Review: "Crisis"

Writer/director Nicholas Jarecki had the idea to make his drama “Crisis” about the opioid epidemic as three parallel storylines. It’s not a new concept, but it can be an effective one when woven together artfully. Instead, the movie feels like three different tales rather than a gripping whole.

Individually, the pieces work. But two of them only intersect very late in the story and the third one… never does.

Armie Hammer plays Jake Kelly, a gruff, hard-charging DEA agent on the verge of a huge bust after spending a year infiltrating himself into the pill-mill trade. Evangeline Lilly is Claire Reimann, a suburban mom distraught over her teenage son’s death from overdose who decides to take matters into her own hands. Gary Oldman plays Tyrone Power, a scientist who’s been signing off on the big pharma’s studies in exchange for funding but undergoes an attack of conscience.

All three of these have enough narrative momentum, not to mention compelling performances, to merit an entire feature film. Together they are less than the sum of their parts.

It’s part cops-and-robbers, part revenge cycle and part corporate intrigue. I’m guessing the notion was to take a look at the opioid crisis from a variety of angles, but we actually see very little of the end effects on the users. Jake’s sister (Lily-Rose Depp) is an addict, which works to stoke his passions, but she only gets a couple of substantive scenes.

Tyrone is a chemistry professor at a small college that relies upon donations from a huge pharmaceutical company to fund his research, with Luke Evans playing the heavy. They believe they’ve stumbled upon a new form of painkiller that isn’t addictive, which will revolutionize the use of opioids -- not to mention rake in billions. But some lab technicians discover that the drug, Klaralon, is killing off their mice test subjects and needs to be pulled for more study.

He decides to go up against the big powers -- including his friend, the college president played by Greg Kinnear -- and progressively gets chewed up.

Claire insists that her son was not actually a drug user, and with a little digging and the help of a private investigator, she believes he was actually murdered rather than overdosed. She travels to Canada to look into the big pill operation behind it, which has recently moved into the even more deadly trade of fentanyl. It’s mentioned, but only lightly explored, that she used to be a user herself.

Meanwhile, Jake has set up his own front clinics where shady doctors dispense prescriptions to dangerous narcotics like candy (they hire homeless to obtain the pills, then immediately buy them back so they’re not putting more drugs on the street). With his new boss (Michelle Rodriguez) putting the pressure on, he has to set up a multimillion-dollar deal between his operation, the Canadian manufacturers and the Armenian distributors.

If that sounds like a lot of characters, that’s because it is. And I haven’t even mentioned the various supporting characters, spouses, friends, henchmen and so on.

I liked all three main actors in their roles. Claire is fragile but determined, Jake glowers so much he seems to positively steam, and Tyrone’s keening, high-minded oratories about doing the right thing pluck the heartstrings. It’s not enough, though.

“Crisis” is an ambitious movie that I think fails because of a lack of bigger ambition. I can imagine this as a trilogy or limited series that gradually sucks us deeper into an international epidemic, with each story showing the full breadth of every side. What we get feels like a CliffsNotes version of something bigger and better.

Review: "Hotel Mumbai"

One of the most lamentable thing about terrorist tragedies is the tendency to forget about them, especially when they happen outside our normal sphere of attention. The average American can tell you a lot about 9/11 or the Boston Marathon bombing, but things like the 2008 attacks in Mumbai recede from memory with lamentable haste.

Director Anthony Maras, who co-wrote the script with John Collee, has recreated the event with generous measures of empathy, tension and insight. We watch the attacks, which took place in multiple places across the teeming Indian city, through the prism of perhaps the highest profile one: the glorious Taj Hotel.

The cast of Indians and a few Westerners is led by Dev Patel, playing Arjun, a humble member of the wait staff. Their model of service is an ambitious one: “Guest is God” is their motto. Anupam Kher plays the head chef, Hemant Oberoi, who acts as not just the de facto leader of the staff but keeper of the sacred flame.

The untold story of Hotel Mumbai, as the Taj was colloquially known, is that nearly as many employees were killed as guests because they chose to stay and protect their charges instead of escaping to safety. Despite being shot up, bombed and set ablaze, the hotel was reopened for business barely three weeks after the attack.

Armie Hammer and Nazanin Boniadi play David and Zahra, a married couple caught up in the incident. He is an American architect and she is a Muslim woman, and they have brought with them their baby son and British nanny, Sally (Tilda Cobham-Hervey).

It’s interesting to watch them arrive and take up residence in their lavish penthouse, since the staff might presume the two Westerners are the parents and the brown woman is their servant. But discretion is the byword at the Taj.

Jason Isaacs plays Vasili, a piggish Russian oligarch who casually sifts through photographs of his potential female escorts for that evening in the hotel restaurant, loudly inquiring over the phone about their physical attributes. He shows his mettle when things turn bloody, though, including some quaint chivalry expressed toward Zahra.

The attackers are depicted as young, deluded Muslims who have been conned by “Brother Bull” to carry out this despicable act in the name of jihad. He remains in constant contact via headset phone -- from a safe distance, of course -- ordering the men to kill all Indians, take Westerners hostage and, when the time comes, sacrifice their own lives.

The perpetrators are essentially naïve peasants, astounded by the opulence of Mumbai’s upper crust and indoctrinated to see it as wealth stolen from the just.

Amandeep Singh and Suhail Nayyar play the two most prominent terrorists. What’s most disturbing is not their acts, but the casual way they carry them out, almost like farmers sorting out the stock for slaughter. When one calls his father, we’re astonished at how he pours out his love for his family yet does not hesitate an instant to brutalize the Taj residents.

