Review: 'Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse' could be the best Spider-Man movie in this or any other universe

You’ve heard the advance buzz, that the animated “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” is the best animated movie of the year, or the best “Spider-Man” movie in years, or the best superhero movie in a long time.

Those are all faint praise for what the movie really is: A groundbreaking, eye-popping, brain-twisting revision of everything we know — or think we know — about animation, superhero movies and the friendly neighborhood wall-crawler. It’s a movie that rewrites the rules of filmmaking while we watch, and marvel (forgive the pun) at what’s before our eyes.

The movie is set in the universe (or universes) of 2018’s “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” which started with teenage science whiz Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore) getting bitten by a radioactive spider and discovering he has superpowers — and also discovering that there are a multitude of other universes, each with its own Spider-Man character, whether it’s in anime, film noir or Saturday morning cartoons. (Oh, Spider-Pig, how are you doing, friend?)

This sequel begins not in Miles’ universe (Earth-1610, for those paying attention) but in Earth-65, home of one version of Gwen Stacy, aka Spider-Gwen (voiced by Hailie Stenfeld). She’s trying to keep a version of The Vulture — one from a universe of Da Vinci drawings — from destroying the Guggenheim Museum. She ends up working with some Spider-people from other universes, all while trying to avoid the cops, particularly her father, Capt. Stacy (voiced by Shea Whigham).

After that intro — it’s 20 minutes before we get the movie’s title onscreen, which is cool — we catch up with Miles, who’s trying to balance being good to his parents, police Lt. Jeff Davis (voiced by Brian Tyree Henry) and Rio (Luna Lauren Velez), with his secret identity as a Brooklyn crimefighter. Miles even finds out he has a nemesis, called The Spot (voiced by Jason Schwartzman), who creates holes in reality. Their opening fight, bounding around Brooklyn in geometry-shattering ways, is an astonishing bit of animation — and this movie’s just getting warmed up.

From this point, though, I don’t want to say too much, if anything, about the plot. Let’s just say the multiverse is involved, along with other universe’s versions of Spider-Man — with an array of voice acting that includes Oscar Isaac, Issa Rae, Daniel Kaluuya, Karan Soni, Amanda Stenberg and Jake Johnson. There are other mind-boggling moments, which manage to be out of this world (literally) but track with perfect movie logic.

The directing team — Joaquim dos Santos (“The Legend of Korra”), Kemp Powers (who co-directed Pixar’s “Soul”) and Justin K. Thompson (a production designer on “Into the Spider-Verse” and both “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” movies) — has thought through how each universe looks and moves, so there’s never any doubt where we are in the multiverse. The backgrounds and character designs are painterly in their beauty and color palette.

The screenplay, written by the ace duo of Phil Lord and Chris Miller (“The Lego Movie”) and Dave Callaham (who worked on “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”), mines the lore of Spider-Man — in so many forms — for maximum effect. It finds the strings of connections across universes, and can build a throwaway joke from the first movie into a defining event with universe-threatening consequences.

There’s so much to talk about in “Spider-Man: Across the Universe,” and so much a critic can’t talk about without spoiling the experience. Knowing what’s in this astonishing, sumptuous movie is power, and with that power comes great responsibility.

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‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’

★★★★

Opens Friday, June 2, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG for sequences of animated action violence, some language and thematic elements. Running time: 140 minutes.

Review: 'The Boogeyman' is an effective slow-burn of a horror movie that suggests more than it shows

Mounting an effective PG-13 horror movie requires finesse, subtlety, an ability to suggest awful events without showing them outright, with a minimum of blood and gore — things director Rob Savage does quite well in “The Boogeyman.”

Based on a Stephen King short story, the movie centers on a family still processing a recent trauma: The death of the family’s wife and mother, Cara Harper (Shauna Rappold). Her husband, Will (Chris Messina), is a psychiatrist who’s trying to behave normally and see patients. His daughters are each handling things differently — Sawyer (Vivien Lyra Blair), who’s 10, sleeps with lights on and worries about monsters in her closet, while teen Sadie (Sophie Thatcher) talks to her therapist (LisaGay Hamilton) and otherwise broods.

