“The Order”
(Crime/Thriller: 1 hour, 56 minutes)
Starring: Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult and Tye Sheridan
Director: Justin Kurzel
Rated: R (Strong violence, and language throughout)
Movie Review:
“The Order” is an absorbing crime thriller. It is an adaptation of the book “The Silent Brotherhood” by Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt. Both are based on true events.
In 1983, Idaho-based FBI agent Terry Husk (Law, playing a fictional character, a representational combination of FBI agents) connects a pattern of recent bank robberies, counterfeiting operations and armored car heists to The Order, part of the Aryan Nation, a white supremacist group spreading racist and anti-Semitic ideology. The group commits crimes across the Pacific and Mountain states. Agent Husk and young policeman Jamie Bowen (Sheridan) are determined to find The Order and their enigmatic leader Bob Mathews (Hoult).
The performances make this a plot-based movie. Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult and Tye Sheridan provide thought-provoking characters. Law is engaging and youthful Hoult plays a notorious racist leader nicely. Sheridan provides a nice turn as a supporting character. Their performance appears something of neo-western with a graver tone — racism of a neo-Nazi group.
This plot-based narrative provides multiple action scenes, although missing moments to better establish characters in dramatic moments. Gunshots are constantly blaring, but the observation of protagonists defeating their foes completes this movie.
“The Order” fits the directing style of Justin Kurzel. He usually makes crime biographies where young men become full adults with a backdrop of gang-related crime themes. “True History of the Kelly Gang” (2019), which also starred Nicholas Hoult, is an example. Kurzel adds “The Order” to his resume of good movies.
Grade: B (Put in your order of good movies.)
“The Return”
(1 hour, 56 minutes)
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche and Charlie Plummer
Director: Uberto Pasolini
Rated: R (Violence, sexual content, graphic nudity and language)
Movie Review:
Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche team up again. They were part of the cast in the 1996 Academy Award-lauded film “The English Patient” (Director Anthony Minghella). Their impressive pairing here is as husband and wife in the rewarding “The Return.”
The screenplay is a retelling of Homer’s “Odyssey.” It focuses on the return of Odysseus (Fiennes) to his homeland Ithaca twenty years after the Trojan War. There, he finds the land he once ruled in dismay. Numerous suitors are now trying to win the hand of his wife Queen Penelope (Binoche). Even more, these would-be paramours threaten to kill Odysseus and Penelope’s son Telemachus (Plummer). Still holding out hope that her husband Odysseus will return, Penelope fends off the aggressive men by saying she must finish weaving the shroud for her elderly father-in-law.
“The Return” is an attractive movie despite knowing how it concludes. Fiennes and Binoche provide excellent performances. They, Charlie Plummer and others of the cast provide an excellent drama with suspense.
This mythological narrative is different from other ancient Greek-Roman tales. No monsters, vengeful gods causing destruction for people who have disobeyed them, nor grandiose special effects exist as with movies such as “Clash of the Titans” (1981, 2010) and “Gods of Egypt” (2016).
“The Return” is a straightforward movie with solid acting and action sequences directed and written by Uberto Pasolini (“Nowhere Special,” 2020) with cowriters Edward Bond and John Collee. It is a worthy return for your dollars.
Grade: B (A return to a good period drama.)
“Y2K”
(Comedy/Horror: 1 hour, 31 minutes)
Starring: Jaeden Martell, Rachel Zegler and Julian Dennison
Director: Kyle Mooney
Rated: R (Bloody violence, strong sexual content/nudity, pervasive language, and teen drug and alcohol use.)
Movie Review:
“Y2K” is set during New Year’s Eve in 1999, the Millennium Eve, but it plays like something from the 1980s. It drives off the fear that was in 1999 about what would happen when computers’ dates moved from 1999 to 2000. The movie is an easy-to-sit-through comedic horror, while not being a convincing feature. This is a teen comedy after all.
Eli (Martell) and Danny (Dennison) crash a New Year’s Eve party. It may their last party. They and other Crawford “Crusaders” High School students find themselves in a major predicament after a computer bug makes any electronic device with a microchip become a self-aware artificial intelligence machine. Even more, the machines began attacking humans with the sole concept of enslaving them. The high school students led by Eli (Martell) and Laura (Zegler) must find a way to rage against the machines.