“Hotel Mumbai” is a celebration of the human spirit, but not a blindly obtuse one. It recognizes that evil is nearly always something we ascribe to others, even as people carry out the most dastardly acts as proof of virtue. Those who believe they are victims are most likely to pass along the mantle.

Review: "On the Basis of Sex"

We’ve already had one movie this year feting Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the excellent documentary “RBG.” So why not a feature film, too?

“On the Basis of Sex” is a straightforward, old-fashioned biopic-slash-courtroom drama chronicling Ginsburg’s first steps into the hallowed laws of American jurisprudence. It’s the tale of how Ginsburg, shunted aside despite graduating at the top of her class at Harvard Law School, began quietly but forcefully building a body of law against legalized discrimination based on gender.

Felicity Jones plays Ginsburg in a vibrant, assured performance of a woman raised not to make waves, but whose intellect and inner fire drove her to challenge the system. There’s not much physical resemblance, though prosthetic teeth help. Towering actor Armie Hammer is cast as her loving husband, Martin, which helps play up Ginsburg’s famous diminutiveness.

They had an interesting dynamic that was radical for a couple in the mid-1950s: both attending the same law school a year apart, already married and with a baby, equally splitting the home chores and the academic burden. When Martin came down with a serious illness, Ruth attended all his classes and took notes, as well as her own.

Still, when she graduates no New York City law firm will touch her. In one terrific little scene, the head partner of a smaller firm is clearly ensorcelled by her prodigious brainpower, but pulls back: the partners’ wives will be jealous to have a pretty young thing around the office.

The story then skips ahead to 1970, with Martin a striving Wall Street tax attorney and Ruth a professor at a modest law school. A seemingly innocuous case falls into their lap: a man sues the tax collector for rejecting his deduction of the cost of a caregiver for his elderly mother. This is something women are allowed to do, but not men.

Despite a disputed sum amounting to 200-and-some dollars, Ruth immediately seizes upon the broader possibilities: by challenging the first in a series of laws that enshrine discrimination on the basis of sex on behalf of a male client, they will open the door to years of litigation to unravel an outdated set of rules and replace them with another.

Consider that, in this same era, women had to obtain credit cards in their husbands’ names, and were forbidden to serve in any number of jobs -- completely legally and, many thought, justifiably.

Ginsburg enlists the head of the ACLU on her behalf, Mel Wulf, played by Justin Theroux as a man who’s a fierce litigator but a major pill to deal with.

“On the Basis of Sex” isn’t an especially surprising or original movie. We can feel the film moving through its beats with a carefully ordered choreography. Rookie screenwriter Daniel Stiepleman sticks a little too close to formula, and director Mimi Leder betrays some of the melodramatic influences of television where she’s largely spent the last two decades.

For instance, we know the scenes of Ginsburg clashing with her idealistic teen daughter, Jane (Cailee Spaeny), will surely be followed by their reconciliation via the court case that captures both their passions. It’s as inevitable as the sun.

Similarly, the law school professor and dean (Stephen Root and Sam Waterston) who were once Ginsburg’s prickly mentors become her adversaries for the big case, muttering in deep tones in dark-wood offices about the dangerous precedent being attempted by this rebellious female upstart.

Jack Reynor plays the opposing counsel for the big court scene, all swollen Southern swagger, and Kathy Bates cameos as Dorothy Kenyon, a pioneering feminist from before they had a name for such a thing.

Even though the film isn’t terribly bold, it still tells a story worth hearing, and tells it very well indeed. Now let’s get the Antonin Scalia biopic rolling.

Video review: "Sorry to Bother You"

I wouldn’t be shocked if you missed “Sorry to Bother You” in theaters. It’s a tiny picture, although it made a decent media splash at the time of its release. Its star, Lakeith Stanfield, is one of the best young actors working in film today, so it had already been on my radar.

It’s hard to describe this film from first-time director Boots Riley -- it’s science fiction, cautionary tale, social satire, racial parable and raucous comedy all rolled into one.

In a dystopian not-so-distant future, Cassius Green (Stanfield) lands a job as a telemarketer for a huge multinational corporation. He’s not very good at it until a fellow black employee (Danny Glover) clues him to use his “white voice” when on the phone. Cassius does -- with the voice dubbed in by David Cross -- and immediately realizes incredible success.

Before long he finds himself the right-hand man of CEO/villain Steve Lift (Armie Hammer), moving into a posh downtown condo and driving some cool wheels. His girlfriend, Detroit (Tessa Thompson), worries about him selling out to the man.

Things get stranger with the revelation of some crazy half-human, half-horse creatures that the company is secretly developing as cheap labor. But I’ll leave that as a surprise.

By turns hilarious, angry, prescient and irritating, “Sorry to Bother You” is one of the most unique cinematic experiences you’ll have this year. I can’t guarantee you’ll love it, but there’s nothing else like it to compare.

Video extras are pretty expansive. They include a feature length commentary track by Riley, who also hosts a “Beautiful Clutter” featurette. There’s a gallery of photos from production, and two making-of documentary shorts: “The Art of the White Voice” and “The Cast of Sorry to Bother You.”

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Video review: "Cars 3"

“Cars 3” didn’t do too well at the box office compared to other Pixar animated flicks, so in all likelihood it will stand as the last in the series. I’m fine with that.

