A vibrant 'Sinners' makes its mark

 

  I don't want to refer to director Ryan Coogler's Sinners as a genre-bending work, although the term might be applicable.  I prefer to think of Sinners -- a story set in the Mississippi Delta during the 1930s -- as a movie in which Coogler employs an expansive film vocabulary to create a boldly exciting foray into the Deep South.

  Described in the broadest terms, Sinners is a horror movie. Coogler, who also wrote the screenplay, introduces vampires and builds toward a violent finale that takes the movie to near frenzied levels. At the same time, Sinners marks another vibrant Cooger entry into a filmography that includes Fruitvale Station, Creed, Black Panther, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

   Shock. gore and vampires aside, Sinners is the kind of horror movie that doesn't come along often, one that's culturally expressive and populated by vividly drawn characters -- horror with plenty of heart and soul.

    Set during the repressive days of Jim Crowe, the drama centers on identical twins, both beautifully played by Michael B. Jordan. Known as Smoke and Stack, the twins return to their Mississippi Delta hometown in 1932. Having accumulated funds in Chicago, they plan to open a juke joint. Independence awaits -- or so they hope.

  A young guitarist named Sammie (Miles Caton) enters the story as an aspiring bluesman who has taken possession of a guitar that may be connected to evil spirits, an evocation of some of the folkloric stories surrounding guitarist Robert Johnson.

   A preacher's son, Sammie becomes an eager mentee of Smoke and Stack, his older and savvier cousins.

   An early bit of narration tells us that certain musicians are so extraordinary that their music can pierce the veil between life and death, an idea evidently drawn from African cultures with traces of Irish and Mississippi Choctaw lore added. 

   All of these many influences become part of the cultural gumbo that Coogler serves with a visual clarity that gives the movie a bracing sharpness.

   Early on, Sinners plays like a period piece about young Sammie's foray into the world of juke joints. Sammie's choices evolve against a homegrown backdrop of religion and sin. Sammie's preacher father tells him that if he's foolish enough to dance with the devil, the devil may one day follow him home.

    Although thematically expansive, the movie takes place during the single day in which the brothers hurry to open their club.

   Smoke contracts with the owner of the town's grocery (Yao) and his wife Grace (Ji Jun Li) to provide food for the juke joint. Stack convinces a harmonica-playing alcoholic (a magnetic Delroy Lindo) to provide entertainment. 

    Each of the brothers also connects with a love interest from the past. Mary (Hailee Steinfeld) is a light-skinned woman who's perceived by some as white. Stack left her  because he thought outsiders would ruin Mary's life for taking up with a Black man.

   Smoke renews his relationship with Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), a woman with whom he shares a tragic past and who knows her way around Afro-influenced spiritual practices. Jordan and Mosaku create memorable chemistry as the second helping of their relationship develops.

    Not to be sidelined, Sammie crushes on Pearline (Jayme Lawson), a woman who refuses to be confined by an unfulfilling marriage.

    At times, Sinners takes the shape of a musical with production numbers staged in the abandoned mill in which the brothers open their juke joint. These episodes operate on a surreal cultural continuum, mixing characters from different time periods, adding an anachronistic deejay, as well as African dancers and local revelers. All become part of a raucous explosion of energy.

   Jordan, who has appeared in all of Coogler's movies,  creates two characters who differ but share plenty of history. More adamant than Smoke, Stack is not one to be messed with. But both brothers have plenty of grit. Jordan makes them a dynamic duo, commanding the screen as men who've done their share of living.

    Oh yes, the vampires.

   A terrific Jack O'Connell portrays Remmick, the chief vampire who turns two farmers (Peter Dreimanis and Lola Kirke) into vampires, enlisting them in his efforts to convert (i.e., bite) every reveler at the juke joint. 

    Charming, insightful, and menacing in equal measure, Remmick offers his victims a deathless future that he portrays as utopian. Money never will give Smoke and Stack enough protection to realize their dreams of independence, he argues. 

