Pedro Pascal Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps,’ starring Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Joseph Quinn, Ralph Ineson, Julia Garner, Natasha Lyonne and Paul Walter Hauser

July 22, 2025

by Carla Hay

Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Vanessa Kirby, Pedro Pascal and Joseph Quinn in “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” (Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios)

Directed by Matt Shakman

Culture Representation: Taking place in the late 1960s, in New York City and in outer space, the sci-fi/fantasy/action film “Fantastic Four: First Steps” (based on Marvel Comics characters) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans, Latin people and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Four astronauts with superpowers join forces against an evil, planet-eating god that lives in outer space and has recruited a silver-armored surfer to be his warrior messenger.

Culture Audience: “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of superhero movies, Marvel Comics, and action films where the superhero team is a tight-knit family.

Julia Garner in “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” (Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios)

“The Fantastic Four: First Steps” is a step in the right direction for relaunching Marvel Comics’ Fantastic Four characters into a movie series for theatrical release. It’s an entertaining but not exceptionally outstanding improvement from 2005’s tepid “Fantastic Four,” 2007’s underwhelming “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer” and 2015’s dreadful reboot “Fantastic Four,” which had completely new cast members from the previous “Fantastic Four” movies. Instead of being an origin story about how these superheroes got their powers, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” shows this quartet as an established group of beloved superheroes whose loyalties to family and the world are put to the test. Great action sequences and a unique plot outweigh the film’s mixed-bag chemistry and bland villains.

Directed by Matt Shakman, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” was written by Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan and Ian Springer. The movie takes place sometime in the late 1960s in New York City (the home city of the Fantastic Four) and in outer space. The movie’s Earth is an alternate version called Earth 828. It’s revealed near the end of the film that 828 stands for August 28, the birthday of Fantastic Four creator Jack Kirby, who died in 1994 at age 76. (“The Fantastic Four: First Steps” was actually filmed in London and in Spain.)

The Fantastic Four, who all live together, are heroic astronauts who are at the forefront of the Space Race, which had the United States competing to be the world leader in outer-space travel. The Fantastic Four have the nickname the First Family of Marvel because they were Marvel Comics’ first group of superheroes to be members of the same family. Here are the members of the Fantastic Four, who all got their superpowers four years earlier, during a space mission that went awry because of a cosmic storm:

Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic (played by Pedro Pascal) is the intellectual scientist/inventor of the group. His superpower is the ability to stretch like rubber for great lengths. Reed is the one who is most likely to obsess over scientific theories and mathematical equations to find solutions to problems. Reed also still feels guilty about the botched mission that made their lives anything but normal.
Sue Storm/Invisible Woman (played by Vanessa Kirby) is Reed’s level-headed wife. Her superpower is the ability to be invisible and to move large objects with her mind. Sue is the best out of the four when it comes to diplomatic relations with the public. She is also the head the Future Foundation, where she does a lot of work as a diplomat to help bring about world peace.
Johnny Storm/Human Torch (played by Joseph Quinn) is Sue’s impulsive, daredevil younger brother. His superpower is the ability to turn his body into a flaming torch and to shoot fireballs. Johnny is a bachelor who is considered the “heartthrob” of the group. And true to his Human Torch nickname, he’s a bit of a “hothead.”
Ben Grimm/The Thing (played by Ebon Moss-Bachrach), a former fighter pilot, is Reed’s best friend since their college days. His superpower is his extraordinary strength because the outer-space accident left him looking like a large man made of rocks. Ben is also a bachelor and is actually a gentle giant underneath his fearsome exterior.

“The Fantastic Four: First Steps” begins by showing Sue finding out the results of a home pregnancy test that she’s taken. She’s pregnant, after two years of trying to conceive a baby. Sue shows Reed the results of the test. They are both happy but also cautiously optimistic because they don’t know if their child will be biologically “normal” or not.

Reed and Sue say to each other about having this child: “I really want to do this.” Sue then tells Reed, “Nothing’s going to change.” We all know she’s wrong about that because this movie would not exist if everything stayed the same for the Fantastic Four. Reed and Sue later find out that their unborn child is a boy.

Also living in the Fantastic Four household is a robot named H.E.R.B.I.E. (Humanoid Experimental Robot B-Type Integrated Electronics), who resembles the robot title character of 2008’s “WALL-E.” H.E.R.B.I.E. (voiced by Matthew Wood) is a helpful assistant with numerous skills that come handy in the lab, the kitchen or wherever he’s needed. H.E.R.B.I.E. also has the same qualities of being like a cute pet.

One of the best things about “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” is that it’s not overstuffed with characters and subplots. The story is fairly uncomplicated and easy to follow, but there are some moments that get a little mundane and predictable. And, quite frankly, there are more fascinating and more appealing superhero groups in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), such as the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy.

A mysterious being called the Silver Surfer (played by Julia Garner), who is completely silver and travels through space on a surfboard, arrives on Earth, announces to the Fantastic Four that she has a message to deliver to Earth from a giant god named Galactus (played by Ralph Ineson), who lives in outer space and eats planets: “Your planet is marked for death. Your planet will be consumed by the Devourer … There’s nothing you can do about it.”

Marvel Comics and other on-screen depictions of the Silver Surfer made this character a male character. The gender swap of the Silver Surfer in “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” results in a subplot of Johnny developing a physical attraction/infatuation with her. It’s later revealed that the Silver Surfer’s real name is Shalla-Bal. Flashbacks briefly show some of her personal background, but she’s still an underdeveloped character who doesn’t say much.

After the Silver Surfer delivers this gloom-and-doom message and leaves to go back to outer space, Johnny follows her to see where she came from, but she fights him off like he’s a stalker, because he basically is a stalker in this moment. Johnny is defeated and falls back down to Earth, but he’s smitten, even though the Silver Surfer barely talks to him. Maybe Johnny is attracted to the skin-tight metallic silver body suit that she seems to be wearing.

Later, Johnny describes her as a “sexy alien” and says he “had a moment” of connecting with her. It’s kind of a strange part of the movie because Johnny could have his pick of many women on Earth. But if this is the movie’s way of saying that Johnny has some kind of kink for outer-space aliens who don’t look entirely human, who are we to judge? Later, in a battle scene when Sue tells Johnny to kill the Silver Surfer, he quips like a dejected bachelor: “Just when I thought I met someone interesting.”

The Fantastic Four then travel by spaceship to track down Galactus on their own, as if no one else on Earth can go in a spaceship to find this monster. Official marketing materials for “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” have already revealed that the son of Reed and Sue is born in this movie. Fans of the Marvel Comics already know that this son will be named Franklin.

However, the birth of Franklin in this movie is definitely not like it was in the comic books. The childbirth scene is like no other scene in the MCU. What also sets “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” apart from other MCU movies is how it shows superheroes becoming first-time parents because most superheroes are never shown as parents. “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” makes parental love the central focus of the movie’s biggest dilemma/conflict in fighting the villains.

“The Fantastic Four: First Steps” has top-notch production design and very immersive visual effects. And there’s no doubt that the movie has a talented cast. Pascal, Kirby, Quinn and Moss-Bachrach all bring charismatic sparks to their respective characters while staying true to the characters’ original personalities from Marvel Comics. It’s just that the characters’ dialogue in this movie isn’t particularly special. Garner and Ineson are perfectly fine in their roles, considering the Silver Surfer and Galactus are very robotic in “The Fantastic Four: First Steps.” Almost nothing in this movie is shown or told about Galactus’ origin story.

Supporting characters include Lynne Nichols (played by Sarah Niles), the Fantastic Four’s chief of staff, who doesn’t do much except stand by and act like a loyal administrative employee. She’s a member of the Fantastic Four entourage, but Lynne isn’t the type of trusted “inner circle” employee who’s privy to all of the Fantastic Four’s secrets, in the way that Alfred Pennyworth is for Batman. Most of Lynne’s screen time consists of her reacting with approval to whatever the Fantastic Four are doing or have done. Another side character is Ted Gilbert (played by Mark Gatiss), the host/star of a “Tonight Show”-styled variety show called “The Ted Gilbert Show,” who makes commentary on his show about the Fantastic Four.

“The Fantastic Four: First Steps” makes a half-hearted attempt to give Ben a love interest when he develops a mutual attraction to Rachel Rozman (played by Natasha Lyonne), who works for a community center. Ben meets friendly Rachel when he returns to his childhood home on Yancy Street. Some children behind a fence at the community center ask him to lift up a Volkswagen Beetle on a nearby street, he accommodates their request, and Rachel comes out of the building to talk to Ben.

The short interactions between Ben and Rachel are limited to only two scenes that are far apart from each other. “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” has a few other scenes that show how lovelorn Ben feels isolated from having a “normal” life because of his physical appearance. This aspect of Ben’s personal life is really sidelined in the movie because the main focus is on Reed and Sue becoming parents.

The Fantastic Four are the MCU’s most serious-minded group of superheroes so far. Don’t expect any wisecracking comedians in this quartet. Some of their jokes fall kind of flat. The movie’s funniest character is Harvey Elder/Mole Man (played by Paul Walter Hauser), a former Fantastic Four enemy who has created a society of Moleoids, who live underground with him in a community called Subterranea. Harvey, who is depicted as an unpredictable eccentric, brings some comic relief to the movie. There’s an entire backstory about Harvey that the movie ignores because he’s not in the movie long enough to warrant a lot of information about his past.

The chemistry between the characters in this version of the Fantastic Four isn’t entirely convincing. Ben is supposed to be Reed’s best friend, but Ben spends more time hanging out with Johnny. As for any marital passion between Reed and Sue, there’s more heat generated from four lit matchsticks than any romantic love that these two spouses show on screen. In this movie, Reed and Sue seem more like very compatible co-workers than a husband and a wife who are supposed to be in love with each other.

