‘The Wild Robot’ (2024)
A very “Wall-E”-esque pleaser with something to say about humans, machines, emotional intelligence and environmental stewardship. Marrying all that together is an AI ’bot named Roz (voiced by Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o, “12 Years a Slave,” “Us”) whose shipping container is tossed overboard during a storm, marooning her on a remote island with rich Northeastern biodiversity (pinewoods, bears, beavers, geese and possums) that feels right out of Camden, Maine. Roz is a home helper droid made by a megacompany like Amazon to perform tasks such as making beds, building sheds, shearing sheep and so on. Borrowing a page from Isaac Asimov, the semihumanoid robot (think a rounder C-3PO with spindly arms and legs) has a “do no harm” rule – or close enough. Stranded in a humanless remote, Roz reprograms herself to learn animal lingo and learns that the fauna refer to her as “the monster.” In the awkward dance of finding a task to do, tragic happenstance has Roz becoming the mother imprint for a runt gosling named Brightbill (Kit Connor). The to-do then teaching the hatchling how to forage for food, swim and ultimately fly, because the fall migration is around the corner. Other geese don’t think Brightbill is long for this world and bully him, while hanging close to Roz is Fink (“Mandalorian” Pedro Pascal), a fox posing as a knowing adviser when his true intent is a fast meal. Roz’s transmitter to HQ keeps dropping out or breaking, which ultimately brings to the island a maintenance droid (Stephanie Hsu, “The Menu”) that’s not a fan of Roz developing emotionally. Issues of AI and the environment are at the fore, without pulling focus from the central core bonding of Roz, Fink and Brightbill. The animation, as orchestrated by Oscar nominee Chris Sanders (“Lilo & Stitch,” “How to Train Your Dragon”) is well-envisioned and robust and likely to earn him another nod (though it’ll have some real competition from the Latvian gem “Flow” that just played The Brattle). But the heart of the film is castaway Roz, a tin woodswoman who becomes emotionally aware. (Tom Meek) At Landmark Kendall Square Cinema, 355 Binney St., Cambridge; Apple Cinemas Cambridge, 168 Alewife Brook Parkway, Cambridge Highlands near Alewife and Fresh Pond; AMC Assembly Row 12, 395 Artisan Way, Assembly Square, Somerville; and on Amazon Prime.
‘Blitz’ (2024)
“Blitz” doesn’t start slow. Its opening scene depicts firefighters trying desperately to wrangle a hose that’s gone awry as the flames they’re trying to put out grow bigger and bigger. It’s a tense, loud moment, and it defines how I felt much of the next two hours of the movie – on edge. The setting is World War II London, where we meet mixed-race, 9-year-old George (Elliott Heffernan), his mother Rita (Saoirse Ronan) and granddad Gerald (Paul Weller). The nightly air raids have grown worse, and Rita decides the only option is to send him away to the countryside, joining the hundreds of thousands of British children evacuated during the war. George doesn’t want to go, and leaps off the train an hour into the journey to find his way back to London. What follows is a somber tale of a desperate mother trying to find her only son as death and destruction mount around them. (The Blitz, from September 1940 to May 1941, was responsible for the deaths of 43,000 civilians, nearly half of Britain’s total civilian deaths for the whole war.) The story is harrowing on its own, but heightened through flashbacks that reveal George’s Grenadian father, Marcus (CJ Beckford), was unjustly deported years earlier, before George was born. George experiences similar bouts of racism, like when a neighborhood boy calls him a “Black bastard” during a street cricket game and a kid on the train grabs his hair roughly. The film written, produced and directed by Steve McQueen (“12 Years a Slave,” “Small Axe”) makes an admirable attempt to bring light to the rampant racism in Britain at the time, but it is never fully realized. “Blitz” does add a fresh perspective to the canon of WWII films, but tries to do too much for its own good, touching also on themes of working women, overrun shelters and looting that don’t get the attention they deserve. “Blitz” boasts moments of kindness and joy that work well as relief: George befriends a band of brothers while stowing away on a train back to London who share one sandwich four ways and climb atop the train, whooping with the wind in their hair; Ife (Benjamin Clémentine), a remarkably kind Nigerian air-raid warden, comes across George lost and hungry in London and takes him under his wing. Clémentine’s performance, and the bond he forms with George, is beautiful. Ronan is excellent, as always, Weller is steady and sweet and Heffernan is captivating and totally lovable as George. (Madeleine Aitken) At Landmark Kendall Square Cinema, 355 Binney St., Cambridge.
‘Don’t Move’ (2024)
Nice-guy serial killers seem to be all the rage. Already this year we’ve had bad dad Josh Hartnett in “Trap,” and “Dating Game” contestant Rodney Alcala in Anna Kendrick’s impressive true-crime-adjacent debut “Woman of the Hour.” Now we get this tale of cat-and-mouse survivorship in which a grieving mother hiking the California mountains (Kelsey Asbille) stands at a ledge contemplating a jump and is talked down sort-of by a dashing, passing-by dad-guy (Finn Wittrock, so fun as one of the two DIY hedge fund knuckleheads in “The Big Short”). Everything’s cordial until they get to the trailhead parking lot and Wittrock’s Richard tases Asbille’s Iris. Iris is zip-tied, tossed in the back of his car and told that he’s going to take her to his cabin, braid her hair and add her to his list of female bodies at the bottom of the lake. Iris gets free and nearly overpowers Richard, and that’s when he hits her with his Plan B: She’s been injected with a paralyzing agent that’s 20 minutes away from kicking in. The film, directed by Brian Netto and Adam Schindler, moves in unpredictable turns as others – a police officer and a fellow cabin owner – cross paths with Richard and Iris. The tension remains high even if elements of the underlying story don’t quite work, including the how and why for Richard’s predilection. Asbille, controversial for her claims of Native Americans origins to shore up her casting as an Indigenous person in the hit series “Yellowstone,” is a bit too glamorous in the part but still compelling, doing much with her large, luminous eyes and trembling lips because, at one point, that’s all she got. It’s not bad, but if you’re on Netflix, “Woman of the Hour” is the better way to spend your time. (Tom Meek) On Netflix.
A stronger
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