I never hope for a movie to be a box office failure, but let’s just say I take a certain perverse sense of satisfaction when poor efforts garner similar results. “A Wrinkle in Time,” based on the children’s novel by Madeleine L'Engle, wasn’t exactly a financial disaster, earning $129 million worldwide.
But it was a big, expensive movie, the first time an African-American female director (Ava DuVernay) was entrusted with a nine-figure budget. And “Wrinkle” did not do “Black Panther” numbers.
Dollars and sense aside, the movie is just a discombobulated mess. Unless you’ve read the book, you’ll spend much of your time trying to puzzle out who the characters are and where the sci-fi/fantasy story is going.
Storm Reid plays Meg Murray, a forlorn girl of about 12 who is pining for her long-lost dad, a scientist who disappeared several years ago. She finds herself spirited away on a journey through the cosmos, with three mystical beings called the Missuses guiding the way.
Chief among them is Miss Which, a queenly sort played by Oprah Winfrey. Like her sisters (Mindy Kaling and Reese Witherspoon), they look like bedazzled women who wear lavish wedding dresses for every occasion.
Tagging along with Meg are her chirpy 6-year-old brother, Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe), and Calvin (Levi Miller), a handsome lad her own age who’s very supportive and nonthreatening. The cast also includes Chris Pine as the dad; Gugu Mbatha-Raw as the mom; Zach Galifianakis as the Happy Medium, a kooky advice-giving sort; and Michael Peña as Red, a crimson fellow who offers some assistance.
It’s a beautiful, colorful film -- imagine Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory in space, with fantastical creatures and warp-holes. But eventually we become listless at the uninspired storytelling.
Video extras are pretty generous. They include an expansive making-of documentary; four deleted scenes with commentary; a feature-length audio commentary track with DuVernay and a half-dozen of her key crew members; blooper reel; and two music videos.
I never read the popular children's novel by Madeleine L'Engle (or even knew it existed, for that matter). But any movie should be able to stand on its own from its source material, especially one aimed at a YA audience of 9- to 13-year-olds. Instead, we get a big-budget movie that requires a written program and screen subtitles just to approach basic comprehensibility.
Directed by Ava DuVernay ("Selma") from a screenplay by Jennifer Lee and Jeff Stockwell, "A Wrinkle in Time" is the story of a brave, precocious girl who goes on spiritual and inter-dimensional trip across the universe in search of her long-lost father, a dreamer and voyager, who abandoned the family out of a sense of higher purpose.
(If that sounds like it has a more than passing resemblance to the plot of "Interstellar," that's because it does. One wonders if this movie could exist without that one, or that movie could exist without the book. But that's one for the philosophers and/or copyright lawyers to ponder.)
The film is getting most of its attention for the starring role of Oprah Winfrey as the chief of "the Missuses," odd interstellar beings easily identifiable by their pancake makeup, kooky elaborate costumes and bedazzled faces and hair. As Mrs. Which, Winfrey wears what appears to be a cross between a suit of armor and Cinderella's ballroom gown, jeweled eyebrows and an albino wig of sea foam swirls.
For most of her scenes, Mrs. Which materializes in an outlandishly outsized form, so she's literally towering above the other characters, delivering pronouncements from on high like a beneficent god-queen. I realize that's already how a large chunk of our population views Winfrey, so it will likely not seem out of place to them.
Though, in keeping with the broadcasting titan's self-love ethos, Mrs. Which admonishes one of her lessers that there is 'no such thing as the wrong size' -- which is something you can get away with saying if you are a billionaire who has literally been every size.
Her sisters/followers are Mrs. Who (Mindy Kaling), who always seems a little dazed and is constantly reciting famous quotes -- with attribution! -- and Mrs. Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon), who appears to be the novice of the trio, having been assigned to help out Meg Murray (Storm Reid), the story's protagonist.
The Missuses actually disappear about halfway through the movie, leaving the kids in charge. Meg has become moody and angry in the four years since her dad vanished, claiming it's possible to bend space and time with the help of a Tesseract. It's unclear if this is a physical object or a term for using one's mind, since the act of wrinkling the cosmos is also used as a verb "to tesser."
Conjugate that, kiddies!
