1
Deadliest cat Keanu After a few years on their TV show, the comedy duo Key and Peele come to the big screen with Keanu, a lively kidnapped cat comedy with a high body count. Part John Wick and part Adventures in Babysitting, the film gives us KeeganMichael Key and Jordan Peele as Clarence and Rell, a couple of wimpy guys trying to by get a beloved kitten back from some hardcore Bob Grimm gangsters. In order to do so, they masquerade as Shark Tank and Tectonic, two badasses bgr i mm@ newsr evie w.c om from Allentown who will end your life if you don’t give them their cat back. That cat first escapes from a drug den when two killers (also played by Key and Peele) murder his owner. He winds up at the doorstep of newly dumped Rell, who gloms onto him as his feline savior. The cat is then kidnapped and winds up back in the hands of gangsters, requiring Rell and Clarence to swing into action.
3
“Tell the truth! Why are my pictures all over the internet?”
1 Poor
2 Fair
3 Good
4 Very Good
5 excellent
The title character is, of course, the cat, who has to be the cutest kitten anybody has ever put in a movie. Clad in a doo-rag and jewelry, the multiple cats recruited for the part make this film an absolute necessity for cat lovers, even if you hate Key and Peele. The felines steal every scene they are in. The movie isn’t the most original piece of work this year. Fish-out-of-water scenarios are a dime a dozen, and much of the humor—Clarence’s obsession with George Michael, Rell’s trouble with women—is based on stuff we’ve seen before. That said, Key and Peele have a knack for taking familiar scenarios and playing them out to nutty, funny extremes. For example: One of Clarence’s gangsta associates, after a long George Michael listening session, gets a “George Michael is OG” tattoo on his torso. It’s funnier than it sounds.
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MAY 5, 2016
One of the great things about their comedy is their seemingly innocent slant, followed by large doses of nastiness. Not to give too much away, but the film has a rather shocking violence factor, and it’s quite surprising given how innocuous it seems at times. This is by no means a complaint. The film’s best moments are its most shocking ones. Method Man contributes nicely as Cheddar, the criminal holding Keanu and unwilling to give him up without significant, murderous favors in return. Jason Mitchell, fresh off his stint in Straight Outta Compton, gets big laughs as Bud, one of Cheddar’s henchmen. Tiffany Haddish scores points as Hi-C, perhaps the most badass person in the movie. Her violent tendencies really come to life during a cameo by a famous comedic actress. (I won’t give away the name.) Will Forte shows up as Rell’s next-door neighbor and pot dealer. Again, the film is dealing in well-worn territory here, with Forte’s character playing a white guy trying to be black. Credit Forte with making some old shtick pretty funny in this movie. Key and Peele have been kicking around in supporting roles in movies over the last decade or so, but this is the first time they’ve really been able to take the spotlight on the big screen. While it’s not a rousing success, they definitely show promise as a big screen duo. In John Wick, Keanu Reeves infiltrated the Russian mob after somebody messed with his dog. In Keanu, Key and Peele infiltrate a drug ring to save a cat. The short lesson here is that you don’t mess with a man’s dog or cat. As good as Key and Peele are in this film, the real star is Keanu and the cats that played him. Also, huge props to the cat wrangler and whoever else managed to pull the performances out of these particular kitties. You’ll believe a kitten can evade rapid gunfire. Ω
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Director Zack Snyder has effectively knocked the wind out of two great comic book heroes. This film is a crime to every geek who has ever picked up a graphic novel. Hell, it’s also a crime afflicted upon hardcore Ben Affleck fans. Affleck could be a fine Batman. Actually, he could be a great Batman. But, like George Clooney before him, he winds up looking quite ridiculous running around in a messy movie in which his character simply doesn’t fit. A nice effort by Affleck to portray a nuanced, older, somewhat weary Bruce Wayne—not to mention a badass suit—is utterly wasted. As for Henry Cavill’s Superman, I’m longing for those short-lived days of Brandon Routh as Kal-el. While it isn’t entirely his fault, Cavill’s Supes is officially a dud. A sequel to the dreary Man of Steel, also directed by Snyder, Batman v Superman is a soulless step in the wrong direction. Snyder, who made a great graphic novel movie with Watchmen, has just completely lost the ability to put together a cohesive, exciting movie.
2
Everybody Wants Some!!
Writer-director Richard Linklater makes a sort of companion piece to his breakthrough film Dazed and Confused with mixed results. This time out, he gives us a crew of young baseball players showing up for college a few days before classes and partying in various settings—a disco, a honkytonk, a punk bar—because it’s 1980, and things are all mixed up. The movie is full of bad wigs, bad mustaches, typical song choices (“My Sharona,” “Rapper’s Delight,” “Bad Girls”) and ugly ’70s cars. What it isn’t full of are the type of memorable characters that made Dazed such a delight. Blake Jenner (Glee) plays the film’s main protagonist, Jake, a baseball pitcher who has his eye on an art major (Zoey Deutch). Their little courtship is cute, but most of the movie isn’t as clever as it thinks it is. The cast of mostly unknowns deliver their lines like they are raining manna from their mouths, but none of it is all that funny or intelligent. For a film about baseball players, it spends very little time on the baseball field, and the ritual this team performs at the end of practice couldn’t possibly be done without killing somebody. It’s almost like Linklater is trying to make up for his garbage remake of The Bad News Bears by giving us a more mature baseball film, but this one feels too scattered.
