Review: Pixar's 'Elemental' is a gorgeously animated story of earth, air, fire and water — and a romance and an immigrant story, all in one

“Elemental,” the latest animated gem from Disney-Pixar, is an entertaining, tender look at cultural crossover, a romance that’s also the tale of a second-generation daughter trying to follow her heart and honor her family at the same time.

The action is set in Element City, a place where the inhabitants each represent, and are made from, one of the four classic elements — earth, air, water and fire — and display traits distinct to those identities. Air people can be a little dazed (head in the clouds, as it were). Earth folks are eco-conscious. Water people just “go with the flow,” and fire people can be, well, hot-headed.

That’s certainly the case with Ember (voiced by Leah Lewis), who lives in Freetown with her parents (voiced by Ronnie Del Carmen and Sheila Omni) and is working to keep her temper in check so the family can see she’s worthy of inheriting Dad’s store, the Fireplace, in the heart of Freetown.

Ember and her family are strong metaphors for the immigrant experience. Ember has seen the struggles in her lower-class neighborhood, and the discrimination against fire people. And when Ember meets Wade (voiced by Mamoudou Athie), whose water people are Element City’s upper-income bracket, everyone around them make it clear that elements should never mix.

Director Peter Sohn, who made Pixar’s “The Good Dinosaur,” and his three screenwriters let this fanciful story play out, as Ember works to hide Wade from her parents, while also hiding her feelings for him on the inside. And, as Ember prepares to take over Dad’s store, Wade helps her see that she needs to pursue her own path, even if it upsets her father.

The visuals are, as is common with Pixar, gorgeous. Pay special attention to the way the characters’ elemental nature is manifested in the complicated animation. Ember looks like she isn’t just a plastic figure covered in fire; no, with this animation, Ember is pure fire — and so is the movie surrounding them.

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‘Elemental’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, June 16, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG for some peril, thematic elements and brief language. Running time: 104 minutes, plus a 7-minute short film, “Carl’s Date.”

Review: 'It Ain't Over' is an overdue appraisal of Yogi Berra's baseball talent, beyond his light-hearted personality

How can someone who earned 10 World Series rings, and was named Major League Baseball’s MVP three dimes, be underrated? That’s the question “It Ain’t Over,” a heartfelt if somewhat soft-edged documentary, works to answer with regard to Lawrence Peter Berra, known to the world as Yogi Berra.

The movie starts with Berra’s granddaughter, Lindsay Berra (who’s the film’s executive producer), recalling a night in 2015, during the pre-game rituals of the MLB All-Star Game. Four men, billed as the four greatest living baseball players of all-time, walked out onto the field in Cincinnati that night: Hank Aaron, Johnny Bench, Sandy Koufax and Willie Mays. Lindsay, watching on TV, looked at her grandpa, and wondered why he wasn’t included.

From there, writer-director Sean Mullin makes a strong case why Berra was one of the best players in baseball history. His career as a catcher for the New York Yankees, during which time the Bronx Bombers won the World Series 10 times, is proof of that. The film tells how Berra would use a long bat, swinging at balls other players would think were outside the strike zone — and often he connected to get a hit. As catcher, he was a master tactician, a skill that guided Don Larsen, during the 1956 World Series, to pitch the only perfect game in the World Series.

So why didn’t Yogi get the acclaim he was due? The film argues that Berra’s small frame — he was 5-foot-7, a small fry next to the lanky Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle — made other teams, and the New York sportswriters, underestimate him. He also was known as a clubhouse comedian, a reputation that grew as his mangled syntax blossomed into the paradoxical phrases that became known as Yogi-isms. Some examples were “you can observe a lot by watching,” “when you come to a fork in the road, take it,” and “it’s déjà vu all over again.” (The one that gives the movie its title — “it ain’t over ’til it’s over” — is one that Yogi may not have ever actually said.)

Mullin gathers interviews from several of Berra’s surviving ‘50s and ‘60s teammates, as well as the Yankees who played when he managed the team. Throw in commentary from announcers and observers, such as Bob Costas and the late Roger Angell and Vin Scully, as well as lifelong Yankees fan Billy Crystal and Berra’s family.

But the best words about Yogi are uttered by the man himself, and there’s plenty of news footage and archived interviews to capture Berra’s charm. “It Ain’t Over” shows how Berra was a one-of-a-kind human being, on the diamond and off. As Yogi said once, “if you can’t imitate him, don’t copy him” — and when it comes to Yogi, nobody can.

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‘It Ain’t Over’

★★★

Opens Friday, June 16, in theaters. Rated PG for smoking, some drug references, language and brief war images. Running time: 99 minutes.

Review: 'Flamin' Hot' tells an entertaining — if fanciful — story of a striver and an iconic food brand's origins

As “based on a true story” movies go, the rags-to-riches tale in “Flamin’ Hot” is equal parts amusing and inspirational — even if the “true” part isn’t so true.

Richard Montañez — played as an adult by Jesse Garcia — tells his story, which starts growing up in migrant farm camps, learning from his grandpa (Pepe Serna) that the only thing he has of value is his family name. Richard’s life takes some hard turns, running with gangs as a teen and dealing with the abuse from his father, Vacho (Emilio Rivera). The bright spot in his young life is falling in love with Judy (Annie Gonzalez); they get married and have kids, but must deal with double shifts, unemployment and a refrigerator on the fritz.

