Zombieland: Double Tap

It is strongly recommended that you see 2009’s Zombieland prior to seeing this sequel.

Done?

Ok, now on to the fun and games.

Trailers facetiously promote the cast via their respective academy award statuses: Woody Harrelson, nominee (The People vs Larry Flint and The Messenger); Jesse Eisenberg, nominee (The Social Network); Emma Stone, winner (La La Land); and Abigail Breslin, nominee (Little Miss Sunshine.) This film is decidedly not a medium for culturing awards. But as a fun exercise in the genre-bending comedy/horror category, it must have been a fun assignment for all involved.

The four stars of 2009’s Zombieland return here to reprise their roles as Tallahassee, Columbus, Wichita and Little Rock (Harrelson, Eisenberg, Stone and Breslin respectively), on their continuing mission to survive a viral pandemic that reduced the world to a post-apocalyptic wasteland populated by hordes of brain-eating living dead. As we have now come to know with the help of TV series like The Walking Dead, The Santa Clarita Diet and many others, the only thing that “kills” a zombie is a grotesque head trauma that destroys their already dead brain. This has been an absolutely boon for video editors and makeup artists in Hollywood. Comically horrific visual and audio special effects abound in these films.

The basic formula established in 2009 has not changed. Wandering apocalypse survivors team up in a quest to find a safe place to call “home” against all odds in a world where there are very few safe places. The White House becomes the setting for some initial survivor hijinks, desecrating objects and settings no longer sacred in the decimated United States.

New friends team up with the gang, but like the red-shirted disposables in Star Trek, are quickly infected and dispatched, usually following a stomach-turning zombie battle. The zombies have been categorized and named since the last film, and Columbus’s obsession with rules leads to some intrusive 3D titles that crumble and fall to the ground after their purpose has been served. A vehicle even crashes into a low-hanging title at one point. A quest for the “kill of the year” honor results in a couple of scenes completely outside of the main story, but are opportunities for additional laughs.

There are references to some events from 2009 that uninformed viewers will find puzzling, but otherwise do not derail the script. This is all about characters bantering in the most unlikely situations, inventing rules for a world where no rules apply. But even in the apocalypse, it pays to “beware of bathrooms” doesn’t it?

Woody Harrelson is at his goofy “Cheers” best here. He has proved his mettle as an actor over the years and is entitled to have some mindless fun, as are we. Ditto for Emma Stone. Directing and writing credits remain intact ten years later, and although not as new, or even as fun and imaginative as the original, fans who have been awaiting a sequel will thoroughly enjoy this 99 minutes of brainless (pun intended) fun. If you’re squeamish, just forget it.

Note: stay past the initial credits. Some of the greatest fun in Zombieland: Double Tap comes in a lengthy revisiting of the 2009 chapter of this once-a-decade franchise.

Zombieland: Double Tap (2019) runs 1 hour 39 minutes and is rated R.

Should I see this movie?

Judy

If you can imagine seeing a train leave a station with the understanding that it is going to experience an agonizing, slow motion and unavoidable wreck, the movie Judy gives you a gut wrenching, trackside view of such a journey. Along for the ride are various audiences, friends, family, fans and industry parasites that witness the spectacle and ride on the coat tails of Judy Garland’s career, spanning forty-five years, beginning at age two.

Judy Garland became a household name with her performance in the Wizard of Oz in 1939. The film won best song that year, sung by Garland, and was nominated for best picture. But it was a big year for movies. Gone With the Wind took best picture. Both films were directed by Victor Fleming.

This is essentially a one-woman show starring Renee Zellweger. I was unconvinced by previews but must say after seeing the film that I can’t imagine anyone doing a better job of channeling the late Garland. The film recounts Judy’s life at a stage during the winter of 1968 when drugs and alcohol had derailed her career in the United States, causing her to leave her children with ex husband Sid Luft while she attempted to pull herself together in England.

As a biopic of a famous figure, Judy is interesting but not outstanding. It’s Zellweger’s portrayal of the fierce and fragile paradox embodied in the tiny (4’ 11”) legendary performer that kicks this movie up a couple of levels and makes it worth seeing. For those old enough to remember, or current fans with audio collections, the fact that Zellweger sang in the film is courageous. Garland’s vocal range and smooth delivery deteriorated over the years, in part due to her chronic smoking habit. The warbling vibrato she became known for is seen by some as a tactic to reach notes as she aged. But she could still belt out songs and thrill her audiences, fueled by a combination of drugs, alcohol, adrenaline, fame and transcendent willpower. 

I remember Judy Garland from appearances on the Tonight Show, first with Jack Paar and later with Johnny Carson. (Thanks Mom and Dad for letting me stay up late and watch.) She was one of those late night couch dwellers that oozed charisma and was just quirky enough to be really interesting. Zellweger captures Judy’s mannerisms and jerky stage presence but just can’t approach her vocal talent. That should not be taken as criticism. She did an admirable, believable job. That said, she will probably be nominated for an academy award for this role.

Flashbacks to Garland at sixteen help explain the extent to which she spends her life as a victim of abuse at the hands of parents, producers and a string of husbands. She is never taught, or allowed, to make good choices, suffers from insomnia and is fed pills to sustain her through eighteen hour days. This becomes habitual and carries her through her early career. The abused becomes the abuser.

Zellweger is no stranger to controversy. Her rather strangely changed appearance following a lengthy absence from the limelight had the media speculating about all sorts of unidentified conditions. She claims that she just…aged. So be it.

Even in death, Garland could find no initial peace. Her remains were moved from Manhattan to Hollywood and re-interred at the request of her children in 2017. Her death was ruled an accident resulting from accumulated barbiturates, not a suicide. She was only 47 years old.

The film ends with a final song on stage. Yes, that song. You know the one.

