The Crow

His name is Eric. 

He's not The Crow, but he might as well be on the basis of "sure, why not?" 

Whatever his name is, James O'Barr's undead comic book superhero is back to haunt movie theaters. When Alex Proyas adapted The Crow in 1994, he created a film defined by its gothic aesthetics and, unfortunately, the on-set death of star Brandon Lee in a mishap with a prop gun. This new film spent years in development hell, cycling in directors and stars before Rupert Sanders and Bill Skarsgard swooped in. Was it worth it?

Eric (Skarsgard) is a tortured soul living a quiet life at rehab. A new resident, Shelly (FKA Twigs), catches his eye, and the feelings are mutual. Shelly has incriminating evidence against the literally demonic crime lord Vincent Roeg (Danny Huston). She and Eric escape rehab when Roeg and his goons come looking for her. The goons eventually find her and kill them both.

As Shelly sinks below an otherworldly river, Eric finds himself at an otherworldly trainyard. Kronos (Sami Bouajila) assigns him to find Roeg, who is centuries past his expiration date, and kill him and his goons. Eric takes up his undead quest for vengeance with the help of a ghostly crow. Roeg soon decides to extract Eric's secret of immortality. Eventually.

The screenplay by Zach Baylin & William Schneider takes quite a while before it gets to Eric & Shelly's murders, and quite longer before Eric commits to his superhero look. In the meantime, we get plenty of time to see Eric & Shelly bond together through music. Eric also has flashbacks to a horse he failed to save from a barbed wire fence. The film treats the horse like Poe's Lenore, but we learn practically nothing about it. Roeg has the ability to compel people to murder or suicide, an ability which he uses in his first scene. That's about the most interesting thing about this villain. His compelling voice also plays into Shelly's dark secret, which makes it a bit time consuming when it tests Eric's love for her. Overall, the film has a thin plot stretched over 111 minutes, and I thought going in it would be longer.

Was there anything that worked? Eric and Shelly are quite likable, both together and apart, and it's perfectly horrifying when Roeg's goons find them. Eric spends most of his quest as an immortal punching bag for Roeg's goons, albeit one that shoots back. It's still satisfying when he cuts through them at an Opera House. That scene is a decent showcase for Meyerbeer's Robert Le Diable, and not, as I thought, one of many operas based on the myth of Orpheus. Marian (Laura Birn), Roeg's right-hand woman, gets a decent pity moment before Eric gets to her, even if it's too little, too late. Shelly's friends, Zadie (Isabella Wei) and Dorm (Sebastian Orozco), may have limited screentime, but they are still pitiable. 

What really helps the film is its technicals, particularly Steve Annis's cinematography and the production design. It's nothing less than stunning when we see a massive murder of crows swarming around that ghostly trainyard. There's also some great location filming in the Prague and Munich. There's some great makeup work for Eric's evolving looks and a decent score by Volker Bertelmann. Their work is much more memorable than the story, for sure.

Was it a bad idea to remake The Crow? Not necessarily, for its central premise has always been pretty compelling. It is a bad idea, however, to make this new film this slow. It's still quite stunning in places, and its big Opera fight scene is almost worth sitting through it all. Maybe Eric's next cinematic life will be as successful as his first. Until then, I got to fly off and find the source of my next review. Expect one before the month is out.

Back to Black

 Did you think I forgot about this movie? 

No, I was biding my time until it became available for streaming. And then, I bided my time until it got to Peacock. And then, I bided my time until I finally decided to get to it. I know I teased you about it, but it's happening. In short, it's finally time to get back to Back to Black.

Director Sam Taylor-Johnson reunites with her Nowhere Boy screenwriter, Matt Greenlagh, for this biopic of Amy Winehouse. We're first introduced to Amy (Marisa Abela) as an aspiring musician in London. She quickly gets famous when she gets the opportunity to do her debut album, Frank. Her record label immediately wants her to change her stage persona, which she doesn't want to do. She meets Blake Fielder-Civil (Jack O'Connell) at a pub, and they quickly hit it off. Their stormy relationship leads to them getting married. All the while, Amy is inspired to write the titular album, her last one.

My summary sounds like a bunch of bullet points, but that's because the film pretty much is that. Let's take her rise to fame, for example. She gets a demo submitted to 19 Management; she tells them she doesn't want to be like the Spice Girls, whom 19 also managed; and bam, she's famous. We barely see, and are mostly told, about her creating her music. Blake's assault of a pub owner is also relegated to "tell, not show." The film shoulders her with her eventually fatal addictions, with her dad, Mitch (Eddie Marsan), and Blake (himself portrayed as an addict) trying in vain to reach her. Mitch catching her with marijuana leads to an unintentionally parodic argument. It's kind of difficult to care about Amy's eventual fate with the film's distance. 

Abela is still likable as Amy. Despite the film's narrative shortcomings, I cared about her relationship with her grandma, Cynthia (Lesley Manville), and Cynthia's eventual death. The title song plays around Cynthia's funeral, and it cutting to her actually recording it, and her breakdown upon finishing, is still effective. On a lighter note, it's nice to see Amy pal around with two other girls, even if those two are rendered irrelevant past their early scene. Her winning her multiple Grammies was also a strong moment. Abela's actual singing as Amy is almost on-point with the actual singer. The makeup and hairstylists also do a pretty good job recreating Amy's various looks.

What else can I say about it? Blake is presented as a dashing rogue who tries to overcome his demons. His audience sympathy may vary, but at least he's more memorable than whoever Amy's boyfriend was at the start. Mitch joining Amy in a duet of Fly Me to the Moon is his most memorable scene; otherwise, he is just fine. Cynthia, as I alluded to above, is the film's most memorable supporting character. I also liked the location filming at the London Zoo. Yeah, that's it.

Back to Black's is a confounding film. I didn't hate the film, but I wasn't too impressed with it. I never saw the documentary Amy, but I'd imagine part of why it won the Oscar years ago was because it made people care about her eventual fate. Say what you want of Bohemian Rhapsody, but its musical performances were nothing short of electric. Back to Black's bullet-pointed script doesn't give us much context into its subject's short life. It's only elevated somewhat above "meh" because of Abela's performance. It's still on Peacock if you want to watch it. Do you?

Alien: Romulus

Transcript of Radio Message

STAR DATE: 8/X/20XX

Can you hear me?

This is Jethro the Cat, helmsman of the USCSS CONRAD. A funny thing happened today; you see, while we were scavenging on Planet Whattever, I was telling the crew about my opinions on the two Alien prequels, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. I told them I thought they weren't bad, and in fact, I even admired the epic esoterisms of Prometheus. They immediately marooned me.

Fortunately, I have a slew of movies to keep me company on this rock. One of them is Alien: Romulus, Fede Alvarez's interquel between 1979's Alien and 1986's Aliens. I'll tell you about it while I wait for a rescue.

On the mining colony of Jackson's Star, Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny), her adopted android brother Andy (David Jonsson) and her friends, are overworked by the ominous Weyland-Yutani Corporation. Their planet is devoid of daylight and fair working conditions, but they see a better future on the much more hospitable Yvaga III. They just need to prepare for a nine-year voyage to that planet, somehow.

When the space station Renaissance suddenly drifts into orbit, Rain's friends - siblings Tyler (Archie Renaux) & Kay (Isabella Merced), their cousin Bjorn (Spike Fearn) and his adopted sister Navarro (Aileen Wu) - plot to abscond with the station's cryopods. Andy is needed to interface with the station, while Rain sees this as her first opportunity to get off the planet. The Renaissance will crash into the planetary rings in a few days, but the job will take them much less than that. Surely, it will work, right? Of course, not!

Our heroes get aboard the Renaissance, which is split into the subsections Romulus and Remus, rather easily. But they find out that the cryopods won't last them the whole nine-years. That's when they come across the station's biological experiments, the Xenomorphs themselves, who don't intend to let anyone leave alive. To make matters worse, the countdown to destruction rapidly accelerates to less than an hour. Nobody's safe, but our heroes have to escape somehow.

Alvarez has assembled a good cast to play the crew. Jonsson technically plays two characters, for while Andy is normally socially awkward, he becomes colder with increased intelligence after an upgrade. You'll be impressed with the contrast once you see it. Rain, meanwhile, is quite compelling as she tries to work her way through her predicaments. You'll be impressed with her resourcefulness when it's all done. Bjorn's abrasive attitude makes him a bit unlikable, but he's still pitiable when everything goes wrong. By contrast, you will feel sorry for Kay when it's all done. Tyler is an okay guy, though him teaching Rain how to use a pulse rifle has an amusing twist. Navarro makes the most of her limited screentime.

There's another person you'll remember here. He's Daniel Betts, who is remolded through digital trickery into the likeness of Ian Holm's Ash from the first film, to play the new android Rook. The digital facelift mostly works, though it was appallingly done when we first get a look at him. The digital voice, meanwhile, is scarily flawless. He's quite believable when he tries to warn the crew of the Xenomorphs. He's still believable when he leaves the crew to die "for the company's interest," and later, when he breaks after Rain outwits him. The digital impersonation might be unnecessary, but Rook is still a memorable movie villain.

The technicals mostly work wonderfully aside from that facelift. Whether it's the opening scene set aboard the wreckage of the first film's Nostromo, or the up-close planetary rings, the outer space scenery is nothing short of outstanding thanks to cinematographer Galo Olivares and the visual effects team. The Renaissance is a marvelous feat of Naaman Marshall's production design. It only gets better whenever the station experiences fits of zero gravity. The Xenomorphs are perfectly gruesome organisms brought to life with a seamless mix of puppetry and CGI. Just wait until you see the final Xenomorph. The action scenes, as edited by Jake Roberts and scored by Benjamin Wallfisch, are all unforgettable set-pieces. The only reason I had to check my watch was to see if the countdown took as long as it said it be. To my surprise, both movie and real times pretty much matched.

This maybe the closest we'll get to a film based on the video game Alien: Isolation. Alien: Romulus nails its tension and visual style rather well. Unlike the actual video game movie I reviewed this week, this one actually has characters you'll easily get invested with. You'll still want the best for this crew even if they're at their worst. This is nearly two-hours well spent at any price. So, with that in mind, this is Jethro, previously of the Conrad, signing off.

PS: Jethro was rescued within a day of this message.

UPDATE: Edited error in character relations.

