They can’t all be winners, and unfortunately today’s films all fell into that average or slightly-below area, until the very last one. Starting with Nobody 2, the followup to a film I enjoyed a couple years ago. As is so often the case, the sequel isn’t as good as the original, but it’s still (mostly) fun. Hutch (Bob Odenkirk) has been taking terrible jobs as an assassin and item procurer in order pay off the huge debt from the first film. It’s taking a toll on his family, so to make amends, he decides to take the wife, kids and his dad (Christopher Lloyd is back!) to the family water park his pops took him to as a kid. Those fond memories masked the fact that the place has always been run by gangsters, who pay the local dirty cops to look the other way, and Hutch mistakenly runs afoul of them. Turns into an all-out war between Hutch and the local bad guys. The movie gets a little silly in the end when Hutch goes all Home Alone with a booby trapped amusement park, but since the team behind John Wick is still writing and producing, the fight sequences are still top notch (and still over the top, in a good way). Yes, a little silly, but not horrible. ★★★
Tatami isn’t based on a true story, but the idea of it is based on something that really happened. In the movie, taking place in 2019, an Iranian Judo athlete is attending the world championship competition in the country of Georgia. The young woman, Leila, is being cheered on back home by her husband and family, and she is peaking at the right time, with a very real shot at winning gold. However, on the other side of the bracket, an Israeli athlete is advancing well through her matches, setting up a potential gold medal final between she and Leila. Iran, like many Arab countries, refuses to admit Israel, and traditionally they have declined meeting them in athletic competitions. Leila and her coach start getting calls from people inside Iran’s government for Leila to feign an injury and pull out of the competition before having to face Israel, something that Leila refuses to do after all the hard work she’s put in to get this far. Iran’s calls become threats, spurring her husband back home to pack up and drive for the border before he can be detained. Leila’s coach once faced this exact scenario when she was competing, and an “injury” took her out of a big match and she never competed again; she doesn’t want to see that happen to Leila too, even as her own family is threatened back home. It’s an engaging story, but the dialogue is clunky and many scenes are a bit on-the-nose. Excellent kernel of an idea, and as I said, based on times when Iran athletes have pulled out of international competitions, rather than face off against Israel, but the delivery of the movie is lacking. ★★
Elevation takes place 3 years after some deadly new monsters showed up and starting killing everyone. Think A Quiet Place, but instead of monsters with an achilles of silence, these can’t climb higher than 8000 feet. Humanity has taken to the mountains and are eking out a rough existence high up. In the Colorado Rockies, Will (Anthony Mackie) is taking care of his young son who has a lung disease, eased only with oxygen filters. When they start running low on filters, Will knows he’ll need to trek down the mountain to a hospital in Boulder for supplies. That would mean going under 8000 feet and risking the dangerously fast and lethal baddies. He is accompanied on his trip by best friend Katie and scientist Nina, who has been researching a way to kill the monsters. Nina thinks she’s on the cusp of manufacturing a bullet that can pierce their tough hide, but she needs something from Boulder too. The harrowing trip down and back is all you would expect it to be, which unfortunately means there are no surprises. It really is just like A Quiet Place, and while that film is thrilling and edge-of-your-seat the entire time, this one is a pale shadow. For an action thriller, it is pretty boring. A B movie with a budget and slick effects to try to mask its shortcomings. ★½
Going back to 2009 for Mike Judge’s Extract, a film I missed before now. It is called a companion piece to Office Space, one of my favorite comedies of all time, but honestly I don’t see the comparison. Office Space is great for anyone who has worked in an office setting, for the absurdity of the characters which still ring just a bit true (scarily so). Extract moves the setting to a manufacturing plant, and I don’t think the stereotypes for warehouse workers carry over the same as they did for the office setting. Jason Bateman plays Joel, the owner of a flavoring extracts company, who is looking to find a buyer so he can retire. The workers are a motley crew, and an accident on site one day injures one of his best employees. The injured man may end up suing the company, which would hurt Joel’s ability to sell out. At the same time, a con artist, Cindy (Mila Kunis), reads about the story in the paper and decides to woo the injured employee and convince him to pursue the litigation, with the ultimate goal to swindle him out of the money in the end. Lots of other (small) laughs going on, like Joel’s sexual frustration from a wife (Kristin Wiig) who is too comfortable in the long marriage, so he hires a pool boy to sleep with his wife so that he himself wouldn’t feel guilty about pursuing his own dalliances, with Cindy no less. Other A-list actors include JK Simmons and Ben Affleck as the funny bartender and Joel’s longtime buddy. Lots of chuckles, but no belly laughs, and not nearly as quotable as Office Space. Sorry, if this is the companion piece, the Office Space should have stayed single. ★½
Just when I was about to give up hope on a winner today, Apple delivered. The Lost Bus is based on a true story and stars Matthew McConaughey as Kevin McKay, a bus driver in the small city of Paradise, CA. He’s recently moved back to the area, where he grew up, and hopes to raise his teenage son, but the son only wants to move back with his mother. Kevin is carrying around a lot of guilt for mistakes in his life to this point, so when he has an opportunity to make up for it (in his mind), he takes it. On November 8, 2018, a fire breaks out in a wooded area from a fallen power line during strong, gusty winds, and quickly spreads. At first, the fire marshal on scene thinks they can contain it and only recommends evacuations in the closest, very small community. But when it becomes apparent that the fire is spreading faster than ever before, over drought-conditioned land, he has to admit that Paradise, many miles away, is in the path of danger. Kevin is wrapping up dropping off kids from school for the day when he gets the call from dispatch asking if he can pick up 22 kids left at an elementary school, whose parents are unable to reach. Kevin’s is the last bus in the area, so while he had hoped to pick up his son and mom and make sure they all get to safety, he agrees to rescue the kids. He picks them up, as well as a teacher who goes along to keep the kids calm, and so begins a harrowing afternoon. With roads out of town completely blocked with traffic, Kevin must take the bus up into the hills and try to outrun the advancing flames, which proves impossible. This movie is frightening, all the more so because it is based on a true story, and I was flinching and crying out aloud before the end, as the kids are screaming and Kevin and the teacher (Mary Ludwig, played by America Ferrera) try to stay cool and collected for their sakes, even when they see little hope of making it out alive. Outstanding action film. ★★★★½
Jons Movie Takes 