The result is an occasionally clunky yet charming smashing together of the vast universe Lucas created decades ago with an early Spielbergian sensibility that manages to mostly win you over. It’s no “Andor,” which remains the best Star Wars show to date, and one of the best, most incisive works in the franchise writ large. Of course, besting that will always be a mighty high bar to clear. Instead of trying, “Skeleton Crew” has different, more humanist and humble aspirations rather than potently political ones. Yes, there are no actual wheels on their flying bikes and the tone isn’t as balanced as Spielberg’s films, though it has heart where it counts. It will most appeal to younger viewers, but adults who remember the Amblin era may too get swept up in it.

Namely, “Skeleton Crew” offers up just enough hints of darkness to give the story stakes, with “The Goonies” serving as another clear reference. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always fully live up to this, often following a safe structure with little in the way of genuine intrigue. In the first three episodes of eight shared with critics, the show falls into a pattern of clear deceptions and quick resolutions you can see coming from lightyears away. While meant for younger viewers, this blunt and inelegant approach underestimates their ability to enjoy multifaceted storytelling. At the same time, for all the ways it falls short, “Skeleton Crew” boasts good narrative bones and a playful mind it can largely call its own in a galaxy that doesn’t feel quite so far, far away.

Created by head writers Jon Watts and Christopher Ford, the duo most known for the recent hit-and-miss Marvel film “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” they drop us into a Star Wars story that is set during a familiar time. Specifically, we are in the New Republic era after the fall of the Empire in “Return of the Jedi” in the same general time frame as the initially good fun “The Mandalorian” and the painfully exposition-heavy “Ahsoka.” However, and most refreshingly, the series feels unburdened from the tiresome requirements of connecting to the many other parts of this universe. At least for now, it’s something that can just be a little silly and focused on its own story. Following a quick yet effectively well-staged opening space battle where pirates take a ship in search of treasure, blasting their way through an unsuspecting crew before a mutiny arises, we are whisked away to the isolated home planet of Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers), Fern (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), KB (Kyriana Kratter) and Neel (Robert Timothy Smith). It is there they must navigate even more perilous challenges: the suburbs, tests at school and absent parents.

Namely, both Fern and Wim, while not friends initially, are united in that both of their parents, played by the great duo of “The Banshees of Inisherin” star Kerry Condon and TV On The Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe respectively, are generally focused more on work than they are their children. This will soon prove untenable when said kids make a surprising discovery that sends them into the universe behind the barrier that has been created to hide their planet from anyone outside it. This provides an interesting undercurrent about how this planet cut itself off from a galaxy that is still full of people struggling to get by, but it also leans heavily into the mirthful above all else. For all the ways this can feel like a missed opportunity, it’s hard to complain too much when flying along with the blue, elephantine alien being Neel. Of all the youthful characters, he is the most fun, with the combination of CGI and practical effects in his design proving to be truly seamless. Even as other effects are rougher around the edges if you look too close, it’s the interactions between Neel and the rest of the young crew as they get into trouble that makes this forgivable.

Initially, there are parts of this small-scale corner of “Skeleton Crew” that almost resemble the underrated recent sci-fi anthology series “Tales From the Loop” in how it takes familiar genre elements and makes them feel more immersively ordinary as opposed to purely adventurous. It is not quite as thoughtful and interested in existential questions as that was, though this is a sacrifice that must be made for its more charming core to shine through. At the center of this is Wim who, in addition to relatably having trouble catching the school bus on time before a test, is a winning character whose fascination with the Jedi and a desire for greater adventure outside his mundane life holds the story together. To a lonely kid like him, the Jedi are mostly just myths that can bring him meaning on his journey. However, the reality is far more complicated than that.

It lightly recalls the strongest parts of “The Force Awakens” and “The Last Jedi” with the healthy skepticism they brought about the universe’s Jedi mythology (before all this was abandoned in the utterly soulless “The Last Jedi” for cheap callbacks). Thankfully, this is a show that doesn’t take itself or its glorified Space Wizards too seriously as it launches its characters into space. There are fleeting hints of a more potentially subversive thematic undercurrent surrounding who gets left behind in this new Jedi order, but it also isn’t afraid to poke fun at itself in key moments. Though Star Wars as a whole is in a shaky place with the upcoming Rey movie recently being pulled from the release calendar and “The Acolyte” being canceled outright, it’s good to see a series like “Skeleton Crew” is willing to shake things up rather than just reheat familiar stories.

Namely, this is where Jude Law’s Jod Na Nawood (or Crimson Jack for those who don’t want to say that mouthful of a name) comes in. He’s a loner the lost kids soon encounter after finding themselves in a mighty tough spot. Without tipping anything off, we quickly piece together he is more than what he seems to be even if the kids take far longer to catch up. Wim hopes he might be a Jedi like he read about in his stories even as Jod is more akin to a Han Solo figure while still bringing his own distinct layers. Law is excellent in the role as, in addition to clearly having a ball playing around in what is a space pirate adventure, he brings the needed bits of gravitas and charisma to balance out the more youthful innocence of his co-stars. Reuniting with his “Peter Pan & Wendy” collaborator David Lowery, who directs the second and third episodes, he plays a more likable pirate who may bring more trouble for the young kids than they realize.

