Category: Film Review

Musical bio-pics are basically all the same, tracking the hardships and successes found in the wild experiences of an artist’s life. And they usually have permission from the subject to dramatize such developments, which clears access to music and moments otherwise locked behind legal barriers. “Aline” tells the story of music superstar Celine Dion, but the production doesn’t have her approval, which inspires a slightly different take on a tale most of her fans already know. Director/co-writer/star Valerie Lemercier is forced to get creative with her vision for Dion’s rise to megafame, and she delivers quite a compelling melodrama, paying full respect to everything the singer had to endure to achieve such global recognition. Lemercier doesn’t pay attention to the gritty details of Dion’s upbringing, but she captures an emotional journey for the movie, which balances musical performances with big feelings. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

When we last saw director Michael Bay in action, he collected an enormous amount of money from Netflix to make “6 Underground.” It was meant to be the beginning of a new franchise for the company and Bay, who slipped into autopilot, offering his usual assortment of booms and bangs without putting in a noticeable effort to make something interesting with the basics in superteam cinema. Netflix quickly lost interest in a sequel. To keep busy while he sniffs around another blockbuster project, Bay elects to make “Ambulance,” which isn’t a small project, just minor league to Bay, who’s tasked with constructing a chase film with the bare minimum of character and interiors, endeavoring to make the streets of Los Angeles his battle zone. Bay being Bay, everything is amplified to a headache-inducing degree in “Ambulance,” which finds the helmer digging into his small bag of tricks to make something flashy out of a close-quarters concept (a remake of a 2005 Danish picture), asking viewers to surrender 135 minutes of their lives for a movie that barely has 45 minutes of story to share. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton are offered an acting showcase with “All the Old Knives.” It’s a spy game from author Olen Steinhauer, who adapts his own 2015 novel for the screen, put in charge of transferring a character study that has a lot of room to roam on the page. As a film, the endeavor isn’t quite as deep or all that riveting, finding director Janus Metz (“Borg vs. McEnroe”) struggling to make something interesting happen with a story that slowly explores the growth of suspicion between two characters who once enjoyed blissful intimacy. “All the Old Knives” makes room for Pine and Newton to do what they can with the deliberate mood of the feature, but what’s imagined as a psychological chess game between two prepared players gradually runs out of moves, straining to find a powerful sense of closure while the rest of the movie periodically comes to a full stop. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Screenwriters Tyler W. Konney and Mike Langer hope to present a cinematic chess match with “Agent Game.” The tale features eight characters involved in different areas of paranoia and secretive actions, with the picture slowly clarifying a situation that’s introduced in an intentionally confusing manner. Konney and Langer have a diverse range of personalities and temperaments in play, and there’s some star power to the production, which offers supporting turns from Mel Gibson, Jason Isaacs, and Dermot Mulroney. However, a grand plan for thriller cinema isn’t executed with any noticeable gusto by director Grant S. Johnson, who’s dealing with a limited budget and dull writing. “Agent Game” isn’t motivated to be anything more than an acting exercise, and those expecting something more aggressive are left with little to enjoy with what’s basically a filmed play. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In their quest to develop comic book films without the participation of major superheroes, Sony returns to the darker side of the Marvel universe with “Morbius,” which joins “Venom” and its 2021 sequel as Spider-Man-less pictures about the world of Spider-Man. Originally created as an enemy of the web-slinger, a “living vampire,” Morbius is now a hero for his big screen debut, albeit one who struggles with his deep thirst for human blood. The complexity of the character appears to be there for the writers, but Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless (“Dracula Untold,” “Gods of Egypt”) peel away many potentially interesting problems. They prefer to focus on Morbius’s origin story and his battle against an equally powerful villain, keeping “Morbius” dramatically thin as director Daniel Espinosa puts on a visual display of flying creatures, echolocation, and shirtless posing from stars Jared Leto and Matt Smith. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Contractor” appears intended to become a Jason Bourne-style series for star Chris Pine, handed a role that demands a balance of one-man-army action interests and a more substantial dramatic effort. He’s playing a character struggling with the world around him, forced to deal with the demands of life once a sense of stability is taken away from him. It’s a juicy role for Pine, who gives the part a thorough itchiness to best capture the feelings of a silently frustrated man. Screenwriter J.P. Davis is interested examining such private horrors, also attentive to threat levels in play as a simple assignment goes all kinds of wrong. “The Contractor” is familiar in many ways, but Pine’s nuanced take on matters of trust and disappointment helps the material find its way to recognizable human moments, and while director Tarik Saleh (“The Nile Hilton Incident”) is a bit clumsy with the rough stuff, he still handles suspense reasonably well in this occasionally absorbing thriller. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In writer/director Richard Linklater’s varied career, “Apollo 10 ½” almost plays like a greatest hits complication from the helmer. The feature returns to the rotoscoped animation approach of “Waking Life,” touches on similar wonders of childhood ideas found in “Boyhood,” and carries a deep affection for years gone by, also found in “Dazed and Confused.” Linklater is playing to his strengths with the effort, which is intent on producing some cool waves of nostalgia during heated times of global and political conflict. It’s escapism in a way only Linklater could produce, bringing viewers back to the late 1960s to assess the state of the kid union as space adventures escalated, planting seeds in the imaginations of young minds everywhere while they dealt with all sorts of challenges to their safety. “Apollo 10 ½” isn’t a completely formed idea, but it’s a riveting stroll down memory lane. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“You Won’t Be Alone” is being sold as a horror experience, but it’s not exactly that. It’s more Brothers Grimm than terrifying, with writer/director Goran Stolevski attempting to rework the tensions of a dark fairy tale, focusing on an uneasy tone of discovery mixed with visual and aural poetry commonly found in a Terrence Malick endeavor. There are twisted events that occur in the feature, but Stolevski appears to be on the hunt for clarity in cruel experiences, detailing the odyssey of a cursed woman as she takes on many forms, trying to wrap her mind around the essence of life itself. “You Won’t Be Alone” is unusual and atmospheric, and it finds a fresh way to approach the dangers of evil, offering an episodic understanding of a strange education, where barbarity and beauty coexist in the weirdest ways. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Boon” is a sequel. There’s no mention of this on the marketing materials, and I wasn’t made aware of it before I sat down to watch it. However, there was previous movie, “Red Stone,” which was released last year and established the world of Boon and his history of violence. Director Derek Presley hopes to turn his initial idea into a franchise for star Neal McDonough, who co-writes the follow-up, which brings the lead character to a new town, where he encounters a fresh problem he initially wants nothing to do with. “Boon” teases major conflicts and aggressive actions, but Presley can’t knock the airlessness out of the feature, which doesn’t have much enthusiasm for the one-man-army subgenre. The writers are looking to westerns as their influence, but when the budget is this low and the star power this minimal, it’s best to go crazy with action, which this picture tries to avoid until the final act. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The multiverse is big business these days, with superhero cinema in the midst of exploring the mysterious ways of alternate timelines and different lives. The art house version of this idea is found in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which comes from writer/directors Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (credited as “Daniels”), who previously helmed the 2016 comedy “Swiss Army Man.” The gentlemen love the weird stuff, and they’ve accelerated their fantasies and fixations for their latest project, which takes the long way around when examining a middle-aged Chinese woman and all the relationships she’s neglected to deal with. However, Daniels doesn’t have a drama in mind, going the fantastical route instead, with “Everything Everywhere All at Once” an explosion of feelings, fighting, and oddity. It’s a whole lot of everything, which is now an official Daniels fetish, taking audiences on a 139-minute-long ride into confusion as a way of detailing their own philosophies and amplifying their filmmaking interests. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

