Review: "Logan"

For someone who grew up head-over-heels for comic books, it's remarkable and kind of infuriating just how underwhelmed I've been by the genre's offerings on the big screen over the past decade or so.

I was raised on page-to-screen adaptations of the likes of Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy and Tim Burton's Batman flicks, plus the first two Christopher Reeve Superman pictures. I still adore those films to this day, and was quite fond of Christopher Nolan's vision for Batman too. But Zach Snyder's DC productions? Don't even get me started. And while Marvel's offerings have certainly been less headache-inducing than Snyder's assault on the genre, few of those films have left me much invigorated either. Perhaps I'm just tiring of the focus on wall-to-wall CGI, in place of compelling storytelling.

The X-Men franchise, for the most part, has never left me with strong feelings one way or the other. I was enamored with X2, admittedly mostly on account of Ian McKellen's delicious performance, but the other pictures struck me as little more than serviceable.

Logan, the latest picture in the series, is decidedly a hell of a lot more than just by-the-numbers. It's the strongest of the X-Men films by a country mile and should titillate even viewers who are not fond of or familiar with the franchise. I suspect moviegoers who got more of a kick out of Mad Max: Fury Road or True Grit than say, Guardians of the Galaxy, will be especially delighted by this picture.

Hugh Jackman, in the finest performance of his career, returns as Logan who, in the not-so-distant future, is emotionally drained and at his least able-bodied. He cares for the unwell Professor X (Patrick Stewart, also fantastic) at a remote location on the Mexican border, earning cash as a limo driver with the goal of amassing enough to buy a boat and sail off into the sunset together. At this point in time, mutants are on the edge of extinction, so Logan is caught plenty off-guard when the young Laura (Dafne Keen, in a sensational feature film debut), who has powers not unlike Logan's, enters the picture.

Logan has been tasked with escorting Laura to a place in North Dakota called "Eden," where, to his great skepticism, she'll apparently be safe. All Logan, Laura and Professor X need to do is somehow make the road trip while warding off the deranged Reavers who have committed their lives to the destruction of mutants and Logan in particular.

The picture, directed by the hit-or-miss James Mangold, delivers all of the violent, exhilarating, well-orchestrated action you could ask for but Logan is ultimately so much more than that. The relationships between Logan and Laura and Logan and Professor X are fascinating ones and there are nearly as many scenes that tug pull at the heart strings as get the heart racing. The film was co-written by the brilliant Scott Frank, who not only has credits on fabulous motion pictures like Out of Sight and Minority Report but also penned TV episodes on series like The Wonder Years. His contributions are greatly felt here.

Logan isn't quite a perfect picture - the Logan vs. X-24 battles, for one, gave me nasty flashbacks to Superman III - but I wouldn't hesitate to rank it at least among the top 20 or so comic book films to date.

A-

Review: "Kong: Skull Island"

Ah, Kong, It's so nice to have you back where you belong, even if it is in a witless and familiar picture that most recalls a low-rent Irwin Allen flick.

I've long been a fan of the King Kong films, warts and all. The original 1933 Kong adventure is a truly dazzling piece of cinema, I would argue among the finest pictures of the pre-Code era. The Dino De Laurentiis remake from 1976, while hardly a flawless film (somehow, I think the visual effects are less convincing here than they were four decades prior), is not without its pleasures, among them Jessica Lange's exquisite film debut. As for Peter Jackson's 2005 ginormous-budget effort, I think it's a epic that often exceeds the original in impact, even with its absurd length.

There have, of course, been other Kong films too, minor B-movies like Son of Kong and King Kong Lives, none of which were in the same class as those three pictures but at least had some value to those who find the gargantuan gorilla an irresistible charmer.

Kong himself looks more convincing than ever in his latest picture, Kong: Skull Island, and is surrounded this time around by a plethora of spine-tingling CGI monsters, including a spider with legs the length of palm trees and reptilian "Skullcrawlers" that devour humans like potato chips. Whenever the focus turns exclusively to these gnarly creatures, Kong: Skull Island is a lot of silly fun.

