Review: "Rocketman"

There’s a lot to like about “Rocketman,” a movie that very much wants you to like it about a man who spent a lifetime making likable music. It’s the life story of pop singer Elton John, which he produced himself after trying for two decades to get it made.

That’s a very Oprah thing to do, and watching the movie reminds me of that “O” magazine where she puts herself on the cover of every issue. It’s an enjoyable flick, as long as you understand it’s a great big ol’ narcissism pie.

Of course this film will be compared to “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which was a better movie about a better singer from last year. Taron Egerton plays Elton and sings the songs himself, despite not much looking or sounding like him. For example, he repeatedly refers to himself as fat, then he takes his shirt off and it looks like the usual sculpted Hollywood bod.

It’s a solid turn, though I didn’t emotionally connect to this character like I did “Rhapsody.”

The film, directed by Dexter Fletcher (who worked with Egerton on “Eddie the Eagle”) from a script by Lee Hall of “Billy Elliott” fame, is pitched more like a Broadway musical than a conventional biopic. People will suddenly walk out of their scene into a musical number, using Elton’s sprawling catalogue of pop hits to carry the story.

Of course, Elton didn’t write his songs to be part of a coherent narrative, so some of the lyrics are changed around or very different arrangements provided. It mostly works, but sometimes it doesn’t.

We start with Elton entering an addiction group therapy having walked out of a performance wearing one of his signature extravagant stage outfits, something that looks half an angel and half a devil. He lays out his confession that he’s an alcoholic, drug and sex addict, bulimic and shopaholic. Then we flash back to his life story, starting at childhood but mostly taken up with his 20s and 30s.

At first he’s arrogant and in denial, but as the film goes on pieces of his costume fall off, and he gets more real.

Born Reginald Dwight, his childhood was unhappy, ping-ponging between parents (Bryce Dallas Howard and Steven Mackintosh) who openly loathed each other and often took out their frustrations on the shy, bespectacled kid who showed a talent for piano. His grandmother (Gemma Jones) is the only one who openly encourages him.

He grows into an awkward teen who learns the music biz backing up American soul acts touring the U.K. in the late 1960s. “You’ve got to kill the person you were born to be in order to become the person you want to be,” one of them advises.

The arc of his life changes when John is introduced to Bernie Taupin (Jamie Bell), and they go on to form a half-century songwriting partnership. Elton had a genius for melodies but was bad with words, which Bernie supplied ably. It’s a tender, brotherly relationship with a brief hint of romance in the beginning.

If “Bohemian Rhapsody” was criticized for glossing over its main character’s homosexuality, “Rocketman” puts it front and center. It’s the central theme of Elton’s struggle in life, trying to be what others want instead of being true to himself. This plays out in a haze of drug-fueled montages as he performs for massive concert crowds in between waking up in strange places.

Fletcher sends his camera flying around his subject, with each turn of the piano resulting in a new costume change to denote the passage of time. It makes for a breezy aesthetic, but also tends to brush over pivotal events like his brief, disastrous 1980s marriage to a woman he had just met.

The other major relationship is John Reid (Richard Madden), who became Elton’s boyfriend and manager. It’s an extraordinarily vicious portrayal, depicting Reid as a soulless manipulator who was willing to sacrifice his client/lover’s health and well-being to further his own ends. Their initial hook-up is probably one of the most scorching gay sex scenes we’ve seen in a mainstream movie.

I liked “Rocketman” but walked out of it feeling like I didn’t know Elton John any better than I did going in. Ever the showman, he shows us his self-destructive side, but only the parts he knows will dazzle.

Review: "Ma"

Screenwriting legend William Goldman said there are only three kinds of movies: those that are meant to be good and are, those that are meant to be good and aren’t, and those that were never meant to be any good.

I’d like to humbly suggest a fourth category: obviously trashy movies that are aware of their own trashiness and have fun with it while still not really being all that good.

“Ma” reminds me of lots of bits and pieces of other movies. “Misery,” with a seemingly normal, unappreciated middle-aged woman who’s secretly bonkers and played by an Oscar-caliber actress -- in this case, Octavia Spencer.

“Carrie,” about a teen girl traumatized by her sexual humiliation at the hands of her classmates, which is due for a hard comeuppance. The usual motley assembly of comely teens from every horror movie ever who just want to party.