Borderlands

 Let's get a move on with Borderlands, in which Eli Roth tries to replicate the visuals and audacity of Gearbox's celebrated video games. I'm sure that a decade spent in development has given us something great, right?

Right?!

Lilith (Cate Blanchett) is an intergalactic "scumbag bounty hunter" who'd rather shoot people than talk to them. One day, Deukalian Atlas (Edgar Ramirez), the richest man in the universe, hires her for an important mission. His daughter, Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), was taken by the rogue soldier Roland (Kevin Hart) to Pandora, a backwater planet where various rogues and monsters roam. Lilith is also from Pandora, but she doesn't want to go back home. But who can say no to a lot of money?

As it turns out, there's an ancient MacGuffin vault left by the Eridians, Pandora's previous inhabitants, that Tiny Tina was cloned to open. Roland and the masked "Psycho" Krieg (Florian Munteanu) took her to Pandora on her own volition. Lilith and her robot "buddy" Claptrap (Jack Black) join them on their Vault Hunt as soon as they find them. They're soon joined by Dr. Patricia Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis) and are briefly assisted by Mad Moxxi (Gina Gershon). Will this ragtag bunch of misfits reach the vault before Atlas does?

Theoretically speaking, the casting is fine. Technically, nothing's wrong with casting Blanchett and Curtis as Lilith and Tannis, even if they're decades older than their game characters. However, the script by Roth and Joe Crombie (along with several uncredited writers), gives them little to do. Most of the characters are rather meh, saved for the unhinged Krieg and Tiny Tina, the latter of whom has some decent pathos as she describes her life growing up in a lab. I wasn't exactly gripped when Roland had his last stand against several hostile Psychos; it was beyond obvious this wouldn't be his last stand. Atlas is a rather bland villain, while Commander Knoxx (Janina Gavankar), has a severely quick change of heart.  

What other quibbles do I have about the writing? Lilith quickly abandons her "shoot first, ask never" approach once Atlas pays her handsomely upfront. Maybe it's for the best, as it got old quickly in that one scene. The other characters refer to her as a "scumbag bounty hunter" so many times like it's her character class in Dungeons and Dragons. Is it a character class in the games? Lilith is given a constant narration to compensate for the film's protracted post-production, which had Tim Miller fill in for Roth when he was filming Thanksgiving. The film rushes Lilith to meet tour guide Marcus (Benjamin Byron Davis) the minute she lands on Pandora with the "help" of some narration. The Eridian technology buried in the Vault is as utterly irrelevant as the God-Like monster trapped with it. Let's move onto the technical stuff.

The film does a decent job in translating the games' outlandish universe into live action. I'm certain that a film with masked Psychos, Tiny Tina's bunny ears and Pandora's unusual geysers can't be taken too seriously. The production and costume designers convey that point rather well. Claptrap's CGI effects mesh well with his environments, though the humans have some glaringly obvious chroma keying in places. Steve Jablonsky's score isn't exactly memorable, but it's probably worth a listen. I think I said enough.

The phrase "Yeah, that happened" summarizes Borderlands. It's not a masterpiece, nor is it unwatchable; instead, it's a film that exists. I'm sure it'll do some good if it gets someone to play the video games. But for me, it's just a way to spend 102-minutes if you have nothing else to do. I don't want to imagine how it could have been worse. I will instead focus on the next film I have on my docket. Prepare to scream in space when it arrives either tomorrow or early Saturday.

Young Woman and the Sea

Are you up for epic sports stories after the Olympics? 

Disney has a new sports film, Young Woman and the Sea, that made satisfy your need. Joachim Rønning's biopic of Trudy Ederle, the first woman to swim the English Channel, debuted on Disney Plus a few weeks ago after a limited theatrical release in May. Let's see how it is.

In 1914 New York, Trudy (Daisy Ridley) had an almost fatal bout of measles. She pulls through just after the doctor gives up all hope, though her hearing starts to decline afterwards. Her sister, Meg (Tilda Cobham-Harvey), takes up swimming lessons at their mother, Gertrude's (Jeanette Hain) insistence; Trudy later joins at Gertrude's reluctance. Trudy proves to be such a swimming pro that she is eventually scouted for the 1924 Paris Olympics. However, partially because of her trainer, Jabez Wolffe's (Christopher Eccleston) interference, she only gets a bronze medal. That's when she decides to swim the English Channel. She'll have to overcome natural and human difficulties to make that epic swim.

The screenplay, which Jeff Nathanson adapted from Glenn Stout's 2009 book, feels like many of Disney's inspirational sports dramas from back in the day (like Secretariat, which I reviewed in this blog's first year). I'm sure you'll recognize the formula once the montages kick in; we get at least two in quick succession when Trudy takes up swimming! But I can't deny how engrossing it gets at times, partially because both sets of actresses playing Meg and Trudy feel like real sisters. You'll be moved when Trudy recovers from measles, and later laugh when the sisters ditch a suitor on a pier. Even with its sports movie formula, you'll also feel something when the British shore lights up with bonfires to guide Trudy to the beach.

Trudy maybe a simple movie underdog, but it's beyond easy to cheer for her when she proves her doubters wrong. Just ask James Sullivan (Glenn Fleshler), a bigwig who only sponsors her after she beats his seemingly impossible swim challenge. She's surrounded by a much more supportive cast of characters, which include swim coach Charlotte Epstein (Sian Clifford); her father Henry (Kim Bodnia); Bill Burgess (Stephen Graham), the second man to swim the Channel and her second trainer; and Benji Zammit (Alexander Karim), a fellow swimmer. All of them are likable in their own way. Wolffe, in contrast, might easily convince you that he's a gruff, yet fair trainer. But the nice guy act finally implodes once the film implies him sabotaging Trudy's first Channel swim.

What else can I say about it? The production design by Nora Takacs Ekberg perfectly presents New York and the open ocean as both romantic and down-to-earth. Coney Island exemplifies the former, while Epstein's dilapidated swim class exemplifies the latter. The visual effects and cinematography by Oscar Maura are equally impressive, particularly when Trudy and her guides encounter a massive school of jellyfish. An early shot, where we follow a fire truck to a plot-relevant ferry fire, is quite memorable as well. Amelia Warner's sweeping score actually gets better the more you listen to it. As a tangent, I saw the film with subtitles, but several subtitled lines aren't actually said on-screen. Did they goof, or foreshadow Trudy's worsening hearing? You make the call.

Movies like this are why I find it worth it to keep my Disney Plus subscription. While I would have liked to have seen Young Woman and the Sea on the big screen, it still makes for a fine home matinee. It may be a bit formulaic, but it's still compelling throughout its 129-minutes. Swim over to Disney Plus soon, and you might agree. My next review will see me back to the multiplexes; the only question is, will I like what I see?

Kinds of Kindness

Yorgos Lanthimos's Kinds of Kindness, his follow-up to his Oscar-winning Poor Things, has just come to a theater near me. Let's see if I can describe this nearly three-hour film succinctly.

Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou wrote the film as a "Triptych Fable" consisting of three segments. They share a combined company of Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Hong Chau, Margaret Qualley, Joe Alwyn, Mamoudou Athie, and Yorgos Stefanakos, the last of whom appears in some form during each segment as the living MacGuffin "R.M.F."

The Death of R.M.F.: Robert Fletcher (Plemons) is a corporate drone whose personal life is dictated by his boss, Raymond (Dafoe). Robert draws the line when Raymond orders him to kill R.M.F. by car crash. His good life quickly falls apart, but he finds some help in the grim task with Rita (Stone).

This is the most visually appealing of the three segments. The film was shot in New Orleans, and there's a stunning nighttime shot of the city in neon courtesy of cinematographer Robbie Ryan. The production design by Anthony Gasparro is highlighted by Raymond's claustrophobic office and his splendorous mansion. And while the film is rather long, editor Yorgos Mavropsaridis perfectly builds up tension before each quick display of vehicular violence.

The film is about doormats content with being doormats. Robert is such a doormat that he's monotone when he's trying to be self-assertive. It's probably the funniest thing in this extremely dark comedy, other than a weird tangent about dogs in the next segment. But it's hard to get invested when Robert tries to get back into Raymond's good graces after the latter "frees" him. His compliance with Raymond's demands to drug his wife, Sarah (Chau) into infertility, makes it harder to like him. Let's move on to the next segments.

R.M.F. is Flying centers the least on R.M.F., other than an easy-to-miss cameo. It instead involves Daniel (Plemons), a police officer whose marine biologist wife, Liz (Stone), has just been rescued after she was lost at sea. But he slowly suspects that "Liz" is actually an imposter. He quickly goes mad from his paranoia. That's as about as family friendly as I can phrase it.

The level of tension here is astounding. You can actually feel Daniel's sanity crumble as Liz exhibits contradictory behavior. How so? Before, she detested chocolate, but she goes for a chocolate cake once she gets home. The horror! It gets to actual horror when Daniel and his partner, Neil (Athie), make a traffic stop that turns into a bizarre case of police brutality. Things get worse from then on, and nothing that the milquetoast Dr. Evans (Nathan Mulligan) says can assure us. By then, you'll realize that this is a portrait of an abusive marriage, which is made clear when Liz willingly obliges Daniel's nauseating requests. "Isn't it wonderful?" as the film asks repeatedly.

R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich has cultists Andrew & Emily (Plemons & Stone) search for a specific woman who can raise the dead. A woman named Rebecca points them into the direction of her veterinarian twin sister, Ruth (Qualley plays both twins). The Chosen One is supposed to have a twin sister, and Emily saw Rebecca in a dream. So, ergo, Ruth's the One. But things are complicated when Emily's estranged husband, Joseph (Alwyn), comes back into her life. There's also the requirement that the Chosen One's twin sister needs to be dead. For reasons.

R.M.F. may be in the title, as his corpse shows up later, but this is Emily's story. She's quite sympathetic as she tries to connect with her family despite the confines of the cult (Dafoe & Chau are the leaders, Omi & AKA). She's quite pitiful, almost amusingly so, when the cult excommunicates her for "impurity." But despite her attempts to rejoin them, which involves human and animal cruelty, she shows her self-assertiveness when she disavows Joseph for his abusiveness. See, there is some light in this tunnel. That tunnel is dimmed by the finale's darkly amusing punchline.

This might be a film you'll want to see to believe, that is, if you enjoy seeing a cast of doormats getting stomped on for 164-minutes. If not, then you've got your options both on streaming and in theatres. I think that about sums this movie up. Stay tuned for the next review.

