In Review: 'The Uprising,' 'Practical Magic 2,' 'Hope'

The Uprising
Dir. Paul Greengrass
128 min.

It’s easy, and broadly accurate, to think of the feudal system of medieval Europe as one in which the ruling class exercised overwhelming power over the general populace. But no system, no matter how dominant, is without its weaknesses and in the late 14th century, a variety of factors made possible what came to be known as the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, a violent protest that culminated in the taking of the Tower of London, the execution of royal officials, and the murder of Flemish merchants whom the English rebels believed to be taking advantage of them. Plague, years of war, unfair taxation, serfdom, and deprivation combined to create pressure that ultimately exploded, exposing weakness in a political system built on exploitation, even if that system ultimately withstood the blow.

The Uprising, a new film by Paul Greengrass, attempts to dramatize this event in what’s become Greengrass’s trademark fashion of staying in the thick of the action and watching as tension builds until it erupts into chaos. The best parts of The Uprising confirm the wisdom of this approach, sweeping a handful of characters from an outlying province where local officials attempting to impose a new tax push residents too far—thanks in part to methods that include inspecting girls to see if they’ve reached sexual maturity and are thus taxable. What begins as an isolated act of resistance builds and spreads until a wave of protest overwhelms London in an attempt to impose a new political order, a movement that, initially at least, seems impossible for those in power to deny.

As a character known only as Ploughman, Andrew Garfield serves as a sympathetic focal point for the revolt. A widower who finds himself subject to additional taxes he can’t pay when he can’t prove lost his family to the plague, he falls in with a crowd that includes real historical figures like Wat Tyler (Cosmo Jarvis), the revolt’s leader, and John Ball (Jamie Bell), a priest who sees the righteousness of the movement. Their actions put them on a collision course with those in power, including London’s bishop and mayor (played, respectively, by Stephen Dillane and William Walworth) and the teenaged Richard II (Woody Norman), who’s transformed by the events from a fearful, nightmare-prone child into the pitiless ruler his mother Joan of Kent (Katherine Waterston) prayed he’d become.

Two impulses drive Greengrass’s film: a desire to create a docurealistic depiction of a dramatic, bloody chapter of medieval history and an attempt to draw parallels between the past and present. It’s mostly successful in meeting the first goal, depicting the uprising as a confusing expression of anger and violence but also unity behind a common cause. But this success sometimes conflicts with the second goal. The takeover of London plays as much like a January 6th parallel, even without the hatred of foreigners, as a repudiation of an unfit ruler and as the violence intensifies, the film suggests that even righteous causes can go awry. But Greengrass later abandons any moral muddiness for a final stretch that’s pure, uncomplicated No Kings righteousness. (You might have heard rumors about the film’s last act. The reality is even more hamfisted than you might have imagined.) The action is, as usual for Greengrass, immediate and unsettling and the performances, especially Garfield’s combination of rage and hope, keep The Uprising grounded in human emotions just as the grime and confusion grounds it in historical reality. It’s the attempt to use a complicated incident from the past as a source of inspiration for the present that sells those realities short. —Keith Phipps

The Uprising opens tonight at theaters everywhere.

Practical Magic 2
Dir. Susanne Bier
130 min. 

It took 28 years but finally, finally all the questions that audiences surely felt were unanswered by the just-below-passable romantic fantasy Practical Magic have now been answered by Practical Magic 2, a romantic fantasy that is also a skosh under standard. Beyond an appeal to the original film’s Gen X/Millennial base, the sequel was prompted by author Alice Hoffman, who wrote the novel Practical Magic in 1995 and didn’t revisit the Owens family of witches until adding two prequels and a sequel within the last decade. Based on Hoffman’s 2021 novel The Book of Magic, the new film feels needlessly burdened by franchise lore, but its true purpose—and only genuine appeal—is to reunite Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman for an encore performance. There’s enough evidence here, as in the original, that they’re a terrific comic team that might be better served elsewhere. 

The one important carryover from Practical Magic is the Owens family “curse,” a generational hex in which the witchy women are fated to lose the men they love, consigning them to permanent maidenhood. The original film ended with Sally Owens (Bullock) seemingly breaking the curse by marrying a handsome investigator (Aidan Quinn), having two daughters, and resolving to abandon magic in pursuit of a more normal life. Yet the curse is back in effect in Practical Magic 2, because Sally’s husband is dead and her family’s broken love-lines have now affected her eldest daughter Kylie (Joey King), whose boyfriend (Xolo Maridueña) gets hit by a car the morning after she says, “I love you.” With the young man in a coma—and Sally’s other daughter, Antonia (Maisie Williams), looking after him as a hospital doctor—Kylie strikes out to England in a desperate attempt to break the curse and Sally and her sister Gillian (Kidman) fly out to help her. 