Several past movies exist about Y2K. They are all middling to lackluster.
This new one is slightly better. The movie also provides some humor for those who remember the concerns about Y2K and politics during the William Jefferson Clinton Administration. The actors play their roles with a sarcastic nature. They provide nostalgic turns, especially for those who grew up in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Still, the roles are stereotypical. Such renders characters unpersuasive people. Additionally, the characters appear very modern in the theme presented, as if teens from 2020 transported back in time.
Computers have been scaring people since the 1990s, especially with concerns regarding artificial intelligence. This movie makes fun of people back then with a prelude to the same fears that exist today. This may be “Y2K’s” best attribute.
Grade: C (Y2K + 24 years too early or too late.)
“Werewolves”
(Horror: 1 hour, 33 minutes)
Starring: Frank Grillo, Katrina Law, and Ilfenesh Hadera
Director: Steven C. Miller
Rated: R (violence, some gore, and strong language.)
Movie Review:
“Werewolves” is another illogical monster movie. The plot is far from compelling. Think of it as a mix of “The Purge” (2013) meets television’s “The Walking Dead.”
As a supermoon approaches, residents become worried. Exposure to moonlight causes people to turn into vicious werewolves because of a latent gene in every human. Former military Capetian and medical researcher Wesley Marshall (Grillo) and Dr. Amy Chen (Law) risk their lives to reach the house of Luch Marshall (Hedera), Wesley’s recently widowed sister-in-law and her daughter Emma (Kamdynn Gary) before the family succumbs to a werewolf horde.
Some characters, despite being scientists, make profoundly novice decisions. One can clearly tell their strategies will not work — and they should know it too — but this does not stop these characters from trying. Their efforts appear futile and so are yours if you find yourself in this flick’s audience.
Grade: D (Do not follow the pack to see this.)
“Solo Leveling: ReAwakening”
(Animation/Action: 2 hours, 00 minutes)
Starring: Taito Ban, Aleks Le and Reina Ueda
Director: Shunsuke Nakashige
Rated: R (Bloody violence, gore and strong language)
Movie Review:
“Solo Leveling: ReAwakening” is a follow-up for fans of the “Solo Leveling” television series based on a South Korean web novel written by Chugong. “ReAwakening” plays akin to a video game almost, primarily from one character’s perspective. Viewers have omnipotence with the story that only connects if you are a big fan of anime, video games and television episodes.
Since experiencing the awakening, a quirk that allows him special abilities after death, Sung Jinwoo (Ban) has acquired abilities to defeat some of the strongest enemies as a low-level hunter. He defeats foes such as monsters and evildoers. With each victory, he levels up, increasing the number of abilities he has to face the next challenge.
Again, this movie plays like a cyclical video game. It has good action scenes and animation is keen. Despite these concepts, one must ask what the point is. Sadly, audience observers do not get to level up.
Grade: C (Repetitive-awakening.)
“Flow”
(Animation/Adventure: 1 hour, 25 minutes)
Director: Gints Zilbalodis
Rated: PG (Peril and thematic elements)
Movie Review:
“Flow” is a superb visual adventure. It features no dialogue other than its animated animal cast making sounds. Dialogue is unneeded. The movie is captivating eye candy up to its contemplative ending.
A black cat takes refuge on a boat with four other animals after a great flood happens. The cat, a yellow Labrador Retriever, a capybara, a white secretarybird and a ring-tailed lemur encounter multiple obstacles on their adventure to survive.
No humans exist in this movie. It takes place after what appears a natural dystopian event. The planet is teeming with various animal life, but no humans. This is absorbingly relaxing as the animals, especially the cat, take on the best human qualities.
The animation is artistically annoying at first. The animals appear less picturesque than the realistic nature surrounding them occasionally. Yet, the visuals are exquisite tranquility, and the filmmakers control the way one sees animals via this pictorial juxtaposition method.
Director Gints Zilbalodis had numerous jobs while making this feature, including producer, cowriter with Matīss Kaža, and a musician for this movie. His efforts are well noted. “Flow” is a beautiful movie. It encompasses the will to survive in a beautiful nature despite the dangers present.
Grade: B + (Go with the flow.)