It’s this dynamic between Law and the kids, as well as a delightfully gruff robot voiced by Nick Frost, that gives “Skeleton Crew” its greatest spark. While by no means the first or even the best most recent work to attempt to put itself in conversation with Spielberg’s films, you can still get a sense of that sincere charm in not just these characters bouncing off each other, but the way the camera lingers on plants in the woods as a light shines through them or a rather familiar plastic tunnel being used for a space ferry down to a remote outpost. These small details not only bring a film like “E.T.” back into the mind but serve as the texture to the universe “Skeleton Crew” is setting out to reintroduce us to. It’s got potential to continue to succeed in doing so as long as those kids don’t phone home too soon. After all, there are plenty more adventures to be had. To paraphrase another Star Wars scoundrel with a heart of gold, here’s hoping this is where the fun begins.

The “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew” two-episode premiere is now available to stream on Disney+.

The post ‘Star Wars: Skeleton Crew’ Review: Jude Law Boosts a Charming but Wonky Sci-Fi Romp appeared first on TheWrap.

One of these enduring images is Count Orlock, played with otherworldly death and menace by Max Schreck in F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent classic “Nosferatu.” Unlike Bela Lugosi, Gary Oldman and most of the other headlining motion picture vampires, Orlock was not an alluring sexual creature. He was an overgrown rat, emaciated and sunken, lurking in the shadows until he, too, became a shadow. He was nightmare writ large, a wraith haunting a reel of celluloid. Perhaps cinema’s most horrifying creation.

So when you remake “Nosferatu,” as both Werner Herzog and now Robert Eggers have, you’re not just retelling the story — which is now and always was a rehash of “Dracula” so shameless that the Bram Stoker’s estate successfully sued Murnau, and almost every copy of the film was destroyed. You are instead invoking a demon. Herzog’s excellent retelling cast Klaus Kinski as the beast, a weird outsider infecting Germany with his appetites and plague rats. He was Orlock, but he was also Kinski, and that was freaky enough, thank you very much.

Eggers has unleashed a mutated strain of this terror in his “Nosferatu” remake. This Count Orlock is a gruesome monstrosity, gnawed on and gnarled, as repulsive as movie monsters get. But he is now also that sexual creature, a hypermasculine 1970s porn star, as virile as he is virulent. He doesn’t seduce women with the elegant sophistication of Lugosi or the underrated Frank Langella; he oozes testosterone from his festering, ancient wounds. He’s a threat to mankind, no matter how evil he is, and he is absolutely going to sleep with your wife.

The wife in question is Ellen Hutter, played by Lily-Rose Depp. She’s been tormented by erotic visions of Orlock since she was a very young girl, which only subsided when she married a nice, safe, sexually adequate young man named Thomas, played by Nicholas Hoult. When he’s called away to the Carpathian Mountains on a business trip, to sell property to and escort Orlock back to Germany, he leaves Ellen alone and vulnerable. Her visions resume, her sanity is cracked, and her wedded friends Anna (Emma Corrin) and Friedrich (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) are helpless to protect her.

If you’ve seen one “Dracula,” you’ve got the gist of them all, so you can tell where much of “Nosferatu” is going even if you didn’t see the one with a rat monster in it. The hapless husband is tormented in Orlock’s castle, and nearly killed by the beast. Orlock travels to Germany, bringing countless plague rats with him, and attempts to seduce his victim’s sexually deprived wife over to sensual, overwhelming darkness. An eccentric professor, here named Albin Eberhart Von Franz (Willem Dafoe), is the only person of science who believes in superstitions, and holds the key to understanding the monster, even if he cannot defeat him.

Robert Eggers’ films all have ancient qualities to them. “The Witch” is a time machine to colonial New England, when religious zealotry made evil manifest. “The Lighthouse” isn’t as old a tale, but it evokes an eldritch Lovecraftian quality that makes it seem like a half-remembered, half-whispered horror classic. “The Northman” finds the original version of “Hamlet” to be a viking epic, a legend of operatic swords and sorcery. All of them find humanity on the brink — of society as well as our own sanity.

With “Nosferatu,” Eggers spends much of the film in an urban cityscape, a black, white and grey cesspool of fecal matter thrown from second-story windows. To describe Jarin Blaschke’s cinematography as haunted does the film little justice. This “Nosferatu” dances on the line between German Expressionism and modern visual extremism. Everything in Eggers’ “Nosferatu” is huge, overwhelming and deeply uncomfortable — and even when it’s modern, it feels divorced from modernity.

The creature, played by Bill Skarsgård under heavy makeup, speaks with a reverberating thrum that evokes Tuvan-Mongolian throat-singing. His voice isn’t coming from somewhere in the room, you can feel it in your bones. His performance is a force of nature, not in the hacky film criticism cliché sort of way, but actually emerging from the earth. Depp matches him point for point; her scenes of spiritual possession are physically exhausting, for us and presumably her, and her temptation is viscerally uncontrollable. Between “Nosferatu” and (through no fault of her own) the unfortunately terrible HBO series “The Idol,” Depp has proven herself to be as game a performer as any in recent memory. She throws herself into her roles, quite literally, letting her torments run amok on camera. She strides up the precipice of camp and stops right before plummeting. It’s a monumental turn.

Oddly, it’s Hoult who feels out of place. For years now, Hoult has positioned himself as the dashingly handsome Peter Lorre of his generation, eager to dive into oddball characters, enlivening any film lucky enough to have him. As Thomas Hutter, he plays the everyman, an adequate partner whose comfort is preferable, arguably, to Orlock’s chaos, earning our pity even though we totally get why Ellen would prefer the shambling corpse. Hoult is too eclectic a character actor for a role that demands milquetoastiness, and he always feels uncomfortably restrained, like he’s ready to do much more but hasn’t got his permission slip signed.

