Solo: A Star Wars Story

A new review from The Movie Snob.

Solo: A Star Wars Story  (C-).  I saw the original Star Wars when I was about 10 years old, so I should be the perfect audience for an origin story about the coolest dude in a galaxy far, far away: the one and only Han Solo.  Sadly, I was bored.  I think Alden Ehrenreich (Hail, Caesar!) is probably a good actor, but his Han is unfortunately bland.  Emilia Clarke (TV’s Game of Thrones) is pretty but otherwise makes no impression as Solo’s love interest.  Donald Glover (The Martian) does a little better as a suave Lando Calrissian, but I could never forget I was watching Donald Glover, who was so funny on TV’s Community.  Woody Harrelson adds another major franchise to his collection (Hunger Games, Planet of the Apes), but he doesn’t really give the story any juice either.  In sum, Solo is a forgettable movie.  My favorite pop culture podcast, The Weekly Substandard, has devoted two whole episodes to Solo, and I’m looking forward to hearing what those critics have to say about it.

Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri

New from the desk of The Movie Snob.

Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri (B).  This is a tense, Coen-esque drama/black comedy from Martin McDonagh, who also wrote and directed Seven Psychopaths and In Bruges.  Frances McDormand (Fargo) stars as Mildred Hayes, a small-town divorcee who is consumed with grief over the unsolved rape and murder of her teenaged daughter Angela several months earlier.  Frustrated with local law enforcement, she rents three billboards just outside of town and posts an inflammatory message aimed at police chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson, War for the Planet of the Apes).  Willoughby is offended but understanding; his violent, racist underling Dixon (Sam Rockwell, Laggies), on the other hand, is infuriated and liable to lash out in any available direction.  The ripples spread through the small town of Ebbing as Mildred persists in keeping the billboards up, and secrets are gradually revealed.  Great performances from the three main actors, and nice supporting work from some others as well, including Peter Dinklage (The Station Agent), Abbie Cornish (Limitless), and Lucas Hedges (Moonrise Kingdom).  But a couple of noticeable flaws (such as Willoughby’s weird use of extreme profanity not just around but at his two adorable little girls) keep this movie out of the top tier, in my opinion.  Still, worth checking out.  Rated R for violence, language throughout, and some sexual references.

War for the Planet of the Apes

New review from The Movie Snob.

War for the Planet of the Apes  (B).  And so the new Apes trilogy comes to an end.  (Spoilers of the first two films follow.)

My favorite was the first one, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, in which we see how a medical experiment gone wrong makes apes superintelligent and kills most of humanity.  The middle installment, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, was a solid if grim movie in which the apes and the surviving humans try to co-exist, with middling-at-best results.

The finale turns the grimness up to 11 as a human military band led by the Colonel (Woody Harrelson, The Edge of Seventeen) seems to be intent on wiping out the apes.  Ape leader Caesar (Andy Serkis, Inkheart) decides to send most of his “people” on a quest for a safe haven while he and few trusted lieutenants set out to find and distract the Colonel.  Along the way they pick up a sweet mute human girl, whom they dub Nova (Amiah Miller, Lights Out), and then another talking ape, a not entirely sane chimpanzee who calls himself “Bad Ape” because that’s what his human captors called him before the plague.  As voiced by Steve Zahn (Sunshine Cleaning), Bad Ape provides some much-needed comic relief, because this War is dark dark dark.  But it’s well-made, on the whole.  (I did roll my eyes a little in the middle part when the Colonel momentarily turns into a James Bond villain and gives Caesar a massive lecture/monologue to explain why he’s doing what he’s doing and what’s going to happen for the rest of the movie.)

The Edge of Seventeen

From the desk of The Movie Snob.

