Movie Nation

In a world of documentary gadflies, navel gazers and agenda-pushers, Alex Gibney has earned a “teller of hard truths” reputation.

If you’re in the know, or simply want to be, he is documentary cinema’s E.F. Hutton. When Gibney talks, about the rapacious nitwits of Enron, bout Lance Armstrong’s fall from grace or the excesses of Hunter S. Thompson, Steve Jobs, Wikileaks and Julian Assange or the United States government, people listen. Or should.

With “Zero Days,” the Oscar winner turns his camera, his attention and ours towards the Stuxnet virus and its implications for the future of cyber warfare. He’s made a “genie out of the bottle” investigative mystery about that online attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

And if he never quite makes the case that we’ve paved the way for an online apocalypse, he’s still able to chill us over what has happened, what could happen and what we might want to think about doing to prevent a worst case scenario cyber war.

Because, you know, we’ve all seen “The Terminator.”

Gibney spends over an hour of “Zero Days” retracing the online security community’s search for the origins of this virus, discovered in 2010, that to a one they describe as “sophisticated” and dangerously capable of something beyond slowing down your computer. Stuxnet– an amalgam of a couple of random word-like letter combination discovered in the virus’s code — could create actual “physical destruction” of any gadget run or monitored by computers.

That could be pipelines or power grids or, in the case of Iran, centrifuges used in the processing/isolation of uranium to make nuclear bombs. Stuxnet could sneak in with “zero days” warning, hide itself within a system, absorb the normal operating parameters of that system and mask its activities as it caused say, the water pump in a nuclear reaction to break, triggering something awful. It requires no human intervention to spread, no blunders at the keyboard to infect the unwitting.

Two early “heroes” of this tale work for the well-known cyber-security company Symanetc, which is probably running the anti-virus on the device on which you’re reading this review. Two code-crunchers named Eric Chien and Liam O’Murchu dove into the vast array of code in the virus and started turning up clues.

Others, from Germany (Ralph Langer), Israel and disguised insiders from the U.S. and Israeli intelligence community, talk on camera about what they can and cannot talk about, the “national security” implications of what happened leading up to 2010, and what the blowback from that was and could be in the future.

It’s fascinating in the unraveling, as Gibney the narrator announces he’s progressively more and more irked at the runaround he’s getting, making him ever more determined to get to the bottom of this “crime” or “intelligence coup” that no one will own up to.

His profane NSA insider curses the blunders that put this virus “out there” for friends and enemies to see and study.

“Because they were in a hurry, they opened Pandora’s Box.”

A former member of Israel’s Mossad secret police talks about the context of world events and Israeli politics that fed into all this.

And the ever-outspoken former counter-terrorism chief Richard C. Clarke shows up in the third act to talk about implications and provides the “actions to be taken” step in this rhetorical exercise in cinematic persuasion.

It’s quite hard to jazz up a story about computers, code, viruses and the people who make them and foil them. Gibney doesn’t totally crack that anti-cinematic nut at the heart of “Zero Days.”

But as with every other film in his fast-growing canon, Gibney wields his authoritative research and storytelling skills like a scalpel, getting at a subject we aren’t talking about with blunt facts and informed, cautionary speculation.

And if you weren’t concerned about this latest threat to privacy, security and our increasingly interconnected world before seeing “Zero Days,” you will be by the closing credits.

MPAA Rating:PG-13 for some strong language

Cast: Richard C. Clarke, Eric Chien, Ralph Langer, General Michael Hayden, Liam O’Murchu, David Sanger, Gary Samore
Credits: Written and directed by Alex Gibney.. A Magnolia release.

Running time: 1:55

That’s quite the big screen image that Aubrey Plaza has created for herself.

She lowers her gaze, opens her inviting mouth and the filthiest, unfiltered thoughts pour out. A red blooded male finds himself wondering what pick-up line might work, if he ever gets the chance to deliver one.

Plaza strides through “Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates” like she owns it, the very definition of post-Kardashian feminism, taking stock of everything in the Hawaiian resort hotel room she’s managed to tease her way into.

