Black Widow

Posted on July 5, 2021 at 4:44 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 Some Language\|Intense Violence/Action\|Thematic Material
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Some alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended comic book/action-style peril and violence, references to torture and abuse of children, characters are assassins, chases, explosions, guns
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	July 7, 2021

We’ve waited a long time to find out how Natasha became the Black Widow. While we got to know the male Avengers through individual origin stories about Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Ant-Man, and Spider-Man, Natasha was different. We first saw the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) tied to a chair looking very much the victim as she was confronted by some vetough and powerful-looking men. But we learn, as they do, that she is very much in control of the situation. We also learn that unlike the other Avengers, she has no special powers from a radioactive spider-bite or government potion, some fancy equipment, or being born a god. She has her wits and courage and some of what Liam Neeson might call a very special set of skills. Through the Avengers films we saw that she was the heart of the group, kind, empathetic, willing to sacrifice herself out of a sense of integrity and, perhaps, redemption.

We wanted to know more. But it took time to persuade Marvel Studios, and then, just as we were all ready to get Natasha a film of her own, its release was delayed in the summer of 2020 due to the pandemic, so it was not until now, a year later, that it is finally here. Even with all that has gone on, “Black Widow” quickly puts us back in the world of the Avengers. And, it continues Marvel’s cleverest strategy, allowing each character to inhabit a world that is distinctive in tone and atmosphere as it maintains a clear, strong central sense of its world.

Who could have guessed that we would find Natasha in 1995 Ohio? But that is where we start, a young girl with blue hair (Ever Anderson, a believable young Johansson) riding her bicycle home at dinner time. She greets her younger sister affectionately, and then, when the littler girl hurts her knee, their mother, like mothers since mothers began, kisses it to make it better. But this mother does something a little different. She tells her daughters that pain makes you stronger. And then what seems like a typical suburban family dinner turns out more than a little different. The father comes home and tells the family something they have clearly prepared for has happened and they have to leave right away. And they do leave, the house and the country, in an exciting, if improbably escape. We will soon learn that this may not meet any traditional definition of “family” at all. Indeed, questions about what is family and what we need from families is as central to this film as the chases, fights, exotic locations, and fight scenes.

We skip ahead 21 years from that wild escape. Natasha is living off the grid following the “divorce” of the Avengers. She is considered an enemy following the assassination of King T’Chaka of Wakanda in “Captain America: Civil War.” But a package from Yelena (Florence Pugh) brings her back into the fight. Starting with a fight with Yelena herself, one of the film’s highlights. The scenes with the two of them crackle and bolster hope that the rumors of a Yelena affiliation with the Avengers.

Director Cate Shortland balances the action scenes — a prison break is a highlight — with family moments that are sometimes very funny (wait for Yelena on The Pose, and David Harbour as Natasha’s closest equivalent to a “good father”) and sometimes touching (Rachel Weisz as the mother equivalent, a pig-experimenting scientist who takes time to add a dramatic smokey eye when she dons a jumpsuit for action).

And of course there is a powerful adversary with a high-tech lair and a private army that holds the key to Natasha’s persona. It tells you all you need to know that those scenes are fine, but will likely leave you waiting a little impatiently for the next moments with the family, reminding us again that family may be frustrating, may even be dysfunctional, but those we are born into and those we choose are still where home is.

Parents should know that as with all superhero movies, this included extended peril and action, which characters injured and killed. There is some strong language and references to forced sterilization.

Family discussion: Why did Natasha take a different path than other people around her? Is there a key to unlocking fear?

If you like this, try: the Avengers movies and some of Johansson’s other films like “Jojo Rabbit,” “Her,” and “Hail, Ceasar”

The Tomorrow War

Posted on July 1, 2021 at 3:01 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for Some Suggestive References\|Action\|Language\|Intense Sci-Fi Violence
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Some social drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended sci-fi/action peril and violence, many characters killed, fatal sacrifice
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	July 2, 2021

This is what summer movies are all about — “The Tomorrow War” is about endearing but flawed humans fighting aliens as they save all of humanity and resolve their family estrangements. Plus time travel. I’ll have a couple of concerns later on, but let’s do what the movie does and get right to the action.

Plunged right into the action is more like it, as the movie opens with humans firing at terrifying, insect-lizard-like aliens we will later learn are called White Spikes as they fall from the sky into the ocean.

