Movie Nation

We know Anna Kendrick can sing. And that Rebel Wilson thinks she can.
The”Glee!” phenomenon, with its four-part harmony covers of pop hits, has run its course.
So while the jokes often land and the music is still perfectly in tune, the novelty’s gone from “Pitch Perfect”, the sequel to the surprise hit of 2012. That film that gave Kendrick a brief taste pop stardom and revealed Wilson as a comic with real throw-weight.
But what to do with “Pitch Perfect 2”? More of the same, of course, with the perky Kendrick taking a back to seat to “Fat Amy” and new Barden College “Bella” Emily, played by Hailee “True Grit” Steinfeld. The sequel is a longer movie that feels both overfamiliar and “new but not improved.”
The Bellas have a “wardrobe malfunction” that gets them abruptly drummed out of the acapella organization that sanctions them, snarkily covered by color commentators John Michael Higgins and Elizabeth Banks at events that are “an inspiration for girls, all over the country, who’re too ugly to be cheerleaders.”
Beca (Kendrick) is OK with this, ready to graduate and move on to a job in the music industry, where she already has an internship.
But Chloe (Brittany Snow) and the others aren’t ready to let it go. They want a chance to take on the those Teutonic terrors in tune, Das Sound Machine, at the world championships in Copenghagen.
The Bellas want to “scalp those Deutsche bags!” Maybe they’ll even visit “Hayden Christen Andersen’s House!”Beca would rather help Snoop Dogg with his new Christmas album.
Here’s what works. Birgitte Hjort Sørensen is imperious, towering goddess who leads the German team.
“I really must go rest my neck,” she sneers. “It is sore from looking DOWN on you!”
She’s so stunning that Beca’s counter-insults have no sting — “Your sweat smells like…cinnamin!”
Wilson’s Fat Amy earns a love interest worthy of a solo — Pat Benatar’s “We Belong t0 the Night.”
Snoop is hilariously PG, the creepy Asian girl (Hana Mae Lee) still whispers the most unsettling non-sequitors.
“All my teeth are from other people.”
And the songs, from “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” to “This is How We Do It” in contests where the categories include singers who “Dated John Mayer,” still pop.
But Steinfeld is a non-starter. More could have been made from her Bella “legacy” mother, Katey “Sons of Anarchy” Sagal.
This sorority in all but name needs more conflict and more pillow fights, all displayed in a much shorter comedy. Eighty minutes worth of laughs feel lost in a 110 minute movie.
Higgins, of Christopher Guest’s comic repertory company, could have used more screen time for his politically-incorrect commentary about the “Lady Boys of the Philipines,” and “This is what happens when you send girls to college.”
And as tired as acapella versions of song made famous by Journey, Natalie Imbruglia and Katy Perry might be, the novel twist “Let’s do an original” just doesn’t work. Unless you’ve got a sure fire hit, which “Perfect 2” feels like, even if the thrill for the trill is gone.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for innuendo and language

Cast: Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Hailee Steinfeld, John Michael Higgins, Elizabeth Banks, Katey Sagal
Credits: Directed by Elizabeth Banks, script by Kay Cannon based on characters created by Mickey Rapkin. A Universal release.

Running time: 1:55

Bobbie flirts with the clerk while Jude pilfers CDs. Jude keeps their ancient Oldsmobile running while Bobbie scams a would-be John thinking she’s a hooker.
They live in their car, drifting from hustle to theft — swiping presents from wedding receptions, pocketing pills from the clinic where they get sick.
The only time these two lovebirds bicker is over the allocation of their drugs.
“He says it’s strong, so go easy.”
“He always says that.”
They’re “Animals,” addicts whose plans never extend beyond where they can get their next fix, and how they can get the money to score. They eat, prey, love, and shoot-up.
David Dastmalchian wrote and co-stars in this generic but well-acted trip down junky lane. His Jude is pale and cadaverous, but obviously too smart for this life he has chosen.
Bobbie (Kim Shaw, excellent) is pretty enough to pimp out, but willing to go on these “dates” only to slip out with the money before anything transpires.
The dialogue is hip and philosophical, but the jargon of this world hasn’t changed in decades, the arc of the story rarely surprising and the situations are never heightened to the point where we genuinely fear for the fun couple.
Fun? They kick back in the Olds, watching the square lives of square people play out in apartment windows. They’re planning a road trip. Only they aren’t.
They dream of skinny dipping somewhere. But the demands of their addiction get in the way.
As they prey on one and all, the title’s name for them seems apt — “Animals.” But these zoo-and-nature-documentary-obsessed 20somethings are animal-like in an even more important way. They live totally in the moment. “Plans?” Those are for everybody else.

