Goodrich: An engaging family dramedy

Goodrich (2024) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, and perhaps too harshly, for profanity

Available via: MAX

By Derrick Bang

This seems to be “Memory Lane” season for Michael Keaton.

 

He resurrected his saucy demon in last summer’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and this dramedy is a sorta-kinda reboot of 1983’s Mr. Mom.

 

Parenting isn't easy, as absentee dad Andy (Michael Keaton) discovers, when trying to
make up for lost time with his 9-year-old twins, Mose (Jacob Kopera) and Billie
(Vivien Lyra Blair).

But only sorta-kinda. Writer/director Hallie Meyers-Shyer eschews broad comedy strokes in favor of gentler, kinder humor that arises organically from her story’s plot beats.

That said, Keaton is inherently, effortlessly funny, even when dialed down; this has been obvious since his breakout supporting role in 1982’s Night Shift. His signature smirky grin is disarming; the recipient never knows whether a joke is being playfully shared, or if he’s the victim of the zinger.

 

Here, though, that twitchy smile is a reflexive self-defense mechanism, designed to conceal true feelings ... which is at the heart of the title character’s failings.

 

Andy Goodrich (Keaton) is a 60-year-old Los Angeles art dealer. He’s always taking calls, courting the next Hot Talent, and working long hours at his boutique gallery in order to prepare an upcoming installation ... all at the expense of spending time with his much younger wife, Naomi (Laura Benanti), and two 9-year-old twins, Billie (Vivien Lyra Blair) and Mose (Jacob Kopera).

 

The film begins as a phone call blasts Andy out of bed one morning; it’s Naomi, calling from the rehab clinic where she has just checked in for a 90-day detox program. As it happens, this will span the holiday season of Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

 

Andy is gob-smacked, having been oblivious to her prescription pill addiction. That only makes the situation worse, and Naomi coldly demands that he not visit her.

 

He tries anyway, only to be rebuffed by a cheerfully unhelpful receptionist who won’t even confirm or deny Naomi’s presence. 

 

Kimberly Condict, as the receptionist, is on camera for barely a minute, but her sweetly condescending, I’ve-got-your-number-buster manner is absolutely hilarious.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: A double-barreled delight

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, somewhat generously, for violent content, macabre and bloody images, strong language and suggestive material

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.1.24

Jimmy Webb must be tickled by the fact that somebody successfully concocted a plot point to the nonsensical lyrics he wrote for “MacArthur Park.”

 

When the escalating supernatural chaos subsides for a bit, Lydia (Winona Ryder, right)
and her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) enjoy a bonding moment while looking at an
old photo album.

That’s merely one of several hilarious musical moments in director Tim Burton’s whacked-out revival of everybody’s favorite undead demon, played once again with throaty impudence by Michael Keaton.

All the familiar elements are once again in play, from the orchestral drum-beat of Danny Elfman’s title theme, to cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos’ disorienting opening montage, which eerily blurs the line between bucolic, small-town community and a tabletop miniature of same.

 

Burton and his writers — Alfred Gough, Miles Millar and Seth Grahame-Smith — have enhanced the ookiness and playful gore, while also adding a degree of danger. The first film may have been all in good (if zany) fun, but this one has a genuinely menacing undertone.

 

Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) has parlayed her earlier experiences into an enormously successful media career, as a professional ghost-chaser. Her manager, Rory (Justin Theroux), is an insufferably snooty fashion plate who fancies himself the trendiest and most sensitive guy on the planet. He’s also in love with Lydia, which — to say the least — seems an odd pairing.

 

The unexpected death of Lydia’s father (played by Jeffrey Jones, in the first film) prompts her return to the long-shuttered family home in bucolic Winter River. She’s joined by her mother, Delia (Catherine O’Hara), and  moody, rebellious teenage daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega, immediately recognized from television’s Wednesday). The girl is all but estranged from her mother, and with good reason, having been essentially ignored while Lydia focused on her flourishing career.

