Category: Film Review

Animation studio Illumination Entertainment has built a cash machine with the “Despicable Me” franchise, maintaining a rhythm to releases since the first film’s 2010 debut. Although it’s been four years since the release of “Despicable Me 2,” Illumination didn’t let the brand name wither, unleashing spin-off “Minions” in 2015, which racked up over a billion dollars in worldwide box office. Now it’s time for “Despicable Me” to prove itself once again, with the second sequel returning to the neuroses of ex-supervillain Gru, keeping the Minions to a supporting position for this successful continuation — the finest installment yet in the series, valuing ridiculousness, pace, and wisely bringing in Trey Parker to energize the picture as Gru’s latest nemesis. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Sofia Coppola was once a filmmaker of immense power, delivering subtle emotion and overwhelming atmosphere with early works such as “The Virgin Suicides” and “Lost in Translation.” Her subsequent endeavors have been beautiful, but cold to the touch, adrift in style not storytelling with “Marie Antoinette,” “Somewhere,” and “The Bling Ring.” There’s immediate disappointment with “The Beguiled,” as it’s not a return to form for Coppola, but it remains a fascinating feature. While the R-word (“remake”) is forbidden around these parts, “The Beguiled” is the second adaptation of Thomas Cullinan’s 1966 novel, which was first brought to the screen via a 1971 Clint Eastwood vehicle, helmed by Don Siegel. Coppola’s effort isn’t quite as direct with its tension, but she does manage to dilute the insistent masculinity of the previous production, constructing a measured, feminine take on what’s essentially an exploitation picture tastefully displayed behind glass.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Producer Judd Apatow has a formula he likes to recycle. Embracing realism to inform character and comedy, Apatow frequently encourages writers to dig deep within, challenging them to use private humiliations and fears, with hopes that a personal touch will result in a more intimate movie or show. Think Pete Homes in “Crashing,” Amy Schumer in “Trainwreck,” Lena Dunham in “Girls,” and even Apatow himself in “This Is 40.” The latest member of the introspection club is Kumail Nanjiani, a Pakistani comedian using his borderline disastrous courtship with Emily Gordon to help shape “The Big Sick.” Scripting with Gordon, Nanjiani makes the leap to leading man status with the effort, following Apatow’s to-do list of mishaps and neuroses to conjure the expected awkwardness and warmth these pictures tend to generate, only the predictability of it all is more pronounced.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Ana Lily Amirpour made her directorial debut with 2014’s “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night,” described as “the first Iranian vampire western.” Some found it to be revelatory work, blending cultural investigation with genre mechanics, coming up with a moody original that signaled the arrival of a major creative talent. Others found the picture dull and indulgent, working a bit too hard to be offbeat, preferring style over substance. “The Bad Batch” is Amirpour’s second at-bat, and she largely retains the same genre interests, constructing another dialogue-light foray into graphic novel-inspired menace, this time using a different type of bloodsucker: cannibals. “The Bad Batch” enjoys a larger budget and an ensemble of familiar faces, but Amirpour shows no improvement when it comes to focus, laboring through another tedious exercise in nothingness, working extra hard to end up nowhere.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Jeff Baena has made a positive impression during his emerging career, pulling off a horror comedy with “Life After Beth,” and achieving a cinematic miracle with “Joshy,” a movie about male bonding that wasn’t basted in ugliness. “The Little Hours” proves to be his greatest tonal challenge yet, mounting a comedy that’s not always pursuing laughs, and its target is repression found in organized religion. It’s a gamble from Baena, likely alienating a great number of potential viewers right out of the gate, but he mostly sticks the landing, finding ways to scrape out the blasphemy by playing it all so broadly, making a film that certainly has the potential to reach farcical highs, but pulls back a bit too often, perhaps afraid to really dive into the weirdness of the material.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Bong Joon-ho has maintained an impressive streak of dramatically satisfying films, displaying wonderful creativity with efforts such as “The Host,” “Mother,” and especially 2014’s “Snowpiercer,” which astounded with its tonal confidence, dark comedy, and vivid performances. The helmer returns to duty with “Okja,” another strange event from a man who has considerable experience in the realm of oddity. What begins as a tender tale of friendship between a little girl and her gigantic pig becomes something incredibly wild and grim, while still retaining engaging action and offerings of social commentary the keep the viewing experience lively, even when it already involves the antics of a massive CG-animated creature.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s been four years since Edgar Wright last directed a movie (2013’s “The World’s End), and “Baby Driver” plays like a picture made by a man who desperately wants to release some wiggles. It’s a semi-furious concoction of music and widescreen movement, continuing Wright’s addiction to cinematic speed, this time taking his fetishes to the streets of Atlanta to mastermind a crime film that’s driven by the mystery of an iPod playlist. “Baby Driver” is an idiosyncratic endeavor, perhaps a bit too in love with itself, but it’s entirely, 100% Wright, who rubs his fingers over every edit and lubricates the viewing experience with full soundtrack of hits and misses. The effort is noticeable and carries on longer than it should, but Wright has something here that’s volatile and distinct, keeping himself busy with another visit to Planet Edgar, where feats of strength are superhuman, attitudes are plentiful, and direction is nearly unstoppable.