Judy (2019) runs 1 hour 58 minutes and is rated PG-13

Should I see this movie?  

  

Gemini Man

When I was in my twenties while on a trip to Jamaica I met an artist who lived in the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago. He connected me for a couple of summers to a somewhat free flowing party crowd filled with interesting people I never would have met otherwise. Some were artists. One woman claimed to be Louisa May Alcott’s granddaughter. Her last name was Alcott. I asked. She seemed surprised that I knew the name. Or maybe she was just messing with me. But strange things like that happened, and I was never sure whom I could entirely trust.

My friends and I were invited to lots of parties in the area. Other events, well, we just showed up. But we were frequent enough participants to begin recognizing people and to be recognized by others. Tim Kazurinsky, a Chicago comedian from the early days of Saturday Night Live was at one event. That was fun. And then there was the evening when a small crowd of people stood across a backyard patio, looking at me, giggling and pointing. Eventually they sent an ambassador over who began to question me:

            “Oh my God, what are you doing here?”

I was completely taken aback. Stunned silent, actually.

            “No, seriously, who do you know here? Are you following us?”

It wasn’t until I began to protest my innocence that the inquisitor took a shocked step back, said “Oh, that’s weird, you look just like…” and here I can’t even begin to fill in the name. It doesn’t matter. I had a doppelganger. Someone who looked so much like me I could have switched places. Only our voices set us apart.

So, the premise of Gemini Man was strangely relatable for me. Will Smith plays Henry Brogan, a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) sniper with seemingly super human abilities when it comes to shooting under impossible conditions. The movie begins with Brogan on his belly awaiting the arrival of a bullet train in a foreign locale. He is on a hill 2 kilometers away and the train is moving at 238 km per hour. His target is sitting in a window seat, and he becomes disillusioned when he misses the shot due to a last minute distraction. He hits the target in the neck instead of the head.

Retirement is Henry’s choice as a result of this disappointing performance, along with the development, as in many older soldiers, of a conscience. Never mind he already has 72 high profile kills to his credit. But you don’t leave DIA unless they want you to, and thus begins a tale of espionage, betrayal and ultimately, Brogan coming face to face with a younger clone of himself, sent to kill him.

The clone, a marvel of computer generated imagery, is Smith at age 25. The older Smith, age 51, is beginning to slow, to succumb to his doubts and fears. “Junior” as the clone is known has been trained since birth as a weapon, with all of the older Smith’s strengths and none of his weaknesses.

As the story develops, we are introduced to Dani, a covert DCI agent assigned to monitor Brogan. Played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, known most recently as Laurel Healy from the TV series Braindead, and Nikki Swango on the 2017 Fargo series, her cover is blown and she becomes a target along with Brogan.

We meet Clay Verris (Clive Owen), head of Gemini Global Defenses, a mercenary company of highly trained special operations soldiers, and Junior’s adopted father. Junior must come to terms with the truth of his identity, any remaining hope of becoming a normal member of society and the need to break away from the madness that has gripped Verris. There are rumors within the agency that there are plans that extend far beyond simple cloning to the creation of an army of soulless super soldiers, devoid of pain and fear.

            “We can spare parents the grief of seeing their child come home in a box,” is Clay’s moral imperative for his utterly immoral God-play.

The University of Illinois’ own Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, Life of Pi) directed Gemini Man. It was shot at the high frame rate of 120 frames per second, which gives it an intensity and hyper reality that compliments the incredible de-ageing of Will Smith. That special effect is rarely disruptive, and then only slightly so. I wondered if I would have questioned the animated appearance of young Smith at all had I not known to watch for it. That computers are clearly at the point at which actors are almost optional brings us closer to the day when talent is merely licensed and voiced-over once sufficient star power has been established. Or will completely artificial personages have stars of their own on the Hollywood walk of fame?

Gemini Man is exciting, as believable as any modern super spy thriller, well scripted, nicely acted (Smith versus Smith side by side had to be a challenge) and filled with numerous switchbacks, chase scenes and exotic locations.

Gemini Man (2019) runs 1 hour 57 minutes and is rated PG-13.

Should I see this movie?  

The Addams Family

On a dark and stormy night, Gomez and Morticia Addams, fleeing a torch-bearing mob of angry villagers, run over a large straight-jacketed man on a winding mountain road.

            “We’ve HIT something!” Gomez proclaims gleefully.

That giant human form is none other than Lurch, escapee from a nearby insane asylum. Taking him along as an adopted butler on their quest for a spooky home of their own, the adventure begins and Lurch is on hand to answer the door with the classic, “You rang?”

            “We need to find somewhere horrible to call our own. Someplace corrupt. Where no one in their right mind would want to live!” proclaims Gomez.

A flash of lightning reveals the following road sign: 

What gives screenwriter Matt Lieberman the right to make fun of New Jersey this way? Well, for one, Westfield, New Jersey was the birthplace of the cartoon’s creator Charles Addams in 1912. The community is now the site of the second annual AddamsFest, expecting 12,000 attendees from 85 towns this October.

Our screening of the latest animated Addams Family film was well attended. It appears the ghoulish cast of characters, originally created in 1938, has retained the appeal brought to life (irony intended) by the 1964 television sitcom starring John Astin and Carolyn Jones. It was a strange time in television history, with the Munsters debuting the same year. The two shows were Halloweenish, macabre fun at its best.

Subsequent films in 1990 (The Addams Family) and 1993 (Addams Family Values) starred the gigantic Ted Cassidy, reprising his original role as Lurch, along with Raul Julia and Angelica Huston as Gomez and Morticia respectively. Over the years, the franchise has spun off various cartoon series, games, movies, television specials and even a live musical production.

While this is perhaps not a compelling story or even a spectacular 3D computer animation, it is a fun feature that introduces a host of other Addams family members, albeit too briefly. All of the regulars are here, nicely voiced by current Hollywood talent, not leastly Charlize Theron (Morticia), who seems able to do just about anything, and is proving it with her most recent half dozen spectrum-wide assignments.

