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Reviews of what’s out now

New In Theaters

Metapocalypse

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The Matrix Resurrections

by Hope Madden

December is the month for outrage on the big screen. Whether Adam McKay’s latest blistering comedy Don’t Look Up, Radu Jude’s audacious indictment Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, or Lana Wachowski’s return to the power grid that made her famous, movies this December are really, really angry.

And who can blame them?

As the filmmaker resurrects her Matrix series, Wachowski makes sure to point out just how prescient her pleather & action groundbreakers really were.

Back in ’99, Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) had to make a choice. He woke up to the fact that reality itself was harsh and inconvenient and you couldn’t just say what you wanted to hear and convince others that was reality. In 2021, Thomas Anderson is a rich video game designer living in a reality where people insist that their own narratives are the truth regardless of the facts.

Anderson’s story involves, once again, waking up to harsh truth and finding true love. There are battles, action sequences, grudges and nostalgia aplenty—more than enough to delight fans of the trilogy looking for a little pandering.

But that plot, slight as it is, creates a frame on which Wachowski can hang a lot of indignation. The strange synergy between the logical evolution of Anderson/Neo’s story and Wachowski’s rage is what makes The Matrix Resurrection strangely satisfying.

Take Act 1’s monologue from Anderson’s video game business partner (Hamilton‘s Jonathan Groff, priceless) as to why they have to make another Matrix video game: Warner Brothers wants a sequel to the trilogy and they own the rights and will make it with or without us.

That’s not an explanation about Wachowski’s return to the cinematic franchise she thought she put to bed in 2003, it’s dialog. Well, it’s both.

Her film goes on to reiterate the danger in a false world. “If we don’t know what’s real, how do we resist?”

Most often she uses a diabolically smug Neil Patrick Harris to voice her wrath, but again, the context she created about living in two realities could not possibly lend itself better to this treatment.

The film looks good. It’s too long, but all of them are. (All of the Matrix films, or all films in general? Both.) The action doesn’t entirely live up to the originals, but how could it? Carrie-Anne Moss is still a force of nature, Reeves is better at being confused than any actor working today, and the balance of new faces, old faces, and younger replacements for familiar faces works.

Resurrections hits a level of meta that risks alienating core Matrix fans, but whether Wachowski wins on her own terms with a box office success or she sinks her franchise into obscurity with a bomb, there’s little doubt she’s the one making the choices here.

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Chapter and Multi-Verse

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Spider-Man: No Way Home

by Hope Madden and George Wolf

Holy cow, how fun was that?!

Director Jon Watts, working again with writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, uses the third in their Spider-Man series to remind us why we all hope for the best whenever we watch a comic book movie.

Peter Parker (Tom Holland) was found out in the previous installment, Spider-Man: Homecoming. And what he’s learned is that life is more complicated for you and more dangerous for your loved ones when your true identity is known. It’s a lesson most all Spider-Men and most superheroes have to contend with at one time or another. (Except Iron Man. Narcissists, amirite?)

Things have gotten so bad for him, his girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and his bestie Ned (Jacob Batalon) that he asks for help from a wizard with responsibility issues (Benedict Cumberbatch, having one hell of a year).

What happens next? We see lessons learned from the profound (and rightful) popularity of 2018’s animated treasure, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Portals open and Spider-Man characters come pouring in from across the multiverse.

So do other people, inside jokes, and constant opportunities to strengthen themes Spider-Man has spun since Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.

Oh, sure, it’s nostalgic. It panders. It also spills over with joy. This third installment showcases the naïve optimism and youthful sweetness that has made Watt’s first two episodes such a great time, that are so perfectly embodied by Holland.

Rather than feeling like those Marvel overreaches in defining their own universe, Watts’s film uses the opportunity of pulling in other movies to celebrate the hero, his roots, and what he stands for as an icon of comics, heroes, and childhoods the ‘verse over.

It’s a blast spending time with memorable characters, and each of these actors bring something charming to the screen. Watts and his writers fondly recall what’s gone before, even when ribbing some minor shortcomings.

When a superhero franchise gets far enough in that it requires a multitude of villains to one-up its prequel, things usually go south. Watts, on the other hand, gets stronger with each episode. Between his savvy filmmaking and his lead’s endless charm, he’s easily crafted the best set of superhero films in the Marvel (or Sony) universe. Given the excitement around Spider-Man: No Way Home, Peter Parker may not just save the multiverse. He may save the multiplex.  

