The Mummy

Posted on June 9, 2017 at 10:41 am

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for violence, action and scary images, and for some suggestive content and partial nudity
Profanity:	Some mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended wartime and fantasy violence, chases, explosions, attacks, guns, knives, murder of parent and child, plane crash, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	June 9, 2017
Date Released to DVD:	September 18, 2017

Disney has almost all of the Marvel superheroes. Warner Brothers has DC superheroes. 20^th Century Fox has the Fantastic Four and perhaps someday will make a movie worthy of them. And so Universal wanted its own universe of supernatural characters. It does not have the rights to any superheroes, but it does have the monsters, including Mr. and Mrs. Frankenstein’s monsters, Wolfman, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the Invisible Man, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and the Mummy.

This film is the first in a planned series of high profile, high-budget, interlocking stories featuring big stars, big stunts, and big special effects, set in what Universal has dubbed The Dark Universe. So, get ready for an Avengers/Justice League-style series of partnerships, cross-overs, and mash-ups.

We begin with “The Mummy,” possibly because the dashing Brendan Fraser updates starting in 1999 have made the story more familiar to 21^st century audiences. Of course, those films were inspired by the Boris Karloff classic. This reboot retains very little from either beyond the idea of a deadly mummy from ancient Egypt.

This mummy is female. Her name is Ahmanet and she is played with feral ferocity by the very limber Sofia Boutella of “Star Trek: Beyond.” She was once in line to become ruler of the kingdom of ancient Egypt and be worshipped as a god. But when her father had a son, he became heir to the throne. Enraged, she murdered her father and the boy and his mother and traded her soul for power of life and death. She could not die, but she could be stopped with an elaborate mercury solution, and so she had been in a tomb in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) for thousands of years until American soldier and tomb raider Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) and his quippy sidekick Chris (Jake Johnson) come along to release her and her curse on the world.

With them is beautiful blond archeologist Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis of “Peaky Blinders”), along for exposition, retro rescuing, and some tiresome banter about a one-night stand with Nick.

Russell Crowe shows up as well, as a doctor who is obsessed with evil, though whether for it or against it is not entirely clear. To say more would be to spoil one of the film’s best ideas.

The real stars of the film are the stunts and special effects, which are great. Adrenalin junkie Cruise clearly has a blast racing ahead of, well, blasts, in the battle scenes, and, later, zombies as well. A plane crash scene is viscerally exciting, and sets up the movie’s funniest line later on. But it cannot make its mind up whether it wants to be a high-concept adventure, a horror movie, or a campy comedy (zombie Jake Johnson continues to be quippy).

And Cruise is simply miscast. He is too old for the part of yet another of his callow cases of endearing arrested development. It is one thing for a guy in his 20’s to joke about a one-night stand; it is uncomfortably skeevy for a guy, however handsome and eternally young (and still able to run very fast) in his 50’s. By the time we see where this character is going in the movie’s final scenes, it is clear that this should have been the first act, not the last, and that this Dark Universe thing is going to be a long slog indeed.

Parents should know that this film includes extended fantasy/mythological violence and peril, undead, military weapons and explosions, plane crash, some graphic and disturbing images, characters injured and killed, some nudity and sexual references and insults

Family discussion: Was Nick telling the truth about the parachute? What made him change his mind about Jenny?

If you like this, try: the earlier “Mummy” movies with Brendan Fraser and Boris Karloff

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul

Posted on May 18, 2017 at 5:15 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for some rude humor
Profanity:	Schoolyard language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended comic peril and violence
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	May 19, 2017
Date Released to DVD:	August 7, 2017

Ah, the family car trip. Often excruciating, frequently tedious, always unforgettable. For this third in the “Wimpy Kid” movie series, based on the wildly popular books by Jeff Kinney, the story moves from the schoolyard to the highway as Greg and the Heffley family leave home for his great-grandmother’s birthday party. The kid actors from the first movie have grown up. Remember, one of the characters was played by Chloe Grace Moretz, recently in “Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising.” And if that doesn’t make you feel old, consider this: the entire cast has been replaced, with “Clueless” star Alicia Silverstone now playing the mom. Tom Everett Scott takes over the dad role from his “That Thing You Do” co-star Steve Zahn.