The Edge of Seventeen  (B-).  This new tale of teen angst stars Hailee Steinfeld (Begin Again) as Nadine, a miserable and thoroughly unpleasant high-school student whose entire wardrobe seems to consist of barely-there skirts and shorts.  Nadine doesn’t get along with either her mom or her older brother.  To make matters worse, her only friend in the world (Haley Lu Richardson, Columbus) starts dating said older brother, which only makes Nadine more miserable and, amazingly, even more unpleasant.  Really, Nadine is so obnoxious and filled with self-loathing that I found it very hard to empathize with her,  She seemed borderline mentally ill.  The movie’s bright spot is Nadine’s friendship with her history teacher, Mr. Bruner (Woody Harrelson, Management).  Bruner’s dryly sarcastic responses to Nadine’s various crises had the whole theater laughing out loud.  Basically, all the scenes involving Bruner are great, and the rest of the movie is so-so.  And please note that the R rating for language and sexual content is well deserved.

Transsiberian

A DVD review from The Movie Snob.

Transsiberian  (C-).  I bought the DVD of this 2008 release from a discount rack a long time ago and finally got around to watching it.  Maybe I was influenced by the 3.5 star rating it got from Roger Ebert, but more likely I just got it because I like the star, Emily Mortimer (Match Point).  I did not care for it.  Mortimer and Woody Harrelson (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire) star as Jessie and Roy, a married couple taking a long train ride–the Transsiberian Express–from Beijing to Moscow after a church trip to China.  They fall in with a slightly shifty couple, Carlos (Eduardo Noreiga, Sweetwater) and Abby (Kate Mara, sister of Rooney Mara, Side Effects).  Suspense builds for a variety of reasons.  Ben Kingsley (Ender’s Game) shows up, suitably reptilian, as a Russian narcotics cop.  I thought the set-up was kind of hokey, and the movie just never really recovered for me.  But it got a 72 on Metacritic, so maybe I’m being a little hard on it.  Note that the film is rated R for “some violence, including torture, and language.”

The Hunger Games

New review from Movie Man Mike.

Hunger Games (B-).  Given how this film has performed at the box office, I’m probably one of the last to see it.  First: the negatives: Surprisingly, this film left me wanting to check my watch 2 or 3 times to see how much longer it had to go, which is a shame.  The pace should have been driven by the action, but it was edited in such a way that the action didn’t really drive the pace.  Many things could have been improved in the way this was presented.  I would have liked to have seen a little more definition of what the relationship was between Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence, Passengers) and Gale Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth, Arkansas).  The filmmakers go to the trouble of showing you what great strength Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson, The Disaster Artist) has, but then you never get to see him use any of that strength.  Donald Sutherland (Forsaken) plays President Snow and he delivers a good performance as usual, but you don’t get enough of a glimpse of what motivates him.  Finally, I would have liked to have seen a little more character development of the bad guys.  You barely get a glimpse of who they are.  I also never really got a good feel for the relationships of the various districts to one another and to what seems to be the capitol city of the planet.  I am sure the books could afford to go into greater depth, but for someone who hadn’t read the books, I was left wanting more.  I had so many questions, like what were the other districts like?  Who was Seneca Crane (Wes Bentley, Interstellar) and how did he get that position?  What was Donald Sutherland’s relationship to it all and how did he get his position?  What did Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks, Definitely, Maybe) and Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson, Management) do when they weren’t training and escorting District 12’s Hunger games participants around?  Now the positives: Woody Harrelson.  He delivers a great performance as Haymitch Abernathy-a former winner of the Hunger Games.  Stanley Tucci (Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters) also gives a nice performance as Caesar Flickerman, the emcee of the games.  And I liked the idea for the story itself—a dystopian society where each year two participants from each district are selected to be part of the hunger games, which are a fight to the death.  The purpose of the games is to serve as a reminder of an ugly rebellion by the districts.  And, as Donald Sutherland puts it, the reason there is a winner at all is that it gives the people something to hope for.  What this film gave me to hope for was better presentation, more detail.  And it is for that reason (hope) that I will probably see the sequel.  Maybe then some of the background detail will be made more evident.

The Hunger Games

Comic Book Guy checks in with a review.

