Which brings me to screenwriter Michael Kennedy, whose last three scripts have been slasher movies with an elevator-friendly pitch, combining the familiar tropes of a popular horror genre with the familiar tropes of a popular movie. The rightly acclaimed “Freaky,” co-written by Christopher Landon, took the plot of “Freaky Friday” and asked “What if it was a slasher?” The unfairly overlooked “It’s a Wonderful Knife” took the plot of “It’s a Wonderful Life” and asked “What if it was a slasher?”

It’s a fun approach to both the horror genre and family friendly movies alike, and setting those stories in the present day allows for clever new twists and characters whose tales were ignored in the past, especially queer characters, whose life experiences and perspectives bring new depth to these nostalgic cinematic canons. Kennedy’s script for “Time Cut” — co-written by director Hannah Macpherson (“Into the Dark: Pure”) — applies the same formula to “Back to the Future” but it has two big problems. First, there’s no clever title. “Hack to the Future” was right there, darn it. Secondly, and probably more importantly, it just doesn’t work.

“Time Cut” stars Madison Bailey (“Outer Banks”) as Lucy, a teenager in 2024 whose sister Summer (Antonia Gentry, “Ginny & Georgia”) was murdered by a serial killer 20 years ago. The killer disappeared, the town fell apart in the wake of the tragedy, and Lucy’s family never recovered either. (This is basically the same set-up as ‘It’s a Wonderful Knife,’ by the way.) Sad and lonely, Lucy goes to her sister’s memorial site and wouldn’t you know it, there’s a time machine there. As one might expect.

Lucy travels back to 2003, and oh God we are all so very, very old now. Movies about traveling back to nostalgic eras tend to depict what young people assume that history was like. Usually it means distinct visual references to dated trends and brands and historical events that somehow survived the filtration process and linger in our collective memory.

“Time Cut” portrays 2003 as an embarrassing era of fashion, which to be fair it was. Lucy stares in wide-eyed horror at, and be warned because nothing can prepare you for this… UGGs. Oh God, those awful UGGs. It was also an era when midriffs ran rampant, before we finally got their numbers down to safe, sustainable levels. And remember Discmans? If you’re from a younger generation and you’re rolling your eyes at all the nostalgic fetishization of superficial fads and outdated technology, know that this will happen to you. The trendy haircut you love today will embarrass your kids when they see your photos 20 years from now.

Anyway, Lucy befriends Quinn (Griffin Gluck, “Locke & Key”), a local nerd who helps her understand time travel, which is really more of a “Peggy Sue Got Married” reference than a “Back to the Future” riff. Lucy also befriends her sister, who died before Lucy was born, which makes her ethical dilemma all the more complicated. Does she have a responsibility to preserve the future by letting her sister die, or is it more important to do the right thing now and deal with the long-term ramifications later?

Movies have a difficult time with short-sighted moral decisions. Given the opportunity to save the whole universe or just their girlfriend, literal superheroes tend to choose the latter. They’ll figure the universe thing out later. Lucy will try to change the past because, unlike “Back to the Future,” she didn’t break the past so she doesn’t have to fix it. If that means she’ll never be born, well damn, that’s an “Outer Limits” conundrum for you, and it briefly makes “Time Cut” a little complicated.

Unfortunately, “Time Cut” weasels its way out of the big questions it raises at nearly every turn. Time travel rules are important until the movie finds them inconvenient. The killer’s plans and motivations are wonkier than a chocolate factory. The time travel stuff is mined for funny jokes for a few minutes and then the film shows zero interest in all the worms it’s uncanned. It’s a whole lot of “what ifs” and not a lot of “then whats.”

This would be a minor gripe if “Time Cut” was such a good slasher that the sci-fi didn’t feel important, but the slashings are few and far between. Worse, they’re not scary. Many horror movies aim for a PG-13, which isn’t always the right call but is very understandable. “Time Cut” appears to have been made with a “PG” in mind, and not the cool “PG” from the 1980s when you could rip a guy’s face off or yank out someone’s bloody, still-beating heart. This disappointing modern “PG” where violence is more of a vague concept than a reality. “Time Cut” didn’t have to be gory to be entertaining, of course, but it feels like it’s pulling all of its punches, so it never makes any impact.

It’s also worth noting that a distracting amount of dialogue in “Time Cut” happens off-camera, with the characters either just out of frame or facing off-screen. Either there was a problem with the sound equipment — and judging from the tinny audio in an early high school hallway scene, that could be the case — or they realized far too late how much exposition they actually needed to make this plot work and had to ADR it in later. Possibly a bit of both. “Time Cut” wouldn’t be the first slasher movie to feel taped together, but it definitely isn’t the best.

It would be nice to report that “Time Cut” completes a satisfying trifecta, but it’s not clever enough or tragic enough to compare with “Freaky” or “It’s a Wonderful Knife.” It’s part of a cycle of playful knockoffs, which is why we’re here and all part of the fun. It plays out like a knockoff of a knockoff, which isn’t much fun at all. Shabby, awkward, and missing out on all the good stuff, that describes a lot of us 20 years ago (yes, and also now — I have no delusions of grandeur). And it describes “Time Cut” now.

“Time Cut” is now streaming on Netflix.

The post ‘Time Cut’ Review: Netflix’s ‘Back to the Future’-Style Slasher Is a Knockoff of a Knockoff appeared first on TheWrap.

