NEW THIS WEEK (7/24) IN THEATERS, VOD AND/OR ON HOME VIDEO
HER PRIVATE HELL--For nearly a decade, Nicolas Winding Refn has existed less as a conventional filmmaker than as the curator of his own fever dreams. Since the candy-colored necrophilia of "The Neon Demon" and the hypnotically glacial streaming epics "Too Old to Die Young" and "Copenhagen Cowboy," he's drifted ever farther from narrative realism toward something resembling pop-art ritual. "Her Private Hell "doesn't represent a return to accessibility. Instead it's the fullest flowering yet of Refn's conviction that cinema should be experienced the way one remembers an especially disturbing dream: emotionally coherent and logically impossible. Set inside a futuristic metropolis swallowed
by an uncanny mist, the movie follows Elle (Sophie Thatcher), a young woman searching for her missing father while a mythic serial killer known as The Leather Man stalks the city. Her odyssey gradually intertwines with that of Private K (Charles Melton), an American G.I. wandering Tokyo in search of the daughter he believes has been carried into Hell itself. Around them orbit Dominique (Havana Rose Liu), Hunter (Kristine Froseth) and a gallery of haunted souls who seem to drift between waking life, folklore and cinema itself. Plot, however, is less Refn's destination than the fragile thread preventing the film from floating entirely into abstraction. The miracle is that it rarely feels pretentious even while making almost no literal sense. Refn has always understood that style isn't decoration but psychology. His saturated reds and electric blues, the cavernous silences punctuated by Pino Donaggio's yearning score and Magnus Nordenhof Jønck's impossibly luxurious compositions create a world where desire and dread become indistinguishable. Every frame looks as though it has been lacquered in expensive melancholy. Simultaneously vulnerable and unknowable, Thatcher proves to be an ideal Refhn heroine and Melton supplies an unexpectedly soulful counterweight, grounding the director's metaphysical excesses with quiet conviction. Neither performance explains the movie; both surrender to its strange wavelength. Refn's detractors will find every familiar indulgence intact: portentous dialogue, somnambulant pacing, symbolic overload, violence treated as erotic architecture. His fans will recognize something rarer--a director who has continued pushing toward an increasingly personal cinematic language at a moment when so much prestige filmmaking settles for tasteful competence. While unmistakably the work of the man who made "Drive," "Bronson" and "Only God Forgives," it also suggests an artist no longer interested in pleasing anyone except the subconscious that keeps sending him these mesmerizing nightmares. (A MINUS.)
MOTOR CITY--Some movies like Tony Scott's 1993 cult classic "True Romance" embrace pulp with enough conviction to become positively exhilarating. Then there's this spectacularly hollow exercise in delusional self-regard from director Potsy ("Old Henry") Ponciroli that mistakes relentless volume for style and slow-motion strutting for storytelling. What could have been a lean, nasty revenge thriller instead resembles an overproduced, feature-length 1985 Loverboy video minus the hooks, irony or decency to end after four minutes. Alan Ritchson plays John Miller, a former convict who returns to Detroit after years behind bars determined to settle scores with the crime syndicate that framed him and destroyed his life. Along the way he crosses paths with a gallery of allies, enemies and femme fatales played by Shailene Woodley, Pablo Schreiber and Ben Foster, each of whom seems to have wandered in expecting an actual screenplay. Instead they're handed attitude in place of dialogue. The "performances" amount to little more than grimacing, glaring and pantomiming beneath an endless barrage of thundering rock music with every emotional beat drowned out by a guitar solo. Characters enter in clouds of smoke, pose beneath neon lights, exchange a sentence or two and disappear before they've become recognizable human beings. Ponciroli directs as if every frame were destined to become a promotional still. Cars gleam; sparks fly; leather jackets billow fetishistically. But no amount of production design can disguise the emptiness underneath. The film mistakes surface for substance so consistently that its visual swagger actually becomes unintentionally comic. "Motor City" aspires to be mythic, muscular and cool, but it's merely loud, brainless and exhausting: a not-so-grand folly that confuses cinematic style with the world's longest music video. (D.)
READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN--An intermittently affecting literary adaptation that’s most persuasive when it stops declaiming and simply watches women think. Directed by Eran Riklis, the film translates Azar Nafisi’s international best-seller into a classroom melodrama-cum-political fable set in the tightening vise of post‑revolutionary Iran. Golshifteh Farahani’s Azar gathers a coterie of students in her living room to study forbidden texts (Nabokov, Austen, Fitzgerald, etc.), savoring the soft anarchy of reading as the state hardens outside the window. The setup is schematic by design: books as contraband, seminar as sanctuary, the moral imagination as a last, portable freedom. Riklis favors an unfussy, almost reportorial style; you can feel the movie straining to balance the memoir's interiority with cinema’s outward gaze. That tension pays off most clearly in the seminar scenes where the faces do the arguing. Farahani imbues Azar with cool intelligence and flickers of mischief--she's the kind of teacher who invites dissent and smiles when it arrives--while Zar Amir Ebrahimi as a guarded, devout student whose certainties begin to fray gives the film its most tremulous arc. Mina Kavani rounds out the core ensemble with a dry wit that keeps the rhetoric from congealing. Together they make a persuasive case that conversation--sharp, searching, a little perilous--is action. If only the movie trusted itself more. Too often Riklis underlines what the performances already express, cutting from an emotionally charged close‑up to a grim tableau of street patrols, or punctuating literary dialogue with illustrative flashbacks. The political violence, glimpsed in snippets, carries blunt force but little texture; the universities’ purges are compressed into a montage that feels tidy when it should make your blood boil. The cine-grammar is legible, sometimes ploddingly so, and the score leans heavily on uplift when ambiguity would better honor Nafisi’s ambivalence. Still, there’s a quiet, cumulative power in watching these women claim interpretive authority: identifying what they see in Gatsby or Lolita and, by extension, themselves. The best moments arrive late when pedagogy tilts into solidarity and Azar's living room becomes a republic of thought. It’s not the definitive screen treatment of a beloved book, but a lucid, earnestly felt reminder that criticism (practiced in secret, in peril and in community) can also be a form of life. (B.)
TRIUMPH OF THE WILL--There are films you admire, films you love and films you feel morally obligated to confront. Leni Riefenstahl's 1935 documentary belongs emphatically in the last category. To see it now is to experience one of cinema's greatest aesthetic achievements fused to one of history's most monstrous political projects: a work whose formal brilliance is inseparable from the ideology it was created to glorify. Commissioned by Adolf Hitler to document the Nazi Party's 1934 Nuremberg rally, "Triumph of the Will" is less a movie than a carefully orchestrated myth. Every image serves a purpose beyond mere observation. Hitler descends from the clouds in an airplane like a pagan god arriving to reclaim his people. Vast crowds become geometric patterns. Individuals disappear into choreographed masses. The film transforms politics into spectacle and spectacle into religious devotion. Its innovations, however, are undeniable. Riefenstahl employed mobile cameras, dramatic crane shots, telephoto lenses, elevated platforms, painstaking editing rhythms and a sophisticated integration of music and imagery that reshaped the visual language of nonfiction filmmaking. Much as D.W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation" remains a foundational yet morally abhorrent landmark in narrative cinema, it forces us to acknowledge that artistic innovation and ethical bankruptcy can occupy the same frame. That paradox has haunted Riefenstahl's legacy ever since. She spent decades insisting she was merely an artist, not a propagandist, claiming political naiveté despite overwhelming evidence that her extraordinary gifts were placed directly in the service of the Third Reich. (History has been understandably skeptical.) Whatever her intentions, the movie functions with terrifying efficiency as propaganda--not because it argues, but because it seduces. It asks viewers not to think but surrender. Watching it today can be physically discomfiting. We know where these ecstatic rallies led, smiling faces celebrating a future that would ultimately culminate in genocide and world war. Every dazzling composition carries the unbearable weight of historical hindsight. The technical perfection becomes inseparable from the machinery of deception it helped construct. Yet refusing to engage with "Triumph of the Will" would also mean refusing to understand how cinema can be weaponized. Its enduring importance lies not in what it celebrates but in what it reveals about the persuasive power of images. It's a masterpiece of cinematic form deployed toward catastrophic ends: a reminder that beauty divorced from morality can become one of history's most effective accomplices. That's why it continues to be taught, debated and argued with rather than embraced. "Triumph of the Will" stands as both a milestone in film history and an enduring warning that artistry alone is never an adequate measure of greatness. Kino Classics' new Blu-Ray includes an audio commentary with historian Anthony Slide; "Leni Reifenstahl: "On a Nazi Female Filmmaker," a provocative essay by critic/novelist Francine ("Five Weeks in the Country") Prose; two Reifenstahl shorts (1933's "Victory of Faith" and 1935's "Day of Freedom"); and "Schichlegruber Doing the Lambeth Walk," a satirical 1942 British anti-Nazi propaganda short which serves as a de facto palate cleanser. (A MINUS.)
