Movie Nation

Looks as if this one only previewed in NYC, so I guess I’m ducking into my favorite multiplex tonight to see every teenage girl’s nightmare — “Slender Man.”

You see that title, and the name of that star (Gael Garcia Bernal also stars), and you think, “Uh oh. Trouble in Kindergarten.”

Look for “The Kindergarten Teacher” to start streaming Oct. 12.

“Perdida” is sort of an Argentinian Girl with the Mermaid Tattoo,” a human trafficking thriller built around a compelling lead performance by Luisana Lopilato.

It begins promisingly, features striking Patagonian and Canary Islands locations and some brutal brawl for your life fights. But no mystery thriller you can figure out before the midway point can claim total success, no action pic that saves the heroine from certain death with the devices this one uses can cling to believability.

“Perdida” opens with a fruitless search party in the Patagonian snow. A teenage girl has gone missing.

Fourteen years later one of the other girls from that class field trip to a volcano is now the fiercest cop on the human trafficking beat. Pipa is now going by her given name, Manuela (Lopilato). We meet her as she stalks a guy, climbs through a window into his house, saves a newly-trapped teen and beats the living Infierno out of the kidnapper.

“You can’t save them all,” (in Spanish, with English subtitles, or dubbed) her boss (Rafael Spregelburd) grouses. Being a cop who breaks rules, busts heads and gets her man, Manuela doesn’t hear him.

The case that derailed her life and then redirected it comes back into play at the memorial mass for the missing girl. Somebody placed a “How’d they get that?” photo of her as she was back then, in the church. Somebody has been publishing touching obituaries. Manuela is guilted by mother of the “perdida” (lost girl) into reopening the case.

Over her boss’s objections, of course.

There is a third timeline the viewer is privy to, ill-used prostitutes about to be buried in a banana plantation in the Canary Islands. The one with the mermaid tattoo talks herself out of being murdered.

As Manuela starts asking questions, starts employing her junkie/hacker buddy (Oriana Sabatini) and trying to figure out two faces she didn’t know at this memorial (a feral Amaia Salamanca and a brutish Carlos Alcántara).

The friends that were on that trip with her are no help, “Cornelia got lost. A puma ate her. She died.” That’s that. They’ve moved on.

But the mystery couple, given to violence and answering to a monstrous overlord known only as “The Eyptian,” are getting worried. Because The Egyptian (Pedro Casablanc) is starting to sweat about what Manuela knows and what she might find out.

“A woman’s secrets and lies are more important than her own life,” he declares.

Co-writer/director Alejandro Montiel is still best-known for the behind-the-scenes musical “Eight Weeks” in North America, but there are a couple of badly-reviewed thrillers also on his Argentinian resume.

Working from a Florencia Etcheves novel, he juggles first two timelines, then three and then adds a fourth, stripping the mysterious out of this mystery, explaining how Pipa grew up to be Manuela, a fury in cargo pants, and showing all his cards entirely too soon.

Lopilato under-reacts, here and there, but for a slip of a thing, she packs a fierce punch. She’s got her hands on a fascinating character and she gives Manuela pathos, toughness and a temper.

More’s the pity that the mystery she’s struggling to solve is given away, pretty much, by the script and direction that tends toward the melodramatic, long before the closing credits.

MPAA Rating: TV-MA

Cast: Luisana Lopilato, Amaia Salamanca, Carlos Alcántara, Rafael Spregelburd

Credits:Directed by Alejandro Montiel , script by Jorge Maestro, Mili Roque Pitt and  Alejandro Montiel, based on the novel by Florencia Etcheves. A Bowfinger/Netflix release.

Running time: 1:43

You may not know the name, but you know the face of Robert Davi, a veteran heavy, a big screen fixture for decades playing mob bosses, made men, Bond villains and the occasional cop, soldier or Fed.

“I’ve had to live with this face,” he shrugs. “I look like, you know, a thug.” And he’s more or less accepted that.

But one of those villains — Jake in “The Goonies” — gives away Davi’s true passion, singing a little opera in between threats and violence. That was the Astoria, Queens native’s first love.

And as the decades of making bad guy money have progressed, he’s been able to buy a nice house, raise a family and finally indulge in that original passion, touring with an orchestra, performing the music of his idol, Frank Sinatra.

“Davi’s Way” is a documentary about Davi’s grandiose plans to celebrate Sinatra’s 100th birthday, to replicate a signature concert in Sinatra’s career, the 1974 “Main Event” at New York’s Madison Square Garden. The Chairman of the Board made history with this defining late-career solo show, singing from a boxing ring, “punching” his way back to prominence, one more time.