The Addams clan settles happily into their abandoned insane asylum, a decrepit, castle-like structure on a hill overlooking a planned community known as Assimilation, being hyped for imminent sale by big-haired reality TV personality Margaux Needler. When the surrounding swamp is drained, a protective fog evaporates and reveals the distracting house of horrors on the hill nearby. But the Addams’ want nothing more than to be accepted for who they are, as does Needler’s daughter Parker. She and Wednesday Addams strike up a symbiotic friendship, each of them learning about acceptance by emulating the other and rebelling against their respective mothers.

Meanwhile, Pugsley is failing to prepare adequately for the longstanding Addams traditional Mazurka, a sword juggling orchestrated performance that the entire Addams extended family has arrived to witness. Queue another rock-hurling mob action, this one prompted by social media savvy Ms. Needler from her subterranean surveillance lair, and Pugsley proves to have a very particular and useful set of skills. Even the spirit of the Addams house returns following a makeover that leaves it looking a bit too pastel and pretty.

Lurch is given several nice solos on pipe organ, piano, and of course harpsichord. Thing is on hand (pun definitely intended) to encourage the selection of tunes for the opening and closing sequences. And here I have to say was the highlight of the film at our viewing. When Lurch played the well-known Addams Family theme (They’re creepy and they’re kooky…) our entire audience began snapping their fingers in unison at the appropriate spots in the song. It was like a ghastly campfire sing-along, with laughter instead of singing, and a finger-snapping good time.

So gather with your shawl on,
A broomstick you can crawl on,
You’ll want to pay a call on…the Addams Family!

SNAP! SNAP!

The Addams Family (2019) runs 1 hour 27 minutes and is rated PG.

Should I see this movie?  

Joker

I grew up watching the comic-book-come-to-life Batman show that debuted in 1966. We didn’t even have a color TV at the time, but my mind seems to have filled in the details like the paint-by-number artwork of the same era. It was an outrageously colorful series, both visually and through its campy characters. Caesar Romero played the villainous Joker in that incarnation with a crazy enthusiasm that subsequent actors have been trying to top ever since.

In 2012, a real life Joker entered a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, killed 12 people and injured scores more in the worse mass shooting since Columbine, sadly in the same state. The Dark Knight Rises was playing that evening, adding a life-imitates-art twist to that tragic event. Ironically, the Joker was not in that film, but the actual lunatic looked more frightening in court than any amount of makeup can convey in a movie about Batman, or one that even slightly overlaps the Batman story in the Gotham City universe.

We all know by now that there is no such thing as bad publicity, so the recent media frenzy and refusal to show the new Joker film just piles dollars onto the box office take, setting records and frightening audiences everywhere. But the sad fact is that mass shootings have frequently taken more lives than in this movie. By my count, the Joker kills eight people in two hours.

Pictured below are the gallery of Jokers: Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, Jared Leto and now Joaquin Phoenix. The Internet is ablaze with comparisons and “who’s the best” essays. I won’t judge, since this review is about the 2019 film. 

But Phoenix’s portrayal goes far beyond the clown makeup that helps tell this origin story. Set against a timely rich-against-poor backdrop of clown-faced rioters inadvertently inspired by Arthur Fleck (the Joker’s real name) after a subway mugging and triple murder, the Joker eventually becomes a counter culture hero in a city gone mad. His attempt at stand-up comedy is uncomfortably reminiscent of Andy Kaufman’s on stage madness.

Batman is not in this film. Well, at least not yet. But his father is running for mayor, and Arthur Fleck is convinced that Thomas Wayne is his own father. Layers of pity for Fleck begin to build early on as he is beaten by thugs, abandoned by a therapist and comes to discover his own horrific abuse as a child. He suffers from a condition that causes him to laugh hysterically and inappropriately, and has a history of mental illness in his family.

And perhaps that’s where Joaquin Phoenix triumphs in this role. Jack Nicholson just looks kind of crazy and can summon up “Here’s Johnny” lunacy at will. Heath Ledger took the character much darker, perhaps becoming too involved in the role. Jared Leto complemented the Suicide Squad’s Joker with some actual insanity, but Phoenix makes the character believable. His journey is not so much a descent into madness as an ascent from it, with a couple of lateral moves along the way.

There is another origin story within this one. I won’t spoil it, but let it be known to fans of Batman that, no, there cannot be a Joker movie without Batman. At least not entirely. Director Todd Phillips produced the Hangover trilogy and the recent A Star is Born. Close-ups appear to be a specialty and are entirely effective in this film.

Joaquin Phoenix has done some pretty crazy things off-screen that leave one wondering where the character begins and the actor ends. His real life appearances on Letterman were cringe-worthy, and Robert DeNiro’s Carson-esque late night talk show segment is just shocking. If you’re in the mood for a dark ride, some great acting, and another reason to be afraid of clowns, head out to the theater and see this with a nervous crowd while you have a chance.

Joker (2019) runs 2 hours, 2 minutes and is rated R.

Should I see this movie?   

Rambo: Last Blood

It’s hard to believe that the first appearance of John Rambo in First Blood was 37 years ago. Four more films have been produced, including the current Rambo: Last Blood, and hopefully the franchise can now be put to bed.

I mean, how many times, and for how many reasons can the main character get enraged or freaked out enough to go on a horrific rampage that uses all of his military training in the art of dispensing death? Are his wounds at the end of this film severe enough to kill him, or will he heal for one more round of mayhem?

