Category: Todd’s Movie Reviews

Magic Mike XXL Movie Review

In 2012, I found Magic Mike to be a mostly effective star vehicle for Channing Tatum as a somewhat autobiographical tale of his dancing past. Somewhat surprisingly, he was able to enlist Oscar winning director Steven Soderbergh to bring it to the screen. While I recognize I was far from the film’s target audience, I was able to appreciate its fresh subject matter, even if the screenplay didn’t always deliver. Where it did – Tatum’s turn in the lead and a wildly entertaining supporting performance for Matthew McConaughey in the midst of his career resurgence.

His own Academy Awards glory and busy schedule keeps Mr. McConaughey out of Magic Mike XXL and the absence of his presence is not all right, all right, all right. Also gone is Magic Mike’s understudy Adam (Alex Pettyfer) and his sister Brooke (Cody Horn) who was our title character’s love interest. Gone too (kind of) is Soderbergh, who handed over directorial duties to Gregory Jacobs, but he still handles the cinematography and executive produces.

Watching XXL, I could never shake the feeling that this is a sequel its star and producers probably never figured they’d make. While the original brought audiences into a world you don’t often see portrayed on screen, XXL feels been there, done that with really nothing more to say. Many sequels have the odor of being completely unnecessary and this is one of them.

The pic starts three years after we last left Mike as he continues to get his custom furniture business off the ground. He’s hung up his G string and checked his signature dance moves while recently becoming single after being rebuffed by Brooke. Mike is soon lured back to his band of merry dude strippers for one last event (a Myrtle Beach convention) and their journey there leads to what could be dubbed Magic Mike: Road Trip!!

Along the way, this extremely episodic and poorly paced experience leads them to an African American club owned by an annoyingly overacting Jada Pinkett Smith, to a cougar filled house party that includes Andie MacDowell, and to Mike’s interacting with a new kind of, sort of love interest in an underwritten subplot with Amber Heard. The other boys in the group get perfunctory and dull storylines like Matt Bomer’s longed for singing career.

It all left me with one overall feeling: the world didn’t need a second dose of this. I guess everything about Magic Mike that needed to be said was done so in 2012 and this listless affair proves it. For the female (and male) fans of the original, perhaps the climactic dance grooves at the convention will merit its existence. My suggestion would be to just watch the first one again. It’s no masterpiece, but it almost looks like it compared to this.

*1/2 (out of four)

Room Movie Review

**There are unavoidable spoilers in order to write a proper review of Room. You’ve been warned.

Emotionally gripping and powered by a pair of magnificent lead performances, Lenny Abrahamson’s Room is structured into two sections. Each is filled with fear and each is filled with love and in circumstances unimaginable.

“Room” is a garden shed where Joy (Brie Larson) has been held captive for seven years. Her kidnapper is called “Old Nick” (Sean Bridgers) and his repeated sexual assaults resulted in child (Jack), who turns 5 years old as we open. The first near half of the pic is set in Room and it’s all Jack has ever known. Joy has done her best to raise a smart young boy and had to be creative about explaining other people on their TV set, among many other things.

Jack’s advancing age allows Joy to begin telling him kernels of the truth and she soon enlists him to participate in a daring escape. The sequence in which this is pulled off is one of the more suspenseful I’ve seen recently as we grow attached to this mother and son. In a conventional thriller, this would be fade out. Yet once free, they must adjust to life outside that tiny shed that Jack believed was the universe. This is Room’s second act.

Joy is reunited with her parents, who bear their own scars from losing their teenage girl. Items like phones and stairs are foreign objects to their grandson. And while Jack eventually begins to conform to his seemingly alien world, it’s Ma (as he calls her) who struggles the most.

Room is told from the perspective of Jack, who’s narration pops up voicing over his views of what’s happening. Obviously he has no clue of the horrific situation he’s been raised in. Based on Emma Donoghue’s novel that she herself adapted here, the pic is often graced with subtle and moving moments. The dynamics of Joy and her family members aren’t over explained upon her return and don’t need to be.

While its screenplay and direction are impressive, it’s unquestionably the work of Larson and Tremblay that put this material on an even higher level. Larson has a challenging role and there’s a lot of subtext involved. Her journey after her escape isn’t an obvious one and the actress has us with her the whole way. Perhaps even more awe inspiring is Tremblay, who gives one of the most natural heart wrenching child actor performances I’ve ever seen.

Both inside and outside that shed, Room grabs us with its visions through the innocent eyes of a boy living in two vastly different worlds with one common bond.

