Movie Nation

As Oscar bait, “Breathe” never had a chance.

An upper class romance that morphs into an overcoming extreme disability bio-pic where that disability isn’t so much overcome as endured, its hero, Robin Cavendish (Andrew Garfield) is tad too passive, his wife (Claire Foy) a simple portrait in stiff upper lip stoicism.

That doesn’t mean this feel-good true story isn’t uplifting, that it doesn’t have its moments. The beatific smile Garfield unleashes here and there is simply electric. Especially when Cavendish, a polio patient condemned like all of his lot to the “prison” of a hospital where he cannot manage anything for himself, where a machine does his breathing for him , ventures back outside for the first time.

And other tiny triumphs build towards his “If this can be done for me, why not for everybody in an iron lung” or its equivalent life of advocacy.

We meet Robin just after “the War,” meeting the English Rose Diana (Foy) where all the posh Brits met — at a club cricket match. Rides in his Morgan roadster, picnics, swank dances follow, then married life where he, as an overseas tea broker, brings her with him wherever he goes.

And Kenya has the best tea of all.

But that’s where the free spirited pilot, hiker and athlete is struck low by one of history’s most accursed viruses. Polio brings him down, and his pals, the twins (Tom Hollander, comic relief and good at it) are the only ones he can croak out one last request to.

“Let…me…die.”

Pregnant Diana won’t hear of that. Back in the UK, the hidebound doctor (Jonathan Hyde) isn’t lying when he lays it all out there, the same way the doctors in Kenya did.

“This is about as good as its going to get.”

But there’s a professor-tinkerer in their circle of friends. As Teddy, Hugh Bonneville quite literally rides to the rescue, all jokes and quips and classic English optimism. He’ll strap a car-battery powered ventilator underneath a makeshift wheelchair, By Jove.

And just like that, high-maintenance Robin is mobile, able to get about (pushed about), ready to show his little boy the great wide world with his unbendingly optimistic wife.

Actor Andy Serkis (“Black Panther”) steps behind the camera to direct here, and manages a genial, slow-moving and upbeat picture — for the middle acts. The first act courtship is strictly “Masterpiece Theater,” and the drawn-out third-act a grim different picture with an altogether different agenda.

As awards bait, the hero’s journey feels too circumscribed, his accomplishments after his illness — advocating for improved mobility for his fellow patients, not merely warehousing them — noble, but limited. Serkis doesn’t wring as much emotion out of Robin’s big moments, or get anything at all when he “frees” the fellow trapped in the bed next to him (David Wilmot).

But one scene almost overcomes all those shortcomings, an argument for human dignity, the rights of those society had written off but refused to let die, for the holy calling of easing suffering and bettering lives. It occurs in Spain, where Teddy must be summoned to fix a life-threatening failure of the chair and shows up to an impromptu roadside fiesta where the locals have embraced Robin’s cause and his humanity and shown one and all just what can be gained by saving one life from this trap.

If you haven’t thought before now of Stephen Hawking and legions of others saved and contributing to the advancement of human civilization because of this change in attitude and deployment of technology, this is the moment you will.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for mature thematic material including some bloody medical images

Cast: Andrew Garfield, Claire Foy, Hugh Bonneville, Tom Hollander, Amit Shah, Jonathan Hyde

Credits:Directed by Andy Serkis, script by William Nicholson. A Bleecker Street release.

Running time: 1:58

Marvel’s “Black Panther” is winding down a weekend when it sets all the box office records. A big Saturday pushed the African-American cast and directed, African themed blockbuster into the stratosphere.

It’s in the $193-96 range for a three day opening. And since it opened with a huge $25 million Thursday night, it’ll be in the $220-230 range by midnight Sunday, depending on how many folks treat it like church and MUST GO today.

Summer blockbuster numbers during Black History month. Go figure. Pictures like “Ghost Rider” proved you can make your big money on a comic book adaptation in mid to late winter. “Black Panther” is setting the bar high for every other movie opening this year.

Comic book movie, that is.

It looks as if “Early Man” improved to a still awful $4.7-5 million weekend. Pity, because American kids play soccer and the movie’s another Brit delight. Take the kids!

