Author: Amy Diaz

Free Guy (PG-13)

Ryan Reynolds is a video game character who breaks free of his programming in Free Guy, a movie about the nature of existence, the value of creation for creation’s sake and the usefulness of highly recognizable intellectual properties.

There is something unintentionally meta about seeing this movie in a theater due to that last factor (this movie is from Fox, which is now owned by Disney — and that’s as spoilery as I’ll get except to say that if you are inclined to see a movie in the theater this one might be worth it if only for that element).

Is that vague and a little confusing? So are elements of Guy’s (Reynolds) life. Guy wakes up each day, puts on the same blue shirt and khaki pants, orders the same coffee and heads to his job at the bank (where he stamps the day’s date on deposit slips as simply “today”) where he constantly finds himself diving for the floor during one of a countless number of bank robberies every day. The robberies — and the many stick-ups of his friend who works at the corner store and the constant car chase/gun battles and the streets filled with pro-wrestler-ishly attired criminals — are all just a part of life in Free City, which for Guy is the only world he’s ever known but for all the people wandering around causing mayhem is an elaborate multiplayer video game where players earn points for committing crimes and stashing guns and the like. Guy doesn’t know this until he meets Millie (Jodie Comer), a player who doesn’t realize that the suddenly independent-acting Guy is really an NPC — a non-player character.

Millie isn’t just any player, she’s the designer of a game — built to grow and learn but without all the violence and crime of Free City — that she thinks was used without credit (or compensation) to build Free City. She is seeking proof that Free City’s creator, Antoine (Taika Waititi), stole her code and is fairly certain she’ll find it inside the game. When she meets Guy — who has just taken some sunglasses from a player and can suddenly see the various power-ups and game money floating everywhere — she tells him to go level up and then find her if he wants to help her on her quest. To Millie’s surprise, Guy does just that, essentially becoming an in-game superhero by stopping the players from committing quite so much violence on the other NPCs. To Antoine’s surprise, Guy becomes a kind of folk hero to the people playing the game who wonder just what he is and what his actions say about the way they treat the heretofore disposable-seeming NPCs.

As Guy joins Millie on her quest, they both get a little help from Keys (Joe Keery), Millie’s former partner on the possibly stolen video game. He works for Antoine now but he seems ambivalent about the virtual world of Antoine’s that he has helped to create.

I was looking forward to this movie because I thought it looked like goofy Ryan Reynolds fun, kind of a clueless Deadpool with video game-y action. And, sure, there’s some of this; that tone is definitely the way the movie presents itself. But underneath that is something, shockingly, deeper with thoughts about what makes something “living” and what that means — is Guy alive because of the way he acts (unpredictably, with signs of choice and learning and growing) and is Guy human, with all that implies about the worth of his existence (and the wrongness of someone intentionally causing his death), because he seems to be alive? What makes something real — is, as Guy’s NPC friend Buddy (Lil Rel Howery) seems to argue, their existence, video-game-situated though it may be, real because the emotions behind it are real? What does that mean about the players (and what does that mean about their careless violence toward the NPCs in the game)?

This and other questions about the very nature of the story we’re watching are presented with a relatively light touch in the sense that I don’t think the movie necessarily gives us answers. It’s more like it offers up these surprisingly interesting ideas but then plays out this very commercial movie around it, allowing us to both laugh at some Reynolds silliness and leave the theater with some “huh, what is the nature of existence?” type thoughts, without one getting in the way of the other.

Reynolds is able to keep this balance up perfectly; he can offer the sincere-jokey-sincere sandwich required here without it seeming too slick or contrived. And he’s surrounded by a cast — including Comer — who is equally adept at bringing just the right slightly askew energy. Free Guy isn’t exactly what I expected but it was somehow exactly the kind of “fun but with more” movie I needed. B

Rated PG-13 for strong fantasy violence throughout, language and crude/suggestive references, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Shawn Levy with a screenplay by Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn, Free Guy is an hour and 55 minutes long and is distributed by 20th Century Studios.

