Guess what? ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ isn’t bad

 

   Any review of a movie with Dungeons & Dragons in its title should begin with a personal statement about the famous game. Here's mine: I couldn't care less about a role-play game that has captivated so many since its release in 1974.

  After reading that a second Dungeons & Dragons movie was on the horizon (the first was released in 2000), I wondered whether the game still could command interest.

  Or maybe it was me. Maybe I was out of touch; maybe Dungeons & Dragons hadn't become a pop-cultural relic.

  Judging by the audience at a preview screening of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, the game still has plenty of devotees, the kind who show up at screenings wearing costumes and who are well attuned to the intricacies of D&D. 

  OK, that's my confession. Dungeons mania aside, a movie should, like a mythological dragon, breathe its own fire. That's how I approached Honor Among Thieves. 

   I can't say I loved every minute of Honor Among Thieves, but I found myself watching a reasonably entertaining movie that features a well-cast Chris Pine in a lead role and gives him Michelle Rodriguez as a tough sidekick and Hugh Grant as a villainous foe. 

   The rest of the cast proves equally able. Sophia Willis augments the team as a shapeshifter with a very useful set of skills. Justice Smith portrays Simon, an endearing sorcerer who has yet to develop full confidence in his conjuring powers.

   The plot begins with Pine's Edgin and Rodriguez's Holga escaping from prison where they're serving time for theft. Edgin wants to reunite with his young daughter (Chloe Coleman), a girl who has fallen under the sway of Grant's Forge Fitzwilliam, once a member of the felonious gang to which Edgin and Holga belong.

   An aggressively amiable chiseler, Forge tries to convince Coleman's Kira that he has her best interests at heart. Edgin is a self-centered thief who has no genuine concern for his daughter. Why else would he leave her in Forge's care? So goes Forge's spin on the story.

   But what of Kira's mom? Oops. I mean her late mom.

   Edgin’s to-do list includes another item: He wants to revive his deceased wife (Georgia Landers), a task that requires possession of the Tablet of Reawakening. Good luck finding that, not to mention a helmet that has its own important powers.

   The world Dungeons creates includes a lot more complexities but there's no point turning a review into an annotated glossary of Dungeons lore, which I couldn't do anyway.

   Know, though, that a character called Xenk (Rege-Jean Page) eventually joins the group. Sincere and literal to a fault, Xenk can't  understand irony, a trait the movie rightly plays for laughs. In the end, the joke's on us, though. Xenk proves a worthy fellow.

   The screenplay by Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley, and Michael Gilio presents its characters with an on-going series of challenges, some accompanied by nice effects work and action that’s neatly staged by co-directors Goldstein and Daley.

  Honor Among Thieves probably isn't destined to make my top-10 list of 2023 movies, but much its two-hour and 14 minutes passed easily. Besides, the actors, notably Pine and Rodriguez, gave the movie enough heart, grit and humor, to ward off negative vibes.

   What else can you ask from a movie that takes its cue from a game that's nearly 50 years old?

It’s dressed up but where’s it going?

 

 By the time I saw Don’t Worry Darling, the movie already had become the subject of an off-screen backstory involving its director and two of its stars. Consider yourself fortunate if you’ve been able to avoid reading about tensions between actress Florence Pugh and director Olivia Wilde, as well as stories about Wilde and the movie’s male lead, Harry Styles.

  I’d been unable to miss the chatter but didn’t give it much thought as I watched Wilde receive a monumental assist from cinematographer Mathew Libatique whose eye-popping colors give the movie an arty glaze, like a high polish on an expensive new car.

  This could be a case, though, where the movie's strengths and its weakness tend to merge. Don't Worry Darling has trouble blasting through the style that Wilde (Booksmart) brings to it and pushing beyond what we know from the outset: Composed surfaces ultimately can't conceal their cracks.

  The story, if you haven’t heard, involves a group of folks who work for the vaguely defined Victory Project, a company that has created the isolated town of Victory, a retreat where employees live, dress, and act as if the 1950s had never ended. 

  The men head to an office — called the headquarters — while the women tend to cooking and kids, and — if Pugh's character is any indication — the crucial task of cleaning windows.

  The women of this manicured world are happily oppressed; they love greeting their men with drink in hand — and more. An early scene finds Style’s Jack Chambers arriving home to perform oral sex on his wife Alice (Pugh). Styles propels his eager spouse to heights of ecstasy as she knocks dinner off the dining room table.

   So goes another perfect day.

   Thanks to set decorator Rachel Ferrara and production designer Katie Byron, these early scenes present the lives of a supposedly privileged few, folks who have fled the ambivalence of contemporary life, all the while reinforcing the role of men as kings of their midcentury castles.

   Visually, everything is groomed to the max. Costume designer Arianne Phillips's clothes look as if they’d been purchased at a thrift store that sold nothing but items that had never been worn.

   Pugh (Midsommar, Little Women, and Black Widow) already has established her credentials as an actress who can anchor a movie. She does so here, out-classing Styles with a performance of burgeoning desperation. Alice suspects that the game is rigged.

   An executive named Frank (a terrific Chris Pine) hovers over the happy residents of Victory. An empathetic boss and true believer, Frank’s affirmations make him seem like the president of a fraternity, the kind of guy who  specializes in kissing the dean's ass. Of course, we know from the start that Frank can't be trusted.

  Several women round out the cast. Gemma Chan plays Shelley, Frank’s loyal wife, Wilde appears as Bunny, Alice’s friend, and KiKi Layne portrays Margaret, a woman who has seen through the Victory Project illusion. Finding no exit, she leaps off a roof.

   Some scenes make you wish Wilde had indulged the story in more weirdness. At a company party, for example, Frank learns that he’s about to be promoted. He's required to do a celebratory dance that makes him look like a puppet jiggling on the end of someone’s strings.

   So what are we left with?

   Visual jokes about the ‘50s — the men leaving home in synch as they drive what appear to be beautifully restored cars of the period — can carry a movie only so far and much rides on third-act revelations, which the screenplay handles in cursory manner that some may find a bit befuddling.

  It’s possible that Wilde wants to deliver a cautionary message: The supposed time when America brimmed with security, order and middle-class comfort rested on illusion, delusion and the stifling of women.

  But watching the movie I felt as if I'd been invited to a dinner at which the host had set a great table but didn't follow through with a satisfying main course. 

Everything but a consistently involving story

 

     At two-and-a-half-hours, Wonder Woman 1984 doesn't have a compelling enough story to keep the movie from wearing out. Gal Gadot returns as Wonder Woman. And director Patty Jenkins again takes charge of a movie that at least in its early going delivers the humor and buoyancy that make superhero movies fun.

    A prologue showing us Wonder Woman as a child stands as a masterful action sequence in which young Diana competes with grown women of her island home in games that recall TV shows in which contestants are pitted against one another on fiendishly designed obstacle courses. 

    The movie then shifts to Washington, D.C. The now-grown Diana, who in case you haven't already figured it out is also Wonder Woman, works at the Smithsonian. She dresses stylishly and avoids anything resembling a social life. 

    She hasn't gotten over losing the love of her life (Chris Pine), a World War I pilot. That happened in the last movie, but as we all know, sadness lingers.