The Imaginary

This must be the year of imaginary friends.

We had Imaginary, a horror film released in March, and IF, a family film released in May. But Japan saw its own movie about imaginary friends last December with The Imaginary, Studio Ponoc's anime film based on AF Harrold's novel. It premiered on Netflix last month, and you'll hear about it now.

Rudger (Louie Rudge-Buchanan in English) is the imaginary friend of Amanda Shuffleup (Evie Kiszel). He and Amanda have been inseparable in the just over three years after her dad's death. They frequently venture off into imaginary worlds from the comfort of Amanda's attic. Her mom, Lizzie (Hayley Atwell), can't see Rudger, but she doesn't mind his invisible presence. Rudger is soon noticed by Mr. Bunting (Jeremy Sweet), a creepy man who devours "Imaginaries" like Rudger. Amanda and Rudger escape one attempt on his life, but she runs in front of a car ...

With Amanda comatose, Rudger starts to fade away into nothingness. An eerie cat named Zinzan (Kal Penn) guides him to a magical city where Imaginaries thrive on unlimited imagination. The Imaginaries are employed as day-players to join kids on their dreamtime adventures. They may even get permanently employed in a new imaginary form. Rudger, however, wants to check up on Amanda. He doesn't have much time, for Mr. Bunting is still looking for him, and it's physically impossible for him to remain outside the city for long.

Director Yoshiyuki Momose, a longtime animator for Studio Ghibli, works from a screenplay by Ponoc's founder Yoshiaki Nishimura. The story they tell is pretty good, even if the pacing is sometimes a bit off. It takes several encounters with Mr. Bunting before the story gets going. But in the meantime, we get plenty of time to know Rudger and Amanda. That makes it shocking when she gets run over. The Imaginary City is quite fascinating, as is how the Imaginaries find new real friends. A few moments, like a flashback to Amanda creating Rudger and Lizzie finding Mr. Shuffleup's last message to Amanda, are emotionally devastating. I watched the film with subtitles, so I was taken aback whenever they flip-flopped between "Rudger" and "Roger"; even the Space Opera dream Rudger joins calls him the latter! But much to my relief, this was a plot point. A good one. 

It helps that we have a tangible villain with Mr. Bunting. You'll instantly recognize him as the bad guy long before he does anything nefarious. His sniffing out Imaginaries is disturbing on so many levels, which isn't helped by his mouth turning into a void when he feeds. He savors his own villainy with every syllable he utters. His most enjoyable moment, naturally, is when he meets his demise. He has his own Imaginary, a little girl who looks awfully like Sadako, who proves quite an efficient enforcer. She's quite compelling when she makes a climactic heel-face turn, though I can't explain anymore. 

So, what about the other Imaginaries? They're all highly merchandisable, highly appealing creatures, some of whom are implied to be the muses of the likes of Shakespeare and Beethoven. Rudger's friend group consists of the human Emily (Sky Katz), the Imaginaries' de-facto leader; Snowflake (Roger Craig Smith), a cuddly hippo; Crusher-of-Bones (Courtenay Taylor), who is far less threatening than his name implies; and Fridge (LeVar Burton), an old sheepdog who proves very plot relevant. Fridge and Zinzan both make for great mentor figures. In fact, all of the Imaginaries are likable, but beware, not all of them make it out alive. What's worse is that no one remembers them soon after. Yikes.

What's far more appealing is the animation style and the score. The film's watercolored animation style works wonders for both the fantastical and ordinary realms Rudger and company inhabit. The Imaginary City takes the form of something new every night - one night, it's Venice, another it's 19th-century Nagasaki - and both forms are as appealing as the real cities. The Bookstore Lizzie and Amanda call home is, by far, the most appealing of the real-world locales. The score by Kenji Tamai and his company, agehasprings, perfectly accentuates the film's many moods. The film's opening, Amanda and Rudger's rollicking sleigh ride, and Mr. Bunting's theme, provide some of the best aural highlights.

What else can I say about it? The Imaginary is a splendid family film that will resonate with you in whatever language you watch it in. You'll have little trouble remembering anyone in the cast, whether it's the young protagonists or their monstrous villain, as their stories unfold over 105-minutes. I'd be tempted to compare this to IF, but I'd rather you Netflix and Chill and watch it for yourself. I might have made it sound a bit straightforward, but I assure you there are some surprises in store. That's it for now.

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F

Axel Foley has been off the movie beat since 1994, but it wasn't for a lack of trying. After thirty years of prospective scripts that went nowhere, Eddie Murphy's Beverly Hills Cop is finally back, this time on Netflix, with Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F. So, what brings Detroit's finest back to Beverly Hills?

Well, a few reasons. When his old pal, Jeffery (Paul Reiser), retires to save Axel's career after his latest stunt, Jeffrey encourages him to get in touch with his daughter, Jane (Taylour Paige). Jane is a defense attorney whose latest client, Sam Enriquez (Damien Diaz), is accused of killing an undercover cop, Copeland. Jane is threatened by the actual killers when she suspects that Copeland was corrupt. This forces PI Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) to summon Axel back to Beverly Hills, though he disappears when Axel arrives.

Axel quickly gets arrested after he finds the bad guys raiding Rosewood's office. This leads to a friendly reunion with his other BH buddy, now-Chief John Taggart (John Ashton), and a not-so-happy one with Jane. Jane and Axel haven't spoken in years, though they have to work together to find the exculpatory evidence Rosewood recovered. They're joined by Det. Bobby Abbott (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who happens to be Jane's ex, and are impeded by Captain Grant (Kevin Bacon), a man so smug that Axel immediately realizes that he's the big bad. Can they save the day without wrecking the city? No.

I only saw Beverly Hills Cop III on HBO eons ago, and I remember nothing about it. I think I'll have little trouble remembering this sequel, which marks the directorial debut of commercial director Mark Malloy and features several names from this summer's Bad Boys: Ride or Die (writer Will Beall, producer Jerry Bruckheimer, editor Dan Lebental and composer Lorne Balfe). A lot of it is due to Axel, who's just as spry in his sixties as he was in his twenties. His street smarts are funny, though it's quite impactful when he's too tired to use them at one point. He still gets to use them to get the drop on the bad guys. He may be irritating to some, but we see how he gets the job done. Him repairing his relationship with Jane is a compelling throughline during these crazy 117-minutes.

The opening scene has Axel set up his partner, Det. Woody (Kyle S. More), for heroism busting Hockey Game thieves. You can feel his nervousness when he joins Axel for a destructive snowplow chase. Abbot later gets his own reluctant hero moment when he commanders a helicopter that he can't fly. At all. Abbot, however, proves himself a hero when he joins Axel, Taggert and Rosewood for the final battle. Needless to say, Woody and Abbot are as likable as Axel's usual crew. 

I didn't necessarily mind Taggert being blind to Grant's obvious evil, or Rosewood being absent for most of the plot. Both men are fine. However, I did mind that Enriquez was absent after his one scene. Grant made for a decent big bad, though. Serge (Bronson Pinchot), another returning character, shows up for what is essentially an open house stakeout. His partner, Ashley's (Nasim Pedrad) cheery aggressiveness ("You guys are adorable. I honestly kind of hate it.") is more bewildering than funny.

What is funny, however, is Axel's first chase in Beverly Hills, in which he pursues Grant's goons on a Meter Maid Car, whose owner will not give up without a fight. That, in addition to all other set pieces, are as exciting as they are often funny. Balfe's score, which frequently incorporates Harold Faltermeyer's titular leitmotif, is quite good even as it gives way to returning classics like Bob Seger's Shakedown. What else can I say about it?

Anyone looking for a great action comedy will find one with Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F. While the story has its flaws, its main character's cinematic return is a welcome one. You won't be lost if you haven't seen any of the past films in forever, or at all. Just press play on Netflix and you'll be in for a fun home matinee. But what if you aren't in for an R-Rated action film? Well, there's a new family film on Netflix to tell you about. That review's next.

Golden Kamuy

It's a new month, which means it's time for me to review old movies. And by old, I mean several months old. Golden Kamuy, the live-action film of Satoru Nada's manga, debuted in Japan in January and premiered stateside on Netflix in May. It's already been adapted into four seasons of TV anime, of which I've seen some impressively animated snippets. Let's see some more.

Saichi Sugimoto (Kento Yamazaki) is a veteran of the Russo-Japanese War, where he was nicknamed "Immortal Sugimoto" for his persistent inability to die. By 1907, he's down on his luck, panning for gold in the Hokkaido hills. His fortunes seemingly change when a drunkard, Goto (Makita Sports), tells him of a huge stache of gold. It was stolen from the Ainu - the indigenous people of Japan - by Noppera-bo, a prisoner of the infamous Abashiri Prison. Noppera-bo tattooed a map to the gold amongst twenty-four of his fellow prisoners, all of whom soon escaped. Goto is one of those prisoners; he soon unsuccessfully tries to silence Sugimoto and is later killed by a bear.

Sugimoto sets off for the gold, joined by the Ainu huntress Asirpa (Anna Yamada), and Yoshitake Shiraishi (Yuma Yamato), another of the escapees. Asirpa's dad was among those killed for the gold by Noppera-bo, while Sugimoto's full reasons for the gold are revealed way too late in the film. In the meantime, they encounter Sugimoto's old army division, the Seventh Division, who are also looking for the gold. Their leader, the creepy First Lt. Tsurumi (Hiroshi Tamaki), won't let our heroes have it without a fight. Our heroes will have to fight to survive. I think that sums it up.

On one level, the screenplay by Tsutomu Kuroiwa is an introduction to the usually underrepresented Ainu culture. Throughout the movie, we and Sugimoto learn several Ainu words, such as aca (father), matakarip (bears who missed hibernation), and the titular kamuys (spirits). Asirpa and Sugimoto take some convincing to try each other's cuisines; Asirpa's aversion to miso is a surprisingly funny running gag. The film even opens on a contextually profound proverb, which translates to "nothing comes from Heaven without purpose." It's interesting enough to make one want to look up more on Ainu culture; I did during the writing of this review.

On another level, it's an excellent period action film. We don't learn Sugimoto's full story until the end, but he's still an engaging protagonist. We feel for him when he openly doubts his chances of going to heaven. Asirpa is a great moral anchor for Sugimoto; her chewing him out at the end funny as it is moving. Retar, her white wolf, maybe a CGI creature along with most of the wildlife, but he's still a good presence. Shiraishi is a bit too hammy, especially when he and Sugimoto fall into a freezing river, but he's all right. Tsurumi is an unnerving villain, while the twin psychopaths under him, Kohei and Yohei Nikado, are perfect hate sinks.

