Review: Our Little Sister

Image courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics. 

The films of Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda are, much like the works of the great Yasujiro Ozu, gentle stories about families and relationships that are light on plot and heavy on observation as to how humans interact.

His latest, "Our Little Sister," is a kind hearted story about three sisters who are estranged from their mother and whose father, who left them years ago to marry another woman, has just died. While attending his funeral, they meet and befriend the younger girl, Suzu (Suzu Hirose), whom he sired with his second wife.

But rather than feel antipathy towards Suzu, the three sisters invite her to come live with them, rather than stay with her stepmother, who was the girls' father's third wife (Suzu's mother, the second wife, had died).

The three estranged sisters all have temperaments that should clash, but they manage to live together peacefully. Sashi (Haruka Ayase) is serious and works as a nurse at a hospital, while unlucky-in-love Yoshino (Masami Magasawa) is a bank clerk and Chika (fashion model Kaho) works at a shoe store with her likably dopey boyfriend.

Those who enjoy films that are heavy on story may struggle slightly with "Our Little Sister," which gets most of its plot mechanics out of the way in the film's first 15 minutes when the sisters invite Suzu to come live with them. For much of the rest of the picture, Suzu and her three step siblings merely become accustomed to their way of life with one another - eating at a diner where the owner gives them preferential treatment, Suzu excelling at soccer and befriending an eager young man who appears to have a crush on her, Sashi considering how serious she wants her relationship with a depressive man to be, etc.

Kore-eda, who burst onto the Japanese film scene with the lovely 1998 fantasy "After Life," makes films that tenderly observe the rituals of family and how people communicate with each other. There's very little in the way of melodrama or stylistic flourishes, but rather the director parks his camera and allows it to capture human interaction. It's the type of film that takes a little getting accustomed to in terms of its rhythm, but once you're on its wavelength, you get to know its characters and invest in them.

"Our Little Sister" does a nice job of capturing the relationships between siblings - and not the squabbling you might expect, but rather a group of people doing their best to keep the best interests of those close to them at heart. It's a kind hearted, well made drama about good natured people with whom it's well worth spending a few hours.

Review: Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates

Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox.

Whether or not we actually need another movie in which a pair of randy bros engage in all manner of bacchanalia at someone else's wedding and then later figure out that it's better to be decent people, well, we've got one.

"Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates" is allegedly based on a true story and, as it turns out, there are two brothers - Mike and Dave Stangle - who, known for their wild, partying ways, were required by their family to bring wedding dates to their sister Jeanie's nuptials and so placed an ad looking for two women to accompany them and, eventually, landing a slot on the Wendy Williams Show.

In this movie, however, the two women they meet - Tatiana (Aubrey Plaza) and Alice (Anna Kendrick) - are just as rambunctious and party-crazy as their male counterparts, but unbeknownst to them at first. Alice, who is the more fleshed out character, was jilted at the altar and we get plenty of opportunities to watch her being ditched via a video that, for whatever reason, she keeps stored on her iPhone. Tatiana is the alpha character who lives an aimless existence. Similarly, Dave (Zac Efron) is the somewhat more responsible of the two brothers, while Mike (Adam Devine), who sells beer for a living, is the more immature one.

After hearing about the brothers' ad, which promises to take two debatably lucky women on a trip to Hawaii for their sister's wedding, Tatiana stages an accident in front of a bar where Mike and Dave are hanging out and swindle their way into being asked to go on the trip.

Much of the film's middle section is of the girls pretending to be nice around Mike and Dave's family, but then showing up the brothers in everything from drinking to riding mopeds at the spot where "Jurassic Park" was filmed in Hawaii.

The film often goes for easy laughs - a nude, drug induced moment involving horses is one of the low points, while Mike and Dave's horny bisexual cousin (Alice Wetterlund) gets a few laughs and a drawn-out sequence involving Jeanie (Sugar Lyn Beard) getting an out-of-body massage is, well, something - and doesn't actually become funny until the final 15 minutes or so. I actually found myself laughing a few times toward the finale after Mike, Dave, Alice and Tatiana go to apologize to Jeanie and her patient fiance after nearly wrecking the wedding.

After nearly 90 minutes of raunch and borderline tasteless jokes, the picture - as these types tend to do - goes all mushy in its final moments and, as usual, it doesn't exactly feel earned. There are a few solid laughs in "Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates" and a couple clever moments, but not nearly enough to recommend it.

Review: The Purge: Election Year

Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.

