Miss Bala

Posted on January 31, 2019 at 5:33 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for sequences of gun violence, sexual and drug content, thematic material, and language
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drugs and drug dealing, alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended crime and law enforcement-related peril and violence, guns and shoot-outs, knives, bombs, rape, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	January 31, 2019
Date Released to DVD:	April 29, 2019

“Miss Bala” is a serviceable action thriller but very much the Hollywood version. In real life, a beauty queen named Laura Zúñiga (her title was “Our Sinaloa Beauty”) was arrested with seven members of a Mexican drug and weapons crime operation. Her story became a Mexican film, also called Miss Bala, which portrayed her as a kidnap victim, forced to work with the La Estrella gang to protect her family.

The American remake is closer to Pam Grier’s “Foxy Brown” or Tarantino’s “Death Proof” than to the real story, where the beauty queen did not fire a gun in stilettos and a red evening gown with a slit up the leg. The woman in the dress is “Jane the Virgin‘s” stars Gina Rodriguez as Gloria, a makeup artist from California, an American citizen who returns to her original home in Tijuana to help her best friend Suzu (Cristina Rodlo) look her best in the Miss Baja California beauty pageant. Gloria loves Suzu and her little brother Chava (Sebastián Cano), who are the closest she has to a family. And Suzu seems to be missing some red flags about the pageant, unconcerned about rumors that the local sheriff insists on droit de seigneur privileges with each year’s winner. A pre-competition party is interrupted by a shoot-out. Gloria is almost killed, but won’t take her opportunity to get away because she stays to look for Suzu. She tells a man in uniform that she can identify the killers, but he turns out to be working for them. He takes her to the leader of the group, Lino (Ismael Cruz Cordova), who tells her that if she helps them, he will find Suzu for her.

So Gloria finds herself getting more and more caught up in the terrifying world of warring drug dealers. At first, she is a numb patsy who follows Lino’s directions to park a car by a building, but then it turns out it was packed with a bomb and used to blow up a safe house operated by the US DEA. Desperate to find Suzu and protect Chava, the follows his orders, transporting drugs and cash across the border into California and bringing back guns. The DEA brings her in and threatens her with prison or worse if she does not cooperate. The pressure is intense and the consequences are immeasurably tragic. Lino is suspicious, but also drawn to Gloria, because he, too, has been considered too Mexican to be American and too American to be Mexican. Gloria has to try to navigate between fear and something approaching loyalty while keeping in mind the single driving force of her commitment to rescuing Suzu.

Rodriguez has said in interviews that she insisted on giving Gloria more agency, making her more active, doing whatever a male character in those situations would do, all of which is salutary, but it goes so far it becomes cartoonish.

Almost everyone who worked on this film on screen and off is Latinx, which is also salutary, though the fact that the first major studio film to make that a goal has to be about the most obvious possible stereotype of Latinx characters.

Parents should know that this is a close-to-R PG-13, with themes of sex and drug trafficking, intense peril and violence, guns, knives, bombs, shoot-outs, many characters injured and killed, rape (off-camera), and some strong language.

Family discussion: How did Gloria decide what to do in the parking lot? What do you think she will do next?

If you like this, try: the original Spanish-language version of the story with the same title, and “2 Fast 2 Furious”

Serenity

Posted on January 24, 2019 at 5:34 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language throughout, sexual content, and some bloody images
Profanity:	Constant very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking and drunkenness, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Peril and violence, domestic abuse, murder
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	January 25, 2019
Date Released to DVD:	May 1, 2019

Even by the very low standards of January movies, “Serenity” is a dreary, dumb mess that makes the ultimate mistake of thinking it is smart.

