GREEN ROOM Is a Hardcore Punk Rock Midnight Movie Thriller

GREEN ROOM Review:

- With his first film, Blue Ruin, director Jeremy Saulnier made himself known as a major new voice in movies. Blue Ruin took the same sort of retro, minimalist, slow-burn aesthetic that's become all the rage in the indie horror sphere, and applied that same sort of vibe to the revenge thriller. The result was a unique film that mixed understated, low-key, pitch-black humor with bursts of brutal violence. Now, with GREEN ROOM, Saulnier takes that same sensibility and cranks it up to eleven. Where Blue Ruin sometimes felt like a director still, to an extent, finding his voice, GREEN ROOM feels like the work of a creative voice now fully-formed. The film is a master-class in cinematic tension - a hardcore, uncompromising midnight movie that will make you laugh and gasp and clap. It's pure cinematic rock n' roll.

GREEN ROOM hits you with an instant-classic exploitation film premise: punks vs. Nazis. The film begins by showing us the rough-and-tumble road life of a young and hungry punk rock band called The Ain't Rights. After a planned college-town gig falls through, the band takes a chance by accepting another gig at a backwoods punk club somewhere outside of Portland. They're warned that the club caters to a certain type, but it's not until they arrive on the scene that they see that it is, in fact, a haven for neo-Nazis and skinheads. The band, feeling extra rebellious, decides to play a cover of The Dead Kennedys’ “Nazi Punks %$&# Off.” The bottles that get thrown at them are a portent of things to come. As they prepare to leave the club after the gig, the band stumbles onto a murder scene. And suddenly, they're in way over their heads - unwanted witnesses to a crime, and the targets of the violent sect of neo-Nazis that use the club as a headquarters and recruiting base.

The movie takes its atmospheric cues from legendary cult movie masters like John Carpenter and Walter Hill. Most of the film takes place in a select few locations, but Saulnier makes the most of those confined spaces to build tension to crazy levels. When the violence comes, Saulnier pulls no punches - he makes GREEN ROOM into a blood-spattered, gory battle of wills. But what keeps even the quiet moments interesting is the care the movie gives to make all of the characters have depth. The violence always means something - we have some investment in all of the characters, big and small, hero or villain. The members of The Ain't Rights all feel fleshed-out - and each, in a short time, is given plenty of personality.

It helps that the movie gets great performances out of actors like Anton Yelchin and Alia Shawkat - both playing members of the band. Imogen Poots is also very good, playing a friend of the initial murder victim, now held captive alongside the band members. The fun of seeing these punks backed into a corner is that they must now channel their fearless, rebellious stage personas into a real-life, life-or-death situation. The punks are forced to dig deep within, and see if they can translate their on-stage bravado into real, actual, courage in the face of danger. The movie has a lot of fun with that duality. It's not ragging on the punks or calling them out as poseurs - instead, we're made to root for them to be the badasses that their hardcore music makes them out to be.

Of course, the icing on the cake here is that GREEN ROOM casts the great Patrick Stewart as its Big Bad - the icy, manipulative club-owner who also happens to be the enigmatic, cult-like leader of the white supremacist gang calls the club their base of operations. Stewart kills. He tones down his usual Shakespearean grandiosity in favor of a much more slithery, serpent-like performance. His character, Darcy, is a sadistic dude prone to bursts of rage, but also a guy who can turn up the charm when need be - as he does when he initially tries to persuade the members of The Ain't Rights that he's on their side. Saulnier is definitely having fun having Stewart play against type. He's also having fun with showing how these despicable neo-Nazis - based out of a hardcore punk club - still have all sorts of mundane concerns around money, supplies, etc. Stemming from the Nazism-as-a-business motif is the resigned subservience that Darcy inspires in his underlings. In particular, there's a great performance from Blue Ruin's Macon Blair as Darcy's put-upon right-hand-man - a guy whose evilness is counterbalanced by a certain self-aware sense of "how the hell did I get myself into this?". 

What's remarkable about this movie is that from the moment the punks run afoul of Darcy and his minions, the intensity never lets up. The movie is a nail-biter through and through. And Saulnier makes sure that no act of violence is taken for granted - each is a shocking, wince-inducing jaw-dropper. The action in general just feels raw - there's a you-are-there messiness and a constant feeling of unpredictability. There's also a streak of dark humor that permeates the film - just the right amount. At the same time, Saulnier does occasionally let things breathe, and really makes you feel bonded to these characters. It's all a great recipe for a new midnight movie mainstay - an ode to punk-rock rebellion that feels like the movie equivalent of a balls-to-the-wall punk rock headbanger. 

My Grade: A-

THE JUNGLE BOOK Mixes Spectacular Visuals With Serviceable Story

THE JUNGLE BOOK Review:

- Initially, I was skeptical of this latest live-action version of THE JUNGLE BOOK. Disney seems intent on turning all of its animated classics into live-action spectacles. But to what purpose? How many times must the same stories be re-told over and over again? Still, my skepticism was lessened when I saw the first trailers for this one. Perhaps a live-action Jungle Book was justified if it would look this amazing. Now that I've seen the movie, my verdict is that the movie is a mixed bag. From a purely visual perspective, this one is undeniably a stunner. The animals and the environs look amazing. But story-wise, to me this was pretty shrug-worthy - it's an at-times awkward mix of the animated original's whimsy and the darker Kipling source material. This is a movie that has full singing/dancing musical numbers, but also sure-to-terrorize-and-traumatize-kids moments of violence and brutality - often veering wildly from one extreme to the other in a matter of minutes. Ultimately, there is a numbing effect. The movie doesn't really seem to know what it is - other than a showcase for insanely realistic CGI.

