Author: Amy Diaz

In The Heights (PG-13)

A group of longtime friends and neighbors chase their various dreams In The Heights, the film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first big hit Broadway musical.

Unlike last summer’s Hamilton, which was a filmed version of the stage production, this movie takes us into Washington Heights with characters walking through a (mostly) real world (with occasional forays into delightful fantasy).

Usnavi (Anthony Ramos) owns and operates a bodega but dreams of the day when he can move to Dominican Republic, where his late parents were from, and own a bar on the beach. He employs his teen cousin Sonny (Gregory Diaz IV) and lives with Claudia (Olga Merediz), whom he and everybody in the neighborhood call Abuela, though she’s not technically his grandmother. When it seems like his dream might become a reality, he considers taking both Sonny and Abuela with him.

But of course leaving Washington Heights would mean leaving Vanessa (Melissa Barrera), the girl he’s known forever but still doesn’t seem to know how to get up the courage to ask out. Vanessa also has her leaving-the-neighborhood dreams, in the form of an apartment downtown and a career involving fashion. For now she works at a local salon (with characters played, delightfully, by Stephanie Beatriz, Daphne Rubin-Vega and Dasha Polanco).

Vanessa’s friend Nina (Leslie Grace) has moved outside the Heights. She’s home for summer after her first year at Stanford and even though her college career is the pride of the neighborhood she is torn about returning to school the next year. She didn’t feel welcomed or like she fit in there.

Nina dropping out would break her father Kevin Rosario’s (Jimmy Smits) heart, especially since he sold part of his taxi business to pay for her tuition. But her living nearby would suit his dispatcher Benny (Corey Hawkins), Nina’s high school sweetheart, just fine.

And to all this inner turmoil and drama add a crushing heat wave that eventually snuffs out the power neighborhood-wide.

I’m not the first critic to observe that after the last year and a half out here in the real world (or, I guess, stuck inside here in the real world), the world of In The Heights with its packed dance floors and street parties and people hanging out with each other feels like a color-saturated peek at some glorious forgotten existence. If you’re not quite ready to squeeze into a space at a bar, perhaps viewing In The Heights in a theater with other humans is a good reentry outing. Or you could watch it at home on HBO Max until July 11. Or both! (I didn’t immediately watch the movie again after the first viewing but I guarantee between the time I write this and the time you read it I will have seen at least parts of it several more times.)

I won’t pretend to have any objective chill about this movie. I’ve been excited about it since I first saw the trailers a hundred years ago in the pre-pandemic times and I was excited when I sat down to watch it and I was excited throughout. This movie is great fun. It is jam packed with music and dancing thoroughly soaked with Latin and hip-hop influences. Even though this is a movie with a fairly high number of core characters, everybody has the space to create a relatively fleshed out person with a mix of motivations and desires and complexities. And, though the movie clocks in at nearly two and a half hours, it all feels like two and a half hours well spent. (And if the movie wanted to slow down to spend more time showing us the arroz con pollo, pasteles and the rest of the dinner spread at a big set-piece party in the middle of the movie, I wouldn’t have minded that either.) Even when the movie wanders into slightly syrupy territory the charm of the whole endeavor keeps the train from ever jumping the track.

Is this movie perfect? If it’s not, it is at least perfectly suited to my entertainment needs at the moment. Does it have flaws? Probably, but I was too busy being delighted to really take note of them. I’ll go watch it a couple dozen more times and let you know. A

Rated PG-13 for some language and suggestive references, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Jon M. Chu with a screenplay by Quiara Alegría Hudes (from the musical with a book by Hudes and music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda), In The Heights is two hours and 23 minutes long and is distributed by Warner Bros. in theaters and on HBO Max.

Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway (PG)

Peter Rabbit and friends get up to more mischief while their human caretakers are just as weird as ever in Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway, a live-action movie filled with animated animals.

Bea (Rose Byrne), the painter who acts as a gentle and forgiving surrogate mother to a bunch of animals living in the country including Peter Rabbit (voice of James Corden), marries Thomas McGregor (Domhnall Gleeson), the slightly unhinged nephew of the late, grumpy Mr. McGregor of “Mr. McGregor’s garden/rabbit-pie-maker” fame. After a to-the-near-death battle during the last movie, the younger McGregor and Peter have made peace, even if Peter imagines giving Thomas a few rabbit feet to the face at the idea of his being Peter’s new father figure and Thomas keeps mentioning to Bea how nice it would be to have some human children.