With Broadway struggling to find its footing again during the COVID-19 pandemic, a story like “Better Nate Than Ever” might be the thing to shoo away the blues as the theater industry pieces itself back together. Writer/director Tim Federle oversees an adaptation of his own 2013 novel, which follows the determination of a young musical theater fanatic as he goes for his dream in New York City, looking to sneak into an audition for an upcoming production. “Better Nate Then Ever” isn’t a major achievement in entertainment, but there’s some charm in the material, which offer a palatable tale of dream-seeking and family ties, and Federle gets to scratch a few itches when it comes to staging song and dance numbers. It’s a cute film, but that’s about as far as it gets for anyone who doesn’t eat, sleep, and breathe Broadway. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It takes a considerable amount of patience to remain interested in “Barbarians.” It’s not an especially menacing thriller, with writer/director Charles Dorfman keeping away from violence for the majority of the feature. He’s more interested in mental challenges involving land deals, a dinner party, and all sorts of secrets that won’t stay hidden. It take most of the run time to get anywhere visceral, with most of “Barbarians” dealing with characterization and conversation, which isn’t as riveting as Dorfman assumes it will be. Perhaps there’s something in the more physical conclusion worth waiting for, but escalation isn’t a priority for the production, which aims for a more slow-burn sense of agitation, but even that’s debatable as Dorfman gradually finds his way to an unsatisfying conclusion. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Sandra Bullock has spent the last few years making different kinds of movies, focusing on drama (“The Unforgivable”) and suspense (“Bird Box”). She’s stepped away from her usual frothy screen personality, but the vacation from more interesting acting ends with “The Lost City,” which returns Bullock to a comedic part, trying to make magic with co-star Channing Tatum. Actual jokes are hard to find in the feature, which basically mixes mild action with riff-happy performances, with the production trying to remake 1984’s “Romancing the Stone” for a new generation. Laughs are scarce here, along with charm from Bullock and Tatum, who embark on a tedious journey into improvisation while the supporting cast steps up to become the most appealing element in this bland adventure, which seriously lacks excitement. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Naomi Watts has always gravitated toward roles that require sometimes extreme physicality. She worked through the devastation of a tsunami in “The Impossible,” spent nearly an entire movie in motion in “The Desperate Hour,” and devoted plenty of time to thrillers that demanded a full-body response to oncoming dangers. She’s back in full pain mode with “Infinite Storm,” which is based on an article (“High Places: Footprints in the Snow Lead to an Emotional Rescue” by Ty Gagne) exploring an especially arduous situation of survival and partnership high atop Mount Washington in New Hampshire. Director Malgorzata Szumowska has harsh conditions and deep psychological scars to explore for over 90 minutes, and she prefers to slow the feature down to best examine the steps of self-preservation. “Infinite Storm” gets periodically lost in its own real-time approach, but there’s something buried in Joshua Rollins’s screenplay worth waiting for, as a story of endurance gradually becomes one about loss, packing quite an emotional punch when the film needs it the most. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Mothering Sunday” is an adaptation of a 2016 novel by Graham Swift, which takes a look at the comfort of intimacy and the devastation of personal loss, with the author creating something of a puzzle when dealing with time periods and hidden feelings. The writing doesn’t appear to be a natural fit for a cinematic interpretation, but writer Alice Birch and director Eva Husson give it a shot with their vision for the material, endeavoring to retain the sensuality of certain subplots while sustaining the overwhelming sadness of the story. “Mothering Sunday” tries to cut a little deeper than most British period pictures, and it has several outstanding technical achievements, making it something to see. As something to sit through, the effort isn’t in a hurry to get anywhere, finding Husson paying close attention to textures and fluids, but not pacing, unable to locate the deep feelings and private horrors of the tale as she takes this cinematic journey one frame at a time. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

