Category Archives: New In Theaters

Reviews of what’s out now

New In Theaters

Come Fly with Me

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Above and Beyond

by Hope Madden

Roberta Grossman’s documentary Above and Beyond is full of surprises, but perhaps the most shocking thing of all is that it took almost 70 years for a filmmaker to decide to tell this story.

In 1948, a number of American pilots fresh from their WWII duties were courted for a new war effort. They were asked to fight in Israel’s war for independence, becoming the burgeoning nations first ever air force.

Grossman’s tale brims with excitement, derring-do, intrigue and impossible odds – not to mention all the hoo-rah you can squeeze into 90 minutes. Her film benefits from a truly unbelievable story that Grossman wisely mines for more than just sky high heroics.

The American pilots were all Jews who’d fought in WWII only to return home to the same anti-Semitism they’d faced as kids. While they saw the effort to aid the struggling new nation as their chance to subvert yet another Holocaust, for most of these men the fight became one of a personal and cultural relevance they could not have imagined.

Archival footage, reenactments and interviews with surviving pilots and their families are rarely balanced so well or to such entertaining effect. Where so many historical documentaries sink under reverential solemnity or textbook-like staleness, Grossman’s whips past with a combination of surprised laughter and amazed silence.

It’s impossible not to be charmed by these sweet old men and their war stories, but my favorite part was listening to comic genius Paul Reubens (Pee-wee Herman) recount the stories of his father’s participation in the effort. Nutty!

While there are dry spots and flat moments, Above and Beyond boasts a giddy excitement about the whole effort, which is held aloft by the fascinating historical material and anchored with the moving spiritual realizations the battle brought to the pilots.

The film’s most painful flaw is Grossman’s myopic view of the struggle. Above and Beyond aches for some perspective concerning the Palestinian refugees and the lasting struggle facing the region since Israel’s established statehood. It’s an unfortunate oversight because without it the otherwise fascinating, informative and entertaining film feels incomplete.

Verdict-3-5-Stars

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Stand Still, Look Evil

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Insurgent

by George Wolf

Just last year, Divergent glimpsed a dystopian future where destinies rose and fell with the company you kept, and social cliques were used to enforce a merciless pecking order. In short, high school all over again.

Insurgent, part two in the latest “three books as four movies” franchise, ups the ante on action, but delivers little more than some flashy CGI amid a formula growing increasingly tiresome.

Tris Pryor (Shailene Woodley) and her boyfriend Four (Theo James) are on the run from henchmen sent by Council leader Jeanine (Kate Winslet). Seems Jeanine has uncovered a strange, Hellraiser-looking puzzle box containing a message that could end the civil strife among her subjects. But this box can only be opened by a “divergent” with enough specialness to pass a variety of deadly tests…so Jeanine is hunting them all down to find the one.

Whoops, I mentioned “the one,” so I’ll pause now while director Robert Schwentke swoops in for a quick tight shot of Tris looking pensive. Get used to it.

There are some nifty visual sequences, but the core of Insurgent remains overly familiar young adult elements and overly bland presentation. The special girl burdened with a uniqueness she didn’t ask for, angst, melodrama, parental issues, walking among the rubble…all the basics are here. Ironic, then, that Schwentke (R.I.P.D., Red) doesn’t seem interested in moving his film beyond the ordinary.

The dream/virtual reality red herrings are as numerous as they are obvious, and those high drama arm -grab turnarounds are better left to the daytime soaps. Woodley is one of the best young actresses working, and she is plenty spunky during Insurgent‘s action scenes, but she’s saddled with dialogue and direction that is difficult to elevate. Even the great Winslet is reduced to standing still and looking villainous.

Attempts at social commentary are clunky at best, while contrivance in the script finally gives way to outright laziness, as when the common folk are enslaved by a behavior modifying implant which can’t be removed – until it is.

Tris is told, “We finally found a way to remove it.” Okay, then.

Two more Divergent films may be coming, but Insurgent will only leave you eager for the next round of Hunger Games.