At first, it wants us to think it is a throwback to the classic twisty noir thrillers like “Out of the Past” and “The Lady from Shanghai.” Matthew McConaughey plays a man called Baker Dill (note: I did not say a man named Baker Dill), a veteran who lives on remote Plymouth Island, where he takes out feckless tourists on a fishing boat called Serenity. We glimpse a Purple Heart medal in the corrugated metal shack where he lives, and we can see that he is bitter and struggling with psychological damage and maybe some physical damage as well. There’s a World’s Greatest Father mug in the shack as well. He pours his whiskey into it. Dill has an Ahab-like fascination with a giant tuna he has named….Justice. And he has a relationship with a local woman (Diane Lane, slumming), who pays him to “find her cat,” which is both literal and euphemistic. Same with the only bar on the island, which used to have Hope in its name but then switched to Rope. This is not a subtle movie. We also see a mysterious, very proper, precise man in a suit who carries a briefcase (Jeremy Strong), who seems to be looking for Dill. At one point, he removes his shoes to wade robotically across a stream.

And then, the second act complication arrives: femme fatale Karen (Anne Hathaway), honey blonde hair and dressed in white. She is married to Frank (Jason Clarke), a wealthy boor who abuses her and terrifies her son, who is Dill’s son as well. She says Frank will kill her if she tries to leave him, so the only way to protect her is to get Frank drunk out at sea and throw him to the sharks. If Dill will do that, he will not only save his son, but he will get $10 million in cash.

There are some hints that this is not the usual thriller story of seduction, betrayal, and murder, though all of those elements are there. Something is a little off, though. Dill has some sort of mystical mental Skype thing going with the son he has not seen in ten years. Where is Plymouth Island? The music is Cajun and there are references to Miami but it is becomes increasingly clear that it is strangely isolated and insular. “Everyone knows everything,” we hear repeatedly. At first, it seems to refer to the gossip in any tiny community. But then we begin to wonder “What is Plymouth Island?” when it goes from “everyone knows everything” about the details of what Dill is buying and selling and catching and where he is at all times to “no one knows anything” when it comes to the choices Dill is facing and how he will decide. The best way to enjoy this film is to have a drinking game that lets you take a swig every time a character says either line.

The four leads do their best to persuade us that their stilted dialogue and increasingly artificial interactions are archetypal, not underwritten, but they never find a tone that will withstand the groaner of a twist, which I will be happy to spoil per my legendary Gothika rule*. Trust me, it’s a worthy addition.

*Gothika Rule: If is movie has a truly bad or dumb ending, I will happily give it away to anyone who sends me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com.

Parents should know that this film includes domestic abuse, murder, characters injured and killed, some disturbing images, very strong language, explicit sexual situations, nudity, drinking and drunkenness, and smoking.

Family discussion: In what way did “everybody know everything” and in what way did “nobody know anything?” What were the clues that things were not what they seemed?

If you like this, try: “Out of Time,” “Body Heat,” “The Lady from Shanghai,” and “The Cafe”

The Kid Who Would Be King

Posted on January 24, 2019 at 5:32 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for fantasy action violence, scary images, thematic elements including some bullying, and language
Profanity:	Some schoolyard language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended fantasy peril and violence with monsters, characters injured and killed, beheading, swords, car crashes, references to mental illness and alcoholism of a parent, disturbing images
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	January 25, 2019
Date Released to DVD:	April 15, 2019

Every once in a while, a kid has to pull a sword from the stone and save the world. And what makes this particular kid the right one is thoughtfully presented in “The Kid Who Would be King,” this present-day retelling of the story of Arthur, the once and in this case literally future king. Louis Ashbourne Serkis plays Alex, a 12-year-old who is very close to his single mother (Denise Gough). His best friend is Bedders (Dean Chaumoo), who is regularly bullied by Lance (Tom Taylor) and Kaye (Rhianna Dorris). Alex comes to his defense and gets into a scuffle with the much bigger, tougher, bullies, but refuses to tell the headmistress or his mother who started it.

On the run from Lance and Kaye himself, Alex hides out in a construction site, where he sees a sword stuck in a stone and pulls it out. At home, he finds a book his father had given him about the story of King Arthur, inscribed to him: To Alex, the Once and Future King. At school, a gawky new student named “Merton” is so strange he seems like good news to Bedders, who tells Alex he will deflect attention from them as the formerly most tempting targets at the school. But “Merton” is in fact Merlin (Angus Imbrie), who is actually very old but looks like a teenager because he is living backwards, except when he flickers back into his actual age and looks like Patrick Stewart.