The movie is a conscious closing of the loop, as brash race car Lightning McQueen (voice of Owen Wilson) finds himself in the same tires… er, shoes as his mentor, Doc Hudson. He’s now the old racer struggling against upstarts in a sport that no longer seems to want him around.

Armie Hammer provides the voice of Jackson Storm, a “next gen” racer who’s fast, relentless and uncaring. Soon Storm clones have booted all of Lightning’s old opponents to the curb, and he survives a major crash not unlike the one that ended Doc’s career. He goes into a rehab program at a fancy modern facility where his chirpy trainer, Cruz Ramirez (Cristela Alonzo), embraces him as her “senior project.”

It’s more wistful and contemplative than its two predecessors, particularly the fun-but-zany “Cars 2,” which was essentially one long Benny Hill skit with hillbilly tow truck Mater front and center. This film is about the aging process, how we deal with rough patches in life, and passing the torch to a worthy successor. In the most moving sequence, Lightning looks up some of Doc’s old friends to find inspiration.

There is still plenty of time for racing action and goofy fun, such as when Lightning finds himself caught in a backwoods demolition derby against a killer school bus, Miss Fritter.

“Cars 3” doesn’t have the pure entertainment horsepower of the first two movies, but it’s sadder and wiser.

Bonus features are excellent, though most of them come with the Blu-ray edition. The DVD has a feature-length commentary track featuring director Brian Fee and his creative team, plus a short animated film, “Lou.”

Upgrade to the Blu-ray and you add a new mini-movie featuring that smashmouth bus, “Miss Fritter’s Racing Skoool.” There are also five deleted scenes and eight featurettes touching on various aspects of production, including “My First Car,” an illustrated gallery of cast and crew talking about their first vehicle.

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Review: "Cars 3"

“Cars 3” is a movie of full circles coming round.

It’s amusing, glitzy entertainment for kids that also ponders what happens when we get old and start to worry about life passing us by. We’re going so fast, and suddenly you find yourself sitting in a pasture, unsure if you drove yourself in or were put out.

I can’t think of a film series that better incorporates the death of one of its stars into the core themes of the story. Paul Newman was the beating heart of the original “Cars” as the cantankerous Doc Hudson, who sets aside his ancient grievances against the sport of racing to coach a cocky young upstart, Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson).

In a lot of ways, it was as much Doc’s story as McQueen’s.

Doc is very much on Lightning’s mind as the film opens, using his lessons and inspiration to become a living legend himself. He’s essentially traded places with Strip “The King” Weathers, the aging champion from the first movie, having to deal with an upstart rookie trying to take his crown. Except in this case, it’s not just one opponent but the entire field of competitors.

Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer) is a “next gen” racer, and looks the part -- few curves, efficiently unpretty, a sleek personification of function over form. He drives like an automaton, straight down the groove, no risks and lots of speed. He also has little patience for old-timers like McQueen, brusquely shoving the old generation to the side.

Soon, all the older racers have been replaced by Storm clones, and Lightning suffers a major crash just like Doc did. Can he come back and race again, or has his time gone by?

Brian Fee, a Pixar animation veteran, ably takes the director’s chair for the first time, with a screenplay by Mike Rich, Pixar do-everything-guy Bob Peterson and Kiel Murray, one of the writers on the original “Cars.” Their entry into the franchise stands out from the other two movies by taking some left turns we don’t expect.

It doesn’t quite have the emotional horsepower of the first one or the dizzy Mater-centric antics of “Cars 2.” But I think most people, young and old, will find it a satisfying iteration – possibly conclusion? – of the saga.

It is a little disappointing to mostly leave the Radiator Springs crew behind this time, including Mater (Larry the Cable Guy), Sally (Bonnie Hunt), Luigi (Tony Shalhoub), Ramone (Cheech Marin) and the rest. But they make a few appearances, and there are new faces.

Most notable is Cruz Ramirez (Cristela Alonzo), a hyperactive young “race trainer” who wants to whip Lightning back into shape with computer simulations and kooky psychological motivations. She sees him as her “senior project,” and prescribes lots of naps and an oil drip pan as needed. Watching over is Sterling (Nathan Fillion), the seemingly benevolent new owner of the Rust-Eze race sponsors.

(The Magliozzi brothers of NPR “Car Talk” fame, who did the voices of their animated counterparts, get their own nice little sendoff.)

And there’s a sentimental journey to Doc’s old dirt-track stomping grounds, where Lighting encounters the mentor of his mentor, Smokey (a pitch-perfect Chris Cooper), and a few other old-school racers. Plus a madcap dash through a demolition derby where Miss Fritter (Lea DeLaria), a smashmouth school bus, always steals the show.

You can quibble with some of the particulars of the plot, including a rather… novel take on racing rules that I don’t think NASCAR is going to incorporate anytime soon. But its heart is never far from the right place.

I should mention that Newman’s character and voice appear in this movie, flashbacks from the original but also a few lines of dialogue that were recorded and never used. It’s great to hear that beautiful gravel baritone again, and we learn some things about Doc we didn’t know. It’s like hearing new stories about your departed father, told by people who adored him.

Happily, this means that “Cars 3” will stand as Newman’s final official film credit. A lifelong car nut, I don’t think he would mind.

The movie itself is a lot like classic cars. They don’t have the power they used to. But oh, to watch them go by…

Review: "The Birth of a Nation"

The most surprising thing about “The Birth of a Nation” is the quiet lyricism it brings to the brutal depiction of American slavery. We’ve seen the cruelty before -- the flesh-tearing whippings, the use of women as sexual chattel, the everyday degradation of men -- most recently in “12 Years a Slave” and the television reprise of “Roots.”