The third time is not quite the charm for "The Purge" series as its latest, the politically themed "Election Year," is yet another example of an intriguing concept undone by middling execution. From the start, I've thought that the general concept of the series has been one that could make for a compelling low budget horror movie, but it has yet to yield a successful result.

In this new entry, a senator named Charlie Roan (Elizabeth Mitchell) who is opposed to The Purge after witnessing her entire family being murdered 18 years before is running on a platform of shutting down the annual night of mayhem, whereas her opponent recognizes that appeasing the bloodthirsty masses allows rich folks like himself to remain in power.

The story features a hodgepodge of characters, including Roan and her steely bodyguard Leo Barnes (Frank Grillo, a survivor of a previous "Purge" film), who intends to keep her safe throughout the course of the night, as well a store owner, Joe Dixon (a very good Mykelti Williamson), who aims to protect his shop from vandalism; his protege, a Mexican immigrant named Marcos (Joseph Julian Soria); and a badass known as Laney Rucker (Betty Gabriel), a former criminal turned protector of the innocent who was once saved by Joe.

While the central cast members are all pretty solid, the supporting ones are, well, not so much. The picture is littered with wooden, expository dialogue and some hammy acting from the sinister participants in the event. A group of young women who terrorize Joe's store are completely over-the-top and the evil New Founding Fathers, who lead the government and originally concocted The Purge, are even more so.

Released this year for obvious reasons, "Election Year" has a political bent that is often intriguing. In this populist election season, it's interesting that the Purge's victims are primarily lower income residents and minorities and that those purging are either well armed one percenters or folks who look like they might have just come from a Donald Trump rally. And the film doesn't make the mistake of making the heroes out to be saints - several of them attest to histories of violence. If only the villains were as nuanced.

But while the picture's general politics - the movie unambiguously boasts a tagline of "Keep America Great" - veer populist, there are also some murkier attributes. Roan attempts to dissuade some of the leaders of a rebellion type of group from assassinating leaders of the New Founding Fathers on the grounds that it would make them just as bad. However, a scene late in the film in which the villains stage a midnight ritual nearly undercuts Roan's message, which is what the filmmakers appear to be espousing. It's not as if the film has to have a political persuasion one way or another to make it work, but it occasionally comes off as inconsistent.

There's also some unfortunate dialogue that weights down the proceedings, especially a few stereotypes uttered by a black character about other black people that feels as if it was written by some white folks. I'm sure the dialogue was meant to be funny, but it plummets like dead weight. Unfortunately, much of the film's dialogue is equally as groan inducing, if not as questionable.

"Election Year" isn't a bad film - it's often intense and occasionally astute - but rather a mixed bag. This is a series that could be very good, at least conceptually speaking, but has yet to be executed successfully. If they move forward with another in the series, perhaps they should just focus on Betty Gabriel's Laney - now there's a force of nature.

Review: The Legend of Tarzan

Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

This umpteenth cinematic adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs's classic tale might have you appreciating its occasional ambitions and eliciting groans within the span of a single scene. There are some elements to admire in "The Legend of Tarzan," which has been directed by "Harry Potter" team player David Yates, that include decent visual effects and some thematically intriguing concepts, but they are often overshadowed by the head-scratching inclusion of creaky cliches and stereotypes.

As the film opens, Tarzan (Alexander Skarsgard, rarely cracking a smile) is going by the name John Clayton and living in a British McMansion with Jane (Margot Robbie). Occasionally, we are treated to a flashback of his growing up in the wilderness - where his parents died - among gorillas and becoming the dude who swings through the treetops and acts as a lion and elephant whisperer.

He is enlisted on a mission to Africa by George Washington Williams (Samuel L. Jackson, doing that Sam Jackson thing), a former slave who has been sent on behalf of the U.S. government as a diplomat, but is doubling as an investigator into rumors of slavery in the Congo. Meanwhile, on the other side of the jungle, a slimy creature named Leon Rom (Christoph Waltz), a Belgian who is attempting to colonize the region, strikes a deal with a tribal leader (Djimon Hounsou) - who wants to avenge his son's death at the hands of Tarzan - to deliver our hero in exchange for unlimited diamonds.

So, not surprisingly, Jane and some of Tarzan's tribal buddies are captured as a means to lure him and he must make his way through his old stomping grounds to save them with Jackson in tow as a sidekick. Some silliness follows, most notably a scene during which Tarzan must prove himself to the old pack of gorillas with whom he grew up by taking part in a fight with one of them.

