Seven Pounds (2008) * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Gabriele Muccino

Starring:  Will Smith, Rosario Dawson, Woody Harrelson, Michael Ealy, Barry Pepper

I watched Seven Pounds for a second full viewing thirteen years after I saw it the first time.   I knew the revelations and Ben Thomas' (Smith) plan for himself and for the other people he comes into contact with, but what I noticed more this time around was how much Seven Pounds slows in the middle.   It may not be to the viewer's benefit to know what will happen because we grow impatient with Ben's awkward courtship with Emily (Dawson), a bright, sweet young woman with a weak heart.   She is in desperate need of a transplant which will save her life.   Ben is an IRS agent who doesn't act like, I would assume, many other IRS agents.   Perhaps he can help Emily and others like blind meat salesman Ezra Turner (Harrelson), who Ben angrily calls and insults in the beginning of Seven Pounds.   Why?  It's all part of Ben's plan.

I won't reveal spoilers except to say that Ben is a dutiful man who is conflicted and angry about his circumstances which become clear to us later.   Will Smith is an actor who can effectively manage what's going on inside Ben.   There are times we don't understand Ben or even like him, but Smith doesn't reveal all the cards either.   We might not be so willing to hang in there if another actor were playing Ben.   Dawson is also touching and vulnerable, but her relationship with Smith lacks chemistry and seems forced.   I understand the need for a love angle to ratchet up further tension within Ben, but this one lumbers.  

Seven Pounds may work better for those who didn't see it previously.   The revelations make sense and Ben's plan comes into full focus.  The uninitiated would be more likely to forgive Seven Pounds its trespasses.   For myself, knowing what will happen and why, I started to feel the drag as Ben begins a deep friendship with Emily which will blossom into love.   Love, unfortunately, is most inconvenient for Ben as you take into account what he plans to do.   

Ben not only contacts a seemingly random group of people, but offers to help them change their futures in ways many would find extreme, but to Ben the reasons make sense.   I strongly doubt most people would choose Ben's path, but Seven Pounds isn't based in realism, nor should it be.   First-time viewers of Seven Pounds might likely be astounded.   For repeat viewers, like me, maybe not so much.   There are powerful moments in Seven Pounds, but they may not offset how long it takes to reach them.  

3000 Miles to Graceland (2001) * *

 

Directed by:  Demian Lichtenstein

Starring:  Kevin Costner, Kurt Russell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Christian Slater, Bokeem Woodbine, Kevin Pollak, David Kaye Marshal, Jon Lovitz, Ice-T, Howie Long

Violent thieves dress up as Elvis impersonators and rob a casino of over $3 million in 3000 Miles to Graceland.   Then, Murphy (Costner), the leader of the gang, decides he doesn't want to split the loot and starts killing off his crew.   The three guys not named Kurt Russell disappear first (no spoiler there), and Mike (Russell) soon finds himself on the run with single mother Cybil (Cox) and her son in tow.   Mike stumbles upon Cybil and son Jesse while hiding out.   Although at first Cybil dreams of keeping the money herself, she decides to help Mike evade the sociopath Murphy.

That's the movie in a nutshell.  There isn't much to it that is inspired or unpredictable.   Mike and Murphy don't even change their appearances or even the 50's style monstrosities they drive, so tracking them shouldn't be much trouble.   This is quite a cast for such a meh movie.   The only question that remains is whether Mike, Murphy, or both were sired by The King.   The movie speculates on the possibilities.   

Costner makes a satisfying, sneering villain and Russell is more of a hero than the movie deserves.   Mike robs banks, but he isn't a homicidal maniac like Murphy and he seems to be warming up to Cybil and Jesse, so by default he's a better guy than Murphy.  3000 Miles to Graceland has ingredients for at least a fun caper heist, but they never come together.   There isn't much joy in 3000 Miles to Graceland.   If you're looking for a decent movie featuring Elvis impersonators in Las Vegas, try Honeymoon in Vegas, not this one. 

