Finding Dory (Release Date: 6-17-2016)

       What does one make of a new Pixar movie in the year 2016? Perhaps the last American film studio whose name alone serves as a statement of both quality and intent, the Disney affiliate has officially been past its prime for the better part of a decade now. Following a miraculous three year run that featured the releases of Ratatouille, Wall-e, and Up, Pixar has only released three original films, their other four offerings serving as sequels to previous triumphs (this after Toy Story 2 represented the only sequel in their first 10 outings). But even their scaled-back ambition is often enough to mop the floor with rival film houses like DreamWorks and Illumination; Toy Story 3 was a Best Picture nominee, Inside Out reaches impossible heights of intellect and emotion, and I for one will go to bat for Monsters University any day of the week. They're still capable of blowing minds and raising the stock price for Kleenex, but what was once a near certitude is now more of a possibility, and we're all still in the process of adjusting expectations. My best advice: adjust them a little more before you see Finding Dory.

        Despite rival studios' inability to consistently get on Pixar's level, the mouse house production team uses a deceptively simple recipe to cook up nearly all of their cinematic dishes: displace our characters, send them on a journey home, and locate their emotional centers early and often. Their best work manages distract viewers from this omnipresent framework through engagement and finesse, but its getting harder and harder to disguise. Dory not only adheres to this rigid framework, it almost neglects to hang nearly anything upon it. As the title suggests, the flick follows the journey of everyone's favorite forgetful fish as she attempts to relocate her long lost family, and where the previous film featured a bevy of obstacles and memorable asides, the new film's plot is specifically engineered to engender the least possible push back. Gone are the sharks and whales and dentists who once terrorized our protagonists; Dory is so toothless that even its primary place of unwitting aquatic confinement is an Open Ocean exhibit at the seemingly nearby Marine Life Institute. They say that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but having seen this movie, I'd argue that it's a ride along the Crush the Sea Turtle express, which quickly does away with anything representing lasting conflict along their 'arduous' journey.

        In the film's opening passages, we enter Dory's (Ellen DeGeneres) dreams, and witness her flashbacks to a troubled childhood wherein her loving parents struggled with their daughter's socially crippling short term memory loss. Given that this studio has refused to shy away from miscarriages, abandonment, psychedelic hallucinations, and dystopian futures in the past, it should come as little surprise that they'd have the guts to place mental illness at the center of a story, but in doing so, they've altered the legacy of their previous classic. All those jokes about 'silly old Dory' that were played for laughs in Finding Nemo have now been cast in a completely different light, almost shaming you for finding humor in her problems in the first place. Worse yet, the script doesn't know how to handle this charged idea; they make a point of showing that the other people (see: fish) in her life are hampered by her problems, but offer no balm for the pain beyond constant nebulous statements along the lines of, 'she sure is one special fish.' Even when Dory is being brave, it's keeping all its cards as close to the chest as possible, and neutering all its boldest inclinations as it goes along.

        Rest assured, it's not exactly enjoyable to come off as such a curmudgeon about the sequel to one of the most beloved family films of the last 15 years. Finding Dory will undoubtably be adored by many a viewer who wanted nothing more than to dive back into the big blue ocean with the motley crew of the original film, regardless of the occasion. Children will watch and re-watch and then watch again until their parents are required to purchase a new blu-ray after the family's first has been ground to dust. This was always going to be a home run, and yet the film's creators elected to walk on eggshells despite the impossibly long leash they had at their disposal. The annals of sequel history will have nary a harsh word to speak about Finding Dory; there are no unforgivable side-plots, no over-reaching alterations to our beloved characters, and the movie works overtime to please and comfort and coddle. Five years from now, no one will be able to recall anything negative about the flick. As a matter of fact, they won't recall anything at all.

Grade: C-

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (Release Date: 3-25-2016)

        Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is a title bout, though not one contested between the Caped Crusader and the Man of Steel. Perched atop the movie’s shoulders are an angel and a devil, each whispering into the film’s ears, holding the reigns in alternate succession. The force of good argues in favor of narrative intrigue, occasional restraint, and the merits of thematic unity. The satan spawn, on the other hand, relays the virtues of scattershot storytelling, repugnant violence, and physically and emotionally weightless destruction. It’s fitting that the movie would serve as a proper introduction to Warner Bros. intended DC Comics universe, because while the Justice League and their compatriots are figuring things out on the fly, so is director Zach Snyder, and his whirling dervish of a film.

We begin with the obligatory murder of Bruce Wayne's parents, though the film coldly recognizes our familiarity, and uses the tragedy as window-dressing for the opening credits. Next up is pure exhilaration in the form of an adult Wayne (Ben Affleck) experiencing the battle royal of Snyder’s previous feature, Man of Steel, from the ground floor, the sequence eagerly invoking 9/11 imagery. From there we're jarringly transported to the Middle East, where reporter/Superman distraction Lois Lane (Amy Adams) appears completely hopeless until the man in red and blue (Henry Cavill) arrives to save the day, leaving mindless collateral damage in his wake. Don’t worry, I’m not about to write a complete synopsis of every scene in the film; I only specify the three opening passages because they provide a window into the movie’s heedless ambition. Within a span of under 20 minutes, we experience reverent adherence to DC’s sacred texts, exhilarating Bourne-style action, and confusing geo-political mumbo jumbo. Snyder, teamed with screenwriters David, S, Goyer and Chris Terrio, wants to have his cake and eat it too, and while each idea contained within Batman v Superman is at least passable, there’s simply no making sense of it all.

        As a matter of fact, ‘sense’ is at an all-time premium in Snyder’s latest, especially when it comes to David Brenner’s editing. The film at large plays like 25 individual scenes all spliced within one another, making the proceedings difficult to follow, and explicitly unemotional. It’s hard to image a flick with such gruesome depictions of violence that so struggles to impress on anything other than a physical level, but the constant feeling of narrative whiplash sucks the blood out of the proceedings. It’s interesting to have scenes begin and end so abruptly as to force viewers to parcel through what's happening at the start of each new passage, but interesting isn’t necessarily good... a fact that seemingly never occurred to Jesse Eisenberg.

        The re-imagining of Lex Luther as a flamboyantly unhinged trust fund kid is inspired, and Eisenberg gives the role his all, but the casting immediately sticks out as ill-conceived. Saddled with the lion’s share of ponderous dialogue in a film with a surplus, Eisenberg proves stunningly hammy. At least he’s having fun though, which is far more than could be said of our leads, Cavill’s Superman/Clark Kent both blunt and bland from first frame to last, while Affleck plays Bruce Wayne with the solemnity of a monk. The film knowingly paints him as ‘the darkest Batman yet,’ but relies almost exclusively on CGI whenever a melee starts, creating an enormous divide between the man Affleck plays, and the crime fighter who lurks about the shadows.

Zach Snyder knows how to make a movie. The guy clearly grew up on Spielberg, Scorsese, and Hitchcock, and is aware of cinematic gestures, but everything he does successfully feels disingenuous. There’s not a single scene within Batman v Superman’s runtime that reads as unique, and the director’s aesthetic follows the blockbuster playbook with religious zeal, though he obviously skipped the chapters on audience engagement and character development. How else can you explain the brutish, unpleasant nature of the titular showdown, or the heartless CGI romp that immediately follows? That’s where the devil on the movie’s shoulder finally wins out. The film explores vigilante justice and the responsibility god owes to man for the better part of its runtime, but it takes literally one word from Superman’s mouth to sideline the flick’s larger ruminations in favor of pixilated WWE. It’s an intelligent movie made both by and for morons, and while I was surprised by its philosophical interests, everything once again boils down to punching an ugly monster that a computer made. I guess Superman doesn’t bleed like a human, so why should the movie?

Grade: C-

The Good Dinosaur (Release Date: 11-25-2015)

        As I perhaps too often reiterate on this site, movies are BY FAR the artistic medium that appeals to the most senses. Books engage one's reading ability and imagination, while music plays with one's ears and instinctive emotional reactions, fine arts doing much of the same, but with eyeballs. Motion pictures do a little bit of everything, which is not to say that they are a superior art form, and might just mean the very opposite. Where other endeavors are allowed to focus or specialize, movies are required to keep all their plates spinning at once, and occasionally in a fashion where each singular element only casually interacts with another. The Good Dinosaur, the latest from the storytelling savants at Pixar Studios, brings this notion to my attention like no American picture since Life of Pi has presented. They both ask the same, simple question; how accomplished do you have to be in one aspect to render the rest superfluous?

