Category: 2026

CLAYFACE

By Marc S. Sanders

The comic book origin story has become a tired trope in movies.  The hero experiences a traumatic event and gains either an epiphany or enhanced abilities that deem him/her for especially unique purposes.  Then they face off against their antagonist and sum up their encounter with the love interest or by reciting a voiceover journal to the viewer.  Roll credits with a promise that “Widget Man Will Return.”  Sound familiar, right?

That’s all well and good but I’m not yet exhausted over a villain origin story like Wicked promised for example.  (I’ve had mixed feelings about Joaquin Phoenix’ Joker movies.) Clayface is a b-villain character spawned out of the crime ridden Gotham City to face off against Batman.  I’ve been hearing that it was modern horror wunderkind Mike Flanagan (Doctor Sleep, the 2026 Carrie series) who approached DC production captain James Gunn with conceptualizing a film for the shape shifting mud monster.  Who would have guessed that the adaptation would be an absolute thrill of grotesque body horror with a sentimental affinity for the main character, “Coast City” movie star Matt Hagen, played by Tom Rhys Harries?

This actor plays a famous actor who sleeps with the wrong woman, only to have his vanity brought down to negative one thousand when her gangster boyfriend (David Dencik) permanently disfigures his face with an assortment of sharp edges.  Matt’s world is essentially destroyed.  His high-powered agent abandons him. He loses out on winning an Oscar.  His wealth is embezzled and he endures one personal betrayal after another.  He discovers that Dr. Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie) has been experimenting with chemicals that one day might intelligently alter human cellular structure.  After much convincing, she agrees to use Matt as a test subject.  When full restoration arrives, Matt is on his way to rejuvenating his fame and fortune, but he and Caitlyn do not account for the jaw slouching, eye drooping and crusty side effects or for the surprising ability to personify other people.  All of this will emerge as a blessing or a curse.

Clayface works because director James Watkins has a lot of fun with infinite inventions that come with sculpting this guy, Matt, and the seedy world of misanthropes he inhabits.  The body count rapidly increases as the very entertaining and wince inducing exposition of this Frankenstein story carries on.  I imagine a lot of the actors had fun being killed on screen in truly inventive ways only to see their name on the next day’s call sheet to come back because now Matt Hagen has assumed their appearance as a means to undo the next traitor in his path.

The skills of this Clayface are awesome.  They are reminiscent of what the liquid Terminator could do, and it’s only right this story of a movie star-pretty boy salutes a lot of Hollywood favorites including The Thing, The Shining, and The Godfather Part II while drawing inspiration from the crafts of David Cronenberg, (The Fly, Dead Ringers).

Yes, the origin story might have been done to death by now, but if creators allow their imaginations to soar, especially with such a flexible character, the possibilities are endless for what can be accomplished.

The cast of unknowns are equally as surprising as the collective unfamiliar faces discovered in the other horror hit from this year, Obsession. Tom Rhys Harries is ready to do anything.  He plays suffering very well and the movie does not over-mire itself in misery. As the monster persona evolves, Harries goes in unexpected directions with his character, including a favorite kitch of mine.  He breaks out in a group dance sequence that is never expected of this non-musical screenplay.  His forbidden love story with Ackie’s smartly sensible character offers a lot of effective conflict to keep the picture engaging.  Their will they/won’t they angle lends something else to the film because simply a warpath of revenge and casualties can get stale. Max Minghella (The Social Network) plays Ackie’s fiancée and the persistent cop who follows the clues.

Clayface is the absolute best installment in James Gunn’s DC Cinematic Universe.  It provides amazing effects with a challenging story and a well-drawn Gotham City ridden with crime and interesting ugliness.  Director James Watkins deserves a lot of credit because he did not need to rely on the famed Dark Knight or a go to commissioner or a giggling, mischievous, brightly colored lunatic.  This picture is a perfectly crafted introduction to an overused environment that has not looked so refreshing in years.

Clayface may open interest for those seeking to learn more about this very capable and powerful villain. DC comics actually has two different documented origins to the guy of glop, but the loss of vanity and pride are what’s really fascinating about this Batman baddie.

I deliver the highest of compliments because this monster mash Jekyll & Hyde left me eager for more.

THE INVITE

By Marc S. Sanders

Olivia Wilde takes a Virginia Woolf approach with her latest film to direct, co-written by Rashida Jones.  It’s called The Invite and she may have directed her own leading performance into an Oscar nomination for Best Actress.

Angela is married to Joe (Wilde with Seth Rogen).  He’s a music professor, who clearly feels like he’s past his prime and his talent for music is being wasted on regular school days. Those who can’t be professional musicians, teach! She is a stay-at-home wife. Their marriage is no longer in heaven, even when their twelve-year-old daughter is at a sleepover. They haven’t had sex in over year. Yet, the evening does serve as an opportunity to invite the neighbors over for dinner. Too bad they arrive while the hosts are in mid-argument over who was supposed to get the wine and whatever else has been stewing on their brains for far too long. Dinner is another thing because dietary restrictions get in the way.

Piña and Hawk (Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton, and yes, you read his character’s name correctly) are the opposite of the stressed, overridden Angela and Joe.  Through the dark lighting of most of the film, the complexions of Piña and Hawk practically glow.  Norton and Cruz look like they swam in the fountain of youth. 

It doesn’t take long to learn that Hawk and Piña are sexually active, a lot, and they relish and ravage each other’s company.  Perhaps, they enjoy others’ company as well.

It’s best not to reveal too much about what develops during this awkward and unexpected evening.  However, it is worth saluting the genuine dialogue of aggravations expressed by a tired married couple who have lost a purpose to remain with each other, while their unmarried upstairs neighbors have every reason to stay together.  It also does not help that Joe is over the constant racket that comes from the happy couple’s apartment due to their constant sexual escapades.

The main attraction of The Invite is Olivia Wilde’s inventive direction. Within a claustrophobic New York City apartment, she places her camera in unusual positions to observe the chatter among the four actors. Close ups hardly ever happen. Instead, Wilde will point her camera at a mirror to catch the reflection of Rogen yelling at Wilde who is out of frame on the other side of the room. Joe’s study is cut off by an interior window-paned door. So, Wilde puts the camera on the outside of the window to peak in on Joe and/or who he brings into the room with him. Olivia Wilde’s camera is the fifth wheel as the viewer is given the opportunity to be a fly on the wall, snooping in on this obstinate evening. We might find ourselves standing at the end of the hall, yards away from where the action is happening, or we are looking through a window across to the other side of the apartment where there is another window to see what our spouse is doing with one of the guests. Everything Olivia Wilde does with shooting this film is accompanied with intended, strategic measure. We’ve always wondered what goes on behind closed doors, and now we have the chance to observe, without getting in the way.