Any gripes I have are relatively minor. Throughout the film, Asirpa holds Sugimoto to a "don't kill humans" rule. Yet, there's little time to dwell on Sugimoto killing someone at the end. Granted, it was one of the Nikados, but that doesn't come up in the finale. There's also a third faction who also wants the gold, who are led by the historical samurai Toshizo Hijikata (Hiroshi Tachi). Hijikata knows that the gold is worth much more than what was estimated. But that revelation is also saved for the end; he never encounters Sugimoto and company. Again, those are minor gripes because the overall story is that engaging.

We are introduced to Sugimoto's luck, along with the film's excellent production design and cinematography, at the Siege of Port Arthur. That opening battle succinctly displays the actual battle's brutality in just under ten minutes. There's quite a bit of obvious CGI, especially the aforementioned animals, but it doesn't detract from the brutal violence. Just ask the Seventh Division guys who meet a bear later on. The best visual effects allow Shuntaro Yanagi to seamlessly play both Nikados at once. Its visualization of the forests of Hokkaido and the city of Otaru are much more pleasant. The characters' manga designs are approximated rather well by the makeup and costume designers. Finally, there's a grand score by Yutaka Yamada to accentuate the action.

Golden Kamuy is supposed to have a live-action sequel series, which is why we get a somewhat incomplete ending and a montage of future characters in the mid-credits. I say somewhat incomplete, because after all Aspira and Sugimoto go through, it's narratively satisfying when they affirm their partnership. It left me intrigued to see where these two would go from here. I know I could do that already with the manga and anime, but I'm still intrigued about that live-action show. See what I'm talking about once you watch Golden Kamuy on Netflix. 

Next up, more Netflix.

Deadpool & Wolverine

 Hey, Hollywood. You missed me, didn't you? 

It's been six years and one corporate buyout since I, Deadpool, was in a movie. That's going to change now. And, oh look, I brought me a friend. He's been away from the movies longer than I have. Seven years, a year longer than me, but it's still longer! Say hello to Hughverine!

Help Me.

This is Deadpool & Wolverine. I'll leave it to him to tell you what it's about before I step in.

So, I've (Ryan Reynolds) been living my worst life ever since Deadpool 2. I broke up with my girlfriend, Vanessa, I got rejected from The Avengers (long story), and I'm a used cars salesman (and I'm not good at it!). But Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfayden) of the TVA (Time Variance Authority, go watch Loki on Disney + for context!) sends his goons after me. He tells me that my timeline is deteriorating ever since its "anchor being" got himself killed, and he has a Time Ripper thingy to put it out of its misery. But he tells me that I can go to the "sacred timeline" and be part of the MCU. Sounds tempting, but I have another idea: replace my timeline's anchor being with another variant of himself. Who is this anchor being? It's the other guy in the title!

I eventually find a Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) of my very own. But Mr. Paradox tells me he's the worst Wolverine of them all, and not the fun kind of worst either. He sends us to the Void, a Mad Maxian wasteland filled with Marvel Movie characters Disney wants to forget. It's ruled by Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin), Professor X's evil twin sister, and she doesn't want me or Wolvie to escape. Well, fortunately, there's a team of Marvel Movie characters that can help us. Oh yeah, and a whole lot of me's.

Everybody got that? 

Here's more.

It's been six years and Deadpool's sincere irreverence hasn't diminished with age. The film literally starts with Deadpool digging up Wolverine's adamantium skeleton, which he uses, piece by piece, against waves of TVA minutemen. It plays its brutality for laughs just as much as the other films. Among many examples, let's just say that the Wolverines Deadpool encounters before the main one aren't happy to see him. It still knows when it needs to be serious; you'll feel it when Wolverine confesses his greatest failure. Cassandra is treated as a serious threat, and Corrin's performance doesn't let us forget it.

Deadpool the character is still that same fun merc-with-the-mouth. He may be rude, crude, immature and brutal, but he still has a supporting cast that he sincerely cares for. You'll definitely feel it when he calls them his world. Wolverine is a great straight man for Deadpool; their disagreements lead to some of that comic brutality. He spends the movie learning his value as a hero, which he proves when he helps Deadpool stop the Time Ripper. Meanwhile, Macfayden hams it up spectacularly as Mr. Paradox, a seemingly intimidating bureaucrat who is just a paper tiger. 

This is a film pretty dependent on knowing its references. Chris Evans shows up, not as Steve Rogers, but as Johnny Storm from Tim Story's Fantastic Four movies. We get Wesley Snipe as Blade, Jennifer Garner as Elektra, Channing Tatum as Gambit (referencing the film he almost had), and Dafne Keen as Laura/X-23 for the Resistance. A lot of other cameos disappear into crowd shots, such as Billy Clements, tagging in for Kevin Nash, as the Russian from 2004's The Punisher, a film I never saw. Let's not forget all of Deadpool's meta-commentary. You might need an annotated book to get all of the in-jokes and cameos, because I don't think I can go through them here.

The technicals were all right. There's some great production design for the TVA HQ and The Void, the latter of which is literally littered with references (including a buried 20th Century Fox logo!). There are some good visual effects for our heroes' superpowers, though Cassandra running her fingers through her victims' heads has unpolished CGI. The best effects involved Deadpool and Wolverine tearing through an army of Deadpools in one long camera shot. Speaking of Wolverine, I'm sure a lot of viewers will appreciate his new costume, which approximates his classic yellow spandex suit into live action. I think it's all right, but I especially like his reason for wearing it. There's a decent score by Rob Simonsen, though I think you'll remember all the needle drops even more.

Welcome to the MCU, Deadpool (why thank you, kitty). Some may think that Deadpool & Wolverine's multiversal gimmick reeks of desperation, but I think it's a pretty brutal joke. You won't regret it if you can tolerate comic brutality and a multiverse of references. There's a lot I have to leave out for clarity's sake. But I'm sure you'll be surprised once you see it in action; just wait until you see who plays all the Deadpools. You can disagree with me once you see the movie. It's time to get to my next reviews.

Twisters

Phone Transcript

JETHRO: Hello?

(Unknown): Pop Quiz, Hotshot! There's a movie about tornados. It makes almost a half-billion dollars - that's in 1996 money, back when money was worth something - and was even nominated for two Academy Awards. It has a cast and crew of household names, including the author of the novel that became what was then the Highest. Grossing. Movie. Of. All. Time. A license to print money, I think, so what do you do? What do you do?

JETHRO: Wait twenty-eight years to make a sequel?

(Unknown): What?!

JETHRO: You're talking about Twister, right? It just got a sequel with Twisters.

(Unknown): OK, wise guy, tell me all about it.

JETHRO: Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and her team of storm chasers - Javi (Anthony Ramos), Addy (Kiernan Shipka), Praveen (Nik Dodani) and her boyfriend, Jeb (Daryl McCormick) - study twisters in Oklahoma. They think they can dissipate tornadoes by launching barrels of waterlock. They find a good test case, but it's much stronger than they anticipate, and all but Kate and Javi (who was miles away) are killed. 

Years later, Kate is a storm tracker at a NOAA office when Javi recruits her to help his company, Storm-Par, test their new weather scanner in Oklahoma. During their mission, they come across "storm wrangler" Tyler Owens (Glen Powell) and his storm chasers, who are off filming their latest meteorological adventures. The "city girl" and "country boy" initially don't get along, but they have to depend on each other to survive the ever-worsening tornadoes.

(Unknown): OK, OK, that's good. Tell me more.

JETHRO: The writing credits say it's "Based on Characters by Michael Crichton and Anne-Marie Curtin," but the only returning "characters" are the Dorothy probes used by Jo and Bill Harding (Helen Hunt & Bill Paxton). The probes are used by Kate and her first team in the prologue. Afterwards, Mark L. Smith's screenplay puts Kate and the audience through relatively unfamiliar narrative territory. I'm sure a lot of people will complain about the dissimilarities, but I haven't, for the story it tells is pretty decent.

(Unknown): How so?

JETHRO: Let's start with the characters. We don't get to know Kate's doomed storm chasers for pretty long. But we get to like them during that prologue and are perfectly gut punched when they are killed. They, Kate & Javi were that believable as longtime friends. Kate is quite compelling as she spends the movie owning up for her fatal miscalculations. She goes from panicking during one twister to helping citizens take shelter during the climactic monster tornado. Her survival is just as narratively satisfying as her theories finally working. 

Tyler and his "wranglers" introduce themselves as reckless glory hounds. But these storm chasers are anything but unlikable; their professional enthusiasm is endearing; their competence is impressive, and their altruism is inspiring. It's enough to make up for them accidentally running Kate and Javi off the road during their first storm chase. You'll be invested in Tyler and Kate's growing bond during their meteorological adventures. A lot. 

Now for a few others. It's later revealed that Storm-Par's financier, Marshall Riggs, is a bad guy. But he barely registers in the plot. Javi, however, perfectly sells us and Kate on Storm-Par's altruistic endeavors because he believes in them. So, we can sympathize with him even when he insensitively blames Kate for the fatal storm chase. He makes up for that by showing up his co-worker when the latter puts profit over people. Among the various bit characters, Jeff Swearingen was sympathetic as a doomed desk clerk, while Cody Paxton (Bill's son) and Lily Smith were less so as an ignorant couple. 

(Unknown): Hurry up.

JETHRO: Its relation to science is interesting. It explores a few concepts like the Fujiwara Scale, the Fujita Scale and why hiding under an overpass is a terrible idea. But it also has Tyler and his wranglers shooting fireworks into a tornado (which gave me the impression that they dissipated that tornado). In fact, Mother Nature is treated as a more palpable villain than Riggs himself. Either way, the cinematic twisters both look and sound perfectly menacing. Each one is more nightmarish than the last. The nighttime twister that disrupts a rodeo, and the climactic one that destroys a refinery - even creating a fire whirl - and later wrecks a movie theatre, are easily the most memorable. 

(Unknown): Hurry up!

JETHRO: There's some great Oklahoma scenery from cinematographer Dan Mindel, some excellent production design by Patrick Sullivan for the post-Twister devastations, and Benjamin Wallfisch's latest impressive score. 

