Movie Nation

This looks rough and tumble, and a tad edgy.

A Middle Eastern poet and med student who gets a rep as a “Dr. Feelgood,” thanks to his hipper-than-thou, gets-around girlfriend?

As Paris Hilton would say in her day, “Sounds hot.”

June 27.

I could not WAIT to get to the Norwegian “Royalteen” sequel, “Royalteen: Princess Margrethe,” (he lied). I mean, what could top that soapy “going to high school with royalty and falling for a prince” fairytale with “real teen” sex and profanity and every other “issue” under the sun complicating the affair?

“Princess Margrethe” leaves young lovers Lena (Ines Høysæter Asserson) and the curly prince Kalle (Mathias Storhøi) behind to tell the story of the Mean Girl half of the royal Norwegian high school twins. What made her mean? What keeps the meanness going? Let’s find out!

This sequel, also based on the YA novel by Randi Fuglehaug and Anne Gunn Halvorsen, is marginally more interesting because of all the things that hang over someone labeled “Miss Perfect” and “The Most Beautiful Woman in Norway” by the European press.

Margrethe, as interpreted by Elli Rhiannon Müller Osborne, has family responsibilities and a paranoia borne of a press and culture that’s just waiting for her and others in her family to take a wrong step.

That’s one reason why she was so freaked out by her brother’s crush on the “experienced” and complicated commoner Lena. But that’s not why Margrethe fainted at the prom in the last scene of “Royalteen.”

The opening of “Princess Margrethe” shows her being wheeled into the hospital and a doctor telling her and her parents about all the drugs in her system.

“Keeping this quiet” is only going to cover up so much. Flashbacks to that night remind Margrethe how she got so messed up, and the overly-attentive boy who got her that way.

Margrethe spends this sequel fretting over video that creep recorded that might get out, over the flirty Prince of Denmark not named Hamlet (Sammy Germain Wadi), whether to carry on with aspiring DJ Arni (Filip Bargee Ramberg), her brother’s pal and a guy who knows her better than anyone and pondering the state of the monarchy, her image and what is going on with her parents’ marriage.

Margrethe feels pressured by the one friend she has in the world (Amalie Sporsheim) to do what teenagers do and lose her virginity. But to whom? Prince Alexander of Denmark? Arni? Gustav the possible blackmailer?

Getting drunk widens her playing field to a stranger who protectively takes her home.

“You know, you HAVE to sleep with me,” she hiccups. “It’s in the con…consti…constiTUtion.”

Through it all, her depressed and often bedridden mother’s (Kirsti Stubø) words of warning hang over her (in Norwegian with subtitles, or dubbed into English).

“It’s not like we’re normal people.”

But in most ways, they are.

The misunderstandings are just as lame as in “Royalteen,” the “mysteries” are just as contrived and guessable.

But there are a few cute, if seriously cliched moments. As blah as it all seems to the jaded adults in the room, “Margrethe” might fill the bill for teens who want to see that “royalty has the same issues everybody else does” and live vicariously in this milieu, a “teen princess” movie with a profane, sexual and pharmaceutical edge.

Rating: TV-MA, substance abuse, sexual situations, a little nudity, profanity

Cast: Elli Rhiannon Müller Osborne, Filip Bargee Ramberg, Sammy Germain Wadi, Frode Winther, Amalie Sporsheim, Kirsti Stubø, Mathias Storhøi and Ines Høysæter Asserson.

Credits: Directed by  Ingvild Søderlind, scripted by Marta Huglen Revheim, Ester Schartum-Hansen and Per-Olav Sørensen, based on the book by Randi Fuglehaug and Anne Gunn Halvorsen. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:38

Holofcener made Catherine Keener a star, and gave Jennifer Aniston one of her best roles.

This looks wonderful.

“Knights of the Zodiac” is an adequately-budgeted action fantasy about young warriors recruited to protect or attack the reincarnation of the Greek goddess Athena, warriors identified by their connection to an inner power/”Force” called Cosmos.

No, it has nothing to do with the science TV series based on the book by Carl Sagan. Yes, it has a lot of similarities to every other YA sci-fi/fantasy thingamabob that’s ever come down the pike.

Based on a manga/Japanese comic book series, it isn’t cast and played as “young” as say “Percy Jackson and the Olympians.” But it’s still pretty childish in its setting, derivative plotting, actions beats, heroines and heroes.