There are, certainly, some interesting thematic ideas amid the spectacle. Director Jon Favreau and writer Justin Marks push heavily on the idea that young Mowgli has reached a crossroads, and must decide if he'll remain a creature of the jungle, or embrace his human-ness. Having been raised by wolves - along with the kindly panther Bagheera - after his father was killed, Mowgli has become an integrated part of the animal melting pot that is the jungle. He has, mostly, been indoctrinated into the ways of the wolves. But whenever he does display human traits - like making/utilizing tools - he is chided, his makeshift tools denounced as "tricks." Now, however, the sinister tiger Shere Khan has decided that Mowgli must be killed for the good of the jungle. Having been scarred by a man wielding fire, Khan is convinced it's only a matter of time before Mowgli becomes a danger to the jungle. And so, at Bagheera's urging, Mowgli flees his wolf pack in search of a nearby human village. The movie builds towards a pretty interesting climax, where Mowgli must decide once and for all if he'll stay in the jungle, or embrace his humanity - with all that that entails.

The problem is that the movie, mostly, feels like a series of self-contained tangents that distract and diverge from the main plot rather than add to it. Mowgli meets a mysterious snake Kaa (voiced by Scarlett Johansson) and learns his origin story! Mowgli meets happy-go-lucky bear Baloo (who is voiced by Bill Murray) and helps him get some honey, and they sing a song (one of two in the movie)! Mowgli runs afoul of King Louie of the apes, who is voiced by Christopher Walken and sings a song (two of two in the movie)! Mowgli saves a baby elephant! In many ways, the film has the same sort of light and airless rhythm of a typical Disney animated movie - with the difference being that this movie seems to want to go darker and deeper, even as it keeps getting distracted with all sorts of seemingly-obligatory Disney-ness. But more than that, the movie rarely feels like it has much plot momentum. The structure is loose and freewheeling, which can make the movie - for all its stunning visuals and action - feel aimless and draggy at times.

The movie really does get creepy at certain moments - the Kaa sequence, for one is pretty intense. And some of the animal-on-animal fights are downright vicious - especially given how photo-realistic most of the movie's creatures are. But like I said, some of the movie's more extreme and intense tendencies create some real tonal dissonance with its lighter moments. Kid actor Neel Sethi, who plays Mowgli, seems more comfortable with the goofy and funny stuff. His wide-eyed, go-big performance feels less attuned to the movie's more serious sequences.

The other performances - namely, the voice-acted parts - are all quite good. If nothing else, the main animal characters in the movie have a ton of personality. In particular, Bill Murray makes Baloo an instant favorite (he basically is a real-life Baloo, after all), and Idris Elba makes Shere Khan into a fearsome and formidable antagonist. Christopher Walken also provides a comedic spark as the larger-than-life (personality-wise and size-wise) King Louie. But what really impresses is how the voice-acting combines with the amazingly-rendered CG to create a surprisingly immersive heightened reality. Going into the film, I was worried that seeing photo-realistic animals speaking English would be awkward to the point of taking me out of the film. But in practice, the movie's animators do a brilliant job of making the animals just heightened and just anthropomorphic enough to convey real, believable personalities - and to make us buy them as fully fleshed-out characters.

Favreau, for his part, really goes for broke. The movie's jungle world is amazingly-realized, and Favreau shows a cinematic sense of artistry here that I didn't know he had in him. Interestingly, where the movie shines most is in the quieter, more painterly scenes. The action, too, is often breathtaking - although more so for the eye-popping CG work on the animals and environments than for anything particularly awesome going on with the staging of the big set-pieces. Nothing really reaches Spielbergian levels of inventiveness. Still, give Favreau credit for crafting what is, overall, one of the most visually-impressive blockbusters in quite some time.

Ultimately though, THE JUNGLE BOOK just doesn't nail its big emotional beats like it should. There's too much here that feels like fluff and/or filler, and that means that the should-have-been-powerful ending instead feels sort of "meh." THE JUNGLE BOOK works well enough, but only its visuals are more than serviceable.

My Grade: B

EVERYBODY WANTS SOME!! Brilliantly Captures What it is to be Young and Free and Ready to Party

EVERYBODY WANTS SOME!! Review:

- Richard Linklater is one of our greatest filmmakers because he so expertly captures moments that are small, yet in their own way, monumental. Boyhood was, perhaps, his masterpiece - an epic yet intimate look at one boy's journey across the years. But EVERYBODY WANTS SOME (which, in its official title, includes double exclamation points) goes back to the days of Linklater's breakout Dazed & Confused - instead of taking place over a sprawling timeline, it's a hyper-focused look at a single weekend. The movie looks at a perfectly-crystalized moment in time: 1980, Texas, the first weekend of arrival at college and the last weekend before class starts. A moment of parties, rock n' roll, identity crisis, and total - blissful! - freedom. A time when the 'staches were unironic, the shorts were short, and kids were free to be kids. It's the last weekend of summer and the first weekend of the rest of these characters' lives. And yet ... this often hilarious (but surprisingly poignant) pre-college party film has more in common with a movie like Boyhood than you might think. Because like Boyhood - and like so much of the Linklater filmography - EVERYBODY WANTS SOME is, really, about how small moments shape us and make us who we are. And nobody captures those moments like Linklater.

The movie sort of drops you into this world makes you feel less so like you're watching a movie, and more like you're hanging out with these characters for two hours. It helps that the characters here are so great. Some we feel like we know well. Some we feel like we only get a sense for. But they are all defined and shaped in the way that real people you've just met might be. They are all, every one, distinct and memorable. Jake is our entry-point character - and, as played by Blake Jenner, he's a classic Linklater protagonist. Jake was a standout high school baseball player who's now finds himself one of several rookies on a college team with championship hopes. The team members live together in an off-campus house provided by the school - a ramshackle party pad where girls are supposedly banned from being present upstairs, but where many girls will spend a lot of time upstairs. The team is a mix of colorful characters - they may all be baseball players, but the group is an eclectic mix of swaggering jocks, philosophical stoners, would-be ladies men, awkward dorks, dorky rednecks, and the prerequisite might-be-a-psycho loose cannon.