Spencer is obviously having a lot of fun with this role, playing the kray-kray baddie in a low-budget scare flick. She fake-smiles her way through interactions, passing as normal while staring daggers when backs are turned. She’s not the most physically imposing cinematic killer, but she is good at lulling people in for a good stab in the back.

She plays Sue Ann, a timid teen who grew into a resentful woman. She has a miserable job as an assistant for the world’s nastiest veterinarian (Allison Janney). When a group of teens beg her to buy booze for them, she tuts and frets about nobody drinking and driving, and then relents.

A few winks later and Sue Ann is now hosting a never-ending party in the basement of her house out in the sticks, passing out shots and dancing the night away in an attempt to recapture some of her stolen youth. Insisting the young’uns call her “Ma,” she pokes through their social media and worms her way into their lives.

Diana Silvers plays Maggie, the new kid who has just moved to town from San Diego and immediately falls in with the cool gang. In this rural enclave, that means getting buzzed and hanging out at “the rock piles,” a pasture full of rubble that has been a party spot for decades.

Juliette Lewis plays her mom, Erica, who’s been through some rough days and is working as a cashier at the local casino in hopes of graduating up to dealer. She loves Maggie and gives her too much rope to hang herself with, making noises about “making good choices” but always too busy to check up.

McKaley Miller is Haley, the brazen girl who likes to impress everyone with her brazenness; Corey Fogelmanis is Andy, a sweet-faced boy who makes moony eyes at Maggie; Dante Brown is the funny, smart black kid; Gianni Paolo is Chaz, the headstrong jock.

Luke Evans turns up as Ben, Andy’s dad, though they never have a scene together so we’re just taking the filmmakers’ word for it. Missi Pyle plays his nasty, drinky girlfriend, who knew Erica back in the day.

Actually, it turns out all the adult character knew each other in high school, leading to gauzy flashback scenes with child actors who don’t resemble the grownups in the slightest. Suffice it to say, Sue Ann craved to be part of the in crowd, who just played her off for jokes.

Director Tate Taylor has made some good flicks, including “The Help” and “Get on Up;” screenwriter Scotty Landes is a TV guy doing his first feature film script. Tonally “Ma” is all over the map, spooky edging into scary and passing through comedy along the way. This creates a lot of awkward transition periods where we’re not sure if we’re supposed to be cowering or cackling.

Some stuff just plain doesn’t work, like a shy girl in a wheelchair (Tanyell Waivers) who is tied into the game very late in the going. Without giving too much away, I’ll just say that she and Sue Ann’s relationship deserved a whole movie of its own, or to be cut out of this one.

I can’t really recommend “Ma,” though I did on some level enjoy it. It would be incorrect to say this movie isn’t trying very hard; rather it’s laboring mightily at unworthy things.

Review: "Aladdin"

The part we feared most, Will Smith as the genie, actually turns out to be not so bad.

This is Will Smith, after all, an entertainer not without his charms. His genie is goofy and funny and appropriately self-important. The blue CGI body is still a little off. And although he doesn’t make us forget Robin Williams’ manic-yet-slyly-tender voice work in the original animated “Aladdin,” Smith turns out to be an able, updated substitute.

The rest of the cast…

Mena Massoud and Naomi Scott are fine as Aladdin and Princess Jasmine, all a-twinkle and a-dimple as the comely young Arabian couple. (He’s Egyptian and she’s British/Indian, which isn’t too egregiously off by Hollywood standards.) I liked the cartoon version of the sultan as an affable dolt; Navid Negahban seems more haunted than sympathetic.

The big letdown is Jafar, a far fall for one of Disney’s most scrumptious villains.

He had that scarecrow frame and twisty little beard, hooded eyes and a marvelous baritone growl (supplied by Jonathan Freeman). Marwan Kenzari just looks like some guy they plucked out of the street bazaar and put into a vizier’s outfit. Worst of all, his Jafar has a high, almost whiny voice. Not surprisingly, he’s the one character who doesn’t get to do his song from the animated version.

When it comes to screen villains, tenors go home.

You know the story: gold-hearted street rat thief Aladdin (Massoud) falls hard for Jasmine, the princess of Agrabah, who is being courted by a string of foreign princes. After picking up a magical lamp, he summons the big blue genie (Smith) to sorcery him into ersatz royalty, makes a big entrance, and then things go south because of all the lying -- plus those nasty Jafar schemes.

