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`Made in Abyss' recycles popular series

A story of courage and determination in `Journey's Dawn'

By Courtney Howard

It's a Herculean effort to take a multi-volume manga like author Akihito Tsukushi's "Made in Abyss", adapt it into a popular anime television series, and then compress the show into a coherent feature (technically, two movies), but the folks at Sentai Filmworks have done just that. Part one, "Made in Abyss: Journey's Dawn", screened around the US in its original Japanese on March 20 and in an English dub on March 25, to be followed at a later date by "Wandering Twilight", which opened in Japan in January.

While the first half of director Masayuki Kojima's cinematic cutdown hits more ebbs than flows, its character-driven escapades and colorful fantasy landscape are captivating enough to engage the uninitiated. Give or take a few tweaks to the material, this catchy premise about an adventurous tween girl and her amnesiac robot-boy companion exploring a mysterious chasm in her city adapts decently well from the small screen to the big, and from its original longer format to this relatively short running time.

Orphaned 12-year-old Riko (voiced by Miyu Tomita in the original Japanese version) is a mischievous, sassy, and intelligent cave-raider with a flair for theatrics. She can usually be found getting into trouble and concocting schemes with her best friend Nat (Mutsumi Tamura), much to their superiors' chagrin. Since their town is perched on the

precipice of the titular abyss, filled with mythical relics and titanic creatures, sitting in class is miserable for kids with wild imaginations and a yearning for exploration.

Encounter

Riko's world is turned upside-down by an encounter with a peculiar boy (Mariya Ise), whose mechanical arms and laser cannon hands rescue her and Nat from sure-fire death while they are out digging up artifacts in the first ring of the abyss. Since this robot-boy hybrid doesn't remember who he is or where he came from, our plucky protagonist nicknames him "Reg" after her former dog and offers him shelter. They devise a cover story for his unexpected appearance at the orphanage, primarily to prevent the adults from performing intrusive experiments on Reg.

At the same time, several curiosities also surface: an intricately carved white whistle, a journal detailing the layout of the abyss, and a handwritten note addressed to Riko. The note is signed by her longlost mother, courageous cave-raider Lyza (Maaya Sakamoto), who has risen to legendary status in the 10 years she's been gone. The note beckons Riko to come and find her in the doom-filled gorge. Unwilling to listen to anyone telling her not to go, Riko concocts a plan to travel with Reg into the deadly depths of the netherworld next door, risking her own life to save her estranged mother's.

The character motivations are well defined. Riko is the complex, fearless, headstrong heroine upon which to hang a franchise. In this first of two installments, she struggles to extricate herself and Reg from their perilous predicaments.

Though this first part is condensed from 8 of the 13 episodes, it could still use a little fat trimming. There are lulls that could've been avoided had the filmmakers cut a few of the exposition dumps (which happen almost every time Riko has a conversation with an adult) and made a tighter montage out of Ozen's survival challenge posed to the kids. Composer Kevin Penkin weaves an immersive, sonically entrancing score, but some of the sound effects (like "zapping" whenever a character is dumbstruck) keep reminding us we're watching a TV series.

Also:

LOS ANGELES: Brie Larson is seeking salvation from Samuel L. Jackson in Neflix's first trailer for her directorial debut, the offbeat comedy-drama "Unicorn Store".

Larson is portraying a lonely 20-something dreamer who's been kicked out of art school. She's forced to move back home with her parents and take a temp job at a PR agency. But then she receives a letter in an envelope, instructing her to go to a mysterious store where she's greeted by a purple-suited Jackson. (RTRS)

Variety

Film

Features

MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2019

This image released by Warner Bros shows Zachary Levi in a scene from `Shazam!'. (AP)

Film

LOS ANGELES: Jordan Peele's

"Us" is on its way to scaring up one of the biggest debuts of 2019, with an estimated $67 million from 3,741 North American locations.

Should estimates hold, "Us" will be able to claim several milestones: the highest debut for an original horror movie (the biggest launch for any horror pic goes to 2017's "It" with $123 million); the largest debut for an R-rated movie (topping "Ted" with $54.4 million); the second-highest debut of 2019 after "Captain Marvel"; and the third-highest opening day for a horror film with $29 million.

The current projection is above earlier estimates, which had placed it in the $38 million to $50 million range, and marks quite a leg up over Peele's last film, "Get Out". That horror pic debuted to $33 million in 2017 and eventually amassed $167 million Stateside.

Lupita Nyong'o stars as Adelaide Wilson, a woman returning to her beachside childhood home with her husband (Winston Duke) and their two children (Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex) for a summer getaway. (RTRS)

LOS ANGELES: Two debut fea-

tures in writer-director Antoine Russbach's "Those Who Work" and Anja Kofmel's animated documentary "Chris the Swiss", were the big winners at Friday night's Swiss Film Awards, notching three plaudits each.

Sold by Be For Films, "Those Who Work", stars Belgian actor Olivier Gourmet, who has appeared in every single film by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne since 1996's "La Promesse", to winning a Cannes best actor award for 2002's "The Son". In Russbach's film Gourmet plays Frank, a 50-something fixer for a company which rents out cargo ships. On a busy day, to prevent a ship being put into quarantine, he rashly orders a stowaway be thrown overboard to certain death. The decision gets him fired, not for moral reasons, but in the hopes of avoiding a media scandal.

