PROMISING WOMEN, VARIOUS AGES

 Merry Christmas everybody! In theaters today:

Promising Young Woman--Cassie, played by Carey Mulligan, is "promising" in a rather grim sense here: promising as prey. Guys find her alone in bars, tipsy and mumbling. They gallantly offer her a ride, then when the get her back to their places, they start to undress and assault her. At this point, she drops the bleary manner and they realize that she isn't drunk at all, and they're in trouble.

She was on track to graduate med school, but something bad happened, and now Cassie lives with her worried parents (Clancy Brown and Jennifer Coolidge) and works by day in a coffee bar. A pleasant young doctor (Bo Burnham) that she knew back in school buys coffee one day, and flirts with her, and she's pulled into a romance with him, but her secret nighttime hobby persists.

The feature directing debut of the English actress and writer Emerald Fennell, this revenge shocker explores the ugly truth that men widely regard an incapacitated woman as, quite literally, fair game; Cassie's would-be rapists react to her trap as if it's a mean and unfair trick. But Fennell is more ambitious than merely giving us the satisfaction of seeing the tables turned on these creeps. She's determined to have Cassie take on the whole structure that tolerates rape culture; the enablers, the passive witnesses, etc.

The results are quite convoluted and brutal and harsh. But Fennell and Mulligan maintain an edge of caustic wit that gives the film a charge. It ends with a smile, but not a smile that lets us off the hook.

WW84--Wonder Woman was introduced in the comics in 1941 to fight Nazis and Mussolini and other thugs of that period. Her first star vehicle in the movies, just three years ago, reset her origin story in the World War I era. This cheeky sequel, with Gal Gadot returning as Diana, has her living in Washington D.C. in the mid-'80s, working at the Smithsonian and not looking a day older than she did when Woodrow Wilson was president.

Diana befriends a supposedly dowdy, recessive coworker (Kristin Wiig), and runs afoul of a blustering TV conman (Pedro Pascal), a "Greed is Good," You-Can-Have-It-All type, who has stumbled upon the supernatural power to grant people's wishes, but who, of course, has never heard about being careful what you wish for. This same rather vague McGuffin allows Diana to reunite with her love interest from the earlier film, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine). Before the end of this two-and-half-hour tale, we get the origin of WW's Invisible Jet, and our heroine also has to grapple with a new iteration of one of her '40s-era enemies from the comics, the were-cat known as The Cheetah. 

Returning director and co-writer Patty Jenkins generates period through style as well as sets and costumes; the film often feels like an overstuffed '80s big-budgeter. I lived in D.C. in the late '80s, and neighborhoods where I worked are featured in a number of scenes, which gave me an extra nostalgic buzz. It's all a bit fuzzy around the edges, but it doesn't take itself too seriously, and like the first movie, though perhaps more so, it has a generous spirit. Gadot is good company once again, and Wiig brings both humor and unexpected anger to her role.

The TV fraud's worldwide mischief results in the appearance of a huge wall, of national and international chaos, and of the threat of nuclear war. It's just possible he's meant to remind us of somebody or other.

SISTERS ARE BUSTIN' IT FOR THEMSELVES

Opening this weekend:

Ghostbusters—Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones assume the title roles in this “reboot” of the 1984 slapstick-supernatural fave. Anticipation of the film has ranged from enthusiasm to hysterical outrage. Maybe because I liked but didn’t revere the original—full of favorites of mine, but not representing the greatest work of any of them—I went in with neither attitude, and was pleasantly surprised.

I’ve heard it theorized that the sexist fury over the distaff casting may have been exaggerated and harnessed to help market the film. That’s possible, I suppose—and admirable, if so—but I doubt that it was whole-cloth fabricated. About a decade and a half ago, I worked as a publicist for a comedy club, and I can attest that the wearying belief that “women aren’t funny,” at least not to the same degree as men, is genuinely held within the comedy world (Christopher Hitchens also notoriously forwarded the opinion).

This sensibility—comedy as a kind of machismo—may be shifting, however. With the possible exceptions of Kevin Hart and Seth Rogen, I can’t think of any male American comedy stars that are currently as reliably bankable in the movies as McCarthy and Wiig, and none that are more so. Somebody thinks these women are funny.

All of this, however, is of more sociological than cinematic interest. The new Ghostbusters, directed by Paul Feig, is no more a masterpiece than the old one, but it’s an engaging variation, hitting most of its iconic aspects—the New York setting, the hearse, Slimer, the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man and many cameos—while allowing the stars their own characterizations. Wiig is prim, McCarthy is brash, Jones is openhearted.

The wild card is the certifiable McKinnon, with her avid sidelong glances and her through-the-teeth tone of sly, conspiratorial intimacy. Also amusing is Chris Hemsworth as their brainless secretary; this male lead seems happy in the role of ditzy eye candy.

