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    ‘Anyone but You’ Review: Baring Bums in the Land Down Under

    Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell romp in a rom-com bomb with gratuitous clothes-shedding, played out against beautiful backdrops.The floundering romantic comedy “Anyone but You” has several things going for it: the rising stars Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell, a luxurious Australian backdrop, and more white teeth and washboard abs than the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. The plot is a classic switchback prank. Sworn enemies Bea (Sweeney) and Ben (Powell) pretend to fall in love at a destination wedding so that their friends and family (Alexandra Shipp, Hadley Robinson, Bryan Brown, Michelle Hurd and GaTa) will quit trying to trick them into liking each other. It’s a loose reworking of “Much Ado About Nothing,” and, presumably, the first Shakespeare adaptation where a dog does yoga — and certainly the first in which a man (GaTa) serenades a koala. Nevertheless, the film, directed by Will Gluck, who wrote the screenplay with Ilana Wolpert, is so awkwardly assembled that our attention gets pulled away from the leads to the bizarrely lavish buffet spreads in the background. We’re mildly curious about whether these two fakers will slip between the sheets for real — and majorly interested in why a guest bedroom has so many bowls of fruit.“Anyone but You” is being sold as a return to the salacious rom-com, although that’s only true for one good scene. Overall, it’s more bawdy than erotic. “You know a lot about bathroom law,” Ben purrs to Bea when they meet-cute wheedling a restroom key from a barista. After a whirlwind first date, Bea wakes up in Ben’s arms fully clothed. The night appears to have been innocent — at least, that’s the implication from Gluck’s close-up shot of Bea’s cinched belt buckle — but both panic and settle into a shtick of exchanging public insults with the spite of jilted lovers.We can barely make out whether a month has elapsed since that encounter or several years. Just resign yourself to nonsense, like the entrance of Margaret (Charlee Fraser), Ben’s ex, with her new boyfriend, Beau (Joe Davidson), a galumphing surfer who promptly attempts to eat a bundle of ceremonial sage. The running time is all flimsy bikinis and flimsier excuses to get people undressed. A tarantula? Strip off those shorts! Itchy sand? Swim trunks begone! A fire? Snuff out the flames with a dress! By the time Bea tumbles into Sydney Harbor, it’s a shock that Ben leaps in after her without tearing away his pants.Sweeney and Powell could do wonders with a better script, something that makes more use of the way they grin at each other like they ate knives for lunch. She’s skilled at layered insincerity; he specializes in smirky, put-on machismo, shooting the camera a horrifically funny tongue waggle. Here, their performances get bullied around by the insistent pop soundtrack. One genuinely tender scene involves Bea crooning a peppy Top 40 hit to steady Ben’s nerves. But she only gets in a few quiet a cappella bars before Gluck cranks the original at an earsplitting volume — are you not entertained!? — and, for good measure, blares it again at the end over some riotous behind-the-scenes karaoke. You wonder if he spent more time on the closing credits than the actual film.Anyone but YouRated R for nudity and brash language. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway’ Review: Rabbit Redux

    This sassy sequel, with James Corden as the voice of Peter Rabbit, snarks at itself while also snarking at viewers.“Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway” wants to have its carrot and eat it, too. For anyone who complained that the 2018 live action-animation hybrid “Peter Rabbit” betrayed Beatrix Potter’s whimsical vision, and seemed less concerned with the plunder of Mr. McGregor’s vegetables than with its own raid of corporate music catalogs, the sequel, once again directed by Will Gluck, pre-empts such objections.Bea (Rose Byrne), the rabbits’ surrogate mother, has turned their adventures into a book. Its success attracts the attention of a publisher (David Oyelowo), who woos Bea with fancy cars and the rabbits with sparkling water and crudités. He envisions a 23-book series featuring 109 characters. Bea fears her work might be adapted into something sassy and hip — in other words, into a movie like “Peter Rabbit 2.” And if it’s annoying to watch a follow-up snark at itself while implicitly snarking at viewers for buying tickets to a crass-ified Peter Rabbit, the conceit offers evidence that things might have been worse. At least Gluck doesn’t send Peter into space.Also annoying is that the commercial calculations are still livelier than the wholesome dialogue between Peter (James Corden supplies his voice) and Bea’s new husband, Thomas (Domhnall Gleeson, miscast both as a romantic lead and the Mr. Wilson to Peter’s Dennis the Menace). It is more fun when Peter, having sulk-walked to Green Day, encounters Barnabas (Lennie James), a thief rabbit who enlists him for a heist at a farmers’ market. Note to bunny criminal masterminds: The prize score is the dried fruit.Peter Rabbit 2: The RunawayRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. In theaters. More