Perhaps the most unexpected of choices for a superhero movie was Blue Beetle, a comic book character who has had three distinctly different variants over the last 80-plus years. He’s never been what you would consider a top-tier superhero either in power or popularity. So following the box office disappointments that were “Black Adam”, “Shazam: Fury of the Gods”, and “The Flash” (soapbox: all of them deserved bigger audiences), it’s hard to see “Blue Beetle” being the big boost DC Studios needs.

But comic book movies have proven to be a weird thing and at times impossible to predict. “Blue Beetle”, from director Ángel Manuel Soto, has been touted by DC’s new creative head James Gunn as the first confirmed on-screen character in his own rebooted cinematic universe. That alone might spur the interest of those already invested in what Gunn is doing. I liked DC’s old guard (well, most of them) and remain unsure about Gunn. Unfortunately “Blue Beetle” doesn’t do anything to win my confidence in DC’s new direction.

“Blue Beetle” is based on the most recent iteration of the titular character, Jaime Reyes (played by Xolo Maridueña). Fresh out of college, Jaime returns to his fictional hometown of Palmera City where he reunites with his tight-knit and spirited family. They include his noble father Alberto (Damián Alcázar) and his supportive mother Rocio (Elpidia Carrillo), his crass younger sister Milagro (Belissa Escobedo), his caring grandmother Nana (Adriana Barraza), and his conspiracy theorist uncle Rudy (George Lopez).

But it’s not all sunshine and roses. Jaime learns that a lot has changed while he was away. His father suffered a heart attack, they lost their family store, and now they’re about to lose their house. So rather than go to graduate school, Jaime pledges to help his family get back on their feet. He thinks he’s found a way after he’s offered an interview at mega-corporation Kord Industries by Jenny Kord (Bruna Marquezine), the niece of the company’s CEO Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon). But things quickly fall apart.

It turns out that Victoria has sinister plans that involve a “world destroying” alien weapon called the Scarab. Through a series of rather silly events Jaime finds himself in possession of the Scarab which (for some reason) chooses him as its new host and grants him superpowers. He gets some admittedly cool looking blue and black exoskeleton armor and the ability to conjure up energized weapons just by talking to the little voice that comes with it. How does all of that work? Heck if I know. The movie doesn’t explain much of anything.

And that’s the basic setup for this woefully by-the-numbers origin story. Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer’s copycat script is frustratingly predictable and formulaic to the point of feeling generic. And that’s a real shame considering the long overdue Latino representation. “Blue Beetle” is content with lazily latching onto Latino culture rather than telling an interesting and original story within it. Thankfully there are a couple of good scenes where Soto tones down the silliness and lets his characters breathe. But they’re few and far between.

It gets pretty maddening over time. The writing leans heavily on its domestic charms yet confines its characters within a conventional copy-and-paste story. Along the way it makes several heavy-handed statements on class, race, sexism, immigration, imperialism, etc., but none of them have bite. As for Maridueña, he shows moments of leading man promise. But even he’s dragged down by material that has him either screaming incessantly or acting like a Peter Parker knock-off.

To make matters worse, then you have the movie’s big baddie which (if only this was just hyperbole) is one of the worst villains in comic book movie history. I wish I was being overly dramatic, but Sarandon’s Victoria Kord is as clichéd and on-the-nose as any antagonist you’ll see. There’s nothing remotely interesting about her, her actions, her evil plan, her motivations. Even her shortchanged henchman (Raul Max Trujillo in a thankless role) is more compelling.

By the third act things really get hokey. The CGI kicks into overdrive – some of it is kinda cool; some of it is kinda suspect. And of course we get even more screaming from Maridueña. The warm and sudsy ending puts a nice cap on it all, but I wish it left me feeling like it was clearly wanted me to feel. Instead I was grumbling about all the wasted potential. Hey, at least the Bug ship (yes there’s a Bug ship) was pretty cool. But should a Bug ship be the best thing in a movie that has family as its centerpiece? Probably not.

