Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Featuirng the Voice of Keanu Reeves

Sonic is so fast, he outran Covid, grossing almost $150 million domestic (over $300 million worldwide) on a mid-February 2020 opening. Of course, his tail was cut somewhat short due to theater closures, but the sequel made even more money. Running is what Sonic does best, but he struggles with tasks that require quiet subtlety, or as his fans would say, the boring stuff. With the second film, Sega fans got even more of what they want and the trend continues in Jeff Fowler’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3, which opens this Friday in theaters.

Sonic is a big blue talking alien hedgehog who came to Earth in the first film after his guardian was tragically killed. In the second film, Sonic met his constant companions, Miles Prower a sensitive fox and Knuckles, a pugilistic echidna. Their longtime nemesis remains Dr. Ivo Robotnik, a.k.a. Eggman, but the former government scientist turned supervillain has lately fallen on hard times.

Apparently, another evil genius re-purposed Robotnik’s special drones to attack G.U.N., the Men-in-Black like agency (but with proper uniforms) that handles aliens like Sonic—and frees Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic’s evil equivalent, from his cryogenic prison. Perhaps Sonic and Robotnik will forge a temporary alias to save the world from Shadow, or perhaps not.

Sonic’s whole deal is his speed, so Fowler duly delivers scene after scene of his fleet footwork. It might be true to the character and the games, but for non-fans, the repetition grows dull. Fortunately, the new film also brings back James Marsden and Tika Sumpter as Tom and Maddie Wachowski, because they have surprisingly endearing chemistry together and help supply the human touch the film needs more of.

Admittedly, Idris Elba’s gruff voice-overs as Knuckles are so consistently amusing, it is easy to see why his character starred in the spin-off streaming series. Likewise, Keanu Reeves growls with Method-level intensity as Shadow, having reportedly done his Sonic homework. On the other hand, Ben Schwartz might have the right tone for Sonic according to what fans expect, but adults unfamiliar with the franchise will be underwhelmed by his brashly juvenile-sounding portrayal of Sonic. Yet, he remains palatable.

On the other hand, a little of Jim Carrey, as Robotnik (and in a not-so-secret dual role), goes a long, long, long way. Seriously, Carrey piles shtick on top of shtick, while mugging and pratfalling like both his face and bones are made out of rubber. It quickly grows tiresome.

Extraction 2, on Netflix

Apparently, if you want to kill Tyler Rake, you must drop him in a vat of molten steel, like Robert Patrick in T2. When we last saw Rake in the first film, he fell off a very large bridge in Bangladesh after getting riddled with bullets. However, the film established he could hold his breath under water for a very long time, so there’s that. Regardless, Rake is still alive, so best of luck to all the bad guys who try to kill him in Sam Hargrave’s Extraction 2, which premieres today on Netflix.

At least #2 acknowledges things really looked bad for Rake. As a result, he spends weeks in a coma before undergoing months of rehab. His merc boss Nik Khan just wants him to quietly retire so he can work on all the emotional issues that fueled his near-death wish, but that won’t be happening.

Instead, he agrees to rescue his estranged ex-wife’s sister, young niece, and annoying pre-teen nephew from the heckhole Georgian Republic prison, where they are forced to live with the druglord brother-in-law. Clearly, Davit Radiani still has the juice to demand such accommodations, despite being convicted of murdering an American DEA agent. Understandably, being incarnated with the abusive Radiani is slowly killing Ketevan and her children, but the worshipful Sandro is too brainwashed to see his father’s true nature, or that of his psychotic uncle Zurab. Regardless, Rake will bust them out anyway, whether Sandro likes it or not, with the reluctant help and considerable logistical support provided by Khan and her younger brother Yaz.

The first Extraction, also helmed by Hargrove and written by the Russo Brothers and graphic novelist Andre Parks, had plenty of action and considerable body-count, but #2 surpasses it in all ways. As fans would expect, Chris Hemsworth’s Rake is still quite a one-man killing machine.

