Category Archives: New In Theaters

Reviews of what’s out now

New In Theaters

Honey Don’t

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The Beekeeper

by George Wolf

About two-thirds of the way through The Beekeeper, director David Ayer and star Jason Statham hit us with the film’s highlight. It’s an elevator sequence that takes an unexpectedly gory turn, then adds a clever surprise for the finishing touch.

If only the rest of the film could be this interesting.

Statham is playing his usual one man killing machine, this time named Adam Clay. He’s living a quiet and reclusive life as a beekeeper in rural Massachsetts, until a cybercrime firm scams Clay’s only friend (Phylicia Rashad) so badly she kills herself.

Clay takes very explosive, very lethal revenge.

But the phishing firm’s CEO Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson in hipster douchebag mode) has friends is high places, including a former CIA director (Jeremy Irons, classing up the joint). Danforth wants Clay taken out, but he soon learns that will not be so easy.

See, Clay is more than a beekeeper, he’s a former beekeeper, an elite group of enforcers who are outside the chain of command and charged only with “protecting the hive when the system is out of balance.”

Bad news for anyone standing between Clay and the scale-tipping Danforth.

Screenwriter Kurt Wimmer (Expend4bles, the Point Break and Total Recall reboots) rolls out a script that feels like a discarded idea from Denzel’s first Equalizer film. Each step closer to “the head of the snake” gets more ridiculous, all presented with a bone dry seriousness from Ayer (Fury, Suicide Squad) and Statham that screams for a little self awareness.

Instead, The Beekeeper keeps pushing toward its own misguided goal of sermonizing about corruption while celebrating vigilante vengeance. Where it lands – elevator ride aside – is strictly in plug-and-play Statham territory, another ironic reminder of why his comedic turn in Spy was such a joyous bullseye.

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Shadow Dancing

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Reflect

by Rachel Willis

Writer, director, and star Dana Kippel delivers a trippy journey through a form of psychotherapy called shadow work in her film, Reflect.

As Summer, Kippel invites participants to a spiritual retreat as a challenge of sorts in which they can win money upon completing “reflective” obstacle courses.

Accompanying her on this journey to the desert (both spiritual and literal) are three friends (and one frenemy). Each woman brings her own past traumas with her, but none of them take their upcoming journey too seriously. From the clothes they wear to the things they pack, they don’t seem to understand the gravity of what they’re getting into.

Along the way, the characters meet some odd balls – odd balls that are part of a show, The Game of Life, in which the women are unaware participants.

It’s a strange set up for sure. By putting our characters on this journey, Kippel mines the sources of trauma in each woman’s life, some of those traumas more damaging than others.

As each woman undertakes the obstacle courses, they must face their anguish. It’s part of the game, part of the journey, but it makes you wonder what exactly becomes of a person who can’t handle the pain that plagues them.

Reflect excels at delivering a game cast of women (including Grace Patterson and Jadelyn Breier) who play off each other with the authentic dynamic of friends. There is genuine affection, but also a level of cattiness that keeps the quintet from truly letting each other in. Perhaps if they were able to do so, those life traumas would not be so overwhelming.

The film’s only weak element is when Kippel cuts away from the women to the gameshow framing device. Reflect would have worked just as well as a psychedelic journey into shadow work without the added element of voyeurism.

However, Kippel wisely keeps most of our attention on Summer and her friends, revealing their baggage little by little. It’s an interesting look at how our past infects our present and influences our future. Is there a way to move forward when the past pervades our every being? Maybe, maybe not. Kippel offers no easy answers, and the film is better for it.

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Survive and Advance

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Society of the Snow

by George Wolf

2012’s The Impossible proved director J.A. Bayona could recreate a real life disaster with heart-racing precision, and then mine the intimate aftermath to find a touching depth.

Since then, he’s had his big screen mind on monsters, with results both miraculous (A Monster Calls) and mixed (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom). Now, Netflix’s Society of the Snow finds Bayona back in the true adventure business.