    Sorrow aside, Diana remains Wonder Woman, saving kids at malls in set pieces that assure us Diana hasn't lost her mojo. 

     Enter Barbara (Kristen Wiig), a klutzy bespectacled anthropologist who's beginning work at the Smithsonian. Socially awkward and burdened by a hairdo in which no two strands of hair seem to be traveling in the same direction, Barbara badly needs a pal.  

     And unlike Diana, Barbara also would like to find love. She envies Diana's coolness and preternatural composure.

    While perusing her department's various treasures, Barbara comes across a crystal that she quickly deems worthless and which we immediately understand will be thrown into the plot in a big way, 

    OK, might as well spill the beans: The crystal can fulfill wishes, a power that will be bent toward evil before Wonder Woman's protracted finale.

    Eventually, the movie must get around to a plot. This one involves Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal), a conman who uses TV to try to persuade ordinary people to make what he calls sure-fire oil investments. Remember, it's 1984 and oil still rules. 

    Lord refers to himself as a "TV personality," not a conman Any resemblance to any real-life public figure must have been purely coincidental.

    Anyway, the crystal falls into Lord's hands and he uses it  (surprise!) to threaten global catastrophe. 

    Oh, I forgot to mention that the crystal's wishing power also brings back Pine's Steve Trevor, which allows Jenkins to add a variety of comic bits (selection of clothing being one) that play on Steve's awe at the '80s world into which he has been reborn. 

     Steve's return also provides Pine with an occasion to apply techniques gleaned from the open-mouth school of acting as he gapes at the special effects.

    Once Steve arrives, the movie becomes a twosome. Diana and Steve travel to far-flung places -- Egypt among them. Their mission: to put an end to Lord's malicious plans. 

    I don't think it's a spoiler to let you know that the villainy is ... well ... only adequate. Pascal gives a pitchman's one note performance. It's almost like watching a comic-book character scream as he tries to lift himself off the page.

    When envy prompts Barbara's transformation into Cheetah, the evil opposite of Wonder Woman, the movie seems more silly than scary.

    Wonder Woman isn't a dreadful misfire, and it's difficult to imagine that we've seen the last of the superhero who speaks to issues of women's power. 

    After its long -- intermittently amusing journey -- Wonder Woman 1984 does some undisguised cheerleading for the truth, make that Truth with a capital "T."

    So here's my truth, subject of course to a bit of relativism that may be unsuited to a comic book world: Wonder Woman 1984 struck me as part engaging entertainment, part overlong franchise entry, part inflated action movie, and one more stop on what seems to be an endless superhero highway.

A look at the life of Anton Yelchin

Even if you're not a fan of the late Anton Yelchin, who died in 2016, you may find something of interest in Love, Antosha, a documentary about the young actor's too-brief life. Yelchin was 27 when his Jeep Grand Cherokee rolled down his driveway, a freak occurrence that resulted in his suffocation when his car trapped him against a fence. Despite his youth, Yelchin boasted a heavy resume; he’d been acting since he was a kid — with relatively few breaks. He appeared in a staggering 69 films. Director Garret Price's documentary paints a portrait of a young man of varied interests and with acting chops that seemed universally admired by those who worked with him. There are no nay-sayers in Price’s look at Yelchin which includes interviews with his parents, with friends, and with fellow actors: Chris Pine, Kristen Stewart, and Zachary Quinto among them. Although he suffered from cystic fibrosis, Yelchin didn’t allow the illness to slow his roll. When he wasn’t acting, Yelchin thought about directing, took photos of Los Angeles’ seamier side, wrote, and worked as a musician. Some of Yelchin’s writings are read by Nicolas Cage. In sum, Love, Antosha explores the life of a serious young actor who may not have lived long, but who left colleagues and friends with indelible memories. He also left little doubt that any moment of his short life remained unlived.

'Wrinkle' neither folds nor soars

Visually abundant adaptation of popular novel falls short on wonder..

A New York Times article about the 90th edition of the Academy Awards referred to director Ava DuVernay (13th, Selma) as “one of Hollywood’s most aggressive advocates for diversity.” It only takes a few minutes of the big-screen adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time to know that DuVernay has no qualms about putting her convictions on screen.

A somewhat scattered, effects-laden adaptation of a popular novel by Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time stands as both an adventure fantasy and an overdue helping of diverse casting. Its story sends the child of an interracial couple into alternate universes along with her adopted brother and a white teenage boy.

That’s not to say that A Wrinkle in Time takes diversity as its theme. Like many of the Disney movies that precede it, Wrinkle is an ode to the importance of family, as well as a recasting of a typical hero’s journey.

The movie’s main character — a brainy 13-year-old named Meg (Storm Reid) — faces many tests as she tries to establish herself as a warrior for the light; i.e., all that is good in the universe.

DuVernay has said that her movie primarily aims at 12-year-olds and those able to get into a 12-year-old state of mind. As someone for whom 12 barely exists as a memory, I found the movie to be an elaborate helping of children’s theater that proved wanting at the point when it's supposed to reach its emotional crescendo and a little too vague about what constitutes evil in the movie’s visually abundant universe.

I also found the cosmology depicted in A Wrinkle in Time a bit confusing but that may not matter to young audiences willing to go with flow in order to enjoy the movie's various odd sights: a beach where a character who embodies evil (Michael Pena) turns up or a strange cave-like place that's home to Happy Medium (Zach Galifianakis), a character whose name explains his outlook.

Though it brims with varied settings and costumes, the core of A Wrinkle in Time hinges on a simplistic binary battle between the light and the dark, evil being represented by a spidery looking creation that resembles an ink blot.

Three other-worldly beings serve as guides for young Meg’s journey, which involves something called a “tesseract.” As best as I could discern — and with help from Wikipedia — the tesseract is a phenomenon that creates folds in the fabric of space and time, allowing Meg and her companions to travel through the fifth dimension.

These guides are women with (what else?) special powers. Mrs. Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon) can turn herself into what looks like a giant green leaf that carries the movie’s adventurers like a magic carpet. Mrs. Who (Mindy Kaling) is a walking Bartlett’s book of quotations; she dispenses the wisdom of others. Mrs. Which (Oprah Winfrey) seems to materialize out of nothing.

When we first meet Mrs. Which, she’s clad in silver and as tall as one of those balloons in a holiday parade, looming large over everyone else, a visual choice that mirrors Winfrey’s status in the real-life world of media.

Meg’s interplanetary journey is motivated by a devastating loss. Her father (Chris Pine) has been missing for four years as the result of a quest to explore the furthest reaches of the galaxy. Meg was left to make do with her mom (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and her brother Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe).

Meg journeys into other worlds to locate her scientist father and bring him home because, as we long ago learned from the The Wizard of Oz, no matter how intoxicating alternate realities can be, there’s no place like home.

Levi Miller portrays Calvin O’Keefe, a popular teenager who joins outcast Meg on her trippy pursuits, but his character doesn't seem to have much of a role beyond adding someone with whom younger boys may identify.

First seen in Twelve Years A Slave, Reid provides the movie with a solid center. Initially annoying, McCabe’s Charles Wallace grew on me, particularly when his body was taken over by the IT, a disembodied evil that turns him from a brainiac into a painiac.