        Taking place in an alternate universe wherein that fateful asteroid never pummeled earth, and dinosaurs continue to roam the planes, our story follows Arlo (voiced in his youth by Jack McGraw, then by Raymond Ochoa in adolescence), the runt in a litter of three Apatosauruses whose apatite for adventure matches his meek stature. Gently doted upon by his loving father (Jeffrey Wright), Arlo spends his childhood trying to 'make his mark,' a family tradition accomplished early in life by both of his siblings. Tasked with ridding their land of a crop-devouring menace, Arlo manages to capture the thief, but is shaken by fear when the burglar turns out to be a young, feral human. His eventual pursuit of the wordless homosapien takes Arlo far away from home, and the two ban together in an effort to bring Arlo back to his family.

        It's easy to argue that every story has already been told, and the best that we can hope for is a unique twist on the familiar, but Pixar as a company would seemingly disagree. Besides literally revolutionizing the way that animated films are created with their very first effort (Toy Story, which celebrated its 20th birthday just last Sunday), the Disney subsidiary relays their narratives in a breathtakingly unique fashion, continuously discovering little pockets wherein subversion can exist. Compared to the gutsy moves made by many in their library of classics, The Good Dinosaur is both immediately and remarkably tame, which is saying something for an American kid's flick that opens with a short that celebrates Hinduism, and even includes a psychedelic trip for our two prehistoric protagonists. Their rebel spirit certainly isn't dead, but for almost all of The Good Dinosaur, it's relegated to the sidelines, waiting eagerly to be subbed in.

        What takes the place of Pixar's 'edge' is a dispiritingly bland tale of a timid animal who must fight back against both beasts and nature in order to both find his way to safety, and realize his full potential. In other words, the majority of the film plays like a warmed-over The Lion King... or Finding Nemo... or The Jungle Book... or A Bug's Life... should I keep going? Announced back in 2009, The Good Dinosaur represents only the second time that a Pixar offering made that fateful march through Hollywood's famed 'Production Hell' on its way to the silver screen. Original director Bob Peterson, co-helmer of the studio's best film to date (Up), walked away from the project in the summer of 2013, mere months before the flick's originally stated release date, resulting in reportedly massive re-writes that took place deep into 2014, and resulted in a complete overhaul of the original voice cast. All this to say, the movie was destined to be a half-baked offering, and perhaps would have never seen the light of day if it weren't for the ace up its sleeve.

        The Good Dinosaur is the most photorealistic animated feature film ever created, full-stop. The wide vistas and rolling hills that accompany Arlo's every move are clearly the movie's main character, and chief reason for existence. Most Beautiful Animated Film of All Time is a much harder prize to hand out, as it concerns preferences between eras, styles, and a spectrum of impressionism. What we're talking about here is something completely different; animated water has never looked so wet, and CGI mountains have never been quite as rough or loomed so large. It strikes the eyes as a step forward in technology much the way Avatar amazed the pupils back in 2009, but if you want to sneak a peak at all that majesty, you'll have to sit through a tale so brazenly undercooked that you can still see the pink in the middle. The Good Dinosaur is sort of like Arlo himself, a glorious, towering beast of a thing desperate to find a journey worth justifying its existence. It should have kept looking.

Grade: B- 

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 (Release Date: 11-20-2015)

        For all of the devoted fandom and pop culture conversation The Hunger Games has inspired, the critical reading of Suzanne Collins' three (or four?) part epic is still woefully lacking. The book trilogy that inspired the films is firmly situated within the Young Adult fantasy literature boom that's dominated both publishing houses and film studios for the last decade plus, even sporting a love triangle that seemingly comes custom at this point. Yes, the adventures and exploits of Katniss Everdeen are undoubtably designed to titillate teenaged females the world over, but that glaring veneer has led to a misreading of the narrative's larger scope. Considered as a whole, the story explores and ruminates upon propaganda, grief, the distribution of information, symbolism, and the gray area between ethics and agenda... and consistently puts a whole hoard of butts in seats. Comparing the intellectual ambition of this mass entertainment to Tony Stark zipping around the city, or the Indominous Rex getting over-eager with a hamster ball, is laughably asinine. I'm not saying The Hunger Games is War and Peace, but it's operating on a whole different plane than everything else that's making big money in the modern box office. Now that it's all over, I hope this is what we remember about the perils in Panem; that they engaged the minds of their audience where other blockbusters proved entirely unwilling... and that, in the end, the whole enterprise decided that if it really couldn't defeat the likes of Marvel or the impending Jurassic franchise, it might as well join them.

        For those uninitiated to the Hunger Games juggernaut, I highly recommend checking out the premiere installment, and am only slightly less bullish on its immediate predecessor. Each of those films was adapted from a novel of the same name, but because money won't print itself, the climactic book has been separated into two feature films, the first having been released right around this same time last year. Part 2 picks up right where Part 1 left off, with the rebels for which Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) serves as a reluctant patron saint just about ready to finally make their move. Gentle-hearted Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) is still tormented by the mental trauma he experienced in the previous installment, though the mass-media-stoking itinerary of rebel leader President Coin (Julianne Moore) requires him to accompany Ms. Everdeen on their climactic mission. With a small crew in tow, including prospective lover Gale (Liam Hemsworth) and his ever-fading moral compass, Katniss trudges through innumerable death traps and battle fields on her way to the heart of the capitol with exactly one goal in mind: assassinate tyrannical dictator President Snow (Donald Sutherland).

        This is the uprising we as an audience have been waiting for, the one which the series has been setting up for 7+ hours now, and yet, much like the film's heroine, it's impossible to not feel let down by its arrival. The heady aspects I've praised this franchise for time and time again are only present through allusion, the other three films having already burned through all of the story's intellectual properties and intrigue. Many have derided Part 1 for stalling in the face of the saga's inevitable conclusion, but all that padding allowed the film to explore some knotty notions with both patience and care. Part 2, by comparison, is only slightly more action-packed, yet has nothing left to argue in its slower passages, filling the lulls with the exact romantic non-sense these films had so wisely skirted up to this point. For as unfair as I believe the Twilight comparisons to be on the whole, at least Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson forged a believable connection; Lawrence has no real chemistry with either of the men who court her, and all three actors appear just as disengaged with the sappier elements as those seated in the auditorium.

        The main culprit for these diminishing returns is undoubtably the source material, which, having leaned heavily on its impending climax for years, is wholly unable to fulfill its promise. It's long been clear that Collins is a more advanced thinker than she is a storyteller, but taken as a whole, the two parts of Mockingjay represent an unforeseeably massive step back on every narrative level. The structure is almost repulsive, whipping us through a series of emotional shifts that nearly all seem mistimed, and robbing our protagonists of any real agency at the moment where they would need it most. Swapping out Francis Lawrence for a more talented director wouldn't have solved the film's myriad of problems, but the flick could benefit from someone with a firmer grasp on helming action sequences. With one single exception, the violence here feels non-threatening, and often fails to engage altogether. Not only is this a war movie wherein we miss almost the entire war, but the moments we do see never elicit either the dread or excitement that are needed to hold our interest. Many will decry the movie's final scene as the low point in the entire chronicle, but I had already cashed in my chips and left the table by that point, and could do little more than chuckle under my breath.

        Yes, this is a scathing review, but it's not written from a place of hatred so much as disappointment. The world that Collins and these filmmakers had established up to this point was strikingly ambitious, and challenged the minds of its audience at nearly every turn. Watching it conclude as an underwhelming brain-dead action romp is disheartening to say the least. To my mind, this franchise will have exactly two lasting legacies: The thoughtfulness and moral rigor that it carried with it through three installments, and the sad truth that each film was lesser than the one that came before it.

Grade: D+

Room (Limited Release Date: 10-16-2015)

        For five-year-old Jack (Jacob Tremblay), the world is contained within Room, and Room is the world. Sure, TV will show you things like trees, dogs, and smiling people going about their varied lives, but everything on the screen is just artifice; two dimensional images designed to entertain and divert from the churn of day-to-day life that takes place in the 100 square-foot universe. The cosmos' only other consistent inhabitant is Ma (Brie Larson), a warm and patient 20-something who is occasionally visited by Old Nick (Sean Bridgers), a perhaps-real humanoid who supplies the boy and his mother with food, clothes, and other accessories through pure and unexplainable magic. We as audience members are quick to pick up on the grisly reality of Jack and Ma’s situation, but in Lenny Abrahamson's new film Room, we see the world through Jack’s eyes, and his eyes are about to be opened.

