Anya Taylor-Joy as Furiosa in a scene from "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga." (Photo by Jasin Boland, Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Domain Pictures, LLC)
It doesn't have to be this way. Big movies, made with big budgets, headlined by big stars and aimed at big audiences should not require filmgoers to check their brains at the box office. They should fire up the synapses and stimulate the imagination, not merely appease their target demographics and appeal to the lowest common denominator.
The urge to entertain should not come at the cost of dumbing down the stories being told, but here we are, nearly a month into the 2024 movie season, still waiting for a major release to kickstart the season and get butts in seats in record numbers. There's no word-of-mouth sensation yet, no must-see surefire blockbuster.
So what have we got instead? A lame action-movie update of a 1980s TV show, a kids movie sappy enough to give viewers diabetes and a couple of okay franchise entries whose intriguing elements don't quite manage to take their intellectual properties in new directions. Let's take a look at the movies that have topped the North American box office over the past three weekends and a fourth high-profile release that's all but guaranteed to come out on top this Memorial Day weekend. Grab the popcorn and Twizzlers.
“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga”: The Wasteland is still arid and dangerous, and the makeshift buggies, motorcycles and big rigs still ride shiny and chrome in the latest entry in the “Mad Max” adventures, a direct prequel to 2015's justly lauded white-knuckle dazzler “Fury Road” that, like all of the other entries in the dystopian franchise, takes place years after a global cataclysm turns the Australian Outback into a Darwinian no-man's-land, the Old West on steroids.
Anya Taylor-Joy as Furiosa, Tom Burke as Praetorian Jack and Chris Hemsworth as Dr. Dementus in a scene from "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga." (Photo by Jasin Boland, Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Domain Pictures, LLC)
The focus this time is on the titular character, played by Charlize Theron in the Oscar-winning predecessor and here played, in two solid performances, by Alyla Brown as a girl and the radiant Anya Taylor-Joy as a young woman. The story kicks into gear when young Furiosa is kidnapped by some miscreants on bikes intent on giving away the location of the Green Place, a lush “place of abundance” and the secret oasis she and her mother, Mary Jo Bassa (Charlee Fraser), call home.
Visual cues that suggest the Book of Genesis give way to more Old Testament imagery when Furiosa is brought before Dr. Dementus (a game and hammy Chris Hemsworth), a desert warlord with a messiah complex, a Jesus robe to match and a customized teddy bear. Calamity follows Furiosa like a shadow, and she ends up enslaved to the eccentric leader with leather daddy vibes.
It's no mystery what narrative mold director George Miller is following here. “Furiosa” often plays like a cross between “Conan the Barbarian” and “True Grit,” making the title character Conan to Dementus' Thulsa Doom, aka the villain played by James Earl Jones in “Conan.” Miller has envisioned and structured his new “Mad Max” yarn like an epic Western, and the larger canvas gives the “Happy Feet” and “Babe: Pig in the City” auteur a chance to expand his bleak landscape, a geographical specificity that returns Furiosa (and viewers) to the Citadel and the Trumpian, despotic Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme), but also introduces new outposts that become the setting for power plays and bloody shootouts.
Chris Hemsworth as Dr. Dementus in a scene from "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga." (Photo by Jasin Boland, Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Domain Pictures, LLC)
It all sounds smashing on paper, but all the worldbuilding and sweeping vistas drain “Furiosa” of storytelling momentum, the very quality that made “Fury Road” such a kinetic knockout. The decrease in narrative thrust, coupled with more dialogue than usual for these films, weigh “Furiosa” down. The movie perks back up when it introduces Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke, channeling the young Mel Gibson), a military commander who serves as a mentor for the older Furiosa, and perhaps something more. There is something old-fashioned and straighforward about the characters' relationship, and you start wishing Miller had picked his battles more carefully and hadn't stretched out this origin story over two and a half hours. (You feel the length.)
But “Furiosa's” pleasures are difficult to resist. The larger scope yields some striking, poetic moments, as well as skillfully staged setpieces that bring to mind John Ford and Sergio Leone. (In Ford filmography terms, “Furiosa” is “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon” to “Fury Road's” “Stagecoach.”) This is also Hemsworth's most assured star turn since “Rush,” Ron Howard's 2013 professional racing drama. He appears to be having a grand ol' time twirling his mustache, and while the movie he's in doesn't always rise to the occasion, Miller's slow-burn approach, sprawling to a fault, gets the job done with palpable affection for the world he has created.
“Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes”: A similarly ambitious goal of crafting immersive landscapes set in the future drives this new entry in the enduring film series that goes all the way back to the (still unbeaten) 1968 original. Like the trilogy released over the past decade (“Rise,” Dawn” and “War”), it features impressive motion capture visual effects and is not afraid to wade into murky waters to deal with matters of ethics, sociopolitical turmoil and environmental fallout.