“I can make a bong outta this,” she opines, picking up an apple, “I can make a bong outta this,” grabbing another piece of fruit.

She makes you think the dirtiest thoughts, like, “Did her mama teach her to sit like that, all spread-eagled and what not?”

Plaza dominates “Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates,” playing another version of the vamp that’s been her comfort zone in films since, oh, “The To Do List.” It might have been more of a surprise to make sweet little Anna Kendrick the streetwise man-eater and Plaza the damaged drunk who never got over being stood-up at the altar by a groom who realized he was gay in mid-ceremony (LONG after we’ve figured that out). But Plaza’s on-the-nose casting as tarty Tatiana pays off, and how.

It might be called “Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates,” but the “out of control” siblings and liquor distributors played by Zac Efron and Adam Devine take a back seat whenever Plaza prances on camera. They’re putty in her hands, as are we.

Mike and Dave are infamous in their family for getting hammered, getting hold of any handy female and wrecking family parties, gatherings and weddings. Dad (Steven Root, properly profane and pissed-off) has had enough. Their baby sister, Jeannie, played with a daffy sweetness and Tweety Bird voice by Sugar Lyn Beard, is getting married.

And in the interest of keeping the boys from “screwing up” this pricey fly-to-Hawaii wedding, they have to bring wedding dates, “nice girls.” Which is why the idiots post their search online. Talk show troublemaker Wendy Williams puts them on her show. Which is how Tatiana and her wounded, fellow-waitress pal Alice (Kendrick) pass themselves off as “nice” and entice the guys into making the invitation. “Girls About to Go Wild” is closer to the mark.

Just enough mayhem ensues to make this scruffy, hard-R rated comedy pay off pretty much the minute the quartet land in the islands. Because Mike is smitten with Alice, Alice keeps having flashbacks to her own disastrous wedding (it’s recorded on her phone) and drunkenly tries to ensure that Jeannie has the wedding Alice never did.

And the dorky Dave, whom Devine plays in a naked imitation of Jack Black’s voice, posture and shtick, is INTO Tatiana. And Tatiana isn’t having it. Not that she’s letting Dave know, because she and Alice NEED this vacation.

The movie reaches beyond “Wedding Crashers” in raw dog terms. But director Jake Szymanski, an “SNL” vet making his feature comedy debut, only occasionally lets things achieve “Hangover” level out-of-control.

The money scene? Poor Jeannie needs a massage after assorted mishaps leading up to the nuptials. Alice bribes the masseuse, aptly named Keanu (Kumail Nanjiani) to give her a happy ending. And how.

The picture flails about in predictable-debacle land with Efron doing another version of his shirtless frat boy bit as Mike. Devine (“Modern Family”) just takes money under Jack Black pretenses, which is all he needs to do.

But the girls go wild and they make “Mike and Dave” as nasty as they wanna be, and a pleasantly pervy surprise of a summer comedy.

MPAA Rating:R for crude sexual content, language throughout, drug use and some graphic nudity

Cast: Zac Efron, Aubrey Plaza, Anna Kendrick, Devine, Steven Root, Sugar Lyn Beard
Credits: Directed by Jake Szymanski, script by Andrew Jay Cohen, Brendan O’Brien. A 20th Century Fox release.

Running time: 1:38

The voices are mostly bland, the animation detailed but generic and the gags are all variations of low-hanging-fruit in “The Secret Life of Pets,” a comedy built around what our non-speaking companions do when we leave them alone all day.

You’ve gotten a full dose of the jokes from the commercials and trailers — the fat cat raiding a fridge, a poodle banging his head to a little Death Metal, a parakeet breaking out of her cage to play video games and a dachshund scratching his back with a kitchen mixer.

That sequence is literally the opening of the movie, so hand it to Illumination, the folks who make the Minions movies for Universal. It takes guts to give away the first two minutes of your film, two minutes without a decent laugh in them, BTW. 

But behavior any pet owner will recognize — the cat who bares her fangs and takes a bite if you pick her up wrong, the puppy who pees with excitement every time you come home — makes this a tolerable 90 minutes for kids, if perhaps a little less than that for their parents.

