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Underdog Day Afternoon

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You Gotta Believe

by George Wolf

On the heels of last weekend’s Little League World Series championship (congrats, Florida!) comes You Gotta Believe, a generically titled, broadly brushed “based on true events” story of one of the most memorable runs in LLWS history.

It’s 2002, and Texas Dads Jon Kelly (Greg Kinnear) and Bobby Ratliff (Luke Wilson) are coaching the worst Little League team in Fort Worth, when they get an unlikely offer. To keep the local sponsors happy, Kliff Young (Patrick “You’re killin’ me, Smalls!” Renna, the first of a few callbacks to better baseball movies) has to send one team to the LLWS qualifying tournament…so whaddya say?

What could possibly turn these cellar dwellers into the Good News Bears? Thanks to writer Lane Garrison and director Ty Roberts, it’s a mix of some tragically bad news, and one shamelessly bad trope.

Coach Ratliff is diagnosed with aggressive melanoma skin cancer, giving his son Robert (Michael Cash) and the rest of the team what local card shop owner Sam (Martin Roach) says they lack: something to rally behind. Sam, apparently the only African American in town, also quickly turns the team’s pitcher into an ace. And though he doesn’t get a coaching offer, Sam still comes to the games to cheer for the boys while seeming to interact with absolutely no one else.

Magical? No, it’s crap.

As the “Westside All Stars” start winning, Garrison and Roberts keep the film perched on the edges of the faith-based genre. But while the preaching here is minimized, there is that familiar feeling of an audience being taken for granted. There’s little concern for depth or character development (Wilson doesn’t even pretend to go bald during his character’s courageous fight with chemo), an awkward singalong sequence, and a wait for authentic humanity that only ends when the real-life players show up in an epilogue.

Over 20 years ago, these Texas kids had an inspiring run in the face of tragedy, and since then have shown a commitment to cancer research. The story at the heart of You Gotta Believe is worthy. It’s just a shame that the storytelling thinks demanding we believe is all that’s required.

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Moth to a Flame

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Slingshot

by George Wolf

A small group of dedicated souls travel in deep space. Worn down by isolation and boredom, they start to question their commitment to the mission as they fight to keep a firm grip on reality.

Slingshot does not offer a groundbreaking premise. In fact, co-writer Nathan Parker took us on a similar ride in 2009 with Moon, a solid morality tale that pulled some of its punches on the trip home.

But here, it is the third act that rescues the film from the slog of familiarity, with director Mikael Håfström never completely tipping his hand until the last, well-executed reveal.

Casey Affleck stars as John, who is on board the Odyssey 1 with Captain Franks (Laurence Fishburne) and fellow crewman Nash (Tomer Capone from The Boys). They are 9 months into an Earth-saving mission to Titan, the largest of Saturn’s moons, but they will need to execute a tricky “slingshot” maneuver around Jupiter to make the trip successfully.

Trouble starts with adverse reactions to deep space hibernation. John sees visions of Zoe (Emily Beecham) – the love he left behind – while Nash becomes convinced the ship has taken on too much damage to complete the mission. Captain Franks is wondering if he can trust either one, and paranoia begins to envelope the Odyssey.

Performances are fine all around and set the stakes convincingly enough, as Håfström (Evil, The Rite) layers the romantic flashbacks with plenty of obligatory shots of Zoe rolling over and staring longingly from underneath the sheets.

Yes, yes, very nice. But what’s the endgame here?

Events get a welcome escalation once violence erupts. Håfström’s atmospherics help aid the tension and Affleck makes his character’s battle with sanity more believable than most. And though the script often invites you to catch on to what’s up, Slingshot finds an identity by seeing its vision through to the very end, a will-they-or-won’t-they moment that almost recalls the genius of Take Shelter.

Almost. But still pretty good.

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A Night at the Opera

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The Crow

by George Wolf

The Crow may not be over when the phat lady sings, but the film’s truly galvanizing moments are here and gone, leaving the rebooted super anti-hero story to return to its largely generic nature.