The four actors show their training. Seth Rogen might be doing his regular schtick. However, he has not grown old on me yet and at least you witness genuine pain in this hopeless soul. A sort of slapstick moment occurs for the schlub, but it does not upstage other moments for him.

Edward Norton, and especially Penelope Cruz are very good at restraining themselves. You can feel their pulses are not racing like the other couple’s, who are treading a mile a minute. The screenplay allows Cruz’ character to present her knowledge and experience, and she never looks like she’s trying very hard. It’s not easy to portray complete relaxation and bliss. I was entirely convinced that the neighbors exhaust their energies in the sexual bouts they happily boast about, while the other pair are overtired in fits of rage and aggravation.

Olivia Wilde is the standout though. Her frustrations by sitting adjacent to her character’s husband and his unbearable presence demand enormous concentration. You have to be impressed with how this director sets up a shot or a scene, and then has to take the time to get into character when off camera she’s spinning a lot of plates. In front of the camera, the lines on Wilde’s face say so much about Angela’s background and the long life she’s already led even if she’s not that old. An outstanding and focused performance.

In someone else’s hands, at present or in a past decade, The Invite could have operated like an ordinary get together, where the acting is the main attraction. The performances are very good on level with the biting, cutting dynamics of Mike Nichol’s Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? and likely better than what John Hughes’ The Breakfast Club ever offered. Again, though, it’s clear that Wilde is looking to stand apart from those films that arguably will outlast the test of time that her film will not. Like me, I imagine the overall populace will not rewatch The Invite. Nor do I anticipate a Criterion edition or an AFI ranking in its future.

The concept of The Invite is nothing new or special. Neither is what is revealed during this lone evening.  At the very least, it’s the director’s technique that upholds this picture, along with four very capable actors delivering its wise, yet wordy, script.

WILDWOOD (2026)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Travis Knight
CAST: Carey Mulligan, Jake Johnson, Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Charlie Day, Tom Waits, Angela Bassett, Awkwafina, Mahershala Ali
MY RATING: 10/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 99% Certified Fresh

PLOT: A young girl’s search for her kidnapped brother kicks off a gripping fantasy adventure in the forbidding forests outside of Portland, Oregon.


Wow.  Just…WOW.  Wildwood, the newest entry from director Travis Knight and Laika, the studio behind Coraline (2009), ParaNorman (2012), and Kubo and the Two Strings (2016), pulls out all the stops and delivers the first stop-motion fantasy adventure epic.  The first trailers made it look like a loose retread of 1986’s Labyrinth, with a young girl in search of her baby brother who was kidnapped by shadowy, magical forces.  I was wrong.  Wildwood should be remembered as one of the best fantasy films ever made in any medium.

(Also, just in passing, please note, it earns its PG-13 rating.  Littler kids are likely to be traumatized by some of the visuals, as well as the numerous gruesome onscreen deaths.  You have been warned.)

After a grim prologue involving the suicide of what appears to be a primitive automaton, we meet the modern-day McKeel family: Mom, Dad, Prue, and baby boy Mac.  After numerous light-hearted, but still portentous, warnings to not leave the house with Mac and especially to stay away from the dense woods bordering their home in Portland, Oregon, Prue does exactly that, bumping into a nerdy acquaintance, Curtis, along the way.  In a scene right out of Hitchcock, a playground gradually fills with large crows in a series of clever edits.  This murder of crows swoops down in a cloud of caws and claws, grabs baby Mac, and soars away into the forest.  Prue gives chase with Curtis in tow, and when she arrives at the edge of the forest, something curious happens: the trees part to reveal a path after some blood from Prue’s hand, cut during her pursuit, touches an ivy plant.

What follows is a spectacular adventure that incorporates all the best aspects of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and J.K. Rowling…along with any other fantasy writer who uses initials for their first name.  Prue finds herself in a magical world where talking animals live side-by-side with humans.  (Wolves, for example, are soldiers, though they’re not always the brightest bulbs in the box.)  The land is divided into principalities, each ruled by a different species of animal, some of which will help Prue with her quest and others who will stop at nothing to prevent it. 

The riot of diversity in this world was a constant source of amazement for me, especially considering everything was made with stop-motion animation.  I won’t get into the technical details (I’ll assume most of you know what stop-motion is and how time-consuming it is), but that fact alone makes Wildwood nothing short of miraculous.  If it doesn’t win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature of 2026, it will be a grave miscarriage of justice.

For the entire running time (it’s also the longest stop-motion feature ever made), I felt a nostalgic echo of the great fantasy adventures from my childhood.  Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal (1982), The Secret of NIMH (1982), Willow (1988)…these were movies that had great stories, yes, but they strove to present unforgettable images to go along with their stories.  Wildwood isn’t content just to show us massive flocks of birds – in stop-motion! – or other fantastical creatures.  We also get a massive battle between two armies that plays and feels exactly like something out of The Lord of the Rings.  We get a dynamic, tragic story of a mother’s loss and the lengths to which she’ll go to find her son.  We get a surprise twist regarding Prue’s little brother.

And the entire time, that stunning animation is on display.  I had thought Kubo and the Two Strings would remain the high-water mark for stop-motion films for decades, but I was wrong.  Wildwood tops it, in terms of spectacle and storytelling.  It feels a little bit like Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988): an astonishing technical feat that could be duplicated in the future, but who would want to?

I should also mention the darker aspects of the story, specifically how it involves death in a number of ways throughout the movie.  We get a suicide right at the top of the film.  At one point, several prisoners are literally murdered in their cages by soldiers with guns.  During the climactic battle, we aren’t shown a lot of especially gory details, but there is no mistake that both sides are out for blood and holding nothing back.  There is at least one unmistakable decapitation.  Wildwood remembers that, without high stakes, there can be no real suspense.  And when the final denouement occurs between Prue and the enemy leader, I gasped the same as I did when poor Wash got skewered in Serenity (2005.)  [If I ruined that for you, you need to watch more movies.]

So, seriously, please, pretty please, with a cherry on top: find a local theater that might still be playing Wildwood and go see it on the big screen.  It is the best movie I’ve seen so far this year.  It is hands-down the best stop-motion film I’ve ever seen.  It will be money well spent, I assure you.

