A passel of movies:

“Aquaman” demonstrates that while DC has managed to learn how to make REALLY good superhero movie TRAILERS, they still have a ways to go when it comes to superhero movies. A strong cast and an unlimited effects budget don’t make up for a script that gives us cardboard characters and fails to sell a complex alien mythology. DC is getting better; this movie is at least as well constructed as “Wonder Woman”, but that isn’t saying a lot.

“Replicas” is a train wreck with a strong cast. I suspect that the director thought he was saying something important, but failed.

“On the Basis of Sex” is a first rate bio-drama on the early career of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Given how dry the subject matter is, this movie is simply amazing.

“Stan & Ollie” relates the last tour of the legendary comedy team. The narrative has been heavily massaged for dramatic purposes, but the portrayals are absolutely magical.

“The Kid Who Would Be King” is incredibly silly, but it is ultimately a “triumph of the underdog” story with Arthurian trappings, and it demonstrates once again that the formula works if given half a chance.

“Cold Pursuit” is a deeply flawed revenge fantasy. It demonstrates that just because you have translated the script from another language (Norwegian, in this case), you haven’t necessarily translated the cultural nuances (which may not be translatable at all).

“Fighting With My Family” is a light hearted biodrama of a WWE star. Given that we have ZERO interest in professional wrestling, we enjoyed this movie a great deal.

“Alita: Battle Angel” isn’t quite a train wreck. The world building is awful (but inheirited from the source material); the effects are good, and BEAUTIFUL; the characters are… strange. There are MANY really good character scenes, but the characters aren’t really consistent from one scene to the next, and the whole doesn’t quite fit together. But it’s pretty.

“Captain Marvel” interweaves two plot arcs. One of them is an extremely well done character arc, and the other is an effects heavy alien war stew that was lame when it was introduced fifty years ago. The end result is a tolerable movie that may be as good as it could possibly have been, given the horrific convolutions of the source material.

Uncle Hyena

“Welcome to Marwen” takes a sad but beautiful true tragedy to triumph story and warps it into something else. I am sure that writer/director Zemeckis intended to say something with his reality warp, but he failed.

“Destination Inner Space” is a “Fear the Skies” B movie from 1966 that wasted much of its budget on really boring underwater photography. It also raises the perplexing question of why they would cast a bikini model as a utility diver, and then never put her in a bikini. There is a tolerable television episode hiding in this thing, if you were to carefully edit out half of the film. Of course, I only watched it because it is the source of a tee shirt that I happen to love, and I didn’t expect much more than I got.

“When Harry Met Sally” holds up pretty well. From this remove, Harry is a pretty ordinary guy who grows up a bit over the course of the movie, and Sally is a toxic basket case who becomes almost human over the same span. The legendary fake orgasm scene is actually the heart of the movie, because it is the only place where Sally reveals that she has a playful side that makes her worth redeeming.

“Spider Man: Into the Spiderverse” is a reasonably amusing piece of animation that beats the dead horse of multiple simultaneous universes to a pulp. There are some really good character moments in this movie, but the central idiocy devalues the whole.

“Bumblebee” has a lot of really wonderful character work (by both the human actors and the CGI robot) set against yet another piece of the grand Transformers mythos (yawn). It’s pleasant, mindless fun.

“The Mule” is well made at every level, but pointless. It has nothing to say, and fails to be more than vaguely amusing while saying it. It covers much of the same territory as “Grand Torino” less well.

“Vice” is a decent bio-drama of an evil and secretive man. Where the public record exists, it is reasonably accurate; where the public record is silent, it makes up details that are consistent with the production team’s agenda. Given how scary the truth almost certainly is, this film probably oversells its vision, but it’s still worth watching.

“Mary Poppins Returns” is kind of flat. It is visually impressive, but I went into the movie wondering if a new Mary Poppins movie was necessary, and I left with the question unanswered.

“Escape Room” has high production values and a solid cast. It also has a lame villain, flat characters, and a criminally bad story structure. I went into the movie thinking that the premise would serve well to create an open-ended film series to fill the niche created by “Saw”, and it may do that, but it doesn’t deserve to.

Uncle Hyena

Three more movies:

“Anna and the Apocalypse” is a zombie apocalype musical that just doesn’t work. Zombie comedy is a soap bubble that requires an absolute respect for the absurd reality of the material. Musical comedy is a soap bubble that requires, in addition to first rate talent and musical material, an absolute respect for the absurd reality of the form. The two requirements clash fatally. The material isn’t awful, and the cast is not without talent, but impossible demands require superheroes, and there are none on the screen.

“Green Book” is amazing. It’s an odd couple road trip movie, two forms that have a lot of strength separately, and play into each other beautifully here. Add in some social relevance, and a fair amount of actual historical truth, and the result is magical. Highly recommended.

“Mortal Engines” is a train wreck. It’s a post-apocalyptic story with steam punk sesibilities, which means it’s visually stunning, but impossibly stupid. There seems to be a rule that post-apocalyptic stories based on YA books involve brain-damagingly bad world building. And then there is a the fact that, while the characters seem well conceived, and the cast presents them heroically, there are far too many characters, and way too much plot, for a single movie, even if large parts of the movie weren’t dedicated to absurd visuals. And then there is the fact that the villain is a mustasche-twirling cut out. Wonderful inspiration for steam punk creations, but otherwise to be avoided.

Uncle Hyena