We know, from the first time we see them, what they’ve become. The driving force of “Animals” is our wondering if and when they’ll see that.

“Where Hope Grows” is a sometimes moving and generally watchable melodrama about a drunken ex-ballplayer who finds purpose and a friend back in his home town.
But unlike most faith-based films, it isn’t a church that saves him, a pastor or devout Christian who shows him the way. It’s a teen with Down Syndrome.
The kid’s nicknamed Produce, thanks to his job at the local supermarket. That’s where Calvin Campbell (Kristoffer Polaha) stumbles into him. Calvin’s a single-dad whose teen daughter (McKaley Miller) is making bad choices, but he’s typically too tipsy to notice. He’s adrift, bitter about his lost career, refusing to look for a new one.
And then he creates a “Cleanup on aisle three.”
“I just trampled on one of your vegetables, ” he tells the kid.
“A tomato is a fruit,” Produce corrects him.
Produce is in the habit of hugging people he’s just met. And Calvin is struck by Produce’s in-the-moment optimism.
“I’m doing good. Even when I’m doing bad, I’m doing good.”
Calvin lets himself befriend Produce, and even though he resists the kid’s invitations to church, his always positive attitude starts to rub off.
And some of Calvin’s edge rubs off with it.
“Where Hope Grows” is straight melodrama, with daughter Katie’s jerk boyfriend (Michael Grant) nagging her about sex, Calvin pondering whether to get into AA (twelve step meetings are the movies’ easiest lump in the throat moment) and Produce straining to show “how smart” he is, and his true worth.
It’s all fairly routine, even if there’s a moment of violence, a hint of profanity, a little drinking and an unfaithful wife (Danica McKellar of “The Wonder Years,” the biggest name in the cast). But it works, here and there, and Polaha is perfectly believable as an ex-jock and ex-jerk who lets a little child lead him out of the darkness.

MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for thematic issues involving drinking and teen sexuality, and for brief language and an accident scene

Cast: Kristoffer Polaha, David DeSanctis, McKaley Miller, Michael Grant, Danica McKellar
Credits: Written and directed by Chris Dowling. A Roadside Attractions release.

Running time: 1:35

In “Pound of Flesh,” Jean-Claude Van Damme can still do the splits, still pull off a nude scene and still feels the need to do one.
And his Belgian-accented threats still sting.
“You see thees Bible?” he purrs to the pretty Manila bartender who served him a Cosby-spiked drink the night before. “Eet weel leave BEEG bruises. And I WEEL beat you weeth eet.”
He brought his hotel room’s Bible with him “for inspiration.” Not really. He woke up in a Manila hotel in a bath of ice, with the water turning red. His bed is covered in blood. There’s no sign of the damsel he rescued and bedded the night before.
But there is a telltale scar. Somebody stole a kidney. So he is understandably insistent in questioning the barmaid.
His brother (John Ralston), who needs the kidney, blurts out that “I should have KNOWN something like this would happen.”
But that’s merely the second funniest line. After the Biblical threat.
“Pound of Flesh” is a solid if occasionally silly B-picture of the sort that JCVD used to make, before “JCVD” suggested there might be more to him than mere “Muscles from Brussels.”
He’s 54, his ex-special forces character wears glasses, and his fights in this fists-and-firearms hunt for a missing kidney are a tad gingerly fought. That’s mostly because the character is supposed to be in pain and down one kidney. But these brawls, mainly with the late Darren Shahlavi, a tough Brit-villain who died earlier this year, seem a little tentative. This sort of martial arts movie is a young leading man’s game.
Deacon, Van Damme’s character, and George (Ralston) and Deacon’s old underworld contact (Aki Aleong of “House of Sand and Fog”) have mere hours to find the Irish tart (Charlotte Peters) who hustled Deacon out of a kidney, before that kidney is sold to some rich person who needs one.
But there’s little urgency to the proceedings, little of that famous “D.O.A.” clock ticking down toward someone’s doom. Director Ernie Barbarash cannot manage a decent chase scene, and Van Damme, after a couple of brawls, settles into a first-person-shooter charge into a fortress mansion for the finale.
The moral components of the movie — George is a college professor and a devout Christian who doesn’t want others harmed in the hunt for this stolen kidney — are laughable.
And the plot, once it is laid out at about the 30 minute mark, is by-the-comic-book routine.
But you have to hand it to JCVD. He has found a fresh formula for a brawny action star’s dotage. Yes, they all turn to guns to settle scores their movies used to settle with their fists. He, at least, has found a character with a good excuse. He’s down one “Pound of Flesh.”

