Buzz Blog

Corsage **1/2
See feature review. Available Jan. 6 at Broadway Centre Cinemas. (NR)

EO ***1/2
See feature review. Available Jan. 6 at Broadway Centre Cinemas. (NR)

A Man Called Otto **
For nearly 40 years, Tom Hanks has built a movie-star career on being, to all evidence, a nice and decent guy. And however talented an actor Hanks might be, that’s a persona that gets in the way of his effectiveness in this American adaptation of Fredrik Backman’s Swedish book and the subsequent 2015 Oscar-nominated Swedish film version. Hanks plays curmudgeonly Otto Anderson—recently widowed, essentially forced into retirement, and ready to end a life he doesn’t see having any more purpose. That’s the precise moment a new family—including pregnant mother Marisol (Mariana Treviño)—moves in across the street and into his life. Director Marc Forster attempts to rein in the uplifting whimsy that gets tangled up in turning failed suicide attempts into comedy, including matter-of-fact flashbacks to Otto’s youth (as played by Hanks’ son Truman), and allowing Treviño’s spiky energy to make her more than a kindly savior. But there’s an unavoidable problem with the first two-thirds, as Hanks attempts to portray Otto as inflexible and generally misanthropic, while the whole time we’re just waiting for him to break out that avuncular Tom Hanks smile.  A Man Called Otto demands a performer who can be convincing as the man Otto starts out as and the man Otto becomes; our contemporary James Stewart can really only manage the latter. Available Jan. 6 in theaters. (PG-13)

M3GAN ***
All hail Akela Cooper, a screenwriter who—between 2021’s Malignant and this latest entry from the James Wan/Blumhouse horror factory—has already carved out a space creating scare fare that also offers plenty of goofy entertainment. Allison Williams plays Gemma, an engineer for a Seattle-based electronic toy company who becomes the guardian for her 9-year-old niece Cady (Violet McGraw) after the death of Cady’s parents in an accident. As a companion for the grieving child, Gemma introduces M3GAN (voiced by Jenna Davis, body performance by Amie Donald), an AI robotic doll in the form of a human child who takes her role as Cady’s friend and protector extremely seriously. The script shows its oddball sensibility right off the bat with a commercial for one of Gemma’s other creations, and continues throughout its running time to provide effective moments of mordant humor. And Cooper also sneaks in a bit of a swipe at the way parents can use electronics to occupy the time of their kids that they’re not willing to spend themselves. M3GAN might be a bit too focused on its weirdness and its subtext to deliver many effective scares, with director Gerard Johnstone doing a mostly functional job of capturing the spooky side of its living doll. Still, in a genre where far too many entries just seem to be going through the motions, Akela Cooper’s name in the credits seems to be promising some sparks of the unexpected. Available Jan. 6 in theaters. (PG-13)

The Old Way **1/2
See feature review. Available Jan. 6 in theaters. (R)