Her adopted 6-year-old brother, Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe), is supposed to be some kind of pint-sized science genius, although with his chirpy voice shouting most of his dialogue at parakeet octaves, I'll have to take the filmmakers' word that what he had to say was smart. He comes along for the trip, for reasons that remain unclear.
Even murkier are the motivations of Calvin (Levi Miller), a dreamy boy who's nice and supportive to everyone. His job is basically to just stand around and tell Meg how great she is. In most movies, Calvin and Meg would end up as a cute teen couple, but despite some moony looks passing back and forth, there's barely even a supportive hug.
Calvin is not so much a character as a Beta Male fantasy of what 12-year-old girls think the perfect boy is supposed to be like, at least until they get to high school and dump him for the football jock or the parking-lot pothead.
Anyway, they visit various fantastical-looking worlds filled with flying flowers and other CGI curiosities, and at one point Whatsit transforms into a flat, furry flying creature that looks like a vegan version of the critter from "The Neverending Story."
There's also some kind of evil force spreading across the universe, known simply as the It, which I thought we had all clearly established was an underground clown that either kills children or makes them have group sex with each other.
Zach Galifianakis turns up as the Happy Medium, who's some kind of lonely guru; Chris Pine is Meg's dad, sporting Hollywood hair that looks short but droops down past the cheekbones when it gets mussed; Gugu Mbatha-Raw is the mom, consigned to just looking smashing and doing nothing; and Michael Peña plays a guy on a beach who seems helpful but really has his mind on one thing, which either makes him the villain or every single teenage boy ever, who wouldn't be caught dead buying a ticket for this movie.
"A Wrinkle in Time" is like a safe acid trip for youngsters, full of color and music and powerful females and guys who know enough to get out of the way of the ladies.
That was the three-word review provided by a pal who saw the movie before me, and it sums up “Sing” better than I could.
This is a breezy, glitzy animated jukebox show in which movie stars play singing critters getting together for a big talent competition. It will probably win with most children, especially those who like pop songs and want to hear Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson and the like belting them out through the mouths of pigs and porcupines.
Grownups may find it a bit tedious -- I came awfully close to catching a few Zzzs during our screening -- but it builds a good head of steam toward a showstopper finale.
Written and directed by Garth Jennings, who also provides the voices of one of the minor characters, “Sing” is set in an all-animal metropolis very much like the one in “Zootopia,” where humans are neither seen nor heard, and may not even exist in this world. (Christophe Lourdelet is co-director.)
Matthew McConaughey, who turns out to be a real vocal chameleon between this and his voice acting in “Kubo and the Two Strings,” plays Buster Moon. He’s a koala bear charlatan who runs a grand old theater that’s had one big failure after another.
McConaughey plays Moon light and schmaltzy, employing the upper register of his voice without a hint of that famous Texas drawl. Moon is an old-school “let’s put on a show” type with a heart of gold, but isn’t above stiffing contractors and a dab of flim-flam.
With the bank threatening repossession, he comes up with an idea for a huge singing contest using local unknowns. Scraping together his last bit of cash, he instructs his elderly iguana secretary to put out flyers advertising a $1,000 prize, but through some slapstick action it gets turned into $100,000. Soon every critter in town who thinks they can warble worth a darn is beating down his door.
McConaughey doesn’t get past humming, but there is a great deal of singing, both old standards and a few new tunes. Some of the actors we already knew could sing -- Johansson, Seth MacFarlane. But it’s a treat to hear Reese Witherspoon, as hectored porcine housewife Rosita, fry up some bacon and serve it with style.
Pop singer Tori Kelly plays Meena, an elephant who takes a job as stagehand because she’s too shy to show her talent. Johansson is Ash, a surly teen porcupine rocker who gets to step out of the shadow of her controlling boyfriend. MacFarlane voices Mike, a streetwise mouse who dresses, behaves and sings like he stepped right out of Sinatra’s Rat Pack.
The real sensation is Taron Egerton, the affable Brit you may remember from “Eddie the Eagle” and “Kingsman: The Secret Service.” He plays Johnny, a Cockney gorilla who comes from a clan of career criminals, and doesn’t want to follow in the family footsteps. Egerton’s got some truly golden pipes, soft and silky.