And his business in Society of the Snow is heartbreakingly, thrillingly, unbelievably good.

It’s the latest account of the 1972 Andes flight disaster, a legendary ordeal that has been detailed in several books and films over the last five decades plus. Bayona read Pablo Vierci’s “La Sociedad de la Nieve” while researching The Impossible, bought the rights soon after, and now teams with co-writers Bernat Vilaplana and Jaime Marques for a harrowing and fittingly reverent treatment.

Following Vierci’s lead, Bayona makes sure we get to know many of the members of the ill-fated Uruguayan rugby team, who were on their way to a long weekend in Chili when their plane – carrying 40 passengers and 5 crew members – went down among the snowy peaks.

After an introduction that endears the young men to us via enthusiastic friendship and youthful naïveté, Bayona pulls us into the crash experience with a spectacular, terrifying set piece almost guaranteed to whiten your knuckles and quicken your pulse.

It’s a stunner, as it should be, because it anchors the film in a survival mode that will be tested beyond what most people could ever imagine.

The ensemble cast, filled mainly with newcomers, is deeply affecting. The survivors will be pushed to their physical, moral and spiritual breaking points, and these young actors make sure not one exhausting second of it feels false.

Bayona and cinematographer Pedro Lugue present the Andes as a beautiful monster in its own right, capable of majesty and menace in equal measure. The smaller you feel, the better, so experience this one on the biggest screen you can find.

Forget what you know. Even if you’re aware of what these people went through, Society of the Snow will reframe the tale with a deeper level of humanity and courage. And should this legend be new to you, resist the urge to research until after you’ve seen Bayona’s take.

It’s one unforgettable journey.

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One Heart

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The Color Purple

by George Wolf

No matter how familiar you are with Alice Walker’s original novel, or Spielberg’s 1985 film, director Blitz Bazawule’s adaptation of The Color Purple Broadway musical comes to the big screen as a heartfelt and joyous experience.

Yes, it is the same, often heartbreaking story. Young sisters Celie (Phylicia Pearl Mpasi) and Nettie (Halle Bailey) are separated in early 1900s Georgia, and adult Celie (an Oscar-worthy Fantasia Barrino, reprising her Broadway role) endures decades of heartache and abuse before proudly reclaiming her dignity.

Memorable characters and story beats surround Celie in the first two acts. Celie’s abusive husband Mister (Colman Domingo) pines for the famous singer Shug Avery (Taraji P. Henson), while son Harpo (Corey Hawkins) opens a juke joint and Harpo’s proud and defiant wife Sofia (Danielle Brooks, reprising her role from the 2015 Broadway revival) suffers repercussions from standing up to a white mayor and his condescending wife.

Through all the engaging drama and jubilant musical set pieces, Miss Celie bides her time, slowly inching closer to when both character and star step into the stoplight.

And when that third act hits, it is a glorious exhibition of pride, music and love. With Fantasia’s show-stopping rendition of “I’m Here,” Miss Celie begins to stand on her own as a successful business woman, and the film delivers her some well-earned flowers.

Have those tissues handy, but rest assured they will all be tears of joy. Because as much suffering as Miss Celie and her family endure, that pain is not what drives this vision. Bazawule, Barrino and a top flight ensemble make this The Color Purple an uplifting celebration of heritage and family, and an exhilarating film experience.

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Shut Up and Drive

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Ferrari

by Hope Madden

My first worry as I watched Michael Mann’s long-awaited return to the screen, Ferrari, was triggered by a line delivered by Enzo Ferrari’s (Adam Driver) mother (Daniela Piperno). In recalling the death of her eldest child, she muses, “The wrong son died.”

There is, of course, no more clichéd way to begin a biopic. Just ask Walk Hard. But Mann, working from a 30-year-old by script the late Troy Kennedy Martina and Brock Yates, veers from formula immediately after that bit of dialog. His approach does not always work, but buoyed by a few remarkable performances, he recreates a compelling piece of history.