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DESPERATE LIVING--If there's a single film in John Waters’ career that can plausibly be described as both his most hostile and greatest work, it's 1977's "Desperate Living," a magnum opus so gleefully indifferent to audience comfort levels that even now it feels less like a cult movie than a dare. Made between the underground provocations of "Female Trouble" (1975) and the breakthrough appeal of "Polyester" (1981), it occupies a singular place in Waters’ body of work, the moment when his fascination with social outcasts, bad taste and institutional collapse achieved its purest, most uncompromising expression. The story follows neurotic suburban housewife Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) who murders her husband during a psychotic episode and flees with her morbidly obese Black maid/lover Grizelda (Jean Hill) to Mortville, a ramshackle shantytown populated by criminals, misfits, political revolutionaries and sexual reprobates. Mortville is ruled by the tyrannical Queen Carlotta, played by Edith Massey with a combination of bewilderment, conviction and comic majesty that no trained actor could ever hope to duplicate. Around them swirls a society in perpetual decay where authority is absurd, morality is meaningless and civilization itself appears to have been built from salvaged garbage. Waters had already spent years developing his cinema of bad taste, but "Desperate Living" pushes beyond mere outrage. Unlike "Pink Flamingos" or "Female Trouble" whose satirical targets remain discernible beneath the anarchy, "Desperate Living" often seems determined to sever every remaining tie to conventional entertainment. There's no reassuring protagonist, sentimental core or attempt to soften the grotesque edges. The visual ugliness isn't an accident of budget but an aesthetic choice. Waters creates a world in which degradation becomes a form of liberation, and the collapse of social order is treated not as tragedy but utopian possibility. What makes the film endure is the singular perfection of its performances. Waters’ Dreamlanders were never actors in any conventional sense: line readings wobble unpredictably, emotional registers shift without warning and any connection to "realism" is tenuous at best. Yet these qualities became expressive tools. Stole’s Peggy is the very incarnation of suburban hysteria; Hill gives Grizelda an unexpected sweetness beneath the character's nonstop vulgarity; and Massey achieves something close to immortality. As Queen Carlotta, she's simultaneously ridiculous, terrifying, pathetic and oddly regal--amateurism inseparable from genius. Within Waters’ oeuvre, it represents the culmination of his underground period before a gradual migration toward mainstream acceptance. Later films would become more polished, accessible and even humane. but none would ever achieve this level of feral artistic freedom. It's a vision untainted by compromise, a fairy tale assembled from refuse and deviance. A half century later, "Desperate Living" remains problematic, abrasive and frequently appalling. It's also quite possibly Waters’ undisputed masterpiece. The Criterion Collection's new box set includes both 4K and Blu-Ray copies of the film; an audio commentary with Waters and actor Liz Renay; "Back to Mortville," a featurette with Waters leading a tour of the movie's Baltimore locations; new interviews with actors Susan Lowe, Mary Vivian Pearce and Mink Stole; a conversation between Waters and film programmer Cristina Cacioppo; an interview with production designer Vincent Peranio; and "Mortville in Revolt," an essay by critic/author Grace Byron. (A PLUS.)