Jake, meanwhile, is a natural talent, but he's also quiet and introspective, a music collector, and a bit of a chameleon. Throughout the film, Jake is the catalyst that guides his less-adaptable baseball teammates into all kinds of corners of the 1980 college scene. We see Jake and his new pals go to a punk rock concert, a theater-kid party (after Jake falls for an aspiring actress), a disco, and a cowboy bar. So yes, this is a movie about baseball players. But it's also a movie about the universal college experience - trying out different scenes, figuring out where you fit in and where you don't. Beverly, the theater major who Jake falls for (played, in a great performance, by Zoey Deutch) is essentially living in her own movie running parallel to Jake's. She's new at school, coming from a place where she was the star of school plays, now thrown in with a bunch of others who were, each of them, the stars of *their* school plays. It's a testament to how naturally fleshed-out Linklater's world feels that you could easily imagine, at any point, his cameras shifting focus to Beverly - with a whole new movie growing organically out of this one. But that's the magic of EVERYBODY WANTS SOME. It's a very specific story that is also incredibly universal.

The cast here is mostly unknowns. But just as the cast of Dazed and Confused turned out to be made up of future stars, there is that some sort of potential here. Every actor brings something a little different to the table, and they all do a remarkably great job of playing to Linklater's naturalistic style. Blake Jenner is very good as Jake, but he's also sort of the POV character - so it's the others who get the really weird/funny/standout moments. The best, I think, is Glenn Powell - who was hilarious on the series Scream Queens. We all know a guy like his character, Finnegan - a smart-mouthed amateur philosopher who freely dispenses sage advice on everything from college clique pecking orders to the best (often highly out-of-the-box) ways to pick up women. Of course, the all-knowing Finnegan is, in his own way, as confused and clueless as everyone else. Another standout is Wyatt Russell - who is really becoming a great comic actor. Here, he plays Willoughby - the quintessential stoner hippie - a California-raised zen-guru whose preternatural calm is a marked contrast to the unchecked male aggression of many of his teammates. There's also a great twist around his character that I won't spoil here - except to say that, ultimately, he becomes sort of the living embodiment of everything this movie is about. I know - heavy stuff, man.

EVERYBODY WANTS SOME is often uproariously funny. It's you-are-there authenticity only makes some of the characters that much funnier. Even the broader characters - like Coma, a man-beast prone to rage-filled outbursts - feel like guys we've all seen before. Certainly, they feel like guys Linklater has seen before. The director seems to be mining his own memories of college (he also played college baseball) and of this particular time and place - to great effect. He really captures the way that these guys hang out, goof off, and shoot the $%&#. In general, Linklater captures an essential guy-ness - showing guys being guys in a way that both extols the fun of being a young dude in your prime and also gently critiques how maleness can be toxic when it goes too far. A lot of what Jake and his teammates discover is the line between being cool and being a jerk. And so, while this is a funny and very fun look at the halcyon days of college - set in a nostalgia-tinged, pre-internet era of sex and rock n' roll - there is also a subtext here about how, even in this carefree, responsibility-free environment, these boys are starting to learn what it means to be men.

Make no mistake, EVERYBODY WANTS SOME is a great - maybe even essential - college movie and party movie. Seeing it will make you want to go grab a posse and find a party to crash. But what separates this from your average bro-friendly college comedy are the many layers that Linklater's ever-observant eye adds to the film. It's nostalgia tinged with sadness, celebration tinged with regret. It's a look at what it means to be young and free, but also what it means to be an adult who evolves and adapts and becomes more accepting and empathetic of others. This is a movie about universal experience - and it's an oddly hopeful one. It is, in some ways, about these various tribes coming together - the athletes, the punks, the stoners, the drama kids - and creating this melting pot of people who - surprise! - share common worries and wants and dreams. It's all pretty utopian actually - but EVERYBODY WANTS SOME captures a certain sense of us all being in this together - even as it hits us with dick jokes and pratfalls. Not many directors could pull something like that off, but Linklater makes it seem effortless.

My Grade: A-

THE INVITATION Is Yet Another Indie Horror Gem

THE INVITATION Review:

- And so the indie horror revival yields yet another gem. THE INVITATION is one of those great little horror films that delivers slow-burning intensity and a pervasive atmosphere of "WTF-is-happening-right-now?" creepiness. Director Karyn Kusama keeps the pressure-cooker vibe strong, making a strong case for herself as a director who really gets how to do horror right. Now, this will be a difficult movie to review - THE INVITATION falls squarely in the less-you-know-about-the-plot-the-better category. But I will try to speak a bit about why the film works as well as it does.

The basics of the plot (don't worry, not spoiling anything) involve a man, Will (Logan Marshall-Green) reluctantly accepting an invitation to a dinner party being thrown by his ex-wife, Eden, in the secluded Hollywood Hills home where the couple used to live. The guests include an assortment of old friends - who were once clearly very close - but for eventually-made-clear reasons, grew apart. And so the dinner party is a reunion of sorts - with new significant others (including Will's new girlfriend and Eden's new husband), and assorted other new faces, added to the mix. But the exact reasons as to why Eden felt compelled to throw this party remain mysterious, and a feeling of dread seems to hang over Will throughout the night. Is this really just a long-overdue gathering of old friends - a way for Eden to make peace with her past? Or is there some other agenda here?

The film does a great job of slowly dispensing information as it goes - all while raising new questions throughout its running time. What's so impressive is how Kusama takes her time to get to the movie's explosive endgame - and yet, everything leading up to the big climax is completely, 100% gripping in its own right. Even as we struggle to figure out what's going on, even as we try to wrap our heads around the subtle clues and character dynamics revealed over the course of the dinner party, the film holds us firmly in the palm of its hand. Indeed, THE INVITATION feels like a nice companion piece to recent indie thrillers like You're Next and Coherence, in that it really nails a lot of small moments and character stuff, but also delivers pretty nicely - and really escalates in a pretty crazy way - once all of its cards are laid on the table.