Though Driver’s accent is sometimes questionable, he sidesteps cliché in every scene. His Enzo Ferrari is a singular man, driven and emotionally careful but quietly compassionate and endlessly human. The performance is soulful and delightfully humorous, and he makes even the script’s most convenient or obligatory dialog feel authentic.

He’s got nothing on Penélope Cruz, though, who’s a solid contender for an Oscar nomination in the role of Enzo’s wife and business partner, Laura. Moody, funny, but more than anything, worn thin by years of grief and anger, Laura is a character unlike any other in this film or most any other. Cruz dials the drama back just when you’d expect an eruption, erupts at surprising moments, and refuses to make Laura Ferrari a cartoon or a villain.

With these performances at the center of the film and the specter of death in both the rear view and the headlights, Ferrari delivers an emotionally charged adventure. The real possibility of disaster – within the family, within the business, and on the racetrack – is a current running through every scene.

Mann captures the thrill and dread inside that danger with a restless camera and visceral racing action. Thanks to commitment to the human drama, the action never feels glossy or superficial – thrill for thrill’s sake. Mann’s latest embraces the compromise and corrosion that accompany success. It feels less stylish than a Michael Mann film, but more human.

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Treading Water

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The Boys in the Boat

by George Wolf

We last heard from director George Clooney two years ago, when a fine supporting turn from Ben Affleck was the only thing saving The Tender Bar. That film was so obvious and rote that any interest it inspired in the source novel was only to see what Clooney found so special about it.

He’s back behind the camera for The Boys in the Boat, and unfortunately, none of those boys is Ben Affleck. Because again, we get an inspiring true-life tale presented with none of the humanity, tension or freshness it needs to be inspirational.

It does look good, though.

Clooney leans on screenwriter Mark L. Smith (The Revenant, Clooney’s own The Midnight Sky) to adapt Daniel J Brown’s biography of The University of Washington’s 1936 rowing team. Leading up to that year’s Olympics in Berlin, the group of young rowers hoped to vanquish Hitler’s prized athletes in a contest we’re told is “more poetry than sport.”

Smith’s script tells us a lot of things, but Clooney never manages to make us feel much of anything.

Young Joe Rantz (Callum Turner, fairly lifeless) needs money for shoes, a roof and tuition, so he tries out for the rowing team when he learns team members get a job and a room. He endures coach Al Ulbrickson’s (Joel Edgerton) grueling boot camp to make the squad, and the victories start piling up, right alongside the cliches (hey, that old man tending the boats might have wisdom to share!)

Joe’s romance with the spunky Joyce (Hadley Robinson) comes just as easily, while Joe’s awkward reunion with his alcoholic father lands as a lazy attempt to rekindle memories of Hoosiers without the same investment in character development. Possible avenues for tension – such as a mysterious illness for one team member – are conjured up and then resolved with more regard for convenience than effect.

Remember, George Clooney is an Oscar-nominated director, and that 2005 nod for Good Night, and Good Luck was well-deserved. Since he’s stepped away from co-writing his projects (2012’s The Ides of March earned him a writing nom), though, the results have leaned more and more toward shallow formula.

Here, Clooney does prove adept with some gorgeous shot-making around the water, but even then you wish Martin Ruhe’s cinematography could linger just a beat or two longer each time.

The Boys in the Boat might already be a full two hours, but a few more seconds of beauty could help ease the sting of so much time spent showing us so little that’s truly interesting.

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Winging It

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Migration

by Rachel Willis

A family of mallard ducks decides to migrate to Jamaica, setting off a series of misadventures and kid-friendly comedy in the latest animated film from Illumination, Migration.

When exotic ducks land in same pond as our mallard family, son Dax (voiced by Caspar Jennings) becomes smitten with one of the flock, prompting his desire to head south for the winter. Mom Pam (Elizabeth Banks), is also intrigued by idea. Littlest duck, Gwen (Tresi Gazal), seems ready for anything, but Dad Mack (Kumail Nanjiani), it too fearful of the outside world to consider leaving their little pond.

