebels attempt to traverse the train's length, exposing the train's social structure as they go, and pouring on plenty of revolutionary violence.

Bong obtains fine performances from a cast that includes Octavia Spencer as the mother of a boy who's taken to the front of the train for unknown reasons, and John Hurt, as a sagacious old man who became a peon when he was banished from the front of the train.

We also meet Mason (an unrecognizable Tilda Swinton), a bureaucrat who travels the length of the train making announcements for the purportedly revered leader and doling out punishments to those who express dissatisfaction.

Alison Pill has a wonderfully exuberant turn as a school teacher who instructs young people and who also leads them in insanely cheerful devotions to the unseen leader.

Korean actors Kang-ho Song and Ah-sung Ko, play a father/daughter team of drug addicts who join the fray.

Intricately realized and totally unhinged, Snowpierecer can't be watched without feeling a bit of trepidation, probably because much depends on what happens when our revolutionaries finally reach the front of the train, where actor Ed Harris becomes a presence.

It pains me to say that the finale is a bit of a letdown. How could it not be? Harris doles out a bits of expositional and philosophical dialogue that don't quite deliver the hoped-for payoff.

But don't let that stop you from seeing one of the most creative, strange and propulsive movie's of the year. Flaws and all, Snowpiercer -- like its perpetually moving train -- takes us on one hell of a trip.

Another helping of 'Captain America'

The Winter Soldier adds a bit of grown-up flavor.

Let's start with the conclusion: Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a mostly welcome addition to the apparently endless stream of movies derived from Marvel Comics.

Winter Soldier, which follows 2011's The First Avenger, boasts abundant action, some amazingly vertiginous special-effects sequences and a conspiratorial plot that gives this massive comic-book movie a bit of an adult tilt.

Fans already know that a buffed Chris Evans makes a stalwart Captain America, the clean-cut World War II soldier transported into superhero status in the present.

As one-time KGB agent Natasha Romanoff -- a.k.a. Black Widow -- Scarlett Johansson breathes additional life into the proceedings. Same goes for Anthony Mackie, who plays Falcon, a veteran of recent wars who flies with pop-up metal wings. More importantly, Falcon recommends that Captain America familiarize himself with the music of Marvin Gaye.

More about that later.

Samuel Jackson does reliable duty as Nick Fury, the head of S.H.I.E.L.D., the spy agency that uses its real-world savvy to keep America safe.

Directors Anthony and Joe Russo -- known for TV's Arrested Development -- handle the major action set pieces well, giving them body-slam impact: The finale -- though typically protracted -- doesn't skimp on thrills.

Others have made this point, but it's worth reinforcing: Over-editing can ruin fight sequences by substituting frenzied cutting for a clear view of the combat, a sin Winter Soldier too often commits.

Some scenes, though, are more driven by dialogue than CGI, which brings us to Robert Redford, who appears as Alexander Price, a S.H.I.E.L.D. official so virtuous he once turned down the Nobel Peace Prize. Price also heads the World Security Council, a group devoted to maintaining global security.

Can we let Winter Soldier pass without at least wondering about Redford's presence? What exactly is the man behind the Sundance Film Festival, which each year supports the independent spirit in film, doing in a mega-budget, comic-book blockbuster?

I leave it to Redford to answer the question, which is provocation enough for the moment. Maybe he just wanted to play against his image as a liberal savior.

The screenplay tries for complexity by creating confusion about the motivations of Price and Nick Fury, but Winter Soldier isn't exactly over-flowing with edge-of-the-seat suspense.

And, of course, there's the Winter Soldier of the title, an unstoppable warrior played by Sebastian Stan. Not surprisingly, the Winter Soldier is employed by HYDRA, the organization that opposes S.H.I.E.LD. and which happily would sacrifice human lives to maintain order.

But back to Marvin Gaye.

I don't know if the late Gaye ever imagined that his music would find its way into a comic-book movie, but can there be any doubt that the world would be a better place if all comic-book heroes spent more time listening to Gaye and less time kicking butt?

A total comic-book extravaganza

The Avengers unites superheroes for a smashing good time.

The world as we know it faces grave danger. An external force from a distant galaxy is poised to plunge through a mysterious space portal and attack the Earth and all dwell upon it. There's hope, but also a problem. To save the world, a group of bickering superheroes must put aside their differences long enough to fight a common enemy.

That's pretty much all there is to the story of Marvel's The Avengers, but an outline of the plot doesn't say enough about what director Joss Whedon has accomplished with the first mega-movie of summer. To me, it seems as if Whedon hasn't so much directed a movie as he has organized a teeming and often entertaining cinema onslaught.

The Avengers boasts a large cast, a galaxy of terrific special effects, some particularly well used 3-D and enough explosive action to stock an entire summer's worth of movies.

All of this should come as good news to the millions who've been waiting for the much-hped movie that unites a variety of Marvel superheroes: Captain America (Chris Evans), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) and Thor (Chris Hemsworth). This quartet of heroic overachievers receives support from Black Widow, a.k.a. Natalia Romanov (Scarlett Johansson), and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner). All of these characters are brought together by S.H.I.E.L.D., the secret agency that's run by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson).

So what exactly happens? Well, a lot of noise and clamor as Thor's evil half brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) opens a portal that will allow an invading army to conquer the Earth. Fiercely played by Hiddleston, Loki embodies every known political evil: He believes that humans must be -- in his words -- "freed from freedom." If humans crave subjugation, Loki's just the man for the job.

Movies such as The Avengers really are elaborate collections of set pieces that have been carefully designed to raise pulse rates. If we're lucky -- as we are here -- the action will be assembled with witty flourish.

In an early scene, Black Widow dispatches a team of vicious Russian interrogators while tied to a chair. In another high point, The Hulk throws Loki around like a rag doll. The Hulk and Thor bump heads. Iron Man and Thor trade blows.

Each superhero's personality emerges as Whedon zooms through the movie's 2 1/2-hour length. Captain America's super-sheld, to cite one example, is matched by his super-sincerity. Downey, an established master of ironic detachment, throws around one-liners as Tony Stark before donning the Iron Man suit that allows him to fly and stave off attackers.

Credit Whedon for injecting humor into proceedings. When The Hulk springs into action, he's motivated with a single and bluntly effective word that, in different circumstances, might be worthy of a Mel Brooks' parody: "Smash!"

If you thought that in a post 9/11 world, you'd never see another movie that ravaged the Manhattan skyline, think again. The movie's lengthy finale -- a more intelligent and imaginative version of the kind of action we've seen in the Transformers movies -- takes a major bite out of the Big Apple.

Look, I know The Avengers is a comic-book fantasy and I know Manhattan hasn't escaped other movie attacks, but I still have trouble watching New York being destroyed. Call me a wimp if it makes you feel better, but that's how I see it.

There are moments when the superheroes are together in the S.H.I.E.L.D. control room when the pace flags, and Avengers could mark Jackson's least interesting performance ever. Until now, I've never seen him look as if he needed a wake-up call. Of all the superheroes, Iron Man and the Hulk struck me as the most fun, but there obviously are more from which to choose.

Enough. I enjoyed The Avengers, but I left the theater entirely unaffected by it. I think that's because I'm still a bit put off by the idea that this much money and effort has been funneled into comic-book escapism that provides the expected thrills but doesn't give us much to chew on.

But, hey, that's just me being me. For what it is, The Avengers definitely delivers the comic-book goods, and I suppose we ought to make room in our hearts for commercial movies that pile on excitement intstead of ripping us off.