Season 1 left the idealistic Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) hanging by a thread or, actually, a lit fuse. Her rickety marriage to master gamesman and former Ambassador Hal Wyler (Rufus Sewell) was unraveling. Then, a London car bomb sent Hal to hospital in critical condition in a stunning series cliffhanger. Does her husband survive?

That final shocker raised the interpersonal stakes and exploded diplomatic relations between the US, Britain and Russia, the alleged dark force believed to be responsible for the explosion on land, while compounding the deadly torpedoing of a British warship.

Hal’s near-death experience (no spoiler here as Netflix has already blabbed) ratchets up the dynamics of the Wylers’ power couple marriage. There has always been an “A Star is Born” dynamic to the pair. He’s older, wiser and wilier. And out of power, which suits him not at all. She’s a rising diplomat driven to practice her skills on war-torn soil, not the posh wool carpeting cushioning the British government. In her mind, she’s a war photographer suddenly snapping celebrity covers.

One of the show’s strengths is the dissection of power dynamics in a modern marriage. The Wylers’ partnership functions very well on some levels, disastrously on others. Trust is a big issue both for the pair and the diplomatic circles in which they run. Their needs and wants from each other – whether emotional, sexual or strategic – are in constant flux. It’s fascinating to watch and game out, particularly because Russell and Sewell have such profound chemistry and connection.

Since it’s her story, the less-experienced Ambassador Wyler must learn to navigate behind bedroom doors and in the corridors of power. How does she exploit her individual strengths (charm, intelligence, directness), and how do expectations differ for a woman in the vortex of power? In short, what can she get away with both personally and professionally? And, if her husband truly has her back, does she need him to protect her in the international snake pit? Or is he expendable — especially once her relationship with British Foreign Secretary Austin Dennison (David Gyasi) starts to sizzle.

An element introduced from the beginning is that a vacuum exists back in the White House. President William Rayburn (Michael McKean) seeks to oust Vice President Grace Penn (Allison Janney), apparently for the sins of her husband. And part of this bigger game is testing Kate out in England to see if she’s VP material, and if she’s open to a vice-presidential makeover. Her husband is all for it, which makes her even more suspicious of the opportunity.

The second season gets a big jolt when the Vice President’s chopper arrives at an English country manor amidst an international crisis implicating impulsive Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge (Rory Kinnear). It’s immediately clear that Penn is a self-possessed political animal. Hal takes one look at her and, to paraphrase, tells Kate: ‘She knows.’ His intuition, if he can be trusted, is an asset. But, again, can he be trusted? What are his ulterior motives?

With a big personality and a presidential polish, Penn arrives to bigfoot the diplomatic crisis while checking out her competition. In a notable private exchange, the VP calls out Kate on her ambitions and literally dresses her down. She schools Kate that if she wants to ascend to the White House, she has to dress the part. Wear unsensible shoes, she advises, ditch the dreary no-name black suits, and jettison the “bedhead” that is the younger woman’s signature don’t-give-a-fuck, take-me-seriously-for-who-I-am-not-my-hair look.

In its second season, “The Diplomat” weaves workplace drama with international thriller relying on complex characters dynamically portrayed by a terrific ensemble. Ultimately, the series upholds Sir Winston Churchill’s maxim: “Diplomacy is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip,” which is also a wonderful formula for a divinely bingeable show.

“The Diplomat” Season 2 premieres Thursday, Oct. 31, on Netflix.

The post ‘The Diplomat’ Season 2 Review: Keri Russell Battles Shifting Power Dynamics in Netflix Drama’s Excellent Return appeared first on TheWrap.

“Juror #2” finds magazine journalist Justin (Nicholas Hoult) lovingly helping his wife (Zoey Deutch) through a delicate pregnancy when he’s called for jury duty. To put this in the least spoilery way possible, he shockingly discovers that, through an extremely unlikely set of circumstances, he’s intimately involved in a case that concerns a capital crime, with the defendant’s life in the balance. Coming forward, however, could have dire consequences for his family, so this ordinary guy has to find another answer from within the workings of the trial itself, lest an apparently innocent man be convicted or his own hidden involvement come to light.

The intelligent script by Jonathan Abrams handles the obstacle of the gag’s believability quite well, aided in no small part by Hoult’s fine performance. Abrams has done his homework, sprinkling convincing details here and there about the public defender-vs.-district attorney dynamic, the struggles of recovering alcoholics – even tidbits about couples going through pregnancy together. 

Eastwood’s characteristically understated filmmaking helps make the case. We don’t feel manipulated by score, unnecessary cutting or histrionic performances; we’re simply witnessing events unfolding. As in the two-time Oscar-winning director’s better work, the pacing is leisurely, but the storytelling feels calm, no-nonsense.

And let’s hear it for a courtroom drama that’s nuanced, that has actually thought through the process and possibilities. It depicts fruitful discussion in the deliberation room; there are emotional outbursts, but it’s entertaining to see people reason their way to new positions. It embraces the perfection and imperfection of the justice system, begging to consider the difficult proposition that “Sometimes truth is not justice.”

The other characters can feel a bit thumbnail-sketched (the politically ambitious prosecutor; the true-believer public defender; the angry juror unwilling to listen, etc.). Chris Messina manages to be sympathetic as the defender, but the whole sidebar about Toni Collette’s prosecutor running for D.A. feels like a distraction. The filmmakers try to hide J.K. Simmons in the weeds as one of the jurors, but the instant you see him, you know he’ll be important – and he does not disappoint in his limited role. 