The Wimpy Kid stories are funny and reassuring for kids and tweens because they can laugh at and with Greg Heffley (now played by Jason Drucker) as he careens from one excruciatingly disgusting encounter to another, many involving human and animal bodily functions and the products thereof. “I like my family and all,” Greg explains, “I’m just not sure we were meant to live together.”

Greg has a dim older brother named Roderick (Charlie Wright), who mistakes the motel safe for a microwave, subjects Greg to an endless stream of demeaning comments, and explains his secret: “I spent years lowering Mom’s and Dad’s expectations.” He has a toddler younger brother who becomes a rage monster without the pacifier Dad has left behind because what better time to wean him than the road trip? Eventually, they will be joined by another passenger, a baby pig, won by the toddler at a county fair.

Along the way, the family encounters filthy motels, a rude bully Greg terms “Beardo,” and the worst horror of all — a Mom-demanded relinquishment of all devices. “This is an unplugged road trip,” she smiles at the boys. “The only connecting we’re going to do is with each other.” She even forces them to listen to dreadful music like — wait for it — the Spice Girls. And Greg has a secret goal. Trying to overcome public humiliation that has gone viral (“Now I’m a meme!”), he is determined to meet and create a video with his gaming idol at a Comic-Con-style gathering just “two inches on the map” from the party.

The kids in the audience, mostly fans of the book series, enjoyed it very much, but adults are likely to find it a very long haul indeed.

Parents should know that this film includes slapstick comic peril and violence (no one hurt), bodily function humor, and some schoolyard language.

Family discussion: Why do the worst parts of the trip make the family feel closer together? What was your favorite road trip with the family and why?

If you like this, try: the other “Wimpy Kid” movies and the books and “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”

The Circle

Posted on April 27, 2017 at 11:25 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for a sexual situation, brief strong language and some thematic elements including drug use
Profanity:	Very brief strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol, mention of drug use
Violence/ Scariness:	Peril, car accident, sad death, illness
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	April 28, 2017
Date Released to DVD:	July 31, 2017

Show of hands: how many of you listed nine concerts you’ve attended and one you didn’t on Facebook this week? Those lists were as inescapable in April of 2017 as they will be forgotten in May of 2017, except by the clever little bots who now, thanks to new legislation can not only collect all of the information you make available online — they can sell it. So, every bill you pay, app you buy, search you make and much much more will be used to make it possible for corporations to monitor and target you. Those who listed Motley Crue on their concert list will get different ads from those who listed Adele. And maybe that information will be made available to employers or insurers or the IRS or your spouse’s divorce attorney as well. The online world is always a balancing act between super-cool and time-saving functionality and super-creepy intrusiveness.

So “The Circle,” based on the book by Dave Eggers and adapted by Eggers and director James Ponsoldt (“The Spectacular Now,” “The End of the Tour”), imagines a corporation that is like a combination of Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon filtered through the dystopian dreams of Edward Snowden and the cultish appeal of, well, pick your favorite charlatan-led cult. Unfortunately, the corporation is more interestingly portrayed here than the characters, and not in a good way. Our heroine is Mae (Emma Watson), a good girl who loves her family and is thrilled to leave her temp job in a drab utility company cubicle to work in the most exciting company in the world, The Circle, on a beautiful and self-contained campus that is part prestige liberal arts college and part Pepperland. She is initially assigned to “customer experience,” where every transaction is immediately rated with either a smile or frown and a numerical score, both instantly transmitted to her supervisor and analyzed by algorithms. The company’s goal is to “make the chaos of the web simple and elegant,” to give customers (some 83 percent of the population) one place for all their needs. That is even more true for the employees, who are not exactly required to rely on the company for all of their personal and social interactions, from support groups (there are two for those like Mae who have a parent with multiple sclerosis) to parties — with live music by Beck — and health care. Those services may be free, but all your data, including biodata are belong to them.

