What happens 'Here?' Not much

   Watching the new movie Here, I felt as if I were peering into a diorama devoted to mundane helpings of Americana. Set mostly in a single room and spanning a variety of eras, Here's narrow focus seems intended to open wide vistas of life in different eras.

   But the movie sacrifices depth for an artificial sense of breadth as it delivers a series of domestic scenes, many featuring Tom Hanks and Robin Wright as husband and wife.

    Director Robert Zemeckis, who directed Hanks and Wright in Forrest Gump, uses AI to de-age or age many of the characters as he tires to deliver meaningful moments in the lives of successive owners of the same house.

    OK, but was it necessary to show how the site on which the movie's modest home was built looked during prehistoric times? And did Zemeckis need to acknowledge a time before the arrival of settlers?

   The movie includes segments in which a Native American couple falls in love in a wooded setting so idyllic I half expected Bambi to nuzzle up against one of them.

   The movie's parade of vignettes features a full menu of ordinary events: births, deaths, marriages, divorce, Thanksgiving dinners, and Christmas celebrations, all of which serve as signposts that, I guess, are intended to encourage a sense of unfolding lives. Add a few cultural shifts and a bit of nostalgic set decoration and you've got the idea, a tableau of American life.

  Based on a 2014 graphic novel by Richard McGuire, Here mostly concentrates on Wright and Hanks, who play Richard and Margaret, a couple who meet as 17-year-olds during the 1950s. Economic concerns and Margaret's unexpected pregnancy force the couple to move in with Richard's parents, a hard-drinking dad (Paul Bettany) and a devoted mom (Kelly Reilly). 

    Scenes of the house's other occupants come and go, appearing as if they were someone else's memories. During the early 1900s, we meet Pauline (Michelle Dockery), who occupies the home with her pilot husband (Gwilym Lee). She fears flying will kill him.

   During the 1920s, Leo (David Fynn) and Stella (Ophelia Lovibond) take over. They like to drink and party and remain oblivious to anything that might resemble a problem. Leo invents a recliner that catapults the twosome into the upper economic rungs.

   To show what happens once Richard and Margaret move away, we meet a Black family (Nicholas Pinnock, Nikkie Amuka-Bird, and Cache Vanderpuye) that offers a glimpse of life in the 21st century.

     Lest the proceedings be swamped with greeting-card sentiment, the movie introduces a slew of unrealized dreams. Bettany's character fails to advance on his job. Hanks' Richard abandons his artistic aspirations to sell insurance, and Wright's Margaret feels stifled by living with her in-laws. She once hoped to go to law school.

    Eric Roth's screenplay tackles serious themes but they come off as obvious signposts: Problems unfold as if on schedule, and the movie’s deep focus images draw unneeded attention to themselves, as does a stationary camera that turns the screen into a near-theatrical space.

     Even with the introduction of a case of Alzheimer's, Here proves less maudlin than I expected, but that doesn't mean Zemeckis resists all schmaltz, and some scenes  -- notably those involving Benjamin Franklin (Keith Bartlett) and his son William (Daniel Betts) -- become distractingly silly.

   Zemeckis seems to be aiming for something poignant, meaningful, and broadly appealing, but, for me, Here had about as much emotional impact as a bouquet of artificial flowers. When you sort it all out, there's too little “there” in Here.

A shattered man's world of dolls

Steve Carell portrays a man obsessed with World War II in Welcome to Marwen.

Director Robert Zemeckis has devoted a substantial portion of his career to films that play with cinematic convention. We’re talking about movies ranging from Who Framed Roger Rabbit to The Polar Express to Beowulf to A Christmas Carol. In Welcome to Marwen, Zemeckis continues his fascination with artificial worlds. Throughout the movie, he shifts from "normal" big screen reality to a world full of dolls that resemble characters in the movie's real-world story.

Welcome to Marwen is based on the life of Mark Hogancamp, a photographer whose work consists mostly of taking photos in and around Marwencol, a fictional miniature Belgian town he built in his backyard and populated with dolls and other toys.

If that sounds familiar, it could be for two reasons: Hogancamp’s photographs have been featured in several New York galleries and Hogancamp’s life was the subject of a fascinating 2010 documentary by Jeff Malmberg.

