Beautifully dark 'Nosferatu' goes on too long

 

   Nosferatu has acquired a considerable amount of baggage since F.W. Murnau’s creepy classic debuted in 1922, establishing its bona fides as a German Expressionist take on a vampire tale that evoked memories of Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897). In 1979, Werner Herzog took a bite out of the vampire apple with a much-admired remake of Murnau’s movie, Nosferatu the Vampyre.

  Beyond all that, recent years have seen the emergence of a vampiric bull market as various directors tried to infuse fresh blood into the genre with entries ranging from swooning teen romance (Twilight) to Renfield, a comedy starring Nicholas Hoult and Nicolas Cage.

  Now comes Nosferatu from director Robert Eggers (The Northman, The Witch, and The Lighthouse). A specialist in  eerie atmospherics, Eggers works in collaboration with cinematographer Jarin Blaschke, who knows how to evoke a silent-era feel that pays homage to the original.

   Eggers's Nosferatu exudes dark beauty. When the ambitious realtor Thomas Hutter (Hoult in his second vampire movie) approaches the Transylvanian castle of Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgard), Eggers's images become ominously suggestive. When we finally encounter Orlok, we hear his thick, stilted accent but shadows all but conceal his hideous countenance.

  Mood and a knowing sense of humor underscored by inflated melodrama make it clear that Eggers is swinging for the fences, which — I suppose — is the only way to approach material so steeped in cinematic history. 

   A few words about the cast: Lily-Rose Depp portrays Hutter’s bride, Ellen, the woman brought to Orlok’s attention by fate and primal yearning. 

   Willem Dafoe turns up as Professor Albin Eberhart von Franz, a rogue scientist who accepts the possibility that paranormal forces may be at work. Simon McBurney goes way over the top (who would want it otherwise?) as Orlok’s devoted servant Knock. Among other disgusting proclivities, Knock enjoys biting the heads off live birds.

   Hutter visits Orlok to close a deal for an estate in Wisborg, Germany, where Hutter and his bride live.  Disenchanted with Transylvania and sick of the brooding locals, Orlok aims to consummate his fated longing for Ellen on fresh turf.

   Eggers deftly mixes operatic flourishes and thunderous portents, and, yes, lots of rats, creatures that are blamed for the plague Orlok brings to Wisborg, where the movie concludes with a crescendo of sex, death, and sacrifice.

  I’ve waited until now to venture a judgment about Eggers's enterprise. I was with the movie for a long time, even noting that, at times, that Eggers approaches masterpiece levels. 

  But somewhere along the line -- I’m guessing around the three-quarter mark — I felt as if the bottom had dropped out; the movie’s two hour and 13 minute length began to work against it. The story felt drawn out, as it inched toward is inevitable climax. 

   The longer Nosferatu went on, the more its creepiness felt self-consciously expressed. By the time it ended, I was ready to bid farewell to Wisborg and its terrified inhabitants. 

   Skarsgard's Orlok qualifies as memorable and Eggers's locations, sets and atmospherics represent a top-rank achievement. Vision aside, I eventually found myself wishing Eggers would just get on with the story and let it speak for itself.

 

An FBI hunt for white supremacists

  The Silent Brotherhood, a foray into the ranks of right-wing extremism, was written by reporters Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt. I remember the book’s 1990 publication because its authors were then co-workers of mine at The Rocky Mountain News, a now defunct Denver daily.

   Gerhardt passed away in 2015, and Flynn went to become a Denver City Council member after the News’s demise. 

  I don't know when I first heard that The Silent Brotherhood would be adapted for the screen and that it would star Jude Law, but the movie based on Flynn and Gerhardt's book -- now called The Order -- finally is reaching the nation’s theaters.

    The Order tells a story triggered by the murder of outspoken Denver talk show host Alan Berg (Marc Maron in a brief performance). I didn’t know Berg well, but I’d met him and had been on his show a couple of times, talking movies, I guess.

   Berg was gunned down in front of his Denver condo in 1984, a crime that, in The Order, becomes the catalyst for a penetrating look at the criminal activities of violent neo-Nazis operating in the Pacific Northwest during the 1980s, often supporting themselves by robbing banks.

  Australian director Justin Kurzel takes a no-frills approach to a true crime story with frightening political implications, providing insight into people attracted to the furthest corners of the American far right. 

  Law plays Terry Husk, an FBI agent who’s drawn into the investigation when he’s assigned to an office in a remote corner of Washington state. He’s had big cases in New York and elsewhere, but seems to be on the downside of his career.

  Law creates a character who's worn, dogged, and sad. But he perseveres.

  Tye Sheridan plays Jamie Bowden, a local cop who knows some of the gang members from when they were kids. Bowden serves as a guide for Husk; in return, he's schooled by Husk in the ways of cops who know the ropes.

