A mild life-swap comedy

 

 If a rich young man were forced to change places with a gig worker, would he be a better person because of the experience? And would the struggling gig worker learn that his life already had value?

   What? You thought a comedy starring Seth Rogen, Keanu Reeves, and Aziz Ansari, who also wrote and directed, would endorse a lavish lifestyle in which one of the rich guy's biggest challenges consists of leaving the sauna for a cold plunge? 

   Nah, spreading its Capraesque values as thick as peanut butter, Good Fortune casts Reeves as Gabriel, a lower-ranking angel whose job involves saving the lives of people who are texting while  driving, sort of a heavenly being turned into a public service message.

    But Reeves’ Gabriel not only wants to save lives; he hopes to change them.

     Through a series of contrivances and missteps, Gabriel arranges for Ansari's Arj — an aspiring film editor stuck in gig world hell — to trade places with Jeff (Rogen), a Los Angeles entrepreneur with a watch collection whose value might rival the budget of a small nation.

     At first, Arj believes he’s had the ultimate stroke of luck. He thinks that money might help him impress a young woman (Keke Palmer) who works at a hardware megastore, where he had a part-time job.

     Besides, who can blame him for being happy that he no longer needs to sleep in his car.

      After Gabriel's life-swapping mistake, his supervising angel (Sandra Oh) strips him of his wings and turns him into a human being. The best part of the comedy involves Reeves'  transformation from a naive and slightly dopey angel into a human who develops a love for tacos, dancing, and bro-style companionship.

      Meant to be temporary, the life-swap extends when Arj decides he doesn’t want to return to a life of thankless hustling and poverty. For his part, Jeff would like to get his life back.

      More attuned to chuckles than belly laughs, the rest of Good Fortune involves attempts to restore Jeff and Arj to their original lives and allow Gabriel to resume angelic life.

        Perhaps to tone down the movies's cornier  aspects, Ansari introduces mild critiques of income disparity, careless capitalism, and status-oriented consumption.  He even adds a bit of activism when Palmer’s Elena tries to unionize her co-workers. At another point, a gaggle of gig workers walks off a job site.

      If Good Fortune is intended as an assault on heartless capitalism, it's not an especially provocative one, but that same benign quality helps keep the comedy from grating.

     Ansari doesn’t work with too heavy a hand, so even the bits that don’t succeed (an over-the-top 40th birthday party, for example) land softly. Ansari's best achievement involves coaxing an amusing performance from Reeves, who's more like Ted (from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure) than either his Neo or John Wick characters.

      I don't give movies stars, but if I did, I'd tag Good Fortune as the quintessential ** 1/2 star entertainment, a predictable comedy that delivers its message with bit of amusement and without too much hectoring.

Walking in John Wick's footsteps

   

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Wick’ as crazy as ever. No, crazier

   

      John Wick: Chapter 4 is one wild movie, a two-hour and 49-minute stream of action that makes a virtue of excess.

     If you’re familiar with WickWorld, you know that action means violence, executed with guns, knives, nunchucks and anything else that can be weaponized — cars and motorcycles included.

     Director Chad Stahelski ably threads a plot through the real draw, a slew of action set pieces.

     You either like this sort or thing or you don’t. If you do, Chapter 4 delivers. Sure, Stahelski pushes the violence to the point at which logic evaporates. But style, invention and skill keep the bloody bounty from curdling into exploitation. 

     Considering how much physical effort Reeves expends during Wick's globe-hopping endeavors, it’s a wonder the actor still is able to walk —much less ignite the engine that drives Wick's fighting fury.

      About those set pieces:

      A dizzyingly impressive battle sprawls its way through a Berlin nightclub where Wick confronts Killa (Scott Adkins), a hulk of a man with golden teeth who looks as if he might have been resurrected from an early Bond movie. 

       In another set piece, drivers race against the flow of traffic at an Arc de Triomphe roundabout. It’s funny and, yes, crazy,  a near-cartoonish blur of motion punctuated by staccato bursts of gun fire

       A climactic sequence takes on Sisyphean dimensions as antagonists fight on the steps leading to Paris's Sacre Coeur.

