Review: 'A Complete Unknown' lets Timothée Chalamet explore the enigma of Bob Dylan, in a movie that nicely captures his turbulent times

Come gather ‘round, people, wherever you roam, because director James Mangold has an engrossing story to tell in “A Complete Unknown.” about the impending revolution in music and the nation in the early 1960s, and the man who personified by it — a young singer-songwriter who goes by the name of Bob Dylan.

What Mangold, co-writing the script with Jay Cocks, figures out pretty quickly — as any rock critic of the era could probably tell you — is that getting a definitive profile of Dylan is like nailing Jell-O to the wall. Dylan wriggles out of such a biographical movie treatment, even one where Timothée Chalamet so perfectly captures his performance style and vocal tics. (Chalamet actually sings Dylan’s songs on the soundtrack here.) Chalamet’s Dylan is a vessel for what others try to make of him, until he rebels against that.

One of those others is his folk-music mentor, Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) — whom Dylan meets in 1961 in a New Jersey hospital, where Seeger is visiting the legend, Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy), left mute by a stroke but still as ornery as ever. Dylan plays for Guthrie a tribute, “Song to Woody,” to receive a blessing that he’s got something in him that others need to hear.

The other characters who come into young Dylan’s orbit are the women who became closest to him. One is Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning), a composite of several early Dylan girlfriends and lovers — notably Suze Rutolo, his girlfriend from 1961 to 1964, who was immortalized holding Dylan’s arm on the album cover of “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” (which featured “Blowin’ in the Wind” and other classics). The other is Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), already a folk-singing star when Dylan came on the Greenwich Village scene when they began a torrid love affair.

Mangold marvelously distills the feeling of those ‘60s performances, the fan frenzy generated by Dylan’s success, and Dylan’s irritation at being asked to meet expectations — placed by the record label, the public and the folk-music establishment, embodied by Seeger and historian Alan Lomax (Norbert Leo Butz) — to become “the spokesman of a generation.” It all comes to a head at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, when Dylan does the one thing the old guard didn’t want him to do: Plugged his guitar into an amp.

It’s not a spoiler to describe this. Mangold and Cocks based their script on Elijah Wald’s book “Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan and the Night that Split the Sixties.” And the phrase “Dylan Goes Electric” has become an indelible part of Dylan’s legend. (Todd Haynes, in his impressionistic 2007 Dylan biopic “I’m Not There,” depicted the moment and its impact by having Dylan — played by Cate Blanchett in that section — and his band pull out machine guns and fire them at the audience.) 

What Mangold captures best through “A Complete Unknown” is the tension — in Dylan and in society in the days of JFK’s assassination and the ramping up of the Vietnam War — that led to that electric moment. Mangold and Chalamet, a chameleonic collaborator, show how Dylan managed to be both outside those arguments and in the heart of them, to the consternation of mentors, lovers and fans.

The great irony of “A Complete Unknown” is how perfect the title is. There may never have been anyone as famous as Dylan who, at the same time, has been as unknowable. Was he the troubadour for an unsettled age, or (as Don McLean pegged him in “American Pie”) a “jester … in a coat he borrowed from James Dean and a voice that came from you and me”? Mangold entertains both ideas, and Chalamet brings them alive.

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‘A Complete Unknown’

★★★1/2

Opens Wednesday, December 25, in theaters. Rated R for language. Running time: 141 minutes.

Review: In 'Nosferatu,' director Robert Eggers injects some sensuality into the classic vampire tale, with help from a brilliant Lily-Rose Depp

Director Robert Eggers, in his first three movies (“The VVitch,” “The Lighthouse” and “The Northman”), has thrived in dark spaces — both literally in pre-electric eras and figuratively in the recesses of the soul — so it’s inevitable, I suppose, that he would happen upon the century-old vampire saga “Nosferatu.”

It’s also inevitable that he would take the classic story — inspired by Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” with some creepy additions by the German director F.W. Murray for the 1923 original — and bring his own creepy and audacious style to the effort.

Set in early 19th-century Germany, Eggers’ version introduces us to Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult), newly married to the lovely Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) and starting a new job with a reputable financial firm where he expects to start building his fortune. His new boss, Herr Knock (Simon McBurney), assigns Thomas to travel to the Carpathian Mountains of Romania, to deliver papers to a very rich but somewhat eccentric new client, who buying a castle in Germany. 

Hutter arrives in Romania, as assigned, and hears the locals’ fearful warning to stay away from the castle of Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgard), who only comes out at night. Skarsgard’s Orlok is a fearsome presence — and one of Eggers’ better revisions is giving Skarsgard a beefier appearance than the gaunt, hook-nosed and nakedly antisemitic caricature Murnau’s version had. Skarsgard’s hulking look and dark, full mustache makes Orlok appear like a ravenous creature.

