“Send Help”
Eyeballs are gouged, testicles put to a blade, and blood spurts in this Sam Rami film. It’s not quite as gory as Rami’s “Evil Dead” films, but it is not exactly shy. Rachel McAdams, dorked out with greasy hair and frumpy clothes, plays an office drone at some cutting-edge tech company. Linda Little is a numbers geek, apt to rise from her cubicle and chat up her bosses with tuna fish smeared to her upper lip. Bradley Preston (played by Dylan O’Brien of “Maze Runner”), becomes Linda’s new boss after his father dies (“Evil Dead”’s Bruce Campbell). Bradley, the jerk, welches on a promised promotion and relocates her to a new Bangkok office. Linda learns of the betrayal en route to Thailand with Bradley and his biz-school bros. The plane goes down, and Linda—a “Survivor” aficionado who has dreamed of a role on the show—suddenly becomes indispensable in hunting, kindling and scavenging. The sex-and-power reversal evokes Ruben Östlund’s darker “Triangle of Sadness” (2022). But “Send Help,” driven by flimsy pretexts for improbable hidden agendas, takes a softer bite of social commentary. The film has Linda and Bradley transitioning from uneasy codependency to something resembling “Lord of the Rings” without earning it. What begins as an empowerment fantasy grows banal. “Send Help” is whimsically entertaining. McAdams’s bravado carries the paunchy plot. – Tom Meek
At Kendall Square, Apple Cinemas Fresh Pond and AMC Assembly Row 12
“Arco”
The eponymous hero of Ugo Bienvenu’s animated dystopia is a boy of ten. Arco lives in a near perfect society in the year 2932. Time travel is real, courtesy of a superhero suit. Two years too young to wear it, Arco can’t wait. He dons his sister’s for a joy ride to visit the dinosaurs. What could go wrong? Rematerializing in 2075, Arco befriends Iris (Romy Fay), whose parents (Mark Ruffalo and Natalie Portman) work round the clock. Mommy and daddy appear in spectral form as blue holograms. Mikki (also Ruffalo) the robot watches over her. All of them draw breath in an atmosphere congested by particles and threatened by constant wildfires. The longer Arco hangs around 2075, the more likely he messes with the temporal stability and unity of time itself. How so, and with what consequences, the film does not spell out. But think of Chris Markers’ “La Jetée” (1962) or “12 Monkeys” (1995)—or, for an extreme example, “The Terminator” (1984). The movie’s hand-drawn animation, enhanced by digital techniques, saturates the screen with warmth. The tender bond between Arco and Iris, two lonely kids centuries apart, longing for companionship, holds our attention against the environmental degradation.
“Arco” is voiced by Juliano Krue Valdi in the English dubbed version showing in U.S. theaters. In French or English, Bienven’s first movie is incomparably executed, deserving of its Oscar nomination. – Tom Meek
At Kendall Square and AMC Assembly Row 12.
“Shelter”
Jason Statham has made a name for himself playing knucklehead bruisers in high-concept beat-em-ups. In “Shelter” he plays to type. He’s a hermit, with only his dog for company in a shack on the Outer Hebrides. But he has a benefactor. A young girl named Jessie (Bodhi Rae Breathnach, “Hamnet”) and her uncle come round with supplies. When the uncle’s boat sinks, the hermit springs into action, rescuing Jessie and navigating to the mainland for medicine. Because no good deed goes unpunished, the world he sought to escape snares him. A teenager captures him in the background of her TikTok as he walks out of the pharmacy, alerting MI6’s spynet. The hermit turns out to be Michael Mason, an erstwhile black-ops assassin who went AWOL. With agents hunting him, Mason abandons his sanctuary with Jessie in tow. The chase is on.
Statham’s mien suits this sort of “Lone Wolf and Cub” material. His finely tuned growl and scowl flicker with amusement. Of course the set pieces are appropriately nasty. Mason seldom breaks stride while dispatching dozens of elite agents. After last week’s dreadful “Mercy,” it is a relief to see a paranoid action thriller that realizes the villainous potential of surveillance tech.
Somehow, “Shelter” isn’t as fun as it should be. The visuals, drab and desaturated, fail to evoke the exotic locations. The score plods along with constant, minor-key chugga-chugga. The cumulative effect produces action sequences stuck in sludge. Scene stealers such as Bill Nighy as an MIG honcho and Naomi Ackie as his good-cop counterpart are wasted. “Shelter” delivers a workmanlike ass-kicking, too muted to hurt. In other words, it’s a Jason Statham movie. – Oscar Goff
At Apple Cinemas Cambridge and AMC Assembly Row 12
Cambridge writer Tom Meek’s reviews, essays, short stories and articles have appeared in WBUR’s The ARTery, The Boston Phoenix, The Boston Globe, The Rumpus, The Charleston City Paper and SLAB literary journal. Tom is also a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics and rides his bike everywhere.
Oscar Goff is a writer and film critic based in Somerville. He is film editor and senior critic for the Boston Hassle and his work has appeared in the monthly Boston Compass newspaper and publications such as WBUR’s The ARTery and iHeartNoise. He is a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, and the Online Film Critics Society.
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