The Media Tourist

Slip on a tutu and sink your fangs into this feisty, freaky new vampire tale

Abigail
Starring Alisha Weir, Kathryn Newton, Melissa Barrera & Dan Stevens
Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillet
Rated R

In theaters Friday, April 19

What’s scarier than a vampire? A kid vampire! In this ferociously entertaining fright flick, kidnappers get a big surprise after they nab the daughter of a bigshot millionaire, only to find themselves trapped in a spooky old house with a shrieking, bloodsucking monster tot who’s in no mood to play nice.

Young Alisha Weir, who starred in Netflix’s Matilda the Musical, is Abigail, a preteen ballerina (the code name for the abduction is “Tiny Dancer”) who loves doing the sauté to Swan Lake almost as much as slicing into a juicy jugular vein. The crew of kidnappers (Dan Stevens, Kathryn Newton, Will Catlett, Melissa Barrea, Angus Cloud and Kevin Durand) have all signed on for the snatch job, hoping to split a hefty ransom of $50 million. But Abigail has other plans.

The small ensemble cast is game, in more ways than one, as they find themselves on the defensive—and on the menu. “I like to play with my food,” Abigail admits. Blood gushes, bodies burst like viscera-filled balloons, and heads roll once she bares her mouthful of pointy teeth. It’s no coincidence that an Agatha Christie classic, “And Then There Were None,” is tucked away on the bookshelf.

And it turns out little vampires can have daddy issues, too.

Pint-sized terror is nothing new in Hollywood, from Children of the Corn, The Exorcist and The Omen to The Ring and Village of the Damned. And Dracula and Nosferatu may be the OGs of bloodsuckers, but could they twinkle-toe in a blood-smeared tutu along a balcony railing, doing a dainty pirouette before pouncing? Now there’s fresh blood, a new kid in town. And it feels she’s ready to sink her fangs into a feisty, freaky new horror franchise.

—Neil Pond

Henry Cavill leads a bunch of rogue-rascal Brits on a super-secret WWII mission

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare
Starring Henry Cavill, Alan Richson, Babs Olusanmokun & Eiza Gonzáles
Directed by Guy Richie
Rated R

In theaters Friday, April 19

A group of rip-roaring rapscallions plots to wipe out a nest of nasty Nazis in this World War II action romp inspired by a true story. Director Guy Richie’s latest baddie-laddie ensemble flick is based on a 1942 covert mission by British operatives to sabotage the supply chain for German submarines making the Atlantic so treacherous for Allied Forces.

That’s just a bunch of blah-blah, though, in this movie mainly about hot bods and bang-bang. Germans are dispatched by the dozen with just about every weapon imaginable—guns, grenades, shivs, an axe and a bow and arrows. There are bombs on boats, bombs in bunkers, bombs on beaches.

Alan Richson also stars in TV’s ‘Reacher.’

And bombshells all over the screen. Hunky Henry Cavill (known for his recurring roles as Superman) and equally hunky (if not even hunkier) Alan Richson (who stars as the title character in the Prime action series Reacher) look like they just came from a Britbox special on history’s hottest stealth fighters. Eiza Gonzáles (below), the only female in the cast, plays another real-life character (model-turned-Hollywood actress Margie Stewart) whose actual role in the real mission is historically vague—although she sure vamps it up here as a sexy spy, at one point dressed as a bare-midriff Cleopatra, seducing a smitten SS officer (Til Schweiger) and sashaying onstage through “Mack the Knife” for a group of cheering, leering Nazis. (For some reason, it made me think of Madeline Kahn cavorting for a saloon full of cowboys in the saloon as Lili Von Schtupp in Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles.)

The movie’s mission is a high-stakes hail Mary pass by Great Britain, desperate to keep Hitler’s forces from marching ashore after stomping across Europe. Although Winston Churchill himself (Rory Kinnear plays the famous Prime Minister) has sanctioned them, these brazen Brits know they’ll be arrested for war crimes if they’re snared by the British navy—and certainly executed if captured by the Nazis. Churchill gives the go-ahead for the group to do whatever it takes to succeed, even if it means breaking the rules and stooping below wartime “conventions.” It’s a job for ungentlemanly gentlemen and their dirty tricks.  

