25 IN DOGMA YEARS

Opening this weekend:

Dogma--God really enjoys the occasional game of Skee-ball. That's a sample of the startling theology we learn from Kevin Smith's Dogma. I'm not sure that's official Catholic dogma, but parts of the movie's twisty plot rely on genuine, if pedantically and literally interpreted, church law, like plenary indulgence. Two cast-out angels (Matt Damon and Ben Affleck) are hoping to exploit this doctrine to sneak back into Heaven after centuries of wandering the Earth (Wisconsin, specifically).

A Cardinal (George Carlin), hoping to get more "asses in the pews" is offering the ally-ally-in-free to anyone who comes to his church in New Jersey. The trouble is that if the fallen duo succeed in doing so, it will negate Divine infallibility, which will wipe out all existence.

This, at least, according to a rather irritable Seraphim (Alan Rickman). For some reason he presses Bethany (Linda Fiorentino), a woebegone Illinois woman who works in an abortion clinic, into service to stop this from happening. So Bethany hits the road for Jersey, picking up strange allies and enemies along the way.

I'm not sure I would have guessed that Dogma had a sufficient following to warrant a 25th Anniversary re-release, but it's back in theatres this weekend to celebrate its quarter-century mark, and I'm glad. I've always had a fondness for this messy, irreverent, sometimes offensive yet oddly devotional comedy.

It's a little overlong, and laden with some really dumb gags and gross-out effects. But there's something moving about Smith's grappling with the contradictions of a religion and tradition he clearly loves. And the ruminations and debates he puts in the mouths of his characters seem to me more thoughtful and reflective than those in, say, the Da Vinci Code flicks.

Besides, it's hard to beat Dogma's cast. Along with Affleck, Damon, Carlin and Rickman, the ensemble includes Chris Rock as the 13th Apostle, cut from the Gospels because of his race, Jason Lee as a snide demon commanding a trio of hockey-stick-wielding minions on rollerblades, glorious Salma Hayek as a muse-turned-stripper, and Jason Mewes and Smith himself as the inevitable Jay and Silent Bob, who join the quest to save the universe.

In smaller roles are the likes of Janeane Garofalo, Bud Cort, Alanis Morrisette and even Betty Aberlin (Lady Aberlin from Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood) as a nun. Best of all is Fiorentino, deeply likable in essentially the lead role, maybe the richest, most complex part she ever got to play in movies. Somebody ought to coax her out of retirement.

Ballerina--As it happens, I'm one of the handful who had never seen a John Wick movie. Until this week, that is, when I saw Ballerina. Wick, played as always by Keanu Reeves, appears briefly but bloodily in this action melodrama, which I found myself quite able to follow without a heavy remedial course.

The central character this time is Eve (Ana de Armas), orphaned daughter of an assassin. She winds up at a dance company run by the ever-imperious Anjelica Huston; the place is a front for an assassin school. Once grown up, Eve strikes out on her own in search of the people who killed her dad. These turn out to be members of a death cult of professional assassins who live together in a picturesque Alpine village, governed by the diabolical Gabriel Byrne.

The gore-splattered brawls and shoot-outs that ensue are all but non-stop, and the movie, directed by Len Wiseman, is very watchable and well-done for what it is, which is something fairly stupid. The bad guys here reminded me of the similar sect of murder fanatics in the Sylvester Stallone action flick Cobra (1986), and, as there, they feel trumped-up, spun out of whole cloth. They aren't full enough characters to be satisfyingly hateful.

Ana de Armas is a soulful and amusing presence, however, and vets like Huston, Byrne, Ian McShane, Norman Reedus and the late Lance Reddick provide some fun. But there's an artificial quality to this film's thrills that excludes it from the annals of the great revenge pictures.

Also, I had to wonder: What if you had great assassin skills, but two left feet? Would they reject your application to the ballerina school, or would they look the other way, like with college athletes?

FETCH A FALLING STAR

Opening in theaters this weekend:

PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie--"They're cute little pups that drive around in cars. I know it sounds weird, but just go with it." So says a character near the beginning of this second PAW Patrol feature, by way of describing the premise.

