Author: BO

While marketing materials push the idea that “We Can Be Heroes” is a sequel to 2005’s “The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl,” it’s not the continuation most fans are hoping for. In fact, Sharkboy doesn’t have any lines and isn’t played by original actor Taylor Lautner, and while Taylor Dooley returns to the role of Lavagirl, she’s in the feature for roughly five minutes. What “We Can Be Heroes” really becomes is an opportunity for writer/director Robert Rodriguez to return to his childlike filmmaking POV after years away from family entertainment, putting him in charge of a CGI-intensive riff on “The Avengers,” only starring a group of pre-teen superheroes. Unlike “The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl,” the new movie is actually entertaining, with Rodriguez unsteady when it comes to portioning out action sequences, but he’s much less infantile this time around, returning to his “Spy Kids” (just the first picture) roots with a lively wish-fulfillment fantasy for young viewers. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The superhero Wonder Woman received her first big screen vehicle in 2017, with director Patty Jenkins delivering a satisfying but bottom-heavy endeavor, and one that transformed the character into a cinematic titan, ready to be explored in sequels. Three years later, and “Wonder Woman 1984” has arrived to scratch the itch for more things Diana Prince, with Jenkins returning to helm a second solo adventure for the truth-seeking warrior. As with most follow-ups to major hits, the producers are a little terrified to do anything different, and they fall for a common comic book movie trap by offering two villains for the protagonist to battle over a whopping 150-minute-long run time. Wonder Woman isn’t really the focus of “Wonder Woman 1984,” which is a shame, but Jenkins gets a chance to create a few incredible action sequences while the screenplay figures out how to juggle three major subplots. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While Pixar Animation productions tend to earn high praise with almost every release, it’s the work of director Pete Doctor that’s been the consistent standout for the company. The driving force behind “Inside Out,” “Up,” and “Monsters, Inc.,” Docter has repeatedly pushed Pixar into different creative directions, generating exciting, hilarious, and profoundly emotional movies along the way. His latest is “Soul,” which at first glance might appear to be an “Inside Out” riff, returning to the world of human beings and their struggling inner lives. While the features share some similarities in tone and theme, “Soul” aims for the bigger picture, with Docter and his team crafting a film about the gift of life and how the joys of existence are often drowned out by the drive to find purpose. Once again, the helmer has found a way to explore daily existence with animated buoyancy, and while the endeavor takes a strange detour at the midway point, Docter remains attentive to his message of appreciation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After turning a profit with their low-budget offering from 2019, “The Intruder,” director Deon Taylor and screenwriter David Loughery have teamed up again for other generic offering in “Fatale.” These guys don’t enjoy pushing themselves when it comes to a creative approach to thriller cinema, and while “The Intruder” didn’t do anything with its crazy-stalker-on-the-loose premise, “Fatale” does even less with its take on “Fatal Attraction” formula. A growing sense of unease never arrives in the picture, examining one adulterer’s fight to keep his one-night stand from ruining his life, with Loughery coming up short on ideas for suspense sequences and troubling confrontations. Taylor is basically asleep behind the camera, giving the endeavor a Lifetime Movie vibe with flat performances and no particular sense of style. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1883’s “The Adventures of Pinocchio” is a beloved book from author Carlo Collodi, bringing a vivid tale of behavior and consequences to readers of all ages. It’s also a public domain tale open to anyone with interest in adapting the work. Over the decades, numerous versions of the story have been manufactured for film, radio, television, and the stage, with no shortage of creative people looking to leave their fingerprints on Collodi’s most famous creation. Perhaps sensing he has to come up with something memorable to compete in a crowded marketplace, co-writer/director Matteo Garrone (“Gomorrah”) tries to respect the source material with his version of “Pinocchio,” restoring Collodi’s plotting and darkness while delivering a vivid study of animal kingdom activity. Those accustomed to the softness of previous takes might be overwhelmed by this picture, which is imaginatively made with amazing technical achievements, but not an endeavor that touches the heart. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” is an adaptation of a 1982 play created by acclaimed writer August Wilson (“Fences”), which went on to a successful Broadway run, bringing the history of the titular singer, the “mother of the blues,” and her struggles to the masses. For the material’s big screen debut, little has been changed, with director George C. Wolfe (“Nights in Rodanthe”) retaining the theatrical nature of the work, putting gifted actors in Wilson’s sweatbox environments and filming the heavily rehearsed results. The screenplay (by Ruben Santiago-Hudson) preserves as much fire-breathing as possible from the original work, delivering a haunting overview of the black experience in the late 1920s, making specific points about exploitation and survival. A few moments get away from Wolfe, but the inherent authority and rich characterization in Wilson’s effort remains. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

