Movie Nation

What do the stars of the “Universal Soldier” film series have in common with “Brokeback Mountain” cowboys?

Jean-Claude Van Damme, the onetime “Muscles from Brussels,” and Dolph Lundgren, the “Siberian (Stockholm, actually) Express,” just can’t quit each other.

They reunite yet again for “Black Water,” an oddly over-plotted and implausible action pic starring a couple of wizened action stars who peaked in the ’90s.

The intervening years have seen not just Z-movies, but something resembling “comebacks” for these two — “JVCD” and reality TV for Van Damme,  “Expendables” and “Sharknado” outings for Lundgren.

Like their contemporaries, Sly, Arnold, Bruce and Mel, they’re beating back Father Time, or trying to. Their head-busting’s been replaced by gunfighting.  The scripts they’re forced to shoot? As awful as ever.

Van Damme plays Scott Wheeler, a spy or agent of some sort who wakes in a featureless prison cell. He shouts into the void, “Where the Hell AM I?”

A voice, a fellow “inmate,” we come to understand, replies that “officially, it doesn’t exist…Neither do you.”

That would be Marco (Lundgren), a man of certain skills with “a terminal case of ‘I know too much,” similarly “disappeared” into the void.

Wheeler, at the urging of Marco, thinks back to the “last thing” he remembers. Flashbacks take us to New Orleans, an assignment of some sort gone wrong, the dishy contact (Courtney B. Turk) half his age who Bond Babed her way into his bed right before everything went wrong.

Now, mysterious competing government agencies, repped by Ferris (Patrick Kilpatrick) and Rhodes (Al Sapienza) are competing to see who gets to torture our hard target.

“Guys like him have an infinite threshold for pain,” Ferris growls, upping the ante. “You want a man to tell the truth? Put a needle in his eye.”

That’s kind of twisted, if you know JCVD’s history. He was successfully sued in the ’90s for half-blinding a stunt man in a fight scene gone wrong in “Cyborg.” Penance?

Somehow, Wheeler’s got to get the drop on his captors and start the long process of a prison break — one complicated by the film’s title. No “Black Water” isn’t a play on a former U.S. government contractor, but the conditions of their imprisonment.

Much of the movie, our two heroes are separated — one, making new allies, killing old enemies, working his way through this “facility” until, of course, he gets back tto the long-absent Marco.

Because of that whole “can’t quit you” thing.

Part of Van Damme’s appeal has always been the mismatch of seeing someone his height fight a world of villains and evil minions, always much larger. A little of the fun of pairing him with Lundgren once was that height mismatch, a sight gag that many a comic duo have exploited. Nothing is made of that here.

There is a Van Damme offspring in the supporting cast. See if you can spot him.

The most interesting scenes in “Black Water” are those first moments of mystery, harking back to Pirandello or that classic “Twilight Zone” episode, “Five Characters in Search of an Exit.” The mystery is far more interesting than its solution. The actors, with their gruff history — more history than real chemistry — less interesting than their confused characters.

Letting Wheeler and Marco reason out their plight, with less specific flashbacks not ALL focusing on Van Damme’s Wheeler, would have heightened the mystery, still leaving time for the two or three memorable one-liners, and time for shooting butts and taking names.

What all involved, including cinematographer-turned-director Pasha Patriki, settle for is easier, dumber and far less interesting, a movie that lives down to its vague, murky title with endless shootouts through sets that don’t remotely resemble what this prison is supposed to be.

As for the performances, Van Damme and Lundgren may not be able to quit allowing producers to pair them up. But they should. Movies like this and their work in them isn’t doing either of them any favors.

MPAA Rating: R for violence and language

Cast: Jean Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, Jasmine Waltz, Patrick Kilpatrick, Al Sapienza

Credits: Directed by Pasha Patriki, script by Chad Law. A Saban Films release.

Running time: 1:44

Jesse Plemons is that fleshy redhead who shows up in a movie and makes you go, “Oh, it’s that GUY.” He was the scary square cop from “Game Night,” the square too-young lawyer in “The Post,” a green cavalry trooper in “Hostiles,” the clueless sheriff in “American Made.”

See a pattern here?

But “Saturday Night Live” writer Chris Kelly looked outside the box Hollywood has painted Plemons in and builds his dramedy “Other People,” around him. And if Plemons isn’t up to carrying the “comedy” part of this, he’s quite sharp in dramatic scenes as he plays a struggling New York comedy writer (ahem) who comes home to Sacramento to help care for his dying mother (Molly Shannon).