        Adapted from Emma Donoghue’s critically acclaimed novel of the same name (Donoghue also provides the screenplay here), Room presents some of the darkest, cruelest aspects of man through the eyes of a youth who is far too naive to process them fully, thereby keeping all of that misery just out of arm’s reach. Where a wiser protagonist might wallow in the nightmarish reality of Ma's evening hours, Jack considers them with ignorance and curiosity. He looks on his impossibly limited existence with the same childlike wonder through which every kid views the entire planet, a notion that is accentuated by Danny Cohen's ever-communicative cinematography. The film follows in the footsteps of recent hits The Martian and Bridge of Spies in terms of its dedication to walking right up to the pit of despair without ever being swallowed whole, but this decision is less about aligning itself with positive thinking than it is a different set of priorities altogether.

        Never stepping into thriller territory for more than a few fleeting moments at a time, Room is, at its heart, a familial drama focused on the unique bond between mother and child, and the galvanizing force of parenthood. Larson is a shoe-in for a Best Actress nomination at this year's Academy Awards, and while her performance is decidedly less showy than the stuff that tends to win golden statues, the connection she forms with Tremblay is sincere and believable from first frame to last. The 9-year-old Tremblay is her match, his every movement and syllable proving so natural that you almost forget you're watching an actor, and not just a child trying almost everything for the first time. Most all the film's best moments involve Jack discovering untold realities previously understood to be lore, and the way Tremblay handles these scenes is astonishing.

        All of the stuff in between, however, is less than riveting. Abrahamson favors raw acting and minimal directorial flourish, and while his meat-and-potatoes approach has and will continue to work for some, it doesn't exactly glue your eyes to the screen. Nor does the movie's narrative drama, which, as previously mentioned, is intentionally forced to the background in favor of character work, but the film's undying affection for mundanity wares on the viewer over a long two-hour runtime. Perhaps most damningly, the ideas contained within Donoghue's script, while immediately dazzling and troubling in equal measure, are unmissable and unmoving, prompting one to ponder and then re-ponder, and finally grow weary of pondering the very same thing over and over again. There's no doubt in my mind that this is the exact film that Abrahamson wanted to make, and its level of intentionality and accomplishment are to be admired, but I for one found my mind drifting off long before the end credits rolled. The movie will surely strike a chord with parents that someone on the other side of that situation could never fully understand, but at this exact point in time in my perhaps under-developed life story, Room just comes off as a bit flat.

Grade: C+

Steve Jobs (Limited Release Date: 10-9-2015)

        Film protagonists come in all shapes and sizes. They can be brave and heroic, timid but kind, or even egotistical monsters. Steve Jobs, as portrayed in the Danny Boyle film of the same name, certainly belongs in that last category, but the depths of his rottenness almost demand a subsection all to themselves. Many of the best movies of the last several years, including The Social Network, There Will Be Blood, and The Wolf of Wall Street, focused on an individual who proved easy to revile, but for my money, this is something different altogether, a brand of sustained, unstoppable meanness without peer. As such, Steve Jobs becomes a litmus test of sorts, seeking to discover just how awful you can paint a protagonist before an audience simply loses interest.

        Michael Fassbender stars as the movie's namesake, and plays him as a whirling dervish of entitlement and spite. As penned by Oscar winner Aaron Sorkin, the flick is divided into three distinct acts, each lasting about 40 minutes, and all taking place backstage during a new product launch. We meet the Apple founder in 1984, as he frantically attempts to perfect the presentation of the Macintosh 128K while a plethora of personal matters seek to derail him. Next, we're off to 1988, where the recently disgraced mogul launches a new brand all his own, and is forced to suffer through a nearly identical parade of interpersonal drama. The film's final chapter features the introduction of the imac, and while things have changed at Apple, our 'hero' still struggles to muster anything resembling heroics.

        Steve Jobs has two very obvious, very recent spiritual filmic siblings, and neither comparison is flattering. The intensely claustrophobic setting of behind-the-curtains mania immediately calls to mind last year's Best Picture winner Birdman, and while it would be unfair to expect any modern cinematographer to reach the dizzying heights of visionary cameraman Emmanuel Lubezki, the film suffers from such a clear parallel in the field of backstage visual zest. The other, of course, is The Social Network, both films having been penned by the unmistakable Sorkin, and boasting prickly main characters responsible for some of the most popular technological creations of the internet era. The issue here is obvious; The Social Network is a masterpiece, and Steve Jobs... well... isn't.

        To my mind, much of the blame rests at the feet of the director. Boyle, a hugely talented, Oscar winning filmmaker in his own right, makes for a strange match with this source material. His films tend to lean heavily on surrealism, mania, and a kaleidoscopic array of colors, and while Steve Jobs occasionally permits the auteur to employ many of his favorite tricks, the film at large is essentially one endless conversation. The moments that include literal motion prove genuinely exciting, but whenever characters are locked in a room for an extended period, Boyle and cinematographer Alwin H. Küchler start to feel out of their depths, and often turn to Daniel Pemberton effective score to communicate the intensity of the moment. It doesn't help that Elliot Graham's editing is almost always just a beat too slow; sequences stuffed with rapid-fire dialogue often trail off at their conclusions, various jokes miss that could have hit with the aid of a sharper cut, and the scenes that employ cross-cutting between multiple time periods are frequently confusing.

        It's easy to understand why any group of filmmakers would have such a hard time adapting the virtuoso verbiage of a Sorkin screenplay, but David Fincher certainly knew how when he made The Social Network. That film was mercilessly fast, propelled by the miraculous work of editors Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall, and yet none of the individual story elements ever got lost in the shuffle. All of this to say, Fincher and his team are much better suited for this type of thing, which would seem like a random and pointless statement if it weren't for his previous attachment to this very project. Some of the demerits must be assigned to Sorkin, whose script both fails to elaborate on what exactly makes Jobs so special, and mismanages the film's emotional fulcrum, but I can't help but think Fincher would have figured out a way around those problems. Boyle treats his words with too much reverence, and seems to take his hands of the wheel where Fincher would have been more likely to hone in on the important details, and craft the film beyond what was on the page.

        What he wouldn't have been able to do, however, is get a better performance out of Michael Fassbender. A mortal lock for a Best Actor nomination at this year's Academy Awards, Fassbender morphs both his voice and movements into the perfect visage of the late icon, and rattles off Sorkin's words with dazzling aplomb. If there's a better english-speaking thespian alive in the world today, I have yet to encounter them. His work absolutely towers over his co-stars, who offer surprisingly mixed results from scene-to-scene; Kate Winslet struggles to maintain her accent, Seth Rogen is both stiff and underutilized, and Jeff Daniels, as always, is Jeff Daniels. It's the lesser-known actors, such as Michael Stuhlbarg, Katherine Waterston, and all three actresses who play Jobs' daughter Lisa, who manage to escape Fassbender's enormous shadow, and deliver memorable performances.

        As such, the flick is not without its merits, and many individual scenes stand on their own as some of the year's best filmmaking, but there's an unescapable feeling of wasted potential. At one point in the movie, Jobs remarks that every product launch seems to include a slew of individuals letting him know how they really feel, and he's not half wrong. While the movie's triptych structure ensures that we're not slogging through another run-of-the-mill biopic, it also renders it repetitive, and makes Jobs' nastiness even more difficult to abide. He certainly doesn't commit atrocities on the level of two out of the three protagonists listed in the first paragraph, but he lacks the emotional complexity and occasional merriment that made the others easier to stomach. Much like the Macintosh 128K, Steve Jobs is a good idea in need of a tune-up, and perhaps a little more time spent in the development stage. Nearly every thought the film has is inspired, but just as many feel only partially formed. Fassbender is worth the price of admission by himself, but in the words of Winslet's Joanna Hoffman, "I'm begging you to manage expectations."

Grade: B

The Visit (Release Date: 9-11-2015)

        Hundreds of years from now, when everyone reading this is long dead and gone, culture historians of the past won’t know quite what of M. Night Shyamalan. His 1999 break-through fright-fest, The Sixth Sense, remains a modern classic nearly two decades after its release, nearly every frame of the thing promising the birth of a storied new auteur. Then came literally everything else. Like many, I shade fairly positive on both Unbreakable and Signs, but even those movies feel like an enormous step back from his Best Picture nominated coming-out party. Then there was The Village... and Lady in the Water... and The Happening... and The Last Airbender... and After Earth. With so many wildly problematic offerings in a row, it’s becoming harder and harder to believe that this is the same Shyamalan whose releases once prompted excitement and anticipation... not to mention that said releases continue to be funded. He’s back again with The Visit, a film sporting a concept that, even by Shyamalan standards, is a doozy.

