A revived version of 'Resident Evil'

  Zach Cregger, the director of such respected horror films as Weapons and Barbarians, has grabbed the Resident Evil reins. Cregger's fans may wonder why a director known for giving horror a comic twist would take on a franchise that has its supporters but hasn't garnered much critical favor.

   Working from a screenplay he wrote with Shane Hatten, Cregger acknowledges the series' video-game origins, presenting the movie's unlikely main character with escalating challenges. That may sound familiar, but Cregger embraces the task with an emphatic boldness that limits references to the previous movies, staking a fresh claim in the blood-splattered literature of survival horror.

   Austin Abrams, who appeared in Weapons, plays Bryan, a delivery man who transports organs to hospitals for donation surgeries. Early on, Bryan has trouble getting anyone from a hospital to sign for one of his deliveries, a suggestion that frustration is part of his daily life.

    Supposedly done for the day, Bryan accepts another job because it pays double and involves a top-priority delivery to a hospital in Raccoon City, the fictional location of the Umbrella Corporation, which presents a normal public facade but conducts secret biological research.

     Driving a snowy road to Raccoon City, Bryan hits a woman who darts in front of his car. Immediately, we wonder why a woman wearing only a dress has braved the mountain cold. So does Bryan, who tries to save the woman’s life. 

    Things get progressively crazier as Cregger unreels new threats. Now on foot, Bryan attempts to reach the hospital, triggering a variety of set pieces that include eerie encounters at a lonely farmhouse, searching an apparently abandoned RV, and meeting an ill-fated Umbrella exec (Paul Walter Hauser). Security guard Maxine (Kali Reis) accompanies Walter-Hauser’s character.

     About the monsters.  Resulting from a lab mistake, they're made of body parts snatched from different individuals drawn by tentacles into a singular preposterous shape from which recognizable human features protrude. Cregger shows these creatures in mostly fleeting looks; they're easy to mistake for grisly sight gags. Did I mention that there are also mutants that vomit acid? 

     Unlike the "heroes'' in many survival movies, Bryan proves a novice when it comes to gunplay. Adams keeps Bryan's reactions compatible with what we might expect from a bumbling, overwhelmed "hero" who mostly mutters to himself and who occasionally tries to call his girlfriend. He's been avoiding having a conversation about her pregnancy.

     The supporting cast doesn’t have much to do, but fans of Severance will happily note a late-picture appearance by Zach Cherry, here the head of Umbrella’s research lab.

    This edition of Resident Evil seems as much about its own powers of gory invention as it is about anything else, but Cregger works with palpable commitment to providing a crowd-pleasing jolt for those who enjoy jokey, over-the-top helpings of horror, garnished with a couple of jump scares and some well-managed tension.

     If you're going to make this kind of movie, it's best to shed all pretensions and do it with fervor. It's almost as if Cregger approaches the movie like a dare. He bets that he’ll be able to top each chunk of mayhem with something that outdoes the last; it’s a bet he mostly wins.

     

'Naked Gun' loads up on jokes

  Liam Neesen and Pamela Anderson deliver a serviceable -- if remarkably belated -- entry into The Naked Gun dumb-comedy sweepstakes.  

 Because the series, which began in 1988, hasn't spawned a sequel since 1994, it's tempting to think a new edition might be pointless. Not quite. 

  If nothing else, Naked Gun’s 2025 version reminds us of the kind of comedy that swept through theaters, beginning when Airplane! took flight in 1980. Credit creators David Zucker, Jim Abrahams (now deceased), and Jerry Zucker, the team that started the ball rolling and which had nothing to do with this imitative successor.

   Working from a screenplay by Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, director Akiva Schaffer adopts the joke-laden approach the material demands, piling on enough dumb gags to stock several comedies. If one joke doesn't make you laugh, hang on; another quickly will be nipping at its heels.

     Neeson winks at his intensely focused action roles with his portrayal of Lt. Frank Drebin Jr., son of the original detective Drebin, who was played by the late (and irreplaceable) Leslie Nielsen. Neeson continues in the spirit of the original, which is to say he happily surrenders to the screenplay’s foolishness, layering his performance with faux gravitas.

   For her part, Anderson strikes jokey femme fatale poses that peak with a funny impromptu nightclub performance of a ridiculously extended jazz vocal.

   The rest of cast is used to meager effect. Paul Walter Hauser, as Frank's sidekick, and CCH Pounder, as the chief of Los Angeles' generically named Police Squad, don't have much to do. Danny Huston plays the villain, a tech mogul who provides an excuse to add jokes about highly automated electric cars.

