San Diego Reader September 1, 2016 67
energy just isn’t there. Trying to keep it real by staging a chase amid a Greek riot and giving a nod to Snowden’s exposure of government surveillance gets everyone involved a gold star for effort, and that’s all. 2016. — M.L. ● (IN WIDE RELEASE)
The Light Between Oceans — Reviewed this issue. 2016 — S.M. ● (IN WIDE RELEASE)
Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World — Werner Herzog turns his unsparing eye on the no- longer-uppercase (perhaps because of its unspecial ubiquity) internet. He starts with the good: never before have so many been able to share so much so easily. Heck, we’re crowdsourcing medical breakthroughs! Someday, we might make phone calls to a colony on Mars! But this is Herzog and this is the internet, so it isn’t long before we’re staring into the abyss: online gaming addicts, monstrous trolls, malicious hackers who could end civilization by disrupting the web (if a solar flare doesn’t do it first). And oh yeah: does anyone really think all this information and communication is some- how making us smarter, or better? Even so, the unsparing eye feels a little more sparing than usual — a little less focused, even. These are smart folks Herzog is talking to; here and there, it feels like they’re playing to the great documentar- ian, or at least playing along with him. And when that happens, the connec- tion with the viewer loses a bar or two. 2016. — M.L. ★★ (LANDMARK KEN)
Morgan — Reviewed this issue. 2016 — M.L. ★ (IN WIDE RELEASE)
Nerve — For a good chunk of its tidy 96 minutes, Nerve is a brisk, clever take on Generation Smartphone. (What fun to see stars Dave Franco and Emma Roberts dashing out of Bergdorf-Goodman’s in their skivvies, tricked out of everything else but still clutching their precious, self- affirming technology.) The story concerns an overly cautious high school senior who gets goaded into busting out by logging in to an online game where watchers dare players to do stuff, and players win money and build an audience. (The latter is the real currency: during especially wild dares, hearts of approval bubble up across the screen like a Champagne fizz of effer- vescent dopamine.) But as her time in the game helps her forge one friendship and strain another (Emily Meade’s poor little rich girl can pout with the best of them),
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it becomes clear that — quelle surprise — this sort of internet interfacing can have serious consequences IRL. If it collapses in the end by going dark and also bonkers and bringing in hackers ex machina to clean up its mess, well, directors Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost can say they did it for the feels. 2016. — M.L. ★★ (AMC PALM PROMENADE; REGAL PARKWAY PLAZA)
Pete’s Dragon — Way back in 2015, Disney subsidiary Pixar released The Good Dinosaur, a boy-and-his-dog story that flipped things by making the big green lizard into the lost little boy and giving the dog’s part to a feral human
child. Here, Disney flips Pixar back into conventional mode, returning the feral human child (Oakes Fegley) to his usual spot at the emotional, articulate center of things and turning the big green lizard into an oversized, long-necked, bat- winged Labrador retriever. (Admittedly, the transmogrification looks better than it sounds.) The big fellow is even named for a dog: Elliot, a storybook puppy who gets lost in the woods and must find his way back to his family. After an opening that briefly borders on shocking, David Lowery’s remake of the 1977 film keeps its enormous paws safely on the beaten path. Sure, you’ll feel things, because Labradors are awesome, and Elliot is one
awesome Labrador. But there isn’t much beyond that, not even much in the way of the film’s repeated message of believing in what you cannot see. By the end, not even Robert Redford’s folksy narra- tion can make any real sense of things. With Wes Bentley, Karl Urban, Bryce Dallas Howard. 2016. — M.L. ★ (IN WIDE RELEASE)
Southside with You — President Obama’s fans and haters alike will find something to enjoy in this slightly stilted yet oddly fascinating account of the Harvard law student’s (Parker Sawyers) first date with Michelle Robinson (Tika Sumpter), the woman who would eventu-
ally become his wife. The visuals are pure hagiography: Chicago appears mostly as a verdant paradise, full of cultural riches (African-American museum exhibits, a drum circle in the park) and decent, civic- minded black folk. (There is mention of both gangs and violence, but darned if we ever see any; even the projects feel bright and cheerful.) The soundtrack drips with dreamy guitar work. And the acting has a careful, respectful feeling to it — even as the future leader of the free world admits to spending a fair chunk of high school lost in a marijuana haze, he remains coolly in control of the situation. Which is a little strange, since the film centers on Michelle, who goes into the day believing that Barack is “just another smooth-talking brother” and insisting that they’re not on a date. The rest of the movie is Obama’s first political campaign; he’s looking to become Commander in Chief of her heart, and from the outset, he proves willing to deceive, manipulate, cajole, attack, push, and bribe his way toward his objective. You know he wins in the end; what the film arguably suggests is that Michelle — the strong, intelligent black woman looking to make it on Planet White Male — loses. Written and directed by Richard Tanne. 2016. — M.L. ★★ (IN WIDE RELEASE)
Star Trek Beyond — File under: Returns, diminishing. Also under: Titles, misleading, as this entry in the rebooted sci-fi franchise is very much a circling back. Justin Lin has taken over the helm from J.J. Abrams, but he’s not about to change course, at least as far as reusing old material goes. So yeah, bust up the Enterprise (in oddly boring fashion), bring on The Enemy Within, work on Kirk’s personal issues, etc. (In case you’re not paying attention on that latter bit, you get three, count ‘em three, iterations of how the Captain is feeling all at sea in the first half-hour.) How much you’ll enjoy it depends largely on why you’re watch- ing. If you like hearing Bones say, “My God!” and “Dammit Jim!” and “Dammit Spock,” you’re good. If you like hearing Spock iron the emotion out of emotional speech for humorous effect, grand. If you like hearing Scottie call a pretty young alien he just met “Lassie” over and over, dandy. And if you like huge, weightless action setpieces interspersed with a lot of standing and talking, you’re in for a treat. But the happiest by far will be those who favor convoluted explanatory speeches from the villain in the closing minutes. 2016. — M.L. ★ (IN WIDE RELEASE)
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