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Warner Bros. Pictures
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Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie in Barbie
Barbie ***
On the one hand, all the credit in the world to Greta Gerwig for having the boundless imagination to come up with at least a dozen different ideas for how to make Mattel’s iconic gal-on-the-go doll into an actual movie; on the other hand, I wish she hadn’t tried to fit all of them into the
same movie. It opens with one stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) abruptly losing her perpetual “best day ever” sunny disposition, necessitating a trip from Barbie Land to the Real World—with bleached-blond Ken (Ryan Gosling) along for the ride—to find out why a breach has developed between the two planes of existence. Gerwig and cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto nail the plastic pastel surfaces of Barbie’s world, and the script by Gerwig and Noah Baumbach finds loads of fun in the female-centric universe’s rules. But they also have plenty they want to say—about gendered expectations, about male fragility, about choosing imperfect reality over fantasy—and they’re sometimes a bit clunky about saying it, as well as trying to fit it into the more conventionally silly material. That silliness is so entertaining, though—particularly when it focuses on Gosling’s fully-committed performance as Ken, up to and including a dance-off with a rival Ken (Simu Liu)—that it’s easier to forgive Gerwig’s excess of ambition that has her mixing up
Enchanted,
Pinocchio,
The Matrix and
Toy Story through the lens of a feminist studies textbook. “Subversive Barbie” needed maybe a couple more packaging tweaks before being shipped to market.
Available July 21 in theaters. (PG-13)
Oppenheimer ***
See
feature review.
Available July 21 in theaters. (R)
Stephen Curry: Underrated **1/2
The terrific filmmaking instincts director Peter Nicks has shown in his social-issue documentaries (
The Waiting Room,
The Force,
Homeroom) don’t quite translate to his attempts to craft a narrative around the life of NBA star/future Hall of Famer Stephen Curry. The framework suggests a focus on Curry’s rise from a scrawny nobody who was only recruited to play college ball at tiny liberal-arts school Davidson, to all-time 3-point shot king, and Nicks certainly does address the work Curry put in to develop a particular skill better than anyone before him. But Nicks also becomes too enamored of the Cinderella story surrounding Davidson’s Curry-led underdog NCAA tournament run in 2008, spending a huge chunk of the movie’s third act on that one season, to the point where
Underrated rushes through the injuries and struggles in Curry’s first NBA seasons in a montage lasting mere seconds. And the scenes capturing Curry circa 2022, trying to return to the NBA finals after three challenging years while also trying to complete his college degree, get similarly short shrift. Nicks gets a few great candid moments, like Curry attempting to study while his toddler son stomps loudly on bubble wrap, but with so much time spent on one big moment of success, it too often feels like we’re missing a sense of what kind of intensity drives someone to prove all the doubters wrong.
Available July 21 via Apple TV+. (NR)
They Cloned Tyrone **1/2
You get a sense for how effectively Jordan Peele has turned a cinematic cocktail of humor, creepiness and social commentary into his personal brand by getting a look at the store-brand equivalent. Co-writer/director Juel Taylor follows the story of Fontaine (John Boyega), a drug dealer who is shot and killed by a rival—only to wake up with no memory of the incident. But local pimp Slick Charles (Jamie Foxx) and prostitute Yo-Yo (Teyonah Parris) do remember, and together they set out to investigate what’s going on in their neighborhood. It’s a fun idea to craft a story that puts the “x” in both “blaxploitation” and “
X-Files,” and Foxx makes a meal of the preening dialogue given to Slick Charles (like his manicure instruction to “respect that cuticle”). The problems emerge with the dark conspiracy at the center of the story, which doesn’t make a lick of sense when you stop to think about it for even a second. That wouldn’t matter quite so much if the satirical idea behind it were clearer, but Taylor and co-writer Tony Rettenmaier provide a muddled sense for what exactly that conspiracy is hoping to accomplish. And once the climax reveals yet another potentially interesting idea, it’s frustrating that they’re not really willing to explore the psychology that might lead to it. As a comedy,
They Cloned Tyrone has a lot going for it; when it tries to get serious, there’s just an ineffable something missing.
Available July 21 via Netflix. (R)