With some luck and a gift for talking his way into situations, Richard lands a job as a janitor at the Frito-Lay plant in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. He works to impress his supervisor, Lonnie (Matt Walsh), and quickly learns the plant’s pecking order — executives on top, followed by the managers, then the engineers, and at the bottom are the janitors, most of them Mexican, like Richard. Still, Richard persists, convincing a senior engineer, Clarence C. Baker (Dennis Haysbert), to show him how the machines work.

Richard finds inspiration from, of all people, Roger Enrico (played by Tony Shalhoub), the CEO of Frito-Lay’s parent company, Pepsico. Richard sees Roger’s pep-talk videos in the cafeteria, and takes to heart the plea for employees to “think like a CEO.” With the snack business sinking, Richard makes an observation: Mexicans like him don’t like bland flavors like Cool Ranch Doritos. So Richard and Judy experiment with different hot peppers to get the “good burn” they love in elote and other Mexican foods. The result: Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. 

The screenplay, by Lewis Colick (“October Sky,” “Charlie St. Cloud”) and Linda Yvette Chávez (who co-created the web series “Gentefied”), manages to be authentic and phony at the same time. The phony part is the story, because reporters in 2019 discovered that Montañez’s story that invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos wasn’t actually true. The authentic part is how the movie captures the many facets of Mexican American culture that influenced the Montañez family along the way.

Director Eva Longoria makes an assured feature debut, breezily taking the audience through the highs and lows of Richard’s life and the fierce, open-eyed devotion Judy shows throughout their marriage. She finds the humor and heart in this story, and gets committed, passionate performances out of Garcia and Gonzalez.

“Flamin’ Hot” joins a recent spate of movies inspired by corporate origin stories — Nike shoes in “Air,” a computer game in “Tetris,” a PDA in “Blackberry” — that find nostalgia in success stories of the recent past. Whether or not the story behind “Flamin’ Hot” is entirely true, it’s entertaining and charming, which is a tasty combination.

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‘Flamin’ Hot’

★★★

Starts streaming Friday, June 9, on Hulu and Disney+. Rated PG-13 for some strong language and brief drug material. Running time: 99 minutes.

Review: 'Transformers: Rise of the Beasts' puts some welcome humanity in the pounding Autobot action

To say “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” is an improvement over the overblown franchise monstrosities directed by Michael Bay isn’t saying a lot — but it’s saying enough for this intermittently entertaining story of giant machines and tiny humans joining forces to save the universe.

The human part of the movie starts in Brooklyn in 1994. Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos) is looking for a job, so he can bring money into the family and pay off some of the medical bills the family owes treating his kid brother Kris (Dean Scott Vazquez), who has sickle cell disease. When legit work seems out of reach, Noah agrees to help the neighborhood crime boss, Reek (Tobe Nwigwe), steal a mint-condition Porsche.

The moment Noah gets in the Porsche, something strange happens: A booming voice comes out of the car stereo, saying “Autobots, assemble!” Then the car, seemingly with a mind of its own, speeds away with Noah an unwilling passenger. When he’s finally dumped out, he learns that the Porsche is actually an alien robot in disguise, named Mirage (and voiced by Pete Davidson). And that booming voice is the Autobots’ leader, Optimus Prime (voiced, now and forever, by Peter Cullen).

Meanwhile, on Ellis Island, another Brooklyn resident is having her own adventure. Elena Wallace (Dominique Fishback) is an intern in an archaeology museum, but knows more about ancient artifacts than even her bosses. So when a bird figurine arrives, she recognizes that its origins are mysterious — and when she pokes around after hours, it reveals to be a glowing rod of unknown origin.

Thanks to massive amounts of talky exposition, we know that the glowing rod is the trans-warp key, something the Autobots could use to get back to their home world. It’s also something that must not fall into the hands of the evil Unicron (voiced by Colman Domingo), a planet-eating mechanical creature who has sent his main henchman, Scourge (voiced by Peter Dinklage), across the universe to find it. 

Optimus Prime, who’s been hiding on Earth with his Autobots, is distrustful of humans, but he reluctantly agrees to let Noah and Elena help with their mission — because, being humans, they can go unnoticed in places where a Freightliner-sized robot would not. Eventually, and after more exposition, the mission lands in Peru, where we meet another group of Transformers: The Maximals, who look like ferocious animals and are led by the gorilla-looking Optimus Primal (voiced by Ron Perlman).

Director Steven Caple Jr. (“Creed II”) wades through a lot of exposition and ponderous dialogue — five writers are credited on the screenplay — to explain Unicron, the Autobots and Maximals relate to each other, and how humans got in the middle of all this. (The screenwriters also slip some lines in for the diehard fans, including a reference to former franchise star Mark Wahlberg.)

For most of us, the windy dialogue is filler for the robot battles — but it’s those battles that are the reason to see “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.” The finale, like most blockbusters, unleashes a torrent of computer-animated action — but here, the stakes and emotional connections are drawn out well, and Ramos and Fishback bring a welcome dose of humanity to the well-staged mechanical mayhem.

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‘Transformers: Rise of the Beasts’

★★★

Opens Friday, June 9, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and language. Running time: 127 minutes.

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.