The catalyst for adventure comes from Uncle Dan (Danny DeVito). He gives Mack the prod he needs for accepting Pam’s request to open his eyes to the world.

So little time is spent on Mack’s paranoia and fear that his change of heart doesn’t make much of an impact. Based on the title, we already know the family – with Uncle Dan along for the ride – is going to make the journey, so no surprise there. And you can expect hijinx along the way.

The humor–mainly predictable and heavy-handed–derives from the family’s reactions to the obstacles and characters they meet along the way. While this might entertain the youngest in the audience, it gets tedious for the rest of us.

Migration’s tender-hearted treatment of each member of our duck family is its selling point. Though Mack’s fears would keep him in his little window forever, Pam is willing to help him overcome his reticence and step out into the wider world. Uncle Dan’s sweet relationship with little Gwen makes him more than just comic relief.

The ancillary characters don’t all get the same heart. The imprisoned parrot Delroy (Keegan-MichaelKey) is a standout in a sea of mostly forgettable side players. His longing for his former home is palpable. On the opposite side of the spectrum is the film’s unnecessary villain. The grunting chef who cooks ducks and particularly dislikes Mack and Pam lacks the menace necessary to create a memorable bad guy.

Migration fits the bill for lighthearted fun. But its predictability and shallow characters limit its potential to become anyone’s newest holiday favorite.

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Putting on a Brave Babyface

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The Iron Claw

by Matt Weiner

For the Von Erich professional wrestling family, success in the ring—starting in the freewheeling territory days and continuing into the present—has existed uneasily alongside the “family curse.”

Writer/director Sean Durkin (Martha Marcy May Marlene and The Nest) brings together his lifelong love of wrestling with a keen ability to heighten psychological tension to the breaking point and then see what fills the void that comes after that break.

The Iron Claw charts these harrowing ups and downs starting with family patriarch Fritz (Holt McCallany), whose overbearing presence dominates every aspect of his children’s lives. The athletic Von Erich children unquestioningly glide into the path Fritz lays out for them, the family business of wrestling.

The series of events that ultimately spin out of this fateful choice gives rise to the legend of the curse, which the brothers deal with in their own (mostly taciturn) ways. Kevin (Zac Efron) is the genial audience stand-in, who wants nothing more than to please his father and have fun in and out of the ring with his brothers.

This includes the charismatic David (Harris Dickinson), golden boy Kerry (Jeremy Allen White) and the sensitive aspiring artist Mike (Stanley Simons). Fritz and the boys are given varying degrees of personality and dialogue that at times sacrifices depth for quick characterizations.

But with so much biopic ground to cover, Durkin narrows in on Kevin as the one bearing witness to all the inexplicable tragedy. It’s a difficult role to serve, and Efron delivers a commanding performance. As the family’s Job-like suffering grinds down his stoicism and filial loyalty, he remains tethered to hope and the possibility of a different life thanks to his stalwart wife Pam (Lily James, matching Efron with a vibrant performance that elevates her otherwise dutiful lines).

The result is a mesmerizing sports movie with more echoes of Malick than Aronofksy. Call it a curse or call it bad luck, but Durkin’s deft handling of these events turns public tragedy into a searing meditation on familial bonds and the limits of a certain type of masculinity.

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Alive and Thinking

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Poor Things

by Hope Madden and George Wolf


Frankenstein was a breathing, bleeding act of feminism, not because Mary Shelly’s masterpiece illuminated or elevated women’s discourse, but because Mary Shelly – an 18-year-old girl – created science fiction.

Naturally, her husband took credit.

Many, many writers and filmmakers have taken a stab at reimagining Shelly’s ideas. None is as astonishing as Yorgos Lanthimos and the triumph that is Poor Things.

Working from a script by Tony McNamara and Alasdair Gray, Lanthimos creates a luscious world that is difficult to pin down. It’s part Victorian England, part Blade Runner 2049, and it is where Bella Baxter evolves to challenge the patriarchal notions that surround her.