DISCLOSURE DAY--Steven Spielberg returns to the cinematic terrain that's haunted and inspired him for half a century: the very real possibility that man is not alone. If "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" was a film of yearning and "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" one of wonder, "Disclosure Day" is a sober, intellectually curious meditation on what incontrovertible proof of alien life might actually do to civilization. Kansas City meteorologist Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) experiences a profoundly unsettling event during a live television broadcast. As strange phenomena proliferate across the globe, she joins Daniel Kellner (Josh O'Connor), a cybersecurity specialist and whistleblower convinced that powerful interests have concealed evidence of extraterrestrial contact for decades. Their search for answers places them in conflict with Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), a corporate executive whose motives remain teasingly ambiguous. Meanwhile, a former insider turned advocate (Colman Domingo) pushes for full disclosure regardless of the consequences. What distinguishes the movie is Spielberg's refusal to reduce it to mere spectacle: the extraterrestrial mystery functions as both narrative engine and philosophical provocation. Spielberg isn't asking whether alien life exists, but whether humanity is emotionally prepared for the truth. Institutions, faith, media, commerce and private relationships all tumble under the weight of an imminent reckoning. Though often described as Hollywood's supreme populist, Spielberg's finest work has always contained a deep undercurrent of ambivalence. The suburban optimism of "E.T." coexisted with loneliness; the awe of "Close Encounters" carried the price of obsession; the historical conscience of "Lincoln" and "Bridge of Spies" emerged from moral uncertainty. "Disclosure Day" belongs squarely within that tradition. It's a film fascinated by knowledge and frightened by its implications. Blunt gives one of the most nuanced performances in a Spielberg movie to date, grounding the cosmic material in a recognizable human anxiety. O'Connor supplies restless intelligence while Firth and Domingo lend the proceedings a welcome ideological complexity. The visual craftsmanship, shaped by longtime Spielberg cinematographer Janusz Kamiński, balances grandeur with unease, and John Williams contributes a score of remarkable emotional force. At an age when many directors settle into repetition (December will mark his 80th birthday), Spielberg appears newly invigorated. The result is one of his most thoughtful and resonant films in years, a sci-fi epic that gazes toward the stars while keeping its attention squarely focused on the fragile psychology of life on Earth. (A.)
THE ELEPHANT MAN--David Lynch's 1980 masterpiece has long occupied an unusual place in his storied oeuvre. On paper, it seems almost anomalous: a period biography commissioned by a major studio, adapted from existing source material and based on the documented life of Victorian-era celebrity Joseph/"John" Merrick. There are no red curtains, no cryptic FBI agents, no uncanny doubles or dream logic to announce themselves in obvious fashion. Yet with each passing year, "The Elephant Man" has come to seem less like an outlier in Lynch's career than one of its purest expressions. That paradox began with one of Hollywood's most inspired leaps of faith. Mel Brooks--hardly a filmmaker associated with Victorian tragedy--recognized something extraordinary after seeing Lynch's micro-budget 1977 freak out "Eraserhead." Rather than dismissing it as the work of an eccentric provocateur, Brooks perceived an artist capable of rendering interior experience with startling emotional force. His decision to entrust Lynch with the material remains one of the great producer's gambles in American cinema, a reminder that genuine artistic patronage occasionally flourished within Hollywood's sausage factories. Brooks was wise enough to keep his own name largely out of the marketing, fearing audiences would expect a comedy. What emerged instead was a work of overwhelming compassion. Merrick's story had already passed into modern myth before Lynch arrived. Born with severe physical deformities and exploited as a carnival attraction before finding refuge under the care of surgeon Frederick Treves, Merrick became a symbol of both Victorian cruelty and human dignity. Lynch approaches that familiar narrative without sentimentality. His Merrick, embodied with astonishing delicacy by John Hurt beneath Christopher Tucker's extraordinary prosthetic makeup, is never reduced to an object of pity. Instead, he becomes the emotional and moral fulcrum of a world whose supposedly "normal" inhabitants are frequently revealed as the true grotesques. It's here that "The Elephant Man" unmistakably reveals itself as a Lynch film. His lifelong fascination with outsiders, hidden suffering, industrial landscapes and the fragile boundary separating civilization from barbarism was already fully formed. Freddie Francis's luminous black-and-white cinematography transforms smokestacks, steam and Victorian machinery into landscapes every bit as uncanny as the factories of "Eraserhead." Sound design--always one of Lynch's secret weapons--creates an oppressive, dreamlike atmosphere where mechanical noise becomes psychological music. Even moments of conventional narrative unfold with the strange dream logic that would later define "Blue Velvet," "Lost Highway" and "Mulholland Drive." More than four decades later, it's lost none of its capacity to move audiences. The humanism never curdles into sanctimony nor does the visual beauty overwhelm the pain at its center. If anything the movie has only grown richer with time, revealing that Lynch's greatest subject was never mystery for its own sake but empathy. That may explain why this seeming curio now feels indispensable. It's not merely one of the finest biographical dramas ever made, but one of the essential works in the Lynch canon: a masterpiece whose tenderness proves every bit as radical as his nightmares. The Criterion Collection 4K Blu-Ray includes archival interviews with Lynch, Hurt, Brooks, Francis, Tucker, co-producer Jonathan Sanger and stills photographer Frank Connor; a 1981 audio recording of an interview/audience Q&A with Lynch at the American Film Institute; "The Terrible Elephant Man Revealed," a 2001 documentary about the film; a 2005 featurette, "Joseph Merrick: The Real Elephant Man," with archivist Jonathan Evans; Lynch and critic Kristine McKenna reading excerpts from their 2018 book, "Room to Dream;" excerpts from an interview with Lynch from the 2005 edition of Chris Roley's book, "Lynch on Lynch;" and an 1886 letter to the editor of the London Times concerning Merrick by the chairman of the London Hospital. (A PLUS.)
