Ne Zha II

Posted on August 21, 2025 at 5:26 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grade
MPAA Rating:	Not rated
Profanity:	Some schoolyard language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Characters take magic pills
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended peril and violence, sad deaths of parents and brother, images of a destroyed village with charred remains, scary monsters
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	August 15, 2025

I’m not going to spend much time on the storyline of “Ne Zha !!” because it is extremely convoluted and because it is not really that important. “Ne Zha II” is a sequel, continuing the saga based on the Investiture of the Gods book written during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), itself based on folklore, myth, and real-life historical characters. The first film is now on Netflix. I’m not sure it will clear things up for you, though, unless you already have some familiarity with the underlying stories told over generations. I overheard some older Chinese-Americans in the audience laughing as they admitted they remembered hearing the stories as children but had a hard time muddling through the first film.

That doesn’t matter too much, as long as you can figure out who the good guys are and why they are fighting the bad guys, because you will be spending most of the time looking at what’s best in this film, the spectacular and stunning background and secondary character visuals, especially the monsters. The design of the main characters is not close to that level, the voice talent other than Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh, is lackluster, and the convoluted storyline becomes more distraction than narrative.

The two characters at the heart of the story are the impish child demon Nezha (Yanting Lü) and the more mature Ao Bing (Mo Han). They were created together as a Chaos Pearl, birthed from the primordial essences of heaven and earth. In the first movie, they joined forces and their bodies were dissolved. As this one begins, Nezha’s teacher, the immortal Taoist deity Taiyi Zhenren (Jiaming Zhang), portrayed here as a foolish but devoted character, is creating new bodies for them from the petals of the sacred lotus, a difficult process that almost immediately goes wrong when Ao Bing’s still very fragile body is destroyed. Because it takes a while to re-create the lotus petal material for bodies, Ao Bing’s soul will dissolve unless he can find a temporary host, so Taiyi puts him inside Nezha’s body.

This leads to some complications as Taiyi takes the combined boys to get the potion needed to give Ao Bing a new body. The boy(s) will have to pass a series of tests to be given the potion by Wuliang (Deshun Wang), Taiyi’s brother. Brother and father-son relationships are very important in this story.

Taiyi gives Nezha pills to put him to sleep and let Ao Bing’s powers take over to pass the tests. Meanwhile, various conflicts and reunions happen with many other characters. And many, many fight scenes, one with a funny exchange involving characters disguising themselves as each other and — an issue everyone can relate to — the inability to remember a password.

NOTE: Stay for the credits for an extended extra scene that is one of the film’s best moments.

Parents should know that this film includes extended fantasy-style peril, action, and violence, with monsters. Characters are injured and some are killed, including beloved parents and a beloved young brother and family members who sacrifice themselves and an entire village burned down, with dead bodies turned to ashes. There are a few schoolyard-style bad words and some graphic potty humor and gross-out moments. Characters take pills to manipulate their powers.

Family discussion: Nezha is given an impossible choice. What should he have done? Were you surprised at who the villain turned out to be?

If you like this, try: the first film

Nobody 2

Posted on August 14, 2025 at 5:37 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for strong bloody violence and language throughout
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol, drug dealing
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended very intense and graphic violence, characters injured and killed, graphic and disturbing images
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	August 15, 2025

The first “Nobody” (2021) was a surprise, with Bob Odenkirk, who was not an action movie star, playing a guy no one would expect to be willing and very, very able to fight lots of intimidating guys with many weapons. It was popular enough for a sequel, based on the same kind of “who is that guy?” expectations. Basically, it’s a cartoonish but extremely violent series of fight scenes, but the dark humor, improvised weaponry, and good spirits make it very entertaining. If you don’t get too rattled by the very graphic and disturbing images.

Like the first film, this begins with Hutch (Odenkirk), bloodied and bruised and, this time, apparently missing part of a finger, being interrogated by a pair of FBI agents. Then we go back to find out what happened.

Following the events of the first film, Hutch (Odenkirk) is in debt to a criminal kingpin known as The Barber (Colin Salmon). His wife, Becca (Connie Nielson) knows that his “job” is paying off that debt by undertaking tasks that involve grave danger. After a brief scene with Hutch waiting in a hotel lobby, wearing a badge from some kind of conference (clearly camouflage), we see him follow some guys in dark suits into an elevator. And then, jump to another rewind as he explains to The Barber what happened, setting the heightened tone for what is ahead, basically: extreme violence along the lines of a Looney Tunes cartoon, if Hutch was Road Runner AND Wile E. Coyote AND all the blow-up equipment from Acme.