Thomas is nevertheless supportive of their animal-filled life and is even helping Bea self-publish her book about Peter and his siblings — Flopsy (voice of Margot Robbie), Mopsy (voice of Elizabeth Debicki) and Cottontail (voice of Aimee Horne) — and his cousin Benjamin Bunny (voice of Colin Moody). Peter enjoys the fame that comes with being the star of a locally beloved children’s book but he’s not so sure how he feels about being called the naughty or mischievous one. And when big-time publisher Nigel Basil-Jones (David Oyelowo) says Bea’s books could be bestsellers but might she consider painting Peter as more of a Bad Seed, Peter becomes even more uncomfortable with how he’s perceived. While Bea is initially concerned that her bunnyverse will become fodder for some hipped up movie made by an American director (one of this movie’s many winks at itself), she eventually follows Nigel’s suggestions to put the bunnies into more bankable clothes (jeans, high tops) and adventures (space). After all, his other client, who wrote a children’s book about a butterfly, is doing great with his amped up skateboarding butterfly books. Bea’s willingness to compromise isn’t all about earning herself a publishing-house-gifted sports car; she also wants to use the money to preserve even more land for her animals to frolic in, with said frolicking demonstrated by Thomas in a scene that really helps to highlight what a delightful oddball his character is.

Honestly, I could watch a whole movie just about the tightly wound but deeply in love and approval-seeking Thomas and the earnest but kooky Bea. Gleeson and Byrne have great weirdo chemistry and they are both fun characters in their own right.

Of course, this is a movie for kids, so we get bits of these people, probably as a little treat to me and the other adults bringing their kids to this movie, sprinkled in all the animal hijinks. And those are fine too. I feel like the 2018 Peter Rabbit had more murder in everyone’s hearts — Peter and friends trying to kill the new McGregor, McGregor trying to rid his garden of all the animals. Here, it’s more about everyone adjusting to each other or figuring out their roles in this new circumstance. What this means for the movie is more cartoony silliness but less threat of actual harm, which makes the movie more fun overall. My older elementary-school-aged kid had a good time with the movie and laughed out loud several times — as did I, and occasionally we both laughed at the same parts.

During a trip to the city, Peter meets a rabbit who is even more of a grifter named Barnabas (voice of Lennie James). This sets in motion a whole heist sequence that is fun and keeps the energy up in the movie’s second half.

I think Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway improved on the first movie, making this kids property more parent-friendly and easily enjoyable. B

Rated PG for some rude humor and action, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Will Gluck with a screenplay by Will Gluck and Patrick Burleigh (based on the stories and characters from Beatrix Potter’s books), Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway is an hour and 33 minutes long and distributed by Columbia Pictures. It is currently in theaters.

Featured photo: The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (R)

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (R)

Lorraine and Ed Warren once again battle the demonic in The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, a perfectly acceptable bit of old-fashioned good-versus-evil horror.

I’ve always liked the chemistry between Vera Farmiga’s Lorraine, who can see and even communicate with a spiritual realm, and Patrick Wilson’s Ed, who in this movie literally holds her purse. The pair show up with their years of experience in investigating the supernatural and set up cameras and holy water and tackle each incident with a combination of belief and a follow-the-evidence approach to untangling how someone or someplace has become demon-inflicted. But they are also a married couple who really seem to like each other and who have just enough of a sense of humor about what they do — such as when Lorraine makes a joke about having met Elvis both before and after he died. They’ve always been good characters and this movie uses them more or perhaps just more centrally than I (dimly) remember in the previous two movies.

Here, we catch up with Ed and Lorraine during the exorcism of 8-year-old David Glatzel (Julian Hilliard). He’s giving the full demon performance — face boils, cringing when hit with holy water, contorting his body unnaturally. Though in the body of a child, the demon is strong enough to knock around all the other exorcism participants — the priest, David’s parents (Paul Wilson, Charlene Amoia), David’s older sister Debbie (Sarah Catherine Hook) and Debbie’s boyfriend Arne (Ruairi O’Connor). Horrified at what’s happening, Arne at one point grabs David and yells at the demon to leave him alone; “take me” Arne yells, to which the demon apparently thinks “don’t mind if I do.” David is released by the demon and Ed sees Arne soak up the creepy make-up job of the demon face.

Unfortunately, the demon knocks Ed out of commission for a bit, so he can’t warn Arne and Lorraine about what has happened. Soon, though, Arne, Debbie and all the dogs at the kennel they live above know that something is up.

The big evil here is not quite as visually interesting as a creepy doll or an even creepier nun, the baddies in previous Conjuring universe movies. But that’s OK; the movie takes the emotions of the situations seriously and serves up scariness in the moment but it doesn’t seem super concerned with selling you on its big demon narrative or connecting back to story points in previous Conjurings (though there are fun little Easter eggs). You can be in this movie for Ed and Lorraine and their married-couple-investigating-weirdness situation without really having to spend a lot of brain power remembering anything to do with the demon. It’s bad, it wants to do bad things. Sure, you could ask a bunch of “why” questions, but you could just let Farmiga and her late-1970s/early1980s riff on Victorian collars and sleeves kind of carry you through the movie. (I thought way more about Lorraine’s various looks than the story’s demon/exorcism mythology.)

