Movie Nation

Well, here’s Michael Caine throwing a little shade — or at least some perspective — on the whole #OscarsSoWhite/#whiteOscars/#boycottOscars dust up.

“You can’t vote for an actor because he’s black” is the pull-quote that folks are fixating on for maximum outrage. “Be patient” isn’t something to say when people are complaining about discrimination. “White privilege” will get tossed back in your face. But read the whole interview.

Speaking of older white actors getting blunt on the subject, Charlotte Rampling tosses “racism against whites” into her description of the boycott. Crucifixion by the black twitterverse to come.

But seriously. Dial it down, kids.

Will and Jada, Spike and whoever, and Idris are a bit ruffled. Because out of 20 possible acting nominations, black actors (British or American) got none.

Which happens. More often than just “occasionally.”

Benicio del Toro wasn’t recognized for “Sicario,” nobody from “Straight Outta Compton” scored a nomination, Idris Elba didn’t get a nomination for what was in essence a Netflix movie and Michael B. Jordan’s middling work in “Creed” was ignored. To say nothing of Spike’s unfairly passed-over “Chi-Raq.”

So the Academy is “racist,” so the arguments go.

The Oscars are voted on by an electorate, the 6000 or so members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It’s hard to insert “inclusion” into what is supposed to be a popularity or recognition of excellence contest among a population that large.

The Academy is almost certainly not demographically representative of the nation, or the current state of the film industry. The Academy recognized this, and if the Oscar boycott accomplished nothing else, then getting them to announce that they’re going to work at making the Academy itself more inclusive, kudos to the boycotters. Don Cheadle and I agree on this. A more representative Academy by 2020 is a good move.

But film critics, the honest ones, are having more trouble with this “whitest Oscars” thing for a variety of reasons. There weren’t any performances by black actors that the Academy’s omission makes one think “Racism.” Starting with the opinion that Jordan didn’t give a top five, top ten or top 15 performance among the leading men, or supporting men, of 2015.

Then there’s Idris Elba. Was the Academy ever going to thumb its nose at film exhibitors and give his Netflix “Beasts of No Nation” turn (Caine loved it, BTW) a nomination? No. He could have been in the top 10 or top 15, had he made a strictly theatrical movie.

Black women didn’t get a single decent Oscar worthy showcase this year, which is pathetic on Hollywood’s part. That’s the real outrage. More movies featuring more diverse casts are the real prize to have your eyes on, here. That will lead to more nominations.

I don’t think there was a stand-out acting turn in “Straight Outta Compton,” which could have landed a best picture nomination (only eight made the cut, out of ten possible openings). Did the older white voters of the Academy see it, or just reject it? I think there were 10-15 movies you could argue were better than this one. We wouldn’t be hearing this #OscarSoWhite thing if “Compton” had a best picture nomination. But this isn’t the vote-doctoring Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Nobody slipped it into the best pic mix.

“Compton” is an ensemble piece that wasn’t likely to land an acting nomination. Was it poorly campaigned as an Oscar contender? That’s quite possible.

This isn’t a “12 Years a Slave” or “The Help” year. The Academy showed up for those films. Nominations were offered, Oscars were awarded. Should “Ride Along 2” move to the top of next year’s inclusion list simply because it’s one the black audience lined up for?

The bigger, implied question is this. Should the Academy try to make Hollywood something that no other industry in the world actually is — racially representative? That’s the crux of Caine’s argument. And do we want quotas on our honors for excellence?

The world isn’t fair, or representative. Monocultures form in most any industry you can think of. And a monoculture tends to be blind to its de facto segregation. People cast, hire, recruit based on both merit and “types” of people they’re comfortable with — “their own kind.” Happens everywhere. And it needs addressing. But quotas for awards?

People toss tantrums about the movies, but how might the NBA, NFL or MLB look if that cut both ways? Education has used minimum and maximum quotas, over the decades, and irritated many with each extreme. Congress is achieving something like that racial balance through gerrymandering. Whiter than white conservative districts, “safe” black or Hispanic ones. How’s that working out?

Fox News would be less Aryan, NPR would sound less like B’nai B’rith Broadcasting. Quotas! Yes!

That’s the way to honor the exceptional. African Americans (sorry, Idris) make up 13.2% of the U.S. population. Latins, Asians, Muslims, Native Americans — all can be reduced to simple numbers, if quotas are what we’re shooting for. That means two nominations a year for this group, or one every other year for some other racial category.