       The story? Oh yeah, that.

       A fiendish villain called the Marquis (Bill Skarsgard) hires hitmen to put Wick out of commission. 

       These include Tracker (Shamier Anderson),  an assassin who travels with his beloved but brutal German shepherd, and Caine (Donny Yen),  a blind warrior brought into the game when the Marquis threatens his daughter.

       Hiroyuki Sanada operates a swank Osaka hotel that provides safe-house refuge for assassins who serve a mysterious organization known as The Table.

       The cast roster also includes  returnees Laurence Fishburne, as the Bowery king, and Ian McShane, as the sly operator of New York City's safe house. 

      Is the movie too long? Of course it is,  but then again it’s too much of everything. 

       That's the Wick way. Again evoking memories of bygone Hong Kong action movies, Chapter 4 brings commitment to its ceaseless battling and avoids the worst label you can apply to any sequel. This is no pandering cash grab.  

       Stahelski ups the ante with each successive set piece, thus proving you can give audiences what they want without cheating or insulting them in the bargain.

Toys are us -- or at least pretty human

Toy Story 4 balances real issues, fun and undisguised sentiment.

What’s an aging toy to do?

That question hovers over Toy Story 4, giving the movie a strange relevance that goes along with the comfort and amusement we associate with toys.

In this edition, Woody -- the familiar cowboy toy voiced by Tom Hanks -- faces a struggle between loyalty and personal fulfillment. Bo Peep (voice by Annie Pots) already has struck out on her own. She’s given up on the idea of belonging to a child. Long separated from the lamp they once called home, Bo and her sheep roam the country as free ... geez ... I almost said beings.

After a brief prologue, director Josh Cooley plunges into a story that takes some odd turns. Bonnie, Woody’s latest “owner,” has been ignoring the cowboy, but Woody continues in his loyalty, even sneaking into Bonnie’s backpack to help her deal with her terrifying first day at school.

During that fateful day, Bonnie makes a toy out of a spork and pipe cleaners. Named Forky and having been granted toy status by virtue of Bonnie’s affection, the newbie springs to life.

Initially, Forky has trouble giving up his previous identity as a disposable piece of trash. Left to his own devices, Forky instinctively leaps into the nearest wastebasket, forcing Woody to rescue him -- not because he cares that much about Forky but because he knows Bonnie will be distraught if she loses a toy she made.

When Bonnie’s family takes an RV trip, the story takes an even weirder turn. Woody and Forky wind up in an antique store where they’re terrorized by four ventriloquist dummies and their leader, a doll called Gaby Gaby (Christina Hendricks). An old-fashioned girl doll with eyelids that drop into a blink, Gabby wants to steal Woody’s voice box to enhance her desirability. If a kid can pull her string and hear Gaby talk — routine doll babble that has nothing to do with her "real" vocal skills — perhaps she’ll be able to fulfill her destiny and find her very own human.

And, no, I can’t believe I’m writing about the motivations of toys, but such is the life of movie critics and children.

The dummies give Toy Story 4 a weird horror-movie tilt — at least for a few minutes. I half wish Disney had gone all the way and really taken Toy Story 4 off the rails, but that, of course, would have been commercial suicide.

Instead, the Pixar team balances the sentimental, the slightly scary and the blatantly emotional in a package that marks a definite improvement of the last installment.

As with all sequels, this one has been accessorized with a few new features, notably two furry toys. Jordan Peele gives voice to Bunny and Keegan-Michael Key does voice work for Ducky. Even better, Keanu Reeves provides the voice for Duke Caboom, a failure-prone motorcycle-riding daredevil. It's one of Reeves’ best performances.

Old standby Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) tags along for the ride, taking a bit of back seat to the other characters. But even Buzz receives a showcase moment.

The always reliable Pixar animation can seem a bit creepy — plastic faces that never fully come to life. But what the heck, these are toys. Besides, humans have relatively little to do with this edition; they’re around to give the toys a sense of purpose.