 

Astrid has an additional, quite understandably reason for her sullen melancholy; her father — Lydia’s husband — long ago disappeared under mysterious circumstances. As a result, Astrid now has lost both beloved father figures.

 

On top of which, as a dedicated activist and environmentalist, the pragmatic girl doesn’t believe in ghosts. (She’s in for a surprise...)

 

Meanwhile, in Afterlife Central, way down below, the balefully malevolent Delores (Monica Bellucci) reassembles herself, after having been chopped into bits centuries earlier: easily the most grotesquely ghastly sequence Burton ever concocted. Turns out she was Beetlejuice’s lover, way back in the day, until their unhealthy relationship hit an, um, unfortunate snag.

 

Now that she’s back, and possessed of über-creepy soul-sucking powers, she’s determined to pay Beetlejuice back in kind ... and woe to those who get in her way.

 

The Flash: Merely trots

The Flash (2023) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for action violence, profanity and partial nudity

Available via: Movie theater

By Derrick Bang

We’ve understood the dangers of messing with the past, ever since the 1952 publication of Ray Bradbury’s classic short story, “A Sound of Thunder.”

 

With Batman (Michael Keaton) piloting his Batplane, Barry Allen and his younger self
(both Ezra Miller) ponder how to save the alternate universe that The Flash
unintentionally screwed up.

We even have a name for it: the “Butterfly Effect” (actually coined in 1972 by meteorologist Edward Lorenz, to explain how small changes in one place can produce large differences elsewhere, via chaos theory … but sci-fi fans subsequently made the phrase their own).

Apparently Barry Allen never read Bradbury’s story, nor does he heed the sage advice of Bruce Wayne. With the rashness of those who believe they somehow can circumvent established universal order, Barry…

 

…but wait. That’s getting ahead of things.

 

Director Andy Muschietti’s new entry in the big-screen DC Superhero Universe opens with a bang, as The Flash (Ezra Miller) and Batman (Ben Affleck) scramble to avert a man-made catastrophe, while being aided remotely by the latter’s capable butler, Alfred (Jeremy Irons). This action-packed prologue almost concludes in heartbreak and tears, until a last-minute save by another familiar DCU warrior.

 

Then, once Flash resumes his civilian identity of police forensic scientist Barry Allen, he’s heartbroken to watch as his incarcerated father (Ron Livingston) loses his final chance to prove that he didn’t kill his wife (Maribel Verdú), back when Barry was just a young boy … a crime for which the adult Barry knows his father has been unjustly accused.

 

But can’t prove it.

 

When he suddenly realizes that he can run fast enough to enter a “time bubble” that reveals all past events, Barry recklessly changes what he believes is the trivial event which will alter that long-ago outcome for both his parents.

 

Sigh. So foolish…

 

At first blush, Christina Hodson and Joby Harold’s script adds a welcome dollop of Marvel Universe-style humor to what has been a string of dour, grimly violent DCU entries. Barry, Bruce and Alfred exchange dry asides during the aforementioned prologue, and there’s a strong sense of fun in The Flash’s quick-witted rescue of the many infants in a hospital Newborn Nursery unit.

 

It’s clever, as well — and a great ongoing gag — that the all-too-human Barry must eat voraciously, and constantly, in order to replenish the body fuel expended by his pell-mell dashes. (This guy definitely needs to rely on his wrist watch calorie counter.)

 

But I’m dismayed by the scripters’ decision to make Barry an insecure, stammering, tongue-tied dweeb with zero social skills. He’s embarrassing, particularly because Miller plays those characteristics so persuasively. I can’t imagine why his fellow Justice League members put up with him.

Worth: Not as much as it should be

Worth (2020) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for brief profanity and dramatic intensity

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang

What price a life?

 

Insensitive and vulgar as that question seems — how can anybody put a monetary value on the loss of a loved one? — actuaries, lawyers and insurance companies routinely do so.

