Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is the sequel that no one knew they needed, but for children of the 80s, it offers plenty to enjoy. Eddie Murphy is back as Axel Foley, the Detroit cop that every street level player likes, and every police higher-up hates, for the antics he pulls on a daily basis. After his latest escapade, where he once again gets the bad guys but tears up half the city in doing so, he is in hot water again. Just as he is facing disciplinary action, he gets a call from his buddy in Beverly Hills, Rosewood, who is no longer a cop but is a P.I. His cryptic message is something about working a case for Axel’s estranged daughter Jane, a lawyer in LA, but afterwards Rosewood goes missing. Axel heads out to LA to see what he can dig up, and it will lead to a reunion with all his old pals from the first film 40 years ago (!), including Taggart (now a police chief) and Serge (still with the funny name mistakes). A little bit of a family angle, with Axel and Jane trying to reconcile by the end, but the highlight is still the action and Murphy’s comedy, which may seem dated to some, but I think he’s still got it. It’s not a blockbuster or anything, but if you enjoyed the first film all those years ago but felt let down by the second (and especially that stinker of a third), this is a return to form that will make you remember the glory days. ★★★½
Fancy Dance returns Lily Gladstone, fresh off her breakout in Killers of the Flower Moon (though technically, I think this movie was finished and hit the film festival circuit first; it wasn’t released to the majority public until last month). She plays Jax, a woman living on a reservation in Oklahoma, looking for her missing sister Tawi. Tawi has had run-ins with the law over drug running and stealing before, as has Jax, so most people just figure she’s on a bender somewhere and will eventually show up, but Jax has a gut feeling that there’s more to it this time. In Tawi’s absence, Jax is looking after Tawi’s teen daughter Roki, with a little help from her and Tawi’s brother JJ, a cop on the reservation who has been able to keep his sisters out of too much trouble until now. Unfortunately, the powers at be, meaning federal authorities outside the reservation, deem that Jax isn’t a suitable caregiver to Roki due to her past, and issue a ruling that Roki must be turned over to Jax’s father, Frank. Frank, a white man, lived on the reservation and raised his kids with their mother, a Native American descendent, but he moved away after her death and remarried, and he’s had little contact with his kids or granddaughter in the intervening years. Frustrated with the lack of progress of Tawi’s case, Jax kidnaps Roki and the two go on the road looking for answers, dodging Amber alerts and the rough-and-tumbles in Tawi’s up-to-no-good circle of friends. The film does a good job of shining a light on the racism Jax’s people still face, locally and on the national/federal level, but the acting is just so-so (was Killers a fluke?) and the emotional heft wasn’t always there. ★★★
Godzilla Minus One is the latest Japanese film from Toho Studios, the company who first brought us the monster in 1954, and the first cinematic film from Japan in the film series in nearly a decade, due to a non-compete contract between Toho and Legendary, who has been making the American Godzilla films the last few years. Those have been, for the most part, stinkers, but this is how you do Godzilla. We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel, not trying to make Godzilla some mighty Earth hero, just making a villainous big monster who is threatening mankind and which needs to be taken down. Going back to their roots, the film starts in World War II and follows a disgraced kamikaze pilot who couldn’t bring himself to complete a suicide mission. He ends up on a Pacific island with a group of Japanese soldiers, just as Godzilla is coming on land. The pilot, Shikishima, survives, and makes it back to Tokyo where he finds his parents were killed in the American bombings. Life after the war is tough, with the very real threat of starvation, but Shikishima, along with a couple friends and an orphan they took in, are able to scrape by for a couple years. Eventually, Godzilla heads their way and lays waste to the city, forcing the Japanese authorities to come up with a plan to try to take out the gigantic beast. Heart-pounding action with some fantastic CGI (Godzilla has never looked more real; the film won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects) come together perfectly for a very entertaining film. Legendary has it all wrong with their bloated budgets. This film was done on a budget of 10-12 million and made 10 times that back at the box office. ★★★★
The Old Oak is the latest from British director Ken Loach, whose films have traditionally focused on the working and lower-middle class for decades, and especially on social issues affecting these people. This film is no different, taking place in a former mining community in northern England. The mines closed years ago, and the families that have stuck around, mostly because they’ve been there for generations, are all struggling to get by. Into this environment comes a bunch of refugees from Syria, bussed in by the government and left to fend for themselves. The locals are irate over seeing this “encroachment” on their homes and the loss of land value (one row house recently sold for $8k when a local owner laments that he paid $40k for his years ago). The depreciation in values isn’t the fault of the immigrants of course, but they become easy scapegoats. Most of the local public places have closed, but one bar still remains, The Old Oak, run by TJ Ballantyne. The bar has become the only place where the old crew can get together and hash out beefs, reminisce about old times, and relax, but now that group of men just rail on the immigrants and what they’ll do to their community. TJ is more open minded and tries to quiet such talk, eventually befriending Yara, a young woman from Syria there with her brothers and mother. Through Yara and TJ’s friendship, the community eventually starts to come around to welcoming the immigrants and doing what they can to make them more comfortable, especially since most showed up with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. But a few of the good old boys continue to cause trouble. Loach uses a cast of unknowns to imbue a sense of realness, and while the non-professional actors aren’t always up to the task, the story is told wonderfully. May not change your mind about the immigration problem facing the world, if you are dead set on one end or the other, but it will make you think. ★★★½
Hit Man is “the other” film Glen Powell did in 2023, including his breakout hit Anyone But You with Sydney Sweeney. Here, he plays a nerdy college professor named Gary, who moonlights as a tech assistant for the New Orleans police, setting up their audio and video surveillance on sting ops. With them, Gary is part of a division that responds to citizens looking to hire contract killers, and records them agreeing to the job before the cops storm in to make the arrest. One day, the officer who normally goes undercover to speak to the would-be perps is suspended, so Gary is called to fill the role. He seamlessly makes the transition, and from there on out, becomes the cops’ new undercover “hitman.” Gary even invents a new alter-ego for this suave killer, “Ron,” and conforms him to whatever the hirer wants in a killer. Things change when one caller, Madison, gives off vibes of actually being a good person. She is trying to hire someone to kill her abusive husband, and “Ron,” instead of setting her up, advises her to take the money and instead run away and start a new life. She doesn’t run, but she does start a new life, with Ron no less. The two start dating, unbeknownst to the cops who only think that Madison backed out of hiring a killer, but there’s a lot of layers of subterfuge that need to stay in place, and it may all come crashing down when Madison’s ex confronts Ron one night. The movie, directed by indie film darling Richard Linklater, starts out with plenty of laughs, and while it definitely stays on the lighter side of a romcom, even die hard fans of the genre will have to suspend belief to get through it. How does nerdy Gary so easily become charming and worldly Ron, and how bad do his partners on the police force have to be to not see what is going on, when all the cards start to fall? Slightly better than average, but nothing that will make you want to rewatch. ★★★
- TV series recently watched: Interview with the Vampire (season 2)
- Book currently reading: The Machine Crusade by Herbert & Anderson
Jons Movie Takes 