    Perhaps to broaden the movie's palette, Remmick and his vampires sing a haunting Irish tune that contrasts with the music of the juke joint, yet seems entirely appropriate.

    The supporting performances bristle and come alive, and Coogler gives all the players stand-out moments during a day tinged with dread and desire.

    I'm sure all reviewers will advise audiences to remain through the end credits. Be sure to listen to them. Stay put and let the movie sit with you for a minute -- and allow Coogler to offer one last word.

      

     

    

A mostly satisfying 'Black Panther' sequel

 

  Black Panther: Wakanda Forever makes  a mostly worthy addition to a series forced to compensate for the death of its star, Chadwick Boseman. After Boseman’s death in 2020, the filmmakers faced a monumental problem: How to keep the series going without T'Challa, its main character?

   Viewers will no doubt argue about how well director Ryan Coogler solves the problem, but Coolger —who directed the first installment —lays the groundwork for more Black Panther movies by giving this sequel a strong cast of women while maintaining a respectful tone for what has been lost. 

     Is Boseman missed? Of course.

     Wakanda Forever sometimes feels like a movie stocked with supporting players and no clear lead. As the Queen Mother, Angela Bassett receives a good deal of attention, as does Letitia Wright, who plays Shuri, T'Challa's  tech-savvy sister.

     Both Wright and Bassett embody the movie's major theme: coping with loss. At one point, Shuri asks how a threatened Wakanda will survive without Black Panther to protect it? Much of the story involves attempts by various characters to answer that question, a process that sometimes feels labored.

    Familiar faces help. When series' regulars turn up, we're happy to see them. Among them: Danai Gurira as the stern general Okoye. Lupita Nyong'o reprises her role as Anika, entering the picture about midway through.

       So what happens in this Marvel extravaganza? 

       Outside forces threaten Wakanda’s tranquility. The nations of the world want to obtain vibranium, the substance that has allowed powerful Wakanda to develop into a tech paradise.

      The CIA acquires a machine invented by an MIT student (Dominique Thorne) that can detect vibranium. The agency has begun using this scanner to survey oceans for vibranium, a manifestation of the imperialist greed that Wakanda loathes.

     But wait, there's more.

     The underwater kingdom of Talokan (yes, a whole other empire) thwarts the CIA efforts. Talokan also has a supply of vibranium, which helps its residents survive in the sea.

     Trouble looms. The soft-spoken leader of Talokan (Tenoch Huerta) wants to join forces with Wakanda to stop the devious plans of the "surface people," as he calls the nations who lust after vibranium. 

    Hoping to avoid global conflagration, Bassett’s Queen Romonda,  a character of pinpoint ferocity, declines, thus lighting the fuse of conflict. Talokan and Wakanda square off in the movie's climactic scene, a nifty sea battle featuring a giant ship and flying warriors.

     A two-hour and 41-minute running time proves excessive, and not everything soars. A less-than-thrilling tangent involves  Martin Freeman and Julia Louise Dreyfus  as CIA agents.

     What I missed most about this edition of Black Panther was the elevating aura of Afro-centric nobility and discovery that permeated the first installment. The sense of ennobling fantasy dwindles as Wakanda Forever spins through its various plot threads and expositional chores.

      The first Black Panther felt like an entertaining superhero movie and a cultural game changer. This one feels more like a step in the Marvel franchise staircase. But considering the heavy burden that Coogler carried, the movie qualifies as a success -- even if we grumble a little.

       Wakanda Forever wraps things up with an appropriate expression of sadness for the loss of Boseman and T'Challa, and perhaps, most importantly, with a clear commitment not to cheapen the experience that captivated so many the first time around.

       That counts for a lot.

'Black Panther' elevates the comic-book genre

Chadwick Boseman stars in a fine Marvel Comics movie with a feel all its own.