“Samson” fell out of the top ten, barely clearing $2. Stories from the Bible isn’t what Pure Flix faith-based audience craves, it’s Christian victimhood. Another “God’s Not Dead” is on the way. Wouldn’t have hurt them to spend a little money on the thing. “Risen” was their goal, and nothing arose.

“The Post” stands a slim chance to be the only Oscar contender besides the REAL BEST PICTURE, “Dunkirk,” to clear $100 million.

“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” just cleared $100 million…worldwide.

Hollywood likes to provide lives with closure and chapters in those lives with a sense of resolution.

Real life? Not so much.

“A Fantastic Woman” follows a transgender Chilean woman through the trauma of the death of her lover. Shock and grief are followed by humiliations, petty and grievous, as she comes to appreciate how much she has lost — a lover, a provider, happiness, acceptance and the simple status of someone allowed to grieve for a dead loved one.

Like life, it’s frustrating, a story of little a proud, capable and self-confident woman who hasn’t needed society’s acceptance before now. Or hasn’t realized she needed it. Her burden is to carry on as all around her refuse to let her be “normal” — in their eyes, or hers. It’s a sublime essay on identity, what it means to lose it, how fiercely we fight to get it back.

Marina, played with a sensitive stoicism by Daniela Vega, is a waitress by day and lounge meringue/salsa singer by night. Whatever Santiago at large might think of her, in her world, she has friends, supporters and a lover.

Orlando (Francisco Reyes) runs a textiles mill and lives the comfortable life of saunas, a good table at the club where Marina is singing, and at long last, the great love of his life. Director Sebastian Lelio teases out their connection, “Crying Game” style, as if Marina’s sultry voice and lack of an Adam’s Apple doesn’t give her away.

They go home, make out, and in the middle of the night, Orlando — who is much older — wakes up ill. He tumbles down the stairs before Marina can get him to the hospital, where he dies. And that’s where Marina’s bubble is burst.

A call to Orlando’s sympathetic brother is the last “normal” moment in this tragedy. Gabo (Luis Gnecco) is comforting, reassuring.

But the medical staff is sympathetic, but tactless. Marina, in shock, flees the building, leaving Orlando’s Volvo there. The the police show up. “Tactless” is their default setting. Suspicious beyond reason is where they’re headed.

The “delicate situation” Gabo warned of blows up into a full-fledged investigation, blunt questions about the nature of this May-November affair — “It was a healthy, consensual relationship,” Marina declares (in Spanish, with English subtitles). But Orlando’s injuries, and perhaps family suspicions, have the cops wondering.

We keep waiting for Marina to reiterate the fall down the stairs, to testily turn the family’s “suspicions” into a condemnation of their motives. The ex-wife (Aline Kuppenheim) is still put-out at who her husband ended up with and rather pointedly demands that Marina only deal with her.

And whatever her manners, let her talk long enough and her inner shrew, her intolerance and her determination to have her revenge — on Marina — pops out about her “perversion,” that she regards Marina as but “a chimera” of Orlando’s life — inconsequential, easily erased.

Lelio and co-writer Gonzalo Maza tease us with suggestions of Marina’s toughness, only to have Vega play her as acquiescent, overly accommodating as she deals with the family’s grief. She visits the arcade next to the restaurant where she works to vent frustrations on a punching bag machine. The stuff she has moved into Orlando’s apartment (they had just moved in together) includes punching bags. She can take care of herself.

But she stands there and takes the drunken rudeness of Orlando’s son (Nicolás Saavedra) from what we can guess was his first marriage, a brute who comes into the apartment, unannounced, with ugly questions (“Did you get the operation?”) and threats — “If you steal anything, I’ll know.”

A persistent detective (Amparo Noguera) can’t decide if Marina was abused, or the abuser. 

And in the film’s opening, we’ve seen Orlando search for a mysterious lost envelope, and that Marina has found a mysterious key that could be the solution to her unofficial status with her man. Throughout the film, she searches for that status, utterly bereft at all she’s lost, hallucinating Orlando’s ghost — in the car, in the shadows.

Vega carries the picture with just her face, its pained, lantern-jawed delicacy incongruously carried on “footballer’s legs.” She absorbs the blows, some of them literal, grieving and aggrieved — not hesitating to stick up for her rights with the cops, increasingly defiant to a family hellbent on writing her out of their lives via the funeral.

