Movie Nation

A tiny female wants to be a cop, but it takes the intervention of a politically correct mayor to make her one.
She’s harassed on the job, and has to remind others than while it’s OK for her to refer to someone like her as “cute,” for others, that’s out of bounds.
Her first big case sees her profiling the guy she comes to depend on for information. “You’re not LIKE them” doesn’t let her off the hook.
And she’s not alone. Businesses can refuse to serve “his kind,” and do. And in that big case, fear of “the other” is what the master villain is relying on to climb to power.
This is Disney’s “Zootopia,” an election year social satire dressed up an an animated children’s cartoon. It has sexism, stereotyping, discrimination and the politics of fear as its central motif.
The Hollywood Reporter calls it “crisply relevant,” and The Wrap notes the “fortuitously” timely release, just when as America puts its “biases under the microscope.”
Actress Ginnifer Goodwin, who voices the bunny cop Judy Hopps in the film, is more blunt.
“It’s a very ballsy movie, for Disney. And it makes me even more proud to be part of it.”
Directors Byron White (“Tangled”) and Rich Moore (“Wreck It Ralph”) are no strangers to films with potent social undercurrents. But even they are startled at the coincidence of releasing a film about tolerance and those who attack it for the purposes of seizing power by preying on the fear of the masses during the explosively divisive 2016 election campaign.
“It’s oddly timely,” Moore says. “You cannot plan that. A very strange lining up of things.”
But are they worried that the film will draw fire from the same crowd that attacked Pixar’s “Wall-E” for its anti-consumerist/pro-environment message? It’s a bit of a coincidence that the movie’s most overt expression of prejudice is an ice cream shop that refuses to serve a seemingly sweet, fatherly fox, an ice cream shop run by elephants.
“Bring it on,” Howard chuckles, when asked about possible conservative backlash. But “We don’t like movies that tell you what to think,” and he’s certain they haven’t gone that far with “Zootopia.”
“If people are going to turn a story about a fox and a rabbit becoming friends into something with an agenda that they see as evil, what are you gonna say?” Moore adds.
Goodwin, a native of Memphis and star of Disney-owned ABC’s “Once Upon a Time,” was drawn by a script that offered her the chance to play “an action hero, a BUTT-kicker, who is GIRLIE. She’s kind, and generous and unCOMPROMISINGLY good. And responsible! And she doesn’t have to, by the end of the movie, become jaded or cynical.”
But she was stunned by the movie’s ambitious and very adult subtext, about prejudice. She was voicing a cartoon character who has a journey of self-discovery. She’s discriminated against, but Judy Hopps has “the same preconcieved notions about others” that “we ALL do.”
The turning point, for those about to see the film, takes place in a press conference where Judy and her informant/assistant, the con-artist fox Nick (Jason Bateman) crack a case and meet the press to talk about.
“We focused on the press conference scene, because that’s where she starts to figure things out. Her prejudices had to be unknown to her. In fact, she had to be self righteous, right from the beginning of the movie, about NOT holding pre-conceived notions about other animals. The press conference scene was very difficult to record because I only had my voice to express myself, so
I made her a bit nervous so that I could let her racism sneak through the cracks unintentionally.”
Moore insists that “Zootopia” “doesn’t have an axe to grind or a political agenda to push,” that they “told a story from the heart.” But he will confess to a little concern. “You can’t control what people are going to say.”
Goodwin is more blunt.
“It’s so facsinating to me to realize that this movie, written years ago, is talking about these things that are in the national conversation in an election year. That means this is something we SHOULD have been talking about a LONG time ago.”

Can the fox and the rabbit be friends? The wildebeast and the lion? The sheep and the tiger?

That world, Disney’s latest animated film suggests, would have to be a “Zootopia.” And it is. Until the preconceived ideas the majority of animals, “prey,” weigh on how they treat the minority amongst them — the predators. The beasts turn savage as they turn on each other in this timely cartoon about prejudice, sexism and the politics of fear.

It’s the story of a rabbit with a dream. Little Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin does the voice) grew up on the carrot farm, but longs for life in the Big City. She wants to be a Zootopia cop, the first leporidae on The Force.

“I’m gonna make the world a better place!”

Her fellow cops are all rhinos and tigers and bears. The chief (Idris Elba) is a water buffalo.

