Movie Nation

The third time doesn’t prove to be the charm for the funnyman pairing of Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly. The “Step Brothers” struggle to find much in the way of laughter in being the latest to send up that Victorian England smartypants, Sherlock Holmes.

Ferrell’s “Get Hard” co-writer/director Etan Cohen proves as comically out of step as his leads in saddling two of the cinema’s most reliable jokers to a gasping nag of a comedy.

He wasn’t the first to think of Dr. Watson (Reilly) as the true brains of “Holmes & Watson,” though perhaps he is breaking new ground in hunting for giggles in the Good Doctor’s offering of “Cocaine?” or “Heroin?” to Holmes (Ferrell) and those he and the World’s Greatest Detective enlist in their pursuit of Moriarty. That’s cutting edge comedy, there.

And the autopsy shared by Dr. Watson and “The Lady Doctor from America” (Rebecca Hall) turned into a send-up of the potter’s wheel scene in “Ghost” (“Unchained Melody” on the Victrola) kind of works — in a 1990s way.

It’s an old fashioned broad character comedy of the type Ferrell generally avoids, seeing what the genre did to earlier “Saturday Night Live” comics like Mike Myers. It’s more scripted than riffed, and the script is weak tea indeed.

We meet the adult Holmes as he practices his entrance to court, where he proceeds to find every excuse under the sun to excuse the accused Professor Moriarty (Ralph Fiennes, utterly wasted in a role with almost no lines and nothing to play) of his assorted crimes.

Moriarty is freed, to the fury of Inspector Lestrade (Rob Brydon). It’s only when a threat is delivered about destroying “a London marvel,” “changing history” and killing Queen Victoria (Pam Ferris) to boot, that Holmes springs into action. Not that he admits his blunder or anything.

Watson? He’s angling for “co-detective” status. And upon meeting The Queen, he goes to goo. They both do.

“What a looker, eh?”

“STUNNING.”

A corpse stuffed in a cake might contain clues, but Watson can’t examine it on his own. Dr. Grace Hart from America (Hall, game for anything that’ll get a laugh) will lead and he will assist.

“A LADY doctor?”

“Does ‘DOCTOR’ mean the same thing in America?”

She is a pioneer in her field, and already makes “30 cents to every dollar a MAN makes.”

Cohen — and yes, this is pretty much all on you, dude — sends up the Robert Downey/Jude Law “Sherlock” films by having Ferrell’s dimmer Holmes graphically work out how he’ll best a brawler twice his size, defuse a bomb etc.

And he hires many of Britain’s best character actors to play unfunny bit parts — Steve Coogan as a one-armed tattoo artist, Coogan’s comic foil Brydon as Lestrade, Kelly Macdonald as Holmes’ housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson, Fiennes and Hugh Laurie as Sherlock Holmes’ smarter brother (another unfunny attempt at sending up Holmes had that title).

Ferrell and Reilly sing a love duet, sling euphemisms for masturbation — “These are the wages of WANKING!” — and take us through the “London in a Day” tourist attractions as their locations.

The prologue — Holmes and Watson in boarding school — almost works. The future detective was bullied, but clever enough to get every single other student expelled so that he’d have every teacher all to himself.

“Holmes & Watson” drags the Titanic (reusing footage from “Titanic,” and one of the stars) into Victoria’s reign, hurls a comic blast or two at America’s current president and takes shots at American junk food.

“Go back to America, with your ham-dogs and hot burgers!”

It’s just not funny. The material isn’t worthy of the great comic duo of our time.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for crude sexual material, some violence, language and drug references

Cast: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Rebecca Hall, Kelly MacDonald, Pam Ferris, Ralph Fiennes, Steve Coogan, Hugh Laurie

Credits: Written and directed by Etan Cohen, based on the characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. A Sony/Columbia release.

Running time: 1:29

Mr. Peele has found his sweet spot — horror — and his sweet spot time to release — March.

This “Us” trailer has a couple of jolts, one provided by rabbits.

Damn.

Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Elisabeth Moss headline the cast of this March 15 release.

