Category: Film Reviews by Amy

A terrifying giant doll becomes even more terrifying thanks to some A.I. programming in M3gan, a lively thriller coming in at a brisk hour and 42 minutes.

Gemma (Allison Williams) is a toy designer who becomes the guardian for her tween-ish-aged niece Cady (Violet McGraw) after Gemma’s sister and brother-in-law die in a car accident. Cady, who was in the car with her parents at the time, is understandably distraught about both the traumatic accident and their deaths. Gemma, who is unsure about this whole parenting thing, decides that she can cross two tasks off her to-do list — cheer up Cady and beta test a new toy — by introducing Cady to M3gan, a 4-foot-tall doll who will bond with its primary user and learn how to relate with that particular child. Previously, Gemma had helped develop toy company Funki’s Purrpetual Petz, a sort of toothy-Sonic-plus-Furby creation that looks nightmarish but has impressive tech (we later learn that Gemma has programmed it to listen to its kid owners and collect data — but of course). It is also sort of chef’s-kiss perfect in how annoying it is portrayed as — it makes realistically parent-aggravating noises and has all of these dumb app-based features.

M3gan (voice by Jenna Davis; Amie Donald does the doll action, according to Wikipedia), which will be a kid’s best friend, surrogate parent and gentle nag about teeth brushing all rolled into one, also seems like a just awful product and one of the great aspects of this movie is that most people’s reaction to seeing the doll for the first time is to be instantly creeped out by it. For some reason, though, it isn’t until a therapist points out that Cady is transferring all of the grief-bonding that should be happening with Gemma to the doll, that Gemma starts to get a little concerned. She tries to get Cady to take some breaks from M3gan, but by then her silicone creation has started to get sassy.

Again, it is really quite delightful that this movie never tries to get us to think maybe M3gan is a good idea. From the first moment we meet the first prototype (whose face melts! It’s great!), the movie makes it clear that this poorly-thought-out toy will be some kind of horror show, even if we don’t know at first what kind. When I first saw the trailer for this movie, I probably thought something like “ugh, what ridiculous nonsense.” After seeing it, though, my reaction is “What ridiculous nonsense! 10 out of 10! Four stars! No notes!” Like the brutal artificial intelligence it portrays, it feels like this movie guessed the potential response to it and absolutely leaned all the way in. Is it all intentional, what a snort-laugh hilarious movie this frequently is? I think probably. Williams has such a great “ha! What?” energy the whole time and everyone is so appropriately, un-horror-movie wigged out by M3gan that I feel like M3gan knows it’s chosen gothicly silly over scary and that that choice was correct. B+

Rated PG-13 for violent content and terror, some strong language and a suggestive reference, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Gerard Johnstone with a screenplay by Akela Cooper and a story by Akela Cooper and James Wan, M3gan is a delightful hour and 42 minutes long and is distributed by Universal Studios.

Featured photo: M3ghan

The Fabelmans (PG-13)

Steven Spielberg directs and co-writes this movie adaptation of what appears to be his childhood in The Fabelmans, a very sweet story of a boy and his camera.

Look, I’m going to use words like “sweet” and “cute” and I mean all of them sincerely even though I realize there may be a damning-with-faint-praise quality to them. But this is a sweet tale of a movie-loving Boomer’s childhood and I think you just have to go with that kid’s-eye-view approach.

We meet Sammy Fabelman (Mateo Zoryan as a very young child; Gabriel LaBelle as a teen) as he waits in line with his parents to go see his first movie, Cecil B. DeMille’s The Greatest Show on Earth. He’s anxious about the experience and his mother, Mitzi (Michelle Williams), explains the magic of it all while his father, Burt (Paul Dano), explains the science that makes a series of photos move. It is the dichotomy that will follow Sammy through the movie — an artistic, emotional, searching mother and a quiet, rationality-focused father. Little Sammy isn’t thinking about that, though; he’s focused on the on-screen train crash. Later, he asks for a train set for Hanukkah and then almost immediately recreates the movie scene. Burt gets mad that Sammy would be so rough on such an expensive train set; Mitzi suggests that Sammy crash the train just once more and film it with the family’s home movie camera so he can watch it again and again. Thus we see the first film of a young Steven — I mean, Sammy — projected inside his closet and featuring the crash depicted with close-ups and from multiple angles.

We catch up with teen Sam as he makes movies with his buddies for a Boy Scout patch. He shoots an elaborate Western, figuring out special effects to make the gunshots look real. Later, he films what feels like a Saving Private Ryan precursor with some 50 kids, squibs, dust kicked up to look like explosions and an emotional arc for a central character. But at the same time, he’s also filmed something else during a family vacation. Without quite realizing it, he captures a romance between Mitzi and Ben (Seth Rogen), Burt’s best friend and a sort of adopted uncle. Once a pianist with big dreams, Mitzi seems to struggle with the narrow role of housewife and need something more from her life.

