Category Archives: New In Theaters

Reviews of what’s out now

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Another Tricky Day

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Now You See Me 2

by George Wolf

Now You See Me 2 tells us “the best tricks work on many levels,” while the film itself works best when it digs no deeper than embracing the fun of its own ridiculousness.

And it is plenty ridiculous.

Part one struggled not only because magic tricks seem less amazing in a medium already built on visual amazement, but because it just took itself way too seriously. New director John M. Chu, a veteran of such strong social commentary as Jem and the Holograms and Justin Beiber’s Believe, abandons all pretense for a glitzy, Oceans 11-style caper full of cons, wisecracks, and one strange Matthew McConaughey impersonation.

Since we left the Four Horsemen, Henley (Isla Fisher) has been replaced by Lula (Lizzy Caplan), who openly lusts for Jack (Dave Franco) while Merritt (Woody Harrelson) and Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg) wonder when Dylan (Mark Ruffalo), the ringleader working both sides as an FBI agent, will give them another assignment.

They eventually get one, but it comes from billionaire tycoon Walter Mabry (Daniel Radcliffe), who wants the Horsemen to rectify the financial pain their last gig caused him by stealing an incredibly powerful new piece of computer technology. It all gets much more convoluted, weaving in returns for both Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman, and serving up the coup de grace of Harrelson, in an “old man pubes” wig and fake teeth, going full McConaughey to play his own twin brother.

By that point, you’re not far from the unhinged universe where John Travolta and Nicholas Cage exchange faces, so none of the preposterous plot turns in Ed Solomon’s script should be taken too seriously.

Enjoy the flash and likable cast, stop wondering why the title isn’t “Now You Don’t,” and give in to the moments of over-the-top fun that Now You See Me 2 brings center stage.

Just don’t expect anything of substance behind the curtain.

Verdict-2-5-Stars

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London Calling to the Underworld

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The Conjuring 2

by Hope Madden

The thing that made James Wan’s 2013 ghost story The Conjuring so effective – more than the solid cast, more than the tense atmosphere, more than those hideous Seventies fashions – was Wan’s use of practical effects.

That woman on top of the wardrobe?! Terrifying!

It helped that he had a creepy story in the hands of capable actors. More importantly, he knows how to frame scenes in a way that trains the audience to scan corners, peer into shadows and look through empty windows, constantly on edge waiting for that next spooky moment.

With his sequel, he still boasts two of those three elements.

Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson return as Lorraine and Ed Warren, real-life paranormal investigators working with the Catholic church to validate claims of hauntings and possessions. It’s 1977, and the two are still recovering from that incident in Amityville when they’re asked to help a single mum with four kids living in North London.

The put-upon family is sympathetic enough. Wilson and Farmiga are compelling enough. The period detail is nice. Well, The Clash’s London Calling wasn’t actually released until 1979, but all is forgiven because of the utterly fantastic use of Starsky & Hutch posters.

So, what’s wrong with C2?

A few things.

The story never feels particularly cohesive – more like a series of vignettes strung together. Because of this, characters never seem fully formed and relationships feel forced. Supernatural clues and plot twists border on the nonsensical. (Seriously, ask yourself about the bite marks.) Maybe that’s because there’s a red herring, but too much valuable time is wasted with that thread and not enough devoted to true scares.

There are two demonic images in the film – both excellently chosen nightmare images from childhood (mine, anyway) – but some video game editing and CGI identify them quickly as movie magic, leeching their power.

Most importantly, there’s no inspired, memorable, terrifying jump scare. Wan is an absolute master of the spooky longshot, the creeping camera, but in this film’s predecessor those unendurably tense spans were punctuated by some of the best spook house scares in recent memory. Think clapping hands.

Though there are some startles and above-average scares, there’s nothing to elevate this film above mediocrity.

Verdict-2-5-Stars

New In Theaters

Royal Family

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Kings, Queens & In-Betweens

by Hope Madden

Believe it or not, there are those around the world who do not think first of a football team when they think of Columbus, Ohio. For those folks, and for many who are unaware of CBUS fabulousness, filmmaker Gabrielle Burton has a story to tell.

