Bullet Train

 

Bullet Train

The film is disheveled. It is one long stream of fights, stabbing, gun shots and an occasional snake bite. The story in convoluted and a Wikipedia cheat sheet is advised. Characters get killed or you think they get killed. There are divergent story lines of different periods. Revenge is an undercurrent of the film. Flashbacks strain to give the movie coherence. Mayhem is the main ingredient.

The film is packed with stars, some long lived other not. Brad Pitt is Ladybug an unlucky mercenary. Brad Pitt is his usual cool self but a bit neurotic. His character wants be easy going but he is also constantly attacked and has to brutally kill a few people. The supporting cast are innumerable. There are feature actors and actors with brief appearances. Bad Bunny (for the Medicare crowd that is his stage name) a Mexican assassin with a stained white suit. Lemon and Tangerine are brothers from a different mother (one black the other white) who are Brad Pitt’s main nemesis. There are other nemesis. One is a faux schoolgirl, the Prince, played by Joey King who has more longevity than the other killers and lasts to the end. Then there are the quickies. Ryan Reynolds shows up for five seconds. Channon Tatum is a train passenger with three short scenes. Sandra Bullock is Pitt’s handler and before her brief appearance was the voice on his phone. Michael Shannon is White Death and hard to recognize wearing a mop of hair.

Some of the scenes are incredulous . You can not hang on to the outside of a speeding bullet train unless you have a big S on your chest. With train cars packed like sardines in Japan it is difficult to believe they found two empty cars. There was some levity in the movie but not enough to validate the advertisements. The script tried to mesh various story lines but it tied itself in a knot.

Nope

 

Nope

Not sure if Nope is a yup. Flying saucer (UFOs) movies have been around for decades from War of the Worlds (the original) to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Nope is more like the former, sinister. After an intriguing start the middle of the film loses steam and in later scenes the main action unfolds. The film is partitioned in different scenes. I though one scene involving a chimp was in left field and I didn’t get it. As opposed to Peele’s film, Get Out, Nope does not have brooding tension. The big reveal of seeing the flying saucer comes towards the end but getting there is a slow walk. Parts of the movie have to be inferred and their purpose is opaque. For example when the horses get spooked and run away what happens to them? The most original part of the movie is the flying saucer itself. It is like nothing before.

Danial Kaluuya gives a subdued performance as OJ a wrangler who provides horses for film and TV commercials. His hyperactive sister played by Keke Palmer is loud and funny. Angel ,played by Brandon Perea, is the electronic sales rep who is a UFO believer and sets up camera’s at OJ’s ranch. Steven Yuen is an entrepreneur who runs a side show. Yuen has an unfortunate close encounter.

UFO movies are either benevolent or malevolent; the either or takes away from the tension. The eventual encounter is the driving force. A clearer purpose of why a UFO would fly  billions of light years to earth would have sharpened the focus. Rotten Tomato gave the film an 82%. I am sure a bunch of you are younger than 70 so I encourage you to see the film and draw your own conclusion.

The Grey Man (Netflix)

 

The Grey Man (Netflix)

Electronic billboards in New York City displayed ads for the latest Netflix action/thriller movie, “The Grey Man.” After viewing the action movie, Netflix could be accused of false advertising. What an utter waste of talent. The cast includes Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans, Billy Bob Thornton, Ana de Armos, Rege-Jean Page, Alfe Woodard and others. To add insult to injury the film was directed and written by the Russo brothers who grossed more than $2.8b in worldwide box office from such films as “Captain America” and “Avengers: Endgame”. Their Midas touch fell short here.

The simple story is an excuse for mayhem including car crashes, a deluge of gun fire and uninspired dialogue. Chris Evans is a caricature of a bad guy with a thin mustache and snappy retorts. He tortures Billy Bob Thornton with a pair pliers ; how prosaic. He could have found more inspired instruments of torture on Amazon. The film is a dizzying travelogue jumping from on city to another. The film has flash backs and forward flashes. Flash backs should be used like salt in a stew, sparingly. The back story of Gosling’s character Sierra Six, a CIA black ops assassin, was shown towards the end of the film. It would have been better towards the beginning to humanize his character. The most eye catching element of the film is how buffed Gosling was. It almost looked fake, like using CG to put Gosling’s head on top of a body builder.

Making this film for $200m does not help Netflix’s current financial problems or subscription issues.

Everything Everywhere All at Once

 

Everything Everywhere All at Once (Amazon Prime)

If you have any drugs left over from the 70’s stashed in your sock draw this is the time to use them. The film is chaotic, the scenes are not sequential. It’s like a Chinese Matrix, but without the pretense. Characters shift  between different parallel universes, called the Alphaverse. In these realities there are alpha versions of themselves. This movie has a little bit of everything for everyone. There is a racoon sushi chef, people with hot dogs for fingers, kung fu, butt plugs (used offensively), google eyes, an everything bagel as a black hole and talking boulders.

The movie starts with Evelyn, played by Michelle Yeoh, and her husband Waymond, played by Ke Huy Quan (Quan played Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Data in The Goonies) at the IRS office audited by aggressive agent played by Jamie Lee Curtis. It is from here the characters start shifting between realities. Contributing to the turmoil, Evelyn’s demanding father, played by the prodigious James Hong (he has 650 film credits) arrived from Hong Kong and her daughter Joy, played by Stefanie Hsu, is trying to introduce her girlfriend to the family. Though out the movie these characters take on different personas. This film does not take itself seriously and some of the fight scenes are hilarious. Yeoh and Hsu give endearing performances and Jamie Lee Curtis in a fat suit and a platinum wig stolen from Andy Warhol’s closet is over the top.