Director Rupert Sanders and a writing team that includes James O’Barr (from the 1994 original) keep the basic narrative intact. After the troubled Eric (Bill Skarsgård)and his equally troubled love Shelly (FKA twigs) are brutally murdered by henchman of the centuries-old Mr. Roag (Danny Huston), Eric travels through the worlds of the living and the dead on a bloody quest for revenge and possible salvation.

Though Sanders (Snow White and the Huntsman, Ghost in the Shell) gives more attention to the origins of the love story, the “soul mate” declarations still feel rushed and unearned. The entire narrative embraces more of a nihilistic tone, with just one moment of the angsty self-awareness that buoyed the first film.

The camerawork is often nimble and expressive, but Sanders and cinematographer Steve Annis (Color Out of Space) move away from crafting any unique, comic-inspired landscapes. Instead, the colliding worlds come to resemble a very dark, long-abandoned section of any major midwestern metropolis.

But, man, when we crash that opera, The Crow lands on its feet and kicks ass, as Eric takes on a barrage of goons and gunfire with a stunning, visceral brutality. Well-staged and perfectly flanked by the performance onstage, the extended sequence benefits from impressive choreography and effects work, giving the film its only truly memorable moments.

The rest of The Crow has a difficult time measuring up.

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Time to Check Out – For Good!

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Stream

by George Wolf

Violence and cameos. It’s not a bad business model – just ask Deadpool & Wolverine.

Stream offers a steady stream of both, inside a rollicking blend of familiar tropes and beloved icons that should make Gen X horror fans positively giddy .

Linda Spring (the legendary Dee Wallace) owns a cozy hotel in the Pennsylvania countryside, and it’s finally ready for the big reopening. Perfect timing, because Roy and Elaine Keenan (Charles Edwin Powell, scream queen Danielle Harris) need a vacation. So they round up their gaming-obsessed son (Wesley Holloway) and boundary-testing daughter (Sydney Malakeh) and head for the hills.

But not long after checking in with Mr. Lockwood (Re-Animator‘s Jeffrey Combs), the Keenan family finds themselves in danger of checking out permanently. Four masked murderers are gleefully hunting the hotel guests, and competing for creative kill points in a sadistic competition that’s being streamed for wagering.

Director and co-writer Michael Leavy (a producer on Terrifier 2) keeps the body count high and the welcome practical effects in focus, with obvious nods to The Purge, Cabin in the Woods and more as the hotel guest list reveals more fan favorites from horror and beyond.

There’s Tony Todd, Bill Moseley and Felissa Rose! Plus, Tim Reid (WKRP), Terry Kiser (Weekend at Bernie‘s), Mark Holton (Francis from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure) and more to keep you pointing at the screen like DiCaprio in that one meme.

None of this is very original or profound, and the two-hour running time would definitely benefit from a more firm editing hand. But if you’d gladly trade all that for more cameos and bloody, nostalgic fun, Stream delivers a satisfying getaway.

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Hug It Out

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Alien: Romulus

by George Wolf

2013’s Evil Dead proved that director Fede Alvarez could honor what made a franchise iconic, and still blast it with some new vitality. For me, his is the best in the deadite series.

No, I’m not saying Romulus is the new king of the Alien mountain, but it sits pretty comfortably at number three, right after the first two.

And it’s between those first two films that Alvarez, co-writing again with Rodo Sayagues, carves out a memorable place in the franchise timeline, two decades after the Nostromo crew answered what they thought was a distress signal.

We still fall in with a group of weary contractors from the Weyland-Yutani Corp., but this time they are twentysomethings who have grown up on a grim mining colony and never seen the sunlight. Rain (Cailee Spaeny, solid) and her brother Andy (a terrific David Jonsson) lost their parents “three cycles ago,” and it’s become clear that the chances of ever earning their release from Weyland-Yutani are slim to none.

