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: "The Nut Job"

If at first glance “The Nut Job” looks like cut-rate animation aimed squarely at little kiddies, that’s because it is. This Canadian/Korean production with voices provided by recognizable B-list stars would be called an exercise in intentional mediocrity -- except it’s not good enough to be deemed run-of-the-mill.

It aims low, and hits even lower.

The set-up is decently clever: Surly Squirrel is the roguish outcast of Liberty Park, a green space in an unnamed town center in 1950s America. With winter coming on and food supplies low, he gets himself banished for his antics. He sets about on a mission to pilfer a horde of nuts from a local shop, unaware that the ersatz proprietors are planning their own heist job on the bank next door.

It’s based on a short film made by Peter Lepeniotis, who directed and co-wrote this feature film effort with Lorne Cameron.

The movie is a collection of boingy action, a few teary moments and moral-of-the-story patronizing, plus some fart jokes, a smidge of romance and a heaping helping of cute critters.

The animation looks really cutting-edge … if this were 1997. Everything has a slightly digitized look, like a photo blown up past its pixel limit, and the action isn’t very smooth, tending to seem jumpy. The character designs aren’t very detailed, though the fur on the animals isn’t bad.

The voice acting is generally far richer than the look of the film, led by Will Arnett as Surly. With his smooth-yet-raspy baritone, he gives the squirrel a scoundrel’s twinkle.

Katherine Heigl does Andie, a stalwart fellow squirrel who represents the do-gooder animals of the park, led by the benevolent-ish Raccoon (Liam Neeson). Brendan Fraser provides the voice of Grayson, who is adored as the park’s official hero figure, a title he does little to earn.

For some reason never explained, some of the creatures have names while others are just called what they are, like Raccoon and Mole (Jeff Dunham), his comically near-sighted henchman.

The humans’ chief is King (Stephen Lang), a gang leader who just got out of the slammer and wants to land one more big job before retirement. He and his crew are tunneling into the bank while Surly and Andie form a temporary alliance to tunnel their way into the nut shop.

Rounding out the cast is Maya Rudolph as Precious, the robbers’ alleged guard dog, despite being a tiny pug. After a bit of convincing, she soon throws in with Surly  Co.

The storytelling is pitched straight at the kindergarten-and-down crowd, with a few quick asides thrown in to keep their parents awake.

Tune your television to the Disney Junior or Nickelodeon channels on any given evening, and you’re apt to find animated fare that’s more polished and entertaining than what you’ll see in “The Nut Job.” But it’s January, folks, so this is the sort of cheap, disposable stuff that gets tossed into theaters.

Video review: "Conan the Barbarian"

This reboot of the "Conan" franchise was ill-conceived and poorly executed. The film cost $90 million to make and grossed barely more than $20 million, marking it as one of the biggest flops of 2011. It stars a nobody with whose near-total lack of onscreen charisma only reminds us how Arnold Schwarzenegger made Conan perhaps his most iconic film role after the Terminator.

Schwarzenegger had little acting ability when he first started, but he had ineluctable screen presence. Even his thick Australian accent added to the character, making him seem alien and strange. We really felt like Conan could have wandered down from the frozen hinterlands of Cimmeria into the civilized regions, and started brawling and wenching.

Author Robert E. Howard, who committed suicide at age 30, never attempted to give Conan a backstory. He simply was, and one of the things that made the character so appealing was that he did not spend a lot of time probing his inner self, and brought no baggage beyond a desire to slay, fornicate and conquer.

Both film versions feel compelled to give Conan a childhood story. With the original film, it simply was a jumping-off point for his adventures. But with "Conan the Barbarian," director Marcus Nispel and his trio of screenwriters make it the character's central conflict, as he attempts to avenge himself on the warlord who killed his father (Ron Perlman).

Schwarzenegger's Conan was less concerned with vengeance than solving the "Riddle of Steel." But all this new Conan wants to do -- besides pout and glower a lot -- is get one back for ol' daddy. The bad guy here is Zhalar Kym (Stephen Lang), who wants to reassemble the magical death mask the barbarian tribes sundered and split between them. At his side is his daughter Marique (Rose McGowan), who has a funky partially-shaven head and some sorcerous powers.

This brings us to Jason Momoa as the new Conan. Physically, as a fit for the character he's in some ways better than Schwarzenegger and some ways worse. Conan was supposed to be a Northerner whose skin was bronzed by the southern suns, so Momoa's Polynesian heritage actually works for him. I also liked that they gave him lots of scars, including several large ones on his face -- Howard always described Conan as covered with old battle wounds.

