Category: Film Reviews by Amy

Brad Pitt helms a pretty good collection of supporting players and fun cameos in the bafflingly flat Bullet Train.

I see what you want to be doing here, Bullet Train, maybe even what you think you are doing. Director David Leitch also directed Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, which is a masterpiece of a certain kind of film-making, and is an uncredited director on John Wick, which is another one of cinema’s greatest super-fun, eat-it-up-with-a-spoon franchises. I feel like that sorta-dumb-but-excellent sweet spot is where Bullet Train wants to be. And should be, by all rights, with its cast, its many action scenes that take place on a speeding train, its regular diversion into caper and its Japanese candy wrapper visual aesthetic, but it just doesn’t get there.

Ladybug (Brad Pitt) — that’s a code name — is an ambivalent criminal directed by his handler (Sandra Bullock, largely just as a voice) to steal a sleek metallic briefcase on a bullet train traveling from Tokyo to Kyoto. Easy job on a snazzy train — except an assortment of other sketchy characters have been hired to watch the briefcase or take someone out or otherwise cause trouble on the train. These not-just-bystanders include the affable brothers Lemon (Brian Tyree Henry) and Tangerine (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), a too-shiny girl played by Joey King called The Prince, a rumpled mess (Andrew Koji) whose young son is in the hospital, a man called The Wolf (Bad Bunny) and a woman called The Hornet (Zazie Beetz). And some other people — many introduced with a title card and a backstory. Or we get to see their backstory later. You get some vengeance, some grudges, a nice mix of languages with stylish subtitles and some highjinks that blend overly complicated plan and dumb luck. And through it all, a kind of John Wick by way of Guy Ritchie violence is delivered in a way that is highly choreographed, extremely stylized and, like, not funny exactly but not without a sense of humor in that Fast & Furious/John Wick way.

Like I said, I should totally love this.

But I didn’t. The overall effect of Bullet Train reminded me a bit of how I felt about the recent Netflix movie The Gray Man, where it had the look and feel of the kind of movie it was trying to be without actually being that movie. This is the Paris Las Vegas hotel, the EPCOT Parabellum Pavilion version of a high-energy action romp; it is telling you, loudly, that that is what you are watching without ever really convincing you of it.

I can not overstate the strangeness of being so underwhelmed by a movie with such a strong cast. Pitt is such a great goofball, and here he gets to tap into those comic abilities. Henry is fun (despite this: Lemon has a whole affectation about how Thomas the Tank Engine explains how people are in the world and it is, er, tolerable but not as awesome as the movie thinks it is). Lemon feels lifted out of a (better) Guy Ritchie affair. I would be inclined to say “this movie needs more characters as developed and thought through as Lemon” except that I wonder if “more” is this movie’s problem. Maybe this movie needs, to borrow from Coco Chanel, to take a few assassins off before it leaves the house.

Some of the cameos — Beetz, for example, and a few I haven’t mentioned — are super fun, or at least they would be if the movie were having fun instead of “portraying a mandatory jolliness experience,” which is how it feels like the “fun” is being given to us here. I wanted to like this movie more, I will probably watch it again when it winds up on some streaming service or some TNT Saturday afternoon lineup (which is how I went from “meh” to “woo-hoo!” on the 2017 Guy Ritchie take on King Arthur). But at first viewing, at least, all that speed and flash fizzled far more than it crackled. C+

Rated R for strong and bloody violence, pervasive language and brief sexuality, according to the MPA at filmratings.com. Directed by David Leitch with a screenplay by Zak Olkewicz, Bullet Train is two hours and six minutes long and distributed in theaters by Columbia Pictures.

Featured photo: Bullet Train.

DC League of Super-Pets (PG)

A horse training family encounters Something at their desert ranch in Nope, the latest film from Jordan Peele.

Krypto, dog of Superman, must save the day when Supes and other human Justice League-ers are captured, in DC League of Super-Pets, a fun animated blend of animal antics and superhero in-jokes.

Superman (voice of John Krasinski) and Krypto (voice of Dwayne Johnson) are besties from all the way back on Superman’s home planet, when Krypto jumped in baby Kal-El’s spaceship as it was leaving an exploding Krypton. Now, as two superheroes and single dudes living in Metropolis, Krypto enjoys his spot at Superman’s No. 1 companion — and is extremely wary of Lois Lane (voice of Olivia Wilde) barging in on their buddy time. But Superman is planning to propose to Lois Lane and he thinks that finding Krypto a new animal friend might be the way to soften the blow of this life change.

At the pet rescue, dog Ace (voice of Kevin Hart) is constantly trying to escape and tries to comfort his fellow unlikely-to-be adopted animals — PB the pig (voice of Vanessa Bayer), Merton (voice of Natasha Lyonne) the elderly nearsighted turtle and Chip (voice of Diego Luna), a squirrel or something — by telling them about the farm upstate he’ll help them get to when he gets away. Superman doesn’t adopt any of these guys but hairless guinea pig Lulu (voice of Kate McKinnon) does wind up following Superman home. After this former Lex Luthor (voice of Marc Maron) test animal manages to snatch a bit of orange kryptonite (which gives superpowers to animals) and green kryptonite (which robs Superman of his powers), Lulu is able to defeat a Superman briefly confused by the cute, squeaky, world-domination-seeking Lulu.