But the movie lives or dies by its lead performance, and that’s fortunate for “Juror #2.” Hoult has been very good for a long time now – if you haven’t yet, check him out on Hulu’s “The Great,” he’s a hoot as a randy, manic man-boy with an actual army at his disposal. Here, he and Eastwood skillfully craft Justin’s levels of guilt and fear. We feel the weight on him increasing and increasing as his desperation grows. There’s an almost Dostoevsky-like quality to this daylight noir as the deeply conflicted juror discovers multiple meanings of his AA sponsor’s words: “We’re only as sick as our secrets.”

That said, “Juror #2” suddenly careens into nowhere in the end, strangely declining to show us key moments. Objection! In storytelling decisions that are hard to understand, the denouements (multiple) we’ve been building toward for the entire movie are skipped. The climax feels like a mistrial. Perhaps this is Eastwood’s streamlined style and restraint taken to the extreme, though the filmmaker has previously captured epic emotion (think of Sean Penn’s discovery of his daughter’s death in “Mystic River”) or shattering conclusions (his character’s vengeful return at the end of “Unforgiven”) … making these dramatic choices all the more puzzling. Many will find the ending unsatisfying. Out of order, even. Sustained!

The external narrative about the film has to do with its suspiciously unheralded, limited release (fewer than 50 American venues scheduled at press time), which is what studios sometimes do when they have dogs on their hands. “Juror #2” is no dog, and it’s made by a legendary filmmaker with whom the studio, Warner Bros., has a decades-long relationship – and who, not for nothing, is 94, so who knows how many more movies he has left in the tank? That’s strange, but it might be unwise to read into it, as not only have Eastwood’s films sometimes come out with little fanfare – what had you heard about “Million Dollar Baby” before it abruptly materialized? – but this is the same Warner Bros. that has infamously made some “business decisions,” as the kids say, hamstringing movies (“Batgirl,” “Coyote vs. Acme,” anyone?).

“Juror #2” is a sober examination of guilt and trying to make amends in a low-key thriller with a slowly tightening noose. The verdict is: Apart from those mystifying decisions in the end, it’s a solid piece of courtroom entertainment.

“Juror #2” hits theaters Nov. 1 after premiering at AFI Fest on Sunday.

The post ‘Juror #2’ Review: Clint Eastwood’s Taut, Understated Courtroom Drama Ends Up a Mistrial appeared first on TheWrap.

Fortunately, the long-awaited, second feature-length “Wallace and Gromit” movie is great. So that whole first paragraph was just a big misdirect and I apologize. (It kind of got away from me.)

“Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” is a direct sequel to “The Wrong Trousers,” one of Nick Park’s original Oscar-winning shorts. If you’ve never seen it, stop reading this review right now and go see it. If you have seen it, stop reading this review right now and go watch it again. It’s still absolutely magical.

In “The Wrong Trousers,” dippy inventor Wallace and his loyal dog Gromit take in a new lodger to help pay the bills. Their guest is a chicken, but there’s something off about this chicken. Probably because he’s obviously a penguin wearing a read elastic glove on his head. His real name is Feathers McGraw and he’s a criminal mastermind who used Wallace’s inventions to steal a rare and valuable diamond, before he was ultimately foiled by our lovable heroes.

“Vengeance Most Fowl” picks up years later, with Feathers McGraw still in prison — a.k.a. the zoo — and plotting his revenge like Max Cady in “Cape Fear.” Wallace (Ben Whitehead) and Gromit are oblivious to the danger and busy pondering the pros and cons of how technology has taken over contemporary civilized life. Specifically Wallace’s technology, since his new invention Norbot (Reece Shearsmith), an artificially intelligent robotic garden gnome, now does all of their household chores. Even the ones Gromit likes doing, like tending his garden.

Gromit resents Norbot, which to be fair is one of the most annoying gadgets in the world. But Feathers McGraw sees Wallace’s creations on the news and hatches a plan to reprogram Norbot, build an army of high-tech gnomes, go on a crime spree and frame Wallace in the process. The town’s useless lawman, Chief Inspector Mackintosh (Peter Kay), is easily fooled by McGraw’s schemes, but his apprentice PC Mukherjee (Lauren Patel, “Everybody’s Talking About Jamie”) is a little harder to bamboozle. Not much harder, but a little.

As stories go, “Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” is enjoyably uncomplicated. Their last feature “The Curse of the Were-Rabbit” is practically “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” in comparison. Wallace’s inventions get them in trouble, Feathers McGraw steals stuff, there’s a bit of a kerfuffle and a chase scene at the end. Bob’s your uncle. And if he’s not, then whoever your uncle is, that’s your uncle. (And if you don’t have an uncle, nobody’s your uncle. Sorry about that.)

We don’t come to “Wallace and Gromit” movies for their plots. Even character development is a low priority. They’re static creations, like many of the great cartoon characters, whose tales are all about upsetting their status quo and then setting it back again. There isn’t even the pretense of a love interest this time around, since there’s no way that’s ever going to stick. Wallace will always be adorably out of it and Gromit will always have the patience of a saint. Feathers McGraw will always be a diabolical mad genius and one of the best movie villains ever created. I will hear no arguments to the contrary.