If one squints hard enough, “Breach” could be considered a throwback to the mid-1980s, where filmmakers armed with no budget and a few familiar faces in the cast could cobble together an “Alien” rip-off for the expanding VHS rental market. But that takes a lot of work, and “Breach” doesn’t put in the effort. Screenwriters Edward Drake and Corey Large collect all the deep space travel cliches they can hold in their hands for the picture, combining the blue-collar aches and pains of crew life with the threat of a monster who develops inside human bodies. There’s nothing new here, forcing director John Suits (“Pandemic”) to dial up obnoxious shaky-cam visuals captured on limited sets and pretend he’s making something special with a premise that’s been done to death. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While major animated releases from studios such as Pixar and Dreamworks manage to dominate the box office and command critical conversation, some of the finest examples of the medium have been produced by Cartoon Saloon over the last decade. They’ve churned out magnificent efforts such as “Song of the Sea,” “The Secret of Kells,” and “The Breadwinner,” invested in the art of challenging audiences with unusual tales of resilience and wonder, digging into extremes of fantasy and reality to inspire their stories. The artistry and integrity of this company is astounding, and for 2020, they offer “Wolfwalkers,” once again crafting a story that welcomes hearty emotion and real suspense for family audiences, also delivering a visual feast of 2D animation that supplies some of the most striking imagery of the film year. “Wolfwalkers” is stunning and sincere, preserving Cartoon Saloon’s position as the most exciting animation studio working today. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After trying his luck with a more spectacle-oriented tale of a submarine disaster with 2018’s “The Command” (a.k.a. “Kursk”), director Thomas Vinterberg returns to his indie roots with “Another Round.” The filmmaker goes bleak with a story concerning four men and their abuse of alcohol for therapeutic purposes, creating a screenplay (with Tobias Lindholm) that examines the state of emotional stasis facing some middle-aged men, who play an extended game of justification just to feel again. Vinterberg make a semi-return to his Dogme 95 roots with the endeavor, going raw and real with the feature, which touches on a few areas of dark comedy before returning to the messiness of people dealing with personal issues and troubled relationships. In a career full of interesting movies, “Another Round” emerges as one of Vinterberg’s finest efforts. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Greenland” strives to be more of a thinking person’s disaster movie, but it really can’t help itself at times. Scenes of mass destruction involving the arrival of a massive comet are periodic, giving fans of this type of entertainment what they want as characters try to outrun or outdrive certain doom. The screenplay by Chris Sparling (“Buried,” “ATM,” “The Sea of Trees”) doesn’t remain on big screen catastrophe for very long, making a push to understand the human element involved when encountering the end of the world. “Greenland” isn’t fresh filmmaking, but it does everything a little bit better than the competition, delivering a reasonably tense viewing experience that keeps moving along, cooking up a compelling series of mental and physical challenges for characters on the run to survive an extinction level event. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Taking the revenge movie into a new area of engagement, actress Emerald Fennell (“The Crown,” “Call the Midwife”) makes her filmmaking debut with “Promising Young Woman.” Inspired by courtroom tales and news reports of bad men getting away with heinous crimes against women, Fennell pours her frustration into the material, which presents a mission of malice from a 30-year-old woman who can’t process the unimaginable trauma she’s experienced. Fennell has a vision for the endeavor, taking a big tonal risk by going darkly comedic with the screenplay, and she gets most of it right. Length is a major problem for “Promising Young Woman,” which often grinds to a halt as it figures out its next move, and the presence of cartoon antics diminishes the lasting power of the effort. Horrific moments and atrocious behavior still manage to cut deep, with star Carey Mulligan offered a chance to portray grief in its strangest form, and she captures such torment superbly. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

As a director, Martin Owen hasn’t made a strong impression. He’s the helmer of dismal fare such as “L.A. Slasher” and “Killers Anonymous,” struggling with violent entertainment that’s mangled satiric intent, covering his professional limitations with a lot of lighting, the band-aid for troubling filmmakers. Owen returns with “Max Cloud,” trusting in the power of nostalgia to get him through a low-budget adventure, taking viewers back to the glory days of 16-bit video game consoles and their special challenges for gamers. The script (by Owen and Sally Collett) conjures a fantasy about life inside the world of a game, and it’s a fantastic premise, but the production doesn’t have a lot of money or ideas for “Max Cloud,” which would make a fantastic short, but mostly runs out of steam as a feature-length idea, propped up by amusing performances and select moments of side-scrolling escapism. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s hard to believe there’s a second sequel to “Skyline,” a dismal alien invasion chiller that managed to make a few bucks a decade ago. It wasn’t a loved picture in the least, but genre fans apparently demanded a second round, inspiring the creation of 2017’s “Beyond Skyline,” which promoted “Skyline” screenwriter Liam O’Donnell to the director’s chair. Box office was abysmal for the sequel, but somewhere the movie did business, trigging the production of “Skylines,” allowing O’Donnell another chance to play with characters and sci-fi events few seemed thrilled with the first time around. Offering a more alien-centric continuation of the slightly fuzzy franchise timeline, the helmer skips an intensive creative journey and simply rehashes “Aliens,” lifting plot, personalities, and even the title from the James Cameron masterpiece. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com