Halloween Ends (2022, David Gordon Green)

While I had some expectations about Halloween Ends’s plot going in, based on the previous entry, the franchise, and behind-the-scenes scuttlebutt, nothing prepared me for a soft remake of Nightmare on Elm Street II.

Halloween Ends is not about Jamie Lee Curtis getting out the butcher knife granddaughter Andi Matichak gave her in the last movie to kill Michael Myers (once again James Jude Courtney and Nick Castle) with Will Patton helping like they’re an adorable old couple hunting serial killers. It’s about local boy Rohan Campbell who accidentally killed a little kid he was babysitting a year after the last movie’s events. On Halloween, obviously. So, Ends’s opening kill is a child’s graphic, accidental death.

It’s incredibly manipulative but also really compelling.

The action then moves ahead three more years. Curtis has given up the prepper life (which seems entirely unlikely given Ends would then take place in 2022, post-Covid—but just like with its immortal septuagenarian spree killers, it doesn’t take place in the real world). She and granddaughter Matichak live together in a charming house where Curtis works on her true crime memoir. Matichak’s a nurse, so she didn’t slow down with college after her entire life was destroyed. Despite being Matichak’s best performance in the series, she and Curtis still don’t have a rewarding cinematic relationship. They’re just too slasher movie broken for it to work, and the movie doesn’t even try.

Curtis happens across Campbell in the present—some high school seniors in the marching band are bullying him—and introduces him to Matichak, who’s apparently been dating a bunch of dudes since Courtney murdered her boyfriend last movie. Her most recent beau is a shitty cop—shitty even for cops—Jesse C. Boyd. Luckily for Matichak, thanks to the bullying, Campbell’s about to snap and has no qualms about picking fights with a cop. Not when he’s a bad boy who zooms around town real fast on the motorcycle he’s fixed up.

Ends fearlessly rides a motorcycle over its shark tank, no qualms about all the eighties horror movie tropes it implements (in addition to Nightmare II, Boyd also does a Christine-esque transformation). It’s shameless, which works for it. Especially since Matichak finds her newest Bonnie in Campbell, and they have eighties teen movie montages riding around on his bike, trying to escape their respective traumas.

The movie pays a lot of lip service to trauma and recovering from it. Curtis has a bunch of narration about it, including narrating clips from the other Halloween movies. It’s a little weird to have a forty-year-old franchise, but they’re only using the clips from the first one, H40, and Kills. They should’ve CGI’ed something else together for it. There’s not a lot of flash in Ends, all things considered. It’s a muted finale.

Albeit one with some bizarre plot decisions. Like having everyone in town hate Curtis for the 2018 massacre—she spent her life bullying a man with brain damage, what did she think would happen—or Patton basically being a cameo. If it weren’t this Halloween series with its deceptive opening titles vise a vie cast importance, he’d be unbilled.

Best music of the H40 trilogy from Cody Carpenter, John Carpenter, and Daniel A. Davies. Solid photography from Michael Simmonds and especially editing from Timothy Alverson. Green’s direction is fine. He’s not mimicking the original movie anymore, not with Campbell as the new protagonist, which helps.

It’s not good or successful, but it’s also not terrible, and it’s definitely the most engaging of the H40 series.

Clerks III (2022, Kevin Smith)

Clerks III starts as a series of vignettes reintroducing the characters. It’s been fifteen years since the previous entry; since then, spoiler alert, one of them has become a widower, and neither has done anything with their lives. For the first time, Jeff Anderson gets a little more to do than Brian O’Halloran, though only in the third act.

Until then, the movie’s a quick setup—Anderson has a heart attack and decides to make a movie about his life at the Quick Stop—with the actors doing their familiar banter routines, just updated a little more the times. Trevor Fehrman, also returning from II, now has his own sidekick, Austin Zajur. Director Smith reprises as Silent Bob, Jason Mewes is Jay. Everyone’s back, including ex-girlfriends Rosario Dawson, Marilyn Ghigliotti, and Jennifer Schwalbach Smith.

Many of the actors—besides Dawson, obviously, whose performance is visibly effortless compared to her costars—haven’t been in a movie since a Clerks and it shows. Schwalbach Smith is so bad I was able to identify her as the director’s wife just by her performance. No other way she’d have gotten the gig. Ghigliotti gets back into the groove quickly, though.

The funniest section of the film is while they’re making the movie. In addition to Anderson and O’Halloran, Mewes and Fehrman are around to cause hijinks, and III brings back all the actors from the first movie to play their “scenes.” It’s kind of lovely, actually, getting the same bit players back, thirty years on. The film doesn’t get sentimental about it, which is good because it goes off the rails with sentiment. The third act’s sincere, almost successful—successful to the point it saves the movie—ultimately a fail. Smith doesn’t just fumble the ending; he intentionally smashes it.