Somehow, though, Momoa just isn't as physically imposing as the former bodybuilder. Conan is the rare example where you do want an enormously muscular guy, because he's supposed to be the strongest man in the world.

This Conan's physical attributes seem modest. At one point the damsel in distress is dangling over a fiery pit by a chain, and he struggles to pull her up as his enemy closes in. The real Conan could've flung her around like a sack of sugar. Momoa also keeps encountering big bruisers much larger than himself, a tactic that should've been used more sparingly.

Momoa also falls into the annoying and common trap of speaking all his dialogue from the back of his throat, so it comes out gravely and "intense." Mostly it just sounds like he's choking on his soup.

The story is basically just one long chase. Conan takes prisoner the female monk (Rachel Nichols) who is the Pureblood essential to revitalizing the death mask's powers. His hope is to draw out Zhalar Kym so he can kill him. Of course, things grow more complicated.

The action scenes are largely murky and confusing affairs, with a whole lot of fancy sword-twirling by Momoa. Not to be a Howard purist here, but Conan would be more of a brutal, unpolished fighter. Though one battle between Conan and some sand mummies conjured up by Marique has some sizzle. Left unexplained, though, is why in the final showdown she never resorts to her magic and fights only with her Krueger-esque finger blades.

"Conan the Barbarian" is a dull a witless reboot.

1 star out of four

Review: "Avatar"

A critic should endeavor to go into a movie without any preconceived notions or biases. When that is not possible, they at least owe it to the reader to be honest and forthright about it. So I am compelled to say that I expected "Avatar" to be underwhelming.

Alright, let's be blunt: I really thought this movie was going to suck.

Boy, was I wrong -- wonderfully, joyously wrong. Never have I been so happy to have my expectations shattered.

Like many, I watched the trailers for "Avatar" and cringed. This is what writer/director James Cameron spent $300 million on (and by some estimates, much more) for his return to feature filmmaking after 12 years away? Never has a movie been so ill-served by its previews.

"Avatar" is epic in scope and in ambition. Cameron uses computer-generated characters and imagery not as accompaniment to live actors and sets, but as his main instrument.

This movie is visionary, a word that gets bandied about but has real weight here: This is a vision like nothing you've ever seen.

The blue-skinned aliens called Na'vi who looked so cheap and cheesy in the trailers are fleshy and corporeal (and nearly nude) in the finished film, best viewed in eye-popping 3-D. The lush forests, floating mountains and waterfalls of the world of Pandora are like a National Geographic pictorial on hallucinogens.

The story is familiar -- by my count, the third film this year portraying humans as exploiters of an alien world -- but feels fresh. The depiction of corporations as mindless mechanisms destroying in the name of greed is a common theme in Cameron's films ("Aliens," "The Abyss," "The Terminator" and its sequel).

Giovanni Ribisi plays the company flunky in charge of extracting a rare and valuable ore under Pandora's surface, even if it means displacing and killing the Na'vi. (Cameron shows some of his penchant for goofiness in naming the ore Unobtainium.) His right-hand man is the scarred, scary former Marine colonel (a terrific Stephen Lang) now commanding an army of mercenaries to do the dirty work.

Jake Sully (Sam Worthington, Hollywood's new It Boy for big-budget spectaculars) is a crippled ex-Marine whose murdered twin brother volunteered for the new Avatar program, which grows special human/Na'vi hybrid bodies controlled by humans. Since Jake has the same DNA as his sibling, he's enlisted to take over his brother's avatar.

Jake's stuck between competing interests of the colonel, who wants to use the avatars to infiltrate the Na'vi, and the chief scientist (Cameron fave Sigourney Weaver), who envisions a peaceful outreach mission.

In his avatar form, Jake meets Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), a Na'vi warrior and daughter of the clan chief (Wes Studi). She saves his blue bacon from some jungle dogs, though she's resentful of his presence and bumbling ways. But she gets a sign from the earth spirits her people worship to trust him.

The months pass, and Jake is eventually accepted into the tribe. The human bulldozers grind ever closer, however, and soon he'll have to choose loyalties.

Cameron slides easily between live action and computer-animated sequences, and while I won't overstate their success by claiming the transitions are seamless, they aren't jarring.

Some of the movie's metaphysical constructions have a dollop of hokum -- the depiction of the Na'vi as an emblem for American Indians grows stronger, and more strained, as the film progresses.

I still don't quite know what to think of the Na'vi's ability to mind-meld with flying dragons and other creatures via tiny tentacles every critter seems to have. It's like an entire world of animals outfitted with USB ports.

But quibbles aside, "Avatar" is a spectacle not to be missed. The game has changed.

3.5 stars