The Fabelmans feels like two things. One is a collection of events significant to Sam — not his life story, exactly, but more the moments that stand out, the moments he might discuss if giving an extended interview about his life. The other is Mitzi’s story as filtered through Sam. I think because Williams is a skilled actress, because she can bring complexity even when her character is going big, that is the more compelling story, for all that the Sam-focused moments are cute and often kind of mirror iconic bits of Spielberg’s filmography. The movie gives us Sam’s view of Mitzi but also is able to imply what parts of that view are the “only part of a story” any kid gets of their parent and also suggests how each of the Fabelman kids (Sam has three younger sisters, as Spielberg did, according to Wikipedia) have a different portrait of Mitzi.

There is something very sweet and earnest about the story we get here, with a lot of information delivered very plainly and upfront, very text, but just enough richness to the details of the story to make it pull you in. B+

Rated PG-13 for some strong language, thematic elements, brief violence and drug use, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Steven Spielberg with a screenplay by Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner, The Fabelmans is two hours and 31 minutes long and distributed in theaters by Universal Studios and via VOD for rent or purchase.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (PG)

Down to his last life, the swashbuckling cat Puss in Boots ponders mortality while heading out on a quest for a fallen star and its one wish in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, a mostly exciting animated adventure story/hour and 40 minutes of kid entertainment.

I say “mostly exciting” because there were some moments of fidgeting when I took my kids to this movie. Yay to swashbuckling, “how much longer is this movie” to characters working out their inner turmoil.

After liberating a governor’s gold (and wigs and fancy clothes) and fighting an earthen giant, Puss (voice of Antonio Banderas) finds himself waking up from his eighth death and thus he is entering the ninth (and final) of his cat lives. Shaken by approaching death — as personified by the bounty-hunting Big Bad Wolf (voice of Wagner Moura) — Puss decides to take his doctor’s advice and retire from adventuring, finding a home at Casa Luna, where the most dangerous characters are the health department officials chasing Mama Luna (voice of Da’Vine Joy Randolph) and her way-too-many cats. Having left his boots and sword behind and sporting a David Letterman beard and a collar that says “Pickles,” Puss is spending his days wallowing in self-pity and being friended at by Perrito (voice of Harvey Guillén), a small lonely dog pretending to be a cat to hang out with the Casa Luna crowd.

But then Goldilocks (voice of Florence Pugh) and Mama (voice of Olivia Coleman), Papa (voice of Ray Winstone) and Baby (voice of Samson Kayo) Bear show up looking for Puss in Boots to hire his thieving skills. He convinces them that the legendary Puss in Boots is dead but overhears their plan to steal a map from Jack Horner (voice of John Mulaney) that will lead them to a fallen star, which can grant one wish. Puss decides to search for the star by himself, tailed, like it or not, by Perrito. He learns, of course, that such a map is a prize for several thieves, including his old rival/romantic interest Kitty Softpaws (voice of Salma Hayek).

Eventually, the characters are in a sort of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World scenario, withJack Horner and his collection of magical items and hired henchmen chasing Goldi, and the Bears chasing wary reluctant partners Kitty and Puss, who are joined by eager Perrito, who soon names their trio “Team Friendship.” The wishing star lies deep in the Dark Forest, which is filled with psychological obstacles set up specifically for whoever holds the map; thus does the good-hearted Perrito get a path filled with flowers and rainbows while Puss gets a kind of hall of mirrors featuring reflections of his own bravado.

The Last Wish is largely full of questing, silliness and occasional moments of Dreamworks-y tartness (a put-down session that includes some bleeps). Banderas makes full use of his vocal talents —that blend of overinflated ego, dramatics and, in this movie, vulnerability — to craft Puss, who is selfish and vain but also kind and ultimately sort of lovable. There is also some sweetness going on with the Goldilocks and Bear family storyline. When we initially meet them they are basically a gang of thieves, but Coleman gives Mama a kind heart and Pugh makes Goldi more than just a pushy low-rent Cinderella, as Baby calls her.

The Shrek universe, of which this is a part, was always one of the better aspects of Dreamworks Animation, and this Puss in Boots tale is a solid, entertaining entry. B+

Rated PG for action/violence, rude humor/language and some scary moments, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado with a screenplay by Paul Fisher and Tommy Swerdlow, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is an hour and 40 minutes long and is distributed in theaters by Universal Studios.

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (PG-13)

Detective Benoit Blanc is invited (maybe?) to a murder mystery weekend (with a real murder?) in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, a fun sequel that takes the comedy at least as seriously as the mystery.

