Review: In 'French Exit,' not even Michelle Pfeiffer's exquisite performance can rescue this comedy from its own preciousness

There are few cinematic joys as perfect as watching Michelle Pfeiffer tear into a juicy role, as she does in director Azazel Jacobs’ comedy-drama “French Exit.” It’s a shame, then, that Pfeiffer’s brilliance isn’t enough to pull this faux-whimsical story out of the ditch.

Pfeiffer plays Frances Price, a Manhattan socialite who has been living extravagantly off the wealth left her by her late husband, Franklin. She shares her home with her adult son, Malcolm (Lucas Hedges), who is so terrified of disappointing his mother that he can’t tell her that he’s engaged to Susan (Imogen Poots) — which prompts the exasperated Susan to dump Malcolm.

Frances is told by her accountant that Franklin’s money is gone, and she has to sell everything and live more modestly. She does sell off the artwork and other items, transfers the proceeds into euros, and takes up an offer by her last friend, Joan (Susan Coyne), to live in Joan’s apartment in Paris until the money runs out. Malcolm goes along, as does Frances’ cat, Frank — named for her late husband, and the explanation for that will produce eye-rolls later on.

On the cruise ship crossing the Atlantic, Malcolm has a one-night stand with Madeleine (Danielle Macdonald), a medium who’s a little too accurate in predicting when a passenger will die. Once in Paris, Frances begins to accumulate more odd acquaintances, including a lonely widow (Valerie Mahaffey) and a bemused private detective (Isaach de Bankolé). Even Susan reappears, with a new fiancé, Tom (Daniel di Tomasso).

Jacobs usually has a firmer handle on the comic beats of his movies, as he showed with Debra Winger and Tracy Letts in “The Lovers” or with John C. Reilly in the 2011 Sundance Film Festival hit “Terri.” Here, though, Jacobs is saddled with a script in which most every character, including Frances, is a collection of tics in search of a personality. Screenwriter Patrick DeWitt, adapting his own novel, finds none of the humanity of his work in “Terri” or his off-kilter Western “The Sisters Brothers.”

Still, Pfeiffer cuts through the excesses of DeWitt’s script, giving a performance that’s as smooth and as potent as a fine whiskey. She reveals Frances as a woman who has outlived her husband and his fortune, and feels like a party guest who has overstayed her welcome. It’s a delightfully sharp piece of acting, and deserves a less self-consciously precious movie to showcase it.

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‘French Exit’

★★1/2

Opening Friday, April 2, in theaters where open. Rated R for language and sexual references. Running time: 112 minutes.

Review: 'Godzilla vs. Kong' delivers the monster battle audiences want, but takes a while to get there

The big ape from Skull Island takes on the terror of Tokyo in “Godzilla vs. Kong,” an energetic super-monster mashup that’s four years in the making — or 57 years, depending on how you’re counting.

In the current franchise, it’s been four years since “Kong: Skull Island” reintroduced audiences to the giant ape who made his screen debut back in 1933. Two years ago, “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” reacquainted fans with the nuclear-powered lizard creature that first thrilled Japanese audiences in 1954. (Fans of super-cheesy films will remember the 1964 “King Kong vs. Godzilla,” co-directed by Ishirô Honda, director of the original “Godzilla.”)

If you missed either of the recent installments, don’t worry. Nobody from “Kong: Skull Island” returns for this sequel, and the only characters back from the last “Godzilla” are the teen heroine, Madison Russell (Millie Bobby Brown), and her scientist father, Mark (Kyle Chandler) — and he barely makes a cameo appearance this time.

When we see Madison here, she’s teamed with Bernie Hayes (Brian Tyree Henry), a conspiracy-minded podcaster who works inside at Apex Cybernetics, a conglomerate run by billionaire Walter Simmons (played by Mexican star Demián Bichir). Madison and Bernie are trying to figure out why Godzilla, who has been dormant for awhile, is suddenly attacking Apex’s factory in Pensacola, Florida.