“Columbus has got to be the crown jewel of drag in the Midwest.”

So says one of a slew of gender performers captured mid-hair spray and duct tape in a comprehensive and broad look at drag performance in Ohio. Burton’s doc Kings, Queens & In-Betweens follows two troupes – the Royal Renegades and the West Family – to capture a far more varied set of entertainers than you’re likely to find in another documentary on the same topic.

Regularly punctuated with fun and impressive performance clips, the film unveils more than the traditional bouffant and stiletto glory of the drag queen, introducing drag kings, transgender performers, and a full spectrum of subcategories within those broader performance types.

It’s an interesting direction to take, and one that opens up the conversation and likely shares new information with an audience who may not be familiar with the variety of performers in the drag world. It helps that Burton’s subjects are not just entertaining onstage, but open and generous in quieter moments as well.

Burton builds the documentary on the theme of separating concepts of sex, sexuality, and gender designation, which provides her film a bit of complexity missing in other docs on gender performance. Subjects’ sometimes surprising candor offers a compelling emotional weight, particularly when they discuss issues of safety.

Aided by the infusion of live performance, the effort never feels weighed down or preachy. Burton balances her clear effort to create an informative film with just enough wit, eye liner, facial hair and Pam cooking spray.

All of which is grounded in what many would consider an unexpected setting. As one entertainer puts it:

“Columbus is this fantastic gay snow bubble in the middle of Ohio.”

Who knew?

Verdict-3-5-Stars

New In Theaters

Mock U

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Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

by George Wolf

I admit it, I’ve laughed at The Lonely Island videos. “I’m On a Boat?” “Captain Jack Sparrow” with Michael Bolton? “I Just Had Sex?” All funny. “Dick in a Box?” Classic. Even the cover of their Turtleneck and Chain album is chuckle-worthy.

The nice thing about those projects is they all last about three minutes or less. With Popstar, Andy Samberg and his best buds (Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone) have feature length ambitions, but only prove that even a slight 86 minutes is excessive.

Samberg stars as Conner4Real, the worldwide pop sensation who hit it big in the Style Boyz with childhood buddies Owen (Taccone) and Lawrence (Schaffer), only to leave them behind when solo stardom came calling. After a smash debut album, Conner’s plans for an encore shape Popstar‘s mockumentary approach to lampooning the absurdity of today’s pop music scene.

The irony, of course, is the very level of that actual absurdity makes parody even more difficult.

Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis had the same problem poking fun at the idiocy of political pandering in The Campaign, and The Lonely Island boys (who both write and direct) can’t find a satisfying thread to connect all their new tunes. There are some hits here, such as “Equal Rights (I’m Not Gay),” an overtly sexual love song called “Bin Laden” and “Incredible Thoughts (featuring the return of Bolton),” but the project feels too much like a soundtrack in search of a movie.

Or, more pointedly, a series of SNL skits dreaming of the multiplex. In that vein, there are guest stars and cameos galore, including Will Arnett leading a priceless sendup of the obnoxious TMZ “newsroom.”

Any music scene mockumentary is bound to live in the shadow of This Is Spinal Tap, and The Lonely Island does acknowledge that challenge with a couple winking homages. But the laughs are rarely sustained and never go to 11 (sorry), and Popstar becomes a fairly forgettable tune.

Verdict-2-5-Stars

 

 

New In Theaters

Ain’t Easy Being Green

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Out of the Shadows

by Hope Madden

Let’s say your 8-year-old child (or thirty-ish husband) really wants to see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Out of the Shadows. Maybe they love the cartoon. Maybe they had a TMNT digital watch back in ’91. And socks. And a skateboard. What’s the harm in indulging?

It’s been a year since Shredder tried to annihilate NYC, but because the green brothers threw credit to their cameraman helper Vern (Will Arnett), they remain unknown to the town they love and saved while Vern soaks up all the glory.