Turns out Sawyer may have the right idea. There’s something creepy and unsettling in their house, and it seems to be crossing into our world through Sawyer’s closet.

Meanwhile, Will is visited by a disturbed man, Lester Billings (David Dastmalchian), who says he’s been wrongly accused of murdering his children. His kids are dead, but he attributes their deaths on a malevolent presence that’s haunting him. Lester then hangs himself in the Harper house, in the walk-in closet of Cara’s attic art studio. Sadie finds the body, which sends her into a terrifying search for answers — starting with Lester’s wife, Rita (Marin Ireland).

Savage has a strong writing team — Scott Beck and Bryan Woods wrote “A Quiet Place,” and Mark Heyman worked on “Black Swan” and the Sundance dysfunctional drama “The Skeleton Twins” — and together they build up the suspense with a measured pace. The scares start small, but they build to an unsettling climax. The monster is revealed gradually, and only fully in the final reel, making its presence more effective as an idea than an onscreen presence.

Messina (who recently lit up Ben Affleck’s “Air” as a foul-mouthed agent) is effective here as the quiet father, trying to puzzle out what’s happening with his kids. The standout is Thatcher, recently impressing audiences on “Yellowjackets,” who here embodies teen cynicism and bottled-up grief, both of which serve her well as she confronts the demons in the house and in her family. 

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‘The Boogeyman’

★★★

Opens Friday, June 2, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for terror, violent content, teen drug use and some strong language. Running time: 98 minutes.

Review: 'You Hurt My Feelings' is a smart, funny look at uncomfortable truths and comforting lies

Microaggressions take on macro scale in writer-director Nicole Holofcener’s latest comedy of manners, “You Hurt My Feelings,” which examines what honesty can do to family cohesion.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who worked with Holofcener 10 years ago in “Enough Said,” plays Beth Mitchell, a New York author who’s working on her next book, a novel that’s a follow-up to her somewhat successful memoir. Beth’s husband, Don (Tobias Menzies), is a therapist who’s feeling like he isn’t being much help to his patients — like the one guy (Zach Cherry) who mutters insults at Don at the end of their session, or the bickering married couple (played by real-life marrieds Amber Tamblyn and David Cross) who think they’re not getting their money’s worth from their couch time.

They’re not the only ones having career doubts. Beth’s no-nonsense sister, Sarah (Michaela Watkins), is married to Mark (Arian Moayed), an actor who’s insecure about his talent or prospects. Then there’s Beth and Don’s adult son, Eliot (Owen Teague), who’s been writing his first play seemingly forever.

The happy vibe of the Mitchell family hits a snag one day, when Beth and Sarah see Don and Mark out shopping — but before they can say hello, Beth overhears Don admitting that he doesn’t think her new book is very good. 

Everything that follows is an acidly funny look at the Mitchells’ now fractured family dynamic, as Beth wonders if she can trust Don — and Don asks himself if a supportive lie is a more loving gesture than a truthful critique.

Every actor is on their game here. Menzies (who played a youngish Prince Philip on “The Crown”) holds a hangdog expression that conveys the weight of his self-doubt about his abilities as a therapist and a husband. Watkins, who has quietly amassed a string of sterling supporting performances, is a bracing dose of reality to counter Beth’s self-absorption. And Louis-Dreyfus, as always, beautifully captures an intellectual woman of a certain age confronted with life as it is and life as she might want it to be.

“You Hurt My Feelings” goes deeper than its whining title suggests. In Holofcener’s witty, funny, thoughtful movie, words can cut, words can wound, and words can be instruments of love.

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‘You Hurt My Feelings’

★★★★

Opens Friday, May 26, at theaters everywhere. Rated R for language. Running time: 93 minutes.

Review: 'About My Father' is comic Sebastian Maniscalco's movie-length ego trip, and not even Robert De Niro can rescue it

An actor is only as good, sometimes, as their co-stars — which I mention because I feel for Robert De Niro, probably our greatest living actor, struggling through “About My Father” as he’s dragged down his co-star, the stand-up comic Sebastian Maniscalco.

