May movie reviews

In theaters:

BIG GEORGE FOREMAN

Man, even by the standards of by the numbers biopic this is really done without a trace of novelty. Rather boring at times and beset by some weird pacing (George goes from having never boxed to fighting for the heavyweight crown in about 10 minutes of screen time). The film remains watchable due to some solid performances (Khris Davis is an appealing lead) and the fact that I really did not know much of Foreman's story. It's a story deserving of a better telling. 

SISU

Hard to find a more single minded film than this. A Finnish man runs afoul of Nazis towards the end of WW2 and goes about killing the shit out of them. The scenes of Nazis getting killed deliver, but that is really all the film has. No real story or character, and the lead never speaks, which comes off as an annoying gimmick. 

THE COVENANT

Guy Ritchie has been on, I think, a pretty underrated run of movies the last several years. This one is unusual for him in that it is a pretty straightforward action drama, with Jake Gyllenhaal as a soldier in Afghanistan, whose unit comes under attack and he must escape with the help of his Afghani interpreter (the excellent Dar Salim). The film has some visceral action, tense drama, and both leads are tremendous. I think it may be Ritchie's best film yet. 

HYPNOTIC

How does a film directed by Robert Rodriguez and starring Ben Affleck get such a quiet dump of a release? Well, it was released by some tiny studio I've never heard of, and also it's not very good. It's not some ludicrous bomb or anything though. The premise has potential, it's just not executed well. Affleck gives one of the most checked out performances by a big star in recent memory, and yes, the film ends up kind of explaining why he acts the way he does, but it's still bad. The third act twist is one of those big swings that has to be really set up well to work, and here it just isn't. The thing even sequel baits with a mid-credits scene that genuinely pissed me off. 

RENFIELD

This comedy has Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) trying to muster the strength to break free from Dracula. By far the biggest reason to watch this is that Dracula is played by Nicolas Cage. Cage fully commits to this and it's not a bit. It's a real performance, with hints of humor, but mostly he is a vicious villain. Awkwafina is also here as a cop, which leads to a thoroughly uninteresting organized crime plot that drags the movie down. 

CARMEN

Directed by Natalie Portman's husband, this operatic musical is certainly shot beautifully, and smartly modernized. It's not really my thing, but I was mostly engaged by it until the last 30 minutes or so. The ravishing Melissa Barrera is the star, and the reason I saw it at all, and she is fantastic. 

THE WRATH OF BECKY

A few years ago there was this pretty good little movie called Becky, about a teenage girl taking out a bunch of modern day Nazis in particularly gory fashion. This is the sequel, and it is practically the same movie, just substituting a group of MAGA types as the soon to be dead. But it's similarly solid fun, with some amusing deaths (and thankfully none as gnarly as the severed eye from the original) and another engaging lead performance by Lulu Wilson. 

 

KANDAHAR

Bizarrely this has almost the exact same premise as The Covenant. But that film is significantly better in every way. More absorbing drama, better action and tension, better performances. Still, this Gerard Butler starrer is fairly well made in its own right. It just hits the same beats as a superior work. 

Everything else:

HISTORY OF THE WORLD PART 1

I had never actually seen this Mel Brooks film from the early 80s. It's pretty good, but it also has some lengthy gaps without all that many laughs.