Movie Nation

“The Gracefield Incident” is an attempted Canadian “Blair Witch Project,” and a veritable minefield of spoiler alerts waiting to happen.

It’s “Cabin in the Woods” meets “Signs,” a Bigfoot movie as imagined by M. Night Shyamalan.

And it’s, well, not terrible. The monster and lights in the sky effects are first rate. The shooting — little pools of self-sourced light in the dark gloom of a Quebec forest — and editing (characters yanked out of frame, willy nilly) is fundamentally sharp.

It’s just so silly, so very derivative, so predictable — despite over-explained moments, laughably illogical means of getting overhead GoPro camera shots of the setting.

But that’s what happens when you sentence yourself to first-person/shaky camera narratives. You waste screen time explaining the various angles and point-of-view shots you’re getting, when of course you’re going to have to break your own rules, at some point.

The video game editor Matt (writer-director Mathieu Ratthe) is so obsessed with cameras that he’s videotaping his pregnant wife (Kimberly Laferriere), while driving, with a helmet cam. And crashes and almost kills them in the opening scene.

They lose the baby, and amazingly, she doesn’t ditch him. Even though he’s replacing the eye he lost in the accident with a miniature eyeball cam-corder.

After recovery, they join two other couples for a weekend getaway at a chateau on the woods — hot tubs, drinking, French-Canadian accented banter. Oh, and by the way, the boss who loaned them the cabin is a Bigfoot cultist.

Events then conspire to make this motley, tipsy crew believers.

Dialogue writing is a dying art in North America’s film schools. Apparently. The inanities blurted through here include “Do you have to film EVERYthing?” to “Make sure you record EVERYthing because NO ONE will ever believe it!” to “OK, night vision’s on, now.”

When somebody says, “I’m gonna go check it out, you guys stay here,” bad things start to happen.

There is another camera among the sextet, and of course there are cell phones. But mysterious things make cell service die and bumps and claws in the dark of night make characters disappear. Attributing all the various shots to those two cameras — and CCTV in the chalet — still doesn’t add up.

The over-familiar is displaced by the “Seriously?” silly entire third act. This comes after a character has reached into a newly-formed meteorite crater to pluck a glowing rock — with his bare hands and empty head.

The acting isn’t terrible, though the script at times makes the players seem that way.

More work should be tossed at the effects team. But if writer-director-editor star Mathieu Ratthe is sentenced to another decade before being allowed to film another feature (“Lovefield,” 2008), don’t expect me to look surprised. Of all the hats he wears in this production, editor is the one that seems to give him a future.

MPAA Rating:PG-13 for sci-fi action/terror, accident images, language and some suggestive material

Cast:Mathieu Ratthe, Kimberly Laferriere, Alex C. Nachi, Juliette Gosselin, Victor Andres Turgeon-Trelles, Laurence Dauphinais
Credits:Written and directed by Mathieu Ratthe. A Momentum/eOne release.

Running time: 1:25

Martin Landau didn’t really get this “actor’s ACTOR” reputation until “Ed Wood.” And everybody working in criticism and film journalism back in ’94 had a ringside seat to the makeover.

He’d worked with Hitchcock, done a few TV series and a LOT of guest shots on the tube. Coppola brought him back for a career curtain call with “Tucker: The Man and his Dream.” And Woody Allen put an exclamation point on that with “Crimes & Misdemeanors.” Out of the shadows and into the limelight, an in-demand character actor with a couple of Oscar nominations to back that up.

But when Tim Burton called on him to deliver a daft and supremely touching turn as the typecast, drug-addled and dying Bela Lugosi working for the worst director in the history of movies, Landau was at the podium — and stood there for months.

He called it “my love letter to Bela,” and an encomium for the actor’s craft. Not everybody gets to labor in the spotlight. They also serve who get deep into character, support the lead and raise everybody else’s game around them. Landau, graciously and articulately, called attention to that.

He did versions of this “an actor’s craft” talk to everybody who interviewed him about “Ed Wood.” It got more polished along the way. And he was all set to repeat this moving, noble speech when he got the Oscar. Then, the band played him off.

He got overwhelmed, blurted out a long list of thank-yous, many of them borderline pointless. And blew his moment. It didn’t happen often, but Martin Landau, who died overnight at 89, after spending his last decades working — a LOT — thanks to that Oscar, got off script and blew his big take.

He had a half-century of stories, anecdotes, to fill a dozen “Inside the Actor’s Studio.” Hell, he’d have been a pretty good host. He’s in the character actor’s Hall of Fame — or would be if there was one — right up there with Walken and Wilford Brimley, Bob Balaban and Woody Strode, Austin Pendleton and Elizabeth Perkins and others.

He will be missed. He did the homework, found ways to add value to a character and enriched most every film he showed up in, even the B-movies and indie fare he spent much of the last decade doing.

And he’s a reminder, if you get that Oscar you’ve worked your whole career for, don’t waste your acceptance speech prattling off random names — I remember a radio host being one of them. Be ready. Give them something poetic. “Thank” those who really got you there in person, or with hand-written notes.

