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F9, The Fast Saga: Blown head gasket

F9 (2021) • View trailer

1.5 stars. Rated PG-13, and rather generously, for relentless violence and occasional profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.25.21

Despite his popular presence in this series’ previous five entries, I note that Dwayne Johnson chose not return for this one.

 

Smart move.

 

No matter how much absurd punishment his car takes, Dom (Vin Diesel) always
manages to retain control. Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) counts on it.

And despite the otherwise welcome return of director Justin Lin — who helmed installments three through six — this newest Fast & Furious entry is yet another example of dumb, tedious, wretched excess (as also was the case with 2019’s Hobbs & Shaw). The idiotic script cobbled together by Lin and his co-writers — Daniel Casey and Alfredo Botello — overwhelms its one smart move with an increasingly ridiculous series of action sequences.

 

The smart move: Granting main man Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) a race track-hued origin story involving his tempestuous relationship with a hitherto unrevealed younger brother. Poor, put-upon Dom always gets the lion’s share of angst in these flicks, and Diesel excels at displays of anguish that slowly morph into tightly bottled fury, and then explode into uncontrolled rage.

 

Unfortunately, such moments of actual humanity are few and far between, overwhelmed by the efforts of visual effects supervisor Peter Chiang’s team. Nothing feels the slightest bit real in the resulting vehicular and mano a mano mayhem, which too frequently looks blatantly, howlingly fake. 

 

The nadir? The point at which this cacophonous mess goes way, way beyond jumping the shark? The point at which even Tuesday evening’s eager theater audience succumbed to disgusted jeers?

 

The moment when a 1984 Pontiac Fiero gets blasted into space — with two of our heroes aboard, in vintage, duct-taped bathysphere suits — courtesy of rocket boosters.

 

This waste of celluloid — which clocks in at a butt-numbing, self-indulgent 145 minutes — isn’t a film, it’s a clanging pinball machine. With about that much emotional impact.

 

So:

 

Ongoing mega-villainess Cipher (Charlize Theron), finally captured by CIA mastermind Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell), manages an improbable escape with the assistance of flamboyant aspiring autocrat Otto (Thue Ersted Rasmussen). These events occur elsewhere, while we eavesdrop on Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and Dom, living a quiet life off-grid while raising the latter’s young son, Little Brian (distinguished from “big” Brian, referencing the character played by the late Paul Walker).

 

Luca: Fish out of water

Luca (2021) • View trailer

3.5 stars. Rated PG, for no particular reason

Available via: Disney+

By Derrick Bang

To paraphrase a line from George Orwell’s Animal Farm, all Pixar films are excellent, but some are less excellent than others.

 

Having narrowly avoided being spotted by residents of the nearby coastal community,
Alberto, left, and Luca contemplate the best way to resume their land-based human forms.

The animation — always visually dazzling — never is at fault, but some scripts fall far short of the creatively thoughtful brilliance found in (for example) Inside Out and Soul. The Good Dinosaur simply didn’t work; neither did Brave or the Cars sequels (the latter fueled more by merchandising desires, than artistic merit).

Luca is similarly disappointing.

 

Director Enrico Casarosa and his three co-scripters try hard to blend two disparate plot elements, but they never align successfully. And while the story ultimately offers a welcome message on the subject of inclusiveness, that feels like an afterthought.

 

It’s also impossible to ignore the strong echo of The Little Mermaid, which adds an unsatisfying note of been there/done that.

 

The story, taking place in the late 1950s or early ’60s, opens in the ocean, not far from the small Italian seaside town of Portorosso. This underwater setting is home to its own community of “sea monsters,” notably a family unit comprising teenage Luca Paguro (voiced by Jacob Tremblay), his parents Daniela and Lorenzo (Maya Rudolph and Jim Gaffigan), and his elderly, gravel-voiced grandmother (Sandy Martin).

 

These “monsters” — despite their spines, sharp tails and webbing — are much too cute to be the slightest bit scary. The animation team based them vaguely on medieval illustrations from the Carta Marina — a Renaissance map dating back to 1539 — while granting them iridescence, gorgeous colors and oversized, animé-style eyes.