There are obligatory callbacks to fondly remembered elements of Practical Magic, like brief turns by Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing as the sisters’ eccentric aunts, and the revival of the chittering “deathwatch beetles” and midnight margaritas. But the sturdier source of fun is the chemistry between Bullock’s repressed widow and Kidman’s free-spirited imp, who springs to life at the thought of her sister finally giving in and embracing their wicked heritage together. The two haven’t lost a step as comedic talents and there’s a pleasurable stretch of Practical Magic 2 where they’re mostly on their own in England, improvising their way to Sally’s daughter. Bullock also works up a nice chemistry with Lee Pace as a British academic who gives the sisters guidance on wizardry and a second option for an Owens woman should the curse ever get lifted. Yet director Susanne Bier, taking the reins from Griffin Dunne, doesn’t smooth out the lumpy pacing that dogged the original film and there’s little of interest here beyond Bullock and Kidman taking victory laps for the durable careers. They should be liberated from the curse of having to limit themselves to the Practical Magic movies. — Scott Tobias

Practical Magic 2 opens tonight in theaters everywhere.

Hope
Dir. Na Hong-jin
156 min.

The phrase “AI slop” doesn’t apply to Hope, Korean director Na Hong-jin’s disappointing monster-movie follow-up to The Wailing, but there’s something AI slop-esque about the expensive digital schlock that Ha deploys to express the sheer magnitude of a creature’s destructive capabilities. In the early section of the film, the few surviving citizens of Hope Harbor, a small village abutting the Demilitarized Zone near North Korea, are having to fight off the seemingly unkillable threat that’s laid waste to their community. Na spends an admirable stretch of time merely suggesting the beast responsible for the attack, but eventually the Jaws tactics come to an end and the thing emerges in broad daylight, much like the toxin-fueled river menace in Bong Joon-ho’s The Host, an obvious influence. Yet here, the spindly humanoid alien has BFG-level height, supported by a physique that’s nimble enough to achieve sedan-like running speeds and strong enough to decapitate a man with casual backhand swat. Godzilla would flinch. 

Yet the extended action sequence that follows is only half-satisfying, because the sheer maximalist thrill of this monster’s endless trail of destruction is checked by an unappealing combination of chintzy digital effects and a town that’s made to look like a video-game environment. Though there’s no doubting the money and talent behind Hope—the film was tossed like a rascal’s stink bomb into the Cannes competition line-up last May—its pleasures are limited to more common Midnight Movie fodder, even as Na’s ambitions are clearly more elevated. Is this an allegory about the isolated populace that lives with the volatility and potential catastrophe of its neighbor to the north? Perhaps. And it’s also an alien invasion story that spares a few thoughts to the invaders, too. But as low cinema, it’s not exactly transcendent. 

After a prominent role in The Wailing, Hwang Jung-min returns here as Ko Bum-seok, Hope Harbor’s beleaguered police chief, who’s marshaling the few remaining forces he has to combat an alien invasion. The first section of Hope is given over largely to Ko and a fearsome rookie cop, Im Sung-ae (Jung Ho-yeon), attempting to kill the creature that’s ransacked the town, but vulnerabilities are not easy to locate. (In a funny sequence later, a doctor nearly loses her mind trying to autopsy an alien with a ribcage that a common bone-saw cannot begin to penetrate.) In the final moments of their confrontation, Ko picks up on unmistakable signs of emotion in the alien’s face, which suggests there’s another side to this story. Meanwhile, a cocksure local (Zo In-sung) leads a band of hunters into the forest, where another band of invaders await, along with a fresh round of revelations. 

The zeal with which Na combines wild tonal shifts with a genuine affection for provincial characters is as present here as it was in The Wailing, but the earlier film’s emotional gravity is conspicuously absent. For every delightful high-low moment, like a scene where an old man explains the regrettable context for his own alien encounter in hilariously graphic detail, Na gives over vast swathes of running time to CGI battles between screaming humans and the relentless aliens galloping after them. There are some pauses where Na shifts to the alien perspective and Hope turns into a Pandora adventure with some famous stars (Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander chief among them) suggesting another angle to this tragic conflict. But it’s thin gruel for such a long movie, and the ending seems to request more time to drag it out. No, thanks. — Scott Tobias

Hope is now playing in limited release. Showtimes here.