Today’s the end of the road of 2016 movies I never reviewed earlier…
Miles Ahead…Don Cheadle used Kickstarter to get his labor-of-love film financed (something people apparently do even when they can afford to finance it themselves), and I wish this Miles Davis biopic had done a better job of explaining why Miles was such a jazz great or even seemed all that interested in jazz or music or the creative process. As it is, the film is more interested in “Miles Davis, outrageous character” as he travels NYC trying to get paid, get laid, or get away. Ewan McGregor’s trademark blandness is there as Cheadle’s sidekick, but other critics have praised the film for putting you “inside” Davis’ music–whatever that means–by having such a haphazard approach to character, direction, and story. Grade: C
Anthropoid…Another true story, and this one the 10,000th film about WWII although in a slightly different way. It’s about the Czech-assassination plot to kill Reinhard Heydrich, then the third-highest ranking Nazi and supreme commander of Czechoslovakian. The first half is fine, but the film really comes alive in the second half, and there’s a great pressure cooker sense of suspense as the Nazi army scours the country looking for the conspirators. The drama is boiler-plate WWII stuff but the action sequences are alive and nerve-jangling. Plus, all the movie’s talk of “resistance” has aged well since the film’s August theaterical debut. Grade: B
Mechanic Resurrection…I didn’t realize the Jason Statham-starring “Mechanic” films are actually a remake of a Charles Brosnan action film, but I should’ve known better than to assume any movie is an original idea these days. Either way, if you like the idea of watching a contract killer stage hits to look like accidents…well, you’ll probably be better off watching either the first “Mechanic” or the actual first “Mechanic” from the 70’s. The trailers for this sequel gave away the only time Statham’s Bishop actually stages an accident/murder (the penthouse pool that extends over a skyscraper’s edge), and the rest of the movie is just badly staged action sequences, exotic locations (that all look mysteriously the same after a while), and a beyond-bad subplot involving Jessic Alba. Tommy Lee Jones shows up towards the end to liven the proceedings, but you wish the movie had been smart enough to include him sooner. Grade: C-
Jack Reacher 2: Never Go Back…What happened to this franchise? How is it possible that after only two movies, they already fill tired and going-through-the-motions? The biggest co-star Tom Cruise could get was Colby Smulders? If you liked the first movie (and I did), it’ll be a disappointment to see the icy menace of Werner Herzog replaced with a slew of indistinguishable villains. And even if the first film was no masterpiece, it at least had a few stand-out action sequences–I particularly liked the bumper-cars-like “chase” that featured a lot of crashing–but here someone came up with the “great idea” of saddling lone-wolf Reacher with a teenaged girl (who may or may not be his daughter). Too many scenes between Cruise, Smulders, and the quasi-daughter feel like a sitcom I wouldn’t watch instead of an action thriller. Grade: C-