 

A chance meeting at an opera performance allows Ken Feinberg (Michael Keaton, left)
and Charles Wolf (Stanley Tucci) to start bridging the divide that has found them
judging the 9/11 compensation fund from strikingly different points of view.

Director Sara Colangelo’s provocative drama, which opens in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, follows the struggle to assess justice and fairness in one of American history’s most monumental attempts to assess “worth.” Max Borenstein’s screenplay is drawn from the 2006 memoir by Kenneth Feinberg, who was appointed “Special Master” of the U.S. government’s September 11th Victim Compensation Fund.

As Borenstein’s script quickly depicts, however, this Congressional act of apparent compassion was — to a great degree — surface gloss. The fund was attached to the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act, a $15 billion bailout bill passed just 10 days after the terrorist strikes. The “fund gesture” hoped to “encourage” the survivors of 9/11 victims not to sue the industry into oblivion, thereby — in the words of airline corporate doomsayers attending a key meeting with U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft (Victor Slezak) — preventing a “possible economic cataclysm.”

 

Feinberg (Michael Keaton) is introduced a few days earlier, as he demonstrates the legal nature of “worth” to a class of university students. He’s a number-cruncher and creature of pure pragmatism, believing to the core that any issue can be solved with carefully calculated equations, and that all individuals involved will behave rationally and respect the resulting “tort-style compensation” of such efforts.

 

Keaton is ideal for this role, his feral intensity and smirky condescension operating at full throttle. This master-of-the-universe aura notwithstanding, he certainly isn’t evil; he genuinely believes that he’s doing good, and that the best possible outcome can be achieved if everybody simply acknowledges that he knows best.

 

Such blunt expediency takes its toll; Feinberg relaxes, at the end of each day, by bathing himself in classic opera. We get a vague sense that his rough edges are softened by his wife, Dede (Talia Balsam); we also suspect that she doesn’t entirely agree with his attitude. But Borenstein’s script leaves their relationship badly under-developed.

 

Feinberg and his firm — his chief lieutenant is Camille Biros (Amy Ryan) — gained their lauded reputation as master mediators after chaperoning previous high-profile cases involving asbestos personal injury litigation, and Agent Orange product liability litigation. But those cases developed over the course of years, even decades, by which time emotions had cooled; on top of which, there never was a single “asbestos incident” that snuffed thousands of lives in a blinding flash: a distinction Feinberg fails to recognize.

 

As a result, when he gathers an initial few hundred victim survivors — mere months later — he treats the presentation just like the classroom lecture we witnessed earlier, expecting all participants to be uniformly impressed by his charts and graphs. He’s therefore genuinely baffled — Keaton’s expression radiates total confusion — when the attendees turn on him like a pack of snarling wolverines.

The Protégé: Solid action chops

The Protégé (2021) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for strong bloody violence, profanity and sexual candor

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Revenge thrillers are a lot more interesting when the characters involved have actual personalities, as opposed to being one-dimensional rage machines.

 

With respect to the latter, Wrath of Man is a recent case in point: sheer boredom.

 

With a successful assignment behind them, Moody (Samuel L. Jackson) and Anna
(Maggie Q) turn their attention to a long-dormant mystery ... little realizing the
consequences of this seemingly innocuous investigation.

Happily, The Protégé is cut from superior cloth. Scripter Richard Wenk understands solid character development — he gave us both Denzel Washington Equalizer entries, among others — and director Martin Campbell has two gilt-edged Bonds under his belt, in addition to 2017’s terrific Jackie Chan vehicle, The Foreigner.

If star Maggie Q were a better actress, the results here would be similarly noteworthy. Sadly, her thespic limitations are a distraction, particularly when in the company of seasoned scene-stealers such as Samuel L. Jackson and Michael Keaton.

 

Following a brief prologue that tips its hat to the core premise in 1994’s Léon: The Professional, we’re introduced to Anna (Maggie Q) and Moody (Jackson). They run a rather unusual extermination business, with high financial returns for the successful removal of two-legged cockroaches. They’re always successful.