But her friends Tyler (Archie Senaux), Kay (Isabela Merced), Bjorn (Spike Fearn) and Navarro (Aileen Wu) have a plan.

They steal the decommissioned Weyland ship that’s docked on the Romulus space station, reboot its hyper sleep program, and set off on a nine-year journey to a new life on a planet with sunshine.

But there’s something else waiting on Romulus. You know.

And Alvarez taps into what we know early and often, creating that instant layer of tension that comes from new characters discovering the “perfect organism” we’re already plenty familiar with. That familiarity also means there’s no need to spare the monster rum, so prepare for plenty of brutal alien action that harkens back to the glorious sci-fi horror of Ridley Scott’s original 1979 film.

The technical craftsmanship (save for one curiously shaky effect I won’t spoil) is stellar, as well. Alvarez leans on the expertise of cinematographer Galo Olivares (Roma) and sound designer Lee Gilmore (Prey, Dune: Part One) to create another gritty, foreboding aesthetic that reeks of desperation and terrifying breaks of silence.

As Rain and her crew start learning what they’re up against, Alvarez shifts gears to mirror the clock-ticking adventure thrills that James Cameron wowed us with in 1986’s Aliens. So yes, you will be reminded of past glory, but Romulus also has some clever and refreshing ideas of its own.

One of those is an ingenious twist on Alien lore that is so tense and visually compelling it is hard to believe we haven’t seen it before. Bravo. On a more philosophical level, the script is able to develop a fascinating contrast between humans and their “synthetic” counterparts, exploring how quickly some acid blood can change the nature of expendability.

But this is not another rumination on the Engineers and why they engineered. Romulus is back-to-franchise-basics, giving us a little more insight into the Corporation’s endgame with a reveal that leads to one humdinger of an Act Three.

And it’s how you accept what is waiting there, along with the film’s amount of fan service (for me, it’s one callback too many), that should cement your feelings about Romulus.

Credit Alvarez for another win. He knows what made this franchise work, and how to make it work again. Alien: Romulus is relentlessly tense, consistently thrilling, and one thoroughly crowd-pleasing ride.

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Growing Up Fast

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It Ends With Us

by George Wolf

In the years since the It Ends With Us novel was released, author Colleen Hoover has admitted that her main characters were just too young. That mistake has been corrected for the film adaptation, although leaving behind the Young Adult trappings isn’t quite so easy.

Lily Bloom (Blake Lively) is now in her mid-30s, and meets Dr. Ryle Kincaid (now late 30s – a much more logical age for any neurosurgeon not named Doogie Houser) on the roof of his Boston apartment building. Lily’s up there to reflect on the recent death of her father, while Ryle (Justin Baldoni, who also directs) is headed up to blow off some steam – our first clue that he has a temper.

He’s a chisled, forever stubble-faced playboy, while she’s the flower shop owning “girl you take home to Mama,” so their relationship takes time to build. This patience works in the film’s favor.

Baldoni and screenwriter Christy Hall (fresh off the smartly provocative Daddio) layer the present day romance with effective flashbacks to teenaged Lily (Isabela Ferrer) and her first love, Atlas Corrigan (Alex Neustaedter). Back then, they helped each other cope with violence at home, but his Marine commitment pulled them apart after graduation.

So imagine the surprise when Atlas (Brandon Sklenar) turns out to be the owner of the hot new restaurant that Lily’s bestie Allysa (Jenny Slate) loves. Jealousy only adds fuel to Ryle’s dangerous behavior, which pulls Lily into an all-too-familiar cycle of disfunction.

Lively’s committed performance goes a long way toward easing the awkwardness of the contrivances at play. She allows us to feel Lily’s caution, which makes her desperate feelings of guilt resonate when the “accidents” begin to happen.

Slate is always a treat, but the slightly kooky best friend character seems a bit forced here, as does Baldoni’s reliance on interchangeable pop songs to continue the conversation.