EVIL DEAD BURN--Horror franchises rarely improve with age. More often they calcify into brand management, dutifully recycling familiar shocks while mistaking mythology for imagination. This latest excursion into Sam Raimi's blood-spattered universe doesn't entirely escape that fate, but French director Sébastien Vaniček-- whose exhilarating spider nightmare "Infested" announced a gifted new genre stylist--brings enough savage energy and visual invention to keep the IP's black heart beating. The premise is laudably streamlined. A sprawling family gathers at an isolated country estate following the death of its matriarch, hoping grief might accomplish what years of simmering resentments could not. Instead, an ancient book (the inevitable Necronomicon) unleashes a demonic force that turns reconciliation into slaughter. Before long, every embrace carries the possibility of possession and every whispered apology the promise of another geyser of arterial spray. Vaniček stages the mayhem with muscular confidence. He has a keen eye for enclosed spaces that seem to shrink as terror expands, and he understands that the "Evil Dead" series works best when the violence is so extravagantly excessive it circles back into a kind of ghastly slapstick. Limbs break, bodies contort and blood flows with operatic abandon, yet the film seldom loses its wicked sense of humor. If "Burn" ultimately falls short of greatness, it's because it lacks the emotional sting and startling freshness that made Lee Cronin's "Evil Dead Rise" (2024) feel like more than another contractual obligation. Cronin found genuine tragedy amid the carnage while Vaniček mostly delivers an exceptionally nasty thrill ride. It's lean, brutal and satisfyingly deranged, if ultimately a little less haunting once the blood dries. (B.)
THE INVITE--Adapted from Cesc Gay's Spanish comedy "The People Upstairs," Olivia ("Booksmart") Wilde's third feature unfolds almost entirely within a single apartment where conversation becomes combat and every joke threatens to expose a deeper bruise. What begins as sophisticated farce gradually evolves into an unexpectedly moving study of marriage, longing and the stories couples tell themselves in order to stay together. Joe (Seth Rogen), an affable music teacher whose self-deprecating humor barely conceals his insecurity, and his wife Angela (Olivia Wilde), increasingly restless after years of domestic routine, invite their enigmatic upstairs neighbors over for dinner. Those neighbors--Pína (Penélope Cruz), gloriously uninhibited and disarmingly candid, and Hawk (Edward Norton), a former firefighter whose calm veneer masks surprising emotional depths--arrive bearing wine, charm and a proposition that transforms an awkward evening into an emotional reckoning. Wilde wisely resists turning the premise into mere sexual provocation; her movie is ultimately less interested in titillation than honesty. Working within the confines of a single location, Wilde displays a confidence that eluded her ambitious but underwhelming "Don't Worry Darling" (2022). She orchestrates shifting alliances and tonal pivots with impressive fluidity, allowing laughter and melancholy to coexist within the same exchange. The camera glides effortlessly, finding fresh performance rhythms in a space that could easily have felt archly theatrical. Rogen gives one of his most finest performances to date by locating genuine pathos beneath his ace comic timing; Wilde proves equally adroit in front of the camera; Cruz lends Pína a mischievous intelligence that keeps you delightfully off balance; and Norton's quietly soulful Hawk emerges as the film's moral center without ever seeming sanctimonious. Adult-oriented relationship dramas have become an endangered species in 21st century Hollywood, crowded out by franchises and high-concept spectacles. "The Invite" feels like a welcome reminder that four gifted actors, a perceptive screenplay and a director confident enough to let the dialogue flow can still make for intoxicating cinema. (B PLUS.)
