Author: Amy Diaz

A young woman becomes a warrior in Mulan, a very pretty, vaguely unsatisfying live-action remake of Disney’s 1998 animated movie.

From the time she is a little girl, the Force is strong with Mulan (Liu Yifei), who is expected to do girly things like be calm and put up with the matchmaker but would prefer to ride horses and sword fight. Her father (Tzi Ma) sees that Mulan has a strong life force (treated here as near superhuman agility and dexterity) but tells her to hide it because these skills aren’t something anybody has on their wife-qualities wish list.

But then invaders attack the empire and the emperor (Jet Li) tells his army to conscript one man from every family. This means Mulan’s dad must march into battle, since his only children are Mulan and her sister (Xana Tang). Mulan’s mother (Rosalind Cho) tells the girls that their father, who still has a leg injury from his previous military service, won’t live through this battle, so Mulan takes his sword and his armor and sneaks off herself, posing as a boy and immediately volunteering for nighttime guard duty so she can avoid showering with the guys, especially friend and competitor Honghui (Yoson An).

The invaders they’re training to fight are led by Bori Khan (Jason Scott Lee), a jerk, and Xianniang (Li Gong), a witch who is helping Bori Khan despite the fact that he is a super jerk to her, a witch, with all sorts of powers that would seem to make Bori Khan unnecessary to her goals.

And as I’m writing this, “super-soldier versus witch” sounds like a fun fantasy action tale but that pared down description is way more interesting than the movie we are given.

Mulan is beautiful to look at — eye-catching color and detail-rich when it comes to costumes, cinematography and production design. There are so many moments when I was ignoring the story and just taking in the shot of the Imperial City or a lone rider in the desert. This movie’s visuals are Oscar-worthy work and it will be interesting to see if top shelf work that went the home viewing distribution route gets the same award season consideration as theatrical releases.

Mulan’s visuals and my total lack of a connection to the 1998 animated movie probably resulted in my enjoying the experience of watching this movie more than I would based on story alone. This movie reminded me a bit of 2017’s Beauty and the Beast, where you could feel it trying to update-for-2020 elements of the story with mixed results. Mulan pushes romance to the very edge of the story (which is fine) and sets up a theme of “take your place” versus “know your place,” a promising idea that at times is presented clunkily, as though there is still some first-draft-iness that needs to be worked out. Xianniang and Mulan become the center of the story’s struggle and they meet a few times and trade extremely straightforward dialogue on their respective motivations. I feel like the movie hadn’t totally figured out what it wanted to say with these two characters and their different (sort of?) approaches to being powerful women in a man’s world. The result is an arc for Mulan that feels underwhelming and not as well developed as I’d expect for such an established character.

That said, the viewers Mulan is meant for (probably kids of about age 10 to 15 or 16; Common Sense Media gives it an age 11+) will be getting a decent, non-gory action movie in exchange for their $30. Liu Yifei is a solid enough lead who carries off the acrobatics of her fight scenes well; they are probably the most joyful scenes of the movie. And, while not quite the experience of seeing, say, a battlefield avalanche on the big screen, the movie is visually stunning enough to transcend even the limitations of a medium-sized TV. B-

Film Reviews by Amy Diaz

John David Washington is exactly the A-list blend of dramatic gravitas and action chops that he appeared to be in BlacKkKlansman and watching him is the best part of Tenet, Christopher Nolan’s two-and-a-half-hour movie that has been saddled with the job of Saving Movie Theaters.

Will it save movies? According to Variety on Sept. 6, Tenet made a little over $20 million during Labor Day weekend in the U.S. and was at a worldwide total of around $146 million (it opened internationally before it hit screens in the U.S.). When I saw the movie on Sept. 1, I was one of six people in the screening room (which is actually not terrible for a mid-week 6 p.m. movie, based on my experience). So … we’ll see?