More specifically: The little pups live in palatial digs in "Adventure City," where each of them specializes in some form or other, vaguely breed-appropriate, of public safety. Chase the German Shepherd is a police dog; Marshall the Dalmatian is a firefighter; Skye the Cockapoo pilots a rescue helicopter; Bulldog Rubble does construction and demo; Zuma the Lab does water rescues, mutt Rocky handles recycling, and Liberty the Dachshund, introduced in 2021's PAW Patrol: The Movie, has a gift for training the members of the Junior Patrollers, a trio of Pomeranians. Ryder is the human boy who leads the gang.

I'll confess that moment-to-moment, I have some trouble keeping them all straight in my mind; the characters don't, for me, have terribly distinct personalities. But to their intended audience, the pups have been beloved figures since the Canadian TV cartoon, developed by Keith Chapman of Bob the Builder fame, was launched on Nickelodeon in 2013.

If you thought it was weird before, wait until you get a load of Mighty Movie. The story takes a sci-fi/fantasy twist this time that puts it more in the realm of a Marvel or Power Rangers flick than a Boy-and-his-Anthropomorphic-Dogs story. Drawn in from space by a mad scientist villain with a magnet, a meteor crash lands in Adventure City, and fragments from it give the pups superpowers. Some of these seemed counterintuitive to me. Marshall, for instance, gains the power to conjure fire from his paws; shouldn't he command water or flame-retardant foam or something?

Anyway, as with the first feature, The Mighty Movie is not an experience to seek out if you don't have a five-year-old who requires it, but it's not disagreeable to sit through if you do get stuck at it. The dialogue has funny, self-aware touches, including another fourth wall gag about the film's transparent merchandising strategy. The voice cast includes some name players, including Serena Williams, Kristen Bell, James Marsden, Chris Rock and most notably Taraji P. Henson as the rather chic, green-haired mad scientist.

Ron Pardo is also back, as Humdinger, Adventure City's narcissistic former mayor. I thought perhaps the first film was using the character to reference a certain real world public figure; my suspicion was strengthened in Mighty Movie when Humdinger, sensing public hostility toward him, remarks "This is why I hate free and fair elections."

Humdinger's entourage of cats seems intended as further evidence of his villainy. A suggestion: In the spirit of inter-species equity and amity, perhaps in the next PAW Patrol movie a heroic kitty should be introduced to the team. Cats have paws too, after all.

COP ROCK

Now in theaters:

Spiral: From the Book of Saw--Chris Rock is, at least arguably, the greatest currently performing American standup comedian. He also gave a fine performance in a supporting role in New Jack City back in 1991. But as a leading man in movies, he's always somehow seemed to shrink, to lose the presence he has as a standup.

He comes across differently, however, as an angry yet honest and thoughtful police detective in this shocker, linked to the Saw flicks. Chris Rock is a true, full-fledged movie star here; his presence gives this gruesome Jacobean cop thriller gravitas.

In a generic unnamed city, Rock and his young partner (Max Minghella) are on the case of a shadowy maniac who is abducting crooked cops--wearing, appropriately enough, a pig mask--by knocking them unconscious. When they awaken, they find themselves ensnared in nightmarish traps that offer them the choice between self-inflicted dismemberment or death. Or, if they wait too long, both. Electrocution, flaying and exsanguination are among the Grand Guignol spectacles that director Darren Lynn Bousman and screenwriters Josh Stolberg and Peter Goldfinger gleefully serve up.

I only ever saw the first Saw; once I saw that first Saw, I can't say I ever saw a pressing need to see any of the subsequent Saws. So I never saw them. So I can't say how much of a connection there is between Spiral and the other movies in the franchise. To say that with confidence, I probably would not only have to see Saw again, but also see Saw II, see Saw III, and see Saws IV, V and VI. And for that matter, I'd probably have to see Saw 3-D. And also see Jigsaw.