Despite these shortcomings, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” isn’t boring. It’s certainly engaging in many ways, and it can be enjoyed as a stand-alone film—unlike other MCU films that make people feel like they need to watch several previous MCU films and TV series to understand what’s happening. In “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” the mid-credits scene takes place four years after the events in the movie and is a preview of 2026’s “Avengers: Doomsday.” The movie’s end-credits scene is a non-essential animated 1960s-styled homage to the Fantastic Four. Ultimately, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” isn’t top-tier MCU, but it’s better than the average superhero movie.

20th Century Studios will release “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” in U.S. cinemas on July 25, 2025.

Review: ‘Eddington,’ starring Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Luke Grimes, Deirdre O’Connell, Micheal Ward, Amélie Hoeferle, Clifton Collins Jr., William Belleau, Austin Butler and Emma Stone

July 18, 2025

by Carla Hay

“Eddington”

Directed by Ari Aster

Culture Representation: Taking place in 2020 and 2021, in the fictional small town of Eddington, New Mexico, the dramatic film “Eddington” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Latin people, African Americans and Native Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A politically conservative sheriff decides to run for mayor of Eddington against the politically liberal incumbent mayor, and it sets off a firestorm of controversies and deaths.

Culture Audience: “Eddington” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Ari Aster, COVID-19 movies and movies that are political satires.

Emma Stone and Deirdre O’Connell in “Eddington” (Photo by Richard Foreman/A24)

Although the movie’s last 15 minutes drag for too long, “Eddington” is a suspenseful and well-acted dark satire that provokes and skewers various political beliefs. The fictional small town of Eddington represents many real communities. And the movie astutely shows that the height of the COVID-19 pandemic exposed and ignited discontent that already existed.

Written and directed by Ari Aster, “Eddington” had its world premiere at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. It’s a divisive movie where viewers will find something that will be entertaining or offensive. How much viewers will actually like or dislike “Eddington” will depend on how much they are entertained or offended. Many real-life controversies and people’s reactions to them are put on display in various portrayals that hold up a mirror to uncomfortable aspects of American society that some people might not want to see.

The fictional town of Eddington, New Mexico, is a suburb of Albuquerque and is a desert town in Savilla County. (“Eddington” was filmed in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.) In the spring and summer of 2020 (when most of the movie takes place), Eddington’s population is 2,345. “Eddington” begins in late May 2020, about two months after the world went into lockdowns of quarantines, social distancing and mask wearing that affected people in various ways.

Joe Cross (played by Joaquin Phoenix) is the sheriff of Savilla County. Joe thinks he’s an above-average good guy and believes that wearing masks should be optional and a “freedom of choice” issue during this pandemic. He doesn’t like institutional policies that require people to wear masks in public during a public health safety crisis. Joe doesn’t want to enforce these policies because, technically, these policies aren’t laws, as he points out in one of the movie’s many confrontational scenes.

In stark contrast to Joe is Ted Garcia (played by Pedro Pascal), Eddington’s incumbent mayor who is seeking re-election. Ted not only believes in the mask-wearing policies, he also believes that these policies should be supported by law enforcement officials. Ted is also a businessman (he owns an Eddington pub called Garcia’s Bar), who thinks he’s more intelligent than the average Eddington resident. Joe and Ted have multiple conflicts in the story about their opposite beliefs.

The movie begins by showing a mentally ill, disheveled and barefoot vagrant named Lodge (played by unrecognizable Clifton Collins Jr.), who is trudging along in the hills above Eddington, as he rants out loud to himself. Lodge is a familiar sight in Eddington, but he’s mostly ignored by the residents, unless people think he’s causing trouble. In the movie’s opening scene, Lodge passes by a large sign announcing a “proposed hyperscale data development center” called Solidgoldmagikarp.

It’s later revealed that Solidgoldmagikarp is a mysterious technology company that wants to set up an office in Eddington to do projects for artificial intelligence. Ted and other Eddington officials want this business because they think it will significantly boost the town’s economy. Other town officials and several other Eddington residents don’t trust what Solidgoldmagikarp is about and don’t want this company in Eddington.

Joe and his homemaker wife Louise Cross (played by Emma Stone), who do not have chilren, live in a modest house with a guest who’s staying longer than expected: Louise’s widowed mother Dawn (played Deirdre O’Connell), whose deceased husband used to be the sheriff of Eddington. Dawn (who seems to have bouts of depression and talks out loud to herself) was originally going to leave in April, but the pandemic has prolonged her stay. Joe and Louise aren’t thrilled about this arrangement, because it’s apparently affected their marital intimacy, but Louise convinces Joe that Dawn will leave when things get safer during the pandemic.

Louise makes unusual-looking stuffed toys as a hobby. And through conversations in the movie, it’s hinted that she has mental health issues, including a nervous breakdown in her past. Louise has been using the Internet to semi-secretly follow a conspiracy theorist named Vernon Jefferson Peak (played by Austin Butler), who has a cult-like group of supporters. Dawn is also a believer in conspiracy theories.

The word “QAnon” is not mentioned in the movie, but the group led by Vernon has beliefs that are a lot like QAnon. Louise is a survivor of sexual abuse that happened when she was 16 years old. It’s also hinted that she could have experienced sexual abuse at a younger age. And so, she’s triggered when Vernon preaches about pedophiles who are in positions of power, especially government officials.

In contrast to Joe’s personal life, Ted is a divorcé whose ex-wife left him and their son Eric Garcia an untold number of years ago. Eric (played by Matt Gomez Hidaka) is now about 17 years old. Eric is at an age when he wants to be independent, but he’s legally a child who’s under the responsibility of Ted, who is a somewhat strict and very image-conscious parent.

There’s a scene where Ted and Eric argue about Eric wanting to borrow Ted’s car to visit Eric’s best friend Brian Frazee (played by Cameron Mann) at the house where Brian lives, but Ted is concerned about Eric possibly getting COVID-19. Ted also tells Eric that if the mayor’s son is seen flaunting the town’s social-distancing policies, it could reflect badly on Ted’s campaign. After some back-and-forth arguing, Ted reluctantly lets Eric borrow the car for this social visit on the condition that Eric only meets up with Brian.

Of course, Eric isn’t just meeting up with Brian alone in Brian’s house. Eric and Brian go to a bonfire party attended by other teenagers. It’s at this party where Brian and Eric meet 19-year-old Sarah (played by Amélie Hoeferle), who is every stereotype of a left-wing social justice warrior. For example, she constantly feels the need to point out her “white privilege,” and she thinks that most white people are racist oppressors.

Brian is immediately attracted to Sarah and pretends to have the same political beliefs as Sarah, in order to impress her. (For example, when Brian sees Sarah with an Angela Davis book, he uses his phone to look up who left-wing political activist Angela Davis is before Brian approaches Sarah for a conversation.) Despite Brian’s best efforts to date Sarah, she ends up being more attracted to Eric, who is smarter and more confident than Brian.

Meanwhile, after Joe has two separate public incidents where Ted scolds Joe for not wearing a mask in public, Joe decides to run for mayor against Ted. (A subtle joke in the movie is one of Joe’s negative campaign slogans against Ted is misspelled as “Your being manipulated” instead of the correct spelling of “You’re being manipulated.”) For his mayoral campaign, Joe enlists the help of his two subordinates, who are as woefully inexperienced as Joe when it comes to running a political campaign: Guy Tooley (played by Luke Grimes) is Joe’s deputy. Michael Cooke (played by Micheal Ward) is a police officer whom Joe promotes to sergeant.

Guy and Michael are competitive with each other when it comes to which one will get the most approval and perks from Joe. This rivalry will play a crucial role in something disturbing that happens later in the story. Guy is very much a Blue Lives Matter type of law enforcement official who is likely to automatically side with cops in police brutality cases. Michael tries to remain neutral and uses the excuse that racist hate crimes happen in other places, not in Eddington. Michael doesn’t say anything in protest when Joe and Guy make racially ignorant comments to Michael.

However, Michael’s racial identity as an African American (and the only African American in Eddington’s small police force) becomes a big issue for some people, especially during the confrontational Black Lives Matter protests that happen in Eddington after the May 2020 police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Michael can no longer use the excuse that Eddington isn’t affected by racist police brutality that happens in other cities. Joe, Guy and Michael all have to respond as law enforcement officers when these protests look like they could erupt into violence.

Michael is a supporting character who is sure to inspire many questions and discussions from “Eddington” viewers: Does someone like Michael need to “pick a side” in the racial social justice wars? And what about the idea that black people don’t all think alike and have the right to individual opinions? As just because Michael is a police officer, does that automatically make him a “traitor” to his race in a job that’s frequently accused of racial profiling against black and brown people?

“Eddington” goes further down a rabbit hole of complications when it’s revealed that social justice activist Sarah has been telling people that Michael is her boyfriend. What does that mean for best friends Eric and Brian, who both seem to be vying for Sarah’s affections and have joined her in Black Lives Matter protests? The movie shows how this love quadrangle is handled.

Meanwhile, personal grudges are stirred up because of a disputed incident that happened several years ago between Louise and Ted, long before Louise and Joe got involved with each other. According to what Ted has told people, he and Louise went out on a few platonic dates, but he distanced himself from her because she was acting obsessive toward him. Ted also disliked the way Louise’s mother Dawn treated him. Other people have a different version of what happened.

“Eddington” has subtle and not-so-subtle ways of showing how “being territorial” and the existence of borders can cause a sense of community pride for some people or toxic entitlement for other people. An early scene in the movie shows Joe getting into a tense argument when he drives into the city of Santa Lupe Pueblo, and the Santa Lupe Pueblo sheriff (played by David Midthunder) and his officer colleague in a patrol car order Joe to wear a mask now that he’s in Santa Lupe Pueblo. Joe puts on the mask so the conflict doesn’t escalate, but as soon as the other cops drive away, Joe angrily rips off the mask.