***1/2 (out of four)

The Night Before Movie Review

Far from a Christmas comedy classic nor a lump of coal, The Night Before gives us a drug fueled holiday happening from the team of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. They’ve penned better work in the form of Superbad, Pineapple Express, and This is the End and this is more on the level (though not tone) of the hit or miss humor of The Interview.

Before centers on three friends who have a Christmas Eve tradition of spending their time together after Ethan’s (Joseph Gordon Levitt) parents died. His supportive buddies are Isaac (Rogen) and Chris (Anthony Mackie) and they’ve agreed that their 14th year of buddying up will be their last. Isaac is married and ready to become a first time dad and Chris is a famous NFL player. Their lives are moving on while Ethan remains aimless, especially after a recent breakup with the lovely Lizzy Caplan. The boys make sure their final excursion is hopefully a memorable one when Ethan scores tickets to the Nutcracker Ball, an NYC kick ass bash they’ve only heard about in mythological terms.

Getting there is a challenge for many reasons. Isaac’s wife (Jillian Bell, who stole scenes in 22 Jump Street and does here) gives him a night to let his freak flag fly and that means lots of narcotics. Chris gets caught up with the wrong woman and is preoccupied with impressing his newer celebrity friends. Ethan is struggling with the knowledge that life’s traditions are changing.

While The Night Before is centered on these sometimes not so wise men, some supporting players shine. This holds especially true for Michael Shannon’s drug dealer character, who seems to possess powers even more potent than his weed. Mindy Kaling amusingly turns up and there’s some fairly effective (if obvious) celebrity cameos sprinkled in.

The proceedings don’t really pick up steam until close to the hour mark and what comes before it is often ho (ho) hum. Ethan and Chris’s storylines are just OK and the biggest guffaws come from Isaac on his pharmaceutically fueled journey. One wonders how good this could’ve been if it focused solely on him. The Night Before has its laughs to be sure, but it’s on the lower end of what these writers have accomplished before.

**1/2 (out of four)

Steve Jobs Movie Review

Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs is a masterwork in editing, use of music, and fine performances doused with the dialogue that is unmistakably that of Aaron Sorkin. The man in the title, played by Michael Fassbender, is presented as he’s often said to have been: frustrating. There are certainly times in this picture where the audience will be angry at Mr. Jobs and Sorkin’s script doesn’t sugarcoat his considerable flaws, which include his inability to acknowledge his own daughter. At the same time, this is a work that appreciates its central character, imperfections and all.

The film is constructed much like a play and in three acts centered around the launch of the Apple Founder’s products. In 1984, it’s the Macintosh. In 1988, the failed NeXT computer after Steve had been dumped from his own company. In 1998, the iMac which helped lead to iEverything and market domination. Through this 14 year journey, we meet the people who populate this temperamental genius’s life. There’s his marketing exec Joanna (Kate Winslet), constantly by Steve’s side and witness to historical triumphs and her boss’s failures. Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen) is the jilted company cofounder who kept Apple afloat for many years while Jobs got all the credit. John Sculley (a typically rock solid Jeff Daniels) is the CEO who is both an enemy and father figure. And the biggest through line comes from Lisa, the daughter that Steve can’t bring himself to properly father.

Steve Jobs eschews the conventional cliches of a biopic, just as the man who hated conventional may have preferred. While Fassbender doesn’t exactly resemble Steve, his performance is quite an accomplishment and succeeds in nailing down his complexities. The loyal yet often flustered Joanna is brought to life wonderfully by Winslet. Sorkin’s well known snappy dialogue should please his many admirers and the story structure is creative enough that you probably won’t quibble with reported historical inaccuracies. Truth be told, no two hour tale could properly nail presenting the enigmatic title subject, but Steve Jobs the film has a talented team doing their level best.

Love or hate him or (like most) appreciative and confounded by him, this picture fascinatingly is another puzzle piece of the man whose existence constantly is at our fingertips.

***1/2 (out of four)

Spotlight Movie Review

“If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one.”

This line best encapsulates the theme of Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight, which matter of factly tells the riveting true story of the Boston Globe’s slow uncovering of the Catholic Church priest sex abuse scandal. It also tells a small town coverup tale and that “small town” is Boston, where some of the reporters run in the same circles of the church hierarchy and people who protect them.

Spotlight refers to a four person investigative reporting team at the Globe led by Robby (Michael Keaton). The rest of the gang is played by Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, and Brian d’Arcy James. They are worried about their ability to take their time on stories and do things their way when new editor Marty (Liev Schrieber) is brought in from Miami. Their fear is confirmed not in the way they expect – Marty wants them to delve even deeper into their stories and he doesn’t fret about hometown repercussions. And the story he wants them to spotlight is allegations of priests molesting children over many decades and the victims who are living with their past experiences.