As Hutch’s family gets up in a series of mornings, we can see that like many families they are stressed and feeling disconnected. Hutch’s wife, Becca (Connie Nielson) and son Brady (Gage Munroe) resent Hutch for being gone all the time. His younger daughter, Sammy (Paisley Cadorath) is just glad to see him when he’s there. Hutch decides the solution is a family vacation. He tells The Barber he’s taking a break, and books a visit to the place where he was happiest as a child, a small tourist town with a water park. They swing by to pick up Hutch’s father, David (Christopher Lloyd).

It’s rickety and cheesy, especially the “honeymoon suite” festooned with fake palm leaves, but Becca appreciates the effort and the family is determined to do their best to enjoy it. But at an arcade, Brady gets into an altercation with a teenage townie and that brings the family to the attention of the cruel and corrupt local sheriff (Colin Hanks) and the businessman who runs the town, Henry (John Ortiz).

This leads to a series of one-upping fight scenes, building to a confrontation with a small army working for the evil crime boss known as Landina (Sharon Stone, having a blast dancing in a pants suit and stabbing a cheating gambler in the hand). A most-welcome RZA shows up again as Hutch’s katana-master brother.

Director Timo Tjahjantoo, taking over from Ilya Naishuller, makes the best of the fight scenes, with a “John Wick” level of balletic movement. Hutch’s specialty, in addition to a John Wayne-category punch, is his ability to improvise with whatever is around him, and this movie gives him plenty to improvise with, from the emergency phone in an elevator to the pieces of the games at an arcade, equipment on a boat, and the final confrontation, boobytrapping an old-school water park like it’s Kevin’s house in “Home Alone.”

The premise of conflict between Hutch’s commitment to his family and the roiling rage that makes him good at killing plays out well as it echoes with his father, brother, and son, thanks to a strong script by Derek Kolstad and Aaron Rabin and a fine performance by Odenkirk. It’s easy to overlook how good he is because of all that is happening on screen, but it would just be cartoonish without Odenkirk’s ability to make us understand Hutch’s layers of emotion. It’s nice to get a glimpse of Becca’s side of things. She gets to be much more than the usual “Oh, honey, don’t do anything scary or dangerous” female role, making us wish for a prequel to fill in the details behind her story about how they met.

Parents should know that this is an exceptionally violent film with guns, knives, fire, and explosions. Many characters are injured and killed and there are many graphic and disturbing images. Characters are criminals who deal in drugs and bombs. Characters use strong language, drink and get drunk. There is some marital kissing and mild sexual references.

Family discussion: What are the parallels in the stories of the father-son relationships of Hutch, Brady, and David and Henry and Max? In what way to David, Hutch, and Henry want their sons to be better than they are?

If you like this, try: the first film and “Shoot-Em Up”

Highest 2 Lowest

Posted on August 14, 2025 at 5:22 pm

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for brief drug use and language throughout
Profanity:	Constant very strong language including the n-word
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol and drug use
Violence/ Scariness:	Peril and violence including guns, characters injured
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	August 15, 2025

Denzel Washington and Spike Lee reunite for the first time since 2006’s “Inside Man” for an elegiac but vibrant story that is complicated and messy. Like life. It is an engrossing crime drama, a family story, a commentary on culture and society, bursting with ideas, masterfully acted by Washington, who just keeps getting better.

The movie begins with Washington’s character, notably called David King, on top of the world. Soaring shots of New York City’s skyline at its most glamorous and inviting are accompanied by Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning,” from “Oklahoma.” We end on a spectacular penthouse balcony, with King greeting the day. We will see his Architectural Digest-ready apartment, filled with fine art and elegant furnishings.

It may not be a beautiful day for King. His company is about to be purchased by a conglomerate with no special background or interest in music or in supporting the emerging Black artists who are so important to King. He predicts that what they want to do is dismiss all of the newer talent and monetize the archive by licensing it for commercials. His plan is to raise the money to buy back enough of a share from a board member, Patrick (Michael Potts), so he will be able to veto the deal. Putting this deal together causes him to let down his wife, Pam (Ilfenesh Hadera), who was about to make a large contribution to charity, and break a promise to his son, Trey (Aubrey Joseph), to watch him at a basketball camp led by former Boston Celtic Rick Fox. Trey is disappointed, but happy to meet up at the camp with his best friend, Kyle (Elijah Wright), King’s godson, and the son of widower, ex-con, and King’s chauffeur, Paul Christopher (played by Elijah Wright’s real-life dad).

Then, King gets a call that Trey has been kidnapped for ransom and they are demanding $17,500,000 in Swiss francs. The reason it has to be in francs, not dollars, is clever, like many of the details of the crime, but for some reason this kidnapper makes no effort to stop King from calling the police. The kidnapper also makes another mistake. He mistook Kyle for Trey. Will King continue with plans to take the money he needs to keep his company to pay ransom for someone else’s son?

