Bob's Cinema Diary: 4/30/'21 -- 'Outside Story,' 'Percy vs. Goliath' and 'Four Good Days’'

A word on Cinema Diary. You may wonder why some movies receive full reviews and others show up in this abbreviated format. Lots of reasons. Some of the involve the number of movies being released in a given week. Eight this week, for example. Some of the reasons for the Diary relate to when I've seen a particular movie and how many more movies I need to watch prior to the weekend.

At the same time, honesty compels me to say that the directors and actors who made these films didn't make them to be regarded as secondary efforts. I don't. At the same time, I've yet to find a way to cope with weeks that are flooded with new movies.

The Outside Story 

Movies don't get much more streamlined than Outside Story, a look at a man (Brian Tyree Henry) who locks himself out of his Brooklyn apartment, interacts with his neighbors, and wonders whether he should have broken up with his girlfriend (Sonequa Marin Green). Henry's Charles seems to be a nice guy, a film editor who specializes in assembling visual obituaries of celebrities. The key to the movie involves Henry's performance as a stressed-out but nice New Yorker who has encounters with a cop (Sunita Mani), a neighborhood kid (Olivia Edward), and an older woman (Lynda Gravatt) whose husband recently died. Director Casimir Nozkowski, who also wrote the screenplay, has a nice feeling for the idiosyncrasies of neighborhood relationships but he can't prevent the material from feeling a bit thin. Henry, currently on view in Godzilla vs. Kong, holds the movie together. Although the movie contains some conflict, the stakes feel pretty low -- which can be viewed as a blessing or a severe limitation or perhaps a bit of both.

Percy Vs Goliath

After seeing Christopher Walken miscast as an Irish farmer in Wild Mountain Thyme, I was dubious about Percy Vs Goliath, the story of a Canadian farmer who takes on the Monsanto in a prolonged court battle over patent rights involving canola seeds. But damn if Walken doesn't pull it off, doing credible work as Percy Schmeiser, a farmer who inadvertently planted Monsanto GMO seeds that had blown onto his property from a neighbor's farm. The result:  a prolonged suit. Roberta Maxwell portrays Schmeiser's wife Louise. Zach Braff signs on as the small-town lawyer who represents Schmeiser, and Christina Ricci appears as an environmental activist who encourages Schmeiser to challenge Monsanto. She also helps him take is story global with a visit to India. The story of a little man fighting a major corporation isn't exactly fresh but director Clark Johnson does a good job presenting complicated issues as Schmeiser's case makes its way to the Canadian Supreme Court. 

Four Good Days

Familiarity may not always breed contempt, but it can breed fatigue when it comes to movies. Glenn Close and Mila Kunis play mother and daughter in an addiction drama about a young woman (Kunis) nearly ruined by drugs. Kunis' Molly wants to make another stab at kicking her habit so she asks her mother, Close's Deb, to take her in. This time she really means it -- or so she says. Director Rodrigo Garcia doesn't skimp on realism: Kunis has been given rotting teeth and a distressingly scrawny look. Deb blames Molly's addiction on the doctors who prescribed an Oxycontin regimen after a skiing injury. Since then, Deb has left her husband (Joshua Leonard) and her two kids. The title stems from the offer Molly receives from a detox doctor: If she can stay clean for four days, he'll give her a shot that will keep her from getting high on heroin. If she takes the shot before her system has been cleansed, she could die from its effects. Close and Kunis deliver strong performances but the movie can't escape the dogged quality of the storytelling.  It's difficult not to feel a bit guilty about wanting a fresh charge from an addiction movie, particularly one based on a true story. Still, we feel a bit like Deb feels when Molly shows up at her door after 14 failed attempts at rehab. What? You want us to go down this movie road again?

'Jupiter' ascends, Wachowskis sink

A muddled fantasy that pours on the visual stimulation.

Get ready for a list of strange ingredients:

-- Inter-species gene-splicing.
-- Something called "recurrence," a mysterious process that resembles reincarnation.
-- Aliens who want to conquer Earth to boil down the human population in refineries designed to produce a life-extending substance for those greedy aliens.
-- A young woman who cleans toilets in Chicago, and doesn't know that she's actually a queen.

Ok, take a breath. The idea here is to let you know that these and many additional incongruities populate Jupiter Rising, the latest muddle of a movie from the Wachowski siblings (Andy and Lana).

As visually dense as it is dramatically unsophisticated, Jupiter Ascending doesn't so much flop as splatter, sending fragments of story flying toward incoherence.

Any initial excitement about the movie probably stems from the Wachowskis success with the Matrix trilogy, movies that created their fan base. It remains to be seen whether that fan base has sufficient strength to help Jupiter Ascending get off the ground.