Maniscalco and Austen Earl wrote this comedy, which feels like a 15-minute segment of Maniscalco’s stand-up routine stretched out to fill nearly 90 minutes. Sebastian plays Sebastian, a Chicago hotel manager who’s proud of his Italian heritage, embodied by his father, Salvo (De Niro), a semi-retired hair stylist who came over from Sicily. Sebastian is psyching himself up to propose to his artist girlfriend, Ellie (Leslie Bibb).

What’s getting in Sebastian’s head is having to impress Ellie’s blue-blood family, who trace their lineage to the Mayflower. Her dad, William (David Rasche), is CEO of a luxury hotel chain, and her mom, Tigger (Kim Cattrall), is an intimidating U.S. senator.

When Ellie’s parents invite the young couple to spend the Fourth of July weekend at their country estate in Virginia, Sebastian is hesitant, because he doesn’t want to leave Salvo alone in Chicago on his favorite holiday. (We’re told it’s because Salvo, who’s constantly concerned about the cost of things, doesn’t have to buy a gift for anyone.) Ellie tells Sebastian to bring Salvo along — because if he doesn’t, there’s no movie.

What follows is a tired series of culture-clash jokes, with both sides overloading on eccentric behavior. For Sebastian and his dad, there’s a nightly ritual of spritzing cologne before bedtime. On the other side, there’s Ellie’s brothers, the obnoxiously spoiled Lucky (Anders Holm) and the sensitive, aura-healing, kombucha-drinking Doug (Brett Dier). 

Director Laura Terruso is hamstrung by the thin script, and what looks like the oversized ego of Maniscalco, who’s used to telling his jokes to arena-sized audiences — and doesn’t do much to modulate his delivery for the movie screen. 

De Niro, even in a turkey like “About My Father,” brings something to the table. Under the bluster of Salvo’s loud-mouthed confidence, De Niro invests a good deal of heart to the character. Too bad it’s in a strained comedy that has no idea how to take advantage of his talents.

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‘About My Father’

★1/2

Opens Friday, May 26, at theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for suggestive material, language and partial nudity. Running time: 89 minutes.

Review: 'The Starling Girl' is a hard-hitting look at faith twisted with control, with a star-making performance by Eliza Scanlan

The irresistible force of a teen girl’s sexual awakening hits the immovable object of her church in writer-director Laurel Parmet’s potent drama “The Starling Girl.”

Jem Starling (Eliza Scanlen), is 17, the oldest child in a sprawling Christian family in a small Kentucky town. She’s very faithful to Jesus, and channels that faith in her prayers and in her participation in her evangelical church’s dance troupe, known for its heartfelt and chaste routines set to hymns.

So when Jem starts having impure thoughts, and follows up by slipping her hand under her nightgown when she’s in bed, Jem starts to worry that Satan is trying to tempt her toward the dark side. Those feelings get stronger when the pastor’s son, Owen Taylor (Lewis Pullman, son of Bill Pullman), returns from missionary work in Puerto Rico. There are a few complicating factors, like Pastor Taylor (Kyle Secor) having arranged with Jem’s parents (Jimmi Simpson and Wrenn Schmidt) to have the pastor’s younger son Ben (Austin Abrams) court her — and that Owen is 28 and married to Misty (Jessamine Burgum).

Meanwhile, Jem’s father is going through his own faith crisis — and a recurrence of the alcoholism that we’re told nearly destroyed him before he converted to his current faith.

Amid a strong cast, Scanlen is the standout. Best known for her roles in “Sharp Objects” and Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of “Little Women” (she was Beth), Scanlan channels the fervor of Jem’s religious devotion, as it curdles under the influence of this hunky young pastor.

Parmet has fashioned a harrowing drama — partly inspired, she says, by her own teen experiences — and a scathing indictment of the patriarchal systems that punish girls like Jem while letting their older male counterparts off the hook.

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‘The Starling Girl’

★★★

Opens Friday, May 26, at Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City) and Megaplex at The District (South Jordan). Rated R for some sexuality. Running time. 116 minutes.

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This review originally appeared on this site on Jan. 23, 2023, when it premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.

