He's All That

Director: Mark Waters
Starring: Addison Rae, Tanner Buchanan, Madison Pettis, Rachael Leigh Cook, Peyton Meyer, Isabella Crovetti, Myra Molloy, Annie Jacob, Kourtney Kardashian
Running Time: 91 min.
Rating: TV-MA

★★ ½ (out of ★★★★)

The notion of whether it's a good idea to remake the 1999 romantic comedy She's All That is entirely beside the point. Setting aside the fact we've become numb to any reboot by now, the original is hardly an impeachable cinematic treasure to be passed down through the ages, its basic plot never to be tinkered or toyed with again. After all, it's essentially a remake in itself, having cribbed its basic framework from My Fair Lady and the many ugly duckling makeover plots before and since. Now with Mark Waters' Netflix release, He's All That, it's officially happening again, complete with a gender swap twist and some other elements thrown in to appeal to more modern audiences.

There's always a certain nostalgic appreciation that accompanies even the worst films if you were in the right place and time when it hit. As a serviceable rom-com with two likeable leads that went on to become somewhat of a parody of itself in pop culture, She's All That might conjure up those feelings for some. If anything, you could argue it's one of the better remake candidates, as there's pretty much nothing that can be done that would would either enhance or diminish its source material, which was always pretty malleable.

Having successfully directed genre favorites Mean Girls and Freaky Friday, Waters not only knows the territory, but would also seem to be the ideal choice to deliver what Netflix wants. And it's very clear what that is, with their big idea revolving around an influencer playing herself and using that to commentate on social media's shallowness. Of course, when the movie's simultaneously promoting and benefiting from this, it creates a complicated dichotomy that they navigate more gracefully than expected. While stopping just short of labeling it "self-aware," the approach isn't a terrible idea on paper. But by so blatantly relying on current technology for every facet of the plot, it does run the risk of eventually looking and feeling as dated as the original might to some now, assuming that even matters to fans down the road. What it may best be remembered for is culminating in a painless, hit-or-miss experience with a few bones thrown to fans of the original. 

Instagram influencer and high school senior Padgett Sawyer (TikTok star Addison Rae) appears on the surface to be living the high life, milking a lucrative corporate sponsorship and dating aspiring hip hop artist Jordan Van Draanen (Peyton Meyer). While Padgett's divorced mother Anna (She's All That's Rachael Leigh Cook) pulls down extra shifts as a nurse, encouraging her daughter to pursue a degree, everything comes undone when Jordan's hook-up with a backup dancer is captured on Padgett's live stream. 

Humiliated by her embarrassingly honest, over-the-top meltdown that goes viral, Padgett's suddenly bleeding followers and risks losing her sponsorship. In an attempt to reclaim her social status, she accepts a challenge from best friend Alden (Madison Pettis), to turn transform one of the school's least popular losers into prom king. She's handed anti-social outcast Cameron Kweller (Cobra Kai's Tanner Buchanan), who's so miserable that even his precocious younger sister Brin (Isabella Crovetti) and only friend Nisha (Annie Jacob) are losing patience. 

After initially rejecting her superficial attempts to take an interest in him, Padgett and Cameron gradually grow closer, realizing they share more in common than they could have thought. The problem is preventing him from finding out he's just a bet, as Padgett discovers there may be more to life than accumulating likes on social media.  

Taking the circumstances and blueprint of the original into account, there's a quick turnaround in Cameron's attitude and tolerance of Padgett. After what seems like relatively short time spent on establishing his unpleasantness on the lowest scale possible, he doesn't seem incredibly resistant to her advances, or even all that suspicious of the intentions. In a sense, this might be the most realistic aspect of R. Lee Fleming Jr.'s script if the goal was to present someone so terminally unpopular instantly taken when this girl's attention suddenly comes his way. But they make such a point hammering home his disgust for high school, social media, and anything resembling attention, that's kind of tough to buy. 

