Ever since Indiana Jones famously swashbuckeled his way onscreen in 1981, studios have been chasing after recreating that dashing action-adventure treasure hunting caper that can win over mass audiences. The tough love is that there are very few that actually succeed. The closest might be the 1999 Mummy movie or perhaps the popular Uncharted video games. For some the National Treasure movies might apply. Unfortunately, most of these Indiana Jones hopefuls end up being proven unworthy of one’s time and especially in comparison to the great Dr. Jones, and so The Fountain of Youth also fails to recapture that excitement. The reportedly $180-million Apple TV original is directed by Guy Ritchie (Aladdin, The Gentlemen) and stars John Krasinski and Natalie Portman as the Purdue siblings who are racing to discover the famed Fountain of Youth before another team of shady corporate archeologists (booo!), that feature’s an ex-girlfriend (Eiza Gonzalez) of our lead, gets there first. He’s a wild adventurer trying to clear his disgraced father’s name, and she’s a professor who’s settled down with a family and needs a reminder of her adventurer roots. These kinds of movies live and breathe by their set pieces and charm. The problem with The Fountain of Youth is how forced everything feels. Krasinski can be a very charming actor, as evidenced to any fan of the American Office, but he’s the wrong kind of energy for this role. His carefree attitude comes across as smarmy and detached. Portman is also completely wrong for her role, never finding a degree of fun for her character, only becoming the nagging tag-along. There are some intriguing set pieces, especially aboard the literal Lusitania as it’s dredged back to the surface and then begins sinking again. That’s the highlight of the movie and it happens before the hour mark of a two-hour experience. Ritchie feels restrained in his application of his signature style, once more feeling like a journeyman for hire. The final setting whereupon our characters do find the Fountain of Youth is anticlimactic and builds up its magic hokum with late rule-changing as well as the most telegraphed villain turn. The movie’s tone is aiming for frivolity but because everything feels so forced and empty it instead comes across as obnoxious and tiresome. The drought continues.

Nate’s Grade: C

It’s so rare to see erotic dramas with the kind of pedigree, and set up for potential awards buzz, of Babygirl, and I think that’s because they’re a little hard to take seriously (see the ridiculous and tone-deaf Deep Water for further proof). What distinguishes the artistic erotic drama from the tawdry erotic drama will be a perhaps invisible line. Still, it’s rare for an actress of Nicole Kidman’s caliber, and let’s also be frank -her age- to headline an erotic drama, so that naturally draws some intrigue and eyeballs. Babygirl follows a familiar premise of taboo desires at the expense of domestic upheaval, but where it goes makes it ultimately feel like an unsatisfying morality tale.

Kidman plays Romy, a powerful tech CEO suffering from a lack of spark in her love life. She loves her husband (Antonio Banderas), her three teenage girls, and the life she’s built for herself, but she also needs to masturbate if she ever wants to be physically satisfied. Along comes a lanky hunk by the name of Samuel (Harris Dickinson) as an intern at her company and immediately makes her feel hot and bothered. He’s direct and wants to tell her what to do, and the excitement Romy feels makes her question how far she’s willing to go and what she’s willing to risk to chase her passions.

Babygirl is another rich person’s fantasy romance where a character risks losing their family on a fling, and usually these stories only go so many ways, primarily with the protagonist regretting their affair and learning some kind of lesson from the ordeal. For a formula meant to inspire titillation and transgression, these movies can be, at their core, very moralistic and conservative. There are so many movies that prominently feature cheating only for the person to realize how much they were taking for granted what they had all along. So many of these wayward participants don’t feel like they have lost something by the end even after risking their relationships, so the conclusion of these movies seems to be a facile “don’t do that again” lesson of sowing one’s oats. It strikes me as ironic that these stories are about untamed passions but they end so dispassionately. For the first half of Babygirl, I was questioning where this movie could lead: would the husband kill his wife’s lover and through the shared disposal of his body bring them closer together? Would it be revealed that Samuel was a stalker who manipulated his way into Romy’s life? Was her husband secretly behind this strapping young lad coming into her path and trying to provide her that spark of danger but in an unknowingly controlled environment? The eventual path of Babygirl is probably the most realistic path and yet it’s rather dramatically lacking and insert. Ultimately, the movie’s message seems to coalesce around accepting your desires and being open about sharing them; however, the proceeding movie doesn’t feel like a meaningful road to that cozy conclusion.

There’s a dramatically rich idea that could have been explored more maturely, namely that this woman has sacrificed her own physical pleasure for her career achievement. During one awkward night, Romy admits to her husband that over the decades of their relationship that he has never made her climax. His manly ego is bruised severely and Romy tries to wave away the statement, but the movie only seems to use this detail as further establishment for the motivation to have an affair. Director/writer Halina Reijn (Bodies Bodies Bodies) sets this up within the very first shot of the movie, with Romy finishing having sweaty sex with her husband only to finish by herself with the help of Internet pornography. Right away we know her husband isn’t doing it for her. There’s one moment where Romy explains that she feels like her desires are degrading and self-destructive, but she won’t share them with her husband. She tries to guide him there, planting a pillow over her head to cover her sight to facilitate her imagination, but it makes him feel uncomfortable to continue (“I feel like a villain”). There’s an interesting exploration of keeping passion stoked in a long-standing relationship where inertia can settle in, but the ultimate revelation is rather pat and all-too familiar: communicate more. Thanks, movie. So much of the movie is built around what Romy learns from how far she goes, but what do we learn about Samuel too? He’s kept a frustrating blank of a figure, more catalyst than fully developed character. If he’s ultimately just the excuse to push her out of her comfort zone, did he have to be this boring even with his kinks?