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There are always going to be ardent fans of director Michael Bay. People who not only respond to the helmer’s pictures, but wear their fandom like a badge of honor, proud to celebrate a man whose chief pursuit during his career has been the creation of utter screen chaos. Bay has always been a populist filmmaker, and his “Transformers” movies have been welcomed with open arms, even when they suffer through severe storytelling issues, wretched performances, and aggressive visual effects. Audiences just love this stuff, all over the globe too, making him bulletproof when it comes to criticism, but not immune to shortcomings. “Transformers: The Last Knight” isn’t the worst chapter of the eye-crossing saga (the one that showcased Decepticon testicles, that’s the worst), but it’s close, watching Bay say sayonara to this blockbuster cash machine with a “Transformers” retirement party that’s deafening, bewildering, and painfully clichéd, showing little interest in anything besides the Bay basics when it comes to yet another round of metal-crunching madness. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Timing is everything, and “Letters from Baghdad” hits theaters right after “Queen of the Desert” breezed through a few U.S. art houses this past spring. Both pictures endeavor to tell the story of Gertrude Bell, but “Queen of the Desert” had the advantage of Werner Herzog as a director, and a notable cast, featuring Damian Lewis, Robert Pattinson, James Franco, and Nicole Kidman as Bell. It was far from a triumph, but it offered a sufficiently dramatic take on the woman’s experiences in life and love, laboring to turn her adventures in the Middle East into sweeping big screen entertainment. “Letters from Baghdad” emerges as the more successful production, armed with the basics in evidence. Directors Sabine Krayenbuhl and Zeva Oelbaum pore through diaries, letters, and observations to generate a portrait of Bell, making a feature that’s more in tune with her achievements in archaeology, filling in necessary gaps with Bell’s own intimate thoughts. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I suppose a stoner comedy should be easygoing, but it’s often difficult to tell if “Ripped” is even awake. The picture doesn’t exude much energy, putting its faith in the entertainment value of F-words and pot smoke, but it’s not a mean-spirited effort, which should be a blessing, as gentleness is one of the few appealing aspects of “Ripped,” which doesn’t lunge for the throat when depicting low-brow funny business. A mild attempt to replicate the “Hot Tub Time Machine” viewing experience, writer/director Brad Epstein doesn’t have the inner drive to do something insane with the material, putting stars Faizon Love and Russell Peters in charge of screen charisma and one-liners. The men certainly look like they’re having a good time, but seldom does that ease translate into laughs. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Hero” doesn’t exactly tell a story. It’s more of a valentine to lead actor Sam Elliot, supplying him with a role that makes full use of his thespian gifts, offering enough contemplative screentime to watch him explore the frame in ways he’s rarely even enjoyed before. Of course, such adulation is entirely deserved, with the leathery, thickly mustachioed actor capable of amazing things when paired with the right material, with co-writer/director Brett Haley (“I’ll See You in My Dreams”) making sure all of Elliot’s needs are tended to. “The Hero” floats along without much focus, but it’s not meant to be sharp, electing a dreamy journey through the trials and tribulations of a man forced to confront his own mortality and mistakes, suddenly faced with finality after decades gliding along, self-medicating and denying. And Elliot plays it all just perfectly. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Are audiences ready for a sympathetic portrait of German authority during the dawn of WWII? “The Exception” believes so, striving to mix sex and contemplation during a hostile time in European history, searching for the nuanced psychology of those participating in, or at least confronted by, a horrific change in wartime atrocities. Director David Leveaux leans toward sensuality to help ease the audience into a challenging plot, finding some success with raw feelings and urges. But the overall feel of “The Exception” isn’t defined to satisfaction, stuck between the demands of its literary origins (based on the book “The Kaiser’s Last Kiss,” by Alan Judd) and its slightly veiled desire to become a wartime melodrama, with hunky Nazis, conflicted women, and a raving old man. It’s a passably engaging film, but anyone expecting a serious deconstruction of Third Reich policies and complications of animal-like attraction aren’t likely to be enlightened by anything presented here. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

If you’re not a scholar on all things Tupac Shakur, there’s no reason to see “All Eyez on Me.” Those new to the slain rapper’s world aren’t going to learn anything of value about the man or the myth, with screenwriters Jeremy Haft, Eddie Gonzalez, and Steven Bagatourian simply rehashing a greatest hits package of hot tempers and bad decisions, barely making an effort to dig below the surface. It’s a tongue bath meant to celebrate Tupac’s questionable legacy instead of challenging it, playing to the devoted with disjointed storytelling that liberally leaps through the years, creating a loose portrait of a music artist who never did wrong, constantly suffered through persecution, and always led with a heroic attitude. Much like 2015’s “Straight Outta Compton,” it’s a hagiography, but one that never rises above the quality of a basic cable movie. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Cars 3” is the apology for “Cars 2” we all deserve. Not that 2006’s “Cars” was an amazing achievement in animated entertainment, but “Cars 2” was built almost entirely out of bad ideas, with Pixar so concerned with taking the franchise in a fresh direction, it forgot what was modestly appealing about the material to begin with. Recognizing a swing and a miss, Pixar rebounds with “Cars 3,” which eliminates the gratuitous violence and slapstick antics of bumbling tow truck Mater to return to the essentials of Lightning McQueen race world anxiety. Director Brian Fee (taking over for John Lasseter) knows exactly what he want from the second sequel, keeping the picture stuffed with likable characters, mild tests of integrity, and a sustained examination of aging, preserving a circular arc of maturity that picks up where “Cars” left off. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