Besides that section, the second act is almost entirely scenes or montages set to modern folk rock. The first act is all nineties soundalikes (or nineties songs, I guess, I didn’t Shazam), which makes sense since the whole movie starts as an homage to that era. That soundtrack at least fits; the folk-rock? They should’ve just done a musical. Especially since there are great cameos from Melissa Benoist and Chris Wood auditioning for the movie-in-the-movie, and they both want to do it musical theater.

The other cameos are hot and cold. Amy Sedaris has a lengthy cameo where Anderson can’t shut up about “The Mandalorian,” a show she stars in, but the bits aren’t funny because Anderson’s not a nineties Star Wars nerd anymore; he’s just a regular white guy fifty-year-old. And Sedaris is bad. Justin Long’s also bad. Luckily they’re only in it for a bit.

Anderson’s good until he’s got to “come to Buddy Christ,” and then it’s not his fault. Smith can’t figure out how to write it, so it’s another montage, not even a sensical one. O’Halloran seems nervous, disinterested, and miserable to be making another Clerks for two-thirds of the movie, then has a breakout scene, but then the movie’s over.

Clerks III is, of course, a very long shot, but even as a miss, it showcases why it could’ve been a hit.

Maybe Smith’ll figure it out by IV.

Thor: Love and Thunder (2022, Taika Waititi)

Thor: Love and Thunder ends like all Thor movies, promising the next one will—finally—deliver on the promise. The first movie follow-up fumbled when co-star Natalie Portman didn’t rate an Avengers 1 gig, the second movie when Portman didn’t rate an Avengers 2 gig, the third movie had Avengers 3 entirely upend it (with Portman not bothering coming back). Well, she’s back for Love and Thunder and given how she’s got such a lousy arc, it won’t be a surprise if she’s gone for good this time.

Of course, they didn’t stop messing with Chris Hemsworth’s character arc—which now apparently wraps back around to the first movie, only not really—with the latest Avengers. The most recent one sent Hemsworth off with The Guardians of the Galaxy, who barely show up in Love and Thunder. Chris Pratt gets the most lines, but the others seem like they showed up for a couple hours, plus and minus the makeup chair. They’re just around long enough for Hemsworth to head back to Earth, having found himself between Avengers 4 and this one.

Only not really, because when he gets back to Earth, he discovers Portman has the power of Thor. She’s been superheroing it up on Earth; only we don’t see any of it. Once Hemsworth’s back in the movie, Portman’s downgraded to a girlfriend part. Worse, she’s demoted to an ex-girlfriend whose emotional experience isn’t part of the story. And their reuniting arc is all about them getting back together.

Shame she’s only Thor because Hemsworth made his old hammer promise to look after her, which includes after it got broken in Thor 3 and Portman ingloriously got cancer at the beginning of this movie. It’s got to be really hard on the character, whose single bit of character development—besides Kat Dennings coming back for a cameo—is flashbacks to the character’s mom dying of cancer. It doesn’t even rise to middling soap opera; Love and Thunder could give a shit about Portman.

To be entirely fair, it’s unclear what Love and Thunder does give a shit about. Special guest star villain Christian Bale, who starts the movie in an apparent homage to the beginning of Star Trek V, which is a flex, is potentially compelling, but once the film spends any time with him, it’s clear he’s… just as dangerous as Josh Brolin in the Avengers movies. So, why doesn’t Bale get a fourteen-movie arc or whatever.

The film’s very wishy-washy on the Marvel movies’ gods—with Russell Crowe showing up for a Zeus cameo (leading to the film’s most successful moment, as long as you stick around long enough)—but they don’t do jack shit for their worshippers. They like it that way just fine, thank you very much. Bale’s mad his daughter died in a desert while his god had an oasis nearby and didn’t intercede.

Conveniently, Bale then finds the power to kill all the gods in the universe, pretty quickly going after Tessa Thompson and the Asgardians living on Earth. Specifically their children. He kidnaps their children and puts them in a spider cage on an asteroid in a black and white universe.

Kieron L. Dyer plays the lead kid, son of now-dead Idris Elba, who can communicate across the universe with Hemsworth. Given where Love and Thunder ends up, there ought to be an arc for Dyer and Hemsworth. There’s not. There’s barely an arc for Hemsworth and Portman.

Actually, given the end of the movie, it seems like Dyer could’ve been the film’s protagonist or at least jockeying for the spot. He doesn’t. Despite Love and Thunder having a Guns N’ Roses-heavy soundtrack and Dyer being a new, enthusiastic Guns N’ Roses fan, the two things are unconnected.

Director Waititi narrates the film in his role as Hemsworth’s CGI sidekick. The film’s more successful in summary than in scene, which isn’t great.

There are some iffy effects throughout—Waititi’s got these vaguely boring intergalactic settings (not sure who thought black and white universe was the way to go with an outer space fight)—but the finale’s got some fantastic visualizing of a tough Marvel Comics character to visualize realistically.

