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THE OLD WAY

Producers: R. Bryan Wright, Micah Haley, Sasha Yelaun, Robert Paschall, Jr. and Brett Donowho   Director: Brett Donowho   Screenplay: Carl W. Lucas   Cast: Nicolas Cage, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Noah Le Gros, Clint Howard, Abraham Benrubi, Kerry Knuppe, Boyd Kestner, Adam Lazarre-White, Corby Griesenbeck, Everett Blunck, Nick Searcy and Shiloh Fernandez  Distributor: Saban Films

Grade: C-

All screenplays have bits and pieces reminiscent of other films, but in this case the writer, Carl W. Lucas, has engaged in something very close to adulation.  That “The Old Way”—a very appropriate title, given the circumstances—is a revenge western (twice over, no less) makes it part of a line of horse operas that has existed since the silent days.  But in particular it’s a mash-up of two modern near-classics, “Unforgiven” and “True Grit.”  And for good measure at the close Lucas throws in a nod to a third, “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.”

Many of the actors are looking backward, too.  Nicolas Cage seems to be trying to channel Clint Eastwood.  Nick Searcy comes about as close to Ben Johnson as one can get without being charged with larceny.  And Clint Howard—well, it’s rather fun to see him do his imitation of Gabby Hayes.  Or is it supposed to be Strother Martin?

In any event, the story opens with a prologue in which Cage, as mean, invincible gunfighter Colton Briggs, shoots a bunch of people at a botched hanging before collecting his fee—and more—from one of the dead.  Among those left standing is young Jimmy McAllister (Everett Blunck), a scrawny, terrified kid who’s just watched Colton gun down his father and uncle (Corby Griesenbeck and Boyd Kestner) before putting the boy himself in his six-shooter’s sights and then riding off.

Twenty years later Briggs, his handlebar mustache gone, is a straight-laced, suited shopkeeper in a small town with a hard-working wife named Ruth (Kerry Knuppe) and an adolescent daughter named Brooke (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), whom he treats with stilted sternness.  He walks the girl to school one morning, leaving Ruth back at the homestead, and in their absence the house is invaded by the grown-up James (Noah Le Gros) and his crew of outlaws, which includes grizzled Howard, dapper Shiloh Fernandez and crusty Abraham Benrubi.  By the time Colton and Brooke return, their place has been occupied by Marshal Jarret (Searcy) and his posse, who are pursuing McAllister.  The lawman informs them that Ruth was murdered by James, an act of vengeance against the man who’d killed his father years before.

Now Colton takes up the gun he’d set aside for Ruth again to chase down McAllister and take his revenge, despite Jarret’s admonition to let the law handle the crime.  Ignoring that warning, Briggs mounts up to do the job himself, with Brooke at his side.  The two will bond over the course of the journey, which will wind up, after another meeting with Jarret, at a dusty town for a final game of cat-and-mouse and, of course, a showdown that takes some unexpected twists.

The picture looks fairly good, thanks to the Montana locations, Sion Michel’s widescreen cinematography, the spare but period-correct production design by Tessla Hastings, and Vicki Hales’s costumes.  And Andrew Morgan Smith’s score satisfactorily mimics the tropes of those in great Westerns of yore.

But the script is so shamelessly derivative that even the reasonably effective visuals make little impression, especially since the rhythms chosen by director Brett Donowho and editor Frederick Wardell are so solemn that the result often seems a series of stilted tableaux.  There are some action moments—Ruth’s brutalization, an ambush in a valley, the final shoot-out—but even they’re staged in ploddingly arty fashion.  One might get some modest satisfaction from watching the actors go through their paces, but the performances are terribly affected, with Cage monotonously monochromatic in super-restrained mode, Le Gross smiling malevolently as the sneering villain, and Searcy tiresomely avuncular as the world-weary marshal, delivering their monologues so slowly that the pauses between the phrases seem endless, as if the dialogue were a series of nuggets to be savored.  It isn’t.  Armstrong never rises above the amateurish, while the others barely cause a ripple—save for Howard, whose comic relief bits have a tinge of vaudeville about them.  Donowho permits himself a brief cameo as a cavalry officer, yet another director following Hitchcock’s example while falling leagues short of his mastery.

“The Old Way” may find favor with devotees of the B-movie westerns of the fifties.  But if you check them out on the GRIT Network, you’ll find that most are far more engaging than this enervating slog through Western clichés, which a somnolent Cage doesn’t even bother trying to energize.   