Quibbles, nothing but quibbles. Eggers may not have rewritten the book of “Nosferatu,” and much of the film plays more like an update than a wholly new take, but he does justice to this material. And he does more than justice to Orlock: Eggers and Skarsgård give him new (un)life, empowering him in ways that make all the rest of us feel powerless. It’s a grim, gorgeous fever dream, and while the original is the version that will forever stick in our subconscious, Eggers’ film is looming right behind it, bolstering its legacy and adding a few horrifying details of its own.

The post ‘Nosferatu’ Review: Robert Eggers Does Justice to a Classic in a Grim, Gorgeous Redo appeared first on TheWrap.

The arrival of Netflix’s “The Madness” couldn’t be more timely if it tried. Anchored by Colman Domingo, the 8-episode limited series created by Stephen Belber and co-showrun with VJ Boyd kicks off its premise in pretty short order: When media pundit Muncie Daniels (Domingo) becomes the prime suspect in the murder case of a notable white supremacist in the Poconos woods, he must work to clear his name and protect his estranged family — a gripping setup that transpires at a breakneck pace within the show’s first 20 minutes.

From there, Muncie falls deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole of this messed-up wonderland, eventually subsuming both him and his family. Nearly ex-wife Elena (Marsha Stephanie Blake) is extremely hesitant to dive back into any consistent communication even with the newfound extenuating circumstances. Demetrius (Thaddeus J. Mixson), Muncie’s son, is still processing the two’s impending separation. Daughter Kallie (Gabrielle Graham) is reluctant to connect after Muncie’s absentee nature left her alone throughout critical portions of her life. Yet in this dysfunction, “The Madness” springs to life whenever Muncie is bouncing off his family and friends like lawyer Kwesi (Deon Cole) or trusted confidant Isiah (a most welcome Stephen McKinley Henderson). These tangible, strongly realized relationships help to keep “The Madness” grounded as it begins to spin up and out of its central thriller conceit. The scope eventually widens to include law enforcement in the form of FBI Agent Franco Quinones (the ever-wonderful John Ortiz) and the supremacist’s ex-wife Lucie (Tamsin Topolski).

“The Madness” finds its premise straining in the middle section as it moves away from the character dynamics of Muncie and his family in favor of building up its central mystery. Weighty topics aren’t off-limits, with an exploration into both the left and right sides of the political extreme, the influence of mega-corporations, disinformation campaigns and more. Most of these subjects are often personified by new characters who appear throughout this stretch, and “The Madness” introduces these new shadow-shrouded figures in a way that mirrors video game logic, positioning the character as a new boss fight for Muncie to solve before facing the next foe. That’s made worse for wear by having the show communicate their perceived threat level instead of showing it, or by not providing enough substance to them to care about why he’s facing off against them outside of clearing his name. The stakes and tone are muddled as a result.

Fortunately, “The Madness” remains watchable thanks to Domingo, who could find a way to make reading the phonebook a masterwork of craft. The show is (smartly) constructed entirely around his presence. Styled in a striking coat that feels like an intentional reference to the iconic outerwear of “Three Days of the Condor,” Domingo’s central presence is frequently literalized by director Clément Virgo, placing the star in the dead center of the frame. Everything in this world orients itself around Muncie, so why not extend that to the look of the series, too? Domingo’s given plenty to do in the show, exemplifying an everyman-style performance in the spirit of Harrison Ford in “The Fugitive” or Robert Redford in the aforementioned “Condor.” Even when, well, the madness of “The Madness” unfolds, Domingo’s performance is a steady hand; the same charisma that’s made him endlessly watchable in recent years is on display in spades.

But where Domingo is best is playing off the respective members of his family. The relationship between him and Graham is among the series’ richest as the two slowly work to find common ground after years apart. Unsurprisingly, “The Madness” roars back to life down the stretch as the Daniels family begins to band together, allowing Blake, Mixson and Graham to have plenty of star-studded moments. The rad bromance between Domingo and Ortiz is also notable for how effortlessly the relationship feels, a perfect exemplification of Philly’s brotherly love. Topolski plays Lucie like an open wound and finds adequate depth accordingly. The series also gets a lot out of supporting cast members who dot the back half, including Bradley Whitford and Alison Wright, the latter of whom is (clearly) having a ball in a part that’s got more in common with her tenure on “The Americans” than you might think.

It’s difficult to tell whether or not “The Madness” will age well enough to be considered a classic conspiracy thriller for this era. Instead, the show’s legacy could and should go down as a star vehicle for Colman Domingo, who continues to show he’s a tour de force no matter the material. That’s something we won’t need the benefit of hindsight on, no matter how much our conspiracy thrillers continue to shift in the years to come.

“The Madness” is now streaming on Netflix.

The post ‘The Madness’ Review: Colman Domingo Anchors Netflix’s Timely but Overstuffed Political Thriller appeared first on TheWrap.

Kiernan Shipka and Nico Hiraga (“Moxie”) are Jamie and Ben, platonic besties who head off to college together. They’ve committed to long-distance relationships with their high school sweethearts, but soon realize they’d rather be single. So, like millions of students before them, they decide to break up with their partners during Thanksgiving weekend.