Those who’ve seen Malmberg's documentary already know Hogancamp’s backstory. In 2000, he was severely beaten outside a bar in upstate New York by five thugs who objected to him talking about the enjoyment he got from wearing women’s shoes. Hogancamp was in a coma for 40 days, lost all memory of his personal life prior to the assault and then began to channel his anxieties and rage into World War II tableaus in Marwencol. He had a particular fascination with battling against Nazis and his fantasies took on a pulpy, comic-book quality.

So what was left to say after the documentary? As it turns out, not much.

In Welcome to Marwen, the stories that take place inside of Marwen (all enacted with dolls that resemble characters from Hogancamp's life and voiced by actors) aren't all that interesting and the overall story vacillates between being creepy and heart-warming, never quite making up its mind which map to follow.

Using his terrible beating as an explanation, Carell portrays Hogancamp as a shattered man who long ago lost the ability to read social signals. He's briefly enamored with a new neighbor (Leslie Mann), mistaking her kindness for romantic interest.

Meritt Wever plays the owner of the local hobby shop Hogancamp frequents and Diane Kruger provides the voice of Deja Thoris, a witch-like figure who haunts Hogancamp and his Marwen alter-ego figure, Cap'n Hogie.

Working from a screenplay he co-wrote with Caroline Thompson, Zemeckis takes a stab at illuminating serious issues involving hate crimes, personal freedom (symbolized by Hogancamp's preference for wearing women's high-heeled shoes) and tolerance.

Alan Silvestri's score might have been better suited to a magical fantasy; here, it seems at odds with Hogancamp's story.

I wondered if Tim Burton, a director more willing to lean into weird material, might have been a better choice for this story. Zemeckis largely remains outside of Hogancamp's world, turning us into observers.

Welcome to Marwen offers some clever visual touches but never makes it clear what we're supposed to feel about Hogancamp: Is he a crackpot? An emotionally crippled victim? An artist? The movie didn't need to answer all (or any) of those questions, but unlike the documentary, I left without wanting to give them much further thought.

A shortage of suspense cripples 'Allied'

Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard can't create a searing war-torn romance.

Director Robert Zemeckis's spy-movie romance, Allied, gets many of its genre gestures right but shortchanges an essential ingredient: smart, sustained suspense.

Working from a screenplay by the usually spot-on Steven Knight (Dirty Pretty Things, Locke), Zemeckis creates a star-driven vehicle that relies on the charisma and attractiveness of Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard.

That and lots of spiffy looking vintage cars of the 1940s.

This approach might have worked had Zemeckis not been saddled with two mismatched performances. Opting for restraint, Pitt comes off as detached and wooden. Cotillard shows more life, but the two actors are unable to create a duet that burns its way into Hollywood's pantheon of great romances.

Beginning in Casablanca (a bow to another movie about a war-torn romance), Allied throws Pitt's Max Vatan into contact with another undercover operative, Cotillard's Marianne Beausejour.

The two are supposed to pose as husband and wife so that they can attend a party at which a Nazi ambassador will be assassinated. So far, so good.

In a car in the desert -- in the middle of swirling sandstorm no less -- Max and Marianne have sex. What was supposed to be sham marriage turns real.

We expect trouble because the movie contains plenty of early dialogue in which Max warns about the dangers of emotional involvement in operations that require a high degree of focus.

The post-assassination story shifts to London, where Max and Marianne have taken up residence. A year after Casablanca, Marianne gives birth to a baby girl during a German blitz of London, perhaps setting a new standard for what it means to have a war baby.

Allied adds twists, but marches along without generating the requisite ripples of intrigue. I'd tell you more, but I'm going to avoid spoilers.

If you see Allied, think of what a director such as Alfred Hitchcock might have done with a similar scenario. Actually, you don't have to think about it: You can watch Hitchcock's Notorious.

Knight's screenplay offers little by way of supporting characters. Jared Harris plays Max's commanding officer; Simon McBurney portrays the aggressively insensitive intelligence offer; and Lizzy Caplan appears as Max's sister.

No fair telling more, but know that Allied's inability to spring to vivid life makes you wonder whether this kind of old-fashioned romance hasn't been milked dry.

Zemeckis (Flight and The Walk) is known for his ingenious use of special effects, but he might be off his game in this often low-key effort.

I can't say I believed a minute of Allied, but from its captivating opening shot (Pitt parachuting into the desert) to its misguided sentimental epilogue (I won't say more), the well-crafted Allied is dressed for a success it never really achieves.