Major chutzpah points to the creators of the award-winning 2016 sex offenders’ rights documentary “Untouchable” for putting their movie into theaters post #MeToo.

A film criticizing the endless parade of laws, often named for children whose molestation, kidnapping, assault and sometimes murder they are aimed to prevent, piling up on the legal system’s books and piling punishment upon convicted offenders was never going to find a big audience. But in January (Jan. 15) of 2019?

And starting your film not just with a montage of governors and presidents signing such laws, but with the disgraced comic Louis CK doing his infamous “child molesters” monologue on “Saturday Night Live?” Wow.

David Feige’s film aims for nuance — aside from that jolt of an opening. Activists — often the parents of victims — the public at large and legislatures have parked a wide range of offenses under the umbrella “sex offender.” That’s tied the legal system’s hands and created punishments, Feige’s film argues, that do not fit the crimes.

So the aged Army veteran John Cryar, a self-described “pedophile” from Oklahoma, is lumped in with Shawna Baldwin, a 20something mother of two who got drunk as a teen and had sex and with an enthusiastic, also drunk 14 year-old boy — both of them on the national sexual offender registry for life.

Child rapists, abductors and murderers are lumped in with child porn collectors and peeping toms.

And all the laws, about where these people who go through “the system,” hopefully (but not always) receiving treatment, counseling, can live, work, congregate, etc. are further blurring any distinction in the nature of the crimes and erasing any leeway the courts might be prone to exercise.

We meet a Florida crusader for such laws and his daughter, abused by a nanny, who as an adult has joined him in that crusade. Ron Book is a big time Miami lobbyist who, on realizing his daughter Lauren had been abused by a Honduran nanny he hired, decided — “I’m a guy with access, a guy with resources,” that he could “fix” this.

For years, he’s pushed for laws, local statutes, etc., often with daughter Lauren’s name on them, adding punishments, work and residency restrictions to convicted offenders’ post-prison lives, a practice that can only be called revenge, not deterrence.

Judy Cornett is another Florida crusader, driven by the sexual assault on her son to form “Predator’s Patrols,” using the National Sex Offender Registry as a place where her “vigilantes” (her word) can monitor, harass and turn in to law enforcement registered offenders they see breaking any of the conditions of their parole.

It’s no wonder Florida is the safest state in the country for children. Only it’s not. I know. I live here and work in the media. The crimes continue, gain maximum TV exposure, and fresh rounds of prompt action by the legislature — to the exclusion of far more common crimes and injustices which could use that money and attention.

It’s a subject that draws instant passion and unanimous support. And as Feige’s film digs into the lobbying, the laws that result, and the damning statistics that utterly undercut all this attention on “recidivism” among the range of people classified as “sexual predators,” you have to wonder why.

It’s a self-feeding “punishment machine” one retired judge calls it. And it’s all built on myths, erroneous pre-conceptions, such as when retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy cited an utterly unsupported 1980s “Psychology Today” story by a self-serving counselor to buttress the view that the vast majority of sex offenders become repeat offenders.

Not true. And these laws, such as Miami statutes that so restrict where convicted offenders can live that many — with again, a wide range of offenses putting them under this umbrella punishment — have been rendered homeless, unable to work, camped in a handful of vacant lots or under this or that particular highway underpass? They don’t have any impact at all in child sexual assault rates.

When your kid is most likely to be molested by a family member, family friend, clergy member, coach or scout leader — moving people who have done their time and are on probation — for life — into a tent in a parking lot doesn’t help.

Feige can be accused of cherry-picking the offenders he wants to profile, using only montages of TV coverage to show the “monsters” — loners, vagrants, often with “Duck Dynasty” grooming — who are the demonized reasons for the laws’ existence.

But Federal, state and academic studies are jammed with statistics that back up his thesis. The controls and punishments of those already convicted are effective. Adding on to that is misplacing resources and papering over the problem and preventing people who have served their time from making a contribution to society.

Ironically, shaker-and-mover Ron Book comes off as the villain of the piece — dogmatic, bellicose, a bully who will not consider the fact that he’s not helping matters. He admits, late in the film, that no, not one law he’s jammed through the Florida legislature would have protected his daughter. It’s a pity Feige doesn’t ask an even harder question.