After a few listless mishaps, they return home to Ohio where the unsuspecting Claire (Ava DeMary) and Simon (Charlie Hall) await. Jamie is convinced the break has to happen immediately, so they enlist their other BFF, Palmer (Caleb Hearon), to help organize the night. He’s supposed to bring Claire and Simon to his house, where Ben and Jamie will simultaneously pull the trigger. The plan, of course, goes immediately awry.

After run-ins with hundreds of former classmates, two glasses of absinthe, and one angry bouncer, the foursome finally meet up. And the only surprise we encounter is that director Jordan Weiss and her co-writer Dan Brier were brave enough to include scenes from “When Harry Met Sally,” the romantic comedy you should be watching Thanksgiving weekend.

When Shipka and Hiraga are allowed to breathe, we can see glimmers of the story’s modest, but potentially appealing, pitch. So the most generous assumption is that the film was watered down by too many studio notes, pushing for ever-broader scenarios and increasingly dense characters. The jokes appear to be written for minor shock value rather than comedic impact, but half of them don’t even have punchlines. (Sample laugh: “You going home for Thanksgiving break?” “Nah. My mom’s a bitch.”)

Similarly, the casting seems to have been designed primarily via algorithm. Most of the supporting cast playing teens — including Sophie Zucker, Zach Zucker and Jake Bongiovi — are clearly years older than their characters, or only onscreen long enough to provide the film with an extra PR hook.

All a holiday movie really needs is a single element that’s sincere enough to keep us engaged. “Sweethearts,” though, feels like it was made by parents trying desperately to be cool around their newly sophisticated kids. Those kids — or their slightly-younger siblings — are clearly the target audience. But hopefully most of them will be too busy with real plans to bother living vicariously through such a cautiously constructed simulation of adolescence.

The post ‘Sweethearts’ Review: Generic College Comedy Offers Too Little to Be Thankful For appeared first on TheWrap.

There was a time when saying “sequels suck” wasn’t just pessimistic, it was stating a statistical average. There were always noteworthy exceptions but for most of the 20th century, follow-ups to great and/or popular movies were usually less great and less popular. Often they were just shameless excuses to crank a few extra dollars out of the audience, so they fell into obscurity quickly. “Three Men and a Little Lady” did not do justice to “Three Men and a Baby.” “The Legend of Zorro” is not mentioned with the same reverent tones as “The Mask of Zorro,” if it’s ever mentioned at all. And hey, remember “Splash, Too?” There was a “Splash, Too.”

There were always exceptions, but in the last couple decades attitudes towards sequels have changed, and films that might previously have been lazy cash-ins now have bigger ambitions. They cost more, not less. They expand on stories and characters instead of merely rehashing them. Recently we’ve been treated to great sequels like “Inside Out 2,” “Smile 2,” “Dune: Part 2,” and “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.” Sequels aren’t just big business. These days they’re frequently as good as, and sometimes even better than, the original.

The discussion of great sequels brings us back to “Moana 2,” a film which does not qualify. The follow-up to one of Disney’s modern classics returns to ancient Polynesia a few years after our young hero, Moana (Auliʻi Cravalho), and the boastful demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson) gave back a god’s missing heart, saving Moana’s people and redeeming Maui for his worst mistakes. Moana proved that her people’s isolationism was misguided and Maui became a better person. They earned the audience’s emotional investment and went through some danged good character development while singing super-catchy songs.

“Moana 2” goes in another direction, giving emotional investment, character development and catchy songs a miss in favor of… stuff. The characters have nowhere left to grow, so they just do stuff. Moana’s people are super happy. She’s searching the seas for different civilizations and she’s pretty happy. Maui spends the first chunk of the film kidnapped and getting puked on, so he’s not happy, but it’s not because he has to mature as an individual, it’s because he’s kidnapped and getting puked on. When Moana receives a vision telling her to follow a shooting star to a long-lost island which used to connect the many people and cultures of Polynesia, she does that thing. She’s good at it the whole time. Maui comes along and he also helps. Eventually the plot is resolved and everyone’s happy about it. Whee.

It’s tempting to say that the story of “Moana 2” is so perfunctory that it plays like a straight-to-video release, but even Disney’s old cast-offs had more oomph than this. “The Lion King 2” had serious interpersonal conflict. Heck, even “The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning” had some cogent social themes and halfway decent melodrama, and that was just because it knocked off “Footloose.” It’s more accurate to describe “Moana 2” like an episode of a mediocre “Moana” television series (which is what the sequel was originally supposed to be), where the characters remain relatively static and merely respond to whatever crisis emerges each week. All that matters is that they get out of the house, not what they actually do.

But since it’s in theaters, all that matters is if Disney gets the audience out of the house. And they probably will, because on the surface “Moana 2” ticks off a lot of boxes. It’s bright and colorful, even if the characters look more plasticky and doll-like than usual. It’s got a bunch of peppy songs, even though none of them are memorable whatsoever. Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote the musical numbers in the original “Moana” and his style is so distinct that all the sequel’s songwriters can’t quite recapture his vibe, let alone his catchiness and lyrical ingenuity.

