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COLD PURSUIT

Grade: B+

As a general rule, when European directors do English-language remakes of their home-grown successes, the result is pretty dismal; perhaps the most egregious example is “The Vanishing,” Dutch director George Sluizer’s chilling 1988 tale of a man’s obsessive search for his missing girlfriend that he turned into a laughably inept Hollywood bomb five years later. Happily Norwegian helmer Hans Petter Moland breaks the pattern with this reworking of his 2014 movie “Kraftidioten” (released here as “In Order of Disappearance”). “Cold Pursuit” is every bit as good as, and in some ways superior to, the original.

That’s not only because Moland’s skill hasn’t deserted him in the move from Norway to Alberta (where the film was shot), and because it provides a solid vehicle for Liam Neeson to tweak his stern action-hero persona to good effect, but because neophyte screenwriter Frank Baldwin, adapting Kim Fupz Aakeson’s script, has found clever solutions to the problems posed by the geographical change in the plot, and has retained—even amplified—the mordant humor that permeated the first film. The result is a genuine surprise, in the best sense.

The picture is basically a revenge story in the vein of the “Death Wish” formula, the targets in this case being the drug dealers that Neeson’s Nels Coxman blames for the death of his son Kyle (Micheál Richardson). Nels is the reliable snow plow driver in small-town Kehoe, Colorado, which has long depended on him to keep the major arteries open in the worst blizzards. Kyle worked as a baggage loader at the Denver airport, and is kidnapped and killed by a scurvy type named Speedo (Michael Eklund), who makes the death look like a heroin overdose—a conclusion the cops quickly accept despite Nels’ insistence that the boy was not an addict.

Kyle’s death creates a rupture in Nels’ relationship with his wife Grace (Laura Dern), who soon leaves him. In his grief Nels is prepared to commit suicide until Dante (Wesley MacInnes) arrives, beaten up, to tell him that Kyle was murdered as a result of a smuggling operation gone wrong. He also reveals that Speedo was the killer.

Nels takes it upon himself to track down Speedo and take his vengeance—but not before extracting the name of Speedo’s immediate boss in the operation—a bridal-gown shop owner called Limbo (Bradley Stryker), who becomes his next victim. Before Limbo breathes his last, Nels gets another name—of a big guy nicknamed Santa (Michael Adamthwaite), whom he intercepts with a briefcase full of cocaine. He kills the guy and disposes of the drugs.

By this time Nels’ work has grabbed the attention of the dead men’s cartel chief, a preening Denver yuppie called Viking (Tom Bateman), who assumes that the disappearances are the work of Native American cartel boss White Bull (Tom Jackson), with whom he’s long had a tense agreement to respect each other’s territory. (In the original the opposing cartel was Serbian, and the change Baldwin’s contrived here provides ample opportunity for witty cultural observations.) When Viking recklessly orders a hit to retaliate, the victim turns out to be White Bull’s own son, and the act sets off a turf war that will eventually endanger Viking’s precocious, sensitive son Ryan (Nicholas Holmes), over whom Viking–who offers the boy “Lord of the Flies” as a teaching tool of conduct–and his ex-wife (Julia Jones) are constantly fighting, and bring both gangs to Kehoe for a showdown.

Nels, meanwhile, continues his vendetta, enlisting his ex-gangland brother Brock (William Forsythe) to provide inside advice that leads him to hire a hit-man called The Eskimo (Arnold Pinnock) to take out Viking. Nibbling around the edges of everything that’s happening is eager Kehoe policewoman Kim Dash (Emily Rossum), whose banter with her older, cynical partner Gip Gipsky (John Doman) provides a streak of puckish humor that contrasts with the periodic bursts of violence and script’s darker jokes that begin with a slow-moving machine at the Denver morgue and continue through a final ghoulish gag involving a paragliding accident initiated when White Bull and his crew show up at the Kehoe ski lodge—and include adding little crosses with the appropriate names each time another corpse is added to the enormous body count. The bit even continues into the cast listing in the closing credits, which hearkens back to the American title of the Norwegian original.

Moland handles most of the film with exceptional skill. True, the exteriors often look more Nordic than Coloradan, but Philip Øgaard’s cinematography is superb, and while the final confrontation between the two gang cartels isn’t terribly well choreographed, editor Nicolaj Monberg generally keeps the convoluted plot twists comprehensible (including a subplot involving Viking’s lieutenant Mustang, played by Domenick Lombardozzi, that explains why White Bull and his gang show u to do battle with Viking’s crew when they do). Jorgen Stangebye Larsen’s production design is also estimable (Viking’s and Brock’s modernist houses, Nels’ rustic one, the Kehoe ski lodge interior and the antique warehouse White Bull uses as a headquarters are especially impressive), and George Fenton’s score, which mixes sternness with almost jocular lightness, is refreshingly different.

The picture also offers strong acting, beginning with Neeson, who brings his customary toughness to Nels, without having to resort to the super-he-man poses of most of his action vehicles. But Moland secures excellent turns from all of his crowded cast, from Bateman and Jackson, who offer contrasting portraits of crime kingpins (the former as over-the-top as Jimmy Cagney in “White Heat,” the latter as laid-back as Chief Dan George) and the various members of their respective crews, through Rossum and Doman (who ably bounce Berman’s snappy lines back and forth) and even young Holmes (who makes Ryan one of the most likable tykes to appear onscreen in a while).