Krypto eventually alerts the Justice League that Superman has been captured but by that point Lulu has activated her own team — fellow guinea pigs not initially psyched about leaving their exercise wheels and water bottles but interested in the variety of superpowers the orange kryptonite gives them. Luckily for Team Good Guys, the pet rescue animals accidentally got some powers of their own: PB can make herself giant or tiny, Merton still can’t see anything but is super fast, Chip can generate lightning from his paws and Ace is super strong and possibly invincible. Krypto, who ate a bit of green kryptonite hidden inside some delicious cheese and has now lost his powers until it, er, exits his system, turns to the rescue pets for help saving the Justice League, even as he worries about his changing place in Superman’s life.

The Ace-Krypto relationship is familiar to many a Hart-Johnson pairing — a combination of light antagonism, playful ribbing and genuine affection. And it works here, as it so often does. These two actors have solid buddy chemistry and it comes through even in cartoon form.

They helm a cast of solid voice work, the standout of which is probably McKinnon, just doing everything as a villain who is as desperate for Lex Luthor’s affection as she is for whatever her “world ruled by guinea pig” plans are.

And you don’t have to be a DC expert to enjoy some of the nice jabs and in-jokes — the “crisis of infinite guinea pigs” chyron on news coverage, the repeated observation that the addition of glasses does not an airtight secret identity make. Some of these jokes were funnier for me than they were for my kids, who were more excited by action, pratfalls and more visual silliness.

DC League of Super-Pets was overall a solid family film, heroically saving the day with two hours of air conditioning and acceptable entertainment to everybody. B

Rated PG for action, mild violence, language and rude humor, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Jared Stern and Sam Levine with a screenplay by Jared Stern and John Whittington, DC League of Super-Pets is an hour and 46 minutes long and distributed in theaters by Warner Bros.

Featured photo: DC League of Super-Pets.

Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris (PG)

A woman seeks to own a Dior dress in Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, an absolute charmer of a midlife fairy tale.

London housecleaner Ada Harris (Lesley Manville) still talks about her husband Eddie, who didn’t return from the war but was only ever listed as “missing in action.” In 1957, she gets official word that the crash site of his plane was found and, with the return of his wedding ring, Ada is officially considered a widow by the British government. This turns out to be important for two reasons. The first is that some part of her had clearly hoped that her husband was still out there somewhere. The second is that she is owed 13 years of back widow’s benefits. Add that to some other small windfalls and she suddenly has the money to chase what has recently become her dream: to buy a Christian Dior dress.

After seeing a, as she calls it, “500 pound frock” at the home of a woman she cleans for, Ada, who appreciates not just the artistry of the dress but the escape and fantasy it represents, has decided she’s going to get herself one, even if she’s only wearing it to a local dance at the legion hall.

She flies to Paris, planning to only stay a day, but, after lucking into viewing the latest Dior collection, she learns that to have the dress of her dreams, she must stay a week or so to have it fitted. Luckily, she has charmed the Dior accountant, Andre Fauvel (Lucas Bravo), who invites her to crash at his Paris apartment and has made a friend in the Marquis de Chassagne (Lambert Wilson), who helps her see the possibility for romance again. Ada wins over Natasha (Alba Baptista), a Dior model with more academic aspirations, along with pretty much everyone she meets except Claudine Colbert (Isabelle Huppert), Dior’s number two and a stickler for the exclusivity that is the Dior brand.

This baby-bird-feather gentle movie also features Ellen Thomas and Jason Isaacs playing Ada’s understanding friends back home. Everybody here turns in a solid performance, suffused with warmth and kindness, even, ultimately, most of the jerkier characters. Leslie Manville very nearly twinkles at points but she carries it off without seeming dopey or naive. She gives Ada more personality, more inner life than what strictly appears on the surface.

Is it the most complex tale you’ll see all year? Probably not, but I dare you (particularly if you are a woman of a certain age; what age exactly I’m not sure except that I am definitely of that age) not to be won over by the ideas — that life can still change and surprise you (in the good way), beauty (and more important, feeling beautiful) is not the sole right of youth, hard work by people who spend a lot of time caring for others and not getting the glory will be rewarded. And there are pretty dresses! What’s not to like? B+

Rated PG for suggestive material, language and smoking, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Anthony Fabian with a screenplay by Anthony Fabian & Carroll Cartwright & Keith Thompson & Olivia Hetreed (based on a 1958 novel by Paul Gallico, one of four Mrs. Harris novels), Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris is an hour and 55 minutes long and is distributed in theaters by Focus Features.

