The Meg

Jason Statham smells something fishy.

(2018) Adventure (Warner Brothers) Jason Statham, Li Bingbing, Rainn Wilson, Cliff Curtis, Winston Chao, Sophia Cai, Ruby Rose, Page Kennedy, Robert Taylor, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Jessica McNamee, Masi Oka, Raymond Vinten, Mai Hongmei, Wei Yi, Vithaya Ransringarm, Rob Kipa-Williams, Tawanda Manyimo, Mark Trotter, Jeremy Tan, Sui Fong Ivy Tsui. Directed by Jon Turtletaub

 

Sharks have been a popular movie villain ever since Steven Spielberg brought forth Jaws as quite possibly the perfect summer movie back in 1975. Given Hollywood’s propensity to the maxim “bigger is better,” it was only a matter of time before we got a gigantic prehistoric shark wreaking havoc.

Jonas Taylor (Statham) is a deep-sea rescue specialist who has an encounter with something huge during an unsuccessful rescue of a sub. Essentially laughed out of the business, he retires to Thailand to get drunk and stay drunk – two things it is quite possible to do in Thailand. However, when an experimental submersible in which his ex-wife (McNamee) is a crew member is trapped below the Marianas Trench (don’t ask), he is enticed back, headed to the sleek 2001-esque research station below the ocean bankrolled by tech gazillionaire Morris (Wilson) and headed by Chinese scientists Dr. Zhang (Chao), his comely daughter Suyin (Bingbing) and precocious granddaughter Meiying (Cai), as well as Jonas’ buddy Mac (Curtis). Needless to say the giant creature Jonas saw is real (Nyah! Nyah! Toldja so!) and turns out to be a gigantic prehistoric shark that has been extinct for 200 million years; except it wasn’t, it had just gone from being a shallow water predator to a deep sea diver because…reasons.

Warner Brothers marketed this as a fun, light summer movie which I suppose a film about people getting swallowed whole by a giant shark would have to be. It really doesn’t live up to the trailer though, although Statham really makes an effort to take the movie on his broad shoulders. Sadly, the movie suffers from hoary plot clichés and underwhelming CGI and comes off as a kind of Plan 9 from the South China Sea. It does skirt the so bad it’s good territory.

Despite all its shortcomings, there is something about the movie that is endearing, although it could have used a little more self-awareness – why, oh why didn’t someone say “We’re gonna need a bigger boat”? – and a little less cool gadgetry. For my money, the movie came within one uneaten chunky Asian kid from getting a more respectable score.

REASONS TO SEE: Statham gives it the old college try.
REASONS TO AVOID: Sketchy CGI and a predictable plot.
FAMILY VALUES: There is aquatic violence, some bloody images, peril and some profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The movie has been in and out of development since 1996 when Disney (!) first bought the rights to the novel. It has bounced around a variety of studios (New Line, Warner Brothers) and directors (Guillermo del Toro, Jan de Bont) in that time.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, Microsoft, Movies Anywhere, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 1/2/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 46% positive reviews: Metacritic: 46/100
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Jaws III
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: The Spy Who Dumped Me

New Releases for the Week of August 2, 2019

FAST AND FURIOUS PRESENTS: HOBBS AND SHAW

(Universal) Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Idris Elba, Vanessa Kirby, Cliff Curtis, Helen Mirren, Elza Gonzalez, Eddie Marsan. Directed by David Leitch

Buff lawman Hobbs and military-trained outlaw Shaw have been reluctant allies in the past but never more so when they encounter a genetically-enhanced madman who has gotten hold of a bio-weapon that can pull a Thanos on the human race. With Shaw’s sister joining the fight, the two may have found a foe they couldn’t take out separately.

See the trailer, clips, video featurettes and an interview here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Action
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for prolonged sequences of action and violence, suggestive material and some strong language)

15 Minutes of War

(Blue Fox) Alban Lenoir, Olga Kurylenko, Kevin Layne, Michael Abiteboul. Based on a true story, Somali rebels in 1976 took a school bus of 21 French children and an American teacher hostage. In the face of mounting international pressure, an elite group of French snipers must figure out a way to get the kids and their teacher out of harm’s way before time runs out.

See the trailer and a video featurette here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: True Life Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall
Rating: NR

Marianne and Leonard: Words of Love

(Roadside Attractions) Leonard Cohen, Marianne Ihlen, Judy Collins, Ron Cornelius. In 1960, a struggling young writer by the name of Leonard Cohen finds himself on the Greek island of Hydra in a commune of artists and musicians. There, he meets Norwegian single mom Marianne Ihlen who would eventually become his muse in a relationship that would span more than 50 years.