“Just quit and go home, fuzzy bunny.”

Fresh out of the Academy, Judy has to content herself with writing parking tickets in the many neighborhoods of Zootopia — Tundra Town, Sahara Square, The Rainforest District, and others.

Until critters go missing. They’re all predators. And there’s evidence that they’ve drawn blood. In a city where 90 percent of the population is prey, that’s worrying. Judy, being a token rabbit on the force thanks to the Mayor Lionheart’s (J.K. Simmons) intervention, is given a chance to crack the case.

Her street-wise source? Nick the fox, a cynical hustler with all the sneering contempt Jason Bateman can give him.

“Somewhere, there’s a toy store missing a stuffed bunny.”

Judy is no better. She gives the fox the benefit of the doubt, but finds herself profiling the con-artist. Rabbit and fox have to get over their stereotypes of each other’s “kind” to crack this case and save a city whose fabric rips at the seams when the whole predator-prey peace breaks down.

The animators give us a wholly-realized world, a city centered around the fancy fountain that was once the watering hole where this animal kingdom rapprochement was first reached. Mass transit connects neighborhoods where critters keep to their own kind — or genus. Polar bear mobsters serve as enforcers for the mob boss, Mr. Big.

A hippy yak (Tommy Chong) runs a “naturalist” yoga club. Whoa. Naked prey? Sloths run the Division of Motor Vehicles. Hah! The biggest pop star is a wiggly/jiggly gazelle voiced by Shakira.

Just watch out for the Zuber drivers.

The movie’s message about tolerance and not pre-judging others sings, and the many  chases, interrogations (a weasel ably voiced by Alan Tudyk) and narrow escapes pay off.

The movie’s only real drawback is as obvious as every TV commercial and theatrical trailer produced for it. It’s a comedy that only rarely hits “hilarious” and suffers from too many dead zones between laughs.

It’s hard comic concept to sell, hard to boil down into normal animated film length and just as difficult to deliver laughs through.

But it’s filled to the brim with cuddly, cute animals that small children will love. And if you’re up for letting a cartoon broach a delicate, complicated subject with your 10-and-unders, you’ll appreciate this sneakily audacious film for its ambition and timely, pointed good intentions.

(Ginnifer Goodwin and filmmakers talk about Disney’s “ballsy” satire of intolerance here).

MPAA Rating:PG for some thematic elements, rude humor and action

Cast: The voices of Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Idris Elba, Shakira, J.K. Simmons, Octavia Spencer
Credits: Directed by Byron Howard and Rich Moore, script by Jared Bush and Phil Johnston. A Walt Disney release.

Running time: 1:48

Swords and sorcery, sandals and sand — the genre nickname has changed over the decades, but the goofiness has not.

There’s a long year ahead of us, but “Gods of Egypt” is going to stand out as one of the sillier, more puzzling big budget, special-effects driven period pieces to come out.

There are no comic book heroes involved, no real history and little that’s actually Egyptian about the film. Not that there’s demand for pyramids and Sphinxes on the screen. Who thought this was a good idea?

Tanning booth fan Gerard Butler stars as Set, the god who ruled the desert “before history began.” Bryan Cox plays Osiris, who rules the Nile.

And Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (“Game of Thrones”) is the hedonistic Horus, God of the Air and prince about to receive the crown of his father, Osiris.

But Osiris has promised his mortal subjects that “the Afterlife is for all.” No more Death Tax to enter heaven. And that’s the excuse Set uses to kill him, blind Horus, steal the prince’s magical eyes and his girlfriend, Goddess of Love, Hathor (Elodie Yong) and take over all of this Flat Earth.

But a young mortal thief (Brenton Thwaites of “Maleficent”) interferes. Anything to impress his lady love (Courtney Eaton). Only his thieving intervention, and perhaps a little help from the God of Gods, Ra (Geoffrey Rush) can prevent chaos.

Forced perspective and simple camera trickery render the gods gigantic when parked next to mortals. Digital effects render gold plated pyramids, golden flying sleighs and vast palaces, a Sphinx of sand and turn the gods into armored, winged Transformers when they get into a fight.

Right.

But a pyramid of shifting sand that could have been designed by M.C. Escher is clever, and there’s a comic touch that renders many moments endurable. That’s a help, because at over two hours, “endurable” is a nice break.

