The Northman (R)

Alexander Skarsgård is Viking Hamlet (as many a commentator has called him) in The Northman, directed and co-written by Robert Eggers of The Lighthouse and The Witch fame.

Recall those English class fun facts, bookworms: Amleth, the lead of this story, and his tale are the source material on which Shakespeare is said to have based Hamlet. Also, enjoy the passage of time, Gen X-ers, as you recall that Ethan Hawke once played Hamlet (in a 2000 modern-day-set adaptation that I mostly remember for the “to be or not to be” scene set in a Blockbuster). Here, 22 years later, he is grizzled old King Aurvandil, father to young Prince Amleth (Oscar Novak).

When scrappy little tween Amleth sees Aurvandil murdered by his uncle Fjölnir (Claes Bang), Aurvandil’s half-brother, and is then hunted by Fjölnir’s men, Amleth takes off vowing in Ayra-Stark-style kill-mantra that “I will avenge you father, I will rescue you mother, I will kill you Fjölnir.” In leaving behind his father’s kingdom, Amleth leaves behind his beloved mother Queen Gundrún (Nicole Kidman), whom he sees Fjölnir carry off.

Years later, big Skarsgård Amleth is a berserker Viking warrior, raiding villages in Eastern Europe for assorted plunder, including captives to be sent as slaves all over Europe. When he hears that one group is bound for Iceland, where Fjölnir now lives, he follows the advice of a blind seer (Bjork, of course) to seek Fjölnir out and fulfill his promise of vengeance. He cuts his hair and disguises himself as one of the conquered men being sent to Fjölnir. Along the way, he befriends Olga (Anya Taylor-Joy), a fellow captive who is immediately wise to his con and has some unspecified abilities of her own.

The Northman is a very visceral movie, in the sense that everything, from the often beautiful-but-bleak landscapes to the score and the character performances, is rich with vivid rage all the way down. Not just Amleth but everyone here seems to be harboring some deep hurt from some deep loss and is never peacefully existing, just biding their time until they can unleash.

This is also a visceral movie in the sense that there is a whole lot of viscera. Especially once Amleth, with help from Olga, begins his plan to terrorize Fjölnir’s household, we get not just blood but gushing gaping wounds and innards pulled out. As with The Lighthouse, Robert Eggers seems to love scenes set in a moving tableau style, with images that are as lush as they are disturbing and sometimes outright horrifying. It’s a heightened approach to a movie’s visual style that pulls the viewer out of the real world and into the magic-y, evil-everywhere world the story inhabits.

The Northman is every bit the “yanked into a wintery dark fairy tale” that the trailer promised. A

Rated R for strong bloody violence (like so strong and so bloody and so very violent), some sexual content and nudity, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Robert Eggers with a screenplay by Sjón and Robert Eggers, The Northman is two hours and 16 minutes long and distributed by Focus Features.

Everything Everywhere All At Once (R)

Michelle Yeoh is a woman struggling with her laundromat’s financial issues and her family’s communication issues and she might also be the only person who can save the multiverse from total destruction in Everything Everywhere All At Once, an action-packed, sci-fi-ish comedy-sorta about love, relationships and the nihilism of an everything bagel.

This description is only slightly more than I knew going in to this movie. If you think you’d rather know very little about this movie too and just want know if it’s worth seeing or not let’s just skip to the part where I tell you to go see this movie. Like, definitely go, even if you’re thinking “multiverses? Two-hour-plus runtime? Meh?” because it doesn’t feel like two-plus hours (fittingly, the movie both feels like it’s three hours of story and like it’s 90 minutes of well-paced storytelling) and “multiverses exist” is really all you have to really retain, in terms of universe rules, to go along with the ride.