I do think the movie has a couple of faults that keep it from being a new classic. One issue is that the acting is a bit of a mixed bag. There a couple of reliably great performers - like the always great (and often creepy-as-hell) John Carroll Lynch - who really help elevate things. But a couple of the actors - and by extension their characters - feel a bit bland. One other complaint is that, as fun as the movie's final act is, it does feel a bit rushed. It would have been fun to have the film's endgame given a little more breathing room - especially so as to allow the plot to come together in more of a cohesive fashion. As is, there's still a lot that feels not-quite-explained-to-satisfaction by the time the movie ends.

That said - and again, without spoiling anything - the movie has an absolutely jaw-dropping coda, that will be talked about by horror fans for a long time to come.

THE INVITATION is well worth a watch if you've been digging (as I have) the recent indie horror explosion. If nothing else, the film is a great testament to Kusama's skills as a director - after this (and the underrated Jennifer's Body) it'd be a crying shame if she doesn't get put on Hollywood short-lists to helm more thrillers and horror flicks. But more so than that, this is one of the most genuinely creepy and unsettling horror movies in quite some time. Check it out.

My Grade: B+

HELLO, MY NAME IS DORIS Radiates Heart and Is Also Hilarious

HELLO, MY NAME IS DORIS Review:

- As a longtime fan of The State and its many notable alumni, the recent renaissance of State-related projects has been, well, pretty awesome. The recent Wet Hot American Summer series on Netflix was a great way to revisit the group's most popular collaboration. But one cool thing that seemed to come out of the renewed attention on the group was a greater opportunity for them to produce more projects. Several years ago, we got a taste of what a Michael Showalter movie would be like with The Baxter. But his latest, HELLO, MY NAME IS DORIS, is a major step forward for the writer/director. Like The Baxter, Showalter's latest mixes the sort of absurdist humor that he patented with The State and Stella with a surprising amount of pathos and heart. Part of the reason that Wet Hot is so funny is that, even in its most absurd moments, it strikes at some sort of universal truth. But DORIS goes a step further, mixing wacky humor with a realness that makes the film's characters feel grounded and multi-dimensional. Sally Field absolutely kills in the title role - it's a performance that's both hilarious and heartfelt.

The film centers around Doris, played by Field - a sixty-something eccentric who has become the quirky older woman in her Millennial-heavy workplace. The joke here is that Doris' well-worn urban quirkiness is a pretty perfect match for her twenty-something co-workers' newfangled urban hipsterism. Doris - with her big glasses, colorful clothes, and general adorkability - was, basically, a hipster before being a hipster was cool. And so, the movie (and Doris) wonders - is it that far-fetched to imagine a May-December romance between Doris and one of her younger hipster acquaintances? This is where Doris' mind wanders to when she meets her newly-transplanted-from-LA co-worker, John (Max Greenfield), who inspires powerful feelings in Doris. John's friendly nature convinces Doris that, perhaps, she actually has a shot of wooing her much-younger colleague.

I can't say enough about Field in this film. It would have been easy to make this a movie in which the joke is on Doris, but that's not what this is at all. Field - enabled by a wonderful script from Showalter - makes Doris someone we can't help but root for and sympathize with. Not just that, but there is actually something much deeper going on with her than just a workplace crush. The movie gives us incredible insight into Doris' world. We see how she has a sweet yet potentially too-co-dependent friendship with longtime confidante Roz (an amazing Tyne Daly) - in a relationship that provides her comfort and routine, but that perhaps holds her back from new experiences and connections. We see how she has an adversarial relationship with her more square, overly-concerned siblings (Stephen Root and Wendi McLendon-Covey - also pretty great) - who worry about Doris' hoarding tendencies, among other things. Field isn't afraid to go to some pretty dark places. There is something genuinely wounded about Doris. But there is also an un-extinguishable light - a dogged determination to be who she wants to be and live life her way. Doris prides herself on marching to the beat of her own drummer. She doesn't want to be put into a box, but she realizes, more and more, that perhaps she's become confined in a box of her own making. Field pulls off the movie's light, funny, absurdist moments with aplomb and perfect comic timing. But she also has moments that are incredibly moving and even intense. I don't know if her performance will come up at all in terms of Oscar consideration - but it most definitely should. This is an all-time amazing turn from Field.

Greenfield is also great, playing a much less cartoonish character than he does as New Girl's Schmidt. But what the film really does well is that it develops the relationship between John and Doris in a way that never devolves into pure movie fluff. Sure, their adventures together take many strange, often hilarious turns. But Showalter never "cheats" - everything that does or does not happen between them feels honest and earned.

Meanwhile, the cast is brimming with fun performances from very funny/talented people. Beth Behrs shines as John's proto-hipster girlfriend. Doris' office-mates consist of the always-funny/always-excellent likes of Kumail Nanjiani, Kyle Mooney, and Natasha Lyonne. Isabella Acres is also great as Tyne Daly's teenage granddaughter, who Doris hilariously turns to for romantic advice, once she enters the world of social media in order to stay connected to John and his world.

I will emphasize: even though DORIS has a surprising amount of dramatic weight, it's also funny as hell. Michael Showalter seems to have struck the exact right balance of drawing from his talent for absurdist comedy and his seeming desire to create works with a little more dramatic heft than the Wet Hot American Summers of the world (don't get me wrong, I worship at the alter of Wet Hot - but it's clear that Showalter is going for something different here). But DORIS hits comedic gold in a number of ways. It's got moments of razor-sharp absurdism. It's got very clever satire of modern Millennial hipsterism. It's got spot-on character-based humor. And it's got the kind of applause-generating funny that can only come when you love the characters in a movie and are 100% invested in them.

Perhaps one of the best compliments I can give to this movie is that, when I saw it at the Arclight Hollywood, the crowd was an eclectic mix of younger New Girl fans, slightly older The State acolytes, and much older Sally Field admirers. All came away raving about the film - everyone seemed to love it equally. That, I think, is a testament to the power of a great movie that works on many levels - brilliantly funny and also radiating with heart. I hope many more Michael Showalter movies will follow.