This seems blissful for a while, especially when The Circle generously puts Mae’s parents on the company health plan. But there are VERY CLUNKY harbingers of complications, then problems, then danger. And if by some chance you do not pick up on them, the cardboard-like characters will explain them to you, including one who not only has no reason to be there but has many reasons not to be but is nonetheless there just in case you need someone to warn you about the intrusiveness of this technology. In other words, “The Circle” goes nowhere.

You will probably not need much explanation when Mae agrees to become The Circle’s first fully transparent employee, wearing a webcam (it is on her shirt facing out but somehow is able to broadcast images of her face, a technological challenge even The Circle probably cannot master) 24/7, with timed bathroom breaks, that this is not going to turn out well and that she will carelessly humiliate people she cares about.

The questions posed are important and urgent, and Tom Hanks is superb as the big boss who has mastered Silicon Valley’s faux “don’t be evil,” we just want to make the world a better place post-corporate demeanor and rhetoric. But the last forty minutes it becomes clear that the people behind it have not thought very deeply about those questions, much less the answers, and its complete denial of a character’s moral responsibility for a tragic outcome just makes it all more disconnected and hollow.

Parents should know that this film has very brief strong language, non-explicit sexual situation, some peril including a fatal car accident, illness, alcohol and a reference to drug use.

Family discussion: Would you be willing to be transparent? Does this film change your mind about what you share online?

If you like this, try: “Disconnect” and “Snowden”

Related Tags:

Based on a book Drama DVD/Blu-Ray

The Fate of the Furious

Posted on April 14, 2017 at 11:52 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for prolonged sequences of violence and destruction, suggestive content, and language
Profanity:	Some strong language
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended action-style violence, guns, explosions, chases, crashes, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	April 14, 2017
Date Released to DVD:	July 10, 2017

Before we get into it, let’s take a moment to remember how we got here. The first “Fast and Furious” movie was comparatively modest in scope, the story of a cop (Paul Walker as Brian) going undercover to investigate illegal street racers, led by Dom (Vin Diesel). The cop falls for the sister of the racer and for the living-life-a-quarter-mile-at-a-time existential rush. Think “Point Break” with cars instead of surfboards. Somehow, now on the eighth movie since the 2001 original with two more in the planning stages, it has turned into an X-Games version of “Mission Impossible.” It’s 3/4 chases, crashes, shoot-outs and explosions, 1/8 bro-mance (“I don’t have friends; I have family”), and 1/8 quippy humor with a dash of fan service for anyone who has been paying enough attention to remember who all of the characters are. That leaves no room for plot or logic, but you can’t have everything, and this one goes with star power instead.

So over the course of eight films we’ve gone from living life a quarter mile at a time racing souped-up home brew stock cars to globe hopping save-the-planet adventures with the help of grateful no-name international law enforcement (literally, Kurt Russell as Mr. Nobody, now with an intern played by Scott Eastwood, known as Little Nobody), increasingly improbable settings and vehicles (a nuclear sub in this one, pretty much all that’s left for Chapter 9 is a “Moonraker”-style spaceship), and increasingly improbable co-stars. Helen Mirren is in this movie. Let me say this again. Helen Mirren is in this movie. And she’s not the only Oscar-winning actress in the eighth “Fast and Furious” film. It also stars Charlize Theron as the ice queen villain.

Our merry little gang of rascals has gotten so cozy that in order to have any dramatic tension at all we have to unscramble that egg a little, and what better way to do that than to have Dom go to work for the bad guy?

We begin with an opening scene in which we are reminded that Dom (a) adores his wife, Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), now recovered from her amnesia and honeymooning with Dom in Havana, and (b) is a man who exemplifies integrity, grace, courage, and determination, and who could probably win the Indy 500 in a golf cart. And so, perhaps we are expected to be surprised when shortly after that, when the team, with regulars Hobbs the cop (Dwayne Johnson), Roman the comic relief (Tyrese Gibson), and Tej the computer guy (Chris “”Ludacris” Bridges), is called in by Mr. Nobody to rescue some big scary bomb, Dom and Letty are on board and then all of a sudden Dom makes off with the big bad bomb and apparently is in cahoots with Ms. Big, Theron as uber-hacker Cipher.