David never imagined his homecoming would be like this. He left college to local newspaper acclaim as a writer headed to New York to seek fame and fortune. Updates on his getting a shot at this series pilot, or that one, filled the family scrapbook.

Seven years in New York, and his latest pilot has been dismissed. A relative mentions looking for him on “Saturday Night Live.” Not his employer. Besides, he’s a writer, not a performer.

“Only a matter of time before we see you on there.” Encouraging. He just needs some material.

“I’ve got material RIGHT here,” his grandpa (the great Paul Dooley) cracks.

Topping all his personal disappointment? Mom’s been diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma.  As the movie opens with a tearful deathbed scene, we know how that’s going to turn out.

What “Other People” is about is how this family gets to that point, a year of treatment, despair, collapse and coming to terms with how these people relate to each other, but mainly how David struggles to look outside of himself and overcome both the external forces beating him down, but his own self-absorption and limitations.

Dad (Bradley Whitford of “Get Out”) never got over David coming out. Their time with his mother is an uneasy truce.

David’s sisters (Maud Apatow and Madison Beaty) are hurting, too. But he’s too into his own head to see it.

And then there’s his relationship with Sacramento, which, as “Lady Bird” and other films have taught us, is the squarest corner of California.

Shannon is the heart of “Other People,” bucking up and dissolving into tears, riven by grief and regret on bad days, stiffening her upper lip on good ones. One moment, she’s apologizing “for all the bad things I said when you came out,” another, she’s getting a mom massage, morbidly curious if her son can “see it,” “it” being the cancer that’s all inside her with little physical manifestation on her exterior.

Whitford’s a good actor, but Kelly does nothing to expand, justify or make us believe his character’s homophobia. He’s constantly encouraging his son to hit the gym, take some “boxing classes,” as if he believes it. Nobody, including Whitford, does.

The film’s stand-out funny moments are provided by the grandparents (Dooley and Jude Squibb), and by John Early, playing Gabe, a gay friend who also moved away and is home on occasion, and especially by J.J. Totah, playing Justin, Gabe’s flaming — only word for it — much younger adopted brother.

Justin is the gayest middle schooler the movies have ever seen, embracing the stereotypes long before he embraces his sexuality — obsessive about his room decor, cross-dressing and carrying himself with a confidence that David or Gabe never would have when they were his age. He’s so hilarious he stops the movie, which isn’t exactly sprinting along.

One reason to include those Justin moments — making a perhaps stereotypical point about gay narcissism?

Plemons has a few almost-comic moments, a drunk scene, and a couple of big speeches, none of which lift “Other People” out of the dragging, month-by-month (intertitles tell us which month it is) march toward the inevitable.

What is Kelly saying here, that David has to get past the “It’s all about me” thing? That’s a serious hole in the film — sweet speeches about a dying woman telling her son how much she loves birch trees, and how he (Gabe) will think of her every time he sees one — mixed with blase OKCupid hook-ups, interludes of watching gay exibitionism online, Justin, mixed with Mom failing, Dad trying to talk David through a Living Will and the like.

It’s worthwhile enough to justify the film being made, but just barely. Kelly’s made a self-absorbed dramedy about a character not-quite-making-his-mom’s-cancer-about him, but close, one that never comes to grips with more than random observations about this life, this world and how it isn’t really changed by this character’s mother’s death.

MPAA Rating: unrated, sexual situations, profanity, marijuana use

Cast: Jesse Plemons, Molly Shannon, Bradley Whitford, Maud Apatow, June Squibb, Paul Dooley

Credits: Written and directed by Chris Kelly. A Vertical/Netflix release.

Running time: 1:36

“Deadpool 2” is closing in on $300 million, “Avengers: Infinity War” is within range of $675.

And “Solo” is sinking faster than you can say “familiarity breeds contempt.”

But the big news of the weekend is the distaff “Ocean’s 11” riff, “Ocean’s 8,” which managed to clear $41 million, below its projected $45 million best case scenario, but not by much. (Pay no attention to Box Office Mojo claiming it was the only site to have this sort of confidence in the Warners release. EVERYbody figured $45 was the target.

The reviews didn’t sizzle, a CinemaScore of B something or other is weak tea (people are reviewing a movie they were dying to see on opening weekend). But good on them. Sequels?

“Hereditary” had a shot at coming in second, but “Solo” and “Deadpool 2” edged it. It earned $13 million, not great for a horror film, especially one with good reviews and a lot of screens. Not a brand name franchise, and heaven help us if A24 decides that “The Witch” and “Hereditary” is where the money is, and not “Ex Machina,” “While We’re Young,” “Green Room,” “Moonlight,” “The Florida Project” and “A Ghost Story” and the other daring fare they’ve become known for.