 

Indeed, Moody taught Anna everything he knows. And she was an eager pupil.

 

By day, she’s an antiquarian book dealer — intelligent, refined and shrewd — with an adorable street-corner London shop. She also spends as much time as possible with Moody, whom she adores as a surrogate father. She’s troubled by the implications of his relentless coughing jags, but maintains a neutral face while (for example) celebrating his 70th birthday with a particularly special gift. (Guitar geeks will salivate.)

 

An old case has been nagging Moody; he asks her to investigate somebody who went off-grid back in the 1990s. Back in her shop, Anna is approached by a cultivated and sophisticated gentleman who introduces himself as Michael Rembrandt (Keaton). He also knows books; they quote Edgar Allan Poe to each other. Their banter is superficially flirty, but the undertone is tense. Deadly.

 

Keaton makes excellent use of his arched eyebrows and condescending, reptilian gaze. Campbell wisely lingers on it.

 

Rembrandt departs; Anna watches him thoughtfully. (Credit where due, Maggie Q does contemplative thoughtfulness pretty well. Her line deliveries, alas, are another matter.)

 

Hours later, all hell breaks loose.

The Trial of the Chicago Seven: Unbelievable, but true

The Trial of the Chicago Seven (2020) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated R, for profanity, violence and drug use

By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.23.20 

Well, this one couldn’t be more timely.

 

Defense attorney William Kuntsler (Mark Rylance, center) and co-counsel Leonard
Weinglass (center left) do their best to protect the defendants — from left, Bobby Seale
(Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne) and Rennie Davis
(Alex Sharp) — from the blatantly biased behavior of their courtroom judge.

Writer/director Aaron Sorkin’s Netflix original, a depiction of events during the notorious “Chicago Seven” trial — which lasted five months after beginning Sept. 24, 1969, following the August 1968 riots outside Chicago’s Democratic National Convention — is by turns mesmerizing, astonishing, scandalous and horrifying.

 

While Sorkin makes no claim to rigid, documentary-style authenticity, it’s important to understand that pretty much everything depicted here — even the most outrageous behavior — did indeed take place. The timeline has been manipulated a bit, and Sorkin clearly punches up some of the behind-the-scenes dialogue for dramatic impact.

 

But be advised: Every time you’re inclined to think, Oh, that couldn’t possibly have happened … you’ll be wrong.

 

The often crackling verbal exchanges are volleyed by a powerhouse ensemble cast dominated by four actors: Eddie Redmayne, as Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) member Tom Hayden; Sacha Baron Cohen, as Youth International Party (Yippie) co-founder Abbie Hoffman; Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, as Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale; and Mark Rylance, as defense attorney and civil rights activist William Kunstler.

 

The latter represented the Seven during their kangaroo-court trial before the incompetent, blatantly racist and deplorably biased Judge Julius Hoffman (a chilling Frank Langella).

 

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is just as compelling — albeit in a more calmly determined manner — as lead prosecutor Richard Schultz, hand-picked for this assignment by newly elected President Richard Nixon’s attorney general, John Mitchell (John Doman, smugly condescending).

 

Jeremy Strong supplies mild comic relief as Yippie co-founder Jerry Rubin, who seems stoned during the lengthy proceeding. The remaining Seven are SDS member Rennie Davis (Alex Sharp); and National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (The MOBE) members David Dellinger (John Carroll Lynch), John Froines (Danny Flaherty) and Lee Weiner (Noah Robbins).

 

Dumbo: A bumpy flight

Dumbo (2019) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG, for dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.29.19

1941’s Dumbo, Walt Disney’s fourth animated film, is a simple little fable powered by the loving bond between mother and child. The story carries some powerful messages: the importance of believing in one’s self, along with a gentle nod toward inclusion.