Cheech and Chong's Nice Dreams (1981) * * *

 

Directed by:  Tommy Chong

Starring:  Cheech Marin, Tommy Chong, Evelyn Guerrero, Stacy Keach, Paul Reubens, Peter Jason, Timothy Leary

The Los Guys are back in what remains their most consistently funny movie to date.   I last saw it over thirty years ago, but a recent viewing reveals that the satirical slapstick holds up well.   Cheech and Chong just want to do their thing and make enough money selling weed from an ice cream truck to retire, but life simply won't let them.   They fall into one problem after another.   Besides avoiding clueless cops, their attempts at a menage-a-trois with an old girlfriend of Cheech's winds up with Cheech hanging naked on the outside of a a high-rise elevator, Chong mistakenly signs over the duo's entire fortune to an asylum resident, and Chong is mistaken for Jerry Garcia by an obnoxious agent in a Chinese restaurant.   

In another comedy, one of the above scenarios would be the plot for the entire movie.   In Nice Dreams, these are self-contained issues which arise and are dealt with in hilarious fashion.   Cheech and Chong's structure is that there isn't one.   These two poor souls seem to invite the universe to act upon them with some of the most absurd situations imaginable.   They're nice fellas, no doubt, but crazy things just  happen to them which ruin all of their best-laid plans.

Most Cheech and Chong movies are laid out in the same method as Nice Dreams, but while other Cheech and Chong movies are mixed bags, Nice Dreams maintains an inspired level of humor and slapstick.   Cheech and Chong stroll along in life without any clue they are the butt of an endless string of cosmic jokes.   And no wonder.   In between all of the get-rich-quick schemes is the quest to get high, which they haven't figured out only compounds their hassles. 

Dr. Timothy Leary makes a cameo late in the film as an asylum doctor who prescribes LSD (naturally) to Cheech and Chong.  Their tripping includes a Jimi Hendrix impersonator who is flanked by two little people.   In another movie, this may seem excessive.  In Nice Dreams, it's just icing on the cake.  

Pig (2021) *

Directed by:  Michael Sarnoski

Starring:  Nicolas Cage, Alex Wolff, Adam Arkin, David Knell

The setup is so insane that we figure it has to lead somewhere.   A truffle hunter named Rob who lives in the forest (Cage) one night has his beloved pig kidnapped.   A nonplussed Rob presses his only contact with the outside world, his flashy truffle buyer Amir (Wolff), into service to help him travel to nearby Portland to find his pig.  This is not a comedy and this is not the setup for a punchline.  This is deadly serious moviemaking.   I wasn't expecting a John Wick ripoff in which Rob decimates the souls who made the mistake of taking the pig, but I was expecting something to develop.   Not much does.  There isn't a worthy payoff, or any payoff at all, to repay us for our patience.   Pig leads nowhere.  Well, it leads somewhere, but nowhere we give a hoot about. 

Nicolas Cage's outgoing voicemail message must say: "Whatever you're offering, I'll take it..."  How else can the once respected Oscar-winning actor find himself in projects such as Pig?   Cage can of course act, and he once was able to transcend silly material and make it palatable.   Those days are long gone.  Now he's the guy who is taking this stuff seriously while we're convinced the rest of Hollywood is pranking him, making bets among themselves as to what project or script Cage may actually reject.  

Pig follows Rob and Amir into the dark, seedy underbelly of Portland's restaurant scene.   Apparently, there is a Fight Club-inspired tournament in which cooks, busboys, etc. take out their frustrations on each other by holding bareknuckle contests.   Rob apparently used to be, and is still considered in some parts, a legendary chef who lit out for the forest when his wife passed on.   He now lives as practically a homeless person who hunts for rare truffles with the help of his pig buddy who he loves more than life itself.   He is dirty, beat up, disheveled, and must smell to high heaven.   When he finds himself in Amir's posh apartment or in an upscale restaurant looking like he hasn't showered, shaved, or cut his hair in a looooong time, no one even thinks to drop him a hint like hand him a bar of soap and a razor.  The other patrons in the restaurant don't even give him a second look.    

We find out who took the pig and we figure out why, but by then, such motivations are irrelevant.   Rob is Wounded and In Pain, and Walks With A Purpose, but the only question we have when this dreary enterprise's end credits roll is:  Is That All There Is?   I've read glowing critic reviews for Pig and I can scarcely believe what I'm reading.   They must be joking.   I know movies are subjective and people like or dislike them for their own reasons, but I call bullshit on any of these critics who can honestly say they would watch Pig again over just about any other movie alternative.   Oh, and the pig is easily the most likable character in the movie.  