   Jurnee Smollett joins the cast as another FBI agent who contributes to the investigation, a fraught task for a Black woman working to bring white supremacists to justice.

  Set during the 1980s, The Order finds its principal outlaw in neo-Nazi Bob Matthews, played with charisma by Nicholas Hoult, soon to be seen in Nosferatu. 

   Matthews, who founded a group called The Order, relies on his likability and persuasiveness to attract others to his foul cause. He creates a sense of belonging among his followers, a brotherhood of the disaffected united by bonds of hatred for the federal government and anyone who isn't white.

   Bombings, an armored truck heist, and other violent incidents light the movie’s action spark; they're part of The Order's disruptive tactics, some motivated by their obsession with The Turner Diaries, a 1978 novel and white supremacist influencer.

   Not every supremacist believes in Matthews's approach. At one point, Richard Butler (Victor Slezak), the head of the Aryan Nations, tries to control Bowden, who he views as a dangerous rogue. Butler comes off as a neo-Nazi institutionalist who’s willing to bide his time.

  The Order has been classified as a crime thriller. Heaven knows, we've seen plenty of them. But in a divided, fearful country, The Order acquires renewed  urgency. It has been 40 years since Matthews died in a fiery confrontation with the FBI. I wish his story felt more like a footnote than a precursor. 

Dracula's sidekick gets his own movie

   

   His name is Robert Montague Renfield. You probably know him only by his last name and occupation. He's the bug-eating assistant to the infamous Count Dracula, vampire of all vampires. 

    In a world of spinoff and rehash, we shouldn't be surprised that Renfield has ascended to the role of title character.

    But for me and possibly for others, the main reason to see Renfield has less to do with a hapless assistant, played by Nicholas Hoult, than with the blood-sucking count, rendered in this helping by Nicolas Cage, the master of unhinged theatricality.

    It's, therefore, instantly dispiriting that the movie -- true to tis title -- mostly centers on Renfield, transporting him to present-day New Orleans where he meets a corruption-fighting police officer (Awkwafina) and labors to escape Dracula’s grasp.

    A ridiculously strained development follows. Renfield is drawn into a conflict with a drug-dealing gang called the Lobos, hoodlums led by Bellafrancesca Lobo (Sohreh Aghdashloo) and her gleefully sadistic son Edward (Ben Schwartz). 

     Forget haunted castles and fog-shrouded landscapes. Forget seductive wooing of victims who fall under Dracula’s sway. Writers Ryan Ridley and Robert Kirkman, the latter of Walking Dead fame, and director Chris McKay work to subvert genre cliches but find few adequate replacements.

     If Renfield aims to be a comic/horror mashup it misses badly on the latter and hits only intermittently on the former -- not to mention its  flood of hyper-active gore splashing.

     The premise has promise. Imagine a Renfield who's sick of being Dracula's flunky. To further complicate matters, the miserable creature hasn't entirely squelched his desire to do good. 

      Dracula, on the other hand, seems immune to any sort of identity crisis. He unashamedly embraces his evil nature, appearing first as an undernourished vampire whose head looks like it has been sculpted from rotting cheese. 

     Working with heavy make-up and a set of pointy choppers, Cage fully vents the fabled character, indulging his taste for flamboyance, sarcasm, and grandiosity.

      Still, I wouldn't class this outing as one of Cage's great displays. He does what he can with a classic character, but the screenplay gives him nowhere to go.

     Hoult's performance takes shape as the movie progresses. Renfield has been granted super-human strength by Dracula. Fueling his powers by consuming insects, Renfield’s miserable existence unfolds in the shadow of a narcissistic boss.

     The movie's best gag involves a sweater. After Renfield helps rescue a group of innocents at a bar, Awkwafina's Rebecca encourages him to see himself as a hero. Renfield begins to seek independence, renting an apartment, donning sweaters that would be at home in an Archie comic book, and joining a self-help group that tries to teach him how to shed his co-dependency.

    In all, Renfield has the feel of an explosion that spews its shards into a whirl of gross-outs, jokes, frenzied action, toothless social commentary, and more. 

     Sadly, none of these fragments cohere into the bloody rewarding romp that may have been intended. Oh well, it’s possible to enjoy Renfield in small bites, but Bela Lugosi can rest easy.

     

      

‘The Menu’: a tasty satire about foodies

     The Menu takes aim at restaurant obsessives, folks who'll pay a fortune to be served fashionably minuscule portions.

   Price tags, however, are anything but small. The well-heeled or wannabes willingly open their wallets. In return, they're rewarded with super creative dishes prepared under the guidance of executive chefs who have attained celebrity status.

      In The Menu, director Mark Mylod employs a strong cast -- led by Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor-Joy -- for a darkly hued comedy with an amply stocked side dish of horror. Food snobs beware, Mylod's coming for you. 

