Don't Say Good Luck: A poignant character drama

Don't Say Good Luck (2026) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five); rated PG-13, for thematic material, fleeting profanity, teen drinking and mild sexual references

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang

Sunny Sandler’s delicately nuanced starring performance fuels this charming little character drama, although — in fairness — director Julia Hart draws finely shaded work from every member of this carefully assembled cast.

 

Sophie (Sunny Sandler, left) and her mother Elizabeth (Melanie Lynskey) make the most
of a mall outing designed to help the young woman improve her stage confidence.

As I well recall from her handling of 2020’s equally captivating Stargirl, Hart excels at depicting the bond between adults and teenagers, whether parents and their children, or — also, in this case — drama coaches and their nervous young actors.

The setting is a contemporary suburban community — principle filming took place in New Jersey — with much of the action centered at Westridge High School. Sophie (Sandler) wakens on a typically bustling morning in the Birenbaum household, due to her irrepressibly mischievous younger twin brothers, Caleb and Ethan (Matan and Eitan Friedman), barely controlled by harried parents Ted (Max Greenfield) and Elizabeth (Melanie Lynskey).

 

Today is a big day for Sophie: tryouts for the annual school play. Elizabeth shares some encouraging words with her daughter, before Sophie heads for school; they’re both amused when Ted accidentally butt-dials his phone, allowing them to hear his downstairs hijinks with the boys.

 

That narrative gimmick is a clever ongoing touch in the script by Hart, Laura Hankin and Jordan Horowitz.

 

Once the school day concludes, Sophie, bestie Carolyn (Scarlett Estevez) and all the other members of the school drama club gather in the multi-purpose room. Because the selected play is the musical version of Waitress, adapted from the 2007 film of the same title, the drama club’s regular advisor, Mr. Stuart (Joel Waggoner), has surrendered the reins to musical theater coach Ms. Parker (Stephanie Beatriz).

 

All the students know that resident drama club diva Mallory Sinclair (Elyse Bell) is destined for the starring role of Jenna; Sophie hopes to get the quirky supporting role of Dawn.

 

Elsewhere, though, this also is a fateful day for Sophie’s parents, who have an appointment with Elizabeth’s oncologist. The news is bad: The cancer that she and Ted hoped had gone into remission, has returned ... with a vengeance.

 

And as this awful verdict is delivered, Ted’s phone once again butt-dials Sophie ... just as Ms. Parker calls her to the stage.

Encanto: Far from enchanted

Encanto (2021) • View trailer

One star (out of five). Rated PG, for no particular reason

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang 

Some films don’t simply turn out bad; they wind up spectacularly awful.

 

Disney’s new animated musical is such a mess, I scarcely know where to begin.

 

Astonished to find that her Uncle Bruno is alive and well, Mirabel is surprised — and a
bit unnerved — by the "companions" with whom he shares his Spartan home.

The so-called story — credited to co-directors Jared Bush and Byron Howard, along with four other meddling hands — makes absolutely no sense, as it maladroitly lurches from one bizarrely random sequence to the next. Even fantasy must follow its own set of rules, else the narrative slides into a make-it-up-as-they-go muddle that cannot possibly get viewers involved.

The ludicrously flamboyant song-and-dance sequences seem to have been snatched from some hallucinogenic alternate universe, then stitched clumsily into the warped storyline.

 

And — with apologies to composer Lin-Manuel Miranda, who has done so much better elsewhere, and should have known better here — the tunes themselves are entirely unmemorable; each one is desperate to become the next Disney power anthem (and misses by a mile). Aside from the first song — which is mildly clever, and evokes the introductory “Belle,” from Beauty and the Beast — the rest don’t even try to integrate with the story’s clumsy flow, instead bringing the film to a whiplash-inducing halt every time.

 

Not even half an hour into this misfire, each time Germaine Franco’s background score began to swell, Constant Companion and I exchanged horrified glances and spoke our own sotto voce chorus of “Oh, gawd; not another one…!”

 

The film also is laden with sight-gags, some reasonably amusing but often pointless, as if the writers hope such antics will distract us from the vapid storyline.

 

What. A. Waste. Of. Time. And. Talent. 

 

Even at a comparatively brief 99 minutes, this is a butt-numbing slog.

 

The eye-rolling saga defies easy summation, but I’ll give it a shot.

 

After many of the inhabitants of a peaceful Colombian town of Indigenous people are executed by gun-toting assassins — so much more horrifying than Bambi’s mother being shot by a hunter! — new young mother Abuela Alma Madrigal (voiced by María Cecilia Botero) chances upon a magic candle (!), whose power raises tall mountains around what becomes the survivors’ new community of Encanto.

 

The candle also “builds” an amazing magical house for Abuela Alma and her three triplet children: Julieta, Pepa and Bruno. On their collective fifth birthday, three new golden-hued doors appear in the upstairs hallway, leading to a new enchanted bedroom that grants its occupant a magical power.

 

The inexhaustible candle presides over all such activities, glowing cheerfully from an upper-floor window.

The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part — Poor construction

The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part (2019) • View trailer 
2.5 stars. Rated PG, and needlessly, for mild rude humor
By Derrick Bang

Well, it was inevitable.

I can’t really say this is a case of the sophomore curse, since The LEGO Batman Movie arrived in between, and it was quite entertaining.

Even though their beloved Bricksburg has been blasted into post-apocalyptic rubble,
cheerful Emmet has lost none of his optimism ... much to the annoyance of gal-pal Lucy.

But The LEGO Movie 2 is a serious disappointment: a clumsy mess with little of its 2014 predecessor’s charm and cheeky creativity. This sequel suffers from all the flaws inherent in bad animated films: poor pacing; a random storyline that lurches from one scene to the next, with little effort at rational continuity; and a gaggle of truly dreadful songs … including the ill-advised decision to undercut the first film’s anthem, “Everything Is Awesome.”

By far the worst sin, though, is the way this new LEGO entry violates the first film’s ingeniously constructed divide between “our” world, and the realm inhabited by these delightful brick characters. This barrier was an important clue to the powerful weapon — the “Kragle” — wielded by the “evil” Lord Business.

I’ve hammered this point many times before, while denouncing poor writing: Fantasy mustadhere to its own established set of rules. Failure to do so, results in a loss of suspense and viewer involvement. There’s no reason to worry about potential peril, if slipshod writers just make stuff up as they go.

And I’m surprised, because this film’s scripters — Phil Lord and Christopher Miller — are veterans of the first film. They should know better.

Lord, Miller and director Mike Mitchell err further by devoting too much screen time to real-world activity. That was the first film’s big reveal — that there was a “real world” — and, granted, it’s true they couldn’t pull off that surprise a second time. And although — in fairness — there is an important underlying message in these real-world activities, it’s blindingly clear early on.

Which all-too-quickly turns this limp sequel into a tedious case of overstating the obvious.