But wait! What if a mad scientist wants to use a teleportation device to break Shredder out of jail? And what if that teleportation device sends the supervillain through time and space to meet with an even bigger, badder villain? And what if the two evildoers hatch a plan to enslave Earth and eliminate the turtles by creating sloppy, fat mutant animals of their own?

So, it’s a rock solid plot that only required about ten minutes of excruciating exposition, but the point is, turtles hate bullies!

How do they feel about objectification and exploitation? I’m going to guess they’re OK with it.

Yes, Megan Fox returns as the foursome’s ogle-friendly reporter/BFF. She has two costume changes within her first full 3 minutes onscreen, but they’re vitally important as they allow her to flirt her way close to the information she needs to sleuth out Shredder’s plan.

How else could she possibly do it!?

I could almost give the film’s banal screenplay a pass as simple, mindless kids’ fun if Fox’s presence matched that child-friendly stupidity in any way. Here’s the real tragedy, though: the great Laura Linney is in this dumpster fire of a film.

The sequel is directed by Dave Green (Earth to Echo) with no flair whatsoever for using CGI to move a story along, or even sensibly portray action. Muddy and confused, the set pieces are rarely if ever compelling enough to keep your attention away from the mind-deadening laziness of the screeplay.

By 92 minutes in, I’d lost the will to live, and there was still another twenty minutes to endure.

You love your kids and your husband, but be good to yourself. Skip this one. Dial up some old episodes on YouTube instead.

Verdict-1-5-Stars

New In Theaters

Me First and the Gimme Gimmes

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Me Before You

by Hope Madden

A textbook tear jerker/romance that somehow manages to miss both of those targets, Me Before You is a pretty, brightly lit, well-meaning effort that lacks courage.

Adapting her own best-selling novel, Jojo Moyes offers director Thea Sherrock’s feature debut a warm story lacking chemistry and hard edges. Lou (Emilia Clarke) – a working girl from a small British town – takes a job as companion to recent quadriplegic Will Traynor (Sam Claflin). Once a wealthy, live-life-on-the-edge playboy, Will now haunts a wing of his parents’ castle. For real. They live in the castle that looms in the background of Lou’s small town.

Not that unemployed waitress Lou is intimidated! Not with all that pluck and salt-of-the-earthiness! And it turns out, all it takes to melt Will Traynor’s cold, cold heart is a wildly mismatched yet huggably bold outfit and some dimples.

Once Lou realizes that Will intends to end his life in a Swiss “death with dignity” clinic in six months, she determines to make his last hours on earth amazing and, thereby, change his mind.

Good for Moyes and Sherrock for addressing a difficult issue. Too bad they treat the end of life question the same way they treat Will’s suffering, his medical needs, and every other messy element in the film – which is to say, they keep it offscreen.

Clarke is an effortless charmer, so it’s unfortunate she keeps her beguiling wackiness dialed up to 11. Attractive and easy to watch as they are, she and Claflin have next to no onscreen chemistry. That particular problem is symptomatic of a film that feels inauthentic – though likeable – throughout.

Blandly inoffensive and colorful are not the kind of adjectives you use to describe a tear jerking romance that stays with you. Me Before You warms an icy heart before succumbing to terminal adorableness.

Verdict-2-0-Stars

 

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Animal Attraction

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The Lobster

by George Wolf

How to describe The Lobster?

Imagining how Charlie Kaufman might direct a mashup of 1984 and Logan’s Run would get you in the area code, but still couldn’t quite capture director Yorgos Lanthimos’s darkly comic trip to a future where it’s a crime to be single.

Shopping alone at the mall? Think again, or be ready to prove your couplehood to authorities.

Singles are sent to The Hotel, where they have 45 days to find a partner or be turned into the animal of their choosing, thus giving them a second chance to find a companion. But even then, they are taught to choose wisely because, “a wolf and a penguin could never be together, that would be absurd.”