A lot of performances were “snubbed.” Michael Shannon and Tim Guinee in “99 Homes,” Carey Mulligan in “Suffragette,” del Toro in Sicario,” Oscar Isaac in “Ex Machina,” Paul Dano in “Love & Mercy,” and so on. A lot of performances are snubbed every year. There are just five openings in every acting category. Learn the numbers, recognize the long odds facing every film, and every performance.

And then lobby to expand the Academy to make it more inclusive. That’s the bigger issue, and the real solution to a “problem” that feels more like Jada and Will whining over a top 25 performance in a problematic movie that was a long shot. He was far better in “Ali,” and less craven about why he took the role (“Oscar bait” always grates), back then.

Young Adults save the world in so much of the fiction aimed at Young Adults. And when this science fiction comes to the big screen, YA fiction becomes PYA, full of PYTs.

It’s a future where the boys have peach fuzz and the girls perfect hair, perfect teeth and perfect makeup — even when they’re Maze Running, Hunger Gaming, or simply Divergent.

Thus, Chloe Grace Moretz, Alex Roe and Nick Robinson are the Pretty Young Adults struggling to stop “The Fifth Wave.” If only they’d succeeded.

It’s not quite the most laughable of the many eye-rollingly derivative entries in this overused genre. “The Giver” still takes that prize.

But from its love triangle centerpiece, to the adults and institutions that cannot be trusted, the child soldiers trained for Mortal Combat — military style — and the post-Apocalyptic future where only the prettiest survive, “Fifth Wave” never escapes the genre joke that it is.

Moretz (“Kick-Ass”) is Cassie, our narrator who misses “the Cassie I was.” The one before she became “the Cassie who kills.”

We meet her After the End, or Beginning of the End. Aliens have invaded, and all she has is a teddy bear, a backpack (apparently full of skin and hair care products), an assault rifle, and skinny jeans.

She’s trying to get back to her kid brother, who is training with Liev Schreiber, Maria Bello (in her scariest hiarstyle ever) and the Army to hunt The Others. Those are the aliens.

Along the way, she must choose between the boy she crushed on in high school (Nick Robinson) and this new stubbly, sometimes shirtless hunk (Alex Roe) she meets on the run. My favorite was the Emo/Goth Girl super soldier (Maika Monroe). But really, they’re all just as ridic.

The best elements in “Fifth Wave” are the flashbacks — showing the aliens arriving in their “District 9” spiky spaceships, then subjecting the human race to various special effect cataclysms (“waves”) as they drive us toward extinction.

Moretz rarely suggests the terror this should bring, but she does manage the grief that losing her family would cause. It’s just that every time she’s around a boy, those overripe lips tremble and the screenplay pauses for an Awkward Teen Moment — courtship, you see.

It’s all so obvious and (unintentionally) laugh-out-loud funny.

Seriously, if you’re not five steps ahead of “The Fifth Wave,” you need to have yourself tested.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for violence and destruction, some sci-fi thematic elements, language and brief teen partying.

Cast: Chloe Grace Moretz, Liev Schreiber, Maria Bello, Nick Robinson, Alex Roe, Ron Livingston, Maika Monroe
Credits: Directed by J Blakeson , script by Susannah Grant, Akiva Goldsman and Jeff Pinkner,  based on a Rick Yancey novel. A Sony/Columbia release.

Running time: 1:52

Well, it’s no “Inside/Out.”

The first animated offering from the brain of Charlie Kaufman (“Being John Malkovich”) started life as a play about the mechanical banality of modern existence, and perhaps the emptiness of narcissism. So naturally the fellow who imposed “Synedoche, New York” on us thought “puppets” (stop motion models) when transferring it to the big screen.

Alternately daring and dull, inventively animated, intimate and yet impersonal, it’s challenging enough to turn off most. There were mass walk-outs of the screening I attended. There’s depth, but it’s trapped beneath a suspiciously shallow surface.

David Thewlis gives voice to Michael Stone, a customer service guru who is famous within his little world. People recognize him in the lobby of the hotel he checks into in Cincinnati, where he’s to give a speech.

Everyone he encounters — from his wife and child (reached by phone) and the dim bulb chatterbox cabbie to the hotel clerk — who never loses eye contact, or blinks, as Michael checks in — has the same voice, provided by Tom Noonan. Because…that’s the way the world sounds to the self-involved?