 

In a droll touch, Luca works as a “shepherd,” keeping watch over a school of small fish that bleat like sheep. As with actual sheep, some are prone to wander; Luca’s efforts to keep them in line are quite amusing.

 

We may think Luca and his family are adorable and obviously friendly, but Portorosso’s residents live in abject terror, as if these creatures have been destroying boats and eating small children for centuries. (This clearly isn’t the case, making such panic seem rather odd.)

12 Mighty Orphans: Touchdown!

12 Mighty Orphans (2021) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated PG-13, for violence, profanity and suggestive references

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.18.21

This seems to be the season for inspirational, fact-based underdog stories, and we’ve got another good one.

 

Indeed, I’m surprised it took so long for this astonishing saga to hit the big screen.

 

As a meager few spectators watch, coach Rusty Russell (Luke Wilson, left),
Doc Hall (Martin Sheen, right) and a dispirited Snoggs (Jacob Lofland) contemplate
the disaster unfolding on the football field.

Director Ty Roberts’ heartfelt adaptation of author/sportswriter Jim Dent’s mesmerizing 2008 nonfiction book may be the ultimate underdog saga, given its Depression-era setting.

Events begin when Rusty Russell (Luke Wilson), his wife Juanita (Vinessa Shaw) and their little daughter Betty (Josie Fink) drive onto the grounds of the Fort Worth Masonic Widows and Orphans Home. Rusty has just become the institution’s head football coach: a significant step down from his previous successful position at Temple High School, and a decision made even stranger by the fact that Fort Worth Masonic doesn’t have a football team.

 

Heck, it doesn’t even have a football field: merely an open stretch of gravel, rocks and grass occupied by scrawny goats.

 

(The actual Russell had a good reason for this apparently rash and impulsive decision: a crucial detail poorly hinted at, in the otherwise solid script by Roberts, Lane Garrison and Kevin Meyer. Brief and vague flashbacks to Russell’s WWI trench experience aren’t sufficient.)

 

The challenge seems insurmountable, given that most of the older boys — the few with any potential, only 12 of whom qualify — are as scrawny as the aforementioned goats. They’re also an unkempt, ill-mannered and under-education bunch, with a tendency to quarrel and fight each other. That’s particularly true of the newest arrival, Hardy Brown (Jake Austin Walker), delivered — his clothes ominously covered in fresh blood — by the local sheriff.

 

Most of the other boys go by nicknames: Snoggs (Jacob Lofland), Wheatie (Slade Monroe), Fairbanks (Levi Dylan) and so forth.

 

Their belligerence and uncooperative natures aside, the enormity of Rusty’s endeavor becomes clear when the field is cleared for the first practice. He expected the absence of anything resembling uniforms, but the boys don’t even have shoes. Nor is there a football, so Juanita and Betty improvise a substitute.

 

Despite all this, Rusty remains hopeful; he senses an inner spirit, a yearning for pride, waiting to be nurtured. He understands that those who have nothing, and are given an opportunity to amount to something, will fight like hell to embrace and retain it.

 

In the Heights: The highest high

In the Heights (2021) • View trailer

Five stars. Rated PG-13, for mild profanity and suggestive references

Available via: Movie theaters and HBO Max

By Derrick Bang

Like, wow.

 

The sheer, dazzling exuberance of this film is breathtaking; we’ve rarely (never?) seen this much energy on the big screen.

 

Benny (Corey Hawkins, left) trades quips — and rat-a-tat lyrics — in the impressively
stocked bodega run by Usnavi (Anthony Roberts, right), with assistance from hi
younger cousin Sonny (Gregory Diaz IV).

If you were impressed by the initial freeway dance in La La Land — and who wasn’t? — wait until you experience the opening sequence in this stunner. I’ve never seen so many dance extras in a single number. (Literally hundreds, all named in the end credits.)

