Special-K88

Sloppy and incoherent mix centers around staid, former US Air Force officer Brian Gilcrest, who's now working as a civilian military contractor for blowhard billionaire Carson Welch, and his return to the Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) to broker the launch of a privatized weapons satellite with the island Natives. A clunky, heterogenous series of ideas along with a jumble of shallow supporting characters: a perky military liaison who's one-quarter Hawaiian, a thoughtful ex-girlfriend now married with children, a bristly MAJCOM general, plus a subplot about skies and the pull of the unknowable, yet none of it adds up to anything substantial. Writer and director Cameron Crowe has established a laudable track record throughout his career, but this is just low-hanging fruit masquerading as a movie, quite disappointing given the caliber of acting talent he was able to reel into the project. The title should mean farewell in this instance, but at the very least filming in Hawaii gives it a chipper feel despite the instability of the narrative. **

He said he was retired, but looks like he lied, ha; eight years after his last film role, the great Daniel Day-Lewis ends his self-imposed exile from acting to appear in his son's directorial debut, for which he also served as co-writer. In a secluded region of Northern England, a man, still grappling with the pain of his past, has been living as a hermit for many years. His isolated existence suddenly ends when he's paid a visit by his long-estranged brother, which reopens old wounds. The aesthetic of gray and gloom, haunting imagery, and visual embellishments are quite entrancing, and DDL embodies the entirety of his character's soul just as well today as he did decades ago. It's just unfortunate he's stuck in a lengthy, dreary, meandering story, the stop-start directorial style and editing diminish (instead of enhance) the emotions on display, not to mention that the ambiguous ending is a source of frustration, rather than fascination. **

As to be expected after twenty-plus years, Anna Coleman has grown up and is trying to deal with the responsibilities of raising her rebellious teenage daughter Harper, with 100% help from her own mother Tess, though Tess's help does border on interference. Things don't sit well when Anna becomes engaged to Eric, the father of Harper's least favorite classmate Lily, but things get even more chaotic when a visit to a wacko, multi-hyphenated fortune teller leads to another switcheroo. Unnecessary "freakquel" puts a divergence on the original film's premise that allows Curtis and Lohan to get back in the saddle, which is nice because they don't look like they've missed a beat, but doesn't bring much else to the table as the script doesn't provide nearly enough laughter and turns sappy in the final act. **