“Thunderbolts*” - Is that an asterisk in your title or are you just happy to see us?

Before I get into why Thunderbolts* is a movie you absolutely should see in theaters, the answer to your immediate question is I’m not entirely sure why the title has an asterisk. I have an idea though. Asterisks have a lot of different meanings and usages. Typically, asterisks are used to say there is a note at the bottom of the page or in the sidebar. But this is a movie - there is no bottom of the page or sidebar. In screenplays, asterisks usually denote revisions but can also signify scene changes or character actions. There is potential there, but does that mean the title is a revision? Nerds will point out an asterisk means multiplication in math and a wild card in computer programming. Thanks nerds, you’re definitely at the right movie.

Much like Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts* is an instance of the MCU telling a solid story while consolidating a bunch of threads from previous films and series. Thunderbolts* is a direct sequel to Black Widow, but also pulls in elements from Ant-Man and the Wasp, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Falcon and the Winter Soldier. If you were wondering whatever happened with Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), Red Guardian (David Harbour), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), and Avengers Tower, you’re in luck.

Don’t worry if you haven’t seen any of those characters’ (or building’s) movies recently. Five of them are former villains or anti-heroes, de Fontaine is the director of the CIA and showed up in a bunch of mid/post-credit scenes, and Avengers Tower is still just a building in Manhattan. There, all caught up.

Now, de Fontaine employs Walker and the three women as off-the-books mercenaries...and Red Guardian runs a limo service. When de Fontaine is in danger of being impeached for running illegal operations, she sends the mercenaries to destroy any and all evidence, including people. In their final assignment, they are all sent to a mountain vault to kill each other, except none of them are aware that the others are all working for de Fontaine. After a very entertaining and humor-infused action scene, they discover a man named Bob (Lewis Pullman). Bob doesn’t know how he got there and doesn’t remember anything going back to when he volunteered for one of de Fontaine’s experiments. Once they realize de Fontaine wants them all dead, they are forced to work together to escape the vault before they are incinerated.

As it turns out, Bob was part of the Sentry program, the very program de Fontaine is under investigation for. When de Fontaine figures out who Bob is, she stops at nothing to capture him, knowing that the experiments worked. Inevitably, the cobbled together team of anti-heroes, which eventually brings in Red Guardian and newly minted Congressman Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), will have to face Bob. But it’s different than the usual superhero showdown we’ve grown accustomed to.

Another thing Thunderbolts* has in common with Brave New World is the stakes are much smaller than the entire world or galaxy or multi-verse. Nobody is trying to get their hands on a MacGuffin that can turn back time or erase half of life or is ten rings. It’s just the ragtag team vs. Bob, but mostly just trying to stop de Fontaine from corrupting Bob. And, as one of them points out, none of them really have any superpowers. Just a lot of training, tech, and serum-induced strength.

But the real meat of this movie, like all of the really good Marvel flicks, is the characters. If it isn’t already clear, all of them are damaged individuals. That’s how they ended up working for de Fontaine in the first place. The film establishes this is as the theme from its very first scene in which Yelena rotely executes a mission while lamenting that she is lost as a person. As the movie progresses, we learn that all of them are lost to some extent, even Bucky. Keeping the stakes to a minimum allows the film to focus on the characters’ personal struggles and how they steer them in their interactions with the group.

What I had kind of forgotten is how important the casting was to earlier Marvel successes. That’s not to say there have been any particularly bad casting choices, but how many nearly perfect choices there were. While everyone in this film gives really good performances, Harbour is fantastic, and Pugh is amazing. As with all MCU movies, comedic banter is found throughout (but it’s the right amount as opposed to Thor: Love and Thunder), but Harbour injects an earnestness and sincerity that makes it seem perfectly natural. Pugh balances the humor with a palpable sense of depression and desperation to find meaning in her life. She’s so good you’ll find yourself almost in tears at times. Over an assassin. It’s the kind of thing that’s been missing from most of the post-Endgame content, that “heart” that used to permeate earlier MCU films.

If Brave New World was a reset for the MCU (and I maintain it was a very solid reset), Thunderbolts* is very good start to the next phase of the MCU. And that asterisk? Well, the movie gives a very obvious, surface level answer. But I think it’s more than that. I think it’s a wink at us saying there’s more where this movie came from. Or to put it nerdily, it’s a wild card.

Rating: Worth your entire family seeing it, no asterisk needed.

“The Legend of Ochi” - Bringing the kid out in all of us.

Humans have a history of trying to eradicate perceived pests. Bacteria, insects, wolves, other humans who have been living there for centuries. In The Legend of Ochi, creatures known as Ochi are the alleged pests being targeted. And why must they be hunted to extinction? Are they destroying crops? Are they eating livestock? Are they attacking humans? Do they speak Spanish as their primary language?

It always infuriates me when animals are killed because they ate a chicken or attacked a hiker on a mountain trail or just have fins or horns. Those animals are literally just doing what nature programmed them to do. But we humans are selfish. If Death of a Unicorn taught us anything, it’s that humans will murder even mythical creatures if we’re afraid of them or can get a boner by ingesting them. Based on the opening sequence of The Legend of Ochi, you would probably go with ‘eating livestock,’ final answer Regis. But the answer is what it usually is with us humans - fear. Why should the Ochi be any different?