“Hotel Artemis,” starring “Old Lady” Jodie Foster — bombed. $3.15 million.

I think it’s safe to say that Netflix has found itself a niche, teen comedies with a sexual edge, “raw dog” high school sex farces.

“The Kissing Booth” too demure for you kids? “F*&% the Prom” too subtle? Are they both too straight?

“Alex Strangelove” is a coming out comedy with all the trappings of “Let’s lose our virginity prom night” romps, sort of an “In & Out” for teens.

As in Alex Truelove, our hero (Daniel Doheny of “Adventures in Public School”) falls for the first girl to share his love for octopi and set off sparks with him on a gossipy, snarky school video project — “Savage Kingdom High.”

He’s a smart, kind, organized type — class president, sweet — with a solid grounding in common sense. “We are NOT licking this frog!” His girlfriend Claire is a classic Girl Next Door.

But while Alex and Claire (Madeleine Weinstein), “my official girlfriend,” are becoming a couple, they’re spending all senior year putting off that Big Night. Or Alex is.

“Oh my God, dude, you’re gay,” BFF Dell (Daniel Zolghadri) declares. “It’s totally cool. It’s the 21st century. Everybody’s gay!”

That ups the pressure on Alex to step up his game, think about condoms, practice his explicit sex talk with his stuffed monkey and work on logistics. What will change his mind? The Drama Geeks Party, with more sexually advanced kids in “Cabaret” wear?

“I think we’re here to corrupt you, Alex.”

That’s Elliott (Antonio Marziale). First give-away he might swing that way? He’s at a Drama Geeks party. Second? He’s got a plus-sized BFF, Gretchen, who pines for him. 

As Dell experiences drug induced hallucinations -don’t lick frogs, kids — Alex and Elliott talk and make a lot of eye contact. Claire may butt in, but Elliott knows. 

Writer-director Craig Johnson (“The Skeleton Twins,” “Wilson”) doesn’t try to reinvent the teen sex comedy here. He barely escapes “Love, Simon” territory.

For a picture that would cross the R-line (close) on the big screen, “Alex Strangelove” has a chaste innocence about it, sweet with a naive hero practicing his dirty talk.

“Let’s get a hotel room! I’m gonna sex you…like a tornado on fire!”

Elliott doesn’t respect the “girlfriend” claims. He’s a year or so older. He’s got all the gay psychoanalysis skills when it comes to Alex’s favorite animals and favorite toys — penile resemblance.

There’s frank, flippant talk about how girls are more sexually aware than boys, “They watch ‘GAME OF THRONES!'” And the heart to heart between the gay guy and the not-close-to-certain guy is poignant and charming, pained but not strained — easy.

“How romantic?”
“Not really.”

Alex isn’t the only one confused. Claire — “My mom made me watch this old movie the other day, ‘Sixteen Candles.'” It doesn’t help.

Kathryn Erbe plays the mom, by the way.

In creating this freshly-scrubbed teen romantic fantasy, Johnson goes for sensitivity, which this picture has in surplus, and laughs — which he doesn’t often find. It’s less ambitious than his homosexuality/depression/underage abuse “comedy” “The Skeleton Twins,” which was more adult, and lifted considerably by Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig. Here, the leads and supporting players are a pretty bland bunch, no matter what Johnson gives them to say. Nobody is that interesting, no one is particularly funny.

The tropes of the “coming out” genre will be familiar to anybody not in the film’s target audience, and as such, have a clinical sterility about them. “Confused” and “conflicted” and inept at the whole sex-with-girls-because-maybe-I’m-not-into-them doesn’t play as touching or funny at this stage.

Stilll, the teens have a tolerance you hope high schoolers — at least in the cities — have acquired. Boys share confidences we’ve never seen boys share in a teen movie, friends intervene to help arrange a hotel room “for you love birds,” boys go condom shopping  together after getting initiated to the B-52s.

But we lose track of the potential First Gay Crush for most of the movie.

The funniest character is Hillary, Dell’s older-sister played with profane coed sass by Ayden Mayeri. Her exchanges with Marziale have the sting of sibling sass, no holds barred and unprintable.

The big scenes are explicit enough to titillate teens, predictable enough to bore anybody older, even if there are touchingly familiar moments here and there.