(Unknown): Now!

JETHRO:  Who knows how scientifically accurate Twisters is, but it's still a pretty good blockbuster. It's worth paying even a few more dollars just to see the titular meteorological menaces on the biggest screens possible. It's also worth seeing it for the personalities on any screen. Give Twisters a spin and watch two hours spin right by. That's it for now. 

Who called?

Sasquatch Sunset

The Sasquatch, also known as The Bigfoot, and not to be confused with the Yeti, also known as the Abominable Snowman. Here, in the Forests of Northern California, we find four of them living their lives. Let's call them Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Mu. Alpha is, in human equivalence, a grumpy old man; Beta is the meeker male; Gamma is the lone female and Mu is the cub. All they have to do is to survive. So, let's follow them over a year in Sasquatch Sunset and see what happens.

I've been told that the Sasquatches are actually humans in disguise. Beta and Gamma allegedly go by the "real names" of Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough. I have been told that Mu is really Christophe Zajac-Denek. Alpha's alleged alias is Nathan Zellner, a filmmaker who frequently collaborates with his brother, David. If this is true, then the makeup team should be commended with the highest honors. It is difficult, if not impossible, to recognize them underneath their extensive makeup. I for one, choose to believe that this is a real cryptozoological family, and ...

Skip this nature documentary voice.

But, yeah, the film commits itself to a nature documentary aesthetic. It's a stunning travelogue of the California wilderness as photographed by Michael Gioulakis and accompanied by a score from The Octopus Project. Whether it's a serene misty morning in the redwoods or the town of Willow Creek, its scenery never ceases to amaze. The Zellners keep up their concept even as the film gets sillier and sillier. The Sasquatches are bewildered by fellow forest creatures; they even pass a turtle around like a telephone. The Sasquatches' first encounter with a road is treated like they just encountered a monster in a horror movie. It revels in its gross-out humor, and I wouldn't blame you if you averted your eyes during these protracted scenes.

Its relatively simple story gives its actors a lot to work with. In addition to the makeup, the actors have to communicate without the benefit of human dialogue. They instead communicate with grunts, roars, hollers and body language. So, rather than exposit about their loneliness, they whack trees with big branches and stare forlornly when they don't get a response. You can easily understand their listless lives even if you don't know what they're saying. Its premise may seem bizarre to some viewers, but you'll feel for these bigfeet when they're put into mortal danger. Indeed, not all of them will make it out alive, and some come dangerously close. A few viewings may be necessary to understand the nuances. But overall, I think that the cast did well to get their points across.

Sasquatch Sunset isn't an easy film to describe. I wrote and rewrote this review several times before I got to this paragraph. But I think it's still an interesting film. It has a bizarre sense of humor, but an ultimately universal story of a family trying to survive hard times. Who knows if it will resonate with the Oscars as much as Everything, Everywhere, All at Once did, but its makeup designs are worth a look. See it if you want on your favorite streaming services. These not-Yeti will be ready if you do.

Onwards to the next review.

The Primevals

Are you ready for more yeti?

I streamed two films on Amazon today, though I think I'll have time for one review today. That lucky review is for The Primevals, a B-Movie that spent over fifty years in the making. No, I'm not kidding. It was spearheaded by famed stop-motion animator David W. Allen, who conceived it in the sixties, officially started production in 1978, actually started filming it in 1994 and died of cancer in 1999. Decades later, Charles Band, the film's producer, crowdfunded its completion.

This is the result.

Over in the Himalayas, the local Sherpa have a close encounter with an Abominable Snowman. The Yeti is killed when one of the Sherpa triggers an avalanche and its remains are brought to an American University for study. Dr. Claire Collier (Juliet Mills), the University's leading anthropologist, organizes an expedition to find the origins of this Missing Link. Her autopsy of the creature revealed its brain was tampered with. But by who?

Collier is joined by former student Matt Connor (Richard Joseph Paul), adventurer Rondo Montana (Leon Russom), young Sherpa Siku (Tai Thai), and scientist Kathleen Reidel (Walker Brandt). Their expedition leads them to a Lost World populated by more hominids and a race of sinister Lizardmen (that have me thinking of the Sleestaks from Land of the Lost). The Lizardmen don't intend to let our heroes get out alive. That's pretty much it.

Its protracted production is sometimes apparent. As I said, the live-action parts were filmed in 1994, but a few scenes, including a few in Siku's cabin, look much older. There's some obvious new computer displays when the party explore the not-Sleestaks' ship. There's also an egregious case of tell-don't-show when our heroes discover the aftermath of an attack on the hominids' village. Said village was in our heroes' line-of-sight when they set up camp. How did they not notice? On a storytelling perspective, the film never really explains how the first Yeti - there is another - got out. I can go on, but I can't. I also can't be too harsh on its imperfections considering the circumstances.

Thankfully, the creatures have aged pretty well. Allen, an Oscar-nominee for Young Sherlock Holmes and an animator for quite a few other films, left us some rather impressive stop-motion animation. There's also some modern effects work which blends surprisingly well with the old footage. Either way, the Yetis and Lizardmen move quite fluidly, and they blend pretty well with the live-action photography: no annoying chroma key washout or matte lines in sight! They are creatures with palpable personalities, so much so that the second Yeti is literally the best actor of the film. See, the Lizardmen have been brainwashing the Yetis into destructive monsters, and you'll feel for the Yeti as it fights its programming. These creatures really don't get much screentime, but it's a minor complaint.

What do I think of the human cast? They're all right. Collier and Connor seem to have sparks between them, even if their twenty-year age difference is beyond noticeable. Rondo Montana (what a name!) brings with him some likable charisma, while Kathleen's implied connections with the Sherpa are barely explored. Siku is determined to help the party after his brother was killed by the first Yeti. He nearly gets the group killed by provoking another Yeti, but is still a good character, and even gets a stellar big hero moment. The hominids, who are played by actors in makeup, are quite sympathetic when they're forced to fight the second Yeti in a gladiator match.

What else can I say about it? There's a pretty good score composed by Band's brother Richard. It's as melodramatic and bombastic as Max Steiner's work in the original King Kong; the opening chords may easily remind you of the older film's main theme. The non-creature effects, from matte paintings to laser blasts, blend with the actors as well as the creatures do. There's some good production design, with its best creation being the interior of the Lizardmen ship. Its Hominid Village is just a few buildings, but it's still an interesting enough locale.

I think The Primevals is at least worth a watch. For 91 minutes, you'll get a decent adventure story with astounding creatures and decent humans. Allen's filmography is astounding in its breadth, and despite some nitpicks, this film is a great legacy for him. If anything, this should make for an interesting study case along with other protracted productions like The Thief and the Cobbler. See it soon to see what I mean. I got to get Yeti for some Sasquatch tomorrow. 

Fly Me to The Moon

UPDATE: Revised a few things, including an awkwardly worded intro. But I still launched it initially in time for the exact minute.

If I time this right, then I will launch this review on July 16th, 2024, at 6:32 AM PST, 55 years to the exact moment Apollo 11 launched from Kennedy Space Center. How appropriate, then, that it's for Apple TV's latest theatrical release, Fly Me to the Moon. A few spoilers might be necessary, so let's blast off to the review.

Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson) is a con-artist who sells herself as a marketing genius. She catches the attention of Moe Berkus (Woody Harrelson), a secret agent man who sends her down to Kennedy Space Center as NASA's newest marketing specialist. It's up to her to sell the public on the looming Apollo 11 launch. But first, she has to sell her unorthodox methods to launch director Cole Davis (Channing Tatum) and his crew. She doesn't get off on the right feet with them when she hires impersonators to take interviews. But she and Cole eventually fall for each other as she secures funding from a few senators.

Moe soon orders Kelly to stage an "alternative" moon landing as a contingency. Kelly reluctantly brings along her usual director, Lance Vespertine (Jim Rash) and his crew, to rehearse and film "Project Artemis" at a NASA warehouse. Hilarity ensues, until Moe decides to broadcast Kelly's fake moon landing no matter what. How will Kelly get out of this ethical crisis? How does a black cat, named Mischief, figure into this?

Director Greg Berlanti (Love, Simon, Arrow) works from a script by Rose Gilroy that the credits state is "Based Upon the Story by Bill Kerstein & Keenan Flynn". It's an unusual credit listing for a comedy with an unusual running time at 132-minutes. The film lulls in a few places, while Project Artemis isn't even a plot point until an hour into the film. Yet, the film eases our patience with its leads' personalities. Kelly maybe a con artist, able to change names and accents at will, but her people skills are real. She gets a truly great monologue when she reveals her tragic backstory to Cole. Speaking of Cole, he's decently likable, but you truly feel for him once the film reveals his connections to the ill-fated Apollo 1. It's amusing to see them trade quips with each other, and while their meet-cute moment may have been heavily trailered, it's still fun to see it in context.

You’ll be hooked during the climax as editor Harry Jierjian sends our heroes on the final countdown. Kelly, Lance & NASA control guys Stu Bryce & Don Harper (Donald Elise Watkins & Noah Harper) make a mad dash to secure necessary equipment (with smash and grab!), Moe breathes down their necks, while Cole mans the control center. Once Apollo 11 lands, the film obfuscates the differences between Kelly’s broadcast and Apollo 11’s feed. “Which one’s real?” you’ll ask yourself. Let’s cut to the chase: the film makes it clear that it’s real. It’s truly heartwarming when Cole declares “that’s our guys,” while Moe is surprisingly graceful once he realizes the truth. It definitely sells how much an achievement the moon landing was.

Anyone else I should mention? Ray Romano and Anna Garcia are pretty likable as Cole & Kelly's respective confidants, Henry Smalls & Ruby Martin. The various actors playing the sympathetic senators, including an uncredited Victor Garber, made for some good cameos. Mischief was actually played by three different cats - Hickory, Wilbur, and Eclipse - and the end result is one entertaining kitty. You won't forget how he figures into the climax. Apollo 11's eventual blast-off is made nice and loud with some impressive sound design. Kelly's renovations to her "broom-closet" office makes for some great production design by Shane Valentino; his recreation of the control center is also striking. There's also a nice romantic score by Daniel Pemberton; his standout is the romantic theme for Kelly & Cole.

