With The Post and Spotlight both earning a great deal of Oscars success, Rob Reiner is hoping his journalism drama Shock and Awe can get in on the action. The crusading journalists genre lends itself to ensemble filmmaking, and Reiner has assembled a cast led by his LBJ star Woody Harrelson (I swear, he’s EVERYWHERE!), James Marsden, Milla Jojovich, Tommy Lee Jones, Jessica Biel, Richard Schiff, plus the director himself.
The title probably tells you all you need to know, as the film centers on investigative journalists checking into the George W. Bush administration’s claims of WMD in Iraq as a justification for war. We know how this story goes, don’t we?
Here’s the synopsis: The film is based on the true events of Knight Ridder journalists who were the only ones who “got it right” in the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq War when they questioned the true nature of the Bush White House’s justification for the conflict.
DirecTV will premiere Shock and Awe on June 14th before it hits theaters July 13th.
To celebrate the release of Marvel’s Black Panther in Bluray/DVD combo pack, we’re offering our readers the chance to win a digital copy of the film now!
SYNOPSIS: Bring Wakanda Home with Extensive Bonus Features that Allow Viewers to Explore Deeper into the Wondrous World of Wakanda. Marvel Studios’ “Black Panther,” the highly celebrated story of T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), a young African prince who takes on the mantle of King and Super Hero, has thrilled and inspired generations of moviegoers around the globe. Now, fans can bring home the phenomenon, packed with light-hearted fun, pulse-pounding action and a powerful message, and watch it over and over again, Digitally in HD and 4K Ultra HD™ and Movies Anywhere on May 8 and on 4K Ultra HD™, Blu-ray™, DVD and On-Demand on May 15. With both Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos immersive sound, 4k Ultra HD offers consumers a transformative viewing experience. Never-before-seen extras feature commentary from director Ryan Coogler; deleted scenes; outtakes; and several making-of featurettes, which detail the Black Panther’s evolution, the remarkable women of Wakanda, the history of T’Challa’s proud nation, and the cosmic origin and technological applications of vibranium.
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Carter & June
tells the story of, you guessed it, two con artists named Carter (Michael
Raymond-James) and June (Samaire Armstrong). Carter is a sly, smooth talker, who
happens to owe money to some big wigs across town. The film is set in Louisiana but
it seems like it could have taken place in a variety of southern towns. Spencer
Rabbit (Timothy Omundson) is the owner of a local strip club, aptly named the
Rabbit Hole, who lent Carter money and is anxious to get paid. Spencer feels
like he has waited long enough and decides to establish some stricter, and
deadlier, timelines for Carter. Carter must do whatever he can to come up with
thousands of dollars before the next day or he’ll feel Spencer’s wrath.
Luckily for Carter, he gets a call from a friend that
couldn’t have come at a better time. She works at a bank and has a plan to
steal half a million dollars that one of their clients has in a locked box. In
order to complete the heist, Carter is going to have to round up some help –
and that’s where his ex-girlfriend June comes in. June is dealing with a
custody battle and needs money to win. With everyone on board, they set the
plan in motion. Unfortunately none of them could have accounted for Officer
Twitty (James Landry Hebert) who was at the scene and throws a wrench in the
entire operation.
Carter & June
is a ridiculous ride. The characters are all over the top, but they fit in the
absurd world that writer/director Nicholas Kalikow has created. It is almost as
if all of the major players throughout the film are hyperboles. The film dives
into the skeezy underworld and shows what can go on behind the scenes. The
acting leaves a ton to be desired, but in a weird way it kind of works in the
film. There is a good amount of action and some funny lines throughout – but I
couldn’t get over the fact that Carter &
June felt more like a film class project than professional movie. I will say that Carter & June has quite the short run time and doesn’t have any dull moments. The flick is not family friendly in the
slightest – it is chock full of nudity, violence, and adult language, and sometimes
unnecessarily at that. When it boils down to it, Carter & June is about a multitude of different people who are
all desperate for money, and they will stop at nothing to get it. If you’re
looking for a quick and silly heist movie that is straight up bizarre at times, Carter & June fits the bill.