Later in the movie, Joe throws his own territorial weight around when a Native American tribal reservation officer named Butterfly Jimenez (played by William Belleau) offers to help Joe in an investigation of a crime that technically took place on tribal land in Santa Lupe Pueblo. Joe is very hostile and disrespectful to Butterfly and orders Butterfly to stay away from the investigation, for reasons that are shown in the movie. “Eddington” also has several of the liberal activists mention “stolen land,” in reference to indigenous people being the native inhabitants of what is now the United States of America.

Although “Eddington” has flaws in its screenplay and direction, the performances from the cast members consistently range from satisfactory to riveting. Phoenix, Stone, O’Connell, Butler and Ward make the most out of the scenes that they’re in, by giving their characters very intriguing non-verbal aspects to their personalities that will make viewers curious to know more that isn’t necessarily told in the movie. And although the movie’s subplots about the romantic rivalries veer a little into soap opera territory, nothing about these subplots is unrealistic.

“Eddington” is told mainly from Joe’s point of view, since he’s the character who gets the most screen time. The part of the movie that might turn people off the most is an extended shootout scene that is briefly shown in the trailers for “Eddington.” The gun violence and explosions that ensue look like a Quentin Tarantino wannabe movie. “Eddington” uses the frustrating trick of making it look like someone dies in an extremely violent scene, only to later reveal that the person survived.

“Eddington” is being described as a movie in the Western genre, but this film also wants to be an American political story that’s trying to be like a Greek tragedy—and it all results in tonal shifts that are sometimes clumsy. The movie’s epilogue would have been more effective as a quick-captioned montage instead of awkward, slow-moving scenes. Even with these flaws, “Eddington” has some sharply incisive and comedically acerbic scenes that hit their intended marks. People don’t have to like “Eddington,” but most people would agree that it’s a movie that’s not forgettable.

A24 released “Eddington” in U.S. cinemas on July 18, 2025.

Review: ‘Materialists,’ starring Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal

June 12, 2025

by Carla Hay

“Materialists”

Directed by Celine Song

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York state, the dramatic film “Materialists” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Latin people and one black person) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A workaholic matchmaker has to decide between two suitors for herself: an attentive millionaire and her financially broke ex-boyfriend.

Culture Audience: “Materialists” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Celine Song and predictable romantic movies.

Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pascal in “Materialists” (Photo by Atsushi Nishijima/A24)

Good performances save “Materialists” from being a trite and unrealistic version of dating in New York City. People who are black, Asian, plus-sized or ugly are rarely seen in “Materialists.” The movie delivers if you want to see a romantic fantasy. “Materialists” is the type of movie that will appeal to fans of the HBO comedy series “Sex and the City” and New York City-based romantic movies from filmmakers Nancy Meyers, Nora Ephron and Woody Allen—no matter how flawed these on-screen stories are in misrepresenting and/or excluding much of the city’s diversity. “Materialists” takes place in the 2020s, but the movie copies from the template of popular romance-oriented movies and TV shows that were made from the 1980s to 2000s.

Written and directed by Celine Song, “Materialists” is a somewhat disappointing follow-up to her excellent 2023 feature-film directorial debut “Past Lives,” a semi-autobiographical drama for which she received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. “Past Lives” was also Oscar-nominated for Best Picture. Just like in “Past Lives,” there’s a love triangle in “Materialists” that plays out in New York City. And just like in both movies, the female protagonist has to choose between passion and practicality, as represented by the two men who are rivals for her love. Don’t assume that the outcomes of both movies are similar.

“Materialists” begins in an unspecified time period, by showing an out-of-place scene of a caveman courting a cavewoman, by bringing her flowers and by giving her ring made out of a flower. A flower ring is shown much later in “Materialists,” in what’s supposed to be a nod to the movie’s opening scene. It’s the movie’s way of saying that love and courtship go back to the origin of the human species, but this beginning scene with the cavepeople just makes this message look forced and awkward.

In “Materialists” (which takes place in the mid-2020s), protagonist Lucy Mason (played by Dakota Johnson) is an ambitious workaholic matchmaker who works at Adore Matchmaking, a dating agency for affluent people. Lucy, who is in her mid-30s, is a never-married bachelorette with no children. She’s been so busy with her job, Lucy says she doesn’t have time for a love life. In the beginning of the movie, she describes herself as “voluntary celibate.”

In other words, Lucy is good at finding love for other people, but not so good at finding love for herself. She’s also good at giving emotional support to her clients, but she treats her matchmaking like a stockbroker treats the stock market. She even describes the dating scene as a “marketplace” and people as “investments.”

Not much else is revealed about Lucy except in her own words: She grew up poor, she had a “shitty family” with divorced parents, and if she gets married, the number-one requirement is that her husband has to be filthy rich. She smokes cigarettes as if she thinks she’s in a Lauren Bacall movie. It should come as no surprise that Lucy used to be an aspiring actress, but she quit pursuing acting because she couldn’t find enough work as an actress to have the income that she wants.

This matchmaking job is the first job Lucy has had where she feels she can support herself in a middle-class lifestyle, although Lucy’s $80,000 annual salary is too low for someone who’s supposedly the star employee at this New York City matchmaking agency for affluent people. Lucy is completely estranged from her family—it’s hinted that this estrangement was her choice—but the movie gives no details about what caused Lucy to want to cut herself off from her family.

As Lucy says in the movie, being poor or financially unstable for most of her life has fueled her goal to eventually marry a rich man. When she talks about any future husband she might have, she only talks about materialistic or surface-level things that she wants him to have. Of course, in a movie like “Materialists,” you know from the way that Lucy blathers on about wealth and net worth for any potential suitors for her and her clients, you can tell deep down, Lucy just wants a good old-fashioned (stereotypical) romance for herself.

“Materialists” is partially inspired by Song’s real-life past experience as a matchmaker at a dating agency for affluent people. But if you believe everything that’s in “Materialists,” you’d have to believe that these types of dating agencies in New York City mostly have young, physically attractive women as matchmakers, the women are all slender, and they all act like sorority sisters who giggle and go from room to room in a pack. You’d also have to believe that almost all women want or should want to get married as a life goal.

Lucy is depicted as the agency’s most successful matchmaker, who is both admired and envied by her colleagues. She keeps herself at just enough of an emotional distance not to have any close friends in her co-worker group. Lucy’s boss Violet (played by Marin Ireland) only cares about Lucy in terms of Lucy’s ability to make money for the company.

You’d also have to believe that clients of elite matchmaker agencies in New York City are all in their 20s, 30s or 40s, and they set shallow and often-unrealistic goals for what they want in a potential lover or spouse. Several montages in “Materialists” show very irritating conversations where clients list their demands and requirements, as if they’re ordering items off of a menu or looking to fill a job position. A big part of Lucy’s job is to not give harsh criticism to her clients but also manage her clients’ expectations.

What all the male clients have in common is that they only want women who are thin, pretty and in their 20s. What the female clients have in common is they want men who are tall, good-looking and rich. (The only exception is a black lesbian/queer woman, who’s in the movie for less than a minute in a very token role.) As it stands, “Materialists” makes almost all of the workers and clients in the New York City matchmaking business look like vain caricatures who are too self-absorbed to notice their hollow personalities.

“Materialists” isn’t a comedy, so none of these extreme stereotypes can really be counted as satire. Some of it is uncomfortable to watch, like you’re watching filmmakers say they despise what “Sex and the City” represents and they want to make something more “elevated,” but they secretly want to live like the characters in “Sex and the City.” There is so much “Sex and the City” influence in “Materialists,” the writers of “Sex and the City” deserve a thank you credit in “Materialists.”

Lucy often has to listen with sympathetic patience when her clients are whiny, rude or neurotic. She gives advice, but it’s always advice with an agenda: Lucy doesn’t want the client to do anything that will make Lucy look like a bad matchmaker. Because so much of Lucy’s life revolves around her job, her self-esteem is very tied up in her reputation as a matchmaker.

There’s a wedding scene where the bride is a matchmaker client named Charlotte (played by Louisa Jacobson), who has a crying meltdown in a private room because she’s having doubts about getting married just minutes before the ceremony is about to start. Lucy says all the right things to make Charlotte secure enough with the decision to have the wedding as planned. Coincidence or not, the “Sex and the City” bachelorette character who was the most desperate and most insecure about getting married is also named Charlotte.

At the wedding reception, Lucy meets the groom’s bachelor brother Harry Castillo (played by Pedro Pascal), a multimillionaire financier who’s about 15 years older than Lucy. Harry introduces himself to Lucy and “checks all the boxes” of what Lucy and many of her female clients want in a potential husband: He’s good-looking, tall, rich, polite, intelligent, attentive and very romantic. Harry also comes from a close-knit and loving family. Harry works for his mother’s financial company, although that situation might be a turnoff to some potential romantic partners who think that this mother/son business relationship is too close for comfort.

Predictably, Harry is immediately smitten with Lucy and starts flirting with her when they’re at the same table. And just look who happens to be their table server at the wedding: Lucy’s ex-boyfriend John (played by Chris Evans), who works for the catering company that was hired for the wedding. John is also single, available, and has no children. Being a catering employee is just a way for John to pay his bills. What John really wants to do with his life is be a professional actor. He hasn’t had much luck and is still struggling to find steady work as an actor.

In the meantime, 37-year-old John is financially broke, he lives in a cramped apartment with two roommates whom he doesn’t like very much, and he’s still not over his breakup from Lucy, who dumped him several years ago because she got tired of John not being able to afford to give her what she wants. When John and Lucy see each other at this wedding, there’s still tension between them. It’s the type of tension that signals unresolved feelings for each other. You know where all of this is going, of course.

“Materialists” has scenes that sometimes overflow with pretentious dialogue, but other scenes have genuine zest, are touching, or ring true. The movie looks glamorous, but the romantic scenes needed more sizzle. In “Materialists,” people talk about love more than they show love. A minimal amount of information is given about Lucy’s personal background, but even less is told about John, who doesn’t have any close friends or family members in his life for emotional support. It’s briefly mentioned that John—just like Lucy—comes from a working-class family with divorced parents.