See the trailer and clips here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Music Documentary
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for some drug material, sexual references and brief nudity)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Airplane Mode
Rakshasudu
 

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

A Score to Settle
Chal Mera Putt
Coyote Lake
Mike Wallace is Here
Rakshasudu
Three Peaks

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG/SARASOTA:

A Score to Settle
Madness in the Method
The Operative
Rakshasudu

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

Clarita
Rakshasudu

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw

New Releases for the Week of August 10, 2018

THE MEG

(Warner Brothers) Jason Statham, Bingbing Li, Rainn Wilson, Cliff Curtis, Winston Chao, Sophia Cai, Ruby Rose, Page Kennedy, Robert Taylor, Olafur Darri Olafsson. Directed by Jon Turteltaub

An oceanographer is terrorized by what he claims is a 70-foot shark. Ridiculed and disbelieved, when it turns out that the creature indeed exists and is a prehistoric Megalodon that has somehow survived in the depths of the ocean, he must put aside his fears in order to rescue a trapped submarine.

See the trailer and video featurettes here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard, 3D, D-BOX, D-BOX 3D, Dolby, IMAX, RPX, RPX 3D, XD, XD 3D
Genre: Action
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG -13(for action/peril, bloody images and some language)

A Prayer Before Dawn

(A24) Joe Cole, Pornchanok Mabklang, Panya Yimmumphai, Vithaya Pansringarm. A young British boxer is incarcerated in two of Thailand’s most brutal prisons. He is allowed to enter a Muay Thai tournament to fight for his freedom, but every fight could be his last  as no holds whatsoever are barred. Based on a true story, the film has been available for DirecTV subscribers for about a month now and is just now seeing a limited theatrical release.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: True Life Drama
Now Playing: AMC Universal Cineplex
Rating: R (for strong violence including a brutal rape sequence, drug use and language throughout, some sexual content and nudity)

American Animals

(The Orchard) Evan Peters, Ann Dowd, Barry Keoghan, Blake Jenner. A group of young men plan an audacious heist to steal priceless books from a University library. No less audacious is the way director Bart Layton tells the story with the actual participants offering peanut gallery comments. This was the opening night film at this year’s Florida Film Festival.

See the trailer, interviews and video featurettes here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: True Crime
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: R (for language throughout, some drug use and brief crude/sexual material)

BlacKKKlansman

(Focus) John David Washington, Adam Driver, Topher Grace, Alec Baldwin. Spike Lee’s latest is based on the true story of an African-American cop who manages to get an in with the KKK over the phone. He is forced to recruit a white cop to play him for face-to-face meetings.

See the trailer, interviews and a video featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard, Dolby
Genre: True Crime
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for language throughout, including racial epithets, and for disturbing/violent material and some sexual references)

Dog Days

(LD Entertainment) Nina Dobrev, Vanessa Hudgens, Finn Wolfhard, Eva Longoria. The lives of several L.A. dog owners (and would-be dog owners) intersect through the efforts of their dogs in this ensemble piece that looks  at how our four legged best friends enhance our lives.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Dramedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for rude and suggestive content, and for language)

Slender Man

(Screen Gems) Joey King, Julia Goldani Telles, Jaz Sinclair, Javier Botet. A group of friends in a small town in Massachusetts discover the Internet creepypasta figure the Slender Man and set out to disprove his existence. When one of them mysteriously disappears however, their own skepticism begins to crumble.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website</a>
Release Formats: Standard, D-BOX
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for disturbing images, sequences of terror, thematic elements and language including crude sexual references)

Vishwaroopam 2

(Reliance) Kamal Haasan, Rahul Bose, Shekhar Kapur, Pooja Kumar. After foiling an Al Qaeda plot in New York in the first movie, anti-terrorism expert Wisam chases his quarry as they plan an even more infernal plot to undermine the world’s most stable democracies – including India.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Action
Now Playing: Cinemark Artegon Marketplace
Rating: NR

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Along Came the Devil
Hope Springs Eternal
On Chesil Beach
Our House
Srinivasa Kalyanam

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

Ashke
Cuban Food Stories
Goodachari
McQueen
Puzzle
Satan’s Slaves
Sergio and Sergei
Srinivasa Kalyanam
Summer of ‘84
What Keeps You Alive

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

Far From the Tree
Srinivasa Kalyanam

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

Bag of Marbles
Eating Animals
Srinivasa Kalyanam

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

American Animals
Blackkklansman
Eating Animals
Far From the Tree
The Meg
Our House
Slenderman
Summer of ‘84

The Fate of the Furious

Why so angry>

(2017) Action (Universal) Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Charlize Theron, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Kurt Russell, Nathalie Emmanuel, Luke Evans, Elsa Pataky, Helen Mirren, Scott Eastwood, Kristofer Hivju,, Patrick St. Esprit, Janmarco Santiago, Luke Hawx, Corey Maher, Olek Krupa, Alexander  Babara, Eden Estrella. Directed by F. Gary Gray

 

There was a big question mark hanging over the latest installment of The Fast and the Furious franchise; with co-star Paul Walker gone, could the series continue to reach the heights it achieved with Furious 7? Well, in terms of box office and spectacle, the answer turned out to be yes. But does it hold up with the best of the films in the franchise?