Vega makes Marina noble, martyred and yet defiant, fiercely clinging to her femininity when we’re so desperate for her to bust Bruno’s nose. It’s a performance of sublime, constrained fury and tender conciliation. Keeping the peace is what Orlando would have wanted.

Lelio captures her downward spiral, fantasy sequences in clubs, walking into a Buster Keaton storm of staggering headwinds, struggling to keep her sense of self in the face of all these headlong assaults on who she is.

But Vega is one who assures us that resolution or not, Marina will endure and her suffering won’t be in vain. Whatever humiliates us and tests us without killing us just makes us stronger.

MPAA Rating: R for language, sexual content, nudity and a disturbing assault

Cast: Daniela Vega, Francisco Reyes, Aline Küppenheim, Luis Gnecco, Nicolás Saavedra

Credits:Directed by Sebastián Lelio , script by Sebastián Lelio and Gonzalo Maza . A Sony Classics release.

Running time: 1:44

Huge Thursday night numbers and a big Friday point to “Black Panther” setting an all-time (4-day) box office record, when all is said and done and the cash is counted Sunday night.

Marvel’s long-anticipated African-flavored superhero adaptation, ladled with healthy doses of righteousness, anti-colonialist rhetoric and the usual loads and loads of digitally-augmented action, is on pace to earn $214-220 million dollars its opening weekend.

That challenges “The Avengers: Age of Ultron” which earned more over the three-days of a proper weekend, but slightly less when adding in Thursday.

“Panther” has changed the nature of February film openings, added a tentpole to Disney’s bottom line and generally sucked all the oxygen out of the multiplexes for this weekend, and probably well into March.

Rapturous reviews have hyped this thing through the roof. 

The weekend’s big disappointment has to be Aardman’s “Early Man,” which lacked that hype, is a kid-appropriate delight and yet isn’t managing a fraction of the inferior but similarly British “Peter Pan’s” haul. A sub-$5 million weekend for an animated film is a disaster. Period. It deserved better, but after “Paddington 2” and “Peter,” the audience has to be suffering from twee Brit cartoon fatigue.

“Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” has steadily closed in on $400 million, overall, but may fall short with “Panther” taking screens and audience share.

Eastwood’s critically-panned “The 15:17 to Paris” is reaching its slower-to-show-up older audience, another $10 million or so making for a solid holdover. “Fifty Shades Freed” is on page to clear $100 million by the end of next weekend.

“The Post” is the only Oscar contender still in the top ten. And “The Greatest Showman” is showing up them all, closing in on $175, which is where I figure it’ll tap out. But you never know with this one.

The Biblical dud “Samson” from Pure Flix cracked the top ten, is on a lot of screens but only appears to be on track to earn $2-2.5 million this weekend. The trailers playing in front of it suggest there will be plenty other and hopefully better faith-base films opening between now and Easter.

In “Red Sparrow,” Jennifer Lawrence plays a Bolshoi Ballet dancer turned into a sex-is-her-weapon Russian spy. She seduces, flirts and her spy boss (Matthias Schoenaerts) is always remarking how cunning she is, “two steps ahead” in the cross and double-cross intrigues of this shadow world.

And even though she’s the best paid actress on Earth and an Oscar winner, it’s a stretch to see her in most of the guises her character, Dominika, is supposed to don. En pointe on the stage? Sultry seductress? Poker-faced gambler with her life, terrified and tortured, fearful for others? All these attitudes have a robotic quality in her performance in this tricky, twisty thriller.

But that kind of works in the film, an athletic, insanely-focused young stoic from a culture where it’s mostly the men famous for weeping.

Throwing her into a couple of sex scenes, plus showers, swimsuits, neo-stripteases as part of her spy “training,” and a couple of sexual assaults can seem exploitative, or inserted as misdirection plays added to the script to change our focus from her generally expressionless mien.

The film also surrounds her with the likes of Schoenaerts (“Far from the Madding Crowd”), who plays the sinister uncle who recruits her into the spy game after a ballet injury ends that career, the leonine Ciaran Hinds (“Munich”) as the boss’s boss and Oscar winner Jeremy Irons (another high ranking commissar, even though they don’t call them that in the “new” Russia). Joely Richardson plays Dominka’s deathly-ill uninsured mother, a most scary Charlotte Rampling is “The Matron,” the Lotte Lenya-esque agent-trainer ripped out of “From Russia, With Love,”  and a delightfully tipsy Mary Louse Parker plays a “mark.”