Merlin tells Alex that the sword is King Arthur’s Excalibur, to be used to defeat Morgana (Rebecca Ferguson), who has been waiting for the world to achieve a level of turmoil that would make it possible for her to return. If you’ve read the news lately, you will not be surprised to learn that the necessary level of turmoil has been achieved and surpassed.

Alex decides he has to find his father for guidance, and he asks Lance and Kaye to join him, noting that their names recall King Arthur’s closest allies, Sir Lancelot and Sir Kay, as well as Bedders/Sir Bedivere. Lance and Kaye may be bullies, but they are strong and brave, and may be persuaded to follow the Chivalric Code (or pretend to).

Meanwhile, Morgana is getting stronger, and she sends flaming skeleton emissaries on horseback to attack Alex. Merlin introduces the group to the real purpose of Stonehenge and the other prehistoric standing stone structures throughout England (think of them as subway stations) and gives them a sword-fighting tutorial with trees come to life in one of the movie’s best scenes.

Alex is very familiar with “chosen one” stories like Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, where the hero is “chosen” in significant part from his biological heritage, and he believes that the gift from the father he never knew is proof of his own heritage as the reason for his fitness to carry Excalibur. The movie makes it clear that this is not the case. Alex will have to think about what it is that made him able to get the sword and how he can use those qualities to defeat Morgana.

Both Serkis and Imrie have some hefty heritages of their own, one the son of motion-capture wizard Andy Serkis and the other the son of “Calendar Girls” and “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” star Celia Imrie. Like the other young cast members, they have appealing screen presences, and Imrie in particular has loads of lanky charm, wearing a Led Zeppelin 1975 tour t-shirt and snarfing down the 21st century equivalent of his elixir. Director Joe Cornish of the cheeky “Attack the Block” keeps things lively, with plenty of humor to balance the action and a rousing finale with the entire school joining the fight.

Parents should know that this film has extensive fantasy peril and violence, with some scary images and monsters, chases, bullies, car crashes, a beheading, brief comic nudity (non-explicit) and some schoolyard language.

Family discussion: Why was Alex the right person to have the sword? Why did he choose Lance and Kaye to help him? Could you follow the movie’s version of the Chivalric Code?

If you like this, try: “A Kid in King Arthur’s Court,” “The Sword in the Stone,” and “Camelot”

The Upside

Posted on January 10, 2019 at 5:49 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for suggestive content and drug use
Profanity:	Some strong and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Marijuana, some alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Severe medical issues, some peril, reference to serious accident
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	January 11, 2019
Date Released to DVD:	May 20, 2019

First, it really happened. A wealthy French aristocrat named Philippe Pozzo di Borgo was paralyzed in a paragliding accident and hired an ex-con to be his aide. Their friendship and their adventures together inspired a French box office record-breaker called “The Intouchables.” And now there is an American remake called “The Upside,” set in New York City, starring Bryan Cranston as the man in the wheelchair and Kevin Hart as Del, the “life auxiliary.”

Del did not want the job. He did not even know what job he was applying for. But his parole officer warned him that he would have to go back to prison if he could not show that he had been turned down by three potential employers. So, he takes the elevator to the penthouse thinking he is applying for a custodial position and barged into another candidate’s interview because he just wants to be turned down and get out of there and pick up his son from school. Instead, he ends up getting hired. Philip (Cranston) likes Del because he is so inappropriate. While the other applicants for the position spoke in low, soothing, deferential tones, Del was at home with saying whatever he was thinking.

Being at home with whatever the job required was another thing, however. Del is fine with lifting Philip into the chair and driving him around in his fancy cars. He is more than fine with his room in the penthouse, though the shower is very complicated and probably bigger than his prison cell. He is fine with Philip’s DNR orders. He is not fine with some of the more intimate aspects of the job.

