Dark Phoenix: Rise from the Ashes, or Just Burn It Down?

Jeremy BeckReviews
Sophie Turner as Jean Grey in "Dark Phoenix"

To paraphrase Patrick McGoohan’s line from Braveheart, the trouble with superhero movies is that they’re full of superheroes. On the flat pages of comic books, readers can rely on their imagination, translating two-dimensional splash panels into vibrant, kinetic action in their mind’s eye. But on film, the crude literalism of the screen requires directors to convey often ambiguous powers—psychic energy, beams of light, metaphysical toil—in blunt cinematic language. The result tends to be a strange sensation of detachment, as though you’re watching stage actors pantomime their performances in an early rehearsal, knowing that the production flourishes will be locked in by opening night.

Jean Grey, whose malevolent alter ego gives the film Dark Phoenix its name, presents an especially formidable challenge in this regard. She wields her mutant abilities, which in the comic-book lexicon carry fancy terms like astral projection and telekinesis, not via any visible external method but through internal concentration. She can practically rip the world apart with her mind, but how do you articulate that process with any spatial coherence or physical weight? Read More

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Rocketman: Breaking Hearts, But Not Molds

Jeremy BeckReviews
Taron Egerton in "Rocketman"

They say a great pop song can lift you up, but at one point in Rocketman, the audience actually levitates, their shared delight elevating them into midair. We’re at The Troubadour in 1970s Los Angeles, and the flamboyant piano player is treating the crowd to an exuberant rendition of “Crocodile Rock”. As he bangs the keys and belts out the tune—about him and Susie, holding hands and skimming stones—you too might find yourself propelled upward, borne on the dynamism of the music and the enthusiasm of the performance.

When are you gonna come down? Soon enough. Every so often, Rocketman—Dexter Fletcher’s occasionally extraordinary but largely straightforward new film about Elton John—taps into that spirit of joyous communion, the rapturous feeling of losing yourself in art. But gravity regularly gets the best of it, and when it falls back to Earth, it reveals itself as yet another product plucked from the biopic assembly line. John was a provocative and often dazzling performer, but underlying his on-stage extravagance was music with real originality and heart. Rocketman, by contrast, tends to feel like a magic trick; its presentation, however skillful and virtuosic, seems designed to disguise its inherent flimsiness and familiarity. Read More

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Booksmart: Two Smarties, Determined to Party

Jeremy BeckReviews
Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever in "Booksmart".

Lots of high school movies feature a comic scene set in a bathroom—Lindsay Lohan eating alone in Mean Girls, Eddie Kaye Thomas defecating in American Pie, That Scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High—but Booksmart, as it does time and again, flips the script. Quietly revising grammatically incorrect graffiti inscribed on a stall, valedictorian Molly (the magnetic Beanie Feldstein) overhears three of her classmates mocking her. Stung but not surprised, Molly emerges dramatically from the stall and unleashes a measured but vindictive riposte, calmly informing her intellectual inferiors that she will one day have the last laugh. Yet as she spins on a heel to leave in triumph, a quiet reply stops her in her tracks; one of her ostensible bullies casually announces that she’s going to Yale. Another will be attending Stanford; the third has already secured a lucrative job at Google. In a split second, Molly’s supposed supremacy—academic, personal, moral—has been flushed down the drain.

Booksmart, the finely cut and completely hilarious directorial debut of Olivia Wilde, is hardly revolutionary. It is instead a proud member of the One Crazy Night genre, a freewheeling, episodic narrative of absurdity, embarrassment, and misadventure. But even as it accumulates belly laughs and imparts familiar lessons, Booksmart simultaneously punctures your assumptions about how movies like this should look and behave. Like Molly, it is smart, energetic, and determined. Yet it is also exactly the kind of film that Molly herself might underestimate, gradually revealing hidden depths that you never suspected were there. Read More

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John Wick: Chapter 3—Parabellum: Still Bloodied, Still Unbroken

Jeremy BeckReviews
Keanu Reeves in "John Wick: Chapter 3--Parabellum"

John Wick isn’t picky. He will kill you with a gun, a knife, a car, a dog, a horse, a library book—the particular weapon doesn’t matter, because he is the weapon. He’s a man who is also a murder machine, precisely calibrated to dispense death as proficiently as possible. There is no malice in his lethality, just as there is no malice when an elephant steps on an insect. He does not kill you because he dislikes you; he kills you because you are in his way.

John Wick: Parabellum, the third chapter in this insane and gloriously operatic franchise, is not quite as efficient as its bearded and besuited namesake. It occasionally suffers from bloat and drag, and it doesn’t always move with absolute purpose. For the most part, though, this is another action triumph, a grand and propulsive movie that understands what it is and what it’s good at. And even when its ostentatious trappings occasionally disappoint, its primal heart keeps beating. Read More

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Long Shot: Love and Laughs on the Campaign Trail

Jeremy BeckReviews
Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron in "Long Shot".

A romantic fantasy in more ways than one, Long Shot is a beauty-and-the-beast love story that simultaneously aspires to work as a thorny quasi-satire of contemporary politics. It aims not only to tell a crowd-pleasing tale of sweetness and levity, but also to impart a valuable message to the American electorate. This is a laudable idea, one with a rich cinematic history; Aaron Sorkin fans will fondly remember The American President, while film enthusiasts of a different generation may recall Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. But to borrow language from the political realm, Long Shot is a smoke-and-mirrors candidate, spouting handsome rhetoric but skimping on actual, meaningful substance. When the pairing of Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron is one of the more credible ideas on screen, you have perpetrated a fraud on the moviegoing public.

Have I gone too far? Maybe. If you approach Long Shot while wearing a certain set of blinders—if you ignore its poisonous ideas and its philosophical sloppiness—you may perceive it as a harmless little rom-com, a passably diverting use of two hours. The acting is quite good, not only from the leads but also the supporting cast, in particular June Diane Raphael as a dubious staffer and O’Shea Jackson Jr. as a loyal confidant. The script, by Dan Sterling (The Interview) and Liz Hannah (The Post), isn’t nearly as hilarious as it thinks it is, but it features its share of clever lines, while the direction, by Jonathan Levine (50/50), includes the occasional visual flourish amid the forgettable point-and-shoot mundanity. Theron gets to do a spit take and simulate rolling on molly, while Rogen, best known for his verbal dexterity, receives an opportunity to showcase his gifts as a physical comedian. It is an avowed cinematic truth that watching a man fall down a flight of stairs is always funny, as is seeing him spurt bodily fluids in unintended places. Read More

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