But Nate Parker, who stars, wrote the screenplay and directed, offers both tenderness and righteous anger in the story of Nat Turner, a black slave preacher who led a violent rebellion in 1831 Virginia.

It’s a film of exquisite beauty exploring the ugliest chapter in the story of America.

This movie is perfectly posited for this moment in time in our national conversation about race and violence, with too many African-Americans gunned down by police under often questionable justification.

Parker’s approach is biblical in tone without ever becoming preachy. He does not present Turner’s revolt as “right” -- seeing as it included the deaths of some 60 whites, including women and children -- but the inevitable outcome of generations of suppressing a people’s liberty and very humanity.

Nat Turner begins as a normal kid, singled out for his intellect and raised inside the plantation house, growing up the playmate of the owner’s son, Samuel. Forced to return to the fields after the master’s death, Nat becomes the slaves’ spiritual leader, exhorting them to follow scripture and submit to the will of their masters.

He is, in essence, a “safe” slave in a culture where whites are constantly fearful of reprisal from their slaves, who often outnumber them. Nat is so effective at keeping the peace that Samuel (Armie Hammer), now the master, agrees to rent him out to other owners to preach to their slaves and soothe them.

Samuel is presented as a fairly tolerant master, an ineffectual drunkard who barely bothers with the upkeep of the farm, so Nat is horrified at the treatment he sees at other plantations. In one painful scene, the teeth of a slave refusing to eat are casually knocked out with a hammer and chisel so a nasty gruel can be forced down his throat.

We witness Nat begin to slowly change, from a man patiently awaiting his kingdom in heaven to one who resents the hell he’s being forced to live through on earth. He’s haunted by visions, blood pouring from the crops, and believes he’s being called upon by God.

That feeling is accelerated when his beloved wife, Cherry (Aja Naomi King), is ravaged by some bestial slave hunters, with Jackie Earle Haley playing the leader who has a personal past with Nat.

The movie mostly follows the historical record, while fiddling with some details. For instance, Samuel Turner was the brother, not the son, of Nat’s original owner. And Nat was sold to another slave owner, Giles Reese, by the time of the uprising. But these are largely quibbles that do not detract from the tale.

The imagery in the movie will haunt you -- the feet of men and women gracefully swinging after being lynched; a young slave child skipping merrily while a girl uses a noose as a leash for her plaything. Its very gracefulness makes the horrors stand out further. The cinematography by Elliot Davis and the spare musical score by Henry Jackman are both wonderful.

“The Birth of a Nation” shares a title with a seminal 1915 film by silent film master D.W. Griffith, which is a technical marvel that established much of the cinematic language we understand today -- but also celebrated the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. Parker has made a conscious effort to reclaim the name from its racist past.

Normally I’d be inclined to call that an act of stupendous pomposity. Except that Nate Parker’s film truly is a rebirth, a new cinematic declaration for this young century. It is a chorus of rage, sung without malice but also without apology.

Video review: "The Man from U.N.C.L.E."

“The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” cost a bundle to make and made not such a large bundle at the box office, so it’s already been written off as one of 2015’s biggest flops. Actually, it’s all disinformation and propaganda: this was probably the most fun I’ve had at the cinema this year.

Based (loosely) on the 1960s TV series, it pits East-versus-West superspies who are forced to join forces to get back the nuclear technology that’s been stolen. Henry Cavill plays CIA star Napoleon Solo, a rakish scamp who gets by on charm and improvisation. Armie Hammer is Illya Kuryakin, a KGB agent who’s all iron and cold fury.

They clash, they grudge, they clash some more.

Of course there’s a damsel, though she tends to distribute distress rather than needing to be saved from it. Alicia Vikander plays Gaby, a German mechanic whose dad was a Nazi scientist and is now at the center of the trouble. Napoleon goes for the frontal romantic assault, but she’s got eyes for the dour Russian.

Director Guy Ritchie breaks out every trick in his book, with lots of jump-cutting, musical interludes and time displacement. The movie is festooned with dashing suits, nifty gadgets, sexy villains and lots of color. The result is jazzy and loose, an ironic tug at the smug façade of the spy genre.

Forget what you’ve heard and remember this message (though you may have to destroy it afterward): “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” is the best time this side of Bond.

Bonus features are pretty good, though the DVD comes with only one featurette, “A Higher Class of Hero.”

Upgrade to the blu-ray combo pack, and you add more making-of mini-docs: “Spy Vision: Recreating ‘60s Cool,” “Metisse Motorcycles: Proper -- And Very British,” “The Guys from U.N.C.L.E.,” “A Man of Extraordinary Talents” and “U.N.C.L.E: On-Set Spy.”

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Review: "The Man from U.N.C.L.E."

Brisk, daring and deliciously sexy, "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." is the end-of-summer surprise we've been waiting for.

Let's face it, August has historically become the summer movie season's dumping ground. Many kids are already back in school, vacations are mostly wound down, and films with lower profiles and stars of lesser wattage don't want to compete with the behemoths of May and June. I get it.

So it's always a thrill to encounter a flick that shakes off expectations and bounds over the doldrums. "Man," based on the TV show from the 1960s and set during that same period, is the best August time at the cinema since 2011's "Rise of the Planet of the Apes." Both were based on moldy franchises that went from moribund to magnificent under the spell of energetic filmmakers and an electrifying cast.

