DVD: Divine Viewing Diversions
Here are three recommendations, a trio of worthwhile, entertaining movies, in disparate genres, each released theatrically a few months ago and each rated PG-13.
BLACK PANTHER
Real-life heroes and icons have been Chadwick Boseman’s stock-in-trade.
After all, he portrayed Jackie Robinson in “42,” James Brown in “Get On Up,” and Thurgood Marshall in “Marshall.”
But in this starring role, he switches from real life to reel life, so, no, he’s not playing Huey Newton in “Black Panther.”
That’s because it’s not a docudrama but a comic book-inspired superhero thriller featuring Marvel Studios’ first black leading man.
Boseman is T’Challa, who has, with precious little reluctance now that his father has passed, rightfully taken the throne as the king of the isolated, technologically advanced African (and fictional) nation of Wakanda, consisting of five tribes.
A big part of the reason that Wakanda is so far ahead of other nations is that residents have been mining an indestructible mineral called vibranium for a couple thousand years.
Needless to say, given vibranium’s near-mystical properties – it can power weapons, fuel flying vehicles, even cure disease – it beckons others who might desire to acquire it, especially if they sport names as generically villainous as Erik Killmonger, played by Michael B. Jordan.
So that the citizens of futuristic, high-tech Wakanda can preserve their momentous secrets and go about their private business, there is a holographic dome that gives the impression that this is an agrarian third-world country.
Still, some Wakandans want to keep the vibranium to themselves while other factions want to share it with the world for the good of everybody. It’s a fascinating political debate, one that adds gravitas to the film.
It also takes us down a road on which Wakanda could be dragged into a world war.
The title character, who first appeared on the comic-book page in 1966, was the first such black superhero, and was introduced on the movie screen in 2016 in “Civil War: Captain America.”
Director Ryan Coogler (“Fruitvale Station,” “Creed”), whose promising directorial career is off to an impressive 3-for-3 start, co-wrote the ambitious Afro-centric screenplay with Joe Robert Cole, then surrounded Boseman with such a sterling supporting ensemble that his protagonist is essentially nudged to the sidelines for stretches.
This could be a problem if not for the fact that the leadership-and-politics-exploring script for this operatic family drama makes room for a number of generously delineated important characters, many of them female, and splendid work from Lupita Nyong’o, Angela Bassett, Daniel Kaluuya, Martin Freeman, Forest Whitaker, Andy Serkis, Letitia Wright, Danai Gurira, Sterling K. Brown and Winston Duke.
Collectively, they seem to be, whether intentionally or not, delivering a rejoinder to certain recent public comments about African nations. And why shouldn’t they?
The acting in this origin story is first-rate, the action exciting, the dialogue thoughtful, and the drama intense. There’s little if anything to complain about.
So, we won’t. A thoroughly stimulating action-adventure thriller, “Black Panther” is a rich, royal, resonant blast.
MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS
The fondly recalled 1974 version of “Murder on the Orient Express,” directed by Sidney Lumet, combined the cerebral puzzle-solving entertainment of a mystery novel by Agatha Christie with the star-gazing pleasures of a celebrity ensemble. Six Academy Award nominations ensued.
The reboot, directed by Kenneth Branagh and scripted by Michael Green, offers Branagh as legendary Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, played in the original by Oscar nominee Albert Finney.
But what both versions share is author Christie’s diabolically clever whodunit plot, visual elegance, and a trainload of familiar screen luminaries.
Where then there were Richard Widmark, Sean Connery, Lauren Bacall, Anthony Perkins, Sir John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Martin Balsam, Vanessa Redgrave and Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner Ingrid Bergman, now there are Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Judi Dench, Josh Gad, Penelope Cruz, Daisy Ridley, Derek Jacobi and Willem Dafoe.
They comprise the 1930s passenger list on the Europe-crossing titular train traveling from Istanbul to Calais.
And when somebody turns up dead and the train is rendered snowbound, Poirot must use his “leedle gray cells” to conduct a criminal investigation through a series of interrogations to determine which of the 13 passengers – suspects all – has submitted the victim to a gruesome, extravagant, murderous stabbing.