George A. Romero, the “Night of the Living Dead” inventor of the modern zombie movie, godfather of “The Living Dead” (which he wasn’t crazy about–“a soap opera” with zombies, bingo), loved those filmmaker photographer’s vests he was often photographed in, and didn’t mind his place in film history. To his credit, he never ever ran away from it.

He made a no-budget black and white chiller in Pittsburgh, and more than few movies of that genre as follow-ups. None were remotely as effective as that ground-breaking/genre-inventing classic.

A charming man, generous with his time, I got to interview him on a few occasions and remember wandering through a tour of Winter Park, Florida’s for-profit/pricey/well-equipped Full Sail University with him a few years back. He kept rubbing his chin and marveling at “the movies you could make with all this stuff.”

He lost his battle with lung cancer this weekend. George A. Romero was 77, and if he doesn’t turn up in homages in every zombie movie or TV show over the next year, those making their Romero knock-offs should be ashamed. Dead, but his legend lives on. RIP.

Reese Witherspoon, Chris Pine, Oprah, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Mindy Kaling, Michael Pena, Zach Galifianakis — all in service of a big screen rendition of Madeleine L’Engle’s novel. “Wrinkle” opens next May.

Very Harry Potter-ish from its look, in the way it has many many characters to service and a kind of Chris Pine gives a TED Talk opening.

“Lord, thy sea is so great and my boat is so small.”

It’s great to see Gerard Butler take a break from mind-numbing action franchises, lame sword and sorcery flicks and decades of failed comedies and try something new.

But it must be the luck of the Scots that when he does change speeds, it’s in a movie with a title so banal Nicolas Cage already owns it and a melodrama so bland it could be a Lifetime Original Movie.

In “A Family Man,” he plays an unscrupulous workaholic who barely notices when his oldest son gets sick, and is rarely there when the kid is hospitalized for the cancer battle of his life.

Will Dane Jensen, a St. Louis native (from the Scottish Quarter?) see the error of his ways, not lying, cheating, hustling and absentee-parenting in time to “be there” for his kid?

One of the failings of “Family Man” is that this is rarely in doubt, and another is that the script clumsily wants him to have his cake, and time with his sickly son, too.

It’s a “Boiler Room/Wolf of Wall Street” peek inside the high-pressure world of corporate head-hunting. The stakes seem penny-ante when compared to stock hustling, real-estate hustling, etc. Who knew?

Dane is a fast-talking creep who keeps “a desk drawer full of ‘burner phones'” so that he can sweet talk desperate job seekers on his office line, and sabotage their chances if they find a job on their own (no fees) using another number, another name and a mouthful of slander and innuendo to scare off potential employers.

His ruthless boss (Willem Dafoe) expects no less. And if he doesn’t scramble, his slightly-less unethical colleague (Allison Brie) will get the jump on him.

So yeah, the three kids and wife (Gretchen Mol) and Highland Park home life take a back seat.

Screenwriter Bill Dubuque — forget that name — illustrates Dane’s sense of responsibility and victimhood by scribbling the clunkiest, clumsiest, most tin-eared “sex” scene in the history of the big screen. If that online screenwriting course offers a refund, pal, GRAB it.

Alfred Molina is one of the aging, desperate mid-level managers/engineers and execs trying not to beg Dane to do his job and cut them a break.

Dane has no real time for him, and only notices that his son (Max Jenkins) has grown a pot belly, and can’t keep up when he demands they go job it off. The bruises? Only his wife spies those.

It’s a life-threatening disease, and Dane learns the hard way that he can’t bully the doctor (Anupam Kher) into a quick fix.

To be fair, there are some touching moments as Dad tries to connect with his loves-to-draw-buildings kid by wandering the great old edifices of Chicago, in between chemos. Young Jenkins has the soulful qualities the movies give sick children.

But nothing in this slog of a picture is developed enough to make “Think I’ll do this movie with Gerard Butler” pay off for the supporting cast. Dane’s occasional tantrum eats up screen time that could have made the wife and boss more than caricatures, the “good man” Dane is letting down (Molina, with Mimi Kuzyk playing the wife) shown at the end of his tether, or the cutthroat nature of the office.

I seriously question whether that business has this sort of pressure, or rewards, attached to it.

Still, Butler took a shot, gave it a try and unless it’s his fault that all his scenes stay in and unbalance the picture while everybody else’s got cut — or he wrote that ridiculous “negotiated” oral sex scene — deserves credit for not picking up a gun, a sword or Jennifer Aniston one more time.

MPAA Rating: R for language and some sexual content

Cast: Gerard Butler, Gretchen Mol, Willem Dafoe, Max Jenkins, Alfred Molina, Alison Brie, Anupam Kher

Credits:Directed by Mark Williams, script by Bill Dubuque. A Vertical release.

Running time: 1:50

A big Thursday night and bigger Friday puts the last “Planet of the Apes” movie of this trilogy, “War for the Planet of the Apes,” into “King Kong” (“Skull Island”) territory — a $55 million opening weekend, based on the $24,000,000 it will have earned before the first showing Sat. AM.