There’s nothing particularly terrible about “Moana 2,” but the fact that it’s necessary to write “there’s nothing particularly terrible about ‘Moana 2’” means something still went wrong. The film throws in new supporting characters to jazz things up — played by Rose Mateo, David Fane and Hualālai Chung — and they’re reasonably fun and funny but they don’t make the film’s journey any more meaningful. They’re archetypes, not rich characters. One of them doesn’t even help with the plot, he’s just there to be a Grumpy Gus and justify one of the film’s (too many) songs about cheering each other up. They add a little novelty into the mix, but not much more.

One gets the sense that “Moana 2” is mostly a set-up for future films in the series. It’s an intellectual property exploitation starter kit, a humdrum act of corporate mandate instead of a story that needed to be told. Even the suggestion of what could come in “Moana 3” feels arbitrary, like they pulled a sequel tease out of a hat full of tattered old sequel teases. It’s a film that’s holding back.

Maybe a future installment can build on what “Moana 2” sets up, but this set up makes future installments a lot less appealing. It’s a generic, forgettable sequel wearing expensive blockbuster frippery.

What can we possibly say, except “No thank you?”

“Moana 2” opens exclusively in theaters on Nov. 27.

The post ‘Moana 2’ Review: What Can We Say, Except ‘No Thank You?’ appeared first on TheWrap.

While it’s easy to be cynical about “Beatles ’64” as just another thing to sell that repackages the iconic group, it’s important to remember that just because there are a lot of Beatles products, that doesn’t mean all products are created equal or that they instantly cheapen the band’s music.

Thankfully, “Beatles ’64” is far more worthwhile than Beatles talcum powder.

Working off footage shot by legendary documentarians Albert and David Maysles, “Beatles ’64” focuses on the Beatles’ first trip to America in February 1964. That two-week tour included the group’s unforgettable debut on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” playing at the Washington Coliseum and playing Carnegie Hall. But the larger context of their arrival coincided with the nation reeling from the Kennedy Assassination and not quite sure what to make of young women going crazy for these shaggy-haired boys from Liverpool.

While the footage helps bring us into the whirlwind of the tour, Tedeschi augments this journey with remembrances from Beatles’ fans, fellow musicians, new interviews with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, and archival interviews with McCartney and Starr as well as the late John Lennon and George Harrison.

Through these lenses, a clearer picture emerges of why exactly the Beatles blew up as big as they did when they landed in New York City. While it would have been nice to get more of an understanding of the Beatles’ rise in popularity in England and how they caught on in the U.S. before physically arriving, the laser-focus on 1964 tells a story about cultural forces that caught some Americans off-guard. Within the bounds of this arrival, the film is able to examine how much the Beatles owed to Black music (music they had easy access to without any societal friction because there wasn’t Jim Crow in Liverpool), their excitement to meet Black musicians and how mainstream American society wasn’t sure how to deal with young men who created sexual awakenings in teenage girls but also did not fit a typical masculine archetype.

It would be easy to brush all of this off as, “The sixties were a vibrant and exciting time full of change,” but thankfully, Tedeschi avoids this route. Rather than try to encompass all the upheavals in America, we see why this time of disruption was conducive to the Beatles and their music. It was not so much that the Beatles changed everything as much as they were a reflection of societal changes as well as the limits of American acceptance. As Ronald Isley of The Isley Brothers points out, The Beatles covering “Twist and Shout” was great for sales of the Isley Brothers’ preceding version, but it wasn’t The Isley Brothers getting invited onto “The Ed Sullivan Show” or making the cover of Life Magazine.

When looking at The Beatles’ arrival and success through the lens of American culture in 1964, you have a unique documentary about the band that never loses sight of how much fun the guys are and their unique place in music history. It’s only when trying to work backwards, as the film does in trying to argue that The Beatles were a healing force in the wake of Kennedy’s assassination, that the documentary feels less sure-footed. Even The Beatles seem to acknowledge in retrospect that they were caught in a whirlwind rather than creating the storm.

Is “Beatles ’64” a largely uncritical look at The Beatles? Sure. It’s made by Apple Corps Ltd., and with the participation of the surviving members as well as the families of Harrison and Lennon. It’s far from the first Beatles documentary and it certainly won’t be the last. But it achieves escape velocity on being a puff piece by bringing viewers into a specific cultural moment with the benefit of hindsight. We know that the young men we’re seeing in the Maysles’ footage will be completely transformed in only five short years, unrecognizable from the mop-topped boys in matching suits.

Perhaps “Beatles ’64” will only appeal to Beatlemaniacs like myself, but that doesn’t diminish its strength showing the birth of Beatlemania in America.

“Beatles ’64” will be released exclusively on Disney+ on Friday, Nov. 29.

The post ‘Beatles ‘64’ Review: Disney+ Doc Skillfully Shows How Beatlemania Struck America appeared first on TheWrap.

Unfortunately, beneath the polished exterior lies a reheated platter of worn-out tropes that already felt tired 10 years ago. Harried technicians stare anxiously at garbled video calls on their computers while agents rush between their offices, exchanging clipped, clichéd dialogue in hushed whispers. It’s a storytelling shorthand we’ve seen far too many times for it to feel new or compelling.

Indeed, recent history has seen a veritable bumper crop of TV spy fare pop up. Whether AMC’s “The Night Manager,” Apple’s “Slow Horses,” Prime Video’s just-concluded “Jack Ryan” or Peacock’s just-launched adaptation of “The Day of the Jackal,” viewers certainly have no shortage of options at the moment. “The Agency” can’t help but suffer in comparison, lacking the ingenuity or depth to stand out in a crowded field of superior dramas.

