Movie Nation

Aug. 20 this thriller rolls out. Looks messy and maybe…fun?

Reviews are embargoed until 7pm Aug. 19. Make what you will of that.

Wow. Did not see THAT coming.

The German hijacking thriller “Blood Red Sky” hides its hand so well early on that it’d be a shame to give much of that away. The surprises have a grim delight about them, the violence a righteous, maternal fury.

It’s a clever blend of over-the-top supernatural and “work the problem” logical. It’s well-acted, harrowing and violent. And every now and then, this absurd German thriller is more fun than it has any right to be.

The framing device is a hijacking that’s just ended, the transatlantic jetliner, piloted by a passenger, has touched down in Scotland. There are hijackers still on board, but a little boy   (Carl Anton Koch) slips off before the hijackers start negotiating.

And boy, does he have a story to tell. Only he’s not speaking.

A long flashback shows how young Elias boarded the plane with his sickly mother
(Peri Baumeister of “The Last Kingdom”). We’ve seen her don the wig, seen her Skype with a New York doctor. They’re flying from Germany to America for treatment.

The mid-flight assault itself is brutal and coordinated. The hijackers know how to “out” air marshals and aren’t shy about spilling blood. There are “crew members” in on it. There’s a “frame-up” planned.

The leader (Dominic Purcell) is pitiless. But his gang includes at least one psychopath (Alexander Scheer). Let’s call him “Eightball.”

The passengers panic and weep and submit and can’t reason out what the villains’ motive or end game is.

“Our one demand is strictly monetary,” the leader purrs, after the first killings. The passengers have their doubts.

“Everything is fine, sweetie,” Mom assures Elias. He doesn’t believe her. He’s a smart kid trying to form his own escape plan.

And the villains? They haven’t reckoned on sickly Momma Nadja. They haven’t seen her flashback-within-the-flashback. They don’t know she’s been through worse. And now it’s not her trapped in a jetliner with them, it’s a gang of brutes trapped onboard with one fiercely protective Mama.

Director and co-writer Peter Thorwarth, best known for the cautionary parable “The Wave” (a high school exercise in how Nazis take over), and co-writer Stefan Holtz (they did “Not My Day” together) work the genre conventions to contrive their screenplay’s obstacles, and the characters’ solutions to those.

There’s an efficiency that settles in and manifests itself through the problems and the problem solving. The viewer is in on it, because we “get” the genre conventions they’re playing around with, we know why X, Y or Z as a counter-measure will work.

And Baumeister, playing the struggle of maternal instincts vs. more base and horrific impulses, is terrific as Nadja. There is pathos and power, fury and fatalism in this tightly-coiled turn.

Sorry for being so cryptic, but the first big “reveal” here is a winner, and best served cold. Suffice it to say that this is a lot closer to “Snakes on a Plane” or “Into the Night” than “Flightplan” or “Die Hard 2.” Kind of a send-up, but serious as a heart-attack.

If gory genre pics with subtitles (its in German and English with subtitles, or dubbed into English) don’t scare you off, “Blood Red Sky” could be just the ticket.

MPA Rating: TV-MA, graphic violence, profanity

Cast: Peri Baumeister, Carl Anton Koch, Alexander Scheer, Kais Setti, Graham McTavish and Dominic Purcell

Credits: Directed by Peter Thorwarth, script by Stefan Holtz and Peter Horwath.  A Netflix release.

Running time: 2:03

No Kyle. No Sting. No Lynch.

This is not your Mom’s “Dune.”

The third crack at Frank Herbert’s sci-fi epic may be the one that delivers its desert planet pre George Lucas, its neo Arabic/Bedouin arid life in space novelty.

“The Five Rules of Success” is a compact, artful and blunt take on an ex-con’s life “outside,” re-entering a world tempered by violence and fraught with the perils of recidivism.

Writer/director/cinematographer and co-editor Orson Oblowitz immerses us in a very-indie drama that covers familiar ground with gritty style and feverish flourishes.

We meet out unnamed “hero” (Santiago Segura) on the day he gets out of Chino, his every worldly possession stuffed into a single cardboard box.

He has a probation officer (Isadora Goreshter) who is full of warnings and reminders that “parole is a privilege… consider yourself on prison vacation, for now.”

He gets an apartment and buys a mattress for the floor. And he lands a job making deliveries for the Olympus, a Greek restaurant owned by a Greek (Jon Sklaroff) willing to give a con a chance, with the “first time you mess up” threat built in.

This is life with zero margin for error.

But this ex-con has plans, and a means of recording his self-motivational musings, “rules of success.” “Rule I), Aim High, be delusional…Rule III), Manifest Goals into Reality: Focus, discipline and perseverance.” He has “Solve et coagula,” a Latin expression for something that must be broken down before they can be built anew.

Our hero faces many obstacles and temptations, such as customers who stiff him on their deliveries, shoving drugs in his hands for payment. His probation officer is drunk on her power, threatening him at every turn. And the boss’s son (Jonathan Howard), a cook at the restaurant, is straight-up bad news, a bad influence who does drugs and runs “errands” for a local gangster (Roger Guenveur Smith).