Louis C.K. voices Max, a Jack Russell terrier whose Manhattan apartment world is upended when owner Katie shows up with a huge, new Wolfhound-looking mop she’s fetched from the Pound. Duke, colorlessly voiced by Eric Stonestreet of “Modern Family,” proceeds to impose himself on his new “brother.” The scheming and counter-scheming gets them both lost in the wilds of Manhattan, where the “flushed animal underground,” led by a deranged but adorable bunny (Kevin Hart) could be their salvation, or their doom.

The flushed critters — gators, pigs, snakes, etc. — live in the sewers plotting their revenge on humanity. And the “domesticated” are not their favorites, either.

Hart throws a lot of personality into the voice, which is good, because like the neutered Louis C.K. and others, there’s nothing funny in the script for him to say. “Long live the Revolution, suckers!” and such.

A cute bit — the tour of the underworld of abandoned animals includes those staples of comic book ads, Sea Monkeys.

“Hey, it’s not OUR fault we don’t look like the ad!”

Another novel sequence, Max and Duke tumbling into every dog’s fantasy — a Brooklyn weiner-works and sausage factory.

Only the Pomerainian Gidget (Jenny Slate of “The Lorax” and “Obvious Child”) is hunting for Max, whom she crushes on. She enlists the falcon Tiberius (Albert Brooks) and later the aged, paralyzed Basset Hound, Pops, whom “Saturday Night Live” vet Dana Carvey gives his best geezer voice.

The rivers and sewers are almost photo realistic, the critters comical in that broad, Nickelodeon or vintage Looney Tunes way.

Speaking of Looney, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention how violent this pre-tween farce is. Slapfights, brawls, violent death and near-death experiences abound. Along with butt-sniffing and toilet-sipping (at a party) gags.

“Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!”

“Finding Dory” may be giving Disney stockholders $20 bills to light their cigars with, but truth be told, all-star-voice-casts never ensure laughs, and branded goop like “Angry Birds” feels like filler in between Disney and/or Pixar outings.

Illumination slapped a four minute Minions short in front of “Secret Life of Pets,” just to ensure that there’d be a bare minimum number of laughs to make this worth 2D (don’t waste your money on 3D) admission prices. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s no real help, either.

MPAA Rating:PG for action and some rude humor

Cast: The voices of Louis C.K., Kevin Hart, Jenny Slate, Dana Carvey, Lake Bell
Credits: Directed by Chris Renaud, Yarrow Cheney, script by Ken Daurio, Brian Lynch and Cinco Paul. A Universal release.
Running time: 1:30.

Whatever subtlety there was remaining in the satirical intentions of “The Purge” franchise pretty much fly out the door and into the blood-soaked  chaos of “The Purge: Election Night.”

Any doubts even the slowest paying patrons had about who and what these movies are about vanish like the final traces of logic in the script.

Characters caught up in this bloody annual American culling of the last and least among us, the poor, the pacifists and gun-avoiders, call the NRA — the National Rifle Association — by name.

Posters scream out “End Class Warfare.” And they’re not the product of rich folks baiting liberals out of fear that a REAL class war won’t do the One Percent any favors.

The Purge, a night of wanton crime and slaughter permitted under the New Constitution written by the New Founding Fathers, dis-proportionally “kills people of color.” And the people of color have noticed that. Not that in this less politically correct future anybody still uses that phrase.

And when a female candidate (Elizabeth Mitchell) arises threatening to end the religiously-backed/NRA and Big Insurance sanctioned twelve-hour Hell Night, naturally she’s the target of a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, mercenaries whose White Power/Confederate flag/Swastika patches seem redundant.

But if you wanted a subtle reminder of who is on the wrong political side of bigotry, violence, religious backwardness and the like, “Zootopia” is where you should be spending your money.

Senator Charlie Roan (Mitchell) is betrayed and hunted on Purge night. Her one loyal Secret Service agent, Leo (Frank Grillo) hustles her off when her fortress townhouse is overrun.

“What now?” “RUN!”