It maybe overlong but Fly Me to the Moon has a likable cast and a happy ending. What's not to like with a romantic comedy? I think it's worth a watch, but when? Maybe you'll want to watch it on Saturday to commemorate the moon landing. Or maybe you'll want to wait for it to stream on Apple TV, whenever that is. I don't know if you'll be over the moon for it, but I think you'll be decently entertained whenever and wherever you watch it. That's it for now.

Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 (?)

I've been putting off seeing Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 for the past few weeks. Well, no more, dudes! It's time to saddle up and see what everyone's been missing out on! Let's prove them city slickers wrong and that this is ...

... not the greatest movie in the world. Concept's fine, though, but not the execution.

This is Kevin Costner's first film as director since 2003's Open Range. An epic saga of development hell turned what was initially a single film into four, with Chapter Two coming out next month and Chapter Three already filming. At least, that was the plan, until Chapter Two was yanked off the schedule yesterday. Let's see what went wrong.

The film chronicles several different storylines in the Old West. The Lionshare of the story is centered around the San Pedro Valley in the settlement of Horizon. It's a place advertised as the ultimate destination for the settlers of the American Frontier. It's also in Apache territory, and the warrior Pionsenay (Owen Crow Shoe) is determined to drive the settlers away. He and his warriors start the film by killing the surveyors setting up Horizon by a river. The actual settlers build Horizon on the opposite side of said river. Pionsenay burns the town to the ground in a nighttime raid. A few settlers survive, including young Russell (Etienne Kellici), who brings with him a Union regiment to protect the survivors.

Meanwhile, in Montana, a frontierswoman named Lucy (Jenna Malone) shoots her ex-lover James Sykes and takes their baby with her. James's sons, Junior & Caleb (Jon Beavers & Jamie Campbell Bower), are dispatched to apprehend her. Lucy soon makes the acquaintance of prostitute Marigold (Abbey Lee) and horse trader Hayes Ellison (Costner), who help raise the baby with her. Also meanwhile, over on the Santa Fe Trail, Matthew Van Weyden (Luke Wilson) leads a wagon train to Horizon (remember, news travelled slow those days). That's pretty much it for that storyline. But there's a bunch of other story threads I'll discuss later on.

All of these storylines are jumbled around in its massive 181-minute timeframe. We get a massive cast of characters to keep track of; plenty of them are either too meh to care about or too dead before we get that chance. The guy who I least liked was some random dude at Horizon with an appallingly poor sense of gun safety. But I felt nothing when he got arrowed in the raid. Frances Kitteridge (Sienna Miller) survived the raid with her daughter, Elizabeth (Georgia MacPhail), but her husband and son (who don't) are forgotten about pretty quickly. A few scenes are dragged way out: it's more repetitive than tense when Caleb Sykes threatens Lucy and her husband Walter (Michael Angarano). Its attempts at humor are so jarring they seem to belong in another movie.

Did any of the story lines work? I think Costner and his co-writers, Jon Baird and Michael Kasdan, had a strong focus right with the Horizon plotline. That's where we get the most compelling character: Russell. For starters, it takes a lot of guts to outride the raiders in the night. He later joins Elias Janney's (Scott Haze) posse to get revenge on the Apache raiders. But while the posse decides to slaughter random Natives, not caring if they were Apache or even affiliated with Pionsenay, Russell can't bring himself to shoot a random man when the posse eggs him on. Him breaking the cycle of vengeance might form a good contrast with Pionsenay, though who knows now when, or if, we'll get to see that play out.

I wasn't moved that much, but I still have to respect John Debney's score here. It's got a good melancholic main theme and some perfectly intense music for the action scenes. There's some decent period makeup and hairstyling work on the cast. There's some good production design for the Frontier cities, particularly for pre and post raid Horizon, but it's J. Michael Muro's cinematography that really sells it as a big screen experience. The landscapes on display look perfect even if the story isn't.

The film's biggest problem is that it neglects itself for future installments. Its underdeveloped and numerous plotlines are clearly meant to make sense in one of the later sequels (or, in the case of the wagon train, saved for next time). But something's amiss when the groundwork for these plotlines is shaky. Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 ends on a montage of scenes from the next movie. I hope for Costner's sake that everything established here makes sense whenever we get to see it. But I can't imagine how this could be a tetralogy. A trilogy, maybe? But that's it for now.

Despicable Me 4

Gru and his Minions are back to take over theatres with Despicable Me 4. This time, they're supposed to battle cockroach-man Maxime Le Mal (Will Ferrell). But he's not their greatest enemy; the imperfect script is. I'm sure kids will love the zaniness, and while I had some fun with it, I still have some issues. Let's see what they are.

Gru (Steve Carell) and Maxime were classmates at the same School for Evil. They open the film at their class reunion, where Gru leads the Anti-Villain League in arresting Maxime. Maxime busts out within days and vows vengeance, not just for the arrest, but for a talent show spat back in the day. AVL-bigwig Silas Ramsbottom (Steve Coogan) sends the Gru family into what is basically witness protection. They get new identities as the "Cunninghams," with Gru/Chet as a Solar Panel salesman and Lucy/Blanche (Kristen Wiig) as a hairstylist. Oh, did I mention there's now a baby Gru Jr.? There is.

Meanwhile, the Minions (all Pierre Coffin) are drafted into the AVL, with five of them getting the Super Soldier treatment to become "Mega Minions." They're not very good Superheroes. But they might help when Maxime and his girlfriend, Valentina (Sofia Vergara) target Gru Jr. to get back at papa Gru. Also meanwhile, the new neighbor girl Poppy Prescott (Joey King), drafts Gru into her plot to steal the aforementioned School of Evil's mascot: Lenny the Honey Badger. What's a Gru to do?

My aforementioned issues come from its multiple plotlines. Sure, they may be comprehensive, but they're pretty underdeveloped. They never explain how the AVL drafted the Minions, considering that all but a few of them left Gru at the end of Despicable Me 3 for his brother, Dru. I'm pretty sure there wasn't a movie or short that explained it, either. Gru's adopted daughters - Margo, Edith and Agnes - have issues that never really pay off. Poppy's heist backfires when school Principal Übelschlecht (director Chris Renaud) tracks her down. But it never dwells on Lenny's cowering in her presence. The biggest flaw is Maxime's plotline; he spends most of the movie on silliness rather than being an on-screen credible threat. He only registers a bit credible once he finally gets to act. He even has an army of cockroaches, seemingly his equivalent of the Minions, who literally do nothing! Next...

Now for stuff that I liked. The Mega Minions are amusing even if they barely affect the plot. Their designs are delightfully silly, as are their various super-fails. It's especially funny when they're marginally successful! Them being the cavalry when Maxime has already been defeated is actually a pretty good punchline to their joke. Lucy's only day on the job ends catastrophically for a customer, Melora (Lorraine Newman) and the salon. Melora chases Lucy down at the grocery store, complete with snippets from The Terminator theme, in a surprisingly thrilling chase. I wasn't exactly amused by Edith and Agnes's blowhard karate teacher, which wasn't helped by me being in the front row, but I was amused when Agnes stood up to him. Poppy is a fine new character, though Lenny is by far the MVP of the new characters.

Despicable Me 4 isn't that interested in catering to its oldest audience members. But you know what? It's a nice diversion from the heat. I wasn't bored with it, even as I noticed how underdeveloped its plotlines were. I was still impressed with its few surprises, particularly The Terminator gag. Maybe you'll be surprised to if you make it your latest summer family matinee. If not, you can at least take comfort in its 95-minute runtime. Minions are fine, but we don't need three hours of them...

There's a three-hour movie in my future, isn't there?

A Quiet Place: Day One

 You know, I promised you three sports anime movies at the beginning of the month. But something happened yesterday on the way to the third, Blue Lock: Episode Nagi. I headed off to the bus for an 11:30 show. On the way there, I discovered that the theatre changed the showtimes without warning. The earliest showtime now, according to the schedule, was 2:00. So, no to waiting nearly three hours for a movie ...

SHUT UP, STUPID! DO YOU WANT US TO GET KILLED---

(ROAR)!

(SLICE)!

And instead, I find myself straight in A Quiet Place: Day One. Here, we go back to the start of the invasion of The Death Angels, those pesky blind aliens that kill everything that makes noise, for another masterful showcase in sound design. What else does it have?

After two films with the Abbotts in Upstate New York, this prequel takes us to NYC itself, where we find Sam (Lupita Nyong'o) and her cat, Frodo. Sam, a published poet, lives in hospice with terminal cancer. A hospice worker, Reuben (Alex Wolff), takes her and a few patients on a field trip to a puppet show. That's when the Death Angels show up and wreck everyone's day. 

As military helicopters guide survivors to the ferries - the Death Angels can't swim - Sam heads for Harlem for a slice at her favorite pizzeria before her cancer or the Death Angels kill her. Along the way, she's joined by Eric (Joseph Quinn), as her reluctant traveling companion. A silent walk in the world's loudest city shouldn't be a problem, right? Right?!

As I previously mentioned, director Michael Sarnoski takes over for John Krasinski, though both of them collaborated on the screen story. Sarnoski's actual screenplay is a simple quest that runs an adequate 99 minutes. It doesn't need to expand on the outside world as much as the previous films. Sam's pizza quest amidst the apocalypse may strike rather odd for some. But you'll understand her once you learn of her sentimental attachment to the place. She and Eric bond nicely throughout the film, using a rainstorm to mask even the slightest conversations and enjoying quiet card games at a jazz club. Frodo is delightfully cuddly, but I'm astounded at how level-headed he is compared to the humans

But even the film's least level-headed humans aren't infuriatingly stupid. In fact, some of them are pitiable, like a panicking guy at the puppet theater who gets accidentally permanently shushed by Henri (Djimon Hounsou's "Man on the Island" from Part II). There's a woman following a scene I'll describe later who's holding back a scream with all her might. You won't blame her if she didn't. Eric is a nervous wreck, which is partially why Sam is reluctant to let him join her. His narrow escape from a flooded subway, where we first see him, certainly doesn't help his nerves. He proves himself when he distracts the Death Angels with car vandalism, and later ventures for Sam's pain medicine. The biggest jerk is a store owner who reprimands Sam for bringing Frodo despite him having a cat. But that's still not enough to warrant death by Death Angel (I think he's dead. His store is later shown destroyed).