Japanese American singer-actor Mackenyu — please don’t make fun of the name, or the fact that this chap figures he gets to go by one name when his level of fame suggests maybe that’s an overreach — stars as Seiya, whose older sister was snatched when he was a child.

He got a hint of her “Cosmos” power when he grabbed at her magic medallion necklace one time. As a haunted adult, he’s still looking for her, and of course cage-fighting in an underground octagon to make ends meet.

Just as he’s getting his butt whipped by the brute Cassios (Nick Stahl), he summons up that dormant power. That alerts rich-guy recruiter Alman Kido (Sean Bean) to his existence and whereabouts, and summons the minions of Alman Kido’s sinister ex-wife Vander Guraad (Famke Janssen).

In a flash, our hero has to choose a side, which of course means he’ll be taken in by the guy protecting the new goddess Athena, born Sienna (Madison Iseman), a spoiled “rich girl” to Seiya. He’ll have to train, learn to use his powers, ponder the mystery of his missing sister, resist the temptations of Vander Guraad and eventually “save” Athena when the chips are down.

Or not.

The fight scenes have cool slo-mo effects, and the best of them come from the pre-“Knights of the Zodiac” armor that Seiya acquires as he masters his powers. The octagon action has some decent wirework — spinning, floating kicks and what not.

The acting is never really bad, just indifferent. Even old pros Bean and Janssen can’t summon up much enthusiasm for this silliness. Mackenyu shows off a few martial arts moves early on. But once you’ve got magic powers and armor, the brawls turn “Transformers” dull and CGI.

The running “gag” is “You don’t know when to quit, do you?” And the rest of the dialogue is either too bland to bother quoting or standard issue “You should have DIED when you had the chance!”

The limited sci-fi “tech” we see is mainly this Opsrey-styled jet-powered transport.

Fans of the comics will certainly get more out of it than newbies like me. All we see is all the other middling YA sagas it resembles, borrows from and fails to match or improve upon.

Rating: PG-13, violence

Cast: Mackenyu, Famke Janssen, Madison Iseman, Nick Stahl, Diego Tinoco, Caitlin Hudson and Sean Bean

Credits: Directed by Tomasz Baginski, scripted by Josh Campbell, Matt Stueken and Kiel Murray based on the manga/comic series by Masami Kurumada. A Sony release.

Running time: 1:5

Based on a video game, inspired by themed restaurant nightmare palaces like Chuck e Cheese and Showbiz Pizza, home of the Rock a Fire Explosion.

Got to like the horror hooks built into this one.

“Faithfully Yours” is a Dutch thriller about wives who cheat and what the almost-as-dishonest mistrusting men who married them might be capable of if they find out. It’s a subtly-acted slow-starter, with a fine, flashy finish, a “solid” genre piece that never quite crosses over into riveting.

Bracha Van Doesburg plays Bodil, a no-nonsense domestic court judge who lives for her weekend’s away from it all. Or so we gather.

She’s got a little boy she dotes on and a husband who indulges (Nasrdin Dchar) her getaways. They drop her off at the train station, and we start to figure out something is up.

She and her pal Isabel (Elise Schaap) go over their elaborate schedule for this little Belgian (Ostend) get away. But as they pass intructions over this lecture, that play, etc., they share burner phones. They discuss timing, places where “I’ll do your social” media while “I’ll be seen” here.

They’re plotting their latest little “fling.” Or “flings.” They’re supposed to be in the beach house Bo inherited from her aunt. But Isa checks into a hotel, bedazzles herself and hits the club for a little easy interaction and uncomplicated intercourse.

Bo? The judge who decides who is “fit” to have child custody, and the like? She picks up strangers, including the somewhat famous “philosopher” (Matteo Simoni) who gives a talk about how “To Lie the Truth” which she attends.

It’s all modestly kinky right up to the moment Bo comes in from a swim and finds a bloody crime scene — with no body — in the beach house.

Yes, she calls the cops. No, she doesn’t tell them the whole truth, or really much of it all. The blood was Isa’s, and when her clingy and neurotic novelist husband (Gijs Naber) and Bo’s other half Milan show up, keeping her story straight with each of them, and with the leery lady cops (Sofie Decleir and Anna De Ceulaer) is going to be a challenge.

When will she have the time to figure out what’s happened to her friend, and if it was something awful, whodunit?

Director and co-writer André van Duren — “The Fury” and “Gang of Oss” were his — doesn’t get all the paranoia he might have wrung out of this material and Doesburg’s performance of it. Bo doesn’t seem much more than puzzled by all this confusion, all the fingers pointing in this or that direction.