However, the big news is how Iranian exile Golshifteh Farahani really comes into her own as a breakout action star. Khan was also part of the climactic shoot-out in #1, but she possibly caps as many bad guys in #2 as Rake does. She is in the thick of it, right from the start, but it is not to make any stilted statement. Khan and Rake are really partners in the on-screen action (technically, he works for her, but you get the point).

That said, Hemsworth still anchors the most brutal hand-to-hand beatdown, as Rake escorts Ketevan through a full-on prison riot, which even overshadows the complicated escape sequence it bleeds into, involving cars, helicopters, and a speeding train. #2 features an extended 21-minute long-take, but viewers will not really notice the technique, because the stunt work is so intense.

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse, on Apple TV+

Homecoming is a staple theme of holiday specials, but unlike Pa Walton, this unnamed Boy does not know where home is. Yet, he is determined to find it. His journey will be more of a fable than an adventure, especially considering his ability to talk to his animal companions in Peter Baynton’s The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and The Horse, produced by J.J. Abrams, which premieres tomorrow on Apple TV+.

When the Boy wakes up in the forest, he has no idea how he got there or where he lives. Fortunately, he runs into the Mole, who has all kinds of helpful ideas, like following the river to the human settlement. Initially, the Boy must protect the Mole from the Fox, but when the little mammal frees his predator from a hunter’s snare, he starts to trail after them, shyly. The going gets easier once the Horse joins up with them, especially when they need a wind-break from the storm.

Co-adapted by Charlie Mackesy from his children’s book, The Boy etc. features some platitude heavy-dialogue, by Tom Hollander manages to sell some of the clunkiest, fridge-worthy banalities, with his warmly sensitive voice-over performance as the Mole (he even sort of looks like a mole in real-life). It is sort of like the Pooh stories at their most Taoist, pushing the envelope of New Age schmaltz. However, the stylish animation, derived from Mackesy’s original illustrations, is quite elegant.

Three Thousand Years of Longing: George Miller Adapts A.S. Byatt

As a scholar of myth and folklore, Alithea Binnie is familiar with the Twilight Zone episode “The Man in the Bottle,” or similar such tales. She expects the magical granting of wishes to necessarily result in ironic unintended consequences. Yet, the djinn offering her wishes has a good point when he argues she has free will, doesn’t she, so why should she be bound by the fate of others? However, when he tells her his story, he gives her plenty of examples of things not to wish for in George Miller’s Three Thousand Years of Longing, which opens tomorrow in theaters.

Binnie is used to academic conferences, but there has been something a little off about this gathering in Istanbul. It must be fate, or something, that soon guides her to pick up an old but supposedly valueless bottle in a bazaar. Guess what’s inside. Yes, Idris Elba. The djinn only needs a little time to adjust to Binnie’s language of choice and her physical scale. Then he must grant her three wishes, or suffer a terrible fate.

Naturally, Binnie asks how he got in that bottle in the first place. It is quite an epic story, spanning thousands of years and featuring a cast of characters including the likes the Queen of Sheba, King Solomon, and various royal despots from Byzantine antiquity. Ironically, his tragic history rather reinforces Binnie’s skepticism regarding wishes, but it also fascinates the Joseph Campbell-ish scholar.

Admittedly, Miller has a little trouble wrapping up TTYL (even though it was adapted from the A.S. Byatt short story “The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye"), but his patience and deft touch has produced a terrific film, loaded with rich visuals and exotic settings. Somehow, Miller managed to evoke Thief of Baghdad vibes in a way that should not arouse the professionally offended.

Idris is about the only thesp who could play the Djinn with the appropriately imposing physicality and dry wit, while still evoking the sense of an old soul within. He also generates a lot of heat on screen with Aamito Lagum, as the Queen of Sheba.

Beast: Idris Elba Hears the Roar

It is weirdly fun to compare and contrast this film with Noel Marshall’s infamous Roar. In that film, Tipi Hedren’s actual family pretended not to be scared-to-death of the very real lions, rough-housing around them. In this new film, Idris Elba’s fake family make-believes they are absolutely terrified of the CGI lion stalking them. The production of the latter was obviously much more responsible. The law of the jungle still remains harsh and unforgiving in Baltasar Kormakur’s Beast, which opens this Friday.