For a while, Sylvester Stallone seemed intent on creating action heroes with five letter names: Rocky, Cobra, Rambo. Rocky had multiple sequels, as did Rambo, and both franchises hit a formulaic and mostly successful stride. For the record, because I lost touch with several of these, here are the Rambo films in order:

First Blood 1982

Rambo: First Blood Part 2 1985

Rambo III 1988

Rambo 2008 

Rambo: Last Blood  2019

As you can see, it’s been a while since the last film, the only one directed by Stallone. He’s had a hand in writing all of them however. The 1980s were generally Rambo territory, when Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder became recognized and came into use as a plot device.

In this latest rampage, John Rambo is living on a farm in Arizona with his niece and her mother. He has constructed a series of tunnels all over the property because “he likes to dig and is crazy” according to his niece Gabrielle (Yvette Monreal). The tunnels become the creepy Viet Nam-like setting for a final battle with crazed Mexican human traffickers later in the film. A lengthy segment has Rambo eagerly preparing booby traps and weaponry for his expected visitors. This is the point at which my wife brilliantly commented on the similarity with Home Alone, and in fact Stallone was asked about this parallel during an interview for IMDB. Others have been producing parodies of Rambo: Home Alone.

Gabrielle, intent on visiting her no-good father in Mexico to find out why he abandoned her, defies John’s request and her mother’s demand that she not try to find him. But her troubled friend has done the research and the temptation is too much to resist. Thus begins the descent into chaos and human trafficking that results in a Rambo killing spree so violent it should probably be rated NC-17. And yes, once again, in the row behind us a family brought kids to see this twisted display of graphic gore and revenge.

Seriously, don’t you want your ten year old to see a living man’s heart cut out of his chest so he can “see my rage and feel the pain in my heart,” according to the “hero” of the film?

Rambo gets even for sure, and of course he saves the best kill for last – the worst bad guy. But this is revenge-porn pure and simple. There is no redeeming value. Rambo’s niece is still dead and John is still severely broken. There is no attempt to revisit the classic line, “They drew first blood,” spoken in 1982. Obviously it made no sense to state that last blood was drawn.

So, enough Sly. Time to move on. It’s admirable that you can handle a role this physical at age 73, but your face looks like molded clay, and your voice is still the comic book Rocky Balboa mouth full of marbles it’s always been. It might be fun if you yell ADRIAN! in the closing credits for each of your films.

Effectively directed and simply written, this blissfully short movie certainly gets the job done. Stallone, for all his questionable acting ability is just right for the role, and delivers short, pithy lines like, “I want them to know death is coming” in just the right threatening, guttural whisper.

So if you really like Stallone and the Rambo series, by all means go see it on the big screen. Otherwise, in the time it takes to travel to and from the theater, buy your snacks and sit through 25 minutes of coming attractions, you could watch it at home twice, alone.

Rambo: Last Blood (2019) runs 1 hour 29 minutes and is rated R.

Should I see this movie?  

The Goldfinch

They’re creepy and they’re kooky, mysterious and spooky...

Oh, wait, I have to save that for the upcoming Adam’s Family movie.

Ok, they’re rich and sadly boring, they live in New York, intellectually walled off from each other, and this doesn’t rhyme.

Once again, I was led to believe a movie is about something entirely different than how it’s portrayed in a trailer. The Goldfinch looked to be an exciting whodunit about a terrorist event and a stolen masterpiece. While there was an unexplained explosion, and a 1654 painting goes missing, the entire middle of the movie drags on about a grieving boy coming of age among seriously broken people.

For the record, I looked up the painting. The Goldfinch is a 1654 work by Carel Fabritius of a chained goldfinch. It is a 13 by 9 inch oil painting that belongs to a collection in The Hague, Netherlands.

I did not read the Pulitzer Prize winning book from which this movie originated, but have read that this interpretation is a disappointment, losing much in translation.

The beginning and end of the movie, if the entirety of the span between those two segments could be reduced by about an hour, would have held my interest. Although beautifully filmed and filled with details that art, music and antique furniture aficionados might enjoy, the characters are shallow, temporary caretakers of their beloved collections.

Nicole Kidman’s character (Mrs. Barbour) is just weird, staring vacantly at those around her, speaking in near whispers and raising a family of similarly strange children.

Oakes Fegley and Ansel Elgort play the young and older central character Theo Decker, who survives an art museum explosion that kills his mother. He is cared for by the wealthy Barbour family until his delinquent father (Luke Wilson) appears with his girlfriend Xandra, played sufficiently skanky by Sarah Paulson. They whisk him away to a desolate, mostly foreclosed neighborhood in Las Vegas. (An interesting side note, Paulson’s father works in the Lowe’s store near our house. He sells windows. Hey, people have parents.)

Theo’s new friend Boris, who mostly raises himself, is a drug using, heavily traveled, abused son of a Russian merchant of some sort. He is also played by two actors, Finn Wolfhard from Stranger Things, and Aneurin Barnard who was in Dunkirk and tons of other TV series. Unfortunately, Wolfhard seems to have trouble maintaining a consistent Russian accent.

Luke Wilson suffers from typecasting in comedies early in his career that make him a misfit as a raging alcoholic. He and Paulson are just too recognizable for roles that would have benefited from unknown faces.

On the chance that you might choose to see this movie, I don’t want to reveal anything that turned out to be surprising. Those were the films only redeeming features.

The Goldfinch (2019) runs 2 hours, 29 minutes and is rated R.

Should I see this movie?

Ad Astra

A personal disclaimer: I liked Star Trek The Motion Picture, Dune, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alien. I did not like Star Wars the first time I saw it, mostly because I expected something more cerebral. The bar scene full of goofy aliens, which most people LOVE, seemed silly to me.

I was looking forward to Ad Astra, based solely on the trailers we’ve seen for a couple of months. It looked thoughtful, exciting and spectacularly imagined. And in fact, it was very thoughtful and visually stunning. So why did I come away somewhat disappointed?

