The second of the films I saw today at Cinemark is the new Western starring Tom Hanks. This film is called News of the World and it places Tom Hanks in a story that we have never seen him in before, unless you count Woody from Toy Story!

Hanks played Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, a Civil War veteran who travels around the West reading people the news for money. He would emphasize the stories, providing the crowds an entertaining presentation. However, on his way, Captain Kidd came across an overturned wagon and a lynched black man in the tree. He found that the man had been taking a young girl, Johanna (Helena Zengel), who had been kidnapped and raised by the Kiowa people. Johanna did not speak English and seemed like a wild child.

Captain Kidd committed to take Johanna back to her remaining family, an aunt and uncle in Texas. Along the way, the two unlikely compatriots bond over the dangers of the world.

Honestly, the first part of News of the World I found slow and a bit dull. I was starting to worry about the film, but then the story picked up energy and the last hour and twenty minutes or so were extremely compelling and thrilling.

Tom Hanks is always great, but there has to be a big shout out to Helena Zengel, who had a lot of challenges to her performance, in particular the language issues. She was excellent and held her own with her famous co-star. She provided as much emotions with her face and her eyes as she did with her words. It was a seasoned performance from the young lady.

The cinematography of the film is gorgeous, as the land of the west is as much of a character as our two main characters. Director Paul Greengrass gave us amazing visuals to watch as the story progressed.

I did like how straight forward Captain Kidd was with everyone he came in contact with. His honor shined through his actions. This made him an uncommon character in Western movies.

After a slow start, News of the World really picked up and is carried by the performances of Tom Hanks and Helena Zengel. It was one of the best Westerns of the year (I only saw one other… )

3.8 stars

With 2020 coming down to a close (thankfully) there are just a few remaining films I will be able to see. So I went out to Cinemark today to see a couple of them. The first film I saw was a film that I have seen on a lot of lists of possible Oscar nominees, Promising Young Woman.

Promising Young Woman starred Carey Mulligan and was directed by Emerald Fennell.

Something happened to Cassie (Carey Mulligan) during her college years that led her to drop out of her collegiate medical program. It had something to do with her friend Nina. From this event, Cassie had struggled to get past her memories. On the weekends, she goes to bars and pretends to be drunk. She waited to be picked up by men trying to have sex with her and she lured them into a trap, confronted them and kept a record of it.

Working at a coffee shop, Cassie was approached by a former classmate of hers, Ryan (Bo Burnham) who wanted to ask her out on a date, but Cassie was to distrustful of men to accept.

Carey Mulligan is exceptional in this role. I love the way the film hints at what happened without coming right out and explaining it to us. We can figure out what happened without it being laid out before us. With the pain in her face, Mulligan brings us along on her way through her life. The film hints at Cassie doing worse things to her victims, though it seemed as if she did not.

You understand the anger and pain that Cassie is facing, but you want her to overcome the anguish. Then, she does something that makes you shocked at her behavior.

Then the third act becomes one of the craziest third acts you are ever going to see. It is surprising and it is uncomfortable. I never saw it coming and I really loved that.

Thrilling. Heart-breaking. Uncomfortable. Promising Young Woman is one of the greta films of the year and certainly may deserve that Oscar nomination it hopes for.

4.2 stars

Well, lookie here.

I was on Netflix last night and suddenly, there was a new super hero movie with Pedro Pascal. It was called We Can Be Heroes and I had no idea it was coming out and it was written and directed by Robert Rodriguez, the mind behind Spy Kids and Sin City. It also appeared to be a sequel to The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3D. That should give you a good idea of the tone of this filn.

I have never seen The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3D, but I have heard about it, and, maybe it should go on the list.

This focused on the children of the group of heroes known as The Heroics, which included the aforementioned Lavagirl (Taylor Dooley) and Sharkboy (Jeffrey Dashnaw). It also included the retired leader of the Heroics, Marcus Moreno (Pedro Pascal).

The film starts off with Miracle Guy (Boyd Holbrook) and Tech-No (Christian Slater) half-heartedly trying to deal with an unidentified object in space, only to discover that there was an entire armada on its way to earth. The aliens made short work of the Heroics, capturing them all and imprisoning them on their ship.