“Can you imagine anything more dull than sitting on a throne all day?” Hathor gripes. Yes. I can.

I won’t admit to having a soft spot for stories set in the Early Ages of the Push-Up Bra, but there are…perquisites.

Giant worms, giant snakes ridden by murderous vixens, Minotaur-soldiers, Ancient Egypt had them all. Ra has the coolest ride, a vast space barge from which he battles the demon that tries to devour his Earth (Flat, remember) every night.

I’d expect a #egyptsowhite protest movement over this, with a too-tanned Butler in the lead role, Coster-Waldau, Thwaites and Rufus Sewell and Oscar winner Rush in support. That’s the way these movies have traditionally been cast — whitewashed, with British Empire accents — and the studio has already started apologizing.

But here’s who stands out. Chadwick Boseman, who has played Jackie Robinson and James Brown, is the droll and brilliant god of Knowledge, Thoth, and wittily steals the picture. The half-Cambodian Yung and Yaya Deng have chewy supporting parts, and the vast crowds of extras –soldiers and civilians – are closer to the colors of North Africa and ancient Egypt than I was expecting.

Director Alex Proyas has admitted to being insensitive to making this world more, um, accurate. But still, I’ve seen far worse whitewashings.

And that’s what you’ll remember from this gold-plated goof of a movie. It’s only been hours since I’ve seen it and I’ve already forgotten pretty much all of it.

MPAA Rating:PG-13 for fantasy violence and action, and some sexuality

Cast: Gerard Butler, Brendan Thwaites, Chadwick Boseman, Elodie Yung, Rufus Sewell, Geoffrey Rush and Courtney Eaton
Credits: Directed by Alex Proyas, script by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless. A Summit release.

Running time: 2:07

Any minute now, Dame Maggie Smith is going to be named a United Nations World Cultural site, and finally get her due.

Meanwhile, we can enjoy one of her great performances — as a rude, dotty, guilt-ridden and homeless bully in Alan Bennett’s twee and sentimental comedy, “The Lady in the Van.”

It’s a true story — “mostly” — about a real British bag lady who moved into playwright Bennett’s Camden Town (London) driveway in 1974, and stayed in assorted vans, which she painted a garish, messy yellow, for 15 years.

Bennett took notes, even though he argued with himself that he’d “never” do anything with them. Bennett (Alex Jennings of “The Queen”) narrates that “Writing is talking to oneself.” And so he does, two Alan Bennetts bickering with each other as the writer who came to fame with “The Madness of King George” and “The History Boys,” uttered “tutt tutt” to the very human gay man Alan Bennett, who took pity on an old homeless woman and never quite owned up to that.

The pity part, I mean. The ex-nun, one-time pianist “Mary Shepherd” (Smith) is such a grumpy ingrate, so insistently pushy, that Bennett was left no choice in the matter.

“The Lady in the Van,” directed by Bennett’s frequent collaborator Nicholas Hytner, is something of a comedy of manners — English manners. The neighbors (Roger Allam and the grand Frances de la Tour play two of them) are too polite, too worried about giving offense to do anything about this slovenly, smelly old woman who moves her van from spot to spot, hiding from the police and social workers, fouling their neighborhood with her odor and her protests anytime anyone plays music.

They indulge her. She insists on it, by guilting one and all.

And Bennett, beautifully impersonated by Jennings as a fey but unflappable writer given to late night hook-ups with actors (Dominic Cooper plays one), makes wry comments on her smell, her squalor and her “chosen” style of living.

Smith, whose Mary huffs, “I DIDN’T choose. It chose me,” is never less than a stitch, sympathetic in her dotage and rarely allowing sentiment to creep into her crusty performance.

There’s something of John Prine’s famous song about the loneliness and indignities of old age, “Hello in There,” in her work here. She’s played old and mean and sharp-tongued so often it’s become a calling card. Here, a Catholic praying over the guilt for some long ago tragedy, Smith allows us to pity Mary even as we marvel at how she manages to get her way, live her life and use others without ever deigning to thank a single one of them.

“I am in DIRE need of assistance,” she protests. And Bennett, guilty of not spending enough time with his own “Mam” (Gwen Taylor), assists.