The film is set “in the near future” according to opening titles. How near is subject to speculation, since a vast metropolis exists on the Moon, commercial space transportation has become routine, and a subterranean government base is established on Mars. Visitors on the Moon move via escalators past a DHL shipping outlet and Subway sandwich store. It looks much like a large airport does today. This is the stuff of 100 to 300 years from now.

Unfortunately, as mankind has moved off-Earth, all human failings have hitched a ride. The Moon is at war, complete with raiding bands of pirates, and the furthest outpost in the solar system near Neptune has become the scene of a lunatic’s mass murder. That lunatic is the preeminent U.S. astronaut, H. Clifford McBride, played by Tommy Lee Jones. He is the father of Ad Astra’s primary character, his son Roy, played by Brad Pitt.

And where have we been introduced to this? Ah, yes, over fifty years ago when Stanley Kubrick had flight attendants working in weightless conditions on board a moon shuttle. There hasn’t been a ton of imaginative progress since that visionary masterpiece. But on this trip, Brad Pitt is charged $125 for a blanket and pillow pack. And it all feels very real if ubiquitous corridors and airlocks still satisfy the requirements of construction on other worlds.

It seems that Pitt’s real life quest to tear down the emotional walls that keep him safe from vulnerability are similar to those that make Roy McBride a supremely stable space ranger. His pulse fails to exceed 80 beats per minute even when falling to his death from a towering space antenna, parachuting to a landing at the last moment. Throughout the film he is subjected to frequent psychological assessments during which he professes to be “feeling good and ready to do my job to the best of my abilities.”

Several long sequences in Ad Astra had the feel of Kubrick’s long journey to Jupiter, minus the psychedelic colors. There’s not a lot of dialogue, and the feeling of isolation within confined spacecraft and space suits runs pretty much throughout the film.

A running gun battle in rovers on the surface of the Moon, an attack by released research baboons on a scientific vessel, and a hand-to-hand combat sequence aboard the ship bound for Neptune are inserted to add periodic excitement to the otherwise monotonous plot. We’re never really sure why Tommy Lee Jones is using antimatter to generate “surges” that threaten to wipe out all life in the known universe. He just wants to identify intelligent life somewhere, anywhere. The government’s goal is to destroy him at all costs. The 1956 film Forbidden Planet made better use of the human psyche – The Tempest style – to parlay human frailty into cosmically sinister forces. The senior McBride just seems to have gone space-mad from self imposed loneliness and ambition.

Ad Astra, Latin for “to the stars” might have been more aptly titled Ad Nauseum, given the droning self-talk of the main character and the anti-climactic ending. Sure, young McBride saves the universe, but along the way he discovers that his father never cared about him (he tells him this) and the government is secretive, duplicitous and has used him as an unwitting tool.

If you like science fiction, this is probably worth seeing. I’d be surprised if it does well in theaters once people start talking about it. The pace is similar to 2016’s Arrival. Don’t go into it expecting the excitement of 2013’s Gravity 2015's The Martian or even the original Planet of the Apes.

At the end of the day, no intelligent life was found. But maybe the negative tone of this review is just the result of my wife calling Brad Pitt “dreamy” while I was sitting next to her sharing a bag of M&Ms.

Ad Astra runs 2 hours 3 minutes and is rated PG-13.

 Should I see this movie?  

Brittany Runs a Marathon

If you’ve ever needed to lose a few pounds, wanted to get in shape or had friends who let you down, Brittany Runs a Marathon will be a relatable, possibly cringe-worthy two hours that either makes you want to go work out or visit the concession stand so you can eat your feelings.

If you’ve ever successfully reinvented yourself, you’ve recognized the changes that happen all around you, and realize that the things most worth changing aren’t on the outside. The person you need to be and love is, well, you.

Jillian Bell plays Brittany, a fun-loving underachiever whose roommate and best friend is at her best when Brittany is at her worst. Success for Brittany is a direct threat to Gretchen’s (Alice Lee) drug-pushing, alcohol bingeing, outer physical perfection. When she engages in physical activity she "loses too much weight." Really? She’s not much of a friend at all, which becomes apparent when Brittany begins to pay attention to herself instead of Gretchen.

Most doctors don’t tell you to lose weight and exercise. They eagerly write prescriptions for cholesterol lowering medication and focus only on what’s bothering you. If being fat makes you happy, so be it. So imagine Brittany’s surprise when she goes to a doctor who suggests that her BMI is too high and no, he won’t give her Adderall. She should consider getting some exercise.

Thus begins Brittany’s quest to get in shape. Her semi poverty drives her outdoors where exercise is free. Running one block is her first goal, but she gradually increases distance and eventually decides to train for the New York City Marathon. She makes new friends along the way, and ultimately the one friend she needs most – herself.

Some initial comic scenes energize the beginning of this movie. Here we have another fat girl whose humor shields her from criticism, intimacy and responsibility. But her sadness shines through, and the dramatic side of the movie takes over. Both sides of the equation are sensitively handled, intelligently scripted and well acted.

Paul Downs Colaizzo wrote this screenplay based on the true story of his close friend Brittany O'Neill. It is his first film in the Director’s chair. Casting of Jillian Bell in her first lead role paid off. She lost 40 pounds for the role and took up running to better understand the character she was to play. A difficult scene in which she takes to task another heavy woman for being impossibly happy led Bell to be less self-deprecating about herself going forward. The scene is as uncomfortable to watch as the one in Family Stone in which Sarah Jessica Parker inadvertently insults a gay couple. But in this case, Brittany is drunk and deliberate.

So if Brittany Runs a Marathon doesn’t sound like a fun run through Central Park, it’s not, but it does have some likeable characters and endearing moments. Perhaps it should be categorized purely as a drama, and the trailer should downplay the comedy.

Brittany Runs a Marathon (2019) runs 1 hour 44 minutes and is rated R.

Should I see this movie?  