About the movie itself: I’ll try not to spoil anything major, but I don’t promise anything, partly because I’m not entirely sure what would be a spoiler. The most basic description for this movie I’ve seen is something like “spy action with sci-fi elements.” To me, it falls in the “Christopher Nolan genre”: There’s a lot of deep bass “wahm wahm”-ing on the score, there’s a pervading sense of doom, there’s a fun Michael Caine scene.

Washington, whose character doesn’t have a name (I didn’t notice that while I was watching it but searching around afterward everything just calls him The Protagonist, which is how he refers to himself a few times), is a CIA-or-something agent whom we first meet while he’s on a mission in the Ukraine. The mission goes sideways but, after some torture and stuff, he is rescued and told he is now part of an even more secret mission, one he is given very little information about other than the word “tenet” and a little fingers-clasp-y gesture.

He partners with Neil (Robert Pattinson), a British intelligence operative, who helps him unravel the origins of some strange weapons he first saw in Ukraine. The movie becomes a series of heists: get into this impregnable place to meet this person, weasel into the orbit of this other person, steal this thing from this other impregnable place, etc, all leading up to a big battle.

The deeper we get into this movie the more I started to see its similarities to the Bill & Ted movies; there’s a fair amount of “because phone-booth time machine, just go with it” (though, strictly speaking, Tenet isn’t about time travel in the phone-booth sense). And I’m OK with that. I don’t need to see the math — one of the flaws of this movie is that it does a little too much trying to explain the math to us. Basically, the core idea of Tenet is based on a cool visual effect. It’s pretty cool the first time you see it and pretty cool throughout. If sliced down to its central elements, a pretty cool visual effect, a very compelling performance by its lead (Washington) and interesting chemistry in the core partnership (Washington and Pattinson, who does solid work here), Tenet has good bones.

But.

But the movie is at least 45 minutes longer than it needs to be. I get it — cool effect, look at all the ways we can use it. It gets exhausting after a while, especially in the final fight sequence, where I understood, in the macro sense, what was happening, but in the second-to-second sense it was frequently all a jumble of Stuff. I feel like we’re watching the same trick too many times and the more mechanics and repetition are piled on, the more the central performances and the urgency get lost.

Another “but”: I found myself annoyed by the handling of a character played by Elizabeth Debicki. I like Debicki (see also Widows) but there are a lot of irritating choices made with her. I don’t know that any of the Tenet characters act like recognizable humans but there are really only two female characters of any consequence and this one feels like she was written by an alien who has never met a woman.

The experience of watching Tenet was strange; I felt myself constantly alternating between thinking “ugh, enough, movie” and thinking “huh, cool.” The movie feels very self-aware, which I think is on purpose, but it is a little too impressed with its own cleverness. B-

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, some suggestive references and brief strong language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Written and directed by Christopher Nolan, Tenet is two whole hours and then another 30 minutes on top of that and is distributed by Warner Bros. In theaters

Film Reviews by Amy Diaz

Bill S. Preston, Esq., and Ted Theodore Logan are way old, dude, but are still trying to write the song that will unite the world in Bill & Ted Face the Music, the 29-years-in-the-making sequel which is available in theaters and at home.

And — in an option that would be particularly appreciated for kids’ movies released via the Video On Demand model — you can rent or purchase the movie for home viewing (about $19.99 to rent, $24.99 to purchase and, via Apple, there’s an option to purchase all three Bill and Ted movies for just under $35).

Bill (Alex Winters) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) found success as the band Wyld Stallyns — but that success peaked some decades ago and since then they have been releasing increasingly meh albums and playing to ever dwindling crowds. At least they still have nice homes in San Dimas with their wives, Joanna (Jayma Mays) and Elizabeth (Erinn Hayes), who, as the movie reminds you, were medieval princesses who hitched a ride away from medieval times in the boys’ time-traveling phone booth back in the 1980s. Bill and Ted also have late-teen/early-twentysomething daughters: Bill’s is Thea (Samara Weaving) and Ted’s is Billie (Brigette Lundy-Paine). The girls are, it appears, best friends and dedicated music fans if not musicians themselves.