Jim Broadbent is the mystery man in Mary’s life, a mystery the audience understands thanks to an opening scene that hints the source of her guilt. But that device takes nothing from this story of age and a sort of grudging respect that accompanies it, no matter how undignified the person who has achieved that great age might be.

It’s a film that flirts with cloying, here and there — especially at the end. But it reminds us, even before that U.N. recognition becomes official, that there’ll always be an England, that English manners survive, and there’ll always be a Maggie Smith, imperious, hilarious and glorious in that wonderful third act her life and career have given her.

MPAA Rating: PG – 13 for a brief unsettling image

Cast: Maggie Smith, Alex Jennings, Jim Broadbent, Frances de la Tour,Gwen Taylor Roger Allam
Credits: Directed by Nicholas Hytner, script by Alan Bennett. A Tristar/Sony Pictures Classics/BBC Films release.

Running time: 1:44

Truth be told, every generation’s “take stock of itself” dramedy has to come of as insipid to the generations that came before and after it.

It’s easy to see the arcane quaintness of “The Big Chill,” or “Return of the Secaucus Seven” or “Beautiful Girls” or, oh, “Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion” to tick off a few.

So there’ll be no dismissing, out-of-hand, “those kids” in “10 Years” or “About Alex” or yet another  “summoned home for a funeral” reunion picture for Generation Y that “Burning Bodhi” turns out to be.

An acting showcase for “Big Bang Theory” starlet Kaley Cuoco and Warner Brothers honcho daughter Cody Horn (“Magic Mike”), it’s got some good scenes, some graceful writing and decent performances.

Surprises? Not really. Start with the fact that assorted friends are summoned back to their hometown, Albuquerque, New Mexico, where they give away money to get movies made there, to the who-hooked-up-with-whom and who-will-hook-up group dynamic, this is “The Big Chill” for Generation Chill.

Bodhi, a product of this hippy redoubt in the desert, has died. Suddenly. And word spreads the way word spreads these days — by text message and otherwise.

“Finding out on Facebook? What’s WITH that?”

He was young, and “This is supposed to happen to OLD people,” Katy (Cuoco) gripes. “Makes me feel like I’m 40 or something.”

She may not have the years, but the girl’s got the mileage. Katy has a child the state makes her grandmother take care of. She has court-ordered community service (picking up trash). She used to date Dylan (Landon Liboiron), who has reluctantly returned from Chicago. And she has other problems.

“She’s a drug bunny, Dylan.”

Just in case her tattered clothes, piercings and garish, misapplied makeup didn’t give her away.

Ember (Horn) is the libidinous blonde who summons the others. She’s planning “a FUN-eral,” not a funeral. It’ll be like a wake, only for young people who prefer bong hits and joints to alcohol.

Dylan, an aspiring comic book artist, leaves his girlfriend (Meghann Fahy) behind in Chicago. But not for long. You know she’ll follow him anywhere.

Miguel (Eli Vargas), Dylan’s roommate, makes his own way west, picking up a vivacious and pregnant teen (Sasha Pieterse) in his aged VW camper van.

One in New Mexico, the 20somethings try to sort out their status, past and present. Dylan is forced to confront the mother (Virginia Madsen) who abandoned him and his professor/hippy farmer dad (Andy Buckley). Characters “come out” and confess (or don’t confess) their feelings for one another. And Bodhi.

And then they eulogize the guy.

Writer-director Matthew McDuffie concocted some nice scenes — an attempt at making up staged by text message, young people awkwardly snarking on the others attending the “viewing” because they don’t know any better and they have no coping skills.

And New Mexico provides the odd lovely sunset or seedy, broken-down RV crackhouse. McDuffie filmed a detailed version of cremation, sort of an explainer for generations young and old. And he gives everybody just enough to play to lure a decent cast in, and gives one and all the occasional funny, generation-specific one-liner.

“What kind of Miley Cyrus bong hit did you take, Bra?”

So even though it’s not particularly affecting and entirely too obvious in how it dresses the young women in the cast (Daisy Dukes, bra-less tank tops), “Burning Bodhi” isn’t a total write-off.

It’s just callow, the way we all are/were in our 20s.Which is why the best generational “take stock” reunion movies wait until everybody hits 30, or close to it, before even trying to make sense of it all. If you’re still smearing gold-with-glitter eye shadow on with a trowel, the wisdom and perspective of age are still a few years off.