The way the ransom exchange and subsequent events play out, including a subway train filled with excited Yankees fans and a Puerto Rican Day festival featuring “Do the Right Thing’s” Rosie Perez is tightly constructed. We may think we are in the middle of a gritty first-class thriller, but it turns out there is more. As often happens in Spike Lee movies, the world before us is heightened and the storyline becomes less linear. Is this the story of a crime? Is it about the moral assignment of responsibility? About money? About mistakes? About forgiveness? About risk? About art? About family? All of the above. Like life.

There are winks at the audience, references to Lee’s well-known love of basketball and the Yankees (look for a cheeky sign in the subway car), and a door labeled A24, the name of the film’s studio, to remind us what a personal statement it is. The score by Howard Drossin is arresting but unexpected, a Celtic tone that contrasts with what we might expect for a suspenseful moment.

Washington is utterly mesmerizing as King, crafty, calculating, but essentially a good man, devoted to his wife and son and to music and the people who make it. He knows that what made his company great (there are framed magazine covers with his face on them in his office and references to his many Grammy awards) was his “best ears in the business.” And he knows that the business is not as great as it once was. The supporting cast is superb, with stand-out performances by A$AP Rocky as rapper Yung Felon and Princess Nokia as a young mother. The highlights of this magnificent film, even more than the crime thriller section, are the (mostly) quiet conversations King has with both characters.

Lee and Washington know, as King tells an aspiring singer, that “the hard times will come from the money and the mayhem follows.” They know that “all money isn’t good money” and how to tell the difference. This is a literal masterpiece, based on the term’s origin as work that shows all of the mastery of an experienced creator. It is a crowning achievement by men who have put in the work, learned the lessons over decades, and bring out the best in one another.

Parents should know that this film has extended strong language including many uses of the n-word and a crude and sexist term for a body part. Characters smoke weed and drink alcohol. The story involves a violent crime. Most of the violence occurs off-screen, but there are guns and shooting and characters are injured.

Family discussion: What made King change his mind about paying the ransom? What does he mean about “trying to be practical?” When were the police helpful and when were they not helpful? What does it mean to say “attention is the biggest form of currency,” and do you agree?

If you like this, try: “Inside Man,” “Malcom X,” “Do the Right Thing,” “Chi-Raq,” and “He Got Game”

Freakier Friday

Posted on August 5, 2025 at 7:17 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for thematic elements, rude humor, language and some suggestive references
Profanity:	Some mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Comic peril, no one hurt
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	August 8, 2025

Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis are back for another big body switch in “Freakier Friday,” the sequel to their 2003 film, based on the 1973 book by Mary Rodgers that has inspired not only several films but many imitations and variations. It’s an irresistible premise, taking two characters at a moment of maximum frustration in their relationship and making them literally walk in each other’s shoes to achieve greater connection and understanding. It also provides many opportunities for wild comedy along the way.

Anna (Lohan), a rebellious young teenager in the original film, is an adult now, the single mother of an equally rebellious teenage daughter named Harper (Julia Butters of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”). Harper is at the “please drive away like you don’t know me” stage. And Anna, like all of us, no matter how hard we try not to, is channeling her mother, calling after Harper hopefully as she goes to school, “Make good choices!” (A line Curtis improvised in the first film.)

Anna’s mother, Tess (Curtis), still a therapist and still happily married to Ryan (Mark Harmon), provides a lot of support. Just to let us know how up to date they are, Tess has a podcast and a new book coming out, Rebellion With Respect. She plays pickleball. And she’s still talking about reframing.

When Harper and a new classmate from London create a mess in science class, Anna and the classmate’s father meet in the principal’s office, and there’s an immediate spark. Eric (“The Good Place’s” Manny Jacinto) is a chef, and his daughter, Lily (Sophia Hammons) is very unhappy about the move. In a quick but cute montage Eric and Anna fall in love and get engaged. As their parents get closer, the animosity between surfer girl Harper and aspiring fashion designer Lily gets frostier, especially because it means Lily will be stuck in California.

At Anna’s bachelorette party on a Thursday night, a wacky fortune teller slash every other possible job played by “Saturday Night Live’s” Vanessa Bayer reads the palms of our four leads, and the next morning…is Friday. A freakier one. Twice as freaky, in fact. The Anna and Tess now find themselves in the bodies of Harper and Lily.

So Anna-now-Harper and Tess-now-Lily find themselves in high school, where they plot to stop the wedding and very much enjoy the young bodies, so good at bending without any aches or pains and with “metabolisms at the speed of light” to enable them to enjoy so much junk food. They also have to suffer through detention presided over by none other than Mr. Bates (Stephen Tobolowsky re-creating his character from the earlier film). Also returning: the other members of Anna’s old rock group, Pink Slip. Christina Vidal (Maddie), and Haley Hudson (Peg) and Chad Michael Murray as Anna’s high school crush, Jake. Rosalind Chao, Pei-Pei in the earlier film, appears as Mama P. There are references to Lohan’s other most memorable roles, including Elaine Hendrix from “The Parent Trap” as Anna’s assistant. And there’s a joke at the end about Jake’s interest in Tess from the first film.

