The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent / *** (R)

 

Nick Cage: Nicolas Cage

Javi Gutierrez: Pedro Pascal

Vivian: Tiffany Haddish

Olivia: Sharon Horgan

Lucas Gutierrez: Paco León

Richard Fink: Neil Patrick Harris

Addy Cage: Lily Sheen

Gabriella: Alessandra Mastronardi

Carlos: Jacob Scipio

Martin: Ike Barinholtz

Nicky: Nicolas Kim Coppola

Lionsgate presents a film directed by Tom Gormican. Written by Gormican & Kevin Etten. Running time: 107 min. Rated R (for language throughout, some sexual references, drug use and violence).

Oh, how we love Nicolas Cage. He’s an actor about which I’ve never heard anyone say, “I hate that guy.” And I’ve heard people say that about many a great actor. We love him when he’s good, and we love him even more when he’s bad. We love his great movies, like Raising Arizona, Moonstruck, and his Oscar-winning performance in Leaving Las Vegas. We love him in over-the-top action films, like The Rock, Con Air, and Face/Off. We even like him in movies that we hate, like The Wicker Man, Drive Angry, and (count them) two whole Ghost Rider movies. This is probably because Cage has the ability to let all self-consciousness go as the role requires, which makes him the perfect subject for The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.

You might go into this movie thinking it was written specifically for Cage. Maybe it was. I don’t know. However, the filmmakers really could’ve chosen any aging Hollywood star who seems to have his best roles behind him. It is no surprise, though, that it was Cage who was willing to put himself out there as the subject of a film in which he plays a version of himself named Nick that is so desperate for a gig that he agrees to make a birthday appearance at an eccentric European billionaire’s party for $1 million. What Nick is unaware of is that despite the fact that Javi is a superfan of his, he is also suspected by the CIA to be the head of a major crime cartel. On his way to the gig, a CIA agent, Vivian, recruits Cage to help them gather intel and locate the kidnapped daughter of a politician being manipulated by the cartel.

With Cage perfectly cast in the lead role, it’s no surprise that he is surrounded by an amazing supporting cast. Hot of his success in quirky roles in Wonder Woman 1984 and the Disney+ television series The Mandalorian, Pedro Pascal plays the rather strange Javi in such a way it is hard to tell whether the CIA has mistakenly identified him as a vicious crime lord or he is just good at separating his fanatic love of all things Cage from his criminal calling. Tiffany Hadish and Ike Barinholtz are given the task of representing America’s possibly faulty world police as the CIA agents in charge of the rescue operation. Using Cage to achieve their goals is a questionable approach to say the least and the two squeeze a great deal of comedy out of that premise, but unfortunately, are under-utilized in the film’s plot as a whole. I definitely would’ve liked to have seen much more of both of these actors. 

British actress Sharon Horgan, who has had a great deal of success as a comedienne in her home country in television shows like Catastrophe and The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, plays Cage’s ex-wife, Olivia, who along with their daughter inadvertently gets mixed up in the strange plot that he finds himself. Olivia is fed up with Cage’s inability to be present as a father to their daughter, Addy (Lily Sheen). There is no correlation between Olivia and Addy and any of Cage’s real life family, but Horgan does a wonderful job balancing the scales of the ridiculousness of Cage’s life as a famous actor and helping to ground this heightened world with a sense of reality to make the audience believe these characters are real. Finally, Neil Patrick Harris is Cage’s aptly-named talent agent, Richard Fink. Although Harris plays the constantly pivoting character perfectly, I do wonder whether Fink might’ve been served better with a less famous actor in the role. I kept expecting that Harris was also playing a version of himself, rather than someone who wasn’t famous.

Cage even gets the chance to provide two versions of himself to the audience as he is often visited by a younger version of himself, seemingly modeled after his role in David Lynch’s Wild At Heart. The younger Cage goads the “real” Cage to take more risks and grab life by the balls, the way he’s rumored to have in his younger years in Hollywood. This is where the audience really gets to enjoy that over-the-top flair that Cage so often uses in some of his more questionable projects, like Vampire’s Kiss and Deadfall. 