A movie that walks 'The Walk'

Director Robert Zemeckis recreates Philippe Petit's 1974 wire walk between the towers of The World Trade Center.

The finale of The Walk qualifies as a true astonishment, a stunning recreation of Philippe Petit's 1974 wire walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.

Director Robert Zemeckis employs 3D, IMAX, CGI and heaven knows what else to make us feel what it was like for Petit to step onto a wire 110 stories above the bustle of lower Manhattan.

Now, I can't say that this was a feeling that I ever wanted to have. As a person who's squeamish about heights, I can tell you that I found the last act of Zemeckis's movie as terrifying as any experience I've had at a movie.

Those scenes, however, remind us that movies are capable of immersing us in experiences that are entirely sensory -- in this case, making us feel as if we, too, are stepping onto a wire suspended between two monolithic skyscrapers.

The movie doesn't always soar in other areas, so whether you see The Walk depends on whether Petit's wire-walking escapade proves involving enough. It was for me.

Was Petit's famous wire walk a work of art, a dangerously illegal expression of massive irresponsibility or an act of daring so exceptional that it transcended all categories?

I honestly don't know, but like most moviegoers I'm familiar with the details of Petit's story because of James Marsh's 2008 Oscar-winning documentary Man on Wire, a movie that told the story of Petit's obsession.

Marsh recreated the various ruses Petit employed to gain entry into the World Trade Center so that he could string his wire. He used still photos to show Petit's walk.

I happened to live in New York City at the time Petit made his famous walk. Contrary to what Zemeckis's movie contends, Petit did not soften my view of The World Trade Center. I always thought the towers were cold, imposing and lacking in architectural elegance and invention.

So, the movie ...

Early on, Zemeckis operates in exaggerated fanciful mode, introducing us to Petit (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) as he stands on the torch of the Statue Liberty, the perch from which he'll provide the tale with its intermittent narration. He talks directly to the camera.

I can only surmise that in the wake of Sept. 11, Zemeckis places Petit atop the Statue of Liberty to show that the ideals of freedom have survived, even though the towers have not -- not that Zemeckis makes any other references to the ultimate fate of the towers. He knows we know, and leaves it at that.

Speaking with a variable French accent, Gordon-Levitt displays an unbridled exuberance that mirrors the movie's buoyant tone. Aside from an occasional angry outburst and one moment of sweaty panic, he's pretty much stuck in over-drive.

During the early '70s, we see Petit working as a street performer in Paris. He juggles atop a unicycle, walks a wire strung between trees and offers constant explanations for why he's speaking English. He's preparing to visit America, he tells anyone who asks.

Petit decided his destiny involved making this particular walk the minute he saw a picture of the then-proposed towers in a magazine in a dentist's office.

The performances surrounding Levitt, notably that of Charlotte Le Bon as his girlfriend Annie Alix, truly can be deemed "supporting;" other characters exist as props either to bolster Petit emotionally or to help him plan and execute his walk.

Zemeckis treats the latter part of The Walk as a caper film. To augment the illicit feeing that accompanied Petit's efforts, he refers to his helpers as "accomplices."

The mid-sections of the film introduce us to Papa Rudy, a circus wire walker played by Ben Kingsley. Papa Rudy tries to instill Petit with the ethos of a wire walker, as Kingsley struggles to transcend the stereotype of a gruff but caring mentor.

Because Marsh's documentary didn't try to make us feel as if we were on the wire with Petit, it did a better job of taking us inside Petit's mind, exposing us to what he regarded as a mixture of art and performance -- or, to put it another way, a magical piece of performance art.

The Walk isn't a great movie, although it boasts a truly great recreation of an event with which younger audiences may not be familiar.

Those who know Zemeckis's work (from Back to the Future to Who Framed Roger Rabbit to Forrest Gump to Cast Away and The Polar Express) know that he makes little effort to hide his delight in artifice.

That tendency doesn't always serve him well in The Walk, which is at its best when Petit is alone on the wire, creating his "poetry." For all the technical wizardry required to create those moments, they don't feel nearly as self-conscious as much of what we've been watching.

Aside from the excruciating tightening of the gut I experienced during Petit's prolonged wire walk, what I'll most remember about The Walk is an image of Petit reclining on the wire as we hear him talk about the profound silence and serenity that are encompassing him, an unearthly stillness.

I can't begin to imagine what might have been going on Petit's head normally if this is how far he had to go to find such tranquility and grace.