FILM

Venues

Chunky’s Cinema Pub
707 Huse Road, Manchester;
151 Coliseum Ave., Nashua;
150 Bridge St., Pelham, chunkys.com

Red River Theatres
11 S. Main St., Concord
224-4600, redrivertheatres.org

Rex Theatre
23 Amherst St., Manchester
668-5588, palacetheatre.org

Shows

The Lorax (PG, 2012) a “Little Lunch Date” screening at Chunky’s in Manchester, Nashua & Pelham on Wednesday, Aug. 18, at 11:30 a.m. Reserve tickets in advance with $5 food vouchers. The screening is kid-friendly, with lights dimmed slightly, according to the website.

• Frozen (PG, 2013) at the Rex Theatre, on Wednesday, Aug. 18, 7 p.m. with a portion of the proceeds going to Ballet Misha. Tickets cost $12.

• Walk the Line(PG-13, 2005) a senior showing on Thursday, Aug 19, at 11:30 a.m. at Chunky’s in Manchester, Nashua and Pelham. Admission is free but reserve tickets in advance with $5 food vouchers.

• The Sundance Film Festival Short Film Tour (NR, 2021) at Red River on Friday, Aug. 20, through Sunday, Aug. 22, at 12:30 and 6 p.m.

• Swan Song (NR, 2021) Red River Friday, Aug. 20, through Sunday, Aug. 22, at 1 p.m. and 6:45 p.m.

• CatVideoFest 2021 (NR, 2021) at Red River Friday, Aug. 20, through Sunday, Aug. 22, at 3:15 p.m.

• Pig (R, 2021) at Red River Theatres on Friday, Aug. 20, through Sunday, Aug. 22, at 4 p.m.

• American Graffiti (PG, 1973) screening outdoors in front of the Red River Theatres marquee in downtown Concord as part of Market Days on Friday, Aug. 20, at dusk.

• Theater Candy Bingo on Sunday, Aug. 22, at 6:30 p.m. at Chunky’s in Manchester and Nashua. Admission costs $4.99 plus a box of candy.

• Paw Patrol: The Movie (G, 2021) a sensory-friendly screening, with sound lowered and lights up, on Saturday, Aug. 21, 10 a.m. at O’neil.

• National Theatre Live Skylight a broadcast of a play from London’s National Theatre, at the Bank of NH Stage Sunday, Aug. 22, at 12:30 p.m. Tickets cost $15 ($12 for students).

• Mantrap (1926) silent film directed by Victor Fleming with live musical accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis, on Sunday, Aug. 22, 2 p.m. at Wilton Town Hall Theatre. A $10 donation per person is suggested.

Featured photo: Free Guy. Courtesy photo.

The Suicide Squad (R)

Harley Quinn and a few lesser characters from the first movie return with the added benefit of Idris Elba as Bloodsport in The Suicide Squad, which is somehow the title of this sequel to 2016’s Suicide Squad.

Or not a sequel? I’ve seen this movie talked about as some kind of complete departure from that 2016 film or reboot of the concept, despite some carry-over characters and what, to me, felt like a pretty similar set-up. As with Will Smith’s Deadshot in the first movie, Bloodsport is an imprisoned expert assassin, top-notch marksman and a girl dad who join a Suicide Squad mission to help his young daughter. The last movie had Killer Croc, a kind of crocodile man; this movie has Nanaue (voiced by Sylvester Stallone), a giant shark man. The first movie had Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) selling her “bad people doing good things” idea and she returns for this movie but on the ground a lot of her “America, at any cost” cynicism seems to be delivered by Peacemaker (John Cena), a not super bright take on a flag-waving hero but fairly demented and with a mean, dark streak. Jai Courtney’s Boomerang and Joel Kinnaman’s Rick Flag also return.

The movie starts with the Squad — or Task Force X, as is their official name — in the middle of a mission on the island of Corto Maltese and things are not going well. Then we jump back to see how the squad — or, as we quickly learn, the squads — came together. The overall mission is to sneak into this country that is newly under control of military leaders after a coup and find and destroy the Jotunheim, a secret lab where a project called Starfish, reportedly involving alien tech and some kind of creature, is kept. We can’t have Starfish falling into the wrong hands, Amanda tells the crew, which also includes Polka Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), whose superpowers are shooting deadly polka-dots and really hating his mother, and Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), who much like her late father, Ratcatcher 1, uses a mind control device to call and control rats and also has a rat friend who hangs out with her at all times. Perhaps someone should have mentioned this to Bloodsport, who has a lot of childhood rat-related trauma.