Debuting on Nov. 29 with the first two 10 episodes, the George Clooney-produced remake of the French series “Le Bureau des Légendes” (a.k.a. “The Bureau”) has an impressive pedigree, for sure. That, coupled with the star power of Michael Fassbender, Jodie Turner-Smith and Jeffrey Wright in key roles should have been enough to land it in must-watch territory, but it’s weighed down by a sluggish narrative that struggles to match the undeniable visual flair.

The concept is an intriguing one, for sure: Fassbender is “Martian,” a veteran CIA operative emerging from years undercover and grappling with the lingering fractures of his dual lives. At season’s start, we’re introduced to the dynamic between Martian and Turner-Smith’s Dr. Sami Zahir, someone he got a bit too close to and is having a really hard time leaving behind.

While there’s an ongoing story about a CIA asset code-named “Coyote” who’s been captured overseas, it’s the Fassbender-Smith relationship that makes up the emotional core of the early episodes, but so far the storyline is a puzzle with too many missing pieces.

Helming the first two episodes, feature director Joe Wright crafts a lush cinematic environment rich in shadows and texture that imbues the production with an immediate air of prestige. But while the aesthetics are undoubtedly impressive, the storytelling fails to keep stride.

What should feel like an intricate game of cat-and-mouse instead ends up as a tangled mess of world-weary intelligence jargon and subplots that fail to coalesce into something more significant. Most damningly, there’s a noticeable absence of tension, replaced by an uneven pace that never quite finds its footing.

While always imminently watchable, Michael Fassbender ends up as something of a double-edged sword here. On the one hand, he’s the kind of actor who can convey a world of inner conflict with just a glance. On the other, the character’s very nature as a man defined by secrecy and detachment renders him frustratingly opaque.

Martian is meant to be a cipher, molded by years of living under false identities. While this is entirely appropriate from a thematic perspective, it inadvertently creates a wall between the audience and the character, leaving viewers with little to latch onto emotionally.

Even the impressive supporting cast, brimming with talent though it is, feels oddly underutilized. Wright and Richard Gere, playing high-ranking CIA honchos, lend gravitas but are often relegated to delivering exasperated exposition instead of driving the story forward.

As “The Agency” stretches out over a 10-episode first season, it isn’t until the closing moments of the third episode that a semblance of focus begins to crystallize. The resulting imbalance leads to a show that feels both overstuffed and underdeveloped, as if unsure which to prioritize: character study or plot mechanics.

Ultimately, while the ingredients are here for a standout spy drama — an impressive cast, a talented creative team, and a proven blueprint in “Le Bureau des Légendes” — the execution falters. At a time when the genre is flourishing with bold, innovative entries, “The Agency” feels hopelessly stuck in the past, recycling familiar beats without adding anything new to the conversation.

For those with an abiding appetite for espionage thrillers, the glossy production and flashy cast may warrant a watch, but it’s hard to recommend over the more engaging alternatives already available. While the French original boasted 50 episodes, it’s difficult to imagine this remake hitting that benchmark.

“The Agency” aims to delve into the shadowy world of spycraft, but it doesn’t quite manage to step out of the shadows of its competitors.

“The Agency” premieres Friday, Nov. 29, on Paramount+ With Showtime.

The post ‘The Agency’ Review: Michael Fassbender Can’t Save This Cliché-Heavy Spy Drama appeared first on TheWrap.

It’s an empty threat — probably — but in the moment nothing could be more sincere. Animals have a way of cutting through our emotional defenses. They can be jerks (my cats are literally punching each other right now) but they don’t screw each other over for money. They don’t pass legislation to deny people access to public bathrooms. In the movies, a human being is able to lose our sympathy completely, to the point that something bad happening to them feels like karmic justice. But a cat doesn’t deserve any of that crap. Ever. Ever.

So a film like “Flow” is about as harrowing as filmmaking gets, especially if you like cats. Or dogs. Or secretarybirds. Or lemurs. Or capybaras. The movie puts all these little guys in peril very quickly and never lets up. Even the quietest moments of “Flow” are tainted by existential threat. It’s suspenseful and pensive and painful in a way few films strive for, and fewer still achieve.

“Flow,” directed by Gints Zilbalodis (“Away”), tells the story of a cat who lives in the woods in a long-abandoned house. A pack of dogs, all domesticated breeds, roams these woods as well, chasing our little guy down because — well, they’re dogs. One day, all of a sudden, with almost no warning, a tidal wave crashes through the trees, and the danger won’t stop there. The water level is slowly rising, every second, until all the land starts to disappear under the rippling surface.

The only salvation is a small wooden sailboat. The cat leaps into it along with a lemur and a capybara, and they float aimlessly, foodlessly, atop the trees, over mountains, through the last sky-scraping vestiges of human civilization. The dogs come back, and the golden retriever — being a golden retriever — makes friends with everybody. A secretarybird takes pity on them and brings fish, and may even be able to protect them from other airborne predators. Whatever these animals’ differences may have been, even though they’re naturally predators and prey, even they can recognize that in the face of climate change the only way to survive is by working together. Humanity, much to our ongoing shame, would apparently never.

It’s not a subtle message, and any movie that relies entirely on placing animals in peril isn’t subtle either. Gints Zilbalodis doesn’t merely earn our sympathy with these creatures, he practically takes it from us at gunpoint. To be perfectly frank, “Flow” is in many ways a cinematic cheap shot. Sure, it’ll knock the wind out of you, but it’s not like we had any choice. Animals are cute. Animals in danger are an emotional nuclear strike.