     For most of its one-hour and 46-minute run-time, The Menu serves its observations with a sharp satirical edge.

       The movie owes much of its success to Fiennes, who plays Chef Julian Slowik, the culinary genius who presides over a restaurant so exclusive it's located on an island where all the food that's served is locally harvested. Diners arrive by boat.

     When he introduces a new course to the assembled diners, Slowik claps his hands loudly and the kitchen staff -- visible to the diners -- snaps to attention.  Slowik has turned his staff into a paramilitary food force. 

      The only response to any question Slowik might ask: "Yes, chef."

       The diners are a select group. John Leguizamo appears as an actor whose career has hit the downside. He arrives with his assistant (Aimee Carrero), a young woman who's ready to seek greener employment pastures.

        Judith Light and Reed Birney play a couple celebrating their anniversary, although they don't seem especially happy about it. 

        Taylor-Joy appears as the date of a young man (Nicholas Hoult) who thinks he knows a great deal about food. Hoult portrays the diner who hopes to impress the chef with his vast food acumen. He's eager to genuflect at Slowik's culinary altar.

        Diners also include a powerful career-making food critic (Janet McTeer) and the editor (Paul Adlestein) who publishes her work. 

       A table of young tech execs (Rob Yang, Arturo Castro, and Mark St. Cyr)  tosses around credit cards with the kind of abandon that lets everyone know they believe in their own sense of entitlement.

      A memorably scary Hong Chau portrays the stern maitre d of the restaurant Hawthorne. She greets guests, gives them a quick tour of the island, and otherwise informs them of the rules by which they must abide if they're to get the most out of their dining experience.

      The meals are amusing. A lone scallop served on a rock drawn from the sea, for example. Or how about a bread course distinguished by the absence of bread? The guests (only 12 are allowed) pay $1250 per person for the evening.

      Aside from Taylor-Joy's outspoken character, most of the guests are pretentious jerks. The screenplay by Seth Reiss and Will Tracy leads these exemplars of privilege to their well-deserved, often violent comeuppances.

       Fiennes makes an imposing dictatorial chef, who regards himself as an artist. Slowik instructs patrons that they must taste, not eat. People aren't eating meals, they’re sampling food conceptions, many mimicking the ambitions of “molecular”  gastronomy.

       A study in austere modernism, restaurant Hawthorne isn't just a place to eat, it's the physical embodiment of rarified consumer aspiration, which is pretty much what the movie’s about — not exactly a theme on which to feast but sufficient for some tasty grazing. 

                

This gang battles long odds

The True History of the Kelly Gang is a bit of a jumble, but it's not easy to shake off.

A man-child sprung from an abusive boyhood, Ned Kelly became an outlaw legend in Australia. Kelly also became the subject of author Peter Carey’s Booker Prize-winning novel, The True History of the Kelly Gang, source of a wild-ass movie of the same name.

Working in an appropriately feverish style, director Justin Kurzel has made a movie that’s difficult to digest — and maybe that’s its greatest virtue. Kurzel's "true history" brims with stylistic embellishment, unvarnished brutality, and unfocused passion.

As the adult Kelly, George Mackay (1917) gives a scowling, fiery performance. Mackay's Kelly is pushed into violence through a mixture of what might be psychopathy, conviction, and horrible circumstances. Like many of the Irish in British-ruled Australia of the mid-19th century, Kelly was born into an oppressive, impoverished world.

Among his many peculiarities, Kelly wore a bulletproof helmet — inspired by pictures he’d seen of the USS Monitor. His gang sometimes dressed in … well … dresses. Like the western outlaws he resembled, Kelly thrilled and terrorized.

All of this can seem strange to American audiences who either haven’t read Kelly’s novel or are otherwise unfamiliar with Kelly whose life was a study in brutality — both of the rough terrain on which he lived and the violent behavior to which he was driven.

Kurzel doesn’t so much plumb psychological depths as he carries on a flirtation with the motivations of his characters. Kelly loved his mother (Essie Davis), but she had strange ways of returning his love. While still a boy (played by Orlando Schwerdt), Kelly was sold by his mother to an outlaw, Russell Crowe’s Harry Power. Power became a kind of surrogate father to Kelly, whose real father died after serving a prison sentence. Kelly was 12 at the time.

Power alternately introduces the boy to the high life (steak dinners) while encouraging his brutality. Power accepted no one who couldn’t, as he put it, “pull the trigger.”

Looking bearded, thick and unkempt, Crowe appears in an early chapter of the story. When Power vanishes from the screen, Crowe's absence is felt, but not before he reminds us of how good he can be.