 As the opening states, New York has a noise level of 90 decibels, and we get nearly fifteen minutes of its hustle and bustle before the invasion starts. We then get audible highlights such as stampeding Death Angels, an inconvenient power generator, and several jump scares. Its most striking moment is the collective silent noise of several hundred survivors, which adds up to adequate Death Angel bait. That's the scene I alluded to in the last paragraph. That ought to be the scene shown for the inevitable Sound Oscar Bakeoff. The puppet show is scored to stunningly elegant music by composer Alexis Grapsas, whose themes for the Death Angels perfectly sell us on their shear menace.

The Death Angels were already bad news in the first two films. The bad news keeps coming as they swarm all over the city; one swarm drops down to pursue Sam & Eric. When Eric and Frodo wind up at their nest, a construction site, we get glimpses of a bigger Death Angel. Yikes. Still, one of the film's most satisfying moments is seeing one realize too late that it can't swim. The visual effects for the monsters are impressive, as is the production design for post-apocalyptic New York. There was an excessively shaking stationary shot in the second half, but not even that is enough to downgrade Pat Scola's stunning cinematography. Suffice to say, this is a movie as visually impressive as it is audibly impressive.

If anything, A Quiet Place: Day One amplifies the anticipation for next year's Part III. I mean, how will the Abbotts deal with that giant Death Angel, if it or another like it, shows up? I guess we'll have to find out. In the meantime, you can find out how these humans and cat deal with the alien apocalypse. I'm sure you can find it in a theatre near you, unlike Blue Lock. Just don't make a sound.

The First Slam Dunk

 You know, I was looking forward to reviewing The First Slam Dunk when it debuted last July. But it never played near me at all. You'd think that an anime basketball movie would be an easy sell. But no, it only played in less than 600 theatres nationwide. It finally made it to home media yesterday. It's game day.

This is far from the first movie based on the definitive basketball manga. It is, however, the directorial debut of series creator Takehiko Inoue, who picks up where Toei's 1990s anime left off. Like Haikyu, the film revolves around the manga's volume spanning climactic game. There's the central team, Shohoku High, and their opponents, Sannoh High. Unlike Haikyu, you don't need to go in knowing the story thus far. It brings us up to speed with pivotal flashbacks for the Shohoku guys.

Ryota Miyagi (dubbed in English by Paul Castro Jr.), Shohoku's point guard, is also the film's main focus. It opens with him losing his father, and later, his basketball ace brother Sota, in quick succession. The double-loss strains Ryota's relationship with his mother, particularly in a tough scene where she catches him looking through Sota's mementos. He takes to the basketball court, even as scouts tell him he can never replace Sota. With him, we're all pumped to see the guys prove themselves on the court, but him especially. 

Let's see who else is on the team. There's Hisashi Mitsui (Jonah Scott), an ex-thug who got into a brutal altercation with Ryota early in the manga. His redemption arc is compelling, particularly when he visits Ryota in the hospital after a motorcycle crash. The team's big guy, Takenori Akagi (Aaron Goodson), deals with lingering self-doubt, embodied at one point by an annoying devil (long story). Kaede Rukawa (Aleks Le), the team's bad boy, takes the game pretty personally. Ayako (Kelsey Jaffar), the team's manager, bonds nicely with Ryota during nighttime practice. You'll get to know these characters rather well even if you haven't lived with Slam Dunk your whole life. 

The team's biggest personality belongs to the franchise's regular protagonist, Hanamichi Sakuragi (Ben Balmaceda). He frequently proclaims himself a genius, and he lives up to that on the court. Even his accidentally deflecting the ball with his face is impressive. He may annoy his teammates, and he doesn't always respect his Coach Anzai's (Mike Pollock) fatherly advice, but you can tell there's mutual respect between them all. He doesn't even let a crippling injury stop him, even as everyone else wants him to hit the bench. He might not be the film's central focus, but you'll never forget Hanamichi Sakuragi once he gets onto the court.

You also won't forget the basketball action. The cel-shaded motion capture for the players is a bit too fluid at times, but you'll still be on edge as Shohoku and Sannoh face off. I never really watch basketball, but I was glued to the screen when time slowed down during the game's last nine seconds. I'm certain you will be too. Inoue's editor Ryuichi Takita sustains the excitement rather well down to the last decisecond. Surprisingly, the cel-shaded motion capture blends rather well with the 2D animation used off the court. I didn't notice the different styles until I took a second look. The art directors stated they wanted to make it look like a moving manga, and I think they succeeded in replicating Inoue's style.

My only real gripe is that the Sannoh guys didn't have much personality. I still liked their coach's gracious pep talk at the end. All in all, The First Slam Dunk is a stellar anime sports film, and I'm pretty pleased it finally became available to watch. I had to update my Fandango at Home/Vudu account to watch it, and it was worth it. This is a film that welcomes, not confounds, potential new fans with its compelling drama on both sides of the court. I think you'll be impressed too once you press play. Game on.

The Bikeriders

Elio doesn't come out until this time next year, so how about we look at another film the recent Hollywood Strikes messed up? The Bikeriders, Jeff Nichols's ode to outlaw motorcycle culture, actually swapped studios during the Hollywood Strikes, going from 20th Century Studios to Focus Features. Let's finally see how it is.

The film is named after a photobook by Danny Lyon, which chronicled a few years in the lives of the Outlaws MC motorcycle club, who are represented as The Vandals. Lyon, played here by Mike Faist, spends the movie interviewing Kathy Bauer (Jodie Comer), the wife of Vandal Benny (Austin Butler). She narrates how she met Benny at a bar and married him five weeks later. She's introduced to his Vandal buddies, particularly their leader Johnny (Tom Hardy), who seem like a cool bunch. But Kathy soon realizes the Vandal lifestyle isn't for her and she wants to take Benny out of it. It gets worse when a few new members turn the Vandals truly Outlaw.

Much like Lyon, whose photos populate the end credits, Nichols spends much of the film chronicling The Vandals' lives. The Vandals' ranks also include Johnny's right-hand Brucie (Damon Herriman), the goofy duo Corky & Wahoo (Karl Glusman & Beau Knapp), the quiet Zipco (Michael Shannon), the aptly named Funny Sunny (Norman Reedus), and the bug-eating Cockroach (Emory Cohen). They pal around at bars, picnics & parties. They mourn the surprisingly sudden death of one of their own. They even give the law some trouble. We see how Johnny founded The Vandals, initially a racing club, after he caught The Wild One on TV. It all makes for an interesting chronicle of these outlaws' daily lives. 

Johnny is a cool guy devoted to his fellow bikers and outsiders alike. He's quite welcoming to Kathy, whom he even saves from some brutish Vandals, while he's affable to rivals for his leadership. He also has a truly scary temper. When Benny gets into a near-fatal bar fight, which opens the film, he gets the bartender to give him the assailants' names AND burns down the bar. He also doesn't take Cockroach's plans to leave The Vandals rather well. He's still sympathetic enough that you'll cry foul when the ending kicks in. A major supporting character is an unnamed "kid" (Toby Wallace), a scrappy wannabe biker who's introduced defending his mother from his abusive father. That's really the only nice thing he does. And yes, he factors in the ending.

Now for the other leads. Jody Comer's Midwestern accent as Kathy is a little much, but you start minding it less as the film goes on. Her emotional range is very believable; you'll feel her sadness when she tells Lyon "I thought I could change (Benny), ya know?" She has great chemistry with Butler, though they have little screentime together in the framing device. Butler as Benny is very much a typical brooding bad boy. He perfectly shows off his stubborn tenacity during the bar fight and a high-speed police chase. He rarely gets emotional, but you'll feel it when he finally breaks down. Faist, meanwhile, barely does much as Lyon other than interview Kathy. His time with The Vandals is dramatized in about one scene.

There's a good technical crew riding with Nichols and The Vandals. Let's begin with the fatal accident involving a Vandal. We see him riding around until a Cadillac suddenly pulls back. It cuts to the Vandals discussing the accident, and then, we see the fatal impact, a great touch by editor Julie Monroe. The sound team add a few more devastating aural punches the few times guns get involved. Cinematographer Adam Stone presents us an impressive travelogue of small-town America, especially when we see legions of bikers ride down its highways. The soundtrack, whether David Wingo's score or the oldies, is a good one.

If your only frame of reference on outlaw motorcycle culture is Easy Rider, which gets mentioned here, then The Bikeriders might help broaden your horizons. I think it's worth watching just for the great ensemble and technical work. It's a bit slow, and there are a few plot points I wished were elaborated on-screen. But overall, it's a good weekend ride. Prepare to be blown away if you catch the trailer for Nosferatu, though. You'll bet I'll cover it for Christmas. 

Inside Out 2

Who wants to go on another mind trip? I've seen the box-office results, so I know a lot of you have said yes. Those who haven't yet are in for a good time with Pixar's personified emotions. Let's get into Inside Out 2 and you might see what I mean.

Riley Andersen (Kensington Tallman, tagging in for Kaitlyn Dias) and her personified emotions - Joy, Sadness, Anger (Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith & Lewis Black), Fear and Disgust (Tony Hale & Liza Lapira, tagging in for Bill Hader and Mindy Kaling, respectively) - are celebrating her thirteenth birthday. The emotions keep Riley's sense of self, represented by a crystal ball, while they throw away bad memories in the darkest depths of her mind. Riley and her besties, Bree and Grace (Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green & Grace Lu), head off to summer hockey camp to qualify for the big shot varsity team, the Firehawks. Easy, right? Of course not.

Riley's "puberty alarm" goes off the night before camp, and the emotions soon discover that their slightest influences cause her to overreact. They find themselves sharing their headquarters with four new emotions: Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edeberi), Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos) and Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser). Anxiety takes over the Riley operation after Riley discovers that her besties are moving away. Anxiety and the others create a new "cautious" sense of self for Riley, discards the old one, and literally bottles up their predecessors. Their improvements overwhelm Riley, so it's up to the regular emotions to take back control before it's too late.

This marks the feature debut of director Kelsey Mann, a story supervisor since Monsters University, who also co-wrote the film with Meg LeFauve and Dave Holstein. Their journey into Riley's mind is just as memorable as the first film's journey. Their new mental gags, which include a "brainstorm" of raining lightbulbs and a "sar-chasm," are visually and verbally clever.  A few new mental characters, the brooding bad boy parody Lance Slashblade (Yong Yea), and the over saccharine cartoon duo of Bloofy and Pouchy (Ron Funches and James Austin Johnson) are quite amusing. That's all well and good for the mental world, but what about the real world?