Where the Crawdads Sing (PG-13)

A solitary young woman in rural coastal North Carolina finds herself accused of murdering a former boyfriend in Where the Crawdads Sing, a slow and occasionally dopey drama.

In 1969, Kya Clark (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is known in her small North Carolina town of, I forget, Bumpkin Cove or something, as “marsh girl” because she has lived most of her life largely alone in a house out in the marsh. After her mother leaves Kya’s abusive father when she is a child (Jojo Regina) and one by one her other four siblings run off and then her father himself (Garret Dillahunt) fades away, Kya is left to care for herself. She earns a meager living by picking mussels and selling them to the kind couple, Jumpin’ (Sterling Macer Jr.) and Mabel (Michael Hyatt), who run a small store. Mabel helps Kya get shoes and learn basic math and just generally keeps an eye on this child that she knows is basically alone.

When Kya is a teenager, she reconnects with childhood friend Tate (Taylor John Smith), who shares her love of the natural world of their coastal-marsh-swamp environment and shows his affection for her by bringing her feathers and teaching her to read. But he has big college plans, so he leaves Kya, never returning or even writing her a letter. Since people vanishing without a trace is kind of a trigger for her, Kya basically decides to heck with Tate. Then, years later, she meets Chase (Harris Dickinson), a local jerkface whom she is worn down into dating largely because most people in town are openly terrible.

This story is told in flashback, starting with Kya’s childhood in the early 1950s and moving through the 1960s, as 1969 Kya sits in jail accused of Chase’s murder. Everyone sort of assumes that marsh girl, who is treated like something between Bigfoot and a witch, is of course guilty of killing this from-a-good-family man (never mind that everybody seems aware of his womanizing and general awfulness). Tom Milton (David Strathairn), a good-hearted retired lawyer, decides she isn’t getting a fair shake and takes her case.

This movie serves as an excellent tourism commercial for coastal North Carolina and also serves up some shabby-chic vibes in Kya’s marsh-nestled home, particularly once she’s decorating things how she likes them. And Edgar-Jones is, I guess, fine. Watching her — and because there is so much time when this molasses drip of a movie is just repeatedly underlining stuff we already know about how awful the townsfolk are or what an unsympathetic murder victim Chase is — I found myself thinking Edgar-Jones (who is British) has a Jane Eyre like quality that might work in some BBC adaptation. So hey, Edgar-Jones’ agent, take a few short clips from this movie and show it to whoever is making the inevitable Jane Eyre limited series. Short clips, because whenever Edgar-Jones and one of her two goober-y boyfriends spend too much of some scene just sort of gazing at each other the movie tips over from earnest to doofy. C+

Rated PG-13 for sexual content and some violence including sexual assault, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Olivia Newman with a screenplay by Lucy Alibar (from the novel by Delia Owens), Where the Crawdads Sing is two hours and five minutes long and distributed in theaters by Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank (PG)

In a land of cats, a dog seeks to become a mighty samurai in Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank, an animated movie loosely based on Blazing Saddles, according to the internet, and featuring Mel Brooks with a small voice part.

Hank (voice of Michael Cera) the dog is about to be executed, largely for the crime of sneaking to the land of cats, when cat Ika Chu (voice of Ricky Gervais), a kind of middle-management government type, gets the idea to essentially give the dog what he wants and make him a samurai. Specifically, make him a samurai protecting Kakamucho, a town that Ika Chu wants wiped off the map to improve the view from the palace he built to impress the cat Shogun (voice of Brooks). The Shogun is slated to pick a successor soon and Ika Chu is certain he’ll get the job if the Shogun is wowed by the palace. He assumes that the townscats will be horrified that a dog has been sent to protect them and they’ll kill Hank, which will allow Ika Chu to arrest them all.

But Hank has some loveable goofus qualities and is able to find a reluctant mentor in the form of retired cat samurai Jimbo (voice of Samuel L. Jackson). With the help of Jimbo, Hank gains the begrudging respect of the Kakamucho residents. That is until Ika Chu decides to use that budding confidence to turn Hank into a little bit of an ego monster.

The movie also features the voices of George Takei, Djimon Hounsou, Michelle Yeoh and Aasif Mandvi. And, yes, in the spirit of the source material, we get some beans and toots.

As much as my kids enjoy fart humor, some of the killing- and violence-focused portions of the movie felt not quite sanded down enough for a younger audience. We get some fourth-wall-breaking meta humor (Hank realizing that he’s in the training montage part of the movie) but that also feels like a mix-in not thoroughly incorporated into the Dairy Queen Blizzard of this movie, which feels like has chunks of ideas throughout but never quite adds up to more than “watered down Kung Fu Panda.”