On the Black Sea island of Carpathia, all children, including Yuri (Helena Zengel) and her brother Petro (Finn Wolfhard), have been taught not to go out at night lest they be killed by an Ochi. Their father Maxim (Willem Dafoe) spends his twilight years training a pack of boys, including Petro, and leading them out into the forest each night to hunt Ochi. And really...is there any actor more perfect to play a semi-crazed scout leader hunting reclusive creatures in the middle of the night in a dark forest than Willem Dafoe?

One night, Yuri discovers an injured baby Ochi in one of Maxim’s traps. Rather than tell Maxim about it, Yuri secrets the Ochi to her bedroom to dress the creature’s wound. She quickly forms a bond with the Ochi and decides that she must return the baby to its mother. As she is sneaking out the window, Petro spots her and the Ochi, the three of them all freezing in startlement. Yuri makes clear her intention and makes off into the night. Like Yuri, Petro decides not to tell Maxim about the Ochi, instead letting Maxim discover for himself what has happened. Can you blame them? I wouldn’t want to bear that news either to a man who looks like Dafoe, but if he hadn’t slept for weeks.

Thus, we settle into a quest movie reminiscent of the semi-family-friendly puppet movies from the 1980s. Semi-friendly because, like The Neverending Story, The Dark Crystal, Return to Oz, and Labyrinth, the tone of The Legend of Ochi is more ominous and darker than today’s family-friendly, mostly animated, movies. But also semi-friendly because Yuri is a tween girl on an adventure with a fairly adorable little creature. Unlike those other films, the scariest thing in Ochi isn’t a puppet, but Willem Dafoe.

Without spoiling too much of the adventure, it features familiar elements. There’s a close call with death, more bonding between the two companions as they learn how to communicate with each other, narrow escapes from their pursuers, Yuri reconnecting with her estranged mother Dasha (Emily Watson), and a climax forcing the various characters to confront their fears, pasts, and relationships. Oh, and Dafoe wearing an outfit that must be seen to be believed. In other words, fun for the whole family.

As a big fan of all of those 1980s movies I listed, The Legend of Ochi hits me right in one of my sweet spots. It helps that the story doesn’t have any glaring plot holes or hard-to-swallow conceits. Perhaps it’s strongest attribute is it never feels like it’s dumbing itself down for the lowest common denominator. It doesn’t stoop to poop or fart jokes for cheap laughs and it doesn’t turn Yuri or Petro into cliched angsty teenagers. There’s sincerity in Yuri’s actions, devotion to family in Petro’s actions, and loss in hiding behind Maxim’s actions. They are all relatable in multiple ways to everyone in the audience, much to the movie’s benefit. And ohhhh how nice it is to see the filmmakers embrace the possibilities of using real puppets for the vast majority of the creature effects. They fit perfectly with that Dafoe guy.

Rating: Don’t ask for any money back or Willem Dafoe will hunt you down.

“A Minecraft Movie” - Let me show you to your litterbox, Mr. Director, sir.

Surely, it was all just a dream.

Surely, A Minecraft Movie isn’t the most cynical movie of the year...a studio-micro-managed vomit of fan service.

Surely, a movie based on the best-selling video of game of all time...a game that is fourteen years old...a game that still has millions of players spending countless hours building infinite creations...didn’t just pretend the audience has no idea what Minecraft is and cram a five-minute tutorial down our throats.

Surely, director Jared Hess of Napolean Dynamite fame can see and hear Jack Black delivering every line like he’s talking to a three-year-old and it’s the most exciting sentence ever. And surely Hess isn’t going to let him do that for the entire movie.

Surely, Hess didn’t tell Jason Momoa to do his impression of Napolean’s Uncle Rico, but if Rico was far more pathetic.

Surely, at least one of the five writers actually played the game themselves in order to understand the appeal of playing Minecraft and didn’t just YouTube a bunch of clips to get some bullet points.

Surely, this movie isn’t completely devoid of characters actually mining things.

Surely, this movie isn’t completely devoid of characters actually crafting things.

Surely, that isn’t a giant pig general and pig witch the writers invented because they didn’t play the game to know there are already plenty of enemies to choose from.

Surely, Danielle Brooks isn’t playing a real estate agent and aspiring mobile petting zoo owner whose only contribution to the film is a heaping pile of sass.

Surely, that isn’t a side plot featuring Jennifer Coolidge trying to bang a square-headed, flat-nosed, hemming and hawing NPC villager who she hit with her car while drunk driving after he wandered through a portal into the real world.

Surely, that isn’t Black and Momoa 69ing so they can squeeze through a tunnel.

Surely, this is a nightmare because there is simply no way a real movie whose target audience is stunted six-year-olds with ADHD would feature Black and Momoa 69ing.

Surely, Black is going to stop delivering his lines like an amphetamine-riddled meerkat.