They get away with it, on Portman and Bale’s professional competency and Hemsworth’s easy charm. And the setup for next time is beyond cloying and trendy; they’ll finally do a great one. Promise.

Prey (2022, Dan Trachtenberg)

Prey is roughly thirty years late. It’s a Predator prequel with ties to the existing franchise (mainly the second one), but it’s a conceptual no-brainer and one they’ve been doing in the Predator licensed comics for decades. The movies established the Predators had been to Earth before, so why not show one of their earlier encounters? Of course, obviously, anthology series never work; studio reticence makes sense. It’s still a no-brainer.

The film takes place in the eighteenth century on the Northern Great Plains. A Comanche tribe happens across a visiting Predator and, thanks to the ingenuity of a (shouldn’t have been) unexpected hero, survives to tell the tale. And tie into the future continuity.

Amber Midthunder is the unexpected hero, though she’s only the unexpected hero to the tribe. Especially once big brother Dakota Beavers rather shittily reveals he’s been cribbing off Midthunder’s notes their whole lives and taking credit for the synthesis. Her brains, his brawn; well, specifically his male brawn. Midthunder’s a capable hunter, but she’s still a girl. Can’t give the girls too much to do; who else will get up early and go gather.

Beavers leads the tribe’s war party; about a half dozen other red shirts who don’t even care Midthunder knows how to track or treat wounds. Girls, icky bad. Beavers appreciates her contributions, occasionally letting his confidence buck cultural constraints, but he still treats her like competition, not a comrade. Prey could’ve used another six or seven minutes on their relationship, especially how their presumably deceased father figures in. Michelle Thrush plays their mom, but they don’t have any family scenes together, just Thrush and Midthunder, then Midthunder and Beavers, then Thrush observing Beavers’s successes as a hunter from a distance. There’d have been time for it (and not just because the end credits are a shocking eight and a half minutes, Prey desperate to get away from the ninety-minute mark like it’s a nineties action movie).

Even underdeveloped, Midthunder’s a strong enough lead—and Beavers is fine enough support—to keep Prey going through its first and second acts. The third act, when the film becomes the inevitable, rushed series of original Predator homages, is pretty good but never adds up for Midthunder. The problem with doing character development in a Predator movie is the formula doesn’t actually need any, and director Trachtenberg and screenwriter Patrick Aison stick very much to the formula.

They just put another movie at the beginning of it.

Trachtenberg’s direction is always okay and sometimes inspired. Unfortunately, none of those inspired moments come in the third act. Despite four (or six, depending on how you count) precursor Predator movies, Trachtenberg’s got no fresh ideas for his homage sequence. It’s almost like they shouldn’t have done it. But still, always okay, sometimes inspired, never bad.

Lovely cinematography from Jeff Cutter, good music by Sarah Schachner, solid editing from Claudia Castello and Angela M. Catanzaro. Prey has a bunch of pastoral sequences, establishing Midthunder and her faithful dog (alternately the star and not the star of the show), but Trachtenberg hurries through them. At the film’s beginning, I was expecting Prey to go long with its Malick moments. But it doesn’t go anywhere near long enough with them.

Quibbles aside, Prey’s done more for the franchise than anything in decades. Hopefully, Disney’s better making movies about invisible alien monsters killing (mostly deserving) humans than Fox. They sure seem up to the task after this one.

Jurassic World Dominion (2022, Colin Trevorrow)

It’s not hard to pinpoint what’s wrong with Jurassic World Dominion, the inglorious (hopefully) end of a twenty-nine-year-old franchise. Director Trevorrow does a bad job directing, he and co-writer Emily Carmichael do a bottom-of-the-barrel job with the script, the actors all seem contractually bound and miserable (even the new additions, with one exception), and Michael Giacchino’s musical score is so terrible they should’ve stopped payment on the check. Otherwise, Dominion would be fine. Just needs a better director, an entirely different story and script, and—I don’t know—the music from the original Jurassic Park SEGA Genesis game instead of Giacchino.

The film opens with a news break, which Trevorrow and Carmichael are incapable of writing. Dominion’s what happens when blockbusters don’t even need to hire script doctors so they don’t embarrass themselves. Trevorrow’s only positive quality is his dogged determination in not letting each horrifyingly embarrassing moment of film slow him from reaching the next. Dominion’s third act is nowhere near as bad as it could be, but the first and second acts—all two endless hours of them—are crashing behind it and the debris distracts from the film at least not getting any worse. Except for Giacchino’s music. Giacchino’s music always gets worse, right into the credits.