BIGFOOT WOODS

By Marc S. Sanders

There’s a moment in Bigfoot Woods where a character describes Paul (Rich Sommer) as just a science teacher, not a scientist.  It’s clear that Paul is more than irked by the regard, especially because this person is a believer in the legend of Bigfoot – a Sasquatch fur covered, monstrous figure who’s never been proven to exist beyond its never ending myth.  Paul is a scientist though.  He studied the principles of science.  He researched evidence that describes all the various natures of science.  He’s a high school teacher in the small town of Steamer, Minnesota, but he’s most definitely a certified scientist.  It’s therefore unfortunate his identity is not taken seriously.

This occurs midway through Elizabeth Chatelain’s film.  Paul is already roiling with Bridget, his conflicted fourteen year old daughter (Ambrose Velasco Jenkins).  They are realizing that they are not in fact non-binary.  Bridget is coming to the conclusion that they/them are not the appropriate pronouns.  Going forward, Bridget is certain of being addressed as he/him, and is unequivocally ready to be identified as Jonah.  Paul, and his wife Taylor (Tristen MacDonald) realize they’ll have to adjust.

It’s not even a question of options.  Paul and Taylor love their child.  It’s still a struggle, but that’s okay.  A new job or school or living situation can also require time and patience while adapting.

Chatelain’s film is smart because while Jenkins’ character occupies the most screen time, Bridget/Jonah is not the only one affected by this transition.  How does mom and dad feel about this?  What about friends?  Actually, how does the whole town of Steamer respond when there is primarily a unified mantra in believing in the  Christian values that come with the influence of the church and an ultra conservative mindset of what Jesus Christ stands for?

Steamer, Minnesota is hardly found on a map.  At best, it’s known for being a possible resting place for Bigfoot.  Paul and Bridget have father/child time together by roaming the woods and documenting discoveries in nature.  At best, maybe fifty people watch their series of You Tube videos.  However, that number explodes into the thousands when someone notices a rustling in the trees that could very likely be Bigfoot.  At last, certifiable evidence may exist in Bridget’s footage and attract a wider scope that’ll bring welcome recognition to town.  The folks are giddy over this discovery.

However, Bridget does not stop at what they share with Paul.  Bridget is making a new declaration of self identity when Jonah is introduced, but many folks in Steamer are quick to change their tune.

Bigfoot Woods is simple in its cinematography and editing.  It may operate like an Afterschool Special but that may also be its greatest achievement.  The script by father and trans-son Bruce and Abel Pavalon brings a transparent honesty to trans youth who are developing into who they really are and how family and environment responds.  Despite talent or accomplishments, some will overlook all of that when a trait feels unacceptable.  Others will not get up in arms over how someone chooses to live and will simply welcome the change.  It’ll justifiably become concerning, but they’ll need time.  The script covers a wide range with a small cast and a condensed script.

Bridget/Jonah also suffers from a habitual side effect of cutting.  I’m not here to minimize the character’s physical and mental ordeals.  However, at only a running time of an hour and twenty minutes, I did not think there was ample material to address this ingredient of the story.  Cutting is a very real symptom that needs serious attention.  Either more could have been expounded on that, or it should have been excised from the final product.

One factor I’m grateful for is that Paul, the scientist, does his research on trans topics.  He discovers the anatomical studies that upholds the need for transitioning down to how XX or XY chromosomes operate when another gene comes into play with a person’s DNA.  A majority of those opposed to the idea of transitioning fail to do the research and neither uncover validity or the material that could repute it.  People just make up their minds like it’s an opinion. Bigfoot Woods hinges on facts found in science, not instinctual prejudice.

In all fairness, I’ve done no research on the topic.  Still I trust what’s included in Chatelain’s film.  It’d be foolishly bold of her and the Pavalons to deliver a story that champions transition with unproven or false material.

The performance from Ambrose Velasco Jenkins is winning because there are multiple dimensions to the role.  I didn’t really care for Bridget who was not connecting with their loving parents.  Bridget is off putting and insensitive to mom and dad.  Jonah is very likable though.  It has to come down to an internal peace that Jenkins eventually delivers.  Very good work.

I also really felt for Rich Sommer’s interpretation of a dad who’s a good, well educated father but also confused and lacking the confidence to deal with a change in his family’s dynamic.  Too often men are expected to have all the answers.  This man doesn’t.  Yet, he will not cry about it or give up.  He applies skills that will aid him into deciding for himself with confidence.

Tristen MacDonald offers another kind of identity struggle.  A breast cancer survivor who opted for a double mastectomy.  I recall stories where women feel less of themselves once they have gone through this kind of trauma. Bigfoot Woods tackles a wide berth of identity struggle.  It’s not exclusive to members of the LGBTQ+ community.  MacDonald only has a few lines that address her character’s background but she’s impactful enough to demonstrate self-identity does not stop with gender identity.  It’s a mindset that depends on various factors and situations.

Bigfoot Woods is smart and insightful.  It’s a straightforward account of a teenager ready to recognize internal thoughts beyond outside influence while figuring out who they want to be.  With a curious story of the Bigfoot legend wrapped around it, there’s an intriguing aspect to this collection of three characters who are accepted by some while dismissed by others.  A perfect button on the picture is a nice wink and nod that crosses the last caption before the credits arrive.  I was smiling by the end.

DISCLOSURE DAY (2026)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg
CAST: Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, Colman Domingo, Wyatt Russell
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 79% Certified Fresh

PLOT: A cyber-security expert goes on the run from his own shadowy employer; a TV weatherperson exhibits odd behavior after a close encounter with a cardinal; and an 80-year-old secret ties them both together.

[THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.]


First of all, yes, I’m late to the party for this one, but I didn’t feel qualified to write a review after watching this the first time in June, and I didn’t get around to watching it again until last night.

Second, I am a Gen-Xer whose adolescent life was irrevocably impacted by the films of Steven Spielberg, starting with Jaws (1975) through to Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List (both 1993).  I know enough to realize that his body of work is not perfect, but I am a fervent admirer, so if some of that bias comes through in this review, c’est la vie.

Disclosure Day, released when Spielberg was 79 years old, is so full of ideas that the weight of them occasionally threatens to derail the film’s momentum in some earlier passages, and makes some of the later “revelations” a little less wondrous than they might have been if I had seen this movie when I was a pre-teen or teenager.  But the headlong energy of Spielberg’s direction and the powerhouse acting on display from Emily Blunt swept me along and kept me (mostly) breathless for nearly two-and-a-half hours.  This should go at or near the top of anyone’s list of “thinking-man’s thrillers.”

(I won’t bother summarizing the plot…I’m just going to assume you’ve seen the movie.  If you haven’t, apologies for any spoilers below.)