Of course, nobody ever said movies have to be subtle. At least, nobody credible. But “Flow” does find subtlety in its little moments, as opposed to its big messages. The major plot points — daring rescues, unexpected alliances, spiritual moments that defy any literal interpretation — are heavy-handed, yet effective. The scenes of a cat, despite its harrowing circumstances, reduced to kittenhood by the allure of bopping a lemur’s swishing tail? Now that’s relatable. That’s life going on, whether we realize it or not.

So where are the humans in “Flow?” Long gone by the time the movie begins, apparently. “Flow” floats through the remains of our society, empty towers to infinity, monuments reduced to aquatic tombs. Our conspicuous absence is depressing, but then again, if it weren’t for us, or at least whoever built the boat these animals are clinging to, there would be no hope for any animal’s salvation. Except of course for the fish. They seem to be having a field day. If they could speak you’d probably hear one of them yell “I’m king of the world!’ before getting munched on by, apparently, the world’s very last cat.

“Flow” is animated in a style that suggests that Gints Zilbalodis plays, and loves, a lot of video games. The simplistic character designs, the bright lighting, the environments filled with tall structures in the distance to keep us oriented. The nature of the world is revealed in action and detail. Its immensity is contrasted with the smallness of the characters, highlighting a breathtaking sense of scale.

“Flow” uses platforming and puzzle-solving elements to push its story forward, and before long you might get a little impatient and wonder when we’re finally going to be allowed to play. We can’t, of course, because in this story humanity is dead. The story is in so many ways about persevering in the face of overwhelming helplessness. We may never get that “Shadow of the Colossus” movie Hollywood kept threatening to make for so long, but “Flow” understood many of the storytelling lessons that particular classic had to teach us.

Zilbalodis’s film makes a powerful double feature with this year’s “The Wild Robot,” which also tells a tale of a harrowing future in which animals have to set aside their instincts and band together to survive. Both films evoke religious imagery, although “The Wild Robot” is very much The New Testament and “Flow” is basically “Noah’s Skiff.” On the surface it may be tempting to suggest that “The Wild Robot,” being the Hollywood studio version, is the less subtle of the two, but that film has complex philosophical conversations that “Flow” can only hint at, and the commitment “Flow” has to imperiling small animals amidst a climate change allegory is anything but understated. The two films make similar points in incredibly different ways; both do a beautiful job of it.

Getting back to my earlier threat that if anything happens to the cat I’ll never watch a movie again — I can’t say everything turns out OK. Because it kind of can’t, and that’s the point. The animals in “Flow” aren’t in control of their circumstances, and it’ll be a miracle if anything — except of course for (most of) the fish — survives this aquatic apocalypse. And if they do, who knows for how long? Then again “Flow” is itself a bit of a miracle, so maybe there’s hope. If not for us, then at least for the innocent creatures who have to live in the crappy world we’ve made for them.

So if anything does happen to this cat, or this dog, or this secretarybird, or this lemur, or this capybara … we have only ourselves to blame.

The post ‘Flow’ Review: Dogs and Cats … Swimming Together … Moist Hysteria! appeared first on TheWrap.

At this moment, my mind immediately flew to this year’s beautiful “The Wild Robot,” where a similar scene plays out. However, though alike in the broad strokes, the execution of each could not be more different. Where the wondrous “The Wild Robot” patiently permits us to sit with its stunning and vibrant visuals, allowing us to fully take in the awe of the moment, “Spellbound” just lets this slip away. It is without any wonder or whimsy, the animation all looking rather flat to the eye rather than bursting with depth that takes the breath away. Instead, it is capped off by a derivative dad joke.

This brief moment is only one of the many ways “Spellbound” is unable to emerge free from the shadow cast by several other superior works, though it best betrays the film’s ultimate lack of imagination it never overcomes.  

Leading the way through all of this is Zegler’s determined Princess Ellian, a young elven-eared girl who is unexpectedly tasked with overseeing the kingdom of Lumbria as her parents, the otherwise kindly King (Javier Bardem) and Queen (Nicole Kidman), are not quite themselves. Specifically, they’ve become rather monstrous. This is literal as they have been transformed into enormous creatures by a mysterious spell after wandering into the dark forest. Ellian has been attempting to keep this all a secret while struggling to find a way to return them to their normal selves, though people in Lumbria are starting to ask questions about what has befallen them. 

When she hears back from a pair of bumbling oracles about a potential solution, she sets off into the lands outside the castle with her monster parents while being pursued by the kingdom’s soldiers who intend to lock them away forever. Oh, and while the trailers don’t reveal this, it’s a musical. This subterfuge, increasingly a common tactic that has befallen Hollywood, is a shame, as the tunes are the best part of a middling movie and could even be enjoyable for younger, less-discerning viewers to sing along with when it hits the high notes. 

With that in mind, while Zegler has more than proven her singing chops in films like “West Side Story” and “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes,” “Spellbound” rarely gives her real moments to shine. Though they couldn’t be more different in their presentations, it ends up becoming similar to her upcoming film “Y2K,” both in how directionless and meandering they manage to be as well as how each ultimately wastes Zegler’s talents. For far too many large stretches of “Spellbound,” it feels like we are being bogged down in expository setup for the energetic and fun adventure film it wants to be. It reaches a point that feels like it is at risk of never getting there, leaving the bits that should be the focus feeling rushed and shallow. The central emotional relationship with her parents feels lifted from something like the spectacular “Spirited Away,” though with none of the more earned enduring emotion that film gave life to. 