Equals—This sci-fi romance is set in a distant future in which everyone wears summery white and maintains a blandly polite, emotionless manner. It could be called Planet of the Cater-Waiters. Coworkers Nicholas Hoult and Kristen Stewart realize they're suffering from a dreaded condition called SOS—“Switched-On Syndrome"; possibly the movie’s wittiest gag—when they fall in love, and have to hide it. Eventually they find an underground of fellow “hiders,” that is, secretly emotional people.

Directed by Drake Doremus from a script by Nathan Parker, this cross between Romeo and Juliet and Brave New World seems slightly campy at first—a hushed, austere version of '70s dystopias like THX 1138 or ZPG or Zardoz or Rollerball or Logan's Run. But it gradually finds its own voice, gathers emotional force toward the end, and proves an ingenious gem.

THE RUNWAY OF ALL FLESH

Opening this weekend:

Zoolander 2—As targets of urgently needed satire go, male models don’t seem all that high on the list just now. Nonetheless, Ben Stiller has made a sequel to his 2001 Zoolander, and it’s funnier than the original.

At least, I think it is. I can’t really remember. It’s been a freakin’ decade and a half, after all, since the original came out, and I’ve never felt any pressing need to see it again. But I dimly remember getting a chuckle or two out of it, and I got maybe four or five solid chuckles out of this very silly, very belated follow-up. So I’d say it’s funnier than the original, at least a little bit. You know, just in case Paramount might want to quote me and mention this blog in some high-profile print ads.

Craggy-faced, blank-eyed, dull-witted runway model Derek Zoolander (Stiller) has been in isolation for years as a “hermit crab” in a cabin in “Extreme Northern New Jersey,” after having suffered a tragedy and having his son taken away from him. One day he is mysteriously offered a modeling gig at a show in Rome, and soon is asked to assist in an Interpol investigation into the murders of beautiful celebrities—the film opens with such a killing (it’s also in the TV ads) which elicited hearty applause from the screening audience with whom I saw it.

Derek and his old rival/pal Hansel (Owen Wilson at his most relaxed and enjoyable) follow the Interpol investigator (ridiculously stunning Penelope Cruz) into an intrigue combining elements of James Bond and Silence of the Lambs with a sort of Da Vinci Code backstory. Eventually the villainous Mugatu (Will Ferrell) enters the story as well.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m not suggesting that Zoolander 2 is the laugh-riot of 2016. It’s imbecilic. But it’s so doggedly, insistently imbecilic that from time to time it breaks down your defenses and you start to giggle. Or I did, at least. It has some good revue-sketch performances, too, notably by Kyle Mooney as noxiously hyper-ironic designer “Don Atari.”

The movie also has a staggering number of celebrity cameos, ranging from Ariane Grande to Neil deGrasse Tyson, some barely glimpsed, others in surprisingly juicy roles. In the sheer volume of this sort of glitz, Zoolander 2 is reminiscent of a Muppet movie. But Derek’s face isn’t nearly as expressive as Kermit’s.

TREK SAVVY

Zoolander 2 opens this weekend, again featuring Will Ferrell as the villainous Mugatu…

So, in his honor…

Monster-of-the-Week: …the nod goes to his presumable namesake the Mugato, the terrifying horned white-furred venomous ape-monster designed and played by Janos Prohaska in the second-season original Star Trek episode “A Private Little War”: 

Zoolander director/co-writer/star Ben Stiller would seem to be a pretty hardcore Trekkie: Along with the name “Mugatu,” the new film has a villainess named Alexanya Atoz (Kristen Wiig)—presumably a reference to the well-meaning librarian (Ian Wolfe) in “All Our Yesterdays,” and there’s also the name of Stiller’s company, “Red Hour Productions,” presumably a reference to the “festival” in “Return of the Archons.”

Live long and prosper, dude.

MARS NEEDS TATERS

Opening this weekend:

The Martian—As in 1964’s excellent Robinson Crusoe on Mars, Ridley Scott’s latest maroons an American astronaut on the Red Planet and lets him figure out how to stay alive. It’s a pretty faithful adaptation of the 2011 novel by Andy Weir, a self-described space nerd who originally self-published the well-researched “hard sci-fi” tale online.

Much of the book consists of first-person narration by our hero, Mark Watney, who has been lost in a sandstorm and thought dead by his fellow astronauts during an evacuation. Watney logs his initially futile-seeming survival efforts—figuring out how to grow potatoes in lifeless Martian soil, how to reestablish communication with NASA, etc.—for posterity, along with copious whistling-in-the-dark wisecracks. When the book is the monologues of the desperate-yet-snarky Watney it’s a terrific read; later, when Weir shifts the scene to the rescue efforts back on Earth, his touch is less assured.

But The Martian is a real achievement, and first-rate movie source material, and Scott makes it convincing and absorbing. Or, rather, he creates the necessary polished setting for his leading man to make it convincing and absorbing. I heard that Matt Damon was playing the title role before I started Weir’s novel, with the result that I heard Damon’s voice in my head the whole time I was reading Watney’s narrative.

