All can be asked in a simpler way. Can the melodramatic be made mythic and can the gaudy be made truly grand? Do that and you’ve got the fans and the newbies. Denis Villeneuve’s Dune moves a great many things in spectacular fashion: sand, swords, aircraft, plots, necks, eardrums, eyelids, and more. For all its triumphant fury, what Dune doesn’t move is the heart. That is the unconquered core barrier that remains unshaken. Golly, do we ever have a jaw-dropping and cold movie!
Read MoreIt is also through her side of the story, clearly a huge product of Holofcener’s storytelling contributions, where the historical behaviors in The Last Duel accurately yet problematically fly against our still-evolving modern attitudes. While Scott’s film may follow the charted multiple perspectives of Jager’s well-researched novel, folding its painful and triggering trauma three times makes for an exorbitant and unsettling movie experience.
Read MorePushing new discipline, they realigned their creative engine to strip the rote and antiquated character’s foundation back down to its very studs. Progressive change was needed for a new era of geopolitical influences and a new leading man who favored toughness over suaveness. Cinematic dalliances that burned hot, moved with excitement, and extinguished themselves quickly were given depth that was previously rare or entirely dismissed.
Read MoreEven if the advice is only spoken for a moment amid flurries of exposition and martial arts melee, neither versions of those breaths feel wasted in this new Marvel Studios entry. And does this movie ever breathe! In this sensational origin story, we gulp and we gasp with every kinetic huff and puff of our heroes and villains embroiled in turmoil and combat. I, for one, dig that simplistic focus on the voluntary and involuntary ways Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings draws in its oxygenated energy.
Read MoreOnce again, what’s winsome and bodacious in Free Guy begins with Ryan Reynolds. From Van Wilder and Deadpool and everything hit-and-miss in-between, he combines naivety, enthusiasm, and dorkiness to a vitality level that is nearly second to none among his comedian peers. Ryan’s verbal gift-of-gab has long been legendary, and his go-for-broke physical comedy skills on top of that mouth are the true, full commitment to the bit.
Read MoreWho’s going to make it or not? Who or what else is going to show up? What actors will make the most of their arbitrary characters? What improves from the grossly reviled 2016 movie? Most of all, as the action piles on, keep losing chips on trying to guess WTF is going to happen next. The pitch is clear. Come to The Suicide Squad and place your bets for the roller coaster experience that awaits. All of that warped glee equals the energy brought forth by James Gunn’s resuscitated and hyper-juiced sequel.
Read MoreThe Green Knight states all good myths are brave and bold. At some point, that profundity has to go beyond aesthetics. The screen titles also announce that what is presented is not that kind of legend. Yeah, and that’s the problem when considering the source material built with magical bedrock. Never has chivalric romance and so-called adventure been treated so pensively.
Read MoreLook, Jungle Cruise knows exactly what it is, much like the brand of comedy coming from Dwayne’s skipper that’s called out by Blunt’s pragmatic presence. The jokes are corny, the hijinks aim for hilarity, and the spectacle is large. Like its theme park inspiration and Pirates of the Caribbean walking so this movie could run, Jungle Cruise is meant to be a ride that puts a smile on your face, and it sure is a zippy one. That’s right where it’s supposed to be.
Read MoreMuch of Joe Bell has the pungent trace of an unglamourous “glamour project” for Mark Wahlberg and likely a few of the film’s manly executive producer backers including Jake Gyllenhaal, NFL Hall of Famer Derrick Brooks, and former NBA All-Star Michael Finley to name a few. Projecting for sure, this movie feels like a place where the A-lister is trying to put forth marketed atonement for his own past bigotry. When all of this movie adds up to be about him, the genuineness aligns to the wrong place.
Read MoreSlotted with a self-important story to tell that takes place after the events of 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, this prequel arrives with a better-late-than-never party invitation of hype. Boasting some of the best melee work in a Marvel film, Black Widow belongs on the big screen and displays gratifying action sequences that rightfully highlight powerful females worthy of the spotlight. It also belonged in front of our eyes five years ago and not now. There is an unshakable magnitude of foregone conclusions that curtail the upper tier of potential excitement.
Read MoreCruella tosses that “psycho” term and label around flippantly, even with its successful motivation to be interesting and darker than the usual live-action works from the Mouse House. It offers a villainess to believe in, but what does that say to audiences? Swinging for sympathy towards the amoral could have amounted to the same mistake as Maleficent seven years ago. Luckily, the conniptions and confrontations of “Emma vs. Emma” are damn fun. There’s a welcome place to relish in their wickedness.
Read MoreAs if there was any doubt, it doesn’t take any wider eyes than those capturing the plebian pageantry on display to recognize the meaningful platforms symbolized by In the Heights. Characters that assert their dignity in small ways amplify messages with larger substance. The settings and themes of Chu’s film are made all the more important and prescient by our country’s current socio-political times. A 14-year-old musical has not lost an ounce of power in telling the world of an undoubtedly eminent cross-section of American culture that is here and not invisible any longer.
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