Of all the cartoon movies Disney has turned into a live-action remake, “Aladdin” falls smack in the middle. It’s a bright, fast-paced spectacle that isn’t just a shot-for-shot remake of the original. Director Guy Ritchie, known for turning stodgy Sherlock Holmes into a knife-fighting action star, co-wrote the screenplay with John August.

Some of it works really well. The magic carpet ride to the song “A Whole New World” is still a dazzler, as Aladdin and Jasmine cruise the world and discover love. The entrance of the fictional “Prince Ali” has all the jazz and verve of the original. I appreciated the updating of Jasmine’s character into a strong-willed young woman who doesn’t just resent having the sultan pick her husband, but actually vies to take the sultan’s place.

Other stuff lands with a clunk. Abu the monkey is a little too CGI for his own good. I disliked having Jafar’s henchman, the parrot Iago, relegated to mere dumb beast. The snappy repertoire between the haughty Jafar and his Bronx-cheering, Gilbert Gottfried-voiced pet was the animated film’s main comic engine.

A couple of new songs just plain don’t play. In the oddest one, “Speechless,” Jasmine starts belting while the guards are leading her away, and all her enemies start dissolving into dust a la “Avengers: Infinity War,” and I wondered if she’d suddenly acquired magical powers.

Similarly, a romance contrived for genie and Jasmine’s handmaiden (Nasim Pedrad), falls rather flat. He’s a world-bending cosmic powerhouse -- why he gotta have a dame?

I can’t say as I really wanted a live-action “Aladdin,” but now that it’s here I object to its existence less than I thought I would. My kids enjoyed the heck out of it, and even the stretches that had me sighing with impatience weren’t so interminably long they had me wishing I was somewhere else.

Reeling Backward: "Night Train to Munich" (1940)

You have to think about the situation in England when "Night Train to Munich" came out in August 1940. Hitler ruled Europe uncontestedly. The Brits had just rescued their remaining forces from France at Dunkirk. The Blitz was about to commence, a year of nightly terror for London dwellers.

The U.K. had been the world's mightiest global empire, now humiliated and (most thought) about to be conquered.

And here is this cheeky romantic comedy caper -- a lark, a piffle, starring Rex Harrison as a supremely self-pleased spy posing as a Nazi to smuggle a brilliant scientist and his daughter out of Germany. Heck, when we first meet Harrison he's singing penny-ante tunes while hocking records at a wharfside shop.

(Although, given Harrison's legendary talk-singing turn in "My Fair Lady," one tends to doubt the mellifluous warbling is his own.)

One can fault the British for their stiff-upper-lip routine, tired classism and tamping down of emotions. But this film, innocuous as it is, represents a massive middle finger waving across the channel at the bloodthirsty huns.

It starts with the German invading Czechoslovakia. Axel Bomasch (James Harcourt) is a scientist working on a formula for armor plating superior to what Germany has. He manages to escape on the last plane out, but his daughter, Anna (Margaret Lockwood), is captured and sent to a concentration camp.

There she meets Karl Marsen, an impudent young man who is nastily beaten by the prison guards for a speech against Nazi brutality. They hang out at the barbed wire line separating the men's and women's section, and a little POW romance starts to bloom. Karl is able to bust them out and get her to England, where she is reunited with papa.

Alas, it has all been a ruse. Karl is secretly an agent of the Gestapo, using Anna to find her father. He snatches them and smuggles them onto a German U-boat.

Paul Henreid plays Karl, and it's a bit disconcerting at first to see him as a Nazi, considering his iconic role is as resistance leader Victor Laszlo in "Casablanca" just three years later. He even sounds different, eschewing Laszlo's deep, sonorous tones for a higher pitch.

Harrison plays Gus Bunnett aka Dickie Randall, the British agent charged with guarding the Bomasches who got one-upped by Karl. He asks to be given a chance to return the favor, as they know the scientist and his daughter will be transported on the titular train.

Dickie is puckish and too clever by half, a confidence man with a charter from the British government. He dresses as a German Corps of Engineer Major, Ulrich Herzog. Using only a forged letter of introduction and his own wits, he bluffs his way past successive layers of the Nazi bureaucracy.

It's funny how, having convinced one German functionary, he actually recruits them to brag on his behalf to the next layer of the hierarchy.

Claiming he had an affair with Anna four years earlier, he worms his way aboard the train with the mission of convincing the scientist to cooperate by the time the arrive. So Herzog/Dickie woos Anna -- partly for show, party for real -- pretends to recruit her father and plays a cat-and-mouse game with Karl, who both harbors suspicions about Herzog and resents him for horning in on Anna.