MPAA Rating: R for violence, language and some sexuality

Cast: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Charlotte Peters, Darren Shahlavi, John Ralston, Aki Aleong
Credits: Directed by Ernie Barbarash, script by Joshua James. An eOne/Phase4 release.

Running time: 1:44

Take away the armies and artillery and a low-budget Civil War movie turns into a Western.
The makers of the upcoming “The Keeping Room,” with Brit Marling, Sam Worthington and Hailee Steinfeld, figured that out.
And the co-writer/director Kane Senes made the same discovery before tackling “Echoes of War,” a small-scale post-war tale of a blood feud that predated Fort Sumter and picks up after Appomattox.
James Badge Dale (“World War Z,” “The Lone Ranger”) is Wade, a soldier newly returned to Texas, checking in on his late sister’s family. Brother-in-law Seamus (an unrecognizable Ethan Embry) has kept Abigail (Maika Monroe) and her younger brother Sam (Owen Teague) alive and raised them on the Good Book.
But Wade senses, straight away, that Seamus has been turning the other cheek a little too freely. He’s letting the hateful plantation owner next door (William Forsythe) and his sons hunt on his land, raid his traps for food.
Old Man McCluskey lost a son in the war, and the two sons left behind are little comfort. His wife (Beth Broderick) is crazy, and he figures the Rileys owe him some unpaid debt.
“Pop says they’re just desperate, like all folks,” Wade’s young nephew Sam offers.
Wade, still armed and with the bravado of a man who has survived combat, is itching to start something.
And Sam wants to be just like his swaggering Uncle Wade. But Abigail is being secretly courted by Marcus McCluskey (Rhys Wakefield). So this feud is sure to have echoes of Shakespeare.
The players aren’t bad, but they have too little to play, even the young lovers. It’s hard to develop empathy for characters that are simple archetypes.
It’s also a generally artless film, with little in the cinematography to suggest the painterly touches such period pieces usually merit. A little random ugliness, a pointless and grisly sex scene involving the madwoman and her mad husband, sets the tone.
“Echoes of War” needs prettier visuals and bigger ideas, because the dialogue is too formulaic and the violence to come is entirely too predictable to hold our interest for 100 minutes.

MPAA Rating: R for violence, sexuality/nudity and language

Cast: James Badge Dale, William Forsythe, Ethan Embry, Maika Monroe, Rhys Wakefield, Beth Broderick, Owen Teague
Credits: Directed by Kane Senes, script by John Chriss, Kane Senes. An Arc Entertainment release.

Running time: 1:40

Not sure what Deadline Hollywood was expecting the sacrificial lamb comedy “Hot Pursuit” to manage on its opening weekend. It’ll do over $12, which seems a little low — not quite a flop. Reese’s big box office days are in the past.

Poor movie, middling showing. Seems like $16 or so would have been the high end of expectations.

“Avengers” has won another weekend ($76 million) and should pass “Furious 7” by Friday, next Saturday at the latest. The tally will be “7” $331 Sunday night, “Avengers 2” $311 or so.

“Maggie,” opening on limited screens didn’t set the world on fire, “The D Train” did no more for Jack Black than “Maggie” did for Schwarzenegger. “Far from the Madding Crowd” still isn’t on enough screens to crack the top ten. But “Ex Machina” is turning into a modest, smart hit, ($14 thus far) and “Woman in Gold” is counter-programming itself into the black.

But it won’t manage the money “The Age of Adaline” does, which will stand at over $31 million on Sunday night. That’s the one to take Mom to on Mother’s Day, by the way.

Every studio, large and small, just assumed those darned “Avengers” would swallow another weekend’s box office whole.

So nothing of any real note opens this second weekend of May.

“Hot Pursuit” took a beating from critics. Just brutal. Reese Witherspoon is earning “What was she thinking?” from a lot of us, but Stephen Whitty of the Newark Star Ledger and I were in agreement on the real culprit — director Anne Fletcher. The female Adam Shankman? It stands at a whopping 7% on the Tomatometer.