This is a conversation worth having, and the film does manage some moments of poignancy. It also wisely chooses Atlas to serve more as a reminder to Lily than her savior. But nearly every issue the film addresses – such as the circumstances that make it difficult for women to leave abusive relationships – are raised and lowered with an efficient tidiness that betrays the story’s beginnings.

It End With Us still has YA in its blood, after all. It’s older, wiser, and has learned some hard lessons, but ultimately finds comfort in the string-pulling formula they love back home.

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Uneasy Money

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The Instigators

by George Wolf

Go ahead, Affleck, Damon and company. Say those words I like to hear.

“It’s a heist movie.”

Apple TV’s The Instigators is indeed a heist movie. There’s a plan, a snag, a hostage, a manhunt, and plenty of interesting characters well played by plenty of veteran talents. Director Doug Liman, coming off the rollicking good ride that was Road House, assembles all the parts with precision.

The sum just needs to be a little more fun.

Casey Affleck and Chuck MacLean provide a script that finds former Marine, Rory (Matt Damon), confiding in his therapist, Dr. Donna (Hong Chau), about his downward spiral and desperation for cash.

Rory finds an opportunity for acquiring exactly the $32, 400 he needs by teaming with alcoholic ex-con Cobby (Affleck) to pull a job for local goon Mr. Besegai (Michael Stuhlbarg). The guys simply need to rob the Boston mayor’s (Ron Perlman) big election night soiree at the yacht club, and they’ll get a slice of the take.

Not so fast, Massholes. Things go haywire, which sends the boys running from Besegai’s henchmen (Alfred Molina, Paul Walter Hauser), the cops and the mayor’s enforcer (Ving Rhames) while Rory reaches out to Dr. Donna for some affirmations.

Damon and Affleck create a nice pair of contrasting criminals. Damon’s forthright, note-taking approach to the heist often runs afoul of Affleck’s jaded pro, while Chau’s Dr. Donna won’t let any active felonies derail her from working on Rory’s emotional growth.

The stellar ensemble also gets plenty of room to sharpen the edges of their respective supporting characters. But even with witty dialog inside an ever-evolving fugitive journey, nothing ever becomes as outright funny as you’re hoping it would.

Like Rory, The Instigators seems most interested in getting the job done in a timely and competent manner. That’s fine, and you could find plenty of worse ways to spend 90 minutes. But if might have been nice to take Cobby’s approach and get a little reckless once in a while.

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Purple Haze

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Harold and the Purple Crayon

by Rachel Willis

Director Carlos Saldanha gets a lot of mileage from a children’s picture book about a boy whose drawings come to life. In his live-action adaptation of Harold and the Purple Crayon, a now-grown Harold becomes concerned when the narrator, also known as Old Man (Alfred Molina), suddenly disappears from his story.

Knowing that Old Man comes from the “real world,” Harold (Zachary Levi) draws a door which acts as a gateway into our world. His two best friends, Moose (Lil Rel Howery) and Porcupine (Tanya Reynolds), join him on his adventure.

Upon entering the real world, Moose and Porcupine become inexplicably human. Of course, logic is not necessary in a kid’s movie and it’s fun watching both characters learn to adjust to their new human forms.

Harold meets single mom Terry (Zooey Deschanel) and her son Mel (Benjamin Bottani), and finds in Mel a friend willing to help him in his search for Old Man. With an imagination just as big as Harold’s, Mel is the perfect companion for our creative hero.

The best part of Harold is the reminder that imagination is a doorway to an inspired, joyous life. Levi imbues Harold with a marvelous sweetness and naivety. Often, naïve characters feel clownish, but the film treats Harold more gently. His innocence is what opens him up to the pleasures of the “real world.” Though it has its challenges (such as the soul-sucking reality of working in retail). the world around Harold offers him plenty of possibilities.

That’s not to say the film doesn’t see a potential downside to unbridled creativity. The movie’s villain, Library Gary (played with wicked charm by Jemaine Clement), seeks to steal Harold’s magical crayon for selfish reasons. It’s a bit of a mixed message that may fly over the heads of many kids. Or perhaps, I’m just reading too much into it.