VERDICT – 2 STARS

It’s kinda weird for a film to have such a rabid cult following well before it’s ever seen. But such was the case for “Barbie”, the new film from director Greta Gerwig based on the popular Mattel fashion dolls which first launched way back in 1959. Many of the film’s passionate fans were brought onboard by the wild social media hype. Others were drawn in by the intense marketing campaign that saw Barbie slapped on everything from a Prada clothing line to a limited-edition Burger King cheeseburger. It was a buzz that went beyond mere anticipation.

The eye-catching “Barbie” trailers stoked even more excitement. Suddenly memes were being generated by the gross. Google was turning its search pages pink, Xbox designed a Barbie inspired gaming console, Airbnb was listing a real-life Barbie Malibu Dream House. It was all pretty crazy. So in many ways “Barbie” was conditioned to succeed well before anyone had laid eyes on it. And any reasonable hesitations were mostly swept away in the sea of pink, plastic, and product.

It all translated into a record-breaking opening weekend for Gerwig and Warner Brothers. In one sense it was great to see. I’m a long-time fan of Gerwig and her work so it’s good to see her star deservingly rise. In another sense it’s a little sad to see her moving to mainstream studio blockbusters. It will inevitably take a bite out of her terrific independent filmmaking. And what does it mean for Greta Gerwig the actress? She’s such a delight on screen and it’s reasonable to expect that we’ll see her in even fewer acting roles.

“Barbie” (co-written by Gerwig and her longtime partner in life and in movies, Noah Baumbach) is quite the shift for the director whose two previous efforts were “Lady Bird” and “Little Women”. If you strain you can catch glimpses of the Greta Gerwig who more than earned her stripes through years of great work on the indie scene. But just as much of the film seems aimed at satisfying the expectations of fans and (I’m sure to some degree) the demands of Mattel and WB executives. It leaves “Barbie” feeling like a weird amalgamation of indie ideas and studio pomp.

Part satire, part deconstruction, part heavy-handed manifesto, “Barbie” wears its worldview on its sleeve. Patriarchy is clearly its favorite target with some of its shots being genuinely clever and funny while others are so overt and on-the-nose that you could almost spoon-feed them to 7-year-olds. You won’t find an ounce of subtlety or nuance in the movie’s commentary nor is it presented in a way that will actually challenge our sociocultural systems. It’s also undermined by one nagging contradiction that I won’t spoil.

The film’s biggest strength is Margot Robbie who may seem like the obvious choice to play Barbie, but who brings some unexpected weight and depth to the character through her knock-out performance. We first meet her in the pastel and plastic Barbieland, a matriarchal society where all the Barbies run things and go by the same names. There’s President Barbie (Issa Rae), Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon), Writer Barbie (Alexandra Shipp), Physicist Barbie (Emma Mackey), Doctor Barbie (Hari Nef), and so on (Robbie’s Barbie is referred to as Stereotypical Barbie for reasons that Gerwig makes impossible to miss).

Meanwhile the Kens hang out by the beach where Ryan Gosling’s version seeks to impress Robbie’s Barbie whenever she comes around. It quickly becomes evident that he’s smitten with her but she clearly doesn’t feel the same way. Other Ken versions are played by Simu Liu, Kingsley Ben-Adair, Scott Evans, Ncuti Gatwa, and others. We even get John Cena in a pretty cringy cameo.

The opening act is easily the film’s best as Gerwig has a blast playing around in Barbieland, introducing the Barbies and Kens, and having a lot of fun with the silly dynamics between them all. But things change after Robbie’s Barbie (who I’ll just call Barbie for the remainder of the review) begins having thoughts of mortality, discovers she has cellulite, and worst of all is suddenly flat-footed.