Director Guy Ritchie did much the same to rejuvenate the "Sherlock Holmes" movies, though not to my liking. The dim steampunk streets and slo-mo chop-socky quickly grew tiring. Perhaps I like "Man" so much because it is those films' total opposite in tone and hue.

It's a gorgeous-looking movie, with vibrant primary colors and crisp focus. Henry Cavill's blue eyes, black forelock and incisor-sharp jawline practically seem to leap off a clothing designer's onionskin. Of course, he's helped by the splendid full-chested suits he wears. With a lavish production design, it's a world where even the thick glass tumblers the characters grab to fill with scotch look expensive and just-so tasteful.

Cavill plays Napoleon Solo, who if you'll recall is the rakish thief who got caught by the C.I.A. and threatened with jail if he didn't join their ranks. His opposite is Illya Kuryakin, a cold-blooded KGB tough who gets thrown in with him as his enforced partner. (He's played by Armie Hammer, who somehow wrangled top billing out of Superman's hands.) They form a ying-and-yang duo, the smooth operator and the psycho ready to snap, to get the job done.

"The job" is a nearly comprehensible MacGuffin of the classic order: some bad people have gotten their hands on nuclear technology, are building a bomb and trying to sell it to the Nazis, who somehow haven't heard about their surrender 18 years earlier. Don't worry about following the plot; it's just an excuse to set up big action spectacles, face-downs and hiss-able villains.

Cavill and Hammer are just about perfect in their respective parts. Cavill has got a Bond-esque thing going, cherishing his own unflappability, and he speaks his lines in a distinctive way that's somehow both charming and condescending. You've heard of "mansplaining"? He's spysplaining.

Since his breakout in "The Social Network," Hollywood really hasn't figured out what to do with Hammer, casting him as a hapless prince ("Mirror Mirror") or suffering the humiliation of making him the Lone Ranger and then having the cowboy icon usurped by his sidekick. He's flat-out terrific here, playing it straight and finding comedy by never winking at the camera. His Illya is simultaneously chilling and touching, a resentful lost boy in a superman's (small "s") body.

Alicia Vikander is Gaby, an East German mechanic who gets smuggled across the Berlin Wall because her dad was a nuke scientist for the Nazis, and is now suspected of helping some Italian aristocrats with the aforementioned bomb. The expected thing here would be to have her ensorcelled by the suave Napoleon, but she seems to only have well-mascaraed eyes for the sullen, withdrawn Russian.

Elizabeth Debicki is slithery and seductive as Victoria Vinciguerra -- just try saying that name, you'll love it -- who regards Napoleon like some viperous insect, something with which to copulate and then consume. Hugh Grant pops up as a likeable Brit harboring a secret agenda.

Ritchie pulls all the tricks out of his considerable director's bag: backward time jumps, split screens that keep splitting different directions, letting the music swell up and take over the movie for a moment, etc. Here the fancy stuff complements the material, rather than trying to dazzle us for its own sake.

But dazzle "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." does. It's a fresh cut on an old suit that plays its cards as they lay, and plays them with panache.

Review: "The Lone Ranger"

So what’s up with a Lone Ranger movie where Tonto is the chief character? Who wears an expired crow on his noggin and death-head war paint? And the titular Ranger is a whiny, kvetching, annoying ball of tics who saps the film of energy every time he’s onscreen?

What it is really is “Pirates of the Caribbean 5,” with Johnny Depp morphing his doofy Jack Sparrow character into a loopy, reimagined Tonto impression.

“Pirates” director Gore Verbinski returns with screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio (plus Justin Haythe) for a redo of the same formula: big action set pieces, cackling villains, a bevy of bizarre secondary characters and plot twists, a tone that veers between slapstick and ominous, and Depp pulling out another one of his precious, strange-for-strange’s-sake performances.

The result is a swollen mess, alternately inane and dull. There are a few crumbs of entertaining bits, like the birdseed Tonto keeps trying to feed to his bird-helmet. But they get buried under an avalanche of ill-conceived story concepts.

Here the Lone Ranger isn’t even a ranger; rather, he’s freshly-minted district attorney John Reid (Armie Hammer) returning to his Texas hometown in 1869. His train is hijacked by confederates of notorious outlaw Butch Cavendish, who’s being transported to his hanging.

(William Fichtner terrifically embodies the sun-creased blackheart, who has a silver tooth, wicked lip scar and a tendency to eat portions of his dead enemies. Cavendish is so good, in fact, the character feels wasted in the movie around him.)

John’s brother Dan (James Badge Dale) is the local Texas Ranger captain, and puts together a posse to go after Cavendish. He reluctantly includes John, whom everyone dismisses as a city dandy.

You know what happens next: the posse is trapped and cut to pieces, with only John surviving. He’s revived from death’s door by Tonto, who dubs him a “spirit walker” who can’t be killed in battle.

The running joke of the movie is how unfit John is to don the Lone Ranger’s domino mask. He can’t shoot, hates guns even, and is indifferent at the standard cowboy skill set. In fact, Tonto would have much preferred his brother Dan be the one brought back to life. He calls John “kemosabe,” which here means “wrong brother.”

Depp is clearly having a ball with the Tonto character, who speaks in the familiar broken English from the TV show and has an imperturbable mien. He is constantly stealing from dead bodies, replacing valuables with odd bits of junk, a practice he refers to as trading.

Tonto’s worst trade was one he made as a boy, which has an elaborate backstory involving two conniving white men, a river full of silver, a heavy-chained pocket watch and that crow.