Despite betraying Anna, Karl still seems to harbor hopes of continuing their prison camp liaison.

Butting into the mix is the curious pair of Charters and Caldicott. This is a comedic relief duo first introduced by Alfred Hitchcock in "The Lady Vanishes." Played by Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, they're British chaps who travel about the globe on some vague sort of business, talking obsessively about cricket and backing up into various goings-on.

They were such a hit with the crowd that various filmmakers started inserting Charters and Caldicott into their movies. They were a staple for about a decade, did some radio and were eventually reprised as a BBC show.

They're funny for a little while, including their introductory stretch where various German officers order them off the train, out of a waiting room, off of wagon, and so on. At first they express indignation, followed by obstinance, inevitably giving way to compliance when large men with guns are called in.

"Night Train to Munich" was directed by Carol Reed ("The Third Man") from a screenplay by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder -- the same scribes behind "A LadyVanishes" -- based on a short story by Gordon Wellesley.

It's obviously a low-budget affair, notable for the persistent use of miniatures for exterior shots. The entirety of Karl and Anna's escape from the POW camp is accomplished by tracking across the prison yard to show a barbed wire fence ripped open. It looks little more than a child's model.

Harrison and Lockwood make for an interesting pair. She's a smart and independent woman (by 1940 standards, anyway), and is continually vexed by Dickie's risk-taking and abundance of self-confidence. While he's passing himself off as Major Herzog -- why just a major? why not a colonel? -- he wears a monocle and an even more inflated sense of superiority than he normally does.

At one point he barges into her bedroom while she's abed in her nightie, explaining that he has told the Germans he will reignite her passions based on their previous affair. He calmly explains the situation and proposes they toss for who gets the couch. Pretty risque stuff for that era.

I don't think "Night Train to Munich" is a particularly great film. The story can't seem to decide who to follow. At first it's Anna, then it's Dickie, and for awhile -- too long, really -- Charters and Caldicott are the main show.

Still, I like the idea of this movie more than the one they made. Producing a flip, insolent send-up of the Nazis at a time they were facing the very real possibility of becoming subjugated by them is an act of enormous cheek. Can you imagine what would've happened to everyone involved in the film if the Axis had won?

Video review: "The Upside"

“The Upside” is a film of modest ambitions but obvious charms. It stars Kevin Hart doing his adorable false bravado thing, though with a role boasting more shadings than he’s been given before. And it shows off the under-utilized comedic skills of Bryan Cranston, best known for his dramatic roles. (This despite first coming to fame as a sitcom dad.)

Cranston plays Phillip Lacasse, a billionaire investor-turned-author whose life has been on a downward spiral the last few years, losing his wife to cancer and his mobility to a leisure sport accident. Worse yet, his will to live is at a low ebb, despite the bucking up of his faithful executive, Yvonne (Nicole Kidman), who runs his enterprise and watches out for him.

So when it’s time to hire a new “life auxiliary” -- aka personal assistant -- Yvonne knows right away that Dell Scott (Hart) is all wrong for the job. An ex-con who’s only halfheartedly looking for a job; he says and does all the wrong thing. But he impresses Phillip with his attitude, and lands the gig.

You can probably guess where things go: initial disaster followed by bare competence, which grows into a budding friendship that’s due for a major fracture right at the end of the second act. Director Neil Burger and screenwriter Jon Hartmere play things strictly by the numbers, with story beats and emotional catharsis timed down to the audience-tested minute.

And yet, it works. The trio of main actors share genuine warmth with each other, playing character who each have trouble connecting with the greater world in some way.

“The Upside” is a prototypical laughter-and-tears dramedy, a remake of a better French film. It won’t surprise you, but it will entertain.

Bonus features are middling-to-good. They include deleted scenes, a gag reel and five documentary shorts: “Onscreen Chemistry: Kevin and Bryan,” “Creating a Story of Possibility,” “Bridging Divisions,” “Embracing Divisions” and :Presenting a Different Side of Kevin Hart.”

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Review: "John Wick: Chapter 3 -- Parabellum"

John Wick runs like an old man with rheumatoid knees.

Hollywood can do amazing things with faces, but the knees always give you away. Star Keanu Reeves staggers and clomps in a herky-jerky cadence that bespeaks of a man in his 50s who’s more worried about preserving his tendons than achieving maximum speed.

