Dancin' thru "Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2"

Ah, the Curse of the Sequel - we all love the first (insert the franchise movie of your choice here), and because of that love, we all froth at the mouth in anticipation of the follow-up, then see it and either complain that it was either too much or not enough like the first one, and leave the theater in a snit.  Yes, Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 is just as susceptible to this totally irrational judgment as whatever franchise you chose to insert above.  It possibly doesn’t have the same sheen of newness as its predecessor.  You may possibly find that it meanders a bit in the second act.  One could possibly observe that its climax revolves around yet another universe-shattering menace. I personally wouldn’t make such judgments myself about this movie, though.

The movie opens on a planet where our heroes await the arrival of an inter-dimensional monster they have been hired to dispatch. The ensuing chaos that follows the beast’s appearance plays behind the opening credits in what was probably intended to be a harkening to one of the fan-favorite moments from the closing of the first film, with more 70s-era pop tunes blaring away and CGI-cuteness shoved in our face, but I thought it was a bit too much “fan service” and went on a tad too long.  However, my gripes about the movie pretty much ended right there.

I didn’t find this to be a mere copy of the first film, as it embraces a completely different structure, something that brings with it positives and negatives.  While the first movie was a fast-moving caper movie, with various parties after the powerful Orb of which the Guardians had taken hold, Vol. 2 takes the time to build up its plot more naturally. As such, the first half of the movie, while still enjoyable, doesn’t have much in the way of forward momentum. Rest assured, though, things coalesce in the second half to form a stronger movie with a much more emotional climax than I would’ve imagined we’d get at the start.

There’s so much to enjoy throughout the rest of the film, starting with Kurt Russell being Ego, a “celestial” being who happens to be Peter Quill’s (Chris Pratt) long-sought father.  Who better to portray the father of the swaggering, cocky Star-Lord than the man who perfected that type of role while Chris Pratt was still in diapers?  I mean, this is Jack Burton!  This is Stuntman Mike!  Any movie Kurt Russell chooses to do MUST be worth seeing!  Forgive the nerd-gasm, Dear Reader, but I think one of the great strengths of the Marvel movies under Disney is that they have been able to successfully draw such top-level talent, in front of as well as behind the camera, to do these movies, getting National Treasures like Snake Plissken… uh, I mean Kurt Russell to play along with them.

“Play” is the operative word when it comes to the Guardians of the Galaxy films, and with this outing, it continues to be the most lighthearted of Marvel’s cinematic efforts (yes, even more so than Ant-Man).  While this means the films don’t have quite the depth of previous films like Captain America: Civil War, there’s still something irresistible about watching a cast have this much fun.  Michael Rooker has to receive special mention, as while his surly Yondu was a secondary character in the first movie, he is elevated to full-star status here, and every minute he is on-screen is just golden.  

Family drama drives most of the story, of which Quill’s parentage is just one example.  As in the first chapter of the Guardians saga, Vol. 2 spends some time ruminating on its characters’ need for a family, whether they want to admit it or not (most of the time it’s not).  Drax (Dave Bautista) is still dealing in his own inimitable way with the death of his wife and children. Rocket (voice by Bradley Cooper) continues to have issues with his communication skills. Gamora and Nebula (Zoe Saldana and Karen Gillan) continue to struggle with their upbringing under Thanos' heel.  Baby Groot needs parental guidance. It’s all dysfunction at its finest.

Of course, this ain’t a Woody Allen film, where we expect gobs and gobs of whining and introspection.  We buy a ticket to a Marvel film for lots of flash-bang, pretty-colored-lights exploding around spandexed and heavily-makeup’ed famous people, and I promise you, folks, you get that in spades here.  The film’s $200 million-dollar price tag is all up there for you to see, and not a penny wasted.  Writer/director James Gunn’s passion for this section of the Marvel Universe is obvious, as we can tell this film was made by someone who cares deeply about the material.

