Shazam: Fury of the Gods

Posted on March 16, 2023 at 9:28 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for sequences of action, language, violence
Profanity:	Some schoolyard language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended action-style fantasy/superhero peril and violence, teacher killed, continuous peril
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	March 17, 2023

I loved the first “Shazam” movie because it was — and this is a term you don’t hear often in connection with comic book movies — endearing. Asher Angel winningly played the young Billy Watson, searching for his lost mother and running away or being kicked out of a series of foster homes until he finds (1) a wizard who selects him as the first one in hundreds of years worthy of the powers of the gods that make up SHAZAM (that’s Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury), and (2) a foster family we will understand before he does that is truly his home. Billy was a bit of a rogue, but that was because he was used to fending for himself. And it was a lot of fun to see a young teenager for whom the adult male persona was as much of an adjustment as the superpowers.

That film ended with Billy granting superpowers to the other five kids in the foster home, ranging in age from kindergarten to about to start college. So this movie loses some of the sweetness of the first in juggling adult and young versions of five of the six characters plus not one but three new supervillains, the goddess daughters of Atlas, played by “West Side Story’s” Rachel Zegler, “Charlies Angels'” Lucy Liu, and classically trained Shakespearean actress Dame Helen Mirren. Plus dragons, unicorns, and monsters. So that’s a lot of clutter and especially a lot of CGI that overwhelms the plot and all-but obliterates the tenderness of the first story.

Still, it is fun to watch (Helen Mirren!), all the way through the two extra scenes, one at the very end of the credits.

Billy (Zachary Levi as the superhero) is glad to be part of a team of superheroes, and insists that all six of them have to be together on all adventures. This is making some of the other five feel smothered, especially Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer as teen, Adam Brody as superhero). He calls his superhero version Captain Everypower, enjoying his freedom from the crutch he needs as his old self, and very tentatively making contact for the first time with a girl named Anne, new to his school. The oldest of the foster siblings, Mary (Grace Caroline Currey as both human and super versions) would like to go to college. But Billy, because of his history of trauma and abandonment, sharpening as he is about to age out of the foster care system, cannot let them go.

Two of the Atlas daughters, Hespera (Mirren) and Calypso (Liu), in a scene reminiscent of the first “Black Panther,” enter a museum in Athens and steal the pieces of the Shazam staff that was broken by Billy at the end of the first film. They use it to restore their powers and search for the golden apple that they will use to replant the Tree of Life from their realm, even though its impact on our world will be total destruction.

So it is back and forth as various characters gain and lose powers and waver in their goals and loyalties. The weaker parts of the film include Billy’s fixation on Wonder Woman, which is weird and a bit creepy, and the murder of a kind teacher, which is jarring in the world of this story. The look of the film is fine, especially the lair (so labeled), with a mysterious room of doors that deserves more exploration, and a fabulous library with a sort of proto-Google and Alexa, a magical pen that writes answers and takes dictation. Freddy and the wizard (Djimon Hounsou) play more of a role in this film. Grazer has an exceptional sense of timing and Freddy is one of the series’ best characters. The creatures are not as well-designed, though the dragon flies well. The mid- and end-of-credits scenes give us a sense of what comes next. I hope chapter 3 will return to more character and story.

Parents should know that this film has extended comic book-style action violence (meaning no blood or graphic images), with scary monsters and constant peril. A teacher is murdered. Characters use some strong language.

Family discussion: Which superpower would you want to have? What made Billy deserve to be granted powers?

If you like this, try: the original “Shazam” and other DC movies including “Wonder Woman” and “Aquaman”

Moving On

Posted on March 16, 2023 at 5:50 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language

Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin are back for the second time in two months, following “80 for Brady,” and if there is ever a Jane and Lily movie-of-the-month club I will be the first to sign up. The screenplay of “Moving On” is not up to their level, but hardly anything is. Despite the unevenness of tone and some sags in the narrative, the two of them are a delight and their way with a line is so irresistible.