It’s up to intrepid folks of color to Save America. Mykelti Williamson is the comical deli owner Joe, out to save his D.C. store from a night of violence. Betty Gabriel and Joseph Julian Soria help him. If only the Purge protester Dante Bishop (Edwin Hodge) can be summoned..

Williamson delivers lines like “My Negro” and assorted “Never walk up on a black man on Purge night” variations. Funny.

For the most part, though, the characters have become disposable and the performances have no chance to develop empathy. That wasn’t the case with the first “Purge.” Lessons were learned in that film. Not here.

Now, these movies are about the mayhem. A “Sophie’s Choice” prologue is spattered in blood, and the violence — which includes the young assaulting their elders, wives butchering wayward husbands (and vice versa) and “murder tourists” from South Africa, Europe and Asia — is always over the top.

People are washing themselves in blood — literally — especially the teens Joe caught shoplifting in his store, who show up Purge night in cars covered in Christmas lights, Miley Cyrus and “Party in the U.S.A.” blaring from the stereo and their bridal bustiers and tutus stained crimson.

Giving up on subtlety means writer-director James DeMonaco is all about the horror now. But his gift for killing off the supporting cast is limited. He’s not inventive in that way. When he has a character shriek “We’re not hypocrites!” he isn’t talking about himself. He wants to mock our violence, our inequality, our racial profiling. And wallow in it at the same time. One black villain would have given this more edge. Or some edge.

The dialogue is gimpy and the plot a thin thread stringing characters through the Mean Streets in search of safety, when there is none.

Is this it for “The Purge”? Perhaps. But given these movies’ origins, as a shout out against a culture at war with its poor and unable to rein in the Merchants of Death, that depends on Election Day.

MPAA Rating: R for disturbing bloody violence and strong language

Cast: Frank Grillo, Elizabeth Mitchell, Mykelti Williamson
Credits: Written and directed by James DeMonaco . A Universal release.

Running time: 1:49

The mad pageant that is masked Mexican wrestling earns a sympathetic documentary in “Lucha Mexico,” a behind-the-scenes look at the most popular sport that doesn’t involve a ball among our neighbors South of the Border.

Filmmakers Alex Hammond and Ian Markiewicz are the outsiders peeking behind the curtain, here. And if they’re short on novelty or an original point-of-view — many wrestling documentaries go the “Yeah, it’s fake, but it’s an art form and it’s very dangerous” route — they at least capture the subdued, injury-riddled lifestyles of these famous-if-not-quite-rich athlete/performers.

“What you earn from being a wrestler,” one retired legend intones (in Spanish, with English subtitles), “is injury, and the love of the people.”

There isn’t a fortune to be won grappling on mats from outdoor market parking lots all the way to “The Cathedral of Lucha libre,” the Arena Mexico, a 60 year old venue in Mexico City which all the stars aspire to. But men flock to the schools where retired veterans of the ring teach them the moves, how not to hurt themselves or others as they grapple for money.

The film follows the unmasked star “Shocker” (Jose Luis Jair Soria, middle) and the American muscleman Strongman (Jon Anderson, right) as they cope with the lifestyle, the workout regimen, the injuries and the fame that comes with their work.

Watching the mammoth Anderson crawl into the back of a vintage Mexico City VW Beetle taxi is the only image you need to figure out this isn’t the glamorous life.

It’s a sport of heroes and heels, just as it is north of the border, called “tecnicos” (good) and Rudos (bad, masked villains) in Mexico.

There are folding chairs and elaborate tumbles taken in and out of the ring. Microphones are grabbed for mid-match trash talk.

The big difference, as other documentaries and even the Jack Black comedy “Nacho Libre” demonstrate, are the masks. Losing one in a grudge match can be traumatic, humiliating.

Blue Demon Jr., son of a legendary luchador who went by Blue Demon, notes that “I began to live behind the mask” once he accepted his fate, taking up his father’s sport. But it’s a lonely life, he adds — 18 hours a day, making public appearances, posing for photos, always in that mask.

There are competing circuits, famous females and famous dwarf wrestlers, and plans to take the whole lurid enterprise global.