Blanc (Daniel Craig) is one of the guests who meet at the dock for a boat to take them out to the Greek island where tech bro Miles Bron (Edward Norton) has a big, elaborate, weird home and has planned a big, elaborate, weird weekend for his friends circa early spring 2020. The friends include politician on the rise Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn); Bron’s company head scientist Lionel Toussaint (Leslie Odom Jr.); faded model and leisurewear company owner Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson) and her assistant Peg (Jessica Henwick); influencer Duke Cody (Dave Batista) and his girlfriend Whiskey (Madelyn Cline), and former friend to them all Andi Brand (Janelle Monae). Andi was until recently business partner with Miles but was, as the others explain, Eduardo Saverin-ed out of the company. We don’t know the cause of the break, exactly, but it seems that Miles got the friends in their split — possibly because, as we learn, all of the friends have some financial stake in Miles’ friendship.

At first, the assembled crowd — delighted to take a break from the isolation and masks of the early pandemic — believes that Benoit Blanc, the world’s greatest detective, is with them to add authenticity and a bit of challenge to the promised mystery game. Miles is always whisking his friends away for a theme weekend and his invitations come this year in ornate mystery boxes. But once the party arrives at the island, we learn that Miles is as surprised to see Benoit as everyone else was (well, almost everyone else — clearly someone reset their invitation box and sent it to him, Benoit posits to Miles). Why has one of the guests arranged for Benoit to come to what is supposed to be just a carefree weekend away? Why has Andi shown up for a weekend with frenemies? And is someone using the murder mystery theme to plot a real muhrr-derrr?

This is a mild spoiler but stupidity plays a big role in the central mystery of Glass Onion and I truly appreciate that, both for the wider messaging and for how clever the movie is about turning the conceit of the cunning Moriarty-like killer on its head. This movie is fun, at times even goofy. It (or maybe I should credit writer/director Rian Johnson) really enjoys sending up the different flavors of rich person — the careless rich, the cynical rich, the head-up-its-rear techie rich. But it is a handcrafted bespoke goofiness; the movie’s fun is all specific and organic to the story it’s telling and the characters it’s building. Perhaps it was Norton’s presence that initially got me thinking about Wes Anderson movies and how everything is perfectly crafted and intentional down to the grains of sand. This feels similar, not in tone but in its purposefulness.

Also having a specific blast is, well, everybody involved. Hudson is lively and so good at being a very particular kind of daft. Hahn is, well, Hahn but just always brings a certain martini-with-lime quality to everything. Monae gets a heavier lift than the others and does some really fun stuff with it. And Craig, much like Chris Evans in the last movie, seems to be enjoying shaking off his franchise and playing everything just a little sillier.

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is a thorough pleasure. B+

Rated PG-13 for strong language, some violence, sexual material and drug content, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Written and directed by Rian Johnson, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is two hours and 19 minutes long and is available on Netflix.

The Banshees of Inisherin (R)

Two former friends become strange enemies in The Banshees of Inisherin, a quirky comedy with a dark and melancholy heart.

Pádraic (Colin Farrell) stops to get Colm (Brendan Gleeson) for their regular walk to the pub for a pint in 1923 on an island off the Irish mainland. Pádraic can see Colm sitting in his house but Colm ignores his knocks and, when Pádraic finally does run into Colm, Colm tells Pádraic that he doesn’t want to talk to him any more. After what’s implied to be years, probably decades, of friendship, Colm has decided he doesn’t like Pádraic, whom he thinks is “dull.” Colm wants to spend his time writing music that will be remembered through the centuries, like Mozart, and just being a nice guy doesn’t get you remembered.

Pádraic is shocked — he doesn’t understand Colm’s request for silence from him. Pádraic’s sister Siobhán (Kerry Condon) tries to get Colm to knock it off and Pádraic recruits the local priest to try to talk to Colm. But Colm is determined to have nothing more to do with Pádraic and threatens to start cutting off his own fingers and throwing them at Pádraic if he ever speaks to him again.

It’s a strange and gruesome threat but it’s a strange and gruesome island. Siobhán gets a piece of mail that has been opened “in the heat,” the mail woman tells her on the grayest of days — we and Siobhán know that the woman is desperate to hear any news of anything. Pádraic’s pal after Colm dumps him is Dominic (Barry Keoghan), a young man who has a troubled home life with his father (Gary Lydon), who is the local police officer. One of Siobhán’s few visitors is Mrs. McCormick (Sheila Flitton), a black-clad widow who might very well be a banshee herself. One of the other regular visitors inside the family home is Jenny, Pádraic’s beloved pony, despite Siobhán’s demand that he keep his animals outside. While gunshots and cannon fire from the mainland occasionally suggest that the island is a refuge, there is lots of evidence that it is also something of a prison keeping these people trapped in lives without a lot of choices.

