The latest film releases are Harold and the Purple Crayon, The Instigators, Kneecap, and Doctor Jekyll. Weighing in are Amy Nicholson, host of the podcast Unspooled and film reviewer for The New York Times, and William Bibbiani, film critic for The Wrap and co-host of The Critically Acclaimed Network.
Harold and the Purple Crayon
Based on the 1955 children’s book by Crockett Johnson, the protagonist possesses a magical purple crayon that brings his drawings to life. The cast includes Zachary Levi, Zooey Deschanel, and Alfred Molina.
Bibbiani: “I appreciate that there's nothing untoward in this movie, there's nothing unpleasant or cruel or mean or really negative. It's an okay time waster of a movie. And I think if you set your kids in front of this, they would emerge having been reasonably entertained.
But what bothers me is that this is a story about the unlimited power of imagination. That's what Crockett Johnson's book was basically about — if you imagine it, it can be. And the movie that they have crafted from that, for me, is a collection of pretty hackneyed cliches from top to bottom. … Just hey, this is a story about an overgrown child living in a magical world who comes into the real world, and has a whole bunch of fish-out-of-water comedy, and runs into Zooey Deschanel, who was working at a big store, and he messes up that store, but eventually she learns the importance of magic — that's just the movie Elf, but now there's a crayon in it.”
Nicholson: “I did appreciate one thing, though, about him and Zoey, which is I was really, really worried that there's gonna be some sort of romance between this overgrown 8-year-old kid who shows up in a onesie. And just so everybody can breathe fresh air, there is not a romance.”
The Instigators
Matt Damon plays a desperate father on his first heist, and Casey Affleck portrays a career criminal. They’re on the run with their therapist after trying — unsuccessfully — to rob Boston’s mayor on election night.
Bibbiani: “It has that just woe-is-me, fatalistic, the-world-is-out-to-get-us vibe. And on that level, I really enjoyed it. I was a bit frustrated … that although Casey Affleck is constantly saying things that are supposed to be very, very witty, I only laughed a couple of times. But … I do think this was an entertaining film.”
Nicholson: “I was aware throughout the whole film that I wasn't laughing as much as I expected to be laughing. It's a movie that I think coasts a lot on our just affection to see Matt Damon and Casey Affleck hanging out together, play these moronic Boston bros. … Especially in the first half when everything just starts to go wrong, and the trouble escalates and escalates, and you have the tough guy enforcers and the dumb guy enforcers … that is really, really fun.
… Where it started to stumble, and I feel awful saying this because it's in Hong Chau’s therapist … she is a really terrific actress, and she's doing … this very sincere performance as a therapist. But the sincerity of that role just feels really out of whack with all of the fun that the movie wants to think that it's having. The tone just doesn't quite work to me.”
Kneecap
Described as a fictional biopic, this chronicles the rise of a hip-hop trio in Belfast who rap in Irish. The rappers become the unlikely face of a civil rights movement to preserve their native language.
Nicholson: “I watched it only thinking it was a fictional movie at first, just this fun, Irish, scruffy comedy about kids doing a ton of drugs, and then three of them coming together to form this band. … Their big thing is that they're going to perform in the local Irish language … it was only recently allowed to even be a formalized language in Northern Ireland. So they're doing it as a political statement at a politically sensitive time. But also, to get around having to talk to the cops in English by insisting that they can only speak in their native Irish — so I was watching it like that and being like, ‘Oh, this is fun.’
… Only at the end did I realize that the people in this band, Kneecap, were just playing themselves. I thought this was a movie that discovered all of these new faces. But actually, this band turns out to be capable of carrying this entire movie. … I wound up really respecting it even more. These tracksuit lads, they just have a ton of charisma.”
Bibbiani: “This is one of the only movies I can think of that is … explicitly pro-drugs, like drugs make them better as musicians … in a way that they know is funny and subversive. And that's the cool thing about Kneecap — it really does fly in the face of a lot of cinematic convention. … This is alive, this is vibrant, this is doing different things narratively.”
Doctor Jekyll
This gothic horror reimagines Robert Louis Stevenson’s book, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Suzy Eddie Izzard plays Dr. Nina Jekyll, a disgraced pharmaceutical tycoon who’s living in isolation, and she hires a young ex-con to take care of her.
Bibbiani: “Here, Nina is a trans woman. … Jekyll and Hyde are both a woman — that is not confused at all in the narrative or the theme. It is just a straightforward telling of the story from a slow burn mentality. It's not a lot of mayhem until towards the end. It's a little creaky at times. It's a little old-fashioned, but I don't find that necessarily a bad thing. I enjoy that throwback. And I think it's all anchored by a really great, multifaceted performance from Izzard.”
Nicholson: “I was really, really rooting for this film. … It is just a lot of walking through this mysterious mansion, and wondering when this is going to happen, and when is the movie actually going to get underway? I was never creeped out or emotionally involved in this movie. I was just watching it almost like an intellectual curiosity, I guess hoping and waiting for Eddie to get a chance to just go extra, extra nuts and dominate the screen like I know that she can do. And it just doesn't really happen.
I did like the kid, Scott Chambers, who's playing this dummy ex-con who's trying to figure out how to get around in this world, and trying to play really nice to his boss. And honestly the boss element … was the most interesting part. … To have bosses who talk like today's bosses, but just keep switching their emotions on a dime, and are telling you to do one thing, and then you're getting in trouble for doing that exactly what they said — all of that was really, really funny. But there just wasn't enough of it or anything else to hold this movie together for me.”