Claire (Fonda, looking gorgeous in white hair) and Evelyn (Tomlin looking like an aging flower child) were close friends in college but have been estranged. They meet at the funeral of another college friend. Claire announces to the friend’s mourning widower, Howard (Malcolm McDowell) that, now that her friend is dead and cannot be hurt by it, she intends to kill him. That weekend. And her next step is to try to reconcile with Evelyn to bring her on as an accomplice. The rest of the film takes place over the next few days, as we learn something about the past that separated the friends, what they have been doing since, how their various plans to carry off this homicide develop, and spend time on another reunion. Claire’s ex-husband Ralph also attends the funeral, and he is played by Richard (“Shaft”) Roundtree, so you know there will be some romantic sparks.

Speaking of reunions, this film reunites Tomlin with Paul Weitz, the writer/director of her underseen film “Grandma.” That film did a better job of juggling a very serious theme, a teenager asking her grandmother for help getting money for an abortion, with drama (there is also a complicated reunion of a formerly married couple) and some dark humor. This one sets a tone at the beginning that, even with the threat of murder, is off-kilter with the trauma of what happens later.

But on the way there, we get the truly enjoyable performances of two veterans at the top of their game, who, after seven seasons of “Grace and Frankie” are exquisitely attuned at bringing out the best in each other. Evelyn, a retired cellist in an assisted living facility, has most of the best lines and Fonda has most of the character work, and both are never less than sublime.

Parents should know that this movie has very mature material including the plotting of a murder, with references to rape. There are sexual references and a non-explicit sexual situation. Characters use strong language and drink alcohol.

Family discussion: Why didn’t Claire tell Ralph what happened at the time? Why didn’t Evelyn tell Claire the truth? What advice would you give Claire?

If you like this, try: “9 to 5,” “Grace and Frankie,” and “80 for Brady”

Champions

Posted on March 9, 2023 at 5:30 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Champions is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for strong language and crude/sexual references
Profanity:	Very strong language for a PG-13
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking and drunkenness
Violence/ Scariness:	Some peril
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	March 10, 2023

(L to R) Alex Hintz as Arthur, Casey Metcalfe as Marlon, Matthew von der Ahe as Craig, Ashton Gunning as Cody, Tom Sinclair as Blair, Joshua Felder as Darius, James Day Keith as Benny, Madison Tevlin as Cosentino, Kevin Iannucci as Johnathan, and Bradley Edens as Showtime in director Bobby Farrelly’s CHAMPIONS, a Focus Features release. Credit : Courtesy of Focus Features

I have always been impressed by the commitment of the writer/director Farrelly brothers to including performers with disabilities in their movies — and for giving their characters great roles, sometimes funny or raunchy but never treated with anything but respect. Those who skip the credits at the end of “Stuck on You” will miss a very touching speech at the wrap party from Ray ‘Rocket’ Valliere. In “Champions,” Bobby Farrelly’s film, Woody Harrelson plays Marcus, a hot-headed college basketball coach sentenced to community service, coaching a team of people with disabilities. While it has all the expected underdog team with a coach who needs redemption beats, it is done with a good heart and a sense of humor.

Marcus understands the game of basketball very well. He knows the strategy and the skills it takes to win. People, life, basic requirements of being an adult, not so much. We see him being extremely rude to a woman he clearly does not know but has just had, apparently satisfying sex with. Her name is Alex (Kaitlin Olson), and while Marcus is happy to see her go, flipping the bird on the way out, we are already looking forward to seeing her again.

Marcus loses his job as an assistant coach, gets drunk, and drives into a police car. See what I meant about missing the basic skills of adulting? That’s how he ends up sentenced to 90 days of coaching the Friends, a team of young people with disabilities, including Johnny (gracefully played by Kevin Iannucci, who has Down syndrome). If you think that this is one of those movies where the people who are seen as less capable end up teaching the “normie” some important lessons, you’ve got that right. That doesn’t make it unsatisfying, though, because it all plays out with sincerity. It does not condescend to the characters with disabilities or try to make them saintly, giving them most of the one-up-ing punchlines and showing us their confidence. It gives at least one of them a bit of a character arc. But some viewers may find the portrayals reductionist and overly cute-sy.