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Gently Down the Stream

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The Novice

by Brandon Thomas

Those who know me best know that I don’t have a competitive bone in my body. Growing up, I was only interested in playing sports for fun. Once everyone started taking winning seriously, I was out. Even a more-than-casual game of Monopoly is enough to make me throw up my hands and say, “Pass.” 

Look, I get the allure of competitive sports. To a lot of folks, it’s like a drug and they constantly need that fix. In art, the competitive spirit has made for some wonderful films. Rocky, Hoosiers, and Rudy highlight the best that sports can bring about in people. However, there is a dark side too. Competition can morph into obsession and even borderline addiction. Director Lauren Hadaway’s film The Novice is a riveting depiction of the obsessive lengths an athlete will go to reach their goals.

College freshman Alex Dall (Isabelle Furhman of Orphan) has set an almost impossible goal for herself: to make it onto the varsity rowing team as a first-year novice. Despite warnings from the coaching staff that novices rarely make varsity, Alex and another novice, Jamie (Amy Forsyth of Coda), devote themselves almost exclusively to training. Whether it’s obsessively eating healthy foods, rowing until they blackout, or solo training on the water before sunrise, the girls attain absolute tunnel vision toward their goal. As the season progresses, Alex’s physical and mental health begins to decline as the prospect of losing varsity becomes a possibility.

The Novice is one of the most confident feature debuts I’ve seen in a long time. Hadaway’s directorial finesse is on point as she keeps the film expertly drifting between sports drama, psychological thriller and tragic romance – all while never committing to any particular genre. It’s a choice that keeps audience expectations constantly fluid and on edge. 

That same sense of unpredictability extends to the film’s lead character, too. The early scenes where Alex is presented as the spunky underdog quickly give way to scenes of the character obsessively training, verbally accosting school staff and even mutilating herself. Hadaway’s excellent script doesn’t let Alex off easy, but it also isn’t a complete indictment of her behavior. 

The visual language of The Novice is another highlight. Hadaway’s camera does a lot of the heavy lifting as it lingers on Alex’s intense workouts. The focus on Alex’s sweaty, nearly exhausted body, conveys that there’s something not right with this. Again, it walks that fine line between competitiveness and obsession.

With an amazing script, an outstanding lead performance, and a laser-focused director, The Novice ends up being one of the absolute best films of 2021.

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Master and Servant

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Mother/Android

by George Wolf

You think you’ve got a good handle on Hulu’s Mother/Android pretty quickly. Take some zombie basics that we’ve seen from Romero through The Walking Dead, replace the undead with some renegade robots, and away we go.

But while there is plenty here that’s familiar, give writer/director Mattson Tomlin credit for finding sly ways to surprise you, and ultimately subvert your expectations with an nifty metaphorical finale.

Chloë Grace Moretz stars as Georgia aka “G,” a young woman struggling to enjoy a party after the shock of finding out she’s pregnant. Her boyfriend Sam (Algee Smith) is saying all the right things, but she’s unsure about their future.

As A.I. servants dutifully attend to the party guests, G and a friend head to the bathroom for a private chat. But in an instant, a painful sonic blast drops the humans to their knees while rebooting the bots to a default “kill” setting.

Fast forward nine months, and Tomlin’s got a standard setup (survivors running toward a rumored safe haven while being pursued by a relentless menace) with the always convenient “savior” trump card (very pregnant woman).

Tomlin’s storytelling appears workmanlike but uninspired, often rehashing ideas and set pieces you’ll remember from Terminator, The Descent, A Quiet Place, and even The Empire Strikes Back. But when G and Sam get separated, and G meets up with a fellow survivor (Raúl Castillo) who once helped create the Android serving class, Tomlin finally gets around to rewarding all who stick it out for Act 3.

With foreshadowing that is effectively subtle and an affecting turn from Moretz that crafts G as both tortured and courageous, the film reveals its first twist in finely organic fashion while keeping you distracted from the true motive ahead. Once revealed, it arrives as a plea for global empathy that lands with some unexpected emotional pull.

The best science fiction tales succeed when their glimpses of the future help us reassess the present. Mother/Android gets there, eventually, with a measured pace that seems much more confident when the party’s over.

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Hot For Teacher

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Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn

by George Wolf

If you think the word “porn” in the title is just for effect, the first few minutes of Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn will be a hardcore surprise.