Much less compelling, I'm afraid, is virtually everything else in the picture. Like those aforementioned Irwin Allen disaster films, Kong: Skull Island takes one hell of an all-star cast and gives them absolutely nothing to do. Even Samuel L. Jackson, who valiantly tried to make movie magic out of Snakes on a Plane, looks bored.

The plot feels derivative from the get-go. Toward the close of the Vietnam War, a government agent (John Goodman) recruits a team of soldiers and scientists (among them, Jackson, Tom Hiddleston and Corey Hawkins) to explore an uncharted island in the Pacific known as..wait for it, wait for it...Skull Island! Their helicopters go in, drop explosives to determine if the island's ground is hollow and, to the great pleasure of the audience, Kong is quick to greet them and smack down the copters left and right. The survivors, among them a photojournalist (Brie Larson), wind up split into two groups, with each having very different plans moving forward.

Kong: Skull Island is a pretty grueling exercise when the big ape on campus isn't around. None of the actors seem to be having any fun, with the notable exception of John C. Reilly as an oddball former lieutenant who's been stranded on the island since WWII. Problem is, Reilly doesn't enter the picture until about the halfway point, so we're stuck for a while watching Hiddleston, Larson and Jackson sleepwalk their way through the dull, uninspired screenplay. Filmmaker Jordan Vogt-Roberts, whose The Kings of Summer was the toast of the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, shows negligible directorial flair here, with a by-the-numbers vision reminiscent of Colin Trevorrow's on the recent Jurassic World.

Oh, and I am legit throwing my popcorn at the screen the next time a '70s-era picture plays "Bad Moon Rising" to remind us of the decade in which the film is set.

C+

Review: "Get Out"

Ever wondered what the result would be if say, Wes Craven opted to direct a film half Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and half The Stepford Wives? I imagine not but, if you somehow did, the final product probably would've looked something a whole lot like Get Out, the incredible directorial debut of actor/comedian/writer Jordan Peele (of TV's Key & Peele).

What Peele has done in Get Out is something truly remarkable. Unlike the bulk of horror comedies, which tend to veer heavily on the campy and over-the-top, Peele's picture is a pitch-perfect mix of scenes laugh-out-loud hilarious and moments downright terrifying. This ain't a cheesefest that spends its time constantly winking at its audience.

The film opens with couple Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) and Rose (Allison Williams) - he's black, she's white - taking a road trip from the city out into the suburbs for that grueling, time-honored tradition of him meeting her parents. Dean (Bradley Whitford) and Missy (Catherine Keener) seem perfectly nice and normal at first, if perhaps a tad ill-at-ease about their daughter's interracial romance, but Chris soon finds himself a bit perplexed by his surroundings. There's the family's maid (the scene-stealing Betty Gabriel) and groundskeeper (Marcus Henderson), both African-American and both acting like some sort of batshit robots. Then, there's the oddball guests who visit for a grand party at the family estate, including another person of color (Keith Stanfield) who also ain't acting right. Most concerning is the terrifying dreams Chris has been having...or are they really dreams?

To go any further into the plotting of this ingenuous film would be a travesty - this is not one to be spoiled. Let's just say there was of course twists and turns but furthermore, Peele does a sensational job here anticipating what his audience expects around the corner in terms of twists...only to turn that on its head and deliver genuine shockers.

Kaluuya is a real find and a natural leading man. He's surrounded by a dynamite supporting cast, one which also includes the uproariously funny Lil Rel Howery as Chris' best friend who, even hours away in the city, suspects something is up in a bad way in the suburbs. Get Out is frontloaded with lots of laughter out of the starting gates but by the hour point of this thing, you'll be hanging off the edge of your seat.

Get Out marks the first truly great film of 2017.

A-

Review: "Lion"

As director Garth Davis' Oscar-nominated Lion opens, five-year-old Saroo (Sunny Pawar, in a wonderful screen debut) is waiting at a train station for his brother Guddu (Abhishek Bharate) when he accidentally falls asleep aboard a dormant train and awakens in the morning, the moving vehicle now countless miles across India, in Calcutta.