There may be some concern about Wallace’s portrayal, since the legendary Peter Sallis passed away in 2017. He had big shoes to fill, but they fit Ben Whitehead quite nicely. He captures Sallis’s tonality, cadence and comic timing without ever sounding like a mere impersonator. He doesn’t bring anything noticeably new to the role but it doesn’t seem like he was invited too. Again, Wallace and Gromit are frozen in time. Evolution isn’t in the cards.

What is in the cards are puns. So many puns. Puns for ages. Puns and puns and puns. There are so many puns that [tries to think up a pun about puns] there are a lot of them. Look, I’ll leave the puns to Aardman Animation. They’re the pundits after all.

“Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” doesn’t quite the ambitious razzle-dazzle of “Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit,” a film which relished in its increased budget and resources and tried to push the envelope on stop-motion animation. This is more like a very long Wallace and Gromit short film. That’s a wonderful thing to be. It’s got great heroes, a memorable villain, and more whimsy than is probably recommended by medical science. Which is to say, just the right amount of whimsy. It’s a lovable, beautiful world that these characters inhabit. It’s always a delight to visit them, and always a shame that we have to leave.

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl will be available globally January 3rd on Netflix, except for the UK where it will be available on BBC iPlayer and BBC One this Christmas. It will also be available in select theatres beginning December 18th.

The post ‘Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl’ Review: Feathers McGraw Returns in a Hysterical Sequel appeared first on TheWrap.

Zemeckis has had an interesting relationship with time throughout most of his films. “Forrest Gump” attempts to track, through a smug and somewhat condescending lens, the whole second half of the 20th century. His horror comedy “Death Becomes Her” explores the comical vanity that underlies our fear of aging and mortality. “A Christmas Carol” is a tale of personal growth and regret through supernatural time-hopping. The list goes on and on, and it’s led him all the way here. 

Sorry, I mean, it’s led us all the way to “Here,” a new drama that takes place over multiple millennia, entirely from the perspective of a single camera angle. In many respects it’s a distillation of themes the filmmaker has explored throughout his entire career. The concept is incredibly ambitious. The execution is dinner theater. 

“Here” reduces all of human history to the events that preceded and occurred immediately after a generic tale of quiet suburban desperation, starring Tom Hanks and Robin Wright as Richard and Margaret. They’re teen lovers who get pregnant in the mid-20th and put their dreams on hold to raise their daughter. They don’t have much money, so they settle into Richard’s childhood home, along with his alcoholic father Al (Paul Bettany) and long-suffering mother Rose (Kelly Reilly). They’ve all given up on themselves and then life just passes them by; their valuable time wasted by family commitments and compromises.

Meanwhile, over the course of the rest of history, dinosaurs go extinct, a pair of First Nations lovers have a couple paltry minutes of screen time, Benjamin Franklin’s asshole son whines about the American revolution and the guy who invented the La-Z-Boy invents the La-Z-Boy (who could have seen that one coming?). The sum totality of human existence plays out in one slightly high angle camera shot, with the aid of frequently underwhelming visual effects. Hanks and Bettany are convincingly aged and de-aged. Nobody else is. And whenever “Here” leaves Richard and Margaret’s version of this living room, the whole film looks like a green screen tech demo that’s almost entirely finished. Almost.

All that effort and innovation and ambition amounts, in Zemeckis’ film, to little more than a mawkish intergenerational drama. “Here” genuinely seems to believe that the history of the world peaked with the possibility of mom and dad getting a divorce. There’s something to be said for the human tendency to make everything all about ourselves and our own limited field of vision, but “Here” doesn’t say any of that. Zemeckis’ movie is not about living with blinders on, it’s about revealing connections between the little and big moments of our distant past and our present — but for some reason, not our future. 

We don’t get any images of humanity’s demise or of space aliens moving into Richard and Margaret’s house. Not that we needed those images specifically, but “Here” lacks playfulness and that’s rather annoying. There are moments of levity, but they’re forgettable sitcom jokes. Zemeckis’ attempts to play out multiple eras simultaneously through the use of on-screen comic book panels are rarely pushed for their innovative potential, and instead are mostly utilized as gradual scene transitions. The technique contributes little to our greater understanding of the commonalities between all these eras other than to point out that, you know, life’s little moments tend to happen to everyone. A leaky ceiling is a bit like a woman’s water breaking, apparently. Makes you think. Specifically, it makes you think about how we didn’t need anyone to go through this much effort to make that obvious a visual connection.

“Here” is based on an ambitious graphic novel by Richard McGuire, who used similar visual mechanics to make the reader aware of time’s passage in a complicated and illuminating way. Before it was 300 pages, it was a six-page strip. Zemeckis’ film feels like a padded adaptation of the short version, and his long-observed tendency to release trailers that show his audience the whole movie has the unfortunate side-effect of demonstrating just how much more interesting “Here” might have been at a fraction of its length. The director seems fascinated by the possibilities of making a movie with a single camera angle, but without the limitations of a stage. Sadly, the narrative he’s crafted is so perfunctory and shallow that “Here” has more in common with an ornate museum diorama than a powerful motion picture. 

At its best, “Here” isn’t a familial drama, it’s a sad haunted house movie. Ghost stories are about how history refuses to leave us, often to tragic effect. The living room in “Here” is always populated by the people who used to live there, even after they’ve died. But we never get a sense of the house or its personality, which is an odd choice given that 95% of the movie takes place there. It’s nothing more than a husk in which living things often dwell. I feel bad for that house. It’s got a lot more going on than any of its residents. But even when Robert Zemeckis tries, in the end, to make us feel like people loved this home after a lifetime of saying they hated it, it’s not cathartic. It’s empty and unconvincing, which is the opposite of what “Here” was going for.