If this poker-faced turn is meant to keep the viewer confused about what she’s confused by, and what she might be in on, it doesn’t allow for much viewer investment in the character or rising suspense in fear for her fate.

We never get a hint that she’s frantic to keep her secret, and her friend’s, never fret when she’s a suspect, when the menfolk seem to start figuring out what’s really been going on during these junkets to Belgium.

That softens the impact a bit when the film’s third act starts to deliver some real punches.

Still, “Faithfully Yours” is mysterious enough and thoughfully plotted enough to hold one’s interest. I know it held mine.

Rating: TV-MA, violence, sex, profanity

Cast: Bracha Van Doesburg, Elise Schaap, Nasrdin Dchar, Gijs Naber, Matteo Simoni, Hannah Hoekstra, Anna De Ceulaer and Sofie Decleir

Credits: Directed by André van Duren, scripted by  Elisabeth Lodeizen, Paul Jan Nelissen and André van Duren. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:36

Are you sold on this dark horror comedy with a “Get Out” racial edge?

Here’s your deal closing trailer.

June 16.

That epic motorcycle stunt Tom Cruise was showing off last year? It’s here.

Lot of names in the cast, aside from the usual suspects.

The villain? He’s an anti-vaxxer. Not the character, the actor. Used to follow him on Twitter.

July 12.

Aspiring novelists start and abandon many a book about a writer trying to write her or his first novel. Aspiring filmmakers do the same. But as movies cost a lot more than a simple word processing program, those that are finished are sure to turn up somewhere.

That’s nobody’s idea of a ringing endorsement to open a film review with, and “On Our Way” is too interesting to dismiss, if entirely too slight, too repetitive, self-absorbed, pretentious and wandering to endorse.

There is no “directed by” opening credit to the film, so going in cold, I didn’t realize the leading lady, Sophie Lane Curtis, also scripted and directed this story of a filmmaker who finally gets a serio-tragic love story based on his life and love affair on film.

That tale is told from the point-of-view of Henry (Micheál Richardson), a young filmmaker whose troubled youth is the fodder for a script he’s labored over for years, even before he met Rosemary (Curtis). When we first encounter him, the walls of the French farmhouse he’s staying in are covered with pages of the screenplay and he’s playing and replaying a phone message from Rosemary and he’s suicidal.

So we’re guessing…something happened to “them,” to “her,” that his script was rejected for the last time, or worse, the picture was greenlit and then put in turnaround before they rolled camera?

Curtis uses an opening montage to foreshadow the entire story — “It’s just a movie!” “It’s my LIFE!” — and flashbacks to backfill the memories of Henry’s mother (Jordana Brewster) spiriting them away from her husband/his “lost boy” dad (James Badge Dale), of the origins of the screenplay “The Lost Boy of Southfork,” his childhood pal (Keith Powers) coming on board to produce the film, Henry’s fateful SoHo meeting with aspiring actress and antiques shop clerk Rosemary and more.

Rosemary gets some of the narrative’s “profound” lines. “People’s truths tend to come out at night.” Henry recites the others.

“I want the world to stop before my memory becomes unfocused,” is an eloquently romantic justification for suicide.

The story’s arc turns into something of a jumble as producer David talks his hardcase hedge fund manager dad (veteran character heavy Paul Ben-Victor) into investing, and the old man — this part of the story taking place in SoCal — knows enough about movies to demand the rights to everything, including the final cut.

“I only invest in things I can control.”

The tepid imitation of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” that the love story aspires to be takes a back seat as players audition for that movie, Henry is cast as his alter ego and somehow, pretty but dramatically-uninteresting Rosemary is cast as the romantic sprite basically based on her.

Ouch. Not knowing the director’s playing her leaves one wondering, until the closing credits, how anybody would think that “audition” was a game changer, and that this performance was ever going to be strong enough to carry a Great Romance and a movie based upon it.

Writer-director and co-star Curtis uses the editing and jumbling of the story order (lots of repetition) to cover up the thinness of the material, and perhaps hide the milquetoast nature of the performances.

Because wrestling with how interesting this might have been, had it reached its full potential, one is inclined to poke around the closing credits for clues.

Micheál Richardson is the son of the late Natasha Richardson and Liam Neeson. His grandmother, Vanessa Redgrave, and her husband Franco Nero play the French grandparents in the film.

That’s not a bad hook to trot around Cannes when you’re looking to finance a film starring yourself and your “longtime friend” Micheál Richardson.