There’s a letter he keeps re-reading, a “How COULD you?” tirade from a woman whose heart he broke years before. She has Noonan’s voice as well. Calling her since he’s in Cincinnati, where she lives, is a mistake.

And stumbling, feverish, into two call-center “fans” and plying them with drinks in the bar seems like a heel move, too. But one of them, younger with a streak of pink in her hair, sounds like a woman — at least in his head.

Lisa (Jennifer Jason Leigh) chatters away, at Michael’s insistence. She’s sure she’s giving away her unworldliness to Michael. “Shut up, Lisa,” she reminds herself.  And him.

His every word seems profound.  To Lisa.

“Sometimes, there’s no lesson. That’s a lesson in itself.”

But over the course of an intimate evening, he connects with her, or at least puts moves on that she responds to. She is new to his broken soul act, an anomaly to his experience — “Anomalisa.” She sings and he immerses himself in her “miraculous voice.” Leigh gives Lisa pathos, lets us fear for how this all will turn out. Thewlis plays Michael as guilt-free, which undercuts the “romance” of it all. We’re meant to feel the angst he’s feeling. I never got past contempt.

And in any event, we start to see how letters like the one he brought with him on this trip get written.

Nothing happens in the first 30 minutes of “Anomalisa.” And nothing that comes afterward screams “This MUST be animated.” Has the world been waiting for a fresh way to animate sex — puppet porn? Outside of Japan, I mean?

Judging from the earliest reviews and the best animated film Oscar nomination, it has.

But I’d suggest it’s a film of obvious jokes — the punchline-in-waiting misunderstanding of what Michael means when he asks the cabbie if there are “toy stores” near his hotel — and awkwardness. The most promising sequence is Kafkaesque — so literally that you expect the hotel manager who summons Michael to his typist-filled office to be named “Franz.”

“Anomalisa” still has the capacity to touch you, provoke an accounting of empty lives and the white noise sameness of everyone we meet. But the folks walking out on this one, confused and put off, earn a pass from “You just don’t get it” charges. Kaufman’s been plunging deeper and deeper into his own head, or another handy body cavity, for years.

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

Cast: The voices of David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Tom Noonan.
Credits: Directed by Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson, based a play by Charlie Kaufman. A Paramount release.

Running time: 1:30

The decades may have passed, but the recipe for vintage ’80s sci-fi cheese has not been lost.

“Lazer Team” is a goofy riff on “The Last Starfighter,” or a “Pixels” without the Curse of Adam Sandler hanging over it. A cast of no-names and a story so clunky it grinds gears every time it changes scenes take nothing from surprisingly effective (cheap) effects and the odd laugh-out-loud one-liner.

There are aliens invading the Earth, and the planet’s only hope is a quartet of losers, inadvertently rendered our “champions” by an accident involving friendly aliens and their universe-dominating technology.

How’d this happen? Aliens let us know bad times were coming, that we’d need to raise and train a champion. So the U.S. military did just that, with buff Adonis, Adam (Alan Ritchson).

He was being sent this “suit of power,” with a brain-boosting helmet, invisible shield, laser cannon arm-piece and shoes the Flash would be proud to call his own.

But these rural rubes accidentally shoot down the supply ship and stumble into the pieces of the suit.

There’s big, dumb drunken Herman (Colton Dunn), who finds himself fleet of foot, even dumber Woody (Gavin Free), who turns brilliant when he dons the helmet of knowledge. So brilliant he starts talking with a British accent.

Zach (Michael Jones) is a punk, a brawling showboating jock trying to score with Mindy (Alexandria DeBarry), whose dad is a doofus deputy (Burnie Burns) and the fourth member of the quartet Zach names “The Lazer Team.”

When the Feds figure out what they’ve done, and that the weapons can’t be used by anyone else after they’ve imprinted on their new owners, they set to training the idiots to fight the incoming threat, the Gord.

The training involves a tennis ball cannon and lots of crotch-shots.

Not that the champion, Adam, takes this lying down. Not that the guys don’t WANT Adam to take this burden from them.

“Put’em on, Hitler Youth.”

Zach, the loose cannon, is entrusted with the attached arm cannon, and Hagan, the deputy, has the shield that could protect them all. If only they could learn to work together!

There are Ambiguously Gay Duo gags and electronic scorpions that turn friendly folk into alien automatons. An Eastern Bloc model (Irina Voronina) is passed off as the lead scientist in the project.