So it doesn’t matter much that Lawrence suggests nothing other than a frigid, professional interest in the American (Australian Joel Edgerton) spy she is supposed to pursue, who in turn tries to recruit her as a double-agent. No conventional blossoming love affair springs from this, none that Lawrence lets us feel, anyway. From her frequently-unclad and perfectly fit body to her Bolshevik bangs hairstyle, the lady is all ice-cold business.

The end of her dancing means Dominika must find another way “to be of value to the State,” purrs her seductive spook of an uncle. That’s how he gets her into the Red Sparrow program, a deep-cover collection of spies chosen — male and female — for their beauty, their allure, their willingness to make themselves available to foreign operators, oligarchs, “enemies of the State.”

“Whore School,” Dominika calls it.

The Matron teaches one and all that “Every human being is a puzzle of need. Learn to be the missing piece, and they will give you anything.”

These are the best scenes in the film — chilling, sexual, violent, expositional and believable. Rampling is the very picture of menace in them, a Mother Russia Nurse Ratched.

There’s a mole in their spy hierarchy, a CIA agent (Edgerton) is that mole’s handler. Dominika is given a new name and life and sent to get that name from him. She must tease, tempt and bargain for that info, looking out for herself and her sick mom. And she must fend off the sexual advances and murderously double and triple crosses of her assorted bosses to accomplish this.

Lawrence tying her fate to director Francis Lawrence, veteran of her paint-by-numbers “Hunger Games” pictures, shows loyalty but wasn’t the smartest play here. He handles the violence  — bloody brawls and interrogations — and intrigues well enough. But Lawrence relies on her star power and persona to create empathy with the viewer. Little in her performance invites it. The normally more animated Edgerton dials down his visible intensity to match her tone, which further cools their “hot” scenes together.

The pacing is “Black Panther” slack, a 100 minute movie crammed into a 140 minute box.

And as much pleasure as one gets out of Lawrence’s stone-faced pairings with the formidable Irons, Schoenaerts and Rampling, her third act duet with the dazzling Parker (of “RED”) reminds us of what this one-dimensional “Sparrow” is lacking — the spark of life.

Rage and fury she lets us see, and an awful lot of her toned-and-fit body. There’s still not  much of anything — faked vulnerability, charm and physical attraction — that would draw us, or a potential target, into her trap. A better director would have challenged her to try for that.

MPAA Rating:R for strong violence, torture, sexual content, language and some graphic nudity

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenaerts, Charlotte Rampling, Jeremy Irons, Ciaran Hinds, Bill Camp, Joely Richardson

Credits:Directed by Francis Lawrence, script by  Justin Haythe, based on the Jason Matthews novel. A 20th Century Fox release.

Running time: 2:19

If you’ve ever wondered what a guy slaying legions of Philistines might look like, “Samson” shows you. And if you’ve ever wondered why there are no “real” Philistines left — not just the metaphoric kind — here’s a movie that answers that.

If you’ve ever been curious about what being “anointed with oil” might consist of, “Samson” has you covered.

Setting fire to fields of grain by tying torches to the tails of wolves or foxes? That’s a little trickier. And if you’ve pondered the idea that the Hebrew Hercules might have had dimples and the worst fake beard this side of “Gettysburg,” this not-exactly-epic of Biblical proportions might be the stuff of your nightmares.

“Samson” hides its threadbare budget with decent production design, period-rough costumes and rough-and-tumble action. It gives away the game in the casting, though.

My first thought on hearing about this was, “Did they have the guts to hire Jason Momoa? Now THAT’S a Samson.” The brawny tough guy with a winking wit did all sorts of B and C movies before landing the role of AquaMan. And killing in it.

Instead, we’re given Taylor James, who plays one of AquaMan’s fellow Atlanteans in “Justice League,” a beefy, dimply and generally uncharismatic hunk who can’t light up a humorless, tragic and heroic chapter of the Old Testament.

And then there’s Caitlin Leahy, who might have the dark, exotic good looks of the Original Femme Fatale, Delilah, the would-be queen who lures The Hebrew Hammer to his doom. “Feminine wiles” may be instinctual, but “beguiling” takes acting, and she’s as bland as the leading man.