A short summary of the plot probably is unavoidable. Mila Kunis plays Jupiter Jones, the daughter of a Russian immigrant family living in Chicago. Various aliens are tracking Jupiter, who happens to have been born with the exact DNA of the late queen of an alien civilization.

Jupiter's royal genetic heritage threatens the offspring of the late queen, a group of ambitious siblings want the Earth for themselves. If Jupiter's genetic heritage allows her to be recognized as a royal, she inherits the Earth.

Take another breath. There's more.

How about a dutiful alien protector? Channing Tatum portrays Caine Wise, a stoic alien warrior with a few wolf genes, a goatee and shoes that allow him to lift off the ground and fly. Think super Air Jordan's. Caine rushes to Jupiter's aid when villainous aliens try to kill her.

Once on the run, Caine introduces Jupiter to Stinger (Sean Bean), an alien with bee genes mixed into his make-up. I can't remember whether it matters, but bees never sting royals, the caste to which an unknowing Jupiter belongs.

Now, about the late queen's competitive offspring, foul creatures that they are:

Balem (Eddie Redmayne) wants the Earth badly. So good in The Theory of Everything, Redmayne here lends his talents to a movie so addled it might have been dubbed The Theory of Absolutely Nothing. Redmayne tries his best to be menacing, interrupting his barely audible whispering with occasional bursts of anger.

Then, there are Kalique (Tuppence Middleton), the sister in the group, and Titus (Douglas Booth), the obsequious brother who tries to advance his cause by staging a ceremonial marriage to Jupiter in some intergalactic cathedral.

Meanwhile -- and there are a lot of meanwhiles in Jupiter Ascending -- Jupiter falls for Caine. He resists her because he knows that no lowly gene-spliced guy can hope to aspire to romance with a royal.

Perhaps trying to emulate the episodic leaps of a Star Wars movie, the Wachowskis shift the action from Jupiter to other locations without establishing much sense of where the hell they're dragging us, and the action set pieces extend beyond any reasonably supportable length.

At one point, Jupiter must establish her legitimacy by obtaining some sort of official validation, a process that enables the Wachowskis to assemble a mini-satire on bureaucracy that boasts a cameo from Terry Gilliam. Gilliam's no stranger to visually bloated movies himself -- although, he's better at it than the Wachowskis. Remember Brazil?

As Jupiter, Kunis brings little to the role. Tatum, who knows how to give a real performance (see Foxcatcher), isn't asked to do much beyond striking a heroic pose. He battles strange looking creatures and pretends as if he's flying through he air in an ice-skater's crouch.

Now, if Jupiter Ascending were a flat-out comedy, its visuals might be more interesting. But as a bit of sic-fi that aspires to Dune-like complexity, it lacks enough consistency to be taken seriously.

Ornate spaceships, for example, pass in review like floating art objects. They seem unrelated to any plausible technology.

To be fair, I did spend some time wondering how the Wachowskis achieved some of the movie's more impressive effects, but I spent even more time wondering why they had bothered to create them in the first place.

It would be wrong to suggest that the Wachowskis suffer from some horrible talent deficit: It's more apt to say that as writer/directors, they make fabulous production designers.

An exercise in diminishing returns

Pieces of puzzle don't fit together well in Paul Haggis's latest.

Director Paul Haggis's new movie, Third Person falters, but boasts an unusually watchable cast led by Liam Neeson, Olivia Wilde, Adrien Brody and Israeli actress Moran Atias.

Perhaps best known for the over-rated Oscar-winner Crash (2004), Haggis tells three related stories that don't cohere until the movie's unsatisfying conclusion.

Third Person has not been particularly well reviewed, but as flawed as I believe the movie to be, I was happy to see a film that, at least, attempted to deal with adult concerns.

In the film's best performance, Neeson plays a stalled novelist who's living in a Paris hotel, where he's trying to finish a book. He's left his wife (Kim Basinger) at home in the U.S., perhaps so that he can carry on an affair with his mistress (Wilde), a journalist who's also trying her hand at fiction.

Brody plays a businessman who steals other people's fashion designs and sells them to manufacturers of knock-offs. On a trip to Rome, where it's practically impossible to eat badly, he becomes an ugly American in search of a hamburger.

Dubious taste aside, Brody's character finds himself involved with a Romanian immigrant (Atias) who pulls him into a web of possible deceit.

In the third story, Mila Kunis plays a New York actress who's working as a maid while trying to win visiting rights with her young son, who lives with his artist father (James Franco). Kunis's character has been accused of abusing the child.