And a lot of stuff blows up in the best low budget tradition.

There’s not much to this, but stumbling across “Lazer Team” in the right state of mind at the right time of night wouldn’t be the most unpleasant way to sleep one off.

MPAA Rating:PG-13 for sexual material including references, language, action violence, teen partying and smoking

Cast: Burnie Burns, Colton Dunn, Gavin Free, Alexandria DeBerry, Michael Jones, Alan Ritchson.
Credits: Directed by Matt Hullum, script by Burnie Burns, Josh Flanagan and Matt Hullum. A FullScreen release.

Running time: 1:42

Audiences are ignoring critics and flocking to “Ride Along 2.” Sad, but true. At least for Friday.

Once word of mouth trickles down to the critic proof — got to figure that dog will lose its way. But as things stand now, “#2” will pull in a whopping $40 million on its opening weekend.

Another big opener? “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.” It’s riding a wave of Fox News and Trump endorsements (actually, misguided, as there’s no Hillary Clinton bashing in it) to about $21 million this weekend. Not bad for a combat pic with no big name star. Yeah, I’m talking about you, Krasinski.

“Revenant” didn’t need an Oscar nominations bounce to roll up another $30 million+.

“Spotlight” and “Brooklyn” and “Carol” aren’t in enough theaters to blow up. “Brooklyn” is doing better business than the others, with other Oscar nominated pictures like “Room” and “The Martian” and especially “Mad Max” out on video.

If you look at the plunging numbers for Quentin Tarantino’s latest 3 hour “event” act of onanism, well the word “disaster” is starting to pop up in discussions.

Kevin Hart may be the Hardest Working Little Man in Show Business. A new movie in theaters, two more due out later this year, he’s cashing in while the cash is good.

But he’s running low on funny. “Ride Along 2” is Hart’s “Steve Harvey at the Miss Universe Pageant” moment — a warning that he’s spread himself, and his screechy brand of bug-eyed humor, too thin.

Because this buddy comedy sequel, “Lethal Weapon Lite,” has barely a laugh in it. All the attention was paid to the shootouts, the car chases. As if director Tim Story expected Hart to make something funny just by raising his voice from time to time.

“Foot chase! Foot chase!”

Ice Cube shows up, always wearing sunglasses and driving a nicely pimped jet black Chrysler 300 (scene after scene, way beyond “product placement). He’s the about-to-be related by marriage “partner” (“I AIN’T ya partner!”) who drags the shrieking shrimp from Atlanta to Miami to sweat this hacker contact (Ken Jeong) about a Mr. Big (Benjamin Bratt) who is killing people to get his merchandise ashore.

The script’s driving motivation is Miami — bikini shots, bachelor partying in the club, comely lady cops (Olivia Munn). And the payoff is Hart repeatedly referring to the duo as “The Brothers-in-Law.”

Hart’s Ben Barber is juggling wedding planning by phone with his fiance, the Amazon Angela (Tika Sumpter) and having shouting matches with the wedding planner (Sherri Shepherd). Over hydrangeas.

I used to think Cube wore his shades in these movies to avoid cracking up at Hart’s antics. Now, I’m thinking they’re a coping mechanism. He’s more engaged in this film (or at least his stuntman is). Even though he has the same lines.

“I’m gon’ shoot choo in the face!”

Did I joke about the stunts? Here are four lines that will stop you in your tracks. Ken Jeong does parkour.

Nobody can fault the studio for wanting to collect more cash off the surprise hit pairing of these two. Watching Hart try too hard to save it is humbling.

There are more giggles in the trailer to “Central Intelligence,” which parks Hart next to “A Big Johnson” (Dwayne Johnson), and will be shown before showings of “Ride Along 2.”

As for this long, boring, violent sequel? Life’s too short.

MPAA Rating:PG-13 for sequences of violence, sexual content, language and some drug material

Cast: Kevin Hart, Ice Cube, Ken Jeong, Olivia Munn, Sherri Shepherd, Benjamin Bratt, Bruce McGill
Credits: Directed by Tim Story, script by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi. A Universal release.

Running time: 1:41

Animation studios cast Big Names in their movies because they figure there’s baggage — the good kind — attached to their voices.

But not everybody is gifted with a naturally funny voice like say, a Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy or Jennifer Tilly.

So it’s surprising to me that more players don’t go the Steve Carell/”Despicable Me” route — find something funny to DO with how you sound.