So is tone why I find these movies basically, low-effort enjoyable? Everybody hits the right energy level, the right taking-it-seriously level — is that plus the Farmiga-Wilson duo the secret sauce of the Conjuring movies? Whatever it is, The Devil Made Me Do It, which is in theaters as well as on HBO Max, is another example of that kind of well-made, medium quality, enjoyable but forgettable horror. B-

Rated R for terror, violence and some disturbing images, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Michael Chaves with a screenplay by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It is an hour and 52 minutes long and is distributed by Warner Bros. in theaters and on HBO Max through July 4.

Featured photo: The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (R)

A Quiet Place Part II (PG-13)

The soft-steps-and-muffled-screams family from the first movie must seek a new safe haven in A Quiet Place Part II, the sequel to the 2018 horror sci-fi which is screening only in theaters.

After looking back at Day 1 of the invasion of the sound-sensitive giant-stick-insect-y aliens, the movie picks up right where the first one left off, with father Lee (John Krasinski, also the movie’s director) dead, and recently postpartum mother Evelyn (Emily Blunt) caring for her newborn and fleeing their burning home with her tween-maybe son Marcus (Noah Jupe) and oldest (I think) child, teen Regan (Millicent Simmonds). Regan holds the key to the discovery made at the end of the last movie, which is that her hearing aid, when put next to a microphone, creates a feedback noise that incapacitates the aliens (who hunt humans using sound, thus the constant need for quiet) and leaves them vulnerable to being shot or otherwise destroyed.

The family heads out, eventually meeting up with Emmett (Cillian Murphy), a friend from before (whom we see in the Day 1 scenes) at a factory that offers some protection in various underground soundproof-ish rooms. He is grizzled and broken and not eager for houseguests, but he takes pity on the whole new baby situation and lets them stay. To distract an injured Marcus, Regan fiddles with a radio lying around Emmett’s lodgings and happens upon a frequency playing “Beyond the Sea” in a loop. Excited about the possibility of other people somewhere in the world and a means of broadcasting the alien-defeating sound, Regan starts to form a plan about how to find the radio station. Meanwhile, Evelyn is busy tending to Marcus and trying to figure out how to keep her baby alive with the small oxygen tank and soundproof bassinet that the family constructed.

Eventually, we get two and sometimes three groupings of characters, facing various dangers on their assorted missions. Even more than in the last movie, Regan becomes the core of the movie here — she is the one thinking of the future when the adults around her are just surviving in the moment.

Part II does many of the same things the first movie did in terms of building suspense, creating terror in small moments and making the emotions of family and parenting part of the fabric of what’s happening. It is, like, 80, maybe 85 percent as successful as the first movie at doing all of this in a way that grabs you and keeps you locked in to the action. I think. I’ll admit that (based on a reread of my review of the first movie) I didn’t find this movie as thoroughly engrossing and entertaining as the last one, but then context is everything. Are the little imperfections here (there is some pretty heavy underlining of plot points; I found myself wondering more about the rules of these aliens than I did in the last movie) more apparent than in the last movie, or am I just in a place where a family surviving worldwide catastrophe is not as much of a fun time at the movies?

All that said, the performances are solid all around. Blunt is really skilled at being this kind of action hero, at blending the emotion of the story with the physicality of whatever struggle her character is dealing with. It gives heft to the role. Simmonds and Murphy do good work, having good fatherly-daughterly chemistry in the part of the story line that puts them together.

I think even if A Quiet Place Part II doesn’t sound like it’s for you right now, it’s worth catching up with at some point if you enjoyed the first movie. B

Rated PG-13 for terror, violence and bloody/disturbing images, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by John Krasinski with a screenplay by Krasinski, A Quiet Place Part II is an hour and 37 minutes long and distributed by Paramount Pictures.

Cruella (PG-13)

Emma Thompson is having a blast, so that’s at least something, in Cruella, the more than two-hour-long Cruella de Vil origin story newly out in theaters and on Disney+.

As a child, little Estella (Tipper Seifert-Cleveland) already had that black-and-white-cookie hairstyle and a feisty nature that made her a fighter when bullies inevitably picked on her. But she had a strong sense of self, a good friend in a young girl named Anita (Florisa Kamara) and a staunchly supportive mother (Emily Beecham).

Tragedy landed Estella alone in London, where she met the young grifters Jasper (Ziggy Gardner) and Horace (Joseph MacDonald). Together with their dogs Buddy and Wink, they create a sort of found family that continues to work together, picking pockets and committing petty thefts, until Estella is Emma Stone aged. But grown-up Jasper (Joel Fry) and Horace (Paul Walter Hauser) can see that Estella still dreams of something more for her life, something of the glamour and fashion she loved so much in her youth. They finagle a spot for her at a posh department store, which helps her get a job for the respected and feared fashion designer The Baroness (Emma Thompson). The Baroness is the top of the heap of the London fashion scene and Estella is at first delighted to work for her. But the more she learns about the Baroness, the more she finds herself harboring thoughts of domination and revenge.

