Love, thunder, and a ton of silliness

     Director Taika Waititi follows his last Marvel outing, Thor: Ragnarok, with Thor: Love and Thunder and achieves pretty much the same result. That's not necessarily a bad thing.

    This edition of Thor adds more winking fun to a Marvel Universe that sometimes takes itself too seriously.

    Thor, of course, is a god. In case you’ve been wondering, gods do suffer. In this case, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) has been pining over a lost love, Natalie Portman's Jane Foster. 

   Love aside, the story wisely begins by introducing its villain, a character with one of the better marvel names, Gorr, The God Butcher (Christian Bale under a ton of prosthetics that make his head resemble a rotting hard-boiled egg.) 

    What's troubling Gorr? He hates the gods for not answering his prayers and saving his dying daughter. He decides that the best way to avenge himself is to kill every god.

   After acquiring a magical sword that will help him destroy the gods, Gorr gets to work.

    Of course,  other characters populate this shamelessly over-stuffed movie.

   Although his role isn't large, Russell Crowe brings an enjoyably odd accent to the role of Zeus. I've seen the accent described as "Mediterranean." Whatever it is, Crowe gives the movie a strange, campy quality that he underscores when Zeus playfully flounces the skirt-like garment he wears under his armor.

    If you judge only by the trailer, Love and Thunder isn't much to look at: Waititi and his team give Zeus's godly realm a gaudy golden grandeur and splay the story across a variety of sets ranging from low-rent to elaborate. 

    Tessa Thompson plays the movie's other main character, Valkyrie, a woman who runs a theme park version of Asgard, one of nine realms that ... Oh, who cares? 

   Only Marvel obsessives can keep track of all these characters, universes, and crossover features. I've given up even trying.

    Know, though, that the Guardians of the Galaxy make an appearance in Love and Thunder. Moreover, Korg, the rock creature voiced by Waititi, appears in what amounts to an extended cameo.

    In a possible bow to feminism, Portman's Jane Foster -- also known as The Mighty Thor -- wields Thor's hammer,  a task made more poignant by the fact that in her human incarnation Jane, an astrophysicist by trade, has terminal cancer.

   God? Human? Human who can assume godlike qualities? Let's just say Jane goes through changes.

   The movie has a mild emotional kick, but for me, it's saved by its unashamed silliness. Could we have done without it? Sure. But at least this disheveled bit of Marvel mayhem leaves you (or at least it left me) smiling.

   Maybe that's because Waititi knows how to be silly without being stupid.

No classic but 'Lightyear' proves likable

 The Pixar universe keeps expanding. Based on a character developed in 1995's Toy Story, Lightyear begins by telling us that young Andy (remember him?) received a Buzz Lightyear action figure after seeing the movie that we're about to watch. Andy loved the that movie.

  Me? I’d say it’s more “like” than “love.”

  I guess that suggests a touch of disappointment. The expectations for Pixar movies remains high and the Toy Story franchise has endeared itself to both parents and children. 

  But, hey, “like” isn’t nothing.

  The movie finds Buzz (voice by Chris Evans) as full of himself as ever. He and his fellow Space Rangers have traveled to a distant planet where a mistake by Buzz strands his fellow voyagers, some of whom were hibernating on Buzz's ship. 

  A chastened Buzz must then wrestle with an epic-sized helping of guilt. Buzz, after all, isn't supposed to fail.

  Buzz's hoped-for redemption involves being able to fly at hyper-speed, which -- should he accomplish the task-- will enable him to save those he stranded on a forbidding planet which hosts lethal insects and vines that latch onto human prey. 

   Buzz keeps trying but each time he returns to base, everyone else but him has aged. He's gone for four minutes but those who remained behind have aged four years.

   This includes Buzz's buddy Capt. Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba), a Space Ranger who marries a woman and becomes the matriarch of a couple of generations of space dwellers. Lesbianism is handled simply: It exists. No big deal.

   Eventually, Hawthorne's granddaughter Izzy (Keke Palmer) will form a ragtag crew with Darby Steel (Dale Soules), a felon with experience in explosives, and Mo Morrison (Taika Waititi), another in the movie's group of unlikely heroes.

    Evans, by the way, takes over for Tim Allen who did the Buzz voice work in previous Toy Story movies.