Review: 'The Little Mermaid' is too much and not enough like the original, though the casting of Halle Bailey and Melissa McCarthy is inspired

Disney’s latest attempt to turn its animated classics into live-action and computer-generated copies, “The Little Mermaid,” is a betwixt-and-between movie — never recapturing the magic of the 1989 original when it follows too closely, and never quite succeeding in creating anything fresh where it tries to diverge from its predecessor.

The story remains the same: Ariel (here played by Halle Bailey) — the headstrong seventh daughter of King Triton (Javier Bardem), ruler of the seas — is fascinated with the humans on the land world, especially after she rescues the bold Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King) from a shipwreck. Triton sends his majordomo, the crab Sebastian (voiced by Daveed Diggs) to watch over Ariel, who is offered a devil’s bargain by the sea witch Ursula (Melissa McCarthy), to be given legs and lungs in exchange for her siren’s voice, so she can meet Eric on his turf. 

Director Rob Marshall, who has fully ensconced himself in the Disney system after “Mary Poppins Returns” and “Into the Woods,” seems eager to duplicate the ’89, but by giving us mostly photo-realistic sea creatures cavorting and dancing to “Under the Sea.” Having realistic sea creatures turns out to be more creepy than cute, especially when showing us Sebastian looking like a crab rather than the animated version’s Disney-ready plush toy. Same goes for Scuttle (voiced by Awkwafina), who looks more raggedy as a real-looking seagull. 

Marshall and his “Mary Poppins Returns” co-screenwriter, David Magee, add one positive element to the story: They give Eric a personality. It’s almost the same as Ariel’s — bristling at the restrictions place on him by his mother, Queen Selina (Norma Dumezweni), and desiring to find adventure out there on the water. The movie even gives Eric an “I want” song, by composer Alan Menken and new lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda, but it’s not a patch on Ariel’s “Part of Your World,” by Menken and the late Howard Ashman.

Marshall & Co. opted to bowdlerize some of Ashman’s lyrics, mostly in the romantic “Kiss the Girl” and Ursula’s vampy “Poor Unfortunate Souls” — in an effort to excise the old songs’ bawdier, and less consent-driven, phrases. They also remove the original’s funniest number, the chef’s playfully murderous “Les Poissons” (maybe because this movie’s Sebastian would look more natural in melted butter). In its place, Miranda has written “The Scuttlebutt,” a comedic rap performed by Awkwafina and Diggs that isn’t as strong as you would expect from those three great talents.

With so much wrong in this telling of “The Little Mermaid,” what the movie gets right is the casting. Bailey, who came up through the Disney child-star system with her sister Chloe, captures Ariel’s wide-eyed sense of wonder, and has the singing chops to land Menken and Ashman’s yearning songs. And McCarthy, taking on the role Pat Carroll voiced so perfectly, delivers those shots of comic villainy that make Ursula such a fun character to watch — though it would be nice if the movie let us see her clearly through the murky lighting.

One might have thought “The Little Mermaid,” being the movie that started Disney’s animated renaissance, would have been put off limits from the reboot machine. But that, alas, was wishful thinking. The good news is that the original remains on DVD shelves in homes everywhere — and on Disney+, until they lock it away in the vault again.

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‘The Little Mermaid’

★★

Opens Friday, May 26, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG for action/peril and some scary images. Running time: 135 minutes.

Review: Modern take on 'Carmen' is a tale of lovers on the run that really moves when its leads are dancing

Dancer-turned-director Benjamin Millepied’s debut feature, “Carmen,” is an experimental mix of dance, music and drama — but one wishes in places that it was even more experimental, throwing narrative conventions to the wind and just luxuriating in the dance.

The title suggests a connection to Georges Bizet’s sultry opera, “Carmen,” and there are oblique references to that classic story of a Roma woman who can’t be held down by one man. But, overall, the screenplay — by Loïc Barrere and Alexander Dinelaris — goes its own way to find a story of desperation and romance along the U.S./Mexico border.

On the Mexican side, a young woman named Carmen (played by Melissa Barrera) is on the run from the druglords who killed her mother, Zilah (Marina Tamayo). The movie’s stirring first images are of Zilah, dancing without music, tapping in defiance at the men who eventually kill her.

