I was away for the Canada Day long weekend and didn’t post last weekend. That, however, doesn’t mean that I didn’t see any movies. In fact, I have seen four consecutive movies all of which were in various levels of disappointment. Two of these were Netflix, one streamed and the other in the actual theatre. So there are some bonus movie reviews for this week. Wishing everyone a Happy Canada Day and also my American friends a Happy Independence Day. On to the movies:

Kinds of Kindness: Yorgos Lanthimos is a Greek filmmaker, and has an impressive catalog of work including The Lobster, Killing of the Sacred Deer, The Favourite, and last year’s Poor Things which provided Emma Stone with her Best Actress Oscar. Emma Stone is a familiar face in Lanthimos’ films. Others include Willem Dafoe, Rachel Weisz and others. With this background, I was interested to see what this new, quietly released film was all about. How was Emma Stone going to follow up in her performance in Poor Things. Added to this compilation story we have the incredible shrinking man Jesse Plemons. Together, the core characters play in three separate chapters of this film, playing three different and distinct characters. Each of these stories is odd and difficult to describe in any detail.

However much Stone is the focus in the previews and movie poster, she has little impact on the first story. That belongs to Plemons. For his efforts he was nominated for Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival. This first chapter has Plemons looking to impress the older man played by Willem Dafoe. Dafoe wishes for a favour to be granted and when Plemons declines and Dafoe moves on, Plemons’ life is turned upside down. It reminds me a little about Trading Places with Dan Ackroyd and Eddie Murphy where the two older gents bet that they can make a well-heeled artistocrat into a criminal. They succeed. Part Two has Plemons as a man who is an emotional mess about his wife who is missing. She has been gone for days. Stone is the missing wife. Dafoe plays her Dad. Plemons is a cop and has a partner. The police force are concerned about how he is acting. The story unfolds when it appears as though Plemons’ wishes have been granted! Odd things happen after that with surprising results. In the third act, Stone is a married woman with a young daughter but she has left the family to search for another woman. This woman apparently has amazing powers and has been very difficult to find. Stone is joined with Plemons in searching for this woman. There is a loose thread which holds these stories together, but it is a stretch. Getting there is a movie 2:45 in length and slow. It is also confusing, making little sense. I have no idea still upon reflection what kindnesses they were referring to in the title. There are dark motivations at work, with some gore in odd places. It is not uplifting in any way, and reveals certainly the darker side of the human condition. It is a stretch to call this a dark comedy. It is a drama and will not be for people who want a linear story and a straightforward message. I didn’t like this, and walked away shaking my head as confused as I have been after finishing a movie in quite some time. Other efforts by Lanthimos were for this viewer more satisfying and better all around, including the strange Poor Things. You have been warned.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga: In 1985, George Miller directed Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Miller had been well involved in the Mad Max story from the beginning in 1979 with a very young Mel Gibson. So when he returned to direct in 2015 Mad Max: Fury Road with Tom Hardy as Max it became a surprise hit. It also became a movie where Charlize Theron stole the movie with her performance of a woman named Imperator Furiosa and the memorable CGI and desert car chase scenes. Fast forward another 9 years, and Miller is putting his name as part of the credits for a new Mad Max prequel about the Charlize character Furiosa. Sadly what the made the rebooted Mad Max so fresh with new energy is missing from this prequel.

The world in which Furiosa lives in her youth and getting into her teens is this strange dystopia. Set in Australia we have a world where there are overlords who control various means of production. Max Max Fury Road focused on this Citadel, but there are others. There is of course the ongoing question through all Mad Max of where exactly does all the gas/petrol come from? It is most pronounced in this effort. So many vehicles, from trucks to cars and motorcycles. But keeping that aside, there is a story of a young girl who eventually becomes the sidekick of the powerful leader in the Citadel. She has some prior history with the weakest part of this whole story which is the Chris Hemsworth character, Dr Dementus. The acting is so over-the-top with an outrageous accent, with a strange beard, horrible prosthetic nose (not unlike Bradley Cooper in Maestro) and chariot-like motorcycle vehicle that makes little sense.

There is an odd dynamic between Hemsworth and the young Furiosa who as an older woman is played by Anya Taylor Joy who barely says anything throughout. That is another issue, because there are very few motivations or things learned about the pivotal character in Fury Road. But it falls flat.

The story is weak. The performances are odd, and it seems that the CGI is driving where the plot goes. CGI in my mind can enhance a storyline, turning a line on a script into a believable image on the screen. The hurry-up filming style is used time and again, with it all seemingly sped up, but also stunts that are unreal, with bodies and machines flying all over the place. One set piece moves into another, but it is like a comic book. I wasn’t connected with Furiosa and I didn’t care about where this all ends up, because you realize that it becomes the Charlize Theron version of the character. I think that this was an opportunity missed. Sadly Miller seems to have got caught up in it, and likely didn’t see where the end product is ending up. Of all the characters Tom Burke is close to a Max in this, and he is somewhat interesting. Overall, this is a miss, and I don’t see that it is worth the money for the theatre. This isn’t adding much to the overall Mad Max storyline.

A Family Affair: On the Canada Day weekend it was a Toronto Globe & Mail pick for the long weekend to be watching the latest Nicole Kidman and Zac Ephron romantic comedy vehicle. Joey King, unfamiliar to me, is familiar with younger viewers and is playing Nicole Kidman’s daughter, but also working for Zac Ephron who is playing a Tom Cruise-like agent, superhero.

For me I couldn’t get over all the plastic surgery on the screen, in a paper thin plot that was pretty obvious. Hollywood superstar doing one of many sequels to a formulaic series has the young personal assistant King thinking the movie needs to re-written. Her Mom, Kidman, happens to be a writer. After some tequilas the Hollywood star and Mom do what romantic comedies do, with predictable results from the daughter. All of this was forgettable, and it is surprising to see Nicole Kidman put her name to it. I am not a fan of Ms Kidman generally, and so this was not something to gain any points in my books. This is a hard pass and not worth your time.

Atlas: Like Nicole Kidman, I am left wondering why Jennifer Lopez would associate herself with this Netflix release Atlas. What do you get when you have a little bit of Avatar, a little bit of Interstellar, a little bit of Gravity, and a little bit of Alien and other parts of other movies with relationships between parents and kids and underlining guilt? The answer is that you have a movie that the sum of its parts from better movies doesn’t equate to a decent movie unto itself.

Lopez plays a woman, named Atlas, who’s Mom was instrumental in developing a new form of human-like Artificial Intelligence (“AI”). The AI takes the form of Canadian Simu Lui with blue contacts in. It seems that Atlas and AI robot were learning and growing up together.

In the end, Lopez needs to learn how to trust again, and in a situation much like TARZ in Interstellar there is this bond needed to run the Avatar-like machine/space ship that she is occupying. Things move ahead. Lopez is looking to track down the AI robot and prevent him from doing some sinister things. Time after time there are scenes taken from other better movies. I don’t feel the need to delve further into the plot because I think it is just tiresome. In short, this is a film not worthy of your time. There are other films including those listed as references from this one that you should check out instead.