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F R I D A Y, D E C E M B E R 2 3 , 2 0 1 6
The latest odd couple: Cranston and Franco By Tom Russo GLOBE CORRESPONDENT
“Father of the Bride” zaniness gets repackaged with dope tattoos and digital-native aesthetics in “Why Him?,” a James Franco-Bryan Cranston teaming that’s not as wild as intended, but reasonably diverting just the same. If you’ve been a repeat customer for director John Hamburg’s work as cowriter of the “Meet the Parents” series, then you should get some laughs out of his latest variation on that formula. Even the toilet humor, dare we admit it, is good for more yuks than yucks. Cranston’s upright Ned Fleming has always been close as can be with his Stanford coed daughter, Stephanie (Zoe y Deutch, “Everbody Wants Some!!”). But he learns the hard way that she has a serious boyfriend — specifically, when Stephanie makes a surprise appearance via Skype for Ned’s big birthday bash, and the guy inadvertently, lasciviously crashes the chat. To smooth things over, Stephanie invites the fam out to Palo Alto to meet Laird (Franco). But Ned and his wife (Megan Mullally) soon learn that “serious” boyfriend isn’t really the right tag — Laird is an impulsively wacky, street-stylin’ free spirit given to all the eccentric excess that comes with being a multimillionaire video game developer. Cranston and Franco have a good time with their odd couple dynamic, gamely playing Ned’s peevishness and Laird’s misdirected largesse, and nailing awkwardness like Laird’s touchyfeely bedtime visit to the Flemings’ guest room. A higher-aiming comedy might do something to explicitly lampoon Franco’s real-life status as contempo Renaissance man. Still, the movie is idiosyncratic enough to make
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Bryan Cranston (left), Megan Mullally, and James Franco in “Why Him?”
room for a Clouseau-and-Cato riff by Franco and Keegan-Michael Key, who’s a scene stealer as Laird’s Eurotrashy right hand. (The script’s overexplanation of the homage is forgivable, given the target demographic.) Mullally is another participant who dives into her supporting role, supply-
ing the amusingly party-stoned yin to Cranston’s stuffy yang, and reminding us just how much loopy fun she is. (If Mullally’s recent “Will & Grace” election-season video leads, as rumored, to a full-fledged revival, we’re all for it.) The movie can get lazy with its generation-gap premise, broadly treating
Cranston’s character as if he’s 55 going on 85. Ned’s ownership of an antiquated printing business is one thing, but it’s a bit much to pair this with his general Luddism, that “Pink Panther” name-check, and his schlock-rock appreciation for KISS. It’s not a ruinously distracting issue, but Franco isn’t supposed to be the one asking “why him?” Tom Russo can be reached at trusso2222@gmail.com.
An Apple a day keeps the Assassins away By Mark Feeney
MOVIE REVIEW
GLOBE STAFF
In its various iterations, the video game “Assassin’s Creed” has sold 100,000,000 copies. Ready-made audience, here we come. Except that ready-made is as ready-made does. Is a bigger screen reason enough to go to a theater and sit passively in the dark when you can stay home and actually play the game? Regency and 20 th Century Fox, along with the game’s m a k e r, U b i s o f t , a r e b e t t i n g $130,000,000 that the answer is yes. The basic premise features enough convolutedness and pseudo-history to make Dan Brown’s word processor jealous. For centuries, super-secret society number one, the Assassins, has battled super-secret society number two, the Knights Templar. At stake is nothing less than humanity’s capacity for free will. Determining said capacity is a grail-like item called the Apple of Eden, not to be confused with the Apple of Cupertino. Gamers prefer PCs to Macs. Don’t get the wrong idea from that name Assassins. They’re the good guys. “We work in the dark to serve the light,” they like to say. Assassins have nifty knives that shoot out from
YY ASSASSIN’S CREED Directed by Justin Kurzel. Written by Michael Lesslie, Adam Cooper, Bill Collage; based on the video game. Starring Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson, Charlotte Rampling, Michael K. Williams. At Boston Common, Fenway, suburbs. 110 minutes. PG-13 (intense sequences of violence and action, thematic elements, and brief strong language). In English and Spanish, with subtitles.
under their wrists. They work like Wolverine’s claws. The resemblance ends there, since Assassins wear hoods and don’t have fur. Michael Fassbender plays both Aguilar, the 007 of 15th-century Assassins, and his present-day descendant, Cal. Thanks to a gizmo called the Animus, Cal can go back in time to reenact Aguilar’s experiences. The process feels a bit like “Inception” (2010). That movie’s female lead,
KERRY BROWN/TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX
Michael Fassbender stars in “Assassin’s Creed,” a film adaptation of the popular video game.
