Pain has a purpose. It helps keep us safe. We avoid being hurt and we get help when we are hurt. But Nathan Caine (a game Jack Quaid) has a condition called congenital insensitivity to pain and anhydrosis. He can be injured, but the pain message never makes it to his brain. The only way his parents could keep him safe was to keep him away from anything that might injure him. There’s a tennis ball on the corner of his desk just in case it is sharp enough to hurt him if he bangs into it. The tips of the pencils on his desk are covered. Nate does not eat solid food because what if he bit his tongue? He would never know.

He has a risk-averse job. That tennis ball-adorned desk is in a quiet neighborhood bank, where Nate is an assistant manager. At the office, he is kind to a widower who has missed his loan payments, giving him an unauthorized extension. And he looks longingly at Sherry (Amber Midthunder) but has no idea of how to talk to her. At home, he plays online games with Roscoe a 6’5″ guy with a man-bun, I mean a mini high ponytail, who rides a Harley. They’ve never actually met in person, but that’s as close to an IRL relationship as Nate has.

It is just before Christmas, and the bank is preparing for a busy day with people depositing their bonus checks. Then three men come in, dressed as Santa, and start shooting. Things go badly. The manager is killed. Many police officers are killed. And Sherry is taken hostage.

Nate immediately switches from being the most careful person on earth to being the most reckless as he races to rescue Sherry and basically turns the movie into something between an old school video game and a Road Runner cartoon. That almost but not quite makes it possible not to be overwhelmed by the constant carnage, with the Dolby sound of the guns making the theater seats shake.

It’s just one scene after another of Nate going after the bad guys, the cops going after him, the bad guys going after him, at one point a booby-trapped house going after him. Screenwriter Lars Jacobson comes up with a very inventive series of ways to inflict injury, if not pain, on Nate, whether he is sticking his hand in boiling oil to retrieve a gun, removing a bullet from his arm and sewing up the wound, being slammed in the back with a giant shining spiked flail, and pulling out a big knife that went through his hand so he can use it on someone else. As they used to say in the Timex watch commercials, he takes a licking and keeps on ticking. None of it makes sense, even if he does stop for an adrenaline injection, but if we wanted to see something make sense we’d be at a different movie.

Hero Quaid and Ray Nicholson, who plays bad guy Simon, are both sons of Hollywood stars, and we can guess who their fathers are when they smile. Quaid is the son of Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid, and he has his dad’s wickedly charming grin. Nicholson does not look much like his dad, Jack, until we see his smile. Midthunder is also from a show business family; her father is an actor and her mother is a casting director. She is also appearing in another movie opening this week, “Opus,” with John Malcovich. In her first lead role in a film, she is immensely appealing and gives her character more depth than we might expect, deftly rounding some character arcs that would be a challenge for many more experienced performers.

As we careen from fight to shoot-out to chase, it feels more like an FPS game than a story, but what little story there is gives Nate a chance to discover himself and his capabilities, including connections to Shelly and Roscoe. Quaid handles all of that more than capably. It’s not memorable, and there’s too much carnage for the spirited tone it strives for, but the actors make it work.

Parents should know that this film has non-stop very intense peril and violence with many characters injured and killed and many graphic and disturbing images. Characters use constant very strong language. Characters drink alcohol and there is a scene in a bar.

Family discussion: Why didn’t Nate tell the police how to find the robbers? Do you agree with what the judge decided?

If you like this, try: “Crank” and “Shoot ’em Up”

“Opus” is almost smart, almost good, and almost worth your time. A first-rate but mostly under-used cast flounders in the second half of a story that begins as a satire of obsession with celebrity that veers into a less successful thriller.