        Representing the director’s first foray into the world of Found Footage Horror, The Visit stars Olivia DeJonge as Becca, a bright teen with aspirations of becoming a documentary filmmaker. Intrigued by her mother’s mysterious family history, Becca decides to commit the subject to celluloid, necessitating that she and kid brother Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) go visit their grand parents for the very first time. Their planned one-week stay turns spooky-sour almost immediately; Grandma (Deanna Dunagan) exhibits some awfully strange nocturnal habits, while Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie) visits the shed with alarming frequency. As the days pass, things get stranger and stranger, and it's not long before the two youths realize that they might be in serious trouble.

        If that premise doesn't strike you as particularly scary, that's because it isn't. Billed as a Horror Comedy, The Visit completely and consistently falls flat on both counts. This is not to say that it stoops to the delirious, delicious lows of The Happening; on the contrary, Shymalan's latest represents a massive formal upgrade from his recent material, featuring handsome shots that actually make aesthetic sense, as well as actors behaving believably, and reciting dialogue that sounds almost human. Many have credited the filmmaker's betterment of Found Footage's typically shoddy elements of craft, which is the ultimate sign of his damaged reputation; making vague improvements to a film rhetoric that's designed to look amateurish isn't exactly inventing the lightbulb.

        Yes, the movie is passable, but I personally would argue that's the problem. Who in their right mind wants to see a movie about possessed grandparents that's passable? Whenever thinking of my favorite comedies of the last decade, I'm always certain to include The Happening, a film with real ambition that falls flat on its face in just about every way imaginable. It might be a legendary disaster, but it's entertaining as hell, and if the man behind The Sixth Sense is truly lost forever, then I have to say I prefer the laughably bad version of Shyamalan to the dull, workman-like iteration we meet here. The trailers made The Visit look terrible, and while it's remarkably assured and not so easy to make fun of as one might have imagined, it's dull beyond belief, and fails at creating tension wholesale. It's the definition of a 'meh' movie going experience, a film with an unthinkably gaudy premise presented without any of the absurdity and recklessness that it needs to get across the finish line. Congratulations on making a 'real' movie, Mr. Shyamalan; now, for the sake of actually engaging us, go back tripping over your own shoe-strings.

Grade: C-

Straight Outta Compton (Release Date: 8-14-2015) and Dr. Dre: Compton (Release Date: 8-7-2015)

        Andre Young is the most important individual in the history of Hip Hop, it's not even especially close. The near-billionaire first met the world at the age of 23, multi-tasking as a rapper and, more importantly, a producer on N.W.A's seminal debut album, Straight Outta Compton. While his battering-ram flow has remained popular since the moment America first lent an ear, his work behind the soundboard is undeniably his greater contribution, playing puppet master behind some of the genre's greatest and most memorable moments. In other words, Dr. Dre is a curator first, and an artist second, far more interested in promoting Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, and Beats headphones than he is hearing his own voice on wax. It makes perfect sense that he would enjoy producing a movie about the rise and fall of N.W.A, pulling the strings from behind the curtain make everything work juuuust riiight. It's equally unsurprising then that Dre would pick this moment, after a 16-year hiatus from busting rhymes himself, to finally drop his final solo album; in the span of fewer than ten days, Young is not only introducing us to his origins, but also ridding out into the sunset, the kind of career bookend that unthinkably few are ever afforded. Needless to say, this has been Fuck Wit Dre Day  week.

        And yes, you did read that correctly; there's finally a new Dr. Dre disc. Having contributed only two solo LP's over his nearly three-decades-old career, the tectonic plates started shifting when the MC's old running mate Ice Cube got on Philadelphia's Power 99 radio station and announced that Dre had just finished an album inspired by his experience working on the film. This news, of course, rode in on the coattails of years of anticipation for Detox, Young's stated follow-up to 2001 that never quite saw the light of day. Those who find it strange that the mogul would scrap such a feverishly anticipated offering in favor of a disc he apparently rushed through in far less than a year need to take another look down at those tea leaves; by leaving his fans waiting for so long without ever previously forsaking the project, the Doctor had painted himself into a corner. If Detox was anything less than a cold hard classic, rap enthusiasts the world over would never forgive him. In flipping the script and turning his latest and climactic release into some semblance of a soundtrack, Dr. Dre accomplishes something that seemed impossible as recently as the end of July; a clean escape from all those metric tons of pressure, and some breathing room to boot.

        Thankfully for any fans of his pre-existing catalogue, Dre makes sure to inhale. Compton is far more sprawling and ambitious that one could have possibly expected, spanning 16 tracks and pushing past the hour mark, swapping out one musical styling for another on a countless number of occasions. For a guy often cited as the father of G Funk, a mold of beat-making that emphasizes simplicity and a lack of clutter, the instrumentals here are startlingly dense, revealing subtle nuances upon repeat listens. The deep funk of All In a Day's Work's bass line powers the track from first moment to last, riding out on a nifty, skittering drum beat. For the Love of Money employs that rat-a-tat clicking sound that defines much of southern hip hop to slowed-down, stop-and-start perfection before handing the keys to a spanish guitar. Compton plays out like the hip hop album version of the Oscar Ceremony, where no expense is ever spared, the production is grandstanding and bombastic, and just about any sound or thematic shift seems possible at anytime. The variety and intricacy may prove off-putting to fans of Dre's typically stripped-down aesthetic, but those capable of keeping an open-mind on such a completely closed subject will get a rush out of Compton's uncompromising indulgence.

        In many ways, this is also true of Straight Outta Compton, a film that nearly requires some level of fandom out of its audience to pull it over the finish line. The movie opens in 1986, and focuses almost exclusively on the group's three most prominent members. Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell) is the money man, having accumulated some modest funds through his life as a drug dealer before unwittingly becoming the fourth rapper in the legendary group's arsenal. The words he utters first flow through the pen of a young Ice Cube (O'Shea Jackson Jr.), the group's poet laureate of profanity who, at least in the film's iteration, is not as present on 'the street' as his rhymes would suggest. The same is true of Dre (Corey Hawkins), a music nut who prefers a pair of headphones to a handgun, and a soundboard to a mic. After Eazy puts up the money to print the group's first single, Boyz-N-the Hood, the collective is approached by Jerry Heller (Paul Giamatti), a decreasingly relevant music manager who sees the revolutionary appeal of N.W.A upon first listen. With his help, the group sky-rockets to both fame and fortune, a pair of devilries that quickly turn them against one another.

        If that sounds just a little too similar to a cautionary tale you'd see on VH1's Behind the Music, that's because it absolutely is. The script, as written by Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff, is a slave to the music biopic formula: they start at the bottom, attain wild success in the first hour, are driven apart by sex and money, and eventually come to realize that nothing should stand in the way of their bond. My apologies to anyone who thinks I should have included a spoiler disclaimer before that last sentence, but ruining the narrative minutia of Straight Outta Compton is sort of like ruining the grand finale of a maze you'd find in the Sunday paper; you might not know exactly how it arrives at its final destination, but both the start and the finish are apparent at first glance. This adherence to rhetoric also assures that the picture, just like all of its genre contemporaries, is decidedly more engaging and exciting in its first half.

       Not everything on hand is cliche. Director F. Gary Gary is clearly interested in both stylistic flourishes and pocket-sized character moments, even as the film's narrative engine constantly forces him to move on from places and ideas in which he might otherwise stay. Cinematographer Matthew Libatique, a consistent Darren Aronofsky collaborator, packs the flick with vivid imagery, swooping in and out of rooms and conversations, honing in on certain moments to the point where the frames become almost hypnotic. While in the theater, these instances were frequent and alluring enough to distract from all the common-place aspects that color in the margins, but the movie starts to fray at the seams as soon as you give it time to settle. The films high points, like Eazy's first foray into the studio, or the group's ill-fated Detroit concert, will prove irresistible to the bored TV watchers who encounter SOC when it begins its assured endless rotation on almost every cable channel below 100; they'll find it equally easy to grab the remote when all the standard issue elements reappear.