If everyone's bone of contention with the 1999 original was that the removal of a girl's glasses transformed her from ugly bookworm into the most popular, beautiful girl in school, this take is at least slightly more nuanced. In a deliberate attempt to avoid potential accusations of sexism and misogyny, they've swapped the genders and while the end results remain mostly unchanged, Buchanan's performance helps, putting the emphasis of Cameron's apathy toward the world on his personal grief and past trauma. It's a decent distinction, distracting from the fact that his moppy hair, flannel and social awkwardnessis are the new version of Rachael Leigh Cook's glasses, even if it just makes him more throwback than loser. 

Addison Rae isn't a professional actress, but apparently there are ways to work around that, with the film bending over backwards to exhaust most of them. She smiles and charms her way through this, pushing the limits of just how important a lead rom-com performance really is, as the rest of the cast picks up the slack, aside from a horrifying celebrity cameo that has this year's Razzie locked up. As for Cook, she appears as Padgett's mom, just so fans of the original can feel super old. That works, but she's given very little to do in what's arguably the film's most thankless role. But at least an entire younger generation gets to feel old also when they realize Aldin is played by the same Madison Pettis who appeared as The Rock's 8 year-old on screen daughter in The Game Plan. But if there's any positive to Freddie Prinze Jr. opting out, it's that fellow She's All That alum Matthew Lillard gets to take the spotlight with his brief, eccentrically crazed turn as Principal Bosch.

If acting is usually the last thing to go wrong with a film, someone forgot to tell Kourtney Kardashian, whose minutes-long stay as Padgett's passive-aggressive social media sponsor is neither passive nor aggressive, succeeding only in making Rae look like Sir Laurence Olivier in comparison. Even while acknowledging the practical desire to stunt cast a reality star in something like this, did it have to be someone you can see physically struggling to bring even the slightest sliver of believability or humanity to the dialogue?

Rae and Buchanan do share some nice scenes together when the ball gets fully rolling with the plot, but it's Peyton Meyer's performance as a self-absorbed viral hip hop egomaniac and Isabella Crovetti's scene-stealing turn as Cameron's caring sister that go above and beyond, with the latter especially adept at making the kind of honest, wry observations you'd hope a character with a front row seat to this silliness would.

Since this wouldn't be complete without somehow working in Sixpence None the Richer's ubiquitous "Kiss Me" song (or at least a cover of it) and a dance-off, we get both, even if the latter seems a bit too choreographed, failing to even capture the spontaneous spark and energy of the '99 film. There's nothing too objectionable about the angle they chose for approaching this material so much as how obvious the execution is. That Netflix has this down to a science by now might be a part of the problem since they've been dropping so many identically filmed and performed titles lately it's become hard for any to register as more than clickbait, even one with the seemingly built-in nostalgia factor of He's All That.   

Beckett

Director: Ferdinando Cito Filomarino
Starring: John David Washington, Alicia Vikander, Boyd Holbrook, Vicky Krieps, Maria Votti, Panos Koronis, Lena Kitsopoulou
Running Time: 108 min.
Rating: R 

★★★ (out of ★★★★)  

Tightly wound and consistently suspenseful, Netflix's political conspiracy thriller, Beckett is bit better than it first appears, wringing genuine tension from the familiar premise of an ordinary man facing insurmountable circumstances. In certain ways, it starts out recalling something along the lines of 2010's The American in terms of tone and style before taking a more action-oriented turn that ups the excitement and violence level. In this case, the American in question is an innocent vacationer rather than a contracted killer, even as he inches closer to the latter by film's end. 

Having already acclimated himself nicely as the quintessential man on the run in Christopher Nolan's Tenet, this is the kind of role John David Washington has already proven to excel at. Here, he plays a man helplessly spiraling into imminent danger after making one horrible mistake that sets off a chain of almost inhumanly bad luck. Having to readjust quickly, he proves more formidable and resourceful than expected, as director Ferdinando Cito Filomarino tries his best to recreate the kind of old school, paranoid atmosphere prevalent in '70's pictures like The Parallax View, with decidely more mixed results.  