Working in the film's favor is its obvious antipathy to western colonization of places where westerners had no business being as well as its villains mostly being historical forces of oppression. On the other hand, the film is ultimately about a white guy from England who has dominion over the jungle and all its inhabitants, who seemingly can't save themselves without his help. Oh, and the tribe with whom Tarzan is friendly can't seem to stop singing, dancing and smiling during scenes that would seem to have been chopped out of some movie from the 1950s.

As a summer blockbuster, "The Legend of Tarzan" isn't half bad. It's fast paced, occasionally funny, has some decent visual effects on display, veers off from the tried and true formula of past Tarzan movies and appears to be socially conscious - that is, when it's not enforcing outdated stereotypes. Its finale, which involves an army of stampeding animals, is possibly more likely to cause snickers than gasps of excitement, but a scene that immediately follows on a boat and involves alligators gets the job done. "Legend" may not be the best or, in all likelihood, the last Tarzan movie, but it'll do.

Review: The BFG

Image courtesy of Walt Disney Studios.

Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Roald Dahl's classic children's book "The BFG" is a gentle, good natured fairy tale with a fairly impressive use of motion capture and some decent special effects, although the picture is not among the director's finest works and more for younger audiences as opposed to his classic "E.T. the Extra Terrestrial," which was equally friendly for children and adults alike.

As the film opens, a curious young British girl named Sophie (Ruby Barnhill) is living in an orphanage and has difficulty sleeping at night. Hearing a noise outside on the streets, she fails to follow her own advice about not peeping behind the curtain and is snatched out of her bedroom by a gigantic hand that belongs to the titular creature (Mark Rylance), a kind giant whose job is to catch dreams and blow them into the ears and mouths of sleeping children.

The Big Friendly Giant - or BFG as Sophie comes to call him - whisks the young girl back to his small home, which is filled with all manner of gadgets and trinkets. As it turns out, the BFG is the only friendly one of his kind. His neighbors are a gang of nasty, people-eating giants who bully the BFG due to his small stature and begin to suspect that he is harboring a human that they could have for a snack. The BFG, on the other hand, is a vegetarian who only eats gruesome items known as snozzcumbers.

For a movie aimed at children, "The BFG" is often darker than you'd expect as Sophie is often in danger of being discovered and devoured. But Spielberg's picture is mostly a cheerful tale about good people - and giants, mind you - who want to do the right thing. The film takes a detour into slightly sillier territory in the latter half during some scenes involving the Queen of England that, yes, I know, were also in the book. I could also, perhaps, have done without the numerous fart jokes involved when the giant drinks a beverage in which the bubbles float downward, not upward.

But aside from these quibbles, Spielberg's film is a sweet, well made, visually impressive and kind hearted story. My favorite moments in the picture involve the BFG's sneaking around London, hiding in the shadows and pretending to be statues when he is about to be discovered. Spielberg has done a pretty decent job here of capturing the story through the eyes of a child, which might explain why the picture's tone is a little less serious than "E.T." It's a relatively minor film in an impressive oeuvre, but an overall good time.

Review: Independence Day: Resurgence

Image courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox.

Just how lacking in inspiration is "Independence Day: Resurgence," the sequel to the 20-year-old mega blockbuster in which aliens attacked Earth and blew up its iconic monuments?

My favorite example is during a scene in which several characters discuss how to stop the alien forces that have returned two decades later to finish the job by sucking out the Earth's core and ending life on the planet. The characters recall how they stopped the aliens the first time around and then one of them exclaims - and I paraphrase - "it worked last time, let's try it again!"

The film exists on an Earth in which our planet has had 20 years to develop spaceships that fly around in our atmosphere, space stations with powerful weapons and all manner of other technology. One thing that has not been developed is screenwriting capacity. Most of the characters speak in expository dialogue. One such nugget: "Wasn't that the plan you debriefed us about?"

The film wastes little time on introducing its new characters, who include Liam Hemsworth as a hot shot pilot (you know, the type who continually gets in trouble with his superiors), Maika Monroe as a presidential aide and daughter of former President Whitmore (Bill Pullman, returning with a Grizzly Adams beard), Sela Ward as the new president, Charlotte Gainsbourg as a scientist, William Fichtner as a general and Jessie Usher as the son of Will Smith's character from the original "Independence Day." The lack of presence of Smith's Hiller is frequently alluded to in the film, but never explained.

And, of course, there are some of the old, familiar faces, including Jeff Goldblum, providing the type of dry delivery you'd expect as scientist David Levinson, as well as Judd Hirsch as his father and Pullman as the retired president, who now suffers from hallucinations. One of the best elements of this sequel is that it gives some much deserved screen time to some great actors whose appearances in movies these days are rare.

