Buzz Blog

13: The Musical **
It will always be baffling when a film adaptation of a source material—book, play, etc.—chooses to abandon the very concept that made it original, and worth adapting in the first place. This version of the 2008 Broadway show tells the story of Evan Goldman (Eli Golden), a Jewish adolescent who’s forced to move with his mom from New York to Indiana, just as he’s preparing for his bar mitzvah. On stage, the cast consisted entirely of young people, focusing on Evan’s adjustment to his new, very Jew-sparse environment, including a friendship with a nerdy classmate (Gabriella Uhl) and trying to get on the good side of his middle school’s most popular kid (JD McCrary). For this version, however, Brown gives a much larger role to Evan’s mom (Debra Messing) and her frustrated writing career while having to move back in with her own mother (Rhea Perlman). That choice means removing huge chunks of narrative architecture that complicates Evan’s choices, and removes almost all of the more personal, low-key songs by Jason Robert Brown to allow an emphasis on the big production numbers by (which are energetically choreographed by Jamal Sims, and often successfully earwormy). The central story—of a boy learning what it really means to behave like an adult—feels rushed and thin, all because no one could figure out how to tell it without adults. Available Aug. 12 via Netflix. (PG)

Bodies Bodies Bodies **1/2
On the one hand, it's a pretty bold move to build a serial-killer thriller around the idea that there's no obvious audience surrogate, and every character is unlikeable; on the other hand, ... yeah, that thing I just said. It's the tale of a group of friends who gather at the remote family mansion of wealthy David (Pete Davidson) for a "hurricane party," where they begin playing a murder-mystery type game—which, naturally, gets unexpectedly real.  Suspicions fly between the attendees—recently-in-recovery Sophie (Amandla Stenberg); Sophie's new girlfriend Bee (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm's Maria Bakalova); drama queen Emma (Chase Sui Wonders); podcaster Alice (Rachel Sennott)—in a way that keeps the 10 Little Indians-style darkened house mystery moving along, with the corpses turning up at unexpected intervals. And while the resolution of the mystery is clever at folding in the way these people really all seem to barely tolerate one another, director Halina Reijn and screenwriter Sarah DeLappe seem far less concerned with delivering a conventionally satisfying slasher movie than with picking at how easily the connections between the characters dissolve under pressure, mostly because they're all liars and narcissists. The performances are solid, considering the unpleasantness of the characters they're playing; Sennott is particularly engaging. But considering how the most reliable audience for thrillers is 20-somethings, congratulations I guess to a movie with the nerve to say to 20-somethings, "Man, you all suck." Available Aug. 12 in theaters. (R)

Day Shift ***
It may be little more than a formula action-horror joint, but what the hell, I’ll take it when someone at least manages to execute the formula. In the San Fernando Valley, Bud Jablonski (Jamie Foxx) is a cash-strapped, rule-breaking freelance vampire hunter who needs to get back in good with the vampire hunter’s union in order to raise the funds that will keep his ex-wife (Meagan Good) and daughter (Zion Broadnax) from moving out of town. He’s assigned sadsack desk jockey Seth (Dave Franco) as his watchdog, just as Bud runs afoul of a powerful vampire named Audrey (Karla Souza) with big plans for controlling Southern California. With the opportunity for plenty of world-building around vampire-hunter bureaucracy and vampire turf wars, the script feels a bit thin, especially when it comes to exploiting the notion that Audrey’s new “sunscreen” allows vampires to be out during daylight. Still, it’s mostly high-energy entertainment, directed by veteran stunt coordinator JJ Perry with an eye towards creative action choreography that’s easy to follow. And Franco is loads of fun as the rookie who knows the vampire rule book but not the reality of being “in the field.” No one will win originality prizes for a little “mismatched buddy comedy” plus “separated family” plus “blood-soaked carnage,” and the villain proves to be kind of a dud. Along the way, there’s just enough pep in its step to make it worth a spin. Available Aug. 12 via Netflix. (R)

Emily the Criminal ***
See feature review. Available Aug. 12 in theaters. (R)

Fall ***
I’m not saying you must have a sphincter-tightening fear of heights in order to get the most out of his survival thriller, but it certainly helps. A year after the death of her husband during a rock-climbing excursion, Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) is still deeply grieving, but reluctantly agrees to join her adrenaline-junkie pal Hunter (Virginia Gardner) on an adventure climbing a 2,000-foot abandoned TV tower. No sooner are they at the top, however, then crumbling infrastructure strands them up there. The script (co-written by Jonathan Frank and director Scott Mann) tries hard to make the emotional set-up matter, including a complication that’s painfully evident quite early on. Fortunately, none of that particularly matters when Mann directs the heck out of the movie once our protagonists arrive at the tower, emphasizing groaning support cables and loosening bolts to build the tension. He finds a great balance between the immediate crises—like recovering lost provisions, trying to send a distress message without cell service or fending off vultures—and second-unit shots that frame their location alone in the middle of the sky. While the central performances are solid enough at conveying both terror and necessary resourcefulness, the real star here is the location. Your mileage—and armrest-gripping—may vary. Available Aug. 12 in theaters. (PG-13)