The success of the movie really falls on the shoulders of both Cage and Pascal, however, as their budding friendship is key to both the plot of the film and its comedy. There is a wonderful scene when they’re being chased through a beautiful Tuscan village by men with guns not long after they’ve dropped some acid together. In a moment of respite, paranoia begins to set in with Pascal as he begins to think just about any random person on the street could be someone who wants to kill them. Cage is starting to get into his own eccentric groove at this point and the way their two performances compliment and conflict with each other is just comedic perfection.

I am unfamiliar with writer and director Tom Gormican’s previous film That Awkward Moment, but I did watch the television show he created, Ghosted. He seems to specialize in putting opposing characters into serious situations that he approaches from a comedic point of view. That is certainly the realm in which this film is operating but with a particularly meta bent due to the fact that Cage is playing a version of himself. What this film is particularly adept at is navigating the real conflicts and self-interests involved in such an endeavor. Cage is constantly conflicted because he feels he must work but his recent output has been artistically negligible. He wants to be a good dad, but is out of touch with any aspects of what that entails. And he wants to be a real life hero and help the CIA but has found what he feels to be a genuine friend in Javi. Surprisingly, this isn’t the one of the most Nicolas Cagey Nicolas Cage movies you’ll ever see, but it is one that knows exactly what it is and uses that knowledge to make it a better Nicolas Cage movie than a great deal of them out there.

The Bad Guys / *** (PG)

 

Featuring the voices of:

Wolf: Sam Rockwell

Snake: Marc Maron

Tarantula: Awkwafina

Shark: Craig Robinson

Piranha: Anthony Ramos

Professor Marmalade: Richard Ayoade

Diane Foxington: Zazie Beetz

Police Chief Misty Luggins: Alex Borstein

Tiffany Fluffit: Lilly Singh

Universal Pictures and DreamWorks Animation present a film directed by Pierre Perifel. Written by Etan Cohen and additional material by Yoni Brenner and Hilary Winston. Based on the books by Aaron Blabey. Running time: 100 min. Rated PG (for action and rude humor).

There’s this thing about acting. When you’re young, you want to play the hero, or more specifically the troubled hero. You want a challenge. You want to portray anguish. Even when you do want to play the “bad guy,” you want to play him from a perspective where he thinks he’s the good guy. But as you get older, and you’ve had your acting challenges. When you’ve challenged yourself and overcome those challenges. When you’ve pushed your skill and art to the edge. When you’ve hurt inside for a role. When you’ve done all that; well then, you just want to play the bad guy. You just want to chew some scenery and be bad. I suppose that’s kind of where the inspiration for a series of children’s books that focuses on the bad guys comes from.

Aaron Blabey started out as an actor. It wasn’t until much later in life that he found his calling as a children’s book writer with a project that was influenced by his own film favorites Reservoir Dogs and movies like Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s trilogy. That book series is The Bad Guys, which focuses on a group of criminal friends who struggle with their own desires to be good. He has yet to finish the twenty book series, but it provides him with all those acting desires; and the new Dreamworks Animation movie The Bad Guys is the culmination of those original acting dreams for Blabey.

The first feature from veteran animator Pierre Periful, The Bad Guys is essentially a buddy movie. We’re first introduced to Wolf and Snake, voiced respectively by Sam Rockwell and Marc Maron, having a birthday breakfast for Snake in a diner. Through genre appropriate narration by Wolf, we are invited into his criminal world. He introduces us to Sanke, the safecracker; Tarantula, the hacker; Shark, the unlikely master of disguise; and Piranha, the muscle. 

Wolf and Snake leave the diner, walk across the street and rob a bank. After the intros, the audience is treated to an extended chase sequence with cinematic stylization out of Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver. After evading the cops, the crew gets down to planning their next score. During the preparation for this heist, Wolf inadvertently saves the life of an old woman and comes out of it actually feeling good about doing good. The heist goes bad, however, and when the team is caught by the overzealous Police Chief Misty Mullins, Wolf hatches a plan to enter a second chance program run by Professor Marmalade to turn good. While he tells the team it’s just another con job to stay out of prison, Wolf secretly is beginning to enjoy acting good. Mayor Diane Foxington is skeptical of Wolf’s motives, but approves of the rehabilitation anyway.