If an adult friend (sans kids) asked me whether he or she should race out to see Toy Story 4, I’d probably shrug. If you must. But parents who see the movie with their kids won’t be bored and Disney always gives enough cartoonish bounce to its endeavors to keep youngsters happy — even if they’re not tuned into what some critics are calling an “existential” edition of Toy Story.

The end credits will help you decide whether Bo Peep and Woody have a future. This may not be as pressing a question as whether artificial intelligence will deprive you of employment or whether climate change will torment your progeny in ways you hardly can imagine, but for a couple of hours, Disney and its fine voice cast help you get caught up in it.

A footnote: I wonder whether kids will realize that they can make Forky at home and without jumping onto any merchandising bandwagon. This could start a massive new trend that cripples sales of movie-related toys: Kids actually making things themselves. What a concept.

He's back -- and brutal as ever

Keanu Reeves reprises his role as John Wick, a reluctant hitman who piles up a staggering body count, and keeps fans of the series happy..

In John Wick: Chapter 2, Keanu Reeves -- as the title character -- amasses a staggering body count with a pointed efficiency that befits his status as a professional hitman. And when Wick fights with his fists (and legs), the ensuing symphony of hyper-grunts creates its own gritty eloquence.

Reprising his work in the 2014 hit, Reeves takes a substantial beating as the film progresses, and Chapter 2 boldly whirls its way through car carnage and carefully orchestrated mayhem spread across a variety of intriguing and well-selected locations -- from the catacombs of Rome to the subways of New York City to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Picking up where the first movie left off, the movie concocts a scenario in which hitman Wick quickly finds himself pulled back into the action. He's asked to pay back a debt. In Wick's world, this means he must return a favor by assassinating someone.

Chad Stahelski, who co-directed the first installment, goes solo in this effort, pushing the action into new corners, and following a philosophy that insists that no amount of violent action qualifies as too much.

Another hitman, Santino D'Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio), supplies the villainy. D'Antonio tries to manipulate Wick, and eventually to kill him -- with an assist from every hitman in New York.

Ian McShane portrays the urbane head of the Continental, a Manhattan hotel where hitman can relax (no slaughter allowed); a deadpan Lance Reddick works the hotel's front desk, and Laurence Fishburne, who appeared with Reeves in the Matrix, enjoyably chews as much scenery as possible as head of a team of hitmen who pose as New York City street people.

The Continental's sommelier (Peter Serafinowicz) adds a Bond-like touch, dispensing weapons while employing the vocabulary of a wine connoisseur.

You'll also see Common as another hitman. Like Wick, he's a pillar of stoicism. Little in this second chapter relies on expressive acting -- at least from the movie's hitmen. Killing without discernible affect might be the movie's idea of the noblest of human virtues.

Perhaps so that women don't feel excluded from this cinematic wild ride, Ruby Rose has been cast as a deaf-mute killer who communicates with Wick by signing.

From the movie's opening prologue -- Wick drives a Mustang that becomes a target for other cars -- it's clear that this second installment will rely on battering overstatement. A far-fetched plot about a global network of assassins provides a frame on which to hang the action, which, by the end, even resorts to the shopworn Hall of Mirrors effect -- and pretty much pulls it off.

Be assured, the violence never shies away from brutality of a kind that occasionally elicited audible gasps from a preview audience, a recognition that being shot or stabbed in certain areas of the body qualifies as excruciating to the max.

Reeves's barely buried fury sets a tone of semi-seriousness that director Stahelski maintains, creating a giant, grind-house conspiracy between the audience and a movie that loads up on chaos. We all know the movie is preposterous, so it doesn't have to wink at us.

And, yes, Wick once again has a dog, a conceit that forces us to worry over the animal's fate. And, yes, the door is open for another sequel, which I'm guessing will become inevitable after this chapter finishestearing up the box office.

High style, low-down movie

Director Nicolas Winding Refn's foray into the world of modeling bores until the gore arrives.