Will you find Babygirl sexy? I don’t know. It primarily trades in dominance/submissive dynamics, and the director keeps her camera’s gaze on the pursuit of feminine pleasure rather than closeups of pert anatomical parts. The sequences where Samuel orders Romy around played more unintentionally comical to me rather than decisively arousing, especially moments like him forcing her to eat out of his hand like a dog. I can understand being in such a high-powered job of constant decision-making might make a fantasy of giving up control and agency seem appealing, but this isn’t really explored in the movie. I can also understand the shame of feeling like your hidden desires might be too embarrassing to share with your partner, but this isn’t fully explored either. For all its heavy breathing and sultry glances, the movie feels far more clinical than passionate. The sensation I felt the most was a lulling curiosity that ultimately went unmet. Your mileage may vary.

Babygirl is the kind of movie that critics declare the lead actress being so “brave” to push boundaries at her age, to bare her body in an age bracket that Hollywood finds less-than-desirable. However, Kidman has long been an actress unafraid of the demands of nudity as well as challenging roles, which mitigates the perceived daring of this latest performance. Babygirl is ultimately a disappointing erotic drama that, for me, lacked heat, better character development, and a surprising or insightful plot. In short, Babygirl comes up short where it counts.

Nate’s Grade: C+

Is Amazon’s $250 million holiday adventure the harbinger of doom for modern movies as many alarmist film critics have claimed? No. Is it the next great Christmas classic? No. It’s a thoroughly mediocre holiday action movie borrowing heavily from the familiar Marvel movie formula; it strains very hard to be a breezy spectacle and a buddy comedy. There’s a fun concept here about Santa Claus (a buff J.K. Simmons) being kidnapped, but the focus is on the wrong characters. The best segment of Red One is when we’re introduced to Santa’s cranky brother, Krampus (Kristofer Hiivju), a half-demon half-goat creature with excellent practical makeup application and design. The movie feels dangerous and finally intriguing with their history, and it’s here that I realized the best version of Red One would have been one where Santa AND Krampus, two feuding brothers with very different perspectives on how to handle the naughty, are forced to work together to escape their holiday hostage-takers. Alas, the characters we get are The Rock playing a minor variation on the character archetype he’s been grinding into dust for a decade, and Chris Evans as a cynical adult super hacker who needs to learn the true meaning of Christmas. The inclusion of Evans’ character is flimsy and he’s far too annoying to offset whatever advantages he might provide to Santa’s extraction team. The fantasy elements and lore can be fun, like an abominable snowman fight in the tropics, but too many of these elements feel underdeveloped, like the Rock growing big and small for… reasons. Just like how our villain wants to teach the world a lesson in terror… that can be broken by self-reflective apologies. It’s a movie consumed by its many influences. Red One isn’t exactly for little kids, isn’t exactly for adults, and isn’t exactly for teenagers, so who is this for? It’s destined to play in the background and be ignored while holiday naps are had, and to that end, Red One succeeds. 

Nate’s Grade: C

It’s twenty-eight years later and people are still fascinated by the destructive power of tornadoes that cavalier daredevils will chase after them for clout, thrills, or the progress of science. Twisters faithfully replicates a lot of the elements that made the 1996 original a hit without coming across as overly fawning fan service, from the large-scale action treating the looming tornadoes like a monster awakening in righteous anger, to the scientific adventure and exploration of understanding the worst of nature, to the snobs vs. slobs of competing teams of eager tornado chasers. The core dynamic between Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell is combative and fun and eventually quite flirty, and oh will you be compelling these two crazy weather-obsessed kids to kiss by the end credits. If somehow you missed out on Hit Man, here is further proof about the indefatigable power of Powell’s immense charms. You, much like Edgar-Jones, cannot resist this man and his drawl. Give great praise to director Lee Isaac Chung, who made the poignant autobiographical immigrant family drama Minari and then followed it up with wrangling tornadoes in a blockbuster sphere with the same level of confidence and dedication. This is a sequel that thankfully doesn’t need to lean into the callbacks or cameos from the earlier movie. It’s still relatively predictable but that doesn’t make it less satisfying when our heroes come together. Twisters is a solid sequel that clearly understands the appeal of its predecessor and big screen disaster-laden escapist entertainment as a whole. It’s a perfect movie to pair with a big bucket of popcorn. 

Nate’s Grade: B

Everyone is feeling the effects of COVID-19 and the entertainment industry, in particular movie studios and theaters, have been dramatically affected. I will be continuing to review new films when I can, albeit many will likely be smaller indies unless Hollywood embraces Video on Demand. I’m also going to make a real effort to continue seeking out Ohio-made indies and providing reviews for them. I will continue what I did for my huge 1999 in Rewind article and look back at my original teenage reviews and assess my current feelings on the movies and my old writing, for the year 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, and now 2004. I’ll be on the lookout for amazingly new so-bad-it’s-gotta-be-seen movies (have you seen Love on a Leash?). In short, I’m going to keep writing. I hope you keep reading.