The duplicities of the British are deeply ingrained in a British constable (Nicholas Hoult). Kelly's romantic life, such as it was, focuses on a prostitute portrayed by Thomasin McKenzie. Another British officer (Charlie Hunnam) sexually harasses Kelly’s mother in the movie’s early going, part of the movie's attempts to show the strange intimacies between oppressors and the oppressed.

To his credit, Kurzel likes to blur lines. We don’t always know whether to feel sorry for Kelly or be revolted by him. Crowe’s character is down-to-earth but homicidal, and Kelly’s mother proves a mass of contradictory impulses: Love and cruelty among them.

I wasn’t tempted to spend much time researching the real Kelly and the film begins with a wink that subverts any need for pinpoint accuracy. Nothing you’re about to see is true,” we’re informed by a title card.

Kurzel’s feverish approach often left me bleary-eyed, but the director and his cast have hold of something weird, raw, and gripping, a subject they either couldn’t or didn’t want to contain. But even when we don’t quite know what to make of The True History, it's difficult to turn away.

Two black men outsmart a racist system

Anthony Mackie and Samuel L. Jackson play men who learned how to play a rigged game and win -- at least for a while..

Toward the end of The Banker, Joe Morris — a streetwise nightclub owner played by Samuel L. Jackson — explains why he has joined forces with brainy Bernard Garrett, Jr. (Anthony Mackie) in a plan to circumvent race restrictions and get rich in real estate.

“The game is fun, even when it’s rigged,” says Joe.

When The Banker, which is based on a true story, sticks to Joe's idea, it’s both informative and entertaining. Both Jackson and Mackie are in fine form as very different men who become partners out of necessity. As a black man, Mackie’s Garrett can’t raise sufficient money to enter the real estate game in Los Angeles during the 1950s. Thwarted by the financial establishment, Garrett turns to Morris for financing.

Although he claims to trust no one, Morris becomes involved. He believes in Garrett’s confidence and in his demonstrated ability to master the mathematics required to succeed in real estate.

The movie acquires additional social meaning when Garrett devises a plan to break the color barrier. He’ll school a white laborer (Nicholas Hoult) in how to play the part of a wealthy entrepreneur. Hoult’s Matt Steiner becomes a student with two teachers. Garrett tries to bring him up to speed in math; Morris teaches him how to play golf so that he can associate with the country-club crowd.

Steiner will play a role similar to a ventriloquist's dummy while an unseen Garrett pulls the strings. Garrett and Morris will own everything; Steiner will be an employee.

As the story develops, Garrett also uses his success to engage his social conscience. He rents and sells homes to black buyers in formerly white neighborhoods. He knows that a burgeoning black market can make his plans work.

All goes well until Garrett decides to buy a bank in the highly segregated Texas town where he grew up. Again using Steiner as a front, Garrett purchases the Mainland Bank and begins loaning money to aspiring black businessmen — on the QT, of course. A wary Morris reluctantly goes along.

Every story needs an arc, so we’re pretty sure that Garrett and Morris will hit some major snags, most relating to Texas-style racism. The town's white population would be appalled if they learned that two black men owned the town's bank. How long can Garrett and Morris remain invisible?

Morris proves himself a master of wily pragmatism, posing as Steiner’s chauffeur so that he can keep on eye on his charge. At one point, Garrett’s devoted wife (Nia Long) poses as a cleaning woman so she can observe Steiner, who eventually begins to confuse his faux prowess with the real thing.

Without Garrett's genius, Steiner's bound to mess things up.

Strongest as a commentary on how entrenched racism kept blacks from accumulating wealth, The Banker, director George Nolfi eventually allows the story to bog down in the details of deals that led to Garrett and Morris's undermining. They eventually did jail time.

But Mackie and Jackson never are anything less than convincing as a savvy odd-couple that wouldn't take "no" for an answer. The key: If the front door is locked, look for another way in.

Of course, the overall point trumps the movie's slyer observations: The doors to success never should have been locked in the first place. Or as Joe might have put it: The game shouldn't have been rigged in ways that worked against the smart, well-prepared Garrett from achieving his goals.

Titans battle over who'll rule the electric grid

Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse square off in The Current War, an oddity of a movie.

The Current War: Director's Cut is a difficult movie for me to review. Before it was described as "the director's cut," the movie premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. It was slated to be released by the Weinstein Company, but Harvey Weinstein's #MeToo exposure intervened.

Two years later, the movie found a home with 101 Studios. Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon reportedly did some re-editing, added scenes and reduced the film's running time. Is it better than the version that played Toronto? I didn't see the movie then, so I can’t say.

I wondered, though, whether Gomez-Rejon (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl) didn't insist on a director's cut so that the movie -- which received a lukewarm reception in Toronto -- could be seen with fresh eyes.

Whatever the case, the movie that now arrives on the nation’s screens is a bit of an oddity.