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 is not as good as the first film.  That is true. The first film was something incredibly original and caught movie-going audiences by complete surprise.  That is also true (boobie-prize if you get the reference!).  We all have expectations now, and humans tend to be very unforgiving when it comes to having our expectations met.  Do not let that prevent you from seeing Vol. 2.  It is fun, funny, touching and maybe even slightly-"touched," and is a great way to kick off the summer movie season.

"The Fate of the Furious" - Running Out of Gas, but Will Probably Get You Where You Wanna Go

The Fast/Furious franchise has come a looooong way since its 2001 debut.  What started out as a sorta-cool B-movie-type crime thriller about fast cars, loud music and tough guys in Los Angeles has become a globe-trotting, Bond/Bourne-type spy/heist franchise with a growing group of guys (and girls) working with shadowy government agencies to battle international criminals.  Well, I’m a guy, and I like cars, girls, explosions and heist movies, so while I’ve never been a HUGE fan of this series, for a variety of reasons and circumstances, I’ve seen all of them in a theater, save for the last one.  Whatta ya know, another Friday night rolls around, and it’s this or the Beauty and the Beast remake, so the Big-and-Noisy option wins.  Here we go...

The Fate of the Furious catches up with Dom and Letty (Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez) on their honeymoon in Havana, but their getaway is cut short when a mysteroius woman (Charlize Theron) tracks down Dom and makes him an offer than her can't (or is unable to) refuse. When Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) calls all the old crew in to help with a top secret government operation in Berlin, Dom is forced to turn his back on his team as he gets caught up in the world of cyber-terrorism. Hobbs goes to jail. Letty snaps defiantly at everyone. Ludacris and Tyrese Gibson keep talking lots of smack to each other. More car chases, more property damage, more complete disregard for the laws of physics, a Russian nuclear attack sub, and two hours and fifteen minutes later, our multi-ethnic band is back at the dinner table, dropping hints about a ninth movie that is already scheduled for April of 2019.

There is a pact action movies (and action sequels in particular) make with their audience: accept the rules being bent now and again, and in exchange, you’ll receive elevated payoff that will at least FEEL logical.  What sets The Fate of the Furious apart from most other action movies is that it doesn’t bend the rules at the climax; rather, it breaks them immediately in the opening sequence.  Right from the start, we know that absolutely anything goes, and it just gets more ridiculous from there.  There is only one law of physics in this world: our heroes must succeed.  If Vin Diesel must win a race, a car will go faster in reverse than in Drive after doing a 180-degree spin, and throwing one’s self from that moving, flaming vehicle will result in no more personal injury than smudged slacks.  If a submarine must leave a completely-empty dry dock into open sea within ninety seconds, then so be it.  If we require a fleet of driverless vehicles to be operated from a single remote point of control, then cross-software platform compatibility problems be damned.  Okay, maybe that last one is getting a little picky, but you get my point...

The film is at its best when stripping out emotion altogether and just gearing up for fun, but even that aspect of the movie falls short of its predecessors - Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham are an entertaining duo, incessantly attempting to one-up one another as they’re forced to work together, but I didn’t buy the speed of their enemy-turned-buddy relationship.  Kurt Russell is also back as shady government spook Mr. Nobody (in what is basically an extended cameo), and we’ve added Scott Eastwood to operate as his apprentice.  Eastwood hasn’t exactly had a spectacular career to date (probably best known for being the movie hunk in Taylor Swift’s “Wildest Dreams” video three years ago), and his character here is pretty much a waste of space and dialogue, really only serving as the butt of two or three of Tyrese Gibson’s one-liners.

The Fate of the Furious may prove that the franchise is at least in fighting form financially at an inconceivable number eight despite the storytelling shortcomings, but that being said, what was innovative and daringly off-the-wall in Fast Five and Furious 6 – and even Furious 7 with its skyscraper-destroying antics – feels a little more pedestrian this time around.  It’s not so much a case of the returns diminishing, but that the series feels so sure of itself at this point that the nutty luster of the last few instalments just doesn’t feel quite so fresh.  Perhaps The Rock soccer-kicking a torpedo into a moving vehicle was supposed to be the newest “wow” moment, but by the time we got to that particular physically-impossible moment, I was sorta past the point of being “wowed.”