U.S. Tourist Beckett (Washington) is vactioning in Greece with girlfriend April (Alicia Vikander) when the two decide to leave their hotel in Athens due to nearby protesting. But when Beckett falls asleep at the wheel, veering off the road and crashing into a nearby house, April is killed immediately. Badly injured and trapped in the car, Beckett can make out a boy being accompanied out of the house by an unknown blonde woman (Lena Kitsopoulou) before he wakes up in the hospital the next day. 

After Beckett gives his statement to the Officer Xenakis (Panos Koronis) at the station, he returns to the accident scene, only to get followed and shot at. Running for his life with these assailants on his trail, Beckett needs to find a way to get to the U.S. embassy in Athens, relying primarily on the help of political activists Lena (Vicky Krieps) and Eleni (Maria Votti). With the truth behind why he's being hunted still unclear, Beckett must come to grips with his own fatal mistake while attempting to escape a dangerous web of deceit and corruption that cuts to the core of the country's unrest. 

With a premise and opening half hour that teases a Hitchcockian puzzlebox, it starts becoming clear later that there just isn't enough style and substance present for it to truly earn such a lofty comparison. That's fine, as few can, bit it does settle into more conventional action territory as Kevin Rice's script fleshes itself out, leaking morsels of information as Beckett deals with one complication after the next in his mission to find safety. But what he really wants is only to get his deceased girlfriend's body returned to the states so that this nightmare can end.

Beckett's guilt and anger over April's death seems to be his primary driving force, which is ironic considering the car accident doesn't have as much to do with the actual conspiracy as you'd think, at least directly. But does this guy ever take a beating, from getting shot, jumping off cliffs to getting stabbed, you could be fooled into thinking this is an unannounced Superman sequel. But because the story follows a clear trajectory of events and Washington's so effective at selling the anguish and frustration over his plight, it at least clears the low action movie threshold necessary for us to temporarily suspend disbelief.

Compared with Washington, Alicia Vikander's role as the doomed April is minor, her performance playing better in hindsight once the fallout following the character's death is fully accessed by film's end. That said, the two actors have very little chemistry as a couple and some of their early small talk is insufferable, putting a damper on the proceedings right out of the gate. Curiously missing in action since her breakthrough in 2017's Phantom Thread, Vicky Krieps turns in solid supporting work as the headstrong, but skeptical activist faced with the dilemma of whether to trust a desperate, volatile stranger. Boyd Holbrook also memorably appears as a U.S. embassy employee Beckett is forced to rely on if he has any hopes of extracting himself from this mess.  

It's up for debate whether the final explanation of events lives up to the action preceding it, but the creative execution mostly delivers, as the script's clarity and cleanliness is appreciated in a time when movies of this ilk pile contrivances on top of contrivances to get where it needs to go. There may be moments of that going on, but not an egregious, empty-headed amount, making it easier to become invested in the outcome. Revolving around a somewhat sympathetic protagonist in the wrong place at the wrong time, Filomarino holds our attention by using all the reliable tricks a throwback potboiler should. Beckett doesn't reinvent the wheel, but adequately accomplishes what's needed, making it more than worth a watch.

Jungle Cruise

Director: Juame Collet-Serra
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Edgar Ramirez, Jack Whitehall, Jesse Plemons, Paul Giamatti
Running Time: 127 min.
Rating: PG-13

★★ ½ (out of ★★★★)
 
It's hard not to have a conflicted internal dialogue regarding Dwayne Johnson's on-screen career, which seems to grow by leaps and bounds with each new release. In case you haven't heard, he gets paid a lot of money to star in some very big movies that make serious bank and audiences seem to really enjoy. While some are undeniably better than others, it wouldn't be irrational to categorize all of them as pure escapism or entertainment with a capital "E." And that's not a dig. His projects may have little sustaining nutritional value but he has the charismatic ability to basically pull off anything, making you wonder whether he should attempt some seriously challenging material instead of continuing to elevate lesser mainstream movies that more desperately need him.