Ultimately Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank feels like it needs more and less — more rewrites and more silliness, less discount Dreamworks aimed-at-the-adults jokes and less Ricky Gervais (for all that he’s a good villain here, he also feels like he takes over fairly regularly). I can see the potential but the movie as it is just feels underwhelming. C

Rated PG for action, violence, rude and suggestive humor and some language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Chris Bailey, Mark Koetsier and Rob Minkoff with a screenplay by Ed Stone & Nate Hopper (based on Blazing Saddles by Mel Brooks & Normal Steinberg & Andrew Berman & Richard Pryor & Alan Unger), Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank is an hour and 38 minutes long and distributed in theaters by Paramount Pictures.

Featured photo: Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris.

Thor: Love and Thunder (PG-13)

Thor has regained his “god bod” but not necessarily his life’s purpose in Thor: Love and Thunder, a loose, fun sequel in the spirit of Thor: Ragnarok.

Since we last saw Thor at the end of Avengers: Endgame, he’s been hanging out with the Guardians of the Galaxy, going on what he calls “classic Thor adventures” and joining the battles just in time to save the day. After one such battle, Thor and the gang learn that people across the galaxy are calling for help as their local gods have been slain, leading to chaos. Thor decides to go off with his buddy Korg (voice of Taika Waititi, who also directs and co-wrote this film), who is made of rocks as you’ll recall, to find Sif (Jaimie Alexander), the last of Thor’s surviving Asgard warrior posse, who was one of the people calling for help. (This speedy goodbye to Chris Pratt et al. is a wise choice.)

Once Thor meets up with Sif, he learns about Gorr the god butcher (Christian Bale), who in the movie’s opening scenes we saw kill the god his people had worshiped after that god had callously let the entire civilization, including Gorr’s daughter, die of thirst and hunger. Gorr, aided by a cursed god-killing sword, has made it his mission to thusly slay all gods.

Thor, Sif and Korg return to New Asgard (on Earth), now doing a bustling tourism business thanks to the steady kingship of Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson). They plan to protect the Asgardians from Gorr, who terrorizes a population when he comes searching for its god. Thor is surprised to find, however, that New Asgard also has a new Thor — the Mighty Thor, as Dr. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) in her new supercharged incarnation calls herself.

As only a few close friends — Darcy (Kat Dennings) and Erik (Stellan Skarsgard) — know, Jane, Thor’s human ex, is currently undergoing aggressive chemotherapy for a fairly hopeless-sounding stage four cancer diagnosis. When the pieces of Mjolnir, Thor’s hammer that was crushed by Hela back in Ragnarok, call to her, she goes to New Asgard, hoping that maybe the otherwordly properties of the hammer can accomplish what medicine can’t and improve her health or at least buy her extra time. And it appears to work; at least while Jane holds Mjolnir, she is transformed into a buff “lady Thor,” complete with sleek costume and fashion-shoot-ready blond hair. However, when she puts Mjolnir back down, we see a Jane who is looking gaunt and weak.

Together Thor, the Mighty Thor/Jane and Valkyrie must fight off Gorr, who has the potential to Destroy the Universe but whose more immediate danger is that he takes the Asgardian children hostage. (And the “rescue the children” aspect gives the whole to-do better stakes than the standard “save the galaxy” goal of Marvel movies.) Their mission involves travels to other realms and some fun visits with other gods, which all keeps the action moving while also keeping the tone slightly off kilter in that Taika Waititi way.

I’ve just laid down a lot of “magical hammer from this Phase Three MCU movie” and “god butcher who is wielding Necrosword, the legendary god-killing weapon” but this movie isn’t actually that heavy with comic book homework and Marvel movie plot points. Or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say, that stuff is in there but knowing all the trivia isn’t required to get the vibe of the story. One of the nice things that Waititi has done here and in Ragnarok — and that carried over to the Thor of the last two Avengers movies — is make Thor, underneath the Hemsworth handsomeness and charm, weird. Thor isn’t just a muscley hero; he’s also a mass of regret and sadness and insecurities. His godly confidence is a thin veneer covering very human-style neediness. He still hasn’t figured out what to do with his grief over the many Thanos-related losses he suffered, not to mention all the losses that came before (his parents, his people’s kingdom of Asgard, his hammer Mjolnir, which is as much a friend as it is a weapon), which included a breakup with Jane, his true love. Hanging with the Guardians might have kept him busy, but they didn’t help him find peace. Meditation just made him angrier, he explains in a line that is played for laughs but is actually rather a good descriptor of how he is and isn’t dealing.

That character moving through a kind of quest adventure makes for a good mix — something a little richer, more interesting and shaggier (but in the good way) than the more formulaic mid-series Marvel movies or the emotionally flatter Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. And more fun — I know what I’ve just described sounds like another one of those “characters dealing with trauma” things that have become so prevalent but it actually feels more like “characters dealing with life,” but with the superhero movie trappings of costumes and magical weaponry. There are genuine laughs here, nice character moments (in particular a few between Valkyrie and Jane; this movie could have used even more of these two lone-wolf in charge ladies having moments of sisterhood), and an increasingly enjoyable Thor as he is allowed to mature and grow in a way that not all of the other Marvel characters have been. And the movie has some just good silliness, such as the return of the Asgard theatrical troupe (some great cameos there) and the general metal and hard rock sensibility (the movie makes great use of Guns N’ Roses).