The animation is spectacular. Perifel and his production designers use a 3-D animation that is highly stylized. Looking something between 3D painting and the sketch style of Blabey’s books, the animation sculpts much of the film’s outsider attitude. It also captures that California feeling of the golden sunny haze that embodies the movies of Michael Bay, Dominic Sena and John Woo. Yet the characters also have traditional 2D animation for the eyes, somehow blending perfectly with the Californian vibe and very original look of the rest of the images.

Ultimately, the story is about a rift in the friendship between Wolf and Snake, as Snake lives to be a criminal, while Wolf might be finding he likes the idea of being a good guy a little too much for Snake’s liking. This buddy story is not without its twists and turns, with a heist plot and a couple of misdirections that are sophisticated for a kids movie and could easily work for adult fare. Many of the characters aren’t exactly what they seem, and for however much these guys like being bad, there are deeper levels to who they are than the stereotypes they seem to embody at first. It’s really a great film for introducing kids to the multiple layers of drama that make for the best storytelling.

My youngest son recently finished a reading challenge where The Bad Guys books provided the majority of his reading hours. Ironically, the kids who reached their goals were then allowed to throw pies in the faces of their school’s Principal (his mother, btw) and Resource Officer. There’s nothing like throwing a pie in the face of your school’s police officer and your very own mother to make you feel like one of the bad guys.

The Bad Guys is currently playing exclusively in theaters.

The Northman / ***½ (R)

 

Amleth: Alexander Skarsgård

Queen Gudrún: Nicole Kidman

Fjölnir the Brotherless: Claes Bang

King Aurvandil War-Raven: Ethan Hawke

Olga of the Birch Forest: Anya Taylor-Joy

Thórir The Proud: Gustav Lindh

Gunnar: Elliott Rose

Heimir the Fool: Willem Defoe

Seeress: Björk

Focus Features and New Regency Productions present a film directed by Robert Eggers. Written by Sjón & Robert Eggers. Running time: 136 min. Rated R (for strong bloody violence, strong sexual content and nudity).

To call Robert Eggers’s new Viking movie “bombastic” and “over the top” might be missing the point, and it is certainly missing the idea of what should be expected from a Viking movie. Eggers, who already has quite a reputation in Hollywood for producing intellectually challenging and visually stunning movies, offers us only his third feature with The Northman. The Northman may be the most authentic Viking movie ever made. Based on a well known Scandinavian folk tale, which also inspired some of the plot points of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, it is a raw experience to say the least. It is filled with anger and violence and the raw visceral nature of man. It’s not surprising the same are calling it a little much. Perhaps we have become a sensitive lot.

His previous movies have notoriously been produced with an incredible attention to the authentic details that mark the periods which they depict. 2015’s The Witch used only props and sets that were constructed using the methods of its 1600s New England setting, while The Lighthouse (2019) was filmed using camera lenses from its 1890s time period. Both were also rumored to have been made under strenuous conditions for their casts and crews. Considering those facts, we can probably call ourselves lucky not to have endured what must’ve been months of near torture to produce this bloody, monsterous affair.

The Northman tells the story of Amleth, an Icelandic prince in the 10th Century, during the landnamsöld (age of land-taking)–the time Iceland was first settled. The boy adores his father, who upon his return from a campaign of conquering and acquiring riches is murdered by his own brother, Fjölnir. The boy escapes and swears vengeance for his father, rescue for his mother and death for his uncle. Years later, as an enforcer for another ruler, Amleth learns of the sale of slaves from his tribe’s latest conquest to Fjölnir and disguises himself as one of the slaves to be shipped to his uncle’s reduced kingdom of a mere shepherding community to enact his vengeance.

It’s a powerful story of betrayal and vengeance, and Eggers brings all the grandiloquence and passion necessary for revenge into every aspect of the filmgoing experience, from the culturally referential and thundering score by Robert Carolan and Sebastian Gainsborough to the enlarged continent of body muscle that star Alexander Skarsgård must’ve ‘roided out to achieve. Everything in this movie is massive. The Icelandic setting makes for a beyond tormenting landscape, as unforgiving as these Viking marauders are on their missions of conquest. Although we don’t witness the conquest the king returns from at the start of the film, it is obvious they have devastated the people who are now enslaved by them and stolen all the riches their civilization had hoarded. As we are introduced to Amleth as an adult we witness one of these raids, in which Almeth is employed as a first wave enforcer–or wolf–a personality he seems to embody at his core, one of extreme brutality and entirely lacking in empathy. 