 

Verdict-2-5-Stars

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suZcGoRLXkU

New In Theaters

An Irishman in New York

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Run All Night

by Hope Madden

Who wants to spend St. Pat’s with a badass Irishman? Run All Night is just your latest chance to see Liam Neeson show off his particular set of skills.

An aging thug and unrepentant lush, Neeson’s Jimmy Conlon relies heavily on the good will of his best friend from the neighborhood, Shawn (Ed Harris). Shawn runs a business that used to be shady – maybe still is – but Shawn’s legitimate. Shawn’s son is strictly shady, and when Jimmy’s estranged son sees something he shouldn’t, the dads have to sort things out. With bullets.

After Non-Stop and Unknown, this marks the third time director Jaume Collet-Serra has filmed Neeson as the damaged, aging loner with regrets and a bunch of people to shoot – but at this point, who hasn’t? While this film certainly doesn’t feel fresh, it’s a more accomplished movie than their last two collaborations, offering emotional pull and fine performances.

Neeson’s haunted tough guy Jimmy is one of his more memorable action movie roles, even if the father/son angle telegraphs the redemption theme from up the block. Full of regret and just barely daring to hope, Jimmy’s last attempt at fatherhood is a complicated, bloody affair.

Ed Harris is characteristically excellent as well, and the two veterans invest in their characters and the history they share. Because the relationship feels honest, the payoff maintains some emotional punch.

The supporting cast is solid from top to bottom. From Vincent D’Onofrio’s good cop down to an uncredited Nick Nolte, they’re not flashy, but they are committed enough to their characters to keep the drama tight.

Collet-Serra’s film begins as a Seventies’ style gritty NYC street drama, but as the night wears on, little glints of modern action flick start to tear through that fabric. It’s too bad, even if it is inevitable. Contrivances pile up, and wildly obviously plot twists appear only to resolve in exactly the way you expect them to.

Much of Run All Night – too much, really – is familiar and predictable. It’s a credit to Collet-Serra’s pacing that the film can keep your attention, and a nod to the talent of his cast that you can feel caught up in their dysfunctional family drama regardless of the threadbare script.

Verdict-3-0-Stars

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Dress for the Job You Want?

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Cinderella

By Christie Robb

It seems weird that Disney and director Kenneth Branagh would remake Cinderella in 2015. The animated classic that generations grew up with feels rooted in the gender norms of the middle class culture of the 1950s.

To put Cinders up on the big screen today…I didn’t know what to expect.

But this is Disney…a company that somehow managed to make a blockbuster franchise out of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Sometimes they do make magic happen out of the most gossamer of source material.

I anticipated some serious updates. After all, the classic was pretty thin on plot. The mice carried most of the movie. And this one is live action and nearly 40 minutes longer.

There’s a lot about the new movie that remains familiar. Cinderella is portrayed as an impossibly earnest and optimistic blonde by Downton Abby’s Lily James. Her mother’s early demise leads to a stepmother and two new stepsisters. Then her father bites it. Her social status falls until we find her nestled into the ashes at the hearth struggling for a few minutes of sleep in between her stepfamily’s incessant demands.

We even get cameos from the mice and Stepmama’s cat, Lucifer. (Seriously, Dad, was the cat’s name not a red flag?)

There are some updates, though. There is a nod to diversity in the casting, a new moral (have courage and be kind), Cinders and the prince get to exchange some dialogue before still randomly falling for each other, and there are extended scenes of Cinders’ childhood and Stepmama behaving badly.

Much of the cast is delightful. Cate Blanchett hams it up as the Evil Stepmother in some truly amazing costumes. Helena Bonham Carter takes a daffy spin as the Fairy Godmother. And, in a bit of an upstairs/downstairs reversal, Downton Abby’s Daisy (Sophie McShera) flounces around in catty splendor as evil stepsister Drisella.

The animation that transforms mice into horses and lizards into footmen is Disney magic at its best and is probably the highlight of the film.

Ultimately, however, after movies like Enchanted, that take the tropes of these familiar tales and update them, Cinderella seems oddly dated. It’s like a pair of glass slippers—something beautiful to look at that doesn’t make sense in today’s world.