Dominic Toretto (Diesel) is on his honeymoon with his girl Letty (Rodriguez) in Havana, doing what most new husbands do on their honeymoon; get involved in a street race. He is also approached by Cypher (Theron), a world class hacker who has something on Dom but we’re not sure what. His wolfish smile, which looks for all the world like he’s displaying his fangs, turns into a world class scowl – see picture above.

During the next mission with his crew, Dom betrays them leaving Hobbs (Johnson) holding the bag, Cypher holding some Russian nuclear codes and the team unable to believe that Dom would turn on them. The world thinks Dom has gone Rogue but Mr. Nobody (Russell) thinks differently, even after Dom and Cypher attack their headquarters in New York City. Dom flees and Cypher uses her special skills to take control over every computer-enabled car in Manhattan, raining down cars on the team like a really bad hailstorm.

Cypher is after a Russian nuclear sub and with her launch codes could hold the world hostage for a tidy amount of cash but Letty, Mr. Nobody and the until-recently-incarcerated Hobbs have other plans, and they’re going to get some reinforcements of the most unexpected kind. Friend and foe will unite to take on this deadly femme fatale.

Now, I’m not going to beat around the bush; the action sequences are absolutely outstanding. The New York sequence is right there as is the climactic scene in which Dom’s crew chase down the submarine over ice – don’t even ask for sense here. Nothing here makes any. What we have is just cars going fast, things going boom and attractive guys and gals at the wheels of cars we couldn’t possibly afford. What better fantasy is there for a red-blooded American?

I think that the instructions here were to go big and Gray as well as screenwriter Chris Morgan may have taken it too much to heart. This is more in the James Bond territory now than what was once a simple underground street racing movie featuring a bunch of LA guys in wife beaters driving some cool midlife crisis compensators. There are gadgets, CGI and not a whole lot of character development which may be because there are way too many characters here. Too many to keep track of, anyway.

I wasn’t a fan of this franchise initially but starting with the fourth installment I began to get into it. Unfortunately, this is a giant step backwards and while it’s billion dollar worldwide box office guarantees an ninth episode (there will also be a tenth which has already been dated by Universal), I’m not looking forward to it with quite the anticipation of the previous few installments.

REASONS TO GO: The action sequences are great. You can’t go wrong with a heavyweight cast like this one.
REASONS TO STAY: This is the weakest entry in the franchise since Tokyo Drift. There are too many characters to keep up with.
FAMILY VALUES: You’ll find plenty of violence and action, some sensuality and brief profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: There were rumors that Diesel and Johnson were having some personal difficulties with one another; after Johnson posted his frustrations online, the two met privately and resolved their differences.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 5/30/17: Rotten Tomatoes: 66% positive reviews. Metacritic: 56/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Need for Speed
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: The Cyclotron

New Releases for the Week of April 14, 2017

THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS

(Universal) Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Charlize Theron, Kurt Russell, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges. Directed by F. Gary Gray

After the events of Furious 7, the team has been exonerated from their crimes and have settled down for more or less normal lives. However Dom Toretto just can’t seem to stay away from trouble and he hooks up with a cyberterrorist who has plans to unleash chaos on the world, betraying his team – his family – in the process. Now they will have to take down the woman who seemingly has Dom under her thumb and in order to do that they’ll be adding someone new to the team – a former adversary who almost took them all out.

See the trailer, clips, promos and a featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard, IMAX
Genre: Action
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for prolonged scenes of violence and destruction, suggestive content, and language)

Altitude

(Lionsgate) Denise Richards, Dolph Lundgren, Jonathan Lipnicki, Greer Grammer. When an airplane is hijacked, the FBI agent who happens to be aboard is content to wait things out and not endanger any lives. But when she discovers that the ulterior motive for the hijacking was the presence of a thief who offers her millions to protect him – well, who could resist that?

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Thriller
Now Playing: AMC Loew’s Universal Cineplex
Rating: R (for language and some violence)

Frantz

(Music Box) Pierre Niney, Paula Beer, Ernst Stötzner, Marie Gruber. An elderly German doctor and his wife grieve for their son who had died during World War I which had recently ended. His fiancée is living with them, bringing them comfort. One day she sees a mysterious man laying flowers on her beloved’s grave and strikes up a friendship with him. It turns out that he and her fiancée were friends before the war. Soon he has become part of all their lives but he hides a secret that could turn out to be devastating to all concerned.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Romantic Drama
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic elements including brief war violence)

Gifted

(Fox Searchlight) Chris Evans, McKenna Grace, Lindsay Duncan, Octavia Spencer. A single man is given the responsibility of raising his niece when his sister passes away. As it turns out, she’s a math prodigy with infinite potential but rather than sending her to a specialized school where her talent can be developed at the expense of her childhood, he chooses to keep her in a normal school where she can have a normal childhood as her mother wished her to have. However, her grandmother won’t hear of it and sues for custody of the child, threatening to tear the two of them – who have formed a strong bond by now – apart.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic elements, language and some suggestive material)

Spark: A Space Tail

(Open Road) Starring the voices of Jessica Biel, Susan Sarandon, Patrick Stewart, Hilary Swank. On a distant planet a young boy is forced into hiding after his family is massacred by a power-hungry General. He and his friends discover that the General is about to unleash a fearsome weapon that may destroy the universe – and only they can stop him.