All this might seem enough plot for a decent Western action/comedy. But then Verbinski & Co. pile on layer after layer of material, junking up the works.

There’s a paltry romantic triangle between Dan and John, with Dan’s wife (Ruth Wilson) and young son (Bryan Prince) caught in the crossfire. Tom Wilkinson shows up as the enterprising head of the railroad company connecting East to West. Barry Pepper is a preening, Custer-esque cavalryman.

Then things really get out there. Helena Bonham Carter plays a brothel madam with a past, plus an ivory leg with a shotgun hidden inside. And there are border wars with the Comanche – ostensibly Tonto’s people, though they are quick to disavow him as a loon.

And a mystical quest in search of an evil “wendingo” spirit. And a pale horse with seemingly supernatural powers. And corporate power struggles. And cannibal rabbits.

Oh, and the whole thing’s wrapped in a mournful framing device set in 1933, when a century-old Tonto, now relegated to circus sideshow, recounts his tale to a curious lad.

The absolute low point is when John and Tonto walk into a dangerous den and pull the old "we're the health inspectors" shtick, something used in every buddy cop movie, ever. Except it's 1869, when there were no such thing as health inspectors. When they complain the pickles in the bar are not refrigerated, I waited for someone to respond, "What's refrigeration?"

At a tick under 2½ hours, “The Lone Ranger” goes all in on “more is more,” until the audience wishes there was just less.

Or as Tonto might say, “Ten dollar for ticket to movie … not good trade.”

Review: "Mirror, Mirror"

There was nothing about "Mirror, Mirror" that I hated, but there was also nothing that I really loved. I like the idea behind this movie, but am largely indifferent to the movie they did make.

Director Tarsem Singh Dhandwar and screenwriters Melissa Wallack and Jason Keller seemed to have set out to make a dizzyingly funny, satirical take on the classic "Snow White" fable by the Brothers Grimm. But the film repeatedly steps back from pure comedy and goes for amusing and charming. You can almost hear the studio honchos whispering in their ear, "Remember the 18-35 female demographic."

The tone is less "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and more "Ella Enchanted." I think they should have given up on the sweet, mushy parts and gone for the Full Gilliam. Actually, I'm sort of piqued to see what Terry Gilliam could have done with this material and budget.

As you probably know, this is the first of two Snow White adaptations arriving in theaters this year. Later we get the dark-and-scary version, "Snow White and the Huntsman," where Snow gets into knife fights and wears more grime than ball gowns. Personally, I was much more looking forward to this one.

Julia Roberts plays the evil queen and serves as narrator, telling us right from the start that this is her story, not Snow's. That's not really true, but it should have been -- Roberts is easily the best thing about the movie. Instead of the whole cruel-and-evil stepmother gig, Roberts plays the queen as an over-spoiled movie star, toying with her vassals and using her vast powers to keep herself sitting pretty. She doesn't so much like ruling the kingdom as being the center of attention.

By contrast, Snow is a drab and flat character. As played by Lilly Collins, she's a castle shut-in who years for her long-lost father, who married the queen and then disappeared chasing a mythical beast in the forest. For a post-feminist princess, she's rather passive, only taking action after various male figures urge her to take up arms.

The prince here is Alcott, played by Armie Hammer as a vainglorious but good-hearted guy who gets caught between Snow and the queen. The queen wants to marry him and claim his vast wealth to refill her kingdom's empty coffers, but Alcott seems totally unaware of her erstwhile ardor. He's smitten by Snow instead, but then she disappears and takes up with the Dwarves.

The minimalist seven are a hoot, and the filmmakers actually manage to imbue each of them with some distinct personality. Danny Woodburn plays Grimm, the world-weary leader. Martin Klebba is Butcher, who's hardcore and wears a cowboy hat. Grub (Joe Gnoffo) is a big eater, Chuckles (Ronald Lee Clark) is a giggler and Wolf (Sebastian Saraceno) is the bruiser. Jordan Prentice adds a little soul as Napoleon, and Half Pint (Mark Povinelli) has an amusing, unrequited crush on Snow.

The dwarves in this iteration are itinerant highwaymen who live in the forest and rob travelers. They wear funky stilts that can expand and retract like accordions, turning them into giants who leap and twist about like Cirque du Soleil performers gone medieval.

The movie's version of the magic mirror is strange, and a little confusing. Instead of it being a mirror in her castle with a face that the queen converses with, she steps through a mirror into another dimension. She surfaces on a giant lake or ocean where some wooden huts have been built. Inside is the mirror with the magical spirit who is her servant, but looks like her own reflection -- though without any wrinkles, it wryly notes.

"They're not wrinkles! They're ... crinkles," the queen pouts adorably. One of the running jokes is that the queen is in denial about her own aging -- she insistently tells the prince that he and she are "about the same age" -- and kudos to Roberts for bravely tweaking her fading ingenue status.

So Snow joins up with the dwarves, becoming a thief, though a good-hearted one who returns the people's taxes to them. As is the staple in these sorts of movies, she also manages to become an expert swordsman over the course of a single musical interlude and montage.

My biggest problem with "Mirror, Mirror" is that it contained no surprises for me. Once you've established the slightly fractured take on the fairy tale -- which one can get just from watching the trailer -- all the story elements and character arcs fall neatly and predictably into place. Even the oft-referenced Beast in the forest contained no secrets, as I guessed his final disposition before we ever even see him.