Barbie learns the only way to return things to normal is to travel to the real-word and find the little girl who is playing with her. So Barbie sets off in her pink Corvette convertible only to later find Ken stowed away in the backseat. She reluctantly allows him to tag along on her journey. By the way, it’s best not to try and make sense out of any of this. The movie certainly doesn’t. How Barbieland and the real-world connect; how children in the real-world effect dolls in Barbieland – from the movie’s POV who knows and who cares.

One problem with putting so much effort into hammering home its message is that the film shortchanges other parts of the story. While it packs a few laughs, the entire real-world segment feels rushed and frankly quite shallow. The biggest casualties are Gloria (America Ferrera) and her tween-ish daughter Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt). Gloria works at Mattel and only seems there to deliver a big attention-drawing second-half monologue. Sasha is rebelling against pretty much everything although we never really know why. Their troubled mother/daughter relationship should have been a key part of the story. Instead it comes across as a paper-thin side note.

By the time the movie returns to Barbieland for its third act the gags start to get old and some of the swings at humor feel a little forced. Still the film manages to land on a pretty solid note – a bit contrived but sweet and smile-inducing. It’s the road to that point that has its potholes. There are enough cool references to make little girls smile but enough sexual innuendo and double entendres to make parents squirm. The set design is incredible but gets lost in the second half’s noise. The theme of breaking out of boxes and finding our true selves is a great one but is drowned out by the movie’s more singleminded interest.

It’s 100% aware that I’m not the target audience and much of “Barbie” could have flown right over my head. I kinda doubt it though. I’m a huge Gerwig fan. I liked the nostalgic callbacks and the many spoofs. I like its cornball sense of humor (which is right up my alley). Even its patriarchal theme creates the perfect sandbox for a movie like this to play in. It’s the clunky execution, the surface-level storytelling, the see-through attempts at subversiveness, and the complete lack of restraint that ultimately weighs the movie down. “Barbie” is in theaters now.

VERDICT – 2 STARS

In the dark of night, a man in blue coveralls and carrying a long narrow case slips into the side door of a movie theater. He makes his way to a service elevator and heads up to the roof. Once there he walks across and enters a door that takes him down several stairs and to the projection booth. He opens up his case and pulls out a bolt-action rifle. In the theater below a mob boss and his wise guys sit watching a Swedish skin flick, unaware that a gun is pointing at them from above.

I won’t spoil how things play out, but the scene is an explosive start to writer-director’s Fernando Di Leo’s “The Boss” (which was also released as “Wipeout!”). Everything about it, from its conception to its execution, emphasizes Di Leo’s skill and tenacity as a genre filmmaker. It’s bloody and brutal and instantly sets the tone for this violent and sometimes sleazy poliziottesco crime noir.

“The Boss” is considered the be the third film in Di Leo’s Milieu Trilogy following “Caliber 9” and “The Italian Connection”, both from 1972. The killer in the above described scene is Nick Lanzetta (played by the late Henry Silva). He’s a hitman working for Don Giuseppe Daniello (Claudio Nicastro). Don Giuseppe has been a father figure to Nick, taking him in off the streets and raising him as one of his own. Now Don Giuseppe runs a crew in Palermo with Nick as his trusted right-hand-man.

While taking out the rival boss at the movie theater may have solved some problems, it also opened up others. A gangster named Cocchi (Pier Paolo Capponi) takes charge of what’s left of the dead Don’s crew and is intent on revenge. He has some men kidnap Don Giuseppe’s nympho daughter Rina (Antonia Santilli). As expected this sends Don Giuseppe into a panic. He wants Nick to find and rescue Rina but is told to stand down by the regional boss, Don Corrasco (Richard Conte). He’s an old-school Sicilian who detests Calabrians. Still he doesn’t want to start a full-blown gang war as too much noise would catch the attention of the big bosses in Rome.