Despair, civil war and wacky pony comedy — The Banshees of Inisherin is very much an unexpected mix of tragedy (Dominic’s truly horrific abuse at the hands of his father, Siobhán and Pádraic’s grief over the deaths of their parents, Colm’s feelings of despair and meaninglessness) and laugh out loud moments of comedy. There are times when the residents of the island have a real “what a bunch of characters” feel and you could see a version of this movie that was all cutesiness and charming affectations. But the more performative aspect of their lives seems to be, more than anything, the coping mechanism for the problems people have — the uncertainty of the outside world, the stucked-ness of the island. It is occasionally a little jarring to go from thick brogues and a vaguely witch-like neighbor to child abuse and self-mutilation. But it works? I mean, but it works. Sometimes the question mark pushes its way in there but then the truly heartfelt “you can see all the years piling on” performances, particularly of Farrell and Gleeson, push the questions away and give you real people having internal struggles. B+

Rated R for language throughout, some violent content and brief graphic nudity, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Written and directed by Martin McDonagh, The Banshees of Inisherin is an hour and 54 minutes long and distributed by Searchlight Pictures, for rent or purchase via VOD and on HBO Max.

Featured photo: Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

2022 offered sweet stories, beautiful animation and some excellent stupidity

Whether you define a great movie as an artistic achievement or as a movie so gleefully goofy that you cry from laughter, there were great movies in 2022.

Saying this almost feels counter-intuitive with all the stories about movies — especially non-franchise, non-sequel, non-existing IP movies — that didn’t do as well as hoped at the box office. On Dec. 21, Box Office Mojo showed a year-to-date top 10 consisting of two cartoons for kids, four Marvel movies, two movies based on DC Comics IP, the latest (last?) Jurassic movie and Top Gun: Maverick. (Avatar: The Way of Water had not yet clawed its way into the top 10 but I suspect by close of business on Dec. 31 it will.)

But other movies came out on screens big and small — often on the big screen followed quickly by the small screen, which probably isn’t great long-term for theatrical distribution but was helpful to the movie-lover who couldn’t make it to the theater in time. I still haven’t caught Aftersun, Spoiler Alert, Triangle of Sadness, Bones and All, The Fabelmans or Decision to Leave but these acclaimed films are currently available via VOD. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is on Netflix, along with Bardo. Other 2022 (or, you know, nominally 2022 movies) I haven’t seen yet include Women Talking, The Whale, White Noise and Babylon — so this isn’t quite a definitive list. But, of what I have seen, here’s where to find some of the great movies — whatever that means to you — of 2022.

• “2021” movies I saw in 2022: I always start the year watching all the movies that sort of touched base in a few theaters in the previous year but didn’t get a major release until later. Of that bunch, I enjoyed dramedy Licorice Pizza in spite of its problematic teen boy-older teen or twentysomething girl chaste-but-dodgy relationship and because of the solid performance by Alana Haim and the 1970s southern California of it all (find it on Amazon Prime, Paramount+ and for rent or purchase). Joel Coen’s black and white take on The Tragedy of MacBeth (Apple TV+) featured great performances by Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand. C’mon C’mon (Paramount+, possibly as part of some Showtime situation, who even knows anymore; maybe also Showtime and purchase) is a sweet movie with a likable performance by Joaquin Phoenix.

• About that top 10: Look, you wanna watch Top Gun: Maverick (2022’s No. 1 at the box office, as of last week)? That’s fine, we can still be friends; I also think planes are cool (movie is available for rent and purchase). But for me, the best movies of the moneymakers are The Batman (HBO Max or rent or purchase), mostly because I liked the municipal corruption aspect; Thor: Love & Thunder (Disney+ or rent or purchase), which is no Ragnarok but has some great moments (many featuring solid use of Guns N’ Roses); Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (still in theaters), which deals with personal emotions and global philosophical issues and has beautiful, thoughtful costumes, and Minions: The Rise of Gru (Peacock, rent or purchase), which had a fun Looney Tunes vibe that my kids really enjoyed.

• Animation for the kids: For the last few years, Netflix has turned out some solid animation with a mix of styles. Two this year: Wendell & Wild with kind of a marionette stop-motion look to its characters and Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, which has a whole different, very del-Toro-ish approach to stop-motion. I’d peg both of these movies at late tweens and up, both for themes and for unnerving visuals. My favorite animated film of the year is Disney’s Turning Red (Disney+ and for purchase), an absolute charmer that is sweet, hilarious and very pretty. It too is a tween-and-up film, in which an Asian-Canadian girl in the early aughts finds that emotional turmoil (over boys, her relationship with her mother, all the changes of being 13) turns her into a giant red panda.

• Animation for the PG-13 crowd: Joke density and surprise earnestness were my favorite things about The Bob’s Burgers Movie (HBO MAX, for rent or purchase). Even if you’ve fallen away from the series, it’s still an enjoyable watch.

• Animation with live action: Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (rent or purchase) has fun with the shell-ness and acorn size of its lead character but also deals with big issues (grief, loneliness) with incredible sweetness.

• Another one for the kids: I have no nostalgic memories of the first Hocus Pocus so I found Hocus Pocus 2 (Disney+) rather delightful, with its silly-fun musical number and its hokey jokiness.

