Many twists, not much credibility

Those who've seen It Ends With Us, the big-screen adaptation of Colleen Hoover's 2016 novel about domestic abuse, may be looking forward to Regretting You, another movie based on a Hoover novel, this one published in 2019. Director Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars) finds little credible drama in a movie that wraps itself in enough contrivance to squeeze most of the life out of it. The movie begins by introducing four characters who've known each other since high school. Morgan (Allison Williams) seems happily married to Chris (Scott Eastwood). Meanwhile, Morgan's sister (Willa Fitzgerald) is about to marry the father of her baby (Dave Franco). Like most teenagers Clara -- Morgan and Chris's 17-year-old daughter -- is starting to chart her own course. A big-time tragedy upsets everyone's apple cart, setting off a cascading series of events that can't be revealed without spoilers. Clara's story, which feels like it belongs in another movie, charts her relationship with Miller (Mason Thames), a kid who's more mature emotionally than she is. Despite dropping a tragic bomb into the story, the movie scatters little emotional shrapnel. AMC Theaters receives a major product placement in a film that comes up short on interesting characters and credible behavior. 

Time to give up on 'Ghostbusters'?

 

 It would be a mistake to assume that critics never crave an evening of simple diversion. That’s how I approached Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, the latest in a comic franchise that has made intermittent appearances in the nation’s multiplexes since 1984.

 Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd, vets of the original, both appear in the new movie, a promising bit of casting and, although the first movie isn’t among my favorite comedies, I was hoping for laughs in a climate of unabashed silliness. 

  Besides, what could be better than an ample helping of the kind of straight-faced intensity only Aykroyd can deliver?

  All I can say is that hopes aren’t always rewarded. 

  Although Frozen Empire didn’t generate embittered antipathy (at least from me), I found it uninspired, callow, and guilty of misstepping by trying to whip up a real scare or two. 

   To begin with, Murray isn’t in Frozen Empire all that much. Aykroyd’s appearance goes beyond cameo levels but it’s as if he’s taking the role of straight man without a comic to foil to play against. 

   The only scene that begins to suggest wit involves Aykroyd and Patton Oswalt, who appears as a paranormal researcher working at the main branch of the New York Public Library.

   Credit Kumail Nanjiani for bringing a shabby conman’s ease to a role that figures heavily in the plot, but could have been further expanded.

    Returning to the revamped New York City firehouse of the original, the movie centers on a familiar group composed of characters from previous sequels: Paul Rudd (now an aspiring stepdad), Carrie Coon (as Mom), and McKenna Grace and Finn Wolfhard) as her two kids. 

     Grace’s Phoebe emerges as a teen with a ghost-busting gift. She befriends a spirit named Melody (Emily Alyn Lind) who happens to be a chess whiz. 

    Director Gil Kenan, working from a screenplay he wrote with Jason Reitman,  piles on franchise references and adds the requisite amount of special effects. But the principal "ghost" — an evil god named Garraka  -- lacks the necessary silliness to keep the comedy on track. The movie takes Garraka, who can coat the world with layers of life-destroying ice, a little too seriously.

    The original movie relied on Murray’s sardonic delivery and the unashamed and often tacky preposterousness of its ambitions. The giant Stay Puft Marshmallow man who trampled Manhattan in 1984 has been shattered into legions of tiny Marshmallow men, a proliferation that’s overused to the point where it loses its whacky charm.

     The movie also includes an additional team of paranormal researchers financed by the wealthy Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson of earlier movies). That group includes more characters from previous editions who are charged with studying the behavior of captured ghosts, perhaps hinting at the possibility of a rapprochement between humans and the spirit world.

      Other figures from the series reappear, notably Annie Potts, the original  Ghostbusters secretary, and William Atherton, who portrays the oppositional authority figure who wants to hold the Ghostbusters responsible for collateral damage wreaked by their efforts.

      Judging by this edition, there seems little need for another Ghostbusters. Passing proton packs from generation to generation has its limits.

      At one point, Aykroyd’s aging character refers to being in his Golden Years. He wants to spend his twilight years doing what he’s done before, busting ghosts, I guess. I wouldn’t wish a life spent playing golf on Aykroyd's Ray Stantz, but there must be a better alternative.

     

This "Spirit' need to be more untamed

 Middle-of-the-road live-action movies seldom delight. Same goes for middle-of-the-road animated features,  and that's the category in which the new movie Spirit Untamed lands. A predecessor movie -- Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron -- debuted in 2002. Now comes another helping that tries to touch as many bases as possible, mixing a multicultural cast of characters with lots of action and a girl-power pep talk. A wild horse befriends Lucky Prescott, (voice by Isabela Merced), a 12-year-old girl who travels west with her aunt (Julianne Moore). Lucky is supposed-to visit her father (Jake Gyllenhaal), a decent but broken man who hasn't recovered from the loss of Lucky's mom,   a trick-rider who was killed in an accident. Lucky quickly makes friends with two girls (Mckenna Grace and Marsai Martin) in the small town where she lands. She also defies her dad, who warns her to avoid Spirit, a wild horse that winds up in the town corral. Lucky's mastery of riding goes from zero to highly skilled within an improbable few minutes. The plot takes an adventure turn when Lucky sets out to rescue Spirit from a rustler (Walton Goggins) and his dastardly gang.  Little about the animation feels particularly special. Even with some mild ecological concerns, Spirit Untamed feels like multiplex filler. In the absence of any other kid-fare, Spirit might suffice, but it's mostly a negligible hunk of family oriented entertainment.

A quirky story about young outcasts

Set in 1977, Troop Zero tries (boy does it ever) to uphold the rights of young outcasts to claim their place in the world, maybe even in the entire universe. Directors Bert & Bertie, a British directing team, build their story around Christmas Flint (Mckenna Grace), a girl who’s an outsider in the small town of Wiggly, Georgia. Christmas's widowed dad (Jim Gaffigan) plies his trade as an attorney, losing most of his cases and seldom being paid for his efforts. Gaffigan’s Ramsey Flint expects his assistant (Viola Davis) to look after his daughter, a task she approaches responsibly but not happily. The plot begins when Christmas makes friends with a girl who formerly bullied her (Milan Ray). She then assembles a group of girls to join the Birdies, scouts who are vying to see which of them will win a chance to record a message that NASA will send into space. The local Scout Master (Allison Janney) reluctantly accepts Christmas's crew as Birdies, labeling them Troop Zero. Lest boys feel left out, Birdie Troop Zero includes Christmas's best friend, Joseph (Charlie Shotwell). Of course, a group of by-the-book Birdies demeans the outcasts. The young actors do well enough and Davis’s portrayal suggests unexpected complexities for a movie that seems to want to be quirky and endearing at the same time. Christmas’s individuality takes a strange form: She’s a bed wetter, which the movie tries (weirdly, I think) to turn into a gesture of assertive defiance set to the tune of David Bowie's Space Oddity. A real emotional issue (grief over a lost mother) rises to the surface at the end, but an over-commitment to quirkiness can make Troop Zero feel like a song played out of tune.

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.