But soon Nick finds himself caught in the middle. Corrasco wants him to keep an eye on Giuseppe to make sure he doesn’t make a deal with the kidnappers that would threaten the family. Giuseppe wants him to help get Rina back without alerting Corrasco. Like most good spaghetti gangster movies, a slew of characters are introduced and few are left standing at the end. Allegiances form, friends turn on friends, enemies get their comeuppances.

There are several interesting variables that add some cool layers to the story. Gianni Garko is terrific as Commissioner Torri, a dirty cop who’s impossible to read. And Marino Masé is really good playing Pignataro, a mob enforcer who helps Nick once the heat turns up. Both are crucial pieces of the story that keep things moving in unexpected directions. Not so good is Rina, who only seems there to serve as a plot device and to give the audience a woman to ogle. She’s a flimsy character and a distraction that often pulls us away from the good stuff.

Overlooking that one poorly judged annoyance, “The Boss” is a captivating mob thriller full of rich and fascinating characters and with a good eye for gritty gangland action. The story may have the markings of a conventional mob tale, but Di Leo’s shrewdly absorbing script and direction brings a fresh feel to a pretty straightforward genre flick. It’s propulsive and energetic, eventually reaching a bullet-riddled payoff that’s both fitting and satisfying.

VERDICT – 3.5 STARS

(CLICK HERE to read my full review in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

In December of 2018 Netflix released “Bird Box”, a movie that unexpectedly turned int an overnight sensation. It was a Sandra Bullock led post-apocalyptic horror thriller that quickly became the platform’s most-watched movie. Many were obsessed with it, setting social media ablaze. Others went even further as evident by the ‘Bird Box Challenge’ craze where antics ranged from silly stuff like people covering their eyes and walking into walls to a 17-year-old Utah girl crashing her car after driving blindfolded into oncoming traffic.

As for the movie itself, it remained a fan favorite for quite some time. Talks of a sequel quickly followed. Then in 2021 we got our first hint of what was to come. It would be a Spanish-language spin-off set within the same universe. It was to be written and directed by the filmmaking duo of Álex and David Pastor.

“Bird Box Barcelona” does indeed spin off of the first film which was based on Josh Malerman’s 2014 novel. But it’s certainly no clone of its 2018 predecessor. The Pastors do a good job of giving their film its own identity, taking the same concept and building on it in a number of interesting ways. It does require at least some degree of investment in the Bird Box world. But don’t worry – mine was minimal at first. And by the end I found myself pleasantly (and unexpectedly) intrigued.

There’s no doubt that the 2018 film was helped by having a Hollywood A-lister like Sandra Bullock attached. “Bird Box Barcelona” may not have that kind of celebrity draw, but Goya Award winner Mario Casas (“Cross the Line”) makes for an impressive lead. Not only does he maneuver his surprisingly layered character through the story’s literal urban hellscape, but he also takes him on an emotionally scarring journey soaked in themes of grief, parenthood, and lost humanity. It’s a subtly rich performance from Casas, even in the final act where his character arc loses some of its steam.

Cases plays Sebastián who we first meet well after the mysterious entities from the first film have plunged earth into dystopian chaos. If you remember, the entities (which the audience are never shown) possess the unexplained ability to make people violently kill themselves just by looking at them. So what few survivors remain are forced to blindfold themselves whenever they’re exposed to the outdoors. This is the world Sebastián and his young daughter Anna (Alejandra Howard) must navigate when we first meet them.

The Pastors do intermittently take us back a few months to when the chaos began, revealing Sebastián’s story through some truly terrifying flashbacks. We see where he was when reports of mass suicides began filling the airwaves. We see him trying to get home to his family as bedlam breaks out across Barcelona. We see what has forced Sebastián and his daughter to scavenge for their survival, not only evading the murderous creatures but the dangerous and equally deadly humans as well.

But it’s an early first-act twist that sets the movie on an unanticipated trajectory. I won’t dare spoil it as it becomes the crux of story. But it’s an unforeseen jolt that tosses any expectations you may have had out the window. It also opens the door for the Pastors to do some fresh world-building – adding some new pages to the mythology and laying down the groundwork for what looks to be some pretty clear franchise ambitions.