“Here” opens in theaters on Nov. 1 after premiering Friday at AFI Fest.

The post ‘Here’ Review: Robert Zemeckis’ One-Location Drama Is a Mawkish ‘Forrest Gump’ Reunion appeared first on TheWrap.

“Don’t Move” makes a decent attempt to address themes of mortality and depression but more than anything it’s a formal filmmaking exercise. In a nutshell, the film stars Kelsey Asbille (“Yellowstone”) as Iris, a mother mourning the accidental death of her son. At the start of the film she nearly takes her own life on a hiking trail. She’s interrupted by Richard, played by Finn Wittrock (“Origin”), who snaps her out of it and helps her remember that “Broken doesn’t have to mean hopeless.”

Then, right when Iris has finally rediscovered her will to live, Richard tases her, ties her up, and dumps her in his backseat. It turns out Richard is a serial killer, and just to make Iris’s day even worse, he’s drugged her with a concoction that will soon render her paralyzed for an hour. So now she’s got to find a way to save herself without moving.

Thrillers about being drugged and running out of options take many forms, from the manic amusement of Neveldine/Taylor’s “Crank” movies to the nihilistic desperation of Rudolph Maté’s “D.O.A.” With “Don’t Move,” Netto and Schindler have made their jobs harder by reversing how a ticking clock usually functions: When the time runs out Iris won’t die, she’ll actually be able to fight back. So the question isn’t so much how to stop the clock but how to survive until the alarm goes off.

To make this little trick work “Don’t Move” employs spot-on cinematography from Zach Kuperstein (“Barbarian”), who uses stillness to his advantage with stressful closeups and POV shots. Kelsey Asbille also proves herself up to the film’s challenge, since she conveys a litany of emotions and problem-solving thought processes with very few tools at her disposal.

But more than anything, “Don’t Move” relies on the cleverness of its writers to come up with a way to make a sequence where the hero gets drugged — often an excuse for a time jump and location change — into an engine that can run for 90 whole minutes. And I can say with absolute confidence that they have partly pulled it off.

As a series of set pieces, “Don’t Move” finds a blood-curdling balance between Iris thinking her way out of problems while helplessly relying on the caprices of cruel fate. An old hermit named William (Moray Treadwell) nearly runs her over with his lawnmower, which she has no control over, but when he tries to communicate with her all she can do is blink. And boy, does she have a lot to explain with just some blinks. She has to communicate clearly with a man who may or may not be willing or able to help her, especially when Richard comes a-calling. That whole sequence is pure Hitchcockian joy, a bomb that could explode at any minute if plans go wrong or if life just turns to chaos.

The problem is that in order to get to these suspenseful centerpieces, Richard has to make some of the most foolish decisions in the history of serial killing. When Iris is tied up in his backseat she’s able to cut her way out of her bindings using a Swiss Army knife, which she has because — as Richard himself admits — he just kinda forgot to search his victim today.

So that’s how she’s able to get out of his car and into a situation where she could theoretically survive this encounter. And since Iris needs to keep an eye on the time throughout the movie, Richard also decides to let her keep her iWatch, since there’s no cell phone reception in the mountains. Even though the mountains are full of residences which would obviously have wifi. And also they drive past gas stations. Anyway, it’s a risk he’s willing to take. After all, it’s way too hard to take off a watch.

Richard is basically the villain from “The Vanishing” if he got super-duper lazy. He’s also terrible at talking his way out of random encounters. He tries to pull the old misogynistic bullcrap about how Iris is his wife and she’s mentally unstable and/or an alcoholic, so that’s why she’s acting weird and why you shouldn’t read anything into how frightened and injured she looks, Richard is a man and he’s totally got this. But he doesn’t have a knack for improv.

Finn Wittrock makes the most of his own character’s limitations, but unlike Iris, Richard’s problems don’t exist to be cleverly solved. They exist to be exploited by Iris. So Richard does smart things when it serves the plot and makes nonsensical choices when, likewise, it serves the plot. Wittrock does a fine job of making Richard seem like the kind of villain who could charm his way through life when there isn’t a paralyzed victim in his car and making him look bad, but how he managed to get away with these murders for so long is the film’s biggest mystery.

Again, “Don’t Move” is a genre exercise. An experiment to see whether this one element of a serial killer story can be successfully expanded into a whole feature. And the thing about experiments is that they don’t have to be entirely successful to be worth doing. Brian Netto and Adam Schindler’s gimmicky nail-biter is intense and creative enough to quicken your heartbeat and make you wonder if you’d be clever enough to survive in the same situation. It’s a damn good time if you like thrillers.

But the film’s greatest value is as an exploration of filmmaking minutiae, an earnest attempt to do something new by shifting the perspective on something old. If that gives future filmmakers new and bright ideas, it’ll all have been worth it. And if those same filmmakers also learn what not to do in the process — like not making your villain a doofus just because it grease’s the plot’s wheels a bit — all the better.

“Don’t Move” is now streaming on Netflix.

The post ‘Don’t Move’ Review: It’s Survival of the Stiffest in Netflix’s High Concept Thriller appeared first on TheWrap.

