Film Reviews: New Releases for June 20 | Buzz Blog

Thursday, June 19, 2025

Film Reviews: New Releases for June 20

Elio, 28 Years Later, Pavements, Prime Minister

Posted By on June 19, 2025, 7:34 AM

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click to enlarge Elio - DISNEY/PIXAR
  • Disney/Pixar
  • Elio
28 Years Later ***
You can tell director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland have been spilling over with ideas for how to expand the world of their 2002 “rage virus”/zombie original 28 Days Later, and enough of them connect here that it makes up for the potentially unsatisfying sensation of watching a pilot for an anthology series. The principal location is an island off the Scottish coast, where a community survives in isolation from the virus that has ravaged Great Britain for decades, and father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) takes his 12-year-old son Spike (Alfie Williams) on a rite-of-passage expedition to learn survival skills. That opening act is by far the most conventional, a simple survival narrative punctuated with some great tension and Boyle’s off-kilter visual style. Then Spike puts his knowledge to the test by taking his ailing mother Isla (Jodie Comer) on a journey to find a mysterious doctor (Ralph Fiennes), and things get considerably weirder and more melancholy. Mixed in with the berserker creatures going full Mortal Kombat on human spines, there’s surprisingly emotional material about mortality and what exactly makes us human—it’s notable that Jame tells Spike the zombies “have no mind, so they have no soul,” just as Isla seems to be losing her own mind—plus a terrific performance by Fiennes that zags every time you think it’s about to zig. Those expecting nothing but blood-spraying action might be caught off-guard, while the cliffhanger ending is less a frustration then an intriguing hint at where else this world might lead. Available June 20 in theaters. (R)

Elio **1/2
The emotional core of Pixar’s features, much more than their high concepts, has always been their secret weapon, so when the message gets muddled and occasionally fairly dark, the adventure and comedy elements can sometimes end up feeling disjointed as well. It’s the tale of Elio Solís (Yonas Kibreab), an orphaned middle-schooler being raised by his Aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña) and increasingly obsessed with the idea of being abducted by alien intelligence—and when, surprisingly, that abduction does actually occur, Elio finds himself in the middle of a potential intergalactic diplomatic incident. There are certainly some charms to be found, many of them in the character of an eyeless, larva-like alien adolescent called Glordon (Remy Edgerly) whom Elio befriends, and striking images like a reflection of moonlight on the ocean. But the setting—a sort of interstellar United Nations—feels weirdly underdeveloped and built entirely around funky design of the alien creatures, while even the most fast-paced action plays out as fairly low-stakes. Most frustratingly, though, the notions about how kids deal with feeling lonely and isolated end up dancing metaphorically around the edges of potentially awkward subjects—like coming out to your parents, or experiencing suicidal ideation—in a way that seems too abstract for both kids and adults. If this is the kind of “It Gets Better” lecture that I’m reading it as, the movie itself needed to get better to fully sell it. Available June 20 in theaters. (PG)

Pavements ***
Writer/director Alex Ross Perry gives a clinic in commitment to the bit—perhaps to a fault—in making an epic docudrama about 1990s slacker-rock darlings Pavement that would justify the onscreen description of them as “the world’s most important and influential band.” Launching from a 2022 reunion tour, Perry explores the band’s main 10-year-run led by frontman Stephen Malkmus, while also exploring three other projects celebrating the band: a museum exhibition of their memorabilia; a “jukebox musical” titled Slanted! Enchanted!; and a Bohemian Rhapsody-esque biopic called Range Life, with Stranger Things star Joe Keery going full Method as Malkmus. It’s worth noting that Range Life doesn’t actually exist (the New York premiere of the film depicted here notwithstanding), and it’s fair to say that nothing here is as wonderful as watching Keery play his version of going through Serious Actor preparations for a role, including attempting to mimic Malkmus’s vocal style by consulting with a speech therapist and getting a photo of Malkmus’s tongue. The more conventional documentary material is perfectly fine at capturing the ups and downs of a hard-to-pigeonhole band, but it does get a bit lost with all of the material surrounding it trying to provide cheeky support for Perry’s defense of Pavement’s greatness. Personally, though, I’d love to spend even more time with the version of this that’s the perfect melding of This Is Spinal Tap and Walk Hard. Available June 20 at Broadway Centre Cinemas. (NR)

Prime Minister ***
Here’s a story about a woman who was second-in-command of a major political party, thrust to the forefront just weeks before an election when the party’s leader stepped aside—but this is not the story of Kamala Harris. Jacinda Ardern, at the age of 37 and pregnant with her first child, became prime minister of New Zealand, and Michelle Walsche and Lindsay Utz chronicle Ardern’s tumultuous five years in office by putting a human face on the weight of having the buck stop with you, and caring about what good you can do with that power. Taking advantage of home movies and archived interviews Ardern conducted for an oral-history project, the filmmakers capture someone trying to be a mother and a partner while dealing with crises like the 2019 terrorist attack on a mosque in Christchurch and the COVID pandemic. It’s true that a certain sameness sets in as Ardern faces one challenge after another, building to anti-lockdown/anti-vaccine protests fueled by American conservative media. Yet it’s also undeniably uplifting to watch someone govern in a manner guided by compassion and a refusal to avoid doing hard things. “People shouldn’t have to thank you for a humane response,” Ardern says at one point, and Prime Minister provides an insightful portrait of an approach to leadership we can easily feel wistful about not getting a chance to experience. Available June 20 at Broadway Centre Cinemas. (NR)

Sally **1/2
In theory, I understand the idea in director Cristina Costantini’s documentary profile of pioneering astronaut Sally Ride to offer dramatized images of Ride’s life with Tam O’Shaughnessy, the life partner of 27 years whose existence was only made public after Ride’s death from pancreatic cancer in 2012. As O’Shaughnessy herself laments, very little photographic evidence of their relationship exists due to Ride’s desire to stay closeted, so these gauzy re-creations become a kind of acknowledgement that this relationship actually happened. The scenes themselves, however, just don’t really work as intended; they evoke the vibe of a true-crime series, and become a distraction from the story of how much Ride had to overcome—the sexism of the mostly-ex-military male astronaut corps, the ridiculous questions asked by media, the sense that she had to get married to a man as a beard to deflect any possible suspicion about her sexuality—in order to take that “first American woman in space” shuttle flight in 1983. O’Shaughnessy and other key people from Ride’s life, along with fantastic archival footage, provide a rich portrait of all the personality traits that made her both ideal for this particular role in the historical spotlight, and an often-challenging romantic partner. And it’s wonderful and important that O’Shaughnessy got the chance to speak this truth. It just feels like we could have taken in all of that information without actors pretending to live that life. Available June 17 via Disney+. (NR)

About The Author

Scott Renshaw

Scott Renshaw

Bio:
Scott Renshaw has been a City Weekly staff member since 1999, including assuming the role of primary film critic in 2001 and Arts & Entertainment Editor in 2003. Scott has covered the Sundance Film Festival for 25 years, and provided coverage of local arts including theater, pop-culture conventions, comedy,... more

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