The movie’s production team does a good job creating wavy wrinkles in time as Meg travels in the fifth dimension, and the movie certainly doesn't lack for other forms of visual invention. My favorite: a rigidly conformist suburban community where every kid stands in a driveway bouncing a beach ball in unison, a twisted idea of playtime.

I suppose the best fantasies create a sense of wonder that Wrinkle in Time can't quite achieve. It's probably not the keenest of critical insights or the heartiest of endorsements, but after a preview screening and a little reflection, I'd say the movie qualifies as "OK." I'd be lying if I didn't say I was hoping for more.

She fights for world peace

Gal Gadot and Chris Pine click in an enjoyable Wonder Woman.

It has epic scale, unforced humor, genuine star chemistry and, of course, a female main character. We're talking about Wonder Woman, an enjoyable new addition to the endless stream of comic-book movies that have seized the popular culture, holding it in a sometimes suffocating grip.

But Wonder Woman is a DC Comics movie with an important difference. Because Wonder Woman's main character can be naive about the nature of the humans she encounters, the movie freely can substitute innocence and conviction for hard-bitten cynicism.

In the hands of director Patty Jenkins (Monster), Wonder Woman introduces us to a character with roots in Greek mythology. From an island where Amazon warrior women train to the cratered battlefields of World War I, Wonder Woman makes it clear that Princess Diana, a.k.a. Wonder Woman, has but one objective: bringing peace to the world.

Early on, we learn that the Amazons have conflicting ideas about Diana's destiny. Diana's mother (Connie Nielsen) wants to protect her daughter from the violent life. Diana's aunt (Robin Wright) insists that the girl learn the arts of combat.

Scenes on the all-women island march to a mythic cadence that allows for introduction of the Amazon women's approach to life and for exploration of their relationship to the gods.

Life on the island mostly seems happy until the real world intrudes. A pilot crashes into the ocean off the island's coast. Diana, who has never seen a man before, rushes to the rescue. Pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) is being chased by Germans who know that he's a spy who has stolen vital information from the German high command.

Diana eventually leaves her island paradise with Steve: She believes it is her duty to end the slaughter of World War I, something she plans to accomplish by slaying Ares, the god of war. Diana doesn't care that her plan may seem wacky to everyone else. Diana's view: Men only make war when they fall under the evil influence of Ares, rogue son of Zeus.

We know that Diana will be up to the task because we've already seen her spin in the air in captivating slo-mo. We also know that she has powers even she doesn't fully understand.

Jenkins has lots of fun with scenes in London where our super-heroine confronts the peculiar demands of life among ordinary humans. These include suggestions that Diana wear dresses rather than her regular outfit, which boasts a Wonder Woman tiara, a cape, an armored bustier and short shorts.

Diana also carries a shield, a sword and a glowing Lasso of Truth, not exactly routine accoutrements on the streets of London, circa 1918.

Steve rounds up a colorful crew to accompany Diana to the front. Steve's cohorts include a guy who knows how to work the angles in any situation (Said Taghmaoui), a Native American scout (Eugene Brave Rock) and a sharp-shooter (Ewen Bremner) with a lilting singing voice.

We also meet a British politician who says he wants to negotiate an armistice (David Thewlis) and a secretary (Lucy Davis) who works for Steve and adds plenty of spark.

Villainy arrives courtesy of German General Ludendorff (Danny Huston) and his hideous chemist colleague (Elena Anaya), a woman whose ability to develop lethal gasses has earned her an appropriate nickname: "Doctor Poison."

Gadot claims star status, handling the title-character with charm, sincerity, finesse and a look that exudes beauty and good health. It also doesn't hurt that she and Pine seem to have figured out the intricacies that make for good comic and romantic chemistry or that, at various times, Diana offers crowd-pleasing insistence on her total independence from male authority. It's something she takes for granted.

Those who crave action will find plenty of it: from the training grounds of Diana's island home to the trenches of World War I to a finale that's loaded with the clangor of the customary effects. Wouldn't it have been amazing had Diana, who speaks dozens of languages, been allowed to resolve the movie's problems with more brain than super-power brawn?

Oh well, what can we expect from a movie in which Diana lifts a tank and tosses it as if weighed little more than a Frisbee? Wonder Woman is, after all, a comic-book movie -- and it earns a place among the best of them.

Those guardians of the galaxy return

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 boasts both lulls and amusements, but does nothing to tarnish the franchise.

The original Guardians of the Galaxy took the market by storm in 2014, providing a refreshing antidote to the self-seriousness that infiltrates many parts of Marvel's vast comic-book repertoire. Unexpected and slightly bizarre, the movie featured Rocket Raccoon (voice by Bradley Cooper), a snarky animal who delivered the movie's best wisecracks, and a diminutive creature named Groot (voice by Vin Diesel), a mini-tree of an alien who added an element of off-kilter cuteness.

Now comes Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 sporting a name that makes the movie sound as if it aspires to find a home in The Library of Congress catalog. Not Guardians 2 or even Part II, but "Volume 2."

This is not to say that the movie, written and directed by a returning James Gunn, mires itself in big themes. Gunn tries to replicate the self-aware attitude of the first installment, something along the lines of recognition that joyfully teeters on the rim of the pop-cultural toilet without falling in.

If that's too abstract for you, let me put it another way: The first movie was fun. The second movie? Sometimes it's fun.

A creative application of special effects and CGI help keep Vol. 2 from tarnishing the franchise, even as it falls prey to a typical second-helping problem, overcrowding in just about every department.

Vol. 2 plunges viewers into a self-referential universe that makes room for musical and TV nostalgia from the 1980s, one of the fascinations of a Guardian played by Chris Pratt; i.e., Quill. The movie's 1980s nostalgia trip also includes a recurring reference to David Hasselhoff of TV's Knight Rider and Baywatch fame.

I'm always amazed at the pop-cultural knowledge that aficionados bring to these movies. Without prompting, they can tell you all about Drax (Dave Bautista), the muscular man with the hearty laugh that always sounds forced to me, like he has to think about it before letting loose with a guffaw.

During this episode, Quill meets a character who claims to be his father. He's Ego, played by Kurt Russell. If you had any doubts, Ego's name serves as a clue about the character's intentions. Ego wants to enlist Quill's help in fulfilling a long-standing ambition. Trouble, of course, looms.

In what amounts to a glut of characters, Michael Rooker stands out as Yondo, the alien who raised Quill.

You'll also find a cameo appearance by Sylvester Stallone, and we meet Mantis (Pom Klementieff), a creature with an antenna that enables her to function as an empath. Mantis touches people and instantly knows what they're feeling.

Zoe Saldana returns as Gamora, who this time faces off against Nebula (Karen Gillan), a cyborg with blue skin who began her life as Gamora's sister. Hey, a little sibling rivalry never hurts.

Additional female power emanates for Ayesha, a golden-skinned character played by Elizabeth Debicki.

One of the movie's better bits involves a character named Taserface (Chris Sullivan), a brutish fellow whose descriptive but preposterous name prevents his victims from taking him seriously. If you're keeping score, Taserface belongs to a group called the Ravagers.

Gunn provides enough explosions to satisfy action-hungry audiences, and after a third-act dip, the movie picks up for an ending that tempers the obligatory mayhem with a bit of emotion that stems from the self-sacrificing act of one of the movie's characters.