As the title suggests, things do not go well for the characters in “Rough Night.” Keeping up with Hollywood trends, the feature is a hard R-rated comedy that enjoys shock value and the limited reach of improvisational comedy, providing its five leads with ample opportunity to riff their way around scenes, searching for the funny instead of bringing a completed script to life. There are limits to this type of entertainment, and co-writer/director Lucia Aniello finds them all, but not before landing enough decent scenes and ace one-liners to make one wonder what happened to “Rough Night” in the editing room. The finished product has an appealing first half, but dies horribly in the second, overstaying its welcome as the screenplay is only partially paid attention to, keeping the picture either screwball or weirdly serious, never particularly successful at either end of the spectrum. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Last summer, there was “The Shallows.” A relatively low-budget effort, the feature promoted the heck out of its shark attack angle, hoping to rope in ticket-buyers for what was actually more a survival film with a pronounced emotional hook. “The Shallows” turned out to be a surprise hit, inspiring the competition to cook up a shark tale of their own for the summer of 2017. Surprisingly, there was already one completed, awaiting a DVD release, even making it into a few stores before it was acquired for a major theatrical release. “47 Meters Down” was yanked from the precipice of DTV obscurity, offered a shot to prove itself with a shark-hungry audience, with hopes that its painfully limited budget and lack of polish won’t matter to those who simply crave a deep water frenzy, and nothing more. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Book of Henry” wants to be loved, and it won’t allow its audience to consider any other reaction to the work besides pure, teary joy. It’s a return to smaller-budgeted filmmaking for director Colin Trevorrow, who gained industry attention with 2012’s “Safety Not Guaranteed,” quickly accepting an opportunity to try blockbuster helming on for size, guiding 2015’s “Jurassic World.” Perhaps searching for a palate cleanser before taking the reins on “Star Wars: Episode IX,” Trevorrow gives the impression he’s returning to a human story after orchestrating dinosaur rampages, but “The Book of Henry” just as fantastical as “Jurassic World,” with screenwriter Gregg Hurwitz lost in preciousness with what should be a devastating drama, while Trevarrow welcomes any chance for manipulation, making as candy-coated a feature as possible, avoiding realism and characterization to focus almost solely on cloying storytelling. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Lost in Paris” is a latest effort from Fiona Gordon and Dominique Abel, a married couple who’ve built their career on numerous collaborations, holding a shared love of silly business, mastered by the likes of Chaplin, Keaton, and Tati. Co-directing pictures such as “Rumba” and “The Fairy,” Gordon and Abel maintain the family business with “Lost in Paris,” which plays to their strengths of slapstick, whimsy, and the absurd. It’s a fairly strange feature, but that’s exactly how the couple likes it, organizing a special series of physical and psychological challenges for the characters they portray, with the endeavor riding waves of pure comedic bliss and slower oddity. While the film never snowballs into an outright farce, moments of composition and timing are fantastic, showcasing just how sharp Gordon and Abel are with adorable lunacy. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While certain movies have experimented with the first-person perspective, last year’s “Hardcore Henry” elected to utilize the unique POV throughout the entire picture. It was a hyper-violent, cheeky romp, with its experimental ambition its only real success, daring to give video game fans the cinematic experience nobody in particular asked for. “Kill Switch” is the next production up to bat, also employing a first-person perspective to detail the experience of a corporate mercenary lost in a strange land, with only his computer display in front of his eyes to keep him steady. Based on a short, “Kill Switch” doesn’t have much to do the stretch itself to the 90 minute mark, but it certainly embraces the technical challenge, with director Tim Smit aiming to please with an in-your-face viewing experience that’s just fine with violence, but less confident with dramatics, which struggle to provide life to an otherwise cold, digital production. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Bruce Willis hasn’t been the most invested actor in recent years, taking roles in a string of B-movies where his paycheck likely ate up half the production budget. As he enters his twilight years, Willis has stopped caring, which has been difficult to watch, finding the man who once dazzled with intensity in “Die Hard” now sleepwalking through his career, making awful choices to keep himself busy. “Once Upon a Time in Venice” isn’t a satisfying feature, but it requires Willis to be more active, accepting a lead role that asks the veteran actor to skateboard in the nude, dress as a woman, and tolerate improvisational efforts from Thomas Middleditch. For that alone, Willis deserves every penny he commands. “Once Upon a Time in Venice” is flat and unfunny but, at the very least, it requires Willis to break a sweat, which he does with a slight boost in thespian commitment. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com