There is a version of this movie that really works, that leans into the whole rat thing (which I think is maybe one of the movie’s better elements) and the cartoony weirdness of some of the characters and the nature of the mystery that is Starfish, which is extremely silly but also fully acceptable in this kind of story and has these little elements of sadness. You get to see about 30 or so minutes of this movie at the end of The Suicide Squad, which, as with last year’s Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), is when the movie really gets going. Ah, this, I found myself thinking while the gang was all together fighting a very campy [spoiler alert], this is a fun movie. Robbie is fun, Elba is fun, all the rat business is skin-crawly but also weirdly fun.

But then there’s everything that comes before this, like 90 minutes of before, when this movie just doesn’t feel switched on. I think part of this is due to a structure that keeps many of the most charismatic characters apart for long stretches of time, which means there are good chunks of this movie when we’re not hanging out with Bloodsport or Harley Quinn or the duo of Ratcatcher 2 and Nanaue. There’s a jerking around of locations (and of the timeline, which does at least come with some visually clever fonts) that I think kept me from getting really engaged in the story. The movie’s whole vibe made me feel like it should have been funnier and more lively than it is. Head-explodiness and general stage gore seems to have replaced aggressive quippiness but after a while feels just as repetitive and wearing.

The Suicide Squad feels like a collection of missed opportunities. C+

Rated R for strong violence and gore (like, so much gore; but silly, in a zombie movie kind of way?), language throughout, some sexual references, drug use and brief graphic nudity, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Written and directed by James Gunn, The Suicide Squad is two hours and 12 minutes long and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. It is in theaters and available on HBO Max through Sept. 5.

Vivo (PG)

An anxious kinkajou travels from Havana to Miami to deliver a musical love note in Vivo, a bright and lovely animated musical with original songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Miranda also provides the voice of Vivo, a kinkajou (a sorta monkey-like animal that Wikipedia explains is in the same family as raccoons). Vivo lives with Andrés (voice of Juan de Marcos González), a musician who performs daily in the square with Vivo singing and dancing along. The two have a happy life until the day that Andrés gets a letter from Miami. Andrés’ onetime musical partner (and the woman he loved but never told his feelings to) Marta Sandoval (voice of Gloria Estefan) is having her farewell concert and would like Andrés to come and maybe even perform. Andrés is excited at the prospect of seeing Marta again and showing her the love song he wrote for her. Vivo is not so sure about all this travel and change.

After first resisting, Vivo comes around to the idea of a Miami trip but when he goes to tell Andrés, he finds his friend has passed away. At a memorial for Andrés, his nephew’s widow, Rosa (voice of Zoe Saldana), and her tween-age-ish daughter Gabi (voice of Ynairaly Simo) come from their home in Key West to pay their respects. Andrés’ friend gives Gabi a suitcase containing some of his old instruments, knowing that Gabi, like her father and great-uncle, loves making her own music. Vivo sees his chance to fulfill Andrés’ wish to give Marta his song and stows away aboard the suitcase.

Once in Key West, Gabi is delighted to learn that Vivo has followed her and is excited to help him fulfill his mission. There are, of course, hurdles: they have to find a way to get to Miami, they have to find a way to ditch Rosa and, once Vivo is spotted, Gabi and her new animal companion are chased by aggressively nature-loving, rules-following Sand Dollar girls (voiced by Katie Lowes, Olivia Trujillo and Lidya Jewett), the scouts that Gabi’s mother would like her to make friends with.

Gabi is a purple-hair, adventure-loving, improvise-her-way-through-situations girl who has had some difficulty building new relationships since the death of her father. Vivo is a plans-and-routine-loving monkey who doesn’t enjoy being out in the big wide world — at least, at first. Their friendship and Miranda’s songs form the core of this movie, with its beautiful tropical colors (including a magical take on a neon-colored Miami) and Latin-inflected music.