“Maggie,” Arnold Schwarzenegger’s serious, somber and compassionate transformation in the middle of an indie zombie movie, is earning mixed reviews. Abigail Breslin is awesome in it, but Arnie holds his own.  Do yourself a favor and read the TIRADES in the comments of NPR’s interview with the ex-governor/Once and Future Terminator. Like Russell Crowe, like Mel Gibson and like Kevin Costner, he has transgressed in some way that have utterly turned a lot of people against him.

Not that the NPR audience figured to be filled with Arnold fans.

The best reviewed film of the weekend is the faith-based import “Noble,” about an Irish orphan who never lets the world beat her down and never loses her faith in the process. Not bad.

The Michael Fassbender Western “Slow West” has earned good notices and gone into wider release. Offbeat, dark and funny, and shot in New Zealand.

“Saint Laurent” is a botched, overlong French biopic of pioneering fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent.

Jack Black’s kind of over, so even the semi-daring “D Train” can’t put him back in the money. An offbeat bromantic comedy — a bromance that turns sexual — it feels like a PG-13 movie sexed and cursed up to an R.

Then there’s “Bravetown” — a high school dance team romance slapped on top of a mournful small town in denial over all the soldiers it’s sent off to war, “The Seven Five,” a decent but dated New York cop scandal documentary.

Morgan Freeman and Diane Keaton twinkle, but not enough, to rescue to sluggish New York real estate comedy “5 Flights Up.”

And Patrick Stewart classes up the Israeli dark caper comedy “Hunting Elephants,” taking a role that John Cleese was slated to play, at one point.

French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent earns a “Gandhi” length, disjointed and arty film biography in “Saint Laurent,” a patience-testing period piece that skips through the designer’s glory years, catches up with him near the addled end and fails to deliver details of his greatest trauma.
In two and a half hours, director BeBertrand Bonello leaves out far more than he includes, avoids Laurent’s competitors, includes Andy Warhol — but only in narrated letters — and fixates on the driven, brilliant and yet somehow unfortunate fashion tycoon’s excesses and sex life.
But with Gaspard Ulliel in the title role, the film’s many abortive snippets and impressionionistic sketches come together in one iconic image. Playing Saint Laurent in his 1960s and ’70s heyday, Ulliel (“Hannibal Rising”) is as beautiful as the clothes his character wears, even the ugly ’70s suits. Tall, thin and angular, Ulliel is the personification of the Yves Saint Laurent line.
Fabrics that slink off shoulders and hug the hips and fall just-so, colors and textures blend in the “elegance and beauty” which were Saint Laurent’s self-declared lifelong pursuit.
Before his initials “YSL” were slapped on so many products as to lose their meaning, before his drug and booze fueled hard living got the best of him, before fashion itself passed him by, Yves Saint Laurent ruled couture and “Saint Laurent” reminds of us this — showing him expand his brand, his push from pricey runway wear to “ready-to-wear,” perfumes, selling out to American ownership. Saint Laurent, guided by his life partner/business partner Pierre Berge (Jérémie Renier), sold out early and often and got every bit as stinking rich as Coco Chanel.
We meet his “muses,” the willowy blonde model Betty Catroux (Aymeline Valade), whom he called his “twin,” the designer-muse LouLou de la Falaise (Léa Seydoux).
We spend a staggering amount of time not-quite-overhearing conversations in the discotheques of the day, drinking, popping pills and smoking-smoking-smoking. The Surgeon General ought to put a warning on “Saint Laurent.”
And we follow Saint Laurent cruising, and into the coke-and-pill-packed love affair with Karl Lagerfeld’s paramour, Jacques de Bascher (Louis Garrel).
The movie’s failings are teased at the beginning, when a strung-out Saint Laurent checks into a Paris hotel and spills his guts to a reporter. Or so we’re told. This “story” is never printed or related and we catch only a glimpse of his traumatic weeks as a young designer turned military conscript, subjected to hazing and drug and electro-shock treatments for the depression that followed.
We see nothing of his apprenticeship under Dior, and his fascination with the writer Marcel Proust is mentioned several times but never explained.
“Saint Laurent” plays like the most inside-baseball fashion film ever, too many random “highlights,” too few moments of inspiration.
And choosing simple white subtitles for a French film about a designer whose seamstresses, models and apartments were often bathed in white may be the biggest fashion blunder of all.

MPAA Rating: R for graphic nudity/strong sexual situations, substance abuse throughout and some language

Cast: Gaspard Ulliel, Jérémie Renier, Louis Garrel, Léa Seydoux, Helmut Berger
Credits: Directed by Bertrand Bonello, script by Thomas Bidegain (screenplay), Bertrand Bonello. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

Running time: 2:30