“Are you doing this out of guilt for not vetting or monitoring the Honduran nanny you hired to take care of your precious child?”

Feige added footage to “Untouchable” after the film’s festival tour of 2016, which offers an added topicality — the Weinstein, Cosby, Louis CK, Lauer and Trump sex abuse scandals folded into the conversation.

The film has a little hope that if Book won’t bend, maybe his daughter (who rode her notoriety into the Florida State Legislature) will. The vigilante nature of the way the laws have been “hijacked” has filled the mother of Jacob Wettinger, the child whose abduction led to the national registry, with regrets and even given the “vigilante” Cornett pause. The intention was for this information to be available to law enforcement, not law-unto-themselves-civilians.

But “Untouchable” is yet another dispiriting reminder that Americans are ruled by passion, not science or reason, when it comes to crime and punishment.

MPAA Rating: unrated, graphic sex crime descriptions, profanity

Cast: Ron Book, Lauren Book, Shawna Baldwin, John Cryar, Eric Janus

Credits: Directed by David Feige. A Meerkat Media release.

Running time: 1:43

A little novelty goes a long way in “Buffalo Boys,” a, violent, slow-moving East Meets West Western from Indonesia.

What do we call this sort of mash-up? A Ramen Noodles Western? 

The set-up promises gun play mixed with unconventional martial arts, Western movie tropes jammed into the colonial era Dutch East Indies. Director and co-screenwriter Mike Wiluan delivers on these, but in a humorless movie with payoffs and pacing that are more wearing than entertaining. 

We meet the brothers Suwo and Jafar on a freight car in 1860 California, staging a prize fight against the biggest brute they can find. Suwo (Yoshi Sudarso) is the pretty, younger sibling. He hypes the fight. Brother Jamar (Ario Bayu) does the fighting.

You know how this goes. The locals underestimate the little foreign guy, the miracle of martial arts astounds one and all. Then the white guys want their money back.

Jamar, it turns out, has learned to be handy with a gun, too. Suwo? He’s a lover, not a fighter. The old man (Tio Pakusadewo) who raised them has been their guide and companion Out West, and he reminds them of how their father died (via flashback). 

“I don’t want to die before we set things straight,” he counsels with his dying breaths (in Malay/Indonesian, with English subtitles). Go back, find the evil Dutchman Van Trach. “Revenge is a right!”

The brothers vow to do just that. They journey home, lay low, hide their identities and remember Van Trach.

“We will find him, wherever he is! And this time we’ll be ready!”

The Dutch East Indies is exotic and primitive, with vast ancient temples and scorpion elixirs to cure what ails you. The land they return to is still under the thumb of colonialism. Villages are raided to force locals to register for forced labor, “cash crops” like sugar cane, tea, tobacco and opium displacing food crops.

The most racist colonialist of them all is Van Trach (Reinout Bussemaker), given to branding his “registered labor” with a “VT.”

The brothers seek out long lost relatives, learn how to handle the local tool/weapon of choice — the machete, although any knife — especially those wavy-bladed Javanese daggers — will do if you just want to stab a guy in the eye.

Indignities and injustices pile up. Beheadings are the favored form of execution, hanging corpses until they rot is the “deterrent” the Dutch use to keep the natives in line.

As the Wild West comes to the Wild East, carnage ensues.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Kiona (Pevita Pearce) is a veritable warrior princess and ally, a deadly archer, even when galloping along, bareback, on a water buffalo. There’s a damsel (Mikha Tambayong) for one brother to fall for, a tortured sex slave (Happy Salma) to try and free and the villain’s towering henchman (Daniel Adnan) to stare down on their way to a final showdown at the Batavia Corral.

“Are you ready?”

“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be!”

There are a lot more colonialist outrages presented here than righteous beatdowns, brawls and shootouts.

Wiluan delivers the fights — stabbings, shootings, dismemberments — with heavy doses of slo-mo and just enough blood to be convincing in their consequences. 