Verdict-3-0-Stars

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RoboCop Meets Short Circuit

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Chappie

by Hope Madden

In what amounts to RoboCop meets Short Circuit, Neill Blomkamp’s latest, Chappie, celebrates the outsider.

Chappie is the first sentient robot, his consciousness a program crafted by the engineer behind Johannesburg’s “scout” police force. The scout robots – a simple form of artificial intelligence assisting the Jo’burg po po – have all but eliminated urban crime.

Two problems. 1) A handful of the city’s remaining thugs want one to help them pull a heist, and 2) a weirdly coiffured rival engineer (Hugh Jackman) believes AI is an abomination and thinks his own robot – controlled by a human brain – is superior.

Imagine how pissed he gets when he finds that his rival Deon (Dev Patel – everywhere this weekend) has taken the body for one of his scouts and given it life.

Blomkamp’s third film proves that he is kind of entrenched in a single story: the corrupt wealthy versus the damaged poor with an innocent outsider hero to bring it all together. But in Blomkamp’s hands, the story always feels wildly, deeply his own. The fact that he tells it through richly imagined characters doesn’t hurt.

Chappie tells this tale with more heart and enthusiasm than the director’s last effort, the middling Elysium, but it lacks the originality (obviously) and much of the tension of his impressive debut effort, District 9.

His film suffers from an abundance of sentimentality and attention-seeking. Jackman’s over-the-top aggression and bizarre costuming are almost overshadowed by the often fascinating (though sometimes cloying) oddity that is the duo of Nija and Yo-Landi Visser (South African rappers cast as Chappi’s thug-life parents).

Blomkamp favorite Sharlto Copley performs admirably as the maturing robot-child Chappie, though you can’t help but feel abused by the manipulative child-mind/adult-world theme.

Blomkamp, who also wrote the screenplay with District 9 collaborator (and wife) Terri Tatchell, finds fertile ground in the images of Johannesburg’s criminal population, and when he can keep the sentimentality in check he does a nice job of balancing drama, comedy and action.

His real aim – as is usually the case with decent SciFi – is social commentary. The consequences he leaves unexplored in his film are so big and complex they are often the entire storyline of other films, but Blomkamp has his muse to follow. Chappie is true to his creator’s intention, and though it’s certainly a flawed and limited image, the experiment is not a complete failure.

Verdict-3-0-Stars

 

 

 

New In Theaters

Unfunny Business

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Unfinished Business

by George Wolf

I can’t seem to remember any movies that have tried to mix glory holes and the G8 summit, and yet civilization has soldiered on. Unfinished Business tries that and several other things, failing at them all.

Vince Vaughn again finds trouble moving from ensemble player to top of the marquee. He’s Dan Trunkman, a sales rep in St. Louis who pulls a Jerry Maguire and leaves the firm to start his own after a public dust up with his boss Chuck (Sienna Miller).

Dragging his box of shame to the car, Dan finds his first two hires in the parking lot: beaten down sales vet Tim (Tom Wilkinson! What are you doing? Don’t you know you’re Tom Wilkinson!), and Mike (Dave Franco), an impossibly naive newbie who had just stopped in to apply for his very first sales gig.

Fast forward one year, and the trio is still using Dunkin’ Donuts as an office, but the deal of their lives is on the horizon. Dan assures his guys it’s in the bag, but they all need to travel to Portland, Maine to wrap it up. Once in Portland, of course, Dan finds his old nemesis Chuck is close to stealing the business, so the guys understandably head to…Germany, to get in completely contrived and ridiculous situations which rarely approach comedy.

What’s worse, director Ken Scott (Starbuck, Delivery Man) and writer Steve Conrad (Ben Stiller’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty) also want to cue the tender music and get real. See, Dan is on the road just when his wife and kids seem to need him most, so the film offers tone deaf u-turns from tasteless gags with obvious punchlines into attempts at serious lessons on bullying and working too hard.

It’s a mess.

The one bright spot is Franco. Given little to work with, he crafts a character which at least piques your interest, and Franco continues to show the potential for some real comic talent.

Unfinished? This one should never have started.