        Turning away from Compton is entirely more difficult, do in large part to the revolving door of rappers on hand. Given that this is the final offering from hip-hop's most accomplished talent scout, all of Dre's most famous finds can be located on the track list. Ice Cube largely sleepwalks through his verse on Issues, though Snoop Dogg has hardly ever sounded as hungry as he does on One Shot One Kill. Eminem, an MC who's never sounded anything less than starving, bites down hard on Medicine Man, and Kendrick Lamar, present on three different tracks, continues his mind-bogglingly triumphant 2015 by almost stealing the album from Dre himself, all while putting the screws to Drake on more than one occasion. The cast is rounded out by a slew of lesser-known artists, but much of what your ears fail to recognize is actually Dre himself. Young nearly sounds like a different person on a few different tracks, spitting Kendrick's lyrics on Genocide with unforeseeable aplomb, almost desperate sounding on the second half of Darkside/Gone. Possibly the album's best moment, however, comes when the legend takes the stage all by himself, on the illustriously produced closer Talking to My Diary.

        Talking is the only track from Compton actually employed in the film that supposedly inspired its creation, likely because it's also the number most concerned with Dre's story and legacy. Gary's film is positively obsessed with deifying its subject manner, to the point of stripping the outfit of some of their most essential elements. N.W.A was, at their core, a five-pack of shock artists and provocateurs, so when Jackson proudly intones that, "Our art is a reflection of our reality," it's difficult not to think of Eazy-E informing us on 8-Ball Remix that, "Police (are) on (his) drawers/ (he) has to pause/ 40 ounce in (his) lap/ and it's freezing (his) balls." This is not meant as in insult or diminishment; N.W.A threw a wrench into the machine of popular music that's still messing with the system unto this very day. The movie would just rather you think of these five men as visionaries with a salacious streak than trouble-makers who eventually became capable of branding themselves and altering the musical landscape in the process.

        Doing so would require 'a take,' something for which Straight Outta Compton is desperately starved. Yes, the two-and-a-half-hour film is smartly paced, exquisitely acted, and features some of the best sound design in years, but the need to make an epic robs the movie of any real focus. Contracts are signed after one conversation, future wives are met suddenly, and being proposed to the next time they arrive on screen; there's simply too much story here to satisfyingly cram into 150 minutes, forcing even cursory fans of the group to pine over just how tremendous an eight-hour mini-series might have been. There's certainly enough gas in the tank, and perhaps the cinematic rendering of N.W.A's career will be rounded out by the inevitable film versions of the lives of Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg. The rapping career of the real-life Dre needs no further fleshing out. Compton might not be the jaw-dropping achievement that Detox was supposed to be, but the album ensures that Young can finally ride out into the sunset with his head held high, no doctor required.

Straight Outta Compton: B-
Compton: B+

Trainwreck (Release Date: 7-22-2015)

        Amy Schumer is scorching hot right now, and Judd Apatow is cold as ice. The actress, comedian, and star of Comedy Central's Inside Amy Schumer currently possesses a career trajectory that points straight to the stars, her fame and popularity growing more pronounced each day. Apatow, on the other hand, has fallen in a rut from which he can't seem to escape. By any popular measure, the auteur's last successful directorial outing was 2007's Knocked Up, a film that's now nearly a decade in the rearview mirror. In case that doesn't strike you as all that long ago, consider that all four Transformers movies are more recent, Christopher Nolan was still just 'the guy who made Memento' at the time, and George W. Bush was still in office. In the interim, Apatow has seen his clout as a producer wilt away into almost nothing (Thanks, Drillbit Taylor!!!), while the two films he helmed in that period, Funny People and This is 40 Minutes Too Long, have already been largely forgotten. Trainwreck represents Schumer's first leading role in a theatrical release, but don't be fooled; Apatow needs her far more than she needs him.

        The movie is so eager to promote its star that it refuses to even provide her character with a different name, perhaps because the Amy of Trainwreck so closely resembles the Amy of her television show. Gleefully promiscuous, brazenly inconsiderate, and an avid enthusiast of both weed and booze, Amy is living out the end of her 20's as an endless series of one night stands. Working as a writer for an openly classless men's magazine, Amy is tasked with composing a profile of Aaron Conners (Bill Hader), a celebrity surgeon who primarily operates on professional athletes. Despite starting off on a sour note, the two strike up an unlikely friendship that quickly morphs into romance, forcing Amy to consider, for the first time in her adult life, the possibility of monogamy.

        If that all reads like Knocked Up without the ticking time-bomb of impending parenthood, you're not far off. Both movies are pure romantic comedies, and both derive their main narrative thrust from the maturation of their protagonists. One could argue that the raunchy humor featured in both features sets them pair apart from the Kate Hudson/Meg Ryan school of chick flicks, but in terms of both plot mechanics and social stances, they all come equip with the very same blue print. The primary difference between the two Apatow features is in the gender of our lead actor; Schumer's Amy may harbor the same vices and comedic energy as Seth Rogen's KU character, but the fact that we've been so culturally inundated with females in this type of role causes Trainwreck to feel much more familiar. At the end of the day, this is another movie wherein a career-focused magazine writer must learn to open her heart to a sweet, caring man, and no number of joints and sex jokes can change that.

        And good lord, there are a lot of joints and sex jokes. While Apatow is far from our most consistent creator in the field of American comedy, the director has yet to craft a laugh-less movie, and Trainwreck continues this streak. LeBron James and John Cena, both star athletes making turns as thespians, perform nicely in underwritten roles, and more than a few scenes of improv watch chuckles grow into knee-slappers, like a snowball rolling down a hill, picking up speed and mass all the while. The true high points, however, are few and far between, the majority of the film's jests resulting in silent, polite snickering. The screenplay, written by Schumer but obviously adorned with innumerable passages on-the-spot tomfoolery, is simply inconsistent, and marred with a trademark Apatow failing; outdated pop culture references. Back in 2005, he was still writing jokes about Survivor, and in the year 2015, the star athlete whose career Conners seeks to salvage is Amare Stoudemire. Some things never change.

        Amy sure does, though! The movie assigns Schumer any number of parts to play through-out its two hour runtime, calling to mind the schizophrenic comedy whirlwind of mid-90's Jim Carrey. Experiencing an actor pour about 16 different personas into one single character is much easier to take when said character is a manic pet detective, a lonely cable guy, or a comic book super villain. Schumer is playing a modern woman, so watching her swap out one persona for the next on such a regular basis is hugely distracting. The only thing that truly unites the many facets of her performance is brutishness: she's rude, inconsiderate, self-obsessed, and riddled with substance abuse problems. These are the only traits we can honestly latch on to, and when the movie ultimately requires her to sand down her many faults and weaknesses, we're left wondering who, exactly, the person is that we just spent the last 120 minutes with. It's a classic example of having too much of a good thing; Schumer's dexterity as a comedian causes the film at large to lose the thread of what might make her unique. Hader fares even worse, saddled with a part that asks almost nothing of him, and hides away his immense odd-ball talents. Anyone could have played Aaron Conners, and that's because he's not a character. He's an idea, and a vehicle to get this 'trainwreck' of a woman a few steps closer to walking down the aisle.

        In an odd and nearly unmissable way, the movie is both a comeback and a coming out party, but Schumer is essentially a lock to break out eventually, even if it's not in this movie. Apatow's prospects look entirely more dubious. Funny People was an ambitious failure, and This is 40 Minutes Too Long strove for lesser heights and achieved lesser results. Trainwreck hardly aspires to anything more than a couple of good hours at the flicks, and if it realized this goal more fully, perhaps I wouldn't be distracted by all the minutia. But it doesn't, and though I enjoyed myself for stretches of the film, I couldn't help but focus more intently on its listless editing, desperate reliance on celebrity cameos, and regressive gender politics. I'm excited to see what Schumer can do with the rest of her acting career, and will always be enticed anytime that Hader's face is set to light up the silver screen. Apatow is on probation at the moment; he can win me back, but it'll take some heavy lifting.

Grade: C-

Ant-Man (Release Date: 7-17-2015)

        All movies, from heartfelt indies to calculated mainstream cash grabs, are products. They are commodified, distributed, marketed, and sold to the public based on the success of their advertising, and perceived merit. Good movies have a way of making us forget this fact, whisking us away on some grand adventure or sincere tale.  Ant-Man, as well as May's The Avengers: Age of Ultron, are not so good at disguising their commercialization, and while you'd have to be pretty unfamiliar with the industry at large to expect otherwise, 2015 marks the first year where Marvel's seams are really starting to show. Those endlessly willing to indulge the studio's comic-based output will perhaps be able to focus on the narrative at hand, but for everyone else, the behind the scenes story takes precedent almost immediately.