If Orlok is the beast, Depp’s Ellen is his beauty. Ellen, we’re told, is haunted by visions, and seems to know Orlok’s desires as if they were her own. Depp is Eggers’ stealth weapon, mixing the fragility of a classic heroine with a will of iron — a necessary trait, when she learns from a vampire expert, Professor von Franz (Willem Dafoe, delightfully maniacal), that she is their only hope to destroy Orlok once and for all.

Eggers deploys old-school suspense and a growing sense of dread that makes this “Nosferatu” as chilling as one would expect from moviedom’s most ageless vampire. The surprising wrinkle is how, even with Skarsgard’s monster makeup, the movie conveys a raw erotic energy under the period horror trappings. The results are bloody wonderful.

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‘Nosferatu’

★★★1/2

Opens Wednesday, December 25, in theaters. Rated R for bloody violent content, graphic nudity and some sexual content. Running time: 133 minutes.

Review: 'Babygirl' gives Nicole Kidman, as a CEO in a fiery sexual relationship with an intern, a chance to seductively subvert the male gaze

In “Babygirl,” writer-director Halina Reijn teases the audience with sex and danger, in order to get us on board with her true mission — to get us thinking about pursuit of female desire and the consequences of fulfillment

Nicole Kidman stars here as Romy, a hard-driven and charismatic CEO of a tech company. (They make robotic package-delivery systems, but that’s neither here nor there.) She’s confident and in charge, and a hero to her assistant, Esme (Sophia Wilde). She’s also married to Jacob (Antonio Banderas), a theater director, and they have two teen daughters, Isabel (Esther McGregor) and Nora (Vaughan Reilly). What more could someone want?

Reijn answers that question at the outset, with what appears to be volcanic sex between Romy and Jacob. When it’s over, though, Romy slips into her home office and masturbates to porn because she didn’t have a genuine orgasm with her husband.

So when Romy meets the interns just arrived at the company, one tall young man catches her eye. That’s Samuel (Harris Dickinson), who applies online for the company’s mentorship plan and requests Romy — even though Romy thought she wasn’t one of the available mentors. In their first meeting, Samuel says something inappropriate: “I think you like to be told what to do.” This opens a door for a game of shifting power dynamics, and a scorching love affair in various hotel rooms where Romy sometimes finds herself crawling on all fours at Samuel’s insistence.

Who’s running the show? Is it Romy, the boss who’s usually in command of every situation? Or is it Samuel, who seems to know what Romy wants better than she does — and could, with one call, cause Romy’s corporate and personal lives to crumble?

In truth, Reijn is in charge here. She stages sex scenes between Kidman and Dickinson, and Kidman and Banderas, that are inventive, tension-filled and hot as blazes. They provide more than titillation, but show who’s in control and how quickly that can shift between two people. Above all, the sexuality shown here demonstrates what it’s like when a female director applies her sensibilities, shutting out the male gaze and concentrating on what the woman in the situation wants. (Men like me are so conditioned to expect the male gaze that it’s refreshing, if not a bit intimidating, when it’s gone.)

Kidman is game for this, and gives a performance that capitalizes on her brittle beauty and lets her show something more vulnerable underneath. Dickinson keeps up with Kidman all the way, in the bedroom and the boardroom, as the gamesmanship threatens to destroy Romy’s well-ordered life — while also showing her what’s most important. “Babygirl” is at its best when Kidman and Dickinson are locked in this battle of wills, each grabbing for the controls to keep it all from crashing around them.

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‘Babygirl’

★★★1/2

Opens Wednesday, December 25, in theaters. Rated R for strong sexual content, nudity and language. Running time: 114 minutes.

Review: 'Sonic the Hedgehog 3' offers fans a story they know, and gives the rest of us double the Jim Carrey antics

I’m not sure if the “Sonic the Hedgehog” movies are getting better or the manic misadventures of the super-speedy video game character have worn me down and I’m more susceptible to laughing at the silliness.

In “Sonic the Hedgehog 3,” what is now a trio of fast furry creatures — Sonic (voiced by Ben Schwartz), helicoptering Tails (voiced by Colleen O’Shaughnessey) and muscular Knuckles (voiced by Idris Elba) — are introduced hangng out with their human parents, Tom (James Marsden) and Maddie (Tika Sumpter) out in the woods. Then a helicopter from the Guardian Unit of Nations, or G.U.N., arrives, and Director Rockwell (Krysten Ritter) has an assignment.

