Buzz Blog

Fountain of Youth **1/2
The desire to create a globe-hopping adventure franchise in the spirit of Indiana Jones or National Treasure is one I totally understand—but when your roguish soldier-of-fortune hero is played by John Krasinski, Imma stop you right there. Krasinski plays Luke Purdue, scion of a famed archaeologist attempting to continue his dad’s legacy by searching for the legendary fountain of youth, and dragging his semi-estranged sister Charlotte (Natalie Portman) along for the ride. It’s a fairly busy narrative, attempting to include not just Charlotte’s impending divorce and child-custody battle, but multiple groups of characters to serve as obstacles to the big treasure hunt: Thai gangsters, INTERPOL agents and a group of committed protectors of the mysterious relic—led by Eiza González—incredibly reminiscent of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’s Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword. But the real problem is that, no matter how many fun action sequences and interesting locations director Guy Ritchie manages to throw onto the screen, he’s counting on John Krasinski to be the charismatic center of things. Perhaps it might have been more enjoyable had screenwriter James Vanderbilt’s not seemed so deeply enamored of his own florid banter in virtually every character interaction, or got winky enough to make his own real-life great-great-grandfather a plot point. But, no, seriously: John Krasinski? Available May 23 via AppleTV+. (PG-13)

Friendship ***1/2
It’s undeniably true that you have to be on the particular wavelength of aggressive cringe served up by Tim Robinson in order for writer/director Andrew DeYoung’s feature debut to work fully, but it’s squirm-inducingly wonderful if you are. Robinson plays Craig, a suburban husband and father who becomes bromantically obsessed with his new neighbor, local TV weatherman Austin (Paul Rudd). What follows is a dark comedy that feels like it could have been at home in the “[fill-in-the-blank] from hell” thriller trend of the early ’90s—think of it as Married White Male—as Robinson captures Craig’s spiral into instability as a portrait of guys unable to process the realization that they’ve been missing personal connections in their lives, while simultaneously serving as a stealth parody of “masculinist” movements. A lot of what surrounds that central character feels like bits that would have been at home on Robinson’s I Think You Should Leave sketch-comedy show—including the unexpected effects of a hallucinogenic toad-venom trip, or Craig losing his cool during a work meeting—but they often work so well as stand-alone gags that it generally doesn’t matter if they make for a more cohesive whole. When you’ve got a one-of-a-kind comedic wheelhouse like Robinson, it’s nice to find a vehicle like this that shows it off. Available May 23 in theaters. (R)

The Last Rodeo **1/2
Unlike many of the recent releases by faith-based distributor Angel Films, this heartland drama doesn’t get particularly in-your-face about its Christian elements, yet there’s not quite enough there to fill the void in their absence. Neal McDonough (who also co-wrote the screenplay with frequent collaborator Derek Presley and director Jon Avnet) plays Joe Wainwright, a retired champion rodeo bull-rider from Texas who learns that his 10-year-old grandson (Graham Harvey) needs surgery for a brain tumor, and takes a chance on returning to a “Legends” competition to raise the necessary funds. The filmmakers build plenty of history into the narrative, including the death of Joe’s wife and its impact on his relationships with his daughter (Sarah Jones) and old military buddy/rodeo cohort Charlie (Mykelti Williamson), and there are some great performance moments as the characters reckon with the consequences of Joe’s grief. But Avnet and company make little effort to hide the fact that this is essentially an “underdog sports movie,” spending a large chunk of the running time on competition footage dragging out the drama of each rider’s eight (or fewer) seconds, plenty of “in case you have no idea what this sport is about” play-by-play announcing and a couple of truly awful performances by other rodeo riders. We end up with an occasionally affecting story of mending relationships, with a little too much bull-riding where its soul needed to be. Available May 23 in theaters. (PG)

Lilo & Stitch **
It’s true that, for a while during this latest Disney live-action regurgitation—pardon me, “reimagining”—of one of its animated features, I was thinking about the 2002 original. It’s kind of impossible not to, since it not only repeats the same basic premise about a Hawaiian girl (Maia Kealoha) being raised by her older sister Nani (Sydney Agudong) who adopts a mischievous exiled alien creature, but virtually every story beat and visual joke, like a robotic alien vomiting nuts and bolts, or someone whose frozen treat repeatedly falls to the ground. Eventually, though, I started thinking about another movie: Marcel the Shell With Shoes On, the previous feature by director Dean Fleischer Camp. I pondered the charming originality that Marcel brought to a similar thematic idea about the need for family connection, and how depressing it is that the career pipeline for virtually any filmmaker with a distinctive voice now seems to take them through franchise product. I thought about how, even though the lead performances here are all appealing—particularly Billy Magnusson’s goofy alien-in-human-form Pleakley—a few character tweaks from the original and repeating the idea that kids aren’t “bad” don’t justify losing everything that made the original at least visually interesting, like its watercolor-style backgrounds. Nothing made me want to be watching this movie, right now. It’s ambitionless. It’s content—in the sense of both ways you can pronounce that word. Available May 23 in theaters. (PG)

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning ***
See feature review. Available May 23 in theaters. (PG-13)