* Army of the Dead boasts the sort of high concept logline you expect to get pitched over martinis in Hollywood: "a Las Vegas heist thriller with zombies." The idea probably should have died there. As much as we love Dave Bautista's wounded weariness in any role, this is a movie ripping off ideas, characters, conflicts - and even entire story beats - from other, better movies. But the most egregious sin for us is the sinking feeling that the filmmakers are giggling at the audience by arbitrarily killing off characters just because they can. In the end, it's pointless, grim, and unsatisfying.
* Awake is pretty terrible. It feels cheap, rushed, and totally undercooked. While the idea that a global phenomenon preventing sleep might lead to social chaos and insanity is somewhat intriguing, what should maybe take a couple of weeks to play out here takes about 24 hours: after a single night of no sleep, the world totally falls apart and a church of wild-eyed wackos is ready to sacrifice a young girl who was able to sleep the previous night. It's that kind of movie, chock full of underdeveloped drama and supporting characters that come and go at random. Ugh.
* Greenland stars Gerard Butler, which typically signals a cheesy, B-movie aesthetic of big thrills on a low budget. We were pleasantly surprised that this film delivers genuine edge and grit. Post-9/11 and post-"Walking Dead,' we've all seen countless iterations of "end of the world" stories, but this one works hard to create a sense of realistic panic and dread. It's easy to buy that this scary breakdown of law and order and morality is exactly how things would go if the world suddenly realized that a planet-killer comet was only two days away. It's a Gerard Butler movie, so you get the required eye-rolling moments of happenstance and coincidence, but it packs a punch.
* In the Heights is certainly an exuberant and vivid movie. Recent casting controversy aside, there's a lot of fun to be had soaking up the story's Caribbean Latin culture and spending time with these likable characters, all of them hungering for a better life. The issue is that aside from a dreamy dance on the side of a building and a fantastic showstopper number at a city pool, there's a surprising flatness to the action. It just doesn't hit the mark. None of the songs are particularly earwormy, there's no clear antagonist to create conflict, and the story rambles on for about 45 minutes too long. We wanted to like it more than we did.
* Tenet, like all Christopher Nolan films, can give you a headache as you try to understand just what exactly is going on. The idea of an "inversion" machine that makes time run backwards is undeniably clever and unique - especially in those truly weirdo, nonsensical moments when forwards and backwards characters cross paths - but that doesn't mean it makes for a clear story. There are some undeniably memorable moments, but in the end, the movie feels like more of a mental exercise of plot mechanics than an effective drama. That is, it's all head and no heart.