Raka (played by Peter Macon), Noa (played by Owen Teague) and Freya Allan as Mae in a scene from "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes." (Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios)
The new chapter picks up many generations after the passing of Caesar, the ape leader played by Roddy McDowall in the older films and by a captivating Andy Serkis, the mo-cap king, in the 2010s entries Our protagonist this time is Noa, played by Owen Teague, a young chimpanzee who is about to undergo a rite of passage, involving collecting hard-to-reach eagle eggs, when ape raiders pillage his village, then burn it to the ground.
Noa sets off to rescue the surviving members of his clan, who have been abducted. Joining him on this rescue mission is Raka (Peter Macon), a wise orangutan determined to pass down Caesar's teachings to the next generation. They both soon discover they are being followed by Mae (Freya Allan), a human who appears considerably smarter than the rest of her species in this world where the apes can speak and the humans do not. (A long story concerning a deadly virus.) It also becomes clear the saucer-eyed scavenger knows more than she lets on.
The trio's perilous journey leads them to Proximus Caesar (the ubiquitous Kevin Durand, giving the film's strongest mo-cap performance), a power-hungry monarch who, much like “The Jungle Book's” King Louie, wants the things that made man the dominant species, only in this case, what's being coveted is not fire. And, we are reminded about humankind that “their bubris would lead to their downfall.” Visual callbacks to the original film and conversations about integrity, blind faith and personal agendas ensue, and there's even a hint of John Steinbeck in the film's portrayal of injustice and communities in strife.
Freya Allan as Mae in a scene from "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes." (Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios)
“Kingdom” is about as long as “Furiosa,” but director Wes Ball (“The Maze Runner”) makes a stronger case for the longer runtime. However, his direction is far more impersonal than the Gilliamesque spark Miller brings to the table, and he also becomes too occupied with setting the stage for future films for this entry to have its own identity. It should have played less like an opening chapter for a new trilogy and more like its own adventure, even if a self-contained narrative was not an option. Also, did Ball really have to squander the esteemed William H. Macy in a wafer-thin role as Proximus' suck-up human consultant?
Still, the film's exploration of interspecies and intraspecies conflicts, fueled by fear of the other, propels a paradigm-shift narrative with echoes of another trilogy: DreamWorks Animation's “How to Train Your Dragon” movies. The elemental pull of the storytelling guides “Kingdom” over its more schematic and placeholder elements, resulting in a serviceable 21st century variation on the sword-and-sandal epic of past generations. It'll do.
“IF”: The best children's movies make you forget you're watching a children's movie. Clearly, that's not writer-director John Krasinski's endgame with this gentle, warmhearted tale of a girl and the strange and eventful summer she spent staying with her grandma in New York City during a trying time for her family. This is a film aimed at the young and easily impressionable, and how unabashed it is about the way it courts those viewers works in its favor. Until it really doesn't.
Ryan Reynolds as Cal and Cailey Fleming as Bea in a scene from "IF." (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)
The Paramount Pictures release begins with a home-movie montage showing the younger Bea (Audrey Hoffman) with her dad (Krasinski), mom (Catherine Daddario) and grandmother (Fiona Shaw) being a playful and goofy clan. Then the glimpses of her mother at the hospital, her bald head tastefully covered, kick in, and it becomes clear this is a sincere attempt to tackle adult subjects like death and loss from a child's vantage point.
The way Krasinski goes about it is by turning its foray of Delicate Subject Matter into an adventure involving one of childhood's more prominent coping mechanisms: imaginary friends. Now 12, Bea (Cailey Fleming) returns to her grandma's apartment, which has in many ways been frozen in time, while Dad gets ready for heart surgery. One night not long after she arrives in the Big Apple, Bea sees a mysterious figure in the street who seems to be keeping an eye on her. The girl's snooping leads her to the floor above her grandmother's unit and sets her on a collision course with Cal (Ryan Reynolds), a standoffish loner who, she soon learns, provides a service for imaginary friends like Blossom (the voice of Phoebe Waller-Bridge), the one who has been following her, and the very big, very plush, very purple Blue (Steve Carell).
These “IFs,” animated characters who interact with the actors à la “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” have been forgotten by the children who breathed them into existence, so it's Cal's job to pair them with new children. Kids these days, however, are a tough nut to crack, so business has been slow. Could Bea be the new recruit who can make these small miracles happen? Cue a trip to Coney Island, or rather its underbelly, where the unwanted IFs, voiced by a who's who of A-listers, keep waiting for that callback. A colorful sequence where Bea is encouraged to use her imagination climaxes in a dance extravaganza that aggressively wants to bring out the kid in all of us.