That’s just a peek. As the hero we’ve just seen (Chris Pratt as Dan) plunges into the water, we are plunged back in time, as far away from the action as we can imagine. It is 28 years earlier in a quiet suburb. Dan is coming home, where his wife (Betty Gilpin as Emmy) and daughter Muri (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) are hosting a Christmas party. Dan is distracted because he has applied for a new job, one he would find more satisfying than the high school teaching position he took after leading missions with the military in Iraq. He settles down to watch a football game with Muri, but there is static on the screen and then an unbelievable sight. People disembark from what look like spaceships. They say they are from 30 years in the future, where humans are fighting a war with alien invaders and losing badly. Their only hope is to bring people from the past to help them fight.

A year later, systems have been set up to conscript people to join the fight. Only half of people are “qualified” for time travel, and they are sent for one-week tours of duty. Only 25 percent of those who are sent through time survive, and those that do are severely injured and traumatized. People are losing support for the war and for the world governments that are running things. “Why should we be fighting a way that as far as we’re concerned hasn’t happened yet?” But there is no choice. If you try to avoid service, your spouse or child is sent in your place.

Nevertheless, Emmy urges Dan to run. His only hope is to get help from the father he swore he would never speak to again (J.K. Simmmons as James). He meets with James but decides he would rather fight the aliens.

The actions scenes are exciting and the script by Zach Dean keeps things moving, even with the nearly 2 1/2 hour running time, nicely balancing character, combat, and some humor. As we’ve seen in “Guardians of the Galaxy” and the “Jurassic World” movies, Pratt is a classic American hero, part cowboy, part smart aleck, loving father and husband despite some struggles to be the man he wants to be to them. There are some clever twists — also some not so clever twists, but time travel stories seldom avoid paradoxes. The disappointment here is a brief but jarring jab at the government, which makes no sense given the essential role the government plays in a crucial development, especially unwelcome in a 4th of July release. When compared to the ultimate in this category, “Independence Day,” where the President literally gets in a plane (after a stirring St. Crispin’s Day-style speech) to fight the aliens, it is impossible not think about what prompted it. Even in a summer action movie.

Parents should know that this is a PG-13 sci-fi action film, which means a lot of “action-style” violence. There’s lots of alien blood and body parts but though we hear a lot about human fatalities we do not see much beyond a lot of dead bodies and some skeletons. Characters use some strong language and drink some alcohol and there are mild sexual references.

If you like this, try: “Independence Day,” “Source Code,” “Pacific Rim,” and “Battle: Los Angeles”

F9

Posted on June 22, 2021 at 8:47 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for language, action, sequences of violence
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Beer
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended peril ad violence, shooting, explosions, martial arts, many people killed or injured
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	June 25, 2021
Date Released to DVD:	September 21, 2021

Let’s be real about F9. If we can use a word like “real” to describe a series of films that parted ways with reality at least six or seven movies ago. But, knowing that, if you’re still here and I’m still here, we’ve pretty much agreed that’s okay and so the usual information potential ticket-buyers look for in a movie review is not really relevant. So, we can do what this movie does, and cut to the chase.

Here’s what you need to know. Director Justin Lin and his co-producer/star Vin Diesel know why we’re here; we want to see some crazy action scenes with characters we know so well that when Dom says once again that he doesn’t have friends; he has family, we almost feel that we’re part of the family now, too. So, “F9” delivers what the fans want, which is more and wilder action, and a bit more family, too. In fact, this time we get some backstory, with teenage brother and sister Dom (Diesel) and Mia (Jordana Brewster) and their dad, race car driver Jack Toretto (JD Pardo). It turns out there’s another brother, too, Jakob (Finn Cole). And we get to see how a tragedy on the racecourse leads to the brothers going in different directions. Jakob comes back into the story as John Cena.

If you’re a casual fan, all you need to know is that this movie has a lot of fun, if highly improbable, action scenes, including Vin Diesel as a passenger in a crazy car chase through London with none other than Dame Helen Mirren at the wheel. If you’re really into the series, you’ll want to know that many other favorite characters return, some more surprisingly than others. Also, if you’re really into the series you already know that the third movie in the series is the eighth in the chronology (also the first directed by Lin). That movie ended with another tragic exploding car death, of a mentor named Han (Sung Kang). But if we’ve learned one thing from this series, it is that sometimes people you think were either dead or bad turn out to be neither.