Meanwhile, Kong remains on Skull Island — though within a “Truman Show”-style dome projecting an artificial sky, though Kong is too smart to be fooled. Dr. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) is studying Kong, using the resources of another conglomerate, Monarch, to keep Kong safe from Godzilla. If the lizard were to sense Kong’s presence on the planet, Kong wouldn’t be safe.

Simmons enlists another scientist, Nathan Lind (Alexander Skarsgård), who has hypothesized something called the “hollow earth” theory — which suggests that the titans come from an undetected and energy-rich habitat in the center of the earth. (Jules Verne and Edgar Rice Burroughs, call your lawyers.) Simmons bankrolls an expedition to take Kong to the earth’s core for the big primate’s protection. Linn and Andrews lead this trip, along with Simmons’ daughter Maya (Eiza González), who’s keeping an eye on her daddy’s investment, and Jia (Kaylee Hottle), a deaf 9-year-old native of Skull Island and Andrews’ adopted daughter, who has a bond with Kong.

The script — Eric Pearson (“Black Widow”) and Max Borenstein (co-writer of “Kong: Skull Island”) get the writing credit, with three others receiving story credit — runs on parallel tracks, toggling between the expedition to save Kong and Madison’s infiltrating of Apex’s network all the way to Hong Kong. The actors must plow through large blocks of expository dialogue to make the outlandish premise sound scientific, and to set up the movie’s other main confrontation, between the rival corporations Apex and Monarch. But the underlying mood is that nobody onscreen really cares, as long as we get to see CGI monsters beat each other up from time to time.

Director Adam Wingard, who helmed the 2016 “Blair Witch” reboot, saves his cinematic flexing for the title match-up. Wingard knows there’s a visceral thrill seeing Kong throw a punch across Godzilla’s face, or having Kong jump out of the way of an explosion (a shot cribbed directly from Bruce Willis in “Die Hard”), and he delivers. The final fight, which has Godzilla and Kong tossing each other around a rapidly crumbling Hong Kong skyline, is ferociously entertaining. (If you’re comfortable going to a movie theater, and won’t be contributing to a fourth wave of COVID-19, see this on as big a screen as possible.)

“Godzilla vs. Kong” doesn’t fully satisfy — no big-budget blockbuster can any more, not when studios are more interested in setting up the next movie than allowing the audience to enjoy the one in front of them. But as a popcorn movie, with nothing more on its mind than providing the battle royale audiences want, it’s good enough.

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‘Godzilla vs. Kong’

★★★

Opens Wednesday, March 31, in theaters where open, and streaming on HBO Max. Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of creature violence/destruction and brief language. Running time: 113 minutes.

Review: 'A Week Away,' a Christian-themed summer-camp movie, is as earnest and peppy as you'd expect — and that's a good thing

Every 15 years, the world gives us a new generation of teen-agers, and gives that generation their own bouncy, free-spirited musical. The peppy, achingly earnest “A Week Away” seems likely to inherit the throne once occupied by “High School Musical.”

Will Hawkins (played by Kevin Quinn) has bounced in and out of a handful of foster homes, committing small crimes around Nashville, ever since his parents died. His next stop is a juvenile detention center, until he’s given an out: One week at Camp Aweegaway, a Christian summer camp. Will takes up the offer from Kristen (Sherri Shepherd), one of the camp counselors, and becomes cabin mates with Kristen’s ultra-nerdy son, George (Jahbril Cook).

Camp Aweegaway, we’re told by the proprietor (David Koechner), is pronounced with a hard “g,” so it sounds like “a week away” — following the owner’s philosophy that one week away from civilization can be life-changing for any teen. Will is skeptical, because he’s forgotten what kind of movie he’s in.

Will immediately meets cute with Avery (Bailee Madison), the camp owner’s daughter. Avery is the captain of the Crimson Angels, one of three teams into which the campers are divided for a week of games and contests. Will joins George in the green team, while the hyper-competitive Sean (Iain Tucker) and his snobbish sycophants make up the blue team.