Cailey Fleming as Bea and Blue, voiced by Steve Carell, in a scene from "IF." (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures)
The sequence itself, choreographed by “Dancing with the Stars'” Mandy Moore, is charming enough, but as "IF" grows more wistful and melancholy, Krasinski's “hard sell” approach surrenders to the filmmaker's more treacly impulses. Even worse, he fails to establish ground rules for what Bea and Cal need to do in order to help the IFs find new children, so their efforts amount to playtime with low stakes. Fleming, looking like a younger Emily Mortimer, gives it her all, but her performance all but screams “precocious child actor.” She is rarely allowed to, you know, just be a kid.
Bottom line: Krasinski is trying too hard. He has made a film that suggests what Cameron Crowe would have done with a children's fantasy, though it's possible the “Almost Famous” director could have made this work. (Krasinski even hired Janusz Kaminski, who shot “Jerry Maguire,” as this film's cinematographer.) The “A Quiet Place” helmer is desperately trying to weave magic into a story of healing that needs finesse, and a little more restraint, in order to take flight. “IF,” sadly, remains earthbound, a sickly sweet urban lark that ODs on cuteness and whimsy.
“The Fall Guy”: This action comedy with a spritz of rom-com repartee kicked off summer at the movies with a whimper earlier this month. The pairing of Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, based on the ABC series starring Lee Majors, ought to have been a no-brainer, appealing to multiple demographics who want to see movie stars be movie stars on big multiplex screens. But the Universal release landed with a thud in theaters, and it pains me to say moviegoers made the right call in giving this labored yarn the cold shoulder.
Ryan Gosling as Colt Seavers and Emily Blunt as Jody Moreno in a scene from "The Fall Guy." ((Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures)
The story of Colt Seavers had all the makings of a retro delight. If only. Colt (Gosling), a brawny but sensitive stunt performer, swears off stuntwork for good after a back-breaking fall on a movie set. Out of the blue, he gets a phone call from movie producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham) asking him to rethink his retirement since they're a stuntman short in her new sci-fi extravaganza. Oh, and by the way, Gail adds, it's being directed by Jody Moreno (Blunt), Colt's behind-the-scenes collaborator with whom he had a fling before his unfortunate accident. Colt is certain that what he had with Jody could have turned into something more serious, so he agrees to travel to the big-budget production's Australian set. (See? We're coming full circle.)
“The Fall Guy” is always watchable when it sits back and lets Gosling and Blunt bicker and flirt with each other, often at the same time. But a movie that should have played like a remarriage comedy with fight and chase sequences gets gobbled up by a weak plot concerning a missing actor and the seemingly innocuous errand that Gail sends Colt on to locate the AWOL thespian (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson). What begins like a last-minute attempt to prevent the suits from pulling the plug on Jody's film snowballs into a fight to stay alive, but the results are noisy and cumbersome, the opposite of the brisk and breezy caper the movie's trailers promised.
Blame director David Leitch, who himself started out in showbiz doing stunts before co-directing the first two “John Wick” films with Chad Stahelski. He intended to turn “The Fall Guy” into a valentine for those women and men who put their lives at risk to bring those spectacular action feats so many of us appreciate and crave. So what does Leitch do? He makes a movie about stunt people where the stunts are drowned out by CGI. The action sequences are listless and unremarkable, a pedestrian cluster of green screen-driven mayhem.
Ryan Gosling as Colt Seavers in a scene from "The Fall Guy." (Photo by Eric Laciste/Universal Pictures)
Leitch has been on a steady downward spiral since he parted ways with the “John Wick” franchise. He directed “Deadpool 2,” which had competent action but was marred by his hamfisted approach to irreverent comedy. In 2022, he made “Bullet Train,” another action comedy, starring Brad Pitt and Taylor-Johnson, that kept undermining the built-in claustrophobia of its setting by going into one narrative tangent after another, thus diluting the tension.
Now comes this latest underwhelming star vehicle, a missed opportunity that squanders a committed cast, inserts ludicrous product placement at just about every turn, peppers the soundtrack with painfully obvious needle drops and, in a depressing sign of the times we live in, is already available to view at home as a Premium Video on Demand selection. It's an awkward grin of a movie, a clunky misfire that talks down to its audience. Its idea of levity is an anvil to the head.
“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” is now playing in wide release across South Florida, including IMAX engagements at Regal South Beach, AMC Aventura, AMC Sunset Place and the AutoNation IMAX at the Museum of Discovery and Science in downtown Fort Lauderdale. “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” “IF” and “The Fall Guy” are also playing in wide release, though as mentioned above, “The Fall Guy” is also available on PVOD.