With no understanding of the local Bengali language, Saroo wanders the city with impressive street smarts and is eventually placed in an orphanage. Not long after, with his family unable to ever track him down and vice versa, he is adopted by an Australian couple (Nicole Kidman and David Wenham), who whole-heartedly adore Saroo from the get-go.

This opening half of Lion suggests a masterpiece in cinema. It's sumptuously photographed, with cinematography by Greig Fraser, features a stirring original score by Hauschka and Dustin O'Halloran and boasts that delightful, engaging performance by Pawar, who has an enormous screen presence. Kidman is fantastic too, in scenes both early and later in the film, though I do wish her character was more fleshed-out.

Lion's latter half, I'm afraid, isn't quite on-par with its exceptional start. In this portion of the picture, set 25 years later, an adult Saroo (Dev Patel) is now residing in Melbourne, where he studies hotel management. Following an evening of Indian cuisine with friends and his girlfriend Lucy (Rooney Mara), Saroo finds himself overcome with flashbacks to his childhood. His friends suggest he utilize Google Earth to finally locate his hometown and before long, this search becomes an obsession for Saroo.

These scenes, while competently filmed and performed, don't pack the same punch as those featuring Pawar. Moreover, Mara, who should have won last year's Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Carol, is obscenely underused in a thankless role. Only toward the film's conclusion does it muster the same impact as earlier but these moments are also a tad dampened by the use of a bombastic original song by Sia.

Even if Lion overall does not live up to the sky-high promise of its first hour, the picture is still an immensely moving one and deserving of the recognition it's so far garnered.

A-

2016 Movie Report Card

Jackie - A+
Manchester By the Sea - A+
Don't Think Twice - A
The Edge of Seventeen - A
Loving - A
Moonlight - A
The BFG - A-
Hidden Figures - A-
The Jungle Book - A-
Lion - A-
The Meddler - A-
The Nice Guys - A-
The Secret Life of Pets - A-
Arrival - B+
De Palma - B+
Fences - B+
The Founder - B+
Hell or High Water - B+
La La Land - B+
10 Cloverfield Lane - B+
13th - B+
20th Century Women - B+
Zootopia - B+
Christine - B
Florence Foster Jenkins - B
The Girl on the Train - B
Hello, My Name Is Doris - B
The Shallows - B
The Conjuring 2 - B-
Deepwater Horizon - B-
Nocturnal Animals - B-
The Witch - B-
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - C+
Rules Don't Apply - C+
Sausage Party - C+
Sully - C+
Bad Moms - C
Hail, Caesar! - C
The Purge: Election Year - C
Sing - C
The Lobster - C-
Suicide Squad - F

Review: "The Founder"

John Lee Hancock is not exactly among my favorite filmmakers. Sans a decent performance here and there, his The Blind Side and Saving Mr. Banks largely bored me to tears. These and other efforts struck me as heart-tugging mush, without a whole lot of style or ingenuity to speak of.

This lack of cinematic flourish, I'm happy to report, is not nearly as much on display in Hancock's latest picture, The Founder. This time around, the director is working from a fine screenplay (from The Wrestler scribe Robert Siegel) and alongside three marvelous actors, all operating at the tops of their games. It's a movie that marks a plenty respectable finish to 2016 in film.

The Founder opens in 1954 with the floundering, yet mightily determined Illinois salesman Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton) bouncing around from one drive-in restaurant to another, trying, with minimal success, to sell his latest milkshake mixers. At last, one eatery in southern California bites - a successful little hamburger joint called McDonald's. Kroc heads west and is head-over-heels for the place, established by brothers Dick (Nick Offerman) and Mac (John Carroll Lynch) McDonald. He sees their speedy method of making food as a winner, with enormous franchise potential. So, Kroc manages to get the McDonalds on board with expanding their baby but conflict between the entrepreneurs rises as McDonald's becomes a runaway hit and Kroc leaves the McDonald brothers in the dust.