The film captures tragic moments — deaths related to Lucha Libre — with mixed, muted emotions. They’re jarring and nobody involved — interview subjects or filmmakers — knows quite what to do with them.

A dwarf wrestler shrugs and accepts the pain and the risks with his version of national fatalism.

“In Mexico, we laugh at Death.”

They also laugh, a little, at the bouts and the way some of their fellow countrymen take the action in the ring way too seriously. It’s a wonder that the showers of beer cups that greet the taunting Rudos don’t turn more violent or at least threatening.

But it typically doesn’t, and if nothing else, “Lucha Mexico” can be appreciated for its honest depiction of a cultural outlet that gives its public, young and old, a chance to let off steam and yell until they’re hoarse at these uniquely Mexican archetypes.

MPAA Rating: Unrated, with violence and injuries in the ring, some profanity

Cast: Jose Luis Jair Soria, Jon Anderson
Credits: Directed by Alex Hammond, Ian Markiewicz. A Kino Lorber release.

Running time: 1:43

I love Westerns, love filmmakers who put the time in to get the period detail right.

Nothing was clean, from sweaty clothes to dirty faces to green teeth. Pistoleros weren’t likely to hit what they were aiming at quickly and you may pick a remote spot to set your town, but there’d be better some logical reason for people to attempt living there in the dust and sagebrush.

“Outlaws & Angels” put the effort in. The New Mexico of 1887 is pitiless and unwashed, violent and opportunistic. Justice is fleeting unless there’s something personal about it.

But it’s an impossible picture to cozy up to, a funereally slow saunter from bloody robbery to murderous hostage situation, with a lawman (Luke Wilson) taking his damn sweet time tracking down the desperadoes.

Chad Michael Murray dirties up and dresses down as the leader of the pack of trigger-happy bank robbers. They’re no better than psychopaths, the lot of them.

“I ain’t used my ax in a while. I’d be lyin’ if I said wasn’t lookin’ forward to it.”

These guys are “straight outta the hoose-gow” and headed to Hell. Or Cuchillo. Whichever comes first.Some of their number die along the way.

They take the long, dry and suicidal route from town to the border, and that’s how they end up laying low at a farm owned by a preacher (Ben Browder), his wife (Teri Polo) and their two feuding, fundamentalist daughters (Francesca Eastwood, Madison Beaty).

The outlaws sniff around the womenfolk, the mother starts to crack up, patriarch is helpless, and one girl — played by Clint Eastwood’s daughter — takes a shine to such sinful intentions.

It was a different time, and hard people did what they had to in order to survive, although many accepted death rather than a fate worse than death. Henry (Murray) is handsome, pretty even, but plainly ruthless and sadistic. Florence (Eastwood) may have ulterior motives, but there’s no getting around what writer-director JT Mollner is propositioning here. This is a romantic treatment of a situation that can only be regarded as rape.

Meanwhile,  Josiah leads an ever-shrinking posse in a dogged, slow-footed pursuit of these cold-blooded killers.

Who, exactly, are we meant to root for here? We’ve been the bad men kill kinfolk and children. Are we to hate the farm folk because of their fundamentalism, or what we suspect is actually going on there?The lawman is as under-developed as the sunscreen that was plainly slathered on his face wasn’t blended in with his skintone, rendering poor Wilson a Coppertoned kabuki, in some shots.

The answer appears to be “Florence,” and that fact and her Eastwood name (her mother Frances Fisher has a cameo) earn Francesca E. top billing. The young Ms. Eastwood has a look and some screen presence. But Florence’s behavior never seems righteous or noble, merely expedient and vengeful.

The whole lot are loathsome, save for the occasional victim, usually killed off too quickly for us to care. The performances are archetypal, illogical and unsympathetic in the extreme.

Worst of all is this 85-minute-story-in-a-two-hour-movie’s lack of urgency. The world moved slower back then, but ever since Westerns have been committed to the Big Screen, pace has been paramount. Just because your story’s told on horseback is no excuse for all this moseying.