There’s really not a whole lot of narrative ambition to “Sing.” Each character has a mini arc to travel along, and we know where they’re going to land two minutes after we meet them. But the songs are nice to listen to, the creatures are crazy cute and your kids will be entertained for 108 minutes.
A screechy, overtly “broad” comedy -- in both senses of that word -- “Hot Pursuit” did a grave disservice to buddy cop movies. And films starring women. And female directors. And… well, pretty much everything involving law enforcement, women or cinema.
An unimaginative amalgamation of “Midnight Express” and “The Heat,” “Hot Pursuit” teams up Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara as a cop and fugitive on the lam. The bad guys are after them, the good guys are after them, some of the good guys might actually be bad guys -- you get the picture. They spar, they kvetch, they bond, they double-cross, they re-bond, etc.
They’re each playing caricatures close to their star personas: Cooper (Witherspoon) is a pint-sized officer with a Southern-fried accent and a penchant for falling into hyper, rambling snits. Daniella Riva (Vergara) is the wife of a Colombian drug lord who flaunts her bountiful natural assets, working that whole excitable Latina thing to the nth degree.
Somewhere, Charo is filing suit for identity theft.
Director Anne Fletcher (“The Proposal”) keeps things moving at a breakneck pace, so the jokes that thud -- there are many -- don’t lay there too long. Screenwriters David Feeney and John Quaintance are television veterans, and their slavish devotion to the setup/punchline rhythm is absolute.
Cheesy, unfunny, braying and, in its own way, deeply misogynistic, “Hot Pursuit” is the commanding front-runner for worst movie of the year award.
Extras are short and sour. The DVD comes with one featurette, “The Womance,” focusing on on-set mugging by Witherspoon and Vergara. On the Blu-ray combo pack, you also get “Say What?” -- devoted to the stars’ English/Spanish mangling – and “Action Like A Lady,” a look at creating the action scenes.
Reese Witherspoon is the star of "The Good Lie," but she's not the main character. In fact, she's rather off to the side and in the background, which is where she belongs.
That's not a knock on Witherspoon's appeal as a movie star, which is considerable. It's just that this is a film about Sudanese refugees, and I'm glad director Philippe Falardeau and screenwriter Margaret Nagle chose to keep their focus on the African characters. Too many movies of this ilk feel compelled to tell black stories through the unnecessary prism of a white protagonist.
The real main character is Mamere (Arnold Oceng), the leader of a ragtag group of refugees from the Sudanese civil war who end up being placed in Kansas City to start new lives. These young men, who literally grew up fighting lions and tigers, find themselves helpless against the modern challenges of bus routes, telephone answering machines and the like.
The other two main figures are Jeremiah (Ger Duany), who flirts with the idea of entering the priesthood, and Paul (Emmanuel Jal), who is a savant with machines but has trouble keeping his impulses under control. They also have a "sister," Abital (Kuoth Wiel), forced to live in a faraway city.
Witherspoon plays Carrie, a social worker put in charge of helping them out. Over time, she finds herself drawn ever more into their lives, becoming friends rather than just part of her job.
The most powerful section of the movie is the first half-hour, as we follow the characters as young children trekking hundreds of miles across the African continent to find sanctuary. I won't give away what happens, other than to say the events are life-changing and have a profound impact on their progress in America.
Though the proceedings occasionally wander into sappy territory, "The Good Lie" is a heartfelt story told well and true. The movie didn't sell a lot of tickets, but hopefully will find the audience it deserves on video.
Extra features are rather slight, and are confined to the Blu-ray edition. They include deleted scenes and a making-of featurette.
I was surprised to appreciate “Wild” a lot more than I thought I would. The tale of a young woman who sets off on a seemingly random 1,000-mile trek by foot to find herself, it looked like the sort of simplistic, life-affirming pap you often see in cinemas this time of year.
But buoyed by a terrific, grounded performance by Reese Witherspoon, “Wild” is anything but maudlin. It’s a tough, gritty look at a woman at their end of her rope, who sets out on an expedition in which the destination doesn’t matter, but testing herself in spirit and body is the true aim.