Amleth's methods of revenge are even more extreme in their implementation. Eggers’ lead for his first film, Anya Taylor-Joy, rejoins his company to act as an accomplice to Amleth’s vengeance–both having lost what was dear to them because of the same man’s actions. The two slaughter their tormentors in truly horrific ways, through poisoning and dismemberment, ultimately leading to a showdown between Amleth and Fjölnir at the base of an erupting volcano.

Despite the visceral and testosterone driven nature of the action, Eggers incorporates many of his signature themes of the supernatural and witchcraft. Willem Dafoe and Björk each show up in intense shaman roles, providing some of the film’s more psychedelic visuals and tripped out performances. Taylor-Joy seems to have graduated her character from The Witch to the seasoned trickstress. Amleth also sees visions that foretell of his revenge on his uncle and of his progenies’ rise to power. He sees his own journey to Valhọll, “hall of the slain”, riding on the wings of the Valkyrie. It’s all very visually stunning.

In press interviews leading up to the release of The Northman, Eggers said that Skarsgård had approached him to do a Viking film. While it had been a lifelong dream of the Swedish actor’s, it surprisingly hadn’t been one for Eggers. Clearly Skarsgård recruited the right director to fulfill his dream. While it is melodramatic and overblown, it also feels incredibly authentic for what it is trying to depict. It certainly isn’t a movie for everyone. It does play like the fulfillment of a dream–or perhaps a nightmare.

The Northman is currently playing exclusively in theaters.

The Lost City / ***½ (PG-13)

Loretta/Angela: Sandra Bullock

Alan/Dash: Channing Tatum

Abigail Fairfax: Daniel Radcliffe

Beth Hatten: Da’Vine Joy Randolph

Jack Trainer: Brad Pitt

Paramount Pictures presents a film directed by Aaron Nee & Adam Nee. Written by Oran Uziel and Dana Fox and Adam Nee & Aaron Nee from a story by Seth Gordon. Running time: 112 min. Rated PG-13 (for violence and some bloody images, suggestive material, partial nudity and language).

If the new adventure comedy The Lost City tells us anything, it is that we have missed the physical comedy of Sandra Bullock. This movie is many things. It’s clearly an homage to the now classic comedy adventure Romancing the Stone, taking many of its story cues and improving upon some of that film’s more dated aspects. It’s a reminder of Channing Tatum’s talents in making fun of his own buff physical appearance. It’s a chance for Brad Pitt and Daniel Radcliffe to shed some of the iconic status of their own public perception. It’s a fun time. It’s a laugh factory. But mostly, it’s a chance for Sandra Bullock to shine again in the type of role that made her famous.

The movie opens in a tomb. Our heroes, Angela & Dash (Bullock & Tatum), are tied up on the floor, surrounded by snakes with a villain monologuing at them. After questioning the plausibility of the situation, Angela says, “Delete!” and the snakes disappear. She says, “Delete!” again and the monologuing villain disappears. She says, “Delete!” again and we find Angela sitting at a computer in an apartment looking frustrated. Turns out she is actually Loretta, a romance novelist and recluse since the death of her archaeologist husband. Her own archaeological dreams were sidetracked by her surprise success writing a romance novel series focusing more on the sexual exploits than the archaeological adventures of Angela and Dash. 

At this point–and frankly, when all is said and done–The Lost City is essentially a loose remake of the 1983 Stone. Loretta’s agent, Beth Hatten–a force of nature in the form of De’Vine Joy Randolph–begs her reclusive client for the final chapters of her new book as the book tour looms. When Beth finally gets Loretta out of her cocoon of wine and bubble baths, the first stop on the tour involves a Q & A with Loretta and her forever cover model, Alan (Tatum), who needs to be reminded he isn’t really Dash. Loretta makes it clear to Dash and all her fans that the fantasy is over just before she’s kidnapped.

