"The Sheep Detectives" - Wait, did you say sheep?

The Sheep Detectives isn't a story about human detectives investigating sheep. It's about sheep investigating the murder of their human shepherd, George (Hugh Jackman). It's a silly premise, but it's exactly the kind of story that gets made into a PG-rated film. The remarkable thing about this film isn't that a studio greenlit a project about sheep detectives, it's that the finished film doesn't treat its target audience - families - as complete idiots.

It could be that this film is smarter than typical family films because the (German) novel it's based on - Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Story by Leonie Swann - isn't a children's book, but a regular adult mystery novel (set in Ireland). I haven't read the novel, so I can't speak to its contents. Since the movie doesn't feature over-the-top absurd characters or poop or fart jokes, I can only assume the book doesn't have those things either. And I'm very, very glad for that.

With such a silly premise, it's easy to assume the movie wouldn't take itself seriously at all. That's what I assumed. The preview all but told me to make that assumption. One example is the preview makes Emma Thompson (playing George's lawyer Lydia Harbottle) come off like every ridiculous family-friendly villain. That's not to say she is or isn't the murderer, but when seen in the full context of the film, Lydia is quite the opposite of ridiculous. In fact, she might be the best non-ovine character in the film, if not the best character altogether. Emma Thompson is taking this movie seriously (while also clearly enjoying herself in this film), as is the rest of the cast and crew.

Don't worry though, there is a little bit of silliness in the film. Once again, the sheep are the detectives. For this to work, a couple of conceits must be made. One conceit is that the sheep have a complete understanding of the entire English language, which they seem to have gotten mostly from George reading them mystery stories every evening. While the humans in the movie still only hear baaaa, the sheep are speaking English for the audience. Another conceit is that nobody in the town is surprised when sheep are roaming around town or behaving in weirdly human ways. I've spent a good amount of time in places where sheep are a significant industry and never once saw sheep wandering around town, let alone inside hotels or pubs. Of course, I've never been to Ireland, so maybe sheep are more free there.

On the serious side, the movie is a straight-forward whodunit. The movie introduces us to George, a bunch of individual sheep, and a handful of locals, and then George dies. The smartest sheep, Lily (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is convinced that George was murdered and determines that they must find the killer. Much of this revolves around giving hints to various humans, including the town's only cop, Tim (Nicholas Braun). Shortly after George's death, Lydia arrives in town to read the will, which in all mysteries means gathering all of the suspects. Clues and motives are revealed until the killer is finally unmasked. And like all fun mysteries, the clues are such that anybody paying attention can deduce the killer's identity before the obligatory unmasking in the climax.

The best way to know that the film isn't pandering to the lowest common denominator is that it sprinkles some fairly heavy social themes into the story and treats them respectfully. The obvious one is life after death, but from a sheep's perspective. Another good one is dealing with tragedy, though this one comes with an odd detail. The sheep can choose to literally forget things, which I don't recall being a stereotype of sheep. Several times in the film, the sheep decide they must forget bad things so they don't feel sad or other seemingly negative feelings. The forgetting doesn't play into the main plot, but the issue of coping with life events comes to a head late in the film and is dealt with really well.

I'm as surprised as you that this movie ended up so good and so adult. If you are skeptical because you also saw a preview, I promise you the preview does not do this movie justice. The mystery is fun, Jackman and Thompson give their usual great performances (with an assist from the very likable Braun), and the movie really is good for the entire family. And all on the idea of sheep detectives. Yes, I said sheep.

Rating: Worth your money for the entire family.

“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.

“Onward” - Are elves aliens?

The thoughts of a seven-year old are amazing, especially that he is taking care not to spoil too much. Here are some of those thoughts about the latest Pixar movie, Onward.

Alright, what’s the movie we’re talking about right now?

Onward.

What is Onward?

It’s a movie.

What is the movie Onward about?

These kids, they’re brothers. They’re like little alien things and they go on a quest to like bring their dad back, because their dad died right when the brothers were born. That’s what it’s about.

Are you familiar with the genre of fantasy?

Uhhhhh…no.

So, what did the aliens look like?

Um, blue elves.

They’re not aliens…they’re blue elves.

Well, one guy looked like a horse.

What do you mean he looked like a horse?

Like, his waist up is a human, and he’s an officer - a police officer. And the rest, like his butt and his legs, are a horse, and he’s weird.

So, he’s a centaur.

He’s a policeman that the brothers’ mom knows.

Fantasy!

Her boyfriend? Her husband?

Yeaaaaah…no.

Oh he’s their stepfather.

[pondering] I think that’s true.

Elves and a centaur. What other kinds of characters were in the movie?

Flying tiny dwarfs. Like a whole army of them.

Fairies?

[groans] Ugh, fairies.

Who helps them on their quest?

No, [eats a French fry ponderingly] but their dad did send them a map. And a wand. And a phoenix gem. And no friends. Don’t type that, mom.

What are they looking for on the quest?

A phoenix gem.

To do what?

Bring their dad back?

If he’s dead, how do they bring him back?

They have this wand thing - hold on, let me get this bat. [picks up a whiffle bat] They point a wand and they say “ah, Fabrizio!” and they bring half his body back.

Fabrizio? Fabrizio.

What do you mean they only bring half of his body back?

That was in the beginning. But at the end…I’m not gonna spoil it.

Good idea. So, tell me what is the part of his body that comes back?

Feet to waist.

Just his legs?

Yeah, and the brothers put a coat on him. [walks around zombie-esque, apparently evoking Weekend at Bernie’s] …Tom Holland, slash, the younger brother.

