Zola: 8 years after the satirical hedonistic Florida nightmare that was Spring Breakers, A24 has returned to the Sunshine State for another round of surreal, darkly comedic insanity with Zola. Based on one of the first Twitter threads to go viral back in 2015, Zola is a (mostly) true story about a Detroit-based waitress/stripper (Taylour Paige) who is convinced by a customer she waits on (Riley Keough) to go dance in Tampa Bay for a week. Shortly after arriving in Tampa, Zola realized she's been duped about the real purpose of the trip and quickly becomes an unwitting passenger on a wild journey that involves a whole lot more elicit criminal activity and life-threatening situations than she bargained for when she left Detroit.
Every single performance from Paige's breakout star turn as the confident, forthright Zola down to Colman Domingo's scene-stealing supporting role as Keough's character alternately ruthless and charismatic pimp is sensational and at just 86 minutes in length, director Janciza Bravo-who also co-wrote the script with Jeremy O. Harris-is able to maximize the impact of this story's shock value, seedy fun and quiet tragedy while seamlessly bringing together those divergent strands of DNA to form a singular cohesive vessel.
Grade: B+
The Forever Purge: As we sit in the middle of a summer movie slate that's driven by films that were supposed to be released in 2020, no film that's been released in theaters thus far has benefited more from the year on the shelf than The Forever Purge. A film that's centered around a political party's violent, bigoted rhetoric leading to a group of their supporters carrying out a previously unfathomable coup attempt gains a whole new level of unintended resonance in the wake of January 6th. That's not to say that the plot/messaging of The Forever Purge wouldn't have made an impact if it were released on its originally scheduled July 2020 date, but there's this profoundly urgent, unsettling layer of horror to what's depicted on screen that wouldn't have existed if there wasn't an insurrection attempt in the United States just six months before it was released.
Even though its not addressed in the most nuanced or intelligent fashion, The Forever Purge continues the franchise's legacy of addressing systemic issues within the United States (this time around, its tribalism, colonialism and the optimistic lens that non-white immigrants view the United States through with despite all the prejudice that's directed at them) that most mainstream modern genre movies wouldn't even consider diving into. If this really is the end of the line for the franchise, it deserves its flowers for being a highly entertaining action/horror franchise that delivered its social commentary in a blunt, visceral fashion that perfectly reflected the mindset of the country it was criticizing and improved with nearly every subsequent installment.
Grade: B+
No Sudden Move: In what is becoming an all too common occurrence for Steven Soderbergh of late, No Sudden Move manages to dig its own grave by trying to do too much with its narrative. Early on, No Sudden Move is a slickly intriguing crime caper about a pair of low level criminals (Don Cheadle, Benicio del Toro) who have to go on the lamb after getting double crossed by their employer (Brendan Fraser) on a job that was sold to them as being just the simple theft of a document from an accountant's office (David Harbour). The issue is that the scheme and the players involved with it keep widening in scope as the film moves along, eventually leading to an abrupt, needlessly convoluted and deeply unsatisfying conclusion that undoes a lot of the good will Soderbergh's energetic direction and its starry cast (in addition to the aforementioned performers, Julia Fox, Ray Liotta, Jon Hamm, Amy Seimetz, Kieran Culkin, Bill Duke, Noah Jupe and Matt Damon all appear in various capacities) built up in the first half.
Grade: B-
The Tomorrow War: It's almost too perfect that The Tomorrow War pivoted from a theatrical release to streaming once Paramount sold it off to Amazon earlier this year. Despite being the rare big budget film that's not based on an existing property, The Tomorrow War feels like something that was generated from an algorithm that was looking to make the perfect film to be passively consumed by American audiences. So what type of movie did the almighty lords of artificial intelligence come up with for the sons and daughters of Uncle Sam? An overlong, slightly above average smorgasbord of military propaganda, over-the-top corny family melodrama, nonsensical science talk, slo-mo character deaths for every individual of consequence that doesn't make it to the closing credits, ridiculous plot contrivances, occasional one liners from supporting characters that briefly break the otherwise deadly serious tone and some huge CGI alien fights that show off what $200 million can buy you in Hollywood these days. Just go watch Independence Day, Edge of Tomorrow or any of the other of the other great sci-fi action blockbusters that are available to rent on the same platform instead of giving this aimlessly cobbled together collection of tropes the time of day.
Grade: C+
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