Movie Nation

The Ape Man goes into the “Heart of Darkness” in this generation’s version of “The Legend of Tarzan.” Which is an interesting place to park a story and a character fraught with the potential for racist/imperialist undertones from the moment Edgar Rice Burroughs conceived him.

So while we still get the man raised by gorillas, we still get the “talks to the animals” stuff, the vine-swinging and the famous yell, this version of the legend is politically correct, as well as the usual patronizing and preposterous.

He fights animals without killing them. He is beloved by Africa and almost all the Africans we meet. And he saves the continent from a European menace.

We meet Lord Greystoke in London, where he’s lived with wife Jane (Margot Robbie) for years. He still has his jungle heritage, and the knuckles and hands of a man who grew up running on all-fours. He’s needed back in Africa. King Leopold of Belgium has closed off the Congo to the world and is committing unspeakable atrocities in the name of harvesting the riches (ivory, minerals) there.

“I’ve already seen Africa,” Greystoke (Alexander Skarsgard) complains. “And it’s hot.”

But an American envoy and Civil War survivor (Samuel L. Jackson) convinces the once-and-future Tarzan to join him for a fact-finding mission. Jane is most enthusiastic of all, even though she’s not invited.

King Leopold’s Henchman in Africa, played by Christoph Waltz (of course), is determined to snatch the legendary Tarzan and deliver him to an ancient enemy (Djimon Hounsou). And if he has to snatch Jane to get to Tarzan, so be it.

It’s a seriously old-fashioned jungle action picture, with white colonials brutally mistreating simple natives, a long journey up river (both borrowed from Joseph Conrad) and jungle creatures fought, understood and summoned like the cavalry in every B-Western in movie history. Flashbacks tells us the over-familiar story of how Tarzan came to be raised by apes, and how he met Jane.

Harry Potter assembly line veteran David Yates shot this in the muted (3D) colors of memory and old movies. The result is a dreamy, other-worldly picture, but one that even in scenes that capture a bit of Africa, looks fake.

Digital ostriches, digital gorillas, digital lions, digital hippos and digital crocodiles make the movie practical and safe for cast and crew. But they never look real.

Bringing in Craig Brewer (“Blacksnake Moan,” “Hustle & Flow”) to co-write the script gives the movie a little cover from tumbling into attitudes easily regarded as racist today. But the effect tends to neuter Tarzan. He can’t have a fight with an African and admit he has a genuine beef with the guy.

Skarsgard makes for a lithe and limber Ape Man. He makes you wait for him to take off his shirt. Even shirtless, he’s entirely too bland to make much of an impact.

Jackson treats his comic sidekick role as if he’s in a PG-13 rated Tarantino movie — sarcasm, anachronistic wisecracks, self-consciously cool with a lot of gunplay and a little profanity.  He has fun and he does his damnedest to animate the movie.

Robbie is a modern liberated American woman with runway experience shoved into a tale of 19th century Jungle Love.

The result is a “Legend” that feels inoffensively modern, or at least less offensive than it could have been.

It’s too violent to be the kids’ movie it wants to be. And it isn’t up to the challenge of giving adult audiences something meatier to chew on, despite the novel Belgian Congo genocide backdrop.

You can’t make a bold statement or exciting action picture when every frame is filled with fear — of offending someone, of upsetting animal rights activists, of giving the audience a Tarzan they won’t recognize, of failure.

MPAA Rating:PG-13 for sequences of action and violence, some sensuality and brief rude dialogue

Cast: Alexander Skarsgard, Margot Robbie, Samuel L. Jackson, Christoph Waltz, Djimon Hounsou
Credits: Directed by David Yates, script by Adam Cozad and Craig Brewer. A Warner Brothers release.

Running time: 1:49

A tip of the hat, then, to Brian Tyler, the REAL star of “Now You See Me 2,” a sequel ordained by the same logic that gave us “Neighbors 2.”

As in, the first film was just enough of a hit that we could boost our bottom line in a season of the year when we have no other ideas for popcorn pictures.

So Summit Entertainment better have slipped something extra into composer Tyler’s paycheck for this one.

The cast is still top drawer, and adding Daniel Racliffe as a villain, giving Woody Harrelson an identical, sleaze-ball twin and swapping Lizzy Caplan into the sassy, sexy “girl” member of the team of magicians called The Four Horsemen (replacing Isla Fisher) was an upgrade.