And as a kind of pseudo-historical bonus, the movie offers a thru-line to the world’s most famous superspy. James Bond’s creator, Ian Fleming, was a British intelligence officer in WWII, and his fictional, suave 007 was inspired by the character Cavill plays in the film—the quippy, dashingly handsome, caddish commando Gus March-Phillips, who was the real-life husband of actress, model (and maybe special agent) Margie Stewart. In the film, Fleming is also around, without much to do but observe, and played by British actor Freddie Fox.

The appearance of Bond’s creator in a movie also featuring an actor rumored to be under consideration to play the next movie Bond (Cavill)….portraying the real-world inspiration for James Bond….makes everything feel a bit like a mobius strip with historical facts on one side and pop fiction on the other.

There’s a lot of adrenaline-stoked action, retorts of snappy British banter and spasms of highly choreographed violence—all hallmarks of director Guy Richie’s other projects like his Gentleman franchise, Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. But there’s also the sense that The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is siphoning off mojo from a couple of other WWII-adjacent films, including The Dirty Dozen from the 1960s and Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds.

The plot is a bombs-away jumble and gets particularly chaotic toward the end. Much of the mostly British ensemble cast—Henry Golding, Cary Elwes, Alex Pettyfer—gets lost in the crossfire…and the undercover “darkness” of night, which envelopes almost the entire second half of the film. But at least most of the “name” actors fare far better than almost all the cardboard-villain Nazis. The fearsome SS is a bunch of easily dispatched doofuses only there to be mowed down by this cheeky crew of hunky Brits in a sailboat.

“They’ll thank you for this one day,” someone remarks to March-Phillips. And indeed they did, as the real characters were ultimately recognized for their bravery and their under-the-radar dirty deeds. But as a movie, I don’t predict a lot of accolades for this lad-fest blowout, a distinctly Guy Richie concoction of glib violence, gabby retorts and implausibly smooth subterfuge, with studly, scruffy scallywags and a foxy, pistol-packing siren—plus a pop-cultural nod to another dapper “gentleman” who’d come along a couple of decades later with his own license to kill.

—Neil Pond

Kirsten Dunst plays a photojournalist in a battlezone that hits uncomfortably close to home

Kirsten Dunst & Cailee Spaeny in ‘Civil War.’

Civil War
Starring Kirsten Dunst, Cailee Spaeny, Wagner Moura & Stephen Henderson
Directed by Alex Garland
Rated R

In theaters Friday, April 12, 2024

As a team of journalists traverses a country that’s become a deadly battlefield, what they witness looks all too familiar to things we’ve seen on the evening news. But this war is different: It’s here, and it’s now—or it could be.

Set in an unspecified future that looks very much like today, Civil War follows a war-weary photographer (Kirsten Dunst), her adrenaline-junkie colleague (Wagner Moura), a young newshound wannabe (Cailee Spaney) and an older rival reporter (Stephen Henderson) on a perilous trek to the nation’s capital, where they hope to interview the besieged U.S president (Nick Offerman) before D.C. and the government fall to insurrectionist forces.

Civil War never defines or specifies the fractious divide that led to American-vs.-American infighting, but instead plunks us—and the characters—smack-dab down in the messy midst of it. There’s talk of successionist states, treason, an Antifa massacre and the disbandment of government agencies, but no direct reference to politics, parties or people. The movie suggests that, when war breaks out, ideology gets boiled down to brutal basics—an endless, senseless loop of kill or be killed, shooting because someone else is shooting at you.

Which side are you on, and what kind of American are you? It’s a loaded question, and how you answer it might cost you dearly.

It’s intentionally unnerving, unpleasant and terrifying as the journalists make their way toward Washington. Along the path of destruction, they see a crumbling civilization well on its way to collapse. A fuel stop off the interstate reveals a gruesome gas-station Gitmo; enemy hostages are hooded and executed by firing squad; highways are littered with abandoned vehicles and bodies; bombed-out buildings smoulder.