Daniel Radcliffe continues his journey successfully distancing himself from his most famous role as a titular wizard with his portrayal of Abigail Fairfax. “It’s a gender neutral name!” Fairfax is the second in line to a large family fortune wishing to make his name finding a rare artifact, since he was publicly passed up to run the family business. He has kidnapped Loretta because he believes her new book holds the key to where the artifact might be located. Radcliffe does a wonderful job keeping you guessing for the first third of the film as to whether he is tooth-nashingly evil or just has no idea as to how to properly deal with people. He plays well against his good boy image.

Alan, who clearly has feelings for Loretta, is determined to be more than just a cover model and sets out to rescue the real life version of his fictional love. He enlists the help of a professional rescuer, a mercenary played by Brad Pitt. Like Radcliffe, Pitt uses his own public image to build a solid comedic performance. His hero for hire is amiable enough to let Alan tag along on the rescue and the whole adventure just takes off from there.

Like its predecessor, Stone, The Lost City masterfully merges comedy with its adventure premise, relying heavily on the personalities of its cast of characters to anchor its laughs. All five of the leads have big laugh moments, but this is clearly Bullock’s and Tatum’s party. Even on that front, the script leans more heavily toward Bullock in a far more progressive leading performance for a female than Stone’s sometimes cringe-inducing treatment of its female protagonist from its male protagonist. Although Loretta is the one being rescued, Alan is never in control of her fate. She is never dependent on him, and she is the driver of every aspect of the plot, never the tool of it. Meanwhile, Tatum is more than willing to play a muscle-bound damsel in distress.

Like last year’s Jungle Cruise, The Lost City is a welcome escape of pure fun without the modern heaviness that comes with today’s typical blockbuster fare. This one is even more hilarious, however, thanks to the deftness of Bullock’s physical comedy. There aren’t really any serious moments here, except for one that gets glossed over until it’s finally dealt with in the closing moments for an unexpected laugh. I really can’t express how wonderful the comedic performances are in this movie. If ever we need to laugh and fantasize it is now, and The Lost City is here to deliver.

The Lost City is currently playing in theaters and streaming exclusively on Paramount +.

Morbius / ** (PG-13)

 

Dr. Michael Morbius: Jared Leto

Milo: Matt Smith

Martine Bancroft: Adria Arjona

Dr. Emil Nicholas: Jared Harris

Agent Simon Stroud: Tyrese Gibson

Agent Rodriguez: Al Madrigal

Columbia Pictures and Marvel Entertainment present a film directed by Daniel Espinosa. Written by Matt Sazama & Burt Sharples. Based on the Marvel Comics character. Running time: 104 min. Rated PG-13 (for intense sequences of violence, some frightening images, and brief strong language).

Sony finally gets around to expanding its Marvel Comics based universe of characters following its long running Spider-Man franchise and the more recent Venom pair of movies. Thanks, Covid! Like Venom, Morbius concentrates on more of an anti-hero than the wholesome character of Peter Parker in the Spider suit. Morbius, in plain pop culture speak, is a vampire. Like all vampire films, Morbius is often a dank, dark exercise in straining to see what is happening in the blackness. Like most superhero movies, it is also an origin story filled with CGI creativeness and excess, and all too often sloppiness that adds to the dank, dark, difficult to see action. 

We are introduced to Dr. Michael Morbius, played by Jared Leto, as an adult in an under-explained opening sequence in which he is taken to a remote cave in Costa Rica to trap a rare species of bat. His treatment of the crew of men he’s paid to bring him here is reckless to say the least. Then we are flashed back to his childhood to discover that he was born with a rare blood disease that requires him to “get an oil change” three times a day. We also meet another boy with the same disease whom Michael befriends and renames Milo. The explanation for this renaming is thin and obviously designed to divert the audience’s attention from the true identity of Milo. Considering this would only be understood by the few movie goers that are fans of the comic book character along with the fact that Milo’s real name is used when he’s introduced, this seems like a magician trying to convince you this isn’t a trick even though the cards already fell out of his sleeve. We also meet Michael’s mentor Dr. Emil Nicholas, played by Jared Harris in a bit of casting misdirection.

