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      ‘Mortal Kombat’ Review: Battered and Bloody

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      The latest screen adaptation of the video game shows again that trying to construct a coherent plot around these characters is a fatal trap.The appeal of the video game Mortal Kombat (and its Coke-Pepsi rival Street Fighter) was combining the characters in different smackdowns. But trying to construct a plot that links them is a fatal trap. The cheesy “Mortal Kombat” (1995), from the future “Resident Evil” director Paul W.S. Anderson, proved as much, and now there is “Mortal Kombat” (2021), directed by Simon McQuoid, a snazzier, marginally more coherent movie that features a less catchy version of the techno theme song. (The backbeat, like the screenplay, is peppered with catchphrases from the game: “Test … your might.”)The 21st-century “Mortal Kombat” begins in 17th-century Japan, where a great warrior, Hanzo Hasashi (Hiroyuki Sanada), is vanquished and his wife and son killed. Less comes of this than you might expect. Flash forward to the present and Cole Young (Lewis Tan), a cage fighter whose telltale birthmark destines him to compete in a tournament called Mortal Kombat. (“They spelled it wrong,” he observes.) Before representing “Earthrealm” against Outworld, “the most brutal and murderous of all the realms,” he and similarly branded comrades must uncover their inner superpowers.But with so many characters, the movie spends too much time on discovery and not enough on showing those powers in action. Personally, I wanted more payoff from Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee) dodging Kano (Josh Lawson) and his laser eye, but you can choose your fighters and feel shortchanged accordingly. While the carnage demonstrates some imagination (can ice cauterize wounds? Did a hat just turn into a table saw?), the rules, extending even to whether death is permanent, are so arbitrary that nothing matters. Test … your patience.Mortal KombatRated R. See title. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes. In theaters and on HBO Max. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters. More

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      in Television

      HBO Max Gains Traction in a Crowded Field

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      AT&T, HBO’s parent company, reported that HBO and the new streamer added 2.7 million subscribers in the first quarter.AT&T added 2.7 million new customers to HBO and HBO Max in the first quarter, a boost for the company’s new streaming effort in an increasingly crowded field.The company’s WarnerMedia division, which includes HBO, recorded $8.5 billion in revenue for the period, a 9.8 percent jump over last year, when theater sales and advertising revenue plummeted during the pandemic. Led by the chief executive Jason Kilar, WarnerMedia also includes the cable networks CNN and Turner and the Warner Bros. film studios.HBO is the cornerstone of AT&T’s media strategy, and the company sees HBO Max as a way to keep its mobile customers from fleeing, offering the streaming platform at a discount to its phone subscribers.In its report on the year’s first quarter, AT&T stopped disclosing the number of active HBO Max users, obscuring how many people are actually tuned into the new streaming service.Over all, AT&T counted 44.1 million subscribers to HBO and HBO Max in the United States at the end of March, a gain of 2.7 million from the previous quarter. Before it stopped breaking out the HBO Max subscriptions, in December, it said it had 41.5 million subscribers: 17.1 million for the streaming service, 20 million for HBO on cable and the rest from hotels or other deals.HBO Max most likely drove the gain in the quarter, which is notable given how competitive the streaming universe has become. HBO Max is also the most expensive of the major streaming platforms, at $15 a month. Netflix, which reported earnings on Tuesday, remains the leader, with 67 million customers in the United States and nearly 208 million in total.Netflix’s dominance has started to wane, in part because of newer entrants like HBO Max and Disney+. Netflix added four million new subscribers in the quarter, with a little more than 400,000 in the United States. Netflix chalked up the comparatively sluggish growth to the production slowdown when Hollywood studios largely stopped making shows and films during the pandemic. The company said it expected a more successful second half of the year, when returning favorites and highly anticipated films become available.HBO Max most likely got a boost from an unorthodox strategy championed by Mr. Kilar: The sibling company Warner Bros. plans to release its entire lineup of 2021 films on HBO Max on the same day they’re scheduled to appear in theaters. The announcement rumbled throughout Hollywood, angering agents and filmmakers who stood to lose out on crucial bonuses and commissions by short-circuiting the old theatrical release schedule.Mr. Kilar has said the company was likely to go back to a more traditional distribution plan next year. For the rest of 2021, he is counting on the film slate — which included the recent releases of “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” and “Godzilla vs. Kong,” as well as the Friday premiere of “Mortal Kombat” — to help drive people to HBO Max.The company also plans a global expansion of HBO Max starting in June, along with a lower-cost version of the service that will include commercials. The company has about 19.7 million HBO customers overseas who it hopes to convert into HBO Max subscribers. More

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      ‘Tu Me Manques’ Review: Traces of a Lost Love