Missy Moreno (YaYa Gosselin), daughter of Marcus, was taken by the government agency to a location to protect her from the aliens. They take Missy to the rest of the children of the Heroics. However, the other children all have super powers, but Missy does not.

When one of the children, Ojo (Hala Finley) turned out to be prophetic with her drawings, the kids discover that the aliens are preparing to attack the agency. Together, the group escape the facility and try to come up with an idea to rescue their parents.

Teen/child super heroes are always fun. There was a definitely fun tone going on here. It reminded one of Spy Kids because there were some stakes, but the kids were not in any real jeopardy. It had the feel of a Disney Channel show where the kids are generalized characters without a ton of depth to them. The children are charismatic enough and have enough fun powers that you do not need deeply developed characters. They all have their one or so obstacle that they have to overcome to become the best they could be.

Some of the other neat ideas are Noodle (Lyon Daniels) who can stretch, providing some cool visuals, Wild Card (Nathan Blair) who has all the powers but cannot control them, Guppy (Vivien Blair), daughter of Lavagirl and Sharkboy, who can control water and had super shark strength, Wheels (Andy Walken) who is in a wheelchair because his strength in his legs were too strong, Slo-Mo (Dylan Henry Lau) who moved in super slow motion despite being the son of the speedster, A Capella (Lotus Blossom) who can move thigns with her singing voice, Fast-Forward (Akira Akbar) and Rewind (Isaiah Russell-Bailey) who were twin brother and sister who were not fond of each other, and Facemaker (Andrew Diaz) who has a malleable face.

The film is light, funny, breezy. It is not something to dive into deeply. It is a kids movie that you can use to introduce children to the world of superheroes. I had fun watching it. It is like eating cotton candy. Sweet at first, but not much remaining after.

3.4 stars

I was not sure what t expect from Hunter Hunter, but I had heard some positive word of mouth about it online, so I figured it would be a good film to give a chance.

Whoa.

Joseph (Devon Sawa), his wife Anne (Camille Sullivan) and daughter Renee (Summer H. Howell) lived as a family in the wilderness, surviving off the land as trappers. The family was afraid that they were being stalked by a rogue wolf. The desperation of Joseph to capture the canine sent him out to track the predator, leaving his wife and daughter alone in their cabin.

As Joseph continued to be out of communication range, Anne and Renee were becoming more anxious and frightened of the wolf. However, a noise outside the cabin led to Anne discovering an injured man Leo (Nick Stahl) who she nursed back to health.

The film had a slow build as it patiently revealed its surprises and its frightening scenes. You are never quite sure what is going on and a few of the things we discover along the way make you uncertain about what is happening and uneasy about what might happen. The film does an amazing job of creating a mood of anxiety among the audience.

Personally, my favorite character and performance came from Gabriel Daniels, who was the local forestry agent. He was making his way around to the different locales in the film, picking up roadkill such as dead skunks or responding to bear sightings by the yuppie locals. Daniels does not get a ton of screen time, but I enjoyed his performance while there.

When the film kicks it into high gear, it really goes all in. The final scene of this film is as grizzly of a scene as I have seen in any movie this year.

I came into Hunter Hunter with almost no idea of what the film was, outside the fact that I had heard it positively referred to as a horror movie. I was not ready for the film to be as compelling as it was and for it to switch gears as quickly as it did. It was a brutal development and an unexpected journey.

3.75 stars

After being delayed twice, Wonder Woman 1984, the sequel to Patty Jenkins’ original DC film, was released in both the theaters that are available and open and streaming on HBO Max today.

Jenkins returns to direct WW1984 with Gal Gadot reprising her role as Diana, the Amazon princess. Chris Pine returns as Steve Trevor, who did die in Wonder Woman. Mandalorian star Pedro Pascal is the lead villain Max Lord and Kristen Wiig appears as Cheetah.

Diana has been living and working in the world since the ending of World War I. Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig) was new at the same museum Diana worked and the FBI came to have her try to identify an ancient rock. That rock turned out to be an artifact created by an ancient god and the artifact is able to grant one wish, while taking what the person loves or needs.

