Eternity (2025) * * *

 

Directed by:  David Freyne

Starring:  Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen, Callum Turner, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Olga Merediz, John Early

The afterlife of Eternity is depressing if you think about it, but Eternity exists in the emotion of the moment and as a romantic comedy of sorts.  Thank goodness the filmmakers decided to give Eternity a lighter tone because this stuff could get heavy.  In Eternity, a recently departed person arrives at a way station and has seven days to choose how he or she would like to spend eternity.  The place operates like a bazaar in which salespeople are pitching their eternity packages (Studio 54, suburbia, etc.)  Afterlife Coordinators are assigned to help them acclimate to the process and the people stay in a nice hotel room while deciding their fate.  

The catch is:  You can only choose one and you can't change your mind.  This becomes a bigger issue for Joan (Olsen) who arrives days after the death of her husband of 65 years, Larry (Teller), and finds her first husband Luke (who died in the Korean War) has been waiting for Joan to arrive so he could spend forever with her.  Does Joan choose Larry, with whom she had built a happy life and family, or Luke, who represents what could have been?  Not an easy decision, and the fact that Larry and Luke are both good people makes it harder for her.  She could always choose an afterlife without either person, but we know that isn't in the cards.

Joan's dilemma is the hook for Eternity, and it helps move it along.  Teller, Olsen, and Turner all play kind, likable people who understandably want what's best for themselves.  After all, we're talking forever and that's a mighty long time.  Luke and Larry know what they want.  Joan is more hesitant, and the pressure is unduly placed on the poor woman.  Even if one chooses with certainty, they are unable to opt out of their choice if they grow bored with the scenario after a few years.  They can try to escape their fate, but then they are tracked down by the afterlife police and tossed into "the void", which I guess is a version of hell.  Then again, having to choose only one eternity sounds like hell in and of itself.  I told you this stuff could get sad, but Eternity walks the tightrope between comedy and tearjerking very well.  Some people might have an issue with some of the romantic comedy aspects of Eternity, but to me it's better to laugh so you may not cry. 

Mr. Majestyk (1974) * * *

 

Directed by:  Richard Fleischer

Starring:  Charles Bronson, Al Lettieri, Lee Purcell, Paul Koslo, Linda Cristal

Vince Majestyk (Bronson) is a Colorado farmer who only wants to have his melons picked and make a living.  One morning, he finds himself in the middle of more controversy than he's used to.  Normally, he picks a group of hard-working Mexicans to pick his crop, but that morning he finds a troublemaker (Koslo) replaced his crew with an all-white crew.  Vince wants the group he picked and soon beats the hell out of the goon and is booked on assault charges.  He's a progressive kind of guy.  

That would be enough for one movie, but while Vince is being transported to jail, he runs afoul of a mobster (Lettieri) who is on the same bus.  The mobster's cronies shoot up the bus in an attempt to free him, but Vince takes him off the bus to safety.  The mobster strikes a deal with Vince to free him, which Vince reluctantly accepts because he doesn't trust him.  He instinctively believes the mobster will have him killed, so he makes a deal with the local DA to turn in the mobster.  Got that?  It'll all be on the quiz. 

Mr. Majestyk isn't about plot anyway.  It is a showcase for Charles Bronson's unique brand of violence and sly humor.  Mr. Majestyk maybe contain the most one-liners of Bronson's career.  He's having fun here and that makes a traditional action movie more entertaining.  Mr. Majestyk isn't intended to raise the genre to any new heights.  It's full of action and it works.  Sometimes that's all that is needed. 

Critical Condition (1987) * *

 

Directed by:  Michael Apted

Starring:  Richard Pryor, Rachel Ticotin, Ruben Blades, Joe Mantegna, Bob Dishy, Bob Saget

Critical Condition is all over the map.  It wants to be a thoughtful satire, madcap comedy of errors, and an action picture all in one movie.  The tone continually shifts until we get whiplashed with Richard Pryor trying his mightiest to keep it all together.  There is an able supporting cast to back up Pryor, but even they seem overwhelmed.

Pryor is conman Kevin Lenahan, who is framed in a jewel robbery, but due to his track record he doesn't expect to be exonerated at trial.  Instead, he fakes insanity and finds himself soon pretending to be a doctor at a local hospital on a dark and stormy night where the power goes out.  Kevin (or Dr. Eddie Slattery as he calls himself when making the rounds), desperately attempts to conceal his identity while planning his escape.  He finds himself giving medical advice and leading around an intern (Saget) and a veteran doctor (Dishy) who is terrified of lawsuits, all the while assisting the beleaguered chief administrator (Ticotin) who is doing her best under the circumstances.