Old (2021) * 1/2

Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan

Starring:  Rufus Sewell, Gael Garcia Bernal, Vicky Krieps, Nolan River, Abbey Lee, Alexa Swinton, Aaron Pierre

The premise of Old is an intriguing one:   A group of vacationers at a swanky island hotel spend the day at a beach where the kids age fifty years in a matter of a few hours and the adults age relatively more slowly, but are still no longer just hours older at the end of the day.    However, the film takes far too long to pay off.  When the traditional Shyamalan Big Reveal rears its head, we are underwhelmed.   Maybe the underlying concept has so much promise that any payoff would be disappointing.   Or maybe the thin characters aren't worth caring about.

The group of tourists include a couple soon to be separating (Krieps and Bernal), who have yet to tell their children of the decision, a burnt-out doctor (Sewell) with his mother, trophy wife (Lee), and young daughter in tow, and a famed rapper named, and I shit you not, "Mid-Size Sedan" (Pierre) who is already on the beach when the others arrive and has a bloody nose and a dead companion nearby.   He has no idea how she died, although the doctor nurses racially motivated suspicions that Mid-Size may have killed her.   Soon, the kids are growing out of their swimsuits and their bodies are aging rapidly.   Also on hand is a male nurse and his psychologist wife who suffers from epilepsy.

Attempts to escape the beach are futile, and soon more aging and death occurs.   The man who drove them to the beach (Shyalaman himself) is nowhere to be found and there is no cell service.   The group deduces quickly that something is aging them and soon things look bleak...because they are.   The curious thing about Old is how it isn't much fun.   Shyamalan, adapting from a graphic novel, allows a pall to engulf the film.   He is clearly attempting to invoke Hitchcock, and even tends to insert himself in cameos in his films like the master did, but Hitchcock would've found a way to inject some humor or levity, even briefly.   

The plot can't carry the day and the characters aren't exactly fleshed out.   They are in a dilemma but we don't exactly feel for them in any profound way.   They are the people this is happening to, and they could've been interchanged with any number of other characters.   There isn't much about this particular group to care about.   The actors, while skilled, aren't given anything to work with.   We know a Shyamalan film wouldn't be complete without a climactic twist, but the reveal is mostly anti-climactic and in the end we are more depressed than thrilled. 

The Ice Road (2021) * 1/2

 

Directed by: Jonathan Hensleigh

Starring:  Liam Neeson, Benjamin Walker, Laurence Fishburne, Marcus Thomas, Matt McCoy, Amber Midthunder

With a few exceptions, I could copy and paste reviews of the post-Taken Liam Neeson movies and only change the character names and a couple other plot developments.    That wouldn't be the right thing to do, so I'll labor over The Ice Road review, which features grizzled Neeson leading a potentially deadly trucking rescue across a miles-long ice road somewhere in Canada.   An explosion occurred in a Western Canadian mine.   Roughly one dozen miners are trapped and will run out of oxygen within 48 hours unless Neeson and company can truck the necessary equipment to the site to rescue the miners.   

Neeson's troupe consists of two other truckers (Fishburne and Midthunder), his PTSD-ridden Iraq war veteran brother (Thomas), and an insurance man (Walker) representing the company financing this haul going along for the ride to keep an eye on the investment.  Uh huh.  Walker may as well be wearing a sign.   Ice Road is surely inspired by the reality television series Ice Road Truckers, but to my dismay, there are hardly any scenes of trucks sliding perilously down icy paths and steep slopes.   The action takes place in April, so the ice is rather thin in these parts.

A glaring plot hole goes as follows:   The mine collapse makes worldwide news.  Neeson is in North Dakota when he hears about it.   So you're telling me the only thing which may possibly save the miners' lives is a three-truck team traveling with equipment from hundreds of miles away?   The Canadian government isn't sending in expert teams to unbury the miners?   No representatives from any branch of the Canadian government is there to investigate within hours of the explosion?   We're waiting on Neeson to deliver the goods?  

