Film

Whiz kid

Geeks like me have been bitching about director Edgar Wright’s Ant-Man exodus for a couple of years now.

Wright was hard at work on Ant-Man for the better part of a decade, but left abruptly during production due to “creative differences.” We wound up getting an OK Ant-Man from director Peyton Reed, while Wright announced his next project to be an original, penned-by-him car chase movie.

My initial reaction to that news was “Farts!” But the final product, starring Ansel Elgort as a getaway driver with tinnitus—an adverse hearing condition made famous by Pete Townshend of The Who—is a great time.

It’s a nice car chase movie antidote to The Fate of the Furious, a car chase movie that made me never want to see a car chase movie again, let alone Vin Diesel’s mushy mug. The soundtrack is one of the year’s best, and the guy in the title role is a major star in the making.

Elgort plays Baby, who we see in the film’s opening sequence driving the getaway car for a robbery, a kinetic chase choreographed to the great Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’s “Bellbottoms.” The scene snaps with a colorful energy that’s been missing from car chases of late.

The best car chase movie in years, Drive, also featured a lonely driver and great vroom-vroom, but the soundtrack and look for that film were more meditative and hazy—not complaining; it worked beautifully. Baby Driver opts for a more clear-eyed, zippy approach, and it pays off.

Baby winds up on various crews run by a criminal kingpin played by Kevin Spacey reliving the angrier portion of his Glengarry Glen Ross role. Baby owes the man, and he has to drive getaway until he pays him off. At least, he thinks that’s what the deal is.

The chases go off with precision editing, filmed in a way that makes you feel like you are in the car. And the soundtrack, featuring music ranging from Simon and Garfunkel to Hocus Pocus to Queen, perfectly complements them.

The supporting cast includes Lily James, who enchants as Baby’s love interest, diner waitress Debora. (Cue the Beck song.) Jon Hamm gets a chance to go psycho as Buddy, a role that is deceptively laid back until Baby flips his switch. Jamie Foxx does a killer turn as Bats, the hothead of the crew that is equal parts smart and paranoid maniac. And, in one of the year’s great cameos, the one and only Paul Williams—the man who penned the Muppets’ “Rainbow Connection”—shows up as a gun dealer. I’m a child of the ’70s, and I love that little guy!

Wright has called the movie an homage to the likes of Reservoir Dogs, Heat and The Blues Brothers. He also cites Point Break, which is definitely evident in the use of Halloween masks for heists and the presence of Flea as one of the robbers. In a different sort of homage, Elgort sports a jacket that has a Han Solo look to it, perhaps a nod to his having been in the running for the role of young Han Solo last year.

If you plan on seeing Baby Driver in a theater, make sure that theater has a premium sound system. The one I saw it in had sound that was a little too muddy and soft, and it did little to drown out the ringing in my ears that I suffer from after listening to Who/Pete Townshend albums cranked up on my headphones. There was no bass in my theater. I was a little sad.

The summer had stalled out a bit after that Transformers fiasco, but Baby Driver gets things back on a confident route. Does this movie make up for the loss of Wright on Ant-Man? Nah, I’m still going to bitch about that. But it is a nice addition to the Wright movie canon, and proof that the guy can do no wrong. Ω

“i’m going to wrap those headphones around your neck.”

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3Cars 3 The Cars franchise gets a nice little rebirth with Cars 3, a much, much better movie than Cars 2, and a slightly better movie than the first Cars. If you’re keeping score— and, really, you shouldn’t be, for there are far more pressing matters in your life—that still makes Cars 3 one of the more mediocre offerings from Pixar. Still, a mediocre Pixar film is better than most animated movies. Jettisoning the stupid spy movie bullshit—oops, I just cursed in a review for a G-rated movie … sorry, kids—that made the last installment convoluted and useless, the folks at Pixar choose to go an earthier, more emotional route with this one, and it works, for the most part. They also find a way to get the voice of the late Paul Newman into the mix, and hearing his beautiful growl again definitely warms the heart. Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) is getting on in years, and he’s facing fierce competition from newer model cars like Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer), a strong, highly-trained vehicle that is beating McQueen on the racetrack. After a calamitous accident that renders his beautiful red sheen primer gray, McQueen is faced with either retirement or a new training regime comeback, Rocky III-style. The movie plays around with the notions of retirement and the rites of passage to the next generation, pretty heady stuff for a G-rated animated movie. Give the screenwriters credit for finally coming up with a story for Lightning McQueen that caters as much to adults as it does to kids.

3The Hero Lee, an aging movie star (Sam Elliot) gets some bad news from his doctor and tries to make good on some mistakes in the face of some big decisions. If that sounds like a done-to-death story for you, it kind of is, but director and co-screenwriter Brett Haley makes things intriguing, thanks to a great performance from Elliot and an excellent supporting cast. Elliot is basically playing himself, a western star known for his big voice and iconic moustache, and the part was tailor made for him. His Lee is sort of a jerk, but the kind of jerk you have to like. The way that moustache arches with his smile is magical. Nick Offerman is stellar as Lee’s drug dealer and best buddy, while Laura Prepon has never been better as “the love interest.” Yes, it’s a cliché role, but she takes it to great heights. Elliot’s real-life wife, the great Katharine Ross, even has a role as Lee’s ex-wife, which must’ve been a little awkward to pull off on set. The film looks great, especially during Lee’s dreams, which have him acting out a final movie in his head. In a summer of blockbusters and blockbuster wannabes, this stands as one of its fine sleepers.

