Review: 'Long Weekend' imperfectly turns romantic-comedy expectations on their heads

You would think there aren’t any surprises left in romantic comedies — and then an offbeat little gem called “Long Weekend” shows up to spring not one but two twists on the viewer.

Bart (Finn Wittrock) is a down-and-out writer in Los Angeles, a guy who has dealt with a lot in the last year — including, we are told in installments, that his fiancée dumped him, he can’t get his work published, and he has to move out of his apartment and into the garage of his best friend Doug (Damon Wayans Jr.). There’s something else in Bart’s recent past that’s casting its shadow, but that won’t be revealed for awhile.

When Bart meets Vienna (played by Zoe Chao), who’s visiting Los Angeles, she seems too good to be true. In fact, while they’re having drinks at a neighborhood bar and checking out the jukebox, Bart asks Vienna if she’s one of those “manic pixie dream girl” characters too many of his fellow writers put in movies like this. She says she’s not, but what Vienna ultimately does say sounds equally far-fetched to Bart and to the viewer. (No, I’m not going to tell you what her story is. That’s for you to find out.)

That’s not the only twist that writer-director Steve Basilone, who has worked on such sitcoms as “Community” and “The Goldbergs,” unfurls before the end credits. Either you’re on board with those shifts or you’re not — and your feelings toward the leads will determine on which side of that fence you land.

Wittrock, an impossibly handsome actor who’s had sizable roles in “American Horror Story” and “Ratched,” sells us on what a messed-up guy Bart is. But the best thing in “Long Weekend” is Chao (“Downhill,” “The High Note”), who brings an earthy vulnerability to what could have been a thankless role — but turns out to be the warmly glowing center of it all.

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‘Long Weekend’

★★★

Opens Friday, March 12, in theaters where open. Rated R for language throughout. Running time: 91 minutes.

Review: 'The Father' gives Anthony Hopkins a chance to shine, as a man dimmed by age

Movie lovers may sometimes take for granted the power of an actor like Anthony Hopkins — until a role like “The Father” comes along and the old lion, now 83, shows he can still roar.

What writer-director Florian Zeller, who adapted his own stage play, reveals about Hopkins’ character comes out in time-released doses. He lives in a well-decorated flat in London. He’s a retired engineer, though he likes to tell people he was a dancer. He gets daily visits from his daughter, Anne (Olivia Colman), who checks to make sure he’s taking care of himself.

Importantly, Anthony resists Anne’s efforts to bring in a caretaker or nurse to help Anthony get around. He’s run off the last couple of nurses, claiming they tried to steal his watch. The most recent applicant, Laura (Imogen Poots), bears a striking resemblance, he says, to his other daughter, Lucy — which prompts Anthony to complain that Lucy never comes to visit him any more.

Early on, Anne tells Anthony why she’s eager to find some live-in help: Anne has fallen in love with a man, and is planning to move to Paris to live with him. Anthony has his doubts about Anne’s plans — but, then again, he finds himself doubting a lot of things, like when he sees a man (Mark Gatiss) in his flat, claiming he lives there.

Much of “The Father” seems confined to Anthony’s flat, in keeping with the stage roots of Zeller’s story. As things unfold, Zeller hints at what’s going on, without revealing outright why the shifting of viewpoints and even a couple of at-first unfamiliar faces (played by the quite familiar Rufus Sewell and Olivia Williams) appear.

Zeller uses these differing views, employing the semi-surreal tricks of a stage production, to create a portrait of Anthony’s addled mind — an inside-looking-out depiction of dementia that most filmmakers wouldn’t dare to attempt.

It helps Zeller, immeasurably, to have Hopkins in his corner. Hopkins channels both the charm that Anthony still possesses and the frustration and anger as he feels everything important to him — particularly his mind and his dignity — slowly slipping away. Hopkins is electric here, playing off the always-brilliant Colman and his other solid castmates to create a tragic and indelible portrait of a man desperately clinging to some shred of his identity. 

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‘The Father’

★★★1/2

Opened February 26 in some theaters; opens Friday, March 12, at select Utah theaters. Rated PG-13 for some strong language, and thematic material. Runnng time: 98 minutes.