Timothee Chalamet may find himself in the thick of the awards race again if Beautiful Boy is the movie Amazon thinks it is. In the works for nearly a decade, it’s an addiction drama based on the memoirs Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction by David Sheff and Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamine by his son Nic Sheff. Steve Carell plays David, a role once eyed by Mark Wahlberg, with Chalamet as Nic. Here is the synopsis:
Based on the memoir “Beautiful Boy” by David Sheff and “Tweak” by his son, Nic Sheff, Beautiful Boy chronicles the heartbreaking and inspiring experience of survival and recovery in a family coping with addiction over many years.
At the helm is The Broken Circle Breakdown director Felix Van Groeningen, working from a script by Lion writer Luke Davies. The amount of talent alone is reason enough to think Amazon is right to see this as a potential player, but it’s always been able to attract big names. Cameron Crowe took a crack at adapting it, too, before that version also fell through. Based on this teaser everything seems to have turned out for the better. This is going to be quite the tearjerker.
Also starring Amy Ryan, Jack Dylan Grazer, Maura Tierney, Amy Ryan, Andre Royo, Kaitlyn Dever, Stefanie Scott, and LisaGay Hamilton, Beautiful Boy opens October 12th.
Think Who Framed Roger Rabbit with a puppet cast inspired by The Muppets and you’ve got a pretty good idea what to expect from The Happytime Murders. The very hard R-rated comedy from Brian Henson, the son of legendary Muppets creator Jim Henson, stars Melissa McCarthy in a film that, strangely enough, looks funnier and more human than Life of the Party ever did.
McCarthy is joined by Maya Rudolph, Joel McHale, Jimmy O. Yang, Leslie David Baker, and Elizabeth Banks as the few humans in this film about two detectives, one human and one puppet, who must discover why the puppet cast of an ’80s TV series are being killed. This is the first movie under the Henson Alternatives label. The title alone should tell you this isn’t the studio that’ll be teaching kids their ABCs.
Here’s the synopsis: No Sesame. All Street. THE HAPPYTIME MURDERS is a filthy comedy set in the underbelly of Los Angeles where puppets and humans coexist. Two clashing detectives with a shared secret, one human (Melissa McCarthy) and one puppet, are forced to work together again to solve the brutal murders of the former cast of a beloved classic puppet television show.
The Happytime Murders opens August 17th. Watch the very NSFW trailer below.
I think deep down in our subconscious we all had an idea that Lando Calrissian wasn’t all that choosey about who he beds down with. We just didn’t know how much of an equal opportunity lover he actually is. In a conversation with HuffPo, Solo: A Star Wars Story writers Jonathan and Lawrence Kasdan revealed that Lando is actually pansexual. If you don’t know what that means, basically it’s that he can be attracted to anyone regardless of gender, gender identity, and biological sex. Jon Kasdan says…
“I would say yes. There’s a fluidity to Donald and Billy Dee Williams’ [portrayal of Lando’s] sexuality. I mean, I would have loved to have gotten a more explicitly LGBT character into this movie. I think it’s time, certainly, for that, and I love the fluidity – sort of the spectrum of sexuality that Donald appeals to and that droids are a part of.”
This is one of the small ways that Star Wars can evolve to reflect modern society, by making one of its prominent characters a member of the LGBTQ community, even if it’s done in a tangential way. It doesn’t change the way we look at any of Lando’s past appearances, although it may inform one particular scene in Solo. Kasdan is asked about it and plays coy, and all I’ll say is that Lando and his droid L3-37 (voiced by Phoebe Waller-Bridge) are teased to have a bond that’s unconventional, even for Star Wars.
I’ll leave it at that and you can find out the rest when Solo: A Star Wars Story opens May 25th.
As all our favorite Arrowverse shows head towards their season finales, the stakes are getting raised. Last week on Supergirl, Kara and the DEO defeated the “trinity” of World Killers. Unbeknownst to them, Reign had absorbed the powers of Purity and Pestilence, meaning that the fight’s not over yet. Last week on The Flash, Barry made a deal with the Devil and had Amunet Black (Katee Sackhoff continues to chomp on the scenery to everyone’s delight, including her own) in order to take on DeVoe. While Team Flash’s partnership with a supervillain didn’t turn out the way they wanted, Amunet Black did give them a parting gift to use against DeVoe. Meanwhile, on Arrow, the members of Team Arrow were attacked by Diaz and his corrupt police force. They almost got a hold of Diaz’s secret list of everyone he squeezed to take over Star City, but failed at the last minute. This forced Oliver to enlist the help of the FBI, which means he was forced to reveal his true identity as the Green Arrow.