MPAA Rating: R for drug use, language and some sexual references

Cast: Cody Horn, Landon Liboiron, Kaley Cuoco, Eli Vargas, Virginia Madsen, Sasha Pieterse, Meghann Fahy
Credits: Written and directed by Matthew McDuffie. A Monterey Media release.

Running time:1:32

 “Triple 9” is a shaggy, uneven heist thriller that isn’t about the heists — it’s about the guys committing them, the cops chasing them and the Russian Jewish mobsters pulling the strings and setting all the mayhem in motion.

A clever ticking clock mystery, it tries your patience even if it is giving some of the best character actors in the movies plenty of screen time to chew the scenery, try on accents and make jokes in even the bloodiest, darkest moments.

The title comes from a flaw in police procedures and in cop psychology. Because some of these guys committing these Atlanta heists are dirty cops.

Chiwitel Ejiofor heads the crew of thieves, ruthless hoodlums with “special skills” whose bank robberies have a touch of “shock and awe” about them. Anthony Mackie and Clifton Collins, Jr.( “Capote”) handle weapons,  Norman Reedus (“The Walking Dead”) is the wheel-man, and Aaron Paul (“Breaking Bad”) is the wheel-man’s strung-out ex-cop brother.

The film’s opening scene is a beautifully staged and shot meeting in a darkened back alley BMW. The film’s opening caper has real mayhem, tasers, silent threats to a bank manager (showing computer printouts of his family, house, etc.) and a bank teller wetting herself and the carpet where she’s forced to lie perfectly still.

John Hillcoat did “The Road” and “Lawless,” so we lean into the screen as the complications set in during the getaway. The heist goes wrong. There’s a weak member in that crew.

And then the stoned, bedraggled Detective Allen, played by a seriously unkempt and drawling Woody Harrelson, shows up to investigate. “The MONSTER has gone DIGITAL,” he announces, speculating on the sophistication of the crooks.

Before “Triple 9” is over, we’ll see just how monstrous these monsters can be. Casey Affleck is the cop who calls Det. Allen “Uncle Jeff,” and who is newly assigned to partner with one of the dirty cops.

And Kate Winslet (not her subtlest work) is the snarling bleached blonde Russian Jew who runs her imprisoned husband’s mob from the man’s kosher deli. She wears her Star of David with pride, her Israeli underworld connections with honor.

They’re “La Kosher Nostra!” Allen cracks.

The cops — clean and dirty — are distracted by a Latino gang war that results in beheadings (“How they get way over here?” “Probably lookin’ for their BODIES.”) and a protracted chase and shootout.

But the main game is that “one last job,” the one the mob mistress orders and circumstances dictate that the reluctant gang must carry out.

There’s a jokiness to the proceedings, white cops mimicking Latino slang (“Know what I’m sayin?'”), cops ordering shop owners to “Go smoke a cigarette” while they take over the store for a quick argument.

That doesn’t hide the script’s detours or the strain of having an Oscar winner and seven “name” co-stars to service with scenes, dialogue and a reason to be in the film. Poor Teresa Palmer (“The Choice”) is odd woman out.

But that 14th glance at your watch is the important one, because that’s when you realize that all of this has to come to a head, the grim actions hinted at will be acted upon, the title will be explained and demonstrated and somebody will have to figure this all out to the audience’s satisfaction.

Hillcoat may drag out the middle acts, but the last thirty minutes are genuinely pulse-pounding, surprising, well-crafted and acted with bite and resolve by actors who let us see their characters figuring out this bloody, bullet-riddled puzzle in the City Too Busy to Hate.

“This ain’t Buckhead, awright?”

MPAA Rating: R for strong violence and language throughout, drug use and some nudity

Cast: Casey Affleck, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kate Winslet, Anthony Mackie, Clifton Collins Jr., Woody Harrelson, Aaron Paul, Teresa Palmer
Credits: Directed by John Hillcoat, script by Matt Cook. An Open Road release.

Running time: 1:55

“Eddie the Eagle” is a veritable “Forrest Gump on Skis,” a British version of the feel-good  story of hapless ski-jumper Eddie Edwards.

A stumbling working class dreamer, Edwards slipped onto the British Olympic team by virtue of being the first Brit in more than half a century to tackle ski jumping. His daring and amusing incompetence made him the darling of the 1988 Calgary Winter Games.

