Movie Nation

Those “prisoners” supernaturally imprisoned in human bodies, bouncing between the distant past and the Korean present as “Alienoids” are back.

“Alienoid: Return to the Future” is, if anything, even harder to follow than “Alienoid.” But plainly “following” whatever the hell is going on in Choi Dong-hoon’s head and in his movie isn’t really the point.

It’s just as loopy, perhaps a little more whimsical and just as easily described as silly, dumb “eye candy” as ever.

As in the first film, the pan-dimensional “prisoners” are torn between taking over human bodies as their “prisons,” and escaping that mortal flesh in a bid to unleash haava, the pinkish-red cloud that will alter Earth’s atmosphere, wipe out humanity and leave all that land for them.

Ten years have passed, and Lee Ahn, or “Ean” in the print I watched (played by Kim Tae-ri) wanders ancient Korea, seeking the Divine Blade that might free others from the “inmates” imprisoned in their flesh and turn the tide against the evildoers and Jarang (Kim Eui-sung), their shaman/leader.

Ean don’s disguises (a mustache that fools no one) and alters her voice (fooling even fewer) as the magic martial artist pixie hides from the pursuing (digital) cats, Left Paw and Right Paw, who take human form at times as they track her on behalf of Mureuk (Ryu Jun-Yeol).

A blind swordsman/shaman (Jo Woo-jin) is also wandering the past, hunting and taking on all comers.

Meanwhile, in the present day, Customs Agent/secret warrior Min Gae-in (Lee Hanee) is on the case, trying to figure out who is possessed by whom, ready to trot out her own supernatural fighting skills when the pistols come out, as they often do.

“How far back does the wheel of fortune turn?”

There is a space ship that can travel through time, modern guns which those flung into the past whip out, and enchanted sabres and swords, a sword-fan with a mind of its own and arrows that could do a lesser mortal in, which is why they’re all so good at parkour and, you know…FLYING.

The wirework is impressive, the fantasy effects spectacular and the fights sometimes fun in this sprawling, colorful and somewhat empty-headed spectacle. A favorite gag has Min Gae-in throw a punch through a magical mirror that gives her a fist The Hulk would shy away from fighting.

“Hard to follow” includes just keeping the characters straight as they seem to switch allegiances, often through no control of their own, and the character names don’t line up neatly with IMDb or other credits websites.

But these “Alienoids” still treat us to something resembling a simple cinematic thrill ride. Don’t try to follow it, don’t attempt to anticipate what’s coming. Just don’t sweat anything like a “detail.”

After all, “We are all just pines trees by the courtyard” in the end — Korean wisdom in alienoid form.

Rating: violence, some profanity

Cast: Kim Tae-ri, Lee Hanee, Kim Eui-sung
Ryu Jun-Yeol, Kim Eui-sung and Jo Woo-jin

Credits: Scripted and directed by Choi Dong-hoon. A Well Go USA release.

Running time: 2:02

A new “Lion King,” a prequel, with new tunes by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Kelvin Harrison and Donald Glover and Beyonce and her child and Aaron Pierre and and Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner.

All voicing digital critters of the Serengeti!

That Intellectual Property keeps on paying off for Disney. Maybe. Dec. 20.

“I Am Gitmo” is an earnest attempt at bringing the Guantanamo Bay inmates’ story — foreign nationals accused of terrorism, held and tortured for years, with no trials or hope of release — back to the headlines.

It’s a downbeat, low-energy, modest budget affair that covers some of the same ground as “The Mauritanian,” “Camp X-Ray” and many documentaries on this “extra legal” prisoner of war purgatory.

Basically, the best reason to make it is that people are still being held there. And it’s always a challenge shooting a movie without the money to build replicas of Afghan neighborhoods, a prison camp on a military base and the like, and seeing how convincing you can make it all.

But you’ve got to have more than good intentions and a grasp of how to do things on the cheap — mothballed “museum” military aircraft as backdrops, an intentionally “fake” tank, a coil of barbed wire to mimic an exercise yard — to justify making a movie that’s already been made and a story that others have already told.

Flat performances of a dull and cliche-ridden script aren’t enough to make us forget that Jodie Foster, Kristen Stewart and others got there first, with more money and a more compelling version of this story to tell.