And if, like most people, you don’t know the name “Robert Davi,” you can see where this might be a problem. “Davi’s Way” director Tom Donahue (the vet-healthcare expose “Thank You For Your Service” was his) captures the humble character actor’s descent into delusional diva-hood in this warts-and-all, laugh-until-you-cringe documentary.

Davi has this dream, and he approaches a friend “Danny A.” with some concert promotion connections. He hires an aspiring actor “Stevie” as his overwhelmed personal assistant. And away we go — a year of tantrums, shrinking expectations, endless promotion, petty indignities and “tough love” to the daughter, Ariana, who wants to be a singer/actress and wants Dad’s help getting a start in the business.

Davi has the chops and stage presence to manage a more than passable late-career Sinatra, and no less than Quincy Jones sings his praises in the film.

But man, what a tool. At times it’s as if he’s playing a tool, a self-important star who bullies and insults that assistant, the film crew — “I don’t want bad-guy lighting. FILTERS!” — makes his daughter cry and annoys the hell out of promoters, would-be show producers and venue operators.

He doesn’t like being told that doing Sinatra is “not just about putting on a hat.” And he REALLY doesn’t like it if he’s wearing a hat and sunglasses and anybody else in the room is wearing the same. Especially that hapless assistant.

He tosses names around as possible Sinatra-fan “co-stars” on his night. “Busta Rhymes? Know any females? LOR-day?”

The assistant, working his few showbiz connections, chuckles at having to ask if “Jay Z” or Timberlake are available.

That list descends into Gene Simmons and Kid Rock territory quickly — you know, Davi’s “Fox and Friends” fellow guest conservative celebrities (Davi just finished a “Roe vs. Wade” movie that FoxWorld eagerly awaits).

Davi wants Madison Square Garden, but just to reserve a date would cost $50,000. “Nassau Coliseum,” he counters. “How about these twin skating rinks?” the Nassau Coliseum guy offers back.

And on it goes, a year of shrinking horizons and impossible demands. He recreates Sinatra album cover photos (getting out of a chopper), hears from the most famous casting director in Hollywood history (Lynn Stalmaster) where he went wrong in his career, and then gets on with it.

Davi, an Actor’s Studio-trained heavy, tenderly relates the story of how he got a part in a late Sinatra thriller, “Contract on Cherry Street,” his “big break,” and how he got to hang out with his fellow Italian American, known for his generosity as well as his mile-wide mean streak.

Which kind of makes you wonder how much of this meanness is just for the cameras, an act. I mean, he’s nice to Joe Mantegna, Chazz Palmineri, Robin Leach and others he needs favors from. Then we see him in concert and catch improvised stage patter that crosses the line into cruel and we figure “Oh, he learned the bad stuff from Ol’Blue Eyes, too.”

But still we laugh, at the hat thing, at the passable crooner-impersonator who thinks he’s on a par with the real deal and at the endless refusals to compromise even as he’s compromising, right up to a concert that doesn’t go perfectly but closes in on “debacle” thanks to his on-stage blunders and reactions to imperfection.

You’ve got to give a tip of the — you guessed it — “hat” to Donahue for showing the guy pretty much as he is, a big screen tough guy with a hilariously fragile ego, in the end a classic “Hollywood type,” starring Robert Davi as himself.

MPAA Rating: Unrated, profanity

Cast: Robert Davi, Danny A. Abeckaser, Ariana Davi, Quincy Jones, Deana Martin, Joe Mantegna, Chazz Palminteri, Robin Leach, Lynn Stalmaster

Credits:Directed by Tom Donahue. A 2B release.

Running time: 1:22

I cannot tell what role Arielle Kebbel has in this indie romantic fantasy. Sure, she’s the worldly, sympathetic bartender commiserating with the Big Business  Go Gettter/Hunk (Justin Hartley) who figures time travel is the best way to “get the girl of his dreams” who is already with somebody else.

I’m assuming the romantic object of desire is Hartley’s actress/wife Chrishell Hartley.

But the billing (“and Arielle Kebbel”) and punch line of the trailer suggests Ms. Right is Winter Park, Florida’s own AK.

There’s no firm release date for “Another Time,” but there’s enough here to gin up curiosity.

A bit English, a little Terry Gilliam, a lot Tim Burton (Lasse Hallestrom and Joe Johnston are credited as co-directors), two Oscar winners in the cast, No Doubt music adapted for a “Nutcracker” updating/revisionist take.

Pretty.

Could be a magical sleeper hit, or a colossal miscalculation. “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms” opens Nov. 2. 

