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      ‘The Ritual’ Review: An Exorcism to Forget

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      Al Pacino speaks in an exaggerated accent and Dan Stevens looks overly concerned in this movie directed by David Midell.When a movie begins by announcing that “The following is based on true events,” the intent, one presumes, is to get the viewer to sit up and get ready.It doesn’t help when the true events contain well-worn genre elements, as is the case with “The Ritual,” an exorcism story directed by David Midell. The trailer for this movie says that it tells “the true story that inspired ‘The Exorcist.’” And indeed, we have several elements remembered from that picture: a young woman possessed; a young priest who is having trouble with his faith; and an imposing older priest whose conviction carries the day.Did I say imposing? In William Friedkin’s 1973 movie, Father Merrin (Max von Sydow), casting a long shadow and speaking in stentorian tones, was immediately formidable. Here, two priests in a small town in Iowa in 1928 are enlisted to perform the exorcism. As Father Theophilus, a hunched Al Pacino speaks in an exaggerated accent that wavers between Crazy Guggenheim and “It’s-a me, Mario.” As the younger priest, Father Joseph, Dan Stevens doesn’t have much to do besides look extremely concerned.The movie doesn’t serve its actresses particularly well either. During her possession scenes, Emma (Abigail Cowen) is obliged to contort herself and froth at the mouth, while Mother Superior (Patricia Heaton) is called upon to furrow her brow a lot. Topping it all off is a deliberately shaky and agitated shooting and cutting style that heightens nothing. Just watch “The Exorcist” again.The RitualNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 38 minutes. In theaters. More

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      George Romero’s Daughter, Ex-Wife and Widow Take On His Zombie Movie Legacy

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      When George Romero died from lung cancer in 2017, he left behind several ideas and screenplays for zombie movies.One was a treatment, “Twilight of the Dead,” and his widow, Suzanne Desrocher-Romero, described it as a “summing up” of the franchise, an ending to what began with “Night of the Living Dead” in 1968 and continued for five decades and six flesh-gnawing movies.George Romero was the rare artist who invented a major modern monster, one whose popularity rivals that of vampires and ghosts. The popularity of the TV series “The Last of Us” or the highly anticipated arrival of a new entry in the “28 Days Later” series this month tells us that the zombie is not going to end anytime soon. Its whole thing, after all, is to keep coming back.But what about the Romero zombie? The original strain. What will happen to this fabled creature now that its creator is gone?Three women in the Romero family are grappling with their memories of him at the same time as they’re trying to answer this question. His director daughter, his producer ex-wife and his producer widow are each developing movies with a distinct vision of the future of the undead. They don’t exactly share the same vision even as they’re pressing forward. The Romero zombie is very much alive — and very messy.Clockwise from top left, the original “Night of the Living Dead,” “Martin,” “Land of the Dead” and “Dawn of the Dead.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The Life of Chuck’ Review: Don’t Worry, Be Happy