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights already was a knockout on Broadway, winning four of its 13 Tony Award nominations (including, no kidding, Best Musical). Director Jon M. Chu and choreographer Christopher Scott have done the impossible here, by improving on perfection; they’ve “opened up” the play in a way that takes full advantage of the film medium.

 

When people talk about the cinematic “sense of wonder,” this is the sort of razzmatazz they’re thinking about.

 

In the Heights preceded Miranda’s Hamilton, and in some ways is more approachable and audience-friendly. It’s a bit shorter, and the character palette isn’t nearly as extensive. The interwoven stories are traditional — almost clichéd — but Miranda and co-scripter Quiara Alegría Hudes (who wrote the book for the stage production) make them fresh and vibrant, thanks to Miranda’s freestyle rap/patter/hip-hop musical signature: a style unmistakably his own.

 

Add plenty of salsa, R&B, bachata, merengue and pop — along with other stuff I likely couldn’t identify — and the result is, well, spectacular. Cinematographer Alice Brooks is kept very busy, and she rises to the occasion.

 

It all borders on light opera, but not quite; we do get moments of spoken dialogue in between the two dozen (or so) musical numbers. 

 

Events take place over the course of a few days, in the primarily Dominican neighborhood of New York City’s Washington Heights. Usnavi de la Vega (Anthony Ramos) owns and runs a small bodega, assisted by his younger cousin Sonny (Gregory Diaz IV); the establishment, adjacent to the 181st Street subway stop, is something of a focal point for all the locals, who find a reason to visit at least once a day.

 

Usnavi also narrates this saga, via a framing device set somewhen else, and someplace else — a beach? — while four enthralled young listeners hang onto every word.

 

He has long been sweet on the stunningly gorgeous Vanessa (Melissa Barrera). She works in a neighborhood salon run by the larger-than-life Daniela (Daphne Rubin-Vega), who cheerfully encourages the often racy gossip exchanged among her clientele. Alas, Usnavi lacks the courage to approach Vanessa, who — although friendly — seems oblivious; she dreams of a high-profile career in fashion about 170 blocks south of the Heights.

 

Fly Like a Girl: Truly soars

Fly Like a Girl (2019) • View trailer

Four stars. Not rated, and absolutely suited for all ages

By Derrick Bang

“The airplane can’t tell if you’re a man or a woman.”

 

Let it be said: We need more documentaries like this one.

 

Bernice "Bee" Falk Haydu, far left — one of three surviving WWII WASPs — watches
as President Obama signs the proclamation that awards the Congressional Medal
of Honor for their services.

Katie McEntire Wiatt’s bravura, inspirational film — available via Hulu — isn’t merely a profile of today’s accomplished women in all modes of flight; it’s also a tribute to the long-ago female aviators who paved the way for them.

On top of which, this saga is a timely reminder of the perniciously subtle ways in which young women still are discouraged from STEM fields, because “it’s not something girls do well.”

 

Wiatt cross-cuts between three focal points: archival footage of the historical pioneers; interviews with 13 of today’s (frankly remarkable) pilots and astronauts; and intimate moments with 11-year-old Afton Kinkade, who has yearned to become a pilot pretty much since she could walk.

 

Afton divides her time between the roosting chickens at her family’s home in Tampa, Fla. — all of which she has named — and the scores of Lego creations, model planes and other items she has built and displayed in a bedroom also laden with aviation books and magazines.

 

She’s beguiling, calmly earnest and undeterred, even when among friends who don’t understand this passion. Why shouldn’t I become a pilot, Afton insists. (Answer, of course: No reason at all.)

 

The archival footage includes segments on (among others) Amelia Earhart; Geraldine “Jerrie” Mock, the first woman to fly solo around the world; and Bessie Coleman, the first African-American woman and Native-American to hold a pilot’s license … although not obtained in the United States, where this option was denied.

 

She therefore learned French at Chicago’s Berlitz Language Schools, traveled to Paris, and earned her pilot’s license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale on June 15, 1921. (So there, USA!)

 

Bernice “Bee” S. Falk Haydu bridges the gap between those trailblazers and the modern era, while relating her experiences as a WWII Women Air force Service Pilot (WASP). She’s a perky, cheerfully composed on-camera subject, while recalling the blatant discrimination and misogyny that she and her fellow WASPS endured.

