Deadpool 2: Lacking in Wisdom, But Still Cracking Wise

Zazie Beetz, Ryan Reynolds, and Terry Crews in "Deadpool 2"

The dirty little secret of Deadpool was that, for all its supposed subversiveness—the meta commentary, the vulgar jokes, the extreme gore and relentless profanity—it largely proceeded as a straightforward superhero origin story. So it’s only logical that Deadpool 2 abides by the Law of the Sequel, doubling down on the original’s purported irreverence while also methodically expanding the franchise’s universe and setting the stage for further installments to come. If you deemed the first Deadpool to be an anarchic laugh riot, you’ll likely be sated by this follow-up’s well-stocked buffet of ad-lidded one-liners and bloody carnage. And if, like a certain humorless critic, you found the original to be a mildly clever, philosophically vacant sketch concept that quickly wore out its welcome, well, at least you still get to spend a few hours hanging out with Ryan Reynolds.

Reprising his role as Wade Wilson, the potty-mouthed assassin with a red leotard and a severely burned face, Reynolds receives a co-writing credit this time around (shared with Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, who scripted the first film), suggesting that the affable actor improvised acre-sized swaths of his dialogue. (In fact, given that Wade spends most of his time wearing a head-to-chin mask, it’s fair to wonder if Reynolds just muttered “insert wisecrack here” while on set, then looped in his gag of choice during post-production.) Here he favors a high-volume approach that seems rooted in the ZAZ school of comedy, the notion that if you keep the jokes flying fast enough, you’ll land enough punches to keep the audience in stitches. And he does land his fair share; apologizing to his girlfriend for arriving home late, Wade explains, “I was fighting a caped badass, but then we discovered that his mom is named Martha too.” Read More

Avengers: Infinity War: Everybody Must Get Stones

Benedict Wong, Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Ruffalo, and Robert Downey Jr. in "Avengers: Infinity War"

Vaulting through the interplanetary air, sticky webs shooting from his genetically altered wrists, Spider-Man issues a sincere apology. “I’m sorry,” he says to his plummeting compatriots as he slings gobs of gummy goo at them, yanking them out of their falls and saving them from certain death. “I can’t remember anyone’s names.”

Can you blame him? The nineteenth official installment in the gargantuan compendium known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Avengers: Infinity War arrives as the ultimate crossover event, a superhero greatest-hits collection most notable for its sheer tonnage. No fewer than eight major characters here have already headlined their own standalone films, while countless others—all played by recognizable actors—have carved out sizable territory as villains, foils, squeezes, and sidekicks. The closing credits sequence alone feels like a breathless roll call, cramming as many high-profile names above the fold as possible, just so nobody’s agent complains about their client getting the shaft. Read More

Murder on the Orient Express: To Catch a Killer, with Instincts and Interviews

Kenneth Branagh as Hercule Poirot in "Murder on the Orient Express"

The concept of a whodunit set on a train carries with it a tantalizing geometric contradiction. Trains are rigid vehicles, traveling robotically along a designated pathway with no room for deviation or improvisation. Mysteries, by contrast, zig and zag, circling around and doubling back along pronged avenues of key clues, red herrings, and dramatic twists. Murder on the Orient Express, Kenneth Branagh’s sleek but staid transliteration of Agatha Christie’s much-adapted novel, seeks to mine the tension inherent in this incongruity, lumping a dozen-odd suspects and one dead body inside the claustrophobic confines of an immobilized caravan. It’s a suspenseful setting, but it serves as scaffolding for a disappointingly bloodless and familiar story. You know the drill: Everyone is a suspect, nobody can be trusted, and freighted expository flashbacks are just around the bend.

Our conductor on this less-than-thrilling ride is Kenneth Branagh, the stately Irish actor who often moonlights as a mercurial director. (In addition to a number of Shakespeare productions, he has helmed a Marvel movie, a Tom Clancy adventure, and updates of both Frankenstein and Cinderella.) He pulls double duty here, showcasing his knack for filming panoramic vistas while also hamming it up as Hercule Poirot, Christie’s famous and ingenious detective. (Previously essayed on the big screen by both Albert Finney and Peter Ustinov, Poirot is probably most recognizable in the form of David Suchet, who played the sleuth for 24 years on British TV.) Donning a flamboyant Belgian accent and a mesmerizing handlebar mustache that a taxidermist must have pruned from Kurt Russell’s exhumed Hateful Eight corpse, Branagh’s Poirot is a savant who, much like Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes, is not especially modest about his own intellect. “I am probably the greatest detective in the world,” he declares to a roomful of gobsmacked observers; one suspects he added the adverb as a mere courtesy. Read More

Thank You for Your Service: Back from War, Now Fighting Demons

Miles Teller and Beulah Koale struggle with PTSD in "Thank You for Your Service"

In the best scene in American Sniper, a one-legged veteran (Mindhunter’s Jonathan Groff) cautiously approaches Bradley Cooper’s titular Navy SEAL in an auto shop and warmly thanks him for saving his life during battle. It’s a moment that ordinarily would play as sweet and triumphant, but instead it’s awkward and tentative, as Cooper’s laconic soldier is utterly incapable of handling such direct gratitude. Now, Sniper screenwriter Jason Hall homes in on that discomfort with Thank You for Your Service, a humane and sober movie that tackles the war after the war.

Based on a book by David Finkel, Thank You for Your Service is a film of such unimpeachable decency—well-intentioned, understanding, respectful—that it’s virtually impossible to disapprove of. But those same qualities make it difficult to enjoy, or even really admire, as a piece of cinema. It’s more message than movie, and while the message—that post-traumatic stress disorder is a serious illness, and that many of our veterans need psychiatric help far more than they need banal platitudes—is undoubtedly worth conveying, the delivery system lacks oomph. It’s a movingly penned essay that just happens to unfold on screen. Read More

It: School’s Out for Murder

Fear is universal, even if it’s also personal. We’re all afraid of something, but our fears are typically our own. As many pop-culture artifacts have done before, It attempts to trade on this inherent tension between the institutional and the individual, conjuring a parasitic, metaphysical evil that torments its victims by transforming into the very thing that terrifies them most. In this, the film invites you to imagine being confronted not just by the nightmarish visions visited upon its characters, but by the horrors of your own heart.

“What are you afraid of?” the trailer for It asks ominously. Good question. My own list of fears is quite lengthy, and while it contains a number of garden-variety phobias—snakes, rats, heights, etc.—it also includes a few anxieties specific to my temperament and amateur occupation. Like, say, the fear of being trapped in a theater watching a 135-minute horror movie that is by turns repetitive, silly, and dull. Read More