The moment of truth: With a capacity crowd breathlessly awaiting "something they've
never seen before," little Dumbo is encouraged by his friends — from left, Joe (Finley
Hobbins), Milly (Nico Parker) and Holt (Colin Farrell) — to go out and do what he does best.

It also features one of the saddest scenes in Disney animated history, set to the poignant Ned Washington/Frank Churchill song “Baby Mine.”

Disney purists likely were uneasy at the news that a live-action remake was coming from Tim Burton, whose flamboyantly macabre sensibilities were far better suited to his 2010 handling of Alice in Wonderland. Burton, overseeing this sweetly gentle tale?

In fairness, Burton gets it right … for a bit.

The story is set in 1919, as the rag-tag Medici Bros. Circus kicks off another season on the road. Disneyphiles are guaranteed to smile when this travel montage is set to an orchestral Danny Elfman theme that includes snatches of Casey Junior’s song, as the plucky engine pulls the entire entourage in its clickety-clack wake.

The circus is run by irascible ringmaster Maximillian Medici (Danny DeVito) — there is no “Brother,” of course — who’s forever bedeviled by the resident Shakespeare-spouting capuchin monkey, Barrymore. Aside from the other animal stars, the troupe features the usual assortment of faux “wonders”: snake charmer Pramesh Singh (Roshan Seth), heavily muscled Rongo the Strongo (DeObia Oparei) and mermaid Miss Atlantis (Sharon Rooney), among others.

They all keep an eye on children Milly and Joe (Nico Parker and Finley Hobbins), who anxiously greet every train at all their stops along the way, hoping that their father Holt (Colin Farrell) will be among the soldiers returning from the war. (As is cruel Disney custom, their mother is dead, having succumbed to influenza.) When Holt finally does show up, their relief is undercut by the realization that his left arm was a war casualty.

The loss has left him bitter, and he’s uneasy around his children: the typical man who always left such matters to his wife. As a further twist of the knife, Holt — once a star attraction, as a skilled horseback rider — has no job, Max having sold the horses to keep the tottering circus financially afloat.

Such gloomy tidings are shunted aside by the arrival of the circus’ newest attraction: the baby just born to elephant Mrs. Jumbo. Alas, this youngster has freakishly oversize ears, much to Max’s dismay, and the sneering taunts of cruel handler Rufus Sorghum (Phil Zimmerman). The circus performers, accustomed to being regarded as outsiders themselves, find nothing to laugh at.

Whereupon we hit this film’s first potential problem.

Spider-Man: Homecoming — A tangled web

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for sci-fi action and violence, and mild profanity
By Derrick Bang

It’s both ironic and yet appropriate that this newest incarnation of Spider-Man — let’s call it Spider-Man 3.0 — works best when young Peter Parker is out of costume.

Try as he might, Peter (Tom Holland) can't seem to make things work properly ... either
in his personal life, or as the web-slinging would-be hero, Spider-Man.

As originally conceived by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, way back in 1962, Peter was an angst-ridden high school outcast: a nerd long before that word became a fashionable descriptor. Eternally abused by campus tormentor Flash Thompson, ignored by all the cool kids, Peter took solace from his scientific curiosity and the protective embrace of home life with his beloved Uncle Ben and Aunt May.

British actor Tom Holland — so powerful as the eldest son forced to help his family cope with a tsunami’s aftermath, in 2012’s The Impossible — persuasively nails this all-essential aspect of Peter’s personality. He has a ready smile that falters at the faintest slight, real or imagined; he’s all gangly limbs and unchecked, hyperactive eagerness. Peter frequently doesn’t know how to handle himself, because he doesn’t yet possess a strong sense of what his “self” actually is.

That said, director/co-scripter Jon Watts’ update of Peter gives the lad a firmer social grounding that he possessed in all those early Marvel comic books. He’s a valued member of his school’s academic decathlon squad, where he’s routinely thrust alongside teammates Flash (Tony Revolori), crush-from-a-distance Liz (Laura Harrier) and the aloof, slightly mysterious Michelle (Zendaya, the effervescent star of TV’s engaging K.C. Undercover).