 

(Excerpts from one training film of that era, detailing “the trouble with women in the military,” is positively cringe-worthy.)

Those Who Wish Me Dead: Smolders fitfully

Those Who Wish Me Dead (2021) • View trailer

Three stars. Rated R, for strong violence and considerable profanity

By Derrick Bang

Too soon, too soon.

 

With two horrific fire seasons still fresh in everybody’s memory — and the uneasy potential of a pending third — it’s ill-advised and extremely tasteless to set a survival thriller against the backdrop of deliberately torched forest land.

 

Hannah (Angelina Jolie) and Connor (Finn Little) discover, to their horror, that the most
direct route to town — and safety — has been blocked by an expanding forest fire.

Particularly one as sloppy as Those Who Wish Me Dead, available via HBO Max and movie theaters.

I’m not sure who to blame. Director Taylor Sheridan gave us 2017’s terrific Wind River — which he also wrote — but he’s also the prime mover behind television’s mean-spirited and unrelentingly trashy Yellowstone. 

 

This new film’s primary flaw is its impressively inept screenplay, adapted from Michael Koryta’s well-received 2014 novel. Sheridan co-scripted this adaptation — along with Charles Leavittt and Koryta — so they collectively are at fault.

 

It’s other flaws notwithstanding, this is yet another recent film — following Minari and Together Together — that stops before properly concluding. I can’t figure it out; are these production companies running out of money?

 

In this case, there’s no resolution involving a key villain: ergo, any perceived success our heroes achieve is temporary at best, and therefore pointless. That’s completely unsatisfying … and, I’ll wager, not the way Koryta’s novel ends.

 

It’s also obvious that Koryta’s story has been tweaked and shaped to better showcase the character played by star Angelina Jolie, undoubtedly at her insistence, as a means of demonstrating that she still has bad-ass chops. To her credit, she gets to prove it.

 

She plays Hannah, an elite firefighter — a smokejumper — based amidst a massive swath of Montana forest land. Alas, she’s seriously damaged goods, due a recent fire catastrophe during which she was unable to save three children. Badly traumatized and unable to move beyond her “failure,” she indulges in self-destructive stunts and minor physical mutilation.

 

She spends most of her time in self-imposed isolation, in the solitary confinement of a forest watchtower high above verdant greenery below.

 

Hannah has friends, who care about her deeply: Ethan (Jon Bernthal), a local deputy, who with his wife Allison (Medina Senghore), runs a wilderness survival school.

Spirit Untamed: Hobbled horse

Spirit Untamed (2021) • View trailer

Two stars. Rated PG, and needlessly, for mild peril

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.4.21

Although little girls probably will embrace this film, debuting today at movie theaters, the rest of the viewing demographic will be unimpressed.

 

When her beloved horse is snatched by a heartless wrangler, Lucky (far left) enlists the
help of best friends Pru (center) and Abigail, as they pursue the nasty desperado.

Unlike the first film in this franchise — 2002’s Spirit, Stallion of the Cimarron, which is a lush, hand-drawn production with genuine heart — this new entry is soulless, coldly calculated product. The simplistic script — by Aury Wallington, Kristin Hahn and Katherine Nolfi — does little beyond re-booting the origin story from Wallington’s 2017-19 TV series offshoot, Spirit Riding Free.

 Scant effort is made to individualize most of the primary characters, who aren’t much more than stereotypical tics and hiccups. Goodness, the villain of the piece — voiced by Walton Goggins — isn’t even granted a name.

 

Co-directors Elaine Bogan and Ennio Torresan bring nothing to the party.

 

Even the CGI animation is flat and uninspired. The entire production has the bland, lazy, slapdash and cloyingly sweet atmosphere of something that was rushed to market, with minimal concern for quality. It’s an overlong TV episode with delusions of grandeur: not quite My Little Pony territory, but darn close.