So life is OK, maybe — but apparently the future is not. Bill and Ted’s failure to write the song to unite all people is causing instability in space and time. Kelly (Kristen Schaal) arrives from the future to tell Bill and Ted that they have until 7:17 p.m. to write their big song or all of reality will collapse, as evidenced by the weird blips in time that have already started (George Washington disappearing from the crossing of the Delaware to reappear in place of Babe Ruth at a baseball game, for example). At least, Kelly, the daughter of Rufus, Bill and Ted’s original friend from the future (played in the original movies by the late George Carlin), believes that’s what needs to happen. Her mom, the Great Leader (Holland Taylor) from the future, thinks maybe Bill and Ted just need to exit the world of the living by 7:17 and in the service of that sends back a killer robot (Anthony Carrigan), Terminator-style.

That robot is maybe the best distillation of this movie’s blend of broad action and supreme goofiness. He is single-minded but not super good at his job and his reactions are fairly hilarious — blending the movie’s self-awareness and silliness.

Also a charming mix of self-awareness and silliness are Reeves and Winters delivering their late-1980s California teen accents and holding their Bill and Ted facial expressions with complete earnestness, especially since, hold on to your lattes fellow Gen-Xers, they are now in their mid 50s. They seem like they’re having fun with this goofy trip down memory lane and the movie has real affection for them. As in the previous two movies, we get current Bill and Ted meeting up with future Bill and Ted and the increasingly angry and bizarre versions of themselves that they meet are cartoony fun. Also as in earlier movies, we get historical figures (Billie and Thea try to help their dads by forming a band with the likes of Louis Armstrong, Jimi Hendrix and Mozart) and Death (William Sadler, reprising his role from Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey), whose reunion with Bill and Ted is strained because they had some legal troubles when he left the band.

Bill & Ted Face the Music feels almost more like a public service, like one of those beloved comedy show Zoom reunions, than a real movie. It feels like it was designed to serve nostalgia and silliness and give you a 91-minute break from the world, which is exactly what it does. B

Rated PG-13 for some language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Dean Parisot with a screenplay by Chris Matheson & Ed Solomon, Bill & Ted Face the Music is an hour and 31 minutes long and is distributed by United Artists.

Film Reviews by Amy Diaz

I got in my car and drove to an actual theater to see The New Mutants, a very “get ready for a five-part franchise!” movie about characters in an X-Men universe.

The movie didn’t offer me, a movies-only follower of the X-Men stories, any specific indication of when we are in the X-Men cinematic universe timeline and only the occasional mention of the X-Men by way of tie-in. Wikipedia says that while the movie once had sequel hopes, the Disney purchase of Fox means there probably won’t be a Part 2. So, a movie that feels like it wasted all its time on setting up characters that will never pay off feels especially like a missed opportunity.

Danielle Moonstar (Blu Hunt), called Dani, is our way in to this corner of the expanded mutant universe. After a mysterious something crashes through her reservation, destroying everything and everyone (including Dani’s beloved father) in its path, Dani wakes up in a hospital bed in a locked room in an institution. Dr. Reyes (Alice Braga) tells her that she is being held here, for her own safety, until they can figure out what her special ability is, which Reyes says manifested itself during the “tornado” that destroyed the reservation. There’s a bunch of yada-yada-ing about Dani knowing it wasn’t a tornado and Reyes telling her it was and then later that it wasn’t and either the movie did a clunky job of explaining the whole discovery-of-Dani’s-powers thing or I was too bored by this part of the setup to pay attention or some amount of both.