See the trailer and a clip here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Animated Feature
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, Regal Oviedo Marketplace
Rating: PG (for some action and rude humor)

Tommy’s Honour

(Roadside Attractions) Jack Lowden, Peter Mullan, Ophelia Lovibond, Sam Neill. This is the story of father and son, both titanic figures in the beginnings of the modern game of golf. Old Tom Morris is the groundskeeper at St. Andrew’s, the most prestigious golf club in Scotland; it is he who standardized the game at 18 holes and founded the first Open Championship. However, his son Tommy, a young and handsome lad, threatens to outshine his father as the first touring pro. Tom seems content with that but when Tommy marries beneath his station by Old Tom’s way of thinking, the two are on a collision course that leads to severe consequences – and leads Old Tom on a quest to honor his son.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Sports Biography
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs, AMC Loew’s Universal Cineplex, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: PG (for thematic elements, some suggestive material, language and smoking)

Mechanic: Resurrection

Jason Statham raises stubble to an art form.

(2016) Action (Summit) Jason Statham, Jessica Alba, Tommy Lee Jones, Sam Hazeldine, Michelle Yeoh, John Cenatiempo, Toby Eddington, Femi Elufowoju Jr., Anteo Quintavalle, Rhatha Phongam, Bonnie Zellerbach, Francis Tonkala Tamouya, Tais Rodrigues Dias, Allan Poppleton, Soji Ikai, Vithaya Pansringam, Lynnette Emond. Directed by Dennis Gansel

 

Jason Statham is my favorite action hero at the moment. He’s smart, he’s tough and he’s talented. He has his own unique voice and has the chops to hang with the legendary action stars of the 80s and 90s; Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Willis, van Damme…Statham if nothing else can proudly put his name in that pantheon, even if most of the films he makes in the genre are more of the B variety.

So he’s back, now in his 50s, in a sequel to his 2011 hit. Arthur Bishop (Statham) is a world class assassin who specializes in making his hits look like accidents but after faking his own death has been living under the radar in Brazil. However, in this day and age nobody can slip notice for long and he is found by Crain (Hazeldine), an old “friend” of his who needs his special talents. In order to obtain them, Crain needs to have some leverage on his old buddy and what better way than to set him up to fall in love with the altruistic and somewhat naïve Gina (Alba) who happens to fall into his radar.

He takes refuge at the Thai resort run by his friend Mei (Yeoh) but Crain finds him there and kidnaps Gina. Now Bishop must perform three nearly impossible assassinations of three very dangerous, evil gentlemen in a short amount of time or Gina is going to get dead, which Bishop is anxious to prevent. He knows that Crain will likely kill them both anyway so he needs to have a plan. Here’s your word of wisdom for the day; never force a world class assassin to work for you unless you intend to die yourself.

The film this is a sequel to was itself a remake of a 1972 Charles Bronson flick which was darker in tone than this. There is more of a 90s action vibe, a cross between the Mission: Impossible series and the action films of Schwarzenegger. One of my issues of the 2011 film was that Bishop was almost too good; there was never a sense that he was in any jeopardy. They’ve rectified that here, but there are other issues unfortunately.

The main one is that it doesn’t really add anything to the franchise. Bishop was, as Statham put it, a “thinking man’s killer” who has the ability to plan three or four steps ahead and improvising on the fly when he needs to. It’s mostly the latter here and we lose some of the more thoughtful aspects of Bishop which is what made him unique. Worse though, this is pretty much action film making 101; it is interchangeable with all sorts of recent action films (many of which were made for the Lionsgate/Summit banner) and we can pretty much predict what happens next – and it does.

Statham is the main reason to see this. He has settled into being one of the premiere action heroes of the 21^st century and while he could use a shave pretty much throughout the movie, he continues to be one of the most impressive hand-to-hand fighters in action films ever. He’s capable of being over-the-top in the Crank films or more subtle as he is here. The man can actually act, as he showed in his Guy Ritchie films as well as The Bank Job, still to date his best performance.

The movie is at its best when the dialogue stops i.e. the action and stunt sequences. The trailer hinted at a stunt in which Statham climbs up the side of a glass building and sets a charge in the glass bottom of a pool hanging over the side, waving goodbye to the victim as the glass shatters and he plummets to his doom below. It is as good a sequence as you’ll find in any action movie this year and fortunately, the trailer omits some of the best parts of the sequence. There are others that are also in the elite class as far as stunt and fight sequences in 2016 are concerned.

