Review: "A Dog's Way Home"

Two years ago W. Bruce Cameron's novel "A Dog's Purpose" became a smash hit, barraging us with waves of pooch-ie cuteness and pathos. No surprise that he wrote another book and they've made another movie out of it, "A Dog's Way Home."

Instead of a metaphysical musing about a dog's living through multiple lifetimes as it figures out its role in the cosmos, here the protagonist, Bella (emotively voice by Bryce Dallas Howard), knows from the get-go what her purpose is: to be there for her human, Lucas. He's played by Jonah Hauer-King, who's tall and non-threatening and has impossible dimples.

They get separated by circumstance and Bella has to undertake an epic journey across two states to find her way home. These include encounters with humans good and bad, face-offs with wolves and an unlikely partnership with a CGI mountain lion. It's a little bit scary, a little bit sad, a little bit sappy and a whole lot adorable.

I felt about this movie the same as I did its predecessor: it's a great big cream-puff of a movie, unambitious but undeniably sweet. It's the rare family picture that will please audiences from 3 to 93.

You know Bella's going to reunite with Lucas in the end, but it's still a tender moment. My 5-year-old bawled tears of joy. (Dad may have had something in his eye, too...)

Bellas begins life living in a condemned wreck of a house along with dozens of cats. When her mother is impounded by the meanie animal control officer, she's raised by a "mother cat" and later joins up with Lucas, who lives across the street and works in a VA clinic that treats troubled vets. One of them is his mother (Ashley Judd), whose depression is helped by a scrabby pup.

Because she's a pit bull mix -- although the actress dog looks more like a lab/shepherd blend to these eyes -- the Denver city ordinance prevents her from being off her home property. Transferred to a temporary stay in New Mexico with some friends while Lucas sorts things out, she jumps the fence and her travails begin.

I won't belabor all her journey, though a few incidents stand out. This includes coming across a baby cougar whose mother is killed by hunters, which allows Bella to become a cat mother herself to the critter she dubs "big kitten." For awhile she becomes the (rather coerced) companion of Axel (Edward James Olmos), a homeless veteran who's desperate for a friend.

After an avalanche fells the owner of a border collie named Dutch, Bella finds herself paired up in an ad-hoc foster family with a nice gay couple. Bella likes it there, appreciates the companionship and security. But always she feels the pull of "an invisible leash" urging her to return to Lucas.

The movie is directed by Charles Martin Smith, who knows from dog tales having starred in the lovely "The Company of Wolves" back in the day. The screenplay is by Cameron and Cathryn Michon, who also co-wrote "Purpose" and previously collaborated on a non-dog movie, "Muffin Top: A Love Story."

It's brightly-shot, with pitch-perfect animal expressions and a few decent human ones, too. What can I say? Only a certified dog-hater could dislike this flick.

Video review: "Hostiles"

“Hostiles” was probably the best movie of 2017 that you never heard of, despite featuring some big names. It barely got a theatrical release, earning $29 million -- short of its $39 million production budget. But it’s a spare, bleak gem.

It’s a throwback-style Western that very much has Things to Say about this day and age.

Christian Bale plays Joseph Blocker, a famous Indian hunter who’s about to retire when he’s given the proverbial one last job. And it’s a doozy: escort his longtime enemy, a Comanche war chief named Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi), back to his ancestral home in Montana so he can die in piece.

Blocker is racist, alcoholic and prone to violence. Yellow Hawk is proud and reserved. His son, Black Hawk (Adam Beach), tries to broach a peace between them, but old enmities die hard.

Along the winding journey they pick up other forlorn figures. Rosamund Pike plays a frontier woman who’s just had her entire family wiped out by native warriors. Yellow Hawk and his family take her in like an adopted daughter. Seeing this, Blocker recognizes human warmth in his old enemy, possibly for the first time in his life.

The inimitable character actor Ben Foster plays a disgraced former soldier, a former comrade of Blocker’s, who’s been sentenced to die. In him, Blocker sees a reflection of himself that isn’t easy to look at.

Writer/director Scott Cooper also made the wonderful “Crazy Heart” a few years ago. He’s a filmmaker who refuses to cram his characters into neat stereotypical holes, letting each person travel their own journey in a way that feels organic.

In a time when so many movies put service to the plot above building believable characters, “Hostiles” is the sturdy exception that sees the horizon beyond.

Bonus features are limited to a single item, a comprehensive making-of documentary, “A Journey to the Soul: The Making of Hostiles.” It includes three parts: “Provenance,” “Removing the Binds” and “Don’t Look Back.”

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Review: "Hostiles"

There is dour. Then there is grim. Then there is bleak. Then there is despair. Then there is "Hostiles."

Last year's film slate (of which this is technically part) was noted for its raft of downbeat, depressing movies. Even against that yardstick, though, "Hostiles" still must be assessed as one of the most intensely melancholic. If it's possible to have an uplifting cinematic experience while mired in tragedy, then here it is.

Christian Bale plays Captain Joseph Blocker, a weary cavalry soldier and legendary Indian hunter who is about to retire. He's virulently racist, alcoholic, burnt out. Absent circumstances presented in the course of the story, he'd probably drink himself into a lonely, hateful death within a year or two.