Overcomer

My first thought when we considered going to see this movie was, “What a dumb title,” and I still think they could have come up with something more grammatically clever. With a cast full of unknowns and a budget of only five millions dollars, I longed for a sports-related movie similar to 1979’s Breaking Away, a feel good sleeper that inspired and excited with half the budget.

What isn’t apparent, either in the trailer or until about half way through this film is that the production company, Affirm Films, makes movies that appeal to Evangelical Christians. The religious tone of the film was kept under wraps until the plot needed the help of a higher power to succeed. At that point, the spiritual message becomes very heavy handed and I felt that the movie could be used in a confirmation class or Sunday school.

They say that God doesn’t give you anything you can’t handle. So, I guess when a local employer shuts their doors, resulting in the school basketball team being depleted of athletes who defect to another town, it becomes too much for coach Harrison (Alex Kendrick) to handle. Adding to his troubles is a pay cut and his reassignment to the school cross-country team. The team has only one member, young Hannah (Aryn Wright-Thompson) who has asthma and no parents. The grandmother she lives with is aware she’s stealing things, demands that she return her latest acquisition, and then goes to work. She seems a bit angry, perhaps resentful of the role she’s taken on as guardian.

A coincidental meeting leads Coach to the hospital room of a dying patient who turns out to be Hannah’s supposedly dead father. The coach and his wife take it upon themselves to introduce the two, unsure of how simmering Grandma will react. Of course she explodes. The father was a drug abuser who walked out when Hannah was a baby, and Grandma has been “protecting” her from his further influence ever since. In real life this subterfuge would have led to litigation.

A little further research finds that Alex Kendrick, an ordained Baptist minister and his brother Steven, are the Kendirck Brothers who produced this and other similarly inspirational films like Flywheel, Fireproof  and Courageous. Alex not only stars in, but writes, directs and produces. And he’s not a bad actor.

Honestly, I felt that I’d been tricked into seeing this movie, and I guess by saying that I’m admitting that I wouldn’t have attended had I known what I learned along the way. That said, it was a nice movie, a feel good experience, adequately scripted, filmed and acted, but could have achieved the same result without several cringe-worthy scenes in which people fall to their knees and beg God for help. To examine the script further requires a philosophical debate that serves no purpose. But I also wonder about the motivation behind somewhat disguising the film’s nature. Was it for wider distribution, increased ticket sales, or the hope of spreading the good word further than they might, had they been more forthright, leaving them preaching to the choir?

Forgiveness and redemption are served in heaping helpings in Overcomer. If you have a couple of hours free because you skipped church this week, consider opening your heart, mind and a box of popcorn to this helpful message movie.

Overcomer (2019) runs 1 hour 59 minutes and is rated PG.

It Chapter 2

"How long IS this movie?" my wife whispered in my ear.

“Eight hours,” I replied, having reached a point where I wondered similarly.

If you’ve read much Steven King, you know he can write long stories. 1990’s The Stand was 1152 pages in hardcover. 2017’s It tops that slightly at 1168. So, what do you cut out of ponderous tomes like these to fit them into a two-hour movie? Apparently, not much.

Even Steven King himself appeared in a speaking part during It Chapter 2. It was lengthy for a cameo, not like Alfred Hitchcock silently lurking in the background. But King is creepy enough looking to do a spot-on job of playing a creepy storeowner.

We watched It Chapter 1 the night before seeing the sequel. We felt it was important to understand what was going on 27 years earlier, which is the setup for this encounter with Pennywise, the insane clown monster and title character. And as expected, they shot a lot of extra footage during the filming of the first movie in order to rehash the relationships between the seven kids from King’s fictional Maine town of Derry.

And rehash they did. Old footage galore, used and new, revisited many scenes in order to make sense of the new chapter for new viewers who missed the old one.

Both films are scary, gory collages of ultra creepy killer clown encounters, the underlying plot being to destroy the evil that surfaces in Derry every twenty-seven years. We find in this go-round that the clown is actually an alien “eater of worlds” that crashed into Earth millions of years ago. We discover that this was chronicled by Native Americans that attempted to ritually rid themselves of the periodic evil to no avail. The creature feeds on fear, and is quite adept at creating fear-provoking situations, customized to individuals, and seemingly causing ripples of psychotic behavior among the town’s citizens. That, or else Derry is one abusive, messed up place to begin with.

A lot of time is spent establishing the fact that the previously identified time limit has expired, Pennywise is back, and the “losers” as they call themselves in the first film need to regroup for a second attempt at killing the beast. Of course, the original 13 year olds are now 40, which leads to some fun casting challenges. Bill Hader is perfect as Richie, equally adept at comedy and drama, and often switching gears several times in a single scene. Apparently I’m not the only one to confuse Jessica Chastain with Bryce Howard, but it doesn’t matter. Chastain plays the grown up (red-headed) Beverly, the only girl in the group. Stanley commits suicide rather than return to Derry, so Andy Bean doesn’t get much screen time.

That's Howard on the left, Chastain to the right.

Each character must retrieve an “artifact” from the first film to sacrifice in the ritual that Mike (Isaiah Mustafa) has decoded over the years. He was the only member of the team who remained in Derry during the intervening time.

To get into any more detail risks this review becoming a further perpetrator of the Steven King long story trap. Suffice it to say that each character experiences a lengthy close encounter with Pennywise, one after the other, until the group attacks en masse, and is then divided by the creature for easier predation. 

It becomes clear that nothing can destroy the fear-eating force, not even love (yeah, I thought it might go there), so eventually they humiliate it to death. Yes, the eater of worlds becomes the victim of group bullying and name calling, making the monster feel small. If this is a public service message of some kind, it gets totally lost in the resulting gore and special effects. It just seems kind of lame.