Yes, yes, if you’ve followed the legendary assassin’s journey through the first two movies, you know that Wick’s been repeatedly pummeled, stabbed and shot as he’s pursued by a virtual army of other killers, so that certainly factors into how much he’s slowed down. A couple of other assassins even makes jokes about his lurching ways.

He’s still game for a third go-round in "John Wick: Chapter 3 -- Parabellum,” which is a continuation of the story that plays out over a few days' time, during which Wick has waded through an increasingly deep ocean of blood.

The last portion of the title is Latin for “prepare for war,” so you know things are just getting ratcheted up to another level of ultra-violence.

I liked the raw kinetic energy of the first two movies, which were known for putting veteran stunt coordinator Chad Stahelski in the director’s chair, a then-novel approach that has since been much imitated. (And surpassed, imho, by “Atomic Blonde.”) The fights were in our face, unmasked with no jumpy editing or obvious stunt doubles.

The franchise reaches middle age here, relying more on CGI and other cheats, and with some fights that go on way longer than they should. Same for the movie in general, which feels bloated at 10 minutes past the two-hour mark. These sorts of action-reliant spectacles are best at a tight 101, like the first one.

Still, it’s hard to deny the movie’s still a lot of fun, what with all the Glock blasts to the face, people getting thrown through windows, motorcycle sword fights and chop-socky rope-a-dope. There are just enough talkie scenes to act as a deep breath before we plunge in for more slice-and-dice.

It seems in the last film Wick, who was reluctantly drawn out of retirement after five years, had committed the ultimate transgression against the High Table, the fictional ruling part of a worldwide association of assassins. They have their own little pet rules, with sanctuary hotels in each major city, always called the Continental, where killers can trade in special gold coins for refuge and weapons.

Wick killed a member of the Table on Continental New York grounds, so now he’s hunted -- excommunicado -- with a $14 million price on his head with nowhere to turn for help. A mysterious “adjudicator” (Asia Kate Dillon) shows up and deems that others are at fault too, including Winston (Ian McShane), the gravely manager of the Big Apple hotel, and the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne), who runs the seedier side of town with an army of winos.

They helped John Wick before, and now must pay their own pound of flesh.

Halle Berry is a new face as Sofia, who manages the Continental in Casablanca and owes him an old favor. Ditto for Anjelica Huston, a Belarus matriarch who runs the ballet school where Wick grew up. That at least explains his grace with guns and knives, twirling in place like Nureyev as he takes one life after another.

Wick even gets his own assassin fanboy (Mark Dacascos), who runs a streetside sushi bar by day and commands a cadre of ninja assassins at night. He keeps telling Wick how honored he is to be fighting him, which is a hint of his long-term prospects.

Bedecked in a sleek black suit, long hair and scraggly beard, Reeves is more a force of vengeance than an actual person. But this is not the sort of movie you go to for dialogue and character development. It’s a gleeful orgy of bullets and bruises, film noir as bloodbath.

Drink deep, because it looks like we’re in for a whole lot more of these.

Video review: "The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part"

It took five years to make a sequel to “The LEGO Movie,” but that apparently wasn’t enough time to come with anything more original. This is basically a rehash of the smash animated flick based on the ubiquitous building toys, which most parents are convinced are secretly designed to cause maximum pain when stepped on.

Emmet (voice of Chris Pratt), the everyman hero from the first movie, finds himself shunted aside after his cheery savior shtick has worn thin. The world has become very apocalypse-y in the years since, with daily attacks by brightly-colored aliens.

As you may recall, the toys are living out their lives at the direction of real-world human kids, in this case a brother and sister whose animosity gets played out in the toy realm.

Transported to the aliens’ world, Pratt and his crew --Wildstyle (Elizabeth Banks), Unikitty (Alison Brie), MetalBeard (Nick Offerman) and Benny (Charlie Day) -- find themselves faced with a proposed alliance. Specifically, their leader, Queen Watevra Wa-Nabi (Tiffany Haddish) wants to put a ring on it with the earthlings’ brooding Batman (Will Arnett).

Face-paced to the point of incoherence, “The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part” is made strictly for the kids.

Bonus features are quite good. They include a commentary track by the filmmakers, a sing-along version that includes trivia and games, a music video for the song “Super Cool,” deleted scenes and outtakes, plus several making-of documentary shorts.

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