We first meet Romanian married couple Emi (Katia Pascariu) and Eugen (Stefan Steel) as they’re ignoring knocks on the bedroom door to record their spirited relations on home video. They’re consenting adults, so fair enough.

Well, maybe not so fair enough. Emi is a teacher at a prestigious school in Bucharest and when her frisky business footage winds up online, some parents loudly cry foul. But Emi is defiant, and as she’s subjected to a public hearing about her “sins,” writer/director Radu Jude makes it the centerpiece of a wildly audacious, funny and free-flowing diatribe against hypocrisy and the rise of meanness.

Jude divides the narrative into chapters, and doesn’t waste much time in Part 1 worrying about how the tape became public in the first place. Emi’s plight is more a situation than a story and for Jude, the point is the aftermath.

But before Emi faces her critics, Jude breaks away for “a short dictionary of anecdotes,” filling his second act with a series of definitions, archival reels, and meme-worthy examples of everything from racism to explicit oral sex. Subtle, it isn’t, which Jude readily acknowledges by following the word “metaphor” with a child’s game that essentially grabs toy fish from a barrel.

And by the time Emi’s hearing plays out as an Act 3 “sitcom” with multiple endings going off various rails, you’ll be amazed by how much this Romanian import reminds you of any number of heated arguments here at home. Subjects such as FOX News and George Soros are thrown around while the matter at hand quickly devolves into wild conspiracy theories and whataboutism where “the more idiotic the opinion, the more important it is.”

Jude has some strong views of his own, about modern life and how cinema should best reflect it. He doesn’t hold much back in Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, a film that leans into its absurdity for a boldly extreme and worthwhile declaration.

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Found In Translation

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Achoura

by Hope Madden

Children in peril, cool creature design and a monster that still feels new, even though it’s centuries old. Franco-Moroccan filmmaker Talal Selhami delivers all this and more in his latest effort, Achoura.

The tale bounces around three different time periods. Many years ago, a young girl and boy run away from her arranged marriage, taking shelter in an abandoned house. They are found, and not just by the husband.

Years later, four young friends playing in a cornfield wander into the same house and meet with tragedy. In modern-day Morocco, three of those four come to terms with just what it is they experienced.

Achoura is the third film I’ve seen in recent years focused on a djinn— a spirit of Middle Eastern folklore. Earlier this year, David Charbonnier and Justin Powell released their chamber piece, The Djinn, and back in 2016 came Babak Anvari’s terrifying sociopolitical treasure, Under the Shadow.

Selhami’s film lacks the power of the latter and the focus of the former, but it still brings the goods. The filmmaker is at his best working with children, establishing an unsettling vulnerability that gives his horror real punch.

The adult storyline works less well — certain head-scratching behavior begging too much suspension of disbelief — but Omar Lofti’s tender performance almost makes up for that. A bridge of sorts between the children and adults in the tale, he enlists your investment in solving the riddle and saving the day.  

Romain Paillot’s score conjures Ghostbusters as well as E.T., disconcerting choices given what’s in store for youngsters in Selhami’s film. Things don’t go well for them, and their suffering gets a tad lost in the narrative. It’s as though the film began as a metaphor about molestation but changed course somewhere and never properly righted itself. It gives the film a sense of thematic meandering.

Selhami scores points with the creature, though. The image, echoed throughout the film in drawings and artwork, is eerie and the monster itself looks great when handled practically. The VFX leaves something to be desired, unfortunately, marring a few scenes that would otherwise have been seriously unnerving.

Achoura also marks the second film this year to take inspiration from Moroccan folklore, after Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury’s Kandisha. And though Selhami’s cinematic storytelling shows some weak spots, he and his creepy film are part of a movement expanding the look and language of horror, and that’s worthy of applause.

New In Theaters, Slider

Pride Before the Fall

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Nightmare Alley

by Hope Madden and George Wolf

Step right up, folks, and witness a master of the macabre! See Guillermo Del Toro twist the familiar tale of ambition run amuck! Gasp at the lurid, gorgeous, vulgar world of Nightmare Alley!

Bradley Cooper stars as Stan, good lookin’ kid on the skids taken in by Clem (Willem Dafoe, creepy as ever) to carny for a traveling show. Stan picks up some tricks from mentalist Zeena (Toni Collette) and her partner Pete (David Strathairn), then lures pretty Molly (Rooney Mara) to the big city to set up their own mind-reading racket.