Michelle Yeoh is excellent as a middle-aged lady who is kind of a mess but also a recognizably grown human and I heartily agree with everybody who is saying crazy things about remembering this performance during award season. Also great is Ke Huy Quan, whom most of us still probably know from his childhood performances in The Goonies and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. If I say something like “he makes his character a well-rounded person while believably selling the idea that kindness, empathy and patience are the ultimate superpowers” you might think “barf, pass” so forget I mentioned it. Know that I am going to give this movie an A and strongly suggest you find your outside clothes and make a trip to the actual theater to hang out in this world created by writers/directors Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, known as the Daniels (they directed the “Turn Down for What” video and when you watch it after seeing this movie you’ll think “yeah, that tracks”).

But if you do want a little more …

Laundromat co-owner Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) is being audited in part for folding a lot of hobby expenses into her business, though she thinks auditor Deidre (Jamie Lee Curtis) is just a mean lady who has it in for her. (Side note: I guess I didn’t catch it during the movie so it’s just now that I learned Deidre’s last name. It’s perfect and makes me love the movie even more.)

Evelyn’s husband Waymond (Quan) is anxious to talk to her about his serious concerns about their relationship but, as he later tells her, they only seem to talk when they are in some kind of emergency, which the day is turning in to, what with the audit, a party they’re holding at the laundromat, the recent arrival of Evelyn’s difficult father, known as Gong Gong (James Hong), and Evelyn’s ongoing prickly relationship with her grown-ish daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu). Joy wants to introduce Gong Gong to her girlfriend, Becky (Tallie Medel), but Evelyn is still a nervous girl seeking her father’s approval around Gong Gong. Joy sees this lack of backbone and her mother’s criticism, both direct and implied, as part of their intense, fraught battle of wills but it feels to me like a real “gah mothers-and-daughters” situation.

Suddenly, in the middle of this, Waymond tells Evelyn that he is not her Waymond but Alpha Waymond, a Waymond from the Alphaverse, one of the many universes that is now imperiled because of an all-powerful, universe-hopping entity that Evelyn alone can defeat. An understandable “what?” is Evelyn’s reaction until she, too, starts to move among the universes, experiencing the lives of different Evelyns who made different choices (and, helpfully, bringing back with her their abilities, such as kung fu skills and superior lung capacity).

This movie is so much more surprising and goofy and heartfelt than that description can convey. I feel like every laugh hit me with unexpected delight (there is an extended bit about Ratatouille that is just … so awesomely weird) and I was equally surprised about what would suddenly catch me by the heart (a rock with googly eyes, for example). Though I tried to avoid a lot of extended coverage of this movie — no easy feat since it’s been pretty universally praised — I feel like a lot of what will hit you and stay with you has at least as much to do with you and your current life situation as the movie itself. “That is so specifically me” is a thing I can imagine lots of different people in different stages of life, thinking about this movie and one (or more) of its characters. I was struck by how the movie talked about relationships, particularly the mother-child relationship, and about how it painted them as being all about holding on and letting go — and doing both at the same time. The movie gives you this in a specific and rightly enormous way, putting the relationships on the same level as an inter-dimensional catastrophe.

And then, as you’re sitting there, awash in the big emotions of all that, maybe crying or laughing or thinking about the people in your life, a raccoon shows up as a completely absurd and not insignificant plot point.

Again, A.

Rated R for some violence, sexual material and language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, who also co-wrote the screenplay, Everything Everywhere All At Once is two hours and 19 minutes long and is distributed in theaters by A24.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (R)

Nicolas Cage is Nicolas Cage in the delightfully Cage-ian blend of action, comedy and absurdity that is The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.

Nicolas Cage, or at least a Nicolas Cage, is an actor, beloved for The Rock and Con Air and what have you, but now looking for his way back to movie stardom, not that he ever went anywhere (as he’s always quick to clarify). His struggles between wanting Serious Actor Roles and wanting to be a Freakin’ Movie Star, as personified by Nicky, a smooth-of-skin, smooth-of-brain younger Cage-ier version of himself that older Nick sometimes talks to, have him all twisted up in existential angst knots. Also, the extremely large hotel bill he’s accumulated since his separation from wife Olivia (Sharon Horgan) makes the need to keep working not just an artistic one but a serious financial one.