Review: The Russo brothers turn 'Cherry' into a depressing wallow through war, PTSD, heroin addiction and more bad times

“Cherry” is a movie with a lot on its plate — including poverty, war, PTSD, addiction and crime — and nothing consequential to say about any of it.

It’s the movie that directors Anthony and Joe Russo, after helming two of the five highest-grossing movies ever (“Avengers: Infinity War” and “Avengers: Endgame”), made because they could without grappling with whether they should. It’s a visually flashy but emotionally hollow drama that goes nowhere, and at two hours and 21 minutes, takes a long time to get there.

Based on Nico Walker’s semi-autobiographical novel, “Cherry” is the story of a young man — called Cherry and played by our current Spider-Man, Tom Holland — who we meet while he’s in the middle of robbing a bank. He’s not so busy that he can’t take time to narrate the process of bank robbery, and continue to narrate how he got where he is.

The movie then flashes back a few years, to Cherry’s life in a dead-end Ohio town in 2002, taking odd jobs tending bar and working construction. He gets a glimmer of hope in his life when he takes some college classes, and meets a pretty student, Emily (Ciara Bravo). They fall in love, but when she talks about leaving Ohio to study in Montreal, Cherry responds by enlisting in the Army. Emily drops her college plans, and the two get married before he ships out to basic training.

After an extended interlude in boot camp that will make nobody forget “Full Metal Jacket,” Cherry lands in Iraq as a medic. He sees the horrors and futility of war, and returns home to Emily with PTSD — and, before long, they both become addicted to opioids, first Oxycontin and then heroin. Bank robbery, to pay off his supplier (Jack Reyonr), soon follows.

Working off a script by Angela Russo-Otstot (the directors’ sister, with a resumé mostly in TV) and Jessica Goldberg (who most recently wrote for the Hilary Swank vehicle “Away”), the Russos pour a lot of cinematic craft into Cherry’s hard-luck tale. The visual flourishes are abundant, particularly in the bloody combat sequences, but the movie is all style and little substance.

For all of the good work put in by Holland as the self-destructive main character, and Bravo’s efforts to bring some passion to an underdeveloped character, the Russos can’t make “Cherry” into more than a dreary and familiar wallow. 

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‘Cherry’

★★

Opens Friday, March 12, in some theaters, and streaming on AppleTV+. Rated R for graphic drug abuse, disturbing and violent images, pervasive language, and sexual content. Running time: 141 minutes.

Review: Strong cast of 'Boogie' makes its familiar coming-of-age story feel fresh and alive

Coming-of-age sports stories are a universal language, it seems — as evidenced by the energy generated in “Boogie,” a tough-minded drama that marks the feature directing debut of restaurateur and author Eddie Huang.

Huang is best known for his memoir “Fresh Off the Boat,” which was the basis for the ABC sitcom that ended its six-season run last year. “Boogie” covers some of the same territory, as it considers the life of a Taiwanese-American teen, Alfred “Boogie” Chin (played by newcomer Taylor Takahashi), and his immigrant parents — who have competing visions of their son’s road to success.

Boogie is a promising high school basketball player in Queens, New York, recently transferred to City Prep in hopes of drawing the attention of college and pro scouts who are eyeing the league’s top stars. At the top of that list is a superstar street-ball player, Monk (played by rapper Bashar “Pop Smoke” Jackson). 

Boogie’s father (Perry Yung), recently paroled, makes his money taking bets at street-ball games, and believes his son has the skills to make it to the NBA. Boogie’s mom (Pamelyn Chee) only wants to know whether Boogie can use his basketball talent to secure a college scholarship. Boogie often plays peacemaker in his parents’ screaming arguments, and it’s clear he’s been in the crossfire since he was very young. 

At City Prep, though, Boogie has a chance to escape his parents’ influence, even if it means bucking 5,000 years of Chinese tradition and family obligation. At school, he finds a coach (Domenick Lombardozzi) who won’t tolerate his selfish play, a teacher (Steve Coulter) who challenges him to speak up about “The Catcher in the Rye,” and a female athlete, Eleanor (Taylour Paige, most recently seen in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”), who might give him a chance if he’d ever drop the tough-guy facade.