My favorite aspect of this film is the way it draws straight connecting lines between its sci-fi elements and their religious counterparts, much like The Matrix did in 1999 and Contact did in 1997.  Does that make Disclosure Day an unoriginal rehash of similar ideas from thirty years ago?  Absolutely not.  The fact that everything is filtered through the Spielberg lens permeates every scene, reminding me that this story of paradigm-shifting contact with extra-terrestrials is being presented by the man who brought us Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982).  I got the feeling that Disclosure Day is loaded with things that Spielberg has wanted to say for a long time.  I don’t know if that’s factually true, but that’s what it feels like.

I grew up in a Baptist Christian home from kindergarten through four years of Christian college.  This movie spoke to me in a way that Contact touched on, but much more directly.  At one point, the character Jane Blankenship (Eve Hewson) asks a nun: “If you found out we weren’t alone, if someone showed you, PROVED it to you…would that frighten you?”  Contact has a theoretical answer which seemed pretty reasonable, but Disclosure Day adds an extra dimension by asking this question to a nun, whose conviction that we are, in fact, NOT alone is central to her identity.  (She has a great answer that I won’t spoil here.)

I wondered about this question.  Any religion I can think of is centrally based on faith, which, according to the book of Hebrews, is “the evidence of things not seen.”  Well…would happen if, one day, at the Vatican or Jerusalem or Mecca, the clouds parted, the skies opened up, and a celestial figure descended to Earth and told everyone present that, yes, I am God, you’ve been right this entire time, congratulations.  How would the faithful react?  I believe many would bow or kneel and weep with joy…but would they ALL react that way?  Might there be some who became even more fearful than before?  Would some believers rebel at the thought that faith is no longer needed?  After all, there He is.

This question occupied my mind for weeks and months after watching Disclosure Day for the first time.  I drew parallels between religion and the belief in extra-terrestrial life.  If someone proved to me, PROVED it beyond the shadow of a doubt, that alien civilizations are real and have been visiting Earth since 1947…how would I respond?  Would I rejoice in the fact that something I’ve hoped for since childhood was actually proven correct?  Or would this revelation make me feel even smaller compared to the vast cosmos?  If I had that kind of information, would it be my responsibility to tell everyone, to spread the word, as it were?  Or would it be more prudent to keep that information to myself, lest it create a panic?

When a movie makes me ask those kinds of questions, without necessarily providing stone-cold answers, I celebrate it.  Too many films lose faith in the viewer’s intelligence from the get-go.  Spielberg never talks down to his audience with this film.  Right from the beginning, he and screenwriter David Koepp demonstrate their trust in the audience’s ability to keep up by starting the movie in the middle of the action.  No set-up, no narrated prologue, just boom, here’s a guy with a backpack getting kidnapped and there’s his girlfriend and why is everyone scared of a stick of silver metal and who are these people, anyway?

Watching this movie a second time, I was once again blown away by Emily Blunt’s performance.  I am not 100% sure she’ll get an Oscar nomination or anything, but she is heartbreaking when she acquires these abilities she can’t understand or explain, then breaks down late in the film when others look to her as some kind of spiritual figure.  She doesn’t like these abilities.  She doesn’t WANT these abilities, and she certainly doesn’t want anyone revering her because of them.  “I will NOT be anyone’s religion!” she cries out, and I was immediately reminded of the Biblical story of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, raging against God for forcing Him to go through the unimaginable trials to come.

There are many other scientific/religious parallels in the film.  Even the concept of demon possession comes into play when the main bad guy, Scanlon (Colin Firth), is able to “dive” on people remotely, either speaking to them across vast distances or able to literally control their bodies.  When Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo) explains to someone that the aliens believe that empathy is the highest form of evolution, as a former practicing Christian, how could I not think of the Golden Rule?  (“Love thy neighbor as thyself.”)

On the surface, Spielberg is asking people to consider the idea that alien life need not be a scary proposition (War of the Worlds [2005] notwithstanding, of course).  Below the surface – not exactly hidden, of course – he’s asking us to consider the idea that empathy for our fellow man could literally save the world.  Impractical?  Maybe.  But a hopeful message regardless.

Disclosure Day is a worthy addition to Spielberg’s impressive filmography, and one of my new favorite films, not because it’s as thrilling as a roller coaster (which some parts of it are), but because it’s as cerebral and rewarding as solving a crossword puzzle in pen.

COYOTE VS. ACME

By Marc S. Sanders

It’s ironic and a bit reflective to think about how Coyote Vs. Acme eventually made it to theaters.  Along with an anticipated release of Batgirl, featuring another return for Michael Keaton as Batman, the Looney Tunes feature was abruptly shelved by Warner Brothers as a tax write off.  Corporate America was exercising its accountant’s bloody fist in order to amplify the books.  However, the people have spoken and the animated rascal would eventually have his day in court.  Batgirl seems to have not survived the Joker’s man-eating Venus Flytrap, however. (That was actually an episode from the ’60’s TV series that scared the bejeezus outta me when I was a kid…but Robin got eaten, not Batgirl.)

The mega-conglomerate known as Acme is arguably bigger than Amazon, Walmart, Disney, Apple and the world’s crop supply of Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice combined.  Why?  Well, because they have John Cena as their attorney with a bolo tie and cowboy hat to boot along with the shrewdest…I say…I say the shrewdest rooster known to mankind, Foghorn Leghorn as its current CEO.  One thing these guys know how to do is circumvent the faults of their products by executing small settlements or finding loopholes to escape from liability.

Wile E Coyote has had enough!  He’s invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in anvils, slingshots, gigantic magnets, rocket skates, and falling pianos.  Yet, his targeted prize – the meep, meeping Road Runner – evades captivity.  It’s time Acme bear some responsibility and pay.  So, he hauls all of his defective purchases into a handkerchiefed sack tied to a stick on his shoulder and hires an injury attorney for the cartoon community to represent him – a sad sack in a brown suit named Kevin Avery (Will Forte), assisted by his capably, confident, crusading niece Paige (Lana Candor).

The little man – ahem, rodent – is finally gonna sock it to Goliath corporation.  Suck it WB—-I mean Acme!!!!!

Coyote Vs. Acme is what you’d expect from Looney Tunes.  Everything is ridiculous and welcomes immense laughter with sight gags that only their brand of animation can offer.  No matter how many times poor Wile E. finds himself suspended in midair before suffering an enormous drop below, I love to see the dust cloud poof up and hear the “wampf” foley sound as he slams into the ground.  Being that the Road Runner/Coyote shorts were always my favorite of the Tunes, I never got enough of their routines.  The painted hole in the ground – you know to fall through? That’s here too.