When he doesn’t get a much-longed-for part, he unravels, embarrassing his teenage daughter Addy (Lily Sheen) at her birthday party and finding himself locked out of his hotel room. Reluctantly, he agrees to do the job brought to him by his agent Richard (Neil Patrick Harris), to be essentially birthday party entertainment for rich Spanish guy Javi (Pedro Pascal) at his mansion in Mallorca.

Javi is a Nick Cage superfan — and, Cage is relieved to learn, Javi’s secret isn’t that he wants Cage to do anything weird but that he wants him to read (and maybe star in?) the screenplay Javi wrote. Cage finds himself having fun hanging out with Javi — but then the visit takes a very Nicholas Cage movie turn.

Javi had been under surveillance by some U.S. government intelligence agents looking to bring down not just Javi but also a secretive high-level mob figure. When it’s Cage and not the mafioso who comes out of Javi’s private plane, CIA agents Vivian (Tiffany Haddish) and Martin (Ike Barinholtz) decide to follow Cage and eventually ask him to help them spy on Javi. They believe that Javi is actually an international criminal himself and is behind the recent kidnapping of a Catalonian politician’s daughter. Thus begins the, like, triple meta swirl of Nicolas Cage’s Nicolas Cage performance performance as the movie’s Cage is trying to figure out his career, his family and what to make of this odd new friendship with Javi while he also engages in spycraft.

I don’t know if Nicolas Cage here is actually the most game actor ever but he is super game in how inside the whole Nicolas Cage late-career icon status thing he is willing to go. It’s delightful to see someone have so much goofy fun with his own persona. At several points, “Nicolas Cage” and Javi are basically playing Nicolas Cage movie, the way kids back in the day might “play Star Wars,” and both actors are able to do this with an earnest wholeheartedness without winking at the screen. It’s giddy without being too silly, it’s fun without making fun.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent both is the unapologetic actor vehicle that it appears to be and is so much more charming and joyful than that. A-

Rated R for language throughout, some sexual references, drug use and violence, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Tom Gormican and written by Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is an hour and 47 minutes long and distributed in theaters by Lionsgate.

The Bad Guys (PG)

An Ocean’s 11-like team of animals with reputations for trouble consider leaving behind their lives of crime in The Bad Guys, a cute if chatty animated heist movie based on the children’s books.

Wolf (voice of Sam Rockwell) and Snake (voice of Marc Maron) are very much the George Clooney and Brad Pitt of this crew; we first meet them relaxedly exchanging patter in a diner — where scared patrons are plastered against the wall — before heading out to rob a nearby bank. They’re joined by their crew — Shark (voice of Craig Robinson), Tarantula (voice of Awkwafina) and Piranha (voice of Anthony Ramos) — and execute a pretty good getaway. But later, the fox governor Diane Foxington (voice of Zazie Beetz) pooh-poohs the crew’s abilities and hypes the upcoming Good Samaritan Golden Dolphin award.

Wolf takes this as a personal challenge and decides the crew should steal the Golden Dolphin, which they do — almost. They’re caught and on their way to jail when Professor Marmalade (voice of Richard Ayoade), a guinea pig who is the winner of the Good Samaritan award, offers to make it his mission to rehabilitate the animals. Wolf decides that “turning good” makes the perfect cover for a future con, and Snake, who is particularly partial to guinea pig as a cuisine, and the crew go along. But Wolf also finds himself occasionally feeling good when he’s told that he has done good. If he and his crew of scary animals really do walk the straight and narrow, will they be able to get others to see beyond the stereotype?

The movie has a bouncy Ocean’s-for-kids vibe, with jokiness that, at least for kids who can appreciate talkier humor, keeps the story feeling upbeat even when characters are in conflict. Sure, if you’re looking for some “good for you” elements, the movie lightly touches on the idea of caring for others and not judging people by their appearance, but to me these elements all felt thinner than the movie seemed to think they were. B

Rated PG for action and rude humor, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Pierre Perifel with a screenplay by Etan Cohen (based on the books by Aaron Blabey), The Bad Guys is an hour and 40 minutes long and distributed by Universal Studios.

Featured photo: The Northman.