Huang infuses “Boogie” with commentary about assimilation into American culture, and the myth of the “model minority.” There’s also plenty of talk about the stereotypes Asian-American athletes face, and some sly insults hurled at some who’ve made it. (Fans of Jeremy Lin might take offense.)

As a coming-of-age story, Huang sticks to the familiar — even the built-in critique of Holden Caulfield’s self-absorption in “The Catcher in the Rye” feels formulaic in its irony, as if Huang is elbowing you in the ribs with his cleverness.

Where “Boogie” succeeds is in the performances, which are strong across the board. Even the smaller roles — like Jorge Lendeborg Jr. as Boogie’s wingman Richie, Mike Moh (who played Bruce Lee in “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood”) as a ruthless talent agent, or Jackson (who was shot to death last year at age 20) as Boogie’s cold-blooded rival — pop with ferocity. 

Yung and Chee, as Boogie’s warring parents, lean into their arguments so powerfully it’s nearly uncomfortable to watch. Paige brings warmth and a healthy skepticism to what could have been a decorative girlfriend role. And Takahashi, in his first movie, is a true find — whose swagger and underlying insecurities provide “Boogie” with some genuine emotion within the standard underdog story.

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‘Boogie’

★★★

Opens Friday, March 5, in theaters where open. Rated R for language throughout including sexual references, and some drug use. Running time: 90 minutes; in English and in Taiwanese Mandarin with subtitles.

Review: Disney's 'Raya and the Last Dragon' combines epic scale and a sharp focus on characters to tell a powerful story about trust and reconciliation

Boldly epic and emotionally intimate, “Raya and the Last Dragon” may be the most moving work to come with the Disney label since “Frozen” — and without a catchy ballad to become your next ear worm.

When we first see Raya (voiced by Kelly Marie Tran), she looks like the solitary rider in an old Western or a martial-arts movie. In voice-over, Raya explains the history of her dragon-shaped mythical land, Kumandra — where, 500 years ago, humans lived under the protection of dragons. The dragons sacrifice themselves to ward off an evil force, called The Druun, turning to stone and leaving behind a stone containing their protective magic. Kumandra breaks apart into five regions, each named for a body part of the dragon map: Tail, Talon, Spine, Fang and Heart.

Raya is from Heart, where her father, Benja (voiced by Daniel Dae Kim), carries on their family’s tradition of protecting the magic stone. When Raya is a pre-teen, Benja tells her he believes he can bring the five regions together to restore a united Kumandra — but when he invites the rivals to Heart, the distrust amid the warring factions causes a mob scene in which the stone is shattered, with each group taking one piece. Raya blames her counterpart in Fang, a princess named Namaari (voiced by Gemma Chan), whom she trusted, for setting the disastrous events in motion that bring The Druun to Heart, turning her father to stone.

Directors Don Hall (“Big Hero 6”) and Carlos López Estrada (“Blindspotting”), working off a script by Qui Nguyen (a writer on “Dispatches from Elsewhere”) and Adele Lim (who co-wrote “Crazy Rich Asians”), take only 20 minutes to chronicle all of the above — making for some of the most efficient and elegant world-building since “Black Panther” took us to Wakanda. The film’s set-up soon launches into the main story, which starts six years later, when Raya is a hardened adult traveling through the other four regions attempting to find the one dragon who, according to legend, didn’t turn to stone.

That dragon is Sisu, and yes, Raya finds her — the trailer tells you that much — and the real action starts from there. Sisu is exuberantly voiced by the comedian/actor Awkwafina, who gives the most energetically creative animation performance in a Disney movie since Robin Williams played the genie in “Aladdin.”

The beautiful visuals are steeped in southeast Asian cultures, and the action emulates the fluidity and power of great martial-arts movies. And the voice cast — besides Tran, Kim, Chan and Awkwafina — also features Benedict Wong (“Doctor Strange”), Sandra Oh (“Killing Eve”), Patti Harrison (“Search Party”) and Sung Kang (from the “Fast & Furious” franchise), as well as charming performances by child talents Izaac Wang and Thalia Tran.

There’s more to “Raya and the Last Dragon,” though, than an Asian-based, female-centered story that checks off boxes on Disney’s representation scorecard. That’s just the backdrop for a richly drawn and powerfully told story, a hero’s journey that never loses sight of the characters amid the spectacle. 