None of the characters are reinvented.  They are just slotted into a courtroom liability suit that’s as familiar as what the Ford Corporation was culpable of when they knowingly left potentially explosive cars on the lots.  (See my review of Class Action found on this site.) 

Why? 

Because monetarily speaking the settlements would be more cost effective than a widespread product recall.  Well, as Wile E, Paige and Kevin will discover, Acme has a similar mindset for the cartoon community.  This makes for good courtroom drama such as the Tasmanian Devil’s raucous, indecipherable testimony (hilarious by the way) or the clandestine secrets that Tweety Bird and Bugs Bunny might be holding on to.  

Daffy Duck likely will not be a reliable witness, though.  DAMN YOU ACME!!!!

Coyote Vs. Acme is great entertainment that you can take your kids to while you laugh and nod your head at the newsworthy stories that inspired this plight of the plaintiff, Mr. Coyote.  Believe it or not, there’s a message mixed within all of the insanity.

I grew a little tired with the middle portion of the movie, and I could have welcomed some more antics within the courtroom that feature an underused Luis Guzmán as the judge.  The stakes of Kevin’s practice going under ring true of material from A Civil Action and Erin Brockovich as the case becomes more insurmountable.  Didn’t really need this frankly.  I don’t care about Kevin.  Just let Kevin do his job in court.  His insecure schlub slows the picture down some, even if Will Forte has cute chemistry with all of the characters.

I love that Tweety’s granny made it into the picture, but where was Sylvester? He’s in the background, having a catnap in the family room, but otherwise he’s got nothing to do.  That was a shame.  

Minor quibbles aside, Coyote Vs. Acme is refreshing animation combined with live action.  The artwork is thankfully not the newly updated computer graphics of Pixar and Minions fare.  I know the Looney Tunes were likely not hand drawn for this feature, but at least their images and actions are preserved in their original fashion.  If it ain’t broke don’t fix it and this is one thing that Acme, Warner Brothers and producer James Gunn keep intact.  Everything looks great with a perfect blending of human characters falling into complicated Looney Tunes traps. The conversations between the animated and human communities are seamless.  John Cena trying to decipher through Tweety’s speech impediment is winning.  I even applauded how the writers approach the now taboo character of the perverted and horny Pepe Le Pew.  The little stinker can actually still serve a purpose in a post Me Too climate.

I hope Coyote Vs Acme opens doors for more material.  Put the guys in a police station, or a hospital.  Have them enact a Law & Order episode.  Any one of them can run for President against Kelsey Grammar or Sean Penn or Mark Ruffalo for example.  These guys can easily operate in an internet world crowded with confusion and identity.  Keep the locomotive going, and if you get run over, dust yourself off, step off the tracks, and sift through the Acme catalog for the next novel invention.

Something has gotta work! Right Doc?

MEEP MEEP!!!

DON’T SAY GOOD LUCK

By Marc S. Sanders

Adam Sandler’s production company, Happy Madison, has released a new film for his daughter, Sunny Sandler, to star in, and like her their previous collaboration, You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah, it’s an engaging, comedically emotional hit.  Don’t Say Good Luck is not as strong as the family dramas that are built on blocks of biting sarcasm like Terms Of Endearment and Steel Magnolias, but the cast and writing devote at least the same level of emotional maturity to the product.  

You might argue that Sunny Sandler falls under the category of a “Hollywood nepo-baby,” but the actress’ talent in performance, accompanied by show stopping singing, demonstrates that she deserves to be on stage and/or in front of a camera.  She’s a dynamo that I find far more appealing than I ever gave her comedic father credit for.

Laura Hankin wrote this screenplay based on her experience as an eighth grader who was cast in the school play while dealing with a terminally sick relative at home.  Sandler portrays Sophie who only hopes to get cast as the supporting role in the school’s upcoming production of Waitress: The Musical.  Following call backs, Sophie learns that she’ll be playing the lead.  It’s exciting, unexpected and certainly challenging, especially because she’ll romantically be playing opposite the cute boy in school and they’ll have to kiss on stage.  Yet, it’s also bittersweet because she has to accept her best friend Carolyn (Scarlett Estevez) has dropped out of the show while not being entirely forthright with Sophie, and Carolyn’s new friendship with Erin.  

Sophie’s happy home life is also compromised because mom’s cancer has returned and the forecast for survival is not likely.  Mom is Elizabeth, played with beautiful sensitivity by Melanie Lynskey.  Lynskey and Sandler make a perfect mother/daughter pair with outstanding chemistry.  Their pace is marvelous either when they are putting on southern belle acts for strangers in the mall or struggling with Elizabeth’s decline.  They make you laugh and cry.  I’m bold enough to declare that Sunny is much more entertaining than her successful father Adam, who I’ve never been that drawn to. Lynskey’s performance is contained with an energy to remain as an active mom. She relies on the convincing makeup to gradually show her decline while not crutching upon a weakened voice or droopy body language. That happens too often. This portrayal is welcome and convincing as one of those people who say “I’m gonna fight this.”

Don’t Say Good Luck is a refreshing coming of age comedy-drama that treats its young actors with authentic respect.  Following …Bat Mitzvah and now this film, I gratefully believe that Adam Sandler seeks out these scripts because they are not exclusive to just the two or three leads.  Hankin’s screenplay fleshes out the other kids in the musical’s cast.  Every actor with at least one line of dialogue appears to serve a meaningful purpose to this film. With so many active participants in the cast the setting’s community is on a solid foundation. There’s life within this high school where the kids go through the theatre games followed by musical choreography and vocal warmups. Even the quirky musical director, who has few lines, has a characterization that is relatable. This is rarely seen, and hard to accomplish in most movies, especially with a brisk running time of only ninety minutes.

Claire Scavone stands out as the enthusiastic actor freshman with the big smile, big glasses and BIG VOICE who absolutely loves theater and the kids she performs with.  She’s an outstanding escape from the heavier moments of the film.  The typical, blond popular girl (Elyse Bell) who always gets the leads is not the staple enemy of the picture. She’s got the privileged ego at first sight, but then there’s a quick reveal to how she relates to Sophie. Don’t Say Good Luck is not that movie where the snob gets her comeuppance. None of us should love to hate a kid. Sandler’s production knows this.

Adam’s friend Steve Buscemi has reached the stage of playing a grandfather and paired with Bebe Neuwirth as his wife who comes home to help their daughter with family tasks.  Buscemi is not trying to steal any scenes.  Neuwirth is the mother who oversteps her offers to help but rattles the discomfort that comes when cancer is killing a loved one.