Jasmine Chiu plays the newscaster. She wouldn’t be believable as a TikToker on “CSI: Sheboygan,” so introducing twenty-nine years of cloned dinosaur backstory is out of the question. Especially since her news report also sets up this movie’s villain—and the only person who seems like he’s having a good time—Campbell Scott. Scott’s playing a character from the first Jurassic Park, but the part’s recast (for good reasons). Now, Scott’s got a lousy part. He’s playing the not-so-smart head of a genetics company; they’re using prehistoric DNA to cure diseases and create monster bugs. The monster bugs are important. If Trevorrow were any good, there’d be a great Godzilla 1985 reference. But he’s not any good. Instead of an on-point Godzilla bug reference, there are desperate Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and Jaws references like Trevorrow’s still sucking up to executive producer Steven Spielberg.

But Trevorrow directs Scott like he’s doing an incompetent, megalomaniac hipster Steve Jobs. It’s a string of terrible decisions and Scott’s willingness to commit to the bit and somehow get through. He’s never good; it’s impossible, with Carmichael and Trevorrow’s lousy script, for anyone to actually be good, but he’s never boring, bored, or defeated.

Everyone else goes through those emotions, though no one more despondently than Chris Pratt. He’s fifth fiddle in his own franchise, but he doesn’t even care. He’s got one good scene, and it’s from Congo. The rest of the time, he looks like he’s trying to disappear, similar to Bryce Dallas Howard.

Laura Dern and Sam Neill work pretty hard to make their parts work. Either Trevorrow didn’t direct them, or he told them to play their characters exactly the same as they did thirty years ago, only Neill doesn’t have the same American accent anymore. It’s a better accent, but it’s a different one. They get some genuinely terrible dialogue but get through all right.

Also back is Jeff Goldblum, who doesn’t get very much to do, even when he’s around. The second half of the movie is about putting the Jurassic World characters together with the Jurassic Park characters to they can fight the Thanosaurus at the end. Goldblum’s around, but it’s like Trevorrow and Carmichael are scared to write him. Goldblum seems ready to work but never gets asked to do any.

Isabella Sermon plays a cloned human who’s supposedly important to the monster bug plot. It’s all nonsense. Sermon’s fine, but fine in the way you’re being nice about a middling child actor. She was in the last movie.

Then BD Wong’s back, of course. He’s shockingly good in a silly role.

New characters this movie—besides Campbell (sort of)—are pilot DeWanda Wise and lackey Mamoudou Athie. The film would be an excellent showcase for both actors if Trevorrow weren’t terrible. But, instead, he flops with both. More with Wise because she’s got more to do—she and Pratt are chemistry-free action buddies. Athie’s just around for various exposition dumps and plot contrivances, but he’s not bad doing them.

Technically, Dominion’s fine. Good CGI. Good photography from John Schwartzman. Not good editing from Mark Sanger, but he’s working from Trevorrow’s footage, set to Giacchino’s music. There’s no way to edit Dominion into a good movie with those quality sinkholes.

Despite teaming up two generations of Jurassic adventurers, Dominion’s a bad, boring, anti-trip down memory lane. Even when Trevorrow’s aping old Park moments, they’re just so desperate they don’t get the nostalgia going; instead, they just further embarrass this entry.

All set to Giacchino’s godawful music, of course.

Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown (1977, Phil Roman and Bill Melendez)

There’s only one adult referenced in Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown. When the bus leaves Charlie Brown (voiced by Duncan Watson) stranded, they’ve established the driver’s silhouette. Not having any adults makes a lot of sense since, somehow, the Peanuts parents all decided to send their kids to a camp on the other side of a distant desert with no adult supervision. The camp’s name? Camp Remote.

The desert bit gives Sally (Gail Davis) a scene to threaten some local kid, which doesn’t go as expected, but since the movie’s setting it up for Sally to back down… it’s a bit of a surprise. I think the local kid is from the comic strip somewhere. She and her little brother (the anti-Browns, in a way) seem familiar, and they’re only in the one gag.

Sally prominently figures in the first act of Race for Your Life, right up until Peppermint Patty (Stuart Brotman) starts talking about running things as a democracy. The boys and girls have been split into their different tents, with Patty running for tent leader. She confuses the other girls with her version of fair voting (by secret ballot), which becomes a recurring gag, and from then on, Sally’s just got the occasional lovelorn wail for Linus.

Both the boys and girls have a similar problem in the first act—the camp bullies. There are three of them with their mean cat, and none of them have names. Two of them have the letter “R” on their shirt; it never means anything. What’s so peculiar about them is Race never tries to humanize them, never tries to redeem or even provide context for them. They’re just assholes.

Okay, now, I’m reading something into the “R.”

Anyway.

The second act of Race is all about the best tent competition. The kids do various activities, with the bullies winning by cheating. Since there are no adults and presumably the teen counselors supervising the events are paying attention to the other two dozen campers we rarely see (at least two Peanuts supporting cast members, Violet and Frieda, end up amongst them). The most important race is the raft race.