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‘Raya and the Last Dragon’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, March 5, in theaters where open, and as a premium offering on Disney+. Rated PG for some violence, action and thematic elements. Running time: 109 minutes (plus a seven-minute short, “Us Again”).

Review: 'Sponge on the Run' saddles our familiar cartoon friend with creepy 3D animation and a crass plug for a new show

There’s a foul odor of barnacles attached to the latest movie starring that most famous of sponges, SpongeBob SquarePants — and not because “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run” has been sitting on the shelf for a year, another stalled release during the COVID-19 pandemic.

No, the stale, dank smell emanates from the fact that director Tim Hill — who directed “The SpongeBob SquarePants” movie back in 2004, and has gone on to such abominations as “Alvin & The Chipmunks,” “Hop” and last year’s “The War With Grandpa” — is trying to serve his corporate masters more than the fans who truly love the hyper-cheerful sponge.

The new film spends entirely too much time re-introducing us to characters we’re quite familiar with — can you believe it’s been 22 years since Stephen Hillenburg (who died in 2018, and to whom the movie is dedicated) first created little yellow guy? Hill narrates the overlong introduction, where we again meet SpongeBob (voiced by Tom Kenny), his not-too-bright pal Patrick Star (voiced by Bill Fagerbakke), depressed Squidward (voiced by Rodger Bumpass), spacesuit-wearing inventor Sandy Cheeks (voiced by Carolyn Lawrence), greedy burger entrepreneur Mr. Krabs (voiced by Clancy Brown), and Krabs’ scheming competitor, Plankton (voiced by Mr. Lawrence).

When the plot kicks in, finally, it’s a familiar one: SpongeBob’s pet snail, Gary, goes missing, and SpongeBob is beside himself with grief. So he and Patrick hit the road, in a boat-car driven by Sandy’s new robot, Otto (voiced by Awkwafina). Eventually they arrive in the Lost City of Atlantic City, where King Poseidon (voiced by Matt Berry) needs Gary’s slime trail to complete his skin-care regimen.

But it’s not the recycling of old “SpongeBob” plot points that feels off. It’s the computer-generated animation, which gives an unsettling, claymation-like look to characters who were more charming in the flat, simple two-dimensional line animation of the series and first movie.

The new film carries on the franchise’s tradition of offbeat performances by live-action actors — this time with mixed results. Keanu Reeves’ head makes regular appearances as a magical wisdom-granting tumbleweed named Sage, which provides some offbeat humor. But Danny Trejo’s moment as a feared outlaw is underwhelming, coming as it does after a Snoop Dogg cameo that’s weirder than what one imagines for a PG-rated kids’ movie.

Worst of all, just when you think this movie can’t introduce these characters to us again, it does — as little kids at summer camp. These boring flashback scenes are, it turns out, an embedded advertisement for “Kamp Koral,” a new animated series also debuting on Paramount+ when the new streaming network launches on March 4. Just give me the reruns, in glorious flat animation.

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’The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run’

★★

Available for streaming starting Thursday, March 4, on Paramount+. Rated PG for rude humor, some thematic elements, and mild language. Running time: 91 minutes.

Review: 'Tom & Jerry' is far from perfect, but the cat-and-mouse act still generates some laughs

The great thing about having zero expectations is that you can be pleasantly surprised — which is what happens watching “Tom & Jerry,” an exercise in dusting off a creaky cartoon franchise and finding that there’s still some charm and humor in it 80 years after it began.

Tom & Jerry, the archetype of the cartoon cat-chases-mouse scenario, have been around since William Hanna and Joseph Barbera created them for MGM in 1940. Usually, Jerry was the plucky David to Tom’s buffoonish Goliath, with Jerry’s wits beating out Tom’s brute force. But there were variations on the theme, or inconsistencies where Tom was the innocent and Jerry was the annoying aggressor. (I’ll admit here that I grew up on Bugs Bunny cartoons, which were more sophisticated than “Tom & Jerry” or Hanna-Barbera’s later creations; my favorite “Tom & Jerry” shorts are invariably the ones Chuck Jones directed in the mid-‘60s, after he left Warner Bros.) 