• Leftover Christmas cookies: We are living in a golden age of weird Christmas content, with every streaming service seeming to want to participate. I don’t understand it but each year I find a few movies that make me enjoy it. This year, I liked Disney+’s Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, which really went for the goofy holiday special of old and made great use of a very game Kevin Bacon, and Apple TV+’s Spirited, a good-natured A Christmas Carol riff. The very gory, kinda sweet Violent Night (like, believe them; violent, not for kids) is still in theaters but you can also rent or purchase the movie.

• So dumb it’s genius: I might have had more fun watching Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (Roku Channel) than any other movie this year. It is an absolute achievement of stupidity and an excellent approach to rock music biopic. I can’t recommend it highly enough; go watch it now.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (STARZ, rent or purchase) also featured performances of people willing to go to silly extremes, namely Nicolas Cage as an actor named Nicolas Cage.

• Girls through the ages: In medieval England, a girl tries to resist her father’s push to get married (in part to settle family finances) in Catherine Called Birdy (Amazon Prime). In fair Verona, a girl resists her father’s push to get married and gets dumped by secret boyfriend Romeo in Rosaline (Hulu). In Victorian London, a girl attempts to establish herself as an investigator rivaling her famous brother in Enola Holmes 2 (Netflix). Sure, these stories feature varying amounts of anachronism, but all three are charming and make some honest observations about the lives of young women.

• True love: Fire Island (Hulu) offers a delightful riff on Pride & Prejudice and features great performances from Bowan Yang, Joel Kim Booster and Conrad Ricomora, who joins the pantheon of great Mr. Darcys. Bros (Peacock) also offers solid performances from Guy Branum and Bowen Yang, a stand-out cameo by Debra Messing and truly sweet chemistry between romantic leads Billy Eichner and Luke Macfarlane.

• Dumb love: Am I here to argue that Marry Me (Prime Video, rent or purchase), a movie where Jennifer Lopez plays a pop star who marries a stranger on a whim after romantic embarrassment, is an Oscar-worthy achievement? Well, maybe yes if we’re talking about the Best Original Song Oscar. Otherwise, it’s more of a “great artistic achievement in cotton candy goofiness.” Ditto The Lost City (Paramount+, rent or purchase), which doesn’t go as goofy as I would have wanted with Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum but does have enough fun to relax you after a long day.

• Heartfelt: People are going through it in the sweet but sincere and deeply felt Cha Cha Real Smooth (Apple TV+), a sort of quarterlife-crisis dramady; Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (Hulu), a series of conversations between Emma Thompson’s character and the man she hires to help broaden her sexual experience, and Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris (Peacock, rent or purchase), Lesley Manville’s character’s breaking out of her shell to buy a Dior dress in the 1950s.

• What’s up, docs: This is also a golden age of doc accessibility — sure, many of them are true crime, but the various streamers do make documentaries on all subjects available. Three I liked from this year: The Automat (HBO Max), which I first saw as a part of the New Hampshire Jewish Film Fest and is a loving tribute (filled with excellent interviews, including from Mel Brooks) to the automat dining experience; Sr. (Netflix), a look at the life of filmmaker Robert Downey Sr. and his relationship with his son, and Descendant (Netflix), a look at the Black community in Alabama that can trace its ancestors to the ship Clotilda that illegally smuggled Africans into the pre-Civil War South.

• As advertised: In Beast (Peacock, rent or purchase), Idris Elba fights a lion — like, that’s it, that’s the movie. The Princess (Hulu) requires a warrior-trained princess to escape down a tower and then kick some more butt until she rescues her family. Sure, these movies have action and violence but their “what you ordered and nothing more” quality is kind of relaxing.

• Action and thrills with a kick: Of course, some action movies go above and beyond. Prey (Hulu), the latest entry in the Predator series, is a solid bit of suspense-action entertainment, with a young Comanche woman in the early 1700s facing off against a Predator. In Steven Soderbergh’s Kimi (HBO Max, rent or purchase) the spare but engaging thriller has Zoë Kravitz believing she hears a crime via the Alexa-like personal assistant she works on troubleshooting. The Northman (Amazon Prime, rent or purchase) is a wonderfully bonkers, super grisly Viking Hamlet. Is Nope (Peacock, rent or purchase) a Western, a sci-fi movie, a thriller or something else? I’m not sure I’ve decided but it is a great suspense movie from Jordan Peele with standout performances by Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer.

• Bring the performances: Of performances that stood out this year, let’s start with Manchester’s own Adam Sandler in Hustle (Netflix) where he plays a scout for a basketball team and gives his character depth. In The Wonder (Netflix), Florence Pugh brings a whole well-rounded person to the role of 19th-century nurse who is sent to examine a girl in Ireland who isn’t eating but somehow isn’t starving. Causeway (Apple TV+) gives both Jennifer Lawrence and Brian Tyree Henry a chance to shine as two people who find comfort in a friendship. Tár (available for purchase) features a standout Cate Blanchett performance as a conductor whose ego has eclipsed ethical behavior and even rationality. In Till (purchase) Danielle Deadwyler does not let you look away from the grieving Mamie Till-Mobley, whose young son is murdered horribly in segregated Mississippi. Viola Davis gives just one of the great performances in The Woman King (rent or purchase), which tells the story of the female warriors of the African kingdom Dahomey.