Miranda’s songs are very Lin-Manuel Miranda-esque, which I like; it’s been a summer of his music for me, what with In the Heights and my kids getting really into Moana. I found the music here and the different song styles and how they tell the story of the characters they’re connected to really charming and thoughtful. As a piece of art that I enjoyed, Vivo was fully engaging and something I could see myself happily viewing again.

I watched this movie with my kids and the animal antics of Vivo and the songs were a hit with the younger kids, though their attention did wane at parts. (They later watched it about three more times in the space of 12 hours, so the movie clearly grew on them.) My older elementary schooler enjoyed the movie more or less throughout, particularly Gabi, who loves the drums and bright colors and is perfectly happy being who she is.

Vivo is a cheery movie with a nice kid adventure story and some good messaging in all those sunny visuals and songs. A-

Rated PG for some thematic elements and mild action, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Kirk DeMicco and Brandon Jeffords with a screenplay by Kirk DeMicco and Quiara Alegría Hudes, Vivo is an hour and 35 minutes long and distributed by Netflix, where it is available for streaming.

FILM

Venues

Chunky’s Cinema Pub
707 Huse Road, Manchester;
151 Coliseum Ave., Nashua;
150 Bridge St., Pelham, chunkys.com

O’neil Cinemas at Brickyard Square
24 Calef Highway, Epping
679-3529, oneilcinemas.com

Red River Theatres
11 S. Main St., Concord
224-4600, redrivertheatres.org

Rex Theatre
23 Amherst St., Manchester
668-5588, palacetheatre.org

Shows

• Back to the Future (PG, 1985) at the Rex Theatre on Wednesday, Aug. 11, at 7 p.m. with a portion of the proceeds going to SEE Science Center. Tickets cost $12.

• The Goonies (PG, 1985) will screen Wednesday, Aug. 11, at Chunky’s in Manchester, Nashua and Pelham at 7 p.m. including a treasure hunt. Doors open an hour before showtime for a hunt for boxes of goodies. Tickets $4.99.

• 21 + screening of The Goonies (PG, 1985) on Thursday, Aug. 12, at Chunky’s in Manchester, Nashua and Pelham at 7 p.m. with themed cocktails and an in-theater treasure hunt (doors open an hour before showtime). Tickets cost $4.99.

• CatVideoFest 2021 (NR, 2021) screens at Red River Theatres in Concord Friday, Aug. 13, through Sunday, Aug. 15, at 1 and 3:15 p.m.

• Swan Song (NR, 2021) screens at Red River Theatres in Concord Friday, Aug. 13, through Sunday, Aug. 15, a 3:45 and 6:45 p.m.

• Pig (R, 2021) screens at Red River Theatres in Concord Friday, Aug. 13, through Sunday, Aug. 15, a 12:30 and 6:15 p.m.

• Free Guy (PG-13, 2021) a sensory friendly flix screening, with sound lowered and lights up, on Saturday, Aug. 14, 10 a.m. at O’neil Cinema.

• Tangled(PG, 2010) at the Rex Theatre on Tuesday, Aug. 17, at 7 p.m. Tickets cost $12.

• The Lorax (PG, 2012) a “Little Lunch Date” screening at Chunky’s in Manchester, Nashua & Pelham on Wednesday, Aug. 18, at 11:30 a.m. Reserve tickets in advance with $5 food vouchers. The screening is kid-friendly, with lights dimmed slightly.

• Frozen (PG, 2013) at the Rex Theatre, on Wednesday, Aug. 18, 7 p.m. with a portion of the proceeds going to Ballet Misha. Tickets cost $12.

Featured photo: The Suicide Squad. Courtesy photo.

Jungle Cruise (PG-13)

Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt ride the Jungle Cruise, a perfectly enjoyable adaptation of the Disney amusement park ride.

I realize that both by watching this movie and by liking it I’m probably contributing to a world in which this becomes a vast Pirates of the Caribbean-esque universe with a jillion increasingly tiresome sequels. But, for now, for this one film, I’m on board this ride.

It’s 1916 and Lily Houghton (Emily Blunt) is a would-be explorer in a world that’s not super keen on lady explorers. When she attempts to get support from a London-based exploration society for a new expedition, she sends her brother MacGregor Houghton (Jack Whitehall) to give the big speech, which is both an attempt to play to their anti-female-scientists sentiment and a ploy to give her time to steal an artifact from the society’s labs after they’ve turned MacGregor down.