She happened to choose the Pacific Crest Trail, a grueling path through the Western mountains and deserts, as her personal crucible. But really, it could have been anything.
Her story is less about going somewhere, and more about finding your own path, and getting started along it.
The quality of the filmmakers behind the project should have clued me in. Director Jean-Marc Vallée was nominated for an Oscar last year for “Dallas Buyers Club,” and also helmed the high-toned “The Young Victoria.” Screenwriter Nick Hornby is known for cerebral material such as “An Education” and “About a Boy.”
The film is based on the best-selling book by Cheryl Strayed, who hiked the PCT through California, Oregon and Washington two decades ago while in her mid-20s. Her marriage had just come off the tracks and ended in divorce, due mostly to her philandering. (Thomas Sadoski has a tidy, small role as her long-suffering but sweet husband.)
On top of that, her beloved mother (a glowing Laura Dern) had died of cancer, and Cheryl was getting ever more heavily into hard drugs. Clearly things were headed in a foul direction.
Instead of hitting rock bottom, though, she came across the idea of traveling the PCT, despite being an itinerate hiker herself. We see exactly how inept she was in the early going, as she struggles to shoulder a pack that is literally bigger than her, and tears her feet to bloody shreds with too-small boots.
Cheryl meets a few people along the way, mostly men, and there’s an explicit threat of assault or rape with many of these encounters, as a young cute blonde girl all alone on the trail. But she proves quite able, and some scary meetings turn out to be friendlier than first blush. (W. Earl Brown turns up nicely as a gruff bushmaster.) Still, a couple of hunters appear to enjoy frightening her just for the sheer thrill of it.
In the film’s most bizarre (but true!) sequence, she is nearly run over by an enthusiastic African-American reporter for the Hobo Times who says his name is Jimmy Carter. Despite Cheryl’s protestations that she’s not homeless, just in between homes, she ends up becoming an unwilling subject for the publication.
Along the way, our protagonist is revealed to be a thoughtful, literate woman – she writes down quotes from famous writers in the trail station journals – who’s simply made a lot of bad choices in her life. Rather than wallowing in self-pity, she hits the road like a latter-day Jack Kerouac, though on her own two feet rather than behind the wheel.
Instead of just flaunting her freedom, though, Cheryl Strayed was seeking inspiration and forgiveness. “Wild” is the soulful tale of how she learned these were not things out there to be discovered, but gifts only she could give to herself.
I admit I was cringing when I went in to see “The Good Lie,” the based-on-truth story of the Lost Boys of Sudan – refugees of war, thousands of whom eventually made their way to the U.S. and built something positive out of the ashes of their orphanhood.
I was leery not because of its touchy subject matter, but because Hollywood movies about people of color so often employ a white protagonist to make the troubles of the subjects seem “relatable,” or whatever ridiculous reason they provide. Even good, sincere efforts like “The Help” have relied upon this insidious crutch, and when I saw cutie Reese Witherspoon in the cast credits, I thought “Here we go…”
I’m happy to report that Witherspoon, while a key part of the story, is a supporting character and the focus remains squarely on the African actors, most of whom are actually Sudanese. She doesn’t even show up until a half-hour into the movie, acts as the boys’ guide in finding jobs and settling into America, then cedes into the background where she belongs.
Director Philippe Falardeau’s last movie, the wonderful “Monsieur Lazhar,” was nominated for the Oscar for best foreign film, and TV veteran Margaret Nagle supplies the screenplay. The final result is heartfelt, occasionally dipping a toe into maudlin, but also surprisingly funny and wise.
The first part is the best and most harrowing, as we watch a group of Sudanese children escape the destruction of their village and the death of all of their parents. (Only a few are actually siblings, but they refer to each other as “brothers” and “sisters.”) They must trek 1,000 miles on foot to Kenya, more of their number dying along the way, just so they can become ensconced in a massive refugee camp.
At first we think this will be the story of Theo (a terrific Okwar Jale), the eldest child who, by rite of all the adults of the tribe being killed, is made Chief and leader. He is patient and kind, pushing the little ones to great lengths on their perilous journey but also serving as their unwavering protector. There’s an incredible moment where Theo holds a piece of glass, the group’s only real tool, under the noses of his sleeping charges to see if they still draw breath.