        The plot presented on screen involves one Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), a cat burglar with a passion for stealing from the rich who, as the movie opens, is just finishing a stint at the local jail. After a scene of painfully obvious product placement that takes place in a Baskin-Robbins, Lang decides that the straight life isn't cutting it financially, and sets out to rob the estate of one Hank Pym (Michael Douglas). What seems like an easy score turns out to be a game of cat and mouse, Pym entrapping Lang into participating in yet another heist, this one set at Hank's old place of work. The new boss in town, Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), is on the brink of selling a new and dangerous type of technology to whichever military group turns out to be the highest bidder, forcing Pym to entrust Scott with his most treasured invention; the Ant-Man suit, capable of shrinking its wearer to the size of its titular insect while only bolstering their strength.

        Ant-Man gets a lot of things wrong: Peyton Reed's direction is as flat as a week-old soda, the screenplay fails to surprise even once, and as capable an actor as Rudd is, believing him as a Robin Hood-style vigilante who survives prison without a scratch is a leap too far. Mostly though, the film just struggles to make you care. The preparation for the burglary, always one of the highlights of any heist flick, is not only rushed, but conveyed with as few specifics as possible. The effects, while serviceable, seemingly press pause on the narrative happenings in order the go into some kind of video game inspired coma, and there's no amount of tongue-and-cheek delivery that will make multiple scenes of riding on the back of a flying ant go down any easier. There's also a subplot about Rudd trying to make things right with his young daughter, which would theoretically be the emotional heart of the movie if Ant-Man was capable of making us invest in any form that isn't monetary.

        Ant-Man was originally set to be directed by Edgar Wright, the comedic genius behind Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. He and writing partner Joe Cornish were attached to the project for nearly a decade, and while both maintain a writing credit, their creative differences led to them abandoning the film. The movie we got instead constantly reminds one of what could have been; the myriad of jokes that fall flat could have easily been inflated by Wright's manic presentation, and though the existent version of Ant-Man is knowingly silly, there's little doubt in my mind that Wright would have wisely pushed the movie even further in that direction. It is undoubtably unfair to judge a movie by its troubled backstory, but there's just no ignoring the wasted potential of the still-unmade iteration, as Wright's words and narrative structure are relayed in the most banal fashion imaginable. In the end, I guess Payton Reed's Ant-Man did get us to care abut something; the fact that we traded in something that could have been great for the safest film of the summer.

Grade: D+

Spy (Release Date: 6-5-2015)

        The first big comedy of the summer is here, and it's being mis-marketed into oblivion. Despite being advertised as a spiritual successor to The Naked Gun and Austin Powers, Spy derives very little humor from its frame work, which it treats with surprising sincerity. There are plenty of knee-slappers on hand, but hardly any aim to lampoon the structure and ideas of your standard Bond/Bourne type action thriller, and the movie itself plays into them liberally. Here's the thing about satires; they have to actually satirize something, and Spy would much rather lovingly recreate the special agent successes of the past than show them in a fun house mirror. It may be a spy flick, and it may be a spoof, but Melissa McCarthy's latest is far from a spy spoof. It's got another target in mind...

        Sharp, capable, and reeking with self-doubt, Susan Cooper (McCarthy) is a C.I.A. agent who's chosen the comfort and safety of the office over the chaos and excitement of the field. She serves as the eyes and ears of one Bradley Fine (Jude Law), a blatant 007 wannabe who's genuinely grateful for Cooper's assistance despite completely ignoring her obvious affections. Their joint effort to track down a beautiful, mysterious Bulgarian woman named Reyna (Rose Byrne) implodes when the enemy reveals her intimate knowledge of the names and faces of almost every central intelligence agent. Grasping for straws, director Elaine Crocker (Allison Janney) decides to deploy Cooper on a mission that is strictly track-and-report in nature, though it's not long before Cooper brazenly disregards the blueprint, making her every move on the fly.

        In case you haven't noticed, Melissa McCarthy is a top-tier movie star at this point, her name alone capable of putting ample butts in seats. While Bridesmaids led her to a (still kinda crazy) Best Supporting Actress nomination, and Identity Crisis, The Heat, and Tammy confirmed that she could co-pilot a big screen success, Spy is the first movie to cast her as both protagonist and title character. She makes the most of the opportunity, largely tabling both the pratfalls and wrong-headed self-aggrandizement that have been her comedy calling card up to now in favor of a much lower key. Her Susan Cooper is a fully-fleshed-out character, evolving from meek workplace drone into a filthy-mouthed badass over the course of two hours without anything ever feeling forced. We've seen McCarthy be the butt of the joke plenty of times by now, and with great success, so it's a joy to see her throw out a few zingers of her own. Her character is often the subject of ridicule, but only from her co-stars who are too pig-headed to observe her many talents. The movie clearly thinks the world of her.

        Spy marks McCarthy's third collaboration with writer/director Paul Feig, a pairing that's proved mutually advantageous ever since Bridesmaids broke out back in 2011. His movies possess a stream-of-consciousness approach to comedy, wherein jokes exist both inside the plot, and peppered around the margins, creating a sort of blissful havoc. Vermin randomly drop from the ceiling, 50 Cent appears out of nowhere; these gags are entirely out of context, and help create some unpredictability in a plot otherwise consisting of familiar machinery. Feig is able to wring plenty of jokes out of the actual narrative on display, but he also prioritizes the movie's action and mystery in a fashion that occasionally gets in the way of the humor. If you wanted to see spines broken and elaborate cover-ups exposed, my guess is you'd have purchased a ticket to another movie, and while adherence to rhetoric affords Feig many a guffaw, it also ensures that he maintains his troubling trend of extended runtimes. His latest could have trimmed at least 15 minutes without any discernible detriment.

        Though that would have likely cut into the time Spy spends positively eviscerating male entitlement and masculine ego, the true target of the film's parody. Many have observed the deplorable role of patriarchy in Mad Max: Fury Road, and Tomorrowland cast one of Hollywood's best known actors to play third fiddle to a couple of girls on the run, but this is by far the most gender-focused offering to hit screens this summer. The men of Spy are consistently boorish and profane, ignoring common sense and jeopardizing delicate situations with their self-assured bravado. They recognize nothing but males who are their superiors, and women they'd like to get their hands on; all other humanoids might as well be invisible. At one point, Janney remarks that a rogue agent is acting like, "a dog that got loose and is now shitting and humping his way through the neighborhood." This is Spy's thesis statement, and the lone true target of its parody.

        Wether it be Peter Serafinowicz's complete disregard for personal space, or Jason Statham's physical embodiment of testosterone, Feig's script contains not a single reasonable male character, and I'm going to go ahead and assume that it's not an accident. It's a welcome surprise in what could have been yet another standard spy movie send-up, but the film occasionally forgets its convictions near the end, which is especially troubling when said convictions are about as subtle as a slap in the face. It gets most of the way there, and in a summer who's highest grossing flick featured a bunch of hopped-up action heros using an under-developed African city as a playground for wanton destruction, I'd say its worth celebrating. Spy is sort of like Susan Cooper herself; clever, imperfect, ambitious, clumsy, and filled to the brim with half-baked ideas. In the end, they both get the job done.

Grade: B

Tomorrowland (Release Date: 5-22-2015)

        The Mouse House is feeling pretty good about itself right now. Not that a corporation as massive as Disney (and ABC and ESPN by extension) is ever really too down on its luck, but their quest for global domination feels particularly pronounced this year. 2013's Frozen ranks sixth all-time in global grosses, Avengers: Age of Ultron passed the billion dollar mark within about five minutes of its release, and they've still got another Marvel flick (Ant-Man) and two Pixar outings (Inside Out and The Good Dinosaur) on the way. Oh, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, a film that Brad Bird's Tomorrowland advertises for in both metaphorical and painfully literal ways. In fact, Tomorrowland never really stops advertising, from hover cars baring loud Dodge logos across their fronts, to desperately desired Coca-Colas. Perhaps these are redundant points to make about a movie named after a section of a theme park (another product the picture wants to sell you on), but Tomorrowland's desire to celebrate the works and ideologies of Disney is all-encompassing, feverishly preaching the the Tao of Mickey, wherein creativity and hope are valued above all else.