Dani eventually meets the other “patients” at this facility, other teens with abilities: Illyana (Anya Taylor-Joy) can disappear at will, conjure swords from thin air, has a puppet that can turn into a real dragon and is super mean (all of this is connected to her deeply disturbing and traumatic childhood, which feels like a too-dark story element that this underbaked potato of a movie doesn’t earn). Rahne (Maisie Williams) is a sweet girl who turns into a wolf and quickly befriends Dani. Sam (Charlie Heaton) used to work in the Kentucky coal mines and can blast off and zoom around and, er, stuff. Bobby (Henry Zaga) is from a wealthy Brazilian family, likes himself a lot and can flame on, Human Torch-style (Wikipedia suggests that this isn’t an entirely accurate way to describe the character’s powers but, whatever they were in their comics source material, that’s how it’s portrayed here). Dani doesn’t know what her powers are but she hangs out with the others, watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and hoping that perhaps this whole hospital stay is the first step on the road to X-Men membership.

The bare bones as I’ve described them sound promising, and elements of this movie have good ideas behind them. But the movie takes half of its run time, maybe more, to get going. And while the characters are potentially interesting I didn’t find myself particularly invested in the stories of any of them. The stakes feel low, not in a “personal story versus saving-the-world” way but in a “we’re saving stakes for the second movie” way.

Would I feel differently about this movie if I hadn’t made my first trip to a theater since forever to see it, if it had been on Disney+? I’d probably be more inclined to forgive some of the weakness because, hey, Williams is frequently doing interesting things with her character and it’s only 94 minutes long. But no matter the viewing experience, The New Mutants isn’t quite X-Men enough to make you feel like you’re watching an X-Men movie, even one of the Logan or Deadpool side-project variety, but it isn’t strong enough to stand as its own story either. C

Rated PG-13 for violent content, some disturbing/bloody images, some strong language, thematic elements and suggestive material, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Josh Boone with a screenplay by Josh Boone and Knate Lee, The New Mutants is an hour and 34 minutes long and is distributed in theaters by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.

Film Reviews by Amy Diaz

Teenage boys who might be some degree of embarrassed by this movie when they are older spend a week giving a pretty good demonstration of modern American politics in the documentary Boys State.

The opening credits remind you of where you’ve likely heard of the week-long, American Legion-sponsored government camp Boys State before: that iconic photo of Boys State try-hard teenage Bill Clinton, shaking hands with President Kennedy at Boys Nation (whose participants are chosen from Boys State). Other notable participants, as the movie highlights, include Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh and Samuel Alito (also Cory Booker). As we are introduced to the participants in 2018’s Texas Boys State we meet kids who seem like fitting heirs to that list. In particular, hit-the-ground-politicking Robert MacDougall feels like exactly the sort of kid who would introduce himself by saying he’s the future governor of Texas. We also met Ben Feinstein, a teen who lost both his legs to meningitis as a preschooler. He has worked hard to achieve and, he explains, that has shaped a very “up by your bootstraps” mindset. The big prize of Boys State is to get yourself elected governor (or, as becomes Ben’s goal, be the teen-behind-the-curtain for the kid who does get elected).

“Oh, their poor mothers” I found myself thinking about the crop of boys who are absolutely certain in their world views (so many opinions about abortion!). We also meet kids who arrive ready for a challenge: René Otero and Steven Garza come to Boys State aware that many of their fellow participants are likely more politically conservative than them but they are eager to make their mark nonetheless. Watching them figure out how to work themselves into the boy-created power structure is probably the most compelling action of the early part of the documentary.

Then, about halfway through this movie when I was wondering why Girls State wasn’t chosen as the focus (girls unleashed to be aggressive political animals feels like something more ripe for examination and suited to this moment in history than boys yelling into mics about masculinity), the movie makes a little turn and shows you a story of kids really caring about really making a difference — and really, aggressively playing politics the way you would if your formative political experience was 2016.