And then there’s the hero’s haunted past, flashbacks that start as a blur of violence and eventually coalesce into a depressingly familiar “How he got here” story.

The acting is solid, the settings seamy and the messaging both surprising and poignant.

Oblowitz weaves all this into a rough-cut but seamless stream-of-consciousness narrative, taking us into a life lived as a post-prison parable, every familiar pitfall rendered into something fresh, hard and documentary real.

MPA Rating: unrated, graphic violence, drug content, sexual situations, profanity

Cast: Santiago Segura, Jonathan Howard, Jon Sklaroff, Isidora Goreshter and Roger Guenveur Smith.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Orson Oblowitz. An Ambassador Film release (on Amazon July 30).

Running time: 1:23

Natalie Morales and Mark Duplass co-wrote and co-star this September comedy (Morales directed) about a Spanish teacher and her semi-goof of a student.

Geuss who plays which role?

Hey, I laughed.

“Old” begins as mysterious, creepy and filled with the foreboding — that sense that some “gotcha” is coming — that is M. Night Shyamalan’s brand.

Immaculate camera compositions, a beautiful but forbidding isolated beach location in a digitally-augmented Dominican Republic maintain the edgy and elegiac mood of this sci-fi fantasy meditation on aging.

Well, that’s what it aims to be, right up to the most laughably clumsy “explainer” of a third act that Shyamalan has ever served up.

“Old,” adapted from a French graphic novel, has a “Six Characters in Search of an Author” (Pirandello) or “Five Characters in Search of an Exit” (Serling) set-up. As our disparate collection of strangers — eight adults and three children — struggle with the supernatural trap they find themselves in, we see their characters and their weaknesses, physical and mental.

And little by little, they lose pieces of the lives they’ve lived and the bodies they’ve enjoyed. Their world and their experience of it shrinks and is overwhelmed with loss. Because that’s what getting “old” does to you.

Our anchor family is the married couple Prisca (Vicky Krieps of “The Last Vermeer” and “Phantom Thread”) and insurance actuarial Guy (Gael Garcia Bernal), their precocious six-year old son Trent (Nolan River) and tweenage daughter Maddox (Alexa Swinton). Prisca, a historical museum curator, found this “version of paradise” resort on the Internet.

As a little something extra, they’re dropped off at this remote, almost inaccessible beach by a not-helpful-enough driver (M. Night’s cameo). Another couple, a surgeon (Rufus Sewell) and his self-aware trophy wife (Abby Lee), his elderly mother and their tiny daughter, are with them.

And they’re joined by another couple — psychotherapist Patricia (Nikki Amuka-Bird) and her nurse-husband Jiran (Ken Leung).

The man who was already there when they all arrived, brooding in the shade of the cliff? Young Maddox IDs him as Mid-Sized Sedan Aaron Pierre), a rapper.

When the skinny-dipping blonde who came with Me. Sedan to this beach turns up as a floating corpse, their idyll is interrupted. And just as the doctor is revealing himself as paranoid, actuary Guy is calculating the “odds” of the accident that must have killed her and everybody is figuring out that there’s no cell service here, Prisca shouts “Could you take a look at my son?”

Her boy has aged…years. Her daughter is busting out of her tween swimsuit. And when anyone tries to dash out to call for help, they black out. Someone or something is keeping them here, and days are passing in seconds, years in a matter of hours.

The veteran Brit Sewell (last seen in “Judy” and “The Father” and “The Man in the High Castle”) always makes a good villain, Bernal (“The Motorcycle Diaries”) shows off his vulnerability and Krieps impresses as a wife trying to adjust to an alarming new reality in the middle of an old reality that was about to tear her world apart.

There are semi-intentional laughs as the three children age into their hormonal years (Alex Wolff, Thomasin McKenzie and Eliza Scanlan step in the roles), but Shyamalan (“Sixth Sense,” Signs,” “The Village”) does a good job of keeping the viewer in the moment, not leaving much dead time for us to ponder just what the hell it is we’re witnessing here.

And then he has to go and “explain” it all, breaking the spell and ruining the illusion, the elegy and any sense of profundity that this thriller with horrific touches has the pretense to aspire to.

MPA Rating: PG-13 for strong violence, disturbing images, suggestive content, partial nudity and brief strong language

Cast: Gael Garcia Bernal, Thomasin McKenzie, Vicky Krieps, Rufus Sewell, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Ken Leung, Abby Lee, Aaron Pierre, Embeth Davidtz, Francesca Eastwood and Alex Wolff

Credits: Scripted and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, based on a graphic novel by Pierre-Oscar Lévy and Frederick Peeters A Universal release.

Running time: 1:48

“Cosmic Sin” is a fine example of how much science fiction you can put on the screen these days, even after paying Frank Grillo and Bruce Willis took most of your budget.