It’s more a wilderness survival race, with rafting involved. The kids have to camp at night, feed themselves, and get back on the river. It seems to be a three-day event. If it weren’t a cartoon with a dog and his best friend, a bird, riding around America on an Easy Rider chopper… it’d seem dangerous.

Though there is danger. For a fairly long section of act two, Snoopy thinks Woodstock’s dead, the kids think Snoopy’s dead, and everyone’s lost in the woods trying to find one another. So it goes on for a while, with Snoopy mourning his presumably lost friend. Oh, and then the evil cat hunting Woodstock as he tries to survive on his own.

It’s impressive how Charles M. Schulz’s script—the pacing and plotting—and then Melendez and Roman’s direction make it so intense. There’s objectively no danger to the characters, but the movie makes believe so strongly, the emotions come through. It’s a fascinating use of narrative empathy and sympathy.

The raft race takes up most of the movie. The bullies have a speedboat with a wonky motor, so the Peanuts kids can get ahead often enough for tension. Snoopy and Woodstock add a sail to their inner tube, which leads to some pastoral scenes and disasters, though maybe if Snoopy didn’t sleep while at the wheel….

The boys and girls each have a raft, with Charlie Brown’s arc for the movie involving him becoming more of a leader. Peppermint Patty’s would possibly be listening to others while leading. No one else gets a character arc. Linus (Liam Martin) gets to defend the kids from the bullies thanks to his blanket snapping, and there are some other recurring personality gags, but not arcs. The movie’s too busy and the race too severe to slow down for them.

The original songs are strange but not bad; imagine a disco Cat Stevens, and then also more pop-folk. Ed Bogas’s score is good. The animation’s beautiful, with excellent editing from Roger Donley and Chuck McCann. Race has a somewhat peculiar vibe; while there’s a lot of action, including harrowing POV shots, there’s also the tranquil nature stuff, especially for Snoopy and Woodstock. It’s a fine mix. The end credits are a hallucinogenic Charlie Brown sequence, which provides the final synthesis. It’s weird and a perfect finish for the film.

Acting-wise… Watson’s okay. He’s got some weaker moments, but the movie never leans on him too long or adjusts for it after doing so. Brotman’s good, Davis is good, Martin’s good. I was expecting a lot more from Lucy (Melanie Kohn), but she gets less than Marcie (Jimmy Ahrens), who doesn’t get much.

The filmmakers know how to get the best out of the performances. Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown’s good.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979, Robert Wise), the restored director’s edition

Star Trek: The Motion Picture: The Restored Director’s Edition occasionally feels like a fan project. Or at least a temp project. Like the new opening titles, set in gold. They look like they were done using an iPhone app. Then there are shots where they couldn’t find the original materials, so the picture suddenly looks terrible, like a hacky up-convert to 4K. There are plenty of spectacular restored shots, but when they’re bad, they’re really bad. And they’re usually during effects sequences.

The reason for restoring the director’s edition is because it was made for DVD, and they didn’t do the new special effects in high definition. It took the restoration team a while to convince the studio. The end credits break out the first and second teams, and some of the names are the same; they came back twenty years later to do the same work again, just with eight million more pixels.

The result’s… okay?

In addition to the bad titles and the damaged original footage or whatever, there are a few times the changed special effects don’t work in high definition. Only once is it distracting, when William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and DeForest Kelley all lose the edges of their bodies in front of a starfield because portrait mode choked on their pajama costumes.

Some of the CGI is good, some of it is middling, and a couple shots are lousy. It’s sometimes annoying but usually forgivable; they’re well-intentioned.

Content-wise, the narrative is unchanged from the last director’s edition (as far as I remember it). A space cloud of enormous power invades the galaxy, headed straight toward Earth, and the only starship in intercept range is the Enterprise. Except they’re undergoing a massive retrofit to make the ship movie-ready in 1979, not impressive for TV in 1966; plus, they’ve got a new captain, Stephen Collins, leading the same old crew.

But not Shatner, who’s a desk jockeying admiral now, or Kelley, who’s retired to take up some weird future New Age thing if his gold medallion is any indication, or Nimoy, who’s retired to his home planet Vulcan to give up all emotion and… get a more blinged-out gold medallion as a reward. They really missed the chance for Kelley and Nimoy to compare bling.

When Star Trek: The Motion Picture isn’t meandering through its sci-fi thriller plot, it’s vaguely about Shatner desperately wanting to relive his glory days and using catastrophe to do it, dragging Kelley along because Shatner can’t do it without him. There’s actually maybe the argument Admiral Kirk’s going through some depression and saving the known universe is just the way to get out of that funk. So long as he gets some help from his friends.

Shatner and Kelley act that arc, which is occasionally in the script. Nimoy shows up later and sort of figures in, but not really. Shatner’s arc stops when he and Kelley get to worry about Nimoy instead. But more significant than either of those arcs is Collins’s G-rated romance with Persis Khambatta. They used to know each other when he was stationed on her free love planet. They’ve got a bunch of unresolved feelings—not to mention Shatner assuming command of Collins’s ship and everyone on the crew being thrilled—and it gets more runtime than any of the other arcs. Also, it figures into the A-plot of the alien spaceship out to destroy Earth.