My Grade: A-

MIDNIGHT SPECIAL is a Riveting Sci-Fi Father/Son Story

MIDNIGHT SPECIAL Review:

- Writer/director Jeff Nichols has quickly become one of *the* guys to watch in cinema. His films - though to date, they've been lower budget - overflow with narrative ambition. MIDNIGHT SPECIAL is perhaps his most ambitious movie yet. It mixes the heightened, slightly-surreal drama of his previous films with a throwback, Spielberg-esque vibe - calling to mind the Amblin movies of the 80's that so often featured a kid or kids on the run from evil forces. But where the Nichols of it all comes into play is that MIDNIGHT SPECIAL is also an ultra-intense, spiritually-rich meditation on fathers and sons, destiny and fate. Like some of Nichols' other films, there are parts of the movie that work better than others. But mostly, this is a cinematic journey well worth taking - a film that feels both personal and epic, a sci-fi adventure that you won't soon forget.

The movie centers around a young boy named Alton Meyer (Jaeden Lieberher) - who was born with super-human powers. He seems attuned to all kinds of invisible frequencies, and has psychic powers that make him nearly omniscient. The film throws us right into the middle of a crucial turning point in young Alton's life. He is on the run. His father, Roy (the great Michael Shannon), and his father's childhood friend Lucas (Joel Edgerton) are driving him away from multiple pursuers. Their destination is foggy - they are simply going where Alton tells them they need to go, to fulfill some as-yet-to-be-revealed higher calling. But there are many who want to find Alton and take him away from his protective father. For a time, Alton was raised by a cult in his Texas hometown - led by a charismatic leader (Sam Shepard), who now wants to reclaim his messianic figure by any means necessary. In parallel, the government is aware of Alton and wants to bring him in for tests. A government scientist (Adam Driver) leads the hunt.

Once again, Michael Shannon's intensity is a great match for Nichols'. Shannon anchors the film with a searing performance - playing a father utterly dedicated to protecting his son. But that drive to keep Alton safe comes into direct conflict with the rapidly-materializing reality that the boy is meant for some higher purpose - a purpose that will likely separate father from son. And so, MIDNIGHT SPECIAL becomes a somewhat haunting meditation on fatherhood - on the idea of bringing someone into this world that you must eventually part with. Shannon is fantastic here. He often plays larger-than-life, but he also acquits himself well to everyman.

The rest of the cast is also excellent. Lieberher does a great job as Alton - he fluctuates between seeming like a regular kid and having a tangible otherworldly quality about him. Edgerton is also really good as Shannon's erstwhile companion. He seems so natural as a down-home Texan that it's hard to believe he actually isn't one. Suffice it to say, his performance made me picture him as a perfect Stu Redman in an adaptation of The Stand. Kirsten Dunst is another huge standout. She comes into the picture later in the film - playing Alton's estranged mom - but she makes a huge impact and is at the center of some of the movie's most memorable scenes. Coming off of her phenomenal work in Fargo Season 2, Dunst continues her hot streak with another great performance. Adam Driver is doing something much different here than we've previously seen from him. Unlike his twitchy performance on Girls or his angry/emo portrayal of Kylo Ren in The Force Awakens, here he plays a subdued, inquisitive scientist - a guy who goes against the grain of his employer's aggressive, often ruthless modus operandi. And Sam Shepard is a lot of fun - pretty much the best there is at playing a Southern-fried badass.

But ultimately, this is Nichols' film. MIDNIGHT SPECIAL absolutely drips with atmosphere and pounding intensity. It feels like Nichols is doing a sort of Marvels-like take on the superhero genre, filling his cinematic canvas with street-level views of the fantastic - giving us imagery designed to elicit maximum awe and wonder. In an age where CGI-porn action movies often take their own wizardry for granted, Nichols seems to be deliberately trying to channel that old-school, Spielberg sense of grandiosity. And he succeeds pretty spectacularly. The filmmaking in this movie is like a live-action version of something Alex Ross might paint - an apocalyptic vision of one family's fight against rapidly-encroaching doom. Meanwhile, the movie's brimming intensity is only accentuated by its thunderous score.

Where MIDNIGHT SPECIAL perhaps falters a bit is in its endgame. In similar fashion to the recent 10 Cloverfield Lane, the movie almost goes too big with its grand finale, giving us too much when all we needed was a quick hint of the bigger picture. This movie - like 10 Cloverfield - keeps its secrets relatively close to the vest throughout its running time. The exact nature of Alton's powers and origins is kept vague - and really, it's mostly beside the point. So the big finale feels a little out of place given what most of the movie has been to that point. And whereas the mystery around Alton adds to the tension of most of the film, the finale makes us ask various plot-related questions that threaten to overshadow some of the film's deeper themes.

MIDNIGHT SPECIAL works best when thought of as a father-son movie that also happens to channel the vibe of 80's Spielberg sci-fi. If you think too hard about the details of the plot, the movie definitely reveals itself to be a bit thin. But as a quasi-metaphorical, quasi-spiritual journey - it soars. Nichols is one of those filmmakers who, quite simply, knows how to hold an audience in the palm of his hand. He makes even the movie's more slow-burn sections feel positively riveting. I can't wait to see what he does next.

My Grade: A-

BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE Tries So Hard to Be an Event That It Forgets to Be a Movie

BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE Review:

- Batman vs. Superman. For decades, this has been a conflict, a contrast, that has captivated the imagination of comic book fans. It's light vs. dark, fear vs. hope. Gotham vs. Metropolis. An ordinary man with an extraordinarily nightmarish childhood vs. a superpowered alien who grew up with a Rockwellian, idyllic upbringing. A rich city playboy vs. a country boy journalist. Vigilante vs. Hero. And yet ... two men who are, ultimately, two sides of the same coin. Two men who believe in truth and justice. Two men who live by a moral code. Two men who never give up. Two men who fight the same battle. There is rich thematic territory to explore in pitting Batman vs. Superman. And over the years, many a comic book and animated adventure has mined that iconic relationship in order to produce memorable stories.

