June gloom comes in many forms.
For some it’s a delayed start to the sunny skies and warm weather of summer, while for others it’s a cinematic season of disappointing sequels, original stories that fail to make an impression at the box office, and the overall sense that the time between Memorial Day and Labor Day just isn’t what it used to be at the multiplex. And yet there’s still much to look forward to, both during the dog days of summer and the second half of the moviegoing year in general — is anyone not looking forward to The Odyssey?
(Movie Brief will resume its normal schedule next week. I apologize for any inconvenience in the interim. Life, uh, finds a way, but it also gets in the way of work sometimes. Onward!)
Heavy is the hand that wields the sword, especially when said weapon contains the power of Eternia — not to mention the hopes and expectations of a decades-old franchise. And though it’s hard to imagine anyone asking for a Masters of the Universe movie in the year of our lord 2026, this one comes as one of the more pleasant surprises of the summer thus far. It’s certainly the season’s only aspiring blockbuster in which a robot voiced by Kristen Wiig observes that “existence is a series of absurdities leading to infinite nothingness.” She’s not wrong!
After being exiled to our backwater planet when a coup led by Skeletor (voiced by Jared Leto, who, it pains me to acknowledge, is excellent) dethrones his father, Prince Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) spends the next few decades longing to return to the splendor of Eternia. He eventually does thanks to the Sword of Power and old friend/potential love interest Teela (Camila Mendes), only to find that his once-edenic homeworld has been spoiled. There’s enough levity along the way in Travis Knight’s live-action adaptation of the ‘80s cartoon to assure viewers that Masters of the Universe doesn’t take itself too seriously, but not so many self-aware quips that it ends up undermining its own stakes — a difficult balance that plenty of similar movies have failed to maintain. In clearly aspiring to be something like Guardians of the Galaxy, though, it ends up closer to 2023’s Dungeons & Dragons — not bad company by any means, but hardly universe-mastering.
Bigotry takes on a spiritual dimension in Leviticus, a cross between Talk to Me and It Follows that makes for an appropriately unsettling addition to the queer-horror canon. “One day you’ll believe in things that you cannot see,” closeted Naim’s (Joe Bird) devout mother tells him; her warning is an ironic one, as her teenage son is about to be relentlessly pursued by a malignant entity only its victim can see — and that takes on the form of the one they most desire. In this case that’s Ryan (Stacy Clausen), the boy he’s been secretly experimenting with.
It begins after his mother (Mia Wasikowska) forces him to see a “deliverance healer,” the result of which isn’t praying the gay away but damning Naim to contend with the physical embodiment of conversion therapy. “We need fear,” she tells him later, “it’s how we survive.” Still reeling from the loss of her husband and the subsequent move to a smaller town in their native Australia, she thinks she’s preparing Naim for the world’s cruelty and is oblivious to the fact that it’s her own cruelty he needs protection from. (Well, that and the seemingly demonic entity that wants to take gay bashing to the nth degree.) Writer/director Adrian Chiarella’s debut feature is full of promise and potential, but it’s also a fully realized statement in and of itself — the kind of tender, terrifying movie made all the more effective by its refusal to merely preach to the choir.
“What if Robin Hood were actually a villain?” is a perfectly good premise for a movie, but for a while The Death of Robin Hood doesn’t seem interested in exploring anything beyond just how villainous he could have been. However violent you think the first act of writer/director Michael Sarnoski’s gory, dimly lit revision of the merry mythos is, rest assured it’s far more so in the rest of the film; every character who dies — and reader, there are a fair few — does so brutally, usually at Robin Hood’s hands. Asked to nock his bow for one last adventure by Little John (Bill Skarsgård), he responds that they’ll probably die — but doesn’t say no. He’s only half right. After nearly meeting his own bloody end, our (anti)hero is sent to convalesce at an island priory run by a kindly nun (Jodie Comer, excellent as ever).
Having already portrayed a different folk hero’s last days in Logan, Hugh Jackman does fine work as an aging brigand who long ago lost count of how many people he’s killed. “People saw meaning where there was none,” he tells an admirer of the folklore that has come to define him without his permission, and Sarnoski’s film is most successful when focusing on how stories become legends and legends become facts. The less it tries to violently recast Robin Hood in a new light, the more in-focus its portrait of him becomes.
“The age of toys is over,” but the age of Toy Story is not. Three decades on, the beloved franchise about accepting change and moving on without losing your sense of self has largely succeeded in doing just that — not without some growing pains, perhaps, but at least the fifth installment in Pixar’s best series is a better justification for continuing the story after the nearly perfect Toy Story 3 than the fourth one was. This one addresses an even more existential threat than garage sales and ill-intentioned antique collectors: iPad kids. The plot once again centers around young Bonnie, who prefers toys to tech and struggles to make friends as a result. Her parents get her a tablet for kids called a Lily Pad, which initially helps her connect with her peers but quickly turns into an instrument of cyberbullying.
Kids outgrowing their toys is sad, if natural; kids zapping their attention spans and sense of wonder with unlimited screentime seems far worse. (That this movie will inevitably premiere on Disney+ and be watched on those same devices is its own unavoidable irony.) Co-directors Andrew Stanton and Kenna Harris maintain the franchise’s familiar bittersweet tone while moving cowgirl Jessie (Joan Cusack) to the fore and deputizing Woody (Tom Hanks) as a happy-to-be-here sidekick. The only way to truly live up to the franchise’s central ideals would be to gracefully conclude it, but that’s about as likely as Buzz Lightyear not saying “to infinity and beyond!” before falling in style.