Maybe that pivot will eventually come for Johnson, but for now we're kidding ourselves if we think he's going to stop making movies like Jungle Cruise. He knows his audience, cleverly blazing a career path even the biggest stars would be envious of. In other words, if it aint broke, don't fix it. For now. This one's more of the same and pretty disposable, sharing much in common with the Disney theme park attraction on which it's based, genuinely feeling like a movie adapted from a ride. It's occasionally funny, the performances are enjoyably hammy and there's a lot happening. In fact, so much is going on that for a while I actually just started to tune out, only making a rebound of sorts toward the final act. It's a mess, though not an agressively offensive one, improved greatly by two winning leads who deserve better, but remain undeniably great together. 

After a flashback to 1556 shows a Spanish conquistador-led trek to South America in search of the mystical Tears of the Moon healing tree, Dr. Lily Houghton's (Emily Blunt) research on it is presented by her brother MacGregor (Jack Whitehall) to the Royal Society of London in 1918. Despite the siblings' claims that the tree's healing flowers can revolutionize medicine and cure disease are met with skepticism and derision, Lily steals an arrowhead artifact she believes is key to discovering its whereabouts. With that and an ancient map in hand, Lily and MacGregor arrive in Brazil as she recruits cheap jungle cruise skipper Frank Wolff (Johnson) to take them down the Amazon. 

Upon stealing his boat back from his scuzzy boss Nilo Nemolato (Paul Giamatti) Frank heads down the river with the Houghtons, unaware they're being followed by a German sub commandeered by the conniving Prince Joachim (Jesse Plemons), who's desperately seeking the Tree for his own fame and fortune. With Lily unsure she can trust the cocky Frank, he views her as a humorless, pampered princess. Even if there's a lot more to both, they'll have little choice but to co-exist to survive this trip, if they want to reap the benefits of the elusive Tears of the Moon.

Sticking strictly to the Disney playbook, anyone expecting to be dazzled by plot twists and suprises or taken aback by its unexpected edginess will be disappointed. Co-writers Michael Green, Glenn Ficara and John Requa actually bring more narrative nuance to the brief flashbacks involving Frank's backstory and that of Edgar Ramirez's embattled Spanish conquistador than a lot of main arc involving the hunt for the Tree. Most of the mission revolves around slapstick silliness and the mustache-twirling Prince's cat-and-mouse game with the Houghtons and Frank. Thankfully, none of this is completely unbearable, in no small part due to the chemistry between Johnson and Blunt, with the former having some real fun with the character's one-liners and cheesy puns throughout. 

With Johnson's overconfident con man taking center stage, it's been somewhat overlooked just how good Blunt is opposite him, showcasing some excellent comedic timing and physical chops in over-the-top sight gags they could have easily fallen flat with less game actress in the part. If there's a drawback, it's that the pair bounce off each other so naturally that their relationship seems almost asexual, strangely lacking any romantic sparks to the point that they seem more like siblings than Blunt and Whitehall do. Of course, this doesn't entirely fall on them, as bringing heated chemistry to a family film based on a kids' park ride probably wasn't high on Disney's priority list, nor should it be. 

Plemons isn't exactly miscast in the Prince Joaquim role since he's played more than his fair share of villains, but it's still odd watching him play one this over-the-top. He's compulsively watchable in a scenery-chewing kind of way, occasionally making you wonder if he stepped in after Chistoph Waltz passed on what plays like one of his trademark parts. As a sidekick character, Jack Whitewall is more entertainingly endearing than you'd expect given MacGregor was probably intended as more of a one-dimensional, snobby irritant. 