MPAA Rating:R for strong bloody violence, disturbing sexual content, and language

Cast: Chad Michael Murray, Francesca Eastwood, Teri Polo, Luke Wilson, Ben Browder, Frances Fisher
Credits: Written and directed by JT Mollner. A Momentum/eOne release.

Running time: 2:00

I’m a car buff, and have been since childhood. Over the years, I’ve owned muscle cars and Mercs,  econoboxes, hot hatches and Jeeps and Mini Coopers — restored a Triumph TR6, and am just waiting on the day I can get another icon of my youth in my garage.

But one thing that wasn’t around back then is automotive programming on TV. Now, there is a whole network devoted to it (Velocity in the US), and any channel that draws guys (Discovery, History, CNBC, BBC America) is at least attempting to park something there to keep enthusiasts, hobbyists and just plain  car shoppers tuned in.

“Top Gear” blew the lid off this genre, and seemed to peak about four years ago for me. I still like the British show, even in its current fluctuating reboot state. They’re still not there with host chemistry, and blood will be spilled before the LeBlanc/Evans dust up is settled. The American version never did anything for me (Anglophile, I suppose). They never got the chemistry right with the hosts, not one of them was somebody you’d like to have a beer and talk cars with. Narrow demo (they were all pretty much the same age), equally annoying.

The new BBC version is averaging one good segment per installment, which is all the old show ever did. They’ll get there, with or without Evans (or LeBlanc).

My interest in the Amazon series the previous cast have cooked up, “The Grand Tour,” is mostly due to the title. It hasn’t really lived up to that promise, I have to say.

The BEST thing “Top Gear” did was put those three in beaters they’d bought themselves and forcing them to drive through Africa/Vietnam/The American South/The Middle East, keeping them running as they did. The new “Gear” is attempting that, but Evans in particular seems to not get that buying a cushy, lightly-used Jag for a song makes for really dull TV. No character, no breakdowns, no fun.

I love Jerry Seinfeld’s “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee,” available online or streamed through Crackle. (UPDATE – Now on Netflix) It’s more about the comics than the cars or the coffee, but it’s a great vehicle (ahem) for Seinfeld to get together with his peers, talk about “the work” and chat a little about the classic car Jerry picks up the guest comic in. Margaret Cho he fetched in a zany Mazda Cosmo last week.

“Jay Leno’s Garage” is about another comic with a car Jones, and Leno is, if anything, more famous for his cars than even the Great Seinfeld. The show has multiple elements — celebrities, stunts, themes, etc. It predates Seinfeld’s show (it started on Youtube before finding a slot on CNBC), but feels like a bigger budget attempt to best it. Leno is affable and only occasionally insufferable (a knock on his later “Tonight Show” tenure), and the show is a winner with good segments on “investment collectible cars” and the like. He’s competitive, so if Seinfeld is picking up Obama in a Corvette, Leno is coming for Joe Biden in a Corvette. And the show is getting better, something I look for in a car series.

“Fantomworks” is a car restoration show that gives you a bit of “Here’s how people do this or that” to restore a car, and a lot more of its obnoxious host, Dan Short.  The short-tempered Short has a bias for American muscle cars, though his Norfolk, VA shop handles almost anything. He comes off as a “type” any car owner or collectible car enthusiast will recognize — a jerk who looks down his nose, insults the owner and earlier work done on the car and high-handedly tells you the way it’s going to be. Southerners will recognize the bonus trait of wrapping himself in the flag (Norfolk’s a Navy town, so it doesn’t hurt him). Personally, if I show up at a car or boat business with too much of that, or Jesus fishes on its business cards, I run. There’s no bargaining or certainty of getting a square deal from guys like him.

“Dallas Car Sharks”  (Velocity) has a little wheeling and dealing — cars bought at auction in Texas — a little restoration work and a lot of personality. Like too much reality TV, it’s pushed dealers into “character” roles — the idiot know-it-all, the cheapskates, the arrogant jerk who throws his money around, etc.

A lot of these programs (“Fast’N Loud” stands out) put a lot of effort into the “personality” side of things. It works to create branding and conflict. “All Girls Garage” and “Car Fix” and “Overhaulin'” and many others fail to stand out and try too hard to make stars.