Couldn’t have hurt Rob Schneider, a physical comic (and walking sight-gag) cast as a talking, marketing/showbiz-savvy polar bear trying to save the Arctic from development in “Norm of the North.”

His comic timing with the odd funny line is still there. Subjected to a disco outfit makeover for a public appearance, his handler (voiced by Heather Graham) asks, “Norm, can you come out?”

“I think I just did.”

Yeah, a dressing “gay” joke. Fits in nicely with the many lemming farts and pee in the aquarium scenes.

If you held a gun to my head, I couldn’t have told you that was Schneider’s voice as Norm, and I do this for a living. But a bland lead vocal performance isn’t the only failing of this scattered, disorganized kiddie cartoon. It’s got a little “Happy Feet” to it, a bit of “Madagascar” and “Ice Age.” And the whole doesn’t add up to much at all.

Norm, the somewhat hapless oldest son of the King of the North, can chase a sea lion — “That’s a SEAL, you generalist!” — but cannot bear to eat one. He’s nervous around the ladies, contemptuous of human arctic tourists (whom he fails to frighten) with only lemmings (this movie’s Minions, or penguins) for company.

“Who needs a bear with too much hair and not enough scare?”

Then a designer condo is plopped on the ice, a TV commercial is sabotaged, and Norm angles to become the star attraction of a hipster/developer (Ken Jeong) and his marketing director (Graham).

“It”ll be like Dubai on ICE!”

To do that, Norm and his lemmings have to stow away to New York.

The idea? He’ll speak out for the shrinking ice cap, and against the developer.

Bill Nighy voices a wise albatross, Colm Meaney is Grandpa Bear and Loretta Devine plays a faux Oprah — a talk show hostess who introduces Norm to America.

The animation — done in India — is about six upgrades behind Pixar’s state-of-the-art.

The sight gags — a polar bear twerking, and the aforementioned toilet humor — don’t offer much.

The result is a Save the Planet comedy that plays much longer than its 86 minutes. And that stars a voice you wouldn’t have recognized if I hadn’t given him away. Not that he says much that’s funny or profound enough to make us even wonder if that’s really Rob.

MPAA Rating:PG for mild rude humor and action

Cast: The voices of Rob Schneider, Heather Graham, Ken Jeong, Bill Nighy, Colm Meaney
Credits: Directed by Trevor Wall, script by Daniel and Steve Altiere, Malcolm T. Goldman. A Lionsgate/Splash h Entertainment release.

Running time: 1:26

BRENTWOOD, CA – FEBRUARY 24: Nate Sanders displays the collection of Oscar statuettes that his auction company will sell online to the highest bidder on February 24, 2012 in Brentwood, California. (Photo by Toby Canham/Getty Images)

As we all try to process the awful news that Alan Rickman has died the same week as his contemporary, David Bowie, the Oscar nominations are out.

And here’s what the Academy proved. They let the Golden Globe voters basically limit their field for them. Less work for them.

As usual. I was hoping the Academy would broaden the field, not let those Globes dopes tell them what the best in cinema was last year.

Not that it’s a weak lot. But the acting nominations could have used a Mulligan. And a Dano. And a few others.

“Revenant” was the big winner and will be the big winner — 12 nominations, and it seems sure to take best picture, actor, director. “Spotlight” is fading, “Room” steps forward. “Mad Max: Fury Road,” collected 10 nominations. Nothing for Charlize, who was epic in it. Maybe George Miller gets his Oscar for this one.

The whole “Why wasn’t ‘Star Wars’ winner of unanimous rave reviews?” babbling of last month is silenced, once and for all. Not that good, not even close.

Nothing shocking in the best picture mix — “Martian,” “Revenant” (the favorite), “Brooklyn,” “Bridge of Spies” (mild surprise), “Spotlight,” “Mad Max,” “Room,” “The Big Short.” Eight nominees, any film feel left out?

Well, I thought “Carol” and “The Danish Girl” were over-rated, upon release. Acting noms were all it warranted. I felt the same about “Brooklyn,” very dated old-fashioned picture. But a best picture nominee. The director of “Room” was recognized, taking what was widely regarded as Ridley Scott’s “Martian” nomination.

Tarantino’s “Hateful Eight” earned cinematography and Jennifer Jason Leigh nominations — deserved. And an Ennio Morricone one, for sentiment’s sake.