That’s the question you might be asking sometime during Broadway’s most recent foray into bringing Shakespeare to the masses who can afford really expensive tickets. And the latest Bard venture is a hot hot ticket. “Romeo + Juliet” opened Thursday at the Circle in the Square, which, despite being Broadway’s smallest theater, saw over a $1 million gross last week for Sam Gold’s feisty new production of this vintage romantic tragedy.

Gold’s last two excursions with Shakespeare on Broadway did not fare so well despite “King Lear” starring Glenda Jackson and “Macbeth” starring Daniel Craig. Far more memorable were his revelatory productions of “Hamlet” with Oscar Isaac at the Public Theater and “Othello” with Craig and David Oeylowoh at the New York Theater Workshop. Gold’s “Romeo + Juliet” is more kinky than revelatory. It’s a very digestible two hours and 10 minutes with intermission, and spliced between all the soliloquies are fight scenes that are thrillingly choreographed by Sonya Tayeh, who even throws in some breakdancing. There’s also a credit that reads “violence by Drew Leary.”

If you’re worried by that plus sign (+) in the title, Gold has not lifted from Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 “Romeo + Juliet” starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. Those lovers were young. Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler in Gold’s production are children, and the set design, by Dots, features a playroom full of cuddly stuffed animals, some of which are gigantic. Immensely effective is Gold’s use of the entire Circle in the Square. I’d never before been aware of this theater’s many catwalks above the stage. Now they’re alive with Verona’s adolescents. Or maybe they’re from the Bronx.

Kit Connor of “Heartstopper” fame mesmerizes as Romeo, and the many young women in the audience, as well as maybe one or two old men, squeal with delight when he kisses Zegler. Those squeals turn deafening when, with awesome artistry, he rips off his very superfluous T-shirt. The half-modern, half-antique costumes are by Enver Chakartash. Oh yes, Connor handles Shakespeare’s poetry with real distinction, too.

Rachel Zegler of “West Side Story” fame isn’t quite so comfortable with the iambic pentameter. Before anyone gets the idea this critique against Zegler derives from her sounding American to Connor’s very British delivery, it’s nice to report that other Yankees in the cast have no problem making the poetry accessible to 21 Century ears. They include Gabby Beans playing Mercutio and the Friar, Tommy Dorfman playing Tybalt and the Nurse, and Sola Fadiran playing Juliet’s mother and father.

Once upon a time a few years ago in the theater, it was the actors who worked hard to make us believe they were the characters we’re watching. Nowadays, it’s the audience that must work hard to believe that, for instance, a young Black female actor is an old Roman Catholic member of the Italian clergy in the 14th Century (or whenever this story is set). Gold makes no consideration for a role’s age, ethnicity and gender. Beans, Dorfman and Fadiran make that irreverence part of the fun, and along the way they handle the language beautifully. That said, I wasn’t always sure which characters they were playing, but eventually I caught up to them.

Zegler only really comes alive as Juliet when she sings two songs by Grammy Awarda winner Jack Antonoff. One comes during the masked ball where she meets Romeo, and Zegler sings again before the two of them finally get around to screwing.

As Gold tells this story, theirs is a puppy love. Perhaps that’s the big revelation of this “Romeo + Juliet.” The kids aren’t all right, and if their story is not really a full-blown tragedy anymore, they’re awfully fun to watch.

The post ‘Romeo + Juliet’ Broadway Review: Rachel Zegler Sings, Kit Connor Strips appeared first on TheWrap.

But we’ve all been to a fast food joint where, yes, you technically got what you paid for, but it was so greasy you could barely eat it. Or it got squashed for no discernible reason. Or it’s got a hair in it. Sure, you ordered off the dollar menu but even the dollar menu makes a few meager promises, and if they can’t even get that right… well, you have “Canary Black.”

“Canary Black” is a new kidnapping thriller from Pierre Morel, who 15 years ago directed “Taken.” That’s one of the most iconic films in the thriller genre, a simple but extremely effective piece of authoritarian action entertainment, where if you piss off Liam Neeson he’s legally allowed to kill everyone in your country. The film rebooted Neeson’s career as a three-star action movie icon and popularized the phrase “I have a certain set of skills.”

Unfortunately, Morel seems to have misplaced his skills. “Canary Black” is recognizable as an action movie but it’s neither thrilling nor dramatic enough to qualify as entertainment. It’s not even eclectic enough to satisfy as a low-budget throwback to 1990s bottom shelf b-movies like “Hollow Point” or “Crackerjack,” which at least understood that if you wanted to stand out from the other cookie-cutter action claptrap on the menu, you had to have a least some personality.

Kate Beckinsale stars as Avery Graves, an American secret agent living in Croatia with her oblivious house husband, David (Rupert Friend). Her latest assignment gets derailed when David is abducted, and a mysterious voice on the telephone directs Avery Graves to steal a top secret CIA computer file called — you guessed it — “Canary Black.” (What does “Canary Black” do? It’s a MacGuffin. It MacGuffs.)

So Avery Graves — whose full name is said so often there must be dozens of outtakes where her co-stars call her “Gravery Aves” — is now a fugitive from her own organization. Her boss Jarvis (the late Ray Stevenson, in one of his final roles) isn’t sure if he can trust her, but the movie goes through those paces anyway. You’d think these top secret spy rings would have a protocol for this kind of situation since, if movies like “Canary Black” and all the “Mission: Impossibles” are to be believed, their agents go rogue every other week.