Surely, this is a dream because the CGI-generated, photo-realistic overworld is way too gorgeous for a movie as insulting idiotic as this one.

Surely, the reason this movie is destroying the box office (and some theaters) isn’t because of a stupid meme called Chicken Jockey.

Surely, A Minecraft Movie was directed by a housecat because this movie has a massive guaranteed audience and no human being would sign their name to such a vacuous, soulless money grab.

Surely, this movie wasn’t so bad that even my twelve-year-old, Minecraft-obsessed son didn’t leave the theater saying “what the fuck was that?”

Surely, it was all just a dream.

Rating: Wake up, Kevin. WAKE UP!!

“Sinners” - Pretty good-ish.

One moment, Selma Hayek is doing a seductive dance in her underwear while wielding a large snake, George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino looking on. The next moment, she is a b-movie vampire attacking the strip club’s patrons. It’s a very jarring shift, instantly transitioning from an intriguing crime drama to another of director Robert Rodriguez’s horror pulp fetishes. From Dusk Till Dawn made us wonder if Rodriguez had been drinking the fake movie blood from his sets. The new film Sinners, from director Ryan Coogler, performs a similar transition, though not so terribly executed.

To be sure, Sinners is a far superior film to From Dusk Till Dawn, including when it turns into a survive-the-monsters movie. Sinners doesn’t completely hide the monster element like Dawn does. Sinners begins with opening narration – notably as unnecessary as all opening narration – talking about how music can link eras and generations at a supernatural level. This is followed by a scene depicting a young man named Sammie (Miles Caton) walking into his father’s small church, covered in blood and clutching the neck of his destroyed guitar, interspersed with flashes of a grisly night featuring something demonic.

Then, the movie cuts to twenty-four hours earlier and the supernatural is all but forgotten for the next hour-ish of the film. Twin brothers Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan) left home to fight in World War I, spent some years in Chicago working for Al Capone, and have now returned to their home. Together, they plan to open a juke joint (nightclub and speakeasy) to serve the local sharecroppers. For that first hour-ish, the movie meticulously develops multiple characters and various relationships, including a brief mention of the Ku Klux Klan when Smoke and Stack purchase land from the local white mayor.

The highlight of all of this development is the group of characters Smoke and Stack assemble to staff their juke joint for that night’s grand opening. In addition to Sammie are Annie (Wunmi Mosaku) to cook the food, Grace (Li Jun Li) and Bo (Yao) Chow to tend bar, Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) to play piano, Cornbread (Omar Benson Miller) to bounce the door, and, of course, Sammie to play guitar. Each character brings a unique element to the situation and all of them have a history with the twins. In addition to the staff are two vixens in Mary (Hailee Steinfeld) and Pearline (Jayme Lawson), both married, but both discarding their vows for at least the night.

For that first hour-ish, there is all sorts of intrigue in the air. Everyone in town knows the twins and their mob-linked reputations from their time in Chicago. Where did they get all that Irish beer, Italian wine, and satchels of cash? And what of the local Klansmen, whom the mayor claims no longer exist *wink wink*? Are there two different gangs looking for the twins? Then there are the ladies, particularly the two with the unseen husbands. What kind of trouble do they bring to the foray? On top of all that, we still have that whole thing about music and the supernatural. Lest you forget about it, there’s a scene with Stack and Sammie that practically smacks you in the face with it. I can’t stress enough how truly engaging this entire hour-ish is and it’s a shame we live in the timeline where the second half of this movie takes a hard right turn onto a very different road.

That’s not to say the second half isn’t also good. Unlike From Dusk Till Dawn, Sinners doesn’t immediately become a trashy survive-until-dawn vampire flick. Instead, Sinners eases the audience into a quality survive-until-dawn vampire flick. Yes, it gets pretty bonkers, including plenty of blood and gore. But it also has some really good scenes mixed in. Some really, really good scenes, particularly two featuring some fantastic music, choreography, and imagery. And the performances from the actors only get better (they were quite good during the first half), serving to elevate every scene.

The flaw in the film is that it discards nearly all of the first half’s build up by making the vampires entirely new characters. I don’t fault the movie for steering that direction, but why didn’t they make the Klan guys the vampires? That would have tied everything together nicely, commenting on the very nature of the Jim Crow South and the Klan being vampirish, both figuratively and literally. That missed opportunity seems almost like Coogler pulled his punch.

The film also whiffs a smidge by not bringing the music angle all the way back around. There are hints throughout, even that the head vampire Remmick (Jack O’Connell) is supernaturally drawn to Sammie through Sammie’s music. It might seem like a small nit, but I would have liked just one or two more quick scenes, or even just sentences, from Remmick to tie it all together. I really would like to visit that other timeline.

But it’s really difficult not to like the movie we got in this timeline. From the acting, to the visuals, to the music, to some tongue-in-cheek vampire lore (a garlic test and playing up that vampires must be invited in, to name two examples), to some surprisingly spicy erotic scenes, to some very good cinematography, to very good action scenes - there’s a little something for everyone, even the horror pulp fans.

Rating: Ask for two dollars-ish back.