Minions: The Rise of Gru
If Cruella and the Joker can have origin stories, it appears that Gru can as well. The fifth installment in the Despicable Me franchise returns the incomprehensibly Eastern European baddie voiced by Steve Carell to the mini-Me he once was — somewhere around the late 1970s, judging by the cultural signifiers (Jaws at the multiplex, Linda Ronstadt, and Pistols on the radio).
Guru is still a fan of the Vicious 6, a group of super villains looking for a world-altering amulet — and a new sixth member after kicking the aging Wild Knuckles (Alan Ar kin) to the curb. When the boy's Vicious audition goes wrong, a cross-country journey to San Francisco and numerous frantic set pieces ensue, but the main reason to watch remains the celebrity-Madlibs mashup of voice actors (Julie Andrews as Gru's cantankerous mother, Michelle Yeoh as a kung-fu master, RZA as a groovy guy on a Harley).
And, of course, there are the Minions: With their thumb-shaped bodies, jaunty overalls, and incomprehensible dialect ("Who are these tiny tater tots and where did they get so much denim?" Gru wonders in his own esoteric accent), those little mango-colored agents of chaos are often the best thing on screen, a loopy confluence of Buster Keaton and Evel Knievel. The rest is relatively simple: 90 minutes of semi-supervised childcare with a few knowing nods to the grown-ups and enough dad-rock touchstones to buy Mick Jagger a new townhouse.Grade: B — Leah Greenblatt
The Terminal List
Chris Pratt, what have you done to yourself? With his low-key sense of humor intact, the laconic charmer went from sitcom sweetness to blockbuster glory. That's all gone in this completely bleak thriller. Pratt plays James Reece, an ultra-elite SEAL with a gun collection and an ax garage. He suffers shocking losses in the series premiere. An explosive ambush kills nearly his entire platoon. When he returns to San Diego, the war follows him, and one bloody execution follows another. Reece believes he is being pursued by a "highly sophisticated adversary." However, a combat head wound left him with hallucinations and jumbled memories. Is he going insane? Is there a massive plot against him? Even if a conspiracy exists,
The novel's concept, based on Jack Carr's novel, suggests a twist on the Jack Ryan brutal-patriot model, with a strand of Memento-ish untrustworthy narration. In the second episode, Reece confronts one of his alleged assailants, and it's unclear whether his actions were heroic or deranged. That ambiguity quickly fades as the show stretches a solid revenge plot over eight episodes of mediocre action and endless shadowy meetings between shady military-industrial types. There's genuine, palpable rage here. Reece's paranoia spans the Middle East and Silicon Valley, as well as the highest levels of government and his own top brass. Taylor Kitsch is endearing as Reece's CIA pal, while Constance Wu gets all the tedious gradual-investigation material as a crusading detective.
The show, however, is dependent on your ability to believe Pratt as a righteous-justice monolith who suffers from nasty headaches and tragic flashbacks at random intervals. Respectfully: Nah. Once you've seen one ow-my-brain wince, you've seen them all. Do you believe a charismatic individual has transformed himself into the lead character in the Call of Duty campaign — and who plays Call of Duty in the story? "It is evil in the world," Reece tells one of the baddies as he tortures him. "It's our job to stare it down because most people don't have the balls." True, but some of the balls are deflated. Grade: C —Darren Franich
Westworld
I'll stick with Westworld until the bitter end — and at this point, I'm guessing the bitter end will be very bitter. Following a disastrously silly third season, the science-fiction series returns with yet another reset that shuffles characters in unexpected, uniformly boring directions. Maeve (Thandiwe Newton) and Caleb (Aaron Paul) reunite for a new mission years after the destruction of the nefarious giant human-controlling computer balls. They're up against William (Ed Harris), who is now a robot duplicate, and Charlotte (Tessa Thompson), who is a robot duplicate with someone else's brain. Meanwhile, Evan Rachel Wood portrays Christina, a video-game writer who meets the strangest people. Something strange is going on with the Tower. Something else is going on with a swarm of frightening flies.
Co-creators Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan adapted Michael Crichton's original film into a vibrant multi-layered future universe full of complex motivations and hot-blooded emotions back in season 1. I'm not sure why they worked so hard to make their show the lamest possible Blade Runner ripoff — and I'm not sure why actor James Marsden returned after his season 2 escape. Newton is the only performer who is having any fun, while Jeffrey Wright is essentially playing Season 8 Bran. Meanwhile, Thompson gets lines like "She could still be useful to me!" from syndicated villains. I've seen half of the season, and one of the plot twists is almost genius in its absurdity. But, seriously, this is now a Scary Fly show. I'd say it's time for Westworld to die, but nobody ever dies on Westworld; they just keep returning as shabby imitations of their former selves. So, perhaps it has already died?Grade: D+ —DF
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