TICKET TO PARADISE
* * ½
(Romcom)
Not much romance or comedy from George Clooney and Julia Roberts.
They play Georgia and David, divorced parents of Lily (Kaitlyn Dever) who just graduated from law school and is taking a vacation to Bali before starting her first job.
Lily meets Gede, a young, handsome seaweed farmer, and it is love at first sight.
After a few days of fun in the sun, they decide to get married. Calls to her parents result in immediate panic and a flight to the island to stop the wedding at any cost.
They plot together, mess things up royally, and bicker, fight, compete and get on each other’s nerves (and ours).
True love shines through and the young couple is determined to wed.
What about their parents? Could they possibly reunite after treating each other so badly?
Even the bloopers after the credits can’t draw a laugh.
BLACK ADAM
* * ½
(Action galore in overdone DC Comic adventure)
If you like plenty of action and special effects in your movies, “Black Adam” won’t disappoint.
If you want confusion in the story and characters, you’ll get that in this overdone, overacted, over number of characters. Aldis Hodge and Pierce Brosnan are main characters who come and go along with a dozen others.
Dwayne Johnson stars as Adam, a godlike “hero,” who never smiles and stares into space a lot.
A far cry from his comic-like character in recent movies, Johnson plays the persona of a hero (or is he an anti-hero?) who can be very bad and menacing.
He comes from the past where he has been enslaved by a controlling society, learning that a new group of antiheroes has appeared to change things. He joins up with them and for the next two hours we witness battle after battle, trying to figure out who is who and what side they are on.
Confused?
Wait until the final scenes that are a setup for the sequel, as the word “Shazam” is shouted, Superman appears, and an actress very familiar to Rhode Islanders appears with a prediction for the future.
What’s it all about, Alfie?
You’ll have to wait and see.
I like Johnson more when he smiled a lot.
MY POLICEMAN
* * ½
(Period British Love Affair)
We’ve seen two movies starring Harry Styles this month and humbly suggest he stick with his singing career.
Styles plays Tom, a local policeman who becomes sexually involved with Patrick, a museum curator during the fifties, a time when homosexuality was treated badly in England.
Tom decides to marry his long-time school teacher friend, Marion. The three spend a lot of time together, except when Tom and Patrick go off together for their own sexual escapades. Marion is clueless until Tom and Patrick take off for romantic Venice.
The movie jumps to the nineties when Patrick has a stroke and Marion takes him in against Tom’s wishes.
The story has an interesting and emotional ending.
“My Policeman” deals with an interesting period in England, when society had strong negative feelings about homosexuality.
Unfortunately, Styles shows little emotion and it is difficult to accept his wife’s naiveness.
SOMEBODY FEED PHIL
Food critic Phil Rosenthal is sort of the Jewish Anthony Bourdain; the complete opposite of the often-caustic world traveler who unbeknownst to many of his fans, suffered from depression and recently took his own life.
Phil comes across as a happy-go-lucky man-child with a silly grin and out of control gestures who loves everybody and everything he eats.
Phil and his crew travel to cities around the world eating everything from street food to five star restaurants.
Now in its fifth season, “Somebody Feed Phil” continues to grow in popularity. Joyce finds Phil to be a bit irritating, but I enjoy his passion for good, innovative food and his uncontrollable excitement over everything from hot dogs to gourmet dining.
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