The actors give the enterprise their best shot. I especially enjoyed seeing Neeson in a role which didn't require him to wield a gun. Wilde's performance as a woman of mercurial moods proves alternately alluring and alarming, and Kunis pushes her character far out on an emotional ledge.

Third Person -- which deals with issues of trust and betrayal and also with the loss of children -- is too transparently tricky and, at times, too willing to push matters toward strained extremes. As a result, many of its twists tend to take us out of the picture's flow.

By trying so hard to describe a world of unrecognized connections, Haggis -- who also wrote the screenplay -- loses the battle between life's real complexities and those dreamed up by a writer who's capable of intriguing us one minute and making our eyes roll with disbelief, the next.

This journey to Oz misses greatness

A prequel to the Wizard of Oz has its enchantments -- but flaws, as well..
It takes more than a little moxie to revisit the big-screen world that was so beautifully created by director Victor Fleming in The Wizard of Oz. To go "all-in" with a big-budget, 3-D extravaganza takes even more guts. So no faulting Disney or director Sam Raimi for an lack of daring.

Raimi -- perhaps best known for his contributions to the Spider Man series -- attempts to serve up a visually ambitious prequel to the 1939 classic, a movie that still attracts viewers when its shown on TV and which still scares adults and kids some 76 years after its 1939 release, thanks mostly to those hideous flying monkeys.

Moxie aside, Oz the Great and Powerful turns out to be a hit-and-miss affair with some serious drawbacks, not the least of which revolves around James Franco, the likable actor who begins the movie as a two-bit carnival magician named Oscar Diggs.

Franco flashes a toothy grin to convey the phony sincerity of a small-time con man, but doesn't do much more with his character. Early on, Diggs is swept by a tornado from Kansas to the magical world of Oz. There, he's greeted as the living fulfillment of a prophecy that calls for a wizard to save Oz from tyranny.

But Franco's performance isn't the only issue. There's also a notable lack of characters to provide the level of entertainment associated with The Tin Man (Jack Haley), the Scarecrow (Ray Bolger) and the Cowardly Lion (Burt Lahr).

I know. That's an awfully high bar, but what's the point of flying off to Oz without trying to match or jump over it? On top of that, Dorothy (Judy Garland) was a more interesting and involving character than a crackpot magician who must kill a wicked witch in order to save Oz and, not incidentally, gain access to its piles of golden treasure.

Having said all that, I don't want to leave you with the impression that Oz the Great and Powerful is a total disaster. It's a medium-grade helping of fantasy enhanced by some skillful animation, a few spectacular sets, some decent set pieces and dollops of humor.

Raimi wisely begins by following in the footsteps of the original with a black-and-white prologue that's presented in the old-fashioned 1:33 aspect ratio. When the story reaches Oz, Raimi expands to wide-screen and color.

Look, it's clear that Raimi (and a vast special effects team) was trying for a feeling of sustained enchantment, and when Franco's character discovers the land of Oz or gets his first glimpse of the Emerald City, Raimi seems to be on the right track.

The new movie gives the emerging wizard some new companions, a flying monkey named Finley (voiced by Zach Braff) and a China Doll -- she's called China Girl -- voiced by Joey King. Finley, who's dressed as a bellhop, becomes a beast of burden, carting the faux wizard's bag all over Oz. Although he manages some cuteness and humor, Finley simply doesn't have either the weight or memorability of any character from the original.

And China Girl might have been more affecting had the character been played a real girl instead of a CGI stand-in.

All of those flaws might have receded into obscurity had the witches (there are three in this edition) provided more kick. Mila Kunis portrays Theodora, a young woman who begins as a good and trusting witch but transforms into the Wicked Witch of the West. Michelle Williams appears as Glinda, the irrevocably good witch, and Rachel Weisz plays Evanora, the witch responsible for handling much of the movie's villainy.

None of them are as frightening or as commanding as the great Margaret Hamilton, the original (and in reality the "only") credible Wicked Witch of the West. Raimi and screenwriters David Lindsay-Abaire and Mitchell Kapner pay brief homage to Hamilton and try to create a variety of other (mostly minor) connections to the best-known big-screen adaptation of L. Frank Baum's classic story.

Now, about those flying monkeys. This version offers a more obviously fearsome version of the airborne simians, but employs them to lesser effect. These razor-toothed creatures fly at the audience, generating more by way of jolts than creepiness. The monkeys may be emblematic of the way Raimi employs 3-D throughout, more for thrill-ride impact than for the subtlety and depth that has marked the best recent 3-D, notably Life of Pi.

The mix of live-action and effects isn't always convincing, either. Too often, we're aware that animation is being employed, although some of it is beautifully colored and alluring.