A memory of homophobic harassment feels real. And that contributes to the sense that  a gay teen could take to heart a lot of affirmation out of a movie like this, even though it plays kind of limp and stale. It panders to one righteous practice of Generation Over-Share — owning one’s sexuality in a Youtube declaration of “It Gets Better.”

Johnson may have a character quote and interpret that “old film” “Sixteen Candles.” But whatever he hoped to crib that from minor classic, he missed the spark, the warmth, the rude wit and the simple romance. “Strangelove” is merely instructional, sprinkled with profanity and macking and frog-licking to give it “edge.”

This is closer to an “After School Special,” and yes — that’s an even older reference than “Sixteen Candles” — an R-rated “After School Special.”

MPAA Rating: TV-MA, explicit sexual situations, substance abuse, profanity

Cast: Daniel Doheny, Madeleine Weinstein, Kathryn Erbe, Antonio Marziale

Credits: Written and directed by Craig Johnson. A Netflix/Red Hour release.

Running time: 1:38

Fans of serious cinema do not give a rat’s left bum cheek about “Predator,” in any incarnation.

With good reason. The hilariously arch original produced two delusionally macho and feckless governors, and a slew of Godawful sequels.

A new reboot? Meh. Wait, Shane Black directed it? Ever see “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang?”

The idol of generations of Hollywood hacks, machismo with a cool John Milius never quite managed. He’s got Olivia Munn and Boyd Holbrook and Sterling K. Brown, Thomas Jane and Jacob Tremblay to slaughter.

And in September, we’ll see what he has in mind for “The Predator.”

“Whiplash” and “La La Land” director Damien Chazelle’s take on the intensely private, brave and astrophysicist-smart First Man on the Moon promises something more than nostalgia for the age when America was Truly Great.

When we did Great Things, took Giant Leaps.

Will it have modern day resonance, anything topical to say about a country that shrank away from Big Endeavors and focused on the “practical” and the “commercial,” a national present that is forced to dream its big dreams in escapist sci-fi fantasy on TV or the big screen?

Gosh, I hope so. For our sake. “First Man,” “First Man,” co-starring Claire Foy, Kyle Chandler and as fellow astronaut Pete Conrad, Ethan Embry (Corey Stoll is Buzz Aldrin) opens Oct. 12.

All those Clooney, Pitt, Damon et al “Oceans 11” remakes.

And all it took to best their best opening weekend was Sandra Bullock, Anne Hathaway, Cate Blanchett and Rihanna — and Helena Bonham Carter, Mindy Kaling, Awkwafina and Sarah Paulson.

A $4 million Thursday night — I was at one of the busiest cinemas in the country that night, and management was a bit underwhelmed by the turnout at that point — led into a huge Friday and what looks like a $42 million opening, per Deadline.com.

That’s in line with pre-release projections — all that star power, Year of the Woman hype, etc.

Good on them. The movie’s reviews weren’t stellar. In thinking about it further after writing my review, I wonder if Bullock didn’t exercise too much control and set the tone. She’s not as funny as she used to be, tried too hard to play it Clooney cool and that put a damper on any hopes of snappy banter, wisecracking chemistry among the rest.

A good actress, paired with a great one (Blanchett), but the players who make the funniest impressions — Helena Bonham Carter (best player in this cast), Anne Hathaway, Awkwafina and Sarah Paulson — have fewer scenes with Bullock. No, the script doesn’t pop — you’ve got to give the chemistry and comic tension among the leads as much emphasis as the caper — and NOBODY wanted to be the villain. Spend some money on that role — create something for the likes of say Alan Cumming — and the movie works. Better, anyway. The direction, at least, was OK.

Bullock, and this is mean but I am dead serious about this theory, is incapable of cracking a smile or cracking up. Too much “work done.” Collagen kills your twinkle.

Sequels? Almost certainly. Less Sandy next time, amp up the others.

“Hereditary,” the best horror movie in ages, is fighting neck and neck with the fading “Solo” for second place. It looks to hit the $14 million mark or so. The horror crowd should be showing up in much larger numbers for this one, but they gravitate toward proven “brands.” Maybe it’s just too sophisticated for them.

“Hotel Artemis” is a watchable dog, and as such is bombing at the box office. Under $4 million? I hope Jodie Foster got more than that, just in her salary. Because this could have been hipper, meaner, smarter and funnier, and is just unworthy of her.

Shailene Woodley’s sailing tour de force “Adrift” is having another decent weekend and will be over $20 million by Sunday night.

“Upgrade,” sci-fi smart enough and horrific enough to pack a late matinee Thursday when I caught it (late) is fading away without catching fire. Disappointing.