And — oh, yes — Peter is a-bubble with enthusiasm over the secret he cannot share with anyone: his recent trip to Berlin, supposedly as a science intern for Stark Enterprises, but where he actually joined Iron Man and other super-powered associates and went mano a mano against Captain America (recent back-story details supplied via a clever flashback).

Impetuously assuming that he’ll therefore be made a member of the Avengers, Peter is chagrined when days and weeks pass without a word from Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) or his right-hand man, Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau). I mean, Spidey deflected Captain America’s shield, right? What the heck is Tony waiting for?

Retrieving stolen bicycles and helping little old ladies may establish cred as “your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man,” but it hardly stacks up against saving the world from super-powered bad guys. Peter chafes at being abandoned on the sidelines, and thus makes the mistake that Stark anticipated.

Wholly contrary to the essential divide between civilian and costumed life, Peter begins to employ his alter-ego as a crutch: a means to enhance his social status.

“But I’m nothing without the costume,” he eventually wails, in genuine torment, to Tony.

“If that’s true,” Tony replies, “then you don’t deserve it.”

Spotlight: The Fourth Estate Rules!

Spotlight (2015) • View trailer 
Five stars. Rated R, for profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.20.15

Crusading newspaper journalists have been a cinema staple ever since the Ben Hecht/Charles MacArthur stage play The Front Page first hit the big screen in 1931, but true classics are rare.

The Devil is in the details: Michael (Mark Ruffalo, center) and Sacha (Rachel McAdams)
grow increasingly excited — and horrified — as a fairly simple computer search by Matt
(Brian d'Arcy) reveals that they're likely dealing with far more than just five or six
pedophile priests.

Meet John Doe, The Big Carnival, Deadline USA and Absence of Malice come to mind, and they all have one thing in common: They’re fictitious stories.

Memorable films based on actual reporters who pursued real-world scoops are more scarce, in part because few screenwriters can spin compelling drama from the day-after-grinding-day research slog that precedes a “breaking” news story, which (to the outside world) seems to come out of nowhere. The gold standard in this category remains All the President’s Men, in great part due to screenwriter William Goldman’s superb, Oscar-winning adaptation of the Bob Woodward/Carl Bernstein book.

Goldman now has equally talented company: Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer, who’ve done a masterful job with Spotlight — McCarthy also serving as director — and its depiction of the four Boston Globe reporters who won a 2003 Pulitzer Prize for their astonishing series of stories exposing the long-term cover-up of child abuse by members of the Boston Catholic Church clergy.

As was the case with All the President’s Men, Spotlight isn’t merely an engaging — even suspenseful — drama, fueled by excellent performances from a well-selected ensemble cast; it’s a valuable historical document that details a frankly heinous abuse of trust and power. It’s simultaneously cathartic and horrific: a crisply condensed depiction of an extremely complicated story that expands so far beyond initial expectations, that — were it fiction — it likely wouldn’t be believed.

But it’s not fiction; it’s grim, infuriating and relentlessly heartbreaking fact.

Not to mention another reminder of the significant service performed by newspapers and their dedicated staffs, and the frankly alarming hole we’ll be in, as a country, if the Fourth Estate is allowed to be replaced by the frivolous, empty-calorie content of “web journalism” (an oxymoron if ever one existed).

McCarthy is an actor who burst on the filmmaking scene when he wrote and directed 2003’s The Station Agent, one of the finest, quirkiest dramedies of the new century. Singer has a wealth of TV scripting credits in his still-brief career, notably The West Wing and Fringe, and he made the jump to movies with the 2013 Julian Assange dramatization, The Fifth Estate.

Both McCarthy and Singer have an ear for realistic dialog, and particularly the careful “dance” that takes place during painfully raw and intimate conversations. This film is laden with such scenes — some quite difficult to watch — and all handled masterfully both by the film’s stars, and by lesser cast members appearing perhaps only briefly.