I don't plan to do that, because Spiral, though it isn't boring, is too crass and silly for that much effort. But I enjoyed it anyway, because of Rock, who also executive-produced. As in 2014's Top Five, Rock's role here provides him, especially early on, with an on-camera audience--his new partner--so that he can riff, standup-style, as they walk along. This seems to help him maintain leading-man confidence.

Samuel L. Jackson also shows up, as Rock's gruff, distant father. This sounds promising, but the two don't get much screen time together, and most of what there is isn't particularly intense. Still, it should be said that a little Samuel L. Jackson is better than no Samuel L. Jackson.

OFFICER JUDY

Opening this week:

Zootopia—The title refers to a city that looks like a theme park, with frozen tundra, desert, rainforest and other ecosystems all conveniently connected by highway exits. The inhabitants, you see, are animals—anthropomorphic, bipedal, civilized mammals of every sort, from pachyderms to rodents, living side by side.

It’s not Utopia, however. Inter-species tensions continue, especially between predator and prey species, and there are glass ceilings in certain professions. Our heroine Judy Hopps (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin), for instance, is a bunny who has internalized the high-minded idea that “Anyone can be anything,” and she wants to grow up to be a police officer, normally a job for the likes of tigers and rhinos and cape buffalo.

Through determination and resourcefulness, Judy realizes her dream, but as with many pioneers, she gets stuck with traffic duty. Before long, however, she’s caught up in a mystery involving missing predators, and develops a tense alliance with Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman), a wily vulpine con artist.

The buddy-picture plot that ensues is surprisingly dark and noir-ish at times, and in some ways Zootopia is one of the least sentimental Disney movies I can remember. It’s fraught with unmistakable racial and class subtext, and although it has the struggling underdog protagonist standard to animated features, it honestly grapples with the complex and painful realities behind the believe-in-yourself platitudes of the genre. Thus, the movie’s ultimately positive conclusions feel hard-won, and all the more uplifting.

Zootopia is delightful, but I did have a complaint: the freakin’ 3-D. At least at the screening I saw, it dimmed and washed out the images, and added not one effect that I thought was worth the eyestrain. See it in old-fashioned 2-D.

In case anybody still cares, a few notes on the Oscars:

It was gratifying for me to see the number one movie on my Top Ten list, Tom McCarthy’s low-key powerhouse Spotlight, win Best Picture at the Oscars this year. It was even more gratifying to see the great, 87-year-old Ennio Morricone, who had never won an Oscar for Best Original Score (he won an honorary Oscar in 2007), take the statue for his superb music for The Hateful Eight. It makes up, sort of, for Morricone not even being nominated for his greatest score, for 1970’s Two Mules for Sister Sara.

But most of the satisfactions of this year’s surprisingly enjoyable Oscar show had little to do with the nominees, and more to do with the host. Interest in the Oscars was high this year, less because of any particular suspense as to who would win, and more because of what the great Chris Rock would say and do. While the telecast was glacially paced and overlong as usual, Rock, who had not too memorably hosted the show in 2005, brilliantly managed his tricky duties this year.

What made it a tricky gig was, of course, the controversy over the lack of racial diversity among this year’s nominees. Some African-American industry notables had boycotted the show, and Rock himself had been urged to decline the job.

His approach was marvelously disarming. From the very first line of his monologue, he attacked the subject straightforwardly, good-naturedly and in all directions—his jokes were at the expense of the Academy, the boycotters, and himself, and they ranged from daringly tasteless to thoughtful. A high percentage of them were genuinely funny, and all of them put the controversy into perspective, without disrespect to the validity of the boycott’s grievance.

Perhaps most amusingly, however, was that Rock wouldn’t let it go. I expected he’d try to dispense with the subject with a few jokes at the beginning of his monologue and then move on to a business-as-usual Oscars, but bit after bit kept coming back to it. The show was so single-mindedly devoted to the controversy that, ironically, it probably brought attention to racial inequities in Hollywood in a way that no number of minority nominations could have, deserved though they might be. And it seems pretty unlikely that this would have been the case if Rock hadn’t hosted.