The Fate of the Furious is exactly what it aims to be, no more and no less, and I give the filmmakers credit for that.  This movie was never going to reach the emotional heights of Furious 7, and it was never going to bring something fresh to the genre.  It is a relatively-fun experience, but ultimately it’s a flashy, forgettable movie that’s best experienced with the largest tub o' popcorn and tallest Coke Icee the concession stand will sell you.

No Country for Old Man "Logan"

Hmmm… so what would happen if The Coen Brothers, John Ford, Werner Herzog and … oh, let’s say... Clint Eastwood all got together in a room and decided to create a “superhero” movie?  I’ll grant you a moment to recover from the cluster-mash of images that have certainly just exploded into your movie-loving imagination… Better now?  I had never actually contemplated such a question myself, but after seeing Logan, I wonder if the result of that dream collaboration would not have looked something like this.

Hugh Jackman has spent almost eighteen years playing this character across nine movies, and doing it so effectively that the original comic-book version of the character as a five-foot, five-inch tall Canadian has been almost entirely forgotten. Some of the movies he’s been in have been less than stellar, but no one has ever accused Jackman of giving less than one hundred percent of himself every time he’s strapped on those CGI-created claws.  You may not believe him when he says this is the last time he’ll play the character (speaking for myself, I am not completely convinced), but if this is to be his last outing as Wolverine, then we should all be glad that he saved the best for last.

The time is 2029, and director James Mangold (who also directed The Wolverine) shows us a time in which mutants have all but vanished from the face of the earth and no new ones are being born.  Logan has outlasted all his friends save for a now-Alzheimer’s ridden Charles Xavier (once again played by Sir Patrick Stewart), and is now a limousine driver in El Paso.  When Logan is not caring for the former Professor in their sorta-hideout across the border in Mexico, he often finds himself at the bottom of a bottle, a sad broken shell of a former hero.

That all must quickly fall by the wayside when Logan comes across Laura (played superbly by young newcomer Dafne Keen), a seemingly mute child on the run with her nurse and caretaker, Gabriella (Elizabeth Rodriguez).  Gabriella explains that corporate mercenaries known as the "Reavers" are hunting Laura, and gives Logan a sizeable sum of money to ferry them to "Eden," a safe haven near the Canadian border.  Logan reluctantly agrees, but it doesn’t go according to plan, and he ends up with a surprise stowaway when he returns home.

Charles reveals he’s been communicating with Laura telepathically for some time, and that she is, in fact, a mutant.  The Reavers, led by the cyborg Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook), descend upon Logan and Charles' hideout to take Laura, and here the reason for her being hunted is revealed. What ensues is a film that is equal parts road trip and western, as our three heroes set out for “Eden,” and along the way, the truth of what has happened to mutants, the X-Men, and why Laura is on the run is revealed.  

While the plot has some incredible revelations about the X-Men Movie “universe,” what drives this movie is character.  Carrying the physical and emotional weight of a 200-something year-old man, Logan limps his way across the country, coughing and exhausted, slowly grinding into nothing.  If not for the charges in his care, one would think Logan would like nothing else but to lie down in front of an oncoming train, but what Laura is (a human molded into weapon, not unlike Logan himself), and maybe more importantly WHO she is, gives the Wolverine one last purpose.

Of course, Jackman is once again iconic in this role, but let it be known that Dafne Keen is a showstealer here. Even in silence, she carries her character’s tragic history with her, eyes conveying years of horror and torture. When she finally does speak, it is powerful, yet incredibly charming.  If you thought Arya Stark was a little Toughie, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet (even to the point Laura has her own list of names to recite, though in an entirely different context).