An “unlucky in love” client of Lucy’s named Sophie (played by Zoë Winters) has a subplot in “Materialists” that is both heartwarming and heartbreaking, but this subplot is sometimes clumsily handled in the movie, even though Winters gives a standout performance. It’s mentioned more than once that Lucy considers Sophie to be a special client because Lucy feels more emotionally invested in Sophie than Lucy feels for most of Lucy’s other clients. But the movie keeps it vague on what this emotional attachment really means for Lucy, who has no friends outside of her job.

Johnson portrays Lucy as someone who is a mess of contradictions: Lucy is soft-spoken, but her attitude is often hard and cynical. She’s sometimes arrogant but sometimes self-loathing. Lucy frequently tells people that she’s an uncompromising gold digger but her romantic interest in John says otherwise. And it’s pretty sad that Lucy thinks she’s too old for Harry because she thinks all rich heterosexual bachelors over the age of 40 only want girlfriends in their 20s. An experienced matchmaker in real life would know that stereotype isn’t always true.

Whether or not you’re fully rooting for Lucy when watching “Materialists” will depend on how much you like Johnson’s performance. Lucy is supposed to be a jaded social climber, but Johnson plays Lucy as a little too calm and mellow for someone with Lucy’s burning ambitions. One of the movie’s biggest shortcomings is that not enough is told or shown about Lucy’s other past relationships to give a better picture of who she really is as a romantic partner and what patterns or habits she seems to have when it comes to choosing a romantic partner.

“Materialists” has a few flashbacks to what Lucy and John were like when they were a couple. They frequently argued over money. If you have enough life experience or know anything about couples’ psychology, these flashbacks won’t make you feel good about the chances of Lucy and John staying together if they reunite and start dating each other again.

John still has the same financial issues and still feels “stuck” in his life, which is why Lucy broke up with him in the first place. John says to Lucy that he sees himself having kids who look like Lucy, but “Materialists” never reveals if Lucy wants to have kids. It’s an example of a few disconnects that don’t make “Materialists” entirely convincing that Lucy and John could be “soul mates” who are right for each other.

Evans has played this type of sarcastic underachiever many times before in other movies about romance where the female main character is supposed to fall for his character’s rouge-ish charm. And there’s nothing wrong with Evans’ performance, but he’s not doing anything that’s truly unique or special in this movie. Pascal doesn’t have much to work with for the Harry character, who’s supposed to be the “perfect catch” for many bachelorettes. Harry’s only noticeable flaw is that Harry tells little lies about himself to impress Lucy.

“Materialists” is a mixed bag of a film. It’s escapist and fluffy entertainment pretending to be an insightful and clever look at 2020s romance. The truth is that “Materialists” isn’t complex or innovative because it follows the same formulas of other love triangle movies that are told from the perspective of a female protagonist. You know exactly what the end result will be, but the journey getting there in “Materialists” is uneven because it’s sometimes enjoyable and sometimes annoying.

Review: ‘Gladiator II,’ starring Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal, Connie Nielsen and Denzel Washington

November 11, 2024

by Carla Hay

“Gladiator II”

Directed by Ridley Scott

Culture Representation: Taking place in the year 200, in Rome and in the African kingdom of Numidia, the action film “Gladiator II” (a sequel to 2000’s Oscar-winning “Gladiator”) features a predominantly white cast fo characters (with some black people, Latin people and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Lucius, the long-lost son of Maximus Decimus Meridius (from the first “Gladiator” movie), becomes a prisoner slave of the Romans, and must fight his way to freedom, just like his father.

Culture Audience: “Gladiator II” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the first “Gladiator” movie, movie’s headliners, director Ridley Scott, and sword-and-sandal action films.

Paul Mescal and Denzel Washington in “Gladiator II” (Photo by Aidan Monaghan/Paramount Pictures)

“Gladiator II” is not as emotionally gripping as 2000’s “Gladiator,” but this action sequel delivers the expected epic battle scenes and competent acting. Shallow characters and phony-looking fight beasts are part of this predictable story. There are no real surprises in “Gladiator II,” which should satisfy viewers who don’t expect this sequel to be superior to the original “Gladiator,” which won five Oscars, including Best Picture.

Directed by Ridley Scott (who also directed 2000’s “Gladiator”) and written by David Scarpa, “Gladiator II” sticks to the same formula of “Gladiator”: The main character is enslaved as a prisoner of the Romans, and he becomes a gladiator to fight for his freedom. In “Gladiator,” the main character is a former Roman general named Maximus Decimus Meridius, played by Russell Crowe, who won an Oscar for Best Actor for his role in “Gladiator.” In “Gladiator II,” the main character is Maximus’ long-lost son Lucius (played by Paul Mescal), who is out to avenge the death of his wife, who was murdered by Romans.

“Gladiator II” begins in the year 200, which is 16 years after the death of Maximus. Lucius, who is 28 years old, has been living in the African kingdom of Numidia, where he was sent to live for his safety when he was 12 years old. Lucius was renamed Hanno, which is the name he uses for himself for most of the movie. His father figure/mentor is named Jugurtha (played by Peter Mensah), who is a brave warrior. Lucius’ wife Arishat (played by Yuval Gonen) is also a warrior.

Numidia gets invaded by Romans in a massive, hard-fought battle that Numidia loses. The Roman general who leads this battle is Marcus Acacius (played by Pedro Pascal), who is ruthless in war but has a gentle side when it comes to his wife Lucilla (played by Connie Nielsen), who is Maximus’ former lover. Marcus is Lucilla’s second husband. She was a widow in “Gladiator.” Lucilla is also the mother of Lucius. (Alfie Tempest has the role of Lucius as a 12-year-old, seen in flashbacks.)

Lucilla’s brother Commodus (played by Joaquin Phoenix in “Gladiator”) had incestuous feelings for her and was the chief villain in “Gladiator.” As seen in “Gladiator II,” there was gossip about who was the actual biological father of Lucius. After the events that took place in “Gladiator,” and there was political upheaval over who would control the Roman empire, Lucilla feared that Lucius would be murdered, so she sent him to live in Numidia.

Arishat is killed in the battle against Numidia. Lucius is devastated by her death and now has more motivation for hateful vengeance on Romans. Lucius, Jugurtha and many other Numidians are captured and sent to Rome to live as slaves. You know the rest: Lucius must become a gladiator to possibly rise through the ranks and gain his freedom.

The gladiator fights are seen as amusing entertainment for those who gather to see these bloody and brutal battles. The fraternal twin emperors who rule Rome at this time are Geta (played by Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (played by Fred Hechinger), who are stereotypically decadent and corrupt. Geta is the taller “alpha male” twin who prefers women to be his sex partners. Caracalla is the shorter “beta male” twin who seems to be sexually fluid or gay. Geta and Caracalla do a lot of smirking and pouting, but it’s fairly obvious early on in the movie that these two spoiled brothers aren’t nearly as cunning as the story’s biggest villain.

A wealthy, openly bisexual Roman businessman named Macrinus (played by Denzel Washington) takes an interest in Lucius, just like someone takes an interest in buying a star athlete for a team. It should come as no surprise that Macrinus, who has influence with Geta and Caracalla, is ruthlessly ambitious and has ulterior motives for making Lucius a “pet project.” The inevitable manipulations, betrayals and showdowns happen in a formulaic way.

“Gladiator II” is much more gruesome in its violence than “Gladiator.” There are also some scenes where the gladiators battle very fake-looking baboons and sharks. These visual effects make “Gladiator II” almost look like science fiction, which takes a lot of realism out of some of the battle scenes. Not much is shown about the relationship between Lucius and Arishat, except brief and superficial flashbacks, therefore depriving viewers of a meaningful backstory of this love relationship.

All of the cast members give solid performances and do the best that they can with dialogue that is often hollow or downright corny. Washington makes the most out of his villain role to give the movie’s standout performance. Mescal does well in the action scenes, but his Lucius/Hanno character has about as much personality as a video game character.

Most of the supporting characters have even less impactful personalities. Ravi (played by Alexander Karim) is a gladiator-turned-doctor, whose main purpose in the movie is to tend to Lucius’ injuries and listen to Lucius’ vent about Lucius’ misery and rants about getting revenge on the Romans. There’s also a caricature-like master of ceremonies (played by Matt Lucas) for the gladiator fights.

After the death of Arishat, Lucius is an embittered loner who is reluctant to accept Lucilla as his mother, because he believes that he was abandoned. There’s a “will he or won’t he forgive his mother” subplot in a half-hearted effort to give Lucilla some type of storyline, but her romantic entanglements aren’t explained adequately. The identity crisis of Lucius/Hanno is barely explored because the action scenes get the biggest priority in the movie.

As it stands, “Gladiator II” is a feast for anyone who likes to see gory fights from the Roman Empire era depicted in a movie. The movie’s costume design and production design live up to epic movie standards. But for others wanting a great story in between the battles, “Gladiator II” will leave others feeling hungry for more substance in how interpersonal relationships are portrayed in the movie.

Paramount Pictures will release “Gladiator II” in U.S. cinemas on November 22, 2024. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on December 24, 2024.

Review: ‘The Wild Robot,’ starring the voices of Lupita Nyong’o, Pedro Pascal, Kit Connor, Bill Nighy, Ving Rhames, Mark Hamill and Catherine O’Hara

September 8, 2024

by Carla Hay

“The Wild Robot”

Directed by Chris Sanders

Culture Representation: Taking place mostly on a remote island, the animated film “The Wild Robot” has a group of characters that are talking animals and talking robots.

Culture Clash: After crash-landing on Earth, an alien robot becomes a mother figure to a young goose, who learns lessons about loyalty and life along the way.

Culture Audience: “The Wild Robot” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the book on which the movie is based, the movie’s headliners and family-friendly animated films that skillfully blend comedy and drama.