Taron Egerton (“Kingsman: The Secret Service”) plays Eddie as a bit slow on the uptake, a dogged plodder who doesn’t let braces on his legs dissuade him from his childhood dream of Olympic glory.

He loses the leg braces, and after turning his myopic eyes to everything from javelin and pole vaulting, realizes the Winter Olympics offer a better shot at his dream. Ungainly, with poor eyesight and wearing a permanent, mouth-breathing puzzlement on his not-quite-ugly mug, he takes up skiing as “my Olympic preparations.”

His plasterer/sheet-rock installing dad (Keith Allen) doubts him.

“You are NOT an athlete!”

But his Mum (Jo Hartley) feeds his impossible dream, finds the cash to maintain his self-financed Quixotic pursuit.

And its just enough money to put him in a real training facility and attract the attentions of a real coach, played with hard-drinking, cowboy-boot wearing swagger by Hugh Jackman.

The coach is American, and he reluctantly gives Eddie pointers even as he frets that he’ll kill himself. Eddie is ever-undaunted. Bullied by his own Olympic committee (Tim McInnerny is head snob), taunted by Nordic veterans of the slopes, too poor to afford hotel rooms near the training site, Eddie plows forward.

Coach Peary is frankly awed by Eddie’s determination, as are we. No way this should happen, but it does.

There are villains and doubters, agonizing defeats and tiny victories snatched from the jaws of such defeats. Eddie takes falls, and breaks his glasses — repeatedly.

At every turn, somebody is telling Eddie to “give up,” that he’ll never be skilled or of the right class to make the team.

“It’s a world that don’t want to know you,” Dad counsels.

But Eddie, by pluck and by accident, makes sure the world does and comes to embody the Olympic spirit — “The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part.”

The film is earning an inspired marketing campaign from the studio. The TV ads are pitching it as a mothers-indulge-their-kids tale, a boy who rises as far as his mother thinks her darling son can. That’s become a vital element in the American (not British) myth, that if you believe in yourself enough, you can play football for Notre Dame (“Rudy”) or become president.

That’s balderdash, of course, as is “Eddie the Eagle.” Actor-turned-director Dexter Fletcher (“Wild Bill”) and his screenwriters render this in broad, Hollywood strokes — training montages set to ’80s pop (“You Make My Dreams Come True”), composite characters (Jackman’s coach), expedient alterations of the truth (Eddie learned his sport at Lake Placid, New York, not in Germany).

But as “Forrest Gump” proved, never bet against a supportive mom. There’s a need and a market for lump-in-the-throat, feel-good treacle. And the winning while losing “Eddie the Eagle” revels in that treacle, and has the English teeth to prove it.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some suggestive material, partial nudity and smoking

Cast: Taron Egerton, Hugh Jackman, Jo Hartley, Christopher Walken, Tim McInnerny
Credits: Directed by Dexter Fletcher, , script by Sean Macaulay and Simon Kelton. A Fox release.

Running time: 1:45

The chilling moment in “Race” comes when Jesse Owens, played by Stephan James, is lining up for his first sprint at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

He notices the roar of the crowd, as it rises in a wave, turning to the right and raising, as one, right arms in the Nazi salute as Hitler himself enters the stadium to watch the games from his Fuhrer box. Then Hitler, who looks very little like the real Adolf, returns their salute and the illusion and the chill are gone.

That’s much the case for “Race” itself, an overlong, all-inclusive and all-too-tepid bio-pic of the great Olympian who showed the Nazis, and the racists black home, that in Owens’ words, “Ain’t no black and white. There’s only fast, and slow.”

James, of “Selma” and the faith-based sports drama “When the Game Stands Tall,” is a perfectly stoic Owens, even if he suggests little of the inner fire Chadwick Boseman let us see in the Jackie Robinson bio-pic “42.” Owens faced the same racist culture and obstacles Robinson did, more than a decade earlier. The inner turmoil and seething that must have come from that are missing, here.

But they were very different men. Owens is captured at someone caught up in the fame that came when he broke a fistful of world records in the space of 45 minutes in one college track meet in the mid-1930s. He fathered a child before college, was late marrying his baby’s mother and liked the occasional beer.

He is unflappable when his coach, the first time he meets the man, suggests he should plan on competing in the upcoming Berlin Olympics.

