July 21 Denton Time 2016 by Denton Media Company

DENTON TIME

Thursday, July 21, 2016

Denton Record-Chronicle

Movies

Fast & loud

Star Trek Beyond

‘Furious’ director shifts ‘Star Trek’ vehicle into high-gear

Rated PG-13, 122 minutes. Opens Friday.

By Preston Barta Film Critic

J.J. Abrams steps back to producer in favor of Justin Lin (Fast & Furious) as the new director; meanwhile, cast member Simon Pegg and co-writer Doug Jung (Dark Blue) take over the screenwriting duties from Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. With new talent at the helm, Star Trek Beyond travels back to basics for a prosperous third adventure through space. Back just in time to mark the 50th anniversary of the original television series launch, Beyond homes in on the five-year mission of Captain Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto) and friends to explore the final frontier that is space. Because, after all, the true mission of this series is to “explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life forms and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.” Beyond doesn’t necessarily go venture into new territory. It faithfully follows the same story beats and tropes we’ve come to know from the franchise: The Enterprise encounters yet another hostile alien race with a serious chip on their shoulders about the nature of the Federation (the good guys). This leaves its captain and select members of the crew to find a way to get out of one mess after another and stop the reptilian-like Krall (Idris Elba) from fulfilling his nefarious plot. While the story stays the course, that doesn’t mean there

THEATERS Cinemark Denton 2825 Wind River Lane off I-35E. 940-535-2654. www. cinemark.com. Movie Tavern 916 W. University Drive. 940-566-FILM (3456). www.movie tavern.com. Carmike Hickory Creek 16 8380 S. I-35E, Hickory Creek. 940-321-2788. www.carmike.com. Silver Cinemas Inside Golden Triangle Mall, 2201 S. I-35E. 940-387-1957. www.silvercinemasinc.com.

OPENING FRIDAY Ice Age: Collision Course It’s hard to believe it’s been 14 years since Ice Age dawned, but since then it has tanked from a heartfelt journey with friends to a series of largely forgettable films relegated to the $5 bin at Wal-Mart. Collision Course seems to follow that same path, with Manny (voiced by Ray Romano), Diego (Denis Leary) and Sid (John Leguizamo) joining forces with Buck (Simon Pegg) to fend off a meteor strike that’s threatening to destroy their world. Rated PG, 94 minutes. — Preston Barta Lights Out (★★★1⁄2) Ghost stories have been done to death, but James Wan (The Conjuring 2) knows a thing or two about feeding you nightmares and making you shriek. His latest production, Lights Out, puts forth a simple but effective concept: A brother (Gabriel Bateman) and sister (Teresa Palmer) encounter a malicious entity that has an attachment to their mother (Maria Bello). It’s very seldom you find a horror film with actual scares, human characters you can care for and an idea to get excited about, but first-time filmmaker David F. Sandberg (who’s also behind the upcoming Annabelle 2) finds a way to do so. Rated PG-13, 81 minutes. — P.B. Cafe Society (★★★1⁄2) Woody Allen is a mixed bag these days. He can wow you with a magical film like Midnight in Paris and overwhelm you with something like Blue Jasmine. Some of his films land better than others and show just how skilled of a writer he is. Cafe Society is one of his best in years. It follows the story of a young man (Jesse Eisenberg) from New York who moves to 1930s Hollywood in search of an exciting career. Also starring Kristen Stewart, Steve Carell and Corey Stoll, the film is a lovely and humorous tale of

Above, one of several pairs of characters in “Star Trek Beyond”: Spock (Zachary Quinto, left) and Dr. “Bones” McCoy (Karl Urban).

Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and Sulu (John Cho) end up as captives together in “Star Trek Beyond.” Paramount Pictures

aren’t plenty of photon torpedoes, galactic battles or toured alien worlds. The action is impressive and very much in tune with the sort of summer popcorn flicks at which Lin excels. He carries his fast and furious energy over to Beyond and keep things moving at warp speed. The new aliens have a nostalgic touch that calls back to the latex, hair and makeup days of the original series. Some of the actors, like the villainous Krall (Elba), are too hidden under pounds of scales and bad-guy

East meeting West, and commoners meeting the upper class. At the Magnolia in Dallas and the Angelika Film Center in Plano. Rated PG-13, 85 minutes. — P.B. Life, Animated (★★★★) To put it simply, filmmaker Roger Ross William’s Life, Animated is one of those rare life-affirming documentaries that must be seen to be believed. Not only is it a powerful film about a young man with autism who uses Disney animated classics to express his feelings, but it’s a profound coming-of-age tale that’ll make you want to hold your family a little tighter. At the Angelika Film Center in Dallas. Rated PG, 91 minutes. — P.B. Les Cowboys (★★★1⁄2) In the early 1990s, in a rural French town, a man and his teen son go looking for his 16-year-old daughter, who ran away with an 18-year-old Muslim radical. Their odyssey takes them across Europe until the film’s second half, when co-writer and director Thomas Bidegain heads in an unexpected yet provocative direction. At one point, John C. Reilly pops up out of nowhere. Suspenseful and thought-provoking. Rated R, 104 minutes. At the Angelika Film Center in Dallas. — Boo Allen