A new alien has arrived, and it’s up to Sonic, Tails and Knuckles to figure out what he wants. He’s called Shadow (voiced by Keanu Reeves), and it appears that destruction is his agenda — and going through Team Sonic is the first item on that agenda.

Sonic & Co. need help, and they reluctantly agree to seek it from their old enemy, Dr. Ivo Robotnik — which is where Jim Carrey returns, his mustache still bushy and his evil habits still percolating. Team Sonic and Robotnik go to the lab where Shadow had been kept prisoner for 50 years, which is where Robotnik discovers that his own grandfather, Dr. Gerald Robotnik, was Shadow’s keeper.

While the two Robotniks reunite for evil purposes, director Jeff Fowler and three credited writers provide the backstory. It turns out that Shadow’s origins are not that different from Sonic’s — except that he was raised as a lab experiment, and the only happiness in his life was his friendship with Gerald’s grand-daughter (Ivo’s cousin), Maria (Alyla Browne). When a lab disaster leads to tragedy, Shadow wants to exact vengeance on the Earth — and the elder Robotnik is happy to help him fulfill that wish.

Fans of the “Sonic” games — like the two who live in my house and call me Dad — will recognize this story as the basis for the 2001 game “Sonic Adventure 2.” Fans will also enjoy the many Easter eggs and not-so-subtle references to the games, from music cues to new characters introduced in the mid-credit scenes.

It doesn’t take a fan to see the patterns of this franchise repeating themselves — like how Shadow, like Knuckles before him, is introduced as a villain with incredible powers, but things change as the story progresses.

The other constant in this franchise is that Jim Carrey is the reason to watch. Double duty — as Ivo Robotnik, aka Dr. Eggman, and his grayer, more beer-bellied grandpa — means twice the opportunity for Carrey to improvise jokes and play the movie for the silly spectacle that it is. “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” generates a fair amount of comedy and silly action, though being a fan of ol’ Sonic makes the movie that much more rewarding.

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‘Sonic the Hedgehog 3’

★★★

Opens Friday, December 20, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG for action, some violence, rude humor, thematic elements and mild language. Running time: 110 minutes.

Review: 'Mufasa: The Lion King,' a prequel to a remake, is too busy maintaining the brand to tell a compelling story

It’s possible to return too many times to the same watering hole — as Disney does with “Mufasa: The Lion King,” a prequel to the 2019 computer-animated remake of the studio’s 1994 classic animated movie, a copy of a copy of a perfect original.

Director Barry Jenkins (“Moonlight”) and screenwriter Jeff Nathanson (who wrote the 2019 remake) introduce Mufasa as a cub, swept away from his parents (voiced by Anika Noni Rose and Keith David) in a massive flood. A long way downstream, he is pulled from the water by another cub, Taka — who wants to bring his new friend into his pride. 

Taka’s mother, Eshe (voiced by Thandiwe Newton), likes this idea, but his father, Osabi (voiced by Lennie James), is opposed — because Mufasa is an outsider and therefore worthy of suspicion. Osabi allows Mufasa to be raised by Eshe with the female cubs, but he must stay away from Taka, who is being trained to become the next king of the pride.

A new group of interlopers, a nasty pride of white lions, arrives on the scene with the goal of vanquishing all the other prides and being in command “wherever the light touches,” to borrow a phrase from the original film. How villainous are these white lions? Their leader, Kiros, is voiced by the Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen — that’s how villainous they are.

Eshe gets the adult Taka (voiced by Kelvin Harrison Jr.) and Mufasa (voiced by Aaron Pierre) away from Kiros’ attack on Osabi’s pride, and she makes Mufasa promise to protect his brother, who is the last of Osabi’s royal bloodline. But out in the wild, Mufasa’s innate courage and the skills he learned from Eshe — skills Taka and the other males in the pride never encountered — show him to be a more natural leader. 

When the brothers team up with a lioness, Sarabi (voiced by Tiffany Boone), the three find that working together is beneficial, as they follow a mystical mandrill, Rafiki (voiced by John Kane), to the legendary land of Milele. As the friendship among lions turns into a love triangle, Taka’s jealousy drives him to do something unthinkable.

This story — which borrows from “The Prince of Egypt,” “East of Eden” and a few other classics — is somewhat bolstered by a song score written by Lin-Manuel Miranda. The best songs are “Bye-Bye,” sung by the gravelly Mikkelsen when Kiros dispatches his prey, and “Tell Me It’s You,” a moving ballad sung by Pierre and Boone. 