The first feature film from writer/director Mark Anthony Green stars John Malcovich as Alfred Moretti, a rock star who is a combination of Bob Dylan and Elvis Presley, not in style of music but in prominence and influence. Thirty years ago, he was the most popular musician in the world (every teenager of the era used his signature song as a ring tone, we learn). And then he burnished his legend by disappearing. Now, after decades of isolation, his long-time publicist (a very funny Tony Hale playing a character with the wonderfully name Soledad Yusef) informs the world that Moretti will release a new record and he is inviting a very small group to his compound to be the first to hear it.

They are Ariel Ecton (Ayo Edebiri), a frustrated young journalist working at a Rolling Stone-style magazine whose ideas are always given to more senior writers, her boss, Stan Sullivan (Murray Bartlett), television star Clara Armstrong (Juliette Lewis), estranged former Moretti colleague Bill Lotto (Mark Sivertsen), veteran photographer Bianca Tyson (Melissa Chambers), and “influencer” (I always have to put that term in quotes) Emily Katz (Stephanie Suganami). Other than Ariel, these characters have at most one attribute each, despite the best efforts of the excellent cast. Stan is starstruck and arrogant, telling Ariel to take notes and forbidding her to write even a subsidiary piece about the compound and its residents. The others barely have anything to do except taking for granted this exceptional opportunity and going along (as long as they can) with everything that happens because they want Moretti to keep including them. They keep telling the emperor that his clothes are fabulous. Maybe they’ve deluded themselves into thinking he is. Maybe they just want him to think they’re cool, an even bigger delusion.

Their phones and laptops are confiscated “to preserve the integrity” of the experience (so much for the “influencer.” And the residents of this remote compound are more than staff; they all seem to be part of a cult. At first, they seem to be a peaceful arts community. Then things get quirky. Then they get creepy. Then they get terrifying.

Like Moretti, this movie is not as smart as it thinks it is. It is better at raising thoughtful questions than illuminating them. By the end, it does not earn its provocation.

Parents should know that this movie has extended peril and violence with many graphic and very disturbing images. Many characters are injured and killed. Characters use strong language and drink alcohol.

Family discussion: Why do the visitors go along with some of the craziness? At what point would you decide to leave? Who does Moretti remind you of? What is the meaning of the final “thank you?”

You know how finicky printers are. Sometimes the printed paper comes out part way and then goes back a bit to do some more printing and comes out again. Sometimes you forget to put on the tray the paper lands on, and so it drops to the floor. It turns out that in the future, when someone develops a 3D printer that uses organic waste to print out people, actual human beings, those finicky printers do the same thing.

Mickey (an outstanding performance by Robert Pattinson) needed to leave the planet because a vicious loan shark who loves to watch the gruesome murders of those who haven’t paid on time was after him. The only way to jump to to head of a very long waiting list was to agree to be an “expendable.” He’s not very bright (see: in trouble with a vicious loan shark), so when he is repeatedly asked if he has read the contract he is signing, he says yes. That gets him a four-year-long trip to a new planet, where is job will be, basically, lab rat crossed with a crash test dummy. He is continually put in mortal danger until he dies, and then they print a new one of him out of that finicky printer. And sometimes they forget the paper tray, or I guess person tray, and he falls out onto the floor.

The new planet’s colony is run by an officious former politician named Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo with some large teeth) and his wife, Yifa (Toni Collette). Kenneth is obsessed with the “purity” of the civilization on his new planet, and Yifa is obsessed with superficial indicators of elegance and grace. She constantly drapes herself over her husband and coos into his ears, except when she is creating exotic sauces for their luxurious meals, while the rest of the people they brought with them to build their new community are fed with slop and live in bare, dorm-like cells.

Even in this miserable situation, there are levels of status, and Mickey is at the bottom. With one exception, he is considered less than human because he keeps dying and getting re-printed. The exception is not his Earth friend Timo (Steven Yeun), the one who got him into all the trouble he had to leave the planet to escape. The exception is the beautiful and intelligent Nasha (Naomie Ackie), who is, somewhat improbably, devoted to him.