Philippe Diaz’s high-minded movie tells us the story of one inmate, Gamel (Sammy Sheik), an Egyptian veteran of the Afghan war against the Soviets who stayed in Aghanistan afterwards, married and had children and became a school teacher.

But weeks after the U.S. invasion after 9-11, he is betrayed by a neighbor cashing-in on the American bounty on “terror suspects,” handcuffed and hooded and spirited off to one “enhanced interrogation” after another.

“Right arm of Osama bin Laden,” he is labeled by his CIA torturers. “You have no rights. Nobody cares about you.”

Eventually, prisoner 121 is masked and flown to Guantanomo Bay.

That’s where he becomes the responsibility of John Anderson (Eric Pierpoint), an Army interrogator summoned back to active duty to (reluctantly) break all the “rules” and ignore all his common sense under this new regime, “approved by the president,” defending by the vice president in a TV interview he watches at one point.

We hear Gamel read from a wrong letter to his wife that may never make it to her, recounting his dismay, terror and outrage at his treatment. We also hear the religious Anderson write a diary for his daughter, who keeps urging him to watch videos of Nelson Mandela to see the error in his ways.

The film introduces no holds-barred torturers, smirking and abusive enlisted personnel, always ready with a Polaroid, a lawyer and one of Gamel’s fellow inmates as one and all recover familiar ground and try to animate hoary lines like “Last chance! Where is Osama bin Laden?”

This “Taxi to the Dark Side” has the phrase “a compelling story” hardwired into it. But Diaz (“Now & Later,” and the doc “The End of Poverty” were his) and his experienced but charisma-starved cast of unknowns fail to bring it to life or make us care.

Rating: unrated, violence, profanity

Cast: Sammy Sheik, Eric Pierpoint, Paul Kampf, Jason Reid and
Iyad Hajjaj

Credits: Scripted and directed by Philippe Diaz. A Bayview Ent. release.

Running time: 1:55

Aborbs.

Even that curmudgeon Frank Oz gets a little emotional here.

May 31.  Disney plus remembers Jim Henson.

A decent Thursday night and solid Friday suggest that Zendaya’s star vehicle “Challengers” will own this weekend at the box office, pulling in  $15 million on its opening bow.

Sophisticated and edgy, the latest from the director of “Call Me By Your Name” has Zendaya’s huge Twitter following to thank for that, according to Deadline.com.

Reviews have been (mostly) over the moon, so this parks everyone’s favorite co-star in box office leading lady territory.

The Numbers reports the new faith based drama “Unsung Hero” managed $7.74 million mark to finish second.

Another decent weekend pushes the last “Godzilla x Kong” mashup over $181 million overall, and keeps it in third place with a $7.2 million take .

“Civil War” slips into a serious fade and will finish fourth with $6 million.

Which is still better than the ultra violent action comedy “Boy Kills World,” which won’t manage $2  million and should finish outside of the top five.

“Abigail,” the gonzo vampire baby ballerina comedy, will finish five at nearly $5 million.

“Hard Miles” is a sweet, unassuming and generally unsurprising dramedy about changing lives via cycling and seeing The Grand Canyon.

This “inspired by” a true story stars Matthew Modine as a social worker/counselor who hits on the idea that his road biking obsession could be transformational for the “delinquents” he’s trying to keep out of the Colorado prison system. Director R.J. Daniel Hanna and co-writer Christian Sander find an inventive, roundabout way to may this happen, throw in assorted conventional “obstacles” along the way and get a pleasant if slack feel-good movie out of it.

Modine plays Greg Townsend, long and lean and well over 50, a man who has devoted his life to interrupting the downward slide of boys “in the system” who might be saved if they learn the right lessons at Ridgeview Academy.

With hotheads, car thieves and gang members “processed” back and forth between the boarding school and the prison system, it’s an uphill climb. But Greg knows something about those. His long bike rides through the mountains build character.

Hey, howabout redirecting kids from a backpacking trip where they can be “rehabilitated by tall trees,” and taking them on a long cycling/camping trip throught the Grand Canyon? The boss’s dream, because they’re always about to lose their funding and certification, is doing any activity “looks great on Facebook.”

Boss Skip (Leslie David Baker of “The Office”) is sold. But if he knew this was just so Greg can combine work, get in his long-planned 762 mile ride in, and maybe drop by the hospital where his abusive father is about to die, he might not be.