I appreciated the gargantuan effort that went into Oz the Great and Powerful, and the movie may please younger audience while giving them a few scary kicks in the pants.

But "not bad" is not what we expect from a movie of this magnitude and with this lineage.

Oh, and by the way, Oz the Great and Powerful makes room for Munchkins, but not for Toto or any other dog. Pity.

Lots of laughs for a one-joke movie

If it weren't for the irresistible pull of adolescence, America's multiplexes would be hard-pressed to find a comedy to play. Ted, the latest in the endless round of supposedly envelope-pushing comedies, finds a preposterously creative way to literalize the insistently popular boy/man split. Director Seth MacFarlane, of TV's animated comedy Family Guy, has directed a movie about a man (Mark Wahlberg) whose best friend is a teddy bear (voice by MacFarlane). The story begins in 1985. As a boy, Whalberg's John Bennett wishes that the teddy bear he receives as a Christmas gift could talk. John's wish is granted, and the movie forges ahead. Now in his mid-30s, John lives in Boston with Ted, his unimaginatively named bear, and his girlfriend (Mila Kunis). At this point, MacFarlane unveils the movie's single joke: Far from being a cuddly stuffed animal, Ted has matured into a foul-mouthed, pot-smoking adult who spews non-stop pop-cultural references. Disgusted with this perpetual juvenilia, Kunis's Lori insists that John move on, leaving Ted behind. MacFarlane gets more than the expected mileage from what essentially is a one-joke movie built around Ted's politically incorrect proclivities. The movie's supporting cast is used to mixed effect. Joel McHale plays Lori's obnoxious boss; Giovanni Ribisi portrays a nutcase who wants to kidnap Ted for his overweight son; and Sam J. Jones, who played Flash Gordon in the critically-derided 1980 movie, shows up as himself. The movie predictably (and unfortunately) sweetens toward the end, some of MacFarlane's jokes miss, and some of the jokes really are more offensive than funny. Overall, though, Ted works better than it has any right to, and when it hits, it tends to hit big, even finding a way to work Fenway Park into an action-oriented finale in which MacFarlane tires his hand at a car chase. Bad idea.

'Friends with Benefits' -- and not much else

Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis generates some chemistry, but it's mostly wasted in a fizzy, R-rated bauble.

In Friends with Benefits, Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis play characters that decide to pursue a no-strings-attached sexual relationship. If this sounds familiar, it’s because you already may have seen No Strings Attached, an Ivan Reitman-directed rom-com with precisely the same premise, but with different stars: Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman.

Timberlake and Kunis are far more appealing than their predecessors, but their movie still feels like a major helping of been-there, done-that – albeit one that’s enlivened by chemistry between Kunis and Timberlake and an R-rated approach to the sex scenes.

Both Timberlake and Kunis have acting cred. Timberlake easily could have received a best-supporting actor nomination for his work in Social Network; Kunis, in another supporting role, did standout work as a ballet dancer in Black Swan.

Here, both actors have been encouraged to keep things light and airy, and Timerlake redeems himself (at least a bit) from the mediocrity of Bad Teacher, a much worse summer comedy. In this outing, he's Dylan, a Los Angeles graphics designer who’s recruited by headhunter Jamie (Kunis) for a major job at GQ magazine.

Once he arrives in Manhattan, Dylan and Jamie become fast friends. The two hit it off; both claim to have no interest in emotional attachment. Dylan proposes that they sleep together, thereby dispensing with the cumbersome baggage that usually accompanies sexual relationships.

From that point on, director Will Gluck (Easy A) follows a conventional rom-com arc, adding extra spice with extended cameos from Patricia Clarkson (as Jamie’s salacious mother); Richard Jenkins (as Dylan’s Alzheimer’s-stricken dad); and Jenna Elfman (as Dylan’s single-mom sister).

The supporting cast seems to be having fun. Wish I could say the same for myself, but Gluck’s mixture of body-worship, glib one-liners, preposterous characters and energetic pacing seems more suited to Bollywood than Hollywood, and a bubble-gum silliness of tone keeps the movie from attaining full-fledged grown-up status.

Friends With Benefits also includes a self-conscious, against-the-grain performance from Woody Harrelson, as Tommy, GQ’s openly gay sports editor. Harrelson, like much of the rest of the movie, seems to be trying way too hard.

If you've seen a ton of current rom-coms, you may be amused by the script's knowing swipes at the whole soggy genre. But little about Friends With Benefits struck me as natural or real, and at times, the movie seemed so committed to its own blithe absurdity that I couldn't help wondering whether it was touched in the head.