The rest of the cast is exceptional, too.  Stewart is heartbreakingly good in the film, as dementia makes him both vulnerable and dangerous (his brain, which has the power to release psionic blasts paralyzing those anywhere near him, has been labeled a Weapon of Mass Destruction).  Stephen Merchant is endearing as Caliban, an albino mutant who helps Logan care for the professor, and while none of the villains are given a robust characterization, they are all given enough moments to shine in their roles that they are not mere mustache-twirling caricatures.

Logan is a visceral tale of what happens when a man given too much time finally starts running out of it.  It is an inspired, ambitious, and violent Neo-Western/ Superhero Chase film, leading me to think of David Mackenzie’s recent film Hell or High Water afterwards, with a couple of mutants thrown in there for good measure.  Mangold’s story takes time to allow a few key sequences to really stretch out and breathe, which may lead some viewers to feel the movie to seem "long" at times, but I did not see it that way. On the contrary, the film’s two-hour, twenty-minute length gives us an opportunity to see so much more of these characters, their surroundings, and how they respond to them, and makes the violence that ends some of those moments all the more shocking.

The best mutant stories, both in the comics and on film, give insight into the nature of humanity, and Logan does this in spades.  Time, mortality and legacy are all at the heart of this film, making it what I believe to be the strongest X-Men film to date.  Surely Messrs. Coen, Ford, Herzog and/or Eastwood could not have done any better.

Totally Ga-Ga for "La La Land"

There was never any doubt that I was supposed to like this movie.  Despite being a caucasian, sports-loving, beef-eating, Southern Baptist, Republican heterosexual male, I think it says something about me that I rank Gene Kelly right up there with Albert Einstein, Joe DiMaggio and Ronald Reagan as “Dudes I’d Love To Be Just Like.”  An American in Paris and On the Town and Brigadoon… Man, but THOSE were musicals!  From the minute I saw the first trailer for La La Land, I knew this picture had a chance to win me over in a way that Chicago and Into the Woods and other such turn-of-the-Millenium musicals haven’t.  The danger in finally getting to see it was that I would have set myself up with unmeetable expectations - that after the whirlwind of praise and awards the movie has already received, there was no way it could be as good as my subconscious demanded it be.  

Oh, but all that worrying was for nothing!  La La Land is an absolute, total, incredible triumph, and deserving of any and every accolade the industry can think to throw at it.  From the very first song in the opening set piece, I was totally won over, and I knew it would take a total train wreck over the subsequent two hours to change that opinion.  Okay, sure, Ryan Gosling is NOT Gene Kelly, and Emma Stone is NOT Cyd Charisse, but writer/director Damien Chazelle just may very well be some sort of reincarnated, melded version of Stanley Donen and Vincente Minnelli.  

Set in Los Angeles, La La Land (Chazelle’s follow-up to his very impressive Whiplash)  tells the year-long story of a blossoming romance between Mia (Stone), an aspiring actress and Sebastian (Gosling), a talented but struggling jazz pianist, whose paths cross amidst the world of Hollywood moviemaking and downtown music clubs.  They first meet in a road-rage incident, re-meet by chance later, find common ground, find love, and then… well, that would be telling.

In terms of a bittersweet love story narrative and old fashioned tap-dancing choreography, La La Land offers nothing that we didn’t see in those glorious musicals from the 40s and 50s (even down to the “Presented in CinemaScope” banner that opens the film), but when something is done so brilliantly and executed so perfectly, it can feel like the most refreshing and innovative thing in the world, and this is exactly the kind of feeling this movie evokes.  There’s a distinct “They don’t make ‘em like this anymore!” vibe here. It’s true that it’s a big, bright, colorful, ambitious movie musical, reminiscent of releases from Hollywood’s Golden Age, but the beauty of it is how that vibe is used to tell a story that is so obviously set in our own world.  I mean, c'mon - Fred Astaire never danced with Ginger Rogers on an Interstate overpass! The soft-focus, shot-on-real-film visuals take you on a whimsical, yet at times heartbreaking ride, populated by characters with hopes and dreams, nimble feet and magnificently contoured faces, that provides exactly the kind of cinematic escapism for which lovers of musicals yearn.