Fink (voiced by Pedro Pascal), Roz (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o) and Pinktail (voiced by Catherine O’Hara) in “The Wild Robot” (Image courtesy of DreamWorks Animation)

“The Wild Robot” is a heartwarming and visually dazzling animated adaptation of Peter Brown’s 2016 novel of the same. Lupita Nyong’o does an excellent job of making a robot character have believable humanity. The rest of the movie’s voice cast is also stellar.

Written and directed by Chris Sanders, “The Wild Robot” had its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. The movie keeps the plot uncomplicated and treads on a well-worn animated path of being a coming-of-age story where two very different characters are thrown together under unexpected circumstances and learn about life from each other. Most movies about robots usually have humans as main characters, but “The Wild Robot” stands out because there are no humans in the movie—only talking animals and talking robots.

“The Wild Robot” begins by showing a robot named Rozzum Unit 7134, later nicknamed Roz (voiced by Nyong’o), who crash-lands from outer space and becomes stranded on an island that has no humans. In the beginning of the movie, Roz is very rigid and focused only on following the orders that she was programmed to fulfill. She has been taught that once her duties have been completed for her owner, she has to shut down and be programmed for the next owner. It’s later revealed that Roz comes from a company called Universal Dynamics.

Roz’s appearance on the island causes the animals to fear Roz and think she’s a monster. When she is chased by a bear, she falls down and accidentally causes the death of family of geese, except for the only survivor: an unhatched egg. Roz believes she was programmed to protect this egg. A sly fox named Fink (voiced by Pedro Pascal) steals the egg, so Roz chases Fink through a heavily wooded area. Roz captures the fox, plucks a whisker from his face, retrieves the egg, and lets Fink go. The egg soon hatches and reveals itself to be a runt male gosling.

Roz asks this newborn goose, “Was this task completed to your satisfaction?” She asks the goose to rate her skills on a scale of 1 to 10. The frightened gosling can only chirp out an answer. Roz says, “I’ll register that as a 10.”

Roz and the orphaned gosling soon meet a family of young opossums led by a snarky matriarch named Pinktail (voiced by Catherine O’Hara), a mother of seven who doesn’t want to adopt this orphaned bird. Pinktail insists that Roz can take care of the gosling. Roz soon learns that she should have three tasks to complete to raise this newborn to become an independent goose who will be ready to migrate in autumn with the other geese in the community: “Eat. Swim. Fly by fall.”

At first, Roz wants to give numbers as a name for this gosling. (One bland and boring suggestion is 001.) However, Fink comes slinking back out of curiosity and says that this young goose should be given words as names. Roz takes this advice and names the gosling Brightbill when she sees his bill light up in the glow of the atmosphere.

Brightbill (voiced by Kit Connor) grows up to be a young adult who is bullied and taunted by other geese, who think of Brightbill as a tiny wimp and Roz as a monster. The chances look slim that outcast Brightbill will be invited to migrate with the other geese. Fink still hangs around as a family acquaintance who eventually earns more trust.

An elderly goose named Longneck (voiced by Bill Nighy) becomes the first goose to treat Brightbill and Roz with kindness. Other talking animals that appear in the movie are a fearsome grizzly bear named Thorn (voiced by Mark Hamill), a confident falcon named Thunderbolt (voiced by Ving Rhames) and an eccentric beaver named Paddler (voiced by Matt Berry), who is also trying to find acceptance with this clique-ish animal community on the island.

“The Wild Robot” has a lot to say about parental responsibilities and how families can exist with beings who are not biologically related. The movie treats themes of co-dependence and independence in thoughtful and clever ways, as observations and commentaries on interpersonal relationships and authoritarian control. A robot villain character named Vontra (voiced by Stephanie Hsu) represents the dark side of authoritarianism.

It’s fitting that the main character getting the child raising in “The Wild Robot” is a bird because the movie has several moments when Roz has to grapple with the experience of being an “empty nester.” One of the more impactful lines of dialogue in the movie is when Roz says she thinks of kindness as a survival skill. People might get misty-eyed in some scenes that are clearly intended to be tearjerking moments about family and friendship.

“The Wild Robot” brims with dynamic energy, gorgeous visuals and memorable characters, even if the movie offers no surprises. The movie’s writing and directing (complemented by Kris Bowers’ adventurous musical score) do not pander mainly to kids under the age of 10 because there’s much that can be enjoyed by people of many different age groups. The ending of the film obviously hints at a sequel, which should please viewers who want to see this appealing story continue.

Universal Pictures will release “The Wild Robot” in U.S. cinemas on September 27, 2024. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on October 15, 2024. “The Wild Robot” will be releaed on 4K UHD and Blu-ray on December 3, 2024.

Review: ‘Drive-Away Dolls,’ starring Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan, Beanie Feldstein, Colman Domingo, Pedro Pascal, Bill Camp and Matt Damon

February 23, 2024

by Carla Hay

“Drive-Away Dolls”

Directed by Ethan Coen

Culture Representation: Taking place in December 1999, in various states on the East Coast of the United States, the comedy film “Drive-Away Dolls” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Asians, African Americans and Latinos) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Two lesbian best friends go on a road trip from Philadelphia to Tallahassee, Florida, and find out that they are being chased by criminals who want some things that are in the two friends’ rental car.

Culture Audience: “Drive-Away Dolls” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Ethan Coen and comedies about road trips or lesbians.

Colman Domingo, C.J. Wilson and Joey Slotnick in “Drive-Away Dolls” (Photo by Wilson Webb/Working Title/Focus Features)

Neither terrible nor great, “Drive-Away Dolls” can have some appeal to viewers who are open to raunchy road-trip comedies that have lesbians as the central characters. The wacky tone is off-kilter, but the dialogue and characters are snappy and memorable. The “Drive-Away Dolls” filmmakers have said that it’s intended to be a B-movie (in other words, kind of trashy and kind of goofy), so people won’t have any expectations that “Drive-Away Dolls” is aspiring to be award-winning art.

Directed by Ethan Coen, “Drive-Away Dolls” is his first movie as a solo director since he ended his filmmaking partnership with his older brother Joel Coen. Together, the Coen Brothers’ specialty was making often-violent movies about offbeat characters, with their most-lauded achievement being the 2007 Oscar-winning drama “No Country for Old Men.” Other well-known movies in the Coen Brothers’ filmography include 1996’s crime drama “Fargo,” 1998’s stoner comedy “The Big Lebowski,” 2000’s prisoner escapee thriller “O Brother, Where Are Thou?” and the 2010 remake of the Western “True Grit.”

“Drive-Away Dolls” isn’t nearly as good as the above-named films, but it does have some quirky charm. (The word “quirky” is an over-used description for a Coen movie simply because it describes so many Coen movies.) The trick is how in how much quirkiness can be put into a movie before it becomes very irritating. “Drive-Away Dolls” comes dangerously close to being a constant barrage of quirkiness for the sake of trying to look unconventional. However, the movie takes a turn toward the end that is very conventional, so don’t expect any major plot twists.

Ethan Coen and his wife Tricia Cooke co-wrote the “Drive-Away Dolls” screenplay and are two of the movie’s producers. Cooke identifies as openly queer (as she says in the movie’s production notes and in many interviews), but the movie sometimes looks like it’s treating its lesbian characters (who are all young, under the age of 30) as caricatures. How would “Drive-Away Dolls” be if it had been written by young lesbians instead of a middle-aged husband and wife? We’ll never know, but some of the scenes with sexual activities just seem to be in the movie in a self-conscious way, as if to say: “Look at how progressive we are with these lesbian scenes.”

The racy sexual content can’t quite cover up the obvious: “Drive-Away Dolls” is essentially using the same formula that many road-trip movies have with two people as the central characters: The two people, who usually have opposite personalities, bicker with each other and bond with each other, as they face various obstacles on the way to their destination. If there’s a possibility of romance between the two people, one of the people in this relationship denies or resists the attraction.

In “Drive-Away Dolls,” the two argumentative travel partners are lesbian best friends in Philadelphia—brash and horny Jamie Dobbs (played by Margaret Qualley) and uptight and prudish Marian Pulabi (played by Geraldine Viswanathan)—who go on a road trip together to visit Marian’s aunt in Tallahassee, Florida. Jamie wasn’t officially invited by this aunt, but Jamie persuaded Marian to let Jamie go on this trip. Marian tries to dissuade Jamie from going by saying the visit will probably be boring because Marian’s aunt is a birder who is very conservative. Viewers soon learn that once Jamie has put her mind to getting something, she goes after it with gusto.

Jamie is what some people might call a “sexual free spirit” and what other people might call “promiscuous.” It’s the reason why Jamie’s most recent heartbroken girlfriend Suzanne “Sukie” Singelman, a Philadelphia police officer, has broken up with live-in lover Jamie, who admittedly has a hard time with being monogamous. Early on in the movie is a sex scene between Jamie and a woman named Carla (played by Annie Gonzalez) that has partial nudity but leaves very little doubt about what’s going on in the bed.

Jamie is so well-known at a local lesbian nightclub called Sugar’n’Spice, there’s a scene where she gets in front of a cheering audience to show off some souvenirs of her sexual exploits. Also in the crowd are Marian and Carla, who mildly scolds Marian for being at the club in a business suit. Marian’s excuse is that she just came from her office job and she’s not interested in “peddling her wares” at this pickup joint. Meanwhile, Sukie is so incensed at Jamie’s bragging antics on stage, Sukie storms up to Jamie and punches her.

Sukie has ordered Jamie to move out of the apartment. When Jamie arrives with Marian to pick up Jamie’s belongings, Sukie is trying to unfasten the bolts of a dildo that has been bolted to the lower half of a wall. This sex toy was a gift from Jamie, but Sukie angrily says that she doesn’t want it anymore. It’s intended to be a funny scene in “Drive-Away Dolls,” but if this type of thing doesn’t make you laugh, then “Drive-Away Dolls” is not the movie for you.