5Maudie There isn’t a single wrong note in Maudie, an alternately heartbreaking and uplifting biofilm about the life of Canadian painter Maud Lewis (Sally Hawkins). After answering an ad for a housekeeper in Nova Scotia, Maud, stricken with arthritis since she was a child, winds up in the house of miserable bastard Everett Lewis (Ethan Hawke, delivering yet another monumental performance). The two wind up married, but it’s no fairytale. Everett has some major, major issues that Maud must contend with, and when Maud finds fame with her sweet paintings, Everett becomes an even bigger jerk. Hawkins is a true Oscar contender here. The role of Lewis is physically strenuous, and the light in her voice gives the character an illuminating quality. The humor always shines through, and it’s breathtaking how good she is. Hawke never gives up the ghost on his character, one of unrelenting stubbornness afflicted with a permanent scowl. He could find himself in the Oscar race, as well. If there’s an underlying message to this movie it’s this—if you love somebody, you better damn well act like you mean it before it’s too late.

4Okja Director Joon-ho Bong, purveyor of spectacularly wacky cinematic things (The Host, Snowpiercer) delivers, perhaps, his wackiest yet with this tale about a future world where meat is scarce, so huge pigs are biogenetically engineered for slaughter. The title character is a prized, giant animal raised in the mountains by Mija (Seo Hyun), a young girl who thinks Okja is her pet. She’s oblivious to the fact that Okja’s days are numbered, so when an envoy for a large corporation (Jake Gyllenhaal going nuts) shows up and takes Okja away, Mija flies into action, and the bizarre adventure begins. Paul Dano, one of the kings of movie weirdness, chips in as the leader of an animal rescue corps that includes Steven Yeun (The Walking Dead) and Lily Collins. Following up her collaboration with Bong on Snowpiercer is Tilda Swinton, once again playing twins, as she did in Hail, Caesar!, two evil sisters running the corporation that produced Okja. The movie mixes absurd laughs with mayhem, and the cast is universally great. Like films such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Babe before it, this movie looks to shine a light on the cruel treatment of animals and perhaps get you to pass on the bacon the next time you are at Denny’s. It’s streaming on Netflix.

1Transformers: The Last Knight The latest Transformers movie, Transformers:The Last Knight, gets the dubious distinction of being the worst in the series. That is some sort of major accomplishment. It’s not the easiest thing in the world to look at this collective pile of movie manure and decipher which of the five is the worst. It’s like going to a frat house the first week of a semester at Dickhead University and trying to pick out the dumbest, drunkest douche in the place. All of the qualifiers are terribly, criminally lame. I’m giving the award of franchise worst because it’s just so clear how every participant in this enterprise, from director Michael Bay right on down to the production assistant who smeared glycerin on Mark Wahlberg’s pecs, is jaded, tired and played out. Nobody really wants to be in this thing. The stink of “Who gives a shit … just pay me!” hits your nostrils with Wahlberg’s first line delivery. The best part of this movie is when Anthony Hopkins inexplicably goes to Stonehenge to witness a robot battle then gets blown up, leading to the silliest death scene ever. Yep, I just issued a spoiler. Anthony Hopkins, who should be ashamed of himself for participating in this thing, dies hilariously in this movie. I hope this spoiler pisses you off so much that you don’t go to the movie. Be mad at me for the next 10 years, but I know I did you a favor.

4Wonder Woman The DC Universe gets the blast of fun it sorely needed with a film that gets it right on almost every front, and features a performance from Gal Gadot that makes it seem the role was her birthright. Gadot lights up the screen and commands the camera on a level with Christopher Reeve and Robert Downey, Jr., in past films of the superhero genre. She simply is Wonder Woman to the extent that I can’t picture another actress ever even attempting to play the character again. She owns it. It’s hers. Game over. There’s always that faction of fans who bitch about superhero origin stories, wanting these films to jump straight to the hardcore action, but I love a good superhero origin story done well, and this is one of them. The movie starts with young Amazonian princess Diana running around in her island paradise, practicing her fight moves and yearning to be trained as a warrior. After butting heads with her sister Antiope, Diana’s mother, Hippolyta, relents, and allows Antiope to train Diana, as long as she doesn’t tell her about the true powers she possesses. For those who don’t know the Wonder Woman back story—I was a little rusty on it myself—it’s a sweet little piece of mythology and mystery, and director Patty Jenkins (the Charlize Theron Oscar vehicle Monster) perfectly paces all the revelations. It says a lot that Gadot and Jenkins make you feel good in a movie that has its share of violence and villainy in it.