Director Ryan Coogler begins Black Panther, his Marvel Comics adventure, in Oakland in 1992. Although we’re looking at the streets of a city where kids play basketball on decaying courts, the ensuing sequence adds a whole other dimension. It starts with a knock on the door of a small apartment adjoining the basketball courts. One of the men in the apartment checks the peephole and says that a couple of "Grace Jones-looking chicks" are knocking.

I won’t reveal more except to say that in this Oakland-based prologue, we meet a king, two of his female soldiers and the king’s treacherous brother -- all from the mythical African kingdom of Wakanda.

That’s a lot of information for a movie that hasn’t really even started. But it’s telling because Coogler (Fruitvale Station and Creed) wastes no time linking the lives of those kids on an Oakland playground to an ennobling mythos that draws on African tradition. The movie involves a fair measure of fantastic developments, but they feel solidly grounded.

Whatever meanings you read into Black Panther, you’ll find a movie that’s filled with the kind of commanding characters who do as much to create the movie’s world as the CGI razzle-dazzle Coogler also employs.

The story centers on T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), prince and soon-to-be-king of Wakanda. Wakanda allows the world to believe that it's impoverished and irrelevant. The country appears bereft but hides its true face from the world. In Wakanda, tradition and advanced technology mingle without strain; tribal culture is maintained while amazing technical feats routinely are accomplished.

Coogler, who wrote the screenplay with Joe Robert Cole, deftly balances action, exposition and a large cast of characters that includes T’Challa’s love interest (Lupita Nyong’o), a woman with her own agenda. Nyong'o's Nakia feels duty bound to use Wakandan knowledge to help an ailing world, so much so that she puts civic obligation before love.

We also meet a variety of other characters, the most important of them a ruthless refugee from Oakland named Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan). Killmonger, a man with a giant chip on his shoulder and a plan to arm the world's non-white populations, eventually challenges T’Challa, a.k.a, the Black Panther, for his throne.

Perhaps because of the way Coogler creates the appealing landscapes and urban environments of Wakanda -- almost an African Shangrila -- and perhaps because the movie seldom feels less than mythic and elevated, Black Panther differentiates itself from every other movie ripped from the pages of Marvel Comics.

It's also encouraging to discover that the women in Black Panther boldly claim their turf. In addition to Nakia, there’s General Okoye (Danai Gurira), a warrior who wields a mean spear and who's ferociously loyal to Wakanda. T’Challa’s sister Shuri (Letitia Wright adds brashness as the young woman who invents and controls most of Wakanda’s miraculous high-tech inventions. Her obvious counterpart, Q in the James Bond movies — only with a devilish streak.

The women in the cast are in fine form, and so are the men, especially Jordan who's scary good as a man at war with the world. Unassuming and unburdened by an overload of machismo, Boseman’s Black Panther makes an appealing superhero. Better yet, he shares the movie with every other actor without ever getting lost in the action, plot mechanics, and comic-book jargon.

Black Panther probably will give Boseman his widest exposure yet, but he’s already proven that he’s a terrific actor in earlier work. (He should at least have been nominated for an Oscar for his stunning portrayal of James Brown in the underrated Get On Up.)
Black Panther more or less divides into two parts. In the first, Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis), an arms dealer, steals an African artifact from a British museum. We quickly learn that the artifact is made of Vibranium, the mysterious substance on which Wakandan civilization and the Panther's powers have been built. Klaue thinks he’s gotten hold of something that will make him rich, but his meanness is no match for those with bigger dreams.

At this point, we also meet Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman), a CIA agent who gets swept up in Wakanda's affairs. I haven't even mentioned Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out), who plays one of T'Challa's allies.

And, yes, there’s abundant action, most of it decently handled by Coogler — from car chases in the cramped streets of Seoul, South Korea, where the movie takes up early residence to a final battle in Wakanda involving clashing warriors and charging giant rhinos.