Gomez-Rejon has tried (boy, has he tried) to make a visionary movie about visionaries, a choice that puts the movie in an odd position: It’s competing with its characters.

The story centers on the battle between Thomas Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Geroge Westinghouse (Michael Shannon), two great names of American invention and commerce. A third revolutionary, Nikola Tesla (Nicholas Hoult) works his way into the story, first as an employee of Edison and later as an ally of Westinghouse.

The great competition concerns a question: Should direct or alternating current be adopted as the US standard. Edison champions direct current; Westinghouse hoists the banner for alternating current. You already know the outcome, so it's difficult to say The Current War generates a great deal of suspense. In the US, alternating current rules.

To the extent that there's more at stake than money and, of course, power, it's worth noting that Edison represents invention in its purest form. Westinghouse takes a more commercially oriented view. Because alternating current was cheaper and could carry over longer distances than direct current, Westinghouse deemed it the better bet.

This is not to say that Edison becomes the movie's hero. He's arrogant and not especially friendly. Instead of making him admirable, his commitment to principle makes him a pain in the butt. And Westinghouse -- though capable of underhanded behavior -- seems genuinely interested in making the world a better place.

It takes an actor as good as Shannon to convey the complexities of Westinghouse's personality and I half wished that the movie had been more about Westinghouse than Edison.

Safe to say that the 19th century battle about the future of electricity isn't easy to dramatize. But it’s Gomez-Rejon's unrelenting commitment to an arty style that makes the movie difficult to embrace: He uses endlessly shifting camera angles, dark lighting, and other self-conscious cinematic gestures in ways that sometimes wall off us off from the story he's trying to tell.

And yet ...

The Current War also creates an atmosphere that is intriguing and strange -- incredibly detailed and yet somehow weirdly unfamiliar.

There isn't much by way of memorable work from the movie's supporting cast.

Tom Holland portrays Samuel Insull, Edison's loyal assistant. Matthew Macfadyen plays J.P. Morgan, a titan of finance who Edison snubs. Tuppence Middleton portrays Edison's wife and Katherine Waterston appears as Marguerite Westinghouse, by far the more interesting of the two spouses.

Gomez-Rajon hints at the dark side of technological advance by introducing the invention of the electric chair, which was supposed to take the cruelty out of capital punishment but which might have made things worse. Both Edison and Westinghouse were compromised by their positions on the use of the chair.

All of this builds toward a competition over who will land the contract to light The Chicago Exposition of 1893, a major coup for whoever wins the day -- or, better put, the night.

Gomez-Rejon whips up some excellent imagery and the story generates interest. And yet ... as I've said ... The Current War isn't so much a failure as a puzzlement, a movie that, in my view, creates too many impediments to its fullest appreciation.

A court corrupted by ambition

The Favourite features fine performances by three actresses and bravura work by its idiosyncratic director, Yorgos Lanthimos.

The moral decadence of an aristocracy has been carried to ridiculous (and, yes, instructive) extremes in director Yorgos Lanthimos's The Favourite. Set in the 18th-century court of Britain's Queen Anne, The Favourite laces an irresistible story with strong doses of intrigue, sex, betrayal, lust, and power. All that makes for a meal that should satisfy the most voracious of thematic appetites.

The Favourite doesn't pass muster as accurately portrayed history or entirely caustic drama; it exists in a world that floats between those two poles, dispensing amusement and rue as if they were party favors at a festival of human folly. Lanthimos has created a world that conjoins conniving ambition with the preening excesses of a court where the events of the day (a war to name one) are kept at an antiseptic distance.

One aristocratic faction opposes the continuation of a war with France on monetary grounds. The anti-war nobles have grown weary of financing it. Another faction sees the war as vital to the kingdom's security.

Issues of the 18th century aside, The Favourite seems particularly attuned to the current moment, reminding us that politics often eschews substance as it wallows in baser impulses of vindictive self-interest.

The story centers on three women. Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) becomes an object to be manipulated: She's a childish, impetuous monarch who falls victim to her moods and to her physical maladies. Her gout makes her moan, cry and walk with a limb.

Rachel Weisz portrays Lady Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, confidant and chief adviser to the queen, as well as her lover.

Last, but by no means least, is Emma Stone's Abigail, a Churchill cousin who arrives at the court in gravely reduced circumstances. Abigail becomes a protege of Lady Churchill and eventually tries to surpass her in influence.

Sex, as seen here, relates neither to love nor lust: It has become currency to be dispensed when necessary in the quest for personal advancement or to secure one’s position.

Colman, in one of the year's best performances, creates a queen of deep sadness and flighty temperament. Every now and again, Anne remembers that she's in charge and issues an irrefutable order, probably to remind herself that she’s at the top of this aristocratic heap.