Back in the present, Dr. Morbius’s partner, Martine Bancroft, discovers that Michael is illegally experimenting with the bats in developing a cure for his blood disorder. Rather than firmly questioning the morality of his actions as she first suggests, Martine is quite supportive of Michael’s experiments. She joins him on a cargo ship in international waters to administer the potential cure to him. The credits fail to respect Martine with a doctor title despite the fact that she insists upon it when challenged by men with guns. Although Martine is underwritten as a love interest, Adria Arjorna is a competent and compelling choice for the role. 

Needless to say, the cure doesn’t work quite as intended. Although it does appear to at least temporarily cure the disease, its side effects are vampirism. Most of the side effects seem beneficial to our hero–increased strength and agility, augmented echolocation hearing, and even a form of flight. It’s just that pesky need to feed on human blood that is problematic. Luckily, Morbius’s previous scientific contribution to humanity was a synthetic blood that is a milky blue color for some reason. Unfortunately, this blue blood provides diminishing returns for the good doctor. Also unfortunate for the doctor is how a shipful of dead mercenaries washed up on the city shore draws the attention of two FBI agents. Also, Milo’s desire for a cure is so strong that he ignores Mobius’s warning that the cure is also a curse. Soon people are being exsanguinated all over the city. Look it up. The writers did.

Now, if it seems I’m being hard on the movie, it isn’t all bad. Most of my issues are aesthetically based, rather than structural. Unlike what so many jokesters on the internet have suggested, Jared Leto’s presence in the leading role is anchoring rather than disruptive. He carries the weight of the role properly, even when the screenwriters insist on putting out-of-character one-liners in his mouth. The plot and design of the characters and production are also sound, providing an intriguing origin to a complicated character without over-complicating it. 

Matt Smith, as Milo, can be a bit much at times. Unfortunately, Smith seems a little more willing to give into some of the writers’ and director’s worst instincts, especially in a scene where he dances while dressing for an evening out with his newfound muscles and powers. It’s the action sequences that are the most problematic, however. The editing is too quick and the scenes are so dimly lit that their murkiness is indecipherable to human eyes. Vampires might be able to see in the dark, but I can’t.

I’d hardly call this the worst comic book adaptation I’d ever seen, but it doesn’t live up to the more nuanced standards that Marvel has built an interlocked universe out of over at Disney. I welcome some of the simplicity of storytelling here that has all but been expelled from superhero movies these days. The movie does dip its toes into the Disney formula in its final moments, however. Thanks primarily to a surprise cameo, these are the best scenes of the movie. I wonder, though, if the MCU has spoiled us on the more straightforward storytelling of classic action/fantasy movies. Morbius isn’t the best of what comic book filmmaking has become and perhaps the old ways just can’t succeed anymore. It’d be nice if they could.

Critic’s Note: Actually, the less complex style of plotting that once served all of our spectacle needs is successfully on display in the second Venom movie, Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021). In it the filmmakers embrace Tom Hardy’s unique characterization from the first movie and throw out most of the newer tricks of universe referencing and twist endings that make you reevaluate all you’ve seen. Well, if you don’t count the credit cookies, it does.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 / ** (PG)

Sonic (voice): Ben Schwartz

Dr. Robotnik: Jim Carrey

Tails (voice): Colleen O’Shaughnessey

Knuckles (voice): Idris Elba

Tom Wachowski: James Marsden

Maddie Wachowski: Tika Sumpter

Rachel: Natasha Rothwell

Randall: Shemar Moore

Wade: Adam Pally

Agent Stone: Lee Majdoub

Commander Walters: Tom Butler

Paramount Pictures presents a film directed by Jeff Fowler. Written by Pat Casey, Josh Miller and John Whittington. Running time: 122 min. Rated PG (for action, some violence, rude humor, and mild language).

My 8-year-old son really enjoyed this movie.

Favorite Music of 2021

In no particular order, here is my favorite music of 2021. 21 albums (well, one's an EP and one's a mixtape) and 13 film scores (Only Lovers Left Alive is a 2013 film, but the score was just released in 2021). The 4th album down is Ryley Walker's Course in Fable. The rest should be identifiable. 

Albums

Scores