But BATMAN V. SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE ... well, it has almost zero interest in any of those things. From watching this movie, from listening to interviews with director Zach Snyder - what's clear is that the bedrock upon which this movie was created is the fight between Batman and Superman in Frank Miller's seminal 1986 graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns. Snyder is an acolyte of Miller's work - he adapted 300, after all - and he seems to be a fan of that period of comics deconstruction (he also adapted that *other* big superhero deconstruction of the mid-80's, Watchmen). But increasingly, it feels like Snyder's affection for Miller and Moore is mostly just surface level. He likes the "kewl-factor" of those comics, but doesn't seem to get the context, the themes, or the subtext. As a pre-teen, I devoured those books. The shock factor of seeing R-rated interpretations of iconic superheroes blew my mind. But even then, I recognized what Moore and Miller were going for. They were subverting decades of superhero mythology - deconstructing aspects of superheroes that readers took for granted and placing them in the context of the politics of the 1980's. In The Dark Knight Returns, the "American Way" that Superman had long stood for had become corrupt and fascist, and Superman became a mere tool of that nightmare-America's government. Batman - now a grizzled, zero-%$&%'s-giving anarchist - comes out of retirement to fight the system. Ultimately, Batman and Superman throw down. And it's a fight for the ages. We actively root for Batman to win - it's his story, after all. And we smile and grin as the wily vigilante pulls out every trick in the book to humble the god-like Kal-El. But in BATMAN V SUPERMAN, Snyder takes that iconic battle and replicates it devoid of context. There's no real clash of ideologies here. There's no real thematic contrast between our heroes or what they represent. This Batman wants to hunt and kill Superman because he deems him (however misguidedly) responsible for the destruction and the resulting casualties that took place in Man of Steel. He views Superman as too much of a potential threat to let live. But even as he grits his teeth and decides to slay Superman, this Batman mows down people left and right while careening in the Batmobile through the streets of Gotham. This Batman brandishes a gun throughout what seems like half of the time he's onscreen in costume. This Batman kills (or as Snyder deemed it in an interview, he "manslaughters."). So where then, is the contrast?

In BATMAN V SUPERMAN, Gotham is indistinguishable from Metropolis. Both could essentially just be called Snyderville - perpetually dark, gloomy, and grey - lacking in any real personality or distinguishing characteristics. The movie is set 18 months after the events of Man of Steel - and we are told that - aside from some vocal pundits and protesters - people generally seem to have come around to the idea of Superman. I mean, there's a giant statue of him in Metropolis. But we are never really shown a Superman who is a man of the people. Most of the people we actually see in this movie - save for Lois Lane - seem to actively hate him. And Superman's personality seems to reflect that. Rather than serve as an optimistic contrast to Bruce Wayne's glumness, this film's Clark Kent can go toe to toe with Bruce when it comes to brooding. Snyder and his writers seem to actively not want to show a Superman being Superman. Aside from one moment of (misguided?) heroism in the film's final act, this Superman at times feels more like the fascist version from The Dark Knight Returns. Not for any real thematic reason - just because that's the version, I guess, that Snyder thinks is cool. Or at least, most palatable to his particular sensibilities.

It's funny, because in a world where multiple versions of DC Comics characters litter the pop-cultural landscape, the flaws of these movies often highlight the strengths of the other versions of the characters that are out there. When Superman Returns came out, its retread version of Lex Luthor - yet another spin on the sleazy used-car-salesman of the Donner films - made Smallville's tortured businessman version of Lex seem definitive in comparison. By the same token, BATMAN V SUPERMAN's dour Man of Steel makes the still-finding-its-groove Supergirl TV show seem to sparkle in comparison. Whatever flaws it may have, Supergirl overflows with palpable affection for its lead character and what she (and in turn, her iconic cousin) represent. There's no questioning that the show has an abundance of superheroic heart.

And where then is the beating heart of BATMAN V SUPERMAN ...? It's very, very hard to find. In retrospect, the relative lack of anything that could pass for real human emotion in this film makes Snyder's first DC movie, Man of Steel, start to look even better in comparison. I liked Man of Steel a lot. I graded it highly. It had fantastic action, a strong cast, and a pretty solidly-conveyed thematic through-line. It was Clark Kent's journey towards embracing the Superman identity after being confronted with his Kryptonian past. Simple, easy - and the foundation of a pretty damn good piece of sci-fi superhero pulp. But where Man of Steel took Clark on a pretty understandable character arc and plot trajectory, BATMAN V SUPERMAN jumps around with wild abandon - playing very fast and loose with things like character motivations, plot, and theme.

You can almost see the various hands reaching through the screen trying to mold this movie into something that fits their vision. You can imagine Snyder essentially working backwards from the big Batman/Superman smackdown, setting up a loosely-related collage of scenes meant to add some kind of mythic gravity to the heroes' first encounter. You can see screenwriter Chris Terrio (Argo) - brought in late in the game to polish things up - trying to somehow turn Snyder's comic book pulp into high-minded political-thriller allegory. And you can see the DC and Warner Bros brain-trust giddily - but awkwardly - shoehorning in all sorts of setup for future DC movie installments. This is "Dawn of Justice" - and so we get little glimpses of the rest of the DC pantheon, almost entirely unrelated to the actual plot of this movie - meant to prime us for what is to come in the years ahead.

The result is a movie that, for much of its running time, feels like an unwieldy mess. The first hour or so of the film is edited together so strangely - it almost feels like no one could agree how the movie should open, and so we're just left with no real opening. I won't spoil anything, but I'll just say that the movie begins with a truncated flashback to Batman's iconic origin story, followed by an extended revisit of the end of Man of Steel from Bruce Wayne's perspective, quickly followed by an extended scene of Lois Lane in Africa ... and then a bunch of other stuff before we ever see either Batman or Superman in costume. It's sort of shocking how all-over-the-place the movie is right out of the gate, and how long it takes to find any sort of real footing.