Weisz's Churchill mixes sharp intelligence and cunning into a poisonous cocktail that shows trace elements of actual conviction. Stone follows suit in the most difficult role, an ingenue who knows how to keep her talons concealed. Abigail eventually connives to marry an empty-headed young man (Joe Alwyn) for reasons that serve her ambitious purposes.

Beautifully upholstered in foppish finery, the court becomes an arena in which these noble souls compete, perhaps because without intrigue their lives would choke on vapidity and boredom. The men in The Favourite come across as powdered peacocks who strut about while ostensibly fretting about weighty matters of state.

Lord Harley (Nicholas Hoult) sports rouged cheeks and a wig. He's angling to advance his political position as chief opponent to the war with France.

At one point, we see the nobleman behaving like silly fratboys, tossing oranges at one their naked companions, who attempts to dodge the splatter. They also engage in indoor duck racing, a sport that happily did not survive the 18th century.

The queen has her own preoccupations: She keeps pet rabbits that run around her chambers, furry substitutes for the 17 children she lost to death.

Lanthimos heretofore has been known for The Lobster and The Killing of the Sacred Deer, movies that many found indigestible in their strangeness. By comparison, The Favourite comes off as quite accessible, although closer observation will reveal much of the weirdness that has defined Lanthimos' work, this time emphasized with fish-eye lenses and a mood of sustained madness.

Steeped in human dereliction, The Favourite certainly can't be accused of dreariness. Screenwriters Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara keep the story moving and don't stint on expressions of profane wit.

All of this is brought to an astonishing conclusion with close-ups, one of Queen Anne's face on which Lanthimos practically bets the entire movie. He asks Colman to reveal the queen's mental and emotional state after so much plotting and deceit. Colman more than makes Lanthimos' bet pay. Anne's look at the end of this engaging, disturbing and gleefully malicious movie proves unforgettable.

'Equals' adds up to boredom

Welcome to another dystopian future. Although it surely wasn't intended, director Drake Doremus' Equals goes a long way toward providing an effective cure for insomnia. A deeply boring romance between two characters who live in a futuristic society where emotions are suppressed for the good of something called "the Collective," Equals suffers from a pervasive lack of verve. In the movie's world, people aren't supposed to touch. Humans still propagate, but conception has been turned into a chore. Not everyone in this society has managed to stamp out feeling, though. Some have been diagnosed with SOS (Switched On Syndrome). Most SOS people eventually are eliminated, but a few pretend to abide by The Collective's norms. They're called "hiders." Nicholas Hoult plays a diagnosed victim of SOS who falls for a "hider" portrayed by Kristen Stewart. Let's just say that their love affair plumbs new depths of listlessness. Guy Pearce and Jacki Weaver offer minimal support as two additional "hiders," those who fake the numbed-out look that their society requires. Doremus floods the screen with whites (interiors and clothing), a choice that only adds to the monotony. Some end-of-picture suspense ignites a small spark, but, by then, it's too late. Rigor mortis already has set in.

George Miller takes action to the max

Mad Max: Fury Road has visionary moments, speed and a wild sense of daring.

In 1981, The Road Warrior became an arty, pedal-to-the-metal slice of action that caught critical eyes as a stand-out in Lincoln Center's New Directors, New Films series.

At the time, few moviegoers had seen Australian director George Miller's original entry into the series, 1979's Mad Max. Likewise, few knew that Road Warrior's star, Mel Gibson, had a passion for controversy and for Christ.

Miller followed Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior with 1985's Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, a bigger and more heavily promoted movie that added Tina Turner to the mix.

Miller went on to direct Witches of Eastwick (1987), Lorenzo's Oil (1992), Babe: Pig in the City (1998), and Happy Feet (2006). He also wrote the screenplay for the original Babe. (1995)

This record suggests that Miller marches to his own drummer, which is why I'm beginning with background that usually gets buried in the depths of a review.

In Mad Max, Fury Road, Miller, who's now 70, resurrects Mad Max with British actor Thomas Hardy taking over the Gibson role and Charlize Theron adding additional marquee appeal.

Steeped in action, brutality and creative daring, Mad Max: Fury Road hardly qualifies as an actors' movie. With her hair shorn to crew-cut length and one arm digitally omitted, Theron proves that she, too, can be an action star.

Hardy -- a fine and volatile actor -- spends a good deal of the movie hidden behind an iron mask that Hannibal Lector might have regarded as a fashion statement. The past -- a lost family -- haunts Max, but Hardy seldom loses touch with Max's inner animal.

All of Hardy's dialogue might not fill a cocktail napkin, and Theron (really the dominant present in the film) benefits greatly from her character's name, Imperator Furiosa, which sounds like some forgotten and possibly disreputable Latin classic.