Sukie and Jamie also have a pet Chihuahua named Alice that Sukie doesn’t like, but Jamie is reluctant to take the dog because Jamie knows how irresponsible Jamie is. This dog isn’t used for a comedy gimmick as much as you might think it could be. Feeling some break-up blues, Jamie convinces Marian to let Jamie go on this road trip with Marian to Tallahassee.

The very first scene of “Drive-Away Dolls” shows something that is the catalyst for the danger that Jamie and Marian encounter on this trip. A man calling himself Santos (played by Pedro Pascal), but who is listed in the movie’s end credits as The Collector, is sitting by himself at a darkly lit Italian restaurant called Cicero’s and is waiting nervously for someone who doesn’t show up. Santos is clutching a silver metal briefcase. As he leaves the restaurant, he finds out too late that his waiter (played by Gordon MacDonald) was really an assassin, who followed Santos into an alley and killed him in a very gruesome way.

What happened to Santos’ body and the briefcase? And what’s in that briefcase? Those questions are answered in the movie. It’s enough to say that Marian and Jamie go to a car rental place owned by a shifty-looking man named Curlie (played by Bill Camp), who hears that the two women are going to Tallahassee. Curlie knows exactly what car he’s going to give them: an aquamarine blue Dodge Aries.

Not long after Marian and Jamie drive off, three criminals show up expecting to rent this Dodge Aries, and “Tallahassee” was their code word to get the car. There are certain things in the car’s trunk that these thugs want. After Curlie tells them all he knows about the travelers who rented the car, Curlie gets savagely assaulted for the mistake of renting the car to these unsuspecting women.

The three criminals who are on the hunt for Jamie and Marian are a cold and calculating killer called The Chief (played by Colman Domingo), an impatient hothead named Flint (played by C.J. Wilson) and a dorky henchman named Arliss (played by Joey Slotnick), who all work for a mysterious boss who is later revealed in the movie. The Chief, Flint and Arliss start their chase by going to the apartment of Sukie, who was listed as the emergency contact person for Jamie and Marian’s car rental.

“Drive-Away Dolls” stretches out the “opposites attract” schtick between Marian and Jamie for as far as it can go. Marian is horrified when Jamie immediately defaces the car with this graffiti message on the trunk: “Love is a sleigh ride to hell.” Jamie is horrified when Marian admits that she’s been celibate for three years, ever since Marian’s breakup from her ex-girlfriend Donna. During their road trip, Jamie wants to have fun at lesbian bars and pick up sex partners, while Marian would rather sit in bed at night and read a book. The movie makes a big deal out of the fact that Marian is reading Henry James’ “The Europeans” during this trip.

“Drive-Away Dolls” also has psychedelic-looking interludes that feature brief, uncredited appearances by Miley Cyrus as a hippie woman from the 1960s. Her character’s name is later revealed in the movie. The name has a connection to a famous real-life 1960s groupie who died in 2022. If you watch all of the movie’s end credits, you’ll see a caption that shows “Drive-Away Dolls” is dedicated to this real-life groupie.

Fans of Matt Damon (who plays a politically conservative U.S. senator from Florida named Gary Channel) and fans of Pascal should know that the screen time for Pascal and Damon in “Drive-Away Dolls” is limited to less than 10 minutes each, even though Pascal and Damon share top billing in the movie. It’s a “bait and switch” that will turn off some viewers who might be fooled into thinking that Pascal and Damon have a lot of screen time in the movie.

“Drive-Away Dolls” has fun with being campy, but some scenes are kind of useless. For example, Jamie and Marian encounter a traveling all-female soccer team whose members look like they’re in their late teens. Jamie and Marian end up in a hotel room with the team and their young coach, while they all take turns making out with each other.

Everyone on the soccer team is queer? Really? It looks so unrealistic and gratutitous, just for the sake of having a scene showing young women making out with each other in the same room. And what happened to Marian being so uptight? (She’s not drunk in this scene, so intoxication isn’t an excuse.) This is the type of scene that could have been edited out of the movie, and it would have made no difference to the overall story.

Qualley’s acting in “Drive-Away Dolls” looks like she’s trying to mimic the blunt-talking, verbose style of Mattie Ross, the precocious teen character played by Hailee Steinfeld in 2010’s “True Grit.” There’s a clipped, galloping pace to the way they talk that is not unlike the pace of a Kentucky Derby race horse and comes complete with a Southern twang. Jamie is originally from Texas, but her thick Southern accent (which doesn’t sound completely convincing in Qualley’s performance) and Jamie’s personal history with the South aren’t fully explained, considering that the movie makes insulting comments about Florida.

Qualley looks like she’s trying too hard to be funny as Jamie, while Viswanathan has a more naturalistic (and better) comedic style as Marian, who can say more with a few cynical eye rolls than Jamie can say with any of her motormouth rambling. Jamie’s dialogue can be hilarious at times, but it’s very stagy, much like a lot of the comedy in “Drive-Away Dolls.” All the movie’s supporting characters are not developed enough to have full personalities. Just like a slightly rusty car, “Drive-Away Dolls” is a comedy that spurts and lurches and takes a while to rev up, but it eventually can take you on a path that goes where it’s expected to go.

Focus Features released “Drive-Away Dolls” in U.S. cinemas on February 23, 2024. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on March 12, 2024. “Drive-Away Dolls” will be released on Peacock on April 12, 2024, and on Blu-ray on April 23, 2024.

Review: ‘The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,’ starring Nicolas Cage

April 19, 2022

by Carla Hay

“The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent”

Directed by Tom Gormican

Some language in Spanish with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in Los Angeles and Mallorca, Spain, the action comedy “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” features a cast of white and Latino characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Desperate for money, famous actor Nick Cage agrees to a $1 million fee to appear at a wealthy superfan’s birthday party in Mallorca, where he reluctantly gets in the middle of an international espionage case.

Culture Audience: “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” will appeal primarily to fans of star Nicolas Cage and comedies that are satires of real people.

Nicolas Cage, Lily Sheen and Sharon Horgan in “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” (Photo by Katalin Vermes/Lionsgate)

It’s not the comedy masterpiece that some people have been hyping it up to be, but “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” has plenty of hilarious moments in spoofing Nicolas Cage’s public persona and action films. The movie has some genuinely inspired scenes before the film’s last 20 minutes devolve into stereotypical formulas seen in many other comedic spy capers. “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” is also an above-average buddy comedy, with touches of family sentimentality to balance out some of the wackiness.

Tom Gormican directed “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” from a screenplay that he co-wrote with Kevin Etten. It’s Gormican’s second feature film, after he made his feature-film directorial debut with the forgettable 2014 male-friendship comedy “That Awkward Moment.” Gormican’s background is mainly as a TV writer/producer, with credits that include “Scrubs,” “Desperate Housewives” and “Ed.” At times, “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” veers into stale TV sitcom territory, but the movie has enough originality and charm to rise above its repetitive clichés. “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” has its world premiere at the 2022 South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival in Austin, Texas.

Cage has said in interviews that he initially rejected the idea of doing this movie. It’s a good thing that he changed his mind, because “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” is easily one of the funniest comedy films that Cage has done in decades. In the movie, he plays two versions of himself: (1) main character Nick Cage, a present-day version of himself, and (2) Nicky Cage, a younger, brasher version of Cage, circa the late 1980s/early 1990s. (According to the movie’s production notes, Nicky’s physical appearance was inspired by how the real Cage looked in his 1990 movie “Wild at Heart.”)

Nicky has de-aging visual effects for his face, and he appears to Nick as a figment of Nick’s imagination, in moments when Nick is feeling insecure. Nicky’s blunt and sometimes crude conversations with Nick (which are either pep talks, insults or both) are among the more memorable parts of the movie. Nicky has a habit of yelling out “I’m Nick fucking Cage!,” in an elongated way, as if he’s a WWE announcer yelling, “Let’s get ready to rumble!” before a wrestling match. In the film’s end credits, the actor listed as portraying Nicky is Nicolas Kim Coppola, which is a cheeky nod to Cage’s birth surname Coppola. (Numerous movie fans already know that Cage is part of the famous Coppola movie family.)

In the beginning of “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” Nick is a world-famous actor in Los Angeles, but he’s currently not getting the acting roles that he wants. Nick has been struggling with being labeled a “has-been” who’s been doing a lot of low-budget, low-quality movies in recent years. (Real-life filmmaker David Gordon Green has a cameo as himself in an early scene in the movie where Nick tries to impress him with an impromptu monologue reading.)

When Nicky shows up and talks to Nick, it’s usually to remind Nick that his younger self would never have stooped to the level of the type of work that Nick is doing now. In one of the movie’s early scenes, Nicky is lecturing Nick about it during a drive in Nick’s car, with Nick driving. A defensive Nick snaps back: “Hello! It’s my job! It’s how I pay my bills. I have to feed my family.” Nick ends the conversation by telling Nicky, “You’re annoying!” And then Nick kicks Nicky out of the car.

Nick’s fast-talking agent Richard Fink (played by Neil Patrick Harris, in a cameo role) tells Nick about a job offer from a Nick Cage superfan in Mallorca, Spain. This wealthy fan wants to pay Nick $1 million to make a personal appearance at the fan’s birthday party. Nick says no to the idea, because he thinks that these types of personal appearances are beneath him as a “serious actor.”

However, because Nick gets rejected for a movie role that he had been counting on getting, and because he has high-priced divorce payments and other bills, a financially desperate Nick agrees to the birthday party job offer. Nick makes it clear to Richard that this personal appearance better not include anything involving kinky sex. Nick has no idea that what he thinks will be an easy gig will turn out to be a life-threatening, mind-bending experience for him and other people.

Nick isn’t just having problems in his career. His personal life is also messy. Nick has a tension-filled relationship with his ex-wife Olivia (played by Sharon Horgan), a former makeup artist whom he met on the set of his 2001 movie “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.” It’s revealed in “The Unbearable Wright of Massive Talent” that one of the main reasons why they divorced was because Olivia thought that Nick put his career above everything else in his life.