You may be getting the impression that the movie virtually bursts with characters, effects, action and amusements. Some hit; some don't. But Vol. 2's mixed bag won't keep it from reaping a box-office bonanza. I can't say that Vol. 2 matches the enjoyment of the first movie, but, boy, can you see it trying.

Summer isn't a total loss. A look at a diverse week of movies: reviews of 'Florence-Foster Jenkins,' 'Hell or High Water' and 'Indignation

The movies always have been a kind of crazy quilt of ambition, accomplishment, disappointment and joy, a collection of individual offerings that have little in common other than a desire to encourage audiences to purchase tickets. As an example, consider this week, a movie moment in which offerings range from the bawdy humor of Sausage Party, an animated feature for adults, to the supposedly instructive bromides dispensed by Pete's Dragon, a movie with a dragon that looks like a cuddly stuffed animal. Said dragon saves the life of a boy who's left to his own devices in a forest after his parents die in an automobile accident, the abandoned child syndrome being a Disney common denominator dating back to Bambi.

It's also the week in which Meryl Streep plays the late Florence Foster Jenkins, a New York socialite whose passion for music and performance were indulged by those in the rarified social circles in which she circulated. The only problem: Jenkins had a hideously bad voice.

Jenkins' solicitous and morally frayed husband (Hugh Grant) protected his wife's delusions. Maintaining Jenkin's image of herself became his occupation.

Because Jenkins raised money for a variety of New York musical endeavors, no one had the courage to tell her that her private recitals were so painful, they could have induced the most saintly of innocents to confess to the most heinous of crimes.

Florence Foster Jenkins is the latest film from director Steven Frears, who began his cinematic journey with what now seem like films from some fading Pleistocene age: The Hit (1984), My Beautiful Launderette (1985); Prick Up Your Ears (1987) and Sammie and Rosie Get Laid (also 1987). Those movies -- practically a British New Wave in themselves -- seem like ancient eruptions from a director who hasn't exactly mellowed, but who, in this outing, focuses attention on a woman whose self-created grandeur is beautifully captured by Streep.

In Streep's hands, Jenkins pretensions are delivered with the piercing exactitude of a soprano's high C.

Jenkins' singing becomes both amusing and painful, particularly as she prepares for a 1944 concert at Carnegie Hall. Jenkins readies herself for the big evening with help from her tutor Cosme McMoon, a deliciously bemused Simon Helberg.

Because Jenkins had contracted syphilis from her first husband, her marriage to Grant's St. Clair Bayfield was chaste. To compensate, Bayfield carried on an affair with his mistress (Rebecca Ferguson).

Grant finally has found a perfect role as he ages out of the British prince charming phase that mostly has served him until now. He's playing an honorable cad.

There's little I can say to prepare you for Streep's attempts at operatic singing. Let's just say that she makes Susan Alexander Kane, the woeful opera singer in Citizen Kane, seem like Joan Sutherland. If screeching were an art form, Jenkins would have been its foremost practitioner.

Thankfully, Frears hasn't totally yielded to the temptation to make a feel-good comedy. He charts Jenkins's inevitable march toward disaster -- albeit not without making note of her pluck and fortitude in the face of a monstrous lack of talent.

I suppose one is obligated to say that Florence Foster Jenkins is a small movie enlarged by big talents.
But two other small movies (both enlarged by big concerns) also open this week.

HOW THE WEST WAS LOST

Hell or High Water belongs in a genre that might be dubbed the neo-western. Set in West Texas, the movie spreads bank robbery, sibling loyalty and violence across a Texas landscape that grows its own form of justice, rolling it out like wind-blown tumbleweeds.

Director David Mackenzie, working from a screenplay by the gifted Taylor Sheridan (Sicario), introduces us to Toby (Chris Pine) and Tanner (Ben Foster), brothers who rob small banks in forgotten towns that seem to shriveling in the Texas heat.

At first, the brothers seem to be another pair of mismatched hoodlums. Toby has a steady hand; Tanner quickly establishes himself as the movie's wild one, an uncontrollable weed sprung from parched Texas soil.

Still most familiar as Captain Kirk in the reborn Star Trek series, Pine gives what might be his best performance yet. As Toby, he must hold things back. Divorced and crippled by a past in which much has gone wrong, Toby is trying to right a very specific wrong.

Looking at iMDB, I was surprised to see that Foster already has 51 movies and TV appearances to his credit. You may remember him from The Messenger, a mournful 2009 story about an Army sergeant assigned to deliver the ultimate bad news to spouses and parents of fallen soldiers.

You have to reach the end of Tanner's trail to realize what's driving this irredeemable bad boy, but Foster is one of those rare actors who can scare you just by showing up. He can put a look in his eyes that turns them into bullets just waiting for something to trigger their release.

Jeff Bridges, whose voice has taken on the roughness of weathered leather, plays Marcus, a Texas Ranger who's on the verge of retirement. Marcus hunts the brothers with his Comanche partner, Alberto (Gil Birmingham), a Native American who has learned to live with Marcus' racist taunts.

It's not easy to tell whether Marcus is a racist or just a guy who tries to needle his way under the skin of anyone with whom he feels close.

The story takes us in unexpected directions and gradually builds to a confrontation that's as much about character as it is about violence.

The Scottish-born Mackenzie, who directed the searing prison drama Starred Up, proves that he can handle drama with drawl and something on its mind.

Birmingham's Alberto sounds the chord that plays behind the solos that the rest of the characters deliver. The whites came and took the land from the Indians, and now, in what can be interpreted as a form of karmic retribution, the banks are taking the land from whites.

Mackenzie leads us to a conclusion that feels wise in a way that's far more complex than a movie like this has any right to be.

Like the juice from a wad of sour chewing tobacco, you may to savor the movie's bitterness before you think about spitting it out.

TO BE YOUNG, JEWISH AND BAFFLED BY A SHIKSA
The violence in Hell or High Water doesn't happen without motivation, but there's another kind of violence, the violence of cruelty that's embedded in observation of characters who are pinned to a writer's unforgiving wall. No matter how much they struggle, they'll never be free.

That brings me to Indignation, an adaptation of a small (and some would say "minor") 2008 novel by Philip Roth.

Indignation marks the directorial debut of James Schamus, who has written screenplays for director Ang Lee (Ice Storm, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and Brokeback Mountain) and who, as an executive, helped create movies such as Lost in Translation and Milk.

Though presented in straightforward style, Indignation requires contemporary audiences to take an imaginative leap back to 1951, a time when a young woman who'd perform oral sex on a man might be labeled a slut by young men who still kicked around questions about whether they'd marry a woman who wasn't a virgin.

In adopting Roth, Schamus pits the Newark, N.J., of Roth's imagination against life in at small Ohio school called Winesburg College. If you're familiar with Roth, you'll immediately know that part of the story's tension centers on moving from a mostly Jewish world into a less-welcoming WASP society.

Logan Lerman plays Marcus, a young man who wants to break from the stultifications of Newark life, which means living at home and occasionally working in his father's kosher butcher shop.

Marcus is the '50s definition of a good Jewish boy; i.e., he's a straight A student. Academic achievement might be the only thing Marcus fully understands. Once grades no longer serve as a standard, he'll likely be lost.