From the style of the main title sequence and the score from composers Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans, “Windfall” is imagined as classic cinema thriller involving a small collection of people stuck in a hostage scenario involving a lot of money. Of course, director Charlie McDowell (“The Discovery,” “The One I Love”) doesn’t go full noir with the endeavor, sniffing around for a middle ground between gradual escalation and a sense of humor, bringing in comedic actor Jason Segel to portray a potentially violent individual. “Windfall” starts in one place and ends up somewhere entirely different, which is part of its charm and contributes to its unevenness, but it does offer sharp, engaged performances and some odd ideas for conflict, trying to surprise despite the spareness of the production. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 2020, “Antebellum” attempted to address American history and the current state of race relations, conjuring a sinister tale of kidnapping and violence to help unsettle viewers. “Alice” has a similar tale of pained existence to share, with writer/director Krystin Ver Linden also tackling the ways of slavery, but taking more of a “Twilight Zone” approach to the subject, blended with M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Village.” “Alice” is well-intentioned and features deeply felt performances from Keke Palmer and Common, and the idea Ver Linden tries to develop has tremendous potential, but the helmer can’t get the picture going in a way that creates excitement for character transformations or plans for vengeance. The film is surprisingly slack and unfortunately unsatisfying, despite a noble vision for the black experience that Ver Linden is trying to communicate. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Cheaper by the Dozen” began life as a 1948 book, where siblings Frank B. Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey shared their experiences being part of a massive family, charting the strangeness of such a life. The memoir inspired a 1950 film adaptation (starring Clifton Webb and Myrna Loy), and a 1952 sequel. The material was revived for a 2003 reworking starring Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt, which also inspired a follow-up in 2005. There’s been a lot of “Cheaper by the Dozen” over the years (including knock-offs and freak show pay cable programs worshipping the concept of large families), and now it’s back again, this time with Zach Braff and Gabrielle Union as the overwhelmed parents, who not only have to deal with the demands of too many children, but the challenges of guardianship in 2022, which involves social media, racism, and corporate pressure, with screenwriters Kenya Barris and Jenifer Rice-Genzuk Henry in charge of updating the formula for a new generation of household problems. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Adrian Lyne popularized cinematic eroticism in the 1980s, combining style and heat to generate hits such as “Flashdance,” “9 ½ Weeks,” and “Fatal Attraction.” Lyne would go on to challenge audiences with dark visions (“Jacob’s Ladder”), burning questions of trust (“Indecent Proposal”), and the power of jealousy (“Unfaithful”), creating quite an impressive oeuvre. And then he walked away for two decades, distancing himself from moviemaking, watching audience tastes and obsessions change during this extended break. Lyne is suddenly back with “Deep Water,” and he’s attempting to revive his aesthetic for a different era, returning to the ways of lustfulness and suspicion, taking inspiration from a 1957 novel by Patricia Highsmith (the adaptation is written by Zach Helm and Sam Levinson). While a little unsteady at times, “Deep Water” is a nice return for Lyne, who plays to his strengths with the endeavor, making a sinister and sexual picture, and one that does well with leads Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas, who share terrific chemistry, giving the helmer something to work with. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

If you’ve felt that war movies have suffered from tremendous sameness in recent years, here comes “Black Crab,” which focuses on a special mission during a Scandinavian conflict that requires the use of soldiers on ice skates to help transfer a mystery device behind enemy lines. Perhaps fearing he’s coming close to absurdity, co-writer/director Adam Berg focuses his attention on the harshness of conflict, reinforcing the human price of warfare and all the difficult moral choices contained within military service. “Black Crab” takes its inspiration from a novel by Jerker Virdborg, and Berg labors to keep the endeavor visually interesting and dramatically potent. He has some trouble with length, but Berg gives the picture memorable encounters and a few gut-punch moments, with star Noomi Rapace delivering another skin-tearing performance, occasionally broken up by lengthy periods of ice skating. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com