But they’ve got Cheech running the community center where the Friends play, and it’s always good to have Cheech on board. Second, Harrelson is quite good at all of the frustration, and Olson gets to play a character who is not a hot mess, like the ones she plays on “Hacks” and “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” Her warmth and strong presence, and her excellent chemistry with Iannucci are the heart of the film.

Parents should know that this movie has some mature material, beginning with a frank if not explicit description of a one-night stand via an app, strong language for a PG-13, some mild peril and tense confrontations, drinking and drunkenness. The theme of inclusion is worth discussing.

Family discussion: Why didn’t Johnny want to tell Alex about his plans? Does this make you think differently about people with disabilities in your life?

If you like this, try: “The Ringer,” also from Farrelly

Creed III

Posted on March 2, 2023 at 5:12 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for intense sports action, violence, and some strong language
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Very intense fight scenes
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	March 3, 2023

The challenge for a movie series is like the challenge for a prize-fighter. No matter how big the triumph last time, the next one is even tougher. Expectations are higher. The people are older. And, when it comes to the Rocky/Creed series, even after a reboot, you still have to take someone who had a happy ending in the last one and figure out how to give him a meaningful challenge that will get the audience invested again. Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) ended chapter 2 rich, successful, married to the love of his life, Bianca (Tessa Thompson), father to an adorable little girl. As chapter 3 begins, he has all of that and is retired, with a gym of his own to support up and coming fighters, especially top-ranked Felix (played by real-life boxer Jose Benavidez). What could possibly make us think of him as an underdog?

The answer is: unfinished business. Adonis comes out of the gym to see a man lounging on his car. “You don’t remember me, do you?” It is someone from his past, someone who brings up conflicted feelings that he has spent years avoiding.

The man is Damian Anderson (Jonathan Majors), just out of prison. He and Adonis lived together in a group home. Back then, Damian was the fighter, and the younger Adonis was his cornerman. We find out later in the movie what the details were, but both them have wondered what would have happened if it had been Adonis who went to prison and Damian who had a shot at the title.

At first, Damian is humble and grateful, at least it seems so, and Adonis wants to help him. But soon Damian is in the Rocky slot, coming out of nowhere for a shot at the title. And if you think Adonis is going to stay retired then (1) you haven’t see the poster or (2) you haven’t ever seen a Rocky movie.

The script is not as strong as the previous two Creed movies but the fight scenes are exceptionally well-staged, as someone who spent two movies on the inside of those scenes might well understand. With the emotion behind it, the charged history. Damian is certain that he deserves this for all the time he lost, that he deserves to take from Adonis all he thinks Adonis took from him. Adonis has to face the guilt he feels over what happened to Damian and

Parents should know that this movie has very intense boxing scenes and other peril and violence involving young boys, some strong language, and sexual references.

Family discussion: What did Adonis owe Damian? Why didn’t Adonis tell Bianca the truth about his early life?

If you like this, try: the two previous “Creed” movies and the first three “Rocky” movies

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Posted on February 14, 2023 at 5:57 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:

Middle School

What I’ve always loved about the “Ant-Man” movies, aside from the ever-lovable Paul Rudd in the title role, is the slightly hand-made quality, in contrast to the high-tech, hight-gloss, high-CGI aesthetic of the rest of the MCU. The opening of the second film in the series sets the tone. Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), under house arrest following the parole violation of saving the world with the Avengers, has created a cardboard thrill ride for his daughter, Cassie. The Ant-Man series had some goofy humor with Scott’s relationship with his ex-wife (Judy Greer) and her new husband (Bobby Cannavale), the cop who can’t decide whether to arrest him or befriend him (Randall Park), and with the discursive stories from his friend and colleague Luis (Michael Peña). The production design truly set the stage with more lived-in spaces than in the other Marvel movies.

Not so much this time. Of course, this is a Marvel movie and there are imaginative and exciting action sequences, especially as Scott develops his use of his powers. It has a nice mix of comedy and action, with characters we are invested in, not just as individuals but in the way they are connected to each other.