At the college, Marcus meets Olivia (Sarah Gadon), a troubled young woman who introduces him to hand jobs and fellatio, neither of which Marcus is fully prepared to accept.

The movie's best scene involves an extended confrontation between Marcus and Dean Caudwell. During the course of 18 minutes Lerman and Tracy Letts (as Caudwell) play verbal tennis. In essence, Caudwell attempts to persuade Marcus to aspire to WASPishness. Marcus isn't strong enough to resist for the right reasons; he's indignant, but unformed.

As Marcus' complicated but demanding mother Linda Edmond makes the most of her time on screen. During a visit to Winesburg, she warns Marcus off his emotionally distressed shiksa, who once tried to commit suicide. She's certain no good can come of such a relationship.

To raise the stakes, Marcus' coming-of-age drama plays out against a contrivance, a backdrop in which a false move might expose him to the draft and land him in Korea, an unsafe place for young men in the '50s.

The question with all Roth adaptations involve Roth himself. How do directors compensate for Roth's missing voice? Indignation has finely wrought moments, good performances and demonstrable intelligence, and yet, it doesn't always spring fully to life. It's Roth under glass with Marcus ripe for being quashed like a bug.

There is no transition that can take me from Philip Roth to Pete's Dragon, where I began all of this.

That movie seems aimed at young children, so I'll say only this. When a movie wants to make room for magic, it should feel more magical than Pete's Dragon. Kids probably will respond to this good-natured story about a wild child's circuitous route back to civilization, but it also could appeal to adults who want to compare it to the 1977 original or who've been hankering to see Robert Redford play a character who tells stories to kids, presuming there any adults in either of those two categories.

A Star Trek that emphasizes speed

Director Justin Lin takes over the reins from J.J. Abrams and as Star Trek continues to explore the final frontier.

Toward the end of Star Trek Beyond, Captain James T. Kirk tells his principal adversary that change is a necessary component of life. It's difficult to say more without plunging into spoiler terrain, but it's worth pointing out that Kirk could have been directing his remark to the Star Trek faithful. Expect a few changes.

The biggest change in Star Trek Beyond involves the person at the helm. Justin Lin takes over from J.J. Abrams, who remains as a producer. It should surprise no one that Lin, best known for Fast & Furious movies, gravitates toward action. He loads (perhaps even overloads) Beyond with noise, flying debris, and over-edited battle sequences.

At the same time, Lin makes sure that the characters are well-served. Kirk (Chris Pine) begins the movie with a case of space fatigue. He's not sure he wants to continue as Captain of the Enterprise.

Spock (Zachary Quinto) also contemplates a life change. As a result, his relationship with Lieutenant Uhura (Zoe Saldana) has hit a snag.

The rest of the crew remains reliably familiar: Sulu (John Cho), Chekov (Anton Yelchin) and Scotty (Simon Pegg) all do their part.

You've probably read that this episode reveals that Sulu is gay with a husband and child, information Lin presents in an off-handed way that suggests we're in a version of the future in which sexual orientation has ceased being a talking point.

Lin wisely includes references to the original Mr. Spock, perhaps to acknowledge the actor who played him. Leonard Nimoy died last year.Star Trek Beyond, by the way, is dedicated to both Nimoy and Yelchin, who was killed in a freak auto accident earlier this year.

New additions also can be found. Besides the reptilian-looking Krall (Idris Elba) -- the villain of the piece -- we meet Jaylah (Sofia Boutella). She's an alien woman who joins the Star Trek team in its effort to prevent the destruction of Yorktown, a massive Federation space station that Lin explores with swooping, dizzying camera moves.

The screenplay by Pegg and Doug Jung seems based on something we might call "the speed principle." Move quickly and few will notice plot holes or fret about the fact that a rescue oriented story wears a bit thin.

But sci-fi precision never has never been Star Trek's strong suit. Ethical questions usually take precedence. Although such questions are raised, they now seem to peek out from behind the movie's many action set pieces.

Put another way, Beyond isn't the most contemplative version of Star Trek, although it has its compensations: A couple of moments involving old-fashioned rock music should bring a smile to most faces.

At a Wednesday night showing -- the movie began at 10 p.m. -- the crowd seemed especially to enjoy the interchanges between Spock and Bones (a scene-stealing Karl Urban). Such scenes wisely reiterate or poke fun at the recognizable traits that define Star Trek characters: Spock's deadpan commitment to logic or Bones' sniping humor, for example.

So back to the beginning. This edition attempts to reprise what's familiar about the series while also giving it new energy. Change, but not so much that we forget that we're watching a Star Trek movie.

I'm not a fanboy, so I don't know how Star Trek stalwarts will receive this new edition. In my estimation, Beyond whizzes by without damaging the franchise, while also providing a couple of inspired bits and firing retro rockets of nostalgia in ways that feel like true expressions of affection.

Lin even finds a way to work a motorcycle into the story, but don't fret Star Trek purists: Lin hasn't propelled Fast & Furious's Vin Diesel into the final frontier. Some things remain sacred.

Bland on land; better at sea

In the rescue film The Finest Hours, it's the storm that stars.

In 1952, a small Coast Guard team attempted to rescue members of the crew of an oil tanker that had been sheared in half during a vicious winter storm off the Cape Cod coast.

This story of heroism and high seas adventure makes a natural movie subject, and for the most part, Disney's The Finest Hours gives it decent enough treatment. Moreover, the fact that the story may be unfamiliar to most audiences adds a bit of freshness.

It's also true that The Finest Hours can tend toward blandness whenever the crew of a small boat isn't battling the ferocious waves of a nor-easter as it tries, in what seems to a doomed mission, to make its way out of a harbor and into storm-tossed seas.

Chris Pine plays Bernie Webber, a by-the-book member of the Coast Guard, which -- in the movie -- seems like a cottage industry staffed by locals who know the potentially treacherous Atlantic coastal waters.

Pine goes for all-American, cereal-box steadiness, and, achieves it, perhaps the point of boredom.

The rest of his three-man crew are mostly treated as props along for a February ride that -- if nothing else -- leaves you feeling chilled to the bone.

Ben Foster, an actor capable of high intensity, is pretty much wasted as one of the crew's members, and Eric Bana, with a southern accent, doesn't do much to distinguish himself as the Coast Guard station's commander. He's clearly ignorant about New England waters, but insists on having his way.

The fate of the ship that's under duress lies in the hands of a boiler-room engineer, Casey Affleck's Ray Sybert. After the ship -- The Pendleton, by name -- breaks apart, the stoic Sybert must convince his comrades that their best opportunity for survival rests on running the ship aground.

Sybert's shipmates don't trust him, and some argue that everyone should take to the lifeboats, a move that would bring about instant death in impossibly rough waters.

Affleck is not an easy actor to cast; here, his quiet brooding turns him into the movie's least routine character. Eventually Sybert figures out a way to maneuver what's left of the ship toward a shoal.

Holliday Grainger turns up as Miriam, a love interest for Pine's Bernie. She cajoles him into an engagement for which he professes not to be ready, and then spends the rest of the movie worrying that he'll be lost conducting a rescue mission that the town's craggy older residents believe is ill-advised.

Director Craig Gillespie too often leaves the high seas to follow Miriam's efforts to discover what's happening to her fiancé.