This new live-action/animated hybrid starts out with Tom minding his own business and Jerry being a bit devilish. Tom is happily busking in Central Park — he plays piano, it turns out — and the scheming Jerry tries to horn in on the act, ruining prospects for both of them. During the inevitable chase, Jerry lands in a five-star hotel, where he pilfers enough items to build a comfortable home behind the wainscoting on the 10th floor. Tom ends up in the alley, picked on by the meaner, tougher cats.

Like Jerry, Kayla — played by Chloë Grace Moretz — is street-smart and a bit of a schemer. She finagles a temp job at the same hotel, assisting the events manager Terence (Michael Peña) as the hotel is set to host a lavish celebrity wedding between Preeta (Pallavi Sharda) and Ben (Colin Jost). To impress Terence’s boss (Rob Delaney), Kayla takes on the assignment of ridding the hotel of a pesky mouse, and her solution is to hire a particular cat to exterminate the mouse.

Director Tim Story (whose last movie was the 2019 “Shaft” reboot) and screenwriter Kevin Costello (who co-wrote the 2017 Kyle Mooney vehicle “Brigsby Bear”) lean into the slapstick comedy of the original cartoons, even if the heavy objects falling on Tom look real. The humans don’t look too cartoonish — Ken Jeong as a high-strung chef is the exception — and Moretz, Peña and Delaney especially try to make the most out of their somewhat two-dimensional characters.

It’s clear Story and crew had fun trying to figure out the funniest way to let their cartoon stars destroy the impressive sets. Mostly, he sticks to the cheapskate animation traditions that Hanna and Barbera championed throughout their careers, though with some winking references to the characters’ history sprinkled in. “Tom & Jerry” isn’t a masterpiece, but it generates more laughs than you’d expect.

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‘Tom & Jerry’

★★1/2

Opening Friday, February 26, in theaters where open, and streaming on HBO Max. Rated PG for cartoon violence, rude humor and brief language. Running time: 101 minutes.

Review: Prison drama 'Night of the Kings' weaves a mesmerizing tale that mixes brutal realism and West African mythology

Moving seamlessly from gritty prison thriller to West African folklore, director Philippe Lacôte’s drama “Night of the Kings” is a hypnotic story of power that’s also about the power of a story.

Lacôte starts in his hometown — Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire (or Ivory Coast) — where a teen rides in a truck with a guard. The truck is taking the teen (Bakary Koné) to MACA, a prison that’s entirely run by the inmates. The chief guard, Nivaquine (Issaka Sawadogo), watches from a fortified office in the prison, but the real power is one of the prisoners: Lord Blackbeard (Steve Tientcheu, last seen in Ladj Ly’s 2019 drama “Les Misérables”). 

Blackbeard is ailing, and by the baroque rituals of MACA, he must kill himself and let a successor take over on the night of the Red Moon. But Blackbeard has one more trick up his sleeve: By the rules of MACA, he can appoint a “Roman” — a storyteller who must entertain the other prisoners all night and into the morning with his story. Blackbeard sees in this teen, a pickpocket, the spark required of a Roman.

While gang leaders in the prison jockey for position to replace Blackbeard, the teen — now just called Roman — begins to unfurl the story of Zama, a street criminal of legendary prowess until his brutal death. As Roman recounts Zama’s legend, Lacôte, as writer and director, oscillates between neo-realist flashbacks and a call-and-response chorus of inmates in sync with the narrative. Roman becomes MACA’s Scheherazade, as he’s warned by a grizzled inmate, called Silence (played by the French star Denis Levant) that he has to keep talking until dawn or else.

Lacôte moves gracefully between the harsh realities within MACA’s walls and the fantasy-like elements of Zama’s story floating gently outside the prison’s confines. The story flows and moves to the rhythm produced by the inmates’ chanting and dancing, and it’s not long until the audience is feeling that rhythm, as well. The juxtaposition of Roman’s yarn-spinning and the rough reality surrounding him is an intoxicating brew that will bewitch an audience.

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‘Night of the Kings’

★★★1/2

Opening Friday, February 26, in theaters where open; available as March 5 as a premium video-on-demand. Rated R for some violent material, language and nudity. Running time: 93 minutes; in French and Dyula, with subtitles.