Stephanie Beatriz does more with the theater teacher role than you’d find in typical Nickelodeon or Disney fare.  She emulates what is rewarding about teaching with encouragement and respect for her class.  As a community theater actor/director/producer, I related to every issue that comes her way from tech issues to sets coming apart and especially to instilling confidence in her student actors.  My daughter missed out on this experience in her high school productions.  This film reminds me of what I absorbed when I took up theater in school.  I also appreciate that the kids are not heightened to be smarter than standard dimwit adults that so many other films rely on.  

Max Greenfield as dad might have been worthy of a more expansive role.  The guy who runs the sandwich shop with Jon Lovitz, while balancing taking care of his terminally ill wife and a pair of rambunctious twin boys.  However, like Endearment and Magnolias, this film hinges on the mother/daughter perspective.  So, I can forgive this shortcoming.

Don’t Say Good Luck is schmaltzy with the inevitable sappiness found in tear jerkers, but the dialogue does not appear wasted, and director Julia Hart finds those perfect beats with her ensemble of mostly young actors and extras.  She also captures heart wrenching close ups of Sunny Sandler whose dynamic performance must respond to first love, friendship challenges, domestic drama, exciting opportunities and a likely potential for loss.  If you are not completely engaged in her closing song performance that wraps up this piece, you left behind several pieces of both your heart and soul somewhere. She belongs on the charts.

Don’t Say Good Luck pulls Sunny Sandler out of Adam’s large shadow.  She gives an emotionally strong, breakthrough performance that might earn her at least a Golden Globe award in the Comedy/Musical category, as well as trophies in the young actor awards ceremonies.  

Don’t Say Good Luck is now streaming on Netflix.

THE DRAMA

By Marc S. Sanders

A happy couple ends up not so happy when they get a little too honest with each other.  

After watching Kristoffer Borgli’s The Drama, I’m left unsure of what was supposed to be learned or what I’m supposed to take away from his picture.  Is he telling me that when you are on the cusp of walking down the aisle, if you see a red flag, you should hike it and run, or should you literally drop your betrothed’s pants and call do-over? 

After a cold open of meet cute cuts where the characters speak with one another and the film “stylistically” edits sudden breaks so that sentences of dialogue are interrupted for quick cut moments in time (I really don’t know why, because this routine got old really fast.), Borgli’s picture makes itself much clearer by showing that Emma and Charlie (Zendaya, Robert Pattinson) are the meet cute couple with successful careers, a million dollar New York apartment in the Village and a gorgeous wedding on the horizon.  

While at a wine tasting evening with the Matron of Honor and Best Man, Rachel and Mike (Alana Haim, Mamoudou Athie), a game is played where the four challenge one another to confess the worst act they have ever committed.  Emma is clearly the most reluctant to participate and thus the last one to go.  Comparatively speaking, Mike’s act is quite tame when measured against what Charlie and Rachel admit, especially Rachel.  The three laugh about it all though.  I found Charlie to be an asshole for giggling over what came of his actions.  I found Rachel to be a heartless fuck for dismissing her sick deed, as well.  These were not immature hang up crank calls.  When Emma admits to only planning her worst act but never following through, the dynamic shifts in the worst way imaginable.  

I will not spoil what she reveals.  What Emma planned when she was teenager is repulsive.  Yet, unforeseen circumstances stopped her from execution, and she explains that her life went in a completely opposite direction of nobility from that point on.  Nevertheless, Charlie cannot look past Emma’s confession, and he randomly grows startled by her while also envisioning his fiancée in unflattering scenarios inconsistent with the woman he thought he knew and loved.

Rachel is even less tolerable or accepting of Emma, and does not hide her bitterness (again) at only what was planned but never happened. Rachel’s mindset goes to a cousin who was a victim of a terrible incident that Emma has nothing to do with.  This allows one of several personal conflicts to remain at the top rather than just drift away.

The Drama runs out of road very fast.  The confessions around the table are interesting and left me curious as each person steps up to share. Afterwards though, when the evening is over, characters have sobered up, and simply because Borgli’s script contrives it to be, the anguish mires on and on and on.  

Borgli thematically uses alcohol consumption as a way to keep his characters repulsed with themselves and each other.  I guess he figures if these people are drunk they can vomit over and over with endless guilt and conflict.  If they sobered up they might start making sense, own up to their faults and move past this with no further judgement or resentment.  

Wouldn’t that be a lousy movie? 

Emma first explains and apologizes when the response does not go over favorably.  Later, she explains to Charlie how she turned her life around and did something positive with herself and the greater good.  Charlie seems to be deaf to what’s told to him.  (Ironically, it’s Emma who is deaf in one ear but remains much more attuned to what’s happening.). Moreover, he never considers relaying Emma’s explanations to Rachel, who really elevated this beyond reason.  If he had, then Borgli’s movie would have ended at the forty-five minute mark.  

With twenty minutes left in the movie, Charlie’s anguish cannot be contained. As the wedding day gets closer, he temporarily lets his guard down and loses a moment of commitment and clarity.  The math adds up to bloody and disastrous proportions at the wedding as toasts are drunkenly made by both Charlie and Rachel.  Poor Mike is delivering the cringe expressions that really belong in a bedroom farce and not in a movie called The Drama that reveals a lot of unwanted, meritless drama for the sake of earning movie ticket admission fees.

None of what you see in Kristoffer Borgli’s film is necessary.  It’s like an episode of Three’s Company.  If just one person would simply stop, think and clarify then all of this would be behind them.  Borgli doesn’t allow his characters to do the most obvious and sensible actions though.  He dumbs his characters down to persist the drama of The Drama.  

The end of the story lacks a payoff.  It’s never clear if all of the truth comes out or if any of these four characters see reason.  All that Borgli does is have Emma and Charlie reunite and try another reset method that they both attempted to do three separate times earlier in the movie.  Am I to believe that this time it’ll work because tears were shed and someone has a bloody nose?

I dunno!

Borgli seems to have painted his screenplay into a corner that he can’t escape.  So, he opts to go in a proverbial loop. If a band aid on a leaky pipe is not going to work the first time, why are you trying to put a new one on after that, and then another, and then another?  

THE END OF OAK STREET

By Marc S. Sanders

I look at a movie like The End Of Oak Street and I think to myself didn’t we once have all that we needed?  As kids raised in suburban life, we had our share of turmoil when mom and dad wouldn’t stop bickering and the neighborhood bully wouldn’t leave us alone.  However, Superman bedding, books on dinosaurs and the solar system, and a dog named Starbuck, along with neighborhood barbecues and a local library made up for a lot.  Movies like Gremlins, The Goonies and E.T. from the early 1980s were spared the onslaught zombified characters brainwashed by the World Wide Web, delivered by means of portable electronic devices.  In order to escape danger, you ran or pedaled as fast as you could while screaming your head off.  When you had a moment of respite, you stretched your imagination to logically surmise why the science fiction you always read about was actually coming true.  