It is about 15 minutes too long, and very much a studio product, burnished and focus-grouped. Philip teaches Del to appreciate opera and Del teaches Philip to appreciate Aretha Franklin. They each push the other out of their comfort zones. Del forces Philip to call his “epistolary” friend, a woman he has been corresponding with through old-school letters. Philip makes it possible for Del to resolve some of the issues of his past, including beginning to develop a relationship with his estranged son.

The three performers bring a lot of luster to a formulaic screenplay (opera/Aretha, TWO scenes high on weed, a breaking-everything-will-be-cathartic moment), especially Cranston, who brings warmth and depth to a character who is extremely patient and understanding (until he isn’t). Kidman is marvelous as Philip’s quiet and very proper executive assistant. And Hart has his best moments when he is slightly toned down, unsure, and disheveled from his usual high-energy, peppery persona, making us look forward to seeing him explore a wider variety of roles, maybe even something dramatic. If he listens to the advice Del gets from Philip, maybe that will happen.

Parents should know that this film features some strong and crude language, sexual references and graphic sexual humor and a mild situation, drug use and drug humor, and a severe medical condition.

Family discussion: What need can you find a way to fill? Who can you encourage? Why did Philip like Del?

If you like this, try: the original French version, “The Intouchables” and “Me Without You”

A Dog’s Way Home

Posted on January 10, 2019 at 5:29 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for thematic elements, some peril and language
Profanity:	Some mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Peril and violence, death of human and animal characters, characters with disabilities and PTSD
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	January 11, 2019
Date Released to DVD:	April 8, 2019

I laughed and I cried and I said, “Aww,” watching A Dog’s Way Home and that is not a bad way to begin the year.

Bryce Dallas Howard provides the voice of Bella, a pit bull pup living under an abandoned house in Denver with a bunch of homeless cats. She is loved and happy until animal control comes and takes her mother away. The mother cat adopts Bella, who is comforted and at home until the arrival of two animal welfare volunteers, who come by to leave cat food every day. Lucas (a warmly appealing Jonah Hauer-King) is a Veterans Administration employee studying for the MCATs and living with his mother, an Army vet struggling with depression. He is instantly taken with Bella and adopts her, even though his lease does not allow dogs.

Pit bulls are not allowed in Denver. It is up to the individual animal control officer to decide which dogs are covered by the ban, and one has it in for Bella. He picks her up once and Lucas pays the fine. But if he picks her up again, she will be killed. The developer who owns the property with the abandoned homes will do anything to get Lucas and the other animal lovers to stop interfering with his permits.

Lucas brings Bella to New Mexico to stay with friends so she will be safe while he moves to a new apartment outside of the Denver city limits. But Bella does not understand. She remembers that Lucas taught her how to go home, and so she runs away and begins a 400 mile adventure that will take more than two years.

Bella has encounters with humans and animals along the way, some kind, some predatory. She makes some friends and has the opportunity to find new loving homes but she wants to be with Lucas.

Having Bella as our narrator adds some charm to the movie because her understanding may be limited in some respects, but she never loses sight of the essentials. The individual encounters introduce us to a range of human characters, some worth a movie of their own, like the disabled vets who are able to experience joy and purpose through Bella (especially when they have to hide her from the doctor in charge of the VA hospital in one of the film’s best scenes). She saves one man’s life and becomes the last friend of a homeless man (Edward James Olmos). And she mothers “big kitten,” an orphan mountain lion who will someday return the favor. The footage here is heartwarming and genuinely astonishing, especially after they meet again when the majestic cat is fully grown.

This is a nice way to start the year, a story of love and loyalty, canine and human.

Parents should know that this film features humans and animals in peril, injured and killed, animal hit by a car, animal killed by hunters, character dies and the body is discovered by children, and characters who struggle with PTSD and depression.

Family discussion: What did Bella understand better than the humans did? Why did Bella make such a difference for the veterans?

If you like this, try: “The Incredible Journey” and “A Dog’s Purpose”