“Office Romance”
There’s plenty of turbulence — and even some flatulence — but few romantic sparks in this Jennifer Lopez showcase about a tough female CEO who gets involved with her corporate attorney. The rub is that the airline company, AirCruz, has a no-office-romance policy. It’s a fireable offense, so you’d think J.Lo’s hard-charging Jackie Cruz (she’s also a pilot) would have no problem tweaking the policy. But then where would the comedy go?
The answer doesn’t really matter since the romance between Jackie and her new, hot-shot attorney Daniel Blanchflower (Brett Goldstein), a relocated Englishman, is the least interesting thing in the movie. Goldstein’s buttoned-up Brit is best when in scenes with actors other than J.Lo, especially his sister (Jodie Whittaker, funny but underused), who’s in prison for beheading someone with a machete, or Sydney (Betty Gilpin, so good in “The Hunt”), the quirky and very pregnant number-two at AirCruz, who seemingly has a thing for Jackie and views Daniel as the enemy. Their frequent stare-downs are one of the better gags in “Office Romance,” as is Bradley Whitford (“Get Out”) as the boisterous lead counsel sidelined by a breakfast burrito. Wasted in smaller roles are Edward James Olmos as Jackie’s father, who started the airline, and Mary Wiseman as an office assistant with bad irritable bowel syndrome.
Goldstein and fellow “Ted Lasso” writer Joe Kelly (Goldstein also acts in the soccer series) throw everything and the kitchen sink into the script — the British use of the C-word, World Cup star Jude Bellingham, and sex play while dressed as a Buckingham Palace guard. Think “Notting Hill” by way of “American Pie.” It doesn’t fly, but there are a few chuckles along the taxiway of failed funnies. — Tom Meek
Streaming on Netflix
“Evil Dead Burn”
The reboot of the hyperactive horror-comedy series that Sam Raimi willed to life in the 1980s has lost much of the kitschy humor that was the series’ signature with the 2023 reboot, “Evil Dead Rise.” “Evil Dead Burn,” directed by Sébastien Vanicek (the 2023 French horror flick “Infested”), begins lakeside with a couple of amateur fishermen pulling up an animated and angry corpse. Later, a fiery car crash turns Will, a spoiled club owner (George Pullar), into another undead incarnation. We’re not sad to see him go because Will is cruel and volatile, especially with the women in his life. A heated and slightly physical argument with his French wife Alice (Souheila Yacoub, “Climax”) triggers the crash, but when the family gathers at Will’s parents’ house in the woods after the funeral, strange things happen even before the evil dead start appearing.
For one, Will’s posh and cosmopolitan club is oddly close to the lake in the middle of nowhere. The house itself is strangely both grand and squalid, as if Thurston and Lovey Howell moved into the Sawyers’ house from the original “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” movie. The mourners include Will’s little brother Joseph (Hunter Doohan), a writer unable to complete a book; his betrothed (Luciane Buchanan); mom (Tandi Wright); uber-mercurial pa (Erroll Shand); and batty nana (Maude Davey).
Davey and Shand nearly walk away with the film, but it hangs on Yacoub’s Alice. It seems the family blames her for much of their misery. Not much of it makes sense, and it gets bloody and violent fast. By the time the final reckoning comes, you’ll likely be exhausted from all the crash-bang beatdowns and the apex gore level — the frequent impalings and skull-bashing are not for the squeamish. The cool cult hit that Raimi fired up faded after “Army of Darkness” (1992). In these new reheats, there’s no swashbuckling yuckster (Bruce Campbell) to hang your hat on, just plenty of gruesome, soulless creeps — and yes, the shotgun and the chainsaw make an appearance. What’s next, “Evil Dead Melt”? — Tom Meek
Playing at AMC Assembly Row 12 and Apple Cinemas Cambridge
“Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass”
David Wain, the guy who reinvented the teen sex comedy with 2001’s “Wet Hot American Summer” starring Paul Rudd, dives back into the irreverent and the horny with this adult sex comedy that’s not so sexy. The movie borrows heavily from “The Wizard of Oz,” creating a weird vibe. Imagine Dorothy on a quest to get a shagging from the Wizard. The premise has the titular Gail (Zoey Deutch), a hairdresser from Kansas (where else?) who’s to be married in two weeks, cruising the hills of Hollywood with the hope of a meet-cute hook-up with “Mad Men” star John Hamm. The reason: Gail has caught her fiancé, Tom (Michael Cassidy) exercising his “celebrity sex pass” — a free pass to sleep with a celebrity crush — boinking a very flexible Jennifer Aniston in town for a book reading.
Gail was already on her way to LA for a hairstyling contest — Tom’s hookup with Rachel from “Friends” just adds agency. And while there’s no yellow brick road, Gail has a merry band of misfits along for the adventure: Vincent, a passive-aggressive paparazzo played by Ken Marino, a frequent collaborator of Wain’s and a co-writer on the script; failed screenwriter Caleb (Ben Wang); and Kansas hairstyling bestie Otto (Miles Gutierrez-Riley). Also on hand is John Slattery as himself, who refers to himself as “the Slat Man.” Obstacles in Gail’s path to get even don’t include flying monkeys, but a series of hitmen and, at turns, “Gail Daughtry” gets quite violent and bloody — sometimes funny (a bullet that ricochets off a metal plate in a victim’s head and kills the shooter) but mostly not (a gory beatdown that leaves Gail looking like Carrie at the prom).
“Gail Daughtry” must be a bummer for Deutch, who was so full of pizazz and promise as Jean Seberg in Richard Linklater’s 2025 love letter to the French New Wave, “Nouvelle Vague.” Here her Dorothy never feels fully formed, nor is she that interesting. It’s not entirely her fault. Wain and Marino never hook onto anything that’s truly wild at heart — there’s no place to call home. — Tom Meek
Playing at the Somerville Theatre and Kendall Square Cinema
A stronger
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