The banter is snappy enough, the editing slick and quick.

But there’s so little substance, too much smoke and mirrors, the pandering to the Chinese market even more obvious than in “Independence Day,”  the ending too much a cop-out, for this to come off.

But Tyler’s swinging, swaying jazzy score — augmented by the odd hip hop or pop hit used for effect — keeps it all afloat. Or from sinking straight out of sight.

Three of the Four Horsemen — Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson and Dave Franco — are on the lam. They’re a blend of David Copperfield and Anonymous, activist/vigilantes led by rogue FBI agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo), and their last caper had them faking one guy’s death and putting their “magic debunker” nemesis (Morgan Freeman) in prison.

But this mysterious magician society called The Eye summons them for a new job, and that runs them afoul of a tech tyro (Radcliffe) who has also faked his death. Naturally, he’s hiding out in Macao, aiding their need to bring China into the movie. He’ll be hard to outsmart.

“Once again, science beats magic,” he chirps as he bests them, time and again.

To foil him, they’ll need the aid of the “world’s oldest magic shop” (in China) to steal a microchip conveniently the size and shape of a playing card.

“We’re going to have to brush up on our card-istry,” J. Daniel Atlas (Eisenberg) announces.

And they’ll need a fourth, in the person of Lula, who invites herself in.

The money scene? Getting this chip out of a supercomputer, while they’re strip-searched (not entirely) by Chinese security. Each character pointlessly flips the card to the next character to be searched — AFTER the first character has eluded detection with his or her “card-istry.” The moment you’ve gotten away with it is the perfect time…to risk detection all over again by passing the card on. It might be the most pointless moment in any movie this year.

There’s a little pleasure in Harrelson playing two parts, with the new version a curly-headed, amoral slicker. Franco is lightly amusing, with little screen presence.

And it’s always fun to watch Ruffalo and Freeman give full, fair value in every scene they share, amping up the intensity.

Caplan has the spark of a magician/man-eater. She handles the repartee better than any of them. But there’s so little of it that mainly she’s here to wear short skirts and thigh boots.

And Radcliffe? Not menacing at all.

The big gimmick is hypnotism (aids in covering logical holes in the plot), the stunts are all movie magic and “explaining away” the tricks they do. These “star” magicians” are plainly over-hyped, with only Eisenberg presented in a way that suggests he could keep a live audience interested. He has the eyes for it — legerdomain eyes.

It was never going to be all that. But that score — insistent, sexy, jazzy and loud — almost puts it over, letting us jauntily skim over the laws of logic and physics that are violated, the lack of charisma of these “charismatic” magicians, the works. Until the ending, that is, where it all feels like a cheap cheat and a waste of two hours and nine minutes of your life.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for violence and some language

Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Lizzy Caplan, Daniel Radcliffe, Woody Harrelson, Morgan Freeman, Dave Franco, Michael Caine
Credits: Directed by Jon M. Chu, script by Ed Solomon. A Summit release.

Running time: 2:09

The Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn makes movies with more tone than tension, more feel than feeling.

Every shot is immaculately composed and often held several beats too long. Can’t move on until the viewer’s had a chance to appreciate the portents in every poetic image.

Sometimes the material — a get-away driver’s attack of conscience in “Drive”, a supernaturally psychotic and scenery-chewing convict in “Bronson”  — overwhelms this sense that Refn would be happier as a still “art” photographer. And sometimes, as in his horrors-of-the-modeling-trade thriller “The Neon Demon,” his indulgences just take over and deaden the movie.

“Demon” tells the story of Jesse, a Georgia beauty whose youth (she’s 16) and fresh look make her the new darling of LA’s pretentious and cannibalistic modeling scene.

“That little deer-in-the-headlights thing is exactly what they want,” the too-helpful makeup artist Ruby  (Jena Malone) purrs.

Jesse (Elle Fanning) is a naif among the professional waifs of this world, a mere child surrounded by eating disorders, vanity, cutthroat cruelty and predators of every stripe who prey on unblemished beauty. An agent (Christina Hendricks) takes Jesse on, lightly quizzing her on whether she can take the competition — the skinnier, the more beautiful, those who would undermine her with a dismissive look or veiled insult.