        This prevailing glass-half-full thinking is immediately posited by our protagonist, the bright-eyed and whip-smart Casey Newton (Britt Robertson). Wether she's battling against High School teachers who see nothing in our future but gloom-and-doom, or covertly sabotaging NASA's plans to tear down a local launch-pad, Newton's every move is motivated by a forward-thinking, rose-tinted paradigm. Her attitude catches the attention of both a mysterious little girl named Athena (Raffey Cassidy), and a crotchety suburban hermit (George Clooney, mercifully not covered in 'hermit' make-up). Despite their differing world views, Athena and Gorgeous George agree that Casey just might have a big impact on our future, though the three will have to fight off violent robots, pessimism, and narrative non-sense on their epic journey to... Tomorrowland.

        Disney's latest marks writer/director Brad Bird's second foray into live-action filmmaking, following the massive critical and commercial success of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. The promise of that movie was immense; Bird turned the Tom Cruise vehicle into real-life Looney Tunes, churning out one bonkers moment of spectacle after another in a way that hadn't been matched by another American movie until just last week. Tomorrowland can't quite make it up to those same dizzying heights, but the film's omnipresent handsomeness is impossible to ignore, cinematographer Claudio Miranda following the rule of thirds as if it were the Bible itself. One would be forgiven for wishing the movie shared Ghost Protocol's diligent attention to spacial reasoning, but there's enough razzle-dazzle shoved into each and every frame to nearly overwhelm the average eye-ball (the tracking shot that introduces us to the world of Tomorrowland nearly justifies the price of admission on its own).

        Robertson is good, Cassidy is better, and Clooney Clooneys... because, really, what else is a Clooney to do? The acting, while serviceable, isn't the draw here, and in a strange way, neither are the efforts of Bird, nor his enormous supporting cast of technicians. The fact that Tomorrowland should serve as a two-hour cornea massage was predictable and familiar; its urgently hopeful outlook is neither. Modern Hollywood is obsessed with portraying dreary projections of mankind's future, and film-goers have rewarded them every step of the way by forking out big bucks to see The Hunger Games movies, Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, and any number of Day After Tomorrow-style depictions of mass-destruction. Tomorrowland argues against this type of thinking with its every move, from Scott Chambliss' glossy production design, to dialogue that could hardly be more on-the-nose if it tried ("It’s hard to have ideas and easy to give up,” "We all find it easy to believe in a tragic future because it asks nothing of us").

        This temperament is undoubtably a byproduct of being conceived by the most dominant family entertainment factory on the planet, but it's also tremendously rare, and wholly against the grain of what's popular in movies today. The argument I'm making in favor of the movie is decidedly more theoretical than practical, but I'd imagine those who enjoy Tomorrowland will get more satisfaction out of what it represents than what it actually is. That's certainly where I land, and while Bird's film is far from perfect, its heart is always in the right place... except for when it's blatantly pimping Star Wars. Our blockbusters have fallen so far down the rabbit hole of negativity as to make Tomorrowland something of a revelation; here's to hoping more (and better) flicks follow its lead.

Grade: B

Avengers: Age of Ultron (Release Date: 5-1-2015)

        For all the speculation and secrecy surrounding each new Marvel flick prior to release, these films are spoiler proof. Centered around a macho-man with insecurity issues, each joint introduces a new glowing rock that must subsequently be retrieved. The baddies give chase, witty banter is exchanged, and a forced reference to another Marvel property excites the fan boys. Finally, something threatens to either emerge or fall from the sky, requiring our hero(s) to save the day, no matter the property damage. The structure of their plotting is almost as predictable as their utter box office domination: films geeks often refer to May as the start of the summer movie season, but perhaps we should just rename that 4 month period after the comic book studio itself. Since Iron Man exploded onto the scene almost exactly 7 years ago, Marvel has managed to kick off the sunny set all but twice, and has produced the highest grossing summer entry for 3 straight years now, with Ultron almost certainly extending the streak. These things are critic-proof, fatigue-proof, and failure-proof on just about every imaginable level. If you were chomping at the bit to see the new one, you probably already have, and if you don't have the taste for cape-wearing and city-leveling, you've probably already decided to pass. There's an ever-dwindling middle-ground between those two polarities; if you happen fit into that mysterious group, this review is for you.        

        Although these team-up movies are meant to receive their backstory from each character’s most recent individual installment, Ultron mostly plays like a strict sequel to The Avengers, opening with Earth’s Mightiest Heros battling together as if New York happened just yesterday. The wise-cracks are flying, the resentments have been tempered, the teamwork is inspired, and yet, despite all their joint success, the group is set to disband. The action has always taken an emotional toll on Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) has been has been in the ass-kicking business for far too long, and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) was basically freelancing in the first place. Dissolving the gang would seem to put the whole world at risk, but Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) has a plan; create artificial intelligence by using the alien technology located inside the spear Loki wielded through-out the first film. The billionaire’s hubris is proven foolhardy when his creation, dubbed Ultron, comes to life with the voice of James Spader, and the mustache-twirling deviousness of a Bond villain. Avengers... ASSEMBLE!!!

        The secret to the success of the original Avengers flick was in its plot: it didn’t have one. Sure, there were aspiring world conquerers and a slew of aliens that needed besting, but for the most part, the 2012 smash spent its time palling around with the troops. It told funny jokes, established their relationships, and made time for hero-on-hero battles that resembled an 8-year-old playing with action figures after school. Though the spirit of that film exists here as well, the agenda is much more bloated; many of the periphery players from other Marvel franchises appear in brief roles, while Ultron even makes time to introduce Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), and The Vision (Paul Bettany). It's Spider-Man 3-level overload, but credit writer/director Joss Whedon for never dropping any of the many balls he's juggling. It feels like a stretch to say the auteur completely sticks the landing, but considering how many different character arches and plot points are scattered across the film's 141 minute runtime, Ultron is remarkably consistent in the fields of comprehension and engagement.

        It's nice to see the studio push forward into more complicated, knotty storytelling, but just as their steady strengths are on display here, so are their stayed weaknesses. Disney has already announced the conglomerate's next 11 projects (dating to mid 2019), and detailed casting news that all but assures none of our favorite world savers will be meeting their demise anytime soon. Even on screen, the danger seems mild at best; the hoards of robo-clones Ultron creates through undisclosed means function in almost the same quantity-over-quality fashion as The Avengers' Chitauri, and are perhaps even easier to cut in half. No one's saying it's not fun to kick it with Captain America and the Hulk for a few hours, but a real adversary would take these movies to a different place entirely. When Jeff-Bridges-dressed-up-as-an-iron-clad-Stay-Puft-Marshmallow-Man is one of your company's most memorable troublemakers, you've got a problem. Ultron's fun, and Spader is obviously having a blast in the sound booth, but he never feels truly threatening, and his inverted altruism and game-changing intelligence feel half-baked at best. The action set pieces can also prove frustrating, creating a cacophony with their rapid cuts, and complete and utter abandonment of spacial reasoning. Whatever you do, don't attempt to grasp where one Avenger is in relation to the next during the climactic battle; you'll give yourself a migraine. 

      But none of what I'm saying really matters, does it? This thing is more powerful than you or me, and as a few melees set in less fortunate parts of the world might be boldly suggesting, its global domination is thorough to the point of being tyrannical and wanton. You probably know 20 people who've already forked out their $12 as if it was a communion offering, and even if their hunger for the product is insatiable, it's clear that thirst doesn't always extend to the creative team. If The Avengers was all about how fun it is to wield superpowers, then Ultron argues that it's an out-and-out bummer, and one would be forgiven for speculating that certain folks both in front of and behind the camera might be buying into the movie's thesis. There will be more Marvel movies of course, some inspired, some phoned-in, some creative, and some hamstrung by studio demands. They will make better pictures than Ultron, and they will also make worse: at the end of the day, this one's just kind of keeping the seat warm.

Grade: B-

It Follows (Limited Release Date: 3-13-2015)

        After spending a solid decade at the bottom of the film-world totem poll, the horror genre is positively thriving, and regaining cult fans by the handful. Yes, the Ouija's and The Lazarus Effect's of the world are still at large, but so are micro-budget indie darlings (The Babadook, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night) and runaway mainstream hits (The Conjuring, The Paranormal Activity franchise). The battle against 'Torture Porn' or 'Gorno' films like Saw and The Hills Have Eyes has officially been fought and won, debunking the myth that carnage alone can produce terror, and leading to major studio's recent aversion toward the style. But for all the critical love and internet hype these fright-fests have been receiving over the last few years, they share one thing in common with the grisly flicks that now reside in our cultural rearview mirror: they're just not that scary. Perhaps we're all too busy dancing on Hostel's grave to notice, but the annoyingly frequent severed limbs of yesteryear haven't given way to terror, but rather another placeholder all together, one which informs nearly every waking moment of It Follows.