The reporters soon eventually uncover a plot with a scope previously unimaginable. Like that line of dialogue spoken by Stanley Tucci’s dedicated and overwhelmed attorney character, many in Boston’s village knew what was occurring. Yet few of them felt it was their responsibility to blow the whistle. Those who did often found it fell on deaf ears. This extends to the Globe as some of their personnel saw traces of the horror to be revealed later. McCarthy’s film admiringly recounts the process that journalists go through to uncover the story, but it doesn’t totally absolve some of them for their failure to act sooner. In fact, some of the principals on the other side involved wonder what took them so long.

Spotlight is filled with a sterling cast with superb performances down the line. It’s led by Keaton’s hometown boy who seems to know everyone and wants to do the right thing. Schrieber impresses in his role as the outsider who isn’t interested in a one day article. He and the team from Spotlight soon find their story is widespread and terrifying. It drives the point home that in these circumstances, often it’s assumed that someone else will say something and soon it’s a village of people not doing so or not listening. Spotlight expertly tells us how these reporters got to the point where silence was no longer acceptable and the noise you’ll hear at the end of this story will feel like powerful vindication.

***1/2 (out of four)

Entourage Movie Review

Vince, Eric, Drama, Turtle, and Ari are back in action in Entourage, the film that continues the HBO comedy that ran for eight seasons and concluded in 2011. Creator Doug Ellin handles the writing and directing duties and even producer Mark Wahlberg cameos (the show is based loosely on his experiences and his posse). When the show premiered, it had a nice run of being an entertaining novelty that allowed audiences to feel like bystanders watching a megastar and his buddies living the high life in Tinseltown. By about the midpoint of its existence, the show kind of ran out of steam. Simply put, said novelty started to wear and many of the principle characters simply weren’t interesting or three dimensional enough to sustain an eight year airing.

Unfortunately, Entourage: The Motion Picture does little to seem any different than a padded episode in the series later weaker seasons. To catch up: huge movie star Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) is recently divorced after a nine day period of wedded bliss and looking to direct. His manager Ari (Jeremy Piven) secures $100 million plus for a strange looking sci fi/action rendering of Jekyll and Hyde dubbed “Hyde”. The fact that it goes over budget creates problems with the picture’s co-financiers, a wealthy Texas businessman (Billy Bob Thornton) and his sleaze bag son (Haley Joel Osment). Eric (Kevin Connolly) is still in his ongoing off and on romance with a very pregnant Sloan (Emmanuelle Chriqui) and sowing his oats during a break. Vince’s always struggling actor brother Johnny Drama (Kevin Dillon) is still struggling and living under his baby bro’s more attractive shadow. Turtle (Jerry Ferrara) is living the high life (literally and figuratively) from his thriving tequila business money and in a potential romance with Ronda Rousey.

We are treated once again to the glamorous life of this crew and their huge parties chock full of celebrity cameos, including a number of the New England Patriots. Like on the show, many of the genuinely funny moments do come from Piven’s always high strung Ari, including his therapy sessions with his long suffering wife. As for other performers, both Grenier and Connolly are a bit dull. Dillon’s Drama veers between humorous and annoying (as he did on HBO). Turtle is Turtle. And for those wondering about Haley Joel Osment after all these years, he doesn’t do himself many favors with this over the top Southern yokel part. If you truly loved the show, you might eat this up. Yet if you’re like me and believe it got long in the tooth, this will likely feel highly unnecessary.

** (out of four)

The Intern Movie Review

Nancy Meyers brings her brand of comedic drama featuring a strong female character to the screen once again in The Intern. This time it’s Anne Hathaway as Jules, the CEO of a flourishing NYC online fashion company who’s struggling to balance her harried work life with her personal one. The latter includes her stay at home husband (Anders Holm) and little girl. Jules finds someone to assist with that balance in the form of Ben (Robert De Niro). He used to work at a phone book company (an obsolete business) and he’s battling general boredom in his retirement. The 70 year old widower decides to apply for a senior internship with Jules’s company and he’s soon assigned to work directly under her.

The Intern explores the issues of Jules deciding whether or not to hand control of the business over to an outside CEO. There’s also some marital issues at hand and her ongoing frustration with her distant mother, which helps explain some of her own personality quirks. We have Ben’s burgeoning romance with the company’s in house masseuse (Rene Russo). As the over two hour tale unfolds, the pathos level continues to increase as Ben and Jules become closer.

It’s all perfectly pleasant, continually earnest, and sad to say – a little dull. Hathaway’s performance gives her an interesting and strong character to play with, even if her work here comes off a bit mannered occasionally. De Niro is in Mr. Nice Guy mode and he’s just fine, even if this part isn’t exactly challenging in any way.