Carmen arranges an illegal border crossing into New Mexico, which is how she encounters Aidan (Paul Mescal). He’s a former Marine, working as a volunteer sentinel for the Border Patrol, paired with a racist jerk, Mike (Benedict Hardie), who is too eager to hunt down Mexicans. When Mike starts shooting migrants and threatens to kill Carmen, Aidan shoots Mike dead. Now the two strangers are bonded in blood, both knowing the outcome if the law catches up to them.

Aidan helps Carmen get to Los Angeles, to a club owned by Zilah’s childhood friend, Masilda. She’s played by Rossy de Palma, the longtime collaborator of Pedro Almodóvar and a force of nature on the screen. Masilda knows that Carmen, like her mother, is a dancer — and it’s through dance that Carmen will show her true self. It’s also in the dance that Carmen and Aidan start to fall in love.

Millepied, who also choreographed the dance sequences, which are the one part of “Carmen” that’s untethered to the conventions of a lovers-on-the-run narrative. Mescal, fresh off his Oscar nomination for “Aftersun,” isn’t a great dancer, but Barrera is amazing to watch. (A reminder: Barrera, known to many from the last couple of “Scream” movies,” showed her dancing and singing skills in “In the Heights,” as Vanessa, the ambitious fashion designer and love interest of the lead character, Usnavi.)

There are moments when one wishes that Millepied (who may be better known as Natalie Portman’s husband and red carpet arm candy) had tossed the script and just gone full-tilt into the dancing. The expressiveness and emotion he gets in those scenes overwhelm everything else in “Carmen,” and at a certain point even Millepied would have been better served by giving in to the rhythm. 

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‘Carmen’

★★★

Opens Friday, May 19, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Rated R for language, some violence and nudity. Running time: 117 minutes.

Review: 'Master Gardener' gives Paul Schrader another broken man to redeem, but the results aren't as powerful as they could be

The director and screenwriter Paul Schrader, at age 76, is still exorcising his demons in “Master Gardener,” a character profile that shows there are diminishing returns to returning to the same themes.

The title refers to the job description of Narvel Roth, played by Joel Edgerton. He leads a team of growers who tend to Gracewood Gardens, a large estate owned by the imperious Norma Haverhill (Sigourney Weaver). Roth writes about botany and horticulture in his journal — which serves as the movie’s narration — and the entries sometimes take a turn toward the disturbing, like when he compares the buzz one gets from smelling a particular plant to “the buzz you get just before pulling the trigger.”

Schrader reveals fairly early that one of Roth’s unofficial chores is occasionally bedding Norma. When this happens, we see that his gardener’s overalls cover some particularly nasty tattoos on his chest and back.

One day, with the garden’s annual charity auction looming, Norma asks Roth for a favor. Norma’s grand-niece, Maya (Quintessa Swindell), an aimless woman in her 20s, needs a job — and Norma asks Roth to take her on as an apprentice. Her arrival, Roth soon learns, threatens to overturn his carefully maintained life.

“Master Gardener” completes something of a loose trilogy for Schrader, following “First Reformed” (2017) and “The Card Counter” (2021). All three films center on an isolated man — shades of Travis Bickle from Schrader’s true masterpiece, the script for “Taxi Driver” —who uses ritual and routine to beat back the violent demons of his soul.

Edgerton, though, can’t carry that weight with as much soulful intensity as Ethan Hawke or Oscar Isaac. The particulars of Roth’s troubles make him naturally less sympathetic, and it’s a gap Edgerton’s performance can’t span. The Maya role is underwritten, a young woman created solely to be rescued by Roth and be the source of his redemption.

The most fascinating aspects of “Master Gardener” are the character of Norma and Weaver’s laser-focused portrayal of her. Norma is a product of old money, and is comfortable enough to use it to suit her ends — and Weaver gives the character a haughty self-reliance that even Roth’s darkest impulses can’t shake. The other characters may bloom occasionally, but Weaver’s performance is a majestic and thorny rose.

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‘Master Gardener’

★★1/2

Opens Friday, May 19, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City), Century 16 (South Salt Lake), Megaplex at Jordan Commons (Sandy) and Megaplex Thanksgiving Point (Lehi). Rated R for language, brief sexual content and nudity. Running time: 111 minutes.