The real star might be composer James Newton Howard's clever reworking of Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters" as the backdrop to what's by far the best sequence in the entire film, where Frank's origin story is revealed in full. Skillfully constructed, exciting and well shot, you'll wish the whole film were as absorbing as these five minutes, offering up substantial proof there was potential to be mined from at least part of this premise. And it's not that the rest looks bad per se, just very artificial and effects heavy. At certain points many shots have this enticing, picaresque quality to them, until you realize it only looks nice in the superficial way you'd expect to appreciate in a Thomas Kincaid painting. And the less said about Frank's pet tiger the better, as it's about time to call a moratorium on CGI animals if this is the best they can do.

The African Queen this isn't, but it doesn't need to be, even as it deliberately draws upon the 1951 film as a blueprint, along with some added inspiration from the Indiana Jones franchise (mostly Crystal Skull though). At just over two hours it isn't a total slog and reliable action director Juame Collet-Serra keeps the story moving at a fast enough clip that you can imagine families losing themselves in all the bells and whistles, as intended. But many more will have little difficulty filing Jungle Cruise under "not my thing," acknowledging its obvious strengths while recognizing it's nothing we haven't seen before.

Spiral: From the Book of Saw

Director: Darren Lynn Bousman
Starring: Chris Rock, Max Minghella, Marisol Nichols, Samuel L. Jackson, Dan Petronijevic, Richard Zeppieri, Patrick McManus, K.C. Collins, Zoie Palmer
Running Time: 93 min.
Rating: R

★★★ (out of ★★★★)

When news broke a couple of years ago that Chris Rock had an idea to revitalize the struggling Saw franchise so promising that Lionsgate immediately signed off, interest was piqued. Much of that anticipation stemmed not only from the actor/comedian's direct involvement, but the bewilderment of what could possibly resuscitate a franchise that already blew its shot at rebirth with 2017's underwhelming Jigaw. Far from the "reboot" fans were promised, it only delivered more of the same, doing little for a series that remained on life support, straying so far from the series' initial intent that it became unrecognizable. 

Trampling over the simplicity of James Wan's thrilling 2004 original were a string of neverending sequels that each tried to top the body counts, gruesome traps, and superfulous law enforcement characters of its predecessors. And by prematurely killing off its main villain, everything then became about the gore, revolving around scenarios that were unnecessarily disgusting rather than clever, existing solely for shock value. It didn't even start as a horror franchise, but rather devolved into the worst kind of one, becoming at least partially responsible for introducing the term "torture porn" into the cultural lexicon. 

Now, after a year-long delay, Saw II, III and IV director Darren Lynn Bousman is back at the helm for Spiral, a spin-off that ends up being the best entry since he left. So while I'm still unsure about any new idea for the franchise including more law enforcement and copycat Jigsaws, it does fit the story this time and jumps off the page as a big improvement over most of the sequels. For once, the traps feel in service of the screenplay rather than the other way around and it doesn't look like it was shot in a septic tank, even featuring scenes that take place in actual daylight. With a pacing and style that deviates considerably from what's come before, it gets a fresh enough coat of paint while retaining just enough original elements to satisfy hardcore fans. 

Det. Ekekiel "Zeke" Banks (Rock) is an unpopular, insubordinate police officer assigned by Capt. Angie Garza (Marisol Nichols) to investigate the brutal death of his friend and colleague, Det. Marv Bozwick (Dan Petronijevic), who was hit by an oncoming train while chasing a perpetrator off-duty. Vocal in his complaints about the inner workings of the department, Zeke's begrudgingly assigned a new rookie partner for the case named William Schenk (Max Minghella), as both officers quickly realize the odd circumstances surrounding Bozwick's death point to a potential Jigsaw Killer copycat. 