They’re not alone. Watch the fight scenes, where Philistines line up — literally staring at the ground to hit their marks — for slaughter. Crowd scenes? The extras can’t agree on a sight-line they’re supposed to focus on.

And let’s not get into that non-kosher ham Billy Zane as King Balek, eye-linered Jackson Rathbone as his son, the sadistic Prince Rallah, and the world-weary Lindsay Wagner (“The Bionic Woman”) and Rutger Hauer as Samson’s long-suffering parents.  Every performance puts the “p” in “perfunctory.”

In ancient Judah, or Israel, Samson is God’s “chosen one,” defender of the faith and The Tribe of Dan’s choice to be the Hebrew judge, leader of his people.

The Hebrews are under the thumb of the Philistines. And while Samson acknowledges his mission and keeps the faith by refusing wine, not touching the dead and not cutting his hair (Grand Funk Railroad @1974 is the coiffure of choice), he’s too busy swiping from the powers that be and making eyes at comely Philistine women.

Of course, his hand is forced, even though all he wants to do is wed the enchanting Taren (Frances Sholto-Douglas), history’s first known case of “shiksa appeal.”

Next thing you know, he’s smiting Philistines left and right, suffering tragedies, torturing and torching wildlife and growing this godawful fake beard.

All in a slow-motion stroll towards his “destiny.”

The script plays around with the ancient world’s mania for riddles — “At night I come without being called. By day I am lost without being stolen.”

What is “a star,” Alex Trebek!

The bad guys fret because “The Hebrew God is within him,” so it doesn’t matter that the King (Zane) tells his son, that “You must see gods for what they are, symbols — means of control.” When Samson is buried under a pile of Philistines in history’s first rugby scrum, you know he’s going to Popeye his way out of it.

It wouldn’t have been sacrilege to take a lighter tone with this. Samson’s head-butting/chop socky brawls are bloody and glum, but could have been violently amusing. The guy is unbeatable, and cocky. Think Disney’s “Hercules,” or even Gaston from “Beauty and the Beast.” That wouldn’t have demeaned the character in the least.

He’s a big, goofy hunk of meat who comes to feel the weight of the world, and weight of a palace, upon him. Funnier earlier scenes with his pilfering brother (Greg Kriek, under a dreadful wig and later awful beard) should have been played funnier, making the hero’s journey Shakespearean.

It’s a visually and dramatically flat picture in which the co-directors just check off the touchstones in Samson’s storied career, lurching forward, parking him in reasonably rustic settings with tunics and smocks and sometimes shirtless. There’s little character arc, and even less story arc.

It’s all enough to make you miss Victor Mature and Heddy Lamarr and a Cecil B. DeMille remake.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for violence and battle sequences

Cast: Taylor James, Caitlin Leahy, Jackson Rathbone, Frances Sholto-Douglas, Billy Zane, Lindsay Wagner, Rutger Hauer

Credits:Directed by Bruce Macdonald, Gabriel Sabloff , script by Jason Baumgardner, Galen Gilbert . A Pure Flix release.

Running time: 1:50

A little “Avatar,” a little “Iron Giant,” a lot of every YA novel turned movie about Young People who Must Join the Rebellion and Save the Future — “Ready Player One” looks like premium eye-candy, digital video game action built on a VR-avatars namescape.

Stuff blows up. And Ben Mendelsohn, who survived “Rogue One,” is Our Go to Bad Guy of the moment.

March 29.

plenty Waves of approval are greeting  Marvel’s long-planned Black History Month Valentine to comic book movie fans.

Ryan Coogler’s film of the marvelous African, otherwise formulaic Marvel superhero has earned raves in some quarters, general endorsement in most others, and just five pointed pans on Rottentomatoes. As there’s value in being the outlier on a movie pre-ordained to be a smash, make of that what you will. Plenty to pick apart in it, from pacing the a plot driven wholly by the demands of the action beats (No attempt to “redeem” the prodigal villain?). There are no negative notices for “Black Panther” among the more select group of critics on Metacritic, and I gave it the weakest endorsement there. Go figure.