        The sophomore effort of writer/director David Robert Mitchell (following 2010's slept-on The Myth of the American Sleepover) sees the up-and-comer change gears in drastic manner, swapping out the lo-fi nostalgic sweetness of his debut for a chilly thriller straight out of the late 70's or early 80's. In a seemingly parentless, comparatively cozy corner of Detroit, Jay (Maika Monroe) spends a night out with her boyfriend that, following a moment of intimacy, takes a dark, unexpected turn. Suddenly stalked by overwhelming fear and anxiety, sometimes in the literal form of a dead-eyed pursuant, Jay turns to her band of young adult compatriots for support, the group working frantically to relieve our protagonist of her curse before it's too late.

        Only two pictures into what will hopefully be a lengthy filmography, we already know a few things about Mitchell for certain. The auteur is clearly interested in youth, listlessness, the loss of innocence (especially in a sexual context), and finding new ideas within familiar rhetoric. Don't confuse that last bit with boundary-breaking or trail-blazing; Mitchell is far more concerned with exploring the parameters of our established storytelling rules than he is in refuting them. Prior to release, the filmmaker cited George Romero and John Carpenter as influences, the type of proclamation that initially inspired the immortal expression 'needless to say.' Halloween makes up about 75% of the flick's bibliography, from Disasterpeace clearly (and masterfully) aping the score of that film, to the way cinematographer Mike Gioulakis captures the beauty of the suburban dog days of summer with foreboding, paralyzing beauty. Even the assailant's molasses-slow approach feels like a salute to Michael Meyers' stayed bodily movements. Again, this is a guy fixated on working within convention, a focus that makes his involvement in the horror genre that much more perfect.

        His film greets the world at a point where genre deconstruction has completely taken over the scary movie landscape, IF sharing that tendency with all the lauded efforts mentioned in the first paragraph of this review. Seemingly every respected frightener over the last several years has managed to wrangle in a story-behind-the-story, be it metaphorical like The Babadook, or satirical like Cabin in the Woods, a middling success that somehow birthed an entire sub-genre simply by following the blueprint that Scream laid out nearly two decades ago. It Follows fits much more cleanly into the former category, ramming that aforementioned metaphor down your throat in a manner that makes it nearly impossible to miss (I'll opt against calling it by name, and let the film tell you its own story).

        It's a juicy idea in that it employs tried-and-true framing to relay an unfamiliar idea, which is seemingly the only thing we want in our horror movies nowadays. Obviously I prefer this new strategy to the heedless physical trauma of the early 2000's, but I can't help but feel like it's an over-correction. None of these movies stand by themselves; they're all thin veneers for obvious agendas, applying to the viewer's intellect while almost completely forgoing all the cold sweat and raised hair that a horror flick should, to my mind, at least attempt to produce. It Follows might get your wheels turning, and it's certainly made with expert craft, but I'm growing tired of popcorn flicks that only serve up organic kernels without even a hint of butter or salt. Yes, it's clever and thoughtful, but since when is that all we want from a 'scary' night out at the flicks?

Grade: B-

Interstellar (Release Date: 11-7-2014)

        To say that Christopher Nolan is in rarified air as a tent-pole filmmaker would be the ultimate understatement: no other director can currently turn a mere movie into a cultural event simply by attaching his name. Spielberg used to have it, Tarantino might get there yet, and Cameron would share the mantle if he made more than one film per decade. As is, Nolan alone is afforded movie-star treatment by both the studios that market his pictures, and the audiences that greedily lap them up. It should come as no surprise that all this adoration has emboldened him to take even further risks; with the release Interstellar, Nolan's first since dutifully wrapping up his Dark Knight saga, finds the auteur marching to the beat of his own drum, traveling to the farthest reaches of space all in the name of chasing his muse.

        Hollywood's own Lazarus (Matthew McConaughey) stars as Cooper, a former NASA test pilot and current farmer (they make those?) living in a vaguely post-apocalyptic American midwest. Rather than zombies or artificial intelligence, Earth's ruination is brought about by a newly untenable climate; rain hardly falls, dust sweeps through towns like a menacing brown fog, and our only viable crop left is corn (Take THAT, USDA!). Humanity's last hope manifests in the form of a wormhole that is discovered somewhere near Saturn, a portal behind which mankind hopes to find a new home. Cooper reluctantly accepts the mission, leaving behind a much beloved daughter (a terrific Mackenzie Foy) and an afterthought of a son (Timothée Chalamet) with only a puncher's chance of ever returning.

        It's easy to forget that Nolan's name hasn't always been synonymous with enormity. As recently as  2006's The Prestige, the guy hadn't even made a single epic. Then came The Dark Knight (and, I'd like to posit, the influence of composer Hans Zimmer), a film who's unnerving scale and runaway success properly put Nolan on the pop culture map, and laid the tracks for his career forever more. Interstellar might be his most daunting undertaking yet, a nearly three-hour-long space voyage that finds as much value in explaining the Theory of Relativity as is does in tugging on heart strings, all while consciously and constantly calling to mind 2001: A Space Odyssey with truly reckless abandon. There's no doubting the film's ambition, but the subject of its actual achievement is ripe for debate.

        Nolan has never bared his heart to this degree. It's commonplace to hear his work described as 'cold' or 'inhuman,' and in the same year that David Fincher laughed off those very same criticisms by crafting one of his iciest works to date, Nolan opted to confront them head-on. Problem is, this might not have been the right movie to finally shift his heart all the way down to his sleeve. The cross-cutting that transpires between Cooper's galactic adventures and his children's dust-bowl suffering diminishes the effect of both, while certain scenes that juxtapose the powers of love and science remain tremendously vague, and would likely be more at home in the diary of a 14-year-old girl. Nolan and writing partner/brother Jonathan also stir a little government conspiracy into the pot, often via clumsy expositions delivered by poorly cast villains who slowly reveal 'ah-hah's that play more like 'ho-hums.' There's even a big twist at the end!!! I'll say this about Interstellar: you're buying a whole lot of 'movie' with your $13, even if it's kind of a mess.

        The primary culprit, as it tends to be in Nolan's work, is the screenplay. Where his heavily plot-driven/plot-hole-ridden films of the past have always managed to distract viewers from their faulty mechanics with the allure and power of spectacle, Interstellar sees the details finally catch up to the Brother's Nolan. The film is littered with head-scratch-worthy internal logic, and dialogue that's so on the nose, you might never smell again. And while I anticipated a ready and fair comparison between this and last year's Gravity, Interstellar's closest relative is actually another Nolan offspring, Inception. Both movies are obsessed with the time delineation, parental guilt, love and its perception, anti-gravity, the intimidating power of water, twist revelations, and plots that function more as puzzles than narratives. Had we never seen (and marveled at) Inception, this might be a wholly different conversation; as is, Nolan's latest feels a touch warmed-over.

        Interstellar is all about reaching out beyond what we've previously accomplished, in terms of both the film itself, and the production behind it. Even Matthew McConaughey, now three years into the McConaissance, has something to prove, trotting out his newly-minted Oscar-winner status for a mainstream audience who hasn't seen him in anything since The Ghosts of Girlfriend's Past. He's fine in the picture, employing his steady southern drawl to endearing effect, and really hitting the high notes in his handful of 'oscar scenes,' but one still wonders if this film wouldn't benefit from a less famous face at its center. His 'movie-star-performance' dial is set firmly at 11.5, an odd choice for... you know, a crop farmer, and the thinly-written Cooper ensures that the thespian always comes first to mind before the character.

        Look, there are elements of Interstellar that work like gangbusters. Certain space travel sequences are near jaw-dropping, and the action, especially as presented in IMAX, shows Nolan again at the top of his game, all while the sound nearly deafens. And even if the director struggles to bring some of his thorny, emotionally driven ideas all the way home, the mere way that he presents them is often harrowing, with certain moments and concepts that rattle around in your head for days. Wether these positives properly outweigh the detriments is really all in the eye of the beholder, and somehow, nearly a week after heading to the stars with Nolan and McConaughey, I'm not sure where exactly I stand. Interstellar is undoubtably a mixed bag, one filled with ample amounts of both treasure and trash; your level of enjoyment will likely be determined by how willing and patient you are to sort through it.

Grade: B-