    Unfortunately, the trailer spoils the boldly absurd joke that opens the movie, but it can be fun listening to the characters take words at their most literal.

     "Take a seat,'' says Drebin to Anderson's Beth. She does, dragging one out of the police station.

      As if to squeeze every last drop out of the movie's nonstop jokiness, a stream of mostly clever gags are sprinkled throughout the end credits.

      Bad comedies can be painful. I didn't feel that way about Naked Gun, but a question arises. Why did the movie's accumulation of gags leave me feeling less than blown away? My answer: Its irreverence needed better targets.

      Unlike the earlier movies, which bit the hand that fed them by lampooning Hollywood's addiction to multiplex-filling formula, this one relies on fan service, nostalgia, and the hope that in era of smart devices, dumb humor can offer dopey relief. 

       No matter how audiences react to Naked Gun, few will accuse the movie of overstaying its welcome. The movie clocks in at a refreshing 85 minutes, almost a short by today's bloated standards.

  

Clint Eastwood defends a wronged man

Richard Jewell brings the story of a 1996 Olympic bombing to life.

Clint Eastwood tells the story of an innocent man who was convicted by public opinion in Richard Jewell, a movie that exposes the media frenzy that turned Jewell’s life into a nightmare. Jewell, you’ll recall, worked as a security guard at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, site of a bombing that killed one person and injured 111.

It didn’t take long for Jewell to make the transition from hero to goat when word leaked that he had become a prime suspect in the bombing. Evidently, investigators — in this case, the FBI — routinely consider anyone near the site of a bombing to be a potential suspect. After discovering the bomb in an abandoned backpack, Jewell guided people to safety. None of that got him off the hook.

Jewell (Paul Walter Hauser) makes for an unlikely main character. He aspires to be a policeman, but can’t find his way into that world, even losing a job as a college security guard. He’s overweight and lives at home with his mother (Kathy Bates). Jewell’s "suspicious" profile — a loner who lives with his mom — makes matters worse for him.

Watching Hauser, you may wonder whether Eastwood has cast a real person in the role. I don't say that as criticism but as praise. An experienced actor, Hauser proves entirely convincing as a man who can’t find his niche. Eager to be part of law enforcement, Jewell constantly overplays his hand. He expects the police to treat him as a willing colleague.

Jewell finds an ally in Watson Bryant (Sam Rockwell), an attorney who believes in his client's innocence and works to clear his name. No stranger to colorful characters, Rockwell makes for an intriguing figure, an idiosyncratic lawyer who sometimes finds his client exasperating.

The two characters who represent the government and the media don’t fare nearly so well.

Jon Hamm portrays Tom Shaw, the FBI agent who leaks Jewell’s name to an aggressively seductive reporter (Olivia Wilde).

Wilde’s portrayal of reporter Kathy Scruggs has been criticized by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the paper at which Scruggs plied her trade. Scruggs is no longer alive, so it’s impossible to hear what she has to say but a scene in which Scruggs comes on to Shaw in a bar made me skeptical. It goes way beyond calculated flirtation, making it seem as if Scruggs is propositioning the agent.

As someone who worked in journalism for almost 40 years, I never knew or heard of any female reporter behaving in such an unprofessional fashion. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen but I didn't buy it.*p>
The FBI takes it on the chin, as well. Despite evidence that suggested that Jewell couldn’t have planted the bomb, the FBI persisted in keeping him a suspect. To the end, Hamm’s character insists on Jewell's guilt.

Reservations aside, Richard Jewell clearly shows how eager reporting can ignite a storm capable of ruining a person’s life. But any journalist who investigates the Jewell case beyond what's seen on screen must ask him or herself what they would have done if they had credible information about a suspect in a crime that had captured international attention.

Watching the FBI invade Jewell’s home and remove evidence provides an abject lesson in what it means to be demeaned by an investigative process. It looks bad now that we know Jewell was innocent: Had it turned out that Jewell was guilty, however, would anyone have complained?

Jewell died a few years after the movie ends. He was 44. Eastwood’s movie leaves you wondering whether he ever recovered from his ordeal, and we feel for him. It’s possible to take issue with some of the ways Eastwood treats the story and still believe that Jewell was badly wronged, thanks in no small part to Hauser's performance as a guy who flounders as he loses control of his life.

Flaws and all, Richard Jewell serves as a reminder that when outrage reaches fever proportions, no one benefits.

*If you're interested in reading more about the Scruggs controversy try this Washington Post article.
No one disputes the fact that a ruinous media frenzy surrounded Jewell once a story naming him as a suspect had been published. That would have been no less true had the movie shown Scruggs writing a story for which she had received a credible tip and left it at that.