So how did this week in the Arrowverse go?
Supergirl: “Shelter from the Storm”
The episode begins with James and Lena Luthor going about their morning routine (after James spending the night with her). They seemed to have gotten past the problems of last week with her secretly making Kryptonite, which angered Supergirl. However, their bliss is short-lived as Reign comes to Lena’s loft and attacks her. She’s not looking for Lena though, she wants to find her (Well her alter-ego Samantha’s) daughter and Reign needs to kill her to take over Samantha for good. Lena manages to use a Kryptonite spray to weaken Reign, forcing her to fly away.
At the DEO, with Purity and Pestilence seemingly destroyed, the Legion is getting ready to head to the 30th century. You can tell that Mon-El is having second thoughts as his feeling for Kara have come back. Sure, he loves his wife, but he still loves Kara. The timeline’s been changed, so they are preparing to leave and Mon-El knows that he has to leave, or he’ll leave his wife for Kara. Brainiac-5 prepares to leave as well where he shares with Winn his appreciation for his intellect labeling him a “Level 1.42,” which we could guess means he’s smarter than most. Just as the Legion is about to say their goodbyes, Lena comes and tells Kara that Reign attacked her and is looking for Ruby. Kara is giving Lena the cold shoulder as she’s untrusting of her because she created Kryptonite. Lena makes a good point later on about Kara having a “God Complex,” due to the fact that because Kryptonite can hurt her, there shouldn’t be any on Earth, even though there are plenty of things that can kill humans (including herself). Lena has a point.
They determine that Reign’s next target would be Samantha’s adoptive mother Patricia’s house in hopes to search for Ruby. Patricia tells Kara and J’onn that she realizes her daughter is Reign as some of her childhood drawings are the same as Reign’s signs. She does not want to flee as she blames herself for Samantha turning to Reign and she feels that she can reach her. It’s not long before Reign comes to Patricia’s looking for Ruby. She’s met instead by Kara and J’onn. However, with Pestilence and Purity’s powers, they prove to be no match for her. Patricia tries to intervene to reach her daughter, only for Reign to kill her adoptive mother.
Back on the Legion’s ship, Brainiac reveals to Mon-El that he placed a listening device in Winn’s parting gift and he knows that Reign has the powers of Purity and Pestilence. Mon-El thinks they should stop and help. Brainiac reveals that their future is intact and the Blight doesn’t decimate their planet. However, they need to return to ensure the politics of their future. Brainiac tells Mon-El that if one of them remains behind, the odds of Kara and the DEO defeating Reign increased significantly. Imra tells Mon-El that he should remain behind. She knows he has feelings for Kara and would rather he follow his heart and return to her if need be, than to abandon what he really wants to do. Mon-El remains behind on Earth.
Lena reveals to Alex where she is hiding Ruby, at Lex Luthor’s old mansion. It’s hidden and invisible, so she should be safe. However, Reign soars above the city listening for Ruby’s voice, and manages to find out where she is. After disabling the invisibility cloak, she goes to attack her daughter. Alex does her best to fight back against Reign, but she just can’t compete. Lucky for her, Lex Luthor’s mansion has some anti-superman weapons that help slow her down, just in time for Kara to arrive with Mon-El to fight Reign. Lena convinced Kara to bring a case of Kryptonite to use against her. While they manage to save Ruby, Reign’s mask is knocked off and she sees her mother’s face confusing the poor girl. Just as Reign is about to attack Ruby, Kara appeals to her code of ethics. Reign is supposed to enact justice against those who are wrong, and Ruby is an innocent. This is enough to distract her to fire a Kryptonite bullet at her and subdue her.
Kara tells Lena that she trusts her. However, the damage has been done for their relationship. Talking with “Kara” (how doe she not knows she’s Supergirl just because of glasses?), she reveals that she thinks Supergirl is two-faced and she doesn’t trust her anymore.
Next week, James’s secret identity may have been compromised….
The Flash: “Think Fast”
With The Enlightening coming soon, Team Flash has to bunker down to stop DeVoe from reducing the whole planet’s intelligence.