Dr. Nate Samuels’ family is going through a rough patch. After he and his wife separated, she soon was diagnosed with cancer and quickly succumbed. For his daughters, Mere and Norah, it was definitely a case of “bad optics.” To heal their family unit, Samuels brought them back to his wife’s ancestral home in Africa, where the couple’s mutual friend, Martin Battles works as a wildlife ranger (and possibly an underground anti-poaching activist).

Battles thought he would take them out on a nice photo-safari. Instead, they stumble across a village that had been decimated by a rogue lion. That would be the big one that escaped the poaching gang during the prologue. Uncharacteristically, he keeps ripping and gnashing his prey, without stopping to feed, because he is mean-mad with mankind, so when he sees the Samuels’ range rover, he starts hunting them too.

Beast certainly has an environmental message, but it is a worthy, focused point. Tragically, there has been a surge in lion poaching, to meet the demand for increasingly rare tiger bones, which are used as an unfounded remedy for impotence in regional folk “medicine.” This is an illegal trade China (supposedly Africa’s best friend) could surely curtail, but the CCP isn’t doing that at all. Maybe the big cat should pay them a visit.

Regardless, there is no question the big guy is the star of Beast and the CGI animating him looks surprisingly lifelike. Its movements are convincingly realistic and his behavior is suitably ferocious to create tension and suspense. However, the film never really instills any “personality” in him, beyond a vengeance-hungry killing machine.

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw

Is there a weirder term getting bandied about by the agenda-driven media than “toxic masculinity?” What’s so bad about men being manly? (It’s a rhetorical question.) That is why the world needs some testosterone-driven blockbusters every so often. If you find masculinity toxic than head to your “safe space” when The Rock, Jason Statham, and Idris Elba crash cars and jaw at each other in David Leitch’s Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, which opens today around the world.

What’s this film about? It’s about two hours and fifteen minutes. What more were you wondering about? Luke Hobbs is a Los Angeles G-Man. Deckard Shaw is a UK spy turned freelancer. They have worked together before, but they were never chummy. Much to their mutual consternation, the CIA has recruited them both to work as a team tracking down a misplaced mega-virus.

The case will be personal for Shaw, because his sister, MI6 agent Hattie Shaw was framed for the theft of the “Snowflake” virus and the murder of the rest of her recovery team. The real villain is Brixton Lore, whom Shaw also has some history with. The last time he saw Lore, he shot him once in the head and twice in the heart, but somehow, a shadowy eugenics organization managed to save the turncoat agent. Thanks to their enhancements and programming, Lore is now a bionic super-powered cyborg-hybrid.

Blah, blah, blah, whatever. The plot here is just an excuse for Hobbs and Shaw to talk smack to each other and engage in some large-scale smack-downs. Everything is big here, particularly the action sequences. Frankly, the early F&F movies seem downright quaint and intimate by comparison. Remember, it all started with Paul Walker’s character going undercover to bust a crew hijacking truckloads of consumer electronics. From there, we somehow reached the Rock fighting armored villains as he freefalls off a London skyscraper.

Of course, this all plays to the strengths of The Rock. He really has massive screen charisma, which easily shines through all the explosions and wildly over-the-top stunts. He also develops some solid comic timing trading mother insults with Jason Statham. Taking on the squintier, flintier, Eastwood-esque role, Statham manages to be cool and keep his head above all the surrounding madness as the more grounded Shaw. As an added bonus, Vanessa Kirby shows off some impressive action chops of her own, as Hattie Shaw.

As a bad guy demanding imposing physicality and neurotic angst, Lore is definitely dead solid in Elba’s wheelhouse, sort of like the Luther of supervillains. As an added bonus, Dame Helen Mirren clearly enjoys playing Ma Shaw, who is definitely her grown children’s mother. F&F: H&S also boasts two uncredited big-name cameos. One is pretty embarrassing, while the other is take-no-prisoners funny. Fortunately, the latter gets more screen time, including a curtain call during the closing credits.