Damon vs. Cranston vs. Fassbender vs. Redmayne vs. the obvious winner, Leonardo DiCaprio, for best actor.

Hardy and Rylance and Ruffalo and Bale have to have little hope that Stallone will steal an Oscar for “Creed,” which shouldn’t be in any Oscar conversation.

Blanchett and Larson and Rampling and Lawrence (Gawd…) and Ronan fight it out for best actress.

And Alan Rickman went to his grave without an Oscar. Bloody hell.

The full list of nominees is here.

They hand out the Oscars in Hollywood Feb. 28. And frankly, by offering little chance of anything resembling a surprise (“Martian” as best picture? “Best pictures are directed by best directors.” So, not likely.), the Academy cannot make an argument for tuning in. Seriously, it’s speeches that are laundry lists, without Ricky Gervais insults.

We’ll tune in for “In Memoriam” and little else.

Action auteur Michael Bay handles the Battle of Benghazi like the political hot potato it is, turning this tale of the attacks on US facilities there and the death of a U.S. ambassador into a reasonably balanced, action-packed and fact-based account.

In other words, Fox News and the Hillary Haters are going to feel let down by “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.”

It’s not literally “a true story,” as an opening title assures us. There are claims made here that multiple GOP ordered Congressional hearings on the subject shot down — “stand down” orders from civilians to military folk, among them.

But what Bay (“Transformers”) delivers is a newfangled old-fashioned combat movie, “Zero Dark Corny,” with harrowing firefights given state-of-the-special-effects-art detail,  swaggering combat vets who wisecrack and drop one-liners — “How’re all the Jason Bournes doing downstairs?” — and lay on the slang and the acronyms, and get weepy and sentimental when flag or comrades in arms suffer.

Self-glorifying and self-aggrandizing, it’s a movie that answers the question one of its bloodied “contractor” (mercenary) heroes asks near the end, noting how CIA officials and others will be honored for their surviving this nightmarish night.

“What do WE get?”

You get a book deal and lots of TV appearances, like all ex-soldiers involved in a harrowing piece of Dark Ops history do these days. It seems.

John “The Office” Krasinski bulked and buffed up to play Jack Silva, a family man hit hard by the financial crisis, an ex SEAL on his way back to another tour as a contractor — this time helping protect CIA agents at a “secret base” in Benghazi where agents were tracking and buying up the Russian hardware Gaddafi had bought for Libya. An opening montage shows us a rough timeline — recreating the moment when the murderous dictator was dragged out of a drainage pipe and killed by his own people.

Libya has fallen into near anarchy. And a handful of bearded ex-Rangers, SEALs, and others, led by Tyrone “Rone” Woods (James Badge Dale) make up the QRF (Quick Response Force) designed to do the driving and guarding of the agents as they make their deals.

An opening gun-to-gun confrontation with one of the factions they’re dealing with is real Cowboys and Indians stuff — all bravado and bluff and quick-draws.

The CIA boss on the ground (David Costabile, also from “The Office”) isn’t impressed by these weight-lifting, Joseph Campbell-reading (Hah!) “Alphas,” and the contempt from the Alpha Males towards him is mutual.

Then the U.S. Ambassador shows up, shows the flag and makes an effort to bind the new regime to the country that helped it get rid of the dictator. Under-protected, by his own design, he has bought into the CIA’s assessment that “There is no real threat here.”

Wrong.

The Sept. 11, 2012 attacks come, and the contractors chomp at the bit to get into action, but the CIA holds them back. So they say now. The Pentagon is slow, or reluctant, to send even a show of force by air. Confusion about who is attacking and why (riots about an anti-Islamic documentary about Muhammad were thought to be the source) reigns back home.

Bay and his screenwriter make this material murky, leaving out details, editing everything into a blur, as if fearing its controversy. They still can’t escape charges of “historical revisionism.”

Bay is most at home giving us a vivid, realistic setting (shot in Malta and Morocco) and a nerve-wracking, lawless environment where everyone was armed to the teeth and on edge.

The firefights are fierce and the contractors professional and video-game proficient at mowing down the waves of “Tangos” (terrorists) attacking their “modern day Alamo.”

While the various members of the QRF ( and others protecting the “temporary” embassy) are distinct, the action reduces all but Krasinski to a background blur of bullets, RPGs, exploding plaster and blood. Dale (“World War Z,” “Iron Man 3”) bites off big hunks of machismo and spits’em out.