Nick and Olivia have a daughter named Addy (played by Lily Sheen), who’s about 15 or 16 years old. Addy is usually annoyed with Nick because she thinks he forces her to do things (such as watch movies) that are according to what he wants to do and his personal tastes, without taking into consideration Addy’s own personal wants and needs. For example, Nick has insisted that Addy watch the 1920 horror film “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,” even though Addy has no interest in seeing this movie.

Addy also thinks Nick has been a neglectful father for most of her life. That’s why Nick and Addy are in therapy together. But as an example of Nick’s self-centered ways, a therapy session that’s shown in the movie reveals that Nick spends most of the time talking about himself, while Addy sulks in a corner on a couch. Their therapist named Cheryl (played by Joanna Bobin) has to listen to Nick ramble on about his career problems, while she tries to steer the conversation back to how to improve his personal relationships.

Nick is so financially broke, he doesn’t have a permanent home, and he’s living at a hotel. When he gets locked out of his hotel room due to non-payment, he calls his agent Richard to tell him that he’s taking the birthday party job. A self-pitying Nick also tells Richard that he’s going to quit being an actor. On his way to Mallorca, Nick has no idea that he’s gotten on the radar of the CIA, which has been tracking the activities of the fan who has hired Nick to be at the fan’s birthday party. The CIA has this superfan under investigation for being the leader of a ruthless international arms cartel.

Two CIA operatives who have been assigned to the case are named Vivian (played by Tiffany Haddish) and Martin (played by Ike Barinholtz), who are surprised and confused when they see Nick disembarking from the private plane that the superfan has chartered for this trip. Vivian, who has a take-charge and quick-thinking personality, immediately pretends to be an adoring Nick Cage fan, and stops him at the airport to take a selfie photo with him. It’s really a ruse to plant a tracking device on Nick. Vivian and Martin are generic and underwritten roles, so Haddish and Barinholtz don’t do much that’s noteworthy in the movie.

In Mallorca, Nick is taken to a lavish cliffside mansion, where he is greeted by several employees of this rich superfan, who is described as a mogul in the olive grove business. The fan’s name is Javi Gutierrez (played by Pasco Pascal), and he is so unassuming on first impression, Nick initially mistakes Javi for one of the servants, because Javi was the one who drove Nick to this mansion by speedboat. The two people in Javi’s inner circle who are the closest to him are his cousin/right-hand man Lucas Gutierrez (played by Paco León) and a savvy business person named Gabriela (played by Alessandra Mastronardi), nicknamed Gabi, who is Javi’s director of operations.

Nick soon finds out that Javi didn’t just invite him to make an appearance at Javi’s birthday party. Javi has written a movie screenplay, and he wants Nick to star in this movie. Javi is crushed when Nick tells him that he’s going to quit acting, so Javi desperately tries to get Nick to change his mind One of the running gags in “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” is how Nick reacts to Javi’s attempts to befriend Nick and get Nick to read his script. It should come as no surprise that Javi makes revisions to the screenplay, based on a lot of the shenanigans that he experiences with Nick.

As shown in the movie’s trailer, Vivian and Martin recruit/pressure Nick to spy on Javi for the CIA. Meanwhile, things get more complicated with the kidnapping of Maria Delgado (played by Katrin Vankova), a teenage daughter of a politician who’s running for a high office in Spain. There are entanglements with a thug named Carlos (played by Jacob Scipio) and a group called the Carabello crime family. And it should come as no surprise that Addy and Olivia somehow get mixed up in this mess too.

Along the way, there’s some drug-fueled comedy that’s intended to make the most of Cage’s slapstick skills. First, Nick accidentally drugs himself with a potentially lethal dose of gaseous poison. Later, Nick and Javi take LSD together and have a bonding experience where they go through various levels of elation and paranoia.

Nick and Javi’s budding friendship is at the heart of the movie. However, there are also some standout moments involving Nicky, Olivia and Addy and how their relationships to Nick end up evolving. (Nicky spontaneously does something outrageous, when he kisses Nick, in a scene that will have viewers either shocked, roaring with laughter or both.)

Pascal is pitch-perfect in his role as Javi, who might or might not be the movie’s biggest villain. When secrets are revealed, they’re not too surprising, but one of the best things about “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” is that it doesn’t make Javi into a meaningless caricature. Even though Cage is the larger-than-life central character in the movie, Pascal holds his own and can be considered a scene-stealer.

“The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” has the expected stream of jokes about previous real-life movies of Cage. Among those that get name-checked or parodied include “Con Air,” “Face/Off,” “Moonstruck,” “Valley Girl,” “The Croods: A New Age,” “Gone in 60 Seconds,” “The Rock,” “Leaving Las Vegas,” “National Treasure” and “Guarding Tess.” Also in “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” is a recurring joke about the animated film “Paddington 2” (which is not one of Cage’s movies) and how this family film sequel about a talking bear affects certain people who watch it.

Cage is a versatile actor who tackles his role in “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” with gusto. (He’s also one of the movie’s producers.) Cage makes this movie work so well because he’s fully on board with laughing at himself. Not too many well-known actors would risk doing a movie where they have to poke fun at their triumphs and failures, but it’s precisely this risk-taking that has made Cage one of the most interesting and unpredictable actors of his generation. “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” does indeed have massive talent, but this talent helps the movie soar instead of sink.

Lionsgate will release “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” in U.S. cinemas on April 22, 2022. The movie is set for release on digital and VOD on June 7, 2022, and on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray on June 21, 2022.

Review: ‘Wonder Woman 1984,’ starring Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Pedro Pascal and Kristen Wiig

December 24, 2020

by Carla Hay

“Wonder Woman 1984”

Directed by Patty Jenkins

Culture Representation: Taking place in 1984, primarily in Washington, D.C, plus other parts of the world, the superhero action flick “Wonder Woman 1984” has a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Latinos, African Americans and Asians) representing different classes of people.

Culture Clash: Diana Prince, also known as superhero Wonder Woman, battles against a power-hungry business mogul who wants to rule the world, while one of her female co-workers falls into the mogul’s seductive trap and becomes his ally.

Culture Audience: “Wonder Woman 1984″ will appeal primarily to people who like family-friendly, comic-book-based movies that blend action with social issues and goofy comedy.

Pedro Pascal in “Wonder Woman 1984” (Photo by Clay Enos/Warner Bros. Pictures & © DC Comics)

“Wonder Woman 1984” could have been subtitled “Be Careful What You Wish For, You Just Might Get It,” because by the end of the movie, this old adage has been pounded into viewers’ consciousness to the point of being almost numbing. “Wonder Woman 1984” is the sequel to the 2017 blockbuster “Wonder Woman,” which was a less bloated, less sociopolitical movie than “Wonder Woman 1984,” but the original “Wonder Woman” movie took itself more seriously as an action film. Both movies (based on DC Comics’ “Wonder Woman” series) were directed by Patty Jenkins, who did not write 2017’s “Wonder Woman,” but she co-wrote the “Wonder Woman 1984” screenplay with Geoff Johns and Dave Callaham.

The results in “Wonder Woman 1984” are mixed. On the one hand, the movie aims to be a crowd-pleaser appealing to various generations of people. In the first half of the movie, Wonder Woman has the type of fun-loving superhero action that’s almost cartoonish. In a chase scene that happens fairly early in the movie, Wonder Woman (played by Gal Gadot), also known as Diana Prince, thwarts a heist in a shopping mall by singlehandedly apprehending the four thieves who robbed a jewelry store in the mall. She gives a wink and a smile to some awestruck kids who witness this spectacle. There are also several campy moments in the movie with the character who ends up being the story’s chief villain.

But on the other hand, in the second half of the movie, there are some heavy-handed issues about the nuclear arms race, greed and political corruption that overwhelm the plot. And the plot goes a little bit off the rails because it involves people worldwide having to agree to undo a lot of things that already did significant damage. Not even Wonder Woman is that much of a superhuman political diplomat, but “Wonder Woman 1984” tries to bite off more than it can chew with this concept.

The movie’s total running time is a little too long, at two-and-a-half hours. The tone is very uneven, because “Wonder Woman 1984” has some problems balancing the comedic moments with the serious moments. And the visual effects are hit and miss. (Some of the human characters look very fake in CGI action scenes.) Despite the flaws in “Wonder Woman 1984,” it’s still a fairly enjoyable superhero movie, because of the convincing interactions between the characters and because it mostly succeeds as an entertaining story that holds people’s interest.

“Wonder Woman 1984” begins where “Wonder Woman” began: in her female-only Amazon homeland, the island nation of Themyscira, which is supposed to be a place that has secretly existed on Earth for eons. The actresses who portray the Amazons of Themyscira have a mishmash of European accents. A young Diana (played by Lilly Aspell), who’s about 9 or 10 years old, is seen in an intense athletic competition with adult Amazon warriors. There’s no explanation for why Diana is the only child in this competition, which involves several obstacle courses of running, riding horses and shooting arrows through giant circles placed on top of tall structures.

As a princess, Diana is expected to win for her team. But when she falls off of a horse and lags behind her competitors, she decides to take a shortcut to make up for lost time. She ends up finishing ahead of her competitors, but her mentor Antiope (played by Robin Wright), who’s also the competition’s judge, disqualifies Diana as the winner, because Diana cheated and therefore she’s “not ready to be a true winner.”

Diana’s queen mother Hippolyta (played by Connie Nielsen) comforts a disappointed Diana by telling her: “One day, you’ll become everything you dream of and more. And everything will be different. This world is not ready for all that you will do.” In case people don’t know about Wonder Woman already, she seems to be immortal, because as an adult, she’s able to live through several centuries and still look like she’s in her late 20s/early 30s.

The movie then fast-forwards to 1984 in Washington, D.C., where Diana is working at the Smithsonian Museum as a cultural anthropologist and archaeologist. She is grieving over the death of her American pilot boyfriend Steve Trevor (played by Chris Pine), who (spoiler alert) died during a heroic feat in the first “Wonder Woman” movie, which took place in 1918 during World War I. And now, Diana is moonlighting as Wonder Woman, who is only known to the public at this point as a mysterious crime fighter who’s recently been sighted in the D.C. area.