Turns out that Max Lord was in search of this artifact and wanting its power for himself. He cons Barbara into letting him get his hands on it and he starts to use it to accomplish what he wanted.

Looking at the previous Wonder Woman movie, I thought the first two acts of the original was just about as good as it was going to get and the third act derailed the film a bit. While the third act was not terrible, I found it to be easily the weakest of the film. Here, however, I found the third act to be very strong, in particular with the showdown between Wonder Woman and Maxwell Lord, but I found the first two acts of WW1984 to contain the weaker parts.

One of those weaker parts, for me, was the overall performance of Pedro Pascal as Max Lord. While I love him in the Mandalorian, I thought Pascal was way-too-over-the-top comic bookie villain in WW1984. There are moments that I liked, but more often than not, I found myself grimacing with Lord. I am not convinced with his motivation and his relationship with his son Alister (Lucian Perez) did not convince me.

However, the other major relationship in the film is between Diana and Steve Trevor and that worked like aces. They have great chemistry together and pick up right where they left off. The dynamic that brought Steve back from the dead worked for me (although there was one part of it that bothered me a bit–can’t go into it further without spoiling it). The film flipped the script with Steve now being the fish out of water and having Diana lead him through the world of the 1980s where Diana was the fish out of water in the late teens. The scenes with the two of them worked completely.

I also liked the scenes with Kristen Wiig as Barbara Minerva, but she feels as if her story got rushed and tossed into this movie to say “Hey, we have the Cheetah!” Cheetah is Wonder Woman’s most iconic villain and she did not feel as if she needed to be here. I would have rather saved Cheetah for a future installment of the series or to have had her be the lead villain in this one.

I should also mention that Gal Gadot is the perfect Wonder Woman. This casting, which I did not think much of prior to the first movie, works so well again. Gadot is exceptional as Diana and hits all of the major emotional moments well. She is exceptional in this role.

I found most of the CGI and effects here to be awkward and lacking any real feel to them. With the exception of the lassoing lightning scenes that were shown in the trailers (which looked fabulous), a lot of the rest did not look great. There was also a story beat in the second act that, while I will not reveal it, is very much a super hero trope that has played its course. It felt the same as if the characters would get amnesia. I’ve seen that too many times to be too invested in it.

The film was too long too as it should have trimmed about 20 minutes off the runtime of 2 hours and 31 minutes. WW1984 has some great moments in it and I believe it is worth seeing. I wish it was more focused of a film than it turned out. Gal Gadot is fabulous again and her relationship with Chris Pine is special.

3.2 stars

Pixar’s latest animated movie dropped on Disney + after getting pushed thanks to the virus. Soul was directed by Pete Docter and he provides the most metaphysical Pixar film since Inside Out.

Joe (Jamie Foxx) was a middle school band teacher who had been struggling to chase his dream of being a jazz musician. A former student was able to set Joe up with a gig playing piano for diva Dorothea Williams (Angela Bassett). Unfortunately, Joe found himself in another realm of existence. Along his desperate path to return to earth, Joe meets up with 22 (Tina Fey), a uninspired spirit, and he has to help 22 find its spark.

Soul is beautiful in all ways. The animation is the typically spectacular animation of Pixar. The music, particularly the score, is astounding. The score was created by Nine Inch Nails duo Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, with Late Show with Stephen Colbert bandleader Jon Batiste providing jazz compositions and arrangements.

The voice cast was led by Jamie Foxx as Joe and Tina Fey as 22. However, the cast included such notaries as Questlove, Graham Norton, Phylicia Rashaad, Daveed Diggs, Angela Bassett, and Rachel House. The voice work in Soul was spectacular.

The story of Soul contains some really deep ideas and some existential beats. It is a film that can keep the mind occupied of the adults as well as the children. It takes this metaphysical realm and creates a beautiful world around it. Soul is a world of imagination and creativity like few movies reach. This reminded me quite a bit of Inside Out, which was Pete Docter’s last Pixar film.

Soul is an amazingly gorgeous film that sounds better than most films around. The score, music, animation and voice work is superb. Soul is one of the better Pixar films to have been released in the last few years.