A Neeson movie wouldn't be complete without fights, gunplay, and wrestling in the truck cab trying to gain control of the steering wheel before it crashes.   They're all here and they are tiresome.   The Ice Road lacks even modest energy.   Amazingly, Neeson still jumps into the fray with all he is worth, but he can't carry this absurdity for too long.   Neeson recently stated he is tiring of action movies and at his age should try comedies.   If you figure how nutty a typical Neeson movie is (not counting the good ones like Run All Night, Cold Pursuit, or Non-Stop), you would assume he was already making them. 

The Kominsky Method-Season Three (2021) * * * 1/2

 

Starring:  Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, Sarah Baker, Paul Reiser, Lisa Edelstein, Haley Joel Osment, Morgan Freeman, Barry Levinson

Alan Arkin did not return for the final season of Chuck Lorre's brilliant series.   His rapport with Michael Douglas was so effortless and his chemistry so palpable that their friendship was believable and touching.  In season three, Arkin's character, Sandy Kominsky's best friend Norman Newlander, is laid to rest in a funeral where each eulogy is more outrageous and inappropriate than the one preceding it.   So, how would The Kominsky Method, which depended so much on the Arkin/Douglas relationship for its success, fare in Arkin's absence?   The answer is:  Very well.

Sandy (Douglas) still runs his acting school.   His daughter Mindy (Baker) is now engaged to the older Martin (Reiser), who is far closer to Sandy's age bracket than Mindy's and caused Sandy great consternation last season.   The upcoming wedding has brought Sandy's ex-wife Roz (Turner) back into the fold.   Sandy has an unflattering name for Roz listed in his contacts, but that doesn't stop Roz from moving to L.A. and reentering both Sandy's and Mindy's lives.   

Between Sandy and Roz, smoldering hostility gives way to a guarded truce and than a warm friendship.  They may be exes, but that doesn't mean they have to hate each other.   They thankfully don't fall back in love either.  They instead become two people who find they can stand each other after all these years and maybe even, gasp, like each other.

Douglas and Turner teamed together memorably in Romancing The Stone and The War of the Roses and rely on that experience to create instant familiarity with each other and the audience.   This season of The Kominsky Method isn't just the Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner show.   Morgan Freeman and Barry Levinson make funny guest appearances as themselves and these lead to the biggest break of Sandy Kaminsky's long dormant acting career.   Before this season, Sandy was the epitome of "Those who do, do.  Those who can't, teach."  Not anymore.  

Another hilarious subplot is Norman's ever-scheming daughter (Edelstein) and grandson's (Osment) attempts to coerce Sandy (Norman's executor) to release to them their share of his fortune.   The payoff is a scream. The strength of The Kominsky Method continues to be the performances and the sublime comic timing.   It's a pity it is leaving us only after three seasons.   Intelligent comedies like this don't come along that often.   

Zola (2021) * 1/2

Directed by:  Janicza Bravo

Starring:  Taylour Paige, Riley Keough, Colman Domingo, Nicholas Braun

I approached Zola as a stranger in a strange land since I am not nor have I ever been on Twitter.   Zola is based on a reputedly famed Twitter thread from 2015 in which a young waitress/stripper named Zola (Paige) tags along with another stripper named Stefani (Keough) on a trip to Tampa.   Zola believes the trip is to maybe dance at a few strip joints to pick up a few harmless dollars.   Stefani's "roommate", who does the driving, is actually her pimp named X (Domino) whose plan is to pimp out Stefani and Zola at a swank hotel.   This is not what Zola signed up for, but it doesn't stop her from posting selfies and helping Stefani at least make the most bang for the buck.  

Also along for the ride is Stefani's cuckolded boyfriend Derrick (Braun), who sits by pathetically waiting for her to come home to the dive motel they initially checked into.  I couldn't imagine having to travel twenty hours in the same car with this group of wounded individuals.   Zola tweets to her followers (and it seems there were many), "Y'all wanna hear a story about why me and this bitch here fell out????????"  Many did and reportedly hung on every tweet.   After watching this film, I wonder if they felt it was worth it. 

