Film Reviews: New Releases for May 10

Force of Nature: The Dry 2 **1/2
As was true in 2020’s The Dry—writer/director Robert Connolly’s previous adaptation of a Jane Harper novel about Australian federal agent Aaron Falk (Eric Bana)—the structure of this follow-up assumes we’re far more invested in the backstory of our protagonist than in everything going on around him. It deals with the aftermath of a corporate wilderness retreat gone wrong, as a woman named Alice (Anna Torv) goes missing—just as she was about to turn over evidence as an informant for Falk against her shady financial-services employer (Richard Roxburgh). Much of the narrative involves flashbacks to Alice’s group—including a pair of sisters with a messy history, an estranged friend and Alice’s supervisor—with the whodunnit component complicated by the growing realization that Alice wasn’t a particularly decent person. But just like in The Dry, Connolly also incorporates flashbacks to Falk’s own youth, and a completely unrelated experience that (presumably) shapes his response to the ongoing investigation. And unfortunately, Bana’s Falk remains a purely functional hero whose complexity is purely theoretical. Throw in a subplot involving a decades-old serial-killer case and a half-hearted attempt to fold Alice’s story into a larger societal statement, and you’ve got something that might have been a lot more interesting if it just let us figure out whodunnit. Available May 10 in theaters. (R)

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes **1/2
The most recent incarnation of the Planet of the Apes series has been such an outlier in the franchise world—viscerally thrilling, thematically rich and built on the extraordinary motion-capture performances of Andy Serkis as the chimpanzee Caesar—that there was perhaps nowhere to go but down. This latest new installment takes place generations after the death of Caesar, with the apes long since split into factions, and a chimpanzee named Noa (Owen Teague) setting out on a quest after surviving an attack on his clan by gorillas and encountering a stray human (Freya Allan) along the way. In theory, there’s subtext here about how great leaders, whether religious or secular, always have their teachings manipulated or interpreted for self-serving reasons, but there’s really only a vague hand wave at that concept in favor of a simple action-movie plot engine. Director Wes Ball (The Maze Runner) serves up solid enough set pieces, but they lack a sense of gravity or consequence, even when characters are threatening to fall from precipitous CGI heights. Mostly, it’s a bummer not to have a complex protagonist like Caesar, as Noa’s arc takes a predictable rise-of-the-hero direction, and the primary ape antagonist (Kevin Durand) has a motivation that could best be described as “King Louie from The Jungle Book.” It’s all resolutely fine—and we know these movies can do a lot better. Available May 10 in theaters. (PG-13)

Let It Be ***
It’s not the fault of Michael Lindsay-Hogg that his original 1970 documentary about the Beatles’ 1969 recording and rehearsal sessions feels limited in light of what Peter Jackson did with Lindsay-Hogg’s raw footage in the 2021 Get Back miniseries. The Beatles placed more contemporaneous restrictions on what Lindsay-Hogg could use, and 21st-century digital technology made some audio usable that wasn’t usable 50 years ago. Nevertheless, this does now feel like a somewhat slight and incomplete chronicle of those pivotal weeks leading up to the now-legendary concert on the rooftop of Apple Corps headquarters in London; we’re barely aware of how this all fits into a plan for a big live-performance comeback. Proportionally, you get much more of the easy camaraderie, and the nostalgic vibe of the lads playing the kind of covers—“Kansas City,” “Shake, Rattle & Roll,” “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me”—that characterized their early years. And while you can get a sense for the tension caused by Paul’s perfectionism, the editing definitely doesn’t emphasize the beginning-of-the-end friction, or show that George had already quit at one point. It’s still an enjoyable condensed record of the creative work going on at that moment, with playful asides like a bossa-nova version of “The Long and Winding Road,” plus the person-on-the-street reaction to the musical history taking place right above their heads. We now know, though, that this was just the appetizer to Get Back’s main course. Available May 8 via Disney+. (NR)

Nowhere Special ***1/2
Given the inspired-by-a-true-story premise—a single dad with a terminal illness trying to figure out who will raise his young son—it would be nearly impossible for this narrative not to be at least a little maudlin, but it’s kind of remarkable how honestly writer/director Uberto Pasolini builds the sense of emotional consequence. The father on that tragic quest is John (James Norton), a 33-year-old Dublin window cleaner raising 3-year-old Michael (Daniel Lamont) without the child’s long-departed mother, and working with social workers to find a potential adoptive family for Michael without really letting him know what’s about to happen. Pasolini folds in John’s own history as a child of foster care fairly unobtrusively, adding a level of complexity to the way John observes Michael’s prospective new parents looking for reasons that they’re not going to be right. Indeed, watchfulness is at the center of what works so well here, both in Norton’s performance wrestling with the weight of getting his choice right, and young Lamont—a remarkable find—conveying both complete adoration for his father, the occasional burst of anger and a hint of awareness that something is going on. In a sense the plot is almost too simple, not offering a ton of different notes to play as we move from one parental candidate to the next between montages of daddy/child bonding. The notes it does offer, though, work in lovely, heartbreaking harmony—and every tear it jerks feels earned. Available May 10 in theaters. (NR)

Poolman *1/2
If I hadn’t already known going in that, in addition to starring Chris Pine, this strained comedy-thriller was co-written and directed by him, would I still have come away feeling like this was just a failed vanity project? Pine plays Darren Barrenman, who lives in a trailer at a Los Angeles apartment complex, tending to the pool while spending much of his spare time rabble-rousing at L.A. city council meetings. When a mysterious woman (DeWanda Wise) tells Darren that there’s a corrupt conspiracy afoot in city government, Darren is only too ready to begin an amateur investigation. Pine doesn’t exactly hide the influence of Chinatown—the 1974 classic gets name-dropped more than once—which is a perilous undertaking on its own. Yet it often feels like Pine had no more complicated idea in mind than “what if Chinatown, but with Jeff Lebowski instead of Jake Gittes,” seasoned with pointedly quirky details like a Golden Girls-themed drag cabaret, and Darren’s habit of writing fan letters to his activist idol Erin Brockovich. He also gives way too much free rein to his own broad performance, and to the many familiar faces in his supporting cast (Danny DeVito as a has-been director, Annette Bening as Darren’s therapist, Stephen Tobolowsky as a city councilman, Jennifer Jason Leigh as Darren’s girlfriend). There are plenty of great historical examples of “hang-out” movies that worked; here’s one of those where all the fun hanging out seems to have been taking place on the set, but not by anyone watching the movie. Available May 10 in theaters. (R)

We Grown Now ***1/2
See feature review. Available May 10 in theaters. (PG-13)