Two scenes I particularly loved will be the best litmus test for your decision on whether to buy a ticket (and if you do, please make it the Dolby experience). We’ve all seen fights before. We’ve seen fights where our two guys take on six bad guys. We’ve probably seen fights in the back of a big moving van, but here’s where the “Fast and Furious” franchise says to themselves, “How can we make things even more interesting?” And at some point someone says, “Let’s have the fight take place when the van is being (a) being chased by more bad guys, (b) being driven by someone who has never driven before, and (c) carrying the world’s most powerful electro-magnet, which is being turned on and off, sometimes on purpose and sometimes not. Wow.

The other scene has Roman, the comic relief character played by the almost-impossibly handsome Tyrese, says something that does not quite break the fourth wall between the characters and the audience but bends it a little. He mentions the un-mentionable — somehow no matter how many of the most lethal weapons ever conceived are shooting and exploding all around them, no matter how outnumbered they are, no matter how many impossible jumps they attempt to make in vehicles, somehow they all walk away without a scratch. Could it be, he wonders, that they’re not human? The real-life answer is that they’re not; they’re fictional characters. His conjecture is, maybe, that they could be un-killable? The real-life answer to that one is yes, as long as people keep buying tickets to the sequels.

In another scene, a character says, “If this was a movie, this would be when….” just to remind us that they know we know.

They can’t make the title any shorter. What’s the next one going to be called, just F? Will there be another “Hobbs & Shaw?” A spin-off about Dom’s early days? If they feature Helen Mirren and a Pontiac Fiero shot into space or whatever even crazier stuff they can dream up, I’m in.

NOTE: Stay for the mid-credits sequence for another familiar face.

Parents should know that this film includes constant action and peril including teenagers witnessing the death of a parent in a fiery crash and endless shoot-outs and chases, one through a minefield. Characters use strong language and drink beer. Bad guys plot world domination.

Family discussion: When does someone deserve a second chance? Should Letty have called Mia?

If you like this, try: the other films in the series, especially “Tokyo Drift” and “Hobbs & Shaw.”

The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard

Posted on June 15, 2021 at 7:40 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol and drugs
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended action-style violence with guns, knives, many characters injured and killed, disturbing images
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	June 16, 2021

The reunion that meant the most to me in “The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard” was not Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson reprising their roles from the 2017 original but the re-uniting of Desperado stars Selma Hayek and Antonio Banderas. They are still two of the most sizzlingly combustible actors in the world, and it is a delight to see them together again, if a reminder that their micro-budgeted first film together had more electrifying energy than this macro-budget extravaganza.

But the focus of the story is on Reynolds, who returns as by-the-book, triple-A rated, fasten-your-seatbelt bodyguard Michael Bryce, and Jackson as Darius Kinkaid, a “rules, what rules?”-type hitman, plus Hayek as his even more out-of-control wife Sonia. In other words, the usual superego vs. id match-up in action comedies featuring a lot of chases and explosions and quippy banter.

In the first film Bryce was in disgrace for failing to protect a world leader, and reduced to protecting wealthy businessmen when he was assigned to Kinkaid, on his way to testify against a ruthless dictator in exchange for getting Sonia out of prison. This time, we see that experience has severely traumatized Bryce, as his therapist exasperatedly tells him to go off on a vacation somewhere far away from bodyguarding and especially far away from guns and killing.

But no one would buy a ticket and go back into a theater for the first time in more than a year to see that. So of course as soon as Bryce settles into a beach chair, Sonia arrives, guns blazing (a lot of killing of innocent bystanders in this movie) to get Bryce to help her free her husband from some kidnappers.

After that, it’s just pretty much bang/bang/banter (“Capri? Like the pants?”), bang/chase/explosion/wisecrack (“Your mouth needs an exorcism”) in a variety of colorful locations. There are some references and cameos from the original film that only the most devoted fans will find of interest. What there is of plot is unlikely to be of much interest beyond an engine to get us to the next shoot-out or capture. Frank Grillo and Caroline Goodall are underused as American operatives who decide to use the Kinkaids for their own purposes and even Banderas cannot make much of his generic bad guy. Rebecca Front is terrific in a brief opening scene as Bryce’s frustrated therapist, but then disappears for the rest of the film. The action scenes are serviceably staged but what works best here, unsurprisingly, is the fun that Reynolds and Jackson have with their roles. Jackson could probably bark out profanities better than just about anyone while doing a backflip and knitting a sweater, but the cool thing is that he never brings anything less than his top game to it and it is never less than delicious. And Reynolds has the very rare ability to make vulnerability funny. Pass the popcorn. Summer movies are back.