MINIONS & MONSTERS--For a franchise built on the principle that more is always more, "Minions and Monsters" arrives with a deflating sense of exhaustion. Directed by Pierre Coffin, the latest installment in Illumination Animation's seemingly endless yellow empire once again mistakes frenetic activity for inspiration, piling gag upon gag in hopes that sheer velocity will compensate for the absence of novelty. The cobbled-together screenplay finds the Minions in 1920's Hollywood attempting to make their own creature feature. Naturally they unleash actual monsters in the process, triggering a globe-trotting chain of cataclysmic events that requires them to save the world from a disaster of their own creation. The starry vocal cast includes Jeff Bridges, Christoph Waltz, Jesse Eisenberg, Zoey Deutch and Allison Janney, though most are given little to do beyond supplying fleeting audio recognition amid the ensuing chaos. The monster designs are colorful, the Hollywood period backdrop is rendered with impressive detail and the animation moves with the fluid efficiency one expects from Illumination. Yet the craftsmanship only underscores the film's central problem: every joke feels engineered rather than discovered. The Minions remain industrious little engines of slapstick, but after more than a decade of sequels, prequels and spin-offs, their anarchic charm has ossified into formula. Coffin clearly understands the
mechanics of the series he helped create. What seems increasingly elusive, though, is a reason for its continued existence beyond brand maintenance. Neither terrible nor offensive, it's merely overfamiliar--another installment that treats volume as a substitute for imagination. Small children will laugh and their parents may occasionally smile. But everyone else may find themselves wondering if these industrious yellow creatures have finally run out of places to go. (C.)
MOANA--Disney's live-action remake of their 2016 animated blockbuster finally settles one lingering question: apparently there is no intellectual property so beloved, so recent or so visually accomplished that it cannot be repackaged into another feature-length exercise in corporate déjà vu. Never mind that the original remains widely available or that much of this "live-action" production is itself an elaborate digital fabrication. Aside from flesh-and-blood performers occupying the foreground, the film often feels as computer-generated as its predecessor, only flatter and considerably less memorable. Directed by Thomas Kail (whose underwhelming résumé consists primarily of filmed stage productions like "Hamilton" and "Grease: Live! "rather than narrative features), the remake faithfully retraces the original's footsteps with almost devotional precision. One suspects Disney wanted a traffic controller rather than an interpreter, and Kail dutifully keeps the machinery humming without ever discovering a cinematic reason for its existence. The story remains unchanged. Young Moana (Catherine Laga'aia), the adventurous daughter of a Polynesian chief, defies her father's insistence that she remain safely on the island after an ecological blight threatens their people's future. Guided by the ocean itself, she embarks on a perilous voyage to restore the stolen heart of Te Fiti, enlisting the reluctant demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson) in a quest populated by monsters, coconut pirates and towering lava demons.Laga'aia brings an unaffected warmth that keeps Moana sympathetic even when the screenplay is running on recycled fumes while Johnson slips comfortably back into a role he first voiced a decade ago. Yet neither can disguise the overwhelming sense that everyone involved is dutifully reenacting something that already worked better the first time. The real fatigue arrives not from the movie itself but the business strategy it represents. Disney has become trapped in an endless cycle of self-cannibalization, strip-mining its own library instead of taking risks on original stories. One remake might be harmless nostalgia, but a conveyor belt of them begins to resemble creative surrender. "Moana" isn't disastrous, it's merely another expensive reminder that Disney now seems far more interested in preserving its past than imagining its future. (C MINUS.)