The artifact is an old arrowhead which is part of a legend about a tree called Tears of the Moon that exists somewhere in the Amazon and has petals that are said to have the power to cure all disease. Lily is determined to find the tree and help to bring this cure-all remedy to the world.

But she’s not the only one seeking it. Prince Joachim (Jesse Plemons), son of the German kaiser, also wants the tree’s petals so that he can ensure that Germany wins the Great War and so that he personally can rule for generations.

Lily manages to make off with the arrowhead and heads with her brother to Brazil to attempt to locate the tree. She eventually hires Frank (Johnson) and his boat to take her up the river to the spot where she believes she will find the tree. Frank is a jungle cruise operator, famed for having not necessarily the best but definitely the cheapest Amazon day cruise for tourists. He also likes puns and knows how to put on a “wonders of the jungle” show (hired buddies play fierce local warriors; a man-eating hippo is a geographically inaccurate bit of prop-craft). He owes some money to local boat mogul Nilo (Paul Giamatti) and is just down on his luck enough that he agrees to go with Lily and MacGregor on their quest, even though he initially doesn’t think they’ll get all that far in their quest.

Of course, just because Lily was able to get away from Prince Joachim in London doesn’t mean he gave up the search for her or the arrowhead.

Common Sense Media suggests that viewers be 11 years old to ride this ride; I think that’s about right, maybe 11 or 10, depending on the kid. There are some big snakes and some images of people who have been cursed and have become part jungle flora and fauna (sorta in the way that some of the pirates in the Pirates of the Caribbean became part sea creatures). But this is basically a wholesome adventure movie with winning personalities and a very cartoonish villain.

Johnson is a fun guy to hang out with generally and here he is in family-movie top form with an ever so slight amount of crustiness in the beginning and just a big blob of gooey loyalty and honor and benevolence underneath. Blunt is also winning at this kind of character — she’s smart and brave and all her flaws double as adorable quirks (and she’s able to sell that without it becoming syrupy). Whitehall, who starts out by being the obligatory character who is horrified by the jungle and longing for a cocktail by a pool, grows into as close as a movie like this can get to a real character with layers.

Jungle Cruise is not reinventing cinema but it is a solid and charming entry into the family-friendly adventure movie genre. B

Rated PG-13 for sequences of adventure violence, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra with a screenplay by Michael Green and Glenn Ficarra & John Requea, Jungle Cruise is two hours and seven minutes long and distributed by Walt Disney Studios. It is in theaters and available on Disney+ (with a subscription and for an additional $29.99).

Stillwater (R)

Matt Damon plays an American father trying to get his daughter out of a French prison in Stillwater, a movie that feels like it was carefully crafted to earn Matt Damon awards consideration.

Maybe not actual awards, but I feel like Damon and others from this movie could fill out critics’ long lists as possible nominees for, like, best actor, best supporting actress and stuff, come award season.

Bill Baker (Damon) is filling his time while waiting to find another job with an oil company in Oklahoma by working construction, specifically working deconstruction at a town that’s recently been hit by a tornado when we meet him. It’s a perhaps too-tidy metaphor for his life, which is him picking up after a disaster: His daughter Allison (Abigail Breslin) has been in prison in Marseille, France, for five years after being found guilty of murdering her girlfriend, with whom she’d been having relationship woes. Allison insists on her innocence but it seems that past attempts to reopen or appeal her case have failed. Bill comes to France to visit her and she gives him a letter to take to her lawyer, Leparq (Anne Le Ny). Allison has what she thinks is new information that could help her case but the lawyer tells Bill that Allison needs to make peace with her situation as any attempt to reopen the case is basically hopeless. Bill disagrees.

Allison has heard through a professor where she used to go to school that a fellow student was at a party where a guy claimed that he had once stabbed a woman and gotten away with it. The guy had the same name, Akim, as the guy Allison met at a bar on the night of the murder and who she says stole her purse. Despite not speaking French, Bill charges forth to track down Akim in hopes of getting a DNA sample that can be matched to the unknown DNA found at the scene of the murder.