All of the material here featuring the McDonald brothers packs a real punch. It's a mouth-watering delight watching the burger-making process, and there's a particularly inventive scene in which Dick and Mac, alongside their first employees, work on a tennis court to figure out the appropriate operation. There are also several moments of tremendous tension later in the picture, as the McDonalds become more and more irrelevant to the juggernaut that is Kroc's McDonald's.empire. It is a true pleasure seeing Offerman and Lynch with prime big screen roles like this, and Keaton is a blast to watch as the ruthlessly committed Kroc.

If The Founder has any real misstep, it is in the casting of top-notch actors like Laura Dern, Patrick Wilson and Linda Cardellini in thankless supporting turns that act more as window dressing than roles of real significance. That quibble aside, the film is a lot of fun, Kroc's warts and all.

B+

Review: "Split"

M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense is, for my money, one of the finest horror films of the past quarter-century, a stirring, unsettling, expertly filmed picture that deserved all of its half dozen Oscar nominations.

Ever since that 1999 release, unfortunately, it's been downhill for this supposed master of the supernatural. Unbreakable and Signs were watchable, albeit a remarkable step down from his breakthrough film, while subsequent releases just got worse and worse until Shyamalan entirely skid off the road into Razzie Award territory.

Shyamalan's latest effort is, I'm pleased to report, not an unqualified disaster, even if it never comes remotely close to reaching the heights of The Sixth Sense.

Split opens with Kevin (James McAvoy) abducting three teenage girls from a parking lot. They awaken in a windowless room and are quickly introduced to, among others, the likes of "Hedwig," "Patricia" and "Dennis" - that is, a few of Kevin's 23 alternate personalities. There are attempts to escape or trick Kevin but ultimately, only loner Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy) proves smart and resourceful enough to be a real match to their captor. When Kevin isn't tormenting his prey, he's visiting with his psychiatrist (Betty Buckley), who has come to know Kevin's many personalities all too well.

The opening half or so of Split is reasonably entertaining, if never, ever actually scary. It plays almost like a cross between 10 Cloverfield Lane and Raising Cain, though it's rarely as compelling as either of those two pictures. The opening credits are truly fantastic and Hitchcockian. The thing is, a little of Kevin/Hedwig/Dennis/etc. goes a long way and, by the one-hour mark, I was plenty ready to bid him farewell. And, as is all too often the case with the director's pictures, Split really takes a nosedive toward its end.

McAvoy's scenery-chewing performance, while amusing, is no Joanne Woodward in The Three Faces of Eve. More satisfying are the badass Taylor-Joy, who was also terrific in last year's The Witch, and Buckley, the legendary, Tony-winning star of the stage, in a rare big screen appearance, with a juicy supporting role.

Split isn't without its pleasures but still, wait 'til it's on HBO.

C+

Review: "20th Century Women"

In Santa Barbara, CA, circa 1979, adolescent boy Jamie Fields (Lucas Jade Zumann) is screwing around with his pals when he passes out and is rushed to the hospital, where he later awakens to the sight of his exasperated mother Dorothea (Annette Bening). A single mom who fears she's becoming more and more disconnected from her son, Dorothea calls on two young women, Abbie (Greta Gerwig) and Julie (Elle Fanning), to become more involved in Jamie's upbringing.

Writer-director Mike Mills' 20th Century Women finds this to be an eye-opening and challenging experience for all involved. The free-spirited photographer Abbie, who also happens to be a tenant of Dorothea's, introduces Jamie to the L.A. punk scene and teaches him about love, but it's Abbie's battle with cervical cancer that most shakes the young man. Meanwhile, Jamie has long been in love with neighbor Julie, who deeply cherishes their friendship and isn't so keen on taking their relationship to that level. There's also William (Billy Crudup), the ever-present handyman also navigating his way through this crazy and complicated time.

Given the era in which it's set and careful attention to dialogue and character detail, 20th Century Women often has the feel of something Norman Lear would have produced in his prime. It's a more compelling picture overall than Mills' breakout success Beginners, which was carried heavily on the shoulders of Christopher Plummer's exquisite, Oscar-winning turn, even if 20th Century doesn't sport a performance quite on that high level. The acting is still fine all-around, however, with Gerwig and Fanning both terrific in rich, intriguing roles.