    Despite its sci-fi trappings, Lightyear isn't Pixar's most adventurous effort even though Buzz isn't a toy in this movie. He's a character in a futuristic adventure that gives him a robot companion, a cat named SOX (Peter Sohn). 

   Gifted with great computational powers, SOX proves a better problem solver than Buzz, who prides himself on finding solutions when the going gets tough.

   Eventually, Buzz learns to trust his new pals but not not before confronting Zurg (Josh Brolin), an emperor who  may remind you of evil imperial space characters from other movies.

   Director Angus MacLane (Finding Dory) may not have reached the stars with this one but Lightyear‘s animation upholds Pixar's standards of quality while telling a story that keeps us involved.

   

'Free Guy' plays a hollow game

     

    If your idea of fun is watching Ryan Reynolds play a character in a video game for an hour and 55 minutes, Free Guy may seem like an amusing look at a video game character who develops self-awareness. 

    A vaguely interesting question arises: What if said character starts to tire of the routine that makes him part of the scenery instead of a character with agency and clout?

    As for me, I found it difficult to connect with a movie which has been directed by Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum) with the ping and pizazz of a game world in which there are average Joes and characters who don glasses that put them into an action-oriented reality that’s visible only to them. Think of it as a form of privilege that allows participation in social mayhem.

    Reynolds plays Guy, an NPC (non-player character) * who follows the same routine every day: He awakens in his bland apartment, puts on the same clothes (blue shirt and slacks), stops for coffee, and heads for his job as a bank teller.

    As part of the game, thugs rob the bank multiple times in a day, forcing Guy and his security guard pal (Lil Rel Howery) to the ground. They nonchalantly react to what has become as routine for them as coffee breaks.

    But Guy feels something's missing from his life, notably a love interest. But what woman would want to fall for an NPC? 

    When Guy sees Molotov Girl (an action-oriented character and major player in the game) he’s love-struck. The script soon contrives to give him a pair of the transforming glasses and, bingo, Guy's in the game.

     He pursues the woman who has stirred his heart — or whatever organ an NPC might have, the one that makes him want to share bubblegum-flavored ice cream with his dream girl.

    Shades of movies such as The Truman Show and Ready Player One waft through Levy’s half-bright movie, which is presented as a kind of romp through weightier questions.

    Outside the game, we meet Keys (Joe Keery) who works for the company that controls the game (it’s called Free City). Taika Waititi plays Antoine, the entrepreneur who stole the game and believes in nothing but maximizing profit.

   Jodie Comer portrays Millie, the designer of the game Antoine stole. She participates in the game through an avatar, a character who happens to be Guy's heartthrob, Molotov Girl.

    If I hadn’t seen Comer’s brilliant work as an assassin in Killing Eve, I probably wouldn’t have given her much thought. Ryan easily handles a character who leaps from nebbish to hero in a movie that allows him to ditch his snide side.

    For non-gamers, the movie may prove mildly confusing, although, for some, simply watching the parade of effects may suffice.

    I  suppose there’s an audience for movies such as Free Guy.

    I found myself longing for the old pinball machines that could be jarred into a “tilt,” which would — of course — end the game in less than the hour and 55 minutes it takes for Free Guy to reach inside its virtual chest and put its artificial heart on its computer-generated sleeve.

*A reader helped educate me about the acronym NPC. I originally called it a non-participatory character. The correct designation is non-player character. The review has been amended to reflect the correction. 

  

'JoJo Rabbit,' creative but scattered

Director Taiki Waititi uses Nazi Germany as a launchpad for satire that ultimately turns sentimental.

The first mistake you can make about JoJo Rabbit is to think that the movie has anything much to do with the Holocaust. Yes, it takes place in Germany during World War II and, yes, it involves a single mother who hides a Jewish teenager in her attic, and, yes, it shows that even a charming kid can fall prey to the toxins of anti-semitism.

But director Taika Waititi’s comedy takes place in a fantasy zone where anti-semitism has been divorced from mass murder. The movie mostly deals with Germans -- either decent or comical or a mixture of both. That makes JoJo tolerable while at the same time rendering it largely inoffensive, something no satire can afford to be.

This is not to say that Waititi doesn't know what he's doing. His track record (What We Do in the Shadows, Hunt for the Wilderpeople and Thor: Ragnarok) is good and within JoJo Rabbit, you'll find plenty of cinematic invention.