But the movie’s main sin is that it simply isn’t interesting. The stunt sequences are great but the romance between Gina and Bishop is not and Yeoh, one of the greatest action heroines ever is held to a largely lifeless cameo. If you’re going to go to the trouble of casting someone the caliber of Michelle Yeoh, the least you can do is give her something to do. It’s a shame that she never got Hollywood’s interest in her prime; she’s not only an extraordinary action star but an extraordinary actress as well, as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon proved and its sequel reiterated earlier this year.

Jones fares better as a jocular arms dealer but he really is the only one who looks like he’s having a good time here. Unfortunately, the audience for the most part will side with the rest of the cast and not have much of a good time either. This is a blah entry into what could have been an interesting action franchise.

REASONS TO GO: There are some really nifty action sequences and stunts. Statham has become a dependable lead actor.
REASONS TO STAY: Overall, the film is predictable and dull. They took an interesting character and converted him into just another action figure.
FAMILY VALUES:  All sorts of violence and foul language.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT:  This is the American film debut of Gansel, who has directed a number of films in his native Germany.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 9/25/16: Rotten Tomatoes: 23% positive reviews. Metacritic: 38/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: John Wick
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: Kubo and the Two Strings

New Releases for the Week of August 26, 2016

DON’T BREATHE

(Screen Gems/Ghost House) Stephen Lang, Jane Levy, Dylan Minnette, Daniel Zovatto, Emma Bercovici, Franciska Töröcsik, Christian Zagia, Katia Bokor. Directed by Fede Alvarez

A group of friends decide to rob the house of a blind man in order to finance their getting out of town and starting new lives elsewhere. It should be easy pickings, right? Wrong.

See the trailer, clips and a featurette here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for terror, violence, disturbing content and language including sexual references)

Equity

(Sony Classics) Anna Gunn, James Purefoy, Nate Corddry, Carrie Preston. The world of high finance has traditionally been a man’s world. It is harder for a woman to break through the glass ceiling there than perhaps any other industry. When one woman, whose brilliance has brought her to the threshold of breaking that ceiling but whose caustic and sometimes abrasive personality has not won her many supporters gets involved in an IPO that could put her over the top, it looks like she might finally achieve her dreams. However, she may have to choose between that goal and her ethics, which on Wall Street is usually a no-brainer.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs
Rating: R (for language throughout)

Floyd Norman: An Animated Life

(CBS) Floyd Norman, Whoopi Goldberg, Leonard Maltin, Don Hahn. Norman was the first African-American animator at Disney and was involved with some of their more classic films. As time went by however he became something of a gadfly and was eventually forced to retire at 65. Now 85 years old, he continues to stir the pot even as his place in history, largely forgotten, is beginning to at last be justifiably secured.

See the trailer and a clip here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Documentary
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs
Rating: R (for some strong violence, language throughout and brief sexuality)

Hands of Stone

(Weinstein) Robert De Niro, Edgar Ramirez, John Turturro, Usher Raymond. Roberto Duran is perhaps best-known for his “No Mas” fight with Sugar Ray Leonard but one has to remember that in his day he was one of the most feared and skilled fighters in the world. The story of the Panamanian boxer, who continued to fight in the ring until retiring in 2002 at age 50, is one that is little known in the United States – until now.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, featurettes, a music video and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Sports Biography
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for language throughout and some sexuality/nudity)

Mechanic: Resurrection

(Summit) Jason Statham, Jessica Alba, Tommy Lee Jones, Michelle Yeoh. Arthur Bishop, one of the world’s deadliest assassins, had faked his own death and put his life of murder and mayhem behind him – or so he thought. He has been found and in order to save someone he cares about, he must kill a list of some of the most dangerous men in the world – and he’s on the clock. You just know however that he is going to turn the tables on those who are trying to use his skills. You play with matches, you’re gonna get burned.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Action
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for violence throughout and language)

Southside with You

(Miramax/Roadside Attractions) Tika Sumpter, Parker Sawyers, Vanessa Bell Calloway, Donald Paul. On a hot summer day in Chicago 1989, a young law firm associate is attending a community organizing meeting with a lawyer from that firm. Their day takes them from the Art Institute of Chicago to a screening of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing to a ice cream parlor. They’re both just starting on the road to a life of service to their community. Their names are Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson and this summer day “not a date” would turn into an event that would change the course of American history.

See the trailer, clips and interviews here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: True Life Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, AMC The Loop, AMC West Oaks, Cinemark Artegon Marketplace, Regal Waterford Lakes, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: PG-13 (for brief strong language, smoking, a violent image and a drug reference)

Tickled

(Magnolia) David Farrier, Dylan Reeve, David Starr, Hal Karp. A New Zealand-based documentary filmmaker is intrigued by an online ad asking for young men who didn’t mind being tickled on camera to take part in a competitive tickling competition. What he discovers is a bizarre miasma of corruption and secrecy that leads the filmmaker to a shocking discovery that is too strange to be fiction.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Documentary
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: R (for language and some disturbing content)

The Bank Job (2008)

Would you buy a used car from this man?