As the title tells us, this movie takes place in the least hand-made setting imaginable, the quantum realm. As wonderfully imaginative as it is, suggesting a mash-up of Alice in Wonderland, the Pastoral Symphony section of Disney’s “Fantasia,” the wildest anime creatures of Hayao Miyazaki, and video games like Minecraft and No Man’s Sky, plus last year’s “Strange World,” there is a pristine quality that removes much of the distinctive charm we expect from Ant-Man. Plus, talk about the forest and the trees. There is just so much detail here, with the endless settings and characters so overwhelming that they make it hard to keep track of what is going on. It’s not enough that a character’s head looks like a stalk of broccoli. Someone has to say, “His head looks like broccoli.” And then we don’t have much to do with him again. There’s a lot to see and much of it is enticing, but not enough of it relates to anything that relates to the stakes, the abilities or vulnerabilities of the good guys or characteristics that would help us understand who they are and how they behave. The issue of understanding each others’ language is handled briskly but other properties are not developed or explored.

The title says it all because the story is more about the place than about what happens there. After a brief prologue, with John Sebastian’s theme from “Welcome Back, Kotter” on the soundtrack, we hear from Scott about how lucky he feels. He is an Avenger, universally loved for saving the world, even if that means people always ask him for photos (with their dogs!) and they don’t always remember which insect superhero he is. His daughter is doing well, he and Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) are happily in love and she is out saving the world with wonderful programs to help people who need housing or other kinds of support. Scott has written a new book about his life, and enjoys appearing at book-readings.

But it turns out Cassie (Kathryn Newton of “Freaky,” excellent in the role) has been stirring up trouble by appearing at protests and experimenting with a probe into the quantum realm. Before Janet (Michele Pfeiffer), who spent 30 years there and has refused to give any details, can stop her, Scott, Casssie, Hope, Janet, and Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) are all sucked into the quantum realm, and that is where they stay for almost all of the rest of the film.

There is a long stretch where we meet an assortment of colorful characters. Some of them are fun, including a goofy return from one of the earlier films. It is always good to see William Jackson Harper (“The Good Place”) as a frustrated telepath who is way over hearing all of the disgusting thoughts of everyone around him and a jell-o-like character very interested in how many “holes” humanoids have in their bodies and what goes into and out of them. A major star appears for a few minutes for no real purpose.

There’s a very “Star Wars”-ish vibe with the diverse good guys wearing rough cloth and carrying spears and the homogenous and faceless bad guys with the high tech weapons that somehow are not very accurate as the armor-less good guys seem to have no problem dodging the bullets.

As I have often said, superhero movies rise and fall on the quality of the bad guy, who has to be evil enough to be a serious threat but not omni-powerful enough to make it impossible to defeat him. With Thanos gone, the Marvel character Kang the Conqueror has been refashioned in his image. Free of the reality-based limits of time and space, Kang’s calculus about wiping out whole universes is for him just straightening the pictures on the wall — except that it turns out there is a strong element of revenge behind his decisions about who and what needs to be wiped out.

Jonathan Majors, who we’ll be seeing as the antagonist in another huge franchise series in a few weeks, “Creed III,” makes Kang intriguing as he shifts from vulnerable and companionable to canny negotiations to imperious orders to white-hot fury. But it also makes him so all over the place that it is hard to invest in the battles. It does not help that the other side is so complicated that we do not attach to most of the new characters, and characters we love, including Woo and Luis and, worst of all, Hope, are pushed to the side.

“There’s always room to grow,” Scott tells his readers, and those reassuring words come back to inspire the good guys later on. But in this case, taking Ant-Man out of the smaller world of the first two films shows that all that room may not be what this story needs.

NOTE: Stay through the end credits for two extra scenes, one tying the next chapter to some favorite Marvel characters.

Parents should know that this movie has extended peril and violence with some disturbing images. Characters use some strong language.

Family discussion: How should Scott have responded to Kang’s threat? Why didn’t Janet tell anyone about her experience?

If you like this, try: the other “Ant-Man” and MCU movies