Riley gets a strong storyline as she deals with her fluctuating emotions. It's quite moving when we see her memory of meeting Grace and Bree, and that friendship remains compelling even as it gets tested. She gravitates towards Firehawk captain Val Ortiz (Lilimar) and tries her best to look cool with her. Val is already pretty friendly, so it stings knowing how much of her (and Anxiety's) effort is unnecessary. It's quite the betrayal when Riley disses her and her besties' favorite band in front of them. While Riley's mood swings can get amusing, nobody's laughing when Anxiety's influence causes her to have a prolonged panic attack. The inevitable reconciliation is just as moving as that flashback. You'll just have to see what I mean.

Anxiety maybe the ostensible villain, but even she's sympathetic as she starts fretting over the future. Still, a few of her bad thoughts are morbidly hilarious, as is the film's representation of her bad idea center. Riley's panic attack is caused by Anxiety working the controls so fast she causes a cyclone. That scene is as impressive as it is scary. You'll also be moved when Joy gets Anxiety out of her own panic attack. Anxiety's Muppet-like visage is the cuddliest of the already appealing character designs and rendering for the new emotions. 

What else about the other emotions? Joy is still the same embodiment of happiness - even under pressure - that she was in the first film. Sadness's odd friendship with Embarrassment is a rather nice one. Envy's childlike personality is a unique characterization for her emotion (she's not even the least bit mean). Anger's temper maybe funny, but you'll be amazed by his bits of compassion. Fear, Disgust and Ennui are just there, though Ennui's droll line deliveries are fun to listen to. Did I mention there's a fifth new emotion? That would be Nostalgia (June Squibb), whose brief cameos are oddly amusing comic relief. 

Let's not forget the score, whether it's Michael Giacchino's returning themes, or the new material by Andrea Datzman, to guide us through the good and bad times. There's plenty of each I've had to leave out of this review. Just watch Inside Out 2 as soon as you can, and you'll get the rest. You won't be disappointed by what Pixar has conjured up this time. I'm disappointed, however, that their next film, Elio, has been stranded in space for another year, but that's for that review. Onwards to the next one.

Ultraman: Rising

Welcome back, Ultraman.

How does Japan's biggest superhero follow up his biggest cinematic makeover ever? How about a Netflix movie? Ultraman: Rising is neither his first animated-film, his first American-produced film, or even his first Netflix adventure. It is, however, a good film for next Father's Day. Don't ask me why I'm two days late for this year. Let's just go.

Kenji Sato (Christopher Sean) has the biggest ego in all of baseball. He is also Ultraman, the reluctant successor to his father, Professor Hayao (Gedde Watanabe). Kenji returns to Japan, not just to play for the Yomiuri Giants, but to fight Kaiju as an actual giant. His showboating gets him into trouble with civilians and the Kaiju Defense Force headed by Dr. Onda (Keone Young). One night, Kenji's game is disrupted by Gigantron, the dragon Kaiju that sidelined his father. He knocks it out cold and retrieves a package the KDF were carrying.

That package is Gigantron's egg, which hatches into a giant chick. Emi, as she is eventually called, imprints on Ultraman. Kenji and his AI, Mina (Tamlyn Tomita), now have to raise a baby several times bigger than them. Hilarity ensues. But after Kenji starts striking out, he reaches out to his father, as well as sportswriter and single mom Ami Wakita (Julia Harriman), for some help. He's going to need a lot of help when the KDF close in.

Maybe I should get some gripes out of the way. Actually, they can all be traced to imperfect worldbuilding. How did Hayao, and then Kenji, get their Ultraman powers? The film doesn't bother answering that question. A major subplot involves the disappearance of Kenji's mom, Emiko (also Tomita). The film doesn't explain how she vanished, but the mid-credits sequel bait hints at an answer. Hayao later calls Gigantron "the most magnificent creature on Earth," when the most we see of them together is their one fight. I'd like to have known a bit more about that aspect of his Ultra career. These gripes, at most, knock half-a-star from this overall impressive film.

Early on, Kenji's coach tells him "It takes more than attitude to become a Giant." It's hilariously ironic given his secret identity, and thus, the film's most memorable line. It also defines Kenji as we soon see, beneath his towering ego, an insecure guy beneath it. That insecurity makes it a bit understandable when he ditches his first fight without subduing the Kaiju first. He quickly improves once he becomes Emi's new dad, and the film gets plenty of laughs and sweetness as he cares for his big baby. His relationships with his father, Mina and Ami also help improve his audience appeal. You'll certainly feel something when Ultraman and Ultradad team-up to use their signature Spacium Beam against Dr. Onda's giant robot.

Kenji is also given a great villain in Dr. Onda. Onda is quite sympathetic given he lost his family in a Kaiju attack. He's a well-intentioned extremist, emphasis on extreme, but he does have some decency. When his plans go awry in the climax, he has his subordinates abandon ship, leaving himself to face the consequences alone. But a nasty surprise for Ultraman certainly tests that audience appeal. Still, that moral complexity makes him one of the most memorable animated villains in years.

It's no surprise that the animation is spectacular, given that it was done by no-less than Industrial Light and Magic. We get a great rendition of futuristic Tokyo - as vibrant as the present city but with forcefields for Kaiju attacks - and stunning starlit skies when Ultraman bonds with Emi. Emi is the cuddliest "little" Kaiju you'll ever see, while Ultraman's new design is certainly interesting. The visual effects emphasizing major blows and Kenji's rising emotions are as impressive as Ultraman's various powers. On an aural level, the sound effects pop as bullets fly, monsters roar and laser beams fire. Scot Stafford's score gives us a great heroic theme for the opening, while Gigantron's theme perfectly sells us on its perceived menace. Overall, its technical prowess is beyond Ultra.

I sure hope that it gets the sequel it wants. Ultraman: Rising isn't a perfect starting point for the Ultra series - Shin Ultraman does that better - but it has an appealing central story. You don't need to have kids to be moved by its unconventional family tale. If that doesn't appeal to you, then its heroic battle scenes might do it for you. It's ready for you to shuwatch on Netflix right now in either English or Japanese. Either option is just Ultra for this film. Next time, another animated film.

Bad Boys: Ride or Die

Yes, it's true. 

I never saw any of the Bad Boys movies, which means I stepped into the fourth installment, Bad Boys: Ride or Die, completely blind. Fortunately, I wasn't completely lost as I followed Miami's finest, Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence), for nearly two hours. At least it's not drowning in a sea of continuity (unlike some other sequels).

The film opens as the titular Bad Boys race to Mike's wedding to Christine (Melanie Liburd), his off-screen therapist during Bad Boys for Life (more on that later). Marcus has a heart attack on the dance floor, and in his near-death state, he gets a pep talk from the late Captain Howard (Joe Pantoliano). He wakes up fully convinced of his immortality, even as his family and Mike try to get him on a diet. And then, the bad guys show up.

An evil Cartel enforcer, James McGrath (Eric Dane), frames Capt. Howard for corruption. Howard saw the posthumous slander coming, so he left Mike and Marcus a video message warning them about the real crooked cops. The Bad Boys immediately get on the case, which requires them to team-up with Mike's illegitimate son Armando (Jacob Scipio), who also happens to be the Cartel enforcer who personally gunned down Howard in the last movie. Unfortunately, McGrath sabotages their prison helicopter, frames them for the act, and even puts a bounty on them for Miami's gangs to fight over. Mike and Marcus have to rely on a few good cops to get out of this one.

Whether you've followed Mike and Marcus from the beginning, or are starting fresh here, you'll get a good time here. It's only natural that the titular Bad Boys are the biggest reasons why. Mike maybe annoyed with Marcus's sweet tooth, especially when it nearly gets him late to his wedding, but he's still crushed when Marcus has his heart attack. Mike saves Marcus from his overconfidence a few more times, particularly with an alligator in the finale. Mike gets the dramatic arc with his PTSD over Capt. Howard's death, while Marcus gets the funny stuff and a few motivational bits. You don't need to know much about their past adventures to understand their chemistry here.

Now, for the villains. In his backstory, McGrath was a DEA agent who broke under Cartel torture. Any chance for sympathy is thrown out the window in his first scene, in which he forces a guy to wire money into Howard's bank account and kills him & his mistress anyway. Who's that guy? Who cares, but that was low. He's a flat villain, but it's his sheer loathsomeness that makes him a memorable villain. It's even more memorable when Mike finally takes him down in the climax. His collaborator, a corrupt Mayoral candidate named Lockwood (Ioan Gruffudd), is a bit pathetic, but he's no less dangerous, as current Captain Rita (Paola Nunez) finds out (fortunately, she lives).

Now, for a few others. I know I haven't seen Bad Boys for Life, but as I researched its plot, I wonder why Christine wasn't introduced then. This is literally the first time anyone has seen her. She's fine here, but her "remember the new guy" introduction is a bit odd. Marcus's family includes several established characters, one of whom, Marcus's wife Theresa, is actually a recast (going from Theresa Randle to Tasha Smith). Dennis Greene, returning as Marcus's son-in-law Reggie, gets his moment to shine when he takes down some of McGrath's goons. Armando is a compelling reformed villain and is quite funny when he plays straight man to Mike and Marcus. Rhea Seehorn and Quinn Hemphill are fine as Howard's U.S. Marshal daughter Judy, and her daughter Callie, respectively. I can go on, but I can't.

I'll instead go on about the technicals. There's some stunning cinematography of nighttime Miami by Robrecht Heyvaert, who also impresses with a perspective-flipping shot during the final battle. The production design by Jon Billington is also exquisite as it takes Mike and Marcus to plenty of impressive locales from a few neon nightclubs to a rundown alligator amusement park. There's some strong visual effects work here, whether it's the helicopter crash or especially Marcus in limbo. The effects team should be proud of what they did with the latter. The action & comedy are perfectly edited by Asaf Eisenberg & Dan Lebental, while Lorne Balfe's score and the sound design are impressive. If this was the panache directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah (together, Adil & Bilall) brought to the Batgirl movie, then it makes that film's cancellation even dumber.

But let's talk about films we can see. Bad Boys: Ride or Die has likeable heroes, a hateable villain, and plenty of stellar action scenes. In other words, it's a basic summer blockbuster, and that's not a bad thing. What's especially great is how inviting it is to newcomers and established fans alike. I wouldn't mind seeing a fifth film if they choose to make one. But for now, let's set our sights on this summer's crop. That's it for now.