Because that’s what she gets from Ruby’s model-pals, Gigi and Sarah. “The Neon Demon” reminds us that by these standards, a Jena Malone isn’t even in the “beauty” conversation. Bella Heathcoate and Abbey Lee are stunning specimens, like aliens. And they have fangs. Not literally, of course.

Gigi (Heathcoate) on the surgery that makes her competitive in the “most beautiful” sweepstakes — “Plastic is just good grooming.”

The virginal Jesse is almost overwhelmed. But her confidence grows with every attention from the omnivorous and silent star photographer (Desmond Harrington). No, she has no talent, no education and no skills.

“I’m pretty,” she tells the younger photographer who wants to be her beau (Karl Glusman). “I can make money off that.”

Their “expiration date” is 21, maybe even 20. They’re used and abused at every stage of the process. And yet still they come, longing to make money and eventually marry money, against all odds. The tyranny of “the new, the young, the fresh” has never seemed clearer.

“True beauty is the one currency we have,” a designer (Alessandro Nivola) opines. “Beauty isn’t everything. It’s the ONLY thing!”

Which is why Refn fills the edges of his film with grotesquerie. There’s a sleazy motel owner (Keanu Reeves) who preys on the models who book rooms in his dive. A mountain lion sneaking into an empty room is merely a reminder that this guy isn’t the apex predator in this universe. Ruby’s side-job is doing makeup at a mortuary. Nobody is happy, no one eats and almost no one smiles.

Fanning (“Super 8”) has the swanlike features that allow her to be transformed into a convincing model, and a natural gawkiness that works for the character.

But Refn’s skewering of this empire of awfulness is undercut by his plodding, portentous pacing. Scene after scene — often conversations staged in austere, Scandinavian minimalism and echoing silence — goes on too long. The techno music and obscure symbols that pop up between conversations don’t resonate.

And when the film’s hundred minutes of dread turn, occasionally, to genuine violence, we feel little. Our emotions mirror the movie’s — drained away, wasted, frivolously spent for the sake of effect.

MPAA Rating: R for disturbing violent content, bloody images, graphic nudity, a scene of aberrant sexuality, and language

Cast: Elle Fanning, Jena Malone, Karl Glusman, Christina Hendricks, Keanu Reeves
Credits: Written and directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. An Amazon Studios/Broadgreen release.

Running time: 1:58

Daniel Radcliffe has his most useful role ever in “Swiss Army Man,” a dark, existential comedy of dizzying originality.

Because Radcliffe has the title role, that of a corpse who washes up on a beach to “save” a shipwrecked, suicidal and psychically lost soul, played by Paul Dano.

This is no ordinary stiff. Oh no. It has physical and spiritual utility to Hank Thompson (Dano).

Hank has been frantically writing soul-emptying  rescue notes on bottles, making note-rafts out of juice boxes with messages ranging from “Help” and “Save me” to “I’m so bored” and “I don’t want to die alone.”

Failing to revive the dead man, he sinks back into despair, only to discover corpses are buoyant. And their deteriorating guts have…propulsive qualities.

Before you can say “Personal watercraft” Hank is Jet-skiing to the mainland on his new pal, whom he’s decided was named “Manny.”

But it’s only when they’re ashore, somewhere on the littered, remote Pacific northwest that “Swiss Army Man” actually gets weird.

Co-writers/directors Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, adorably billing themselves as “Daniels,” turn two of the cinema’s most eccentric seekers loose on a tale of survival, soul-searching, terror and yes, romance.

Hank is no MacGuyver. But he finds uses for Manny’s flatulence, for the open mouth that captures the rain after Hank has gone to sleep (he’s a water fountain), for his stiffened arms (axes), and so on.

And in Manny, he has his confessor. How Hank ended up so lost isn’t explained (we can guess), but he talks and hums his way through self-psychoanalysis. As he opens his heart, Manny develops something like a pulse. He talks, has no memories, so Hank must explain the universe — emotions, the necessities of life, bodily functions.

“This is what FEAR looks like!”

They hum together, sing-songing through psychotically amusing ditties about their situations and their psyches. The theme to “Jurassic Park” seems triumphant enough in moments like this.

And there’s this woman’s photo on Hank’s slow-to-die phone, a beguiling girl-next-door played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead (of course).

Dano is properly pathetic and manic, and his brother in odd movie choices (“Horns”) Radcliffe manages even more pathos in his limited movement and spare selection of lines of “the life I’ve forgotten.”