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HOCUS POCUS 2

Producer: Lynn Harris   Director: Anne Fletcher   Screenplay: Jen D’Angelo   Cast: Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Najimy, Sam Richardson, Doug Jones, Hannah Waddingham, Whitney Peak, Belissa Escobedo, Lilia Buckingham, Froy Gutierrez, Tony Hale, Taylor Henderson, Nina Kitchen, Juju Brener, Thomas Fitzgerald and Austin J. Ryan   Distributor: Disney+

Grade: C-

Recycled magic proves pretty tepid in “Hocus Pocus 2,” the long-gestating sequel to the 1993 Kenny Ortega comic fantasy that bombed in its original theatrical release but has had an enduring shelf-life in ancillary formats.  Maybe “Hocus Pocus 2,” being shown on Disney+, will enjoy similar longevity, but it’s even less engaging than its predecessor.

For the record, the 1993 movie was about the Sanderson sisters—Winifred (Bette Midler), Sarah (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Mary (Kathy Najimy)—seventeenth-century witches in Salem, Massachusetts, who were accidentally resurrected by a boy named Max (Omri Katz) and attempted to drain the life from his young sister Dani (Thora Birch) in order to restore their youth.  To save Dani and the town, Max joined forces with his crush Allison (Vinessa Shaw) and a black cat—actually a boy transformed into a feline three centuries earlier—to defeat the witches.

In this sequel, a prologue shows the three troublesome Sanderson girls—Winifred (Taylor Henderson), Sarah (Juju Brener) and Mary (Nina Kitchen)—expelled from Salem by Reverend Traske (Tony Hale) for causing general mayhem and Winifred’s refusal to marry the minister’s chosen groom (Austin J. Ryan), preferring instead the fellow she thinks her soul mate, Billy Butcherson (Thomas Fitzgerald).  Escaping into the so-called forbidden woods, they encounter a witch (Hannah Waddingham), who gives them their spell book.  Insert here the events of the initial movie.

Now, two high school girls who love Halloween, Becca (Whitney Peak) and Izzy (Belissa Escobedo), accidentally conjure up the Sanderson sisters again with stuff provided by local magic shop owner Gilbert (Sam Richardson).  They become the witches’ prey, and to defeat them have to enlist their former comrade Cassie (Lilia Buckingham), who’s now estranged from them because she’s spending so much time with her boyfriend, dumb jock Mike (Froy Gutierrez).  The situation’s complicated by the fact that Cassie’s father, also played by Hale, is a descendent of Reverend Traske as well as mayor of Salem, and so a special target of Winifred—and by the resurrection of Butcherson as a farcical zombie (Doug Jones) who keeps on ticking even if decapitated, as well as by the revelation that one of the townspeople is playing a double game. 

So “Hocus Pocus 2” combines the resurrection of the Sanderson sisters with a tale of contemporary teen sisterhood, which perhaps explains why all the male characters—particularly Mike, who at one point has to be instructed by Becca that “pointing out peoples’ differences and saying that they’re weird is making fun of them,” to which he obtusely responds “Whoa!”—are portrayed as buffoons (though that’s becoming an increasingly common phenomenon on screen).  All this is played for laughs, of course, though scripter Jen D’Angelo, director Anne Fletcher and their collaborators—production designer Nelson Coates, cinematographer Elliot Davis, editor Julia Wong and composer John Debney, as well as the large effects team—also try to invest the movie with some light, juvenile spookiness.  They also add some elaborate ensemble musical numbers to the mix for Midler to strut her stuff, as well as an extended plug for Walgreen’s drug stores, where a major sequence is set.  And one has to note the flamboyance of Salvador Pérez Jr.’s costumes, not only for the witches but all the Halloween revelers, including the contestants in a Sandersons lookalike contest.

Midler, Parker and Najimy do their eye-rollingly over-the-top shtick again, though to be honest Najimy in particular does not wear the thirty intervening years lightly.  The youngsters in the cast offer performances of the sort that characterize most kids’ cable shows, while Hale and Richardson mugs it up fiercely.  So does Jones, though encased in zombie makeup he has some justification. 

The availability of “Hocus Pocus 2” on the Disney streaming service ensures that it will draw plenty of eyes, and especially those who still watch its predecessor every year on cable will probably enjoy the reunion.  On its own, though, it’s a tiresome, forgettable affair—though that’s something you might have said about the original back in 1993.