In terms of casting, Chazelle could not have got it more spot on.  Being that original stars Miles Teller and Emma Watson dropped out at different points of pre-production, these depar-tures might very well have been evidence of the ghost of Busby Berkeley guiding things, as Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling create a pair of characters, and a chemistry, that are far, far greater than the sum of their parts.  These two actors are currently (arguably) at the very top of their game, both serious triple-threats with enough charisma to charm even the most cynical of viewers. As Mia, Stone typifies the spirit of a struggling actress and part-time barista, filled with that eternal hope of a big break, but also nuanced enough to break our hearts with every cold rejection.  As Sebastian, Gosling gives what is probably my favorite performance of his career, carrying himself with a delicate swagger that is irresistible to the camera. There is no doubt that the musical numbers could have been sung with more precision and gusto by other, more outlandish singing performers, but to have replaced these two would have been to sacrifice the heart and charm of the film.  Though both are clearly immensely talented, the delightful rough edges of both Stone and Gosling’s performances are what make them so human and endearing.  That slight imperfection helps me believe there really is an alternate universe where every day, everywhere is a musical, and perhaps someday, I’ll get to go there.

Chazelle’s graceful camera work is thrilling, his timing impeccably tied to sumptuous images that are as delightful as the leads on screen.  In collaboration with his Whiplash musical collaborator Justin Hurwitz, the film’s score is the heartbeat of the work, pulsing with energy and emotion.  With songs that feel like standards, tied to graceful yet occasionally cheeky choreographed numbers, the film is unabashedly a musical in the traditional sense.  I saw the movie twenty-fours hours before writing this review and have already Google Music-streamed the soundtrack half a dozen times - the tunes are that endearing.

As if anyone doubted Chazelle’s talent after Whiplash, La La Land firmly establishes him as a filmmaker to watch over the coming years.  He has crafted a highly personal film that speaks not only to our sense of romance, but also to that little part of everybody’s heart (and yes, everybody has that “little part” SOMEWHERE inside) that longs to break out in song when the situation calls for it.  A captivating treasure of a film, La La Land will make your heart and your head sing in praise, and maybe even tap a soft-shoe for a couple of steps.  I simply cannot wait to see it again.

The latest Tom Ford design - "Nocturnal Animals"

Lost love is “lost” because not only is the love gone, but you are misplaced as well, changed into something you weren't before, and it may be years before you realize it. When the crying is done, you move on - you adjust, you grow, you heal.  Maybe you’ll end up meeting someone better than that awful person who ripped up your heart - someone who makes you feel alive and free, someone who makes you forget and forgive the pain your last love caused.  Or instead, maybe you’ll slowly slip into despair, longing and regret.  Maybe you’ll sit and wait for that text, or that e-mail, or that phone call… all but certain that none of them will ever come.  Maybe you’ll sit and wait and watch the door, hoping he/she will come through it.  Maybe he/she will even be smiling when you next see him/her… or maybe they won’t.

Nocturnal Animals, the second film from Tom Ford, the fashion designer who so impressively made his foray into filmmaking with A Single Man seven years ago, is based on a novel that bears little resemblance to this movie.  Ford discovered the novel "Tony and Susan" by Austin Wright and contemplated how to actually adapt the book into two different films. The more he churned the story in his mind, however, his imagination began to formulate something that resulted in this offbeat, non-linear tale of a woman who believed she was growing into a better person by casting her first husband aside, then comes to realize over the next decade how guilty she was of hurting him and destroying her own happiness.