Avery is guarded about Will at first, and vice versa, but soon teen-age sparks start flying, with the complication that Avery doesn’t know about Will’s criminal past. Meanwhile, George pines for Avery’s best friend Presley (Kat Conner Sterling), thinking he’s not good enough — that’s the name of the song for this part: “Good Enough” — for her, without realizing Presley feels the same way about him.

Can Will be honest with Avery? Can Will find a spiritual awakening? And who’s going to win the weeklong camp competition? The answer to all three questions is, of course: What do you think? Because this isn’t a movie that reinvents the wheel, but keeps things spinning pretty effectively.

Director Roman White, who’s best known for his music videos (such as Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me”), fills the many musical numbers with youthful exuberance and earnest feeling. And he pays proper homage to the teen musicals that have come before, like the way the guys-vs.-girls vibe of “Good Enough” is reminiscent of the “Summer Lovin’” number in “Grease.”

Be advised, though, that “A Week Away” is solid in its Christian themes, and is the most squeaky-clean teen romance since Annette Funicello stopped hanging out on the beach. The talented young cast, though, still makes it engaging.

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‘A Week Away’

★★★

Available for streaming, starting Friday, March 26, on Netflix. Not rated, but probably PG for mild peril and mature themes. Running time: 95 minutes.

Review: 'Nobody' casts Bob Odenkirk as a convincing assassin trying to live a quiet suburban life.

Who would have guessed, back when we were all watching “Mr. Show,” that comic actor Bob Odenkirk would turn out to be such a badass — as evidenced by his work in “Better Call Saul” and now in the surprisingly action-packed thriller “Nobody.”

Here, Odenkirk plays Hutch Mansell, who’s droning through what looks to be a boring suburban existence. He works as an accountant in a small factory, taking abuse from the owner, Eddie (Michael Ironside), and Eddie’s full-of-himself son, Charlie (Billy MacLellan). At home, Hutch is disrespected by his teen son, Blake (Gage Munroe), and regarded with quiet resignation by his wife, Becca (Connie Nielsen). Only his little girl, Abby (Paisley Cadorath), seems to dote on him.

When two masked thieves break into the house, Hutch momentarily prepares to deck one with a golf club, but seems to lose his nerve. Later, though, when he discovers Abby’s prized kitty-cat bracelet is missing, Hutch seems to snap — and he goes looking for the thieves, deploying skills that suggest Hutch hasn’t always been a mild-mannered bean counter.

It’s only a short hop from Hutch’s pursuit of the thieves to a fight against six thugs on a city bus. Hutch takes a few licks — and it’s cool how director Ilya Naishuller (“Hardcore Harry”) finds drama in how Hutch can take a punch — but puts the thugs in the hospital. What Hutch doesn’t know is that one of the thugs is the brother of Yulian Kuznetsov, the flamboyantly violent head of the local Russian mob. (Yulian is played by Alexey Serebryakov, star of the acclaimed Russian drama “Leviathan.”)

The firepower of “Nobody” comes from three men: Odenkirk, who is dynamic doing a slow burn and unleashing Hutch’s fury; Naishuller, who stages fight scenes brimming with menace; and screenwriter Derek Kolstad, who creates the same man-against-the-world fury as he did writing the original “John Wick.”

Where “Nobody” falls short is in the atmosphere surrounding Hutch’s swatch of barely justifiable destruction. There’s little explanation of Hutch’s past deeds, no sense of a larger world where such violence is part of the life. In “John Wick,” Kolstad set Keanu Reeves’ Wick amid an army of baddies, and created a venue — the no-kill zone of The Continental hotel — that prompted as much curiosity as Wick himself. “Nobody” doesn’t anything like that, and the absence is deeply felt.

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‘Nobody’

★★★

Opens Friday, March 26, in theaters where open. Rated R for strong violence and bloody images, language throughout and brief drug use. Running time: 92 minutes.

Review: 'Senior Moment' is a painfully inept rom-com for the AARP crowd

They say you should never meet your heroes — but what they don’t warn you about is not to watch your heroes grow into their 80s and make pathetically unwatchable movies, as William Shatner does in the geriatric comedy “Senior Moment.”