"Mirror, Mirror" certainly isn't a bad movie, and there are a few wickedly funny moments and some glimpses of inspired characterizations. Alas, this spell only works sporadically.

2.5 stars out of four

Video review: "J. Edgar"

For a biopic about one of the most polarizing political figures of the 20th century, “J. Edgar” is a curiously flat affair. It’s got great production values, a standout performance by Leonardo DiCaprio, and generally feels like a great big chunk of Hollywood ham.

The central thesis of screenwriter Dustin Lance Black and director Clint Eastwood is that J. Edgar Hoover, who wielded enormous power for five decades as head of the FBI, was secretly a closeted gay man who carried on a lifelong chaste love affair with Clyde Tolson, his best friend and right-hand man.

This may or may not be true – the historical evidence for Hoover’s alleged homosexuality is sketchy at best. Those who knew him best say his relationship with Tolson was close but brotherly. And the now-ubiquitous characterization of his penchant for cross-dressing is based on an account of a single event by a convicted perjurer.

But the great truth the filmmakers miss is that even if Hoover was attracted to men, this would be the least interesting thing about him as a person.

The story slips forward and backward in time, portraying how Hoover’s passion for collecting secrets, and leveraging them to gain political power, was his way of misdirecting others from exposing his own (as he saw them) weaknesses.

Some of the supporting roles seem oversized, while others are desperately short-shrifted. The most notable is Helen Gandy (Naomi Watts), whom young Hoover proposed marriage to on their third date. She demurred, but agreed to become his personal secretary, a position she would hold for the next five decades.

Gandy is omnipresent but unimportant, someone who lurks in the background until the filmmakers feel a need for Hoover to have a moment of self-reflection.

“J. Edgar” is a fine-looking movie and generally well-acted. But ultimately the film employs the underhanded tactics of its subject: using shadowy whisperings about Hoover's personal life to paint a skewed portrait of his public one.

Video extras are the same for Blu-ray and DVD editions, and are limited to a single featurette, “J. Edgar: The Most Powerful Man in the World.”

Movie: 2 stars out of four
Extras: 1.5 stars

Review: "J. Edgar"

"J. Edgar" is a curiously flat biopic for one of the most polarizing figures of the 20th century. J. Edgar Hoover was either one of the greatest innovators in the field of law enforcement or a power-mad tyrant, depending on who you ask. Clint Eastwood's new drama tends more toward the latter than the former, though it seems clear the great director has some admiration, or at least healthy respect, for Hoover's perseverance and resolve.

No one who becomes the head of a federal agency while still in his 20s, and remains in that post for nearly 50 years, transforming the very face of law enforcement in the process, can be easily dismissed.

The film's period production values are stupendous, seamlessly transitioning from 1919 to the early 1970s without ever missing a beat of authenticity. The suits, cars, decor and more appear spiffy and spot-on without screaming 'look at me.'

The make-up used to transform Leonardo DiCaprio into Hoover is also pretty spectacular. The actor bears little resemblance to the real man, but by giving him woolly hair, a thickening of the middle (some weight gain by DiCaprio augmented by padding, methinks) and enlarging his pupils, they manage to suggest the essence of Hoover without attempting a rote imitation.

DiCaprio's performance is solid, too, portraying a man driven to continually find fault in others as a defense mechanism for avoiding confrontation with his own weaknesses. There's even a scene suggesting that young Johnny Hoover stammered as a child, and acquired his iconic rapid-fire speech pattern through endless drills to correct his stutter. His mother (Judi Dench) appears in fits and starts, as a devout woman who pushed her son in ways subtle and not-so-subtle to always strive for more.

I cannot say I think much of the central theme of Dustin Lance Black's screenplay, which is that Hoover was a closeted gay who had a lifelong platonic love affair with Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer), his number two at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Tolson is portrayed as a fairly progressive and self-aware gay man, who acknowledges his feelings for Edgar to himself even as he is savvy enough to realize he can't do so publicly.

There's one big scene where Tolson throws a fairly extreme hissy fit when Hoover tells him he's thinking of marrying an actress, and they have a fistfight while dressed in their nightclothes that turns into a make-out session and a huge emotional explosion. It's a bold scene, full of energy and exuberance, and feels like total bullshit.

The historical case that Hoover was homosexual is sketchy at best -- he and Tolson spent most of their meals and vacations together, etc. Most biographies say no, and Mark Felt, the number three man at the FBI (who later revealed himself to be the infamous "Deep Throat" to Woodward & Bernstein) insisted their affection was genuine but brotherly.

The whole cross-dressing thing -- which is absurdly addressed in a scene where Hoover mourns in his mother's dress after her death -- is likely a figment. It was based on an account by one woman, a notorious socialite who was a convicted perjurer, but has managed to seep into the communal consciousness as truth.

Personally, I don't find it very interesting to explore if J. Edgar Hoover was gay or not. Even if he did secretly favor men, it would be the least interesting thing about him as a person. The secretive, power-hungry figure who dangled presidents and others wandering the corridors of power on a string is so compelling a subject, the matter of who he slept with pales in comparison.

Eastwood and Black spend most of the first part of the movie exploring this towering figure, and the bulk of the latter half doting on the gay question. The timeline jumps around liberally, with a lot of too-clever jump cuts showing young Hoover and Tolson stepping into an elevator, and their older selves exiting, etc.

"J. Edgar" is a fine-looking movie, and generally well-acted, too. Though some parts seem oversized, others are desperately short-shrifted. The most notable is Helen Gandy (Naomi Watts), whom young Hoover admired for her organizational skills and proposed marriage to on their third date. She demurred, but agreed to become his personal secretary, a position she would hold for the next five decades.