By now, you probably know the set-up. JoJo (Roman Griffin Davis) is a 10-year-old fledgling member of the Hitler Youth who has created a doozy of an imaginary best friend for himself, Adolf Hitler, played by Waititi. The boy’s free-spirited mother (Scarlett Johansson) clearly loves her son and evinces a blithe approach to life that’s a bit out-of-synch with her moment; i.e., the looming defeat of Germany in the end days of the war.

Moreover, Johansson's character's fashion flair stands in sharp contrast to the depleted German civic environment that accompanied the end of the war.

Waititi takes a fractured approach to what seems less an attempt to encompass comedy and horror than an attempt to build a fantasy world in which Nazis are comical and, in which, love ultimately conquers hate.

To that end, Sam Rockwell plays Captain Klenzendorf, a Hitler Youth leader with a blasé attitude toward Nazi imperatives. He has an uber-blonde assistant played by Rebel Wilson, who might as well be wearing a sign that reads, "Hateful Nazi."

Mel Brooks’ Nazi caricatures in The Producers became risible assaults on the very notion that anyone could take the staunch idiocy of Nazism seriously. Of course, millions did, so Brooks was also delivering an act of Jewish revenge that was far more effective than what Quentin Tarantino tried to accomplish at the end of Inglourious Basterds, a movie that boldly congratulated itself for presenting the face of “Jewish revenge.”

Waititi includes many comic bits, a disastrous weekend outing for JoJo when he joins the Hitler Youth, a sight gag involving German shepherds and a book JoJo is compiling on Jews. He calls it Yohoo Jew. JoJo has been propagandized for his whole life to think of Jews as non-human embodiments of evil and he decorates his room with Nazi paraphernalia much in the way kids of today put up posters of rap stars and sports figures.

Although his accent mingles his British origins with German inflection, Davis gives a sharp comic performance based on expressing attitudes that don’t always make sense for someone his age. Waititi's Hitler isn’t an act of mimicry; it’s a presentation of a fantasy figure who — true to the boy’s still-evolving imagination —- can’t settle into a solid form. As he relates to JoJo, he's a user-friendly Hitler.

Besides, there are enough anachronisms of speech (Hitler using the expression such as "Correctamundo," for example) to let us know that JoJo isn't meant to be taken as a history lesson.

As the Jewish girl in hiding, Thomassin McKenzie doesn't make much sense. She’s confident, and a little too unruffled, and she exists mostly so that young JoJo can learn that Jews are people, too. Isn't this a version — albeit a more benign one — of what happens in movies when black characters seem to exist so that white characters can be morally transformed?

But three cheers for young Archie Yates, who plays Yorki, JoJo's indomitably cheerful best friend. And also for Stephen Merchant who has a terrific turn as a member of the Gestapo.

Waititi does, of course, include some difficult notes that I won’t reveal here because they would qualify as spoilers. He tries to accommodate both broad comedy and war-time horror, but the horror can seem contrived. It’s as if he’s saying (and we and almost hear him saying it), “Look, I know that the war was no joke and neither was Nazism.”

It may seem odd to say that the movie tries to send its audience out of the theater with buoyed spirits. But Waititi wants to testify on behalf of the battered human spirit as it emerges into the light after the darkness of war.

It’s a nice idea but a mildly trivial one when played against what the Nazis did in the world. For all its creative efforts, JoJo Rabbit can seem a bit trivial, as well.

Perhaps that's because the best satire reveals; JoJo Rabbit confirms what we already know or, at least would like to believe. Hatred, bad; love, good.

Thor returns to the screen with a wink

Thor Ragnarok has humor (nice), battles (who cares?), and some appealing supporting characters (welcome).

If you've been worrying about the fate of the beleaguered population of Asgardia, you've even more reason to fret now that the residents of that peaceable realm face a dire threat in Thor: Ragnarok, the latest big-screen entry from (who else?) Marvel Comics.

There's even more about which one can fret in this latest Marvel entry. It's possible, for example, to fear that Hela (sister of Thor and daughter of Odin) might seize control of Asgardia and begin her malicious rule.

Actually, you needn't worry about any of that because there's nothing much at stake in the amiable Thor Ragnarok aside from the future of the Thor franchise -- and that's pretty much assured anyway.