It doesn’t add up to much, to be honest. But clever, creative touches abound, as Hank discovers the part of Manny’s body that serves as a compass needle, thanks to a discarded copy of the Sports Illustrated “Swimsuit Issue.”

Whatever its qualities and shortcomings, “Swiss Army Man” makes one promise it most certainly keeps. You have never seen anything remotely like it.

MPAA Rating:R for language and sexual material

Cast: Paul Dano, Daniel Radcliffe, Mary Elizabeth Winstead
Credits: Written an directed by Dan Kwan, Daniel Scheinert. An A24 release.

Running time: 1:35

This is the final trailer, probably, and the last chance, almost certainly, to make a pitch for this late-summer blockbuster. Well-cut, somber, sharp, but there’s no sign of lightness, the flippancy one would expect from a Simon Pegg scripted take on the franchise.

Steven Spielberg reunites with his “E.T.” screenwriter to adapt Roald Dahl’s “The BFG,” which stands for “Big, Friendly Giant.”

He cast his “Bridge of Spies” Oscar winner, Mark Rylance, in the title role, and showcases the current state-of-the-motion-capture-animation art in the film, a tale of an orphan and the vegetarian giant (who doesn’t eat orphans) whom she befriends.

It’s a movie that takes the time to marvel over the production design — a Britain of the early ’80s (oddly filled with 1960s cars), and over the comical conceit Dahl built into this “runt” among giants —  his mangling of the English language.

“You has me wrong,” the BFG says to Sophie (Ruby Barnhill), whom he’s kidnapped and taken to Giant Land because he can’t have her going around claiming she’s seen a real giant. “I’m no man-gobbling cam-iable. I’s a feature of habit.”

His habits include capturing “human beans'” dreams in bottles, and fending off the much bigger giants all around him (Jemaine Clement and Bill Hader are animated beyond easy recognition) who bully “Runt,” as they call him. Their diets aren’t compatible. BFG, as Sophie calls him, eats nasty-looking snozzcumbers (snotty cucumbers) and bottles up Frobscottle, a fizzy drink that gives him gas — prompting many a “whizzpopper.”

The other giants? “I ‘ates vegi-terribles,” their leader (Clement as Fleshlumpeater) bellows. “I eats only (human) beans!”

Orphaned Sophie must hide from these brutes, so she settles into the BFG’s lair, as does the movie, as Spielberg is entirely too content to let the camera linger over the oddities found there and Sophie’s (somewhat) wide-eyed reaction to them.

What Spielberg had to work with was a darkly funny and dangerous Dahl story with fart jokes (whizzpoppers), the Queen and a battle with giant bullies. What he’s made is a dawdling comedy built on gags of scale — big guy in a human-sized world, little girl in a giant sized world — and gags of English formality.

For when, in the third act, the Queen (Penelope Wilton of “Downton Abbey,” delightful and perfect) enters as Sophie and the BFG seek her help, we’re treated to the always-formal Buckingham Palace staff stumbling to accommodate Her Majesty’s new guest for tea. Bit of a bother, that, with substitute chairs, tables, cups and desserts improvised to a giant’s size.

The third act’s tea party and action beats are just lively enough to awaken anybody under the age of 5 and over the age of 10, lulled to sleep by the lovely images, dreamy effects and long stretches of understated wordplay.

So “The BFG” isn’t the “BFD” it might have been. Lovely as it often is, it’s a one hour and fifty-seven minute long kids’ movie designed to be watched, at home, with interruptions. And believe me, you’ll know it.

MPAA Rating: PG for action/peril, some scary moments and brief rude humor

Cast: Mark Rylance, Ruby Barnhill, Rebecca Hall, Penelope Wilton, Jemaine Clement, Bill Hader
Credits: Directed by Steven Spielberg, script by Melissa Mathison  based on the Roald Dahl book. A Walt Disney release.

Running time: 1:57

A weak Thursday night, strong Friday left prognosticators thinking “Independence Day: Resurgence” might hit $45 million this weekend.

No. Bad reviews and a general audience ennui about what was never more than dumb fun — dumb even by 1996 standards — watered down Saturday and left “Resurgence” with about $41 million — a little more, maybe — for its opening weekend.

The brand had less value than folks expected, Fox tried to limit the damage by hiding it from critics, and that may have paid off. Because they found $41 million worth of suckers. Didn’t even better the original film’s 1996 opening weekend.