Beginning with images so incredibly silly, yet so awfully uncomfortable to view, Ford instantly sets a tone that will make discovering all the traits of these characters, both the “real” ones and the characters in the novel-within-the-movie, all the more impactful.  The images are part of a conceptual art exhibit hosted by Amy Adams' Susan, a gallery-owning high roller in the Los Angeles art world.  Susan is beautiful and haughty, living an extravagant lifestyle funded largely, we assume, by her husband Hutton, played with born-into-privilege knowingness by Armie Hammer, and thoroughly, thoroughly miserable.  After her opening, Susan gives herself a nasty paper cut opening a package: the manuscript of a first novel by Edward Sheffield, Susan’s first husband.  She’s disturbed by the package and the accompanying note, telling her that he has dedicated the novel to her.

Susan soon settles in with Edward’s novel.  Without warning, we cut to Susan’s visual interpretation of the book.  This story-within-a-story begins with Tony (Jake Gyllenhaal) driving his wife, Laura (Isla Fisher), and their daughter, India (Ellie Bamber), to a weekend home.  They’re driving through the night on barren Texas roads, and in an instant, things go very, very wrong.  It isn’t fair to describe what Tony and his family endures, as to do so would diminish its horror.  I will say that this scene of roadside terror is one of the most frightening things I’ve seen on film since, maybe, Blue Velvet. This has nothing to do with physical violence, as none is shown, but the scene takes its time tormenting us.  It is so realistic, and it could happen to any of us - you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time and your world is forever altered.

Susan is so disturbed by the novel that the almost subliminal questions she’s been having about her life begin to make their way to the surface.  Is this text some fictionalized version of some horrific event that happened in her and Edward’s own shared past? Her memories of life with Edward then present a third line of narrative, with Edward (also played by Gyllenhaal) and Susan as young and idealistic lovers.  He encourages her to pursue art - not as a business, but as a calling.  She wants him to be more responsible, or realistic.  She dreads turning into her materialistic upper-crust mother, but he’s not so sure she really dreads it.  Emotional damage ensues, but nothing like the stuff that happens in Edward’s novel. This is a movie that, among other things, trusts the viewer to make sense of it, or maybe demands the viewer make sense of it.  All the threads pull together, we presume, when Edward and Susan (whose current life continues to turn to rot as she makes her way through Edward’s novel) agree to meet again in “real life.”

The triumph of the film is how the individual stories are kept in the air so beautifully by Ford, and how the individual actors can convey so much about their jaded, miserable characters with a minimum of exposition (Armie Hammer’s Hutton, away on business, is cheating on her so blatantly he’s almost too bored to hide it anymore).  Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the scumbag who terrorizes the novel’s “hero” shows a side of his ability audiences have never seen before, and of course, Amy Adams is her usual spectacular self.  Michael Shannon also achieves a career high (and an Academy Award nomination) with his dry but enigmatic portrayal of a Texas lawman with nothing left to lose.

The final scene is one that, I presume, intends to have viewers debating as they leave the theater, and I admit that I would have welcomed such a discussion had I not been alone when I saw the movie.  I suppose that without the benefit of a human sounding board for my reaction, I found Nocturnal Animals to be a reminder of how much the loves we leave behind form us in such ways that continue to shape our outlook on life.  Whether those past loves were good or bad, happy or sad, we will have suffered damage of some sort along the way, and even inflicted some of our own.  Seeing such a simple lesson in dealing with adult emotions told in such a powerful fashion may have been a tad uncomfortable, but it made for a movie that is definitely worth seeing.

"Sing Street" crafts a catchy Coming-of-Age tune

Okay, indulge this old fogie a moment of nostalgia - we all thought John Cusack holding that damn boombox over his head, blaring Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” outside of Ione Skye’s window in Say Anything… was so damn cool.  What better way for a guy of that age to let a girl with whom he’s incredibly smitten know that, despite not even knowing who he really is himself, he’s sure she’d be incredibly into him if she just gave him a chance.  

