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    ‘Drive-Away Dolls’ Review: A Mirthless Joyride

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    Directing without his brother, Ethan Coen brings the usual mix of highbrow references and petty crimes, but this road movie just stalls out.The title of Ethan Coen’s leaden romp “Drive-Away Dolls” summons up the vulgar excesses of old-school exploitation cinema, with its horrors and pleasures, carnage and flesh. If only! The promising setup involves two friends — the dreary duo of Margaret Qualley as Jamie and Geraldine Viswanathan as Marian — who, during a 1999 road trip from Philadelphia to Florida, come into possession of a briefcase wanted by some bad, violent men. There will be blood, yup, if not enough to obscure the inert staging, D.O.A. jokes and wooden performances.This is the most recent movie that Ethan Coen has made without his brother, Joel, his longtime collaborator. (Ethan also made the 2022 documentary “Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind.”) To a degree, “Drive-Away Dolls” seems of a piece with the Coens’ practice of playing with story forms (film genres and otherwise), which they have consistently satirized, upended and all but gutted. Mixing the ostensibly high with the putatively low, they sample and riff on populist and rarefied sources, the spiritual and the material. This can create a fascinating doubling in the sense that there’s the movie in front of you and its layered references, all of which can flow together when they don’t congeal, which alas happens here.Written by Coen and his wife, Tricia Cooke, “Drive-Away Dolls” opens on an old-style neon bar sign spelling out the word “Cicero,” immediately suggesting that you’re in familiar Coen territory. This nod to the philosopher puts you on alert, but it also feels like bait for those aficionados eager to sift through signs and meanings (which can be a self-flattering exercise for filmmakers and for viewers). Soon enough, the camera is prowling inside the bar where a panicked-looking man (Pedro Pascal as the Collector) sits in a booth clutching a briefcase to his body. After exchanging words with a curiously hostile waiter, the Collector scurries down a shadowy Chandleresque mean street before taking a fatal turn into a nightmarish alley.This particular briefcase contains another of moviedom’s great whatsits, one of those mysteries that, like knowledge itself, some people have, others are desperate to obtain and still others eventually regret having. After some character introductions — enter Jamie, Marian et. al. — and pro forma scene-setting, the movie gets down to business and the briefcase changes hands. For reasons that make sense mostly as a screenwriting contrivance, the two friends secure a car from a guy named Curlie (Bill Camp) and hit the road, with plans to visit Marian’s aunt in Tallahassee. There’s some sweet, sticky stuff, too: Jamie, who has broken up with her girlfriend, a tough cop named Sukie (Beanie Feldstein), thinks Marian needs to get laid. Marian does too, so there are more bars in their future.The women’s journey proves eventful; yet while they rack up both miles and conquests, and despite some flashy editing, “Drive-Away Dolls” remains inert. After their car blows a tire, Jamie and Marian find the briefcase in the trunk along with a hatbox. The two cases contain clues — by turns grisly and notionally amusing — which fit into a larger story that incorporates enough dildos to secure the movie its R rating; nods to Henry James; a dog named after Alice B. Toklas; and assorted attractions, including a family-values politician (Matt Damon), a dapper gangland boss (Colman Domingo as the Chief) and a couple of quarrelsome cartoon minions (Joey Slotnick and C.J. Wilson as the Chief’s Goons).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 Beanie Bubble’ Review: Caught in a Fad Romance

