Grade: B

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: Saving the World, One Wisecrack at a Time

Jeremy BeckReviews
Dave Bautista, Zoe Saldana, and Chris Pratt in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2"

In the middle of the hectic opening set piece of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2, the green-skinned alien Gamora reproaches two of her squabbling colleagues: “Can we put the bickering on hold till after we survive the massive space battle?” It’s a sensible request that comes from the troupe’s most sensible member, but at the risk of mansplaining (human-splaining?), allow me to point out the flaw in Gamora’s logic. Whereas the typical superhero extravaganza centers on its high-octane action sequences, the first Guardians of the Galaxy made its mark by inverting the formula; it emphasized writing and character, pushing its passable pyrotechnics into the background. With this franchise, the bickering isn’t ornamental—it’s the main attraction.

That canny focal adjustment made the original Guardians a welcome antidote, a rejuvenating tonic that helped offset the fatigue brought on by the glut of superhero pictures constantly invading the American multiplex. The challenge now facing James Gunn, returning as both writer and director, is how to reconcile the bracing freshness of the first installment with the rigid demands of the cinematic universe. The standard operating procedure for comic-book sequels is simply to take what worked the first time around, then blow it up to even greater dimensions, but spunky originality isn’t so easily amenable to magnification. How do you bottle lightning twice? Read More

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Your Name.: Trading Places, and Finding Feelings

Jeremy BeckReviews
Two teens trade places in "Your Name."

Part playful comedy, part wistful romance, part sci-fi mind-bender, Your Name. (yes, the period is part of the title) is a strange and beguiling experience. It’s a movie that nimbly hopscotches between tones and across genres, but it always demonstrates firm commitment to its characters. Visually, it’s a beaut, but the loveliest thing about it is its tenderness.

The ultimate intensity of Your Name.’s emotions sneaks up on you, given that the film initially scans as a poppy Japanese update on America’s cheesy ’80s comedies. Taki (voice of Ryûnosuke Kamiki), a high school student living in the clattering hub of Tokyo, is a typical teenage protagonist—comfortable with his male pals, awkward around his female crushes, and nursing a nagging worry that his existence lacks real meaning. The same is true of Mitsuha (Mone Kamishiraishi), a dreamer living in the country village of Itomori; she has a relatively peaceful life going to school and making traditional sake, but she longs for the bustle of the big city. Residing in decidedly different worlds, Taki and Mitsuha have no connection to one another, except for one little thing: Intermittently and inexplicably, their minds get swapped into one another’s bodies. Read More

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Split: His Minds Have Something Sinister in Mind

Jeremy BeckReviews
James McAvoy as, er, a lot of people in M. Night Shyamalan's "Split"

To call Split a comeback for M. Night Shyamalan is both accurate and somewhat troubling. The cinematic Icarus of the early twenty-first century, Shyamalan’s rapid ascent and subsequent plunge was difficult to watch. But his transgressions were sins of commission rather than omission—even when he was failing, he was always trying. Yet his most recent film, the found-footage flick The Visit, heralded a director who had diluted his ambition with pinches of modesty and self-awareness. That trend continues with Split, a lean and spiky movie that feels as though it could have arrived in the ’90s, before its creator let those “the next Spielberg” claims go to his head. This raises the question: Should we really be applauding filmmakers for abandoning their fearless attempts at the new and instead returning to the cozy confines of the familiar?

If it results in movies as taut and entertaining as this one, then yes. Split may be a pure, unvarnished genre exercise, but it’s a damn good one, a superlative example of twitchy suspense and tightly controlled craft. During his period of failure—which, in this critic’s view, spans from Lady in the Water to After Earth but definitely does NOT include The Village—Shyamalan tried all sorts of new things; they didn’t work. Split does many things—it frightens, delights, stumbles, and amazes—but most simply, it works. Read More

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Hidden Figures: Black Women Have the Bright Stuff

Jeremy BeckReviews
Janelle Monáe, Taraji P. Henson, and Octavia Spencer in "Hidden Figures"

In the opening scene of Rushmore, a math teacher asks Jason Schwartzman whether he might be able to come to the blackboard and solve an impossibly complex equation. Schwartzman’s character does so effortlessly and receives the adoring congratulations of his classmates, at which point Wes Anderson reveals that the sequence is a dream. Hidden Figures, Theodore Melfi’s sincere and sappy biopic of three black women who worked at NASA during the height of the Space Race, is essentially a feature-length version of this scene, minus the concluding fake-out. It fancies itself a hard-hitting historical drama, but it’s really a frothy, wish-fulfillment fantasy.

And what’s wrong with that? Hidden Figures may not trouble your mind or get under your skin, but it does provide a welcome, feel-good tonic for these troubled times. It insists, with disarming directness, that the evils of prejudice and entrenchment will always succumb to the virtues of hard work and human decency. Its period setting is one of extreme unease (as opposed to now?), but its tone is unabashedly wholesome and reassuring. Read More

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Fences: When the Walls Tumble Down, Resentments Bubble Up

Jeremy BeckReviews
Denzel Washington is a fearsome father in "Fences"

Denzel Washington is a rock. That’s true of both his body of work and his actual body. Physically, he’s built like a finely chiseled piece of granite, with broad shoulders, flinty eyes, and a handsome face that occasionally breaks into a broad, beaming smile. And commercially, few movie stars are so ruggedly reliable. (How many other actors could have carried The Equalizer to $100 million, much less inspired demand for a sequel?) Washington’s consistency is often mistaken for redundancy, given that he typically portrays heroic authority figures defined by their unwavering competence; even when he played against type in Training Day, he was supremely charismatic. But in some of his best roles (Courage Under Fire, Flight), he allows tendrils of doubt and weakness to creep through the façade of proficiency and strength. In Fences, Washington delivers a towering performance that represents the apex of this duality—never before has he seemed so indomitable and, at the same time, so broken.

Which is not to say that Fences is a great movie. In a sense, it is barely a movie at all. A faithful adaptation of August Wilson’s Pulitzer-winning play, Fences’ dogmatic fidelity to its source arguably renders it a better fit for the stage than the screen. The third feature directed by Washington, it consists of a series of dialogue-heavy scenes, the bulk of which could be neatly subdivided into a handful of acts. Action is limited, as is Marcelo Zarvos’ muted score. The majority of the chatter takes place in a single house’s kitchen and backyard, with a few additional locations mixed in for variety. The camera remains relatively passive; when it does move, it does so fluidly via the Steadicam, rather than the handheld style favored by many art-house filmmakers. Read More

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