Thor: Love and Thunder might not be the lightning bolt of originality and fun that Thor:Ragnarok was but it offers up a genuinely enjoyable two hours with an increasingly likeable character. B

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, language, some suggestive material and partial nudity, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Taika Waititi and written by Taika Waititi & Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, Thor: Love and Thunder is an hour and 58 minutes long and distributed in theaters by Walt Disney Studios.

Extra credit: If you have Disney+ and want a little more of Waititi’s Thor, check out the shorts called Team Thor: Part 1, Team Thor: Part 2 and Team Darryl from 2016. A post-Civil War Thor is bumming around Australia, sharing a flat with “average sorta everyday guy” Darryl, who seems quietly dismayed to realize that one of Earth’s mightiest Avengers is not the best roommate.

Featured photo: Thor: Love and Thunder

Eleven- (and three-quarters!) year-old Gru tries to join the league of villains he idolizes in Minions: The Rise of Gru, maybe the silliest of these movies and I mean this as a compliment.

When young Gru (voice of Steve Carell) finds out that the adult villains the Vicious Six are now only five and have an opening, he is excited to go meet the gang, now led by Belle Bottom (voice of Taraji P. Henson, doing some fun villain vocal work). But they quickly say “next” when they realize he’s just a kid. To prove himself to them, Gru steals the mystical ancient amulet from them that they have recently stolen.

Or rather, Wild Knuckles (voice of Alan Arkin), formerly the sixth member, stole the amulet right before the other five stole it from him and kicked him out of the group. So as Gru runs off with his thrice-stolen prize, not only are Belle and her gang after him but so is Wild Knuckles. Gru makes a getaway with the help of his Minion henchmen (voiced by Pierre Coffin) but then one of them falls in love with a pet rock (it’s the 1970s) and loses the amulet. In a fit of anger Gru fires them but then he is quickly kidnapped. While a group of Minions heads off in search of Gru, another one tracks down the amulet. And of course Belle is still looking for Gru, breaking up Gru’s mother’s (voice of Julie Andrews) Tupperware party, where the Minions have been demonstrating the product’s fart-noise-producing features.

Wild Knuckles, trying to prove he’s still got it, and Gru, trying to prove he’s got it already, eventually make a crabbily sweet mentor-mentee team while elsewhere some Minions take a little time out to learn kung-fu from Master Chow (voice of Michelle Yeoh). We don’t linger on any one scene or any one idea very long and even though there are emotional beats to this movie, they take a back seat to, well, backseats (there are, of course, occasional Minion butts, which got big laughs from my elementary school-age kids). And fart jokes and silly Minion talk and Minions doing puppy-dog eyes and general Three Stooges-ness. If you’re still fighting the good fight against sassiness and cartoon-on-cartoon head-bonks, I can see how this movie might be a bit much (there are also some big scary animals at the end, including a pretty great Taraji P. Henson dragon). But if you’ve given in or your kids are old enough, this movie has a bouncy silliness that has good energy without feeling like a total sugar rush and keeps the movie snapping along through its not quite 90 minutes.

“It’s awesome; you gotta go,” was the review one of my kids gave. And if you like Looney Tunes-style goofiness — or just watching the enjoyment your kids get from Looney Tunes-style goofiness — I agree. B+

Rated PG for some action/violence and rude humor, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Kyle Balda, Brad Ableson and Jonathan del Val, Minions: The Rise of Gru is an hour and 27 minutes long and distributed in theaters by Universal Studios.

Featured photo: Minions: The Rise of Gru

Elvis (PG-13)

Elvis Aaron Presley gets the biopic treatment — sorta — in Elvis, the bonkers and exhausting movie from Baz Luhrmann.

We meet Elvis (Austin Butler, an absolute ball of magnetism in the middle of this thing) when he is a young musician, having just caught a break with the popularity of his recording of “That’s All Right” and still playing radio shows and county-fair-type events. It’s here that Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks) first sees Elvis. Parker, who narrates the movie from his unreliable viewpoint, describes himself as basically a carnival showman always in search of an act that will draw the crowds and make them happy to fork over their money. When he watches Elvis sing and shake his hips and he sees women and girls in the audience all but lose their minds, Parker believes he has found the greatest show on Earth. First, he has to entangle Elvis in a crushing contract, which he does, winning over both Presley and his parents, Gladys (Helen Thomson) and Vernon (Richard Roxburg). Then he pulls him onto a traveling country music show. But the squaresville country performers don’t like sharing a stage with the “wild” Elvis and his music with its elements of Black musical styles. Young people might be going nuts for Elvis but the white establishment is way more interested in keeping segregation alive and well. The more popular Elvis gets, the more girls are hanging outside his window (and later outside the gates of Graceland), the more adult society seems determined to tamp him down, with threats to jail him if he continues his wiggling.