The good news is, there will be no Chapter 3. There was really no need for Chapter 2, but without it the first film would have been five hours long. Maybe without all the flashbacks it could have been trimmed to four. After all, both films had the same Director, but writing duties shifted to include Steven King for the finale. Ah, there’s the problem. Stick to books Steve. Screenplay becomes screen time.

It Chapter 2 (2019) runs 2 hours 49 minutes and is rated R.

Should I see this movie?  

Bennett’s War

We are clearly scraping the bottom of the available movie barrel thanks to our Regal Unlimited Movie Pass. This is not a film we ever would have paid to see, nor is it one that I’ll recommend. Not being awful is not the same as being good.

You know you’re on the margins of the film industry when Trace Adkins has the longest acting portfolio among the cast members. Here he plays a tough guy (of course) farmer named Cal Bennett, father of the main character Marshall. He has a ponytail and a failing farm. He needs money to keep things going.

Marshall Bennett (Michael Roark) is a motorcycle commando, blown up in the Mideast and recovering from leg injuries that threaten to end his Motocross career. His wife Sophie (Allison Paige) is going to make sure of that. After all, she almost lost him once and they have a new baby.

A series of scenes show friends and family hovering over Marshall out of concern for his recovery, but effectively preventing him from reclaiming his dignity. And then he tries to change a light bulb by standing on an unstable stool. I’m not kidding. He falls and cries in his Dad’s arms.

At long last, Marshall defies Sophie by winning a local race and saving Dad’s farm with the prize money. Dad has a heart to heart with Sophie that turns things around. We suddenly find ourselves watching a Rocky-like against-all-odds training sequence to get Marshall ready to compete and go pro. Chin-ups in the barn sort of stuff with a little wifey exercise afterwards. This is the point at which I leaned over to my wife and whispered in my best Burgess Meredith impression, “Women weaken legs, Rock!”

Go Pro is a key choice of words above. This movie felt as if some Motocross fans got together with a helmet-mounted camera and decided to edit it into a story. I can just hear it, “Dude, we got Trace Adkins and Tony Panterra to sign on!”

Yes, Tony Panterra, is apparently sort of playing himself. He is a Motocross racer, stuntman and actor whose largest claim to fame is his daughter Lexy Panterra. I’d never heard of either of them, but it appears she has a large following for shaking her booty in a video workout program called The Twerkout. You can’t make this stuff up.

The Director and most of the actors have only TV and short film credits prior to this picture. The story is corny and predictable, but otherwise gets the job done and generates a little excitement. At least it’s short, and to their credit they managed to keep the rating down with an almost total lack of profanity. I doubt this will be in theaters for long, so if you like Motocross, you may want to zoom over to the theater soon.

Bennett’s War (2019) runs 1 hour 34 minutes and is rated PG.

Should I see this movie? 

Toy Story 4

It’s hard to believe that Andy headed off to college in Toy Story 3 nine years ago. By now he might have completed his Doctorate. Harder yet is realizing that the Toy Story franchise has been with us for twenty-four years. Many of us have children who grew up with this cast of characters, headed off to college, and perhaps had children with their own favorite toys.

If you’ve been to Orlando’s Disney World since June of 2018, you’ve most likely been caught up in the maddening crush known as Toy Story Land. Created to the usual irresistibly colorful and immersive standards we’ve come to expect, you’ll want to ride the Slinky-Dog Coaster, pose alongside Buzz Lightyear with the kids and then run screaming in another direction after the giant Tinker-Toys and crowds of families with kids become too much.

But at the movies it’s like a trip back in time. After all, while we’ve been relentlessly aging, our extended family of characters have remained frozen in 1995, when the original Toy Story announced that “You've Got a Friend in Me.” One wonders why the theme park took so long to come to fruition. The second movie came out within four years. The third after a much longer pause of eleven. And finally, nine years evaporated prior to this most recent incarnation. It’s not like they had to create new characters or new voices (still Tom Hanks and Tim Allen).

But, forgive me for getting a bit misty during these films, and I know I’m not alone. Revisiting these old friends reminds us of, well, a lot. What a different world we lived in during the first two chapters. Perhaps a delay was in order post-911 as we adjusted to a daily diet of war and apprehension. Or did we need Toy Story even more because of it?

If you’ve seen one movie, you’ve seen them all. The original look and feel has been preserved by Pixar despite astounding advances in photorealistic 3D technique. That’s comforting, but just how long can they carry on this franchise? Perhaps as long as new kids are born to watch them? It’s refreshing to see a G-rated movie, an increasing rarity in our NC17 world. And it’s nice to hear fun new music in Randy Newman’s increasingly gravely voice.

Little Bo Peep has a larger role in this Toy Story. And a new character named Duke Caboom (voiced by Keanu Reeves) is a fun addition. He’s like an Evel Knievel partner to Buzz Lightyear’s ongoing failed attempts at flight and fantasy. The new comic star of the show is “Forky” – a living spork created by young Bonnie at her Kindergarten orientation. A subplot involving ventriloquist dummies has parents squirming, but maybe not the kids. That particular fear is an acquired taste, much like clowns. Woody is aging nicely but having something of an identity crisis. And his time in the back of a closet has resulted in “your first dust bunny.” It’s a testament to his own passage of time as adroitly commented upon by a toy alarm clock.

And speaking of parents, this story has a diverse and more present adult couple. “Dad” is referenced several times by the toys, and again by Mom, who ushers Bonnie away before, “Dad is going to use some words” regarding a flat tire on their RV. Animation within a long carnival segment is as good as any filmed amusement park. The lighting is brilliant, the colors vivid and the games come to life in an amusing way.

I’m leaving out details to avoid spoilers, but the setup for a fifth film is definitely in place should they choose to keep this particular money making machine running for another decade or so. It seems everyone wants to be part of this animated treasure. Voices include Mel Brooks, Carol Burnett, Carl Reiner, Betty White and even the late Don Rickles retrieved from archival audio. There are so many characters it’s hard to sort them all out. But with animated stars like these, it’s easy to see how they might go…to infinity and beyond.