The Canadian “Restoration Garage” is more my speed — civil, detailed, sentimental.

And I really enjoy “Chasing Classic Cars” even if it is a guilty pleasure. Host Wayne Carini has been in the collectible car biz/car restoration game since childhood. He’s a perfectly bland TV personality whose limitations are exacerbated by writers and editors who do him no favors. He doesn’t want to say what he paid for a car? Why? Are the sellers cheating the tax man? He has a habit of repeating, in narration, something he’s just said on camera, or vice versa. That’s TERRIBLE television, slack and sloppy and lazy. How lazy becomes obvious when the producer is interviewing this or that car seller. The quotes they pull from these inane chats repeat info we’ve already been given, or worse, state the stupidly obvious. “I saw this car, and I kinda liked it. So I bought it.” Yeah, and? Any TV news production vet would know they haven’t got “the money quote” in an interview that goes like that and could cajole something more revealing, more exciting, out of the seller/show organizer/vendor. Carini should push for an upgrade in that crew because they make this show dotty, old and dim. The quirky old mechanic Roger is the best thing about the “Chasing” and he’s not getting any younger. Try harder. Seriously.

Which brings us to a car-flipping/restoration show that is trying harder, and improving season by season. The British born/American transplant “Wheeler Dealers” buys cars cheap (TV camera crews and TV star leaning on a seller has to help), fixes them up and flips them. Minis and Jeeps and Rovers and Saabs and Porsches and Fiats and BMWs and Lambos and Dancing ponies. Oh my. There’s a lot of work that erudite and unflappable mechanic Edd China puts in to make these flips pay off, and for over a decade, the knock on the show was how it revealed the cost of the car, the cost of parts and paint, but labor was left out. This season, they’ve added that to their tally. This season, based on the first show, has Mike Brewer, a genial host given to a half-dozen catch-phrases, trite expressions and “Woaa–ho-ho-hos” behind the wheel, “getting me hands dirty” and pitching in on body work and repairs. My jaw dropped when he sat down, picked up a tire wrench and did the brakes on the 1968 Corvette they flipped in their 13th season premiere.

The shows retains its Britishness, even when they’re doing seasons of the series in the US.

Better still, they’re now including out-takes at the end of the show. Backyard mechanics are better served knowing that stuff goes wrong and profanities are tossed out when they do. Sometimes. It’s the best, and to me, getting better. Well done, “Wheeler Dealers.”

UPDATED: I can’t say “Wheeler Dealers” has missed a beat after Edd China quit. Ant Antstead is more of a “hot” (in your face, enthusiastic, energetic) presence than the professorial cool of Edd. Ant’s terrific, and checking out his old “For the Love of Cars” episodes makes him an endearing authority/mechanic.

I’m tracking what Edd does post-“Dealers,” and would gladly watch any show with him on it. Top tip? “Top Gear” could find a spot for Edd, a “Beaters Corner” that would cut back on the Supercar porn and cut into time from the re-engineered collection of hosts, but that chemistry isn’t dazzling, anyway. Chris and Matt’s fake rivalry and Rory’s “Just THRILLED to be here” aren’t the show’s selling points. Yet.

A fairytale-ish musical about troll dolls starring the talking/singing voices of Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake, “Trolls” is a November Dreamworks release relying on names, tunes and toy-branding to attract an audience.

Not a laugh is given away in this first trailer. Not one. The animation is troll-doll bland. But the tunes are straight kid-friendly pop, as sung by the leads. And the voice talent is showcased (always a sign a cartoon is reaching).

Will it hit?

The weeks of abuse for this review of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” seemed like they would go on forever.

“Glib facsimile” became an Internet meme.

And then, it stopped. Because others came out as thinking the movie was a recycled bore, the same movie as “A New Hope,” only rendered in broad, PC strokes. More inclusive, far less interesting and a lot less fun.

James Cameron is pals with George Lucas, and he’s been caught dancing around saying “It sucked” in an interview that touched on “The Force Awakens.”