In short, this is a Liam Neeson vehicle unlike most of those that have made him a later-in-life action star: it’s much more like “A Walk Among the Tombstones” than “Taken,” and all the better for it. “Cold Pursuit” is a worthy English adaptation of its cunning Norwegian source, both exciting and morbidly funny, often simultaneously. If you enjoyed “Hell or High Water,” give it a shot.

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AQUAMAN

Who could have imagined that of all the superheroes in the Superman-led comic stable, the fellow most ridiculed by fandom over the years would anchor one of the most enjoyable movies in the so-called DC Universe? Along with Ezra Miller’s Flash, Jason Momoa’s Aquaman made an auspicious debut in the just-okay “Justice League,” but he gets a full-fledged origin episode in James Wan’s eponymous movie, which happily jettisons the dark, brooding atmosphere that infused Zack Snyder’s vision for the franchise in favor of a lighter, breezier approach akin to the one that made “Thor: Ragnarok,” Taika Waititi’s entry in the Marvel Universe, so much fun.

Like Thor in that movie, Aquaman is portrayed as a slightly dim hunk of beefcake, and Momoa goes with the flow, so to speak. But “Aquaman” is notable not just for its general good spirits, but for creating a shimmering undersea world that’s not only distinctive but strangely attractive, in its own way as engaging as the one in “The Little Mermaid.”

Of course, one must still deal with the fact that “Aquaman” remains, in narrative terms, an obligatory first chapter in what it’s hoped will become a long-running series. Arthur Curry is what would once have been called a half-breed, the offspring of human lighthouse keeper Tom (Temuera Morrison) and Princess Atlanna (Nicole Kidman) of Atlantis, who’s wound up on his dock. Their happiness together is shattered when goons from the undersea realm arrive to drag her back, leaving the forlorn Tom to raise Arthur on his own; we learn later on that she suffered an unhappy fate back home.

The boy grows into a brawny guy who’s his dad’s rough drinking buddy but also a heroic fellow who uses the powers inherited from his mother, and honed secretly under the tutelage of Atlantis’ wise grand vizier Nuidis Vulko (Willem Dafoe), to keep order on the high seas. In that capacity he foils an attempt by David Kane (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) to commandeer a Russian submarine; in the melee Kane’s father Jesse (Michael Beach) dies, stoking his hatred of Aquaman.

But David has not been acting on his own. He’s in the employ of Arthur’s half-brother King Orm (Patrick Wilson), who aims to use the subs for a fake attack on Atlantis to justify the war he wants to undertake against the land-dwelling world—and unite the various undersea kingdoms under his leadership as Ocean Master. But Princess Mera (Amber Heard), daughter of Nereus (Dolph Lundgren), king of one of the other realms Orm wants to enlist under his banner and unhappily betrothed to him, approaches Arthur, begging him to challenge his half-brother for the crown to avoid a needless conflict.

Doing so, however, will necessitate Arthur’s receiving further training from Mera in the art of Atlantean combat. It will also require the two of them to undertake a quest to find the Trident of Atlan, the first king of Atlantis, which possesses special powers. The combined scepter and weapon is like the sword in the stone: it marks the true ruler and also provides him with the strength to overcome his adversaries, who include not only Orm and his allies, but also Kane, whom Atlantean technology has transformed into the formidable Black Manta.

This is hardly the most innovative plotline imaginable, and some elements of it—like the appearance of a huge sea creature that might well have been called the Kraken but instead is named Karathen—represent a reach too far. But it does allow for plenty of CGI-laced chases and battles, and for a parade of lovely above-wave locations that cinematographer Mort Weisinger, shooting in the IMAX format, takes full advantage of. Still, it’s the abundant underwater sequences, crafted by a small army of effects wizards, that really catch the eye. The images they’ve created add a touch of genuine magic to the proceedings, even if the action sequences set against them can get somewhat muddied amid the swirls.

Moreover, Wan and screenwriters David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick and Will Beall keep things generally light, accentuating the farfetched tale’s humorous possibilities, especially in terms of the characterization of Aquaman himself, who comes across as something of a likable but sometimes exasperatingly dense hunk. Momoa plays him nicely, balancing Arthur’s beefy confidence and reckless naiveté, and the supporting cast is mostly excellent—Heard strong as well as beautiful, Dafoe appropriately smooth and Abdul-Mateen properly surly. Kidman and Morrison both make the most of the opportunities the script affords them as Arthur’s very different parents, and Lundgren, who along with “Creed II” is enjoying something of a career renaissance, overcomes his makeup to make an impression. Only Wilson seems a bit mismatched as Orm; his natural blandness doesn’t allow the character’s full villainy to flourish.

One shouldn’t ovepraise “Aquaman.” Basically it’s just another in what’s become a seemingly endless stream of superhero movies; but its cheeky sense of humor and striking visuals make it a better-than-average example of the genre.