(2008) True Crime Drama (Lionsgate) Jason Statham, Saffron Burrows, David Suchet, Stephen Campbell Moore, Daniel Mays, James Faulkner, Alki David, Michael Jibson, Richard Lintern, Peter de Jersey, Keeley Hawes, Hattie Morahan, Craig Fairbrass, Gerard Moran, Colin Salmon, Georgia Taylor, Peter Bowles, Alastair Petrie, Julian Lewis Jones, Andrew Brooke, Sharon Maughan. Directed by Roger Donaldson

We’re all out to simply survive in a world that isn’t always conducive to survival. We occasionally take risks, hoping to better ourselves but sometimes those risks can be devastating simply because we don’t always know the whole story behind them.

Terry Leather (Statham) is a small-time crook who has been trying his damnedest to lead a life on the straight and narrow, but he just can’t get a break. He is in debt to the sort of people who send out big guys with small intellects and crowbars to make their collections at his used car dealership. Eddie (Jibson), one of his long-time mates and employees, is getting married and most of his close friends who have lived life on the dodgy side – Dave (Mays) and Kevin (Moore) – are there. So is his wife Wendy (Hawes) with whom Terry is deeply in love, and it’s for her he’s trying to tread the path of the righteous.

Enter Martine Love (Burrows), a former flame of Kevin’s and, as we find out later, of Terry’s as well, with an offer that sounds too good to be true. There’s a little neighborhood bank that is getting its security system upgrade, but during the upgrade apparently the vault alarm has been getting tripped by tremors caused by the nearby underground, so until things get squared away the alarm has been turned off. The safety deposit boxes are completely vulnerable, a little-known fact that she’d found out from her boyfriend, ostensibly the contractor doing the security upgrade. Naturally, she thought of her old pal Terry to do the job which could be the big score he and his circle have been dreaming about all their lives.

However, things aren’t necessarily what they seem. Love’s strings are being pulled by an ambitious MI-5 agent (Lintern) who is out to get some potentially catastrophic photos from one of the safety deposit boxes in the bank, this one owned by Michael X (de Jersey), a would-be Black Power revolutionary who is in fact a drug dealer and a criminal who is blackmailing the government with those photos. There is also a pornographer (Suchet) whose ledger of payoffs to crooked cops have not only the straight-and-narrow police looking for the thieves, but also every corrupt cop in London as well. Terry is entering waters infested by sharks in a leaky boat, and doesn’t know it. The action here is all the more incredible because it is based on actual events.

Ever since I saw Statham in Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and The Italian Job I thought he was destined to be a big star. At this point in his career, he was more of a B-level star, making mainly European action films although a couple of American films like Crank were on his resume as well. He remains to this day one of the most sought-after action stars in the business but this movie gave us notice that he could be much more.

Most of the rest of the cast are for the most part not well known to Americans, although Burrows has starred in Boston Legal and Deep Blue Sea and Suchet has been seen as Hercule Poirot in the PBS series. I did love the characterizations here; there is guilelessness to most of the blokes in the gang that is charming. When contrasted with the sophistication of those in the government and in the underground. It makes for an interesting juxtaposition.

Director Donaldson keeps the pace moving along; the nearly two hours of the movie went by very quickly for me. He doesn’t resort to using the fashionable hand-held camera or slo-mo action sequences which seem to dominate action movies these days, but prefers to allow the characters and their actions to tell the story, a very refreshing touch if you ask me.

Statham plays Terry as a devoted family man and far from a criminal mastermind, but street-smart, clever and tough enough to make it all work. As you watch events unfold, there is a certain inevitability that things are going to get very bad for the gang of thieves and that creates a good kind of tension as they spiral into an unavoidable morass that is not of their own making but are the unwitting catalysts for.

The villains here are absolutely hateful and are clearly not messing about; during an interrogation scene, there isn’t a lot of chit-chat or cliché, just a brutality that you would expect from desperate men. The story is compelling and keeps our interest throughout, and while the lines are clearly drawn, the motivations for everyone concerned are equally as clear, which makes this movie work as a rich tapestry. There is enough comedy here to give the movie a kind of light touch, but Donaldson never lets it get away from the action-driven tone. He understands what side of his bread is buttered.

Although the movie is set in the early 1970s, the filmmakers don’t really set the period as well as other movies have, so at times you’re almost fooled into thinking the movie is set in a modern time frame. Also, the coda is a little bit unfulfilling; you want to know what became of some of these characters you’ve been rooting for, as well as perhaps wanting to know more about the actual robbery itself but to be fair, much of the details of the actual crime have been suppressed by British authorities and while the filmmakers claim to have information detailing why that is (which is revealed here), their sources have never been revealed and as far as the truth goes this may merely be clever marketing on the part of the producers.