4
Eye in the Sky
A drone pilot (Aaron Paul) has a missile shot all lined up and is about to pull the trigger on a houseful of terrorists when a little girl parks herself within the blast zone to sell some bread. This is just one of the dilemmas brilliantly depicted in writer-director Gavin Hood’s tense thriller about drone warfare and the political ramifications of collateral damage. Helen Mirren is superb as Colonel Katherine Powell, determined to take out multiple targets on Great Britain’s terrorist list, but needing to check the legalities of all her strategies before she can make a single move. In his last live action screen appearance, Alan Rickman is terrific as Lt. General Frank Benson, drolly responding to the bureaucracy that’s keeping him from doing his job. Paul brings his best big screen acting yet to the role of Steve Watts, a drone commander torn between killing an innocent child or preventing potential scores from being killed in a terrorist bombing. Phoebe Fox gives a breakthrough performance as Carrie Gershon, drone co-commander.
1
The Huntsman: Winter’s War
Four years ago, when Snow White and the Huntsman came out, Kristen Stewart was all the rage. The film made lots of money, and it looked like the former Bella had a new franchise on her hands. Not so fast. Kristen, in a moment of shameful and delicious wickedness, made out in public—well, in front of somebody’s unauthorized camera, anyway—with that film’s married director, much to the chagrin of then boyfriend Robert Pattinson and, consequently, her fan base. Plans for a sequel starring her were scrapped, and a whole new plan featuring her costar and budding movie giant Chris Hemsworth (Thor!) were hatched. What producers didn’t realize at the time is that Hemsworth basically sucks whenever he’s doing anything other than playing Thor. Blackhat, In the Heart of the Sea, Vacation, and now this mighty slice of hell are proof of that. While Snow White was no creative
party, it was a tolerable misfire. This is a starstudded absolute mess. It’s a worthless slog of a sequel/prequel. Charlize Theron returns as the evil Ravenna, with Emily Blunt and Jessica Chastain joining the sad party. And, of course, you have Thor on hand as the Huntsman, the most useless, banal role this guy has taken on in his mostly useless and banal career.
4
The Jungle Book
3
Miles Ahead
3
Tale of Tales
Jon Favreau’s delightful and funny take on the Rudyard Kipling’s tale of a boy raised by wolves is a winner. A young boy raised in the jungle is pursued by a pissed off tiger (Idris Elba) who had his face burned by a human when he was young. When plans to leave for a human village are rudely interrupted, Mowgli (newcomer Neel Sethi) winds up staying in the jungle longer than he planned, and he must keep wearing the same pair of red baggy shorts. He encounters Kaa (Scarlett Johansson), an evil temptress snake, and other perils while building a special friendship with a big bear. And, as far as I could see, he never stops to wash those red shorts. A swim in the river doesn’t count. You need detergent. Bill Murray is, indeed, a masterstroke of vocal casting as Baloo, the big bear who befriends Mowgli on his extended jungle trek. Casting Christopher Walken as King Louie, the Kongsized master of all apes in the jungle, actually tops the Murray casting feat. It gives Favreau’s film an opportunity to become truly weird, very funny, and even a little scary. The highlight comes when Walken’s King Louie, portrayed with undertones of Brando’s Colonel Kurtz, suddenly busts out “I Wanna Be Like You.” Walken is perfect for the song and perfect for the character, making the scene an instant classic. The special effects are topnotch.
Don Cheadle makes an impressive directorial debut with this crazy biopic that’s mostly fiction but all fun. Cheadle plays jazz trumpeter Miles Davis, hibernating from public life in the late ’70s when a Rolling Stone reporter (Ewan McGregor) shows up at his door looking for a comeback story. The film then turns part comedy thriller as Davis tries to track down a missing tape from his latest sessions, something that never really happened. It’s all just an excuse to use Miles Davis in a goofy story, and somehow it all works. Cheadle is awesome as Davis, even doing some impressive trumpet miming to boot. (Cheadle, like Ethan Hawke in the recent Chet Baker biopic Born to Be Blue, learned how to play trumpet for the part.) The film switches between Miles in the ’70s and Miles in the ’60s dealing with relationship struggles. No, the movie doesn’t really focus much on the actual music. It’s more of a weird trip inspired by the music. Michael Stuhlbarg is good as a shady record producer, and McGregor has a lot of fun as the shifty reporter who will do anything for a scoop. Cheadle has made a good looking and sounding movie to go with his strong performance. It’s not going to win any awards for accuracy, but it’s a fun movie with a Cheadle performance well worth any music lover’s time.
This is one oddball movie. It sort of comes off like David Lynch’s Princess Bride. Italian director Matteo Garrone (Gomorrah, Reality) adapts three fairy tales and sort of mixes them together, creating a semiconsistent and relatively cohesive narrative. In one of the stories, John C. Reilly plays a king—he actually looks like the Burger King— who must stalk a sea monster and get its heart so that his queen (Salma Hayek) can devour it and become pregnant. In another, Toby Jones plays another king who becomes fascinated with a flea, feeding it blood and steak until it grows to the size of a large sow. In yet another, Vincent Cassel is a king who falls in love with the voice of what he thinks is a fair maiden, but it turns out to be an old lady. All of these characters share the same universe. There are times when it becomes a little lifeless, but the visuals are always remarkable, and some of the performances (especially Hayek and Jones) are pretty great. Garrone knows how to put a film together on the visual side. He can use a little tightening up with the verbal part. Still, the overall experience is good, albeit very bizarre, and lovers of decent fantasy films should indulge. (Available for rent on iTunes, Amazon.com and On Demand during a limited theatrical release.)
