Day: January 24, 2019

It’s hard to believe writer/director Joe Cornish has been away from screens since 2011, when his helming debut, the problematic “Attack the Block,” managed to capture cult attention, making him a creative force worth following. Screenplay work filled in the gaps (including “The Adventures of Tintin”), but Cornish has finally returned to theaters with “The Kid Who Would Be King,” which fulfills his initial promise as a storyteller. This is a wonderful picture, with Cornish turning Arthurian legend into an old-fashioned kid-centric adventure with bright performances and soaring spirit, returning to the concerns of children tasked with saving the world in their own special way. “The Kid Who Would Be King” takes wonder, character, and peril seriously, keeping the production searching for inventive ways to rework ancient conflicts, coming up with an endearingly exciting tale of knightly honor in a modern school-age battleground. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

Jonas Akerlund is a respected director of music videos (including Madonna’s “Ray of Light”), but his cinematic pursuits haven’t made much of an impression. He stumbled through forgotten features such as “Horsemen” and “Small Apartments,” making his biggest film culture splash with his debut effort, 2002’s calloused, hyperactive junkie comedy, “Spun.” Akerlund, perhaps fearing he’s lost his touch, returns to the land of excess with “Polar,” which mimics “Spun” in style and sensorial hostility, and much like this previous work, there’s no drama or characters to hook into. An adaptation of a 2012 graphic novel, “Polar” is another case where not everything related to world of comic books needs to be a movie, finding Akerlund delighting in the material’s lust for carnage, and offering no attention to anything of substance. It’s zero-calorie hellraising and fantastically awful. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 2017, director Marianna Palka delivered “Bitch,” a strange and darkly comic vision of motherhood and marriage, featuring a main character who mentally transforms into a dog to disrupt all the depression that’s entered her life. Palka returns to the subject of female submission with “Egg,” joined by screenwriter Risa Mickenberg, who creates a theatrical observance of five people in crisis as they deal with the prospect of parenthood and the reality of pregnancy. Palka certainly has a subject she enjoys dissecting, and “Egg” does a fine job continuing her mission to tear feminine stagnancy into little pieces, capturing the erosion of complacency and the challenges of control. The material cheats a little to get from one side of the story to the other, but Mickenberg generates vivid personalities, and Palka pulls out strong performances, giving a possible static viewing experience some real tension. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Science fiction doesn’t need to be flashy, but it’s always problematic when it’s inert. It’s difficult to understand why “IO” was turned into a picture when it seems perfectly suited to the world of literature, with screenwriters Clay Jeter, Charles Spano, and Will Basanta offered a book’s worth of room to explore the dystopian future setting and themes of isolation and longing. Folded into the shape of a feature, and the material comes across flat and unexciting, with no discernable tension created between the characters as they converse about survival and the end of the world. “IO” isn’t ambitious, but it’s still, positioned as more of a filmed play than a cinematic journey, watching director Jonathan Helpert linger on uninteresting details with glacial pacing, ending up with something best suited for off-Broadway than screens of all sizes. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There’s always room for a heist movie. It’s an evergreen genre that’s recently been tended to by the likes of “Ocean’s 8” and “Widows,” and now returns to theaters in “King of Thieves,” which offers an English take on heavily planned criminal endeavors. From the outside looking in, the picture seems to have it all, submitting a story that takes place around London’s diamond district, and the cast couldn’t be better, with Michael Caine leading an ensemble of older actors playing up age-related issues as their characters participate in an elaborate theft. At least half of the film seems to understand the feisty appeal of Grumpy Old Men dealing with a new world of surveillance and security, but “King of Thieves” (based on a true story) doesn’t stay lively long enough, suffering some dramatic balance issues as director James Marsh (“The Theory of Everything,” “Man on Wire”) peaks too soon with seemingly surefire material. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s easy to give writer/director Steven Knight the benefit of the doubt with “Serenity.” After all, his last helming effort was 2014’s “Locke,” a superbly structured and timed tale of one man’s breakdown during a long car ride in the middle of the night. It was one of the best films of the year, but lightning doesn’t strike twice for Knight, who swings for the fences with his latest endeavor, looking to set a Floridian Noir mood while actively disrupting all expectations for sex and murder with the feature. It’s one bonkers movie, but it doesn’t initially reveal its insanity, with Knight portioning out strangeness in small doses while losing control of the whole endeavor, tanking performances and his vision for something different. There are certainly few pictures like it, but such oddity can’t pull “Serenity” out of the tailspin it eventually finds itself in. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s best not to expect much from director John Asher. He’s the man responsible for such execrable entertainment as “Dirty Love,” “Diamonds,” and 2015’s “Tooken,” and he’s determined to display his tone-deaf ways with comedy. After taking a brief break from funny business with his misguided Autism tale, “Po,” Asher is right back to badness with “I Hate Kids,” submitting a toothless take on parental responsibility, making a 22-minute-long sitcom that masquerades as a 90-minute-long film. “I Hate Kids” is terrible, but that’s expected. What’s surprising is how a few talented supporting actors were talking into appearing in this nonsense, doing their best to class up an utterly hopeless feature from a helmer who insists on making stupidity his top priority. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com