As the story unfolds, Sebastián encounters a number of other survivors throughout the ravaged Barcelona. Some appear friendly such as Claire (Georgina Campbell), a doctor with some keen maternal instincts, and Sofia (Naila Schuberth), a young girl who was separated from her mother. Others appear quite menacing, including Padre Esteban (Leonardo Sbaraglia) and the cult-like group who some claim can look upon the entities and remain unharmed. They all help fill out the world and have their own roles to play in getting the story to the finish line.

After the credits roll there are still some pretty obvious questions yet to be answered: Exactly what are these entities? What do they look like? Where did they come from? Why are they doing what they’re doing? It’s not necessarily a bad thing. The Pastors utilize these mysteries to the fullest, adding in a few new ones of their own. Yet by the end we get the sense that answers are on the way. In true franchise fashion we’ll have to wait until the next movie to find out. But credit to the Pastors, they have me onboard and I’m certainly willing to dive back into this world they have shrewdly expanded. “Bird Box Barcelona” premieres today on Netflix.

VERDICT – 4 STARS

(CLICK HERE to read my full review in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

Based on the 1973 short story of the same name by Stephen King, “The Boogeyman” comes from director Rob Savage and the screenwriting trio of Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (the duo who penned “The Quiet Place”) and Mark Heyman. While they’re definitely not reinventing the wheel here, there’s a certain well-made old-school chiller quality to this new horror entry. And it offers up some good counter programming for those not interested in the latest superhero Spider-Man multiverse extravaganza that grabbed most of the attention last weekend.

Grief and loss continue to be among the most prominent themes in movies today. They certainly play a big part in “The Boogeyman”. High schooler Sadie (Sophie Thatcher) and her kid sister Sawyer (Vivien Lyra Blair) are struggling to adjust following the recent death of their mother. Suffocating under his own sorrow, their grieving father Will (Chris Messina) has locked up his feelings and refused to talk about the accident that took his wife’s life. Understandably it has put a strain on his relationship with his daughters.

As the girls prepare for their first day back at school in a month, Sadie has an especially tough time (it’s all the more understandable once we meet her pathetic excuse for “friends”). Meanwhile Will, a therapist working from home, has continued to see patients. After getting the girls to school he returns to his office and is surprised by a troubled man named Lester Billings (David Dastmalchian) who is desperate to speak to him.

Will sits Lester down and puts on his therapist cap. The conversation that follows is arguably the film’s creepiest sequence. Lester explains he’s suspected of murdering his three young children but denies it. Instead he hands Will a crude drawing of a sinister looking monster he clams is responsible. “It’s the thing that comes for your kids when you’re not paying attention,” he says in a strangely pointed manner.

I won’t spoil where things go from there, but Will and Lester’s meeting doesn’t end on a good note. Even worse, soon the monster pays their home a visit. Of course it only comes out at night and it begins by terrorizing young Sawyer (don’t ask me why). Blair was a hit playing young Princess Leia in Disney’s “Obi-Wan Kenobi” series and she’s really good here.

The same can be said for Thatcher playing the older sister forced to take on an almost parental role. Sadie doesn’t buy Sawyer’s claims at first. But soon she too comes face-to-face with the malevolent creature. And with her father in such a disconnected state, she takes it upon herself to protect her kid sister and find out why the monster has chose their family to terrorize.

There are a lot of heavy themes being explored and the numerous metaphors are impossible to miss. That’s especially true during the big ending where it’s hard to tell if the filmmakers are even trying to hide their overarching message. Still the metaphors and message are effective. Unfortunately they also make things predictable. Perhaps it’s the inescapable result of seeing so many horror movies plow similar ground, but once you get a grip on what the filmmakers are after it’s pretty easy to tell where they are heading.