But what quickly becomes apparent is how thin most of the characters' motivations are in the movie. I talked a bit about the relative incoherence of Batman's decision to try to kill Superman (with a kryptonite spear, no less). But that incoherence extends to the entire fight between Superman and Batman. Look, comic book fans have long grown used to the trope of two heroes coming to blows without exactly having great reason to go at it. But here, it just feels like two action figures have been moved into place. In theory, Lex Luther is supposed to be the Machiavellian master manipulator of the confrontation. But Jesse Eisenberg's Lex never really makes any sense in this movie. His Lex is a jittery, half-insane madman on a perpetual sugar high. And what, exactly, he's trying to do and why is pretty vague - frustratingly so.

The thing is, BATMAN V SUPERMAN constantly fumbles the ball both on a macro and micro level. There are big picture issues - like how the big Batman/Superman fight begins on a nonsensical note and ends on an eye-rolling silly and sudden one. But there are *tons* of smaller issues that elicit WTF moments throughout the film. After Batman and Superman have called a truce, Lois Lane disposes of Batman's kryptonite spear by ... throwing it in a random abandoned building's flooded basement. Then, finding that casually-tossed-aside Ultimate Weapon becomes a major plot point in the movie's final act. "Hey, remember that all-powerful super-weapon that you tossed in a random building - now, if we don't find it, the world ends!" Is that really what this movie boils down to? Similarly, you know how I mentioned the film's odd, occasional inclination to become some sort of political thriller? Those moments pretty much all fall flat, and they add up to a whole lot of nothing. For example, the movie introduces the idea that Lex Luthor's anti-Superman plot is actually backed by the US government - but then never really resolves that notion or wraps it up in any meaningful way. There's also a pretty baffling sort-of dream sequence where Superman has a vision of his dead father, that seems to exist just because they wanted to squeeze Kevin Costner in here. It's a real head-scratcher as to why this scene happens when it does, and what it is exactly.

But hey, this is BATMAN V SUPERMAN - none of this stuff really matters if the movie gives us big moments of heroism that reinforce why these characters are icons - right? Well, for some reason the film continually undermines itself in this regard. There's a mind-blowingly strange sequence, for example, where Batman chases down criminals to a much-discussed secret boat (yep) that may be carrying a clandestine shipment of kryptonite. As Batman catches up with the boat, he's intercepted by Superman (this is the first time they meet), and Batman does his whole "do you bleed?" line. Superman quickly flies away, Batman stands around muttering, and then, well, that's it. What about those nefarious criminals and their kryptonite-carrying boat? Who cares! In this movie, Batman and Superman would rather trade lame taunts than fight crime, apparently. There's another moment in the movie that seems poised to be pretty great. Superman is called to testify before a Senate Committee to defend himself and his role in the destruction he caused in Man of Steel (the movie is very hung up on the ending of Man of Steel - I mean, sure, some critics didn't like it, but let's move on). But Superman is clearly going to give some great speech here, right? Some movie-defining Big Moment where Superman says earnestly that, my god, he may be an alien by birth, but he was raised to be an American - and really, he's just here to help. Or something. But in a moment that seems to literally embody the movie being pulled apart at the seams by the various parties involved in its conception, that potential Big Moment is interrupted by a giant explosion, and we're back to more brooding and people hating on Superman. And to make matters worse, the explosion is another part of Lex's weird master plan that never quite makes sense - unless you just go with the idea that he's actually insane - basically The Joker - and that nothing he does makes sense and is just intended to cause chaos (but is that really Lex Luthor?).

Eisenberg goes for it with his Lex. I can't really fault him for going big and over-the-top, because that's essentially what the script demands of him. But it does sort of irk me that this is now yet another big-screen Luthor who does not at all resemble the best and most iconic versions from the comics and animated series. The irony, of course, is that the DC Comics version of Lex that was a villain to Superman but a semi-respected businessman to the public - a guy who once ran for and won the DC Universe presidency - feels shockingly plausible and relevant today in the age of Trump. But worry not, there's no real sense of the zeitgeist being reflected in this movie (the movie's sensibility is much more rooted in the Frank Miller 80's and X-TREME 90's). More importantly, there's no real sense here that this is a Lex Luthor who could plausibly be Superman's greatest enemy. He's a Lex who is so brazenly a criminal that there's no endgame for him here except to end up dead or in jail. Lex has one really good moment in this movie where he threatens Lois and forces Superman to act to save her. It's a classic villain scene. Lex vs. Superman. It's too bad that we don't get more of that - or that we don't get a true clash of philosophies between Lex and Clark. What makes Lex a great villain in other mediums is that he's convinced that Superman is actually an existential affront to humanity. Here, Lex does a lot of semi-incoherent babbling - but there are no real shades of grey to him. He's just criminally insane. He's a Batman villain more so than a Superman one - a guy who should probably be locked up in Arkham Asylum. But ultimately, Lex is pretty marginalized in this movie. He's more background noise than anything else, and it's never exactly clear to what extent a.) it's his influence that's directly influencing Batman's decisions here, and b.) to what extent Lex himself is being manipulated by outside forces.

So yeah, there are a lot of "outside forces" in this movie. If you've read up on any of the pre-release hype pieces or if you're a big DC Comics fan, then it's pretty clear as to who the Big Bad is that BATMAN V SUPERMAN hamfistedly alludes to throughout its running time. But to what end? It's a pretty big game-changer if we're to believe that Batman and/or Lex are being expressly controlled and manipulated throughout the film by this other villain. But we never really know for sure. What we do know is that Batman has a few hallucinatory, seemingly prophetic dreams throughout the film - dreams that seem completely random and tangential to the plot, except to slightly reinforce Bruce's paranoia about Superman being dangerous. But is Bruce being in some way mind-controlled? Is Lex? Unclear. So what these sequences amount to is one crazy, Zach Snyder-at-his-Snyderiest actionfest, in which a machine gun toting Batman shoots his way through a horde of alien invaders like he's suddenly found himself in a sci-fi version of The Raid. Oh, and in the dream, Superman is evil. Presumably it's all portents of things to come in Justice League. But it also feels like Snyder got a little too caught up in the presumed kewlness of OMG YOU GUYS IT'S BATMAN BEING LIKE THE PUNISHER, BUT WITH ALIENS. BUT JUST KIDDING IT'S ALL A DREAM. OR IS IT? Suffice it to say, too much of this movie feels like a corporate-mandated ad for Justice League and the other DCU movies. I mean, Marvel has perfected the post-credits "wait, there's one more thing!" tease. But when your entire movie feels like a tease, well, that's not so good. This is especially true in the sort-of-lame previews of other Justice Leaguers like The Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg. We see hints of them in action via ... computer files stolen from Lex Luthor. Seeing Wonder Woman point and click on computer files is not exactly the most dramatic way to introduce us to The Flash or Aquaman. And it's not helped by the fact that both of the aforementioned characters are super bro'd-out looking - like what would happen if Image Comics re-imagined the characters circa 1997. It's all pretty underwhelming.

