MOVIES: For the adults: colonialism studied; and for the kids: Smurfs on a rescue mission

National Observer

18-07-2025

Teenagers this week will be attracted to I Know What You Did Last Summer. Almost for sure. It's a remake of a hit 1997 film that produced a couple of sequels, and a TV movie, and repeats a familiar movie plotline: teens one by one being killed off. Why that's so eternally popular I don't know. The teens in the movie try to cover up the facts of a car accident. The killer, unknown to them but apparently identified at last in this film, comes after them. He's seen as a fisherman armed with a hook and now also a harpoon.
If that's not for you (and I didn't have access to a preview to offer advice) you've got these as alternatives:
Eddington: 3 stars
Smurfs: 2 ½
Don't Let's Go To The Dogs Tonight: 4
The Banished: 2
EDDINGTON: If the image of the United States we get in the news these days isn't caustic enough for you check out Ari Aster's vision. He previously made Midsommer and Beau is Afraid and here his view is that America has gone completely bonkers. People yell at each other with half-baked opinions or even completely bizarre conspiracy theories. Wait a minute. That's already true in some quarters. Well, Aster goes further. The society he describes is hopelessly divided, people can't agree on anything and while that's a legitimate opinion to have he says there's no way for the society to heal itself and violence is the only probable outcome. The first analysis is good but that fallout is sad, over the top and excessive. He has fun getting us there though.
The time is right at the height of the COVID epidemic. In a small fictional town in New Mexico the people who refuse to wear masks are at the throats of those who do and say it's for the good of all. The noise is amped up when the no-mask sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) decides to run in an election against the pro-mask mayor (Pedro Pascal). Suddenly all sorts of other issues come in. Black Lives Matter, after George Floyd is killed far away, brings out protesters on the main street. They shout about white oppression and one of the leaders suggests that she's embarrassed to be white. Shop windows get broken and the sheriff has trouble keeping the peace, and run his campaign at the same time. There's also a rumored but old history between his wife (Emma Stone) and the mayor. Of course everything taken together erupts into gunplay which in a way is a commentary itself about America. Feels more like an easy way out though. And after such careful scene building too: Trump is glimpsed, Faucci is graffitied, and remember hydroxychloroquine? The film will take you back but its satire is only glib. (In theaters) 3 out of 5
DON'T LETS GO TO THE DOGS TONIGHT: Here's a highly engrossing view of colonialism through the eyes of a child. She seems to know much more than we can expect from an 8-year-old but then it comes from a memoir that Alexandra Fuller wrote as an adult. So the perspective is rich with both adult knowledge and a child's sense of wonder. That comes out beautifully in a completely natural performance by young Lexi Venter.
She's called Bobo, lives on a farm with mom (played by Embeth Davidtz, who is also the scriptwriter and the director of the film) and with dad (Rob Van Vuuren) who is often away on soldier duty.
This is Rhodesia in 1980, before it became Zimbabwe. There's a civil war going, an election looming and the family is on edge as black activists want the land back that white settlers took from their ancestors. Bobo isn't supposed to talk to Africans 'about anything' because they could be terrorists. Africans and whites are not the same, she says, obviously repeating her parents' attitudes. She is close to a Black servant though ...
and that friendship riles the woman's husband. 'Eyes are watching you from up in the hills,' he tells her.
That sense of dread is everywhere and heightened by TV and radio news reports about atrocities committed and about the election that Robert Mugabe is about to win. That raises the fear even more. Mom has a gun in her bed when she sleeps. When she goes to work (as a police officer) an army convoy has to take her to the station. Dad wants to sell the farm and leave. She won't. They argue loudly. Bobo wonders if she is an African and is assured she's English and better for it because of 'breeding.' Colonial thinking, the tightening political situation and the child's view come across expertly. Director Davidtz is from South Africa and knows how it was. (In theaters) 4 out of 5
THE BANISHED: This horror movie from Australia is very good at creating atmosphere – dark, creepy, warped – but not so good at telling us what it means. There's a section here that reminds me of The Blair Witch Project and comes off better than it did.
That's too brief though and the mysteries the film raises aren't resolved well. We're left to our own imagination to make what we can of it. It seems to offer a hippie commune (of 'junkies and losers,' as per one character) but doesn't make a firm enough impression to know for sure. Is it an intentional community run by a tyrant? Maybe. There's an alternate title in some references: Baal. He was a powerful god in some ancient religions. An oppressor in some.
The film seems more mundane though. A young woman played by Meg Eloise-Clarke is grieving the death of her father and sets out to find her brother who has disappeared and who dad had abused. David got into drugs, was thrown out of his church and ran away. Grace, his sister, follows his trail although she's advised along the way to leave it alone. She's told about a colony in the forest called Utopia and that search is what takes on that Blair Witch vibe. She also gets some help from a former teacher (Leighton Cardno) and someone she communicates with on a walkie-talkie. Can she trust them? The film, written and directed by Joseph Sims-Dennett spins out the fear and mystery very well and kills off a bunch of backpackers but leaves us wondering what was all that about? (Available VOD) 2 out of 5
SMURFS: The tiny woodsy characters are back. Children will probably like that; older kids are likely to go 'meh' and parents will have to be benign. There's good animation here but a complex story that takes the little beings out into the real world, including to Paris and Munich, dodging cars on the autobahn and that sort of thing. Why there? Not clear. They're on a mission to rescue Papa Smurf who has been kidnapped by the series' regular villain, Gargamel, and his newly introduced brother, Razamel.
The story is deeper though. There's an Intergalactic Evil Wizard Alliance and they're after a book, the one of a set of four, they haven't yet grabbed. Capturing Papa is meant to help their plot and that was actually enabled back in Smurfland. You see a new character, No Name Smurf, hasn't found his thing yet, not like Jaunty, Moxie, Worry (also new) or the rest. He's considering 'Magic' but not only is that not au courant, it tells the wizards where they are and enables them to come and get Papa.
The film is stacked with celebs voicing the characters—Rihanna, Octavia Spencer, Sandra Oh, Jimmie Kimmel, Dan Levy, Kurt Russell, Alex Winter (he was Bill of Bill and Ted), Nick Offerman, James Corden, on and on. And references that will go right over kids' heads ('We'll always have Paris.' A vortex operating in non-Newtonian principles). But it's got the usual Smurf song and a new one by Rihanna. It's directed by Chris Miller, an animation veteran (Shrek films and others) and is, as he promised, buoyant. Not much more than that, though. (In theaters) 2 ½ out of 5