I recall first seeing the movie when it was first released in 1987.  I was a high school student then and I declared it one of the worst movies I had ever seen.  Upon second viewing, I certainly don't feel that way now.  It's not a good movie, just one that is at war with its motives and its methods.  It wants to be all things to the audience, but it doesn't work out that way.  It is also sad to know that Pryor began his battle with MS at the time of this movie's release and putting forth the energy must have been tough on him.  I give him and the movie credit for attempting what it wants to do, but there is too much ground to cover.  

Now You See Me: Now You Don't (2025) * *

 

Directed by:  Ruben Fleischer

Starring:  Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Isla Fisher, Dominic Sessa, Rosamund Pike, Morgan Freeman, Ariana Greenblatt, Justice Smith, Lizzy Caplan

Now You See Me: Now You Don't is the third installment of the successful series following the exploits of The Four Horsemen, four magicians who ply their trade on amoral billionaires and relieve them of their riches.  They're Robin Hoods of the 21st century, but when you take into account the amount of money and planning it takes to finance these schemes, where is the break-even point?  Is it even worth it financially, or are they in it for the pleasure of watching the rich become poor or go to prison?

Now You See Me: Now You Don't begins, however, with a trio of the next generation of Horsemen publicly hacking a corrupt crypto jerk and distributing his ill-gotten gains amongst the poor and getting him arrested for his shady business practices.  This catches the attention of Daniel Atlas (Eisenberg), who recruits them for another mission:  To expose billionaire diamond mogul Veronkia Vandenberg (Pike-and I love her accent she employs for the movie) and steal the world's most valuable diamond from her.  That part is done rather easily.  It's when she sends her goons to kill everyone that things get dicey, and rather boring. 

It seems the Horsemen broke up due to personal squabbles since Now You See Me 2, but they reunite with just some minor bickering going on.  Their sleight-of-hand tricks in which they and the newbies show each other in games of one-upmanship are not really possible in the physical world we occupy, to paraphrase a line from Ocean's Twelve.  They look impressive, but we know they aren't really happening unless the Horsemen have become The Avengers.  

The Now You See Me doesn't live in the world of realism and doesn't need to.  The series is mostly forgettable and is a swerve fest. The actors are having a good time, but the plot twists and turns are so ludicrous they defy any suspension of disbelief.  There's suspension, and then whatever the Now You See Me series asks of its audience. 

Being Eddie (2025) * * *

 

Directed by: Angus Wall

Featuring:  Eddie Murphy, Charlie Murphy, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Pete Davidson, John Landis, Jamie Foxx, Kevin Hart, Val Young

You can forgive Being Eddie for being borderline hagiography because it's pieced together nicely, showing us the mostly positive parts of Eddie Murphy's life and career.  Vampire in Brooklyn is noted as a career low point, but mostly the interviewees give us positive takes on Murphy with Murphy himself providing a more in-depth review of his life than we've ever seen before.  

Murphy seems at peace with himself, living in a posh California mansion and maintaining a loving relationship with his wife and ten children.  The children range in age from early 40's to toddlers, and Murphy lovingly describes them as his rock.  When Murphy discusses something funny, his laugh is different than the one we saw in his earlier movies.  What is still the same is his confidence and his comic ability.  He isn't boring, and the final scenes showing him playing with Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby puppets (harkening back to an early childhood memory), are very funny.  The Richard Pryor puppet itself is a howl.  

Murphy grew up on Roosevelt, Long Island and predicted he would be a star by the time he reached eighteen.   He was off by one year.  He joined SNL when he was 19 during the much-maligned 1980 season which was the first during Lorne Michaels' hiatus from the show.  Due to underwhelming ratings and unfavorable comparisons to the original Not Ready for Primetime Players who departed the show the previous year, all of the cast members except Murphy and Joe Piscopo were fired.  SNL was where some of Murphy's greatest characters like Mr. Robinson, Gumby, and Velvet Jones were formed, plus his spot-on celebrity impressions made him a household name before he ventured into the movies.  

48 Hrs. (1982) was his feature-film debut and what a start.  The scene in the redneck bar where Murphy's Reggie Hammond takes control of a roomful of people who hate him made him a star.  Then, we have Trading Places and Beverly Hills Cop, which shot Murphy into orbit as one of the biggest box-office draws of the 80's.  Movies like Best Defense and The Golden Child aren't mentioned, although I found The Golden Child to be an amusing action adventure with Murphy playing against type.  The late 80's and early 90's brought about some flops, some of which aren't brought up, but then Murphy found himself on an upward career trajectory again after The Nutty Professor and a series of family-friendly hits like Daddy Day Care.  Dreamgirls pushed Murphy into awards consideration for the first time in his career.  He won a Golden Globe and SAG Award for Best Supporting Actor but lost out on the Oscar to Alan Arkin in what was a definite upset.  

The documentary then focuses on Murphy's return to host SNL in the late 2010's.  He had not been on the show in any capacity since the David Spade "a falling star" joke about Murphy which hurt Murphy to his core.  He wasn't angry with Spade for telling the joke as much as he believed he was betrayed by SNL for allowing the joke to air.  Was Murphy a mite too sensitive?  Possibly, but he's honest about himself and why he stayed away from SNL for years until hosting.  It represented a full-circle moment for him and Being Eddie makes the same conclusion.  