 

Verdict-1-5-Stars

 

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Love…Exciting and (Not So) New

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The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

by George Wolf

The efforts of a talented, veteran cast, coupled with a refreshing attitude toward the love lives of senior citizens, enabled The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel to rise above a tendency for silly contrivance.

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel can’t quite measure up.

Director John Madden and screenwriter Ol Parker return, along with most of the original cast, for a trip back to India where things are busy at the eccentric hotel which caters to “the elderly and beautiful.”

Hotel proprietor Sonny (Dev Patel) and girlfriend Sunaina (Tina Desai) are planning their wedding, but Sunny is distracted by business. He wants to expand, and has reached out to a U.S. firm for financial backing. When American “writer” Guy Chambers (Richard Gere) checks in to the hotel, Sonny is convinced he’s actually a spy sent by the prospective business partners.

Guy has barely gotten his room key before Madge (Celia Imrie) has the hots for him, he has his eye on Sonny’s mom (Lillette Dubey), Sonny is jealous of Sunaina’s childhood friend “Kush” (Shazad Latif), and Norman (Ronald Pickup) is afraid he accidentally took out a hit on his girlfriend Carol (Diana Hardcastle). Plus, Douglas (Bill Nighy) and Evelyn (Judi Dench) still haven’t gotten together!

Maybe Captain Stubing can talk some sense into everyone!

It doesn’t take long to realize how much this installment misses the dear departed Graham, as played by Tom Wilkinson. Beyond Wilkinson’s immeasurable talent, Graham’s thoughtful storyline grounded part one in a graceful humanity that the sequel sorely needs. Gere is a fine addition for sheer star power, but his character only serves as a means to add more empty conflict to all the sit-comery.

It’s too bad, because even with Wilkinson gone, this cast features a vast wealth of talent that can instantly improve most any flailing script. The odd man out again is Patel, whose exaggerated histrionics serve as an annoying distraction from his sublime co-stars.

Despite a few charming moments, this sequel is overlong, overdone, and easily Second Best.

 

Verdict-2-5-Stars

 

New In Theaters

Hatin’ on Hollywood

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Maps to the Stars

by Hope Madden

Who but David Cronenberg could take the bubbling Hollywood cesspool that is Maps to the Stars and create from it a chilly but fascinating snapshot of industry dysfunction?

The truth is that Bruce Wagner’s screenplay requires Cronenberg’s anthropological approach and perverse sense of humor. Without it, he’s written a vulgar soap opera. With it, he’s written a revoltingly compelling, oddly austere essay on the self-indulgent, self-congratulatory, fraudulent, repugnant, insecure insanity that is Hollywood.

The story itself couldn’t be more lurid, which is why Cronenberg’s peculiarly distant style is so effective. Some elements of his direction have changed little since he was bursting heads in Scanners.

What has changed over the decades is his ability to draw talent to his projects, and few of his casts have been as stocked as this one. The great (and finally Academy-acknowledged) Julianne Moore steals every scene as the prototypical damaged, aging starlet. Needy, vulnerable, charming and venomous – Moore hits every note on time and in tune.

The versatile Mia Wasikowska – who played Moore’s daughter in The Kids are All Right – here plays her newly hired personal assistant, or “chore whore” as she so delightfully puts it. Wasikowska’s Agatha is the vehicle for chaos in the film, although given the temperament and predilections of the characters involved, chaos is probably never far away.

Agatha wants to make amends for something she did to her family (Olivia Williams, Evan Bird and a gleefully toxic John Cusack) – something related, we assume, to the scarring on her face and neck. Meanwhile, she falls for a sweet but opportunistic limo driver (Cronenberg favorite Robert Pattinson).

Though the actions, reactions and eventualities are never entirely clear, there’s nothing convoluted about this film. Behaviors and reactions feel insane but never ridiculous, as if every self-serving act – no matter how vile – feels natural in this hotbed.

Maps to the Stars is unforgiving, yet somehow weirdly watchable. Cronenberg’s films can be a challenge – not that they’re necessarily tough to understand, just sometimes tough to stomach. Maps to the Stars is certainly not his most violent, although the violence here is tough and surprising. What makes his latest so startling is that, though these characters are as horrid as those found in his best horror and SciFi, they belong right here in our own world.