With tapes and clues leading the way and a climbing body count, it becomes obvious the murderer is exclusively targeting corrupt cops, something Zeke knows about all to well, having snitched on his dirty co-workers years ago while serving under his father, the now-retired chief Marcus Banks (Samuel L. Jackson). Presently a pariah on the force and attempting to fix the fractured relationship with his dad, Zeke's struggling to stay a step ahead of the mysterious killer, whose motivations may cut deeper than anyone expected.

What's most noticeably different from the previous Saw films is how this looks. It still has that grungy, basement-dwelling aethetic but at least we're not watching something that seems to have been filmed in complete darkness. At points, the daylight scenes (itself an anomaly for this franchise) even look fairly slick, heightening the visual impact when the darker trap scenes eventually do arrive. And despite how they're shot and edited not differing all that much from the series norm, it doesn't feel as if we're being bombarded by too many of these gory sequences for no reason, which had long ago emerged as the series' biggest problem. 

Co-writers Josh Stolberg and Peter Goldfinger gradually build the story to each trap with Bousman judiciously spacing them out enough so that audience fatigue doesn't set in. Of course, there's the usual problematic irony that these victims don't really have much of a "choice" at all in these torture devices, unless you count perishing in two different, equally grisly ways as a selection. But it helps that there's at least a solid narrative foundation in place this time, as the plot follows a tight, linear path in which each clue leads to the next in a logical manner unseen since the franchise's infancy. 

Criticisms this all plays like a police procedural are valid, but also hardly worth complaining about since it's done well and the one thing this series desperately needed was that kind of straightforward structure to stay on course. Compared to its predecessors, this is practically a downright restrained character study in terms of the buddy-cop relationship that develops between frequently aggravated Zeke and his idealistic young partner. It feels very Training Day or Se7en, which helps in further solidifying that the characters actually have some agency here.

A dark departure from the roles he's known for tackling, Rock's casting is exactly what the entry needed, with the actor bringing a cutting, humorous edge that becomes invaluable to the dour proceedings. Combine that with Samuel L. Jackson's fiery intensity as a character with constantly questionable motives and you have a a pretty gripping dynamic throughout. It was always fun speculating how unexpected bigger name stars could acquit themselves a Saw movie and this is definitely the closest we've come, with better than anticipated results.

That Tobin Bell's John "Jigsaw" Kramer only appears in some newspaper clippings and gets a passing mention is the right call in terms of the story being told. As much as Bell's creepy performance provided the only worthwhile element in so many uneven sequels, we desperately needed a break if his only function is to be misused in flashbacks. Due to the machinations of this particular plot, the iconic pig head takes center stage in both the clues and recorded video form, with Billy The Puppet nowhere around, perhaps being saved for a future sequel. That's fine, but what's missed most is Bell's unmistakable voice, as his generic replacement sounds more like a nagging granny than a sinister serial killer. Of all the changes made, this is probably the only big miss, albeit one producers would try to explain away as starting anew with a fresh slate. With the series stuck in such a rut, it's an admirable approach, but they could have at least thought to electronically alter the voice to sound scarier and more threatening.  

Even for those who will claim to have seen the big twist at the end coming, the payoff's still no less effective. In fact, it's easily the most rewarding Saw finale in years in how it manages to cover all its bases, invoking genuine tension and excitement while returning the series to the moral complications it's initial premise was built on in 2004. The final minutes unfold as a bigger deal than we're used to,  with actual stakes. Supposedly, there are plans to spin this off into a TV series and given how everything shakes out, that actually doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility considering the format and style might lend itself well to that medium.

If the film's best moments recall Se7en and its worst recall previous Saw installments, there's relief in knowing what exists of the latter Bousman molds into something more digestable for the mainstream. For most horror franchises, that's a criticism, but this one went so far off the rails in abandoning the key tenets of its success that any change is welcome. A shot in the arm that puts story first, what Spiral means for the series moving forward is vaguer, but they could really be onto something by presenting these new films as standalones that aren't creatively beholden to all the inferior entries preceding it.