But I think I would have heard something very close to his voice anyway. There are other solid performances in the cast, especially Chiwetel Ejiofor as a NASA honcho, but this is potentially the role of Damon’s career, Jason Bourne notwithstanding. I’m not sure any part he’s played has fit his persona like a spacesuit quite like this boyish, decent-hearted yet smart-ass Tom Swift.

For all Weir’s inventiveness and storytelling flair, his book is so practical-minded that it’s a bit lacking in otherwordly wonder. Scott can help here, bringing an eerie, lonely feel to the Martian landscapes without pushing it. On the downside, he can’t resist embellishing the climactic scenes with unnecessary and hokey derring-do. It’s the movie’s only significant misstep (on its own terms), and it’s forgivable. 

The Martian does have an eccentricity, however: The cultural references are persistently retro even for our time, much less for a story set, presumably, decades from now. The mission Commander (Jessica Chastain) is a geek for ‘70s pop, so Mark is stranded with her collection of disco music and Happy Days reruns for entertainment. This leads to some nostalgic numbers for Boomers on the soundtrack, including one, over the end titles, that in context is particularly funny and apt.

CRATE PERFORMANCES

New this week:

The Boxtrolls—The title characters in Laika’s new stop-motion fantasy are, um, trolls that wear boxes. They take their names from whatever’s on the sides of these packages: Fish, Shoe, Clocks, Wheels and so on.

The trolls live deep beneath Cheesbridge, a hilltop city of vaguely European and late-19th-Century character. They’re harmless to humans—they’re insectivores, and their nighttime raids on the town are aimed at its trash, which they like to repurpose. But they’ve been demonized to the Cheesebridgians by Snatcher, a scurvy exterminator, and his entourage of Dickensian henchmen.

It’s true that the Boxtrolls are raising a human boy, the “Trubshaw Baby” whose disappearance Snatcher uses to terrify the locals. But we soon learn that this is a case of foster care, not abduction.

Adapted from Alan Snow’s novel Here be Monsters! by Irina Brignull and Adam Pava and directed by Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi, The Boxtrolls is one of the odder children’s movies to get a big release since The Pirates! Band of Misfits, another stop-motion kid flick. But Pirates! was overtly (and excellently) silly, while The Boxtrolls, though very funny, takes a more lyrically weird, fairy-tale tone. Ben Kinsgley hams it up grandly as Snatcher, leading a cast that includes Jared Harris, Nick Frost, Simon Pegg, Toni Collete, Richard Ayaode, Elle Fanning and Tracy Morgan.

The theme of the movie is pretense—Snatcher is trying, through his campaign against the Boxtrolls, to get a “White hat” making him one of the cheese-sampling city fathers. This despite his severe lactose intolerance. The trolls also react with horrified propriety whenever one of their boxes is shed, or even opened. It’s a wonderfully crazy, generous-hearted movie, though its pungency and gleeful gross-outs won’t appeal to all kids, or all adults.

The Skeleton Twins—The celebratory lip-sync. Among the tropes of comedy-drama, it’s not my favorite. You know the sort of scene I mean—characters mouth along to a song, maybe using a hairbrush or something as a microphone, sometimes solo, like Tom Cruise in Risky Business, sometimes in a group.

It’s not that I think such activities don’t happen in life, or even that I don’t think they’re fun. But they’re usually an annoyance in movies, because it seems like a lazy way to establish bonding between characters or the breaking down of a reserved character’s defenses, to get a popular tune on the soundtrack, and to kill a few minutes. It’s taking a free ride on someone else’s art.

But right in the middle of The Skeleton Twins, troubled brother Milo (Bill Hader) and troubled sister Maggie (Kristen Wiig) perform a lip-sync, to “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” by Starship. And something about the lustiness of Hader’s pantomime and the hilariously wary, reluctant acquiescence of Wiig to that appallingly effective piece of ‘80s schlock got to me. It’s a potent dramatization of how even the cheesiest pop culture can be a source of strength and a balm to the spiritually wounded.

And Maggie and Milo, differently damaged by tragic childhoods, certainly are wounded. Milo, a failed L.A. actor turned waiter who drinks too much, makes a half-hearted suicide attempt. Word of this interrupts Maggie as she’s contemplating ending it all herself. She hasn’t seen Milo in a decade, but she heads to the west coast and drags him back to their upstate New York hometown to recuperate in the house she shares with her cluelessly decent husband (Luke Wilson).

This guy wants to have a baby with her, but she’s secretly still on the pill, perhaps partly because she doesn’t want to perpetuate her family craziness, but also because she’s an unhappy serial adulteress. Milo makes himself at home, and tries to reconnect with the disgraced English teacher (Ty Burrell) with whom he had an affair back in high school.

There’s really nothing very funny about any aspect of the plot of this small film, directed by Craig Johnson from a script he wrote with Mark Heyman. The comedy arises not from the bitterly sad situation but from the resigned gallows humor with which Maggie and Milo deal with it. They’re deeply exasperating people, even to themselves, but as The Skeleton Twins progresses—partly because of that stupid lip-sync!—I started to root for them. Hader and Wiig have a rapport that does, indeed, seem fraternal.