NOW PLAYING Finding Dory (★★★1⁄2) A year after the events of Pixar’s Finding Nemo, we find our friendly-but-forgetful blue tang fish Dory (voiced by Ellen DeGeneres) on a journey to reunite with her family. Along the way, Dory meets new characters to admire — a nearsighted whale shark (Kaitlin Olson), a neurotic beluga whale (Ty Burrell), and Hank (Ed O’Neill), a grouchy octopus Dory runs into at a rehabilitative institution in California. Rated PG, 97 minutes. — P.B. Ghostbusters (★★★) The Ghostbusters are back, baby, but in a slightly new form. Instead of the likes of Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd donning the suits, armed with proton blasters, it’s the lovely ladies who sting with comedy chops: Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones. And don’t forget Chris Hemsworth as a hilariously dim-witted secretary. The new team is against the world by trying to prove that ghosts exist in modern society. Directed by Paul Feig (Bridesmaids, Spy), this movie is unquestionably funny. The ultimate problem comes from an inconsistent tone and weak plotting. What is refreshing is its leads’ chemistry — McKinnon and

rasp for viewers to fully appreciate their performance; but others, like the savvy alien ally Jaylah (an excellent Sofia Boutella), enhance the film’s stunning aesthetic. Where Lin, Pegg and Jung accelerate the most is in their small character moments. Star Trek has always been a “thinking-person’s sci-fi” odyssey, and the film’s crew know this. They keep most of everything properly balanced to provide Beyond’s characters with a genuine warmth that seemed absent

from the last voyage, Star Trek Into Darkness. They’re aware of what makes each of the characters tick and who they need to pair the characters with to achieve the most satisfying results. One such match can be found with Spock and Dr. “Bones” McCoy (a scene-stealing Karl Urban), who spend most of the film together. Everyone gets their turn, however. Montgomery “Scotty” Scott (Pegg) is also engineered to provide the film with some funny bits, which comes as no

No joking matter

surprise since Pegg had a hand in the screenplay. He makes a great pairing with Jaylah (named after Jennifer Lawrence), who gives the boys’ club a jolt of cinematic electricity much like Daisy Ridley did with Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Then, there are Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and Sulu (John Cho), who are captured together to bring more weight to the film’s intensity and drama. And lastly, Kirk and Chekov (the late and great Anton Yelchin) are cou-

pled to offer the story with some comedy and charm of its own. Yelchin (Green Room) is given a lot more to do here than before, which makes watching him in this installment all the more saddening. But it also shows just how gifted he was and how he had so many more stories to tell before we lost him last month to a tragic car accident. Beyond may not be the Star Trek your father grew up watching. It’s bigger and louder than the series and its predecessors ever were, but Lin shows that there is as much heart as there are thrills underneath Beyond’s hood to give summer the feelgood and entertaining movie we needed. PRESTON BARTA is a member of the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association. Read his work on FreshFiction.tv. Follow him on Twitter at @PrestonBarta.

ake Dallas is one of 300 locations that will show Fathom Events’ one-night screening of Batman: The Killing Joke at 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. Monday at the Carmike Hickory Creek 16, 8380 S. Stemmons Freeway. Batman: The Killing Joke debuts Monday in about 1,000 cinemas across the country. The graphic novel has been adapted to a feature-length animated film about an ultimate showdown between DC Comics’ bitter rivals, Batman and the Joker. Fans will also get to see a special introduction from the voice of the Joker, Mark Hamill (Star Wars) and a never-before-seen documentary about Hamill and his dedication to the project. Actor Kevin Conroy voices Bruce Wayne/Batman. Tickets cost $12.50. Rated R, 76 minutes. Visit http://fandan.co/29SKeGg. DC Comics

Jones steal every scene they’re in. Rated PG-13, 116 minutes. — P.B. The Infiltrator (★★1⁄2) Bryan Cranston stars in this gritty, tough movie based on actual events. He plays Robert Mazur (who wrote the source book) who went undercover as a possible money launderer in the early 1990s infiltrating Pablo Escobar’s drug operation. Director Brad Furman fails to elevate his material, however, resulting in a predictable, standard work of the genre. Diane Kruger plays Mazur’s fellow operative, posing as his fiancee, and John Leguizamo is Mazur’s highenergy colleague. Rated R, 127 minutes. — B.A. Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (★★★) Zac Efron and Adam Devine play two hard-partying brothers who get shown up by two even harderpartying ladies (Aubrey Plaza and Anna Kendrick). But what Mike and Dave is really about comes from the title: Mike and Dave need dates for their baby sister’s wedding. The film walks a fine line between laugh-out-loud funny and plain “ugh,” but there’s a delectable charm between the four leads. Rated R, 98 minutes. — P.B. The Secret Life of Pets (★★★) A spoiled terrier named Max (voiced by Louis C.K.) enjoys a comfortable life in a New York apartment — until his owner (Ellie Kemper) takes in stray mutt Duke (Eric Stonestreet). During a walk in the park, Max and Duke encounter a group of feral alley cats and end up in a truck that’s bound for the pound. Fortunately, an unruly rabbit named Snowball (Kevin Hart) saves Max and Duke, then demands they join his clan of abandoned pets who want to take down the humans who’ve done them wrong. Rated PG, 90 minutes. — P.B.

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Sabrina Lantos/Lionsgate

Bobby (Jesse Eisenberg) and Vonnie (Kristen Stewart) star in Woody Allen’s latest film, “Cafe Society.”