Putting aside all the chaos this is a story about relationships and of what could have been. The alternate realities give expression to different paths. Relationships are with a mother accepting a daughter, dealing with an aging demanding father and a husband reluctantly serving divorce papers to his unsuspecting wife. This movie is different but worthwhile. At the reduced price of $5.99 how can you go wrong.

The Black Phone

 

The Black Phone

The Black Phone is described as a supernatural horror film. It is more like a gritty ghost story. The film  is about the Grabber abducting teenage boys. One boy, Finney, is trapped in the basement of the Grabber’s home. From the disconnected black phone on the wall he gets calls from other deceased missing boys.

The supernatural part is Finney’s interaction with ghosts, as for horror compared to other movies it was mild. Nothing  in the film makes you cover your eyes or jump out of your seat. As for tension it was more in the rubber band area. No matter how dire the situation you have a good notion of the outcome. The ending is muscular with Finney achieving new heights of bravery.

Mason Thames plays Finney. He delivers a convincing performance of a mild mannered kid transformed into a survivor. Ethan Hawke plays the Grabber. This is one of the most underutilized role of his talents. Aside for his sardonic voice, there only is a brief moment when you see his full face. For the entire film he wears a mask . He is creepy and malevolent; a great actor should be seen. It is never explained why he is grabbing these boys; we assume he is just a psychopathic killer (why not abduct girls). A back story would have made the character more interesting. An appealing character is Finney’s younger sister played by Madeline McGraw. She is clairvoyant and foul mouthed. She has a strained  relationship with Jesus.

The story was written by Joe Hill, son of Stephen King. Good to know the legacy continues. Rather than paying $16 for a movie ticket you may want to wait for a discounted streaming option.

 

Elvis

 

Elvis

This movie is unique not only for the electric performance of Austin Butler and manipulative Col. Tom Parker played by Tom Hanks but for the entire production. The film is not in chronical order, it jumps around depicting Presly’s milestones. Scenes of his impoverished childhood are brief but important showing the influence of gospel music and the frenetic gyrations of parishioners becoming a hallmark of his “wiggling”. Elvis is a bridge between gospel/ R&B and rock and roll. The film has a litany of black musicians  including BB King, Little Richard, Fats Domino and Sister Rosetta Tharpe who influenced Elvis. When a reporter called Elvis the King of Rock and Roll, he replied no Fats Domino is the King.

Austin Butler gives a dramatic and  brilliant physical performance. His Elvis is fragile and insecure. He was a mama’s boy and needed reassurance. But Butler gives a mean rendition of Elvis’s classic songs. He sings some of the early songs but later songs use Elvis’s voice. His dancing is kinetic and mimics the original. Elvis was known for his wicked hips which Butler performs superbly (when Elvis was on the Ed Sullivan show he was filmed from the waist up). Butler said the secret to the dancing is not so much the hips but the ankles. The movie covers the arch of Elvis’s life. The scenes of his demise are brief but powerful. Butler gives a masterful  performance of all his life’s chapters.

Tom Hanks plays Colonel Tom Parker as a cartoonish Svengali. In a fat suit with a floppy jowl, Hanks is in a constant state sweat affecting a nondescript European accent (the real Parker was Dutch). Elvis and Parker had a toxic symbiotic relationship. A critic said showing Mr. Rogers as a scoundrel would detract from the film. On the contrary, Hanks disdainful swindling portrayal defines their complicated relationship. Elvis needed someone, good or bad.

 Besides his mother the other important woman in his life was Pricilla Presley played by Olivia DeJong. She has good chemistry with Butler and depicts the downward spiral of their relationship. Even after their divorce they still loved each other.

Waring to senior citizens, the is a two bathroom movie with a run time of about two and a half hours.

Jurassic Park Dominion

 

Jurassic Park Dominion

Jurassic Park movies are like a slice of cherry pie, you had it before but it still tastes good. This is the AARP version of the franchise. All the veteran actors were in the cast: Sam Neil, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, BD Wong, Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard. I must admit the film was better than what I expected. Instead of  dinosaurs just stomping around there is an interesting story line. There were still some ludicrous pseudo-scientific theories but they worked into the plot. One aspect of the movie was a head scratcher. They had a dinosaur sanctuary in the Italian Dolomites. What I remember from Bio101 dinosaurs were cold blooded so the ice capped mountains would not be a natural habitat .

As with the other Jurassic Park movies there was a lot of running around and near death escapes. Big dinosaurs ate by bigger dinosaurs. They even gave a nod to evolution featuring a feathered dinosaur (Pyroraptor).  There were new characters. Mamoudou Athie as Ramsey Cole who helps the good guys escape and DeWanda Wise a “Bond” like woman who is beautiful, smart and tough. She is a cargo pilot with fluid allegiances. There is also an evil Steve Jobs type character who runs Biosyn which launches a nefarious  bio scheme.

Rotten Tomato gave the film a 30 rating. Sometimes movie critics cannot get out of their own way. This is not a drama; this is not an Academy nominated film. This is just a fun movie, even with its silliness. The production budget is $185m, the worldwide box office is $625m. As they say money talks and….But the real cool thing about this movie  part of it was filmed in Valletta the capital of Malta.