It’s not a “fine example” of anything else.

A 500 years in the future “first contact” alien war tale, it’s more or less the worst shoot-em-up video game you’ve ever played.

And Willis? He’s a disgraced military leader, an exemplar of “It takes a monster to kill a monster” rationalization.

“The old suit’s a little tight,” his scientist ex (Perrey Reeves) notes.

“Needs a little more paint, just like me,” General Ford (Willis) cracks.

That’s about it for his “performance” here. His character is summoned as the only man ever to use “the Q-bomb” on a civilian population, during wars against rebellious Earth colonies years ago.

The Q-Bomb? The same one that Dr. Kokintz invented in the 1950s Cold War satire “The Mouse that Roared?” No? I digress.

Aliens who take possession of human hosts are the target here. That saves money on CGI and alien makeup. A little Goth pancake, Johnny Depp black hair-dye, and we’re good.

“Mankind mastered ballistics, their species mastered biology” Dr. Lea (Reeves) reasons.

“Everything’s gonna be OK. The good guys are here, now.” Sure, we’re buying it.

I like the quasi-“Blade Runner” future that director and co-writer Edward Drake and his designers cooked up. Robot bartenders, holographic honky tonk bands on a digital stage, “quantum gates” and “Iron Army” soldiers all suited up like Iron Man, zipping through space and hitting the beaches on faraway planets to bring the fight to the enemy in Operation Cosmic Sin.

Then there’s the fact that everybody’s still packing semi-automatic pistols and Grillo’s General Ryle still drives an F-150 — in 2524.

The dialogue is still riddled “It is what it is,” meaning sports radio nerd Mike Greenberg must still be on the air.

Combat jargon is of the “Do you think aliens have music? Will they pay my bar-tab?” and “Let’s go merc some aliens” variety.

“Let nobody accuse you of being a poet.” Exactly.

And in a career steadily more weighed down with embarrassing credits, Willis squints occasionally to prove that he’s not actually sleep-walking through this.

MPA Rating: R for language including some sexual references, and violence

Cast: Frank Grillo, Bruce Willis, Perrey Reeves, Brandon Thomas Lee, Corey Large, C.J. Perry and Costas Mandylor

Credits: Directed by Edward Drake, script by Edward Drake, Corey Large. A Saban Films release on Netflix.

Running time: 1:28

Two couples pal up in Mexico, get awkward when they come back home. This is an August 27 “dumping ground” release. No wonder Cena is putting on his wrasslin’ togs again.

Maddie Hasson, Annabelle Wallis and Nichole Briana star in “Saw” man Wan’s latest “universe” expander and potential franchise, a Sept. 10 release.

“Kandisha” is not your run-of-the-mill demonic assault thriller.

No movie that summons up a burka-clad Moroccan demon to avenge herself on toxic masculinity, that depicts animal sacrifice and an Imam performing an Islamic exorcism could be. Of course it’s French and yes. it’s a bit “out there.”

The co-directors of “Leatherface,” Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, have conjured up a “Candyman” and “Exorcist” mashup set in the immigrant-packed projects of suburban Paris. It’s novel enough to be fascinating, even if that doesn’t overcome the rather humdrum deaths and the emotionally flat performances that are supposed to be its beating heart.

Good friends Bintou (Suzy Bemba), Amélie (Mathilde Lamusse) and Morjana (Samarcande Saadi) are off for the summer, which means more time for bonfires, hanging out with boys at the pub, and for their passion — graffiti. They sign their “tags” with their initials, “BAM.”

But Amélie has this violent ex-boyfriend who pummels her one night as she’s walking home. It’s a brutal fight which she escapes with his a bloody nose.

They’d been tagging the interior of one battered building that turned up a covered-up piece of art titled “Kandisha.” Islamic Morjana describes this Moroccan legend, “the ghost of a beautiful woman who destroys men (in French with English subtitles).” That night, Amélie decides to summon her.

And damned if Farid isn’t finished off in an “accident.”

Pretty much everything that follows earns that criticism, “emotionally flat.” Amélie may go a bit wide-eyed when she first sees the demoness, and the third act confrontations give the players the chance to show us how scared they’re supposed to be.

For the most part, we’re as underwhelmed as the actors are when this ex-beau or that friend or relative is summarily murdered by the towering, hooved demon (Mériem Sarolie) dressed like a harem dancer.

The novelty of the Islamic nature of the “help” our trio turn to, with a reluctant rector (Walid Afkir) finally letting them see the one Imam who knows a little something about exorcisms holds our interest.

But aside from a moment here and there, we get little commitment from our star trio. What should be wrenching all along the way is mainly momentary grief, guilt or fear.

For us to buy in, the leads have to buy in. They don’t.

MPA Rating: unrated, graphic violence, smoking, profanity

Cast: Suzy Bemba, Mathilde Lamusse, Félix Glaux-Delporto, Samarcande Saadi and Walid Afkir.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury. A Shudder streaming release.

Running time: 1:24