Greg’s avocation training responsibilities include welding class. Great. They can “build their own bikes.” He’s pals with the bike-shop owner who gets all his business (Sean Astin). Maybe he’ll “sponsor” the “team.”

Get some donated wheels and brakes and seats and gears, acquire helmets, shorts and “Banda di Catene” (“Chain Gang” in Italian) T-shirts, convince co-worker Haddie (Cynthia Kaye Williams) to drive the support van, aka “The Slack Wagon,” and they’re off.

Well, the four metal shop kids Greg has in mind for this “Outward Bound on Bikes” experience will have to be convinced. But what else are car-thief Woobright (Jahking Guillory), gang-banger Atencio (Damien Diaz), brawler Rice (Zachary T. Robbins) and eating disordered head-case Smink (Jackson Kelly) going to do with those nice frames they’ve brazed together?

Greg will pass on maxims like “You know what overcomes hard luck? Hard work.” And the lads will learn to work as a team, a peloton of riders, each with his role in the pack.

Flashbacks will give us a taste of Greg’s past. Phone calls from prison tell us how his life might’ve gone. And a lone flashback suggests what one of these boys lived through.

Mainly this is about the riding, the scenery and the foul-mouthed insults and wise-cracking.

Maybe I missed it, but the last time I checked, an eating disorder won’t land you in a juvenile detention/boarding school. A detail missing from an incomplete yet overlong tale. The kids are barely sketched in, the obstacles they overcome are skimmed-over and Greg’s personal issues are perfunctory and arrive, like clockwork, to prop up the drama of it all.

There’s nothing all that “hard” in these “Hard Miles.” It passes the time with some pretty sights, fairly worn cliches and semi-serious cycling, a pleasant-enough dramedy that never gets out of the low, easy gears.

Rating: PG-13, some violence, profanity, teen drinking

Cast: Matthew Modine, Jahking Guillory, Cynthia Kaye McWilliams, Jackson Kelly, Damien Diaz, Zachary T. Robbins, Sean Astin and Leslie David Baker.

Credits: Directed by R.J. Daniel Hanna, scripted by R.J. Daniel Hannah and Christian Sander. A Blue Fox release.

Running time: 1:50

“Challengers” is a sleek and sometimes sexy “Jules and Jim” menage a trois set in the world of professional tennis.

The (digitally augmented) tennis is quite good, the romantic entanglements sophisticated and the story narrowly-focused on our three leads in this new film from the director of “Call Me By Your Name.”

The picture’s backdrop is almost as richly-detailed as “King Richard,” depicting the grinding life sought by the (literally) privileged few as two “bunkmates since we were twelve” tennis academy alumni compete for the rising star who is the most beautiful woman either has ever seen pick up a racket, and incidentally “the color of” America today, as one of our paramours notes.

Zendaya is here to carry the picture as the talented, somewhat mercenary Tashi who starts toying with focused workaholic Art (Mike Faist of “West Side Story”) and devil-may-care talent Patrick (Josh O’Connor of “God’s Own Country” and “Emma.”) when they’re all rising “junior” in the tennis heirarchy.

They become her “two white boys,” despite her joking suggestion that “I’m not a homewrecker.” These besties since boyhood are that tight.

But after a bit of polyamorous play and teasing, a romance settles in, only to be disrupted by the pitfalls of any athletic career — injuries, limits to talent, lack of discipline. The coolest thing about this Justin Kuritzkes screenplay is how the power dynamic never really shifts. Whatever goes right or wrong for each of them, however she’s involved in that success or failure, the gorgeous woman with the polished groundstrokes and killer instinct on and off the court is the one true “tennis player” in the trio.

That phrase is a distinction that’s kicked around the sport for decades, a measure of one’s level of focus and sacrifice for the sport, struggling to be the complete package on the court even if off the court.

Vitas Gerulaitis might be the poster boy for “tennis player” as defined here. He pretty much died for the game. That’s why Tashi opts for Stanford instead of turning pro as a teen because “I don’t want my only skill to be hitting a ball with a racket.”

Patrick, when we meet him, seems as committed as any “tennis player” who ever picked up a racket. He’s living in his aged Honda CRV, struggling to collect wins and motel money at a “challengers” (qualifying/rank-raising) tourney in 2019 in New Rochelle, New York. At this “up and comers” level of the game, a local tire distributor is the best sponsor available. Over 30, Patrick is too damned old to be playing here, and not too proud to “swipe right” to pick up someone who might allow him to sleep over after sex so that he can be sharp for his next match.