This is a well-made heist movie that moves at a comfortably quick pace without being so frenetic it makes you dizzy. The twists and turns are nicely done and Statham does a terrific job. You may wind up comparing it to The Italian Job or the Oceans movies, but I think you might rule favorably for this movie as opposed to the others I’ve mentioned.

WHY RENT THIS: Statham stakes his place as a big star. A real sense of impending tragedy. Nicely paced, keeping you on the edge of your seat throughout.
WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Doesn’t set period as well as it might have. Ending is a bit unfulfilling.
FAMILY MATTERS: There is a great deal of nudity, sexual innuendo and a gruesome and disturbing torture scene.
TRIVIAL PURSUITS: If you look carefully, you can catch a cameo by Mick Jagger as a bank employee.
NOTABLE HOME VIDEO FEATURES: There is a featurette on the actual 1971 Baker Street heist.
BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $64.8M on a $20M production budget.
SITES TO SEE: Netflix, iTunes, Google Play, M-Go
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Goodfellas
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: Lamb

The Transporter Refueled

A handgun romance.

(2015) Action (EuropaCorp) Ed Skrein, Ray Stevenson, Loan Chabanol, Gabriella Wright, Tatiana Pajkovic, Wenxia Yu, Radivoje Bukvic, Noémie Lenoir, Yuri Kolokonikov, Lenn Kudrjawizki, Samir Guesmi, Anatole Taubman, Robbie Nock, Michael Morris, Nash Novcic, Jochen Hägele, Cédric Chevalme, Jerome Zybala, Stephanie Moreno-Carpio. Directed by Camille Delamarre

Getting from point A to point B is no easy thing. Sometimes it requires someone who knows what they’re doing; a transporter, if you will. And in the cases of some cargo, only the best in the business will do.

The best in the business happens to be Frank Martin (Skrein). He is a former Special Ops mercenary sort who got out of that game and now makes a living as an expensive transporter of packages, both living and otherwise. He has made it a policy to ask no questions, to make no excuses and to never, ever be caught. He drives a luxury Audi with a few minor modifications.

He is spending some time with his recently retired Dad, Frank Sr. (Stevenson) who is an Evian salesman nudge nudge wink wink. In reality, Frank Sr. is something of a spy but not a James Bond sort – more like a fixer of things that need fixing, be it a government that needs toppling, a dictator who needs killing, that sort of thing.  Junior gets some of his fastidiousness from dad, who is a stickler for being on time.

While entertaining his Pater, Frank gets a job from a mysterious femme fatale named Anna (Chabanol). She wears a bleached blonde wig and the package turns out to be three other women wearing identical wigs – Gina (Wright), Maria (Pajkovic) and Qiao (Yu). It turns out they’ve robbed a bank and not just any bank – the one that holds a safety deposit box belonging to vicious Russian mobster Arkady Karasov (Bukvic). It turns out that Arkady and Frank have a history, having been mercenaries in the same company prior. It also turns out that Arkady and the girls have a history; they were all sold into prostitution to him by their families.

Normally Frank wouldn’t care one way or the other but the girls have kidnapped his father and given him poison; Frank has 24 hours to finish the job which is to get to the mobster’s partners and set them against their boss or else dear old Dad will expire. And when Arkady finds out what’s going on, it is going to be certain that all Hell will break loose.

This is a reboot of the Transporter franchise which starred Jason Statham, who passed on reprising his role mainly because he was too expensive for the producers at this stage in his career. Instead, they got Game of Thrones cast member Skrein who is also playing Ajax in the upcoming Deadpool movie which is likely to enhance his profile further. In all honesty, Statham was much better suited to the urbane, taciturn Martin than Skrein who is a bit stiffer than Statham; Statham’s martial arts expertise was also more fluid than Skrein’s. However, the film retains producer Luc Besson who had a hand in writing and producing the film.

A movie like this needs spectacular action sequences to pull in an audience and while the action sequences are all right, they aren’t anything particularly to write home about. Delamarre is competent at filming them at least and we don’t see the jerky quick cuts that some action directors have resorted to of late. Delamarre also has a good eye for the South of France scenery as well as the eye candy that are the girls. The testosterone will definitely be flowing for male moviegoers.

Where the film truly succeeds is in the banter between Stevenson and Skrein which are the movie’s highlights. Stevenson, who most people know as the Punisher in Punisher: War Zone, looks to be having more fun than anyone. He’s delightful and has a few butt-kicking moments of his own here. I am sure I’m not the only one who wished they had recast Stevenson in the lead role but he may be a bit too rumpled for the part. In any case, his work with Skrein is what is best about The Transporter Refueled.

This is supposed to be the first movie in a proposed trilogy and quite frankly while the movie is mindless entertainment (which isn’t a bad thing), it’s a bit too mindless. There’s nothing here that is really memorable enough that you’ll remember it an hour or two after you’ve left the theater (or more likely, switched off the TV) but in all honesty, will suffice to kill some time if you’re of an action bent.