A couple of disappointments: Names eyebrow-raising-ly omitted from the “In Memoriam” segment included Abe Vigoda, Geoffrey Lewis, George Gaynes, Tony Burton and Pat Harrington, Jr. Also, while the brilliant Mark Rylance entirely deserved to win Best Supporting Actor for Bridge of Spies, I still found it slightly disappointing—I wanted to see Stallone win for Creed. But I suppose it’s in the spirit of the original Rocky, where even though he didn’t win, Rocky triumphed just because he got to the Main Event.

FLIPPING THE BIRD

Birdman has racked up the SAG and Golden Globe nominations this past week. But somehow, big fan of Michael Keaton though I am, that film, remarkable though it is, rubs me the wrong way. Check out my list, on Topless Robot, of some reasons why.

Opening this week:

Top Five—Chris Rock is the best American stand-up comedian currently active, and one of the greatest of all time. He is, beyond doubt, a comedy star. But somehow he’s never been able to make a convincing case that he’s a movie star. Something about the guy’s presence has always seemed to shrink a little, grow weaker, when he’s not on stage by himself, but is surrounded by a bunch of actors in a fiction film.

This has nothing to do with his talent. He’s natural and believable enough onscreen, and in an early supporting role in New Jack City (1991) he showed himself capable of powerful acting. But when he’s at the center of a movie, he suddenly no longer has that electric command of the audience’s attention that he has doing stand-up. His star vehicles, like Bad Company, Down to Earth and I Think I Love My Wife, make a sadly forgettable list.

The bad news about his new film Top Five, which he also wrote and directed, is that it doesn’t entirely end this streak. It isn’t a knockout. The good news is that it’s nonetheless the best he’s done so far, by a good margin, and its best scenes are vibrant, complex and extremely funny.

The film, Rock’s version of Sullivan’s Travels or Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories, traces a long day in the life of Andre Allen (Rock), a comedian and the star of a string of idiotic but lucrative “Hammy the Bear” comedies. Andre’s in New York trying to promote his new movie Uprize, a tortured drama about Haitian revolutionary Dutty Boukman, and to attend a bachelor party for his upcoming wedding to a reality-TV diva (Gabrielle Union). He agrees, reluctantly, to be interviewed by a New York Times contributor (Rosario Dawson), a big fan of his stand-up who disapproves of the cheesy commercial turn his career has taken.

Can you guess where this is headed? Well, you’re right, but the plot, such as it is, isn’t the point here. Rock has cunningly structured the film so that Dawson provides an onscreen audience for his riffs on various subjects. There are also terrific freestanding sequences, like a punishingly funny (and dirty) flashback of Andre’s lowest point, or a raucous ensemble scene when he visits his family.

The movie hits some false notes and dawdles on a bit too long, and in any case it comes nowhere near Rock’s strongest stand-up. Even so, at least for fans of this genius, it’s well worth seeing.

Exodus: Gods and Kings—For all his diligence as an actor, Christian Bale—like Rock, I suppose, only more so—sometimes shows a recessive puniness of spirit as movie star. At least for me, he lacks the grandeur to play a superhero.

Theoretically, this might make him right for the role of Moses in a movie about the Old Testament prophet, who was, after all, an unimpressive speaker in his own opinion. In practice, however, giving the lead in a nearly three-hour epic to a guy with a brick in his mouth turns out to be inadvisable. Say what you will about Charlton Heston’s monolithic turn in The Ten Commandments, but you caught every furious word. When the old Pharaoh (John Turturro) asks if the Egyptians can beat the Hittites or if the slaves are about to revolt or whatever, Bale’s Moses replies “Fribshm mblim snablub griflb.”

That said, the plagues and miracles are entertainingly staged by director Ridley Scott, and Ramses, played by Joel Edgerton—no champ in the diction department either—has our sympathy when he loses his child on Passover. There’s some ingenious dialogue, too, particularly between Moses and God, here personified as a rather cheeky little boy. The kid has the diction of an RSC actor, by the way. I kept waiting for The Almighty to reply to one of Bale’s mumbles with “I’m sorry, I may be All-Knowing, but I didn’t catch that.”