The Hunger Games:  This movie definitely exceeded my expectations. In case you’ve been living in a cave and know nothing about this story, it’s about a dystopian future where children are sacrificed in a gladiatorial reality TV spectacle. Kind of like American Idol meets Ultimate Fighting on steroids. I’ll confess, I enjoyed the books and I thought the film did the first one justice. You don’t need to be a fan to enjoy this film. What is interesting to me is what the film represents. Is it an indictment of pop culture? How ironic given that the Hunger Games personifies pop culture. How about a commentary on the federal  system where the oppressive Capital (the feds) has the impoverished Districts (states) participate in a grotesque spectacle against their will?  Think about the most recent arguments before the USSC. Is it about our national obsession with violence or sports? Or is it just a good action movie? At a run time of over 2 hours, I thought it could have been pared down just a bit, but the film doesn’t drag and is helped out by solid performances by Stanley Tucci (Margin Call) and Woody Harrelson (Solo: A Star Wars Story). Lenny Kravitz (Precious) is a bonus although I think his character is marginal if you don’t know the back story. The writing is solid but unremarkable – although some of the scenes pack an emotional punch. I heard some stifled sobs in the packed theatre during the reaping and after the death of one of the tributes. The hand held camera works for the fight scenes and spares the viewer from too much gore. Again, a solidly crafted film. I give it an “A,” despite the absence of Zombies, Super Heroes or awe inspiring special effects.

Rampart

New review from The Movie Snob

Rampart (C+).  OK, I didn’t set out to see this movie.  I misread a movie guide and went to the Angelika in Dallas to see this Iranian movie A Separation, but I was way off on the time and had to see something else.  I had read a good review of this flick, starring Woody Harrelson (Management) as a dirty cop on the L.A.P.D., so I saw it instead.  I don’t know.  I thought Harrelson was way over the top as Dave Brown, a chain-smoking, civil-rights-abusing cop working the barrio.  The department is already under scrutiny for some other scandal when Brown makes matters worse by getting caught on film beating a guy half to death after he crashes into Brown’s car.  His home life is none too good either, with two ex-wives that he apparently still lives with on some sort of time-share arrangement, and one daughter by each.  As the movie goes on, we find out more and more about Officer Brown, none of it good.  Although the movie felt long (it’s only 108 minutes), and was unbelievable in places, I still found myself wondering what was going to happen next.  And who was going to show up next–the cast includes a remarkable array of stars that I didn’t know were in it, including Sigourney Weaver (Heartbreakers), Steve Buscemi (Fargo), Ice Cube (21 Jump Street), Robin Wright (Blade Runner 2049), and Anne Heche (Cedar Rapids), among others.  It’s arguably worth seeing, but note that its R rating for sex, violence, and language is well-earned.

The Messenger

A new movie review from The Movie Snob

The Messenger (B-). The Dallas Morning News gave this movie a glowing review, so I hurried on out to see it opening weekend. It was good, but far from great. Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery (Ben Foster, X-Men: The Last Stand) is back in the States after being injured in Iraq, and for the last three months of his enlistment period the Army assigns him to the task of notifying the next of kin of soldiers who have been killed (whether in combat or in accidents). He is paired up with a veteran notifier, Capt. Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson, Zombieland), who is a recovered alcoholic and perhaps a touch crazy. The notification scenes really work—I’ve read that Foster and Harrelson weren’t told what was going to happen in those scenes, so their reactions would be more authentic. But the rest of the movie, such as Montgomery’s tentative relationship with a war widow (Samantha Morton, Code 46), generally didn’t feel all that authentic to me. So it’s kind of a mixed bag of a movie. And is it just me, or does Ben Foster’s voice sound just like Michael Douglas’s?

Zombieland

From the desk of The Movie Snob

Zombieland (B-). I’m no horror-movie buff, but I’m kind of developing a taste for zombie movies — or at least ones that have a sense of humor about them, like Shaun of the Dead and this current release. As our movie begins, the zombies have already conquered America, leaving only a very few human survivors. There’s Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg, Adventureland), a neurotic fellow of about 25 who has developed roughly 31 rules for staying alive in Zombieland. There’s Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson, Management), a buff crazy dude who loves to kill zombies. And there are sisters Wichita (Emma Stone, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin, No Reservations). Despite some friction, the four team up and head out west, where they have heard there might not be any zombies. Apparently the zombies hordes have been depopulating themselves somehow, because there really aren’t all that many zombies around, and the movie is largely a road-trip movie with some decently clever dialogue and a truly bizarre but entertaining sequence involving an extended cameo by a major Hollywood star. Don’t get me wrong, there’s some gross zombie stuff too, but not as much as you might expect. Cute little Abigail Breslin is starting to grow up, so we’ll see how she segues into older roles.