Frankly, there’s not much else to say here. The Intern can be a little bland but it’s engaging enough to not be a total waste of time. Faint praise, I recognize. If you’ve enjoyed Meyers pics such as What Women Want, Something’s Gotta Give and It’s Complicated, you’ll probably think this is decent.

**1/2 (out of four)

The Big Short Movie Review

There’s a fine line between comedy and tragedy and it’s explored in sometimes serious and often darkly funny detail in Adam McKay’s The Big Short. Based on Michael Lewis’s book detailing the people who correctly predicted the housing bubble that burst wide open in 2008, Short chronicles their stories while condemning so many who looked the other way. Prior to this, director McKay has been solely known for Will Ferrell comedies and some of them (The Other Guys and even Anchorman 2) nibbled around the edges with the subject of corporate greed. With this film, McKay manages to balance a complex issue foreign to most viewers while infusing it with much needed humor. It helps because without it, we might just want to scream at the screen for two hours and that still happens from time to time.

Michael Burry (Christian Bale) is a highly eccentric hedge fund honcho who figures out that something is majorly wrong with our nation’s housing market about three years before the foundation totally collapses. His timely discoveries are met with skepticism from nearly all corners. The exceptions are from Ryan Gosling’s bond salesman, Steve Carell’s unhappy Wall Street hedge fund manager, and a duo (John Magaro and Finn Wittlock) trying to take their fledgling business into the NYC scene. They all come to believe Burry’s siren calls and they all try to maneuver their way to profit off it. There are no real heroes here, but they really have no idea at first just how corrupt the system is that’s creating the impending doom.

McKay realizes that the many Wall Street technical terms are, frankly, confusing as hell. In a nice stroke, he enlists celebrities like The Wolf of Wall Street ingenue Margot Robbie and others to creatively explain what we are witnessing. It helps, but the director and his cowriter Charles Randolph delve into a deeper truth: no one really understands what’s happening or are willing to own up to it while billions of dollars line the pockets of many. Meanwhile, scores of people believe they can actually afford the pretty home they dwell in.

The Big Short hearkens back to 1970s filmmaking in certain manners. It’s political, has a point of view, and isn’t afraid to show it. If you felt McKay’s annoyance at the elite crowd in those Ferrell pics, this opens up an unmistakable furious floodgate. He’s enlisted a stable of talented performers to tell the tale. In particular, Bale continues to demonstrate his ability to disappear into a role while Carell continues to show his dramatic abilities are just as strong as his comedic ones. Brad Pitt also turns up as an ex banker who helps uncover the fraud. The screenplay provides many guffaws, but this is not a “comedy”, no matter what the awards shows portend. And a well deserved shout out goes to Hank Corwin, the picture’s editor who does a masterful job.

You’ll likely cringe while you’re laughing and that’s the way McKay wants it. The biggest scare is that this effort doesn’t pretend like the crisis explained here won’t occur once again. According to The Big Short, believe it won’t at your own risk and don’t bet the house on it.

***1/2 (out of four)

Black Mass Movie Review

Scott Cooper’s Black Mass features a remarkable performance by Johnny Depp in a rather unremarkable telling of a fascinating true life gangster tale. Taking place over a number of years starting in the mid 1970s, Mass concentrates on the Boston reign of James “Whitey” Bulger, a notorious crime kingpin who was able to evade the law due to his status as an FBI informant. Much of his leeway is due to his friendship dating from childhood with agent John Connolly (Joel Edgerton). Their union allows Bulger to roam the Bah-ston streets freely while giving up info that has the added benefit of eradicating his North Side Mob enemies. Connolly’s longtime connection leaves him either oblivious to who Whitey really is or perhaps a willful co-conspirator.

The film is told in a predictable flashback style as Whitey’s former associates are being questioned by authorities. For anyone who’s watched the news in the last few years, you’ll probably know the real Bulger successfully was a very wanted fugitive for quite a while. We don’t really become acquainted with these witnesses or the law enforcement agents outside of Connolly, but there’s lots of familiar faces playing them. On the good guy side, we have Kevin Bacon, Corey Stoll, and David Harbour (who is afforded a chilling dinner table scene with the star). Whitey’s henchman are played effectively by Rory Cochrane and Jesse Plemons. Benedict Cumberbatch’s role as Whitey’s politician brother is also underwritten and Dakota Johnson has a brief role as the criminal mastermind’s first wife. The best bit part belongs to Peter Sarsgaard as a coked out associate mixed up with Bulger’s corrupt involvement in World Jai Alai. That subplot, by the way, practically begs for its own feature if done right. Edgerton’s work is commendable and convincing as we slowly learn the dynamics of his relationship with the informant he’s known for decades and the ties that bind them.