So what works in the movie? There are moments. There are definitely moments. In all honesty, there are some really good things about the whole Batman side of the movie that could bode well for a future Affleck-centric Bat-film. For one thing, Affleck is pretty darn good as both Bruce Wayne and Batman. My biggest fear about Affleck - that he was just too genial and bro-next-door seeming to be the Bat - was mostly erased here. Voice modulation and the best-looking live action Bat-suit ever help make him look and sound like, well, Batman. And as Bruce Wayne, Affleck feels sort of like the more old-school playboy-adventurer guy from 70's and 80's comics, and I dig that. Best of all, the new version of Alfred - played to droll perfection by Jeremy Irons - is great. Irons and Affleck have a fantastic chemistry, and probably my favorite, most geek-out-worthy moments in the movie are some of their exchanges. Batman also gets to really be Batman here in a way he never was in the Nolan movies. He's a detective. He does cool martial arts and fights like he does in the Arkham videogames. He grapples from building to building. He can move his neck. All the surface-level Batman stuff, Snyder gets pretty much right. It sounds simple - but so many Batman movies have sucked so hard in that regard that seeing a Batman who really moves and looks like Batman is a big sigh of relief. Of course, my enthusiasm for this Batman was somewhat dampened by him being written to be an emotionally unstable crazy person, who one minute decides to kill Superman and the next decides they're BFF's - whose main weapon seems to be guns (dude - no!), and who kills (sorry, "manslaughters") on a whim. But the point is, the ingredients are there for a pretty good Batman movie to come out of this - *provided* we get some better writing for the character.

I'll mention the score here, too. I love Hans Zimmer's themes from Man of Steel, and everytime they get play here I feel like the material becomes slightly elevated. Zimmer's Superman theme just brings an instant sense of gravitas to the table. I think the score here is overall pretty strong and adds a lot.

I also think the last hour of the movie really picks up the pace and starts to find more of a groove - and it delivers some fairly epic superhero brawls. Once we get Batman, Superman, and Gal Godot's Wonder Woman all in action together, taking on Doomsday, the movie devolves into sheer comic book spectacle - and this is where Snyder feels most at home. Though the Doomsday brawl has some really stupid and nonsensical beats to it, it's undeniably fun and has the look of some sort of Alex Ross painting brought to life. Even just seeing Wonder Woman in action and being awesome is cool, in and of itself. This was a *long* time coming, so it's no surprise that Wonder Woman's big entrance is a huge audience applause moment - it's a collective realization of "it's about damn time!" Wonder Woman doesn't do much other than fight and look cool in this film, but she's kickass enough to leave you anticipating what a WW movie might be like with Gal Gadot in the lead.

The thing is, there are these isolated moments of coolness in the movie. Although this film makes me question his storytelling a bit, I will still defend Snyder as a guy who can do really great, mythic, stylized imagery. And certain shots in the film are really powerful and really cool. But they are cool in a very out-of-context way - these aren't moments that ultimately add up to anything, or that feel dramatically earned. In our packed theater, people applauded when Batman kicked ass, when Wonder Woman debuted, when Doomsday hulked-out and began his rampage. But it felt like applauding things that we already had a pre-attachment to - applause from mere recognition. When I reflected back and thought about what the sum total of those scenes was, I kept coming up empty. Everything that was satisfying in the moment was satisfying only on a purely surface level. There was no substance here. When the movie tries to have substance - when Holly Hunter's senator talks about her stance on Superman, when Lex rambles about pop-philosophy stuff about gods and man, when Batman pontificates about whether he's a hero or criminal  - it all feels random, largely meaningless, and, often, mildly pretentious. At the same time, there just isn't a story here that works as a cohesive whole. What we get feels like a greatest-hits mash-up of stories like The Dark Knight Returns, The Death of Superman, Injustice, and a few others - except without the original works' emotional or thematic resonance.

What you're left with is a feeling of apathy towards whatever comes next. With Man of Steel, the tone worked okay given that it was an origin story -  I interpreted that film's greyscale darkness as depicting a pre-Superman world. It was a journey towards the light. But the darkness - both visually and tonally - of BATMAN V SUPERMAN is so relentless that it left me thinking: "Really? *This* is what the new DC cinematic universe is going to be like?" The weird thing is that the storylines and characters that this movie hints at for Justice League are some of the most out-there and cosmic in DC's library. On the Marvel side, we've seen movies like Guardians of the Galaxy full-on embrace the cosmic loopiness that Jack Kirby brought to the company's cannon. Will DC/Warner dare to do the same? Or will be forced to endure "extreme," pseudo-edgy versions of Jack Kirby's New Gods? It's hard to imagine how it will all work. But I do worry about a world in which all of DC's cinematic characters have an inherent sameness. I mean, if Batman and Superman - two polar opposites - can be made into mirror-image grim-dark avengers, then what hope does the rest of the DC Universe have?

Ultimately, BATMAN V SUPERMAN feels like a movie that desperately wants to be important. Not in terms of theme - but in terms of being an unmissable flag-planting for DC/WB - a stake in the ground laying all the cards on the table for what is to come in DC's answer to the Marvel movie empire. Many cards are laid out - no question there. A flag has definitely been planted, for good or ill. But what they forgot to do was make a good movie - and as a card-carrying, life-long DC fanboy, well - that's a damn shame.

My Grade: C