If you go see this movie, be advised that there is apparently a final scene after the closing credits, or so I have read. I didn’t know that, so I didn’t stay for it. Dad gum!

Management

Movie review from The Movie Snob

Management (B+). I went into this independent flick with low expectations. The Dallas Morning News reviewer gave it only a C, and I saw a trailer that made it look absolutely terrible. But it stars the irrepressible Steve Zahn (That Thing You Do!), not to mention Jennifer Aniston (We’re the Millers), so I resolved to give it a chance (at a matinee). I was pleasantly surprised. Zahn is well-cast as Mike, a man-child who works (and lives) at a motel owned by his parents in a small town in Arizona. Aniston is Sue, an employee of a company back East that deals in corporate art, i.e., paintings you see in hotel rooms. Mike is understandably smitten when Sue checks into the motel, and he sets out to romance Sue in his own inept fashion–he’s rather like an older and much less worldly Lloyd Dobler from Say Anything. His stalkerish behavior would make him totally unsympathetic–except that Sue, who is sad and dissatisfied with her own life, is not totally unreceptive to Mike’s overtures during her brief stay. That’s all the excuse Mike needs to spend his life savings on a one-way ticket to Baltimore, where he shows up at her office unannounced. Things unspool from there. Woody Harrelson (Zombieland), who is not one of my favorite actors, is perfect as Sue’s former boyfriend Jango, a former punk-rocker turned yogurt mogul. Maybe it was just my low expectations, but I really enjoyed this movie.

A Scanner Darkly

New from The Movie Snob

A Scanner Darkly (B-). First, a word about Philip K. Dick, whose novel is the basis for the movie. Several of his works have inspired movies, most famously Blade Runner, Total Recall, and Minority Report. If you like science-fiction, especially dystopian science fiction, you should give Dick a try. I read a few of his books as a kid, and I generally enjoyed them. Be warned that they are very weird, like Ubik, a story about a gang of psychics whose leader gets killed—and then starts sending them mysterious messages from beyond the grave.

Anyway, Scanner is considered one of Dick’s best books, but I remember trying to read it, getting confused, and eventually giving up. The movie is much more straightforward than I remember the book being. Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves, The Matrix Reloaded) is a dopehead hooked on the horrifically addictive “Substance D,” along with 20% of the population of America. But he is also “Fred,” a narcotics agent assigned to spy on Bob Arctor and his small “family” of fellow dopeheads (Woody Harrelson, Management; Robert Downey, Jr., Iron Man 3; Winona Ryder, Star Trek). When he reports to work, he wears a high-tech, identity-concealing suit so effective that even his bosses don’t know his true identity (although they assume he is either Arctor or one of his cronies). Which is his real identity? Substance D is so powerful and destructive that even he isn’t sure any more. The movie can be taken as a warning against the danger the “war on drugs” poses to our civil liberties, but its unflinching look at the pathetic, brain-damaged drug users seems to justify even harsh measures intended to stem the tide.

A Prairie Home Companion

New review by The Movie Snob

A Prairie Home Companion (B). I saw this movie last weekend, but I’m only now getting around to blogging about it. It’s just a comfortable little movie with a few laughs and a lot of nostalgia. I’ve never listened to Garrison Keillor’s long-running radio show of the same name, but the premise of this movie is that his radio station up in Minnesota has been bought out by some soulless Texas corporation, and the action all takes place during his last show from this old-timey theater. It’s a variety show with performers like a past-their-prime sister act (Lily Tomlin, Nashville; Meryl Streep, Hope Springs) and a couple of joke-telling and singing cowboys (Woody Harrelson, Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri; John C. Reilly, Walk Hard). A very skinny Lindsey Lohan (Mean Girls) shows up as Streep’s suicide-obsessed, bad-poetry-writing daughter. Kevin Kline (My Old Lady) is on hand as Guy Noir, the theater’s bumbling but dapper security chief. And Tommy Lee Jones (The Homesman) shows up as the corporate heavy from the Lone Star State. An enjoyable wisp of a movie.