It’s not really my favorite genre, though I have been impressed by the occasional “Dark Knight,” amused by the likes of “Deadpool” and “Ant Man,” more forgiving of the high-minded intentions of the DC movies of Warner Brothers.

“Panther” is slow, lumbering, with pandering padded fan-friendly scenes (check out the weakest post-credits “tease” in the history of this Marvel tradition). Love Chadwick Boseman, this isn’t the highlight of his resume.

It’s not in the same league as “Iron Man,” “The Avengers,” or even “Deadpool,” falling more in the “Wonder Woman/Logan/Justice League” (more substantive than fanboys are willing to say) grouping — ambitious, big subtexts, utterly generic story beats and banal-in-the-EXTREME dialogue.

“Get him, T’Challa!”

Stan Lee’s cameo just reminded me of how far ahead of the curve he was on making his medium topical and inclusive. Like Rod Serling, he was pretty fly for a white guy in the ’60s. Of course, these days, that is leading to movies with checkbox casting. Everybody has to be represented in every cast. As the movies pander to their target audience, there’s nothing wrong with broadening the pandering. Though it does lead to quibbles like this one. 

May it make a billion and enthrall those given to rapture over comic book adaptations. See it, make up your own mind and ask yourself the only question that matters. “Does this have as much to say and say it with as much style, wit and genuine engagement (suspense) as “Get Out?” Nope.

“Early Man” is the newest Aardman stop-motion animated delight to drop in from Jolly Olde. It’s soccer-centric, funny, and not earning the sort of endorsements one might have expected. No, it’s not up there with “Wallace & Gromit” or “Chicken Run,” more “Shaun the Sheep” or “Flushed Away.” Better than “Flushed Away.” 

Critics, like audiences, may be wearying of twee English animated comedies for kids (see the delightful, critically-endorsed but audience-rejected “Paddington 2,” or the lukewarm reception for “Peter Rabbit”).

“Samson” is a major studio (Pure Flix, division of Sony) faith-based picture about one of the brawniest stories in the Bible — the long-haired Hebrew who smote his enemies only to be betrayed by history’s first recorded femme fatale, a woman who inspired a classic Tom Jones’ tune. The movie’s got two directors, stars Jackson Rathbone, Billy Zane, Lindsay Wagner, Rutger Hauer and as Delilah, Caitlin Leahy. And there are no reviews. The cowards didn’t preview it for critics. I’ll catch it today or tomorrow.

OK, Jordan Peele’s being disingenuous. He’s getting Universal to put his film phenomenon of last spring into theaters for one night only to gin up more Oscar momentum.

But it’s to “celebrate” and “thank” fans who made his sharp little movie such a dazzling success. 

Well played.

Did you miss it in a theater? Here’s your chance to see it at NO CHARGE.

“Each guest who requests a ticket the day of the screening—at a participating location—will be given one free admission to the 7:00 p.m. showing on February 19, up to theatre capacity.”

This is the list of cities.

Atlanta, GA; Baltimore, MD; Boston, MA; Charlotte, NC; Chicago, IL; Cincinnati, OH; Columbus, OH; Dallas, TX; Denver, CO; Detroit, MI; Houston, TX; Indianapolis, IN; Jacksonville, FL; Kansas City, MO; Los Angeles, CA; Miami/Ft. Lauderdale, FL; Minneapolis, MN; Nashville, TN; New Orleans, LA; New York City, NY; Oklahoma City, OK; Orlando, FL; Philadelphia, PA; Phoenix, AZ; Pittsburgh, PA; Raleigh/Durham, NC; San Diego, CA; San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose, CA; Seattle/Tacoma, WA; St. Louis, MO; Tallahassee, FL; Tampa, FL; and Washington, D.C.

Fifty five cities are on the list of places it will be shown at 7pm that night. Find out if your local theater is taking part here. http://www.getoutoneyearlater.com

A digitized genetically altered ape co-stars in this.

Dwayne Johnson’s just starred in a global “Jumanji” blockbuster. a movie that outlasted “The Last Jedi” on movie screens over this long winter. And he’s got the “Skyscraper” “Die Hard” variation and this, “Rampage,” in the can.

He could leave those increasingly lame “Fast and Furious” movies behind. He could be choosier, now. Finally. Leave the dregs to Statham and Butler.

Instead, well see for yourself.