I’ve interviewed Cameron a few times, and while he’s thin-skinned about his own movies, he’s a little less so about other people’s projects.

Now granted, Cameron isn’t the most original storyteller (“Terminator” plagiarism, “Avatar” recycling). And he’s a lot more diplomatic than perhaps I was in panning the J.J. Abrams “Star Wars” outing.

But, in essence — an inferior copy of the GLucas original. A “glib facsimile.” There you go.

The Ape Man goes into the “Heart of Darkness” in this generation’s version of “The Legend of Tarzan.” Which is an interesting place to park a story and a character fraught with the potential for racist/imperialist undertones from the moment Edgar Rice Burroughs conceived him.

So while we still get the man raised by gorillas, we still get the “talks to the animals” stuff, the vine-swinging and the famous yell, this version of the legend is politically correct, as well as the usual patronizing and preposterous.

He fights animals without killing them. He is beloved by Africa and almost all the Africans we meet. And he saves the continent from a European menace.

We meet Lord Greystoke in London, where he’s lived with wife Jane (Margot Robbie) for years. He still has his jungle heritage, and the knuckles and hands of a man who grew up running on all-fours. He’s needed back in Africa. King Leopold of Belgium has closed off the Congo to the world and is committing unspeakable atrocities in the name of harvesting the riches (ivory, minerals) there.

“I’ve already seen Africa,” Greystoke (Alexander Skarsgard) complains. “And it’s hot.”

But an American envoy and Civil War survivor (Samuel L. Jackson) convinces the once-and-future Tarzan to join him for a fact-finding mission. Jane is most enthusiastic of all, even though she’s not invited.

King Leopold’s Henchman in Africa, played by Christoph Waltz (of course), is determined to snatch the legendary Tarzan and deliver him to an ancient enemy (Djimon Hounsou). And if he has to snatch Jane to get to Tarzan, so be it.

It’s a seriously old-fashioned jungle action picture, with white colonials brutally mistreating simple natives, a long journey up river (both borrowed from Joseph Conrad) and jungle creatures fought, understood and summoned like the cavalry in every B-Western in movie history. Flashbacks tells us the over-familiar story of how Tarzan came to be raised by apes, and how he met Jane.

Harry Potter assembly line veteran David Yates shot this in the muted (3D) colors of memory and old movies. The result is a dreamy, other-worldly picture, but one that even in scenes that capture a bit of Africa, looks fake.

Digital ostriches, digital gorillas, digital lions, digital hippos and digital crocodiles make the movie practical and safe for cast and crew. But they never look real.

Bringing in Craig Brewer (“Blacksnake Moan,” “Hustle & Flow”) to co-write the script gives the movie a little cover from tumbling into attitudes easily regarded as racist today. But the effect tends to neuter Tarzan. He can’t have a fight with an African and admit he has a genuine beef with the guy.

Skarsgard makes for a lithe and limber Ape Man. He makes you wait for him to take off his shirt. Even shirtless, he’s entirely too bland to make much of an impact.

Jackson treats his comic sidekick role as if he’s in a PG-13 rated Tarantino movie — sarcasm, anachronistic wisecracks, self-consciously cool with a lot of gunplay and a little profanity.  He has fun and he does his damnedest to animate the movie.

Robbie is a modern liberated American woman with runway experience shoved into a tale of 19th century Jungle Love.

The result is a “Legend” that feels inoffensively modern, or at least less offensive than it could have been.

It’s too violent to be the kids’ movie it wants to be. And it isn’t up to the challenge of giving adult audiences something meatier to chew on, despite the novel Belgian Congo genocide backdrop.

You can’t make a bold statement or exciting action picture when every frame is filled with fear — of offending someone, of upsetting animal rights activists, of giving the audience a Tarzan they won’t recognize, of failure.

MPAA Rating:PG-13 for sequences of action and violence, some sensuality and brief rude dialogue

Cast: Alexander Skarsgard, Margot Robbie, Samuel L. Jackson, Christoph Waltz, Djimon Hounsou
Credits: Directed by David Yates, script by Adam Cozad and Craig Brewer. A Warner Brothers release.

Running time: 1:49