Movie Nation

He could be the jovial, jolly “big man” stereotype, a walking sight gag, the above it all conniving hustler or slacker and a scary guy to cross.

The movies fixated on the former and the middle versions of John Candy more than the latter.

I interviewed him a few times over the years. He’d talk up the picture, be generous about co-stars, maybe settle a score about this or that flop that he made, earlier films that didn’t work out.

For Second City/Toronto, he was many things, including the ultimate Canadian movie critic.

“H’it blowed up REAL good!”

I remember Richard Lewis breaking into tears when I interviewed him not long after Candy’s death (at age 43) while doing a Western they co-starred in. Co-stars like Ally Sheedy and Maureen O’Hara and Levy and Martin would gush.

People loved the guy.

“Soo Canadian,” Dan Aykroyd says in this trailer. We hear from Aykroyd’s eulogy for the one and only “Uncle Buck.”

Let’s hope this MGM/Amazon doc by Colin Hanks and Ryan Reynolds does him justice.

Oct 10 on Amazon.

So many “Conjurings” I’ve lost count. You?

Nothing like that 35th “Tron” preview to get the night rolling.

Bring on Vera and Patrick!

“All the Devils are Here” is a slow, simmering heist-goes-wrong thriller from Jolly Olde where the “types” are familiar and the cliches go down easily. That’s the cinematic comfort food genre pieces promise and this one, taking its title from The Bard, delivers.

Eddie Marsan‘s a high-mileage mug pushed into one last job. Or maybe it’s just one more job. “Mr. Reynolds,” whom we never see, doesn’t like to be disappointed. His man Laing (Rory Kinnear) handles the details. And the villains Laing’s cast for this gig pretty much guarantee drama.

The wheelman, Royce (Tienne Simon) is young and green. The muscle, Grady (Sam Claflin) is a simpering psychopath — all sniggering sadism and “the old ultraviolence,” a creep given to playing “five finger fillet” to relax. The armed robbery goes wrong the moment Grady decides to get his beat-the-hostages jollies behind the back of “the old man” in charge, Ronnie.

The getaway drive leaves more carnage in its path. Their arranged remote hideout in the treeless barrens of The North might go on for longer that the “one week” they expect.

As Mr. Reynolds has arranged for “Numbers,” an accountant (Burn Gorman) to sit on the cash in an upstairs bedroom until they’re summoned, things are sure to turn uglier. The accountant’s a junkie with a portable reel-to-reel tape deck filled with late ’60s Brit pop, a soundtrack for his tuned-out all-nighters.

Ronnie, who understands “honor,” Mr. Reynolds’ idea of a good “soldier,” accepts his fate and takes on the peace-keeping and the cooking — bangers and cabbage and beans, bangers and eggs, bangers and whatever.

Threats aren’t enough to shut Grady up once he’s busted into the bar cabinet of this tumbledown farmhouse straight out of your nightmares. Or maybe just mine.

The kid? He gets the “Don’t end up like me” lecture from Ronnie. Not that Royce listens to the warnings about the decades-long cycle of crimes, arrests, prison and repeat.

“They have to catch me.” “They always do, son. They always do.”

The full quote from Shakespeare’s “Tempest” is “Hell is Empty and all the Devils are Here.”

That and the period piece nature of “All the Devils Are Here” give away what we’re looking at.

Four sketchy goons trapped in an ancient dump of an English house in a late ’70s foggy wasteland with moldy copies of “A Tale of Two Cities,” a deck of cards, bad plumbing, a cathode ray tube TV that gets no reception and a junkie listening to “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves” and the rest of Cilla Black’s greatest hits? On reel-to-reel?

Did I mention the English cuisine? And that the director’s name is “Barnaby?” Dickens couldn’t have been more blunt.

So the puzzle of this parable is adorably obvious. But Marsan, Claflin, Simon and Gorman make sure it plays and holds our interest start to finish, when Suki Waterhouse shows up.

Rating: R, graphic violence, drug abuse, profanity

Cast: Eddie Marsan, Sam Claflin, Tienne Simon, Burn Gorman, Rory Kinnear and Suki Waterhouse.

Credits: Directed by Barnaby Roper, scripted by John Patrick Dover. A Republic Pictures/Paramount release.