Instead of Vin Diesel’s brothers-from-different-mothers “family” talk of the other Furious films, Hobbs & Shaw are all about traditional family values—and saving the world. It isn’t phony. In fact, The Rock has an affinity playing action heroes who are also engaged parents (as in the somewhat under-appreciated Skyscraper). The formula still works here, but it would have been even more effective if the bedlam were a little more grounded. Recommended for fans of the stars and the franchise, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw opens today (8/2), just about everywhere, including the AMC Empire in Midtown.

The Take: Idris Elba Celebrates Bastille Day

It is a thriller built around a phony terrorist conspiracy, but its European openings were complicated twice by very real terrorist attacks. First, the film previously known as Bastille Day was slated for a UK opening in February, but it was pushed back immediately following the November 2015 terror attacks. Later, it logically opened in time for the titular French holiday, but was yanked from theaters less than a week later, because of the Nice terror truck attack. Its timing was terrible, but the on-screen action and intrigue are not bad. As usual, Idris Elba takes care of business in James Watkins’ The Take (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

CIA agent Sean Briar is not afraid to cowboy-up or go rogue. He would probably be out on his ear, if the Paris station chief had not interceded on his behalf. He arrives just in time to do some major damage control when lowlife American expat Michael Mason is caught on CCTV leaving a bomb in Pigalle. Actually, he is just a thief, who didn’t know what he was discarding. He swiped the bag in question from Zoe Naville, the social justice warrior mule, who was supposed to leave it at a Le Pen-esque political party headquarters, before she got cold feet—and robbed. She in turn received the bomb from her activist boyfriend, but he is really a phony planted by a corrupt team of French SWAT commandos.

The plan was to frame various Islamist groups for a terror conspiracy while inciting outrage at their treatment amongst the easily agitated, plunging Paris into chaos hours before the Bastille Day parade. Amid the resulting confusion, they could pull off their planned heist at their leisure. Of course, they did not plan on Briar’s interference.

The Take is not Luther, but it certainly shows why so many have latched onto Idris Elba as a potential James Bond. He is all kinds of hardnosed steeliness, without even trying very hard. It is easy to just sit back and enjoy him doing his thing. We can also readily understand why the distributor wanted to jettison the Bastille Day title and hopefully the bad karma that dogged it. Yet, you almost have to wonder if they are trying to confuse fans of the enjoyably trashy hit Takers.

Regardless, Kelly Reilly and José Garcia add some nice flair and energy as Briar’s boss Karen Dacre and her French counterpart, Victor Gamieux. Charlotte Le Bon is pretty and almost supernaturally wide-eyed as gullible Naville. However, Richard Madden just becomes tiresome as the whiny Mason.

The Take is the rare sort of film that became less politically correct than intended, due the passage of time and unfortunate events beyond Watkins’ control. The way a few hashtags whip up mob frenzy is uncomfortably believable and highly relevant to the current state of the world. Be that as it may, The Take is all about Elba throwing it down, which he does. Recommended for fans of the actor and polyglot Euro action thrillers, The Take opens tomorrow (11/18) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

The Gunman: Sean Penn’s Congo Temp Gig

Seriously, why bother assassinating a government official of a failed state? A small team of mercs will do so anyway, because a job is a job. Unfortunately, the shadowy outfit managing the contract has started tying up loose ends. Those would be Jim Terrier and his former comrades-in-arms. He just might be the only left who isn’t part of the conspiracy, but he should be enough to bring them all down in Pierre Morel’s The Gunman (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

For a while, Terrier was really enjoying the Congo assignment. While secretly working for Lawrence Cox’s death squad, he volunteered as a relief coordinator by day to maintain his cover. That is how he met and fell hard for Annie, the professional do-gooder. Unfortunately, just when both their romance and the country’s civil war are heating up, Terrier is assigned to the team taking out an uncooperative natural resources minister looking to renegotiate terms (in real life, the mining companies would just say fine, call us when you have a working legal system). Since he will be the trigger man, Terrier will have to vanish afterwards, leaving Annie to the creepy advances of Felix, his smarmy corporate contact.