Most of us poor males have been there, or wish we had been: you’re young and you think the only way to get the attention of The Girl is to impress them with some talent or another, assuming you even have one.  Wouldn’t it be super if you could start a band?  Yeah, that would do it!  Problem is, your band would probably suck, cover songs don’t really impress girls, and nobody would show up for your gigs (assuming you could get any), but if you can just get her to see you play, just once, it would all be worth it.  Dream on, you poor adolescent schmuck...

Cut to the present - today’s youth may have been given their own version of John Cusack, and even though this one may be a bit more low-key than old Lloyd Dobler was, I believe 15-year old Conor Lawlor’s (newcomer Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) solution in Sing Street may be a bit ballsier. I mean, why stand there blasting someone else’s love song at The Girl when you can write a new one?  Conor does just that when he spots Raphina (a luminous Lucy Boynton), deciding the instant he sees her that he’ll impress her with the band he hasn’t even formed yet, fully confident the details will work themselves out.

This is the predicament in which Conor finds himself at the beginning of the latest film from writer/director John Carney (Once, Begin Again), a filmmaker who seems to be specializing in musical fables.  We first see Conor in his bedroom, plucking on his guitar as his parents argue outside, turning their shouts into jokey song lyrics.  It’s 1985 in Dublin, and Conor’s life is about to fall apart; not only are Mom and Dad on the verge of divorce, but hard economic times also force them to move Conor to a different, more hardscrabble (and free) school.  He has no friends (the campus bully even threatens him with a slingshot on the first day), no real prospects, and the cruel headmaster’s top priority seems to be the dress code.

Then he spots the mys-terious Raphina standing outside the schoolyard. All Conor knows about her is that she’s an aspiring model with an older boyfriend, but somehow, he has enough confidence to get her number under the pretense of having her appear in a music video for a band that doesn’t even exist yet.  With the assistance of 14-year old self-proclaimed “manager” Darren (Ben Carolan), Conor sets to it, rounding up a group of kindred spirits with an ease that strains believability. Sure, it’s total fantasy, but Carney executes this scenario, along with so many others throughout the movie, with such spirit and earnestness that one can’t help but be taken in by it.

Through a series of changing outfits and musical influences, the film charts Conor’s musical and personal growth, his compli-cated relationship with Raphina, and how he tries to keep an even keel kept on the home front.  In the absence of any meaningful parental guidance – his parents are peripheral figures in the story – his stoner older brother Brennan (Jack Reynor) provides musical education and some Miyagi-like wisdom (of a sort), and proves much more aware than his slacker appearance would suggest with gems like, “No woman can truly love a man who loves Phil Collins.”  Based on Carney’s own experiences as a boy in Dublin, the screenplay digs deeper than the usual universal love story to comment on Irish life in 1985 and sets it to a soundtrack that hits all the right notes for those with fond memories of The Cure, Joe Jackson and Elvis Costello.

The songs scattered about the soundtrack, many of which were written especially for the film, feel totally at home in the mid-80s time-frame (I dare you to hear the band’s first composition early in the film and not hear Duran Duran’s “Girls on Film” in the back of your head).  Carney himself co-wrote all the new compositions with veteran composer Gary Clark, and these tunes add so much to the old-fashioned and optimistic vibe that just exudes from the screen that I can’t imagine the movie working without them.

It’s the kids on screen that make the movie, though. Sing Street wonderfully communicates the exuber-ance and enthusiasm of its young cast, most of whom are non-actors, and the natural-ness of all their performances is an absolute wonder.  The chemistry that Walsh-Peelo and Boyton share would make the movie watchable on its own, but Mark McKenna’s performance as Conor’s songwriting partner Eamon matches theirs, and all of the youths in the band, even with smaller roles, deliver incredibly believable performances.

This movie actually brought some of that awful teen angst so many of us guys felt during those years of Swatch watches and Trapper Keepers crashing back to mind, yet it still made me smile and remember those years with fondness.  In my recent review of The Edge of Seventeen, I said that film was one which John Hughes would wish he’d have made were he still alive.  Sing Street could also fit that bill.