But “Buffalo Boys” is rather tedious going in between the fights, and those action beats are spaced too far apart. All this stuff about Suwo feeling “the pressure” to “be braver,” “be a hero,” all these horrific injustices the brothers witness before finally striking back make the picture kind of a joyless drag. 

The story beats are the same as many a revenge Western, but they feel mishandled here. We know the good guys will be goaded into fighting back before they’re ready, and that they’ll be bested in that first fight, but even that convention feels off.

What’s fun is the novelty of it all, the ride in a covered wagon in the ancient, tropical East is familiar yet exotic. A saloon, what it serves and the manner of bar fight it offers, is kind of a hoot. 

Wiluan’s idea of comic relief is the character Fakar (Alex Abbad), here to show us you can survive getting stabbed in the eye.  “Cyclops” shows up, with the bad guys, again and again as the story builds towards its climax. Which isn’t much of one, as the venal villains (and the actors playing them) register, but not enough to inflame the viewer. 

That finale has the tone the entire movie should have aimed for. It’s over-the-top, with ridiculous firearms (grenade launching shotguns in 1860 Indonesia), heroes surviving mortal wounds, the works.

But the grim performances and general humorlessness of the enterprise let the “Buffalo Boys” down long before they have their moment at high noon.

MPAA Rating: unrated, graphic, bloody violence, rape 

Cast: Ario Bayu, Yoshi Sudarso, Tio Pakusadewo, Pevita Pearce, Reinout Bussemaker

Credits: Directed by Mike Wiluan, script by Raymond Lee and Mike Wiluan. A Samuel Goldwyn release. 

Running time: 1:42

Better question, SHOULD there be a “Hellboy” reboot without Ron P?

Truthfully, this April 12 Summit release features Ian McShane, Milla Jovovich, Sasha Lane, Thomas Haden Church and David Habour (of “Stranger Things”) as…HELLBOY…looks fun.

Helluva trailer.

The “weekend” part of the “Christmas Holiday Weekend” at the movies is over.

And “Aquaman,” as expected, as projected, is finishing it with a healthy $67.4 million at the box office — since Thursday night.

Will it hit $100 million by midnight Christmas Day? Earlier projections pointed to as low as that, and as high as $121. Now everything’s a tad scaled back in terms of expectations.

Warners has already earned over $400 million from the movie overseas, so North American money is just icing on the cake. We will see more of Mr. Momoa shirtless and swimming, so it would seem.

“Bumblebee,” a puerile but generally inoffensive reboot of the “Transformers” franchise –could not beat Disney’s reboot of the 54 year old “Mary Poppins” franchise (Hah!) on its opening weekend, with Emily Blunt’s “Poppins,” which opened Wednesday, still having enough juice to clear $22 million ($31 million since Wed.).

“Bumblebee” — with stiff competition in the fanboy films category (“Into the Spiderverse,” “Aquaman”) — managed $21.

Jennifer Lopez cashed that STX check but only gave the newish-startup studio a $6.5 million opening weekend. Poor.

“Welcome to Marwen,” Universal’s $39 million gamble on Robert Zemeckis and Steve Carell and Leslie Mann, is a complete bust — $2.35 million. 

“Mary Queen of Scots” opened wide enough to finally crack the top ten. “The Favourite” was forced out of the top ten because of that. 

A little awards heat from one film or the other could change that. Both deserve acting Oscar nominations, I figure. “Favourite” more than “Mary.

“The Mule” is settling in for a long run, with Clint’s fans finding it — slowly. “Green Book” needs an Oscar bounce to get above $30 million, “If Beale Street Could Talk” is winning the per-screen average wars in VERY limited release. A little awards bounce would do wonders for that one.

His smile doesn’t phase his sister or stepfather.

Saying all the right things just makes them, and us, question his sincerity.

But “This time will be different” and “I’ve got a good feeling about this” means different things to his mother. She wants to believe. And she and she alone has not given up.

“Ben is Back” is domestic drama that brings America’s opioid crisis home, that captures the whirlwind of destruction that one addict brings to a family and a town.