Hela, by the way, is brought to life by Cate Blanchett who has been outfitted with a piece of headwear that sprouts what look like antlers when Hela's fury rushes to the surface.

Blanchett's Hela, by the way, must not be trifled with. We know this because she's also known as "the goddess of death," a description that probably doesn't help her on intergalactic dating sites.

Should you find Hela too serious, perhaps you'll be amused to see Chris Hemsworth (as Thor) try to function without his trademark hammer as his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) alternates between the roles of ally and foe in the battle to save Asgardia. The banter between Thor and Loki constitutes one of the movie's high points, and the two actors navigate the screenplay's sillier waters with old-pro ease.

New Zealand director Taika Waititi (What We Do in the Shadows and Hunt for the Wilder People) attempts (often successfully) to leaven the proceedings with humor. Even detractors may be forced to acknowledge that Waititi imbues the proceedings with a level of self-mockery that, at the very least, demonstrates that he's aware that the fate of one more Marvel Comics franchise may not be essential to the continuation of our fragile species.

Waititi's also makes nice use of a supporting cast that includes Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie, a valiant warrior woman who drinks too much, and Mark Ruffalo, who -- in this edition -- turns up as Bruce Banner after having spent several years in captivity as his CGI alter ego, The Hulk.

The triumph of Hulk over his Banner self has something to do with the evil Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum in a one-armed golden cloak). The Grandmaster presides over the planet Sakaar, where he runs an in-house battle between unwitting invaders and his captive champion, the Hulk.

Many Marvel movies depends heavily on the ability of the director to make us overlook their plots, a task you may wish to regard as dramatic accessorizing. In this regard, you'll meet Korg, a creature who looks as if he were made of rocks. Korg (voice by Waititi) is very strong but speaks softly in a signature scene in which he commiserates with Thor over the loss of his mighty hammer.

At one point, Thor also loses his hair -- or at least his long locks are trimmed, making him look like a very buffed businessman who has spent too much time at the company gym, a comic-book Sampson.

OK, so not all the joke are great. At one point, Valkyrie helps Thor escape through something the film inelegantly calls the Devil's Anus, a passageway linking two of the movie's worlds.

You'll also find spaceships, combat and a constellation of jokes, as well as a story in which Karl Urban portrays Skurge, a character who's recruited (more or less against his will) into Hela's evil orbit.

And, yes, Anthony Hopkins shows up (at least briefly) as Odin, although in this outing, Odin has more to do with establishing the plot than with participating in its development.

Parts of Ragnarok slog more than they soar, but Thor Ragnarok offers a bit of fun, and if we must have more Marvel movies (and we have little choice in the matter), we need more directors like Waititi, good-humored souls who refuses to be over-awed by the prospect of steering a movie into blockbuster terrain.

Better, I suppose, than the previous two Thor movies, Ragnarok nonetheless resembles a mirage; it allures, amuses and appeases before quickly receding into the dim recesses of memory.

At this point, you may be asking a pertinent question. What the hell is Ragnarok? I think it has something to do with a Norse prophecy about impending catastrophe.

The movie itself is no catastrophe thanks in part to Hemsworth who gives one of his more likable performances. Besides, it's difficult to hate any movie that allows Blanchett to chew the movie's abundant and not always impressive scenery -- archly, of course.

'Captain Fantastic' and the 'Wilderpeople'

In a way, Captain Fantastic is something of a throwback, a movie that hinges on a slightly dated conflict between a father's fierce countercultural commitments and widely recognized mainstream proprieties.

Forget the title, Captain Fantastic has nothing to do with comic book heroism; it's the story of an intelligent survivalist (Viggo Mortensen) and his six children. Mortensen's Ben believes that, as a parent, he's obligated to remove his children from the corrupting influences of a society driven mad by soul-destroying capitalism.

Ben is so committed to his views that he has substituted the celebration of Noam Chomsky's birthday for Christmas. Yes, it's OK to laugh, but Ben believes in the moral necessity of his choices.

The always intelligent Mortensen, adept at suggesting more than scripts often contain, imbues Ben with edgy smarts and stern conviction. He can be loving and a bit scary.