Things are going swell, too, until Stan gets mixed up with psychiatrist Lillith (Cate Blanchett) whose patient list includes some high rollers with large bank accounts ripe for the picking.

That’s already one hell of an ensemble, but wait there’s more! Richard Jenkins, Ron Perlman, Mary Steenburgen and Tim Blake Nelson all add immeasurably to the sketchy world Stan orbits.

What Del Toro brings to the tale, besides a breathtaking cast and an elegantly gruesome aesthetic, is his gift for humanizing the unseemly. Edmund Goulding’s 1947 adaptation of William Lindsay Gresham’s novel (a solid slice of noir with Tyrone Power in the lead) dulled the edges of any seediness. Even Tod Browning’s Freaks – maligned as it was – found the unsettling carny life mainly wholesome.

Cinematographer Dan Lausten and composer Nathan Johnson create a delicious playground for Del Toro’s carnival to call home, one where even the most likable members of the family turn a blind eye to something genuinely sickening and cruel happening in their midst. The filmmaker plumbs that underlying horror, complicating Stan’s arc and allowing the film’s climax to leave a more lasting mark.

As usual, Del Toro wears his feelings proudly on his sleeve, with unmistakable but organic foreshadowing that ups the ante on the stakes involved. Anchored by another sterling performance from Cooper, Stan’s journey rises to biblical proportions. An actor whose gifts are often deceptively subtle, Cooper makes sure Stan’s pride always arrives with a layer of charming sympathy, even as it blinds him to the pitfalls ahead.

And Blanchett – shocker – is gloriously vampy. She swims elegantly through the sea of noir-ish light and framing that Del Toro bathes her in, as Lillith casts a spell that renders Stan’s helplessness a fait accompli.

Nearly every aspect of the screenplay (co-written by Del Toro and Kim Morgan) creates a richer level of storytelling than the ’47 original. The dialog is more sharply insightful, the finale more dangerously tense and the characters – especially Mara’s stronger-willed Molly – more fully developed. All contribute greatly toward the film rebounding from a slightly sluggish first act to render the two and a half hour running time unconcerning.

For Del Toro fans, the most surprising aspect of Nightmare Alley might be the lack of hopeful wonder that has driven most of his films. As the title suggests, this is a trip to the dark corners of the soul, where hope is in damn short supply.

So as much as this looks like a Del Toro film, it feels like a flex just from taking his vision to the sordid part of town. But what a vision it turns out to be – one of the year’s best and one of his best.

Don’t believe me? See it with your own eyes, step right up!

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New York City Serenade

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West Side Story

by George Wolf

This week on Twitter, director Edgar Wright reminded anyone doubting Steven Spielberg’s way around a musical number to revisit “Anything Goes” from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Okay, point taken, but West Side Story? That’s a big step up.

It is, and he makes it in stride.

Right from the opening minutes, Spielberg’s camera seamlessly ebbs and flows along with the street-roaming Sharks and Jets. Their threats of violence are more palpable this time, as Riff (Mike Faist, an award-worthy standout) and his New York boys want to settle their turf war with Bernardo (David Alvarez) and the Puerto Ricans once and for all.

At the dance that night, the first meeting between tragic lovers Tony (Ansel Elgort) and Maria (Rachel Zegler, a newcomer with an amazing voice who beat out thousands in open auditions) now happens under the gym bleachers, the first in a series of subtle and not-so-subtle updates that Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner (Lincoln, Munich, Angels in America) employ to deepen the narrative impact.

“Dear Officer Krupke” seems more organic in the station house, “America” (led by an irresistible Ariana DeBose as Anita) is given more room to move across the west side city streets, while a department store full of mannequins depicting white suburban dreams proves an ironically joyful setting for Maria and her co-workers’ buoyant reading of “I Feel Pretty.”

And from one musical set-piece to the next, Spielberg’s touch is smoothy precise, starting wide to capture the breadth of Justin Peck’s homage to Jerome Robbins’s iconic choreography, zooming in for intimacy, and then above the dancers and rumblers for gorgeous aerials set with pristine light and shadow. Stellar efforts from cinematographer Janusz Kaminski and production designer Adam Stockhausen turn the everyday drab of hanging laundry and fabric remnants into an elegant playground for Spielberg’s camera eye.

In short, it looks freaking fantastic.