Even if you’ve read the 1934 detective novel or seen the earlier version and thus know the solution to the mystery, Christie’s ingeniousness carries the day. In other words, even if you know who done it in this whodunit, there are escapist pleasures to be had.
Five-time Oscar nominee Branagh – wearing a mustache the size of a locomotive while playing the colorful, idiosyncratic Poirot, and directing for the 15th time – keeps things zipping along and time flying.
And he gives his leading man – that is, himself – such a generous number of lingering closeups that some among his prestigious supporting ensemble are severely underemployed.
With no particular antagonist pitted against Poirot, suspense and emotional involvement are pretty much off the table.
But Branagh seems to know that his ace in the hole is Christie’s sturdy, cognitive source material, so in every way but a focus on that distracting mustache, he more or less stays out of the way.
And he unapologetically embraces generic convention. So, yes, Poirot does eventually gather all the suspects on this lavish train ride for the big reveal, which delivers a conceit that pays off nicely even if you see it coming.
An enjoyably old-fashioned homicide mystery, “Murder on the Orient Express” is a dark, glossy lark in which Kenneth Branagh’s Hercule Poirot uses his impressive powers of deduction to determine what might be called the loco motive.
BATTLE OF THE SEXES
It was when Billie met Bobby.
At center court.
With everyone watching.
It was dubbed the “Battle of the Sexes,” which serves as the title of this bubbly period comedy about an event staged, televised and viewed by 90 million Americans in 1973 – one of the most watched sporting events of all time.
That was when 55-year-old hustler Bobby Riggs, his triumphant tennis career fading in the rear-view mirror, challenged 29-year-old Billie Jean King, still a champ at the top of her game, to a high-profile happening in Houston’s Astrodome.
Any woman beating any man? Unthinkable.
In “Battle of the Sexes,” Emma Stone’s King and Steve Carell’s Riggs – two technically solid, smartly judged, star turns and enjoyably watchable impersonations – perform like an efficient mixed-doubles tandem, serving and volleying effortlessly as they take us back to a time when, as Riggs put it, he could put the “show back in chauvinism.”
Married directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (“Little Miss Sunshine,” “Ruby Sparks”) manage to demonstrate in the yin-and-yang screenplay by Simon Beaufoy (Oscar for “Slumdog Millionaire”) that, yes, you could say that we’ve come a long way, baby, in terms of gender equality; but that, let’s face it, you could also say that we’ve barely budged.
As they say in tennis: game, set, match.
At the time Riggs issued the on-court challenge to King that would eventuate into a media circus, each was married and struggling with off-court issues, primarily his gambling compulsions and her emerging sexual identity.
But it was the sexual revolution and the women’s movement that served as context and background for what seemed at the time just an extravagant publicity stunt that would come to take on considerable symbolic value.
As for the film itself, it could stand to be – like one’s tennis game – a lot more hard-hitting, although the obvious sugarcoating is easy to forgive. As it is, the film is always pleasantly competent but rarely inspired.
Instead, although there are fleeting moments of on-the-nose preachiness, the directors generally employ a light, careful touch – the cinematic equivalent of a safe second serve in tennis – and allow their accessible, audience-friendly enterprise to register as a good-natured, friendly reminder that the equal-rights battle is still being fought, given the unequal, gender-based pay scale: y’know, the more things change ...
The directors are aided in their efforts by a strong supporting ensemble that includes Sarah Silverman, Andrea Riseborough, Natalie Morales, Bill Pullman, Elisabeth Shue, Alan Cumming, Fred Armisen, Eric Christian Olsen and Austin Stowell.
And Dayton and Faris can’t help but highlight passages that lend the film contemporary relevance: Try not flashing on a Hillary-Donald debate when the hyped showdown gets underway. It’s impossible.
The generally winning “Battle of the Sexes” pretty much avoids unforced errors and foot faults. Moreover, calling it a crowd-pleaser is anything but a backhand compliment.