Parents should know that this is an intense and gory action comedy with chases, explosions, guns, and knives. Many characters are injured and killed with some graphic images. Reynolds spends much of the movie covered in blood spatter. There are family issues, and there is constant very strong language. The portrayal of mental illness is insensitive a best, but this is not a movie that worries about sensitivity. There are sexual references and explicit (humorous) situations and discussions of fertility.

Family discussion: How did Bryce’s conflicts with his father affect his view of himself? What would you say to your future self?

If you like this, try: the first film in the series and other action comedies like “Spy” and “Mr. Right”

Wrath of Man

Posted on May 6, 2021 at 5:34 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for some sexual references, pervasive language, and strong violence throughout
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Extreme, visceral, bloody violence, many characters injured and killed, lots of blood
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	May 7, 2021
Date Released to DVD:	July 5, 2021

So, some guy applying for a job has to score at least 70 percent on his weapons test gets exactly 70 percent. Now, that could be because he can only hit the bullseye two-thirds of the time. Or it can mean that he is so good he can make it look like he can only hit the bullseye two-thirds of the time. If Jason Statham is playing that guy, you’d be wise to bet on the latter.

Teaming up with Guy Ritchie, writer/director of the film that was a star-maker for both of them, “Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels,” Statham stars as the job applicant who is more than he appears in “Wrath of Man,” based on the French crime drama “Le Convoyeur” (“Cash Truck”). The film features Ritchie favorites: brutally violent lowlife characters who like to steal and don’t mind killing in a time-twisting storyline. Statham is fine, as always, but this is second-tier Ritchie, a faint echo of what made his early films distinctive and surprising.

I’m going to minimize spoilers here, but if you don’t want any, stop reading now and come back after you’ve seen the movie.

We will call Statham’s character H. That is what he is dubbed by “Bullet” (Holt McCallany) when he applies for a job as a security guard for a delivery truck service that may carry as much as $15 million a day. We know how dangerous it is because in a pre-credit sequence we saw a robbery where the guards were all killed. So, this is the kind of environment where let’s just say there’s pervasive toxic masculinity (even the woman), a lot of tough talk, macho posturing, and cocky attitude. Part of the fun of Ritchie’s Britain-based crime films has been the delightfully audacious dialogue (remember Brad Pitt’s impenetrable accent in “Snatch”), and maybe it is the American accents or the heightened awareness that make the difference but in this film the insults and bragging are, well, a little dull.

H does not stay low-profile long. Very soon after he is on the job there is a robbery. Among the many un-surprising surprises in the film, one of the toughest-talking, most aggressively competitive security guards turns out to be not very cool under pressure. But we know H because he is played by Jason Statham and he is always cool. He surprises his new colleagues by being very very good with defending their cargo — and defending them. The big boss (Rob Delaney, last seen with Statham in “Hobbs & Shaw“) is very impressed. And the next robbery is even more impressive. Literally all he has to do is show his face, and the would-be robbers run in the other direction. This is what I call the “Who is that chef?” moment, as discussed in my “Under Siege” chapter in my 101 Must-See Movie Moments book. Those are always fun.

And this being Ritchie, now we get some backstory, seeing what happened five months earlier that led to this moment. Given the title, I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler to say that revenge is involved. Or that you do not want Jason Statham coming after you.

Chapter titles for the flashbacks add nothing and it is a shame to see Eddie Marsan, another Ritchie regular, and Andy Garcia barely have a chance to make an impression, along with actors who can do much better given the right circumstances, Scott Eastwood, Jeffrey Donovan, and Josh Hartnett. The bang-bang is all well-staged, but it is barely enough to make up for a storyline that thinks it is more innovative than it is.

Parents should know that this film is extremely violent with shoot-outs and explosions, automatic weapons, knives, torture, a lot of spurting blood and other graphic images, and a very sad death. Characters use strong and crude language and misogynistic insults. There is a suggestive situation.

Family discussion: What made H’s team different from Jackson’s? Would you take a job working for Fortico? Why do Terry and the boss have different ideas about how to treat H following the first incident?

If you like this, try: “Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels” and “The Transporter”