There is lots of good acting from Shatner, but Kelley’s an absolute deadpan riot throughout. Nimoy’s okay once he gets over his “logical means rude” bit. Collins is bland but affable. Wise directs the heck out of Shatner and Khambatta in entirely different ways but to similarly strong effect. Even as the finale plods—before racing too quick to the finish—Khambatta’s mesmerizing.

Sturdy support from the rest of the crew—Walter Koenig gets the most fun, George Takei and Nichelle Nichols get lots of background busywork, James Doohan’s around in the first act, then relegated to occasional “dannae ken if she can take any more” scenes. Unfortunately, Motion Picture’s got a clunky story, something the director’s editions improve but can’t fix.

Still, the special effects are glorious, the Jerry Goldsmith’s music’s peerless, and the movie’s generally great looking. Except for the pajama costumes, of course. Wise and the very large cast do wonders even with those silly, silly costumes. There are lots of people around at all times; even if they don’t get lines, they do have to react to the dire circumstances, all while in onesies.

I do wish they didn’t have that really bad footage in this version, but otherwise, all drive systems are good to go.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022, Sam Raimi)

Doctor Strange and the Maddening Mouthfuls of Multiverses is barely a sequel to the original Doctor Strange outing, which is fine; the original was six years ago, and star Benedict Cumberbatch has gotten more mileage out of his non-solo appearances. However, given it’s a sequel to the Disney Plus show, “WandaVision,” which was a deliberate, thoughtful examination of the trauma Elizabeth Olsen (second-billed in Multiverse) experienced as an MCU character… it’s not great they (they being screenwriter Michael Waldron, who did not write “WandaVision” because it was well-written) turn Olsen into a one-to-two note supervillain here. She’s a Disney villain, right down to how calling herself a “witch” means she’s bad now.

Olsen’s performance is, you know, excellent. No notes. She’s terrific. It’s a bad part, but it’s good acting.

Cumberbatch starts the movie dreaming about a ponytailed version of himself fighting a monster alongside teenager Xochitl Gomez. Then he goes to ex-girlfriend Rachel McAdams’s wedding to someone else, who the movie never actually introduces because it’d require too much writing. Instead, a giant one-eyed octopus monster invades New York City, and Cumberbatch has to save the day. In doing so, he discovers the monster’s after Gomez, who isn’t a figment of his unconscious, but rather a real teenage girl who’s spent her life accidentally jumping from universe to universe. And someone’s after her.

Benedict Wong, who’s taken over Cumberbatch’s job as Earth’s sorcerer supreme since the Avengers movies, also shows up to fight the monster. So pretty soon, they’re all sitting around to talk multiverses. Wong and Cumberbatch are funny together, and they decide they’re going to help Gomez with the demons pursuing her.

Cumberbatch has the great idea to ask Olsen for help, only to discover she’s actually the evil stepmother. Sorry, supervillain.

There are some big action set pieces, but then it’s off to the multiverse for Gomez and Cumberbatch while Wong’s trying to stop Olsen on Earth. Regular MCU Earth. Doesn’t go great for Wong.

Olsen’s trying to steal Gomez’s multiverse jumping power so she can find a universe where her sons are real (she made them out of magic on “WandaVision”). Also, dreams are views into other universes, which seems like it should be important but isn’t.

There are some big and not-so-big cameos along the way, but most of the movie is pragmatically setting up the finale to be as contained as possible. See, it turns out Gomez jumps to the universe most likely to quickly hurry plots along, so if you need to get to a universe populated by Marvel heroes from alternate realities (or franchises), Gomez’s on it. She and Cumberbatch also pick up a variation of McAdams along the way, so while McAdams has a lot to do in the movie, it’s all busy work and emotional labor for Cumberbatch (who she doesn’t even know, not really).

Of the action set pieces, only a few are inventive. Well, one, actually. There are some other okay ones, but only one is anything special. The rest are a combination of good CGI and decent humor. Primarily because of Gomez, Wong, and McAdams. Cumberbatch plays well off the actors who can do the humor better. Olsen doesn’t get any humor; she just gets to turn the internal turmoil and suffering to eleven with no payoff.

Despite all the cameos, Multiverse avoids bringing back anyone to give Olsen an arc. And since all the cameos are otherworldly—other-universey—they don’t carry any emotional heft, though there’s an excellent joke for one of the cameos. And the acting on them’s not bad, especially the most fantastic of them.

Raimi’s direction is fine. He’ll occasionally show more enthusiasm than the baseline, which is pretty rote. Of course, it doesn’t help he’s apparently disinterested in all the world-building in the second act, but considering it’s all fluff… he’s not wrong.