 

Young Lucky Prescott (Isabela Merced) never knew her mother, Milagro Navarro, a famous horse-riding stunt performer from Miradero, a small town (this from the press notes) “on the edge of the wide-open frontier.” Ergo, figure mid-19th century American West. Although Lucky has grown up on the more “civilized” East Coast, she has her mother’s rebellious streak and love of danger.

 

This greatly concerns her Aunt Cora (Julianne Moore), who decides to move them back to Miradero, where Lucky’s father, Jim (Jake Gyllenhaal), may have better luck controlling the girl.

 

Although initially out of place in this raucous railroad town, Lucky soon becomes best buds with Abigail Stone (McKenna Grace) and Pru Granger (Marsai Martin). Each is bonded to a horse — Boomerang and Chica Linda, respectively — which proves useful when Lucky becomes infatuated with a newly captured wild Mustang she dubs Spirit.

 

This Mustang also catches the eye of a heartless horse wrangler (Goggins), who hopes to capture both Spirit and the extensive herd that he led in the wild. The girls, in turn, are determined to stop him.

 

That’s it for plot. 

Cruella: Ninety-eight Dalmatians short

Cruella (2021) • View trailer

3.5 stars. Rated PG, for dramatic intensity and mild violence

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.11.21

This is not your grandparents’ Cruella De Vil.

 

Actually, I’m not sure whose Cruella it is.

 

Horace (Paul Walter Hauser, left) and Jasper (Joel Fry) recognize that their equally
larcenous partner, Estella (Emma Store), also has the talent to become a famous
fashion designer ... but the chances of that actually happening seem quite remote.

Director Craig Gillespie’s fresh take on the character — available in movie theaters and via Disney+ — isn’t merely an origin story; it’s an historical re-write. The script — which apparently required five (!) credited writers — has absolutely nothing to do with 1961’s animated film or Dodie Smith’s 1956 novel, aside from borrowing the names of a few characters.

Which therefore begs the usual question: Why employ a well-known pop-culture character at all, if there’s no willingness to honor its roots? Why not simply create a fresh character, and start a new franchise?

 

On top of which, why update a beloved and still-popular children’s story, when the resulting new film is aimed more toward adults, and is likely to bore younger viewers?

 

Hollywood never ceases to bewilder.

 

All this said, Cruella is entertaining — to a point — thanks in great part to Emma Stone’s flamboyant, scenery-chewing performance as the title character. She’s ably supported by the hilariously kitschy efforts of production designer Fiona Crombie and costume designer Jenny Beavan (along with “eyewear designer” Tom Davies, who, quite deservedly, gets his own separate credit).

 

Gillespie and editor Tatiana S. Riegel romp through all these sets and locations with the giddiness of children on a particularly lavish theme park ride: all manner of extended takes, smash close-ups, cockeyed camera angles — cinematographer Nicolas Karakatsanis also deserves a bow — and other visual tics and hiccups.

 

No question: Cruella is fun to watch.

 

For about an hour. Giddiness, for its own sake, isn’t sustainable.

 

At 134 minutes, Gillespie’s self-indulgent film is at least half an hour too long. The momentum begins to wane as we hit the midpoint, and thereafter it’s definitely a case of diminishing returns. The second half never induces outright boredom, but the thin plot does get tedious.

 

Cruella narrates her own saga — Stone’s off-camera voiceover — which begins with a rebellious, erratic childhood that matches her alarmingly unusual hair color. Dad is long gone; her mother Catherine (Emily Beecham) is at wit’s end, trying to deal with her unruly daughter (named Estella at this point, and played by Tipper Seifert-Cleveland).

 

After the school demerits hit critical level — a very droll montage — Estella finally perceives how her behavior is traumatizing her mother.

 

Eager to embrace a promised new beginning, mother and daughter hit the road … but first Catherine stops at an impossibly posh and massive estate, to meet with somebody inside. Disobeying the order to remain in the car, Estella sneaks around the lavish garden and is just in time to witness a disastrous encounter between her mother and three savage Dalmatians.

 

(Done tastefully, despite the horrific result, which is necessary to advance the plot.)