“I heard they don’t much care for colored folk over there,” Jesse muses.

They don’t much care for them over here, Coach Snyder hisses back.

But that’s the first place “Race” goes wrong. Jason Sudeikis tackles his first serious role and never sheds his years of comical jerk baggage. He never for one second lets us forget that he’s looking for the next place to land a one-liner.

Director Stephen Hopkins (“Lost in Space,” “Predator 2,” and a lot of TV) has his casting coups, and misfires. Barnaby Metschurat looks nothing like the shrimpy Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, but Andrew Moodie impresses, wonderfully, as Jesse’s too-proud-to-speak (as his boy goes off to college) father.

Carice Van Houten is quite good as German actress turned Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. But Jeremy Irons is entirely too old to play the ex-Olympian about to become U.S. Olympic Committee chairman Avery Brundage.

And those two characters are where “Race” strays most seriously from the generally-accepted historical record. Riefenstahl is shown to be awed by Owens and determined to resist her Nazi masters by filming him and making sure he made it into her Nazi propaganda documentary, “Olympia.” Irons manages an even trickier feat, suggesting a conflicted Brundage when history has judged him an anti-Semite who fought to keep the U.S. from leading an international boycott of the Nazi Olympics, a man who may have had a hand in keeping Jews from competing on America’s behalf.

My first visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. during an Olympic year featured an exhibit explicitly accusing Brundage of those failings, and suggesting the world might have been a different place had America done what it had the guts to do in 1980 — deny an aggressive, predatory totalitarian state the propaganda value of a showcase Olympics.

This reinterpretation of Brundage — Irons and the script make him brusque, bluff and blunt, a hard-nosed negotiator who might be excused for seeing what he wanted to see on a fact-finding mission to pre-Olympics Germany — might be accurate, but it’s a head-snapper.

Hopkins’ chief failing was his inability to make this planned Black History Month epic into an actual epic. Two hours and 14 minutes of Owens’ greatest hits should have lump in the throat moments, welling pride, scope and majesty.

And “Race”, for all the efforts of its cast, for the care that went into re-staging the games, using real locations and digitally creating crowds, the Hindenburg and  stadiums, doesn’t.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for thematic elements and language

Cast: Stephen James, Jason Sudeikis, Shanice Banton, Jeremy Irons, William Hurt, Carice Van Houten
Credits: Directed by Stephen Hopkins, script by . Joe Shrapnel, Anna Waterhouse A Focus Features release.

Running time: 2:14

“Deadpool” continues to blow up expectations for a February opening, a winter comic book movie, a Ryan Reynolds picture, what have you.

It’s losing just over half of its opening weekend box office and should pull in $56 million, based on Friday night’s numbers. HUGE hit.

“Risen” is a reasonably well-reviewed, well-cast and scripted faith-based period piece, a “Tale of the Christ,” as they used to put it. And it’s doing a middling $13 million or so on its opening. I dare say that number could go up if Saturday and Sunday turnout is what I figure it will be. Just going by Deadline’s Friday night numbers.

It’ll still do almost double what the well-reviewed horror tale “The Witch,” also a period piece, but perhaps not quite the cup of tea the faithful in that genre are used to. It’s smart, for starters. Period accurate, etc. It’s only managing $8-9 million. A24, the most reliable studio for smart sci fi (“Ex Machina”) is having a harder time selling smart horror.

“Race” isn’t doing squat. Focus Features didn’t quite abandon this Black History Month take on Olympian Jesse Owens. They didn’t screen it in a lot of cities, and reviews aren’t glowing. It is barely in the Top Ten. #blackfilmsmatter?

OK, offended Christians with the headline, horror-heads and everybody else in the story, so…

She’s the anchor star of “Once Upon a Time,” and Disney/ABC being all about the synergy, she’s got a plum part in the March animated offering from the Mouse, “Zootopia.”

It’s a somewhat daring cartoon about stereotypes, racism and fear. Yes, the elephants are bigots. Or can be.

Ginnifer Goodwin plays a plucky bunny cop. Literally. Type casting?

Anyway, we’ll be talking about that film, her love of short haircuts, maybe her pregnancy (married to Josh Dallas). But I’m always looking for suggested questions. Anything you’re dying to ask her? Comment below, and thanks for the help.