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      Tom Hiddleston dances his way through a movie about death and dystopia, based on a Stephen King story, that has an incongruous feel-good vibe.It’s the end of the world as we know it, or at least that’s how it seems in “The Life of Chuck.” A strange, feel-good fantasy about the end times, the movie traces a loose network of characters going about life while facing multiple personal and planetary catastrophes. When the story opens, Earth’s big clock, a.k.a. life itself, seems close to running out: Cataclysmic disasters, both natural and otherwise, are raging worldwide, species are rapidly going extinct, people are checking out and the internet is about to do the same. That’s bad, though given our enduring connectivity issues, it can also seem like just another day on Planet Reality.“The Life of Chuck” is a curious movie, starting with its relatively relaxed, almost blasé attitude toward extinction of any kind. It uneasily mixes moods and tones, softens tragedies with smiles and foregrounds a title character — Chuck, an accountant with a tragic past, played as an adult by Tom Hiddleston — who has a tenuous hold on both the story and your interest. Chuck is present from the start but only comes to something like life midway through. He has a kid and is happily married, at least according to the narrator (Nick Offerman), whose dry, lightly detached voice-over winds throughout. That the narrator proves to be a more vivid presence than Chuck is another oddity, one that’s presumably unintentional.Written and directed by Mike Flanagan, the movie is based on a vaporous three-part novella by Stephen King, also titled “The Life of Chuck,” that’s included in the author’s 2020 collection “If It Bleeds.” Flanagan’s adaptation is scrupulously, unwisely faithful to the source material. As in King’s tale, the movie unfolds in three sections in reverse chronological order. Also as in the original, Chuck first appears on a billboard that doesn’t seem to be selling anything. It just features a photo of a suited Chuck at a desk smiling out at the world, a mug in one hand, a pencil in the other. “39 Great Years!,” the billboard reads. “Thanks Chuck!”The billboard catches the eye of the movie’s most fully realized character, Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the focal point of the disaster-ridden inaugural chapter. A schoolteacher whose slight connection to Chuck emerges much later, Marty is dutifully plugging away in class despite the world’s looming end. “I contain multitudes,” one of his students unpersuasively reads from the Walt Whitman poem “Song of Myself.” Given everyone’s palpable listlessness, Marty’s included, T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” would probably have been too on the nose: “This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper.”A sensitive, appealing performer, Ejiofor is a master of melancholy, and he gets the movie off to a fine start. His soft face and large, plaintive eyes naturally draw you to him, but even when they water, as directors like them to do, it’s Ejiofor’s talent for emotional nuance and depth that holds your gaze. That skill is particularly useful for characters as vaguely conceived as Marty, a nice, lonely guy who’s still close to his ex, Felicia (Karen Gillan). There’s not much to either character or their relationship, but Ejiofor fills in Marty with dabs of personality and a sense of decency that suggests that while humanity is lost, not every individual is. It’s too bad the movie doesn’t stick with Marty, who warms it up appreciably.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘I Don’t Understand You’ Review: Murder and Mayhem in Italy

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      The film follows dads-to-be Dom (Nick Kroll) and Cole (Andrew Rannells) as they make a series of disastrously wrong turns during their anniversary trip.Dolly Parton has often joked that gay people deserve the right to legally marry and “suffer just like us heterosexuals.” That cheeky spirit of equal-opportunity relationship struggles underpins the film “I Don’t Understand You.”Written and directed by real-life husbands David Joseph Craig and Brian Crano, the film follows dads-to-be Dom (Nick Kroll) and Cole (Andrew Rannells) as they make a series of disastrously wrong turns during an anniversary trip to rural Italy that could threaten their chances of adopting a child. Intercultural misunderstandings lead to chaos and eventual bloodshed. If only they’d done their homework before boarding the plane.Like the unhinged 2023 gay comedy “Down Low,” this movie uses accidental murder as a darkly comic device. Lines like “What’s my hair doing?” and “I don’t want to break her stemware” — uttered after serious transgressions — land with snappy comedic timing. But this plays like a bloated “Saturday Night Live” sketch, the increasingly implausible plot getting out of step with a sincere story about queer parenthood. In trying to be both subversive and sincere, “I Don’t Understand You” ends up not quite pulling off either.One recurring idea is that Dom and Cole may fear homophobia more than they actually encounter it — self-preservation is their sharpest weapon. Even if they don’t realize it, their suffering isn’t because they’re gay. The couple is suffering because, unlike in queer films of decades past, they actually have the freedom to screw things up.I Don’t Understand YouRated R for murderous farce and meltdown-level expletives. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Dangerous Animals’ Review: Here, Sharky Sharky!