As the movie begins, before a flashback telling us how he got there, Mickey has died and been reprinted 17 times, thus the title. He is stuck in an icy crevasse and certain he is about to die again, from exposure or from being eaten by the planet’s indigenous inhabitants, who look. like giant combination tardigrades and caterpillars. But somehow he survives. Only everyone else assumed he had died again and the most severely punished crime has been committed: another Mickey has been printed while the last one is still alive. There are multiples.

Some of the resulting complications work better than others, but the movie comes together in a tight climax as the Marshalls go over the top and the Mickeys and Nasha have to save the day.

Director Bong Joon Ho continues the sly, dark humor and provocative commentary on class hierarchies, hypocrisy, and pervasive societal inequities he featured in “Parasite,” “Snowpiercer,” and “Okja.” More heightened than the Oscar-winning “Parasite,” this imagines the future consequences of arrogance, exceptionalism, and careless exploitation. The Marshalls are so caricatured they undermine the more nuanced elements of the story. The other characters’ understated, matter-of-fact acceptance of the outrageous abuse is far more powerful.

Parents should know that this film includes peril and graphic violence, with some disturbing images including a severed hand and bloody barfing, injuries and deaths. A character is repeatedly killed. There are sexual situations and explicit sexual references and drawings. Characters use very strong language.

Family discussion: What would make someone agree to be expendable? What did the Marshalls want their new world to be like? Why were they so affectionate to each other and so cruel to everyone else?

If you like this, try: “Snowpiercer,” “Okja,” “The Maze Runner,” and “The Hunger Games”

Sonequa Martin-Green gives an exquisite, unforgettable performance in a story of love, grief, memory, and healing, “My Dead Friend Zoe.” First-time writer/director Kyle Hausemann-Stokes was a Bronze Star-awarded paratrooper in the US Army who served as a convoy commander in Iraq. He brings enormous specificity and understanding to an “inspired by a true story” film, with Martin-Green as Merit, a veteran struggling with PTSD. As she says, her struggle is not over “an incident but a person.”

That person is Zoe, played with warmth and bone-dry humor by Natalie Morales. Merit and Zoe have the kind of deep connection that comes from a similar response to intense and terrifying circumstances rather than some of the factors that sustain other friendships like interests in common. The way they talk to each other shows that their rhythms synch perfectly. They can finish each other’s thoughts; they are endlessly supportive through and in spite of perpetual teasing; they can switch seamlessly from joking to, if not seriousness, joking grounded by sincerity. When male soldiers demean Merit with sexist remarks, Zoe stands up for her friend, even though they outrank her. They utterly trust and rely on each other.

For that reason, Merit does not see that they have differences of increasing importance as their terms of service are ending.

Or rather, did not see. As the movie begins, Merit’s service has ended and she is back at home, profoundly traumatized. She will not let herself remember how her best friend Zoe died. Instead, she is awash in memories so vivid she feels like Zoe is still with her. And she likes that feeling. She is not ready to let Zoe go.

We can see why. Morales, always endlessly appealing on screen and here in a perfect role, the warm, wise-cracking, ride or die friend we would all love to have, imaginary if necessary.

Hausemann-Stokes depicts the imaginary character with assurance and exceptional delicacy, especially impressive for a first-time writer/director. It would be easy to make this concept intrusive or unintentionally funny. But we can see, thanks to sensitive writing and Martin-Green’s extraordinary performance. Oscar-winners Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris show up to provide able support. Freeman plays a support group counselor and Harris is Merit’s grandfather, Dale, a veteran whose service inspired Merit to enlist and whose early dementia is both another source of loss and a possibility of finding some purpose. Their scene together in a boat on the lake near his home is especially moving and one of many graceful moments that expand our understanding and move the characters forward.

Merit meets Alex (wonderfully appealing Utkarsh Ambudkar) and their immediate connection gives her the first sense of future possibilities, her first reason to think about leaving Zoe in the past. Hausemann-Stokes and his brilliant cast get the details right to bring us into this world and expand our understanding of our own struggles with loss.