Through vivid, wrenching performances by Julia Roberts and Lucas Hedges, it personalizes the statistics, and personalizes the glib talk show therapists who counsel “Let them go, you can’t save them.” Not if it’s your kid.

Even if he’s lied to you, repeatedly. Even if he’s robbed you. Even if his many treks to rehab have all but bankrupted you. Even if he got a nice girl from town hooked with him, and she died.

Roberts’s performance of wavering faith, veering from tough love to extreme nurturing, makes “Ben is Back” one of the best pictures of 2018.

Roberts plays Holly, the amusingly unfiltered mother to three kids from two marriages, prepping them for the church Christmas pageant in suburban New York (Sloatsburg Village).

Ivy (Kathryn Newton) will sing a solo. The younger kids will be an angel and a sheep. But all bets are off when they get home from rehearsal and there’s Ben (Hedges), sitting on the icy stoop.

The younger siblings are delighted, but Ivy all but flips out, frantically yelling “Mom MOM,” texting her stepdad (Courtney B. Vance) to “Come home NOW.”

Mom?

“He’s got the sparkle back in his eyes.”

Writer-director Peter Hedges (“Pieces of April,” “Dan in Real Life”) runs us through a textbook “coping with an addict” regimen. Holly tells Ben he is to “not leave my sight.” She will drug test him. As he plays with the little kids, she hides jewelry and prescription drugs, going room to room, methodically junky-proofing the house.

Her husband might implore Ben, who has left rehab 77 days into treatment, that “there’s too many triggers here,” this isn’t a good idea. Mom is hellbent on making it work, sure that this will NOT be another Christmas ruined by charming, stealing, using and abusing Ben.

Manipulator that he is, Ben gets their trepidation. “You’re all still scared of me.”

Just what an addict about to be chased away from the house would say. It seals the deal, and before we know it, Mom is taking Ben out shopping for gifts for the family, a trip where his past — and hers — catch up to them.

He runs into a couple of fellow users. And she has a mall food court encounter with a senescent family physician, who doesn’t remember her or Ben or assuring her that the pain meds he was prescribing weren’t addictive. Her furious, “I hope you die a painful death” (smiling all the while) is the first great jolt of the movie. Dragging Ben to the cemetery and asking where he wants to be buried is the second.

As Holly shows us inner strength we haven’t suspected she has, Ben gives away the genuine struggle that the charm offensive obscures. He’s trying.

“I’ve gotta find a meeting — now!”

As “Ben is Back” takes us from that confessional AA meeting (presided over by Tim Guinee) towards the chickens-come-home-to-roost third act, the grim reality of it all sinks in. If it can happen to this family, it can happen to anyone.

And if it can happen to anyone, how many families would have the strength, patience and faith to fight the good fight, long after most of us would have given up?

There’s a melodramatic turn in the third act of “Ben is Back” that is less convincing than everything that’s come before. But it’s not a deal breaker for me — within the realm of the possible, if not the most obvious and logical resolution to that “reap what you’ve sewn” direction the movie reaches for.

That takes nothing from the moving, emotionally harrowing moments, the stellar performances and the intensely personal story that “Ben is Back” is.

At a time of year when finding a movie that’s “about something” is a chore, here’s one that fulfills that promise.

And If Julia Roberts doesn’t make you cry with her here, you might want to work on that empathy thing.

MPAA Rating: R for language throughout and some drug use

Cast: Julia Roberts, Lucas Edges, Courtney B. Vance, Kathryn Newton, Tim Guinee, David Zaldivar

Credits: Written and directed by Peter Hedges. A Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions release.

Running time: 1:43

Filmmakers Jimmy Chin (Honnold’s longtime cinematographer) and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi get us up close, letting the camera do what Honnnold must do — extreme closeups of the rock face, intensely hunting for that next imperfection in the smooth granite, that next crack or crag that will move him further up the 3200 hundred foot wall.

And the views, which Alex almost never takes a moment to admire, can be breathtaking.

“Free Solo,” getting a hard push as the Oscar contender on this subject, will earn a special one week IMAX engagement in much of the country Jan 11.