Haunted by his collective guilt, Terrier returns to Congo, hoping to do penance, like Jack Bauer in the two-hour special 24: Redemption. However, when an unusually well-equipped hit squad shows up gunning for Terrier, he realizes someone is out to get the old gang, but they all seem to be dead, except for him and the suspiciously chipper Cox. Felix also seems to be acting excessively obnoxious, but that is just sort of how he is. For understandable reasons, his wife Annie has mixed emotions seeing Terrier again, but the sparks are still there. She tries to guilt trip him, pointedly asking: “what did you expect showing up after all this time,” but since they just slept together, things are probably exceeding his expectations (but not necessarily ours).

Frankly, the early scenes of the hard-bitten assassins doubling as relief logistical specialists are rather intriguing and hint at dramatic possibilities the film opts not to take. Of course, we have to deal with the film as it is and not what it might have been. Granted, the narrative drive and internal logic start to sag in the second act, with the former rebounding and the latter utterly imploding down the stretch, but nobody can blame Sean Penn. Gunman is really his coming out party as a middle aged action figure, where he indeed shows he has the chops and the presence. He also clearly put in the time at the gym.

However, Idris Elba is even more impressive, getting second billing over Javier Bardem for maybe two days of work, tops. Appearing as DuPont, the Interpol agent, he just drops in, makes an extended treehouse analogy and then disappears until it’s time for the mopping up. Yet, he is still totally badass. Ray Winstone does his old hardnosed thing as Terrier’s trustworthy associate Stanley and Mark Rylance’s Cox chews on a fair amount of scenery. Frankly, it is hard to know what to make of former Bond villain Bardem, but at least he isn’t playing it safe as the whiny, petulant Felix. On the other hand, it is safe to say Jasmine Trinca (so subtle and earthy in Valeria Golino’s Honey) is woefully wasted as the problematically passive Annie.

There are some nicely executed old school actions scenes in Gunman, but some sequences are undermined by questionable editing. On several occasions it looks like Terrier is in the immediate path of assorted perils, only to find him safely outside the line of fire an abrupt cut or two later. Taken helmer Morel gets the attitude right, but he largely keeps the film on a medium tempo rather than a break neck speed. You just leave the theater suspecting in most alternate universes, this movie is totally awesome, but the one we get is just okay. It will satisfy hardcore Penn fans, but the rest of us should feel no urgent need to rush out to see it when it opens this Friday (3/20) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

Pacific Rim: Kaiju vs. Jaegers

At least, they do not destroy New York City.  For an apocalyptic film that constitutes real restraint.  The bad news is it is only a matter of time before all of mankind finds itself on the business end of the next major extinction event in Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim (trailer here), which opens today nationwide.

In the not too distant future, way down in Deep Thirteen . . . a mysterious alien race has begun rising through a breach in the Earth crust, sending gigantic monsters up to ravage Pacific coastal population centers.  They become known as “Kaiju” in honor of the great Japanese genre monster movies.  To combat this threat, the frontline nations joined forces to create giant Iron Man-like fighter-crafts they call “Jaegers” (the German word for hunters).  For a while, the Jaegers were taking care of business, but the Kaiju evolved, becoming bigger, stronger, and harder to kill.

Nobody understands this better than Raleigh Beckett.  Siblings like Beckett and his brother Yancey were often recruited as Jaeger pilots, because they are highly “drift compatible,” meaning they can form a strong neural bond with each other to control their massive fighting machines.  Unfortunately, when Yancey dies in battle his surviving brother shares the experience.  Shortsightedly, the Jaeger Project is discontinued in favor of a public works boondoggle of a barrier wall.  When that predictably fails, Beckett’s former commanding officer Stacker Pentecost rounds up all the mouth-balled Jaegers and a motley crew of pilots for a last stand.

There are the odd environmental implications to Rim, but frankly the film only mentions the ozone depletion mumbo-jumbo explanation in passing.  Of course, in old school Kaiju movies, the atomic bomb was always responsible for creating the monsters.  Ironically, a nuclear warhead might represent humanity’s salvation in Rim, if Pentecost’s team can slip one past the goalie, deep enough down the breach.

Even if it is an effects driven tent-pole, most cineastes will be interested in any film starring Idris Elba and Oscar nominee Rinko Kikuchi.  As one would expect, Elba is one of the very few name actors who has sufficient presence and masculinity to pull off the gruff on the outside, but slightly less gruff on the inside Stacker Pentecost (by the way, is del Toro’s Ronco character name-generating machine still under warranty?). 