When I saw those movies in the theaters and later rented from the video store, I didn’t have to reflect.  These were fresh tellings of new adventures with honest and relatable issues that might have been happening in other homes, just like they occurred in my house.  The End Of Oak Street invites you to reminisce while welcoming today’s generation to look beyond their Play Stations and A.I. reliance.  It’s a simple and familiar film not out to challenge you like a complex standardized test.    Writer/director David Robert Mitchell only wants to thrill your discoveries as they follow a terrifying, inescapable journey.

The Platt family do their best to maintain a family nucleus.  Audrey and Brian (Maisy Stella, Christian Convery) are siblings who rely on each other while their parents, Denise and Greg (Anne Hathaway, Ewan MacGregor) seem like they are teetering on the unheard of D-word.  When I was growing up, only one kid in my school had divorced parents – far from what my daughter witnesses.  The family’s slivers of divide, along with that pesky bully and an irate neighbor who literally threatens to shoot Starbuck, take a back seat to strange occurrences of flashing lights at night and mounds of animal poop in the backyard.  There’s also plant life that grows quickly out of the ground, yet is of unknown origin. 

The day after the biggest flash happens, the Platts discover that their suburban neighborhood has been transported to prehistoric times when dinosaurs run amok.  Like a familiar franchise, these animals are ready to chase, roar and eat the neighbors.  The Platts seem to have the best luck at surviving though.  Now they have to figure out how to stick together, stay alive, hope that Starbuck comes home, and get back to present day, 1982.

The dinosaurs resemble the creatures of the Jurassic Park/World pictures.  David Robert Mitchell introduces some new breeds with toothlike delights, though.  My favorite was some kind of giant snake or eel that can gracefully enter a home from the upstairs bedroom and silently wind its way through the hallways, staircase and down to the kitchen before it quietly opens its wide maw with enormous fangs that are ready to bite down on Anne Hathaway.  Outstanding work!

There are triceratops and raptors and “veggies-saurouses,” and pterodactyls that claw and nibble and bite and roar and chase.  It’s nothing novel after twenty Jurassic movies.  Still, the time period and setting are new to this standard and the cast is genuine, well mostly.  Anne Hathaway hearkens back to the stressed suburban mom that Dee Wallace Stone delivered in E.T.  She’s a good housemaker at her wit’s end with a dream for another kind of life.  Ewan McGregor’s European dialect is hard to ignore.  So, he doesn’t exactly feel like that dad with the Adidas shorts, tube socks and white tennis shoes.  Greg delivers pizzas to make ends meet. It was hard to buy a guy with an accent designed for highbrow Shakespeare dropping off a large pie with everything on it. The character is drafted well as the paternal figure who is not the king of his castle and lacking all the answers. McGregor just feels more intelligent than Brian Platt is supposed to be.  In this movie, dad doesn’t drive.  Mom drives the car and wields the gun.  Craig T Nelson (Poltergeist) would never stand for that. Oscar Isaac was originally meant to play the role. He would have been a more appropriate choice.

The End Of Oak Street works like a rainy Saturday afternoon picture at the neighborhood theater when you’d be dropped off at the mall by mom while she ran her errands.  Bicycles and homemade bows and arrows fend your way through the made-up adventures in the woods or between the homes and within the backyards.  

Again, dinosaurs are nothing new or novel anymore, but David Robert Mitchell sets up a handful of shocking moments that will drop your jaw as some characters wind up in unexpected peril.  Other times you laugh as the Platts can only run across well mowed lawns, from one end of the street to the other.  It’s adventure, but this family also has time to come to grips with their hang ups while running out of food and avoiding being consumed by their unfamiliar environment.  

Anne Hathaway is especially right in this time period, and she only makes McGregor look more suitable in this middle Americana period setting.  When he speaks, I hear Obi Wan Kenobi and Trainspotting, but at least Hathaway keeps him engaged as a husband device for her performance as the frustrated, neglected housewife.  

The End Of Oak Street is a welcome passage of escape to a time when visual effects were being embraced as a means to tell wondrous stories of imagination.  It’s fortunate, that on the surface, its technology stops at the chapter of a once familiar now, when social media wasn’t needed to save your life, much less solve your problems. The family had to sleep on the family room floor together, and then assemble in a circle to talk to one another about whatever was bothering them.

JJ Abrams’ studio Bad Robot produced this film.  He also directed Super 8, a clear salute to Steven Spielberg’s alien adventures that’ll thrill you and make you ugly cry.  This is the director/producer’s specialty-to echo how much these films shaped so many of us into adulthood.  I hope Abrams and his production crew stay on this trajectory.  I’d like to play in the past a little more before I head back to my future.

THE ODYSSEY

By Marc S. Sanders

It seems that Christopher Nolan is left challenged by one thing – himself.  In less than thirty years this director/producer/writer has moved from the simplest of filmmaking with limited funds (Following, Memento) to enormous heights in bonanza showmanship like The Odyssey, the first movie to be completely shot with IMAX cameras.  These devices are expensive and according to Nolan, they are also heavy and overbearingly noisy.  Yet, IMAX accommodated the filmmaker with specialized boxes to contain their equipment and muffle the sound interference.  As such, The Odyssey is a wonder to the eye.  Frankly, as impressed as I was with the film, on the most ideal IMAX screen available, I still didn’t see anything that felt any grander than the latest Dune offerings.  I mean how far are my pair of 20/15 LASIK eyes supposed to decipher?  Don’t get me wrong.  I am impressed.  However, was I as impressed as I was supposed to be? Should I be nitpicking pixels here?

IMAX says it all though.  The landscapes of open desert plains and vast open waters are brilliantly captured.  I could never tell you of any inconsistencies or shortcomings.  Costumes serve just as any sword and sandal picture that came before.  The sound, especially in an IMAX theater, is immersive and deafening as expected. Tidal waves within blinding rainstorms demonstrate this wholeheartedly.  The cast is stacked with some of the best talent available. The Odyssey has everything it demands of its legacy and what’s expected of a Christopher Nolan film.  Yet, I was never emotionally invested in the picture.  Understand that Christopher Nolan knows how to reach an audience on a primordial level of emotions. Think back to Matthew McConaughey’s tearful moment in Interstellar or how he shares scenes with young Mackenzie Foy. Look at Christian Bale’s anguish during the middle section of The Dark Knight. Hugh Jackman and Bale compete for moments of deep rage and sadness within The Prestige.