Being Eddie isn't perfect, but it moves along briskly and allows for Murphy to present an openness we haven't really seen.  He lived a mostly non-controversial life, but the movie is about the gift that keeps on giving: Murphy's comedy and his stand-up.  Being Eddie broaches the subject as to when Murphy will ever return to stand-up after stepping away from it in the late 1980's, and Murphy is coy with his response, but that would be quite a return.  

 

Nuremberg (2025) * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  James Vanderbilt

Starring:  Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, John Slattery, Michael Shannon, Richard E. Grant, Andreas Pietchsmann, Colin Hanks, Leo Woodall

One of the strengths of Nuremberg is how Hermann Goring (Crowe) is depicted not as a raging lunatic, but as someone with charm and manipulative skill.  Crowe is at-home and confident as Goring, showing him as the type of evil hidden behind a smile and a whole lot of girth rather than shouting and frothing at the mouth with villainous hatred. 

Nuremberg is a movie I wanted to like more than I did.  The subject of the perils of postwar Germany and trying war criminals without precedent is tricky and fascinating material, but Nuremberg meanders its way to the showdown between U.S. Justice Robert H. Jackson (Shannon) and Goring as he takes the stand in his defense.  Other than Goring's testimony, Nuremberg doesn't spend much time in the courtroom.  It assembles the first 22 members of the Nazi high command indicted for war crimes and other crimes against humanity and places them in a nearby makeshift prison with Col. Burton Andrus (Slattery) as the warden.  Andrus tells Jackson that if the trials don't go well against the first 22 defendants, then the trials will be scrapped, and the Allies will look ridiculous on the world stage.

However, Nuremberg focuses on psychiatrist Douglas Kelley (Malek), who is brought in to examine the defendants and determine if they are mentally fit to stand trial.  Kelley is sharp and competent, determining early on the traits of the members of the high command, including Goring.  Kelley, however, wishes to turn his meetings into a best-selling book, so his motives aren't strictly professional.  Kelley falls under the spell of Goring, even going so far as to act as courier delivering letters to Goring's wife and child who are in hiding.  Kelley's ethical boundaries are fluid, until he witnesses the horrors of the concentration camps on film which Goring claims to know nothing about.  I also liked Malek here, especially as he transitions from early cockiness to later insecurity and ethical confusion.  

But Nuremberg meanders on its way to the main event.  The undercard consists of unnecessary attention to Goring's family and uneven pacing.  I found myself checking my watch more than being engrossed, which is the last thing I expected from such riveting subject matter.  Instead, the effect is curiously diluted.  

The Running Man (2025) * *

 

Directed by:  Edgar Wright

Starring:  Glen Powell, Jayme Lawson, Josh Brolin, Lee Pace, Colman Domingo, Michael Cera, Daniel Ezra, William H. Macy, Amelia Jones

The Running Man suffers in comparison to the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle.  Is it more faithful to Stephen King's novel?  It may be, but it is a slog to get through, even from the early moments.  Glen Powell assumes the Schwarzenegger role but not the charisma to carry it.  At a bloated 2:13 running time, The Running Man asks a lot of any actor to carry.  

Powell is Ben Richards, an angry, out-of-work factory worker in a dystopian future blackballed from work by the state for whistleblowing about unsafe conditions.  His baby daughter is suffering from medical issues, his wife works at a gentleman's club presumably dancing, and Ben decides to travel down to the state TV network to try out for one of their game shows.  After a physical and psychological test, Ben is chosen to participate in The Running Man, the most watched show on the network in which contestants have to avoid being killed by "Hunters" as a rabid public is encouraged to report the contestants' whereabouts for lucrative rewards.   The contestant must survive for thirty days.  I liked the 1987 version in which Ben and his friends would have to only live through one night and four different bad guys harnessing various weapons such as a flamethrower or a chainsaw would stalk them.  This version also requires the contestants to send out a video each day to ensure the public and network he or she is still alive.  Does this create opportunities for doctored footage which turns people against Ben?  What do you think?

The show is run by oily network honcho Dan Killian (Brolin), who believes Ben could possibly be the first winner of The Running Man.   The show is hosted by the Jerry Springer-inspired Bobby T. (Domingo), who enthusiastically eggs on the proceedings like a modern-day P.T. Barnum.  Sure, these guys are bad, but at least they're fun to watch.  Powell looks the part of action hero, but he has only one dimension (angry), and the entire movie grows tiresome quickly as Ben travels from place to place encountering those willing to help him and those who can't wait to turn him in.  

Dragging out the action over thirty days is tedious and soon we find ourselves checking our watches more than getting involved in the action.  The Running Man feels as long as the thirty days in which the action is supposed to take place.