Saw this as a preview for “Hotel Artemis” last night and was at least a little intrigued.

A Golden Age of Reno/Vegas period piece with Jeff Bridges as a preacher, Chris Hemsworth as someone straight outta Hell, just two of “seven strangers with secrets to bury” at a state-line hotel with a weird, twisted vibe.

“Martian” and “The Good Place” screenwriter Drew Goddard wrote and directed this, Nick Offerman is in it. Feels like an over-reach, reads like a glossy period piece version of this one (So many movies about secretive strangers in hotels, pick your own.)/

“Bad Times at the El Royale” opens Oct. 5.

So what can we read into this trailer for the upcoming thriller “Siberia,” starring Keanu Reeves?

Reeves, like Nic Cage and Cusack and a few others of his generation, is still getting some sort of decent quote. That’s why a lot of his films — not the “John Wick” comebacks — feature one “name” in the cast and are filmed overseas.

That one name? Keanu. Of course, Molly Ringwald is in the cast. Did I miss her in the trailer? Not enough here to generate the interest in watching it again, frankly.

This looks like a smuggling job gone wrong thriller with plenty of “John Wick” styled violence. Writer-director Matthew Ross did the incendiary “Frank & Lola,” so there’s probably more here than the trailer gives away.

“Siberia” opens July 13. 

Bittersweet is such a tricky thing to master in a movie that you cherish it when you find it, even if the movie delivering it is a bit on-the-nose, corny even.

But all those traits have become a niche for Brett Haley, director of the last chance romance “I’ll See You in My Dreams” and the wistful old Western star romance “The Hero.”

“Hearts Beat Loud” is a charming, gently-unsurprising love story — several love stories — tucked into the sentimental end of a New York record store and never-say-die dreams of its lonely, failing owner.

Nick Offerman is Frank, who’s run out of gas and out of cash running Red Hook Records. He can’t compete with Amazon and he knows it, so no more effort at being the charming old coot with the encyclopedic knowledge of pop music. He tells his landlady (the warm side of Toni Collette) that “It’s time…seventeen years was a good run.”

He’s a single dad whose beautiful smart cookie of a daughter Sam (Kiersey Clemons of “Dope,” “Flatliners” and TV’s “Transparent”) is pre-med, and heading to UCLA in the fall. His mom (Blythe Danner, co-writer/director Haley’s good luck charm) is getting forgetful and shoplifting. Clumsily. She always gets caught.

And his bar owner pal (Ted Danson, quite funny) is full of sage advice…for a pothead.

Frank’s one escape? The nightly “jam sesh” with the kid. Sam is focused on getting that  knowledge-edge for UCLA and doesn’t want to, but when she relents, they make beautiful, soulful twangy synth-pop together.

Dad records what they work out, on a whim uploads her song “Hearts Beat Loud” to Spotify, and the Rest is History –in an even more predictable movie.

Maybe things will turn around now. Maybe he gets one last shot at his dream (he recorded a record in his youth). Maybe this will give him the confidence to court that landlady. Maybe med school can wait?

“I don’t want to be in a band,” the kid — the GROWNUP in the relationship — scolds. “And even if I did, it wouldn’t be in one with my Dad!”

But as Sam envelopes herself in that tender, first love — with Rose (Sasha Lane) — it all gets much more complicated, bittersweet as promised.

Haley doesn’t do enough to service every character, but the teen romance is warm and fuzzy and everything you’d hope for in a movie. The father-daughter love plays out in the “jam sesh” and on-stage (Offerman can really play, Clemons can really sing).

A random moment I adored, showing the way an artist first hears his or her song “on the radio” has changed. It’s not as special as it was for generations (Spotify, in that one coffee shop that plays “Indie Mix”), but there’s a little “That Thing You Do” magic in Frank’s delight. Offerman kills it.

And the songs by Keegan DeWitt have enough going for them that you could totally buy into them catching on with the right corner of the insanely fragmented music audience of today.

“Hearts Beat Loud” is, as I said, on-the-nose, as in not particularly ambitious or challenging for those involved. Haley’s movies have an old-fashioned comfort food quality, and this sits happily on the menu with his earlier works.

But the unsurprising surprises have their own rewards and the movie and its music could touch you if you, like the film, are in a bittersweet mood.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some drug references and brief language

Cast: Kiersey Clemons, Nick Offerman, Toni Collette, Blythe Danner, Ted Danson

Credits:Directed by Brett Haley, script by Brett Haley, Marc Basch. A Gunpowder & Sky release.

Running time: 1:36