Summer blockbuster season is ending, but there are still so many interesting movies and shows coming out.
Richard Roeper has a few suggestions of what to see and what to avoid.
“Resident Evil” (in theaters)
Director Zach Cregger has delivered two of the most outrageous and creatively warped horror films of the 2020s with “Barbarian” and “Weapons”—and he hits another home run with the lean and gruesome and funny “Resident Evil.” Cregger pumps new life into a tired franchise by taking us on a no-frills thrill ride that pays homage to the video game even as it creates a parallel universe.
Austin Abrams (who also starred in “Weapons”) is perfectly cast as Bryan, a likable but not particularly assertive medical courier who is hired to take a vital and mysterious package to a hospital on a snowy night. When Bryan’s car strikes a woman who runs into his path and she survives in weird fashion, it’s the beginning of a rapid descent into a hellish landscape where humans are turned into zombie-monsters. Abrams is hilariously relatable as a regular guy who isn’t a gun guy but has to learn quickly, who wears his fear on his sleeve, who keeps trying to do the right thing, only to see it backfire on him. He alternates between cursing under his breath and screaming at the ghoulish creatures trying to eat him alive; we kinda feel like that’s how WE’D react if we found ourselves in the middle of a horror-survival film.
Like the protagonist in a video game, Bryan keeps moving forward, sussing out the rules of the game as he progresses toward his ultimate goal, confronting one obstacle after another, where it’s a seemingly innocent little girl who has been infected, or a Jabba the Hutt-looking guy in the sewers. “Resident Evil” plays like “The Thing” meets “Die Hard,” if John McClane was a scrawny nice guy who complains when his socks get wet.
3.0 stars
“The Weight” (in theaters)
Ethan Hawke hit the ground running as a young actor specializing in playing intelligent if sometimes callow characters in 1980s and 1990s films such as “Dead Poets Society,” “Reality Bites” and “Before Sunrise”—but Hawke’s work is more richly layered now that he’s in his 50s. From his role as “The Grabber” in the “Black Phone” movies to his Oscar-nominated turn in “Blue Moon” to his gritty and magnificent work in “The Weight,” he is firmly established as one of our best actors.
Set in the majestic yet unforgiving Pacific Northwest during the Great Depression, “The Weight” is a harsh and enthralling adventure thriller in the tradition of “The Treasure of Sierra Madre” and “Deliverance.” Hawke plays Samuel Murphy, who is toiling away in a prison work camp and in danger of losing his young daughter forever when he strikes a bargain with the devil, which of course is no bargain at all. Russell Crowe’s Warden Clancy offers Murphy a deal: if he can successfully lead a small group of prisoners on a perilous mission through the wilderness to transport a fortune in stolen gold bars, he’ll win his freedom. With Clancy’s armed men watching Murphy’s every move, and Murphy realizing he can’t trust anyone, it’s a recipe for suicide, but what choice does he have?
“The Weight” works as a violent and unforgiving thriller, and a commentary on a system that favors the powerful and privileged over the oppressed and the working class. Murphy is a good man who has been dealt a bad hand, and we find ourselves holding our breath every time it appears his slim chance of seeing his daughter again is going to go up in a cloud of violence. It can make for bleak viewing, but trust me when I tell you that it’s worth sticking it out to the end.
3.5 stars
“Mobland” Season 2 (streaming on Paramount+)
Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren are two of the most elegant actors of the last half-century, which is why it’s so much fun seeing them playing the foul-mouthed, rude, crude, savage and hilariously cunning Conrad and Maeve Harrington in “Mobland.” As the patriarch and matriarch of a London crime family dynasty, Brosnan and Mirren are clearly having a great time as they spout some of the roughest language this side of a Tarantino movie, all the while gunning down their enemies and manipulating their own flesh and blood to keep their kingdom afloat. They’re rotten to the core, and entertaining as, um, heck.
Season 1 gave us a broad, brutal war between the Harrigans and the rival Stevenson clan. It was good, stylish, visceral pulp fiction. In Season 2, the focus narrows to a treacherous, claustrophobic power grab that threatens to tear the Harrigans apart from the inside out.
The supporting players are firing on all cylinders. Paddy Considine plays Kevin, the heir apparent who has finally grown a spine, standing up to his terrifying father. Then there’s Kevin’s scheming wife, Bella (Lara Pulver), who harbors a dark history with Conrad. Together, they share a sociopathic son, Eddie (Anson Boone), who carries the psychological weight of being Conrad’s biological offspring. I’ll give you a moment to let that sink in. Calling Shakespeare, Freud and 1-800-WHAT-THE…
Holding this house of cards together is Tom Hardy as Harry Da Souza, the family’s world-weary and robotically efficient fixer. Hardy brings his trademark brooding intensity to a man whose personal life is crumbling into dust, because for nearly 20 years, he has chosen crime family over actual family. His wife, Jan (Joanne Froggatt), is understandably eyeing the exits, while his estranged daughter, Gina (Teddie Allen), has rushed headfirst into the underworld with the unhinged Eddie. Maybe Harry hasn’t been the best influence on his daughter, ya think?
Hardy stands right at the eye of the storm as Harry. He downs his coffee, cleans up the latest mess, and waits for the next body to drop. It’s violent, it’s twisted, it makes no apologies, and if you’re into escapist brutality, here’s your ticket.
3.0 stars
Richard Roeper has reviewed films and TV series for more than 25 years, most notably with the Chicago Sun-Times and on the nationally syndicated “Ebert & Roeper.” Roeper is an entertainment and culture contributor to NBC 5 Chicago. He is the host of the globally popular “The Movie of Your Life” podcast, and he writes reviews for RogerEbert.com.
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