The story itself has a "you had to be there" quality to it.   I wasn't much into the story or the people in it.   I wondered why X broke into an African accent (or was it Jamaican) when he became enraged.  Was this true or dramatic license?   I wonder what about Stefani made Zola want to accompany her to Tampa when they barely knew each other.   Stefani uses a, ahem, culturally appropriated manner of speaking which was likely accurate but no less annoying.   Zola has boundaries, while Stefani clearly does not.   Nothing about this tale would make me want to wait with bated breath for the next installment.

Once we endure the lengthy setup and second act, the payoff is a story which ends without a resolution.  Maybe that was a blessing in disguise.   This way we didn't have to spend any more time with these wretched people than absolutely necessary.   One character winds up jumping off a balcony in order to escape his situation.   I can understand why.  

Black Widow (2021) * *

Directed by:  Cate Shortland

Starring:  Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Rachel Weisz, Ray Winstone, William Hurt

Natasha Romanoff (aka Black Widow) was on the short end in the personality and superpower departments.   She can kick butt with the best of them, but has no legit superpowers to speak of.  Black Widow is part origin story and fills in the blank as to what Natasha was doing to occupy her time in between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, in case you were wondering.  

Scarlett Johansson tries to infuse Natasha with a heart and some emotional depth, as she has in her previous Avengers incarnations, but there just isn't much to care about.   We already know what the fate which awaits her in Avengers: Endgame, so whatever victories she achieves in Black Widow will be hollow.   Her backstory begins in 1995 Ohio, when Natasha and her seemingly happy family are uprooted hastily and escape to Cuba.   Natasha's parents (Weisz and Harbour) are really Russian moles and not even her real parents.   Her sister Yelena (Pugh) isn't her sister either.   The family was thrown together by Dreykov (Winstone), a curmudgeonly villain who trains more Russian undercover agents to infiltrate the Western world.   Natasha later kills (or so she thinks) Dreykov and destroys his laboratory known as the Red Room, but we learn that years later Dreykov is still kicking and still perfecting his plan to establish mind control over countless women to ensure their obedience to him.   Yelena comes into possession of the antidote which will free Dreykov's assassins from being controlled.  

Natasha's makeshift family reunites to thwart Dreykov.   Natasha and Yelena are still bitter that they were lied to as children and forced to live as orphans raised in violence.   The strange "family" dynamic is the only aspect of Black Widow which we haven't seen before in other Marvel productions.   The rest checks the boxes any Marvel moviegoer will expect:   Things blown up, check.  Overly acrobatic fistfights, check.  Bodies flying around, check.   Black Widow does this all with a lot less humor and energy than we usually see in similar movies.  

Pugh, Harbour, and Weisz add elements which at least attempt to elevate Black Widow from an unnecessary origins story to a movie with a soul.   But even their performances, which stand out, can only do so much.  Knowing how nature abhors a vacuum, or in the case of movie franchises, any period of time in which a character's whereabouts aren't explained, we will expect to see another Black Widow movie which will show us what Natasha was up to in between 1995 and the first Iron Man movie.   

No Sudden Move (2021) * *

Directed by:  Steven Soderbergh

Starring:  Don Cheadle, Benicio Del Toro, Jon Hamm, Bill Duke, Ray Liotta, David Harbour, Julia Fox, Kieran Culkin, Amy Seimetz, Noah Jupe, Brendan Fraser

No Sudden Move could use some sudden moves to provide a jolt to a story with an excess of characters and a curious lack of intrigue.   A stellar cast is not supported by a plot worthy of its talents.   After everything that goes down, you ask if that is all there is.   Steven Soderbergh knows his way around a caper film.  He has directed some of the very best in his long career, but this is one that plays more like an exercise in style.

Taking place in 1954 Detroit, ex-con Curt (Cheadle-a Soderbergh veteran) is looking for one more score to give him enough cash to leave town before gangsters he wronged like Watkins (Duke) come after him.  He is hooked up with Ronald Russo (Del Toro) and a wild card named Charlie (Culkin) to "babysit" a family while the father, a weasel accountant for one of the big four car manufacturers, is forced at gunpoint to go into the office and steal a vital document from his boss' safe.   The document isn't there.  The plan goes awry and now Ronald and Curt, who don't trust each other, must go on the lam to think their way out of their predicament. 