Art is too big a deal to be playing here. He’s also over 30, but he’s had a lot of success, lacking only a U.S. Open title to complete “a career Grand Slam,” titles in all four major international tourneys — Wimbledon, the Australian, French and U.S. Opens. But he’s coming back from an injury, and while the Aston Martin endorsements might still be there, the confidence is not.

The beauty paired-up with him on those Aston Martin billboards is his coach and his wife. That’s Tashi. And she’s determined to get him that last “slam,” otherwise “What’s the point?”

“Challengers” is framed by Art and Patrick colliding in that New Rochelle tire distributor tourney finals, with flashbacks showing up how these three beautiful people met over a decade before, their taste of the real affluence surrounding this “country club sport,” their predictable personality differences and the soap opera that’s played out over the years of their on-and-off relationships.

As director Luca Guadagnino is involved, you know the sexuality depicted will be fluid and somewhat unconventional. As Zendaya is the star, the object of desire, the woman who cautions both paramours about falling “in love with me,” when the two lads in question can only answer “Doesn’t everyone?” you can also guess that the sex is a lot more PG-13 than R-rated. So Guadagnino treats us to a little full-frontal in the men’s tennis locker rooms to up the “sexy” ante and earn that R rating.

The tennis seen here has a screaming, racket-smashing volatility that seems superficial and extreme. And there’s a cynicism to this over-praised drama that comes through in the situations, the characters and their racial/sexual makeup that seems to count more than compelling performances or nuanced conflict.

Zendaya is a convincing tennis pro, if a tad slight of build to be a star in the making. And she’s a little less convincing as the mature-for-her-age woman trying to play the angles, find or follow her heart after she finds it. She isn’t helped here by Guadagnino’s seeming disinterest in romance or heterosexual sex.

O’Connor’s character is set up as a gauche lout, seeking sexual conquests and easy money and easy fame, and not getting two of the three things he seems to feel entitled to. Faist has the more complicated character to play, someone lucky to be married to that person who gives him the heart, strategic tips and motivation to succeed, a charismatic beauty who opens all sorts of doors for him, and yet uncertain in her fidelity or romantic commitment.

Structurally, that “framed by the pivotal tourney” format begins to grate and the picture, headed for a conclusion was can see from some distance off, is drawn-out like a tie breaker that has no “sudden death” about it.

But the tennis, with augmented sound, shotmaking, balls-eye-view camera work and the like, dazzles. And whatever the strengths of the leads, the sexual dynamics of this relationship are every bit as of America at this “moment” as the beautiful biracial player’s “color” that the script takes pains to point out.

“Challengers” is just challenging enough as it is wearing out its welome and trodding past its obvious climaxes and towards the “final” one, even if we see it coming.

Rating: R profanity, some sexual content and graphic nudity

Cast: Zendaya, Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor

Credits: Directed by Luca Guadagnino, scripted by Justin Kuritzkes. An MGM/Amazon release.

Running time: 2:11

Whatever their shifting status in the minds of the public — and school children forced to study them –the best proof of Shakespeare, Austen and Dickens’ enduring popularity is their durability on the silver screen. Every few decades, each of these masters of plot, character and witty dialogue are revived in a run of films that covers each writer’s Greatest Hits.

Suddenly, somebody rediscovers what delights their best works remain and a remake is attempted. And then others take up the mantle and much of this or that writer’s canon is revisited in new big screen versions.

Dickens is particularly susceptible to this, as we’re never more than a couple of years between fresh takes on “A Christmas Carol,” “Great Expectations” or “Oliver Twist.”

But perhaps his greatest tribute was paid in a 1940s and ’50s run that included definitive versions of “Great Expectations” and “Oliver Twist” by the great David Lean, the most beloved “Christmas Carol” of them all, starring Alistair Sim,” and a delightful 1952 version of Dickens’ first novel, “The Pickwick Papers.”

Lean was an acclaimed editor relatively new to directing when he made his Dickens classics, two of the most visually-striking period pieces of the monochromatic cinema. Noel Langley was a screenwriter whose credits included adapting “The Wizard of Oz” and the best “Christmas Carol” of them all. Langley is a fine example of why we list “writer” first in describing someone as a “writer/director.” His “Pickwick Papers” is period-sharp, with Oscar-nominated costumes, but hardly the eye-popping enterprise that every Lean film was. Filmed indoors and on backlots and a few select country locations, it’s a tad drab looking, to be honest.