Meagan Good and Omari Hardwick star in this zeitgeisty romantic drama set in “the city of dreams,” where a club promoter has to “fight every day of my life,” and not just because he’s in the entertainment capital of the world.

Smart. Adult. Challenging. Of the movie.

“A Boy. A Girl. A Dream.” made an impression at Sundance and Samuel Goldwny

For the love of God, SOMEbody say “We’re going to need a bigger boat!”

Because there’s no shame in quoting a line from THE shark movie when you’re confronted with one 80 or so feet long. Especially when there are so few other funny lines in what is meant to be a sort of big screen answer to “Sharknado.”

On the “Jaws” to “Sharknado” scale, “The Meg” tends to be more serious than the trailers have hinted, a popcorn picture of the “disaster” variety with Jason Statham trying to save Chinese beachgoers and The World from a prehistoric behemoth that somehow survived extinction and is unleashed by clumsy scientists.

Propped up by $150 million in Chinese production money for effects, with Chinese co-stars and a South China Sea setting, it’s more a popcorn pic spectacle that you endure, rather than enjoy. Perhaps it’ll play better with the People’s Republicans.

A billionaire (Rainn Wilson) has financed the building of Mana One, essentially a space station under the South China Sea, with the aim of getting his and a science team’s name on the discovery of a floor below the deepest ocean floor, a “new world” beneath what the depth sounders have measured.

Dr. Zhang (Winston Chao) and his divorced scientist/explorer daughter Suyin (Bingbing Li) head up this effort, with Mac (Cliff Curtis) in command, engineer Jaxx (Ruby Rose), remote-control rover specialist DJ (Page Kennedy) and “Doc” (Robert Taylor) all monitoring the sub that’s gone down to penetrate a chilly hydrogen layer that’s hiding this “new world.”

Lori (Jessica McNamee), Toshi (Masi Oka) and The Wall (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson) are on that sub when it makes it to the bottom, and is promptly pounded by something that leaves it disabled and stranded.

Only one former Olympic swimmer has the experience to get down there and bring them back. Fetching him from a (not dissolute enough) drunk in Thailand proves easier than it should, what with him growling “You’re going to appeal to my better nature — I don’t have one.”

But it’s Jason Statham, and action fans know, “Never bet against The Stath.” And as we’ve seen in the prologue, Jonas (Statham) has “experience” with this sort of rescue, in more ways than one.

That harrowing rescue attempt, the realization that there’s a megalodon down there, and they’re all in this glass-walled science station chatting with the whales, is only the first act of “The Meg,” which features cool undersea tech like speedy bubble-topped jet subs, clear plastic polymer shark cages and an undersea lab that looks like every absurdly spacious, Apple-design team space station you’ve ever seen in a movie.

There’s a too-cute kid (Shuya Sophia Cai) — “Eight-year olds hear EVERthing!” — moments of  careless death and of personal sacrifice and even environmental complaint (Shark fin hunters get what’s coming to them.). 

And it has some of the most ridiculous place-yourself-in-peril moments ever committed to film. At least Statham’s still got that Olympic swimmer physique and the muscle memory to look great slicing through the water…swimming towards an 80 foot shark.

Muttering “Just keep swimming” as he dives in for another go at the damned shark is about as wry as he gets.

Director Jon Turtletaub (“National Treasure”) emphasizes the tech and the mayhem here. We can guess what a shark that size (twenty feet longer than a Coast Guard Cutter) would do to a crowded Chinese beach, or a Yorkshire terrier.

Whales, motor yachts, fishing trawlers and submarines? We can guess that, too.

That being the case, the movie dawdles along, boring us as it does, in between action sequences. There’s a good chase or two, a generic escape here and there, but almost no cool lines and no catch-phrases.

“There’s a monster and it’s watching us.” “It’s not easy being the person who survives.” “Man vs. Megalodon isn’t a fight. It’s a slaughter!”

Among the cast, Rose and Curtis are wasted and Statham alone has his moments as the deaths, even the “honorable” ones, lack emotional punch.

They’re selling this as a funny escape, and that’s the movie they probably should have made. The laughs are rare — a sight gag here, the stereotypical “scared black guy who can’t swim” there. Rainn Wilson has maybe one amusing moment, and it’s in the trailer.

But the Chinese financiers may learn a hard lesson from this pricey pic, if it sells tickets the way it lumbers through the water. From liquor billionaires to Japanese conglomerates and Arab oil potentates — when it comes to “new money,” Hollywood always sees a sucker coming.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for action/peril, bloody images and some language

Cast: Jason Statham, Ruby Rose, Rainn Wilson, Bingbing Li, Cliff Curtis, Winston Chao

Credits:Directed by Jon Turteltaub, script by Dean Georgaris, Jon Hoeber and Erich Hoeber, based on the Steve Alten novel. A Warner Brothers release.