Coogler and his team deserve credit for creating a great-looking and distinctive entertainment. But this is one helping of popular culture in which effects don't dominate every scene and characters have room to breathe. That’s good news for Marvel and even better news for those in the audience who think they’ve already had enough comic-book movies to last a lifetime.

'Creed': sequel follows a 'Rocky' road

Director Ryan Coogler tells the winning story of a driven young boxer and the aging Italian Stallion who trains him.

The trailer for Creed suggests we're in for a story about a young boxer fighting his way up from a tough neighborhood. That's not exactly an original idea, but it's the kind of reliable old chestnut that never seems to wear out its big-screen welcome.

Then Sylvester Stallone pops into the trailer as Rocky Balboa. Stallone delivers a line about how the young boxer, a determined looking black kid who wears his muscles like armor, should know that he'll never face a tougher opponent than himself. The inner battle must be won before the kid can triumph in the ring.

Stallone? Rocky? Really?

In case we hadn't already guessed, the title of the movie -- writ large at the trailer's end -- let's us know that the upcoming movie will be grown from Rocky roots: Creed.

The boxer Apollo Creed, of course, made his way into a quartet of earlier Rocky movies. Now, we were going to meet Creed's son, another boxer who shoulders a burden of anger, ferocity and drive.

But wait ...
Creed features yet another level of promotion. The trailer tells us that the movie was directed by Ryan Coogler, the same guy who brought us Fruitvale Station, a troubling indie drama about the death of Oscar Grant, a young black man who was killed by a police officer while riding a BART train in Oakland.

That film starred Michael B. Jordan, the actor who appears as Adonis Johnson, the son of Apollo Creed in a movie that takes the Creed name because it's unlikely that anyone would turn out for a movie called Johnson.

The trailer got my mind moving in what seemed like two irreconcilable directions. Would it be possible to add the authenticity and power of Fruitvale Station to a Rockyesque formula job? And if so, what exactly would be the point?

After seeing Creed, I'm still not sure about the point part, but Coogler has made an enjoyable crowd-pleaser by focusing on a light heavyweight boxer who -- despite a staggering lack of experience -- lands a title shot after being trained by none other than Rocky Balboa.

If you stop and think about it (and I'm not suggesting that you should) Creed is one wacky movie.

Consider Adonis' less-than-hardscrabble background: After stints in juvenile detention, Adonis was adopted by Creed's widow (Phylicia Rashad). He grew up in a luxurious atmosphere, landed a good, post-college job and seemed primed for a fine middle class life -- except for one thing: He couldn't stop fighting. Adonis made a habit of traveling to Mexico for low-rent bouts. Eventually, he decided that his destiny wasn't to be found in an office, but in the ring.

So it's off to Philadelphia to find Rocky, whose life consists of sitting around his red-sauce restaurant with pictures of halcyon days on the walls. Reluctantly, Rocky takes Adonis under wing setting off a flurry of father/son dynamics and raising issues about family and responsibility.

As the movie moves forward, it peppers the screen with references to Rocky's past. Coogler's camera gravitates toward the same gritty locations that gave the Rocky movies their faux authenticity. Carefully placed traces of the triumphal Rocky score help energize Adonis' training regimen.

Every boxer needs a love interest. Creed doesn't shortchange in that department, either.

When he moves into a ratty apartment, Adonis meets Bianca (Tessa Thompson), a singer who's gradually going deaf, perhaps for no other reason than that every character in any kind of Rocky movie needs an obstacle.

Jordan gives Adonis palpable hunger, but keeps him likable. Thompson, terrific in the movie Dear White People, adds the spark of a self-assertive feminine presence.

But it's Stallone who gives the stand-out performance as an aging boxer whose balloon of hope slowly has deflated. Now 69, Stallone can't conceal the slight sag in his jowls. And are those strands of gray peeping out from under Rocky's trademark Pork Pie?

Wacky, yes, but the movie's willingness to adopt a fluid approach to urban cliches from two different eras (Adonis' and Rocky's) adds a layer of freshness. Creed has the good sense to pull the rug out from under itself: Like its predecessors, the movie manages to be serious and a goof at the same time.