Enter Cruella.

Cruella is what Estella’s mother called her naughtier impulses during her childhood and, after trying so hard to keep a rein on her love of mayhem (most visible in her dying of her hair one solid color), Estella decides to let her hair return to its natural state and let Cruella take the wheel.

With the general meanness of Cruella (saying genuinely mean things to her found family, for example) and all the talk of murder, this is not a kid-friendly movie, in the elementary-school sense of kid. And that’s fine —not everything has to be for everybody. But I did find myself wondering who this movie is for. (I mean, who are any of these live-action Disney movies for other than the studio executives who hope that the combination of known intellectual property and bankable stars equals money and just keep tossing the dice on these things no matter how much they seem like “meh” ideas from the get-go.)

Even so, 90 minutes of this movie, 90 minutes that leaned into the movie’s best elements, would be fine. Thompson is snarling and hissing and just having a great time being a baddie, and that by itself can be a joy to behold. The costumes are awesome — I love the Baroness’s classy looks and Cruella’s punk-er takes. The soundtrack uses some of the best 1960s and 1970s music that money can buy the rights to. That’s all fun. Throw in some heisting and some good business from Stone (she has her moments here, even if it feels like the costumes are frequently driving her performance) and you’ve got a fun if forgettable movie.

But Cruella feels like it goes on forever, without adding much to whatever this movie is trying to do with the character (Maleficent her, I’d imagine, so they can wring a Part II out of this story). She’s not the Disney Harley Quinn (which is how it sometimes feels like she’s being positioned), spunky even in her villainy. She’s not really misunderstood —she’s a jerk, on purpose, because she likes it for a lot of the movie, which doesn’t make her the wronged anti-hero I feel like the movie sometimes wants to paint her as. She’s just, well, a cartoon villain, who, like many a Disney villain, is most interesting in her wardrobe and one-liners, but that doesn’t feel like enough to sustain two hours and 14 minutes. C+

Rated PG-13 for some violence and thematic elements, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Craig Gillespie with a screenplay by Dana Fox and Tony McNamara, Cruella is two hours and 14 minutes long and is distributed by Walt Disney via Disney+ (for $29.99) and in theaters.

Plan B (TV-MA)

High school best friends hit the road in search of the morning-after pill in Plan B, a movie directed by Natalie Morales.

Diligent student Sunny (Kuhoo Verma) is supposed to spend the weekend studying, but when her mom Rosie (Jolly Abraham) goes out of town, Sunny’s best friend, Lupe (Victoria Moroles), convinces her to throw a party. The party is your standard high school movie, spur-of-the-moment scheme to allow Sunny to hang out with Hunter (Michael Provost), her longtime crush.

The party does not go as planned — Hunter leaves with another girl, Lupe’s crush Logan never shows and Sunny, sad and tipsy from a horrible punch bowl concoction of wines, pickle juice and cough syrup, ends up having quick, awkward sex with Kyle (Mason Cook), a boy she isn’t really interested in. The next morning she realizes that there was a problem with the condom and is panicked that she’ll get pregnant and prove correct her mother’s assessment that one mistake can destroy your whole life. Don’t worry, Lupe reassures her, you can get the Plan B pill.

As is apparently true in real life South Dakota, where this movie takes place, Sunny can’t get the Plan B pill because the pharmacist at the drugstore declines to give it to her under the “conscience clause.” To the Planned Parenthood!, Sunny decides, except it is three hours away in Rapid City and she technically doesn’t have a car. Thus begins a chain of events — taking her mother’s car, getting lost, a pit stop so Lupe can see Logan — that leads to Sunny deciding whether to take a random pill sold by a random dude who says it’s probably Plan B, maybe speed but almost certainly not PCP.

Not unlike Unpregnant from last year, Plan B mixes comic riffs on road movie and teen movie cliches with sobering moments that make the movie’s point without turning it into an op-ed. And, also as with Unpregnant, the girls’ relationship — its strengths, its weaknesses, what they mean to each other — is the heart of the story. I like the way it shows Sunny and Lupe as close and able to be more than their parents’ expectations or their school selves with each other and yet they still wrestle with things they can’t tell each other. The movie — and the charming performances by Verma and Moroles — makes these two girls full multilayered people, with more to them than just a teen-movie type. B+

Rated TV-MA, according to Hulu. Directed by Natalie Morales with a screenplay by Joshua Levy and Prathiksha Srinivasan, Plan B is an hour and 47 minutes long and is available on Hulu.

Featured photo: A Quiet Place Part II (PG-13)