Nolan wrote his adaptation of Homer’s poetically romantic adventure.  I recall reading it in high school.  The fat, floppy, black paperback that weighed down my book bag has never been forgotten.  The highlights of the story remain in my consciousness from the Trojan Horse to Helen Of Troy (the face that launched a thousand ships), and of course the central plot of having the famed Odysseus making his long awaited journey home.  It’s all here, and then there’s more including the towering Cyclops and Circe, the witch who can turn men into pigs.  Nolan’s film goes from chapter to chapter, beat by beat.  This easily could have been a ten-episode miniseries on HBO MAX, and people would eagerly watch every Sunday night.

I favor Nolan’s choice to rely on modern dialogue, without rooted domestic accents or dialects. It’s a wise choice when delivering a poetic opus to the screen. This movie is a story. It likely would not relate to audiences on a poetic level structured in stanzas. Homer’s work does not lend to dialogue like Shakespeare or Mamet. A friend took issue with referring to Odysseus and Penelope as “mom” and “dad.” I get it. Nolan’s picture is much bigger than Harry Potter. However, the characters are bonded as family. So, it’s a pick your preference kind of situation. You either embrace or it takes you out of the story on occasion.

I’m not sure what I can say that this beast of a film says for itself.  If you’re not dazzled by simply one shred of a moment in this picture, then you are impossible to satisfy. Consider me wowed, but I was not moved.  The same way that I was never absorbed with Homer’s piece.  It was a homework assignment that spanned a long month of my junior year.  As a film lover, it’s inevitable that I see this picture. If it’s the first complete IMAX picture from beginning to end, then yeah, I’m spending the extra money to see it that way.  Am I going to watch it on repeat, on home video 4K? Probably never on a whim.  It’s a chore.

First, the picture seems to presume the viewers have prior knowledge of elements like the battle of Troy and why the war took place before we see how the famed Trojan Horse led to Odysseus’ (Matt Damon) victory with his army.  I don’t recall all that merited the action, but Nolan’s footage is astounding, especially that enormous horse on its hind legs.  On screen, the figure is as towering as the Statue of Liberty. No wonder the thing is being sold as a popcorn bucket.  

As complex as Christopher Nolan’s films can be (Interstellar, Inception), I always thought he was great at spelling out his unique brands of formula.  It took me a good hour or more to pencil down who everyone is playing and what purpose they serve in The Odyssey.  It boasts a big cast of celebrities who are all given their moments to shine.  I was especially taken with Samantha Morton’s Circe, introduced as a helpless woman grotesquely ready to reveal something more.  Robert Pattinson is Antoninus, a bratty and cowardly adversary ready to assume rule now that Odysseus has not returned.  He truly owns the picture when the focus turns back to him amid the rest of the cast and extras that occupy the room.

Anne Hathaway as Odysseus’ wife Penelope demonstrates nice range away from her Prada films and warm-hug kinds of pictures.  She looks quite unfamiliar while leaning into what you’d expect from Cate Blanchett.  Tom Holland drops the adolescent mischief of Spider-Man to play Telemachus, the son who takes it upon himself to uncover where his father could be after being gone for two decades.

Lupita Nyong’o may not look like she belongs in a story originated in Greek fiction, but she serves her small but significant role(s) with fierceness.  I’m not petty enough to let the appearance or history of an actor diminish my experience of seeing a sensational performance.  The same goes for Elliot Page in a crucial cameo.  As an aside, knock it off with the woke protests. Theatre is theatre and this is centered in mythology with a Cyclops of all things. If the Romans of Gladiator can speak with English accents, then in the fiction of Hollywoodland, casting has no limits.

I do not think the finished product The Odyssey is a new kind of novelty for filmmaking.  Christopher Nolan is taking advantage of the latest advancements that Peter Jackson did with his Lord Of The Rings and Hobbit trilogies.  If Nolan didn’t make this movie, Jackson would likely step up.  The swordplay and battles are as similar as most anything else that’s sent out each year.  Nolan has not reinvented the wheel in that aspect.  Likely he’s done it with how he made this picture.  That’s a blessing and a curse.  

The Odyssey is seamless, but how am I to recognize what’s done better here than what Jackson or Denis Villanelle has accomplished with their works?  I guess I had to be on set.  Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway and company testify to how astounding the experience has been.  I choose to believe them though I can’t compound what was embarked. For example, the actors enthusiastically celebrate the director’s idea to have then perform speaking to the mirror image of their scene partners. The mirror was mounted next to the IMAX lens and thus reduced time and cost for reshoots with the bulky and expensive equipment. Something like that. See, I do not see the advantage of this technique when I’m sitting in the theatre. There it is, though. Amazing! Incredible! It can be the greatest hot dog I’ve ever savored. Yet, I never went to the sausage factory.

I know my enthusiasm does not measure up to what so many others are saying.  The Odyssey is just an overwhelming picture.  The storytelling seems all too familiar, and yet not everything feels completely clear and decipherable.  Visually, it will always be stunning, even on a 55-inch flat screen. I wish Nolan offered more definition to the giant Cyclops (played by the master of mime and body manipulation, famed Ringling performer Bill Irwin who was TARS in Interstellar).  The movie will easily sweep all the technical awards while only earning acting nominations for Morton and maybe Hathaway.  Matt Damon earns recognition for exerting himself like never before in muscle mass. He’s only improved what he’s physically done in the Bourne films, for example.

This is a major hurdle that Christopher Nolan has elevated to, and a new bar has been set at a taller height.  Still, this picture never stayed with me like his Dark Knight trilogy that covered everything from sensational action to questions of morality. His brainy science fiction challenged protagonists to extend themselves towards sheer impossibilities of comprehension like Inception, Interstellar, or The Prestige.  Even a biographical story like Oppenheimer left me more emotionally consumed than The Odyssey, because the title character served as a puppeteered villain to everyone else, including himself internally.  Odysseus leans on Athena for solace, played by Zendaya, serving as an imaginary friend to the hero. He’s marooned with Calypso (Charlize Theron) serving as a sounding board while Odysseus struggles to recollect the memories of his adventures. All the parts are here like a grocery shopping list, but the connections just don’t feel as warm as they were in Nolan’s other pieces.

That’s okay though.  We all have our favorite flavors of ice cream. Just like we all have our favorite efforts of Christopher Nolan.

What’s this guy gonna do next? I cannot wait to find out because it’s never simplistic and always challenging with a sense of thrill and knowledge.