Jenkins does what he can to generate some real emotion out of all this, including some “camera” movement that gives some of the action feel like a nature documentary. Jenkins, though, is restricted by both the technological demands of the computer-generated talking animals and the studio mentality that puts storytelling a distant second to corporate brand management. 

This is most telling in the movie’s framing story, in which Rafiki tells a cub, Kiara (voiced by 12-year-old Blue Ivy Carter), the story of Mufasa, her grandfather. These moments are notable, and not in a good way, for the wisecracks from the franchise’s comic relief, the meerkat Timon (voiced by Billy Eichner) and warthog Pumbaa (voiced by Seth Rogen) — which include winking references to Broadway version and the ‘90s ubiquity of the song “Hakuna Matata.”

(Blue Ivy Carter’s presence in her first movie role makes sense, considering her mom, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, returns to voice Nala, Mufasa’s future daughter-in-law. The fact that Beyoncé has exactly one line and still gets featured billing speaks to the power of the Bey-hive.)

“Mufasa: The Lion King” starts with a few seconds of audio from the original Mufasa, James Earl Jones, who died in September at age 93. Disney was smart to get the remembrance out of the way early, because this movie doesn’t need any reminders of when this franchise was really astonishing. 

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‘Mufasa: The Lion King’

★★1/2

Opens Friday, December 20, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG for action/violence, peril and some thematic elements. Running time: 120 minutes.

Review: "The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim" delivers amazing visuals in a so-so story of a woman at war

There are undoubtedly dozens of stories from Middle-Earth, the realm J.R.R. Tolkien created in his books, that could be adapted into films. 

So it’s slightly puzzling that in “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim,” the folks who keep Tolkien’s works alive on film — Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh are among the executive producers here, and their writing partner Philippa Boyens shares screenplay credit — have put their time and effort into a somewhat lackluster narrative.

Fortunately, this bit of Middle-Earth lore is beautiful in its telling, a deeply detailed Japanese anime look devised by a crew led by director Kenji Kamiyama, whose career began as a background artist on the classic “Akira” in 1988.

The narrator — who, it turns out, is Éowyn, a character from Jackson’s trilogy (again played by Miranda Otto) — explains that this story takes place happens nearly 200 years before what’s referred to as “the War of the Ring.” It begins with the king of Rohan, Helm Hammerhand (voiced by Brian Cox), facing a challenge by a rival, a Dunlending lord named Freca (voiced by Shaun Dooley), who covets Helm’s throne. 

Instead of a direct approach, though, Freca tries to negotiate an arrangement, where his son, Wulf (voiced by Luke Pasqualino), would marry Helm’s daughter, Hèra (voiced by Gaia Wise) — who, we learn, was a friend and fencing competitor with Wulf when they were kids. Hèra says she doesn’t want to marry anyone, and Helm refuses the deal because he doesn’t want Freca that close to the throne. Helm and Freca take it outside for a fistfight, where Helm’s one punch knocks Freca dead. Wulf vows revenge on Helm and his heirs: Hèra and her two older brothers, Haleth (voiced by Benjamin Wainwright) and Hama (voiced by Yazdan Qafouri). 

Years later and Hèra sees Wulf again, and he’s still determined to exact his revenge — teaming up with a rival army to take down Helm’s kingdom and take his crown. While armies battle, Hèra figures out Wulf’s plan and leads an evacuation of the capital city, Erodas, for a nearby fortress, Hornburg. Soon, Wulf’s forces are preparing for a siege to starve Helm’s people during a bleak winter. Through all this, Hèra proves that she’s not only the fastest rider but shows the king that she’s as fearsome a fighter as her brothers.

Though the script — credited to four writers, including Boyens — is loosely based on Tolkien’s work, a viewer may see other influences. For starters, Hèra, with her red hair and superior archery skills, is more reminiscent of Merida in Pixar’s “Brave” than anything else. The revenge motivation is understandable, but feels a bit simple compared to the complexity of what Jackson so admirably adapted from the trilogy.

Kamiyama’s visual sense raises even this simple story, combining an epic scale with an emotional intimacy for its characters — particularly with Hèra, who must not only fight for Rohan but battle her father’s stubborn insistence that his daughter needs protecting. 

“The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” is a reminder that animation can do anything other forms of filmmaking can. Now Kamiyama needs a story that matches the grand spectacle of the format.

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‘The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim’

★★★

Opens Friday, December 13, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for strong violence. Running time: 134 minutes.