The four thieves who were apprehended by Wonder Woman in the shopping mall weren’t doing a run-of-the-mill theft in a jewelry store. The store had a hidden room with stolen treasure items that were being sold on the black market. One of the items stolen was a citrine, a classic stone used in fake gems throughout history.

A pointed citrine stone that was part of the stolen haul makes its way to the Smithsonian Museum, where the FBI has asked Smithsonian experts to help identify the origins of some of the stolen treasure. One of the Smithsonian experts enlisted for this task is Barbara Minerva (played by Kristen Wiig), a meek and socially awkward nerd who works in geology, gemology, lithology and cryptozoology.

Barbara is someone who is routinely ignored and/or disrespected by her work colleagues. Her co-workers barely acknowledge her presence when she greets them. Her supervisor Carol (played by Natasha Rothwell) doesn’t even remember interviewing Barbara, or even meeting Barbara, before she asks Barbara for her help with the FBI investigation.

The only person at the Smithsonian who treats Barbara like someone worthy of their social time is Diana, and the two women end up becoming work friends. Barbara and Diana meet when Diana helps Barbara pick some paperwork that Barbara accidentally dropped out of a briefcase on a lobby floor at work. Barbara is desperate for a friend, so she asks Diana to lunch, but Diana says she’s too busy.

However, Diana and Barbara end up in the same room with the stolen treasures in the FBI investigation. And the two women find out that they both have a shared passion for ancient artifacts. The citrine stone is not considered one of the more valuable items, in terms of monetary value. And during their conversation, it’s mentioned that the legend of the stone is that it can grant one wish to the person who holds the stone. Diana holds the stone and silently wishes for Steve to come back to life.

Diana and Barbara have dinner together that day. And over dinner, they talk about their lives. Barbara is a stereotypical middle-aged spinster who lives alone, has no kids and has no love life. The only cliché about this lifestyle that Barbara doesn’t have is a pet cat. But she actually does become a “cat lady” later on in the story.

When Barbara asks Diana if she’s ever been in love, Diana tells her that she used to be in love with an American pilot, who died. Diana doesn’t give any further details, but she makes it clear that she’s still heartbroken and not ready to move on to someone else. Barbara is very insecure about her looks and her prospects of finding love, but Diana tries to give Barbara a confidence boost throughout their conversation.

Diana compliments Barbara by telling her that she’s one of the most natural and funniest people she’s ever met. Barbara is surprised because she’s not used to hearing flattering remarks about herself. She tells Diana, “People think I’m weird. They avoid me and talk about me behind my back and think I don’t hear them.”

After this friendly dinner, Barbara is walking through a park by herself and gives her dinner leftovers to a homeless man. And soon afterwards, a middle-aged drunk and disheveled man (played by Shane Attwooll) accosts her and tries to get her interested in him. Barbara rebuffs his advances and he gets physically aggressive with her. It’s about to turn into a full-blown assault, but Diana comes to the rescue and pushes the man away with such force that he’s thrown to the ground and becomes temporarily incapacitated. Barbara thanks Diana for helping her, and this incident further strengthens their trust in each other and their budding friendship.

When Barbara goes back to her office, she sees the citrine stone and holds it. She says out loud, “I do know what I wish for: I wish to be like Diana: strong, sexy, cool, special.” The stone glows and there’s a slight wind that passes through the air. These visual effects are kind of cheesy, but they work.

Diana goes home and finds out that Steve is there and he has been reincarnated in the body of an unnamed handsome man (played by Kristoffer Polaha), who seems to have no idea that his body is now inhabited by someone who died in 1918. The rest of the world sees the unnamed man as his actual physical self, but Diana only sees Steve when she looks at the man. And that explains why actor Pine is shown as Steve during this reincarnation. (It’s not a spoiler, since Steve’s return was already shown in the trailer for “Wonder Woman 1984.”)

Meanwhile, there’s a slick and sleazy business mogul named Maxwell “Max” Lord (played by Pedro Pascal) who’s all over TV with commercials for his company Black Gold Cooperative, which is described as “the first oil company by the people, for the people.” It should come as no surprise that this company and this mogul are not at all what they want people to think they are.

Maxwell’s real last name is Lorenzano, and its later revealed that he’s an ambitious Latino immigrant who changed his last name and appearance (he dyed his hair blonde) to appear more Anglo. He’s also a divorced father who has weekend visitations with his son Alistair (played by Lucian Perez), who’s about 7 or 8 years old. Maxwell is shown to be a very neglectful father, and his bad parenting is used as a “pull at your heartstrings” plot device in several scenes in the movie.

Maxwell finds out that the citrine stone is at the Smithsonian Museum. And so, he shows up at the museum one day, under the pretense of wanting to possibly donate millions of dollars to the department that has the stone. Barbara is immediately charmed by Maxwell’s flirtatious manner, while Diana is coolly skeptical.

Maxwell can see that Barbara is a lonely woman who’s desperate for attention, so he continues to flirt with her and makes it clear that he wants to date her. People who aren’t familiar with the “Wonder Woman” comic books can still easily figure out where the storyline is going to go with Barbara, because it’s similar to the more famous Catwoman story arc in DC Comics’ “Batman” series. And the trailer for “Wonder Woman 1984” already revealed the result of Barbara’s metamorphosis when there’s a showdown between her and Wonder Woman.

Not all of the action takes place in Washington, D.C., because there’s a subplot that takes Maxwell, Steve and Diana/Wonder Woman to Egypt, where an oil baron named Emir Said Bin Abydos (played by Amr Waked) has a pivotal role in the story. There are also many scenes that are supposed to take place simultaneously in different areas of the world, during the last third of the movie when the plot becomes a bit of a mess. “Wonder Woman 1984” falters when it becomes a little too much of a political statement about the nuclear arms race in the 1980s. The movie redeems itself when it focuses more on human interactions that are more relatable to everyday people.

The romance between Diana and Steve picks up right where it left off, but in “Wonder Woman 1984,” it’s more playful and amusing than it was in “Wonder Woman.” Steve’s culture shock of living in 1984 is used for great comical effect, as he marvels at 1984 fashion and other things that didn’t exist in 1918, such as escalators, breakdancing and computer-controlled planes. And the rampant materialism and capitalism that defined the 1980s in the United States are shown in not-so-subtle ways throughout the movie, as exemplified in everything from crowded shopping malls to the greedy villain Maxwell Lord.

Fans of Wonder Woman in the DC Comics, the 1970s movie series and as part of the DC Extended Universe will find plenty of things to like about “Wonder Woman 1984.” There are references that stay true to Wonder Woman canon, with a few tweaks here and there. (For example, in the comic books, Barbara Minerva is British, not American.)

And there’s a mention of Asteria, a legendary Amazon from Themyscira who was the first owner of the Golden Eagle armor that Wonder Woman wears in “Wonder Woman 1984.” It’s explained in the movie that Asteria sacrificed herself by wearing the armor while holding off the men who invaded Themyscira. Look for a cameo during the movie’s end credits that will delight a lot of Wonder Woman fans.

Gadot’s portrayal of Wonder Woman/Diana Prince can sometimes be a little wooden, but her best moments in the film are in expressing Diana’s grief over the death of Steve. At times, she looks more like a model playing dress-up as Wonder Woman rather than a bona fide action hero, but the visual effects go a long way in adding excitement to the action scenes. Gadot and Pine’s chemistry together isn’t very sexy or passionate, but it is fairly believable in their portrayal of two people who respect each other and were friends before they became lovers.

And for someone who died in 1918 (when women in the U.S. didn’t even have the right to vote), Steve is extremely enlightened in how quickly he adapts to feminist ideals of gender equality. He doesn’t feel threatened or act offended in situations where Diana/Wonder Woman has more abilities and greater strength than he does. At the same time, he doesn’t shrink from expressing his masculinity and showing his talent and skills.

It should come as no surprise that Steve gets to fly a modern plane. One of the best visual scenes in the film is when Steve and Diana fly in an invisible plane through a stunning display of Fourth of July fireworks. Nitpicky viewers will have to assume that the plane has an invisible shield to protect it from the firework explosions.

Because “Wonder Woman 1984” takes quite a bit of time developing the dramatic storylines for Barbara and Maxwell, there might not be as much action in the movie as some people might expect. Most of the suspense comes in the last third of the movie. To get to that point, viewers have to sit through seeing Maxwell become increasingly unhinged in an over-the-top way that often veers into being unintentionally comical.

Pascal’s portrayal of Maxwell as the chief villain is done in broad, over-the-top strokes. Viewers know from the beginning that he’s corrupt, and there’s almost no humanity in this character for most of the movie as he gets more and more maniacal. Wiig fares much better with her portrayal of the emotionally wounded and ultimately misguided Barbara. Her character can be viewed as a symbol of the negative effects of “silent bullying”: when people are treated as outcasts not by insults in their face but by being shunned and ignored.

It’s clear that the filmmakers of “Wonder Woman 1984,” just like the 2019 film “Joker,” wanted to have something more to say about society’s problems and international politics instead of being just another movie based on comic book characters. However, unlike “Joker,” which had an unrelenting but consistent dark and depressing tone, the tone of “Wonder Woman 1984” jumps over the place—and that inconsistency lowers the quality of the movie. Sometimes there’s nothing wrong with being a lighthearted superhero movie instead of trying to tackle heavy social issues. And sometimes “saving the world” in a superhero movie doesn’t mean you have to get bogged down in international politics over weapons of mass destruction.

“Wonder Woman 1984” was released in cinemas in various countries outside the U.S. on December 16, 2020. The movie’s U.S. release date in cinemas and on HBO Max is December 25, 2020. In the United Kingdom, “Wonder Woman 1984” is set for a VOD release on January 13, 2021.