Bella (Emma Stone, sheer perfection) is brought back from the dead by Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), a scientist with no romantic notions about polite society – or about Bella, for that matter. Dr. Baxter reanimates Bella’s adult body with the brain of a small child, and under his watch, Bella develops sans the outside pressures of conformity to societal expectations. Which is to say, she thrives.

Imagine a woman’s sense of self forming without shame, without the stifling existence of it. Lanthimos, McNamara and Gray have done just that, and the result is exhilarating.

Still, “God” (as Bella calls him) wishes to keep her safe, as does God’s beguiled assistant, Max (Remy Youssef). But Bella must experience life, and the adventure she fearlessly attacks is simultaneously hilarious, daring, lewd, ingenious and completely intoxicating.

The arc of Bella’s character is as satisfying as anything put to screen, and Stone revels in every unexpected, delightful, brash moment. And though it’s tough to pull your eyes away from Stone, along comes Mark Ruffalo to commit grand larceny with every scene of his hysterical cad Duncan Wedderburn, who indulges his ego teaching Bella about “furious jumping” (take a wild guess) but is reduced to mush when she moves past him without mercy or apology.

Expect Oscar nods for both, and they won’t be alone here.

Lanthimos’s direction is again nimble and ambitious, dipping back into his bag of angles and staging for a feast of ambitious panache. The result is a perfect visual complement to Bella’s journey of intellectual and philosophical wonder, one always buoyed by vivid cinematography from Robbie Ryan (The Favourite), and Holly Waddington’s wonderful costuming.

Poor Things may find longtime Yorgos fans spotting thematic terrain that’s similar to 2009’s Dogtooth, but these latest questions he’s pondering are even more pointed and brilliantly satirical.

What if someone could navigate the world anew, armed with the benefit of physical independence, but with a complete social naïveté that came merely from inexperience rather than isolation? And what if that someone was a woman in a man’s man’s man’s man’s world?

That someone is Bella Baxter, and Poor Things makes her gloriously alive, in ways you’ll probably wish you could be.

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Candy Man

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Wonka

by Hope Madden

Multiple generations have been simultaneously scarred and entertained by Willy Wonka. Roald Dahl’s book leapt to the screen in 1971, and if we weren’t horrified by four grandparents choosing never to leave a single bed, we were terrified by Wonka or Slugworth or the Oompa Loompas. And if not, we were pretty sure people died on this chocolate factory tour.

And then in 2005, Tim Burton took his shot. There were giant teeth and Christopher Lee, which only added to the trauma.  

You know who can make a Willy Wonka story that isn’t nightmarish? That guy who does the Paddington movies. Yes, Paul King co-writes and directs a delightful, never traumatic tale of young Willy Wonka (Timothée Chalamet) out to find his fortune as a chocolatier.

There is just something about King’s low-key whimsy that sits nicely. Gone is the macabre that haunted the other two Wonka iterations, replaced with a dash of grief and a spoonful of Dickensian working conditions.

Wonka heads to the big city with little more than a hatful of dreams. But he quickly learns that “the greedy beat the needy” as nefarious types take advantage of Willy’s good nature and naïve disposition. From slumlords (Olivia Colman, Tom Davis) to corrupt constables (Keegan-Michael Key, often in an unfortunate fat suit), to the greedy chocolate cartel. Plus there’s a vengeful Oompa Loompa (Hugh Grant) on his tail. But with friends and imagination – and chocolate – things never look too dire.

Wonka is a musical, which is its weakest element. No one sings particularly well, certainly not Chalamet, and the new songs don’t leave an impression. But Chalamet is endlessly charming, and an appealing supporting cast keeps things lively.

King’s visuals are intricate, vibrant and joyous as ever, which is a key ingredient in Wonka’s success. It’s a delight to watch. Though it never reaches the heights of either Paddington film, Wonka delivers family friendly and fun without any of the scarring side effects of the last two efforts.