Parents should know that this movie deals with wartime peril and violence, suicide, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Characters drink, smoke, and use very strong language. A character has dementia and there is family stress.

Family discussion: What is survivor guilt? How does Dale help Merit think about memory and loss? Why didn’t Merit know what Zoe was worried about?

If you like this, try: “The Outpost” and “Thank You for Your Service”

Paddington is entertaining because of his naivety, which sometimes results in amusing slapstick. But he is beloved because he is true-hearted and kind, and because he knows that a hard stare is called for when people forget their manners. Following the second Paddington film, famously the highest rated movie in the history of Rotten Tomatoes, above expectations for this next in the series were high. It just about meets them with a heartwarming and delightful film, filled with adventure, family, a lost city, singing and tap-dancing nuns, and, when called for, orange marmalade and a hard stare.

One highlight of the series has been its A-list villains, and I strongly urge audiences to stay through the credits for an update on the best so far, Hugh Grant as Phoenix Buchanan.

We get a reminder of Paddington’s origin stories here, both his being separated from his family and being taken in by his beloved Aunt Lucy (warmly voiced by Imelda Staunton), to reassures the little cub that if he ever gets lost again, he should roar and she will roar back. We also see him arrive at the train station that give him a name humans can pronounce, and then we are up to date with Paddington (Ben Wishaw) not only a beloved part of the Brown family but a naturalized British citizen with a passport to prove it.

The timing is very good, because Paddington receives a concerning letter from the Reverend Mother (Olivia Colman) at the home for retired bears in Peru. She says Aunt Lucy is doing poorly. The Browns like the idea of a trip with some adventure included. Henry (Hugh Bonneville), whose job is assessing risk, with thick notebooks of triple-laminated documentation of every possible peril, is therefore inclined to be very risk-averse. His new American boss has encouraged him to take some risks, and Peru, even with its scary purple-kneed tarantulas, looks like a good opportunity. Mary Brown (Emily Mortimer charmingly taking over from Sally Hawkins) thinks a trip will bring the family together, something she’d been missing with her children getting older. Judy Brown (Madeleine Harris) is getting ready to leave for college and Jonathan Brown (Samuel Joslin) spends all day in his room working on inventions to help him “put a lot of effort into doing as little as possible.”

Paddington and the Browns go to Peru, but when they get to the home for retired bears, Aunt Lucy is gone and no one knows where she is. The clues she left behind seem to suggest she has gone in search of the legendary lost city of El Dorado. And so what they thought was going to be a quiet visit in a nun-run assisted living facility turns into an adventure on the Amazon, in a boat captained by Hunter Cabot, played by Antonio Banderas.

Banderas also plays Cabot’s ancestors, who were all obsessed with finding the legendary lost city of El Dorado, filled with gold. The ancestors are in pictures on the wall and also appear to Cabot to urge him on.

Like the others, this latest entry in the Paddington saga is visually enchanting, charmingly funny, surprisingly wise, and genuinely heartwarming. I admit I teared up near the end. While there is nothing as enthralling as the second film’s gently animated pop-up book or as hilarious as the prison scene, there is plenty to enjoy. This is a story about the power of being kind, empathetic, and gentle, about learning to challenge ourselves, about where we come from and where we are going. It is funny, smart, and endearing, a true gift.

NOTE: Stay for some very funny mid-credit scenes.

Parents should know that there is some fantasy/cartoon-style peril and violence including a tarantula, a gun, a machete, quicksand, and various mildly scary situations. We see the “comic” deaths of the ancestor characters. There are themes of family separation and adoption. Some in the audience may be bothered by the comic and disconnected from faith portrayal of nuns and the “sentencing” of a villain to a convent.

Family discussion: Were you surprised by Paddington’s choice at the end of the film? Why did he make that decision? How should you decide what risks are worth taking?

If you like this, try: the other Paddington movies and the books