You can’t go home again, Jeff Goldblum.

“Finding Dory” is still owning the box office, over $70 million for its second weekend.

“The Shallows” did about $17. It deserved better. It should hang onto audience.

“Free State of Jones” makes the famous Samuel Goldwyn crack about “No movie about the Civil War ever made a dime” true. For once. Under $8 million.

“Warcraft” fled the top ten in near record time. Got to figure “ID:R” will do the same.

I’ve been a fan of the tall, imposing Irish actor Ciarán Hinds at least since “Persuasion,”perhaps my favorite Jane Austen adaptation. His quiet, vulnerable and austere turn in that one – he’s a soldier in love with the heroine, but kept from her – is a subtle masterpiece of understatement. I’ve tried to get hold of him for interviews a few times over the years, so when the studio behind “The Eclipse” offered, I went for it. The interview follows.

Ciarán Hinds is so Irish – so very Irish – that he spends his days in puzzled wonder at how rarely he’s asked to play his lineage.

“I’m out there in the desert with Dwayne Johnson making ‘Race to Witch Mountain,'” he recalls. “And I think, ‘Wait a minute. I’m playing an American agent. Chasing aliens? I’m supposed to be playing priests and members of the IRA.’ ”

Hinds, 63, is one of the busiest and most versatile character actors in the business, playing Israeli secret agents (“Munich”), ancient rulers (Caesar in “Rome,” Herod in “The Nativity Story”), a Texas dad with a kid in the military (“Stop-Loss)” and period-piece Brits (“Amazing Grace,” “Persuasion”). That’s not counting “Game of Thrones.”

Oh, and the occasional Catholic priest (“In Bruges).

But when the chance came to work in his native accent in his native land (he was born in Belfast, but he and his partner have lived in Paris for years), he didn’t hesitate. “My soul is still Irish,” he says. “The Eclipse” not only would bring him home, to Cove in County Cork, but he’d be an Irish leading man – a grieving, troubled, would-be writer who sees ghosts and longs to start something with the fetching horror author visiting his town. Hinds won the best actor prize at the Tribeca Film Festival and glowing notices as “the wonderful and always underrated Ciarán Hinds” (Boxoffice Magazine) for the film, now opening in some U.S. cities.

“It’s so tough to get movies made in Ireland anymore,” Hinds says. “A whole generation of Irish filmmakers doesn’t have the resources to get a movie made. Whatever film industry we had built up – and it’s a land of great writers, always has been – has gone on this awful hiatus.

“But you live in hope, you know. We have stories to share. When [co-writer and director] Conor McPherson, whom I’d done ‘The Seafarer’ with on Broadway, offered me” The Eclipse,” I knew it would be a tight schedule and wrestling with some uncomfortable dark emotions, but I had to do it.”

Hinds, whose first show business job was as an Irish dancer, says that Ireland needs to be able to tell its own stories and not be a slave to whatever version of Ireland Hollywood or others want to serve up.

“Sometimes, there’s not an honest engagement of Ireland in Hollywood movies,” he says. “Our film, it doesn’t have a lot of diddly-aye music, there’s no IRA, no guns, no priests.”

But it’s still an exception, a one-off project. Afterwards, it was back to the character parts for Hinds – a role in the upcoming sci-fi blockbuster “John Carter of Mars,” and a small, tasty piece of that haven for the cream of British and Irish character actors, the Harry Potter movies (“four days of concentrated, joyous and frightening work”).

He’s starred in theater on Broadway and in Britain, and has turned up in hit thrillers, comedies and kids’ films, and TV series in the 30 years since he left the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. Potter has already changed his profile.

“Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, they’ve been doing these roles their whole lives. They know who they are and what they’re playing. I come in, and I have no idea who or how or what. I mean, I’m supposed to be Michael Gambon’s [Dumbledore] younger brother. But he’s 190 and I’m probably 156 or so. And I’m much grumpier than him. But it’s such a great honor to be asked, to be a part of that world.

“But my dream is still to be offered these wonderful little Irish films, in Donegal or Derry. It’s good for my Irish soul.”

They waited twenty years to make it, there is no Will Smith, but “Independence Day: Resurgence” didn’t come out of the gate a total bust. The lack of early warning reviews (Fox didn’t preview this POS because they knew what they had even if some easy lay critics didn’t) had to help Thursday night and Friday sales.

