Skip to main content
ABIGAIL
The blood splatters real good in Abigail, a loose reimagining of Dracula’s Daughter (1936) from directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (Scream, 2022; Scream VI, 2023). A group of kidnappers who don’t know each other get in over their heads once they realize the young ballerina they took (the titular character, played by Alisha Weir) turns out to be a vampire. They must work together to fight her off after their mansion hideout becomes a sanguine prison. Melissa Barrera, Dan Stevens and Kathryn Newton are just some of the faces in the small but likable cast; Kevin Durand gets a lot of laughs as the dumb muscle of the group. While everyone is solid, Weir is the key player here, managing the tricky task of flipping between desperate and terrifying. Abigail has a fun setup and first half as it plays like a game of Clue as the victims try to guess things about each other. The second half begins to drag, though, once the cat-and-mouse situations become repetitive. Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett have a great eye for horror action, but the script by Stephen Shields and Guy Busick could have used a little more tightening. R. DANIEL RESTER. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas Town Center, Classic Mill, Eastport, Evergreen, Lloyd Center, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Progress Ridge, Regal Fox, Studio One, Twin Cinemas, Vancouver Plaza.
THE TRUTH VS. ALEX JONES
The 21st century has been described as a “post-truth” era: a time when bad actors can use the levers of modern media to proliferate misinformation and inflate extremist ideologies. In these times, it often seems impossible that these grifters will be held to account for the damage their lies cause. The Truth vs. Alex Jones succeeds in providing some catharsis, though it’s a harrowing journey to get there. If you’re unfamiliar with Alex Jones, he’s the creator and host of the alt-right conspiracy show InfoWars who spent years insisting the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a “false flag operation” to create a pretext for the government to crack down on the Second Amendment. Despite the obvious ridiculousness of his claims, Jones’ reach was enough that families of the victims became inundated with harassment by Jones’ fans and employees, leading to two separate defamation lawsuits, documented by HBO, against the man and his company. While there’s some satisfaction to be found in Jones’ inevitable losses, director Dan Reed succeeds in making the families’ pain real and palpable, particularly in a sequence in which lead investigator Daniel Jewiss solemnly recounts the events of Dec. 14, 2012, and lists the names of all 26 victims. It’s powerful stuff and serves to highlight how base and craven Jones was to twist this senseless tragedy into a vehicle for hawking brain pills and overpriced gold. The Truth vs. Alex Jones doesn’t do a full dive into the host’s abhorrent views (his bigotry, his religious zealotry, the abusive relationship he has with his audience), but it does get to the core of who he is: a delusional narcissist incapable of facing a reality that doesn’t match his beliefs or of acknowledging the harm his actions have caused. The movie reminds us there’s no reasoning with or giving the benefit of the doubt to a man like Jones. Exposing his lies might seem like a never-ending battle, but the truth is worth fighting for. R. MORGAN SHAUNETTE. Max.
CHALLENGERS
Late in Challengers, flailing tennis player Art (Mike Faist) begs for the unconditional love of his wife and coach, Tashi (Zendaya). “What am I, Jesus?” she snaps. Art’s reply? “Yeah!” Zendaya is perfectly cast as an athletic deity. Yet the film is pointedly uninterested in Tashi, preferring to aim its obsessive gaze at Art and Patrick (Josh O’Connor), a smug, smirking fellow tennis player and frenemy. With Luca Guadagnino (director of the deliciously seductive Call Me by Your Name) in command, Challengers is less a film than a feast of sensual pleasures: alluringly crisp polo shirts, sweat dripping across masculine brows, muscles so taut they threaten to snap. On and off the court, Art and Patrick battle for Tashi’s attention and affection, but she’s mostly a conduit through which they negotiate their repressed desires (any moviegoer missing the sexual tension will be enlightened by the scene in which the two men munch on the same churro). It’s disappointing that Tashi is portrayed as more of a mythical being than a complex woman, but it’s moving to watch Guadagnino subvert a seemingly conventional male rivalry in ways that should shock Björn Borg and John McEnroe. If Tashi really is Art and Patrick’s lord and savior, the message of Challengers is clear: Disciples have all the fun. R. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. AMC, Cedar Hills, Cinema 21, City Center, Clackamas, Division Street, Eastport, Evergreen Parkway, Hilltop, Lake Theater, Lloyd Center, Oak Grove, Regal Fox, Vancouver Plaza.
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare
Most filmgoers decided long ago whether Guy Ritchie’s charm outweighed his failings, but even the most dubious should agree the latest project, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, seems a sweet spot in his work. Sold as a subversive romp across exotic isles, The film’s story focuses on a rakish proto-James Bond (Henry Cavill) released from military prison to lead a dirty half-dozen mismatched specialists past Nazi wolf packs and allied patrols into the Spanish Canary Islands for the destruction of a vital U-boat refueling plant. The uncomplicated heroics of charismatic sadists trading endlessly watchable flourishes of deadpan repartee couldn’t be more perfectly tailored to the talents of our breezily brutal heist auteur—and the cold open of bravado with which Anders (a breakout Alan Ritchson) literally disarms Germans beyond number launches us into narrative flashbacks at ramming speed, dodging torpedoes all the while. Women, like sports cars, are outfitted to aesthetics of the period and prominently featured because their absence would look weird, but such palpable lack of interest in Eiza Gonzalez’s (lovely, limp) counterespionage rather undercuts efforts toward wringing suspense. As twists fail to appear en route to the blockbuster climax, there’s a succession of pyrotechnic-lit carnage. It’s hard not to compare Inglorious Basterds’ mean, game-saving Hitler stunt with Ministry’s persistent cutaways to Churchill pacing doughnuts on his office rug under the burden of ineffable presence. The resemblances to Basterds can’t be ignored, but Ritchie has near doubled the master’s filmography without learning a damned thing. R. JAY HORTON. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas Town Center, Classic Mill, Division, Evergreen, Lloyd Center, Mill Plain, Oak Grove, Progress Ridge, Regal Fox, Studio One, , Vancouver Mall, Vancouver Plaza.
REBEL MOON – PART TWO: THE SCARGIVER
Director Zack Snyder continues his space-opera take on the Seven Samurai (1954) formula with Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver. Sofia Boutella returns as the warrior Kora, leading the crew she gathered in Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire (2023) against the evil Imperium on the farming moon Veldt. While the first film wasn’t great, it still had enough entertaining world hopping and a swaggering Charlie Hunnam to be able to gain a slight recommendation from me. The Scargiver, however, fails to drive the story into any interesting direction and becomes monotonous with its action. The cast is fine, with Boutella and Djimon Hounsou standing out, but none of them gets any character development to play with outside of some clunky flashbacks. Snyder’s visuals are always dazzling, but do we really need to see wheat harvesting in slow motion? The film runs just over two hours, yet it could have easily been 90 minutes if Snyder didn’t fall back on his favorite frame-rate trick so much. Supposedly, Snyder plans to release R-rated extended cuts of the Rebel Moon films. One can only hope those versions will add more to the characters and include less slow motion. PG-13. DANIEL RESTER. Netflix.