Parker, not particularly interested in Elvis’ music as art but extremely interested in Elvis’ performance contracts and various merchandising opportunities, tries to make Elvis more “family friendly” on a TV performance, dressed in formalwear and singing to a hound dog. Elvis rebels against the “New Elvis” and goes back to his preferred method of performance. Parker decides that the way for Elvis to ride out the firestorm is to accept being drafted into the U.S. Army; the haircut and two years of military service will prove that Elvis is a clean-cut all-American boy, Parker believes.

And it sort of works, with Elvis returning to show business with a wife, Priscilla (Olivia DeJonge), and a career in Hollywood. But Elvis and Parker continue to clash over Elvis’ desire for more artistic fulfillment and Parker’s desire for commercial success — if The Beatles are where rock ’n’ roll is, how about make a Christmas album?

Throughout, we see how Elvis’ childhood (Chaydon Jay plays young Elvis), frequently living in Black neighborhoods and soaking in blues and gospel music, influenced his own talent. The movie directly shows the inspiration/appropriation aspect of Elvis’ music and how part of what made him such a draw, artistically and commercially, is that he was performing the music of Black artists such as Big Mama Thorton, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup in a way that fit with the rock of the era and was accepted by white audiences — younger white audiences, at least — in a segregated country. The argument of the movie on this score — at least I think this is the movie’s argument — is that Elvis is both an exceptional musical talent and someone who, because of the times he lived in, was able to take advantage of the artistry of these equally talented and more talented musicians who had few opportunities for Elvis-sized success.

This aspect of Elvis is one of the more engaging elements of the movie. I don’t know that it rights any historical wrongs but it gives some kind of spotlight to the original performers (or, at least, acknowledges that Elvis wasn’t coming up with this music in a vacuum) and that’s, you know, something. These scenes are often a little bonkers but they are interesting bonkers, which is what you hope for from a Baz Luhrmann movie.

Overall, however, I wish Elvis, which clocks in at two hours and 39 minutes, had been about 30 percent shorter and 40 percent more bonkers. When Baz Luhrmann is being weird or over the top or getting us right up next to sweaty Vegas Elvis to see him pour every bit of whatever’s left of himself into performances for, if not artistic fulfillment, a few moments of crowd adoration, Elvis is sort of fascinating. I mean, it also feels like a mess and I’m not fully sure I understand the story the movie is telling (or even if the movie knows what story it is telling) but at least in these scenes we are getting a portrait of a person, played by a person (Butler) who also feels like he’s going all in.

Then there is the whole deal with Hanks’ Tom Parker, with his extremely extreme nose (which I feel like we see A Lot of in shadow or in profile) and his whole crazy accent (which is I guess true-ish to life, it’s sort of Southern with a lot of Dutch inflection, “Parker” having been an invention of a carnival worker from the Netherlands who immigrated, without legal documents, in the late 1920s and then sometimes tried to pass himself off as being from West Virginia, Wikipedia explains). Hanks’ Parker is always leering from a shadow or slinking around, like he’s the devil who met this musician at the crossroads. But are we supposed to see him as some great villain? Or just a huckster whose goals sort-of aligned with Elvis’? There are a lot of facets to the character — his hazy background, his gambling problem that puts him in the debt of shady mob-types in Vegas, the air of neediness behind all the bluster. But I feel like the movie throws it all at us, similar to how it throws a lot of interesting music all together, without really pulling any character or theme into a coherent throughline in the movie. This movie about Elvis and told by Parker ends up being about both of them and neither of them.

So here are my takeaways from Elvis:

• Austin Butler is deeply compelling. Even when they’ve put him in some pretty silly sideburns, you can’t not watch him with all of your attention. He gives you a sense of how this random country-blues musician became Big Deal Elvis Presley and why he was still a good show even when the culture had sort of passed him by in the traditional rock sense.

• The soundtrack, both in the movie and the album, is weird but intriguing (Eminem makes a very purposeful appearance; think on that for a bit) and I’m definitely going to give it a listen. It almost pulls off that trick, like 2019’s Yesterday did with The Beatles, of letting you pull this extremely familiar music out of its place in your cultural consciousness and consider it anew.

• Baz Luhrmann is always interesting, even when it feels like parts of his movies are kind of a mess. This movie had me wanting to rewatch The Great Gatsby and Romeo + Juliet. He understands spectacle and presentation in a way that makes his movies fun to watch even if you’re not totally sure what you’re watching.

So, B?

Rated PG-13 for substance abuse, strong language, suggestive material and smoking, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Baz Luhrmann with a screenplay by Baz Luhrmann & Sam Bromell and Craig Pearce and Jeremy Doner, Elvis is two hours and 39 minutes long and distributed in theaters by Warner Bros.

Featured photo: Elvis

Lightyear (PG)

Space Ranger Buzz Lightyear is stuck on a vine-and-bug-filled planet but he still seeks to go “to infinity and beyond” in Lightyear, Pixar’s thought experiment about the origins of Buzz Lightyear.