It sounds pretty great, too, even beyond the genius of Bernstein’s melodies and Sondheim’s lyrics. Because Spielberg couples his appropriate and welcome diversity of cast with a complete lack of subtitles, rightly putting the opposing cultures on equal narrative footing, and bringing more depth to the cries of “speak English!”

And as the gang fight turns deadly, all of the stakes are embraced more tightly. The offhand bigotry of Lt. Schrank (Corey Stoll, terrific as always) is more casually cruel, the identity conflict of Anybodys (Iris Menas) feels more defined, while Anita’s fateful visit to Doc’s store – now run by Valentina (expect another Oscar nod for the incredible Rita Moreno) – plainly calls it like it always was.

Then, as his (almost) parting shot, Spielberg unveils his grandest revision, a move nearly as bold and risky as the one Richard Attenborough face-planted with in 1985’s A Chorus Line.

By altering the context of one of the most emotional songs, Attenborough showed he didn’t know, or didn’t care, about what the show was trying to say. Spielberg, though, gently adds a perspective that makes Tony and Maria’s quest soar with a renewed, more universal vitality.

Just like most everything else in this West Side Story.

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Furious George

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The Monkey King: Reborn

by Matt Weiner

Stories of Sun Wukong the Monkey King have been a rich source of adaptations for centuries in China. With no shortage of options to choose from, The Monkey King: Reborn isn’t the worst place for Western audiences to start—but be prepared for an uneven journey.

The animated film directed by Yunfei Wang and written by Wang and Xiaoyu Wu introduces the immortal trickster Sun Wukong (Jiang Bian) as he accompanies his master, the monk Tang Sanzang (Shangqing Su), along with some comedic relief from fellow disciples Bajie and Yuandi (He Zhang and Lei Zhang).

Sun Wukong’s mischief sets off a chain of events that brings him into conflict with the all-powerful first demon, with the fate of the world on the line. But as far as motivation and character backstories go, there’s a lot left unexplained for a kid’s cartoon movie. Which is perfectly understandable for a familiar audience, but that coupled with the occasional adult language in the subtitled version makes the target age for The Monkey King: Reborn tough to pin down.

Once the battles get going and Sun Wukong’s puckishness gives way to (ever so slight) growth as a character, it’s a lot easier to go along for the ride. Even with the action, though, the movie is often hampered by the CGI animation. It’s a style that usually has two modes: alarmingly smooth or video game cutscene. Everything is bright, but the vivid coloring can’t mask a flatness that all the characters share. It’s an unfortunate mismatch for Sun Wukong’s elastic portrayal in the story.

The film does offer a deeply emotional third act, with an emphasis on sacrifice, death and rebirth that might make even Pixar think twice. It’s a shame that we got to know Wukong and friends so little within the confines of the film, or else these moments could have made even more of an impact rather than feeling bolted on. Of course, it wouldn’t be a parable without these teachable moments, so it might as well be in the form of a knockdown CGI fight. Sure, it’s entertainment with a heavy-handed message. But it’s entertaining enough.

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Spit It Out!

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The Hand of God

by George Wolf

“Do you have a story to tell? Do you have something to say? Then spit it out!”

That’s solid advice from a veteran director to an aspiring filmmaker named Fabietto (Filippo Scotti, completely charming). But in The Hand of God, it sounds more like writer/director Paolo Sorrentino reaching out to his teenaged self.

Fabi’s life in 1980s Naples is filled with a steady array of colorful family members, neighbors, friends and passersby. They laugh, they argue, pull pranks on each other and cheer fanatically for Diego Maradona in the 1986 “Hand of God” World Cup. Fabi soaks it all in happily, his headphones constantly draped around his neck while his wandering teen eyes fall often on his voluptuous Aunt Patrizia (Luisa Ranieri).

Though there’s much drama in and around the household (including a sister who never leaves the bathroom), there’s never a shortage of love or laughter, which makes the tragedy that comes in the film’s second act land that much harder.

This is clearly a very personal project for Sorrentino (Il Divo, The Great Beauty). And it often feels like a series of rather testosterone-heavy vignettes pulled from his memory, strung together with the majesty of architecture and landscapes that he continues to showcase so beautifully.

Though the overall tapestry flirts with self-indulgence before the young Fabi finds his calling, Sorrentino has crafted a warm and often wonderful homage to the people, places, and twists of fate that make us what we are.