Though the documentary clearly anoints its heroes, I don’t really think it turns other kids (and these are just kids, kids who I hope are OK with how this movie shakes out) into villains. You see people with political viewpoints and also political instincts and a desire to win. The movie demonstrates why this is a worthwhile program and not just a resume-burnisher; we see boys care, and care deeply and watch them become genuinely respectful of their peers. It’s a fascinating little study of what this moment in American history means to the practice of politics and how it’s being learned by the next generation of politicians and activists. B+

Rated PG-13 for some strong language, and thematic elements, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Amanda McBane and Jesse Moss, Boys State is an hour and 49 minutes long and distributed by A24. It is available on Apple TV+.

Film Reviews by Amy Diaz

Jamie Foxx, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Dominique Fishback fight a chaos-bringing drug in Project Power, a promising but under-baked action movie from Netflix.

It is a chocolate chip pancake with a raw-batter center — potentially satisfying but frustrating for its not-quite-there-ness.

Art (Foxx) is on the hunt for the source of Power, a new street drug that comes in a glowy pill and, when ingested, gives the user five minutes of some kind of superhuman power. Most of the time. Sometimes it kills the user — is I think the implication of a scene where a person takes it and immediately explodes. And it doesn’t appear that you know or have any choice in what power it gives you. And that power could kill or maim you, in the moment or over time. Feels like a lot of medication side effects but I guess the chance that you can be briefly bullet-proof, as New Orleans police detective Frank (Gordon-Levitt) is when he takes Power, or chameleon-like, as with an “invisible” bank robber we see him chase, is enough for some users.

Robin (Fishback, this movie’s real star) is an enterprising high school student who sells Power to help raise money for her mom, who is sick and needs medical treatment. Robin sells to Frank sometimes, who buys because it helps him and other cops level the playing field with the Powered-up criminals they chase. Frank likes and roots for Robin and is genuinely concerned when she texts him for help.

Trying to work his way through the Power supply chain in New Orleans, Art kidnaps Robin to get information about the person distributing Power to dealers. Though initially he gets her assistance through threats, Robin seems to come around to Art’s mission. A former military officer and an early test subject for the Power drug, Art later had a daughter with naturally occurring superhuman abilities. She was kidnapped by Power’s manufacturers and now Art is desperate to get her back.

The movie brings Art, Robin and Frank together at what feels like a late point — actually, everything feels like it happens later than it should in this movie. At an hour and 53 minutes, this movie feels about 20 minutes too long but also off in its pacing. Within individual scenes, there is good momentum and good chemistry between Fishback, Foxx and Gordon-Levitt, who are fun individually and fun together. But the movie itself doesn’t quite keep the energy level where it needs to be.

All three of the leads — but Fishback, in particular — are solid at the action and the comedy (which isn’t big and quippy but more smart and to the point) this movie requires. But Project Power often feels like it turns down the volume on them or crowds them out with a lot of visual “here’s what the drug is doing” business.

The movie also makes mention of Henrietta Lacks (the woman whose cells are fundamental to the last 60-plus years of medical research) and the fact that Power’s makers are testing the drug on the people of New Orleans. This feels like heavy stuff to just sort of sprinkle into a movie without doing anything with those elements. As with the movie’s overall pacing and runtime, I feel like this aspect of the story could have been more significant and given the movie more weight had somebody (some studio exec, in ye olden days when this movie would have been theater-bound?) asked for another draft of the screenplay and another round of edits on the finished film.

While the movie can be filed under “meh,” Fishback — and to a lesser degree Foxx and Gordon-Levitt — pushes the movie a notch above. Her Robin is an engaging character, the movie is always at least 30 percent more interesting when she’s on screen. A natural C, Project Power gets a boost from Fishback into B- territory.

Rated R for violence, bloody images, drug content and some language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman (and if you’re thinking “hey, that sounds familiar but from where,” they are the directors of some mid-series Paranormal Activity entries and of the documentary Catfish) with a screenplay by Mattson Tomlin, Project Power is an hour and 53 minutes long and is available on Netflix.