The action set pieces in Mad Max are so kinetically charged and bizarre that I spent a good deal of time wondering how Miller had managed to pull them off. I was more interested in what Miller and his team would do next than I was in the whisper of a plot that blows across the endlessly brown landscapes Miller found in Australia and in the South African desert.

The movie's most visionary achievement occurs early. Miller introduces us to The Citadel, a fortress carved into a cliff. A warlord, Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) rules this outpost.

When he's feeling especially good, Joe releases torrents of precious water from giant spigots, a gesture of totalitarian beneficence that's supposed to soothe the benighted multitudes who serve him.

Some of Miller's Citadel shots made me think of what Hieronymus Bosch might have painted had he lived in the age of the graphic novel, a hellish reversion to undisguised primitivism.

So here's the story: Captured by Joe's hordes, Max escapes, and hits the road. He eventually allies himself with Furiosa, who's fleeing the Citadel with five of Joe's wives, all of whom have lithe fashion-model figures. They've been selected to give birth to Joe's heirs.

Equally important are the costumes and vehicles. The latter seem to have been cobbled together from the spare parts of the world that preceded this post-apocalyptic chaos.

These range from vehicles that look like spiky, metal porcupines to trucks from which giant poles extend, allowing combatants to tip one way or another as they attempt to smash the opposition. A movie or Cirque du Soleil? Maybe it doesn't matter.

There's no faulting Miller's imagination. One of Joe's vehicles -- always in hot pursuit of Furiosa, Max and the runaways -- tethers a punk-rock guitarist to its hood. The rocker's heavy-metal licks are accompanied by ejaculated bursts of flame that shoot from his guitar.

That's the kind of humor, you'll find here, along with at least one terrifying mask. Joe, who somewhere along the line lost much of his face, wears a mask that makes the Joker's frozen rictus look like a wan smirk.

Surprisingly, a few quiet moments and even a bit of touching humanism can be found amid the debris.

Nicolas Hoult plays Nux, a former Joe loyalist who eventually sides with Max and the fleeing women. Nux has an endearing quality. And when Max finally reveals his name to Furiosa, the moment seems emotionally authentic in a stammering sort of way.

Such bits stand out because, as Max tells us at the outset, nothing is more important in this world than survival. Anything else should be deemed a debilitating luxury.

Miller makes this clear from the outset. Our introduction to Max consists of watching him stomp a scurrying lizard, which he then eats.

Despite the presence of the occasional emotional oasis, Mad Max 's throbbing, remorseless pace can cause the action to lose edge, a danger when a movie seems intent on bombarding us with epic-scaled overkill. You can get a little numb.

Fury Road may no longer have the kind of surprise quotient that accompanied its predecessors, but it retains the eccentricity of Miller's strikingly weird vision.

Whatever else you may think about Mad Max, pay attention to the word "mad" in the title. This is one demented action movie. I mean that in a good way -- I think.

Beanstalk scales few new heights

Jack the Giant Slayer comes up short on magic.
Fee Fi, Ho Hum!
That pretty much sums up my response to Jack The Giant Slayer. This spiffed-up retelling of the Jack and Beanstalk fairy tale boasts a strong cast, a host of giants (one with two heads), a spunky princess and a beanstalk capable of putting Giant Redwoods to shame.

Director Bryan Singer, who tried to restart the Superman franchise with 2006's regrettable Superman Returns;but who has done better with the X-Men movies, seems to be looking for another franchise. In the process, Singer turns a fairy tale into a Medieval adventure (in 3-D, of course) that tries for mythic reach with a beanstalk that connects to a mysterious region where giants have dwelled since being banished from Earth.

Exactly how a land full of cliffs, rocks and forests remains suspended five miles above the Earth qualifies as a mystery, but why quibble about the laws of gravity in a fairy tale?

The appealingly modest Nicholas Hoult portrays Jack, a poor lad who's sent to market to sell his uncle's horse. Jack winds up trading the slightly emaciated horse for a handful of beans that results in the skyward growth of the mythic beanstalk, an impressive enough CGI creation.

In this sometimes awkwardly structured telling of a familiar tale, Jack must climb the beanstalk to rescue Princess Isabelle (Eleanor Tomlinson). Jack meets the princess in the town market, where she's trying to escape the overly regulated confines of the palace. On a later such foray, the princess winds up being transported (via beanstalk) to the land of the giants.

To accomplish his rescue mission, Jack joins a search party dispatched by King Brahmwell (Ian McShane), Isabelle's father. The courageous Elmont (Ewan McGregor), a knight in Brahmwell's court, leads the expedition, which is joined by Isabelle's conniving finance, the melodramatically duplicitous Roderick (Stanley Tucci).