Glossy but vacuous The Neon Demon might move you to say that director Nicolas Winding Refn has an eye for compelling images, but you may also find yourself wondering whether his movie connects to a brain.

Senseless as it is stylized, Neon Demon takes us into Refn's idea of the intensely competitive world of high fashion modeling.

Let's just say Refn exaggerates to maximum levels, punctuating his movie with scenes that surely were intended to shock. If lesbian necrophilia weren't enough to set the mood, Refn throws in some cannibalism because ... well ... in Los Angeles, it's a model-eat-model world.

With its coolly conceived lighting design, its anesthetized performances and a mood that vampires might find a bit chilly, Refn serves up a drama that focuses on Jesse (Elle Fanning), a rootless young woman who arrives in Los Angeles to pursue a modeling career.

Jesse tells others that prettiness constitutes her only attribute. She's convinced she can make money from her looks.

Sixteen-year-old Jesse projects a midwestern aura of innocence that's supposed to be irresistible. As Jesse herself sums it up, everyone wants to be her, so much so that women will starve themselves on the chance that they might become second-rate imitations of her.

The faint aroma of critique rises from this purple-hued carcass of a movie, something about society's preoccupation with the way women look, beauty over substance -- and a limited idea about beauty, at that.

Refn -- the director of the over-rated Drive and the less-admired Only God Forgives -- is as guilty of dehumanizing his characters as any modeling agency or fashion photographer. What meaning can necrophilia have in a movie in which everyone looks half dead?

Despite what appears to be a rapid rise to the top of the modeling heap, Jesse maintains her residence in a sleazy Pasadena motel where the rooms are covered with fading floral wallpaper. At one point, a mountain lion invades her room. Oh, the dangers that lurk in Pasadena. Oh, the attempt to surprise the audience with an art grenade.

Keanu Reeves plays the motel's sleazy manager, one of those small roles that makes you wonder whether he dropped by the set for an afternoon. Reeves carries a knife into one of the movie's more chilling scenes.

Jena Malone portrays a make-up artist with a crush on Jesse. Two additional models (Bella Heathcote and Abbey Lee) are Jesse's competition. They're heanto plastic surgery. Think of them as fashion cyborgs.

It's not easy to tell whether Refn is aiming for satire or horror. If it's the latter, the biggest horror involves the movie's monotony, a steady beat of boredom interrupted only by late-picture servings of gross-out violence, one such episode involving an eyeball.

Perhaps it's fitting. The eyeball is the only thing Refn rewards with this nonsensically slick bit of rot.

Bullets fly in 'John Wick'

Keanu Reeves seeks a mega helping of vengeance in John Wick.

In the movies, hitmen seldom retire to lives of leisurely bliss.

So we're not especially surprised when John Wick -- an assassin and the newly widowed title character of a new movie starring Keanu Reeves -- is pushed back into action.

We are a bit surprised, though, when (and I include this spoiler for the benefit of pet lovers), the dog his late wife gave him to help with grieving is killed by the sadistic son (Alfie Allen) of a Russian crime czar (Michael Nyqvist).

You can do a lot to a guy, but kill his dog? That's a major no-no.

John Wick, which was directed by Chad Stahelski, is a movie aimed at piling up box-office receipts as fast as falling bodies -- and lots of bodies bite the dust in a frenzied helping of violence that harkens back to some of the Hong Kong bloodbaths of the '80s and '90s. Think John Woo, only without as much style and without Chow Yun-Fat.

Reeves has been surrounded by a supporting cast that knows how to sell this kind of brutal gruel. Nyqvist has fun as the apparently judicious father of a son who believes he owns the world, and Willem Dafoe shows up as another hitman.

Plentiful fight sequences are well-orchestrated by Stahelski, who knows how to fulfill genre obligations.

John Wick is the kind of guilty pleasure that takes us back to grindhouse days, and I have no problem with that.

A wish, though: I wish that Reeves could bring at least a hint of subtext to the role. His character may triumph in the end, but the actors playing the bad guys have Reeves beat by a mile.