Yet, the real breakout star is Kikuchi, who exhibits both acute sensitivity and legit action cred as rookie Jaeger pilot Mako Mori.  Charlie Hunnam is basically adequate as the out-for-redemption Raleigh Beckett, but that constitutes a significant improvement from his embarrassing turn in the laughable atheism advocacy potboiler, The Ledge.  Mana Ashida also deserves great credit for her tremendous green screen work as the young Mori, but viewers will start to absolutely despise del Toro for making her look so terrified.

Obviously, Pacific Rim is inspired by Kaiju classics, like the Godzilla and Daimajin franchises, but in terms of tone, the film feels more closely akin to anime, with its battling bots and angst-ridden crews.  In fact, the Jaegers bear a distinct resemblance to the Eva units in the Evangelion series. Frankly, a cheesy j-pop theme song would have come as a welcome relief from Ramin Djawadi’s ridiculously ominous score.

The visual effects are suitably impressive, particularly when rendering a sense of the enormous mass and scale of the Jaegers and creatures.  Still, it is too dark overall, never really giving viewers a good daytime shot of the Kaiju.  You start to wonder if they are allergic to Vitamin D.  As usual, the 3D adds little to the experience.

Frankly, the 3D surcharge might just price Rim out of a recommendation.  Kikuchi and Elba are excellent and the concept of a big budget, updated take on the Kaiju genre is pretty cool.  However, the script is rather workaday and a little of the bickering scientists’ comic relief goes a long, long way.  For Kaiju fans looking to beat the heat, Pacific Rim opens today (7/12) nationwide, including the Regal Union Square in New York (screening both the 3D and glorious 2D versions).

NYTVF ’10: Luther

Before donning the mantle as the new Alex Cross, the detective-profiler thus far more famous for the bestselling books and absolutely dreadful vanity commercials from author James Patterson than the Morgan Freeman films, Idris Elba will be fighting crime on BBC America. His DCI John Luther definitely follows in the tradition of edgier, wounded cops, to judge from the first episode of Luther (trailer here), which screened last night as part of the 2010 New York Television Festival.

The driven Luther used to be good at his job. In his last big case, he saved a young girl’s life by “encouraging” serial pedophile-abductor Henry Madsen to reveal her location. However, when Luther’s actions put Madsen in a coma, he nearly cracks during the ensuing scandal. Frankly, Luther is haunted by the incident because he does not have murder in his heart. Alice Morgan is a different story.

In his first case back, Luther investigates the brutal murder of Morgan’s parents. A former child prodigy astro-physicist, her glaring lack of empathy immediately attracts his suspicion. Their verbal sparring quickly evolves into a game of catch-me-if-you-can that will obviously form the meta-story of Luther’s limited series run. Things have already gotten personal in episode one, complicating Luther’s attempts to reconcile with his wife Zoe, a “human rights lawyer,” whatever that is supposed to mean.

Episode one establishes the cat-and-mouse dynamic rather effectively, in large measure thanks to its leads. Elba is perfectly cast as the hyper-tense Luther and Ruth Wilson already appears to have Morgan’s manipulative ice queen persona nailed. Unfortunately, Indira Varma will obviously be all kinds of annoying as Zoe Luther.

Clearly, Associate Producer Elba really will be what drives Luther. He has screen presence that even shines through in an unintentionally funny b-caper movie like Takers. In fact, one Midwestern critic noted the whoops and hollers that greeted a scene of Elba in his boxers during his combo press-promotional screening. The same reaction occurred a similar New York screening. That is definitely a kind of star power.

To judge by episode one, Elba and Wilson really are quite good in Luther. Crime novelist and British television veteran (MI-5) Neil Cross’s writing also already has a promising sharpness that should appeal to fans of other UK psychological crime dramas, like Wire in the Blood. Luther premieres on BBC America Sunday, October 17th, while the NYTVF continues through Saturday (9/25) with pilot competition screenings at the Tribeca Cinemas and primetime events at the SVA Theater.