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      The Australian director Sean Byrne combines the serial killer and shark movie subgenres into a trashy good time.The horror movie owes sharks an apology. Despite what countless scenes of ominous blue fins cutting through the water have led us to believe, humans are much more of a threat to sharks than they are to us. The “Hostel” director Eli Roth even made a nonfiction movie making this argument, but no documentary can compete with a suspenseful cinematic blood bath.Enter Sean Byrne, an Australian director with a taste for the unhinged, whose viscerally violent debut, “The Loved Ones,” conflated the prom-night revenge of “Carrie” with the family dinner of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” His new effort, “Dangerous Animals,” is another 1970s horror mash-up, this time combining the serial killer and shark movie subgenres into a trashy good time. Byrne is at his most articulate with visual language, flipping the script on a famous Spielberg shot of dangling legs underwater. Early on, he takes us out with tourists to the sea and shows us that underwater perspective, but this time we’re looking at sharks, not humans, who, this movie suggests, are the real predators.It’s hardly the only nod to “Jaws.” Even the maniac at its center, the roguish tour guide Captain Tucker, played with charismatic gusto by Jai Courtney, looks a little like Richard Dreyfuss from that movie if he were on a steady diet of steroids. After a traumatic event in childhood, Tucker has taken to abducting tourists, locking them up on his boat and theatrically feeding them to sharks, all while filming these set pieces, beefing up an impressive collection of VHS snuff films. At one point, this maniac/indie director tells us he likes horror movies, but he didn’t need to.It’s an outlandish premise that inevitably leads to some dopey, implausible places. Byrne’s previous movies got down in the grimy muck. This one is glossier. Everyone speaks in quips and movie quotes. And no one has an ounce of flab. This is a horror movie about horror movies made by people who seem to have spent more time observing horror movies than the real world. Making this work requires wit, the right tone and a ruthless sense of pace. Byrne manages all three with a sure hand.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Ballerina’ Review: Ana de Armas Twirls Into ‘John Wick’ Franchise

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      Ana de Armas twirls into the franchise as a ballerina-assassin with vengeance on her mind in this by-the-numbers cash grab.With a title as cumbersome as its germinating mythology, “From the World of John Wick: Ballerina” is a stone-cold, self-infatuated effort to couple another boxcar to the franchise money train. I regret to report that Keanu Reeves’s titular assassin does not appear in a tutu.He does pop in, though, ever so briefly, lest we lose interest before the promised fifth installment. Set during the events of “John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum” (2019), “Ballerina” is besotted with Eve Macarro (Ana de Armas), a lithe and lovely orphan who saw her father murdered and is obsessed with revenge. Inducted into the Ruska Roma, a cultlike clan whose ballet school fronts a contract-killer training facility, Eve practices pirouettes and punches with equal enthusiasm. Her toes are bloody, but her resolve is undimmed.A luxe orgy of mass murder, “Ballerina” dances from one bloody melee to another, its back-of-a-matchbook plot (by Shay Hatton) driven solely by arterial motives. As Eve defies the ballet school’s director (Anjelica Huston, more formidable than a roomful of Baryshnikovs) to pursue the well-protected head of a rival clan, the movie tends the franchise flame with a Wick-world checklist of familiar tropes. Like the impossibly creative, perfectly executed, utterly ridiculous fight sequences, which include Eve’s father single-handedly overcoming a literal boatload of would-be assassins, or Eve laying waste to the lethal residents of an entire Austrian village. Outlandish weaponry is a given, and “Ballerina” delights in deploying everything from expensive cookware to ice skates. There’s even a hulking, Dolph Lundgren type wielding a flamethrower.From time to time, the feverish slaughter pauses respectfully to allow English and Irish acting legends to inject brief moments of gravitas. Ian McShane’s menacingly dapper Winston is around to offer foster-fatherly advice and drop murky hints about Eve’s true parentage, and Gabriel Byrne appears as the mysterious head of the rival family and the bearer of further familial secrets. It’s all a bit much for Eve, who seems more relieved than scared when Wick himself shows up with a contract to stop her one-woman rampage. I suspect the audience will be equally thankful.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      They Led the 2000s Indie-Rock Boom. Now They’re Vying for Oscars.