• 2022’s best: Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Jamie Lee Curtis, multiverses, compassion, a rock with googly eyes, a raccoon chef, mothers and daughters — Everything Everywhere All At Once (Paramount +) actually has everything, taking place everywhere throughout different realities, all at once so Yeoh can hopefully save all of existence. It is smart, it is hilarious, it is empathetic. It’s, well, great.

2023 in movies

Here are some of the movies I’m looking forward to watching in the first half(-ish) of 2023. Dates are according to IMDb and who even knows anymore how solid any movie’s release date is until it actually hits screens.

• Magic Mike’s Last Dance (Feb. 10) Steven Soderbergh returns to direct this third movie in the Magic Mike (Channing Tatum) series.

• Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (Feb. 17) The next Marvel entry seems medium promising — the trailers promise, if nothing else, a relentlessly likable Paul Rudd.

• Creed III (March 3) Michael B. Jordan directs and stars in this third outing of the Rocky spinoff series.

• Shazam! Fury of the Gods (March 17) DC’s whole movie situation seems like a hot mess but this follow up to the very likable 2019 film feels like a bright spot.

• John Wick: Chapter 4 (March 24) I love this Keanu Reeves franchise beyond all reason. The trailer for this new entry features more “High Table” nonsense, more Ian McShane and Laurence Fishburne and more John Wick casually wasting fools.

• Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (April 28) The iconic Judy Blume novel gets a big-screen adaptation.

• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (May 5) Marvel’s traditional summer kickoff.

• Fast X (May 19) On the one hand, Charlize Theron’s exhausting villain Cypher returns to the Fast & Furiousverse in this the 10th outing, but on the other hand, IMDb lists Rita Moreno in the cast. If she has just half as much fun as Helen Mirren (also listed in this movie’s cast) has been allowed to have in this franchise, this should be good.

• The Little Mermaid (May 26) These live action Disney remakes have always been interesting. Plus you have Halle Bailey as Ariel and Melissa McCarthy as Ursula.

• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Part One (June 2) This would be the animated Spider-Man universe, featuring Miles Morales. The 2018 first entry was, rightfully, that season’s Oscar winner for animated feature.

• Barbie (July 21) I am Team Greta Gerwig, who directs this movie and co-wrote the screenplay with Noah Baumbach. That and the super-winky (literally and figuratively) teaser trailer give me lots of hope for this movie.

• The Marvels (July 28) This movie, which features Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers as well as Iman Vellani’s Kamala Khan (and, according to IMDb, Teyonah Parris’ Monica Rambeau), is probably the 2023 Marvel outing I’m most looking forward to. In the meantime, watch Disney+’s Ms. Marvel, which is a fun time.

Featured photo: Everything Everywhere All AT Once

Avatar: The Way of Water (PG-13)

James Cameron takes us on a three-hour-and-change trip back to the lush moon Pandora in the 13-years-in-the-making sequel Avatar: The Way of Water.

After some Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) narration flipping us through the years since the first movie (when Sully, a human Marine, eventually got, er, uploaded into the big blue body of the Na’vi, Pandora’s pre-existing humanoid population uncomfortably rendered with a bunch of “noble people of the land”-type tropes), we pick up on the action a “Jake and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) have four kids, some of whom are teenagers” amount of time later. A “new” star appears in the sky — a sign that the sky people, a.k.a. damn dirty humans, have returned. This time, the humans start their visit by burning to bare dirt a city-sized patch of land and then building a heavily fortified operations base.

A year later, a new batch of avatar-like Na’vi hybrids shows up — only these don’t have human operators in a pod somewhere. These soldiers are Recombinants — basically Na’vi clones with human memories, emotions and crappy personalities uploaded to their brains. These special soldiers, who are physically Na’vi but styled to look like Marines (why?), are meant to help keep the, sigh, insurgent hostiles on Pandora at bay while the re-established human colony expands to make Pandora a new home for humanity. But they (we) are achieving this by aggressively paving over all the greenery, strip mining again I guess and now, whaling. I get that we, as a species, are crummy at not repeating our mistakes but come on. Also, somehow this whole operation seems to be run by the U.S. Marines?

Anyway, the gist is that Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang), the bad guy of the first movie, is back, despite being dead, this time in a Na’vi body. Because Jake and his tribe have been attacking the new human supply lines, Quaritch and his Recombinant crew are sent to hunt down Jake Sully. After Quaritch very nearly kills Jake’s kids, Jake decides to take his family and leave their forest tribe to find a new place — somewhere they can just disappear and not put others in danger.