The movie begins by introducing us to parallel stories, one about Jack as a young boy, and the other about Isabelle, as a girl. Both characters lose their loving mothers. To add to Jack's misery, he also loses his father. He's then pressed into farm labor by the uncle (Christopher Fairbank) who takes him in.

Last seen the surprisingly engaging Warm Bodies, Hoult proves well-cast as a young man who falls for a princess who's far above him in social station. Jack's farm-boy status isn't the only obstacle to love: Isabelle's father has promised his resistant daughter to Tucci's Roderick.

After a few adventurers fall by the wayside, the rescue party reaches the land of the giants -- and the movie tries to whip up some menace. Bill Nighy (with a stop-action assist) portrays the evil General Fallon, who not only has a malicious head on his shoulder; he's got two. A character listed only as General Fallon's Small Head resides on Fallon's right shoulder and is voiced by John Kassir.
The rest of the giant crew looks appropriately motley. But this gaggle of Shreks gone bad doesn't inspire much real fear -- unless you happen to be very young, and although the giants (all male) feed on humans, I don't remember much gore.

I do, however, recall what felt like a excessively protracted finale. Singer builds toward a big battle sequence that takes place long after the movie's central conflict has been resolved. The movie's tumultuous ending plays like a special-effects add-on in which the destructive giants stage an earthly comeback, hoping to dine on lots of human prey.

Aside from a scene in which a haggard, nose-picking giant gives new meaning to the idea of "pigs in a blanket," Jack seems to be caught in an uncertain limbo: It's neither totally serious nor a major goof.

Bit by bit, Jack is seldom awful, but taken as a whole, the movie's too easy to shrug off. Maybe that's because Jack the Giant Slayer has been engineered for a blockbuster-sized splash this familiar story can't deliver.

No matter how much tinkering has been done to a classic tale, Jack seldom seems nimble or quick. But wait, that's a whole other Jack. As yet, no word on whether Hollywood plans to turn nursery rhymes into action adventures, but in these days of diminished expectation, I wouldn't rule it out.

Zombies need love, too

Warm Bodies is formulaic in some ways and totally fresh in others.

You know this drill. Zombie meets girl. Zombie loses girl. Zombie ...

OK, maybe you haven't seen this scenario played out with a zombie, but you've followed similar patterns in a zillion other love-struck rom-coms.

Warm Bodies -- which just as well could have been called I Ate Her Boyfriend's Brains -- earns extra credit for embracing romantic cliches while avoiding a variety of others.

This mostly sweet-tempered movie also does a reasonably good job of delivering a "can't-we-all-get-along" message. In this case, "we" refers to zombies and humans living in a post-apocalyptic world of deprivation and scarcity.

The zombies in Warm Bodies' hang out at the airport of the unnamed city where the action takes place. They shuffle aimlessly through empty, litter-strew corridors, looking as bereft as travelers who've been told all flights have been cancelled.

When the zombies venture away from the airport, it's to feed on small parties of sustance-seeking humans.

The story centers on a zombie named "R," played by Nicholas Hoult, and a young woman named Julia, portrayed by Teresa Palmer. A lonely "R" rescues Julia after a feeding raid in which he eats her boyfriend's brain, apparently the best part of any human, although a couple of hours of watching Congress on C-SPAN might convince you otherwise.

Consuming the brains of others keeps zombies going, while allowing these otherwise memory-deprived creatures to experience the memories of the person on whom they've dined, a form, one supposes, of mental indigestion.

Most of the movie focuses on the relationship between R and Julia. Her life is complicated by the fact that her father (a staunch John Malkovich) leads the surviving humans in their battle against zombies. He hates zombies.

Because zombies have difficulty speaking, Hoult -- blood-stained, pallid and wearing a tattered hoodie -- generates pathos by playing a good deal of the movie as a nearly mute creature struggling to express himself. We do, however, hear R's thoughts, which are fluently spoken and mildly amusing. They also serve as the movie's voice-over narration.

Writer/director Jonathan Levine, working from a novel by Isaac Marion, seems more interested in offbeat romance than in dotting every "i" and crossing every "t," and he relies on the movie's well-executed production design to convey a feeling of post-apocalyptic rot.

Hoult and Palmer turn the movie into a pleasing fable about the way love can revive the dead, presuming you're willing to view death (as the movie does) in metaphoric terms.

Levine (The Wackness and 50/50) doesn't do nearly as well in trying to fulfill other genre obligations, say, horror. Skeletal creatures called Bonies become the major threat to both humans and zombies. Bonies have moved well beyond redemption. All that's left of them are bones and ravenous appetites.

Sprinkled with mild humor -- some of it from one of R's fellow zombies (Rob Corddry) -- Warm Bodies sometimes looks more serious than it actually is, but the movie's better than you'd expect for a zombie-human teen romance.

"Zombie-human teen romance? No, I can't believe I just wrote that, either.