This isn’t for lack of trying. You can feel the film increasingly straining for profundity that it can’t fully grasp. Director and co-writer Vicky Jenson, who previously co-directed the original “Shrek” and 2015’s “Shark Tale,” is no stranger to exploring more playful yet thoughtful themes about familial relationships, though they arrive too near the end of “Spellbound” for it to have any impact. The trouble is that Ellian’s relationship with her parents is mostly confined to the occasional ghostly flashback before the film proceeds to spell out exactly what you should be feeling. It goes from providing exposition about the mechanics of the plot to doing the same for the thematic and emotional components, reducing this to being just as mechanical as a result. 

There’s a heartfelt core to this, but it never becomes well-drawn enough to come out into the light. All of the supposedly central conflicts rely on contrivances that mostly just take away from the internal emotional struggles “Spellbound” gives short shrift. By the time the film requires us to know what it is that Ellian and her parents are like as characters, you realize how little you know about them beyond the largely broad archetypes the film halfheartedly gave them. When we then get something like a forced joke about rideshare app ratings, it only distracts from what were already underdeveloped characters that are now made even more so. When we then get taken on their search for some sort of potent meaning, it’s hard to feel invested in the journey. 

All of this could be overlooked if the animation were striking and memorable in some way. Unfortunately, much like Skydance’s previous feature “Luck,” the various designs from the landscapes to the characters just never pop off the screen. It continually looks like any other generic computer-animated movie from the last decade and doesn’t do anything to distinguish itself. Expressions don’t hit home when characters are flatly emoting, and the world they are in just seems like it’s a stagnant series of backdrops rather than something truly alive. For all the ground the film supposedly covers, it all remains destined to completely fade from the mind.  

The use of computer animation is not the issue as, again, “The Wild Robot” shows you can create something visually amazing with this technique. What is the problem is that this is all in service of something that rarely takes flight or feels remotely magical. Even as some fun enough pieces are scattered about the film, they don’t get assembled into what could be a compelling whole. The image that sticks in the mind is again the butterflies: not because “Spellbound” makes them stand out, but because you wish you could fly away with them to a better film.

The post ‘Spellbound’ Review: Rachel Zegler’s Animated Netflix Musical Is Missing Movie Magic appeared first on TheWrap.

These immediate survivors have gathered to observe their mother’s death and finish a quilt that she designed. The mother and her ancestors created over a hundred of these quilts that are works of art charting the family’s history since a slave ship brought them to the United States. A granddaughter, Zambia (Mirirai), also works on the new quilt, and because she had met her grandmother only a few times, this young character is the vehicle in the play that asks questions. Through Zambia’s inquiries, we learn that each of the four adult women has a different father. We learn that opinions of their mother run the gamut: Clementine (Crystal Dickinson) was her mother’s caretaker and is now the keeper of the flame, as well as all the quilts that decorate the stage in Adam Rigg’s breathtaking recreation of a cabin on an island off the coast of Georgia.

Most colorful of the four sisters is Gio (Adrienne C. Moore), a cussing, beer-guzzling and marijuana-smoking cop who hates her mother. Last to arrive on the scene is Gio’s polar opposite, the youngest sister, Amber (Lauren E. Banks), who is a Hollywood entertainment lawyer who wears designer clothes (costumes by Montana Levi Bianco). Meanwhile, Zambia’s mother recedes into the background for much of Act 1. She is Cassan (Susan Kelechi Watson), a nurse who hasn’t taken off her scrubs. One of Zambia’s many questions is how all the women got their respective name. Only Cassan doesn’t know, which is maybe a question Zambia might have asked a year or two ago since Cassan is her mother.

On the page, these female characters could not be more different. On stage in the vivid performances delivered under Lileana Blain-Cruz’s very showy direction, they sometimes border on caricatures from vastly different melodramas. When one of them makes a major pronouncement, and there are a flood of them, Blain-Cruz lets go with storm effects (lighting by Jiyoun Chang, sound by Palmer Hefferan) in case anyone is dozing off.

Hall has clearly studied ”The Piano Lesson.” In the August Wilson play, it’s the piano. In “The Blood Quilt,” it’s the quilt. Amber wants to sell them for big bucks, Clementine wants to keep them. The other characters emphasize this power play by having a wide range of opinions on the topic. As with the Wilson classic, Hall ends her play with a big supernatural surprise. What this playwright hasn’t been able to duplicate is Wilson’s poetry.

But back to Mom. In Act 2, Gio finally reveals why she hates her mother, something only Clementine knows, and Cassan makes a big discovery about her long-lost father when the mother’s will is read by Amber. Nothing gives a play needed focus like the reading of a will, but it’s here, with disclosure of some old letters, that Hall borrows not from Wilson but Nicholas Sparks and his sudsy novel “The Notebook.” Gio’s confession and Cassan’s discovery are so damning of the mother that Hall gives Clementine a speech that turns this woman into a miracle-working midwife. It’s meant to give the unseen character some semblance of humanity. Instead, it turns the dead person into nothing more than a writer’s conceit.

The post ‘The Blood Quilt’ Off Broadway Review: 4 Sisters Gather to Finish Their Mother’s Work appeared first on TheWrap.