THE ODYSSEY--Christopher Nolan has never mistaken moderation for a virtue, and the Oscar-winning director scales Homer's foundational text with the grit and determination of a filmmaker convinced that every myth should be experienced at maximum volume (and length). The result is frequently spectacular, intermittently exhilarating and, at nearly every turn, exhausting: a monument to cinematic ambition that's easier to admire than love. Matt Damon brings a weathered
intelligence to Odysseus, the battle-scarred king of Ithaca whose decade-long voyage home after the Trojan War becomes a gauntlet of monsters, shipwrecks, seductive goddesses and divine interference. Back in Ithaca, Penelope (Anne Hathaway) fends off increasingly aggressive suitors while her son, Telemachus (Tom Holland), searches for news of the father he scarcely remembers. Around them swirl gods, kings and mortals played by a cast so lavishly stocked with marquee names (Robert Pattinson, Zendaya, Charlize Theon, et al) that one eventually stops trying to keep score. Indeed, Nolan's parade of celebrity cameos becomes its own unintended spectacle. Every few minutes another recognizable face materializes for a scene or two before vanishing again, producing the same distracting effect as John Wayne turning up as a Roman centurion at the Crucifixion in George Stevens' "The Greatest Story Ever Told." Instead of enriching Homer's world, the procession of stars repeatedly nudges viewers out of it. No one stages large-format spectacle with Nolan's technical assurance, though. The sea battles roar, the cyclopean landscapes dwarf humanity and the practical effects possess a tactile grandeur that computer-generated fantasy often lacks. Yet the movie remains oddly resistant to emotional intimacy. Nolan is forever explaining destiny, honor and memory while rarely allowing his characters to inhabit them as flesh-and-blood people rather than ideas in armor. It's difficult not to be reminded of 2024's "The Return" in which Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche distilled the same source material into a lean, deeply human drama that proved more moving at a fraction of this film's budget (and nearly three-hour run time). For Nolan acolytes, "The Odyssey" will doubtless confirm his status as modern cinema's reigning architect of gigantism. For everyone else, it may feel like another reminder that bigger canvases don't automatically produce deeper emotions. Homer survives the treatment but just barely, emerging from beneath layers of IMAX grandeur and directorial self-regard nearly as formidable as the trials faced by Odysseus himself. (B MINUS.)
TOY STORY 5--There's a moment in the latest "Toy Story" sequel when Woody and Buzz Lightyear find themselves contemplating a world in which children no longer need them. That question lands with unexpected force not merely because it concerns the fate of beloved toys, but because it hovers over the entire series. After five movies spread across more than three decades, one starts to wonder if Disney and Pixar have returned to this toy box once too often. Directed by Andrew Stanton who helped launch the franchise in 1995 and later helmed such Pixar landmarks as "Finding Nemo" and "WALL-E," the newest chapter serves up a clever contemporary premise. Bonnie, now older and increasingly absorbed by a frog-shaped tablet named Lilypad, abandons her old toys and leaves them struggling for relevance. Woody, Buzz, Jessie and the gang are forced to confront a challenge they've never faced before: technology itself. The vocal cast remains one of the IP’s greatest strengths. Tom Hanks brings his familiar warmth to Woody; Tim Allen supplies Buzz with a mixture of overconfidence and vulnerability; and Joan Cusack gives Jessie much of its emotional weight. Pixar animators continue to find new textures, lighting effects and visual gags within a universe that ought to feel creatively exhausted by now, and the screenplay contains flashes of the melancholy wisdom that made previous entries so resonant. Yet "Toy Story 5" never fully escapes the gravitational pull of its predecessors. While its themes remain heartfelt (the toys once again face obsolescence and reaffirm the value of loyalty, friendship and imagination), repetition has somewhat diminished their impact. The lingering query is not whether Woody and Buzz have another adventure left, but whether Pixar does. (B.)
YOUNG WASHINGTON--Wrapped in solemn self-importance, John ("Jesus Revolution," "I Can Only Imagine") Erwin's movie is less a fully realized historical drama than an extended dramatization of a textbook sidebar. Intended as the opening chapter in the life of America’s most revered founding figure, it follows the young George Washington (waxen newcomer William Franklyn-Miller) during his formative experiences in the French and Indian War where military setbacks, frontier politics and personal ambition supposedly forge the character that would later shape a nation. Surrounding Franklyn-Miller are seasoned pros like Andy Serkis, Ben Kingsley, Mary-Louise Parker and Kelsey Grammer, but their fleeting appearances feel less like characters inhabiting a world than esteemed guests passing through a grade school pageant. The film has a curiously airless quality in which costumes appear freshly unpacked and bloodless battle scenes feel sparsely populated. Rather than evoking the chaos of a continent-spanning conflict, it mostly resembles an earnest reenactment staged at a government heritage center. What remains is an uninspired exercise in historical myth-making unwilling to complicate its hero or expand beyond the limitations of its modest scope. You're left wondering how a story as seemingly consequential as George Washington’s youth could feel so curiously banal. (D PLUS.)
---Milan Paurich