The episode starts with Arrow’s Diggle showing up at an ARGUS facility to check in on one of the remaining bus metahumans, Borman, the one who can go nuclear. Turns out it really wasn’t Diggle, but instead, was DeVoe using Ralph’s powers to impersonate Diggle for access, and using Kilg%re’s powers to falsify a DNA scan to prove he’s Diggle. Once inside, he goes on the attack against the ARGUS soldiers. For the first time, we get to see him use all of his powers. DeVoe truly is a cheat code at this point. In a very well made scene, he uses each of the bus metahuman’s powers to take on the entire squadron and gain access to Borman and activate his nuclear power, which will then be used to power the satellites to launch into orbit and disperse Dark Matter throughout the planet.
Over at STAR Labs, they detect Borman’s powers going critical and they realize that they will only have 12 hours to stop DeVoe from launching the satellites. Normally, Barry could just use his speed powers to go in there and stop DeVoe. But DeVoe’s planned for this and took the ARGUS soldiers as hostage. He will not be able to save the soldiers and stop DeVoe. Cisco has a different plan instead. Cisco proposes that Barry uses his powers to create a Speed Force bubble around Caitlin and himself so that they can move in “Flash Time” to rescue the hostages, while Barry can then use the lightning to power himself up to run even faster to follow DeVoe through his dimensional gateway and stop him from launching the satellites. But if they are going to use Flash Time, Barry’s gotta train them. And he only has 12 hours to do so.
Barry’s hesitant to do this though. He’s already lost Ralph and he completely blames himself for DeVoe killing him (even though we all know he’ll be back) and taking his powers. Cisco tells Barry that he also feels blame as he created the bus metahumans when trying to rescue Barry from his Speed Force prison and wants to make this right. Barry agrees to train him and Caitlin. However, both of them have some work to do. Functioning in the Speed Force takes a create deal of energy and concentration. Cisco and Caitlin fail as their minds are elsewhere. Cisco already reveals where his mind was, and Caitlin is starting to deal with some unknown childhood trauma. She has a great moment with the same therapist who counseled Barry and Iris talking about her “imaginary friend,” but things take a detour when she discusses her childhood. Caitlin later asks Cisco to vibe her to an accident when she was a child, which reveals that she has always been Killer Frost, way before the first Dark Matter explosion. This means, Caitlin has always been a metahuman!
Iris and Harry go in search of DeVoe’s wife Marlize in the hopes of convincing her to stop her husband. She is intrigued with Harry, who is basically patient zero for The Enlightenments. She tells him that he will soon stop speaking as his mind continues to deteriorate. She reveals that she’s not willing to stop her husband. That is, until Iris reveals that she was very different and much more optimistic before she met DeVoe. With that said, she agrees to help Team Flash stop her husband.
Barry, Cisco, and Caitlin storm the ARGUS facility to rescue the hostages. Barry’s training of them paid off as they are able to move and save the hostages before the booby traps go off. This allows Barry to race towards DeVoe and once he catches up to him, DeVoe releases the satellites into the atmosphere. Barry races up a building to catch up to one of them and uses Amunet Black’s metal bomb to destroy it. Barry is excited they won, only for DeVoe to reveals that he did nothing but delay the inevitable. Just then, DeVoe uses Kilg%re’s powers to use STAR Lab’s own satellites to launch into the atmosphere, kickstarting The Enlightenment.
Next week in the season finale, Team Flash has to stop The Enlightenment…..
Arrow: “Life Sentence”
Continuing the rebound of the show from last season, Arrow closes out with a strong season finale. Oliver takes his fight to Diaz to finally save the city, and things will never be the same as a result.
Last week ended with Oliver paying a visit to FBI agent Watson a visit to enlist her and the FBI’s help to take on Diaz as he has grown too powerful for Team Arrow to take down. Agent Watson was eager to help, but we all know that she’s not going to help the man she’s been investigating all season without a price. Last week ended with Oliver confessing to her that he was in fact, the Green Arrow. With that now being common knowledge, the episode begins with Team Arrow, ARGUS, and the FBI teaming together to take on Diaz’s corrupt police force at their own headquarters. In yet another stunning display of a well-choreographed action setpiece, they are able to take down the police. Unfortunately for them, Diaz was not with them and is in the wind. Until they manage to get him and bring him into custody, the fight is still on.