Minions: Banana-rama!

Minions (2015) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG, and needlessly, for cartoon action and brief rude humor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.10.15

Thrusting supporting players into their own starring vehicle rarely succeeds.

Rarely ... but not never. In five short years, the Twinkie-hued, overalled lab subordinates in Despicable Me have gone from screwball second bananas to a genuine world-wide phenomenon ... and they more than hold their own, in the absolutely delightful Minions.

Having won a coveted spot as Scarlet Overkill's new henchbeings, our Minion heroes —
from left, Stuart, Bob and Kevin — eagerly await their first dastardly mission. Sadly,
they've no idea how shallow their new employer's loyalty is destined to be.

But their success remains an anomaly.

Although a more frequent phenomenon on television — where we (briefly) suffered through, among many others, Beverly Hills Buntz (from Hill Street Blues) and Joey (Friends) — the big screen has seen its share of sidekick disasters.

The reason is obvious, although it seems to elude studio execs. A successful ensemble character dynamic is as fragile as a soufflé: Each element is essential, creating a whole that is, to everybody’s delight, greater than the sum of its talented parts. You simply can’t remove one of those pieces, toss it into an under-written spin-off, and expect good results.

Steve Carell’s Evan Baxter was hilarious, supporting Jim Carrey, Morgan Freeman, Jennifer Aniston and Nora Dunn in Bruce Almighty. On his own, in the follow-up Evan Almighty ... not so much. Dwayne Johnson’s Scorpion King may have set up the action in The Mummy Returns, but he couldn’t manage the heavy lifting in his own film, a year later.

Jennifer Garner’s Elektra was the best part of the otherwise awful Daredevil — notwithstanding Colin Farrell’s maniacal villain — but no amount of fancy swordplay could have helped her starring vehicle, two years later. And let’s just try to pretend that Halle Berry’s toothless turn as Catwoman never happened.

(This phenomenon is far from recent. Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne’s Charters and Caldicott, the cricket-loving supporting players in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1938 classic, The Lady Vanishes, wound up in their own feature three years later. Nobody remembers Crook’s Tour today ... which is probably just as well.)

Why, then, have the Minions broken the curse?

It always comes down to the same basic element: the script. In this case, Brian Lynch — who had a hand in 2011’s droll Puss in Boots (another rare spin-off success) — has delivered a story that’s both clever and witty, granting these well-intentioned but disaster-prone subordinates both an origin story and their first chaotic adventure within the ranks of would-be super-villains.

Lynch doesn’t miss a trick. The results are cute, hilarious and wisely episodic: mini-escapades shrewdly stitched together in a manner that feels like a long single storyline. Co-directors Pierre Coffin and Kyle Balda keep things moving at a lively clip, with editor Claire Dodgson also ensuring that this 91-minute film doesn’t overstay its welcome.

Birdman: A dark comedy that soars

Birdman (2014) • View trailer 
4.5 stars. Rated R, for relentless profanity, sexual candor and brief violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.31.14

This isn’t merely a movie; it’s a bravura display of cinematic pizzazz as mesmerizing as its three starring performances.

This one demands repeat viewing. First time out, you’ll be overwhelmed by the stylistic approach — dazzlingly so, to the point of wanting to applaud — and then you’ll need a second round to better appreciate everything else going on.

When Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton, left) learns that co-star Mike Shiner (Edward
Norton) has hijacked some of his best personal material for a lavish newspaper interview,
raw fury propels the two men into the sort of laughably flimsy fist-fight that one would
expect from two guys who haven't the faintest idea how to throw a punch.

We’ve never seen anything quite like this.

Granted, director/co-scripter Alejandro González Iñárritu borrows respectfully from predecessors going all the way back to Robert Wiene (1920’s silent The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), with strong nods toward Alfred Hitchcock (1948’s Rope), Roman Polanski (1965’s Repulsion) and Paddy Chayefsky (1976’s Network).