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      As Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross continue to spotlight film music, members of Dirty Projectors, Grizzly Bear, Interpol and Animal Collective have been joining the field.When Daniel Blumberg ascended the stage at the Oscars this year to accept his best original score trophy for “The Brutalist,” the bald, mild-mannered Englishman in the all-black suit read nervously from notes. “I’ve been an artist for 20 years now, since I was a teenager,” he said, perhaps jogging some music fans’ memories: This was the once curly-mopped singer and guitarist from the 2010s indie-rock band Yuck.His Academy Award put him in good company. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross of Nine Inch Nails have won the category twice, while Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood is a two-time nominee. And bubbling up beside Blumberg are a crop of artists from New York’s early 2000s indie boom, when idiosyncratic and ambitious bands made their careers on blog love, critically acclaimed albums, relentless touring schedules and the occasional lucrative sync deal.Two decades later, entering their midlife years, an increasing number of their members are turning to film scoring as a new creative outlet — one they can pursue from home studios — rather than rely on the millennial nostalgia industry.A scene from “Sister Midnight.” Paul Banks, the frontman of the band Interpol, recorded its propulsive score.MagnoliaDavid Longstreth, the central figure of Dirty Projectors, created the imaginative and sprawling score for the fantasy journey “The Legend of Ochi,” which A24 released in theaters this year. Paul Banks, Interpol’s frontman, recorded propulsive music for Magnolia Pictures’ deadpan satire “Sister Midnight,” which opened in New York in May and will soon expand nationally. Various permutations of Animal Collective have provided haunting sounds for small-budget projects, including the stripped-down sci-fi tale “Obex,” which Oscilloscope Laboratories will distribute later this year.“The creative conversations I find really interesting,” said Christopher Bear of Grizzly Bear, who is now a prolific film and TV composer. “You’re not necessarily talking about music references. Often it’s more interesting if you’re not, because then it’s about story and picture and just more aesthetic questions. I find myself doing creative things that I probably wouldn’t if I was just left to my own devices in my studio.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Women Who Try to Keep Pace With Ethan Hunt

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      Over eight installments, the “Mission: Impossible” franchise has never quite found the perfect match for Tom Cruise’s world-saving spy.Ethan Hunt, the charismatic hero of the “Mission: Impossible” franchise played by Tom Cruise, cares about one thing above all else: His team.The story of Ethan’s life as told in eight movies has been marked by his intense loyalty to the people by his side. The most enduring have been Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), the computer whiz who has been his buddy in all installments, and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), another technical genius who guides him through sticky situations. But Ethan’s love life has been an evolving saga that has gone through some hiccups, as the filmmakers try to figure out how to pair off a man whose work life involves scaling buildings, jumping out of planes and saving the world every few years. Over the years, the “Mission: Impossible” films have tested out different roles for the ladies in Ethan’s life, to varying degrees of success.Emmanuelle Béart as Claire Phelps in “Mission: Impossible” (1996)Emmanuelle Béart’s femme fatale character was the first “Mission” lead opposite Cruise.Paramount PicturesIn the series’ first entry, directed by Brian De Palma, Ethan has a sexually charged relationship with Claire (Emmanuelle Béart). She is the wife of Jim Phelps (Jon Voight), Ethan’s Impossible Mission Force team leader, who is presumed dead. Only, Jim isn’t dead, he’s actually the one framing Ethan in order to steal a top-secret list of undercover agents and make a financial killing. And Claire, it turns out, was in on the ruse. She dies at the hand of her husband, a bittersweet ending for a pretty classic femme fatale.Thandiwe Newton as Nyah Nordoff-Hall in “Mission: Impossible II” (2000)Thandiwe Newton and Dougray Scott in “Mission: Impossible II.” Paramount PicturesThe second installment of the franchise is known as the rockiest — and not just because it features Ethan rock climbing. That extends to his love interest, Nyah, played by Thandiwe Newton. Unlike other “M:I” ladies, Nyah follows the model of a Bond girl. She’s a thief who Ethan must enlist to help him track down a deadly virus known as Chimera, stolen by her ex-boyfriend (Dougray Scott). From the moment she’s onscreen, her body is sexualized, and very soon after she meets Ethan, they end up in bed together. But the whole plot feels forced, as if the filmmakers were trying to convince us that Ethan is a different character, more suave than he actually is.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More