Shatner, who was 86 when he filmed this (he turned 90 this week), plays Victor Martin, a retired NASA test pilot living in Palm Springs, where he dotes on his vintage Porsche convertible. Hanging out with his best friend, Sal Spinelli (Christopher Lloyd), Victor gets goaded into drag racing a guy, Pablo Torres (Carlos Miranda), in his low-rider. Victor gets caught, and thanks to a spiteful DA (Beth Littleford), Victor gets his driver’s license suspended and his Porsche impounded.

Surrendering to the ignominy of public transit, Victor has a fortuitous encounter with Caroline Summers (Jean Smart), a cafe owner and star baker. Victor gives up his usual pursuit of bikini-clad women a quarter his age (represented here by “30 Rock’s” Katrina Bowden) to court Caroline, though he becomes jealous when she also spends time with Diego Lozana (Esai Morales), a brooding painter.

It should be a treat to see these veteran actors putting each other through their paces — and Smart, as always, is delightful no matter what. But the script, by Kurt Brungardt and Christopher Momenee, is loaded with jokes that are older than anyone on screen. And director Giorgio Serafini handles them with all the subtlety of a train wreck.

Shatner frequently sacrifices his dignity in an attempt to get laughs, and it’s all the more sad that he does so in vain. “Senior Moment” is one movie that, if Shatner has any luck on his side, people will forget.

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‘Senior Moment’

★

Opens Friday, March 26, in theaters where open. Not rated, but probably PG-13 for sexual content and some language. Running time: 92 minutes.

Review: 'Zack Snyder's Justice League' has some improvements over the 2017 version, but also a lot of padding in its four hours

After watching “Zack Snyder’s Justice League,” the four-hour behemoth re-edit of the 2017 theatrical cut, I came away with one overarching thought: This is the DVD “special edition” version of a movie we’re never going to see.

Every movie fan knows the backstory: Snyder, after directing “Man of Steel” and ‘Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice,” was into post-production on DC Comics’ “Justice League” back in 2017, when he suddenly stepped away from the film for family reasons. (His daughter, Autumn, died by suicide in March 2017, at age 20. This new film is dedicated to her.) Warner Bros. brought in Joss Whedon, who had directed two “Avengers” movies and knows superhero mash-ups better than most anyone, to bring “Justice League” in for a landing. 

Ever since, lovers of Snyder’s work wouldn’t shut up about it. These fans — constant reminders that the word “fan” is short for “fanatic” — argued that Warner Bros. was suppressing Snyder’s version of the movie, the so-called “Snyder cut,” and campaigned loudly to get the company to release that version. Finally, Warner Bros. gave Snyder the opportunity to re-edit his footage into this version, which debuted on the HBO Max streaming service this week.

What do viewers get after four hours? They get exactly what the title promises, Snyder’s take on “Justice League,” for good and ill.

First, a brief synopsis. Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck), the billionaire who works nights as Batman, has teamed from Diana Prince (Gal Gadot), the Amazon princess who goes by Wonder Woman, that a threat is coming from beyond this dimension: A monster named Steppenwolf (voiced by Ciaran Hinds), who is bent on finding three magic boxes that, when brought together, will reshape the world — killing all humanity in the process.

Bruce and Diana look for others with super abilities to join the fight. They find three: Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa), the ocean-friendly hero known as Aquaman; Barry Allen (Ezra Miller), a nerdy teen with super speed, aka The Flash; and Victor Stone (Ray Parker), a college football phenom who’s now part machine, who’s called Cyborg. After a first encounter with Steppenwolf, which they barely survive, Bruce argues they must take desperate measures to add to their team, by resurrecting the recently deceased Superman (Henry Cavill).

This recap describes both the Whedon and Snyder versions. So the question becomes: Did Snyder tell the story better than Whedon?

The answer is yes, in part because he had four hours and two minutes — exactly twice the run-time of Whedon’s version — to lay everything out. One of the main problems with Whedon’s “Justice League” is that every moment seemed rushed, as if every scene existed to set up the next one, rather than having any time to breathe and be in the moment.