That’s dead-center in the expectations for the dull, dark, glum and over-praised finale to this ambitious and surprising sci-fi franchise.

But there was always going to be a loser in this weekend’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming” second weekend vs. “Apes” showdown. And it’s Marvel’s webslinger.

Friday’s numbers for “Homecoming” point to a $40 (ouch) to $46 second weekend, a 61% to 65% plummet. Right in the kisser. A big drop is to be expected when a movie opens at over $117 million. But that’s steep enough to suggest little repeat business, middling word of mouth and an exit-by-August. If that holds up, next weekend could be under $20.

“Despicable Me 3” for instance, despite being merely a middling sequel in a summer riddled with them, is holding audience (in the absence of anything other than Pixar’s dreadful “Cars 3” to steal kiddie/family audience share. It is in the middle of adding another $21 million this weekend.

“The Big Sick,” a much-praised dramedy built around the life and comedy of Kamail Nanjiani, is doing quite well in its first weekend of wide release — over $8.5 million.

Conversely, the not-scary/kinda-funny “Wish Upon” horror film is flopping and will be lucky to pull in $4 million for Broad Green.

In “Dunkirk,” perhaps this year’s earliest Best Picture Contender, a flight of RAF pilots make a crossing to keep the Stukas from strafing “our lads” on the beaches, awaiting their fate. Tom Hardy is in a Spitfire, and Jack Lowden. And the voice, over the radio from the third plane, is the unmistakable Cockney crackle of Michael Caine, sometime Alfred the Butler and decades removed from his RAF days in 1968’s “Battle of Britain. We never see him, or his classic British roadster (Riley, Vincent, Jaguar, Morgan? Alvis!). But he’s there, thanks to Christopher Nolan. You can feel it. That’s texture. That’s a connection to “There’ll always be an England.” #80somethingace.

The third and supposedly final film in the latest “Planet of the Apes” franchise is expected, by Fox, the producing studio, to turn out $50 million in ticket sales its opening weekend.

That would probably open it in second place, after “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” which will lose at least half its opening weekend turnout and still come in over $50 million, according to projections. It’s made big bucks all this week (over $9 million Wed.).

But “Apes” is enjoying the sort of breathless reviews that only asthmatic critics can deliver — “best movie of the summer” hype. It, too, is an established franchise. It’s not Marvel, but it’s got a big audience in its corner of science fiction.

Box Office Mojo figures it’ll win the weekend with a $70 million take, nowhere near as heady as the comic book adaptations of summer.

Box Office Guru is figuring this darker, downbeat “War for the Planet of the Apes” will do only about what the studio is projecting — around $53 million or so, which could make it finish in a dead heat with “Spider-Man.”

Bragging rights are not what this is about. A film built to blow up the box office for two weeks that doesn’t open #1 gets tainted in the audience’s perceptions, and that dampens box office. So not opening #1 would cripple the film all through its run, even if it holds more audience, by percentage over time, than “Spider-Man.”

Deadline.com is saying that based on Thursday night’s numbers, the $50-60 million range for “Apes” is the safest bet, over $115 million worldwide. “Spider-Man: Homecoming” did $117 just in the U.S. on its opening weekend.

If “Apes” opens at just $50, the “loser” or “over-rated” perception (not based on reality and quality) will settle in. If it opens over $60, and “Spider-Man” swoons into the $40-50 million range, the “forgotten before it hits Netflix” perception sinks in. And either scenario could happen.

The angry comments when you’re among the first to pan a hyped summer popcorn picture follow this pattern. Outraged and numerous for the week leading up to opening night, a few remaining annoyed comments after they’ve seen the film and still disagree. OR radio silence when viewers are calming down into, “Yeah, he’s got a point. Meh.” I’m getting a little of that vibe from “Homecoming,” with a sense that everybody who desperately wanted to see it and NEEDS for it to be the best thing ever, have bought their one and only ticket to it. And the heat is just not there for “Apes.”

I have no skin in this game, except for wishing a small shock to the studio system to break the endless cycle of sequels, re-boots and comic book fare. It’s been a desultory summer for those of us who want more to chew on than spandex tights, digital effects and rehashed sequels/reboots.

With “Valerian” and Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk” on the way, there will be a lot of chiseling away of audience share next week and through the end of July. The stakes are high. Neither of those films has “Number One at the Box Office” prospects, but they could deflate the two big films of July.

Will audiences render unto Caesar? Or is Peter Parker sitting prettier? We’ll know within hours.

You’re going to see this hyped/fanboy-girl pandering poster in theater lobbies all across America this weekend.

Don’t you believe it. I’ve seen “The Movie of the Summer.” It doesn’t have digital apes in it. Or Chris Pratt. Or a kid in tights or a Gal in a bustier and skirt.

And it opens next weekend.

“Great directors make great movies.” Which great director has a movie opening July 21? Not non-“great” directors Matt Reeves or Jon Watts (Hahahahhahahaha) or Patty Jenkins.