Reviews for Warners’ “Aquaman” were indifferent to OK, but the trailers and Jason Momoa TV appearances had this one pre-sold, and how.

A $27 million Friday points to a $68 million opening weekend, with that tally growing Monday and Tuesday, thanks to the Christmas holiday.

“Mary Poppins Returns” promises to have a long, lucrative run — Oscar buzz, etc. — so a $31 million (below projections) opening should not discourage the Mouse.

“Bumblebee” opening at $22? Despite ridiculously generous reviews (not mine)? That toy franchise is toast.

“Spider-Verse” has taken a steep dive on its second weekend and apparently isn’t handling the new competition well, or earning repeat business. Deadline is saying $17.9 million second weekend numbers, based on a $5 million Friday. We’ll see about that.

Jennifer Lopez has $7.1 million big screen fans buying their way into see what she wears in “Second Act.” 

“Welcome to Marwen” needed Oscar buzz to have a prayer, and it’s not good enough for that. A major Zemeckis flop, opening at $3 million. Wow.

“Mary Queen of Scots” opens wider this weekend, and is outrunning “The Favourite,” its period piece competition. For now.

Every holiday season has to have at least one comedy you can take mom, to, right?

So be grateful “Second Act” doesn’t have Streisand and Rogen.

Seems like every start up studio takes a look at the bare cupboard and some suit says “Let’s get J. Lo!”

A few years back, it was CBS Films that tried to revive her big screen fortunes. At least in “Second Act,” STX showcases her in a much more likable role, even if the movie around her is patchwork and somewhat lifeless.

When the screenwriters are stealing from “Working Girl,” they’re on sure ground. When they wring emotions out of mothers and daughters, they get the desired reaction — they know about the whole “Take Mom to movie for Christmas” thing , too.  But the movie goes from generally stiff to genuinely losing its way when they do. Schmaltz.

We meet Maya the day she doesn’t get the big promotion at Value Shop, a supermarket chain she has put the best 15 years of her life into.

The dopey mogul (Larry Miller) who runs it throws that “minimum job requirements” thing at her, and gives the gig to an idiot MBA from Duke.

It’s not just their basketball team that we hate.

Maya (Jennifer Lopez) is sharp, hands-on, and left in the lurch. “I just wish we lived in a world where street smarts equaled book smarts.”

But her 40th birthday gives her one special gift. The Stanford tech nerd son of her BFF (Leah Remini) polished her resume. Inflated it. Build an entire alternate identity, with Harvard, Wharton and the Peace Corps in it. And next thing you know, the chief (Treat Williams) of the  conglomerate that supplies Value Shop is head hunting her, bringing her in as a consultant.

She’ll compete with his daughter (Vanessa Hudgens, also quite likable) to see who can revamp their mass production skin care products line in a more popular and profitable direction.

But the boss’s daughter and his new hire bond, and who knows where that’ll lead?

The few times the movie perks to life — Maya misusing her office nemesis (Freddie Stroma) on the dance floor, a little “Push it REAL good” dancing sing along with her girls (Remini, Lacreta, Dierdre Friel) — just remind us how dead everything around those moments is.

Funnymen Miller and Dave Foley (as a company chemist) are wasted in bit parts, but Charlyne Yi scores as an off-the-wall, heights-fearing assistant.

I didn’t hate this, which is faint praise, I know. The kids cussing for laughs add nothing, and the dress-up nature of the lead roles (the cinematographer and costume designer LOVE Lopez and Hudgens, who have never looked better) are low-hanging fruit in the Xmas-movie-for-moms department.

I wasn’t nuts about “Second Act,” and I’m guessing you won’t be either. But your Mom? She’ll find something nice to say about it, even Leah Remini’s Old West streetwalker face paint.

MPAA Rating:  PG-13 for some crude sexual references, and language

Cast” Jennifer Lopez, Vanessa Hudgens, Treat Williams, Leah Remini, Milo Ventimiglia, Charlyne Yi

Credits: Directed by Peter Segal, script by Justin Zackham, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas. An STX release.

Running time: 1:43