In Your Dreams: A lovely little fantasy

In Your Dreams (2025) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG, for fantasy peril and mild rude humor

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang

File this one under the old warning: Be careful what you wish for … you might get it.

 

Directors Erik Benson and Alexander Woo have delivered an animated charmer — feeling a bit like Pixar Lite — which also serves as a gentle life lesson about sibling rivalry and messy family dynamics. Indeed, the moral here is the importance of recognizing that sometimes “messy” is the best one can expect.

 

Having figured out some of the means by which the "dream realm" operates, Stevie, her
younger brother Elliot, and his beloved stuffed giraffe, Baloney Tony — brought to
chatterbox life — find a highly unusual means of transportation.

The story — written by Benson, Woo and Stanley Moore — opens on an idyllic tableau, finding 4-year-old Stevie enjoying one of her favorite activities: making breakfast pancakes with her parents. All three are mutually devoted; Dad (Simu Liu) and Mom (Cristin Milioti) share a career as musical partners.

But as a slightly older Stevie (voiced by Jolie Hoang-Rappaport) laments, in voice-over, this is merely a fondly remembered dream. “This is a disaster movie,” Stevie insists. The actual disaster? The fourth addition to the family, her younger brother Elliot (Elias Janssen), with whom Stevie is forced to share a bedroom.

 

Elliot is a relentless pest, forever in Stevie’s face, whether trying to impress her with silly magic tricks, or simply being annoying. He clearly just wants to be an important part of his big sister’s life, but she isn’t interested. She’s much more concerned about the growing rift between her parents; Mom is interviewing for a job that would take her elsewhere, while her husband — still hankering for songwriting fame — refuses to leave. To Stevie’s additional annoyance, Elliot is oblivious to this potential crisis.

 

For Stevie, dreams are a way of fixing things in the real world. A storybook depiction of a magical dream being known as the Sandman fascinates both children; after reciting a mystical incantation, they discover that they can remain conscious while dreaming, thereby altering what they experience. 

 

“Find me,” the distant Sandman intones, “and your dreams will come true.”

 

The resulting “dream realm” is a chaotic whirlwind of imaginative pocket lands populated by colorfully exaggerated creatures concocted from real-world experiences. Elliot’s beloved stuffed giraffe, Baloney Tony (Craig Robinson), bursts into wisecracking life, serving as a snarky, often frightened Greek chorus to subsequent events. Frolicking breakfast foods hearken back to Stevie’s cherished memories of making pancakes with her parents.

Jackpot!: No winners here

Jackpot! (2024) • View trailer

No stars: TURKEY. Rated R, for violence, vulgar sexual content, and pervasive profanity

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang

I thought Trap would be the summer’s worst movie.

 

But no; this abysmal, live-action cartoon defies description. (I’ll nonetheless give it a shot.)

 

Although Katie (Awkwafina) and Noel (John Cena) cleverly think to hide in a rich
musician's panic room, there's still the matter of closing the door before their hundreds
of pursuers force their way inside.

The budget apparently came from what all involved pooled from their weekly lunch money. Sets and locations are limited to existing Los Angeles-area venues, each briefly closed for the 15 minutes required to shoot one take of each scene. Most “costumes” go no further than street clothes.

Aside from the top half-dozen roles, all other characters appear to have been cast with random folks snatched from the streets; they certainly can’t act a whit. They aren’t even granted names in the cast list; they’re instead billed as Scary Goth Guy, Baby Puppeteer, Asshole Dad, Food Truck Guy, Bald Alley Cop, and so forth.

 

Paul Feig hardly warrants his credit as director; he appears to have told cinematographer John Schwartzman to point the camera, turn it on, and film whatever each untrained idiot felt like doing at that particular moment.

 

Rob Yescombe similarly doesn’t deserve to be acknowledged for his so-called script, because most — all? — of the dialogue appears to have been improvised on the spot. And quite badly, in most cases. It’s the sort of “banter” that regards relentless F-bombs as the height of comedy.