But the man loved the language, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a Dickens adaptation that plays as witty and chatty as Langley’s “Pickwick.” And a sharp cast vamps up the broad, colorful and colorfully-named characters which instantly became Dickens’ trademark in this, his debut novel.

Character player Nigel Patrick — later seen in “Raintree County,” “Battle of Britain” and already famous thanks to “The Browning Version” — dazzles as Mr. Jingle, a “roaming actor,” confidence man and amusing scoundrel, a fast-talker who talks so fast that he leaves unnecessary words out of his boundless, breathless patter.

Consider the way his Jingle weasels his way into the affections of a dizzy “spinster” (Kathleen Harrison) who has just been scandalously seen in the arms of a man without a chaperone to maintain decorum.

“Miss Wardle… forgive intrusion... no time for ceremony… all is discovered! Come to warn you… dreadful danger… tender my services… prevent hub-bub… other hand… think it an insult… leave room.“

Then he makes his own dubious case with a torrent of lies in sentence fragment form.

“A worship from first… devoted slave… in a torment… sleepless nights… fortune of my own…”

Poor Miss Wardle, to say nothing of her would-be paramour, portly “romantic” Mr. Tupman (Alexander Gauge) never stand a chance.

Jingle is not the first “character” our quartet of “Pickwick (Travel) Club” members encounter on their “adventures” “exploring” 1830s Britain. But he becomes an instant thorn in the side of oh-so-proper Pickwick (James Hayter of “Tom Brown’s School Days” and “The Crimson Pirate”), introverted Winkle (James Arnold of “The Great Escape” and “Bridge on the River Kwai”), Tupman and perpetually perplexed Snodgrass (Lionel Murton).

Their quite commonplace travels and “studies” of the human condition are wholly-upended by the dashing, confident, fast-talking scoundrel, “rogue” and “blackguard” who takes them, assorted womenfolk and others for a merry ride.

Mistaken identities, misunderstood intentions and Jingle’s manipulations get our hapless travelers into glove-slapping duels, “breech of promise” lawsuits and the like. It’s as if one can’t check into a friendly inn, dress for a costume fete or hire a horse and carriage without mishap, and without Jingle somehow showing up to “save the day” and eventually make everything much worse.

Fops, twits, schemers, widows and wiseguys abound, and in its best scenes, many of them out of doors, “Pickwick Papers” proceeds at a prance.

Character actress queens Hermione Gingold and Hermione Baddeley make a rare appearance in the same picture together, Donald Wolfit, Harry Fowler, William Hartnett, Noel Purcell and Gerald Campion — a manservant made to look the spitting image of silent star Fatty Arbuckle — impress with broad turns and wildly eccentric facial (eyebrow) hair.

Dickens was just starting his serial-magazine-story-to-novel career, and while not every complication he invented for this crew was a dazzler, populating the scenes with a Jingle, Fogg, Buzfuz, Slammer and Nupkins all but ensured that the characters would be as funny as their names.

The middle acts are eaten up with court intrigues that tend to slow the picture to a crawl. But the colorful characters and punny, stacatto wordplay suggest this less-filmed novel is ripe for a remake. Something period perfect but with a modern “This is Britain Today” cast and feel like the recent Dev Patel “David Copperfield” seems in order for the perfect Dickens “adventure” and “exploration” of British character and the twee eccentrics who make it what it is.

Rating: TV-PG, “Approved”

Cast: James Hayter, James Arnold, Nigel Patrick, Joyce Grenfell, Hermione Gingold, Hermione Baddelely, Alexander Gauge, Lionel Murton, Donald Wolfit and Harry Fowler.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Noel Langley, based on the novel by Charles Dickens. An Arteflm release on Tubi, Amazon, etc.

Running time: 1:49

For me, Zendaya’s screen stardom has always been something just in the offing. She’s gotten roles in big films since “The Greatest Showman.” They offered her the chance to make a mark in subordinate, supporting parts as “Spider Man’s” squeeze, or the tough teacher to “chosen” leader Paul Atreides in “Dune.”

“Euphoria” reminded us she can act.

Put her in a picture where she plays a sexy and sexually active tennis player and we’ll see if she can carry a movie with lesser known Co stars.