Review: 'They Will Kill You' is generous with its cartoonish bloodshed, in service to a one-note action scenario

I have to appreciate the absurd amount of spurting blood and flesh-chopping mayhem Russian director Kirill Sokolov packs into his first Hollywood feature, the comic gorefest “They Will Kill You” — even if the script and pacing became a bit monotonous.

The movie’s central relationship is between Asia (Zazie Beetz) and her younger sister, Maria (played by Myha’la as an adult). In the prologue, they’re trying to escape a sadistic stepfather (Darron Meyer). Asia succeeds, but leaves Maria behind.

Ten years later, we find Asia finding work at The Virgil, a dark and foreboding residential hotel in Manhattan. The boss, Lilith (Patricia Arquette), lets her in, then locks the door behind them. In the script, Sokolov and co-writer Alex Litvak (“Predators”) drop broad hints that the rich clientele — including a beauty guru, Sharon (Heather Graham), and somebody named Kevin (Tom Felton) — are more than they appear. 

The same could be said for Asia, who we quickly learn is a prison-hardened fighter with one thing on her mind: Rescuing Maria, who’s trapped here as part of The Virgil’s service staff. Then come two surprises: Maria isn’t that eager to leave, and the residents — including Lilith and her handyman husband, Ray (Paterson Joseph) — have made a pact with the devil to attain immortality.

The important part is that Asia must fight her way out of several floors of The Virgil, and does so using a shotgun, a machete, a flaming ax, and whatever other destructive objects are at hand. Sokolov seems to find inspiration in everything from “Oldboy” to “Kill Bill” to “From Dusk Till Dawn” — but he’s not quite clever enough to bring his own distinctive style to the battle scenes.

There are other wasted opportunities in “They Will Kill You,” like reducing the usually alluring Graham to a special effect for the movie’s back half, and giving a good scenery-chewer like Felton little to work with. Everyone gets subsumed in the grimy, fetid atmosphere of The Virgil and Sokolov’s dimly lit horror show.

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‘They Will Kill You’

★★1/2

Opens Friday, March 27, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for strong bloody violence, gore, language and brief sexual content/nudity. Running time: 94 minutes.

Review: 'A Magnificent Life' shows the life of a French literary lion, sweetly rendered in animation by 'Triplets of Belleville's' master

The French animator Sylvain Chomet has become something of a legend in certain film circles, off the strength of his 2003 masterpiece “The Triplets of Belleville” and his 2010 Jacques Tati-inspired “The Illusionist” — so it makes sense that his first movie in more than a decade, “A Magnificent Life,” is a fond biopic of another French film icon, Marcel Pagnol.

For those unfamiliar with the name, Pagnol was a playwright and poet whose plays were popular in Paris in the late 1920s and early 1930s — and he switched to film just as the talkies were developing. He built a studio in his home town of Marseilles, which lasted until the Nazis invaded France and he refused to make movies for them. After the war, he mostly wrote novels that were semi-autobiographical works, including “My Father’s Glory,” “My Mother’s Castle” and his masterpieces, “Jean de Florette” and “Manon of the Spring.”

That last paragraph is the condensed, Wikipedia version of Pagnol’s history. As devised by Chomet, who adapted Pagnol’s memoirs for the script, the story becomes a lovely tribute to the art of memory.

Chomet’s framing device has an aged Pagnol (voiced in English by Matthew Gravelle) rushes to make a deadline for a serialized memoir he’s promised to write for Elle magazine. As he writes, he’s joined by his constant companion: Marcel, the spirit of himself as a child.

That child hangs around as Pagnol leaves Marseilles with his wife, Sophie, trading in the respectable life his father demanded of him for a cramped, freezing garret in Paris. He befriends artists and actors — “hussies and degenerates,” Sophie calls them — and starts writing his plays. Within a couple of years, he becomes a success, but at the cost of his marriage. 

