Thanks to the People’s Republic of China, Kingkong Is Coming Back! And copyright lawyers are nowhere in sight!
That’s right: Kingkong, one word, as if that qualifies as ethical and saves the keisters of all involved parties from the threat of litigation. Still, this so-called “giant” gorilla isn’t large enough to hold anyone in the palm of his hand. Imagine a primate the size of Harambe after going without Mounjaro shots for six months, including year-end holidays. Also, his face gives “durrrrrr.”
Story? I mean, I guess. A mineral exploration team in the mountains is ordered by their bald, bad benefactor to stop searching for mines and capture the ape. Or else their families will pay … in blood. (This movie should pay … in steep tariffs.)
You might predict Kong (Not Kong) will save our scientists. You will not predict the movie’s other freak of nature: a veritable Tarzan Boy raised in the wild. Clad in long hair and short loincloth, he moves and flies and flits and spins and scales like he’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Encino Man. The kid also punches and kicks CGI wolves that cast highly unnatural shadows.
From Youku, China’s equivalent of The Asylum, Kingkong Is Coming Back is cheaper than cheaply made, with poorly layered effects that scream “rush job” (or “加急工作!” per the Google machine). Although sitting at 63 minutes, they are a punishing 63 minutes, capped by an anti-ending that’s written like a transition into an actual ending. Take the title’s passive voice as a sign of the action’s quality. —Rod Lott
One of the most popular shows on Norwegian TV involves uninterrupted footage of trains traveling across the countryside. It can go for hours — even days — to capture actual length one of these journeys take. Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain isn’t necessarily a slow crawl at a lean 90 minutes, but it’s also not necessarily ripe with narrative development. It’s a film that’s as somber as it is funny, washing over you like a walk through a familiar neighborhood.
Shortly after their grandmother dies, Jewish cousins David (Eisenberg, The Social Network) and Benji (Kieran Culkin, HBO’s Succession) reunite for the first time in over a decade to tour Poland. David is a dad and accomplished digital marketer whose neurosis, pessimism and risk-adverse nature keeps him from enjoying life. Benji, who still lives with his mom and is presumably unemployed, operates with an abrasive charisma that’s equally grating and lovable. Together, the two explore their ancestry, get high and gradually work to resolve their 10-year tension.
A Real Pain places an intimate, family conflict against a historical jaunt. And it simply works. Yes, it delves into the Holocaust — including a sequence through a still-standing concentration camp — but it doesn’t do so in an overly dogmatic or heavy-handed way. It also doesn’t get too cerebral with its commentary, subtly weaving in historical context into David and Benji’s relationship.
Eisenberg and Culkin’s acting breathes life into the characters, which is where A Real Pain finds its staying power. The duo’s dialogue is refreshingly natural, true, but their physical performances make David and Benji even more compelling.
One scene at a train station illustrates this perfectly. We see them on the empty platform having just missed their stop. David is rigid, his posture snapping into sharp angles as he tries to chastise his cousin. Benji, on the other hand, is lax and fluid, shrugging off David’s imminent panic attack. Gradually, David loosens up, and it shows in his body language throughout the film. It’s a subtle shift that speaks volumes in a film of tiny, though nonetheless meaningful moments.
The setting also lends itself to the cousins’ attempt to reconcile. Surrounded by monuments to Jewish heritage and hardship, David uses reverence and respect to shield himself from feeling much of anything. Benji, on the other hand, sees every informative plaque and even the non-Jewish tour guide as a barrier between feeling connected to his past. Yet in a candid conversation with someone else on the tour, a recently converted Jew from Sudan (Kurt Egyiawan, Beasts of No Nation), David rejects the idea of stewing on tragedy and trauma. Benji, however, is undeniably moved and shaken by it. (Admittedly, it’s a little weird Benji makes no mention of Israel and Palestine, though that probably would never fly in what’s ultimately a Disney production.)
Again, A Real Pain never gets to some dramatic moment of reconciliation. It feels more in line with the slice-of-life vibe found in 2021’s C’mon C’mon. Instead, it’s rooted in reality, reminding us that change isn’t always obvious or resonant. —Daniel Bokemper
And now for the movie in which Gillian Anderson helps investigate a government cover-up of flying saucers … yet doesn’t play an FBI agent!
Rumors of a UFO sighting at a nearby airport fire up Derek (Alex Sharp, How to Talk to Girls at Parties), a brilliant University of Cincinnati student who witnessed such a close encounter as a wee lad. What the feds deny, the socially awkward genius obsesses over trying to prove … using math! Naturally, he thinks exposing the truth is more important than paying attention to the one female who shows interest in him — despite her being Ella Purnell (TV’s Fallout), out of his league by a good 20,000 of them.