Much more recently, Joe Wright attempted similar cinematographic trickery with 2012’s Anna Karenina, but with far less success; the stage-bound stylization called too much attention to itself, at the expense of the story.

But that, too, is the genius of Iñárritu’s Birdman: The audacious approach is part of the story, indeed the throbbing heartbeat of an exhilarating descent into artistic madness, whose pulse is amplified by a score devoted solely to Grammy Award-winner Antonio Sanchez’s percussive drumming.

That latter affectation is jarring at first, particularly as Sanchez’s efforts become pervasive, his shifting tempos altering the story’s rhythm and pace in a manner normally handled by cutting wizardry. But editors Douglas Crise and Stephen Mirrione seemingly have very little to do in this film, because cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s brilliantly composed scenes are — like our central character’s relentless fever dream — one long tracking shot.

Yep. For 119 minutes. Over the course of this narrative’s roughly three days and nights.

Not entirely true, of course, which is why that word — seemingly — is so crucial. Despite having the appearance of a single extended take, Iñárritu, Lubezki, Crise and Mirrione collaborate quite cleverly to convey this illusion ... just as everything that happens on a Broadway stage is pure artifice.

Except when it isn’t, which is the whole point here. Even before we dive into his rapidly unraveling psyche, Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) has lost the ability to separate his actual life from what takes place on stage; his performer’s artifice may be the only thing helping him cling to whatever remains of his sanity. Indeed, how many actors, stretching back centuries, have insisted that they only come alive each night, when they hit their marks ... their vivid, full-color nighttime dreams far more real to them than the washed-out black-and-white of their actual lives?

Robocop: Just a frail tin man

Robocop (2014) • View trailer 
2.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for constant and intense violence, brief profanity and some drug use
By Derrick Bang

The general rule is fundamental: A remake should surpass or, at the very least, equal its predecessor in all essential respects.

Otherwise, what’s the point?

When Alex (Joel Kinnaman, left) finally regains consciousness after the horrific attack
that left very little of his actual body, he's horrified to discover just how little remains.
Dr. Dennett (Gary Oldman) chooses his words carefully; the next few minutes will
determine how well — or badly — Alex adapts to this transformation.

Director José Padilha’s update of Robocop seems motivated more by the smell of money — Sony Pictures’ desire to revive an iconic character, in the hopes of creating a fresh franchise — than any artistic imperative. And while this film’s primary fault lies more with first-time writer Joshua Zetumer’s sloppy script than Padilha’s direction, the result is inescapable: This new Robocop doesn’t come close to matching Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 original for verve, suspense or clever political satire.

Indeed, Zetumer’s vicious, hammer-handed swipes at “heartless American imperialism” are this film’s least successful element: shrill, über-liberal bleats that keep getting in the way of what should be, at its core, a thoughtful parable on the nature of humanity. Granted, this sci-fi drama’s political subtext invites debate, but Zetumer stacks the deck laughably, most visibly in the form of Samuel L. Jackson’s Pat Novak, a foaming-at-the-mouth, right-wing TV provocateur in the mold of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.

Jackson’s Novak also is the first defense of a poor screenwriter: a hackneyed device who pops up every so often, to “instruct” or “remind” us poor viewers precisely how we’re supposed to react to on-screen events. Which suggests that Zetumer and Padilha don’t have much faith in their audience.

And I sure can’t figure out why they choose to conclude their film with yet another rant from Novak: a clumsy coda that makes little sense and does nothing but dilute the story’s mildly satisfying outcome.

People don’t like to be yelled at. Not in person, and certainly not at the movies.

All that aside...

The year is 2028. Uneasy military stability is maintained in Afghanistan and other terrorist-laden hot spots by the ground-level U.S. presence of EM-208 robot soldiers and larger, hyper-aggressive ED-209 sentry units. The primary goal, to avoid the loss of American lives, appears to have been achieved.