Review: "Queer" is an uneven adaptation of William S. Burroughs' weirdness, but Daniel Craig's portrayal of an aging lonely man is transcendent

On paper, the combination of director Luca Guadagnino and a book by William S. Burroughs sounds perfect — so it’s interesting that in “Queer,” sometimes Guadagnino’s lush visuals work with Burroughs’ drug-induced surreality and sometimes they don’t.

What does pay off consistently is the lead performance by Daniel Craig, who’s aging into a fascinating and emotionally complex actor in his post-James Bond career.

Craig plays Burroughs’ alter-ego, William Lee, an American expatriate living in 1950s Mexico City, hanging out in bars with other Americans (Jason Schwartzman appears as one morose pal) and indulging in his addiction to heroin. (Guadagnino’s sly use of songs by Kurt Cobain, though not in line with the time frame, fits the character’s languid, drug-fueled sensibility.) 

Then William spots a young American man, Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), and considers how he might ask whether he’s queer. It’s a question where the reward, of finding an attractive new sex partner, is as great as the risk of being exposed as a homosexual.

studGuadagnino’s simulated psychedelic trip is like any other in one respect: The effect will vary from person to person. Some viewers may feel a connection to William’s hallucinogenic visions, while others will see a slew of disjointed images with no clear understanding of what the director and screenwriter Justing Kuritzkes (who wrote Guadagnino’s tennis drama “Challengers”) are trying to say.

As Guadagnino is puzzling out what he’s trying to say here, Craig takes command. He finds in William a tender, wounded soul, filling the void in his heart with drugs and whiskey and laconic stares at unattainable men. Craig turns “Queer” into a portrait of loneliness and longing that transcends whatever tricks the director wants to play.

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‘Queer’

★★★

Opens Friday, December 13, in theaters. Rated R for strong sexual content, graphic nudity, strong drug content, language and brief violence. Running time: 137 minutes.

Review: "The End" plays in a post-apocalyptic world where the musical numbers turn absurdity into heightened emotional reality

The end of the world, as we know it, should not be a reason to sing — so the fact that the family that is riding out the apocalypse in director Joshua Oppenheimer’s “The End” does sing their feelings, in emotional musical numbers, adds to the absurdity of this strangely beautiful movie.

The movie takes place in what appears to be a rich family’s home, where well-appointed furniture fills every room and expensive paintings line the walls. We’re soon informed that this “home” is deep within a salt mine, and the family has lived here for some a while, as some sort of catastrophe is taking place on the surface. We aren’t told the details of how the family got here, other than the fact that the mom (played by Tilda Swinton) was pregnant when they descended, and her son (George Mackay) is now around 20 years old. 

Also living down there are the father (Michael Shannon), the mother’s longtime best friend (Bronagh Gallagher), the family butler (Tim McInnerny) and their in-house doctor (Lennie James). You have already noticed that these characters don’t have names — which is apparently by design, as it’s suggested that these are the last mother, the last father, and the last friend, son, butler and doctor left on Earth.

The family lives their life in a well-ordered routine. Mom regularly takes down artwork so the butler can repaint the walls. The doctor gives everyone their medications. And the son is ghost-writing the father’s autobiography, in which Dad highlights the wonderful work he did as the CEO of an energy company — rejecting the notion that his company’s refusal to acknowledge climate change may have led to the calamity that hs put them in this underground chamber.

One day, in the middle of this regular routine, something different happens: A young woman (Moses Ingram) makes her way into the family’s space. Mom and the doctor are adamant that the woman be forced to leave, following the protocol to reject strangers so they can stay safe. But Dad rejects the protocol and lets the woman stay — a decision that has far-reaching consequences, particularly for the son, who has never seen a female his own age before.

Oppenheimer is making his first dramatic feature, after a pair of heartbreaking and landmark documentaries — “The Act of Killing” and “The Look of Silence” — about the dictatorshop that ruled Indonesia for decades. Those movies took reality and amped the intensity to heartbreaking levels of unreality. Here, Oppenheimer finds the dial works the other way, and that ratcheting the unreality to 11 makes a movie that feels real even in its most offbeat moments.

Swinton and Shannon are nicely matched as upper-class parents for whom 20 years in a salt mine is just a more extreme version of what they did before: using their money as a shield to block out the problems outside their world. Mackay as the spoiled scion and Ingram as the first new person he’s ever seen juxtapose the diametrically opposed views of what’s real — thanks to his lack of experience with the outside, and her knowledge of the horrors up top. Together, these characters make “The End” a biting and melancholy parable of the struggles, particularly between classes, that threaten to destroy us all.

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‘The End’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, December 13, in theaters. Not rated, but probably R for violence and language. Running time: 148 minutes.