But circumstances change and impetuous Mamere (Peterdeng Mongok) becomes chief. They eventually make it to Kenya and, after growing to adulthood, are selected for a church program that sends lost boys (and girls) to America. Though they are separated from their beloved sister Abital (Kuoth Wiel), the three resolve to start new lives in Kansas City.
The middle part of the movie is largely a fish-out-of-water story, as young men who literally grew up fighting off lions must take on the First World challenges of telephones, buses and crabby bosses. Mamere (now played by Arnold Oceng), dreams of becoming a doctor and feels guilt over his actions regarding Theo.
The other two are Jeremiah (Ger Duany), tall and soulful, and Paul (Emmanuel Jal), a mechanical whiz who is prone to impetuousness and despair. Mamere, still acting as chief, tries to keep his little tribe from splintering further.
Witherspoon plays Carrie, a young-ish woman with a messy life and messier house, who helps the lost boys get jobs but keeps finding herself circling back to offer a hand and, eventually, friendship.
There’s a point late in “The Good Lie” where someone must fly back to Kenya and navigate the nightmarish diplomatic bureaucracy in order to right a great wrong. In a lesser movie it would be the perky blonde heroine who has taken up the cause of the helpless Africans. Here, the Sudanese make their own choices.
James L. Brooks doesn't make a lot of films, directing only six over the past three decades. But the writer/director's efforts are usually good ("As Good As It Gets") and sometimes great ("Broadcast News").
His latest, "How Do You Know," is a discombobulated casserole of attractive performers giving wry, clever performances. It's a classic love triangle, with a federal indictment and paternal conflict thrown in.
Since the cast is so likable, and Brooks is famous for his touch with actors, I'm left to conclude that the film's fatal flaws lie with the script. It feels less like a coherent narrative than a series of vignettes in which the characters say improbably witty things and act in ways that aren't tethered to rational behavior. We sense them performing for the camera.
Reese Witherspoon is an actress who an audience instinctively wants to hug. No matter the role she brings a plucky, sweet indomitability to her character. Something to do those big, guileless blue eyes paired with that stubborn chin of hers. "Spunk" is a word that was created with Witherspoon in mind.
She plays Lisa Jorgensen, a veteran of the U.S. women's softball team. But at age 31 she's lost a step, and soon finds herself without a job. Strapped of options, she agrees to move in with her new boyfriend, Matty, a professional baseball pitcher.
Owen Wilson plays Matty as a little boy who never grew up, though he's been infused with a good deal of juvenile libido and New Age-y malapropisms. Matty's not a bad guy, and he wants to treat Lisa right, but he's too used to having everything handed to him to be truly capable of thinking of another.
Lisa is horrified when, after spending her first night at Matty's swank Manhattan apartment, he offers a pink sweat suit to wear from a pile of them he keeps for just such occasions, in a variety of sizes. That's typical for Matty, who puts an agreeable spin on piggish behavior.
The X factor in her life is George, a corporate exec who is the target of a government investigation into wire fraud. A straight arrow, George has no idea what it's about, but the company gives him the boot and treats him as a persona non grata -- even though his father (Jack Nicholson) is the founder.
George and Lisa hook up on a blind date, just a night for each of them to get away from their troubles for awhile, and find a spark there. Even though he's morose and self-deprecating over his situation, George still impresses her as the sort of decent guy Matty only think he is.
George is played by Paul Rudd, a supporting actor who's finally getting his big shot in leading roles. Rudd smiles and kvetches, and somehow we like him for all his obvious weaknesses. (By the way, Witherspoon and Rudd were actually a cinematic couple before back in 1998's forgettable "Overnight Delivery.")
I liked all of the cast, even though I didn't really buy them as real people. Nicholson adds some droll moments as George's dad, who cares deeply about is son but is also working the angles to protect his own hide. And Kathryn Hahn is a delight as Annie, George's worrywart secretary and the one person from work who doesn't ostracize him when times get tough.
"How Do You Know" contains never a dull moment, but plenty of quizzical ones where we don't really understand what's going on or why the people we're watching do what they do.