And those names might get the attention of Brewster and Dale to play the “other” parents in the picture, and ensure you can sign Ben-Victor to play the ball-buster/financier who makes himself the studio chief on this production.

If it wasn’t for the fact that the story is so thin it begs for mobius strip editing and the leads are bland and adequate at best, “On Our Way” might have been a movie worth discussing on its own merits, and not simply a movie you “nepo baby” gossip about.

Rating: unrated, suicide subtext, profanity

Cast: Micheál Richardson, Sophie Lane Curtis, Jordana Brewster, Keith Powers, Paul Ben-Victor, Franco Nero, Vanessa Redgrave and James Badge Dale.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Sophie Lane Curtis. A Gravitas Ventures release.

Running time: 1:31

The best sports movie director of recent times, Ron Shelton, who gave us “Tin Cup,” “Bull Durham” and 1992’s “White Men Can’t Jump,” developed one rule for casting such films after the efforts it took to make a certain future Oscar winner look like an actual major league pitching prospect in his breakout film, “Bull Durham.”

“They’ve got to be able to ‘play.'”

That doesn’t seem to have tripped-up the director who goes by “Calmatic” and the stars of the remake of “White Men Can’t Jump.” Sinqua Walls was a convincing footballer on TV’s “Friday Night Lights,” and singer and composer Jack Harlow has a credible jump shot.

A lot of rehearsal and some sympathetic editing and they’re perfectly credible as a new version of a salt-and-pepper LA street-hoops hustling duo.

But lacking real chemistry — Harlow’s never acted in a movie before — and with little of the witty way with banter and amusing showmanship of the original film, this re-imagining of Shelton’s work — which had Wesley Snipes at his flamboyant, mouthiest best and Woody Harrelson as his slow-talking lesser half of a hoops dream team — is flat-footed, pretty much start to finish.

And lest we let the players take all the heat, the Grammy winning music video director Calmatic also remade a “House Party” that no one wanted to see, especially critics.

The story’s been changed, giving one baller, Kamal (Walls) a troubled back-story to explain hy he’s pushing 30 and “never made it,” and a now-sickly Dad (the late Lance Reddick) who pushed him. The “white man” half is a Gonzaga alum who still has NBA dreams, a bum knee and a juice-cleanse/meditator shtick that’s almost funny.

But the stakes seem both lower and more serious. There’s no Rosie Perez, training for “Jeopardy” glory and raising her voice to a pitch only dogs can hear when her man messes up. The hustlers hustling each other bits are lacking and the supporting “players” (Myles Bullock, Vince Staples) have less amusing characters and less amusing lines to play.

There’s no delusional Kadeem Hardison, no hardball-roundball hustler akin to the original film’s Cylk Cozart.

Here, the broke white guy is a would-be influencer nerd named Jeremy who drives his dancer-choreographer girlfriend’s (Laura Harrier) Porsche. Kamal and wife Imani (Teyani Taylor) have a family and dreams, and he has a delivery truck driving job and anger management issues, on and off the court.

Outdoor court locations from the original film are recycled, but the lean, clean “This could be our big payday” tournament is diluted with multiple tourneys. A white NBA star is set up as a “meh” villain.

The insults include “I don’t wanna take your money, gentrifier” and “Hope you can shoot, Sherman Oaks.”

Wake me when you’re done, kids.

Here’s what works. Harlow is very good at playing the passive aggressive trash-talker who zeroes in on other player’s on-and-off-court insecurities in semi-subtle ways.

“I’m like the P.T. Anderson (“There Will be Blood”) of basketball psychological warfare.”

And there’s no sense in countering that with “Spike” is a better filmmaker.

“Spike isn’t even a good KNICKS fan!”

But take away the point-by-point comparison, even accepting the jump shots and backdoor cuts on the court, this remake still never gets off the ground.

Harlow may be funnier in other (smaller) roles, and Walls may have other chances to play the straight man. But there is no “Woody and Wesley” four-films-together future for these two.

And if Calmatic wants a movie making career, maybe it’s time to turn down remakes.

Rating: R for profanity, and some drug content

Cast: Sinqua Walls, Jack Harlow, Laura Harrier, Teyana Taylor and Lance Reddick.

Credits: Directed by Calmatic, scripted by Kenya Barris and Doug Hall, based on the Ron Shelton script for the movie “White Men Can’t Jump.”

A 20th Century/Hulu release.

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