Yet this is unquestionably the Johnny Depp Show. His menacing performance, with his giant baby blues and slicked back receding mane, reminds us of just how terrific this man can be. Depp’s trademark eccentricities are on display, but they feel necessary in service to the role he’s playing and not just present for the sake of being weird. It’s something that downgraded recent performances from him and his intense persona here is a breath of fresh and scary air. Truth be told, though, the moments here when Depp’s Bulger is terrorizing his associates are often the only scenes that generate real excitement.

That said, true story or not, little else feels fresh about Black Mass. We’ve seen a number of similar genre tales (some set in Boston) mingling the worlds of crime, law, and politics with greater effectiveness. One that immediately springs to mind is Scorsese’s The Departed, in which Jack Nicholson plays a more fictionalized version of Bulger. Many of the plot points that show up in Mass are contained in The Departed and it’s far more fascinating in the latter. That Boston gang drama earned Best Picture. Black Mass earns credit for allowing Depp to make this role a memorable one. For that reason alone, it’s probably worth a look for his many fans even if the material surrounding it is familiar and a little tiresome.

**1/2 (out of four)

The Visit Movie Review

M. Night Shyamalan burst onto the film scene with a trilogy of highly effective pictures that had critics and audiences alike cheering – The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs. There were comparisons to Hitchcock and Spielberg. The acclaim was earned. With 2004’s The Village, while still a hit, crowds and those like me who write about the medium began to tire of the shocking twist endings and stilted dialogue that populate his efforts (I actually dug The Village quite a bit). Two years later, with Lady in the Water, his fans had tuned out and it was to understand why with that bizarre picture (it’s a disappointment not without some merits in my estimate). 2008’s The Happening was where a new level of low came with the director. It was the first one to me that truly encapsulated the bad M. Night with very little of the good. Worse yet, it was boring.

His return to the genre that made him beloved and also scorned is The Visit. It takes the common occurrence of visiting the grandparents for a week to some serious extremes. There is laughable dialogue that I’m firmly convinced its writer/director wants us to be chuckling at. There are also some genuinely “boo” suspenseful moments. And in what we’ve come to also suspect from its maker, there are decisions with character traits that are just baffling. Some of the other lines intended for comedy fall incredibly flat. The teenage characters don’t sound like teenagers when they speak. And Shyamalan seems to almost be thumbing his nose at the audience with the choice to shoot in found footage form, which has become horror’s most overused cliche in recent times.

The Visit takes a teenage sister (Deanna Dunagan) who loves to shoot her video camera (hence our well worn found footage) and her younger brother (Peter McRobbie) to grandma and grandpa’s remote Pennsylvania home for a week. The catch? They’ve never met them. Their single mom (Kathryn Hahn) had a fall out with them years ago and is reluctant to let her kids spend time there. This leads to the other catch: Grandma (Olivia DeJonge) and Grandpa (Ed Oxenbould) might just be completely bonkers. It starts out somewhat slowly (per usual in this director’s way): creepy games of hide and seek turn to the Grandma’s night terrors or “sun downing” (which would’ve been a cooler title) to… well, let’s just say adult diapers are involved.

There’s the patented Night twist that you’ll see coming, I suspect. Yet that’s not really the point here. With The Visit, Shyamalan seems to be parodying the type of picture he’s become famous and infamous for. And there’s no doubt that some of this worked for me and did indeed produce a knowing smile and raised arm hair from time to time. There’s also no doubt that I found a lot of The Visit to be just way too self-aware and poorly written. Just because it might be sending up found footage doesn’t make it any less cheap looking and, truth be told, we’ve seen it used more effectively. That precocious younger brother fancies himself a rapper and it’s perhaps even more grating than you might be imagining. Shyamalan directed one child actor to an Oscar nomination with his breakout, but the adolescent youngsters here are serviceable at best and horrifying when hip hop is brought into it. It’s DeJonge who brings the creepy goods and those arm hair moments are almost solely due to her.

We have witnessed this filmmaker give us examples of horror/suspense that are first rate and low rate. The Visit, with its tongue in cheek, is written in a manner that’s just as bizarre as the movie’s hosts. There were times I felt like I was right there with what Night was trying to accomplish with the so bad it’s good vibe and others where I felt baffled. It belongs nowhere near what Shyamalan has accomplished early in his career nor in the basement with The Happening (or his later sci efforts The Last Airbender and After Earth). My best compliment for this all over the place experience? This particular happening isn’t boring.

**1/2 (out of four)