Imagine Roy Neary crunching numbers instead of mashing taters, and you’re vibing with the sober tone of Ryan Eslinger’s procedural. Despite math running front and center throughout UFO’s plotting, knowing it as a viewer matters not an iota, so you can enjoy the conspiracy thriller aspect of it all, no matter your GPA. (That said, if you’ve waited decades for the fine-structure constant to get its due onscreen, holy crap, are you in for a treat!)
Anderson, whose mere presence brings The X-Files to mind whether she likes it or not, fills the supporting role of Derek’s professor. Rather than the usual rah-rah feel-good mentor the movies usually turn educators into, she can barely tolerate Derek. He is less than appealing, which is perhaps part of Eslinger’s intent in not following usual sci-fi tropes. No little green men here — just lanky, pasty-white ones. You may even want the FBI, led by the always fine David Strathairn (L.A. Confidential), to catch the meddling kid.
UFO is nothing to phone home about, but it’s a solid surprise, good for one watch. Eslinger — whose first film, Madness and Genius, also dealt in equations — does a more than credible job of making an unbelievable tale seem as though it’s based on true events. (Psst: It is!) —Rod Lott
Fret not, Pather Panchali! Your status as the icon of Indian cinema remains unabated and unchallenged by the screen’s introduction of Mustafa in Farhan M. Khan’s Spider. It’s 59 minutes of digital video garbage.
As played by Afzaal Nabi, a name you need not remember, Mustafa is a “chartered accountant” for a pharmaceutical company, a fact you need not remember because Mustafa keeps bringing it up. Professional though he may be, he’s dressed like either a cabbie or a Newsie.
Per the result of an abduction, he’s also stranded in a “forest” (actually a rural road with well-tread tire path) and stalked by a giant arachnid (actually a test-level animation of what looks like an ant with an extra pair of legs). Like Tom Hardy in Locke, Mustafa spends the bulk of Spider stuck in a car, albeit one that cannot move.
Also like Tom Hardy in Locke, much of this movie is yelling at people on the phone. Mustafa calls his country’s version of 911, the police, his boss, his wife, her friend and, finally, his mom, to whom he says, “You used to cook me sweet noodles!” (And to his son, via an awkward goodbye video: “I wanted you to grow up and wear my clothes and have a fight with me.” Huh?)
Now, unlike Tom Hardy in Locke, Mustafa reads the vehicle owner’s manual, eats one page and takes a couple of naps — all riveting. Then it just kinda stops.
But what about the spiders? They’re largely incidental. Even if Khan got a buddy to do the effects for free, he overspent. —Rod Lott
Although he has certainly given us many reasons not to, don’t let Corey Feldman keep you from celebrating The Birthday. The running time, too long by a quarter, might take care of that.
Resurrected from oblivion by Jordan Peele, this 20-year-old film went unreleased after earning good notices on the festival circuit. It’s positioned as “the most amazing 117 minutes in the life of Norman Forrester,” a New York pizzeria employee (Feldman) who resides on the social ladder’s lower rungs. Not so for his spoiled, snooty longtime girlfriend, Alison (Erica Prior, Second Name), who comes from money.
At a lavish birthday for her father (Jack Taylor, Pieces) at the grand hotel he owns, Norman is to meet Alison’s parents for the first time. Needless to say, he’s a nervous wreck. We’ve all been there, feeling like the fate of the world rests on our shoulders.
Except here, it does.
We know instantly that something about the night feels “off” for Norman, but it takes an hour to get to the why. Ironically, this first, more enigmatic half is close to terrific — as cartoony as it is menacing, bristling with the enough quirky energy as if retroactively campaigning to be the fifth segment of Four Rooms.
As the bombastic secrets spilled forth with hour 2, so goes the wind from these sails. Until the abrupt end, Norman’s extended nightmare starts to resemble a run on a treadmill, forever heading toward a destination without achieving an inch forward; that may be why the movie feels an act short of the standard three. The Birthday bears that first-film lack of discipline in wanting to throw everything into the mix in case another chance never comes. As unrestrained as Eugenio Mira’s hand is here, he had it figured out by his junior effort, the short, taut, high-concept hitman thriller Grand Piano.
And as for Feldman, his voice for Norman is a real choice, but he commits and delivers. It’s unfortunate The Birthday didn’t see release before now, because he’s given something the tabloid fixture hasn’t had since the days of Stand by Me: an honest-to-God role. —Rod Lott