These are the big decisions weighing on David (Colin Farrell). After his wife leaves him for another man, David checks in, declares a lobster as his preference for a possible second life, and begins the search for a new mate.

Eventually, it leads him to the woods surrounding The Hotel, where he meets a group of fugitives led by Loner Leader (Lea Seydoux), who explains their equally strict, yet polar opposite social guidelines. (“We dance alone, that’s why we only play electronic music.”) David and Short Sighted Woman (Rachel Weisz) rebel and grow closer, then struggle to exist in one society until they feel safe to enter another.

Lanthimos, who also co-wrote the screenplay, crafts a film which ends up feeling like a minor miracle. The Lobster builds on themes we’ve seen before (most recently in Kaufman’s Anomalisa) but bursts with originality, while every setting, from The Hotel to the woods to the city, looks at once familiar and yet like nothing we’ve ever known.

The ensemble cast (also including John C. Reilly and Ben Whishaw) is uniformly terrific, each actor finding subtle but important variations in delivering the script’s wonderfully intelligent takedown of societal expectations.

It’s a captivating experience full of humor, tenderness, and longing, even before Lanthimos starts to bring a subversive beauty into soft focus. The Lobster pokes wicked fun at the rules of attraction, but finds its lasting power in asking disquieting questions about the very nature of our motives when following them.

Verdict-4-0-Stars

New In Theaters

Darkness on the Edge of Town

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Bleak Street

by Hope Madden

The destinies of two undersized twin wrestlers and a pair of aging prostitutes braid in Arturo Ripstein’s grimly surreal Bleak Street (La Calle de la Amargura).

The veteran Mexican filmmaker works again with his regular collaborator and life partner, writer Paz Alicia Garciadiego. The two enlist the aid of cinematographer Alejandro Cantu to conjure an atmosphere that is simultaneously desolate and dreamy.

Filmed in stylized black and white and set in a maze of back alleys in Mexico City, Bleak Street begins with off-kilter vignettes that provide glimpses into the dreary lives of the film’s four primary figures before pulling the strands together to depict the true crime that inspired the effort.

Juan Francisco Longoria and Guillermo Lopez play the twin brothers, costumed dwarf wrestlers who “shadow” full size grappling counterparts and never remove their masks.

Patricia Reyes Spindola and Nora Velasquez portray prostitutes facing the realities of their shelf lives as they watch younger women take over their corners and customers.

The two pairs have workplace struggles and disrespect in common, though this hardly binds them. While Ripstein never misses a chance to showcase the humanity of each of his characters, transcending their destiny is not his aim, nor theirs.

Ripstein adds to the hypnotic quality of his picture with a score consisting only of the nearly imperceptible sound of water as scenes fade to black.

Cantu’s lengthy, prowling shots underscore the voyeuristic feel of the film. His sparkling black and white fills the screen with brightly lit surfaces and shadowy backdrops, the landscape taking on a beautiful but nightmarish quality that suits the wild assortment of characters.

Regardless of their actions, these are not characters Ripstein judges. This is both refreshing and off-putting, because the film never feels like the tragedy it is.

Respectful but absolutely never preachy, Bleak Street holds itself and its audience at a distance from the characters onscreen. While that disconnect feels intentional, Ripstein missed an opportunity for lasting relevance because he doesn’t generate any kind of emotional connection with the tragic, true events unfolding.

Verdict-3-5-Stars

Bleak Street screens this weekend only at the Wexner Center for the Arts.

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Gods and Monsters

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X-Men: Apocalypse

by George Wolf

This year’s superheroes have been wrestling with big questions and God complexes, and X-Men: Apocalypse wants us to know it can be super serious, too. It can also be pretentious, occasionally thrilling and surprisingly dull.

Ten years after the D.C. showdown in Days of Future Past made mutants the fresh faces of 1973, things are relatively quiet. Charles (James McAvoy) is busy with his school for the gifted, while Raven/Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) and Erik/Magneto (Michael Fassbender) have gone into hiding.

A very old face draws them out.