A Love Song **1/2
See feature review. Available Aug. 12 in theater. (PG)

Mack & Rita **
The “body-swap” comedy is a well-worn movie premise, but one consistent barometer for whether one will work is the ability of the central performance to convey a clash between inner personality and outward appearance. I wouldn’t have expected that Diane Keaton in the central role would be an impediment to that success. Initially, we meet Mack (Elizabeth Lail), an “old-soul” struggling writer who impulsively wishes in a pop-up healing tent for the seeming simpler life of a retiree. She emerges in the body of her 70-something self (Keaton), calling herself Mack’s “Aunt Rita,” and torn between trying to return to normal and enjoying the unique advantages she discovers. The script by Madeline Walter and Paul Welsh doesn’t do a particularly good job of setting up its comedic set pieces for incongruous laughs; it’s a clumsy mistake to show Rita flailing through a pilates class without ever establishing the baseline for young Mack’s competence at the same tasks. That points to a larger problem of not really establishing clear stakes for Mack/Rita’s choice—compare Big’s juxtaposition of Josh’s enjoyable adult experiences with his mom’s anguish—so that there’s an emotional hook. And while Keaton remains a treasure, this performance always just feels like Keaton playing Keaton in all her fashionable fabulousness, rather than a young woman trying to figure out how to be an old woman. Despite a few light-hearted laughs, it’s never clear what Mack & Rita wants to say about youth, about old age, or about how to capture the difference between the two. Available Aug. 12 in theaters. (PG-13)

Secret Headquarters **
High-concept comedies have been using a foundation of “what really matters” parent-child relationships for more than a generation, so it’s kind of annoying when one can’t even get the basic structure right. In this variation, everyday guy Jack (Owen Wilson) discovers alien power source that transforms him into the world-protecting superhero The Guard. A decade later, The Guard’s responsibilities have led to an estrangement from his son Charlie (Walker Scobell)—until Charlie and his middle-school friends discover The Guard’s lair beneath Jack’s house. The primary external conflict involves an arms dealer (Michael Peña) and a soldier with a grudge (Jesse Williams) trying to break in and steal The Guard’s power source, turning much of the second act into something akin to Home Alone with super-powers. But while Scobell continues to have a natural charm—essentially playing the same character he did in The Adam Project—the entire internal conflict should be a lot less relevant once Charlie realizes his dad isn’t just bailing on him because he’s a typical workaholic, but because he’s, you know, saving the world. All that remains is whether the genre stuff is satisfying, and it’s … fine, while missing out on a lot of the potential gee-whiz appeal of young teens experimenting with alien tech. The resolution winds up really rushed and confusing, so wrapped in being appealing to kids that it puts its thumb on the scale to make Jack the biggest problem, rather than Charlie not learning a little perspective. Available Aug. 12 via Paramount+. (PG)

Summering **1/2
There’s no sense ignoring the obvious point of comparison: A coming-of-age story about four pre-teen friends on an adventure involving the discovery of a dead body reads a lot like Stand By Me. Co-writer/director James Ponsoldt changes things up more than simply making the protagonists girls rather than boys in this shot-in-Utah drama, but not always in the right ways. On the final weekend before they are all set to begin middle school, best friends Daisy (Lia Barnett), Dina (Madalen Mills), Lola (Sanai Victoria) and Mari (Eden Grace Redfield) discover the aforementioned corpse in one of their favorite playing places, and set out to find out the story behind his life and death. Ponsoldt initially provides a fanciful sense of the childhood free-spiritednes these girls fear they’ll be leaving behind, and a sweetly low-key moment when they break into their elementary school and seem so at home in a classroom. It simply feels like the characters aren’t given enough of a vivid sense of unique personality beyond a single trait—Mari’s the goody-goody, Dina’s the intellectual, etc.—with the exception of Daisy’s struggles with being abandoned by her father, and the few scenes involving the girls’ mothers feels awkwardly incorporated. There are wise observations here about the difficulties involved in becoming part of the messy adult world, but the result is almost too episodic to really nail the “I never had friends like the ones I had when I was 12” emotions. Available Aug. 12 in theaters. (PG-13)