Imperiled plane, imperiled pilot

Denzel Washington takes flight as an alcoholic airline pilot.

Flight -- the latest film from director Robert Zemeckis -- has all the markings of another Hollywood thrill ride. With Denzel Washington playing a commercial airline pilot, the movie seems headed for the kind of territory in which the steely expertise of a seasoned pilot saves an imperiled plane. You half expect an airborne version of Unstoppable, a terrific action movie in which Washington played an engineer trying to head-off a runaway train.

Although Flight features some of the most harrowing airborne sequences ever, it's as much about an imperiled life as an imperiled plane. From the opening scenes in a disheveled hotel room, it's clear that Washington's Whip Whitaker has a drinking problem that he tries to temper with head-clearing snorts of cocaine.

The story revolves around Whip's two lives: His life as a dissolute drunk and his life as a guy who believes he can leap from an alcohol-infused stupor to his highly demanding job without losing a step. It's the kind of confidence that comes from having done it before -- probably a lot.

But a flight from Orlando to Atlanta changes everything, and introduces some welcome moral complexity into Zemeckis's movie.

Whip is flying drunk when his plane experiences a grave mechanical failure. He's able to call on training and reflexes to deal with the situation, but there's no gainsaying his intoxication. He's a completely irresponsible hero who saves 96 of the plane's 102 passengers -- and does it without a miscue.

In a moment of extreme crisis, the captain in Whip takes command of the drunk, even to the point where Whip flies the plane upside down in order to slow its fall.

After its compelling opening and horrific crash-landing, the movie establishes itself as something else, the story of an addict whose ability to deceive himself and others is threatened by a National Transportation Safety Board investigation into the crash.

Washington -- who's now almost 58 and beefier than when he was younger -- gives a memorable performance as a man who has gone through a bitter divorce and seldom sees his teen-aged son. Whip has nothing going for him other than twined abilities: He can fly and he can lie.

The movie's early scenes introduce another character, a young heroin-addicted woman (Kelly Reilly) who, after an overdose, will meet Whip in the Atlanta hospital where he -- and the surviving passengers and crew -- are taken after the crash. For a time, Whip's life mingles with Nicole's at the family farm where Whip retreats to hide from the press.

I don't know if it was absolutely necessary, but a scene in which Whip, a cigarette smoker, meets Reilly's Nicole in the hospital is a real crowd-pleaser. Not because of anything Reilly or Washington do, but because of a monologue delivered by a cigarette-smoking cancer patient (James Badge Dale).

Clearly, this is Washington's show, although the supporting cast is quite good. John Goodman adds robust comic relief as a take-charge drug dealer, one of Whip's wayward pals. Don Cheadle plays the smart, amoral lawyer who's asked to guide Whip through his NTSB ordeal, and Bruce Greenwood portrays a long-time friend and union representative who's eager to turn attention away from pilot fallibility and onto failing equipment.

Washington's scenes with Cheadle are particularly interesting. As savvy as Cheadle's ("I can fix anything") character is and as wobbly as Washington's Whip becomes, Washington takes charge of every moment, never entirely letting go of Whip's defiance, bravado and percolating contempt.

Melissa Leo has a small but effective turn as an NTSB lawyer who wants to expose Whip for what he is.

Now, the movie is not without problems. It seems unlikely to me that a man such as Whip could hide his addiction from his employers. The movie suggests that others have served as Whip's enablers, but still. Moreover, the way in which the screenplay dispenses with the co-pilot's knowledge of Whip's condition struck me as far-fetched.

Zemeckis makes up for some of these problems with a agonizingly tense scene in which Whip -- in an attempt to straighten himself out -- tries to resist the siren call of a miniature bottle of vodka in a hotel mini-bar.

Back to live action after forays into animation with Polar Express and A Christmas Carol , Zemeckis doesn't flinch when it comes to showing alcoholic behavior. And I wondered whether the director of Forrest Gump and Back to the Future wasn't trying a little too hard to establish his hard-boiled bona fides.

Not to worry: After all the hard drama, Zemeckis brings the movie in for a soft landing with scenes that take some of the sting out of its previous tough-mindedness and which struck me as false.

Whatever its shortcomings, Flight benefits greatly from Washington's strength: Even when the movie falters, Washington's never anything less than riveting as a pilot whose life has spiraled out of control -- even while he's thinking that he's far too slick to land with a crash.