American currency is practically worthless, like “Confederate” dollars after the War Between the States—the original Civil War—ended in the 1860s. Civilians are armed with assault rifles, and Jesse Plemons adds another character to his growing catalogue of creep-out roles. And young Cailee Spaeney crawls out from a pit of corpses, which is even ickier than what she had to do as Elvis’ child bride in Priscilla.

It’s about war, yes, but it’s really about seeing war, watching it through the photos and videos of reporters in the line of fire, who risk their lives to reveal it—in the Ukraine, in Iraq, in the Persian Gulf, in Vietnam. It’s about journalism, the free press, and the media. Maybe you’ve heard that confidence in media has plummeted to an all-time low. That’s not good, but at least it’s not to the point where, as in the movie, we hear about journalists being shot on sight—at least not yet. That would give a whole new meaning to “deadline.”  

The movie asks how much death and destruction can you watch, through a camera lens or faraway, on a screen, before you become numb, burned out or even perversely pumped about what you’re seeing—images of suffering, barbarity and inhumanity. And what happens when those hard-hitting images—from those far-away places—hit a lot closer to home?

Director Alex Garland has made unsettling, thought-provoking movies before—Ex Machina, Annihilation, Men. But Civil War is in a league of its own. It’s an expertly crafted homeland horror show, an in-our-face wake-up call for a nation that seems to be on the precipice of a similarly polarized abyss, with no bridges left to cross.

Think it couldn’t happen here? Think it couldn’t happen a second time? Civil War pointedly asks us to think again.

—Neil Pond

After 40 years, the spooky-fun franchise feels like it’s run out of ‘Ghostbuster’ gas

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
Starring Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard & McKenna Grace
Directed by Gil Kenan

In theaters Friday, March 22

Time to strap on those proton packs—here come the Ghostbusters, again.

Has it really been 40 years since the first Ghostbusters, back in 1984? Yep. Hasn’t there already been a couple of sequels (1989 and 2021), an all-female reboot (2016) and a slew of spinoff cartoons, comic books, theme park attractions, toys, and a hit song by Ray Parker Jr.?

Yep, yep, yep and yep.

So, is there any afterlife left in this spooky sci-fi comedy franchise?  Frozen Empire reunites stars from the original movie with later sequels for a gang’s-all-here retread of familiar faces, snappy quips, supernatural hijinks and Scooby Doo-ish scares that works hard to connect four decades of nostalgic movie dots and ghostbusting lore from before. It will likely find a decent audience of true-blue fans who dig its boisterous, noisy amusement-park vibes, but this overcrowded mashup and its complicated, convoluted plot feels like a franchise that may have finally run out of ghostbusting gas.

In this latest romp, the extended family of newbie ‘busters (Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard and McKenna Grace) have relocated from the Midwest (in Ghosbusters: Afterlife) to New York City (the original setting), where they join forces with OG stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson and Annie Potts when an ancient artifact unleashes a malevolent force that threatens to turn the world into a giant ice cube. Is it getting cold in here, or is it just a banished Byzantine demon doing his Mr. Freeze thing?

New additions this time around include Kumail Nanjiani and Patton Oswald, who provide bits of comedic freshness to the somewhat stale shenanigans, in which much of the fun is choked out by the overloaded, overcooked plot. Emily Alyn Lind (she was young Tanya Harding in I, Tonya) plays a chess-loving friendly ghost (no, not Casper) with an agenda of her own, furthering the teen-misfit plotline of Phoebe Spengler (Mckenna Grace). Turns out Nanjiani’s character has ties to a long-ago group of Old World ghostbusters, and if you’ve ever wanted to see the prolific actor/comedian in Mesopotamian body armor, hurling fireballs at a giant horned demon, well, here’s your chance.  Some classic spooks (the cartoonish Slimer) make encore appearances, along with new apparitions (like the Hell’s Kitchen Sewer Dragon). There are all the gizmos—proton blasters, ghost traps, the Ectomobile converted hearse and the Ectocycle. There’s a bunch of cutesy little marshmallow men, the bite-size spawn of the movie’s original menace, the gigantic Stay Puft monster that lumbered through Manhattan.