Through the episodes of Pagnol’s life, people come and go — and the ones who go via the grave join the spirit of the young Marcel. This parade of spirits becomes a metaphor for Pagnol’s work, in which his memories are never far away, a constant source of inspiration for his storytelling.

Another interesting conceit Chomet deploys in “A Magnificent Life” is that any time we see one of Pagnol’s movies on a screen, it’s actual footage rather than animated versions. It’s a clever, and poignant, way to connect the reality of Pagnol’s life with the charmingly fanciful animated version we get from Chomet. 

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‘A Magnificent Life’

★★★

Opens Friday, March 27, at the AMC West Jordan 12. Rated PG-13 for language, smoking, some suggestive material and brief violent content. Running time: 91 minutes. 

Review: 'Project Hail Mary' is science-fiction done right, with tactile effects and the boundless charms of Ryan Gosling as a reluctant spaceman

For a movie set in the future and on a ship in outer space, there’s something gloriously retro in the craftsmanship of “Project Hail Mary" — from the movie-star charm of Ryan Gosling in the leading role to the tactical creation of his not-human traveling companion — that makes it sort of magical.

When we meet Gosling’s character, Ryland Grace, he’s waking up to the mental fog of cryogenic suspension. It takes him some time to remember who he is, why he’s on a spaceship, and where he’s headed to. He also figures out, quickly, that the two astronauts who were supposed to run the ship died while in deep sleep.

The script by Drew Goddard, once again adapting a novel by Andy Weir (they had the same job titles in “The Martian”), toggles from Ryland’s solitary situation to some time shortly before that, back on Earth. Ryland was a high school science teacher, but he used to be something else: A scientist whose theories of life outside of Earth got him expelled from the scientific community. Now, a stern German scientist, Eva Stratt (played by Sandra Hüller, from “Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Zone of Influence”), needs his outside-the-mainstream take on things — because the sun is dying, and Earth’s best minds have about 30 years to figure out why.

Weir’s scientific explanations here, as in “The Martian,” sound super-intelligent and confidently correct, no matter how outlandish they might be. Eva tells Ryland that there’s a plan, to send Earth scientists to a distant star, which is the only one that isn’t getting consumed by whatever’s dimming the sun. Figure out why that star isn’t fading, send the information by probe back to Earth, and pray a fix can be done in time. That’s the “Hail Mary” of the title.

What Ryland, alone in space, soon discovers when he gets to the star is that he’s not alone out there. Another space traveler, a creature who looks like he was made from rocks, has come to this star for the same reason Ryland is there — to see what this star has that his home star doesn’t. 

The meat of “Project Hail Mary" is the interaction between Gosling’s Ryland and this rock creature, which he names “Rocky” — and is voiced and manipulated by puppeteer James Ortiz. The two have to learn how to translate each other’s language, work together in ships of different atmospheres, and unlock the mystery of the star that represents both home worlds’ best chance to survive.

Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have a weird movie pedigree, having directed “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs,” “The Lego Movie” and the “21 Jump Street” action comedies — as well as producing the “Spider-Verse” movies. They masterfully dispense information, as the narrative shifts from Ryland and Rocky in space to Ryland and Eva back on Earth, so we learn what we learn at the moment we need to know it. They also create a future that feels real, in large part because it’s shown more with physical effects than computer animation. 

There is one spectacular special effect deployed in “Project Hail Mary,” and that’s the charisma and easygoing humor of Ryan Gosling in the lead role. There are parts of the movie where, like Robert Redford in “All Is Lost” or Matt Damon in “The Martian,” Gosling has to carry the load by himself. The fact that he does so effortlessly is an indication of what an old-school movie star can do. 

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‘Project Hail Mary'

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, March 20, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for some thematic material and suggestive references. Running time: 156 minutes.

Review: 'Mr. Nobody Against Putin' captures a teacher's journey down the slippery slope of authoritarianism, and shows us how to avoid the same march

We try to tell ourselves that when authoritarianism comes along, we’d recognize it. The Oscar-winning documentary “Mr. Noboy Against Putin” is a timely and chilling reminder that fascism won’t bang on the door, but slip past in the disguise of patriotism and “helping” the children.