4.6 stars

I have been a fan of Roahl Dahl for some time now. I especially have enjoyed his poetry such as The Pig, a charming and darkly comedic take on why a pig is alive. However, I will admit that I have either not been a huge fan of most of the movie adaptation of Dahl’s work or I have not seen them. Obviously, I love Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and The Fantastic Mr. Fox is extremely well done. Matilda is fun too. I have actually never seen James and the Giant Peach, did not love The BFG and actively disliked Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. When I came across the movie Roald Dahl’s The Witches on HBO Max, I must admit to being intrigued.

I had never heard of this story and I also was unaware that there was another version of this film from 1990 starring Anjelica Huston and featuring Jim Henson puppetry. I will have to check that out.

So I entered this film without any knowledge of The Witches at all outside of the fact that it was a Roald Dahl story.

I was unimpressed.

In The Witches, a boy (Jahzir Bruno) is orphaned in a car crash and goes to live with his grandma (Octavia Spencer). Little did he know, witches were real and they were all around. His grandma had encountered a specific witch when she was a child and that witch turned Grandma’s friend into a chicken. So when the boy encounters a witch at the store, Grnadma took him away to a seaside resort. Unfortunately, there was a witches convention going on there with the Grand High Witch (Anne Hathaway) unleashing her evil plan to change all the children of the world into mice.

There are some huge names connected with this project. It was directed by Robert Zemeckis. The score was composed by Alan Silvestri. The credits included names such as Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuarón. That is a lot of talent to be connected to this film especially considering how disappointing this was.

Octavia Spencer is always awesome and she does her job here really well. Anne Hathaway is so over-the-top in The Witches as the Grand High Witch, it seems as if she is having a blast. Stanley Tucci is in the film too (not sure why).

The cast was not the issue. Roald Dahl’s work is wonderfully dark and funny. Even Willy Wonka has undertones in the film of the darkness that exists. Here, much of the darkness has been removed in favor of family friendly moments. The only really dark moment was the ending with the fate of the Grand High Witch, which was satisfying. I would have enjoyed that tone more.

There were several plot points that seemed to be important, but were totally dropped. For example, Grandma spent the whole film coughing badly, implying that she was sick. I guess not as it does not come into the story at all. There was several references to garlic in a soup scene that made you believe that garlic may play into the resolution of the arc. Nope. I guess it is just a one off joke.

Another issue I had that, for a film from 2020, the CGI was below average. There were many places in the film where the CGI was noticeable and that is a sin for a current movie, in particular for a film where three of its main characters are talking mice.

This might be an effective film to plop the children down in front of during this holiday season, but for the adults in the room, be prepared to engage elsewhere.

2.5 stars

Christmas break began with the first of several big movies coming out with Netflix’s The Midnight Sky directed by and starring George Clooney kicking things off.

The science fiction story was adapted from a novel called Good Morning, Midnight. George Clooney played scientist Augustine who was isolated in the Arctic on a planet that had suffered some kind of catastrophic event. Augustine discovered a little girl who did not talk named Iris (the debuting Caoilinn Springall).

Meanwhile, a crew of astronauts were attempting to return to earth after their trip to one of the moons of Jupiter. The captain, Adewole (David Oyelowo), and Sully (Felicity Jones) were together and trying to find their way home.

The astronauts did not understand why they were not able to contact anyone on earth.

The Midnight Sky was pretty slow, and I am not sure if anything really happened. The film looked beautiful and was filled with some wonderful shots, but it was pretty dull.

George Clooney does a good job as the lonely scientist performance-wise. The acting on the shuttle was strong as well with David Oyelowo, Felicity Jones, Kyle Chandler, Tiffany Boone and Demián Bichir were at the very least solid. Some of them did not get as much time as others, but they fit well into the narrative that was being told.

The film was also pretty depressing for 2/3s of the run time. There was a ton of melodrama in the movie and there were few points of brightness. There is one major exception with “Sweet Caroline.” There was just too much depression and, when it compares with the slow pace of the film, it became difficult to watch at times.

The Midnight Sky looked great but the rest of the film was a bit of a slosh to get through. Clooney’s performance was good, but it did not elevate the film enough.

2.75 stars