The movie has a few weaker moments. Certain scenes are a bit too long, dragging down the film’s overall fast pace. But on the whole, Saldanha captures the spirit of the original story. Creativity is a magical gift that should be embraced, nurtured, and enjoyed. A message worth repeating.

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Trust the Process

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Sing Sing

by George Wolf

Learn a bit about the genesis of A24’s Sing Sing, and you’d be tempted to view it as some sort of social experiment, a project where success is defined just by completing the assignment.

But to see the film is to witness a filmmaking vision brought to transcendent life by director/co-writer Greg Kwedar, and a tremendous ensemble cast that features many formerly incarcerated members of the Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) program at Sing Sing maximum security prison.

Inspired by a 2005 article in Esquire magazine, the film brings us inside the RTA theatre troupe led by drama teacher Brent Buell (Paul Raci, Oscar nominee for Sound of Metal). Buell’s star pupil is John “Divine G” Whitfield (Colman Domingo), who is serving a 25 years-to-life sentence for manslaughter.

Via another endlessly sympathetic and award-worthy performance from Domingo, Whitfield comes to personify the soul-stirring effects of the RTA. As he meticulously prepares for one clemency hearing to the next, Whitfield throws himself into the work of the RTA troupe, and to mentoring a restless new member.

Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin (Maclin, playing himself in a debut of undeniable power) has his violent guard up at all times, but Whitfield slowly starts chipping away at the anger that consumes him. He urges Maclin to commit, “trust the process,” and allow himself to feel human again.

Whitfield also counsels Maclin on his own quest for parole, creating a compelling dual B story that adds even more resonance to a deeply emotional journey. Colman, Maclin and the stellar supporting players (including former inmate Sean Dino Johnson and Domingo’s longtime creative partner Sean San Jose) fill every scene with a raw authenticity that can be as heartbreaking as it is hopeful.

The film’s surface-level message of healing through the arts is well-played and well-earned, but a more universal subtext is never far from the spotlight. Sing Sing soars from the way it invests in the need for expression and inspiration, and in the very souls who found a path to redemption by stepping onstage.

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Diver Down and Out

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The Last Breath

by George Wolf

You’ll notice some form of the word “shark” has not been worked in to the title, which is your first clue that The Last Breath wants to be taken more seriously than much of the sharksploitation fare.

It’s still a shark movie, just one that tries to be a little more based in reality.

Tries. A little.

Noah (Jack Parr) works at a dive shop in the Caribbean that’s owned by the deep-in-debt Levi (Julian Sands, in his last role). The two have recently discovered the wreck of the USS Charlotte, which went down thanks to an enemy torpedo during WWII.

So Noah has some exciting news to share with his college friends, who have just come in for a reunion party. One of the group, Brett (Alexander Arnold) is a rich douche, and he offers Noah and Levi big money to hold off reporting the find for one day, so they can all be the first to dive the Charlotte.

As a certified scuba diver who has gone on a few wreck dives, I can tell you that this is suicidal idiocy. But I get the lure of the premise for writers Andrew Prendergast and Nick Saltrese. It sets up a saltwater take on The Descent, where monsters are waiting in unexplored territory.

And of course, these divers must be equipped with full face diving masks and integrated microphones so that we can see more of the actors’ faces and the characters can speak to each other underwater. Yes, I’m again picking nits on these tourist dive shops offering such expensive equipment, but the bigger problem is the inane dialog and forced exposition that follows.

Director Joachim Hedén, a veteran of diving adventure films, does exhibit a fine command of underwater space and framing, creating a decent amount of tension with visual checks on remaining air supply or a frayed guideline. But while the footage of lurking great whites may integrate sufficiently, the shark attacks themselves offer less than thrilling CGI effects.

On the sharkin’ scale, this is indeed a step up from the ‘nados and the Megs. But if you’re waiting to hear The Last Breath belongs among the rare air of The Shallows or Open Water…

Don’t hold it.