But in a way, none of what I've just said matters all that much because images of half of a four-story ship tossing in the seas or of a 36-foot boat trying to make it out of the harbor to find the lost vessel are what count the most.

The movie's ocean sequences are good enough to make The Finest Hours an acceptable -- if not great -- piece of January entertainment.

A footnote: I got no extra kick from the 3D presentation; The CGI storm was enough to hold my interest.

Two from the indie side of things

Digging for Fire shouldn't work, but it does

An unusual mixture of obsession and informality give Digging for Fire, a new movie from director Joe Swanberg, its feeling of freshness. Tim and Lee (Jake Johnson and Rosemarie DeWitt) are house sitting for one of Lee's wealthy clients. She teaches yoga; he's a public school teacher. Along with their young son, Tim and Lee are set to enjoy a week of unaccustomed luxury. Signs of possible tension emerge. Lee wants to accept money from her parents (Sam Elliott and Judith Light) to send their son to an expensive pre-school. A mixture of pride and a commitment to public education keep Tim from agreeing. When Lee leaves to spend a weekend with her parents, Tim is joined by friends (Mike Birbiglia, Sam Rockwell and Chris Messina), as well as by a couple of women who tag along. Tim already has been consumed by a strange task: Having found a revolver and a human bone in the backyard of this expensive home, he decides to dig for more. Eventually, he's joined in this effort by Max (Brie Larson), one of the women who attended the impromptu party and returned the next day to find her purse. Swanberg quietly introduces the real issue: the state of Tim and Lee's marriage. While Tim's flirting with Max, Lee has her own tempting encounter with a ruggedly handsome man (Orlando Bloom) she meets in a bar. I won't say more, but I will advise you to view Tim's digging more as a metaphor than plot point. By the end you'll realize that Swanberg has taken an unusual and sometimes comic look at the fragility of marriage -- and also the feeling of safety it can provide.

Z for Zachariah: quiet tension in a post-apocalyptic world

The actors in Z for Zachariah (Chris Pine, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Margot Robbie) are all capable of keeping the movie's sexual tension close to the surface. Good thing, too, because Z for Zachariah throws them into a post-apocalyptic world in which they play the only survivors. Robbie's Ann Burden lives in an idyllic valley that has survived the nuclear holocaust that ravaged the rest of the world. Once Ejiofor's character, an engineer by trade, finds his way into the valley, director Craig Zoebel sets up a dynamic in which two characters who probably never would have met under any other circumstance are forced to work out the dynamics of their relationship. This process is disrupted when another man, Pine's Caleb turns up. Like Ann, Caleb professes to be a man of faith. Ejiofor's John focuses on practical matters with an eye on the possibly of re-starting the human race with Ann. The symbolism gets heavy when John proposes tearing down a chapel that Tracy's father built so that he can use the wood to build a waterwheel for harnessing electricity. Zoebel's naturalism keeps the proceedings from feeling overly allegorical, but the deliberately paced Z For Zachariah never quite attains the primal force the material demands.

A musical trip 'Into the Woods'

Sure it looks great, but where's the magic?

It has taken 27 years for Stephen Sondheim's 1987 musical -- Into the Woods -- to reach the screen. I wish I could say it was totally worth the wait.

But under the direction of Rob Marshall (Chicago and Nine), this megaton Disney production arrives as a mixed blessing with highlights built around Meryl Streep's performance as The Witch, Anna Kendrick's turn as Cinderella, Emily Blunt's portrayal of a baker's wife and a couple of signature musical numbers.

A mash-up of a story incorporates fragments of various, iconic fairy tales: Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Cinderella and Jack and the Beanstalk.

Shards from these stories are united by the tale of a baker and his wife. The couple tries to gather ingredients needed to break a spell (cast by the witch, of course) that has left them childless.

Credit Marshall with getting the musical off to a rousing start. The opening introduces the major characters in lively, amusing fashion before all head for the woods on a variety of personal quests that sometimes turn sluggish.

For the most part, the movie is well cast. Under a ton of make-up, Streep brings life to every scene in which she appears. James Corden and Blunt are fine as the baker and his wife, and Kendrick makes for a somewhat different Cinderella, a young woman who isn't entirely star struck by the handsome prince (Chris Pine).

Pine, by the way, brings self-absorbed superficiality to the role of the prince, complementing the movie's desire to upend as many fairy-tale stereotypes as possible.

A high point arrives when Red Riding Hood meets the wolf (Johnny Depp made up like a predatory Zoot-suiter). The wolf leers after Red Riding, displaying a lecherous streak. Depp licks his chops, and then vanishes from the screen with a demonstrative howl.

Carefully designed by Dennis Gassner, Into the Woods has a lavish quality that Marshall supplements with special effects when necessary.

The singing -- a key in a musical without big dance numbers -- seems mostly up to snuff, although I have no standard of comparison, never having seen Into the Woods on stage.

The movie's screenplay -- by James Lapine -- reportedly includes a bit of compression and the filing down of a few rough edges, but I leave all that for Sondheim enthusiasts to sort out.

Into the Woods increasingly darkens as it goes against the grain of the original fairy tales. A faux happily ever-after ending is followed by a lengthy final act which goes to great pains to subvert expectations and which, alas, tested my patience.

I found myself longing for this one to conclude before it had worked its way through all of its 124-minute length, but -- in fairness - I'd have to say that Into the Woods seemed acceptable, if not a candidate for movie musical greatness.

What's missing? Goosebumps and a sustained sense that we're watching something that gets beyond its ever-present cleverness.

Jack Ryan lives -- again

Chris Pine tries to breathe new life into an old franchise.

I wish I had $5 for every improbable plot twist in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, a new thriller starring Chris Pine as author Tom Clancy's famed CIA agent. I might not be rich, but I'd sure as hell be eating at more upscale restaurants.

Still, it's January, and you take your movie pleasures where you find them.

Credit Pine for bringing welcome emotional vulnerability to the role of Ryan in an action-oriented movie directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also plays the movies arch villain, a misguided Russian patriot named Victor Cherevin.

Trying to reboot a Cold War series for present-day action spawns a plot that pays too little attention to veracity, stranding the movie somewhere between hard-core realism and James Bond fantasy -- with a little Mission Impossible tossed in for good measure.

No surprise there. David Koepp, who co-wrote the screenplay with Adam Cozad, also wrote the 1996 version of Mission Impossible and has a variety of additional action movies under his belt, including Spider-Man and Jurassic Park.

Shadow Recruit begins by explaining how Ryan becomes a CIA operative. A student at the London School of Economics when 9/11 hits, Ryan immediately joins the Marines. After being gravely injured in Afghanistan, he returns to the U.S. to recuperate and to be recruited by the CIA's Thomas Harper, Kevin Costner in full stolid mode.

Unlike other spies, Ryan is no womanizer. During his painful rehab, he falls for his physical therapist (Keira Knightley), a woman who soon becomes a doctor and who moves with Ryan to New York, where he works undercover as a financial analyst for a big Wall Street firm.

There's no sense trying to summarize all of the intricacies of a plot that advances both a terrorist threat and a Russian scheme to undermine the U.S. dollar.

Branagh's Victor Cherevin masterminds the plan. Ryan is sent to Moscow to thwart it. Perhaps to add more menace, the screenplay finds Knightley's Cathy following Ryan to Moscow to surprise him with her presence.