Running time: 1:53

“Star Wars” creator George Lucas once said, “Figure out what 12 year-old girls want, and you’ve got a hit.”

And “To the Beat!” is a veritable shopping list of those “wants.”

Girls — here they’re 14 and thus examples to their younger sisters — want to dance.

They want fame, and the wardrobe that goes with it. They want a chance to meet and dance for their latest pop idol, here represented by singer-dancer Chris Trousdale, formerly of Dream Street.

And — just guessing here — they want a movie with a little more edge and polish than the achingly sweet, squeaky clean, virtually drama free “To the Beat!”

It’s about twin sisters (Laura Krystine, Brisa Lalich), one studious, the other more “free” and “fun,” but both dancers. Mia (Lalich) is practicing a political speech for school, but Mackie’s not having it.

“Issues facing our country? Girl, we have our OWN issues to worry about.”

She’s just seen, online, an announcement by Trousdale that he’s holding a contest to pick a five girl team of dancers to appear with him in his next video. And Mackie’s just GOT to get in on that. Mia will get a team together, too, even though their styles (modern vs tap) mimic their personalities.

“No matter what happens, I’ll be happy for you.”

“Me, too!”

They don’t need a sibling rivalry, what with their spoiled bratty nemesis Avery (Jayden Bartels) living next door. Avery has Daddy (Eric Martsolf) wrapped around her little finger, and needs him to finance her “plan for me to finally get what I deserve.”

The sisters, meanwhile, assemble their squads and work out with their faux French dance teacher, aptly named Miss Dotty (Susan Denaker). When crunch time hits, Miss Dotty calls in the even-more-camp Bob Fosse-wannabe (Michael Taylor Gray, funny). 

Boys? They’re just here to help plan social media strategies, or in Avery’s case, to get Alex (Jake Brennan) to “fix” the online voting to get into the finals.

Parents? They’re mostly here to subordinate their needs to fulfilling their little girls’ dreams. The twins’ mom (Marie Wilson) is a widow working two jobs, leaving a lot of the “mothering” to oldest daughter Mandy (Veronica St. Clair). Avery’s (Martha Madison of “Days of Our Lives”) is a Southerner and ex-cheerleader who has some “suggestions” for Avery’s routine.

“You are NOT gonna PAULA ABDUL this dance contest!”

Co-writers Susan Bernhardt and Jillian Clare (former child actress, who also directed this) refer to themselves as “creators” in the credits. So this is probably a proof-of-concept pilot for a TV series.

And the very young dancers make that an idea that could pan out. The acting may be wildly uneven, but endless rehearsals, all set to Trousdale’s “Dance for Love,” are sharp and age (and skill-level) appropriate. This isn’t “Step Up,” in other words. Asexual, cute and just impressive enough to be something kids could try at home.

The teen characters, aside from the odd bit of cheating, backstabbing and squealing in delight at every “video” appearance by Trousdale, are supportive and (somewhat) considerate. SOME of them take Trousdale’s “Don’t take yourself too seriously” too seriously. Guess who doesn’t?

“How ELSE am I supposed to take myself?”

The banter is of the “For realz, you’re delusional,” variety. And the story, lacking much in the line of drama, just meanders (too many characters to do justice to many of them) towards its “Big Contest” finale.

That’s where the filmmakers’ “call in favors” casting drains what little air there is out of the balloon. You don’t turn your LONG third act over to “our three celebrity judges” (actress-dancer Alyson Stoner is the most famous one, “Maze Runner” Dexter Darden is another) who go on and on “analyzing” each of the three finalist teams’ performances.

That smacks of “They’re doing me a favor, I need to give them lots of screen time” and it makes the movie fizzle out when it had been perfectly content to just fade away. Slowly.

MPAA Rating: TV-PG

Cast: Laura Krystine, Brisa Lalich, Jayden Bartels, Veronica Stt. Claire, Martha Madison

Credits:Directed by Jillian Clare, script by Susan Bernhardt and Jillian Clare. A Vision/Netflix release.

Running time: 1:36

“Bel Canto” is a Paul Weitz film of Ann Patchett’s novel, about South American revolutionaries seizing a singer and concert-goers in an effort to free their comrades from prison.

Ken Watanabe is the love interest, with Christopher Lambert and Sebastian Koch also in the cast.

Look for this in limited release Sept. 14.