No wonder he makes independent films.

 

Verdict-4-0-Stars

 

New In Theaters

Lazy Lazarus

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The Lazarus Effect

by Hope Madden

Four years ago filmmaker David Gelb directed the lovely, layered, joyous documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi. This weekend we see his newest effort, The Lazarus Effect. What the hell happened?

Gelb abandons novelty and nuance for a by-the-numbers Frankenstein horror. Medical researchers work on a cure for death. Big Pharm is looking to steal their ideas for nefarious gain. Think Splice.

The scientists test their process on animal subjects, but make the leap to human trials a tad prematurely when one of the team-Zoe (Olivia Wilde) – is electrocuted. Things do not go well. Think Pet Sematary.

The serum super-powers Zoe’s brain. Think Lucy.

But Zoe may have been brought back from hell, and may have brought some of hell back with her. Think Event Horizon. Or Flatliners.

It appears screenwriters Luke Dawson and Jeremy Slater have seen enough movies to be able to cobble together plenty of stale ideas to fill 83 minutes, although you will swear the film runs two full hours.

Part of the problem is the blandness of the set. For most of the running time we’re trapped in the hospital’s sub-basement with the doomed scientists. This should create anxiety, develop claustrophobic dread, but the dull set and uninspired direction do little but breed tedium.

Gelb can generate tension now and again, but he doesn’t know how to deliver the payoff. The film is so paint-by-numbers – from the greedy chemical company to the dream sequence, from the dog to the unrequited love to the twist ending – there’s nary a surprise to be found.

Wilde and cast (Mark Duplass, Evan Peters, Sarah Bolger and Donald Glover) can’t bring depth to their characters, though Wilde does give it a shot. There’s more to Zoe than what’s on the page, but not nearly enough to keep the film interesting.

There are plenty of awful horror movies, and The Lazarus Effect is not one of them. It’s succinct, tidy, offers a jolt or two, and it’s held together workmanlike-fashion with enough logic and borrowed ideas to remain lucid for as long as it needs to. But horror also has some great films to offer, and this is certainly not one of those. It’s a disposable February flick and a genuine disappointment from Gelb.

Verdict-2-0-Stars

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Pros at Cons

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Focus

by George Wolf

There’s something inherently cool about heist movies, isn’t there? Exotic locales, beautiful people, and outlandish schemes to steal lots of cash often play well together. Focus has all the ingredients to be a solid entry to the genre – as long as you don’t mind a certain irony in the film’s title.

Will Smith is Nicky, a veteran con man operating a well-oiled group of sophisticated thieves. He isn’t looking for any new recruits, until young Jess (Margot Robbie) impresses him with her grifting skills and her eagerness to move into the big leagues. So, she joins the team, but after a big score and some quality alone time, Nicky leaves Jess disappointed and hurt.

Fast forward three years, and Nicky is hired to help a Formula One racing hotshot pull a con, only to discover that hotshot’s longtime girlfriend is his own former flame Jess. With old wounds reopened, Nicky is thrown off his game as we try to keep up with just who is conning whom.

The irony is, a film that points out how people are conned with misdirection can’t keep you from noticing the ridiculous age difference in the romantic leads. Older man/much younger woman casting may be a Hollywood tradition, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good one.

That’s not a knock on the actors. Smith is ultra smooth and remains in great shape, and Robbie’s sexy, spunky mix nearly steals the show, but he’s farther past 40 than she is past 19, and the romantic chemistry between them never feels quite true.

The writing/directing team of Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, already with fine credits including I Love You, Phillip Morris, Crazy, Stupid Love and Bad Santa, exhibit a nice feel for the basics that make a heist film tick. It’s often confident, clever and stylish, especially during an early segment which finds Nicky’s crew wandering through a crowd of Bourbon Street revelers and systemically pilfering at will.

Though the final con is a bit underwhelming and the few nods to character development are rushed enough to be unnecessary, Focus delivers some high-gloss fun. It’s fast-paced and sure to keep you guessing, which is good. You don’t want to look too hard for substance.

 

Verdict-3-0-Stars