Throughout the episode, Oliver feels like he knows he’s on borrowed time. He makes peace with those he has wrongs this season. He meets up with Diggle and gifts him with a Green Arrow costume. When he gives Diggle the outfit, he states that it’s something he should have done a long time ago. Diggle remarks that it’s not just the suit, it’s the hope that is inspired by his work as the Green Arrow. He feels that if there are two Green Arrows, it will make the name lose some meaning. Of course, Oliver is doing this because he knows something the rest of the team doesn’t. He also meets up with Renee and apologizes to him for his actions this season. He even remarks that when he first met Renee when he was a solo vigilante, he didn’t think much of him. He has grown to respect him not only as a member of Team Arrow, but as friends as well.
Anatoly, who has been secretly been working with Oliver to take Diaz down, manages to not get caught in the roundup. This adds to Diaz’s paranoia. He reveals to Anatoly that he doesn’t need the police force for his protection anymore, as he has now employed The Longbow Hunters (yet another deep cut DC comics reference who hopefully will make an appearance next year). Diaz also tells Anatoly about his plan in the hopes of springing a trap, knowing that he’s the snitch. When Anatoly tells Oliver about Diaz’s whereabouts, it springs a trap which lures Team Arrow and the FBI to an abandoned warehouse that’s filled with explosives. Knowing that he could die when surrounded by bombs that could go off any minute, Renee gives his daughter a call, telling her how much he loves her. For a second, it looked like Renee might be a goner, but he manages to survive the explosion, even after saving a frozen FBI agent, thanks to Felicity’s computer skills to jam the signal of the detonation Diaz set off.
Diaz has one more card to play. Holding Earth-2’s Laurel Lance hostage, he tells her father Quinten that he will kill her, unless as mayor he calls on the FBI to leave Star City. This helps lay the trap for Diaz. Quinten is concerned with saving his adoptive multidimensional daughter from being killed, so he agrees to the meeting (even though the FBI has no concern for her life). He even lets Diaz know that the FBI is monitoring him as they lose the FBI’s surveillance. Quinten did tell Oliver about his pacemaker, which makes Oliver realize that it could be tracked, in the hopes that they will follow him to where Diaz is holding Laurel. At Diaz’s hideout, he holds Laurel at gunpoint and threatens to shoot her in front of her father unless he gives the order. Just as he’s about to pull the trigger, Quinten jumps in front of the shot, taking a bullet for her.
Just then, Team Arrow and the FBI storm on Diaz’s location, and there’s yet another epic battle. In the scuffle, Dinah comes in contact with Laurel. While Dinah still hates her for killing her beloved when she was on team Diaz, she helps Dinah and Quinten escape hordes of Diaz’s men. It was good to see two Black Canary’s fighting and using their screaming powers at the same time to take down the bad guys. Oliver gets to meet up with Diaz for one last time. As the two duke it out, yet more impressive fight sequences for the show. Oliver finally gets the drop on Diaz and is just about to take him in when Laurel catches up to him. She doesn’t think he’s worthy of being arrested and decides to use her sonic scream against him, knocking him into the river. Oliver knows he’s not dead, but Laurel doesn’t care.
Oliver managed to use Felicity’s cloning device to make a copy of the flash drive on Diaz’s neck, meaning Team Arrow and the FBI now know every single person on Diaz’s payroll. Even though they didn’t get the bad guy, they got all of his infrastructure, rendering him powerless as all the people under his boot were arrested by the FBI.
And that’s where it gets worse for everyone. Turns out the second thing Oliver agreed to with agent Watson was for him to be arrested for being the Green Arrow. Just as Oliver is getting ready to turn himself in, Quinten dies while having surgery. Sara took a break from her time traveling adventures to see her father at the hospital, only for him to die. She has a brief encounter with Laurel, which is weird for the both of them. Something tells me that they will eventually have a sisterly bond, just as Quinten had a father/daughter bond with her. Oliver is escorted out in handcuffs only to be surrounded by the press as he is about to be taken into custody. He gives a great speech where he confesses who he is to the city, telling all the citizens of Star City to keep up his crusade of “saving the city.” Diggle and other members of Team Arrow watch the speech, and Diggle takes a look at the Green Arrow costume, meaning he’s going to don the hood in Oliver’s name. Oliver’s in for a tough time as he settles into prison, surrounded by people who hate the Green Arrow.
Steven Yeun may no longer count among The Walking Dead cast, but his career has been very much alive ever since. He’s making some really strong choices, from Netflix’s Okja, to the buzzy Sundance title Sorry to Bother You. And he’s also got one of the hottest films at Cannes with Burning, the latest from South Korean auteur Lee Chang-dong.