A $45 million opening weekend isn’t a blockbuster by current comic book franchise standards. But they’ll take it.

“Finding Dory,” the similarly delayed “Finding Nemo” still owns this month, though. On its second weekend, it will take in nearly $75 million. It is racing to $300 million, and should reach it by Wed or so.

“The Shallows,” the best reviewed wide release opening this weekend, is underperforming for a shark attack thriller. For a Blake Lively star vehicle, it’s doing OK — an $18 million weekend, or right around there.

The smaller studio STX rolled out its Civil War parable “Free State of Jones” and is only managing about $7 million.

“Warcraft” is one weekend from dropping out of the top ten, as are the “Ninja Turtles” and maybe “Now You See Me # 2.” Good riddance.

“Independence Day: Resurgence” is all big effects, big explosions, epic battles rendered in state-of-the-art digital strokes. 

But really bad writing, achingly bad acting, groaning scenes and a serious lack of suspense and surprise all add up to zero fun, this time around.

I saw this on a semi-crowded opening night showing, and a more joyless, silent group I could not imagine.

The plot? All you really need to know is “They’re BACK!” And Will Smith isn’t.

It’s 20 years since America’s then-president (Bill Pullman) invited the rest of the Earth to celebrate “Independence Day” by slaughtering the invading/rapacious/marauding aliens.

The bug-eyed deep space kind, not the Donald Trump whipping boys.

We’ve got all this wondrous technology thanks to our rebuilding — early warning systems, gravity-defying warbirds, the works. Remember, we have alien captives and alien tech, thanks to the last effort.

And what’s the first challenge facing the latest president (Sela Ward)? An alien intruder. Being American, she votes that Earth shoot first and ask questions later.

Turns out there’s another alien species, perhaps a friendlier one on the run from the bug-eyed monsters. They might help, if we can ever figure out what to do with their Apple-designed volleyball orbs.

Jeff Goldblum is still advising governments about science, but he’s lost the snap in his meandering, stammering revelations. His dad (Judd Hirsch, the worst he’s ever been) has devolved into an even bigger mensch — still a dull, corny Jewish papa cliche, only now he’s hustling a book about how HE saved the world, way back when.

The old pres (Pullman) is heavily medicated and has nightmares that the monsters are returning. So does the gay mad scientist (Brent Spiner).

It’ll be up to a new generation of fighter jocks, including Liam Hemsworth, the daughter of the president (Maika Monroe of “It Follows”) and Will Smith’s character’s son (TV actor Jessie T. Usher). He’s just interesting enough to make you grateful that we didn’t get Smith’s real-life son in the part.

Everybody but everybody has a love interest, it seems — Goldblum is paired up with a French one (Charlotte Gainsbourg), Spiner has a gay one (John Storey).

And a couple of the pilots are hooking up, with others thinking of hooking up.

The movie makes more of an attempt to present a United Nations, with the usual sops to the Chinese, the Russians, even an African warlord.

It’s an appeal-to-all-audiences attempt in a movie that plays as if it was written in the board room and produced in a lab.

The dialogue is endless blasts of “Don’t let us die for nothing!, “No one else dies today!” and expositional piffle such as “This old radar truck was supposed to go to the Smithsonian!”

Not every line is shouted, but way too many are. That’s to compensate for how un-alarmed, under-awed and underwhelmed the players are at these massive alien “harvester ships” and their crews.

It’s little consolation that “IDR” starts better than it finishes, with a couple of laughs in early acts, and a whizzbang moment or two. But the whole thing feels less sprawling, less epic, less chaotic and seat-of-the-pants and most importantly — less URGENT. Even the tragic moments are shrugged off.

As indeed the movie should be. It’s not like every popcorn picture coming out this summer is a better bet. But if you’re wasting your time with no Will Smith, you’re probably missing Blake Lively and the shark. And that would be a pity.

MPAA Rating:PG – 13 for sequences of sci – fi action and destruction, and for some language

Cast: Jeff Goldblum, Liam Hemsworth, Maika Monroe, Jessie T. Usher, Bill Pullman, Sela Ward, William Fichtner, Judd Hirsch, Brent Spiner, Charlotte Gainsbourg
Credits: Directed by Roland Emmerich, script by Nicolas Wright, Dean Devlin, James Vanderbilt . A 20th Century Fox release.

Running time: 1:59