Pavel Talankin, who goes by Pasha, teaches at the Karabash Primary School No. 1, in a small town in the Urals in Russia, a few hours’ drive east of Moscow. It’s a dreary place, best known for some of the worst pollution in the world, but for Pasha it’s still home and he loves it. He brings flowers to his mother, the librarian, and gives his students space to speak freely about whatever troubles them.

Pasha has two jobs at the school: He’s the event coordinator, which means he organizes Cake Day and other happenings; and he’s the school’s videographer. That second job takes on added importance in February 2022, when Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, begins what Russian media euphemistically calls “special military operations” — and the rest of the world calls the invasion of Ukraine.

Soon, all the schools in Russia are given a new directive, called “the new federal patriotic education policy.” Now, in addition to their daily math and reading lessons, the students must recite patriotic songs and speeches, and read poems about Russia’s “glorious victory” over Ukraine. And Pasha must dart from class to class, capturing it all on camera. He must then upload the footage to a federal database, to prove that the school is complying with the new directive. 

In Pasha’s video footage, we see teachers reading prepared scripts that tell of the “neo-Nazis” who dictate Ukrainian policy, or arguing that the French are paying exorbitant prices for a tank of gas because of their country’s support of Ukraine. Pasha’s camera also captures how some teachers are reading unenthusiastically from the government script, while others embrace the message and are happy to spout propaganda rather than deliver some hard facts.

After first opting to resign on principle, Pasha decides he should stay, to make a video record of everything that’s happening — and the slow, inexorable descent into full-blown fascist misinformation. The capper, in Pasha’s mind, is the day the Wagner Group, the mercenary military force Putin hired to fight in Ukraine, comes to school to give weapons demonstrations.

Pasha also captures his coworkers’ frustration with the changing rules, and his students’ growing despondency at both the lesson plans and the fact that friends and siblings are headed off to fight in Putin’s war — and, in many cases, not coming back.

The teacher, Pavel Talankin, shares directing credit with David Borenstein, a veteran of PBS and New York Times documentaries. The movie shows how they started working together, meeting via Instagram – and the fact that the two men don’t meet in person until the events of the film are over. The movie’s prologue shows Pasha getting ready to make a getaway out of Russia, when it becomes too dangerous to stay.

Talankin’s footage, and his to-the-camera confessionals from his tiny apartment, show the gradual descent toward authoritarian rule — from the rote learning to the crony system that rewards the government suck-up over the teacher the students actually like and respect. The movie also shows how exhausting it is for Pasha to keep up the pretense, to document events for us while pretending to document events for the government. It’s a harsh reminder of what our country could soon experience, if it isn’t there already.

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‘Mr. Nobody Against Putin’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, March 20, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Not rated, but probably PG-13 for language and descriptions of war violence. Running time: 90 minutes; in Russian, with subtitles.

Review: 'The Pout-Pout Fish' is an amiable, colorful and completely unremarkable animated tale of a grumpy fish on a quest

The animated tale “The Pout-Pout Fish” tells of a grumpy fish on a quest near the coral reefs of Australia — and if it wasn’t for a certain Pixar film in a very similar setting, you might not notice how pedestrian this movie is. 

Based on a series of children’s books by Deborah Diesen, “The Pout-Pout Fish” starts with Mr. Fish, who is voiced by Nick Offerman, in the most on-the-nose voice casting since Lewis Black voiced anger in “Inside Out.” Mr. Fish swims through his town on the coral reef, looking glum day after day, despite the regular efforts of his neighbors to cheer him up.

One day, a little sea dragon named Pip (voiced by Nina Oyama) enters Mr. Fish’s house, thinking the shipwreck-looking abode is a junkyard, and starts rummaging around for supplies he can take back to his own home. In the ensuing argument between Mr. Fish and Pip, Mr. Fish’s house breaks apart and falls on top of Pip’s house. Now, suddenly, they’re both homeless.