Toy Story 4 (2019) runs 1 hour 40 minutes and is rated G.

Should I see this movie? 

Angel Has Fallen

Much of the following will appear as if I don’t like this film. But despite the ludicrous plot devices used to tell the story, it was exciting, fast paced and engaging almost from beginning to end. But let’s start with my gripes.

If you haven’t noticed, technology has become a ubiquitous virtual character in many productions for TV and film. Cell phones go without saying. But another example is the omnipresent vital function monitor next to hospital beds, bigger than life and in your face, bleeping away in vivid colors and large enough for a Superbowl party. Way sexier than the real world’s beige box with green and white tracings. On TV’s The Good Doctor you can count on one hysterical staff reaction after another, usually preceded by a lull in the action, a calm before the storm that makes it an effective drinking game if you’re into that. Ok, here it comes—sure enough, time for a full screen shot of the monitor, alarms sound, colored lines spike and numbers plummet. Time to do something medical and yell orders for tests without doing any paperwork.

So it’s not surprising that in fact there is a scene in Angel Has Fallen where the President of the United States, played by Morgan Freeman, lays comatose in an Intensive Care Unit, monitored to the hilt following an assassination attempt. But do they use this new standard? No, they rely on the close-up finger-twitch signal that a patient is about to come out of a coma. They follow this with the not so subtle blink of the closed eyes, followed by full consciousness within seconds. Mind you, he’s been comatose for days, but he’s instantly able to shout orders and demand that Secret Service stop doing their job long enough for a suspected assassin to have his say.

Next we have drones. These are very trendy, but not at all the dumb Norelco triple-header that your nephew is flying over the neighbor’s pool. These are genuinely scary, able to do evil things and hard to defend against. In this case, we have a team of highly skilled assassins operating a vehicle-mounted launching battery, a large egg carton of short, black, steel tubes. Like a fireworks finale, it spews hundreds of tiny bat-like flying monkeys into the sky above a tranquil lake where the President is trying to have a brief fishing respite from the stresses of Washington. They swarm and dive onto targets, erupting with fireballs out of proportion to their ability to carry explosives, and with a precision determined by a monstrous video gaming bad guy in a truck who is pinpointing enemies with – wait for it – facial recognition, from cloud height.

That brings us to the guy in the truck or several guys later in a control center, literally a sleek, darkened war room, filled with huge video displays and computer terminals. Of course, these computer geniuses can hack into everything from car engines to a hospital’s oxygen delivery system, all at the behest of an unseen digitally disguised voice. You know, the one that’s altered to sound like a monster from X-men. And boy, is he angry if things don’t go his way. So the killer geeks start hacking like crazy, and you can tell they’re busy because a small black terminal window opens on their computer monitor. It is scrolling through hundreds of lines of green text command lines, and somewhere in that jumble they can tell that everything is at its sinister best, or going horribly wrong. That’s right, they have been reduced to frantically typing DOS programmers from 1988.

And then there’s the human element. How do you know that your best friend Wade (Danny Huston), bonded with you in the heat of battle in Iraq, is about to betray you, frame you, take your family hostage and blow up a whole wing of a hospital? Well, just have him over for dinner and give him a nice glass of wine. You can almost hear the sinister chuckle as he pats your toddler on the head and calls her “cutie-pie.” That same guy, far too old and gray-haired to be leaping around a rooftop and engaging in hand-to-hand combat, should be wincing at the pain in his arthritic knees. Instead, he takes a plunging knife wound to his heart. It’s the kind of wound that lets him rapidly bleed to death while remaining dramatically conscious so he can thank his friend/killer, “I’m glad it was you.”

After Banning is framed for the Presidential attack, it becomes predictably clear that the weenie of a Vice-President who assumes acting capacity as Commander in Chief, is up to no good. We can only hope that he gets caught.

So, yeah, I’ve made Angel Has Fallen sound dumb. But the reality is that they use all of these corny devices to great success. Gerard Butler, as Secret Service agent Mike Banning, has not become the Dwayne Johnson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone comic book action hero we’re used to seeing in this type of film. He’s a more relatable tough guy who doesn’t smile much, kind of resembling Russell Crowe. He is most known for his role as King Leonides in 300, and starred in the Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical version of Phantom of the Opera.

Morgan Freeman is certainly a draw for this film. Who doesn’t love Morgan? His gentle wisdom and soothing voice adapt him to just about any role, from God to Glory, with an insanely prolific career that began in the late 1960s.

A nice surprise is Clay Banning, played by, wait, is that Nick Nolte!? Sure enough, appearing to be “one step above the Unabomber” as his son describes him, he brings a strangely human element to Mike Banning’s personal history, and some humor when he starts blowing up the countryside surrounding his off-the-grid bunker in Virginia. A final scene in which the two of them indulge in some father/son therapeutic time leaves you laughing as you exit the theater. Nolte may be reason enough to see this movie.

Some of the action scenes are filmed so tight that it’s hard to tell what’s happening. The viewer is left to assume that the hero is winning, until it’s made painfully clear that he’s not. There are lots of explosions, including the reduction of a building to dust, filmed nicely from above. Perhaps a real demolition?

A silly little subplot has Banning suffering from post-concussive headaches. He keeps this a secret from his wife and the President. It’s hardly a big deal that he sees doctors but the President makes him promise, “no more secrets.”

If you’re in the mood for tons of military style action, predictable but believable characters and some really buttery popcorn, this movie feels much shorter than its two-hour length. The big screen draws you in, but your own living room might be just as good.

Angel Has Fallen (2019) runs 2 hours, 1 minute and is rated R.

Should I see this movie?