Cue Lloyd Dobler and that boombox now.

“Assassin’s Creed” needs a mercy killing...

Oh, how video gamers (myself included) have long awaited this movie. THIS was the one that was going to break the “curse” of the video game-movie.  How could this possibly go wrong?  Take Two Oscar winners and an Oscar-worthy lead headlining the cast, and throw in $130 million and such a wildly popular game property, and surely you’ve got a slam-dunk, right?  I mean, there’s no way a capable filmmaker like Justin Kurzel could screw up this thing, right?  RIGHT???

Yup, you guessed it - they screwed it up.

The story of Assassin's Creed revolves around Callum Lynch (Michael Fassbender), a convicted murderer who is saved from a death sentence by the mysterious Abstergo Indus-tries, who give him a second chance at life if he aids them in a scientific “endeavor” (why he was on Death Row is never adequately ex-plained to us, other than Callum’s mumbling about the person he supposedly murdered was “a pimp” - I guess that clears up all the moral ambiguity).  Lynch is made to enter a device called The Animus, which allows him to access genetic memories contained within his DNA of distant relative Aguilar de Nertha (also played by Fassbender), a mysterious member of a secret society in 15th-century Spain.  It seems Aguilar hid a relic of some sort that would enable the nefarious Templars to remove Free Will from mankind, allowing them to exert more control over human destiny (I’m not making this up, people…), and by having Lynch use the VR-like Animus to vicariously re-live Aguilar’s experiences, the Templars hope to learn this relic’s location.

If Assassin’s Creed had been made as a period piece, with Aguilar as the hero, it may well have worked as a kind of heightened period epic – something like 300 meets Kingdom of Heaven.  The movie’s best sequences are the Spanish Inquisition-set action scenes, inventively choreographed and beauti-fully executed.  The game-inspired brand of wushu-meets-parkour in these scenes delivers some genuinely awe-inducing feats - a mid-carriage-chase wall-flip and a dead-eye ricochet shot wowed me, and helped to partially compensate for the dramatic lulls.  The period production design and the thundering score by Kurzel’s brother Jed are better than the movie deserves, but even these sequences could have fared better, as Kurzel falls prey to the hyper-editing and spasmic-camera movements that so many action movies seem to suffer from anymore.

Sadly, we only spend three all-too-brief sequences in that period, with the rest of the film being stuck in this murky-blue antiseptic scien-tific facility where everyone has that slit-eyed counten-ance that ensures you know they’re up to no good. Fassbender is a dour, dull hero in both temporal spheres, and Cotillard and Irons both seem to just float through their roles, with an apparent lack of interest that I couldn’t tell was an acting choice or actual boredom on their part.  The cast aren’t aided by the humorlessness of the screenplay, which treats all this hooey with a degree of seriousness that makes it all the more ludicrous.  Even possibly interesting secondary characters get the short end of the screenplay - Charlotte Rampling, another distinguished actor, pops up briefly as the Templars’ head modern head honcho, but has a criminally minimal amount of screen time.

Throughout the movie, Kurzel treats the goofy material with a dogged earnestness he didn’t feel compelled to lavish on his Shakespeare (last year’s Macbeth), and whatever grandeur might have existed in Andy Nicholson’s production design or Sammy Sheldon Differ’s costumes is pretty much lost in the images, which are maddingly murky even in 2D format (one can only imagine they’ll be even darker and more impenetrable in 3D).

It’s so frustrating to get such a “blah” film as this, while seeing that there are good things about it.  I understand fifteen hours of playing a video game is not the same thing as making a 110-minute movie, but this movie has things in it that convince me it could’ve been done better than this.  Alas, we still await the “good” video game-movie, ‘cause this one ain’t it, folks. Assassin’s Creed gets the style of the video games so right, yet unlike those games, it fails so miserably in creating characters worth caring about, or telling us a story we could even halfway swallow.