The kids don’t love this plan. Oldest son Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) wants to stay in his homeland but gets with the program to please his dad. Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), their second-oldest son, is sullen about everything and mopes about being an outsider. Kiri, whose name I thought was Kitty the whole movie, is their adopted teen-ish daughter; she is the half-Na’vi child of Sigourney Weaver’s character’s avatar from the first movie (somehow?), voiced by Weaver here. She is kind of an “I can feel the spirit of the planet” type, almost to the point of having superpowers. Like, they talk a lot about the biological connection between all living things on Pandora but Kiri is portrayed as almost being able to Use the Force. Also, she has a close relationship with Spider (Jack Champion), a human who was orphaned by the first human colony and has been raised by the human scientists and the Na’vi Sully family. Also, there’s Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), the Sullys’ youngest daughter, who just seems to tag along on adventures and get captured.

The family winds up in a village on an island with people who live by the sea — with turquoise-colored skin and swimming-friendly tails and just enough visuals borrowed from Pacific Island cultures to make this all uncomfortable, especially since the wife of the chief is played (or voiced or whatever we’re calling all of these essentially animated performances) by Kate Winslet.

As you might imagine, this village is a little wary of the family that shows up essentially saying “we’re escaping death and destruction at the hands of the human military industrial complex; is it cool if we kick it with you for a bit? They probably won’t know we’re here in your very flammable village.”

Other stuff in this 192-minute movie: Spider gets a whole storyline about his difficult lineage. Lo’ak — giving strong Edith from Downton Abbey’s vibes — is bummed about how much his dad rags on him and he also makes friends with an outcast whale. (I know, the animals aren’t Earth whales but they’re basically whales and they’re the creatures being hunted for some tiny gland that stops aging in humans.) Edie Falco plays a human general. But even with all the stuff this movie crams in, it still could have shaved a good 50 minutes off, at least, and not lost anything.

But length isn’t the movie’s only problem.

The Way of Water lacks coherent character arcs and seems to change course or sort of forget character motivations.

The whole “natives and colonists” thing and its accompanying ickiness from the first movie is still there in this movie, along with, not misogyny exactly, but some patronizing stuff with the female characters. I thought “ugh, movie” a lot — which I think is the result of the characters generally being so one dimensional.

There is way too much repetition, both of stuff that happened in the first movie and of stuff that happened an hour earlier in this movie.

At times, The Way of Water feels a little “James Cameron’s greatest hits”-y with a sequence that feels very Titanic and some elements that made me think of Terminator 2.

So what’s to like?

The visuals, not all of the visuals, but many of the visuals are very good. (I saw a 2D version of the movie.) Scenes of discovering the ocean and island worlds are, sure, long but they are also often very beautiful. The Way of Water hasn’t completely solved the problem of how to make underwater, blue-lit stuff look dazzling but it maybe does a better job with underwater than any live-action/photorealistic movie before. (Colors and faces pop more than in, say, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, where I felt like a lot of the cool visuals of the underwater kingdom got lost in the watery haze of it all.) Underwater fights are still a blur of whatever but the water does add some fun elements to the choreography of the fights and what happens in the battles.

Jermaine Clement has a small role as a human scientist and in the final battle gets a dumb but fun line. It stuck out just enough to make me wish there was more of that sort of goofiness.

Ultimately, Avatar: The Way of Water is fine, a perfectly acceptable thing to watch if you’re looking to kill three hours on something that will only medium annoy you and offers some pretty things to look at. If you, a person who pandemic splurged on a nice home viewing setup, want to wait to watch it until you can do so cuddled up on the couch, I think that’s fine too. B-

Rated PG-13 for intense epic battle sequences and warfare, sensuality, language and some smoking, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by James Cameron with a screenplay by James Cameron & Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver, Avatar: The Way of the Water is THREE HOURS AND 12 MINUTES OF THIS YOUR ONE LIFE ON EARTH LONG and is distributed in theaters by 20th Century Studios.

Featured photo: Avatar: The Way of Water

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (PG)

The tale of the wooden puppet gets the Pan’s Labyrinth-but-animated treatment in Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, a beautiful-looking weird-in-its-own-way adaptation.

All Pinocchios are weird, is my theory on this IP. In the league of cautionary fairy tales, this one seems to lean the hardest on the cautionary element, making it sort of disturbing from the jump no matter how a director or writer chooses to go with it. This particular Pinocchio is maybe less disturbing than others but still dark. But maybe in my top five for potential Oscar animation nominees?

Once again, we get a sad Geppetto (voice of David Bradley), a woodworker in Italy who lost his young son during World War I. After years of drowning his sadness in wine, Geppetto one day crafts a wooden version of his son that a spirit (voice of Tilda Swinton) gives life to. The wooden boy, more angular and del-Toro-ish than his usual incarnation, declares Geppetto his papa and joyfully goes about discovering/destroying their house.