But his commander orders him to perform one last service: escorting Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi), a Comanche war chief who is now dying of cancer, and has received permission to take his family to their ancestral home in Montana to be at final piece. The kicker: Blocker and Yellow Hawk were bitter enemies during the Indian wars, and each can count many friends and loved ones who perished at the other's hand.

Their journey begins in silence and defiance. Others are picked up along the way. Ben Foster plays Charles Wills, a disgraced soldier who has been sentenced to be hanged for his crimes. Blocker knows him, too, from the old days.

More affecting is the presence of Rosalie Quaid (Rosamund Pike), a frontier woman whose husband and children were just slaughtered in front of her eyes. When the group first encounters her, Rosalie is squatting in the burned-out wreckage of her home, the cold corpse of her baby clutched to her chest. Slowly-- very slowly -- she comes out of her shell of despair, and starts to make meaningful new connections.

Adam Beach shines as Black Hawk, son of Yellow Hawk, who is always his father's son but also reaches out to the bitter white man who hates his kind. The rest of the background players fill their places with conviction and purity, among them Jesse Plemons and Timothee Chalamet.

Writer/director Scott Cooper ("Crazy Heart") has given us a beautiful, spare vision of the American West on the cusp of the 20th century. Though it is a story of specific people, they are dealing with many of the issues we still face today: tribal conflict, racial enmity, gendered roles, etc.

In many ways, "Hostiles" is a portrait of all the capacities America holds, both for greatness and for wretchedness. This story, of two men who have every reason to hate each other, finally grants us a tiny nugget of hope.

Review: "Planes: Fire & Rescue"

I was not a fan of "Planes" from last year, calling it a cheap-looking spinoff from the "Cars" universe.

Produced in part by an animation studio in India, it was released not under the Pixar label, but Walt Disney Pictures, as if to telegraph to the world that this film would not have the inspiration and polish we've come to associate with movies like "Finding Nemo" and "Toy Story."

The hurry-up sequel, "Planes: Fire & Rescue" is still not up to the standards of the Pixar/Disney legacy. But it is notably better than the original, which essentially recycled the story of plucky young racer Lightning McQueen and translated it into the skies.

The new film goes in a totally different direction story-wise, and exists more in action/thriller territory. I wouldn't go so far as to use the term original. But at least director Roberts Gannaway, a veteran of Disney's straight-to-video arm, and his cast and crew have come up with something sufficiently different to justify its existence.

At a brisk 83 minutes, I found it engaging enough for grown-ups, and my 3-year-old was quite delighted. 

The 3-D upgrade is rather unnecessary, as the animation isn't really detailed and textured enough to gain much benefit from additional layers. Depending on your perspective, this movie resembles really ambitious television programming or downscale filmmaking.

Dane Cook is back supplying the voice of Dusty Crophopper, a humble crop duster who somehow managed to win a race around the world against professional planes. He's now a bona fide celebrity, enjoying his quiet life in Propwash Junction in between more racing. (Sound familiar?)

But trouble turns up when his gearbox starts to come apart, and a replacement part can't be found. Unable to crank his engine into the red, it appears his racing days are over. When aviation authorities threaten to close down his home airport due to a lack of sufficient firefighting vehicles, Dusty decides to become certified as a SEAT -- single engine airborne tanker.

So he's off to a new locale, Piston Peak National Park, to take lessons in fighting forest fires from the great Blade Ranger, a fire and rescue helicopter with a taciturn demeanor (ably voiced by Ed Harris). 

There's a new crowd of supporting characters to meet, too:

• Dipper (Julie Bowen), a veteran firefighting plane who takes a serious (almost creepy) shine to Dusty;
• Windlifter, a heavy-lift chopper with an American Indian background (Wes Studi);
• Cabbie (Dale Dye), an ex-military transport plane who drops the Smokejumpers, a gaggle of utility ground vehicles, into the middle of a fire;
• Maru (Curtis Armstrong), a mechanic tug who insists he can fix anything "better than new";
• Cad Spinner (John Michael Higgins), the unctuous Cadillac park superintendent who's more interested in building and promoting his Xanadu-like country club than giving the firefighters the resources they need.

Outfitted with water landing pontoons instead of wheels, Dusty is put through his paces by the demanding Blade Ranger, who has a secret past of his own fame. (Another total ripoff from "Cars," this time of the Doc Hudson backstory. Hey, I said it was better than the last movie, not a total departure.)

The action scenes are fairly compelling, with some good smoke/fire effects and sympathetic vehicles in peril (including Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara as pair of romantic oldster RVs). And they don't go too heavy on the "life lessons" stuff, other than depicting the nobility of the firefighting profession.

There are a good number of clever jokes and throwaway lines, many of which will go over the heads of tiny kiddies but give their parents a smile. A truck in a bar complains, "She left me for a hybrid. I didn't even hear him coming!" Or the quip made by the firefighters about the fancy-pants Cad, "He waxes himself... daily."

Is "Planes: Fire & Rescue" high-quality filmmaking? Hardly. This is till rather rote entertainment better suited for streaming video and DVDs than a $10 movie ticket. But in a summer light on acceptable fare for small children, this will pass the time amiably. It cruises well at low altitudes.