Kate Beckinsale has been a reliable action star for decades, even — and sadly, often — when her movies can’t keep up with her. She’s working with her hands tied behind her back this time, often literally. The blasé fight scenes are often unreadable and she wears an awful, and awfully distracting wig for some of them. It’s less like we’re watching “Canary Black” and more like we’re playing “Where’s Waldo” with Beckinsale’s stunt double. 

Beckinsale also adopts an American accent for most of the film, but she sounds ADR’ed most of the time, in a very different room than the other actors, so even “Canary Black’s” audio rarely coheres. Also for some reason Kate Beckinsale is doing a spot-on Marcia Gay Harden impression, which makes you wonder why Marcia Gay Harden doesn’t do more action movies. “Canary Black” isn’t much of a movie but it’s a decent proof-of-concept for Harden’s management team.

The plot is just a big ol’ ball of stuff happening. Avery Graves’ relationship with her husband takes up maybe three minutes of screentime, plus we know it’s based on a lie, so our emotional investment is low. When the spy plot finally kicks in it’s all cut-and-pasted from genre movie clichés, and even those tropes don’t stay consistent. CIA Agent Maxfield (Jaz Hutchins, “Peacock”) is the kind of guy who brags to Avery Graves that he tortures his prisoners for information, but in the very next scene he stops her from torturing his prisoner for information and says she’s gone too far and will pay for this. So what… what are we even doing here, movie?

There are moments of spy gadget fun in “Canary Black” — with “mute masks” and a drone that’s been repurposed into a jet pack — but given how bland the rest of Morel’s film is, the entertainment value may have been an accident. You can’t even sit back and enjoy the action because the editing makes it hard to follow. A chase scene with bad guys sticking landmines on our heroes’ car is so chaotic that it’s hard to tell whose vehicle just blew up or rammed into another one. You think it’s Ray Stevenson or Kate Beckinsale, because just before the impact we saw them react to potential danger, but right after the collision we cut back and nope, they were in another car the whole time. Again, I ask: What are we even doing?

“Canary Black” is a cheeseburger on Amazon Prime’s value menu, but they left out the cheese. And the meat. It’s a showcase for an action movie star with zero interest in letting her cut loose. And it makes about as much sense as its title. Which is to say, none.

The post ‘Canary Black’ Review: Hackneyed Kate Beckinsale Thriller Has the Canary Blahs appeared first on TheWrap.

“Jaws” without John Williams isn’t “Jaws.” “Star Wars” without John Williams isn’t “Star Wars.” Although he only handles the music, the composer has left such a mark on cinema history that he makes a case as co-author of some of Hollywood’s biggest triumphs.

Director Laurent Bouzerau gives the full spotlight to the composer in the new documentary, “Music by John Williams.” Bouzerau is fully comfortable in his mode as celebrating Williams and his legacy, which is fine. I’m not sure I was looking for someone to “rip the lid off” the subject, and while it would have been nice to glance at some lesser-known scores to examine why they didn’t have the same impact as his other work, there’s still a clear window into Williams’ process, his history and what makes him a unique figure among composers beyond his overflowing trophy case.

The reason you can call this movie “Music by John Williams” is because even the most casual film fan knows who Williams is. They may be hard-pressed to name any other composer, but they know who wrote the music for “Jaws,” “Star Wars,” “E.T.,” “Indiana Jones,” “Jurassic Park,” “Schindler’s List” and so on. This makes Bouzerau’s film a bit of a deeper dive where we have Williams and his family talking about his upbringing, his influences, why he stopped going by “Johnny Williams” (it’s a fun and surprisingly valid reason) and more. You also get insights into his process like how he still writes his scores by hand even though in a digital age composers can have notes appear on a screen when they’re working. 

Learning what makes Williams stand apart better elucidates his distinction as a composer. Williams, by his own admission, is not a movie buff, and he’s also not swayed by temp tracks. In one anecdote, Steven Spielberg relates how on “Jaws,” he temp tracked the movie to Williams’ score for Robert Altman’s 1972 psychological horror film “Images,” but Williams said that the high, staccato strings weren’t appropriate for a movie where the terror is what lurks beneath. For that, you needed something on the low end of the scale, which is how we got the iconic “Jaws” theme.

But what makes the film clear as a celebration rather than an interrogation is that Bouzerau largely talks to filmmakers, or at the very least, directors are the primary lens outside of Williams’ and his family, through which we view his work. On the one hand, that’s helpful as you would certainly want someone like Spielberg explaining his long history with his go-to maestro. But then Bouzerau adds in George Lucas (sure, “Star Wars”), Chris Columbus (“Home Alone,” “Stepmom” and then “Harry Potter,” makes sense), J.J. Abrams (two “Star Wars” sequels), James Mangold (a single “Indiana Jones” sequel) and Ron Howard (“Far and Away”… and that’s it), and you see that it’s Williams through the lens of not only directors, but directors in the Lucasfilm/Amblin orbit. 