Aykroyd blathers earnestly about parapsychology, Murray looks bored and bemused, and Rudd plays the decent, do-the-right-thing kinda guy that’s become his acting trademark. Potts gets a handful of lines, but not much else. And I’m not sure what to make of one of the movie’s other new “characters,” a spirit called the Possessor, which can take over inanimate objects. Honestly, the Possessor doesn’t seem much of a threat, inhabiting a garbage bag, a folding chair and a tricycle. And by all appearances, ghosts and those who bust ‘em have all but taken over one of North America’s most bustling, heavily populated metropolises, muscling out everyone except a scant handful of pedestrians and ordinary citizens. Or maybe the film spent all its budget on ectoplasmic dodads, and couldn’t afford to hire a lot of extras.

In an early scene, one of the kids (Wolfhard) complains that he’s not getting paid for being a ghostbuster. “We’re all being paid,” Rudd’s character tells him, “in memories.”

Memories are about all that Ghostbusters seems to have left in this sequel that does little to recapture the magic or fresh comedic surprises that were once essential ingredients, as necessary as green slime. Like you’d feel after scarfing a bagful of little marshmallow men, it’s mostly running on empty movie calories.

—Neil Pond

Kristen Stewart stars in a gritty neo-noir story of muscles, mullets and murder

Love Lies Bleeding
Starring Kristen Stewart, Katy O’Brian, Ed Harris & Dave Franco
Directed by Rose Glass
Rated R

In theaters now

There’s love, lies and bleeding aplenty in this gloriously gritty love story about two young women, toxic family ties and good things that go bad and keep getting worse.

In her second feature film (after the acclaimed Saint Maude in 2019), British director Rose Glass bears down on mullets, muscles and murder in late ‘80s America, where a mousy gym manager, Lou (Kristen Stewart), falls for a hunky female bodybuilder, Jackie (Katy O’Brian). Pretty soon there’s hot sapphic sex, crazily bulging biceps, Ed Harris caressing a caterpillar, and a growing body count at the bottom of a smoldering New Mexico gorge.

It all meshes in the bold, brutally unpredictable twists of Loves Lies Bleeding, which (in case you’re wondering) has no connection to the Elton John song of the same title from 1973’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. The road in this movie is a dark desert highway, and the movie barrels down it with bruising neo-noir propulsion as Lou and Jackie find themselves falling ever deeper into each other, bound together in a hopelessly tangled web of lust, rage and vengeance, and racing to cover up a crime.  

The performances are all wowza. Stewart adds to the growing breadth of her wide-ranging career arc, from swooning over sexy vampires and werewolves in the Twilight flicks to her Oscar-nominated starring role as Princess Diana in Spencer. O’Brian, who’s had roles in The Mandalorian and a couple of Marvel movies, flexes her real-life background as a former bodybuilder into full, brawny play as Jackie, who dreams of oiling up and winning a big competition in Las Vegas. Ed Harris (above) is pure seething menace as Lou’s estranged father, sporting a Crypt Keeper ‘do and determined to keep the skeletons of his violent past buried.

There’s also James Franco is a philandering sleazeball and Anna Baryshnikov, who costarred in the AppleTV+ series Dickenson, as the local meth head, Daisy, whose sexual obsession with Lou becomes a fatal attraction.

It’s wild and wicked and crazily original; bodies pile up so quickly, I became concerned that Lou wouldn’t have enough rugs to roll them in and dispose of them all. When Jackie’s muscles bulge and enlarge and pop out of her skin, like the biceps of the Incredible Hulk, we’re not to meant to take it literally, but rather as a hyper-visual projection of her escalating emotions. When James Franco beats his wife (Jena Malone) so badly she ends up in the hospital, well, he’ll find out he shouldn’t have done that. And when Harris’ character crunches down on a beetle, it just shows how he’s one badass, beetle-biting hombre that you don’t want to mess with.

Throughout the movie, Jackie shoots herself up with steroids; Lou even holds the syringe, with no judgement. “Your body, your choice,” she says. The raw, visceral thrills of Love Lies Bleeding might not be everyone’s choice for a soothing afternoon matinee. But for more adventurous moviegoers, it’s a buckle-up blast about the things we do, and might do, for love—blood, lies and all.

—Neil Pond