Harper-now-Anna and Lily-now-Tess go out into the adult world where they enjoy the freedom of driving a car and wearing some wild outfits. Harper-now-Anna has to comfort Anna’s client, a pop star named Ella (an engaging Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), who has just been dumped by her boyfriend as she is about to introduce her new album. And Lily-now-Tess has to puzzle her way through the Senior aisle in the drug store.

Whew. The four-way switch and lots of new characters and complications — I haven’t even gotten to Eric’s family and Santina Muha as an immigration official) — clutter up the storyline. But it is still great fun to see Lohan and Curtis throw themselves (sometimes literally) into the younger characters. Their chemistry is still sky high and they are clearly having a blast. The surrounding chaos (a food fight! makeovers! a crazy car ride!) is very entertaining.

Curtis and Lohan are also producers and they know what the fans and newcomers to the story want, including a Pink Slip reunion so rousing that it might make us look forward to a Freakiest Friday some day.

NOTE: Stay for the credits to enjoy some behind-the-scenes clips.

Parents should know that this movie includes some mild language, references to bodily functions, and some family issues, including teenagers unhappy about their parents’ marriage.

Family discussion: If you switched with your parent or child, what do you think you would learn? What’s the best thing about getting older? What’s the best thing about being younger?

If you like this, try: The original Freaky Friday book and the many movie versions and variations, including “17 Again,” the other “17 Again,” “Family Switch,” and “Vice Versa“

The Naked Gun

Posted on July 30, 2025 at 5:21 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for crude/sexual material, violence/bloody images and brief partial nudity
Profanity:	Some strong language including the r-word
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Comic/action peril and violence, guns, murder, dismemberment, crotch hits
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	August 1, 2025

“The Naked Gun” reboot comes from a dream team ideally situated to reboot the sublimely silly 1980s franchise. Liam Neeson fits perfectly into the Leslie Nielson tradition as a Hollywood-handsome dramatic actor fearless about looking ridiculous. And The Lonely Island’s Akiva Schaffer is just right as a co-writer and director who goes pedal to the metal, respecting the original when it comes to the non-step goofiness but wasting no time on respecting what doesn’t deserve it (see the OJ joke in the trailer).

As anyone familiar with this franchise knows, the plot barely matters and the characters exist just to deliver all of the sight and verbal gags. It’s just one absurd joke after another, and I don’t want to spoil them, so this will be a bit vague.

Neeson plays the son of Nielson’s character, Frank Drebin, Jr., wanting to live up to the record and values of his dad. The film opens with a bank robbery by a gang with a lot of guns. I won’t spoil Drebin’s trick for getting into the bank, but I will say it sets the tone, along with the real purpose of the robbery, not the cash but a gadget in one of the safe deposit boxes, clearly labeled “PLOT DEVICE.”

The villain in this story is Richard Cane, an entirely imaginary, I’m sure, tech billionaire whose company happens to make self-driving electric vehicles. Danny Huston is also perfectly cast as the superficially charming sociopath who plans to reboot society by unleashing humanity’s most savage instincts until only the alphas survive. Basically, he wants to unplug civilization and plug it in again. His company is meaningfully named Eden Tech, with “technologies to rival the gods.”

Pamela Anderson is more than game as Beth Davenport, sister of a murdered man connected to Cane and who may also be connected to the bank robbery. At one point, she gets up to scat sing a jazz number. That is really her singing. She is surprisingly tuneful and also hilarious. When Drebin tells her to take a chair, she doubles down on the pun with the insouciantly businesslike way she drags it out of the room. CCH Pounder is excellent as always as the tough police chief with a sleepy husband.

Nothing is sacred here and everything is up for humor, including the franchise itself. The movie features witchcraft to animate a sexy snowman, a double entendre conversation about turkeys. There are references to “Sex and the City,” Bill Cosby, Tucker Carlson’s “End of Men” idea about radiating genitals, pop-up Halloween stores, and TIVOs. And, as always in these films, the jokes fly by so fast and so shamelessly that by the time you realize you didn’t like one, three funnier ones have appeared.

Parents should know that this movie has non-stop silly jokes, some of it suggestive or vulgar, with bathroom humor, a threesome (with a snowman!), silhouettes that appear to be sex acts, and a bare bottom. The storyline includes a murder, a violent bank robbery, a reference to suicide, and a dastardly criminal plot. There is some strong language, including the r-word.

Family discussion: This movie has many different kinds of humor. How many can you identify? How does this movie connect to the originals and what does it do differently? In what ways do both Drebin and Cane think the world was better before?

If you like this, try: the earlier “Naked Gun” television series and films