Mr. Fish wants to get to work rebuilding, but Pip has another idea. They have to find Shimmer (voiced by Jordin Sparks), the legendary and elusive rainbow fish who, the legend goes, can grant wishes. Mr. Fish starts looking for Shimmer, reluctantly taking Pip along for the trip. Also on the trail is Benji (voiced by Remy Hii), a cuttlefish who wants to use Shimmer’s wish (she can only give one at a time, we’re told) to help save the cuttlefish homeland from permanent darkness by encroaching kelp.

The journey sets Mr. Fish and Pip on encounters with stinging jellyfish, a wayward baby whale, and a trio of pink dolphins (all voiced by Amy Sedaris) who talk like characters from “Mean Girls.” None of this, as presented by director Ricard Cussó and co-director Rio Harrington, is exceptionally funny or exciting, but the movie glides from one episode to the next pleasantly if not memorably. 

I could imagine “The Pout-Pout Fish” as acceptable entertainment for little children, as it provides pleasant colors and an undemanding story with some nice life lessons about confidence and friendship. Anyone who’s seen a fair share of animation will likely get bored and want to go find Nemo.

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‘The Pout-Pout Fish’

★★1/2

Opens Friday, March 20, in theaters. Rated PG for mild action and rude humor. Running time: 91 minutes.

Review: 'Reminders of Him' centers on a grieving ex-con in a romantic weepie that never feels authentic

Fans of Colleen Hoover — the novelist who has turned generational trauma into airport-ready reading material, like “It Ends With Us” and “Regretting You” — will likely latch onto this new movie adaptation, the romantic weepie “Reminders of Him,” even as its many cliches don’t mix into anything cohesive.

Our heroine is Kenna Rowan (played by Maika Monroe), who’s back in her home town of Laramie, Wyoming, after six years in prison. She was sentenced to seven, for vehicular manslaughter, but got time off for good behavior. She gets a fleabag apartment and must secure a job to pay for the rent, which she manages to do only after a day of rejection. 

For a hard luck case, Kenna manages to luck into some beneficial situations. For example, she walks into a bar because it used to be a bookstore where she and her boyfriend, Scotty (played in flashbacks by Rudy Pankow), used to hang out. The bar’s owner is Ledger (Tyriq Winters), who was Scotty’s best friend growing up — but Kenna never met him during her and Scotty’s courtship. 

The second Kenna realizes the bar owner is Ledger, she gets out of there. We soon find out the reason why: Kenna went to prison because of her role in Scotty’s death. What’s more, Kenna was pregnant at the time, and has never seen her 5-year-old daughter, Diem (Zoe Kosovic), who lives with Scotty’s parents, Grace (Lauren Graham) and Patrick (Bradley Whitford). Ledger lives across the street from Diem’s grandparents, and is a surrogate uncle to her. And none of them want Kenna coming around, for fear she’ll try to take Diem away.

Kenna, though, is trying to do things the right way, earning her way back into society and, eventually, into custody of her daughter. That effort gets complicated, first by attempts to stay out of sight of Grace and Patrick — and, since this is a Colleen Hoover book, by romantic sparks with the hunky Ledger.

Director Vanessa Caswill — who directed some of the 2017 “Little Women” miniseries with Maya Hawke as Jo — understands the assignment. That’s to bring together characters who are broken, yet impossibly good-looking, for cathartic confrontations and and some safely PG-13 sex scenes. The problem is the script, by Hoover and co-writer Lauren Levine, which puts the actors in situations that only happen in bad movies that bear no resemblance to real life.

Winters is an appealing male lead, as he tries to give some weight to scenes where he’s asked mostly to take off his shirt. And Monroe, whose best-known credits are in horror (“It Follows,” “Watcher,” “Longlegs”), shows a bit of range as the tearful heroine in a romantic drama. Their charms carry “Reminders of Him” a bit farther than the material does, but not that far. 