Heavy doses of plodding exposition outline the history of the first mutant (Oscar Isaac) falling victim to an ancient ruler’s quest for power and then, being buried for centuries. Unearthed in ’83, this God/mutant hybrid called Apocalypse begins recruiting a powerful team bent on “cleansing” this world to herald another. Villains assemble!

Director Bryan Singer is back for his fourth X installment, and while some set pieces are visually striking, others are curiously flat. Scenes from the “Apollo” episode of Star Trek appearing on young Storm’s TV may be meant to reinforce a “God among men” storyline, but when immediately followed by the evil X’s in full pose-off on a less than authentic stage, only Shatner-esque cheese comes to mind.

Similarly, frequent flashbacks to previous films in the series only reinforce former successes this episode can’t match.

The real bringdown is Simon Kinberg’s bloated script. It’s overstuffed with characters who talk loud and say nothing in a mishmash narrative weighed down by ambitions with little substance. Kinberg has big ideas about false gods and the ethics of power, but they can’t get any more nuanced than Magneto screaming, “Is this what you want of me?” amid scenes of rampant destruction.

Quicksilver (Evan Peters) easily steals this show, as nearly every scene he’s in brings the stylized fun the film needs to offset the futile attempts at making Jean Grey interesting and the contrived explanation for Professor X’s sudden hair loss.

But hey, there’s a Wolverine appearance, a post-credits scene and it’s summer, so if X is your thing, get it on.

Verdict-2-5-Stars

 

 

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Baby Mama Drama

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The Ones Below

by Cat McAlpine

Having a child is an amazing and joyous event. It is also terrifying. Alien knew it. That whole Season 8 arc of the XFiles knew it. We’ve even dedicated a Fright Club to Pregnancy Horror. But The Ones Below favors less bursting out of chests and more psychological slow burn.

Enter a small house containing two flats, one upstairs, and one downstairs. Upstairs is home to longtime residents Justin (Stephen Campbell Moore) and Kate (Clémence Poésy), who is pregnant with her first child after years of denying motherhood. New neighbors have moved in downstairs, and Kate finally catches a glimpse of equally pregnant Theresa (Laura Birn).

Theresa and husband Jon (David Morrissey) come upstairs for dinner one evening, and express how desperate they’ve been for a child over some very stilted small talk. Thus tears the rift between the two couples, which only grows after a tragic accident leaves everyone scurrying to dodge guilt and blame.

First time feature director David Farr chases a touch of timelessness in his arrangement and almost pulls it off. There’s a neither here nor there quality to the set and costuming. Milk is delivered daily in glass bottles on the doorstep, smart phones fill hands but pictures are taken with digital cameras, young couples work in open floor plan offices. The upstairs couple dresses as modern young professionals, comfortably. The downstairs pair is more pressed, more clean, and further off trend. A perfectly manicured garden gives off an eerie, Stepford feel.

The editing and design seem to struggle with Farr’s intention a bit. Cool tones downplay some of the raw emotional quality of the scenes, making more intimate moments feel a bit detached. This could be intentional, or I could be trying to cover up for the lack of chemistry between couples.

The most intriguing performance by far is Birn’s Theresa, who is fascinating to watch with equal measures of conniving and innocent. Poésy and Moore are both down-to-earth and relatable, but Poésy ultimately just doesn’t have much to work with. Moore, as the straight man character to everyone else’s crazy, gives a solid performance and becomes the beating heart of the film.

The dialogue mostly consists of bickering, which lends both realism and additional tension, but doesn’t seem to otherwise motivate the characters. There are vague references to strained relationships, which, while underdeveloped, provide breadcrumbs leading to both false and unbelievable-but-true conclusions.

The film ends, deliciously, with a few sharp twists. The thriller connoisseur will see these tricks coming, but the payoff to Farr’s mounting tensions is welcome either way. The Ones Below is a middling to good directorial debut for David Farr that promises, with a few more turns around the block, he will be serving up a style undeniably his.

Verdict-3-5-Stars