To help with some of the translating and finding his way around the city, Bill turns to Virginie (Camille Cottin), a woman who was temporarily staying with her daughter, Maya (Lilou Siauvaud), in a hotel room next to Bill’s. Eventually, they become friendly enough that Bill rents a room from her in her new apartment and spends afternoons watching Maya — building a family life as he continues to attempt to help Allison.

This movie features some nice performances and some nuanced details. Breslin does a lot in her relatively few scenes. She shows a believable discomfort-in-her-soul as someone wrestling with her current predicament (prison and an uncertain future but also the death of her girlfriend) and past hurts (we learn that her mother died by suicide and Allison and Bill have had a difficult relationship). In the letter that sets off Bill’s search, Allison describes her father as not being capable. Damon is able to show that Bill is hurt by this criticism but also understands why she feels this way and desperately wants to prove her wrong. Damon does a good job of demonstrating the weight of Bill’s life — his disappointments, his failures and his desire to still salvage something for both him and Allison.

Likewise, Cottin is good in her supporting role as a woman who, as her friend suggests, always likes a cause and Bill is her newest one. Bill seems to be both kind of an exotic creature to her — his Oklahoma accent and Midwestern everything — and a tangible focus for her altruistic impulses. The movie is able to give Virginie these qualities but Cottin keeps from being a total caricature. Or, to the degree that she is a little too good to be true (sure, move in! Watch my small child! I’ll help you interview random people!), she keeps the character from seeming too unrealistic.

The movie does seem to underline its points and character beats a lot — I’m not really sure why it needed to clock in at nearly two and a half hours. And the movie’s final third feels a little … much. But in the mix are nice moments of Bill and Allison sitting by the ocean or Allison and Virginie talking about Bill and Allison’s inner nature or some scene of Bill relating to Maya. It’s all good, above-average completely fine stuff that just doesn’t feel terribly sticky. The result is a movie that I’m not sorry to have watched but that I feel fairly certain I’m going to mostly forget about in a month. B-

Rated R for language, according to the MPA at filmratings.com. Directed by Tom McCarthy and written by Tom McCarthy & Marcus Hinchey and Thomas Bidegain & Noé Debré, Stillwater is two hours and 19 minutes long and distributed by Focus Features. It is screening in theaters.

FILM

Venues

Chunky’s Cinema Pub
707 Huse Road, Manchester;
151 Coliseum Ave., Nashua;
150 Bridge St., Pelham, chunkys.com

The Flying Monkey
39 Main St., Plymouth
536-2551, flyingmonkeynh.com

Red River Theatres
11 S. Main St., Concord
224-4600, redrivertheatres.org

Rex Theatre
23 Amherst St., Manchester
668-5588, palacetheatre.org

Shows

• Rock of Ages(PG-13, 2012) screening at the Rex Theatre in Manchester on Wednesday, Aug. 4, at 7 p.m. with a portion of the proceeds going to the Manchester Police Athletic League. Tickets cost $12.

• Jaws(1975, PG-13) screenings at Chunky’s in Manchester, Nashua and Pelham Wednesday, Aug 4, through Saturday, Aug. 7, at 7 p.m. plus screenings at 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Tickets cost $4.99.

• Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ(1925) a silent film with live musical accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis on Thursday, Aug. 5, at 6:30 p.m. at the Flying Monkey in Plymouth. Tickets start at $10.

• Ailey (PG-13, 2021) screening at Red River Theatres Friday, Aug. 6, through Sunday, Aug. 8, at 12:45 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.

• Pig (R, 2021) screening at Red River Theatres Friday, Aug. 6, through Sunday, Aug. 8, at 4:45 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

• Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain (R, 2021) screening at Red River Theatres Friday, Aug. 6, through Sunday, Aug. 8, at 3:30 p.m.

• In the Heights (PG-13, 2021) screening at Red River Theatres Friday, Aug. 6, through Sunday, Aug. 8, at 1:15 p.m.

• Matilda (PG, 1996) at the Rex Theatre on Tuesday, Aug. 10, at 7 p.m. with a portion of the proceeds going to SEE Science Center. Tickets cost $12.

Featured photo: Jungle Cruise. Courtesy photo.