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Movies & TV Movies & TV Reviews

What’s new to theatres and streaming this weekend: July 8-10, 2022

Thor: Love And Thunder is featured in our movie reviews
Thor: Love And Thunder is featured in our movie reviews
Jasin Boland

Thor: Love And Thunder

(Taika Waititi)

There are kids in cages and ineffectual leaders unwilling to help communities under threat in Thor: Love And Thunder – real world allegories that slide right off the movie’s strawberry Jell-O vibe. There’s nothing in Taika Waititi’s follow-up to Thor: Ragnarok worth taking seriously. That can be a fault when the movie is trying to be topical – though not as groanworthy as the time Waititi dressed up as Hitler.

It’s also a strength when it comes to digesting the cape-and-hammer theatrics. As with Ragnarok, Waititi is invested in superhero action in so far as he can toss in a goofy gag or some fun cartoonish sights. He wants you to know that he’s the kid with red crayon scribbling all over a genre that is often more stone-faced than it should be.

Those intentions couldn’t be more blunt than the casting of Dark Knight’s Christian Bale – the figurehead of serious superhero cinema – as a vengeful and villainous god killer who often appears like a crumbling statue come to life. The whole movie gets to be about whether the Wayne’s World vibe carried on by Chris Hemsworth’s self-parodying Thor, who this time gets help from Natalie Portman as Lady Thor, could warm Gorr’s hardened heart.

It certainly had that effect on me. The overeager humour and overall likeability, particularly a jealous streak expressed between Thor’s axe and hammer, just wears you down, kind of like the Minions do. And frankly, Waititi’s Thor movies had me at Tessa Thompson. 119 minutes. Now playing in theatres everywhere. NNN

The Sea Beast is covered in this week's movie reviews alongside Thor: Love And Thunder
Courtesy of Netflix

The Sea Beast

(Chris Williams)

The final movie from Netflix’s now defunct animation department is a good reason to bring those folks back. The Sea Beast is a riff on How To Train Your Dragon but with pirates (they’re called hunters in the movie) commissioned by colonizers to kill off sea creatures. It’s also a surprisingly fun, well-written and sweeping adventure that lands most of its gags and sentiment, and even thrillingly pushes the boundaries of animated action. And speaking of the animation, sure the human faces look plastic, but the movie makes up for that with beautiful textures in hair and water, and a few striking sights that legit took my breath away. 115 minutes. Now streaming on Netflix. NNNN

Neptune Frost
Courtesy of Kino Lorber

Neptune Frost

(Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman)

Think of Ousmane Sembène directing the Zion scenes in The Matrix: Reloaded and you’re halfway there when it comes to Williams and Uzeyman’s afrofuturist musical. Williams puts his own music to a narrative about a Rwandan miner and an “intersex hacker” meeting in another dimension (or an afterlife?) following the traumas of civil war. I can’t make heads or tails of the plot, but I happily got lost to the movie’s rhythms, vibes and resistance. 105 minutes. Opens at the Revue Sunday, July 10. NNN

Also opening theatrically this week

Both Sides of the Blade

Juliette Binoche and Vincent Lindon; Directed by Claire Denis.

Streaming guides

Everything on streaming platforms this month:

Netflix

@justsayrad

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