Of course, she doesn't know that he's in the CIA, and her impromptu visit complicates his mission. Not only must Ryan save the Western world, he must keep his girlfriend alive, as well.

Thankfully, the script doesn't turn Knightley's Cathy into a total cipher; it's clear that she's capable of thinking for herself. She even plays a real role in advancing the plot.

Branagh does a serviceable job with the movie's action, which takes an unsuspecting Ryan by surprise. While in Moscow, he's learning the ropes of being a CIA operative, a far more dangerous job than he initially expected.

Fortunately, Ryan's a remarkably quick learner. One minute he's fretting about not knowing his way around Moscow; the next, he's driving a car at breakneck speeds through the city's streets. The script doesn't allow much time for Ryan to make the transition from brainy analyst to lethal operative, but Pine does his best to make the leap as convincing as possible.

The same can't be said for the movie's wrap-up, which finds Ryan, Cathy and a CIA team flying to back to the U.S. and figuring out the rest of the plot at astonishing speeds. Oh well, what's the point of logic when the fate of the world's at stake?

Pine makes a better Ryan than his predecessors, which include Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck. If the series continues, he'll be able to put another franchise on his resume, already having landed the role as Captain Kirk in the revived Star Trek series.

Shadow Recruit mostly holds its own, but it could have been a lot better. No one asked me, but next time out, I hope the filmmakers opt for a plot that allows Ryan to ply his trade in more credible fashion.

'Star Trek' sets its phasers on heavy fun

There's plenty of entertainment in this edition of Star Trek -- right up until a finale that features more destruction than the movie needs.

Watching the abundantly entertaining Star Trek Into Darkness, it sometimes seems as if we're seeing a spot-on replication of the original series -- only one that's been invaded by a new set of actors. Credit a cast led by Chris Pine (as Captain Kirk) and Zachary Quinto (as Spock) with working hard to keep their much-loved characters on track.

Made familiar by director J.J. Abrams as younger versions of the characters we knew from the venerated TV series, it's Kirk and Spock who keep the The Enterprise aloft -- with help, of course, from their ever reliable crew mates.

I'm not sure how fanboys will react to this mega-helping of Star Trek -- shown to many critics at 9 p.m. on the Wednesday night the movie was set to debut at a variety of midnight shows -- but it seemed to me that for most the picture, Abrams did a reasonably good job of balancing the fabled Star Trek ethos with lots of boldly conceived action.

Although everything in Into Darkness takes place in the time before the TV series began, the movie keeps the door open for as many prequels as Abrams is willing to make.

Is Into Darkness as good as 2009's Star Trek? Probably not, but Abrams & company can't be accused of hitting the sophomore skids, either. Messy plotting seldom detracts from the proceedings, although it's worth pointing out that the movie owes a major debt to the well-reviewed Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, released in 1982.

As is the case with the better Star Trek episodes, this edition places an ethical issue at the story's core: Should Starfleet stick to its mission of exploring space while allowing alien civilizations to develop without interference or should it militarize and prepare for endless battles with threatening civilizations, say the ferocious Klingons?

I'm not saying Star Trek Into Darkness astonishes you with its philosophical depth and thoughtful nuance, but at least it's trying to be about something more than warp speed and explosions.

The screenplay also reprises a reliable Star Trek tension, the perpetual tug of war between emotion and logic, played out in the evolving relationship between an overly impetuous Kirk and an amusingly impassive Spock. Both characters still are feeling their way toward maturity.

Abrams' second Star Trek movie derives significant benefit from its villain, a super strongman played by British actor Benedict Cumberbatch, who projects (boy, does he ever) enough piercing menace to keep him from being overwhelmed by the movie's special effects. How impressive is he? Sometimes, the guy seems even smarter than Spock.

The rest of the Enterprise crew is on board and in decent form: Zoë Saldana as Uhura, John Cho as Mr. Sulu; Simon Pegg as Mr. Scott, and Anton Yelchin as Chekov. It's of some interest that Uhura and Spock are still lovers, although it takes a while for them to kiss and make-up after a spat. Karl Urban makes a fine Dr. McCoy or more familiarly "Bones," the character responsible for providing home-spun comic relief.

Most audiences probably will forgive Abrams for kicking Star Trek into the kind of action-oriented overdrive that defines summer at the movies -- especially during its finale. Me? I won't describe it here, but I could have done without a destructively indulgent climax that takes a terrorist-like wrecking ball to yet another vulnerable cityscape.

You'd think after 9/11, this kind of devastation would long have fallen into disrepute. Sadly, it hasn't.

Thankfully, though, Abrams' movie has more to offer than late-picture carnage and crumbling concrete. If you're looking for summer enjoyment, Into the Darkness provides it in ample measure through most of its 132-minute running time, and -- just as important -- it leaves you ready to sign on for the Enterprise's next voyage.

'People Like Us' -- or are they?

People Like Us tries hard to mask formulaic thinking, but doesn't entirely succeed.



Sam (Chris Pine), fast-talking businessman, misses his father's funeral after making sure that he doesn't have the necessary identification to board a commercial flight from New York to Los Angeles. It's a quick stroke that immediately establishes People Like Us as a movie about an irresponsible wheeler/dealer who refuses to face the pain in his past.

People Like Us begins in earnest when Sam belatedly lands in Los Angeles with his girlfriend (Olivia Wilde) in tow. The rest of the movie involves the discoveries Sam makes as he lingers in Los Angeles, initially because he wants to avoid an FTC investigation resulting from an ethically dubious barter deal and later because of a relationship he develops with a single mom (Elizabeth Banks) and her 12-year-old son (Michael Hall D'Addario).

As it turns out, Sam's recently departed dad -- a record producer by trade -- left his son nothing but shelves full of vinyl albums and a shaving kit containing $150,000 that Sam's supposed to deliver to a stranger. It's here that the movie finds its hook: The money, we learn, is intended for Banks's Frankie, a half-sister Sam didn't know he had.

The rest of the movie charts Sam's humanization after he meets Frankie, a woman who works at a Los Angeles bar. Sam begins to learn that decency has its rewards.

Now without getting into more detail, let me point out that People Like Us is one of those movies in which the absence of a simple conversation -- presumably one most of us would want to have as soon as we discovered that we had an unknown sibling -- keeps undermining the movie's credibility. Sam won't tell Frankie who he is, which sets up the inevitable march toward to the uber-dramatic moment when he must reveal all.

Granted, the financially pressed Sam has his reasons for not saying anything (he's thinking about keeping the $150,000), but this kind of withheld information constitutes the same sort of hackneyed conceit that has fueled far too many low-grade romcoms. Here, it provides the obstacle for brother/sister reconciliation.

Sam and his mother (Michelle Pfeiffer) seem to have had it easier than Frankie. As a single mom and hard-working waitress, Frankie's always stressed, and to make matters worse, she's dealing with a wise-ass kid who has a knack for getting into trouble.

Unfortunately, the movie's most interesting character -- Sam's departed dad -- is never seen. Sam's father evidently was a major philanderer who was more interested in music than in his family. The relationship between this unseen impresario and Pfeiffer's character might have provided material for a far more original movie than the one director Alex Kurtzman has made. (Kurtzman, by the way, co-wrote the screenplay for the most recent Star Trek movie in which Pine plays Capt. Kirk.)

