- Paramount Pictures
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
The original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic book by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird was a mix of artistic creativity and elements cribbed from popular 1980s comics, so it's fitting to see this latest extension of the franchise follow that paradigm. It's another origin story of sorts, exploring how the four anthropomorphic, ninjutsu-trained turtles—Leonardo (Nicolas Cantu), Raphael (Brady Noon), Donatello (Micah Abbey) and Michelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.)—came to be, and their quest to emerge from the sewers and find acceptance in the human world. That goal sets them against another mutated creature, Superfly (Ice Cube), and the conflicting attitudes about dealing with normal humans between Superfly and the turtles' father/mentor Splinter (Jackie Chan) is more than slightly reminiscent of that between X-Men's Professor Xavier and Magneto. Fortunately, there's considerably more imagination in the animation style overseen by director Jeff Rowe (The Mitchells vs. the Machines), which mixes CGI with an almost stop-motion-like character design, plus a lo-fi aesthetic—complete with explosions rendered like hand-drawn curlicues—that feels just right for something inspired by a DIY comic. The script by Rowe, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg keeps the referential goofiness at an unobtrusive level, allowing for a kid-friendly adventure that keeps its nostalgia focused not on the dopey pop-culture incarnations of the 1990s, but on the OG material of the 1980s. Available Aug. 2 in theaters. (PG)
- Janus Films
- Afire
Afire
For most of the past decade, Christian Petzold has created movies designed to make us feel uneasy; so what does it look like when he decides to make a fairly straightforward character study build around that time-honored trope, The Portrait of the Artist as a Complete Asshole? The fellow in question is Leon (Thomas Schubert), a writer who has come to the Baltic Sea beach house of his friend Felix (Langston Uibel) to finish his latest novel. But they discover that Felix's mom has double-booked the house with another guest, Nadja (Paula Beer), sending Leon into a spiral of anxiety, amplified by nearby forest fires. For approximately the first 90 minutes, Petzold and his cast build a story that's low-key terrifically entertaining, with Schubert's performance wonderfully evoking Leon's fragile ego and constant state of agitation, emphasized by a sound design that turns up the sound of insects buzzing around the house. It's on the way to being an absolute knockout—until some of the third-act plot developments make it feel like kind of a desperate attempt to redeem Leon and give him a happy ending. Another viewing may suggest Petzold is playing ironically with those ideas, and that he's offering the kind of ambiguous ending he generally favors. It just feels like Afire is much better when Leon is a mess than when Petzold is trying to tidy him up. Available Aug. 4 at Broadway Centre Cinemas. (NR)
- Sony Pictures Classics
- Shortcomings
Shortcomings
The "character study of a young screw-up" has been a Sundance staple for years, but fortunately this one provides enough of a unique cultural context—along with terrific first-time feature-directing work by veteran actor Randall Park—to make it feel fresh. Justin H. Min plays Ben Tagawa, a film school dropout managing a Northern California repertory theater and floundering as much in his relationship with his girlfriend Miko (Ally Maki) as in his professional life. When Miko abruptly decamps to New York for an internship and a "break" from their relationship, Ben has the opportunity to take a hard look at himself, if he chooses to do so. Adrian Tomine adapts his own graphic novel with a playful look at ideas like fetishized sexual attractions and what kind of "representation" in media is good enough, rarely feeling like he's stopping to deliver a lecture. Park also finds just the right visual style for the story, employing simple compositions but using unexpected hard edits as a perfect way to heighten a punch line. There are moments when Shortcomings feels a bit too enamored with its own cleverness—like giving Jacob Batalón's character a reference to the current Spider-Man franchise of which he's a part—and an episodic nature that's bound to feel somewhat slight. But the cast is appealing enough to carry over the rough patches and find humorous bits of wisdom, like the destined-to-be-classic nugget from Ben's best pal Alice (Sherry Cola), "Just because I'm a hypocrite doesn't mean I'm wrong." Available Aug. 4 in theaters. (R)