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      This dramatic comedy about Beanie Babies, starring Zach Galifianakis, Elizabeth Banks and Sarah Snook, arrives at the tail end of a summer of corporate biopics.John Updike once described writing as a matter of “taking a deep breath, leaning out over the typewriter and trying to drive a little deeper than the first words that come to mind.” Unfortunately, the writing in “The Beanie Bubble,” a dramatic comedy based loosely on the true story of the short-lived Beanie Baby toy craze, sits on the surface.This is a movie that uses stock footage of the Bill Clinton inauguration and the O.J. Simpson trial to demonstrate that it’s the 1990s, and which, to show a flashback to the ’80s, has a character ask, “Did you pick up any Tab?” It deploys every storytelling cliché in the book, from “you’re probably wondering how I ended up in this situation”-style voice-overs to pat last-act monologues that reiterate the themes.The story of Beanie Babies is not especially interesting: In 1993, Ty Warner (Zach Galifianakis), the creator of Beanie Babies, introduced the plush animal dolls for $5, and then, owing to a confluence of opportune internet savvy and a nascent secondary market on the web, they became coveted for their scarcity.“The Beanie Bubble” contrives to add intrigue by embellishing various personal dramas behind the scenes at the company, including infidelities, a fraught love triangle and the ethical quandaries of three women who worked with Warner and in some cases were involved with him romantically: Robbie (Elizabeth Banks), Sheila (Sarah Snook) and Maya (Geraldine Viswanathan).Each of these women has exactly one defining feature — they’re eager to get rich; they love their children; they know a lot about computers — and they mention this feature every single time they’re onscreen. The directors, Kristin Gore and Damian Kulash, Jr., make several embarrassing efforts to cast them as feminist superheroes at odds with the cluelessly patriarchal Warner, which might have been more effective had they been fleshed out as anything more than paper-thin Girl Boss caricatures. As it stands, the celebratory montages that herald these women’s professional triumphs are about as rousing as a Sheryl Sandberg TED Talk.Much of the film’s running time is dedicated to graphics detailing Beanie Baby sales figures, archival news footage showing mall shoppers going crazy and oversimplified explanations of Beanie-related milestones and achievements, such as how the company became an early pioneer of e-commerce.These elements are, of course, reminiscent of “Air,” “Tetris,” “Flamin’ Hot” and “Blackberry,” among other recent making-of marketing pictures. It’s not the fault of “The Beanie Bubble” that it arrives at the tail end of a summer of similar corporate biopics, but seen after so many other marketing making-of dramas, the familiar beats of novel invention to overnight phenomenon can’t help but feel all the more hackneyed.Like those films, “The Beanie Bubble” attempts to extrapolate some more substantive social meaning from what is otherwise an amusing but ultimately insignificant moment in time. The best it can do is to conclude, feebly, that there will “always be another fad,” with references to cryptocurrency and NFTs. This conclusion is hard to square with the movie’s earlier claim that the Beanie Baby craze ushered in “a new era of capitalism,” but that paradox is typical of its shaky approach. In any given moment, the movie is either overstating the importance of its subject or trivializing it.Can we learn anything from this? “The Beanie Bubble” proves that there will always be movie fads, but some of them will be worse than others.The Beanie BubbleRated R for strong language and some mild sexual content. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes. Watch on Apple TV+. More

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      This Monster's Not Eager, but His Coach Is Ready to Rumble

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      Steve is being pressed into service as a wrestler in training, but if he had a choice he’d prefer a rumba to a rumble.The lackluster computer-animated movie “Rumble” hinges on what should be a boisterous high concept: Colossal monsters, living peacefully among people, compete as pro wrestlers. Armed with human trainers and cheered by fiery hometown fans, these fantastical creatures ascend to sports superstardom.The story takes place in a wrestling-obsessed town called Stoker, where the tenacious teenager Winnie (voiced by Geraldine Viswanathan) vows to fill the void left by her late father, a renowned coach, and his title-holding titan, Rayburn. Seeking a new contender to represent the town, she sees promise in the pudgy, horned Steve (Will Arnett), an amateur who’s built his career on losing fixed matches. He also happens to be Rayburn’s son.Cycling through daddy issues, lazy quips and training montages, Winnie and Steve rev up to reclaim the glory of their fathers. But while their goal is clear enough, the director, Hamish Grieve, leaves their identities only half formed. Spunk and moxie define Winnie, yet for a central character, her thoughts, feelings and interests beyond motivating her desultory new pal are not. And once Steve reveals that his true passion isn’t wrestling but salsa dancing, it’s a wonder he doesn’t give up the Goliath game and join a dance troupe instead.For such a tactile aesthetic, the visual jokes are few, and of the movie’s WWE references, a fleeting voice cameo of Michael Buffer as an announcer is the only one that resonates. Low on inspiration and creative juice, “Rumble” would like to bring down the house but hardly causes a tremor.RumbleRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 44 minutes. Watch on Paramount+. More