The movie doesn’t overstay its welcome, which is good, even if it means the finale just reveals they didn’t actually do an arc for Gomez (instead treating her as an accessory for Cumberbatch). Multiverse takes an incomplete on character development overall, promising next time maybe Cumberbatch will grow a little.

Okay music from Danny Elfman, decent photography from John Mathieson (except in the cameo-heavy part of act two, where some setting appears to be off with the cameras), and excellent production design from Charles Wood. Even when the setting’s incredibly obvious, Wood makes it unique.

Multiverse only runs a couple hours, but because it’s truncated. With an actual first act, it’d add on at least another twenty minutes. It’s almost like they should’ve just done it as a TV series, though more Waldron writing wouldn’t do anyone any favors.

It’s mostly middling, with some good performances and solid filmmaking. Given how much the film disses Olsen’s efforts for the overall franchise, hopefully, she can escape any sequels, prequels, sidequels, or spin-offs.

The Batman (2022, Matt Reeves)

The first rule of the The Batman is the most interesting thing about Batman is Batman, so new Batman Robert Pattinson spends his time in the costume, with only a handful of scenes moping around as Bruce Wayne. The second rule of The Batman is “show, don’t tell,” which is strange since the third is “tell, don’t show.” But it works out; because Pattinson’s spellbinding in the costume. Pattinson’s biggest scene opposite supervillain Paul Dano—who’s also great, though not in his costume, a DIY number made out of green garbage bags apparently—is just eyes.

Heck, Pattinson doesn’t even do the Batman lip work. Back in the Forever days, some interviewer asked Nicole Kidman about Michael Keaton (who she wasn’t in a Batman with) and Val Kilmer (who she was in a Batman with), and she said the important thing is the lips.

Pattison and Reeves don’t worry about the lips. Pattinson does more with his jaw than the lips. Whatever else, The Batman’s an exemplar of person-in-mask acting.

For the story and tone, director Reeves and co-screenwriter Peter Craig pick and choose from the decades of comics, movies, video games, and seemingly Darren Aronofsky’s old Batman: Year One proposal. The ground situation is where the show, don’t tell, comes in; Pattinson’s been masked vigilanting for a couple years, long enough to become best friends with police lieutenant James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright). Wright brings Pattinson, in costume, to official crime scenes where a bunch of dude cops make fun of Pattinson, and then Pattinson finds some clue they’d all missed.

The Batman’s got a boy problem. None of the cops are women, and they’re all at least jerks, though we’ll find out a vast majority of them are murderously corrupt (Reeves and Craig rush through that story arc). But Pattinson’s Batman is another “this is my father’s house” Batman. Not only doesn’t he care about Martha, but she’s also a de facto Eve, whose personal failings led Papa Wayne to dishonor. Despite being a subplot, the parents aren’t significant, especially not after fellow orphan Dano’s soapboxing about what it must be like to be a billionaire orphan.

The movie’s A-plot is Riddler Dano, a TikTok serial killer terrorizing Gotham’s elite. Batman’s been on the job a couple of years and hasn’t done anything about them eating Gotham’s wealth and spirit, so Dano will have to do it. Reeves and Craig make some excellent observations about Batman and his resulting rogues, leaning in on the idea of anonymous power. They don’t end up amounting to anything because The Batman needs a disaster movie finale, but the groundwork’s solid, and Dano’s monologuing is fantastic.

There’s lots of great acting in The Batman. Dano and Wright without masks, Pattinson with, and then the unrecognizable Colin Farrell in prosthetics, showing off the potential for actors acting as someone else. The rest of the acting’s at least good. John Turturro as a mob boss, Andy Serkis as an utterly pointless Alfred, and, of course, Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman.

Kravitz figures into the A-plot through Farrell and Turturro; Farrell owns a club where the mob and the corrupt politicians play, Kravitz works there. When Pattinson goes to interrogate Farrell, he sees Kravitz and follows her for investigatory purposes. Pretty soon, they’re fighting bad guys together and getting horizontal under the proverbial mistletoe. They gaze at each other with common sympathy and bridled lust, which always comes with composer Michael Giacchino’s gentle but passionate love theme. Even with their finale sequence’s oddly bland visuals and Kravitz disappearing too long so Pattinson and Dano can play, The Batman does an excellent job with the romance.

When Kravitz isn’t runaway strutting past gross white guys at Farrell’s club, she’s mooning at Pattinson for one reason or another. She doesn’t get much of a story to herself. She’s got a missing friend, but it soon becomes part of Pattinson’s investigation, and her relationship with the mob bosses also ends up being for the big arcs. It’s okay; no one else gets much to themselves either. Mask-off, Pattinson’s a teensy-weensy arc about being ungrateful to Serkis. It won’t matter because Serkis is either shoehorned in or edited out. Not like a three-hour Batman needed more.