There’s an occasional talking head outside of these filmmakers like Chris Martin of Coldplay, Seth MacFarlane, or critic and filmmaker Elvis Mitchell, but the movie is surprisingly thin on other composers, which is a shame. Perhaps the thinking is that Williams has outlived most of his composing contemporaries like Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner, Elmer Bernstein and Maurice Jarre. There’s a bit here from Alan Silvestri and Thomas Newman, but why not get insights from Michael Giacchino, Hans Zimmer, Howard Shore, Rachel Portman or Alexandre Desplat, just to name a few? By leaving fellow composers aside, the documentary almost seems to place its subject above his craft rather than part of its history.

That doesn’t make “Music by John Williams” a bad movie, but it does render it a somewhat superficial one as its primary mode seems to be a lovefest for scores you already appreciate.

I was thrilled when the film devoted a bit of time for “Catch Me if You Can,” not only because it’s one of Williams’ best scores, but because it exists outside his better-known works. While I wish the film got more into the weeds of where Williams and his work exists in comparison to those who preceded and those who followed him, this is still the kind of inoffensive celebratory piece that will have you eager to revisit his most beloved scores while gaining a bit more insight into their creation.

The post ‘Music by John Williams’ Review: An Unabashed Celebration of One of Cinema’s Greatest Composers appeared first on TheWrap.

I use Spectrum, so maybe that’s why I couldn’t sympathize.

Delia Ephron’s “Left on Tenth,” based on her 2022 memoir of the same title, opened Wednesday at the James Earl Jones Theatre. It’s a 100-minute one-act play, directed by Susan Stroman, that puts you in a bad mood even before it begins. Pre-curtain, we’re treated to various automated Verizon messages that tell us to hold, we’ll be right with you and so on. It’s frustrating enough when this happens in the privacy of one’s own home. It’s infuriating in the theater, and Ephron and Stroman are to blame, not Verizon, for making an audience sit through such audio pollution.

You might also want to tell Delia to get a grip, since she’s living on 10th Street in the Village in a very big apartment with a gorgeous view. Beowulf Boritt’s set design turns that apartment into something like the Oval Office, not a place most people would like to live, but hey, she’s got space!

Which brings me to “You’ve Got Mail.” It’s the movie Delia wrote with her oldest sister, Nora Ephron. The first 15 minutes of “Left on Tenth” feature a lot of name dropping. Since nothing of dramatic interest happens beyond the Verizon nonsense, it’s something of a relief to hear about the Ephron family. Delia lets us know that her parents, Phoebe and Henry Ephron, wrote the successful Broadway play “Take Her, She’s Mine.” My mind instead wandered to the Ephrons’ dreadful screenplay for the movie version of “Carousel,” which is not mentioned. Better than her parents having written a Broadway hit, Delia tells us that they both were angry drunks. Memoirists, even those born into great privilege like the four Ephron daughters, love having abusive parents. Without a terrible mom and dad, there would be no memoir.

Delia also has an adorable little dog, Honey (played by Dulce), that she trots out to keep the uncomplicated plot moving. Spoiler alert: this first little dog comes to a tragic end for which Delia takes responsibility, but no problem. The nice thing about child substitutes is that they’re so easily replaced, unlike human kids, and Delia soon gets herself another fur baby, Charlie (played by Charlie), albeit bigger than the first.

In “Left on Tenth,” the human actors Peter Francis James and Kate MacCluggage play over a dozen featured characters between them, and it is mildly suspenseful to wonder what costumes, by Jeff Mahshie, they will show up in next. Most impressive are the many wigs, by Michael Buonincontro, that MacCluggage dons throughout the show. How does she make these dramatic changes in so little time? Amazing.

Ephron’s play is one of Stroman’s few forays outside musical theater. Nonetheless, all the actors get to dance a lot, and it’s meant to be funny and charming because none of them can dance.

Shades of a rom-com emerge in “Left on Tenth” when Delia meets online a Jungian therapist, Peter (Peter Gallagher), and begins long email and phone conversations with him before they actually meet face to face. Is there anything less dramatic on stage than people sending each other email messages?

Yes, that would be watching Delia go through her two medical treatments for leukemia. Stroman must know how painful yet undramatic this is because she sends James and MacCluggage on stage to distract us with a Ballet of the Hospital Partitions. These framed blue curtains keep crisscrossing the stage while Margulies makes minor changes in her facial expressions and moves from her back to the left side of her body then to the right. “Left on Tenth” captures perfectly the tedium of being in a hospital, for both the patient and the visitor.

Before Delia gets sick, Margulies is perky to the point of robotic. Illness becomes her.

Since I prefer memoirs from people who have achieved something in life rather than survived something, I didn’t know about Ephron’s health problems. I was only mildly engaged watching “Left on Tenth” when Gallagher’s Peter finally shows up to woo Margulies’ Delia. Peter is so smitten even before he meets Delia that I thought he had to be a stalker, and Ephron’s memoir was about her falling in love and then fending off a real nut job. How disappointing to learn that I was supposed to be swallowing this schmaltz about her present husband without a dollop of irony to wash the goop down.

Peter turns out not to be a pervert. He is too good to be true, and you won’t believe this character for a second. I had other good reasons to be suspicious.

Elsewhere in the play, Delia has an HIV-positive friend who takes at least 20 different drugs a day just to stay alive. Clearly, his doctor forgot to tell him several years ago about Descovy. Delia also has “Der Rosenkavalier” being performed in Central Park at the Naumburg Bandshell. “La Boheme,” maybe. “Der Rosenkavalier,” never.

The post ‘Left on Tenth’ Broadway Review: Julianna Margulies Explores Love and Leukemia appeared first on TheWrap.