Then, of course, there is Bening, truly the heart of the film, in perhaps her most memorable turn since The American President more than two decades ago. It's a warm, funny, lived-in performance that in most years would be a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination. While it won't be this year, someday, inevitably I would hope, this marvelous actress will at last take home the golden guy.

B+

Review: "Hidden Figures"

It was in a history textbook in high school that I first came upon the name Katherine Johnson. I can vividly remember the photo of her and the caption, which noted Johnson as a trailblazing mathematician who worked for NASA during the Space Race. In the years, following, however I hadn’t come across her name again – that is, until President Barack Obama honored Johnson in 2015 with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in recognition of her efforts in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

Now, more than half a century since Johnson calculated the trajectory for the space flight of Alan Shepard (the first American in space), comes an inspiring and plenty entertaining motion picture highlighting the tremendous accomplishments – and struggles – of Johnson and other African-Americans in the space program.

As the Hidden Figures opens, Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae) are working in the segregated, dungeon-like West Area Computers division at the Langley Research Center. With the Soviet Union making headway in the Space Race, through cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becoming the first person to orbit Earth, the brilliant Johnson is recruited by Al Harrison (Kevin Costner), director of the Space Task Group, to conduct research and calculations that will lead to John Glenn (Glen Powell)’s orbiting of the planet. Johnson is beyond qualified for the job but that hardly makes this white sausage fest of an office all too welcoming of an African-American woman.

Meanwhile, Vaughan has a tense relationship with her cold-as-ice supervisor (Kirsten Dunst) and fears she and her colleagues may become disposable to NASA, given the rise of computers. The picture also focuses on Jackson’s strides to go from the title of ‘mathematician’ to ‘engineer’ – a feat that requires an advanced degree that locally can only be obtained at an all-white institution.

The film, directed by Theodore Melfi and written by Melfi and Allison Schroeder, is a genuine crowd-pleaser, packed with humor, delightful performances and – even when you know some of the outcomes – a fair share of suspense too. Spencer, as always, is a natural scene-stealer, and between this and Moonlight, 2016 has proven one hell of a year for Monae. (Moonlight star Mahershala Ali has a nice turn here too, portraying a suitor of Johnson’s.) Hidden Figures also offers a prime supporting role for Costner, nicely cast as a man whose entire life seems to revolve around the space program.

The true shining star of this film, however, is Henson, pitch-perfectly convincing and charming as can be as this amazing woman. Here is an actress who, frankly, does not always select the finest scripts, but here hits a grand slam. She’d make a fine Best Lead Actress Oscar nominee this year, crowded as that category may be.

When it comes to motion pictures about NASA, The Right Stuff remains tops but Hidden Figures really ain’t too far behind.

A-

Review: "Sing"

Earlier this year, I fawned over Illumination Entertainment's The Secret Life of Pets, an endearing roller coaster ride of an animated feature that was exquisitely drawn, enthusiastically performed and sported one hell of an Alexandre Desplat original score to boot.

The studio's latest effort, I'm afraid, is lacking in all areas where Pets excelled, a haphazard, pedestrian film that rarely even stimulates a smile.

Writer-director Garth Jennings' Sing starts off on a decent-enough note, as we see the theater-owning koala bear Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey) come up with an idea to save his failing, once-extravagant venue - a singing competition. The event draws far more attention than anticipated when Moon's bumbling secretary misprints the contest as having a grand prize 100 times the actual amount. This draws in a host of characters, few terribly interesting or funny, voiced by the likes of Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson, Seth MacFarlane and Nick Kroll, who belt out new and old Billboard hits.

Each A-lister has their own little subplot but there's not much to write home about. Only MacFarlane, as an arrogant mouse who croons like Sinatra, interjects some life into the proceedings. Perhaps superfans of American Idol and/or The Voice (or - sigh - the Pitch Perfect films) will get a kick out of the musical performances here but I was left mostly unmoved. And where Pets crafted a breathtaking Manhattan setting that really popped off the screen, Sing feels curiously claustrophobic and isn't all that visually striking.

Sing is animated cinema for only the most undemanding of moviegoers.

C