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      A conservative father who could not accept his son’s sexuality is led on a contemplative tour of queer life in New York in this Bolivian film.The Bolivian film “Tu Me Manques” begins with a fight for an absent man’s affection. Jorge (Oscar Martínez) was the father of Gabriel, the former lover of Sebastian (Fernando Barbosa). When a chance phone call makes it possible for Jorge and Sebastian to meet, Sebastian is quick to hurl accusations at Jorge, who wouldn’t accept his son’s sexuality. Jorge has only tragedy to fling back: Gabriel died by suicide upon returning from New York City to Bolivia.What follows is an exploration of grief and adoration, as both men try to find a way to honor Gabriel’s memory. Jorge travels to New York looking for answers, and in response, Sebastian gives him a tour of Gabriel’s life in the city, introducing him to queer friends and gay nightclubs. The reminiscences lead Sebastian to write a play about his lost love, and the movie uses his theatrical ideas as an interesting, if somewhat alienating, reason to experiment with editing and form. Sebastian hires 30 actors to perform the role of his beloved — a gimmick that is mimicked in the film’s flashback sequences, which rotate in different performers as Gabriel.The film was written and directed by Rodrigo Bellott, who adapted the story from his play of the same name, based on similar events in his own life. Though the movie’s aesthetics are tepidly pleasant, Bellott’s biggest success is freeing his film’s relationship to time. In this sense, the movie retains some of the vitality of theater, where the characters invite the audience into reverie. Sebastian’s past, present, future and his fantasies of all three interact through flash-forwards and flashbacks, weaving together to create a moving and intellectually rewarding testament to queer life and loss.Tu Me ManquesNot rated. In Spanish and English, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes. Watch on virtual cinemas. More

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      ‘Wet Season’ Review: Teacher’s Pet

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      An immigrant schoolteacher finds solace in a relationship with one of her students in this suggestive drama from Singapore.A beacon of Southeast Asian prosperity and a haven for the ultrarich, Singapore represents a promised land for migrant workers. In “Wet Season,” a Malaysian schoolteacher named Ling (Yann Yann Yeo) seems to enjoy comfort and stability in her adopted country, yet life in Singapore gnaws away at her dignity. This conflict sets the stage for a reckoning and rebirth by poignant, if morally objectionable, means.When we first meet our heroine, a soft-spoken but resilient 40-something, she’s friendless and taken for granted by just about everyone, which the director Anthony Chen subtly links to her immigrant status. Ling teaches Chinese, but no one seems to take the subject seriously, while a haughty administrator lords his superiority over her by speaking exclusively in English.Struggling to conceive through in vitro fertilization, Ling privately anguishes as her businessman husband grows conspicuously absent. The couple’s relationship screams divorce, but the two stick it out — if only because Ling is her ailing father-in-law’s caretaker.Shot in melancholy blues and greys — and proceeding through Ling’s many small tragedies with cool, measured restraint — the film receives a jolt of teenage hormones with the entry of affable remedial student, Wei Lun (Koh Jia Ler), a competitive wushu practitioner obsessed with Jackie Chan. The two — a neglected child and childless woman — circumstantially hang out outside of class, as Chen patiently, if predictably, builds toward an abrupt and rather shocking consummation.Wei Lun comes off as one-dimensional in his brash, immature pursuit of Ling, yet their illicit relationship is portrayed in an anti-sensationalist light, blurring the lines between maternal and romantic love. Nevertheless “Wet Season” focuses less on the scandal than what the inevitable fallout can achieve for its floundering protagonist: a bittersweet second shot at life.Wet SeasonNot rated. In Mandarin, Hokkien and English, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 43 minutes. More

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      ‘My Wonderful Wanda’ Review: The Secret Life of a Caretaker

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      The writer/director Bettina Oberli weaves a satirical family drama knotted with infidelity, among other complications.Though this film is set against a beautiful and placid Swiss lake, the happenings inside the wealthy Wegmeister-Gloor residence reveal a tangled web of relations that unravels into the droll drama, “My Wonderful Wanda.” Wanda (Agnieszka Grochowska) is a Polish caretaker who looks after the house’s aging patriarch, Josef (André Jung). She bathes and changes him, but at night, she sleeps with him for extra cash that she saves for the two sons waiting for her in Poland. Her stony face never betrays any sign of pleasure, but Josef is clearly satisfied; by the second act, Wanda is pregnant with his child.Bettina Oberli’s “My Wonderful Wanda” is, ironically, best when the focus is off Wanda, whose woodenness remains unreadable throughout. The supporting cast does the heavy lifting: There is Josef, the deceptively vivacious father, and the children, Gregi, the aviphile son, who is as fascinated with Wanda as he is with birds, and Sophie, the uptight, impertinent daughter. The film’s emotional anchor is the matriarch, Elsa (Marthe Keller, who most deserves the title of “Wonderful”). Elsa appears to be welcoming and generous but plays hardball with Wanda over money.The film, written by Oberli and Cooky Ziesche, satirizes class divides and xenophobia (“the Pole” constantly carries a derogatory connotation here), but never takes the satire far enough to be memorable, challenging or anything beyond whimsical, as Wanda and the Wegmeister-Gloors negotiate the future of the unborn child. The story also suffers from its division into three acts and an epilogue; it loses emotional momentum with each new section.My Wonderful WandaNot rated. In German and Polish, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 51 minutes. In theaters and on virtual cinemas. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters. More