Chang-dong’s first film since 2010’s Poetry is competing for the Palme d’Or and based on the early buzz it has a very good shot at winning. Loosely adapted from Haruki Murakami’s short story Barn Burning, the film stars Yoo Ah-in as Jongsu, a delivery boy who falls in love with Haemi (Jun Jong-seo), only to have her return from a trip with a mysterious playboy (Yeun) as her new lover. The teaser is fairly brief but lays out the love triangle with eerie strokes, building to an unnerving conclusion with Yeun as the most ominous aspect.
Burning opened in South Korea just yesterday and held its own well against Deadpool 2. Expect it to eventually get stateside distribution once all the hype from Cannes dies down.
The hilarious marketing campaign for Deadpool was brilliant and went a long way to it becoming the massive hit it turned out to be, but I think Ryan Reynolds and Co. are doing even better with Deadpool 2. For one thing, they’ve had Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War to piggyback on the whole time, turning the massive film into a “rival” to play off of, and it helps that the two films share a star in Josh Brolin.
Now Deadpool takes another jab at Marvel Studios with a 10-year retrospective of his own, chronicling the foul-mouthed antihero’s humble journey beginning with 2009’s oft-ridiculed X-Men Origins: Wolverine. It looks at the many false starts to a solo Deadpool movie, the footage “leak” that got the ball rolling, Reynolds’ questionable career choices, and more. Great stuff.
Deadpool 2 is in theaters now! Did you see it? What did you think?
*NOTE- This is a reprint of Mae’s review from the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. The Yellow Birds is available now exclusively on DirecTV and will hit theaters in June.*
I’m always conflicted about war movies. Sometimes, they seek only to glorify heroism and are entirely too self-righteous, while other times they explore very humanistic themes amid crises. Based on the novel by Kevin Powers, The Yellow Birds journeys through nonlinear storytelling about the toll of war and a mystery of a soldier’s disappearance. Its narrative is grim and there are moral questions that play a big part in the story, especially in the end. However, the film often seems to want to dole out the pain without follow-up and spends far too much time on its mystery and lacks any authentic emotional follow-through.
Told in three different chapters–before, during, and after deployment–The Yellow Birds follows Brandon Bartle (Alden Ehrenreich) as he navigates his way through his time in the Iraq war. He’s a troubled young man who doesn’t have a stable relationship with his mother (Toni Collette). Before being deployed, he befriends an optimistic teen, Daniel “Murph” Murphy (Tye Sheridan) and, under the guidance of Sergeant Sterling (Jack Huston), they are sent to Iraq for war. Bartle watches as Murph attitude changes from hopeful to despondent the longer they are there; but it’s one tragedy that eventually drives him over the edge.
Later, Murph’s mother, Maureen (Jennifer Aniston), receives the news that her son is missing. With Bartle and Sergeant Sterling having returned from overseas, Maureen seeks out answers regarding what happened to her son. Bartle, having promised that he would be the one to tell should anything happen to Murph, won’t see her. As the story unfolds, the mystery of what happened to Murph is found out and Bartle struggles to deal with it and face the truth of what happened.
Director Alexandre Moors (Blue Caprice) loves to explore the darkness in situations. In this case, it’s the darkness of war and how its heavy weight can scar even the most hopeful of people. One of the primary issues with the film is that it chooses to focus more if its story on Bartle while Murph becomes a pawn for Bartle’s pain. Bartle is a character we’ve seen often enough: Broken and emotionally empty with a hard exterior. There is no real connection the audience can feel for him and I found myself wanting the narrative to further develop Murph. A young man who hasn’t yet been tarnished by life and comes from a loving household only to eventually be traumatized by war is a far more interesting angle.
The Yellow Birds focuses too much on the mystery and watching Bartle emote to the point that a large chunk of the film feels devoid of much else. The story leads us to believe that Bartle and Sergeant Sterling were accomplices in the disappearance of Murph, so much so that the reveal in the film’s finale falls flat and doesn’t quite have the emotional resonance that it should have carried. Jennifer Aniston and Toni Collette’s characters are especially short-changed and not given enough to do, which is a waste of both actresses’ talents. Although the cinematography is beautiful and the film has a lot of potential, it’s far too slowly paced and doesn’t have enough depth for the heavy material it takes on.
