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| Courtesy of 20th Century Fox |
(Rated PG-13 for some violence and bloody images, and for brief strong language.)
The cast: Brad Pitt, Ruth Negga, Tommy Lee Jones, Liv Tyler and Donald Sutherland.
What it’s about: After a disaster nearly kills him, astronaut Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) is tasked with journeying across the solar system to discover the truth about his missing father (Jones). McBride’s dad, also an astronaut, left for Jupiter 30 years ago and was never heard from again. Now that doomed mission is threatening the entire universe.
The good: Ad Astra answers a crucial question we’ve been asking for a while – if 2001: A Space Odyssey and Apocalypse Now had a baby, what would it look like? Okay, I’m pretty sure no one was wondering that, but the film is still a gorgeous, poetic look at human nature. Director James Gray, who co-wrote the screenplay with Ethan Gross, has made a “head movie,” not a “heart movie,” similar in tone and structure to Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life.
In other words, it’s a cerebral film steeped in dream logic that’s not interested in providing easy answers or holding viewers’ hands. In almost every way (I’ll get to the two big exceptions in a moment), Gray trusts the audience is smart enough to keep up.
Hoyte Van Hoytema’s cinematography is beautiful, building on similar work he did in 2014’s Interstellar. It’s some of the year’s best, as is the sound design. Trust me, you’ll want to see this in a theater for the spectacle alone. In the screening I attended, the audio boomed so loudly that it shook my seat, significantly adding to the immersive experience.
Everyone in the cast is fantastic – this is the best Jones has been in quite a while – but Ad Astra is basically Pitt’s one-man show. Between his subtle, mesmerizing performance here a showier supporting turn in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, 2019 has been quite a year for him. I wouldn’t be shocked if he ended up with Oscar nominations for both.
The not-so-good: The only elements of Ad Astra that don’t quite work are the ones that feel studio-mandated to make the complex story more accessible. There’s an oppressive amount of voiceover that reminded me of the original cut of Blade Runner, as well as an ending that feels slightly off compared to what came before.
Who knows if we’ll ever get a director’s cut of the film, especially since mainstream audiences’ reactions are destined to be mixed at best. However, I’d love to see it again with those elements altered or removed.
Grade: A-
Hustlers
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| Courtesy of STX |
(Rated R for pervasive sexual material, drug content, language and nudity.)
The cast: Constance Wu, Jennifer Lopez, Keke Palmer, Lili Reinhart, Julia Stiles, Cardi B and Lizzo.
What it’s about: Inspired by a true story, this crime drama focuses on a team of former strip club employees (Wu, Lopez, Palmer and Reinhart) who craft a scheme to defraud some of the Wall Street bros responsible for the 2008 financial collapse. What begins as Robin Hood-style revenge soon falls apart and becomes something much more desperate.
The good: Lopez is phenomenal (she’s already generating some Oscar buzz) and Lorene Scafaria, who wrote and directed, is channeling Goodfellas in all the best ways. Wu is fine in the lead role, though she’s essentially the straight woman who grounds the story’s more outlandish characters.
As with most rise-and-fall narratives, the first half of Hustlers is more entertaining than the second. Much like Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike, the film uses the allure and risqué nature of stripping to convey a much more universal message of greed and the dark side of the American Dream.
Watching the characters get destroyed by their own egos is inevitable, but it’s a shame to see the camaraderie come to an end, only to be replaced by infighting and paranoia. Still, that’s actually a compliment – it proves Scafaria is telling the story well. We don’t want these friendships to fall apart because we like the women so much.
The not-so-good: Hustlers has some pacing issues, especially parts of the second half where it drags just when it should be picking up steam. Also, some of the performers were clearly cast for their celebrity status and cultural clout rather than acting ability. Lizzo acquits herself fairly well, but Cardi B brings the narrative momentum to a halt any time she’s onscreen. However, these are minor gripes when the rest of the movie is so much fun.
Grade: B+
It Chapter Two
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| Courtesy of Warner Bros. |
The cast: Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan, James Ransone and Bill Skarsgard.
What it’s about: Based on the second half of Stephen King’s classic novel, the Losers Club returns to Derry, Maine 27 years after confronting Pennywise the Clown (Skarsgard). They thought the terror was over, but the evil entity is beckoning them back so he can finish the job. Although far from confident they can win, the now-grown friends (Chastain, McAvoy, Hader, Mustafa, Ryan and Ransone) are determined to stop Pennywise from hurting more children.
The good: Like the first installment, which boasted some of the best child actors in recent memory, the casting is inspired. Hader and Ransone are particularly good, stealing the movie from their more experienced co-stars.
It Chapter Two was also much funnier than I anticipated, with several scenes that felt like the cast was allowed some leeway to improv. There are some changes to the book that work surprisingly well, most of them revolving around Mike (Mustafa), who got short shrift in the first movie. The conclusion is poignant, although that could be childhood nostalgia and my connection to the novel talking.
The not-so-good: Sadly, pretty much everything else. I’m not sure how a three-hour movie can feel rushed and sluggish at the same time, but that’s what happens. The first installment started with a screenplay by Chase Palmer and Cary Joji Fukunaga, but it’s obvious that Gary Dauberman (the guy behind those quickie Conjuring spinoffs) is on his own here. It’s a massive downgrade.
Despite the incredible cast, most of them get almost nothing to do; I was shocked at how much the story squanders Chastain and McAvoy. Even the terrifying Pennywise is defanged for large stretches of the running time. Fortunately, Skarsgard is still fantastic despite being hamstrung, and the most affecting moments are when he’s finally allowed to unleash.
The movie’s biggest sin is that it’s simply not scary. Once you figure out director Andy Muschietti’s gimmick (“here comes the scare, just kidding here’s the scare!,” followed by a CGI-enhanced monster running at the shaky camera) he becomes a one-trick pony. And the trick isn’t very good the first time, let alone the next dozen.
The cinematography is stunningly awful. Chung-hoon Chung, who made the first installment one of the most gorgeous horror movies I’ve ever seen, has been replaced by veteran television cinematographer Checco Varese, who makes this look like a shoddy Hulu series. Overall, It Chapter Two is a giant disappointment all around, and that’s coming from a guy who liked the first part far better than I expected to.
Grade: C
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