I was having lunch with a friend who was a well-known writer and performer who would soon leave New York to create a provocative, genre-bending cable show. And at that meal, he very kindly complimented me: “One thing I like about your reviews is that you seem not to ever go into a picture with a preconceived notion of what it’s going to be like, or how good or bad it will be. You always have an openness to what you’re looking at.” This anecdote is not meant to impress you with my cool and successful friends; rather, it is meant to explain why I am going a little soft on 123movies the new film directed by Joe and Anthony Russo that is currently being slammed by other film critics across the nation, and perhaps soon, the world. It’s not a difficult film to lambaste. Adapted from the illustrated novel of the same name by Simon Stålenhag (sometimes called a graphic novel, but its actual form is of discrete paragraphs with large scale illustrations on each page or so, whereas a proper graphic novel will have dialogue balloons and such), it’s often simultaneously self-satisfied and cloying. Even the more clever parts, like the alternate 1990s history that sets up the movie's story, which includes a war with robots, have a bitter taste because of this. Which means that robots are now illegal, which makes it hard for Michelle, played by Millie Bobby Brown, to find out that her long-lost and beloved brother Chris's consciousness is residing in a clunky robot named Cosmo. Michelle is led by a series of clues to a faraway and, of course, forbidden location known as "The Exclusion Zone" where she can find what she needs. Escaping her abusive dad (played by Jason Alexander, reverting to a type he portrayed in, um. ("A Pretty Woman?") she sets out with Cosmo and soon enlists a scavenger outlaw played by Chris Pratt to be her reluctant docent, who is like a lot of the rest of the world and is addicted to a virtual-reality headset that makes its users fall into a state of catatonia like in "Infinite Jest." Ethan Skate, played by Stanley Tucci, is the piece's villain. He is a wicked tech mogul (are there any other types these days?). who owns all of the headset-running towers? In addition, you won't be able to BELIEVE what's driving those headsets or Skate's private army of legal robots (called drones) controlled by humans. When I say you’re not going to believe it, I mean that literally, because the rationales here are incredibly not believable. Just go with it! You have no choice with the Russo’s near-oppressive storytelling style.
In other words, what's good, as Lou Reed questioned in Wim Wenders' "Faraway So Close!" a less than wholly artistically successful film that is preferable to this one by a factor of…a large factor, let’s say. As Michelle, Brown possesses a great deal of charisma and integrity. (On the other hand, Pratt's performance could just as easily have been made up from outtakes from "Guardians of the Galaxy," and honestly, I'm not entirely sure it wasn't.) You might have fun recognizing the all-star voices of the robots, including Woody Harrelson, Jenny Slate, Anthony Mackie, and Brian Cox. In the end, even if you like this kind of thing, this is one of those movies that, for a while, seems okay, but once it gets past the 90-minute mark, it seems irretrievably a little too much.