Despite a strong performance from Banks, who eclipses Pine, People Like Us ultimately comes across as an adequate formula job that tries to mute its predictability: Nothing wrong with a fresh twist on old contrivances, but People Like Us follows its predictable arc to a place where we've been hundreds of times before.

Two spies compete for the love of one woman

This Means War: Another strained rom-com bites the dust.

Tom Hardy is an interesting young actor. Hardy made a strong impression as Ricky Tarr, a disillusioned spy in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. In the gritty -- if overpraised -- Warrior, he played a young man training for mixed martial arts combat.

If you really want to pull out all the Hardy stops, make an immediate point of seeing Bronson, a riveting British import in which Hardy played Michael Peterson, an unrepentant British criminal. And, yes, Hardy also appeared in Inception, in which he played a member of Leonardo Di Caprio’s dream-invading posse.

The 34-year-old Hardy is an interesting and versatile actor, one of those gifted performers who’s capable of being unrecognizable from picture to picture. That’s a good thing for him because Hardy’s appearance in This Mans War could mark a low point in what I trust will be a long and admirable career.

In this preposterous romance, Hardy plays a CIA agent who competes with another CIA agent (Chris Pine) for the affections of a perky woman (Reese Witherspoon) who hasn't had much luck when it comes to love.

Hardy portrays Tuck, a divorced father who shares a buddy bond with his long-time CIA partner FDR Foster (Pine). When the two demonstrate more improvisational flare than than the agency customarily tolerates, they wind up assigned to desk jobs by their no-nonsense boss (Angela Bassett). Basset’s so wasted in this movie, casting her amounts to a form of actor abuse.

The only thinking you’ll find here involves moving the screenplay from one contrivance to the next. Witherspoon portrays Lauren, a successful woman whose job involves evaluating consumer products. Each man meets Lauren independently of the other. When they discover they’re both taken with Lauren, they begin a competition for her affection, sometimes using sophisticated CIA surveillance equipment to aid them. And you were wondering why we have trillion dollar deficits.

To add an element of Mr. & Mrs. Smith-style danger, a fiendish criminal (Til Schweiger) is out to kill Tuck.

Although both agents are highly competitive, FDR is the more seasoned womanizer of the two. Tuck is a bit of a disadvantage in this area; he spends time with his young son and misses the family he lost, presumably because he was never around.

Comic actress Chelsea Handler rounds out the movie’s cast; she plays the sexually oriented, ultra-pragmatic and loud-mouthed best friend, a married woman who encourages Lauren to date both men and enjoy herself. Handler’s supposed to offer comic relief, but her role proves as cliched as roles get in this kind of strained rom-com affliction.

Perhaps as a sop to men who are dragged to This Means War, director McG (Terminator Salvation, Charlie's Angels and We Are Marshall) dishes out action, staging a bruising fight in a restaurant and an over-the-top finale involving a car chase. OK, we’re watching a fantasy romance, but in what world is it possible for two men to engage in a fight that destroys an upscale restaurant without the police showing up?

Pine, who appeared as young Captain Kirk in the 2009 edition of Star Trek and who had a nice turn with Denzel Washington in Unstoppable, doesn't exactly burn up the screen here. Hardy's a bit better at carrying his share of this unsavory load, and Witherspoon tries to bring spunk to a character that’s about as believable as CIA agents who act like frat boys. I wasn’t a fan of Water for Elephants -- Witherspoon’s last movie -- but at least that picture showed some ambition, which is more than can be said for This Means War, which tries to merge three genres -- romance, action and comedy -- and winds up making a mockery of each.

Besides, who needs a romance in which there’s more action in the streets than between the sheets? This Means War is a dud.

A movie that's on track for tension

Unstoppable may not change your life, but it provides a solid 98-minutes of white-knuckle escapism.

Chris Pine and Denzel Washington as men at work.

Tony Scott's Unstoppable barrels its way onto a large number of screens this weekend. In some parts of the country, Unstoppable opens against 127 Hours, director Danny Boyle's hyper-kinetic look at the harrowing, real-life experience of Aron Ralston, a young Coloradan who liberated himself from a Utah canyon by cutting off the lower part of his right arm.

I normally avoid reviewing one movie in terms of another, but I mention Unstoppable and 127 Hours together because both are designed for visceral charge and both are worth seeing. When it comes to end-of-the-year honors, though, it's a good bet that Boyle's festival-launched movie will fare better than Unstoppable.

Too bad. Unstoppable may not win many awards, but it does offer 98 minutes of heart-stopping escape. And unlike, 127 Hours, Unstoppable isn't burdened by even the slightest hint of pretension. Scott's movie clearly intends to provide a solid hunk of white-knuckle escapism -- and does.

Unstoppable reunites Scott with Denzel Washington, an actor he directed in The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009), Deja Vu (2006), and Man on Fire (2004). Unstoppable - a movie about a runaway train - marks the best of the Scott/Washington collaborations, a high-speed hunk of action that builds furious momentum.

Washington plays Frank, an engineer who has made a living hauling freight around the Pennsylvania countryside. A 28-year railroad vet, Frank is teamed with a newcomer to railroading (Chris Pine of Star Trek fame). A cost-conscious company has been pushing its older workers into early retirement, so the grizzled pros tend to resent novices such as Pine's Will.

Looking a little portly, Washington proves entirely convincing as an engineer who has lived a reasonably successful blue-collar life, raising two daughters as a solo dad. This being a Tony Scott movie, it should come as no surprise that Frank's daughters are hot young women with jobs at a local Hooters. They provide a modest splash of eye candy.

Will is married, but his marriage has hit a rough patch, the kind of troubled stretch that leads to restraining orders.

Blue-collar romanticism chugs through the movie. When the chips are down, Frank's hands-on experience trumps management's preoccupation with the bottom line. Frank ultimately devises the best plan for stopping a train that's racing toward catastrophe with no driver, no brakes and an engine that's fully powered.

And did I mention that the runaway train is carrying a highly toxic and combustible chemical that's used in the manufacture of glue? The runaway train becomes a monster unleashed on a rural landscape that's dotted with small and medium sized towns. The train's "a missile the size of the Chrysler Building,'' as one character puts it.

Unstoppable was inspired by a real 2001 incident, but a faithful rendering of events is not the point here. Scott knows that his job is to create high tension, and he never lets up.

He also augments the proceedings with tasty small performances. Ethan Suplee plays the engineer who stupidly jumped off his train to reset a switch, thus causing the runaway. Rosario Dawson portrays a railroad traffic manager who tries to prevent disaster, and Kevin Dunn appears as a railroad boss, an executive motivated by dual concerns: safety and profit. Well, maybe more profit than safety. Lew Temple plays another railroad employee, a guy who chases after the runaway train in his pick-up.

Screenwriter Mark Bomback doesn't seem to have spent much time fretting over the dialog, but he sustains a nearly unbearable sense of peril by presenting us with an escalating series of potential disasters.

Unlike an awful lot of contemporary movies, Unstoppable makes good on its promise. And happily, it doesn't depend on gunplay or explosions. Scott finds danger, excitement and heroism in a movie that knows precisely where it's headed, and takes us along for one of the season's most nerve-rattling rides.