Geppetto is at first a little horrified by this wooden creature, particularly when a talking cricket hops out of a hole in the wood to verify Pinocchio’s (voice of Gregory Mann) story. But quickly Geppetto, Pinocchio and Sebastian the cricket (voice of Ewan McGregor) form a little family. That family is not terribly well accepted by the outside world, this being a very conformity-focused Italy in the increasingly fascist time of Mussolini. Local fascist muckety-muck Podesta (voice of Ron Perlman) says that Pinocchio must go to school to learn discipline, and thus begins the string of events that leads to Geppetto, Pinocchio, Sebastian and a surly monkey (voice of Cate Blanchett) ending up in the belly of a large fish.

This movie hits all the usual points: Pinocchio being sent out into the world with nothing but a cranky cricket to guide him, then him being tricked into becoming a performer for Count Volpe (voice of Christoph Waltz), a long separation between Pinocchio and Geppetto and Pinocchio falling into the clutches of yet another scammer who plays on boys’ worst instincts. Only in this case the scammer is Podesta, who takes Pinocchio and his own son Candlewick (voice of Finn Wolfhard) not to the amusement-park-ish Pleasure Island to be turned into a donkey but to a fascist military school to become cannon fodder for the Italian fatherland.

All this imagery — with the joyful and innocent Pinocchio sort of stumbling through the increasingly dark Italy — is extremely well done. The animation here is of the stop-motion variety (according to Wikipedia) and the characters have a very tactile, dimensional, puppety look. We can see the wood grain and knots in the pine that make up Pinocchio, who at times has almost a “wooden stick insect” appearance. We see the whiskers in Geppetto’s beard and mustache, which have a thick look, like “hairs” that have been carved and painted. The Italian village manages to look both like a physical space and fantastical, with the sunniness of the exteriors balanced by the menace of the fascist imagery in the posters in the town square. It is all exceedingly well done — so well done that I think it tips over into the scary frequently. Common Sense Media pegs this for age 11 and up and I would say — with the war, the death, the sadness and the frequent peril of Pinocchio — yeah, at least that. Maybe more like 12 or 13. Even the Swinton-voiced “blue fairy” character, who sort of looks like a human moth ancient godlike character with two sets of wings dotted with eyes, is at the very least unnerving.

I feel like this Pinocchio has plenty to delight fans of animation as a form and of Guillermo del Toro as a visual storyteller but isn’t exactly my choice for young-kids family movie night. B+

Rated PG, according to Netflix, where it is streaming. Directed by Guillermo del Toro with a screenplay by Guillermo del Toro and Patrick McHale, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is an hour and 56 minutes long and distributed by Netflix.

Emancipation (R)

Will Smith plays a man escaping Confederate captivity in Emancipation, a movie by director Antoine Fuqua.

Post-Emancipation Proclamation but mid-Civil War, Peter (Smith) is enslaved along with his wife, Dodienne (Charmaine Bingwa), and their children on a Louisiana cotton plantation when he is taken to do work on the Confederate army’s railroad. As hellish as the conditions on the plantation are, the prison camp Peter is taken to is even worse, with the heads of men who attempted to escape displayed on pikes. The captors seem to be significantly more invested in torturing the men they’re holding than in the war effort and seem to be on the verge of murdering Peter when a brief distraction allows him and a few other men to get away. The men run toward the snake- and alligator-filled swamp that stands between them and the Union Army, where they have heard that they will be recognized as free, thanks to the Emancipation Proclamation.

On the trail of the escapees are Jim Fassel (Ben Foster) and two fellow bounty hunters. For a good part of the movie, we get a chase between Fassel and his stupid dogs and Peter, who attempts to use the rough terrain of the swamp to his advantage.

For me, this movie frequently suffered from what I think of as Gangs of New York syndrome, where a wobbly central story sits in the middle of a fascinating and well-rendered history. The stories about how people contemplated freedom versus what could happen to them and their family if they tried to reach a safer harbor are interesting. The decisions people made, how they held themselves and their families together while enslaved — how Dodienne kept her children with her, how Peter drew from a deep well of faith — are solidly engrossing stories. But the movie too often turns its focus to other stuff — like the chase between Fassel and Peter or, even less interesting, Fassel and his motivations.

To this unevenness, add Will Smith’s sometimes strong, sometimes wobbly performance. Sometimes it is really affecting; he gives us a man with a singular purpose — getting back to his family — but a lot of hurdles to achieving that, who has to negotiate with both enemies and allies, neither of whom really have his interests at heart. Other times, I feel like I’m just watching Will Smith giving a very performance-y performance, jammed into some very dark history.

I think ultimately that history and the very arresting way it’s shot, largely in black and white with these very artful wisps of color, make Emancipation worth watching. B-

Rated R for strong racial violence, disturbing images and language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Antoine Fuqua with a screenplay by Bill Collage, Emancipation is two hours and 12 minutes long and distributed by Apple TV+, where it is streaming.

Featured photo: Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (PG)