“You’re in MY world now!”

The movies “13 Hours” resembles don’t do it any favors. It plays like “The Green Berets” or “Hamburger Hill,” or any of the wave of Reagan Era “This time we WIN” Vietnam pictures. All-wise (and Joseph Campbell-quoting) military men try to set the civilians straight, and failing that, blame them for a chaotic situation beyond everyone’s control.

But Bay pulls back from making this the political screed many were expecting. As a brutal and gory combat picture with historical underpinnings, these “Secret Soldiers” acquit themselves heroically. The action is visceral and intense.

Only the presence of the odd well-established falsehood undercuts this re-interpretation of what we think of when we think “contractors” (Think French Foreign Legion).

And that’s a shame.

MPAA Rating:R for strong combat violence throughout, bloody images, and language

Cast: John Kransinski, James Badge Dale, David Costabile, Alexia Barlier, Peyman Moaadi

Credits: Directed by Michael Bay, script by Chuck Hogan. A Paramount release.

Running time: 2:15

The 36th (Has it been that long?) Golden Raspberry Award nominations are out. Not good news for the likes of “Fifty Shades of Grey” and Sly Stallone. Then again, maybe Stallone will show up, a la Sandra Bullock, because he thinks he has an acting Oscar in the bag.

Johnny Depp, Channing Tatum, Katherine Heigl. As usual.

“Pixels” and “Jupiter Ascending” earned loads of hate, “Pan” a little less. Adam Sandler? Man, he ought to show up just to silence the annual abuse (It’s harder to mock somebody you meet and maybe has a sense of humor about his shortcomings).

Attacking Julianne Moore, Michelle Monahan and Kaley Cuoco for poor choices seems mean, but OK. That’s how this works.

“Human Centipede” slaps are overdue.

They give these out just before the Oscars. Congratulations to all the nominees, because everybody’s a winner!

Worst Picture

• Fantastic Four
• Fifty Shades of Grey
• Jupiter Ascending
• Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2
• Pixels

Worst Actor

• Johnny Depp in Mortdecai
• Jamie Dornan in Fifty Shades of Grey
• Kevin James in Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2
• Adam Sandler in The Cobbler and Pixels
• Channing Tatum in Jupiter Ascending

Worst Actress

• Katherine Heigl in Home Sweet Hell
• Dakota Johnson in Fifty Shades of Grey
• Mila Kunis in Jupiter Ascending
• Jennifer Lopez in The Boy Next Door
• Gwyneth Paltrow in Mortdecai

Worst Supporting Actor

• Chevy Chase in Hot Tub Time Machine 2 and Vacation
• Josh Gad in Pixels and The Wedding Ringer
• Kevin James in Pixels
• Jason Lee in Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip
• Eddie Redmayne in Jupiter Ascending

Worst Supporting Actress

• Kaley Cuoco in Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip and The Wedding Ringer
• Rooney Mara in Pan
• Michelle Monaghan in Pixels
• Julianne Moore in Seventh Son
• Amanda Seyfried in Love the Coopers and Pan

Worst Director

• Andy Fickman for Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2
• Tom Six for The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence)
• Sam Taylor-Johnson for Fifty Shades of Grey
• Josh Trank for Fantastic Four
• The Wachowskis for Jupiter Ascending

Worst Screenplay

• Fantastic Four – screenplay by Jeremy Slater, Simon Kinberg and Josh Trank, based on the Marvel Comics characters created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
• Fifty Shades of Grey – screenplay by Kelly Marcel, based on the novel by E. L. James
• Jupiter Ascending – written by The Wachowskis
• Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 – written by Nick Bakay and Kevin James
• Pixels – screenplay by Tim Herlihy and Timothy Dowling, story by Tim Herlihy, based on the short film by Patrick Jean

Worst Prequel, Remake, Ripoff or Sequel

• Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip
• Fantastic Four
• Hot Tub Time Machine 2
• The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence)
• Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2

Worst Screen Combo

• All four “Fantastics” in Fantastic Four
• Johnny Depp and his glued-on mustache in Mortdecai
• Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson in Fifty Shades of Grey
• Kevin James and either his Segway or his glued-on mustache in Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2
• Adam Sandler and any pair of his shoes in The Cobbler

Razzie Redeemer Award

• Elizabeth Banks
• M. Night Shyamalan
• Will Smith
• Sylvester Stallone