Gandy is omnipresent but unimportant, someone who lurks in the background until the filmmakers feel a need for Hoover to have a moment of self-reflection. Then Gandy is trotted in with her Steno pad and concerned expression to facilitate some convenient emoting.

My problem with this movie is it wants to exploit the shadowy whisperings about Hoover's personal life to paint a skewed portrait of his public one. Rumors, guilt by association and fleeting, surreptitious observations are an unreliable way to truly know a man. It's notable that these are the same sort of under-handed tactics Hoover himself used to gain and leverage power to wield according to his own interpretation of morality.

2 stars out of four

Video review: "The Social Network"

Who would've thought a few short months ago that a verbose drama about computer nerds would end up as the front-runner for the Best Picture Oscar?

But it's true: "The Social Network," which contains zero sex or violence, and consists mostly of legal depositions and flashbacks of college kids hunched over computers, was the best movie of 2010.

It's the story of the founding of Facebook, an experiment to link college students on the Web, and became a phenomenon -- and a company worth billions. It might not surprise you that Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder who was recently named Time Magazine's Person of the Year, was not universally liked by those who knew him.
Especially those who ended up suing him.

The movie, which is a self-conscious evocation of "Citizen Kane," may not bear much resemblance to the actual Zuckerberg, in the same way that Orson Welles' opus was a fictionalized account of another media mogul, William Randolph Hearst.

But in a performance of contrasting attraction and repulsion, Jesse Eisenberg paints a portrait of a young man who would change the world by bringing friends together, even as he pushed his own away.

Extras, which are identical for the Blu-ray and two-disc DVD editions, are rife with goodies.

There are two separate feature-length commentary tracks: One by director David Fincher, and another with screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and cast members Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer and Josh Pence.

There is also a feature-length documentary, "How Did They Ever Make a Movie of Facebook?". Plus several featurettes on various aspects of production, including editing, musical score and soundtrack, visual effects and more.

I'm double-clicking "Like" on this one.

Movie: 4 stars out of four
Extras: 3.5 stars

Review: "The Social Network"

I cannot tell you if "The Social Network" is an accurate account of the founding of Facebook, the Internet colossus the lets people project their identity -- even create one -- on the Web.

The book it was based on by Ben Mezrich has been accused of being a highly fictionalized, one-sided affair that paints a portrait of Facebook founder/CEO Mark Zuckerberg as a brilliant but destructive genius who estranged anyone close to him.

The irony being, of course, that the wunderkind who helped connect 500 million friends doesn't have any of his own. The few people he hadn't turned off with his abrasive, domineering personality he drove away through his obsessive need to build the millennium's Next Cool Thing.

What I can say about this film directed by David Fincher from a script by Aaron Sorkin is that it's an altogether mesmerizing tale, filled with unexpected dark humor, that plucks a lot of resonant strings about the Digital Age. On the surface it's a legal drama, but the story underneath the story is how techno-savvy nerds are using computer code to rewrite the power structures that have endured for generations.

It's an extravaganza of greed, ambition, stupendous egos and cutthroat business deals. It is certainly one of the best movies of the year.

In a bravura performance brimming with nervous energy, Jesse Eisenberg plays Zuckerberg, a computer science sophomore at Harvard who is dumped by his girlfriend in the film's opening minutes. Angry and half-drunk, Mark rushes back to his dorm and performs the Internet equivalent of a drive-by shooting, creating a nasty site called Facesmash where male students can rate the attractiveness of their female peers side-by-side.

The stunt crashes the school's servers and earns Mark academic probation from Harvard, but also demonstrates the power of social connections transported online.

When a pair of blueblood twin upperclassmen, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, pitch him the idea of creating an exclusive social networking site for Harvard, Mark immediately walks it across the street to his best friend, Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), who has an affinity for business and the cash to get them started.

The site goes live and is an immediate sensation, spreading to dozens of schools. The Winklevosses -- or Winklevi, as Mark dismissively dubs them -- try to use their old-money connections to shut Facebook down. When that fails, they sue.

The narrative unfolds as a series of flashbacks framed by depositions for the Winklevoss lawsuit ... and also, Eduardo's. As we learn early on, a massive split grew between the two co-founders, leading to Eduardo suing Mark for pushing him out of the company right as it was headed to the stratosphere.

The performances are universally terrific. Armie Hammer is a hoot playing both Winklevosses -- through the magic of CGI -- portraying basically decent young men trapped by the arrogance of the bubble of entitlement in which they've lived their whole lives.

And Justin Timberlake has a sly, scene-stealing turn as Sean Parker, the rogue entrepreneur behind music-sharing site Napster. Parker gloms onto Mark like a metrosexual Rasputin, coaxing him into moving the fledgling operation out to Silicon Valley and whispering sweet nothings in his ear about becoming billionaires.

Eduardo wants to play it conservative, building Facebook through conventional advertising, but Sean senses that Mark is more of a social outcast at heart, longing to flip his middle finger at the establishment -- encouraging stunts like showing up to an investor's meeting in a bathrobe, or printing business cards that say, "I'm CEO, Bitch."

The final, compelling shot of "The Social Network" shows Mark Zuckerberg sitting at his laptop on Facebook, hitting the refresh key in search of his Rosebud. It's an exquisite moment that reveals the character's interior better than any words could. What matters if it's true?

4 stars out of four