Coogler knows that every boxing movie ultimately must climb into the ring. Adonis' championship fight is replete with resounding body blows, sprays of blood and heightened brutalism.

Thanks to some last-minute plot manipulations, a bout is arranged between Adonis and the current champion, "Pretty" Ricky Conlan (Anthony Bellew). The fight takes place in Liverpool after Conlan's manager (Graham McTavish) insists that Adonis boost interest in the fight by using the Creed name.

Coogler's screenplay keeps reminding us of the psychological tension in a young man who wants to be known for his own accomplishments but who also must come to terms with the image of a famous father -- even though he never met the man. Apollo died before Adonis was born.

A determined Jordan drives the movie forward, a dialed-down Stallone keeps a light foot on the breaks, and somehow the whole thing coheres to make for ardent and rousing entertainment. Creed may not be a knockout, but I'd score it a surprise winner on points.

A shocking, powerful 'Fruitvale Station'

A stunning look at the killing of an unarmed young black man.

If you're looking for a timely movie, I doubt you'll do better than Fruitvale Station, first-time director Ryan Coogler's sad and powerful film about Oscar Grant III, an unarmed, 22-year-old black man who was shot and killed by a Bay Area Rapid Transit cop on Jan. 1, 2009.

Though different in its particulars, Grant's true-life case inevitably demands comparison with the highly publicized story of Trayvon Martin -- and rightfully so. Both cases point to the vulnerability of young black men who sometimes find tragedy simply because they're young black men.

Coogler's movie leaves us speechless and stunned, even though we know what's going to happen from the outset. The film's power lies in the skill with which Coogler brings us close to a troubled young man, making sure we understand both Oscar's strengths and his weaknesses.

Coogler isn't out to canonize Grant, who had served prison time, smoked and sold marijuana, lost a supermarket job because of chronic tardiness and generally felt at loose ends.

But it's also clear that Grant -- played with a full range of emotions by Michael B. Jordan (Friday Night Lights and The Wire) -- is trying to listen to his better angels. We see this when he's playing with his daughter Tatiana (Ariana Neal), whom he obviously loves, and we see it again when he finally opens up to the child's mother (Melonie Diaz).

Oscar's also devoted to his mother (Octavia Spencer), a woman who expects him to toe the line. During a prison visit to her son, Spencer's character delivers a heartbreaking dose of tough love.

Although Fruitvale Station includes a few flashbacks, it mostly takes place during the last 24 hours of young Oscar's life. He tries to persuade the manager of the supermarket where he worked to rehire him; he phones his sister; he shops for seafood for his mother's birthday dinner; he debates with himself about the wisdom of trying to generate income by selling marijuana; and he eventually heads out for a night on the town in San Francisco with Diaz's Sophina and a few friends.

Fearing New Year's Eve mayhem on the roads, Oscar's mother urges him not to drive. She thinks the train will be safer.

It wasn't. Grant met his end on an elevated BART platform when transit cops showed up to deal with a fight on a train, a tussle instigated by a white guy looking for trouble.

Coogler isn't interested in easy moralizing, and we hardly need a lecture to remind us of the deep injustice of what happened to Oscar. The cop who shot Grant was captured on a video made by a passenger with a cellphone -- and used briefly in the movie. The officer, who said he thought he was using a taser rather than his gun, was sentenced to two years in state prison. He served a year.

To its credit, Coogler's film never feels like a screed aimed at the police; it's a clear-eyed view of what happened to one young black man who set out to party with friends and wound up dead.

Coogler makes it clear that Oscar was at a crossroads in his life, and we're left to deal with the grief and bafflement created by so much unfulfilled promise. Jordan's performance -- by turns wary, charming, angry and sincere -- makes us think that Oscar would have turned the corner. The only thing we can know for sure is that he damn well should have been allowed to try.