The film scooped the awards for best fiction feature, best screenplay and best performance

Grazer and Herman steal the show

Superhero pic `Shazam!' is a joy

By Lindsey Bahr

Holy superhero fatigue, Batman, "Shazam!" is actually good. OK, so it's basically "Big" with superheroes and villains instead of businesspeople and girlfriends, but director David F. Sandberg has infused his film with so much heart and charm that it hardly matters. Even the deficiencies, like the sluggish beginning and the random, ridiculous villains, fade away under a haze of goodwill because unlike so many big spectacle action pics with sequels in mind, "Shazam!" actually sticks the landing.

But perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself. Don't worry if you don't happen to know anything about "Shazam!" or are convinced that you won't care. I certainly didn't. Plus, there are a lot of superheroes to keep track of these days and someone who needs an exclamation point is and should be immediately suspect.

The movie isn't here to judge any lack of knowledge though. It's an origin story about a jaded 14-year-old Philadelphia foster kid, Billy Batson (Asher Angel), who's bestowed with superpowers by Djimon Hounsou (naturally). As Shazam, he's physically altered into an adult and takes the form of Zachary Levi. But of course, even with his height, his muscles, his voice and even his powers, he's still very much a kid and has a lot to learn.

Those are the basics, but the spirit really comes from the smart writing, the pitch-perfect casting and the supporting world around Billy and Shazam. Right before he gets his powers, he's placed in a new group foster home led by Rosa (Marta Milans) and Victor Vasquez (Cooper Andrews) that's full of quirky characters: Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer), a disabled superhero obsessive with

a biting wit; Eugene (Ian Chen), a violent video game obsessive; Darla (Faithe Herman), the adorable youngest; Mary (Grace Fulton) and Pedro (Jovan Armand). The young actors assembled here are astounding, and immediately captivating, especially Grazer as Freddy and Herman as Darla who nearly steal the show. It's why when the film asks you to believe that it's really about family, and not merchandising, you're on board.

Comedic

Freddy, with his wealth of superhero knowledge, helps Billy/Shazam figure out what to do with these new, strange talents. The training montages have a terrific comedic sensibility and Grazer and Levi are perfectly matched for the job. Levi in particular pulls off the tricky feat of playing a disaffected, but still fairly innocent young teenager while wearing spandex and a cape, no less. Grazer, meanwhile, who we've seen before in "It," is beyond his years with his ability to draw a laugh.

That's not to say the movie is perfect. The beginning gives an extended origin story for both Billy and the little boy who will grow up to become the megalomaniac villain, Dr Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong). Dr Sivana is woefully underwritten, too, although Strong does his best being the straight, serious guy. For the most part it comes across as less of a threat and more of a buzzkill that gets in the way all the fun we were having with Freddy and Shazam.

Also, as if Dr Sivana wasn't enough, the script gives him Seven Deadly Sins as henchmen. These sins take the form of unimaginative and indistinguishable CG gargoyles. I'm not exactly sure what lust or greed would look like in gargoyle form, but I'm pretty certain this isn't it. They're also given dubbed voices that feel about as authentic as the voices of the monsters The Power Rangers battled

on Saturday mornings. There's also a running gag about a strip club that seemed a little retrograde for a current film. But, nitpicks aside, "Shazam!" is just a lightning bolt of unexpected joy that is certainly worth your time and money.

In "Shazam!", Zachary Levi brings off something so winning it's irresistible. He plays a square-jawed, rippling-muscled man of might, with a cheesy DayGlo lighting bolt affixed to his chest, who projects an insanely wholesome and old-fashioned idea of what a superhero can be. But he's also playing a breathless teenage kid on the inside, and the result of this body-morph balancing act is that the character, Shazam, is at once boyish and manly, wide-eyed and wizardly, ridiculously corny and heroically hip.

Levi, the 38-year-old actor best known for his roles on "Chuck" and "The Marvelous Mrs Maisel", has always seemed a bit on the generically handsome side, but in "Shazam!", wearing a 1950slooking red-spandex body suit set off by a white cape with gold piping that looks like a restaurant tablecloth, he's a walking piece of pop art, with eyes that (literally) pop, hair so absurdly dark and lacquered it's simply perfect, and a slightly abashed shit-eating grin that says, "I have no idea if you're buying this, because even I can't quite believe I'm a superhero."

It's the sort of look and attitude you could imagine an actor like Ben Stiller summoning if he were holding down the middle of a comic-book spoof. But the cheeky, balsa-wood trick of Levi's performance is that he's not making fun ? he's totally sincere. It's just that he's playing a superhero with a major case of imposter syndrome. At "Shazam!", we seem to be watching a knowing satire of a comic-book film that is also, in every frame, the genuine article. The movie is dunked in mockery, but Shazam's feats of amazement play as cosmic jokes mostly because they're amazing to him. (Agencies)

in a supporting role, which went to Pauline Schneider, a relative newcomer herself. (RTRS)

LOS ANGELES: The upcom-

ing Beijing International Film Festival will give space to highprofile Hollywood franchise movies with screenings of all films in both the "Mad Max" and

Hammer

Nyong'o

"Bourne Identity" series. Classic Hollywood fare will also feature prominently in a lineup that, as usual, features an eclectic grabbag of titles.

The local government-backed festival opens April 13 and runs through April 20.

The list of films nominated in the festival's competition section, and jury members has not

yet been released. Winners of the Tiantan (Temple of Heaven) Award will be announced at the closing ceremony.

Since this year is the 70th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, the theme of both the opening and closing ceremonies will be "home and country," the festival said on its website, so as to make the

event "a birthday blessing for the motherland."

This benediction is so far scheduled to include "Mad Max" (1979), "Mad Max 2" (1981), "Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome" (1985), and "Mad Max: Fury Road" (2015), which never received a China release, as well as all five "Bourne" films starring Matt Damon. (RTRS)

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