Running time: 1:31

A couple of Disney veterans and some big screen animation newcomers combined their talents for “Light of the World,” a polished, kid-friendly and even lighthearted Life of Jesus animated film.

“Mulan” and “Aladdin” veterans Tom Bancroft (co-director) and Tony Bancroft (animation director) ensure that the production has that Disney sheen. And Katie Sung Lee’s angular, chiseled character design and Luke Lehenbauer’s production design reminded me of “Emperor’s New Groove.”

That’s kind of the tone, too, a “Messiah’s New Groove.” And yes, that’s glid and flippant. But it fits.

When Jesus (voiced by Ian Hanlin) helps brothers James (Dylan Leonard) and John (Benjamin Jacobson) and their friend Andrew (Vincent Tong) improve their dad’s catch on the Sea of Galilee, a “Jaws” joke is in order.

“We’re gonna need a BIGGER boat!”

When tweenaged John is trapped by a centurion (Colin Murdock) whom he’s embarassed, the kid knows just what to yell to distract the Roman.

“LOOK! Two babies and a WOLF!”

The story is told from the young disciple John’s point of view, and he becomes a witness and participant in a brisk dash through some of Jesus’s Greatest Hits — water into wine, the fishing boat miracle, teaching Peter (Sam Darkoh) to walk on water, healing the lame and “curing” Mary Magdalene (Ceara Morgana).

“I see you, Mary!”

The script’s scene-setting has the Jews of Judea of 2000 years ago waiting for deliverance from Roman oppression by a Messiah, with the crazed wilderness man “The Baptizer” (Jesse Inocalla) the first to announce “the Messiah is among us ALREADY.”

The still-handy-with-a-hammer carpenter’s son Jesus jokes to young John about John the Baptist living in the wilderness when the Messiah thought 40 days of that would suffice.

But the people? Their big gripe, a running thread through this occasionally pandering script, is “taxes” and “crooked tax collectors” and the like. No “Render unto Caesar” messaging to upset the target audience, I guess.

Introducing Judas as “the money man” among the disciples is a clever burn.

But the film’s light tone doesn’t water down the washing of feet and ministering to the poor as “The Good Samaritan” parable is related.

“In my kingdom, those who serve others will be the greatest.”

And when the end comes — Last Supper, Betrayal, Arrest, Trial and Crucifixion — the filmmakers take it all seriously and render it in moving strokes.

No, the voice cast hasn’t a household name in the lot — Michael Benyaer is Nicodemus and has been in a lot of films, “Jesus” is a voice-actor with “My Little Pony” credits — but the voice acting is good, the animation is sharp and layered and the narrative just dashes by.

It’s not “Prince of Egypt,” but it sure isn’t “Veggie Tales.” Not a bad start for the Salvation Poem Project. Let’s see if it finds its audience.

Rating: PG, animated violence

Cast: The voices of Ian Hanlin, Benjamin Jacobson, Erin Matthews, Dave Pettitt, Jesse Inocala, Sam Darkoh, Colin Murdock, Adam Nuradah, Michael Benyaer, David Kaye and Rebekah Schafer.

Credits: Directed by Tom Bancroft and John J. Schafer, scripted by David M. Armstrong, Drew Barton Armstrong and Jason Heaton.A Salvation Poem Project release.

Running time: 1:31

A dash of “The Subtstance” and maybe a taste of “Soylent Green” dial up this paranoid thriller about “Look Young Forever” standards and their end game.

Ick.

Oct. 3.

So, the director of “The Marvels” and “Candyman” (Nia DaCosta) filmed this back-story to how “Dr.” Ralph Fiennes wound up at The Bone Temple in the “28 Days/Weeks/Years” universe?

A way of getting more value out of what Danny Boyle was designing, casting and building for “28 Years Later” by concurrently shooting more scenes with Fiennes, and building a back story of human devolution bringing on the Zombie Apocalypse?

That sounds like writer and futurist Arthur C. Clarke talking about “predicting the future” to an audience staring down a fascist/oligarch collapse of human civilization on the soundtrack to this trailer.

January is a dumping ground for new titles, with the occasional sleeper popping up amongst the holiday holdovers and Oscar hopefuls already in cinemas. Jan. 16, “The Bone Temple” will try to draw another crowd to Boyle’s Zombiverse.

Low expectations? Did you see “The Marvels” or “Candyman?”