There’s nothing quite as crazy as the car leaping between buildings in the last film, and nothing near as touching as the finale, with its tender tribute to the late Paul Walker (his character is lovingly addressed). There’s a wild bumper-cars-on-crack scene as Cipher takes control of all the automobiles, even the ones that are parked, in the middle of New York City. And some very fancy vehicles get trashed. And then there’s the sub. And a lot of thousand-yard stares and macho wisecracks and people who have a history as enemies having to work together and grudgingly develop some respect. In other words, it’s just what you expect from the eighth “Fast and Furious” movie.

Parents should know that this film has constant action-style violence, crashes, explosions, guns, fights, extended mayhem of all kinds, some sexual references and crude humor, and some strong language.

Family discussion: Which was the best stunt? What makes someone who is not related “family?”

If you like this try: the rest of the “Fast and Furious” films and “The Italian Job”

Gifted

Posted on April 6, 2017 at 5:37 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, language and some suggestive material
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol, scenes in bar, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	References to sad death of parent, suicide
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	April 7, 2017
Date Released to DVD:	July 25, 2017

Mckenna Grace as “Mary Adler” and Chris Evans as “Frank Adler” in the film GIFTED. Photo by Wilson Webb. © 2016 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation All Rights Reserved.

What does it mean to be “gifted?” Movies and television don’t do a very good job of portraying what it means to be cognitively advanced, and this one is not close to being realistic, with a first grader who reads up on the problems of the EU and can identify a missing minus sign in an equation several lines long. And she is adorably missing those top front teeth for a really long time when anyone who has ever been the family tooth fairy knows that the new ones come in pretty fast. What we learn from this is that the movie does not want to take any chance that you might need a reminder of how endearing it all is. Everything looks dipped in honey and the script is gooey, too, like a lesser Hallmark movie. But Chris Evans’ sensitive, deeply affecting performance and genuine chemistry with McKenna Grace as his brilliant niece are so honest that it captivates us anyway.

Evans is Frank, who repairs boats and lives with Mary (McKenna Grace) in a tiny apartment in Florida. They have an easy rapport and are completely at home with each other. Mary is also close to their neighbor Roberta (Octavia Spencer). Mary is cognitively advanced, very curious, sometimes impatient, and sometimes anxious due to her reading about the world economy. Frank has been teaching her at home, but she is about to start first grade at a public school because he wants her to be with other children and to be more of a child herself. “Try being a kid,” Frank tells her as she gets on the bus. He does not really think it is possible to “dumb her down into being a normal kid,” or that it would be the right thing to do if it was, but he would like her to have the chance to make friends with children her own age and learn how to play.

It does not take long for Mary’s new teacher, Bonnie (Jenny Slate) to figure out that Mary is truly gifted, after she has to take out her calculator to check Mary’s computations. Frank’s attempts to deflect her attention are unsuccessful, but Bonnie appreciates his commitment to trying to create some kind of normalcy around Mary. She also appreciates Frank. Though they both know it is not a good idea for Mary or for Bonnie’s job, they begin a relationship.

And then Evelyn (a nicely frosty Lindsay Duncan) shows up. She is Frank’s mother and Mary’s grandmother. She brings a laptop for Mary and a message for Frank: she wants Mary to get an education commensurate with her ability. “She’s not normal and treating her as such is negligence on a grand scale,” she says. We will learn more about why that matters so much to Evelyn and why Frank refuses when they take the custody fight to court.

Of course we know whose side we should root for and where it is all going. This movie has a lovable one-eyed cat, for goodness sake. But Evans and Grace have a little bit of magic that shines through.

Parents should know that there are some mature themes in this film including a custody battle, a sad parental death by suicide (off-screen) with some strong language, sexual references and a non-explicit situation, alcohol and cigarettes.

Family discussion: Would you like to be as smart as Mary? Why didn’t Mary’s mother want Evelyn to know what she had done?

If you like this, try: “Searching for Bobby Fischer” and “Little Man Tate” — and “Captain January” with Shirley Temple

Related Tags:

Drama DVD/Blu-Ray Family Issues