Snyder now has time to tell his version of the story, and he uses all of it. Where he deploys it best is framing the backstory for Cyborg, as Victor grapples with his new existence as a half-man, half-machine, and deals with his strained relationship with his father, Dr. Silas Stone (Joe Morton), the scientist who developed the technology that saved and cursed his son.

Other additions are cool, but extraneous. Snyder includes an extended action sequence where Barry’s The Flash saves the life of Iris West (Kiersey Clemons) — a future love interest who reportedly will appear in a stand-alone “The Flash” movie — that is fun to watch but doesn’t move the story. The expanded flashbacks of ancient Amazons, Atlanteans and humans joining forces to defeat Steppenwolf — who’s more spiky now, thanks to reworked CGI — are big, blood-spurting battles that serve mostly to remind everyone, in case they’ve forgotten, that Snyder also directed “300.” (Those battle scenes also are bloody enough to give Snyder’s “Justice League” an R rating.)

Then there are scenes that feel like padding. There is one scene that consists of Alfred (Jeremy Irons), Bruce Wayne’s stalwart butler, telling Diana the proper way to make tea. And there is a head-scratching epilogue, involving a post-apocalyptic alternative universe that introduces Jared Leto’s Joker to the mix. And there are at least two DC characters introduced here — one good, one bad —  primed for a sequel that nobody at Warner Bros. has said will ever happen.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Snyder fans start demanding their sequel, too. After all, they’re on a roll. These fans complained, tweeted out conspiracy hashtags and generally poisoned the DC fandom to get their precious “Snyder cut,” and now they have it. Their insufferable whining was rewarded, so why wouldn’t they go double or nothing?

But after watching all four hours of “Zack Snyder’s Justice League,” from DC logo to the inevitable cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” over the closing credits, I pictured a scene from another alternate reality. In this parallel universe, Snyder was able to finish “Justice League” back in 2017, and he delivers this four-hour cut to Warner Bros. executives. There is no doubt in my mind that the “suits” would say to Snyder: “That’s great, Zack — but what are you going to cut to get this baby down to a two-hour theatrical window and a PG-13?” That’s the “Snyder cut” I’d be curious to see.

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‘Zack Snyder’s Justice League’

★★1/2

Available for streaming on HBO Max. Rated R for violence and some language. Running time: 242 minutes.

Review: In 'The Courier,' Benedict Cumberbatch brings the heat to a tense Cold War spy thriller

Cold War intrigue and some old-fashioned heroism come into play in “The Courier,” which casts Benedict Cumberbatch as an unlikely spy infiltrating the Soviet Union.

Greville Wynne, the real-life figure Cumberbatch portrays here, isn’t a spy at all. He’s an English businessman, making deals on the golf course and then heading home to his wife, Sheila (Jessie Buckley), and their son. So it’s a surprise when, in 1960, he’s approached by an American CIA operative (Rachel Brosnahan) and her MI6 counterpart (Angus Wright) with a request: Befriend a Soviet industry official, Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze), who has made surreptitious contact with the American embassy.

Wynne meets Penkovsky in Moscow, and they strike up an easy friendship. Penkovsky — whose nickname is “Ironbark” (which was this movie’s title when it premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival) — takes Wynne to see the Bolshoi, and Wynne reciprocates with a show on the West End when Penkovsky and a trade delegation visit London. On subsequent trips to Moscow, Wynne receives deliveries of microfilm from Penkovsky — but he’s been told, for his own safety, not to inquire about the information contained on that film. The less Wynne knows, the CIA and MI6 minders say, the more likely he’ll survive if he’s captured.

Penkovsky believes that Nikita Khrushchev, the new leader of the USSR, is to impetuous and erratic — and is looking for a war with the West, if he can start some provocation to rile up the Americans. Penkovsky finds information about a likely plan to turn the Cold War into something hotter: Putting Soviet missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles off the Florida coast.

It’s a fascinating story, and screenwriter Tom O’Connor (“The Hitman’s Bodyguard”) finds a structure — following both Cumberbatch’s Wynne and Ninidze’s Penkovsky on parallel tracks, each wrestling with their own ethical dilemmas as they come to trust each other in this deadly game.