But the film also doesn’t explain Pattinson and Wright’s relationship; for the most part, Wright’s a true blue copper, only he knows most of his fellow officers are on the take, so he can only trust Batman. Does it matter? Yes and no. Or, yes, but Reeves, Pattinson, and Wright make you forget about it.

The big mystery’s okay. Dano leaves riddles at each scene, which Pattison usually figures out immediately until suddenly, he doesn’t, so there can be the disaster movie finish. It’s about the performances, the interactions, the mood. Pattison, Reeves, composer Giacchino, cinematographer Greig Fraser, and production designer James Chinlund create a mesmerizing film. Reeves cracks how to do a grim and gritty Batman in broad daylight, in crowds, and so on. The filmmaking’s never remarkable, but it’s never not consistent, confident, compelling. However, William Hoy and Tyler Nelson’s editing is closer to exceptional than not. Chinlund’s Gotham City is modern, Gothic, and humid, a dream turned nightmare.

If only Reeves and Craig hadn’t strung together two movies’ worth of A-plot (cutting the character development for time) to get it done.

But The Batman—thanks to Reeves and Pattinson (with help from Kravitz, Wright, Dano, Farrell, and the crew)—is the most special and successful this franchise has felt in numerous decades.

Snoopy, Come Home (1972, Bill Melendez)

Snoopy, Come Home’s parts are better than their sum. The film’s a number of vignettes, usually set to music, sometimes with songs. Sometimes there’s connective material between the vignettes, sometimes the circus shows up, and it’s time for a new scene. Also, sometimes, the vignettes have a rough cut between them. Not too rough, there’s a fade-out and a fade-in, but there’s no attempt to transition between them. Usually when the action cuts between Snoopy and Charlie Brown. As the title indicates, Snoopy has left home, and Charlie Brown wants him to come home. So the action cuts between Snoopy and Woodstock on adventures and Charlie Brown whining.

I guess it would be hard to find the right transition music for whining.

Though Charlie Brown does get a song to himself late in the movie, which is effective, but also entirely changes what the movie’s about. Sort of. The third act has a couple surprise turns, narratively speaking, and the Charlie Brown song fits one of those turns but because the film’s pushing hard to make it work. It’s a stretch, though it comes right after (and refers to) an absolutely fantastic, out-of-nowhere scene. About halfway through Come Home, director Melendez starts doing these phenomenal sequences occasionally—a hallucinogenic astral dream, for example—and they’re outstanding. The second big sequence, that third act one, it’s completely different than the dream sequence, instead relying on the characters. Though, specifically, the visuals they can all create. Come Home’s always very visual, for better or worse.

The worse is how often Charlie Brown and Snoopy use their comic strip expressions, which the film uses more in the first half than the second. The expressions are deadpan, reminding the viewer it’s an adaptation of the comic strip, which kills the momentum a little. At least until the expressions change. It’s a strange device, especially since Come Home shows off a bunch of expressions on Snoopy from multiple, not-comic-strip angles too. Come Home’s got innumerable visual flexes; they just sometimes come with distracting music.

The film runs eighty minutes, with the first twenty building to the inciting incident. Snoopy’s fed up with “No Dogs Allowed” places getting in the way of his good time. Every time Snoopy comes across such a location, there’s an accompanying song sung by Thurl Ravenscroft. It’s not a great song; it does pay off in the end, but it’s not great.

The film’s best song is easily Linda Ercoli’s one, which accompanies Ercole’s character tormenting her new pets, Snoopy and Woodstock. They went to her for help, and she just couldn’t wait to hug them and squeeze them. The duo’s just passing through; Snoopy gets a letter from his former owner, a little girl named Lila (voiced by Johanna Baer); she’s sick and in the hospital and would love a visit. So, peeved at the no dog zones as well as Charlie Brown being a jerk lately, Snoopy goes to visit her, Woodstock in tow. The incident at Ercoli’s is just one of their adventures along the way.

Performance-wise, Come Home’s got a couple significant problems. Chad Webber’s rarely good as Charlie Brown, and Baer’s usually bad as Lila. They do the most talking—both pleading their cases with Snoopy. The resulting turmoil gets the film into the third act with a firm footing and enables Melendez to mix style and narrative better. Though it gets rocky because the third act goes on way too long. Also, it’s rushed. Never a good combination.

Oddly, the charming end credits help pull Snoopy, Come Home around at the last minute; they last-minute find some humor they lost in the first act.

Besides Webber and Baer, the voice acting’s good; Robin Kohn and Stephen Shea, as Lucy and Linus, respectively, are really good. Kohn gets more range, including some good laughs.

Lovely animation, good music (Ron Ralke); it’s technically solid. Snoopy, Come Home’s fine. It’s got the chops to be better but just makes some hampering choices along the way and leans into them way too hard.

But when Melendez hits, he hits hard.