Tom Holland was the younger brother and who was the older brother?

No. …Emmett. …Emmett from The Lego Movie.

Did their mom help them with the quest?

Uh, kinda. Not really…?

What do you mean?

She didn’t help ‘em. ‘Cause their mom was okay bringing back their dad because they wanted to meet their dad.

What was their mom doing the whole time?

I don’t know …okay, what was the question?

What was their mom doing while they were on the quest?

Their mom was doing…something during the quest. Driving on the expressway, [does air quotes] for help with the Manticore, which is a dragon-scorpion-gorilla-thing.

Could use a little help here mom.

What was your favorite part of the movie?

The end, where “Tom Holland’s” [does air quotes again] college was tearing apart and became a dragon, because that was the curse, and the Manticore forgot to tell them about the curse. Because there’s always a curse.

There’s always a curse on a quest?

Yes.

Noted. Who was your favorite character?

The fairies. The leader fairy.

Why?

He had a weird voice. And he was like hahahahh-ahah-ahahaha. [waves arms crazily in the air]

Was there anything in the movie that you would change?

[Nibbles on a French fry] Ehhh…nothing I would change.

Do you think parents will like the movie?

‘Cuz it’s good…? [thinks for another minutes, then says more decidedly} ‘Cuz it’s good.

Do you think any kids will be scared by the movie?

Um, no.

Rating:

Should anyone ask for any money back?

Meh…maybe like 5 cents back.

Why?

Um [eating another French fry] actually…every movie isn’t perfect.

“Downhill” - Dear cruel world.

The advantage in avoiding all trailers for a movie is that you do not know what is coming. Unfortunately, that is also the danger. What little I knew going into the screening of Downhill was that it starred Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus and was about a family on ski trip. IMDb categorized it as a comedy/drama, so, naturally, I went into the theater expecting a comedy. Because, of course I did. Everyone did. Plus, it opens on Valentine’s Day and what better movie for a date night than a fun family ski comedy? As it turns out, literally every movie would be a better option for a date night than Downhill. Upon the end of the film, my immediate thought was “it’s a good thing I don’t take notes during screenings because mine would have been a suicide note.”

As soon as the studio name appeared on the screen, I knew I had made a horrible mistake. Fox Searchlight, for those of you who aren’t familiar with them, is the arthouse arm of 20th Century Fox (or was, now that both are owned by Disney) and does not make the standard, low-brow comedies typical of Will Ferrell, like Anchorman or Talladega Nights. When they make comedies, they tend to be subtle, quirky, or even dark comedies like Super Troopers, The Way, Way Back, or Jojo Rabbit. Then, the movie confirmed it by starting with a wide shot of the French Alps while playing quirky music of the type that has never been heard in a Will Ferrell movie outside of Stranger Than Fiction. Definitely not the hallmarks of what one would call a funny romp.

They look like they are having as much fun as the audience.

The short of it is Downhill makes Marriage Story seem like a festival of joy. Ferrell plays Pete, a husband and father of two middle-school aged boys, on a skiing vacation with his family. The audience is immediately made uncomfortable by the family as they try to pose for a picture at the top of a ski run, bickering with each other as a Frenchman snaps photos. I know - hilarious, right? Well, the majority of the film is this scene over and over again, just in different locations. Eventually, we learn that Pete and his wife Billie (Dreyfus) are having marital problems, but we are never told what those problems actually are. We just see the culmination of Billie’s anger and Pete’s emotional absence brought on by...years of having to look at each other’s stupid faces? Too much device screen time? Whose NBC show generated more money?

To put it another way, Downhill’s entire purpose seems to be to make the audience as uncomfortable and awkward as possible. Pete is a depressed Clark Griswold doing everything he can to avoid the confrontation he knows is coming. The entire trip was his idea to spend time with his family without taking his family into consideration. He pushes them to hit the slopes every day, invites a work buddy and his girlfriend (Zach and Rosie, respectively) to stop by their hotel for dinner, books them at a resort for adults instead of the nearby family resort, and even books an excursion to be helicoptered to the top of a mountain despite one his sons clearly not able to ski terrain that difficult. I know - hilarious, right?

Kill me. Kill me now.

The awkwardness continues when Billie snaps on multiple occasions and none of them are fun to sit through. One is during the helicopter scene when they can’t find one of the kids’ gloves, followed by another scene featuring Billie and Pete screaming at each other in front of Zach and Rosie (after the family has a close shave with an avalanche). It is every point in your life when two people argued with each other in front of you, but times one thousand. And that is before we get to Charlotte (Miranda Otto), a kind of hands-on concierge who was so pushy and obnoxious Billie would have been forgiven had she pushed Charlotte off the chair lift. Based on all of this, it is no wonder that Dreyfus comes off as if she is a hostage forced to be in this film.

Thankfully, this travesty only lasted eighty minutes (despite feeling like nine hours). Thirty minutes in and I was ready to walk out. It takes a lot for me to want to leave a movie early and having to sit through fifty minutes after hitting my threshold was excruciating. Not only was the movie not a comedy, it was devoid of anything even resembling humor. Yet, for reasons that defy humanity, a handful of audience members were laughing during parts of the movie. To be clear, it was not as if they were laughing at attempted jokes; they were laughing at parts that were clearly not intended as jokes. I don’t know if it was nervous laughter or they have a condition like Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, but it made an uncomfortable experience that much more awkward. I can only assume they were trying to make the best of a date gone horribly wrong.

Rating: Ask for all of your money back and give it to whomever agreed to go with you.