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‘Reminders of Him’

★★1/2

Opens Friday, March 13, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for sexual content, strong language, drug content, some violent content, and brief partial nudity. Running time: 114 minutes.

Review: 'Sirāt' is an intense movie experience, a life-or-death drama set to the beat of rave culture

French director Oliver Laxe’s existential thriller “Sirāt” has qualities in common with the rave music that serves as its soundtrack: It’s hypnotic, energetic, propulsive and raises the tension to almost unbearable levels. 

The action starts at a rave somewhere in northern Africa. It seems less like a commercial concert than a communal group happening. People set up a wall of speakers, then dance and gyrate together in a shared ecstasy of togetherness. If you don’t go to Burning Man regularly, the opening minutes of this movie may be the closest you get to feeling that.

Luis (played by the Spanish actor Sergi López) is not there for the music. With his young son, Esteban (Bruno Núñez), in tow, Luis is searching high and low for his missing daughter, Mar. Luis meets one group of ravers who travel from one event to another, who tell him they might have met Mar — and that she might be at the event where they’re going next. Luis decides to follow this group, even dodging military police to get there.

On the road, Luis and Esteban are soon accepted into the family of oddballs — a group all played by nonprofessionals chosen in street-casting by costume designer Nadia Acimi, who is a former raver (and Laxe’s ex). But the route becomes more treacherous, and something happens (no spoiler here) that turns the trip into something darker and more tragic.

Laxe, who co-wrote with Santiago Fillol, takes us deep into the world of rave culture, then takes that world and plunges it into the desert of Northern Africa — a place where life and death are close companions, and danger is a constant. Luis and these nomadic ravers experience that danger, and it both bonds them and divides them. 

It’s hard to be more specific about the plot, because this is a movie that rewards those who don’t know too much when the lights go down. “Sirāt” is an intense, gripping movie about the end of the line, and the choices that have to be made when these people get there.

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‘Sirāt’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, March 13, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Rated R for language, some violent content and drug use. Running time: 114 minutes, in Spanish, French and Arabic, with subtitles.

Review: 'Undertone' is a satisfyingly dark thriller about guilt and death that plays best on the ears

What you hear is what you get in “Undertone,” an effective horror-thriller from Canada that gets its biggest scares in its sound mix.

Evy (Nina Kiri) has a lot going on for someone who almost never leaves the house. She’s a full-time caretaker for her mom (Michèle Duquet), who’s laid up in bed and approaching the end of her life. She is co-host of a podcast, “The Undertone,” playing the skeptic to her unseen audio partner Justin (voiced by Adam DiMarco), the believer in the supernatural doings they talk about. As we go into the story, we suspect she’s nursing some feelings about an ex, dealing with some guilt as a lapsed Catholic, and trying to maintain her sobriety.

Evy always records the podcast at 3 a.m., we’re told to accommodate the London-based Justin’s schedule, But it’s also a fitting witching hour for spooky things to go bump in the night, or for intrusive thoughts to play on Evy’s heart and soul. Then Justin introduces a collection of 10 audio files, sent by an anonymous podcast listener. As they start listening to the files, in order, Evy and Justin try to talk through what they’re hearing — something about a young couple trying to sleep with a new baby in their lives — until it becomes … nope, can’t give away more than that.

Writer-director Ian Tuason, making his feature debut, shows a flair for composition. He sets up perfectly creepy shots that frame Evy on one side, her noise-canceling earphones eliminating distractions, and a darkened part of the house on the other, from which might come something bad. 

All the best scares, though, are in the sound mix, whether it’s from Evy hears from those videos or the strange noises coming from upstairs where her mom is sleeping. “Undertone” could almost be effective a scream generator as an audio presentation, but then you wouldn’t get Tuason’s strong visuals or the chance to watch Kiri, who’s a dynamic young actor I think we’ll see more of.

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‘Undertone’

★★★

Opens Friday, March 13, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for language. Running time: 94 minutes.