 

This may be the worst case of lunatics running the asylum ever foisted on an unsuspecting public. Grade-school theater productions are more convincing.

 

Until now, I’d have believed Awkwafina incapable of making a bad movie, and possessing the good sense to avoid anything that smelled of one. (Wrong again.)

 

As a sidebar, I’ve never cared for the tasteless “state-sanctioned murder as a cathartic escape valve” subgenre that has become popular of late. Japan’s Battle Royale, unleashed in 2000, started this dystopian trend;  2013’s The Purge and its (thus far) five sequels turned it into a deplorable franchise. By the time South Korea’s Squid Game came along, three years ago, the concept had become mainstream ... which doesn’t say anything good about human nature.

 

This pathetic turkey joins their ranks. It might be the most shameful yet, since it’s supposed to be a comedy.

 

Arthur the King: Needlessly overcooked

Arthur the King (2024) • View trailer

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

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Director Simon Cellan Jones’ modest drama has three highlights: an extreme sport that’ll likely be new to most viewers, a really cool dog, and the benefit of being inspired by actual events.

 

The kayaking portion their race would be punishing enough under ordinary circumstances,
but Leo (Simu Liu, foreground) and Michael (Mark Wahlberg) find it even more taxing
with the large, water-soaked Arthur as an additional passenger.

That said, Michael Brandt’s script — very loosely based on Mikael Lindnord’s popular 2016 non-fiction book — leans too heavily on melodramatic macho nonsense, and also stretches truth to a degree that’ll lift both eyebrows. The result often feels like a TV movie with delusions of big-screen grandeur, but — even so — it’s family-friendly entertainment, which has gotten rather rare lately.

The sport in question is “adventure racing,” a multidisciplinary team activity that typically involves alternately running, hiking, climbing, bicycling and kayaking over hundreds of miles of wilderness terrain. The clock never stops; competitors must choose if or when to rest — and for how long — while restocking supplies at mandatory “transition areas.” Route decisions and GPS navigation are up to each team.

 

Mark Wahlberg stars as Michael Light, an Americanized version of Lindnord introduced toward the conclusion of one such competition. He foolishly leads his team to failure during a final leg, when the tide goes out, and strands their kayaks in mud flats. The resulting tirade leaves Michael estranged from teammate Leo (Simu Liu), and one choice image of the messy disaster erupts on social media, subsequently haunting Michael at every turn.

 

Several years pass, during which Michael continues to train in the gorgeous terrain surrounding the Colorado mountain home he shares with wife Helen (Julie Rylance), who has retired from the sport in order to raise their young daughter. Michael is the epitome of stubborn single-mindedness; he’s determined to take one more shot at the world championship that has eluded him thus far.

 

(We wonder, at about this point, what Helen and the under-employed Michael are living on. Air?)

 

Elsewhere, in the Dominican Republic’s capital city, a scruffy brown street dog does his best to survive. As the story proceeds, Cellan Jones frequently cuts back to this bedraggled mutt’s wanderings.

 

Adventure racing is expensive, and requires sponsorship: a complication, given Michael’s well-known reputation for being bull-headed. He nonetheless perseveres with the executives at the sports firm Broadrail, albeit with conditions: most notably, their insistence that his now-nemesis Leo be on the team. 

 

Cue more snarky posturing between Wahlberg and Liu.

Barbie: Far more than a plastic toy

Barbie (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, and needlessly, for suggestive references and fleeting profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.4.23

This must be one of the most unusual ideas ever pitched to a Hollywood film studio. 

 

I’d love to have been a bug on the wall during that concept meeting.

 

Total catastrophe! Barbie (Margot Robbie, center) is dismayed to discover that her
perfectly arched feet have become flat. Her fellow Barbies — from left, Ana Cruz Kayne,
Sharon Rooney, Alexandra Shipp, Hari Nef and Emma Mackey — are similarly
horrified.

And yet, defying expectations — of some silly, frilly bit of toy-themed fluff akin to 1986’s My Little Pony — this film is thoughtful, audaciously subversive, and one of the most insightful indictments of gender stereotypes ever unleashed.