This is plenty less exciting on screen than in theory.  FBI organized crime unit detective Joe Finney (Hamm) is soon on the scene and doesn't believe the official story the dad and his family come up with to explain away the bizarre events which befell them.   There will be swerves, double and triple crosses, reveals, switches, and a powerful man (played by another Soderbergh veteran whose name I won't reveal) pulling the strings from the top floor of corporate headquarters.   Even when this is all explained, it's still underwhelming.  

It is difficult to fault the actors, who put in much more energy and enthusiasm than the material deserves.  No Sudden Move has the look of the era right with flawless production values and style to match.   The last time Soderbergh gathered together a cast this formidable was Ocean's Eleven or even Traffic.   No Sudden Move isn't either of those films.  

F9 (2021) * *

Directed by:  Justin Lin

Starring:  Vin Diesel, John Cena, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris Bridges, Charlize Theron, Jordana Brewster, Kurt Russell

You have to give the Fast and Furious movies this much:  They are always topping themselves with the cartoon action which defy the laws of physics, gravity, and sanity.   F9 features two members of Dom Torretto's crew using a rocket launcher strapped to a Fiero to propel themselves into outer space to disrupt an orbiting satellite used to spread a computer virus.   What will the virus do?   Something to do with putting nuclear systems and computer capabilities into the hands of the user...I think.

I am amused when such viruses or programs are invented and the creators "want to make sure it didn't fall into the wrong hands,"  Then why make it in the first place?   This is a minor quibble compared to the lunacy that follows.   Criticizing a movie like F9 for being ludicrous is like taking a cat to task for not mastering chess.   Yes, F9 is stunts, crashes, and CGI run wild, but that isn't my primary issue with it.   Even with all of the chaos and fury, it manages to feel routine and occasionally boring.   How many fights and chases can one stand in a nearly two-and-a-half hour movie?

Superspy Dom Torretto (Diesel) begins F9 in seclusion and off the grid on a farm somewhere with wife Letty (Rodriguez) and his daughter.   The peace and quiet is soon interrupted by his cohorts, who want Dom to travel to Mexico with them to find the whereabouts of their boss Mr. Nobody (Russell).   Mr. Nobody was on board the plane which was transporting Cipher (Theron) to justice and was soon blown up after Cipher was extracted by a "rogue agent".   The rogue agent is Dom's estranged brother Jakob (Cena), whom Dom blames for their father's death in a car race thirty years ago. 

Cena wears a scowl through most of the movie while Dom stares intensely at him to convey the issues between them.   Jakob is tired of living in Dom's shadow while Dom cannot forgive Jakob for their dad's untimely death.   No matter what the backstory is, their arc creaks to its inexorable conclusion.   These scenes involving Dom and Jakob are the only time the movie slows down intentionally.   The rest is balls to the wall and pedal to the metal, an assault on the senses and sanity.   When F10 is inevitably made, I could cut and paste this review and only change around a couple of names.   I would like to be surprised, but the makers of the first nine Fast and Furious movies aren't in this game for surprises.   The same is said for the audiences.   Billions of dollars in grosses can't be wrong. 

The Tomorrow War (2021) * 1/2

Directed by:  Chris McKay

Starring:  Chris Pratt, J.K. Simmons, Betty Gilpin, Sam Richardson, Yvonne Strahovski, Ryan Kiera Armstrong

The aliens are at it again.   They invade the Earth of the future in The Tomorrow War and wipe out all but 500,000 of the world's population.   Hopes of winning the war (in the year 2051) are so slim that, with aid of wormholes, the top military brass travels back to 2022 to recruit soldiers to fight the war which doesn't take place for another 29 years.    Recruited soldiers enlist for seven-day tours of duty in the future and if they survive are transported back to the present day.    Making it through the first moments is hard enough, if you consider that many of those beamed to the future are dropped freefalling from the sky and go splat on the ground.   The lucky ones seem to land in swimming pools.  More soldiers are likely killed this way than from the thingies which attack them.  