Director Dominic Cooke (“On Chesil Beach”) deftly draws out the tension in O’Connor’s script, and dives into strong emotions when the situation changes dramatically in the final half hour. Cooke has clearly studied “The Third Man” and John LeCarré’s spy novels, and creates an oppressive atmosphere filled with deep shadows from where suspicious eyes may be watching.

Tthe main attraction, though, is Cumberbatch, as he portrays Wynne’s evolution from hapless businessman to resolute freedom fighter. Thanks to Cumberbatch’s performance, “The Courier” delivers as a tense, thoughtful spy drama.

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‘The Courier’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, March 19, in theaters where open. Rated PG-13 for violence, partial nudity, brief strong language, and smoking throughout. Running time: 112 minutes.

Review: Hard-charging documentary 'Wojnarowicz' is a portrait of an artist at war with AIDS, his political enemies, and his personal demons.

The artist David Wojnarowicz once painted a self-portrait in which he is shown with flames emanating from one side of his body — which is a perfect symbol for the brief, combustible life chronicled in Chris McKim’s documentary “Wojnarowicz.”

Wojnarowicz (pronounced “VOY-nah-ROH-vitch”) was one of the leading voices of the East Village art scene in the early 1980s. He was a multimedia artist, best known for creating giant canvas collages of confrontational images. He also made avant-garde art films, sometimes re-enacting the abuse his alcoholic father in Ohio used to heap on him. He also documented his life on film and in audio diaries, and McKim digs through both to find the nuggets he runs here.

He also took part in a punk band, called 3 Teens Kill 4, made up of friends who hung out at the Danceteria. The place became known as a refuge for future stars; the graffiti artist Keith Haring was a busboy, and a young dancer who went by one name — Madonna — would hang out there. When the place was raided one night, Wojnarowicz and his bandmates gave their first performance at a benefit for a legal defense fund — unnecessary, as one person in the film points out, because Mob-connected lawyers had bailed them all out.

McKim explores Wojnarowicz’ long and intense friendship with the photographer Peter Hujar, 20 years his senior, who became mentor and confidant. One art critic interviewed in the film calls it the most intense relationship between two artists since Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin started hanging out. When Hujar, 53, died of complications from HIV, on Thanksgiving Day of 1987, Wojnarowicz was devastated. Within a year, Wojnarowicz, too, was diagnosed with HIV.

The AIDS epidemic fueled Wojnarowicz’ rage, his art and his activism. He wrote an essay for “Witnesses,” an exhibition curated by Nan Goldin, whose political content (he called out Sen. Jesse Helms and New York’s Cardinal O’Connor for their anti-gay rhetoric) cause the National Endowment for the Arts to pull and then restore funding of the show. He marched with ACT UP, famously showing up at a protest of the Food & Drug Administration wearing a leather jacket with this message on his back: “If I die of AIDS, forget burial — just drop my body on the steps of the FDA.”

McKim hits the viewer with a barrage of images, most of them created by Wojnarowicz — including self-made videos, his art films, and pictures of his multimedia canvases. The artist’s own voice is heard through his audio journals, and the score is all taken from recordings of his band, 3 Teens Kill 4. 

Friends and acquaintances (the best known name is writer and unofficial New York historian Fran Leibowitz) are heard in interview snippets, but McKim smartly avoids the talking-heads documentary cliches, keeping our eyes locked on Wojnarowicz’ hard-hitting visuals.

McKim makes sure we connect the dots between Wojnarowicz’s time and ours. Seeing Donald Trump both as a real estate hustler then or an incompetent, hate-fueled president is one thing. So is hearing Ronald Reagan on the stump in the ‘80s, promising to “make America great again.” What’s most powerful, though, is seeing a virus wreak havoc on a population, and seeing fearsome political activism and thought-provoking art result from it.

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‘Wojnarowicz’

★★★1/2

Available starting Friday, March 19, to stream on virtual cinemas, including SLFS@Home. Not rated, but probably NC-17 for explicit sexual content. Running time: 105 minutes.