The movie opens with a bloody coming-of-age ritual involving a hunt, but it quickly becomes clear that Ben isn't neglecting the intellectual side of his kids' growth: They're home-schooled in literature, science and philosophy, and are encouraged to defend any position they take.

Ben also subjects his brood to physical challenges that he calls "training." These exercises can include dangerous rock climbing expeditions and exhausting uphill runs.

It shouldn't be surprising that Ben's kids have unconventional names: Bodevan (George MacKay) is the oldest, a teen-ager who's beginning to wonder if he's missing something. Encouraged by his mother, Bodevan secretly has applied to some of the nation's most elite colleges.

As for the rest of the brood, I could tell you the kids who play the family, but instead I'll give you a few of the character names: Nai, Zaja, Vestry, Kielyr and Relian, a countercultural roll call if ever there were one.

Simply hanging around the forest with a bunch of kids might not be particularly interesting. Something major must happen, and it does. Mom, who's off being treated for severe depression, commits suicide.

Mom's parents (Frank Langella and Ann Dowd) blame Ben for ruining their daughter's life. They ban him from the funeral, the Christian burial Langella's Jack insists on. Mom, we learn, wanted to be cremated.

Urged on by his kids, Ben loads everyone into the rundown bus the family uses for transportation and attends the funeral.

En route, the family stops at the home of an aunt and uncle (Kathryn Hahn and Steve Zahn) who are understandably concerned about the way in which Ben raises his children.

Credit writer/director Matt Ross with setting up some amusing situations, most notably one in which Bodevan meets a girl at a campsite and decides that his first kiss provides sufficient reason to propose marriage.

The point, of course, is that these kids have little idea about how to operate in socially oriented situations.

Not all of Ben's judgments seem particularly smart. During a celebration of Noam Chomsky Day, Ben gives his six-year-old daughter a copy of The Joy of Sex. Why burden the kid with unnecessary inhibitions?

While traveling, Dad and the kids stage an operation in which they steal food from a supermarket. Ben has taught them that they're entitled to free food from a system that's designed to exploit them.

Not surprisingly, the family runs into a conflict with Langella's Jack, who wants to take custody of the kids. Jack believes that some of Ben's child-rearing methods are abusive. If you think about it, he has a point, but the movie doesn't take that point seriously enough.

Captain Fantastic remains watchable because of Mortensen, who convinced me that Ben was an ideologue, a tyrant with his kids (for their own good, of course) but also a loving father who eventually must decide whether he has the right to make some of the choices he's forced on his children.

To the extent that the movie leaves you to ponder what's really best for Ben's kids, it's a worthwhile and somewhat offbeat addition of this year's movie run.

But it's also true that the most interesting character in the movie only appears on screen in Ben's daydreams. Mom evidently developed strong reservations about the family's search for self-sufficiency. Perhaps because of his stubborn commitment to what he viewed as his high ideals, Dad couldn't hear her.

To me, the most convincing thing about Captain Fantastic was Mom's depression, which may not be what Ross most wanted anyone to take away from his movie.

A BETTER MOVIE ABOUT A KID IN THE WOODS

If you're looking for a quirkier and more entertaining movie about a kid who learns to be self-sufficient, you may want to try A Hunt for the Wilderpeople, a New Zealand-based story from director Taika Waititi. The thoroughly engaging Julian Dennison plays Ricky, a Maori kid who's been bounced from foster home to foster home until he lands with a couple (Sam Neill and Rachel House) with a home at the edge of the bush. House's Paula breaks through Ricky's emotional barriers, but Neill's Hec keeps the boy at gruff remove. The twist arrives when Paula, who've we've seen kill a wild boar armed only with a knife, suddenly dies. The newly widowed Hec wants to return the boy to the social services system, but Ricky has other ideas. Ricky runs away, and when Hec finds him, they both begin a months long trek through the bush that eventually attracts the attention of law enforcement, social services workers and the press. Waititi, who wrote the screenplay based on a book by Barry Crump, keeps us off guard throughout. Dennison plays an overweight kid who is not instantly engaging, but whose spunk and temperament quickly win us over. Unrecognizable behind a bushy beard, Neill perfectly balances Hec's curiosity about the boy, his reluctance to become emotionally involved and his outlier sensibilities. In all, A Hunt for the Wilderpeople emerges as one of summer's most refreshing entertainments.