It’s also quite funny.

 

And pink. Very, very pink.

 

Director/co-scripter Greta Gerwig — along with writing partner Noah Baumbach — have concocted an immersive “Barbie experience” that playfully honors the iconic Mattel doll’s 64-year legacy, while contrasting her idealized realm with the harsher truths of our real world.

 

Although such progressive thoughts certainly weren’t contemplated when the first Barbie hit store shelves on March 9, 1959 — your choice of blonde or brunette — Mattel soon employed the doll as a subtle means of girl empowerment. Barbie could be anything: a doctor, lawyer or scientist; tennis champ or ace baseball player; astronaut, Supreme Court justice or even president of the United States.

 

(Granted, this was primarily marketing savvy; the actual goal was to make money. But if a little idealism rubbed off along the way, so much the better.)

 

Thus — following a hilarious prologue that lampoons the opening sequence in 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey — we meet pert, perky “Stereotypical Barbie” (Margot Robbie), as she wakens to enjoy another in an impossibly long line of perfect days.

 

Identically perfect days.

 

She rises, greets the Barbies in adjacent dream houses, showers beneath invisible water, enjoys breakfast while drinking invisible milk, and opens her magic wardrobe to get her outfit for the day: a bit of spin, and poof, it’s on her body. Sarah Greenwood’s production design is as amazing and colorfully inventive as Jacqueline Durran’s costumes. (Who knew pink came in so many shades?)

 

Since Barbie’s dream house has no stairs, and is open at the front, she merely steps off the edge and floats to the ground below. (Newton’s laws don’t exist in Barbie Land, nor does wind, gravity or anything else that might interfere with this realm’s pink perfection.)

 

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings: Solid, fantasy-laden fun

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for action and fantasy violence, and mild profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.10.21

Actors love to play villains, it has oft been said, because they get the best lines.

 

That’s certainly true here, where the villain is by far the most fascinating character.

 

A routine San Francisco bus ride turns lethal when Shaun (Simu Liu) is attacked by a
cluster of thugs led by the aptly named Razor Fist (Florian Munteanu).

Which is not to disparage Simu Liu’s engaging performance as the heroic Shang-Chi. No question: The man has moves, and charisma, in equal measure.

But the character of Shang-Chi’s father, Xu Wenwu, has been crafted with impressive complexity by writer/director Destin Daniel Cretton and co-scripters Dave Callaham and Andrew Lanham, and played with equally nuanced precision by celebrated Chinese actor Tony Leung. Every line he speaks — even the most mundane (although few of those exist here) — commands attention.

 

He conveys more, with a thoughtful pause or hardened gaze, than pages of dialogue.

 

Wenwu is an immortal Big Bad who has cruelly, subtly shaped our world during hundreds of lifetimes: a villain who, intriguingly, finally stopped being evil because it was too banal. (Granted, there also was another big reason.) Leung makes it easy to believe that this individual has been around for millennia; he has the regal bearing and economy of speech and movement one would expect.

 

But we’re getting ahead of things.

 

The story opens in San Francisco, where our hero and his best friend Katy (Awkwafina) have long parked cars for a living, much to the consternation of her family. She knows her buddy as Shaun, and he seems like the next ordinary guy; indeed, he has worked hard (as we eventually learn) to maintain that mundane guise.

 

That image goes out the window — along with a lot of other stuff — when a routine bus ride explodes into a violent fracas, as a bunch of thugs demand the jade pendant Shaun has long worn around his neck. Worse yet, one of said thugs’ amputated arm sprouts a huge, energy-powered razor blade. (Yeah, I know: totally silly. But that doesn’t lessen the intensity of what follows.)

 

To Katy’s astonishment, Shaun holds his own … if just barely.

 

This extended melee is the first of Cretton and stunt coordinator Brad Allan’s jaw-dropping sequences, and it’s a corker: taking full advantage of San Francisco’s steep streets and the awkward physics of an articulated bus. Totally stunning.