Finding his way home on Google Earth
MOVIE REVIEW YY½ WHY HIM? Directed by John Hamburg. Written by Hamburg, Ian Helfer, Jonah Hill. Starring James Franco, Bryan Cranston, Zoey Deutch, Megan Mullally. At Boston Common, Fenway, suburbs. 111 minutes. R (strong language and sexual material throughout).
Marion Cotillard, oversees the Animus. Fassbender, one of the producers, and Cotillard head a lavishly wasted cast. He looks great with his shirt off. She looks great in high-waisted trousers. Charlotte Rampling, as a mysterious authority figure (is that cryptic enough?), looks great looking severe. Jeremy Irons, as Cotillard’s father, looks great in a turtleneck. Brendan Gleeson, as another character’s dad, doesn’t look great — hey, he’s Brendan Gleeson — but, oh, that voice. It’s even better than Irons’s. All score bonus points for keeping a straight face throughout. Also on hand is Michael K. Williams, as modern-day Assassin Moussa. Williams was Omar, on “ T he Wire.” If only Omar and his murderous charisma were on hand to shoot some sense into these people. “Assassin’s Creed” ping-pongs around from Spain in 1492 to Baja California 30 years ago to 2016 and Texas’s death row (!), Madrid, Seville, and London. And the many fighting scenes are edited to smithereens. Yet the effect is less video-game-turned-movie than zombie movie minus zombies: stilted, static, s-l-o-o-o-w. The ending couldn’t set up a sequel more clearly if “To be continued” appeared on a title card. Don’t count on it. Game on? Game over. Mark Feeney can be reached at mfeeney@globe.com.
MOVIE REVIEW YY½ LION Directed by Garth Davis. Written by Luke Davies, based on a book by Saroo Brierley. Starring Dev Patel, Sunny Pawar, Rooney Mara, Nicole Kidman, David Wenham. At Coolidge Corner, Kendall Square, West Newton, Somerville. 120 minutes. PG-13 (thematic material, some sensuality).
‘‘LION’’
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The Calcutta scenes are tense and heartbreaking, and they dramatize an epidemic of child homelessness without overtly acknowledging it as a social issue. “Lion” is first and foremost empathetic to Saroo’s fellow lost boys and girls, and the movie has its antennae out for the many ways they can be abused by a heartless adult world. Story lines develop and peter out, eventually depositing the hero with a sigh of First World relief at the doorstep of the Brierleys, Sue (Nicole Kidman) and John (David Wenham), Australians living in Hobart, Tasmania, who adopt Saroo and, some years later, another Indian foundling, Mantosh (Keshav Jadhav). Saroo grows up and takes on the lean, intense likability of Dev Patel (“Slumdog Millionaire,” TV’s “The Newsroom”); he’s a model son and student, in contrast to Mantosh (Divian Ladwa), whose developmental issues
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are another of the film’s many underexplored tangents. Saroo attends a hotel school and meets a British student, Lucy (Rooney Mara), who becomes his girlfriend. As he grows older he feels ever more rootless, a family and a
Dev Patel stars as Saroo Brierley, who relocated his family village by studying satellite imagery.
home barely remembered, hovering just beyond reach. Enter the Internet. In its quest for dramatic suspense, “Lion” pumps up the obsessiveness of Saroo’s years-long search; he gets a “crazy wall” of maps and railroad time-
tables and he drives off various loved ones for various lengths of time. All of this feels like padding to forestall the reconnection that he and we crave, that gives the movie its meaning, and that you would have to be a stone to resist (even with some less than convincing old-age makeup on some of the principals). “Lion” is shameless and heartfelt and you’ll probably have a good, happy cry at the end. When a story pushes buttons so deeply wired into our consciousness — the prodigal returned, the childhood regained, the love restored — craft seems almost beside the point. Almost. Ty Burr can be reached at ty.burr@comcast.net. Follow him on Twitter @tyburr.