REASONS TO GO: Beautiful women, beautiful scenery. Banter between Skrein and Stevenson.
REASONS TO STAY: The action sequences aren’t anything special. Skrein a bit too low key to be interesting here. Misses Statham’s presence.
FAMILY VALUES: Plenty of violence and action sequences, some foul language, a bit of sexuality, drug references and adult thematic material.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Originally Relatively Media was set to distribute this as producers EuropaCorp and Relativity had a distribution contract. However when Relativity went bankrupt, EuropaCorp retained distribution rights to all their properties set to be distributed by Relativity. The Transporter Refueled is the first film to be distributed by EuropaCorp in the United States.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 9/22/15: Rotten Tomatoes: 16% positive reviews. Metacritic: 32/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Getaway
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: The Visit

Spy

Fish out of water.

(2015) Spy Comedy (20th Century Fox) Melissa McCarthy, Jason Statham, Rose Byrne, Jude Law, Bobby Cannavale, Allison Janney, Jessica Chaffin, Miranda Hart, Morena Baccarin, Will Yun Lee, Carlos Ponce, Richard Brake, Raad Rawi, Michael McDonald, Peter Serafinowicz, Nargis Fakhri, 50 Cent, Ben Falcone, Katie Dippold, Jamie Denbo. Directed by Paul Feig

We are, as a moviegoing public, fascinated by spies. Of course, there’s the glamour – playing baccarat in Monte Carlo, wearing designer suits and dresses, using sophisticated gadgets that look like ordinary items, only deadly. Who wouldn’t want that kind of life?

Certainly Susan Cooper (McCarthy) does, to the point that she works for the Central Intelligence Agency. She is this close to getting an assignment in the field, but she winds up being a kind of handler/assistant to debonair field agent Bradley Fine (Law). She’s also quite smitten with the devilishly handsome spy, but he won’t give her a second look. In fact, nobody gives her much respect, not even the deputy chief (Janney) who supervises the team.

Unfortunately, while trying to discover the location of a nuclear bomb that is up for sale to the highest terrorist bidder, things go horribly, terribly awry. It turns out that the bomb seller, Reyna Boyanov (Byrne), has somehow identified every one of the CIA field agents. With a nuclear bomb in play and crippled by the fact that every agent she sends up against the bitchy Boyanov is sure to be spotted, the harried deputy chief is forced to send in someone that Reyna doesn’t know – Susan Cooper is finally getting her chance to be a field agent.

She is aided in her quest by gawky fellow basement dweller Nancy (Hart) and over-the-top touchy-feely Italian agent Aldo (Serafinowicz). She’ll also be hindered by egotistical, braggadocios agent Rick Ford (Statham) who, like about everyone else in the CIA, thinks that Susan doesn’t have a chance out in the field and will only mess things up. Susan, however, has a few surprises in store and is determined to complete her first mission. Will it be however, the last thing she does?

I’ve always blown hot and cold about McCarthy; she shows flashes of comic brilliance but Hollywood seems interested in casting her only as a boorish slob or an overbearing bully. One gets the sense that Hollywood can’t see past her weight, which coincidentally is Susan Cooper’s problem. One person who does see more in McCarthy is Feig, who has been at the helm for her three best performances yet – Bridesmaids, The Heat and now this.

McCarthy has always been adept at physical comedy, although it has often been to her detriment (having to do with her size) but here she outdoes herself. That’s not what makes McCarthy’s performance so memorable though; it’s that she portrays Susan as intelligent, capable and dare I say it, pretty. She turns all of our prejudices about overweight women on their ear, and for that alone one should applaud this movie, and Feig and McCarthy specifically.

What holds this movie back is that the story is really kind of generic spy stuff. We’ve seen the plot in movies and on television many times before. However, it is executed very well  here, with some cool high-tech sets in the CIA and lovely exotic (to American eyes anyway) locations. I would also have liked to see the villains be less bitchy and more evil. A spy movie is only as good as its villain and while Byrne is delicious as Reyna, one doesn’t get the kind of threat from her as one might from Auric Goldfinger, Ernst Blofeld or even Siegfried of KAOS.

Still, McCarthy gets to be James Bond and how cool is that for her? You can tell that she’s having the time of her life in this role, and it translates onto the screen and audiences are picking up on that, judging from the box office and audience test scores. It is said that Fox intended this all along to be a new franchise for them and quite likely it will be and I for one can’t wait for a sequel if McCarthy wants to do one.

REASONS TO GO: Statham plays against type and McCarthy is at her best. Some nifty sets and locations.
REASONS TO STAY: Doesn’t really explore new territory. Villains not villainous enough.
FAMILY VALUES: Foul language, some violence, a little bit of sexual content and a brief scene of nudity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Feig is a huge fan of Jason Statham and wrote the part of Rick Ford specifically for him.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 6/23/15: Rotten Tomatoes: 95% positive reviews. Metacritic: 75/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: This Means War
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: The Departed