As for the horror stuff, we get some some good atmosphere, a few well-executed scares, and a cool creature design. At the same time Savage leans a little too much on the genre’s more well-worn tropes. Loud bangs, creepy voices, creaking doors, noises in the walls – it’s all there. He does some interesting things with light and shadows, but even that starts to feel too familiar.

When considered together it’s these nagging issues that eventually cause the movie to sputter despite the best efforts of those in front of and behind the camera. For the most part it still accomplishes what it sets out to do. But the overall impression that “we’ve seen all this before” stymies much of the suspense and leaves the film feeling like pretty standard horror movie fare. Well-intended and mildly successful, but standard nonetheless. “The Boogeyman” is in theaters now.”

VERDICT – 2.5 STARS

With his new film “Blood & Gold” director Peter Thorwath walks the same path as features like Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” and even “Sisu” from earlier this year. He’s made a gritty, gory, no-holds-bar war movie that fully embraces its genre influences. Yet Thorwath (who also directed 2021’s “Blood Red Sky”) also shows he has a knack for characters. And there are many that help spin this twisted, violent, and at times darkly funny war-torn tale.

Greed is one of most lethal killers in “Blood & Gold” which is set in Germany during the waning days of World War II. Following some brief opening script that would have made Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone proud, we get a tone-setting first scene. In it we see a Germany SS unit led by the ruthless and disfigured Lieutenant Colonel Von Starnfeld (Alexander Scheer) chasing after a deserter named Heinrich (Robert Maaser). They eventually catch him and hang him from a nearby tree.

But as soon as the Nazi’s are out of sight a young woman named Elsa (a really good Marie Hacke) appears and frees the seriously injured Heinrich. She takes him to her small country farm where she and her Down syndrome brother Paule (Simon Rupp) nurse the soldier back to health.

We learn Elsa has no love for the Nazis who killed her father and who would happily kill her brother simply because of his condition. A disillusioned Heinrich is fed up with the war. His pregnant wife and son were killed in a bombing raid, but his young daughter Lottchen survived and was taken in by some neighbors. Getting home to her is all he cares about.

Meanwhile Von Starnfeld and his unit roll into the village of Sonnenberg where they believe a stash of gold bars has been hidden in the rubble of a house once belonging to a Jewish resident named Johannes Löwenstein. The town’s sniveling mayor and Nazi panderer (Stephan Grossmann) welcomes the soldiers into his village. But he quickly learns his uninvited guests aren’t concerned with his hospitality.

Von Starnfeld claims the local inn as his headquarters and forces the townspeople to start sifting through what remains of the Löwenstein house. He then orders his brutal second-in-command, Sergeant Dörfler (Florian Schmidtke) to take some soldiers and steal provisions from neighboring farms. That brings them to Elsa’s doorstep where a violent encounter sets the main story in motion.

Screenwriter Stefan Barth tosses several more characters into the mix. Most are townsfolk, many with their owns secrets, loyalties, and interests. They all fit nicely into what turns out to be a crazy web of war-scarred anger and unfettered greed. Barth’s script is sharp, shrewdly witty, and hard to predict. He pulls the rug out from under us more than once while delivering a rousing payoff that is a stealthy mix of comically violent and emotionally satisfying.

We also get some fantastic action scenes that range from intense shootouts to ferociously choreographed fight sequences. Thorwath has a good grasp of shooting and framing action. But what’s most fun is watching the different ways he uses it. Some scenes simply emphasize the sheer ferocity of war. Other scenes are straightforward genre movie joy.

With “Blood & Gold” you have a good story, good characters, and good action rolled up into something genre fans should have a blast with. All three can be thrilling, emotional, or sometimes all-out bonkers which is one of the movie‘a biggest strengths. “Blood & Gold” happily wears its influences on its sleeve yet it has its own distinct energy and flavor. And it comes in a tightly structured fast-moving 100-minute package. Yet another good international grab for Netflix.

VERDICT – 4 STARS