Unfortunately, this does not quite make up for the myriad of problems plaguing "Resurgence." For starters, the picture gives off the vibe that an explosion occurred at the screenwriting factory. As the aliens attack Earth, nearly every possible random storyline involving minor characters comes out of the woodwork - there's a group of kids who've lost their parents and are now traveling alone in a car, a boat full of pirates searching for a sunken treasure that gets enlisted in the fight against the extraterrestrials and, naturally, that old stand-by of a doctor trying to save patients, including a pregnant woman, from the hospital in a city under fire.

There's entirely too much going on in the film and much of it isn't that engaging. There are numerous sequences of ace pilots shooting at alien crafts in the sky in scenes that resemble the "Star Wars" pictures as well as explosions, a large alien chasing a school bus, cities being sucked up into the sky by the alien ship and then dropped back down to Earth, interpersonal squabbles between the good guys, a stray romance or two and even a scientist that awakens from a 20-year coma.

At the time of its release, the original "Independence Day" was called silly by some and while that's not entirely inaccurate, Roland Emmerich's 1996 picture was, at least, a good time. I saw it during the summer before I went away to college and I recall it as an entertaining summer popcorn movie. By comparison, this sequel is overstuffed, running low on motivation and mostly just silly. As I said before, it's great to see some old familiar faces - Goldblum, Hirsch and Pullman - but next time it would be even better seeing them in something worthier of their talents.

Review: Swiss Army Man

Image courtesy of A24.

I'll say this for Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan's "Swiss Army Man" - there's nothing else quite like it. Much like Spike Jonze's "Being John Malkovich" or Leos Carax's "Holy Motors," the picture is something wholly unique, at least narratively speaking. But unlike those recent classics, "Swiss Army Man" is just as likely to annoy as it is to cause admiration for its blatant disregard for the rules of narrative filmmaking.

Known simply as Daniels (referring to the directors' shared first names), the filmmakers have crafted one of the most outrageously bizarre buddy movies I've ever come across. The picture moves by its own sense of logic and leaves its peculiar story just open-ended enough to make you wonder what you've seen is meant to be real, imagined, fantasized or dreamed.

As the film opens, a lonely, repressed man named Hank (Paul Dano) who has seemingly been stranded for reasons or explanations unknown on a small, deserted island is about to hang himself. However, just as he is about to end his life, he notices a body washed up on the beach. It turns out that the body is a corpse (Daniel Radcliffe) who will come to be known as Manny and serve a purpose similar to - but much more expansive than - that beach ball in "Cast Away."

As it turns out, Manny is a gassy corpse. You read that right. He's so gassy, in fact, that Hank uses his body as a raft and his flatulence as a motor to push them to another larger island, where the two - or one, depending on your perspective of the film - of them must survive in the wilderness for a number of days (or is it months?).

Hank soon comes to find out that Manny's corpse has many uses - for starters, it stores water after rainstorms, which he then pumps out of Manny's mouth. He learns how to use its stiff arms to chop wood and its - how do I put this genteelly? I can't - erection as a compass. If this all sounds absurd to you, it should. The film received both raves and walk-outs during its premiere at Sundance earlier this year and critics seem to be divided as to whether it's a work of genius or just an example of filmmakers taking the piss, so to speak, with an audience.

Oh yeah, I also forgot to mention: Manny eventually begins to speak as if the corpse is discovering all over again the ways of the world. In many ways similar to a child, Manny learns from Hank about fear, love, sexual arousal and what weirdness is. Hank performs scenes from favorite movies as entertainment for Manny and schools the corpse on how to talk to a girl, although Hank himself clearly had problems following his own advice in his previous life.

At times, "Swiss Army Man" is funny and, occasionally, a little bit touching. But it's also a film that, at times, comes off as a bit too pleased with itself. And there are more than a few moments when the picture mistakes being offbeat and quirky with intelligence. It would appear that the movie reaches for a bit of profundity toward its finale - I say appear because there will likely be arguments as to what actually happens during the film's culmination - but I'm not sure it's been earned.

Dano, a truly underrated actor, gives a fine and challenging performance as Hank. Radcliffe makes the most out of the truly bizarre scenario in which his character finds itself, although he is not required to do as much heavy lifting.

So, all in all, I can appreciate "Swiss Army Man" for being something completely different that occasionally intrigues. It will likely make you laugh at least a few times and scratch your head a few others. I consider myself a champion of weird, off-the-beaten-path films and while "Swiss Army Man" certainly fits into that mold, it is, after all, just a movie about a stranded man and a farting corpse. It's a well-enough made curio item with moderate returns.