Not the Toy Story Tim Allen-voiced toy Buzz Lightyear who was beloved by human child Andy and became best friends with fellow toy Woody. This is the character that toy was based on, as a title card explains, and we are watching the movie that Andy watched. So we in the audience are — in the Toy Story universe? It’s a concept that sort of pulls you through the looking glass if you think about it too hard.

Here, Buzz (voice of Chris Evans) and fellow Space Ranger Alisha Hawthorne (voice of Uzo Aduba) are crew members aboard a giant spaceship that is, I think, searching for life throughout the galaxy. He decides to investigate a promising-looking Goldilocks zone-type planet but this peaceful-seeming world is full of giant attack bugs and aggressive vines that try to pull people and the ship under the dirt. Buzz and Alisha, who along with a rookie (voice of Bill Hader) have gone exploring on the planet, barely make it back to the ship. When they take off, the pull of the vines makes the launch trajectory less than perfect, but Buzz is determined to clear a large mountain that the ship is suddenly heading right for.

And he almost does.

The crystal fuel cell that allows the ship to take off and to reach hyperspace traveling speeds breaks in the attempt to launch. Alisha tells her friend that they’ll wake up the scientists and other crew members in cryosleep and use the planet’s resources to regroup. After about a year, it seems that they have. Buzz boards a jet-ish spaceship to test a new fuel cell and slingshots around the planet’s nearby sun. But the fuel cell doesn’t quite make it up to speed and he returns to the planet to find that while he has only aged a few minutes the people back on the ground have aged four years.

Buzz is shocked — one crew member suddenly has a large beard, Alisha is engaged. But Buzz is determined to keep working on the fuel cell to try to fix the situation (the stranding of the ship, landing on the planet in the first place) that he feels deeply responsible for. So he goes up again and again. And comes back to learn that Alisha and her now-wife are expecting a baby, and then after a few more missions sees them celebrating their son’s graduation and then their celebrating their own multi-decade anniversary with their grown son and his partner looking on. And then one time Buzz comes back to find not Alisha but a recorded message she has left for him.

Through the decades (for everybody else) that only read as days or maybe weeks to Buzz, his constant non-aging companion is Sox (voice of Peter Sohn), a robot cat from Alisha. During one of Buzz’s brief stays, Sox asks what he can do to help Buzz out and Buzz offhandedly says Sox could figure out the whole fuel cell re-creation conundrum. It’s a big job, but Sox does have a lot of alone time in Buzz’s seldom-visited apartment.

While Buzz is laser-focused on getting off the planet and getting everyone “home” — to include a great many people who are probably a generation or two removed from wherever home was — the people on the planet seem to have largely lost interest in the fuel cell problem and are more focused on making life better there. Buzz takes one more desperate mission to prove that he can get the ship going again, but finds himself returning to a society facing threats from a mysterious ship and a bunch of robots called Zurg. Fighting the Zurg is a young woman with a familiar last name: Izzy Hawthorne (Keke Palmer), the now twentysomething granddaughter of Buzz’s old friend Alisha.

Sox, the movie’s standout supporting character, helps to amp up the kid-friendly silliness of the movie, which features a lot of adults talking. I’ve felt that some recent Pixar movies — Soul and Toy Story 4 come to mind — feel so invested in adulty-seeming characters and their adult, midlife problems about career fulfillment or being an empty-nester that I didn’t see the kid appeal of the story. Here, while there is a lot about Buzz learning to face up to a mistake and move on from it and learning to be part of a team, I feel like the movie approaches these rather complex concepts in kid-accessible ways. How do you deal with a mistake that you made without letting that mistake consume you? How do you live life from where you are now and move forward? I found myself being impressed with how the movie delivered these concepts in a way that I think kids (dealing with not making their travel soccer team or being in a different class from their bestie) will get, emotionally, even if it’s not something they could express in words.

Lightyear is, of course, beautiful to look at. It has a few truly lovely moments in space and in the sky. In particular, there is a shot with clouds that was stunning in the same way that the rendering of water in the short Piper was, where I may have actually said “wow” out loud.

Lightyear doesn’t grab you by the heart like recent Pixar offerings Turning Red or Luca. And while there’s nothing too frightening for younger kids — there are some scary robots, many of whom are also goofy, and some giant spiders — I did wonder if there was enough silliness or bounciness for kids younger than, say, 7 or 8 (Common Sense Media rated the movie as being for 6+ and they tend to be fairly accurate in their age assessments in my experience). It’s a nice movie, in the kindness sense, without being particularly delightful, and it’s a fun movie while still having moments that feel, if not sluggish exactly, just not as peppy as they could be.

Lightyear is not the most memorable Pixar offering but a perfectly acceptable option for families looking for entertainment and air conditioning. B

Rated PG for action/peril, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Angus MacLane with a screenplay by Angus MacLane (based on characters by Pete Docter & Andrew Stanton & Joe Ranft), Lightyear is an hour and 40 minutes long and distributed by Walt Disney Studios in theaters.