The Tomorrow War isn't supposed to be realistic, but it sure is ludicrous.   Questions pop up which distract us from the action going on...thank goodness.    The Tomorrow War is a two-plus hour long, mindless video game in which the giant-toothed aliens (who could be cousins of the monsters in A Quiet Place) come at you and you shoot at them with assault weapons and handguns.   You mean there aren't better weapons in the future to combat these creatures?   Soldiers shoot hundreds of rounds into one monster to kill it.   They would have to carry around thousands of rounds in order to keep their guns loaded.   Imagine how heavy that is.

The star of this mess is Chris Pratt, he of Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World.   He is an Iraq War veteran with a loving wife and a nine-year old daughter drafted to fight the war and finds himself leading a squad of misfits against the aliens.   His commanding officer is a colonel (Strahovski), who acts coldly towards him.   The reasons are easy to decipher and a potentially emotional moment is stunted because the movie would rather concentrate on the violence.   The reason for her anger towards Pratt doesn't follow much logic, if you consider what she experienced hadn't happened to him yet. 

The Tomorrow War has a 145-minute running time; far more bloated than the material justifies.   Much of this time is spent with characters holding weapons and quietly walking down steps, corridors, halls, and passageways.   This all grows quickly tedious, as does the action which runs amok.   Pratt's Dan Forester has his own baggage involving an absent father (Simmons) and his own uncertainty about his own future which was interrupted by a future war.   We know as surely as night follows day that this will all be resolved by the end.   Predictability can be okay in movies.  Deadly predictability is not.

If the head honchos fighting the future war were ambitious and a tad more resourceful, they would find a way to send the 500,000 people back to the present and avoid having to put us through The Tomorrow War.  

A Quiet Place, Part II (2021) * *

Directed by:  John Krasinski

Starring:  Emily Blunt, Cillian Murphy, Noah Jupe, John Krasinski, Millicent Simmonds, Djimon Hounsou

There wasn't much about 2018's A Quiet Place which required a sequel, except that it was a box-office smash.   The plot, about aliens who track and kill if their prey makes too much noise, is not much expounded upon here.   The aliens, who resemble Venom in appearance, lie in wait for those unfortunate souls who scream in agony after stepping into a bear trap.   The characters spend a lot of time shooshing each other.   There were kids in the audience at the screening I attended who didn't follow this advice.

A Quiet Place, Part II begins at the dawn of the alien invasion.   An ordinary little league game in a small town is interrupted by alien ships appearing in the sunny skies above.   The aliens don't waste time and invade, leaving Lee (Krasinski) and Evelyn (Blunt) to light out for the hills to safety.   Lee was devoured by an alien in the first film, and his cameo and mini-prequel opening aren't necessary, but set up his deaf daughter's hero worship of him which motivates her to find a way to destroy the aliens. 

While Evelyn and her two other children, including the baby she famously delivered in a bath tub without screaming in the original film, hide out in an abandoned factory, Regan (Simmonds) and family friend Emmett (Murphy) go on a quest to trace the signal to a faraway radio station which plays Beyond the Sea as a hint to its location.   This radio station could hold the key to the downfall (or at least the escape from) the aliens.  Why the folks don't simply speak on the radio to explain where their hideout is not the type of question one should ask if they want to enjoy A Quiet Place, Part II.

Evelyn and company continue to walk around barefoot even though one character stepped on a nail in the first film and another steps on a bear trap in this one.   Maybe shoes add a slight chance of making a little more noise, but I'd take that over a nail, shards of glass, splinters, or burning the soles of your feet on the hot concrete.   The other characters wear work boots and sneakers and appear no worse for wear.   

I suppose the minutiae of A Quiet Place, Part II wouldn't irk me if the movie itself weren't simply a high-concept horror film in which ugly creatures jump out at you, chase you, or chomp on you.  Krasinski doesn't develop the story as much as produce a retread.   It is strongly made from a technical standpoint and the Murphy and Simmonds performances stand out, but we've seen this movie before.   

When I watch the overly abundant shots of characters' bare feet, I was reminded of the joke in which two salesmen are sent to a territory in which the inhabitants don't wear shoes.   One salesman called his boss and says, "There is no opportunity here, they don't wear shoes,"   The other salesman called his boss and says, "Plenty of opportunity here.  They don't wear shoes!"