Featured photo: Lightyear.

Jurassic World Dominion (PG-13)

Original Jurassic cast and new Jurassic cast collide in the underwhelming Jurassic World Dominion, the final movie in the Jurassic World trilogy and the conclusion of the six total Jurassic movies.

Wikipedia and other sources report that filmmakers say this is the final film of these two trilogies, but I have a hard time believing this is “The End” of this franchise. Something this long-running, and with CGI dinosaurs and not specific actors as the principal attraction, feels like it will always have reboot potential. You know — life finds a way.

Previous movie Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom ended on a dark but interesting note (spoiler alert for that 2018 film): What if dinosaurs were suddenly reintroduced to the planet, not just in some controlled theme park but out in the wild with other animals and soft, squishable humans. Dominion takes that idea and, well, basically does nothing with it. Dinosaurs are out there running around on land and swimming in the world’s oceans. And there is also an illegal market in dinosaurs — but somehow none of that really seems to matter. Like, at the end of this movie, we see a kid just feeding a small dinosaur in the park, like it’s a friendly duck, and it’s no big whoop.

The big whoop of Dominion is actually an infestation of particularly large, aggressive locusts that are destroying huge chunks of farmland. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern!) figures out that these locusts have Cretaceous DNA and gets her old friend Alan Grant (Sam Neill) to go with her to Biosyn, the company that has the government contract to deal with all the loose dinos in the world and that, totally coincidentally, is the source of the seeds used in the only fields that the locusts won’t eat. Their colleague Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) works for Biosyn and has invited them to come visit him at the Biosyn facility in Italy where they have their dino preserve and also a building with multiple underground levels where you can do all sorts of shady DNA stuff.

Meanwhile, out in The Wilderness, Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) and Owen (Chris Pratt), one-time coworkers at the revived but now-re-defunct Jurassic World theme park, are now an official couple and co-parents to Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon), a clone or something who they rescued in the last movie. In addition to being some kind of scientific marvel who is being hunted by poachers, Maisie is a sulky teen who wants to ride her bike wherever I want, Mom, because you can’t hide me in this off-the-grid cabin forever. Naturally, after one such tantrum, she is kidnapped, along with Beta, the small baby raptor of Blue, Owen’s raptor buddy who lives in the nearby wilderness. I’ll bring back your baby, Owen tells Blue — and to this movie’s credit, they do let Ian make fun of this later.

Eventually, all of these characters — along with bad-ass pilot Kayla (DeWanda Wise); scientist Henry Wu (BD Wong), who is always messing with DNA in these movies and, like, never learns, and Biosyn flunky Ramsay (Mamoudou Athie) — wind up at the Biosyn facility in Italy run by cartoonishly evil Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott, who never seems to completely land on which tech CEO he’s parodying).

There are, of course, plenty of scenes of dinosaurs chasing our characters — trained attack dinosaurs chasing a motorcycle-riding Owen through the streets of Malta, those dino-locusts swarming on a farm, a T-Rex on the hunt for meat. But there are also enough scenes of not-dinosaurs in this nearly two-and-a- half-hour movie that I found myself thinking “it’s been a while since we’ve seen any dinosaurs in this dinosaur movie.” There’s a lot of very goopy talk about genetics and humanity, a scene of people listening to Ian Malcolm just sorta riff in a lecture hall, a whole undercurrent about Ellie and Alan’s relationship that I think we’re supposed to find nostalgic and cute, the parenting dynamics of Owen and Claire, the genetically engineered Maisie dealing with the nature of herself (which the movie confuses more than it explains). When dinosaurs show up, it is at least nice to break away from these plots and people that I could never really bring myself to care about. But the dinosaur action also felt sort of muted; there was kind of an amusement park ride quality to some of the dinosaur scenes, as though we were riding through little tableaus about dinosaurs in the world without really engaging with them.

I’m sure that, side by side, these 2022 dinosaurs would look realer than the 1990s dinosaurs of the original movies, but this movie isn’t presenting them in any way that is significantly more exciting or visually arresting than back then. We don’t get any “clever girl” or raptors testing the fences moments here. And I felt nothing but eye-roll-y about the movie wanting me to root for the underdog T-Rex in a fight against the bigger badder Giganotosaurus. Yep, cool, I feel a really strong emotional connection to this one section of the green screen over this other section of the green screen.

Jurassic World Dominion was probably never going to be great but it had a setup that could have found its way to fun if it had built itself on the “dinosaurs in the human world” idea instead of getting all Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker about smooshing together separate trilogies and then basically putting the big climax back in a Jurassic Park-like setting. C-

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action, some violence and language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Colin Trevorrow with a screenplay by Emily Carmichael & Colin Trevorrow, Jurassic World Dominion is an unnecessary two hours and 26 minutes long and is distributed by Universal Studios.

Featured photo: Jurassic World Dominion.